13/08/2026
PETER AND KAREN RASMUSSEN
Karen’s Prophetic Word
Karen began the morning by sharing a prophetic word centered around uncertainty, mystery, wonder, and faith.
She spoke about how people often struggle with not knowing. We want everything to have an explanation and an answer. We naturally look for certainty because we believe that if we understand what is happening, we will feel safe.
But Karen challenged the church to become people who are willing to live with mystery and wonder.
Sometimes we want God to explain everything before we are willing to trust Him. Yet the Christian life often works in the opposite direction: God invites us to trust Him even when we don't have all the answers.
One of the key statements from her word was:
“Certainty is not the opposite of uncertainty; faith is the opposite of uncertainty.”
Faith doesn't mean having certainty about everything. Faith means choosing to trust God in the middle of uncertainty.
There are times when God doesn't give us an explanation. He gives us Himself.
PETER'S MESSAGE
Changing Our View: Seeing Through the Eyes of the Gospel
Peter's message focused on changing the way we see.
We can easily look at ourselves, other people, the church, and our country through the lens of the world. But the gospel gives us a different perspective.
The challenge is to ask:
“Am I seeing this the way the world sees it, or am I learning to see it the way God sees it?”
This theme ran throughout the entire message.
1. We Are All Called
1 Corinthians 15:1
“Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand.”
The gospel comes to us before it changes us.
Transformation is not the price of acceptance, transformation is the fruit of acceptance.
We don't first become good enough for God and then receive His love. God loves us first, and His love begins to transform us.
Zacchaeus was a hated and rejected man. Yet Jesus didn't wait for Zacchaeus to change before speaking with him.
Jesus went to his house and had dinner with him, the relationship came before the transformation. Zacchaeus encountered Jesus, and that encounter produced change in his life.
Jesus also demonstrated this with the woman caught in adultery.
He didn't join the crowd in condemning her. He defended her and then told her:
“Go and sin no more.”
Jesus offered both grace and transformation.
He didn't say, “Change first, then I will accept you.” He showed her acceptance and then called her into a transformed life.
Acceptance comes before change.
We need to stand where Jesus stood: with the broken, the rejected, the ashamed, and those who need grace.
2. God Loves Us Before We Can Offer Him Anything
Romans 5:8
“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
Christ didn't wait for us to become worthy.
He didn't wait for us to pray enough, worship enough, give enough, serve enough, or become spiritually mature enough.
He died for us while we were still sinners.
Before we could contribute anything to the gospel, Christ had already given everything for us.
Sometimes we can imagine that Jesus is constantly disappointed because we aren't doing enough spiritually, but those are the thoughts and opinoins of man.
Martin Luther says this:
“God doesn't love us because we are valuable; we are valuable because God loves us.”
First He loves. Then He transforms.
3. Changing the Way We See Our Country
Peter then challenged us to change the way we view our country and our continent.
It is easy to become consumed by everything that is wrong:
corruption, politics, poverty, broken systems, disappointment, negativity, division
These things are real, but they cannot become the only lens through which we see our country.
We need to ask:
How does God see Africa?
Africa is a deeply Christian continent, and Peter challenged us not simply to see what is broken but to recognise what God is doing.
The gospel changes not only how we see individuals but how we see the places God has called us to live.
4. We Cannot Pick and Choose the Gospel
Galatians 1:6
“I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel.”
Peter challenged the tendency to become overly critical and disconnected from God's people because we don't like certain things about Christianity.
Sometimes we hear something in Scripture or in a sermon that challenges us, and our instinct is to reject it.
But what if the thing that makes us uncomfortable is actually something God wants to address in us?
We shouldn't immediately run from a difficult message.
Augustine is often quoted as saying:
“If you believe what you like in the gospel and reject what you don't like, it is not the gospel you believe, but yourself.”
This is a powerful warning.
The gospel isn't something we customise according to our preferences.
We cannot say:
“I accept this part, but I reject that part because it makes me uncomfortable.”
The gospel isn't meant to conform to us, we are meant to be transformed by the gospel.
The gospel will sometimes challenge our:
opinions, attitudes, preferences, relationships, prejudices and priorities. When it does, we shouldn't automatically assume the problem is with the message.
Sometimes the message is exposing something in us that needs to change.
5. This Is a Together Gospel
Colossians 1:13
“He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves.”
The gospel isn't simply about “me and God.”
Jesus brings us into a kingdom, and that kingdom has a people.
We belong to one another, we are brothers and sisters.
We will have differences. We won't always agree. We will sometimes frustrate one another but our differences don't cancel our belonging, the gospel creates a people who learn to walk together.
6. This Is a Grace-Filled Gospel
Grace means that we cannot earn what God freely gives.
Dallas Willard expressed this idea:
“Grace is not opposed to effort; it is opposed to earning.”
We don't pray so that God will finally love us. We pray because He already loves us. We don't worship so that God will accept us. We worship because we have already been accepted. We don't serve to prove our worth. We serve because grace has already given us worth.
Grace changes our motivation.
7. Grace Changes How We Treat Other People
If we understand how much grace we have received, we should become people who extend grace.
How can we constantly expect everyone else to measure up when we ourselves cannot measure up without grace?
Peter challenged the idea that we need to constantly police everyone else's failures. Jesus never called us to make everyone around us conform to our expectations.
There is a difference between discernment and condemnation.
We can recognize sin without treating people as though they are beyond God's grace.
8. See the Harvest
Matthew 9:36–38
“When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were confused and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”
Jesus looked at the crowds differently.
He didn't simply see their failures.
He saw their need.
And His response was compassion.
Then He said:
“The harvest is great, but the workers are few.”
This brings the whole message together.
Jesus challenges us to change what we see.
Where the world sees brokenness, Jesus sees a harvest.
Where the world sees hopeless people, Jesus sees people who need a shepherd.
Where we see a broken country, God sees His fields.
The question is no longer simply:
“What's wrong with this place?”
It becomes:
“What is God doing here, and how can I participate?”
Key Scriptures
1 Corinthians 15:1
Romans 5:8
Galatians 1:6
Colossians 1:13
Matthew 9:36–38
