Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] But I want to ask you a question this morning, and it's a sort of question that maybe, it's possibly a question that's become more like a greeting than a genuine desire. It's a sort of question where sometimes when you've asked people this question, you really wished you hadn't, and this is the question, how are you?
[00:00:30] Have you done that? Come on, let's be honest. Have you come into church and said to somebody, how are you really hoping either they're okay or they don't really tell you how they are. Anybody wish? Come on, let's be honest. Honest is the place where we meet with God. So come on, let's. Okay, all right. Or maybe you're here this morning and you're just waiting for somebody to say to you, how are you? And it's like, brace yourself. Okay. And how many of you know that actually, I could be okay today, but not so okay tomorrow? Yeah. Or maybe I'm not okay today, but I could be okay tomorrow. It's true, isn't it? Because life's just a bit bonkers, a bit crazy. But what I want to ask you this morning is how are you? And I want you into internally, to be really, really honest, not with me necessarily, but definitely with God and definitely with yourself. Now, to help us explore this whole thing of how are you? And within the context of what I want to chat to you about this morning, we're going to go to the best place there is for all matters of life and faith, no better place to go to than the Bible. And so for those of you who are familiar with the Bible, you'll know what I mean if I say turn to two Corinthians, chapter five, verses eleven to 21. But if you're not too familiar with the Bible, you don't know your way around it. We've got the words on the screen behind, and I'm going to read these words to you. Two Corinthians 511 21. Just as you're flicking through the pages or hitting your app, then just as you're doing that, let me just say about this passage. It's one of what I've got a group of passages from the Bible called my life passages. They're chunks from the Bible that the Lord has just pulled me into, and they've made a serious impact on my life. Have you got any of those? If you haven't, start reading the Bible, you'll get some. You'll get something. This is one of mine and it's quite anthemic. In lots of ways. So let me read it to you. Since then, we know what it is to fear the Lord. We try to persuade men what we are is plain to God, and I hope it's also plain to your conscience. We're not trying to commend ourselves to you again, but are giving you an opportunity to take pride in us so that you can answer those who take pride in what is seen rather than what is in the heart. If we're out of our mind, it's for the sake of God. If we're in our right mind, it's for you. For Christ's love compels us because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died, and he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for him who died for them and was raised again. So from now on, we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has, the new has. All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself, Christ, and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. That God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us this message of reconciliation. We are therefore.
[00:04:24] We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.
[00:04:33] We implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God. For God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
[00:04:50] I could preach for hours on this, you'll be pleased to know. I'm not going to do that this morning.
[00:04:57] But there's just some beautiful, beautiful truths in here that can really help us. I want to ask you three questions about how are you? The first one might feel a bit offensive. Number one, how are you smelling?
[00:05:13] Turn to the person next to you. And. No, don't, don't, don't.
[00:05:18] How are you smelling? Let me tell you something that will help me unpack this a little bit more. So, I've got two daughters. Robyn, who's 19, and Natalie, who's 16, will be 17 soon. Now, when they were younger, so they're not quite like this now, but when they were younger, Robin and Natalie used to gang up on me. Now, I think this is probably not unusual, but I kind of fell for it every time. And it's interesting because they knew a couple of things. They knew when to ask me for things, so they knew if you're going to ask me something in the morning. You need to do it no earlier than 07:00 and if you're going to do it at seven onwards, probably best to bring a cup of tea.
[00:06:12] If you're going to better ask me in the afternoon, don't ask me early. I'm not a morning person and I think as I've got a bit older, I'm not a morning or an evening person or an afternoon person. Quite frankly, I just want to sleep all the time now.
[00:06:27] So they used to work out, okay, he's going to add anything, ask me in the morning. So they knew when to ask me, but they also knew who to ask. That was interesting. They knew that if they were to want certain things, best to ask mum and if they wanted other things, best to ask dad. And if not quite sure, ask dad because he's the easier touch.
[00:06:52] So they knew when they knew who, but probably more importantly, they knew how to ask.
[00:07:03] They'd come into the sitting room in the afternoon because that was my peak time.
[00:07:09] Daddy love you.
[00:07:14] It doesn't really matter what they're going to ask now, does it? It'd sit on me knee, they'd kiss me balding bit.
[00:07:23] And I'd already decided the answer was yes because by jolly sweetness they had convinced me that what they were asking for I should give them. Come with me to these reading this morning, these sentences. Have a little look at verse eleven. It's really intriguing. It says, since then we know what it is to fear the Lord. We try to persuade men. Now this is really, really interesting. I find this fascinating. So I did a bit of digging around because that's what preachers are meant to do. We meant to do a little bit of digging around of the bit from the Bible we're going to chat on, just to help us get a little bit better understanding so we can pass it on. So I did a bit of digging around and I found some interesting things and I noticed some interesting things since then. We know what it is to fear the Lord. We try to persuade men, those of us who've been followers of Jesus for any length of time, we probably know what it is to fear the Lord, don't we? There's a kind of confidence. We've been through some wobbles. Anybody been through some wobbles? Yeah, quite a few of you haven't been through wobbles. Brace yourself, you've got them coming soon. It's something to look forward to. If you haven't had a wobble, you're probably not strong in your faith, quite frankly. So we know what it is. We've had a few wobbles, we've had a few challenges. We've had some things that have caused us some doubt, and we've kept going. If I could give any advice to brand spanking new followers of Jesus, it's just keep going, just keep going. The only way you build up confidence and resilience in the faith is just to keep going. There's no shortcuts. It's a journey for all of us. But those of us who've been following Jesus for a little while, we've kind of built up a little bit of resilience, a little bit of confidence. There's a kind of foundation there, to change the metaphor. There's a backdrop there as well, from which we can kind of cope with lots of stuff. Since then. We know what it is to fear the Lord. We try. And. And I've come to discover that all God wants us to do is to give it a go, just to try.
[00:09:35] We know what it is to fear the Lord. So we're going to try our best to convince people. It doesn't say we will convince them. It says, we try. But here's the interesting thing. I dug a little bit deeper and I discovered that the word persuade literally means by sweetness, us to convince.
[00:09:57] Since then, we know what it is to fear the Lord. We have this confidence. I don't know what you think about. When you think about confidently persuading or trying to persuade. You might think of some well polished presentation. There's nothing wrong with that, by the way. I do my absolute best to make my talks easy to listen to, engaging, good communication. So I'm not against that. But that's not what it's saying here, is it? Some watertight evidence, proof of the reality of God? No, it's not. That's not what it's about. There's nothing wrong with that. I think those sorts of things are absolutely brilliant. I dabble in a little bit of that myself. So there's nothing about that. What he's saying is, by sweetness, we convince.
[00:10:41] Let me link another sentence from the Bible that many of you will be familiar with. That kind of develops this confidence and this sweetness, this kind of essence. Two Corinthians, 214 15. For those of you who know your way around the Bible, it says, but thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession. So you've got that confidence, that procession in Christ and through us. This is why I asked you, how are you smelling spreads everywhere. Fragrance of the knowledge of him.
[00:11:17] For we are to God.
[00:11:19] Interesting. I won't explore that more because it's not what I want to explore this morning, but it's an interesting thing that we are to God, actually. The aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing.
[00:11:35] So here's a little challenge.
[00:11:38] Do people know that you're a Christian and is that a good thing?
[00:11:45] They might know you're a Christian, but it might not be a good thing because we're not smelling well.
[00:11:52] Oh, yeah. We might be confident, but we're not smelling well. Mutual friend of the pews and myself is a guy called Gav Calver. Gav Calver is the.
[00:12:03] The big cheese at an organization called the Evangelical alliance. For those of you who don't know what the Evangelical alliance is, the Evangelical alliance is an alliance of evangelicals really feel that's brought clarity to this morning's proceedings. And he's got, like, a vision for the UK church, which I love. I love. He said he wants the UK church to be braver and kinder.
[00:12:33] Who wants to be braver with the faith that they've got. All want to be braver, don't we? I want to be braver. I'm reasonably brave, but I want to be braver. Okay. But I want to be kinder.
[00:12:46] I want to out kind the world.
[00:12:49] That's why I think it's beautiful, isn't it, what our church in Southport's doing? We're just being kind, aren't we? Just being kind. I want to be braver and I want to be kinder. And sometimes we get ourselves beat up. It's not an either or. Let's just be brave. Let's have our confidence, but let's be kind and let's be smelling. Well, let's be a lovely, lovely fragrance.
[00:13:12] I've got a little prayer that I used to pray every day, and I try to remind myself to pray every day, but I don't always. But I did pray it this morning and this is the prayer. Lord, help me. Leave a little bit of Jesus wherever I go.
[00:13:29] That's what I want to do. I just want to leave a little bit of Jesus wherever I go.
[00:13:34] A little confession.
[00:13:36] I suffer from foMo.
[00:13:40] I don't know how you say it down here, because it's a bit of a regional variance. If you're up north, it'd be foMo.
[00:13:47] So let me explain what it is. Fear of missing out.
[00:13:52] You know, like when you go to a party and then when you leave and you see somebody from the party the following morning, and they said to you, when you left, it got amazing.
[00:14:09] I don't want it to get amazing.
[00:14:12] I want it to be rubbish before I get there. I want it to be rubbish when I'm gone. Not that I want the world to revolve around me once or twice in my life, and I wish it was more, and I'm hoping it's more, and I'm praying it's more. People have said to me when they've discovered I was a Christian, oh, I knew there was something different about you. There was just something about you that was different. Ever had that? It's happened to me a few times and I want it to happen more. I want to be so full of the fragrance of Jesus. I want to be smelling, well, that when I walk into a place, it literally stops a room, because I am carrying the presence of Jesus and so are you.
[00:14:56] And I want to be a good radiance. The French have this thing called a mouse bouche.
[00:15:03] It's something that happens in french fine dining. And I've got a very, very, very rich palate. I think it's impossible to outrich my palate. There's a challenge. And the French have got this thing. So you've heard of canapes, haven't you? Who's heard of canapes? If you've heard of canapes, or as my mate from up north calls them, knapes.
[00:15:28] And the idea about knapse is people walk around with a tray full of knaps and you'll smash loads of them. Whack them in, whack em in.
[00:15:37] And a moose boost. You wouldn't do that with. They're so decadent, they're so intensely rich. You have one, and when you eat it, something happens inside your body that you begin to go, oh, I want. I can't wait for the main thing. And it makes your saliva go and all your taste buds get really, really excited.
[00:16:02] And I used to think that was the only reason for a moose bouche. And then I watched this brilliant program with Gino, Fred and Gordon Ramsay. Did anybody watch that program? And Fred, who was a very sophisticated maitre d in french cuisine, he was talking about a mouse bouche. And he said, a mouse bouche? Yes, they do do what I chatted about, he said, but the real thing about a moose bush is that you give somebody an a moose bush because you're saying, you are welcome here.
[00:16:38] Now, I want people, I want to be an amuse bush.
[00:16:43] I want to be an amus bush for Jesus. It's that when people are with me, they feel welcomed here. I want my life to be so full of the presence of Jesus and fragrance that people feel welcomed. I don't want to put people off. Have you ever had a meal where you've had a starter and it would say, so full of garlic? I love garlic. I like it firsthand. Not secondhand, though, don't you? So full of garlic, you're tasting it in your poteau chocolate, do you know what I mean? And like, you're tasting it for weeks later because it was.
[00:17:17] I don't want that to happen. I don't want people to meet Mark Greenman and go, whoa.
[00:17:23] Flavours everything else in a negative way.
[00:17:26] Undeniably, you taste and see that the Lord is good. That's undeniable. But I wonder whether I maybe might put people off a little bit, that maybe they might think that the Lord doesn't taste nice because of maybe how I've been.
[00:17:44] This is not a therapy moment for me, it's just me being a little bit honest in the hope that it might inspire you to think, oh, yeah, how am I? How am I? Let's be in a moose bush. Let's be a great taste, because Jesus is fantastic. If you're here this morning and you've never yet said yes to God, I want to tell you, you taste and see the Lord is good. He's amazing. He's fantastic. And I know that sometimes the church maybe hasn't been the best at showing that we can maybe leave a horrible taste, but I hope you're beginning to understand that he is amazing and this morning you can know him for yourself. If you've never, ever said yes to God, why don't you say yes to him this morning? I'll explain a little bit more about how you might do that towards the end of my talk, but how are you smelling? Or how are you tasting? Now? Normally, when a preacher goes, that's the first point, you think, well, if the second two are as long as that, I better buckle up and have a taste of coffee. So this is me relaxing you. I've got a couple other things to chat with you, but they're not as long as the first one. That's deliberate. Not me panicking about the clock. Genuinely deliberate. Second thing is, how are you running now? A few years ago, I had an occasion where I had to get an emergency birthday cardinal for somebody. Now, normally when I do birthday cards, I quite like, you know, like the ones that people make themselves where they've got, like, a blank message and a lovely picture.
[00:19:20] So I quite like the handcrafted stuff, and I could put my own little message in there, and I quite like doing that. But on this particular occasion, I was. I'd not been particularly organized. And if you shop at this shop, that's fine.
[00:19:36] I'm not. It's no judgment statement here, okay. But I had occasion and I had to go. I think it was card factory. Are you familiar with card factory? It's rubbish, isn't it?
[00:19:48] But if you shop there, that's fine. Did I actually get a wow? Then somebody went, wow.
[00:19:54] And so I had to go in, and I think it was card factory. It's a little while back, and I was a little presented by all these different categories, like, how many categories of cards can there be? And so I was looking around, I was trying to find, like, blank ones. I couldn't find any. And as I was trying to find blank ones, I got past a little section that was for boyfriends to give to girlfriends. And I thought, oh, now I'm interested. So I had a little look and I came across this one. Now, you might. You might have seen something like this before. I'm gonna have to make it up a little bit and freestyle a little bit with it, because I can't remember exactly what it said. It is a long time ago, but it had, like, it had, like, about, like, a list of, like, five things, you know, on the front. And it said things like, I might need a little bit of congregational interaction in a few moments time. Okay. Just to help.
[00:20:51] I think one of them said, like, I would climb the highest mountain to see you, albeit just a speck in the distance.
[00:21:04] Fairies. People are in tears already this morning. I'm quite emotional. Aren't you? Quite emotional. I would chop through the densest jungle just to hold your hand. I'm struggling a bit now. I would have swim the deepest ocean. Just.
[00:21:24] Just. Any suggestions?
[00:21:30] Just to what, love?
[00:21:34] I mean. It's all right. Yeah, no, it's fine. Yeah. If that's seaweed, I would swim the deepest ocean just to see the seaweed.
[00:21:50] Just to eat seaweed.
[00:21:53] To seaweed. We'll go with that one.
[00:21:56] And there was five. So I think we'll stop right now, because I'm running out. I mean, my romantic vocabulary is limited at best. I am from up north, but you get the idea. And there was five of these things. And then I opened it up, no word of a lie. And on the inside, it literally said, I'll see you tonight if it's not raining.
[00:22:18] I mean, talk about anti climax. Oh, yeah. Giving it all that on the COVID Give it all that on the COVID But if there's any mild inconvenience, then I think I'm out of here. I think I'm out of here. Yeah, I'll give it that. I'll give it that. But a bit of mild inconvenience, then. Actually, my words are going to slightly be better than my actions. I'm not going to lie to you. I can be a little bit like that in my faith. Can you?
[00:22:48] I can be a little bit like that. Like, if I did everything that I spoke about, I would be lethal.
[00:22:55] Honestly, I would be phenomenal. But I have to confess to you, there are moments where I give it large and I don't always follow it through. Is that me or is that all of us? We can all be a little bit guilty of that if we're really, really honest. And I don't want to be like that. I get annoyed with myself when I'm like that and I claim all kinds of victories and everything and screaming, couldn't do it, couldn't do it. And then go, Greenwood.
[00:23:26] But here's the deal. I think I'm still going to keep saying to God, I'm going to do stuff, because at the moment there's a genuine desire within me.
[00:23:36] And I wonder whether maybe there's a little clue in that reading that might just help us to make sure that our words and our actions are that little bit closer in terms of dynamic relationship.
[00:23:54] And I think the clue is in verse 14 where it says, for Christ's love compels us. I did a bit of digging around and I found this really interesting fact that one of the commentators, which is basically people that know a lot more about the Bible than I do and have put it into a book, one of them said that the image here is like that of a fast flowing river. Allow me, if you will, to just stretch that a little bit. I don't want to be insensitive because I know that river sometimes can cause damage as well. So hope you'll just allow me the luxury of using this illustration. But we've all seen how rivers effortlessly carry things. Don't they pick things up, move them along effortlessly? And I'm told by people that study rivers that I think should be called riverologists. I don't know whether they are, but I'm told by riverologists that sometimes a river can be flowing fast and you don't know it until it comes up against some kind of obstacle. And then you begin to get an idea of how fast something is flowing. You know, like a rock or up north a supermarket shopping trolley. Then you get some kind of idea how fast this river's flowing. But fast isn't always frantic.
[00:25:11] That's the key thing. Fast isn't always unaccountable. Fast isn't just erratic and deal with the fallout. No, no, the fast is just, it can just be look like really slow on the surface. So don't confuse what I'm saying here because I don't think necessarily the love of Christ as a river is something that's crazy bonkers. Sometimes it can be a bit frenetic, but I want to be picked up, don't you? And carried along like a fast flowing river with the love of Christ. It's been estimated how far the apostle Paul walked in his efforts to spread the good news. According to the Book of Acts, he took three missionary journeys. The second of these alone amounted to 3000 miles, 2000 of which would have been on foot. The average daily distance of a traveler of that time was about 20 miles with a roman inn being located every 20 to 25 miles along the road. A little bit like a motorway service station, these inns were unbelievably filthy, immoral and bug infested. A little bit like a motorway service station.
[00:26:27] Paul traveled through snowy mountain passes, spring floods. He walked through areas famous for harbouring robbers and criminals. He braved wild beasts which imperiled every traveler. The travel recorded in acts 16 alone would have covered 740 miles and that of chapter 15 would have been 500 miles. And to think he was walking not for his own health, not so he could get his 10,000 steps a day on his fitbit. But he was walking purely for the spiritual well being of others. Paul's outward walking was down to his inward running.
[00:27:04] Paul's outward walking was down to his inward running. He was running. The love of Christ was in him running like a fast flowing river.
[00:27:16] And just a quick reference, but not digging too deep because I'm coming into my final few thoughts now, so I'm going to be disciplined. But just to suggest to you, I think we get something of the sense of Paul feeling that it was a privilege because he refers, does he not? We're ambassadors.
[00:27:37] That's bonkers, isn't it? God doesn't really need us. But yet he's chosen to reduce most of his activity on planet earth through people like you and people like me.
[00:27:49] It's insane, isn't it? It's insane. So I think he understood something of that privilege. And I've often prayed, Lord, help me to move into a sense of the privilege of following you, not the pressure of following you. Lord, help me to pray because I get to, not because I've got to. Help me to tell people about Jesus because I get to, not because I've got to. And I think kind of in with this, he had this sense of the love of Christ, and then in, with this, this sense that actually he's committed to as this message and ministry of reconciliation.
[00:28:26] One final thought on this bit, and then my final five minutes with you this morning, I regularly get people coming up to me saying, mark, what's my ministry?
[00:28:40] And I'm one simple, simple answer, really. Reconciliation.
[00:28:45] That's our ministry. That's our message. No, no, no. Am I a worship leader? Am I an evangelist? Am I pastor? Oh, that's not your ministry.
[00:28:54] That's the gift that God has given you, or the calling that God has placed on your life to carry out this ministry a message. And where it says he has placed in our hands, it literally means he's giving it over to us.
[00:29:09] So in you, as an ambassador, is this ministry a message of reconciliation. What our friends are doing in Southport is reconciliation. Everything we do, food banks, reconciliation worship, reconciliation, open air work, reconciliation, telling our friends about Jesus, reconciliation as ambassadors. Just going to pull back because I could get a bit giddy and carry on a little bit down that thread, but I'm leaving that little bit there finally this morning. How are you looking?
[00:29:43] How are you smelling? Tasting. How are you running?
[00:29:48] How are you looking? I'm told by a little article that I read that there are about 3 million pounds worth of lost pennies. That's what the Royal Mint estimate. For those of you who are not familiar, the Royal Mint producer makes the money for the UK and a few other places around the world, and I've estimated that there's 3 million pounds worth of lost pennies, you know, like down the back of sofas, gutters, etcetera, bottom of bags. So I've decided that this time next year, I'm going to be a millionaire.
[00:30:18] I've got three p's so far, but you got to start somewhere. Aren't you got to start somewhere? 3 million pounds worth of lost pennies. The average person over 50, that's me, I'm 54. The average person over 50 will have spent one year of their life looking for lost items.
[00:30:33] If my home is anything to go by, I would definitely confirm. That's right.
[00:30:40] I'm not going to get involved in any public shaming of my wife's inability.
[00:30:46] No, not going to do it. I'm not going to do it. But even find my phone has resigned in our house. I'm telling you the. No. Okay. Right. I just need to a couple of little kind of caveats here, all right? This is a fact. A statistic that relates to women.
[00:31:11] No, don't publicly take me down. Support me. Associate minister. Bet you're glad you've got him now, haven't you?
[00:31:21] Yeah, he's resigned his membership already. Look, but look. And this apparently is true of british women, but I know we have various nationalities in the room and I think it's probably true of women everywhere. And I know, nita, I know. But here's the thing, right? The truth will set you free if you accept it.
[00:31:48] Otherwise, it's an unrelated flying truth in the air, okay? And normally when I deliver this statistic, there's a bunch of women that go, yeah, fair point. And actually quite proud of it. So I'm putting it out there. The average british woman spends 76 hours a year looking for things in her bag.
[00:32:12] Fair, fair thing that every bloke does not want to hear is, where's the keys? It's in me bag.
[00:32:20] I once went into my wife's bag in November and came out Easter Sunday.
[00:32:25] It's an incredible resurrection.
[00:32:31] How much of our time do we lose by looking for things that are lost?
[00:32:39] What a waste.
[00:32:41] What a waste of hours that we can never claw back. It's a nightmare. We waste, waste, waste so much looking for lost things. But I want to tell you that every second, minute, hour, day, week, month, year we spend looking for lost people is the priority of our time, not a waste of our time.
[00:33:09] Now, you might expect me to say that because I am an evangelist, but I also know that I'm in a church who probably quite agrees with that, partly because I know the pastor of the church. And by the applause, I'm sensing you with me on that. But we can easily get sidetracked, can't we? I, Mark Greenwood, can easily get sidetracked. Easily get sidetracked and forget that that's the priority of my time. And I'm paid as an evangelist.
[00:33:39] But let me just land this by saying I am paid as an evangelist.
[00:33:45] But before I'm an evangelist and a minister, I'm a follower of Jesus.
[00:33:52] I've learned a few things because I've tried a few things and I've made some mistakes. And I've made up a bit of a mess, but some things that I have discovered.
[00:34:03] So this is a personal little challenge for me.
[00:34:08] I decided I don't do this every day, but I decided that every day I wanted to get into a conversation with somebody.
[00:34:16] And I pray that it would become a faith conversation.
[00:34:21] Somebody often says to me, a person often says to me, how do you start a conversation with somebody about, about your faith? My answer is simple. I don't. I just start conversations with people. I don't intentionally set out to convert. I intentionally set out to converse just to be nice and to be kind. And invariably it leads to conversations about faith. And my own little personal goal is I'd like to have a conversation with a person every day that in some way gets onto faith, that in some way just might change their little perception of what a Christian is. I don't do it every day. It's a goal. Sometimes I bottle it, sometimes time pressures, sometimes I'm tired, sometimes I lose sight. I don't want you to think that I'm a superstar. And I'm just saying, here's my aspirations.
[00:35:17] I do it quite a lot, to be fair, because I think sharing your faith is habitual.
[00:35:22] Once you get into it, you into it, so you keep into it, and once you stop it, you get out of it, so you're out of it.
[00:35:29] So here's my little challenge to you this week. I always have no, 99.9% of the time, I love some little leaflets with me. There are actually ones that I've written. I put my story into a leaflet so that I can give away to people when I meet them. And then more recently, I produced this really beautiful little leaflet sort of loosely based on, is it possible the book, it's got big. Yes. Little yes. Healthy maybe in it. And I keep these in my bag because if I'm going to have faith that God's going to give opportunities, then I need to make sure I've got some stuff that when he does. So I've got these little leaflets. Buy yourself ten for four quid. You can buy them at the end. Little circle. That circle contains the knowledge of the whole world. You get the person to place a little dot in there that best represents their knowledge as a percentage of the knowledge of the whole world.
[00:36:23] And then when they put that dot in there, you can say to them. So as you can see, there's a lot of stuff you don't know about that is true, that is really exists. Is it possible that God does exist? Jesus did die, and it is all true, but you just don't know about it. Just a simple little conversation. But just start by conversing. And when you feel it moves on a little bit, pray for a little bit of confidence.
[00:36:45] But remember this.
[00:36:48] Keep your eyes looking for people that don't know Jesus.
[00:36:54] Pray that you realize the sense of privilege that we have and that you're carried along by the love of Christ like this fresh flowing river, and go into it with confidence. Us, but smelling really, really well.
[00:37:10] And I wonder whether maybe just in a few moments, we could commit ourselves to that and maybe even be so bold and so brave and say, maybe, Lord, this week. Maybe, Lord, this week.
