 I'm going to read to you from 1 Corinthians 9, verse 19 to 23. This is only the second time, by the way, of me speaking this message, anyway in the world, so it may be a train wreck, but hopefully only I will notice that, because in my head I know I should drive, but it may not. Even though I am free of the demands and expectations of everyone, Paul said, I have voluntarily become a servant to any and all in order to reach as wide a range of people, religious, non-religious, meticulous moralists, loose-living immoralists, that defeated the demoralized, whoever. I didn't take on their way of life, I kept my bearings in Christ, but I entered their world and tried to experience things from their point of view. I become just about every sort of servant there is in my attempts to lead those I meet into a God-saved life. I did all this because of the message. I didn't want to talk about it, I wanted to be in on it. I want to speak to you about the title of this idea is Stand Up Chameleons. If you forget the content, you'll remember the title, and the title will remind you of the content, especially the word chameleons, because Paul is speaking about his chameleon-like nature that he knew he had to discover in order to connect with more people than just the church or certainly just Jews, because Paul's calling, as you know, commissioning, took him beyond the Jews who refused to accept him to the Gentiles, which was most of the world. So Paul knew if he was stepping outside of the Jew bubble, the Jewish bubble, that he would have to learn new skills. He would have to learn how to connect with all kinds of people, and Paul didn't just see that as an inconvenience because he began to enlarge his tribe to Gentiles. He saw it as a privilege and an honor and a challenge to his leadership and to his version of humanity to develop the superpower, and it is a superpower of adaptability. We have alluded to that already in this building, has required adaptability of some of you at a stage of life when not much is asking you to do that. The older you get, the less life seems to demand adaptability from us because we settle into our skin, we settle into our relationships, our friendships, our roles, our positions, our involvement, our responsibilities, we settle in. These things become our identities and so we settle in under those layers of who we are. And so disruption and the requirement to be flexible and the requirement to reinvent and to think on your feet and to let go of things and to be casual with attachment to things comes more difficult to us as we age, which again is what I speak about in the ageing well thing. Because one of the gifts that our generation mine have, Malcolm and I and some of you in the room, to the emerging generation is that we do not get stuck and fixed in an old version of us and still cleave to that and we see your ideas as a threat to it. And we almost, we almost, we almost subconsciously and unconsciously fight for something that no one's really trying to kill. And the problem is we become overattached to former identities of us and seasons of our lives. So I think Paul realized that for longevity and I think we have to realize not just the church, but political parties, businesses, teams, any organizations, any communities that want to have longevity, we have to discover the superpower and commit to it for life of being a chameleon, of finding in your humanity and you're born with this ability by the way, to be able to be adapt. If the human species had not been able to adapt, we would not have been here a long time ago. Our species would have been wiped out a long time ago because of the things that we have had to encounter and deal with through human history, we would never have survived had we not discovered the ability to be a chameleon, to adapt, to reinvent, to change, to fit in, to blend in. Blending in is not a concept the church welcomes because we have been taught as was I, that we are salt and we are light. The only version of salt and light I ever heard taught was a shouty version. That salt is there to be rubbed in the rottenness of the world. Salt is there to assault the senses of the world to let you know that's not who we are. We stand for different, we are God's people. We are the light, you are the darkness. The saltiness we were supposed to have in society always was communicated to me as a young believer as something that was confrontational, offensive in your face. And if you know anything about cooking or sheffing, know that salt can also be used in a very nuanced way. It is still there but it is not the most prominent taste. Some of us that are addicted to salt grab for the salt pot when the meal is not salty enough even though even though they tell us no I put plenty of salt in it but it just wasn't enough for you. So we salt it and the sheffs look like, what? You're ruining it. And I only heard of a light taught as something that we dazzle people with. We are the light of the world, full beam in your face. We are the church, we are the people of God, we are standing for righteousness and all of this stuff I was raised with and so we evangelized and we were like an assault, Navy Seal, SAS group of people. We were there to parachute in and assault you with our salt and light presentations and that's what I grew up with and it's still widespread I think around the world is a version of that. But you all know salt can be subtle and so can light. Lighting can be beautiful. It can be so subdued, no one can say it's not lit, it's just not floodlit. This place has house lights if we were to put them on the contrast would be huge compared to even how much light there is in here now. You know people spend billions and billions of pounds for the right lighting in their properties in their premises because they understand light is not neutral. That light is a huge amount of what they want to create in terms of energy and ambience and feel. It is a science and art is lighting. So we've had one version of it, we're gonna dazzle you and if you don't like it we think you're the problem. Well you're just resistant, you're just a rebel, you're just trying to hide from God. This is by the way I'm telling you all this so that you continue to understand why we have 98% of our country not in church because all the church has done is this and throw salt on them and dazzle them and think God's proud of us because we're evangelizing. This was not Paul's MO. Paul said I I have voluntarily and this is the issue with being adaptable. I have voluntarily, no one will make you do this. God will still love you, you'll still go to heaven, you'll still have a good church experience, you'll still feel and know His presence, you'll still be able to love and serve. So you have to voluntarily become a servant to any and all He said to reach as wide a range of people as possible. I want to reach religious people because they need reaching and re-educating like I said earlier the blockbuster version of us and our churches. But I want to reach non-religious people who are far more. I want to reach the people that are meticulous about living their lives right and the religious crowd that the phariseical type believers, we've all still got those in the churches around the world. I want to reach people at the other end of the scale, the loose living immoralists, the defeated, the demoralized. And in case he forgets anybody, he just says whoever, whoever else you can think of. He said this, I didn't take on their way of life. Now he said that because he knows that you're going to think that doing what he did meant compromise, meant dilution, meant you're not salty enough and you're not lighting enough. He knows that you're going to think this is what I struggled with in the late 90s when I started to reach the poor, the people felt by bringing in the poor somehow we were, we were diluting the gospel because we weren't confronting these people. I wasn't preaching every Sunday about sin and getting your life right. And there's hundreds of people there that are coming from these council states in our country with generationally embedded problems of crime and abuse and prostitution and poverty and all the problems that go with that. And they were third, fourth generation unemployed and all the problems that go with that. And I'm bussing these people in, but every single Sunday I spoke to them like they were royalty. And I knew that some people in the church, and I heard from them very quickly, felt that we were compromising and I was not leading the church well because these people were being allowed to come as they are. Which is the branding of more churches around the world. Now it's trained, isn't it? Come as you are is the branding of churches. But what we really mean is come as we are. Because if you come as you are and how you are doesn't suit me and I can't chameleon to reach you, then you won't come back. Because if looks couldn't kill, you'd be dead in the car park. And that was the problem in our church. Many of these people didn't come back because I couldn't get between them and the people that couldn't chameleon. And I realized that this operation of Paul, this commitment, this value we had must become mine personally and must become the culture of our church and this church. Because if I want to be here in 20 years time, and I don't mean looking at the same people sat in the same seats in 20 years time. If I want to be here in 20 years time and the demograph here just looks different, refreshingly different. Not that your demograph are all here. Because I've checked you out. Is it all one dimensional? It's not. You're doing great. And I'm not surprised you're doing great because I've met your leadership and they're hard for everyone. But if we want to keep reaching everyone. Because I got to tell you no matter how progressive we think we are and our church thought we were, we're never far from defaulting to the comfort of who we feel comfortable being around. And that's okay. I understand that. It's uncomfortable to relate to people that are not your social tribe. It is uncomfortable. But unless we're willing to do that as Paul said, I volunteered. I volunteered to spend more time in their shoes than in mine. I volunteered to, I saw this as an act of service. I saw my ability to chameleon as an act of service rather than as an act of compromise. I kept my berries in Christ. He said, I know people didn't think that when I'm hanging out with no more than did with Jesus, who is accused of being a friend of sinners. He saw that as a compliment. So should you. But they saw it as a judgment on him. And I think Paul learned from Jesus to be in the shoes of those that are outside of our bubble and would never darken the doors of a church service. And that's why I think adaptability is a key for longevity and a key to you been here five years from now and been relevant five years from now and reflecting the variety of this community five years from now. Many of us often think we are more adaptable than we are because we're in a context that speaks about faith and taking risks and stepping out and not being stuck in the wilderness and breaking camper moving on. And I've sat under those sermons for generations like you have that have come down the line from my history. I've listened to variations of that and books and sermons about all that. And I think when you sit around that emphasis and shout amen to it, you think that you're doing it. And because because God knows that we are we will tend to do that. He has a way of sending in curved balls disruptive things that that bumpers into ourselves before it's too late. And the story of the church around the world and many other organizations like blockbuster is that they got the memo too late. They said this will never take on. It's not relevant. People won't want it. Imagine imagine thinking that we were not going to get tired of driving down to the video store and spending hours talking to the guy there that knows every single video because he's nothing else to do and spending hours there talking to this guy looking at the shelves getting getting coaching and tips on which movie to get. Then when you decide the movie you want they tell you it's out. What are come back tomorrow. Imagine thinking that we'd not get tired of it. Imagine not perceiving that shift coming. It's amazing how the church has been behind the curve in perceiving these shifts. Even many ones. That's why I'm teaching around the world to the church and all kinds of organizations that growth is thousands of small, non sexy, non exciting stuff that we do every single day. The in and of itself is kind of nothing to see here like brushing your teeth. Any given day. It's not even worth a mention. You do it on autopilot. Not even aware you're doing it. But brushing your teeth every day will hand you a gift as you age of having good teeth. If you don't it will hand you a shock of a dentist bill that reminds you that you should have been doing something boring and mundane every day. Growth is teeth brushing. That's all it is. But because we don't do it. We rely on big events to catch us up. And we look for quantum leap supernatural encounters. The only people that need quantum leaps are people that stayed behind and didn't get the memo. I thought we could get away with ignoring it. And we'll just get zapped into the fast track of where we should have been 20 years ago. And we all know enough to know that that's not happening and never has happened. And the presence and anointing of God is not here to upgrade your thinking when your thinking has deliberately been stationary for years. Some of you are in a new environment in your work life. Some of you in a new relationship, a new opportunity. And you're struggling. You're not struggling because you can't do the job. You're struggling because you can't do the job there. It's the same work. But it is a different culture. This boss is different to the last boss. The culture of this company is different to the last one. In this company, you left much more on your own. This company doesn't micromanage because they're recruiting people that don't need that. Your last company was smaller. And everybody knew everybody's business and everybody was involved in every decision. But this is a larger organization. A larger organizations realize we can't recruit people that need micromanaging. We've got to recruit self-status, people with initiative. We've got to recruit people that take risks and step out. And we're entrepreneurial people, as it were. So you're in this new company because you're attracted by that. But now you're struggling because you're wondering, well, who's going to tell me what to do? And nobody is. And now you're struggling with the conversations with other people who are at home in that culture. Now you're thinking you should quit the job and go somewhere else. But the problem is not the job. The problem's you. Why? Because it's requiring you to chameleon. And if you can't chameleon and adjust to the new culture, bring your skills with you. Your skills aren't any question. It is your adaptability that's in question. This is why people struggle when they relocate somewhere relationally or physically or circumstantially. But they don't relocate and upgrade internally. This is why millions died in the wilderness because they had changed, as you know, their situation circumstantially. But they did not change their mentality. So though they were years and years, decades, out of Egypt, they were still parked up in Egypt in their minds and in their emotions. This is often why people struggle with PTSD. Because people with post-traumatic stress disorder, the reason that they continue in stress is that the trauma is long past. But it has imprinted itself on their mind. This is why you get these movies where the guy, you know, the marine is home from war. And then a firework goes off and he hits the floor or has a panic attack. And it's years since he was in any danger of being shot. And there's no danger of that now. But the firework triggers something. It's called a retrieval cue. And this cue goes and retrieves the trauma. And he lives it again mentally and chemically as if he is in Afghanistan. His whole body starts to behave like he's about to die, floods his body with cortisol and adrenaline. And now his stress levels go up, his heart level goes up, and now he's going to get sick if that continues. And this is what is being misunderstood, by the way, by a lot of research around the world that a lot of this stuff, even depression, is not primarily chemical. It's relational. There's so much depression in our country is because there is an erosion of human connection. But we're treating it as a chemical issue by giving you more serotonin to lift your serotonin levels. And so again, this is why I'm doing my new seminar around the world starting in Australia soon called the prosperity of the soul from my ageing well studies I've been doing that we're entering a brand new age. We've come through three ages so far. We've come from the agricultural age. Then we enter the industrial age. Then we enter the information age. We're still in the information age and AI is coming and that's going to be interesting. It will always have a part of our future. But as I just said earlier, with all of our advancement, we are the sickest, most disconnected generation of all. So all of this is telling us there's a massive shift coming in humanity. And we have to get the memoirs of the church. And my language for that new age that's coming, my version of it, this is called the age of human flourishing. That's what's coming next. Anybody that understands any version of that, whatever your version is, anybody that understands that's the new age that's coming and has a voice into it and adaptability towards it will fly in this next generation. And if we as the church will assist people, mentor, coach people in their ability to flourish as a human, not a Christian, but as a human. Because the better human you are, the better Christian you'll be. But it doesn't necessarily work the other way. The better Christian you are doesn't make you a better human. I had a church full of prophesying Shabbat Abaduers. And I was one of them. Great people. But when I started bringing in a prostitute to sit next to them, all hell broke loose. So they were great Christians, but they were not good humans. When that love and compassion and inclusion needed to be extended to these people, not in virtual reality through a song, but by sitting next to someone or welcoming them in the lobby or giving someone a high five or just accept them and come as you are when that became our culture. Because I forced it on our church to make it our culture by busing them in. Then all hell broke loose. And we didn't assist these people in their flourishing. We made them feel bad and judged them for where they were at. And that's what became the beginning of what God told me, get the church ready. I thought we were ready. I realized we weren't when I started reaching people that I knew we'd include, but didn't know how upsetting it would be for so many to include them. You're okay? So I want you to leave here thinking today about adaptability. Remember now Paul speaking about this in a day and age when things were not changing as fast as they are now. Paul's like, I'm in their shoes, but he could be in those shoes for a long time and not need to upgrade the shoes. We don't have that. I was reading a statistic the other day that by the year 2035 the world will go through the equivalent of an entire 20th century's worth of change every six months. An entire hundred years' worth of change by the year 2035 will happen in six months. That's how fast stuff is moving. I think the last driver's license holder was already been born. Our kids will never need to drive or never need to learn to drive. There'll be no cars with drivers in the future in many of your lifetimes. Tesla already have that. I have been in a driverless Tesla in America a few months ago. It's scary. You just tell it where you want to go, take your hands off the wheel, and it drives you there. I was interested in a conference in Los Angeles recently where Uber had a conference speaking about pilotless helicopters and planes. It's coming. So your kids will never need to learn to drive. The world's changing. That's what I said to cab drivers. I hope you got another career plan. All you do is have an app and you'll summon a car, and a car will come in like no driver. You just jump in and it will take you to where you programmed in. The world's changing people. If me telling you those things lets you know, oh, I know the world's changing. I'd say now songs, we believe it, yeah. But if I tell you it that way, maybe it's going to register with something in you that we better get with the program here. That our kids have been raised in a completely utterly fundamentally different world to the one that even you young people are growing up in. So I want you to develop individually, corporately, this next season of your church the superpower of reinvention of being a chameleon. King David was one time in Palestine territory because he was escaping Seoul and he went to hide in Gath where Goliath came from and he got recognized as King David. So someone told the king, King David's here and David knew he was busted and the king was sending his envoys to go and check out David who of course was a huge threat and if he's here we're going to kill him. He's in Palestine territory, he's the king of our enemy. He's already been anointed, he's not king yet, Seoul's still around but he's in hiding, in thinking no one will think I'm going to hide here, hiding in plain sight in my enemy camp, genius. But someone recognized him, told the king. So David chameleoned and acted like a madman. I'm talking Oscar-winning, seriously. So when the king's envoys came, when the king's staff came to check out this guy, he's on the floor dribbling down his beard, banging his head against a wall, acting like a madman, academy award. What did David do? He chameleoned to survive. And if he hadn't done that that day, we would not know anything else about King David from then on. He just met a call and he went wrong and he got killed by something that didn't work out and we'd have never heard of him again. That would have been a Bible story, it would have been interesting, would have learned some stuff from it, would have turned the page and moved on but that would have been the life of David done. Still been helpful, it's all we'd have known. But in that pivotal shifting game-changing moment, he thought, I don't want to do. I can't leave town, I can't call an Uber, I can't, what can I do? I'll just act. I'll use my acting skills, he must have had a few, and I'll pretend to be crazy. And it fooled even the best scrutinizers of people. It fooled them. That's how brilliant David's acting was. He had been in Hollywood these days. So you're in a situation, some of you, that requires that and you bust it because you think, I've got to be true to me. I'm David, I'm going to be true to my identity. And you've made it an identity issue. It's not an identity issue, it is an adaptability issue. Your identity is not a question. Your ability to reinvent, your ability to shift, to chameleon, is what I want you to learn to do personally in your relationships, in your friendships, in your families, in your homes, in your work life, in your life, in the community, personally and corporately. I've got to tell you the future belongs to the chameleons. Always has. To those corporate chameleons, the individual ones, the future belongs to these people. So at least this should change your reading. And your podcast and what you listen to. Get around this language and figure out where this perhaps lands for you beyond the scope of today. You all okay? I know there's no goosebumps in here but you'll be all right. Let me give you one more because I'm a hammer, a nail preacher. I just have one idea and I'm looking at my clock and I'm going to hit this nail as many times as I can in the time I've got. So you go out, you go out not thinking, oh what was that about? I've heard a lot of preaching when I thought that about it. Luke 16, very interesting passage. I've never heard preach from. Do we have the scripture up here? Luke 16 message version. About a guy that was a shrewd manager it's called in the scriptures I think in the subheadings. The shrewd manager. Luke 16, do you have a scripture back there or not? No? Working on it. Okay. Should be in the stuff we gave you for this message. All right. Because I was going to read off screen too. It's not in my notes but anyway. The story is, I'll do it for time maybe be better. The story is that this guy was a manager in a company and he was stealing from the boss. Unordinary everyday thing in the world. You know small level and corporate level. The banks are stealing from us all by the way and the corporate setting but we won't go there. So the guy's just fiddling. He's expenses, he's fiddling and the boss finds out and says to him okay you're busted, you're out of here. Sort your desk out. You know, be out of here by the weekend. So the guy and Jesus tells this story to the disciples, to the crowd. So Jesus says the guy sits down realizing he's going to lose his job in a few days and weighs up his options. That's what flexible people do. That's what chameleons do. What's my options? And he said to himself okay I'm a stage of life where I'm too old to dig. I'm not physically able to go get a laboring job. Then he's no qualifications. I can just go start working on the roads tomorrow, whatever it is, whatever digging meant for him. I can't do that. I'm too old. So but he thought about it as an option. But he thought okay I can't do that. Then begging was an option in that society and still is in some around the world. I could go beg but then he said to himself I'm too well known in town. I'm too prideful. I'm too proud he said to beg. Talk about self-awareness. I'm too proud to beg. It's an option and it's not that I can't beg but I just can't bear the conversations I would have. Hang on Phil. You had a great job last week. What happened Phil? You were the manager of that large corporate. What happened? He thought I can't bear it. So I can't beg. So his third option he realises okay. I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to write to all the people that all my boss a lot of money and I'm going to cut their bills in half. So he began to contact people and said how much what do you have outstanding in terms of a debt to our company? And they'd say you know 100 grand. And he said I'm going to cut your bill to 50 grand. I'll make it okay in the books. And they'd be like oh that's amazing. Them not knowing that next week he didn't tell them next week is going to be out of work and next week after he's helped them financially he's going to call them and say hey Phil here. Ah hi Phil because they love Phil now. They're in his debt because he's a chameleon. Hey it's Phil here. Hey Phil how are you really appreciate what you did for us like this much such a difference to our company. We were going under till you helped us with that. That's why we were slow to pay because we couldn't afford it. We're just amazed thanks so much. Hey you're not no problem. Hey I just wanted to know I've decided to move on from that company. I don't know if any openings of what you're doing in your company. I've got a few options at the moment. People I'm talking to. Phil don't go anywhere else. Phil come and work for us. We'd love to have you on the team and Jesus said and I'm going to court you because I wrote this bit down because this is how shocking it must have been to their ears. Jesus said now here's a surprise. The boss praised the crooked manager and why? Because he knew how to look after himself. Street wise people are smarter than law-abiding people. They are on constant alert. Looking for angles. Surviving by their wits. I want you to be smart in the same way. Whoa! Jesus teaches that as something to be imitated. Something to be to be proud of. And he's saying to everybody in the crowd including the team who didn't know how much they'd need to chameleon in the coming years as the church was forced underground. As the church was outlawed and demonized and persecuted and they had to be the pop-up church. Never having a fixed venue or a safe place to worship or do their thing. Never knowing that this was a lesson for life for them and he praises this guy for his street smarts. His ability to chameleon to reinvent to adapt and I want you to put that into the mix and the combo of your life skills. Some of you are brilliant at this. Some of you are not so much and those that are that do life with those that aren't, I want you this week to talk to them about how you learn to be adaptable, situational, circumstantial. How you're able to shift and reinvent and be relevant in every situation you're in. Keeping your bearings. Being true to who you are. I've got another band back up here now. I should have said that. Always give people hope we finished when the preacher says that. I've been in some meetings where I wish to God the band would get up sooner and I wish I could have shouted out, can we get the band back up? I'm falling into a coma here but anyway not in this church. But I want you to think about this because I think some of you listen to me, you're not struggling because you're a bad person or you took a wrong turn or you can't handle it or you're out your depth or this is not the opportunity for you or you're in a wrong season or you're not handling it well. Maybe it's more to do with this, that if you can go back into this week instead of trying to get all them to change, try to pray and for God to change them or God to change the boss or pray and for God to fix this situation or getting your little prayer group to pray with you about how much that all needs to change because that's been the church for a long time. We think they all should change. Our job is to get you to adapt to us and it's not, that wasn't Paul's life. If you would go back into something this week and think, where can I change? Where can I adapt? Keep your bearings, nothing non-negotiables are at stake here. Where can I adapt? Where can I give ground? Where can I say sorry? Where can I say you're right? Where can I say please give me another chance? Where can I say please teach me how can I do better here? Where can you say that this week? Which will be your expression of attempting to adapt and chameleon? Because if you can't chameleon you won't last and we need you to last. Personally and corporately many churches are not here today. Many denominations, organizations, businesses are not here today like blockbuster. For the same reasons they didn't survive, they did not chameleon and they had good reason for it and you may too. But history, history tells us one big thing. History tells us that we do not learn from history. That's the biggest lesson of history. Don't let that be true on your watch. Let's stand together come on times gone.