I Met My Husband on the Internet in 1999 | And It Saved My Life

TRANSCRIPT

Over the last this year, I've been looking at different books in the New Testament and just reading them through multiple times over. So just picking a book, reading it, looking things up, just studying it a little more and I've really loved doing that. The last one that I read was Acts. And acts, if you haven't read it for a while through like that, it is such a crazy and incredible account to read of the days after Jesus.

So Luke writes it. He finishes it with the, oh, sorry. He starts it with the resurrection of Jesus, that Jesus spends 40 days visiting the disciples, sharing more about the kingdom of God with them, and then he has some parting words, and then he ascends into heaven. A few days later, the disciples and a whole bunch of other people are filled with the holy.

Spirit and then the next 27 chapters follow a few of these people. Basically almost like a travel diary of what these men do as they go along doing what Jesus asked them to do. So it follows some of the disciples, like, um, Peter Phillips in there, Steven's in there. He meets a poor end 'cause he gets stoned in front of a man.

Sa, uh, who then becomes a Christian through an amazing, uh, encounter with Jesus becomes Paul. And then a whole lot of the end of Acts is about what Paul does. And Luke knows about all this stuff because he traveled with Paul quite a bit. He's sort of in and out of the story. So he got all of these accounts, put them all together so we could see what happened exactly in the moments and days after Jesus.

So I'm reading through this and the thing that struck me the most as I'm reading it over and over is that we're following this timeline of these men and what they're doing. But what we are seeing is their interactions with literally thousands of people as they go along. And sometimes these people get a sentence or two, sometimes they get a little more detail.

Sometimes we even get a name. But what we do see is all of the interactions that they're having that are changing people's lives. So I can't tell you all of them, but a couple of them would be, um, Peter. It says Peter was filled with the Holy Spirit. He stood up in front of a crowd and he just started speaking, and 3000 people came to Jesus that day and joined their numbers.

Just one message that they heard from Peter. And then another time Philip is walking along the road and he sees a guy, an Ethiopian guy reading a book, and he feels prompted to go over to him. And this guy's reading Isaiah and that's a, a book of the Old Testament who tells people to put Tices on boils.

And, and he, he. He was, he wrote about seven or 800 before Jesus was born, years before Jesus was born, that Jesus was coming. And so this man's trying to understand this book. Philip says, do you want me to help you? And by the end of their conversation, the man says, great, where can I be baptized? So we get to see these conversations, these moments with people where their entire lives are changed through one conversation and one connection.

That's great. And I think if I, like when I, sorry. When I think about that, I think, okay, yes, that's fine. Jesus did the same thing. Right? We see that in the gospels. Jesus is the main character of the gospels, and we see all these people being woven into his story as to have these interactions. But what struck me is that, that's awesome, but that's Jesus.

He's the son of God. Of course he's gonna have that impact on people. But these people in Acts, these men and women, they were just ordinary people. They were so ordinary. Some of them were completely illiterate, some of them were very subpar humans. Some of them persecuted Christians, and one it says, Paul was murderous about getting rid of all Christianity.

And then he became the greatest champion for Jesus. But they were very ordinary people and God has done that all throughout, is used very ordinary people to accomplish his work in the world. And in fact, if we remember I said before that in acts at the very beginning, Jesus has some parting words for the disciples and he says this.

In Act one, he says, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. That's it. That's the last thing he said to them. And then it says, as they were watching, he was lifted up and a cloud took him out of their sight.

So the last thing he said to them was, now go and be witnesses. I'm going, here's the Holy Spirit. Go out and reflect my love into the world, and the Holy Spirit will be with you. And they did that through interactions with people. They traveled, they met people, they connected, and they changed their lives by introducing them to Jesus.

So I think that if I passed a microphone around, most of you could probably think of a time when you had a moment, you had a conversation with someone, someone showed you some kind of kindness or generosity or something that maybe either in that moment made you go, yes, I need Jesus. Or maybe it put you on a path where you ended up.

Finding him for yourself through a whole bunch of other things. It's different for everyone, but I feel like everyone would probably be able to think of one moment that you had that was really important, very pivotal to your journey to finding Jesus. And I know that I definitely have one of those. Uh, it made me think of this and I have, I'm sure that I would have shared.

Um, my testimony, like my story of how I found Jesus, I didn't grow up in a Christian home. I'm sure I would've shared it before. It's very long. It's very involved. It has a lot of detail. It's an awesome story, and I absolutely do not have time to tell you today. So what I'm gonna do instead is I'm gonna tell you like 10% of it.

I'm gonna give you one like a. Storyline of it. Um, 'cause I just think it's so great. It really shows how God works. So to do that, we have to rewind back to 1998 or 99. I don't know. I was, I was 18, nearly 19, something like that. These are the days when we had the internet. But there was nothing worth reading on the internet yet.

Um, we still had dial up modems. I worked at a computer company. We were still using dos. We had not. Moved over into Windows 98 yet. Um, yeah, is when I remember dos and, uh, we didn't have, maybe we were just getting mobile phones. I didn't have one yet. Maybe they came along in the next couple of years. I think I got one when I was 20.

I was about 18, 19 during this, and I worked at a computer company and I didn't know what I wanted to do outta school, so I was just working. And, uh, this computer company, we had, um, offices all around Australia. Now, back then, we were mostly still using landlines. I didn't even have an email address by the way.

Like this is how early on we were in the days of internet and we would use landlines and. I dunno if anyone remembers this, but we used to pay extra to call interstate. So if you're in Queensland and you called New South Wales, you paid more to make this interstate connection. And so we were racking up this massive phone bill 'cause we were always having to call between all these different offices.

So at the time, just for anyone who's under the age of 40, um, we didn't have any social media. There was no way to use the internet to talk to people yet. And. What, what was, what was around was chat rooms. I dunno if you remember chat rooms where a hundred people would jump into a room and they'd all just talk and it was like weird and crazy and predatory and toxic.

Um, but then this amazing thing came out called Instant Messenger. I think MSN Messenger might have been the first one. There was another one called ICQ and it was the first kind of person to person chat, instant chat that you could have. And ICQ worked by, um, you would set up a profile. So different back then.

You just set up a profile, any username you wanted and all of your private information. Your personal information was private and you could just choose whether you wanted to be online or offline. You could search for people, connect with them, and then chat. And I think, actually, I don't remember this, but Sam does, if you typed, it showed up in real time, you typing on the other side, which meant there were no takebacks, like you could not take anything back.

Um. So my boss said, let's use ICQ to chat between offices so that we are not racking up this big phone bill. It was actually a really smart idea. We could send files and things like that too. So I was using it for that. And the way that ICQ worked, sorry for the pre-roll, but I have to explain this. You could just jump on there and to find people you just searched.

I think you had like an ID number you could share if you wanted someone to find you, but you could also just go in and put in these search parameters. So you could just say, I wanna find someone in. Uh, Germany age between 25 and 35, and it would show you everyone who was online who fit those parameters and you could just jump on and spam every person.

Yeah, whatever. I don't know what's, I don't even know how you say German. Hello. But, um, I took German in school. Like the only thing I remember is, um. Ya, which is, yes, I have a brother Festa and no sisters. Um, but you could just do that and you could just spam people. So I would occasionally get people jump on and be like, oh, hi, hi, hi, hi.

And I always just blocked them because I don't know them. And I'm at work. I'm not gonna weirdly socialize with people, but one day someone did show up and throw a little high in there and that person's profile name was Lad of Destiny. And for whatever reason. I do know, I do know the reason. I know why, but I wrote back hi to this one random person.

I just liked the name. I don't know. And we ended up having this conversation and I don't remember much about it. I just remember it was really funny. I remember that somehow I was like, I was lolling before Lolling was a thing. And um, I, we talked about. Uh, invisible jets and superheroes. That's all I really remember about this conversation.

But it was funny and we ended up chatting a little bit more after that. And, uh, we found out that we were basically the same age. I lived in Rumba. He lived in Palm Beach, so we were a few minutes drive from each other. We both played guitar, so we became friends. I had a boyfriend. He was chasing a girl, so we would chat about all that sort of stuff and we chatted for months.

And then one day he called me at work. It was the first time we'd ever spoken voice to voice. And he said to me, oh, I've got a question for you. And his question was, I. Do you want to meet me at night at a McDonald's in Burleigh? And then do you want to get in a white minivan full of my weirdo Christian friends and drive up to Brisbane to go to an old, abandoned and possibly haunted jail to listen to a Christian band sing about Jesus all not.

I said, yep. Okay, I'll do that. Now. I'm telling you 10% of this story. There are so many reasons I said yes to some of the things I said yes to, and I don't have time to tell you, but I'll just say, God is really, really good and he knows what you need in order to get you to the point where you say yes to something.

So I said yes, and I had the best night. I took my boyfriend with me. Um, it was. Awesome. One of the best nights. I met a whole bunch of you there that night, actually, who are still my friends today. And, uh, after that he invited me to come to church on a Sunday night. And I came along and then I came the following week and I kept coming.

And then after a while I broke up with my very toxic boyfriend. And then a few months later, I gave my life to Jesus. And that was 26 years ago. Yay to God for that. What's really amazing about that story, oh, sorry. I should say, and then I married him three years later, my Letter of Destiny, uh, and that's Sam.

It's the same guy married to now. And um, and he made me my first email address and he made it. Babe Of Destiny. Yeah. And I have to give that email address to people still today. Um, but what's really amazing, well, first of all, is that that all happened from one conversation online, changed the entire trajectory of my life, and I've had time to tell the whole story.

What I was involved in at that time was. So bad for me, it was terrible. And God took me out of that through one conversation. What is even more amazing is that when Sam found me that day, his mom had just put ICQ on her computer and she had said, oh, Sam, check out this new thing. And you know, it's the family computer.

Everyone had one pc, like desktop pc. And so he jumped on. He is like, oh, okay, whatever. And he searched for people on the Gold Coast and because I was online on ICQ for work, I showed up and he just spammed a bunch of people. And I was someone who replied. The next morning, the very next morning, my boss sent out an email saying, from now on, I want everyone to show themselves as offline because everyone's getting into the social aspect of ICQ.

So if Sam had jumped on the next day, I would never have shown up and we would never have had a conversation about invisible jets. And I don't know if I ever would've found Jesus. Isn't God amazing? Like that is incredible. That's how God works. Sam showed up. We had that conversation, and then he had the courage to ask me to, to give an invitation to me with no other agenda.

He knew that I had a boyfriend, by the way. Um, so it's easy. I think sometimes when I, when I look through and I read through, especially in the New Testament and books like Acts, I look at it and I go. Gee, what an amazing time these people lived in. The incredible things that God was doing that we get to read about and see, and all these people who are just woven into these stories and their lives that changed.

God is amazing. And I forget sometimes that the same God who showed up in acts with those apostles who just went out, they were witnesses for Jesus. The things that God did through them, he's still doing today. It's just that no one is writing it down. We don't record it in the same way. There's no appendix to this where it's written down all of the incredible things God did in the 16th century during the Reformation, or during the 18th century or during the 21st century.

But he's still the same God, using people in exactly the same way, through connections, through conversations, through kindness, through love. Every time we are witnesses and we reflect Jesus love to someone, we are connecting them a little more into what we really want for them, which is for them to find Jesus for themself, find their salvation, and end up in eternity with God.

That's the point. Yes. Okay.

So one of the things that. We have, and maybe if someone was writing modern day accounts, they would write about the junction and it would be called the Junction or something like that. I don't know. But we have this incredible facility here. There is nothing special about our building, but. What is in it is a heart for people.

And there are people in this building that bring Jesus and the Holy Spirit into this building to work through them. And I know that there are, and I'm looking out, and I know there are a bunch of you who are here because you walked into this building for something. You walked in because you wanted to do Lindsay's line dancing, or you came to one of the kids events here, or you saw the coffee sign out the front.

You went, I like coffee. And you came in and got a coffee and you noticed something different. But what would've happened is that you came here and you had a moment of connection with someone and the Holy Spirit used that.

There is a couple here, and I don't know if they're in the room at the moment. Erin and Gio, are you here? Oh, they might not be. Okay, that's all right. Because we're gonna watch a video of them and then you'll know who they are and next time you see them you can go, Hey, I know who you are. Erin and Gio are an amazing example of that.

I'm not gonna tell too much of their story 'cause they're gonna show it to you in this video we're gonna watch. But what I, before I actually, you know what, I'm gonna share this. I wasn't going to, but I'm going to do it anyway. I haven't asked about this, so I'm just gonna not use names. One time when I was helping out in the cafe here, um.

Uh, one of our, one of our community members came in with a friend who wasn't a Christian, and afterwards they ordered food and drinks and afterwards this member of our community came up to me and she said, do you know what my friend said? Not a Christian never been in a church before. She just said, I can feel the love in this food that I'm eating.

And I was like. You know what's amazing? The whole morning when I've been making food and I'm like, this is so ridiculous, but buttering banana bread. I'm like, God, can this just be something that feels so warm inside that person's heart that they can feel how much they are loved when they walk into this place?

She felt it, and I had two people that day come up to me and tell me, I can feel love in this food today, man. Honestly, we just do not know what people need and how God is gonna work through us. That was a moment of connection I would never have planned for. So we're gonna watch Erin and Geo's story and I'll finish up after that, but.

I think that we'll start to see through this exactly what the junction is doing, how God is working through these connections. So let's take it away.

Errenn: I used to have a youth theater company, uh, where we would teach drama classes along the coast, and we used to hire a venue just around the corner from here, um, which unfortunately became unavailable.

Um, so I started looking for a new space. I wanted to stay in this area because the classes were doing really well here, and I came across a post from Ruth on the Gold Coast Girls in Business Page, sharing the junction, and that it was a venue that had, um, spaces for hire. So I came along to take a look, thought the room looked perfect, and had a little chat with Ruth and she was beautiful.

Like we connected straight away. And I was like. This is great. And I did explain to her like, I'm not religious though. And she said, that's fine, as long as your values align with the values of here. And she showed me the values and I was like, yep. They're super similar to the values I want from the young people I work with at Zigzag and the environment.

I would like to create. All of the families just loved this space and the feeling of the venue. So I would say when I started, well, a hundred percent would say that I was like an atheist. I didn't believe. Um, and actually when I would go up to the room, I would make sure everything was hidden to do with religion.

So, for example, there'd be like a pile of Bibles and I would hide them away. And so I don't know why I was so. Worried about it, but I guess I didn't want them to think I was trying to make them believe something, I guess. And you know, though I did throughout my time, like hiring the space, I, you know, there was a lot going on in, in my life and people here would always pray for me and I would always allow that to happen.

'cause I, I felt like it was their way of, you know, showing me love and support and it, and it did. But then when I went on maternity leave. To have coa and I wasn't coming here weekly. I really did miss everyone here and the place so, so much like I'd always felt so welcomed and so loved and so supported.

And then Geo started working at the coffee shop here.

Gio: Serving at the cafe was, uh, for me. A way to get closer to you guys. It was just a, a revelation really, uh, for me. And, uh, uh, I was grateful that, uh, I got curious in the first place, let's say.

Errenn: I guess for me it was realizing that. You guys are really acting like Jesus here, like in the sense that you're selfless, you show so much love to the community.

And I could see that. I always saw that and thought, wow, you know, but then I realized you are why behind it. And that, um. You know, because you, you really do believe in, in the scripture and in and in Jesus, and you really do show that through what you do every single day. Um, and then I was, yeah, I was a revelation.

I did, I was like, oh, okay. This is why, and, and I want to be like that too. And I want to be able to, you know. Understand more, learn more and, and behave in that way as well.

Gio: It all started with, uh, curiosity, asking questions and, uh, preparing yourself to be wrong. Most of the time, it's, uh, probably the best recipe for you to understand the, uh, Jesus better.

Errenn: I loved the alpha, alpha journey. I thought it was just like. It was just what I needed. Like I really need to like talk about things and ask questions and ask the difficult questions and do it in a group. And it was an amazing group of people, but it definitely happened throughout the, the Alpha course that my faith grew deeper and I, and I found Jesus.

And then by the end of it, I did say like, now I am, I'm ready to be baptized. I truly, and I started, um. Implementing it into my day-to-day life as well, especially as a mom.

Gio: I think, I wanna say one more thing about it. This is almost like a funny episode where Erin was, uh, stressing out about all the things we had to do for the move and the, the work and the kids and the, uh, the house is a mess.

And she was like, I can't do this, I can't do that. And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Stop for a second. You are trying to get the controller that you should give it to Jesus and then she was like, oh yeah. And then immediately changed.

Errenn: I want everyone to know, like I want all moms to know that um, there's the Holy Spirit that can carry you, yeah.

Can carry you and can help you, and that your children are a blessing. I feel like as a family, we are using it so much like. Day to day with our kids now that I can't, I feel like we are equipping them with something we never had. Like I never had not to, to the level we can with NRA and Jonah. Now we have such a deeper understanding and I can see.

The impact it's having on them. They're loved unconditionally by by God and that they don't, you know, need to like, we love them, but God loves them more. And I just think that's amazing that they'll always have that. Yeah. I am Erin.

Gio: I am Jill. And this is our story is our story. This

Errenn: is our story.

Pauline: They, you just see the joy on their faces by the end there. Like what an incredible transformation. I love those guys. My daughter did Zigzag with Erin and I've worked with Geo in the cafe and they're just the most amazing people. I love hearing their story. You see again, that their whole family has been transformed because they walked into a building and the building itself didn't do anything.

It was the people that they talked to. And I remember when I actually just listening to that, again, I. I remember when I first came to church and I remember sitting there and you know, you feel like a fish outta water when you're new in a place. You don't know the subculture of Christianity until you're one of it.

It feels very different. But I remember sitting there and I could tell that there was something different about the people around me and I didn't know what it was. It felt like they were self-assured in a way that, or grounded in a way I didn't understand, but I could sense it. And it's just reminded me again that.

We are asked to be witnesses and to reflect, but it's not up to us to save. That is God's job. When we show up and we make those connections and we love people, God will come in, the Holy Spirit will come in and the Holy Spirit works on people's hearts. And that's exactly what happened with Erin and Gio.

It was the people that they were with and the Holy Spirit that they felt working through them. So don't ever feel like it's up to you to Bible bash someone, or I've gotta like lead them in this prayer right now. The Holy Spirit takes care of that. Um. In Romans. Now this is Paul, who was Saul, who was blind and was, um, his site was restored by who?

Jesus. Jesus. But Ananias. Come on guys. We just did this. Um, no, in, in, uh, in Romans. Um. Uh, Paul is writing to the people of Rome and he says, uh, I'm gonna read this on the screen, but just before what we're gonna read, he says, as a reminder, remember that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

Everyone, anyone who says, yep, I'll, I'll follow Jesus. They are saved. They have eternity. And then do we have the rest of that scripture there? If not, I'll read it on mine. Oh, there you go. But then he says, but how are they to call on one in they in whom they haven't believed? How are they to believe in one of whom they've never heard?

And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him and how are they to proclaim him unless they're sent as it is written, how beautiful other feat of those who bring good news. And we get to be the good news because if you know Jesus, then that is what we do. We go out and we witness. And one of the ways that we do that so effectively is through radical Christmas and.

Yes, with Radical Christmas, we fulfill a need. Sometimes it's a physical need. We help, uh, women who are victims of domestic violence to get clothes and toothbrushes and basic things to start their lives. We give these gifts to children who are in foster homes who maybe don't even feel like they belong anywhere.

So we're fulfilling all of these physical and emotional needs. But what I've been thinking so much about is how it's, yes, those are great things, and actually even in act. Paul and, uh, Barnabas collect a whole bunch of stuff from the community to take to a village that is, uh, under famine and they call it a relief mission.

And that's the same, they're doing the same thing then that we do now. We go and we help people where they have a need. But what is so much more important is that the gift that we're giving them is a connection that might lead them to Jesus with prayer. We hope that they will come to find Jesus because we've made a connection with them in this kind of practical way.

Um. I will talk quickly about connected threads. We've already mentioned this this morning. Can we show one of these? Now these ladies, this is one of the things that you can sponsor for Radical Christmas. These ladies show up every single week and they set up their. Sewing machines and they make these beautiful quilts.

Isn't that like, that is just joy in a quilt, is it not? That is so beautiful and the purpose of these quilts, they make these with love out of donated materials and they go to people in hospice care, so end of life care. Some of them go to children in wheelchairs who are in our special schools that we help out with bin and, but they make these and they go to these people who are at the end of their life.

We sponsor, uh, sorry. We do this with Hopewell. And also with Hummingbird House, which is a children's hospital. And there are some absolutely incredible stories that come out of this. Uh, one of my favorites is, thanks so much, megs. It's very heavy, it's beautiful and warm. You could be sharing it across the front row.

Um. One of my favorites is that there was a quilt that they made and it was just covered in all pictures of horses, which is extremely specific. And it went to, uh, Hopewell and it was given to a man who, when he got it, just started crying. And he was a man who was a farmer, and he had spent his whole life around horses.

And it just meant so much to him. It was so special to him. That he had been given this quilt out of absolute love for no reason other than we're thinking of you. And he was someone who at the end of his life, if he didn't know Jesus, he was in a moment of absolute hopelessness. There was a lady, a mom actually, who emailed through to love the city a little while ago.

Her son had been a little boy, had been given a quilt, and she wrote in to say, you don't know how much it means to me to know that someone is thinking of my little boy. That's a moment of connection because what we want for that mom and her little boy, yes, it's a quilt, but what we want for them is to find hope and to find faith and salvation so that when they are going through that incredibly impossibly hard time, that they are standing on the rock of Jesus, that they have the hope of knowing where they are going, where their eternity is, what their salvation is.

That's the gift that we want to be giving. That should be our heart behind radical Christmas at all times. The the things are good. The gift is the salvation, and. I noticed a couple weeks ago, I was filling out the format there in the foyer. You can go do it afterwards, little plug for Radical Christmas.

You can fill out the form and say, what do you wanna sponsor? And I realized after I had done that a couple of days later, I thought, you know what? I did that with not one thought. For the people behind that gift. All I was doing was ticking boxes mathematically, calculating how much do I wanna spend? Oh, not that one.

I'll just do that much. For the gift card, it was just ticking boxes and numbers. And not once did I stop and go, God, when this gift card goes to this child, please show them how much they are loved by you. Use this as an opportunity. Holy Spirit, please, to show this child, they are not an orphan, that they belong, that they never have to worry that they're alone in the world.

I never once thought about the people behind it. I actually had to sit down and pray and go, I'm so sorry. God, I took all of you out of that. And I made it a transaction and I'm so sorry 'cause that's not the heart. We said this before. When we are packing these hampers, these have been donated to with love.

They've been bought with love. Let's pack the hampers with love and with intention that these are gonna be the connection, the one thing this person needs to bring them into a point where they start to learn about Jesus and find Jesus for themselves. That's the heart, that's the witness that we were asked to be, to reflect Jesus into the world.

What a cool opportunity that we have to do that all year, as Meg said, not just at Christmas, but we have the opportunity now. So I'm gonna ask the team to come up. We're gonna sing a song, um, called Heart of Worship. It's an old one, you should all know it. I thought this was a pretty good song because I think that as we are going into Christmas, as we're, as we're really getting stuck into radical Christmas and these final things, that the gifts are going out, that we bring it back to what is most important, bringing it back to Jesus, bringing it back to not how much we can afford to give, but the heart that we are giving out of and making sure that.

We ourselves are in a place where we are first and foremost being witnesses to Jesus, putting him in the rightful place, bringing it back to Christmas is about him. And he has always used ordinary people, even the subpar, ordinary people like. You, me to do these things for him. We've seen that all throughout, so I'm gonna pray and then we'll sing, and then we're gonna sing a couple songs and then we're gonna pack some hampers and they're gonna go out and do amazing things.

Yeah. Yeah. All right. Lord, thank you so much for. Coming to earth, being born, uh, showing us this incredible way to live, to be, uh, just forgiven by you, to have grace in you. That you meet us, that you know us, that you love us regardless of how, sometimes we just don't feel like we are doing all the right things the way that you challenge us and the way, most of all, that you just have saved us, that you love us, and that is a gift that we wanna share so much with other people.

We wanna bring that back to you now that you are the most. Important thing that you are the thing that people need most in their lives and their problems are solved when they find you. So Jesus, that's what we asked for over, uh, all of these gifts, radical Christmas gifts that are going out. We pray that now in this moment, we can remember you in our lives.

What you have done for us, the connection that, that you gave us, that brought us to you. We pray that over the other people that we're gonna meet in the coming weeks. Thank you Lord. Amen. Amen.