Pastor Gail – Opening and Prayer
1. What a privilege it is to declare that He is the Lord. If you would like, there are some Bibles around the room. We like to encourage people to take a paper Bible rather than their phones. You may wonder why? The people don’t know where the books of the Bible are anymore, because they’re just finding one Scripture on their phones. This is God’s love letter to us and we want to be so comfortable with it, Amen.
2. Reading from John 14: 15-19, Jesus says, “If you love me, obey my commands And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another counsellor to help you and be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live.”
3. Will you pray with me. Father, we lift You up today. We thank You for the wonderful privilege, dear Lord as we lift up our voices to You all together dear Lord, in this room. We say there is no one like You, and Lord, we glorify You, we worship You Lord. We’re so privileged God, to freely be here today, to say Your name out loud, to sing praises out loud. Oh Father, we don’t want to waste this privilege, but Lord, instead we say today, today we celebrate You. Who is like You the Lord, there is no one, great, great God, we praise You. In the name of Jesus, Hallelujah.
4. I don’t know how people are going to get here by car today. But here we are, and I think a lot of you may not know each other. But why don’t you greet one another as a family of God, and let’s just meet some new parts of our family today, Amen. You are not going to believe this. I dreamed about you the other night. I am not surprised to see you. It’s amazing, Hallelujah.
5. We are very blessed this morning. We have Dimitri Kontopoulos with us. I’ve known him, I don’t know how long. A long time, 15 years maybe, I don’t know, and we’re so glad that he’s with us this morning, for a presentation and we just pray an anointing on him. I believe your heart is going to be stirred. So, Dimitri, if you will come.
Dimitris Kontopoulos
1. Good morning, brothers and sisters. We are very blessed to be among you. We want to share something that God has put into our hearts. So, God called us, to serve those that are the least in this world. God has all of us to do that. And in our specific case, we are called to serve those who are trapped in prostitution. So, we are blessed to have a team called ‘New Start’, and we are serving those that are in the brothels and on the streets in prostitution in Athens.
2. So, our motto so to speak, is 2 Corinthians 5: 17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” So, it is basically that we are a new creation in the Lord and that the old has passed and everything has become new. Also, if we remember the story in Luke 5: 27-28, “After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. “Follow me,” Jesus said to him, and Levi got up, left everything and followed him.” There was the tax collector, and Jesus found him where he was, in his tax office, where he was collecting all this money of injustice. And He just came in and said to him, “Follow Me.” And the next verse says, “He dropped everything and he just followed Him.”
3. We believe in a Lord that has this kind of power. He can do the impossible. He can enter the heart of a sinner, and create an eternal holy creation. He did that for us, and we know He can do it for others. So, we go out in these areas, the women in our team, will enter the brothels, and will share the Word of God. How many of you would think that it is possible to have a time of prayer in a brothel? To share the deepest in the soul and bring it before the Lord.
4. Well, with the power of our Lord, it can be done. How many of you think that these people would read the Word of God and would saturate in the Word of God and would love to be in the company of God. Well, it happens. Because, they are souls as well and they desire to meet their creator. We go to them, we don’t expect them to come to us, that’s the commandment of the Lord, to go to them, and we do that. It’s as simple as that. It’s a calling from the Lord; it’s not just for curiosity. So, we expect people to have that calling from the Lord, in order to do the same.
5. So, we go out to the brothels, we go out onto the streets, we go out to the midnight transvestites in the streets of Syggrou, we go out to the Africans, we go out to anywhere in Athens where we can get our hands on. We are praying to the Lord to lead us to other places in Greece. And God willing it will happen soon.
6. I want to share a couple of mental images from Monday, what we do on Monday. We invite people to come over to our place, and we have a meal for them. We have ladies from churches to come help us with that, and embrace them and show them tangible love. We have a place that is a place of peace for them. A place that they can share their heart, a place that we can have a time of Bible study and prayer with them. Last Monday we had 12 people come, and we were blessed to have them. It is a blessing to share the Word with those that are considered marginalized, the scum of the earth.
7. I can honestly say for myself, that before I started doing this kind of work, I did my best to avoid these places. Little did I know that the Lord had different plans for me. And the Lord wants to go to these places. There is a Psalm that says, ‘There is no place dark enough for the Lord to be there. There is no place where the love of God cannot penetrate.’ (Psalm 139:12)
8. So, we have seen people come out, if you are wondering, we have seen people seek for a new life. We have helped them find jobs. And we want to do a lot more. And by the grace of our God, we are praying to Him, who is the Lord of the harvest, to invite more people to this kind of harvest. So, if you feel led to do that, approach pastor Gail, pray about it together, and if the Lord shows you to come, we want to invite you to come to His harvest. There are lots of opportunities to serve.
9. Some one might think that it’s only about the very dangerous of going out to these places. And the Lord, by the way, is always protecting us, we have never had any trouble come to us. There are other opportunities to serve besides outreach on the streets – escorting a girl to a doctor. It’s a very safe thing to do, and very necessary. Come and help with the cooking. Come and help with worship even. We have outreaches that are musical outreaches, where we will share the Word of God, not just by our words, but with our songs as well.
10. So, if God is calling you, please answer that call. And we would like to ask for your prayers. We are not an island in the ocean. We are part of the church. We are doing whatever we are doing, because the body of the church is supporting us in prayer. And so, we ask for your prayers.
11. Also, there is a little book that we have with us, feel free to take it. It’s the story of a person who used to be a transvestite, and he prostituted himself in Syggrou, and the Lord met him, and he is a new creation. And now he is a zealous servant of the Lord. And we thank the Lord, because He does that kind of thing. Thank you and bless you.
Pastor Gail
1. We are so glad Dimitri is with us today. And I always kind of amazed when people say they are bored when they are a Christian. Because there is so much to do. Did you hear this, what you can do? I’m going to ask if you’ll just reach out your hand where you’re seated right now. And let’s pray. How many others are here with this ministry – would you stand. Look, praise God, Hallelujah. And those of you that are near them, if you lay hands on them, but we’re going to pray for this ministry.
2. Father, in the name of the Lord Jesus, we thank You for the privilege of hearing this word today. We thank You God, it stirred our hearts God. Lord, we believe there are people here, Lord, that You will stir to come alongside to help and to serve Lord. We praise You, Lord, for Dimitri, following after Your heart, to touch the people that are so lost. Lord, there are so many people out on the fringes, on the margins, God, they are lost. Lord, we pray today, that this team, everywhere their feet go, every prayer they pray, that light will penetrate the darkness. In the name of the Lord Jesus. Anointing from the top of his head to the soles of his feet, in the name of the Lord. Amen.
Pastor Brian – Main Message
1. Good morning, everyone. Just bow your heads with me one more time. Lord, we just pray now that as we turn to the Word. Lord, You blessed us and encouraged us already, but we pray, Holy Spirit, that You would find good ground here today. Holy Spirit, as we continue our study of who You are and how You work among us. Lord, we pray that familiar topics would become deeper to us as never before, and Lord, in those areas of our life where You’d bring new revelation, new inspiration. We open ourselves to that today, in Jesus’ name Amen.
2. If you have your Bibles, we’re going to flip through a few Scriptures very quickly. You’re going to hear these quite a lot over the next few weeks, because we want the Word to dig into our spirits. So that when those when those times come, the Word can be recalled to our mind.
3. Pastor Gail, introduced us to the fact that He is a Friend. Over the next few weeks, we’re going to be talking about the fact that He is a Helper, that He is with us. So, let’s get these Scriptures into our heads and into our hearts.
4. John 14:16-17, “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to help you and be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.”
5. John 15:26, “When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father —the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father—he will testify about me.”
6. John 16:7, “But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.”
7. John 16:12-13, “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.”
8. Now, as we began discussing last week, the role of the Holy Spirit, the third part of the Trinity, God, His role in our lives is all encompassing. When we become believers, the Bible says, He becomes our Comforter. He becomes our Counselor. He becomes our Helper. He becomes our Advocate, the One who fights for us. He becomes our Intercessor; He is praying for us. And He is interceding, He’s interfering in our life. And He is our Strengthener. He is the One who gives us power to live. And I love how pastor Gail began it and ended it, He is our Friend.
9. Remember, we used to sing that song a lot, ‘I am a friend of God. He calls me friend.’ But that can be a very abstract picture. It’s hard to imagine sometimes, God seems in heaven, so far away. And here am I with my feet firmly planted on earth, and sometimes that distance seems so great, that it becomes hard, even for my imagination to picture God as a living Friend.
10. But over next few weeks, that’s a picture that we hope to paint very clearly, that wherever you go in life, that whatever you’re experiencing, that whenever those things are happening in and around you, that there is a very real Friend, that is right there with you. And as the Scripture said, He is not only with you but in you. Now, that should make some of God’s people say Amen!
11. What a joy to know that we do not have to labor through life, we don’t have to fight and claw our way through living this life. Life does not have to always be a labor, because God is always with us and in us. And because of that our victory is secure. Look at your neighbor and say I am a winner, and you are, because the Ultimate Winner is in you.
12. So, what I want us to realize today, is that we are partnering with the Holy Spirit. We saw that Jesus told His disciples in John 16, that He would send the Holy Spirit to them, which implied that He would be in close fellowship with them. Jesus didn’t send the Holy Spirit to be a distant kind of force, but He sent Him to be in close fellowship with you. So, this is a simple concept, but sometimes it’s kind of hard to enact it in our lives, that He desires us to partner with Him and Him to partner with us, moment-by-moment in our living.
13. And it’s in the concept of that the relationship, that the Holy Spirit actually fulfills His role in the Godhead. He brings to us the Words of the Father; He brings to us the Will of the Father; He brings to us the inspiration of the Father; He brings to us the knowledge of the desires of the Father; He brings to us the belief that we can fulfill the desires of the Father; He is our relational connection to the Godhead.
14. But the Holy Spirit is a gentleman. He doesn’t force Himself on anyone. He doesn’t force Himself, in normal circumstances, into your life. That wouldn’t work anyway, would it? Have you ever had a friend who forced the friendship too much? Now, the Holy Spirit is always available. He is always immediately present, but He wants you to give the invitation.
15. So, He is our Helper in at least three ways, that I want to quickly identify today. These will likely not be new to you; maybe not revolutionary, but actually, I hope that they become revolutionary. I hope they become real to you in newer and newer ways, because we know that God is always calling us to a deeper and deeper life.
16. So, let’s read from John 16:8-11. I want you to see these three things. “When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment. about sin, because people do not believe in me; about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; and about judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.”
17. So, there are the three ways that the Holy Spirit is going to help us today. I’m going to say something that might throw us a little off this morning. The Holy Spirit’s intention is not to convict you, the believer, of sin. I fact I’m going to use two different words today: 1) is the word ‘Convict’ and 2) is the word ‘Convince’, can you get those two. The Holy Spirit according to this passage, says that He comes to convict of sin because people do not believe in Him. I’ll come back to that in just a moment.
a. So, here’s number one. The Holy Spirit convinces us of sin, He convicts the world (the unbelievers), but He convinces us of sin. So, the first work of the Holy Spirit is to cause people to know that they are sinful. How many of you know that you are never going to debate somebody into heaven? Because the power doesn’t reside in you to convict anybody of their sin. The Holy Spirit does the work of causing a person to understand, ‘I’m separated from God, because of my nature. It’s my nature to sin, as an unbeliever.’ Now, the reason I changed this for the believer, is because as we have already heard from Dimitri, we have been made ‘New People’. Your nature is no longer that of the sinner. As pastor Gail often reminds us, it’s popular for people to say, ‘Oh, we’re just all sinners saved by grace.’ There’s a truth to that, but the fact is that it’s not true, because we are longer sinners. Our nature has been changed, and we are now called saints. We were once sinners, but we were saved. Now we are saints, our nature has changed, and we may still struggle with sin, but our fundamental nature is not that of the sinner. And if we keep telling ourselves that, we will try to live it. So, we are not sinners saved by grace, we are saints who sometimes sin. But the nature has changed. My fundamental drive is not to sin. Is everybody following me? That does not mean that the Holy Spirit does not continue to tell us when we sin. He is not going to leave us to our own actions. He convinces us when we do wrong. But in that, the role of the Holy Spirit is to remind us who we are in Christ. So, the work continues. He is constantly causing us to grow. But the role of the Holy Spirit, as it regards sin, with the unbeliever it’s to remind them that they are dead in their sin, separated from God. But in the heart and mind of the believer, it’s to convince them that they belong to God and should sin no more. And that might just sound like two sides of the same coin to you, but it’s not. For each of us sitting in this room today, who believe in Jesus Christ, the role of the Holy Spirit is never to condemn us, but to convince us who we are in Christ Jesus. And that’s a fundamental difference. We need to be made new by the changing of our mind.
b. Secondly, the Holy Spirit convinces us of righteousness. Jesus said, ‘This is necessary, because I am no longer with you, you don’t see Me.’ In other words, it is the role of the Holy Spirit to remind you that you are of the Father, and because you are of the Father you have been made righteous. I was thinking like this; I imagined it like Peter, remember Peter so boldly saying, ‘I would never ever deny You Jesus.’ And then three times real quick, he denied Jesus. Jesus comes back to Peter after that, and He never condemns Peter for what he did, but He reminds Peter who He is, and he reminds Peter that he is of Jesus. And so, I imagine Jesus there with Peter, going, ‘Now, now Peter, you’re not so bad; don’t let that in your head; get that out of your heart.’ But Jesus isn’t here to do that for us today. When I act bad, and I know it, and I start to feel that condemnation coming into my life again, I don’t have a physical Jesus to say, ‘Now, Brian, get it together; do better, but you’re Mine; I’ve got you; the Father gave you to Me, I’m going to keep you.’ I don’t have the physical Jesus here to do that. But the Bible says, I have One called the Holy Spirit, Who is constantly, Cielo, reminding me that I am righteous. Come on Brian, do better, the Father is watching, but He loves you; do better, but don’t you dare let the enemy tell you that you are unrighteous. Because I sent the Holy Spirit to convince you of who you are. I like that, that’s good news. Amen. I see the heads bobbing, but it’s awfully quiet.
c. The third thing. The Holy Spirit convinces of judgement. This almost sounds the opposite of what I just said. But when we put all those Scriptures together, we see, 1) He convinces the world of the judgement of sin, The Holy Spirit will reveal to people their guilt. And ultimately the world will know that it will be declared guilty. One day, every knee will bow, one day every tongue will confess. The world will be convinced of its judgement. That will happen. We look at the evil spread across the world today, the wars, the hurt, the people left in the streets, those left without love of any kind, people being moved around the world as slaves today, children all over the world dying of drugs and diseases and all the things we can think of. People looking at one another with such hate, that can actually take the life of another individual. And sometimes it’s so pervasive, that we actually forget, how evil it is. How many of us are actually moved in our hearts when we think of the number of people that will die in war today. Or make it even more personal, the number of people around the world who will be killed today because they call Jesus their Lord. This is a world in great distress, and yet as people we go on with life, as though nothing is really happening. And that’s not a judgement on us, it’s just the reality. But one day the world will be judged. But that also has a motivation for us. I use to be afraid. I had this image of the final judgement. The Bible says that everybody, believers, unbelievers we all are going to be judged. But what’s the difference? It’s what we are talking about here. One is judged and convicted, the other is judged and declared free. I was afraid that I was going to stand there and that God was going to put up a big screen and show everybody all of the things I did in life. I see some heads nodding, I think you had that image too. That’s not our judgement. We’ve been made new creatures. We’ve been declared righteous. Our sins have been forgotten. But we live in a world of people who don’t have that same luxury, who will be judged guilty and who will be eternally separated from God. And the convincing of judgement in our life, is not for us to feel judged, it’s for us to be moved for those who will be. That we would not hold something to ourselves, that gives ultimate freedom and life. Dimitri said, can you imagine that there could be prayer in a brothel. Thank God that the answer to that could be yes. Because there are living souls who need to know the nearness of God. Can you believe that today one of the biggest revivals, one of the biggest times of salvation, are happening among soldiers on the front between Ukraine and Russia. That as they face life and death, God is showing up to tell them, ‘You can know life.’ And that message is only carried by us. We need to be convinced again of judgement, so that we can be convinced to beg those around us. Come to God.
18. The Holy Spirit is the Helper in this. And I bring this up and end with this point, is because I believe that only the Holy Spirit can put that in us. Some of us have been praying for 5 names every day, for how long now? A year. Maybe you have 5, maybe you have more, I hope you have at least 5. To my knowledge, none of the 5 that I’m praying for, have come to Christ, yet. And sometimes it makes me feel like it’s an empty prayer. It’s easy to believe things are never going to happen, when they’ve never happened for so long.
19. And when I was preparing this a couple of days ago, I sat and I thought of those 5. And I actually realized that it has become a routine for me now. That I didn’t feel the weight for what I was praying for. And God wasn’t asking me to go around every day, going Oh, God please, Oh God please, but I think He was asking me this, ‘Brian, when you pray, for the souls of people, ask the Holy Spirit to convince you of the importance of what you’re doing. To convince you of the weight it has in their life. Because you’re praying for life and death, for people that you say, you love.’ That’s how the Holy Spirit spoke it to me, and it brought me back to a place where I first started, ‘Lord I want to go to heaven with these people. I want to go with them. I don’t want to leave any behind. Convince me of this Holy Spirit.’
20. So, today let the Holy Spirit be your Helper. Let Him share with you the deficiencies, the faults that are in your life. But then let Him wash those things, cleanse those things and remind you who you are. Let Him convince you of your righteousness, of His righteousness.
21. I didn’t even talk about that. But part of that is convincing you that there’s a way the world does things and there’s a way God does things and they don’t often go together, and you’ve got to line up with God. There are probably areas of my life, where I’ve let my mind slip about how I feel and think about those things. But God remains a righteous God. But He has also applied His righteousness to you.
22. ‘So, OK Stavros, I’ve got you. I started the work; I’m going to end the work and you are righteous in Me.’ And let Him be your Helper, by convincing you of judgement. Because the world around you, the people around you, will be judged. And where do we stand in that? We’re the voice of God to the world. We’re the hands and feet of God to the world. But the Holy Spirit has to do the convincing.
23. So, I’m actually going to pray this prayer over you today. If you don’t mind just bowing your heads. Holy Spirit You are indeed welcome here. You are welcome here to rejoice with us, to remind us who we are. Thank You that we are children of the living God, that we’ve been made clean by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, that we stand righteous before You Father, because of Jesus and we are convinced of this because we have the Holy Spirit, with us and in us. Holy Spirit may You be here in a very present way, that Lord, if any person has been shaking in their faith, that they would be strengthened today in a very strong way, that we would out of here confident of who we are as followers of Jesus Christ. Lord if there are any of us here, that You want to speak to us and help us be transformed. Lord that You would say to me today, Brian, you need to check these areas of your life. And the Holy Spirit says, ‘Let Me help you make those things right, so that you can better reflect your real character, which is that of Jesus.’ And Holy Spirit, I pray, if any of us have become numb, to the hurt in the world, or if we’ve become unmoved by the lost, if the passion for the people that we love, who don’t know You is not strong, Lord I ask that You soften our hearts and renew that in us today. Holy Spirit help us. That’s who You are. It’s Your name and we receive it from You today. In Jesus’ name, Amen.