The Community Church: Sermons and teaching

Hey, So good to be together with you guys.

And I'm bringing you greetings from Wales. Wales is a beautiful country with remarkable people. It takes a little longer to get out of it. Now they've just reduced the speed limits to the lowest in the world. We had two sets off last Tuesday just to get there on time Street set up the new speed limits are an absolute game changer for those popping down to see us in Swansea.

We'd love to see you any time. The suggestion is just leave your car at the border and walk the rest of the way because you'll get to us a little quicker. Literally 20 miles per hour is the limit in our towns and villages in Wales. It's good. You don't know, nor can it. But I smiled the other day because the the Welsh rugby team had a player at the World Cup, the Rugby World Cup called Reece Zammit Jones.

He's been recorded as the fastest thing on two legs in the rugby world and they clocked him as the fastest rugby player at the World Cup during the tournament. I think he ran at 24. We might even have a picture. Ryan, Can we? There we go, 24.2 miles per hour. Whenever you see him running, there's always people behind him.

You can't keep up. And I kind of love the thought. This literally happened that while he was there in the World Cup, they changed the speed limits back in Wales to slower than he could run. I love I love the thought of him back home. Now out on a training run, activating speed cameras all across Wales. That's a great thought.

Is that anyway, it's good to be here from Wales and one of many, many amazing things about the church here is I see on the on your social media is, is your baptisms just constantly over the last two years. See you baptizing people in here. And I have to say it's just amazing to witness just person after person after person whose life is being changed.

And I see the pictures and sometimes the videos of as anybody who's been baptized in that very pool. How do you guys raise your hands up high? Because I think this is amazing. Give these guys a round of applause. I think it's amazing. Honestly, it's it blesses me so, so much to see that just Sunday by Sunday by Sunday as we have baptized as many people as this.

But just a few weeks ago, we were baptizing a young lady called Sian and she had just walked into our church one day. She's never been to church and, knew nothing about church. But what had happened was she and it transpires I'm not quite sure what these numbers mean, but she she's them professionally. She's a Disney princess. That's what she does for a living.

And they tell me, she says, half a million tik-tok followers. I understand tik-tok nor where the half a million is a lot of people, but that was a thing. But she her heart broke in a situation. We didn't know her at all. She knew nothing of church. And one day she was just sitting in a home with a broken heart, was preparing to put away all her outfits and her life and everything because life got too hard for her and she was sitting alone.

She lives, lunch is sitting, just breaking her heart. And she remembered something. She remembered that before he died, her grandfather had written a letter to the family and nobody really had paid much attention to it. But it said, I want you to know for the rest of your lives, if you're ever in trouble, if you ever don't know where to turn, if ever you've reached too low and you don't know what to do, remember that you can call out to God and He will be there for you.

And she just remembered that her granddad wrote that letter and I don't think anybody else remembered, but she did. And she just try it. She just did at home just said, God, my granddad wrote a letter that said, If I need you, you'll come to me and my heart's breaking and I've lost my confidence. I can't step out of my door.

God, if you there, will you come to me? And I remember her standing in the baptistery pool just telling us the story. Because what happened was she was just flooded suddenly with peace and wholeness and strength. And she just said, I don't know what happened to me, but everything was different. In a moment, God just found me in my home and and she didn't know what to do next.

So she just Google church, Swansea and does that? Absolutely. I remember the first day she walked in and she didn't know what to find, what to expect and, and she was in the the water in a baptistery pool. This is what she said. She said I, I walked in and I kind of instantly realized that I had found friends that I wasn't alone and people were lovely and I found friends and and then she said, I realized today it's even better than that, because I found a family.

I found a family. And when she was saying those words, I was a stranger. And then I found friends. And now I found a family in my heart. I just felt like this. I, I remember inside of me saying, Jesus, would you just do that a thousand times over? Would you just do that a thousand times more? Would you just do what you've done for Sian a thousand more times?

We have such a simple little vision statement in a church down in South Wales, and it just says a thousand transform lives, South west Wales. That's what we get out of bed in the morning for one day to look up, see 1000 chance. Who was a stranger became a friend and found a family. Just do it a thousand times and I'll die a happy man because there is nothing like that.

Let's be like, Imagine if you were an angel at the dawn of creation. You're watching God throwing galaxies into space. What have been the angels saying? God, just do another one of those. Make it another one of those. Make a thousand of those. And I thought some words in the Bible that I love and let's just have a look at them.

Ephesians chapter two. there's another slide that's recently Jones activating the speed camera. This is the one I wanted. Ephesians two just going to read this 12 and 12 to 13 and 17 to 19. Remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise without hope and without God in the world.

But now in Christ, Jesus, you who were once far away, have been brought in here through the blood of Jesus. Those 17 he came, he came, came to find his guys. Jesus came to find you. Whether you are in your home or your school, or walking in your park, wherever you were, he came to find you. You were a stranger.

Once he came looking for you, cross from heaven to earth just to find you. Isn't that amazing? He came and preached peace to you, who is far away and peace to those who are near for through him. We both have access to the Father by one spirit. Consequently, you will no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members, God's household.

What do these four people have in common? One answer is they all met Jesus. I'd like a slightly more specific answer for people. From the first four chapters of John, a young man called Nathaniel was brought by Philip to meet Jesus. Jesus had a word of knowledge for him, and he became one of the 12 disciples. Then a woman sat down a well in some area.

Jesus talked to her. She led her whole village to Jesus. Then a royal official told Jesus his son was dying. Back home in bed, Jesus said, Go home, you'll find your son is healed. And he was. And the Bible says, the whole household became believers and a paralyzed man was by a pool. And after 38 years of being unable to walk, Jesus said, Pick up your mat and walk.

And he did. And then he went around telling everybody about Jesus. Nathaniel, the woman at the well, the royal official, the paralyzed man for people, for chapters, John's gospel. What do they all have in common? Anybody has a two guests good through the whole person. Wow, that's amazing. Many, many others. Anything else? What else they have in common?

Yes, they they did meet Jesus. Something specific about that meeting Jesus on that day in their lives. I tell you this, I think as you read those four chapters, they were all strangers to Jesus. It seems to be the first time that they met him. They were strangers who hadn't met him before. And then what we just heard happened.

He led many other people to Jesus, many other people, because Jesus constantly made strangers into friends, into family. He did that for me and he did it for you. We've just read it in Ephesians. You were far away and then you were brought in here. So now you're no longer a stranger. You're a member of his household. From stranger to friend to family is the Jesus way.

Let's have a look at the next life from strangers to friends to family is the Jesus way literally to Jesus as he walked the earth. Each new day was a world full of strangers, waiting to be his friends, waiting to be his family. That's what every day was a world full of strangers waiting to be his friends, waiting to be.

That's the little phrase we built our church on in Swansea. From strangers to friends to family. As a group of leaders, we say it to each other all the time. What are we doing? We're just finding strangers, becoming their friends so they can be family. And we built our church online. There were three of us elders in the church down there, and we even allocated our responsibilities across that journey.

So we said to Ali, He's one of my young elders. Your task is to find the people we don't know yet to. SIMON Your task is to look after the large group of people around the boundary of church, the visitors and friends and associates and people using our building and and and and the people who are your friends, Who are the churches?

Friends and bring them into the church family. And then my task was to just look after the church family, the ones who said, this is our home. It was working well till all he rumbled. The fact that that leaves me looking after 300 people. Simon Looking after a similar number and only looking after 6.99 billion people on Earth that we don't know yet.

And he felt it wasn't a fair allocation of tasks. So now we all give him a hand because finding the people who are waiting to meet us is our reason to breathe on this earth. Finding the people who are waiting to meet us is what Jesus did every single day. He found strangers who were just about to become his friends.

Passion and a privilege. It's a passion and a privilege to find strangers, be their friends, and introduce them to the family of God. And I guess that's why we're living and breathing guys. That's why we're living and breathing, because there's a world full of people without God and without hope in the world. And all they need to do is find a friend who will introduce them to Jesus.

It's just that simple. Maybe that's why we're still on the earth, living and breathing. Mark Twain said the two most important days in a man's life, the day he is born and the day he finds out why. Maybe somehow today we're just finding out why we're living and breathing. Because a hurtin world needs a friend. The needs of the family have gone and they've asked me if I just take a few minutes to share a few of the things we've learned about leading people from strangers to friends to family.

And I'm going to keep it very simple because I'm a bear of very little brain. But I have learned some simple things that are helping us reach a thousand people for Jesus across southwest Wales, we go to five little churches across 100 miles, and I have the privilege of traveling between them now and then. And everywhere I go, I just look for strangers who could be our friends, who could be children of the living God.

And it's that simple. And I just want to say, if I can for a second in the little task trying to do for Jesus down there, I, I owe just about everything that I know to here to this church, to these people, that people here who babysat for me when I was a tiny child and and taught me and bore with me and was patient with me and watched me make all my mistakes.

And I grew into adulthood surrounded by Maureen and Maggie and Jeff and Pamela, David and Gwen, and of course, my mom and dad and I owe them everything because they taught me everything and they were patient with me when I didn't deserve it. I carry you guys literally in here while I try to make a church that Jesus is proud of.

About a million times, I've just silently asked myself the question, What would you have to screw? About a million times, I silently asked ourselves the question, What would you have done? Then I'll do something else. I just don't care. I don't. Jeff From 200 miles away, you've guided me for almost 30 years, and I only do this in my life because you did what you did in your life.

It's the truth. And you even gave me my wife here. I met Liz in this church, and we married. I'm so grateful to God for that. I think this is as well. Just checking in the day, I was encouraging Liz. I said it's important to embrace our mistakes. She gave me a hug, has momentarily encouraged that I realized what was going on.

Jeff Okay. From strangers to friends to family. So I have a crack at this, number one first, but I'm just going to give you full, simple things that I've learned about fulfilling the reason why you're living and breathing, which is to find strangers, make them friends and lead them to Jesus. So number one make somewhere beautiful, will you in your life.

Just make somewhere beautiful. Make somewhere beautiful. In chapter three, there's a gate that they called. They called this gate beautiful in the temple in Jerusalem, but nothing really beautiful was happening there. There's just there was a man and his feet and ankles were gone. I couldn't even stand and walk. And he wasn't. He was just sitting there every day at a gate called Beautiful.

But nothing really beautiful was happening. Just religious people were streaming past him every day because they had to get to the meeting. Well, he couldn't walk on this particular day. It was even more ironic because it was the hour of prayer, but no one was praying anything. They just walking straight past him at the hour of prayer. No one was praying.

And a gate called Beautiful. Nothing beautiful was happening. Just a man with his feet and ankles gone, unable even to get up, walk into the temple, and religious people streamed fasting to followers of Jesus, Peter and John, they stop. They look at him. He's begging for help like he does every day. Get called beautiful. He says, We don't have any money, but in the name of Jesus Christ, stand up and walk.

And the Bible says His feet and ankles became strong. And he went walking and leaping and praising God into the temple. And finally something beautiful happens at the gate called Beautiful. Early one Sunday morning, some years back, I was just reading that story. It was early Sunday morning. I was just reading that story from the beginning of act and God spoke to me so clearly a Maha.

He just said, I'm going to do that miracle tonight. And that night we were traveling over to Pembrokeshire, which is about an hour and a quarter where we were just a little church in a little hall at the time. And now we've moved into a building just before we were going to Pembrokeshire to do a meeting that evening.

And God said to me very just so clearly, I'm to do that miracle tonight in the meeting in Pembrokeshire. So I drove to Pembrokeshire and just got there in time because a bit of a trek and we had a meeting and and I walked in and there was a crowd of people and we we were in a in a, in a in a town center in Haverfordwest, in Pembrokeshire.

A lot of people I didn't know and I suppose in the meeting one point and and God saying, Would you trust me, Mike? I told you I'd do that thing. So I'm thinking, okay, this is a little bit scary. So I've ever signed up. For some reason I think you were visiting Pembrokeshire. I'm not sure if you were if you are on holiday or something.

I don't know why I have a recollection that you guys were down. I don't know. But so I said, God told me there's a miracle he did that. Somebody feet, ankles, got strong and he's going to do it tonight as that relevant to anybody. This lady poor hand up at the back I was never to before. And then I said hi.

Hi. I said, my name is my what's your name? She said, Margaret. I said, Margaret, you're a trouble with the feature. And she said, Yeah. I said, Would you like Jesus to heal you? She said, Yes, please. So I walked down aisle to the row as she was. As I walked, I noticed her legs rolling calipers and she had crutches.

I thought, my goodness, this is serious now, momentarily, what is it? Is it too late to reverse? Answer? Yes. Much too late to reverse. I said, Marco, would you would you like Jesus to heal you said yes. So I said, I called somebody over, called Lady of. I said, Would you just lay hands on Margaret? And I will pray.

And he's a handsome on Margaret's legs. And I just started to pray. I just said, Jesus, you are the same yesterday, today, and forever. You told me you'd do something tonight. I'm asking you to help. I didn't finish my sentence. And Margaret said, Something's happening. So I was a bit startled, said, Something's happening. I sit down. I Sit down.

What's happening? She said, It's like heat up and down my legs. And then I said, Well, that's good. I'll carry on praying to God. I'm praying. But she is taking off a gallop, is taking it all off. She said, This is amazing, she said. And she jumped to her feet and she started walking around. She said, I can't do this.

And I said, What? Go Well, praise the Lord. And she come with her son, her grown up son. And at the end of the meeting, she she literally walked out of the hall and her son had calipers and crutches under his arms. And it was amazing. And then the next Sunday, we went back for another meeting and I said, Anybody got any testimony, this voice from the box?

And I'm still healed. As Margaret. I said, Margaret, how are you doing? Said she said, I live in a little house and next to my house there's a beautiful canal walk, but I never knew it was beautiful because everybody told me there was an amazing walk. But I've never ever been able to do it in all the time.

I moved into the house and she said, This week I've walked the beautiful walk. I've walked down the beautiful walk, walk the path, she said For the first time I'm walking in beautiful places because I could walk now and I was still healed. I think this is amazing. And then a guy called Tom here who had just come in the first time I just met him on the way, he said, We don't do that for me.

So, my goodness, this is getting really scary now, young man. I said, What's the matter, Tom? He said, We had an industrial action. I was in the Army and I was an engineer and I fell and I broke my wrist and I've never been able to do anything with it ever since. It never properly healed. And it's painful all the time, he said.

Would not heal me. I said, he will. You. He will, Tom. I said, Come out here. So we laid hands on Tom. It hands upon him. And we prayed and I stepped back. I said, How does it feel? He said, he said he wasn't a Christian. He said, I don't understand. He'd just been brought by a friend.

He said, I don't understand. But you said, this is meant to be hurting me, but it's not hurting me anymore. And I said, I said, Does amazing. And suddenly he dropped to the floor. I was a bit startled momentarily and he dropped to the floor and started doing press ups. I said, Tom gets up, man, you don't have to do that.

He says, No, you don't understand. He said, I was in the Army, was super fit. Every day I do 50 press ups at the start of every day. I haven't done a press since the day I had my accident because I haven't been able to do it. And he's talking to me. Well, he said I could do press once again.

It's it was just praising the Lord because that place became beautiful in that moment for Tom. And then he's moved from Pembrokeshire to Swansea. He actually literally messaged me yesterday. Margaret, still my friend, I went to a funeral recently and it was standing room. There was standing room only because it was packed out and I looked across. I was standing over there.

Margaret was standing for the whole funeral, and I walked across. I said, You're looking well. She said, I'm still standing, still standing. Yesterday, Tom was in touch, just updating me with how it's going and. He's got married. And and I said, How are you doing? I said, Is your wrist good? He said, My wrist is perfect because Jesus makes beautiful.

He makes places beautiful. And in your life you'll posh places, they're like streets with no names waiting for God to do something. The places waiting for Jesus to make them beautiful. Everywhere you go, it's just waiting for Jesus to do something beautiful. Can I just encourage you this week to walk into the earth like Jesus did and look for strangers who will become your friends because he's going to do something beautiful?

Second thing that I've learned in my journey down in South Wales is look through the smoke. Look through the smoke. There's a housing estate just on the hillside, what is now a life point center, our church home. And it was built after the war to replace the slums in the city center and also for returning veterans to live in.

And many of the poorest of the poor people in the area moved into that estate. It's called Mayhill. It's one of, I think, the three most deprived localities in Wales, financially speaking, is notorious for riots on the streets of Mayhill, which have driven the police off the estate on a couple of notorious moments. And then once we had a prophecy and it was God speaking and God said, I'm going to make Mayhill, Mayhill and we just started to try to go up there to to the estate of Mayhill, where there is so much desperate need to try and to go where generally churches don't go to try to make a difference for Jesus.

And we wanted a renter community center. And and somebody said to me, You will need to go and speak to a lady called Ann who lived and gave me an address. So I remember knocking on the door and the door opened and and it was very unusual lady to meet. She was a total stranger to me. And she's little.

And she has she's she's, she's in her mid eighties when I met and it's white straight hair all the way down to her back and she was in a dressing and her slippers and I mean this affectionately because she became my dearest friend. But she has a thousand kind of wrinkles in in her face and she and she was smoking.

I said, hey, is your name said, It is. I said, I'm Mike. I wondered if I could rent the community center. And she said, Come in and meet my family, because she always had in a home there was always a son or a daughter or grandchildren and great grandchildren. And she said, Sit down. And we sat at the kitchen table and on the table were were churches.

But she had very thick glasses, almost blind, but with a magnifying glass. And she do word searches and and she's spoken the whole time. And she said, Tell me who you are. I said, I just Mike had just passed off a local church, just wondered if we could do she said. And she started to tell me about the streets of Mayhill, where she had grown up all through all of her adult life.

She'd been here, she'd been a youth worker here, and she started to talk about the young people and nobody cares for the young people anymore. And I used to run a boys club, but now the children, so many of them have grown up and they've gone to prison. And and there's just drugs everywhere having the streets aren't safe anymore.

And I love the children here, but nobody's looking after. And I started to cry for the children of Mayhill. I felt really convicted. I thought, she's like the very beach and a god inside this little wrinkled body. It's like she's locked the children here for ever. And and I. I said, You obviously love the children. She very much.

She said, I do. And she started to talk about her children and her children's children and and it got so confusing. That was just so many members of the family. And and then I said and I said, Jim, could I come back next week and speak some more? And and she said, Yeah. And so we went back the next week and, and we did word searches together.

And through the whole conversation, every conversation I ever had with her, she smoked like this straight into my face the whole time. The end of every visit, literally at the end of every visit, I sit with her. We do word searches. She tells me about a family and the stories about Mayhill. And then I would go home and put my clothes in the washing machine every single time I got because I went out, just covered it and one day she started to cry, but different tears.

I said, You upset. I had made her. And I got somebody more artistic than me to make a big family tree. And I brought it for her and it had her name and all her children, grandchildren, great grandchildren. And, and, and, and and I said, Now I understand your family's a big family. But she started crying. She said, My husband died of cancer very painfully.

And I've always felt I must have done something wrong somehow. Maybe it was God punishing me. I don't know. But she said, I've never forgotten it. And she said, I've done my best in life, but I made a lot of mistakes. And I said, I'm, would you like God to forgive you? yes. She said, I've got thousands of things I need forgiving for.

I said, Should we talk to God together? Would you like to give your life to God, be a follower of Jesus? And she said, I would love that. So I said, Why don't we pray? And we prayed. And through her tears and the cigaret smoke, she gave a life to Jesus. And I remember the words Search were wet with her tears.

And I kept on going to see her. And one day she said, I've got something for you. And she walked very slowly. She took me into the back room where I'd never been, and she said she reached into a drawer to the big bunch of keys there. The keys, the community center in Mayhill. She said, We would like you to have this.

And I said, What you mean? She said, We'd like you to have them because you're the only people looking after the people on our estate, in our community. And together we open up for people to rent the community center. But we want you to have your own case because you are the only people caring for us. And I said, Really?

And yes, she said, No one else has the keys but you do now. And lockdown came and they shut that community center and the local councilor who'd been the Lord mayor rang me. He said, Could you meet me at the community center? Yeah. And he said, I just want to say we're shutting this now. No one can be in here except you.

We'd like you to keep on meeting. We'd like you to have this place, if you would, through lockdown and keep feeding the people of the community. Just feed them if you can, because we are feeding hundreds and hundreds of families. If you go down, we all go down. So the community center is yours for the whole of lockdown.

Just look after our streets, please. And I realized that that dear little lady with a long white hair who smokes into my face hundreds and, hundreds of times. And I'd done all those words. I realized she had literally given me the keys to the hillside. Literally giving me the keys to the hillside. And she died. And we as elders all stood outside a home as her coffin was brought out.

And I wept for a dear lady who was a stranger, became my friends, became the family of God that day. My heart. I said, I'll see you again one day. I'll see you again one day and we will praise Jesus eternally. Because you were a stranger who became a friend. He became our family. And I guess it's just good sometimes to look through the smoke, the past, the strangeness, look past whatever might have made you run from a place and just keep on being Jesus.

Just keep on being Jesus. That counselor who's, the Lord mayor, He rang me last week. He said, Might we want to give you £4,000 for all your Christmas hampers this Christmas time? We want you've done it yourself for years, but we want to look after it. His £4,000 because no one else is feeding our hillside. And it's an amazing thing because God takes strangers, makes them your friends, and then brings them into the family of garden.

So that's that's the second thing. Third thing just say is, goodness me, that's the time has come. Trust in God's presence. Then I'll finish trusting God's presence. I met a guy who was a stranger in the back row of our church. He's quite famous, so I'm going to change his name. Said hi. I didn't know who I was meeting.

He said, I'm Matt. He didn't say that. I just changed his name. But he said, I'm up. And then I said, Hi, nice to have you. And I got out of the meeting and little bit later somebody said, You know who that is? He runs a huge company of theater schools all the way down the M4 corridor to London and is an agent to stars, TV stars and movie stars.

He trains child actors and he gets them into Game of Thrones and the Crown and is he's an agent to all the EastEnders stars. And I didn't know this. He's just a guy in the back seat who said hello. And somebody said, you know, he's quite famous. He got a personal invitation to, the royal coronation to the coronation, King Charles's coronation.

He gets flown to Australia first class to the launch of I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of the Jungle. He's quite a well-known guy and he shot back to church and and then he came again. And then he came again. And one day I said, Hey, it's good to see you. Keep coming. You're enjoying it. He said, I never experienced anything like it in my life.

I said, What you enjoy enjoying? He said, I don't know, really. He said, Because I grew up in theater and television and movies. But he said, There's something here. He said, It's like God is here. And anyway, he gave his life to Jesus and he was in our life group a couple of weeks ago, and he said, I'd become a Christian.

And at one point we all stood to sing at the end of the meeting and you were all singing. And he said, I'm getting to know the songs a bit. And he said, I was trying to sing. And suddenly I heard sounds that I didn't know and realized they were coming from my mouth. And he said it was a bit strange.

He said, I tried to slow it down in my head and it sounded like a language and he said, I was singing in a language I don't know, in church. And he said, I realize now I've been listening to you guys. You call that something, don't you? You call that speaking in tongues? I said, Yes, I speak in tongues.

And then and he has a friend who is a Christian who's a radio presenter, and he rang me. He said he, said, I actually can't believe what I've just heard. He said, If you knew about my friend Mark, he is the least likely person ever to walk into a church. He said, I can't even tell you how shocked his the entertainment world is.

In fact, he said he's lost friends for saying he's a Christian. And so I went to the person who'd invited him to say, Well done. Her name is Samir. I said, Samir, you've done so well bringing match. We'll call him to God's house because he loves Jesus now and it's it's shocking, you know, this guy anyway. And and Samir said, I'm a baby Christian, and I didn't know what to say to him.

So I just thought, I'll bring him to God's presence and see if that does the trick. How inspired is that? I just thought, bring him to God's presence and see if that does anything that's actually inspired. Because this morning here is beautiful. I was you were worshiping. I was thinking, I defy anybody to be in this place and not feel God is here.

And if we want to turn strangers to friends, to family, maybe one thing we could do is just trust in God's presence, because he does it all so much better than us, so much better than us. So I want to salute you, the bringers, and they invite us. If you're to bring an invite to just get people to God's presence and let him do the rest, because he's better than us at turning strangers into friends, into family.

Finally, as we finish, finally, number four. Look after your first thought, Kerry Jones asked me a question once. He said, Who lives in the deepest part of you? I thought, I think I know the answer to this. I said, Jesus does. He said, Right answer says, Because of that, Michael, It just kills me. Michael. Even my mother. My mother doesn't call me Michael anymore.

And Kerry said, Michael, learn to trust your first thought. I said, Kerry, what does that mean? He said, From your innermost being flows rivers of living water, Jesus lives in the deepest part of you. You can trust your first thought. So I thought, That's amazing, actually, that instinctively the whisper, the Holy Spirit, I can learn to trust. I'm slowly.

It takes me so long to learn things. But I'm slowly learning that we dismiss the whisper, the Holy Spirit becomes it comes quietly and it like that when you're mowing the lawn and God says, Cross the road to talk to your neighbor. How easily we dismiss the first thought. But you can trust the Holy Spirit as instinct. It was the second Sunday in January.

Just approach him, and I needed to prepare to preach in the church back home. And I said to God, What great truths can I teach to the people of God? And an immediate thought dropped into my heart, an immediate thought, and it seemed a bit of nonsense. So I dismissed it. I'm ashamed to say I felt like I was waiting for some theological truth, and I felt God said, Get a basket, put some really nice gifts in it, because somebody is going to be in church.

And it was their birthday somewhere around Christmas and everybody forgot. So make him a birthday present. So I'm thinking, God, I think you misunderstood the question. I'm trying to be a serious preacher here. And so I got to dismiss the thought. And then I was in hobby craft because we had to get for the kids and walk along and clear as a bell.

In my spirit, there was a basket I felt. God said, That's the basket, buy it. And I forgotten the thought dismissed. And there was some baskets for sale. So I just bought a basket. I thought, This seems a little bit strange, but I bought an empty basket next door. The hobby craft was Marks and Spencer, so I went to Mark's expenses, just bought as many nice things as I could, and I thought, okay, God, I'm going to take a risk on this.

So I stood up in church on the second Sunday in January and I said, Hi. I said, Can I ask a question? Is there anybody here? Anyway? And it was your birthday over Christmas time straight away and just about there went up. I'd never met the person that's never been in church ever before. I said, Hi. I said, What's your name?

She said, My name's Sophie. I said, Is your birthday roughly around Christmas time. She said, Yeah, Boxing Day. I said, How was it your birthday? She said, Nobody even noticed. She said, Hardly anybody notices my birthday. I never have a party. And we talk about this. The church said, you know, okay, well, that's what he said. I said, Can I tell you something?

God noticed because he told me about you. I said, I brought something in and I gave her a gift and we all some happy birthday to on the 8th of January, a couple of weeks after birthday. And, and that was that. And I'm just gone with preaching, you know, I didn't, I didn't even know who she was.

And then the next morning, I must find it. There was an email sent to the church. Email this message I had fallen away from faith years ago and found myself wondering if God even knew about me on Sunday 8th of January, I decided I would try to find a church to go to. It was your church I found.

I felt faith inside me come alive. I, I felt not guilty for neglecting my faith for so long. But I also felt hope again. It was like I was meant to be there in life. Point Church yesterday. I realized that God knew all about me and was waiting for me. So thank you. Thank you for helping me find the light in my life again.

2022 Because this is the beginning of 2022 is the year God has brought me back to my faith. I know my life is back on the path I meant to be on. Thank you. From Sophie. Thank you from Sophie. And I realized that God whispers. And if we can learn to look after the first for the the instincts of the Holy Spirit, He's about to make his stranger into a friends, into family.

By the time Sophie left the city, she was baptized in the Holy Spirit. She. She was running after God. She graduated, she moved away. And I thought I didn't even know her till the 8th of January 2022. Now she's family. She's child of God. And the last week it was a wonderful young, graduated student in church. And I said, Wow, I said, So good to see you.

How did you find us? You just said, she said, I used to live with someone called Sophie. And she came back from church one day and she had a basket of gifts and she said that she'd gone to church and God knew that nobody had noticed her birthday on Boxing Day. And her whole life changed. So I graduated, went.

I got a job I could live anywhere in Wales. She had a Barnardos department, not Banana bananas operation. Well, they said you can live anywhere. Should I chose Swansea so I can be in this church because I know God is here. I'd like this to be my home. It's like what you said. When Jesus makes a stranger into a friend, they go tell everyone, Don't make it.

Go tell everyone. Look after your first thought and Jesus will make places beautiful. Do things we can only dream of. Could we stand together? I wonder if Dave and the team could just leave us in worship. I just want to pray. I know we should finish right now, but if we could take 2 minutes just to praise the Lord, I just would like if you would allow me just to pray.

Yeah. Because God whispered something to me about this this morning and just this. He wants to leave faith behind in our hearts so that we start to find Margaret and tongue and and and my. And Sophie and all the strangers we don't know yet because they are everywhere with breaking hearts. They are everywhere with breaking hearts. There are people like Sean, the Disney Princess, the tick tock lady.

Nobody knows she's breaking heart. Nobody knows she's breaking out her God to us. And he wants to give us faith that we are going to find them because the world is just a planet full of strangers waiting to find a friend called Jesus. Can I pray for you? Is that okay And then we'll worship Father in this town I love in this county.

I Love in this church. I love. I ask you now to ignite faith that every one of us will know we're living and breathing on the planet for something. We will step out of our doors to find the strangers that need Jesus. I ask you within every soul, faith will arise. That was Dad to We can be the bringers and they invite us.

We can be the pariahs. We can be the friends. We can be the ones who cross the road to knock on the door and take a miracle. Thank you for the privilege of introducing you to the world you meet on that