Here's the next think you notice: kings advance to new territory. I want you to see something here in these verses. When they left the multitudes, the multitude just are the multitude. They don't usually go very far. They follow everyone else. If you're going to be a king, if you're going to stand up and fulfil your destiny, you can't follow the crowd. Young people, you want to be great - don't follow the crowd. Crowd are lost, bewildered, bewitched, under all kinds of influences. They don't know where they're going and they don't know what controls them. So they left the multitude. If we live our live to please people and we live our life continually to meet the needs of people, live our life continually to keep people happy, we will never, never move from where we are into larger territory because you know what happens? The moment you try to step out and make a change people try to stop you. We don't want you to make the change. We don't feel comfortable with you being there because it'll show up we're not moving. That's what happens - happens everywhere.
So you're going to move from the crowd, so there's a couple of things that they had to - the first things they had to do was they had to leave the crowd, had to leave the crowd behind. The crowd - it takes vision and courage to go against what other people do. You'll probably realise over the years we've never really followed what all the other churches do and not everyone's very happy about that. Some people come and say well you should be like them down the road. No, because we were never raised up to be like that. We've tried to resist some of the current trends because they violate the DNA I have. Church should be full of God, full of the presence of God, full of what God is doing, full of people who love one another and love God and are happy to be themselves, keen to advance the kingdom of God. See?
So you have to resist the pressure. There's pressures everywhere, pressures in ministry, pressures in finance, pressures in business. No matter where you are there's pressure. The question is if you're a king do you have vision and will you expand your territory and resist the pressure of people? It takes courage to do that, say our marriage is going to be different, our family's going to be different, our business is going to be different, our lives are going to be different. It takes courage to do that, so you've got to leave the crowd because the crowd aren't doing that and the crowd are never right. Never. Think about that.
Why would you follow the crowd if they're never right? Come on, think about it. Just think about it. A couple of years ago the crowd were saying come on, buy up more land, buy up investment, buy up property, buy this, but God was saying to me something different. He was saying no, no, get rid of your mortgage, make sure everything's all paid off. I felt a bit goofy and stupid that I was the only one thinking that way. Turned out to be quite a good move really - so they left the crowd. See? Kings advance to new territory, so to advance to new territory you've got to stop worrying what people thing. You've got to advance in what God is showing YOU to do. Notice they did two things; they left the people and they left the shore. You never go out into the seas of opportunity if you don't leave the shore of security. Sometimes we've got to step out and take risks and take chances and step out and let go of security.
I think for Dave and Kate, early on for them that right now they're planning to let go everything that they've tried to build and to let go all security. Now at that age in life that's a big challenge, knowing that you're going to sow your finance in your life and you have an uncertainty about your future - if you're a responsible father and husband that's a huge challenge. Be the same for Doug and Kalinda. Same for Terry. These are big challenges, to leave security, to leave the shore to pursue that walk that God's called us to. Now your security doesn't mean leaving Hastings or anything. Your security could be just your house. It could be something you've got your life invested in and you could do great things but you're held to that thing. What is it that's holding you? What's stopping you? What's got a grip? What is the crowd saying to you? What is it got hold of you that as a king you can't enlarge because you fear the crowd or fear to leave the shore? Think about it, see?