i61 Sydney

How many of us have been in severe physical pain, and thought to ourselves, “This is awesome - it’s so life-giving…”..? It’s the enemy’s work to steal, kill and destroy. At this second Combined Churches Regional Gathering, Tim Ferris looks at Jesus’ healing ministry through the lens of the apostle John. Jesus came that we might have life, and life more abundantly. Sickness and pain works against the life of God in us. So, whose work is sickness? At the very least, it is life in a fallen world. At worst it is the enemy’s work of stealing, killing, and destroying. Either way, Jesus came to fix it, and we were given the same commission when Jesus said, “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” Prayer and ministry for healing follows.

In the ninth message of this series, Tim found some unexpected gold in Ephesians 5:15-20, having planned to start at verse 22 this week. Not all moments are created equal. There are “kairos” moments, where what you choose in that moment has a disproportionate impact. Paul’s counsel here is to not be distracted, and to not dull your senses in such a way that you miss a window of opportunity to advance in your Kingdom assignment, and deliver a harvest that is less than what you were created for. At i61 we are in one of those moments where what we choose now will impact us for potentially the next decade. We need heaven’s wisdom to steward this moment into Kingdom breakthrough. Prayer and ministry follows.

Tim continues our series on the book of Ephesians, looking at Ephesians 5:1-21. This section follows straight on from chapter 4, taking us into the practical side of mature love. In short, mature love looks like something. The Kingdom of God does require something of us in terms of our behaviour. But, it is critical to know that our behaviour doesn’t define our identity or our standing before God. The process of maturing brings our behaviour into sync with the identity and standing we already have. Verse 6 gives us a warning - DON’T BE FOOLED BY THOSE WHO TELL YOU OTHERWISE! We will be called to give an account for what we have done with what God has put in us. This is not a salvation issue, but it is a reward issue, and heaven’s reward system is not equal.

Tim takes a second pass at Ephesians chapter 4. Everything that God creates has order and design. His church is no different. He has designed it with offices, anointings, and a structure that, when infused with His presence, results in a mature community that reflects the “measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ”. That means more than we behave like Jesus. It means we occupy the space in the spirit realm that He occupies - and that is a much bigger mandate. Maturity looks like something, and Paul gives us clear direction on what mature community looks like. There’s a particular “foothold” that we need to be aware of - a false refuge - that replaces forgiveness with forgetting (a form of denial) and leads to hardened hearts toward each other and a robbery of our freedom and destiny.

In part 6 of this series on the book of Ephesians, Tim looks at Ephesians chapter 4. This chapter introduces us to the governmental, or ruling offices in the Body of Christ - often referred to as the “5-fold” giftings. The purpose of these giftings is less about running an organisation, and more about bring us to maturity in love so that we fully represent Christ to each other and to the world. They are a healthy parental motif rather than a political power motif. To the extent we resist these offices in our life, we will stay immature and fall short of the fullness of Christ we are created for.

In a first of its kind gathering in the Rouse Hill region, many churches gathered to worship Jesus and minister healing. Tim & Debbie Ferris lead the teaching a ministry time from Isaiah 53, where we see that our healing was purchased for us at the cross. As we follow Jesus’ way of ministering healing we find that breakthrough becomes a normal expression of the compassion of Jesus. We heard a number of testimonies of Jesus healing people, and then as ministry time unfolded, more healings happened in the room.

Tim returns to the series on the book of Ephesians, picking up at chapter 3, verses 14-21. Here we see an apostolic prayer of Paul’s where he opens the curtain and gives this body an insight into how an apostle prays. It’s a different kind of prayer than one a pastor prays. This powerful prayer shows the importance of both power and love being demonstrated through the ekklesia, such that the full character and nature of God is expressed to the world.

In this first teaching of 2025 (despite two failed attempts), Tim revisits the foundational teaching on “the Ekklesia” - the Greek word Jesus used when He said, “I will build my church…” A core part of our journey right now is discovering what Jesus really envisioned when He made that statement. The word wasn’t typically used in a spiritual context in that day. Jesus took a secular concept, which was more akin to a parliament or a board than a synagogue, and infused it with Kingdom DNA. If we want to be a part of the only thing that Jesus said He would build, we must get this picture accurate, and have a vision for far more than what we are currently doing.

In the fourth message in this series on the book of Ephesians, Tim takes us through Ephesians chapter 3 - well some of it anyway... Verses 10 and 11 are some of the most powerful verses in the New Testament in describing how God wants to work through the church to accomplish His mission of bringing everything under the headship of Christ. What is the “manifold wisdom of God” and how do we make it known to the principalities in the second heaven..? Both terms - wisdom, and manifold - are incredibly rich. When we get just a sniff of what they are about, we see the importance of us stepping into all the God has created us to be. Strap yourself in for a wild ride.

In part 3 of this series, Tim looks at Ephesians chapter 2. This is a letter to a church that was extraordinary in its influence, such that from Ephesus, the gospel went out and filled Asia as they knew it at the time, and there was nowhere left to for Paul to preach. The start of this chapter reminds us not to become proud of our progress. Tim then unpacks three architectures from this chapter - the architecture of us as God’s poetic masterpiece, the architecture of the heavenly places, and the architecture of the church, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. So much of the modern church as we have known it has been built on the foundation of pastors and teachers, which puts a ceiling on the whole environment such that the church becomes ineffective in its mission. Tim calls us back to building on the foundation that God designed for His church so that the church will become everything that He intended in the earth.