Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 I wanna, I wanna just give a, a very brief testimony before I get into what I wanna speak about this morning. Be, and I've been wanting to do this for a number of weeks, uh, when, when we've been asked about testimonies, about healing and, um, being able to speak out what Jesus has done. Four and a half years ago, I was really ill, uh, in fact, I was so ill, that church ministry literally ended overnight for me. Saturday night. I woke up in the middle of the night with my brain exploding, exploding with thought, exploding with light, and exploding with pain. The next morning, I couldn't get out of bed. I couldn't function. And for nearly 10 months, I couldn't have a, a conversation with people without breaking down in tears and crying. I had a high level migraine continuously for that 10 months, and I could no longer function as the church leader God had called me to be. And so I had to lay that down. And that was a really painful time. As well as the inner pain coming from what had become diagnosed as a very serious brain injury. I went to, with Jan, I went to a, a minister's retreat in the Webbington Hotel
Speaker 0 00:01:29 There. A lot of people came up to me and, and joined the queue of others who had prayed for me. But eventually, two men, mark and Sean came to me and said, and I remember Mark's words. He says, I know loads of people have prayed for you, Roger, but can we give it another go? And sometimes this is a word for today. You'll hear a little bit more about this. Sometimes we've gotta give it another go. Amen. Sometimes we've just gotta give it another go. And Mark and Sean prayed for me, and I can honestly say I felt nothing sense, nothing received nothing. Uh, I didn't get the Holy Spirit bumps or fall over on the floor. And that was the end of that matter. And the next morning, I woke up without a headache. Amen. Amen. And I've never had a headache since I've been back to the hospital. I've had further MRIs, I've had further consultancies. And here's the fact I've still got a brain injury.
Speaker 0 00:02:54 But to quote the consultant, there's something weird happened around the edge of it, <laugh>. And I wanna say, thank you, Jesus. Why? Because four years ago, I couldn't have stood here to even talk to you. In fact, I couldn't even sat down there to talk to anybody. But here's the truth. I let someone else have another go. And that might be something worth keeping hold of, uh, this morning. Very good. So that's why I wanted to share that testimony, just to encourage you that God does things and he continues to do something. Today we're gonna meet up with, uh, two guys. Uh, both men, were living with great challenges in their lives as well. And these two guys encounter, literally encounter Jesus. The first man lived in the town of Capernaum. Uh, well, Capernaum is what we call it. But those of you that are coming to Israel with us next year, or came with us last year, were not Capernaum at all.
Speaker 0 00:04:07 It's called Capernaum. It means, uh, the house of Naum. And, uh, uh, Capernaum is on the very north coast of the Sea of Galilee. It's a beautiful little village. Now, in Jesus time, it wasn't just a little village, it was actually a major, uh, root town where lots of roots around Galilee coming down from, uh, the north of Israel came down and they met in Capernaum. So it was like a trading center. It was like a big fishing center, and it was Jesus' home. So, we'll turn to an incident that happens in March chapter two. If you want to follow it, the words will be on the screen behind me. A few days later, when Jesus, again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home. They gathered in such large numbers, there was no room left, not even outside the door. And he preached the word to them.
Speaker 0 00:05:04 Some men came bringing him a paralyzed man carried by four of them. Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through it, then lowering the man, uh, on the mat that he was lying on. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed, man, son, your sins are forgiven. We're jumping to verse 10, not because the other isn't important, but it's not important. This morning. I want you to know the son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins. So he said to the man, I tell you, get up, take your mat, and go home. So he got up, took his mats, walked out in full view of them. This amazed everyone. They praised God saying, we've never seen anything like this. Side note, anyone want to see something that you've never seen before?
Speaker 0 00:06:01 Anyone wanna see it? Yeah. Yeah. And the rest of you, let's get a life. Come on, <laugh>. We all, we all wanna see something we've never ever seen before. Amen. Now, Capernaum wasn't just a convenient place for Jesus. It was his home. It actually says it there in that text. This was Jesus' place. It was his comfort place in the account here in Mark's gospel. Jesus had just returned after a really exhausting time away. He'd been on a preaching tour all around Galilee. Now, Galilee isn't just a lake, it was an administrative center. It was an administrative, administrative area in Israel. It's a large geographical area. And he'd been to multiple synagogues. He'd been to many communities. He'd healed a great number of people. He'd silenced and expelled a number of demons. He'd even been on a prayer retreat out into the wilderness, which by the way, if you wanna come with us to Israel next year, we are going out to do out in the wilderness.
Speaker 0 00:07:08 And, uh, he was riding high. You see, Jesus was probably number one in the ecclesiastical charts of the day. He was the man everyone wanted to hear. They all wanted to get alongside him. And I've no doubt that when Jesus got back to Capernaum after doing all of this stuff, what he wanted to do was metaphorically kick off his sandals, find a great big comfy seat, and just settle back down in it and go, oh, it's nice to be home. Unfortunately, this is Jesus. This is first century. This is a whole lot of desperate people. And that didn't happen. 'cause you see, news got out, he's back. And, um, we're just gonna have a, a look at a couple of pictures. This is a modern day Capernaum. So what you're seeing behind me is actually the remains of a synagogue. Um, not the one that Jesus preached in, but the bit that this stood on actually, is because the foundations that are below this was the very synagogue that Jesus preached in, uh, in, uh, Capernaum and, uh, uh, the, the footings of many other things.
Speaker 0 00:08:20 So here we, it looks like a load of black walls. That's the synagogue up in the top corner. These black walls are actually first century houses, okay? This isn't guesswork. This is where the people were living when Jesus was living here. Now, we don't know exactly what home Jesus was living in, because I don't think he owned a home in Capernaum. He did what a lot of other people do. He said, he, I'll come and find a mate. I'll find a friend. I'll stay, I'll stay with you. But here's a picture of, um, you can see it there. It looks like a, just a, a sort of strange wall over the top. And then underneath there's, there's the, that old bricky thing, uh, underneath. It's almost certain, can't guarantee it, but it is almost certain those are the walls of Peter's mother-in-law's home. Almost certainly that would be. So Now, I'm not gonna get into mother-in-law jokes,
Speaker 3 00:09:23 <laugh>.
Speaker 0 00:09:24 No, no, I'm not gonna get into mother-in-law jokes, uh, this morning. Uh, but without any doubt, this was a place that Jesus, if it is Peter's mother-in-law, first of all, in that place, there was a major healing happen. 'cause Jesus did the, the impossible. And perhaps some of us would say, we wish he hadn't. But he healed. He healed Peter's mother-in-law. And, uh, uh, in no doubt in that place, Jesus would've kicked off his sandals at some point in the future. So I can imagine Jesus arriving wherever he was, staying here in this town of Capernaum, when the first person came and knocks on the door. Jesus never once said, go away. I'm too busy. Never once. I'm too tired. Never once. Oh, for goodness sake. Can't you get a life somewhere else? I've got to admit, as a church pastor, those words may have passed out of my lips. I know I'm the unspiritual one here, but Jesus wouldn't have said that. And you see, after the first one, the second the third, and now the resting place is jammed packed full of people who just want to hear what he's gotta say, the next dozen people who need to be healing healed.
Speaker 0 00:11:02 In fact, it got so crowded that the crowd's now in the overflow zone outside. And there's this massive crowd all around this little house, whatever it is. And eventually, one guy, one mat, four friends, later a miracle occurs. I want us to move away from Capernaum now, and we're gonna travel south in Israel and we're gonna travel almost due south. We've gotta go over a few mountains and a good few valleys to get to Jerusalem. But a hundred miles south of Capernaum, we arrive in Jerusalem.
Speaker 0 00:11:51 Jerusalem, the city of God, Jerusalem, the city of the temple. And Jesus has gone to Jerusalem to celebrate a feast. The gospels don't actually tell us which feast it was, but one thing I can guarantee would, would've been that the feast Jesus was celebrating would've been centered around the temple. Why do I say that? Because every feast was celebrated around the temple. So we know that he was on his way into the temple vicinity. And here we read in John chapter five, you can follow it sometime later. Jesus went up to Jerusalem, uh, for one of the Jewish festivals. Uh, but when it says up to Jerusalem, we always think, well, that must mean it's north. No, up to Jerusalem means Jerusalem is a really high, wherever you get to Jerusalem from, you come from low and you go to high. And if you think walking up, it's difficult.
Speaker 0 00:12:45 Try cycling. I've done that. It's hard. And uh, Jesus has gone up to Jerusalem. Now, in Jerusalem, near the sheep gate, a pool, there's a pool, which in Ara make is called Bethesda, which is surrounded by five covered colon aids here. A great number of people used to lie. The blind, the lame, the paralyzed one was there who'd been an invalid for 38 years. When Jesus saw him lying there, he learned that he'd been in that condition for a long time. He said to him, he asked him, do you wanna get, well, sir, the invalid replied, I have no one to help me into the pool. When the water is stirred, when I'm trying to get in, someone else gets ahead of me. Then Jesus said, okay, pick up your mat and walk. At once the man was cured, he picked up his mat and he walked.
Speaker 0 00:13:35 So to the very north of the area in Jerusalem, where the temple, the temple of Solomon's temple would've been at the time of Jesus, to the very north of that was an entrance through the old wars, uh, of Jerusalem. This is a, a picture. This is not, um, first century wars here. Uh, these are crusader wars. So this is 10th century wars. But this would've been the gateway into Jerusalem. It was then known as the sheep's gate today. And you can see them up above. It's called Lionsgate. There's the lions on there. And I'm glad we had a bit of a roar this morning. 'cause there's a bit of a roar when someone else came through this gate later on, but not in this particular, uh, incident that we're talking about. And, uh, the sheep gate was, uh, as it was known then, uh, was called the sheep gate for a very obvious reason. <laugh> sheep came in. Why would sheep be coming in that, uh, what? Because they liked a lot of kebabs. Well, maybe they did, but it wasn't for that reason on this occasion. It was because everything that happened in Jerusalem centered on what happened in the temple. And what happened in the temple primarily was a lot of sheep got barbecued.
Speaker 0 00:14:58 There was a lot of sheep sacrificed in the temple. And this was the way they came in. So they came in through Lionsgate. Here's a little, this is a freebie. You get this one just because I like you this morning. That is also the gate, interestingly through the sheep gate, where Jesus would've commenced his walk in what is known as the roosa. So the Lamb of God walked through the sheep gate towards the place of sacrifice, brings the Bible alive, doesn't it? And uh, in the sheep gate or beyond the sheep gate was an area, uh, that we call Bethesda. Again, that's an anglicized version of heda. Bait means house again and be heda, uh, means, uh, the the house of grace or the house of mercy. And, um, near Beth Heda. We'll go on to the next slide. Um, is this massive? And looks like you're looking into a big hole, which is exactly what you are looking into.
Speaker 0 00:16:07 Uh, 'cause you are looking into something called a mikvah. A mikvah was a great big gathering of water where people would go to clean themselves. Because you cannot come into the presence of holy God with dirt on or in your life. Can you see the picture of what is gonna come later through Jesus and through the church and the teaching of the gospel. And so people would've had to have gone to this mikvah to wash themselves, ready to be purified, to go and offer their sacrifices. The sheep what to be sacrificed for the remission of their sin.
Speaker 0 00:16:55 The pool of Bethesda. This thing that you can't really tell how big it is at this current time. And they are still actually excavating, but they're having to excavate, would you believe, underneath all the office blocks and the houses that are now round, round. And about this, uh, this pool to, to our knowledge, was a hundred meters long, 50 meters wide and 14 meters deep. That is a TP load of water. TP being a Welsh word. <laugh>. It's a tp load of water. Massive. Which meant this was being used constantly by hundreds and thousands and thousands and thousands of people. And in fact, it was so big, it was divided in two by a sort of damn wall. And one side kept the other side fresh, which was pretty good. 'cause if you'd seen some of the dirty people that went in the water, you'd want your water being flushed through, uh, just a little bit.
Speaker 0 00:17:51 And that's what, what happened there. And they built colonnades along it. So we read in that scripture that there were five colonnades. Why were they there? Because this was a place that needed shelter. 'cause it is baking hot in Jerusalem in the middle of the summer. You need shade there. Why? Because you are gonna be spending time going in and outta that water. You're gonna be preparing yourself. And so that was where they came to. And this place was always crowded. But in addition to the crowds of people, uh, that were coming to get ready to go into the temple, there was a guy, well, quite frankly, he'd become a fixture. Anyone ever felt like a fixture? I can tell you can tell when you're a fixture, okay? I'm not pointing to any one of this <laugh>, but you are sat in the same seat you've always sat at when you come here <laugh>. Or if you can't get on that seat, 'cause someone has the temerity to take your seat, you will sit as near as you can to the space where you always sit. That's when you know you've become a fixture. Alf <laugh>.
Speaker 0 00:19:01 And this guy has a problem because he's come, been coming here for 38 years. Well, actually he hasn't been coming here for 38 years. He's been brought here for 38 years because he believed a myth. He believed a cult. And the cult was when the water bubbled, an angel was stirring it. First one in boom healed. Except if you are the one that can't walk, guess who's never gonna be the first one in? You're right. So we have two men, one in Capernaum, one in Jerusalem. And they're linked by several common factors. First of all, they have life affecting conditions. The Capernaum man was paralyzed. He couldn't walk. We dunno why. We dunno how the Jerusalem man we know had been seriously ill. He wasn't paralyzed, but he couldn't move. So might as well have been, uh, paralyzed. The first man had some friends who were gonna help him find some help.
Speaker 0 00:20:13 The second man. And he was in the right place 'cause he was where Jesus was. The second man had no friends and he was in the wrong place. 'cause it didn't matter how many times that water bubbled, he was never gonna get healed anyway. And besides he was like, some people are, he was Billy, no mates. And sadly, if we've been carrying something for a long, long time, no matter how much we think we need something, our friends get fed up of us carrying it. They do. They get tired of the fact that we're permanently ill. And although they care, they don't care enough to be with us 24 7. So if the opportunity came, we could get healed. Now there's a a couple of other things that are common about these two guys. But I brought the most common feature with me. Both these guys lived on a mat. In fact, they didn't just live on the mat. Their mat, approximately six foot by two foot was their world. Everything that happened for them happened on the mat. They lived life 24 7 on the mat. The horizons of their life were not The next two e flight to another country
Speaker 0 00:21:49 Was not the next pilgrimage to Israel. The horizon, the boundary lines of life for these two guys was the very edge of a six foot by two foot mat. Neither man could get beyond the parameters of that mat. It was physically impossible for them. It didn't matter what hope or what solutions, what opportunities lay beyond the mat. They couldn't get there because the mat defined their life. That's
Speaker 1 00:22:27 Right.
Speaker 0 00:22:29 As I read about these men being paralyzed by their physical conditions, I started thinking, I wonder how many people dare I say it in this room. Dare I say it? Watching online this morning, I wonder how many of you have a life defined by a six foot by two foot mat? You see, there's a lot of people that are trapped, not by necessarily just a physical impairment, but I wonder how many people in this room are trapped physically and emotionally. Paralysis isn't always obvious as physical paralysis, as physical paralysis, but it can be just as disabling. I went to see a friend, uh, this week. Uh, I bring him along to church at at some point. He's uh, uh, been a fellow Christian with me for many, many years. And he said, Roger, as he, we were talking because we were discussing what I was gonna be preaching on. He does a little bit of preaching himself. And he said, Roger, tell 'em about Cali. I said, Cali, I didn't read about Cali in the, in in the, in the Bible. He said, yeah, tell them about the family that went to Cali. There was his family.
Speaker 0 00:23:52 They'd signed up, they'd invested in a, a cross channel ferry. What an investment they'd got in the car. They got off of the ferry and they arrived in the car
Speaker 1 00:24:09 Park
Speaker 0 00:24:10 At Cali. As they came off the ramp on the far side of the carpark, up ahead of them, they saw a, a row of trees. And just to the right of the trees was a McDonald's. So they decided what everyone going to Cali should make a decision on. They parked their car under the trees, beautiful spots on the edge of the carpark. Why? 'cause they knew they could live there for the next two weeks because McDonald's was just across there and they could get food. And so they spent a wonderful two weeks enjoying the cultural experience of Cali, the cultural gastronomic experience of France. And at the end of their two weeks, they got back onto the ferry and traveled back home. There's a few of us
Speaker 1 00:25:16 Have
Speaker 0 00:25:16 Heard God tell us to go places. And we've settled for the carpark in Cali. Oh, no one can tell us we haven't gone there 'cause we
Speaker 1 00:25:30 Are abroad.
Speaker 0 00:25:33 But was that the destiny that they were called to? Some of us won't go beyond the car parking call 'cause we've become paralyzed by a number of things in our lives. We've been paralyzed by fear, regret and doubt. You see fears about the future will keep you on the mat. Regrets about the past will keep you on the mat. Doubts about our ability will keep you on the mat.
Speaker 0 00:26:42 Those fears exist in individuals, but I also know those fears exist in congregations. But listen to what Jesus did with two men whose world was six foot by two foot. First of all, he eased their fears. Luke 55 17 tells us about this house stuff like a, a tin of sardines full of people. Four friends, we don't know whether they're male or female, but four friends carry someone on a mat. They can't get in. So they know they've gotta get beyond the boundary line somehow. So they go up on the roof, dig a hole. Jesus looks up as he gets a whole lot of clay into his eyes, uh, from up above. And this guy is lowered, uh, down. Does it say Jesus had a right go at these people for interrupting his ministry line? No. Did he say to the guy on the mat, excuse me, would you go and get the number from the usher at the back?
Speaker 0 00:27:47 And when your number is called, you can come to the front and we'll minister to you. Now, he doesn't say that at all. It says Jesus saw their faith. That's right. Jesus responds to faith. I'll come back to faith before I finish. But Jesus responds to faith. Amen. Now I want to put yourself in the place of this paralyzed man. You've just crashed the party. You've been lowered down in the middle. Uh, how would you feel? Well, I'll tell you how I'd feel. I'd feel I've just pushed in. That's how I would feel because I'm wired up. You see, I'm, I'm, I'm not Welsh and Welsh are very different sort of people. We English people, we, we like to queue <laugh> except for those who aren't really English but are pretending to be English <laugh>. We, we like to queue and it's very polite to wait here for 15 hours.
Speaker 0 00:28:47 Have you, have you ever been, have you ever been, you know, or somewhere abroad or whatever, and you are waiting at the bus stop, let's say in France and the bus is coming down and, and you think I'm just about to get on. And just as you are about to get on the bus, 65 Germans and 25 Italians come through from every direction they get on the bus and you realize the bus is now full. Perhaps it's just me because I'm English. Um, anyway, this guy probably would've been a little bit embarrassed, but desperate times require desperate action. And uh, so this guy isn't told by Jesus, go away. Come back at a more convenient time. Jesus does what Jesus does really well. I'm shooting through all of the stuff that I've prepared here that I can't have time to speak on. And uh, Jesus says to the guy, here's the deal, your sins are forgiven. See that mat, get up off it. Pick your mat up and take it home. There's a number of things happened in that moment. Suddenly the six foot two by two foot world wasn't what defined him. It was now what he was carrying, saying, I'm bigger than this now.
Speaker 1 00:30:10 Amen.
Speaker 0 00:30:11 I'm bigger than the whole of this situation now. Amen. Was he being braggy about that? Well, listen, if you've just been paralyzed and you've just been healed, I'll tell you what, there's something to shout about, isn't there?
Speaker 1 00:30:21 Amen.
Speaker 0 00:30:22 And he picked up his mat. You see what's going on here?
Speaker 1 00:30:29 Well,
Speaker 0 00:30:30 Jesus actually,
Speaker 1 00:30:35 He
Speaker 0 00:30:35 Likes you.
Speaker 1 00:30:39 <inaudible> <laugh>.
Speaker 0 00:30:41 For anyone that wants to know that voice is my son-in-law, <laugh>. And my son-in-law is a great encourager. We need it. We need encouragers. Thank you slu.
Speaker 1 00:30:57 Yeah,
Speaker 0 00:30:59 His mat was under his arm. His legs were strong. His horizon suddenly became indefinable because now he could go anywhere. Jesus also says that he'll erase our guilt.
Speaker 1 00:31:25 Hallelujah.
Speaker 0 00:31:29 To both these guys. Jesus says something really quite peculiar to the one in Capernaum. He said it first to the one in Jerusalem. He said it second, but he said the same thing to both of them. He said, your sins are forgiven. That's
Speaker 1 00:31:45 Right.
Speaker 0 00:31:46 Wait, hang on a minute. Jesus woo breaks. I didn't come because of a sin problem.
Speaker 1 00:31:56 <laugh>
Speaker 0 00:31:59 So old fashioned Jesus, fancy using a word like sin. I needed some legs. I needed to be able to walk.
Speaker 0 00:32:12 Well, Jesus says you're forgiven to both of them. What's going on here? What's typical human behavior here We are just like this guy. We're often more interested in the externals. When God wants to look at what's going on on the inside of our lives. Man looks at the outside. God looks at the, oh yeah, he considers what's going on the inside. We're often more concerned about what's going on around us, our health, our finances, our relationships, rather than the problems going on inside. But Jesus has this way of just getting under the surface of our lives. We want him to heal our bodies. He wants to heal our hearts first. Hallelujah.
Speaker 1 00:32:56 Hallelujah.
Speaker 0 00:32:57 We want him to remove the difficult person in our life. And Lord, if I had enough time, I could tell you all of them. But he actually wants to deal with our fear of confronting the difficult person. We want him to heal our addictions. He wants to deal with the emotional wounds that led to our addictions. Jesus looks at both of these men, sees that they're not only physically paralyzed and restricted, but they're spiritually paralyzed and restricted as well. They were living with something. I don't think there's anything worse than living with, as someone who has worn a T-shirt and occasionally still get it outta my wardrobe. Living with guilt is paralyzing.
Speaker 1 00:33:53 That's right.
Speaker 0 00:33:57 And when Jesus said your sins are forgiven, what was he dealing with? He was dealing with the guilt issues of life. Because unforgiven sins are a weight, a clamp, a straight jacket around our lives. Isaiah 55, verse seven says, God is merciful quick to forgive. And he does. He's merciful. He's quick to forgive. What do we have to do? Or that's easy. I haven't got the time to do this. And perhaps Justin would be the Baal person to say this. But if we confess our sins, he is faithful. And just to forgive us some of our sins and to cleanse us from some of our unrighteousness.
Speaker 1 00:34:45 Oh,
Speaker 0 00:34:46 I beg your pardon.
Speaker 1 00:34:47 Oh,
Speaker 0 00:34:49 Will you be in a a lion then? Will you roaring all? Oh yeah, forgive us all of our sins. Cleanse us from all unrighteousness. But we say, well we don't deserve that when we don't deserve any of it. So you can lay that one aside anyway. And the third thing Jesus says is that he is an enabling God. He's gonna enable me. It's interesting, isn't it, that here we've got two guys, one in the north, one in the south, same sort of life, same sort of lifestyles. But he enables both of them by asking them to do the very thing that was impossible. Oh God, when you ask me to do something, could you at least ask me to do something that I vaguely know how to do it? God is the master of asking us to do what? We cannot do new buildings. We can't do it looking to the future. We can't do it needing 10,000 pound a month or whatever it is. We can't do it. And God says, I'm not interested in what you can't do. I want to show you what I can do. He enables us. And so he says to the two guys the impossible thing. He says, get your mat. Stand up and walk.
Speaker 0 00:36:35 We dunno about the guy in Jerusalem, but we know the guy in Capernaum has been, uh, sorry in Jerusalem, has been living with this for 38 years. And the guy in Capernaum, we don't know how long he'd been living with his condition. I wanna say something very lovingly, but really important for us all to hear this morning, to hear at home. Some of you have got too used to the parameters of your life. You've got too comfortable with your six foot by two foot space in life. You've got too comfortable with that convenient way of thinking that if I have at least a possibility of being able to do it, then I might do it for you. Jesus. When actually God is saying to you, isn't he Lynn, this is impossible. Yes. There is nothing here. We have no resources and we're gonna plant a church in Plimpton, aren't we? Yes, we are. We are.
Speaker 1 00:37:41 Amen.
Speaker 0 00:37:45 And immediately both of these guys do it. I'm gonna start a sentence this morning. I want you to finish it before I just bring this in to a conclusion. I better remind myself of what I was gonna say. Oh yes, Sonya <laugh>. Here's the sentence. I'm gonna stop halfway through it. Ready? I will never be able to. Okay. I can guarantee all of you, something came in your minds. I'll never be able to. Of course you won't. You see, the kingdom of God is not about your ability except for the hackneyed phrase. It's all about your availability. If you believe it, if you go for it, who knows what God might do. So I finish off by just talking about faith before I'm gonna invite a response. See, many of us have this faith thing wrongly wired up in our minds. You see, faith is not something you believe. Faith isn't something you believe. Nowhere in the Bible does it say faith is about you believing on many occasions in the Bible, it talks about what? Faith is not a belief. Faith is always an action. It's always an action. Faith is something you do. Faith isn't something you think about, it's something you act on. In fact, I've discovered the more I try to reason faith and build faith by confessing faith, the less faith field I sometimes get.
Speaker 0 00:40:03 Sometimes you've just gotta believe because Jesus is stood on the water. I can get out the boat.
Speaker 1 00:40:16 I don't
Speaker 0 00:40:18 That, uh, Peter went through physics 1 0 1 before getting outta the boat. He saw Jesus and he put and and then we all go, oh yeah, but he sunk. Yeah, you can say that you've never got out of a boat. I've got out a few boats in my time. I want to tell you, mark and Sean and the leadership team and those that are making decisions here are stepping a long way outside of the boat of comfort with where we are heading. And the probability is they're gonna feel like they're sinking once or twice. Good news is Jesus has got long arms and he's gonna hold them up. So I'll never be able to, what is it? What's your I'll never be able to. So this is where it ends. Sorry for the length.
Speaker 0 00:41:23 This now is a physical response. I am not asking for a religious or spiritual response, a physical one. That's what Jesus said to the guys. All those people in this room that know somehow somewhere they've been living on a six foot by two foot bed when God wanted to give them the world. And now you want to be off of your bed. Stand up. Come on. Stand up and walk. Stand up. Stand up and walk. Come on. Stand up and walk. It's time to stand. It's time to stand. Why? Because God doesn't want you on this. He wants you into this. And Father, whether this is people who are responding to you for the first time, people that are needing healing in their life, people that are gonna break through financially, people that are gonna break through in serving people who are gonna breakthrough in whatever area of their lives. I wanna pray, Lord, take us beyond a six foot by two foot world into everything you have for us. In Jesus name, amen.
