Does God Heal Today? - Alpha Course 13

well good afternoon good sunday afternoon and welcome to crowd church my name is matt edmondson it's great that you're here and beside me is they're very beautiful and very amazing suit and so how are you doing i am fine thank you very much thank you so much for inviting me uh this is the second time that i've done it so i'm feeling fairly confident that i did something right last time so thanks we can do this hang on take a bow there we go yeah yeah no you can have a little bit of fun with the sound effects today as you can probably tell um but no it was great you were great sue last time so it's great to have you back hosting it's just great to be honest to um to be here and saying hello to whoever's listening already it's just fantastic yeah that's great it's a real privilege to be with you and if this is your first time with us at crowd whether you're live on the live stream with us or whether you're watching on ketchup it's great that you could join us crab just so we're clear from the start is an online church we say that we're a church for those that might not see the point of church maybe you know have questions about church or a searching uh you may have experienced church in the past you may not it doesn't matter but wherever you are on your faith walk or whether like sue and me you've been around you know since noah long time yeah you're welcome you're welcome uh wherever you are on this journey it's great that we can do church together online so great to see you great that you're here today we have what sue why don't you tell people what we've got coming up as best as you can well it's we've got somebody doing a talk today who i know i've known her a long time and i know matt has to um her name's anna she really has got a very special story to share today very real very honest and i think it's going to be incredibly thought provoking and i'm hoping there's going to be some really challenging interesting questions or comments based on that talk yeah absolutely absolutely so you of course talking about the beautiful and amazing anna kettle anna if you're around last week was she hosted with james birch so um anna's doing a talk today and the talk is called does god heal today which is a pretty big on full-on topic uh and we're going to get into that whole thing uh after the talk as well so we're going to have anna's do a talk we're going to have a little time of worship and reflection uh and then after that we're going to have conversation street where sue and i are going to get to talk about the talk we're going to talk about your questions your thoughts your comments and all that sort of good stuff at the end of the talk so looking forward to that if you have any questions or any comments please do write them in uh as we go along and we will get to them just as soon as we can we do broadcast on both facebook and youtube so whatever channel you're on whack it in the comments and hopefully they'll come up on my computer screen here so the other thing to say is uh i'm gonna bring this uh on the screen so can you can you point to the phone number for me we always ask these people when they come and host that's my contest oh there you go straight away see i just want everybody else who comes into the hosting chat just know how easy that was for yeah yeah just just bring it backing that up uh the reason i asked uh sue to do that it's a regular thing here at crab we ask people to point to the number and because it reverses in the screen sometimes it's actually quite tricky just to go straight to it um but see cracking job well done the reason we have the number on the screen uh as well as just to see how it works for people pointing to it is just say that's another way you can contact us you can get a hold of us uh through the whatsapp number or you can reach out through the website more information is also on our website especially if you if there's anything you would like us to pray for uh we would love to pray for you just put your prayer requests through the what's happening and we will get busy praying so yeah absolutely matt cruz on the on the comments going on here he's watching on the facebook platform hi matt just yeah you're good you're faithful you are you're here all the time turning up well done he's great isn't he matt yes right yeah absolutely so uh if like matt you are here and this is your first time as i said please do feel welcome hopefully everything will make sense as we go through if it doesn't just we'll either clarify it at some point or just write your question in the comments and we'll we'll hopefully clarify it as soon as we can yeah right oh nicholas uh give us a give us a little collapse nicholas in the house as well nicola how are you doing sharon's here hey sharon how are you doing well i know how you're doing because obviously you're my wife don't know why i've asked that just did something strange for the weekend that's it don't blame her don't blame us she sat with zoe bless her who's not feeling it's a great state she's a playing card so paulie zoe she's put in the comments here i'm well thanks well that's good to know so this is basically our marriage playing out online well done this is how we do it how you doing i'm doing all right good good uh because that's that's what we do right uh sharon and i aside shall we get into today's topic right now as sue said we have the beautiful anna who is sharing with us today we are um part i think this is part 13 of the alpha course sue have you ever done an alpha course no you've never been on one oh wow i i'd have thought for sure you'd have spoken or done something on alpha courses i've been to certain topics and i've seen a couple um on tv on videos and things but i can't believe it i've never no wow that surprised me that and the reason that surprised me in case you're watching this who's doing everything in the church world i mean it's just if there's something to do like go on mission uh in a in a van that's not supposed to be road legal sue's probably done that yeah and yeah where people don't speak english right so i'm just gonna surprise anyway the alpha course i didn't i genuinely didn't know that about you uh i feel like i've learned something new sue's like oh okay i'm now going to go to an alpha course now so when someone asks me i really feel like i should actually because i really think they're fab they are and uh we are on week 13 of the alpha course so this is looking at some of the fundamental questions about life about meaning and about faith and we have been working our way through them this is week 13 of 14 so we're almost at the end of it and we come around to this question does god heal today it's one of the key questions that people have about the christian faith certainly if you're new to church or if you're an early christian like this whole idea around healing and stuff like that what are some of the questions so i'm gonna push the button on my pad here we're gonna get into it and then soon i'll be back shortly here's anna so today i'm talking about does god heal now i want to start off just by saying i'm super grateful to everyone who works in the medical sector i think rnhs is just amazing it's not perfect but it's amazing i actually work in the system myself even though i'm not medical so i see first-hand the incredible work that nhs staff do every day and uh have particularly done during the pandemic i just wanted to start by saying this talk on healing is not about undermining uh that hard work on the contrary i believe that god actually directs people into the medical profession and to to work in healthcare in the nhs and other systems like it across the world i think that all healing whatever form it takes ultimately comes from god so for doctors and surgeons and nurses they're simply using their god-given ability and gifts to support a healing process within the body that is part of god's process too so i'm really grateful for uh healthcare and for advances in medical science too i mean did you know that in the last 100 years life expectancy in the uk has doubled isn't that just incredible and when you think about everything that's been achieved even within the last year or two with coronavirus and how quickly we got life-saving vaccinations available to everyone it's just incredible how much science and medical science can um do now to help people to stay healthy or to prevent ill health and yeah even despite all of those abundances and medical science i think many of us have also discovered that there's times where medicine just can't heal and it only goes so far there's still lots of sickness and pain in the world that has yet to be solved you know i know this hand over the past few years um i've worked i've walked through a season of recurrent miscarriage um and i've been unable to have more than one child as a result i'm really blessed to have one little boy but our family can't have any more children because of that and so i'm painfully aware of the fact that although god does heal sometimes healing doesn't happen and i very much have lived and i'm still living in the tension of that of knowing that medicine doesn't always provide a cure no recurrent miscarriage is something that medicine can't cure and can't fix and there's no real reason for it and so i'm very much talking on this subject today as someone who understands that healing can happen but also i don't find this an easy subject um i've seen many people healed physically with in front of my own eyes and yet at the same time myself and my own family are living with the reality and in that tension space that god doesn't always seem to heal us when we want him to and when we ask and that's really hard and i don't want to make light of that in this in this talk you know i still have so many questions around this whole topic appealing because of that and yeah i thought i'd just unpack a few key principles that really helped me in this whole area of praying for healing over the years so the first point i want to start with is looking at healing in the bible because that's a really good place to start looking at what the bible actually says about healing you know and when i read the bible whenever i read it i see that it's in god's nature to heal that he is a healing god and that he loves to heal and wants us to experience wholeness as people there's this first in the old testament in exodus 15 26 which says this i am the lord your god who heals you and you know in the bible it's not just a an emotional healing or a psychological healing or a spiritual healing that describes but it also looks at um very physical forms of healing too particularly in the life of jesus so in fact 25 of the gospel accounts of jesus life are taken up with examples and stories of when he healed people 25 i find that quite incredible i didn't know that before i was planning this talk that's a lot of time that jesus spent physically healing people that's incredible but perhaps the most incredible part of it is that according to the bible jesus wasn't just healing but he also said that healing was for his followers too that his followers the disciples ordinary people just like you and me who who believed in him followed him could also have authority to heal and and the sea sick the seasick people made well as well as him and so really healing isn't just for special people who are called to be healers um it's for every christian and you know jesus told his disciples his followers to go and preach the good news of the kingdom of god and heal the sick and the two very much go hand in hand um throughout jesus ministry and you know that's what exactly what the early followers of jesus did as you look into the books of acts in the bible which is the account of the early church they went around healing people very regularly and um as you read through early church history down through the centuries that's what you continue to see christians seeing people healed when they pray for them and you know that's still happening in churches today god is still healing people today um so this brings me on to point two which is talking about how does healing happen today well last week june told this story and there was our neighbor a lady a young mother with two young kids and god just laid on my heart to bless her with a bag of groceries and so i did that i knocked on the door and then began a friendship and i would just walk go over for coffee with the limited language we had and we just became really good friends and we got on really well and i shared um in you know simple language who jesus really was and she was really open and so she you know decided to make a decision to receive him and a little while later one day she woke up with a really bad back pain and she told me my back is really painful i can't stand i can't sit and so i went over the evening to her apartment and she was in great agony i just said okay let's pray for you and we did and her two sons were watching and honestly i must confess i thought okay i'll lay hands and pray and let's see what happens and all i can say is she got instantly healed and she jumped off the couch and she went round the room and she could not believe what happened and i just said you know what god's healed you this jesus in whom you now are beginning to know he has done an amazing miracle and that really marks her life i mean it's her own story her own testimony she can't deny it she got instantly healed you know and so yeah i think that's absolutely amazing so that's really great that lady was healed from her physical pain but then what about other things like anxiety or poor mental health or hurts from our past well i believe god heals those too just listen to ben's story here i grew up surrounded by christianity and started following jesus at a young age believing that god wanted a personal relationship with me but i needed forgiveness for the wrongs i had done in life to have this relationship and through jesus perfect life of obedience his death in resurrection he offered forgiveness in a personal relationship with god so i had committed my life to him but despite that life was honestly hard as a kid my dad traveled for weeks at a time in the early years of my life and when he was home i often experienced his harsh anger directed towards me i felt like i was the sole problem in my family on top of this i was bullied at school consistently by my friends from my weight i felt like i couldn't fit in anywhere i say this not to blame others for their actions but to be honest with the reality that i was deeply hurting as a kid constantly feeling that there was something wrong with me so i shut down i felt so alone for years by the age of eight i was riddled with anger feelings of worthlessness and developed all kinds of mental health issues like depression anxiety i began to doubt the existence of god and fear that he too would reject me upon death i began to wish that i'd never been born because i thought that would have been more bearable than the torture and fear i was living in i began comparing myself to others i thought that if i could be thinner and get the body i envisioned in my mind that i would be more valuable eventually i needed something more to medicate to cope to escape the pain in my life i soon found something that could give me a high like a drug and it was free and i didn't think anyone would ever have to know pornography i became addicted i wanted it gone but at the same time i felt like it kept me alive i had no idea it would cost me 12 years of my life and after years of struggling with all these issues and wanting out i hit rock bottom i began to accept that i had all kinds of struggles and i needed support i began to to reach out for help from others rather than to act out through these different struggles so i started on this journey of healing with an amazing therapist a structured program that addressed many of my struggles and a group of men who supported me every single day i began to understand the unmet longings that were deep within my soul driving many of my struggles and as i encountered god for who he truly is i experienced freedom as jesus healed my wounds replaced deeply rooted lies with truth and as i've continued on this journey i've now been free from porn for over six years and all of the mental health issues have lessened drastically so my encouragement would be for anyone watching to get help reach out to a safe person share your story and struggles with them and reach out to jesus he wants to bring healing and freedom what does that mean this whole idea of the kingdom of god well the kingdom of god is sort of like god's spear of influence his like area where he's close um in other words he's saying that god's presence and healing go hand in hand so when god's fear of influences is total and complete as it will be one day the bible says that there'll be no more sickness or pain or cancer or death at all and isn't that an incredible thought and there's actually over 300 references in the new testament to the return of jesus and to the total healing of the earth and of people and of the order that we live in that will be healed and changed and restored and renewed when he creates a new heaven and earth over 300 references in the bible to that healing that will come so there's a very future aspect to this kingdom of god there's a lot of one day promises that we still wait for but haven't materialized yet but at the same time jesus says there's a very present aspect to this too it's like right now we're living in an imperfect world but we do get a full taste of what's going to happen in the future when god's sphere of influence is total and complete in the earth a good analogy of this of what this foretaste looks like is when you think about this time of year we get some really great sunny days but then on other days it's quite cold we've had a couple of weeks like this just recently and a cold day doesn't necessarily mean that it's winter time yet you know it's technically still summer for a few more weeks but it's like we're having a little foretaste in the weather of what's coming it gives us a clue that autumn and wintertime are already on the way that they're beginning and it's a poor taste of what's to come and i think that when someone's healed it's a little bit like that so like jun's friend or ben that's a foretaste too it tells you what the future is going to be like when god's rule is full and complete in the earth it's also a glimpse and a reminder and an encouragement that it's coming and it's already on its way but right here and right now we simply don't experience that full and total healing let's unpack healing today then a little bit more because how do we see healing now then firstly there is that medical side and if god calls you into that medical profession or perhaps into counseling or in therapy or another profession that is all about helping to heal people either physically or emotionally then do it that's really really great calling and i have so many friends who are paramedics gps hospital consultants nurses physios and so many other professions that are all about helping to heal people every day that is a great life a great thing to give your life to but you know sometimes god also heals people more directly too and so i think at the same time we shouldn't stop praying for that i guess that brings us on to the next question well how do we pray for healing how do we heal people well the truth is that we don't it's god who does the healing not us so it's not like there's any special trick or technique that's involved that you could use that would guarantee that when you prayed for someone they get healed it just doesn't work that way fortunately god doesn't give us a recipe for it or a three-point plan for guaranteed healing anywhere in the bible but there are a few clues when we look at the life of jesus and the way that he went about healing so a good place to start is with love like jesus always prayed with love for people he had compassion on people he prayed for their healing because he was moved by their pain and their hurting and that should always be our motive too when we pray for people we pray for them with love i think following on from that it's also important to say that if it doesn't happen or it doesn't happen right away then we don't just try and explain that away or put that burden onto someone else we don't say oh well it's your fault you weren't healed you didn't have enough faith or you didn't believe enough if someone's not healed it doesn't mean god doesn't love them or that he's punishing them in some way we don't always understand the reasons why god sometimes heals and sometimes doesn't but we don't put it on someone else and act like it's their fault and another good pointer is to listen to god when we're praying for healing so when you pray sometimes as a christian you can get words or pictures or insights that just come into your mind at that moment and sometimes this can be god communicating to the person or wanting to communicate to the person in front of us through us and to be honest that doesn't happen to me all the time and quite often it doesn't but occasionally it does and um it's always worth listening just to see in case i know some people that this happens a lot more frequently for than me um and if it doesn't it doesn't matter but it's always worth tuning our ears and trying to see if god wants to speak to that person through us and then the other pointer that i'd give is that we just need to keep going praying for people is always a bit risky isn't it because there's always that risk that we pray and nothing happens and then we're left disappointed or wondering why not but someone once said that faith is about risk r-i-s-k and i think that's really true so i want to encourage you to keep going with praying for people and praying for healing even if it doesn't always work out even if it doesn't seem to work out right away sometimes you do need to pray more than once and this is this was even true of jesus in the bible you know there's an example in the gospel of um when jesus prayed for a man who was blind and he laid hands on him and he prayed for him and then he said afterwards well how are you doing and the man said well i can kind of see but it looks like people look like trees walking around so clearly it was still blurry and he had some sight returned but it wasn't fully returned and so jesus lays hands on him again and um praised him a second time and the second time he could clearly see and so i find this really encouraging because i think well if it didn't always work fully and and completely first time for jesus then how much more should we not always expect it to be instant but keep trying again and i love the fact that jesus example that encourages us to do that and then finally i'd also say and remind you that we can pray for ourselves too so it's so great to be able to pray for other people but we can also ask god to heal us when we're sick or perhaps when we're not feeling great or having a great day we can just invite the holy spirit to come and heal our bodies or our minds same way that we'd invite him to do that for other people at any time uh i just wanted to share with you joel's story really quickly i learned that hope's everything like when you're pushed in every way to the end of your rope and you discover you're really alone in this world really you are without hope everything goes so it was uh it was friday the 30th of september and i was sitting on my computer and this pain out of nowhere just turned on in my neck pretty soon i discovered that at 25 i was going to have open heart surgery i put my ipod in i crank it 100 all i do is focus on my breathing after about 15 minutes my eyes are closed these thoughts you're not going to make it you're going to die give up it's over i was so weak and i was under attack start praying and that's when everything turned around this hope came back 100 times stronger and i had this rock-solid titanium promise from god for god's sake you're getting out of this like there was no there was not a shred of doubt i've never been so certain of anything in my life i cut a long story short within four days i was out of intensive care my oxygen levels were 100 i wasn't on a breathing mask i was walking without a frame within five six days i was out of the hospital and i can literally trace it to that wednesday and my in my heart my spirit something turned around and then my body very quickly followed when i lost my own hope when i lost hope in everything else the doctor's medicine my body the only thing that brought me back was my faith in god so the faith then led to the hope and once the hope came back like i said you can have you can you can have hope in god you can have faith in god because he's god man he's a good guy so that's joel's story hope is everything and i totally agree so whether i'm healed yet or not or whether i still struggle or whether i don't hope really is everything it's a great place to start so start there start with hope like joel did and maybe you and i will find healing too and that could be today it could be tomorrow or it might even not be until we get to heaven the truth is we don't know when healing will happen for sure and that is challenging or at least i find it to be but at the same time we can have absolute confidence in asking god for our healing because he promises total healing is ahead so let me just finish by praying for us today lord you are the god who heals and i can't put my arms around everyone watching this right now or be with them in person but you are and you know their needs so i ask would you stretch forth and bring your healing to all of those places of sickness or pain that people have right now in their lives would you touch them and bring your healing to those areas because you love them in jesus name amen thanks for listening guys amazing thank you so much for that talk anna just that last bit there where it said you know hope in god a great place to start i'm sure this talk will have provoked all sorts of thoughts questions opinions experiences good and bad you may even have a story of where you have been healed and god has touched you and helped you and please just you know comment you whether it's a question a story but also if you know that for you that's it the talk has really touched a raw nerve either for yourself or for a member of your family then please text on the whatsapp for prayer you will be prayed for people will pray we're gonna go into a worship song now and it's called from graves into gardens and this is just a good time now just to sort of let that talk soak in if you like just have a little bit of a breather time to think about the content think about the scriptures think about the word but also to just focus on this song and there was a phrase in the song god of the mountain and god of the valley utterly it overall the song is about hoping in god so whether you are on a mountaintop or at the valley let's take a moment to listen to this song braves into gardens i searched the world but it couldn't fill me man's empty praise and treasures that fade are never enough then you came along and put me back together but every desire is now satisfied here in your love oh there's nothing better than you there's nothing better than you lord there's nothing nothing is better than you i'm not afraid show you my weakness my feelings lord you've seen them all and you still call me forever there's not a place your mercy and grace won't find me again you there's nothing oh this nothing you turn on into dancing you give beauty for ashes you turn shame into glory you're the only one who cares [Applause] future seasons nothing than you did that challenge you matt how did you feel challenged in a particular way from anna's talk i thought um i thought it was lovely and i thought um you know whenever um let me just start off by saying this right when i hear stories of christians having the most miraculous healings you kind of go that's awesome right we're gonna get into that we do we do we do we kind of go that's awesome but there's a few couples that i know yeah that have really really struggled with things like anna and you know her husband andy struggled with the reoccurring miscarriages and yeah i can't i can't empathize with the heartbreak that brought them as a family but you know what she is after all of that she is still one of the sweetest most gentlest most lovely people that i yeah and i find that utterly inspiring and the fact that she can come on and share her story yeah but still at the end of it say hope is everything i just i i don't know it's great to hear the the the big miraculous stories but it's also great to hear from people like anna who go you know what it's not always you know sunshine and rainbows and and i i don't know about you but i i'm just i you just it gets you there doesn't it well i think it's really interesting because she talked didn't she it wasn't just about physical healing there was like mental health different things which obviously loads of people are really aware of now but almost it was like a heart healing because she really and dandy you know they could be so bitter living in the past yeah but but they're not you know and i think i thought that was just really interesting of how god and her faith in god has helped her to remain hopeful and she seems free of bitterness even though she she knows pain so yeah very very challenging very yeah and the opposite maybe of what you would expect yeah and and totally lovely and just really sweet of her to share that you know and um and be that vulnerable and be that honest and i know in that we've done a couple of talks in the past about healing and sally birch has done one and she shared a similar story not about miscarriage but she shared you know heartfelt stories about her mum who passed away and there are just these things that we can't explain that we can't understand but people still find hope in the midst of it which i i find really encouraging and i i don't know have you let's talk about healing i suppose it you've been around you know a few years so i've been around a few years uh and our church background is such that actually we every week at church we have prayed for people to get healed right of various things some physical some emotional some mental some jeremy a whole lot of things yeah have you have you got any stories have you seen anything interestingly i didn't know at the time but this lady asked me to pray for her which obviously was me asking god to heal her she hadn't had proper cycles menstruation cycles for a very very long time i think up to eight years and the next week instantly a cycle began and then another lady similar situation desperate for a child a year later or something she just ran up to me and she said i've had a baby and what was interesting though was that at the time there was nothing dramatic nothing you know so no no shining clouds or anything or an angel didn't come and flutter over us it was just like god my faith's in you and god it's over to you it was i just thought firstly i just thought gosh i don't know whether anything's happened secondly it just always amazes me still the detail that god's interested in in our lives and so there there's probably other ones too but they're the positives yeah i've got i've got a few of those as well i remember i mean anna talks about sometimes you get uh you know like words or impressions or pictures or thoughts in your head yeah and i remember those um there was one couple really really sweet lovely couple very beautiful but we're never able to have kids and you you're just sharing that story just reminded me of it they they were really struggling on the whole kid front and um i just remember just feeling that i needed to write them a card saying congratulations um you know this time next time you'll have a baby congratulations and um so i wrote the card ahead of time and i i gave it to them because a year later they had a kid and i said listen i mean i didn't give it to them you know there and then i i i wasn't that stupid uh but when they came to me and they said listen i'm pregnant we were all rejoicing i just had a little grin on my face and i'm like yeah i i'm sure you are and i gave them the card and i said listen i wrote that a while ago and to the day when i said you know that i wrote in that card they had that baby now that's not nothing to do with me and my card writing skills just want to put that out there um so you do hear these stories don't you and we've experienced these stories of quite crazy healings um i've i mean matt we're going to get to matt's comment in a minute that he's put in there about cancer i've seen people with cancer healed i saw a i remember seeing a cancer tumor instantly disappear before my eyes most incredible thing i've ever seen wow where was that mat that was uh at a church meeting in birmingham in birmingham wow incredible incredible stuff going on um but at the same time has everybody you've you've prayed for sue got healed no and i was thinking about my own mum yeah who got bowel cancer when she was about 58 but it didn't get diagnosed particularly early so then she lived i think she lived then another six years so she died when she was age 64. interesting everybody around me all my friends wanted and the best for me and for him were praying for healing but you know when anna said about listening to god i remember just standing in church and just it was a worship time and i said god what is it you want to do for my mum and the phrase came there will be enough time and i never felt god say that he would heal her which sounds a bit strange but i actually had loads of peace but i didn't really know what there would be enough time as in what would that look like but there was enough time for them to my parents to sell their house get into a flat and 11 days later my mum died and i have to say matt you know she was terminally ill but she was only in bed for two days and i held her hand as she died oh wow and i have never ever ever people talk about sometimes they see jesus oh my word i've watched her it was like a light came over her face and she smiled and she just went she just went to heaven i just it was incredible wow so they're both amazing to watch in heartbreaking to watch all at the same it was a well in that moment i have to say it was incredible it was just i was just filled with peace and joy but obviously obviously my mom was fabulous but there are other things too and i'm sure you've seen that man friends and family where the answer has not come like my husband has still has severe mental health issues the i'm sure there's lots of people listening now would say well what about this what about that yeah i don't know i know for me how do you deal with that then so you know andy's still at home struggling um so it's a long term thing but how do you how do you personally deal with that you know on one hand we hold this belief that god is a god that heals but on the other hand we're not experiencing that on a day-to-day basis i hear joel's story and he talks about how hope is everything and it all sounds very nice on a piece of paper but does it actually work and what how do you do it how do you deal with it yeah well that's funny because the first couple of years it was always like people saying how's andy how's andy doing because he couldn't work nothing he was a social worker and i'd be like what you know i can i can see we're gonna get there and um in six months or a year you know and that sort of drove my behavior and my attitude and then after a couple of years i suddenly went god it's not nothing's really changing and actually what started to happen was firstly i surrendered control how easy was that how easy i tell you honestly so i just went actually god you're in control here and then also what started to happen which is what i felt inspired with anna is that god just began to do something incredible in inside me he be he just began to make me grateful for all the things that we did have yeah because he wasn't able to work it was a as see it just a situation that never ever encountered and yet somehow god somehow god just turned it around to be positive and hopeful in the midst of awful yeah and they're just like how can the two go together but they did and do still they still go together that's amazing that's something um how does that all work i yeah i just honestly sometimes it's a bit of a mystery he you know yeah doesn't it that um you know the things of god are a mystery and and what i think is wise is foolishness to him and and sometimes you just you just don't get it and and i think there's that that lovely verse in philippians 4 where where paul says the peace of god which surpasses all understanding god's our hearts and and we we can't always understand it we can't always get it but the peace of god sort of seems to be present in those situations and scenarios is that what you found i don't put words in your mouth i'm just yeah no definitely and what began to happen was i became much more rooted in who god was what the bible describes him as about jesus rather than uh my happiness my moods uh been on circumstances i i've written down actually listening to anna's talk the word suddenly and slowly and i think yes that it's brilliant when we get those sudden healings and god intervenes but sometimes it's like a slow journey and i think sometimes i wonder if people with mental health identify with that input therapy all these different things or it can also be god's just doing something really slow and gentle inside you even if outside doesn't change yeah yet again how strange is that how is that possible but that's what that scripture is all about a piece that passes all understanding that's got nothing to do with my will protect us and then say anything isn't it because it doesn't say anywhere in that passage the peace of god will guide your heart and mind uh in christ jesus when everything's okay absolutely do you mean it just says in every situation every situation situation this is what this is what can happen and that was the thing i picked up from joel's story you know uh about hope being everything from ben's story with the whole thing around pornography yes you got this beautiful sense of and even anna as she's talking you know you've got this this sense of hope that it's painful but it's hopeful and i i find that yeah it's a real interest intention that we that we often find in the christian church now that's that's that's all fascinating stuff isn't it it is and i think um a lot of people it's a struggle to believe that there can be painful things happening that people can be really sick how could god let that happen and i understand that and i understand but i think it just means then we're only dependent we're dependent upon everything being rosy happy and life going the way we want it to go i think it's much more liberating and freeing to submit to god's control and be in peace no matter what your circumstances are but that's which how do you stop that then i'm just listening to your talks you know can i in my head i'm thinking that on one hand that sounds really great i need to surrender control to god and the immediate question that comes into mind is well how do i do that and how do i stop being how do i stop that becoming me just becoming fatalistic yes in terms of absolutely you know if god wills it i'll this that and the other and i i'm not disparaging anybody that says that but you can become a little bit fatalistic that can seem like one of the outcomes of that so how do you avoid that yeah it's as you were saying that i almost saw like a picture of fatalistic it just feels like your head's down you're looking at your circumstances it is what it is let's just make the best of it whereas to me there's almost like it's like an inside position but imagine like your head is up to god so it's not like you're going oh this is it you know for me it's been looking up to god the same famous bible story in the old testament uh about parting of the red sea it's a complete miracle it's absolutely crazy honestly it's just one of the most to me it's one of the most crazy stories in the bible where god parts the red sea for the people to go through yeah and i would say in the midst of your circumstances look to god to do the impossible yeah so you'll just be amazed i cannot tell you the amount of times i've said to god okay lord you need to part the red sea again and start looking by faith and see him amazing things provide speak sorts so for me it's like it's an active faith it's not just a okay then not just a passive acceptance is it absolutely yeah and again this ties it back to hope isn't it the belief that in the future something can and will be different even if that future is when i enter the gates of heaven do you mean that actually there's this ultimate eternal hope that we have that fundamentals when i get to heaven there is no more sickness there is no more pain there is no more tears yeah there are there i like to say there is the bible talks about the streets of gold doesn't it and i i kind of have in my head pictures of me sliding down those streets in my socks and it's kind of like you know there's this eternal home that we have and that's the eternal hope that we have um we're getting a lot of emails actually at the moment sue from folks um who are struggling with the loss of loved ones through lockdown yeah so p a lot of people have passed away um and people just struggling with grief oh yeah that whole how did you i mean maybe not everyone had the experience when you like you did with your mum jeremy and had that beautiful thing that you can remember by have you got any any tips any any things the tips is maybe the wrong word but jimmy how do people deal with grief what how can the bible help them with that firstly for anyone who has emailed in has lost somebody i just i just want to say i'm so sorry and particularly if it was within covert circumstances and you weren't able possibly to be there or you were called in at the end so i just i think it's really unusual circumstances in which to lose somebody i think the first thing that comes to mind is in the bible there's this book called psalms most people probably have heard of psalm 23 the lord is my shepherd and but in the psalms it's all about a man called david on the whole it's about his life and he literally just pours out his heart he's incredibly real before god and ultimately always sort of comes back to god's character being his hope yeah i suppose i would say that's where i think people can feel they can begin is to be real with god to literally pour out their heart to weep and for other people around them to be to weep with them and be with them yeah and i would say to simply pray and say god will you help me and so that would be a starting point as well as all i think probably more the obvious things of photographs and treasuring the memories and talking to people about your your loved one rather than being in silence and alone in grief yeah that's one of the fascinating fascinating words one of the one of the hardest things to deal with i think when we get emails in from people is the fact that they feel so alone now because they didn't have chance to say goodbye they've lost some loved ones yeah and they and people feel like they can't leave the house they can't talk to anyone do i mean and it's everything becomes internal all of a sudden and it's heartbreaking it i just i have not been in that situation and i just can't even imagine which is why i'm so glad we have got that what's up for yet for getting prayer just just the beginning of being able to reach out to somebody because oh it's just horrific i think if you feel like you've not you've just got nobody there's nobody to talk to please please begin by reaching out on this whatsapp because yeah do let us know and we do we are trying to put people around the country in connection with local churches so that's really good yeah it's um it is one of those things and just to say i mean something that matt put in the comments uh there's a there's there's a ambulance or the police one of them going past um a lot of people have passed away uh of cancer obviously and actually quite a lot of famous people in recent days so um we had john chalice uh in the news he's he died after a battle with cancer and if you want to know who john chalice is and you're in the uk basically he played boise in only fours and horses and yeah which was a comedy show on the tv when i was growing up this is a sort of photo of him there he was great yeah he's he's he's passed away after battle with cancer um jimmy grieves has passed away today if any one of you is watching this and you are struggling with these long-term illnesses we're not putting out these messages like does god heal status willy-nilly and not aware of the circumstances that you're in um like i say some people do get healed like sue said actually sometimes that suddenly uh is there sometimes it's slowly but in all of the situations that we find ourselves the one thing that i can say is this there is hope yeah there is hope in christ and it's the fundamental message of the christian faith and i hope that's kind of what's coming across today is actually there is hope yes sarah harding from girls lab2 that's right uh in the comments is written so um a lot of people uh struggling with these things and i think do reach out do reach out if you're at a loss and you don't know where to go or term please reach out to us we'd love to try and help you or point you in the right direction um or connect you with a local church or do something which will help understand the hope that is in christ because in all of this in all the situations that we've all faced it's the thing that we can fall back on time and time again that christ absolutely absolutely indeed well that got deep quick didn't it it did it's real life real it is it's and real life is messy and it's deep and so so thank you so much for sharing what you shared uh anna if you're watching which i'm sure you are at some point thank you again for sharing your story brilliant really really do appreciate it and one thing that i did want to say actually because i know anna would never say when she's leading the meetings and stuff like that is actually i don't know if you know this she has written a book um called sand between your toes uh let me just get rid of the keyboard and you'll be able to see it there you go some between your toes uh is a book by anna uh who did today's talk uh it's a great book actually and it talks a lot in there about stillness and peace and just finding times of quiet so check out anna's book it is a beautiful beautiful book some really reviews actually on a book uh yeah some really really lovely reviews so um so yeah just again say if you're struggling physically mentally you can reach out to us via the whatsapp number i'll put it again one more time on the screen i do want to uh put that out there and just say that there is hope in jesus and we're not trying to belittle anything no you're awesome you're a legend uh and thank you for watching today next week sue can you remember what is happening next week oh my fabulous incredible brother-in-law is actually coming to speak um on what is church which is is great that's i think your final installment of your alpha course it is the final installment that's a good it is it's the final episode and i have to say tony who's speaking next week and his wife annie are absolute examples of trusting god when they don't get all the answers of prayer that they would have liked yeah and they he's just fantastic i love him yeah fabulous fabulous people uh and so you're in for a real treat tony actually just to spill the beans was best man at my wedding him and ian actually were the best men at my wedding i had two because you know why not um tony tony was one of them uh and so he and i have been friends for a very long time since university uh and i'm really excited to hear what he's got to say this is just he's great yes it's great love it absolutely absolutely so that is coming next week so again make sure you join us next week we will be live streaming from uh liverpool again 6 p.m uh is the time we do the live stream so do come along do come and join us if you're watching the catch up put it in your diaries subscribe to all the things that we do you know like facebook and the emails and youtube and all that sort of stuff and we let you know when we're going live so you can come and not only listen to the livestream you can join in you can comment like matt and nadine and ben sharon and everybody thank you so i've been reading your comments and going through them thank you so much uh for whacking those in today it's been great to see them and we are going to close today's service with another song i'm gonna play this song if you can feel the freedom sing along enjoy the words or just think about the words uh and uh you know uh see what god does uh is my oh yeah master's put here i need to mention disciple okay thanks man matt's like the voice of my conscience sometimes just like he's disliked so for those for those of you who would like to connect more with people from crowd church we have a wednesday night groups uh called disciple where we get together on zoom and we chat and we converse and we do bible study we pray you do not have to be a christian to come along just come with an open mind and meet some crazy people like me and matt crew actually uh you have a great time uh you'd be more than welcome to join us just let us know if you'd like to join and we'll send you out the zoom link we obviously don't put it on the web but we will quite happily let you know what it is just reach out to us and that's wednesday nights 8 p.m uk time which is 3 p.m eastern standard time if you're in the states and i'm sure you can figure it out the rest of the world there's a little converter on our website if you need help knowing where you are in the world uh but i think that's everything from me thank you so much again sue for being with us really thank you i've loved it take care everyone it's just thank you for listening yeah absolute legends god bless you have a great week and we will see you uh in a few days time take care he's coming on the clouds kings and kingdoms will bow down every chain will break as broken hearts declare his praise for who can stop the lord almighty our god is the lion the lion of judah he's roaring with power and fighting our battles every knee will bow be for him our god is the lamb the lion that was slain for the sin of the world his blood breaks the chains and every knee will bow before the lion and the lamb and every knee will bow open up the gates make way before the king of kings the guard who comes to save is here to set the captives free for who can stop the lord almighty our god that was is for the sin of the world lamb oh every bite you can stop the lord almighty you can stop the lord o my team you can stop the lord oh my team you can stop the lord almighty who can stop the lord oh my team who can stop the lord he's roaring with power and fighting our battles every knee will bow be for him the lion that was slain his blood breaks the chains and every knee will bow before the lion and the lamb o everyday will be for him