Great. What I want us to do is, I want all of us to pray this prayer out loud after me, with some 'go All Blacks' gusto okay? Alright, no shyness. This isn't a shy place. Let me just tell you something. I love this place. There's something about this place that nourishes my soul, and part of it is the energy in it; so I want all of us to pray this prayer out loud, after me. It's not the specific words of any prayer that'll ever save you, it's the response to God in your heart. I just want to put some feet around it okay? Everybody's going to pray this prayer out loud, and you just join in, because this is your prayer, your moment, your time.
It goes like this: My Lord, Jesus Christ, thank You for coming. Thank You for dying for me. I confess that I'm a sinner. I have no hope of saving myself, so I ask You Lord to forgive me, cleanse me, come into my life, be the Lord of it. And Lord, now I ask that You would bring hope to every place I'm suffering in Jesus' name. Amen.
Now I want to take a second, let's pray for each other. Would you grab the hand of your neighbour? If you feel comfortable with them, grab their hand. If they creep you out - don't worry about it. Alright, grab the hand of your neighbour, and I want you to begin to pray for the person on your left. Would you pray for the person on your left, that hope would flow in their situation. Whatever they're going through, let hope flow into it. Would you believe God for them, if they're sick in their body - speak hope. If their family's in turmoil - hope. If they're looking for a job - hope. Peace, love, hope flows in their situation. Now would you pray for the person on your right? Let hope flow in that situation.
Lord, we pray for this church. Let this church be a dwelling place for Your name, the compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love God. May this entire community be touched by the environment that is in this place. Let the environment in this place multiply through this community, through every person sitting here. Lord, we renounce any criticism against this place; any criticism, we speak death to those words, any criticism against any leader here, any scandal, anything like Lord - we speak death to that. We will not allow those things to be spoken. We will live a different way. May the demonstration of our behaviour, may it show forth into this community, that this place is in fact a dwelling place for the name, in Jesus' name. Bless us with that. Amen.
Thank you so much for letting me be your guest this weekend. It has ministered to me, as much as it's ministered to you, maybe more. I love this place. As long as they see fit to keep having me, I'll keep coming back and it's because I journey in the spirit of this place. I travel the world okay, I'm in a different church every week. There's something about the environment in this place that nourishes the soul. You won't know it, until you didn't have it.
Sometimes you don't know what you do have, until you don't have it; and when that happens, you take something for granted - it's normal. Moses parted the Red Sea, turned around and destroyed the entire mightiest army in the world in one swoop. Three days later the people forgot what they had, and they were going to kill him, simply because they were hungry. When you forget what you have, you lose sight of things.
Now listen to me. I travel the world. I know what I'm talking about. I am not an expert in many things, but I am an expert in church environment and in pastors. I can tell you you have one of the greatest churches in the world right here in Hastings, New Zealand. There's something about this place, that if you allow it, it nourishes the soul. Never, ever, ever, lose sight of the grace that God's given you, simply by the fact that you're sitting here.
Now I'd like to invite you back tonight to be our guest. I've been speaking all week, and it's leading us up to one moment tonight. Tonight is the single most important message I ever preach in the whole world, and pastors all over this world are telling me: Shane, that has to go out. That has to. It's changing the way we're doing life, it's changing the way we're doing church.