F4F | Ed Young: "Meaningful Touch"

Fighting for the Faith

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:12

Welcome to another installment of Fighting for the Faith here on YouTube. If you've ever attended a church or maybe you're presently attending a church where the pastor is really, really engaged when it comes to creativity and is totally ignoring his biblical responsibilities as a pastor, we'll find out what that means shortly, go ahead and hit the subscribe button down below.

00:39

Don't forget to ring the bell and of course, like the video, that helps as well. And yeah, you've got a problem because you've got a pastor that is not doing his job.

00:51

Case in point, Ed Young, Ed Young of Fellowship Church out there in the greater

00:57

Dallas, Fort Worth, Metroplex area of Texas. This is a fellow who for years, a long time, many, many, many years has been training young seeker -driven, vision -casting leaders to engage in creativity.

01:13

And of course, he holds himself up as the guy who has perfected this particular artwork because after all, we know the church has got to be relevant, right, because if it's not relevant, then who's going to want

01:25

Jesus? And so he excels in creativity, but there's a problem, and here's the problem.

01:36

And that is, is that scripture actually makes it very clear what a pastor is to do. Now one of my go -to passages, let me pull up my desktop here, one of my go -to passages is found in 2

01:47

Timothy, 2 Timothy, and I like to throw in the last part of chapter 3 and the opening part of 4.

01:57

So yeah, this is a part of a pastoral epistle, yes, there are three pastoral epistles in the

02:04

New Testament, they are 1 and 2 Timothy, and the epistle to Titus, these are pastoral epistles, kind of laying out the job of a pastor, and young Pastor Timothy was a pastor of a congregation in the city of Ephesus, and the

02:18

Apostle Paul wrote to him on two occasions, and we'll take a look at two important things, and we'll note here, there's something about the job of a pastor.

02:29

So 2 Timothy 3, starting at verse 10 for our context, because again, our three rules for sound biblical exegesis are context, context, and context, and those rules apply even -to -be.

02:42

So yeah, that's kind of the idea. But here's what it says, so you however, young Pastor Timothy, Paul says, you have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, my persecutions, yeah, that's kind of strange, yeah.

03:00

I always wonder how the church can be relevant when the thing that Jesus tells us and promises us that we're going to experience as Christians is persecution.

03:10

Even the Apostle Paul knew that quite well. Sufferings, yeah, that happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, and Lystra, which persecutions

03:18

I endured, yet from them all the Lord rescued me, indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be, yeah, did you catch that?

03:29

Will be persecuted, yeah. Everyone who desires to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.

03:42

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that today's super relevant, uber cool hipster types, they didn't sign up to be persecuted.

03:51

That's not what they're about. And the brand of Christianity that men like Ed Young are selling isn't one about persecution.

04:03

It's just not. And then Paul goes on to say, while evil people and impostors, they'll go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.

04:12

So you kind of get the groundwork here. But as for you, as for you, young Timothy, continue what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it, and how from childhood, watch this, how you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, huh,

04:28

Scripture, yeah, and which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

04:37

And then watch what a high priority Paul places on Scripture. For all

04:42

Scripture, all of it is theonoustos, that is, God -breathed and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete and equipped for every good work.

05:02

And then with that basis then, you know, that foundation on, hey, listen, all Scripture is God -breathed. It's living, it's active, it's sharper than a double -edged sword.

05:11

We need to apply ourselves to it, abide in it, you know, and really dig into it to properly understand it so that we can understand what we are to believe, what we are to confess, what we are to do, you know, the doctrines that we hold to as well as the commandments that we are to walk in.

05:33

This is, it's all found in the living Word of God. So Paul then says to young Pastor Timothy, I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing in His kingdom, preach the

05:51

Word. That's, I would say, that's one of the key jobs of a pastor.

05:58

Be ready in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with complete patience and teaching, for the time is coming when people will not endure sound, and didaskalios here,

06:12

I think we can say, we can translate that as doctrine as well, but people will not endure sound teaching, they will not endure sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, their sinful passions, by the way, and they will turn away from listening to the truth, and they're going to wander off into mists.

06:32

But as for you, always be sober -minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry, young Pastor Timothy, he says.

06:41

Now, First Timothy chapter 4, we get a little bit of a similar thing from the

06:49

Apostle Paul to young Pastor Timothy, so this is a different epistle, it's the first one, and here's what

06:55

Paul writes. He says, have nothing to do with irreverent silliness, rather train yourself for godliness, for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life, and also for the life to come, and so the saying is trustworthy, it's deserving of full acceptance.

07:14

For to this end we toil and we strive, because we have our hopes set on the living God, who is the

07:20

Savior of all people, especially of those who believe. So command and teach these things.

07:26

Notice again, pastoral epistle, these are commands for pastors today, let no one despise you for your youth, yeah my youth fled a long time ago, don't have much of that left, anyway, but let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, and in purity, and until I come, until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of scripture, to exhortation, and to teaching.

07:59

So you get the idea here that preaching the word, devoting yourself to the public reading of scripture, teaching it properly, exegeting and helping people to understand it, that this is a vital part of the discipleship task, right?

08:20

Well, yeah, today's seeker driven vision casting leaders like Ed Young, I don't think he has a high priority in rightly handling

08:31

God's word. His priority seems to be more along the lines of creativity, because he sure does put a lot into creativity.

08:39

And man, he dresses so well, I mean his wardrobe, his makeup, his plastic surgery, it's all amazing!

08:50

And he's got that big, ginormous, creative board behind him, you know, lit up thing, and they can change what people see, and it's all this money spent on creativity, and you'd think that he would apply himself equally to rightly handling

09:12

God's word, but no, no, no, in fact, we're going to sample quite a bit of a sermon titled,

09:21

TLC Part One, Much to the Touch, by Ed Young, and it's all about the importance of touch, not creepy, inappropriate touch, no, no, not that, but this is weird because I'm not sure which biblical doctrine he's teaching, and I'm pretty sure he ain't actually rightly handling

09:46

God's word at all, in fact, lots on the creativity scale, like zero on the exegesis scale, which is what scripture commands him and me and other pastors to be doing, but we'll let

10:01

Ed Young spin this out, here we go. The idea for this series,

10:07

TLC, came about in our kitchen. I was talking to, see, already we're off the rails, now notice the great board with a little zebra striped pattern in the back, everyone needs a little

10:19

TLC, which biblical text says that exactly, you know, it may be true, you know, that we need positive touch and stuff like that,

10:32

I'm sure studies have shown the importance of touch, but see, pastors aren't supposed to be preaching general truths, no, they are to be preaching and teaching the truths revealed in the written word of God.

10:50

Now what he's saying, I'm sure, is relevant, I mean, everyone needs a little TLC, ah, isn't that just great, you know, but, you know, this is not going to be good on the exegesis scale, and you know, where did he come up with this idea for this series?

11:05

In his kitchen. Yeah, when I come up with ideas for my sermons, it begins with the biblical text, usually an assigned one, and now it's like, how am

11:17

I going to properly convey what this text says and means, but not so with Ed Young, he was in his kitchen and, you know, came up with the idea for a touchy sermon.

11:29

...son and his fiancé, and quickly the conversation moved into marriage and relationships and things of that nature, and I don't know,

11:40

I just started talking about some of the things that I think are paramount when it comes to communication in relationships, and I shared with E .J.

11:51

and Jess, TLC. I have this thing called TLC.

11:58

You might be thinking, TLC is Tender, Loving Care. No. You might be thinking... The Learning Channel.

12:03

The Learning Channel. ...Chinese band. No. You might be thinking

12:08

The Learning Channel. Good guess. TLC. A touch, a look, and a comment.

12:23

Yeah, it totally didn't even come up in my mind at all. Which biblical text teaches this

12:30

TLC? What portion of the

12:36

Bible are we working our way through here? Ed, job of a pastor is to preach the word, devote themselves to the public reading of Scripture.

12:46

What are you doing? With me, a touch, a look, and a comment.

12:53

I want you to think for a second, if you will, about your most significant relationships.

12:59

If you're married, obviously, your spouse, family, your closest friends.

13:05

And in your mind, just think about several columns, maybe a column underneath the

13:13

T letter, the touch, the touches. Think about the touches for a second. Got that column in your mind?

13:20

Or you could write this out if you'd like. Then you have the L column, looks, eye contact.

13:29

Just think about that for a second, the looks. Now think about the conversation, or you could say the comment section.

13:37

Three significant areas. Did Jesus teach about this

13:46

TLC? Did one of the apostles teach about this?

13:52

Where is this found in the Bible? And I would argue, from God's point of view, that these three areas are three of the most significant areas in communication, in this process.

14:08

Yeah, from God's point of view, these are the three most important things when it comes to communication.

14:15

Where is God's opinions regarding communication listed?

14:21

And we could talk about sins of the tongue, you know, gossip, slander, and things like that.

14:28

False teaching, the breaking of the commandment that says, thou shalt not take the name of the

14:34

Lord your God in vain, you know, blasphemy. These are sins committed while communicating.

14:42

What are you talking about? Yes. As I began to talk to my son and his fiancé about this process,

14:51

I just told them some things that God had shown me over the years. Where did

14:57

God show you these things? Did you meet with him on Mount Sinai for 40 days while baking in the glory?

15:07

Where did God show you this stuff? And I began to sort of unpack some areas that I knew nothing about until I walked down the wedding runner, until I look back in the rearview mirror and think about all these relationships and friendships.

15:27

So think about those people that you're close to, maybe your classmates, maybe it could be someone that you work with.

15:33

Think about maybe it's your fraternity brother or think about that person you know really well that you play golf with.

15:41

Think about your spouse. Think about your kids. Think about touch. How many touches?

15:46

I'd like to think about a biblical text. Do you got one of those? Meaningful guys, non -sexual touches.

15:54

Yes, there is something that is out there in touch that's non -sexual.

16:01

If you want to read about sexual touch, I've written a book called The Sexperiment. I'm not talking about sexual touching.

16:09

He did, by the way. Years ago, the way he promoted his book,

16:16

The Sexperiment, where you were supposed to have sex for a certain number of days in a row, the way he promoted the book is that he and his wife put a bed on the top of Fellowship Church and they were going to stay up there for a long time, but they got so badly sunburnt, they cut it short.

16:36

Just weird, just absolutely weird. And it was shortly after that that he flew to one of the

16:45

Code Orange revivals held by Stephen Furtick. And I covered that on my podcast,

16:51

Fighting for the Faith, noted that Ed Young had terribly, horribly burnt his

16:57

Botox on the roof of Fellowship Church during his Sexperiment. Anyway, we continue.

17:06

I'm talking about appropriate touching, biblically driven touching.

17:13

It's got to be right and it's got to be practiced in the exact context where God wants it, which should be with our closest relationships, in our marriage, in our friendships, with our family.

17:32

I don't think he's preaching. It feels like he's musing. He's just musing, just throwing out some thoughts and kind of processing some things.

17:45

This is definitely not biblical preaching. We haven't even heard a biblical text yet.

17:52

Speaking of touch, let me just talk about that T column, for example. Speaking of touch, do you know that the human animal, the human being, research tells us needs eight to ten meaningful touches a day just for survival?

18:10

Have you ever thought about that? No, never even knew that.

18:16

Okay, let's just say it's true. It's not found in the Bible.

18:23

I'm just pointing that out. I mean, second law of thermodynamics is true, too.

18:30

It's not found in the Scripture. You see, there's a lot of things that are true, true, but they're not found in the

18:37

Bible. Pastors are limited to a very narrowly focused spectrum of truth that we're to be preaching about, and that's that truth found and revealed in the written word of God.

18:50

I could leave the mandatory amount of touching category.

18:57

I'm sure it exists, and it's totally true. I'm not denying it. It's just that that's not a biblical truth.

19:04

You see what I'm saying here? Are you getting your touches in? Again, think about that column.

19:14

I've got a new metric now. I've got to add this. Maybe I can put it on my iPhone as some kind of an app that counts up your significant touches.

19:26

Maybe I could hire somebody to put it into the Apple Watch. When you meaningfully touch somebody appropriately, yeah, we've got to put that in there.

19:40

Click. You can check your rings. You've got your movement and you've got your standing up ring and you've got your calories burned ring, and then you've got your meaningful touches ring.

19:56

We can add it to the rings on our app. That would be great, wouldn't it? Are you touching those people that you're closest to?

20:07

The touch, the touch. I've been spinning lately. Does anyone like to go to spin classes?

20:12

I love spin classes. I mean, they're brutal. They're demonic, but I love them. I have a couple of instructors.

20:19

I go to these classes and I usually take these instructors. One's a guy, the other's a girl. I mean, these people are absolute animals.

20:28

They're in ridiculous shape. It's interesting because they do such a great job.

20:36

I'm in shape because round is a shape. I'm just saying. Training and teaching and instructing you about how to do the various movements in the spin class.

20:47

They're very patient with everyone, especially with me. I've learned a ton about riding bikes, about spinning.

20:54

The other day I was thinking, you know what? I'm getting all this great instruction and I'm going nowhere. I mean, nowhere.

21:03

It's good. It's a good cardio because I had open heart surgery a couple of years ago. They repaired a little valve.

21:09

They split me from stem to stern and cracked open the chest and stopped the heart and all that. I've always been in good cardiovascular shape and maybe that's why

21:19

I was able to come through this surgery so healthy and so good. I feel better on this side of surgery than I did, especially the years leading up to the surgery.

21:28

I'm happy about that. Do you have a biblical point that you feel compelled that you should make?

21:36

Do you have any feelings of duty to Jesus to obey what is said in the written word of God that pastors are to preach the word, devote themselves to the apostles' teaching, to the public reading of scripture?

21:54

Do you feel any duty to actually do that because God's word says to?

22:04

I don't know what you're doing here, but you're not doing that. I'm thinking about cardio a lot and I'm thinking about instruction.

22:12

Then I started thinking about, we get instruction in all these different areas, don't we? We get financial instruction.

22:18

We get instruction legally. We get instruction about this company or instruction about how to put on makeup, ladies, or whatever it is.

22:27

Yeah, instruction in the pastoral epistles of how to do your job as a pastor. There's instruction there.

22:34

Yeah. That's good. I love instructional videos, people who instruct us.

22:41

That's great, but rarely, and I told EJ and his fiancee this, rarely do we ever really lean into the instructions given to us by God.

22:57

He says this unironically. Nah, rarely do we lean into the instructions given to us by God.

23:08

He says this while totally ignoring the instruction of God to preach the word.

23:15

Oh, he's super high on the creativity. Yeah. By the way, this was the promo for the 2018

23:22

C3 Creativity Conference. It's really creative.

23:28

They pulled out all the stops for this one. Yeah, hang on. Jesus is our sovereign savior.

23:45

Creative rather than faithful.

23:51

They're really creative. Faithful? Obedient? No. Creative? Oh, yeah.

23:59

An omega who says I'm making all as he is the eye.

24:09

Oh, Steve Kelly.

24:18

Yeah, Steve Kelly of Wave Church. This guy, he can't rightly handle a biblical text to save his life either.

24:25

Your darkest hour, you get a tired soul. You go back to the word that God put in your heart.

24:31

We're going to walk on water. It gives you an idea of really great.

24:39

I mean, that's some good B -roll, some great time lapse footage. I even like the color palette for the video itself.

24:46

I mean, they really did some great stuff there. Creative. Yes. Faithful.

24:55

Obedient. No, no, not so much. How to communicate. I mean, seriously.

25:02

When was the last time you go, I am going to be instructed by the God of the universe regarding how to communicate?

25:13

Like I said, there's clear texts that talk about the sins of the tongue and different ways in which you are sinning by communicating, and there's a proper way to use the tongue.

25:26

If you want to talk about that, that would be fantastic, but I don't think that's what we're talking about.

25:32

I think he knows a lot about communication because after all, he's God. He made us. And to give you a theology of, let's say, the

25:39

T -column touch, just a brief word about bodyology. What?

25:49

Bodyology. I think if we were to do this properly, we would say something like somology, somology, something like that.

25:59

Soma body. Yeah. Just saying. Theology of the body.

26:06

Yeah. If you think about Genesis, for example, okay? The book of Genesis. Yeah. Let's think about it.

26:12

And as many of you know this, maybe some of you don't know, God spoke everything into existence. He spoke it, boom.

26:17

Yep. It happened. Spoke it, boom. There it was. Spoke it, spoke it, spoke it. But when it came to human beings, when it came to man,

26:24

God literally rolled up his sleeves. I mean, I say literally, he got involved. Why don't you use the occasion here of talking about what you call bodyology, somology, right?

26:37

Soma, you know, body. Why don't you open up Genesis 2 here?

26:42

This would be a great place to do that. Talking about how God formed the man from the dust of the earth and fashioned him.

26:51

It'd be great. This is the place to do it right here. Open up the word, dude. And the

26:57

Bible says that he used... You'll note that an open Bible is sitting on that thing that's kind of like a podium.

27:05

It looks like it was made in middle earth. But anyway, so that it seems open.

27:13

Why isn't he reading it? The earth. And then he breathed the breath of life into man.

27:22

Yeah. So we have a little bit of heaven and a little bit of earth. A little bit of earth and a little bit of heaven.

27:30

God... Is that like Donnie and Marie, a little bit country, a little bit rock and roll? Is that what that's like?

27:42

Man, when he made man, he got really involved in that process.

27:49

So I'm made to touch. I've been touched.

27:57

Point one, touchology. Is that God got his hands dirty in making man.

28:07

By God. That's something we need to understand. Moreover, what did Jesus do?

28:13

Jesus, the Bible says, wore flesh. He became man. He wore a body.

28:23

Yeah. That's a bad way to talk about the incarnation.

28:28

Jesus wore a body. That sounds like he's putting on a suit or something. Yeah. The word became flesh, tabernacled among us.

28:39

Jesus is both God and man, and eternally so. He's not taking off the body suit thingy.

28:47

No, he's eternally now God and man together, incarnate.

28:53

So yeah, that's really an awful way to talk about the incarnation there.

28:59

The senses that you have and that I have, read the

29:04

Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Go through there and circle the words, touch, hands, fingers.

29:17

Most of those, and there's over 200 of those references, most of those have to do with the person of Jesus.

29:26

Right. Why didn't you tell us an account where Jesus touched somebody?

29:38

Yeah. I can think of one off the top of my head. In fact, I'm going to have to do this from memory.

29:44

Let's see if I can get... All right. I think it's at the end of this chapter.

29:52

Yes, I think it is. All right. Check this one out, okay? We want to do touchology, right?

30:00

Did you know that the old covenant makes it very clear, the

30:06

Mosaic covenant makes it extremely clear that if you touch a dead body, that you are then unclean.

30:17

Yeah, that's right. And that there's a whole bunch of ceremonial cleansings and stuff that you've got to do at the temple or the old tabernacle in order to be declared clean.

30:33

If you come in contact, if you touch a dead body, you can find that in the

30:39

Mosaic covenant. So here we've got this story that Jesus, after casting out the demon named

30:46

Legion out of that demoniac of the Gerasenes, he comes back across the

30:52

Sea of Galilee. It says this, and when Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered about him and he was beside the sea.

31:01

Then came one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jarius by name. Seeing him, he fell at his feet and implored him earnestly saying, my little daughter is at the point of death.

31:11

Come lay your hands on her so that she may be made well and live.

31:17

Okay, so look, his expectation is that Jesus is going to come and touch her and that she will live.

31:25

Okay, all right, we'll talk about that. Now note here, this doesn't fit then in the category of eight meaningful touches a day for survival.

31:34

This has to do with actual being healed so that you don't die. Okay, so it's not in the same category, but oh well, he's not really preaching a biblical doctrine anyway, so we're having to fill in here.

31:47

We're doing his work for him, best way I could put it. So then a great crowd followed Jesus and thronged about him.

31:54

Oh, by the way, a little bit of a note here in the Greek. Oh, this is something actually quite fascinating in the

32:01

Greek. Come lay your hands on her so that she may be made well. So in order that she might be sozo,

32:11

Greek word saved, in order that she might be saved. It's just, it's beautiful in the

32:17

Greek. This is a wonderful text. So a great crowd followed Jesus, thronged about him, and there was a woman who had a discharge of blood for 12 years.

32:27

Now, a little bit of a note here, that discharge makes her unclean.

32:34

She is ceremonially unclean, and she's not allowed to participate in the worship life, in the synagogue, and so she is separated, and she,

32:46

I'm sure, is feeling that she has been afflicted by God. And here's what it says, she had suffered much under many physicians, spent all that she had, it was no better, but actually grew worse.

32:59

So she's desperately trying to get healing so that she is no longer unclean, ceremonially unclean.

33:08

So she had heard reports about Jesus, and she doesn't want to touch him because she doesn't want to make Jesus unclean.

33:15

So she heard about the reports about Jesus and came up behind him and, watch this, touched his garment.

33:21

Now, in this particular case, we know from the cross references that she didn't really touch Jesus's garment. It's not like, you know, she touched his robe.

33:28

Instead, Jesus, being a Torah observant, Torah keeping, law -keeping

33:33

Jew, he kept the law perfectly for us. He, on his shirt, the ancient world's equivalent of a shirt, on the corners of his garment then, there were tassels hanging off, and those were called tzitziot.

33:49

And so, in fact, Torah observant Jews to this day wear those little tassels, and you'll see them coming off the corners of their shirts or even being connected to their belts or things like that.

34:01

And so, you know, they're required to do this according to the book of Numbers. They're called tzitziot. So this is the thing she came up and she touched.

34:08

For she said, if I touch even his garments, I will be made well.

34:15

And here's the fun part, in the Greek here, I will be saved is what the

34:21

Greek says. I will be saved. I think there's a kind of interesting little play on words going on here. So immediately, the flow of blood dried up because she touched

34:30

Jesus's tzitziot, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease.

34:36

Mastigas, by the way, affliction of her scourging. Yeah, it's a little stronger than than disease.

34:46

And this is how she described it. She describes the affliction that she's gone through.

34:53

It's described in terms of something that is a scourging, a whipping, mastigas.

34:59

So Jesus, perceiving in himself that power had gone out from him, immediately turned about in the crowd and said, who touched my garments?

35:07

And at this point, this poor lady, I mean, she is absolutely terrified because she's not supposed to be touching

35:16

Jesus because she's unclean because of this discharge. So Jesus stops and says, who touched my garments?

35:23

And you can tell by her reaction that she is in utter fear at this point that she has done something wrong.

35:32

And Jesus isn't turning around in order to chastise her.

35:38

No, far from it. So his disciples said to Jesus, you see the crowd pressing around you, and yet you say, who touched me?

35:47

Great touching text, by the way. So he looked around to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling.

35:56

And this is really awful in the sense that, I mean, it's so vivid what's going on.

36:03

So she is, you ever have one of those moments where you've had like, you know, you felt your blood run cold, you know, like, you know, and the color is less your face.

36:11

And now, and now you're so afraid that your knees are knocking, your hands are shaking. So she is in total fear at this point that she's gonna get it from Jesus.

36:21

So she came in fear and trembling, and she fell down before him, and she told him the whole truth as if she'd done something wrong.

36:31

And here's a beautiful picture of Jesus. I mean, watch what Jesus does here. He says, first words out of his mouth to her,

36:39

Thugater, daughter, daughter, your faith has made you well.

36:46

And in the Greek there, this is beautiful, go in peace and be healed of your mastigas, of your scourging.

36:53

Yeah, because that what she had gone through was like a scourging, be healed of your mastigas, of your disease, of your scourging.

37:01

And so Jesus stops in order to love her, to affirm her, and to let her know that her faith has, and he says, made you well, but again, it's the

37:12

Greek word sozo, your faith has saved you, is what the Greek says, it really does.

37:19

Go in peace, be healed of your disease. Now, while he was still speaking, there came from the ruler's house, someone who said, your daughter is dead, why trouble the teacher any further?

37:28

But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the ruler of the synagogue, do not fear, only believe, do not fear, only believe.

37:37

And so Jesus allowed no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James.

37:43

They came to the house of the ruler of the synagogue, and Jesus saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly.

37:49

And when he had entered, he said to them, why are you making a commotion and weeping? The child's not dead, she's only sleeping.

37:57

And so they laughed at him, and he put them all outside and took the child's father and mother, and those who were with him, and went in where the child was.

38:06

And here's just another beautiful picture, watch the kindness of Christ. And it's just, it's so tender what he does here, taking her by the hand, now he's touching a dead body.

38:20

And he's, is he unclean? Yeah, well, that's kind of the funny thing about Jesus, is that, you know, dead bodies don't make him clean.

38:29

When he touches a dead body, they stop being dead. That's the best thing about Jesus, right?

38:35

So taking her by the hand, he said to her in just this wonderful term of endearment, Talitha kumi, which means little girl.

38:43

I say to you, arise. And immediately the girl got up and began walking, for she was 12 years old, and then they were immediately overcome with amazement.

38:52

And watch this next part, it's so, it's just amazing. So, and he strictly charged them that no one should know this, and then he told them to give her something to eat.

39:03

Which kind of tells you that whatever it is that killed this little girl, she had probably been super sick, unable to keep anything down, you know, and vomiting and all of this stuff.

39:15

And so we're not told what it is, but Jesus, I mean, just that little bit right there, give her something to eat.

39:21

This girl needs some food. It's just great. So here, how long did it take me to do this?

39:28

It took me just a few minutes to walk through this text. And this is a beautiful, touchy text where Jesus touches and just the theology and the richness, the mercy, the grace, the power of Christ.

39:46

And this is your Savior and mine. He can say to us, your faith has healed you.

39:53

Your faith has saved you. See, the same Jesus who raised this girl from the dead with a touch is the same one who will call all of us out of our graves when he returns in glory to judge the living and the dead.

40:07

So, I mean, this is exciting stuff when you think about it. It's just, how could you not get excited about being able to tell stories like this?

40:14

And this would have been a perfect touchy, feely, touchy sermon if you want to do a sermon on touch, because there's a lot of theology regarding touch and what you can touch and what you can't touch.

40:26

And if you touch this, you're unclean. And here, Jesus touches a dead body. Is he unclean? Well, I don't know.

40:32

The girl got up from the grave. She wasn't dead for very long after he touched her.

40:40

And so that's kind of the point. There's a lot you can do with these texts, but Ed Young has chosen not to do any of that stuff.

40:47

I don't know what he's doing, to be honest with you. Isn't that interesting? We're made to touch.

40:53

God's a God who's touched us literally and figuratively and spiritually and physically when we have this skin on.

41:04

And in fact, skin is the largest organ in our body. Did you know that? A little fun fact.

41:10

The average adult has 21 square feet of skin on their bodies.

41:18

21 square feet of skin. But some of us love plastic surgery.

41:25

Notice he's including himself in that group. I wasn't joking when I said his son burnt his Botox. Yeah, I'm just saying.

41:31

Let me back that up. He includes himself with those who love plastic surgery. Square feet of skin on their bodies.

41:39

21 square feet of skin. But some of us love plastic surgery so much we've hacked the 21 to about 19.

41:48

Most of us have about 19 here. 11 miles of blood vessels.

41:59

Blood vessels in our skin. Why are you telling us this? Have you ever thought about speaking of touch?

42:09

We're made in God's image. God has touched us literally, figuratively, spiritually, physically, all those things.

42:15

And we're touching right now. Yeah, I understand.

42:20

You might be sitting next to someone, you're rubbing elbows with them, or maybe you're dating someone, playing footsie with them, okay, holding hands.

42:28

Sometimes people are locked up like constrictors here when I speak. But I'm just talking about we feel the touch just being in the presence of other people.

42:44

In the presence. Yeah, some guy says, yeah, that's right. That's right, man. I haven't heard anything coming from his mouth here that is worthy of anything other than a tomato, a rotten one at that.

42:58

God physically. Yeah. So our skin is made by God to feel the world around us.

43:11

I sometimes think in the church we're like, oh, I don't want to talk about the body too much because of, you know, touching.

43:19

I mean, very quickly it can take us to dark places. And yes, you're exactly right.

43:24

We've allowed the enemy to come in because of our fallenness. And we have all sorts of issues in our world today with inappropriate touch.

43:34

I'm not talking about that because as you read the biblical record, what are you talking about? Because you're not talking about anything biblical.

43:47

All of the people mentioned in some of the passages I'm going to share where it has to do with touch had a very high view of the body.

43:58

They knew the body was a body by God and was holy. Well, scripture says these touching words.

44:07

I just want to give you a theology on touch before we get very, very practical. We know that God has made us.

44:13

He's touched us. We know that skin matters because we have skin. We're made in the image of God.

44:25

We know that skin matters. He's like the master of saying nothing, but he has an open

44:41

Bible. Maybe, just maybe we'll get something even remotely approaching his biblical duty as a pastor.

44:51

He's got an open Bible. He looks really intent here. He's going to do something. I can tell.

44:57

I can feel it. Okay. It says in Psalm 145, 16, you open your hand at being

45:05

God and satisfy the desire of every living thing. Now, see, he first verse out of the shoot, he fails.

45:19

Psalm 145 verses 15 and 16. You're going to note this is a poetic way of talking about God.

45:29

God's a spirit. Now, Jesus is incarnate deity, but this is written prior to the incarnation.

45:35

So, and this isn't about touch anyway. Um, Psalm 145, 15, the eyes of all look to you,

45:45

O Lord, and you give them their food in due season. You open your hands.

45:51

You satisfy the desires of every living thing. This is talking about how

45:56

God provides for the needs of those of his creatures that he's created.

46:03

You know, see it's, it's, this isn't about touch. Hi. Yeah.

46:09

This is bad. It has to do with touch. Now let's look at some of the, no, no.

46:18

Psalm 145, 16 has nothing to do with touch. Some of the writings in the gospels.

46:24

I'm going to run through these very, very quickly and think, did you just type in the word touch, you know, at Bible gateway .net

46:32

and said, oh, this will just plug this in here and we'll just run through the list.

46:37

Oh, look at all the verses that say touch. And he's, and you're not teaching a single one of them. About touch.

46:44

Jesus put his hand and touched him. So he touched her hand. He went in and took her by the hand.

46:52

Whose hand? Whose hand? Right. Jesus touches people, but it's not because he's trying to get his touch quota in, you know, to, you know, to make sure that people are at survival mode, you know.

47:06

Then he touched their eyes. Immediately, Jesus stretched out his hand. Jesus came and touched them.

47:14

Then little children were brought to him that he might put his hands on them and pray.

47:21

How many times? Who? I'm talking about meaningful touches. Are you giving out a day?

47:29

See, I can find a whole bunch of verses to say the word touch and association with Jesus.

47:34

So I got to ask you the question, because it's all about the application, brother. How many meaningful touches are you getting in a day?

47:47

Just don't have words. This is nonsense. He's not doing what he's supposed to be doing.

47:54

Notice. I the stage looks impeccable. The lights amazing. Oh man, the art director there really knows what he's doing, but he's not doing his job to preach the word.

48:07

It's not being preached at all. They're not learning nothing about Jesus.

48:14

They're not learning anything about actual biblical doctrines, real commands, ways in which we sin or honor

48:20

God in our communication and in our touch, because after all, you know, skin matters.

48:26

This is just absurd, but he's held up. Yeah, that's right. This is a man who teaches other pastors how to be a pastor like him.

48:36

Superdy uperdy creative, but in the rightly handling and preaching

48:41

God's word category. Yeah. Totally wanting, utterly lacking.

48:49

The people at fellowship are not being discipled. They're not being taught the word of God in any meaningful way at all.

48:57

It's very sad, very tragic. So what'd you think? Yeah, if you found this helpful, please go ahead and like the video and in all the information on how to share it is down below.

49:10

And of course, all the information on how you can support the ongoing work and mission of pirate Christian media and fighting for the faith.

49:16

That's all there as well. You can support us by becoming a patron on Patreon, becoming a crew member on our website, things like that.

49:23

Uh, you know, we can't do what we're doing here without your assistance. So hopefully you found this helpful until next time.

49:30

Then may God richly bless you in the grace and mercy won by Jesus Christ and his vicarious death on the cross for all of your sins.