4) where can you practice zekute today? Is there anybody in your life right now, that you could make their life better, even tonight? This takes the form of all kinds of things, not just money. There are hungry people in this world that need to be fed. There are naked people in this world that need to be clothed. There are people who are in desperate, desperate need, and sometimes money can fix that problem. There are blind people that $30 can help them see. There are - but you know what, there might be a single mum in here, and she's got four children, and she's about to lose her sanity. Maybe zekute for her, is you calling and saying: you know what, this Saturday I'm going to watch your kids for four or five hours, and you don't have to do anything. You can go out, see a movie, go shopping. You can be on your own. You can go sit at the banks of Hawkes Bay, and look over towards the mountain, sit on the water, and just clear yourself, reset your batteries - and you would be practicing zekute, because there's nothing she could ever do to pay you back. That's zekute. That's making other people's lives better.
It IS your problem. What else are you going to do, watch Super 14? I mean what else are we going to do, watch the next re-run of CSI? Come on, what else are we going to do? What are we going to give our life to? Are we going to give our life to striving not to do certain things so we're righteous, or are we going to give our life to hunger and thirst to make other people's lives better?
Listen to me, the next generation of church will be defined by churches that live Zekute - it'll be defined. Listen, not my generation, but the generation after me - they do not care what you believe. Your doctrine is useless to them. They want to see a kingdom of God. They want to see a body of Christ that's actually meeting needs. My dad's generation, they were a mind generation - teach me doctrine, teach me truth, teach me this stuff. The next generation after me, that'll be important, but it won't be the most important thing. They want to know where does your doctrine feed the mouths of hungry people; where's your doctrine make other people's lives better? Does it work?
I bless you tonight to know, that you can be a church of the kingdom. You can be, and it comes down to each individual person, choosing to practice zekute. I bless you tonight to know, that the fate of New Zealand is not found in people in Wellington. The fate of New Zealand is found in the individual families represented here today, who will make a choice to live by Zekute; and it will go well with you, for this is what it means to know Me declares the Lord, your God. May we be kingdom people.
Let's pray together and I will say one more thing to you. I've taught you a lot okay; Thursday, Friday, today. I actually need to go away for about a year and read some books, so I can have something new to say. But listen to me. If you learned your brain full of stuff tonight, and through the week, but yet by Wednesday it hasn't changed your life - I have done nothing. It does nothing. So what if you know stuff? I want to know what are we going to do about it. One scripture says: let us not be hearers of the word but... [Doers].
Let's pray together and the first question I want you to ask yourself, between you and God: Lord, where can I practice Zekute tonight? This week? Where do we need to sit down and make a commitment to constantly do it on a regular basis? Where do we need to make this a lifestyle of giving stuff up so that other people's lives can be better?