Episode Transcript
[00:00:06] Wonderful. Now I'm going to pray and then we're going to open the word together.
[00:00:14] So Father, thank you so much for all that you've done for each person in this room. Thank you that Lord, you have this day in your calendar. You are looking forward, Lord, to being with us this morning. You love that we are gathered in your presence and you have plans and purposes you want to do. And Lord, I for one do not ever want to sit under the word of God and not have a heart that is willing to be moved.
[00:00:37] Lord, we give you all authority to shape and transform our lives as we listen to your word. Father, anything I say that is not of worth, not of use, Lord, I ask that it would just blow away in the wind. But if I say something that is your rhema word, your word for today, Lord, I pray that our spirits would receive it and I pray it would have a powerful impact. Let our faith rise and give us an obedient heart to step into that which you're calling us to do. And we ask this in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Amen. Okay, I'm going to begin with a question.
[00:01:19] How do you know what will please God in any given situation?
[00:01:25] How do you know what will please God in any given situation? Just turn to the person next to you one minute, see what you think. How do you know what will please God?
[00:01:59] Okay. Given that a lot of people in the room have their lives orientated to pleasing God, I'm imagining we've got some quick answers.
[00:02:06] So does anyone want to give me some feedback? How do you please. How do you know what's going to please God in any given situation? I honestly believe that I please God. Yep. So he pleased with me.
[00:02:16] That's it. So you please God because God looks upon you as someone who is an object of his favour. You bring him to light wherever you go.
[00:02:28] Love that. Yeah. Anyone else?
[00:02:31] To have faith to be says in the Bible, it's impossible to please God without faith. Love that aligns with his Word. So you know that if, as you, as you act, if it aligns with his Word, you're going to be pleasing God. Love that. Anyone else?
[00:02:51] Obedience.
[00:02:53] Obedience. And how do you know if you're being obedient? Just to push you a little bit further so. By the Holy Spirit.
[00:03:03] So obedience to the Holy Spirit in the moment, it's good, isn't it? Love all of those things. All of those things are useful. All of those things are true.
[00:03:12] This is a question that is asked the world over. How do I know how to live my life in order to please God. That is a question is asked with every religion in every continent throughout history. How do we know we are living in such a way that is pleasing to God?
[00:03:30] And I'm going to give you that answer according to the New Testament Today, when we look at this passage, we're going to see a contrast. We're going to see a contrast between the way of religious observance and the way of Jesus.
[00:03:47] So let's open our Bibles at Luke and Chapter 6.
[00:03:54] Feel free to use your phones. You can get out. We're going to go through this passage.
[00:03:59] So I encourage you to take this journey through the Scriptures with me. I always bring this to church with me. I encourage you to bring your own Bible to church with you if you possibly can. It's a way of getting to know the Scriptures really well. You can find your way back there when you need to dig around in there a bit later in the day. It's only a little bit extra to carry. I reckon everyone in this room can carry a Bible from their home to church. It is really worth it. I encourage you to bring it. So Luke chapter six. And as I read this first couple of verses, what I want you to pay attention to is the priorities of the main characters. Okay, so look for the priorities of the main characters. And we're going to read from Luke 6 and from verse 1. It says this one. Sabbath day. What day is it?
[00:04:44] Sabbath day. As Jesus was walking through some grain fields, his disciples broke off heads of grain, rubbed off the husks in their hands, and ate the grain.
[00:04:56] But some Pharisees said, why are you breaking the law by harvesting grain on the Sabbath?
[00:05:08] So what was the priority of Jesus?
[00:05:13] Well, I see this scene of Jesus and his followers. I imagine them on their way home from synagogue and then taking the long way home because they've got a lot of talking to do. They want some fellowship. So they're meandering through the grain fields back to wherever they're staying. And as they go, they're picking the heads of the grain. They're just sort of rubbing them together, eating them. Have you ever done that? Have you ever just rubbed grain together like that? And then it's actually quite yummy. It's floury, but it's sweet.
[00:05:40] And it's something that I've done a lot of the time in the past. It's almost like you pistachios or something like that, you've got to work at it a little bit to get in there. But it's actually quite nice once you get in there. And it's a kind of slow food, if you like. So Jesus is hanging out with his best friends. They're just going for a walk in the countryside and they're sharing some food together. This is how Jesus wants to spend the Sabbath. What's his priority? His priority is fellowship. His priority is sharing some food together. His priority is intimacy. And in the context of just bringing God glory for providing for them and leading them into this beautiful place where they can connect with God in the open. Isn't that beautiful? That's Jesus priority in this moment. What is the Pharisees priority?
[00:06:24] Arguably, it's keeping the rules, obtaining righteousness through religious observance. Is that fair?
[00:06:34] And then they express that passion for religious observance by having a go at Jesus.
[00:06:41] So both groups are observing the Sabbath, both groups are seeking to be faithful to the same scriptures. But only one group pleased the Lord, and that was Jesus and his followers.
[00:06:54] The Pharisees were eminent scholars, they were the best minds in the whole area. And yet they completely missed the point of the Sabbath laws.
[00:07:07] So Jesus switches priorities. He goes from hanging out with his buddies mode to rabbi mode. Just like that. He can switch and I love it.
[00:07:17] So by their own scriptures, he argues that rules are always secondary to what God himself is doing in the moment.
[00:07:28] Let's read it together. Luke 6, 3, 4. Jesus replied to the Pharisees, haven't you read in the Scriptures what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He went into the house of God and he broke the law by eating the sacred loaves of bread that only the priests can eat. He also gave some to his companions.
[00:07:52] Big pause in your Bible does it say, and Jesus added, well, then he went on to say, so there's a pause there. He basically throws them a question. Have you not read when David was hungry? He went into the house of God and he ate the showbread, which is like a complete no, no under the Jewish law, he broke the law. And it's as if Jesus was saying, so why was that okay for David?
[00:08:25] And he just lets it hang. He gives them an opportunity to think and to maybe realign their thinking with the way of the kingdom and to understand where he's coming from. He gives them an opportunity to turn and you can imagine them thinking, well, that was David.
[00:08:41] He's one of the good guys, right? He's one of the heroes of the Old Testament. That was David. I mean, he's an exception, right? And maybe that was unique circumstances that was acceptable to God. You can see them start to reason why that was okay. But what Jesus is doing is not okay. And then Jesus drops verse 5 and he says this.
[00:09:03] The Son of Man, which is another word for the name, for the Messiah, the Son of man is Lord. That word Lord in the Greek is Kurios. It means the one who has authority over everything. It's the word that is used to translate God throughout the whole of the Old Testament and the New Testament. When it's translated into Greek.
[00:09:26] That's not the word he would have used when he spoke to the Pharisees. He'd have used the word Adonai, which is the name for God, the Son of Man. The Messiah is Adonai, Lord God over the Sabbath.
[00:09:44] That's fighting talk, right? That is an incredible claim to make to these people who have just rebuked him. Jesus gently reminds them that he both invented and is the supreme authority over the Sabbath.
[00:10:02] He gently explains to them who it is they're trying to rebuke as the Lord of the Sabbath. It's an incredible assertion that Jesus makes.
[00:10:19] So who gets to decide what happens on the Sabbath?
[00:10:27] Surely the Lord of the Sabbath, the one who invented it, the one who has authority over it.
[00:10:34] And what does Jesus love on the Sabbath? To enjoy time, to enjoy connection, to enjoy provision and delight towards God.
[00:10:43] And if he is in the centre, the rules, the traditions, the cultural norms are not so important.
[00:10:57] If he is in the center, all the rest of it is not so important. All of the law of Moses was designed to facilitate time with God, with God at the centre. This fellowship that Jesus is already having with his disciples, of spending time in fellowship with God, enjoying the intimacy of God on the day, not busying themselves, not working, not bringing in the harvest, but just hanging out with God. So long as hanging out with God is at the center, all the rest of it is secondary. How many of our churches need to understand this?
[00:11:34] If you're not focused on hanging out with Jesus on the Lord's Day, all of the other religious trappings become important. All you're left with is religious observance.
[00:11:45] And Jesus is not in the religious observance.
[00:11:48] Jesus is with his followers, enjoying the intimacy of the kingdom. Alright, that's a powerful word and something that we should always be measuring our Sabbath against. Is Jesus in the center? Are we here to have encounter with Christ or are we here because this is our cultural observance?
[00:12:11] But the Spirit's not done with teaching us about what the Sabbath is and what the Lord wants to do with us on the Sabbath. So verse six, we enter a different scenario. We have another scene, and it says this. On the Sabbath day, a man with a deformed right hand was in the synagogue while Jesus was teaching. And the teachers of the religious law and the Pharisees watched Jesus closely. If he healed the man's hand, they planned to accuse him of working on the Sabbath. What is the priorities of the main characters here? Again, firstly, what is the priority of Jesus?
[00:12:47] Well, in those, that one verse that talks about what Jesus is doing, I think we can see a lot about what Jesus finds important on the Sabbath.
[00:12:55] Jesus is teaching in the synagogue. The word synagogue is actually a Greek word.
[00:13:01] And in the Hebrew, there are three synonyms that explain the place that in Greek we call synagogue.
[00:13:10] And the first one is this bet ha tefillah, that means house of prayer.
[00:13:19] The second one that the Hebrews use to describe synagogue is Beth ha Knesset, house of assembly.
[00:13:29] And the third one, Betha Midrash, house of study. So the synagogue is three things. It's a house of prayer, it's a house of assembly, and it's a house of study. You can hear it in the Hebrew, can't you? That betha. It's like Bethlehem, Bethlehem, house of bread. And there's so many Hebrew names that start with that because it means house of.
[00:13:53] So the synagogue is to be a house of prayer, house of assembly and house of study. And you've got Jesus there teaching in the synagogue. He's come to assemble, to gather with God's people. He loves to gather. So on your Sabbath, I want to encourage you. God loves us to gather with God's people. That's something he loves us to do. This is also to be a house of prayer, a house of intimate connection with God. That every time you come in here, you can feel that there is communion to be had between you and God. God wants to get all up in your grill and do some business with you because he loves your presence in the house. It's a house of prayer, but it's also a house of study. Whenever Jesus went to the synagogue, he became the rabbi. He was teaching the people.
[00:14:38] Because we need to learn. We need to align ourselves with this kingdom of God that Jesus came to share. We need to understand what's in these scriptures and how to live it out right, which is why I'm doing what I'm doing now. Because we have to study, we have to learn, we have to help each other understand.
[00:14:57] So Jesus is in full flow. His priority is to Share the kingdom of God based on the Scriptures to blow their minds as to the beauty and the breadth and the depth and the technicolor of the kingdom of God as he understands it. Because it's been revealed to him by the Father and they are just hanging on his words. And I'd just love to have sat there and listened to one of those sermons in person. And one day I will. Till then you've got to put up with me.
[00:15:27] But that's what Jesus was doing. He was bringing glory to the Father and he was teaching the people the ways of the kingdom. That was his priorities. What was the religious leaders priorities?
[00:15:38] The Pharisees watched Jesus closely. If he healed the man's hand, they planned to accuse him of working on the Sabbath. Wow.
[00:15:48] Imagine being in that room with Jesus in full flow and all you want to see is if Jesus puts a foot wrong in your eyes, how arrogant can anyone be?
[00:15:59] They need to get rid of him. Why?
[00:16:03] Why are they looking to trip him up? Why are they looking to knock him out of action?
[00:16:09] I want to put it to you because Jesus is a huge problem for them. Because all of their power and influence and position within society was built on the religious system.
[00:16:22] The religious hierarchy that was in place, that used authority to enforce religious rules.
[00:16:28] Jesus was dismantling the system that was going to put, that was going to threaten their whole world. Everything that their status was built upon. Jesus was systematically dismantling the system. Because without the system, what did they have? Have a think about it. You take away the councils and the big hats and the big robes and the high offices and the sacred sticks and everything else, it's the same the world over. Whether you're a Muslim or a Hindu or a Sikh or a Buddhist or a Christian. You take away all the trappings of religion, all the constructs, all the hierarchy, all the special offices and the gold chains and all the places of honor. You take away all of that and clear it away and what do you have?
[00:17:16] You have only what's on the inside.
[00:17:19] And I want to put it to you brothers and sisters, that what you're left with when you clear away all the trappings are three things.
[00:17:26] You have your character, you have the authenticity of your connection with God and you have your anointing.
[00:17:35] That is what you were going to take into heaven with you. Your character, the authenticity of your connection with God and your anointing. The Pharisees knew they had none of them.
[00:17:47] And yet Jesus was dripping with character, dripping with authentic connection with God and dripping with Anointing. And it was a desperate offence to the religious people of the day.
[00:18:02] If you take away all those trappings and you show me a person that has developed a character that looks like Jesus, and you show me a person that has lived their life seeking to be in authentic connection with God and genuinely, humbly open to the work of the Spirit in their life. And you show me a person that has owned the grace gift that is upon their life and has developed it, not buried it in the ground like the man with the talent that buried it in the ground, but instead developed it and cultivated it and learned to be confident within it and given that back to God as generously as they possibly can. And I will show you someone who has all the characteristics of being a genuine spiritual leader on this earth.
[00:18:49] That's what it means to be someone who is a genuine son or daughter of God and someone who is positioned to be able to take a lead within society.
[00:19:05] So the Pharisees big priority is to protect the religious system and crush any authority that seeks to threaten it.
[00:19:15] So in that highly charged environment in the synagogue, Jesus drops verse 8 and he says this. Jesus knew their thoughts and he said to the man with the deformed hand, come and stand in front of everyone. And the man came forward and I would just love to know what was going on in the room at the time. As this man comes and stands at the front, I'd love to know what's going on in their heads. The Pharisees must be thinking, oh, we've got him now.
[00:19:46] And the disciples were probably thinking, it's about to get interesting. Jesus is just taking it up a notch because they've seen this happen before.
[00:19:54] The man is probably thinking, I hope this is going to work out well. This is actually. He's probably feeling pretty vulnerable right now, maybe a little exposed, excited maybe, maybe thinking this is my moment, but hoping it's all going to work out.
[00:20:12] The man's mates are probably thinking, get in. Jesus is up for it today. You know, this is going to be brilliant. The synagogue owner is probably thinking, oh, it's going to kick off, just don't break stick.
[00:20:23] You know, this is quite a moment. As this man gets up, what's Jesus priority?
[00:20:36] I want to put it to you that Jesus priority was to take this moment to reveal more of the beauty and the freedom of Sabbath, to share with everybody present what happens when God is in the room, you know, to challenge the absurd behavior of religiosity.
[00:21:04] Because none of that matters when Jesus is in the Room to bless this guy and to save him from any further prolonged suffering and to make sure that he's got his life back, to be able to serve with both hands, to let him know the Father loves him, and to glorify his Father while he's on the earth. That's Jesus priorities in this moment, I believe.
[00:21:32] And then in verse nine, notice that Jesus doesn't go straight into healing this man's hand. Instead, it's the same pattern as he had in the grain field with the Pharisees. He gives them an opportunity to see the truth. He gives them an opportunity to understand how their thinking is really messed up. But actually there is a kingdom that they can tune into.
[00:21:52] It says in verse 8, Jesus knew their thoughts.
[00:21:56] He said to the man with the deformed hand, come and stand in front of everyone. So the man came forward. Then Jesus said to his critics, I have a question for you.
[00:22:05] Does the Lord permit good deeds, good deeds on the Sabbath, or is it a day for doing evil? Is this a day to save life or to destroy it?
[00:22:16] And he looked around at them one by one. Do you see the same pattern of Rabbi Jesus dealing with these Pharisees?
[00:22:25] He says, I want you to actually answer the question today. This is Sabbath. What is this day for?
[00:22:35] Is this day a day to save life or to destroy it? Is this a day to do some good, or is it a day to do evil? And wouldn't it be evil to have the power and the willingness to heal this man's hand and just leave him for another week, leave him for another time when he has the capacity to do that and he wants him to answer the question? And so they're sitting there stewing on it.
[00:23:04] There's a logic there. But can they step over to this kingdom logic, or are they just going to hold on to their position?
[00:23:13] He gives them a chance, and he eyeballs them one at a time. What is this day for?
[00:23:19] He lets that land. And then he turns to the man. And I believe at this point, he's not eyeballing the men anymore. He turns to this guy, guy who's there vulnerably standing there with his hand all withered.
[00:23:33] And I believe at that moment, Jesus just shuts out the whole of the rest of the room. And as far as this guy is concerned, it's just him and his God standing there. And I believe he just fixes his gaze on this man.
[00:23:47] And in the eyes of Jesus, I believe this man would have understood freedom, grace, forgiveness, welcome, confidence, excitement, unconditional love. And absolute faith that he could do what the Father had shown him he wanted to do.
[00:24:11] All he needed to say was, stretch out your hand.
[00:24:16] And the man, you can just imagine it, can't you? Slowly stretching out his hand, and there it was.
[00:24:32] You can imagine the sharp intake of breath in the room.
[00:24:37] It would have been incredible.
[00:24:40] You'd have had the Pharisees over here tearing their clothes. You'd have had his mates going, yes, get in. I knew we were supposed to bring him today. You'd have had the disciples going, glory, he's done it again. This is going to be wonderful. You've got Jesus just beaming, just seeing this guy and the relief on his face as dignity is restored to this man's life and he knows that he's going to leave the Sabbath and the synagogue whole.
[00:25:07] Amazing, amazing feeling to watch the salvation of God just descend in the room.
[00:25:17] The Pharisees, it says in the scriptures, were wild with rage.
[00:25:23] Imagine being so far away from the priorities of heaven that when you see Jesus heal a man's hand, you become wild with rage.
[00:25:32] And yet they had the same Scriptures as us.
[00:25:37] So did Jesus have a flagrant disregard for the Sabbath laws of Moses? I want to argue absolutely not. Jesus said, not a single detail will pass away until it is fulfilled. He said, I didn't come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. He came to show us what it looks like to live perfectly under the law and what the law was designed to do with giving us connection to God and accessing the full salvation of heaven. That is what Jesus came to do.
[00:26:07] He made it clear that you can't please God by simply stopping studying the Word and trying really hard. That is what the Pharisees did.
[00:26:15] They knew the same scriptures. They tried harder than anyone else to make sure they nailed the Scriptures as they saw them. Knowing your Scriptures and trying really hard is never going to be enough. Can I get an Amen? It's not enough, brothers and sisters. We've got to do better than that. Jesus said, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees, you're not even going to take the first step, step into the kingdom of heaven. It gets way better than that.
[00:26:41] We need so much more. So studying the Scriptures is good, but you have to study the Scriptures through the lens of knowing God's heart as revealed by Jesus and is still being revealed by the Holy Spirit.
[00:26:54] So, coming back to our original question, how do I know how to please God in any given situation?
[00:27:00] We need a general understanding of the Word. Of God.
[00:27:06] We need to understand God's priorities and purposes.
[00:27:10] And then we need to let Jesus be our rabbi. We need to let Jesus be our. Well, the technical term is our central hermeneutic, the lens through which we understand God and understand God's heart. We need to let Jesus be front and center and teacher and, and model and lifestyle coach and everything else. Jesus is the one through whom we understand God clearly.
[00:27:39] We need to set our priorities, our lifestyle and our habits according to him. Anyone got a what would Jesus do bracelet?
[00:27:48] Here's one. What would Jesus do is really, really good. It's really, really good.
[00:27:54] It's going to help us to build a life that looks like Jesus. But can I say to you, that's not enough.
[00:28:00] Even that is not enough.
[00:28:03] If you really want to bless the Lord in any situation, if you really want to make his heart skip a beat on a daily basis, look at what moved Jesus most powerfully throughout the New Testament. And I want to argue this. What moved Jesus more than anything throughout the whole of the New Testament was when ordinary people like you and me laid hold of the Father's heart for ourselves and then, with the prompting of the Holy Spirit, stepped out in obedience to serve him. That's what grabbed Jesus more than anything else when he said to his disciples, he said, who do you say that I am? And Peter stepped forward and said, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. Jesus nearly fell off his chair. And he said, flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, Simon, but my Father in heaven has revealed this to you. Blessed are you, Simon Barjona. From now on, you're going to be called Peter. And upon this rock I'm going to build my church, and the gates of hell will not stand against it. He got really excited.
[00:29:04] There was another time where he met a centurion who said, my servant is ill. Would you come and heal him? And on his way to heal the centurion's servant, he sent out another servant and said, don't even bother coming to my house, he said. He said, I see you. I see your authority. I too am a man under authority. I say this one go, and he goes. I say to another one, come. And he comes. You too have authority. Just say the word, Jesus, and my servant will be well. And Jesus, once again, he was moved. He nearly fell off his chair that time as well. And he basically called everyone around him and says, I have not found faith like this in all Israel. He was so excited, jumping up and down because this centurion had received the heart of the Father for himself and then was acting upon it, stepping out in faith, moved by the Holy Spirit. Think of Mary, just before Jesus died in the house of Simon the Pharisee. She arrives with her bottle, her alabaster jar, and she anoints Jesus feet and she's cleaning his feet with her hair, doing this beautiful thing for Jesus, shocking the Pharisees again, love that Jesus just lets her carry on.
[00:30:19] And Jesus is so moved, he says no, what this woman has been done will be spoken about in every generation throughout history. He is that excited about what she's done. Why? Because she has received from God the Father his heart for his Son. And she has been moved by the Holy Spirit to do something generous and extravagant and beautiful. And she has had the courage to step out in faith, even though she knows what people are going to think and she's going to do it anyway. And there's something about that. When Jesus sees the heart of the Father coming through his disciples at the obedience of the Holy Spirit, that absolutely blows his mind.
[00:31:01] Amazing. We, each of us, every single one of us, have the capacity to move Jesus and to bless him enormously on a daily basis in any situation. We can ask the Lord, Lord, what do you want to do here? What do you want to do now?
[00:31:18] And when we know him well and we know the things he likes to do, it's really, really easy for the Holy Spirit to then just give us a little bit of direction, a little prompt here and a prompt there to guide us in any given scenario.
[00:31:32] The Holy Spirit reveals the priorities of the Father in the moment. And as we step out in obedience, prompted by the Spirit, Jesus falls off his chair with excitement. He's still doing it. Let me give you an example and I'm going to finish with this.
[00:31:49] So there's been a whole load of times actually in my lifetime where the Lord has just given me a little sense that I've got it right for once. Has God ever done that with you?
[00:32:04] There was this time. Has anyone been to Totnes Market? Christmas market?
[00:32:10] It's really, really busy. Worth a go. It happened on Tuesdays throughout December. And I know that because I was pastor in Totnes before coming here.
[00:32:19] And every Tuesday night throughout December, the whole town shuts down and there's this great big market. And in the church we'd set up this exhibition space which was just like this beautiful candle lit reflection space that was just off the busy street where there was an avenue of candles and there's all these little Stations of things that people could engage with in order to bring some of the connection with Jesus back into Christmas. So this was good, but I was just setting all this stuff up, and we closed our cafe and rearranged the room, and it was all just, you know, beautiful in there. And I heard this massive ruckus out on the street. There was a fight kicking off out on the street. And so I went out to see what was going on. And these two guys were facing off, and it was. There was a crowd starting to form around them. And so I got up between them, and I asked one guy to step back. And then I turned to the other guy. I said, right, you come with me. And this guy, shouting, cursing, spitting first, trying to get through me and then standing and talking to me, then walking with me, came up and I brought him into the church.
[00:33:29] And he was just incandescent. He was just completely out of control. He was a little bit high and inebriated, but he was angry. I mean, he had spit all down his coat. He was fuming, and he just could not stop. He was just moving up and down, up and down, just cursing and cursing and cursing, swearing, angry. He was just blaspheming.
[00:33:56] In the sanctuary in the middle of my church, I had two interns and a trustee up in the balconies.
[00:34:04] And this guy is just using every bit of profane language that you can think of. You can just go through a little list in your mind. It was there and some. Okay, about every 30 seconds, there was a massive Jesus Christ, and not in a good way. And occasionally he even dropped the F bomb in the middle. It was like a gut punch. I hate it when people do that in the sanctuaries. But, you know, there he was in the middle of the church.
[00:34:34] And I've got these two interns that are kind of like, edging around this side of the room because they're supposed to be going home, looking at me as if to say, are you going to let this guy do that in our church? Looking pretty scared. And then they leave the room. One of them was from Brazil, from a very conservative background. She was horrified. She then left to go home. And I've got this trustee that hangs around for a little while because he's thinking, well, if this guy just nails the pastor and he's flat out on the floor, someone's got to ring the ambulance, right? So he stays up in the balcony for a bit. And as I talk to this guy, after about three or four minutes, he's still pacing. He's still shouting, but he's not. The volume's coming down a little bit. I said, do you want a cup of tea? He said, yeah, four sugars. And then he just carries on. Four sugars is a lot, innit? So anyway, I'm standing behind the boiler making two cups of tea, four sugars, right? And I'm still listening and everything within me is wanting to stop him and say, look, can you just control the language a little bit? You know, this is our church, this is where we worship. And as I was about to say something, I felt the Holy Spirit say, don't you dare.
[00:35:41] Just let him speak and love him. Let him speak and love him.
[00:35:47] And this went on for a long time, 15 minutes, 20 minutes. And we got this cup of tea and. And I sit down and he's still there pacing. And then after a while the pacing just grows to a standstill and he's still ranting and then I hand him his cup of tea and he comes and sits down and then he's upset and he's angry, but he's now just talking and he pours out his entire life story.
[00:36:13] 45 minutes, he's just on download, right? Trustee ends up leaving and said he sneaks out of the room.
[00:36:30] I think we're okay now.
[00:36:32] And this guy just talks and talks and talks. I think I asked maybe two questions in an hour. That's the only time he heard my voice apart from out on the street. Maybe two questions in an hour. Oh, and do you want a cup of tea?
[00:36:43] And he just talked and and talked and talked and talked. And when he was nearly done talking, I just thanked him so much for sharing and for coming in today.
[00:36:54] And he said, most of that I've never told anyone. I'm not quite sure why I'm telling you.
[00:37:00] And I just encouraged him and I just loved him. And I just said how sorry I was for the amount of pain that he's been through and how complicated his life has been so far.
[00:37:13] Genuinely, I was well enough because it was a really moving story.
[00:37:17] And I said, have you got any support? And he said, not really, no. I've been sort of moving from room to room, wherever's cheapest, and I've burnt my bridges with a lot of the rooms in Totnes.
[00:37:29] I said, well, look, you need people around you.
[00:37:32] You're not going to make your best decisions without a family. It's in the context of family and support and people that love you and will encourage you and advise you and, and model it for you that you're going to make the best decisions and start walking towards something more positive. Would you come to my church? I'd love you. In my family, he never came to church. But what he did do is as he stood up and walked towards the door, he was just about to leave, and he stopped, turned around, came back and gave me the biggest hug.
[00:38:03] He wouldn't let go for about two minutes. And you got the feeling he was like, this is the closest I've had to being fathered and to being loved in a very, very long time.
[00:38:15] He just hung on and then he left. And I never saw him again. And as he left, I was left with an overwhelming sense. Two things. One, I felt the kingdom of heaven has advanced tonight. God has taken ground. He's shot a light into the darkness where it was absent, absolutely screwed up and messy and full of rage and anger and bitterness. God has planted his love into the most painful part of a man's life and sown a seed of grace there. This man knows that he is welcome. That's the first thing. And the second thing is I felt an overwhelming sense of the pleasure of Jesus that this man had been able to rant and swear and profane his name and everything. And God had looked over all of that mess at the Son of God who is hurting the Son that he wants to bring home. And the pleasure of God that this man had been allowed to talk was overwhelming.
[00:39:17] So here we are in this great opportunity we have to bless the Lord. Here we are on this Sabbath day, gathered in prayer to learn with Jesus.
[00:39:30] Jesus priorities haven't changed. He still loves to rest with us. He still loves to fellowship with us. He still loves to gather us together in the gladness of God. He still loves to teach us and reveal the beauty of the kingdom and the heart of the Father to us.
[00:39:48] And this is still a day to do good and not to do evil. He is still about gathering us together on the Lord's Day in the Lord's house to save life and to send people away whole. Do you believe that?
[00:40:04] I wonder if today, if there are some people here that have something a little like a withered hand.
[00:40:13] What does that withered hand represent to you? What is it in your life that is not quite whole yet that has maybe been causing you a problem, maybe causing you anxieties, causing you to suffer, maybe a little bit of dignity lost.
[00:40:32] What is it in your life that you would just love Jesus to come and restore?
[00:40:41] Jesus loves to use the Sabbath to do that if he's willing to heal this man's hand, knowing that it's going to sign his death warrant. Do you not think he'll do it for you?
[00:40:53] Isn't that amazing?
[00:40:56] Everybody in that room knew what Jesus was going to do, Even the Pharisees.
[00:41:01] That's why they were there. His whole nature was bent towards making people whole and restoring people.
[00:41:10] Nobody was questioning what he was going to do. They all knew it because they knew him. Brothers and sisters, we know him too.
[00:41:19] Never come to church questioning whether God wants to heal, whether God wants to restore, whether God wants to put us back together.
[00:41:29] The Pharisees has all sorts of reasons why maybe Jesus shouldn't do it. We have our own reasons that we generate why Jesus maybe won't do it and won't bless us as we come before him.
[00:41:40] But I want to encourage you to learn from Jesus, to hear this call to salvation again.
[00:41:49] So we're just going to take a moment now and we're just going to ask the Lord, Lord, what do you want to do?
[00:41:55] What will bless your heart the most, Lord? Father, what is it that is going to cause you just your heart to skip a beat? Lord, what is it that is going to bless the Father's heart the most?
[00:42:09] On this day as we gather in your house, there's not a single thing you're not willing to stretch out your hand to restore.
[00:42:22] And so, Lord, I pray now, you just move amongst us. And Lord, if there is an area of anyone's life here that feels like a bit of a withered hand, Father, would you give us the courage to do what this man did and to stand in your presence not caring about who was watching or what would happen, but just to respond to your call for restoration?
[00:42:53] I just want to encourage you, if there's something in your life that needs that touch from God, I want to encourage you to stand before him just as an act of humility and willingness to receive what God has for you?
[00:43:11] Thank you, Lord.
[00:43:19] Some of you might need to stand on behalf of someone else that is not present in the room.
[00:43:27] It's a bit like being the four friends who brought their friend on a mat and laid him before Jesus.
[00:43:35] I'm bringing my friend.
[00:43:37] He might have a withered hand.
[00:43:40] They might have something that just needs restoration. It needs a touch from the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. It needs a touch of the Lord of the Sabbath.
[00:43:52] And if you're prepared, if you're near someone, maybe just stretch out a hand to pray for them if it feels appropriate. And I'm Just going to pray.
[00:44:05] Jesus, you are the same yesterday, today and forever Jesus, right here in this place, we proclaim you Lord of the Sabbath.
[00:44:19] You are the Messiah.
[00:44:21] You are the one who invented the Sabbath. You are the one who has authority over the Sabbath.
[00:44:28] This place of rest.
[00:44:30] You are the one who loves to gather in the house of God.
[00:44:35] You are here in our midst now.
[00:44:38] And Jesus, we want to see your kingdom come and your will done on earth as it is in heaven.
[00:44:49] We want to leave church just as they did with you in Galilee, with their hearts burning with the salvation they've just witnessed, as they've just seen you move in beautiful ways, just restoring life wherever you go. Lord, would you do that this morning for everybody standing?
[00:45:13] So I encourage you to bring before the Lord that which is your problem. Stretch out your hands, says Jesus.
[00:45:23] Some of you, you might want to just open your hands before God as a sign. Say, lord, this is my issue.
[00:45:32] And now, Holy Spirit, would you make much of Jesus and would you bless the heart of the Father and would you come and do your miracles?
[00:45:45] Let your healing come, Lord. Let your restoration come.
[00:45:53] Come and do the impossible, Lord God, that only you can.
[00:46:01] The Lord is delighted to restore bodies.
[00:46:08] Knees be strengthened, bones be healed.
[00:46:15] Pain. Would you right now, in the name of Jesus, leave the body of Christ.
[00:46:23] Leave all these individuals. Pain levels come down now in Jesus name name anxieties.
[00:46:33] I speak against you in the name of Jesus and I ask that you leave now.
[00:46:40] Leave in Jesus name.
[00:46:45] Let your peace come, Lord God, let your peace come.
[00:46:53] Encourages you stand there in your mind's eye, in your imagination. Just see the love of Jesus in his eyes.
[00:47:04] This is a moment just between you and your Lord.
[00:47:08] There is no doubt in his eyes.
[00:47:11] There is no wavering in his eyes.
[00:47:15] Who he is, what he says of my, what he does are all completely one. He is completely authentic and he cannot help but bless you.
[00:47:26] So just receive that love and receive that power from God with simple faith.
[00:47:36] Because the Lord wants to fill your life with his goodness today.
[00:47:41] This is going to be a Sabbath day to remember.
[00:47:45] And so, Lord, have your way.
[00:47:47] Trust you, Lord.
[00:47:58] Let's just stay in the presence of Jesus and let him work amongst us as we sing and finish our time together.
