Moments That Matter - Mark Lassey - Perth - Kingdomcity

good morning church it is great to be here this morning if you're watching online or in the room can I just invite you to lift up your hands we're going to pray who's believing God to do something extraordinary this morning come on God's spirit is not refrained to a room he is going to meet you wherever you are at so Holy Spirit we thank you that you're here and by here we mean everywhere I thank you that you are here to meet with us you're such a deeply personal God I pray that any distance any Gap any sense of lack of awareness would just disappear in the name of Jesus let your voice carry an anointing and Authority that your word be spoken without barrier or intermission and everyone with some Faith said hey man you can grab your seats this morning my name's Mark and I'm part of the team here at Kingdom City and uh I just want you to check on your chair in the room you should have a pen I want you to grab that pen if you are sitting at home or out and about if you can I want you to find the pen we're going to need that at the end of the server so rummage around go to that draw pull out a pin I want you to put it next to you hold it in your hand we're going to need that at the end of the message and I also want you to think about what makes God mad have you ever thought about that what makes God mad maybe it's a a thing that happens subconsciously in the back of your mind maybe you think you've made God mad I'm here to tell you three things that you can't do to make God mad are you ready for this and I really believe it's going to help some people wherever you are it's starts with you cannot make God embarrassed you cannot embarrass God you cannot disappoint God and I think that's really important for us whether we acknowledge it internally as a thought or in our actions a lot of us think that we can disappoint God and the last thing that you can not do is you cannot make God insecure you cannot make God insecure let me explain what I mean by that um you cannot make God embarrassed because an embarrassment is a second-hand emotion if you're a if you're a parent I am sure that's been at some point when you've taken your toddler to some external outing and you're walking them through the shopping center and they're behaving in an ungodly manner you you internally go stop embarrassing me but let me let me tell you why you cannot embarrass God because embarrassment is worrying more about somebody else's thoughts towards your object of Desire than your own and God does not care what anybody else thinks about you apart from himself I I was driving and I was listening to um some stuff that was happening in the church and and I I must say I caught myself thinking man God must be so embarrassed right now these people represent him and I felt the Holy Spirit say no no no no I don't care what anybody else thinks about them and Jeremiah 29 11 says I know the thoughts I have towards them says the Lord It's not I'm waiting on what everybody else thinks about them to decide what I think about them now he says I know my thoughts towards you he's not wiring he's not putting it out to a consensus amongst your family uh do you think they're living up to my standard uh mother-in-law do you think they're being a good son-in-law no he he does not care what anybody else thinks about you he reserves his own thoughts towards you and their thoughts are good to cause you to prosper to cause you to have a future and a hope so I want you to walk out of this room this morning knowing that you do not embarrass God no matter what you've done what you've said where you've been you are here because he loves you you cannot embarrass God he cannot disappoint God the reason why you can't disappoint God is Disappointment is a byproduct of surprise you're surprised by a Moment you're surprised by a person the worst thing is when you lower your expectations and somebody even fails to meet up to that you're like no no I I expected very little from you and you managed to lower that bar even more I don't know if you've had that but sometimes it's like I expect nothing and somehow I'm still disappointed but God is never disappointed because he knows the beginning from the end I I had this experience with my sons um I've got three amazing Sons once his name's Tyler he's 24 years of older I've got a 19 year old Joel and a 13 year old Luke I'm going to talk about them through the service because they're not here and they may not watch online later um but I I was able to get my 19 year old son a car his very first car and I was so excited about it I rang his brother Tyler he's 24 now he's got a he's got a head on his shoulders he's a bit more clear thinking and I said Tyler guess what I've got a car for Joel and I fully expected him to go no way Dad that's amazing you've got him a car but no it couldn't be further from his reaction he looked at me and he goes dad that's a mistake I know what do you mean and he said that is he's got the attention span of a goldfish with ADHD he will wreck that car and I looked at him and I said what do you mean he said he will smash that car he'll run it into a tree he'll back it out into the wheelie bin and he just began to Rattle off all the disastrous things that he could happen and he was so passionate about a pastor Julian he was trying to convince me do not give him this car and I looked at Tyler and I said um let me tell you something is I know and I fully expect Joel Lassie to be an 18 year old idiot we all have been there and I said to him you too were once an 18 year old idiot it excludes nobody but let me tell you what I've done because I'm not going to be disappointed when he backs it into the neighbor's fence I've bought the best insurance policy money could buy and when he writes that car off running it into a curb when he does something stupid I'm going to ring up the RAC our local insurance company and say hey can I cash in that insurance policy and they're going to say yes you insured it for twice the amount that you paid for it praise God that's what I call a win-win situation I'm not going to be disappointed by something that I know is going to happen and God says he loved us while we were yet sinners his great insurance policy is Jesus he knows what you're going to do before you ever did it and he's not surprised or disappointed that you did it he's prepared for it you can't disappoint God and that's hard because some of us work on the motivation don't disappoint some of us have been grown up in families hey don't shame the family's name don't disappoint your parents don't do this and it causes us to be motivated by fear but God never motivates by fear he never does which means the moment that you fall short of the glory of God is the moment the glory is most manifest you cannot embarrass God you cannot disappoint God and you can't make God insecure I used to think that I could make God insecure by not believing in him enough oh God is man I'm sorry God you must be so angry because I didn't but no God I love it in II Timothy it says uh can we put that it says if we are faithless he remains faithful he cannot deny himself in other words his faithfulness is not attached to your ability to believe he's going to keep on being God no matter what you do or what you say or what you don't do or what you don't say his ability to be good is inherent in his being and I love the way that he puts it he can't deny himself he can't he can't change who we are he who he is and I think that should settle our soul in such a profound way that you cannot embarrass God you cannot disappoint him you can't make him insecure but that does lead me to think that if you've ever read any of the Old Testament if I'm not making God mad by embarrassing him or disappointing him or making him insecure I don't know if you've read any of the Old Testament but he seems to get a little edgy frustrated look I'll be honest I I thought he just gets downright ticked angry at this group of people because the context of it is God has chosen this group of people just like he's chosen you and I and he said I want to make you my people I want to love on you I want to show you who I am I I want you to follow me and as You Follow Me it will unpack all of my promises but we get to the end of the Old Testament and there's this book called Malachi Malachi isn't the author's name Malachi literally means message from God so this is God beginning to pen a love letter to this group of people that he has danced with for Generations he has moved in Rhythm and out of rhythm with them he's seen them raised up as a great nation and seen them fall and Tumble he's seen them gone through seasons of absolute abundance and walk through them with season of drought he's seen them in their highs and he's seen them in their lows and he comes to this last book of the Old Testament and he's desperate and I want to read you a passage and and if you're reading along I want you to see if you can pick up the the subtleties of God's emotional state see if you can be aware of of the tone of this letter so in in Malachi chapter 1 verse 6 it says a son honors his father and a servant his master if I am of the father where is my honor and if I am a master where's my reverence says the Lord of hosts to you priests who despise my name yet you say in what way have we despised your name you offered defiled food on my altar but you say in what way have we defiled you by saying the table of the Lord is contemptible and when you offer the blind as a sacrifice is it not evil and when you offer the lame and the sick is it not evil offer it then to your Governor would he be pleased with you would he accept you favorably says the Lord of hosts but now listen to God's heart entreat God's favor that he may be gracious to us while this is being done by our hand will he accept you favorably says the Lord of hosts who is there even among you who would shut the doors so that you would not Kindle Fire on my altar in vain I have no pleasure in you says the Lord of hosts nor will I accept an offering from your hand keep going from the rising of the sun even to its going down my name shall be great among the Gentiles in every place incense shall be offered to my name and pure offerings for my name shall be great amongst the Nations says the Lord of hosts but you profane it in that you say the table of the Lord is defiled and it's fruit and its food is contemptible you always say you also say what weariness and you sneer at it says the Lord of hosts and you bring the stolen and the lame and the sick does she bring an offering should I accept it from your hand says the Lord of hosts but curse be the deceiver who has in his flock a male and takes a vow but sacrifices to the Lord what is blemished for I am a great king says the Lord of hosts and my name is to be feared amongst the Nations five points for guessing the emotional state of the Lord right there I'm picking up a subtlety a temperament of anoint here is here is God and you've got to understand the context God has walked patiently desperate to show who he is to this group of people he has designed to call his own and he comes to the end of the Old Testament and he writes this letter from a position not of anger but of anguish he he's desperate for them to lean in as much as he is and there's three times in this passage where he makes this statement and I don't know if you caught it and and if you don't read it in the correct context it sounds like God is insecure and the great king I'm really important and and I I can do lots of really good things and you're not letting me so come tell me that I'm really important I'm a great king and everybody should know but God's not insecure he doesn't need your affirmation to secure his identity as the great Almighty so what is it that he's asking this group of people if he's saying I'm a great king the secret is in the process see he asked this group of people to bring their best I want you to take your best cattle I want you to take your best calf I want you to take the male that has the ability to reproduce to create a future I want you to take listen to me I want you to take what matters and I want you to bring it to me now for some of those people they would take that and they would walk hours sometimes days and weeks because there was only one place that an offering would be worthy and they would bring it to the temple and they would lay it at that Temple but what was more important than the process was the promise that God said if you bring what matters to you if you bring what means something to you I will give you what matters to me I will pour out something significant upon your world now when God did that at the very beginning of the formation of this group of people they were desperately trying to work out how to get God's favor before God had stipulated this process they would literally cut themselves scream run around like lunatics desperately trying to guess how do we get God's favor and God out of his Mercy comes down and he says let me show you how you just take the best that you have and when you bring the best that you have and lay it at my altar I will give you the best that I have and deliver it to you now the thing I love about God's nature in that moment is is I don't know if you've ever been somewhere and had to follow somebody's direction that is really familiar with how to get there but you have no idea I had a friend of mine that I I needed to get to his house so so his house happened to be in in teby Uganda now I haven't been to entebbe Uganda before I don't know the local streets and his instructions were something like this all right Mark what I want you to do is I want you to go to the end of the road turn left once you get to that t-junction you'll see a cow turn right at the Cow I'm like are left right at the Cow once you get there you'll see some meat hanging in the window turn opposite like you do a U-turn and I he he can he continued this type of instruction for about seven minutes and it goes easy then you'll see the place on the left I was like my goodness gracious I am never getting there how many can be thankful that God does not have promises attached to turn left at the Cow he's so clear and concise to this group of people he's like man I want to show you exactly how to step into the promises I want to show you exactly when you can walk in my favor come on let's do this together and he says I want to show the world how great a God I am and the way that I'm going to do it is to bring Kingdom to the city he says I'm a great king three times he said but he doesn't say it for himself he says I'm a great king and my name is to be feared amongst the nations in other words when they look at a group of people that follow Jesus so directly and so concisely and have a heart of obedience the world will look at them and say how do you do so much with so little how do you have a peace that surpasses Beyond understanding how do you have a flow that isn't disrupted no matter what the economic Tides come and go that's what God had for this group of people and he says to them guys I'm a great king but you are stopping me blessing you then I asked that question what makes God mad I believe there's one reason that you can make God mad stop him blessing you tie his hands behind your back with the lack of follow through keep what matters to you from his hands just just do your whole week ignoring his Blessing and favor just just come into church without leaning in or opening up your heart just just tie his hands he's desperate hands that are so in love with you and so Desiring to bless you so Desiring to pour out his affection and his protection to you and just go God I can do it on my own that's what this group of people are literally saying oh what weariness oh do we have to do do we have to do this church thing again oh didn't we have a conference last year another gathering lift up my hands again that's literally what they're saying God's on the other side gone come on lift your hands come to Gathering pour out your heart I'm ready for you and they're like no thank you Lord I can do it on my own imagine how anguished God's heart is that he's like I'm a great king I'm a king that loves you that wants to protect you and let's flip to Malachi chapter 3. God's heart again for I am the Lord I do not change thank goodness about that he's saying I haven't changed my plan I'm not the guy that goes hey turn left at the at the cow on Google Maps to your promise I'm the one you press in the destination I'll tell you turn left turn right turn left turn right stand sit lift up your hands be obedient give of this take of that speak now says I don't change therefore you have not been consumed you hear God's heart man I'm you're breaking my heart but not letting me bless you therefore you are not consumed o sons of Jacob yet from the days of your father you have gone away from my ordinances and you have not kept them ordinances are that pathway you've stopped well listen to this I love this return to me and I'll return to you can you hear God's heart I'm not disappointed I'm not embarrassed and I'm not insecure I just want to bless you can you can you come back to me can you come back right now just lift up your hands at the end of the service we're going to ask people that come and start to follow Jesus maybe you walked away maybe you walked in here today and God is a distant memory you have lived your life independent of God maybe you think you've embarrassed him or disappointed him I'm here to tell you turn to him and he will turn to you it says I will return to you says the Lord of hosts but listen to their phrase but you say in what way shall we return I didn't know we left nothing worse than following somebody that doesn't know that they're lost it's a whole nation of people that don't even realize they're lost but God's like all right all right I'll clear up any misconception will a man rob God yet you have robbed me but you say we don't know how you've robbed God we don't know how we've done it in what way have we robbed you clear this up in the tides in the offerings in other words you rob me of what matters to you you've taken that 10 you've taken the first and you've gone man this really means something I don't know how I'm going to do life this week without it I don't know how I'm going to provide so I'm going to I'm gonna entrust myself rather than God it says the tides and the offerings you are cursed with a curse for you have robbed me even in this the whole nation bring all the tides to the storehouses that there may be food in my house listen listen you've got to listen to God's heart you think you're robbing God of money when you withhold your tires no this is what you're robbing God off the ability to open the windows of Heaven and pour out such a blessing that there will not be room enough to receive it remember God can't change he said this is my pathway and this is my promise I'm not going to give you my promise without you following my pathway so come back return to me and I will return to you and I will rebuke the Devourer for your sake so there so he so he will not destroy the fruit of your ground nor shall the vine fail to bear fruit for you in the field says the Lord of hosts and listen to his whole plan from the very beginning and all the nations of the Earth so it's like hey I've got a plan to show what a great king I am but you've stopped me you've taken what matters to you and you've withheld it from me my whole plan is to bless the entire planet because Kingdom City because I I want to I want to bring my kingdom rule I want to bring my kingdom anointing I want to bring my kingdom reality I want to bring my kingdom healing I want to bring my kingdom Provisions I want to give my kingdom thinking I want to bring my kingdom strategy come on you've got to hear what God is saying he wants to bring his kingdom to Earth as on heaven let it be on earth that's his whole plan and all the nations will call you blessed I love this for you will be a delightful land says the Lord of hosts can you hear his heart we're not starting a prayer rap just to feel the time we're saying God our time matters to you I I I I signed up first thing Monday morning I think six to seven o'clock I said I'm like God this week matters to me therefore I'm bringing it to you this moment matters six to seven o'clock Sunday God I don't want to stand on a platform with my own agenda God this matters to you this moment matters to you you're sitting in your home in your Lounge room you're driving in your car that moment right here matters to you and I want to share a story in closing where this became more a reality to me than ever before the end of May I received the phone call at 11 57 at night and it was my mum my mom said to me Mark um your dad just died and I was a bit confused because at the same time my Grandad who was 96 was in the hospital so I said to my mom no you mean your dad she said no Mark your dad no granddad no no your dad and I just sat there my my dad was 64 years of age had some health issues but the last 10 months were the best 10 months that he's had for 10 years and I couldn't comprehend it in that moment I don't know if you've ever had news like that but that emotion just sat with me this this sense of bewilderness so I picked up my brother that night and drove down to jaredale which is south of Perth and I saw my dad lying on the dirt in his garage and I was able to spend a couple of hours just sitting there talking to my brother my sister sharing some memories but the hardest thing was in the days after because my granddad was in hospital we didn't get to be emotionally present for what had happened with my dad and seven days later my granddad passed away Friday my dad passes seven days later Friday my granddad passes and I must say I wasn't prepared for it emotionally or mentally and I was driving home from having a meeting with the funeral directors this is after having to get my sister who lives in Uganda over another brother lives in Tasmania another brother lives in kalgoorlie and most of my time was caught up with the logistical and practical elements of it I I hadn't yet been able to feel the weight and the gravity which I desperately wanted to but I didn't know how to do that at the same time as being practically prepared for what I needed so I was driving home one night and I could feel this disconnect in my soul I could feel that I wasn't feeling what I was meant to but I didn't want to feel it because I knew that that would make me less effective for all the logistical stuff that was just needed to happen and I started this internal dialogue when I get home I'm just gonna jump on my phone or get on Netflix and just detach maybe watch something for a while and I caught myself going no that's not that's probably not healthy as a coping mechanism so I thought you know what I'm gonna do I'm gonna I'm gonna start to ring some friends so I picked up my phone and I rang a good friend of mine Pastor Chad Harding and I press his number and Pastor Chad's being such a faithful friend over this period of time and I I picked it up and it started to ring and ring and just never picked up that's okay I'll ring somebody else so I I picked up the phone and I started to ring another friend of mine Pastor Mike cumberstone he didn't pick up either so I'm driving home and I start to kind of get angry like for crying out loud God this is the time that I need somebody this is the time I want somebody to lean in this is the time I need some words of affirmation this is some time that I just need somebody to minister to my soul and I went to pick up my phone and I felt the holy spirit so clearly say to me no no no Mark I want this moment for me it's funny in those moment you have this kind of no no I'm okay God I've got some good friends it's okay you've got time for me so I continue to drive down to the West Coast drive and parking my car near Hillary's Boat Harbor and I just began to walk up it's about four o'clock the end of May most of us here in Perth know that in the afternoon you get the Fremantle doctor and it's pretty choppy and windy nearly every afternoon but as I got out the car and I began to walk up the road it's a beautiful bit of Perth Western Australia you've got the ocean on on the right there and you've got beautiful houses and it's just a magical spot and I began to walk and and almost instantaneously I I noticed how clear and how still the water was I've never seen the Indian Ocean like this before it's like glass it's like wow it's amazing and I looked across and none of the sea grass was moving a centimeter there wasn't a bush that leaves were quivering and I began to Marvel at the calmness of the weather that then I realized it wasn't the calmness of the weather that was affecting me it was his presence and I felt it in every part of my soul I felt this peace I I felt it in a way that it began to clear my mind and beginning to lift up weight off my shoulders are beginning to give me joy in a time I had no right to be joyful and I looked across the Indian Ocean and about two or three kilometers out to sea I noticed that there was an intense storm I'm talking about the darkest Grays to blacks Sheets of Rain just falling lightning in these clouds and I heard God say just because that is happening in your world I can still give you this peace and I thought to myself Pastor Chad couldn't do that Netflix couldn't do that [Music] no I went home that day and I got out a note pattern and I began to write some may call it a journal but I don't think that's manly so we call it a notepad and I got a pen and I started to write God is so good man he loves me he knows me and he knows exactly what I need and this piece man didn't give it and man can't take it away and I just began to write and I felt the Holy Spirit come upon me and he said to me Mark stop giving the author's pen to anybody else it's mine and there's moments in our lives every single one of us that walked in here and you're running around with the author's pen running it to your wife saying can you tell me how valuable I am if you run it to the doctors and the doctors are writing out your report and you just you're asking them can you tell me what my future is and God is here today saying will you give me back my pen will you give it back to me you are living in anxiety and fear you are working yourself to the Bone because you've forgotten that he is a great king and he wants to desperately come down stop taking this pen and saying hey hey mother-in-law can you write my story Pastor can you write no this is the moment where we all stand to our feet and if you're sitting at home I want you to get your pen in your hand foreign [Music] tell me as we were praying this morning there's people who are letting doctors write your report doctors write your future God is asking you trust me I can give you peace people are in this room today and you lost your job this week and you're like I don't know what I'm gonna do can you let him write what it means there are families parents whose sons and daughters are away from God and you're desperately trying to write them back into your story God's saying can you can you just give me back that PIN a I'm the author and I'm the finisher I'm the Perfecter over the next few weeks we're going to do fasting and prayer we're going to go into a gathering with an expectancy because sometimes our flesh is so strong we are holding on to that pen every day of fasting is going God I'm coming back to you God I'm desperately needing you because I don't know what to do and this is the truth my idea of who God was wasn't big enough for my reality until it was until I said God I'm not gonna ring anybody else I'm not going to sit in neither moment and watch something on TV that numbs my soul God tear my soul open let it find devotion let it find the affirmation that you are so willing to give back to me in the multiples