Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] Right, well, good morning, everybody.
[00:00:08] It's really, really great to see you this morning. And my name's Graham and it's my joy this morning to share with you some more from the Book of Luke. So if you've got a Bible with you and you'd like to open it up to the Book of Luke, chapter five, we'll be going there in just a few moments. I'd like us to pray before we. Before we get too far into this. And I had this slightly strange image in my mind to invite you to pray into. I don't know if you can identify with this. Sometimes you go on the computer and you go onto a website. Let's take a fairly standard website like the BBC website or something like that. When you go on, you quite often get a message, don't you will say something like, do you want to accept cookies? Do you know what I mean? I've got no idea what that is, but I always know that I get a selection of buttons to press at those times. I'll get things like accept cookies or reject cookies or manage cookies. Do you know what I mean?
[00:01:03] And I just had a sense this morning, God saying, as we open the Word, there are three buttons in front of us.
[00:01:09] As we read the word of the Lord this morning, the Word is saying, do you want to accept what this says, do you want to reject what this says? Or do you want to take it on your terms and manage it a little bit? So as I pray, I'm just going to pray into that picture. So let's. If you would like to close your eyes and we'll just pray. Father God, we thank you for your Word. We thank you that it is alive and active. And before we've read it, before we've read it, before we thought about it, we just have that image in our mind of a screen with three buttons. Accept, reject, manage.
[00:01:44] Father, the invitation for us this morning is to accept. Accept what you have to say to us.
[00:01:51] Will we. Before we proceed, will we click that button?
[00:01:55] Father, help us accept what you have for us this morning through your spirit, in Jesus name, Amen.
[00:02:03] Amen. So we're in Luke chapter 5 and I'm going to read from verse 17, follows on from last week's story with the man healed from leprosy. And I'm reading from the new living translation, verse 17. One day while Jesus was teaching, some Pharisees and teachers of religious law were sitting nearby. It seemed that these men showed up from every village in all Galilee and Judea, as well as from Jerusalem. And the Lord's healing power was strongly with Jesus.
[00:02:35] Some men came carrying a paralyzed man on a sleeping mat. They tried to take him inside to Jesus, but they couldn't reach him because of the crowd. So they went up onto the roof and took off some tiles. Then they lowered the sick man on his mat down into the crowd, right in front of Jesus. Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the man, young man, your sins are forgiven.
[00:02:59] But the Pharisees and the teachers of religious law said to themselves, who does he think he is? That's blasphemy. Only God can forgive sins.
[00:03:09] Jesus knew what they were thinking, so he asked them, why do you question this in your hearts? Is it easier to say your sins are forgiven or stand up and walk so I will prove to you that the Son of Man has the authority on earth to forgive sins. Then Jesus turned to the paralyzed man and said, stand up and pick up your mat and go home. And immediately, as everyone watched, the man jumped up, picked up his mat and went home praising God. Everyone was gripped with great wonder and awe. And they praised God, exclaiming, we have seen amazing things today. Would we like to see amazing things today? Amen. We're in the early stages of Jesus public ministry. We've seen the preparation in chapters one to four. We've seen Jesus announce in verse 18 of chapter four that he'd come to bring good news to the poor, proclaim release to those in captivity, to give sight to the blind and to free the oppressed. And now we're in the middle of a series of short incidents where Jesus is effectively walking the walk. He's saying to people, this is what I said I was going to do, and now I'm actually going to do it. This is what it looks like. And have we been struck by the power of Jesus words in these incidents? So far, his words have caused curiosity. His words have drawn crowds. His words have caused astonishment. His words have rebuked demons. His words have changed Simon Peter's life situation.
[00:04:45] And his words have restored a leper to health and to relationship with his community. And this morning, the words of Jesus to this paralyzed man bring salvation. They don't just bring healing, they bring salvation. I remember the first time that I had a cornetto. Does anyone know cornettos? I was so excited when I had. My dad gave me a cornetto. I couldn't believe it. It was so tasty. It was so delicious. It was just wonderful. And that was quite a long time ago and I've had quite a few cornettos. Since. And they don't hold quite the same excitement nowadays.
[00:05:22] They've got smaller, haven't they? Like Mars bars. They've got a lot smaller.
[00:05:27] You know, and sometimes with the Bible, sometimes with things in the Bible, the things that happen for the first time are really exciting when they come up in the Bible for the first time. And then as time goes on, we kind of go, okay, yeah, forgiveness of sins. Yeah, know that, Heard that. And I wanted to try and recapture some of that excitement of the firsts in this passage. And there are three. There are three firsts in this passage. The first one is the first time we encounter the Scribes and the Pharisees as a discrete group of people. So we'll spend just a short amount of time looking at that.
[00:05:59] It's the first time that Luke explicitly uses the word faith. So we will use. Have a little bit of a look at that. But most importantly, and we'll spend most of our time on the fact that this is the first time that Jesus refers to himself as the Son of Man. It's the first time that Jesus says, I am the one who can forgive sins. And that's a phrase that we hear a lot in church. Son of man, forgive us of sins. But what does it actually mean? And what does it mean for us? So that's where we're going to go. And at the end, I'm going to invite us to come and receive prayer. Just so there's no surprises and you know what's coming. We're going to offer you the opportunity to receive. If there are things in your life where you feel that you need salvation, where you need prayer for healing, where you need prayer because you're stuck or paralyzed in your body or mind or spirit, we will offer you that opportunity to come forward and to receive prayer. It's not scary. It's not a magical formula that we have. We have Jesus that we can offer to you. So it's just so you know where we're going over the next half an hour or so.
[00:07:01] That's great. So first of all, the Scribes and the Pharisees, if you've got a Bible in front of you and you're looking at verse 17, Luke sets the scene really succinctly. Imagine it. On the one hand, we've got Jesus teaching he's in a home. He's not in the synagogue anymore. He's in somebody's home. And on the other hand, we've got the Scribes and the Pharisees who have come from all over the Region, it tells us, why is that? Why have they come? Well, they were the people who were in charge of upholding the law. They were the people who made sure that the Jewish people were distinctive, that they did what the Moses law had said they should do. And so, in so doing, they believed that one day God would show up and judge everybody else who wasn't keeping the law. And their job was to teach the law. And God was going to judge everybody else, including the Romans, who didn't do. Do what they were supposed to do. That's what they understood the kingdom of God to mean. And Jesus had caught their attention because he was riding roughshod over all of this. He was not having any of that.
[00:08:07] He was not doing that. It didn't look like anything they were expecting. So this posse of Pharisees, if you like, was sitting there going, right, who is this Jesus, then? What's he doing? What's he saying? What's he about? They were coming to check him out. But the end of verse 17 makes it really clear where the power lies. It says the Lord's healing power was strongly with Jesus. The scribes and the Pharisees didn't have the power to heal. Jesus had the power to heal. We've seen so far everything that Jesus does, He does in the power of the Holy Spirit. When we pray with people this morning. Let me go on that long. This afternoon, when we pray with people, we're not doing it in our own power. We're doing it in the power of the Holy Spirit.
[00:08:53] I wonder if there's anyone here this morning. I don't know. All of you. You may be here for the first time. If there's anyone here today or listening who's heard about Jesus and you've come to find out more about who he is, if that's the case, you're so welcome. And I trust that you will find Jesus this morning.
[00:09:10] Secondly, there is the faith of the paralyzed man and his friends in verses 18 to 20. Try and imagine the scene if you can. This household, this man has. This chap has opened up his house. Jesus is in the living room teaching, and it's very, very full. And he's teaching away. And all of a sudden you suddenly feel these bits of reed and thorns and clay dropping on his shoulders. And he looks up and then he sees the wooden beams on the roof being moved to one side, and there's this great big hole appearing.
[00:09:43] If they had kind of like insurance firms in those days, can you imagine writing the form for your claim? What Happened? Well, I was in my house and all of a sudden somebody started moving the roof and this bat comes down with this paralyzed man on it and this mat comes through the roof and it says Luke, says Jesus. Seeing their faith.
[00:10:07] So far we've seen many people putting their faith in Jesus because they've come to him for healing. But this is the first direct reference to the word faith. The word means firm persuasion. These men were firmly persuaded that in Jesus God was decisively at work. They were so convinced they were not going to let anything get in their way. Not the crowds, not the roof, nothing. Do you remember last week we had the story of the leper and he came to Jesus and asked to be healed and leprosy. The skin condition that he had meant that he was unclean, he was an outcast. He was literally cast out, away from his community. He wasn't allowed to be in his community. And yet he came into the village, he broke the law to come into the village to meet with Jesus and to say, I want you to heal me.
[00:11:00] These people had faith. They were certain that Jesus was going to act.
[00:11:08] And as I imagine the scene in this house, I imagine Jesus eyes looking upwards. I don't know about you, what's Jesus face doing in your imagination at this point? I imagine it would be hard not to look up, wouldn't it? If you've got the ceiling falling on your head and a mat coming down, down. I imagine his eyes looking upwards and resting on the eyes of the man on the mat. This man has Jesus full attention. There's a meeting of complete confidence in Jesus on the part of the stretcher bearers and the man on the mat matched by the complete attention of Jesus.
[00:11:50] It's as if the rest of the people in the house blur he into the background for a moment.
[00:11:55] Psalm 3:3 says, but you, O Lord, are a shield around me. You are my glory, the one who lifts my head high. An ancient prayer of God's people included the words, may the Lord turn his face towards you.
[00:12:10] I wonder if there's anyone here this morning who feels that the attention of Jesus has been off them for a while, that the eyes of Jesus are not on you. I believe this morning Jesus is putting his hand under your chin, lifting your head and saying, I see you.
[00:12:29] I see you. I hear you. I know you. I am not distracted. I am not going to look at my watch in 10 minutes time and say, right, that's your lot, Graham, I see you, I hear you. You have my attention.
[00:12:45] You have Jesus attention. This Morning. Whether you've been following him for years or whether this is the first time you've heard his name, he has your attention.
[00:12:56] And then we come to these great phrases. The Son of man who forgives sins. Two remarkable statements, one directed to the Pharisees, challenging their assumptions, one directed to the man confirming his faith.
[00:13:14] But before we look at that, can we just put some brackets in our minds? Can we do that? Just put a bracket for a minute. Because I think it's important we pause for a second and just remind ourselves what Jesus is not saying at this point. Jesus is not saying, the man on the mat, you have done something really awful in your life and therefore you were sick.
[00:13:36] Jesus is not saying that.
[00:13:39] We need a more nuanced theory, a nuanced theology of sickness. We need to think it through. And this isn't the sermon for that. I'm not going to go into huge amount of details on it, but I do want to offer just a couple of thoughts, three thoughts around that, just to help us navigate this next section. I think there are three broad categories when we think about sickness. One is that God does. In the Bible, God does send sickness. He does even send death on occasions for significant sickness. Sin for people who really, really, really, really take the name of the Lord in vain and really, really, really get it wrong. That is not the default position for you and I. If I've got a cold, that's unlikely to be the reason.
[00:14:25] So yes, it happens. And yes, it's important for us to continually examine our hearts, as Jacob's encourages to do this morning. But the sickness and the illness is. It's not the default position. I'm sick, therefore I have sinned. That's not the default position. It does happen. It's not the default decision. Numbers 12, 9. For example, Moses, sister Miriam is struck with leprosy after lots of complaining.
[00:14:50] The second category, I think, is what I call the kind of the consequence category. If I go into a room of people who have all got a cold, very topical for the moment, shut the door, hug everybody shut, shake their hands, go right close to their face, let them cough and sneeze and splutter all over me, and then go out, and then three days later, I've got a cold, no one's going to be surprised that I've got a cold. And that's a consequence of something that I did. I was in that room with those people.
[00:15:18] Some of you may. Have you ever heard of the film Supersize Me?
[00:15:22] It was a few years ago now, but it was American Morgan Spurlock, I think he was called, and he did an experiment where he ate McDonald's for a month and that was all he ate. And if he went into a McDonald's and he ordered a McDonald's, and if they said to him, do you want to supersize that, I. E. Do you want to have the biggest menu available? He had to say yes. And they charted him over this month of eating McDonald's, and they charted his health. And you won't be surprised to know his health tanked. It just went really, really badly. And it was a consequence of his diet. It was a consequence of what he had chosen to eat. And so it's wise, isn't it, sometimes, for us to say, well, let me. Let me just before God, examine my diet, examine my sleep, examine my exercise, let me do everything I can to keep healthy. That's a sensible thing to do. But sometimes sickness can be a consequence of decisions that we've made.
[00:16:15] And then thirdly, sometimes it's just because it's wrong. It's because we live in a fallen world. Romans 8 tells us that creation is still groaning and there will be times when people get sick and people die, and it's just wrong. It shouldn't happen, but it does. It's not something they've done wrong, it's not a consequence of anything they've done. It is just wrong. And we need to hold that intention. As Esther said last week, we say it's wrong. We pray in confidence for healing. We pray in confidence that God can and will act. Sometimes he doesn't. And sometimes the healing is of a different nature. So we need a theology of sickness. We need a theology of healing that recognizes that continuum. For this paralyzed man, for the leper, it was instant. It's not always the case. Sometimes there's partial healing, sometimes there's grace to bear with illness and strength and all the things we learned from that. And sometimes the ultimate healing is when we go to be with Jesus, but He is the healer. He will heal. He will not abandon us. He will always be there, end of brackets.
[00:17:23] Let's go back to the room with the paralysed man.
[00:17:28] Jesus's comments are startling. So let's see if we can capture some of that startlingness. What's that word? Startlingness.
[00:17:38] And I'm going to invite you to do some time travelling. Let's do some time travelling.
[00:17:44] When Jesus says the Son of Man, he's looking or thinking of the Pharisees and the scribes, he's thinking of These people who know their scriptures really, really well. So he knows when he says the Son of Man, that what he says is going to catch their attention.
[00:18:01] And they just as Jesus went into the temple and opened up a scroll, remember it was a scroll and not a book. He opened up a scroll of Isaiah and, and he said those words, I've come to the spirit of the Lord is upon me. Etc Etc, they would be thinking now of another scroll. They would put the Isaiah scroll back on their shelf and they'd go and take another scroll, they'd open it up and this scroll would be called Daniel. And in the book of Daniel, in the scroll of Daniel, the character Daniel has a vision, he has a dream and it's a really weird dream. It's a remarkable dream. So I'll try and describe it in simple terms for you. You'd find it in Daniel chapter seven, if you want to check this out later on. Try and imagine, if you can, a throne room. Try and imagine the most impressive throne room that you can, a magnificent throne in the center. And on the throne is the most powerful, impressive ruler that you can imagine. Try and imagine that in Daniel. This figure is called the Ancient of Days or the Ancient One. His clothing, his white, the throne is on fire, which are all symbols of wisdom and purity. This is the most authoritative, powerful, majestic ruler that we can possibly imagine. Have you try and get that idea in your head. And then around this or in the vicinity, there are these. There's a second element. There are these weird beasts and creatures that have all sorts of peculiarities. They don't look like normal beasts, they have horns and they have all sorts of things and they're really, really strange and they're all dangerous and they're terrifying. And they represent the rulers and nations and powers of the world at the time of Daniel. Countries like Persia, I'm sure you can think if I said to you, think of your nations at the moment who are the most dangerous and the most powerful. You will have an idea of some nations in your mind. Those are the nations surrounding this throne. So powerful ruler, scary beasts. And then into this scene walks a man, just a man, an ordinary man. He walks up to the throne, looks like you and me, nothing special about him.
[00:20:24] Goes past the nations, steps up to the throne. And in Daniel 7, verse 13, it says this about this man. He approached the Ancient One and was led into his presence. He, the man was given authority, honor and sovereignty over all of the nations of the world. So that people of every race and every nation and Every language would obey him. His rule is eternal. It will never end. His kingdom will never be destroyed. That's the man in front of the throne.
[00:21:05] This figure represents people. He represents you and me. I can understand. I can't identify with this great big ruler necessarily. I certainly don't identify with these strange, fantastic beasts and where to find them, scene going on over there. But I can identify with a man.
[00:21:20] He represents me, but he's also divine because it tells us in the vision that he comes in clouds, which is a sign of divinity, that he's God as well. So he rules as well.
[00:21:32] This figure then, before the throne is given all authority to rule by the ancient one, God gives him this man the authority. This figure is the one who all of these nations will ultimately have to recognize and honor. This figure is the one whose kingdom will last forever when all of the other kingdoms have fallen away. This figure in Daniel is called the Son of Man.
[00:21:59] And the Pharisees in this living room were expecting somebody to come along, sort out the Romans, judge everybody else, put everything right. That would be the Son of Man.
[00:22:12] And Jesus in this living room, not in the temple, not in the synagogue, in somebody's living room, is saying, I am the Son of Man. That's me. Can you get how startling that was? Can you imagine how amazing this was? He is saying, as I am human, I. I represent all of you, but I'm also divine, and therefore I rule over you as well. Jesus is saying to them right here, right now, I have the authority and the power given to me by God to rule, to bring in the kingdom of God. Even in this house this morning, friends, brothers, sisters in Christ, Jesus says the same to us. I am the Son of Man. And I have the authority to bring the kingdom of God into your hearts, into your lives and into your places of work, into your schools, into your classrooms, where you are on Monday, to Friday, to Saturday, to Sunday. I have the authority to rule in those places. I am the Son of Man.
[00:23:16] I hope that's okay.
[00:23:18] That's okay. Accept, reject.
[00:23:22] I am the Son of Man. And just in case we thought that wasn't startling enough, and we thought, oh, Bren, that's heavy. That's quite a lot. Jesus carries on because he doesn't just say to the Pharisees, to the scribes, I am the Son of Man. He turns to the man on the mat and he says, your sins are forgiven.
[00:23:43] And if he doesn't mean you've done something terrible and that's why you're paralyzed. What does he mean?
[00:23:48] And so can we do one more time travel?
[00:23:52] Then I'll bring it to a close and we'll pray.
[00:23:56] Because to understand what Jesus is saying, we have to go back through history. That's why it's so good to sing that song all through history. Because this book, the Bible, is about history. It's about everything that ever has happened and everything that ever will happen and our place in the middle of it. Your place in it.
[00:24:13] And the story of the people of God is a story goes way back, is the people of God who were rescued from slavery in Egypt. Anyone seen Joseph the amazing Technicolor dream coat? Yeah. It's that story without the music.
[00:24:30] And they rescue him. God rescues the people. And they go into a promised land. They build a temple which hosts the presence of God. They are given laws and guidance on how to live a life of abundance and blessing.
[00:24:47] But they decide to go their own way. They decide, we don't want to do that exactly as God has decided. We'll do it our way. We'll make our own gods. We'll make things a little bit easier for ourselves. We'll blend into the local cultures a little bit more. And despite years of warnings, the prophets come along and they say, don't do that. Don't do that. Return to the way that God wants you to live. Follow his laws, follow his, his ways. And they go now. Thank you very much.
[00:25:16] And ultimately, God says, enough is enough. And the people are taken away from Jerusalem and they're taken into exile in Babylon, far, far away from their homeland. So try and imagine this scene. People who think that they have their place in history, they're there in Jerusalem. They've got their temple, they've got their lifestyle, they've got their laws. They've got everything they think they should have. And then God says, no, I'm moving you over here where you've got no temple. Your families are not necessarily there. You are away from your homeland. This movement, this exile, is the punishment for turning away from my way. So the exile is the punishment for turning our back on God.
[00:26:05] What's the case so far? But God does not abandon them over here. He doesn't leave them. And his prophets, Uzziah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, they all hold out hope to the people. And they say, one day there will be a time when you go back. There will be a time when you return to your land, rebuild your temple, and experience the presence of God once more.
[00:26:28] We haven't got time this morning to look at all of the prophets and all that they say. Let me give you one example. Jeremiah 33:67 to 9. He says, I will restore the fortunes of Judah and Israel. I will rebuild their towns. I will cleanse them of their sins against me and forgive all their sins of rebellion. Then the city will bring me joy, glory and honor before all the nations of the earth. There will be a time when we return and we rebuild and we restore. And the books of Ezra and Nehemiah tell us that that happened. They return, they rebuild Jerusalem, they rebuild the temple. And in the physical act of returning from exile to Jerusalem, that was called the forgiveness of sins.
[00:27:13] That process was known as the forgiveness of sins. That process was known as salvation. Going from a place of exile and distance from God to a place where you're at home with God.
[00:27:28] Forgiveness of sin means the exile is over, and the reasons for it are dealt with in God's mercy and grace. The people are released from their captivity and free to return to where they should be.
[00:27:42] And this was initiated and enacted by God through his mercy. And at the beginning of Luke, in verse chapter one, verse 77, Zechariah, the Father of John the Baptist, says, you will tell the people how to find salvation through the forgiveness of their sin.
[00:28:01] So this is really, really important as we come to the final little section. Jesus used the phrase forgiveness of sins to say far more than I am going to make you well, or I forgive you for something you've done wrong. Not in the case of the paralyzed man, but I'm forgiving you things you've done wrong. He's linking back to this whole idea of release and freedom that he spoke of when he opened the patrol of Isaiah, I've come to claim release to the captives. That's what he's doing. He's fulfilling the words of Zechariah in bringing salvation. He's showing people the exile and estrangement from God is over. There is no longer anything that can prevent us being at home with God being the people that God has intended us to be. There is nothing here this morning in your physical body, in your mental health, that can stop you from God loving you and from God wanting you in his family as well and as whole as he is prepared to make you at this point in time.
[00:29:03] That's the offer. The Pharisees were outraged. They thought Jesus, he's offering what God can offer. That's God's job, to offer forgiveness of sins. Who's he think he is? No wonder they were shocked. And not only that, he was offering it to all Sorts of people like lepers, you know, how dare you offer it to a leper? An hour car, someone who shouldn't be anywhere near the temple. How can you offer it to that? And isn't that good news for me? You know, that God offers forgiveness and mercy to me because I'm just as without Jesus. I'm, you know, well, I don't know what I am. Nothing.
[00:29:40] And here's Jesus in someone's living room saying, I am the Son of man and I'm offering you forgiveness of sins.
[00:29:48] In the person of Jesus, we find forgiveness of sins. We find salvation in his life. We find compelling teaching and demonstrations of what the kingdom looks like in his death. We see Jesus taking on the powers of darkness and the cross, acting as a focal point of every single thing that separates us from God. His resurrection demonstrates once and for all the power of God to overcome evil, even the power of death. His ascension to God's right hand shows Jesus to be the reigning, ruling and judging king. And his Holy Spirit gives us that same power to live life in his kingdom.
[00:30:29] When Jesus offers us the forgiveness of sins, he is telling us that through God's mercy at his initiation for Jesus going to the cross, the full kingdom of God is available to us, that our restoration is at hand. We can have a renewed relationship with God. Our exile or separation from God is over.
[00:30:51] The healing from paralysis for this man was a visible and powerful demonstration of what return from exile looked like for him.
[00:31:01] Release from the thing that was holding him back from being the everything that God wanted him to be.
[00:31:08] So hear those words this morning. No wonder people were gripped with great wonder. No wonder people had awe and praised God saying, we have seen amazing things, things today.
[00:31:23] Could I invite you to stand if you'd like to stand. And Matt, I don't know if you're able just to play quietly in the background as we stand.
[00:31:38] Let me just reiterate those words. You may want to close your eyes. You don't have to. There's nothing magical about these next few moments.
[00:31:48] It's us doing business with God. It's a God who has his attention on you this morning, who says, you are my beloved. I have brought you out of exile. I have brought you out of slavery. I have brought you out of the slavery, to sin, to your own selfish way of living, of putting yourself first. I have brought you out of that.
[00:32:09] And there may be people here this morning who have yet to make that decision. Because in order to experience that, we need to say yes to Jesus. We need to Say, jesus, I believe that you are the Son of God. I believe you're the Son of man. I believe that you died on a cross for me and that you have forgiven every wrong attitude, every sin that I have ever committed. And if you haven't done that yet, I'd encourage you to do that this morning in your heart, say, lord, I want to follow you. I want to have salvation in my heart and my life and my home and my family this morning. Morning.
[00:32:43] But for some of us, we may have been following Jesus for some time and we feel that his attention has not been on us.
[00:32:49] Let me say this morning with much love, his eyes are fixed on you this morning and he longs to love, to look at you.
[00:32:59] And there may be some people this morning who are stuck, who are paralyzed, who feel maybe because the attention of God hasn't been on them, or maybe just because you've got something, something that has been going on and on and on and on. It may be in your body, it may be in your mind, it may be in your spiritual life. It may be a situation that you feel is stuck or is paralyzing you. It doesn't matter what it is. We here this morning are the fellowship of the Mat.
[00:33:26] We are the stretcher bearers for you this morning.
[00:33:30] And my invitation for you is to leave your seat, to come to the front and to give us the honour of introducing you to the Jesus who loves you and want to pray with you. Whether you've been a Christian for years or whether this is your first time, come forward. I don't normally do this. It scares me, to be honest, asking people to come out to the front.
[00:33:55] But I think in this story and the leper, there was a desperation, there was a desire on the part of the people concerned to come forward. And so even now, as I'm speaking and praying, maybe just come up to the front and we'll have a team who will anoint you with oil. It's not special oil, it doesn't contain any special power, but it's a symbol of the Holy Spirit wanting to work in your life. So come out now, come to the front.
[00:34:24] I'm not going to talk for very long. This isn't. This isn't. This isn't going to be a very long appeal. But just come forward, come forward and then we'll see. And then I'll hand back to Esther. I'm going to pray.
[00:34:37] Father God, we remember that computer screen that we started with, with those two buttons. Accept, reject. And it may be this morning There are some things I've said that we need to think about, about whether we accept them or reject them. And I don't want to say anything that's against your will, Lord. So if there's something I've said that's wrong, then we press reject and we don't want anything to do with it. But if what I've said is true and if it reflects the heart you have towards people to bring salvation, healing and wholeness into the lives of our dear folk here this morning, I pray you would help us, give us the courage to step forward and receive the prayer that we can offer this morning. Father, we may see instantaneous healings this morning. We pray for that, but we may see partial healings. We may see an impartation of strength, but we will see your eyes upon us. We will see your presence and power in our lives.
[00:35:34] Come, there's no pressure. If you would rather be where you're sat and turn to the person next to you and say, would you mind praying for me? I don't think I can get up to the front, but please pray for me. Then do that. Or if you'd like one of us to come to you where you're sitting, please do that. Don't allow where you're sitting or your feelings to allow yourself to come into the presence of God this morning.
[00:36:02] The meeting will probably have a fairly ragged end in the sense of we'll be praying and then there'll be some coffee. I'll leave Esther to manage that.
[00:36:11] But Lord God, whether people have come forward or not, I pray the power of the Holy Spirit over each and every one of us this morning. You are the Son of Man, the one who has authority over every part of our lives given to me, given to you by the Ancient One.
[00:36:32] And you are the forgiver of sins, the one who brings us out of exile, brings us out of the prison of our selfishness, out of the prison of our sickness, out of the prison in their minds and out of the prisons of our finances, out of the prisons of broken relationships, out of the prisons of work situations that we find really hard. You bring us out into your home, and just as Jesus stood in someone's living room, we stand in the house of God and pray your power and purpose this morning. In Jesus name, amen.
