DEC 1 2019 | Grace on the Galilee S1E4 | Power to Forgive

Sea Change Church · Grace on the Galilee · "Power to Forgive" Pastor Adam Stadtmiller · December 1, 2019
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

Good morning, Church. My name is Glenda Wheeler. I've been blessed to serve as an elder here, and also currently I'm involved in the women's ministries, the communion prep team, and our adventurers group. Today our scripture verse is from Mark, the second chapter, verses 1 through 12. A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home. They gathered in such large numbers that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them.

Some men came, bringing to him a paralyzed man carried by four of them. Since they could not get to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through it and then lowering the mat the man was lying on. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, Son, your sins are forgiven. Now some teachers of the law were sitting there thinking to themselves, Why does this fellow talk like this? He's blaspheming.

Who can forgive sins but God alone? Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts, and he said to them, Why are you thinking these things? Which is easier to say to this paralyzed man, Your sins are forgiven, or to say, Get up, take your mat, and walk? But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. So he said to the man, I tell you, Get up, take your mat, and go home.

He got up, he took his mat, and he walked out in full view of all of them. Now this amazed everyone, and they praised God, saying, We have never seen anything like this. The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Good to see you this morning. Getting things sorted out. I have lost my normal glasses. So then we have this whole bunch of your glasses that you've left here for the last like 15 years. So I don't know how they look.

They're a little dirty. But nonetheless, we're going to get through it. So I don't lose everything, man. It's just so bad. But it's hard to fly at 30,000 feet and see everything in minute detail, which is tough. Let me just pray for the word of God. Lord Jesus, I want to thank you, God, for your word. We love the word. We are worshipers of the God of the Bible. And we love the Bible of God. But we don't worship the Bible of God.

But we know that it has power and life and goodness. And it points us to the true God. And Jesus, we love you. Some of us need a word from you today. Some of us need a miracle in our life. And some of us need a greater miracle. And we don't even know we need it. We're going to find out about that today. And so bless this scripture and touch it in Jesus' name. Amen. Interesting. As you look at the scripture over and over again, Jesus talks about miracles.

Or he performs a miracle. And then after he performs a miracle, he starts talking about sin. Or before he performs the miracle, he talks about sin. And he tends to keep bookmarking these powerful miracles with conversations about sin and hell and this whole deal. And it's like, that's kind of a buzzkill, Jesus. Like, why do you keep doing that? You know, I got a miracle. I don't need to talk about sin. I just want to stand up and walk.

Or I want to be able to see why do you keep doing this? And so the question I want to answer today, and something that has become very evident as we are in this series on miracles, is the question, why does Jesus talk about sin? And why does Jesus focus on sin when he's doing these miracles on a regular basis? Spoiler alert. The answer is, is because these miracles were meant to be an archetype. The miracles were meant to show the power that he has.

And also to address and to let people know that they were sick. Sometimes people go into a doctor, they don't know that they're sick, until the doctor gets some blood results and says, hey, by the way, you have a disease. Well, we didn't know we were sick. Well, the doctor tells you that you are. Jesus, on a regular basis, wanted people to know that they had a sickness that was far greater than any earthly sickness they could have, knowing that if he did a miracle, that that miracle would be unraveled at some point.

Lazarus died, was raised from the dead by Jesus, but what eventually happened to Lazarus? Lazarus died again. And so Jesus did not use miracles as the pinnacle of the things that he did. And miracles, as I said in the first week, are a stone that Jesus uses to cobble into a pathway that leads to the throne of God, and on the throne of God sits your Father. The miracles were meant to bring people to Jesus, although people tend to be excited, more excited, about seeing a fantastical miracle than they are about knowing the Father God.

Now, I said in the first service, if you could have the ability to raise people from the dead or be an incredible evangelist that didn't raise people from the dead but allowed people to know Jesus, what would you choose? Now, if you were an Instagram influencer, you would definitely want to raise people from the dead. Imagine how many followers you would get when you did that with an awesome little filter, and you could put the bunny face on your face and cool stuff and raise people from the dead.

You would blow up. It would just be amazing. And so many of us want that awesome miracle. I think Jesus loved bringing hope to people. I think Jesus loved when somebody was crippled and he could raise them from the dead. But he realized that there was a greater sickness, and they needed to know about that sickness, and Jesus was not afraid to tell them that they were sick. It's interesting that we live in a culture today, I believe, that finds it not in vogue to let people know when they are sick, at least when it comes to a spiritual sickness.

This is something that Jesus did on a regular basis, and we're going to see that he does here. He actually forgives this man's sins, and then afterwards, after having the authority to forgive sins, he uses the power to heal him from a physical sickness so that he might be able to walk, but then also to know God. We'll see that over and over again in these scriptures. But what are miracles for? Miracles are to be an archetype, a metaphor, to show that Jesus not only has the authority, but Jesus has the power, not just to heal the miracle, not just to give you the shiny thing that you want, but that you might know your Father.

Let's get into this right away. First thing we do is we want to set the scene. Now, we were just in Capernaum, and not too long ago in Israel, and it was a great time. And one of the things that we do when we read the scripture is too often we think about Jesus in the way in which we see our own lives. And so when you think about Jesus going city to city, we think about Jesus in a big giant city, maybe something like Chicago, and he does these things.

And, you know, people know about it, but it's kind of on the fringes of the city. If you know Capernaum at the time of Jesus, it was a city that only had 1,500 people in the city. Now, La Jolla High School has 1,800. Now, by the way, they just won the CIF championship. Yay, La Jolla High School. Super stoked on that. If you see Mason, he's on the team. We were stoked to have him do that. When you think about Jesus in Chicago, it would cause a stir, but not the same kind of stir that it.

Imagine yourself back in high school. Very few of us went to high schools that were bigger than 1,800 people. Imagine having a senior that named Jesus that came in there and started doing these types of miracles, healing lepers, casting out demons, raising up people that could not walk, healing the blind. Imagine that happening in your high school and imagine the stir it would cause. When Jesus was doing these miracles, it was very disruptive.

And not only was it disruptive, but it was disruptive because people had to start listening. They didn't have to, but they would pay more attention to what he was saying. You see, the miracle allowed him an audience where people saw a power that at least made them inquisitive of what is he saying alongside of these miracles. Interesting thing is Jesus never really focused on the miracle. He focused on where the miracle was supposed to lead people, which was to get them past another needed miracle, which is being rescued and brought alive from eternal death.

We'll see that in just a moment. But first of all, understanding that this was a very small city. This was disruptive. It was also home to some of the disciples. So two of Jesus' followers, Matthew and Peter were from here. Matthew was a tax collector. Imagine yourself in high school. If there was a bully, and that bully would go around and take your money, you would know who he was. You would understand that all of a sudden when Jesus has a disciple, and this doesn't connect, right?

Jesus has miracles. He's talking about being the son of God. He's talking about forgiving people from sin. But he also has this bully that's like one of his boys, that is one of his closest followers. Now that would cause some pause, right? But at the same time, he's allowing people who are sick to be healed. This is gonna cause a conundrum with believing in Jesus. And this is why Jesus had so many people, as we'll see in Capernaum, decide not to believe in him.

Besides this, you look and he says, this is Jesus' home. Now, this was actually not Jesus' home. Jesus was living in Capernaum. He made it the center of his ministry on the Galilee. Now we're on the Galilee, a lake that is north of Jerusalem. I think it's like an hour and a half drive or something like that, north of Jerusalem. It's where Jesus did 80% of his miracles. One of the things we've learned in this miracle series is that the ability of people to believe and to have faith and hope actually affects Jesus' ability to perform miracles.

Now, why does God allow himself to be limited by our faith? Because God doesn't have to be limited. If he wants to do something, he can definitely do it. But because he co-labors with us and understands that the only way to salvation is through faith, God has limited himself in miracles as well to show that faith is a key that opens up greater blessings. And I hope that that makes sense because you have to have faith to have a miracle.

Now, what is interesting in this passage that we think that the reason the man was healed was not because of his faith, but because of the faith of those around him. We'll see that in just a moment. The four people that lowered him down through the roof. Now, that would be disruptive, right? Imagine hearing noise during this. All of a sudden, a body starts being lowered down in front. And you're one of the people that brought these people to Jesus.

And these are influential people. Before I move into the notes, I'm kind of getting ahead of myself. But can you imagine yourself being a person who brings someone to faith? Are you a person who has the gall or the boldness, let's say, and the courage to actually become so disruptive to the normal culture because you care so much about other people? It says in this passage, it was because of their faith that the man was healed.

It's interesting to see that when a group of people get together and have faith for someone besides themselves, there is an ability that something might happen, a miraculous might happen. Who do you surround yourself with? Do you surround yourself with people who believe and have faith in miracles? We believe, and the scripture speaks about, that faith is an incredible key to unlock things. Things were being unlocked in Capernaum.

But would they believe? This was Jesus' home. But not because he was born there. He was born in Nazareth in Bethlehem. But because he had made his home there. Now, I'm not from La Jolla, but where do I live? I live in La Jolla. And so people would say, well, where's your home? It's in La Jolla. That's the same thing for Jesus. But he wasn't from there. Jesus was an outsider who had come there and was disruptive. And the city ended up not believing in him.

Look at a, and here's a list of the miracles Jesus performed. Now, I want you to again realize yourself in high school because this is the only way we can make the passage actually truly become relevant to us in such a small area. If there was somebody in your high school who was able to do these things, Jesus in Capernaum, it says, healed Peter's mother. That was our first miracle that we studied. He cured a demoniac, and that is a cure.

It's a spiritual power where he took a man that was demon-possessed and healed the man of demon possession, healed him of that bondage. A servant of the Roman centurion is healed. I want to stop quickly there on this one because this is important. The Romans were like the Nazis. That's another way. If we're going to understand scripture, we have to put it in cultural context. The Romans were something, they were brutal.

They were barbaric. They hated the Jews. And so it is a very interesting that in this city, that the gospel was beginning to all of a sudden already start moving out from beyond the Jews. God shrunk the gospel down, came to Abraham, and he gave himself a people. And from that seed of people, he wanted to save the entire world, but he shrunk it down because he needed a starting place. He started with Abraham, and then Abraham, and then the Jews.

And the Romans says that the gospel comes first to the Jews, and then to the Gentiles. But we see that Jesus is such a powerful figure that it is already starting to explode beyond that boundary before he dies on the cross. That a Roman centurion. Now, imagine in Nazi Germany in the 1940s, if you had a SS guard come to a Jewish person and say, hey, I have a friend, not only a friend, a servant. This shows the heart of the centurion, right?

Because servants back in the day were interchangeable. When they built a siege ramp to go to Masada, in Israel, the Romans, when someone would die, or a servant would die, they would just throw them into the ground, and they would just bury them into the ramp as they seized and built a ramp up to that city. They were not highly valued. Here we have a centurion, and the centurions are interesting because there's one at the cross as well, where this person was so touched, so emboldened by the disruptive nature of Jesus.

And Jesus is disruptive. I'm not saying that we have to be arrogant and rude to people, but is your faith disruptive? I think, you know, I'm not, it's easy to be a jerk and be a Christian. I'm not saying go be a jerk. But is your faith disruptive? Does your faith ever cause anybody to think, to pause, or to question the way in which they live? But Jesus was around this centurion. The centurion not only comes for a family member, this Roman centurion, let's call him a Nazi SS guard, comes to a Jew, perhaps in it, you know, in one of the cities when they were being taken away, and says, hey, I have a servant.

Would you heal them? The gospel was beginning to break out from Abraham through the Jews and to the Gentiles. I am a Gentile. We are Gentiles. It is God's purpose that all people might be saved. And one of the things that paves the way for the message of salvation is miracles, is God moving in people's lives. But the greatest miracle is not that you stand up and walk, or that you have your eyes healed. The greatest miracle is a changed life.

And few things, how are they saved? It says in the scripture, we're saved by the word of God and the power of what? Our testimony. It is a testimony. When I look at Devin over there, or I look at Chris or myself or Keith, when you see a picture of a story of somebody, you knew them before, and then you look later and their life is changed, that is the most powerful thing that you can have. I mean, I love miracles. I'd rather see a changed life.

If I could have a church full of miracles, or a church full of changed lives, I want changed lives. Because miracles pass away. Miracles are great. And I pray that you get one that you want. But is there a changed life that comes with it? So the centurion, let's not miss, that the gospel is beginning to accomplish its purpose before Jesus dies on the cross. It's beginning to get to the Gentiles. They're beginning to look in and to see this powerful nature of Jesus as he does these miracles.

Because miracles, once again, the reason of miracles are to get you to your father. They're meant to cobble away to get you to your father. And that is the purpose of miracles. Jesus ends up cursing Capernaum. Why? Because they didn't believe. He says in Matthew in your notes, 1123, And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted to the heavens? No. You will go down to Hades. For if the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Sodom, it would have remained to this day.

This is interesting because it shows that there is a geographical tie to human beings and the environment and the geography of which they live. That cities. It's interesting that Jesus talks about a city. He talks about the belief of a city and the blessing of a city or the cursing of a city based on the people that live there. And so it is really interesting. And one of the things that's most inspiring to me about this corner is we have been gathering people, like-minded people, for over 100 years on this corner who believe a certain way and bring blessing to the place that they live.

Now, we understand that the way in which people believe that we are tied to the earth. You know what actually happens to your body when you die? You become part of what? You go back to being of the earth. There is a connection between God's creation and the way in which we believe and sin. And I believe one of the reasons, one of the reasons that we see so much devastation in creation today, it has a lot to do with us not caring and tending the garden like we should be doing and caring for the environment.

But I think some of it has to do with our sin. I think the more that the sin, it says that the world, the earth, it actually says, will begin to cry out, yearns. It says that all of creation longs for the sons of God to be revealed. You should read the interesting connection between a place and the people and the way in which we believe, the way in which we live, the way in which we hope for miracles, you know, actually affects where you live.

It's a very, it's an interesting thing. And it's something that new age people understand. I don't, you know, new age people have kind of stolen this from Christianity, this idea that the way you live, actually, that you are connected to the very earth you live in. And we obviously, as Romans one and two says, we don't worship the creation, but we need to understand that connection. So Capernaum, what would Jesus say to La Jolla?

What would Jesus say to us? And is it possible that if we, just us, this little remnant right here, and that we're here in the first service and the other churches in the area, and the other believers in the area, begin to believe in a certain way that we can bring revolutionary transformation, not only to the spiritual climate, to the very physical environment by the way we believe. It seems that scripture points to that.

Whatever it is, I want to live in a way that changes our world, but changes hearts mostly. Jesus knew, as it looked in your notes, that we had a bigger problem. Jesus understood that miracles were a patchwork fix, and that the true miracle people needed was salvation from sin. Now Jesus says some very provocative things. Jesus was not willing to affirm what you wanted so that you would like him. He was not willing to look at a person that was drowning and tell them what a great swimmer they were.

I believe that I live in a culture that if I do not affirm that someone who is drowning, I hope this makes sense to you, is a great swimmer as they die, that I am the person who is being, whether it be politically incorrect or whatever it is, that you look at somebody and as they're drowning going, I just affirm that you are a great swimmer. I am so for you. No, Jesus would say, you're drowning, you're dying, I have a way out, I want to save you.

And we do live in a culture that does not want us to let people know what sin is or that they are sinning. And if you do so, that you are a person who is basically a person who would be anti to society. My daughter said to me the other day, I was talking to her, she goes, you know, Dad, it used to be okay when I was in middle school to just say, well, I'm a Christian, I don't believe in that, but you can do what you want.

But she goes, if I say that now, they tell me I'm a hater. She goes, I'm not a hater. She says, you can do what you want. But she goes, I'm actually being asked to celebrate things that if I don't celebrate it now, I'm a hateful person and a bigot. She goes, what am I supposed to do about that? We had a pretty long conversation about talking about that. You know, I thought, it's a lot like that Titanic. It's sinking, and I'm supposed to play the violin.

Maybe you've seen the movie. I gotta say, Jesus wasn't willing, and I'm not willing to play the violin. Nor am I gonna go and hold up a picket sign and go shoving in people's faces and throw Bibles at people and get all crazy. But if you are sick, you know, and I have the opportunity to tell you and you want to hear it, I'm gonna tell you. And if you're drowning, I'm not gonna applaud what a great swimmer you are. Jesus does that here.

Look at this. And Jesus does this when he heals people all the time. It says here in Matthew, excuse me, I'm sorry, back down to the bottom. After he healed the man at the pool of Bethsaida, we were just there as well, John 5, 14. Later, Jesus went and found him at the temple. And so after you do the miracle, why do you go find the guy, right? Like he goes and finds him. He finds him because he understands that the miracle's not complete until this man knows the Father God through Jesus.

If anybody gets a miracle, it doesn't stop there. We're usually happy with the miracle. If you get your miracle, you're done, right? It's like I've been shopping on Amazon for Christmas. You proceed, you press check out, and we're done. I just wait for my gift. It isn't like that with Jesus. Jesus healed this man and he went and found him because he knows he has a bigger problem. So he says to the man, later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, see, you're well again.

Now, this would not play today, okay? He goes and says, stop sinning or something worse may happen to you. Now, he did it in private, which I thought was interesting. He didn't, he could have done that in the moment, right? He actually says this in private to the woman who was caught in the act of adultery. Remember, we wanted to stone her and Jesus didn't allow her to be stoned. Jesus said, you know, you have the first, you know, he stood up for her and then basically, it's just Jesus and her, everyone's gone and Jesus says to her, go, basically, go and sin no more.

He has these one-on-one private conversations and I believe if you are going to use the phrasing, stop sinning, one of the best with somebody, one of the best times to do it is over an intimate conversation where there's been trust built. in a relationship where they know that you deeply care about them. I'm not telling you this from a position of hierarchy. I'm not telling you this from a position of power. I'm telling you this because I believe you're drowning and I want you to know my father.

And if they believe that you care about them, they might not accept it, but it's more likely that they will receive it. Jesus could have said this to them in front of the crowds. He could have said this to this man at Bethsaida. He could have said it to the woman in John chapter 8, but he waits to there alone and he goes and finds him individually and says, I want to have a conversation with you. He says, stop sinning or something worse might happen to you.

Have you, now as a believer, I would say, if in the last 12 months you have not had that conversation with somebody, you might want to re-evaluate what you're doing in regard to evangelism and the salvation of your friends. And ask yourself the question, do I really care about anybody else going to heaven besides myself? Do I really care about anybody else besides me? Because Jesus and these people, when he was sitting there, he has four friends.

Let's go to, I just want to go to it quickly in chapter, verse 4. Verse 3. It says, some men came bringing to him a paralyzed man carried by four of them. Since they could not get to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus, digging through it and lowered the mat that the man was lying in. When Jesus saw what? I talked about this in a moment. Their faith. That doesn't mean, it might not mean, it might not mean the paralytic man.

It might mean when Jesus saw the faith of the people who surrounded the paralytic man, Jesus said to them, son, your sins are forgiven. Now obviously you have to believe, so it is a good chance that obviously the paralyzed man wanted to be there, but there is power in a group of believing people. And who are you surrounding yourself with and do you have a group of people that you spend time with that will partner with you in the salvation of others?

Or do we only want and care about the next shiny thing that we want for our life? I gotta say, I have to, I am so tempted to live a shallow life. It is so tempting to want the next thing, to want the next trip, and not give a care about anybody else or whether they're gonna go to hell. We believe that if you do not know Jesus and accept him as your savior, that you will spend eternity separated from God. That's why we're here.

I wouldn't put so much effort into what I do and hopefully you and what you do if you didn't believe that. It's not just a ride for us. Jesus came that all might be saved and these four people believed for someone else. Now I was, I mentioned him earlier, but Eden is one of our elders. Her and her husband, Devin, are here. They're here because Rebecca invited them. They have invited probably, there's probably 20 to 25 people who come to church every week because that little crew over there, they were here in the first service.

They just mob like three rows. And it's, the more that come, the more of them that keep coming. All their friends from high school, all their friends from the football team, I met another one today. More and more, every week they're inviting me, inviting new friends. They're just mobbing because all of a sudden it's become the culture of their friendships. The culture of their friendship is to invite people to their faith home where they're getting life change.

You saw James get baptized last week. He was a bartender. He's quit bartending. He joined the police force. He got accepted into the Chula Vista police force this week. Super excited about that. But he was not following Christ six to eight months ago. Now he's following Christ. I mean, God's moving. There was a group of people that have faith and you can do that too. I got the VG's donut crew over here from Encinitas and they're just mobbing.

They're bringing people over. I got the Wind and Sea people who just, you know, the Wind and Sea, they mob too. They bring all their friends and they invite people. I see people that I know out in the water. I'm like, what are you doing at church, bro? Like, whoa, you're the last person I thought to come to church. It's like, I fake it. Like I'm just, you know, but I'm like back down. I'm thinking, dude, I can't believe you're here.

You know, it's unbelievable. We are creating Invitation Sunday so you can lower somebody down who knows, who knows that they're paralyzed. There are a lot of people out there that are broke and broke people need help and they want to be changed and they want to know Jesus. Introduce somebody to Jesus. That's what we see again. Turn your notes over. We're going to say three quick things and we'll come to a communion time.

Why does Jesus connect earthly miracles? I've already said this. Salvation is sin. Earthly miracles are an archetype of a greater and much needed miracle. The miracle of salvation. Now there's three things of why he does this. What is the similarity between an earthly miracle of healing somebody like raising them from the dead or giving them sight. There are some similarities between that and healing the disease of sin which is a sickness and that most people don't know that they have.

Let's go. The first similarity is this. They're both about needed healing. Sin is a sickness. In Mark 2, 3 as we read earlier some men came bringing to him a paralyzed man. This was a person who knew that he was sick. What is so interesting is so many people don't know that they're sick and it is the preaching of the word that allows people to know that they are sick. The law. Why was the... You know people... It's funny.

People look at the law of God that was given and they're like, dude, that God... All he wants to do is make people obey. He's such a buzzkill. Gives us this law. The law basically is a form of grace that lets you know what is right and what is wrong so you will not be separated from God and also you can live healthy. Imagine if you have a child and they have a fork and an outlet. Okay? And you don't tell them no when they keep wanting to shove the fork into the outlet.

Now, is it a... Are you a buzzkill? Man, because you're ruining that toddler's fun, dude. They're going to drink the bleach. Just go. You know, you're free to be you. Whatever you want. Just drink the bleach. It's all good. Or is it a grace to say, hey, we don't drink bleach. We don't run across the street. Okay? We don't go in a jacuzzi when it's over 105 degrees is what I've heard. Whatever those things are. Is that a grace?

Is that love? Or is that a law? Well, God brought the law that we might know what not only separates us from him, but what destroys our life. Matter of fact, the majority of things that you see the Bible saying no about actually lead to destruction. All sin, it says, leads to death. Not just the big sins. All sin leads to death. Jesus uses miracles to show a healing, but he also wants to see us healed from that greater sin.

So, Romans 5.12 talks about this, and Romans is great when it talks about the sin. It says, therefore, as sin entered the world through one man, that's Adam, and death through sin. Now, that's interesting. When you sinned, the disease started. Death. Now, it shows death is already existing. Death isn't something that's coming. The scripture says that if you don't know Jesus, you are currently walking, you are currently dead.

It says over and over again, you're dead in your transgressions. And we should be excited when people come, like three people did in the first service who made a decision to follow Jesus. they have been raised from the dead. Now, it's not as exciting as if you went to the graveyard and bring somebody up. That's going to get a lot more news coverage. But they're going to die again. But when someone comes to know Jesus, actually, they are saved from current death.

They are walking in chains of death. The Bible speaks about this over and over again. And they have been raised up into life. We have to get excited about that. We have to get as excited understanding. And the devil doesn't want you to know this. The devil wants you to think that someone being raised from a tomb is way cooler and way better than someone who has been raised unto life in Christ for eternal life. It's a big difference and something we definitely need to understand.

It says that death came into the world through sin. And in this way, death came to all people because all have sinned. Here's the thing. The problem today is no one knows they're sick. Matter of fact, the world is telling you that the things that kill you and make you sick are actually the things that give you life. And then if you tell them the opposite of that, then you are the person that is bringing, they see you as the person that is bringing death and lack of freedom to those people.

Once again, I was driving back down to 395, 21 hours to get back from Mammoth because the freeway was closed. Five hours, we drove one mile in the snow. It was awesome. Try it. So, yeah. And I was sitting there thinking as I drove because I had a lot of time to sit there and think because all my podcasts had run out. And I thought to myself, I am no longer going to tell people how great they're swimming when they're drowning.

Nor am I willing to do that because one day I'm going to have a conversation, the scripture says, and my faith believes this, where it's going to be mano ideus. It's going to be me and God. And he's going to say, and it actually, the scripture actually says, I believe, it says it this way, that those people will ask why you didn't tell them. And it says that they're, I think, I'm not sure the word is blood, but the guilt of that, I will have to answer for that.

Now, I will still go to heaven. I am still under the blood of Jesus, but I don't want to have an awkward conversation with God. It's probably going to be awkward enough as it is, you know? I don't want to stand there and be like, you know, I just didn't want to hurt anybody's feelings, God. No, I want to preach the truth. This world is drowning and it's dying. And if you look at the empirical statistics of what have been happening in regard to, you know, you heard it again this week, the average life expectancy dropped again for five years in a row.

I think now it's 2014. We are dying sooner. You want to know why? Drugs, suicide, smoking, or addictions, and addictions. It would basically be the other one. We are dying sooner. And the more we have given up and the less we have talked about the truth of God's word, I'd say it, the more we're dying. Because sin leads to what? Death. And the more you sin, the quicker you're going to die. The Bible says that. And I've got to say once again, I am not going to sit there as people drown and applaud them for being, you know, great swimmers.

Oh, that's amazing. Oh, I don't want to offend you. I know, you're amazing. Help, help. No, you go, girl. You go. You get after it. Preaching of the word informs people that they're sick and it's a grace. Mark 2, 3 in the scripture says he preached the word to them. Miracles follow the preaching of the word. The preaching of the word paves the way. Do you know the word of God and are you preaching the word of God? Are you using the word of God?

Now, I'm not saying that you have to, when you talk to somebody who doesn't know Christ and say, you know, in John 3, 16, it says that God so loved the world. They are going to turn you off immediately. We have to get much better. Now, when I weave scripture in, I'm learning how to have the ability to speak scripture to people, which is living and active, but I just translate it with my translation. So, somebody says, well, what do you think about God?

I'll say John 3, 16, but I won't even mention that. I'll say, well, I think that there's a God and I think if there is a God, he loves the world so much. Matter of fact, he loves him so much that if God had a son, which I believe he does, I think he would probably sacrifice, he would probably let his son die because he's so loving so that we could live, that all people might come to know him. Like, I'll just speak the word, I'll paraphrase it in the Adam translation, but it doesn't make the truth of God's word any less powerful.

I want to say, begin to use the word of God when you speak to people and don't use a Bible reference when you do it. Begin to have 10 or 15 scriptures, and I've said this for a very long time, this isn't meant to shame anybody, but could you right now with a pad of paper, write down 10 scriptures in a systematic way, let's make it seven, where you could lead someone to Christ scripturally. Do you have, like if you pull someone aside, they're going to die in 10 minutes, you have to find seven scriptures without using the Bible that you can lead someone to Christ.

Can you do it? I would say 95% of Christians cannot do that. They might know John 3, 16, maybe 2 Corinthians 5, 17, but other than that, that's about it. To just have that on hand, make yourself aware of the word of God because miracles follow the preaching of the word. And miracles, after a miracle, you know what follows a miracle? People coming to know Jesus as their father. The final thing, I see the youth group in the back ready for communion.

They are just mobbing. They want communion so bad we're going to get to it. We said it's about faith. We talked already about faith as a gateway to miracles for both physical and spiritual. And it's about supernatural power. This is the final one. Go to the final one. There's two things that Jesus mentions. And I want you to study. This is your homework for this week. Look up the difference in the Bible between the word authority and power.

And you're going to see a footnote there. But if you put in your Google search the Greek word for authority in the Bible, it'll come up and you can search it. And then the Greek word for power in the Bible. Mark 2, Jesus has the authority and the power. It says, but I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. So he said to the man, I tell you, take up your mat, go home. And he got up his mat and walked out in full view.

Authority in the word is ecclesia. Exousia, excuse me. It means the power of choice. Jesus has authority. When it says that Jesus has authority, it means that he has the choice to do something. He has authority to choose it one way or another. But not only does he have authority to do something, he has the power to do something. There's some people that have authority but they have no power. They have a title but they have no power.

Jesus has authority and power. Authority means that he can make a decision. But power, dunamis, is this word, means that you have the power to make it happen. Jesus walked in power and authority and he knew how to yield them both. One of the things that we want to do is we want to begin to understand our authority in Jesus Christ and understand the power that he has to change lives. Do you walk in authority? If you are a person that constantly talks about how bad you are, how negative you are, don't allow yourself to speak negatively to yourself.

No longer, you need to guard yourself against yourself. Don't let your mind rule your life. Don't, you know, allow yourself to say, no, I will not speak to myself that way or I will not allow myself to be spoken to that way. And all of a sudden begin to speak and understand the authority that you have in Christ. Do a Google Word search in the Bible for authority and read authority and find out who you are in Christ. And not only do you have authority, you have power.

Begin to pray in power. I pray with people in this church. I pray with especially the originals, the ones that were here before I got here and they pray with power. They say, Jesus, in the power of your blood, I pray over this high school. I pray over this city, God. I begin to release power. Use authority and power and use it in a way that changes lives. Amen? Let's stand if we would. We're going to get ready to take communion.

Let's stand if you would and on this Advent Sunday, let's remember that first Advent Sunday that Christmas is not about shiny things. this is another opportunity to lean in, to open up the Word of God, to read the Gospels of what Jesus did in His birth and to be a person who lowers people down. Maybe you need to be lowered down. Maybe you need to get to Jesus and get healed first but then become that person who lowers people out of the roof.

If you extend your hands, I want to bless you. The world's full of curses, tired of curses. I want blessing. And in the authority of Jesus and in His name, I bless you with dunamis. I bless you with that idea of authority. Authority and power. I bless you. Will you receive it? Capernaum was not willing to receive it but will you receive it? And so, will you receive? Say, Jesus, I receive it. I receive blessing. I receive power.

I receive healing. I receive hope. I receive power. I want your glory. I want to taste your glory. I want a hunger. God, I pray you would just give all who wanted a hunger for the lost. God, it changes lives when we cry for someone besides ourselves. I send you out now with the spirit of Christmas, the birth of Jesus to bring a change to your campus and for those that are on Maryland's campus or every day in high school campus, you would be protected and that you would speak to the truth in other campuses, you high schoolers and junior highs here, middle schoolers, that you would speak truth and continue to invite your friends to know Jesus, that you would be a light into the world and that you that are in the medical workplace or in law or stay-at-home moms or plumbers or contractors or business people, that you would be blessed.

Those of you in the military and the services, Lord God, that you would be blessed. I bless you as a bringer of light. Be a bringer of light this Christmas and as we bless people every day, just say, may Christmas blessings fall upon you. Speak the word. So God, I send them out now to dive back into your word with a hunger for your word, with a passion for this place, of this corner, for this city and their homes. And we send you out now in victory.

We praise God for victory. In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Amen.