Roseville

The Lost Art of Generosity: Part 2

The Lost Art of Generosity: Part 2

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

We are in week two of our Lost Art of Generosity series and I hope you guys enjoyed last week and some discussion around the table. We're going to have a little bit more today as part of the service today. But last week, Pastor Andre opened up our series talking about some words directly from Jesus himself. Specifically talking about how there's more joy in giving than in receiving. And that the foundation of a life of generosity is this idea that the more that we have that we give away, the greater our life becomes. And this is totally counterintuitive to life, right? While generosity is more than just giving our money, it is actually not less. And that we ourselves, as it says in scripture, we are created in the image of God and God is a happy, a joyful, a generous God. And when we practice generosity, we are actually living life according to the design and we tap into the joy of God himself. It says in Acts 20 35 that there is more happiness in giving than in receiving. And there's an author, Randy Alcorn, that we'll talk about through this series. He says that giving is the good life. And Jesus has an invitation for us in our hearts to kind of watch out, to be careful how we have our natural desires. Because when we truly begin to slow down and simplify the parts of our lives, it's all in a manner of creating margin to live a life of generosity. And Pastor Andre last week, he challenged us to think about a very simple, maybe small act of generosity that we could take before today. Maybe it was to pay for someone else's coffee, to maybe put $5 in our pocket and to pray every single day, "God, where do you want this $5 to go?" Or maybe it was the gift of someone of our time to maybe sit down and have a conversation, to have an act of service towards them or serve somebody in a practical way. Around our tables this morning, I got two questions for us that I want you to talk about. The first of which is, what challenges do people face when thinking about generosity? What are some of those challenges that maybe personally we feel or you see in other people? And then what new ideas of generosity have been growing in you this past week as we begin our series? So we're gonna play some just quiet music in the background, take about three minutes or so, begin to discuss around the tables those two questions.

I love, I was kind of overhearing some of the conversation in the room, but just give a shout out from your table. What were some of the things you guys talked about that are some of the challenges or things that really kind of things that people face when thinking about generosity? Not having enough. Not having enough. Yeah. Selfishness. Ooh yeah. Oh co-dependency, yeah okay yeah yeah. What else? What other challenges? Fear. Yeah absolutely 100%. What else? What other what other challenges? Anything else from your table? Control. Giving up control? Okay yeah yeah. You give up control? Okay yeah yeah. You give it away and then you just don't know what's gonna happen with it after that. Yeah that's fair that's fair. What other things that your table kind of popped up? Oh there you go. Getting people to accept the help. Okay. Yeah so you don't know whether it's it's where your money is going if or whatever it is is really going towards the the cause that they say it's going to. Yeah that's good. Yeah those are definitely some really real challenges when thinking about generosity. Anybody have any ideas of of new ways you're thinking of generosity maybe this week as we started the series? Is anybody able to do like the five dollar thing or pay for somebody's coffee and do anything give anything away this week? Time? Okay awesome. Yeah we had this week we actually had someone come come by the church and ask for some gas money and and for us here in Rocklin that happens maybe six months or so. And got to have a good conversation with a gentleman and you know it's it's interesting with those things where it's like begin to have kind of put in our mind and then God brings an opportunity by our way and we're like okay and honestly we what we tend to do here is we tend to have gift cards to Safeway down the street so they can get groceries or diapers or and what's nice is they have a gas station there too. But we were actually out all out of those. And so we ended up just handing over some cash and some of those real fears of like, is the guy really going to go buy gas? Does he need something like what is he going to go spend it on? But it was one of those things it's like God was like no, you need to be generous. You need to trust him and trust that he's listening to God in that. And so a very real practical way. We as a church are actually because of you guys are actually able to bless somebody this week.

And so have you ever been talking with someone about something specific? Maybe it's some new shoes or clothes or a kitchen gadget and new video game. Maybe it's something to do with your favorite hobby. Maybe something about Mother's Day coming up. Guys, one week warning, heads up. All right. Can't say I didn't tell you. But maybe it was a trip you want to take or something else that you want to buy. You remember having those conversations? I had one of these this couple weeks ago. I was meeting with my spiritual director, my shepherd, and we were talking about what we were doing this summer. And Lauren and I are a 17 year anniversary is coming up the end of this month. And yeah, we're excited about it. We're excited. And so we were talking about where we wanted to go. Maybe we wanted to take a flight somewhere or travel out of town. Maybe go to Tahoe. We weren't sure. And I'm having this conversation with my friend and all of a sudden literally a pop up notification on my phone. Southwest is having a early summer sale. And I was like, God, are you listening? Siri, are you listening? Like what's going on here? But it's just like this creepy moment just like what is happening? We didn't book any flights with Southwest. It was a little too creepy for us.

But experts say on average, we look at and we are exposed to and put in front of us three to five thousand ads every single day. That's just daily. That's not a week. That's not a month. That is daily we see that. And all of these are designed not for our rational brain because consumerism isn't rational at all. But all of these ads, they're amplified. They have all these algorithms. They spend billions of dollars every single year on advertising. And let me tell you, the executives of these businesses, they're no dummies. They don't spend this money if it's not working. But the reality is that all of these are designed to data mine our deepest fears, our insecurities, our questions, our hopes, our dreams. All by watching what we do and listening to us right from our pocket. A Harvard professor calls this the surveillance capitalism. But even before the era of digital manipulation, the human heart has long been prone to believe the myth of more. See that lie that just if we had a teeny bit more, then we would be happy. But the truth is, and it cuts across the spectrum of the entire human experience, no matter how much we get, it's never enough. No matter how much we possess, it's never enough.

And the writers of Ecclesiastes were very wise when they said this, "Whoever loves money never has enough. Whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income." See, the fact is that the more we get, the more that we want. Not just the reality. John D. Rockefeller, the oil tycoon, the first billionaire in the entire world, was famously asked, "How much money is enough?" And he responded with, "Just a little bit more." Psychologists actually call this the hadronic treadmill. The fact that desire only begets more desire and more desire and more desire, and it's like you are literally on a treadmill of life running and walking and chasing after something, but never arriving. Chasing the carrot at the end of the stick. But even worse, the more that we get, honestly, the more neurotic we actually become. And this is the encounter intuitive side of Jesus that really begins to stretch us and challenge our thinking because we think that money will make us happy. But often, not only does it not make us happy, it makes us even less happy than we were before. We become more anxious. We become more distracted. We become more discontent. We become more lonely. And as a result of us living here in the West in a very affluent generation of human history, many of us are wracked daily by fear, worry, greed, and unsatisfied desire.

And it comes to no surprise that the majority of Jesus' teaching on money are warnings about the danger of it. I want to look at a couple examples this morning. Jesus in Luke 12 says this. He says, "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed." Greed is really similar to lust, but it's for things. It's this insatiable desire for the more that we have, the more that we need. And Jesus, He was right. There are all kinds of greed. There's more crass things of greed. A bigger house, a bigger TV, a bigger, faster, nicer car. Those bigger, better things that we're always chasing. But there's also a more bespoke type of greed. A greed for exotic travel. Maybe it's for eating out. Maybe it's for boutique fashion. Maybe it's for rare possessions. And we're all vulnerable to some level of greed. Hence why Jesus here says, "Watch out!" But why? Why is greed so bad and dangerous? Well, the next line from Jesus' word says this in Luke. It says, "Life does not consist in an abundance of possessions." It's just not where the good life is found. But not only that wealth can be dangerous, let's look at this next thing that Jesus says in Mark chapter 4. He said, "Some people like seeds sown among thorns hear the word, but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth, the desire for other things, come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful." Notice Jesus' language here. He says, "The deceitfulness of wealth." He doesn't say that wealth is evil, but rather it is deceitful. But why is that? Well, it promises what it cannot give. So wealth does. It says it will give you happiness, contentment, an identity, a false sense of safety and security. We all fall for the lie. Can we be honest here? We fall for that lie again and again and again and again. And yet this desire for wealth is often what is keeping us from the good life. Jesus continues in Matthew 19. He says, "Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God." Again, I tell you, He's got to say this twice because it's so hard for us to understand. "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of the needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God." So notice here that Jesus has to say it twice, right? It's so hard for us to comprehend or we so quickly forget it, right? That here wealth is actually an obstacle to the good life, not the path to the good life. But what I want you to hear here is Jesus saying it isn't impossible. It's possible to follow Jesus into the kingdom of God and carry wealth with you. But it is very hard to do. And we love to think to be, "I'm going to be the first one to do it, Jesus." "All those who have come before me did not have the faith and the relationship that I had with you, God. I can carry the heavy burden of wealth. Please bestow it upon me.”

But the reality is Jesus' warning is haunting. The financial success can equal spiritual failure. See, this is an idea that you rarely hear in society today, right? But it's profoundly biblical. Which is probably why the weight of Jesus' teachings are so focused and against and warning to greed. The thing about it is that very few of us think we're greedy, right? As a pastor, I've had, oh man, I've had people confess things to me. Whether it was abortion, whether it was adultery, pornography, all sorts of addictions, abuse. But I've never had anyone come to me and confess greed. Just never have. And we tend to unconsciously adopt the standard cultural norms of our day, right? We live in one of the most greedy materialistic cultures in history. Hence, we often, like the story of the frog in the water, we don't even realize what greed is doing to our soul. And in this series and in this thought of figuring out the lost art of generosity, our pastors, we were thinking about, could there be a way of Jesus that could set our hearts free from greed and form us into the people that Jesus so desperately and deeply wants us to be and happy and at peace. And yes, there is. It's the rhythm and the practice and the lost art of generosity. Jesus says this to the Pharisees in Luke 19. He says, "You Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness." See, wickedness is more of like a generic term, but greed is very specific. It's the one sin that Jesus calls out by name is greed right here. And then he says this, he continues on, "But now for what is inside you, that greed, that foul just ugh, ruining of your heart, but rather be generous to the poor and everything will be clean for you." If there was a silver bullet to greed, it would be generosity. And yes, it is true, the more we get, the more that we want. But the opposite or the inverse is actually also true. See, the more that we give, the more happy and at peace we actually become. The word here used by biblical scholars that would talk about this inner satisfaction would be the word contentment. Contentment. It's one of those most underrated virtues in the entire world. That if greed is this unsatisfied desire being wracked by want of more and more, contentment is the actual opposite. It is being deeply happy and grateful for what you have. It's being free from the desire for more. It is this way of living our lives with a heavenly perspective that frees us up and allows us to live without the weight on our shoulders.

Turn with me or flip or tap or whatever to 1 Timothy chapter 6 is where we're going to be for the majority of this morning. But I love what it says here talking about contentment. And it brings all of this stuff together. It says as Paul is echoing Jesus, so Paul isn't saying something different. He's echoing Jesus, but he's also giving us this idea and alternate pathway towards happiness. It says this in Timothy 6. Godliness with contentment is great gain. What does he mean by this? What he means is that true wealth is not having a lot. It is being happy in God and content with what you have. I've heard a wise person say this once. They said, "I may not have a lot of money, but I am rich all of the time." This is the idea of contentment. It continues on in 1 Timothy, "For we brought nothing into the world and we take nothing out of it." As the saying goes, you can't take it with you. A lot of people have tried. Wealth is temporary. Either you lose it all the day you die or you lose it all way before that point. It continues on in verse 8, "But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that." What does it mean by that? Well, the Greek word here for that word clothing actually translates to covering. So the idea is here, if we have food, we have clothing, we have shelter, and as long as we got God and each other, that's enough. There's no need for anything more than that. But he continues on. It says, "Those who want to get rich," or maybe translate this way, "Those who set their hearts on being wealthy, those who long to be rich, those who desire with their hearts on being wealthy, fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction, for the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil." This line is often misquoted, but if you read here, you pay attention to the love of money is the root of all evil that everybody says. The love of money is the root of all evil. No, no, no. That's not what the Bible says. The NIV translation here actually is really, really excellent. It says, "The love of money is a root, a root of all kinds of evil," meaning it's the evil underneath so many of the evils in our soul and society. Money itself is not evil. It's just not. It can do great good, absolutely, but it can also do great evil. And when I think of power of generosity, I think of a business in which to make the world an absolutely better place.

But at the same time, money isn't neutral either. It's very powerful. I think of nuclear power or nuclear energy. It can bring life or death. And it's very hard to steward this level of power well. I think of money like Frodo's Ring in Tolkien's classic Lord of the Rings, right? You guys have seen those series. I think of it and the idea that only the purest of hearts stand a chance at not being corrupted by its power. The whole movie series, all 300 hours of it, are all about the struggle to end the Ring, right? They do flashbacks to years before when kings wielded it and destroyed half the earth, and then it was gone and lost and hidden forever and then found again. And the whole journey of the fight to be able to figure out what to do with this powerful ring. And I think that's for us with money. That even then sometimes it's not a blessing as much as a burden to our soul, and it tends to deform our inner person. That money-love is far more dangerous than any of us realize. This is what it says in the next verse. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. Another way it's been translated, pierced themselves with many pains, have wounded themselves with many sorrows, caused themselves untold agonies of mind. In my life here on earth, whether you have more years than me and say I haven't been here very long or you have younger years than me saying you are super old, I've seen a lot of people gain wealth over the years. And I've seen what it does to their hearts and to their lives. And my experience is that the warning of Jesus and the scriptures are incredibly, incredibly true. Not only does money make most people happy, but it often is the root of all kinds of evil.

So what's Paul's solution to all of this and the problem of greed? Contentment. The writer Randy Alcorn defines contentment as being satisfied in who's you are, who you are, and what you have. Those who love and serve Jesus can be truly content, but those who love and serve money can never be. To be content is to realize you have enough. But even more so is be happy with what you have been blessed with. See, my problem is, you guys probably don't struggle with this, is that I think I'll be content when I get a raise or when I buy that home or when I get through just this season of life. Then I'll be content. But that's not how contentment works. It's not. The truth is, though, but we can be happy here and now through practicing the lost art of generosity. See, there's, I see this as two facets of this discipline, kind of maybe like two sides of a coin. The first of which is going to be the most obvious one. So if we have generosity, the first side would be to give. To give our resources away. Which we're going to talk about this more later, but the reality is this isn't ours in the first place. It's solely God, and so we freely share. Giving is like God's antidote to greed. It's like the prescription to fix the greed in our lives. And the more that we give away, the less control that money actually has over our hearts. The other side of that is to simplify our life. To edit down everything to the essentials of what really matters. And see, both sides are critical. J.K. Chesterton famously said this, "There are two ways to get enough. One is to continue to accumulate more and more. The other is to desire less." Paul puts it this way, that there's two ways to be rich. Earn more or want less. That's it. I think the second one, want less, is a little bit easier to attain in life.

But the discipline of pursuit of less has at times been called simplicity or simple living. Or in the Christian tradition, different words. Or maybe you've heard the secular term minimalism. But there's so much more to be said about simplicity. First, I want to get this straight. Simplicity is not the same thing as poverty. Sometimes we just throw the baby out with the bathwater and go, "I'm just going to be poor." But I don't think that's how God wants us to live our lives. Because if you're poor, you don't have anything to give away, right? But the reality is that the definition of simplicity is this. Limiting the number of our possessions, expenses, activities, and social obligations is a level where we are free to live joyfully and generously in the kingdom with Jesus. And it reframes the question of, "What else can I get?" Framing it into the question of, "What can I do without?" Thinking in our mindset. And see, this question only makes sense inside of a worldview like that of Jesus. See, the reality is, to live a generous life, we need to have margin. We need to have margin in our finances so we have budget in the room to share. We need to have margin in our schedule for rooms for interruptions from people who need us, for times for rest, for times of delight in the Lord. We need margin in our relationships. But see, the problem is most of us live at overcapacity, not under capacity. See, for Jesus, or for us who are apprentices of Jesus, disciples of Jesus, we should live our lives where the people should look at us and how we spend our money, and they should assume we actually make less money than we do. This is really hard. Imagine this, if you would with me, I'll put this on the screen, of a line of our income and our expenses and a level of indebtedness. Most of us in the world around us, this is reality, we live above that debt line. We're maxing out our capacity. Jesus calls us to actually live underneath that level, in the bottom. Because in the area above, we find ourselves with anxiety, with misery, with stress, with worry. But when we live below that line, we find contentment. We can live out generosity. We find joy and happiness. And this is the exact opposite of our culture.

We live in California, we live in a very affluent area in California, but the reality is when people drive in the luxury cars, living in the giant homes, living in their lifestyle with their clothes, everything like that, they are still living paycheck to paycheck, teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. And I don't see how this is the way that Jesus calls us to live our lives, to just live the opposite. Did you get what Paul said there? He said, "We will be content." The Greek word here, content, implies a resolve of the heart, that we will not give into greed, but be happy with what we have. There will come a time in your life where you will have to draw a line in the sand and say, "Enough is enough. I don't need any more." But here's the hard part. This practice looks different for all of us. And it will look different based upon your stage in life, based upon your income level, whether or not you have children or dependents. You may be struggling to put food on the table, but Jesus' warnings about greed are not just for the rich. It is a call for all of us to be content in what we have.

I love what it says in Hebrews, we're going to close out, it said, "Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have." Keep your heart free. See, our heart is like a GPS. I think we've all used GPS on our phone before, right? We can pull that up and the world tells us, "Just follow your heart's desire." But that's like opening up Google Maps and just driving. We'll just go wherever, right? There's no direction, there's no final destination, there's no place that we're trying to head towards. We're just out there freewheeling it. And I think the reality is that if we were to just let our heart's desire just lead us, we'd probably end up in some really bad places. What Jesus is trying to teach us here is we have to put in the address of heaven into our heart GPS in life, because then we're going to the right destination. And then every turn has a purpose, every direction makes sense. We're headed towards a certain place. And if we just let ourselves go, we won't get to where God wants us to be. See, that is the goal. The Jesus way is not riches or poverty, but it is freedom and generosity. This is what it says in that second part of Hebrews 13. Just keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have. And then he says, "Because God has said, 'I will never leave you, I never will forsake you.'" Because ultimately what we've been doing is we've been searching for, what we are searching for in money can only be found in God. What we have been chasing after to fill that in ourselves, money and wealth never will. It's only to be found in God. Whether it's peace, happiness, safety, security, identity, desire. We think we just get a little bit more, right? Then we'll be content. But what we're searching for in money can only be found in God. The good news, the gospel is that we already have everything that we need. We already have it all. We have access to the kingdom of heaven. God is our king provider and he will never leave you and never forsake you. Right here, right now, we have everything that we need to live a happy, joy-filled life in God.

Pray with me. Jesus, thank you for who you are. God, thank you for your son, your gift and sacrifice on the cross. Jesus, we have everything that we need. You've blessed us with everything. You've given us exactly what we need for today and for tomorrow and for the day after that. You have it all figured out. So God, I pray that we wouldn't worry about that, but that we would be focused in the moment here and now. That we would have contentment to push back against the greed that creeps into our lives every single moment of every single day. And Jesus, we would live a life that is honoring and glorifying to you with our finances. Being a witness to others to point people to you, Jesus. In everything that we do and say and schedule and work with our hands and take care of our time. God, it would all be directed to bring you glory in this world until we see you face to face in heaven. We thank you, Jesus. We love you. Amen.

The Lost Art of Generosity: Part 1

The Lost Art of Generosity: Part 1

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

Well, we are, as you can see, around tables today and there is no lunch afterwards and you're probably like, what is happening right now? Was this just for Morning Blend? No, though it does help. We wanted you guys to sit around tables for Morning Blend but we are going to be around tables to encourage and provide opportunity to prime the pump, to ready your hearts and minds, to engage with this series and to do so in community. So we're gonna be around tables for the next four weeks, this week and four more weeks. I know some of you are like, oh my goodness, will I not be here for the next four weeks? Oh, I love that. Some of you are like, yes, this is the best. Yeah, we need to. We're gonna have time either before the message or after the message, maybe during the message, where we're gonna give you each week a prompt or a question that you are gonna discuss around your table. And so as much as it is an individual faith that we have, we also recognize that it's a communal practice that we live in Christ together and we wanna encourage that with this. And so in our series, we are starting the series, The Lost Art of Generosity. While generosity is present in our world today, generosity as Jesus lived it and taught it, practiced it, that's harder to come by. And so this series is gonna take a look at Jesus's words about generosity. From a distance, generosity sounds like a difficult practice to embody regularly every day, and it is at first, but it quickly becomes one of the most joy-filled of all of Jesus's practices. And so our prayer for this series in the coming weeks is that you discover the great joy that Jesus is referring to, not just the good feelings that occur when we are generous, but the deep joy that comes from participating in the inner life of God himself, who is the most generous being in all the universe. I'll continue to share more about our series in just a moment, but let's pause right now to have our first discussion moment. So here it is, it's on the screen, we'll give it to you. Whether you were the giver or the recipient, share about a time when you experienced the joy of generosity. Whether you were the giver or the recipient, share around your table. So we have like three to five minutes. We won't have time to go into your full story, so maybe keep it short and just say, "Hey, in this moment in time, this guy did this for me, "and I really loved it, and it was amazing." It can be that short. If you're around a table with just the two of you, feel free to share your whole heart if you want to. But introduce yourself if you haven't. Be really quick, three to five minutes, and then I'll gather us back up. Ready, set, go.

We're gonna start in verse 19. It says this, this is Jesus speaking. It says, "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth "where moths and vermin destroy "and where thieves break in and steal, "but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven "where moths and vermin do not destroy "and where thieves do not break in and steal." Notice here that Jesus doesn't speak against storing up things. Are there any collectors in here? People who love collecting something, maybe? Yes? Okay, I see a couple hands raised. Good. I'm curious about what those are. I have some collectors in my family. My grandpa was a huge collector. He collected stamps and coins. I didn't know, I was a kid when I really found out about this and didn't come to appreciate it 'cause he passed away when I was younger, but he was kind of an expert, and people would send coins and stamps, mail 'em over to him and be like, "What do I have?" And he would go through people and give them estimates. So he was really into stamps and I think foreign coins. On my other side of the family, my cousin, this was also when I was little, I remember walking into, he had a two-bedroom house, and I kid you not, from floor to ceiling, you could not see a wall. It was covered in action figures. Like the biggest collection I've ever seen. The whole two-bedroom house was just for the collection. He was living by himself. But he had, it was amazing. And as a kid, I was like, "This is awesome. "This is better than a toy store. "Look at all these toys." But I learned that I couldn't play with them. They were all boxed up and graded and everything.

So those might be some extreme sides of collecting, but there is an innate desire in us to store things up. Jesus doesn't rebuke that. Rather, he speaks to where we should store things up. He says, "Not on earth, where moth and rust destroy, "where everything can be lost so quickly, "but store up your treasures in heaven." Now, we read that, and we think, "Eternal treasure storehouse." Of, hey, when I, the way I live my life as a Christian, one day when God, the Bible says I get my own house, he's building a house for me, I'm going to have a treasure room somewhere, and there's all these treasures that I've accumulated from being a good Christian. Maybe you don't think that, but we can kind of think that way. Of, hey, I got this place, I am getting all these things in the future. It's a future investment. And that's not necessarily wrong, but that's not the whole picture that Jesus is saying here. You see, this phrase, "in heaven," at that time as Jesus meant it, is also saying, "in God and what he is doing on earth." Store up your treasures in God and what he is doing on earth. That paints a little different picture. That helps shift our mindset from a future that we cannot see and may not feel responsible to interact with. That's a future, it's over there, I'll get to that one day when I die, get to experience all these treasures in heaven. It shifts that to, this is a future that I get to participate in. Storing up my treasures in heaven and what God is doing right now on earth. It's more present, it's more tangible for us. And it can change our heart towards stewarding what we have and giving what we have. Because for Jesus, money is all about our hearts. Verse 21 says, "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." According to Jesus, our hearts follow our money. We often think of it the opposite way, that our money follows our heart. And that can be true, that we can spend money on what we love. But Jesus is saying it works both ways. We come to love, maybe even obsess over or be controlled by what we spend our money on. This one can be tricky, it doesn't start necessarily as an obsession. Maybe it can be slower developing and we can obsess over something that is a good thing but it becomes too much and it takes the place of God in our hearts. Maybe it's something like, hey, you bought a house. That's amazing. But all of a sudden, all the money that you're pouring into that house, that thing can become an idol over God. You care about that house more than you care about God. That takes up more of your time, more of your heart. You are more controlling and acting out of fear and greed over that than listening to God. When we store up on earth, two things become key motivators and get a hold of our hearts, fear and greed. Our hearts are racked by fear because we know that we could lose it all in a moment. Or our hearts are motivated by greed because we feel like we may never have enough.

So we want more and more and more just in case, if I just have more, I'll be that much more safe, that much more able to provide for my family. But Jesus, he never wants us to operate out of fear or greed. And he has an alternative way of storing things up in heaven or with him and what he is doing here on earth. And in order to do that, we need a certain perspective. It says in verse 22, "The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness?" What is Jesus talking about here? Do we all need to have surgery to have 20/20 vision so we can all see perfectly? No, though that is helpful at times. "The eye is the lamp of the body." In the Greek here, these phrases, the people would have understood this, a healthy eye means you are generous. An unhealthy eye means you are stingy. Jesus is saying there are two ways of looking at the world. This is the crux of our message today. There are two ways of looking at the world. Again, in the old world, they would have said good eye, bad eye. Today, we would say something like the abundance mindset and a scarcity mindset. In an abundance mindset, we see God as Father, a provider. We see ourselves as His child. We see life as a gift given to us. We see that in this world, God has provided more than enough. It says elsewhere in Jesus' teachings, "Look at the lilies of the field, the birds of the air. If God has given them what they need, how much more will He give us?" The result of this is that we are grateful towards God and generous towards our neighbors. If we see the world in this way, we see God as our Father who provides for us, we are His children, He's going to take care of us, life is a gift, and this world has more than enough, then we are grateful, and we are able to be generous to other people because we know and trust that God is good and He will provide. Now, the other mindset, scarcity mindset, that God is not our Father and not our provider, that you are on your own. It's a dog-eat-dog world out here, and you better do what you need to do to take care of yourself. It does not matter what it means to other people. That life on earth is a dangerous place and that there are scarce resources. There's not enough to go around, so I've got to take care of mine. And again, it doesn't matter because there's not enough, so I better take care of... It's responsible. We can even guise this in wisdom and say, "God has told me to provide for my family. I'm sorry if that means it's not providing for your family, but I've got to take care of me." The result of this is a heart that is consumed by fear and greed. I want to keep this up here for a second. In the old world, they're using this healthy eye or unhealthy eye, right? The healthy eye, an eye of abundance. We see the world in this way. We live in this way. We are free to live in this way. With the unhealthy eye, you can see how that person is consumed by fear and greed, and there is no room for God in there. We want to have a healthy view of this world. And the scarcity mindset, this unhealthy eye, is an unhealthy view of the world. You know, the church isn't immune to this temptation or exempt from dealing with this. As a church, we must be a place that fights to have an abundance mindset, which can't be hard. We as a church have, you may not know this, but Spring Valley has bills to pay. We have to keep the lights on, the air conditioning, the heat in the winter, and we can be prone to be stingy and have a scarcity mindset. "God, there's not enough. There may not be enough this month. What does that mean? Maybe we can't do this ministry. Maybe we can't love these people like we're supposed to." Those thoughts are just because we're pastors, doesn't mean that we totally see it, we totally get it, we're good, we're locked in. It is hard. We can look to the future with this fear and greed and say, "I don't know, God. I don't know if there's going to be enough." And all of a sudden, we're operating ministry out of fear and greed. Instead of looking at our situation, trusting God that he will provide and there's abundance. And to be very real with you, in times of economic uncertainty and things like inflation, tithing is often the first thing to go. People sacrifice their tithing because, again, they view, "I got to take care of me first. God, you'll take care of the church. You'll figure that out, but I got to figure out me first." And I'm not saying that--again, I struggle with that too. So what I'm saying is to share that we have to fight against this mentality, this scarcity mindset.

We cannot view generosity in those moments when things get tough. Like tithing, we cannot view it as optional or extra because it isn't. These two mindsets, the good eye and the bad eye, they aren't necessarily determined by what a person has either. Let's take this a step further. Two people can have the same exact situation, the same job, the same income, the same family responsibilities, same bills and everything, but see the world in radically different ways. That can be true of two people who make very little by the world's standards and struggle to pay everything, to, again, by the world's standards, struggle to live. But there can be a person in that situation who has an abundance mindset, who is thankful and sees God as providing for their every need, even if it's just enough that God is providing. There can be a person who is in that place and is struggling, saying there's not enough and living in a scarcity mindset. It can be true of two people who make a lot by the world's standards, who have more than enough, who have never known what it is to need anything, and they can still struggle with having a scarcity mindset. So let me ask you, church, how do you see the world? How do you see the world? If you had an absolute assurance that God would provide enough for you, how would that change your relationship to money and generosity? If you trust God's vision of abundance and see Him as your Father provider, how would that change things? If you live like that, let's flesh out this concept a bit more. If you have a healthy eye, and you believe that there is abundance in this world, and Jesus' teachings start to make sense when He says, "Don't worry. There's no need for anxiousness. I have you. I've got you." Seek first the kingdom of God. Again, not seek first making sure your life is good and then seek the kingdom of God. No, seek first the kingdom of God. If we have an abundant mindset, that makes sense. If it says, "Give and it will be given to you," if we have an abundant mindset, that makes sense too. If we have a scarcity mindset, that verse does not--we don't understand that. But at the end of an abundant mindset, we are free to be generous. In the scarcity mindset, Jesus' teachings sound foolish in today's world. All that He talks about generosity and money, they do not add up. That is not what the world says. And at the end of a scarcity mindset is being enslaved by fear and greed.

And this leads us to how Jesus finishes this teaching, which is why He says, verse 24, "No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money." Jesus is even more clear by posing this question, "Who will you serve? Money or God?" The word here for money is the word "mammon," which is an ancient Syrian god of wealth. So this is Jesus' way of saying money is like a rival god. Which god are you going to serve, the god of money or the god of the universe, the king of kings, Yahweh? We want so badly to believe that money is neutral. And technically, it is, but it's kind of like nuclear energy, capable of great good, but also devastating destruction and absolute evil. For Jesus, wealth is powerful, and the sway it has in our hearts is a work in influence of the enemy. The god of mammon is behind so much in our world. Whole industries are run by the worship of mammon, the worship of money. War, racism, ecological devastation, sexual exploitation, to name a few.

As we look at the words of Jesus in verse 24, he is informing us that it is impossible to serve both God and money, because mammon will take over our hearts. So how do we resist? How do we resist this temptation that money has, the sway over our hearts? How do we have that healthy eye and live out the abundant mindset? This is what Jesus is teaching his disciples here. And Jesus, you guys know this, is a brilliant communicator and teacher. So in just these short verses, he is teaching on three different levels. He's teaching at the head level, the knowledge, the ideas that he's saying, our heart, he's addressing the feelings that we have, and he's also teaching our hands, what to do, our behavior. So the first one, what he teaches us to understand is how to see God and our lives in his world. He's telling them where good life is to be found and who God is. You see, biblical generosity doesn't start with tithing or giving to the poor. We'll get to those. Those are good practices. It starts with who God is. Father, Son, Holy Spirit, the Trinity, a Trinity of self-giving. Our God is a heavenly Father. I talked about earlier the idea of a heavenly Father who provides. For those of you who have kids, or even if you were a kid, you had an age where you didn't worry about certain things. Our kids don't worry about food on the table, medical bills. They're not worrying about like, "Hey, Mom, Dad, we have a medical bill showing up for my six-month appointment," whatever. They don't worry about those type of things. Why? Because they trust that as parents, we are providing for them.

It's the same way that God takes care of us. We see the triune God, and there's generosity woven throughout Scripture. From day one of creation, God is giving, is blessing. All the way up to Jesus. God gave his only Son. Jesus gave his life. God and Jesus give the Holy Spirit to us. We serve a generous God, the most generous God. And do we trust him? Do we live free to give as he has given to us? That's the idea. That's the head knowledge. Secondly, our hearts. He's teaching the disciples about the architecture of our hearts. He's telling us, if we get our relationship to money right, it will set our hearts free. If we follow Jesus and live like him, it should change our whole view on money. That's why it's more than just tithing or radical acts of generosity. Really good things, but it's more than that. It's also about the freedom to buy coffee or a meal for a friend. About having people over and providing them dinner. About being quick to forgive, as forgiveness is an expression of giving, of generosity. It's not just about our behavior. It's about our inner nature being formed to be like Jesus. Our hearts being shaped like his. And then thirdly, it's about the practice of generosity. Listen, the generosity that Jesus lived, that he calls us to live, is just that. It's a life. It's not a one-time thing. It's not a random, "Hey, I did that last year. I was super generous to that one person. I'm good for a while." It's not just when we have extra, and so we're like, "Hey, I have some to spare. Now I'll think about being generous." It is a practice. It needs to be a regular practice, a lifelong practice. Practicing generosity will make you into a more generous person.

Here's the reality. You can't leave today and instantly remove all the fear and greed that you face. Like, "Oh, I just learned about abundant mindset and scarcity mindset. I'm no longer going to be afraid." It just doesn't work that way. That fear and greed is still in you. You have to work that out with God. But you can, after leaving today, you can sponsor a child. You can buy someone lunch this week. You can give away a regular amount of your monthly income with special attention to the poor and the church and the gospel. You can practice being generous. And as you practice being generous on a regular rhythm, that grip that greed and fear has in your heart will begin to dissipate. And through this practice, God can change our hearts and habits. John Mark Comer, he says this, "Generosity is a practice by which we index our hearts from scarcity mindset to the abundance mindset of Jesus." We turn from fear to trust. As we give, this is what happens, we turn from fear to trust. We turn from worry to peace, trusting, knowing that God has provided for us. We turn from desire to enjoyment, always wanting more and never being satisfied to enjoying what God has given us. We turn from grasping to gratitude, and we turn from misery to joy. I know that all of us in this room, we want to be on that right side of things. And that comes through a regular practice of generosity. I want you to think of the most generous person you know. I know this from the story that you shared this morning around the table. But let me ask you this, were they joyful? Are they generally a joyful person? I think, yes, it's almost safe to say that, I'm not guaranteeing that every one of your people is joyful, but it's pretty common that people who are living a generous life are also a very joyful people. It's been said that it will cost you, literally, it will cost you to put Jesus' teaching into practice, but you will get more back than what you put in, because there is more joy in giving than in receiving. I'd encourage you this week to begin exercising that muscle of generosity. Put it into practice. If you need something practical, here's something small. Set aside maybe like $5, or pray about that amount. Maybe you can give more. And ask God this week for an opportunity to bless someone. Put that money in your wallet and just be praying, "God, show me somewhere, somebody this week, that I can give this $5." And then just keep your eyes open. See what opportunity God brings your way. We're not trying to solve global poverty or be heroic in any way. We're just trying to tap into that flow of the spirit of living a generous life, being more ready to give than to be stingy. If you need some ideas, again, keep money in your pocket, or buy someone in line behind you a coffee or a lunch, pay for someone's bill anonymously, drop off groceries or gift someone that you know who is in need, send cash digitally to help a friend with medical bills or expenses that they can't currently pay, buy a gift for someone just to encourage them and bless them, or give away something that you have. But spend time this week reflecting on how you see the world and what might need to change in order to see God as your Father provider, and having a good eye and living a life with an abundant mindset.

Let’s pray. God, thank you for your words and your instruction. As difficult as they may seem to live out, God, we know that this is the life that you would call us to. And God, we want to pray this. As our provider, you hold all things in endless, fearless supply. Help us to live in that trust and rest in your extravagance. Help us to know that we can freely give in the manner that we have received, selflessly, daringly, and lovingly. We recognize that all we have is from you, and we know that you are an abundant God. Help us, free us from that grip that fear and greed has on our hearts, and help us to be an expression of your love by giving to those around us. Pray this in your name. Amen.

Easter Sunday 2025

Easter Sunday - He Is Risen!

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

Amen and Happy Easter! Okay, we gotta do it one more time. I know Pastor Andre did it again, but we gotta do it one more time. He is risen! He is risen! Amen and Amen. That is why we are here, right? We are here to celebrate, to acknowledge, to show our gratitude that not only did Jesus die for us, but He didn't stay dead. He rose from the grave and gave us power over sin and death, so we can have eternal life with Him. Again, I am so glad you are here today. I am Pastor Lauren, if I haven't had a chance to meet you. We have a packed service today, so we are just going to dive right into the Word. If you would turn with me to John 20, you can pull it up on your phones or Bible. We got Bibles in the seats in front of you. It will also be up on the screens if you need it as well. We are just going to read through. It is a good-sized chunk of Scripture, but we are going to read through when the disciples discover that the tomb is empty.

Read along with me. John 20, verses 1-18. Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don't know where they have put Him." So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there, but did not go in. Then Simon Peter came along behind him and went straight into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there as well as the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus' head. The cloth was still lying in its place, separate from the linen. Finally, the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead. Then the disciples went back to where they were staying. Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white seated where Jesus' body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot. They asked her, "Woman, why are you crying?" "They have taken my Lord away," she said, "and I don't know where they have put him." At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus. He asked her, "Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?" Thinking he was the gardener, she said, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him and I will get him." Jesus said to her, "Mary." She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, "Rabboni," which means "Teacher." Jesus said, "Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God." Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news, "I have seen the Lord," and she told them that he had said these things to her. Amen? Amen.

The disciples have just been through a really tough weekend. They saw their Lord crucified and buried, and then they discover that his body has been taken. Jesus had told them that he would rise again, but they did not fully understand it. They go off and tell the other disciples what is going on. Mary is here, still at the tomb. She is weeping. She is distraught. She is in such deep grief. She is so involved and consumed with finding Jesus' body that she does not even recognize Jesus. I do not know, maybe she had tears in her eyes, or she was not even looking at him. She was just frantic. Or maybe his physical appearance had changed after the resurrection. But for whatever reason, she does not recognize him. Until he says her name. She was distracted and disoriented and grieving, but then Jesus said, "Mary." In only the way and tone and inflection that Jesus could, I imagine that she was not even looking at him, and he said her name, and she turned and she knew. Just because he was the only one who could say her name, just like that. Jesus called Mary's name, and she recognized him. One commentator about this passage that I was reading this week said, "Jesus revealed himself, not by who he was, but by who she was." You see, our identity is wrapped up in the resurrected Jesus. Our identity is who he says that we are. That because he rose from the grave, because he is resurrected, he has changed us. We become a resurrection people.

Because of his death and resurrection, we experience true freedom and a new identity in him. We are changed. We're a resurrection people. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. The old is gone. The new is here." That is good news. It is good news. That because he died, because he paid the price for our sins, and then because he rose from the grave, we experience true freedom that can only come from him. And we have a new identity in who he says we are. On Good Friday a couple nights ago, we gathered together for a service to honor and reflect on his death. We read scripture, and we talked about the sacrifice that Jesus made for us. Because the reality is the resurrection is amazing, but there is no resurrection if there is no death first. In our modern day, I think sometimes we forget how gruesome the crucifixion was, or we try to maybe separate ourselves. We read over the passages, and it's like, "Okay, he was crucified. The end. Move on." We don't necessarily let it sink in, the level of pain and anguish that he endured. But the reality is that it was awful. Jesus endured the cross for us. And only love would go to the cross for someone else. Only love would endure such excruciating pain for people that hated him, and despised him, and mocked him. Only love, only divine love, would stay on a cross when he could have gotten himself off. He chose to stay on that cross for us. Romans 5:8 says, "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." He did it when we were still sinning, when we were still outside of relationship with him.

He died for us. What he did was this deep, beautiful, only God kind of love. And because of his sacrifice, our sins are forgiven. The price has been paid. There is no more price to be paid. Through his death and resurrection, he restored what was broken. He made us new, and he put his righteousness on us. 2 Corinthians 5:21 says, "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." That means that we have now direct access to God. We can approach the throne of grace freely. There is nothing there to block us. Because of his death and resurrection, he put his righteousness on us. But we couldn't do this ourselves. He did it because he was the only one who could do it. He is perfectly God and perfectly man. He was sinless. And the reality was that God is holy, but he wanted a relationship with his people. And because God is holy, he cannot make himself less holy to stoop down to our level. He can't become less holy, so he had to make a way for us to be holy in order to be in relationship with him. He had to make us right. And only Jesus qualified as the perfect sacrifice. But now, because of that sacrifice, we have been set free, and we can have a direct relationship with God. But because Jesus was the only one who could do this, we have to remember that it wasn't by anything that we did. There is nothing that we can do that can save us. There's no amount of good works or living rightly, performing, producing. There's nothing we can do that we can earn our salvation. It's only by his sacrifice. It is only by the death and resurrection of Jesus that we can be saved. Now, for most of us, this is really good news. That we can't do anything to earn our salvation. We can't do anything to save ourselves. That's good news. But I imagine there's some of us in this room that maybe have a slightly different response. Maybe your initial reaction is, "But I don't deserve it. I've sinned too much, or I've been gone away from him for too long. I don't deserve that kind of gift." Or maybe you're thinking, "Okay, yeah, sure, but I have to do something to earn this, right? Surely there's something that I have to do to get this incredible gift. Or if nothing else, I have to do something to keep it. Maybe he'll give it to me, but I have to keep striving in order to keep hold of this thing that he has given me." Well, if you're in the first group of thinking that you don't deserve it, I'm here to tell you today, you're right. But that's the point. You don't deserve it. None of us do. But here's the thing, if you deserved it, you wouldn't need it. You wouldn't need the gift because you'd already saved yourself. And if you're in kind of that second group of thinking, it's just another, the other side of the same coin. You can't do anything to save yourself. There is no catch. There is no, "Okay, yeah, but." No, there is no, no, there's no, "Yeah, but." It just is a gift. Again, if there was a way for you to earn it, you wouldn't need his gift of salvation. I heard a pastor this week on a podcast talking about the things that we do as Christians. Good things, like, you know, praying and going to church and the good things we do out of our love for Jesus. And he said, "When we do those things, we are not earning, we are inheriting." We're not earning, we're inheriting.

Because the reality is when we accept Jesus' gift of salvation, we become adopted into his family. We are the sons and daughters of Christ. We are co-heirs with Christ. So by the power of his death and resurrection, we are adopted into the family of God. I had never caught this before, but in the John 20 passage we read earlier, Jesus tells Mary Magdalene, "Go tell my brothers," meaning the disciples, "Go tell them what you've seen." But before this, he had never called them that. He had called them servants. He had called them friends. But he had never called them brothers. But because of his sacrifice and his resurrection, they are now family. Their identity, again, back to that idea of identity, their identity has changed. We too are family. We have been adopted into the family of God. If we believe that Jesus Christ is Lord, we are part of his family with all the rights and privileges of a son or daughter. When we have a legal adoption in our country, the child becomes part of that family. They have all the same rights and privileges of any other person in that family. Their parents are their parents. They get the same inheritance. They are a sibling. They are part of that family with all the rights and privileges of a natural-born child. They are brought in. They take on that name, their last name. They are part of that family. Galatians 4:7, "So you are no longer a slave, but God's child. And since you are his child, God has made you also an heir." There's nothing we have to do to earn this adoption status. Because we're not earning, friends. We're inheriting. If Jesus declares that you are forgiven and righteous and made new, and he does, then the literal only thing you have to do is to not fight against it, to not resist it. If you believe that he died and rose again and paid the penalty for your sins, then you're a follower of Jesus and you get to spend eternity with him in his glory and in his presence.

Friends, if you've already made the decision to follow Jesus, if you've declared that he is Lord of your life and received his forgiveness, then let this day be a day of celebration, like a birthday. Just a reminder of his goodness and his sacrifice and his love for you. Because it's such a powerful day. We get to celebrate Easter whenever we want as Jesus followers, but today is extra special, right? We get to really just focus in on it and celebrate it. But I have a little bit of a challenge for us as we wrap things up today. I want us to ask ourselves this question. Maybe just kind of take it into your week, think about it. But for those of us who call ourselves Christ followers, the challenge for us is how does my life reflect that his death and resurrection changed my life and my identity? How does my life, my words, my actions, my decisions, my priorities, my responses to things, how does that reflect his death and resurrection changed my life and my identity? Because it should. Your life should look different than the world's. Your life should look different than it did before. And friends, if you've never made the decision to follow Jesus, if you haven't surrendered your life to him, and you're wondering if Jesus maybe is for you, I just encourage you to consider that today. Consider that maybe he's calling you and he wants to change your identity. Jesus wants a personal relationship with you and he went to the cross for it. We are going to head into our time of baptisms today. But as you watch these people get dunked underwater and representing raised to new life, consider what that would maybe mean for you. That maybe today is the day that you surrender your life and enter into a relationship with Jesus.

Pray with me. Jesus, we thank you for who you are. We thank you for raising from the dead. We thank you that not only did you sacrifice for us, but you chose not to stay dead. And we can declare that we serve a living God. We thank you that we get to celebrate your resurrection today through worship and the word and through the testimonies of those being baptized today. We love you, Jesus, in your name. Amen.

Palm Sunday 2025

Palm Sunday - Ushering In A Kingdom Unknown

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

We're doing well? Yeah? Good, good. I see a lot of smiling faces today, which is always good, helpful for me. We just wrapped up our series called "The Ministry of Jesus" and looked at different aspects of His ministry in a three-year span, all to gain a deeper understanding of who Jesus was, what He did, so that when we come to the cross, when we come to Easter, our praise could be all the deeper, all the louder, having this deeper understanding of Christ's ministry. This week is Holy Week, Passion Week, as you know, I'm sure. This is the final week of Jesus' life before the cross, and it's a week packed with a lot of things. It's packed with important conversations, intense moments between Him and the opposition, the Pharisees, the religious leaders. He has in this week some final preparations to be made with the disciples. And then there's also a lot of emotions, painful tears that are shed as He readies His heart for what He is about to do. All of this leading up to the perfect Son of God being on the cross, taking on our punishment of sin and death, one that He didn't deserve. But we know that the story doesn't end with the death of Jesus. Obviously, we have Easter where we celebrate His resurrection. But this week, I just want to say, before we get there, it's important to go through this week. This week is a rollercoaster, ups and downs. We start with a good moment, but then we go into some lowest of lows before getting to the highest of highs. This is a week where the King of Kings, Jesus Christ, is treated like a criminal, a public nuisance, a problem that needed to be taken care of. But the beginning of Holy Week starts with this moment where He is, to some small extent, He's actually treated like a king. And as we'll see, it's a significant moment, not for reasons that people thought, but because it signifies our proximity to the cross. We're getting closer and closer to the most important moment in history.

So if you guys will, would you guys open your Bibles with me to Mark 11, Chapter 1. We'll have it on the screen as well. Mark 11, chapter 1 verse 1. It says this, "As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of His disciples saying to them, 'Go to the village ahead of you, and just as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, 'Why are you doing this?' say, 'The Lord needs it and will send it back here shortly.' They went and found a colt outside in the street, tied at a doorway. As they untied it, some people standing there asked, 'What are you doing untying that colt?' They answered as Jesus had told them to, and the people let them go. When they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks over it, He sat on it. Many people spread their cloaks on the road, while others spread branches they had cut in the fields. Those who went ahead and those who followed shouted, 'Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our Father David! Hosanna in the highest heaven!' Jesus entered Jerusalem, went into the temple courts. He looked around at everything, but since it was already late, He went out to Bethany with the twelve.”

Just pray with me one more time. God, as we open up your word, I pray that you would reveal your truth to us. God, that we would better understand this moment, what Jesus went through, and what it meant for this holy week. God, I pray that through your word that we would be encouraged and empowered to give more of who we are to you. So be with us during this time. We pray this in your name. Amen.

This is, of course, famously known as Jesus' triumphal entry. Merciful entries were a practice more done in the ancient world, where celebrating someone of significance, often a ruler or a military leader, they had a procession or a parade recognizing that person's accomplishments and celebrating what they have done. So in the Old Testament, we do have an example between David and Solomon, where King David is pretty much ushering Solomon in as the new king, also riding on a mule. That's a little important. We also have, later on in history, if you think of some of the greats, Alexander the Great, he had a procession into Babylon. Julius Caesar had one returning after a military campaign into Rome. Napoleon into Milan in Italy. More modern day, we think of maybe the royal family. I don't know if you guys follow the royal family, but King Charles had a procession ushering in his new reign as king. My mind, you guys know me, I'm a sports person, and I think of our modern day triumphal entry as probably going to be for a sports team. The tradition is, if that team wins a championship, they go back to that city, and they get on the double-decker bus or some cool sports convertible cars, and they have their trophy, and they bring it with them around the city as everyone's cheering, all the fans are there. We in Sacramento have no idea what that's like, because we have never won anything. Maybe if you come from the Bay Area, you celebrated those, I know it hurts, I'm like, I don't know what that's like, I would love to be there. We'll get it on, if the Sacramento Kings ever win a championship, I think Pastor Chris and I will be downtown celebrating that triumphal entry. Jesus's triumphal entry is probably the most famous in history, though it had a lot less pomp and circumstance than some of these other ones I mentioned. It still though is quite a scene here in the Bible, and it's a beautiful moment that demands a further look, because as we celebrate Jesus's triumphal entry, when we really peel back the layers of this moment, what Jesus went through, we'll find that it's a little more complex than just a hallelujah moment. Not everything is as it looks on the surface.

Instead, when we really look, we'll see that there's a people here with a misguided hope. We begin to see Jesus as that suffering servant king. And then also while everything is kind of going against him, that doesn't stop God from executing his plan, as his kingdom, God's kingdom, is a subversive kingdom. So our passage this morning sets the stage, harkening back to that triumphal entry from Solomon in the Old Testament, which is considered to be this golden era of Israel's history. And so the people are experiencing this, are there, and they're making connections. They're thinking, "Oh, this is from our history, I've seen this before, we know about this, this Jesus is important. This Jesus could be the one." But let's start to peel back the layers. So the people of Israel, the crowds, the religious leaders, and even the disciples, were a people with a misguided hope. As the people are shouting, verses 9 and 10, "Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David. Hosanna in the highest heaven." They are praising Jesus, that's a good thing, they can always praise Jesus, but for reasons that were not completely accurate, or not fully realized. They're praising him, but they don't even realize fully who Jesus is, or what his kingdom will look like. So we get this beautiful triumphal entry, praising Jesus as king, but not of a kingdom that they think of, that they know of. We talked about this in our series, Ministry of Jesus, this analogy from a few weeks ago. They walked into a Home Depot wanting to build a home, and they came out with all the wrong pieces and instead built a doghouse. So if the Old Testament is the Home Depot, it's got everything they need for the people to understand who the Messiah will be, they grabbed all the wrong pieces and they were looking to build the wrong thing, a lesser model, assembling the pieces of scripture, the prophets from the covenants, even past experiences, they came to their own conclusions about who the Messiah would actually be.

Let me ask you this question, do you guys know why on Palm Sunday, the people at this time waved palms in the air? If you were here for the morning huddle, you can't cheat and shout out the answer, because I gave it already. But the people waving palm branches and shouting "Hosanna" because they have this genuine desire for liberation, but they also have this human propensity to control the means of salvation. See 150 years prior to this moment, there's a man named Judas Maccabeus who led the Jewish people to a victory over the Seleucid dynasty, which is the dynasty that was overruling Israel at the time. And after that victory, the crowd celebrated by waving palm branches in the air. And to commemorate that victory, Judas, whose nickname was the hammer, which is a pretty sick nickname, Judas the hammer, he stamped an image of palm branches on all of the Jewish coins to symbolize a victory for the Jewish people over their oppressors. So now we come back to Jesus' time, 150 years, and the Jewish people are again under foreign rule, this time by Rome, and they wave their palms in the air, shouting "Hosanna, save us!" And they're saying something to Jesus. They're in effect saying, "Rescue us, but do it like it's been done before. Do it like we know of that military campaign, of a revolt. Lead us again and deliver us." They had hope in Jesus, but it's a misguided hope, constructed from their limited ideas of what Jesus could be. They were thinking merely just of a better earthly existence, a better here and now. Maybe a king to elevate their status as Israel to be recognized around the world, or maybe a warrior to fight back against Rome, maybe a diplomat to get the nation ahead politically. They were limited in their expectations of Jesus, which led to this misguided hope. As we know, God had so much more for them in store, and for us. God sent his son Jesus to save. He came into the world to give so much more than just another golden era for Israel. He came to undo what sin had done, to defeat sin and death, to give salvation, to invite those who believe into an eternity with God. There would be no greater gift, but the people could not see this in that moment.

Pastor Richard Viotta says this, "On Palm Sunday, the crowds wanted deliverance from the power of Rome, but Jesus was about to deliver the entire world from the power of sin and death." Even the disciples, following Jesus year after year now, they did not fully understand what Jesus was about to do. And he had very open conversations with his plans with them. When we think about this tendency to have a misguided hope from Jesus, we are often guilty of this. We can be. We have a small mind or immediate limited view of what's happening. We don't always see how it's all fitting into the larger picture of God's plan for our lives. We get caught up in wanting the better earthly existence, the better here and now. And we want Jesus, we praise Jesus for what he can do, but sometimes we get our expectations fixed and maybe he won't do it the way that we think he will or should. So if we were to ask, you know, who has perfect perspective over everything, who sees the world with perfect wisdom? It's God. It's only God. It says in Isaiah 55, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declared the Lord, "as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." This is true of those people right there in the triumphal entry, that they're thinking only to this level, but Jesus has plans that are far greater.

So I want to ask us right now, do we have a misguided hope? Maybe at times. Are you expecting one thing of Jesus hindering you from seeing maybe the other things that he's doing in your life? Are you looking at scripture and only looking for things that affirm what you hope for, what you believe, quietly in your hearts demanding God to do something or to be someone that you deemed as the only possible solution? We might need to take a step back and continue to put our hope in Christ, but allow him to work in the way that he deems best, which we may not understand. We may not see as it's happening, because God is often working behind the scenes. That can be hard. It can be hard to be patient and to wait and to trust. I know for me, sometimes I am one who thinks between me and God, I'll have a conversation and say, "God, I figured it out for us. I figured out the plan. If God, if you could just do X, Y, and Z, if you could just follow my plan, you got the power. I came up with the plan." And I say it now and it sounds ridiculous, but I think we can kind of get into that habit of praying, "God, just do this. I figured it out. If you could just do this." We limit God and what he could do. It can be hard. It can be discouraging to go through that and not see how God is working. David writes about this in Psalm 42. It says, "Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God." David has a little pep talk with himself, questioning why he's so down and feeling so anxious. And he reminds himself, he commands himself, "Put your hope in God." So do you have a misguided hope in Christ? And how can you trust God more fully in your life and your situation right now? All right, getting back to our scene here. Jesus is riding that colt. He sees the crowds. He hears their cries and knows that their hope is misguided, but he keeps riding. And what is he riding into? What situation is he entering into?

Well, he's riding into the climax of history here, where he will embody being a suffering servant king. One of my favorite tropes in stories and movies and books is the character that has the slow reveal of their true identity in the story. Specifically someone usually like high regard, nobility, who downplays their identity, keeps it a secret as to why they should be revered and instead chooses like the lowly, humble path. I think of my favorite book, Lord of the Rings. I think of Aragorn, maybe King Arthur in ancient history, or maybe Luke Skywalker for you sci-fi fans of someone who had an identity that wasn't known, but then as the story progresses, you see them enduring some injustice. They should be seen in a certain light, but they're not, until a moment or a couple of moments where their true character is able to shine and you get a cheer for them. You're like, "Yeah, that's right. That's what I'm saying. It's been amazing this whole time." I think we see that here with Jesus a bit. In this moment, there's a bit of everything. We see people who are giving him a royal entry. That's good, as we said, but it's not nearly enough for the God of the universe, for the Messiah who will give them eternal life. It's a little short-lived. As he rides into the praises of the people to a grassroots royal entry, because typically these were given by the city, the city would kind of order, "Hey, here's what's happening." But this one just kind of happened. The people gathered, they started raving the palm branches. He's not riding into the glitz and the glamour of everything, but into a moment where he will suffer in a way that no one has ever suffered, bearing the weight of all sin while being crucified. It says in verse 11, "Jesus entered Jerusalem and went into the temple courts. He looked around at everything, but since it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the 12." Again, usually following these royal entries, this figure, whoever was being celebrated, would be housed and entertained, wined and dined. It was a big thing. It just didn't end with the procession. It was like, "Let's welcome you into our finest house. Let's throw a party." And one scholar writes that Jesus, not doing any of that, and instead departing, suggests that this city and his house, as Malachi had warned in the Old Testament, they're not ready for him. The people, again, are expecting an earthly ruling king, but Jesus is a suffering servant king. He's going to suffer, and every sense of the word will suffer emotionally, spiritually, physically, mentally with what he will endure. And yet he serves. He washes the nasty, stinky feet of the disciples. He teaches with compassion and love. He gives food to the hungry. Heals the broken. He serves by giving of himself. He is a suffering servant king. With all this on his mind, as he rides into the city, Jesus knows. He knows that his own people will turn on him. He knows that his own disciples will betray and deny him. He knows that he's going to be tortured and beaten, mocked and scorned, and that he would have to give his own life. And knowing all of this, feeling the weight of all of this, he rides forward. He enters the city, and he continues that redemptive plan. What a king. What a king. What a leader, someone who would suffer for his own people, who would endure pain and death, who would give his own life for a people who had no knowledge that this is the plan.

Now while that leads us to praise Jesus for all that he did, it should also make us ask something of ourselves. Are we prepared to suffer and serve like Jesus? We are called to be like him. Philippians 2 5 says, "Have the same mindset as Christ." And later in that same chapter, Paul writes, "For it is God who works in you, to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose." You have to have the same mindset as Jesus being ready to suffer and serve for God's kingdom. Because God is working, continuing his redemptive plan through us today, as we live like Christ. First John 2 says, "Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did." Again, ready to suffer and serve. And then Peter connects the dots for us even more clearly. First Peter 2 says, "But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in his steps." We are adverse to suffering. It's true, we don't like it. We often build our lives around how to, we build our lives being able to suffer as little as possible. And I'm not saying that we need to seek out suffering, and don't hit me on that. But we should expect and be prepared and know that we will suffer for his kingdom if we are following Jesus. It may mean being betrayed by people, being mocked and scorned, hopefully not torture or beaten. But, I don't want to say this lightly, but if that were the case, would you be ready to do that, to follow Jesus, to follow his example? And we need to serve, not just be served. Jesus the Messiah, God overall, again, served in so many different ways, got dirty with his disciples washing their feet. Are you looking to get your hands dirty to serve those in need for his kingdom? And our reward may not be an earthly one. We're not doing this to say, "Hey, if I do this, again, my here and now, my life on earth is going to be better." It may not. It probably won't. But our reward is in heaven. And the goal, I hope you have this goal, this desire that when you get to heaven with God, he's going to look at you and say, "Well done, my good and faithful servant." And he's going to have those moments in mind where you suffered and you served, and he's going to be thanking you. "Good job. That's exactly what I wanted." So are we prepared to suffer and serve for Jesus and like Jesus, who was our suffering servant king?

Something so different than the Israelites were hoping for, something so different than our world today values and admires, which leads us to this point that God's kingdom is a subversive kingdom. As I was studying this week, I was struck by the way that God continues to move his kingdom forward. Even when on the surface things are so chaotic and misunderstood or even against him, his kingdom is a subversive kingdom. His will and his power, his goals keep happening underneath the surface. If you think of it like a river and on the surface and the waters are flowing downstream are chaos, misunderstanding, confusion, opposition. Yet underneath all of that, God's will keeps moving upstream. Doesn't matter. We may not see it. We may not see how he's doing it, but his will is going to happen. He's able to do amazing things all underneath the surface. As the misguided hope of the people is desiring Jesus take an earthly throne, God is still at work to establish his heavenly throne. As the religious leaders are plotting against Jesus, getting everyone with influence and power to join force and to take Jesus down, God is still at work, still moving upstream. And even while Jesus will face his death and his time on earth will come to an end, God is still at work. On the surface, things may look confusing, chaotic, but underneath it all, God is still at work. God's kingdom is a subversive kingdom. This is a theme that goes all the way back to the Old Testament. Quick story in the Old Testament. We think of Joseph in Genesis and he's the one that was sold into slavery by his brothers, seemingly to his death, but God amazingly brings what was intended for misfortune to bring Joseph to be second in command over all of Egypt. And there's a moment where his brothers come to Egypt for food because they're about to die and Joseph has this to say to them after he has that big reveal like, "It's me, your brother. I'm alive." He says, "You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives." Despite all the things working against Christ, God still uses it for his good. God's kingdom is a subversive kingdom, disrupting this world of sin with his love, undermining the selfishness and pride with a kingdom of humility and service, challenging the elite and the strong by valuing the poor, the lost, and the least, fighting against corruption and deceit with truth and divine authority. God and his kingdom persevere, endure. They cannot be stopped.

Proverbs 21, 30 says, "There is no wisdom, no insight, no plan that can succeed against the Lord." Do we believe that today? Do you guys believe that? That nothing, nothing as awful as this world is and the things that go against God and how he created things, nothing can stop him. I hope and pray that that is comforting and brings you hope. I want to ask you this. Are you partnering with God in his subversive kingdom? As the currents of society, of culture are heading one way, are you trusting God as we followers of Jesus head the other way? Do we believe and hope and know that despite all the chaos of the world and all the efforts of humanity to pursue selfishness and pride and pleasure, do you know that God is still at work? But there is always hope in him that nothing can succeed against him. Are you confident and assured in God and his kingdom? Or are you prone to fear? Are you prone to anxiousness, to worry, to doubt, to division? God encourage you to partner with God, work with him, sometimes in subtle ways, sometimes in ways that are unseen for a time before the plan is really made known, but to trust him, to pray about those opportunities where he's going to use you and be ready for that opportunity. As we look around at the messiness and the unknown and the brokenness of this world, it's easy to be all doom and gloom about it. But instead, we can see an opportunity for Jesus to save, for God to work, to know that the God we serve can take what is intended to harm and use it for his good, that no scheme or plan that goes against his kingdom will succeed. How does that change your outlook? Knowing that, how does that change your day to day? How might that help us to join in, not on the fear mongering, but on sharing the gospel? Instead of continuing to pass down fear to other people as they're sharing fear with you, how might you combat that with, "You know what? I'm actually not worried. And my hope and my security comes from something not of this world. It comes from God. Because I know that he has me, I'm going to be okay, that he is working through the midst of all this around us, sharing a hope that is found in Christ." We know that Jesus rescues us in ways we often don't understand at the beginning. We look back and are able to see, "Oh, that's what God was doing. I didn't know this at the time. I didn't know. I didn't understand. I didn't know." But after this, this, and this, that brought me to Jesus. That brought me to this place where I could see that I needed him, that he could rescue me. Jesus rescues us in ways we often don't understand. The biggest in history was through the surprising and apparent powerlessness of the cross. If someone were to draw up the rescue plan, I do not think that they would have themselves dying to save everyone on the cross of all things, not a noble, glorious death, but as Pastor Chris said, a criminal death. And yet, we all know today, we live in the power of the cross.

So as we close, I just want to say this. There were those with a misguided hope in this crowd on Palm Sunday at the triumphal entry. They had a misguided hope in Jesus. They forgot that he was, or they didn't know that he was a suffering servant king. They didn't see how God's kingdom was a subversive kingdom working things through all this opposition. But we can learn from Christ's triumphal entry all these years later that during Palm Sunday, as they're welcoming Jesus with the triumphal entry, again, they were ushering a kingdom unknown to them, but it's a kingdom that's been made known to us today. Through his word and through the power of the Holy Spirit, a kingdom that we who believe in Jesus as our Savior are a part of and get to be partners with God in this kingdom. We can help make this kingdom made known to more and more people today. So our prayer as you enter, again, we have those cards. We have, and really that's just an exercise of, we hope you're doing that all the time, that you are praying for opportunities to share the gospel, that you have friends, relationships that are forming there. You're praying for a moment where maybe they bring it up and they say, "Hey, I want to meet and talk to you about something." Or maybe Spirit's going to prompt you to have that conversation. But partner with God in this kingdom and making it known to other people. And through this week, through Holy Week, and if you're on our email list, you're going to get some emails about what each day of Holy Week means and where to maybe spend some time in prayer and reflection on those Holy Days. But at the end, we'll come together next week praising God for the fact that he has risen. Amen?

Let's pray. God, again, we come before you just thankful for this, for your scripture, God, for your truth and a chance that we get to learn from it. And we look back knowing that the people at that time didn't know what kind of king you would be, why they were fully praising you. But God, we know today. So on Palm Sunday, as we look back at that triumphal entry, we want to give you all the praise for the king that Jesus is. The suffering servant king who gave us eternal life, who took on our sin and punishment of death for us so that we could have eternal life with him. And God, as we walk forward in this week, I pray, Lord, that we would spend time each day reflecting on what Jesus went through. The cleansing of the temple, to the teachings with the disciples, to the night that he was betrayed, to the death that he faced on the cross. God, I pray that we would be okay with mourning a bit, with recognizing our sin and bringing it before Jesus, knowing that without him and his sacrifice on the cross, we would be doomed. There is no hope. So God, be with us, give us hope, help us to see that hope and to have a mind and to see opportunities to share that with other people this week. I pray that you would give us boldness, the words to say, and you would bring about those opportunities, God, and that your spirit would be so strong in that moment that we can't help but say something. Just invite them to church, invite them to hear the truth. We trust you, we love you, we give you our everything. We pray this in your name. Amen.

The Ministry of Jesus: Part 6

The Ministry of Jesus

Part 6: The Opposition of Jesus

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

Well, I'm excited today to be with you guys and to wrap up this series that we've been in for the last five weeks, six weeks now, focusing in on the ministry of Jesus, going from the past and what he did and changing and shifting that into how does that apply for us in our today's world. The first week we kicked off, we talked about the parables and a third of everything that we have recorded of what Jesus said is actually a parable. That's pretty impressive. And how Jesus would find these simple stories and yet take deep theological complex concepts and ideas and be able to break them down for us and make them really simple for everybody who was there listening. And then the week after that we had Pastor Phil here and he talked about the calling of Jesus and how that is to follow him and to go. And he shared with us the missional movement of Eastern Germany in the 1700s called the order of the mustard seed and the order and the vow for the order of the mustard seed was to be true to Christ, be kind to people and to share the gospel to the nations. And they are even now today still active around the globe. And then Pastor Lauren shared with us about the healings of Jesus and how they demonstrate his power. They demonstrate his compassion and they show the coming kingdom of God. And when we truly put our faith in Jesus, healing happens. It's either here on earth or on the other side of heaven in eternity. And then Pastor Andre talked about how Jesus fulfilled scripture and focused in on the story of the temple where Jesus showed up and called out some crooks that were trying to take advantage of people worshiping. And Jesus shows us that in that there is no place in the church for commercialization, monopolization or any humans being stopped in any way from being able to worship God. It revealed who Jesus was and his purpose here on the earth to die on the cross for us. And then last week Pastor Andre shared about the signs and wonders or the miracles of Jesus. And that the purpose of Jesus' miracles were to reveal his divine identity. To strengthen our faith and to just demonstrate the kingdom of God in our world today. And he asked a really good question. He's like, "Do miracles still happen today?" Yes, they do. Maracles still happen today. You and I are actually a living, breathing miracle. And that we are to have faith in his power, trust in his compassion and have hope in his resurrection.

Today we're going to wrap up talking about Jesus and the oppression that Jesus faced during his time here on earth. But I want to ask you, have you ever faced opposition when you knew you were doing the right thing? Have you ever fought against that in your life? Well, I'll tell you that Jesus did. Jesus had opposition from friends, from family, from those who should have supported him. And he knows exactly how that feels. Throughout the ministry of Jesus, he faced relentless opposition. From the very start of his ministry to the final breath that he breathed on the cross. It wasn't random. It was direct opposition to who Jesus was. And he shows us how to stand firm in that purpose that God has for each of our lives. Jesus faced opposition from the enemy, his family, his hometown, the religious leaders of that day, the elite of the church. And yet in every instance, he triumphed over it with divine wisdom, authority, purpose. Specifically using scripture as his weapon. Pray with me. Jesus, we thank you for this morning. God, your presence has been felt in this place. So I pray, Lord, as we dive into your ministry and the life that you lived here on earth. God I pray that you would transform our lives. You would speak to our hearts. You'd pull back the layers of our soul. We would learn deeply from you today of how you want us to live our lives. Thank you, Jesus. Amen.

Right at the beginning of Jesus' ministry was when Jesus was 30 years old. So Jesus lived his life up to 30 and then had this incredible moment in the Jordan River. His cousin, John the Baptist, was in the river baptizing people. And Jesus shows up and gets baptized by his cousin. And it's this powerful moment in the Bible, if you were to read it. And where we see the trinity of God and his three personhood revealed. Jesus in the Jordan River. God the Father vocally speaks from heaven. And the Holy Spirit descends down as a dove. This is a powerful, incredible moment in the ministry of Jesus. And immediately after that, he heads out into the desert. And he's starting his ministry focusing in on fasting in the desert, listening to God as he begins this next three years of his journey on earth. And immediately he's tempted by the devil. How fitting is that, right? How many of you have had like these powerful God moments in your life? And I remember a professor in college, he called it thin spaces. Where you felt like the distance between you and heaven or you and God was just so thin. It was just like God was right there in that moment. And then maybe later that day, maybe that next week, soon after, the enemy is just pouncing on you. Right? That's how it works, unfortunately. And that's what the enemy tries to do when we have these spiritual highs, these incredible moments with God that deepen our faith. The enemy doesn't like it. And Jesus isn't immune to that either. It says this in Matthew chapter 4. When Jesus was led by the Spirit to the wilderness to be tempted by the devil, after fasting 40 days and 40 nights, he was hungry. I would think so. I would be hungry after four hours and four hours. The tempter came to him and said, "If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread." Oh, that's tempting. Jesus answered, "It is written," right back at you with some Bible, Satan, "Man shall not live on bread alone, but by every word that comes from the truth of God." Then the devil took him to a holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. "If you are the Son of God," he said, "throw yourself down, for it is written, 'He will command his angels concerning you, and he will not let you lift you up in their hands so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.'" Jesus comes back at him again. "It is also written, 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'" Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and all their splendor. "All of this I will give you," the devil said, "if you will bow down and worship me." Jesus said to him, "Away from me, Satan, for it is written, 'Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.'" Then the devil left him and the angels came and attended him.

Immediately following the baptism of Jesus, the enemy comes at Jesus. Right after, opposition, moment one, boom, hits. And hits him at a weak point. Forty days, forty nights fasting. I don't know if you guys have ever done an extended fast. Forty days. And there's a direct assault from Satan. Satan tempts him with physical needs, with food, with bread. He tempts him with pride. Jump, the angels are going to catch you. And power to have the kingdoms of the world. Jesus didn't flinch. Even being tired and hungry and weak and worn out, he didn't flinch a second. But threw the word of God back at the devil. I love that. It wasn't his words. It was a word of God from the Bible. It's from Deuteronomy. For food, he said, "It is written in Deuteronomy 8:3, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'" Deuteronomy 6:16 is also written, "Do not put your Lord to the test." Deuteronomy 6:13, "Away from me, Satan," he says. For it written, "Worship the Lord your God and serve him only." Satan attempts to quote scripture, to throw it at God. And yet, he's twisting it. He's manipulating it. He's making it look and sound good, right? I don't think anybody would have blamed Jesus for doing any of these things. He's Jesus. But he understood what was at stake here. There was something more going on in this moment. And the enemy knowing that he had just had this incredible moment in the Jordan River, beginning his ministry, knowing that for the next however many years, Satan was going to have to attack this guy and attack this guy and attack this guy. If he said, "If I can knock him down right here, I can have victory." But Jesus stood his ground. It was no surprise to Jesus. And I love... Satan tries to use scripture to attack Jesus. And what does Jesus do? Comes with the truth of scripture. It's like using exactly what your enemy is using against you. You just turn around and go on it right back the other way. It's amazing. I love how Jesus does this stuff.

And see, what the thing is that Satan's tactics haven't changed. He does the same thing to us. He does the same thing to me. He gets in my head. He comes at me. And he says, "Oh, yeah. You're a pastor, right? You're supposed to have it all figured out. You're supposed to know all this Jesus stuff. You're not doing it right. Oh, you messed up over there. You messed up over here. How could you call yourself a pastor?" Satan does the same thing over and over again. And he loves to come at us when we're vulnerable, right? He loves to come at us in those moments. But I love how Jesus uses the power of God's word to resist. We have access to that. We have God's word. Jesus didn't come up with some new tactic to come after Satan. Jesus used Scripture from the Old Testament, hundreds of years old, words of God. Jesus uses in that moment against Satan. And unfortunately, this was just the beginning.

Opposition didn't stop with the devil, but it came a little closer to home. It says in Mark 3:21, "When his family, being Jesus' family, heard about this, they went to take charge of him, and they said, 'For he is out of his mind.'" Isn't family supposed to be that one that loves and cares and nurtures you and is the most supportive of you, right? If you don't have a supportive family, Jesus didn't either. It says on in Matthew 13 57, "And they took offense at him, being Jesus. But Jesus said to them, 'A prophet is without honor, except in his own hometown and in his own home.'" Those closest to Jesus, who knew Jesus growing up, little baby Jesus, tiny, tiny toddler Jesus, junior high Jesus, high school Jesus, carpenter Jesus, but then it stopped there. All they could see in this man was a carpenter from Nazareth. They didn't understand the bigger thing that was happening in the life of Jesus and in their world that was right in front of them. His family thought he was crazy. His hometown couldn't see or understand who he was. He was hated. And yet, he didn't stop. It hurt. It had to hurt. Being Jesus growing up with, say, I don't know, Uncle Steve around you, and you become Jesus and Uncle Steve rejects you for who you are. You're like, "I built your dining room, Seth." Don't you see? Jesus faced rejection from those who should have known him the best. See, I think it's one thing to be rejected from people who don't understand you, who have no idea who you are, or what you're doing, or know nothing about you.

For those who don't know, my father is a retired fire captain, and I grew up around the firehouse. And actually, my mother's father, my grandfather, was a firefighter as well. And so growing up, I would get asked the question, "Are you gonna go into family business? Are you going to also be a firefighter?" And I thought for a while, maybe I was. And in junior high, I tried it. I joined the cadet program and did the workouts and got CPR trained and first aid and did drills and do all this stuff. But it just wasn't what, there's just something missing about it. And because at the same time, God had begun to grow inside of me a passion, a heart for the church and for people and for people to know Jesus and to find hope in his gospel. And so I'd try it, and I would be around the firehouse a lot going on calls, being able to shadow and do ride-alongs with my dad. And people would ask me, other, his fellow firefighters would ask me, and I would just politely smile and say, "No." And they didn't understand. But that's okay. They didn't understand what God was doing in me to bring me to where I am today. All they saw was the generational firefighters and that I would just follow in suit. If I was becoming a firefighter, I couldn't have a sweet beard, so it was like a deal breaker. Unless I joined Cal Fire.

But the reality was that Jesus was rejected by people who didn't understand him. But Jesus was also rejected in opposition of those that he cared about. His blood, his family, his people, his cousins, his aunts, his uncles, those around him. They called him crazy. Maybe you're in that place in your Christian walk. Maybe you're the only Christian in your family. Or maybe your family is the only one who are Christian. I experienced this growing up. My aunts, my uncles, my cousins, they don't understand why I do what I do. They don't understand that our family of why we attend church, why we take time from a perfectly good weekend to come inside and sit down and to sing songs and do karaoke together. And then to listen to some dude talk about this old dusty book. They don't understand it. And there's opposition there. So if you face that in your family, don't feel alone in that. Jesus lived that. He walked that journey. And yet, he kept going forward. He understood the purpose, the calling, the reason why he was here on earth.

See, if family opposition stung, the religious leaders turned into their opposition as a campaign. It says in Matthew chapter 22:15, it says, "Then the Pharisees went out and laid plans to trap him in his words." They said, "Tell us then, what is your opinion to Jesus here?" Trying to mess with him. Is it right to pay the imperial tax to Caesar or not? The Pharisees did this relentlessly. The scribes, the epitomized leaders or religious greats of the day came after Jesus time and time again, trying to discredit him at every moment that they could. They tried to trip him up with questions to mess with him. They would throw misquoted scripture. That sounds familiar, right? The enemy? Misquoted scripture. They would throw man-made Jewish rules at Jesus. Ain't nothing that God ever commanded it. But what they decided to use to control people, they would throw cultural sayings at Jesus. They would try to make these things sound biblical or scriptural, but they were far from the heart of God. Because they didn't like what Jesus was doing. Jesus was bringing the word of God to the people. The religious leaders wanted to control the people. And Jesus came to stop them along the way to his journey to the cross. Twisting scripture. Trying to get Jesus to say something to reveal that he really wasn't the son of God. To prove that they were smarter than this guy. That they were more religious or they were elite. They were better than just this carpenter from Nazareth. But Jesus always had the absolute perfect answer. I love this. Sometimes he would answer with a question. Not only to answer their question, but to kind of dig a little deeper. Sometimes the question would sting in return. Jesus would have such eloquent words to say that he could just put people in their place and humble them with a simple sentence.

He does this in Matthew 22:21 in response to that question of Caesar. He said to them, "Get back to Caesar's," what is Caesar's? "And give to God what is God's." This is an ultimate mic drop moment from Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. Boom. Booyah. NBA Jam. Boom Shakalaka. Alright? In this moment, Jesus corrects their misuse of God's word showing them his authority and his purpose. And over time, there were people in the religious world that saw his truth. Saw the way he handled himself and conducted himself and were drawn to it. Nicodemus, who was a Pharisee himself, began to come to Jesus as knight and fear for his own ridicule from the others. But ultimately, in the end, came forward in public and said, "Jesus is the Son of God." People are drawn to the truth. It says in John 8:32, "Jesus says, 'Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.'" Truth is enticing to people, right? I think deep down inside we all want to know what the truth is, right? Jesus' truth is the truth that will set you free. Jesus turned their traps into testimonies of truth. And in every confrontation, there was a battle with sin that was going on. Whether it was selfishness, whether it was pride, whether it was just pure evil, Jesus never backed down.

See, when we look at the responses of Jesus, we see divine wisdom. We see God's authority. And we see God's purpose. Against Satan, he quoted the book of Deuteronomy to affirm his dependence in God and on God's words. Against the family in his hometown, a rejection. He accepted as a part of his prophetic call. Against the religious leaders of the day, he interpreted scripture rightly, truthfully, and rejected and exposed their hypocrisy. And every single time that Jesus did this, whether it was with opposition or confrontation, each encounter was straightforward. It wasn't desired or wanted. I don't think Jesus would wake up every day and go, "Okay, which Pharisee am I taking out today?" Like, that's not Jesus. That wasn't his heart. But Jesus also wouldn't back down. Jesus wouldn't shy away. I don't know about you in this room, I don't like confrontation. It's one of the things that I despise most in this world. But sometimes God asks us to confront people in the name of Jesus. And when we look at his example of how he conducted himself, it was amazing that every single time through his mission and his purpose, that he revealed to the world who he was and continued to point people towards the Heavenly Father. It was never about Jesus. It was always about God. And ultimately it was about him humbling himself, getting himself freely on the cross for our salvation and redemption, which we will celebrate here in just a few short weeks. But along the way, there were people who wanted to get in the way of that mission. There were people who didn't like what Jesus stood for. The enemy did not want Jesus to be successful. And yet at the exact same time, Jesus spoke with truth in defending himself. And at the same time he advanced God's kingdom. This is incredible. It's this combination to teach with love and to set people straight, all wrapped up in truth. It's like the perfect one-two punch. I think of a boxer who doesn't just sit there and just defend himself and just get into the corner and take it. But I think of an elite boxer who is able to defend and turn it into an offense. Christ had this amazing way to size up to the opponent. Because Jesus wasn't always compassionate or soft, and Jesus wasn't always aggressive and over the top. Jesus had this way to meet people where they were, whether it was the woman caught in adultery that he just had compassion on her. When he could have thrown scripture in her face, he knew what she needed. And yet at the same time, like Pastor Andre talked about a few short weeks ago, Jesus rose up to the occasion of the temple and went after those who were trying to manipulate worship for their own advancement, for their own profit, for their own selfish gain. Jesus would not back down. He was not pushover. He was not timid. But at the same time, he wasn't over the top, aggressive in your face. His response was always perfect, warranted, and appropriate.

So what can we learn from Jesus, from then for our world today? I think we can take a look at ourselves and ask us the question of, when we face opposition, how will we respond? When we face temptation or misunderstanding or outright hostility, how will we react? I think our response should be threefold. Our response should be what Jesus did and to arm ourselves with scripture. Are we memorizing scripture? Are we in his word daily? Are we seeking God with his wisdom and everything that he's given to us? Do we search for his truth in the Bible? The second thing, we need to trust God's wisdom and his authority. We need to take steps of faith to when we get in these moments, that maybe we just need to keep our mouth shut because God's the one who needs to do the talking, not us. That's hard to do. That's really hard to do. And I think the third thing in this is we need to shine God's light. We need to let these moments in which we trust in God, in our opposition, to begin to think about how can God be glorified through this moment? I think a practical step for us this week would begin to memorize scripture even from what I talked about today. Whether that's Matthew 4, "That man shall not live by bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God." You can memorize that this week, no problem. Write it on a post-it, put it in front of you, stick it in your car, stick it on a mirror, put it by your bed. Change the screen wallpaper on your phone so every time you go to your phone, you're looking at God's Word. Put it in front of you every single moment. Or maybe Deuteronomy 6:13, "Worship the Lord your God and serve him only." Or maybe it's Matthew 22:37, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind." Put those words on our hearts. There have been times when I felt attacked and oppressed by the enemy. And thankfully growing up, my mother helped me to memorize scripture. And so I can draw back on those moments to remember those words to use against the enemy. And the enemy goes away, guys. The opposition isn't forever. The enemy can't stand against the Word of God.

See, Jesus faced all of this and he won. He's with us in our battles. We talked about battles this morning in worship. We talked about breaking chains. We talked about the power of God. Don't pick these songs flippantly. You've already sung it this morning. You've already proclaimed truth against the enemy if you were singing with us this morning. If not, the words of God have washed over you and have anointed you. Even if you're not singing, the Word of God is still penetrating your heart. And Jesus said, "Of that which will not turn void." I love what it says here in Hebrews. It says, "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weakness, but we do have one who has been tempted in every single way, just as we are, yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need." From the wilderness to his hometown to the streets, Jesus faced the enemy, family rejection, and religious leaders. Yet, every single time he triumphed over them with divine wisdom, authority, purpose, all rooted in Scripture. The opposition couldn't stop Jesus, but it was revealed in him. How about we have a week of letting Christ be revealed in us against all of our opposition? Amen? Amen.

Pray with me, Jesus, we thank you for your truth. Jesus, we thank you for your gift of just you living your life here on earth, going against all sort of opposition, and coming up victorious in the end. Jesus, we thank you for your example, and we thank you for the truth that you are with us in all of our battles. That you are fighting for us, you are carrying us, you are sustaining us. And no matter what tactic or trap or trick or whatever the enemy has to try to come at us, from whatever angle through whoever that is, God, we know that you are with us and we will come out on the other side victorious. And so, Jesus, I pray over us this week as we go, as the enemy attacks, God, that we will not fall for his tricks. That we will stay focused and rooted in your scripture to let your truth cover us and protect us this week. And to guide us, Jesus, in the way of your salvation and in your grace and your mercy, ultimately standing strong to shine the light of the glory of Jesus in our lives to saturate our communities around us. Jesus, we thank you, we praise you, we love you this day. Amen.

The Ministry of Jesus: Part 5

The Ministry of Jesus

Part 5: Miracles of Jesus

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

I want you guys to imagine witnessing someone be able to heal the blind, someone that could calm storms, someone who could feed thousands and even raise the dead back to life. And if you were there witnessing this person day after day doing these incredible, miraculous things, how would you respond? Would you be just in awe and wanting to follow and give everything to a person displaying such divine authority? Or would you condescend or jeer or doubt who he says he is and what he's doing? You know, it's true that when we witness something amazing, even today, we'll see that for those who have faith, God is one of the first things that comes to mind. You see something incredible, you see something powerful, you see something miraculous. As Christians, our first thought is, "God?" Or if it's not first, it's like, "How did this happen? Okay, God, is this you?" For those who don't believe, the miraculous leads to nothing. There is no explanation or any thought that they can think of robs them of seeing the divine. So we're going to look at today these moments where people who were following Jesus at that time were met with this decision. How are they going to respond to someone that is doing miraculous things? For those of you who are new, just a reminder for everyone, we're in our Ministry of Jesus series. We're almost to the end. And again, as we progress in our series, as we see more of who Jesus is, his purpose of his ministry, we are being pointed to the cross. Hopefully we're being drawn further into his presence and desiring to worship him even more as we come to a deeper understanding of who he is.

So far, we've covered the parables, Jesus is teaching how he often taught. We've covered the disciples being discipled, the 12, and then also the call for us today to be discipled by Jesus and his word. We've talked about his healing ministry, and then last week we talked about how Jesus fulfilled scripture and is the fulfillment of scripture. And again, hopefully throughout this series, you've been challenged to think this is what the Ministry of Jesus looked like, and the Ministry of Jesus is continuing today through the church, through us as the church. Am I participating in the Ministry of Jesus? Are these aspects of the Ministry of Jesus alive in the church, and am I partnering with God to do the work that he has for the world today? So we're going to continue in our learning of his ministry and reflecting on that being true of our faith today, and today we're going to get into the miracles of Jesus. Would you guys pray with me one more time really quick? God, thank you again for our time together. Be with me right now as you have a word to share, God, and I pray that all of us would hear your truth. And again, as we study your word, God, I pray that we be brought closer to you and just -- for those who have been walking with Jesus all their lives, or if it's just been a recent endeavor -- God, I pray that you will continue to pull us towards you, reveal more of who you are, that we will come to a place of further worship, further awe, and giving you more and more praise. We pray this in your name. Amen.

So, again, we're talking about miracles today and how they aren't just supernatural events, but they are divine, they are purposeful, and they reveal who Jesus is, the power and authority that he has, as well as the compassion that he has on the people, and also the fact that miracles are this invitation for people to know him more. We've been covering a lot in this -- let me just pause for a second. Have any of you been to California Adventure? Or -- yeah, some of you? Yeah, like recently? Yeah. One of my favorite rides is Soaring Over California, though I don't know if it's always that, but Soaring Over California, if you don't know, it's that you're in a ride, your feet dangle, and you're just going over all of California, and then my favorite part is when you go over the orange grove and they would spritz that orange, and you just smell it, and you're like, "Oh, I'm there." But that's kind of what we're doing in our series, all that to say that we are just soaring over the ministry of Jesus. Each week could be its own series of going into the parables of Jesus, going into the healing, and the miracles today, we are just soaring over the miracles of Jesus, okay? So I would really encourage you, in your time, if something sparks your interest, to take time in your personal study to dive deeper into the miracles. Let me start with just a definition of miracle. I think that will be helpful for us today, right? So we have a definition, which is, "A miracle is an unexpected outpouring of God's power in an event that defies ordinary explanation, which occurs for the purpose of the advancement of God's kingdom." I'll read that again. "Miracle is an unexpected outpouring of God's power in an event that defies ordinary explanation, which occurs for the purpose of the advancement of God's kingdom." Miracles are probably one of the most famous aspects of Jesus' ministry. Even people who do not believe in Jesus recognize that there was a guy who did amazing things that were unexplainable thousands of years ago. But I want to remind us really quick that miracles didn't just happen in the time of Jesus.

Our entire Bible is full of miracles. So I want to take a moment just to gather some history. If we go back into the Old Testament, there are plenty of signs and miracles. I'm going to be using signs and miracles interchangeably this morning. So in the Old Testament, there are plenty of signs. Signs in the Old Testament were given to warn people. They were given to execute divine judgment. And they were given to deliver people from oppression. They were also used to guide and mark sacred times. Each of those reasons points people back to God. If you're thinking of like your Old Testament history, think of Exodus. Just page after page of miraculous signs, signs, signs. God saying, "I'm trying to get your attention. Look at me. You can trust me." And he had to do that often with the Israelites in the Old Testament because they would get distracted a lot. They would be like, "God, you're awesome." And then they just start wandering away. I don't know if you ever like taught Sunday class here or been around little kids and you have their attention and you're teaching them something and then all of a sudden, like two minutes in, they're like, "What's this?" And you're like, "Hey, come back. Hey, come back." And God's like doing that with miraculous signs. Like, "Hey, look at me. Look at this water coming out of a rock. Pay attention to me." The signs that God intended, that he used were intended to teach his people to know and rely on him. It was never about the powerful signs themselves. Instead, it was about bringing the people of Israel to a place where they trusted Yahweh and saw that he was worthy of their trust.

And now we go to the New Testament, similar intentions of the miracles that we see in the New Testament to deliver from oppression to mark sacred times, to bring God to all nations. And we see this, but there is actually more because in the New Testament, we get the ultimate sign. We'll get to that later in a second. A little teaser. Miracles and signs are all throughout every one of the gospels. I'm talking about Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. However, these authors, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, vary slightly in their approach to explaining and writing about the miracles. So Matthew, the book of Matthew, uses miracles to portray Jesus as the fulfillment of God's promise to raise up a prophet like Moses. Matthew uses miracles to develop his themes of Christology, discipleship, and faith. In the book of Mark, if you were to do a study of miracles, you'll see that Mark treats miracles as a symbolic demonstration of God's kingdom doing battle with the kingdom of Satan. So he's using every miracle as like down with the enemy and look at God. They reveal the identity of Jesus as God and one empowered by God. In the book of Luke, miracles reveal the character of Jesus to be aligned with God. Luke's really trying to say, "Jesus is God. Look at the power. Look at what he is doing." It's the same as Yahweh in the Old Testament. For Luke, the miracles do not just illustrate or demonstrate the good news, they are the good news. In the book of John, he describes Jesus' miracles as the centerpiece of Jesus' life. Jesus' ministry, again, not merely illuminating the message of Jesus, they are the message of Jesus. In John's gospel, he writes intentionally so that from the beginning to the end, the miracles are increasing in magnitude, bringing the reader to see more and more of who Jesus is and what he can do as God. It's actually from John's gospel that we'll take our theme verse for this morning, which is John 20.

You can turn there if you would like, John 20 verse 30, which reads this, "Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book, but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name." This is a broader point about the entire gospel, that it is written that we could read and believe, but it applies to the miracles too, that everything that we know about Jesus, including his miracles, points us to belief and leads us to say, "This is who he is. Will you believe he is who he says he is?" The miracles of Jesus point to Jesus as the Messiah, and there's so much more that we're going to get into. We're going to cover this morning, again, we're soaring, right? This is really high view. We're going to cover the purpose of Jesus's miracles.

We're going to cover different types of miracles that Jesus performed, and then we're going to talk about miracles today, and really leave it in a place where I hope you can dive deeper into this topic and be challenged to continue that conversation with you and God about what does it look like today. So, let's start with the purpose. I've got three purposes for miracles. The first is to reveal his divine identity. Again, in the Old Testament, it was clear that God was the one who was working signs of wonders. You know, think of, again, Moses and all the things that Israelites saw. They saw the plagues, the pillar of smoke and fire, the parting of the Red Sea, the water out of the rock, the manna from heaven, all of this pointing to God. It was God doing these signs and miracles, and that's a clue as readers of Scripture to say, "Oh, that was God in the Old Testament, and we see Jesus come into the story, and it's still God." So, Jesus is identifying with God the Father as one who has divine power and authority. He's revealing his divine character that he is the Messiah, that he is the creator in the midst of his creation, that he is the bringer of salvation. So it reveals his identity as the Son of God, being one with God the Father and the Holy Spirit, and these miracles, when they happen in the ministry of Jesus, it's like Jesus opening the door to those people and saying, "Hi, it's me. I'm God. You've heard of me from the stories from your ancestors from before. Look at what just happened. You might have had that thought. I'm here to confirm it. I am God." Beautiful, powerful moments where the author of life shows that he has entered the story of humanity, where he brings wholeness and put things right, where the way that they were intended to be, where he restores and he renews. It is God walking amongst his people, loving them through supernatural means and supernatural moments.

Secondly, another purpose is to strengthen faith. Each miracle was an invitation to trust Jesus more. If we look at John 2, this is the passage where he turns water into wine. It says, "What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory and his disciples believed in him." So just as our end of chapter in John, that verse states, "The miracles performed, the gospel message is to bring people into belief." This also means that faith is required to understand Jesus and his miracles. His miracles provoked both acclamation as well as hostility and criticism. I asked you that question this morning. How would you respond if you witnessed something? Well, there were people in the time of Jesus who witnessed that and turned away. They witnessed the supernatural, the miraculous and said, "That's not who he says he is. That can't be." And they turned the other way. For those who don't believe, no sign can create faith. And there are accounts throughout each gospel, again, of that happening. But for those who do have faith, miracles strengthen that faith. When you see the God that you believe doing something miraculous, your reaction is to praise him. To say, "God, I knew that you could, and now I've seen you do it. You deserve even more praise." So it strengthens faith.

And thirdly, miracles are to demonstrate the kingdom of God. His miracles were glimpses of God's kingdom. Again, we think of the healing and the wholeness that he brought or creation yielding to its creator. God is on full display through Jesus as people recognize him as God, giving him praise and glory. The miracles preview a world where sin no longer taints the world around it. And this broken world is under total submission to God. Miracles demonstrate the kingdom of God by showing God's compassion, his provision, his care, his healing power, and by revealing his power over death and darkness. When we think of the kingdom of God and being in heaven one day, how many stories do you think we're going to hear about people who experienced his redemption, his restoration, of those who were lost or last or the least, and how God drew them in? Maybe through normal means or something that we would consider standard, and others who are going to say, "It was this amazing thing that my faith was deepened, that I was brought closer to Jesus." Again, this is an overview. So those are the three purposes. Those are all that could each be like a sermon or sermon series. So go farther in and invite you to do that in your own time. Those are the purposes that we see to reveal his divine identity, to strengthen faith, and to demonstrate the kingdom. And I want to look at some of the types of miracles that we see throughout the New Testament, specifically in Jesus' ministry. And so as again, as we go through these miracles, I want you guys to be thinking, "Do I see this today?" Not necessarily in miraculous ways, it could be, but what these miracles did. If we see that occurring in the church, as we today are the continuation of Jesus' ministry, do we see these types of things happening?

All right, the first type of miracle is a healing miracle. Pastor Lauren talked on this a couple weeks ago, and she covered the passage in Mark 5 where Jesus heals a woman who needed healing from bleeding, and then also a girl who was raised from dead back to life. Today I'll just mention another healing. There's so many healings, but I'll mention Mark 1, 40 through 45, where Jesus heals the leper. And it's where this leper comes to him and it says, "A man with lepers," this is Mark 1, verse 40, it says, "A man with lepers, he came to him and begged him on his knees, 'If you are willing, you can make me clean.'" And Jesus reached out his hand, touched the man, and said, "I am willing. Be clean." And immediately the leprosy left him and he was cleansed. And this is just one small moment which shows Jesus' compassion for the outcast. He touches those who were literally untouchable and says, "Be whole. You are healed." Again, bringing wholeness, physical, spiritual, mental, emotional healing to people. There are many, many miracles of him healing. The blind, the lame, lepers. Amazing, amazing part of his ministry. It's one type of miracle.

Second would be provision. Miracles of provision. Demonstrating that he cares for our needs. We can think of Jesus' first miracle, the book of John, where he turns water into wine. And again, the situation is there's a wedding party, this wedding feast, which would actually last like a week. It wasn't just enough wine for an evening. It was wine for a whole week. And the wedding party didn't have enough. And so his mother, Mary, classic mom, is like, "Son, do something. Come on, do something." Jesus is like, "I wasn't going to do anything." But he does. And he turns water into wine to save those people, that host family, from the embarrassment for their village, wherever they are. It would have looked very bad on them. And so he provides. Says in John 2, Jesus said to the servants, "Fill these jars with water." So they filled them to the brim. And then he told them, "Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet." And they did so, and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. And it was the best wine. It was like, "What's the strategy here?" So we see that Jesus cares for those who are in need. We also, another miracle of provision would be feeding the 5,000. This is found in Matthew 14. So in this situation, Jesus had been teaching for a long time. And he retreats to have some quiet time, but the crowds followed him, wanting to hear more, wanting to learn more from Jesus. And they were bringing their sick, and Jesus has compassion. And he began healing them. And this went on all day. And the disciples, everyone's getting hungry, maybe hangry. And the disciples are trying to usher people away, saying, "Hey, we don't have enough food. Maybe we should just stop this whole thing, and everyone can go get dinner." And Jesus replied, "They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat." And they said, "We only have five loaves of bread and two fish." "Bring them here to me," he said. And he directed the people to sit down on the grass and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people. They all ate and were satisfied. The disciples picked up 12 basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. So from two fish, five loaves, he feeds at least 5,000, if not more. And again, it just shows that Jesus meets our needs. We can trust him with what we need. And he will provide, oftentimes in abundance. So we have miracles of provision.

Next, we have miracles that are over nature, displaying Jesus' authority as creator. Mark 4, 35 through 41 describes Jesus calming the storm. The disciples and Jesus are crossing over the Sea of Galilee. I love this story. It says, "A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat so that it was nearly swamped. And Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion." Oh, love it. The disciples woke him up and said to him, "Teacher, don't you care if we drown?" Now, you can take this however he got up. You can fill in if he's excited, if he's grumpy, whatever it is. He gets up, and he rebukes the wind and said to the waves, "Quiet, be still." The wind died down, and it was completely calm. I don't know of a better example than to reveal that he is the creator, and in the middle of the storm, literally saying a couple words, and the whole world changes to be still and calm, obeys his voice. We also have, later on in his ministry, Jesus walking on water, Matthew 14. It says, "Immediately, Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go ahead of him to the other side while he dismissed the crowd. And after he dismissed them, he went up on the mountainside by himself to pray." Jesus is often, by the way, looking for some alone time. He's in the stern of the boat looking for a nap. He's like, "You guys go ahead. I'm going to take a solo walk. I need some alone time." It says, "Later that night, he was there alone, and the boat was already a considerable distance from land. He was by the waves because the wind was against it. And shortly before dawn, Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake." Again, it's just so cool that Jesus is like, "Oh, they're out there. I'll go meet them by walking across water and joining them on the boat." So these miracles of him displaying that he is the creator in the midst of his creation.

We also have miracles of deliverance, where Jesus reveals his power and authority over darkness. Look, whether we realize it or not, even today, we engage in a spiritual battle. While sin has been defeated, meaning we who believe as Christians no longer have to face the eternal consequences of sin, we still deal with the consequences of sin in our daily lives. We deal with sin and darkness here on earth, and Jesus showed that he has power over sin and darkness. Think of Mark 5, 1 through 20, which describes a demon-possessed man and Jesus taking the demons out of that man, casting them into the pigs, and those pigs throwing themselves into the water. Or Mark 9, where Jesus heals a boy with an unclean spirit. This is a boy who had been plagued by a demon for most of his life, and this demon was trying to kill this boy by ruining this boy's life. And this father brings the boy before Jesus and says, "If you can do anything," and in Mark 9 Jesus says, "If you can," said Jesus, "everything is possible for those who believe." Immediately the boy's father exclaimed, "I do believe. Help me overcome my unbelief." And Jesus rebukes that demon spirit. This is another moment of healing, a moment of deliverance, revealing Jesus' power over darkness as he is the bringer of life, restoring life to that boy.

And then lastly, last type of miracle is miracles of resurrection, where Jesus reveals that he has power over death. Maybe most notably we think of Lazarus, Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, who was a close friend of Jesus, and again this could be a whole sermon, so this is just bullet points, but Jesus goes to the tomb after he's heard the news of Lazarus and he kind of takes his time a bit later than expected. And he tells them to roll away the stone, which is not done. You don't do that after someone has been buried. But he tells them to roll away the stone, and then in John 11 it says, "Then Jesus said, 'Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?' So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, 'Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here that they may believe that you sent me.' And when he said this, Jesus called out in a loud voice, 'Lazarus, come out!' And a dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen and a cloth around his face. And Jesus said to them, 'Take off the grave clothes and let him go.'" This is a moment of ministry, a miracle that brought a man from death to life. And it showed to those around him, to his disciples, to the crowds, truly this is God because God is the only one who has the power over death. And as we also know, it foreshadows Jesus' own future, his own resurrection. Matthew 28, verses 1 through 10, "After dying on the cross, being buried in a tomb with a stone rolled over the entrance, on that third day Mary and Mary go to the tomb." And it says in Matthew 28, "The angel said to the women, 'Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay.'" This is the biggest truth that I want us to hear today. I know we're not at Easter yet, but can we really get too much resurrection talk? No, we can’t.

The point is that Jesus is the ultimate sign of the New Testament, and really of the entire Bible. The Bible Project puts it beautifully. It says, "Jesus absorbed divine punishment of sin to provide an exodus from sin's oppressive powers. He fulfilled every covenant promised to Israel and began a new covenant that marked the beginning of an eternal Sabbath. He is God with us and the Messiah for all nations. His death and resurrection serves as a sign that his message was trustworthy." He is the ultimate sign. His birth, a miracle. His life, a miracle. His death, a miracle. His resurrection, a miracle. All of it pointing us to God. All of it the pinnacle acts of furthering the kingdom of God. As we move closer and closer to Easter, we see that every aspect that we've covered of Jesus' ministry, including miracles, points us deeper into who he is, the Son of God, the perfect Son of Man, the source of our redemption, and the bringer of our salvation. This morning, again, we soared over the Old Testament. We soared over the New Testament.

And I really want to cover what about miracles today? Does God still do miracles? I think it's important as we answer this to have a well-rounded and informed view of the Bible and church history. It's not like miracles suddenly ceased after Jesus left. We have accounts and acts of more miraculous things happening, but it does seem less and less. In the early days of the church, teachings weren't always accompanied by miraculous signs. Why? Well, again, because those who are looking for signs to trust God, saying, "I'll believe if God does something," rarely do they actually receive anything that would actually convince them. Remember, there were those who witnessed Jesus' miracles in person and did not believe. For those who do trust God, we don't necessarily need a miracle or a sign to confirm who He is. It helps, it furthers our faith, but we don't need it to believe. All this to say, yes, God still does miracles, all for the furthering of His kingdom. And I asked about, do we see any of these types of miracles happening today? Do these occurrences today still happen in the church? Because it's often how God works, is through the church, through us. Who's to say that God can't use you to work a miracle in someone's life? Often through provision or compassion, story after story of modern day people who said, "I was praying for this and miraculously it showed up at my doorstep." That's God working through His people to do a miracle. Which leads us to the next part of signs of God today. We are signs. Each and every one of you who believes in Jesus is a sign. You are pointing people to Jesus. When we trust Jesus, we ourselves become a sign of God's reality and promises. When we trust in Jesus, we receive the Holy Spirit. As it says in Ephesians, "In order that we who were the first to put our hope in Christ might be for the praise of His glory." We were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. We are empowered to be a light to the world, to embody and reflect Jesus' teaching in our lives and then literally live out the kingdom of God. The miracle of a new life that the Holy Spirit generates within us is a miracle. And then we can partner with Jesus to be a miracle for other people, to point people to Jesus.

I want to draw your attention to something that I believe was on every seat. And if you're sitting on it or if you have it in your hand, but you all should have received a card today. It says, "I'm praying for an opportunity to invite blank to SVC this Easter." I'm going to walk you through this card. We're going to be intentional this next three weeks about bringing people to Easter, about praying about who we want to bring to church. And we're going to do it together. You're not going to be alone in this. You're not going to say, "Oh, I'm supposed to bring someone," and then no one knows. So let me explain this card. You're going to write on this, just one person or a family, if you think of a family of mine. I want you to write that name, that family up there. And then on the bottom line, you're going to write the same name, same family. And then you can do this now. I would love for you to do this now. Think for a second who God's putting on your heart. And then what you're going to do, I'm going to do it right now. You guys can still write, but you're going to tear this off. They're all perfect, should look so clean like this, two beautiful pieces. You're going to keep this top one. This is for you. Put that in your Bible, put it somewhere you're going to see it. You're going to be praying for that family, that person that you're going to bring. This other one, at the end of the service, there's a bucket in the back, a little, it says drop off, tear off cards here. You're going to put this in that bucket and we are going to join you in praying. We as our prayer team, we as pastors, our staff, we're going to join you in praying for these people. So you don't need to put necessarily like their full name and address and just a name. It could just be like this family, John, whoever you want to pray for. But we want to join you. There's going to be a bit of accountability here that we as a church are praying for people to be here on Easter, to hear the gospel message. And if you have more, like if you're like, one card is not enough, I have 10 people, by all means, there are more cards, there's some empty seats here. So hang on to those. I'll remind you at the end to put those in the bucket. But this is a way that we are living out the kingdom. We are instruments of God's kingdom. We're partnering with Jesus to reach the lost, to reach others and say, "Hey, I have some good news. Here's how it's changed my life. I think it can change yours." We want to be modern day signs pointing people to Jesus. Jesus is the ultimate sign. And we are invited to unite with him in his work.

I want to wrap up with just a few things to help us understand a couple of encouragements. One, have faith in his power. Do you believe that God can still work miracles, most often through his church? Do you have faith in his divine authority and power? Maybe you need to be reminded of that today. Have faith in who God is and the power that he has. Next is to trust in his compassion. Just as so many did out of faith in the New Testament, so many people bringing their sick before Jesus and saying, "Help me. You of all people, Jesus, are the only one who can heal." We today need to trust in his compassion. Do we bring our weaknesses, our struggles, our sins before Jesus and say, "Help me." "Jesus, you are the only one who can help me. I need you." Trust in his compassion. And lastly, hope in his resurrection. As we'll talk about again in three weeks, the greatest miracle is salvation, the gift that Jesus gave to us through his sacrifice on the cross and the new life that we have in him. And so do we hope daily in Christ who is resurrected? No matter what we're going through, no matter what situation we face, do we recognize that Jesus who overcame sin and death is going to help us overcome whatever we have going on in our lives? We'll leave it there for now. But again, the miracles of Jesus were more than just displays of power and authority. They were an invitation to know him. So accept that invitation today and then days to come. Walk with him daily. Partner with him in being a sign, a living miracle, pointing people to Jesus.

Would you guys pray with me? God, thank you again for your word and for your example and for these stories of miracles that you did, all to bring people closer to you, to deepen their faith, to reveal who you are, and to give us a glimpse of your heavenly kingdom. God, I pray that that glimpse of your heavenly kingdom will give us hope today, that it would bring us a sense of joy for the future and excitement and anticipation of what's to come. I pray that it would help us to endure whatever life is right now for us, the hardships that we face, the difficult seasons, the sickness. God, I pray that we would trust that you are able to give us what we need in your perfect timing. But God, we want to give everything we have over to you and trust you with our lives. Continue to work in us and through us, God, for your kingdom. And may we all be signs to the world around us pointing them to you. We pray this in your name. Amen.

The Ministry of Jesus: Part 4

The Ministry of Jesus

Part 4: Jesus Fulfilling Scripture

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

Continuing in our series today of the ministry of Jesus, where each week we're taking a look at a different aspect of Jesus' ministry. Every moment of his three-year ministry was purposeful and so impactful, and it provides an invitation to us today to learn more about who God is in the person of Jesus and what he's done and what he can do. Each week as we learn more about his ministry, our goal is to better understand God's heavenly kingdom, to better understand Jesus and his life's purpose, and then to reflect on how we can therefore live like Jesus in our day-to-day lives. Our hope and prayer is that as we go through this Lenten season, this is a season of acknowledging and leaning into our depravity and our appreciation and need for Christ, and as we approach Easter, we will have this deeper understanding of the life of Christ, the mission of Christ, and the sacrifice that he made on the cross. And therefore, come Easter Sunday, have a fuller celebration. Having spent weeks and weeks studying about what Jesus did for us, what he's doing for us now, our praise on that Easter Sunday will be all the louder. So far in our series, this is week four, the first three weeks, we've covered parables, which is Jesus' primary way of teaching about God's kingdom, a kingdom that is about the lost, the lonely, and the last. Then we had a guest speaker, Pastor Phil, come in and talk about being called and commissioned. And he talked about the disciples and the intentional ministry and mentoring that Jesus did with those 12, but also how that pertains to us today, that we are also called and God has plans for us to continue in his ministry. And then last week, Pastor Lauren talked about the healing part of Jesus' ministry, which I thought was so good, talking about how his healing spoke to his power, his compassion, and also pointed us to the kingdom of God. So I'd encourage you, if you missed any of those, please go back on our website, watch them.

And then today we're getting to our fourth aspect of ministry. And these were by, just as a side note, no particular order. These are not priority. These are just different aspects of his ministry. So today, before we get to what that aspect is, I just have a question. For those of you who grew up in the church or grew up reading your Bible, how many of you have a preference between the Old Testament and New Testament? How many of you like the Old Testament? Raise your hands if you're Old Testament. Oh yeah, that's right. Just kidding, I have no preference. That's great. That's great. How about New Testament? Any New Testament? I would expect a few more. Yeah. How many of you hate that question? We're like, I don't like picking New Testament. Yeah, okay. That's fair. Those are the real winners. I'm just kidding. Yeah, New Testament, Old Testament, they're different, but all good. So I've heard some summarize that the Old Testament is basically rules and the New Testament is all about Jesus. I don't know if you've heard that or something similar, a very condensed, boiled down summarization of the Bible. And I would say to them that the Old Testament is also all about Jesus and the New Testament also has plenty of rules of how we should live. What I'm getting at is that there can be this misnomer that you just need to read the New Testament. It doesn't matter today because it's got the words of Jesus or a misnomer that the Old Testament has some good basic rules, but it's outdated and it's old. It doesn't matter anymore. Again, go to the New Testament because that's where you learn about Jesus. But what we know to be true is that all of scripture, the Old Testament and the New Testament points to Jesus. All of scripture, the Old Testament and the New Testament informs us of how to live the way that God has called us to live. Scripture tells us, all of scripture tells us about Jesus. And then what we see in the life of Jesus is that he points back to scripture. He says this, and he's referencing the Old Testament. And he said, "This is so important. This is what this means." He did this himself often.

And so this is our aspect today of Jesus' ministry where he fulfills scripture. What do I mean by that? Well, these are moments in his ministry where he intentionally brings to the disciples' attention, to the crowd's attention, and then to us today, the reader's attention, where he is fulfilling promises and prophecies that are found in the Old Testament, which is why we should know our Old Testament. What is Jesus talking about? Sometimes he makes it very apparent by prefacing in that moment. He says something like, "As it is written," and that clues everyone in as, "Oh, he's referencing something else," or, "It is said that." These are the phrases that if you're reading your Bible, if you see that, you know that he's talking about an Old Testament reference. And then he'd do something or say something to complete that Old Testament reference. Other times, he would just do it. He wouldn't preface it. He would just say something or do something, and then the disciples had to put it together later. And it'd be like days later or weeks later or even years later, and it would click. And they're like, "Oh, that's what Jesus meant when he said that." Or when he did this, he was fulfilling the Scripture. Now you may be wondering, "What parts of Scripture is he fulfilling?" Well, these are passages in the Old Testament where God spoke through leaders, through prophets, and promises and in covenants made to his people about the salvation from sin, being saved from affliction and death and suffering. These are promises to be made whole, promises to be in the kingdom of heaven.

And these are, again, all throughout the Old Testament. And so we see, even going all the way back to Genesis 3, at the very beginning of your Bible, God tells them of Jesus who's going to come and defeat the enemy. Or Genesis 12, talking to Abraham, where God promises Abraham that he will bless the entire world through Abraham's descendants. Or in Exodus 19 with Moses, where he talks about the Ten Commandments, and he says, "If the Israelites obey me, they will be my people, a priesthood that will shine my truth and my light." And then the promises that he makes to David in 1 Samuel 7, promises to establish his line from David's line. Or all the minor prophets in your Bible, every prophetic book in the Bible is the call for the people of God to turn back to God, but also to look forward to the one who is to come. God promises to the people of Israel that he will send someone from the moment sin entered the world to save them. And throughout these years in the Old Testament, spanning hundreds and hundreds of years, the anticipation built for the people of God. And the people of Israel were wondering, "Who was it?" We get a little bit more of God's plan. We hear from a prophet, from a leader saying, "This is what God is doing." And they'd be like, "All right, well, who is this person?" And then someone would come along, maybe like a Moses, and they're like, "Is this it?" Because Moses wasn't the person. And then someone like David would come along and they're like, "Is he the one? Is he the one that the prophets and God has been talking about?" "No, not David." Or maybe Elijah, not Elijah. Closer to Jesus' time, people were wondering if it was John the Baptist. Is John the Baptist the one that all these prophets, that the Scriptures have been talking about? It wasn't John the Baptist. And then Jesus came into the world, and he is the fulfillment of Scripture, the one that the Old Testament has been pointing to, the one that the people have been waiting for. Jesus is the long-awaited Messiah, the Savior of the world, the rescue plan in full effect. And the tragedy is that many of the people walking with Jesus at that time, at that time in history, they were missing it. They didn't see it. The people of Israel had all the information. They had all this, but they weren't putting the information from the Old Testament together in the right way to come to the conclusion that Jesus is that person. My professor used to say, "It's like going into Home Depot. You have everything and more that you need to assemble whatever it is you want to assemble." And the Israelites were coming out of Home Depot with the wrong parts, trying to build something that wasn't going to work. And Jesus had to come and say, "No, let me tell you how to, in the Scriptures..." You guys try to believe that the Old Testament is Home Depot in this analogy? Okay. Yeah. You go into the Old Testament, and here's how you come out with this. This is how you land at Jesus being the Savior. They just had assembled it wrong. And they kept waiting. They were like, "Okay, you're an interesting person, Jesus, but I'm waiting for what Jesus is telling me, or for what God is telling and foretelling." And it's like, "Jesus is saying, 'No, it's me. I'm right here.'" Jesus is that expert, the fulfillment of Scripture, and He had to tell them how He fulfilled Scripture. So He has to tell the people, and He's telling us today, "Here's how to put Scripture together in the way that God intended us to understand.”

So we're finally going to get to our passage this morning. That was a very long intro. Connecting the Scripture, we're going to see in our passage, if you have your Bibles, you can turn with me to John chapter 2, verse 13, or you can follow along on the screen, which reads this. It says, "When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple courts, He found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So He made a whip out of cords and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle. He scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves, He said, 'Get these out of here. Stop turning My Father's house into a market.' His disciples remembered that it is written, 'Zeal for your house will consume Me.' The Jews then responded to Him, 'What sign can You show us to prove Your authority to do all this?' Jesus answered them, 'Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.' They replied, 'It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you're going to raise it in three days?' But the temple He had spoken of was His body. After He was raised from the dead, His disciples recalled what He had said. Then they believed the Scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken." Would you guys pray with me? God, as we dive into Your Word, God, I pray that You would, through Your Spirit, help us to understand what it is You're trying to get us to see here and to see Your truth. I pray, God, that we would come to a better understanding of who You are and what You're doing and part of Jesus' ministry that is so important to understand. Our desire truly is that we would understand Scripture the way that You mean for us to understand. So give us eyes to see in Your Word. Give us ears to hear. We pray this in Your name. Amen. I want to catch us up briefly on where we're at here, which is, we know, taking the four Gospels and looking at the timelines, that Jesus is in Jerusalem. This is after the triumphal entry. So this is in the midst of Holy Week or Passion Week. This is at the very end of Jesus' three years in ministry. And Jesus' attention has turned toward the cross. He knows what is coming, and He has a series of very confrontational conversations and experiences with the leaders who are against Him, this being one of them. And so, as is the custom, Jesus, during Passover, went to the temple. And what happened was not your everyday temple scene, but rather a very intense moment where Jesus makes a conscious decision to address a few things that He doesn't like.

So the first of our three points of the cleansing of the temple is as Jesus addresses the problem of worship. Jesus addresses the problem of worship. During this time in Jerusalem, we see in verses 14 through 16, people were selling cattle, sheeps, and doves, others sitting at tables exchanging money. Now, if you just had that right there, is that what you would imagine God's temple to be? This place of commerce, this place where people are making money off of worshiping God. No. I also just want to explain here that I don't know if we all know our temple really well, the blueprints here. So there is an outer court, which is everyone had to go through the outer court, and that was a place of worship for the non-Jewish people. The inner court is where the Jewish people would go to worship. And so John gives us this detail that, and also we know from the other Gospels putting together, this was happening in the outer courts. And so this was happening to the people the non-Jewish people could not worship. There's too much going on here that people were being hindered from worshiping God. That commerce happened in the outer courts. And this is Passover week too, so it's just crowded, it's packed. There were people who had traveled long distances to get there, and those people who traveled, it wasn't practical to bring your animal sacrifices with you. So they're traveling for days. The people who lived in town, sure, maybe they could just walk their goat over or whatever it was that they were sacrificing. But for people who were traveling, they had to come to the city and then find an animal to sacrifice. And so, the business-minded people of the time were like, "Oh, this is perfect. Let's set up shop and we'll sell all these animals." And you already can see where this is going. This was just a moment that was ripe for selfishness and greed. And so those merchants had a monopoly on the market and likely charged exorbitant prices for the convenience of buying animals at the temple. So was Jesus upset that they were making money on the practice of worship? Yeah, I think so. Is he upset at their exorbitant prices? Probably. But I think there's an Old Testament scripture that tells us truly the deeper issue, which is Isaiah 56, verse 7, which reads this, "These I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar, for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations." That's that last part right there. My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations. God's desire is that the temple is a house of prayer for all people, that no one would be hindered from coming before God to worship Him, to have their sins atoned for, to be made right before God. That's the heart of God in the Old Testament and it's the heart of Jesus in this passage. So what upsets and angers Jesus the most is that people are hindered from worshiping Him, worshiping God the Father. Jesus is saying that this isn't at all what God had in mind when He gave the blueprints for the temple. So Jesus is addressing this problem with how His Father's house was being run and how some could not worship the Father. And just what a good reminder for us today that the priority above all else, no matter what earthly barriers we may experience today on earth, God doesn't want anything to come between a person who is bringing themselves before Him. In other words, we better not get in the way of someone trying to come before God and worship Him. So that's the first insight.

The second from our passage is that Jesus moves Himself to the crucifixion. Jesus is 18, after He said, "Get out of here, stop turning My Father's house into a market." He says, "Then the Jews respond to Him, 'What sign can You show us to prove Your authority to do all this?'" And I don't think, by the way, that's like a curious tone. They're like, "Oh, what authority do You have? Can You show us Your badge?" No, I think they got some attitude. They're like, "Yeah, what are you talking about? Who are you?" And then verse 19 says, "Jesus answered them, 'Destroy this temple and I will raise it again in three days.'" Now we have the context of the whole passage, what He's talking about, but I'm pretty sure that came across as fighting words. He was like, "Destroy this temple." He's engaging. They step forward with this verbal joust, and He steps right back and said, "Destroy this temple. I'll raise it again in three days." This passage is in all the Gospels, and I want to read Mark 11:17, because I think it hits better on the tone of the heat of this moment. So Mark 11 is the same Jesus clearing the temple, but it says this, "As He taught them, He said, 'It is not written, "My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations," but you have made it a den of robbers.'" That's definitely fighting words right there. "The chief priests and the teachers of the law heard this and began looking for a way to kill Him, for they feared Him, because the whole crowd was amazed at His teaching." You see, many people reference this Jesus clears the temple courts or cleanses the temple as an example for Jesus' righteous anger, as if He came across something randomly and unexpected in the temple and reacted in the moment. But when we take a deeper look, that doesn't seem to be the case. John Mark Comer, a pastor and an author, says this was something He planned. He had been to the temple several times. He knew what He was doing. It was not, "One day, Jesus' anger got the best of Him," but it's okay because it's Jesus. No, He knew that this would get Him closer to the cross. It says back in our John passage in 15 that He made a whip out of cords. I don't know if you've ever had an angry moment where in that moment, something happens and immediately you have the urge to react in a certain way. Maybe you're like, "Oh, if there was a wall, I would punch that wall or I would throw something." But you have an initial reaction of, "I am so angry that I would..." whatever it is. But maybe in your experience, you've just taken a second or a minute and all of a sudden, even like 30 seconds later or a minute later, you're still angry, but that urge is gone. You're like, "Oh, glad I didn't punch that wall. I'm upset, but I can handle this in a mature way." Any of you? No? Okay. Sometimes? You guys are too scared to admit that you've wanted to punch a wall before. Yeah, but when we sit in it just for a moment, usually that anger dissipates or the urge to react in a certain way goes away and we're just left with our anger and emotions. So I say that Jesus didn't accidentally come across something and just be like, "Oh, I'm suddenly angry. Let me just make a..." He made a whip. He sat there and braided a whip together, which took time, and he still, after that, used it. So this is not just filled with anger and it's okay because it's Jesus. This is very intentional. He's sitting there like, "I know. I've been planning this. I have been... This is going to be so good." Jesus was deliberate, purposeful, intentional in his ministry, this moment included. He knew that this would rile up the opposition so much that it would bring them closer to taking action against him, meaning he would be closer to being crucified. And just as it said in the Mark passage, it worked. After he overturned the tables and ran out the money changers, they wanted to kill him. And like Isaac up on the mountain with Abraham in the Old Testament, Jesus, the Son of God, knew that he was going to be sacrificed. Jesus knew what he needed to do, what needed to happen, that this rescue plan that had been in place since Genesis was coming to the culmination here in just a few days, which leads us to the next point.

Jesus fulfills the Scriptures. This is the most important part I want us to take away from this morning. Again, what do I mean by "fulfills the Scripture"? Well, Jesus performed or upheld that which was required by the law of the Old Testament, met the expectations or the predictions about him in the writings of the prophets. Just really quick, when I say "Scriptures," I'm referencing a New Testament person who Scriptures to them at that point would have been the Old Testament, right? They were living the New Testament. They didn't have the second half of this book. They had the first half. And it was considered short-term laws and prophets. Let me bring it somewhere. We have the law of Moses and then the prophets. So Jesus is the fulfillment of the law and of the prophets. This is first brought up in verse 17 when the disciples remembered, right, that they put this together, "Zeal from your house will consume you." This was found in Psalm 69. So Jesus had a desire to see God's temple being held in highest regard, approached with the proper humility and seen as a holy place, not as it was in this moment, twisting into a mode of income. So that was expected and predicted about the coming Messiah, that God would see the temple and hear Jesus doing that very thing, seeing it. He has a zeal and a passion for that place to be as God meant it to be. From the Mark passage, we're not there anymore, but Jesus in that passage quotes Jeremiah 7-11, "Has this house which bears my name become a den of robbers to you? But I have been watching, declares the Lord." That's Jeremiah 7-11. God has been watching. And Jesus, who is God, knows not just what is happening, the corruption and the commercialization of worship, but also knows the heart of those people and the lowly view of the temple that they have to treat it in such a way. So that was expected and predicted about God in the Old Testament. And here is Jesus claiming to be God doing that very thing.

Again, why is Jesus bringing up the Old Testament? And he doesn't just do this all throughout his ministry. He is helping the people here and us today understand correctly, connecting the dots in the right way. This is what the Bible says. It's about Jesus. It's about his kingdom. He's doing the work. He's interpreting it for us, helping us see and understand. Again, remember, he's going into Home Depot with them and saying, "Let me fill up your shopping cart with what you actually need to build this correctly." They had this question, "By what authority do you have?" And John, brilliant writer, he gave us that authority in the very beginning of his book. John 1, 1 says, "In the beginning was the Word, who is Jesus. And the Word was with God and the Word was God." And then in verse 14, it says, "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son who came from the Father, full of grace and truth." Jesus is God. That's the authority that he speaks with. He is the author of life, the King of Kings. He has all the authority to say what he is saying, to do what he is doing. He is the fulfillment of Scripture. Obviously, the religious leaders don't like it. They want to kill him. They thought Jesus was trying to get rid of their laws and their traditions. They didn't like that. They thought he was acting against them, that he didn't care for them. He wanted to take away their power and authority. And this is where, again, this is a different passage, Matthew 5, I think we have it on the screen. Jesus didn't want to take away the law. He says, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the law until everything is accomplished." What's he saying? He's like, "It's me. I am the fulfillment of the law and the prophets. I am the law and the prophets reaching their fullest expression." That the old covenants, with all their significance, have been found in the fulfillment of Christ, that in Jesus, the law was perfected. He lived a perfect life, no sin, so the law was fulfilled. Because of Jesus, we no longer need the physical temple, but God is in us through the Holy Spirit. That in Jesus, these prophecies that for so long pointed forward and said, "You can't wait for this person, be waiting for this person," and Jesus is saying, "There's no more forward. It's me right now." He is the pinnacle of the Bible. And understanding that takes time. And for the disciples, it took time. They weren't... That was a lot, right? In the moment, they're like, "This guy that we follow, our teacher, our rabbi, he's saying a lot of big things." And sometimes it took them days. Don't look down on the disciples. We would be the same way. We'd be like, "Oh, this is... What is happening right now?" And I love that in verse 19 and 20 and the rest of our passage, John just explains that this is how it clicked for us. The whole thing about the temple being raised, and everyone at the time was like, "Why are you gonna destroy this temple?" And then later, after Jesus resurrected, they're like, "Oh, he was talking about his body. He is the temple that he was talking about." It clicked. And then verse 22b, it says, "Then they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken." I love that. They had this moment where it just... they understood. And I'm sure we've had those moments too of wrestling with something, not understanding, and all of a sudden, God makes it clear and we're like, "Oh, that's why he did this." That's what it says in his word is that it clicks for us. So one of the biggest aspects of Jesus' ministry was fulfilling scripture, to help people see that he is the fullest expression of the law and the prophets, and that it all points to him.

And so as we're letting this all sink in and our attention is being drawn to God, let me just ask a few questions of us this morning. First one is this, do we value the Bible in its entirety? That's my question this morning, right? I didn't mean to trick you, Old Testament, New Testament. All of it helps us to understand the person of Jesus, the kingdom of God, the work and the miracle that he is doing, how we got here, the problem of sin. All of it is needed to understand God's perspective. All of it is helpful in our pursuit of knowing and loving him. And so just practically, do we value it? Do you, in your time of reading, do you always stick to one passage or do you, I would just say challenge yourself, go read something different and try to see how does this connect to the person of Jesus? How is this pointing me to Jesus? That's the first one. Do we understand the work of God in our lives? Oh yeah, I have a different, okay. Let me be more specific. Which personal experiences do you, that you look back on and you understand the significance that they've had on your life? Maybe you look back on something, be it a good moment, a challenging moment, you can clearly see what God is doing. You're like, God did this, I am so grateful. You can see his provision, how he worked a miracle, how his work benefited you. Praise God for those moments. Honestly, cherish those. But the follow-up is which personal experiences do you look back on and you're still waiting for God to make sense of it all? It may be a moment like these disciples where something happens and you don't understand until later what God is doing. You don't understand, it may not be till heaven, you may be waiting a long time to fully understand. But just as the disciples did, we want to keep clinging to him, walking with him, waiting on him, lean into him, rest in him, continue to put your faith in him. As you don't understand yet, you will one day, but in the meantime, walk with him. Don't leave him because you don't understand. But we have moments that we just, we don't, God, why did you do that? I don't understand. And our hope is that we have a moment like the disciples did that later on we'll be like, oh, it clicks. I get it, God. I get what you were doing. You connected the dots for me. Hopefully, my encouragement would be to take time to reflect and see where God has been at work and praise him for the good that you see. And maybe if you do this, maybe there's something new that comes up and say, God, I never thought about this before, but I think this is what you were doing. I want to praise you for that.

Lastly is this question of do you hunger for a deeper understanding of Jesus? I'm going to tell you something you may or may not know, you in this room, you are all theologians. You may not call yourself that, but you are. You are all people who are engaging in the study of God, aka a theologian. Also you're biblical scholars. Pretty cool. I wish I had the diploma, you could just all have like a little certificate. You guys are. You are studying his word as a biblical scholar. Some of you, I bring this up to say some of you need encouragement to press into that. Be eager to learn, to look throughout the entire Bible to understand God. I want to share a brief highlight. The other week in youth, we were, after Lauren and I were doing youth group and we were talking with a student who shared that she just started reading, I can't remember if it was 1st or 2nd Samuel, the encouragement of her dad said, hey, I've been reading this. And we were like, oh, that's so great. What are you learning? What are you gleaning from your readings? And her answer was like, yeah, I keep noticing this phrase of the favor of the Spirit of God being over someone, and then it leaves that person, then it goes to another person, and that person has the Spirit of God over them. And I just, I don't know if outwardly I did this inside, I just started jumping up and down, I was like, this is so awesome. She gets it. She's reading scripture and she is putting it together. She's leaving Home Depot with the right supplies. She understands. We should all strive to better understand God. No matter how long you've been walking with Him in the faith, there should always be a hunger to know Him deeper, more, and understand Him in a deeper way. So as we approach this Easter, as we continue through our Lenten season, again, that deeper understanding of Christ helps us to worship, appreciate, and celebrate Jesus all the more.

The Ministry of Jesus: Part 3

The Ministry of Jesus

Part 3: The Healings of Jesus

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

I am excited to be back with y'all. I haven't had the opportunity to preach since December. Well, I take the back. I did have the opportunity, but then I got sick. I am so excited to be with you guys this morning. We have been in our series on Jesus' ministry. We're walking through different aspects of His ministry during His time here on earth. We know He was here for about 33 years, but He had about three years from 30 to 33 where He had active ministry. So we started it off, Pastor Chris talked to us about His parables and the way He was teaching, and how through these parables He teaches us too how we can reach the least, the last, and the lost. And then last week, Pastor Phil brought us the mentoring disciples, how Jesus mentored this group around Him, and how we too are also just like the disciples. We are called and we are equipped, and then we are sent out to build the kingdom of God just like they were. That's our calling as well.

Today we're going to be talking about Jesus' healings. His healing ministry was a huge part of His ministry, of the things that He did, the way He taught His disciples, the way He revealed Himself to people. So we're going to dive into that today, but before we do that, before we dive into the actual healings and some of those stories, I think it's important for us to have an understanding or a theology of the problem of evil and of suffering. Because I don't really feel like we can have a full conversation about healing without talking about why we even need healing in the first place. And so I think some of us, whether it's consciously or subconsciously, we think that if we're following Jesus, we're doing all the right things, we're doing what the Bible says, that maybe we shouldn't have to suffer. That we shouldn't have to have pain or trials or deal with this sickness and whatever else may come to mind. That we should be exempt from that. And unfortunately, the Bible actually tells us the opposite. It promises us that we will have trouble. It promises us that we will have hardships. But the reality is we live in a fallen world. We live in a world that has evil. It started back in the garden with Adam and Eve in the fall when they chose their way over God's way. So we have this understanding that there is a problem of evil. We have a problem of evil in this world. And Jesus and his sacrifice is the only answer. Thankfully, God has a redemption plan. We haven't gotten to the end of the story yet, but we know that he has a way to redeem and restore. But in the right now, in the not yet, we have this problem of evil. And because we have a problem of evil, there will be suffering. Now, thankfully, because we are Christ followers, our suffering is not in vain. Our suffering is not pointless. For those of us who are in Christ, our suffering has a purpose. Now, if you're in the middle of a trial or you're in the middle of suffering, that may not be as encouraging as I would like it to be, but it's true. Our suffering has a purpose. The Bible says that God works all things to the good of those who love him. All things. Not just the good stuff, not just the stuff that feels good, but all of it. The good and the bad. The beautiful and the ugly. The righteous and the evil. All of it he works for our good. And so our suffering has purpose. And he also promises not to leave us in our suffering. It says that he will never leave us or forsake us. So we can know that even while we're suffering, he is with us. And our suffering can be used to strengthen our faith or to grow us closer to Jesus. Or, Lord willing, that as we come through or come out of that, that we can use our testimony to help walk with someone who's also going through a similar situation. But regardless of how the Lord uses that, we know that our suffering has purpose.

So that's kind of the foundation I want us to work with, is that we live in a fallen world and there will be suffering, but we do serve a God who has the power to heal. So we're going to dive into some of these stories today. And I was doing some research and I found that there are 42 different occasions of Jesus's healing in the Gospels. So the Gospels are the first four books of the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. And so some of these stories are repeated throughout their Gospels because they're different perspectives on Jesus's life. So they repeat many of the same stories. But there are 42 separate occasions where Jesus healed. Now, that doesn't include the times where there's verses that say like, "And he healed the people." Like these mass healings or these instances that weren't recorded that maybe the authors chose not to put in the Gospels. But 42 that we know of. So this is a really important part for Jesus's ministry, is his healings. And we know that there are a variety of reasons why Jesus healed, but we're going to focus on three of them today. All right. There are three areas that I think are important for us to focus on when we're talking about Jesus's healings. I believe that he healed to demonstrate his power, to demonstrate his compassion and to demonstrate the coming kingdom of God. A little spoiler alert. This is where we're going today. Okay, so but I'm just giving you all right now to demonstrate his power, his compassion and the coming kingdom of God. And again, there are many stories throughout Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

But we're going to focus on three that are just right back to back in the book of Mark, chapter five. So if you want to go to Mark five, we are going to park it there today. It'll be on the screens. There's Bibles in the chairs in front of you. If you don't have one, you can pull it up on your phone, whatever you like and prefer. But we are going to be in Mark five and we're going to walk through three stories of Jesus's healing today and how they reveal more of him. So first, we're going to start with Mark five, verse one, right out the gate. They went across the lake to the region of the Gerasenes. When Jesus got out of the boat, a man with an impure spirit came from the tombs to meet him. This man lived in the tombs and no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain. For he had often been chained hand and foot, but he tore the chains apart and broke the irons on his feet. No one was strong enough to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and in the hills, he would cry out and cut himself with stones. When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and fell on his knees in front of him. He shouted at the top of his voice, "What do you want with me, Jesus, son of the most high God?" "In God's name, don't torture me." For Jesus had said to him, "Come out of this man, you impure spirit." Then Jesus asked him, "What is your name?" "My name is Legion," he replied, "for we are many." And he begged Jesus again and again not to send them out of the area. A large herd of pigs was feeding on the nearby hillside. The demons begged Jesus, "Send us among the pigs. Allow us to go into them." He gave them permission and the impure spirits came out and went into the pigs. The herd, about 2,000 in number, rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned. Those tending the pigs ran off and reported this in the town and countryside and the people went out to see what had happened. When they came to Jesus, they saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons sitting there dressed and in his right mind and they were afraid.

We see this very tortured man. Not just possessed by one demon, but a legion of them. From what I understand what a legion is, that's like thousands. So, very tortured. Physically, it says he was cutting himself with stones. He was breaking chains which would cause probably lesions on his arms and legs. There was physical healing that was needed, but there was also spiritual healing. So, here we see Jesus demonstrating his power. Because when he chose to heal this man, he showed his power not only over the physical, but over the spiritual. He was healing his body and his soul. We see here that the demons know who he is. It said, in verse seven, "What do you want with me, Jesus, son of the most high God?" They knew who he was. They knew, the demons knew his power. Many of the people watching didn't know yet, though. So, Jesus used this opportunity to heal this man that very much needed healing and also to display his power to those who were watching. He was showing that he wasn't just a man. He wasn't just a prophet or even just a rabbi. He was divine. He was showing his divinity, that he was fully God and fully man, and he had the power to heal physically and spiritually. There's always purpose in Jesus' healings, as we know, but in this instance, it was to display his power. So, we see power over spiritual and physical. So, after he healed this man, he went on his way and marked in his gospel, he leads us right into two more stories of healing. They're a little bit in different order in the other gospels, but here, he immediately goes into two stories.

Many people call it the story of the two daughters. It's one of my favorite stories in the gospels, especially about Jesus' healing. It is so beautiful. But we're gonna jump down to Mark 5, 21, and we're gonna pick up where Jesus is walking through town. It says, "When Jesus had again crossed over by boat to the other side of the lake, a large crowd gathered around him while he was by the lake. Then one of the synagogue leaders named Jairus came, and when he saw Jesus, he fell at his feet. He pleaded earnestly with him, 'My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live.' So, Jesus went with him. A large crowd followed and pressed around him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for 12 years." So, we're gonna come back to Jairus' daughter, but here we have this other story coming out. "She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better, she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak because she thought, 'If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.' Immediately, immediately, her bleeding stopped, and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.”

This woman was an outcast. She was likely unmarried, or if she was and had, maybe had a family, she couldn't touch them without making them unclean in their culture. Because of her bleeding, because of the hemorrhaging, she could not touch anything without making it unclean. And there was a ritual and a process that they had to go through in order to become clean again. So, she couldn't just go out in public and be around people without risking making someone unclean. She couldn't go worship in the synagogue because she was unclean. She was alone, broken, discouraged. She was desperate for healing, but also because of what her issue meant for her, she was desperate for restoration. She knew that it would be a risk to go into a crowded street, potentially make everyone she encountered unclean, and touch just the robe of Jesus' cloak. But she was healed. Immediately, she was healed. It goes on to say in verse 30, "At once, Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, 'Who touched my clothes?'" You see the people crowding against you, his disciples answered, and yet you can ask, 'Who touched me?' But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet." Notice this is the third time these people have fallen at his feet. "Came and fell at his feet, and trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. He said to her, 'Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.’"

So as he's on his way to heal a daughter, he encounters another woman who is an outcast, who very likely has been ostracized from her family, or at the very least can't touch them, and he calls her daughter. This story so beautifully demonstrates Jesus' compassion. He had compassion for her. We saw that she was already healed. He could have just kept walking. He was already on his way somewhere. He had a job to do. He had healing to get done. She was healed. She'll be fine. He can go on his way. But he knew it wasn't done. Her body may have been healed, but he still needed to restore her soul. His compassion went beyond her physical healing. He looked for her. He turned around, and he looked for her. He saw her. He called her daughter. He commended her for her faith. He made sure that she was seen and known. The world saw her as less than. Not good enough, not clean, not allowed to be in mainstream society, an outcast. But he saw her for who she was, and he gave her her value back. That is compassion. So he has displayed his power. He has displayed his compassion. And now we get back into the story of Jairus' daughter.

We're gonna pick up in verse 35. It says, "While Jesus was still speaking, "some people came from the house of Jairus, "the synagogue leader. "'Your daughter is dead,' they said. "'Why bother the teacher anymore?' "Overhearing what they said, Jesus told him, "'Don't be afraid. Just believe.' "He did not let anyone follow him except Peter, James, and John, "the brother of James. "When they came to the home of the synagogue leader, "Jesus saw a commotion with people crying and wailing loudly. "He went in and said to them, 'Why all this commotion and wailing? "'The child is not dead but asleep.' "But they laughed at him. "After he put them all out, "he took the child's father and mother and the disciples "who were with him and went in where the child was. "He took her by the hand and said to her, "'Talitha koum,' which means, 'Little girl, I say to you, get up.' "Immediately, the girl stood up and began to walk around. "She was 12 years old. "At this, they were completely astonished. "He gave strict orders not to let anyone know about this "and told them to give her something to eat.”

A few things here. She was 12. So, Scripture was written very intentionally. The woman had been bleeding for the entire life of this girl. She had been struggling for the entire life. And there were two, they're both two daughters here. So while he was on the way to heal this daughter, he healed his other daughter. But here in this story, with the little girl that he raised from the dead, he demonstrated the coming kingdom of God. Now, you can make an argument that this is very much demonstrating his power and compassion, and that is true too. They're not all compartmentalized. But here, he is showing what the kingdom of God is going to be like. He was pointing to what is to come. In the kingdom of God, there are no more consequences of sin. There is no more brokenness. There is no more suffering or problem of evil. There is wholeness. There is life. There is new. There is restoration. In the coming kingdom of God, he will call all of us to rise from our sleep. And as he told them to give her something to eat, he will prepare a feast for us at his table in glory. Death and evil has been defeated. And he wanted to show that. Look, I have the power to raise from the dead, and one day, everyone will be raised with me. There will be no more sin or crying. There will be no more pain. And as we see his power, his compassion, and his coming kingdom.

There's a passage in Matthew 15 that says, "Jesus went on from there and walked beside the Sea of Galilee. And he went up on the mountain and sat down there. And great crowds came to him, bringing with them the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute, and many others. And they put them at his feet, and he healed them." This is one of those times where just a general healing that he did. So he healed them so that the crowd wondered when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled healthy, the lame walking, and the blind seeing. And they glorified the God of Israel. All of his healings were to point to the Father. His power and his compassion came from God the Father. And he wanted them to glorify and worship him because of their healing, just as we will in eternity. Now, I think something that we should take note of that I think is important is this, Jesus kind of displayed this pattern of faith when it came to healings. There's this, throughout many of the healing stories, there is some sort of belief and then wholeness, faith and then healing. He talks about the woman in our story today. She had, he said, "Your faith has healed you." Jairus had faith. He sought him out and came to him. That was faith. But then Jesus told him to keep believing, even after he had the news that she was dead. There's another story, I think of Luke 5, that there was a group of friends that had a friend that was paralyzed, and they wanted to take him to Jesus, but that Jesus was preaching in a house, and it was totally packed. They couldn't get to Jesus. So they problem solved, and they went on the roof, and they cut a hole in the roof, and they dropped their friends down at Jesus' feet. They were gonna get to him one way or another. But Jesus credited their faith for his healing after he healed the paralytic man. No, this is not always the case. There are instances where maybe faith came later, like there's John 9. There was a man who was born blind, and Jesus had healed him more or less to make another point, but then afterwards, the man put his faith in him. So there's some aspect of faith, either from the person being healed or from an advocate, a friend or family member, or even from the person doing the healing, but there's always an aspect of faith that is connected to the healing. Now, please hear me on this. This doesn't mean if you are not healed or the people you are praying for are not healed that you didn't have enough faith. I'm gonna say that one more time. If you are not healed or the person you're praying for is not healed, that does not mean you didn't have enough faith. While faith is connected, and we see it demonstrated multiple times, there is no measurement of how much faith these people had in order to receive healing. We don't know that they have this much faith, so they got their healing, but they only, that is not biblical. That is not in the Bible. It was God's mercy and His kindness and His grace that allow for those healings this side of heaven.

So healing or praying for healing does require faith. But our faith does not always equal healing. Here's the good news, though. When we put our faith in Jesus, healing is inevitable. For those of us that are in Christ, healing is inevitable. There will be healing either in this life or in eternity. Revelation 21, 4 says, "He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. "There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain "for the old order of things has passed away." Amen. Sometimes when you're going through the thick of it and you are in the trial or the suffering, hearing someone say that healing is inevitable, whether now or in the time to come, that sounds a little bit like a platitude and I know it has been used as one, but I promise you it is good news. God will heal us now or in eternity. There's so much about this world and my own body that I can't wait for the Lord to heal and redeem and restore. So I wrote some things down that I thought, "What's not going to be in eternity?" In the coming kingdom of God, there will be no broken bones, no colds, no flus, no autoimmune disease, no infertility, no acid reflux, no weight issues, no cancer, no anxiety, no seizures, no autism, no higher load blood pressure, no strokes, no cuts or bruises, no splinters, no degenerative diseases, no sleep apnea, no blood sugar imbalances, no depression, no blood clots, no miscarriage, no headaches, no medications, no insomnia, no ADHD, no back pain, no joint replacements, no allergies, no digestive issues, no tendonitis, no comas, no fevers, no death, no more pain and no more crying. Can I get an amen? I can't wait. So for those of us who don't get the healing now, we can remember that heaven is coming. It feels far sometimes, but it's coming. And there's grace and there is purpose today and in our suffering now. And for those of us who do get the healing this side of heaven, we can celebrate and give God all the glory for that. We should celebrate. And we can also look towards the coming kingdom where all things will be made new because the reality is even if we get the healing now, something else could happen. We're all still going to die. That little girl he raised from the dead still died eventually. So while we're waiting, we can look towards heaven, we can look towards eternity and we don't have to worry about the cancer coming back or another traumatic experience or for the other shoe to drop. We can know that he is with us here and that we have eternity waiting for us where all will be made new, all will be restored and redeemed. So today I just encourage us to allow the healing ministry of Jesus to remind us of who he is, of his power and his compassion and the kingdom he's creating for us and to keep pursuing wholeness through faith even today.

Let's pray. Jesus, we thank you for your power and your compassion and your kingdom. We thank you that you do heal. Miracles and healing happen today, right now. Right now in their world. We thank you for that truth and we pray for those. But God, I also just thank you that heaven is coming, eternity is real and you will make all things new and you will bring restoration to all of our hurts and all of our pain and all of our sufferings that there will be no more crying or mourning or pain. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.