Pastor Brian – Welcome and Opening Prayer
1. But we certainly want to welcome you. Those who are online, I know there are some that are away at their village homes and island homes. And some of you who live away and just watch us anyway, so we welcome you today.
2. I’ll give updates on Pastor Gail and stuff like that later when more of us are here. But I want to start by giving thanks for those that are here to help out. Our worship team, faithful, Angelo, thank you, Victor, it’s expected of you. We have Manoli over there. We have a new drummer this morning. It’s fun to see talents develop, isn’t it? Cecilia, our fairly untrained audiovisual handle everything at the back of the room today. It usually takes at least two people to do all of that, and she is occupying that seat all by herself.
3. Our faithful companion in the pulpit, Stavros. Doesn’t he look good today? I think he has a newly shaved head. And then, of course, Leto, who’s always helping occupy everything. So, we miss those who are not here to help out, but we certainly thank those who are.
4. And when I say we miss the others, that’s not a negative thing, that’s a we miss them. So, we want to pray for our family that is abroad today. Lord, we bless all of those who are traveling. May they find your grace. May their travels be easy. Lord, we know that in today’s world, airlines and ferries and even cars, the roads can be difficult.
5. So, we pray that your graces would be with them. But more than that, Lord, we pray that your spirit goes with them. Lord, whether they’re able to tune in and join the service today or not, we pray that your Holy Spirit would occupy their minds and occupy their hearts and that your strength would just be with them in the name of Jesus. We bless you and we thank you. And we thank you, Lord, that you are here in this room with us today. And we know that you’re in the room because you’re already in our hearts. So, thank you, Lord, for being with and among us in Jesus’ name. Amen and amen.
6. It’s more important that the Lord does his work this morning than anything we can say or say. My heart at the moment is both joyous and heavy at the same time. I don’t know what that means, except that I think it means don’t move on just yet.
7. We have a couple of things scheduled this morning. I think Laura was going to give a bit of a testimony. I don’t see David. He was supposed to, as well. We’ll get David another time. There’s something about giving thankfulness and gratitude to God. I don’t know if you’ve ever paid a lot of attention. But a lot of worship, music, a lot of the worship songs in the last 20 years, have been a lot about what God does for us. Which is beautiful.
8. Probably for a century before that, people or pastors, kind of forgot about how important it was to recognize what God does for us. And it became a lot more about what God does to us. Especially if we don’t behave right. And so, I think it was a good adjustment. I think God, some people complain, but I think God gave us a period of time. To refocus on the facts.
9. And he’s a good God. And being the ultimate voice. So, I don’t have any problem at all singing about God’s goodness to me his love for me. But Pastor Gail and I talk a lot about the fact that we believe that worship is being refocused away from for us to him. Yes. That we’re going to begin to exalt the Lord our God.
10. Not that we ever stopped. But the focus, the emphasis will begin to shift away a little bit from what God has given to us to what we give to him. And I just want us to recognize this morning. Worship is not about us. It is in that we participate. It’s about us in that the Holy Spirit comes and occupies. But our focus always has to be. Great are you Lord.
11. And when we refocus ourselves. And then through a little bit of a period of time of kind of feeling bad for myself. But it’s tough to feel bad when the problems are really of your own making. But there are people sitting. I’m not saying this because I know any specific situation, I don’t. But I know people. And I know that there are people sitting in this room today, that are carrying wounds. Regrets, guilt, sorrow, offense. The weight of the past. Maybe the lack of hope for the future.
12. I was watching a movie the other day. Because yes, I watch movies. Yes, I watch movies. And much more television than I should. Mostly sports and shows that talk about sports. But I was watching something and it was just a stupid like I was trying to get my mind. I don’t know if you do this, I just wanted to think about nothing. And I literally can’t even remember what the show was.
13. But the person talking said. We spend almost all of our time, either regretting the past or reliving the past. Or worrying about the future. When in fact all we have is today. I hate to tell you but you can’t live in the past and you can’t live in the future. At least physics hasn’t figured that out for us yet. But when you can live, is now. And I was just struck. I didn’t think about this before we when we were practicing or anything else I was just struck in the moment. With the memory of that stupid show. That literally gave me a moment with God. Lord let me live right now. And if I’m going to do that. Let me do it in a spirit, of joy and gratitude because I have you.
14. Which is why we didn’t plan it. But my heart almost always goes to that song, I love you Lord. And I lift my voice. To worship you, Oh my soul. Rejoice. Take joy my King in what You hear, and let it be a sweet, sweet sound in your ears. Those last two lines; Take joy, my King, in what You hear, and let it be a sweet, sweet sound in your ears. Thank you.
15. Laura. You have a testimony for us today? Oh. I’m sorry. I thought Pastor Gail arranged that with you. If you don’t want to you don’t have to. But if you have something please come share. But you don’t have to. Zero pressure. We’ll get you another time. Maybe there’s somebody else.
16. I have. A short sermon. It would need to be short by now. I’ll just hold on to it. Cecilia, oh Cecilia you were prepared to share right? I may have just gotten all my names mixed up.
17. Oh, by the way. Pastor Gail is still at home in bed with a fever. So, she didn’t want to come to church and take the risk of passing it along to anybody else. But she sends her love. Please pray for her. We’re supposed to travel together to start a whole new leadership program in Tunisia this week. No matter what. Which is going to be very difficult to do if she has fever. Or is completely worn out in her body, yes tired. So please pray for her. She would otherwise. You know Pastor Gail. She doesn’t miss church. So that lets you know how severe it actually is.
18. But I’m just going to stop and say if there’s somebody who wants to share. Give you that chance here for a couple of minutes and if not, I’ll move on to something else. But if there’s somebody who wants to tell of the goodness of God. When Cecilia is done, just let me know.

Cecelia – Testimony
19. Thank you. Good morning. I never want to pass an opportunity to share about the goodness of the Lord. Since Pastor Gail told us that we’re going to have the service that we had last week for people to share testimonies, I decided that I also wanted to share. Because God has been good.
20. I was just thinking that next month of September, it will be 17 years since I’ve been in Greece. And when I came, I had no idea how I was going to make it in this land. But the Lord in his goodness and in his faithfulness has over and over made a way.
21. I will read a psalm that really expresses what my heart is saying. It’s Psalm 44. I’ll read a few verses from this, verse one. This Psalm 44:1-4 actually. I’ll read from the Passion translation. It says, “God we have heard about all the glorious miracles you’ve done for our ancestors. In days gone by. They told us about the ancient times. How by your power you drove out the ungodly nations from this land. Crushing all their strongholds and giving their lands to us. Now the people of Israel covered the land. From one end to the other. All because of your grace and your power, they did not take the land by their own strength, or their own skill or strategy. But it was through the shining forth of your radiant presence. And the display of your mighty power. You loved to give them victory. For you took great delight in them.”
22. When I look at the 17 years that I’ve been in Greece. It’s not because I’m smart. It’s not because of anything that I’ve done. It’s not because of anyone. Because when I think of coming from Zimbabwe, being black. Because I promise you, I faced a lot of racism in this country. And so, there was really nothing in my favor. But God. But God.
23. He is faithful. And I just want to share this because a lot of us will go through a lot of things in our lives. My encouragement to all of us is, no matter the odds, no matter the challenges, no matter what anybody says, victory comes from the Lord. If we take God at his Word. On our knees. God is faithful.
24. We sang the song ‘All my life you have been faithful.’ It’s one of the songs that I love, that we sing in this church. But my favorite one is, ‘Faithful God’ by David Baron. I would read the lyrics of the song:
25. ‘As the sun is reborn, and a beautiful morning, reminds me of your faithfulness to me. Through the lonely long nights. When the darkness hid the lights. You gave me grace to trust. And now I see. Even when it’s hard to believe. Even when our hope seems long gone. There’s never been a night, without a dawn. Faithful God. Unfailing love. Forever you are worthy of my praise. For faithful God. Unfailing love. We can always trust the wisdom of your ways. Faithful God. Faithful God. The heavens they are telling, of the glory of our King. So, we join with all creation now and sing. Faithful God. Unfailing love. Is worthy to be trusted.’ Amen.

Vassilis – Testimony
26. I want to share a personal story that happened recently. I have written a book about God. I’m editing it one more time before I release it. And the most recent change I’ve made is on the chapter where God is proclaimed love. And until now I saw a little bit more, typically a little bit more, basically that God is love.
27. But re-reading the chapter again and comparing the love of most people in the world and God’s love. And it brought something into mind, a situation that happened with my father. Last year, my father and I had an intense dialogue about something that had happened. I rode back from the beach to the house. My father was in crazy joy. And I asked him, how are you so joyful? Weren’t we just arguing just before? And my father said something to me, that when I was writing about this, the tears started to stream from my eyes. Because my father and God says that I will not let anything come between me and you.
28. So, there I understood that God, whenever he says, I will never leave you, I will never forsake you, I love you, he does it in a way, he means it. God doesn’t allow time or space or people or powers or situations to come between his love for us or his relationship with us. God has destroyed everything that can stand between God and us.
29. And even more, there is no sin, similarly, to how when I, with my father, had an argument, nothing stood between us. Somewhere in the Scriptures it says that God removed sin. And truly, the word, means that I take something out of its place. And it was only sin that could stand. And God took it away from its place.
30. And from what Cecilia said today and what has happened today, I really felt to tell you that God loves us in such a way that nothing can stand between us and Him. Amen.

Pastor Brian
31. Well, I hope you had a good morning. And now if you would open your Bibles with me. I’m only joking. We’re going to end it with this. I don’t know this. I guess I know it in Greek. I can’t remember it. But if you know this, let’s just finish with this. It’s called the doxology. Praise God. Go in the grace of God.
32. Oh, we forgot the offering, which I often do. So, yeah, come ahead and pass through. And as they do that, these guys will help me and we’ll just do this again. Go ahead. Lord, we bless this offering in Jesus’ name.