Jesus Loves God, Jesus Loves People

ReCAST Church of Mattawan

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You are listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. Good morning,

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Recast. It's good to be here. It's good to have the opportunity to share the Word for you.

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And as we look at the Gospel of Mark today, if you've been here for a while,

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I don't preach very often, but I started in Mark in January and then have been kind of continuing along.

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So that's where we are today. We're in Chapter 1. We'll be looking at verses 29 through 45. And before doing that,

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I think one important question to answer and consider, especially when you look at Gospels, is who is

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Jesus? Or who was Jesus as we look historically? But who is He?

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There have been recent movements, and when I say recent, it was actually in the 1800s, so it's not very recent, actually.

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But there's this kind of like the historical Jesus type movement. Was He even real? There's evidence of trying to find out, is

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He just a myth or a legend or not? But once again, if you look at evidence from archaeology to written texts that we have, you can't deny that He existed.

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And the sayings that He have are corroborated by even secular historians from the time that He existed on earth at that first advent.

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And so He was here in the flesh, He spoke, He did stuff like every person. He did things.

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And so as we read this text, let's keep these things in mind.

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Jesus, like He said this about Himself, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

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No one comes to the Father but by Me. I and the Father are one. He's the one that John the

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Baptist earlier said, hey, here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Also John said like, man,

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I'm not even worthy to untie His sandals. So we have what

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Jesus said about Himself, we have what others have said about Jesus. He's the one that would receive the wrath of God on the cross.

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I don't know where His body is. He rose again.

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There were people that saw Him. Like these are facts, these are things that really happened.

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It's not fake news, it's not imaginary, right? These things happened and these ground our faith.

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The God -Man came with purpose and power.

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As we read the text today, we'll see that. He drew a lot of people to Him.

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And we'll see that in the text. A lot of people wanted to see Him and hear Him and they were drawn to Jesus in Capernaum right now in this text that we're looking at.

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And so, I think about why they came. In the text,

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He's going to be doing some healing. And we're interested in that, right? Isn't our culture interested in good health?

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That's high up as far as dollars spent. I don't even want to venture a guess.

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I didn't do any research. We're entering into a season where maybe we eat a little too much over the holidays and then gym memberships are going to be pushed.

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And everyone's going to make these resolutions and let's get healthy, right? Health is an important part of our culture.

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But I don't think that we're special in that. Because as you look at all the people that came to Jesus here to be healed in the text,

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I think it's true back then also. When I was a first -year teacher,

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I went to a conference and I don't even remember what the conference really was about.

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It was social studies stuff and I'm going to this session. And a guy came and he talked and he said, listen, what you need to understand about your students is that they're tuning into one radio station,

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WIIFM. And I'm like, I thought a call sign had four. It didn't make sense to me.

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And I'm like, what are you talking about? They want to know what's in it for me. They want to know what's in it for me.

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And I'm like, okay, that's fair. That's fair. I was kind of discouraged to some degree because I wanted to be more than, it was first year,

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I wanted to be more than that teacher that assigns the homework and then grades it and then confers the credit and this transactional relationship.

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But that's fair. It was not completely devoid of truth.

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And then I think about how I came to Jesus and like, part of it was honestly, well, what can

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I get? The Spirit drew me and it's beyond that. But I mean, there is benefit in being a

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Christian. There's a peace that I think others will never have for those that truly believe.

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I think there's the promises we have in glory, like that this is not all there is.

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Those are wonderful to think about. So as we come to this text,

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I don't want to paint the picture that because Jesus healed people, right?

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He gave them what they wanted. Like in multiple fold, right?

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In many fold. But I want to see how many people turn into WIIFM with Jesus, right?

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And so the text, Jesus will love others. He will love God. It will be really clear.

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He's going to be doing this. And so he's going to make it a point to heal people and he's going to preach the gospel.

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So if you have your Bible or a device, your phone, turn to Mark chapter 1. We're going to do the last portion of chapter 1 and that will be from verses 29 through 45.

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So if you have that, go ahead and turn. You can follow along. This is the word of the

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Lord. This is not the word of me. Now, Simon's mother -in -law lay ill with a fever and immediately they told him about her.

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And he came and took her by the hand and lifted her up and the fever left her.

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And she began to serve him, serve them. That evening at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or oppressed by demons.

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And the whole city was gathered together at the door. And he healed many who were sick with various diseases and cast out many demons.

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And he would not permit the demons to speak because they knew him. And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place and there he prayed.

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And Simon and those who were with him searched for him. And they found him and said to him, everyone is looking for you.

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And he said to them, let us go on to the next towns that I might preach there also. For that is why

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I came out. And he went throughout all Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and casting out demons.

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And the leper came to him, imploring him and kneeling said to him, if you will, you can make me clean.

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Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand and touched him and said to him, I will be clean.

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And immediately the leprosy left him and he was made clean. And Jesus sternly charged him and sent him away at once and said to him, see that you say nothing to anyone, but go show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what

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Moses commanded for a proof to them. But he went out and began to talk freely about it and to spread the news so that Jesus could no longer openly enter a town but was out in desolate places and people were coming to him from every quarter.

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Let's pray while the band comes up. Lord, you came to earth and you had compassion for us.

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You saw the effects of sin. You healed so many. Lord, I pray that as we sing together in unity today and we offer praise to you, that it would be a sweet smell to you.

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We would not just seek what you would give us. We would seek you, Lord. That heart comes from you.

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So I pray that you would draw hearts to you today. That they might grow closer to you and love you.

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Thank you again for the time that we can share together around your word. And I just pray that you would be glorified in what we do here in worship.

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In Jesus' name I pray, amen. Make yourselves comfortable and a couple of housekeeping items.

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If you need more coffee and maybe a donut, I don't know. It's second service, right? So the supply might be a little bit more dwindled as opposed to after first service at this time.

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But halftime's over. We're here. We're here to sit around the word of God. And if you also need to take a bathroom break, it's through the double doors down the hallway on your left.

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You'll find the men's and women's restroom there. And so do what you need to to keep comfortable and yeah, keep you awake, hopefully.

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As a teacher, I see the looks and you know, I know full well.

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Anyways, but the outline today follows three different stories.

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And in the first one, Jesus loves the people of Capernaum. And that is verses 29 through 34.

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You know, Jesus is going to love God. He's going to love people. And then in the second, Jesus loves God. And we see some of this demonstrated in his attention to prayer, which is an interesting thing,

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I think. And we'll talk about that. And then also his staying on mission, on purpose. And then the last is, he's going to heal a leper, which presents some interesting,

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I guess, things, to use a pretty nondescript word, for us to consider about who

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Jesus is and how much he loves people and how much he loves God. Alright, so,

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Jesus loves the people of Capernaum. The first section, verses 29 through 34, we read it earlier today.

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To put it in context, remember, Jesus, he comes into the wilderness and John the

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Baptist says, hey, here's the Lamb of God, the one who takes away the sin of the world. John the

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Baptist also says, hey, this is the guy that, you know, I'm going to, I can't even untie his sandals,

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I'm not worthy, right? That process, he goes into the wilderness, Jesus does. Then he calls his disciples.

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He then teaches in the synagogue and does it in a way that is with authority, as the scribes describe it.

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Not like maybe how I would talk, right? I have the authority in the word of God and I can speak in that, but like Jesus was unique.

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Jesus was different. And then, after healing a demon -possessed man in the synagogue, that leads us to where we are now.

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Okay, so when he immediately left the synagogue, he entered the house of Simon. So, it's important that as we come to the text each week, you know, we let it kind of wash over you.

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This is the word of God. It is unique. It is special. It is powerful. It is active.

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It can affect you. It can help you grow in faith.

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And so, in verse 29, Jesus leaves the synagogue in Capernaum where he'd just been teaching, casting out demons.

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He goes to the house of Peter and his mother -in -law is sick, right? That's what Peter says to him.

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The house is very close to the synagogue. I mean, it was within walking distance. And archaeological evidence, like, yeah, this is probably his house, shows that to be true.

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And so, we, once again, I'll talk about, I'll briefly mention, like, what we have here is true, okay?

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Yeah, I believe it's true, but it's also borne out in history and in evidence and in fact.

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So, okay, so the archaeological evidence shows this is a short walk to Peter's house.

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And it was a busy day, right, for him, for Jesus, excuse me.

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And so, he's at his home. His mother -in -law has this fever. They would describe it like a fire in her bones is maybe the words they might use.

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And a fever would be a broad diagnosis for a lot of maladies. Now, we know that a fever is a symptom of a problem or an illness, but they just called the illness a fever.

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And so, Simon, at this point, he says, ah, my mother -in -law has a fever.

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And Jesus immediately just takes his hand, doesn't say anything, at least nothing's recorded by Mark, takes her hand and lifts her up and heals her immediately.

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Jesus did this and the healing is complete. Now, how do we know that? Like, she's ready to go.

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Well, she begins to serve them, okay? And so, maybe that's what mother -in -laws do, right?

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They just serve people and they get going and they do it, right? But that's what's recorded here. And then in verse 32 through 34, they make it a point,

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Mark does, that it's evening at sundown. They brought him all who were sick or oppressed by demons.

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So the people in Capernaum, they brought everybody who were sick, everyone who was, you know, oppressed by demons to the house.

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This is a result of his teaching in Capernaum. The word of God, the word of Jesus is spreading.

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Like, this guy is spreading fast in Capernaum and he is the one that heals people.

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He's the one, like, if you need, if you're sick, go to him. If you got a malady, go to him.

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It's interesting later, like, he's going to feed the 5 ,000. It's like, oh, you want some food? Go to him, right? So these crowds are going to continue to form around Jesus in his ministry.

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Though short in years, right, on earth. And so, this miracle worker, he comes to town, demonstrates power after the

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Sabbath that evening. They brought all who were sick. And it says that he healed many who were sick of various diseases and cast out many demons.

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Now, he didn't, he didn't heal all. He healed many. He didn't heal, and there was a variety of diseases.

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And he cast out many demons here. So, it's interesting. He could, like, literally walk and heal everybody.

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Like, in fact, he could speak right now and heal, and like, I don't know. But that would be his second coming. And we do look for that.

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But, he, in his patience, is waiting. And he has great compassion.

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We'll see this. So Jesus got to work healing and casting out demons. Kind of this wash, rinse, repeat type, you know, cycle.

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And you can see that through here. Who knows who or what he healed, right?

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I mean, they don't get specifics about what diseases or things like that, but just various. And I think it's interesting because he would, wouldn't be able to minister people in that town because of the crowds eventually.

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Like, he would move out of Capernaum then. Right, so, like, this is a lot of people. This is a mass of people here.

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And Jesus, interesting too, like, what does he do to the people that he commanded the demons not to speak?

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And they obey. Why? Because they know, or they knew him. They knew him from,

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I don't know how many years before. I don't know. I mean, just from their creation. They knew him.

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The people probably, they didn't. They knew he was, Jesus was a healer, but they did not necessarily know he was the

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Messiah, the one who takes away the sins of the world. And so, he commands the demons not to speak.

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There's no indication that they wouldn't obey him. Like, okay, they knew him. They will obey.

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And there's a distinction between, you know, illness and possession here. But even some physical illness could be associated with possession.

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I mean, that's, we see that in Scripture. A biblical worldview does allow for that.

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A non -biblical worldview is only going to say, well, then we just don't know the science behind it.

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We just don't know the, so. Jesus heals not everyone, but I think it's interesting, like, what we have recorded is a snippet.

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It's a piece. Because John, the gospel writer, he says in chapter 21, verse 25, he says, now there are also many things that Jesus did.

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Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.

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That's a profound statement. So Jesus did way more than what we even have. But this is enough.

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This is sufficient. This is complete. This is all we need. He did not leave us lacking.

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The word is what, we have exactly what we need. And so we could be encouraged by that. John's just making the point, he's like, wow, he did a ton.

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So Jesus, the creator, the sustainer of life, he is so compassionate. He is so compassionate here.

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We see the healings that are going to be done here. They're temporary. They're an example of his grace.

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And they're not permanent, though, right? He comforted many, but it was temporary.

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Because in every case, like, they died. I don't see Simon's mother -in -law here or anywhere, right?

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I mean, like, so just understand how much he loves us and how much he has compassion for us in our suffering because of sin.

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Where do you place your hope? Because where you do that, it matters. And placing it in Jesus, the

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Messiah, that's as firm as it gets. It's rock solid.

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If you put your faith in a healing or a job or a relationship or your children or your spouse, if you put your trust and hope in them, you could have a long life of, like, things are pretty good, but not forever.

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They're going to let you down. Something's going to break. So Jesus, the

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Messiah, what a great foundation, what a firm foundation we have there. I've heard it said, right, seek the blesser, not the blessing.

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And I think about what I pray. Sometimes I pray for things, and I, you know, I do, and I pray for many of you, and, you know,

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I want, you've had requests that you would offer, and I'm like, I want that. You know, the

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Lord's will, but, like, this is your heart, right? And so, let me just say a caveat.

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Like, it's okay. I think it's good. Peter, he talks about, hey, cast all your cares on him, for he cares for you.

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So God wants to hear what is bothering us. He wants to hear what we're struggling with.

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He wants that. He desires that. And so, once again, it's good to pray for others.

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It's good to pray that you might be healed or be able to have success in something.

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I mean, that's not necessarily wrong, but that's not what you should seek because it's fleeting.

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Because hopefully we grow in love for God, not the things that we want, because when you do that, then you put that thing above God.

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I don't know if you realize that, but if you're hoping for and praying for the things or the blessing, you're kind of displacing your love.

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So, where does, like, all of these problems, illnesses, psychological problems, broken minds or social problems, where does all this come from?

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Where does it ultimately come from? Okay, not Jesus, unless it's a Sunday school answer. It's because of sin, right?

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Now, Job was accused by his friends of like, wow, what sin did you do? Well, he didn't do any.

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We have problems, and sometimes it's not because of our sin. It's because of sin in general, because of the fall.

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Okay? Sometimes it might be, but Jesus did not come to ultimately heal the blind, the lame.

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Like, at this time in history, the first Abbot, to take care of all of those problems, those symptoms, actually,

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I want to say, he came to deal with the problem, and that problem was sin. That's why he came the first time.

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When he comes the second time, he's going to take care of the rest of it and bring us to glory.

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Then we won't have the effects of sin anymore. Boy, I just, that's amazing to think about. Like, what is that going to be like?

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To have a perfect relationship with a person where there's no greed, there's no self -motivation, and like,

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I struggle to conceive of that or have that perfect relationship with the

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Lord. So, before moving on to the next section here, like, seek the

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Savior, not a favor from the Lord. Seek the

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Lord. Love God and love others. All right, in the second part,

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Jesus loves God. In verse 35, it says, and, rising early.

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Once again, that's a common feature in Mark. He'll say, and, and he says immediately, and he moves the text, like, move the pace along really quickly.

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And he says, after a busy day, he rises early. I'm sorry, this is my notes, not what he said.

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But he rises early, and he goes and withdraws from the people so he can spend time with the Lord. He goes to a quiet place, a secluded place, a desolate place.

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Mark will record a couple of other times that Jesus prayed. I think it would be a mistake to think these are the only three times that he did pray.

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But these are what Mark records. Before he walked on water and then before Gethsemane, when Jesus was taken to Pilate and then ultimately to the cross.

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So, I think there's a couple of observations. He rose early, right?

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So, he slept. That's pretty cool. I mean, like,

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God slept. I don't know how it works. Like, there are some mysteries of the faith that I'm excited to, like, kind of peer at in glory.

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One of those is, how is he holy God, completely God, and holy man, completely man?

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How is that? Or the Trinity, right? I mean, that's pretty amazing. How are they three different persons and yet they're one?

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And we saw earlier in Mark, God says, this is my son who I'm well pleased.

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Right? So, they're separate, but yet they're one. And we can come with analogies and things like that, but they all fall short.

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Once again, as we go into glory, you know, someday, Lord willing, we're with Jesus in heaven and we can just kind of peer into that and look at the

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Father and glory and the Son and the Holy Spirit. And I think that's exciting.

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That's something to look forward to. I don't know how many years I would spend looking at one of those. But Jesus slept.

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Holy God and holy man. He also prayed. Okay? Like, I thought you were

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God. How does that work? I thought you were God. I mean, like, He prayed. That's amazing.

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And an encouragement to us, right? To pray. In fact,

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He gets away from the crowd and I find that pretty difficult, right? To get away.

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To be quiet. I mean, if I stopped talking and said the room would be dead quiet, we would,

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I think, find it uncomfortable. That did happen in first service, by the way.

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I was trying to think of something and there was a really awkward pause and I just... Senior moment, but anyways.

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Lord willing, that won't happen. But He went to a quiet place. I think that's difficult for us, for me.

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And I'll just say me. But I think it definitely has value, right? When I think of how many times

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I missed a chance to pray or maybe I willfully said, no,

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I'm not going to pray right now. And I'm like, ooh, it can be convicting, right? So, for me, I think,

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I'm not talking that you would ever do that. I'm just saying me. It can be convicting.

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Or do we just pray when life is stressful or life is hard or you want the healing?

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Once again, that's things I wrestle with. I'm not saying that would be true for you at all.

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I'm not. So anyway, Jesus goes to pray.

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He wants to be with His Father. That's a sign that you love someone. When you spend time with them, you love them.

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Period. In fact, if I looked at your schedule and your checkbook,

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I could probably determine what you love. And you've heard that before, I'm sure, right? You could do the same for me.

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You could look at my, whatever, my schedule and the checkbook and find out what I love.

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God's calling you to love Him. Jesus loved others. Jesus loved the

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Father. Jesus loved God. In verses 36 and 37, Simon and the others, they got up and they started to look for Jesus.

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They're like, where is He? I'm just playing hide -and -seek, I guess. I don't know. When they find

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Him, they say, everyone is looking for you. Okay, probably a little bit of an exaggeration because everyone seems like a lot of people.

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But at least Simon and the people that Jesus called earlier were looking for Him.

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And there is a little bit of concern here about Jesus' whereabouts. You know, losing a powerful friend that can heal people, that would be a little bit disappointing.

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Like, where is He? I want this lucky charm. I want to continue. So there may be some of that there.

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There may be, okay? But Jesus doesn't respond to that, you know, statement.

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Without missing a beat, Jesus says, let's go on to the next towns. Right? Because He's got to go there and preach.

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That's the purpose. That's why I came. Okay? So we see Jesus loving God in obedience.

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Right? This is why I came. I'm going to be obedient to my purpose and my mission here.

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There were probably about 15 ,000 people in the variety of towns that surrounded the area of Galilee.

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And so this is an opportunity for Him to kind of move out. And He'll be preaching in the synagogues.

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And Jesus continued to teach and cast out demons, as you will see later when we eventually walk through Mark.

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But He does this at the synagogues. And I think that's interesting.

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The synagogue was the point of contact for the people where they would meet.

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And the fact that He cast out demons there, it could be a little bit discouraging, I think. It's like, huh.

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These places are interesting to think about. But Jesus stayed on mission.

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He was there to teach the truth. He was not there just to heal people from their temporary infirmities.

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Remember, He was here to solve the problem, not the symptom. Okay? Jesus healed in a variety of ways.

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Okay? And so I think that's important too. A variety of ways and a variety of diseases was talked about.

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And I think if we want to love God and love

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Jesus, that's why. There was a variety of ways because sometimes

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He touched them in the passage here. Sometimes He was touched. You know, a lady touched

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Him and she was healed. Sometimes He did it without even being in their presence. And He raised some, you know,

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He healed people. Not in their presence. Sometimes He made a mixture, you know, of some spit and some mud and then healed somebody.

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I mean, there wasn't, and I don't think it's, if you follow the logic here, it's like, well, with this disease,

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Jesus knows, I have to do this. And with this disease, I have to touch.

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This one, I can just do it with them not even present. That's a huge mistake.

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Now, I know that's a, most people might not think that, but like, when you do it, when you think of it that way, why

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He did different things, you're putting the disease in charge, right? In one sense.

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So God's kind of, Jesus is following the formula. Well, that's what we do in modern medicine, right? We kind of investigate and then we figure out what works.

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So for this disease, we have this course of action. That's not how Jesus heals, right? He heals in ways that are complete.

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And He doesn't heal because the disease requires a certain thing. But He shows us,

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I think, different ways in which He did it so that we don't think that that's the way, that that's the way to get to God.

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If we do this, then we can get to God. If we do that, then we can be healed of this, right?

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So I think it's an important thing to think about and to work through and hopefully you got something to think about there.

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In today's passage, He's going to touch them and they'll be healed. I hope that, and as He goes into this last section,

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Jesus loves a leper. Leprosy at that time was a term that would be put on a variety of skin diseases.

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And so in Leviticus, it talks about what those might be and how you should treat them, how you should treat the people, and how you should then also then sacrifice for cleansing.

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So go to Leviticus 14 and you can unpack that. I thought about it, but then I was like, oof,

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I want to be done before 2 .30. So anyways, the text here says there was a leper and he was unclean.

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That was a common thing. They're unclean. In fact, they had to go around, right? They would have to cover their lip and say they're unclean if they were coming up on somebody just to warn people.

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So they're unclean. He was an outcast. He would have needed to rely on charity for his living, to financially have food.

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He would have to rely on charity or maybe his family would support him in that way. But he would have been lonely, for sure.

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There might be a community of lepers and that might provide some community, but he would have been lonely.

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And so I think about how we might be able to better appreciate the life of a leper in the social sense having gone through COVID.

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Now, COVID's going to be that, it's going to be that 9 -11, it's going to be that Kennedy was assassinated, it's going to be that Pearl Harbor invasion.

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I mean, it's that type of an event in our life. It's going to be those things like, oh yeah, before then we did

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X, Y, or Z. So community is important. Community groups and serving with a group of recasters is a good thing.

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Or inviting people to your house, that's a good thing. Community is important. That's something this leper didn't have.

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Or that was common. And so these are opportunities for us to stay connected and they're excellent ways to get connected with people.

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But did you know that if you are in Christ, if you have received

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Christ and are saved, do you know that you are not alone? Christ is with you.

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Good news. On the cross, Jesus was alone.

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He said, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He was alone.

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He was forsaken so that I wouldn't have to be alone, so that you wouldn't have to be alone.

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And we're all going to be alone at some point. When I reach the point where I pass away,

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I die, I'm not dying with anybody. I'm dying alone.

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That's the great promise in the gospel. You are never alone. When you face that point in your life, with Christ, you're not alone.

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How else can Stephen do what he did? Okay, so in Acts chapter 7, verses 54 through 60, he had just been talking pretty harshly to the

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Jewish leaders and they were upset. How upset, you ask? Well, let me tell you. In verse 54, now when they heard these things, they were enraged and they ground their teeth at him.

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But he, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand.

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And he said, Behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. But they cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears and rushed together at him.

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Then they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of the young man named

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Saul. And as they were stoning Stephen, he called out, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.

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And falling to his knees, he cried out with a loud voice, Lord, do not hold this sin against them.

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And when he had said this, he fell asleep. What a response from Jesus.

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I mean, if you know Christ and you're in that situation, that's a nice promise.

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Now, here in the United States, we don't have to worry too much about that.

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Thankfully. I mean, I'll be, I'm not itching to sign up for persecution and death.

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I mean, I'm not. But there are places in the world where we can pray for Christians that are under persecution, that face death.

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So, you're not alone with Jesus. So we can certainly know the leper believed that Jesus was a healer, right?

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We know that. I don't think he probably got it like the demons knew who

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Jesus was. This leper probably didn't know Jesus as the Messiah based on kind of what he's going to do.

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But he knows he was a powerful man. He worked in Capernaum. And all of Capernaum could testify to Jesus as a great healer.

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And so in verse 40, he says to Jesus, he goes like and begs, he pleads, he kneels and says, man, if you will, you can make me clean.

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So leper did at least say something, maybe more than he realized. Jesus was moved with pity, moved with compassion.

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He loved the leper and he heals him. Touches him, says,

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I will be clean. So have you ever asked for somebody for a favor? Like, you know, kind of like, you hope they give you the favor.

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And when they do, it's like, feels of relief like they did. Okay, small things.

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This is what the lepers kind of feel like. But he's clean.

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Like now he can go in front of everybody. He doesn't have to hide. And he can walk freely and he doesn't have the disease.

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That's amazing. This is awesome. Jesus did the unthinkable.

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He reached out, he touched him. He said, I will be clean. And he said, I'm going to grant you this favor, right?

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How loving is it that Jesus did this for the leper? This would present a challenge and prevent him from openly going to towns, as it will say later.

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So he's going to, you know, he's still going to be true to the gospel. He's still going to be preaching. He's going to teach the truth.

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But the leper was clean. So isn't it amazing that if anyone else touches something unclean, they become unclean, right?

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This is nothing new. But when Jesus touches the unclean, he isn't made unclean.

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He is not unclean, right? Kind of reminds me of a statement, Chuck Norris doesn't get wet, water gets

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Chuck Norris'd. Some of you are old enough to know the Chuck Norris history.

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I mean, if you change a diaper today, wash your hands afterwards, right? We get dirty.

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Jesus didn't. He was not unclean by touching the leper. So he's ordered,

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Jesus says, do two things. And he sternly says, keep quiet about what's happened and go tell the priest.

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Make an offering, right, to the priest so that you can be shown ceremonially clean.

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And so the leper, he offered the right sacrifice. We have no reason to think he didn't. And he quietly went on with life.

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Well, no, actually. Like we all might respond, right? I'm clean.

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I'm not under the curse of this disease anymore or the symptoms, the terrible effects of the disease.

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And so he goes and tells everybody about it. So much so that Jesus could no longer openly enter a town.

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And so he went, so what'd Jesus do? He went to desolate places and people came to him.

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His ministry is still going. Like the Holy Spirit's moving in people's lives. They're seeing who this guy is.

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And he's preaching a gospel of repentance. Repent and follow me.

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If I could offer a couple of suggestions for application, the first is love

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God. Remember that the kingdom of God is here. It's here. We have the benefit of the kingdom of God.

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Not fully. We look forward to that time when we are perfect and all can enjoy

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God purely. But we have been saved through the blood of Christ.

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We can have victory over sin. We can now not sin.

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Like if you are saved, if you have Christ in your life, you actually now can choose not to sin.

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Before, I mean, you weren't. I mean, we're a new creation. That's an awesome thing.

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So love God for that. Draw close to him. He can offer you so many wonderful things.

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But don't mix the blessing with the blesser. Pursue God.

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Pray without ceasing. Spend time with him. I think it's also another application among,

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I don't know, the many that could be there. Love people. He healed people despite knowing that they will eventually succumb to death.

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They would get sick again or they would be tragically killed. I mean, I don't know. It's still a great, it's awesome the fact that he still healed people.

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Like he had compassion on his creation. He had compassion on people even though he knew this wasn't final.

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This wasn't complete. And so, it's okay. It's good to seek relief.

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It's good to help others. I mean, Scripture clearly says mourn with those who are mourning, weep with those who are weeping, right?

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And so, yeah, people that are suffering, like, oh man, be with them in their suffering. Definitely pray for God to comfort them and be with them through it.

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We are still under the effects of sin and creation groans as a result of that and we can show love towards others and make the gospel apparent to others maybe, right?

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Your act of compassion demonstrating Christ's love for others, that's how they're going to know who we are.

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That's how they know we're Christ's disciples, that we love one another. So, like the leper, be joyful in what

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Jesus has done for you. Healing from the effects of sin, awesome. But being spared the penalty of sin, awesomer, if that were a word.

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The fact that you can have a relationship with Christ now, phenomenal. I mean, you can have peace, you can have joy.

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I think of the fruits of the Spirit, so you can go down that list. Look in Galatians, right?

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These are things that you can have. So, as we come to communion today and we celebrate

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Jesus rising from the dead, okay, after he was broken on the cross and after he was paying for our sin through his blood, we take the cracker, we remember that.

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We remember that event, looking forward to full consummation and full healing.

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But we remember that today at the tables and if you are a Christian, if you believe that Christ has come into your life, has saved you, and he is your

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Lord, please walk up to the tables in the corners of the room and in the back and take the elements.

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Then go back to your seat and when you're ready, eat them, drink it.

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You are remembering what Christ did. And in remembering, we look forward to glory.

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We have a great God. So, let's pray and then take communion together.

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Father, thank you for giving us reminders, giving us all that we need to walk in faith, to grow close to you.

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I think about your word. I think about just even examples of even when we partake together of communion. I think about your

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Holy Spirit working in our life. Without you, we just, we can't make it work.

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So, I pray that we would be eager. Those here that don't know you, I pray they'd be eager to surrender to you and turn from the idols that they've created, knowing that they don't satisfy.

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They don't even live. Thank you so much for being the

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God of gods, the King of kings, and the Lord of lords. In Jesus' name I pray.