NOV 17 2019 | Grace on the Galilee S1E2 | Spitting Contest

Sea Change Church · Grace on the Galilee · "Spitting Contest" Pastor Adam Stadtmiller · November 17, 2019
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

Good morning, church. My name is Linda Rutgard. I'm with Eyesight Missions. Today's reading is from Mark 8, 22 to 25, and I'm going to use, I'm going to give Jesus his pronouns. As they came to Bethsaida, and some people brought to Jesus a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him. And Jesus took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village. And when he had, when Jesus had spit on his eyes and laid his hands on him, Jesus asked him, Do you see anything?

And he looked up and he said, I see people, but they look like trees walking. Then Jesus laid his hands on the eyes again, and he opened his eyes, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. The word of the Lord. The, uh, actually goes on there in that final verse, in verse 26, I don't know if it's on your notes there, it says, Jesus sent him home, saying, don't even go into the village, which is going to be really important.

Let me pray, and then we're going to jump into this, uh, second episode of the series, Grace on the Galilee. Lord Jesus, Lord, we love you. We invite you into this time to be with us, Lord God. Each of us comes to hear from your word. We come for different reasons, Lord Jesus. And God, we bless you, and we thank you. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, we're in the Grace on the Galilee series, and it's really interesting that 80% of Jesus' miracles happened near this little lake, uh, north of Jerusalem.

Now, if you were trying to be an influencer, and you lived in Israel in the time of Jesus, the place to do your miracles is not in some rural fishing village or the fishing villages, uh, north of Jerusalem. The place to go is, is Jerusalem. You, you go to the, uh, hornet's nest, so to speak, where all the political power and things were happening. This is where you go, and this is where you make your mark. What is really interesting, though, in, with Jesus' miracles, is the fact that so many of Jesus' miracles are tied to a geographical location.

Now, obviously, Jesus always did it somewhere, so it's all tied to a geographical location. But as you read through the scripture, Jesus actually brings up the names of the cities that he is doing the miracles at, or the scripture mentions exactly where he was at. And so there seems to be some deep connection between the, um, the hearts of the people and what they believed and the faith of the people, and then actually where they were in the cities.

And the cities would actually be affected by how the people believed, uh, and, and how the people lived. And so really, really interesting, as I also think about La Jolla and what kind of people we want to be to release the grace of God. Now, one of the things that's so interesting is also about, when I read about the miracles of Jesus, I use, I think I used to be a, uh, uh, a Bible reader that when I saw the miracle, it was actually the miracle that got me interested.

It was the walking on water. It was the healing of the, the man born blind. It was, um, these different types of, of, of things. It was actually in the miracle that, um, there we go. I have the wrong set of notes. It was actually in the miracle that I was really interested in. As I have begun to do this, this passage, and as I've just become a student of the Bible, I found that most of the good stuff in the scriptures isn't actually in the events of like the moment of the event.

Obviously the resurrection, I think it's, it's, it's pretty powerful in that moment, but it's actually what's in the margins around the miracles where we find a lot of the meaning. The miracle so much isn't, I mean, there is meaning. The blind receiving their sight. There's a lot of deep meaning there. Jesus is the light of the world. There's all that deep meaning, but it's what's happening around the miracles that I found most interesting, especially in these passages.

And I think that what Jesus, the reason, um, that Jesus did miracles wasn't so much for the miracle because every miracle will eventually those eyes will go blind again. When they pass away, these miracles will pass away, but Jesus is trying to use the miracles to cobble together a road that leads to his father's heart, a road that leads to the father. And so he allows these miracles and it's what we see around these miracles that I find really, really interesting.

Here's the first couple of things before we jump in the notes. First of all, we talked about where the miracles were. Another thing we see with Jesus' miracles, and we have a man that was, um, born crippled, where Jesus asked him this really weird question who'd been born, been 38 years, um, you know, a lame. He asked him, do you want to be well? That's a unique question. You don't really, actually, actually kind of seemed like a foolish question to me.

You don't go up to somebody who has spent 38 years at this pool that's supposed to have this healing qualities and who wants to get healed and asks them if they want to get healed. Unless you know something about people, that some people actually gain more benefits from their infirmities or whatever those things are that are enabling them or hindering them than they would actually get from being healed. And many of us, um, have a interesting relationship with our diseases.

Uh, and not everyone, Jesus knew, wanted to be healed. And so Jesus asked people sometimes, do you want to be healed? The questions of Jesus, Jesus asked somewhere between 700, I think I read this, maybe, uh, maybe it was, well, I think it's 700 to 1,000, I think of what I, what I said. But I, I read this this week. Um, we'll, no, it was two to 300. I apologize. Two to 300 questions in the gospels. Two to 300 questions.

Jesus, God asking questions is really interesting to me, right? Like, why do you ask questions? What's the purpose of God asking questions when he knows everything? And so Jesus asked these questions, like, do you want to get well? And as we're going to see in this passage, a little bit further up, not in this passage, but after it, Jesus asked some people, why are you following me? Now, this is what I have found in the margins as I've been reading through these healing passages.

Um, Jesus really concerned with why people want to get healed and why they are following him. This is what I, you know, because a lot of people are following Jesus when he starts doing these miracles, right? So if you're an Instagram influencer, right? You are going to post your miracle. You are going to, if you're going to do a miracle and you can do it and you're trying to gain followers, right? If you can do that, you're going to post it so everyone can see it and you can get as many followers as possible.

The thing that's really interesting about Jesus is he seems to not, um, be interested in everyone, in anyone following him. Now, follow me on this. Okay. Follow me on this one. Instagram, whether it be social media, most people don't care who follow them. Do you understand what I mean? Most people are willing to let anybody who wants to follow them, follow them. But Jesus regularly looks at his followers, even those that are being healed by him and asks them, why are you following me?

Or what do you want from me? Now, this is really interesting. In a world, in a culture, where we live in a, um, a culture that is trying to find followers. You look, especially in social media, we want as many followers as possible. And we have no requirements of those followers. Jesus is completely opposite. And it's maybe because he understands where he's leading those people. One of the things that I think that's interesting is we follow so many people these days that actually have no idea where they're going.

Jesus knows where he's going. And that is why, and he also wants people to understand where he's going. And he doesn't want everyone to follow him blindly. Jesus, you know, even in this story, doesn't want people to follow him blindly. And so we're gonna, this is one of the things that is in the margins of these stories. Why is Jesus so concerned with who follows him? And why does he ask questions like, why are you following me?

And why does he do miracles? Because if he was just out to get a bunch of followers, he would have gone to Jerusalem, done a bunch of miracles in public sight. As you're gonna see in the scripture, where did he do this miracle? Raise your hand if you know where he did this miracle. Anybody? Yeah, in the back. Oh, you know, I'm not gonna, I was gonna ask you to yell it out, but it's too far in the back, Dave. He actually does this miracle outside of the city.

He grabs this man's hand and he takes him outside of the city, which is so interesting because he was in the city. And if you're gonna do a miracle, where do you do it? You wanna do it where everyone can see it. And so these are some of the things that I find really, really interesting in this passage. First thing, as you look in, it says they came, verse 22, they came to Bethsaida. Jesus, it says in the notes, seemed to care why people follow him.

And Jesus asked, what do you want? As people are coming to Jesus for these miracles, I wanna bring up another story about some people that were following another person, John the Baptist in the scripture at Galilee and at the Jordan. John the Baptist was a baptizer and people were beginning to follow him because of what he was doing and the message that he was bringing. But one day he's there and Jesus walks by, and I have to realize, this is in a culture where you get swag or you get clout by who you follow, right?

And so all the rabbis of the day are looking for people to follow and the people wanna be associated with the best rabbis. And so John the Baptist is there and he's baptizing people. And one day Jesus walks by and as Jesus is walking by, he says to, he points to Jesus, he says, look, there is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. I think he just says, there is the Lamb of God. And all of a sudden, the people, the two people, the men that were following Jesus leave John and they start following Jesus.

This is really interesting. So listen to this passage because this has to do with what you're looking for. And the whole point is, why are we following Jesus? Verse John 1, 35 through 38 says this, the next day, John was there again with two of his disciples. When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, look, the Lamb of God. And when the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus. That's great, right? In our culture, anybody that clicks to follow, you want that.

Even though oftentimes we follow people, we don't know where they're going. I wish there was another button on social media that said, somewhat interested in. Like, not willing to follow, but somewhat interested in. But I could press that one, but nonetheless, we have to follow. And it says that Jesus turns around and saw them following, and he asks them this. It's a blunt question. What do you want? This is a really powerful question.

And the reason I bring this up again is because Jesus asked this question because he knows where he's going, and he needs people who are going to follow him not to be surprised when they end up at the cross. They need not to be surprised when they end up in the second century being persecuted and understand that he wasn't leading them. He was leading them to his father, but there would be a big hurdle along the way, and he was looking for people of resolve.

You know, when all these miracles were happening, people were starting to flock to Jesus. And it's just so interesting. In the margins of all these miracles, Jesus kept going to secret places to do the miracles. He takes this man's hand. He takes him out of the city before he does the miracle. He doesn't do the miracles in Jerusalem. He does these in all these other places because he's looking for people of resolve. Now, this week, as I prayed over this message and this word, I felt like the Lord told me to give this word to the congregation.

The word's resolve. What are you resolved to? It's a great question. Some people are resolved to stay in relationships that are very difficult, but they've made a resolution, they've made a vow, and they've resolved to stay in those. Some people have resolved to follow Jesus. Some people have resolved to this or that, but are we a people that are resolved? And when Jesus asked, why are you following me? What is the reason?

I think we follow Jesus for all types of reasons. I think when I started re-following Jesus, it's because I wanted to get sober. I had a reason. But the starting gate doesn't always end up to be the destination, right? And so what I think the reason, and the reason Jesus came, was not that he would die on the cross to save you from your sins. That is not the primary. That is a reason that Jesus came. Jesus did not primarily come to die on the cross so that you could be saved from your sins.

That makes it just a salvific superhero Jesus that only cares about saving you from sin. Jesus came and died on the cross that you might know his father. That's the whole deal. To re-establish relationship with your loving father. This is the destination that he was taking us to. And he realized that the journey to that place journeys through the cross. And so right over and over again, as we're looking at these miracles, the reason I do that whole setup for this is because often in times in our life, we're looking at the wrong prize.

We're looking at the miracle. We're looking at the shiny thing that we want from Jesus. What do you want? Great question, right? What if God came to you, Jesus came to you and says, what do you want? I mean, what would you answer him? I wonder how many of us would say, if Jesus really came to you and said, anything you want, like he said that God said to Solomon, anything you want you can have. How many of us would say, to know your father better?

That's actually the answer that he's looking for. It's actually the place that he is going to fashion your life, as we'll see in a moment, through process to try to get you to that place. As he removes the shiny things from your hands, as he removes the wants from your heart, and leading you to know the father, that you might know his love directly. He is all about the father's love. In the scripture, it says that every knee will bow, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

But then it goes on to say, comma, to the glory of what? God the father. It's all about the father. And so, these miracles that are happening on the Galilee, that people are flocking to, that Jesus is regularly saying, why did you come to see these miracles? Is this all you came? Was for a show? I'm not a snake charmer. Jesus is not a magician. Jesus is not trying to do some high, you know, some trapeze act, for us to come and be wowed by.

And sometimes that's all we want. Jesus is saying, why are you here? And so once again, using the scripture, as a mirror into our own lives, to ask yourself, why are you following Jesus? It's a great question. Why did you come today? Pastor Harry and I talked this week, and we were talking about our own personal lives, and why we're pastors, and why we do what we do. And I guess the question kept coming up, is why are we following Jesus?

Why am I actually following Jesus? Because I had a radical experience. I had a radical Jesus experience. And I found it much easier to hold on to my faith, when you basically have walked in hell for a long time. Like when you bend to hell, basically, so to speak, metaphorically, and you've walked in it, you've been rescued from hell, and then you're on this side, I don't want to go back to hell, just to tell you the truth.

I don't want to go back. And the times where I might have been tempted to go back, I remember it, I can still smell it, and I don't want a piece of it. Harry grew up, doesn't know when he accepted Christ, but knows he's had a deep love for Christ. My children don't remember when they accepted Christ. They've had, and that's a beautiful thing. But to both ask ourselves, why are we following? I'm not following Jesus anymore to stay sober.

I'm trying to follow Jesus, not looking for a miracle, because I want to know his father. And so we had this awesome debate. And so the question is to you, why are you following Jesus? And what do you really want? And do you want as much as Jesus is offering? Jumping into the notes, Jesus was becoming popular. He asked people what they want, and Jesus rebuked the miracle hunters, as you'll see in John 4, 46 through 50.

He says in the highlighted parts of the notes, unless you people see signs and wonders, Jesus told him, you will what? Never believe. Unless I do more tricks for you. Unless I dance a little dance, you will never believe. Once again, miracles. As much as we want miracles, we want healing. Prayed for a woman in the first, after the first service with cancer. We are praying for a miracle. We want healing. We want to bring her to Jesus, that she might be healed.

We are desperate to see healing. We are desirous of that. But more than that, we want to know Jesus. We want to know the father. And the miracle, if it happens, or whether it doesn't happen, is still a road to know the father. That's the interesting thing with Jesus. Even if you don't get the miracle, he still has a path for you to get to the father. And are you satisfied with the father and not your miracle? Or else you just become a miracle hunter.

We don't want to be miracle hunters. We want to be people that are hunting the heart, the very heart of God. As we look in, miracles flow, as you'll see in verse 22. Now this is so, this is so awesome, because I think once again, it reflects ourselves as a church. Miracles flow from a space of compassion. If you want to have miracles, the catalyst for miracles is compassion. Compassion is reaching out, caring for others enough to bring them healing, hope, care, concern.

I ask the question all the time, do you ever cry for anybody other than yourself? How much, would you rather have a miracle for yourself or for somebody else? This is the third story now. We've, we've two weeks in a row, the episodes with two stories, three stories we've brought up where the miracle happened because other people came and beseeched Jesus for a miracle for someone else. Have you seen that? Remember, Peter's mother-in-law, why was she healed?

Peter's mother-in-law was healed because they went to Jesus who was in the synagogue and they said, she's sick. Can you come here? I think they said, they begged her to come heal him, her. And so he went. As we'll see in a moment, there was a, there's another scripture here in just a little bit down the notes. An official comes, says, my, my son is dying. Can you please heal him? And in this story, the blind man is healed because others, look at verse 22.

Some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him. Look at the compassion there. I mean, put your, can you see yourself in that position? You have a blind friend, you know, Jesus is in town, Jesus is healing. You would go get, because he's blind, right? This is why Jesus leads him by the hand later. Sometimes you don't, it's not always codependent to grab someone by the hand and lead him on a burning building.

Sometimes we have to be careful that we're not trying to work, fix everyone's problems. But on occasion, like Jesus does, and like these people do, you can take someone by the hand and say, hey, do you want to come with me? And they come to Jesus and they beg Jesus that he might touch him. I mean, can you, can you see yourself as a person who does that? Are you the type of person like these people who would go and beg Jesus for a miracle that wasn't your miracle?

Or do we only have passion and no compassion? We have a world that's, that is fueled by gratifying our passions, but not by compassion. So there's a big difference between going after your passions and compassion. And the world needs compassion. And compassion brings healing. And when you have a world that is feasting on passion, but is starving for compassion, then you end up in a place with no healing. You end up in a place that leads to death.

I think that as a church, once again, speaking about having geographical places where the people's hearts and the places are open to the works of heaven can change a city. That's why this corner matters. That's why it matters to gather people from all over the city to certain locations like the church where we can open our hearts and say we believe and we want to bring people. I had five people who I saw this Sunday who came, who were invited last Sunday to Invitation Sunday and they were back this Sunday.

I had one woman come up, she says, I hadn't been to church for, I don't know, 30 years. She goes, I wasn't able to get my makeup on. I just put my hat on. I came back because I came last week and I loved it and I'm back and I'm just here and I need to be here. And I was like, so good to have you. I had another family come to me and said, we hadn't gone to church for a long time. We're going to come every single week.

They slapped me high five at the first service. It is awesome because somebody went out and took them by the hand and invited them and said, come show up. And now they, you know what? They got here themselves this time. No one had to invite them a second time. They came on their own. You see, Jesus had compassion and when we have compassion for other people, we have healing. If you want to be healed, if you want purpose in your life, matter of fact, if you want passion in your life, the way to get passion in your life is not to seek passion.

If you seek passion, it immediately empties and you want more passion. If you give compassion, your heart will be filled to overflowing. That is how it works. Jesus, filled with compassion, moved and healed people. We want to be a healing church. Moving on. Verse 20, Matthew, just one more quick verse. Matthew 20, 34, moved what? With compassion. Jesus touched their eyes and immediately they regained their sight and followed him.

That was a different story of a healing but once again, Jesus moved with compassion. Now, here's another thing that's in the margins. It isn't the bits in scripture that smack me over the head that I'm interested in. It's always, I'm always looking for the secret little nuggets. I don't know, those are the things that I just, I love looking at all the little things that you don't expect to see. And I see in verse 23, it says, he took the blind man by the hand and he led him outside of the village.

Now, why? Why do you lead him outside of the village? Especially if you're trying to create a cult of personality. Well, the first thing is this. We see Jesus' deeply personal nature of his miracles. He wasn't looking to leverage his power into celebrity. The deeply personal nature of Jesus' miracles, the personal touch of Jesus was so unbelievable that he would take this man by hand and say, come with me. And he took him outside alone and he had that miracle, that conversation by himself.

We don't see that anybody went with them. As opposed to making some type of ordeal on it, Jesus went one-to-one with the person. We offer, Jesus offers a personal relationship. That's the one thing that we talk about on a regular basis is God's personal love for you and that if you were the only person that he would have died for and he still would have died for you. That is the message of the gospel and we see it here.

The other thing is that we see that, you know, once again, that the city, this is one of the cities that Jesus said, woe to you, Bethsaida. He said, woe to you because he says you wouldn't believe and so Jesus says to him, let's just go outside of the city. I really believe that we never want to become a city that Jesus doesn't want to be in and we see that Jesus would spend time where people wanted him. There's no place in scripture where Jesus takes someone in a headlock and brings them into the synagogue.

I know that, you know, there were certain ages in the church where the church was forcing people to follow, you know, in the 1300s and things but pretty much lately, it is a religion of choice. You decide if you want to follow Jesus and so what Jesus has done is he has invited people into relationship and if people don't want to be in relationship, he has this weird habit of being willing to let people go their own way like Fleetwood Mac said.

You know, you can go your own way and Jesus will let you. You know, it's so funny that Jesus, he doesn't, he'll chase you into hell to save you but he's not going to beg you to follow him. It's interesting. He goes and he finds people. He'll go find you and he'll talk to you but you never see him begging anyone to follow him and so the same thing is with cities. I think one of the reasons this corner matters and the reason that all these hearts come together and what God is doing is because for this city, he's like, I have a remnant there.

I have a group of people that I want to continue to let the love of God flow from that place and so I think it actually does matter and in this city, Bethsaida, not only did Jesus throw shade at that city later on saying, you didn't even want me, you didn't even believe because once again, it's not about the miracle, it's about the belief that he says to him, let's go outside the city. I'm not gonna, now maybe Jesus couldn't have done the miracle within this city.

Now he's God but he's also limited when he was on earth and there are scriptures that say Jesus was not able to do many miracles in that city. Why? Because of their lack of belief. So Jesus is like, maybe, maybe he doesn't say this exactly, maybe Jesus is like, I can't actually get anything done here because there's no faith, it's antithetical, their faith is actually anti-faith, let's bounce and go outside of the city so I can touch you outside of the city.

And then he goes outside and he blesses him outside of that place. It's just interesting that we see Jesus move him out of the city and that Jesus wanted to take him there. Now, interesting thing as well, he, Jesus will leave you to your own devices until you're ready. I found that as well in my own life. Jesus is like, give me more rope. He will give me so much rope. Like, just let me go and let me go but then he'll show up when I cry out.

I was like, help, help and then Jesus would show up, you know. In this, it's so interesting. Look at the end of the verse, what it says here in verse, and that's why I re-read it at the end, 26. After he healed him, actually go to 25, then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, he saw everything clearly. Jesus did what? He sent him back into the city and he said, hey everybody, you go tell everybody what I did because I need some more followers because my personal worth is based on how many people are following me and so would you go into the city and make a spectacle of this because this is really what I'm about.

No. It says, then Jesus laid his hands on him. He's restored. He saw everything clearly. If you can go to verse 26, can you get on that on the screen? It says that Jesus, in verse 26, says, don't even go into the village. He sent him home. He said, you know what? Don't bother with it. They're not going to believe anyways, basically. Just go home because you know what? Jesus is going to heal those who want it. Do you want to be healed?

God forbid, La Jolla or any other place and I believe this, I believe this city thing still happens by the way. I believe there are cities when you walk in that are open to the heart of God and you can feel it and I believe there are cities you walk in and you can feel that it is just closed, shut down, skeptical, cynical. Now if you have a spiritual gift of discernment, you're going to feel that more strongly but you walk into these places, you can feel that there's an openness.

Even when I went to Thailand, which is not a Christian nation, when I went into Thailand, there was an openness there to the gospel. There was an openness in that place. Have you ever been to Thailand? As soon as you get off the plane, I don't know if, you know, when we went out, it just felt light and bright. People, everyone smiles at you, swati krap, swati krap, you know, this whole thing. It was unbelievable, the spirit.

I've gone into other cities in America and I've been like, felt like I'm just getting crushed. Like I don't belong here, you know? I believe this matters and you know what? I also think, because this is a New Testament thought, that I want to build a, basically an outpost in La Jolla that Jesus might continue to change the heart of this city. I think that cross on that hill matters. I think the fact that it's still there matters.

I think Jesus cares about La Jolla. I think he cares about Claremont. I think he cares about PB. I think he ultimately cares about San Diego and we want to be those believing people that open up the pathways of heaven through prayer, through care and through compassion and through being willing to go out and grab someone by the hand and bring them in that they might be healed. Like I said, multiple people came back this week in the first service that I spoke to and they didn't have to be asked a second time once they got here.

But someone did come take them by the hand and say, come visit. Come check it out. Come be a part of it. And now they're telling me on their own, I'm coming back. It is amazing that we see that and Jesus lets that city go in its own way. Turn your notes over and we'll come in for a landing. Final thing I see here in the margins of the healing and don't get me wrong, I love the miracle. I want a miracle. We all want a miracle.

The funny thing I see is that healing is a process. We want a microwave Jesus. I want all my problems fixed. Can I, look, we want our problems fixed. Imagine if you could fix every problem in your life with a click of your fingers. Wouldn't that just be the worst, wouldn't that be a boring life? Remember, have you ever seen that Twilight Zone episode where the dude, he like, he's robbing a bank and the police come and they shoot at him but he gets away and then he ends up and he ends up in this place and everything he does, he wins.

Like he plays pool and all the balls go in. He hits it one time and all the balls go in. Every woman likes him. He finds money everywhere he goes and he's just miserable in the end. He's all, and the guy's like, oh, you actually got shot and you died. He goes, well, I don't like heaven. He says, you're not in heaven, dude, you're in hell. And I was like, whoa, we're not surly. You're going crazy on me right there, you know?

Point being that God uses process because process is part of the adventure and through the process the relationship is purified. You'll see that in your notes I wrote down. Jesus never came to peddle microwave spirituality and process is often purified as the relationship. Here's the process. When he had spit on the man's eyes, maybe this is why he took him out of the city because I could think I'm going to spit in your eyes and that's going to be weird.

It's going to get real awkward and he put his hands on him and Jesus asked him, do you see anything? That's a good question. That's a good question. You know, these hundreds of questions that Jesus asks are great questions. Just imagine, just take the, I have this little thing where I like take the questions of Jesus and I try to ask myself the question. It's just a good thing to do with scripture. It's a little tool.

Do you see anything? That's a great question because I'll go weak just looking at my feet, you know? I don't see anything. Jesus says, do you see anything? He looked up, I like that and said, I see people, they look like trees walking around. So we see something but he's still in this midst of kind of like, kind of in the haze trying to figure out what's going on and maybe you've been there as well and that is a stage oftentimes of spirituality as people are trying to get rooted.

They're kind of walking around and they see a little bit more light than they used to. He says, they look like trees walking around. Once more, Jesus put his hands on the man's eyes. Now, you're Jesus. Why are you doing that? You don't need to do this, right? Well, obviously, for some reason because Jesus, it says in Philippians chapter 3, limited himself. He was no longer, had the same power. It says he, you know, heaven emptied itself of Christ.

He didn't hold on to that power. It's something that it said in Philippians that he might grasp. So he was limited in some ways. We can't get into how all that works. But for some reason, he had to lay his hands on him a second time. And sometimes I found that Jesus had to lay his hands on me like 148th time. It is a process. And we get so full of shame. I gotta tell this story. That was interesting. I was at Home Depot yesterday.

And I asked some guy, he was sweeping in a little tiny broom. This is the weirdest thing. And I said, hey, where's, I was asking for something. And he asked me where it was. And he goes, oh no, it's not there. It's on aisle 53. And he goes, dumb me. And he hit himself with his broom. I'm like, dude, it's not, well that big of a deal. I said, it's just, you know, it's 47, it's 53. I said, he goes, I just, I hate being me.

And he hit himself with his broom again. And I, it was really weird. And I said, I said, you know, bro, just be you. He goes, you know what? When you're being you, it shows that you, when people tell you to be you, it shows, I don't know what this meant, but it shows that you're not being you. And he hit himself again with his broom. And I was like, what is, dude, the amount of self hate that's, I didn't really know what to do, tell you the truth.

Sometimes I have like something to do. I kind of just like, good luck, bro. You know, and I like, I didn't, I was lost at a, at a sense of a word, you know, these words. Sometimes we don't allow ourselves to live in process. You know, that song that you sang earlier, you know, it's in the failings. Like really? But it is, it's in the failings. That isn't a license to go fail and keep giving yourself permission to do whatever you want.

But in the process, Jesus, he, he makes the relationship better through that process. I know that, that what has probably made our marriage better has not been all the great times. It's been that we've made it through the hard times. You know, when we look back at why we're together still, why we've made, had resolved to stay together, the glue that keeps it. Now, granted, good times are great. But what I think has been the strongest glue is the hard times that we resolved to work through it.

And the difficulty of, you know, having to put mud on each other's eyes one more time. Now, that's just a human relationship. But in our relationship with God, don't we struggle the same way? Don't we get frustrated? Why can't we ever do it better? Don't we walk in guilt? Don't we walk in shame? To put all those things aside, what I want to say, and this is a word of grace, that life is a process, that your relationship with Jesus is a process, and you are not a top ramen thing that he puts in the microwave.

I wasn't ready in a minute and a half. He doesn't work that way. You know what? He's got all eternity to work it out. And I got to tell you, when you get to heaven, you won't have any more sin, but you're still going to be walking into deeper levels of glory. You see, you're not going to be completely perfected. You'll be perfect from sin, but you won't know all. You will never know all because why? You're not God. And so when you get to heaven, he's going to blow you away and say, let's do a million years on love.

Boom. And he's like, let's talk about joy for a little bit. Bam. We'll do eight million. There'll be no time, but we've got eight million years of that. Boom. You are going to, heaven's not going to be boring. It's going to be getting blown away as he continues to perfect you in knowledge that will go on forever because he has eternal knowledge and you don't. And so heaven is just going to be a big mind trip, be blowing you away with God's righteousness and love.

And heaven's going to be epic and holiness and good and the culture of heaven, but it's in process. And I got to say, even when you get to heaven, that process ain't going to end. I want to say, Jesus loves you and he loves you enough that sometimes, even when you don't want to be healed, he'll come ask you if you want to be made well. He's willing to take you by the hand. He's willing to take you outside of the perhaps city that you're in, that is holding you back and walk you outside of that city.

He's willing to not only, you know, put a mud on your eyes that would heal your eyes, but then to lay his hands on you again and then to do it another time. If that doesn't stick for all eternity, matter of fact, he's willing to go to the cross and have nails driven in his hand and in his feet and it'd be poked in the side and die a traitor's death, be separated from his father, which was a big deal, worse than the cross, worse than the pain of the cross so that you might know him.

And he's willing to walk with you step by step over and over again until we get it right. That's the God of goodness. That's the God of love. And this is why last week when a gal came, there's another visitor, got invited. You have to invite people guys. We have to, we have to invite people. This woman comes, she's Irish. And she said, I haven't been to church for like 30 years. And I said, that's pretty good accent by the way.

And, um, I said, really, why not? Because in Ireland, all I ever got was Jesus and guilt. And I said, Jesus and guilt. I said, well, we're not, we don't really do the guilt thing here. We're going to do Jesus and love. Why don't you come on back? She goes, I don't know. Maybe I'll come back. We'll see. And I thought, man, we don't, we're not doing Jesus and guilt here. We're not, you know, actually you don't need to do guilt because the Holy Spirit's good enough at it.

You don't need to do guilt. You don't, you don't have to practice guilt as, as Christians because it just, it's already there. What we want to do is love and grace. And so this is the deal to you. The question is, can you see, do you want to be healed? Another question is, do you have compassion or are you only about your passion? Are you willing to pray for someone else's miracle and lead them by the hand to a place where they might come to Jesus, that they might know him.

Well, this is what we want to be so that the power of God will rain down on this place and revive and change the city. And you'll see things like murder rates go down and depression and suicide and not have school shootings. And all you will see all of a sudden that be pushed out as a whole nation is transformed and change. It happens in little places like this. When people group together and say, we have a heart for God.

And I believe, I believe in miracles. Amen. Amen. Let's stand. I want to bless you. Chris, would you go and play that song? I believe in miracles. We have a prayer team. And if you need a miracle today, or you want to come have someone else be prayed for, you say, Hey, I have a friend that needs a miracle. I want to come stand in the gap. I want to pray for this friend. Would you come forward? We're going to have a prayer team pray for you and with you and bless you as we do that.

If you extend your hand, Chris is going to play, I believe in miracles. And I want to bless you with a, with a blessing in a world full of curses. So if you extend your hands, let me bless you. Lord Jesus, in a world full of curses, God, God, we know that you came to bring blessing, Jesus. And I bless these people, Jesus. I bless them with the power of process. Bless them, God, with love and hope. No more guilt. No more shame.

I'm a father who says, I love you. And I bless them with love, Lord God. And I bless them with power and a hope. And even when they're not looking, Jesus, that you begin to just march into their hearts and encamp. It says the angel of the Lord encamps around the righteous. And that the angel of the Lord might encamp around you. And he might sit outside of your house. Lord God, send angels from heaven, which we believe in to sit outside their house, to sit outside their lives, Lord Jesus.

That the angel of the Lord might encamp. And that you might have a fire that would burn in our hearts, God. Give us a compassion more than passion, Lord God. Let us have compassion for others. Let us have margin, God. For as we pour out our lives, there will be healing. And as we have healing, God, we ourselves will be healed. And as we touch the wounds of Jesus, by his wounds, we are made whole. So God, I send them out now, God, as an army of your consolation, of your love.

And with a heart to invite people. To show up. Because what we're finding is when people get here, and hear the hope of the gospel, God, lives are changed. People are coming back. So I bless them, and I send them out. In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.