God Still Loves You

TALK IT OVER

Embark on a journey through the depths of God's incredible love and His unwavering pursuit of humanity. Engage with scripture that reveals the hope, forgiveness, and reconciliation that His love offers to all.

Our hope is that out of each week you will be a little more convinced that:

• God Sees You

• He Loves You

• He is Searching After You

• He is Using ALL of Life to Point the Way Home

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

How has God's relentless love transformed your life and given you meaning and purpose?

How does encountering brokenness and surrendering to Jesus bring about transformation in our lives?

How can we see evidence of God's transformative encounters in the Bible and in our own lives?

What does it mean to have childlike faith and how does it impact our ability to experience God's love and restoration?

Who are you currently sharing the good news of Jesus with? Is there someone on your path who needs to know about God's love for them?

How can your encounter with Jesus impact others in your world?

Transcription

So the whole purpose of this, of this series is trying to help us understand how God is seeking after us. He's, he's, he's doing everything he can to pursue us because the human heart is restless and it's trying to find a place to call home. So our, our prayer is that, God, you know that God sees you, he sees you well, you know that he loves you.

That you know that he's searching after you. He's trying to everything he can to help you find a way home. And our whole purpose of why we exist is so that hopefully somehow you'll see and experience and encounter God in something that said and something that's done, and you'll start to say, wow, maybe I should start trusting in Jesus.

That's why over there it says saying yes to Jesus. When you start saying yes to Jesus, things begin to happen. That's why there's a little round sign in the foyer and there's a coffee For anybody that can tell me where it is, you guys can type it online as well, and it's a round sign that just says this.

Simple thing, simple. Whoever finds God finds life, where is it on the phone? On which wall? The right, right by the kitchen. No, no. Who said by the kitchen? Kitchen wall green? You, you said it first. You can have half a coffee each. Half a half a coffee each. No, you can both have one. Yeah. It's right on the kitchen wall.

Whoever finds God finds life. We truly believe that with every part of our being. Ruth was trying to help us understand it. Last week when she was talking about how we encountered God, he speaks to us through creation. Through the world around us. He's talking to us all of the time. His majesty, the sun, the moon, the stars, everything declares.

He's speaking to us with our city dwellers. We don't see the stars enough. He should go out in the bush a little bit and can't wait till it gets warmer. Just go out in the bush, get up in the dark sky and you'll be amazed to go, wow, God credit all of this. And he even has time to think about me. I loved what you said.

Science is not in conflict with our faith. Science is helping us to understand what has been created. Our faith doesn't come unglued because suddenly someone says, oh, well we, I think it's 3000 billion years or whatever it took to build the world. And oh, well, some say it's seven days. Doesn't matter. In Genesis, God makes a statement.

It's not a practical guide on how the world works. He just says in the beginning, I created, don't worry yourself about anything else I created. That's it. Don't worry about how I did it. So our, our faith doesn't come tumbling down because someone says, well, I think it took several billion years and I'm, oh, it's seven days.

That's not the foundation of our faith. Our foundation of our faith is intrinsically entwined into an event that happened in the first century. This guy had the audacity to say that he would die, he would rise again, and he pulled it off. No one else has done that. There's no religious leader anyway, so I'm gonna die.

But by the way, I'll be back in three days and tell you all about it. He's the only one. If you wanna put faith in someone, you've gotta put him in Jesus for the eternal, cuz no one else has been there, come back and told us what to do. Not just a Bible thing, but a historical thing. So I don't have a problem with science.

Science is, science is helping me understand. Stand and appreciate some of the majesticness of what God has created. Even David Attenborough that was talked about. You know, like, this is amazing. I would love to get half an hour in a room with this guy and have a chat. And you'll understand why as as we get further into this, but this is a gentleman that he delves down into the intrinsic intelligent design.

It's everywhere. It's so complex and even made a statement about it saying we've only just scratched the surface, but for someone on reason, even though he's in the midst. This intelligent design and these complex ecosystems, for whatever reason something happened inside him that will not allow him to acknowledge God.

Something, I'd love to be able to delve into his past and find out what, so creation speaks the scripture speak. The Bible speaks to us. God uses this book. This book was brought together over a 1500 year period by 40 different authors, all different stages of life in several different continents, and it's in complete harmony and unity with itself.

It's amazing, but we don't understand it. Someone gave it to us and said, this is the most burning book in the world. We go, just don't put your coffee on it. You, it's important, you know, but we don't understand it. What, what, what, what? Okay, well, what, what do I do with it? What? What? You know? And we, and we, we run around and we go, and the Bible says this, and the Bible says that.

The Bible says a lot of stuff, some of the stuff you don't want to read, it'll keep you up late at night. It says a lot of stuff. Nobody in the first century was running, going, running around, going. The Bible says the Bible says, the Bible says this didn't get created until about two or 300 years. No one was running around saying that.

And in fact, today the Bible still doesn't say anything. Do you know that? Moses said some things. Jeremiah said some things. Eiah said some things. Ezekiel, Matthew, mark, Luke, John, Paul, George, Ringo, all said some. Some of you're awake. There's no Ringo in there, or George, but they all said some things. It's actually, this is actually a library of ancient documents.

Think of it like that. It's a library and the first half of it of the library is what's called the Hebrew Bible. Genesis through to Malachi. It was written to the Israelites. God was raising them up as a military nation to deal with the pagan nations. It's barbaric by our new Western humanitarian state.

And then you get to Matthew and it's like a whole new world. Matthew Revelation. Well, that is the Christian portion of the Bible. That's where Jesus is speaking. It's an all skate for everyone. We do far better if we just said in the Hebrew part of the Bible so people know us about or the Christian part, but God is using it to bring revelation to us.

The whole thing is inspired. The whole thing is inherent. The whole thing is all authoritative. It's just not all applicable to all people. Some of it was written for Israel. It's written to us so we can see how God dealt with this nation while he was developing them up and setting the stage for the Ma Messiah.

And some of it is for us. The Christian part, and it's to conform as to the image of Christ, which is why we say it's so important for you to read your soap devotions. You'll look at some of the Hebrew part of the Bible and say, wow, that was weird, how God did that. And then you'll see how it comes across into the new.

Oh, so that's what I'm supposed to do with it. So be inspired by it. Be encouraged by it. Be grateful to God you didn't live under it. I can tell you that much. Yeah, I'm so grateful I didn't live then. Just don't apply it unless you see it in the new, but God is speaking to us all the time, and the teachings of Jesus at work by the apostles is what God is using to conform us to the image of Christ.

The void that is within every human being starts to get filled with truth instead of being filled with error and half truths and mistruths. And that's the power of the soap devotion. So you beat me to it. Read your soap devotions. That's why I don't wanna say too much about this today, because every weekend at our family gatherings, we're gonna teach you outta the scriptures.

Every day we are saying you need to come before God. God will speak to you out of it, but I wanna speak to you about encounters of a different sort this morning. Because I, there was a time in my life when I was so completely broken and so completely helpless and hopeless that I remember sitting I think in on the middle of a tour, cuz I hadn't left the band yet.

And I remember sitting on my bed and I'm thinking, how on earth did I get into this place? And then years later a gentleman showed me how, This is one of my props here, Pauline. Don't get jealous

in case you're wondering, I've got two or three others here. Do you? And I thought, you know what? I kind of came into the world like this blank bit of paper. And then, and then suddenly things started to happen and like, I don't know what happens for you, but it's like, When, when I was born, my mum and dad were going through a really rough period and so there was a lot of tension.

There was a lot of conflict that was going on, and I'm only young, but according to psychologists and that that a human being, by the time you're two, you pick up your basic infrastructure about how you feel in the world. Not what, you know, how you feel, how secure you are in the world. And so it was, for me, it was like I, I was just really struggled in that area.

And then some of you may have been given up for adoption and that's kind of a bit crushing too. And then maybe you end up going to off to kindy and you're not so se you're not so secure, so you're not make friends easily and you feel a little bit left out. And then, you know, oh, this is not so good. And, and then you, you get off the school and cuz you're a bit awkward then they, you kids start, have you found out that kids are the most incredibly cruel people?

They really are. And they, and then they start, you get bullied and then you start going off the track and you're not doing so well. And then by the time you get up into high. Skill, you're angry and they dunno what to do with you. So they send you off to a psychiatrist or someone. They give you a few labels and a few pills to try and help it out.

And, and, and this is closing in on you. And then you think, oh, if I can just find something, I'll get married. I'll be so happy. It's gonna be so good. And then you get. Your heart ripped out because she dumps you for someone else, or he goes off for someone else and, and you think, and then suddenly you fall in love and you think, this is the person gonna spend the rest of my life and this is gonna be so good.

But you have absolutely no capacity to know how to make it any different. And so guess what? You're married marriage fails exactly the same as your mom and dad's, and you end up broken and everybody gets hurt.

Do you know any people that feel like this? Maybe you're one of them. Feel a bit like this. Parents felt a bit like this. This is the universal brokenness that we're all bo, we're all born into. First, you know, I don't know, you, you might not believe in Adam and Eve or anything like that, that's cool. But when God started, you know, he started with a couple of human beings and he gave them the opportunity.

I'm gonna, you, you just hang out with me and we'll work this thing out together and we'll, we'll play together and I'll show you how to live and, and you'll live eternally and all. But you can have free will. You could choose to go your own way, but if you do, there's this void and there's this death and there's this.

Sin and there's this brokenness that's gonna come. And of course, Adam and Eve, if you believe in Adam and Eve who've been around for like five minutes, suddenly knew better than God and figured this, yeah, I figured out ourselves and they broke fellowship with God. They decided to go it alone and then immediately for them, shame and guilt and fear all came crushing in.

And then that's what we are all born into. I just cannot wait to meet Adam. I have some things I want to say to him, you know, and they're broken and it caves in on us, but God still uses people, ordinary broken people.

Because when they discover that they're broken and then they stop trying to fix themselves, and they start trusting in the one who predicted his own death, burial, and resurrection and pulled it off. So pretty much whatever he says, from the eternal point of view, we gone with him. When he says, now you can actually just surrender your life to me.

I can put my spirit inside you, and we can start untangling this whole mess. We can start putting things back together. And when people start to encounter Jesus, he starts to then begin the process of starting to pull 'em apart. Ah, straighten them back out again. God sees you. He loves you. He's searching for you.

He's trying to point the way home. Then he does it through all of life. The evidence of his encounters is riddled in both the Hebrew text and in the Christian text. Some of the famous ones that we sing songs about and do all sorts of things about, well, one's Saul, everyone knows about Saul, who's actually a religious person.

He's a very religious person. He's, he's like an all-star religious person, and he's out to kill the Jesus followers. He's actually was the one who endorsed the stoning, the murder of Steven. And then he gets himself deputized and he's got a pocket full of warrants and he's heading to anybody's house and he's tearing the power.

And if he finds them, he's taking 'em out and he's having 'em flogged. He's having 'em put 'em away and he's on the journey and he's so, he's doing and he thinks he's doing God's job. That's the uncanny thing. But then, He has this encounter and Jesus confronts him on the road. He's struck by this light while he's gone about what he thinks is the right thing, and then he's transformed.

He's blind for three days, but he learns to see and he goes from the persecutor to the Proclaimer, and he writes two thirds of your Christian part of the Bible. It's amazing. Then of course there's little Zacchaeus, so he's a little short tax man. I think he looked a little bit like Danny DeVito. I'm pretty sure.

That's how I see. That's how I see him, and he's, he's a greedy man. He steals from the rich and he steals from the poor. He's just consumed with getting and getting and, but he's intrigued by this Jesus. He goes and runs and jumps up a tree. And then God looks, he goes, oh, I see you. Jesus invites himself to his house.

They have a conversation, and in the conversation, suddenly Zakia stands up and says, I'm gonna give away half of what I've done to the poor, and I'm gonna repay everybody. I've ripped off several times over. It's like, are you serious, Zakia? You've ripped everybody off. Not anybody, every, you've ripped everybody.

But the, something had happened to him because he had this encounter. This is what it's about. I'm trying to get you to see these encounters. God sees you. He loves you. He's, he's trying to get your attention. So we're gonna step through one now, and it's out of book of John. This is about the woman at the well.

It's a well-known story, no pun intended. Samaria is a place. Samaria was the place that Jewish boys were not allowed to go. In fact, it was so it that they, they were so not allowed to go into some area that they had to walk like 20 kilometers around it to get to the next place. So it's out of bounds. No Jewish boys are allowed to go there.

And then Jesus just gets this thought coming into his head, Hey, let's go to Samaria. So he goes, waddling off into Samaria. And I'm sure the disciples are thinking, we're not even supposed to be, we're not supposed to be here, man. Don't you know Jesus? Don't you know we're not supposed to be here? Yeah. And he just carries on and then he goes down and he sits by a well.

And in the middle of the day he just sits down there. And then this Samaritan woman comes up and he strikes up a conversation. And I think the disciples thing, what is the matter if we, you, Jesus, we're in a place we shouldn't be and you're talking to someone we shouldn't talk to? What is going on here?

What is the matter with you? 28 obviously must have frustrated them cuz they decided to go off and get some food or something like that. But he strikes up this conversation. Now the woman arrives at the well in noon, so that tells us something about the woman, cuz the women and the culture of the day, they all went out early in the morning.

They gathered the water. That was their communal area. That's where they, they had fellowship. And she's not included in that. And they would go out again in the evening, and she's not including that. She's coming in the middle of the day, which means she is an outcast. She's not socially acceptable, so she's coming at this time.

So anyway, Jesus in a place he shouldn't be having a conversation he shouldn't have, and let's pick it up. Jesus says to her, would you give me a drink? Now, this Samaritan woman says, Hey. Man, you're a Jew. I'm a Samaritan. We don't talk to each other. Remember? You think we're dogs? No. I did that part in, it's not in there, but that's what they thought.

They were, thought they were subhuman Samaritans. They thought they were dogs. That's how they referred to them. Says, how can you, how could you ask me for a drink? How could you ask me for a drink? We don't talk together Now, I love Jesus' response. He doesn't even answer the question. Jesus said to her, if you knew the gift of God and who it is that asked you for a drink, you would've asked him and he would've given you living water.

This is a strange conversation. This is strange because you just asked me to give you a drink. You have nothing to get something outta the world, and now you're telling me to ask you for a drink. So this is interesting. So she says a little bit about, well this is, this well, was created by Jake about father, are you greater than him?

And, and Jesus then makes another statement. He can't help himself. Jesus answered. Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again. Keep going. But whoever drinks the water that I give them will never thirst. She must be going.

What are you talking about, man? What, what, what? What are you talking about? And it will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life. She must think this is the weirdest day. You know, like someone's here that shouldn't be here and they're having to conversation we shouldn't have. And now he's talking about, I have no idea what he's talking about.

I have no idea. But this strikes something in her. And look what she says next. She says, sir, What you have just said is quite true. Hang on a second. Is that right? Have I g lost my place now? The woman said to him, give me this water so that I will not get thirsty and have to keep coming to draw to the well.

She has no idea what he's talking about. Yeah, but she wants some of that water cuz she doesn't want to have to keep coming out to the, well, why? Because the well was embarrassing for her. It was shameful for her. The women would laugh at her, the women would reject her because she's an outcast. She goes, I just, I just want some of that water.

Thanks very much. I'll have some of that so then it could get any weirder for her. And he just says, well, you know what? Why don't you go call your husband and we'll continue this conversation. And she says, well, I don't have a husband. And Jesus said, well, that's true. That's very true. You've actually had five and the one you shacked up with is not your husband.

And she's going, oh, oh were we talking about waters and wells? Weren't we talking about what? What has this got to do with anything? But then she catches on, something's going on, and she says, what you have said is quite true. What you have said is quite true. Then carry on. Sir, the woman said, I can see that you are a prophet.

She's beginning to acknowledge there's something, something's going on here that's a little bit bigger, and then she just launches into a dialogue about worship. He goes, oh, well, you know, US Samaritans, we worship on the mountain, and you Jews think we've gotta worship in the temple. And Jesus makes a few statements up there, which none of the end time guys have ever looked at, but they should do.

He says, this time is coming when you won't worship on the mountain. Or in Jerusalem, he was predicting right then, 80, 70, when ancient Judaism, the end times would take place and it would become no more. And they go on about worship. Okay, so there's worship. Okay, what about it? What do you mean? Well, the and and he goes, listen, the father wants worshipers that worship in spirit and truth.

And I'm thinking she must be thinking to herself, this is the weirdest day that has ever happened. So he goes on and then she says to him I know the Messiah called the Christ is coming. Is that up there? No, because I saw the Messiah called the Christ is coming, and when he comes, he'll explain everything.

Now listen to this. For Jesus tipping his hand, he hasn't even told his disciples at this plane. He goes I the one speaking to you. I am here. Whoa, this is a different day. Whoa. Okay. And then just at that point in time, the disciples returned and they're, once again, they're upset. They're going, yet, you're not supposed to be here and you're talking to a woman, and now what is going on here?

Then? I love this. This is then leaving her water jar. Leaving her water jar. The woman went back to the town and said to the people, well, she came out cuz she was thirsty. She came out cuz she was thirsty and now she's gone away without even taking her water jar. What is going on here? And she went back to the people and she said to them, and she starts sharing, sharing about this guy that she's met and everything that's going on.

Anyway, she's gone to the people that have rejected her, but for some unknown reason, she didn't get a drink first. Something has happened to her. She has another thirst being quenched and she doesn't know, and then suddenly she's gone. She can't help. She's telling everybody. She's telling everyone. And the Samaritans go, oh, okay.

And then they finally come out and say, we no longer believe woman just because you, we heard you say it. Now we've actually seen Jesus for ourselves and I'm thinking, this is amazing. Jesus is going to a place He shouldn't go have a conversation. He shouldn't have to help a woman realize she's got a need.

She doesn't even know she has. She thinks she's thirsty for water, and he's tied it to all the relationships that she's tried to have and she can't find any satisfaction. It's amazing, God, the extents that God goes, he's saying to her, I see you. I love you. I'm searching for you, and I'm gonna use whatever she was to quote a song.

She was looking for love in all the wrong places. God is love. We're all looking for love in all the wrong places. He is the love. He is the peace. He fills the void. He is what's missing. And when you try and get that need for love there out of another human being, it will break down every time because we don't have the capacity to be able to do it.

It's too much power. I just wonder how many of you have had an encounter with Jesus like that? How many of you had have had God turn up someplace you really didn't expect him to turn up, start a conversation with you that you really did not be expecting to have and for what purpose? Because there are people around you everywhere that need to hear your story.

If you can get your thirst met, if you can become whole. You can then help other people to become home. Maybe there's people in your neighborhood waiting for you. People at your work are waiting for that thirst to be quenched because they need an encounter that you've already had and should be taken to someone else.

It's amazing. But listen, if you're gonna do this, if you're gonna do this, we gotta, we gotta change some things about us as human beings, particularly adults. Because you have to choose to enter the conversation. She had to, she could have rejected that we're not supposed to talk together. She could have rejected, closed it down, but she choose to enter, and then God revealed a bunch of things.

You've gotta develop a curiosity and you've gotta become more childlike. I didn't say childish. We've got plenty of childish people running around that won't grow up, still gonna grow up in the natural world. But I'm talking about childlike, remaining childlike. Jesus said these words. He said, I truly, I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God, like a little.

There it is. We'll never enter it. There's something about you having your thirst met and something about you entering into this kingdom that comes only as a little child. Adults are, we're so cynical. We're so distrusting everywhere. The world around us made us like that. We're, oh, yeah. Okay. What's the catch?

There's no such thing as a free lunch. You know what's going on, but, but a child, they're so trusting. Like in India that lives with us, she's about 12. She just, I have a fairly bad back and she just runs from outta nowhere and she goes, no, I'm happy. And just leaps up and just throws her arms around me.

And she has absolute trust that I'm gonna be able to hold her up. She has faith. I'm telling you she's got faith. But I watch it with Dexter too. Like if I told Dexter he'd run off that. Dad's gonna catch you. He wouldn't even think about it. He'd just run off. Cuz he's growing up with security. He's not growing up like this.

He's growing up there and he's got absolute trust and we've got to, we've got to get to that place. There was a theologian, a German theologian called Carl Bath. And he's one of the critical thinkers of his day and talked about the interrelation of faith and theology and culture. And he was doing a a seminar in it was in seminary.

He is doing a series of lectures, and at the end of it someone asked him and said, could you please, could you simplify the, the Christian faith? What is your judgment? What is the essence of the Christian faith? And this is what he said. He said, I can distill it right down to something very simple. He said, Jesus loves me.

This I know for the Bible tells me so. Little ones to him belong. They are weak, but he is strong. Yes. Jesus loves me. Yes. Jesus loves me. Yes. Jesus loves me. The Bible tells me so I am pretty sure Carl didn't sing it. I think he just made the statement, but I threw that in there because I just wanted to see if he could remember it.

Yes. Now here's the thing. He is one of the greatest theologians of his day, and yet when push comes Toho off, he busts it down to Jesus loves me. Now, hear me on this, which is not even a theologically correct statement. Jesus loves me cuz the Bible tell me he doesn't love you because the Bible tells you so.

Jesus loved you long before that. Now we got the Bible now so it works, but you know what I mean. But people said they were amazed that this very intelligent, critical thinker could think childlike. And that's one of the things to encounter. God, you will only encounter him as a little child. You know, I was, I was sitting outside last week after Ruth had talked and I was sitting with a young lady and she came up to me and she said, pastor Kev, she goes, I so love it around here.

And I said, why do you love it, darling? And she said I look around and I see people like me. I said, what do you mean? She said, I, I see broken people that are on their way back to health and to healing. And I went, wow, you're a smart girl. And then she started talking to me about some of the challenges she has and, and some of the labels that are being placed upon her.

And I said, you know, it's, it's good that you're getting help and you're finding out what the situation says, but don't let that be your label. You might have that struggle. Don't let that be the labelable. Your label needs to be who you are in Christ, what your identity is in Christ. You are a child of God.

You are precious, you are chosen, you are more than a conqueror. All those qualities, let that be your label. You might have some challenges that you've gotta do some working through with because of the brokenness of our world, but don't let that label you. And, and she was such a beautiful girl. She said, I, I, yeah, I get what you're saying.

But she said, I just love that it's. This seems to be a place where people that are broken can come and, and find their way back. I actually got some, I'll, I'll post this for you. It's a bit later on. You can't even see that now. But there's some just, who does God say I am statements. Because you do need to have that identity thing worked out.

Study the follow crisis. Transformative, completely transformative. And if we could all just start at the point. Of Jesus loves me this. I know. I'm certain about it. Yes, I'm weak. He's strong. That's okay. That's okay. If we could all start from there and stop trying to fix ourselves, using our mind and that kind of thing, then just maybe if we were just surrendered to God, maybe he would just know which pieces.

To pull at what time and oh, it hurts a little bit, but, but maybe he could just start to kind of like slowly bring us back to God's original design. Maybe he could just iron it all out and figure it all out. Maybe he could deal with those issues of abandonment if maybe you weren't wanted as a child, or feelings of loneliness and sense of loss.

Mistakes, failures. Maybe he could bring us back to this God's original design. But I know, but you look, go. Oh, that doesn't look like God's original design, does it? This looks more like it. See, here's my second prop. See how effective that was? This is God's original. Yeah, but this is what I gotta work with now.

But here's the deal. After talking to that little girl, I realized what's the difference between these two?

This one over here has scars. When people see this and when people project this, when you follow Christ, Hey, look at me, how God all together. And they, they go, I can't live up to that. But when they see this, this is what she was talking about when she said, I see people I see they're scars, but they're no longer defined by this.

They're defined by who God says they are and they still carry the scars. But the scars give me hope. They give me hope. I can look and see, oh, so you got through this. Maybe God could help me through this as well. It's amazing the scars. You just need to know God will go anywhere. He will walk anywhere, break any boundary, and he'll try and enter into any conversation he can to get you talking, to help you realize what is the real thirst that you have, what is the real issue that's there.

Gives you hope. You know, people come in here on a quite regular basis and they, every so often they'll just suddenly come up and go, oh listen, can I talk to you about something? And I go, oh yeah, what do you wanna talk about? I wanna talk about clinical depression. I said, why do you wanna talk about that?

Cuz I don't know, I get a, you just look to me like someone that's been through that skies. The skies. Give people hope. If you've lost a marriage and go, man, that's not really what I wanted. Didn't see of that coming, and then you feel like, I can't fix myself up. Well, how am I ever gonna get back? What's gonna happen?

And then God will bring you along, someone that'll have scars and you'll recognize, oh, you've already walked through that. How did God restore you? How did he fill that void? Just by me childlike, just trusting in him every day, just trusting him every single day. Just one that God loves you. He loves you, he sees you.

He's searching for you. He'll use everything he can in life, but he's the one that can untangle this. If you try and untangle it, when it's really, really crumpled and you pull the wrong piece, you tear it. Trust me, I've tried it three times during the week.

Yeah, each time I tore it, because I was like, cuz that's what we like a bull in a China shop, isn't it? We wanna fix something. It's like, oh, look at that. But God's just so gentle. He's such a gentleman and just walks through that with us and he'll encounter you. Just like the woman at the Well Lady said last week that she was sitting down over here and she was talking with I forget who she was talking with beside him anyway.

They were talking together as Ruth was talking because Ruth was boring. No, no, just kidding. Just kidding. No, no. She, they were just talking cuz we actually encouraged that cuz people just interact about what's happening and she lent across and she said to the one beside, she goes, goes, oh, what have I got to lose?

What have I got to lose? A 92nd later Ru said something and goes, what have you got to lose? No, God was in the middle of that conversation and speaking, he'll use whatever. So creation speaks to us. The Bible speaks to us both in the Hebrew and the Christian text, but I think for most of us brokenness, This brokenness when we see people that are broken that surrender their life to Christ, and we watch him put them back together again and we watch what God does with them, and then we see this, all these scars, we go, man, maybe there's hope for me.

Maybe this hope for me when I gave my life to Christ, I was 21 years of age. What a mess. What a mess. Talk about a crumpled mess and my prayer to God was this. All right, if you're out there, I have completely screwed this life up. If you can do anything with it, it's yours. Amen. That was my starting point, and then he started doing this.

I said, well, let me talk to you about this, and I would try and go, oh, not that part. Let me talk about this part over here. No, no, let's talk to you about this. Let's get this right. Let's work for this and a little bit at a time, and a little bit at a time, little bit of time. And until where I am today, God can use broken people that are willing to walk with him.

Now, I know for some of you where I am today, I'm your biggest blessing. Others.

On the other thing, your biggest nightmare. But it makes no difference because I'm not here to please anybody. I'm here to let Christ ref be reflected through me. That's what I'm here for, and to give you hope that Christ loves you, went to the cross for you, and that God sees you. He knows everything you're going through.

You don't have to try and hide anything. He'll walk with you. He's searching for you and he uses everything to actually get you and say, come on, let's, let's iron these things out. You'll never get back to this, but every time I've seen someone that looks like this, I go, but when I see someone like this, someone that's made a few mistakes, done some things wrong, Sometimes innocently, sometimes deliberately, but has had the courage and the conviction to put it right.

Ask God for forgiveness. Get up, go again, man. That's, that's what gives me hope, gives me hope to keep going. So my prayer is that even now, God is having a conversation with you and he's meeting you right where he needs to meet you to have the conversation he needs to have right now. So that you walk outta this, you leave your water jar that you've been trying to thirst from in this natural world, and you leave filled with the well of God's spirit filling you.

And that's the daily encounter that these guys over here were talking about before. Let's pray together. Father, I just thank you that this is just the journey you've got us all on and it's, it's everyone's journey because every single human being, we're all born in sin and we can't get away for it thanks to our great-great-great-great grandparents.

But Lord, you made a way out of it. You know, we were caught in this rip of sin and there was no way of us getting out. And, and then you sent Jesus down, born of a virgin, so wasn't entrenched in this rip of sin. And then he took the penalty that that we deserved. And then on the third day, he rose from the dead and he says, now whosoever wills can come, you can come.

The door is back open again. You don't need to fix yourself. You just need to acknowledge that you are broken. And maybe right now, some of you just wanna pray the same kind of prayer that I did. Maybe you just wanna say to yours, to God in your own words, well, Lord, I'm, I'm a long way off. I'm broken. I, I don't know how to fix myself.

I've tried, but I'm, I can't do it. And then just surrender. Just say, I choose to surrender to the gift of salvation that is in Jesus Christ. I choose to allow him. To start to enter my life by his spirit to satisfy the thirst that is in there that I'm trying to fill with all the wrong stuff and nothing is helping.

And then over time, by his spirit on the teachings of Jesus out artwork by the apostles conform as back to the image of Christ. Lord, may we understand. You see us all the time and you want these conversations and you're searching for us. And it's not just about us. It's because there are people that we need to go share this with.

She ran from the, from the where she was to the village and told everybody and was the catalyst for the whole village. May we allow you to transform us all the time so that people see our scars and they get hope that you love them, you see them and you'll help them on their journey as well. I thank you in Jesus name.

Amen.