They were sort of perfect, dressed right, went to the right places, spoke right, paid tithes, prayed, did blah blah blah blah blah, but Jesus said: oh you're like a painted tomb, there's bones on the inside, corrupt all the way right through to the core! Nothing authentic, see? So God wants you to be authentic. To be authentic, well there are some days: WHERE IS GOD! Some days you're struggling. Some days you're doing well - that's actually what the Christian life is like; but in the middle of it, we can express our feelings, our struggles, our concerns to God. We hear the voice of our heart. We begin to understand our beliefs and what's happening. We can begin to receive encouragement from the Lord. He desires truth in the inner parts, so it's not you let your emotions all hang out everywhere, [make sobbing sounds] all over the place, no. There's appropriate places, but in worship, we should be able to express our joy, our freedom, our - Calinda was amazing. Calinda had a back condition, really in pain, didn't even want to come to church, came to church then got dancing and got healed as she danced! Now that's what faith will do, do you understand?
It doesn't mean you ignore your pain; it means you actually, in the midst of it, do you express faith in God? Okay, another thing that goes a bit like that is, you notice what Adam said: I was afraid, and so I hid; so the other thing we do is we tend to hide our weaknesses. Now this is a funny thing hiding weaknesses. The interesting thing is that a person is very, very difficult to relate to if they're a perfect person. I don't find perfect people easy to relate to. You become conscious you seem to be leaving a mess on their floor. [Laughter] You've been into some houses like that, and it almost feels the moment you walk in, you've started to bring a mess with you. You know if you eat anything, and no crumbs are going to get on the floor, you just know you're going to spill the cup - there's tension all the time you're there. You get out and you're exhausted, just trying to behave right. [Laughter] It's hard to relate to people like that. Real people make mistakes, and they make them almost almost every day of their lives. That's what real people are like - including me.
I have a great message of grace. The reason I've got a great message of grace is I've made so many mistakes - I desperately needed God to help me - and the grace I've got comes out of being so grateful God forgave me. I've got a very big heart to forgive people, because I've been forgiven much. You understand, it's like God doesn't call us to be perfect in our behaviours. He calls us to have a heart that's right, a perfect heart towards Him, responsive to Him. Now you see this thing of trying to look good, act good, perform good, and be a goody-goody-two-shoes Christian, and then try and make your children the same - well that doesn't go down well at all. One, they'll either rebel against you, in which case you've got a battle on your hands all the way; or two, they are compliant, but inside they're rebelling. They're saying yes on the outside, but inside they're standing up; and one day it breaks out! Oh! Where did that come from? How did that happen? Well you've just shut them down all your life.
See, we've got to watch that we give grace and space for our children to actually be normal people, who make mistakes, and funnily enough in some families some kids are really nice, and really easy, real easy. Some kids are really soft, really easy to train. Others are like - where did this monster come from? [Laughter] How - what did I do in my last life to deserve this? [Laughter] And the rest of the church, oh tut-tut-tut-tut-tut, there must be something wrong, yeah, must be something wrong with your parenting. They've got no idea what struggle's going on there, with the strong-willed child; and while you're raising them, and trying to deal with them, you're aware everyone's looking. [Laughter] Looking at you, looking at the goody goody kids, whoa! Like that - and while you're struggling with that child, you remember that you were just like that when you were growing up. [Laughter] The full circle of life has come around, and you are reaping what you've sown! [Laughter] Everyone can see it now! [Laughs]