Ever felt like life's colors are a bit washed out? Like you're staring at a painting with the contrast turned all the way down? You're not alone. We've all been there, searching for something—anything—that adds depth, meaning, and vibrancy to our lives. That's where the good news comes in. 🎨

Join us as we take you on an electrifying journey through Acts 13, revealing how the Gospel isn't just an ancient story but a life-changing message that's as relevant today as it was 2,000 years ago. 

Welcome to this week's Crowd Church service.

We are a digital church on a quest to discover how Jesus helps

us live a more meaningful life.

We are a community, a space to explore the Christian faith, and a place

where you can contribute and grow.

Our service will last about an hour, and in a few seconds we will start

with a time of worship, after which you will meet our hosts for our service,

who will introduce today's guest.

Talk.

After the talk, we head into Conversation Street, where we look at your stories

and questions that you've posted in the comments throughout the live stream.

I want to invite you to connect with us here at Crowd Church, and there are

a few ways that you can do just that.

Firstly, you can engage with Crowd from any device during our live

stream, and if you're up for it.

Why not invite a few friends over and experience the service together?

You see, church is all about connecting with God and connecting with others,

and one of the easiest ways for you to do that is to also join one of our

midweek groups where we meet online together to catch up and discover

more about the amazingness of Christ.

You can also subscribe to our podcast called What's.

The Story, where we deep dive into stories of faith and courage from everyday people.

More information about all of these things that I've mentioned can

be found on our website at www.

crowd.

church or you can reach us on social media at crowd church.

If you're new to crowd or new to the Christian faith and would like to

know what your next steps to take are, well why not head over to our website

crowd.church/next, for more details.

And now, the moment you've been waiting for is here.

Our online church service starts

right now.

Well, good evening and welcome to Crowd Church.

Uh, my name is Matt and beside me is the incredible Dan Orange.

Great that you're here.

Great that you have joined us.

We've just had a bit of a mad tech issue, haven't we?

We're definitely

live, just to prove that

we're live.

Just to prove that we are live.

We've got it all working and it's, yeah, it's by the seat of your pants.

And the reason why, uh, it was a little bit shoestring, it was because, um,

I was a bit late getting in because I've just been at Abi Sharples

wedding, who is now not Abi Sharples.

Abi and Ami, congratulations.

If you, um, If you don't know Abi, and most of you watching

this won't have a clue who Abi is.

Abi was around in the early days of crowd before she went off to university.

She was part of the church plant team.

Absolute legend, beautiful voice, part of the worship team.

Done quite a few of the talks actually, you can see her in some of the videos.

Um, and yeah, super, super awesome.

So really excited for Abi today to celebrate.

Uh, with her, uh, yeah, Matt's putting the comments here, Abi is a legend, she's

totally is, uh, a legend, definitely, uh, good to see you Matt, good to see

you Graham, welcome, uh, if you are watching us, uh, Dan, what have we

got coming up while I catch my breath?

Yes, so we have Pete Farrington coming up and talking to us, um, on Acts, so

I'm really looking forward to that.

Yep.

Oh, it's nice to be back, I know you've been back, we've

been back a week, but, summer.

And it feels like summer because in the UK it's actually warm,

so hot, it's quite warm in this place, it is so, so hot.

Um, at the wedding, at Abi's wedding, um, we, she, the wedding was in

this beautiful glass house, this huge sort of greenhouse type thing.

It was so warm.

So when we were in there, and Sharon and I were like, where should we go sit?

I was like, there's a fan right there.

I literally went and sat right next to the fan, because it's so hot and muggy today,

which is often not something you hear the Brits talk about, or complain about.

But you know, we're British, we like to complain about the weather.

So yes, so it's good to have you back.

Yeah, it's good to be back.

Good to be back.

So we've got the legendary Pete Farrington who is going to be sharing God's Word

with us, which we can't wait to get into.

If you're new to crowds, um, let me introduce myself.

My name is Matt.

This is Dan, and we are an online church just, you know, trying to

figure out this whole Jesus thing.

And to help us do that, today we've got Pete Farrington who is

talking from the book of Acts.

And then you and I are going to be back for Conversation Street.

Sounds very good.

Talking about the talk.

So without further ado, Shall we get into the talk?

I think we should.

I'm gonna press this button here and just pray it works.

Uh, yeah, the Lord be with us, please.

Off in the prayer of the tech team.

I've got no glasses because this is my third day of contact lenses.

I can actually see you.

Does it look a bit weird?

Oh, is that what Matt's putting in the comments here?

You forgot your glasses?

Yeah, yeah.

You've got your contact lenses.

Can you see alright?

I can.

I've got a red eye today, trying to get me into

a bit of theory.

Ah, we've all, anyone who's had contact lenses knows exactly what

you're talking about right now.

We just do.

It just is the way it is, right, with the old red eye.

So yes, well, you know, even though your glasses aren't here, you are,

which is obviously an important thing.

So anyway, that aside, let's get into the talk.

If you're new to Crowd, we've been doing the Acts thing.

Tell them about the Acts thing.

Yeah,

we've been doing the acts thing for a good while, , I mean, there's not

that many chapters up to chapter 13 and we've done way more than 13 talks.

But yeah, we've done a lot more.

It's very detailed, um, walk right through acts because if you

wanna know about the Christian Church, acts is the place to start.

It's the acts, it's the things the apostles did.

The leaders, the starter.

Yeah, yeah.

The start of the early church.

That they

did.

It's been a phenomenal series so far and I missed it.

I mean it was great over the summer the guys did the Psalms which was

great and but it's nice to get back into the whole Acts thing and so yes

we are going to kick off The second week we're back into the acting.

We've got Pete Farrington.

Dan and I will be back after this, so grab your notebooks, grab

your pens, write in the comments.

We'd love your questions, we'd love your thoughts as we go along.

Dan and I are going to talk about them when we get back, so we'll

see you in just a short while.

But here's Mr.

Pete Farrington.

Hello, Crowd Church.

It's a pleasure to be able to share with you again today.

Now, I think I've said this on here before, but I absolutely love painting

and During the process of a painting, I will usually, a couple of times, take a

photo of it and then digitally play around with the contrast in order to see how

much I need to increase the contrast in order to really make it, the image pop.

And I grew up in the church and I think that for most of my life,

the message I'm going to share today didn't really do much for me.

It was like the contrast had been turned all the way down and I could

discern the general shapes and basic information but it didn't grip me.

It was, it was easy to look at, but it didn't challenge me.

It wasn't an arresting image.

It wasn't an image that could hold my gaze like a masterpiece in the Louvre.

That all kind of changed a few years ago, and now I find that my eyes will never

finish taking in all there is to see, and I will never exhaust it of its beauty.

So my prayer today is that the contrast will be turned all the way up for us.

And today we're going to be looking at Acts 13.

It's a bit of a long passage, so I'm just going to kind of summarise it quickly, and

then we'll hone in on a couple of verses.

So Paul and Barnabas are on their first missionary journey.

And after arriving in the city of Antioch, they go to the synagogue on the Sabbath.

And then after the reading of the scriptures, the rulers of the

synagogue ask Paul and Barnabas.

If they have a word of encouragement for the people and Paul and Barnabas

then kind of give this overview of the history of the Jewish people, how God

chose this people for himself and he made them great in the land of Egypt

and then he led them out of Egypt.

Jesus put up with them during their disobedience and

rebellion in the wilderness.

And then he, he wiped out their enemies before them and brought

them into the promised land.

And then they spoke about how he gave them Jesus through the line of David,

just as he had promised he would.

And Jesus carried out all that had been prophesied about him.

He was executed and laid in a tomb, but God raised him from the dead.

And then for many days, Jesus appeared to his followers.

And all God's promises to Israel were fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

And this sermon then reaches its climax in verses 38 and 39.

It says, Let it be known to you therefore, brothers, that through this man, Jesus,

forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you.

And by him, everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you

could not be freed by the law of Moses.

And in those two little verses, Paul so wonderfully encapsulates

the gospel, and it has striking similarities to Peter's preach on

Pentecost, which is found in Acts 2, which happens some 15 years earlier.

Peter said this, Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in

the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will

receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

For the promise is for you and for your children and for all

who are far off, everyone whom the Lord God calls to himself.

So 15 years have passed since that preach on Pentecost, but

it was still the same message.

And 2, 000 years on, the message is still the same.

And actually Paul was around when, when Stephen had stood before the

Sanhedrin in Acts 5, if you remember that, um, when, when Stephen said this,

God exalted Jesus at his right hand as leader and saviour to give repentance

to Israel and forgiveness of sins.

And we're told that Paul had approved of Stephen's stoning that day, and

here he is now in Acts 13, preaching that very same message that he'd

wanted Stephen killed for preaching.

In Jesus Christ alone, there is forgiveness of sins.

And for the rest of his life, Paul was gripped by this truth.

He said later in 1 Corinthians 2, um, verse 2, he said, For I decided

to know nothing among you, Except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

Elsewhere in 1 Corinthians he said, Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel.

But what about Jesus?

What did he have to say?

In Luke 24 we see, he said, Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures,

And he said to them, Thus it is written, That he the Christ should suffer, And

on the third day rise from the dead.

That repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name

to all nations beginning from Jerusalem.

Now I just think this is amazing.

Let's think about it a moment.

What does it, what does it mean to understand the scriptures?

Because the Bible has something to say about all matters of life and God's word

should inform how we live, how we think, how we, uh, how we, how we respond and

how we feel about things in this world.

It's got something to say about everything.

Sex, marriage, parenting, government, work, leisure, the church.

But if we ever just start seeing the Bible as like a guidebook for how to

be good people, or as a formula for personal development, or a how to for

living a fulfilling life, then it won't be long until we go way off track.

Because Jesus showed us here in Luke 24 that, and it's not the only time he

did this, That this is his story about what he came into this world to do.

And he was saying, hey, you guys didn't understand the scriptures because you

didn't see that I was on every page.

So how is the story going to make sense to you if you don't even

recognise the main character?

But let's take a step back and go to those, two little verses in Acts 13.

I'll read it again.

Let it be known to you, therefore, brothers, that through this man

forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you.

And by him, everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you

could not be freed by the law of Moses.

Now you might be thinking, what is the law of Moses and what's it got to do with me?

Well, the law of Moses was the 600 plus commandments and regulations given by God.

The foundation of which was the Ten Commandments.

You've probably heard of them.

Um, but the law is really like a mirror.

It shows us our condition.

And Romans 3 speaks of how through the law comes knowledge of sin.

It says this in verses 19 and 20.

The law's purpose is to keep people from having excuses and to show that

the entire world is guilty before God.

For no one can ever be made right with God by doing what the law commands.

The law simply shows us how sinful we are.

So God's law shows us what that standard is.

That standard is perfection.

It's holiness.

Galatians 3 verse 24 tells us that the law was a tutor or a guardian.

It couldn't actually save anyone.

It was useless for that.

Galatians 3 verses 10 to 11 says, Those who depend on the law to make them

right with God are under his curse.

For the scriptures say, Cursed is everyone who does not observe and

obey all the commands that are written in God's book of the law.

So it is clear that no one can be made right with God by trying to keep the law.

Now I think...

The message that we really don't like is not necessarily the message

that we need a saviour, but rather the message that we can't and won't

be the ones to save ourselves.

I remember seeing a short while ago an image posted on Instagram which brazenly

declared, We will save ourselves.

Now, Jesus really didn't have a lot of positive things

to say about the Pharisees.

Those people in his day who thought that they were doing a good job at keeping

the law and, and they looked down on others who, and, and think, well, at

least I'm, I'm not like those, those people over there, better than them.

And self righteousness might not look quite the same in our day and age,

but I, I would posit that we're living in a time in which people are just as

self righteous as those in, in AD 30.

Not a whole lot has changed in 2000 years.

Because we look with condescending eyes at the history books, pointing

the finger with disdain at those who've gone before us for having faults

and blind spots and for not reaching our superior level of morality.

Societies constantly drawing up revised lists of acceptable opinions

to hold and telling us this is how you can be good, this is how you

can be pure, and we frantically scramble to signal to the world that.

We've purified ourselves and those who don't hold to whatever the

accepted beliefs are are done away with and expelled from the community.

We see this all the time.

And of course, in years to come, if someone were to look through, to look at

our lives through a microscope, there'd be nothing to be ashamed of, right?

Like no one in times to come would ever find a reason to pull

down statues of us, would they?

Because despite, despite us living in a post Christian and post religious

era, I really couldn't help but notice quite a strange ritualistic

and religious nature to some of the responses to George Floyd in 2020.

People were told, you've got to do the work, read this list of books and

give money to these organisations, repeat these mantras, post a

black square on your social media.

You can be clean.

You can purge yourself of your sin, but then people were simultaneously

told the work never ends.

Keep doing the work.

The work never ends, and I'm saying all this not to upset anyone, but merely

to say that no matter what age you live in, no matter what culture you

look at, you're always going to find countless man made means of attaining

forgiveness, salvation, and purification.

And every single one is futile.

The work never ends, because the debt is too great.

Like, we've seen this, I think, recently in the UK, with the case

of, uh, the killer nurse, Lucy Letby.

We pile 14 life sentences on her to recognize the value of the

lives of those precious image bearers of God who were wronged.

And with a one life, she can't pay it.

But what happens when the one who is wronged is not an image

bearer of God, but God himself?

How can one mere man pay the debt?

He can't.

So, we're going to get a little bit philosophical now for a

moment, if you'll indulge me.

C.

S.

Lewis says in his wonderful book called Mere Christianity that there are

two odd things about the human race.

First, that they were haunted by the idea of a sort of

behaviour they ought to practice.

What you might call fair play or decency or morality or the law of nature.

And the second thing was that they did not in fact do so.

He says, for the trouble is that one part of you is really on God's side and

really agrees with his disapproval of human greed and trickery and exploitation.

You may want him to make an exception for you in your own

case, to let you off this one time.

But you know at bottom that unless the power behind the world

really and unalterably detests behaviour, then he cannot be good.

Now on the other hand, we know that if there does exist an absolute goodness,

it must hate most of what we do.

And that is the terrible fix that we are in.

If the universe is not governed by an absolute goodness, then all our

efforts are in the long run hopeless.

But if it is, then we are making ourselves enemies to that goodness

every day, and are not in the least likely to do any better tomorrow.

And so our case is hopeless again.

We cannot do without it, and we cannot do with it.

God is the only comfort.

He is also the supreme terror.

The thing we most need and the thing we most want to hide from.

He's our only possible ally, and we have made ourselves his enemies.

Some people talk as if meeting the gaze of absolute goodness would be

fun, but they need to think again.

Now you might respond to C.

S.

Lewis and say, well, what is deemed good or just or moral?

That can differ across cultures and time, right?

Like, it's all subjective, isn't it?

To which he'd reply, Well, the moment you say that one set of moral ideas

can be better than another, you are in fact measuring them both by a standard,

saying that one of them conforms to that standard more closely than the other.

But the standard that measures two things is something different from either.

You are in fact comparing them both with some real morality, admitting that there

really is such a thing as real right.

Independent of what people think and that some people's ideas get closer

to that real right than others.

Like if, if your, if your moral ideas can be truer and those of the Nazis

less true, there must be something, some real morality for them to be true about.

So like I said before, God's law shows us what that standard

is, what that real right is.

And what c s Lewis was really doing there was unpacking Romans two, where

it says in verse 14 to 16, for when Gentiles or non-Jews who do not have the

law by nature, do what the law requires.

They are a law to themselves.

Even though they do not have the law.

They show that the work of the law is, is written on their hearts while

their conscience also bears witness.

And their conflicting thoughts accuse, or even excuse them, on that day when,

according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.

Now this is really sobering stuff.

C.

S.

Lewis calls them terrifying facts.

But we should not hurry past this.

Christianity does, at first, present us with terrifying facts.

But it does, if we'll be humble enough to be honest about our condition,

give us a hope and a comfort beyond anything we could even dare to imagine.

So if you, if you can't shake the feeling that you haven't hit the mark, that

you're desperately sick, well, that really just means that the mirror is

clean and you are seeing yourself rightly.

When the grumbling Pharisees questioned why Jesus ate with

sinners, Jesus answered with this.

Those who are well have no need of a physician but those who are sick.

I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.

So if I wanted to lie to you, if I hated you, I would say that you

are well, that you are perfect as you are, and that you are enough.

I would say you just need to realise that you are enough and

you can love yourself back to life.

I'd come up with a five step program of things that you can do to shift

that sense of guilt and inadequacy.

I would repackage the gospel, soften the edges as some have

done, in order to stroke your ego.

But I'm not going to lie to you, because Jesus is a skilled physician, so it

is no bad thing to come to him sick.

All the self medicating just will not work.

You need a better physician.

To repeat what C.

S.

Lewis said, we have made an enemy of our only ally.

But here is the good news.

Jesus Christ came into this world to die for his enemies.

Like, who does that?

Imagine if you were to draw up a list of all the people that

you would be willing to die for.

How long would that list really be?

Like, your spouse and children, your close family and friends, would you put

random, random acquaintances on there?

People that you consider nice and kind?

What

about people

who you don't consider to be good?

What about your enemies?

Would you have people on that list who hate you?

And remember, we're still only speaking in human terms.

The creator of the universe, to whom all the peoples of the

earth are like grasshoppers, died for those who hated him.

Now that is a love like no other.

There is today a, really a circular definition of love, almost as

if we have no idea what it is.

Love is love is love is love.

The great story of the Bible is that the innocent died for the guilty, and

the victim died for the perpetrator.

The creator died for the creation.

This is love.

Now, you can, you can speak positive affirmations over yourself

until you're blue in the face.

Go get them, you've got what it takes.

But it will never be enough.

Trying to save yourself is an unbearable weight that no person can carry.

It will crush you and condemn you to hell.

But what is of utmost importance is what God says of you.

And if you repent of your sin and cling to Jesus and the work that He has done on

your behalf, you are declared justified.

It says Galatians, in Galatians 3 verse 13, God has rescued us from

the curse pronounced by the law.

When he was hung on that cross, he took upon himself the curse for our wrongdoing.

So in the place of a curse, we get blessing.

In the place of our rebellion against God, we get Jesus Christ's perfect record.

In the place of our enmity with God, we get friendship with God.

In the place of despair, we get hope.

In the place of debt, we get forgiveness.

Anything that you think might cause you to be overwhelmed with shame, when

meeting the gaze of absolute goodness, all of that was dealt with in full when

Jesus Christ was crucified, taking the punishment for our sin upon himself.

In Christ, we are freed from everything, from every sin.

And there's a lot that is contained in that word, everything.

Think about that today.

I'm going to leave you with this verse in 1 Thessalonians 5, verses 9 through 10.

For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our

Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep.

We might live with him.

Thank you for listening.

Coming up we have Conversation Street but before we get into that here's a clip from

our podcast What's the Story which you can subscribe to on all your favorite podcast

apps.

I could see like there'd been a lot of darkness a lot of struggles with

depression up to that point and I just just knew that if I didn't choose

God I I wasn't sure what my life would look like and if I actually

would be around for much longer.

So I just thought, I'll give God a go and try and see what happens.

And that was almost 20 years ago.

It's been an interesting journey being a Christian.

And there are days where, you know, you feel like you're

clinging on by your fingertips.

But I think what keeps me going is...

Knowing what it was like before I met God, and knowing that actually, even in

the really challenging times right now, it's better than it was without Him.

Yeah, that thing of becoming Christian doesn't equal a perfect life, even

though, you know, you did say God really brought a clear sense of hope.

So welcome back to Conversation Street.

Let's go to this camera.

I should really check these scenes before we go live.

It's great to have you with us.

Thanks Pete for that talk.

Pete was Well, he didn't pull any punches, did he really?

Which is why we love it when Pete talks, I mean he is just properly

straight to the point and it's great.

So we are going to get into that.

Big shout out to Isaac who's joined us on Facebook, he's

actually watching us from Kenya.

Mm.

Uh, it says, so, uh, Isaac, if you're still watching, uh,

great to have you with us.

Uh, Sarah's no doubt that we can complain

about being slightly warm before . I suspect it's probably a bit warm

, I suspect you are probably correct, sir.

Yes.

Yes, absolutely.

Uh, do forgive all the tech around me.

It's just so I can keep track of all the comments.

, it's unbelievable the amount of tech we've got going on around us here.

Um, But yes, Pete's talk.

Let's get into that.

Uh, whilst, uh, before we do, uh, it's worth saying you can post your comments,

thoughts, ideas in the comments, either on Facebook or YouTube, uh, and

we will try our best to go through.

Any questions, any thoughts on that, do let us know.

So Dan, let's start off with a comment you wrote.

In the space of desperation, we have hope.

Yeah, I love that as, um, Pete sort of...

Concluded at the end that we, um, we're not left, we're not left with, so Pete

did quite a detailed explanation of the law, and it does get very, very deep,

very quickly, um, and it's taken me, I don't understand it all, but it's taken

me years to, to understand more and more about what, what this was, that

was, the law is there, and the law.

The Law of Moses, but just, just the law, say, let's say the law of the UK.

We know what's right and wrong.

Yeah.

Um, I was reading on Facebook today about, there's a new law

guideline in the UK about driving.

And if you turn into a road, someone can just walk out and

basically they're in the right now.

So we have to be careful as we're drivers.

So there's that law to, to guide us, but that law can't save us.

I still break, break that law and we can never keep every one

of those commandments and laws.

It's just, it's impossible.

We'd have to be perfection, but I like that God's standard is perfection.

You know, without that, I think I wrote in my notes that we, we

just have religion, don't we?

The law.

It's religion.

It's a list of things to do, but it can't

itself save you.

Yeah, such is the irony of it.

You know, this is, this is religion.

These are all the things that you need to do to get eternal life.

By the way, you can never do them.

And even if you could, that in itself could not bring you eternal life.

It's a really fascinating conundrum.

Uh, that's existing.

So you, in the light of that, you then go, Pete is right.

There is this good news of Jesus because without Jesus, there's no hope.

Yeah.

Um, and just thinking about your, uh, driving thing there, Dan, I must

fracture the occasional driving law.

Yes.

Uh, I, you know, I, I, there are some things about the.

The state of English driving law that I'm not fully compliant with all of the time

and as a result, I fracture those laws.

I'm sure I'm not admitting to anything, especially on camera, but

I would say I've probably not kept every single law down to perfection.

Some of that will be ignorance.

Some of that is

intentional.

Yeah, and even if we had robot drivers, I think there's still exceptions.

We don't drive on tracks, do we?

There's no, there's always little, yeah,

um, always these little notes.

Well, if it's as difficult as it is to maintain this, the driving laws and the

standard of the driving laws, then the laws of morality, the laws of holiness,

the laws that govern eternal life.

It's not a surprise that they're slightly more complicated and

numerous than, say, driving laws.

So it's not a, in the context of that, and in the context of the

wider law of the land, it's not a big surprise, is it, that there is a

law which governs the Kingdom of God.

Um, yet we, we, there's no chance that we can keep it.

And I think this is the fundamental truth of...

Christianity that Pete came, he talked about it, didn't he?

He came to it at some point in his talk.

Well we've watered down, in effect, the gospel to a degree that quite

often we don't acknowledge this point or we don't understand this point.

Would you agree with that?

I think

so, yeah.

I think we come to a point where perhaps we don't come to it.

The church, religion, media, whatever it might be, comes to a

point and says, Oh, but that's a bit too, bit too hard, isn't it?

Yeah.

That might offend someone, that might be a law that a quite big group

of people don't really agree with.

Um, and, and Pete put down this circle of love, didn't he?

Yeah.

That sort of, love, oh we must love.

Because we must love who we must love, but, but where's the standard?

I always think that when I'm looking at the news, and when I'm looking

at my own life, and what I'm doing, and how I'm living, and how I'm

bringing up my kids, how I'm bringing up myself, um, where's my standard?

Because I always think, if it didn't know Jesus, where,

where do I go?

Where do you find the answer?

No, it's a fair one, isn't it?

It's a tricky one because, and again, coming back to C.

S.

Lewis, you know, if you judge your actions right in the context of

somebody else's actions, so, um, and this is very, we see this a lot,

don't we, at the moment in, uh, in culture, um, I'm right, you're wrong.

Um, I'm on the left, you're on the right.

I hold this opinion, you hold that opinion, you're wrong.

Therefore, uh, you are bigoted, or you're intolerant, or you're

liberal and you're left leaning.

I mean, there's, there's different accusations going

across different, uh, sides.

So each side is measuring each side.

So what are they measuring it against?

They're measuring against themselves.

Yeah.

So they're saying that I'm the source of truth, which then says, uh, because

I am the source of truth, we come up with these phrases, don't we?

I'm going to live.

My truth, uh, do you, do you, uh, is one of my favorite phrases, you

do you, if it works for you, if it works for you, as long as you're not

hurting anybody, you know, phrases like this, which I find very, very

peculiar phrases in a lot of ways.

So living your truth.

So we have now elevated ourselves where we become the single point of truth in.

Life.

So I'm going to judge you based on my opinion of truth.

And if you don't measure up to my opinion of truth, well, you're screwed.

Yeah.

Do And if you

broke your own standard of truth a few years ago, and you wrote about

it, you're in a real pile, aren't you?

Because what

can you do?

And we see this.

People get cancelled, for want of a better expression, because of what

they wrote on Twitter five years ago.

And of course.

They've moved on or things have changed or things, but it's not that

they need to not be held accountable for what they wrote, but it's a

really interesting one, isn't it?

It just proves that actually the definition of truth, the standard by

which you are judging other people, by which you are judging society, that

standard is constantly changing based on what you know and how you feel.

And in a lot of ways.

Who you're associated with.

Yeah.

Do you know what I mean?

Because it's like, well, I'm going to get a lot of my opinions from

my tribe, the tribe's going to help me form my opinions, aren't they?

Um, and so how I feel, who I'm connected with, and the culture and society, you

know, what I think about something at the time, that's my definition of truth.

The problem with that, it's always changing.

Yes.

And so how do, how do we know?

Because the goalposts are always moving and so it's, um, it's a, I

find the conversation fascinating.

And I think,

I think it's something we should talk about as well.

That's what I, that's what I miss is, isn't that the right, the right word?

I, um, on the news and in life it's very hard sometimes to talk about certain

things because they are maybe against.

The culture, or they're slightly to that side that people are a

little bit wary about talking about.

I'm talking about universities and debates.

But surely, if something is, is right, it will hold up in a debate.

Let's talk about those things.

That's why I love this.

I love crowd, that you can just put in your messages and we can talk about stuff.

Because if something can't be talked about, then...

You know, yeah, where do we go?

Where do we go?

Yeah, where do we go as a society?

And it's an interesting one, isn't it?

Because there's this whole thing about, um, you know, that I was watching

something the other day and the press talking about, is it right to teach

our children, um, about gender identity when they're five, for example?

Now, I appreciate I'm opening a whole can of worms just by bringing out the

question, but follow my thinking on this.

Now, some people would say, yes, we should teach the Majungas 5.

Some people would say, no, we should not teach the Majungas 5.

And the people that say yes, I heard them saying to the people that said no,

that they are curbing freedom of speech.

Um, and so, you know, we should not.

Um, we should not, not teach about this in the classroom because

that was the whole argument.

Yet, the, the debate back then was says, well, should we then

teach about, I don't know.

How to commit suicide when you're as young as four years old.

And I can't remember what the exact topic was and I appreciate I'm going very

extreme to, to, to highlight the point.

And they were like, no, we shouldn't.

And so then the definition moves.

So it's like, well, no, hang on a minute.

You're now saying that there are things that we should legislate that we shouldn't

teach children as young as four or five.

But this, and, and so our standards all vary, but like I

say, based on, on where we are.

And so society has no standard of truth.

Um, which we would, and in Christian circles, would then say that is the

gospel, that is scripture and it is the fundamental truth of God.

Jesus said, I am the way, I am the truth.

So we would say that that is the source of truth.

And I've used this example before.

And I'm going to use it again, Dan, because I like it, um, and, uh,

you know, I've got the microphone.

And so my question that I've asked on Crowd before, and I'm

going to ask you again, how fast are you traveling right now?

It's not a trick question.

I'm not trying to catch anybody out.

I'm not traveling very fast.

I'm sat on a chair.

My backside is still.

And so relative to what I see around me, relative to the walls,

relative to the studio, the desk, to you, I'm not moving, right?

That is a source of truth.

But the earth spins around the sun.

So I'm spinning around the sun.

And I think it spins around the sun, it orbits the sun at

like 28, 000 miles an hour.

Pretty fast.

I, I, I mean, I've never had to go to court to defend a speeding ticket

and praise the Lord at a prayer.

I never have to.

Uh, but part of me would, would find it fascinating if someone went into court and

the judge said, how fast were you going?

And the chap turns around and says, about 28, 000 miles an hour, because

that's how fast we're moving.

I just can't see it.

I can't sense it.

I can't necessarily feel it because I'm looking at life relative to what I see.

And as we expand our view, we see a different story.

Um, and that's what scripture does, right?

And that's what Pete was talking about at the start in terms of the

contrast with his painting and, and seeing paintings in a stronger

contrast paintings that challenge him.

In other words, he'd zoomed out and he was seeing things in the context of

a bigger story, a bigger truth, which said, actually, not all have sinned.

Yeah.

Well, that's a very, that's a very interesting proposition to start from.

Yeah,

where's your, where's your perspective, isn't it?

That's what, where's your perspective on earth?

Is it, is it a heavenly, um, perspective?

Yeah.

Um, and I think just sort of, again, not wanting to get too into,

um, the culture at the moment, but culture is a perspective.

Yeah.

Isn't it?

And, and the church has been, um,

What's that, how to describe it?

The church has been a place where culture has been blotted out and we've

missed great opportunities and great truths from different cultures and

thought that our, sometimes, a lot of the time, our white culture was the, was

Christian and that's, you know, garbage.

Yeah, but we're, so we have missed it, so we have missed it.

Just miss that out as well and get mixed up with where culture can

come in, but that still just goes back to Jesus, the creator of all

races, you know, the creator of us.

Oh, it's incredible.

Yeah, it's incredible.

So, what's Miriam put here in the comments?

Hi, guys.

Peter's talk was amazing.

I feel free in Jesus.

He's given me the right to feel myself always.

Which I totally agree, Miriam.

And this is the interesting thing, isn't it?

The reality of it is, there's this truth in the Bible about grace.

Grace is, we call grace a free gift, don't we?

It's something you can't earn.

The Bible says Ephesians 2, 8, you have been saved.

Uh, by grace through faith, it's not anything you've done, so you can't

boast about it, it's just something that God did through the work of

Christ on the cross, you're going to have to deal with that, right?

No, it's just a lesson we all have to keep learning, um, that it's

about grace, it's about what he did.

So there's always this tension between what grace and works so people read that

and then go well therefore I don't have to do anything that's not what it says what

grace does is it reframes it so instead of working to earn my salvation I have my

salvation and therefore I can do works.

Yes.

Very different, right, perspective.

Very different feel.

And so when it comes to identity and who you are in Christ and this understanding

of the gospel and the work of Jesus and what he's done on the cross, well

that's the same sort of thing, isn't it?

I'm not working to try and earn that.

I'm not trying to attain that by following certain laws.

I have been given an identity, but out of that I then live my life according to

my personality, according to what God has called me to do, according to that sort

of unique flavour, I suppose, that God's going to bring to the world through me

because we all are unique and individual.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

And I

think, um, that, um, In Hebrews, it says faith without works is dead, doesn't it?

So we've been saved, but if you're not doing anything

about it, well, that's a bit...

Technically, it says that in James, but...

In James, sorry.

I thought I got the right book as well.

I should have just said the Bible.

The only reason,

yeah, to say the Bible, the only reason I said that is somebody, probably

Matt Crew, would have put in the comments, oh no, that's not right.

Um, so that we...

We've been saved but there's still, we can't just sit there

and keep this to ourselves.

It's like we have this privilege to love others, we have this privilege to

feed the poor, we have the privilege to clothe, you know, bring the gospel, heal

the sick, you know, help the homeless.

It's a privilege, isn't it?

Yeah, it totally is.

It's something that God has given us to do, to look after our...

Our fellow man.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

And you can't get away from it.

It's not like, um, it's, it's not like you're excused from it.

I, one of the things that I thought was fascinating, um, was when Pete

talked about the terrifying facts of Christianity, uh, but we don't,

Christianity doesn't leave you just with the terrifying facts.

It gives you the hope, it gives you the way out, the way of escape

for into a better expression.

Um, yeah.

This phrase he used that I wrote down, um, we live in a world which tells us

that we can love ourselves back to life.

Um, which I thought was interesting.

Where, where do you think you've seen that?

I think

Facebook.

It's the source of Facebook, isn't it?

Yeah, that it's all, there's the Disney life that we can, nothing's impossible.

Yeah.

We can do it all ourselves, within us is the, yeah, the capability,

which, yeah, and it's come back to this again, isn't it?

If I see myself as the source of truth, then I can see

myself as my source of healing.

And I love that.

What Pete drew out from the scripture, you know, that Jesus is the great physician.

It's one of the things he talks about himself in the in, in scriptures.

Um, and he said, it's no bad thing to come to Jesus.

Very sick.

Yeah.

Because he's the greatest of physicians.

Yeah.

Jesus

said, I love that.

I didn't come for the, the, well, you know, I'm a physician.

I came for the sick.

Yeah, yeah.

Came Yeah.

And to realize that you're sick is a big thing.

I remember to speaking to someone.

Oh.

I'm realising that I'm getting a bit old because today

You're only

just realising that I know, because I went for a walk in Liverpool and I said,

oh do you remember that fun park that we used to go to down at the Festival Gardens

in Liverpool, you can Wikipedia it And I was like, oh, that was 35 years ago No!

Stone the crows No Um, where was I going with that?

Getting old Um

You've lost your train of thought now.

You've totally gone to Festival Gardens.

Yes.

I'm

hoping it'll come back to me.

I've no doubt, you'll get that moment of revelation.

But it is no bad thing to come to the vision, physician.

Physician.

Physician, sick, I can't even talk right now.

But yeah, it's no bad thing.

It's no bad thing at all, is it?

And so, um, in closing, because I'm aware of time.

Oh, sorry, can I just?

Yeah, you've figured

it out now.

I've figured it out.

So I was speaking to, I used to go out to teas and coffees, um, in Liverpool

city centre, at like two o'clock in the morning, to people that were

slightly inebriated, to homeless, and just chat, chat about things.

And, um, one girl said to me, Don't like the phrase, being saved.

It's a bit...

It's a bit serious, isn't it?

It's a bit extreme.

Perhaps we should change that word.

Can't, can we?

No, you can't.

It's being saved, it's literally being plucked out.

That's the, that's the gospel.

That's the good news of Jesus.

Yeah.

We need

to be saved.

We don't, we don't just need a pat on the back.

No, but you're okay.

Yeah, you're not too bad.

You're an 8 out of 10.

Have a lollipop, you'll be fine.

Um, no, this isn't, it doesn't work like that.

Um, and, uh, that's definitely the Christian gospel right there, isn't it?

But the, again, the good news of Jesus.

The thing that I wanted to draw back to.

And I thought, I wrote it down in my notes, I thought if you are new

to the Christian faith, first time coming to a kind of church service

or watching something like this, he used a phrase, he used this phrase,

repent, you had to repent of your sin.

And I thought, and then he goes on to talk, he talked about substitution,

I'll come to substitution in a minute.

But it's this phrase, repent of your sin, which you'll have seen

on billboards all over the world.

Let's just explain what that means.

Go for it, Dan.

In its simplest terms, repent means to turn around.

Yeah.

I think it was a Latin.

Yeah.

Can't be Latin.

They didn't speak Latin, Roman term.

It was repent.

It was turn around.

Turn around in the direction you're going, realise that's the wrong way.

Yeah.

And turn around.

Yeah.

Um, and sometimes there might be, there will be consequences to that as well.

Um, and it's not always easy.

Sometimes it's, Oh yeah, I know it's going the wrong way.

Sometimes it's, I don't want to turn around.

Yeah.

Um, but

yeah.

It's turning around, it's, it's recognising you're sick.

Yeah.

And going, I need to go see the doctor.

It's recognising your need to be saved.

That actually, um, sin, missing God's standard, missing God's

mark, which we have all done.

We all know we have not attained anything in God's eyes where

righteousness is concerned.

We have to receive God's grace.

That's all we can do.

All you can do is receive it.

You cannot earn it.

It is a gift, a free gift.

And that's the beautiful thing.

That's the wonderful thing about the Christian faith.

And that's sort of what happens.

And Pete talked about how we give Jesus our sin, he gives us

his righteousness, which just means right standing before God.

So he, the thing that stops us being able to be in the presence of God, Jesus takes.

And he puts us in the presence of God.

And this idea of substitution where, um, Jesus takes upon himself stuff

that we struggled with and gives us stuff that he doesn't struggle with.

Um, so the Bible talks about he takes upon himself our sicknesses.

And our diseases and that we get is healing.

He takes our sin.

We get his righteousness.

We give him our fear and our anxiety.

He gives us his peace.

There's this swap which happens the moment we recognize the need for grace.

And this is what salvation is.

It's not a, it's not a problem in the sense of a lot of people, certainly when

I was younger, were like, well, I don't want to do that Christianity thing.

It's just boring.

A lot of regulations and rules, which the church, you know, to

be fair, is painted far from it.

You know, you, there is a grace, a revelation of grace, which then says,

right, I am standing in the grace of God, and all this stuff, all this fear, all

this anger, all this bitterness, all this sin, all this jealousy, all this pride.

I don't, all this shame.

Jesus takes it all and then gives us all the cool stuff.

That is why we call it good news.

That's

great.

Um, just to bring up that word shame, because that's.

Something that in this culture and an Instagram lifestyle, a Facebook, a

web lifestyle, people live in shame.

In a massive amount of shame.

In a massive amount

of thinking, why should I look like this, why should I do that, shouldn't

I look like them, shouldn't I be like them, shouldn't I have that

much money, shouldn't I be doing that, shouldn't that be my identity?

But he's come to take away our shame.

Yeah.

Isn't that just, yeah, amazing.

Yeah, no, totally.

Right, I think on that note, Dan, which I think is a very good note,

we should probably end Conversation Street because I feel like time is,

it's definitely running away from us.

Right, next week, let's talk about next week.

Has Matt reminded me that I need to talk about next week?

Yes, coming up we wrap Conversation Street, we promote the Zoom and we let

you know what's happening next week.

God bless you, Mr.

Crew.

Um, so let me add this to the, he says I would add it to the broadcast

if I could find my flipping mouse.

Pointer that, nah, it's not gonna happen.

. I just can't see it.

. So, coming up next week, we have Dave Connolly, uh, speaking with us.

We're gonna carry on our journey through the Book of Acts.

Um, And we're still on chapter 13.

Yes, we are.

We are enjoying this.

Um, so yeah, we've got, uh, chapter 13 carrying on with the book of Acts.

It's going to be a few months.

Let's just face facts.

We're going to be another six months in the book of Acts.

I would have thought it was going to take us through to next year.

After which, you know what I'm really keen to look at?

Relationships.

Really keen.

I don't know if we will because obviously you and I and Anna

have not talked about this yet.

Um, but yeah, we may be looking at, uh, relationships.

Don't know.

We'll see.

Any topics you want us to cover, do let us know, by the way.

We're super interested.

So there's still 12 months of Acts, Matt.

Yeah, totally.

So we are going to be with Dave Connolly.

Sharon is going to be hosting, I think, with me next week.

So do come and join us for that.

Huge, you stepped in at the last minute to come and host

today, so thanks for doing that.

No worries.

Start the barbeque, sort tea.

Barbeque,

night, tonight.

So yes, that's what's happening next week.

Of course, if you have been watching on Facebook, we also live stream on YouTube.

If you watch us on YouTube, we have started back again

live streaming on Facebook.

We do live stream on both, which is why Isaac and Hilary and various

people are watching us on Facebook, according to my My little thingy here.

And Miriam apparently was on both.

You were on both Facebook and YouTube.

That means you get us in stereo, I suppose.

But no, seriously, do like and subscribe wherever you prefer us.

Promote the Zoom.

Yes, do you want to do that, Dan?

So, the midweek Zoom.

Yeah, just drop an email in, contactcrowd.

church, there we go.

And you'll get sent details.

Midweek Zoom to meet up and to pray, meet up online.

Yeah, yeah, we meet up, we catch up online on Zoom, 8 p.

m.

UK time, that's 3 p.

m.

Eastern Standard Time.

They're the two time zones I give out because most people know where

they are in relation to those.

But yeah, 8 p.

m.

in the UK.

If you want to come join us in Zoom, it'd be great to see you in there.

And like I said last week, coming up in Crowd, we're going to start doing Zoom.

After the service, so the service is going to, do you remember Do you remember that?

I do, yeah.

You just sounded really surprised.

A

lot has happened since then.

Yeah.

And he needs to like the barbecue, his stomach's talking.

Um, so yeah, we're going to be doing Zooms after the service, just for 10

15 minutes, to open it for anybody who wants to come join in and say hi.

Uh, we'll be doing that, um, in the next few weeks.

We'll let you know once that's all set up and running.

Um, but yeah, if you're, if you want to, after the Crowd Church

service, come and join in the Zooms.

Matt says, where's the worship?

It's disappeared, hasn't it?

It's gone.

Yeah, yeah.

So again, we're changing worship.

We're going to do worship in a different way.

Going forward, we're not going to do worship in the service

for a number of reasons, really.

We've talked about this, haven't we, on the leadership team.

For a number of reasons.

One, I think doing worship on a live stream is quite tricky.

Engagement, if I look at the engagement stats.

Uh, it goes down during worship, goes up during the talk, and

then plummets if I'm hosting.

I'm joking.

Um, I'm not.

Uh, so we were just like, well, what would happen if we took the worship

out, we went straight into the talk, we did a shorter conversation street

and did a zoom thing at the end.

Now that's what we're going to start doing on the Sundays, but There are some

ideas now around how do we do worship.

So we're going to start curating playlists.

Um, obviously we've got the tracks we've already done,

which you can see on YouTube.

If you go to the Crowd YouTube page, you'll see all the worship tracks

we've done and you can, uh, worship along to those at your heart's content.

We're gonna look at curating playlists maybe on something like Apple or Spotify.

I have no idea how we do that, but this was just some of the ideas that we floated

around.

Yeah, we can speak to, um, I, I do pa at our church, uh, physical

church and, um, in-person church.

In-person church.

That's the one.

Yeah.

Um, and so I'm the worship team of WhatsApping and they have a.

There's a whole playlist of the other thing that we were thinking about

is maybe once a term, uh, or once a semester for those outside of the UK.

So there's three of them a year.

So, um, doing a live worship event where it's just worship, um, from here,

possibly, uh, from somewhere else.

And so that's how we're thinking of moving worship to making them more

like live worship events, uh, which we will obviously live stream out.

Uh, over the World Wide Web and you can join in like you do on the YouTube stuff.

Um, so yeah, there's all kinds of conversations around that.

So, uh, watch this space, but as things currently stand, there's

no worship at the start of Crowd.

Do let us know what you think about this.

Obviously, we're making these changes and we'd love to get your feedback.

If we're making the right decisions or the wrong decisions, you know,

we, we feel like we're, we're hopefully doing the right thing.

Um, but yeah, we'd love to know what you think about it.

Matt says, love all the new worship ideas.

Can we do baby shark?

Not on any kind of level.

You can Matt, but not, not the rest of us.

Um, okay.

So it is 7.

01.

Thank you so much for joining us, Dan.

Thanks for stepping in last minute.

Any last words?

No.

Well, get in touch if you.

If you've got any questions, please, it doesn't stop now, he's still emailing.

Yeah,

yeah, absolutely, get in touch, let us know.

You can reach us via the website, which you can see on the screen down below, www.

crowd.

church, or on social media, at Crowd Church.

We are on Facebook and Instagram.

Not that active on Facebook, not going to lie.

We need to get better at it.

Instagram, usually somebody checks it once a week.

But on the website, if you go to the website, crowd.

church, you'll see a WhatsApp.

That =number, if you message in, don't call on it because it doesn't go through

to a phone, but if you message in, usually someone will get back to you on that.

number.

Hopefully it should be working.

So thank you so much for joining us.

Uh, thanks for joining me.

Thanks for joining Dan.

It's been great to see you have a fantastic week

wherever you are in the world.

Uh, and Dan and I will see you very, very soon.

All right.

God bless you.

Thank you so much for joining us here on crowd church.

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It has been Awesome to connect with you and you are awesome.

It's just a burden you have to bear and hopefully we'll see you next time.

That's it from us.

God bless you.

Bye for now.