The waters are stirring - let's get in

I spoke one Sunday morning at the end of August on the passage where Jesus is by the pool where a paralysed man has been for 38 years.

The idea of waiting for an angel to stir the water and someone then jumping in, but having watched other people jump in over 38 years with no one to put him in the pool – such hopeless desperation.. However, something has got him back there, he wants to be there where the action is and see for himself but hasn’t the ability to get there himself. He encounters Jesus. And I have a sense in me that at the moment the water is stirred and we, as a church, have really got to help one another to get into the pool.

There are people who have actually got into the pool this Summer who want to help us. Through the prophetic that is coming out of our church at the moment, the surprise for some is that we have to get out of the box of our understanding as to who those people might be. They might not be our housegroup leaders, they might not be the elders or oversight team of the church, they might not be me. They might be members of the youth group or people who you might not naturally see at the front of church meetings – but they have encountered God and are saying ‘hey, come with me I have got something to show you’.

We have heard wonderful stories of people coming back to God and giving their lives back to God. I have listened to younger and older people who, having heard God, having had prophetic words, having prayed for one another, have laughed, cried, fallen on the floor, etc, they have experienced God and these things have a real effect on our lives and are like markers in our lives.

The experience itself might change but it is something to look back on. Like we heard this morning, ‘surely goodness and mercy will follow me’ – there is something behind me. I encountered God on the floor of a tent at Soul Survivor or, I met God with my arms around my brothers and sisters, laughing and crying, as a group where people are saying “you are a band of brothers”, or I met God a Grapevine and that has changed my life. These things are really, really important and we ought to be protecting one another and encouraging one another to tell and share those stories.

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