Imperfect Faith Can STILL Bring You Face to Face with Jesus!

I'm back! My apologies for the long break - I can no longer let life interfere with the power of the teaching of grace and glory! This sermon was preached by Rob Rufus

"Let’s open to 2nd Corinthians chapter 1. I am so excited about this message that I have just got to control myself. We are getting an increasing number of emails from around the world from people thanking us for our stand on grace and some emails you think are exaggerated. The gratitude has shifted from simply thanking me to thanking the people of City Church International. There are tens of thousands of people out there realising it is not simply about preaching a message but a message being embodied and incarnated in a people.

The price you pay to stand for a message of grace when there are anti-grace spirits – grace-hating spirits that want to discourage and confuse us and cause difficulties are realising that the price we are paying is producing life for the churches out there.

There is an apostolic thing Paul speaks about where he says; “We die daily that you may experience life”. We are experiencing life here in abundance but there is a price in our stand that is causing thousands of people around the world to take hope and come out from guilt, condemnation, law and bondage into freedom of grace in Christ Jesus. People are moving from a mixture of Old and New Covenant through the finished work of the Cross into the liberty of the blessing of the New Covenant. So they are getting revelation – a theological revolution. Churches and regions are being changed! Our 5 and a half years has literally impacted nations around the world. I can’t read all of them to you because they speak of details and I don’t want to reveal their names. Years of pressure, performance and guilt – and they all speak about coming into the freedom found in Jesus Christ! And they all mention you guys!

I want to talk about how imperfect faith – even imperfect faith – can bring you face to face with Jesus, into supernatural encounters with the Presence and power of God.

I want 2nd Corinthians to be a foundation to what I say;

2 Corinthians 1:2-4; “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Father of all mercies and the God of all comfort … that we may be able to comfort those who are in trouble with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God”.

Within your sorrow is a seed that becomes the life and key that unlocks other people out of the pain of their problems.

If we don’t understand that the pain we go through and the sorrow we experience are to gain deeper intimacy with the comfort of God, that we would see our calling is to comfort people in their troubles by the comfort we receive in our troubles. If we don’t understand this then sooner or later we will allow our troubles and sorrow to define us. When we allow trouble to define us we become melancholic, morbid and very negative people.

The way to make the devil pay for the trouble he puts on you is to see your troubles as becoming a seed of grace that you can sow into someone else’s life.

Many people are within you that will benefit from the comfort you experience in your trouble and your understanding of the goodness of God to bring that comfort into their lives.

When a woman has a baby, she forgets the pain because inside that pain is a treasure that is given to someone else.

If we forget this then we think that pain, sorrow and difficulties are there to just to talk about all the time. That is like a mother getting off the birthing table and disregarding the baby there and going to the phone and calling all her family and friends and relatives and telling them about the terrible pain she has been through without once mentioning the baby! She has forgotten that the pain is not about trouble itself, but within the trouble is a seed of grace for someone else. In your trouble there is a life-saving seed of grace for someone else.

I have been counselled in the lowest moments of my life by two groups of people. Those who have ideals, never been through trouble or pain and have lots of Bible verses to quote and lots of inexperienced knowledge. When you have come out of their presence you feel worse! The other people bear the scars of pain, disappointment and difficulties and when they comfort you they sow seeds of grace into your life so you are freed up from self-pity, discouragement, deception that was trying to take you out in your disillusionment.

We are a people that don’t teach that if you have faith you will not go through trouble. Paul the apostle went through all kinds of troubles but he said; “These are working for me an exceeding weight of glory! Compared to the weight of glory they are building up for me – these troubles are light and momentary afflictions”. So we don’t say if you have faith, you won’t go through trouble. We are saying if you have faith you will find the God of all comfort in your trouble that will make you a humble, tender-hearted person that will sow grace into other people’s trouble.

Turn to Mark chapter 5. Let’s bow our heads in prayer – I can really sense the Presence of God here and the presence of angels. When Glenda was getting up to give the announcements I could feel the angelic presence in this room.

“Father we want to thank You for assigning angels to minister in this room – the ministers of winds and fire – we ask they would refresh the people of God. We want to thank You for Your greatest and most wonderful gift – Jesus Christ Your Son. Every spiritual blessing we have is in Christ Jesus. We thank You that every promise you have made to us are YES in Christ Jesus. Holy Spirit we invite You to come and reveal Jesus in this place, reveal Your glory – that we would know that abiding place of intimacy – that we in our sorrows would be able to discover the seed of grace to sow into other people’s lives here in Hong Kong and around the world”.

I want to read this passage in Mark 5 because it is my favourite passage for speaking on the transference of the anointing. But I don’t want to look at it from that point of view today, but a different point of view and I believe some gold nuggets will come out of this today that will bring you into a greater place of intimacy with Jesus Himself. I will draw your attention to certain phrases and words and will comment on them.

(v21); “21 Now when Jesus had crossed over again by boat to the other side, a great multitude gathered to Him; and He was by the sea. 22 And behold, one of the rulers of the synagogue came, Jairus by name. And when he saw Him, he fell at His feet 23 and begged Him earnestly, saying, “My little daughter lies at the point of death. Come and lay Your hands on her, that she may be healed, and she will live.” 24 So Jesus went with him, and a great multitude followed Him and thronged Him. 25 Now a certain woman had a flow of blood for twelve years, 26 and had suffered many things from many physicians. She had spent all that she had and was no better, but rather grew worse”.

The Bible honours doctors as do we but here it didn’t work for this dear one.

27 “When she heard about Jesus”

That is the pivotal phrase for this message. She had never met Him or been in His meetings, she had just heard about Him.

“She came behind Him”.

Also very important – she didn’t come in front of Him to His face. She came behind Him.

“In the crowd and touched His garment. 28 For she said, “If only I may touch His clothes, I shall be made well.” 29 Immediately the fountain of her blood was dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of the affliction. 30 And Jesus, immediately knowing in Himself that power had gone out of Him, turned around in the crowd and said, “Who touched My clothes?”
31 But His disciples said to Him, “You see the multitude thronging You, and You say, ‘Who touched Me?’” 32 And He looked around to see her who had done this thing. 33 But the woman, fearing and trembling, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell down before Him”.

She came behind Him but now was before Him.

34 And He said to her, “Daughter”.

That is identity.

“Your faith has made you well. Go in peace, and be healed of your affliction.”

The Greek is literally; “Go into peace”. “Soterio” – completeness, salvation, protection. Go into peace – you have been made well. God wants to make your emotions, your soul, your spirit, your finances, your relationships well. Go into soterio “daughter”. Your faith has made you well!

35 "While He was still speaking, some came from the ruler of the synagogue’s house who said, “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the Teacher any further?” 36 As soon as Jesus heard the word that was spoken, He said to the ruler of the synagogue, “Do not be afraid; only believe.” 37 And He permitted no one to follow Him except Peter, James, and John the brother of James".

Very pivotal – only Peter, James and John.

39 When He came in, He said to them, “Why make this commotion and weep? The child is not dead, but sleeping.” 40 And they ridiculed Him.

What does Jesus do with people who ridicule His faith?

“But when He had put them all outside He took the father and the mother of the child, and those who were with Him, and entered where the child was lying. 41 Then He took the child by the hand, and said to her, “Talitha, cumi,” which is translated, “Little girl, I say to you, arise.” 42 Immediately the girl arose and walked, for she was twelve years of age”.

The lady who had the bleeding, had it for 12 years. The little girl was 12. It is not a coincidence.

“And they were overcome with great amazement. 43 But He commanded them strictly that no one should know it, and said that something should be given her to eat”. (chapter 6:56); “Wherever He entered into villages … they begged Him that they could touch the hem of His garment and as many touched Him were made well”.

Now in the previous chapter we saw thousands touching Him and none were healed or experienced what this one woman experienced. The seed of her 12 years of sorrow became a sowing of grace into multitudes of thousands of people that found a way to touch Him differently to the way they had touched Him before. God hasn’t caused any tragedy or trouble in your life – it is the devil behind that. He turns that sorrow into a seed of life that unlocks someone else out of the pain of their problems. She had never met Him or been in one of His meetings. Many who read the gospels (and I have thought this) if only we could have been on the earth when He walked it and could have been in His meetings and heard His gracious words from His mouth or seen His face as He spoke of the love of His Father and the Kingdom coming to earth! Oh if only I could have heard Jesus speak and been on the front row within touching distance!

This lady was in none of His meetings and had never met Him – only HEARD about Him! What could she have heard? Never anything about the Moses law concerning Him. John 1 says the law was given through Moses but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. Leviticus 15 says any woman any woman with an issue of blood is forbidden from going into a public place. The sentence is immediate stoning and Jarius – the synagogue ruler – had authority to exercise that and he was right there next to Jesus. Leviticus says a woman going into a public place makes everywhere she goes unclean and everything she touches she makes unclean. But this woman touched Jesus in her unclean state and was healed! What did she hear about Jesus?

She would have heard that this rabbi was touching unclean people.

Lepers were being touched by Jesus and being healed. Under the law leprosy was considered unclean. Jesus touched lepers and laid His hands on lepers and they were immediately healed. Jesus went into the synagogue where a woman was bound over for 18 years with a demonic spirit and the synagogue rulers were teaching the law to her – and the law was telling her you are crippled because you failed the law. Jesus came in and called her a daughter of Abraham – because 430 years before the Law Abraham was a covenant of grace! He said; “You are a daughter of Abraham – you ought to be healed on the Sabbath day”. He laid His hands on her and she straightened up. She would have heard that Jesus laid His hands on a prostitute called Mary Magdalene and when Jesus laid His hands on Mary, the Bible says seven devils came out of her and she was set free from prostitution. She would have heard some marvellous things.

Now – when the crowd was touching Jesus, why weren’t they healed? Why weren’t they changed or benefited? They hadn’t heard about Jesus the way this woman had heard about Jesus. They would have heard He was a rabbi and was demanding you keep standards to earn and deserve.

But when they found out that an unclean woman actively breaking the Levitical law touched Him and was healed, the multitudes from that day began to touch Him in a different way – and you could say that the seed of her sorrow was a seed of grace that influenced thousands of people to get healed in the very next chapter!

The more people that touched Jesus differently, the more people will see that the seed of our sorrow is becoming a seed of grace to touch thousands of churches around the world and touch thousands of people in Hong Kong. It is very important that people hear about the true Jesus. A lot of people struggle to have faith for healing. I am not sure if I even understand faith anymore. Kathryn Kuhlman had a ministry that got far more people healed and some of the worst crippled people and blind people – thousands of them. She said;

“I don’t understand faith but I know my wonderful Jesus suddenly comes and fills the room and people get healed without me even praying for them!”. I don’t think it’s about faith for hearing as much as hearing about the true Jesus.

I believe this woman had imperfect faith – how do I know that? She came behind Him, not to the front of His face. Under the law you couldn’t see the face of God. Moses said; “God – show me Your glory!”. God said; “No man can see My face and live so I will hide you in the cleft of the rock and will walk by and you will see My hind parts”. She had imperfect faith – she came to His hind parts. She heard about Jesus and touched Him and the next minute she was healed, and the next minute He was calling her to His face. Through grace God in Christ came to reveal His face to humanity. Imperfect faith came to touch His hind parts like Moses. But once she was healed, she was called to His face and when she looked into His face the first thing she heard was “Daughter”. God said “Daughter”.

I also know something very special here – we must understand something. What we say about Jesus. People think I criticise everything that moves under the sun and some have called me a divisive man. Someone has to get passionate! Someone has to get stirred up and a righteous anger because multitudes of mesmerised, hypnotised Christians sit in pews having been sold a bill of lies Sunday after Sunday, century after century with arrears of doctrinal deception about God. We have got people saying that God makes you sick to make you more holy! People want to know why we don’t see more healings – we have got hundreds of years of the traditions of men that have deceived people into unbelief and have misrepresented Jesus. The devil is behind it! “Did God really say?”. I have done all the things wrong and have preached things wrong and have misrepresented God in my past.

But when I came to Hong Kong I was determined to faithfully reveal the New Covenant and the true nature of God where the people of God are in New Covenant and no longer under law and are in 100% grace and grace alone with no condemnation to those that are in Christ. I said I am going to do that God no matter how much I am mis-understood and I am going to hold my line".

Quickly go to Romans chapter 3:3-4. “Will their lack of faith nullify God’s faithfulness? Not at all! Let God be true and every man a liar”. What is so important today is that we need to see there is a difference between facts and truth.

So many people in the church are believers in theory. But the reality is that the administration of their life is closer to a practical atheist. There is very little in these Christians lives that you have to say they are solving problems through faith. They are solving their problems by “what is” and are dealing with “what is” by “what is”. So they are multiplying their problems.

This creates so much controversy and pain and I wanted to deal with this so sensitively and I just don’t have the time. Let me say I am dealing with this from a sensitive heart.

The fact is that you may have sickness in your body. The truth is that by His stripes - you WERE healed. The fact is you may be in financial debt - the truth is that at the Cross He has ALREADY redeemed you from the curse of poverty that the prosperity of Abraham may come upon you. The fact is that you may have sinned and done something seriously wrong - you may have failed God - that is the fact. The truth is you are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus.

There is coming a defining and dividing dispensation in our time of the people of God who chose to be wrapped up in the facts or be wrapped up in the truth. If you focus on the facts then you will chose the things that are to nullify the things that are. But if you focus on the truth then you will chose the things that are not to nullify the things that are. You will seek the covering presence of the cherubims and the glory to get into the Presence of the God who calls things that be not as though they were.

I want you to look in John chapter 8 very quickly. Any fact that does not line up with the truth of God’s Word is a fact waiting to be nullified by the things that are not. I want you to look quickly at John chapter 8. I want to show you that Jesus constantly spoke about the two worlds - the superior world of heaven and the world that is from below that is temporarily corrupted by satanic deception. Satan has a system of politics, economics and education of doing things and God has a heavenly system of doing things and He says - let Your kingdom come, let Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. When we begin to get into the world’s system, we begin to try to deal with problems of what is - by dealing with what is.

Jesus says here - in John chapter 8 and verse 23; “I am from above, I am not of this world”. If you go to verse 28, Jesus said; “I am the One I claim to be … but speak what the Father has taught Me … He has not left Me alone”. That is the key theme of what I want to talk about in the coming weeks. He has not left me alone. “The truth will set you free”. What will the truth set you free from? It will set you free from the facts. Are you wrapped up in the truth of God’s Word or are you wrapped up in the facts? Now we are not to deny the facts - we have to face the facts and recognise that they are there. But we are then to look on the things that are unseen and get wrapped up in the truth.

It is not a waste of time to be lying on the floor soaking under the manifest glory of God - it is not a waste of time to go into the secret place and let God love you and manifest His glory over you and saturate you so every cell in your body is vibrating with eternal life, divine virtue and divine quickening of your mortal body so that God can then do the things that are impossible to do.

I wonder has God really called us to have faith for miracles? Or has He called us to have faith to surrender our whole life to come under His hovering Presence? Because when you want to have faith for miracles, it puts all the pressure on you to have faith. If all you are saying is; “God I know I can have faith for Your manifest Presence” - then the God who does miracles does the miracle.

I can’t do the miracle and neither can you. What do we need to have faith for? His hovering Presence. God has to come out of the invisible and manifest tangibly. No miracle can happen unless the Presence of God manifests tangibly in reality so that your very physical body can feel His Presence. Go to Jeremiah 32. Jeremiah 32 is God’s announcement of the superiority of the New Covenant. Most of you have heard me read this and quote it but I want to read it again. Verse 40. We no longer earn or deserve the blessing, Jesus Christ earned the blessings on our behalf and redeemed us from the curse of the law that the blessings may come on our lives through faith and faith alone. So Jeremiah 32:40 says; “I will never stop doing good to them”. How long is never? Does never ever run out? “I will rejoice …”. The Hebrew word means; “To turn and twist with deep emotions of ecstasy and joy in doing us good”. V41 again.

Let me put these two verses together - then the will of God is to NEVER stop doing you good! 24/7 every second He wants to do you good! How does He do us good? With rejoicing! So if He never wants to stop doing you good then it means that He never wants to stop dancing with deep emotions and twists and turns and ecstasy in doing you good. The greatest fun God gets - is doing you good!

Why do so few Christians feel a consciousness that the Creator is not remote and a distant deity but He is a very engaged Being that is literally dancing over me and you with ecstasy and deep feelings of wanting to do us good and never will stop doing us good? How come that is not reflected in the life of the church?

I think it was when Jesus said - your traditions have nullified the Word of God. I don’t think people believe this. I don’t think people have the faith to surrender to the covering Presence of the God that calls the things that be not as though they were. I think people have got caught up in rituals and religion and ceremonies. Religious principles and protocol - but have we got caught up in revelation and eternal intuition and insight into this God dancing over you all the time? We have been told that when God manifests over us it is a sovereign initiative and there is nothing you can do about it and He will just come. Now the gifts of the Spirit operate as the Spirit wills but I am not talking about the gifts here today. Jeremiah 32 is not God talking about the gifts - it is God talking about Himself dancing over you all the time!

Some of you have heard my account of when I went to Brighton two years ago and I was invited to be the main speaker at a conference for about 5000 leaders. The weekend before the conference Terry Virgo invited me to come to the church he is based at that he has planted - it is quite a large church - and minister Sunday morning and Sunday night. So I preached Sunday morning and came back Sunday night and it was packed out. People had come from all over and they had brought lots of sick people and I preached again in the evening but realised I had to pace myself because I had to preach seven times in the week to thousands of people. At the end of the evening service I thought I had to get out of the door and then saw this long queue lining up and the first one had crippled hips and I just knew that it was not going to happen. I couldn’t do it. Someone said “Will you come over?” and as I am walking over I suddenly felt over my physical body, my head and everywhere the dancing God. He was wanting to rejoice over doing me good and anyone that got into my radius.

Any time you watch a DVD of an evangelist or a preacher and see someone bringing them out of the wheelchair with boldness and no lack of confidence - anytime you see that, don’t think that is their natural temperament. They are under something. I am tired of ministering to broken lives if I am not under something. It is just flesh and religion. “Come out in Jesus Name!”. “I am not coming out”.

As I got closer I could just feel the intensifying dancing of a God who just wanted to do me good and anyone around me - this God of perfect love. I walked up to the first lady and I said; “Lady what do you need?”. That’s all I did. I didn’t put my hands on her or pray and I felt this all around me. She started to describe her symptoms and about 30 seconds into her describing the symptoms (I had said nothing - just fixed my eyes on her) she started shaking. I hadn’t prayed for her, hadn’t said “In the Name of Jesus” or put my hands on her and she started shaking and vibrating and then she falls over! I just was standing there listening to the symptoms. A minute or two later she got up and her hips were totally straight. I said “Next!”. 20 people - about 8 out of 10 - the exact same thing happened. I never prayed for them - it was effortless! I didn’t have to speak! While giving me their symptoms they were healed!

I think that is closer to the Jesus ministry than what I see. Mark chapter 1 He walked into the temple and a demonised man started screaming. “Aaagh why have You come before our time?”. He hadn’t preached yet! Shut up - and come out. They marvelled at His authority.

In Eastbourne in southern England quite recently I went to speak at a conference there with Glenda and Millie was there. On the last night I was tired. The pastor came and in the large hall there was a bunch of people there who had the worst crippling conditions I had seen. I know if you are trying to get cripples healed and that thing is not over you - it is shocking. You are trying to pretend you know what you are doing but you don’t have a hope of getting them healed! You can go through the religious formulas and pretend something has happened but everyone with the know-how knows that nothing is happening. It is almost disgusting and discrediting the real ministry of Jesus!

So I walk over there and as I get closer the dancing God comes over me. Suddenly I am not Clarke Kent - I am now Superman. But it is not me! As I am walking it is getting stronger and stronger and I see this woman who is crippled and as I get closer and closer the demons start screaming; “Aaagh leave us! Leave us!”. Literally! And they are out. They are gone. She topples over and gets up healed. Everyone I step towards are healed. Many of you saw the DVD I brought back of dozens of people. One lady was so crippled she couldn’t pick up her child - and her husband had to leave his career to look after her children full time. She went down under the power and the next morning she came dancing into church.

How many of you think this is the love of God - how many of you think it is shocking and disgusting that we do not see more of these things?

Because of the traditions of men! Let me tell you honestly and vulnerably - I have been doing this for 30 years. I want to tell you what I have just described today has only happened to me maybe about 100 times. I have daily anointing! I am not talking about anointing here or the gifts of the Spirit but God coming. Actually He is not coming - He is always there. But why isn’t He always manifested? He said I will never stop doing you good - I will rejoice and dwell to do you good! If I can come under the dancing God all the time then maybe you and me can start approximating the promise of John 14:12; “Anyone who believes in Me .. And even greater works”. Acts 10:38 said that God anointed Jesus with power and He went about doing good and healing ALL. If Jesus could go about any time of day, any second if anyone touched Him in the crowd, anyone that asked for healing, He could give healing on the spot!

I suspect that Jesus walked under the glory Presence of the Father all the time! The religious world has told me that any time He comes and does that it is just a sovereign mood of God. I think you and I have got something to do. I am now convinced that the will of the Father by the witness of the Spirit in my heart - the inheritance of every person that says Jesus is my Lord are meant to walk for most of our time under the manifest Presence.

I have said before that you wouldn’t be able to get to sleep it is so powerful. If you have never experienced this I wish I could put it on you today because you can never describe it - you don’t know what it is like to walk up to crippled people without that and know the fear that comes over you. The terror of knowing you are going to disappoint them. You have no idea what that is like if you havent done it. Neither do you have any idea what it is like when you are moving towards them and He comes over you - there is NO fear just utter, reckless boldness! You just know that nothing can get in the way, just an invincible sense of God over you.


People have watched people with that power over them and when they don’t have that power have tried to copy as a formula and have tried to pull people out of wheelchairs and then they just fall on the ground. When you are under that power you do things that you would never do. You are not copying. You are not mimicking someone else under the power - just because God is on you! Maybe it will lift slightly in intensity every now and again so you can relax a bit but I believe it should be there on call so quick! Imagine how your mortal body would be renewed in your youth with resurrection life. The grey hair turned dark again! Cellular regeneration! Rob how do you live in that all the time? You want to know? There are people who lecture in Harvard on how to run a business who have never run a business. You have theology professors teaching on the gifts of the Spirit in seminaries who have never moved in the gifts of the Spirit.

You cannot give away what you don’t have.

I don’t want people giving me information on the Kingdom - I am sick and tired of Bible information. I know the Bible pretty much well from back to front - but my biggest need right now is to learn from someone who has got the goods. It is a sign of hunger that you say you want to know - but to tell you the truth, I don’t really know. I have never met a person who does know. Except One. This is what I suspect He is whispering to me (and I am just giving you my suspicion). Two words; “Total surrender to the Holy Spirit”. Not less of me and more of you. NONE of me and ALL of you! Every part of my life, everything that I am - whatever you want me to do and give up - everything I surrender. I want to be branded by your jealous love and possessed by your jealous love. Rob how do you surrender?

How do you come to that place of surrender? I don’t know but this is what I suspect - you have to become so disillusioned with your failures to get the sick healed and so horrified at the lack of knowledge of the revelation of God chosing the things that be not to nullify the things that are and so horrified with your failure. You have to come to the end of your reputation in the eyes of men and so utterly embarrassed. I think you have to go through pain and try to get the sick healed and misunderstood and accused by those who didn’t get healed that it was your fault and you are a failure. And live with the rejection and misunderstanding. You have to live with the agony and lay on your face at night and say I am a failure in so many areas of supernatural ministry.

Dear Jesus all I have left is my love for You and if you can take that and take something that is not and nullify the things that are then I offer my body and soul and spirit as a living sacrifice that something I have only seen 100 times will become something that happens all the time. That the millions in Hong Kong do not need to be deprived of a church that has fully surrendered. I know not everyone wants to surrender like that. The vast majority of Christians are more caught up in the things that are and more caught up in their careers.

I can't describe to people the pain and rejection I have walked through in the last few months - the rejection involving thousands of people, people we have known for 25 years, the lies and cold shoulders. That could make you paranoid and reactionary and bitter or it can backfire on the devil and precipitate in you a face on the ground, a laid down lover that surrenders all. I live with eternity with nothing and surrender. We have to be emptied of every fleshly delusional arrogance and pride and all controversy against God and come to trust Him. When you sin and make mistakes and lose your temper, you look to God who chooses the things that are not to nullify the things that are. His grace to me is abounding - He will never reject me or disapprove of me - He is for me! What can be against me? He so sees you as precious that He doesn’t want you to have any idols or distractions - He wants you because you are such a jewel and precious. He wants you completely! And we don’t!

We think we have surrendered all but we have had hostility and defences and complaints and pride and self-promotion against Him! But pain takes that away. It either makes you bitter or makes you better. Every time Satan comes, he comes to make you bitter. If you chose to use the things that are to make the things that are then you are going to get bitter. But if you get revelation to use the things that are not and get into the Presence of the Living God who uses the things that be not as though they are then this good God will manifest His dancing over you. And when you walk through a place that place will be benefited because you were there. People in your radius will feel the unseen world touching you.

Close your eyes - He is here now.

Kathryn Kuhlman used to say “God isn’t looking for golden vessels or silver vessels - but yielded vessels”.

Pioneers in the Miraculous

This is Rob Rufus's message from City Church International in Hong Kong on Sunday 10th May 2009. It is not quite a classic sermon but there are some essential elements vital to anyone interested in the grace revolution. He starts off by movingly sharing about a member of their congregation who died prematurely and the church's reaction to that - and also about their efforts to raise him from the dead. Then he shares some testimonies from "Grace and Glory 2009" and the resulting impact around the world. Finally he shares some thoughts before closing. Here it is;

One of the keys to longevity in the kingdom - and by longevity I mean not how long you have been a Christian or have been a Christian but I mean freedom from bitterness, freedom from cynicism, skepticism, freedom from unbelief, freedom from fear, suspicion, conservatism, formalism. That year after year and decade after decade you keep a fresh childlike, virgin-like innocence of wonder and amazement at how great our God is. How many of you want to know the secret of that?! How many of you have met thousands of Christians year after year that every time you see them they are full of joy, gone through hell and back and have come through betrayals, disappointments, sad times, death of loved ones and rejection and abuse - yet they still have a twinkle in their eye. You see a love for Jesus there that is so childlike and so sweet and attractive. It is like a perfume comes out of their being. How many of you meet Christians like that? Every single day of your life! Praise God - we have got a church full of people like that! Why is it that there are Christians in the world that you want to avoid if you see them on the other side of the street you would rather go into the pub and sit with the real sinners. Sinners are just talking about rugby and they are really happy and their team won the cricket! They are just pragmatically determined to be happy.

You meet Christians today that sadly look like survivors of some devastating storm and like they have been pulled backwards through the exhaust pipe of a motorcar and have been baptised in lemon juice and they think that is holy! And they are "enduring for the Lord"! The Christian life should not just be characterised by discipline. It should be characterised by a great delight in our God!

When I was an atheist under the delusion of atheism for a short period of my life I began to seek the reality of a living God. I never grew up in a religious home and I looked not for God first but people that claimed they knew God and they worshipped and walked with this God and they believed in this God. I looked at Muslims and I looked at Hinduis and Buddhists and Christians.

I am sad to say that I looked for the reflection of the representation or the expression of the image of God in the people that claimed they knew God. And instead of becoming a Christian I became a Hindui. I saw more joy and more devotion in Hare Krishna people and that is why I was a serious follower of Krishna. I was totally deceived and in darkness and committed to that.

The world is not as intellectual as we think we are. There are people out there that think they are so brilliant and so philosophically together but people don't actually go with their intellectual conclusions - they go more by gut feel and intituion and emotions and by seeing "something" in people. The greatest witness of us is not just signs, wonders and miracles - although I want to talk about that today. It is very important! It is about our disposition - and a consistent attitude of credibility that continues. It is easy to be happy after a great conference. It is easy to be happy after you have just been healed miraculously or after God has just given you a couple of hundred, thousand dollars! It is so easy when your wife is making tea for you in the morning every morning!

Glenda found it easy because I made her tea every single morning on holiday. Thank you ladies - that was your chance to clap! It is easy to be happy when these things are happening. What worries me is that some Christians don't get passionately caught up in God - they get addicted to the sensation of feeling experientially happy. That is not the Kingdom of heaven! We are not to be addicted to a hormonal high. We are not to feel that God has left us when our hormonal high has left us! Do not reduce God to a hormone! Do not reduce God to a happy feeling! God is the creator of the heavens and the earth and the living God! The creator! The One that will sum up all of history at the climax and consummation of the ages in His Son Jesus Christ and every false god will be exposed in that day! God will deal with everything that is false and sum up history by the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

That is what keeps us on line and consistent year after year, decade after decade with a good attitude that I am in this to serve and to sweat and to give myself and invest myself to make a change in human history!

I will take all the happy feelings, all the goosebumps, all the joy and all the blessings because I want as much as I can! How many of you want to know the secret to consistent living with a good attitude? I promise you this - it is not going to inner healing classes or going to introspective psychology with a few Scriptures attached to it but is more secular humanistic that sounds kingdom theology. It is not going to all these courses. They have their place and I am not against them - just keep them in their right context!

The way to stay free and liberated and growing in passion year after year - overcoming disappointments year after - is not trying to love God. That is Old Covenant. "You shall love Me!". God said to Israel; "I want you to love Me with all your heart - but you won't". He said in Deuteronomy; "I will make a New Covenant and I will circumcise your hearts and you will love Me". The New Covenant says; "We love Him because He first loved us".

So these Christians that are trying to love God - Peter saying; "I will follow You anywhere Jesus! I will do whatever You say! Others will abandon You but I will come to prison with You! ... Jesus? Not quite sure who you are talking about - never heard that Name!".

The one that knew Jesus loved Him was the one at the foot of the Cross. He was the one that pushed through. All the threats and all the dangers - because it is not about trying to love God. The more you try and love God, the more the devil will remind you how you don't love Him enough. You are not good enough - you don't have enough passion for God!

You will never generate passion for God by trying to generate passion for God!

Passion for God is a fruit - a response - a result to something else! It is a response to the glory of the New Covenant that He loves you unconditionally and He sees you blameless without accusation and you are the righteousness of God permamently and none of your sins can dilute your righteousness because your righteousness is not based on your obedience - your holiness or your performance but on the obedience of the One Man - Jesus Christ! You are always righteous no matter how many mess-ups or mistakes you make! You stand up and say "I thank You that I am the righteousness of God and you have no accusation, condemnation and I am blameless in Your sight because of Jesus Christ! You love me!".

If you don't see it that way then everytime you mess up and make a mistake then some Christian or the devil will come to you (sometimes they are close because religious people operate by religious demon spirits and speak by demonic powers) and they will speak and say "Look how you messed up your marriage and this and that and your children and you are obviously not committed to God enough. You obviously are not committed enough! Love Him more! What's wrong with you!?". That is curse and is Old Covenant! It is knowing He loves you perfectly in height and depth and length and breadth - the perfect cube. The height is not shorter than the length and the breadth is not longer than the depth. On every dimension of the perfect cube God's full love is unconditionally, irreversibly, always towards you and never ever going to change! He is not counting your sins against you and there is absolutely no condemnation to those that are in Christ Jesus! When that lives in you you can love Him with no remorse and no regrets and no sense of "if only I could put the clock back" - no! He turns all things together for the good to those who love Him and are called together according to His purpose.

You are condemned to success, a victim of victory and what the enemy meant for evil - God means for your good! There is nothing in all creation that can seperate you and me from the love of God in Christ Jesus!

We need to shout this gospel from the rooftops and tell the church and tell the world that it is a new day and a new covenant! It is amazing how if you are out of the orbit of the Word of God or the Spirit's movings you will gravitate to your default settings if you are not fully equipped in righteousness as a gift and go back to trying to earn God's favour. Trying to be good enough! In this economic downturn people who have been saying; "If you tithe enough then God will keep the windows of heaven open and then you will be blessed" - Jesus Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law and He opened the heavens permamently over us in Christ Jesus! So we tithe! I tithe all the time with everything I get not because of law but because I am a partner with El-Shaddi! I am walking with God! I am investing financially with God into eternity.

I don't tithe to get the windows of heaven open - I tithe because they are open! I don't tithe to get blessed. I tithe because I AM blessed through grace!

People who have been preaching law to release finances are struggling during this economic downturn and that makes me wonder about that theology! People that say God is blessing us through Abraham's blessing and through the redemption from the curse of the law - He blesses us with blessings because of faith in the goodness of God and the finished work of the Cross and they are prospering in the economic downturn! Their finances are breaking through!

We had a phenomenal holiday - probably one of the best we have had in many years. I won't tell you everything because you will be jealous. It felt like God had conspired and got a whole lot of angels on assignment to make this holiday work for us. We are so grateful to God - thank you to those that prayed for us while we were away. Holidays are very important - you should take them as often as you can! So we are grateful for that. I just want to say that I listened to all three of the messages of Ryan and Steve and no flattery here - this is integrity. Top quality stuff. It was superb ministry of the Word of God. Not bubble and froth but superb quality and content of revelation of the Word of God.

If you missed those messages I strongly encourage you to go get them and download them freely off our website. I will not miss a message while I am away because every sequence is a stage to the next unfolding sequence that we are being sequenced towards higher levels of release and liberty and glory. If you have been in this church a few years and you have missed dozens of messages or only come in lately - go back and listen to all the files and catch up on the revelation! I really mean that! There are people around the world doing that and we should be doing that! I asked Ryan to continue in that teaching on what is holiness and it is a departure from the traditional religious teaching of holiness and the New Covenant revelation of holiness because I thought that was a classic message last week and a classic insight. I wish we could release him to fly around the world and preach it across the world. I believe he will one day. He isn't preaching today though. Ryan will pick that up some other time and I will pick something else up today.

Now as I said at the beginning of this meeting we lost a son from this house who went to be with the Father some time Saturday morning. He came to Christ in our home and some of you were there when we baptised him in our back garden and I spent many hours having coffee with Ian through the many challenges and issues he faced for his three years as a Christian. He died in his sleep and we think it was a heart attack - we are not sure. Steve and Ryan and myself went around to Ian's home where he was still in bed - his body was there. He was with the Lord but his body was with the Lord.

He had been gone for a few hours by the time we got there and we thought we would give it a go. We would pray his spirit back into his body and command his spirit and life to come and death to go. We gave it an hour and a half standing over his body, laying hands on him and holding his face and praying for him. The glory of God was in that room and the Presence was there and just an amazing sense of God's peace actually. I am not making excuses now - I am going to go for raising the dead at every opportunity! People say "Have you raised the dead?". Well I haven't prayed for any dead people. Well then you are never going to raise the dead! You have just got to have a go. I am going to pray for every blind eye and deaf ear - I don't care! I am just going to do it and not be afraid of failure! Just go for it!

Everything is open target! All the way through - all I could think of was every service Ian would come to and he wouldn't miss, he would come up the front at the end of the service and say "Lay hands on me" and me or the ministry team do it. He just wanted to feel the Presence of God. He so longed - he would come under that Presence and be laid out on the floor and be there for hours shaking and enjoying God's Presence and His glory and he would always ask me; "Rob - how can I experience God's Presence more often? When I am in His Presence I always feel perfect peace and feel so precious in the love of God! An hour or so after the service life returns to normal and I feel torment and trauma and pain and if I could just stay in His Presence!".

So we tried to pull him back from that Presence! I could hear Ian arguing with the Lord saying; "I love my mum, I love City Church International but I don't want to go back!".

Afterwards when they came to collect Ian's mortal remains and we asked them to wait ten more minutes and we kept trying upto the last moment and afterwards speaking to Ryan, he said "Dad you know the whole time I felt like Ian was saying to the Lord, I don't want to go back!". I am saddened that a brother in Christ never finished his calling as we understand it. In the economy of God Ian will fulfill his calling embodied in us. God will use certain things to make sure the legacy of Ian continues through the earth. Even as I am speaking this will go to tens of thousands around the world. Ian! Pam is just a hero - a warrior of faith. She was in that room praying for his resurrection. There was no hysteria in her voice, no anguish in her voice, no sense of "This isn't fair!". It was just good theology, good revelation on the nature of God. That God is not a thief and He didn't take her son. Afterwards I was speaking to her and she said; "I wanted Ian to live - I wanted his resurrection but I told the Lord - not because I love him and he is my son. Because I do love him and will miss him terribly. But I just wanted him to finish his purpose". I said; "Pam - Ian's purpose will be fulfilled!".

And she said; "Yes! We will get redemptive revenge and we will see people raised from the dead and we will see people impacted by this gospel!". This is a mother now! We want to salute you Pam for being the woman of God that you are.

This will be a very key Thursday night in our home - the prayer meeting. God is laying things on our heart as a church that we are going to push further into and we want to pray and intercede and petition God this Thursday. I know Glenda has already welcomed Will and John but I want to do so again. We are privilidged to be having lunch with them straight after the service. What I am very excited about is that Andrew Wommack is hoping to come and minister into Hong Kong in October next year and so we will talk about the possibility of him coming to our church!

He is just a key cutting edge ministry in the earth today - I believe heading up this whole revelation of the grace revolution that is speeding up across our planet!

I wanted to look at the Benjamin generation but I don't feel we are ready for it yet and I wanted to look at Revelation through the finished work of the Cross because the last bastion of those that are judgemental and believe God hates the world and wants to kill everyone - their last bastion is a heretical interpretation of the book of Revelation. So I want to look at what the seven seals and the seven trumpets are and see what the book of Revelation is saying in the light of the Cross!

I also want to do a series on the Great High Priest - which is an awesome revelation - the typology and looking at Christ's fulfillment in the heavenly tabernacle and your heart will expand with the wonder of how secure we are in Christ.

Today I just want to talk about "We are God's workmanship" - a very simple message I prepared last night. I want to read to you a few emails and came back from holiday and had a pile of hundreds of emails. Most of them wonderful testimonies of what God is doing around the world off our website and as a result of people who went back from our "Glory and Grace conference" in March and some of the impact there. I don't know if you remember a couple from Sri Lanka that lead a church and planted a church in Colombo. A trendy Sri Lankan guy and we had lunch with them. But Joshua Mills went up to them and prophesied and when he did the oil started flowing straight away out of his hands. They had such an encounter with God and had such revelation of grace while they were at the conference - so this is what they wrote;

"Dear Rob and Glenda, hope you remember us - Kirby and Fiona from Sri Lanka. We attended the Glory and Grace Conference 2009 and have been back now over a month. It has been an amazing time of revelation and progress in the glory realm. All thanks to amazing grace! We have noticed a definite increase in the signs, wonders and miracles at our works of wonder meetings. We know this is because of the Christ mantle and impartation we have received at Glory and Grace 09 in Hong Kong. The grace teaching has profoundly impacted the ministry and we are soaking in your archives online every week for more. We hope to return next year to the Hong Kong conference. We can't begin to thank you enough and convey how your teachings have impacted our lives. We are so excited to be alive in these times when the Father is shedding more and more light on this beautiful thing called grace. This is good news! And we will preach it! It is everything we hoped for! Everything we longed for! Everything we live for! Jesus is the best! Love and blessings to you and yours - Kirby and Fiona".

"Some testimonies over this last month since coming back from the conference. 27th March - a man paralysed after four years after a stroke, could not talk, walk or lift his hands. After coming to their meeting, he walked, raised hands and praised Jesus as well as shocking himself when he replied out loud and clear; "I can't talk!" only to hear himself do it!".

It is so good to applaud these things because we are celebrating the acts of grace! When you can applaud what God does in other places, I believe He turns up more in your place! We have been like that boat - when the crowds were pressing onto Jesus and He asked the guys to lend Him the boat and He preached from the boat to the multitudes so He wouldn't be crushed. When He had finished preaching to the multitude He said to the guys; "Launch out into the deep". They caught a big catch! We have been like that boat that Jesus was leant - serving churches around the world through our website, through Glory and Grace conferences and worship that flows from here. I believe as we have activated miracles in many different nations from this little church in Hong Kong - God is positioning us for a great increase of miracles here in Hong Kong.

"There was an old woman who has blind and received her sight!".

The blind see and the lame walk - sounds like the gospel! It doesn't sound like church or religion - it sounds like kingdom! The gospel! A lady had a kidney stone healed instantly and many more amounting to about 50 healings.

"Then in Sri Lanka on the 3rd April a lady 90% blind and squint - a Buddhist came only for healing and stubbornly stated "Not to get converted". Was very negative and in a bad mood on arrival. She only came because a friend brought her. She received her sight much to her surprise! She could not help but praise and thank Jesus for what He has done! A young girl around 10 could not read without glasses and received her healing and read texts from a small print Bible without the aid of spectacles. Other miracles as well as the manifestation of oil from hands and have had oil appear in their hands as well as heat. Hands get so hot and when placed on someone else, it actually feels unusually hot and on occasion this happens and we touch others they get very high!!!!".

Now I don't know why God does this oil and different heat and things but if it is God then I am happy! Then this family - the Lewis's;

"Dear Rob and Glenda and everyone at City Church International. We live in Guernsey - Channel Islands - just off the coast of France. We started downloading your messages at the beginning of 2008. Our lives have been truly transformed. Up until that point we thought we had a good understanding of grace but in hindsight we knew we were not under the law but only knew a minute amount about grace".

That is the problem you see - many Christians know we are not under law but don't really know or understand what that means and really live as those under the law. They really don't understand grace because they haven't heard the law properly preached or heard the grace of God properly preached.

If you preach the law properly - it means cut your hands off, pluck your eyes out when you sin. It means take your children out and stone them if they keep on disobeying. It means stone people who break the law. It means fly into buildings in 9/11. That is consistent with the law. It means stand outside abortion clinics and shoot people. That is the law! It is a ministry of death! You cannot water it down to try and behave well. It means kill people if they don't behave well!

People say we preach an extreme grace message - it is because they have never heard the law in all it's true spirituality.

To look at someone with lust in your eyes and your heart - you have committed adultery and you should be stoned. Literal adultery! If you hate someone without cause then you have murdered them! That is the true spirituality of the law!

They have heard a compromised watered down and diluted law. That is why they can mix this compromise law with a compromised grace and mix them together. If you preach the extremes of grace - that is no more extreme than the law! Everyone with a brain will know you cannot mix them together ever again! As extreme as law is - grace is a scandal! It is so wonderful and complete!

"In hindsight we knew we were not under law but only knew a minute amount about grace. For years we had remained on the fringe of church life as we could see the horrific effects of control. It was clear that this was not the way church was supposed to be but we couldn't see how the church could be transformed into a glorious Bride. Now our eyes have been opened, the veil has been lifted and so much truth has been revealed and our lives have been turned upside down. The Bible has come alive! We are learning new things every day! We listen to your messages every week and we are also so grateful for the worship you put on the website. Your church has blessed and inspired us and we are so grateful for your continuing input into our lives. It was an enormous privilidge to come to Glory and Grace in 2009".

I didn't even meet them.

"We have been meeting with two other like-minded couples and arranged an evening of Glory and Grace on our return from Hong Kong. We invited several other people who we knew were also listening to your talks and hungry for more of God. It was a great evening of impartation. To our great relief God turned up and it was simply awesome! As a result a few fragmented people have become a solid group meeting to worship, encourage others and to see that we are equipped to fulfill our destiny. We are looking forward to our first supernatural treasure hunt this Saturday. People in our church have noticed that something has happened to us especially since Glory and Grace and we have had such fire inside of us and such boldness that we are having an amazing time telling people how the good news is really GOOD news! Last week we were invited to speak at a small group and we shared our testimony and spoke about our identity in Jesus and they are keen for us to go back and tell them more. We are so keen to see more and more people set free from religion and know that Jesus will build His church here. Thanks again for all that you have imparted to us. Looking forward to the next Glory and Grace. With love Jeremy and Ann".

How many of you think we should have another Glory and Grace next year?! I have got so many testimonies here - from Thailand and it is deeply Buddhist but God is breaking out. This couple came from Thailand and I want to read what they said about you - CCI! They said;

"What has impressed us very much about City Church is the absence of pretense and religious masks among the people of City Church. The Lord shall make you reflect His matchless glory and Presence in increasing measure!".

When we were away on holiday I just felt like God was saying that He wants to change up a gear and release us into another realm of supernatural miracles, healings, signs and wonders and people being healed through us. Not just through the ministry team but ALL of us. There are no superstars or gurus here and that is the truth! I am on a journey as much as you are.

When I was at Glory and Grace and I saw how Joshua Mills moved, I had lunch with him and I said; "Teach me Joshua!". I am twenty something years older than him but I want to learn from him! I want to learn! I want to remain a novice!

You are not a novice when you are raising the dead regularly and seeing many blind eyes open and many cripples walk and I have seen people come out of wheelchairs on numbers of occasions and I am still a novice, I want to see so much more happening! If I don't see many signs and wonders then I started getting tempted to go into intellectualism! I did that 10 years ago. I put on scientific seminars against macro-evolution and I exposed it as totally unscientific because of blind faith religion. I had professors there and leaders of universities there speaking to crowds of 1500 people and yet you don't convert people that way! Their heads just analyse intellectual facts!

I was thinking if we don't see more signs and wonders maybe I should go back and study more apologetics and get more intellectual and persaude people about the existance of God and the reliability of the Bible and that it is not made-up myths but that it is a supernaturally inspired book and give evidence for the resurrection of Jesus and intellectual arguments that are persuasive. I realised that is a bad sign that my mind is thinking that! Then I felt the Spirit of God say to me; "You and City Church are about to enter into a realm of greater signs, wonders and miracles and the enemy is trying to mock the very idea of miracles and signs and wonders. He is trying to scorn the very idea!". You go and pray for the dead and don't see them live; "Ah! You see it doesn't work!". He is trying to mock and scorn! I came away encouraged though - thinking I am going to do this again!

I have prayed for 50 cripples and seen maybe seven or eight walk. I want that to get to 50 out of 50! I have to fight through the same cynicism as you have! You have no idea what my intellectual university brain was trained with! Some of you think I am gifted with some lucky charm and never live with doubts and unbelief and cynicism and skepticism! You must be crazy - you don't know how I have to wrestle! I know some of you that come under a spirit that wants to mock the very idea of doing miracles. That is not you! There is a demonic spirit that is anti-anointing! Anti-Kingdom and anti-authentic gospel!

This gospel is not just about grace but about God testifying to this great salvation through signs and wonders and miracles! If you preach grace and don't see miracles then you are not preaching grace!

That is what I love about Andrew Wommack's ministry. He preaches grace and they see signs and wonders. He raised his own son from the dead when he was black - that is how far dead he was! You preach grace and there must be confirming signs and wonders and miracles! That spirit of cynicsm - how many of you have felt when you hear preaching on miracles or going for a run and out somewhere quiet, and you think about miracles and you hear a voice saying; "Eugh, it won't happen - it can't!". We have seen them! They have happened! Not just in the UK when we saw hundreds! And in Dubai - where I just got an email from the "Power Encounter" conference I was at and people who couldn't fall pregnant for years and now babies are coming! Miracles can be pulled in or out from inside of you and we have seen miracles!

In the Hong Kong Glory and Grace in the fire tunnel that little boy came through with a squint eye and the next morning he came running up to me pulling on my pants as I am trying to get out the door; "Rob, Rob! Look at my eyes!". Eyes perfectly normal! God straightened his eyes! We have seen miracles in Hong Kong! That couple from Sri Lanka - she had big scarred ridges on her back and scars had completely disappeared! Those are miracles in Hong Kong! Not in the UK or in Africa but here in Hong Kong! We are seeing miracles in Hong Kong! Sally sitting over there had her hips turned around in this building! If I see a thousand attempts to heal someone and a thousand people are prayed for and one gets miraculously healed without any argument - if 1/1000 gets a miracle then it is evidence to me that God does miracles today!

We haven't seen one but dozens even in this year! But as grateful as I am and we need to applaud God, I know with a burning ache while I was on holiday that Hong Kong is a city destined for miracles. This city has not been known as a city for signs, wonders and miracles! Jackie Pullinger in bringing drug addicts off heroin through speaking in tongues is a great sign and wonder! But I am talking about churches that regularly see the blind see and the cripples walk! Mighty manifestations of cancers disappearing and lumps going! The dead being raised! There is very little evidence of that in 100 years of the church being in Hong Kong! I felt God say; "It is Hong Kong's time for signs and wonders - it is our time to move into that realm!". I preached a whole message on how to overcome disappointment! When you pray for the sick and nothing happens! Your children ask you; "Why did they die?" and you don't know how to answer your children! I talked about how to overcome disappointment and we must do that.

But without signs and wonders and healing - we are not manifesting an authentic gospel. A biblical gospel will have signs, wonders and miracles and healings!

Balance that with what I said at the beginning. We are not going on a religious high. We don't live from miracle to miracle but from faith to faith - from glory to glory - from Scripture to Scripture. But if you live that way you will see the miracles!

You have got to keep contending because if you don't contend then the vast majority of the church worldwide if it doesn't have prophets and apostles and evangelists and teacher/pastors contending, passionate, overcoming their own disappointments, their own cynicism, their own skepticism and unbelief - pushing through the demonic lies, if you don't have leaders like that then the church will gladly settle quickly to sermonettes on a Sunday and dead religious rituals and laws and superstition and guilt and doctrines of demons!

It is so vast around the world that when the true gospel appears there is such hatred against it and such a reaction in certain parts of the earth! But I tell you what there are people standing up around the planet right now and preaching the gospel that Paul preached and it is gaining momentum and signs and wonders are gaining momentum and around the world there is over 176, 000 people being saved every day! Every day! It is a documented record of hundreds of resurrections from the dead - documented records in books today! The dead are being raised! Mighty miracles are happening! We live in Asia and in China and God knows that the Chinese must see signs and wonders and miracles! Even sophisticated Hong Kong people! I want to say this - that you will either be a mimic-er and a follower or a pioneer and an initiator. You will either live in the fruit of the breakthroughs of others or you will breakthrough yourself.

Where would this world be - in the natural - if we didn't have men and women through our history that overcame the formidable intensity and the savage opposition of skepticism and cynicism and the scorn and mocking of people who dared to believe and dream that there was something possible that is greater than what we can see right now with our eyes?

Any inventor, any person that breaks society and history into another dimension had to endure hell and opposition and even their friends and close friends and members of their congregations or political groups and educational groups that mocked them and ostracised them as fanatical fringe and madmen. In their hearts there was a dream that they felt that something greater than what they see can happen! They are the initators! What would this world be without the Wright brothers who believed men could fly on wings? Now we fly all over the world and take it for granted! But imagine when there were no planes flying and the Wright brothers were saying they believed they could find something to overcome the law of gravity and can have men fly around the world! The people mocked them! We have such an inbuilt desire to be loved and understood and accepted and patted on the back - and that is the problem. We have a need for man to recognise and approve of us and accept us. That's why you have so few inventors and initiators because they are constantly afraid when they try and fail and the scoffers mock them!

The Wright brothers believed and they were mocked! The people said if God wanted us to fly then He would have put wings on our backs. That is arrogance! And the Wright brothers flew and got wings and took off! Roger Bannister said man could run a mile under four minutes and he was mocked - he broke it and then everyone else started breaking it! I have run the mile under four minutes but I am a mimic-er! I am a follower! He was the initator! Eddison invented the light bulb and tried over a thousand times and each bulb failed. One day he created a bulb that worked and he said that over a thousand times he learnt what didn't work until he got what did work. Today at the flick of a switch we turn on lights but we forget that there was a man that was mocked. In the natural - the world would be a poor place if everyone were mimic-ers and mockers and scoffers of those who have the guts and the courage to step out and say "I can't stand passivity! I can't stand apathy or status quo - I believe there is a God who can do things differently and better in the nations of the earth!". The Church is like a sleeping giant! The Church is a place where there is so little change taking place but we are subjects and partners with a God who creates and brings initiative and transformation and revolution! He is not the God of stagnation but the God of creativity and diversity and colour!

I am SO frustrated sometimes at how quickly churches settle for the lowest religious common denominator of happiness and peace and personal victim mentality! The majority of Christians pray for the sick a few times and if it doesn't work then they back off and formulate a theology to legitimise and accomodate blatent evil hearts of unbelief and then they mock and scoff at those who step out and fail! Well we may break a thousand lightbulbs but one day that lightbulb is going to come on! And almost everyone that is dead that we pray for will be raised from the dead! And all the blind eyes and deaf ears and cripples! In Jesus Name! Because He said; "The works I do shall you do and greater works!".

Those Scriptures haunt me - how can I leave them behind!?

Attitudes that Attract the Empowering Grace of God - Part 2

This sermon was preached by Rob Rufus at City Church International in Hong Kong on 27th July 2008

"Why don't you turn in your Bibles to Philippians chapter 4. It is wonderful to see so many of you here this morning. We have about 50% of people away and I am amazed how God is bringing and adding people. It is very exciting - this is the year He promised us He would bring people from within Hong Kong and also from many from different nations and He will bring resources to us. How many believe we will not be meeting in this hall forever? I have just signed on an 800 seater hall for March next year where we are hosting "Glory and Grace - Hong Kong" and we have Patricia King coming and Josh Mills and Fini and Isi and I believe it will be an awesome time of the glory of God manifesting in Hong Kong. So we thought shall we meet here with the credit crunch and flights and hotels for people? But we just felt that I was standing outside that building and praying "God what will we do if there is a shortfall? We have to make up the shortfall! And I don't want to waste your money!". I felt God say;

"Son, son - go big, think big and trust Me! You will look on this in a few years time and say "How pathetically small was an 800 seater in Hong Kong!?".

We are going to host "Glory and Grace" in the next few years in the rugby stadium - I am telling you right now!

I have heard so many testimonies in the last six weeks of local Chinese, Hong Kong people have been saved in our services! A lot through the ministry of Angela and Randy who are on holiday but also Alice's testimony of what miracles God is doing and it is so thrilling! How many went on our website this week? I got a call from a pastor friend in Australia and he said "Rob have you seen what's happened on the website front page?". Our Muslim friends hacked in again! They love our website and really feel it is an opportunity for free advertising for Islam! We bless them for that! They had advertising for Ramadam and Muslim songs and praise God for our brothers! If I could trace their address I would send a love message and say thank you because there has been a team in City Church International that have been meeting for a number of weeks and consulting with website designers and we have a website designer coming to join this church in a few months from South Africa and we have been strategising to upgrade our website and make it more user friendly as well as translating our messages into Mandarin and Cantonese. So God used the blessing of Muslim friends to give us a sign and a wonder; "Yes I want you to upgrade!".

God works ALL things together for good to those that love Him and are called together according to His purpose! The ministry of the Word is like a bank - the more you put into it, the more interest you get out of it. The more you set your heart - "I am going to learn today from the Word of God and it will advantage me and cause me to have understanding and wisdom to deal with issues in my life much more effectively and give me prophetic wisdom to deal with the context I am in right now and deal with my circumstances by the wisdom of God!".

"Thank You that we are as secure in this covenant as Jesus is because we are in Him ... give us revelation that you have put all things under the feet of Jesus ... open our understanding to see that we are Your glorious inheritance that You take pleasure in as a delighting Father!"

How many of you have found in life that the rhythms are different? Sometimes you go through times where everything you do is going well and succeeding and all blessing and all good? Then it comes to an abrupt end and for another season or time you go through negative and bad and then you come out of that and it becomes good for a while? I believe that right now we are NOT in that sort of a time!

I believe that right NOW we are in a time where we are living in the BEST of times and the WORST of times at the SAME time! And that is because the devil is intimidated about what is going on in the earth.

There are things going on in the earth that I get regular reports on and some of you do as well where millions are being swept into the Kingdom! Across the border in China the estimates are 40,000 people are born again EVERY single DAY! This year we have seen several people come out of wheelchairs and blind eyes open and deaf ears opened! Deaf ears! Cancers healed! At the same time we have faced all kinds of heartaches and disappointments like some of you are! There are things going on in families and friends all around the world. So great things are happening but it's also the worst time at the same time because the devil is trying to target those who God is using and will use to the greatest degree in this time!

The least people He is using are apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers! Their job is not to be the superstars who do the work! Their job is to equip every believer to be a manifestor of the Kingdom of God and to have influence in their context!

Ordinary people are having great effect in their time and many more will come out with greater influence! Some of you sit in relative obscurity today and you think; "What do I do? I don't do anything much! I would love to! I go to sleep and go to work! What do I do?". Something is at move and at work in the earth!

The devil will target those who God is using to the greatest degree (or is about to use) by giving them the greatest degree of distraction! The devil is not interested in your money. I promise you he doesn't need it and He can't spend it or want it. But he will attack your finances and he will attack your economy because he doesn't want your money. He wants to rob you of your peace. Agitated people seldom hear the voice of God! Agitated people hear the voice of deception, discouragement, confusion and condemnation! People under the government of God's peace hear His audible voice and hear His instruction and get His leading and they know what God wants them to do. The devil couldn't care if you had a good or bad marriage - honestly! It doesn't interest him! But he will attack your marriage to rob you of peace to agitate you with distraction! The devil doesn't care if you have a visa to stay in Hong Kong or not. But he will attack you on every kind of issue he can - because those who God is going to use to the greatest degree will be distracted by the devil to the greatest degree.

The word is "Distraction" friends! In a time of opportunity, distraction is the strategy of the devil and God's agenda is FOCUS! Laser-like focus! "I was born for this reason - I was raised for this time and I didn't go through hell and back and difficulties and betrayals for three decades to come to this awesome town to go down in flames of bitterness and cynicism and rejection complex! This is the time to stand strong! God is not interested in talking to you about your circumstances of distraction. A lot of people say "I am crying out God! Deal with this issue - finances, money etc!". God is not a magic genii that comes out and offers you three wishes! He is not coming down to reduce His kingly lordship on the issue of difficult circumstances.

Now He loves you and me and cares about us but He won't talk to you about the issue of your circumstances. God will talk to you on the issue of your DESTINY.

As soon as you say "God I want to talk about my destiny. These are the distractions and they are hurting me but what is my destiny? How will I move to next level of my destiny?".

Your destiny is not your career! Your career is a vehicle by which God can express destiny!

When Gideon was threshing wheat in a winevat as a coward and afraid, and complaining and mumbling saying "Where is the God of my forefathers?" and he wanted God to come and use His miracles to change his economic dysfunctional situation. God would not talk to Gideon on the basis of his circumstances but on the basis of his destiny - because God is after destiny for you and me! He said to a coward hiding in a winevat; "MIGHTY warrior!". When Gideon tried to talk circumstances, God said; "Shut up! I am not here to talk circumstances! I am not a God who will be reduced to making men and women just feel a bit happier and sort their problems out!". That is not God! God said; "I am here not to give you a bit of economic empowerment - not to change your circumstances but to make you the greatest general Israel has ever seen and drive out the Mideanites and;

When you obey destiny - your circumstances will improve! But if you focus on your self-pity and rejection and my problems and ask God why He's not helping - you will find He will not speak to you about your problems. He WILL talk to you about why you are on the earth and what your destiny is and what He has equipped you for!

If you do not live in the unfolding sequence of your destiny and the reason why you are on this planet then you will feel your existance on this earth is a mistake and it is NOT a mistake! You will feel you are living a mistake if you are not living your destiny! If you want to have maximum impact in your life then you have to allow God Almighty to have maximum impact in your life because we grow and develop on purpose through process!

There is no microwave Christianity! I am the most impatient man on the planet! Even microwaves don't do it fast enough! Every red traffic light is a demonic conspiracy to frustrate me! I want to go and arrive and get somewhere! If you are not like that then something has been stealing your guts and making you defeatest and passive! The herd mentality is just being mesmerised and trivialised! The Kingdom doesn't have microwave spirituality! I have people who come to me and say "Rob will you pray I'll never sin again?!". I say "Okay I will try. I may have to ask God to kill you and take you to heaven! That's the only place you will not have those issues!". Christianity is not microwave - it is a consistant process! People say to Glenda and me; "How did you get to where you are in the world? How are you influencing so many people?!". Three decades of no sulking, no backsliding, no giving up, no blaming this or that, rejection or oppression! It is not the greatest talents or the greatest gifts or the greatest anointing! It is those who understand that Christanity is not microwave - it is a process!

Today is an event - this message! How you respond to this message, how you deliberately decide to make decisions of wisdom in response to this message is a process that will bring purpose and unfolding evelation and promotion in the purposes of God.

The modern church has overestimated the value of event and underestimated the value of process.

People go to conferences and fill their notes and talk about the experience they had in the event. Great! Wonderful! Do it more! But that is an event and it is the purpose of you making decisions that I am here for DESTINY and if I do not fulfill destiny I will feel like I am living as a mistake in the earth. Which will explain the majority of suicides. It is not because their circumstances went down because of changes in the earth or the oil price went up and they faced bankruptcy. Those are circumstances. If they talked to God about their destiny then God would lift them up in their destiny and in the following of their destiny, their circumstances would be dealt with and they would become economically empowered again. If the nations of the earth cried out to God not for their circumstances but asked God what their destiny was; "The earth is the Lord's and everything in it - God what do you want done with your nations?" - then this planet is so wealthy and every human being could be a billionaire! There is enough wealth in the nations for everyone to be a billionaire!

It is because of the rebellion against the King of Kings and the Creator of the heavens and the earth. Everyone - you and me - can become great if we will value process more than the trivia of events. You say "Do you always preach like this?". No sometimes I am a bit worse!

The motives for living out the process is a revelation of acceptance grace. I am talking in the second part of a series; "Attitudes that attract empowering grace". And I said last week that I am deeply disturbed by the emphasis in the church world today on empowering grace at the expense of undervaluing the foundation of acceptance grace. I am going to quickly review that. Grace has two components.

1. Acceptance Grace.

2. Empowering Grace - enables you to raise the dead, do miracles, signs, wonders and enables you to say no to sin. Enables you to work hard! "I worked harder than anyone else but not I but the grace of God" - that is empowering grace.

Wonderful!

I want every part of empowering grace on my life! The way into empowering grace MUST be a revelation of acceptance grace. Even if I don't raise the dead or do any great things or don't get victory over sin or get holy enough or do enough - my Father accepts me in Christ Jesus because He has given me the gift of righteousness not based on my obedience or disobedience. The righteousness I have is the permament, stable, eternal righteousness of Jesus Christ given to me! Ephesians 1:3 - "I am accepted in the Beloved". Romans 15:7; "We are accepted in Christ Jesus". 2 Corinthians 3 says that what the Father sees in you is the glory that radiates and reflects from the face of Jesus.

I said to you last week that the secret of my prayer life is simply this. I know the Holy Spirit really likes me and loves being with me because He knows that I know that He knows that I know that the Father sees Rob Rufus in the righteousness of Christ and I am in the same standing as Jesus. Romans 8:16 - I am a joint equal heir with Christ and an heir of God and I don't have co-equal divine-ness with God and will never be! But I have a co-equal righteousness with Jesus because I am the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus!

Now that is a process! It is not 3 months or 1 year of hearing acceptance grace. It is a process over years of getting deeper and deeper into understanding acceptance grace. When you understand by revelation deeply acceptance grace then this will be growing fruit and will build into your life inner security, inner stability, inner sense of safety and an inner sense of significance even if you don't do anything great. In other words you don't have to do great things to feel important - you know your value is because the Father accepts you as He sees Jesus! The fruit of acceptance grace revelation is humility - humility is inner security, no more drivenness or franticness to impress people. Inner security produces a freedom from jealousy, comparing yourself with others, looking at others salary and what others get and you don't get, you don't feel inferior or superior to anyone else because you have got inner security because you know that you are accepted! People that have to prove something all the time is a sign that they don't understand acceptance grace and have got to "do things" all the time by the power of acceptance grace.

Now when we believe the gospel of acceptance grace then three fruit immediately grows through a process;

1. Boldness.
2. Obedience.
3. Humility.

Rejection of acceptance grace in Christians produces;

1. Fear of rejection.
2. Drivenness to prove themselves.
3. Comparisons between people.

That is a sign of rejecting acceptance grace. Unbelief in acceptance grace produces fear, rebellion (which is like the sin of witchcraft) and pride! 1 Peter 5; "Therefore clothe yourself in humility all of you to one another for God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves therefore under God's mighty hand and He will lift you up in due time casting all your cares on Him for He cares for you". You have just seen the working of acceptance grace and empowering grace right there. Acceptance grace will produce humility whereby you will humble yourselves under God's mighty hand and you will be loving and humble towards one another and God will then lift you up by His mighty hand. When God lifts you up by His mighty hand that is empowering grace! If you are proud and insecure and jealous and driven then God has to oppose you because of self-righteousness. If God is opposing you then you can fast, bind devils and be concious of devils and oppression all you like but they are not going away because God is resisting you.

Though the devil comes and wants to attack us - that is not what I am talking about. You can build alliances with men and get every denomination on the planet to support you - you are in trouble if God is resisting you! When you humble yourself from inner security and acceptance grace then the empowering grace of God's mighty hand lifts you up in due time by process! When He lifts you up no devil in darkness can attack you successfully! No human being can stand against you all the days of your life and you become invincible with the invincibility of God! To be lifted up by His mighty hand is to have favour and influence and jurisdiction and authority! Every Christian on the planet is either in a place of being resisted by God's mighty hand or they are in a place of God's mighty hand lifting them up and it is all dependent on a posture of pride or humility.

Those that walk in humility are not caught up in the seduction of the distraction of circumstances, what's happening or difficulties - they are caught up in what their destiny is through inner security in what acceptance grace brings. Rather they are captured by a vision and destiny to fulfill. Let's go quickly to Philippians 4 and I want to show you these attitudes that attract the empowering grace. Attitudes that attract the empowering grace! Philippians 4:1. I am not under pressure to rush the message and I have been rebuked by the majority of people in this church who say "You rob us! Why are you always rushing? We need this stuff!". Anyone can leave anytime they like but don't pressure me into rushing by your body language! I will finish when God says "Finish!".

"Therefore my brothers, you whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, that is how you should stand firm in the Lord - dear friends".

There are four attitudes there that attract the empowering grace of God. Last week I mentioned that Paul the apostle is the preeminant apostle that ever walked this earth except Jesus who was the apostle of apostles. He wrote two thirds of the New Testament but I think most churches would kick him out if he came to preach in their churches today. He was wild. He was loving and gracious father as well. He raised people from the dead and we have accounts of it in the New Testament. He himself I think was raised from the dead because he was stoned for preaching the gospel and God raised him up. He had revelation and was caught up into the third heaven. This guy makes all of us look tame! He was a preeminant apostle! Yet when he comes to talk to his fellow believers, he does not say; "I apostle ding-a-ling, prophet, bishop, reverend!". No he doesn't say "my sermon fodder, my followers that are there to make me look great!". This preeminant apostle - which speaks so loudly to the modern church which is so gripped by this hierarchial sense of ranking and ecclesiology and titles and names and positions that are driven by a misguided theology that has emphasised empowering grace instead of acceptance grace.

Paul was the champion of acceptance grace and he understood that his father loved him and he was accepted - so he needed no titles or things to make him look important in the eyes of men because he knew that his Father loved him. Out of that acceptance grace God lifted him up and gave him empowering grace to do mighty things. But he was not not concious of his merit or his badge or his significance in the things he DID but in the REALITY of acceptance in the Father's love.

So he relates to his fellow believers - this preeminent apostle - as "my brothers who I love and long for - my joy and my crown. This is how you should stand firm in the Lord Jesus - my dear friends". So his first connection with his fellow believers is "brothers". That means "sisters" too. Sisters as well! He calls them "brothers". How many of you know that all the three and a half years that Jesus walked with His disciples He never once called them "brothers". He called them "friends" and "servants" but He never referred to them as "brothers". When He was crucified and raised from the dead and Mary came to Him in John 20:17- He says "Mary go tell my brothers that I go to their Father and My Father - their God and My God".

The first time Jesus calls His disciples brothers is AFTER the finished work of the Cross and the resurrection.

Why could Jesus not call them brothers before the Cross? They were not born again! They were under the Law and judgement and the wrath of God! Romans 2 - Paul lays it all out. He says that the result of law is that not one is righteous. Under the law no one was righteous. They were all under the wrath and the curse of the law. Before the law came Abraham was given righteousness as a gift because of his faith. But after the law came, Paul said in Romans 2 that there is not one righteous person on the entire planet through trying to keep laws to be good enough to gain acceptance with God. So they could never have been His brothers because they were under the law. He fulfilled the Law! He didn't come to remove but fulfill the Law. The Law is now fulfilled and on the Cross (Colossians 2 says) He abolished the Law and cancelled the written code that stood opposed to us. Once He had cancelled the written code He could then give us His righteousness. You cannot have a gift of righteousness and be under the Law! When you behave wrong or sin wrong the Law will say "You have done something wrong". If you say "But I have a gift of righteousness" then the Law will say "You are not righteous by a gift because I say you have done something wrong!".

So God had to cancel the law in Colossians 2 and obliterate the Law and then declare you to be the righteousness of God through Jesus taking all your sin past, present and future and giving you all His righteousness as a permament unconditional standing before the Father. Only after the Cross and Resurrection could He say "Go call My brothers and tell them I go to My Father and their Father, My God and their God". Co-equal heirs with Christ! Romans 8:29 says "Jesus was the first-born among many brothers". Now first Adam was the firstborn from spiritual life to spiritual death. Everyone born into the planet was born into first Adam's death. Jesus Christ was the first born from spiritual death because He took our death at the Cross - spirit, soul and physical death and He was raised from the dead by the power of God and He is the firstborn among many brothers! I don't know who was the second and third born and it doesn't matter. You are IN the first born! Hebrews 2:11 says Jesus is not ashamed to call us brothers.

I don't know if you understand this because when this came on in my heart some time ago - it has changed my entire life. I have realised that I have a brother in heaven. Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood. I have a brother of DNA in heaven who is the King of heaven and is not ashamed to call me brother! He was the firstborn among many brothers and His Father is my Father and His God is my God! That has changed me on the inside! I am so tired of these inner healing courses that have gone on for centuries in the church to deal with Christian insecurity and need of self-value and self-esteem. When you realise by revelation that you are accepted and you are a brother of Jesus Christ then there is no more inferiority left or superiority left! The next time you feel some Christian putting a superiority onto you - look them in the eye with amusement! "I don't know who you think you are! Jesus is my brother! And I am co-equal with Him in righteousness as an heir! And I am going to judge angels throughout all eternity with my brother Jesus! Not because of any good or holiness I have done but I am accepted in the beloved!".

It is not about ministry! People run about the church saying "What's my ministry!? What's my ministry?!". What they mean is what makes them important in the church. Ministry means service. Where do I serve Lord? What is my service in the church? Your service may be only a small part of your destiny and your destiny could be a lot bigger than how you serve in the church but Lord where do I serve? You know you believe you are a servant when people treat you like a servant! Will you do that or that? Huh! Don't you know my ministry!? I am a son first! And out of my security as a son - I can minister as a servant. I said in Cape Town that they were driving me crazy! I honestly didn't know whether I was coming or going! "Can you pray for me? Can you pray for me!?". Don't these people understand that I need to go for a cup of coffee?! Then I realised that they are treating me like a servant! Yes I will pray. I am here to serve.

Servants - no hierarchy! I have taken four years to appoint leaders and I know I haven't demolished under God's power hierarchial thinking that somehow means that appointments mean superiority! Position! Prestige! It gets two extremes. "Oh now he is superior - he is an elder and deacon so I have got to fawn and flatter him". Rubbish! He is your brother! Or the other extreme; "Who do they think they are?! I don't recognise them - bunch of nothings!". Rebellion! That is insecurity and jealousy!

The New Testament atmosphere is a preeminant apostle addressing fellow believers as "brothers". Why? Because the preeminant apostle of all apostles - God the Son who was God from all eternity and never was anything but God and who clothed Himself in all humanity - the Man Christ Jesus seated at the right hand of the Father who is fully man - that man dimension of Him is my brother! You and me! Todd is my brother! Our other brother is Jesus! My brother Glenda! My other brother Jesus! The next thing here levels it all. "You whom I love". That word love here is this lovely Greek word; "Agape". It means "my beloved". Paul says in Philippians 2:12; "So then my beloved". Romans 16:9; "Greet my beloved in the Lord". 2 Corinthians 11:11; "God knows I love you". 12:15; "I will most gladly be expended for your sake". This preeminent apostle says to a bunch of problem people who are misbehaving; "I will most gladly be expended for your sake".

Something has gone wrong when leaders or Christian fellow believers see others as a "duty" or a burden or a responsibility.

When the worship leaders or connect group leaders or childrens group leaders start seeing it as a burden; "I don't want to expend myself" then something has gone wrong. Ministry is serving! It is exhausting! He didn't say; "Well I am so anointed that I never feel tired and I never can expend because I have an infinite resource". No - he said "expend myself". When you have expended everything out of your bank and you try to draw money they will say "No". There are times as a Christian when you get to the place where there is nothing left in the soul tank. Nothing. You did it because of a motive of acceptance grace empowering you to serve. Why? Because it's my duty? No! My brothers whom I love! My beloved! I have watched leaders raise up a group of people and after a while they get so frustrated and want to hurt the people. How do you see people sitting around you? Do you see them as your brothers? Do you see them as your beloved? Paul wouldn't have known every Christian in every church in which he was working yet his attitude was "You are my beloved because you are His beloved and you are my brothers because you are His brothers. I am not superior or inferior to you. You Corinthians are getting so arrogant that you are acting like you are superior to me. It doesn't intimidate me. You are my brothers". He didn't sabotage his own ministry because he operated from an inner security.

It is only a matter of time when everyone in this room and everyone listening to this website will not be left on the planet. We will all go into eternity. Modern technology has deceived us to think we have immortality. I don't know who's going first and I am not volunteering! One of us could be gone tomorrow! I guarantee you that within 30 years most of us will be gone and within 50 years there will be not one of us left on this planet. Then everything will be weighed up as to what we have focused on - our circumstances and our difficulties or did we focus on our destiny? I am getting to a place of rewards - that doesn't contradict grace - but I want to talk about rewards in eternity.

Then he says "You who I long for". He isn't just saying "I long to see you" but he is saying "I long to see you". He is saying "I have ambitions for you! I see greatness in you!". God saw Gideon and He didn't see a coward in a vinevat but a great general. When Paul saw his fellow believers he didn't see them as they were but he saw them in their full destiny in God! "I long for you! I have desires for you!". I have to say that I have not seen anything else attract God's empowering grace on a man or a woman's life who has longings for fellow brothers and sisters. When you have this longing - "You are my brothers and my beloved and I long to see you grow more in grace and get out of those dysfucntional patterns and insecurities and fears of rejections! I long to see the Cross of Jesus Christ have an effect that you would embrace it and not modern Christian therapy and the latest book but come back to the simplicity of the Cross and the gospel! I have longings!

Nothing thrills me more than to see people making progress.

I am going to make a statement that sounds big but God knows that I am telling the truth;

I have never been part of a church like this one. I have been part of some of the most outstanding churches on the planet - two of them are very healthy churches currently. And they planted dozens of churches out of those churches. But I have never been part of a church like this one where I have seen such amazing transformations in people's lives. In just four years I have never seen such miraculous transformations in people's lives. I still shake my head and say "It can't be".

Glenda and I had lunch with Rob Gordon last Tuesday and to look into his eyes and see confidence and bright eyes and I said "When you first came into that service in our church - when you walked in I thought "My God what are we going to do with this guy?!". He said "This church has raised the dead! I was walking death. You have no idea how deep in death I was". The man I am talking to today is not the man that walked in a year and a half ago. I literally could go person to person and say "Wow!". I look at Todd here. Todd you shock me! When you first came in I thought you had escaped from an asylum and you were an axe murderer! He used to run out of meetings because the demons in him used to make him run out! We would run out and say "You are not running away!" and pull him back and they would say "Rob, Todd heard voices telling him to run" and I would say "So why are you bringing him to me?! Take him to your leader and His Name is Jesus!". That is the way I lead! There has been no microwave with Todd! None! We didn't do it as a church! I look at a very sane man and it is not my ministry but the ministry of a local church. That is the truth! A very intelligent man and an integrated man! A man bordering on genius in his intelligence! And for a year and a half that darkness was broken off him because he came into a church preaching grace. Not a series on grace! Everything we preach is acceptance grace and it produces in God's people not a drivenness of insecurity and selfish ambition but suddenly they start seeing others as "my beloved, you who I long for". We had longings for Todd! And he has come through.

Barry! Who is not well today. When Barry came - we met him in a real Chinese resturant and spoke to him for about 4 hours. He talked about how he was abused in Hong Kong as a little boy and sexually abused and every kind of abuse. Not making it up! He had the scars! I could not believe one human being could go through this pain! He represents hundreds of thousands of Hong Kong people! He was so angry - barking and biting at everyone, swearing and blaspheming and I think he was trying to trigger some religious reaction in Glenda and me! And we sat there and smiled and blasphemed and swore. We didn't say "Don't you use those words in my presence! Don't you know I am archbishop semi-apostle?!!?". We sat there and he swore and cursed and spoke about unbelievable stuff. A year and a half later I am shocked at how well adjusted Barry is! Barry is the most transformed human being I have ever witnessed in 30 years of ministry! When he talks there is no bitterness. He was street smart and now he comes and talks about other people! Brothers who he has longing for!

Four weeks ago I prophesied from here that God would take his story - the longest surviving man with HIV/AIDS and openly speaks about his homosexual past and now the doctors can't find any problem with his immune system. He is off the retro-viral drugs and no problems with his immune system! He is like a normal man! I prophesied that God is going to take his story around the world! God will take his story across Hong Kong! Four weeks ago I prophesied that! In November this year he is going on television and meeting with the Hong Kong television with his two doctors to talk about how he is the longest survivor with HIV/AIDS in Hong Kong and what he went through and how it is Jesus who has healed him! But the greatest healing in Barry that he will talk about is not the physical AIDS but the healing and liberation of his soul! That is what he is going to talk about! He will talk about it with integrity because people in this church had longings!

This isn't a church where people have a sweet meeting and pop out. This is a community with integrity that are connecting! In Galatians 4:19 the believers had been under law and they went back to the law and got themselves under the deception of legalistic modern day religious Christianity and Paul didn't say "Well I have prayed for you and preached to you and I have exhausted myself and that is it! I will forget about you!". In Galatians 4:19 he said; "My dear children I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ be formed in you!". Paul's longings NEVER gave up!

I came to Hong Kong and God said; "You do not leave any wounded behind. You don't give up on anyone until they give up on you. You don't stop loving them or seeing them as your brothers!". There are people that come and go and we don't see them for months and they come back and get into all kinds of stuff. We don't stop loving them, reaching out to them and I am not just talking about me and Glenda! I mean people in this church. They will come through! This word "longed for" is the most powerful word you can use in the Greek language to describe human emotions.

Philippians 1:7, 8. Love is a decision! An act of the will! But love is an act of the will! If you never feel anything then something is wrong! I have feelings! I feel for people! I have longings! "It is right for me to feel this way about all of you. Since I have you in my heart for whether I am in chains or defending and confirming the gospel, all of you share in God's grace with me". The whole church is sharing in a common inheritance with Paul - the same grace! "God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus". Where is this supernatural love and longings come from? A revelation of acceptance grace that brings you into the Father's love and He gives you affections for your brothers around you and you can say "My brothers - you - my beloved! I long for you! You are my joy and my crown!".

I wanted to get into how this translates into rewards where Paul says "You are my victory wreath!". The Bible says a lot about rewards and it is not meant to inspire fear in us but to inspire faith to find inner security and stability and humility that will enable us to care and equip for each other so when Jesus comes again - Paul makes it clear that what you have done for your brothers around the world, you will share in equal rewards! Glenda and I have been going in ministry for 30 years and when you see Glenda and I as your brothers and as your beloved and as your longed for and you are praying that you stand firm - when you go to heaven then everything Glenda and I have done you will share in our rewards. Everything each of you have done with the right motives to honour him - if I see you as my beloved and not my joy - then everything you have done in God and born fruit, then I will share in the rewards! We all share! Whatever we have done! Partners we are involved in!

I feel so sorry for anyone who isn't part of a local church and can say "You are my victory wreath - the way you are standing in God and I am connected to the rewards of your maturity". All those believers will get is what they have personally done. But you and I will share collective rewards. Jesus will talk about common reward and common judgement. If you are in a church living in grace - then the only churches Jesus rebuked in Revelation were self-righteous. "Poor and blind". If you are part of a church where acceptance grace is part of the gospel then you will find shared reward on that day. I am here in Hong Kong by destiny! We don't focus on our circumstances! God will come and talk to us about our destiny! When you respond to destiny through process - not microwave - and process is by decade then our focus on destiny will mean He talks to us every single day!

Don't miss next Sunday! If you are a visitor passing through Hong Kong then download it next Sunday! Get this message! It is a misunderstood doctrine in the church today! Many Christians don't throw themselves into grace-filled works because they don't believe it! God said we are going to continue in momentum! Stay alert about your destiny and don't let anyone rob you of your destiny!