Ever felt like life's colors are a bit washed out? Like you're staring at a painting with the contrast turned all the way down? You're not alone. We've all been there, searching for something—anything—that adds depth, meaning, and vibrancy to our lives. That's where the good news comes in. 🎨Join us as we take you on an electrifying journey through Acts 13, revealing how the Gospel isn't just an ancient story but a life-changing message that's as relevant today as it was 2,000 years ago.
01The Message That Changed Everything
The speaker opened with an image that stuck. As a painter, he would photograph his work in progress and digitally adjust the contrast to see what needed more definition. For most of his life growing up in church, the message of the gospel had felt like a low-contrast image — he could make out the general shapes, but nothing gripped him. The basic information was there, but it did not arrest his attention.
"It was easy to look at but it didn't challenge me. It wasn't an arresting image. It wasn't an image that could hold my gaze like a masterpiece in the Louvre."
And then something changed. The contrast got turned up. The same message he had heard a hundred times suddenly became vivid, detailed, and endlessly fascinating. The question is: what happened?
02An Old Sermon in a New City
Acts 13 records one of the apostle Paul's earliest sermons. He and Barnabas had arrived in Antioch in Pisidia — a different Antioch from the one in Syria where the church had sent them out. They went to the synagogue on the Sabbath, and after the scripture reading, the synagogue leaders invited them to share a word of encouragement.
What followed was a masterclass in storytelling. Paul traced the entire history of the Jewish people: how God chose them, made them great in Egypt, led them out through the exodus, put up with their rebellion in the wilderness, defeated their enemies, gave them the Promised Land, raised up judges and kings.
And then he brought the whole narrative to a single point: Jesus. Everything in Israel's history — every promise, every prophecy, every hope — found its fulfilment in one person.
The sermon reached its climax in Acts 13:38-39: "Let it be known to you therefore, brothers, that through this man Jesus forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and by him everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses."
03What the Good News Actually Is
The word "gospel" literally means good news. But good news only makes sense against the backdrop of bad news. And the bad news, as Paul understood it, was not complicated.
Human beings are separated from God. Not because God moved away, but because we did. Every culture, every religion, every philosophy is in some way an attempt to bridge that gap — to find meaning, to deal with guilt, to answer the question of what happens when we die.
The Jewish law — the system of rules and sacrifices outlined in the Old Testament — was one attempt to bridge the gap. And it was not a bad attempt. It was given by God himself. But it had a fundamental limitation: nobody could keep it perfectly. The harder you tried, the more aware you became of your failure.
"By him everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses." That is the heart of Paul's message. The law showed people what was wrong. Jesus offered the actual solution.
04Forgiveness That Goes All the Way
The talk spent time on the word "freed" in that passage, and it is worth pausing on. Paul did not say "improved" or "helped along" or "given a better chance." He said freed. Completely liberated. From everything.
"The law could diagnose the problem. It could show you where you had gone wrong. But it could not fix it. Jesus does what the law never could — he sets people free."
This is not forgiveness with conditions attached. It is not "you are forgiven, provided you do not mess up again." It is not "you are forgiven for the small stuff, but the big things are on you." It is comprehensive, complete, and available to everyone who believes.
That word "everyone" matters too. Paul was speaking in a synagogue full of Jewish people who understood themselves as God's chosen nation. And he was saying: this is not just for you. This is for everyone.
Fifteen years earlier, Peter had preached a similar message at Pentecost: "Repent and be baptised every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off — everyone whom the Lord God calls to himself."
Same message. Same scope. Fifteen years apart and still the same breathtaking claim: this is for everyone.
05Why It Did Not Land for Years
The speaker was honest about the fact that he heard this message for years without it truly registering. Growing up in church, the gospel can become wallpaper — always there, so familiar that you stop seeing it.
"For most of my life the message I'm going to share today didn't really do much for me. I could discern the general shapes and basic information but it didn't grip me."
That is a remarkably common experience. Familiarity breeds not contempt exactly, but a kind of functional blindness. The words become routine. The story loses its edge. The good news stops feeling like news at all.
What changed, for this speaker, was not new information. It was seeing the old information with fresh eyes. The contrast got turned up — and suddenly the same message that had felt flat and predictable became the most compelling thing he had ever encountered.
06The Problem With Religion
Paul's sermon in Acts 13 was not anti-religious. He was speaking in a synagogue, after all. He respected the tradition, honoured the history, and acknowledged the law as genuinely from God.
But he was also making a radical claim: the religious system was never the destination. It was always pointing somewhere else.
"The law was like a signpost. It pointed in the right direction. But nobody was meant to stand at the signpost forever. The point was to keep walking until you arrived at what the signpost was pointing to — and that was Jesus."
This distinction matters because religious activity can easily become a substitute for genuine relationship with God. Going to church, reading the Bible, praying, giving money — all of these are good things. But if they become the thing, rather than expressions of a living relationship, they calcify into exactly the kind of rule-keeping that Paul said could not set anyone free.
07Grace That Feels Too Good
One of the reasons the gospel is hard to accept is that it sounds too generous. Surely there must be a catch. Surely you have to earn it somehow. Surely there is a minimum standard you need to meet before the offer kicks in.
But that is the entire point. If you could earn it, it would not be grace. Grace, by definition, is undeserved. It is given to people who have not met the standard — which, according to Paul, is everyone.
"The good news is not that God will accept you if you try hard enough. The good news is that God accepts you as you are, through Jesus, and then begins the work of transformation from the inside out."
The order matters. Religion says: change, and then you will be accepted. The gospel says: you are accepted, and that acceptance will change you. One produces anxiety. The other produces freedom.
08A Response, Not a Transaction
Paul was not offering a transaction in Acts 13. He was not saying: believe these facts and you will receive a ticket to heaven. He was inviting people into a relationship. Belief, in the biblical sense, is not intellectual agreement. It is trust. It is staking your life on the character of God as revealed in Jesus.
The audience in the synagogue that day had a choice. They could hear the message, nod politely, and go back to their routine. Or they could let it change everything.
The text tells us that many of them wanted to hear more. They came back the following Sabbath, and nearly the whole city gathered to hear Paul speak again. The message had landed. The contrast had been turned up.
09Something to Sit With
The good news of Jesus is not complicated, but it is radical. It says that the gap between you and God — the one you have been trying to bridge with effort, morality, religion, or sheer willpower — has already been bridged. Not by you, but for you.
The question is not whether you understand it. Most people who have spent any time around church could explain the basic outline. The question is whether you have let it move from information to experience. Whether the contrast has been turned up.
What would change in the way you live this week if you truly believed that you were already forgiven, already accepted, already free?
Topics in this talk
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thank you welcome to this week's crowd church service we are a digital Church on a quest to discover how Jesus helps us live a more meaningful life we are a community a space to explore the Christian faith and a place where you can contribute and grow our service will last about an hour and in a few seconds we will start with a time of worship after which you will meet our hosts for our service who will introduce today's talk after the talk we head into conversation Street where we look at your stories and questions that you've posted in the comments throughout the live stream I want to invite you to connect with us here at crowd church and there are a few ways that you can do just that firstly you can engage with crowd from any device during a live stream and if you're up for it why not invite a few friends over and experience the service together you see church is all about connecting with God and connecting with others and one of the easiest ways for you to do that is to also Join one of our midweek groups where we meet online together to catch up and discover more about the amazingness of Christ you can also subscribe to our podcast called what's the story where we Deep dive into stories of faith and courage from Everyday People more information about all of these things that I've mentioned can be found on our website at www.crowd.church or you can reach us on social media at crowd Church if you're new to crowd or new to the Christian faith and would like to know what your next steps to take are well why not head over to our website crowd.church forward slash next for more details and now the moment you've been waiting for is here our online church service starts right now not sure which one we're going to well good evening welcome to crowd Church uh my name is Matt and beside me is the incredible Dan orange great that you're here great that you have joined us we've just had a bit of a Mad Tech issue haven't we we're definitely live just to prove that we're live we've got it all working yeah it's by the city of Japan and the reason why uh it was a little bit shoestring it was because um I was a bit late getting in because I've just been at Abby sharples wedding who is now not Abby sharples Abby and Amy congratulations yeah if you um if you don't know Abby and most of you watching this won't have a clue who Abby is Abby was around in the early days of crab before she went off to University she was part of the Church Plant team absolute Legend beautiful voice part of the worship team there's quite a few of the talks actually you can see her in some of the videos um and yeah super super awesome so really excited for Abby today to celebrate uh with her uh yeah Matt's putting a comments here Abby is a legend she's totally is uh a legend definitely uh good to see Megan C Graham welcome uh if you are watching us uh Dan what have we got coming up while I catch my breath yes so we have Pete Farrington coming up and talking to us um on Ax so I'm really looking forward to that yep oh it's nice to be back I know you've been back we've been back a week but summer and it feels like summer because in the UK it's actually warm so hot it's quite warm in this it is so so hot um at the wedding at Abby's wedding um we she the wedding was in this beautiful uh glass house this huge sort of greenhouse type thing it was so warm so when we were in there uh and Sharon and I were like where should we go sit I was like there's a fan right there that's literally went and sat right next to the fan because it's so hot and muggy today uh which is off often not something you hear at the Brits talk about yeah all complain about but you know we're British we like to complain by the way so yes so it's good to have you back yeah it's good to be back good to be back so we've got the legendary Pete Farrington who is going to be uh sharing God's word with us which we can't wait to get into if you're new to crowds um let me introduce myself my name is Matt this is Dan uh and we are an online church just you know trying to figure out this whole Jesus thing and to help us do that today we've got Pete Farrington who is talking from the book of Acts um and then you and I are going to be back for conversation Street sounds very good talking about the talk so without further Ado should we get into the talk I think we should I'm going to press this button here and just pray it works uh the Lord be with us please often the prayer of the tech team uh I've got no glasses because oh this is my third day of contact lenses and I can actually see you does it look a bit weird oh is that what Matt's put in the comments here you forgot your glasses yeah yeah you've got your contact lens here can you see all right I can I've got a red eye today trying to get him in oh we've all anyone that's had contact lenses knows exactly what you're talking about right now uh we just do it just is the way it is right uh with the old red eye so yes uh well you know even though your glasses aren't here you are which I am obviously an important thing so anyway that aside let's get into the talk if you're new uh to create we've been doing the accent tell them about the axing yeah we've been doing the acting for a good while I mean there's not that many chapters up to chapter 13 and we've done way more than 13 talks but yeah we've done no detailed um walk right through acts because if you want to know about the Christian Church acts is the place to start is the acts it's the things the apostles did the leaders the starter yeah yeah the start of the early church that they did it's been a phenomenal Series so far and I missed it I mean it was great over the summer the guys did the Psalms which was great and but it's nice to get back into the whole ax thing um and so yes we are going to kick off uh the second week we're back into the acting we've got Pete Farrington Dan and I will be back after this so grab your notebooks grab your pens write in the comments we love your questions we love your thoughts as we go along Dan and I are going to talk about when we get back so we'll see you in just a short while but here's Mr Pete Farrington hello crowd church it's a pleasure to be able to share with you again today now I think I've said this on here before but I absolutely love painting and during the process of a painting I will usually a couple of times take a photo of it and then digitally play around with the contrast in order to see how much I need to increase the contrast in order to really make it the image pop and I grew up in the church and I think that for most of my life the message I'm going to share today didn't really do much for me it was like the contrast had been turned all the way down and I could discern the general shapes and basic information but it didn't grip me it was it was easy to look at but it didn't challenge me it wasn't an arresting image it wasn't an image that could hold my gaze like a masterpiece in the Louvre that all kind of changed a few years ago and and now I find that my eyes will never finish taking in all there is to see and I will never exhaust it of its beauty so my prayer today is that the the contrast will be turned all the way up for us and today we're going to be looking at um acts 13. it's a bit of a long passage so I'm just going to kind of summarize it quickly and then we'll hone in on a couple of verses so Paul and Barner at Barnabas are on their first missionary journey and after arriving in the city of Antioch they go to the synagogue on the Sabbath um and then after the reading of the scriptures the rulers of the synagogue ask Paul and Barnabas if they have a word of encouragement for the people Paul and Barnabas then kind of give this overview of the history of the Jewish people how God chose this people for himself and he made them great in the land of Egypt and then he he led them out of Egypt put up with them during their Disobedience and rebellion in the wilderness and then he he wiped out their enemies before them and brought them into the Promised Land and then they spoke about how he gave them Jesus through the line of David just as he had promised he would and jesus carried out all that had been prophesied about him he was executed and laid in a tomb but God raised him from the dead and and then for many days Jesus appeared to his followers and all God's promises to Israel were fulfilled in Jesus Christ and this sermon then reaches its climax in verses 38 and 39 it says let it be known to you therefore brothers that through this man Jesus forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you and by him everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses and in those two little verses Paul so wonderfully encapsulates the gospel and it has striking similarities to Peter's preach on Pentecost just found in Acts 2 which happened some 15 years earlier Peter said this repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the Forgiveness of your sins and you will receive the gift of the holy spirit for the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off everyone whom the Lord God calls to himself so 15 years have passed since that preach on Pentecost but it was still the same message and 2 000 years on the message is still the same and actually Paul was around when when Stephen had stood before the Sanhedrin in Acts 5 if you remember that um when when Stephen said this God exalted Jesus at his right hand as leader and savior to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins and we're told that Paul had approved of Stephen stoning that day and here he is now in Acts 13 preaching that very same message that he'd wanted Stephen killed for preaching in Jesus Christ Alone there is forgiveness of sins and for the rest of his life Paul was gripped by this truth he said later in 1 Corinthians 2 verse 2 he said for I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified elsewhere in one Corinthians he said woe to me if I do not preach the gospel but what about Jesus what what did he have to say in Luke 24 we see he said then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures and he said to them thus it is written that he the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead that repentance for the Forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to All Nations beginning from Jerusalem now I just think this is amazing let's think about it moment what does it what does it mean to understand the scriptures because the Bible has something to say about all matters of life and God's word should inform how we live how we think how we uh how we how we respond and how we feel about things in this world it's got something to say about everything sex marriage parenting government work leisure the church but if we ever just start seeing the Bible as like a guidebook for how to be good people or as a formula for personal development or or how to for living a fulfilling life then it won't be long until we go way off track because Jesus showed us here in Luke 24 that and it's not the only time he did this that this is his story about what he came into this world to do and he was saying hey you guys didn't understand the scriptures because you didn't see that I was on every page so how is the story going to make sense to you if you don't even recognize the main character but let's take a step back and go to those go back to those two little verses in Acts 13. I'll read it again let it be known to you therefore brothers that through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you and by him everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses now you might be thinking what is the law of Moses and what's it got to do with me well the law of Moses was that the 600 plus Commandments and regulations given uh by God the foundation of which was the Ten Commandments you've probably heard of them um but the law is really like a mirror it it shows us our condition and Romans 3 speaks of how through the law comes knowledge of sin it says this in verses 19 and 20. the Law's purpose is to keep people from having excuses and to show that the entire world is guilty before God for no one can ever be made right with God by doing what the law commands the law simply shows us how sinful we are so God's law shows us what that standard is that standard is perfection it's holiness Galatians 3 verse 24 tells us that the law was a tutor or a guardian it couldn't actually save anyone it was useless for that Galatians 3 verses 10 to 11 says Those Who depend on the law to make them right with God are under his curse for the scriptures say cursed is everyone who does not observe and Obey all the commands that are written in God's book of the law so it is clear that no one can be made right with God by trying to keep the law now I think the message that we really don't like is not necessarily the message that we need a savior but rather the message that we can't and won't be the ones to save ourselves like I remember seeing a short while ago an image posted on Instagram which brazenly declared we will save ourselves now Jesus really didn't have a lot of positive things to say about the Pharisees those people in his day who thought that they were doing a good job of keeping the law and and they looked down on others who and and think well at least I'm I'm not like those those people over there better than them and self-righteousness might not look quite the same in our day and age but I I would posit that we're living in a time in which people are just as self-righteous as those in in ad 30. not a whole lot has changed in 2000 years because we look with condescending eyes at the history books pointing the finger with disdain at those who've gone before us for for having faults and blind spots and for not reaching our Superior level of morality society's constantly drawing up revised lists of of acceptable opinions um to hold and telling us this is how you can be good this is how you can be pure and we we frantically scramble to to signal to the world that we've purified ourselves and those who don't hold to whatever the accepted beliefs are are done away with and expelled from the community we see this all the time and of course in in years to come if someone were to look through look to look at our lives through a microscope there'd be nothing to be ashamed of right like no one in times to come we'd ever find a reason to pull down statues of us would they because despite despite us living in a in a post-christian and post-religious era I really couldn't help but notice a quite a strange ritualistic and religious nature to some of the responses to George Floyd in 2020 people were told you've got to do the work read this list of books and give money to these organizations repeat these mantras post a black Square on your social media you can be clean you can purge yourself of your sin but then people were simultaneously told the work never ends keep doing the work the work never ends and I'm saying well it's not to upset anyone but merely to say that no matter what age you live in no matter what culture you look at you're always going to find countless man-made means of attaining forgiveness salvation and purification and every single one is futile the work never ends because the debt is too great like we've seen this I think recently in the UK with the case of um the the killer nurse Lucy lepi we pile 14 life sentences on her to to recognize the value of the lives of those precious image bearers of God who were wronged and with a one life she can't pay it but what happens when the one who is wronged is not an image bearer of God but God himself how can one me a man pay the debt he can't so we're gonna get a little bit philosophical now for a moment if you'll indulge me um C.S Lewis says in his wonderful book called Mere Christianity that there are two odd things about the human race first that they were haunted by the idea of a sort of behavior they ought to practice what you might call Fair Play or decency or morality or the law of nature second thing was that they did not in fact do so he says for the trouble is that one part of you is really on God's side and really agrees with his disapproval of human greed and trickery and exploitation you may want him to make an exception for you in your own case to let you off this one time but you know at bottom that unless the power behind the world really and unalterably detests that sort of behavior then he cannot be good now on the other hand we know that if there does exist an absolute goodness it must hate most of what we do and that is the terrible fix that we are in if the universe is not governed governed by an absolute goodness then all our efforts are in the long run hopeless but if it is then we are making ourselves enemies to that goodness every day and are not in the least likely to do any better tomorrow and so our case is hopeless again we cannot do without it and we cannot do with it God is the only comfort he's he's also the Supreme Terror the thing we most need and the thing we most want to hide from he's our only possible Ally and we have made ourselves his enemies some people talk as if meeting the gays of absolute goodness would be fun they need to think again now you might respond to C.S Lewis and say well what is deemed good or just or moral that can differ across cultures and time right like it's all subjective isn't it to achieve reply but the moment you say that one set of moral ideas can be better than another you are in fact measuring them both by a standard saying that one of them conforms to that standard more closely than the other but the standard that measures two things is something different from either you are in fact comparing them both with some real morality admitting that there there really is such a thing as a real right independent of what people think and that some people's ideas get closer to that real right than others like if if you're if your moral ideas can be truer and those of the Nazis less true there must be something some real morality for them to be true about so like I said before God's law shows us what that standard is what that real right is and what C.S Lewis was really doing there was unpacking Romans 2 where it says in verse 14 to 16 for when Gentiles or non-jews who do not have the law by Nature do what the law requires they are a law to themselves even though they do not have the law they show that the work of the law is is written on their hearts while their conscience also Bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that day when according to my gospel God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus now this is really sobering stuff C.S Lewis calls them terrifying facts but we should not hurry past this Christianity does at first present us with terrifying facts but it does if we'll be humble enough to be honest about our condition give us a hope and a comfort beyond anything we could even dare to imagine so if you if you can't shake the feeling that you you haven't met the mark you haven't hit the mark that you're desperately sick well that really just means that the mirror is clean and you are seeing yourself rightly when the grumbling Pharisees questioned why Jesus ate with Sinners Jesus answered with this those who are well have no need of a physician but those who are sick I have not come to call the righteous but Sinners to repentance so if I wanted to lie to you if I hated you I would say that you are well that you are perfect as you are and that you are enough I would say you just need to realize that you are enough and you can love yourself back to life I'd I'd come up with a five-step program of things that you can do to shift that sense of guilt and inadequacy I would repackage the gospel soften the edges as some have done in order to stroke your ego but I'm not going to lie to you because Jesus is a skilled physician so it is no bad thing to come to him sick all the self-medicating just will not work you need a better physician to repeat what C.S Lewis said we have made an enemy of our only Ally but here is the good news Jesus Christ came into this world to die for his enemies who does that imagine if if you were to draw up a list of all the people that you would be willing to die for how long would that list really be like your spouse and children your close family and friends would you put random random acquaintances on there people that you consider nice and kind what about people who you don't consider to be good what about your enemies would you have people on that list who hate you and remember we're still only speaking in human terms the creator of the universe to whom all the peoples of the Earth are like grasshoppers died for those who hated him now that is a love like no other there is today a really a circular definition of love almost as if we have no idea what it is Love Is Love Is Love Is Love the great story of the Bible is that the innocent died for the guilty and the victim died for the perpetrator the Creator died for the creation This Is Love now you can you can speak positive affirmations over yourself until you're blue in the face go get him you've got what it takes but it will never be enough trying to save yourself is an unbearable weight that no person can carry it will crush you and condemn you to hell but what is of utmost importance is What God Says of you and if you repent of your sin and cling to Jesus and the work that he has done on your behalf you are declared Justified it says Galatians in Galatians 3 verse 13 God has rescued us from the curse pronounced by the law when he was hung on that cross he took upon himself the curse for our wrongdoing so in the place of a curse we get blessing in in the place of our Rebellion against God we get Jesus Christ's perfect record in the place of our enmity with God we get friendship with God in the place of Despair we get hope in the place of debt we get forgiveness anything that you think might cause you to be overwhelmed with shame when meeting the gays of absolute goodness all of that was dealt with in full when Jesus Christ was crucified taking the punishment for our sin upon himself in Christ we are freed from everything from every sin and there's a lot that is contained in that word everything think about that today I'm going to leave you with this verse in 1 Thessalonians 5 verses 9 through 10. God has not destined us for Wrath but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him thank you for listening coming up we have conversation street but before we get into that here's a clip from our podcast what's the story which you can subscribe to on all your favorite podcast apps I could see like there'd been a lot of Darkness a lot of struggles with depression up to that point and I just just knew that if I didn't choose God I wasn't sure what my life would look like and if I actually would be around for much longer so I just thought I'll give God a try and see what happens and that was almost 20 years ago it's been an interesting Journey being a Christian and there are days where you know you feel like you're Clinging On by your fingertips but I think what keeps me going is knowing what it was like before I met God and knowing that actually even in the really challenging times right now it's better than it was without him yeah that thing of becoming Christian doesn't equal a perfect life even though you know you did so God really brought a clear sense of hope so welcome back to conversation Street let's go to this camera I should really check these scenes before we go live it's great to have you with us thanks Pete for that talk uh Pete was what he didn't pull any punches did he really uh which is why we love it when Pete talks I mean he is just properly straight to the point and it's great so uh we are gonna get into that uh big shout out to Isaac who's joined us on Facebook he's actually watching us from Kenya uh it says so uh Isaac if you're still watching uh great to have you with us uh Sarah that we can complain about being slightly warm I suspect it's probably a bit warmer I suspect you're probably correct sir yes yes absolutely uh do forgive all the tech around me it's just so I can keep track of all the comments it's unbelievable the amount of tech we've got going on around us here um but yes Pete's talk let's get into that uh whilst uh before we do uh it's worth saying you can post your comments thoughts ideas in the comments either on Facebook or YouTube and we will try our best to go through any questions any thoughts on that do letters no so Dan let's start off with a comment you wrote in the space of desperation we have hope yeah I love that as a piece of concluded at the end that we um we're not left we're not left with so Pete did quite a detailed explanation of the law and it does get very very deep very very quickly yeah um and it's taken me I don't understand it all but it's taken me years to to understand more and more about what what this was that was the law is there and the law the law of Moses but just just the law say let's say the law of the UK we know what's right and wrong yeah um I was reading on Facebook today about this is a new law guideline in the UK about driving and if you turn into a road someone can just walk out basically they're in the right now so we have to be careful as we're drivers so there's that law to to guide us but that law can't save us no still break that law and we can never keep every one of those yeah Commandments and laws it's just uh it's impossible it's impossible we'd have to be yeah Perfection and I but I like that God's standard is perfection you know without that yeah I think I wrote in my notes that we we just have religion don't we the law is religion it's it's a list of things to do yeah but it can't itself save you yeah such is the irony uh of it you know this is this is religion these are all the things that you need to do to get eternal life yeah uh by the way you can never do them and even if you could that in itself could not bring you eternal life um it's a really fascinating conundrum uh that exists in so you in the light of that you then go Pete is right there is this good news of Jesus because without Jesus there's no hope yeah and just thinking about your uh driving thing there Dan I must fracture the occasional driving law yes uh I you know I I there are some things about the the state of English driving law that I'm not fully compliant with all of the time and as a result I fracture those laws I'm sure I'm not admitting to anything especially on camera but I would say I've probably not kept every single Lord down to perfection some of that will be ignorance some of that is intentional yeah and even if we had robot drivers I think there's still exceptions we don't drive on tracks do we there's no yeah there's always little yeah always these little notes well if it's as difficult as it is to maintain this the driving laws and the standard of the driving laws then the laws of morality the laws of um Holiness the laws that govern it's not a surprise that they're slightly more complicated and numerous than say driving laws so it's not a in in the context of that and in the context of The Wider law of the land it's not a big surprise is it that there is a law which governs the kingdom of God yet we we there's no chance that we can keep it and I think this is the fundamental truth of Christianity that um Pete came he talked about it didn't he came to it at some point in his talk where we've watered down in effect the gospel to a degree that quite often we don't acknowledge this point or we don't understand this point would you agree with that I think so yeah I think we come to a point where perhaps we don't come to it the church religion media whatever it might be comes to a point and says oh but that's a bit too a bit too hard isn't it yeah that might offend someone that might be a law that a quite big group of people don't really agree with um and and Pete put down this Circle of Love didn't he that sort of love oh we must love because we must love we must love but but where's the standard yeah I always think that when I'm looking at the news and when I'm looking at my my own life and what I'm doing and how I'm living and how I'm bringing up my kids how I'm bringing up myself um where's my standard yeah I always think if if it didn't know Jesus where where do I go where'd you find the answer yeah no it's a fair one isn't it it's a tricky one because and again coming back to C.S Lewis you know if you judge your actions right in the context of somebody else's action so um and this is very we see this a lot don't we at the moment and uh in culture um I'm right you're wrong um I'm on the left you're on the right I hold this opinion you hold that opinion you're wrong therefore uh you are bigoted or you're intolerant or you're liberal and you're left-leaning I shouldn't mean this there's different accusations going across different uh sides so each side is measuring each side so what are they measuring it against their measuring against themselves yeah so they're saying that I'm the source of Truth which then says uh because I am the source of Truth we come up with these phrases don't we I'm going to live my Truth uh do you do you yeah is one of my favorite phrases you do you if it works for you if it works for you as long as you're not hurting anything you know phrases like this which I find very very peculiar phrases in a lot of ways so living your truth so we have now elevated ourselves where we become the single point of Truth in life so I'm going to judge you based on my opinion of Truth and if you don't measure up to my opinion of Truth well you're screwed yeah Jimmy and if you broke your own standard of Truth a few years ago and you wrote about it yeah you're in a real yeah I like you because yeah what could you do what can you do and then and we see this people get canceled if you want a better expression because of what they wrote on Twitter five years ago and of course they've moved on or things have changed or things it's not that they need to not be held accountable for what they wrote but it's a really interesting one isn't it it just proves that actually the definition of Truth the standard by which you are judging other people by which you are judging Society that standard is constantly changing based on what you know and how you feel and in re in a lot of ways who you're associated with yeah do you know what I mean because it's like well I'm gonna get a lot of my opinions from My Tribe the tribe is going to help me form my opinions aren't they um and so how I feel who I'm connected with and the culture and Society you know what I think about something at the time that's my definition of Truth the problem with that it's always changing yes and so how do how do we know because the goal posts are always moving and so it's um it's a I find the conversation fascinating and I think I think it's something we should talk about as well that's what I what's what I misses isn't that the right the right word I um on the news and in life is very hard sometimes to talk about certain things because they are maybe against the culture or they're slightly to that side that people a little bit worried about talking about I'm talking about universities and debates but surely if something is is right it will hold up in a debate yeah let's talk about that's why I love this I love crowd that you can just put in your messages and we can talk about stuff because if something can't be talked about then you know yeah where do we go where do we go yeah where do we go as a society and it's an interesting one isn't it because there's this whole thing about you know that that I was watching something the other day on the Press talking about is it right to teach our children um about gender identity when they're five for example now I appreciate I'm opening a whole kind of work just by bringing out the question but follow my thinking on this now some people would say yes we should teach them as young as five some people would say no we should not teach them as young as five and the people that say yes I heard them saying to the people that said no that they are curbing freedom of speech um and so you know we should not we should not not teach about this in the classroom because that was the whole argument yet the the debate back then was says well should we then teach about I don't know how to commit suicide when you're as young as four years old and I can't remember what the exact topic it was and I appreciate I'm going very extreme to to highlight the point yeah and they're like no we shouldn't and so then the definition should move so it's like well no hang on a minute you you're now saying that there are things that we should legislate that we shouldn't teach children as young as four or five but this and and so our standards all vary but like I say based on on where we're at and so Society has no standard of Truth um which we would and in Christian circles would then say that is the gospel that is scripture and it is the fundamental truth of God Jesus said I am the way I am the truth so we would say that that is the source of Truth and I've used this example before and I'm going to use it again dank because I like it um and you know I've got the microphone and so my question that I've asked on crowd before and I'll ask you again how fast are you traveling right now it's not a trick question I'm not trying to catch anybody out I'm not traveling very fast my I'm sat on a chair my backside is still and so relative to what I see around me relative to the walls relative to the studio the desk to you I'm not moving right that is a source of Truth the Earth spins around the Sun so I'm spinning around the Sun um and I think it spins around the Sun it orbits the Sun at like 28 000 miles an hour pretty fast so I I mean I've never had to go to court to defend a speeding ticket and praise the Lord I pray I never have to uh but part of me would would find it fascinating if someone went into court and the judge said how fast were you going and the chapter in Genesis about 28 000 miles an hour because that's how fast we're moving I just can't see it I can't sense it I can't necessarily feel it because I'm looking at life relative to what I see and as we expand our view we see a different story yeah um and that's what scripture does right and that's what Pete was talking about at the start in terms of the contrast with this painting and and seeing paintings in in a stronger contrast paintings that challenge him in other words he'd zoomed out and he was seeing things in the context of a bigger story a bigger truth which said actually now all have sinned yeah wow that's a very it's a very interesting proposition to start from yeah where is your where's your perspective isn't it that's what what is your perspective on Earth is it is it heavenly um perspective yeah um and I think just sort of again not want to get too into um the culture at the moment but culture is a perspective yeah isn't it and and the church has been uh what how to describe it the church has been a place where culture has been blotted out and we've missed um great opportunities and great truths yeah from different cultures and thought that ah is sometimes a lot of the time our white culture was the was Christian and that's you know garbage yeah but we're so yeah so we have missed missed that out as well and get mixed up with where culture can come in but but that still just goes back to Jesus the Creator yeah of all Races you know the creator of of us yeah just just oh it's incredible yeah it's incredible so what's Miriam put here in the comments hi guys Peter talk was amazing I feel free in Jesus he's given me the right to fear myself always which I I totally agree Miriam and this is the interesting thing isn't it the reality of it is there's this truth in the Bible about Grace Grace is um we call Grace a free gift don't we something you can't earn and the Bible says Ephesians 2 8 you have been saved uh by grace through faith it's not anything you've done so you can't boast about it it's just something that God did through the work of Christ on the cross you're gonna have to deal with that right now it's just a lesson we all have to keep learning um that it's about Grace it's about what he did so there's always this tension between more grace and works so people read that and then go well therefore I don't have to do anything that's not what it says what Grace does is it reframes it so instead of working to earn my salvation I have my salvation and therefore I can do Works yes very different right perspective very different feel and so when it comes to Identity and who you are in Christ and this understanding of the gospel and the work of Jesus and what he's done on the cross well that's the same sort of thing isn't it I'm not working to try and earn that I'm not trying to attain that by following certain laws I have been giving an identity but out of that I then live my life yeah uh according to my personality according to what God has called me do according to that sort of unique flavor I suppose that God's going to bring to the world through me because we all are unique and individual yeah absolutely and I think um that in Hebrews it says faith without works is dead doesn't it so we've been saved but if you're not doing anything about it well that's a bit technically it says that in James it's been James sorry I thought I got the right book as well I should just said the Bible the only reason you have to say that about the other reason I said that is somebody not probably Matt crew would have put in the comments um so that we we've been saved but still we can't just sit there and keep this to ourselves it's like we have this privilege to love others we have this privilege to feed the poor yeah the privilege to close you know bring the gospel heal the sick you know you know how homeless it's a privilege isn't it it's yeah has given us to do to look after our our fellow man yeah yeah absolutely and you can't get away from it it's not like um it's it's not you're excused from it I one of the things that I thought was fascinating was when Pete talked about the terrifying facts of Christianity uh but we don't Christianity doesn't leave you just with a terrifying facts it gives you the hope it gives you the way out the yeah the way of Escape forms of a better expression this phrase he used that I wrote down and we live in a world which tells us that we can live ourselves back to life which I thought was interesting where where do you think you've seen I think Facebook is it's your source of Facebook yeah that it's all I suppose the Disney life that we can nothing's impossible yeah we can do it all ourselves within us is the yeah the capability which yeah and he's come back to this again isn't it if I see myself as the source of Truth then I can see myself as my source of healing and I love that what Pete Drew out from the scripture you know that Jesus is the great physician is one of the things he talks about himself in the in in scriptures um and he said it's no bad thing to come to Jesus very sick yeah because he's the greatest of Physicians yeah Jesus said I love that I didn't come for the the well you know I'm a physician that came for the sick yeah okay yeah and to realize that you're sick is a big thing I remember to speak into someone oh I'm real I'm realizing I'm getting a bit old because today you're only just realizing that I know because I went for a walk and um in Liverpool and I said oh do you remember that that fun part that we used to go to down at the festival Gardens in Liverpool Wikipedia and it's like oh that was 35 years ago no um where was I going with that getting old you've lost your train of thought now hopefully you've totally gone to Festival Gardens yes um I'm hoping it'll come back to me I have no doubt okay you'll get them you'll get that moment of Revelation but it is no bad thing to come to the vision the physician position sick I can't even tour right now um but yeah it's no bad thing it's no bad thing at all is it and so in closing because I'm aware of time oh sorry can I just yeah you've figured it out figured it out so I was speaking to I used to give out teasing coffees um in Liverpool City Center yeah at like two o'clock in the morning to people that were slightly inebriated to homeless and just chat chat about things and um one girl said to me don't like the phrase being saved it's a bit it's a bit serious isn't it it's a bit extreme perhaps we should change that word can't can we no you can't it's been say it's literally been plucked out that's the that's the gospel that's the good news yeah we need to be yeah saved we don't we don't just need a pat on the back no you're okay yeah yeah you're not too but you're an eight out of ten yeah I'd have a lollipop you'll be fine um no it doesn't it doesn't work like and that's definitely the Christian Gospel right there isn't it but the again the good news of Jesus the the thing that I wanted to draw back to um and I thought I wrote it down in my notes I thought if you are new to the Christian faith um first time coming to a kind of church service or watching something like this um he used a phrase he uses phrase repent you had to repent um of your sin and I thought and then he goes on talk he talked about substitution I'll come to the substitution in a minute but it's this phrase repent of your sin which you'll have seen on billboards all over the world let's just explain what that happens go for it Dan in its simplest terms repent means to turn around yeah I think it was a Latin yeah it didn't speak last in Roman term it was repent it was turn around the direction you go in realize that's the wrong way yep and turn around yeah and sometimes there's there might be there will be consequences to that as well um and it's not always easy sometimes it's so yeah I know it's going the wrong way sometimes it's you don't want to turn around yeah um but yeah yeah so exactly like exactly it repent is turning around it's it's recognizing you're sick yeah and going I need to go see the doctor it's recognizing your need to be saved that actually um sin missing God's standard missing God's Mark which we have all done we all know we have not attained anything in God's eyes where righteousness is concerned we have to receive God's grace that's all we can do yeah all you can do is receive it you cannot earn it as a gift a free gift and that's the beautiful thing that's the wonderful thing about the Christian Life um and that's sort of what happens and it and Pete talked about how um we give Jesus our sin he gives us his righteousness which just means right standing before God so he the thing that stops is being able to be in the presence of God Jesus Takes and he puts us in the presence of God and this idea of substitution where um Jesus Takes upon himself stuff that we struggled with and gives us stuff that he doesn't struggle with um so the Bible talks about he takes upon himself as sicknesses and our diseases and that we get his healing he takes our sin we get his righteousness we give him our fear and our anxiety he gives us his peace there's this swap which happens the moment we recognize the need for grace and this is what salvation is it's not a it's not a problem in the sense of a lot of people certainly when I was younger like well I don't want to do that Christianity thing it's just boring a lot of regulations and rules which the church you know to be fair is painted far from it you know you there is a Grace a revelation of Grace which then says right I am standing in the grace of God and all this stuff all this fear all this anger all this bitterness all this sin all this jealousy all this Pride I don't all this shame jesus takes it all and then gives us all the cool stuff that is why we call it good news yeah uh it's a great um just to bring up that word shame because that's something that in this culture and an Instagram lifestyle a Facebook a web lifestyle people live in shame in a massive imagination of thinking why should I look like this why should I do that shouldn't I look like them shouldn't I be like them shouldn't I have that much money yeah shouldn't I be doing that shouldn't that be my identity but he's come to take away our shame yeah isn't that just yeah amazing yeah no totally right I think on that note Dan which I think is a very good note we should probably end conversation street because I feel like time is is definitely running away from it uh right next week let's talk about next week as Matt reminded me that I need to talk about next week yes coming up we wrap conversation straight we promote the zoom and we let you know what's happening next week God bless you Mr crew um so let me add this to the I would add it to the broadcast if I could find my flipping Mouse pointer I just can't see it so coming up next week we have Dave Conley uh speaking with us we're going to carry on our journey through the book um and we're still on chapter 13. yes we are we are enjoying this um so yeah we've got uh chapter 13 carrying on with the book of Acts it's going to be a few months let's just face facts we're going to be another six months in the book of Acts I would have thought it's going to take us through to next year after which you know what I'm really Keen to look at relationships really Keen I don't know if we will because obviously you and I and Anna have not talked about this yet um but yeah we may be looking at relationships I don't know we'll see any topics you want to cover do let us know by the way yeah super interested so she's still 12 months of access [Laughter] so we are going to be with Dave Conley Sharon is going to be hosting I think with me next week uh so do come and join us for that uh huge you stepped in at the last minute to come and host today so thanks for doing that that works let's get back and um start the barbecue borrow a q Nat tonight um so yes that's what's happening next week of course uh if you have been watching on Facebook we also live stream on YouTube if we watch us on YouTube we have started back again live streaming on Facebook we do live stream on both which is why uh Isaac and Hillary and various people are watching us on Facebook according to my my little thingy here a Miriam apparently was on both you're on both Facebook and uh dressing YouTube uh I mean you get us in Stereo I suppose uh but no seriously uh do like and subscribe wherever you prefer us uh promote the zoom yes do you want to do that Dan so the midweek Zoom the midweek yeah emailing contact Crowd Oh yeah yeah here we go there you go there we go um and you'll get sent details of midweek Zoom to to meet up and to pray we'll meet up on online yeah yeah we meet up we catch up online uh on Zoom 8 P.M UK time that's 3 P.M Eastern Standard Time uh they're the two time zones I give out because most people know where they are in relation to those uh but yeah 8pm in the UK if you want to come join us in zimby great to see you in there and like I said last week coming up In Crowd we're gonna start doing Zoom after the service so the service is going to remember we talked about this yeah do you remember that you sounded really surprised no it's happened since then yeah and he needs to like the barbecue his stomach's talking um so yeah we're going to be doing zooms after the service just for 10-15 minutes to open up for anybody wants to come join in and say hi uh we'll be doing um in the next few weeks we'll let you know once that's all set up and running um but yeah if you're if you want to after the Christchurch service come and join in the zooms Matt says where's the worship despair doesn't it it's gone yeah yeah so we're going again we're changing worship we're gonna do worship in a different way uh going forward we're not going to do worship in the service um for a number of reasons really we've talked about this haven't we on the leadership team for a number of reasons one I think doing worship on a live stream is quite tricky um engagement if I look at the engagement stats uh it goes down during worship goes up during the talk and then plummets if I'm hosting um I'm not uh so we were just like well what would happen if we took the worship out we went straight into the talk we did a shorter conversation Street and did a zoom thing at the end now that's what we're going to start doing on the Sundays but there are some ideas now around how do we do worship so we're going to start curating playlists um obviously we've got the tracks we've already done which you can see on YouTube if you go to the crowd YouTube page you'll see all the worship tracks we've done and you can worship along to those at your heart's content we're going to look at curating playlists maybe on something like apple or Spotify I have no idea how we do that but this was just some of the ideas that we floated around we can speak to um I I do PA at our church physical church and uh in person person yeah um and so on the worship team of what's happened and they have a playlist of different songs and stuff yeah so we could we can put stuff in there and then the other thing that we were thinking about is maybe once a term uh or once a semester and for those outside of the UK so there's three of them a year so um doing a live worship event where it's just worship and from here possibly uh from somewhere else and so that's how we're thinking of moving worship to making them more like live worship events uh which we will obviously live stream out over the world wide web and you can join in like you do it on the YouTube stuff um so yeah there's all kinds of conversations around that so uh watch this space but as things currently stand there's no worship at the start of crowd do let us know what you think about this obviously we're making these changes and we'd love to get your feedback um if we're making the right decisions or the wrong decisions you know we we feel like we're we're hopefully doing the right thing um but yeah would love to know what you think about it Matt says love all the new worship ideas can we do baby shots every day not any kind of level you can't match but not not the rest of us um Okay so it is 701 thank you so much for joining us Dan thanks for stepping in last minute any last words no well get in touch if you got any questions yeah please doesn't stop now he's still emailing yeah absolutely get in touch let us know you can reach us via the website which you can see on the screen down below www.crowd.church or on social media at crowdchurch we are on Facebook and Instagram not the active on Facebook not gonna lie we need to get better at it um Instagram usually somebody checks it once a week but on the website if you go to the website crowd.church you'll see a WhatsApp number if you message in don't call on it because no one it doesn't go through to a phone but if you message in usually someone will get back to you on that number hopefully it should be working so thank you so much for joining us uh thanks for joining me thanks for joining Dan it's been great to see you have a fantastic week wherever you are in the world and Dan and I will see you very very soon all right bless you thank you so much for joining us here on crowd church now if you are watching on YouTube make sure you hit the Subscribe Button as well as that little tiny bell notification to get notified the next time we are live and of course if you are listening to the podcast uh the live stream podcast make sure you also hit the follow button Now by Smashing the like button on YouTube or writing a review on your podcast platform it helps us reach more people with the message that Jesus really does help us live a more meaningful and purposeful life so if you haven't done so already be sure to check out our website www.crowd.church where you can learn more about Earth as a church more about the Christian faith and also how to connect into our church Community it has been being awesome to connect with you and you are awesome it's just a burden you have to bear and hopefully we'll see you next time that's it from us God bless you bye for now
