Good morning, everyone. Good morning, God's people. Wonderful. I'm very glad to be here with you this morning. And you have to struggle a little bit with my Egyptian accent. That's a good one. My father-in-law, about 60 years ago, he started the Baptist ministry in Egypt. Before that time, we had no Baptist people in Egypt at all. And he started the ministry that time. God called him to come back from USA to start a great ministry in Egypt. Now in Egypt, we have about 15 Baptist churches. And we thank God for the Baptist ministry, started with the Southern Baptist in USA. We thank God for God's people everywhere. I thank God for you, for your legacy, your wonderful history, and we always remember God's goodness. God is good all the time. And I stand here today to tell you about God's grace. God brought me out of darkness into his wonderful light. I praise him and I do pray for everyone away from God to come back. We thank God for our church in Sydney. Now we do two services at the same time, one in English, one in Arabic, one Sunday school, of course in English. And, you know, some families, they come, some Arabic families, because they want their kids to come to church, and they send them to the English service. And we thank God we are doing a great job by His grace. We have a wonderful Sunday school, Sunday school teachers, youth leaders, and they are doing a great job. A lot of people are coming from Iraq, Syria, different countries, you know, and we are waiting for them with the gospel. We are there, all of us, we are here to tell them Jesus loves you. and you need the Lord. They need the Lord. Today I'm going to speak from Matthew 16, 18. I remember that verse very well. When the Lord Jesus Christ said, I will build my church. Every time as a pastor, I struggle or I get disappointed. You know, I remember that verse. I hear it from the Lord. I hear His voice telling me, I will build my church. I'm here today, in our church in Sydney, and I can hear God's voice telling me, don't worry about it. I build my church. He is building His church. When the Lord Jesus Christ said, I will build my church, it, his vision, it was his vision for his saved people. God started to think of us and he looked at us and he said, my people need a church. Brothers and sisters, sisters and brothers, I cannot imagine my life without the church. I cannot. I thank Jesus for his vision. You know, as a dad, you know, I like to provide for my kids. And Jesus provided the church for us because he knows we need the church. Every time I remember his words, I remember that's his church. It is his church. And Jesus gave himself up and shed his blood for the church. He bought the church for us. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord, because you paid the price. We are working in your church, but you paid the price for your people. You know, we are doing a big project. and all by faith. And we are trusting God. And we believe every time we do something, we believe it is His project. It's not ours, that's His. And many people, when they talk with me, are you worried about from where you get the money? Are you worried from where, such and such? I say, no, I'm not worried. Because I believe my dad, my heavenly father, is very rich. And he taught me not to be worried at all. And I got the lesson. And every time I forget, he is my great teacher, my great Sheba, to come to me and to teach me to trust him again. The church, it is his project. And the church, it is the object of His love. You know, we are loved by Him very much. Someone said, every morning, I stand at the front, at the mirror, and I look at myself, and I tell myself, Jesus loves you. And we need to trust His love. You know, from time to time, I send messages to people to tell them, I love you. And I get this message every day from the Lord. Frank, I love you. Thank you, Leah. Thank you, Jesus. Every time I open the Bible, I hear His voice. I love you. Every time I open the church gate, I can hear His voice telling me, I love your church. I love my church. And I tell you a story now. You know, I normally keep my keys with me, go and two hours before the service and to pray for my people, to pray for the church and stuff like that. One day I discovered I left the keys at home and I was standing at the gate and the Lord said to me, do you know Frank? People were coming and going. Do you know, he said, I love them as much as I love you and as much as I love your church. And I want them to come to the church in the future to worship me and to love me and to save me. I said, yes, Lord, thank you, Lord, because you'll love the sinners too. Not just us, because sometimes we think he loves us, us, it's all about us. But you know the people outside in the streets? He loves them too. And he wants us to go and share the gospel with them. And we need to do it. And you know, I said, God is bringing people from different nations to our country here to take the gospel to them, to share the gospel with them. And thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord, because sometimes I tell him, you know, I'm very lazy, Lord. Maybe I cannot go to Africa or India or whatever, but do you know, Lord, you are bringing them to us here. Thank you, Lord. And what we are going to do, we are going to take the gospel to every and each one of them. And we are going to share your love with them. As I said, he paid the price for the church. And do you know, God is very proud of us. He's very proud of us. Because sometimes we think we are nothing, we are not doing anything, and we are not successful. No, no, no. God loves you. And God loves His church. You know, when my kids, one of my kids, not to do very well with the school, I used to send him messages, letters, whatever, to tell him, I love you, I love you, I love you. It doesn't matter if you are successful or not. It's not about your success, it's about you. And God is telling us today, it's not about what you are doing, it's about you. I love you because what you are. And now I know Jesus loves his church, 156 years. Jesus loves you that much, and he's going to keep loving you, and he is going to keep using you for his glory. And you need to think of your church as well. You need to love your church more. And I always say it is his church, but mine too. It is his church, but mine too. And I need really to care about it. I belong to the church. I belong to Jesus. I belong to the church. I love the church. Personally, I love the local church. When I became Christian in Egypt, and I started to go to the local church, it was just the opposite of our house, like very similar to the, the church is here and my house was just over there. And I used to go to church every Sunday, every Tuesday, every Monday, nearly every single day. I felt this is my home, my church. And I'm encouraging you to love your church more. I know you love your church, I know. But I want you to love your church more. You think about it. And you think, what do I need to do for the church? Because I love Jesus. I love the local church. I love the university church. But maybe there's something to do. I know you do the same, but I like it when I see our people, they come to cut the grass, to clean up the toilets. They do a lot of things around the church, and I thank God for that. And I don't ask the people to do it. And the people do it. And they organize everything for it. And just today, I decided not to preach, really preach, but to share with you my heart. You know, I need to see my church with different eyes. You know, I tell you a story. One day, we decided to sell our house. I said, I don't like our house anymore. I need to sell it. Don't like it. And we decided to sell it. And I brought the real estate agent to see our house. And he started to walk around with a piece of paper and pen. And he started to write down the good things about our house. One, two, three, he wanted to sell the house. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10. Oh, at the corner, two-story house and such and such and such. He started to write good things about our house. I never saw it before. And he said to me, when do you want to sell your house? I said, no, our house is not for sale. He told me good stuff about our house. The same with the church. Sometimes I don't see my church as a beautiful church, as, you know, an active church and stuff like that. And I need Him to come to me to write down for me the good things about our church. And, you know, last Friday night I was sitting at the front of the church with one of the leaders. Everyone coming is telling him, ah, we have a lovely people, we have a lovely church, we thank God for the people, we thank God for the church. You know, we need the Lord to open our eyes to see the good things about our church. To see the positive side and to sit there. Our church is very beautiful. Your church is very beautiful, very wonderful. And sometimes I always write down the good things about our church, about our people, about their dreams. The other day, little girl came to me and she said, Pastor Frank. I said, yes. She said, can we become the biggest church in Australia? I said, why not? If we have Jesus in our side, and we do what he wants us to do. It's not about the biggest, of course, I told her, but yes, we can. We can grow, and we really can grow. And I want you to love the church more, to love the local church more. You need to see the beauty of his church. the beauty of his church. You pray, God open my eyes to see the beauty of our church, the beauty of our leaders, the beauty of our pastor, the beauty of the ministry we are doing. You pray for your church as well. You need to pray for your church. We pray for a lot of things. You know, I always remind our people to pray for the church, to pray for me. I'm here today, but some people are praying for him. The day would never go without praying for me. In our prayer meetings, they pray for the leadership. And we need to pray for the leadership. And we need to pray for the pastor and for his family as well. We need to pray for the members. I open the church directory, I pray for the church. You know, before I came here, I prayed a lot for you. Said I started to thank God for you. I didn't know much about you at all But I started to pray for you I started to thank God for you and I'm standing here today and I promise you when I leave here I'll keep praying for you What a great opportunity for me to spend time with God praying for God's people and and God is going to bless you a lot and he's going to use you more. You know, you need to give to your church. You need to give time, money, and everything you believe your church needs to do. You need to invite others. That's very important. You know, who needs to be invited to our church. You go and invite people. Never give up. Never give up. Someone, somewhere, somehow needs the Lord. And you have a job to invite people to come to church. I'm encouraging every member in the church, every visitor, to invite someone to come. It is not only about me to come to church. No. about inviting others. I'll tell you a story. I always have strange stories. But this story, like I was praying for a young man, and I was just dreaming to see him from the church here, to see him to come to church. I didn't have the courage to ask him to come to church. But I was praying for him, Lord, help this young man to come to church. And of course, for his family as well. And they are with us in the church today. I never invited them, but I was praying for them. And one day, this guy, he's Lebanese, he brought a plastic bag with him with some breakfast. And he knocked at my door. He said, can we have breakfast together? I brought that breakfast with me. Can we have some breakfast? I said, yes, come in. I was actually leaving the house that day. I was going somewhere. I was about to leave, but I said, come in. We had breakfast and stuff like that. And he said, I don't know. I want to come to church. and with his wife, son and daughter come to our church until today. What I want to tell you today, dream and pray for next door neighbor to come to church. Never give up. Invite people to come to worship the Lord. God has a great things to do. God has a vision for his church. God, you know, when I started to talk about, you know, when I go back, we don't have an evening service. We don't have one. You know, but I have a vision for a four o'clock service. And when I go back, I will talk with them about it. You know, I always dream for the church. I tell you the truth. I dream for the church more than I dream for the family. And God is blessing my family, blessing the church. Guys, we thank God for the church. I want you always to remember His goodness for you, for your church. Jesus said, I will build my church. And I came with this idea in my mind today. You know, 156 years, gone. So many years to come, and that's why we need to think, we need a vision for the church. We need a vision. What do we need to do for the next 50 years? Maybe some of us will not be around, but the church is going to be around. And we say, wow, Lord, we have a vision. Every time we think, you know what, we have a big project, a church and a multi-purposes hall. And we are driving the council, the Bankstown Council crazy, and they are driving us crazy as well. Because we have a big vision, and they think, you know, our community cannot handle that. No, we have a vision. And I'm praying for you. to have a vision for the next 100 years, to serve Him, to have a big church, to have a big ministry, to have a youth ministry, to have a kids ministry. And I believe God is going to use you more and more. He is using you now. He's going to use you more and more. If you don't mind, I want to pray for you. I want you to think of the future, to see the future, to see yourself working with God, to see God walking with you day by day. And I can. My motto is I can because I have Christ in me. I can. When they invited me, let me tell you a story. Another strange story. You know, when our church moved to Punchbowl, You know, the church has started to grow very much. At four o'clock, we used to have, you know, when we moved from Dalwich Hill, we used to be about 20 less. When we moved to Punchbowl, we started to have 300 and more every Sunday. Yeah, and I said to my people, I need to resign. He said, why? I said, I can't. My dream became my nightmare. Too many people I cannot call. I need to leave. I need someone else to take over for me. But I tell you, no one thought that church would grow that much in that very short time. And maybe we have the same here. No, the church can grow. The Lord can give us a new vision, a new insight, and the Lord can lead us to the next phase of the church history. Remember, God is good. I thank God for you, but there is more to do. Dream big dreams. Let's pray. Let's talk to God and say, God, I want to dream big dreams for it. You said, I built my church. Thank you, Lord, for the church here. But we want more. We want more. We want the people, they walk in the streets now. to come here and to enjoy your presence. We want them to worship you in the Spirit and in the truth. We want them to serve you. Lord, I pray, if you don't come very, very soon, Lord, I pray for the next 100 years, I pray, Lord, to use this church in a fresh, new, mighty way. Lord, I do pray, we always pray your kingdom come. But this morning, Lord, I do pray for my kingdom to go, for your kingdom to come. Lord, I pray for the future of this church. Lord, I thank you for the past. I thank you, Lord, for 156 years. I thank you, Lord. I thank you, Lord, for the faithful pastors, ministers, deacons, members, leadership. I thank you, Lord, for all of them. What a great legacy. Thank you, Lord. And Lord, I pray for the next 100 years, Lord. I pray for a great ministry. I pray for wonderful, wonderful ministry, Lord. I thank you, Lord, because you brought us together this morning, Lord, to celebrate your love, to celebrate your faithfulness, to celebrate your goodness for so many years. And we are trusting you, Lord, for the future. I pray for the pastor, his wife, kids. I pray for the leadership, for the deacons, for the elders, for everyone, Lord Jesus. Thank you, Lord, for the very faithful people here, Lord Jesus. Lord, I pray for you to bless them and to keep using them for your glory. Thank you, Lord. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. God bless you. A mighty fortress is our God, Our Borok never failing, A helper he amid the flood, Of mortal ills prevailing. For still our ancient foe, Doth seek to work us foe, Is propped and up from weight, And not with cruel hate, On earth is not his equal. Did we in our own strength confide Our striving would be losing? Were not the right men on our side The men of God's own choosing? Dost our strength and ready Christ Jesus, it is He! All Sandworth is His name. From age to age the same. And He must win the battle. And though this world with devils filled, Should threaten to undo us. We will not fear, for God hath willed His truth to triumph through us. The prince of darkness, grim, We tremble not for him. His rage we can endure, For long his doom is sure. One little word shall tell him, That we're not of all earthly parts, No, thanks to them not our death. With spirit and the gifts of us, To Him who died with us by death, Let foes and kindred foe, This mortal life also, The body they may kill, God's truth unbidden still, His kingdom is forever.