The Counter-Intuitive Kingdom of Christ

Covenant Baptist Church

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we we live in a time of change and I think a lot of the mood that I've seen in the last week has been pretty optimistic as Some people feel like you know at least politically in America that there's like there's wins going on after a long time of no wins

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And I think in American Christianity what we've done for a long time is We've not understood the nature of God's kingdom, and we have a lot of conflicting ideas.

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I'll give you a couple of them You've probably heard that the kingdom of Christ is not of this world

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That's from Scripture and so therefore in the church We have preached often we must not get political after all

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Christ's kingdom is not of this world But at the same time we need to all in the church fight to end abortion

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Politically right this is the confusion of our day You might have heard that the kingdom of God is for the poor and powerless

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For the outcast for the sojourner at the same time if you walk into the normal evangelical church today

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You would see that the church targets middle and upper middle class people and That we really want to provide soup at soup kitchens for the true outcast

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But we don't want to sit next to them because they might smell funny It's confusion

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Confusion We hear over and over again that the leaders of the church need to be humble servant leaders

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And yet it seems for my life the mission of these humble servant leaders has been to build the biggest platform

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Possible with the largest media empire. Otherwise, if we don't do that, how is the

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Great Commission ever going to be accomplished? confusion We've heard that we must love our neighbor and this is where we get controversial and start today

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The highest expression of loving our neighbor in the church for my entire lifetime has been to send foreign aid overseas

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While ignoring the godlessness and the blasphemy against God that occurs in our own town and in our own house in many cases

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So here we go with point one as we work our way through the text starting in verse 30

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I want to try to reclaim an Old idea an old idea of virtue that comes from the

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City of God Written many many years ago about one and a half millennia ago by a church father named

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Augustine That's for you or Augustine if you drink

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Turkish coffee with your fingers sticking out like that Whichever way you prefer this church father wrote that the definition of virtue is

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Love rightly ordered and that love not rightly ordered is sin

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So rightly ordered love and that brings us to point one Which is rightly ordered love is virtue and this doctrine is one that you probably haven't heard of but if you had

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I'm gonna throw The nerdy Latin at you that word is Ordo or Morris Ordered love let's look at Jesus's example starting in verse 30

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Jesus has just left the synagogue where we we heard last week where he is dealing with an exorcism and he goes immediately says now

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Simon's mother -in -law was lying sick with a fever and Immediately they spoke to Jesus about her and he came to her and raised her up Taking her by the hand and the fever left her and she began waiting on them

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There's a lot of curious things about this passage Number one is this is occurring on the Sabbath and this is going to start to unveil a problem, but that's not for today

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There's just a couple of nods at it What we want to see is if we rewind and go to the beginning of Mark 1 as Jesus begins his public ministry

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He begins his public ministry in his own backyard. He doesn't go far He stays in the towns and the villages that are right around Nazareth he's up in the northern part of Israel around the

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Sea of Galilee and So he starts there because this is his home this is his base of operation

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This is where people grew up with him and knew him and we see opposition from Satan immediately we're gonna see opposition from the religious leaders of the day and we're gonna see a mass flocking to Christ of The poor and powerless because they see his signs but because also many believe in who he is

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So Jesus first public miracle was at a family wedding in Cana. That's not chronicled in Mark It is chronicled in the other

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Gospels and that shows us yet again that Jesus unveils himself first to those who know him and There's gonna be concentric circles going out there and I think it's important for us to see time and place in context

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It's always context when we look at Scripture and the context of Jesus ministry is that he does not treat

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Everyone exactly the same he's working from a base of operation and he's dealing first with those who are the closest to him

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Jesus spends the majority of the time in his ministry with his disciples and these disciples

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Many of them were like would have been like running mates with him from the early days They would not have been like people from Oregon while we're in Arkansas It would have been people like just down the street, you know, they they understood the culture

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They were all together in this and so Jesus first as he leaves the temple after the teaching

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He immediately goes to his friend's home in order to heal his friend's mother -in -law, this is

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Simon Peter so Jesus goes to the home and this is

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Ordo amoris Virtue and we have turned this upside down in America and in the

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American Church because what we've done is we've posited that the way of ministry is to work from the outside in It's to build loosely connected huge churches so that we can gather as many resources as possible and then send those resources out to people that we don't know that we've never heard of that we don't know what they're even doing on the ground and the

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Result of that is that we have a lot of false doctrine that spreads all over the place but we also have a lot of false doctrine in the church and what we found in these later days is that we have no base of power or operation in the

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Christian Church because we're so divided and scattered and unbonded the church was always a gathering of people in the locality the local expression of the church was to be a people that are

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Bonded together by their unity and their love for Christ and that they do life together that there's a social

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Contract going between us where there's a base of operation where if at your job

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Someone persecutes you in your job that the church has got your back If you get fired from your job you don't have to worry about your mortgage next month because the church has got you because we know you and because we love you

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And instead what we've done is we have traded that away for cult of personality Celebrity preachers who preach to the masses, but those masses come in and leave without knowing anybody in the church

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They're very disconnected But with all this money that we generate we are able to build huge edifices and complexes

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That show our might and our glory as men much like maybe the Tower of Babel and then we take all of that money and the way we do ministry is by sending it

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Out to people that we're never gonna see because in America what we do over and over and over again is trade money in place of work

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It's much harder for us to work than it is to send money and the business of dealing with people is an ugly inefficient brutal business

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It's difficult The reason we don't have the drug addict or the outcast in our home is because we don't want them there because it makes us profoundly uncomfortable

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The reason we don't extend hospitality to our brothers and our sisters in the church in history has been that we need to spend time

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Doing what we want to do It's the American dream right arrive at the place Financially where we can use it all ourselves and not worry about anybody else and the church has been led by the culture

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Instead of the other way around and I think we've we've struggled for the last five ten years

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I think kovat was a great apocalypse in this way where we started to understand like man We don't have any power.

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The church is just doing whatever the government says to do and What do we do about that? And we didn't know myself included.

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We didn't know we had not taken seriously the writings of our fathers We had not taken seriously the struggle of the church kovat was not a new thing

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It was a different manifestation of the same government overreach That's been involved in the church from the get -go

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From this time and mark Jesus is going to run into opposition from the synagogue and he's gonna go right at them

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Over and over and over again and his appeal is to the common man His appeal is to an inverted kingdom that does not look to the palace

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But instead looks to the streets Outside of the temple to those who have been thrown out and thrown into the dustbin of the culture in the society

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That's the inverted counterintuitive nature of Christ's kingdom and the reason for that we must look

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I'm getting ahead of myself, but I'm gonna go with it The nature of this and what this leads us to is that Jesus doesn't need us

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Do you understand that the kingdom of Christ? Fundamentally does not depend on the power of human beings

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It depends on his power. And so for Christ to be glorified He looks to those who had nothing to offer whatsoever by the world's terms

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What does Jesus get For healing a woman in her house of a fever.

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That's his best friend's mother -in -law. I mean, it's an in -law You guys know what that is, right?

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It's an in -law. This is difficult So Jesus goes in and he heals her He displays and what he's going to show us time and time again

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Is that Jesus goes to his disciples and he calls them that Jesus deals with his mother

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In fact, one of his last words on the cross as he looks to his best friend John and he says behold your mother looking at Mary Because Jesus cared about his family.

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His kingdom is not necessarily of the fleshly connection In fact as we get through the covenant and see the church becomes a spiritual family that's brought in but Jesus doesn't despise the flesh

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And blood he cares about his family and this is natural to us. Is it not? The people you care about the most are your family members and you care more about your best friend than you do the person

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Who's struggling in Honduras right now whose name you don't know and that's not evil and yet there has been a kind of preaching and a kind of teaching that has led us to believe kind of internally that that is a little bit evil and Jesus turns that on its head.

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Jesus says Jesus's example here is that we start with those who are near to us

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It makes practical sense but it also makes natural sense that we're gonna have more of a burden for the people that we see every day than the people

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That we'll never see in our lives He loves his home first He prioritizes his disciples by spending the majority of his time with them

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He flows his care and teaching outwards as the masses come to him Jerusalem Judea Samaria ends of the earth.

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Maybe we don't know the geography enough To paraphrase that it would be city, county, other country that we hate

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Everywhere, right? That's what Samaria is. That's this other country that we hate We're gonna evangelize them and then the ends of the earth are everywhere and the gospel is unbound the gospel goes to everywhere on the earth

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And we see the effects the effects of the Ordo Amoris.

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It's counterintuitive to us We think that if we're so insular That the gospel will never go forth.

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We will have a holy huddle We will have an echo chamber of everybody that believes the same things and no one's ever gonna hear the gospel

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Yeah That is what will happen if our culture inside the church is polluted and corrupted

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If we try to hold something under a bushel, right? We know the old childhood song you don't hide the light of the gospel under a bushel

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It is there But the thing that we miss the thing that we miss is the people that are most desperate for the gospel of Jesus Christ are most

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Drawn to the things that they see in the natural order when they see our loves rightly ordered because I know

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I work with them Every day I work with the poor and the broken the destitute stories that you wouldn't believe that kids go through of broken families of divorce of abuse of assault and Every time every time what they are drawn to is stability and love and so to those who are outcast what they do is they?

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See tightly wound families that spend time together and love each other and they are attracted to that They see churches who are tightly bound who spend time together who talk to each other who laugh who have joy and who love each

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Other and they are drawn to that far before they are drawn to reform doctrine in the 1689 confession

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Look, I love reform doctrine in the 1689 confession But that is not drawing anyone who is outcast because first things first they need to belong

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They need to belong. We don't soften the gospel and we don't soften the message and the doctrine

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But at the same time our eyes are open and we are looking for opportunities. It's what we have to do

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So what did Jesus do? What is the result of healing? Simon Peter's mother -in -law this small little thing right?

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She had a fever. He heals her We pick it up in 32 now when evening came after the Sun had set they began

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Bringing to him all who were ill and those who were demon -possessed don't don't miss what's happening The disciples themselves go out and they start gathering people to him now

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Is that interfering with their relationship with Christ? Are they worried that maybe these people they bring in are going to dilute?

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The relationship and the access that they have to the Lord of Glory No Because the message and the power of Christ is so much greater than those kind of concerns that what they do is secure in their

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Relationship with Christ they go out and they try to bring others in to see what's happening here Come and see what's happening.

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But more importantly come and hear this man teach. We know that he taught with authority

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We know that he opened the scrolls and that he had words of life that these disciples are the primary

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They the first audience that they hear these words of life and they are consumed with the idea This must go out to everyone.

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Our country is sick That's something you have to see in the gospel demon possessions everywhere people sick with terrible diseases

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Right, some might even say in Israel that they're their pets heads are falling off It's all terrible things are going crazy and yet the burning desire is we have to bring them in and they're gonna have to see this teacher and they're going to have

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To be healed and Christ is the one to heal them. And so stage one Jesus Prioritizes those who are very close to him stage two those who are very close to him go out and gather more

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To come see to come here. The gospel is not confined by boundaries We know this but we see time and time again that it is concentrated in strong areas

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Some of my brothers out west would say in boroughs right that there are concentrated areas that grow in stability that grow in their focus on the gospel that grow in their love for one another and then they send emissaries outwards and That's hopefully what we're doing first to Tawny Town, right?

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It's not very far away people who are in Tawny Town could be comfortably driving here and coming to this church

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But the problem is then there's only one concentrated area. Why have one when you could have two?

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Why have two when you could have five? Why only five when you could have 50 and the vision of this is what if there's 200?

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churches in northwest Arkansas that are preaching this gospel that have this kind of community and they draw

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The outcasts who are so desperate whose families are broken who don't have the means to make it happen and who need that help from?

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Christian brothers who love them. That is the vision. That's what Jesus has going on here. It's send them out

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This is not hidden this is bring him in and they hear this healing and those who are sick hear this healing and they are crowding in at the

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Door and nobody can get in to the extent that someone's dropped in through the roof What an amazing thing

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Do we believe in that power of the gospel? I think too often familiarity breeds content with the gospel

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We hear that it's the power of God unto salvation and that can become a thing that we say over and over again

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But we don't understand We despise the thing that made us what we are

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We have hope this morning brothers and sisters because Christ has given us righteousness

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Are we excited are we excited are we excited about the task that lies ahead of us?

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And I can tell you right now that the fields are white for harvest They are there are people that are starting to have ideas that they never had before and they are desperate and the money's finally started to get pinched around here as the groceries have escalated as all of this has gotten high as as younger people find it that they're not going to be able to afford buying a house and the

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American dream is Precarious right now and the American dream is one of materialism, but the gospel dream is one of righteousness

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It's one of security It's one that is not shaken about by the shifting sands of culture

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Because our hope is in something that never changes the immutable no shadow of variation due to turning

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Son of the Living God Jesus Christ who empowers us with his very comforter the

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Holy Spirit who speaks forth all of the things that He has taught us. That's what we have You're gonna keep that to yourself

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Look at their excitement in the physical world one mother -in -law gets healed and the next thing you know, they're busting down the door to bring everyone that's sick into this house and Wouldn't we do the same?

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Wouldn't we do the same? I Tell you that something even greater than that is here today Christ has not left us with less.

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He's left us with far more than the disciples have They didn't have this scripture canonized

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They didn't have what we can look at and take for granted is the whole New Testament Next to the whole

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Old Covenant and we can see the beautiful story that God has written for us And we have it in our pocket walking around every day

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Christian. Don't neglect that Rightly ordered affection drives public ministry.

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It doesn't hamper it because good homes and churches attract the sick and oppressed and What is the answer that we're gonna give them?

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We see in in 33 and 34 the whole city gathered at the door he healed many who were ill with various diseases and cast out many demons and He was not permitting the demons to speak because they knew who he was

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His time had not yet come The full revelation of Jesus had not yet come but I want you to look at the power of this forerunner

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Repent for the kingdom of God is at hand That's what we get at the start of every gospel And so we're to understand from the

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Gospels what the kingdom of God is what it's about. What is the nature of it?

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Well first we see in Mark and we see it very clearly everything we've done and we see it again here that he is casting out many demons and he is

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Ordering these demons to be quiet and unlike what we're gonna see at the end of this chapter. The demons obey

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In this strange that a leper does not obey he disobeys the command of Christ While every demon that Jesus cast out does obey the command of Christ Right.

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Did you understand? Even our obedience and disobedience is appointed and these demons shut up because they were appointed to shut up Because Christ has complete power over Satan complete and total power over the enemy and over demons

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So what did Jesus do? What is the nature of this? We see all through Mark 1 that he makes war on Satan and the curse

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What's he do? He shows dogged obedience to God in the desert as he is tempted He shows the primacy of the word in the synagogues no matter the opposition if we're talking about Ordo and Morris What is

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Jesus first act the first thing that's close to him is he obeys the will of the father?

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Where do we start people? Where do we start with our rightly ordered loves? We obey the will of the father

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He is the closest one to us We obey our earthly father Because God has given our earthly fathers to us and when that relationship is broken carnage ensues

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Because that is to be a strong bond and I know that there's some in here that can't depend on that But guess what in his grace

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God provides spiritual fathers and other men to take up that challenge so that we can learn To honor our earthly fathers and those who have come before us

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Jesus establishes a base of operations with the disciples These men follow immediately.

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He shows care to those who are closest to him and then the result is these disciples are pushing outwards and Then as we pick it up, we start to see what this

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King is like. He is humble He is humble Mark 1 35 and I don't want to miss this It's easy to in a sermon like this because we neglect this so often look at verse 35

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In the early morning while it was still dark Jesus rose up went out of the house and went away to a desolate place and he was praying there

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It's often confused me Is Jesus just modeling for us the prayer in our state in the church today?

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I have no doubt the powerlessness of us in the church today is our neglect of prayer

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And we say it often and it's still the hardest spiritual discipline for us to engage. Is it not? Have you tried have you tried to pray first thing every single morning before a foot another thought comes into your head to take it

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To the Lord even if it's for a minute or two or to help me get through this day Jesus as he is hitting the apex of his celebrity

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Think about it how many faith healers would love to have the situation that Christ had going on Everyone from every town it says the whole town that doesn't mean literally every person in the town

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But it means basically anybody in the town was coming to see what was going on with Jesus, man.

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That's power Do you understand the power he could have unleashed in an earthly sense at that point? Can you imagine if every person in the town is coming to see you work?

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To watch you get after it. This is the height of celebrity and yet we see the counterintuitive Nature of the kingdom and the king.

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What is Jesus's response to this? It's to go out in the desolate places and to pray to his father nothing happens

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Nothing happens if God does not power the mission Nothing all of our plans here.

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No matter how biblical they are No matter how rooted and doctrinally sound scripture they are

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They will fail utterly if we do not depend on the power of God to accomplish them

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Men do not build the house How arrogant of us to think that in our power in our ingenuity in our excellent rhetoric?

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That we can build the house when God has promised that he's the one that builds the house And why does he build the house for glory to himself if we neglect the power of God?

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Then we labor in vain and the house will fall Jesus knows this even the very

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Son of God the second person of the Trinity of the Godhead the eternal one Who makes his abode by the

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Ancient of Days? Knows that it is time at this height of celebrity go out into desolate places and pray to his father

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If that's not Ordo Amoris, I don't know what is first things first I Must do the will of my father first things first It's crucial to understand this part in the story

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That Jesus advances the kingdom of God, but not by signs and wonders instead through faith

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It's always been faith It always will be faith the way that true Israel is saved is by faith in the words of God if you don't follow the

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Word of God, then you have no part in his kingdom and Jesus is the eternal Word of God And so Jesus understands it says in John that he understands the hearts of those who follow him and he knew that they knew him not

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There are many who come to be around the buzz the vibe You might say Jesus created quite a vibe by healing people and his healings were not like Benny Hinn slain in the spirit stuff

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It was like he touched you or he spoke and the disease was gone and we will see an object a lesson of that at the end

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That's gonna draw a crowd. Is it not? Would every cancer patient in this county come here if I was healing cancer patients by touching them?

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Of course, they would Of course they would But the kingdom of God does not grow by signs and wonders.

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Those are encouragements Those are authentications Those are signs of the messengers power, but the messenger always points the power back to God So, what does he do?

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He goes out and he prays and he wanders from town to town and he spends a lot of time in the desolate places

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And he urges the demons he tells them to be quiet and he urges those he heals often to be quiet to not speak of it and Today what we do

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I'm afraid is we trade in this strong kingdom of God that's brought through faith for the cheap cult of personality fake kingdom of God that's that looks at a sage on a stage saying wise words that make us feel good and make us more importantly open up our wallets instead of raising up royal ambassadors who are

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Emissaries that go out and preach the gospel of Christ a great expense to themselves and ourselves

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The kingdom of God Challenges the established preacher status and power doesn't it if my goal here if the mission is to raise up men

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Who are going to lead who are going to speak fiercely? I think in our current environment today if you flip the page a few pages over to acts and we see the man

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Steven who Is a deacon in the church and who gives maybe the greatest sermon recorded in the New Testament? Our current environment we would look at him at the lead pastor and go

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That guy's dangerous to my platform He speaks better than I do. We know it.

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We never say it, but we know it We have it in full effect Where we have a platform of jealousy

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Where we try to push down those who might challenge us as preachers And we will have a powerless impotent

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Church as long as that kind of shepherding continues because it's really no shepherding at all What if the next guy is more talented?

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What we have to say it's good I Hope so. I hope so because it's not about talent.

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It's about faith It's not about rhetoric and skill it's about the message

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Paul himself described himself as a breaking weak clay pot

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That had their surpassing valuable message I dare say that Paul could have preached the paint off of this building and yet Paul Saw himself because Paul had raised up and seen with his eyes the glory of God And he was smitten down on that road and he understand stood all too.

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Well his place in this world and His place was to be a messenger How do we fund more pastors if we're not gaining crowds?

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How do we draw more people in so they can hear the gospel or maybe more importantly hear myself preaching?

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How would we respond to this massive movement of people that Jesus saw

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I don't think that we would go out to the Desolate places and pray. I think that we would immediately go to thinking

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How are we going to translate all of this money and all of this influence into a consolidated media empire?

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So we can publish a bunch of books and let's just be real get rich Such are the shepherds of our day and if indeed things are turning in America judgment starts in the house of the

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Lord That is not a thing we say lightly That means that many pastors are going to be chastised in the coming days

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Because the cleric class in America has utterly failed its people And I look back

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Over my time of ministry and I'm tormented at times by the many ways

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I've failed my people and What I'm thankful for and what we see at the end here is that Christ is more powerful than all of that His grace is most powerful where we understand our sin and we understand our failure and we understand all of the

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Carnage that we've wrecked on people in ourself and in our flesh How did they respond?

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Just like we would I think verses 36 through 38 Simon and his companions searched for him

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Jesus is going out to pray They found him and said to him everyone is looking for you and he said to them

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Let us go elsewhere to the towns nearby so that I may preach there also for that is what

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I came out for There it is, right? He didn't come out to heal the sick and to cast out demons.

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He came out to preach the word The message is important.

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The message is very important So What's the contradiction here?

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You've heard me say right? We are not to amass huge media empires and cults of personality but at the start if you're a if you're a smooth listener, you might think that I over that I Contradicted myself at the beginning by saying that we have to build up bases of power, right?

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I Did say both of those things. Okay. So here's the answer Here's the answer. It's about the object.

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It's about the purpose and the function of the power, right? What is the function is the function to get mean big fast efficient strong or is the function and the purpose?

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to be faithful to preach the message to send out others to raise up others to be

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Selfless in our building ambassadors and reminding the people of God that they have a responsibility a duty

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But also a great privilege of pressing out this message Jesus is about the message

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Jesus is about the message and he is about the in the trenches war with Satan He went preaching in their synagogues throughout all

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Galilee and casting out the demons Jesus is getting his hands dirty This is not what we would do today

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Understand that when Jesus decides to go to the synagogues, he's going to the very place of the highest opposition to himself

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It's in the trenches It's not going and nibbling at the edges. It's going right into the heart of it

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Right into the heart and that's what our Our brothers and sisters who fight against the scourge of abortion

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That's what they do all the time as they go right into the heart of evil It's easy to go to City Council meetings and rant and rave it's not easy to look people who hate you right in the eye and to give them the message of Christ and To call them to forgiveness because human beings we don't like grace and we really don't like to ask for forgiveness

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Because it assaults our pride directly. All right to the end There's a greater thing here

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And what I want to do this morning is I want to pick on a thread that's going to come into full focus in a few weeks and that thread here with the leper is that there is there is a

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Reality going on and a greater thing has come But also we get the object lesson of who the kingdom of God is for So let's pick it up verse 40 and a leper came to Jesus pleading with him and falling on his knees before him and saying if you are willing you can make me clean and Moved with compassion.

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He stretched out his hand and touched him and said to him I am willing be cleansed and immediately leprosy left him and he was cleansed.

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I Want you to notice first that the leper believes in the power of Christ, but not in the mercy of God That's been beaten out of him by the leaders

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Now they followed the law of Moses this man is unclean He's not able to enter into the temple because he has a skin disease

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We see that in Leviticus 14 but Were you to be left out with no compassion?

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thrown out of society because of a disease With no one to help you and so we can excuse the leper

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For believing that maybe God has the power to heal him, but not really believing that God would heal him

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And so it is with many today that we hear the gospel and we press the gospel and people believe in God But they don't believe in a

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God who would save them Because our pride gets in the way of understanding the mercy of God It should be noted that out in this town that he falls on his knees to the king

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He recognizes who Christ is positionally He is the king and he is the one who can bring healing the leper has heard the news

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The leper has heard what Jesus has been doing and The power of God is a precursor and too often

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I think we leave those stones Unturned where what we have to say is there is a powerful God and he does he does

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Hold your destiny his hands and you do owe him fealty you do owe him loyalty But there's good news friend that good news is that Jesus has died to make you right with him

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And so if you believe in Christ, then you will be healed if you are willing

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If you are willing you can make me clean There's so much going on here, you know in a different day

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I think I would do a sermon only on this one, but I do want to say There's all kinds of stuff going on.

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The man has been the man has been hands -off There's this idea of he's too far from the kingdom.

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We don't want to get our hands dirty We don't try to want to try to show compassion on this man and we and giving grace

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It's just kind of getting him away from us. So we don't have to see him, you know So we don't have to confront him all the time

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This leper believes but he has a faulty concept and then Jesus acts Man, I I would never do it because it's not time if you want to ask me later there is a very tricky textual variant and chat in verse 41 and some some translations will translate this with indignancy or anger

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Jesus said I am willing the majority translation is with moved with compassion

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It's a tricky one I do have my reasons for going of this and I'm gonna stick and say in Compassion and what you have to understand is when we hear compassion in our day and age

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What we understand is kind of a fluttering of the heart like an emotional like oh, that's really sad

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What Jesus says what this means in the Greek is that Jesus had a pain in his bowels

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He was gut -punched He saw this man with the skin disease who bows down to him and Jesus sees the full

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Totality and the result of the Pharisees work in the synagogues of no, hope of religiosity and he sees this man and it's a gut punch to him and The man says if you're willing if you're willing

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I know you can do this and Jesus deep in his bowels He acts and here's what he does

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He touches the man This is significant And this is the thread that we're gonna pull on over the next few weeks

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You have to understand something here. Jesus is greater than what had come before and this is a clear demonstration of it.

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Okay? by touching this man Jesus made himself ceremonially unclean but did you know that Jesus is far above the

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Mosaic Law of Lilia Vegas 14 because he wrote that law and that law written by Christ was a shadow of The greater fulfillment so where Jesus should have been made unclean by touching the man a greater

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Covenant is here and by touching the man this new covenant this greater covenant in a very tangible way

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Shows us the folding up and putting away of the old things because Jesus not being made unclean makes the man clean

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So it is with the new covenant that we don't go in to bathe in the laver of the of the sanctuary of the temple

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To be able to go in and have a great high priest enter behind the curtain into the Holy of Holies But instead what we have today is we have access to the throne through Jesus Christ who has made us clean on his own behalf

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Because his covenant makes us clean without physical washings But with the blood of his covenant that he has poured out for us

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The Holy Spirit lives in us The Holy Spirit has made us clean because of the work of Christ and when he touches the man

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There is no chance that he will be made unclean But instead Jesus is going to cleanse the entire temple not just this man and Jesus is going to cleanse an entire people

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Not just this man and Jesus is going to once and for all make a sacrifice That cleans every person who ever believes in him not just this one man

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But what he does with this one man is notable because there's not a time delay He touches and the skin disease and the sores and the oozing pus that would have had dogs wanting to lick this man's arms instantly palpably goes away

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Can you imagine? Can you even imagine being this man who's been thrown out of society the pain and the agony not only socially but the physical pain?

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That this man has knowing that he's worthless knowing he can't go in and worship God Knowing that he'll never be brought back into the people that Jesus touches him and his skin is clean immediately

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Immediately and then Jesus tells him not to tell anybody Man alive

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What a story What a story and why this guy we're expressly told in Corinthians that God has ordained the foolish and weak for salvation

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In order to shame the wise and the powerful of this world Is that truly where our church planning efforts have focused in our own country too often we think ourselves to be

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The good people inside the temple that we were on God's team already when he just gave us a little bit of an extra nudge

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With this Jesus stuff and made us right and we don't understand That we all have far worse spiritually than the skin disease that this leprosy was the skin disease was affecting his flesh

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But Ephesians 2 tells us that we're actively on the team of Satan himself Until Jesus shows his mercy on us by saving us

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We are fools Do you understand that we are fools but through the surpassing greatness of Christ He has shamed the world by making fools like us into righteous ones that testify of the only power

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That saves the true fools of the world because the wise are actually foolish and in all their power and in all their stratagems

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God looks in the heavens and he laughs because the weakness of God is Higher and greater than the strength of men and the strength of men is very great indeed

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Is it not? Too often. I think we hear passages like that. We say yeah men are weak. We've totally dominated this planet right

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We can with our devices annihilate millions of people and God looks at that and says no you can't

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My weakness is greater than the strength of men because his weakness has shown that the path of salvation was one long promise from Genesis all the way through Revelation and that weakness of man was going to be shown in the second person of the

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Godhead dying to save mankind That it would fool make foolish and it would make look dumb and an utter mockery of every person who ever thought that through their righteous

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Deeds they could bargain with God and say you owe me entrance into your kingdom

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God because of all the righteous deeds I've done God says no way No way.

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What did the leper bring to the table here? Nothing Jesus saw his helpless estate and was moved with compassion in his bowels

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He's given a stern command two of them. Don't say anything to anyone and go get a certificate of health

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I want to start with the last one first Grace heals and the response to grace is to rightly worship

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God So what the man does Jesus says go to the priest get a certificate of health Why so that you can go back and worship in the temple?

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even in this temple It is still in this covenantal change and Jesus says go rightly worship in the temple get this health certificate follow the law and Today Christians don't want to hear that.

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Did you understand that grace enables us to follow the law grace does not destroy the law Grace is brought about by the first use of the law that the law shows us a need for a

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Savior The law shows us our helplessness But then when we are given grace Then we are given the heart that wants to fulfill the law and is the right ordering of the

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Christian life By grace Jesus heals this man and tells him go follow the law of Moses for a little while longer for a little while longer

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The second command which is difficult the man obviously disobeys it and he sins Understand that he sins and for those who are who are going through this stuff with me the sin that he commits is

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One that was brought out of positive law This is not a law that's in the Ten Commandments to not talk about what

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Jesus has done In fact, that's counterintuitive to us. Also, isn't it? We are told over and over again in Scripture to proclaim what

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Christ has done But in this instance in this time, this man is sternly Sternly this in the

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Greek. This is a very powerful word That means you must not tell anyone you better not tell anybody

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Do not and the man goes out and tells right? He disobeys is the man banished to hell now

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I don't think so. In fact in the happier thoughts I think that this man might be Simon the leper who comes in later in this book.

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We can't know that But I think it's very possible What's Jesus doing?

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He's avoiding the celebrity miracle worker tag that he's getting tagged with The man should have no doubt followed this instruction

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But his disobedience knows this his disobedience in no way thwarts the mission and the plan of Christ In no way

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Should that free us it does not free us to sin, but it does free us to understand Then in our fallenness in our foolishness we in no way

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Thwart the will of God and his purposes so as we go forth as We go forth and as we plant a church and as we pray for more to follow that from two locations of strength instead

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Of just one I think one thing we have to understand is in our frailty Maybe in our impetuousness sometimes maybe in our fallen human pride at times even sometimes in our sin

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The will of God is promoted because his will is outside of us and he uses us as means to accomplish it

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This man's faith is amazing But the truest expression of his faith would have been to obey Christ and so it is with us

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We don't fall out of the kingdom as those who have received grace by failing to follow his commands

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But what we do understand is that great faith is shown by following his commands this command made no sense to the man

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But he should have followed in any way. So as we go today my dear friends understand We are forgiven.

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We are forgiven and the commands of God are a delight and joy to us when we rightly order our loves