YouTube Transcript:
Created for Community 3x10 | Ray Winstanley | 4th May 2025

[Music]
Good morning,
church. As uh Pastor Sean just
mentioned, I've never been up here
before, and it's amazing to see everyone
here celebrating God. And maybe some of
you have never met him before, but I
want to just take a moment to celebrate
another community, which is the Star
Wars
community. Okay? It's their very special
day today. This is their Christmas.
Okay? So, as soon as I was asked to
speak today on May the
4th, hands up those who don't know what
I'm on about right now. Not as many as I
was expecting. Okay, so in Star Wars the
movie there is a saying and it's their
way of saying may God be with you but
instead it's rewarded may the force be
with you. So the the play on words is on
May the 4th May the fourth be with you.
Okay. So, I'm just going to go off on
that Star Wars tangent a little more and
a story in Star Wars when the main
character Luke
Skywalker is trying to find his way to
find the force to find God. He's goes to
a remote location, a planet which is
pretty much all a swamp. and he's in
seek of a great warrior, a great mentor
of the force that has gone away in
hiding. Okay? And he crashes his
spaceship on this planet and he's met by
a little green alien who looks like he's
escaped from the set of a Muppets movie.
Okay? And even if you're not familiar
with Star Wars, I'm sure you've seen
him. His name's Yoda. He's got big ears
and he talks in a roundabout way in a
funny voice which I'm gonna do
it. Luke, you have found you have.
[Music]
But Luke doesn't realize that he's met
this great warrior, this great man of
the force, God. And he thinks he's a
recluse, a
centric hermit. But this
hermit says, "I'll take you to Yoda."
And it takes ages. And Luke gets
frustrated. But when they're sitting
down in this little mud hut, Yoda says
something profound. And I didn't look up
the movie, so I can't remember. But then
Luke realizes that he has actually been
walking with this great man all this
time. Okay. And this is what leads into
my message today. It's not about Star
Wars. It's not about educating. It's
about those unlikely people that we meet
who we maybe assume they're they're a
hermit, a recluse, or someone who has no
impact on your life. But when you get to
know them, when you spend time with
them, then you begin to see that the
gift that they can bring to your
life. Now, I tie it into my story. And
it wasn't a swamp, but it was close. It
was a swimming pool. Okay? I was there.
I'm Luke Skywalker in this story, by the
way. Of course, I see myself as the main
character because I was an
atheist. Okay. stone cold atheist,
totally focused on being a great
athlete. And I was pretty great, just
ask
me. And I see this poor fellow in the
name lane next to me, this little
old also green
dog, Scott Greenwood.
He goes to this church a bit. And he was
struggling. I've got to say he was he
was really struggling. So I took pity on
him and gave him some tips. Said a
friendly hello. But after that friendly
hello, I I
realized there was something different
about him. There was something special.
Okay. He had a light to him. And at the
time being an atheist, I just ah
friendly bloke. We got to know each
other. We said friendly hellos at the
pool. I gave him technique
tips. Probably didn't want them, but I
gave them to him
anyway. But in time, I realized, a bit
like Luke did with Yoda, that Scott was
really the person that was going to
bring me to Jesus.
Okay. It took a long time. Luke caught
on to Yoda a lot quicker than I did to
Scott. But over the years and the
persistence and his shining light,
leading by example, okay, he he didn't
need to say a word about Jesus to me
because he led by those deeds, okay? He
led by his actions. And it I guess it
was unlikely that here I am thinking,
I'm a great swimmer. I'm going to show
this man how to swim a bit better. But
really he was guiding me how to live
better. Okay, to live with
Jesus. So, uh, that was an unlikely
thing. There's so many stories in
scripture about unlikely friendships.
The one that sprung to mind for me, and
I'm not going to put anything up on the
screen, but it was Prince Jonathan.
Okay, he was King Saul. He was a king of
the Israelites. He was ready to take his
dad's throne. And then along comes a
lowly shepherd boy, David, who had been
anointed by God. But even though they
were rivals, even though they were vying
for the same job, they had a deep love
for each other. Okay? It was an unlikely
friendship on paper, but it was very,
very likely to because it was a
friendship that had the love of God at
its heart.
Okay. Another unlikely example in the
Bible of friendships that probably
shouldn't be is Ruth and Naomi. Okay. I
got a massive rundown by Scott's wife
Allison the other night about all the
reasons why that that would be an
unlikely uh friendship. Essentially, the
one word that I remember was
mother-in-law.
But now I must I must get to the most
unlikely friendship of my life, which
essentially isn't unlikely, and that's
my friendship with Jesus.
Okay?
as as that
atheist not knowing anything of God, the
idea of the perfect human, the the King
of Kings being friends with a sinner
like me was just unlikely. But I didn't
see it through the lens of Jesus, the
forgiving heart and the open heart of
Jesus. Okay. So if you are here in the
audience today and you were like me and
you didn't know God or you don't know
God, just please take that step, have a
chat to someone, see see that light in
someone and follow that light and you'll
find that for yourself and it will start
shining from you. And for all of the of
you, and I'm sure there are more of you
that do know Jesus in this room, please
just look find someone who you might
think it's unlikely that we'd be
friends, okay? And say good day. They
might be a different age. They might
come from a different place. They might
have a man
bun. Just say good day. And not just
that, hi, how are you now? I forgot what
you're saying. I've been pleasant by a
proper hello and get to know them.