Pastor Gail – Welcome
1. Amen, amen. Would you remain standing with me? Praise God. So, from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. Today we finish our 21-day fast. And it’s just, if you’ve had something wonderful happen to you, or the Lord spoke to you, I would, that you would send me a message. Often when we push away from the table and have some times with the Lord, we find a presence, we find the Lord talking to us in a special way.
2. So, I’m going to ask us to read this together, and we’ll read it in English and then Greek, all right. We’re going to praise the Lord as we finish this fast. And thank Him that even though the presence of the Lord is going to be with us even more, as we’re more sensitive to Him. Amen.
3. We’re going to praise Him that even though the Lord is with us even more sensitive to Him, we’re going to praise Him that even though the Lord is with us even more sensitive to Him, we’re going to praise Him that even though the Lord is with us even though the Lord is with us, we’re going to praise Him with the sound of the trumpet. We’re going to praise Him with the sound of the trumpet. And we’re going to praise Him with the sound of the trumpet.
4. And in English, Psalm 150:3-6 together. “Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet, praise him with the harp and lyre, praise him with timbrel and dancing, praise him with the strings and pipe, praise him with the clash of cymbals, praise him with resounding cymbals. Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.” Hallelujah, amen, amen, amen, amen.
5. And as I was thinking of this Scripture this morning, then we’re going to pray this prayer in just a moment. I was thinking of how at Christmas, when Tina and her daughter, Ilma, did a dance for the Lord. It reminded me of David, who wrote so many of the psalms. Praise him with the dance.
6. Victor, praise him on the guitar for a second. Amen, yeah, amen. Amen, amen. We have the drums and the organ. Amen, amen. And our voices. Hallelujah, amen. Amen, amen, amen, amen, amen. And our hands. You know, the Lord is looking for us. Not to put barriers on how we praise Him.
7. So, if we could pray this together, we’ll pray Greek first and then we’ll pray. Together in English. Dear Heavenly Father, we offer you our highest praise. How grateful we are, Lord, for your word. We pray that our praises will always be spontaneous from our hearts as we celebrate your goodness and mercy that lasts forever. Excellent. We praise you and thank you for all the blessings and good things you have given us, especially, Father, that you sent your only Son to save us. And through Him, we have abundant life. Lord bless us as we go forth with praise in our hearts and on our lips. We thank you that we are your people, the sheep of your pasture, and that we, Lord, are called to serve you. Lead us in the way you want us to go and in what you want us to do as servants of the King. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.
8. Can I ask you, each one of you, just to pray in your own way? As we finish this fasting and prayer, that we will know a newness with the Lord and live in that in a fresh way, amen.
9. Father, we pray together right now, Lord, and we thank you, Father, for this time we committed to you and set aside, Lord, to, oh, Lord, give you first place. Lord, for you to be our priority, for you to be number one, God, so many things crowd you out, Lord. Life gets so busy, Lord. We have difficult times. We have good times, Lord, but just, Lord, often we forget, Lord, to make you first on our calendar of each day. Lord, to tell you, Lord, that more than anything, more than anything, I pray, oh, Lord, as we come out of this time of prayer and fasting, we’ll be more aware, Lord, of putting you as first, Lord, in our day. Oh, God, to take time not to answer the phone, to not look at e-mails, Lord, but to take some time just to close off everything and say, ‘Jesus, you and me.’ Because you’re waiting to pour out blessings that we’ve never known or never experienced. Lord, we draw nearer to you. We will praise you, Lord, with all of our souls. We praise you, Lord, in the valley and on the mountaintop. We praise you, Lord. Amen, amen, amen, amen.
10. Hallelujah. Now, this, you know, sometimes I’m a little strange. But I feel like we need to sing this again, amen. I see a spirit of praise in the room. Oh, amen. You know what? I have to tell you the truth. Every day is not going to be full of butterflies and beautiful flowers from tomorrow. Sometimes it’s not going to be so nice. But when we have a spirit of praise, amen, even in the valley, amen, we will know. Hallelujah. We are more than conquerors, amen. More than conquerors, amen.
11. Just praise the Lord. I’m okay if you walk around and dance. You know that. Amen, yeah. I jump for the Lord, amen. It’s for him, amen. A praise in the valley, amen. Hallelujah. Jesus, Jesus, yes. Yes, we praise Jesus. Hallelujah, hallelujah. If you would greet someone and say, ‘What a joy, to know Jesus.’ Amen.

Pastor Gail and Loukia-Maria
12. And you may be seated. We have a special honor this morning, Loukia-Maria. And if someone would please, Eric or someone or Brian, take pictures. We are very honored to have Loukia-Maria in our church. And she just graduated, and she is officially a plastic surgeon. So, none of you asked for free treatments. Pay her so she can open up her own clinic. Praise God. But very short. She’s going to give a very short. She knows I have to keep her tight. Yes.

Loukia-Maria – Testimony
13. Hello, everyone. And now, here in the church, we don’t even always shine from the inside, but also the outside. Yes, we can enhance this. And I want to share the great glory that the Lord did in my life. Six years, she really suffered, during which time, there were times of blessing. And I made wonderful business relationships. I was trained. Yeah. In the surgery room.
14. But the enemy, of course, was not quiet at all. He came against me very often, very much. Using specific people. And they looked for practical ways that they could do me harm. And in many ways, it appeared to be true, real things.
15. And I was afraid. I went backwards. I looked for another place to find a solution. I prayed in the Spirit. And the Holy Spirit told me, ‘Go get back. Yes, go back. The fear is coming against you. It’s pushing you out. No one and nothing can drive you out of where I’ve placed you. Only you can remove yourself.’
16. And from that moment, I remained faithful in the Lord. I advanced in faith in the Lord. And he made me become righteous. He lifted me up. And in the official exams, the final exams where I became a consultant. And the Lord announced me publicly. Three different plastic surgeons with authority, professors and high-level scientists they highlighted my qualities, my abilities. Yes, my clinical readiness, my sharp mind, and the way I thought. I was the first, the best, and all of the ones who took the test, hallelujah, amen. It was a big difference. They said it constantly about my clinical excellence and my sharp mind. This was all said before certain people who had tried in various ways to do me harm.
17. He prepared a table before my enemies.

Pastor Gail
18. Amen, amen, amen, hallelujah. So, Leto and Evie. And I’m going to also ask, let me, yes, oh, oh. Okay, Brian, if you’ll come up. We want all of you, oh, okay. Michael, since you’re sort of standing up, come here, please, my friend. Yes, you’re only halfway down.
19. We’re going to pray an anointing on her. Okay, and Leto, I think we have oil. We want her to be anointed for every moment, every moment from this moment forward. That here in Greece, the world will see people who stand for the Lord. Amen. And that our God is a righteous God. And he fights for us, amen. He fights for us. So, feel free to raise your hands out towards Loukia-Maria, amen. And pray however you want, amen.
20. Let’s lay hands on her and pray for her now, all right. Okay, Father in the name of the Lord Jesus right now, Lord, we anoint this young woman, God, for you, Lord, for service to you, Lord. Oh, God, from every part of her body, Lord, we pray and believe that God, wherever she goes, she will be protected by you, God. We pray, oh, Lord, that God, wisdom will come even in a greater degree, and humility, humility, Lord, God. We pray that you will open doors that no man can shut. Lord, that you will shut the doors that are not of you. We pray that she’ll be patient, that she will wait on you, Lord. And in the moments when she doesn’t know what to do, she will be still and know you are God, and you already have the answer prepared. God, we praise you, Lord, in this country that has struggled so much to have mighty Christian witnesses in the professional realm. We thank you for Loukia-Maria rising in the professional realm for the glory of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In the name of Jesus, amen and amen, amen.

Loukia-Maria
21. I want to thank my family here, Leto and Pastor Gail and all those who prayed for me when I was facing those challenges. They encouraged me and they spoke about the Lord, and the Lord blessed me and answered. I was trained and I formed good professional contacts in the place where I am now.

Pastor Gail
22. Praise God, we are ready to take up our tithes and offerings. It is an honor to give to the Lord.

Billy Hellmark – Main Message
1. If you were here last week, we started a new theme and we are going to continue that about a Biblical Worldview. I don’t know what you think when you hear those two words. I think we all, whether you know it or not, I think we all have a worldview. We have some kind of idea how the word works. Or at least how it should work. We only all have our own favorite version of how it should work. And I hope you don’t mind me saying this, it usually revolves around us. Maybe we don’t think that the world is here to serve me, but almost. But we sang here earlier, ‘Jesus be the center of my life.’
2. And he is the center of this world. We are going to read the Scripture. It’s a few verses from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians. If you’re visiting here, you know that’s not very far from here. And you know Paul, he was an educated person. He was a very religious Jew, a Pharisee. And we would think that he had a very good understanding about God. And in some way, he knew many things. But he realized that he saw things the wrong way when he saw Jesus.
3. So, we read from 2 Corinthians 5:16-19. “So, from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.”
4. If you remember Paul, he was persecuting the church. And then Jesus appeared to him on the road to Damascus. And it changed everything for him. It changed his world view. He said, ‘I no longer regard anyone from a worldly point of view.’ He realized he had a view of the world. He had a view of God. Seeing and meeting Jesus, he realized he was wrong.
5. I am sure through his tradition he had some good understanding and right understanding. But meeting Jesus, everything changed. You know, I don’t know about you. If you’re from America, if you’re from here, a lot of places, we think, well, we’re from a Christian country. We have a Christian view of the world. I’m not so sure all the time.
6. We get our world view. That’s a hard word, to say. I like Cosmo Theoria better. We get it from all kinds of sources. I’m sure all of us here get a lot of information, get a lot of views of how the world works. We have a lot of information about the world. From news, from social media, from friends, and all kinds of places. School, education, and it’s not always right. I would say it’s a lot of time, it’s not very helpful. And especially in the time we live in right now.
7. We are bombarded with views of how things are or how they should be. Who we should follow? Who we should even hate? And I don’t think any of us can just ignore that we are fed with these kinds of opinions.
8. One of the main things that Paul mentions in these verses. First of all, he does not regard anyone from a worldly point of view. It’s a good lesson for all of us. We are always pushed to view other people, other circumstances, other things that are going on from a worldly point of view.
9. But if we have met Christ, if we are in Christ, a new creation has come. The old is gone. The new is here. And that’s true for all of us. It means also looking at the world in a new way. All of this is from God, Paul says. I mean all the new things.
10. This is from God. He says he reconciled us to himself through Christ. We sometimes speak about atonement or maybe an easier word is reconciliation. And that’s foundational for a Christian or a biblical worldview.
11. We know that we, as humanity, we turned our back to God. Our relationship was cut with God because he’s a holy God. So, what does God do? Does he turn his back on us and leave us to our self-destruction? No, he prepares to come to this world. And he comes through Jesus Christ. We are the ones that broke the relationship. But he is the one that’s reaching out to us.
12. So, we have been reconciled with God. We don’t live in a world where God is far removed, with an angry God that looks at us, and cannot be bothered to reach out to us. We have a world with a God who loves us that reached out to reconcile us to him. And I hope all of you have experienced some of that, that God has come and embraced you and brought you to himself. But you know it doesn’t stop there. That’s just the beginning.
13. And he’s calling us as Paul writes here. He reconciled us to himself through Christ. And you know what? A lot of us say we are praying about what God wants us to do. What is my calling? Well, let me tell you one thing. He has given us, he’s given you, the Ministry of Reconciliation. You’re actually an ambassador for the King of kings, who is reaching out to people, not just the good people that we think are good.
14. And let me tell you something. I don’t think there is really such a thing as good people and bad people. We all carry something of God in us. We are all created in the image of God. Everyone. But we are all broken. We have all sinned. And we are separated from God in that sense. But God is reaching out for everyone.
15. And speaking about this reconciliation or atonement, the longer I’ve lived, I realize there are different ways of looking at this, what it means. You know, I come from Sweden. And I think about 150 years ago, there was like a revival going on and many people started to believe in Jesus. Two prominent leaders in that movement, they started arguing about what it actually means to be reconciled. They looked at it slightly differently. And it resulted in that churches were split because they couldn’t agree on how Jesus saved us.
16. They agreed that Jesus did save us. But how they couldn’t agree on. And I think that’s pretty sad. And I think there’s maybe something to learn from this. I think salvation is so much bigger. So much more wonderful that you cannot just describe it in one way.
17. You know, you have a diamond. I never really had a diamond in my hand, but I can pretend I have. And you hold it up. And depending on from which side you look at it, you will see different things or it appears different to you. And you turn it around and you see something different glimmering.
18. And I think it is a bit like that with salvation. Some schools of thought, they thought a lot about the guilt that we have before God. And it’s maybe painted a picture of a judgment seat or what do you call it, a court scene, where there is a judge and we often talk, sorry, now this will be a long one, where someone is going to be sentenced for what he did. But someone comes and takes the punishment for that person. And we know that Jesus took our punishment. So, praise Jesus for that.
19. But it’s not the only thing that Jesus did. In some cultures, the relationship we have with God has been more prominent, that was broken. In some cultures, they talk more about the relationship we have with God, that was broken through sin. And Jesus comes and restores that relationship. That’s also a picture of what Jesus does.
20. We also know that through sin, our own sin, but sometimes also other people’s sin. As persons, we are wounded and we need healing. And Jesus came to heal us and restore us. Paul writes about that we have been under the power of sin and of death. Not only the guilt, not only shame, but actually power of sin and death.
21. But you know, Jesus conquered both sin and death. He’s offering a new beginning. You know, we went wrong as humanity. We had Adam, the first in the line of humanity. But Jesus comes as the new Adam. He gives a new start, a new man, a new humanity. A new creation.
22. As we read, the old has gone, the new has come. And we can continue this list forever, what Jesus has done. And maybe to me, maybe to Stavros, one aspect of what Jesus has done touches us personally. And some cultures, guilt is very prominent as an issue. In some places, it’s shame. Some people maybe struggle with fear. And there may be other things.
23. But Jesus came and he dealt with all of it. And that changes the way we look at the world. He has forgiven your sins. He wants to heal us and restore us. He takes our shame. He makes all things new. And he does a lot more. And when we see this, it changes how we look at the world.
24. And I want to just say something about the ministry of reconciliation. It sounds like a government institution. I think every country should have that. You know, God took the initiative to reconcile us to him. So, what does it mean that we now have the ministry of reconciliation? Well, it means we can tell people about God’s initiative to take away their sin, their shame, heal them, restore them. And it’s something we are all called to do.
25. It doesn’t necessarily mean we have to stand up like this and speak to a crowd. But in all our interactions with people, if we have that, remember that God reached out to me. Now he’s calling me to reach out to others. Through what we say, how we approach people, how we speak to them, how we treat them.
26. Sometimes people hear more how we treat them than what we say. But I also believe there is another dimension of this ministry of reconciliation. Especially in this time, it’s important. We are called to seek reconciliation with people, with our brothers, our sisters, but even our enemies.
27. I’m sure you know this, what I’m going to say now. What creates the most engagement on the Internet? Think about your own use of Internet. Maybe you are different, but it’s actually those things that are hateful. The algorithm knows what I kind of think and like, who I’m following.
28. So, what creates the most engagement for me is to see something about my enemies. So, the algorithms are trying to show that hate is the strongest force. If we know Jesus Christ, we know that that’s not true. Maybe that’s how social media works. But it’s not how the real world works.
29. What is the strongest force? Love. But I think it’s so easy for us to be dragged in the wrong direction. And our worldview is twisted. And we tend to believe that everything that goes wrong and is a problem in this world is because of my enemy. It’s not you, Stavros.
30. And this is enforced, the more we use it. And we’re sucked into that. And you know we are called to be disciples of Jesus Christ. But if we’re not careful, we can easily be discipled on social media. Growing in the totally opposite direction than what it means to follow Jesus.
31. When Jesus came, even the Jews that were expecting the Messiah, they were not expecting a Messiah that would look like Jesus. He turned a lot of things upside down in their world. If Jesus had an account on Facebook, you can just imagine what it would look like. I wonder how many of us would follow that. Instead of following other things.
32. But we have a chance to follow him. And have him form our worldview instead. Maybe not on Facebook, but there are other places. So, I think this is, it actually is very serious at this time. And I’m not saying that one side is right and one side is wrong. This comes into families, it comes into churches, it comes in everywhere. And we need wisdom to understand what Jesus wants us to do. And have a worldview that is formed by him. That is formed by his teaching.
33. I’m sorry this became very serious, but it just is very serious at this time. I think even as Christians, as believers, we can give more attention and energy to these cultural wars than to following Jesus. And we can almost feel, how do you say, well we can feel it’s okay to hate our opponents. But that’s not the way of Jesus.
34. If you have enemies on the internet or wherever. Congratulations. Because you have a work to do. Pray for them. Love them. Well, Paul realized that Jesus changed his worldview. And it hasn’t changed today. When we encounter Jesus, the way we look at the world needs to change. And I believe that’s his invitation to us. To be his disciples. Follow him.
35. We’re going to move into a time of taking the Lord’s supper together. And we will take it here at a couple of stations at the front. Before laying down his life, Jesus gave his disciples and gave us a meal. Symbolizing his self-giving. In his body and blood, there is life.
36. Through taking the bread and the wine, we recognize that he gave himself. And we become part of him. And of one another also. Identifying with Jesus means recognize him in every situation. In every meeting. In every relationship. In every post on social media. We share in Christ’s death and in his resurrection in the new humanity he creates.
37. By taking part of him, he creates a fresh start. And therefore, we need to leave our old way of thinking and be renewed and seeing the world and people around us as he sees. So, as we take part of the bread and the wine, we express our need and our desire for him. We receive his life. And he becomes part of us.
38. So, we will do it like this today. We have two stations here at the front. And you can come up. Yeah, maybe there’s one at the back as well, if we don’t have enough here. So, you come up. After you have taken, you can return to your seat. You can pray with someone close to you.
39. Or if you want to go to someone and speak to them or pray with them, bless them. And I think maybe we also have a couple of people for prayer at the front. So, if you want special prayer for something, we’ll have a couple of people where you can go and be prayed for also. And when you come forward, if you want to come on your own, you can do that. You can come on your own. Or you can even go together as a family or with friends.
40. So, there is freedom. While they were eating, Jesus took the bread. And when he had given thanks, he broke the bread. Gave it to his disciples and said, take and eat. This is my body. Then he took a cup. And when he had given thanks, he gave it to them saying, drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.
41. Paul writes, it’s not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks. A participation in the blood of Christ. It’s not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ. Because there is one loaf. And we who are many. Are one body. For we all share the one loaf.
42. Stavros, would you give thanks?

Pastor Gail – Final Prayer
We are so thankful for the Word and the worship. I pray that, Father, we will leave here today with a determination to live for you, to belong to you, to show your love, your forgiveness, and the power of your presence. That it’s sometimes so strong, and other times so gentle, but your presence lives in us, and help us, Lord, to win this world for you, Lord.