Pastor Gail – Welcome
Good morning. It’s been an interesting week, with the storms and here in Glyfada, with the lady dying. And I actually have a friend that knew her personally. So, it’s just, it’s some ways there was sadness this week. But it has caused us to understand that even though man tries to control everything, God has the last say. God, amen.
And I, what a privilege to be able to come together and praise the One that absolutely has all control. Amen. And one day, we’ll stand before him and be able to thank him that he was with us always. Amen. In the good times, in the sad times, in the times we weren’t sure about. But the Lord is good and he’s with us. Amen. God is good. Would you stand? Let’s worship.
Pastor Gail – Reading the Word
I love this next song. We talked about last week that many of the Bible verses I know. I learned singing Scripture. Lamentations, and if we have Bibles, I think we have some Bibles out. But if you’d like to read in a paper Bible, in Lamentations 3:20-23. It’s in the Old Testament. Jeremiah is talking about difficulties. He says in verse 20, “I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”

Pastor Gail – Prayer
Father, we want to take a moment this morning to just pray, for Your peace, to come into this world which is overloaded with violence. Lord, there’s chaos in so many places. So, Lord, we just lift You up. We don’t have the answers. But Lord, you do. And this morning we know Lord, as you look down at this world. Lord your heart is heavy for us, Your people, Your creation. But we’re your people. We lift you up and we tell you. We tell you we trust You Lord.
Lord we pray for the Christians in the countries, Lord, where there’s so much war and murder at the moment. Help them to receive your peace and then give that peace, to share that peace with a world that doesn’t know where peace really is.

Pastor Brian
We’re reminding ourselves week by week that we remain in a posture of prayer. That before, in and after everything, we pray. And this month we’ve been kind of looking at the prayer that the Lord taught us to pray. In English we often call it the Lord’s prayer, but it’s not his prayer, it’s him telling us how to pray.
And today we focus on the part of that prayer that says to pray, give us today our daily bread. This very simple little thought teaches us that God cares about our daily needs. He cares about what you experience day by day by day. And that bread is not just physical, it’s emotional, it’s spiritual. And it’s material. But the daily bread reminds us a few things.
First, depend on God every day, one day at a time. Give us today our daily bread. It’s okay to have a big picture, it’s okay to pray for the future. But it’s very important to remember that God is present here and now.
It also reminds us that we don’t just pray about the big things. All of us have needs, some of them are great. Some of them are not so great. And yet they are important. And they are important to him. I’ve often, through 35 years of pastoral ministry, I’ve heard often people say, well, God doesn’t really care about that. I beg to differ. I beg to, yeah, I don’t agree. He cares, period.
So, bring the small needs to him. Not because he needs to hear it, by the way, but because it postures you in front of him. It also reminds us to trust him, when we are not certain about everything. You might be a lot smarter than me. But there’s a lot about life I just don’t know, I don’t expect, I don’t know how to. But God has my daily bread.
And then finally this. It causes this prayer, give us our daily bread. If we pray it and we mean it. It causes us to create an attitude of gratitude. It’s not just asking him, give us our daily bread. It’s also saying, thank you that you give us our daily bread. How many know that God is just that faithful. So, we become grounded in the faithfulness of God.
Throughout history, we’ve had many prayers in the church about this. In many churches today, they will be reading from something called the Book of Common Prayer. And they will pray this:
O God, our provider. Whose loving care reaches to every need. Give us today our daily bread. Empower us by Your spirit. To trust in Your goodness. That’s a good prayer. So today we pray this and bow your heads.
Lord, you know our every need today. And so, I pray. Provide what I cannot provide. Provide for us what we cannot provide. Give us bread for the day. And make that personal, Lord, give me bread for the day, and let that bread be strength. Let it be peace. Let it be wisdom. Let it be provision. Let it be our physical needs. Lord, let it be our spiritual healing. Let it be our mental reassurance. Let it be our bills paid. In every way, Lord, give us our daily bread. Because You know what is best. And we pray this first. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Pastor Gail
Well, you all look so good. We’re very blessed today in the church. Many of you may not know Jesse or Ellie. For those of you that remember Martha, this is Martha’s daughter and granddaughter. And we’re very blessed to have Jesse here today with us because the doctors didn’t expect her to live. And she’s walked down the stairs. And she has a smile on her face. So, I’m sorry, I don’t know if you’ve got my glasses on.
Pavlina. Oh, Pavlina. Oh, they told me, they told me. Pavlina. Pavlina. Pavlina, this is wonderful. These are people that I, well, not Jesse, but they’ve been part of my family in Greece for 40 years. So, it’s a wonderful miracle to have them with us today. And to see Jesse is a miracle of the Lord. It’s good for us to see miracles, amen. And then we have one sitting in our midst, amen.
Oh, Fernando. White hair, yeah. Fernando, how are you doing? Good, praise God. We’re praying every day that very soon you’re going to say I’m completely healed, amen. And Sunil, you’re very good, hallelujah. We know the cancer is gone in the name of Jesus, amen, amen. The cancer is gone in the name of the Lord, amen, amen. We continue to believe for Mary.
Pardon? I don’t know Barnabas and Sarah. Hi, Barnabas and Sarah. Oh, we have new missionaries from Korea via Uganda. They served in Uganda for six years? I don’t know how many years, but they’re here with us now. So, and we have you, we have you, amen, amen. We have all of you, you look so good.
Turn to somebody and say, you look good, you look good. Yes, yes, you look good, you look good, yes, yes. Yes, amen, amen, amen, amen.
My Turkish family, you know we’re family now. We’re family Turks. Yes, amen, amen, amen. We’re so glad to see you all here. Oh, my goodness, I love all of you and I’m so excited today to see every one of you. There’s no better place to be than with the family of God, amen, amen. Just being able to thank the Lord for who he is.
Did you know the Lord sings over you? It says in the Scriptures, he will sing over us. And Lord, we bless you. Lord, we bless you. You alone are able to keep us. Lord, you alone are able to bring us peace. We thank you for your steadfast, your love and your presence. In the name of Jesus.
You may be seated, amen. Praise the Lord. I don’t often get to think, you may be seated, I don’t often get to think the worship team. But I love our worship team. They are so good. Every week, we don’t have an extra day to practice so we run in here and we pray and ask the Lord help us because life is so busy. We just can’t find another day to practice. But I thank each one of them because, we really want to worship with you. Give the Lord excellent praise, amen, amen, amen. So, I’m thankful for our teams here today and thankful for each one of you that’s here worshiping the Lord.
We want to give the Lord our tithe and offering today, it’s for our Lord. And what a privilege, what a privilege. I don’t know if you have been praying and fasting but we are on a 21-day prayer and fast. You’re more important than that steak I’d like to eat. Or the chocolate bar I would like to have. Just to push away and spend time with him, it’s wonderful. I ask Stavros to pray for our offering today.
And as we give the Lord our tithe and offering, we’ll dismiss the children to go to children’s church. We’re thankful for Najeesh doing our children’s ministry. She’s been so faithful. Praise the Lord, thank you. So, your children, if they would like, it’s English and Greek, but they’re welcome to go to children’s ministry upstairs for the children, for the children, amen, praise God. Praise God.
So, we are in 21 days of prayer and fasting and just a few announcements just to remind you. Please do not forget Joseph’s cupboard. We seem to be having more people coming by for food and clothing. Kata and Henneke, I’m just going to ask you now, do you guys need clothes, coats or warm clothing? Are you okay in the camps? Are you okay? Okay, kata, it’s okay at the camps.
For those of you that sometimes feel a desire to help out in the refugee camps, Kata and Michael and Henneke work in various refugee camps, and so you can always go and ask them, what can we do to help? Our care groups have started, and if you would like to be in one, please come see me. And Tuesday to Thursday morning, actually Friday, Tuesday to Friday, we need to correct this. The church is open from 10 in the morning for prayer, every morning.
And one more, I think, and no, and we have young, the youth on what night? Thursday, Friday, 50, okay. Stavros is going to speak to the youth today, and we believe every Thursday we’re going to be having youth, right, Scott? That sounds wonderful, all right, good.
So, you don’t have to stand up this time but turn to somebody and say, I’m glad you’re here. And if you’re here, please come. Praise God, praise God.

Pastor Gail – Main Message
We’re beginning, actually we’re going to begin to dive into our sermon series this morning. This is the year of prayer. And actually, till Jesus comes again, and it always should be a year of prayer. And the Lord has laid it, several of us on the leadership team, we’ve talked this through. We want to see our church grow in the depth of the Word. So, on Sunday we will introduce a different biblical theme to help take you deeper in understanding the word of God. And also, in your care groups, you’ll be studying it. We’re talking about having a Biblical Worldview.
A Biblical Worldview. A lot of us in the room wear glasses or have contacts. And I think it’s interesting, have you ever worn glasses at the beach that have shading on them? And it makes the sun less bright. Some people like to wear glasses that have kind of a pink or a rose color. So, as you look through the glasses, everything kind of looks a little pink. I don’t know why, but they do that.
But how we use lenses affects how we view the world. I don’t personally like to talk to someone that’s wearing sunglasses all the time, that I can never see their eyes. I don’t feel like I’m really talking to them. I can see them, but they see me a bit better. And I always wonder why they want to hide their eyes.
I want to talk about very basically this morning what a Biblical Worldview is. It’s critical for us in the time in which we live. A worldview is the limbs through which we see, define, and make judgments about the world around us. All of us have a worldview, and it will change through our lives in many ways.
But another way to define your worldview is the way you frame how you see what’s real. It frames how you sense reality. A worldview helps you make sense of God because it develops a pattern of habits. And your convictions, the things you believe, it helps you make sense of God. And how we relate with God and this world.
For example, a two-year-old, his worldview is, I’m the center of the world. See me, hear me, I cry, pick me up, I’m everything. A Buddhist, his worldview is that he will be liberated, set free, from suffering by self-purification. A secular humanist, he believes the material world is the only thing that exists.
But we’re living in a world now, it’s like the entire world is having seismic shifts, volcanoes, earthquakes, the world is shaking. So, wherever I travel, and many of you that travel will say the same thing. I find people I thought were very anchored in their faith, they’re no longer anchored in their faith.
David asked us a question in Psalms 11:3, and it’s a question that resonates today. “If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?” Actually, this verse can also be translated. If the foundations are destroyed, then what have the righteous people done? Have we done anything to keep it from being destroyed? We believe this is a really important theme for this year for us, to become really anchored and have a Biblical Worldview.
We need to have convictions based on the Word of God. We need to be courageous to stand for those things. And we need to be compassionate for people who don’t know that. Very simply, we must know what we believe, why we believe it, and how can we share it with others. In short, we must understand in our faith, and I want you to take your Bible that’s near you right now. And we encourage you to read a paper Bible.
Please turn to Psalm 62. I want us to read from the Word of God ourselves, not just always on the screen. Psalms 62:2. We must be unshaken in our faith. Psalm 62:2 says, “Truly he is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will never be shaken.”
Now, we must not be shaken in our faith. Now, I want you to go to Romans 1:16, these are two verses you might even want to highlight if you highlighted your Bibles. Romans 1:16: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.”
When we are convicted and have a strong biblical worldview, we will not be ashamed of the good news, in fact, we will want to share the good news, the Gospel. When we are grounded in the Word of God, when we know the truth of the Word, when our faith is in Jesus Christ, our lives ultimately live out transformation in our world. If somebody asks you who Jesus is, you don’t have to go to college or university or seminary. You should know who He is and be able to tell who Jesus is to you.
People should see that we live on a truth that doesn’t change. Here’s our main point today. What you believe about God’s Word will determine how you view the world around you. If your worldview does not come from God’s Word, it will come from the world.
Fortunately, there seems to be a revival coming in the West among the young people. They have in England what they’re calling the silent revival. It’s like among teenagers and early 20s, God is beginning to do something. But apart from that, people who do research have been saying in the last 10 years, the percentage of people who say they’re Christians is decreasing and decreasing. The people that are called boomers, that would be people that were born after World War II until, I think, 1970, I think. They estimate only 10% of that generation has a solid, biblical worldview.
Brian, are you a gen-X or millennial? I don’t know what you are. Brian is sort of a gen-X or a millennial. No, you are gen-X. Brian is a gen-X. Elpida might be a millennial. Victor might be gen-Z, right? Victor’s gen-Z. Brian’s generation, they’re saying now, maybe only 6% of them. And worldwide, Victor, without the revival that seems to be coming, they say only about 4% of the gen-Z young people really have a strong, biblical worldview.
That’s actually quite frightening. That means in our homes, in our churches, in our personal devotional time and study time, we’re not growing deeper in love with the truth of who God is that made the earth, the sea, the skies, the everything. Amen.
Let me repeat again a statement that’s up there. If your worldview does not come from God’s word, it will come from the world. Now, let me go a little further. I know this is a little different for us, but I’m hoping this will lay the foundation for where we’re going to go this year. We want to explain, help you today understand the importance of a worldview. Our worldview establishes what we believe to be real.
I believe heaven is real. I believe God is real. I believe that when I die, I either go into heaven or hell. Those places are real. Do I understand it all? No, but I believe they’re real. Our beliefs establish what we believe is true.
Do you believe that God is our creator? Do you believe we came from monkeys or do you believe that God created man in his image? Believe it or not, recently I was in a discussion with what I thought were Bible-believing Christians, who said to me, well perhaps we evolved from maybe little bacteria that came up on the earth and it turned into a frog or whatever, and then it turned into another animal, and then another animal, it just evolved. It evolved.
I believe I am made in the image of God. And very courageously, I will say that. People might make fun of us. They might laugh at us. But when you know what is true and you hold to it, it encourages you and strengthens you. Our values determine what we believe is good. I mean, this can take on many forms, right? I know it is good for me not to eat chocolate every day, all day long, and only chocolate. I can’t think of anything at the moment. Actually, maybe you can.
But I believe, I know I believe what is good comes from God. Every good and perfect gift comes from God. Amen. Our behavior influences what we do. I personally experienced this when we are not praying or talking to the Lord like we should and just really staying in that beautiful communion with Him.
We can be in Athens traffic. And you’re at the light. Somebody comes up. And you’ve already waited four lights to get through that light. And they come right in front of you. They cut you off. And they don’t even go when the light turns. They’re the only one that gets through the light. It’s all I can do. I used to say, God bless you. God bless you. I would roll my window down and say, God bless you.
You need to get back there. I feel like I’m doing pretty good because I don’t say anything at the moment. But when I’m really good and at peace with the Lord, the traffic can really bother me. But I’m good. It really does. Being in the presence of the Lord, it influences how we act, how we react.
Having a biblical worldview, is so important because it helps you make sense of some really big questions? Who am I? What’s my purpose? How should I live? What happens when I die? These things we have answers for, when we have a biblical worldview.
So often people in the world have an attitude. I want whatever works well for me. I don’t care about you. Or my worth is tied to what I own. Do you see how big my house is? Do you see how large my bank account is? A big one that’s hitting the world today is, you can believe what you want to believe, and I’ll believe what I want to believe. Because my truth is more important than absolute truth. In the world today, there is really no absolute truth.
But God wants to get involved in our lives. And what we believe be formed and fashioned by him. Unfortunately, many people today, they’re not searching for truth. They’re searching for happiness. And happiness is fleeting. It won’t last forever.
We must be challenged to view everything through the Word of God. Amen. I say this again. If we’re not intentionally being transformed by the Word of God, we will end up being conformed by the world. Now, I’m going to ask you to do something. We don’t normally do this, but I would like you to stand, and we’re going to read these Scriptures. We’ll read English first, and then we’ll read Greek. Everyone together in English. Romans 12:1-2. “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
Now, Greek. Amen. Amen. You may be seated. Praise God.
Based on this Scripture, I want to share with you very quickly, 7 ways today, there’s more, but 7 ways today to develop a Biblical Worldview, and it’s based on the Scripture we just read.
Number one, respond to God’s urgent appeal. Romans 12 when it says, ‘I appeal to you, I urge you, basically I beg you to.’ Paul is writing this here, and he is actually making a very urgent call. He’s asking us to make a decision using our wills, I will decide to give myself to the Lord.
Number two, allow your behaviors to flow from your beliefs. Paul is making a shift from Romans 11 to Romans 12, changing more from theology to conduct, how to do it. And he’s saying, because you live in Jesus, your life is based on him, then you need to put the life of Christ into practice in your life. Do you believe the Bible is the Word of God, let me ask you today, do you believe that? That it’s God-breathed, that it’s living. If you believe the Bible is the Word of God, it should determine your beliefs and behavior. He’s urging the family of God, put it into practice.
Number three, be motivated by God’s mercies. And it doesn’t just say, by the mercy, singular, it’s plural. I love this so much, in 2 Corinthians, God is called the father of mercies, multiple. His mercy saved me, amen, his mercy. He demonstrated his mercy to us. We were lost. We were just doing our own thing, but the mercy of God came to us and rescued us. There’s a song, and I love it, it says, ‘love so amazing, so divine. It demands my soul, my life, my all, because of God’s great mercy.’
Sometimes we think God owes us something, but he paid it all to give us. Life eternal, oh my goodness. The mercy of God, it saved us. Grace, sometimes just really quickly, we get that confused. The grace of God is shown, when we get what we don’t deserve. I don’t deserve salvation. I didn’t do anything to get it. Jesus did it all, amen. But his love is so great. And then the mercy, it keeps us from getting what we do deserve. We sang it this morning, Lamentations, “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end.” Oh, my goodness, hallelujah. What do you believe about the word of God? It will determine how you live in this world. Let the word of God be your foundation and not the world.
Number four, offer your body on God’s altar. Now I’m going to stay here for just a second. Paul urges us to present our bodies a living sacrifice. It’s kind of a technical term because in the Old Testament, or even now, the way the Jewish religion would believe, it’s the description of offering the animal to sacrifice on the altar, presented on the altar. The live animal was brought to the priest. And the owner would lay his hands on the animal. And symbolically, he would say, this animal is taking my place. That animal was then killed. And the blood was sprinkled on the altar. And then it was burned completely.
I love this too about in the Old Testament. The fire was never supposed to go out. It was burning all the time. Each and every morning, the priest would lay fresh wood to keep the fire burning. He would present an offering to God.
And so here we see Paul says, present your body a living sacrifice. For the Jews that were here, this was a strange idea. Because the only thing they had to relate to was when Abraham offered Isaac his son. But of course, God intervened. But they were accustomed to bringing the offering of the animal. And so of course, once you put the offering there, it was killed, burned up. You couldn’t take it back. You had taken your hands off of it. It’s burned up. It’s gone.
When we present our bodies to the Lord, we’re challenged to offer all that we are, all that we are, our total being to Him. Not just bits and pieces. And that’s what we do sometimes with God. Let’s make a deal, God. I’ll give you my time if you’ll do this for me. Lord, I’ll try to go church a little bit more if you’ll answer this prayer.
But we are to present our offering and take our hands off. We give Him ourselves. Present your body. It means your entire life, your activities, everything. I’ll tell you just a little quick joke, okay? There was a pig and a chicken. And they’re walking down the road together. And there was a sign that said, we’re having a breakfast fundraiser. So, the chicken said to the pig, oh, let’s do something. That’s a worthy cause. And the chicken said, I’ll give an egg and you give some ham. And the pig goes, for you it’s a contribution. For me it’s a total commitment.
Too many of us, we make contributions to God. But we resist total commitment. God doesn’t want to be just part of your life. He’s looking for believers that will be completely sold out to Him. Because you live, I live. All to Jesus I surrender. He’s my life my all.
Being a living sacrifice, I think too many of us keep crawling off of the altar. They call off the altar, they don’t stay there. But we need to stay offering ourselves to the Lord. This offering is spiritual worship. It’s not just today you came here and you sing songs and you’re listening to a sermon. So, you would say, oh, I’ve come to worship. But what God is looking for is true worship by presenting your body, yourself, who you are. As a living sacrifice to serve Him every day, every day, every moment, in every way.
By the way, just a little advertisement too. We should never say, I didn’t get anything out of church today, I didn’t get anything out of worship today. Because guess what? It’s not about getting. It’s about giving yourself to the Lord as a living sacrifice.
Number five, we must resist conformity to the world. Do not be conformed to this world. And the verb tense of this word here, conforming, stop conforming, it gives the picture that it happens a lot, it keeps going on. But Paul is saying, quit being formed and fashioned by the push of the world. Sometimes we are so conformed to the world that there’s a very little difference between Christians and non-Christians. That’s troubling. And I think too many of us, Lord help us out, I’m talking about worldwide, not just this church.
It’s kind of like, you know, if you drop a frog into hot water, it’s going to immediately jump out. But if you have just regular tap water and you put the frog in the regular water, it gets comfortable. And you put it on the stove and you begin to turn on the heat. And the frog won’t even realize it’s getting hotter and hotter and hotter and he will boil to death.
The changes happen so slowly and this is what is happening in our culture. Although I think the changes are speeding up. I think the changes are speeding up. The changes are happening and perhaps we haven’t been noticing. And we’ve become apathetic to things that are contrary to the Word of God. We need to search our hearts and lives every day. Lord, I want to be like you, not like the world.
Number six, receive transformation from the word. There’s kind of a negative command in this section of Romans and a positive command. Don’t be like the world. Instead, be transformed by the renewal of your mind.
This means there’s an interchange. I like this by J.B. Phillips. It’s one of his translations. He says, ‘Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its mold. But let God remold your mind from within.’
And number seven, adjust your will to God’s will. The last part of Romans 12:2 says that by testing you will discern what the will of God is and what is good and acceptable and perfect. Until you offer him all that you are, your body, your mind, your will, your actions. There’s no way you can ever really understand what his good and pleasing and perfect will is. And you won’t have a godly Biblical Worldview.
Can I say this really simply? I think a Biblical Worldview. It helps us to answer the questions of the world from their Bible. We’re facing hard questions. Euthanasia. Abortion. Gender Identity. Huge questions we’re facing. What should the church do in a world that there’s so much hunger? Hunger. What do we do? Can we just say, oh, we don’t have enough money? Or what does the Word say we could do?
The world is becoming more and more self-centered. And the Bible calls for us to be others focused, to think about you, to care for you, to serve those around us with the love of God. You see, I really do think the closer we get to Jesus, there will be a greater desire in us to live God’s way.
And it will hurt us. It really will when people speak against God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit. But instead of being ashamed, we’ll show a broken heart because they don’t know the love of God that knows no limits. Jesus loves us so much. He was the final sacrifice for sin.
We don’t have to offer an animal anymore and watch it burn up. But instead, we offer ourselves. And we get this amazing trade. We get life everlasting.
There was a little boy that came to church one day. It was winter and the snow was blowing. He’d been trying to sell newspapers so that he would have a little money for some food. He slipped into the back of the church. He was hoping he would get warm in the building and maybe he could even sleep a little bit.
But the boy suddenly found himself listening to the sermon. When the pastor was done and he said it’s time to give an offering, the ushers went from row to row. When the offering plate came to the boy, he stared at it for a minute and then he put it on the floor. And he did something very strange and very beautiful. He stood up and he stepped into the offering plate. When he looked up, there were huge tears running down his face. He said, pastor, I don’t have any money because I didn’t sell any papers today. But if Jesus gave his life for me, I will gladly give my life to him. This is really what Romans 12:1 – 2 is all about.
As we give ourselves completely to the Lord, here, my Lord, I offer myself as a living sacrifice. I’m here to please you, God. We will not develop a Biblical Worldview until we offer ourselves completely to the Lord. He wants us to live for him. He’s calling us to live out this life. His life. Will you stand with me.