Matthew 14: 22-33 and Acts 3: 1-10

Interestingly, after I’d already prepared a good chunk of this talk, I saw that Campbell had written on last week’s service sheet – ‘Why not volunteer for something that takes you beyond what you are used to or out of your personal comfort zone, and discover what amazing things you and God can do together.’

And really this is the gist of what I want to talk about this morning – and why I chose today’s readings about Peter getting out of the boat and walking on water and Peter and John healing a crippled man.

Both these stories are really about stepping out in faith, and the stories show how God can work through us in amazing ways if we’re prepared to do this.

When I say stepping out in faith, I mean being obedient to what we feel God is asking or prompting us to do.

This may be undertaking some new role or calling in the church; starting up a new venture or group; or it may be responding to a nudge from the Holy Spirit to say or do something in a particular situation that we find ourselves in.

It’s basically being led by the spirit of God and responding in faith.

Now I’m conscious that many of you are already doing an awful lot to serve this church and the local community – but as Campbell says – I think God wants to encourage us all to step out of our comfort zones – to expand our faith boundaries and to give something we perhaps haven’t tried before, a go.

You see the more we get out of our comfort zones – the more we have to rely on God – and the more he can work through us.

In the film Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom – there is a bit called ‘Leap of Faith’ which you can watch on You Tube.

Indiana Jones has to take a step of faith in order to cross between two sides of a rocky cavern. It looks like there is nothing at all there to support his weight.

And it’s only as he takes a step off one side that he discovers that there is an invisible bridge under his foot.

And in the Christian life, as we are out of our depth naturally speaking, we have to rely on God to help us and then we discover the supernatural power of God’s Holy spirit working in us and through us.

For instance, many of us struggle to to share our faith with those around us. We feel out of our depth talking to our friends and neighbours about our faith in God.

So, we refrain from doing this because we feel embarrassed or fearful or we’re not sure what to say; but Jesus tells us not worry about what we should say - because the Holy Spirit will give us the right words to speak.

However, the only way we’ll experience this is if we take a step of faith and speak out – and give it a go.

Actually, it’s a good thing if we do feel out of our depth and don’t really know what to say – because then God can speak through us.

As I’ve said, the more out of our comfort zone we feel – the more we have to rely on God, and the more he can work through us.

Many Christians are also really daunted by the idea of praying aloud with other people present – for instance at a prayer meeting or in a bible study group, because it’s not something they’ve done before and they feel fearful.

But if we are prepared to take a step of faith and give it a go – we may well be surprised at the help God gives us and the prayers which come out of our mouths.

When I was quite a new Christian, I went to a bible study group and to my dismay the guy running it asked each of us to pray for someone else in the group.

I wasn’t used to praying aloud for people and even worse, he asked me to pray for an elderly lady who I really didn’t know very well at all but who was clearly struggling with life.

When it was my turn, feeling very nervous, I said an arrow prayer - Lord please help me because I haven’t got a clue what to pray – and then I just prayed whatever came into my head hoping it was OK.

I was really surprised that the elderly lady seemed quite moved by what I prayed. However, I was even more surprised when the group ended, and another lady who knew this elderly lady quite well, came up to me and to told me that my prayer had been just right for her.

Because I was out of my depth I had to rely on God and he helped me and gave me the words I needed to pray.

In a similar vein – the whole area of praying one to one for other people is a big challenge for many Christians; and especially perhaps the idea of praying for healing for someone.

It does take courage to offer to pray with someone. Quite a few times I’ve avoided opportunities to pray for people because I haven’t felt very full of faith or I’ve felt awkward or embarrassed.

To some extent the more we do something, the more comfortable we’ll start to feel, but stepping out in faith is often a challenge because it does take us out of our comfort zone.

I remember the first time I offered to pray with someone for healing over 20 years ago. I’d been on a healing course and we’d been told that God would likely provide us with opportunities to give it a go and pray for people.

So, when a lady who worked in my office came in saying she was in pain with a kidney infection, I felt I ought to offer to pray for her.

I ummed and aahed for about half an hour and eventually summoned up the courage to ask her if she’d like me to pray for her. A big part of me hoped she’d say no – but she didn’t, she said – ‘oh yes, please.’

We went to an unused office and feeling very awkward, and wanting to escape back to my desk - I prayed a very quick prayer for her asking Jesus to touch her life and heal her.

I hoped that would be it – but she stayed in an attitude of prayer with her eyes shut for what seemed like ages. I asked her if she was alright – and she said ‘oh yes’ and that she’d been experiencing a great sense of peace and the pain in her kidneys had gone.

I was really surprised because all I’d felt was nervous and embarrassed - but God was able to work through that.

Stepping out in faith needn’t always be a big thing. God often prompts us to do little things. Perhaps to give someone who is struggling our time; to show someone an act of kindness; or to give some money to a person or organisation who needs it.

Sometimes he may be prompting us to pass on some words of encouragement to someone or perhaps a bible verse that may be helpful to someone.

And if we’re obedient to what we feel prompted to do, He can make a deep impression on them.

I remember a few years ago being welcomed to an evening service at St Matthews Church in High Brooms. This guy saw me come in and walked up to me and gave me a very warm welcome.

It wasn’t a big thing, but I’m sure God prompted him to do it, because through this man’s actions I really felt that God himself was welcoming me to the service and that He was pleased I’d come.

Sometimes God may be prompting us to start something new.

It could be starting a daily bible reading programme – like the Bible in One Year or going to a bible study group or prayer meeting. Or perhaps we feel that God wants us to go on a course, or to start up some new local group or initiative.

A friend of my daughter has started up a prayer group for mum’s with young children. And at my previous church a guy set up a monthly men’s breakfast group and invited Christian speakers along.

All these things involve stepping out in faith.

Perhaps you feel that God is asking you to do something but you’re worried that you’re not up to it.

Well, firstly God knows exactly what you’re capable of and if he’s asking you to do something – you are definitely capable of it.

And secondly, if God asks you to do something, He will always help you to do it.

I’ve mentioned before – that when I first felt called to preach, I really wasn’t particularly enthusiastic. My initial response was a bit like John McEnroe’s to the line judge at Wimbledon – “Lord, you cannot be serious!”

I had no desire at all for an upfront role; I really didn’t like public speaking; and I wasn’t convinced that my knowledge of the bible was up to it. But I gave it a go and discovered that God was helping me and actually – apart from feeling nervous - I enjoyed it.

Still today, I look at some bible passages I’ve been given to preach on and think – ‘Oh Lord what on earth can I say about this’ – but I’ve found consistently that with prayer and application, God always helps me find something to say.

As I’ve said, God calls us to do things we’d struggle to do naturally – because just as a swimmer who is out of their depth has to swim – so we - when we’re out of our depth have to rely on God to help us.

So, to tie up what I want to say this morning – I’ll quote Campbell again. ‘Why not have a go at doing something in your Christian life that takes you beyond what you are used to or out of your personal comfort zone.’

Something where you’ll have to say ‘Lord you’re going to have to help me with this because I can’t do it on my own.’

If you do, you’ll likely experience God the Holy Spirit working in and through you and your faith will become stronger and more real.

Maybe you’re not a Christian yet but you’d really like to know God’s love for you, and to experience the power of faith in your life.

And maybe this is something you’ve been thinking about for a while.

Well perhaps today is the day you need to step out of the boat and invite Jesus into your life to be your Lord and Saviour.

Or maybe you are a Christian and you’d like to step out in faith but you feel you need more of God’s Holy Spirit – more of his power and presence in your life. Or perhaps you have a healing need.

Whatever your need Aline and I will be very happy to pray with you at the communion rail or after the service – whichever you’d prefer.

I’m going to close now with a time of quiet prayer and reflection where you can share anything that is on your heart with God.

Perhaps though, reflect on ways that you can step out of your boat and do something for God that is beyond your normal comfort zone.

So, let’s all pray quietly for a few moments.

Healing and Words of Knowledge

As some of you may know, Aline, Moira and myself recently did an eight week course on Christian Healing and Wholeness at Goudhurst Church.

It was a really helpful and interesting course, lead by two members of the Goudhurst congregation – Faye, a lady GP and her husband Wes, whose work involved computers and data analysis.

They had both written the course after several years of studying Christian healing and of their own practical experience.

A couple of things we were taught really struck me, and this morning I’d like to share these with you as they have relevance for all Christians and indeed for anyone who has a healing need.

The first session covered looking at what the bible says about healing and at how Jesus healed people; and the second session, at our own part – as Christians - in God’s plans to heal people.

Wes said that as a younger Christian he’d prayed for quite a few people to be healed but with limited success. This resonated with me because I’ve also prayed for quite a few people to be healed – but also with limited success.

For instance, I prayed with my former boss at work three times for his ears to be healed from Tinnitus – but with no apparent effect whatsoever.

Oddly enough later on in the course we learned about how being a Freemason can have a very negative spiritual influence over people’s lives – and my boss was a freemason for a number of years – so maybe that was part of the reason my prayer didn’t work. I don’t know.

Anyway, given his limited success, Wes decided that he’d look again at how Jesus prayed for people to be healed and he realised that when Jesus prayed for people, he didn’t pray prayers of supplication asking his Father to heal them.

He didn’t pray Father God have mercy on this person and touch them with your healing power - as we are inclined to do.

Instead, he always spoke words of authority or gave people instructions. For instance, he said to the Leper – “Be clean.”

He said to the paralytic man – “Get up take your mat and go home.”

He said to the man with the withered hand – “Stretch out your hand.”

He said to Jairus’s daughter “Little girl I say to you get up.”

He rebuked demons and the fever which was afflicting Peter’s mother in law.

Wes and Faye pointed out that Jesus healed people by speaking words of authority over people’s sicknesses and diseases, over demons and even death.

Now you might think – well it was alright for him - he was God’s son. But the thing I learned on the course which really struck me is that as Christians we share in the authority of Jesus.

Let me try and explain. You see, as Christians, Jesus lives in us and we live in him. The Holy Spirit who lives in us – is exactly the same Holy Spirit who lived in Jesus and who empowered him to perform the miracles he did.

And as Christians we are Jesus’ physical body in the world. We are his hands and feet and eyes – and as we submit to him and seek to reach out to others in his name, he gives his authority to us. He gives us authority to speak and to act in his name.

And this is why I chose this morning’s gospel reading from Matthew – because in it we read about Jesus giving his disciples authority to drive out evil spirits and to heal every disease and sickness.

Notice that, authority to heal every disease and sickness. There is no disease or sickness which is too hard for Jesus to heal.

Faye explained that as a GP – a Doctor – she has been given authority by the General Medical Council to write prescriptions. That authority is hers.

And in the same way, as Christians, Jesus gives us authority over demons and disease and sickness.

So, when we pray for people to be healed or to be set free from infirmity – we need to recognise this authority and seek to exercise it in Jesus’ name.

So, when we pray for healing for someone, we’re not so much praying a prayer of supplication - imploring God to heal them; we’re recognising and exercising the authority which Jesus has given to us.

We’re seeking to speak and to act in Jesus’ name – as he would.

Wes said when he recognised this, the words he used when praying for people changed and his prayers for healing started to become more effective.

We can pray a prayer of supplication before we address a healing need. For instance, Lord Jesus we invite you to come now with your healing power and to touch so and so’s life.

But then ideally, we should address the sickness or condition we are praying for. For instance, I say to you damaged knee – in the name of Jesus be healed and made whole. Be knit together and restored.

Or I say to you Arthritis in Jesus name, leave this wrist; depart and be gone; full movement without pain be restored in Jesus’ name.

Faye encouraged us to picture in our mind’s eye what complete healing might look like in the situation we are facing and to seek to pray it into being.

It can seem a bit strange and almost presumptuous praying like this, but we are seeking to speak and to act as Jesus would – in his name.

Wes and Faye stressed that when someone comes with a healing need, we should always try and listen to what God may be saying, as sometimes there may be other needs in a person’s life which first need to be addressed.

This is particularly true where a person’s relationships are in disrepair and there is perhaps a need for forgiveness or reconciliation.

Of course, we won’t always be successful when we pray. Sometimes people will experience healing and perhaps a feeling of warmth on the afflicted area; sometimes they may experience partial healing; and sometimes there may be no apparent effect. But we can at least give it a go.

By doing so we are being obedient to verse 8 of today’s gospel reading where Jesus tells us to go out into the world and; “Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give.”

Wes and Faye emphasised that we are all on a journey and learning all the time. We’re all wearing L plates.

They also stressed that perseverance is important. Jesus prayed twice before a man’s sight was fully restored in Mark Chapter 8 and we may need to pray for people several times before they are fully healed.

There’s a great little series of videos on You Tube about Healing called the Normal Christian Life – and in one of them called ‘Watch her leg grow out’ - a young man prays four or five times for a stall holder’s wrist to be healed from Arthritis before it’s fully healed.

Each time he prays there is a small improvement. Its actually quite funny because the stall holder says “Listen mate, I appreciate your concern but we could be here all day doing this.” In the end though his wrist is completely healed because the young man perseveres.

The other thing we learned about in the course which made a particular impression on me, was Words of Knowledge. Words of Knowledge are a spiritual gift mentioned in today’s reading from 1 Corinthians.

They are a bite sized piece of information which God imparts to us through his Spirit, and they can be particularly helpful in a healing context, as God can highlight specific healing needs that he wants to address.

And this is why we are now waiting on God before some services and praying for Words of Knowledge.

Words of Knowledge can be little pictures in our mind’s eye. For instance, at Café Church last month when we were waiting on God, I saw a little picture in my mind’s eye of a patch of skin which wasn’t quite right and I sensed there was a person who was concerned about this.

It really was a brief little glimpse – but Wes and Faye encouraged us to share anything like this as it might be important to someone – as indeed it proved to be.

Words of Knowledge can also be specific names or places or professions or diseases which come into our minds as a thought.

Sometimes we may even see words highlighted in our mind’s eye when we see someone. John Wimber who was a well-known American evangelist recounts in a book how he saw the word ‘Adultery’ written across the forehead of a guy he was sitting next to on an aeroplane.

They ended up having quite an interesting chat about relationships.

Words of Knowledge can also be felt as a sympathy pain – where you feel a specific pain in an area of your body – which someone else is experiencing.

For instance, in the session where we covered them, we were all encouraged to be still and wait on God and then share anything we felt God might be saying.

I was sitting there relaxing and trying to be conscious of my body when I felt a pain at the base of my wrist. It only lasted a second or two then went. But then it happened again – so I thought I’d better share it.

It turned out the lady next to me had a pain in this exact spot – as in fact did a guy behind me.

We prayed for both of them – and the lady’s wrist pain disappeared. I’m not sure about the guy as I didn’t ask.

We’ve waited on God a couple of times now – at Café Church last month and at the joint service at Lamberhurst on 29th December. A few people have responded to specific words and have experienced various degrees of healing.

As I said earlier Aline, Moira, and I, are all really new to this and we are by no means experts. We are all learning but we are seeking to be obedient to God.

In time we’d love to see not just Brenchley Church but also perhaps Matfield, Horsmonden and Lamberhurst Churches become places where through Words of Knowledge, people start to realise that Jesus is alive and real and that he cares about their situations and wants to heal or help them in some way.

So, to tie up what I want to say this morning – firstly, if you are a Christian – realise the authority that Jesus gives you to speak and to act in his name.

Although healing may not be your main area of interest or service – do bear it in mind as a possibility if you encounter situations where people are open to being prayed for.

And secondly, when we were waiting on God at the joint service at Lamberhurst we felt that God was saying that he wanted anyone with any sort of need to come to him – not just those to whom a Word of Knowledge applied.

We can’t promise that God will always answer our prayers in the way we might hope but we believe that he loves you and cares for you and that he wants to touch your life for good in some way.

So, if a Word of Knowledge applies to you – or if you have any sort of prayer need do come and see us after the service and we’ll be very pleased to pray for you.

As usual there will be the opportunity to ask me questions after the next song – but I’ll close now with a time of quiet prayer and reflection – where you can share anything that my talk may have raised or anything that is on your heart, with God. So, let’s all pray quietly for a few moments.

‘The Way, the Truth, and the Life?’

‘I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me.’

This claim of Jesus of Nazareth is as shocking today as it was when he first made it; but for different reasons. Then, because it was a claim to deity; today, because it is a claim to exclusivity: then, it was a claim to be the only way to God and to reconciliation with him; today, it is viewed by many to be the arrogant, the unpopular, the unwarrantable claim that there is only one way to knowing God and to being reconciled to him.

In today’s cultural climate three popular modern misconceptions abound: The first is that all religions are essentially the same. But even a brief examination reveals that this is not so: whilst they may appear superficially the same, fundamentally they are quite different and at odds with each other. For example, Islam never speaks of God as ‘love’ but only as a God of ‘justice’; whereas Christianity (orthodox and biblical) insists on both. Secondly, the popular secularist dogma that all religions are private affairs - they may be the truth for you but they are not necessarily the truth for me! And, thirdly, the belief – albeit illogical and without evidence - that a unique revelation is either impossible or somehow unfair. Embarrassingly for their proponents or adherents, it quickly becomes clear that all these arise from sheer intellectual laziness, a refusal to examine and analyse all the facts and evidence available.

God’s answer however to the human problem is not many ways but one way. His solution is at once unique yet universal, exclusive but this in order to be inclusive – inclusive of all his creatures.

It should come as no surprise then that this unique and fact-based (rather than subjective and pluriform) truth concerning Jesus is so shocking to so many today. It challenges and deeply offends modern moral and philosophical ideas, modern dogmas, modern social taboos, the proud, the scientist who says there is no God, and the list goes on.

Take the theory of scientific materialism for example, one in which the atheist scientist states dogmatically, ‘I cannot believe the claims of Christ to be God.’ Why? Because it undermines the world view to which he or she is wedded; because in a philosophy of scientific materialism there is no place for a personal agent in creation. Indeed, as the President of the American Scientific Association recently said, ‘At all costs we must not let ‘God’ get a foot in the door.’ That Science and the idea of God are not at odds is rationally, cogently, and often very amusingly set out by the likes of John Lennox and other scientists who are Christians, some of whom are Nobel Prize winning scientists. That such exclusiveness and uniqueness is for our universal personal benefit is vehemently decried. ‘I came to save’, said Jesus; ‘to bring life in abundance’, and so that a person might know God the Creator not just as idea or object but as person and Father.

Today then, we Christians are on thin ice here…socially, politically, and morally; but by no means either theologically or philosophically. Why? Because of the historical facts of ‘REVELATION’. It is a basic tenet of Christianity that we believe what we believe not because we have invented it but because it has been revealed to us in the fact of Jesus Christ’s historical existence and confirmed by the historical fact of his resurrection: and these are confirmed not only by the most compelling historical evidence but also by the testimony of God’s promised Holy Spirit in our hearts and minds and in the knowledge of his risen presence with us when we ‘take up our cross and follow him’.

The uniqueness of this ‘revelation’, of this all-consuming and all-enlightening truth, is of course a problem for many today. But truth tends to uniqueness, to constraints, to boundaries, to prescriptions, to what is okay and what is not, to, dare I say it, absolutes…does it not? Ask a doctor or an accountant! And yet, today, Christianity (any religion in fact) is considered by many as private opinion or preference rather than public fact and universal truth, and therefore of an altogether different category from, say, maths or medicine.

So what are Christians to do? Remain in the cosy comfort of this ‘saving’ truth? Surely not when so many are confused, lost, ignorant…. whether they realise it or not. (Yes, I know they very often don’t take kindly to being told so!!) No, it is the Church’s business – the business of all of us who call ourselves ‘Christians’ - to be signposts to Jesus, to live as children of the Kingdom with kingdom values in our hearts and to proclaim him; not stay silent. Yes of course, as St. Paul reminds us, ‘we have this treasure in jars of clay’; we are flawed and fickle people with no right or reason to boast of ourselves. But his light can shine through when we allow it, when we allow him to guide and where necessary change us, and when we do not try to hide or keep it to ourselves! So, when people say ‘what’s the meaning of life? What do you say to them? When people say, ’I hurt, life’s unfair, why is there so much suffering in the world, what happens to us when we die?’ What do you say? Well, what do you say? ‘My adherence to modern philosophical dogma, moral inclusiveness, and contemporary social taboos demand that I neither offend nor warn you’? If you saw a blind person swimming in the sea just beyond a sign saying, ‘Danger: Sharks!’ would you leave them there in their ignorance and blindness?

Let’s assume for just a few moments that Jesus’ claim is true. (Actually, it’s the only rational and reasonable conclusion that makes sense of the evidence! I really would encourage anyone wanting to search for God to start not with philosophical questions about the existence of God but with the historical person and historical record of Jesus, a record of the quality and integrity that no other historical records of that time come anywhere near to matching - this the considered judgement of the best of secular historians themselves.)

When we consider the reason for Jesus’ coming - that the fact of human sin is a barrier between humankind and God our creator - a barrier that needs to be broken if we are to be reconciled to him - we find that the God whom Jesus revealed is a perfectly gracious and merciful God but that he is also perfectly just and hates evil. So, He himself offers the solution to the human predicament. It’s actually mind-blowingly simple if a person puts aside for a moment their philosophical, political or moral prejudices, their pride and their wilfulness. Fascinatingly, children get this where adults don’t - or refuse to! When you’ve just come in from playing in the garden or (for the benefit of adults here) weeding the flower bed, and you are offered the most beautiful, delicious, Victoria sponge cake by your mother - filled with cream and adorned with strawberries, is it unreasonable of your mother who, don’t forget, made the cake and made you, to ask you first to wash your filthy paws? This is just an everyday picture of what God is doing though Jesus for you and for me, for everyone, but obviously at a considerably more profound moral level.

Sin acts as a barrier between us and God, just as the aluminium film does between the coffee and you in your Nespresso capsule: it needs to be broken and only God can do this. But along with forgiveness for sin comes the offer of new life. The offer is life – life in abundance with him and in an ever more loving and selfless living of life now and then on into eternity.

You see, if it is true, if Jesus was and is whom he claimed to be, then it‘s a no brainer! So I say again, start your enquiry with Jesus…his life, his teaching, his claims, his resurrection: examine the evidence with an open mind!

But in examining all the evidence - and not just the bits that appeal to you! - there will come a very sobering discovery. We have been warned. We will be judged when we leave this life and meet God face to face. Anglican clergy are no longer supposed to talk about this because it upsets people. But Jesus did; he said that it was the very reason for his mission, his mission to ‘save’ us from this judgement through faith in him, in his paying the debt on our behalf, the debt we owe to a perfect God because of our sinfulness and selfishness, the debt to God’s perfect justice. At funerals I often encounter in the most non-religious people a deep-seated feeling or suspicion that when they die they will have to give an account of their lives to someone or something. If a person has any sense of justice at all, it should come as no surprise that God does too!

The reasons for not taking Jesus at his word I have found, and without exception, are not based on a genuine, impartial, and open-minded examination of the facts and the evidence but on the moral challenge of those words – his challenge to a person’s pride and to their greater desire to formulate their own moral code (with its countless ‘get out of jail free’ cards!) And countless times I have encountered this in people whom often we would label nice, pleasant, good, doers of good deeds, even ‘religious’ - to a certain degree at any rate. But Jesus said that theirs will not be enough goodness or niceness or religion to get to the Father, to the Truth, to eternal life, to the answers to our deepest questions and perplexities if there is no room for Christ in their lives. To receive Christ requires, above all else, honesty about ourselves and humility in ourselves.

The words we read in the bible are designed to make us Christians – practising believers in God’s perfect solution to the human problem. It is an offer because that is the way of love, and love cannot force itself upon anyone. Look then at Jesus and tell me God does not love you personally. Look again and tell me you don’t need to repent and accept his offer. Look again at Jesus and tell me you owe him nothing, not even the courtesy of the time to check the facts about someone who said that they had died instead of you and for you. Many either do not know this or have rejected this: that is the greatest sadness of the human race; that is why God chose you and me to help such people to ‘see’. And helping such a person to ‘see’ is one of the greatest joys in life you will ever experience. ‘He is the way, the truth, and the life. No-one comes to the Father except through him.’ This is the truth, this is our message. Will you share it or will you ‘pass by on the other side’? If you do, you will be breaking both of the Great Commandments. Yes, it’s that important!