So Jesus said My mission here is to get you out of the bondages of life and get you back to what God had for you. That's what He said the Spirit of God's on Me. It's not just to get you physically healed. You can still live a miserable life. It's not just to get the demons off you, you can still live a miserable life. I want to position you so you can live the kind of life I called you to live and designed you to live, a supernatural life. You need to come back to your position. See, what God intended for us. You know the year of jubilee was fantastic because every 50 years they'd blow a trumpet; you had your debts all cancelled. Imagine what we'd do if I blew a trumpet and then all your credit card debt and all the other debts have all gone. Man, you'd be happy! They had a happy time, see. It's good news! The gospel is good news! See, the gospel is GOOD NEWS! It's good news because debt is cancelled. Sin is cancelled. It's cancelled. It's not a problem anymore. Lots of things change in the year of jubilee, and that's why Jesus said it's good news I've come to tell you.
They all understood what He was taking about; I've come to restore - they kept thinking it was a physical kingdom you see, but they actually had something else in mind, He had a spiritual kingdom. They wanted Him to overthrow the Roman government but He said no, no, I'm not going to do that. Okay, now have a look at the commission that He gave the church, in Matthew 28:19-20. All authority in heaven and earth is given to Me. All authority. All authority. Who's got all authority? All authority; that's the legal right to speak and act - is given to Me in heaven and earth. Go there and what? Make disciples of all nations, teaching them what? Teaching them? Teaching them? Oh just come to church and receive Jesus, your Saviour, you'll be just fine. Aye? Is that what He said? No. Make disciples, teaching them to obey. To obey! Why? Because it's only as I yield and flow with the one who loves me that I'm going to actually enjoy the benefits of what He's called me to have. I can't advance His kingdom if I'm not under it.
If I'm a rebel I can't actually advance His kingdom. I'm just like everyone else. The problem is people look at Christians; they come to church and they got a bit of religion around them. They look all uptight and wound up and their lives are a mess. They look at them and say man, whatever you've got I don't like it, I don't want any of that. I say the same thing, I don't like it at all. Jesus never came to give us that. He came to bring our lives back into alignment to how to succeed in life. It's just we got opinions, see? Now notice it said it's global, all nations, the whole world. The whole world, the whole world, that's why every believer's got a mission to the whole world - so at least you've got a mission to your little bit of the world. Everyone can get up and go somewhere, to someone with something God has given you. That's His intent, that you and I would actually teach people to obey. But you can't teach someone to obey something you haven't done yourself.
Now let's just talk a little bit about culture, culture. What culture is, culture is actually - and the world has a culture of its own. The kingdom of heaven has a culture of its own, then you have cultures - there's the Maori culture, there's a youth culture, there's the drug culture. Culture is the set of attitudes and beliefs and values that actually influence and shape a group so they're like they are see? So they believe and value certain things, and they do certain things. That's culture. So one of the things is the world has a culture of its own, and the culture shapes how you live your life, so if you come around you'll see Kiwis have got a Kiwi culture. So if you come from South Africa - got any South Africans here? We have some. How did you find it when you came into New Zealand; was it just like South Africa? No. Did you get a culture shock? You got a bit of a culture shock. How many have been to India? Man oh man, did you get a culture shock when you went there? Whoa! I was stunned for about three days. [Laughter]