Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] My name is Paul. For those of you that don't know me, my name is Paul. There we go. That's the introduction done.
[00:00:06] I am a youth worker. I've been a youth worker for many, many years.
[00:00:11] Too many to remember.
[00:00:13] And yeah, it's always a privilege to be able to share some thoughts with you this morning, share a word with you this morning that I feel God's laid on my heart. And we're going to be looking at this idea of faith in action this morning.
[00:00:27] I don't know about you, faith is one of those words that we can use in many different ways at many different times. And yeah, I think sometimes we can lose some of the emphasis of it because we use it in so many different ways. And this morning we're going to be based in Hebrews 11 and 12.
[00:00:46] And just looking at this idea of faith in action, something which shapes who we are and something which shapes how we interact with the world around us.
[00:00:57] Thank you.
[00:00:59] So just as I've been writing this, God's reminded me of so many experiences in my own life where my faith has been deepened and my faith has been sort of brought on by doing stuff. And we'll delve into some of those as we go forward.
[00:01:17] But yeah, I really want us to think this morning about what does it mean to live by faith.
[00:01:25] I think sometimes we use that as a.
[00:01:29] We can often use it to mean like stepping out into something which is different to what we experience. And we can often mean like no money and all sorts of things like that. But I think there's something in living by faith which we really need to grasp around.
[00:01:44] God's actually called us to live by faith in everyday life, whether we've got a job and we're paid, whether we're not paid and doing some stuff that God's asked us to do that is living by faith.
[00:01:56] And God's called us all into that journey to live by faith and live in faith with Him.
[00:02:04] So, faith.
[00:02:06] Let's read Hebrews Before I go any further, we're not going to read all of Hebrews 11 because it's quite long.
[00:02:13] And then the main focus I want us to be in is in the first two verses of Hebrews 12.
[00:02:21] So just going to start at Hebrews 11, verse one says, now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
[00:02:33] For by it, people of old received their commendation by faith. We understand that the universe was created by the word of God so that what is seen was not made out of things that are Visible.
[00:02:46] I mean, what a great definition of faith to start with.
[00:02:49] What a great place to start. This idea that faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things we can't see. There's some things around us that just don't make sense in terms of the creation of the world and how things happen, how are people healed, how are people set free from things sometimes don't make sense and we can't physically grasp those things.
[00:03:12] And yet faith is how we make sense of those things. And faith is how we understand those things. Faith in God, faith in the understanding that God is the creator God. He is the one who can do anything at any point, at any time, and we rest assured that he is with us in all that we do.
[00:03:29] Now, faith isn't like a bare belief. It's not an intellectual understanding, or that intellectual understanding is part of it. Faith is a willingness to trust and rely on and cling to the hope of God in our lives.
[00:03:43] That's what it means to have faith.
[00:03:45] It's not just a head knowledge, it's not just a good understanding. You know, I did a theology degree. You can, you can do a theology degree and understand the Bible and not really let it affect you and make sense in your life.
[00:04:00] There's something in moving the head knowledge into our hearts, into our very inner being, into part of who we are that starts to shape our lives and starts to really help us to understand how life should be lived.
[00:04:14] And it's that willingness in those moments to trust and rely on and cling to the hope of God in our lives.
[00:04:25] And as we read through the rest of Hebrews 11, we realize that there's a lot of people in the past that have done that.
[00:04:33] It's become a living, breathing reality of how they interacted with the world around them. It's become a living, breathing reality of how they live their lives on a daily basis.
[00:04:43] It wasn't just head stuff, it wasn't just knowledge, but it was a willingness to put step by step into action what God was calling each one of them to do.
[00:04:55] It says by faith, Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain.
[00:05:02] It says, by faith, Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place that was not to receive an inheritance.
[00:05:10] It talks about how all these people by faith went to live in a land of promise in a foreign land.
[00:05:19] By faith, Sarah received power to conceive even when she was past the age of conceiving.
[00:05:27] There are so many examples in the Bible.
[00:05:30] And we read through the old Testament and into the New Testament. There are so many examples of people who got past the head knowledge to a point where they were willing to do whatever God asked them to do. They were willing to step out in faith and do what God asked them to do by faith. Abraham, when he was tested, offered up, Aygesuch as a sacrifice, even though he knew that Isaac was the promise that he'd been given by faith. Moses, when he was born, was hidden for three months.
[00:06:03] And then when he grew up, he refused to be called a son of Pharaoh's daughter, rather choosing to be with the Israelites by faith. People crossed the Red Sea onto the dry land, but the Egyptians drowned by faith. The walls of Jericho fell down by faith. Rahab the prostitute did not perish with those who are disobedient.
[00:06:24] Then it goes in verse 32. And what more shall I say, for time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Japheth and David and Samuel and the prophets who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to fight women received back their dead by resurrection.
[00:06:52] Then it goes on. Some were tortured to accept release so they might rise again to a better life.
[00:06:58] Others suffered mocking and flogging, even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed by the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated, of whom the world was not worthy, wandering about in the deserts and mountains and dens and caves of the earth.
[00:07:23] And then come these amazing two verses which I don't think I've ever really noticed before until I started reading it and kind of read over these a couple of times.
[00:07:32] It said, and all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us, they should not be made perfect.
[00:07:53] I find that fascinating that all these people that we read about in the Old Testament, all these amazing witnesses, all these faithful people who did amazing things, who led people who conquered lands, who brought God's peace and justice to the earth around them, to the world around them, they never saw the promise because the promise was Jesus.
[00:08:21] They never saw the works and the life of Jesus.
[00:08:29] And yet it says, since God provided something better for us, that apart from us, they should not be made perfect.
[00:08:38] We are invited into that same history.
[00:08:43] We are invited into that same narrative that was set from the beginning of the Bible. This is not something separate to our lives. This is not something separate to who we are right now. This is not something different to the way that we live our lives.
[00:08:58] We are invited into that same story.
[00:09:02] We are part of it.
[00:09:07] It's very easy sometimes to read the Bible and to look back at it and go, well, yeah, but they were, you know, they were different back then. Or, you know, things were different back then, or, you know, life's slightly different now.
[00:09:20] And whilst that stuff might be true, we are part of that same story.
[00:09:29] The Bible isn't just a storybook.
[00:09:32] The Bible starts with the creation of the world and ends with the second coming of Jesus and the new heaven and the new earth. And we're somewhere in the middle of that.
[00:09:42] So we're kind of somewhere in the middle of this book.
[00:09:45] It's not finished yet.
[00:09:46] And we're not separate to it. It's. It's not just a book that we can read. It's a living, breathing thing that we are part of and we are invited into.
[00:09:57] And I find that fascinating.
[00:10:01] And it's sometimes easy to put people on a pedestal, isn't it, and think, well, they're so much better than me.
[00:10:07] I could never do that.
[00:10:10] But the reality is God calls us into that.
[00:10:13] God calls us to be part of that.
[00:10:16] And God wants our lives to be just as important as the lives of the people we read about in the Old Testament. He wants us to be just as impactful as those people as well.
[00:10:28] And I find that absolutely fascinating. And it blew my mind a little bit as I read it.
[00:10:33] We are part of that same promise.
[00:10:35] We are part of that same plan.
[00:10:38] We are still bringing God's kingdom to earth.
[00:10:41] We are still living a life of faith which makes a difference to ourselves and to the people around us.
[00:10:49] Let's not separate ourselves from the Bible.
[00:10:51] Let's see our part in it.
[00:10:54] Let's realize what it is that God is calling us to do.
[00:10:58] Then we head into Hebrews 12, and it says this. Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, everyone that's gone before us, we're surrounded by those people. They bear witness to what God can do. They bear witness to the life lived by faith.
[00:11:18] Since we're surrounded by that cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and every sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross despising shame and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
[00:11:47] Powerful words and a real big call on our lives.
[00:11:58] Therefore, since we are surrounded, you know, that's not that image of being on your own. It's not that image of having to go and do this thing in your own might.
[00:12:10] Since we are surrounded, they are with us. The stories are there, the examples are there. Since we're surrounded by all that, let us lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely.
[00:12:24] Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.
[00:12:31] Just going to look at a couple of those bits in a little bit more detail.
[00:12:36] The first bit is this idea of throwing off everything.
[00:12:41] It says lay aside in the ESV and the niv. It says throw off.
[00:12:47] Let's lay aside every weight and seeing which came so closely.
[00:12:52] So a bit of self degradation here. I used to play rugby.
[00:12:58] There's a nice picture of me playing rugby.
[00:13:01] And because of my size, my job basically was to run the ball up the middle of the pitch.
[00:13:08] They used to give me the ball and they used to kind of say, go. And I had to try and get the ball as close to the try line as possible. That was basically my role.
[00:13:20] I don't like to blame people. I was pretty good at it. I used to run down the pitch and there would be people hanging off me, there'd be people on my back, there'd be people clanging in my legs trying to stop me from getting there. And I would literally throw these people off.
[00:13:34] Like, you know, you get a hold of them and you just kind of push them away. Which I love rugby because you're allowed to do that and it's fine. Like, that's absolutely fine. There's not many places you can do that and get away with it. Like being on a rugby pitch and being able to throw someone off you and like watching them land on the floor, that's really cool.
[00:13:51] And there's this idea that's me breaking free, having thrown all those people off me and you can see them lying on the floor there.
[00:13:59] And I was just reminded of this when I was thinking about this. Throw off everything that hinders and the sin that entangles easily entangles.
[00:14:09] Whilst I was doing this on the pitch and whilst I was doing this in a very specific area, I wasn't doing it in my life.
[00:14:16] I didn't have that same attitude in my own life and my faith. I could run down the pitch, I could make meters, I could get the ball to someone else and they'd Go and score.
[00:14:27] I could literally throw people off me.
[00:14:30] I was determined there was nothing that was going to stop me getting to that line.
[00:14:34] And I ran as far as I could.
[00:14:37] But I wasn't doing that in my own faith, in my own journey, in my own relationship with God.
[00:14:46] And I was kind of living this, like, dualistic lifestyle almost at points where I'd go to church. My dad was a minister at church. I had to go to church when I was younger. And I never really enjoyed it, if I'm honest, and never really grasped, I don't think, the call that God put on our lives or put on my life.
[00:15:14] I was able to do it there. I was determined, I was driven, I was throwing people all over the place.
[00:15:20] But I wasn't able, in my own life, in my own walk with God, to say, actually, I'm going to be the same in that I'm going to be stubborn. I'm going to be what God's called me to be here.
[00:15:32] And it wasn't really until I went to this conference. I was working for Youth for Christ at the time, and I went to this conference.
[00:15:42] They used to do an annual conference. It was in a castle in Wales. It was amazing. It was like the best week of the year.
[00:15:47] Everything was free, it was lovely.
[00:15:51] And they used to do evening meetings and morning meetings. I just remember one evening, it was around the time when there was that song, the line, break my heart for what breaks yours.
[00:16:04] And I just remember saying to God, like, lord, I really want to know.
[00:16:11] Break my heart for what breaks yours. And I genuinely meant it. And I just remember lying on the floor crying for about an hour.
[00:16:18] God just hit me in that moment.
[00:16:22] And in that moment I understood and I got it and it made sense.
[00:16:27] And it was that moment of impact from the Holy Spirit in my life which made me go, oh, I need to take this a bit more seriously.
[00:16:38] I need to realize what it is that's going on here.
[00:16:43] And it's that power of the Spirit in our lives which helps us to cast aside every weight or to throw off things that hinder and the sin that so easily entangles.
[00:17:00] We can't do that on our own.
[00:17:03] There's no way we can do that on our own. There's no way that we can change our own lives.
[00:17:09] It has to be the power of God through the impact of the Holy Spirit, which changes us and then calls and helps us to do what it is that God calls us to do here.
[00:17:24] So throw off everything that hinders and so easily entangles and run with endurance, the race that is set before us. In other versions, it uses the word perseverance.
[00:17:41] Let's take this seriously.
[00:17:45] Let's understand what it is that God's called us to.
[00:17:51] Let's not let anything hold us back from that.
[00:17:54] Let's run with perseverance. The race marked before us now. Perseverance.
[00:17:58] Always good to have a bit of a dictionary definition.
[00:18:01] Perseverance is the continued effort to achieve despite obstacles, failures and opposition.
[00:18:10] There will come moments in our lives where we face obstacles, we faced failures, we face opposition.
[00:18:20] But perseverance is carrying on despite those things.
[00:18:24] No matter what comes against us, no matter what challenges us and makes us think we're not good enough, no matter what makes us think that we're not worthy, no matter what makes us think that we can't do it, we keep going.
[00:18:39] Because God has put something in each of us which enables us to be able to do that.
[00:18:46] His spirit in our life is the driving force which makes a difference. His spirit in our lives is the driving force that enables us to be able to do the things that he's called us to do. He doesn't just say, go and do these things and leaves us to it. He doesn't say, just go and do these things and I might be with you. God promises to be with us every single step of the way. He promises to be with us no matter what we face. He promises to be with us in the darkest moments, in our best moments. He promises to be with us when we feel like we're rubbish and we're not worth anything. He promises to be with us even when we feel like we can't do it.
[00:19:18] You can do it because God is with you through His Spirit.
[00:19:23] Never doubt the power of the spirit in your life.
[00:19:26] Never doubt the power of the Holy Spirit to make a difference and make a change which will bring about things that you can't even imagine right now.
[00:19:34] That's faith.
[00:19:36] That's what faith is.
[00:19:38] It's believing that there is a better moment. It's believing that there are better things to come. It's believing that we can do things when God calls us to do it.
[00:19:49] I've been guilty in my own life of feeling like I'm not worth anything. I've been guilty in my own life of thinking I can't do it.
[00:19:57] I've tried to do it in my own strength. I've tried to do it in a way that I think is right. And now God goes, do you want to listen to me now?
[00:20:06] Do you want to go where I'm going, that's the place to be run with perseverance.
[00:20:15] And then it says this, fixing your eyes on Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith.
[00:20:26] We've got to focus on Jesus.
[00:20:30] We can't do this alone.
[00:20:32] We can't live this Christian life in our own strength.
[00:20:35] We can't read the Bible and go, well, I can do that.
[00:20:40] I can forgive people.
[00:20:42] I can bring peace and kindness in our own strength. We can't.
[00:20:49] Got to be God.
[00:20:51] There's got to be the Holy Spirit.
[00:21:03] We are in a blessed position where we could look back and see the death and the resurrection of Jesus and the impact that that had and the fact that he promised when that happened, he would send the helper to live in us.
[00:21:24] The people who went before us never saw that they were striving for something. They were doing what God asked them to do. They were moving in the way that God asked them to move.
[00:21:34] But they never saw the promise that was Jesus.
[00:21:38] We're on the other side of that.
[00:21:40] We're privileged to look back and go, man, I see what faith can do.
[00:21:47] I see the difference. Faith can make lives change. People set free.
[00:21:56] Towns and villages changed.
[00:21:58] People come to a realization of who God is.
[00:22:02] All that is possible because of the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
[00:22:05] None of that is possible in our own strength.
[00:22:12] He is the author and the perfecter of our faith.
[00:22:16] Without that, there is nothing. We don't have faith without Jesus.
[00:22:22] We do have faith, but just in something which is not going to last.
[00:22:32] Run with perseverance. Do not stop. Do not give up.
[00:22:37] I think we've been guilty in the west of selling Christianity as this thing that you know. Come to know Jesus and everything on your life will be sorted.
[00:22:45] It's not.
[00:22:47] Jesus promises the difference. He promises the complete opposite. He says, come to know me and people will come against you.
[00:22:56] People will try and kill you, people will try and hurt you because you're living for me.
[00:23:06] Got to take this stuff seriously.
[00:23:14] When I was on the ground crying and having said to God, break my heart for what breaks yours very much. And I still remember this to this day. It still makes me get a little bit emotional, but I very much remember him saying, I want you to be a father to the fatherless.
[00:23:35] And I very much felt that call on my life in that moment.
[00:23:39] And that's why I'm a youth worker, and that's why at the age of 44, I'm still a youth worker, which is very uncool.
[00:23:47] Most youth workers are like 20 and wear good clothing and look really cool and have good hair.
[00:23:54] I'm just old and past it, but I still do what God asked me to do, which is to stand every moment where I can and to be a father to the fatherless.
[00:24:09] And I spent three years working on the streets in Paignton with young people who are at risk of exploitation, with young people who were involved in gangs, involved in drug running, involved in all sorts of things.
[00:24:27] And me and my team, we used to go and be amongst them.
[00:24:31] We just used to sit with them and talk to them. We weren't necessarily preaching at them, we weren't necessarily just telling them about God, but by our very presence in that place, we saw lives changed.
[00:24:47] We saw young people get out of gangs, get into work and are now living lives which are part of a community.
[00:24:57] We saw young people set free from all sorts of things.
[00:25:04] I always remember there's two guys who were quite high up a gang. They were recruiting other young people into the gang.
[00:25:12] And we had lots of conversations with them.
[00:25:16] We had lots of time to sit with them.
[00:25:20] And I'll never forget sitting with them one night, they were only 13, 14.
[00:25:28] I just said to them, jonte, Uno.
[00:25:31] What's uno? I thought, how do you not know what UNO is?
[00:25:36] So we sat and I introduced him to this game of Uno. And we sat and we played and we had conversations. I gave him a free hot chocolate. I was like, oh, do you want some cream on your hot chocolate? They're like, can we put the cream on ourselves? It's like the spray cream. Yeah, if you want, they put the cream on. You could just see this sense of like, wow in their face. To me, I was like, yeah, like, if you want to put cream on. They threw a bit around and got a bit messy. But I remember sitting with them and just having a conversation with them.
[00:26:12] I didn't see them for quite a few months, which was the nature of the work that we were doing.
[00:26:19] They came back about three months later.
[00:26:22] How are you guys doing?
[00:26:25] They're like, yeah, but great.
[00:26:27] Like, we've moved out, we're living somewhere else now. We've got a job, we're working for, you know, working for someone and they're paying us, we're in our house.
[00:26:35] And the best thing is we get to play Uno every lunchtime.
[00:26:39] Great.
[00:26:41] I didn't realize uno was such a life changing moment, but just being able to be in that moment with those young people and to see their lives changed and to just do a Little bit of work on their journey towards encountering God was a massive thing. I don't know if they're Christians, I've not seen them since.
[00:27:00] But there was that promise that in the middle of it all, where everyone else was, we used to sit in meetings with the police and exploitation teams and they're like, these kids are dangerous, don't go anywhere near them.
[00:27:14] And to just sit and have a conversation with them.
[00:27:17] With the power of God in our lives, be able to see change happen was amazing.
[00:27:23] And there's been people telling us that we shouldn't do that and there's been people telling us that it's dangerous, that all these young people are armed and they're carrying knives.
[00:27:32] We've never seen any of that because we've got the power of God in our lives.
[00:27:38] I remember another young person who was messing around.
[00:27:42] We had to ask him to leave the session. This was a drop in session.
[00:27:45] I had to say, look, I'm sorry, you can't be in here right now, what you're doing is dangerous, you need to leave, but you're welcome to come back next week.
[00:27:51] So he left after a bit of shouting at me and he came back the next week. And as he came in the door, I just caught him. I said, look, let's have a chat about last week.
[00:28:01] I remember saying to him, we really like having you here.
[00:28:05] We see value and worth in you.
[00:28:07] We recognise that the behavior that you're showing isn't necessarily the main thing. There's something else going on underneath. We want to have you here, we want you to be part of this. And he just looked at me and he went, I've got to go, I can't deal with people being nice to me.
[00:28:23] And he left.
[00:28:26] And sadly I read in the paper the other day that he's now in prison.
[00:28:33] It just makes you think like we do what God's asked us to do in the moment and we be who God's asked us to be in the moment.
[00:28:44] We can't guarantee what's going to happen in the future.
[00:28:48] We just got to take that step that God's asking us to take in that moment.
[00:28:53] We've just got to do what God's asking us to do in that moment and trust that he's got the rest of it.
[00:29:01] And if we look back on the stories of, of people in the past, in the Old Testament, that's what they did.
[00:29:08] They didn't know the end, they didn't know where they were going to end up. They didn't know what was going to happen. They didn't know how things were going to pan out. They just did what God asked them to do in that moment.
[00:29:19] So I guess the challenge for us this morning is what's God asking you to do next?
[00:29:23] What's the next step for you?
[00:29:25] What is it that God wants you to do?
[00:29:30] And if you don't know that, let's pray about it.
[00:29:33] Let's ask God together. Let's find out what is it that God's calling you to?
[00:29:37] What is it that God wants you to do?
[00:29:40] Because I believe each and every one of us here has a purpose, has a plan, and has a next step.
[00:29:50] God has not abandoned any one of us. God has not left any one of us. Each one of us has that call upon our lives.
[00:30:00] Let's pray about it. Let's find out what that is.
[00:30:09] Just to finish verse three, it says, consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.
[00:30:30] We all know what happened to Jesus.
[00:30:36] We all know how horrible it was.
[00:30:42] And yet he endured that.
[00:30:45] He kept going.
[00:30:47] He went through it because that's what God had asked him to do.
[00:30:50] And through that, we have this amazing opportunity to have a relationship with God, to be brought back to our Creator, to be given the opportunity to experience life in its fullest, to be given the opportunity to understand and know what God is calling us to.
[00:31:10] But times get tough and things get hard.
[00:31:13] And again, it gets difficult and it gets tricky. And sometimes you feel alone, and sometimes you feel forsaken. And sometimes you feel like, I can't do this. And sometimes you feel like, well, I really can't be bothered this morning because I'm tired.
[00:31:27] And yet God calls us to fix our eyes on Jesus.
[00:31:31] And yet God calls us to fix our eyes on the only thing that brings us hope, and that is the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who through that brought the opportunity for a greater relationship than we will ever have with anyone on Earth, and an opportunity to bring about some really cool things around us.
[00:31:56] And his promise to us was that he wouldn't leave us on our own. He will send a helper to go with us.
[00:32:05] His Holy Spirit in our lives is the very breath of God in us.
[00:32:11] It's the very breath of God in our lives, which gives us the strength to carry on and gives us the power to do what God has asked us to do and gives us the ability to do things that we can't even imagine, which are greater than us.
[00:32:34] So fix your eyes on jesus.
[00:32:41] Fix your eyes on the one who endured all things, endured death so that we might have life.
[00:32:56] Do not grow weary, do not grow faint.
[00:33:00] Trust in God.
[00:33:02] Trust in his word. Trust in his promises. Believe all that he has for you is true.
[00:33:10] And church. We will see amazing things happen when we do that.
[00:33:15] Each one of us trusting God and allowing his spirit to work in our lives.
[00:33:23] We will see great things happen.
[00:33:25] We will see people come into faith. We'll see healings, we'll see people set free. We'll see this place round on a Sunday morning because people want to kind of encounter the Holy Spirit. Because people want to come and encounter the living God.
[00:33:47] Take heart from the witnesses of the past.
[00:33:54] Allow their examples to inspire you and to show you what's possible.
[00:34:00] And allow the Spirit to work.
[00:34:03] And let's take seriously these verses.
[00:34:07] Let us lay aside every weight and sing which kings so closely.
[00:34:12] Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and the perfecter of our faith.
[00:34:33] There's a challenge in there and there's a promise in there.
[00:34:39] Let's let that be real in our lives because without it we're just going to wander along life. We'll get to the end of life and go, what was the point in that?
[00:35:00] Let's experience God's love fully.
[00:35:04] Let's let his spirit permeate every single part of our lives.
[00:35:10] Holding nothing back, Being willing to say yes and allowing God to do the rest.
[00:35:23] Let's have ears to hear, let's have hearts that want to do.
[00:35:28] Let's not just leave faith as a head knowledge, but something that changes who we are and changes the way that we interact with the world around us.
[00:35:39] Because that's what faith is.
[00:35:41] It's a living, breathing, impactful life focused around God which see some amazing things happen which we would never do in our own strength.
[00:36:04] I really feel to leave some time to allow God to work this morning.
[00:36:17] I think it would be wrong to hear a message like this and just disappear off and have a nice coffee.
[00:36:28] I think God wants to.
[00:36:32] I think God wants to just encounter with people this morning.
[00:36:36] He wants to give the opportunity for people to experience his love, experience his spirit.
[00:36:45] I think he wants to give the opportunity for people to respond.
[00:36:55] I feel like there are people here this morning who have the head knowledge and understand God but have never really experienced him, never really experienced his love.
[00:37:10] And I feel God wants to just release that a little bit this morning across this place to allow his spirit to impact, allow His Spirit to make a difference.
