Jesus and Broken Sinners
Transcript
What's up, fam? As Chet said, my name is Ant. He also mentioned just how generous your church has been in just supporting Midtown 2 Notch, and specifically myself. I believe it was about November of last year, I transitioned from being bivocational as church planner at Midtown 2 Notch to be able to do that full-time and not have to be able to have another Job to support my family. And just truth be told, I'm excited to be here to share with you guys today because I would not have been able to do that without generosity from Mill City. Actually, when I was working as a personal trainer part-time and vocationally as a pastor part-time, and I was telling one of my clients, you know, I was going to be transitioning out, and she was like, well, what happened?
What changed? And I was like, well, our church, where we are at, is not ready to support me financially. And so there's actually another church in our city that loves Jesus, loves our city, and wanted to support me. So they're actually paying a pretty good part of my salary so I'm able to do it. And she was like, well, you know, sometimes you got to go where the money is. And I was like, wait, what?
You didn't understand. She literally, she thought that I was saying, another church offered me a salary, so now I'm going to pastor at the other church? Because she had no concept for a church being generous enough to say, hey, we want to be generous to you. We believe in what God is doing in and through your church, and we want you to stay right there where you're at and continue to serve. And we want to be generous in that way. So I just wanted to say thank you on behalf of Midtown Two Notch, on behalf of myself and my family.
You guys have been instrumental. I don't even know how many of you knew you were doing that, but our church would not be able to serve and love on just inner city communities around Two Notch Road without you guys and without your help. So I just wanted to just express my appreciation for Mill City. Also, I kind of keep in touch on Facebook and talking to Chad and Matt a little bit. Super encouraged by what God is doing through the gospel here. Super encouraged to be able to get into the word today with you also.
So when Chet first hit me up about this series, he said, we're doing a series called Jesus and People. We're just looking at how Jesus responds to different types of people in the Bible. Very, very interesting for me. I loved it the first time I heard about it. That's actually one of my favorite things to look into in the Bible. It's just how does Jesus respond?
Because he never responds the way people in his time expect him to. So he lived in a time where people commonly believe, like, hey, if I can just muster up enough willpower to obey the commandments of God, then God will really love me. Like, if I can just get on my game enough, if I can try hard enough, if I can just kind of muster up the strength to do it, to live the way God has called me to do it, if I can just get over this one thing, this one habit that I have, then maybe God will love me. And Jesus comes in, and the way he interacts with Pharisees and the way he interacts with sinners, the way he interacts with everybody, it just completely knocks everybody out of the box.
And they can't understand what he's doing. And we get to look into that a little bit today as we'll look into a Jesus interaction with a woman who the Bible calls a sinner and with a Pharisee also. So if you want to turn with me to Luke chapter 7, we'll get us started at verse 36. If you're using one of the Bibles on the share, it should be on page 560. But we get to look into this very, very interesting story.
And so at the time when Jesus was there in Israel, I think Chad already told you, maybe it was last week or maybe a couple weeks ago, that the Pharisees, which there's one in this story, the Pharisees were the guys who kind of felt like, I obey God, thus God owes me something. Or God has to love me because I obey. I obey, therefore God favors me. They were kind of the religious elite of that town, of that time, I should say. And Jesus is about to educate this Pharisee on some things. Let's start at verse 36.
Verse 36 reads, One of the Pharisees asked him to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee's house and took his place at the table. So the way they ate at this time, and the next verse is going to say that they were reclining at the table. Basically what that means is that they didn't set up at the table the way we do now. They kind of had a table that was like kind of on the floor, maybe a little bit raised up from the floor. And for them reclining at the table was they're kind of laying kind of on their stomachs, maybe on their elbows, and they're eating kind of around probably a rectangular table.
So you kind of think the table's in the middle. Everybody's kind of laying down with their feet pointing out. So that's what it would have looked like at that time. So Jesus is at Simon's house. They're having a meal. A lot of times during that time, they would kind of have the doors to their house open during the meal time.
And so, you know, if people are walking by, they want to step, they want to come by and drop in, they can do that. And that's exactly what happens in verse 37. It reads, And behold, a woman of the city who was a sinner, when she learned that he was reclining at the table at the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment. Right? So this verse is telling us a little bit about this woman.
Let's look into it. It said a woman of the city. That basically means she is someone who her business is she exchanges sexual favors for money. She's a prostitute. And so this prostitute, this lady who was kind of living in open rebellion against God's command. So Israel is considered God's people.
She most likely would have grown up knowing God's commands. Maybe she grew up in a, quote, unquote, religious family where she was taught this is the way you're supposed to live. You're supposed to follow God. Or maybe not. Maybe she kind of moved in there and just kind of learned about the culture. Whatever the situation is, she probably knows what it's like to feel judged in some way.
Right? She probably knows what it's like to be looked down upon by the religious elite of that time. She was a, raise your hand, just so I can know kind of who we have here. Raise your hand if you've ever used the word ratchet in a sentence. Not the tool, but just like, oh, great, great. Well, that's pretty much everybody.
That's great. So if you did not raise your hand, at Two Notches, we use it all the time. We always talk about God comes for the ratchet. Right? So what that means, the way we use it, what it means is you're like, you're sinful and in rebellion and you're just wiling out in some way.
And you're just doing it out in the open where you don't even care who sees you. It's like, not only are you doing wrong, but you're just out there with it. And everybody knows that you're doing wrong. And that's just kind of your stigma, your ratchet like that. So that's how this woman was.
She was known for being a prostitute and being openly rebellious. And that's what I want us to focus on today. We're going to see how Jesus responds specifically to people who kind of have a tendency to live in open rebellion. You know, kind of people who just natural rule breakers. Right? The line's right here.
Like, you just got to just step over. Like, you just got to be on the other side of the line. You don't like rules. If somebody gives you a rule, you feel like it's restricting you. You don't feel like it's helping you. So I want some of us to identify with a little bit of that aspect of the way this woman, this prostitute would have seen things.
And we're going to see specifically how Jesus responds to you when you come to him. Now, for some of you, that's not kind of the way you very naturally are bent. For some of you, you like rules. You like to follow rules. You like to kind of, you know, come in here on a Sunday with your, how are you doing? I'm good.
You kind of got your nice Sunday face going on. You kind of carry that out throughout the week. And so if that's you, and so if you're not naturally rebellious and naturally outwardly rebellious like this woman, I want you to be able to be really kind of zoned in also. I believe this is going to provide some training for those of us who kind of fit more of the role of kind of the type of the Pharisee. Right? Because if you're going to be on mission, whether you're openly rebellious or not, you're going to come across people like this woman.
Right? Like, if we're going out and intentionally trying to make disciples and point people to Christ, you're going to come across people like this woman. We need to be able to look into how does Jesus respond to her to help equip us and train us on how we to respond when we come across or come in contact with someone who's in the same kind of maybe lifestyle or just similar to this lady. All right. Let's move forward.
Verse, actually, before we move forward, let me explain. The end of verse 37 says she brought an alabaster flask of ointment. Right? So for a prostitute, this would have been very, very important. This is like a, it's kind of like a perfume. And she most likely would have used it for one of two or maybe both of the, both of these reasons.
The first one is, so at that time, they didn't have like showers like we do. And people didn't bathe as often as we do. So people would just kind of naturally smell bad. And so for her, having this ointment, this perfume, if you would, was kind of, may have been a way of masking for her the smell of all these men that she's often with. Right? It's kind of a, it could have served a purpose of just helping her, helping make her job more bearable, if you would.
But also, it's believed that prostitutes often at this time will wear this perfume. And it kind of, when you, when you smell that, you kind of knew what she was about. Right? It kind of let her potential clients know what she was interested in, what she wanted to do, what her hustle was, and that kind of thing. So just keep that in mind.
Jump to verse 38. Verse 38 reads, and standing behind him at his feet. So this is the woman of the city, the prostitute, standing at Jesus' feet. So standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears and wipe them with the hair of her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with the ointment. So this lady walks in the room.
She sees Jesus. Apparently, she'd been looking for Jesus. She sees him. She finds him. She's like, okay, this is my chance to meet Jesus. And she comes in, she doesn't come and take a seat at the table or she doesn't come and recline at the table.
She goes right to Jesus' feet and she just starts crying. Right? And this is not that, this is not that pretty cry where you're kind of mad, but you're kind of upset and you're kind of sad and you've got like one tear coming down. Like this is not, this is not pretty cute crying. Right? This is bawling.
She is weeping at Jesus' feet to the point where it says her tears are wetting Jesus' feet. This woman is, is, is heartbroken. What we find out a little bit later in the passage is that she, she, this woman is, is aware of her sin. She's, she's so aware of her life of rebellion and her life has not gone the way she, she anticipated it going. I would assume to the point where she didn't fit. She didn't know that her, her life of a rebellion would bring her to this point.
But right now she is standing over Jesus' feet and she is so heartbroken over her sin that tears are flowing to the point where it can wet, wet Jesus' feet. This woman throughout this story, she's going to give us a beautiful picture of what true repentance actually looks like. So what I want to do is I want to point out three things. They don't go in any chronological order or anything like that. I want us to learn three things from, from this woman about what true repentance is actually like. Uh, the first component of repentance that I want to point us to is that in true repentance, you grieve over your sin.
You truly grieve over your sin. You don't have to turn there. I just want to read the scripture to you. Psalms 51, 16 and 17. David writes this after he, um, he sleeps with the woman who is married. And then, um, so that the husband, so they won't find out that, that she gets pregnant.
So they won't find out that it's his child. Um, and they, and he had sex with her before they were married. He has her husband killed so that he can go and marry her. So it's like, yo, the baby is, the baby was mine. We got pregnant after we were married. And so a prophet comes to David, um, just kind of points out, Hey God, I know what you did.
God knows what you did. David repents. And this is how he, this is what he writes kind of in that time of, of repentance. He says, for you will not delight in sacrifice. He's talking to God for you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it. You will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
And he says, the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken contrite heart. Contrite means feeling or expressing remorse, uh, over wrongdoing. He says, geez, what, what God really wants is not a, a, a sacrifice, not for us to, for at, at their time to kill an animal and offer it up to God. What God wants is for us to be broken over our sin, that our hearts would hurt. And mourn and grieve over the fact that we've done wrong. And I believe, man, I believe sin is at its most dangerous point in our lives when it convinces us that it's not a big deal.
When it convinces us that it's not, it's not really that, that big of a problem. Like when we get into believing the lie that, oh, well, God has mercy for me. So that means, you know, I can, I don't have to fight viciously against the sin, uh, in my life. I don't, I don't need to truly be broken over it. Like, you know, when God sees me, he sees, you know, Christ's righteousness over me. So I don't really need to be doing battle, uh, against my sin and waging war against my sin.
Um, one of the things I love about, uh, Mill City Church is I know, uh, I know Matt to some degree. I know, I know Chet better as Chet was saying, I know that the pastors of your church are, are appropriately, properly emphasizing God's grace. Like appropriately pointing you to the fact that, Hey, your relationship with God, you're standing with God. The fact that you have favor with God has nothing to do with how good you perform, has nothing to do with how good you are at, at kind of making yourself up, make yourself look like you're, you're a good person, whatever. But it has everything to do with how Jesus performed and he gives us credit for, for his righteousness and every righteous thing that he's done, uh, on the earth.
I know that, that, that is emphasized here. And I praise God for that. Cause that's the way that it should be. What I also know is that there's often a tendency in, in churches like this for us to sinfully use grace as a license to continue on in our sin. There's also an, a tendency for us to sinfully just feel like, well, you know, I, I shouldn't really feel bad about my sin, right? Cause I'm forgiven.
Like I shouldn't really be heartbroken over it. Right. Since I'm, since I'm forgiven. Um, so, uh, in my marriage, when I, when I sin against my wife, um, my wife is great about offering forgiveness. She forgives faster than I do. I don't know how she does it.
It's just like God's spirit at work in her. And even though I am forgiven, if I do something that offends her, I still feel that like she's not condemning me. So I'm not trying to say we should feel condemned over our sin, but I am saying there should be a level of remorse. So she'll be a level of, of, uh, a contrite heart, even though we know that God forgives us a level of, of remorse that causes us to fight our sin. Uh, another scripture I wanted to, uh, to read for second Corinthians chapter seven, actually Paul writes, uh, godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret.
Paul says that, that a godly grief, when we grieve properly over our sin, it actually leads us to repentance. It actually leads us to salvation. That's what this, this, this prostitute is, is modeling for us beautifully. Just, uh, uh, uh, being broken to the point of tears over, over her sin. Let's read on a little bit farther.
Still in verse 38. It says that she wiped them with, wiped his feet with the hair of her head and kissed his feet. So it's likely at this time, she's no longer standing. If she is wiping Jesus' feet with her hair, she's likely kneeling down now. So she's still bawling.
She's still crying and she has let down her hair. She's using her hair to wipe and wash Jesus' feet at this time. There's a couple of things going on here. Um, first one is, uh, women at this time always wore their hair up. It was a cultural thing. Um, and, and it was, uh, kind of the tradition was a woman only let her hair down for her husband.
Right? It was such a, a, a communication of, of, of intimacy, uh, that many people believe that it was grounds for divorce. If a woman let her hair down in front of another man, this is what she would have done for her clients. Right? So as she's, as she is attracting a potential client, she's let her hair down.
She's wearing a perfume. They know what she is into. She's displaying most likely to the, to the greatest degree that she can, a level of, of, of intimacy and maybe even desire for Jesus in this moment in the most scandalous way possible, I would say. And it says, she begins kissing his feet. Now, um, some of you in here, I know, I see we've got a few, a few married couples in here. Some of y'all married couples are like, I wish my spouse would ask me for a foot rug.
Right? I wish, I wish you, I am waiting on you to do that just so I can let you know about yourself. Uh, but this, so some of y'all just like feet are just nasty and dirty. Like I don't mess with you. I don't mess with people's feet. Right?
Uh, Jesus's feet would have been more messed up than your spouse's feet, uh, would have been. I feel weird saying God has smelly feet, but it's, it's, it's a thing. So they, they generally walked either barefoot or in sandals. Uh, and so they, and they also walked on dirt roads and they shared roads with animals. Right? So these roads are, are nasty.
Again, they don't shower a whole lot, kind of musty around there. Uh, they, their feet would have been extremely dirty. Her lips are on Jesus's feet right now. She is kissing his feet. That's important because they're having a meal, right? They're having dinner.
They're reclining at a table. She doesn't come in and just roll up on the table and be like, oh, Jesus, I need to talk to you about something. No, no. She goes straight to his feet, recognizing and acknowledging. We'll talk about more a little in a little bit, acknowledging that Jesus is greater than she is. Acknowledging that she does not deserve a seat at Jesus's table.
She's not deserved to eat with him. So she goes straight to his feet. Component of repentance is number two that I'm going to point us to that this, uh, this lady, this woman models for us is you realize you aren't worthy of Jesus. You realize you aren't worthy of Jesus. You realize that we, that we, none of us truly deserve because of our sinfulness and because of how perfect and holy and sinless God is that none of us deserve to be at his table. None of us deserve to truly be able to fellowship with him.
None of us deserve to, to, to, to truly know him and be known by him because of our sin. This, this, this woman who has grieved over her sin, who to some degree is grasping the weight and the gravity of her sin. She's come to realize, I don't, I don't deserve to be at Jesus's table. I don't deserve to know him, uh, in that way. And here's the, I think probably for a lot of us in here, if you've been here for a while, uh, you've probably heard that before that we all need grace. And the only way we get to God and have a relationship with him is because of what Jesus did on the cross in our place.
But I think sometimes we can believe that we, uh, that we understand that and we can believe that kind of intellectually understand that we are not worthy of him, but sometimes it functionally hasn't hit our hearts. Uh, so, so for example, I, a lot of times I've met people who, who would say, yes, I'm only saved by grace. I'm, I'm, I'm based on my works. I'm not worthy of, of truly knowing God, but there's still zero level of gratitude and zero level of rejoicing because we are able to fellowship with, with God because of what Christ has done. Does that make sense? It's like, I want us to be, uh, paying very careful attention to our hearts a little bit.
It's like, Hey, if you, if you are not in some way grateful, if that doesn't do something for, for your soul and grant you some level of joy that you can fellowship with God because of what Christ has done, you think you're worthy of Jesus. You think you're worthy to sit at his table and eat with him. And it probably goes back to the first point of, you don't, you don't understand the gravity of your sin. You don't understand the, the depths of how, of how sinful each of us are. Let's move on and read the last part of the verse.
It says, and anointed them with the ointment. So she takes this alabaster flask that she has, this ointment that she has and says she anoints Jesus' feet. Well, the, uh, the way that they kind of made those flasks back then is you, they made it so you can only get a little bit out at a time. It's probably really expensive. You don't want to waste any so you can only get a little bit out. So for, for her to anoint Jesus' feet, the way that she is, she would have had to break her flask.
Like you can't just, cause all you, all you got out was a little dab. Like you, you're not going to get a full drop out at one time. And so she would have had to break her flask. Now remember the importance of the flash to her, for her occupation, for her hustle, right? She, she needs this for her job, for her occupation, for this, this flash is a sense of security for her, right? This is how she makes money.
This is how she survives. This is how she lives. She comes in, she sees Jesus. She recognizes the depths of her sin and she breaks it and she pours it out on Jesus' feet. This is her saying very loud and clear. I'm completely turning away from my lifestyle of sin.
I'm completely turning away this lifestyle of, of prostitution that I've been in. I've grieved my sin. I know that I'm not worthy of him. The third point of the third component of repentance. I want us to, I want to point us to, excuse me today is you realize that Jesus is better than your sin. You realize that Jesus is better than whatever fill in the blank is for you that for those of us in the room who are kind of naturally rebellious, kind of naturally like to turn away from God.
Whatever, whatever that is that you run to, that, that, that you turn to third point of repentance is you realize Jesus is just better. He's just better. What he has for us is just, it's better. Ultimately, it brings more lasting joy. I can only imagine. She, she thought living this life previously, she thought it was the best way for her to live.
She thought this is what she, what she should do. This is how I'm going to make it in this life. She means Jesus and she's like, no, I was, I was completely wrong. So in Genesis chapter three, if I can, if I can paraphrase it, uh, kind of put into my own words, what, what saint Satan does is he's talking to Eve, uh, to, to get her to, to sin against God by eating the fruit that God called her not to eat. He basically comes to her and says, uh, Hey, God's actually withholding something good from you. God's actually preventing you from having something of good, something of value.
God's withholding the good stuff and he's keeping it all to himself and he's restricting you from having what is actually good. If you actually eat from this, this tree, you'll be a little bit happier. You'll have, you'll have more joy. There'll be more benefits in your life. If you try to live independently of the way God has called you to live, it's literally the oldest trick in the Bible. It's the oldest lie in the Bible.
It's the oldest trick in the book. And for those of us in here who are naturally rebellious, like this woman, Satan feeds that to you all the time. I think it's his most effective life. You will find more joy, more peace, more happiness, more life, more vitality outside of the way God calls for you to live. Again, if you, if you have a natural bend towards rebellion in here, Satan is, he's giving you that over and over and over. This woman ultimately gets to the end of a rope and finds out that that's a lie.
Realizing that Jesus is better than your sin. All right. So in verse 39, Simon takes note of everything that's going on. And Jesus is about to teach him a little something, something. Verse 39. Now, when the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, if this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who was touching him, for she is a sinner.
So Simon looks, Simon looks at this woman and is like, hey, she's not, this woman should not be fellowshipping with us. Like she should not be touching Jesus. If Jesus is actually a holy man. No. Did she, he, uh, one thing that, that this chapter also does. And, um, I said a little bit earlier, I want to spend some time talking to specifically to people who maybe are not as naturally rebellious, but as you're, as we're going our own mission, making disciples, we want to come across people who are, and we need to know how to interact with them, how to, how to show them the love of Christ.
Well, Simon is, it just gave us the perfect example of what not to do. Simon basically says, Hey, if you want to, if, um, you're not able to roll with us cause you're, you're, you're too, too sinful for us. You're not welcome to sit at my table cause you're, you're, you're too sinful. You need, you need to be separated. You need, you need to be somewhere. This is exactly the opposite of what we are to do.
Basically he's communicating, Hey, people who are as simple as you are not, are not welcome around here, right? People who, who to some degree smell of the sins that they commit, not welcome here. Don't sit beside me. Don't get anywhere near my kids. Do not. You're an I'm, I'm rejecting fellowship with you because of your sin.
Exactly the opposite of what Jesus does and exactly how we should not live. Um, as believers, verse 40. And Jesus answering said to him, Simon, I have something to say to you. And he answered, say a teacher. So Jesus is about to give him a, give him a parable to teach him a little something.
Verse 41. A certain money lender had two debtors. One owed 500 denarii and the other 50. So, uh, basically what he's saying is there's a guy who gives out loans to people. Uh, one of them, oh, one of them, uh, he, he lended out 50 denarii. A denarii, uh, for an average worker was about a day's wages.
So we're talking a little bit over a month, a little bit under two months, a month and a half ish, uh, wages. And he said the other owed 500 denarii. So we're talking about over a year, maybe a year and a third, something like that. So this is a lot, a lot of money, a year, over a year's worth of wages. One of them owed verse 42. When they could not pay, he canceled the debt of both.
Now, which of them will love him more? Verse 43. Simon answered the one, I suppose, for whom he canceled the larger debt. Simon says the one, I suppose, whom he can, he's like, well, technically, I guess, depends on how you look at it, maybe sort of the one who owed the larger debt will end up loving more. And Jesus says, you have judged rightly. Jesus says, bingo, Simon, you got it.
Uh, so Jesus is basically making the point that those who, who, who understand, um, that Jesus has, has forgiven them of a lot, will love him more, will, will, will desire him more, will have more affection for him than those who feel like they've only been forgiven for a little bit. Right? So those of us who, who are naturally rebellious, kind of open with our sin, not really trying to hide it. I believe to some degree you, you have, uh, I guess, I guess I would say even an advantage in, um, in understanding God's grace. Cause your sin is, your sin is out there. I think a lot of times for, for people who are naturally rebellious, there can be a tendency, um, to, to, to see it, but not, but not feel the gravity of it.
Um, but Jesus says those who, who understand they're forgiven more will, will definitely love more. Verse 44. Jesus talking to Simon. Do you see this woman? I entered your house and you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. Jesus is giving them a comparison.
Uh, he's comparing how Simon has treated him since he came to the house and how the prostitute has treated him since she came into the house. He says, I'll read that again. Uh, enter your house. You gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in, she has not ceased to kiss my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment.
All right. There are some cultural norms that are going on in this passage, uh, that I want to clue us in on. So, uh, the first one, the first thing Jesus says, the first comparison that he makes, I should say is, um, he says, you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. So the custom at that time was when you come to someone's house for a meal, if they're, if they are wealthy, if they have a servant, they'll have their servant come out with a basin of water and the servant will wash your feet. Again, people's feet were dirty at this time.
You've been walking, probably walking a long distance, dirt roads around animals, all that kind of stuff. So that's the custom. Jesus saying, Simon, you didn't even bring, not only did you not have your servant come out, you didn't even bring me water so I can wash my own feet. And she is washing my feet with her tears and her hair. Next point Jesus makes, you gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in, she has not ceased to kiss my feet. So at that time, when someone comes to your house, if you are, if you consider yourself an equal with them, you'll probably kiss them on the cheek when they come in, just a kind of a greeting.
Uh, if you feel like they are greater than you, you probably kissed them on the hand, right? You take their hand, you kiss their hand, acknowledging they're a little bit greater than you are. This woman comes in and she is kissing Jesus' feet. Acknowledging Jesus is, is, is far greater going above and beyond what is, what is the normal, I guess, uh, expected thing of her. Last thing Jesus says, you did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. One of the things they did to mask the smell around dinner times, they would put oil a little bit on their, maybe on their head, maybe on their shoulders and neck to kind of mask the smell a little bit.
Uh, Jesus says, you didn't even give me any oil. And she has completely poured out all this ointment and her perfume, um, on me. This true heart of repentance. I will say once we, when we really come to understand that Jesus is better than our sin, we don't try to find the minimum of what it takes to do to still be counted a Christian. This woman is going far beyond the custom, far beyond what is expected to be. True, true repentance does not lead us to a point of saying, okay, I still, I, what, Jesus, what's the minimum, like what's, what's the minimum that I have to do in order for, for, for, for me to be, be, be, be okay.
Right. So when I was, uh, uh, in like elementary school, uh, took swimming lessons at a, at a pool back where I grew up in Chester, uh, South Carolina. And, um, we, we did our lessons at first, like in the three feet. And they, they kind of told you at the beginning on the last day, we're going to the 12 foot. Right. And so I was always just like super, super excited about that last day when I'd be able to jump in, jump, jump in the, in the deep water, if you would.
So that's, that's a little bit about what, what, what Christianity is to be like. It's like this, this one, this woman is saying, I'm not trying to stay in the kiddie pool. I want to, as much as I can give to worship God, as much as I can grow in worshiping God with my whole life. That's what I want to do. Once she realizes that, that her, her life of sin does not compare to the life Christ offers, she is full in going all out, not trying to find the minimum that she can do. This is what true repentance looks like.
Let's jump to verse 47. Jesus gets to his main point. Therefore, I tell you her sins, which are many are forgiven for she loved much, but he who is forgiven little loves little. So there's two sinful people in the room. One of them acknowledges her sin and one of them does not. And he's saying this woman loves much because she really understands how much she's been, how much she's been forgiven for.
And this kind of takes us back to, to verse one. But when we, when we actually, when we minimize our sin, act like it's not a big deal. Act like, you know, we, we, we, we deserve fellowship, fellowship with God. We're actually robbing ourselves of true joy and true love for the Lord. So here's what I mean.
So we got the, the level that we understand God's grace and God's grace is basically, it's what fills the gap between how, how sinful we are and how, how righteous God is. Right. And how much he has, he has forgiven us for. So if we, if we feel like we only have this much sin, then that means God's grace is only about that big. But if we, if we are, if we are broken, heartbroken, if we are amazed at, at how much we have sinned against God and the fact that he's still forgiven us, then God's grace all of a sudden becomes amazing.
Like if we see our sin as something that's just outstanding, something that is, that is incredibly wrong and offensive against God, then we'll look at God's grace and be completely amazed and actually be able to enjoy his grace as it truly is, instead of living under and believing the lie that our sin really isn't a big deal. Jesus says, being able to see the depths of our sin is actually a part of the path to really understanding his grace, really loving him and really being able to appreciate his mercy. If we see our sin as enormous, then we will see his grace and his forgiveness as enormous also. So how do, how do we get there?
Right? How do we get to the point where maybe some of us have walked in here today where it's like, yeah, I, I, I relate. I minimize my, I minimize my sin and I don't really know what to do about that. How, what, what, what is our step? What kind of helps grow our understanding for the depths of our sin, for the fact that we are worthy of God and, and what, what grows our understanding of the fact that Christ is really better? It's the cross.
It's the cross of Jesus where God, the father looks down at his, his beloved son, whom he has loved for all eternity. When he looks down at him and condemns him for every sin that I've ever committed. When, when he, and all of his, and all of his righteous judgment on the cross punishes his son whom he loves, who was never sinned, who has never done anything wrong. We see, Hey, God thinks sin is a big deal. God thinks sin is a big deal. If the way for us to be reconciled with God and have, and have a relationship with him and be able to fellowship with him and be able to sit at his table.
If, if, if the way that that happens is that God has to kill his own son on the cross, God doesn't minimize sin. God takes sin way more seriously than I do because it costs the blood of his, of his son. Also for, for, for on, on that cross where God, where Jesus takes upon himself, our sins, all of our wrongdoing, God condemns him. We receive credit for all of his, all of his righteousness, all of his goodness, all of, all of his purity that, that, that shows me, Hey, I, I'm not worthy of, of him. I'm not worthy of God. If my sin is so bad that it leads to that.
And he is spotless and clean and righteous. I'm not worthy to sit at his table. I'm not worthy to fellowship with him. I'm not worthy to truly be in relationship with him. My favorite thing is that the cross also shows us, man, Jesus is better than my sin. This kind of love, righteousness, this kind of mercy, this, this, this, this kind of grace, this, this kind of sovereignty, this kind of, of power that he has, that he would do this to, to, to, to redeem this world after what sin has done in my life, in your life, in our hearts, this, this incredible grace that he's showing.
Man, man, that's better than anything I've ever chased after before. That is better than anything. The cross is the solution to our, our lack of desire to repent. These, these, these points of repentance, they're, they're specifically in this context is kind of showing what, what it looks like for someone who is rebellious. But let's, let's, let's be honest.
It's for everybody. Whether you're naturally rebellious or whether you're not, these, these points of repentance, these, these things about repentance that we see in God's word applies, applies to us all. And some of my times in my, in my walk with the Lord, where I, where I felt just most dry in, in, in, in my relationship with God, in my walk with the Lord, when I felt the least amount of joy, when I look back over them, I, I believe those are times where I minimized my sin the most. I believe those are times where I just wasn't broken over my sin. That's, I wasn't amazed by his grace. I wasn't amazed by his righteousness.
And, and so I, I just want to encourage some of us today. If you, if you ever feel like in your walk with the Lord, you're just kind of going through the motions. You're just kind of, there's no real life and, and vitality and there's no real rejoicing in there, but I'm just kind of, you know, I'm doing my, my, my, my Christian thing. I come on a Sunday. I, I try to pray. I try to read the Bible sometimes.
You know, I come to a community groups at times. If you ever feel like you're just kind of going through the motions, I want to ask you, man. Have you, when's the last time you grieved over your sin? When's the last time your sin broke your heart? And from there you went and looked into the cross of Jesus. You ran to Jesus's feet like this woman and, and found a level of acceptance and mercy and grace that just blows you away.
When's the last time you've, you've been there? Let's jump to verse 48. We want to read 48 through 50. And that'll, that'll conclude our time for us. So Jesus sees everything this woman has done in her repentance and her turning to him.
Verse 48. And he said to her, your sins are forgiven. Then those who were at the table with him began to say among themselves, who is this who, who even forgives sins? And he said to the woman, your faith has saved you. Go in peace. He's saying to this woman, you, you, you've grieved over your sin.
You've been heartbroken over your sin. You, you, you've shown that you don't, that you don't feel worthy. You've realized that, that, that I am better than your sin. You can go in the peace of knowing that the, the burden, the weight, the guilt, the shame of your sin has now been lifted off of your shoulders. You've been forgiven. There's a level of peace that just, that just comes after a biblical mourning of our sin.
There's a level of, of peace that we can rest in knowing that the, the biggest burden that mankind has ever borne, which is the weight of our sins. Christ on the cross, lift it off of your shoulders. There's a, there's a, there's an ability to breathe a little bit easier. Now there's a level of, of peace in our souls of knowing we are the forgiven people of God. Jesus tells this woman to go in peace. Going, go in peace, knowing that Jesus responds to you with unlimited mercy and grace and forgiveness.
Knowing that Jesus responds to you is welcome. Welcome. Yes, you, you, you can't eat with me. Knowing that Jesus, that Jesus, Jesus is, excuse me, eternal response to you is if, if any of you are familiar with the book of Revelation, there's a, there's a table. There's a feast in the book of Revelation where God's people are finally, ultimately fully united with him on the last day in heaven. And we are sitting around the table at the marriage feast of the lamb.
Where everybody who is unworthy to sit at Jesus's table is at his table as we celebrate our union with him. Jesus responds to you. If you are rebellious and broken over your sin is complete acceptance. And because you came to my feet, you can sit at my table. You can eat with me. You can fellowship with me.
There's a level of peace in that, that is beyond anything that this world can offer. So what I want to do, I'm going to actually invite the band to come on up. And we're going to have a little bit of time of communion. And even as I've talked about Christ's crucifixion and what he's done for us on the cross is, is how we, is what leads us to true repentance. It's what leads us to understanding the seriousness of our sin, understanding that Christ is better than anything that we've ever run to or any sin that we've ever had. Understanding that we're not worthy of Jesus.
Christ says when we take communion, do it in remembrance of him. So when he breaks the bread and gives it to his disciples, he says, this is my body, which was broken for you. And when he passes around the cup, he says, this is my blood that was shed. Do this in remembrance of me. So what I want to ask us to do today is take a little bit of time, remember what Christ has done for us on the cross as we partake.
I want to pray for us, and the band's going to kind of sing over us as we take communion today. Lord, thank you for your goodness, Lord. Thank you for your mercy. Thank you, Lord, that you forgive sinners and you give grace to those who have felt the weight of our sin. Lord, I pray today will be a time of just peace and just joy in knowing that you have lifted the weight of our sins off of our shoulders when you bore them on the cross. I pray you will grant us all true repentance and faith.
It's in Christ's name that I pray. Amen.
Jesus and the Wounded
Transcript
All right, well, it's good to see you guys this morning. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Matt Freeman. I'm one of the pastors here with Mill City Church. And I am very, very excited about the scripture that we're going to be looking at this morning. Um, because it's one of my favorite interactions that Jesus has with any person in the Gospels. In fact, it's one of the earliest stories that I can remember from my childhood.
And since then, it's just been one of my favorite stories. And I think part of that is because there's so much in this story that I think that all of us are actually going to be able to relate to. So I'm just really excited about it. Um, we're in the second week of our Jesus and People series. And what we're aiming to do in this series is take a look at the Gospels and try to answer the question, How does God want to relate to me in normal, everyday life? Okay, and I'm going to say that again.
How does God want to relate to me in normal, everyday life? And for most of us, it's kind of hard for us to imagine because God seems so far off sometimes in the day in and day out of our lives. And the New Testament kind of picks up on this idea. And here's what it says in Colossians 1.15. It says that He, when it says He, it means Jesus. Jesus is the image of the invisible God.
Jesus is the image of the invisible God. So that when we look at the life of Jesus, when we look at the things that He said, the things that He did, the conversations and the interactions that He had with people, we're actually getting a perfect reflection of God's character and nature. So that's what we're doing in this series. We're going to the Gospels and we're looking where Jesus has interaction with people. And we're saying, okay, what do we learn about Jesus and how He relates to a person? And how is Jesus wanting us to relate to Him?
And then we're bringing it to our side and trying to apply it and say, okay, what does it look like for Jesus to relate to us in normal, everyday life? How is He calling on me to relate to Him? And last week, Chet kicked off our series by talking about Jesus and how He relates to the desperate. And we looked at the story. There were two different characters in the story. You had Jairus who was a synagogue ruler and his young daughter was sick and at the point of death.
And he comes running to Jesus in his desperation. And Jesus meets him in his time of need. There's a woman that had had a bleeding disorder for 12 years. And she runs up just to grab the hem of Jesus' garment. And she's healed. Jesus meets her in her time of need.
And what we're looking at this morning is a little bit different. And in fact, it's going to be a little bit harder for us to see because it's something that can be so easily hidden. And in a room this size, I would guess that we have people in this room that are struggling with the very thing that I'm talking about. That there's something in your past. Maybe it's something that you've done. Maybe it was something that was done against you.
Hurt, pain, and shame that you just don't want people to know about. Much less God. What would God think of me if he knew the things that I did? Would he love me? Would he accept me? What about other people?
Would they love me and would they accept me? And as we walk through this story this morning, if you begin to relate to the character that Jesus is talking to, my prayer for you is that you see very clearly how Jesus wants to relate to you this morning. And if we walk through it and you're not necessarily relating to the person in this story, what I want you to see is how Jesus relates to her so that we as Christians, so that we as a church can help people who are walking through this situation. Okay? So we kind of understand what we're listening for.
So if it impacts us, we want to see how Jesus wants to relate to us. And if it doesn't necessarily land, we're looking at how do we as Christians engage with people in normal everyday life who might be struggling with this. Okay? So I'm going to pray before we hop in. I'm going to ask the Holy Spirit to open up our minds, open up our hearts so that we can understand God's word. You guys pray.
Let's pray. God, I thank you for this morning. I thank you for the truth that is revealed in this story. I thank you for what we're going to get to see. God, I'm asking by the power of your Holy Spirit that you would open us up. God, that we would let our guard down, that we would very clearly hear from you this morning, that we would see how Jesus wants to relate to us, God, and how we in turn are to respond to him.
I ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen. All right. So if you've got a Bible, go ahead and grab it. We're going to be in the book of John, chapter 4. And the story that we're going to be looking at is commonly referred to as Jesus and the woman at the well.
And so if you don't have a Bible, just grab one of those blue and white Bibles that we have sitting on the seats. It's actually going to be on page 578. If you brought your own Bible, I don't know what page it's going to be on. Good luck. And if you're here this morning and you don't have a Bible, please just take one of those with you. That's what they're there for.
We want everyone to have a Bible. And before we hop in, I just want to set the stage for what we're about to do. What we're going to look at is a rather long conversation that Jesus has with this woman. And so we're going to walk all the way through the conversation. We're going to point out important details. We're going to look at the things that Jesus says, the things that she says.
And then at the very end, we're going to land on our main point and settle there for a little bit so that we can see how Jesus wants to relate to us and how we ought to relate to him. Okay? Make sense? All right. So here we go.
John, chapter 4. And we'll actually skip the first two verses. We'll start in verse 3. All right. He, and again, that's he meaning Jesus, left Judea and departed again for Galilee. And he had to pass through Samaria.
So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there. So Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour. All right.
So here's the scoop. Jesus and his disciples have been down in Judea, which is the region where Jerusalem was. He had been teaching. He had been doing miracles. He had been making disciples. And now they're going to just another region that they had spent a good amount of their time in.
And scripture tells us that he had to go through Samaria. Okay? So if you were looking at a map, and I'm going to draw you an imaginary map right here. So use your imagination. If Judea is here, then Samaria was north, and smack dab in the middle of them was Samaria. Okay?
So they had to go Judea through Samaria all the way to Galilee. And the scripture tells us that they ended up in a town called Sychar, which is where Jacob's well was. And I love that John just kind of adds in that little detail. And the well plays a prominent part in the story. But this isn't the first mention of Jacob's well that we actually see in scripture.
We see Jacob's well all the way back in the book of Genesis. God comes to Abraham. He says, I'm going to bless you, and I'm going to increase your descendants, and I'm going to bless you, the whole earth, through your family. And we see the line go from Abraham to Isaac to Jacob. And this is Jacob's well. And we even see it again later in the book of Joshua when the Israelites are coming out of Egypt and they're entering into the promised land.
There's Jacob's well. And here we are thousands of years later again. And Jacob's well is still a part of God's story. This is a small little theme that you see God's promise kind of continuing on through the scripture here. It's really cool. So verse 6, Jacob's well was there.
So Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour. A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, give me a drink. And then John tells us, for his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. And honestly, verse 6 is actually one of my favorite parts of this story because I forget sometimes that Jesus was human.
Like I know that Jesus was the son of God, but he stepped out of heaven and he was completely human. And he and his disciples had been traveling for a long time. And he's worn out. It says it was about the sixth hour. And he's sitting beside the well. And he's smelly, sweaty, hungry, thirsty, like most of us are here in Columbia during the summer.
Okay, so very similar to that. And it says it was about the sixth hour. And that's a detail that most of us would just kind of blitz right by because that's not how we tell time. But the sixth hour was noon. It was midday. It was the hottest part of the day.
And Jesus is sitting by this well and all he wants is something to drink. And lo and behold, this Samaritan woman is coming up to the well. And Jesus is like, sweet. I'm finally going to get some water. But this is actually kind of weird.
Not that the woman is coming to the well to get water. That was normal. It was the fact that she was coming to the well in the middle of the day and that she was by herself. See, the way that most cultures in this town worked was early in the morning, all the women of the village would get up together and they would travel to the well. They would all go to the well together. It was kind of like a social event.
Sometimes even children would go too. And they would travel to the well to get water for the day, water to cook with, water to clean with, even to water like small plants and crops. And part of the reason they did that was because it wasn't the hottest part of the day. And they were going to have to lug this water back into the village. And so they'd go early in the morning and then they would come back. And if they needed water for the night, right before sunset, they would all travel back to the well together and then back down into the village.
And there are still some cultures in the world that are like this. A couple of years back, I got to spend a little bit of time in Burkina Faso, which is in West Africa. It's just below the Sahara Desert. So it's very much the same kind of climate, same kind of village life that you would have expected here. And that's just what the women did. They would get up early in the morning and you'd see just one person would come out and you'd hear chatter.
You'd hear laughter. And people would just go down to the well, women and children, and then they would come back together. So we just got a clue into the story because that's not normal. Now, we don't know exactly what it means, but the fact that she's coming to the well in the middle of the day and she's coming by herself is just kind of weird. Okay? So Jesus is sitting there.
He's tired. He's thirsty. He's like, jackpot, score. I'm finally going to get something to drink. And he asked her for a drink. In verse 9, The Samaritan woman said to him, How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?
And then John adds in the note, For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. Okay. Well, this conversation just went to a whole other level. Read that again. The Samaritan woman said to him, How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria? For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.
So Jesus just asked this lady for a drink. Not a whole lot to ask for, right? He's just tired. He's thirsty. And her response is kind of cold, kind of distance, putting him at arm's length. And what we're actually seeing unfold here is a nearly thousand-year-old feud between these two groups of people, between the Jews and the Samaritans.
And if you were with us back in the fall during our Bible story series, we actually touched on this briefly, that after the reign of Solomon, the nation of Israel split in two between the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom. And what we see through the entire Old Testament is that God's promise, His covenant promise remains with the southern kingdom, with Judah. And the northern kingdom does okay for a little while, But over time they start to marry in with different people groups in the area. They start worshiping other gods. Assyria comes in and swallows them up whole and then spits them back out into the region.
And they resettle there. And by the time they're resettled in this area, they're not even referred to as Israelites anymore. They're being referred to as Samaritans. So the Jews and the Samaritans hated each other because the Jews looked down on them because they were half-breeds. They had gone back on their heritage. And the Samaritans hated the Jews because they excluded them.
They just pushed them out. In fact, if a Jew called another Jew a Samaritan, them's fighting words. I mean, that's like a four-letter word to them. Devout Jews at this time. Again, we've got to go back to our imaginary map. I'm sure you haven't forgotten it.
Devout Jews would have to go. Devout Jews so that they could go from Judea to Samaria. Here's what they would do. They would start here in Judea. They would cross the Jordan River. That's my river.
They would cross the river. They would go up the Jordan River until they were parallel with Galilee. And they would cross back over just so that they didn't have to go through the land of the half-breed Samaritans. I mean, that's hatred. That's pure hatred. That would be like me saying to get from Clemson to Charleston, two of the greatest cities in the world.
Amen. All right. To get from Clemson to Charleston, I'm going to cross over into Georgia. I'm going to go from Augusta all the way down to Savannah. And then I'm going to come up the coast to Charleston just so that I don't have to go through the heart of Gamecock country. And trust me, I thought about it.
And then I moved here, so there's that. In fact, people ask me all the time from back home, like, you moved to Columbia to plant a church? I was like, yeah. I mean, somebody's got to share the good news with the Gamecocks. Why does Matt secretly wear orange all the time? Oh, don't.
That's okay. It's okay, guys. You'll come around. And so Jesus is sitting by this well, and the Samaritan woman comes up, and he casually asks her for a drink of water. And she's just like, who are you, a Jew, talking to me, a Samaritan woman? You can just feel that tension.
But not just that. She plays the gender card, too. She says, you're a Jew, and I'm a Samaritan woman. Because that's another thing. In that culture, men and women didn't talk to each other when they were alone like that, especially if they were strangers. So this conversation just keeps getting weirder.
She's coming to the well at a weird time. There's this weird kind of tension in this relationship. She's kind of being cold and calloused. And here's what Jesus said to her. Let's pick it back up in the story.
Verse 10. Jesus answered her, if you knew the gift of God and who it is that is saying to you, give me a drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water. The woman said to him, sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Okay, you can picture this, right? There's a smelly Jewish guy.
I'm sweaty. I should say sweaty, not just smelly. He's smelly and sweaty. Jewish guy sitting by the well, and he asks her for a drink of water. And when she rejects him, his response is, oh, yeah? Well, if you knew the gift of God and who it is that is talking to you, you would have asked me, and I would have given you living water.
And her reaction is like, say what? Bruh, you don't even have a bucket, and the well is deep. I think you've been out in the sun too long. Maybe you're just a little bit dehydrated. And before we go too far with that, it's not, it's probably not like that, where she thought he was crazy for this idea of living water, though we kind of get tripped up on that phrase. It was actually his ability to pull it off.
Because when he's using that phrase living water, living is exactly the same way that we would use the phrase running. We would be saying running water. Now, not like running water out of a faucet, more like you're standing beside a river, and this is running water. This is a constant source of movement. It's this continual welling up of water heading down a stream. So it's not like Jesus walked up and said, hey, you want some of my magic beans?
It's more like well water. I've got a constant source of water you don't even know anything about. And she, again, she's just kind of cold and calloused. And it's like, you don't have a bucket, and this well is deep. And she continues on in verse number 12. She says, who do you think you are?
Who you are in the gift of God. Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us this well. He drank from it himself. And Jesus responds in 13. Jesus said to her, everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again.
But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life. The woman said to him, sir, give me this water so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water. Okay, obviously at this point we're starting to realize that Jesus and this woman are having two different conversations. What she's saying is, give me some of this water so that I don't have to be thirsty again, so I won't have to keep coming up here to the well to draw water. That sounds great.
But Jesus isn't talking about spiritual water. He's not talking about physical water. He's talking about spiritual water. He's talking about something completely different, and she's missing it. Think about what Jesus has said. He said, if you knew the gift of God and who it is that is talking to you, you'd have asked me and I would have given you living water that would become in you a spring of water welling up to eternal life.
And this metaphor is found all throughout the Old Testament. We're going to see in just a little bit. She's not unaware of these Old Testament passages. She's not unaware of these prophecies. And what Jesus is saying is that this promised Messiah, this promised Redeemer, this river of life that can well up, that can save and bring about eternal life, I'm right here. If you knew who I am and the gift of God, and she is completely missing it.
Verse 16, Jesus said to her, Go, call your husband, and come here. The woman answered him, I have no husband. Jesus said to her, You are right in saying I have no husband, for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true. And the conversation just changed. You ever been in one of those conversations where two people are kind of going back and forth and back and forth, and finally somebody says something and it feels like the air gets sucked out of the room?
That's this moment. You can almost imagine. You can almost imagine her. She's kind of perturbed. She's annoyed with this whole conversation. She's finally got her water bucket.
She's just going to head back down into the village. And Jesus says, Go call your husband. She leans back over her shoulder. I don't have one of those. And Jesus says, Yeah, I know. In fact, I know that you've had five husbands, and the man that you're with now is not your husband.
What you have said is true. Stops her. Dead in her tracks. And now for the first time, all of the details, all the little things that we've begun to see in this conversation begin to add up. The fact that she's going to the well in the middle of the day. The fact that she's alone.
The fact that she seems a little bitter. A little calloused. Playing the Samaritan card. Playing the woman card. What this woman, the way I would describe her, is she's someone that is wounded. This woman, whether it's things that she's done, or things that have been done against her, over her life, she's just built up this brick wall around herself, so that people can't get in.
She's been hurt too much. She's gone through too much. And she just wants to keep people out. And I feel like so many of us in this room kind of do the same thing. We don't want to let people in. And it now begins to make sense why this woman was going to the well in the middle of the day by herself.
And here's what I want us to do. We're going to take a time out. Because so often when we read through scripture, we'll go right by that. And we won't think about the implications of what Jesus just said. What he just brought to light. But I want us to just imagine for a second what life actually would have been like for this woman.
Okay? So Jesus just said that she's had five husbands. Here's the options. Okay? Either all five of her husbands have died, all five of them divorced her, or some combination of that. Okay?
So all five died, all five divorced her, or it was some kind of combination thereof. And most scholars believe that the way the text reads and what it's implying here is the divorce. And here's how divorce worked at that time. Only men could initiate divorce. You ever been in love? Some of you are married.
I hope you're in love now. And it just didn't work out. And you had your heart break. Imagine being this woman, and she's married, and she's been told not once, not twice, but five times, you have no value to me. And this was a public thing. It was done in public.
He would write her a letter, and he would kick her out of the house in public shame. And this has happened five times. And this is the worst possible scenario for her, because she's a woman in a culture that did not value women. And this is a side note, and this one's just for free. This is one of the reasons that I love Jesus, and I love our faith so much, is because for centuries, Christians have been on the forefront of fighting for women's rights, that they would be treated with value, and dignity, and honor, and respect. But that's not what this woman had.
This woman actually had no rights outside of either her father or her husband. No economic standing, no status, no ability to go get a job, no ability to go buy land, nothing. And so when she is kicked from her house, she is left with absolutely nothing. And all a man had to do was to find one little fault, and he could write her a letter, and kick her to the curb. Could you imagine the shame and the pain that she felt? And not only that, what do you think life's like for her right now in this village?
Do you think she has any female friends? No. She's the woman that everyone whispers about. She's the one that they all want to gossip about. And when she walks by in the marketplace, wives whisper to their husband, look at that tramp. I better not ever see you talking to her.
Men probably made jokes at her expense as they heard stories from her divorced husbands. It's probably why she stopped going to the well with the other women. She could feel the judgmental glances. She could hear them whispering. She could hear the giggles. And she just couldn't stand it anymore.
And now the only place that this woman feels accepted is with a man who doesn't even have the decency to marry her. Just use and abuse her. Can you feel that? She's just eking out an existence at this point. She doesn't care about respect anymore. She just wants to survive.
And you've got to imagine at some point she's had to ask the question, what is fundamentally wrong with me? I'm broken. I'm damaged. I'm incapable of being loved. And the truth is, there's some of us in this room this morning that are feeling the exact same way. You've got stuff stored up from your past, things that you've done, things that have been done against you, pain and shame and hurt and regret, things that are in your past, those skeletons in your closet that you don't want anybody to know about because you don't know if you'll be loved.
You don't know if you'll be accepted. Maybe it's a loved one that you feel was stolen from you too soon. You've got bitterness locked up inside. Maybe it's the shame that you feel from being molested by some evil jerk when you were a child. Maybe it's the drug addiction that you hide from your family and friends, unable to cope and figure out what to do next. Maybe it's how a church treated you when you found out you were pregnant before you were married.
In fact, that may be more people in this room that would care to admit that a church or a Christian may have treated them poorly and there's so much pain and there's so much hurt. What if it's the secret that you're hiding that you're actually secretly attracted to the same gender? Maybe it's your living situation. Having to lie, having to fake it with your family and friends that you're living with someone you're not married to. You feel alone and isolated and you've just kind of decided that this is how life is going to be. You've gotten really good at faking it.
When the subject's brought up in a conversation, you've gotten really good at just kind of steering it the opposite direction. Pretending on the outside that you're fine while on the inside, you are an absolute mess. Asking the question, how could God ever love me? I'm so dirty. I've got so much shame. I've got so much regret.
And what has happened is that you've allowed the past to define who you are. As the past has begun to define who you are. And this woman is in the exact same situation. She is at the end of her rope. She's hurt. She's got so much pain and she doesn't know what to do with it.
She's got this brick wall that she's built up around her. And Jesus, brick by brick, is tearing this wall down and she finally goes on the final assault. She finally throws it all out there. Verse 19. Pick it back up. The woman said to him, Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.
Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship. Jesus said to her, Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know. We worship what we know for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming and is now here when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth.
For the Father is seeking such people to worship Him. God is spirit and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth. The woman said to Him, I know that Messiah is coming, He who is called Christ. When He comes, He will tell us all things. Jesus said to her, I who speak to you am He. Jesus and this woman keep going back and forth and back and forth and finally she throws out her card.
I know that when the Messiah comes, I know that when the Christ comes, He'll be able to tell us all these things. He'll be able to answer all the hard questions. He'll be able to help me cope with what's happened to me. He'll love me. He'll accept me. And Jesus lovingly in the midst of this conversation through her pain and shame and regret says, I who speak to you am He.
I'm right here. I didn't walk away. I didn't go anywhere. The pain and the shame and the regret. I know you've had all that. I know you've had five husbands.
I know that the man you're with now is not your husband. And I'm right here. And if you're sitting in this room this morning and your heart is breaking and all the words that I'm saying, realize very clearly that Jesus' response is exactly the same to you. And it's the main point of everything that we're talking about this morning. And it's this. Your past does not have to define who you are.
Jesus gives you a new life and identity in Him. Don't just hear it. Let it sink in. Your past does not have to define who you are. Jesus gives you a new life and identity in Him. In this conversation Jesus just walks up and lovingly starts pulling down the bricks in this wall.
Samaritan, I don't care. Woman, I got that. Okay? Five husbands, I don't care. Jesus lovingly pulls down the bricks in her wall. And that's exactly what He wants to do with you.
He wants to lovingly bust through that wall. Your past does not have to define who you are. Jesus gives you a new life and a new identity with Him. Let me ask you this question. Why do you think you're sitting in this room this morning because Jesus is saying I'm right here and it gets even better. It keeps going guys.
Verse 27. Pick it back up. Just then His disciples came back. They marveled that He was talking with a woman but no one said what do you seek or why are you talking with her? So the woman left her water czar and went away into town and said to the people come see a man who told me all that I ever did.
Can this be the Christ? They went out of the town and were coming to Him. Your past does not have to define who you are. Jesus gives you a new life and identity in Him. This woman met Jesus and it changed everything. The scars that she thought would never go away were healed.
The pain that she thought would never subside went away. The shame that she carried was finally set aside because she was filled up by Jesus. She didn't even care about the water bucket anymore because she had found the gift of God. She had found Jesus and by that Jesus had filled all the empty places in her. All the void in her He had filled it. Her past no longer defined who she was.
She had been given new life and identity in Him. And in fact she's so overwhelmed by who Jesus is and what He's done that she just straight up leaves the water bucket and goes running back into town yelling at the top of her lungs come see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ? To the same women who had whispered about her to the same men that had shunned her likely to the same family and possibly some of her ex-husbands that had kicked her out because her past no longer defined who she was and the people could see it. It says the people actually came out of the town and followed her and what we're seeing in this story is a beautiful accurate picture of exactly what Jesus ultimately does for all of us.
Jesus came to this earth to take care of all of our past. All of our sin. All of our shame. All of our regret, hurt and pain. Our inability to get things right or to do good things and He died the death that we should die. Jesus paid for our past and He swapped His life for ours.
So He gives us a new life and identity in Him. He rescues us. He redeems us. He calls us fully loved, fully accepted. We are made sons and daughters. You see, this woman's past was not too much for Jesus to handle.
That's why Isaiah 53 says this, He was pierced for our transgressions, sins. He was crushed for our iniquities, another word for sins. Upon Him was the chastisement or the punishment that brought us peace and by His wounds we are healed. The reason this woman was able to run back into the town and yell at the top of her lungs is that she had left her old identity behind and had found her new identity in Him. She didn't care what people thought anymore. She wasn't living in the past.
She was looking to Jesus for her identity and for her life. Do you see the invitation that's being extended to you this morning too? Because Jesus has the same response to all of us. Maybe you're sitting in the room this morning and you're not a Christian. You're just kind of checking this Jesus thing out. His response is the same to you. your past does not have to define who you are.
Jesus gives you a new life and identity in Him. And you're saying, Matt, you don't know what I've done. You don't know what's been done to me. And what I would like to share with you is the gospel is that salvation is not based off of your work, but Jesus' work on your behalf. So whether it's the things that you do well or the things that you do that are bad or the bad things that have been done against you, Jesus says, I can take care of it.
You don't have to live in the past anymore. I'll give you new life and identity in me. And maybe you're in the room this morning, you're a Christian, but you would say you're in that category. That there's not a day goes by that you don't think about that thing, that that feeling doesn't creep into your mind, that you're not reminded of shame and pain and hurt. Jesus' response is the same to you. Your past does not define who you are.
You've already been given a new life and a new identity with him and Jesus is just saying walk in it. Don't let the past define who you are. You've been given new life and a new identity with me and you've been given a group of people that you get to walk through life with that at some point have all raised their hands and said, Jesus, take care of my past. Give me a new life and identity in you. You don't have to keep that brick wall up. You get to share it and let it out.
You don't have to carry those burdens and that baggage anymore. And maybe you're a Christian in the room and this story doesn't necessarily resonate with you. You wouldn't say that you're wounded or that you're kind of haunted by your past. Jesus shows us very clearly what it looks like for us to relate to someone who's wounded. Their past does not define who they are. Jesus gives them new life and a new identity in him. which means that we sit and listen not in judgment or condemnation but in love and compassion.
It means we open up our homes and create environments where people can be open and share the mess of their lives. There are going to be times where you have to sacrifice money, time, resources. You're going to have to pour yourself out so that others can be filled up. That's exactly what Jesus did for this woman. And you get to do so by pointing them towards Jesus. Raz and Bianca are going to come back up and we're going to stand and sing a song in a second.
And I want you to respond however you feel like Jesus is leading you to. If you're not a Christian and you have this feeling, you have this sense, Matt, I want that to be true for me. I don't want the past to define who I am. I want this new life. I want this identity. The Bible says that you're to repent of your sin, which means that you're just willing to admit it and turn away from and you place your faith in Jesus for this to be true, that he can give you new life and new identity.
If you're a Christian in the room and you're wounded, as we stand and sing, if you just need to let it out, go grab somebody in our church family, go off to the side and talk to them about it. Let it out. Let them pray over you. Let them point you back towards the gospel. Some of you may need to make a phone call and talk to somebody during this time. And for all of us, we're going to stand and praise Jesus because our past does not have to define who we are.
We're given new life and a new identity in him. Let's pray. God, please let that be true in this room. I pray that that truth would sink into our hearts, that it wouldn't just be in our heads, that it would actually be in our hearts, that we would understand that that's true. And Holy Spirit, we pray that you would move in this time, that you would draw us close to you, help us to realize that our past doesn't have to define us. We're given new life and a new identity in you.
Amen.
Jesus and the Religious
Transcript
Well, good morning. We are in our third week of our Jesus and People series. My name is Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. And what we've been doing in this series is we've been taking some time to just look at... The Bible says that Jesus is the image of the invisible God.
It says that in Colossians 1. It says in Hebrews 1 that he's the exact imprint of his nature. So that when we look at Jesus, we actually get to see the character and nature of God. And so we kind of have this understanding of how does God feel about me? Or we have questions about how does God feel about me? How would he interact with me?
And so what we've been doing in Jesus and People is just taking a look at how Jesus interacted with different groups of people, different types of people to see how does God actually respond or feel about me if I kind of fit in that category. So the first two weeks, if you fit into the category, you pretty much knew. So last week, Mac talked about that you had your identity wrapped up in past events, that you were kind of wounded. You had some past stuff that you thought defined who you were. And the week before that, we talked about people who were just completely at the end of the rope and just absolutely desperate.
And so there wasn't really a whole lot of like, when we were talking the first week about being desperate, you probably weren't sitting there going, now am I desperate? Am I in a really bad spot currently? Like do I have options or not? Like you kind of know. You're either that's me, that's where I am, or you don't. Today is going to be a little bit different because what we're going to talk about is sneaky and hides.
And so if it is you, if you kind of fit in this category, you most likely don't know. You most likely don't walk around thinking, that's me, that's you talking to me right now. Like you just don't know. And so I'm going to pray. Let's pray together that the Lord would speak to us, reveal to us where this shows up in our own hearts and our lives, so that we might best follow him.
God, we ask for your grace. We ask for your Holy Spirit to expose us today, that we might see clearly how we ought to approach you, how we ought to understand how the gospel applies to our hearts, so that we might follow you, that we might love you, and that we might feel and know your love. And we praise you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Some of you came in today and maybe you've been hanging out in Christianity a little while, or you've been checking this Jesus thing out, but most everybody knows two things about Jesus.
And so maybe you came in today and these are the only two things you know about Jesus. And you maybe have never taken the time to think about how these two things aren't really coherent together. Like they don't make a whole lot of sense. So thing one that everybody knows about Jesus, Jesus was the nicest person who ever lived. Like he's just the best. Like he would hug you if you were ugly.
That's who Jesus is. Like Jesus is just the best. He was humble. He was kind. He was loving. He was nice.
That's the first thing everybody knows about Jesus. Like if you ask somebody, hey, do you think you and Jesus would be friends? He'd be like, yeah, I think Jesus is great. Like I don't have a problem with Jesus. Thing two that we know about Jesus. Sorry, this is a two.
This is a one. Thing two that we know about Jesus, he was brutally murdered by people that hated him. Okay. Thing one, nicest person ever. Thing two, brutally murdered by people that hated him. Now that's not usually how that goes.
Like there aren't a whole lot of people that are like, that Mother Teresa, she makes me sick. Like that doesn't really happen. Like it doesn't make a lot of sense that Jesus was the nicest person ever and brutally murdered by people that hated him. Like those aren't really coherent together. And what we find as we look in the gospels and we see Jesus interacting with people is that Jesus does not get along well with religious people. Jesus does not get along well with religious people.
Now that seems weird too. Because you're like, wait, didn't he start a religion? Like aren't his followers like religious people? Like isn't that, hey bro, isn't that what we're doing right now? I can't know what this is. Like Jesus would be mad at us?
Like what's, what's going on? Like that's, that's kind of what, and the answer is no. Jesus didn't start a religion. He wasn't religious. And what we mean by religion, when we're talking about religion today, and when we're talking about religion mostly is this, this idea that what I do, my, my work, my effort, my behavior is what earns something with God. So most religions are basically do this, don't do that, and God will love you.
Do this and don't do that. You'll reach nirvana. Be this type of person. Be this nationality. It's, it's all about you. And so basically religion is this.
I obey and therefore God loves me. I obey. I behave. I'm moral. I follow the rules. I obey.
And therefore God loves me. And it actually can equate to, I obey. And therefore God owes me. Like I've, I've punched the clock. I've done my moral thing. I've earned it.
He owes me. That's religion. The gospel, which is what Jesus came to present, to do, to accomplish is God loves me. Specifically, God loves me in Christ in that he would die for me, pay for my sins, pay my debt, and give me his life when he rose again. So God loves me in Jesus.
Therefore, I obey. Because I'm loved. From a position of freedom, from a position of being loved, therefore I obey. Two very different things. And on the outside can look very similar. So, they both obey.
So, in this room, a person who's absolutely been radically changed by the gospel, and believes, I'm loved by God through Jesus, therefore I obey. And someone who believes I obey, therefore God loves me, would look very similar. Show up on Sundays. Give of your time, of your money. Be a part of a community group. Serve.
You'd be doing all the same steps in a lot of ways. Look very similar, and your heart and your motivation would be in two completely different places. One is from a position of rest and love, a family, of being adopted as a child of God through Jesus. And the other one is, as a position of earning and work and effort, trying to get God's favor. Look the same. Two very different positions.
The way I think about it sometimes is romantic comedies. And this is the plot to like 17 different romantic comedies. But it's the same plot. I'm going to do the teenage version of it. And as soon as I start talking about it, you'll go, oh, I know that movie. Yeah, you do.
You know five of this movie. But let's just go with the basic one. This is the plot. Really cool guy. Most likely athletic. Kind of a jerk.
Bets his friends that he can take any girl in the school and make her prom queen. So they pick the most awkward, terrible girl they can think of, who is the same girl at the end, but just with her hair up and glasses. And then she takes the glasses off, puts her hair down. Everybody's like, what the heck? Kind of like the Superman thing. But so he picks this girl and then he begins to pursue her.
So he puts in all this effort, these actions. He begins to talk to her, say nice things to her, take her out. He goes after her. And his behavior looks very similar. Somewhere in the middle of the movie, though, he falls in love with her. He realizes that she can, she has a heart.
She's not just good at math. He falls for her. Usually after she takes her hair out of the ponytail. That happens somewhere in the middle. And so then he, no offense to people with ponytails today, it's just how the movie works. I didn't write it.
I'm just telling you what it was like. People in the back pulling their ponytail around. But, uh, so he falls in love with her and then the actions look the same. He actually goes further. He pursues more. He cares more.
At the beginning, it was about himself. At the beginning, it was about earning something, achieving something. It was about his own notoriety, his own status. At the beginning, he did all of these actions, but they terminated on him. And at the end of the movie, he does all the same actions and actually even more. Like he shows up and sings a song or whatever and super embarrassing or whatever.
But he does even more, but it's about her. It's about pursuing, like genuinely their relationship, that he cares about her, that he knows that she cares about him even though he's messed this all up because she found out or whatever. Does that make sense? So you've got the first half of the movie, which is basically what religion is. Going through the same motions, but it terminates on us. And then you've got the back half of the movie, which is what the gospel is.
It's all about Jesus. And it's about where we, the position, the relationship that we already have and not trying to maintain it, but for the joy of the relationship pursuing it. So in our basic understanding, if we thought about it, we would think this. This is how most of us understand stuff. God likes good people. There are good people and bad people.
There are moral people and immoral people. There are those who behave and those who misbehave. And God likes the good people. Like if God was going to show up on earth, he'd like the good people. And so when you read through the gospels and you look at the Pharisees, the Pharisees are like the best example of good people. Now, if you've read the Bible much, when you read Pharisee, you think bad guy, but you wouldn't.
That's actually not helpful. You wouldn't have thought that if you were a first century Jewish person. The Pharisees were religious leaders. You would have thought good guy. They were very moral. They behaved really well.
They taught scripture. They memorized scripture. They knew it backwards and forwards. You would ask them your Bible questions. They were the good guys. May have been a little bit stuck up about it and kind of jerks, but you still wanted them on your class project in Hebrew school.
Like they were the good guys. And so what we would see, since God likes the good guys, when he became a person, when Jesus showed up, he would be hanging out with the Pharisees. They'd be fist pumping all the time. Like one of them would quote Leviticus and he'd be like, dude, up top. And they would high five. They'd be best friends, right?
Because God loves the good guys. You would look at them and think, if God loves anybody, it's these people. If God cares about anybody, these people. If he's proud of anybody, it's these people. If he has favor on anybody, it's these guys. And what we see is that Jesus shows up and he and the religious people, those who behave really, really well, those who are very, very moral, very, very good, it's those people that they can't stand each other, that he says really mean things, really un-Jesus-y things, the way we think of Jesus.
Because you know Jesus, he like wears a white robe and he kind of floats. Like we know he has feet, but he's a little floaty because you can't see his feet because of how long his robes are. And he holds a lamb. Sometimes a single tear just rolls down his eye and you just know he thought something super profound and was really touched by something. He says stuff to the Pharisees that you just assume he had to have put the lamb down. Like it just got serious.
And he was like, like either covers the lamb's ears or he's like, you know what? No, no, I'm putting my lamb down. This is about to get real. Like he says stuff to Pharisees that you're like, this isn't, this is not nice. And so what we're going to see is that Jesus, when it comes up against religion, when he comes up against the idea that I obey, therefore God loves me, there's animosity, there's anger because they completely miss the point. Turn to Luke chapter 11.
We're going to look at a story of Jesus at a, at a, I love this story because Jesus is in a, at a house party. He's at a dinner party and at a Pharisee's house. So we're in Luke chapter 11. That'll be on page 556, 550, no, sorry, 565. It's probably written up behind me. I'm winging it here, guys.
565, If your Bible looks like this. Luke chapter 11, we're going to start in verse 37. While Jesus was speaking, a Pharisee asked him to dine with him. So Jesus is teaching out in open air area. A Pharisee comes over and says, will you come dine with me? So he went in and reclined at table.
Off to a good start. Want to come eat at my house? Sure. Walks in, sits at the table. The Pharisee was astonished to see that he did not first wash before dinner. Now, this isn't like a germs thing.
They didn't know about germs the way we know about germs. So this wasn't like my grandmother who wants to squirt hand sanitizer all over everything all the time. It's not that. It was a ceremonial, added to the law thing. So the Old Testament law, the Pharisees had gone through, looked at the law, and added in their own little rules of how you applied it better and how you could be more pious and how you could be more holy.
And so they took Scripture and added to it. So Jesus didn't do the added to stuff. But they would have been lined up. The Pharisees, we know that there are lawyers there, which just meant that they studied the Hebrew, the Jewish law. They would have known the Torah backward and forward and taught on, here's how to apply the law. They would have been probably in line waiting to get to this ceremonial jug to wash ceremonially to show their piety and how much they cared and how much they followed well.
And Jesus walks in and plops down at the table and is like, let's eat. Y'all got mashed potatoes? Like he just sits at the table and it says that the Pharisee was astonished. He's scandalized by this. It doesn't say he says anything, so I just assume he did his best like puckered up religious face, which was just like, like looking back and forth at Jesus, like you see this guy? Like he's washing his hands, he's looking at the other like Pharisees and lawyers, like are you kidding me right now?
He's not going to wash. And so this is what Jesus says, assuming just to his face. He says it to his face, says it because of his face is what I meant there. The Pharisee was astonished to see that he did not first wash before dinner. Verse 39, And the Lord said to him, Now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness, you fools. Well that escalated quickly.
Just a little rule on manners. When you get invited to someone's home, break a house rule, and then tell your hosts that they're idiots. Probably didn't know that. It's in the chapter after which fork to use for your salad. But this seems like a very non, like Jesus just gets intense very quickly in his main point.
And what we're going to see the rest of this is he's going to unpack what he just said, which is you only care about the external. You wash the outside of the cup and the dish. And they're like, okay, what does this have to do? And then he immediately says, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. You only care about external. You only care about what this looks like.
You only care about behavior. You're only a, I obey, therefore God loves me. It has nothing to do with a loving relationship, nothing to do with following, nothing to do with resting in God. It's I obey. It's my behavior. So he says it's all external.
39. And the Lord said to him, now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness, you fools. Did not he who made the outside make the inside all but give as alms those things that are within and behold, everything is clean for you. But woe to you Pharisees, for you tithe mint and rue and every herb and neglect justice and the love of God. These you ought to have done without neglecting the others. Woe to you Pharisees, for you love the best seat in the synagogues and the greetings in the marketplace.
Woe to you, for you are like unmarked graves and people walk over them without knowing it. 45. And one of the lawyers answered him, Teacher, in saying these things, you insult us also. So the lawyer's like, whoa. You know, when you put the Pharisees on blast like you just did, that was a little bit offensive to me. The lawyer assuming, can't really be talking to me, just wanted to clarify, maybe you should, you know, whatever to the Pharisees, but apologize to me maybe.
This is what Jesus says. 46. And he said, woe to you lawyers also. Oh, guy should have kept his mouth shut. Sorry. Jesus was like, oh, are you confused as to whether or not you are included?
Let me say the word lawyer so that we're clear. Woe to you lawyers also, for you load people with burdens hard to bear and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers. Woe to you, for you build the tombs of the prophets whom your fathers killed, so you are witnesses and you consent to the deeds of your fathers, for they killed them and you build their tombs. Therefore also the wisdom of God said, I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute so that the blood of all the prophets shed from the foundation of the world may be charged against this generation from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah who perished between the altar and the sanctuary.
Yes, I tell you, it will be required of this generation. Woe to you lawyers, for you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter yourselves and you hindered those who were entering. As he went away from there, so it seems as if he did not stay and eat, he didn't stop and say, pass the biscuits. Furious leaves. As he went away from there, the scribes and the Pharisees began to press him hard and to provoke him to speak about many things, lying in wait for him to catch him in something he might say.
Make a little more sense as to why the religious people hated him and wanted to kill him. Jesus' response to everybody, he shows up and says, you're a sinner and you need to repent. And people who were in flagrant, immoral rebellion had been told consistently, you're a sinner and you need to come be good. You need to come behave. You need to earn your way back. And at some point, it was, you've sinned too much.
You can't come back. You're out. We're in. Jesus says, you're a sinner and you need to come back. You need to come back. You're welcomed in.
My burden is easy. My yoke is light. There's nothing to earn. Come in. And so when he says to sinners, you're a sinner, they say, yeah. Can you help with that?
He says, absolutely. And then he looks at religious people and he says, you're a sinner and you need to repent. And they say, you're evil. You're wrong. And they kill him. Because the response of religion to grace is to try to destroy it.
The idea that you don't have to earn it, but you can just be freely welcomed in. Religion doesn't like that because religion loves earning something, loves obeying to achieve status, to achieve favor. So here's what we're going to do today. Jesus basically says this. You only care about the external. And then he gives a bunch of cultural examples about how that shows up.
So for us, most of us don't tithe mint, rue, and herb. Like you hadn't bought a spice rack from Bed Bath & Beyond and went home and weighed out 10% of it and brought spices here and was like, next time we have some chicken, pour some of that thyme on it. Like that hadn't happened. Most of us, I don't think any of us have built a tomb for a prophet. Like he's going through and saying, this is how it shows up. None of us like the best seat in a synagogue.
So, what we're going to do as best we can is we're going to walk through and try to give cultural examples of where religion, where self-righteousness, shows up. Now, here's why this is important. There are some people in this room, three people in this room, you're not a Christian, checking things out, and basically you maybe have understood that Christianity is a set of behaviors. It's a come follow the rules so that God will love you. It is not. Hopefully this is clarifying.
There may be some people in here who genuinely are Christians. You have trusted Jesus. You've believed the gospel. But religion is like weeds that grow in the garden of the gospel. It's briars that wrap itself around so that it begins to grow and it's hard to fight. We tend to lean towards religious ideas, religious efforts, and self-righteousness even if we understand the gospel.
So as best we can, we're going to try to diagnose that today. Some of you in here have grown up in the church, have heard a lot of things about Jesus, have memorized a lot of Bible verses, read your Bible, study, pray, give money, show up, serve, and you are not a Christian. You have trusted in yourself. You have trusted in your behavior. You have trusted in your own self-righteousness, your own religious activities. You are very much in the I obey and therefore God loves me camp and you are not a Christian.
And Jesus cares enough to say, repent and trust me. Repent of all of your very, very good works. repent of all of your really good morals that you think you can stack up in front of me and I somehow owe you. Repent of all the reasons why you've done all these good things because ultimately they terminated on yourself. Now, there was two responses to what Jesus said. One was anger. If you just got angry, good, pay attention.
Religious people don't like grace. This is a good opportunity to repent. The other was you cannot be talking to me. That was what the lawyers said. And if you're in that camp, pay attention. Let's try to weed out some religion.
Let's try to weed out some areas where it's grown up in our hearts and led us astray. So he says this, Now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and the dish but inside you're full of greed and wickedness, you fools. Did not he who made the outside make the inside also but give as alms those things that are within and behold, everything is clean for you. If you're religious, it's all about external, not the heart. It's all about the external, not the heart. So for a religious person, even a person who says I'm a Christian, your way of knowing how you're relating to God is based solely on your behavior.
Am I doing the right stuff? Am I not doing the wrong stuff? Only behavior. Has nothing to do with Jesus, has nothing to do with his sacrifice. You realize maybe that was the door that got you in but the way that you relate, the way that you understand your Christian walk is am I doing the stuff? Are my externals good?
And then it doesn't matter how you change those because it's not a heart issue just as long as you're not doing the external wrong stuff and you are doing the external good stuff, it doesn't matter how you go about changing them. So you may have like an accountability partner, y'all get together and your main goal is how did you fail this week? How have you sinned? How have you fallen short? Because the only goal is behave well because that's how we know that God cares about us. And the way that we spur ourselves on, pride, fear, guilt and shame.
So pride is, I'm a Christian, I'm better than this. I'm not that type of person. I'm strong enough to say no to this sin. That's what you look at your person that you're walking through stuff with. When you get in your community group, that's what you appeal to. You don't point people to the gospel, you appeal to pride.
You're better than that, come on. You're a man. You've grown up in the church. Fear? What if your wife found out? What would happen if you got caught?
No love for Jesus, just fear. Guilt? How would you feel if you did that? I can't believe that you'd be that type of person. And we spur ourselves on with this, we spur other people on with this, and we spur our children on with it too. You don't want to be like that person.
You don't want to be that type of person. You want to be a, your last name's Phillips. Have some pride. It's not the gospel. And there's no rest there. But it's all about external behavior.
So as long as you're behaving morally, you don't really question your heart, as long as the actions are good, you feel like you're fine, you've related to God fine. You look to other people's external sin to value, to understand their value. The next thing he says is, as he begins to explain how this plays out, he said, Woe to you Pharisees, for you tithe mint, rue, and every herb, and neglect justice and the love of God. These you ought to have done without neglecting the others. He says, you do these rule-following, minutia things. They tithe out of their spice rack.
He says, you should do that, but you've missed the point. You've missed the whole heart behind it. You don't love God. It's just about following rules. Religious people love rules. They especially love rules that aren't in the Bible that they've added to the other rules so that they can know whether or not they're good.
Here's what happens in religion. You oscillate between pride and despair. Either you're doing the stuff and so you feel great. God loves me. We're rocking along. He's proud of me.
I have value. I have worth. Or you're falling short and you feel terrible. God's mad at me. He's disappointed in me. He can't love me.
Look at me. And the gospel negates both of those because our righteousness, our good works are found in Jesus and our debt's been paid in Jesus. So when we fail, the gospel's true. And when we succeed, the gospel's true. We don't oscillate between pride and despair. The other thing we love about rules is that it gives us a level of control.
If my relationship with God is based off of my behavior, then I have some rights. I have some say. There's a limit to what he can ask of me. My relationship with God is based off of behavior. Then there's only so much he can ask and he owes me.
So if we're religious, when things go poorly, there's either self-loathing, I failed, God's punishing me. You try to figure out, something bad happens in your life and you try to figure out what you did wrong. Why would God not let me have that? Why would God have this relationship break up? You try to point out, this must be what I'm being punished for. Or, you've been really good, so you're mad at God.
You owe me a spouse. You owe me. I true love waited. You owe me. I kissed dating goodbye and you owe me. I've worked really hard.
How could this happen? I've been praying, I've been going, I've been serving, I've been doing all the stuff you want. How could I lose my job? Because your understanding of your relationship with God is based solely on your behavior. And there's no rest there. And there's no peace there.
And there's no life there. And it just makes joyless obedience. Joyless manipulated obedience rather than genuine love and following. And you've missed the point. Because the point is that we would love God, that we would understand His love for us, that we would understand justice and love, which is the cross, that God paid for sin and that He loves us so much that He would pour grace out on us. And He says, these you ought to have done, you ought to follow, you ought to do these things, but it's not about that.
You ought to serve, you ought to give. It's not about that though. You've missed the point if you think you're earning something. Here's the thing, when it comes down to rules, Jesus doesn't have to exist. Jesus doesn't have to exist if my relationship is based off of rule following. If I'm good based off of my own merit, then it just gets to be about me and I get to be in control of the situation.
Jesus doesn't have to exist. But since Jesus does exist and God's a God of grace, He's not controlled by our actions, good or bad, but freely just pours everything out. So when we get religious, there's no rest, there's no joy, there's no peace, and the only way we understand our relationship to God is are we checking the things off the list? Are we doing the right behaviors? When you're religious, you'll repent. You'll understand that you're going to fail and you'll repent, but even your repentance has to measure up.
Was I guilty enough? Did I feel bad enough? Did I pray hard enough? Did I beat myself up enough? See the gospel, you don't get to beat yourself up. Jesus was already beat up for you.
Your repentance doesn't have to measure up, but when we become religious, even our failures have to measure up. Then He says this, Woe to you Pharisees, for you love the best seat in the synagogues, greetings in the marketplace. Woe to you, for you are like unmarked graves. People walk over you without knowing it. When we become religious, it all becomes about title and position and prominence and being looked up to, being the one who has the answers. I'm the girl in our group that everybody comes and talks to.
I'm the one everyone can confide in. I'm the one that helps manage everybody's sin issues. I'm the most helpful. Religion begins to show up in, I'm the one who understands the gospel the most. When our group gets together and talks and everybody's giving advice, I give the gospel. I help people know that the gospel, that's why I'm better than everybody.
Isn't that cute? I love being self-righteous towards self-righteous people. Look at these religious people. Idiots. I'm better than they are. See how sneaky it is?
Confess sin and somebody just gives you advice and you think, no, you should have pointed me to Jesus. You failed. You don't give them the gospel, but you want them to give it to you. That's why you can't confess sin. Or you can only confess safe sin. Yeah, I've only prayed an hour a day this past week and I've only memorized half of Leviticus when I was planning on memorizing the whole thing by now.
I really feel for you, bro. Like you can only confess safe sin. You can't be real about where your heart is. You can't be real about what's going on. When you do sin, you only care if people know about it because it's all about the external and it's all about how you're perceived. You see, if it's based off of our work, then I need to be beating the people around me.
So you'll point out where you're strong and where other people are weak. That's how religion shows up a lot in marriages. Here's where I'm good and here's where he fails. Here's where I'm doing all of this and here's where she's an idiot. Because you need to be perceived as better. When you sin, you image manage, you try to hide it, try to spin the story.
You won't confess. So if somebody catches you in sin, you're going to wait as long as you possibly can until they completely say, this is what I know you did. And then you'll say, yeah, I did kind of do those things. Because you think it's about prominence. You think it's about your position. You think it's about how you're viewed because that's the only way you understand your relationship to God.
There is no freedom. There is no grace. There is no ability to fail because you have to be seen as good. You take criticism very poorly. Religion, religious people take criticism very, very poorly. Criticism isn't fun for anybody.
Sometimes you're just receiving some, some loving correction. But you know why some of you, criticism eats away at you for days or weeks? Is because the only way you understand how you're doing is based off of how other people view you. So you immediately become defensive. You immediately fight back. You immediately respond with things like, well, pretty big words for someone who's been divorced.
Couldn't even keep your marriage together. Because the goal is not to grow. It's not to love Jesus more. It's to look good. And to be better than those around you. It also makes you very critical.
If half of everything you say is a complaint, it's because you want to make sure everybody knows that you've noticed, that you're elevated, and everybody else falls short. That's religion. And that's why they loved prominence, and they loved being greeted, and they loved best seats in marketplaces because that's how they understood their worth. And he says this, you're an unmarked grave. You're dead, and the only goal is to not let people know. You're dead, but as long as no one knows, that's okay.
There's no life, there's no joy, there's no hope, there's no freedom. You're dead, but as long as it's hidden, that's okay. So the goal is not love for Jesus. The goal is not grow in grace. The goal is not be real in the context of community. The goal is look good, pretend to be good, pretend to have it all together, make sure that people think highly of you so that you can know that you're okay.
See, eventually it just becomes, let me look good. Reality has left the room. You have a lot of secret sin, a lot of inward greed and wickedness, a lot of brokenness, but you can't bring that out into the light because the only way you know how to relate to God is to be thought well of, to look good, and to have your external behavior looking okay. And he says, you're the fool. Eventually, when we're dead, and the only goal is to not let people know, that we're a grave, and the only goal is to not have a tombstone, you're the fool. You have fooled no one, you're the fool.
And at the end of it, when you stand before God to be judged, you're the fool. You only care about your sin if someone else knows about it. You only care about external behavior. The only way you know how to relate to God is am I measuring up by following the rules? Do I behave well enough? And here's why I think Jesus is as furious as he is when he relates to religious people.
I think this is why he's as furious as he is. And I think we see it in two places in what he says, and we're gonna end here, try to understand a little bit of Jesus' anger. He says, you tithe mint, rue, and herb. You do all the little works. And you miss justice and the love of God. You miss the main point.
You miss the gospel. You've based it off of behavior. Here's the biggest problem with religion. It's all about you. That's the problem with religion. It's all about you.
It's all about self-righteousness. It's all about your work, your behavior, your moral conformity, your good effort. So you may give to the poor. You may feed the hungry. You may serve. You may work really hard, but you're in the first half of the movie.
All of your selflessness is actually selfishness because it just terminates on you. You're feeding yourself, clothing yourself, serving yourself. Because at the end of the day, you think it's added to the bottom of your ledger that you get to present to God. And the problem is, with religion, it's all about you. That's how you can gather in a room. Churches gather all over the place and they just talk about, here's how to do better.
Here's how to try harder. Jesus never shows up because he doesn't need to be here. He's not the hero you are. That's how we get in our groups and all we give people is, here's how I used to be like that and then I changed. Here's how I got better. Here's how you could be better.
Here's how you can do better and try harder because Jesus isn't the hero you are. And the problem with religion is that we are claiming, please God, judge me. Let me stand before you on my own merit. Let me stand before you on my own righteousness. When we come to the judgment day and I stand before you, please weigh me out, measure me, you'll see that I'm good enough. And Jesus hates it and he hates religion because it's all about you and you will fall short.
Just behaving just makes you an unmarked grave, which means that you can be in a church, you can be in a group, you can lead a group, you can hang out forever and be dead, never raised to life by Jesus, never given life by Jesus and stand before God and be weighed out and measured on your own merit because that's what you've always wanted. And he hates it. The second thing is what he says to the lawyers. Woe to you lawyers also. Before we get into that, let me tell you something that happens when we become religious, when we begin to only follow rules. You might share the gospel, but only because you know there's no joy in it.
Your offer to people is come behave, come be good like me. So there's no joy in sharing the gospel. There's no joy in inviting people to come slave away with you. But you might do it because you know it's one of the things you're supposed to check off the list. There's no desire to be on mission. There's no desire to help people meet Jesus just to behave.
But you know that one of the things you're supposed to do is check that off the list. So you'll do that because you know it's one of the things you're supposed to do. But there's no desire. There's no brokenness over the fact that there are people in our city who don't know Jesus. There's no brokenness over it. There's no joy in pursuing people that don't know Jesus.
You do it some because you know you're supposed to check it off the list. Here's the thing he says to the lawyers. Woe to you lawyers also for you load people with burdens hard to bear and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers for you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter yourselves and you hindered those who were entering. Religion lies about the gospel. Religion lies about the gospel and we believe religion.
We lie about the gospel. We take the key. We don't go in and we keep others from coming in. So someone comes to you and says how do I follow Jesus? How do I become a Christian? You say well here's the list of rules.
Here's the list of behaviors. Here's how to come be good. Here's some guilt. Here's some fear. Here's some shame. God's going to judge you.
You should feel bad. Be proud of who you are as a Christian and we've lied about the gospel. We've stood in the way of the door. Jesus comes to say there is no burden. There is no weight. I've paid for all of it.
I offer you grace and what we stand and say is come be good like me. Please come work with me. Please come slave away with me. We can all be good together and then one day we'll all get to stand before God and be judged on our own merit. Please join me in seeking after your own righteousness and being condemned on your own work and your own effort. And it's a lie.
Jesus loves us enough to say you don't want it to be about you. And the gospel is a much more beautiful truth than come earn it. He died to pay for everything. He declares that it is finished. There is no effort. There is no behavior.
There is no work that you're going to bring before God. We get to show up empty handed. We get to show up completely broken. Nothing's added to our account. All of it was paid by Jesus. The call to the gospel is not come be good.
There are not good people and bad people. There are people and Jesus. And the call of the gospel is to come trust Jesus. Which means that for those of us in flagrant rebellious immoral sin repent of your sin. And for those of us who are religious moral upright and have done all the right actions repent of the reason why you did all that good stuff. Because ultimately it was just about you.
Jesus offers grace to everyone. Hope to everyone. And we can have freedom and life and joy in Jesus. Some of us in the room you need to erect a tombstone. And you need to be raised to life. that's what's offered to us in Jesus. Admit you're dead.
There's no shame in that. There's no shame or guilt at the cross. Just freedom and life and hope. And for those of us who are Christians but are allowing religion to creep in becoming more critical trying to posture ourselves so that we look good the call's the same. Repent and come and know Jesus and come and trust the gospel. I'm going to pray.
Father we thank you for your grace and your love. We thank you for your joy and the hope that we have in you. God help us to see where we're trusting ourselves. Help us to see where we've ceased to follow you. Cease to rest in you. And God please help us when we want it to be about us when we lie about the gospel.
And for that person or those persons in this room today that know a lot about you but don't know you and are currently asking you to measure them on their own self-righteousness. God in your grace help them see it. Help them to erect a tombstone today so they can be given life by you. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Amen.
Jesus and the Desperate
Transcript
You are listening to a message from the Gathering of Mill City Church in West Columbia, South Carolina. I'm very excited we're getting to start a new series today. So what we try to do as a church family is kind of stay on the same topic for a couple weeks at a time so that we can all kind of gather around that, think through the same stuff together. And so what we're doing for the next several weeks is we're going to be doing a series called Jesus and People. And then after that we're going to be walking verse by verse through the book of 1 Peter throughout the summer. And so we're excited about both of these.
This series, what we're shooting for, what we're trying to do is understand how God would respond to us as individuals in our normal everyday life. So what happens is I think sometimes we have this vague understanding of God. Or depending on kind of how you grew up and your background and what you've learned about God or been taught by God, sometimes taught about God. Sometimes we feel like maybe God's angry. Like if we sat down with Him, He'd be mad at us or frustrated with us or that He's got a lot of anger towards us that we don't measure up. Sometimes I think we have this vague sense that God's loving and He's just good and He probably loves everybody.
And even if we think about that, though, I've met some people who feel like God is just loving and He's good. And then as you keep asking questions, it's like, well, yeah, but if I talked with Him, He loves everybody. But if He sat down with me, I just feel like He'd be a little bit disappointed, a little bit frustrated, a little bit wished that I would do better. We have this understanding that – and so what we're shooting for is to just look at Jesus and how He interacts with people in the Gospels. And the reason is the Bible tells us that Jesus is God. Colossians 1.15 is going to say that He is the image of the invisible God.
So the Creator God that exists that you don't just see when you're on your way to work, but you kind of see His work. What we see is that Jesus is Him as a human, that Jesus is God when He became a person, that God relates to humans so much that He actually became one, that He actually took on flesh. And then He interacts with real people, broken people, confused people, hurting people, self-righteous people, that Jesus interacts with them. And so what we're trying to do is just take a look at who are the people He interacts with and how can we learn from that how God would respond to us. And so we're kind of looking twofold at this.
One is if you fit in the category of what we're studying that week, if we're looking at a specific person and that's kind of you, what we want to understand is this is how God would respond to us because this is how Jesus responds. This is how Jesus interacts. This is what He calls that individual to. And the other one is if it's not you, if you don't fit in that category, for us to as a church family learn how we ought to respond. For us as a church family to see how Jesus responds because Jesus is our hero and our Savior and He is God, but He is also an example. He's not just an example, but He is an example, and we get to learn how we ought to respond to people.
And so I think sometimes the church – I don't think sometimes. This is correct. The church ought to respond to people, treat people the way that Jesus does. But I think sometimes the church doesn't get that correct. So if you're just hanging out and you're checking out this whole Jesus thing and you're like, yeah, I've seen how the church treats this group of people or I've seen how the church treats me or I just have looked at the church and they're hypocrites and they're off.
I want to say two things to that. One is a lot of times I think we look at the church and we say, man, look at how messed up those people are. Look at how their lives are off. Look at how hypocritical they are. And honestly, yeah, that's kind of how it works. The church is the group of people who were the first to raise their hands and say, I need a Savior.
I'm not awesome. I'm not great. I'm not figuring this out well on my own. I am messed up. I do have problems. And I need Jesus to save me.
That's what Jesus does. He steps in and He saves everyone who's broken, everyone who's needy. So at times when people levy complaints against the church and they're like, look at how hypocritical they are. Look at how messed up they are. I'm just kind of like, yeah, it's a little bit like looking at like a summer camp for overweight children and being like, that camp's terrible. All the kids there are fat.
It's like, that's why they went. Like you're confused. That's what the church is. So the church is filled with broken, messed up, sinful people. Yeah, because they're the people who realize they need Jesus. Does that make sense?
So it's like people will be like, man, I just don't know about that guy. He's kind of like a four on a scale of like following and obedience. And I'm like, really? That's beautiful because six months ago, he was probably like a two. Like, that's great. Like, that's wonderful.
Yeah, she's kind of a jerk. Kind of a jerk. Man, you'd have to reach in your bag of profanity to describe her a year ago. Kind of a jerk is amazing. Like, we need to go high five her. That's amazing growth.
Like, that's what the church is. It's a group of people who realize they need Jesus. That's what brought us together. And on the other end of that, so there's two things. There's that. And then there is people who are confused about what the church is, who are part of the church, claim the name of Christian, but believe it's about their morality and something that they've earned.
And that's how you get Dana Carvey being the church lady on SNL. Or you get Angela from The Office. And that general attitude of, I'm a Christian, so I'm better than you. And that's where, yeah, Christianity at times is off there, where people have thought they've earned it. When that's the opposite of what the Bible says. And so us as a church family, we want to grow and learn how we ought to respond to people in specific situations.
And just very practically answer some of those questions. And then for the weeks that it actually really applies to you, get to see how God would interact with you, how he would respond to you. So I'm going to pray and then we're going to hop in this morning. God, we thank you that you are relational, that you do care about humans enough to become one, to identify with us in our hurt and our pain and our confusion. To take on sin in a very real way. So that you could redeem and so that you could save.
God, we trust you. We pray that you would speak to us this morning as we study your word. In Jesus' name, amen. We'll be in Mark chapter 5. So this whole series is going to be in the Gospels.
Just looking at stories of Jesus interacting with people. So we won't deal much with things that he taught. Way more with how he spoke to people, how he interacted with people. And we're going to be in Mark chapter 5 starting in verse 21. And the Gospels are just accounts of what Jesus did while he was walking around on earth. Mostly focused on the two years, three years right before he was crucified.
And then most of their time is spent on the crucifixion. But we're going to spend some time just looking at some different stories in the Gospels. And so what we're going to look at today is we're going to look at two individuals that are just out of options. At the end of their rope. Have no good plan for where to go next. They're just desperate.
And so we're going to look and see how God, how Jesus as God interacts with people who have no more options and who come to him. Have no good idea of how the future is going to work out. No plan for it. And come to him. So we're going to start in Mark verse 21, chapter 5, verse 21.
And when Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side. So he's coming across the Sea of Galilee. A great crowd gathered about him. And he was beside the sea. So tons of people show up.
He's just getting out of a boat. He's famous at this point. Kind of reluctantly famous. But he's famous at this point for healing, for teaching. This great crowd shows up. Then came one of the rulers of the synagogue.
The synagogue was a place where Jewish people would gather every Sabbath and study scripture. So he oversees a synagogue. Jairus by name. And seeing him, he fell at his feet. And he implored him earnestly, saying, My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her so that she may be made well and live.
So Jairus shows up. And he says, My little daughter is at the point of death. Come lay your hands on her so that she may be made well and live. What we find out later, What we find out in Luke's gospel is that she's an only child. What we find out later in this, Mark's account, is that she's 12 years old. So they didn't have birth control.
And you wanted to have a lot of children. The desire in their culture, in Jewish culture, was to have a lot of children. Children were a blessing. They would take care of you in your old age. And so just to know that they have a 12-year-old girl, and that's their only child, that story already has a lot of pain in it, already has a lot of frustration in it, already has a lot of doubt and questions and fears in it. We do know that the mother is alive, so we don't know if there's been miscarriages.
We don't know if there have been other children that have died from illnesses while they were young. All we know is that they've at least been together as a couple for 12 years, and they have one child, and that's already got a lot of pain in it. And now this 12-year-old girl is at the point of death. We don't know how long this sickness lasts. We don't know if it's been a long sickness, if she's just recently gotten sick. But what we do know is that Jairus knows she's not going to make it.
And he had to have made a decision. He had to have been home and heard, Jesus is here. With his daughter who's gasping for air, maybe drifting in and out of consciousness, and he decided the only thing I can do is try to make it to Jesus. I've heard that he heals. I've heard that he's capable of doing things. By the grace of God, he just showed up in our town.
And the only thing I can do, and as a father, as a husband, designed to lead and protect the sense of helplessness that this man must have felt in a situation where he has no control over the outcome, and then he hears Jesus is here. And he's got to be thinking, what if all this stuff about Jesus is true? What if the things I've heard about Jesus, what if it's real? What if he actually can save? What if he actually can heal? What if he actually can just show up and this work out?
And so he leaves. He makes a decision to, I'm not going to be with her while she takes her last breath, possibly. I'm going to go do the one thing I know I can do. And he earnestly implores Jesus, come with me. Please, just come with me. I know there's a huge crowd.
I know you've got a lot going on. I know there's, just come with me. And so what we see very early on is that this guy runs into the middle of what Jesus is doing, falls on his face and says, I need your help. And the next line is beautiful. Verse 24, And he went with him. I love that.
Jesus' immediate response is, let's go. Like, don't you feel sometimes that like if you came to Jesus, his response would be like, well, let's talk. Have you been a good little girl? Have you been a good little boy? Have you been behaving? Have you been following?
Like, let's, I've got some questions for you. Do you deserve this? No, Jesus' response, he just went with him. He comes to him and says, I have no other options. It's just you. And Jesus just, let's go.
And that's beautiful to me. So Jesus is going with this man to his daughter who's on her deathbed. You feel his pain? Have a 12-year-old who's going to die? Do you feel that? Where he would be at this point?
Mentally? Emotionally? A great crowd followed him and thronged about him. Thronged just means they were all over him, touching him. Probably had his disciples running some crowd control. And I mean, he's in a hurry.
So they're on their way to go try to save a child who's about to die. And there's a huge crowd of people just mobbing him, which has to be slowing down the progress. Jairus has to probably be trying to push people out of the way. You know, this is important. You can talk to him later. We got something to do.
Doing everything he can to get Jesus there. And there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for 12 years and who had suffered much under many physicians and had spent all that she had and was no better but rather grew worse. Okay, so in the crowd, in this crowd that throngs about him, there's a woman who's had a discharge of blood for 12 years. Now, that can mean that she had an external sore or external sores that were bleeding off and on or continuously for 12 years. Most likely, she was having uterine bleeding, which would have been basically a constant menstruation for 12 years. This is a real medical condition.
I was talking to David Hewiler, who works with an insurance company. He says they get claims for it a lot. A lot of times it has to do with a tumor. And it causes fatigue, pain, and eventually can lead to death. And so for 12 years, she's had this condition. And added on top of that, in Jewish culture, when you had this kind of issue, either external or if it was an internal issue, she would have been unclean.
Because they had ceremonial clean and unclean laws. Where God in the Old Testament through Moses was teaching his people that they're not like him. That he's holy. He's separate from them. And so he gave them laws to show them this. And even in those laws, if you did everything to be clean, you did everything to be as clean as possible, when you showed up at the temple, you still needed a sacrifice on your behalf.
So he's also just teaching them that not only are you not like me, but even if you're the best version of you, you still need a sacrifice. You still need your sin covered. And he was pointing to the cross and all of that. But because of the clean and unclean laws, while she was unclean, would not be allowed to touch people. Or else they would become unclean. If it was, she would not be able to have normal relations with her husband, physical relations with her husband, if she was unclean.
So if she had a husband, we don't know. But if she had a husband, that would affect their relationship significantly. She would not be able to gather for worship with the temple. She would not be able to take part in feasts and festivals that would happen multiple times a year. She basically would have to remove herself from normal society because of this issue. Not only is it painful, not only does it cause fatigue, not only does it just drain her of energy and life, but it affects her ability to have a normal life.
And it says that she's suffered much and hasn't gotten any better, but to grown worse. And it's been 12 years. The same time that Jairus was welcoming, his family was welcoming a newborn daughter into the world, she began to have this issue and it hasn't ceased for 12 years. And she's in the crowd. And she has no other options. Quite possibly because it's been a 12-year-long process and she's growing worse, she may be close to death.
She has no energy. She's in pain constantly. Spent all that she had. Spent all that she had. Has completely gone out of money to only suffer and grow worse. She had heard the reports about Jesus.
That's verse 27. She had heard the reports about Jesus. And came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment. For she said, If I touch even his garments, I will be made well. Okay, so she's heard about Jesus. And she has to have this, Really?
Can he really heal? Can he really save? Can he really, Is he able to do what I've heard that he's able to do? And she has no other options. And she comes up with a plan. I'll sneak through a crowd, Making everyone around me unclean.
I'll sneak up to Jesus and touch him. Something I'm not allowed to do because I'm unclean. And because he's a teacher. Because he's a man. So all the regulations of how this will work.
But I'll just sneak up and touch him. And if I can just do that, I'll be healed. If I can just get close enough to touch him, I'll be healed. Can you imagine that? Like he shows up with all the amount of energy that she has. She fights through this crowd.
She has to have, Her heart is pounding. And she just gets close enough, Just reaches out his hands, Able to touch his garments. Able to just swipe his clothes. With just the hope, The belief and the faith, That if I can do this, I'll be healed. I'll be made right. So we've got Jairus, Who's leading Jesus through a big crowd, Trying to get as fast as he can, To his house.
Not knowing at what moment, His daughter's going to die. And we've got this lady, Who's fighting through this crowd, Just to touch Jesus, In the faith that that'll heal her, From 12 years of suffering. We've got two people that are a lot like us. Broken, In need, With a lot of pain, And not a lot of hope. Who, Honestly, Don't have good options at this point. Jesus hadn't showed up, Hadn't gotten off this boat, Jairus' option was, Hold his daughter's hand while she, Dies.
Jesus hadn't shown up in this area, Then this lady's hope was to, She had no more money, Suffer more, Die eventually. And both of them have a sliver of hope, Because Jesus is here. And for us, We can be money, I just don't have, When it comes to finances, I just have no more good options, I have no plan, I have no clear idea, Of where this is going to go, I'm honestly, I'm in a place where, Just desperate. Relationships, I don't see how this is going to work out, I don't see how I'm ever, Going to get here, I don't see how this, I'm ever going to be married, I don't see how this marriage, Is ever going to last, I don't see how we're ever going to have children, I don't see how, Our children are ever going to turn out, The way, I just have no more good options, I don't have options, When it comes to work, I don't have, Like, You feel that, You feel where they are, And they're further along than us, The part where it says, 26, It was a woman who had suffered much, And it ends with, Was no better, But rather grew worse, Is that some of us, That's the story of your life, You've suffered much, And it's not getting any better, There's no light at the end of this tunnel, When you look at your options, When you look at the foreseeable future, The best thing you can come up with is, Pain, Hurt, Suffering, If the past is an indicator, Of where this is headed, I'm going to continue to suffer, It's going to continue to get worse, And thankfully, At some point I'll die, And at least that'll stop it, So these are the two people, Who are saying to themselves, Can it be true?
Can what I've heard about Jesus be real? Can he actually heal? Can he actually save? Can life actually be different, Because of him, Because I've heard that it can, Is that real? And they're both trusting, That it is, So she sneaks through, She catches this plan, If I can just touch his garments, I'll be made well, And she really just wants to, To kind of steal, Some healing from Jesus, Most people when Jesus heals them, They have to show up, They have to say, Here's my problem, She had no desire to do that, You see, If she had an internal issue, She really had two options, For life, Follow the regulations, And have, Be ostracized, Have no normal life, Or, Hide this, Lie, And have a normal life, And I feel like, In a room this size, We've got some people, Who feel like, That's your options, I can be real about this, And have zero friends, I can be real about this, And have no actual relationships, Or I can hide this, I can keep this a secret, And have a normal life, And she decides, At least on this day, I'm going to keep this a secret, I'm just going to sneak up to Jesus, And I'm just going to, Get some healing from him, I'm not going to walk up to him, In front of everybody, And say, Here's my problem, Will you heal me, I'm just going to, Work my way through this crowd, Make a bunch of people unclean, Not tell them about it, Make him unclean, And leave, That's her plan, 28, For she said, If I touch even his garments, I will be made well, And immediately, The flow of blood dried up, And she felt in her body, That she was healed, Of her disease, She touches Jesus, And immediately, She's healed, She feels it in her body, I don't know what that would have felt like, I'm assuming, Amazing, 12 years of pain, 12 years of hurt, 12 years of struggle, 12 years of suffering, She touches him, And immediately feels, I don't know, Warm, Tingly, Super excited, Like if you saw her, Walking into the crowd, She was, She was in pain, She was hurting, She was fighting through, If you saw her walking out, She was like, Like, Just smile on her face, Like that lady's glowing, That was weird, She feels healing, Just by getting her hands on Jesus, And she was ecstatic, In awe, Blown away, For about, Five seconds, Maybe three, Feels that she's healed, Her mind is blown, She feels warmth, And life, Energy running through her, Verse 37, And Jesus, Perceiving in himself, That power had gone out from him, Immediately turned about in the crowd, And said, Who touched my garments?
Okay, That's super weird, A couple of things, One is Jesus feels power leave from him, Which means that in some way, When Jesus heals, There's this exchange, Of his life, For ours, That he has to give up, Some of his power, That he has to become weaker, So that she can become stronger, That he has to give up some life, So that she can have health, That Jesus has to exchange with us, And so he's walking along, There's a huge crowd, A bunch of people touching him, They're fighting him, The disciples are around him, Pushing on him, Hand on his back, Trying to get him through the crowd, Like he's Justin Bieber, And there's a bunch of 13 year old girls around, Like they're fighting through, And suddenly he stops, And this giant crowd, Stops, Spins around and says, Who touched my clothes? And everybody goes, Like there was a guy at the back, Like just, I ain't even got hands, Like they were in my pockets, Like immediately he stops, And spins around and says, Who touched my clothes? And you had to imagine, Everybody was like, Like a lot of people, I think, And this lady, Who was super excited, Jesus stops, Says who touched my garments, And she goes, Like I mean just, Still excited? That she's healed, But she's entered into a new arena, Not as excited as before, I love his disciples response, This is the best, Jesus had real people around him, Just so you know, Jesus perceiving himself, The power had gone out from himself, Verse 30, Immediately turned about in the crowd, And said who touched my garments, And his disciples said to him, You see the crowd, Pressing around you, And yet you say, Who touched me?
So his disciples are like, I got this, What? That guy, That guy, I was touching you, Pretty sure Philip had a hand in there, Like, Like, This is the weirdest question, You've probably ever asked, Is this one of your parabolas? Like you, You're going to teach us something? Like what are you doing here? So Jesus being Jesus, Doesn't respond to them, Verse 32, And he looked around, To see who had done it, So he's scanning the crowd, To look for the one, Absolutely terrified person, Who knows exactly what just happened, That's what he's doing, So he's like, Okay, Wasn't that disciple, Because he doesn't understand, What just happened, So he's just looking around, Where are you at?
Verse 31, His disciples said to him, You see the crowd, Pressing around you, And yet you say, Who touched me? 32, And he looked around, To see who had done it, But the woman, Knowing what had happened to her, Came in fear, And trembling, And fell down before him, And told him, The whole truth, You don't get Jesus, Without the personal relationship, You don't just get benefits of Jesus, Without Jesus, So immediately he says, No, There's a human here, I need to talk to, Where are you at? She knows what happened, She lays down, Trembling before him, Knowing that what she had done, In all of understanding, Of everything that would happen, Would be wrong, What she had done was wrong, And she's about to have to, Articulate this in front of everybody, She's about to have to explain, Explain her whole story, And she gives the whole truth, Which is our option, When we come to Jesus, Whole truth, Not half truth, Not a little bit of a spin on truth, Whole truth, Lay it all out there, We also come to Jesus, On his terms, Not ours, Jesus is in control, Of the whole situation, You come to him on his terms, Not yours, You don't get to come up with, This is how my interaction, My relationship, This is how Jesus and I, Are going to work together, No, Jesus is in control, Of all of that, And he controls how, Your relationship is going to work, So she lays it all out there, Tells him, Why he should be mad at her, Why he as a teacher, As a good devout Jew, Should be disgusted, By what she just did, And he said to her, Verse 34, Daughter, Your faith has made you well, Go in peace, And be healed of your disease, Do you know how beautiful that is? How many other ways he could respond, And he starts with daughter, I just assumed there was a smile, Came across his face, As he was impressed by her faith, I don't think Jews use this word, Jewish people at this time, But her moxie, Just appreciates her, And just, Daughter, Go in peace, Your faith has made you well, That's the response, We get from Jesus, When we run to him, When we're desperate, I have no other options, I have no other plan, And I have no other idea, Of how this is going to work out, I'm done trusting in myself, I'm done trusting in other things, I just need you, I just trust you, To let this work out, The way you want it to work out, I have a preference, She had a preference, As to how this would work out, It did not work out that way, Jesus had some of, No this is how a relationship, Is going to work, But just with love, And just with acceptance, And just with this open arm, Yes you can come to me, You're welcome to come to me, When you have no other options, Okay, A couple of things to see here, She tells the whole truth, This is a 12 year long story, And a lady, If I ask my mom, A yes or no question, She responds like this, Well last Tuesday, Nope, This is a yes or no question, Like, The response is yes or no, She wants to tell a story, That's my mom, She's super sweet, Some ladies aren't like that, A lot of ladies are, One of the things we talk about, In premarital counseling, Is we're coaching people up, Is we say, Men, Come up with things, That happen during the day, That you can tell your wife about, Because when you get home, And she says, How was work, How was your day, And you respond, Good, Or fine, Which is a very acceptable answer, She's not going to think, It's acceptable, You need to have some form of, Carl was there, And he hurt his shin, And I was all, Dang Carl, She'll love it, Oh wow, I didn't know that about Carl, You know like, There's just something about that, And then we tell, We tell the ladies, Please just give highlights, Just give highlights, Just, Just bullet points, Of your day, Because my wife will say stuff like, I was at work, And Christy was there, And she was wearing a blue shirt, And we were in the break room, And I think she had a pimento cheese sandwich, And she'll go through this whole story, And at the end, I'll go, What, What about the blue shirt?
She'll go, What about the blue shirt? What? You said she was wearing a blue shirt, She was wearing a blue shirt, She didn't spill pimento cheese, On her blue shirt or something, Like those details, Had nothing to do with the story, They were part of the story, Okay, Like you just have to, She gives too much information, I'm trying to hold it all together, Get to the end, And it was just that she was mad about something, It's like, Okay, I didn't need any of that, She tells this whole story, Maybe she summed it up, I'm assuming that it was pretty long, She tells this whole story, She tells the whole truth, She lays it all out there, Jesus doesn't cut her off, He doesn't tell her to wrap it up, He doesn't say, Hey, We're kind of busy, Like you're derailing something, I'm in the middle of, Like you feel the weight of, On the way to save a child's life, That's why ambulances, Don't stop at red lights, They got a kid in the back, They got a dad back there, They're doing everything they can, To keep him alive, And then they're like, You know what, I didn't know Taco Bell had a dollar menu, That's not how it works, Like you, He's in the middle, It's the same as an ambulance, Taking a child to go be saved, It's the same process, And he just stops everything, And he just listens, And he welcomes her, Some of us feel like, If we came to God, He'd be bothered by us, That he's got too much going on, He has no desire to hear everything, He just needs the bullet points, He's a little bit frustrated, With our neediness, And he is not, God is eternal, And outside of time, And even when he became, Finite, And was limited by time, Still had time, For everybody, Do you see that? He's not like your dad, Who was easily frustrated, Not like your husband, Or your wife, Or your boss, Or him, He stops, He listens, He cares, And wants to know all of it, Isn't that beautiful?
Now if you're Jairus, That was terrible, Wrap it up, Wrap it up, Wrap it up, Okay, Okay, She just said seven years ago, No, We need three minutes ago, Come, Can you feel, The anxiousness, The weight of, That's over with, Like it's happened, Y'all can talk about this later, We got, Jesus has all the time in the world, God responds to us, With great patience, And, He doesn't follow our schedule, See that perfectly in this story, Being crossroads here, He's not on your timeline, He's in control, He's good, Not on your timeline, Even though our timelines, Are.
So brilliant, That's what I have to talk to him, About all the time, God I've come up with a great plan, I really feel like, You're going off script here, And, You are confused about, Why, What we're doing here, So that's what Jairus is feeling, Jesus you're blowing this, Jesus you're messing this up, Jesus this isn't going to work, If you keep talking, Jesus you got to, She's got to stop, 34, And he said to her daughter, Your faith has made you.
Well, Go in peace, And be healed of your disease, While he was still speaking, There came from the ruler's house, Some who said, Your daughter is dead, Why trouble the teacher, Any further, Jairus is waiting, Hoping that this will wrap up, They're close to his house, Jesus is talking, He's being very gracious, And very loving, Jairus looks up, And he sees some people, From his house, They don't have to talk, He sees it on their face, Blood's gone, You can already tell, They've been crying, He knows they're not coming, To give good news, Your daughter's dead, Don't bother the teacher, Any further, He can go do other stuff.
Now, No sense in him coming with you, And his, His heart, That was holding on, To that last little bit of hope, That last little bit, Of a Hail Mary shot, Maybe we can pull this off, I left her, And went as fast as I could, Did everything I possibly could, For our one, Final shot, His heart drops into his stomach, Because everything he feared, Was going to happen, Happened, And it's over, You don't come back from that, It's not, She's getting worse, Hurry up, Your daughter is dead, Don't bother the teacher anymore, His last little bit of an option, Is gone, It's done, There's no returning from this, 36.
But overhearing, What they said, Jesus said, To the ruler of the synagogue, Do not fear, Only, Believe, So Jesus hears it, Jairus hears it, Right as he's responding, Jesus turns to him, And says, Don't fear, Only believe, Do not fear, Only believe, I don't know how that was received, We're not told, We know they go the rest of the walk, To the house, When it was absolutely final, When everything was done, When there's no way to come back from this, Jesus' response to Jairus is, Don't fear, Believe, Trust, Lean in, Don't believe them, Believe in me, Don't trust the finality of this situation, Believe me, Do you know how hard that would be?
It's done, They foreclosed, It's done, The court case, The ruling has been sentenced, The sentence has been laid down, It's done, The prognosis is what it is, It's done, It's final, We've packed everything, Repo's final, Foreclosure's final, Finances are final, Health is final, It's done, And Jesus looks at him and says, Don't fear, Just believe, Only belief, Just trust, Just lean in, Just look at me, Look at me, Let's go, And he allowed no one to follow him, Except Peter and James and John, The brother of James, Could have done that from the beginning, Turns around and tells everybody.
Okay, Crowd, We're done, Peter, James, John, Let's go, 38, They came to the house, Of the ruler of the synagogue, And Jesus saw a commotion, People weeping, And wailing loudly, Do you know how Jairus saw that, When he came around the corner, Everyone that he knows, And cares about is broken, And when he had entered, He said to them, Why are you making a commotion, Why are you making a commotion, And weeping, The child is not dead, But sleeping, Okay, Jesus, Gets to say ridiculous things, He walks into, Where a child has just died, And says, What's all this about, She's fine, That's crazy.
But Jesus gets to be crazy, He gets to say ridiculous things, He gets to step in, When everything looks like it's done, And say, Oh, Don't worry about that, Oh, This is going to work out okay, You're going to be alright, He's the only one, Who gets to do that, And it actually means something, 40, And they laughed at him, Okay, That's how ridiculous, His statement was, They went from weeping, And wailing, There was a commotion, And they all stop and laugh.
Because that's how ridiculous, His statement was, We, In our culture, Are pretty distant from death, Some people, Have certain jobs, Where they see death, Right then, Most of us, When we see, A dead person, They've been placed in a casket, They've been cleaned up, You can always tell, There's just something different about them, The life is gone, But we're not as familiar with death, As they were, They knew death, They knew she had had life, They knew it had left, She's dead.
So much so that they laughed, They derided him, But he put them all outside, And took the child's father and mother, And those who were with him, And went in where the child was, Okay, I don't know the process, Of putting all of them outside, I'm assuming, Because Jesus is God, He was able to suck the air out of a room, With his face, That his facial expression changed, And he said, Y'all need to leave, And everyone assumed, That's my best option, I don't know, I don't know how long it took, I'm just assuming, That's me imposing something, On the text there, I just know it says, He put them all outside, They went from.
Weeping, Wailing, To laughing at him, And then everyone decided to leave, 41, Taking her by the hand, He said to her, Talitha Kumi, Which means, Little girl, I say to you, Arise, And immediately, The girl got up, And began walking, For she was 12 years of age, Mark adds that in now, So that her walking isn't weird, If you were assuming it was an infant, She was 12, And they were immediately, Overcome, With amazement, And he strictly charged them, That no one should know this, And he told them, Give her something to eat, Little no fact about dying, It makes you really hungry.
Jesus walks in, Sends everybody out, Grabs a dead girl by the hands, And says, Little girl, It's time to wake up, The way a mother, Or a father, Would wake up a child, In the morning, He grabs her by the hand, And he says, It's time to get up, Gosh, She's just sleeping, Little girl, I say to you, Arise, It's time to wake up, She sits up, Begins walking, Life fills her again, I'm assuming, That there had to be an exchange, Power left him to heal, The lady, I'm assuming, More of his power, More of his energy, More of his strength, More of his life, Had to leave, We don't know.
Jesus is able to step into a situation, When it's completely final, And change it, Reverse it, Bring life back where there's death, Bring hope back where there's despair, We have two people in this story, Who are absolutely wrecked, And desperate, And have no hope, And no options, Except for Jesus, And their only hope is, Maybe what's been said about him is true, Maybe it's real, That he can bring life, That he can bring hope, That he can bring joy, Maybe it's real, That he can heal, Some of us may be in that same spot, I don't have good plans, I don't have good options.
But maybe all this stuff, That I hear about Jesus is true, Maybe what my friends have been saying is true, Maybe what we've been talking about, In community group is true, Maybe what we, People celebrate on Easter is true, That Jesus was dead, Now he's alive, And in him we can have life, And hope, That my brokenness can be taken away, Maybe it's true, Christians, We're going to set aside, The story for just a second, We're going to set aside, Those of us who are in, In the position that Jairus and the woman were, We're going to come back in just a.
Second, But for Christians in the room, For the church, Maybe you're not in this position, We're going to take just a quick second, And we're going to go through five things, If you take notes, We're going to run through these pretty quickly, Five things, Five ways that we as, As the church, Get to respond to people in this position, Get to respond to people who are desperate, One, Be there, Just be there, Jesus' response to Jairus, Was let's go, Didn't talk, Didn't say anything, He just went with him, He was just there, Sometimes that's all we can do, That's the best option we have, Is just be there, Just be around, Just love them, Just.
Be there, Number two, Be willing to be inconvenienced, Your timeline's going to get messed with, Your plans are going to get derailed, As you have real friends, And real family, And real loved ones, That are in this position, Jesus shows up, Immediately has to go with Jairus, In the middle of that, Has to stop and deal with this woman, Be willing to be inconvenienced, Go ahead and plan on it, Know that's how that works, Three, Don't be shocked by confession, She lays it all on the line, And his response is absolutely welcoming, His absolute love, Secret shame and guilt, And things in our closets, That's humans, Christians should be the least shocked, By sinfulness, The.
Bible's very clear, We're all busted, We're all broken, We all need Jesus, And so when someone says, This is how messed up I am, We should just be like, Yeah and Jesus is great, Yeah, Sin tricks us all, Yeah, Shame and guilt, Yes, We need Jesus, So she lays it on the line, And he had the opportunity, To respond, With condemnation, With don't you know, What you've done wrong, And he just says, Daughter you're healed, Four, You will have to sacrifice.
Jesus in order for these people, To receive healing, Had to give up power, Had to pour some of it, And he'll have to give himself out, And that's how it works, When we're around somebody, Who's drained of love, And energy, And hope, You've got to pour some of yours out, For them to feel loved, For them to regain a sense of hope, You've got to pour out, Some of your energy, For them to have some, We actually line up with Jesus, And we do this really.
Well, And we do that, And number five, Point towards faith in Jesus, Don't just give pithy statements, Don't just have some, Oh it's going to be okay, Help them see why it'll be okay, Because of the cross, Jesus ultimately was just, It was about faith in him, The whole time, And that's what he turns to Jairus, And says, Don't fear, Just believe, And we get to just say, Jesus is good, He's trustworthy, I don't know how this situation, Is going to turn out.
But I know that, And that's what we hold on to, Band's going to come back up, We're going to sing, To Jesus, If you're in the room, And you're Jairus, If you're in the room, And you're this woman, You're in a position, Where you have no clue, What the next step is, The only thing you can see, On the horizon, Is pain, Is brokenness, You honestly don't know, How life is going to continue, You don't know how you'll get back to normal, You don't know how you'll get back to happy, You honestly feel like, That's not going to happen, Your hope.
For joy, Your hope for fulfillment, Is gone, Let me say this very clearly, You can come to Jesus, And you can trust, Jesus, Not to work on your timeline, Not to fulfill all your dreams, Doesn't always work out, The way we want it to, But what we know, Is that Jesus is trustworthy, And his response to you is the same, Tell me all about it, Tell me what you need, Lay it all out, Don't fear, Just believe, Just trust, You see we can get a glimpse of it in this story.
Jesus has to give up power, He has to give up strength, For her to be made strong, For her to be made well, Eventually, Jesus isn't going to just be weakened a little bit, He's going to come completely weak, He's not going to give up just a little bit of life, He's going to give up his entire life, That Jesus is ultimately going to go to the cross, And lay it all out for us, All of his strength will be gone, All of his life will be gone, All of his power will be gone, That he joins us in our suffering, That he joins us in our pain.
Because of the cross, We know, Without a shadow of a doubt, That he loves us, And that he's trustworthy, He can be trusted, He went to the cross for us, We can bring him anything, We don't know how it will work out, But we know that he's good, And that he can be trusted, That we can bring anything to him, When we have no more options, No more hope, When everything seems final, And he can bring life, And he can bring healing, And he can bring hope, That's the.
Jesus that we rest in, That's the God that loved us so much, That he became a human, To take on our guilt, And our shame, And our pain, To take on our death, So that we can have his life, And his joy, And his hope, And ultimately we rest in him, So if you're in this position today, You don't have good options, You don't have a good plan, You've ceased trusting in yourself, And you've ceased trusting, And getting the situation to work out, Jesus' response to you is the same, Don't fear, Just believe, I'm the.
God that can step into these situations, And make them work out for good, When you see no way that's going to happen, And sometimes it's long, And sometimes it's painful, But he's absolutely trustworthy, God, We ask that your Holy Spirit would help us to lean into you, When we see no hope, When we see no light at the end of the tunnel, God, That you would, Through your Holy Spirit, Look at us, Look into our souls, And say, Don't fear, Just believe, Just lean into me, And that you would give us the ability to do that.
God, That you would grant us faith, That we can trust you, That we can place our hope, And our life in you, And we praise you, Lord, That you became completely weak, Completely powerless, That you didn't just give us life, But you gave yours up for us, And that we know we can trust you in all things, God, You're good, And help us to see that, And help us to trust you, And to have real faith, In you and you alone, In Jesus' name, Amen.