Mick's blog : February

 God of the Impossible

Our preaching series for the next few weeks up to and just beyond Easter is based around Isaiah 61 - the year of the Lord’s favour. The overarching theme is “The God of the Impossible.” In the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, it is recorded that Jesus said “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” Now, ?He was referring to sinful people being saved, but it isn’t distorting scripture when we assert this principle in other contexts that are in line with the will of the Lord.  In a society where there is little good news to the poor and oppressed, how can we bring good news? In a society where mothers are broken-hearted because their teenage son has been stabbed, or men and women are trapped in addiction or cycles of poverty, and people are stumbling around in darkness, not knowing where to go or what to do, it seems impossible to think that we can make a difference. How can we make a difference?
As a church we are praying for growth and we have an impossible target in our own eyes - 200 in a year. Can that happen? “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” 
The answer lies in the first line of Isaiah 61: “the Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me.” Now this was referring primarily to Jesus, and Jesus applies it to himself in Luke 4. But it is no distortion of scripture to say that the same Holy Spirit at work in Jesus, is the same Holy Spirit at work in us. Indeed, Jesus tells us in John 14 that “whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these.”
Through the baptism of the Holy Spirit at work in us, we dare to believe that we can see impossible things happen; binding up the broken-hearted, seeing captives released, blind eyes seeing and the church growing. Not just Weymouth Family Church but throughout the church families that gather across Weymouth and Portland. And beyond. Jesus is the God of the Impossible!
Mick Richardson