Welcome to the Harvest Center.
We are glad you are here today.
Good morning, good morning everyone.
Nice to see you in church today.
I hope you're all doing well.
I hope your heart is in a good place today, ready to receive something from God.
Psalm 122 says, I rejoice with those who say, let us go into the house of the Lord.
What's your attitude today?
Is there joy in your heart because you're here worshiping God?
Or was like, oh, today's Sunday, we go to church because it's Sunday.
Is your heart rejoicing because you are in the house of the Lord today?
Amen.
What a wonderful thing, church.
We can actually boldly approach the throne of God without any blame.
And you know why we can do that?
Because Christ has given His life for us.
Why don't we give a round of applause to our Lord Jesus.
Let's praise Him because He is good.
He has good plans for our life and we can boldly approach His presence because of what
He has done for us.
Amen?
Amen.
I want to say something, you know, when it comes to, you know, when I was speaking about
the importance for the children to see, you know, Sunday we go to church.
And the reason why it's important is because, you know, they understand that, okay, when
a parent set a clear boundary, they understand the reason for that, something important.
And I want to encourage all the parents here and those who are listening to learn how to
establish clear boundaries with your children because you know better, you know, supposedly
of what they know.
And you know, we live in a world where they say, we say, you know, children needs to be
affirmed.
I'm kind of growing scared of this word whenever I hear it.
Children needs to be affirmed when they do good things and when there are things that
are worthy to be praised.
We need to be affirmed, but they need as well to see clear boundaries when, you know, they
need to maybe something they cannot grasp completely, but they will understand the boundaries.
I couldn't understand why my parents every Sunday was church day.
I couldn't understand why.
It was like, okay, there must be something important about going to church.
And the boundary that I set, you know, in our family, that was actually what brought
me to consider the greatness of God.
So do not be afraid, you know, to establish boundaries.
You know, the children will do what they see.
So if you want your boys to grow up and to become one day a man who will love and, you
know, a woman that will get together and get married, then you got to love your wife.
They will see how you treat your wife.
They will be treating their wives.
And if you've got girls that will grow, you know, you want them to grow up and to be,
you know, accomplished in life and in family as well, you know, within the family, teach
them, show them as well how, you know, how you relate with your husband, how you speak
to him, because the children look at what we do at home.
They look at the boundaries.
They look at the behavior of the parents and they understand, you know, what is important,
what is not important.
They will replicate what they see around them.
So I want to encourage all the parents here.
I know sometimes it's difficult because it seems that, you know, you try to explain something
that not always the children are able to understand, you know, why I cannot watch that.
Why is it wrong to spend, you know, three hours doing something, you know?
And sometimes it's difficult to explain, but still, you know, the boundary should stay
in place, yeah?
Just learn how to, you know, direct the children, your children, the way the Bible says, you
know, to show the way that, you know, to show God's way to your children, they will not,
you know, depart from it.
So just want to encourage all of you, you know, as you, parenting is not easy, but,
you know, we've got a great task, another honorable task that God has given us.
Sorry, I'm all into parenting, maybe because I've seen my parents this week, so it just
brought me back so many memories, but hey, oh, encouraging.
You feel like God is calling us to believe this morning.
You know, I don't know what you're facing, but God is calling us to believe.
I'm reminded of the story in the Bible of the twelve spies.
You might not know the story, but when the people of Israel, when they left the slavery
for a little while, they walked through the desert and then God brought them to the border
of the promised land.
And I don't know if you've ever asked yourself this question, why did God ask Moses to send
out the twelve spies?
Why did he ask him to send them out?
Because there are so many situations in the Bible where God wanted people to just trust
blindly, you know, like, you know, this is where you've got to go and, you know, just
believe me and I'll take you there and I'll bring you through and miracles happen.
But in this case, God did not ask them to believe blindly.
Now, I find that really interesting.
He said, bring me twelve leaders of Israel, you know, twelve leaders of Israel, right?
People who have experience, people have experience in faith, who have walked with God, who have
been, you know, who have ticked certain boxes to become a leader and to lead people.
And those twelve people, their job was to go, to cross the border and to go and to explore
the promised land and to bring back a report.
And twelve of them go in, explore and they see that the land is good, right?
And the message here is that what God wants to give us is good.
The promised land is good.
And they come back and only two of them say, let's do it.
Because they see, they don't just see the good bits, they also see there are giants
in the land and there are fortified and strong cities in the land.
And, you know, I don't know if you've ever asked yourself a question, why did God want
them to go and see this reality?
Because sometimes faith is not just about believing in a blind way and trusting God
that he will bring us through.
Sometimes in our walk with God, he wants us to believe beyond the problem and he wants
us to see the promise.
Now if you think about your own life, there is a promised land for your own life.
There's a promised land for my life and there is a promised land for your, for your life.
And what is the promised land?
The promise of God for your life is that you're going to have a fruitful life and a satisfactory
life, right?
That's not to be mistaken.
Sometimes we misinterpret it and we think the promised land is about prosperity and
an easy life.
That's not what it is.
The promised land, your promised land for your life is a fruitful land and a satisfactory
life, right?
And yet God allows those twelve leaders to see the giants and to see the problems and
to see the difficulties because he wants their faith to go up a level and he wants them to
believe beyond the problem.
And I just feel like God is calling us today to believe beyond the problem.
You know when the problem is right in your face like this, that's all you see is the
problem.
You can't see beyond.
But today God is calling us to see beyond what's right in our face.
He wants us to believe for the promise.
Good to see you all.
Are you ready for the word of God today?
Some of you are, some of you aren't sure.
But we're going to have a good time.
I was going to thank Hannah for the word but she's not here.
It's a great word.
You know the spies went out and they all saw the giants so they all had this very natural
reaction but only two of them changed how they felt afterwards.
And that's what my sermon is about.
It's called It's Only Natural.
It's only natural.
Now when things come we respond in a very human way because that's what we are.
Before we go on let's pray.
God we thank you that you made us how we are and you don't expect us to live as robots
Lord but as human flesh and blood.
But we need to get your view on things Lord.
So I just pray today for this word Lord that it would help someone today just to be able
to change the way they're natural into their supernatural.
Amen.
So it's a week after Easter.
I thought I'd get one more.
Oh she's back.
I thought I'd get one more.
Squeeze one more sermon out of some Easter stuff just after the resurrection stuff.
So tell me the meter Mark 16 starting at verse one.
Now when the Sabbath was passed Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Salome bought
spices that they might come and anoint him.
Very early in the morning on the first day of the week they came to the tomb and the
sun had risen and they said to themselves who will roll away the stone for the door
of the tomb for us.
But when they looked up they saw that the stone had been rolled away and for it was
large and entering the tomb they saw a young man clothed in white robes sitting on the
right side and they were alarmed.
Now I've got to adjust to the big writing.
That was their custom and tradition to go when somebody had been buried and take all
these spices so they'd obviously been preparing them all and they were expecting to find,
I mean they were more worried about somebody rolling the stone away than they were about
anything else.
They were very much in the natural and they were expecting to find a decaying body smelling,
stinking after three days but they didn't.
But it was only natural for them to respond like that.
See we all have a natural response but our natural response needs to be followed by something
else.
Their natural response got in the way of their expectation.
It was a natural to do the traditions.
It was a natural to be emotional in the moment, in the sorrow and the mourning.
But our natural response needs to be changed into supernatural expectation.
Luke 24, 9-12.
Then they returned from the tomb and told these things to the eleven and to all the
rest.
It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James and the other women who were with
them who told these things to the apostles.
And the words seemed like idle tales and they did not believe them.
But Peter rose and ran to the tomb and stooping down he saw the linen cloths lying by themselves
and departed, marvelling to himself at what had happened.
So here we have these three ladies.
They've come back from the tomb, Mary, Mary and Joanna and the others that were with them.
So that's at least five, it's probably more.
So five ladies all come and give this report.
They've been to the tomb, had an encounter with angels, then rushed back and told everybody
what they had seen and what they had heard.
And the disciples said, what absolute rubbish.
What absolute tosh.
What are you thinking?
What a story.
What nonsense it says in the NIV.
What a silly story it says in the easy version.
They didn't believe a word of it.
Even though Jesus had told them in the gospels on several occasions that the son of man must
die and in three days he will rise.
See, it's only natural for them to think that way.
It's their natural reaction when things don't make sense.
Their intellect couldn't get round what had happened.
Our intellect will keep us from receiving the things of God.
It will stop our initial step of faith.
Our human reaction to the unbelievable is not to believe.
It's our natural reaction.
It's only natural to be like that.
John 20, 19 and 20.
He's skipping around a few scriptures, but you're all right with that, aren't you?
In the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut,
that should be an NIV up there, it will say locked in the NIV, and the disciples were
assembled for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst of them.
Peace be with you, he said.
When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side, then the disciples were
glad when they saw Jesus.
So disciples, they've been with Jesus for three years.
They have had fantastic teaching.
They've seen numerous marvellous miracles.
They had a testimony of these ladies who had come back and shared, and John and another
disciple had actually been to the tomb and seen that it was empty and marvelled at what
was going on.
I'd be absolutely buzzing and excited, wouldn't you?
And where were these 11?
They were in a room with the door locked because they were fearful.
They were fearful in that situation.
They were afraid.
Again, it's only natural when we're in situations like that to be fearful.
It's a natural occurrence.
It's our normal response to threat.
If I was to come up and threaten Sam, Anna would jump in front and speak to me in German
and I'd run away.
But it's our natural response, isn't it?
If we let it, fear will keep us locked in like the disciples and unable to move.
It's said that we have two responses to fear, flight, which is running away, or fight.
If you face it, it may beat you down, and if you run from it, you'll always be fearful.
When I was at school, it was a snowy day, and I'd picked up this snowball, and the snow
was getting a little bit hard, and I just launched it up into the air as high as I could.
And it happened to hit one of those, one of those boys, the big guy who was in the swimming
club that was V-shaped, you know, and had the skinny waist and the big shoulders.
As he was running, it came down and he went, it's quite a good sound effect, it's quite
high, hit him right in the head, and he came after me.
And I ran, and I ran, and I ran, and being small and nippy, I managed to get away from
him.
But after school, I knew what was going to happen.
The crowd gathered, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, and I couldn't run anymore.
So I knew if I fought back, I'd probably get more of a beating than if I'd have just ran,
ran.
So I did this.
I stood in front of him, fist clenched, he hit me twice and knocked me down, and I got
up, looked him in the eye, and walked away.
So I thought that was almost like the story.
It was semi-surrender.
I was looking the palm, but not.
Jesus, that's our strategy Jesus gives us.
We don't fight, we don't fight, we surrender.
Not to the fear, but we surrender to him.
And when we surrender to him, we overcome.
John 20, 24, just down the bottom of that page if you're using your Bible.
Now Thomas, called the twin, one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came.
The other disciples therefore said to him, we have seen the Lord.
He said to them, unless I see his hands and the print of the nails and put my finger into
the print of his nails and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.
And after eight days, the disciples were again inside and Thomas was with them.
Jesus came, the doors being shut and stood in the midst of them.
Hang on a minute.
They've already seen Jesus.
The doors are still locked.
See fear will have a real grip on you, won't it?
They've seen Jesus after his resurrection.
He's spoken to them, they've spoken with him, they were happy to see him.
And the doors are still locked because they're scared.
What's going on?
But it's just natural because they don't understand what's going on.
Then he said to Thomas, reach your finger here, look at my hands and reach your hand
here and put it in my side.
Do not be unbelieving but believing.
Thomas must have thought that the disciples were playing some sort of prank or something.
All of them were saying the same thing, but he had this doubt.
Have you ever been in a situation like that where someone, lots of people agree and you're
like, no, I'm not sure about that.
Sounds a bit weird, sounds a bit strange.
He's probably looking for the hidden camera in the corner.
My hair is in my eyes.
This, like that.
Dictionary definition of doubt, a feeling of uncertainty, not being convinced, a lack
of conviction.
James 1, 6 and 7, I don't think I gave you, so you just have to trust me, says this, let
him ask in faith with no doubting for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and
tossed by the wind.
For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord.
He is double minded and unstable in all his ways.
Doubt is only natural.
Even when many believe doubt will bring confusion, not clarity.
There's a man walking on a mountain, good Christian man, enjoying the weather, the views,
enjoying creation and he's so busy looking around that he slips and falls off the edge.
But like in all those good movies, he grabs hold of a branch and he's hanging there and
he's hanging there and he starts crying out, God, God, God, please help me.
And God says, I'm here, just let go and I'll catch you.
And he's like, no.
And he's hanging there and his arm's getting tired and he says, God, God, please help me.
And God says, I'm here, I am here, trust me, just let go and I'll catch you.
And he hangs on and goes, oh, is there anybody else?
We often get in situations where our natural takes over and we can't let go.
Where trials and troubles come and we react naturally but we can't get past our humanness.
It's absolutely fine to react in those ways, to be in tradition like the ladies went and
not have the expectation.
It's absolutely fine to think before we act but that sometimes gets in the way.
It's absolutely fine to be fearful.
It's absolutely fine to have doubts but we need to get beyond our initial reactions.
It's what we do next after our initial response that really matters.
But how?
I hear you say, well, I could give you scriptures and scriptures and scriptures but how?
How?
Scorches will give you insight but I want to bring something practical for you to help
you and it involves doing something very, very easy.
Looking first of all, look up.
A lot of our time is spent looking down.
In fact, some of you are looking down at your phones or your tablets or your Bibles or your
books, even when you're eating a meal, you're looking down.
We spend a lot of time looking down.
Trouble is when we're looking down, we can only see what's in front of us.
Psalm 121, verse 1 and 2 says this, I will lift up my eyes to the hills.
From whence comes my help?
My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.
From the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.
You see, when you look up, what happens?
You look up, you see the creation around you or the creation around you and you start going,
wow.
You see the creation and then you see the creator.
You see your source.
You see, when you look up, your breathing changes because you're not like this.
So your posture changes.
Your countenance then changes because you're thinking, oh, that's better.
I can see my source.
I know what's going on.
Your focus changes from what's in front of you to him.
So firstly, look up.
So right now, if you are in a situation, if you're feeling anxiety or anything, look up.
Look up and see God.
Next one.
You can only do this if you've looked up because that gets your initial focus off of what?
All these other ones, you can only do them after you've looked up because you've got
to get your focus off of what's going on and on to God.
Look in.
Look at your heart.
Psalm 139, 23 and 24.
Search me, oh God, and know my heart.
Try me and know my anxieties and see if there be any wicked way in me and lead me to the
way everlasting.
See, God's not only in creation and up, he's everywhere and he's in here.
So when you look in at your heart, you can look into the Holy Spirit.
Ask him to search you.
Ask him to reveal sin in your life.
Ask him to reveal things that you don't know about that's making you anxious.
Look in.
Often we get ourselves in places that we're not supposed to be, where we're fearful and
scared because we're just not in the right place ourselves.
Because there's sin and we end up moving away from God.
Look in.
Look in ourselves through the eyes of the Holy Spirit so that we can see our sin.
And after that, look back.
Look back to the cross.
Look back to the cross of Jesus.
John 1, 29, behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
When we have found sin in our lives, we need to be clean.
We should look back to the cross where we can be cleaned and freed.
So so far, we've looked up, we've looked in.
We've looked back at God's saving and cleansing provision of Jesus.
And if you're still like Thomas, if you're still doubting, then look around.
Look around for those that have been struggling and have come through.
Revelations 12, 11 says, they overcame by the blood of the lamb and the word of their
testimony in their love, not their lives, even unto the death.
Look for people who have a testimony that can encourage you to believe.
You know, God put people there.
He knows what you're going through.
He's not going to leave you on your own.
Look for people that have a testimony that can encourage you to believe, a testimony
to help you through.
And if you don't think you're going through anything, then look for someone that you can
testify to.
That's why we gather together as well, not just for God, not just to be a family, not
just to worship, but because we have something to give to somebody else.
And when we come.
So tradition will keep you in the past and stop your expectation.
Your intellect will stop your next step and will stop you from knowing the mind of Christ.
Fear will keep you locked in and debilitated.
And doubt will confuse you and keep you confused.
But when we look in, look up, look in, look back, and look around, then we can look forward
to our destiny and our calling and everything that God has for us.
So let's stand.
If you can stand, stand.
If you can't, look up.
I want us all to look up and see our God and see our maker.
And then when you've done that, just take some time to look in.
Because I want you to leave here changed.
I want you to leave here different.
When you've done that, look back at the cross.
Look back at the cross.
And when we've finished here, if you're still doubting, look for someone.
Share it with someone.
Share it with Sam if you're struggling.
Share it with me or somebody else.
Share it with someone.
Don't walk out with it.
And then we can bring a testimony to release.
And finally, right now, if you don't know where you're going, if you don't know what
your destiny is, if you don't know that there's a heaven to have and a hell to run away from,
if you don't know that you can focus on your destiny and your calling, again, make it known
to someone.
If you want to receive Jesus as your Savior, come speak to us.
We'll help you on your first steps.
Let's pray.
Father God, we just thank you, Lord, that you make us flesh and blood.
And so often we get our reactions wrong.
And so often our reactions are very human, and that's what we should be, Lord.
But Father, help us to take our eyes off of the natural after and switch it to the supernatural,
Lord Jesus.
Because when the supernatural is here, when we can see what God can do, when we can see
what you can do, Lord, then things change.
Then faith arises.
Then hope comes.
So Father God, I pray today you'd bring hope to the hopeless, Lord.
You'd let faith arise and let our enemies be scattered, Lord Jesus.
And let you be glorified in Jesus' name.
Amen.