Sacred Texts: words to live by
Seeking God’s Kingdom
Readings: Luke 12:22-34
Preacher: Peter and Edwina Baily
Edwina and Peter Baily share some of their experiences from their recent trip to Zambia, including time spent with Zambia’s Child and Ipalo Christian School. As part of our Sacred Texts series, they will reflect on Jesus’ words in Luke 12:22–34 — his invitation not to be consumed by worry about the practicalities of life, but instead to “seek God’s kingdom”. Through stories and reflections from Zambia, Edwina and Peter help us explore what it might mean to seek God’s kingdom when resources are tight, the future is uncertain, and there is plenty we could worry about? Be encouraged as you hear their stories, learn more about the ministry of Zambia’s Child, and consider together Jesus’ invitation to trust God and seek first the things of God’s kingdom.
Reflection Questions
Exploring the Passage (Luke 12:22-34)
- Jesus points to the ravens and the wildflowers as signs of God’s care. What do these images reveal about God, and why might Jesus have chosen such ordinary parts of creation?
- What do you think it means to “seek God’s kingdom” in the midst of everyday concerns about food, clothing, money and the future?
- Jesus says, “Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom.” How does this promise shape the instructions about possessions, generosity and treasure that follow?
Pondering the Sermon Themes
- Peter and Edwina described Zambia’s Child as a relatively small organisation making a profound difference through faithful, patient work. What does this suggest about the relationship between size, success and faithfulness?
- Edwina spoke about walking with our hands open and letting go of the fears, worries, griefs or past experiences that prevent us from receiving what God has for us. What might “open hands” look like in your life at present?
- In her City2Surf story, Edwina was encouraged by people who faced much greater obstacles than she did. When have you needed to “get over yourself” and take the next step, even though you felt uncertain or inadequate?
Going Deeper
- Where do you presently find it most difficult to trust that everything does not depend upon you? What spiritual practice might help you place that concern more consciously into God’s care?
- Who are the vulnerable or overlooked people in our wider community whom God may be inviting us to notice, raise up or walk alongside?
- If we believed that God had already given us the kingdom and was inviting us to join in what God is doing, what courageous step might we take together as a church?
Sermon Text
I’m going to kick us off and then we’ll save the best till last. Edwina will come after me. So last time we were here talking about Zambia, you were sending us off. And we really appreciated that support. And we were aware of your prayers and I’m happy to say everything went to plan. Travel went well. No sickness, no health issues.
So it was a great trip. Let me start first by a little bit of geography, just in case people don’t know where Zambia is, there it is in the middle of Africa, towards the southern end, a landlocked country with plenty of African neighbors around there. And the area we went to is called the Copperbelt Province. Sorry, province because it’s full of copper and there is lots of mining activity going on there at the moment.
Given the price of copper, some of that even illegal mining. So that area is just above the word Zambia there on the map. And so we flew in there to Ndola. So we went to Joburg first, had a few days in the Kruger. So we did do a little bit of sightseeing, flew up to Ndola and then you drive up to Chingola which is where the Zambia’s Child school is.
That’s, that’s a that’s an interesting road. Some of it good, some of it not. We had a little what was it, a Honda Jazz which we turned into a four wheel drive. Jazz just getting through some of the some of the roads.
The actual site, the school site, there’s an aerial view of the school. And just so you get a little bit of a sense of the layout starting on the right, that very sort of top building there is the science labs. Then you sort of progress down to the classrooms. We’ve got a sporting area there, you’ve got the soccer field, a netball court, volleyball court, just sort of before that you can see those two buildings there.
It’s this thing got a pointer probably does. There we go. That is the boarding house. There’s a third one there. Now since that shot was taken a little bit of a tech area and maintenance sheds here and this whole area down the bottom there is the ag plot. So we have a piggery here, chickens there, fruit, vegetables which we, which we use to feed the kids.
And I’ll show you a little bit of that. So I’m going to jump through a whole bunch of photos for those who have seen Cam do his kids’ talks. He loves to share his holiday shots. I’m about to bypass Cam on holiday shots here, so so strap yourself in. We had a team of 35 people from all over the place.
This was a team that came from the Anglican church in Gerringong, just pointing to where Gerringong is as they were on their way. So there were people from there. We had people from southern right down the south of New South Wales, Port Macquarie, obviously Sydney. We had people coming over from the UK, 35 people coming and going through this trip.
We were kind of the first to arrive, which was good because we got the lay of the land and sort of got ready for for the team that was coming. But here, here we are. I’ve got a few shots of the school, just to give you some sense of what the property is like. You can see in the background there that is an anthill.
Amazing anthills. They are just huge and really good to build a guardhouse because you can see out across the site, you’ll see a few of those. Day one. We did this tour that’s with the vice principal. And so you can see some of the classrooms there just in the general sort of teaching area. There is a there is a hum of activity around a school.
I’ve realized as kids are getting taught, there’s kids doing presentations, there’s the chatter of groups learning. And so it was kind of nice to wander around during the day while all that activity was going on. And we’re there with Kim. Kim McCusker Kim was one of the founders. She is a teacher, and it was her vision to build this school.
There. We are having a look at the library and we’re about to build a new library, in fact, which I’ll talk a little bit about off down in the ag plot, there’s Edwina learning all about pigs. So if you need to know about pigs, she’s now semi qualified with Daniel. And Daniel runs our whole agricultural facility over there.
An amazing guy, passionate about what he does and really building the the capability of that.
There’s some of the residents, some of the pigs, and ultimately they will be used to feed the kids.
Some of the ladies who work in the plot, they are grafting avocado trees there and so propagating a lot of avocado trees. Some of those will get planted on the site for avocados, but many of those will actually get sold to help raise funds for the school.
And that whole agricultural thing. It does three things. It’s used for education that’s important. It’s used to try and create some funds for the school, but most importantly, it actually feeds the kids. So every day all the children will get a great meal at lunchtime, a hot meal. So at least once a day they are getting a good meal with good nutrition and some of the parents or guardians will come in and help with the preparation of that meal.
And there’s a cook on site to to prepare that. There you can see some of them getting stuck into it. They got smiles on their faces, so the food must be good. The white stuff you’ll see there is nsima. So that’s a staple. Zambians will say you haven’t eaten unless you’ve had nsima in your meal. So pretty much every meal will have that.
It’s a maize product. For the South Africans, pap would be the same thing. A big pot of that would be made up every single day. Some of some of the younger kids enjoying their lunch. I mentioned the science labs. There’s some of the some of the older students in the science labs. Sitting in class, Edwina was wandering around taking lots of photos while we were there.
Learning, going on in the classroom.
And a computer lab here. Kids who go to school or high school are all going to have laptops. Not the case over there. And there’s no no computers in the home. So this is a really important area for people to get some computer skills at school, because they won’t get that in the home.
Sewing class. A lot of sort of tailoring happens, and a lot of people might do that just to raise some extra income. And so we can teach the kids sewing skills, some of those sort of home skills.
Classes outside towards one of the playgrounds there. So we got to have a good look around the site and understand that that was kind of day one. I was asking lots of questions, probably annoyed everyone there. We also got to spend some time with. We have a board for the school over there, so we’ve got to spend some time with the with the board over there, our committee members from Australia who are on the trip, and that was fantastic.
As far as sort of building some bridges and understanding of how together we take the school forward. I think the thing that really impressed me is, especially those two ladies there who’ve been involved with the school for a very long time, just their passion around improving the lives of these kids and the stories they told of kids they’ve seen in absolute poverty, in really bad circumstances, in the home who’d come through the school and had really flourished.
So that was a nice reminder of the benefit of the work we’re doing over there.
Then this guy turned up. Mike was a bit of a surprise. He was a late addition to the team, but I soon realized when we got there, there were a few challenges with the technology on site. So I put Mike to work on technology. As soon as he arrived, Mike was going to visit his mother in South Africa, so he came via Zambia on the way, which was great.
So we had a few days there with Mike and he’s there working with Aaron, who looks after our tech on the school. So that gives you a little bit of a view of what the school looks like. Now. I’ll sort of run through some of the things that we did with the team that was there. All of our water comes from bores on the site, so we are self-sustaining, if you like, from a water point of view.
But some of those, those bores were not optimized at all and had a few challenges. So this is the team from Finley down in southern New South Wales. We’ve got farmers and maintenance guys there, so they were awesome at getting the water system working far, far better. Here they are putting solar panels up on the tank stand. When we got there, they were on the ground and they were facing the wrong way away from the arc of the sun.
So they fixed that. And some of the money that we raised at the flea market went to Zambia’s Child, and we used that to optimize the water system. So that money has already been implemented. If you like to improve the operations around the school, there we are in fact moving one of the water towers. We had one bore that had some contaminated water.
We think from some of the mining that goes on in the area. So we relocated that down to the agriculture center to basically increase our capacity of irrigation down there by about 150%. So that’s flea market money getting, getting put to work. A lot of maintenance has done around the site. There’s Jim from Gerringong. He’s a builder. So he brought his tool belt over and got to work.
So it was fantastic. We also had a few young people come on the trip and so they loved to play sport with the kids. There was a lot of soccer. Soccer was a much loved sport over there, so they got involved with the kids. Here’s Cathy from the Northern Beaches. She’s a teacher, so she got some time to spend one on one with some of the kids, supporting some of the learning, which was great.
Daniel, one of our young people, again, he’s ten, so he got into the classrooms and of course everyone loved him. A white kid with blond hair with lots of energy. He always had a team of Zambians following him around the school, but it was great to see him interact. Oh yeah, there’s yours truly. So I got to do some training with the staff.
So I trained the staff on budgeting—a fun session, and then I worked with Elvis on the right there. Elvis is our accountant on site, so I spent most of my time helping educate him properly in how we want our finances to be run, and moving some of that stuff forward.
Here’s our UK team out on the plot. They were staking tomatoes. I think again, you’ll see that new water tower there just on the left, and you’ll see people filling buckets. That’s why we put the water tower there, because they were hand watering all this with buckets. It took about 2 or 2 or three hours every morning to try and water the site.
They’ll all now be fully automated and irrigated. Some of the young, young, younger staff or younger team members here doing some weeding around the ag plot. But they might also be doing some talking, but having a good time there. And there’s Ambition. We extended our greenhouse so inside that is where we do a lot of our propagation of some of those avocado trees and other things that you saw before keeps the bugs and things away.
There’s a better shot of them putting the netting up, and we celebrated. Edwin and I just missed this, but we celebrated the day of the African Child, which is a global thing. Those who are astute will know that happens in June, but we delayed it until everyone was there, so had a great celebration at the school. Something about Zambians, perhaps Africans.
As soon as you put some music on, they start dancing and singing and they’re all amazing. So just to see those guys doing what they do is amazing. Had a sports day while we were there. So here we are getting set for the for the primary school kids. We have houses as you would here. We’ve got the Panthers, the Lions, the Jaguars.
There’s one other the Puma Pumas. So Phil is there cheering for the Panthers. But that was a that was a noisy day. As they got behind their houses netball was played. Soccer was played. Athletics. Some of the kids had got shoes on. So that’s good playing netball. And you can see Amos there. Amos is our principal. He was giving away some of the prizes during the day.
And the soccer competition, I think was the one that was most hotly fought. And so again, there was much celebration for the for the house that won the soccer competition.
Some of the team got to do some devotions with the kids. We had craft days. So lots of engagement with the kids during the trip, which again was was fantastic. The Africans have this great sense of hospitality. And Amos, the principal says, well, if you don’t come, we think we’re doing something wrong. So it was awesome for so many people to be there and supporting all the activities.
Here is seeing if you can get eight kids on a seesaw—and you can. And one of the things that was was awesome for us is, is we support a student and a teacher over there. So we got to visit Margaret. So Margaret’s their front left and go and see her in her home. She lives with her grandmother and her auntie who was staying right behind her.
So we got to visit, give her a few little gifts, but spend a bit of time and once you sort of built some rapport, she kind of followed Edwina around the school over the coming days and was always up for a chat. So great to see kind of the impact firsthand that that support is having. And then we also got to visit Katongo.
Katongo teaches home management, a super passionate teacher and staff member of the school, her husband drives a truck. He drives from Durban through to the Congo 21 days, sort of round trips. So he’s away a lot. But it was great again to spend some time with Katongo, and again see the amazing work she does. One of the other things we got to do when we were there is there is another school at Kipwe.
Kipwe is about halfway between Ndola and Chingola as you go up that road. And so there’s a school there. We support. We are with the larger majority of the funds that they receive come from from our school. And this was a bit confronting because that’s the school. They’re two buildings, the one on the left and the one behind.
The one behind is only just being built. If you think it looks a bit rough around the edges, it does. It has no power, and there’s over 200 kids who cycle through those two rooms. So I think the on reflection, there’s there’s plenty of work still to be done. I think we have to think hard about what we do with this school.
The school is on a church property and that is the church a little different to Turramurra. And so you get a real sense of of the need and what there is still to be done. I guess one of the things I wanted to do, though, is sort of thank everyone for the support. There has been lots Mike came across.
That was awesome. Marianne is our consulting librarian because we are building a library, so I shot the plans off to Marion. She gave us some ideas around how that could be set up. Chris, I don’t think Chris is here today, but Chris Bosch is actually doing a major CRM IT project for us to really bring our systems up to date.
You saw the impact of the flea market work, so if you’re at the flea market one day feeling tired. Well, that’s that’s the benefit of the other side of that. I know many people sponsor students from this congregation so that that is critical. The fundraising dinner, we’ve got three tables actually if people going to the fundraising dinner. So that’s awesome and has contributed to that sell out.
So there is lots of people supporting and lots of ways which we which we absolutely appreciate. So I think on reflection, it was amazing to see the facility. We are making decisions, Edwina and I and the committee about this school and these kids. So it’s amazing to have seen it now. And I think our mindsets changed as we got to know that property and how it operates.
You look at those photos and you perhaps lose sight of we actually cater to the poorest. So the kids who are the poorest are the ones that get invited to come to the school, and you can see they’re thriving in that environment. So it’s awesome work. It’s a hand up rather than a handout. And I think this is slow but important work.
The dux of the school last year has actually been accepted into a medicine degree. She’s got six years of study in front of her, and she couldn’t go to school prior to getting accepted into this school. So had that have not happened, where would she have ended up? I’m sure it wouldn’t have been a doctor, but in time I’m sure she will make a great impact on her community.
So I think we’ve been super encouraged by the support of everyone. It is through people like you supporting this organization that allows that all to happen. But I’m going to hand over to Edwina now and she’ll take you through the next section.
All right. Well, I’m getting used to Phil popping up wherever I am. With a quick question, I’ve just got a quick question for you. It’s never a quick question, but one of his recent questions was, do you have, like, a Bible passage that you want to reflect on when you come this morning? And sometimes he chooses very odd moments, like in the middle of playgroup, and I’m still getting my thoughts together, which I think might have been where I was when I had to come up with a Bible passage.
But I had just been writing something for our Zambia’s Child newsletter, and it was really top of mind was the last couple of verses from the passage that Trevor read before from Luke chapter 12, and I had not kind of done the click click. But when I was sharing with Phil this passage, which I was struggling with the exact words for, I said, oh, look, it was something that we used to hold dear when I was with Fusion.
It’s just a passage for me. As Phil said, it probably is a sacred text and I do have many sacred texts. When you talk about learning memory verses. When I was doing my training, we had to learn a hundred different verses and not just learn them, but then go tell them to somebody to show that you’d actually learned them.
Yeah, that was on top of my stuff that I had to learn it when I was at school as well. But this passage was really quite important. And the verse is that where it starts in verse 32 from chapter 12 it says, and the way I learned it was fear not, little flock, for it is your father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom, which actually comes from the King James Version.
I found when it didn’t quite match with with what was in my NIV, which says, do not be afraid, little flock, for your father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. And they’re very, very similar, but slightly different. And I didn’t go back to the Greek. So don’t ask me about, you know, what it really which tense it really is in.
But this whole thing of do not be afraid because it is God who has been pleased, your father who loves you, who holds you dearly and has been pleased to give you the Kingdom. And in the NIV version it is. It’s already happened. God has been pleased. This promise is a present reality. He is. He has been pleased to give you the Kingdom.
And in the fusion context, I think it was this thing of being a little flock. We were not a big organization. And actually that was something that we really held to. We were never about growing big and mighty. We actually had a limit of how many fusion centers we would ever have. It was never going to go above 23 centres and 200 people.
It was to be a small flock because it wasn’t about who we were, it was about God’s kingdom and seeing it come, the work being done and doing ourselves out of a job, if you like. And for me, it’s very similar to Zambia’s Child. It’s not a big organization. I’m, after all, the president. They had to go to me when they needed a new one.
It’s not a big and it doesn’t. Even though maybe Peter has different ideas with his franchising mind, he doesn’t. We’re not striving to be, you know, take over Africa or anything like that. We don’t want to run a school in every country or every town, although there is a great need. We are a small organization doing what it is that God has called us to in this place and particularly perhaps down the road as well.
So we’re our little flock. But it doesn’t mean that we are impotent or powerless. God. Jesus does not call his followers to be a mighty army or a powerful nation. He calls them a little flock, a small group that needs a shepherd and needs to stay close to their shepherd, who is guiding them and protecting them will bring them back when they wander off.
And notice when someone’s missing and keep that group together as one. And he tells them, do not be afraid. He does not tell them to stop fearing because life will be easy. He tells them not to fear because of who God is. He can be trusted and he delights to give them the kingdom.
There’s no reason for fear when we remember that everything depends on God. We can actually exercise our faith. We might not see how God’s plan is going to unfold, but he has one, and he calls us just to be part of it. And I feel like that’s what we’re doing as we are journeying with Zambia’s Child. Even going to Zambia was an act of faith because he has given us the kingdom and we’re seeing it in action.
I took this photo of these beautiful girls. They were hanging around waiting to go home, and they had to wait for one of the moms who was a teacher at the school. One of them decided they liked to have a go with the camera, which was Peter’s big camera that we never use. I was very like, oh, okay.
Yeah, I’m just holding on to it from behind you. But these girls are experiencing what it means to live in the kingdom. They’re not just getting an education, they’re getting an education under teachers who are committed to Jesus, who are walking with Jesus themselves, and they are going out of their way to do all they can to educate these kids.
That’s not just a 9 to 5. In fact, I think the school day starts at about seven. Like the kids can come to school early and start reading silently in their rooms, and they do. That’s after walking to school, which takes them about an hour. So it’s quite an early day, and they go and the teachers do a big day.
When the kids are preparing for exams, they are there on the weekends. They are calling the kids to continue walking in faith themselves, to hold to the promises that they are reading in the Bible. It’s a very much a lived out faith within the community, where it is normal for the police to take bribes and all those sorts of things.
This small school is trying to stand up and say, that’s not God’s way. It’s in a country that calls itself Christian, but all these things are happening under the surface, or maybe not even under the surface, but these teachers are taking their faith and saying, hey, there’s a different way to live here, and it’s going to be better.
This is what God’s kingdom kingdom is meant to be like, where the most vulnerable are raised up, where we treat each other with integrity and we act differently from other people. So we’re seeing it happen in these lives day by day. And the kids are, as a result, discovering their potential. As Peter said, one girl’s gone on to medicine.
In fact, we had a problem in that we had three students who were ready to go and do that sort of degree and only funding for two of them. What do you do super hard? These are the decisions we’re making as a committee about what do we do with this? We don’t want to deprive anyone of opportunity. We’ve just got to do trust God and keep moving forward as, as best we can.
So it’s incredible outcomes coming because of a small, committed group who are intent on being faithful and trusting the promises of God. And so we’re seeing things happen in this place that are quite extraordinary. Do not be afraid, little flock, for the father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. Perhaps this might be something you’d like to be a part of.
Unfortunately, as Phil said, can’t come to the dinner this year. I think our waiting list is already at capacity as well. But there are some other ways that you could be involved. Thank you. Amen. Here we go. So you might choose to sponsor a student. As we said that makes a profound difference. These children having the opportunity to come to school or a teacher as Peter said, we met who is actually not home maintenance—it is home management.
It’s home management. Her role, which is a really significant role. The classroom that she operates from is actually a set up with things like beds, toilet, all these things to teach kids how you make a bed because most of them don’t have one. So they are learning actual practical skills around how to maintain a home. What it means what’s a toilet look like?
How do you use it? How do you clean it? All those things they sound like, why do you need to go to school to learn that? But this is really important skills for these kids. So sponsoring a teacher is having an incredible impact on these young lives. You might like to donate towards our building fund. We’re about to, at our dinner, launch an appeal to build our staff admin block and staff room.
Currently, teachers have to camp in their own classrooms, and any teachers would know. That’s not really a very peaceful place, is it? They just camp in their classroom to do things before school, after school, which is really tricky. So we know that building, that building is going to make a profound difference for everything at the school.
We are as we said, we already had this dilemma of too many kids doing too well at school and being ready to go on to tertiary education. We’re about to graduate our third group at the end of this year, which means the problem is just compounding. We have many children who are ready and expecting to go to university or some other type of training.
And so we’re about to set up a scholarship fund to make that possible. If we can get a starting pool of funds, that will mean we can offer them scholarships to be able to attend university and actually achieve all of these dreams that they have been growing as they’ve gone through their education and they all have a dream, let me tell you.
And the science teachers must be amazing because everyone wants to do science, which I personally find surprising. Okay. All right, you might like to visit the school. Others who came back said, well, when we go again next year. And I was like, what do you mean we’re not going again next year? Look, here we are. So there’s already talk of the next mission trip, which is I keep saying the committee has to approve, but you might like to go and visit.
I was often doing the briefings and debriefings with people at the beginning and end of each day, and it was incredible to see the diversity of what people were doing on the ground, and to recognize that really, every person was there for a reason. They brought their own skill, and it was absolutely remarkable. Peter showed you that picture of the greenhouse being built that was being built by the UK team of IT geeks, is all I can say.
You know, that’s what they do for their job, but they came and built that. We also though, had, you know, people who’d worked on farms, electricians, who were doing all the water tanks and things, people who are working in the classroom on the day, the Day of the African Child, one woman who originally was a teacher and is now a nurse, did an incredible presentation on the prevention of cholera with the kids in a way that they could engage with and actually take that back home to know, well, how do I prevent this?
So everyone brought their actual skill to on the ground, so it doesn’t matter who you are. I think I believe there is something that you can bring in this sort of context, and you might like to be praying, because that’s obviously the number one thing. Maybe we should have put that at the top of the list. Praying for the school, for the students, for decisions made here and for the opportunity that is there because there is so much.
Currently, the team over there is interviewing children who will go into reception next year, which is the first year of school, and it will be a difficult decision around who gets to go and who doesn’t because we can’t take everybody. Unfortunately, that would be amazing if we could. So yeah, there’s many ways that you can be involved. We are hoping that we might actually get the principal here to speak on one of the weekends that he is here in September, and we are also considering another event because the dinner was sold out.
Whether there’s another way that we could host people who wanted to come and hear a bit more. So. And there might be something else, though, that today it’s not about Zambia at all. I know it sounds like it is. Well, it has been really, hasn’t it? Let’s be truthful. But it’s not. God might be prompting you about something completely unrelated, but perhaps there is something in what you’re hearing this morning that might be saying, well, what is God saying to me about this?
Last week, Phil started to explore Paul’s prayer in Ephesians three, which might help as you pray and consider what God’s call to seek his kingdom might mean for you. I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
This is a pretty good prayer, and it’s not about wealth or health or influence or success. Paul prays that Christians would know the love of Jesus. Why? Because when we truly understand Jesus’ love, it changes us. And fear loses its grip. As Paul says, this love surpasses knowledge. We spend our entire lives learning it and we never reach the end of it.
It’s not knowable, particularly with our heads. We’re not meant to live just knowing about Jesus with our heads. It’s about how we live and what we do day to day, so that it changes what we do to act on that love. To walk into the world with Jesus every day, all day, and not be afraid.
I don’t know if you have sacred songs as well as sacred texts. I know I have one that, for me,, it just takes me to a completely different place. But it’s about walking up a hill with your hands wide open. Not that I would ever do that, obviously, but if you can imagine a walk up a hill with my hands wide open, if your hands are wide open, you’re not holding on to anything.
You have to let go in order to receive. So we have to let go of whatever we’re worried about, whatever we’re fearful of, whatever we’re grieving, whatever was in the past that we’ve allowed to stop us moving forward. We have to let go of those things if we’re really going to receive, which is the rest of the verses at the end of Luke chapter 12.
So it says, sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out a treasure in heaven that will never fail. When no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. It talks about selling your possessions, but there are other things that we hold on to that do get in the way too.
For me, I think there’s lots of pains from the past that I hold on to, and I let them stop me doing things. As I said, when I went to Africa, I got to do some leading of the team, which I haven’t done for a while. I had to get over myself and go do what it was that God had put me there to do.
So today, perhaps there’s something that’s getting in your way that you need to let go of. I just encourage you to do that. Last Sunday, John said, are you going to talk about the City2Surf? I said, yeah, a little bit. Last Sunday I wasn’t here. I was doing that run in the city with 90,000 other people.
I wasn’t going to do it because when I went to sign up, it told me pretty much that I was too old and I wouldn’t be able to do it. No, it said I had to be in the yellow group because given my time last year, I probably wouldn’t be able to do it in less than two hours.
And I thought, well, I’m not going to do it then. And then we had a way of raising some funds for Zambia’s Child, so I thought I’d better do that. So I signed up and I was there on the day in the yellow group, determined that I was going to do it in less than two hours, especially because the night before someone had said to me, I’m pressed.
You’re doing it at your age. So thanks very much.
Before I even got to the start line, when I was getting ready, I saw a woman who was wearing quite a skintight outfit. She was pregnant as she had this huge pregnant belly, and she had her number across the front of it. I thought, well, if she can do it, I can do it. And I got on my way and I was going up the first hill and I thought, oh, there’s a lady next to me with a wheelchair.
I wonder why she’s got a wheelchair with no one in it. And then I realized, wow. Sorry. The guy next to her was walking. He had two prosthetic legs, and he was walking up this hill in the City2Surf.
Get over yourself. Whatever’s stopping you, let go of it. God puts us in a place and says, hey, here, come have have part of this adventure with me. Whatever it is that you know is right in front of you, take hold of it. It might be in Zambia, but it might not be. It’s whatever it is that God has for you today, whoever you are.
Take hold of it. You don’t know what’s going to happen. I did my run in an hour and 33 minutes, which I know doesn’t sound like much when you hear. Yeah, thanks. It doesn’t sound like much when you go, oh, the winning guy did it in 40 minutes. And I just go, wow, how is that possible? It doesn’t matter what he did.
It’s only about—it’s only about you. Don’t worry about anyone else. What is God calling you to just let go and take hold of whatever it is. You never know what is possible. And don’t be afraid. And together we don’t need to be afraid either. God’s brought us here to be one community, to do whatever he has for us here in this place or somewhere else.
And he’s already doing it. He’s already building whatever needs to be built. And he just says, come and be with me in it. Amen.