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[0:00] A warm welcome to all of you this morning, particularly if you're visiting us. We have got a small group of folk from Northern Ireland and one lady from Scotland.

[0:14] We've got to mention her because she's important too. So we do really want to welcome you. Lovely to have you with us and share with us. We've got a few of our own folk away. And again, welcome to each one of you who is regularly with us.

[0:27] But particularly if you're visiting, we trust that together as we come to worship and to praise our God, we may be aware of just the wonder and the glory and the goodness of all that he's done for us.

[0:40] And the opening verse of the Bible to draw our thoughts to that is from 2 Corinthians and chapter 5, where Paul describes what has happened to the person who's put their faith and trust in Jesus.

[0:53] If anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation. New creation. The old has gone. The new has come. We may not feel like that every single day, that we are new people.

[1:07] But if we are in Christ, then that's the case. Our sins are forgiven. And we have been... We know that we are now at peace with God. And that he has put a new heart within us.

[1:19] A new heart to praise him, to worship him. A new heart to serve him and obey him as well. And our first hymn is number 509. A wonderful hymn that describes...

[1:31] That describes something of what happens when we become a new creation. Verse 4. Long my imprisoned spirit lay, fast bound in sin and nature's night.

[1:43] Thine eye diffused a quickening way. I awoke the dungeon flamed with light. My chains fell off. My heart was free. I rose, went forth, and followed thee. Becoming a Christian is a transforming act of God's grace.

[1:57] So let's stand and sing 509. A gallery that I should make And in chastening the Savior's blood Riding for me who knows his pain For me who will to death pursue Amazing love, how can it be That my love should strive for thee

[3:04] Amazing love, how can it be That my love should strive for thee O my risen spirit lay Fast bowed in sin and ages night My naive wisdom with me reign I go on the dungeon plain with lies My shakes fell off, my heart was clean I go on the dungeon plain with lies

[4:11] My chains fell off, my heart was clean I go on the dungeon plain with lies I go on the dungeon plain with lies O God and nation now I dread Jesus, the sand of me here is mine While I live in my living head And loathing righteousness divine Hold and approach the eternal throne And lift the crown through Christ my own

[5:17] And lift the crown through Christ my own Let it out, O Lord, and for the crown, O Christ I own.

[5:36] Well, sorry, I'm going to have to say it. Hallelujah. Please sit down. Sorry, it's just in there. Just got to come out. Hallelujah. What a wonderful hymn. What wonderful truths for those of us who know the Lord Jesus Christ as our Saviour.

[5:51] Let's come to God in prayer. Let's continue in our worship as we pray together. Almighty and amazing God, how we praise you, how we thank you for the things of which we've sung and the things of which we read.

[6:05] That they are not just words on a page, but they are the very echo of our lives, the very experience of our hearts. For we know, O Lord, that you in your great grace and love towards us have saved us from our sin.

[6:20] That once we were in darkness, in death, once we were shackled and chained by the sinful nature of our hearts, by the persuasions of this world.

[6:31] But we thank you, O Lord, that you did not leave us in that state, but you came to us with your great power and set us free. And the only reason that you can set us free is not because, O Lord, we turned to you.

[6:46] Not because we sought your face. Not because we did good things. But because of your sovereign grace. That grace which loved us before the world was made. That grace which planned to send your Son into the world on a rescue mission for sinners.

[7:02] That grace that took him to the cross, willingly, gladly bearing our sin, our shame, our iniquity, our guilt. And yes, the punishment that we deserve from you, the most holy and just God.

[7:16] We thank you that in your grace, hell could not hold him, but he broke the chains of death and conquered it on our behalf when he rose again from the dead. We thank you that he is the one who now lives and reigns on high.

[7:29] The one who by his Holy Spirit speaks to our hearts and calls us to come to him and to turn away from sin. Lord, we thank you for your grace that we have been able to follow you falteringly, stumblingly.

[7:46] Lord, at times, Lord, we have failed you and broken your commands. And yet, O Lord, we thank you that we have confidence and assurance that in spite of us, in spite of our sins that still we struggle with and battle with day by day and week by week, we shall one day stand before you in glory.

[8:06] And one day we shall receive from you those wonderful words of welcome. Come and enter into the joy of your Lord. Lord, O Lord, we ask that you would cause us and keep us persevering.

[8:20] Keep us, Lord, pressing on to the goal. Keep us, O Lord, focused on that wonderful salvation that you have brought us into. And yet, Lord, so much more is yet to come.

[8:31] Help us even now as we worship you. Help us now as we hear your word. Help us now as you speak to us through the preaching of your word. O Lord, to be those whose love for you increases, whose faith in you is enlarged, and whose following you, O Lord, is prolonged.

[8:49] We ask these things now as we seek your blessing in the name of Jesus Christ, our Saviour and King. Amen. I'm John in chapter 4.

[9:00] And we're going to read the first part of a long reading. So we're going to read the first 26 verses. So if you have a Bible with you, that's chapter 4 of John.

[9:11] If you have one of the church Bibles, then that's page 1066. 1066. The great conquest. But we're going to read from verse 1 through to verse 26 of John 4.

[9:27] Listen together. Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John, although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples.

[9:42] So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee. Now he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph.

[9:55] Jacob's well was there and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon. When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, Will you give me a drink?

[10:10] His disciples had gone into the town to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to him, You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?

[10:22] For Jews do not associate with Samaritans. Jesus answered her, If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.

[10:35] Sir, the woman said, You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?

[10:48] Jesus answered, Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again. But whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

[11:04] The woman said to him, Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water. He told her, Go and call your husband and come back.

[11:16] I have no husband, she replied. Jesus said to her, You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband.

[11:29] What you have just said is quite true. Sir, the woman said, I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where you must worship is in Jerusalem.

[11:43] Woman, Jesus replied, Believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father, neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know.

[11:54] We worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshippers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks.

[12:10] God is Spirit, and his worshippers must worship in the Spirit and in truth. The woman said, I know that Messiah called Christ is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.

[12:24] Then Jesus declared, I, the one speaking to you, I am he. Well, let's pray for them in a moment or two. Ben, just tell us a little bit about what's happening.

[12:37] Firstly, it's a doubly sad weekend for me this weekend, because my beloved Sunderland got relegated from the premiership yesterday as well.

[12:48] But more importantly, it's a sad and a joyful Sunday, because this will be our last Sunday with you as a family, before we go and start working the new church in Scarborough.

[13:00] If you Google the population of Scarborough, you'll get 632,000. That's the wrong Scarborough, as I found out. That's Toronto Scarborough.

[13:11] The population of Scarborough is 61,000. So 61,000 people that, statistically, they reckon about 2% of the 61,000 actually regularly attend a church.

[13:25] So you can see there is a huge need for more churches in Scarborough. And so starting on the 14th of May, Trinity Church Scarborough will begin worshipping on a morning.

[13:38] If I could share with you some of the blessings that we've already had, as we've been trying to form as a church. Already we have 24 adults and 13 children that have committed to be part of Trinity Church Scarborough.

[13:54] 12 of those children are 11 years or under. So already we have a children's work that we can build on. We have a youth work that we need to build on to encourage the one that is secondary age.

[14:10] We have a senior minister called Liel McMunn, who's coming from Hull. We also have an assistant minister, who is a lad called Rob, who has just finished his training.

[14:25] And we're also blessed to have two ministry trainees. So already we're starting off with quite a leadership team. God has blessed us with an amazing building.

[14:36] We are initially going to be meeting at the new University Technical College in Scarborough, which is about only 12 months old. And if you know Scarborough area, it's where the old park and ride was off Seymour Road.

[14:52] Fantastic facility, lecture hall, and loads of space for us to run the children's works and different groups that we plan to run.

[15:04] We've been blessed with many, many donations of finance, obviously. To run a church is a big financial burden.

[15:15] And initially, we as the group of those that have committed, we're not going to be able to fund it ourselves. So we've been really blessed with great donations from people to help us to actually set up the church.

[15:31] Moving forward, we start meeting on a morning on the 14th of May. Not officially, because there's an awful lot we need to work out.

[15:43] We need to work out how we're going to use the building. We need to work out how we're doing welcoming and all those kind of things. So we're sort of quietly starting. Our aim is to get our morning services right through May.

[15:55] Moving into June, we'll start developing our midweek meetings. And then moving into July and August, we'll look at adding in our evening service as well.

[16:06] Part of the reason for that as well is that not everybody that's committed to the church is able to move straight away. We're very blessed that already people have been provided with jobs and homes.

[16:19] And I think of the 24 adults, at least 18 are already in Scarborough, ready to start the church. So there will be an official induction service and a kind of opening service and things, hopefully later in the year.

[16:41] Exciting news that UBM have, with discussions with Lee and the church, agreed to run a beach mission this year in Scarborough. The last time there was a beach mission in Scarborough, I believe, was 2008.

[16:54] So there have been beach missions in the past. But again, that's a huge opportunity. I read a statistic recently that says outside of London, Scarborough is the most visited place in the, certainly in England, I think it is.

[17:09] So a huge amount of visitors that we have as a mission field there as well. So those are all real things that you can pray for. On a personal note, you obviously pray for Lucy and the children and Felicity and I and Jack, as we'll be starting off in the new church.

[17:29] It's quite a challenge. Very, very quickly learning it's not like joining an established church. There's quite a lot to do, especially as they've made a serious error of appointing me as treasurer.

[17:41] And I've got nothing, no bank account, no anything. So I've got a lot to sort out and would really value prayer for that. So yes, that's Trinity Church Scarborough. Stay there.

[17:52] Right, can I have then Felicity and Jack and Lucy and Jude and Caitlin, can you come up and we'll stand up here and we're going to pray for you all. Thank you. Okay, come up here.

[18:07] Bring Eagle Piggle. I spoke to Lee in the week and Lee McMunn, who's heading up the church plant and they're having an open house to all their neighbours this afternoon, hoping to make contact there.

[18:23] And he has asked for prayer, particularly about those who've not yet moved into the town. So let's just pray for these dear folk, okay? And trust that the Lord will use and bless them in that work in Scarborough.

[18:34] Let's pray together. Oh, thank you, Lord Jesus Christ, that you promised and said, I will build my church. And we thank you for new churches that are being established and built around the country and around the world.

[18:47] And especially, Lord, for this very needy and large town of Scarborough, which we as a church and the church in Pickering have a great concern for over many years. We do thank you, Lord, for the way you've led and guided Lee.

[19:00] And we pray again, oh Lord, that you would help him and those who work with him and serve with him. But we want to thank you for Ben and Felicity and for Jack. We thank you for Lucy and for Jude and for Caitlin.

[19:12] And we thank you, Lord, for the joy that they've brought to us in the time they've been with us. And we want to send them with your blessing, asking, oh Lord, that in the church there, they may really be settled, encouraged, strengthened and built up.

[19:24] And particularly for each one of the children, that you would bring them to saving faith and trust in you as they come under your word regularly. And so, Lord, we do ask that they may really feel at home and really feel part of the church there.

[19:37] And that, Lord, that we may continue to bear them up in prayer and to love and care for them. We pray, Lord, for those who've yet to move in from other places. Help them. Help them to find the work.

[19:48] Help them to find the homes that they need. Settle them, we ask. And we ask all these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, if the children, there is a creche and there is a Sunday school, so if you want to make use of that now, make your way down there.

[20:08] We're going to carry on in our reading of John. So if you'd like to turn back then to John and 4, we're going to carry on from verse 27, reading through to 42.

[20:19] John and 4, we'll pray. And one, we're going to let's lay them together, and to try to see them выглядит little too. So I'll try and tell them another.

[20:40]  They Pablo had told them that certain they were np.