Preconceived Ideas // 7 June 2026

Nick Resce

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Well, good afternoon, everyone. How are you today? Are you well? Are you sitting next to someone you like? Who's not really sure? We can move you. Everybody's going, well, I don't know about that. Hey, it's great to be here with you. We are from Australia, um, a city called Adelaide. And Adelaide actually is called the City of Churches. Um, and many, many great ministries have come out of Adelaide. They've had Adelaide's experience revival. And how many of you uh want to experience revival? Let me tell you, God is on the move. There's some great things happening around the world. Uh, in 2005, my wife and I with our family were going through uh the UK on a holiday, and we came through a city called Bristol, and God spoke to me about that. And in 2009, we planted a church in the city of Bristol. The amazing thing about it is we're worshiping here uh this afternoon, and to your worship team, you guys did a fantastic job today. The presence of God was great. Would you give them a big hand? Because they they sacrifice, and um I just got a glimpse, it just reminds me of our church plant in Bristol, and that church now is about seven or eight hundred people. Uh, how many of you can believe? Hey, don't look at what you've got now, look at what God's gonna do. And how many of you can believe God's gonna do something great in this region? The second song that was sung today nearly, well, not nearly, it stole my message. Uh, it confirmed my message, and uh, so I I am gonna grab a hold of um that very thought about making more room to God and giving him uh the the room he needs to do the things the way he wants to do them. So the title of my message today is preconceived ideas. Preconceived ideas. Uh, if we can have that screen up and just have a look at the media, stuck between the facts and faith, maybe go to the next slide. A preconceived idea is to form an opinion before possessing full and adequate knowledge. Now, how many of you get preconceived ideas? Put your hand up if you go, you run ahead of God. You know, God puts a thought in your head, and then you think this is how He's going to do it. And you know, out of preconceived ideas, we also get words like premeditate. We tend to premeditate or think and plan ahead. Now, I am a leader. Whenever God speaks to me, I'm going to sort it out for him, who's a little bit like that. We also presume to suppose something is true based on the probability or prior knowledge. We also preset our minds to a mindset and condition ourselves to think a certain way. We also get the word prejudge. We prejudge, you know, you you know the the saying, don't judge a book by its cover. And I want to talk about preconceived ideas because I, in my experience over the 40 years of ministry that I've had, I many times God has spoken to me and I've run ahead of God. And I've wanted to do things my way, uh, but God's got a higher way. How many of you know that? And uh, you know, sometimes we can miss. Can we go to the next slide? I think it's the next slide. The Bible says this in Isaiah 55, verse 8 to 9. You all know this scripture. It says this, for my thoughts are not your thoughts, and neither are your ways my ways. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts higher than your thoughts. Can we go to the next slide? You know, many times uh there are weapons that the enemy uses against us, and we know these weapons, but I want to talk about a particular weapon that I think uh backdoors us. Now, how many of you know that fear is an incredible weapon that the enemy uses? How many of you know that? How many of you have come? It's a spirit. It's actually a spirit. Fear is a spirit that can come upon you at certain times and can immobilize you. And what it does is undermines faith. Another weapon the the enemy uses is is when you get hurt. Who's ever been hurt before? Well, only three people. Wow, you're a you're a great community. Who's been hurt before? Put your hand up. And you know what it's like to work through hurt. The Bible talks about the forgiveness. It's a process, it's a hard thing to do. But hurt, if you don't deal with hurt, you don't allow God, and you don't surrender your pain to God, many times you can get bitter, hard, and you can close down. But this third weapon that I think the enemy uses very, very subtly is one that blindsides us, that sort of comes at when we totally unexpect it, and it's called disappointment. Who's ever been disappointed before? And disappointment removes hope, it removes belief, and it removes trust, and we tend to withdraw. And I want to hone in on this area because in my experience, I have found that you know, like I said, fear confronts you. You can you can sort of see the enemy, you sort of understand it's it's it's very much in your face. Hurt wounds us, but disappointment is very, very subtle, and sometimes we can't sort of work out that this is happening. Can I go to the next slide just so I know and we can miss when we get preconceived ideas, we can mix miss the next move of God, we can actually miss miracles, we can miss breakthroughs, we can miss entering new seasons of God, we miss God moments and God opportunities, and we can miss people that God wants to use. Now, I don't know about you. I love God, I I think God is is is amazing, but I'm not always you know in sync with his direction. I don't always agree with God's direction. Who's with me here? I mean, who's just sort of going, God, look, you know, you've told me what you want to do, let's do it my way. You know, Frank Sinatra, I did it my way. And sometimes I don't like his direction, sometimes I don't like his methods. Who's with me on that one? You know, I like formulas, I like to be safe, I like to have things all in boxes, but God works through faith, he works with principles and patterns. Sometimes, this is a big one, I don't like God's timing. Hey Charlie, I wish he'd hurry up sometimes, you know what I mean? It's like I I've got a a little bit of a problem with patience. Who's with me on that one? Do you know what I mean? And that that seems to impatience seems to come out in car parks, particularly in the airports. Don't talk to me about airports when I go shopping. I hate it. I'm an impatient person. And here's another one sometimes I don't like God's choices, I don't like who he uses. I think to myself, God, how can you use that person? Do you know how many issues that person has? As I'm pointing them, there's about three fingers pointing back. God reminds me that he used a donkey and um keeps me humble. But I want to just very, very quickly just show you how preconceived ideas can lock us in and can cause disappointments that cause us to withdraw from God. Do you know? I'm sure you've read and you've heard preaching on Mary and Martha many, many times. And in Luke chapter 10, verse 38 to 42, when Martha and Mary invite Jesus for a meal, uh, we see that in the story Martha is getting upset with Mary because she's at Jesus' feet while she's being an Italian, because she's running around. That's what Italians do, get in the meal ready. And she goes up to Jesus and says, Could you rebuke my sister because she should be helping me? And Jesus sort of rebukes her and says, Well, actually, Martha, what you're doing is a good thing, but Mary has chosen the better. You know, when I read that account of Mary and Martha, I thought, Wow, Mary is the spiritual sister until you read another account, which is actually in John chapter 11, at the death of Lazarus. And you read that account and something switches. Something switches. Lazarus, their brother, is about to die. And Mary and Martha send a message to Jesus and says, Come quickly, the one you love is about to die. Jesus read the message, sent a message back that he was going to be a few extra days. And during that time, Lazarus died. Now, here's the interesting, if you read that passage, there's there's a real giveaway about the state of their hearts. Because Jesus did finally roll up. He rolled up two days, three days later, as he usually does. And then, why don't you just come on my time when I call you? And he rolls up, and this is what the account says Martha ran out to meet him, but Mary stayed home. Now, when I read that, I thought, hang on a minute. I thought I thought that Mary was a spiritual one. Martha ran out to meet him because she ran out with hope, but Mary, because of her disappointment, she shut herself in and refused to see Jesus. She was upset with him, she didn't understand that his ways are way higher than our ways. Now we know about the miracle that happened, and all of a sudden I thought, isn't it amazing? In different circumstances that shift us and bring us into different circumstances, we react differently to the relationship we have with Jesus Christ. And it really made me understand that disappointment can hit anybody, doesn't matter what their spiritual state is, depending on the circumstances and the state of their heart. But today, what I want to do is I want to look at another person who also was looking for a miracle. And he nearly lost his miracle because of preconceived ideas, because of disappointment. His name was Naaman. And if you can turn your Bible, if you've got your Bible, to 2 Kings chapter 5. Now, I didn't have my Bible and asked Pastor Marcus to lend me his Bible. Look at the size of his Bible. I thought if I roll up with this Bible, this is a Bible-bashing Bible. Do you know what I mean? If I see any of you fall asleep, I'm throwing it at you. Okay. Thank God there was a lovely Christian lady. I don't know whose Bible this is. Where did we get it from? Who's who? Thank you so much. Well, this is more civil. This is more, this is a peaceful Bible. This is a loving Bible. Do you know what I mean? So thank you for leading me your Bible. It's fantastic. Now, the only problem is this message is written in the NIV, and this is the New Living Translation, I think. So hopefully we will we will sort of connect it. Okay, 2 Kings chapter 5. This is the story of Naaman. Who knows the story? Put your hand up. It's a well-known story, but it is profound because it really captures the state of sometimes where we're at. And this is what it says says the king of Aram had great admiration from Nainan, the commander of his army, because through him the Lord had given Aram great victories. But though Naaman was a mighty warrior, he suffered from leprosy. Can we put the next slide slide? This was Naaman's reality. He had position, he had prestige, he had another P popular, he was popular. These are my sermon notes. And number four, he had power. This man had position. Now he had the lot, except one thing, he had leprosy. Now you can imagine, and I don't know if you've ever understood the condition of leprosy. You know, in those days, if you had leprosy, you were completely banished. You were forced into self-identification. In other words, you had to cry out unclean, unclean, when you came in the presence of other people. You were, you were, you know, you were socially and spiritually, you know, isolated. And life was not normal. But this man was to be such a great man that the king of Iran just let him have, you know, let him lead. But he must have had beautiful carved garments to cover his leprosy. Now have a look at it as the story goes. It says this at this time, Iranian raiders had invaded the land of Israel, and among their captives was a young girl who had been given to Naaman's wife as a maid. One day the girl said to her mistress, I wish my master would go to see the prophet in Samaria. He would heal him of his leprosy. What great faith! Can you imagine this girl was a slave? She was captive, and she never lost her faith. Isn't that amazing when you look? We don't know her name, but we know the end of the story, and I wonder how her life went at the end of the story. So Naaman told the king, this young girl's faith ignited faith in him, in Naaman, who had leprosy. I reckon he was a little bit like, you know, in Mark chapter four or five, I think it is, the woman with the issue of blood who suffered for 12 years. She'd gone to every doctor. I reckon he'd gone to every doctor. I reckon he'd gone everywhere to see if he could be cured. And this little girl, this little captive girl, had faith, and her faith ignited the faith in Naaman. So go and visit the prophet, the king of Iran, told him, I will send a letter of introduction for you to take to the king of Israel. So Naaman started out carrying his gifts, pounds of silver, 150 pounds of gold, and 10 sets of clothes. The letter to the king of Israel said, With this letter I present my servant Naaman. I want you to heal him of his leprosy. Have a look at this, let's go. So Naaman, this is Naaman's response. He was expected, he had faith. He went to the king, the king gave him a letter. He had gifts. This man is prepared for a miracle. You ever been there? Faith is ignited in your heart. You're ready for the miracle. Let's look at the next slide. This is Naaman's reaction. Let me read, can you stop it there for a minute? Good girl, you're doing well. Could you give her a big hand at the back there? That's awesome. Now, where was I? When the king, now this really did my head out. Listen to this. When the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes in dismay and said, Am I God that I can give life and take it away? Why is this man asking me to heal someone with leprosy? I can see that he's just trying to pick a fight. You know, it's amazing. Here's the king of Israel. And we see if we put him together with this young girl, this young servant girl who's in captivity had faith, and yet the king of Israel had no faith. Man, I tell you, it doesn't matter whether you're in a prison or whether you're wherever you are, it's your faith in God that really counts. And this is what happened. But when Elijah, the man of God, heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes and was in dismay, he said to the messenger, he said, Send him here. Why are you upset? Send Naaman to me, and he will learn there is a God of the true prophet here in Israel. So Naaman went. Can you imagine Naaman's excitement, anticipation? So Naaman went with his horses and chariots and waited at the door of Elijah's house. But Elijah sent a message out to him and said with this message, go and wash yourself seven times in the Jordan River, then your skin will be restored and you will be healed of your leprosy. It's not a big demand. Hey, buddy, here's the message. Go and dip yourself in the river seven times and you will be healed. It's not a big demand. But look at Naaman's reaction. Look at what he did. But Naaman, now when we when I read this, just see if you can uh you can sort of relate to the seven days. Has there ever been times when you've responded this way? But Naaman became angry and stalked away. I thought he would certainly come out to meet me. I expected him to wave his hand over me and the leprosy and call on the name of the Lord his God and he would heal me. Aren't the rivers of Damascus and Abanah and Parfar better than any of the rivers of Israel? Why shouldn't I wash in them and be healed? So Naaman turned around and went off in a rage. What the heck happened to this guy who came with such expectancy, who came prepared, who came with a letter from the king, who had all these gifts, and all of a sudden he switches off because you know why? Because he had a preconceived idea. Just to have a look at this, can you put up the next bit? So, this is what happened. He thought, I've been there. Do you know how many times God has spoken to me about something he wanted to do? And I had started getting preconceived ideas. I started to pre-meditate, I started to pre-plan. Here's the problem that I am a leader, and that is good, and yet it's also bad because I start planning things out for God. And guess what happens? When they don't turn out my way, I've responded like this, I've got angry, and not only that, I've been offended and I've gone off in a rage. You know, this is what I've found about God. God is brilliant in offending the mind to reveal the state of the heart. And boy, can I tell you some stories. I'll never forget uh going to a conference, it was a big conference, it was about a thousand people, and I was sitting in the sixth row, and I was just minding my own business, waiting for the service to start, when all of a sudden one of the ushers came and called me and said, Pastor Nick, would you come and sit at the front because we want to honor you, because one of the leaders hasn't rolled up and his seat is free, and we'd love to give you that seat. I thought it's about time that people started recognizing how important I am. So I got up out of my, I got up out of my seat and I did the slow walk, the glory walk. Hello, people. I did the bit of the queen wave, you know, as I'm walking in there, just looking at everybody. And as I sat down, thinking to myself, I have pastors, I you know, I belong here. I sat down in the seat. You know, I hadn't even been there five seconds. I hadn't even had a chance to have a look at how everything looked from the front row when the same usher that called me to come to the front said, Pastor Nick, we're really sorry. But the lead, but the leader that you're sitting in his seat here has just arrived. And could you please go back and sit in the back? Now it wasn't. Now there's a different walk. It was the walk of shame. I'm walking with my head just like this, going down, going, I hope nobody saw me. And let me tell you, I was so angry. I was so offended. I'm sitting there and I think to myself, how are you? You're doing well. I'm glad you came today. And anyway, so here I am. I'm sitting there, angry with God, and angry with myself, thinking, how could I let this happen? How? And I was angry at God, I was offended. And the Holy Spirit said to me, Really? Are we still at this? Do you still need this to find out who you are? I thought your foundation, I'm your foundation, not your position, not because of prestige. And it's funny how can we switch off like that because of disappointments and because of preconceived ideas. And can I sit there's a lot of angry people that are no longer in church? There's a lot of offended people that are no longer in church, and it's because of this weapon of the enemy that backdoors us, and sometimes we get angry because things have not worked out the way we thought. There's some of you in here like that today, and that's not to condemn you because I've been there. And God wants to release us of that. The great thing about Naaman was he had great friends and great people around him. Can I say this to you? We were never meant to be isolated. The wounds of a friend, a true friend, are true, and we all need them. We need people around us that can speak into our life. Let's have a look at the last slide, which is Naaman's rescue. He needed rescuing. The Bible says in the NIV that his servant came up and said, My father, look at the way that he addressed him. Didn't say, didn't go off at him. He came with humility and said, My father, if the prophet had told you to do something great, would you not have done it? And there's one thing you've got to say about Naaman. Didn't build people, he didn't have a subservient culture. He didn't build people that couldn't come and speak. How many of you know when your when your boss is not just angry, he's in a rage, that's not the time you go and talk to him. So he must have had great relationships with people that were around him. Can I say this? Like never before, we need strong friendships that truly love us, that can speak into our life and save us from ourselves. I've got three, you know, this is how I work. I have three people that speak into my life. One of them is a Greek guy. He's 10 years younger than me, and he is he is lovingly brutal with me. Lovingly brutal. He's very respectful, 10 years younger than me, but man, the guy is full of wisdom. And he has pulled me up at times, and he has spoken into my life when I needed rescue. And friends, let me tell you this. It's amazing. My time is up. I'm gonna give this back to you. Don't get offended, but can I just close with this? Is that all right? Can I have your piano player up with your piano player? You did a great job. You've got a great feel on that piano. You really have. And do you know? Thank God that Naaman listened to his servant, who spoke with him in love and truth and care, but he was direct with the truth. And friends, let me tell you that I have noticed in my life, God wants to speak to us. But when he speaks to us and to give us direction, take your hands off the steering wheel. Don't try and work out how it's gonna. I could tell you so many stories about how God has called us to do things. And every time I've put my hand on the steering wheel, thinking, you know, God needs a little bit of help. God needs me to help him steer this way because he doesn't quite know what he's doing. You know, God, I'm gonna just I'm just gonna push this thing along. I, you know, you're going a bit slow, but every time that I've let go, I said, God, I don't want to get trapped in disappointments. And today the reason I give you this message is to help you on your journey. Because I think sometimes we get trapped. The enemy just traps us, and he knows how to shut us down. We get disappointed, we shut off, we turn our back, we go a different way, and we lose the God moments, we'd lose the God appointments, we'd lose the God seasons, we'd lose the things that God wants to do. I'm gonna finish this message by doing this. I wonder today, and I've had to really work hard on this. I could, like I said, I could tell you some story. I'm not good with disappointment. I am not good with disappointment, but somehow, as I've grown and matured, I've said, God, I don't understand this. God, I don't like it, God, I I I would do this a different way, but I'm trusting you because let me tell you what disappointment does. Not only does it remove hope, it removes trust. When you remove trust, man. And I just feel that God wants to renew your hope. He wants to renew your trust in him. And I'm gonna ask you to stand with me, would you do that? Thank you for listening to me. I pray that this message has helped you. I'm just gonna ask you to be courageous. Maybe all the musicians can come to be courageous. And if you want to step out of that room of disappointment, I wonder if you would be courageous to just come out the front to say, you know what, Pastor, I get trapped in this all the time. Man, I used to get trapped in it all the time until God began to speak to me and say, Nick, this is what you're doing. And I feel that some of you can break that cycle today. You can break that cycle and come out of that room, that room of disappointment, and come into that place of hope and that place of trust again. Could you sing the second song? That that second song you said, could you do that? Would you like me to sing with you? Yeah, yeah, yeah, great. Yeah, we need we need a lot of hope. Yeah, might be some disappointment as we go on that one. Do you know what I mean? But I just feel as you step out, and and you might say, Why do I need to come out the front? There's something powerful when you respond, because I just saw a picture of people in a room with a door shut. By you coming out the front, you're going, you know what? I'm opening the door. I'm gonna get out of that door, and I'm walking into hope and I'm walking into trust. So if you'd like to do that, here we are. Let me pray. Father, we thank you. Father, I believe you're renewing hope, you're renewing trust. You can start coming now if you need to come. You're renewing trust, you're doing something in this place, Lord. I believe there's been prophecies even about this location, there's been plans, there's been conversation, and sometimes things haven't come the way we thought. But Lord, today we come and we renew our hope, we renew our trust in you. We thank you for that in Jesus' name. We're gonna be just standing here with you.