Jesus Lives In You
Jesus Lives In You
God has an incredible ability to transform lives, meeting people exactly where they are and shaping them into who He created them to be. Many individuals struggle with feelings of insignificance, believing their lives are destined for mediocrity or that they don't matter in God's grand plan. However, when we encounter the real Jesus, everything changes internally as the Spirit of God declares our significance and worth.
One of the biggest misconceptions people have is thinking they need to improve themselves before coming to God. The reality is that Jesus accepts us just as we are, right at our point of need, while loving us too much to leave us unchanged. Life doesn't become problem-free when we follow Christ, but we gain the assurance that Jesus never changes and promises to walk with us through every difficulty.
The transformation God offers is supernatural - we become His temple, filled with the same Spirit who created the universe and raised Christ from the dead. This isn't just about personal improvement; it's about becoming vessels through which God's love, joy, peace, power, and authority flow to impact others. The story of Pastor Chadchai, who went from being a troubled Thai boy to an influential pastor reaching millions, demonstrates how God can use anyone regardless of their background or circumstances. Like a master craftsman restoring a broken trumpet, Jesus specializes in taking broken lives and making them beautiful and functional for His purposes.
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When God Transforms Your Life: From Broken to Beautiful
Have you ever felt small, insignificant, or broken? Maybe you've wondered if God could really use someone like you. Today's message brings incredible hope: God specializes in transforming lives, taking us exactly where we are and making us into who He created us to be.
What Does It Mean to Feel Small and Insignificant?
Growing up in a small town in New Zealand with just 1,800 people, being the smallest kid in class, it's easy to feel insignificant. Many of us carry that same feeling - that our lives are destined for boredom or that we don't really matter in God's grand plan.
But here's the truth: God meets us at our point of need. When we encounter the real Jesus, everything changes. Not necessarily on the outside, but something powerful happens on the inside. The Spirit of God comes and declares over us: "You are significant."
Can God Accept Me As I Am?
Perhaps you're thinking, "I need God, but I can't come to Him the way I am right now. I need to get better first." This is one of the biggest lies we believe. God wants to come to you at your point of need, right where you are, right now.
Jesus accepts you just as you are, and He loves you so much that He won't leave you where you are. He's committed to transforming you. As the Scripture says in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20: "'Don't you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body.'".
Why Doesn't Life Always Go Smoothly for Christians?
Many young believers think that following God's laws, reading the Bible, and praying will guarantee a smooth life with no problems. This simply isn't true. Even Jesus said He came that we might have life and have it abundantly, but that doesn't mean a perfect, problem-free existence.
Life throws curveballs. Things happen that shouldn't happen. Life can be painful and unfair. But here's what never changes: Jesus doesn't change, and He promises to be with you through it all. If Jesus is with you, it might be difficult right now, but it's going to get better.
How Does God Live in Us?
Before Jesus came, God's presence was found only in the temple, in the Holy of Holies, where only the high priest could enter once a year. But when that temple was destroyed in A.D. 70, it was never rebuilt. Why? Because it's no longer needed.
We are now God's temple. The same Spirit who hovered over the waters, who created the universe, who raised Christ from the dead, lives in you. This is supernatural - the God who exists outside of time and space chooses to live inside of us.
What Does It Mean That God Fills Us?
Jesus said in Luke 4:18-19: "'The Spirit of the LORD is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free, and that the time of the LORD's favor has come.'"
This same commission and ability has been given to you. But remember - it's not about you; it's about Him in you. Acts 1:8 promises: "'But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.'"
Can God Really Transform a Broken Life?
Consider the story of a young Thai boy nicknamed "Egg." He was from a poor home, always in trouble, hated studying, and often skipped school. One day, a gospel team visited his school. He wasn't even listening until he heard these words: "God loves you. Jesus loves you. Jesus has a purpose for your life."
Something happened inside him. He walked to the ministry office, gave his life to Jesus, but his grandmother told him he couldn't do it because they were Buddhists. When he returned to tell the team, they wisely said, "I'm sorry, it's too late."
That little boy grew up to become Pastor Chadchai, one of Thailand's most influential pastors. When a famous Christian actress died tragically, millions listened to the funeral service where he preached the gospel, and thousands came to Christ through his ministry.
What Does Transformation Look Like?
Imagine a broken, tarnished trumpet - valves not working, dents everywhere, pieces broken. That's how many of us feel. But when placed in the hands of a master craftsman, that same trumpet can be restored to beautiful, functional condition.
Jesus is in the business of transforming lives. You may feel broken or disillusioned. Life may not have treated you well. But if you stick with Jesus and allow Him to do what He wants to do in your life, He will make you into who you were made to be.
How Do We Experience This Transformation?
The key is found in Psalm 34:8: "'Taste and see that the LORD is good. Oh, the joys of those who take refuge in him!'"
You may have heard about God or read the Bible, but until you have personally tasted and seen, until you have said, "God, come and fill me with Your presence," you don't understand how good He is.
When God's Spirit is in you, your hands become healing hands. You become a vessel through which His love, joy, peace, power, and authority flow. You don't get just a little bit of Jesus - you get all of Him.
Life Application
This week, ask yourself this transformative question: "What can God do through me?" Don't dismiss yourself as insignificant. God has mighty plans for your life, whether in business, ministry, missions, or wherever He places you.
If you've never given your life to Jesus or need to return to Him, remember that He accepts you exactly as you are right now. He meets you at your point of need and begins the beautiful work of transformation.
Questions for Reflection:
What areas of your life feel broken or insignificant that you need to surrender to God's transforming power?
How can you begin to see yourself as God sees you - as His temple, valuable and chosen?
What specific ways might God want to use you to impact others' lives this week?
Remember, God doesn't call the equipped; He equips the called. Your background, your struggles, your perceived limitations - God can use all of it for His glory and the transformation of others' lives.
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A discussion guide for the sermon can be found here.
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Well, Connect Church, it's so good to be here. We just love being partnered with you guys and as we just heard, we've just been on the field for 19 years so we're entering into our 20th year there and 20th year of partnership with you guys. So we want to thank you for everything that you've done over that time. Today I just want to share a little bit of an update on some of the things we're involved in in Thailand at the moment. Three in particular.
We're going to talk quickly about local church, about Good News Team, which takes the gospel into rural schools. And we're going to talk about Step Ahead through which we do a lot of work. They have a vision that every child in Thailand will grow up in a safe and nurturing family. Excuse me, but for the churches, we work with a number of churches that we're connected to, but we're planted in one particular church where we really do a lot of work with mentoring, leadership and helping them to develop. The church was planted about 10 years ago and we have just last year got in our first Thai pastors into the church.
So we're really, really excited that that church is becoming Thai owned, Thai led and really impacting Thailand. The outreach that's going from that church and the leadership development that's happening within the church is just so exciting and we thank you for your partnership with that. And also we're involved in the Good News Team. The Good News Team actually began before we ever got to Thailand, but we're now very involved in mentoring the leaders of that and overseeing a lot of the work there. Tim was on the field with them.
They go each month they go out into rural Thailand schools for about a week and over that week they can be in two or more schools each day. They're bringing the gospel to kids. And we've got a quick video that's just about to come up of a trip into one of several of those schools and a testimony from a pastor we met on the last trip that Tim went out on. Thank you. Have a look at your screen.
How will we know if no one comes and tells us? How will we know? How can we hear? How will we know if no one comes.
Hello. We are conducting.
Working together with a local church in the rural community. We present a fun, powerful presentation of the story of Jesus and we give children the opportunity to respond. We then give each of the kids a cartoon booklet that's filled with games, stories from the Bible and so much more. And from this book, the children had the opportunity to connect with our team and become part of our follow up Bible correspondence course. Hello, my name is Pastor Tong.
When I was in grade five, the team came to my school, the school that we are in right now.
What stood out most to me was their puppet theatre. It left a huge impression on me. From that first day. I felt drawn to them and wanted to learn more about what they were all about. I applied to study the lessons about Jesus through the club.
The lessons were all sent to me via the post office. Well, this was about 30 years ago. I decided to study because I was curious about God's story. I felt excited every time a lever arrived. However, there was a period during my teens where I drifted away.
I actually had the opportunity to be ordained as a novice monk. This gave me an understanding of both Buddhism and Christianity. But I always kept my knowledge of Christianity that I learned from Nong Ruck Club tucked away in my heart. And when I was 15, I had the opportunity to go back to church. Hearing about Jesus again reinforced everything.
And that was when I decided to truly receive Christ as my Lord and Savior. My house wasn't far from the church. I wanted to go every week. However, my family started to oppose. My family saw the positive changes in me and when I was 18, they gave me permission to go to church regularly.
From then on, I began to grow much more in God. I believe that learning about God as a child is like planting a seed of faith in one's life. Of course, many people might hear the stories and feel nothing. But I thank God for choosing to plant that seed in my heart. How can we hear?
How will we know if no one comes and tells us? How will we know if no one comes?
There are still so many places where they've not yet heard the message of Jesus. If we don't go, they may never hear. That's why we must go so that they can hear, that they can know and they too can follow Jesus. Thank you so much for support.
And thank you Connect Church. Because through your support, your prayers and your giving, we are able to ensure that seeds like that are planted in the lives of so many children. That young boy grew up, became a pastor, and now works in juvenile detention centers as well, making sure other children get to hear the gospel. We're also working a lot with the good news. Sorry, with the Step ahead.
Step Ahead's vision, as I said, is that every child in Thailand will grow up in a safe and nurturing family. And last time I was here, I told you all about the work we're doing with trying to get children transformed from being in orphanages to living in family based care. But today I want to tell you about another program we started recently called Zoe Education In Thailand. There's another community of people called the Refugees and refugees who come into the urban setting in Bangkok in Thailand. At the moment, there's tens of thousands of them and they are normally there looking for a third country, a safe, forever home.
But they're stuck there for about, on average at the moment, 10 to 12 years. During that time, they're not allowed to work and most of the children do not have access to adequate schooling. And so we've devised a program where parents can be trained to homeschool their kids. And we provide all the resources and support that the parents need to do that. Have a quick look at this video.
Hi guys. Tim and Bronwyn Perry here from Thailand. We set up Zoe Education to provide education for urban refugee families who cannot access education for their children. Why? Because education brings hope.
Before this program, I was hopeless because I have no better future for my children now through the Zoe Education Program. Now my children receiving good education. Most refugees who come here leave their home country because their lives are at risk, risk. When they arrive here, they quickly find themselves unwelcome and very vulnerable. They are looking for a third country which if they are fortunate enough to be accepted to, they will have to wait at least 10 years.
During this wait time, children become adults. Unless they receive an education, they will remain vulnerable even in their new homeland. Our primary level education program has been going since 2023. We currently have 24 families in our program as well as many other families waiting for our next intake. The families in our program are being trained, resourced and supported to homeschool their own children.
They come in at least once a fortnight to check in, have assessments and get new textbooks and readers to take home. When parents come come in, they are able to ask any questions regarding their homeschooling experience and extra tutoring is available for their children. So my two children have no opportunity to get the education like this until now as we are refugees and we do not have enough opportunity in this country. A lot of things that we got from this program the first is the knowledge of English. And especially my two children enjoy so much this program and they happy it helped my children a lot.
Zoya helped my children to build their confidence. Now. Now they are confident and improving so much. So the Zoe, give me a best things. Zoe, give me a material.
It's free. Education is free. Even that many times. They help me a lot for the many things. It's good for me also I learn a lot.
Yeah. I would like this program to continue help other children in future also. It's very important for my children. So I like to continue with this program and I wish that this program will be continue continue non stop. Together with other NGOs working with refugees, we have also identified the lack of access to education for high school aged students.
In response to this, we have recently launched Empowered. Empowered is now helping students to obtain their year 12 certificate and to prepare them to enter university or the workforce. You know that we are refuted here so that we have no organization to study for adults. But importantly is an organization that we are studying in. It's very helpful for us.
We learn many things from here. Thank you so much for your support as we bring education to these families. Education brings hope. God bless.
So there's now well over 100 people who are benefiting from education that otherwise wouldn't be available to them because of your support. So once again, thank you for what you're doing in the nation of Thailand for so many different people. Just a quick update on that. The gentleman in the video there who was talking about his two children, when he first came to us, he didn't have any English language at all. He couldn't speak anything.
You can see by there, we don't just work with the children, but we work with the parents as well to help them. And that man, after being a number of years in Thailand and really, really struggling, has just received the news that he has been accepted to Australia as a refugee. And we're hoping in the next few months he'll be able to come out. So just picture what the difference is for him and for his children, that they now speak English before arriving here and that his children have been able to keep their education going. You've made a huge impact in their family and in the families of so many other people.
Thank you.
She's gorgeous, isn't she? Far out, man. What are we doing here, Bron? Let's get out of here. Sorry, apologies.
It was not meant to be in the mic. Can I just start by saying I'm so grateful to Be alive. How good is life? And just the other you said that thing you had on Friday night with the youth, I'm like, mate, that is so good. We should be.
I am so grateful for what you are doing. Honestly, 400 young people in this place. How good is that? How good is that, man? It's such a brilliant.
God is so good. When I was a kid, right, I'm about kids and youth. And when I was a kid, I grew up in a little country called, you may have heard of it, New Zealand. Any New Zealanders here? Yeah.
Come on, let's go. Let's go. And I grew up in this little country in the north island. And I grew up in a little town called Martin, which. And then we moved to another town, which is called Bulls.
And bulls had like 1800 people, and Martin had 3000 people, 4000, including farmers. New Zealand itself at the time had 3 million people and 60 million sheep. But I grew up in this small town. I went to a small school. I was the smallest in my class.
How do you think I felt? Small, right? Small and insignificant. And when I was 10 years of age, I was sitting in church and I heard this message that you needed to know Jesus or else you were going to hell, and was like, whoa, I don't want that. So I asked Jesus into my life.
And for the next years, through my teenage years, I did the right thing. I never, never. I didn't drink, I didn't smoke, I didn't swear, I didn't go out to parties. I didn't do all this. I just didn't, didn't, didn't.
And I had this thing in me that I knew that my life was destined for boredom.
Until when I was 19 years of age, I met the real Jesus and everything changed. Not on the outside. I was still living in this little town, in a little place. I was still a little guy. But something had happened on the inside of me.
The spirit of God had come and said to me, you are significant. You see, God met me at my point of need. I needed to know that I had purpose. I needed to know that I was. Was significant, that I was seen.
And I was in a meeting one day, and the preacher just looked at me and went, you are a wild man of God. And inside of me came alive. Just came alive. Has anyone here ever had an experience like this?
I changed. I changed. Life now had purpose. Life was exciting. Everything changed.
And it wasn't on the outside. It was in inside of me where I encountered the Jesus who changes lives. Have you had that experience. Has Jesus changed your life? Give me a wave.
I saw about three before. That's better. That's better. Thank you. He is so good, isn't he?
You know, and there's some days I have felt so alive in God, so alive in Christ, and so full of his presence. Anyone had those days? Yes. And I've had other days where I have felt so broken and so confused and wondering, God, are you real? Anyone had those days?
Okay. But one thing, no matter what my day is like, one thing never changes. And that is, Jesus is with me. Jesus is with us. No matter how we feel, no matter what we're going through, he is always the same, and he is always with us.
I am so glad that you have come here today. There's someone in this place and you're feeling like, I need God. I really had this impression. It was not just my message. I had this impression last night.
There's someone here. And you're like, I need God, but I just don't. I need to know Him. In fact, you once knew him and you used to follow him back. But right now, this is how you're feeling.
You're feeling like, I can't come to him the way I am right now. I can't follow him from where I am right now. I've got to get a bit better before I can do that. God's brought me here today to tell you God wants to come to you at your point of need, right where you are right now. Right now.
He wants to accept you. And he accepts you as you are right now. And he loves you so much that he won't leave you where you are right now. He wants to come in and transform you. Transform you.
You're not hidden. Jesus accepts you. He accepts us just the way we are. And he loves us way too much to leave us like that. He's committing to you, not staying like you are.
That's pretty cool, isn't it? It's very good. Jesus comes to us right where we are, right in our brokenness, right in our confusion, in our sense of shame. He comes to us and he receives us as we are. He accepts us.
He loves us and he fills us and he transforms us. How many people? That's you. That's your life. Yeah.
So good. Can I tell you something? Life does not remain static. We learn. We unlearn.
We relearn. When I was young, I thought that life was really, really simple. It was black and white. I remember these thoughts would be like, I know that if I just follow God's laws. If I read the Bible, if I pray, if I tell people about Jesus, life's going to be good.
There's going to be no problems. It'll be just a smooth ride. Anyone? Am I the only one who.
Yeah, yeah. It doesn't work. It just doesn't work that way, you know, because even Jesus said. But he said, I've come that you might have life and have it to the full. And I thought that full life would mean just a perfect, smooth life.
Wrong. I learned something. Forrest Gump was right. Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get right.
I went to Thailand thinking I'm obeying Jesus. Therefore everything's gonna go well. The whole country's gonna come to know Jesus because you know the Lego Movie. Everything is awesome. Everything is cool.
And you're part of the team. Everything is awesome. When you live in the dream. Wrong. Wrong.
Do. Not everything is awesome. Not everything's awesome. When we're living the dream and for our lives that God has for us, there's challenges, there's problems. Things happen that shouldn't happen.
Life throws curve balls. Life can be painful. Life sometimes sucks. It can be unfair. But one thing I know, Jesus doesn't change.
Jesus promises that through it all, I. He will be with you. He will be with you. And if Jesus is with you, it might suck right now, but it's going to get better. It's just going to get better.
It may have been 20 years you've believing for that breakthrough. It's still coming. It's coming because that's who he is. Somehow, some way, he's going to bring good out of your situation. And you.
You know what the real purpose of it all is? That you would become like him. That we would become like him. That's the ultimate goal. When Jesus is with you, there's always hope.
And let me tell you, Jesus is with you. You. If Jesus is for you, there's always light. Jesus is for you. He promises.
He says, I will never leave you. I will never forsake you. He promises, I will live with you. I'll be in you. I will fill you.
I'll lead you and I'll transform you. Number one. I'll live in you. When you encounter Jesus. How many people have encountered Jesus in this place?
Beautiful. When you encounter Jesus, there's a miracle that takes place, right? Salvation is a miracle. It's supernatural. Think about it.
The spirit of God who hovered over the waters, the God that created the Universe that raised Christ from the dead lives in you. The one who created everything. He lives outside of time and space. Lives in you. Lives in me.
How does he do that? How does he do that? My mind won't go there, you know, maybe that's because I'm a second dimensional creature trying to understand an 18th dimensional God. You know, it's not that he understands it, I don't, but it's awesome. And so for me and for you, the place we have to come to is an understanding of.
Of. I don't get it, but it's real. He lives in me. He lives in you. It's supernatural.
If you could show that first video, that'd be great. There, Solomon's Temple. Before Jesus came, the only place that the presence of almighty God is found is in the temple, right? He's inside the temple, inside the Holy of Holies, where there's a huge curtain where only once a year the high priest gets to enter. And he had a rope tied to him and bells on his robe so that when he entered, they can hear that he's still alive.
Because if he had any sin in him, or unconfessed sin, he would immediately die. The bells would stop ringing on his robes and they would drag him out. This was the fear of the Lord. This was the power of his presence. But in A.D. 70, that temple was totally destroyed by fire by the Roman government who had overpowered the area.
And that temple has never been rebuilt. Why not? Because it's no longer needed. It's redundant. There's a new temple for God's presence.
How good is this? It's a new temple for God's presence. Where you, me, God's presence lives in us. We are the temple of God now. We are God's new house.
We're the place he's chosen to live. And he's chosen to live in us. 1 Corinthians 6, verses 19 to 20 says, do you not know that? Where is it? Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have received from God.
You are not your own. You were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies. This is the one who lives in us. This is why you are so valuable.
This is why you are so wanted. This is why you are so treasured. This is why you are so precious. And this is the message that we love to bring young people in Thailand. You are valuable.
Not because of you, but who lives in you. The one who breathed his breath of life into you. And Gave you life. The God who created the heavens has chosen to live. Live inside of you and me.
This is why we have hope. I love the Scripture. Psalm 34, verse 8. David says, oh, taste and see that the Lord is good. You know that one, Such a good one.
Has anyone ever been to Thailand? Anyone been there? Has anyone been to Chiang Mai? Anyone been. Okay, have you ever had khao soi?
Here we go. Is it good?
You've got it. Exactly. You have definitely had. I can see this in your eyes. You have tasted and seen.
You've tasted and seen that khao soi is good. And that's what I'm talking about. When you know khao soi is actually, it's just. It's like. What is it?
It's pickled cabbage. It's a spicy sauce. There's a piece of chicken in there. It's got egg noodles, and then it's got crispy egg noodles on top. And it tastes really good.
It tastes divine. But you don't get it. Why not? Because you haven't tasted it, right? You haven't tasted.
She's tasted. She knows what I'm talking about, right? She knows it. And when she goes back to Chiang Mai, there's only one thing on her mind. Like whenever I go to go get to Chiang Mai, I don't care if I'm preaching, whatever I'm doing, all I'm thinking is khao soi.
Khao soi. Where do I get a good khao soi in this place? Okay, so. And see that calcite is good. Taste and see that God, the Lord is good.
We may. You may have heard about God. You may have. You know, you may have read the Bible. You may have done things, someone might have told you their testimony.
But until you have tasted and seen, until you have said, God, come and fill me with your presence, you don't understand how good he is. Yes. So good. I love it. Jesus says, I will fill you.
Luke 4, 18:19. The spirit of the Lord is upon me because he's anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. Do you realize that the God who lives in you has given you this commission as well this ability? But there's one thing.
We go. I can't do that. It's great because it's not about you. It's about him in you. Him in you.
But you will receive power. Acts 1, verse 8. When the holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses. Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and all. And to the ends of the earth.
What he's saying there is, you will receive power to be my witness. Witnesses wherever you go. Wherever you go. He not only fills you, he not only lives in you, he wants to fill you, to empower you to be like him, to do what he does, to be continually fueled with his presence. How do we explain this mystery of God, the God Almighty, coming and being a part of us?
You know, the Old Testament, we see the prophets and these people doing crazy things. When the Spirit of God would come upon them, right? There were some of them, they'd prophesy incredible prophecies. They run faster than chariots that defy. They beat whole armies by themselves.
It's like superheroes. And the presence of God would come upon them, the Spirit, and then leave them. He doesn't leave us. He's come and he resides inside of us. So beautiful.
We just had this massive thing happened in Thailand where evangelists from all over the world, people like Daniel Kalinda from Christ for All Nations, Tim hall, there were heaps of them go across two years ago, decided we're going to target Thailand. And they went across 27 different provinces in Thailand. And there were these massive. You could show the picture. That would be great.
These massive outreaches taking place across the nation of Thailand that's just been in the last six months. And there were thousands who came to Christ. Heaps and heaps of healings. It was so cool and so much took on because, you know, it says, whoever believes in me, as the scripture says, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. And these people got to hear the gospel and hear this message of Jesus.
And Jesus says, you know, I am the vine and you are the branches. Branches. I'm the vine, you're the branches. It's like, where does a vine and a branch is really hard to distinguish, really, aren't they? They're coming from the same source.
They're one. And that's what the Holy Spirit saying, Jesus is saying, you and I are one now. We're working together. And that's why when we. When these people come into the nation and see these massive things take place, it's because God is working through normal people like you and me.
I love what happened here in Frankston just over your Easter. We heard about it in Thailand. You know, you had this 750 people baptized, mate, I lived in Seaford a long time. This area was not known for this happening in this area, right? God is up to something here.
He's up to something here in Frankston. I'm telling you, the same in Perth, mate. It wasn't that long ago. Perth was not the place to be. But things are changing.
God is moving and there are a thousand baptisms took place there. It's brilliant what God is doing through normal people. And I love the mass things where we talk about, wow, 750, a thousand thousands coming to Christ. But it's about the one. It's all about the one person.
And I want to tell you a story about a guy called Egg. Egg was a young Thai kid. This was quite a while ago, but that was his nickname. His nickname was Egg. And he was from a poor home.
He lived with his grandmother. And Egg was a really naughty kid. He was always in the principal's office. Some of you can relate to that. And he often wagged school.
He hated studying and he was always in trouble. Sounds like that kid, right? One day, the good news team, we take the gospel to rural schools. The good news team came to Egg School. And he wasn't even.
He tells the story. He wasn't even listening. He's sitting down the back. A grade five kid sitting down the back of the room, just mocking with his mates what was going on. And we went through the whole program and it came towards the end and he hadn't been listening.
And then he heard these words. God loves you. Jesus loves you. Jesus has a purpose for your life. And something happened inside.
God spoke to him and he was drawn to this. And so we give out those comics, these little booklets, and on the back was the address. And so Eggs looked at the address and went, oh, that's close to where I live. That's not that far. So it's a decent one walk.
But he walked to our office and knocked on the door, and our team led him to Jesus. So he walks back home after that, feeling really happy, really excited. Goes to his grandmother who he's living with, says, grandma, I just gave my life to Jesus. She goes, you can't do that. We are Buddhists.
You go back and tell him, you can't do it. So sheepishly walked all the way back, gets back, looks at them, says, my grandma says, I can't do it. We're Buddha. And our team, in all their wisdom, looked at him and said, I'm sorry, it's too late.
A few years ago, a famous Actress in Thailand. She was a Christian. Her name was Dang Mo, which means watermelon. She was tragically killed in a boating accident on the river there in Thailand. And she was really famous.
And it was. It made the news for, well, for months, really, didn't it? For months there. And Dang Moore had been led to Christ by a Pastor Chad Chai, and who's very well known in Thailand. And she.
I've lost my thought. She. What'd she do? Sorry, guys.
Oh, that's right. Thank you. And so she's there, he's there. And the funeral. Thank you.
The funeral went for three days and. Which is very normal, but it was because it was. She was such a public figure. It was televised. It was not televised, but it was on YouTube and all these things.
And millions, honestly, millions of people listened in to these, to the. To the funeral going on. And Pastor Chad Chai after that, they. You could phone into the line and people would lead you to Christ through this thing. And thousands of people came to Christ through that, and millions listened in.
And Pastor Chadchai was one of the pastors. The guy who led to Christ was one of those nights he got to preach the gospel and see so many thousands come to Christ. Pastor Chadcha has a nickname, his nickname's Egg.
He was that little boy. First time he heard that. Sorry. First time. I love it.
The first time he heard that the message of Jesus Christ was through the good news team. And it was a team going to a little boy in a little town nobody knew about. Insignificant. But Jesus saw him and has grabbed him and. And thousands of people have come to Christ through this man.
I love what God does when he speaks to one person. When he chooses us, we need to recognize the value of what he has done for us and in us. Look at your hands. If the spirit of God is upon you, your hands are healing hands. If his presence is in you, you are a healing machine.
If the spirit of Jesus is alive in you, he's going to. To flow out of you. He's going to flow through you and out of you. And that fruit will be an overflow of Him. He is love, he is joy, he is peace.
That's going to flow through you and out of you. He's power, he's authority. He's confidence, he's favor, his passion. He's fire inside of us. His focus, his vision, his dreams, his goals.
We're going to look like him, we're going to talk like him, we're going to think like him, we're Going to smell like him. We're going to ooze him in all we do and you do you do. Today he wants to fill you with the Holy Spirit. To fill you and release you. He's bigger than we think.
He's more capable than we realize. He's more willing than we can believe. He's more in you than you understand. You don't get a little bit of Jesus. You don't get a little bit of the Holy Spirit.
You get the whole. The whole of you. How? I don't know, but it's how it works.
My Bronwyn's father passed away about two weeks ago. And it's been a big couple of weeks, big time. Excuse me.
And my father passed away just two years ago and it all been quite real during this time. And when my father passed away in New Zealand, my dad used to play the trumpet and I used to play, and I still play a trumpet. And I love. I just have great memories of playing trumpet with dad in church, that sort of thing. And at the funeral, my sister came to me and said, hey, Dad's trumpet's still here.
Would you like it? I'd love to have Dad's trumpet. And she goes, yeah, just a few problems. The nephews have had it. Okay.
All right, can you show me it? And this is what it looked like. Okay. It was. The valves weren't working.
There were stiff airs. There were dents all through it. Pieces on it were broken. You can see it's just totally tarnished. He said, we've actually had someone try to fix it and that's as good as we could get it.
Like, whoa, it must have been bad. Anyway, I said, yeah, I'll take it back to Thailand because we can. Sometimes there's people there, you don't know who's there. I'll give it a go. So I let my fingers do the walking and I found this guy and I went to ask him if.
Went to this place where he was and sl like, oh, my goodness, there were brass instruments everywhere. It was just beautiful. And while I was there, he showed me a couple of trumpets, which one was like a $10,000 trumpet. And he let me play it. And then the other one was like one that he'd been commissioned to make for the king of Thailand.
And I was like, whoa. I didn't get to play it. But anyway, being there, I just loved talking with this guy. He was a master at what he did. Trained in Germany.
Harmony, incredible guy. And at the end of it, I said, well, look, do Whatever you can to it. Can you re lacquer it or something just to make it look good. He's like, can. But it'll take away the quality of the sound.
Said, don't do that. Just whatever you can do to it. Two weeks later I came back and this is what I got.
Jesus is in the business of transforming life. Lives, transforming lives. You may feel broken, you may feel disillusioned. Life has not treated you well. Maybe it looked like that.
You feel like that old trumpet that's just busted up broken. Jesus will take you where you are at. He will come and meet you at your point of need. But if you stick with him, if you allow him to do what he wants to do in your life, life, he will make you into who you were made to be. To who you were made to be.
God loves you.
God loves you. His spirit is in you. And if his spirit is in you, he will do what he's called you, will become who he's called you to be. He's so good. I'm just going to finish myself.
Time's up, mate.
How powerful is that, hey, God? We know that, don't we? And if you don't know it, you can know it. And there's some of us here, we're going to pray for a bunch of us. But I want to pray firstly for people who may be.
Maybe you've never known Jesus or you've been away from God. And you know, you say, God, I want you to do that restoration work in me. I need you to do it. You know, we come to. There's a reason you've come into the church today.
There's a reason you've watched online, because usually there's something in our heart drawing us. And I'll tell you who that is. It's the Holy Spirit of God. And you know what he's saying to you? He's saying, I've got a plan for you.
I love you, I take you as you are and I will transform you into the person I made you to be. Isn't that what we need? He forgives us, he loves us, he cleanses us. He heals the hurts that others have done to us because he's the only one who can. Everything else will fail.
Everything else is just a little sort of COVID But Jesus comes and cleanses us deep, doesn't he? And so I want us to bow our heads and close our eyes for a minute. We're going to pray. And if you're in this place, if you're watching Online. Can I say, well done?
God's got a plan for you. I know every week there are people who watch. And God's drawing you. He's got a plan. He's got something greater than you even realize.
And he knows what you're going through. We're going to pray. We're going to say a prayer to the Lord Jesus. Maybe you've never known God or you need to say, this is my moment right now to come back to the Lord, Lord, and say, lord, will you do that work in me? And he'll come and do it because he does it by his grace, by his love for every single one of us, no matter who we are or where we've come from.
Let's pray together. Dear Lord Jesus, thank you that you died for me. I believe that you're the Son of God and you died on the cross for my sin. And you rose again from the dead, dead. So forgive me, Jesus.
Come and transform me. I accept you as my Lord and my Savior. In Jesus name I pray. Amen. Amen.
Come on, let's just keep our heads bowed. If you said that prayer to rededicate or give your life to Jesus, at the end of the service, we're not going to embarrass you now, but at the end of the service, over by the bookstore shop on the right, there's a little sign that says new people. And we've got a Bible we want to give you. It's a free Bible and it's going to help you in your walk with God, get to know God more. And we want to say congratulations.
We can pray with you, whatever you want. And we'd love to give that to you and just be a blessing to you. This Alpha course starting on Wednesday. Come along and you watch what God does in your life because he comes and transforms and cleanses for the rest of us. We're going to pray and say, God, will you continue that transformative work in my life?
Because he's got greater plans for you. Some of us have been struggling with temptation. We've been struggling with how we think about ourselves. We've been struggling with whether God cares about you. And all of those struggles and thoughts are not from God.
They're from the other side. They're from the enemy. They're thoughts that have been planted in our mind and they're not the truth. The Lord loves you. You.
He's got a plan. He's got greater things. He wants to stir you up with His Holy Spirit and he wants to use you to Change other people's lives. That's why we're inspired by stories like the young boy called Egg who went on to be a mighty man of God because God wants to do the same work in us. Amen.
So let's browse and let's pray. Maybe you want to lift out your hands to the Lord to say, lord, will you come and fill my life and trans. Continue to do your transformative work in me. In me. Holy Spirit of God.
Lord, I thank you, God, that you are with us, that you are for us, that you got greater plans for our lives. And Lord, what the enemy has planned for evil, God turns around for good. And every one of us has stuff in our lives that we're not. We wish wasn't there. We wish hadn't happened to us, we wish we hadn't seen done.
But God, you turn it around and you do a mighty work of transformation for good. So I'm praying for God's people, that you'd fill them with your Holy Spirit, that you would empower them, Lord God, that you'd fill them with dreams and visions, God, of who you've called them to be, that you'd make us more like Christ. You'd help us to overcome temptation, Lord, and the plans of the evil one would come to naught, God, that you would do a mighty work in our lives and through our lives. Because greater plans have you, God, than the enemy than we have greater things have you yet to do in our lives. So, Holy Spirit, fill us, empower us.
Fill us with your grace and love, Lord, so we can do the mighty wonderful things that you've planned for us long ago. I pray it in the mighty name of Jesus Christ and all God's people said amen. Amen. Amen. Come on.
Why don't we give Pastor Tim and Bronwyn a hand this morning?
What a good word. Hey, if you didn't know, Tim used to be a kids pastor many years ago. So you can tell, can't you? He's like, he's got the. The stories, the enthusiasm, the fire and so we really appreciate you both coming and sharing and.
And Bronwyn's the. I think you're the organizer. You make it all happen. You're the chaos and together it's a beautiful partnership and serving God and. Can I encourage you?
I mean, be encouraged? You know, they grew up here and then God's using them to do mighty things overseas. God wants to do mighty things through your life. Some of you, God might call on the mission field one day. He might call to go into business.
Business. He might call you into ministry. He might call you. Every one of us are called. Whatever we're doing, whatever occupation it is, whatever, whether it's at home, in our friendships, at uni, God has a ministry for us to change people's lives.
Grab a hold of it and say, God, what can you. This is what I love this. Ask yourself this question. What can God do through me? What can God do through me?
Because every. If you ask him that question, right, he'll start speaking to you and you'll start getting ideas going. He could do this. I could be encouraging here. Don't you.
Don't you think you're not significant? God has mighty things for your life. So anyway, be encouraged and God's gonna do awesome things. Next week. Next week Pastor Fuha is going to be bringing the Word who like Fuhrer on the guitar.
This morning.
He told me he was going to do a full on solo like and just blow everyone away. But it's like gotten sheepish now he likes to be in the background. But thank you, Fua, for leading our team. Hey, can we give a big hand to Victoria who led all of worship for the first time ever and she's only 15, so don't you. Who cares about your age?
Hey, you did an awesome job, Victoria. Well done. We're very proud of you. And I'm just going to announce here, Daniel and Bec here in the second row. Are we allowed to announce this?
Am I? Because it's public now. You put it on Instagram. So Beck and Daniel have been in our church for many years. Married.
Beck, I was about to say they, well, they. They are having a baby. Beck is pregnant and so congratulations. Another little addition to the church family. The baby boom continues.
So we're very happy for you and you are a mum now. You are a mum. So happy Mother's Day and fantastic. Hey, we want to say a big thank you again to all of our mums. Let's look after our mums.
If they're alive and not with us, make sure you give them a call, tell them you love them and reach out. We've got a great morning tea for you. Coffee. Come on. Why don't we stand to our feet?
We're going to sing one last time and go have a great rest of the day. We'll see you next week when Pastor Phil is preaching.
Wandering into the night Wanting a place to hide this weary storm is back But I try with all my mind But I just can't win the fight I'm slowly drifting a bag of arms and just when I ran out of road I met a man I didn't know and he told me that I was not alone.
On solid ground. I thank the master, I thank the savior because you heal my heart you change my name Forever free are not the same I thank the master, I thank the savior I thank God.
I cannot deny what I see Got no choice but to believe my downs will burning like ashes in the wind now say bye bye bye.
From now till I walk. Jesus, I'm thinking how you made my soul this way west side is mounted way back oh you pick me up, you turn me around you place my feet on solid ground. I thank the master, I thank the master Savior because you heal my heart you change my name Forever free I'm not the same. I thank the master, I thank the savior I thank God.
Get up, get up, get up, get up.
Hell up the world. I am free. I am free. I am free. Hell up another one.
I am free, I am free. Yes, I am free. Hell, I'm free. I am free. I am free.
Hell, I know that I am free. I am free.
You pick me up, you turn me around and place my feet on solid ground. I thank the master, I thank the savior. Think you heal my heart you change my name Forever free I, I thank you, master I thank my savior. I thank God.
Thank you so, so much for joining us this morning. See you next week. Have a good day. Happy Mother's Day.
Related Bible Verses
John 10:10 [NIV]
"I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full."
→ Read John 10:10 on Bible.com1 Corinthians 6:19–20 [NIV]
"Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honour God with your bodies."
→ Read 1 Corinthians 6:19–20 on Bible.comPsalm 34:8 [NIV]
"Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him."
→ Read Psalm 34:8 on Bible.comLuke 4:18–19 [ESV]
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour."
→ Read Luke 4:18–19 on Bible.comActs 1:8 [NIV]
"But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."
→ Read Acts 1:8 on Bible.comJohn 7:38 [ESV]
"Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, 'Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.'"
→ Read John 7:38 on Bible.com