Grapevine Ministries
Messages from the bible to uplift and encourage those that need a word from the Lord, to strengthen their faith. Ps Phillip Barker is an itinerant pastor in Perth, Western Australia.
Grapevine Ministries
Seek First, Then See The Reward
What if the turning point isn’t the miracle itself, but the moment you decide to seek God and act on what you believe? We open Hebrews 11:6 and sit with a tough, beautiful truth: faith starts by believing God is, then deepens by trusting he rewards those who seek him. From Mary’s unflinching yes to the seed-and-gift analogies, we explore how faith grows only when it’s planted, watered, and used—never when it’s admired from a distance.
We talk about the danger of living on second-hand spirituality, chasing borrowed light or prophetic thrills while neglecting the presence of God. Real stability comes when your confidence is anchored in the Giver, not in gifted people. Then we walk through three hero paths from Hebrews: those who see promises fulfilled, those who receive the dead raised, and those who refuse false deliverance even at great cost. Along the way we wrestle with deliverance versus grace, Job’s fierce trust, and Paul’s thorn that taught sufficiency. Sometimes God shuts the lions’ mouths. Sometimes he strengthens the heart to stand. Either way, Christ is magnified.
You’ll also hear a firsthand healing testimony that reshaped how we pray: believe that you receive when you pray, then step toward it. Language matters—try leaks doubt, while I will pairs belief with action. If you’re praying for provision, build value and walk into favour. If you’re asking for healing, speak life and move in the measure you have. Seek his face, not just his hand. Grow the mustard seed you were given through Scripture, prayer, and obedience until it throws shade for many.
If this resonated with you, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs courage today, and leave a review with the step of faith you’re taking this week. Your story might be the spark that helps someone else seek the Rewarder.
Good morning, good afternoon, wherever you are in the world - Welcome to Grapevine Ministries.
Please feel free to check out my first publication, it is also available on Google and Amazon Books.
https://www.xlibris.com/en-au/search?query=Phillip+Barker
Well, now that we're all budding evangelists, um, we're gonna go on to those that seek him are rewarded. God rewards those that seek him. Now, that's before I get any further, uh, just remember that's not the primary purpose. It's not like um I'm gonna do something for you, God, if you do something for me. It's not a negotiational thing. But it does say in the word in Hebrews 11:6, but without faith it is impossible to please him. For he that comes to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. Now that's what the word of God says, but sometimes we find that faith is something we long for in God. Jesus said we should pray his will be done on the earth as it is done in heaven. So little of the will of God is being done, so little of it is being done, but it is going to be done. As we pile hope upon hope, at last it becomes a reality, whether it pleases man or pleases our flesh, and whether it is visible to our eyes or not, we will know God is working. We should be able to just simply, just as believing we receive that when we pray, not hoping God will get around to it if we say that because that's how much we pray. We all need to know it's a done thing. Hope builds faith, faith belief, and then we know that we know that we know. See, how willing was Mary? So, how was she to be used by God? She met God's approval, and what a test it was to her to be asked to be the mother of the supposedly illegitimate child, but one day he came into existence. By faith, the elders received a good report. If they had nothing else, they witnessed in their hearts this was enough. Mary didn't question the archangel Gabriel when he was saying that you have found favor with God, you know, she didn't say, Yeah, but hang on a minute. What about me? What about the situation I'm gonna be put in? I'm gonna be pregnant. Forget about the fact that I'm a virgin, but I'm gonna be pregnant in this day and age, and I'm engaged. Um, what is going to happen here? But that was not her answer.
SPEAKER_00:She was willing, she was a willing vessel, ready to receive what God had said he would do for her. So, how willing do we need to be to receive God's approval? We need to look at the define the definitive character of God.
SPEAKER_01:God brings in the background to show us how they won God's approval. Enoch had his testimony that before he was translated, he pleased God, and without faith, it is impossible to please God. We cannot get faith within ourselves. Faith is from heaven. God says we are all given a measure of faith. We do not have to do something and on this side that he does something on that side. He's done all that he can do. The next move is up to us. We must first believe that he is the rewarder of those that diligently seek him. You may say, I haven't such great faith that can say to the sick, Behold. But the first thing to do is come before God and believe that he is, and that then believe that he is the rewarder of those that diligently seek him. If we diligently seek him, he proves to be the rewarder. They are the first principles that we must come to. Faith is not the gift of faith, but the faith we must all have to start with. God is giving us a measure of faith. We would like we say to go here and the evangelist be the preacher, the teacher, or someone who has faith. It does help us, but some people are spiritual thieves. You say that I would like to work with those that seem to impart unto me something. You go around and try to get something from your sisters and your brothers so that you can be blessed. You don't go around, see, let me put it this way Hebrews 11:6. Oh, yeah, he that cometh to me must come individually. See, we cannot get it from someone else. First, you need to say, Lord, I believe you are, and second, I believe if I seek you, you are a rewarder. If you go around and try to get something off someone else, if they fall, it will throw you down as well. But if you get the blessings directly from him, our Heavenly Father, he is always the same, he cannot move, and we cannot be more like him. See, there was this pastor who used to speak prophetically into people's lives. People would flock to him because they wanted to get a prophetic word. If they did not get that prophetic word, they left that church because they were wanting to get something for nothing. Getting light from somebody else may help, but it won't be like getting it directly from God. Christ will give you your heart's desire, but you must believe, and without that, it is impossible to please Him. And giving you your heart's desire, be very, very careful of this as well. Getting your heart's desire, it may not be what God wants for you. So, first off, we need to find out what it is that we really need from God in our life. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, evidence of things not yet seen. And we're all given a measure of faith, the size of a mustard seed. But then we get given it, and we have to do that, something with it. So if someone actually, you know, bless me and they say, okay, Phil, um, here is your Tangelo tree seed. Um, so they give me a seed from my Tangellos. Now, Tangellos are a cross between a mandarin and a lemon, okay, for those that don't know, okay, but they give me the seeds. Excuse me. Now, if I take that seed and I take it in my bedroom, I put it in my jewelry box, and I look at it every couple of days.
SPEAKER_00:It's still a seed.
SPEAKER_01:What do you mean it's still a seed? Well, well, yeah, it's a seed. Someone gave me a seed. What do I need to do with the seed? Um, well, you need to plant it, and you need to water it, and you need to nurture it, and you need to weed around it, give it nutrients, feed it, and do all this sort of stuff. And eventually it will grow into a Tangelo tree. And, you know, I heard someone say this once uh whilst we're in Melbourne, and they turned around and they said, Um, you can count the seeds in an apple, but you can't count the apples in the seed. See, one apple seed will grow a huge apple tree, and the yield that you get on that is 10, 20, sometimes 30-fold on that one seed. So if someone gives me a seed from my Tangelo tree and I just look at it and admire it, then it will achieve nothing. I can pray over it all the days of my life, it'll never change from being that seed. It's the same, we've just gone through Christmas, right? We've just got through Christmas, okay, and we get Christmas presents. Now, I I bought this nice present for my wife, and uh, she opened it up and found what was inside, and then went about using what was given to her. But if she gave me a Christmas present, and it was so beautifully wrapped, had a nice little bow on it, it was nice paper and everything else, and I thought, wow, this is really great. I love this. Well, open it. Oh no, no, no, don't don't want to open it, don't want, don't want to mess it up. It looks so nice the way it is. I will keep it and I will enjoy it, and I will get so much out of it.
SPEAKER_00:Really? You can't do it that way.
SPEAKER_01:See, we are all given a measure of faith, the size of a mustard seed. It's our responsibility to grow that through his word and prayer, and then we have three kinds of heroes that I will explain to you from Hebrews 11 33 onwards. Now, I'm not going to read the whole lot, you can read that. I said this a couple of weeks ago. I hope you read the scriptures I give you because you know it's a bit long-winded me giving it, and plus I don't get the message across to you. These are three heroes, and you find out how they become a hero and what they did and how they did it. Those that really received the promise as Daniel, the three Hebrew children, right? Two, the woman who received their dead raised to life, as a widow who cared for Elijah, the Shunamite who befriended Elijah. Three, others tortured, not accepting deliverance, if they didn't get God's deliverance, they would rather die. Now you're thinking, how does that make sense? How many people in trouble will take deliverance at any cost?
SPEAKER_00:But there will be other people who wouldn't accept such a deliverance. If he doesn't send the lock to the lion's mouth that he's in business with, Daniel had his faith in God.
SPEAKER_01:I heard a Chinese group that was uh once saved, and uh a revolt came, and those in authority came after the missionaries to kill them. They said to their native Christians, um, you tell us where the missionaries are and we will save your lives. But they wouldn't tell, even though it cost them their heads. Now I'm not saying, you know, go to a third world country where the Bible is is a crime and uh try and live there and live a life and show that you're faithful by having you know a gun put to your head or a machete to your neck. I'm not saying that. Faith isn't something to be used to get us out of scrapes and difficulties, but our purpose is to have the same words as the men in the furnace, right? Remember us talking about this before, you know, Meshat, Hadchak, and Abednego. If it be so that God will deliver, that's okay. If not, we won't take deliverance any other way. But not only did they get delivered because of their faith in Jesus Christ, that he was in the fire with them. We need to have our faith, not something, okay, to get us out of pain. But as Job said, though he slay me, yet I will trust in him. After all the troubles poor old Job went through, over and over and over, he was on the ash heap, scraping the corruption out of his body with a piece of crockery. His wife said, Curse God and died. And what did Job say? Naked came I into this world, naked I shall go out. Though he slay me yet I will trust him. Esther was willing to die, that others might live. She said, Though I perish, I am going through. There should be that underlying principle in each one of us in our hearts. Some say what is the use being a Christian to have troubles too? Well, yes, but the sinner has no one to go to. You do. There should be that absolute submission to the will of God, whether he delivers or not. Faith is anything less than that is not of God. It is contaminated and leads into misery. We have the record of Paul, how he had the messenger of Satan to buffet him in his flesh, but he prayed through he should have got deliverance or grace. Where can we come to that place leaving it to God's hands that he has grace will be sufficient? If God's grace is sufficient, we will all murmur or complain. I'm not saying that we all need to have our backs against the wall with God setting us free or other alternatives to death. No, these are just examples of the extreme measures that people went to. And remember, it was the Old Testament, they did not have the Holy Spirit. Paul said he strained every nerve to go forward. It will take a lifetime to do it. We better see if that we can make it right or not. I know I'm sort of like doing a little bit of doom and gloom with you at the beginning of the year, but I want to sort of like set the platform for us. We may say, Lord, whether I am delivered or not, I want to serve you. I don't care which is poured on me, deliverance or grace, whichever you think is best. I'm sure it was a wonderful thing to have the grace that was sufficient for all. Paul was happy. He didn't question God at all. Lord, you are running that end, help me at this end. See, we all go through trials and tribulations, we all go through circumstances of life. We have to have a foundation, have our faith. That we have been given the size of a mustard seed. And the more that we pray, and the more that we spend time in his word, the greater our faith is. It'll grow and grow and grow. And if you've ever read about it or seen it, a mustard seed grows into the humongous tree you've ever seen. And like I was saying before, okay, you can count the seeds in an apple, but you can't count the apples in the seed. What are we going to do this year? Are we going to spend more time in our word? Are we going to take the opportunity to speak to others about the word of God? Are we going to do things that help our faith grow and expand and to become better and better? So let's just put this in a modern context, for instance, right? There's two ladies I was called to pray for as a young Christian. No Bible studies, no awareness of word knowledge, and I was not even part of the fivefold at that point in my Christian journey. So why me? What made me the person that the church called upon to pray for these two ladies? It was a simple matter of faith. We are in a day where judgments are being poured out, a day when God will purify his people. It will take something to purify God's people. Tribulation and trials don't drive us into God as it should. If you are one of those who believe God will lift some of these half baked Christians up to be with him in the rapture, these worldly ones will have to go through tribulation. God is going to take those that please him. He is not going to take these half done souls. It is true that the tribulation day will be short, but if it does the work, it will be cheap. The thought came to me that this one who has done so much for you, won't you do something for him? He needed to make it right with someone before he went to his maker. That was the mercy of God. If it takes trials and tribulations, it will be cheap at any cost. As soon as the pain hits you, you send for the doctor or rub on the old, you know, cream and ointment or whatever. When the tests come, the thing to say is, I don't care what whether I live or die, Christ must be magnified in this body. The reason I was called to pray for these women is because I had received a miraculous healing from God. That's what my book is about, okay, which is all to do with walking on sunshine, the Son of God. See, um you have light and you have darkness. Darkness doesn't actually exist, it's just the absence of light, the light of the Lord shining down on you. You know, if you have a light, you don't put it on a table and cover it up, you put it in the center of the room, and so the light reaches out to all areas. I had a miraculous healing, and so my faith was humongous. I didn't need to know what was wrong with these women, I just believed that God was no respecter of persons. Now I know me, I know what I've done, I don't, I know what my past is, I know where I come from and where I am now. But I do not let that determine who I'm going to be. Christ lives in me, and I know that when I pray for other people, the power of God from heaven comes down through me into that person, and I believe without a shadow of a doubt, that that person will be healed. They need to have their faith that they will receive the healing that God is giving to them. Now I found out later that one of these women in particular had stage four cancer, and uh she'd been told to go home to die.
SPEAKER_00:They'd given her uh a few weeks, maybe a couple of months, tops.
SPEAKER_01:I prayed for her, also knowing that she was a woman of like 40 years as a Christian, I was basically like lucky if I was four years a Christian, but I believed because I had received, and that's it. You believe that you receive when you pray. It is no good. I it amazes me to this day the amount of people that when I pray for them for healing or something to change in their life, and it does, they are so shocked. Oh my gosh, I didn't expect that to happen. Then why were you coming for prayer? You believe that you receive when you pray, so it's a done deal. God is a now God, and He's no respective person. What He's done for one, he can do for another. It doesn't matter who I am, what my background is, where I'm from. If I believe that when I pray for someone and it lines up with scripture, that the power of the Holy Spirit comes down upon me and enters that person and gives them healing. Through Jesus' stripes, we are healed. Not we might get healed or whatever. I always have to remind my my wife when she uh she makes this little statement, when she telling my my testimony, you know, when it came to me knowing that I knew that I knew that God was going to heal me, right? I got there and I said, right. And and the thing is, when they ask what they want to be done, I said, I want to stand up. Okay. But my wife always seems to change that, and she goes, Oh, he wants to try and stand up, and I always have to correct her. The thing is, if you want to try something, then there's that belief in you that there's a possibility that you may fail because you don't have confidence in what you're saying. If you say, I want to do this because you believe that God's going to act when you step out in faith. Faith without works is dead. You have to do something. You can't sit on the couch and wait for God to manifest it in your life. If you're praying for financial, you know, um reward in your life, go out and do something about getting that because then you'll have godly favor and it will happen. Someone's not going to walk up to your house and slip an envelope under the door and there's$20,000 in there. No. Okay. Believe that you receive when you pray. God rewards those that seek Him. You have to step out in faith. If you do not do something, see, I I looked at me, okay, and I've got foot drop, I've got muscle dystrophy, my legs are just skin and bone. I'm sitting in a wheelchair, and um God says, you know, you're healed. Get up and walk. Like the the crippled at the pool of Bethesda. He was saying, Oh yeah, but you know, when the angel comes down and stirs the water, no one's here to help me. Well, because he wasn't helping himself. But when then Jesus spoke to him, he said, What do you want? He says, I want to get up and walk. And he said, Then pick up your bed and go. He had to actually, one, he confessed with his mouth what he believed in his heart was going to happen, and then he he actioned it, he did something, he stepped out. God will reward you if you seek him, seek his face. So there was no sign of anything with my legs, and I said, pick me up, remove the wheelchair, and let go of me. I believed right at that moment that I would stand and I would be able to walk, and that's exactly what happened. You want to get my book? It's available on Amazon. Uh, it's called Uh Walking on Sunshine, and it's uh written by Phil Barker. That's all I'm saying on the matter for now. God rewards those that seek him. Are you going to seek him out or are you waiting for him to come to you? Talk to next week. Bye for now.
