 Who's pushing them in. I got this idea because I heard a quote when I was in South Africa last time talking to people about the tyranny of the apartheid system and post-apartheid South Africa is still struggling hugely as some of you know that pay any interest to all in that country. This is a line I took out of a quote by Desmond Tutu, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a church leader, a pastor, a bishop in the church, one of us I suppose, and he said about the apartheid system and about the state of South Africa and what apartheid was doing to South Africans. He said that it's no good, he said you can only rescue so many people, so many drowning people from the river before you have to go upstream to see who's pushing them in. What he meant was that the apartheid system, the legalized system of oppression, was forcing people into behaviors and into habits and into choices that were to do with their survival because they didn't have the options available to them that the white people had. They didn't have an educational option available to them. They didn't have housing and work opportunities and promotion and self-improvement and self-determination was not an option to them because oppressed majorities, which is the case in South Africa, the black people, are hugely majority oppressed by a white minority or if it's an oppressed minority, the common denominator of oppressed people in all walks of life is that they feel that the options that are available to the oppressors are not available to them, so they feel pushed in therefore because of their narrow options to have to just do things and make choices and behave in a way that they'd rather not, but they feel they have no option, so Desmond Tutu could see that addiction and crime and violence and all this stuff going on in the grassroots of South African society is not because people wanted to live that way, it's because they felt they had no choice but to survive in an oppressive regime. They felt pushed in and what Desmond Tutu was saying is that the church need to realize that we are never going to be able to rescue all of them, there's too many, that if we spend our time pouring out fires instead of finding out who is pouring kerosene on the fire, if we spend our time rescuing drowning people as it were, there's going to be too many. We're going to get so exhausted trying to rescue them that the best we can do is put a sticking plaster on a hugely you know messed up broken situation, broken society. So Desmond Tutu was saying I think for longevity to change this historically, we the church are going to at least have to try to have a voice into governments and into the top end of where all this is happening because decisions have been made that cascade down to grassroots people and we are at this end, we're at the sort of grassroots rescuing end and realizing we have got no chance, the odds are against us from being able to make a dent on this, even if we rescue a thousand a day, there's millions of them in the water. It's that thought I want you to think about today about your own life, many of you here feel trapped and stuck in life choices that you're making but you kind of feel I've got no option. I don't know what else I can do. I don't know what else which way I can turn. I just feel pushed in. I feel cornered. I feel trapped into behaving this way, into saying those things, into making those choices, into cutting those people out of my life, into doing something that maybe upsets people and makes me look like the bad person. I just don't know what to do. Some of you know what this is like personally on a personal level. Some of you feel trapped and pushed in and you spend your life in conversations as you know that I kind of rescue issue in their sound. You spend your life in sort of trying to keep your head above water every day and some days you have better days than other days but it's a life pattern of above and beneath the water and there's only a few things any day that can nudge you up or down in the life that you're living and you feel powerless and you feel the ones that could help you are not and you feel the ones that could give you a hand and keep you out of the water long term are not. I talk to police officers around the world who are sick and tired and some of you here are perhaps in the police force that law enforcement agencies or the courts or the justice system and police officers tell me they are sick and tired of arresting the same people every week but they kind of feel these people are living rough and living on the streets and the addicts and they're homeless but they don't want to be that these people have a story and these people have something upstream of where the police officers find them they have a story and in this story is a number of things that if there had been listened to if these things had been had been helped and healed and spoken into and somehow offered cure for and help for then they would maybe not have finished up in the mess that they are in and every human being has a story that's why you should never judge a book by its cover never judge a person based on their appearance never never assume something about a person based on an act of desperation and drowning because that was once you if we did that towards you you would feel so misunderstood and judged and so we the church of all should not be doing that to other human beings we of all like Jesus taught us should not be assuming just because people are in a certain season or lifestyle or habit of life that that sums up their life no one photograph of your life sums up your life no one moment of your life defines your life and we should not do that to people and I think in the church we have majored on rescue and we've minded on prevention in the church we have built rescue stations our church have become lifeboat rescue stations and we send out the lifeboats and we rescue the drowning it's become part of our fundamental theology and I'm all for rescue I believe that rescue is part of what we are to do I know that God rescues people and that will be the right word someone some of you would feel about what you feel God did in your life you desperately felt in need of rescue when you gave your life to Christ so I'm not against rescue what I'm saying to you is what Desmond Tutu said rescue is not a long-term strategy prevention is so if we can go upstream and that's what Coy was saying on that video about Cambodia that he was saying the education breaks the cycle of poverty but it doesn't do it overnight so if you want to do something that changes society generationally you may have to be the ones that do the groundwork for which there'll be no thanks given to you 50 years from now that the freedoms that we enjoy the freedoms that we enjoy that were purchased by those that went to war on our behalf either went to war literally with warring nations that were against our liberties those that are fighting against terrorism in the world or whether it was other humanities and civil liberties those that those that fought for equality and liberties and freedoms their names are forgotten in history some get highlighted like Martin Luther King on Nelson Mandela their names become famous but there are millions of others who are nameless and faceless like us in this room today or on any given day can say something can do something that contributes towards towards a long-term prevention and because that isn't sexy it's not glamorous it's not highlight worthy it's not exciting you can't put it on screen and say see how we change these people's lives it's behind the scenes it's foundational it's groundwork and it's not exciting and because we become obsessed with instantaneous results we get addicted to rescuing drowning people because you were drowning now you're not tell us your story I was lost and I am found we like that it's good for publicity and that's good but if we want to be here making a difference as a church 100 years from now if we want this planet to look different 100 years from now if we don't want the same people been arrested 100 years from now because it's their kids and their kids kids that have been arrested now because generationally that behavior established inside the family if we don't want that to happen then we have to do things on our watch that contribute to going upstream in our theologies in our teaching in our wisdom for life contribution to ourselves and from the church to the world if we don't want to see the church as a Sunday morning rescue station but we want to see the church as as salt and light as an alternative idea as a revolutionary alternative movement as a whole new society a whole new idea a whole new breed of people in the earth that we're not known for being weird and odd Shabbat Abaduers that we think that is our distinctive and that's our standout and we're glad to be persecuted for it because it proves that you know we're serving God because the world hate us and we get some kind of queued us and leverage from that it's crazy I grew up with salt and light the definition of that always seemed to me to be a bit rude and offensive but salt and light can be as subtle as they can be stark and shocking lighting can be beautiful and subtle it's still light in the world light of the world I was told is kind of dazzling people with the gospel we flush the torch in their face or we throw salt in and let them know how rotten they are because the saltiness is so stark to let them know we're the salt in brigade and what I think I want to see it you today is I want you to think about where can you begin to be part of a long-term contribution because as Koi said if we can educate these kids and the kids on screen maybe it'll be their grandkids that will inherit a new world in Cambodia maybe their kids and their kids kids will be the ones that will be the future governments and corporates and educators and welfare workers and health cares and justice system people maybe maybe two three generations from now those kids and their kids kids will be creating a whole new Cambodia but if you go into Cambodia like Tim's going today if you go into Cambodia as many charities have with a rescue the drowning mentality we have no legacy in that country then and so this struck me because I knew in pastoring that I think we got we got addicted to rescue and I realized there were so many needy people in our city that I thought I don't want to build a new social services in this church that these people were previously dependent on social welfare and social services and rehab programs and coming off addiction programs and handouts from the government and 12-step AA programs I didn't want the church to become another addition to that range of rescue ideas I wanted the church to become a place where you get new ideas for your life where we show you cause and effect and we empower you to figure out that things are pushing me in and I am doing things that push myself in that I have mentalities and ways of thinking that I think I'm a self-inflicted harming person I'm a self-harming human and if we can show you what you may be doing that's causing you to have the problems you have and show you alternative ideas that will lessen that in your life I think it's been worth being in church today but if all we do is rah rah you up you get excited you fall down you glow in the dark when the Spirit's on you and you have this Holy Spirit encounter then you come back next week to have one again then next week we have one again then we have another one then we have a conference where we can do it for three days now we just have more and more and more and more encounter believe me 32 years pastoring I'm all encountered out and I'm all for encounter I know that I believe in the supernatural but what I think we've done in our kinds of churches Pentecostal charismatic churches I think we've majored on encounter and we've minded on education I think we've majored on cure and we've minded on prevention so we finish up rescuing the same people every week like the cops are arresting the same people every week the same people come for prayer and ministry and counseling and deliverance and encounter and to have a touch from God the same people every week and we kind of feel that that's somehow looks like we're doing our job it creates a sense of momentum creates a sense of excitement and breakthrough and lives changed but those lives are in breakthrough and change for as long as the service lasts very often and then people leave that place of encounter and go into a very defeating negative depressed suicidal agonizing painful week then come back next week for an encounter again so the church becomes like this place what I go and get a top-up it's like rehab and then I go out all week and struggle again and people form this codependent relationship with Christianity because we lead them to believe that rescue is all we do and I know churches like Riverview around the world and you are rare because I know that because of your history and your history of leaderships you are a thinking church some of you are drawn here because you don't want to be somewhere that is majoring on yeah yeah rah rah and nothing's happening you you are you are open to inspiration we want this to be inspirational I believe things should be inspirational but inspiration is not a good foundation for your life inspiration by definition is ephemeral it is fleeting it as a fog and so we can't build on inspiration we can build on wisdom Solomon said by wisdom a house is built not by inspiration if the wisdom is inspirational even better but it's the wisdom part that we want you to leave with today we want to add something give value to your life today so that you can go out of here and you can respond differently today to something you've been responding faultily and negatively and unwisely to for last three weeks and we give you something an idea if this would make you leave here and think you know what I need to be less judgmental of that person and I need to have a different conversation than the endless cycle of rescue conversations and I think I need to say to this person some wisdom that is an upstream of where you've been pushed in conversation you know the world is understanding that we're not gonna beat the plastics issue by fishing plastic out the ocean there's too much plastic like there's too many humans drowning so the world understanding the plastic situation is gonna get resolved not in our lifetime but we made a start our kids and kids kids will live perhaps in a plastic free or disposable plastic free world but we may have started on our watch you may not get thanked for it your name may not be in lights but our kids will live in a better world our ocean and ecosystems will be better because on our watch we decided to do something that was our contribution to a better world a better environment a better recycling we decided to recycle a bit we decided to get a less you know gas guzzling vehicle we got rid of our private jets you three people over there we did something I think that's all history would require of us but I think if we don't do that then we tend to live for the span of our generation and we're not mindful that we can set things in motion this is why I teach a message around the world called the cathedral in your heart because I realized years ago that the ancient cathedrals of Europe took an average of two to five hundred years to build and I was fascinated how did leaders keep people interested financially in something they knew they'd never see finished I know as a pastor that went through four major building programs how difficult it was to keep people on board for a year never mind 500 years so these people were giving their lives and their strength their resources their money their blood sweat and tears to a project they knew they would never see finished but spent their lives for it anyway society thrives when men plant trees under whose shade they know they will never sit I think that's what Desmond Tutu is saying that if we can involving things that are to do with causes that are pushing in society pushing in humans to lifestyles and behaviors and choices and generational choices that they'd rather not have that would be a better work for our hands to do we'll rescue as many as we can in the meantime but if rescue is all we do I promise you this is what many churches are doing around the world we repeatedly rescuing the same people who just go out and drown again then come back and get saved again next week then drown again then get saved again another week and on and on it goes and we got to break the cycle I think not just that the Cambodian cycle of poverty we have to break the cycle of co-dependence in the church that people form towards God but I get messed up and God delivers me he's my savior he's my deliverer he is my healer yeah he's all of that he should be all of that once and for all in our lifetimes you shouldn't need saving more than once or deliverance more than once because the idea with God and us is that we become self-regulating self-delivering self-empowered people and we grow with all the on-board equipment we need and the resourcefulness this is why Jesus sent out the disciples with nothing he said you love no advance bookings you'll take no luggage you'll have no money what he's not doing it to be mean or to create some artificial discomfort for them to sort of prove how lacking in faith they are he is sending them out with resources in order to find out how resourceful they are what they did was they made relationships with people and if you're welcomed into a home which meant you want to approach people well go into a city be kind and loving and come to serve don't go into town doing this he says the homes that welcome you that's where you'll have your shower and your bed and your food in other words they were they had to go and build relationships because their resources would be in their relationships people had what they needed and so if you build relationships with people then all the stuff you think you need to carry despite people you'll find people having a glad to share with you is teaching them early on that I want you to be a resourceful human I want you to know how to figure things out I want you to build relationships want to be collaborative people wanting to network and work with people don't go into town say I don't need any of you because I got I came in on my own jet I got my own budget my own hotel man and I'm all for all of that been good for us and comfortable but this resourcefulness he taught them is fascinating to me because he didn't want them to live this kind of hand-to-mouth rescuing divine intervention life I go with nothing is the idea God I go to town with nothing and you supernaturally send me money and a place to stay and man appears on the floor but that was the old covenant this new covenant isn't like that this new covenant isn't God outside of you intervening this new covenant is God living in you you're not trying anymore to access anything God is nowhere that you need to go and find him there's nothing you need to go and get there's no mountain you need to climb there's no pilgrimage you need to take there's nothing you need to do there's no one up the mountain on behalf of you finding out what God thinks about you and you're hoping you'll come down and have a good report there's no check-in you need to have there's no annual report there's no assessment of how you're doing from the boss down to you that's not our job as leaders it's not God's job towards you you are saved you are home and dry Jesus came to make his home inside you eternally yet we have millions and millions of New Testament believers living in an Old Testament mindset still thinking God is outside of me this is why I don't like the language of let's enter his presence was even me how can he enter presence when God lives inside you it suggests if you can enter it that you can leave it I don't like that idea it suggests the presence of God is here and when you leave are you then leaving the presence because the flipside of that is that you leaving his presence let's enter his gates with thanksgiving there is no gates anymore that's an Old Testament idea but it fosters this sense of externalism that God is external to me and I enter his presence and I go through gates no you don't there's no gates anymore there's no temple there's no entering and leaving God lives in you eternally he's eternally in you he doesn't leave you he doesn't forsake you he's not in one day you are not a hotel you're not God's hotel you're not God's time share you're not his apartment you know he's Airbnb he lives in you permanently you are his home H or Emmy you're his home so we've got to stop any kind of theology that leads you to believe that he is not your home that you need to keep as it were accessing him or you need to keep going to the front door inviting him in like he left your home then you got to get him to come back in and we have this Christianity that's based on this Old Testament mentality where we kind of feel we have to re-earn and we have to re-enter and re-engage and cut off court and get God to smile on us again and love was again and blesses again and a lot of preachers deal in shame and guilt projection so that you kind of begin to feel yeah I have messed up yeah my life isn't great yeah I'm not right with God and we trade on that so we're rescuing you every week from your own guilty conscience that we are part of putting on you so we're building churches that push people in if I lead you to believe that the deal around here is that every time you have a problem you come and get deliverance I'm pushing you into a deliverance mentality I'm pushing you into a divine intervention mentality I'm pushing you into God is your resource to get you free mentality rather than me saying to you hang on let's go upstream a little bit here you never gonna need a hand laying on your head ever again in your life in some areas if you can figure some stuff out and the problem is this and this is a problem in apartheid South Africa and other long-term long-standing oppressive regimes is that if you're born into drowning to be born into an apartheid South Africa as an oppressed part of that system to be born black into an oppressive regime to be born three generations in means that you are born drowning from birth you need to be rescued and what happens is that when drowning becomes generational like it is in Cambodia and like it is in Australia by the way and England we have many other forms of this that are far more subtle is that when you're born drowning you never know anything other than trying to get rescued you're born grasping for rescue and so this is how difficult it becomes to step into a generationally drowning scenario with a new idea people think you've been in loving and careless and some of us are afraid of being seen to be not being compassionate so instead we don't give people wisdom for life and I believe that if people are starving this is what Jesus said to the crowd in John 6 he said I know you're all following me because yesterday I fed the 5,000 and I hope in another free meal will happen today he understood humans because we're like that and he said I know you're thinking there'll be another miracle today of some kind of material provision and you're all following me because the words got out he fed 5,000 yesterday we got a free meal yesterday it was awesome tell your friends family it's gonna happen anytime soon but if you if you're not there it's like bingo you got to be there to win but he said to the crowd I want to tell you guys about another kind of bread and he said he talked and he talked about the bread of life and tried to explain to them that you'll forever need to be for walking around with someone to rescue you unless I tell you about another bread this other bread means that you will not need to live your life depending on someone else to feed you it's like the woman of the well I'm gonna tell you about a sauce that means you won't need to spend your life at this well every day and tell you about another water so he uses a literal water metaphorically to speak about a more significant long-lasting water that means you don't live your life needing rescue you're okay I was recently studying crime statistics in Japan don't ask what I found fascinating is that Japan has the largest population of elderly prisoners of any prison system in the world the 20 percent of Japanese prisoners are pensioners you know like 70 80 plus up there the average percentage around the world will be 3 5% max it's hugely disproportionate so I began to study and what I found out is in Japan there is no welfare system for the elderly so many of the elderly in Japan finish up almost homeless they have no money no retirement plans they can't take care of themselves there's no welfare system there's no state pension they're on their own and so many of them are borderline homeless and starving and so what happens is because Japan gives you long jail sentences for small crimes the elderly are deliberately committing crime so that they can go to jail and be taken care of a brilliant idea and they have three meals a day they are taken care of they have a routine they are friendship they have a bed they have a roof over their head their medications are taken care of all free so I saw some of these guys interviewed on YouTube a documentary I watched and this guy was saying he's 82 he's on his third jail sentence since he was 70 and it realized his mistake was his crimes were too small so his first crime was he stole some sellotape from a shop for which he got six months in jail it was a $3 crime that cost Japan about $200,000 that's how crazy and that's by the way how much waste there is in government there are there are flinging money at things that are not the problem they're the symptom of a deeper problem so he realized that and his friends in jail said to him who had been there long term for worse crimes but tell you how bad the crime gets in a minute to get you a long jail sentence they said he need to go do something worse so he left jail and he stole a bicycle which gave him three years in jail he was so happy and his friends said no no no you need to go on do something that gets you in here for 10 then he might die here and he died in comfort and safety and so on and so on so he went out after he got free from his second jail sentence got a knife threatened a woman in the park with the knife no intention of hurting at all then put the knife down sat down waited for the cops to come got ten years in jail he was so happy my point is if you looked at that on a basic look you'd think Japan has an elderly citizen crime problem it does not Japan has a welfare problem that's forcing pensioners to commit crime so that they can be taken care of that's the problem that's the conversation we need to be having because the system is pushing them in and it's that that's the equivalent of all around the world this is why our government and I don't know what you're doing in Australia but last year the UK government appointed a minister a cabinet member a minister of suicide because we're aware that suicide statistics are so out of control around the world by the way it's got more out of control since the arrival of social media especially amongst young people who are committing suicide in unprecedented numbers in 2019 so the awareness of the statistics being so drastic made our government appoint a minister of suicide I don't know what his or her brief is because the suicide minister is appointed based on the statistics of those that succeeded in killing themselves but there are many many many many more that are drowning right now who we don't know about who are on the way to suicide but they don't show up on the statistics yet because they haven't succeeded in other words suicidal tendencies are generic in society especially amongst young people this this cancer is eating away at our young people and social media is exacerbating it if they feel stressed and a failure and a misfit social media will help you enforce that but my point is that if the government if all the government does is slush away at the foliage of suicide because they meet it at the point of which we think we can rescue people last minute rather than go upstream and find out what's pushing them in like social media like trauma in their early years like depression depression is a all-time high you know we live in a more sophisticated society of all generations but depression again like suicide which is often a leader towards suicide depression is depression is an all-time high it is crazy out of control in all stages of life and what new research is showing is the depression is very often far more to do with human disconnection than is chemical we have a medical system that is throwing drugs at people with depression prozac and whatever it is that you use here in Australia these these drugs that we'll be using for decades now to treat depression as if it's a chemical issue and for some people those drugs work and for some people that chemical artificial introduction of serotonin helps balance them out chemically but for many many many that soon wears off and it's not the answer because we are now bothering round the world not enough of us we're bothering round the world because we know there's too many drowning and we can't medicate them all we're now getting to the stage where we're like with plastics in the ocean or global warming and so on we're now trying to figure out why are so many people depressed and the answer is they're depressed for a range of reasons chief of which is a massive sense of lack of connection with humans loneliness isolation people feeling they have no meaningful contribution in life people feeling that invisible and they don't count so people feel they're pushed in to oblivion and isolation and loneliness and in that desperation they begin to entertain suicidal thoughts they begin to turn inward and lock themselves off from community some of you in here a battle with depression have people in your family that you love there are battling depression and it bothers you terribly because some of their black dog days the bipolar struggle is the black dog moods and days are so terrible and so terrifying you wonder will they be here tomorrow and I want you to know that we as God's people we as the church don't want to continue to be part of the problem by slashing away foliage and you know this is how complicated it gets because because though we may know as a society the depression is far more complicated than a chemical imbalance in the brain we may know that but the problem is that there are billions and billions of dollars to the pharmaceuticals to stay invested in giving us drugs we don't need and the problem is governments are hand in glove with pharmaceutical companies and so those that are rescuing us are complicit in helping us drown and the corporates are involved with governments and together they're all involved in giving us drugs we don't need and none of them are saying to us you don't need these drugs so we're gonna put all that money instead of into pills we're gonna put it into reeducation I'm gonna put it into finding out what's pushing us in we're gonna have new kinds of governments we're gonna have new kinds of appointments we're gonna change the education system we're gonna change charities and welfare approaches to people we're gonna change the justice system we're gonna put new voices new ideas new philosophies in place so that we have less people in need of medication because we found out the causes are not just chemical but fixing those things is far more intense and complex than just throwing a pill at it but I tell you the world's changing we're realizing we're gonna fix plastics by going upstream to the corporates and stopping it at source we're gonna be global warming by dealing with it at source and all that stuff and for us to be in a world that's understanding that you millennials in here you teenagers in here you're coming up in a different world to the one we came up in and I want to I want to know that you're gonna carry on the legacy of making sure our planet doesn't default to this rescue and drowning relationship with things that we want you to fix have a cathedral in your heart towards leaving something for your kids and your kids kids that means they never have to be rescued again in their life because in your watch you did something to go upstream and stop millions being pushed in to suicide and depression and despair and desperation and addiction and going to jail to keep warm we did something to stop it and I said to our church years ago I don't want to build the church anymore because I've done it for too long I was exhausted I don't want to build a church where we just rescue the same people every week this is crazy we can't do this let's step back and find out what what is it that's causing these people to feel so helpless why are they generationally defaulting to the same behavior as their forefathers what is the generational patterns can we can we figure out what they are can we articulate it in a way that people go ah I did that yesterday and I didn't know it was part of the problem because we've always been like that in our family can we talk about things that get so real that people think thank you for that better wisdom I'm gonna do something different today I'm gonna I'm gonna change that relationship I'm gonna say no to that situation I'm gonna remove myself from the family and friends WhatsApp channel because I feel that that is part of my stress and part of my drama and all of that contributes to me finishing up at the end of the day feeling depressed and fed up and suicidal it starts with things like that it's conversations you'll have today and tomorrow and in the conversation would you stop before you rescue someone would you pause and think you know what I'm not gonna say that anymore I'm gonna ask a question I'm gonna make them think about what's happening I'm gonna make them take responsibility I'm not gonna have the responsibility shifted to me anymore would you do that if we'd all do that a little bit maybe it was an outcome in a few years from now