Navigating Life's Challenges with Faith: From Miracles to Unseen Works

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Here’s a summary of this week’s sermon:

• The talk delves into the miracles and challenges faced by the early church in Acts 5:12-16, emphasizing the various ways God works in our lives.

• The central point is trusting God and nurturing our relationship with Him, even when life is hard, and miracles don't seem to happen.

• The talk highlights the importance of recognizing God's work in both miraculous events and seemingly ordinary circumstances, as well as the times He operates behind the scenes.

• The message is one of faith and perseverance, encouraging us to lean on God and remain open to His guidance, regardless of the challenges we face in our journey with Him.

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💬 CONVERSATION STREET --

Dave + Chris discuss:

• What stood out to you from Sharon’s talk?

• Why is it important to be available for God? How can we be more open to God's leading and direction in our lives?

• What role does our community of believers play in helping us navigate life's challenges with faith?

• How is God interested in the little details of our lives and not just in the big events?

• The two categories of people Sharon talked about were the ones who didn’t dare to join the apostles and the ones who did join them. What stopped the former?

• How is it easy to miss the supernatural going on around us in our lives today?

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• Complete Transcript

  Sharon: I don't know about you, but I didn't enjoy history at school. We studied seemingly random points in time that I had no interest in, and I didn't understand how they fitted with a bigger picture or how they were relevant to my life today. But I reckon all of us would be interested in history if we had a time machine and could travel back in time to any period we wanted.

  If you could do that, what points in history would you like to see? Maybe you'd like to go back and change some of the decisions you made. I would love to see my parents when they were younger, just as Marty McFly saw his parents in the back to the Future film series, and I'd like to see my grandparents and the distant relatives that I've never met only heard about.

  I'd also love to see the beginning of the world, possibly Noah's flood, though that would perhaps be habit bit traumatic to watch. It'd be great to see Jesus in the flesh walking around on earth. I'd love to see him heal someone before my eyes, and it would also be quite cool to go back in time to today's passage and see firsthand all the miracles mentioned because the book of Acts that we are studying is a look back into history.

  History that has relevance to us today. It's not just fanciful stories, but real people who lived at a real point in time. So let's read today's passage. The Apostles performed many signs and wonders among the people, and all the believers used to meet together in Solomon's Colonnade. No one else dared join them, even though they were highly regarded by the people.

  Nevertheless, more and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number. As a result, people brought the sick into the streets and laid them on beds and mats so that at least Peter's shadow might fall on some of them as he passed by. Crowds gathered also from the towns around Jerusalem bringing their sick and those tormented by impure spirits and all of them were healed.

  This passage says that the apostles perform many signs and wonders. But what is an apostle? It's a word we don't particularly use in everyday life. So if you've missed our previous live streams or don't have much experience with Christianity, it needs a bit of an explanation. So an apostle is someone who is sent on a mission with a message.

  An apostle is accountable to their sender and carries the authority of their sender. Jesus Himself was an apostle. Hebrews three, verse one says this, therefore, holy brothers and sisters who share in the heavenly calling fix your thoughts on Jesus, whom we acknowledge as our apostle and high priest. Jesus was sent by God the Father, with a message, and he performed many miracles to show that he had the authority of his sender, God, in bringing that message, that his message was legitimate.

  He then chose 12 men to be apostles, men who he would train for three years, who would continue with the mission and the message after he'd left. One of the 12 was a guy called Judas Iscariot, who you may have heard of, who went on to betray Jesus, um, to his enemies, and then he killed himself. That left only 11 apostles, so they chose another man to make up the numbers.

  Now, if you were choosing someone to join your team for an important mission, what characteristics would you be looking for? I doubt you'd just pick the first person you met off the street. You'd have criteria that person would need to meet. And the apostles were just the same. The person they were looking for had to meet certain criteria.

  They wanted someone who'd been with Jesus, um, for the three years, just as they had. He needed to have heard Jesus teaching and seen the miracles and the healings. This person needed to be someone who'd already been trained by Jesus and someone with good character. So after much Prayer and um, discussion, they chose a guy called Matthias.

  They were back up to 12. And these 12 were the ones performing signs and wonders with Peter as the lead apostle, performing even more amazing miracles than the others. You may be thinking, why were they all men. Why were they all Jewish? Is God against women in leadership? Is God racist? And why did they have to be 12?

  I don't have time to get into this. Um, all of this, and there's a lot of debate, especially around women in leadership, but I'll also give you a quote, um, sorry. I will give you a quote from a guy called Belleville. He says, 12 Jewish males represent the 12 tribes of Israel and their patriarchal heads. It's the 12 apostle apostles who will sit on the thrones judging the 12 tribes of Israel.

  The new Jerusalem will have 12 gates, 12 angels, 12 foundations, and on them the names of the 12 apostles. Now the word patriarchy now has very negative connotations. The Oxford Dictionary gives a negative meaning of patriarchy as a society controlled by men in which they use their power to their own advantage.

  But, um, the dictionary also has this description, which is nearer the biblical definition. It's a society in which the oldest male is the leader of the family. Jesus had this to say about leadership. You know that those who are considered rulers over the Gentiles, Lord it over them and their great ones exercise authority over them.

  Yet it shall not be among you. But whoever desires to become great among you shall be your servant. So after the Apostle James died, the other, the apostles didn't choose any apostle to take the numbers back to 12, and the message was taken out into other nations other than Israel, as Jesus has had asked them to.

  This meant that the leaders were no longer all Jewish, but the fact that the original apostles were all Jewish men were symbolic. There's so much that we could get into here, but we don't have time. So I'm gonna move on. Uh, also before I get way out of my depth, So what are signs and wonders?

  In everyday life signs are things that point us in a certain direction. I have many examples of times that I've been driving and missed the road signs turning what should have been a short journey into a much longer one. In my worst example of this, I turned a journey of one and a half hours into a journey of four and a half hours because I was distracted and missed the crucial signs on the motorway.

  Now, the signs in this passage were not ordinary road signs, but they have the same purpose to point us in a certain direction. The signs in this passage were supernatural events given to back up the message that the apostles were bringing and that they were to direct people towards God. Now, wonders are spectacular miracles, things that reveal God's power and give us a sense of awe and wonder.

  God's power was so strong in Peter, the head apostle that even his shadow healed people. That must have been so cool to watch. Years ago, I somehow got chatting to our milkman about faith and he said he found it hard to believe the Bible because of all the stories about miracles. After all, we all know that miracles aren't possible, right?

  My answer to him was this, if God created the world in the first place. Miracles are really no big deal. If God exists, why would we think he wouldn't intervene or couldn't intervene in his own creation now and then? So the apostles had power. Now if I mention power and religion in the same breath, what comes to mind?

  Over the years at various points in time and various geographical locations, the church has become powerful in a negative way, not with the power of God, but with a human power. And there have been lots of stories in the news of abuses of that power, but that's not God's plan. The power the church, God's people is meant to have is the power of the Holy Spirit that brings life and health to people.

  The Book of Acts records at least 20 specific individual miracles, such as the lame man who was healed in chapter three, and it tells of nine times where there are clusters of miracles, such as in Acts 24, where it says everyone was filled with awe that many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. The Old Testament, the bit of the Bible record recording events before Jesus walked the Earth as a human records three, three occasions when a cluster of miracles occured.

  The first was at the beginning of Israel's history from the Exodus through to the rule of Judges. The second was at the beginning of the prophetic era with Elijah and Elijah, and the third was at the beginning of Israel's exile. Does this mean that every time we come up against problems and life is hard, that we can expect a miracle and for everything to be great?

  I don't think so. Even within the Book of Acts, there are examples of how people's problems were not met with miracles. In Acts four, Peter and John were arrested, imprisoned and scourged. In Acts six, Stephen was stoned to death. In Acts eight, the Christians were persecuted, and in Acts 12, James was executed and the list goes on.

  Before he was about to be crucified, Jesus himself prayed, oh my father, if it's possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will. The answer to his Prayer was not a miraculous escape from pain and death, but the power to go through those things. Sometimes God works through miracles and I would love to see more of those.

  But sometimes God works through the natural and moral laws that he's set up, and the Book of Proverbs in the Bible has a lot of wisdom on how we can cooperate with these. For example, Proverbs 15, verse one says this, a gentle answer turns away wrath, but a hard word, a harsh word stirs up anger. I can give you an example of cooperating with God's physical laws for my own life.

  I've been naturally slim for most of my life, but last year I realized I had a case of middle-aged spread where the numbers on the scales just kept going up. My clothes are tight and the stairs were starting to feel like hard work. Which is a problem in our house because we've got a lot of stairs. So I changed the quantities of the different foods I ate and increased my exercise.

  I had to work with the God-given laws of nature to get in control of my weight and my health. And sometimes God works behind the scenes on our behalf in ways that we are not even aware of and where it may not be obvious at all that he's involved. And for this, I give the example of a man called Joseph in the Bible, the Joseph of technicolor Dreamcoat fame.

  He was sold as a slave by his brothers and wrongfully imprisoned, but God was working behind the scenes to put him into a position of authority. Sometimes God doesn't answer our prayers how we want him to. Sometimes we have to go through some really tough stuff that just doesn't seem to make sense.

  Philippians four says this, Do not be anxious about everything, about anything, sorry. But, um, uh, but in every situation by Prayer and Petition with Thanksgiving present your requests to God and the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Our part is to pray and trust that our loving Father God, who knows all, and sees all will answer in the way he sees best.

  God is not Father Christmas. We don't just get to write out our wishlist and get everything that we want. God's about relationship and relationships are not just coming to someone with a list of stuff that we want them to do. Now, have you ever met anyone famous? If you could spend time with anyone famous, who would it be?

  As humans, we can sometimes feel more important by our connections with people who are seen to be important. And if that important person happens to mention us by name and say something good about us, how amazing would we feel? The more important they are, the more important we can feel. Who would have that effect on you?

  Would it be a sports personality, a world leader in business, a president, an actor, an influencer? And amazing as some of our famous heroes may be, how much more amazing is it that God who created ev, who created everything, knows our names? He knows your name. He places so much value on us, on you that he came to earth in a human body to pay off the debt we owed him, so that we can have a restored relationship with him and be part of his family, a family with a purpose and a mission.

  As a little aside, um, we have a friend called Andy who often seems to meet famous people. And he has this Twitter account called Andy Meets the Stars, on which he uploads photos of himself, giving people his autograph rather than the other way around. I'm not sure what his motivation is. May be just a bit of fun, but the Bible says that those of us who've given our our lives to God, are part of his family.

  We are children of the Most High King. We have an amazing identity based on our relationship with him. I think Andy has the right idea giving away his autograph. In today's passage, there were two different responses to the miracles and message of the apostles. The first group didn't dare to join them even though the general population thought highly of the apostles. The general population probably thought highly of them because people were being healed.

  There could be a number of reasons some people wouldn't join them. They might have been afraid of persecution from outside the church as they'd already been some of that. And they may have been afraid of discipline from within. As in the passage just before this one, a married couple had experienced the judgment of God and, uh, died as a result of their hypocrisy.

  They didn't own up to it when they were given the chance, and so God judged them. That passage scared me as a kid. We don't like hypocrisy in other people, but it's easy to make excuses for ourself. It's easy to make excuses, excuses for ourself when God is trying to get us to turn our backs on any of the rubbish that holds us back.

  It took God weeding out some of the bad stuff from the church before his power was unleashed. Now the second group were those who joined the believers. Verse 14 says, nevertheless, more and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number. So what is our response to the message? What is your response?

  If you are someone who is not a follower of Jesus, what is stopping you? Are you looking for more evidence that this is all true? What evidence would, uh, convince you? Or maybe you're afraid of other people's reactions or maybe there's something else stopping you. If you are already a follower of Jesus, what were the signs miraculous or seemingly ordinary that pointed you to him in the first place?

  Why not share them in the comments? How is your relationship with him right now? What things bring life to that relationship and what things get in the way? Now, I've said before on Crowd that I got into some bad screen watching habits during Covid. I got into the habit of having a TV show on in the background while doing all the mundane household chores.

  Now, there's not necessarily anything wrong with that, but for me, I think it was com, um, constantly bombarding my brain with noises, uh, and just noise generally so that my brain wasn't quiet enough to hear God. I have actually changed that now. I don't really have the TV on in the background anymore. When I have the TV on it's on purpose for a limited amount of time.

  Whether you are a follower of Jesus or not. Are you like me on some of my car journeys? Has God been trying to get your attention but you've been distracted from the signs with other things? I'm gonna let my friend Dave Connolly have the last word today with a story of how God got the attention of a family that Dave met.

  Um, but if you'd like to hear more stories about how God has worked in different people's lives, head over to our what's the Story podcast. So here's Dave.

  Dave: Hi, my name's Dave Connolly. Um, I'd like to take a few moments to tell you about a great adventure that I had a few weeks ago whilst away um, praying, um, in North Wales.

  I was walking along the coast and I saw a family of, um, two adults and three teenagers, um, struggling to tell, take a selfie. So I stopped and I said, can I help you? Would you like me to take the photograph? And I did. And as I was leaving them, I just said to them, God bless you. And the dad in of the group said, why did you say that?

  So I told them that I was a Christian and they told me that they had been Christians till recently. I said to them that I was sorry to hear that, and they said that they'd, um, been through some really difficult times, some terrible things that happened to them. And they went on to tell me how they felt let down by church and abandoned by God, and it was clear to me.

  I could see that they were broken and that they were hurting. I asked them if I could share some things with them. The dad reluctantly said yes, and immediately I felt the Holy Spirit just lay some things on my heart to share with them, and I felt the Holy Spirit say. And I felt the Holy Spirit just lay on my heart a few things to say to them.

  And I told them that these images could be illustrations and just to consider if it meant anything to them. And the first thing was this. I felt the Holy Spirit saying, I shook you and I woke you from your sleep and I told you that I was carrying you and I was there with you. And it was at this point, one of the teenage girls said um, aloud.

  That happened to me. That was me. And she asked me how I knew, and then I shared a second thing, which was this. When you were walking your dog in that field surrounded, um, by trees on all sides. You knew my presence with you. And as you walked and you knew my presence, you felt like a cloak come on you just, um, being draped over your shoulders and you touched it and you recognized that touch of feeling, um, like whoa.

  And the amazing thing the father said, that happened to my wife, didn't it love? And she said Yes. And thirdly, I felt the Holy Spirit say to me to say these words, I told you I would be ever present with you, and that you could know my peace in amongst all your trouble and in amongst all your pain.

  And yet you felt guilty because you couldn't protect your family. But when you were together, you didn't want to hurt each other by saying that you'd experienced something of the comfort and presence of God. So you only shared how you were hurting. God had said to you that he would never leave you or abandon you.

  And from the very beginning of these awful things that happened to you, He had laid this scripture on somebody's heart. Where can I go from your spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there. If I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wing of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there, your hand will guide me.

  Your right hand will hold me fast. If I say surely, darkness will hide me and the light become night around me. Even the darkness will not be dark to you. The night will shine like the day for darkness is as light to you. And the dad looked at me and he asked, how can you know these things? And I said to them, God is wanting you to understand that he has been present with you at all times.

  The dad went on to ask, what shall we do? Because this changes everything. What you said changes everything. I see. I understand now he said. God was there. And I suggested to this family that they should pray. And that they should thank God, even though the situation may not have changed at all, but that they should just pray and recognize the presence of God with them right in the center of their pain and their hurt.

  I suggested to them that it might even be appropriate to repent. I suggested to them that they go, um, back to church and share with some of their close trusted friends what had been happening to them and said, maybe receive some comfort and support from their church family. This family looked really rather shocked, and I'm sure I looked shocked as well cause I didn't know that any of these things were coming and they weren't planned.

  And I can just hear the, the phrase just ringing in my ears, even as I shared it with you. This changes everything. See my friend, when God speaks life into our hopelessness, into our dark places, it changes everything. Everything changes because we realize that we are not alone. I looked up at this family and I just said, God bless you.

  Have a great day. And I turned and walked away. See, that was my role, that was my task for the day, just to share some hope into their hopelessness. I hope this word encourages you and, um, be bold and be ready to share God's love with those around you.

  Matt: Coming up, we have Conversation Street. But before we get into that, here's a clip from our podcast what's the story which you can subscribe to on all your favorite podcast apps?

  Jen: God is good. God is faithful, so that you have to repeat to yourself. This isn't the life that God planned for us, is it? When he created the world, he didn't create it with sin in it. Mm-hmm. Sin entered the world and chaos resulted. Mm-hmm. Um, so I, I, you know, I wasn't somebody that thought, oh, God's letting this happen to, you know, like, because I've done something wrong or I've, I'm being punished or, you know, like I.

  I wasn't into that kind of theology. You know, bad things do happen in life, but God is good through all of those and God is faithful and that is something, even if that's just what you repeat to yourself. There will be blessings in each day that you can look for from God.

  Dan: Wow. That was pretty amazing, wasn't it? I really enjoyed that talk. Lots to, lots to talk about there.

  Chris: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

  Dan: Um, if I was to ask you a couple of things that really stood out for you, what, what stood out to you?

  Chris: Yeah, I. It's interesting. It's that whole, um, I guess that combination between the supernatural and the, and the natural. Mm-hmm. And on occasions, you know, you, you read the Bible, but obviously the Bible's a precis of events in people's lives and then they spend, uh, we have a, a small number of those recorded. But they spent a whole load of life, living one's assuming fairly normally, but with God still involved. And it's that, and then you see that today. So, so the supernatural still happens and miracles still happen, but a lot of our lives are spent in those, uh, natural law where, um, God has, uh, has said, you know, if we lack wisdom, uh, to ask and, and he will give us that wisdom.

  I think that will be my testimony throughout life, really, that, um, uh, the, the supernatural, certainly for me, um, it is perhaps occasional, but then strongly seen that, that that wisdom has come from, from God. And, uh, I, I've worked my, uh, career as a, as a cancer surgeon in the NHS and been been very struck by God's

  wisdom coming from the Bible and um, see, see that happen and apply and in situations and meetings to, to get things done, you know, and, and indeed with patience to, to see that coming through, um, I particularly love and it's that whole business of us doing stuff and God doing stuff and it's so easy to say.

  Oh, it's all about faith. It's all about God doing miracles or, or actually you can go, go the other way and say, oh, actually I, I really have to work hard at this and I have to earn my way in and, you know, I have to do it all myself. And there's this bit in James. So, um, the, these are all from James chapter two from, from the message.

  Um, and, and, uh, the message says this in James. Isn't it obvious that God talk without God acts is outrageous nonsense? Faith and works, works and faith fit together, hand in glove. Do you suppose for a minute that you can cut faith and works in two and not end up with a corpse on your hand? It's that mesh of believing and acting that counts, that seamless unity of believing and doing what, that's what counted with God.

  At the very moment you separate body and spirit, you end up with a corpse. Separate faith and works. You get the same thing a Corpse. And, and, and I think it's similar with, you know, with the miraculous and that those natural laws, that natural wisdom, that advice we see in, uh, uh, Proverbs and in the, you know, in the sermon and the mount and elsewhere in the Bible. Yeah.

  Dan: Yeah. I love that. Cuz obviously in your, in your job you've seen that you, um, you will have prayed for patients, but you're also, your main job is, is getting in there and um, applying, all the medicines and treatment and, and surgery, it needs to happen as well.

  Chris: Yeah, absolutely. And again, Most of my life, most of my working life has been very much in that, that space of natural laws and, and God's wisdom.

  But, but of course, it, it doesn't mean that God isn't interested in that. So God is enormously interested in what I do day to day with patients and doing a good operation work for breast cancer. So, you know when, when an operation goes well, when I do a breast reconstruction, that goes, well, you know, that, that pleases God.

  It isn't all about, um, praying and, and the miraculous, although clearly that has an important place doesn't it? But it's, it's, God is absolutely interested in our day-to-day lives and what we do day to day and. And us being Christians, bringing in his kingdom values, bringing in his love day by day, by day. And, and I guess it's that some, some people wear that little wristband, don't they?

  Of um, what would Jesus do? And, and there's a sense in that clearly, you know, uh, Jesus has gone back up to heaven. So, but, but we're, we're around and, you know, so mm-hmm. Most people will see us, we'll be how they will see faith and how they'll see Jesus. Um, and, and God's absolutely interested in that.

  Dan: Yeah. And I think, um, uh, Dave Connolly's little, um, talk at the end of Sharon's talk was, that was miraculous to me. Wasn't it? They, that that family had gone through something we don't know what. They were struggling and they just happened to meet Dave. And he, he says to God, okay, I'm ready. You know, use me to bring that word.

  And that was miraculous. There were words that he didn't know. Um, yeah. That has done more for them than uh, you know, physical miracles potentially. It was, it was a miraculous event that happened there.

  Chris: Yeah. And we have to be, so we have to be, have the time, don't we? You know, give someone the time to stop and say hello.

  Um, and, and if you're scurry and pass and you don't even offer to take, take the picture in the first place, you, you miss it. And I think I, someone said to me the other day, That an enormous number of interactions and miracles we see described in the gospels. Actually, Jesus was on his way somewhere else, actually.

  You know, he wasn't, he wa he, he didn't have an appointment to do a miracle. He was sort of walking from one place to the other going about his daily life and, and, and was interrupted and it, it's so easy to see interruptions as, oh, you know, an interruption and I'm, I'm much very much like that. Yeah. I, I always have a long list of tasks actually to, to, to stop, but then obviously to be open to what, what, what God is doing um.

  Dan: Yeah. People often say it's hard if you want to ask, if you're asking God for direction and what to do. Well start doing something cuz easier to, to direct someone that's moving than someone that stopped not doing anything.

  And yeah. I love that. Even, even when we see Peter and John in that story, every day they went to the temple. And they talked and they saw people and you know, people get healed. But they had to go there. They had to get up. They had to do their tasks of the day, which would've been a lot more than we do now. You know, you couldn't just get a Tesco meal deal. There was a lot of, um, preparation and things just for life.

  Chris: They're, they're not in their, um, little virtual bubble, are they? So, so, no. So, so what you see now is I do quite a lot of train travel. It, you know, everyone is either on their phone, not engaging with a person opposite them or, or even more so on their phone with, uh, with earbuds in, you know. So actually very clearly giving out messages of don't, don't interact and it sort of yeah takes away that can,

  Dan: yeah. We can be very, I was, had a mixed weekend, so like I, I said before hadn't I, Matt and Dan's birthday party in the evening. However, in the morning I was on YouTube watching a live stream of, um, a good friend's funeral.

  He died a couple of weeks ago, just, um, couple years older than me, um, which is really sad. He's, he was a great guy. He loved God, so we know he'd gone to be with Jesus, but still hugely sad. And then I went to the gym and I was just there on my own trying not to cry. Doing, doing, you know, stretches and things and looking around going, yeah, there's people here.

  Yeah. But I'm, yeah, I'm on my own. We, I need to make sure that I spend time not, not in that bubble all the time, you know, looking around. Yeah, I like what Sharon said about just sometimes we can fill our life with distractions and tv and I've traveled a lot for my job, driving a lot around, all over the place.

  And, um, sometimes just have the radio on or I'm starting to listen to a lot of audio books, just like spice stories and things. And I, I'm now consciously made that effort to either have a bit of quiet time. Or listen to something that I can learn from. So I listen to podcasts, I listen to the Crowd Church podcasts and different audio books to, to learn, just to have a bit more focused, focused time.

  Chris: And it, it's good to know who we are, isn't it? Because, because obviously to use that sort of extrovert introvert thing. For extroverts, some of that falling off log, isn't it? You know, you can't stop them starting up a conversation, you know, for the introverts, it, it, it's more of a, more of a push for us to absolutely make a conscious effort probably to take, take the earbuds off out and put the book down, put the, put the phone down because we're in our comfort zone when we're doing that. But actually God may be wanting us to start up a conversation and, and it can be something very, very, um, Uh, easy can't it? Doesn't need to be any, any, any big thing.

  Dan: No. I like that Dave just said, God bless you. You know, at the end of the and, and that could have been it. Yeah, but it just went, yeah, it just went on from there.

  Chris: That's very unchallenging. And you can, you can say that in any circumstance and be very unoffensive.

  Um, it's, it's great when the supernatural happens. When we were. We spent some time in Nigeria for, for three years where I was working as a, as a, as a surgeon. And, uh, uh, Sue, my wife was pregnant when we went out, so she was 20 weeks pregnant when we went out. Um, and it was our fourth child. Um, but actually, so you're supposed to gain weight and instead of gaining weight, she lost weight in the, in the sec, in the second half of her pregnancy.

  Um, and we got to 40 weeks, which is when you're supposed to have, it's all supposed to have happened. And, and nothing had happened. And I think we, we got to a, I think we got to a week overdue and then 10 days overdue and you know, by which time everyone's getting a bit worried. And the obstetrician then said, um, so Sue went there and said, look, if, if you don't go into labor by tomorrow, we're gonna have to induce you.

  And we really didn't want that because induction often fails, and then if the induction fails, you then have to have a cesarean section. Um, and the medical facilities weren't fantastic. So for instance, there wasn't any oxygen in the hospital. So while, while people were doing operations, and it might have all been okay, it, it wasn't perfect, uh, to have that.

  And, and we'd arranged with some friends to pray for us when Sue went into labor and we thought, well, hang on. She isn't a labor, but why don't we get everyone to pray for her to go into labor? Mm-hmm. Um, so it was before the days of the internet, before the days of mobile phones and, and we didn't have a phone in the house, so I had to drive across town, the post office book a call.

  Standing in the hall, standing in the, in the, in the booth, make an international call. It was quite, it was a surprisingly big thing. You, you just don't, you just forget it. WhatsApp generation will not understand how big a deal it was. Anyway, we did that. We rang someone and we had an arrangement that they would then ring all our friends who all started playing, praying.

  So we then went back home. It was now, that was about nine o'clock in the evening. And it was quite a bizarre thing where we, both of us then sat on the edge of the sofa. In fact I can still remember what the sofa looked like, sat on the edge of the sofa thinking, come on then, you know, where is it? What, what's happening?

  And so we sort of both sat there for a couple of hours and ugh, you know, nothing's happening. Uh, yeah, let's go to bed. So we both went to bed. And about 3:30, 4 o'clock in the morning. Um, Sue woke up with huge great, uh, uh, labor pains and, and this was our fault, but it, it wasn't anything like the others. Um, so she had a couple of really big contractions and said, oh, I think that's it.

  Um, at which point I had to get back in the car again and drive across town to get some friends to come and look after the other kids, and we, we, we got got, we had a little, we had a VW uh, camper van type thing, VW bus. So we drove to the hospital. Um, all the gate, all the gates were shut. So we had to wake up, wake up the guard to let us into the compound.

  Um, and we, we eventually, we got there and Sue was, uh, uh, I said, get outta the van and, you know, I can't. And, uh, anyway, went in and uh, had, had Jonathan, our, our youngest, but the labor, the labor was completely different from any others. Uh, only lasted about an hour and a half, and Sue only felt, you know, a really small number of contractions compared to normal.

  And, uh, and, and I, I re we, we sent back a Prayer letter at the time. I remember saying, um, sort of be careful, almost be careful what you pray for. You sort of light, light the touch, touch feeling of Prayer what happens, but, uh, yeah. Yeah, no, it was a tremendous answer to, to prayer. So,

  Dan: yeah. That's brilliant. I love that. I love we can, that you said, oh, we had some people ready to pray when she was in labor and then, then you think, oh, she should be in labor. Let us get the same people to pray for labor. Yeah, yeah, yeah. God's good. And he also likes to. Like, it's just to say to us, you know, you can ask me. A different time. Slightly earlier. Yeah.

  Chris: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and that's the same about the rest of life. You know, it's, it's so easy to think God wants, you know, you pray when the big events happening or someone's really sick, or, or, or, what. But actually God's really interested in what we do. You know, in our emails, in our, in our meetings, in what's happening, at what's happening in our relationships and you know, with our kids.

  All these things, uh, God, God's interested in. Mm-hmm. I, I was interested in what Sharon was saying, that that whole business of some people joined, but some people didn't want to join, you know? Mm-hmm. And it's interesting, I, I see some, uh, not all our kids and not all our kids' uh, marriage partners are, are, um, Christians and it sometimes seem that they quite like a lot of what we do.

  Quite like a lot of the community and stuff we do in the community, but are reluctant to commit. And it seems that sometimes people, well, I, I quite like that and I like that mm-hmm. But I don't really want someone telling me what to do. Independence that says, well, I quite like this bit, but not that bit.

  And the thought of saying, well actually, You know, this book, this, this God is, has provided a blueprint for how we live our lives and the principles on which to do stuff. Um, don't, don't really like that. Um. Mm-hmm. And, and yet that's so desperate, desperately needed, you know?

  Dan: Yeah. Yeah. I, I thought it was interesting that people would, they, they stopped and they looked and they thought, wow, this is amazing.

  Yeah. And it says some, some thought, yeah, this is amazing. I, I'm, I'm for it. And others didn't wanna take that still, that, that step. And I, and I think sometimes we can, people say, why don't we see a lot more miracles? And I, I'd, I'd love to see more miracles. Um, but it's not always the be all and end all.

  People saw hundreds of miracles back then. People saw, you know, I don't know if all those 5,000 people that were fed by those loaves and fishes then went on to to follow disciples. They were, they were part of it and it's awesome, but we still got to, to look at the. Look for God and ask him and say, do we, are we gonna make this step?

  Are we gonna completely commit and, and be with you in the miraculous things and be with you in the, the normal daily life as well. Yeah.

  Chris: And then, and I think it's often not quite quite that stark in the, in the stories in Acts you see almost that starkness of miracles happening and Ananias and Sapphira dropping Dead.

  Um, but, but people still make those same decisions, but almost in a, it sort of drift away sort of way. It's not as if there's some big, often some huge flash of light and, and they say, oh no, I'm not gonna respond to that. It's, it's almost. Yeah. The, the, the decision doesn't quite happen. And, and you talk about the loaves and the fishes, you know, it's, you can imagine people at the edge of the Crowd saying, oh yeah, we had a nice lunch.

  I, you know, yes. And not, and not, not quite think, well, where did the fish come from and where did the bread come from? Somehow the, the, the light bulb's not going on and mm-hmm the dots not, not connecting, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Because clearly we're pri, we're pri you know, it's in the Bible, everyone sees it as a miracle.

  You, you're primed to see it as a, as a miracle. But it's easy to look down the other end of the telescope almost and say, yeah, you know, it was, it was quite a nice talk. And uh, the bread was a bit stale, but, uh, I didn't have much fish as opposed to, hang on, here's the son of God. Uh, you. Who, who produced this outta nothing.

  You know, it's so easy to miss. It's so easy, particularly in our rather cynical world to miss the supernatural that's going all around us, you know?

  Dan: Yeah, yeah. Always just sort of, um, wile it away. Or like you say, like the people at the end of the, on the outskirts of that Crowd, oh, you know, that was just, he had a bit more bread he passed it to me.

  You know, that. Um, oh, they must've stored a bit away and Yeah it was nice. But yeah. I'm, I'm heading off now. But, um, yeah, I'd like to think that that boy that gave the bread, that would've been a story that he told. A lot of times. Yeah. Remember that day? Yeah. Um, and I like, I like Sharon when she, she was talking to the milkman.

  And he said, oh, but you don't, you know, miracles. What, what are they? Aren't they a bit silly, you know, or impossible? And, um, yeah, if we look around us and see creation, if God, if we believe that God created us, well, miracles are nothing, are they? He did all this in days, but, um, just to heal someone's head or get them out bed.

  Chris: Yeah.

  Dan: Yeah. That's nothing for him.

  Chris: Hmm. Indeed.

  Dan: Well, I think we've almost come to our, um, end of this week. It's been brilliant chat. Thank you very much Sharon for, um, bringing that, that message. And thanks Chris for, um, your stories and, um, and talking today has been, I just, I. I always love Crowd church.

  I always love talking about God, hearing what he's done, hearing what he did. It's just, yeah, it's great. Great time. Um, and next week we've got Dave Connolly is bringing the talk. So Dave, who spoke at the end of Sharon's talk, he's doing, uh, full talk next week on Acts chapter six. Um, and in the midweek there's a Zoom call on a Wednesday.

  So if you'd like to get involved, please just email in. If you've got any Prayer requests, email them in. We'd love to hear them. We'd love to pray for you, um, and be part of that, get together on a Wednesday. So thank you very much. Thanks for those. Thanks for, for Matt and Andy for tuning in live. Thanks Christopher.

  Chris: Pleasure

  Dan: for joining us and we'll see you all next week.

  Chris: Great. Have a good week everyone.

  Matt: Thank you so much for joining us here on Crowd Church. Now if you are watching on YouTube, make sure you hit the subscribe button as well as that little tiny bell notification to get notified the next time we are live. And of course, If you are listening to the podcast, uh, the Livestream podcast, make sure you also hit the follow button. Now by smashing the like button on YouTube or writing a review on your podcast platform.

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  It has been awesome to connect with you, and you are awesome. It's just a burden you have to bear. And hopefully we'll see you next time. That's it from us. God bless you. Bye for now.