Welcome - it's such a common word, isn’t it.
It adorns floor mats outside entryways, it's often on road signs as one enters a new state, or a new town.
I even saw a welcome sign recently as I entered a national park.
 
There are places where people offer "welcome" as a greeting as you enter: "Welcome to our shop!" or "Good evening and welcome to our restaurant. Table for two?" or "Welcome to the greatest show on earth!"
Such conventional uses hide the loveliness of this word: “Welcome“.
 
In English, the word finds its roots in a compounding of the words "well" and "come," though with slightly different connotations to those we tend to use today.
The root of "well" could go in two directions: it could mean something close to our current understanding of "well-ness" or "well-being," but it could be stronger than that, implying desire or pleasure.
Some scholars see a link between "well" and "weal," the root of our word "wealth," and thus perhaps this word offers a kind of blessing.
"Come" finds its roots in an Old English word "comer," that is, a person who arrives or, perhaps closer to the Greek, one who is received.
 
Thus, "welcome" can offer in its earliest sense, an invitation to come and be well, or to be well in coming.
Either way, it is an invitation to be received into the goodness of this new place, where one has just arrived.
While we use the word casually and commercially, making one welcome is not as simple as offering a word.


The art of making one welcome is rooted in the ancient practices of hospitality.
Preparing to welcome someone takes thought, intention and discipline.
Some practitioners of hospitality are masters of the art; they're always ready with the accoutrements of welcome: an appropriate beverage, food, a comfortable chair and a few thoughtful and respectful questions of the "comer".
 
Their very presence seems to wipe away the strangeness or awkwardness of the social greeting and make the “comer” feel as if they are home.
If you've ever been the recipient of such hospitality, you’ll know exactly what I mean, or if you’re a master practitioner of hospitality, please know that those of us who have received it have taken notice, and we thank you.
 
Perhaps the measure of a true welcome is the ability of the host to make the guest feel at home.
There are some places where one can go and always feel at home.
It may look different, smell different, be full of strangers, but it just feels like home and it’s good to be there.
 
For Jews and Christians, such hospitality has always been a part of their makeup.
The call to welcome the stranger is anchored in the ancient Jewish book, the Torah, and was a part of the measure of the Hebrew community's faithfulness to God.
When a traveller came to town, they waited by the well, and it was incumbent upon the townspeople to welcome, house and feed the visitor for the night (could we say they were “well-come”?).
 
Of course, these travellers were not family or even locals, were unknown to the community and were aliens, often foreigners, people who had different foods, different clothes, different languages and often, different gods.
Opening one's home was risky and, these days, not much has changed in that respect.
We’re sometimes reminded that just as humans need hospitality, the fear of the stranger is also present.
 
But such hospitality was central to the Hebrew identity.
The risk didn’t define the people; their hospitality did, for such hospitality was central to the character of their God.
 
The same was true in the early Christian communities.
Paul, in the book of Romans, reminded them to offer hospitality to the alien, and, in the letter to the Hebrews, the people were reminded to show hospitality to all - for in so doing some entertained angels, though they were unaware of who they were greeting.
In Acts, the early deacons practiced hospitality throughout the community, bringing welcome to those in need.
And in Matthew's community, hospitality still measured the faithfulness of the people.
Welcoming prophets, righteous ones and disciples was a disciplined practice of the young churches.
 
We know that welcome, as a practice of hospitality, doesn't just happen, but has to be learned.
I used to drive by a church that had a sign out front proclaiming itself to be a church where everyone is welcome, even claimed to be fully accessible for people with disabilities.
It had a lovely ramp up to the door of the sanctuary, with friendly folks waiting just inside that door; but there was a problem, because just inside the doorway there was a step up into the building.
That step had to be negotiated before you could reach the people inside, meaning, if you we're in a wheelchair, your welcome ended right there.
A little more thought, on behalf of the parishioners, was required.
It's a matter of hospitality, and it's a matter of attention.
Attention to those barriers, impediments, biases, and obstacles that we construct - sometimes intentionally, though often unintentionally.
Barriers to the Gospel, the good news, to participation in the church, to abundant life in Jesus Christ.
 
It’s noteworthy that in the Greek, the word for stranger is “xenos” and it’s also the word for guest and host.
In this age of contemporary tribal warfare, of terrorism and of gated communities, most of us are all too aware of the term "xenophobia" - the fear of strangers and such a fear leads to nationalism, racism and even genocide.
However, the call to welcome another, as offered by Jesus, is a call to xenophilia, or the LOVE of stranger.
 
Hospitality should be the central practice of the Christian church today.
It’s been said that hospitality is the practice by which the church stands or falls.
Thus, hospitality is the central practice that should receive attention by everyone in our congregation.
So just how do we teach hospitality?     It all begins with practice.
 
To offer hospitality, we simply bring who we are and what we have, to where we are.
At times that may be grand; at times that may be very little.
In every case, it’s the gesture itself that shapes the character of the encounter, that shapes the character of the participants, of the story of grace that is the essence of the moment.
 
In the early 1980’s, when Lynne & I were looking for a new church in Turramurra, we were disappointed with the cool reception we got at the first one we tried.
There was no-one at the door, either going in or coming out, and no-one even approached us to say “Hello”.
Luckily, our neighbours suggested we accompany them to the other Uniting Church in the area and we’ve been members there for the last 42 years.
 
Welcoming another requires paying attention to that person.
It means often setting aside our discomfort of those different or strange to us people and meeting them as they are.
Being an agent of God's hospitality makes Christ's presence known, for as Matthew reminds us, when two or more are gathered in Jesus' name, Jesus is present there as well.
 
May God continue to open our eyes, our ears, our hands, our hearts and, indeed, our very lives, to the strangers among us, so that we might welcome all people in the name of Jesus Christ.
We give thanks to God that we can do so and I pray that we keep thinking of new ways to make others feel welcome.   
 
Blessings…………….Pastor Rick
 
“God calls each of us and embraces us with love.
We learn how precious and sacred we are to God and then God helps us to see our neighbour, too. 
We hold this Divine Love for others in our hearts, so go, carrying as much of the Creator’s love as you can.
Let Jesus teach you the way of trust and may you overflow with Holy-spirit-confidence in God’s faithful provision.
Go with faith and go in peace.   Amen.”
​

​You may have noticed that a well-used theme in shows on television (often called sit-coms), is the relationships between (often dysfunctional) family members.
 
Right back in the book of Genesis, we read of one such family.
About 10 years after God’s wonderful promises to Abraham about becoming the father of a great nation, Abraham was still wandering about in Canaan and there wasn’t much evidence that God was going to fulfill his promises.

Though God tells Abraham in Genesis 15:4 that “your very own son shall be your heir” and that the land would belong to his descendants, Abraham didn’t yet have a male heir to pass it on to.
Understandably, Abraham was beginning to doubt that God’s promises would come true.

And this is where today’s story takes a turn for the worse.
 
Abraham and Sarah were a bit impatient and decided to kick-start God’s promises on their own terms, and by their own means.
With Sarah’s blessing, Abraham impregnates her servant Hagar and has a child through her, perhaps thinking that this is what God had in mind.
They believed Sarah to be unable to have children of her own, given her advanced age.

Of course, this was a big mistake on their part. 
They were trying to bring God’s promises into reality through their own schemes.
The resultant child, Ishmael, was not, however, what God had in mind for them.

Abraham is noted in Genesis as being the father of the nation of Israel, but the ongoing lineage was to be through his son Isaac, born to Sarah, not through Ishmael, born to the slave Hagar.
 
Isaac was, indeed, a gift from God to the very elderly couple Abraham and Sarah.
For some time now, I’ve wondered why the editors of Genesis give Hagar and Ishmael so much press among the stories of Abraham and Sarah.
After all, this seemingly insignificant Egyptian maid servant is barely a footnote in redemption history.
You could easily tell the story of Abraham and Sarah without mentioning Hagar.
Furthermore, her presence doesn’t exactly make Abraham and Sarah look good.
She’s a bit of an embarrassment - the foreign slave girl, who gave Abraham his first-born son.

From Sarah’s perspective, now that she has a son (Isaac), Hagar and her son are a problem to be dealt with, managed, and eventually discarded.
Hagar and Ishmael must go, as they are in the way of Sarah and Isaac.
 
Interestingly, one of the Jewish words used in Genesis, relating to this story, is ”metsacheq” (a word which shares the same root as the name Isaac) and it has a range of meanings, one of which is simply “to laugh.”
It could very well be that in Genesis 21:9, Ishmael was laughing with joy, celebrating the life of his half-brother with all those who gathered.
After all, the text doesn’t suggest that Sarah saw anything suspicious … just that she had a sudden urge to protect Isaac’s inheritance.
It could also be that with Isaac having survived infancy, it was no longer necessary to keep Ishmael around as a back-up plan, and that now, he was just in the way of Sarah’s plans.
 
According to some ancient near-Eastern conventions, Abraham either had to claim the son born to his slave girl as his own or give him his freedom.
Abraham may have wanted to claim Ishmael as his son, but God had other plans for Hagar and Ishmael and used the situation as an opportunity to give them both their freedom. 

If Abraham had acknowledged Ishmael as his own, being the oldest son, he would have been entitled to a double-portion of inheritance and certainly would have occupied pride of place among Abraham’s heirs.
Sarah’s focus seems to be on safeguarding Isaac’s power and privilege, not necessarily his well-being or safety.
 
But we really need to look at what God’s plans are for this family.
Why does God affirm Sarah’s request to send Hagar and Ishmael away, if her motivations are less than noble?
The text doesn’t tell us, however, based on God’s attention and care for Hagar in Chapter 16 and for both Hagar and Ishmael in verses 15-21 of this chapter, it seems clear that God isn’t simply trying to dispose of them.

In their distress in the desert, God hears their cries and provides the means for their survival.

Thus, even though Ishmael isn’t the child who would carry forward God’s covenant promises, God has a plan for Hagar and for Ishmael.
They, too, would go on to become a great nation, much like Isaac, and God would be with them.
By God’s grace and intervention, Hagar and Ishmael would survive, even thrive and flourish, and he would become the father of a great tribe in Islam, known as the Ishmaelites.
 
These stories serve as an important corrective to notions of chosen-ness and election among the people of God.
Our chosen-ness as people of faith does not mean that we have any sort of hold over God, or that God’s love and care is limited solely to us.

What is striking about Isaac and Ishmael is that God makes the same promise to them both.

They would each become fathers of great nations and they would both experience God’s presence and blessing.
The difference between Isaac and Ishmael, then, is not so much chosen-ness, but calling.

Isaac and his progeny were called to the task of being the means through which God would bless the nations.
They were to model what a faithful relationship with God looks like, what it means to live out God’s will for his creation.
They were to show and tell of God’s love for the whole world, and ultimately, to participate in God’s redemptive work by being the people through whom the Messiah of the world would come.
 
These narratives are in Genesis to remind us of this.
But God also loves the Hagars and Ishmaels of our world.
God hears their cries, sees their suffering, and brings about their redemption.

Surely this is the story of the gospel, and it’s the invitation for those of us who are God’s people to attend to, bless, and embody God’s love and care to those outside of the community of Christian faith, particularly to those who appear to be the most vulnerable.

Just as God loves the Hagars and Ishmaels of our world, we should embody that love too, caring for them as much as we do for our own families.
 
Pastor Rick

I’m convinced that there are little islands of peace all over the world.
Of course, I’m referring to the men and women who have found peace with God.
In our reading from Romans Ch. 5 we rejoice and praise God for what he has done for us through his son, Jesus.
Paul restates the great truth of the two earlier chapters, when he says in v 1:
"Therefore, having been justified by faith . . ."  
A person who has been justified by faith in Christ Jesus can rejoice because of what comes from believing in him.
Because of our new relationship with God, we therefore rejoice in our spiritual understanding, we rejoice in our physical circumstances and we rejoice in the knowledge that God is our Lord, we are justified through our faith.
 
The concepts "justified" and “faith" are probably best explained and illustrated by the life of Abraham.
We all remember that God promised Abraham and Sarah that they would have children, even though they were old, and Sarah was said to be barren.
In fact, God promised that a great nation would come from them – and that nation would become Israel.
This gift was given to Abraham because of his special relationship with God.
There was no merit involved on his behalf, but because of faith alone, Abraham believed that God would do as he had promised.
 
Earlier in the book of Romans (Ch 3, v 23) Paul makes it very clear that we are all sinners, when it says: “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God”.
Unless we’re very naive and self-deceived, most of us know we’re still sinners.
From experience we know we’ve failed God on many occasions, sometimes deliberate, sometimes accidental.
But, because we’ve been justified through our faith, we have been forgiven.
 
Justification such as this is sort of like a pardon from the death penalty.
It's like sitting in the electric chair and having the phone ring five seconds before the switch is thrown.
The message comes over the phone that you’ve been pardoned; you’re free to walk out of prison.   Wow!
You’d probably be mightily relieved and wonder how it came about.
And then you get some other news.
Someone else has offered to take your place in the chair and that’s why you’re now free.
That would be perplexing - if you didn’t understand what Jesus did for us all at Calvary.
We should be celebrating the fact that we’ve been justified, or freed, because of Christ's death.
 
Then we come to that other word "peace", referring to a relationship between God and a sinner.  
It’s a divine kind of peace that even King David felt, allowing him to walk through the valley of the shadow of death without fearing the evil that was present there.
This sort of peace allows us to be like Elijah and stay by the river until God tells us, "It's time to move on."
There’s nothing like divine peace and assurance.

A few weeks ago, we celebrated Trinity Sunday and as we understand it, the Trinity speaks of that peace which is found in the persons of Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier.
God the Father sees our faith in his son and forgives us our sins against him.
The blood of Jesus the son cleanses us of every sin and we now have a new relationship with our holy God.
We are justified by faith in what Christ did for us on the cross.
Since God is satisfied with his son, he’s also satisfied with those who believe in his son's death and resurrection.
God sees our faith and declares us right with him!      Pardoned!       Acquitted!      Forgiven!      
This is a once-and-for-all act by God, whereby he declares us righteous in his sight.
 
Keep in mind Paul's declarations on justification in Romans. "For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law" (3:28).
 
Paul also mentions in Galatians 2:16 that we have salvation by grace through faith, instead of by works.
He writes, "a man is not justified by the works of the Law, but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the Law; since by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified."
 
So how do we become a child of God and receive this justification?
 
In Galatians 3:26 Paul says: "For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus".
 
Then in Galatians 6:15-16 he gives us his formula for evaluating the basis of our assurance of salvation, when he says: "For neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation is everything. As for those who follow this rule - peace be upon them."
For him it wasn’t a matter of being a member of the Jewish nation, or having the sign of the covenant.
The crucial need was to be born spiritually.
 
For us today it’s not our good works, our baptism, our church membership, or the taking communion.
Our eternal life depends on our relationship with Christ.
Our union with Christ is captured the day we come to faith in him and enter into spiritual union with him.
 
Not sure what a spiritual union is?     
Well, think of it like this:
Many people drink coffee with milk and when milk is added to the black coffee, a union occurs.
The blackness of the coffee and the whiteness of the milk are now integrated and made one.
The coffee becomes brown because of the union.
The coffee is not considered black-and-white coffee; it's just a cup of coffee!
When you drink it, you now have to drink the black coffee with the white milk because they have become one.
If someone were to try to separate the milk from the coffee, there’d be chaos in the cup.
Once the union of milk and coffee has occurred, no separation is possible.
The Bible says that when we came to Jesus Christ for salvation, we entered into an indissolvable union with him.
 
With Christ in union with us, we’re free to live better lives - because we’re justified.
And that’s not based on what we do, but purely on God’s grace.
If poverty is a force that cycles us down, causes us to sin in our response to this evil of society, then grace is a force that can stop the cycle of sin and give us a fresh start.
 
Justification means freedom - not freedom from - but freedom for - both ourselves and our community.
We’re now free to do work in God's kingdom and we’re free to help our neighbour who’s in need.
We’re free from the force that cycles us down and free for the task of building the community up.
That’s the freedom of the Christian - free from all, subject to none - as it relates to the law, but then when freed from the power of the Jewish law, we’re free to willingly serve our neighbour.
 
To be right with God we need the power of Christ.
Our belief in and relationship with the risen Christ, will be our salvation.
Through him, we’re indeed justified and it’s our faith in him that gives it to us.
 
My personal bible verse comes out of today’s Psalm reading (Ps116 v12), when we ask the question:
“What shall I return to the Lord for all his bounty to me?”
And the obvious answer is “praise”.
He gives us so much and asks for so little in return.
 
So please join me in going out into the world, shouting loud praises to God.                

​Pastor Rick
 
“As you go, proclaim the good news that the reign of heaven has come near!
And know that you have peace with God through Jesus, the Christ.”        Amen

The following reflection provided by Warwick Havyatt who led Worship at Lane Cove UC while Pastor Rick was ministering at Forbes UC.

Reflection: The many ways we see Christ.

Old Testament  Psalm 33: 1-12
Epistle  Romans 4: 13-25    
Gospel Reading Matthew 9: 9-13, 18-26

In our Church calendar, we are in the second period of Ordinary Time
A period of many weeks in which the church recalls its faith in the Holy Trinity and seeks to relate its faith as a people of God to Christ’s mission to the world. Trinity Sunday is the first in this period and concludes with Christ the King (the Reign of Christ).

This comes from the Lectionary of the Uniting Church and in it we can see two different ways of looking at Christ. One as part of the Holy Trinity and the other as Christ the King. Both of these images are theologically sound in the Christian tradition.

I am sure that we all have different ways of looking at Christ and I am also sure that we have many similarities. Our ideas and images of Christ are through our experiences and our learning. Our faith journeys are all unique. The amazing thing about the good news of Jesus Christ is how universal it is, and how inclusive, through time, through cultures and that it is still just as relevant today.

An image of Jesus that sticks in my mind is a painting of a black Christ in an Ethiopian church, which was published in National Geographic Magazine. This was an image of Jesus depicting him as an Ethiopian, an image that was socially relevant and accessible to that society, just as in Northern Europe Christ is often depicted with a light complexion. Of course, Jesus’ physical appearance is not all that important, it is his presence in our lives and his message that is relevant. The fact that Christ is relevant and is interpreted across a range of cultures in our modern world underlines the power of the Gospel message.

For me the Christ I meet in the Gospels is the humble Christ, one who is patent, forgiving and is full of grace. Jesus is also a very real person he has his trials and his triumphs, but also what comes through is his divinity. He is one with the Father.

The story of Jesus’ life certainly does not sound like that of a king. He was conceived out of wedlock, was born in a stable with lowly animals, was a refugee, the son of a lowly carpenter, was rejected by his home town, then he lead the life of an itinerant preacher and was executed in the most demeaning manner. Not exactly a grand entrance for the Son of God!

The humble aspects of Jesus’ life give us hope and make Jesus approachable. He was truly human and in many ways quite ordinary, but as a man he completely lived out the will of the Father. The power of his message lives on. We can see in Jesus the glory and power of God as reflected in the Gospel message.

Sometimes, our lives seem ordinary, maybe even we feel unimportant, but Jesus shows us that the ordinary really can be extraordinary, that often the little things in life that at the time seem so unimportant, can have the greatest meaning.

It is interesting in our reading from Matthew 9; 9-13, 18-26 that we have the story of the woman who was healed by touching Jesus’ cloak. It seems almost incidental to the main story, as Jesus was setting out on what would seem to be a much greater mission to rescue a girl from death. Although it seems to be almost just a footnote in the story, it does show us that that the little things do matter and that this simple act of touching his cloak and her faith changed that woman’s life. Bringing back the girl from death was the big story, Jesus took no personal glory for it, for by doing these things he showed that the grace of God comes through faith.

As Christians we often hear the phrase “being Christ to others”.  It can sound a bit like a catch phrase but it is a very deep and meaningful message. It is about us offering ourselves to others and following in Christ’s footsteps and often it is the little things we do for others that can mean so much.

Although we all have differing faith journeys and meet Christ differently, we can be sure that Christ is amongst us. We are up-lifted by the Gospel stories and see parallels in our own lives, but more than that, we can feel the grace of Christ’s message working when we invite God into our lives, and know that the Spirit of God is with us.

It is hard for some people to accept the unconditional love of God. We become so caught up in our own lives. It is so easy to deny Christ but when we feel the Spirit of God moving in our own lives, then we can spread that grace and joy to others. We can indeed be as “Christ to others” because the Spirit of God is working through us.

Christ is universal and although we may worship differently and see different aspects of Christ the love of God, grace of Christ, and the power of the Holy Spirit are there for all people. Amen

Warwick

Right from the beginning, God has been asking people to have the courage and the faith to follow him.
In our reading  from Genesis 12:1-9 we see God telling Abram to leave everything he has and travel to a land that he knows nothing about.   Abram had the faith and courage to follow his Lord’s command.
In the early verses of Matthew 9:9-13,18-26 we read of Jesus calling Matthew to leave his work and to follow him. Matthew had courage and had the faith to obey his Lord.
Later on in that reading, we hear of 2 people approaching Jesus for healing, displaying courage (to even approach Jesus and/or touch the hem of his cloak) and faith that Jesus had the power and the desire to assist them.
 
When Jesus tells Matthew to “Follow me”, he’s telling him he’s chosen as a disciple to follow Jesus as his teacher.
No respectable rabbi would choose a tax collector (viewed as a sinful traitor) and despised in the community.
What’s worse, Jesus willingly goes to the home of this unpopular man to have dinner with other “disreputable sinners” and we wonder why he chose to do this.
Jesus answers that he had come for those who knew they are sinners, not people who thought they were righteous.
Consistent with other scriptures, this shows God’s grace to the humble, contrasting his condemnation of the proud. 
 
In my early years as a Pastor, I would start each day with a To-Do-List of things I hoped to accomplish.
As a result, I was often frustrated, because days were often filled with “interruptions.”
Some of these interruptions came in the form of family emergencies, others were people who needed to talk, and some people just stopped by to “catch up”, because they had some free time!
I admit to getting frustrated when the conversations started to settle-in and I could see my To-Do list disappearing.
​
It didn’t take long before the Lord reminded me that serving him required that I give up my task-orientation (which is not the same as never planning) in order to be “people-oriented.”
It suddenly made sense to me that people, interruptions, and being available for those who need, is what I have been called to do – after all, ministry is about people, not tasks!
Nobody modelled this better than Jesus, who always seemed to have time for people.
He wasn’t interested in the big events, wanting instead to reach out to people whenever he had the chance.
People brought their needs to Jesus and these meetings turned into some of the great stories in the life of Jesus.
 
This week we look at two of those accounts, learning about a man with a very sick daughter and a woman with a bleeding problem that had changed her life in many different ways.
In the process, I hope that we’re going to learn some very important lessons about faith.
The first person to come to Jesus was the leader of the Jewish synagogue, named Jairus.
Typically, the position of leader in the synagogue was held by a Pharisee and they were generally not fans of Jesus, as they saw him as disruptive and leading people astray.
Maybe Jairus was a secret follower (like Nicodemus), or maybe he had tried every other means possible to get help for his daughter before coming to Jesus as a last resort.
Jairus asked Jesus to come “quickly” to help his daughter, and Jesus agreed.
It didn’t matter what Jairus was - he was just a person in need and that was the only thing that mattered to Jesus.
Don’t miss the lesson here: you may have resisted the Lord all your life, but if you will sincerely turn to Jesus, he’ll not turn the past against you, because he’s willing to help you, too.

Then we read of a frustrated woman in the crowd, who had suffered for twelve years with constant bleeding.
She’d tried many doctors, but she was no better - in fact, it was worse – when she heard about Jesus and thought to herself, “If I can just touch the hem of his robe, I will be healed.”
Immediately her bleeding stopped and she could feel in her body that she had been healed of her terrible condition.
Because of the bleeding, this woman was “unclean” and had not been able to worship for 12 years!
So, this was creating social and religious problems that went along with the physical discomfort.

When Jesus realised that someone had touched him (and likely there were lots of people touching him as he was surrounded by the crowd), he asked the person to step forward.
He stopped what he was doing and embraced the one who interrupted him.
However, I have to believe that Jairus would be getting very impatient, as he thought his daughter was dying.
When Jesus arrived at the home of Jairus there was a great deal of chaos, as people were saying that she was already dead.  Jesus, however, tells Jairus that she’s only sleeping and eventually she arose and was restored to life.
 
These are great stories of Jesus doing what no one else can do.
He can cure diseases that the doctors could not cure and, he has authority - even over death!
We can draw several conclusions from these accounts:
 
First, Matthew reminds us yet again that Jesus is the only one worth following.
And if you’re going to surrender your life to someone, certainly you should follow the man who can raise the dead.
Jesus alone is worthy to be followed as Lord and trusted as Saviour.
 
Second, true faith requires courage and patience.
The woman needed the courage to work her way close to Jesus to touch the tassels on his robe.
When challenged, it took courage for her to step forward and admit that she was the one who sought healing.
It took courage for Jairus to ask for something so bold from someone his people despised.
It took patience to wait on Jesus as he ministered to the woman even though he thought his daughter was dying.
 
Our anxiety is an indicator that we are trusting our timetable, rather than God’s.
Churning comes when we try to wrestle the reins of our life back from the Lord, the one we said we trusted.
We’ll never see God act greatly until we ask greatly.
Being bold and vulnerable is not easy to do.
It means putting all our weight on Jesus as our Lord and Saviour.
Faith means trusting even when things look like there is no hope.
 
Are you facing a circumstance you have trouble believing God could ever change for something good?
Have you received those horrible words “there’s nothing more we can do?”
Have you experienced a hurt you think you could never forgive?
Do you have a disease you think has made you unusable in life?
Have you reached that age where everything is just difficult, and you don’t know why you’re still here?
 
You have the same choices as Jairus and the woman:
Will you anchor your hope to what you can see and understand, or to what Jesus has said?
Will you boldly believe that he really can do “above and beyond all we can ask or think?”
If we want to reach out to others in the name of Jesus, we must be alert for the blessing of “chance encounters.”
Whenever we’re tied to “our schedule”, we’ll have difficulty doing the work the Lord has called us to do.
It’s not that we shouldn’t be organized, or even have a To-Do List, but the point is that people matter most.
 
If we’re truly going to walk with Jesus, we need to be alert to that unexpected opportunity to extend grace and love and be ready to plant a seed of faith or encouragement.
We’re called to live each day, alert to the things God calls us to do, and the people he wants us to impact.
We need to be ready, to anticipate, and to relish the “surprises” that come each day.
 
These surprises may start in our own homes, as we have the opportunity to pour life and faith into our family.
It may be a brief conversation on the street, in the shops, or even in a hospital recovery room.
We’ll have many opportunities to impact lives throughout each day and we often miss many of these opportunities because we’re distracted by the things we need to get done.
 
Here’s our challenge: We must open our eyes to what God is asking of us and go into each day allowing for a margin in our busy schedules.   In essence, we should “plan for surprises.”
Then we need to pay attention and watch for those brief encounters that can change a life, turn a bad day into a good one and can remind us that God is at work in ways that will surprise us.

This is the life of faith, of discipleship, and it’s a life of one surprising adventure after another.         

Pastor Rick