Are you tired of feeling like fear has a vice-like grip on your life? Does the daily news leave you feeling more anxious than informed? You're not alone. In a world that often feels like it's spinning out of control, finding a foothold of peace can seem like an uphill battle. But what if there's a way to turn that fear into courage and find strength in places you've never looked before? Our latest talk, "Overcome Fear: Find Courage with God's Promise," isn't just another sermon. It's a heart-to-heart conversation, a journey through the chaos of modern life, guided by the timeless wisdom of the Bible.

👉 What you'll discover in this talk:

• Why our world and personal lives are so often mired in fear.
• How ancient wisdom provides clear navigation through today’s turbulence.
• How to actively choose courage in the face of life's daunting challenges.
• How the steadfast promises of God can be your anchor in stormy times.

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 It's our hosts for our

service who will introduce today's 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.

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 need 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 www.

crowd.

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

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

what your next steps to take are why not head over to our website crowd.

church forward slash Next, for more details.

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

Our online church service starts right now.

hEllo, everyone.

We had a little, always have a technical issue when we start.

We had a headphone problem.

So I'm here today with my sister Ruth.

Sister family, like orange sister, not, she's a sister in Christ, but

my sister, actual sister as well.

Yes, that is always fun.

Is it with you?

He's just bound his

leg

on the table.

Yes, I smacked my leg on the slide underneath.

Um, we were talking before, our week's been a bit interesting, hasn't it?

Yeah, not the easiest week we've ever had.

So I spoke last week that my granddad became a Christian, basically,

when my grandma died, she was 101.

Grandad's 98.

And he waited all that time, and then realized he needed to give

his life to God, which he did.

And he died on Monday morning.

Yeah.

So it's been a It's been a hard few weeks, but,

Yeah, but it's great to know that he and grandma are now in heaven.

It makes things still a loss, but it makes things very different.

This is why we do this, because we want to tell people, we

want to tell you about Jesus.

He's the answer.

To all of our problems, doesn't mean that life isn't tricky

and hard, it's just true.

So I think let's get straight into the talk.

If you've got any questions, then please just send them in.

Oh, Ruth's mic, I think she's just not talking into it very good.

We'll adjust that for Conversation Street.

Yeah.

If you've got any questions, then send them in.

We'll do our best to answer them, but here we have the wonderful

Sharon Edmundson talking.

So let's have a listen.

Do you listen to the news?

How does it make you feel?

Happy?

I doubt it.

In the UK, the news is full of fighting within our government

and fighting between nations.

It's full of bad news of all kinds.

It can leave us feeling depressed, cynical and fearful.

I wonder what things in the current news make you the most anxious or fearful.

Or maybe the things in the news don't impact you directly, but you have other

difficult situations in your life.

Does the Bible have anything to say about all this?

I believe it does.

It explains why we have trouble in the world and it gives us insights

that help us to navigate it.

I'm going to pick up on this through today's Bible reading.

Sometimes we have trouble just from living in a world that's cursed and decaying.

The book of Genesis tells us that when God created the world, it was good,

but soon after it came under a curse.

So some of the trouble we have in life is because we live in a cursed

world that isn't working completely how it was designed to work.

For example, maybe you're suffering from illness through no fault of your own.

Let's be honest, some of the trouble in our lives is because of our own

stupidity, bad decisions or sin.

Now sin is a Bible word for our rebellion against God and his ways.

Some of the trouble in my life has been caused by getting into relationships

that I knew weren't right or making silly financial decisions and getting into debt.

Some of our trouble is caused by the sin of other people, for example the child

who's knocked over by the drunk driver.

Or the war caused by pride and greed and selfishness of others.

Some of it's caused by a mixture of the above.

For example, where poorer people are affected much more from adverse weather

conditions because they're living in poor quality housing in areas that

are more susceptible to disaster.

Some of our trouble is caused by walking away from God.

He's good and all his ways are good.

The Bible says that every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from

the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.

When we turn our backs on God, we turn our backs on the source of all goodness.

But there's another reason that we can have trouble in our lives, as we'll

see when we read today's passage.

Today we're going to look at yet another part of the life of a guy

called Paul, formerly known as Saul, where he is in trouble yet again.

If you're new to Crowd or the Christian faith, let me give you some background.

Saul was a very religious Jew who had been so passionate about his faith that he

had approved of Christians being killed.

And he believed they were teaching what they were teaching was wrong

and would draw people away from God.

But he then had a dramatic experience of God where Jesus appeared to

him in a vision and basically told him that what he what the

Christians were teaching was true.

That although he'd been passionately religious, he'd been passionately wrong.

So he too became a follower of Jesus and went on a few missionary

journeys to spread the message getting into lots of trouble on the way.

Today he's in trouble again.

He's been teaching in the temple in Jerusalem for seven days.

When another group of Jews stirred up the crowd against him and falsely accused

him, they dragged him out of the temple with the intention of killing him.

However, the Romans, who were the occupying force at the time,

got wind of what was going on and heard the city was in uproar.

Soldiers and centurions were sent to intervene.

They took Paul to their barracks to be interviewed and whipped.

As he was about to be whipped, Paul dropped in the fact that he was a Roman

citizen, which scared the commander and the other soldiers, as it was

illegal to scourge a Roman citizen.

And this is where we pick up the story today.

I'll explain as we go on, and then focus on one verse at the end.

The commander wanted to find out exactly why Paul was being accused by the Jews,

so the next day he released him and ordered the chief priests and all the

members of the Sanhedrin to assemble.

Then he brought Paul and had him stand before them.

Now this was not a trial, the purpose of this was to see if

there was a case for a trial.

So Paul looked straight at the Sanhedrin and said, My brothers, I fulfilled my duty

to God in all good conscience to this day.

At this, the high priest and Ananias ordered those standing near

Paul to strike him on the mouth.

Now, Ananias means Jehovah is Gracious, but actually, he had a

reputation for being a bit of a tyran.

Then Paul said to him, God will strike you, you whitewashed wall.

You sit there to judge me according to the law, yet you yourself violate the

law by commanding that I be struck.

So Paul compared the high priest to a badly maintained and unsafe wall that was

made to look okay with a lick of paint.

Basically, Paul was calling Ananias a hypocrite.

Ananias was there to judge Paul's case on the basis of Jewish law,

and yet he was ordering actions that went contrary to the law.

So Ananias violated both Jewish and Roman law.

Those who were standing near Paul said, How dare you insult God's high priest?

Paul replied, Brothers, I did not realize that he was the high priest,

for it is written, Do not speak evil about the ruler of your people.

There are several reasons that Paul might not have realized that

Ananias was the high priest, but I don't want to get into them here.

So then Paul, knowing that some of them were Sadducees and others Pharisees,

called out in the Sanhedrin, My brothers, I'm a Pharisee descended from Pharisees.

So the Pharisees and the Sadducees were both religious sects within

Judaism during the time of Christ, but they disagreed about certain things.

Paul knew he was not about to get a fair hearing, so he decided to use the

principle of divide and conquer by making a loud statement before the Sanhedrin.

He used the present tense to describe himself as a Pharisee, because in his

basic theology he still was a Pharisee, and he was also a Pharisee by heritage.

He said, I stand on trial because of the hope of the resurrection of the dead.

The real issue was the hope and resurrection of Jesus.

Paul knew that the Pharisees and Sadducees disagreed about

the possibility of resurrection.

When he said this, a dispute broke out between the Pharisees and the

Sadducees and the assembly was divided.

The Sadducees say that there is no resurrection and that there are neither

angels nor spirits, but the Pharisees believe in all of these things.

Paul's plot accomplished its goal.

When he was done speaking, a dispute broke out between the Pharisees and Sadducees

over the issue of the Resurrection.

There was a great uproar and some of the teachers of the law, who were

Pharisees, stood up and argued vigorously.

We find nothing wrong with this man, they said.

What if a spirit or an angel has spoken to him?

The dispute became so violent that the commander was afraid Paul

would be torn to pieces by them.

He ordered the troops to go down and take him away from them by force and

bring them, bring him into the barracks.

The commander had to react because he was responsible for the safety of

all Roman citizens, so he basically took matters into his own hands

and commanded the soldiers to go down and use force to get Paul out.

The troops were to bring him into the Antonio Fortress.

The following night, the Lord stood near Paul and said, Take courage, as you

have testified about me in Jerusalem, so you must also testify in Rome.

And it's actually this last verse that I want to focus on, and I want

to bring a couple of things out of it.

The first is this.

Sometimes trouble comes not because we've turned our backs on God and

are out of his will, but because we're right in the will of God, doing

the right thing at the right time.

Verse 11 says that God stood near Paul and spoke to him.

I don't know if that's with an audible voice, a vision, or just

with a strong sense in Paul's spirit.

One thing the Lord doesn't do is he doesn't have a go at Paul

for being in trouble again.

Paul's in trouble because he's doing exactly what God wants him to do.

So sometimes we can have trouble because of our faith, not in spite of it.

If you're following God because someone told you it would give you a

trouble free life, you've been missold.

This is not the good news about Jesus.

If you're considering whether or not to follow Jesus, know that following

him doesn't mean a trouble free life.

But it is a life worth living.

To be honest, you're going to have some kind of trouble

whether or not you follow him.

Better to have trouble with God on your side, rather than to have

trouble with God against you.

Secondly, God told Paul to be courageous, that is, to have courage.

Some translations translate it as be of good cheer.

The words were spoken to him when he was in a very fear inducing situation.

We may not all be in prison, but we all have situations in our lives at times that

make us fearful or are very difficult.

Paul is told to take courage.

Taking courage doesn't necessarily mean that the feeling of fear no longer exists.

After all, we walk by faith, not by feeling.

The dictionary describes courage as the ability to do something

that frightens one, or bravery.

Or strength in the face of pain or grief.

Or the ability to control your fear in dangerous or difficult situations.

So the phrase Take Courage suggests something active, not passive.

It suggests a choice.

We can choose to give in to fear, or we can choose to face the

situations that make us afraid.

We can choose to do what is right.

Even if that is costly.

I went on a bit of a rabbit hole, or rabbit trail, of looking up

other passages in the Bible that use this phrase take courage, or

where it says to be courageous.

And I noticed a pattern.

The command is always followed by a reason to be courageous.

And the reason is never that we're enough on our own.

The reason is always to do with God's presence, or his promises, or both.

For example, a verse in Deuteronomy says this, Be strong and courageous, do not

be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you, he

will never leave you nor forsake you.

In this verse, the reason given to be courageous is that God is with

the person and won't leave him.

I was talking with a friend recently and she gave me an example from her own

life where her son had courage because he was aware of God being with him.

She doesn't want to be named but is happy for me to share the story.

So the gist of it is that not long after her son was born he developed a

cyst on his spine and he spent a lot of time in hospital and the doctors

said that he could end up paralysed.

He was operated on and the operation was a success and they were told

that the cyst would not come back.

It did come back and he was operated on again.

And more recently, the cyst came back again and my friend's son had to have

an MRI scan where he had to lie still in the scanner for quite some time.

It can be quite scary to be in such an enclosed space for so long, and

my friend was worried about her son being scared in the scanner.

The thing is, over the years of his short life, because of his

health problems, he had learnt to pray and to know God's presence.

He wasn't worried, he said, Mum, how can I be scared when God's with me?

How great is the faith of children.

The last verse of the passage we looked at before says this, The

following night the Lord stood near Paul and said, Take courage.

As you have testified about me in Jerusalem, so you

must also testify in Rome.

So this time the reason God gives to have courage is a promise about the future.

He was basically saying you'll survive this current

incident and you'll go to Rome.

This is an example of how remembering God's promises can give us courage.

Years ago when my mind was one big mess, I felt like giving up on faith.

The following verses gave me courage to continue.

Jesus said, if you hold to my teaching, you're really my disciples.

Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

Eventually, as I dug into God's word and started to understand who he

was, and who he made me to be, and how life operated, the freedom he

talked about became my experience.

More recently I needed to confront someone about something, and like

most people, I don't particularly like confrontation, but I knew I had to do it.

However, I didn't have peace about how to go about it, and I

was worried about the outcome.

I prayed a lot about it, and I talked to a few friends, and then

one friend said one sentence that I just knew was the way ahead.

I felt like I'd heard from God, it gave me such clarity and I just had

peace about how to handle the situation and peace that even if it all blew

up in my face, that God was bigger.

Jesus had the courage to face dying on a cross because of

looking ahead to what was promised.

Hebrews says this, Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by

so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the

sin which so easily ensnares us.

And let us from with endurance the race that is set before us looking unto Jesus,

the author and finish of a finisher of our faith, who, for the joy that

was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down

at the right hand of the throne of God.

We're in the lead up to Christmas.

Now when we think about God coming to earth in the form of Jesus,

it's a time when we remember God's presence with us and his promises.

The Bible prophesied Jesus coming centuries before he

actually came with these words.

Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign, the Virgin will conceive and give

birth to a son and will call him Immanuel.

Immanuel means God with us.

The Christmas story also gives us example of people of courage.

Mary had courage.

An angel appeared to her and told her she would supernaturally have a baby.

She wasn't married.

She hadn't slept with anyone.

She'd have a bit of explaining to do to her fiancé and risked being an

outcast in society and yet her response was to say, I'm the Lord's servant,

may your word to me be fulfilled.

She had courage, but Joseph, her fiancé, also had courage.

Mary's pregnancy could have been a source of great shame to him in

the community, but he stood by her.

What situations are you facing now where you need to choose courage?

If you're already a Christ follower.

Know that God is with you even if you can't feel it, and he's

promised never to leave you.

Have you asked him what his promises are for your situation?

Keep going, don't give up.

Or maybe you know someone who's struggling that needs your

encouragement to keep going.

The Bible tells us to encourage one another.

It says, For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive

salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.

He died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep, we

may live together with him.

Therefore, Encourage one another and build each other up

just as in fact you're doing.

Let's remind each other of God's presence and his promises.

If you're thinking about being a Christ follower, maybe you need

courage to take that final step.

It can be a scary step, maybe like Mary and Joseph, you'd face ridicule

or shame from your community.

Have courage, look beyond yourself to the one who will

make all things right in the end.

As Christ followers, we have hope for this life, but we also have

a hope for the life after death.

An eternal life that we get to spend with our loving Heavenly Father.

I'll leave you with these words about this life from Revelation.

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

There'll be no more death, or mourning, or crying, or pain, for the

old order of things has passed away.

Wow, we've just got to get rid of our massive headphones,

we've got a headphone problem.

That was an amazing talk, wasn't it?

I think well, what things firstly?

Stood out to you, Ruth.

I have to go backwards, because

the one before she ruined my memory.

I liked how she Sharon was talking about courage.

And I think, I don't know when, like what she said about courage

being an action, not passive.

Yeah.

Yeah, to have courage is not the absence of anything, but it's

the choice.

Yeah, I think, yeah, if you think about perhaps, I don't know I like watching

war films of World War One and you say, oh, that person had courage and

it wasn't the fact that the situation they were in, it's because of what

they did in that situation, wasn't it?

Yeah, I

just, I don't know if this is relevant or not, I

literally just watched Braveheart when William

Wallace is waiting to be, of that horrible death and torture and,

and he admits in his cell that he's afraid.

There we go, try that.

He admits in

himself that he's afraid, but he knows still what he's got to do.

And he's, he's got to do it and he can't deny what, who

he is and what he's stood for.

So it's, yeah, courage is action.

I like what Sharon said with that.

Yeah.

Yeah, but I also think it's really freeing.

Courage when you're with Jesus is freeing, isn't it?

Because, courage on our own.

It's too much, I think, it's too hard, but with Jesus, we can have courage because

he's told us we can, because he's with us, therefore, he's bigger than us, therefore,

Yeah,

it's before we can do it.

Yeah, I know, we've got that, we've got him behind us and

in front of us, haven't we?

So we can stand up for something knowing.

tHat he's got our back and like in Paul's case, in Jesus case, even in the worst

situation, they both died because of this, but that, but they went into glory.

They did it because it, God is over all and it's worth it.

Does that make sense?

Yeah, I think if you come here Ruth, we'll just have to get a bit closer

because it's just, it's going in and out.

It's not really picking up.

There we go.

Sorry.

It's like we're on one of those um, radio show and we'll just have

to get, I've got my notes here.

Yeah and Sharon said.

Obviously there's troubles in this world.

We were talking before about our granddad passed away this week and

we've both been to an amazing lady's funeral on on Thursday and she died

way too soon but she knew Jesus.

Yeah.

We have that huge loss.

And the family have that huge loss, but they know that she loved God, she's

with him and we will see her again.

And that's not, we're not here to tell you about a pie in the sky type thing.

This hope that's a wish.

I often talk when I'm talking to people about Jesus and we, in, in.

In the Bible, in church, we often talk about this word hope.

And in our English translations, often hope can be translated

as a bit like a wish.

Ah, I hope that happens.

I hope I have pizza for tea.

But we have a hope.

And the Bible says it's a hope that's steadfast and certain it's

something that we can rely on.

And that's.

Why I want to bring this message.

Yeah,

that's the freeing thing, isn't it?

Yeah.

Yeah, it's true.

I think Sharon said it's better to have trouble

with God than without God.

Yeah, I like that.

And I always think that, I think, I'm so glad I'm going through stuff.

Life is hard.

I've got loads of things in our life and family going on at the moment.

I'm glad that I do that.

alongside Jesus.

We're not doing it on our own because he's good.

He has got answers for us, he's got guidance for us.

Fear will hold you prisoner, hope will set you free.

Yeah.

Jesus said truth casts out all, perfect love casts out all fear, doesn't he?

Because he is that.

Yeah.

And it's not a wish.

It's not a wishy thing.

It's like people say, Oh, it's a religion or Christianity or whatever.

It's a crutch.

But it's not making excuses.

I think when trouble comes, when things are awful, like somebody you love dies.

We're not just It's great that we can rely on God.

Yeah, and we're not and we're not wishing it away and saying that it doesn't hurt.

But there's, we know the one that we love and trust is bigger and somehow

we know there's more and there's an eternity and somehow we will get through

it because he promised that we will, he promised that we will get through it.

He promised that it will be our comforter and his promises are

true, truer than anybody else's.

Yeah, so it's going through, sometimes it's going through things like that,

that when you learn more about, about Jesus and about life and how much you

can trust him or not, if you don't prove something, you don't know if it's going

to hold you, do you, does it, do you?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I love that little boy's words.

How could I be scared?

God is with us.

He's been there before.

He's looked after me.

How can I be scared?

Yep.

And then that's not to say we aren't.

I'm scared, but everything we go through, we can learn more about how

to rely on him, how to lean on him.

Yeah.

He's fully reliable.

He's strong enough,

yeah.

Was there anything else you wrote down in your notes?

I like how Paul is talk talks how talk, how he talks

to them, the religious leaders.

Like he really, he doesn't soften anything, does he?

He is a real, yeah.

He really says it as he is, as it is and cause him hypocrites

and yeah, I just he, yeah.

He doesn't pussy foot around anybody.

Because he knows the truth and he doesn't wanna compromise the truth.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So with the whitewashed wall thing, I think when Sharon just, Sharon explained

it like something that was going to be something that was in disrepair, but

was painted to make like it wasn't, I've never seen it like that before.

That's really good.

Yeah.

I guess that's what a hypocrite is.

Somebody that's or something or somebody that's in disrepair,

but is made to look all right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So you can't tell people things by the surface, can you?

Yeah, I guess that's why the Bible tells us not to judge.

People, because you can't tell things

by the surface.

God's the only judge because he can tell.

He can look at our hearts rather than our actions and what's on the outside.

The, right at the beginning Sharon talked about the dispute that was going on and we

can have disputes and things in our life.

I'm doing the talk in a few weeks time.

And Paul then uses the same tactic.

He, I say tactic, he just listens to God and God gives him some

insight into the situation.

Sometimes we're not just to sit back.

We are to say and speak the truth.

And that might be just the situation he was in.

Paul just said I'm a Pharisee.

And half of them were like Oh, okay.

That makes things a little bit different here.

Don't be afraid to say what you are, what God's done in you and ask him for wisdom.

I love doing these talks because I'm talking now to you, but

I'm talking to me as well.

Because in my life, I just got to go, yeah, that's what I need to do.

It's so easy, isn't it to miss out on what God's got because

we're trying to do things without him, even though we know him.

Yeah.

No, that's good.

Yeah.

Cause he you said something then that made me think of something.

Yeah, you could, he could have got himself, he maybe could have got

himself out of trouble, couldn't he?

By by being a bit nicer, yes.

Yeah, but he couldn't because that would be untruthful to himself

and to the spirit that was in him.

And

God said to him I need you because I need you

to take this message to Rome.

So he knew that he had something to do there, some further thing

to go, that God is with us.

If you've got any questions, if you've got any prayer requests, so what

we mean by that is, if you've got.

Anything in your life that you're struggling with, if you need healing,

if you're worried about a situation, um, if you don't know this Jesus, please

just email in the website is crowd.

church, and on there you can email you can send us a WhatsApp, that

comes through to the team, so we'll get straight on it um, and praying.

It's, that's what being church is.

is about.

And that's why it's great that we can have Crowd Church, because um, you guys might

not get to hear what's, what's going on.

So we can.

Yeah.

Bring this message.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I, yeah I actually do love it because, um, he's the answer to everything

and life gets so complicated, isn't complicated and there's so much, so

many things to navigate out there, but he's, he is, he's the answer to

everything and not like a sweeping statement kind of thing where we think,

Oh, everything's going to be all right, but somehow he's answer to everything.

Yeah, I do believe that because that's what it's been in our lives.

I think that's what I was going to say about when you were talking about

Paul, like he didn't, he talks about his own experience and he talked

about who he was and what he knew.

And you can't argue with that.

If it's your own experience in your life, it's pretty hard to argue, isn't it?

And yeah, in all my life he's always been the answer every single time

to work stuff to personal stuff.

To, to being lost, I get lost a lot

and it, and

it all, even with Sadaf, yes.

And it always, it just, yeah, always gets me found again.

Yeah he's the answer to everything.

I love that when God spoke to Paul, he said he stood near

Paul, just that knowledge that God It's with us, not in a what's that?

Is it a Cliff Richard song where he talks about God looking down?

Yes yeah.

I can't remember the

words, but God is lit, he's miles and miles away.

God is watching us.

God is watching us, and he is watching us, but he, if you ask

him, he will stand next to you.

And that it's awesome, isn't it?

Yeah yeah, like the story of the three blokes in the fire, when

they get chucked in the fire because they don't, they weren't going to

bow down to anybody else, only God.

And it says they came out and they didn't even smell of the fire.

I don't know why that just came into my head then, but because, but then they

said that there was three people chucked in, but they saw four people in there.

Yeah.

And one of them was the Lord, wasn't it?

Wasn't it?

Because he was in there, in the fire with them, in the trouble with

them, and they came out and they didn't even smell of the smoke.

Yeah, he's not somebody that's just watching from afar.

Yeah, so

I've read that in the book of Daniel.

Oh,

well done.

Oh

yeah, of course.

Not named after me, I was named after that Daniel.

And again Sharon at the end talked about Emmanuel, which means God is with us.

It's Christmas at the moment, and you'll probably see that, plastered

around on cards and things, and it is that, that God is with us.

He didn't come, He came to earth as a child, as a baby,

so He could live with us.

He didn't come in as God who hadn't experienced pain and Suffering and just

life became God incarnate, God as man with us to go through this with us.

That's the difference between other religions and stories is

this God that was before everything came to be with us, Emmanuel.

Let's see if there's any Matt said, yeah, we're brothers and

sisters, we're not going to Yeah,

thanks for clarifying that, Matt.

Sorry, very big

silence there.

The one of the very first things Sharon said was that

he's the source of all goodness.

And that, yeah that's true.

Everything good comes from God.

Everything good.

And I can't remember what I was watching the other day, and oh, it was

these two people in this silly film but one of them was saying he doesn't

believe in God, but he believes in his family, he believes in himself, he

believes in love, and I just thought where do you think love comes from?

God is love, he invented love he is he's the epitome of love yeah, it didn't

just, Come out of nowhere and yeah, I think we forget, sometimes we think we're

bigger than him and we're better than him and because we don't challenge or, I

don't know but yeah he is love and love looks different sometimes, doesn't it?

But it's,

yeah,

he is.

I've been reading C.

S.

Lewis and Mere Christianity.

It's an amazing book.

He's, I like him because he's very logical, is how I think, and he said

yeah, in the world, there are good things, there are good people that don't know

Jesus, because God is good, God created this world, and he permeates through

everything, yes, we have illness and sickness and sin has come in, but our

God is there, and that's why he says.

Come and know me in the fullest, know me to the max, John 1010

says that doesn't he, I'll give you a life in all its fullness.

So yeah, come and know this great creator.

Yeah, you can see bits of him everywhere in nature and in people.

Yeah, but there's just glimpses, isn't it?

Yeah.

Come and know him fully.

We're coming to the end of our time here.

Next week we've got Matt Edmundson and it's it's Christmas Eve next

week so it's a non live stream.

So the talk will be on but there won't be any host doing questions.

Still if you've got questions then please just put them in the comments because

there's always someone that will love to answer those and get back to you.

It's been As always, a fun tech week, I do.

It's me Dan, I've got this weird electrical impulse,

sorry everybody, that as soon as I come near anything techy it goes

wrong, so you can blame me for that

bit.

Thanks Ruth, thanks for joining us.

Thanks everyone for coming on in the comments.

Oh, sorry, just looking at a comment that came up.

Thanks for Yeah, thanks for everyone in the comments, and have an

amazing Christmas if we don't, if there is no hosting before then.

And again, if you want to know anything, anything more about this

amazing Jesus, about this amazing God, please contact us on the WhatsApp or

by email, and we'll see you next time.

Yeah, have a good Christmas.

Thank you so much for joining us here on Crowd Church.

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