Speaker 1: Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick.
Speaker 2: I'm the pastor of Elevation Church and this is our podcast.
Speaker 1: I wanted to thank you for joining us today. Hope
Speaker 1: this inspires you. Hope it builds your faith.
Speaker 2: Hope it gives your perspective to see God is moving
Speaker 2: in your life.
Speaker 1: Enjoy the message. Mark Chapter one, verse forty.
Speaker 2: A man with leprosy came to him and begged him
Speaker 2: on his knees, if you are willing, you can make
Speaker 2: me clean. Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out his hand
Speaker 2: and touched the man. I am willing, he said, be clean.
Speaker 2: Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cured. Jesus
Speaker 2: sent him away at once with a strong warning. See
Speaker 2: that you do not tell this to anyone, but go
Speaker 2: show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that
Speaker 2: Moses commanded for your cleansing as a testimony to them. Instead,
Speaker 2: he went out in began to talk freely, spreading the news,
Speaker 2: and as a result, Jesus could no longer enter a
Speaker 2: town openly, but stayed outside in lonely places. Yet the
Speaker 2: people still came to him from everywhere.
Speaker 1: I'd like to speak today.
Speaker 2: For a few moments about danger in the distance, danger
Speaker 2: in the distance. Certain phrases in our Christian vocabulary lose
Speaker 2: their power, or at least their ability to penetrate our
Speaker 2: psyche because of usage.
Speaker 1: Like when we say grace.
Speaker 2: This is a phrase or a word, a concept that
Speaker 2: is so familiar to many of us that I am
Speaker 2: afraid when we sing amazing Grace, we can barely through
Speaker 2: our yawning, understand just how scandalous the concept is. I
Speaker 2: also thought that maybe what of our worship leaders at
Speaker 2: one of our locations would write us.
Speaker 1: A song called dangerous Grace?
Speaker 2: Because to really understand the grace of God is to
Speaker 2: understand that it jeopardizes the way you have lived your life,
Speaker 2: and it will not be contained by our conception of it,
Speaker 2: but our conception of it must come up to the
Speaker 2: level of its efficacy. In Mark Chapter one, verse forty
Speaker 2: through forty five, we see an example of this kind
Speaker 2: of grace, and I'd like to spend the majority of
Speaker 2: my time.
Speaker 1: In just one verse.
Speaker 2: The first verse, verse forty says that a man with
Speaker 2: leprosy came to him. I looked in Matthew's Gospel, Luke's Gospel,
Speaker 2: and John's Gospel to see if I could find a
Speaker 2: little more information about this man. Mark doesn't tell us
Speaker 2: much about his background, his hair color, his eye color.
Speaker 2: He doesn't even give the common courtesy of stating his name. Now,
Speaker 2: come on, you even ask your server his name at
Speaker 2: the restaurant, And this man, who is the subject of
Speaker 2: one of the first miracles recorded in this market account,
Speaker 2: does not.
Speaker 1: Even get a name.
Speaker 2: We are not told his name, but we are told
Speaker 2: about his condition, which is leprosy. We're not given his name,
Speaker 2: but we know about his issue, which is leprosy. It
Speaker 2: goes to show that sometimes your identity can be consumed
Speaker 2: by your issues. That is, you can become more known
Speaker 2: by what's wrong with you than who you have the
Speaker 2: potential to be. Is anybody here to the point that
Speaker 2: you no longer know your own name, or you no
Speaker 2: longer have a real sense of your identity or yourself.
Speaker 2: We are losing a sense of ourself at times because
Speaker 2: our issues have run so rampant that they have consumed
Speaker 2: our issues have consumed our identity. Now, when Moses met
Speaker 2: with God, the fire was burning the bush, but it
Speaker 2: did not consume the bush. It burned and burned and burned,
Speaker 2: and God spoke from the bush. He said, I want
Speaker 2: you to know who I am. Moses said, who are you?
Speaker 2: He said, I am? Moses said I am is a
Speaker 2: good start.
Speaker 1: What comes next?
Speaker 2: And then God said, without saying, whatever you need comes next,
Speaker 2: because I will not change I am, but what you
Speaker 2: will need in different seasons of your life will change.
Speaker 2: So whatever you need I will already be before you
Speaker 2: even know your need.
Speaker 1: I am what you need.
Speaker 2: How many are grateful for an omnipotent, omniscient God who
Speaker 2: knows what you need and can be what you need now.
Speaker 2: Some people know what you need, but they cannot be it.
Speaker 2: Some people would love to give you what you need.
Speaker 1: If they could, but they can't.
Speaker 2: God is the only one who simultaneously knows what you
Speaker 2: need and is what you need. And I dare you
Speaker 2: to look at the person next to you, even if
Speaker 2: you've been married for forty three years, and tell them
Speaker 2: you can't be what I need. Not in every season.
Speaker 2: You can't be what I need. You might come close sometimes,
Speaker 2: but I need a God who is familiar with my
Speaker 2: secrets and my most intimate issues and has still made
Speaker 2: the decision to love me on my worst day with
Speaker 2: no makeup on in my failure with my flaws. I
Speaker 2: need a God who will choose me not just despite
Speaker 2: my flaws, but because of my flaws, and cause all
Speaker 2: things to work together for my good according to his purpose.
Speaker 2: Who will make my weakness his strength, Who will set
Speaker 2: up and dwell in the midst of a broken praise?
Speaker 1: God?
Speaker 2: Is that to me? This man has given no name.
Speaker 2: We know his issue, but not his name. His identity
Speaker 2: has been completely.
Speaker 1: Consumed by his issue.
Speaker 2: I'm hanging out on this point because I wonder has
Speaker 2: it ever happened to you?
Speaker 1: God did not say I am the great? I did.
Speaker 2: But there is always a temptation in life to overidentify,
Speaker 2: either with your issues or with your gifts. So if
Speaker 2: you are really good at something, you can learn in
Speaker 2: life to perform in such a way that you receive
Speaker 2: the praise of people because of.
Speaker 1: What you do. God is not the great I do,
Speaker 1: He is the great I am.
Speaker 2: I feel like the revelation of this is worth us
Speaker 2: hanging out in verse forty for just a minute.
Speaker 1: We've got time.
Speaker 2: A man with leprosy, A man with leprosy whose name
Speaker 2: has been consumed by his disease, for.
Speaker 1: Which there is no cure.
Speaker 2: A man who has been relegated and confined and quarantined
Speaker 2: to the outside quarters of society, prohibited from normal human relationships,
Speaker 2: caused to dwell in desolation.
Speaker 1: In Leviticus thirteen, we.
Speaker 2: See a snapshot of the kind of situation this man
Speaker 2: would have lived. In the book of Leviticus, at points
Speaker 2: reads more like a whole thirty book than it does
Speaker 2: like a scripture verse because all the dietary restrictions are there,
Speaker 2: And then when you get to Leviticus thirteen, it's more
Speaker 2: like a dermatology manual.
Speaker 1: Then it is like a devotion.
Speaker 2: And so don't read Leviticus if you're looking for that
Speaker 2: quick inspiration.
Speaker 1: You know it gives prescriptions like this.
Speaker 2: It says, if you have leprosy, anyone with such a
Speaker 2: defiling disease must wear torn clothes, let their hair be unkempt,
Speaker 2: cover the lower part of their face, and cry out unclean, unclean,
Speaker 2: and watch what's next. As long as they have the disease,
Speaker 2: they remain unclean. They must live alone, they must live
Speaker 2: outside the camp. The greatest pain of this particular issue
Speaker 2: is not physical, It is emotional. It is the pain
Speaker 2: of isolation. So now you understand the significance of this phrase.
Speaker 2: A man with leprosy who had no name came to him,
Speaker 2: who was the name above every name. I could preach
Speaker 2: that for a whole series. That thing just hit me,
Speaker 2: the whole only Spirit of God just told me to
Speaker 2: tell you that whatever name your issue has, there is
Speaker 2: a name that is above that name.
Speaker 3: And if you can name.
Speaker 2: The issue, I know a name that is a puppet
Speaker 2: that can make your issue. She got it, that can
Speaker 2: make your issue. Take a knee in the presence of
Speaker 2: a mighty God. Let's take ten seconds and praise that name.
Speaker 2: Come on that the name of Jesus. Every knee will vow,
Speaker 2: and every talk confess.
Speaker 3: I don't want to wait till one day. I might
Speaker 3: as well use my talk right now.
Speaker 1: Praise this name.
Speaker 2: He came to him, and he did it. He did
Speaker 2: it all wrong. He did it all wrong. He did
Speaker 2: the total wrong thing. This man, this he broke religious
Speaker 2: rule in the book. He didn't, first of all, announce unclean, unclean. Okay,
Speaker 2: he didn't identify himself by his issue unclean, unclean. And
Speaker 2: he did not keep the appropriate distance because when you
Speaker 2: have leprosy, you've got to stay back because you are contagious.
Speaker 2: This law was not given because people were cruel. It's
Speaker 2: kind of like I didn't think to say this in
Speaker 2: the other ones, But y'all are so advanced you pull
Speaker 2: stuff out of me. You know how there are certain
Speaker 2: kids you don't want your kid around. Not that you
Speaker 2: don't like that kid, but if that kid rubs off
Speaker 2: on your kid, it's just like they don't have the
Speaker 2: same values, and then you might realize your kid is
Speaker 2: that kid. That's a parenting sermon, and I don't do that.
Speaker 2: It's a it is It's crazy that he would think
Speaker 2: to approach anyone, let alone the miracle worker from Galilee.
Speaker 2: A man with leprosy came to him, came to him.
Speaker 1: Let me do this, Let me take a second, two three,
Speaker 1: four ten, so.
Speaker 4: T two thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty,
Speaker 4: twenty one, twenty two lebron twenty four six, nine, thirty one,
Speaker 4: two thirty three, thirty four, thirty five six. There's thirty
Speaker 4: eight thirty nine forty two.
Speaker 1: What a three? What a four? What a five?
Speaker 2: Six seven forty nine fifteen that's the distance, Wow, fifty
Speaker 2: paces away, the ffty paces away. That's how long you
Speaker 2: had this. That's that's the appropriate distance.
Speaker 1: That a leper was supposed to keep.
Speaker 2: In order that they would not defile someone who was clean.
Speaker 2: Fifty fifty paces. I thought about calling this a message.
Speaker 2: Fifty paces to grace. I like that, not fifty shades
Speaker 2: and nothing like that. Fifty paces to grace.
Speaker 1: And he's.
Speaker 2: He's he's allowed to be around people, not too close though,
Speaker 2: not too close, though just at a distance.
Speaker 1: He can come to church. The leper can come to church.
Speaker 2: But if he comes to church, he has to sit
Speaker 2: behind a special screen so nobody will catch what he has.
Speaker 2: The only way that we'll make you sit in a
Speaker 2: special place at elevation is if you are late, but
Speaker 2: we don't check you at the door. You know what's
Speaker 2: your issue, and then see you accordingly. Wouldn't that be interesting,
Speaker 2: because see, the leopard had an advantage over a lot
Speaker 2: of us. His issue was on the outside. A lot
Speaker 2: of us don't have spots on our skin. We have
Speaker 2: secret spots, spots in our soul. Issues of insecurity you
Speaker 2: can't see them. Certain issues you can see. You know,
Speaker 2: certain addictions manifest in practical ways, and then someone goes
Speaker 2: to get help. The thing about secret spots, though, is
Speaker 2: when they are on the inside of you.
Speaker 1: And be in church, but you are behind a screen.
Speaker 2: So the screen keeps other people from seeing you as
Speaker 2: you really are, but it also keeps you from seeing
Speaker 2: God as he really is.
Speaker 1: Y'all need to help me preach this. I'm feeling very
Speaker 1: vulnerable back here.
Speaker 2: You can come to church, but you're behind a screen.
Speaker 2: You can come to church, but you don't really let
Speaker 2: the presence of God touch you. Come to church, but
Speaker 2: you fight down the emotions. You can come to church,
Speaker 2: but you play it off because the people next to you,
Speaker 2: they kind of know you, and you feel kind of
Speaker 2: a shame. See, shame always creates a screen, a screen
Speaker 2: to keep you from being who you really are, from
Speaker 2: seeing and being seen and from back here behind this screen.
Speaker 2: I'm at church but not really coming home physically, but
Speaker 2: I'm staying at work emotionally. I learn how to hide
Speaker 2: behind the screen because if I stay behind.
Speaker 1: The screen, they can't see me behind the screen. Give
Speaker 1: me a phone. I need a phone. I need a
Speaker 1: phone behind the screen, behind a screen.
Speaker 2: The Devil's got us hiding behind scream how creepy is it?
Speaker 2: With my hand preaching to you right now behind that screen,
Speaker 2: behind that screen where you create digital personas to hide
Speaker 2: your dysfunction. And in an age where we have more
Speaker 2: apparatus to connect than ever before, we are impotent to
Speaker 2: be intimate because intimacy requires proximity. In other words, you've
Speaker 2: got to come out and be seen, and you can't
Speaker 2: be seen since yours behind a screen.
Speaker 1: The man violated the law that was meant to.
Speaker 2: Protect the people from being infected by what had consumed
Speaker 2: his skin. And he heard that there was a man
Speaker 2: who had been standing up in synagogues and telling demons
Speaker 2: to sit down and shut up. And he figured, if
Speaker 2: Jesus can deal with demons, maybe he's got something for
Speaker 2: my skin too.
Speaker 1: If Jesus can do.
Speaker 2: That for them, see, that's what you need to be encouraged.
Speaker 2: If he ever did it for anyone wants to stop
Speaker 2: him from doing it for you. You decided to take
Speaker 2: the walk of shame fifty steps. The first one must
Speaker 2: have been the hardest. If I stay here, I'm going
Speaker 2: to die. I'd rather die trying to behold than live
Speaker 2: half hearted. Here's my whole sermon in case you're watching
Speaker 2: this online in Wisconsin and you need to get lunch
Speaker 2: in the oven, and you can't watch the rest. The
Speaker 2: danger of isolation is much greater than the risk of intimacy.
Speaker 2: That's the whole sermon.
Speaker 1: It's safer to come out from behind.
Speaker 2: The screen and be seen as you really are than
Speaker 2: it is to hide behind an image of what you
Speaker 2: want people to think you are while you die inside
Speaker 2: the secret spots, secret insecurities that caused us to stay
Speaker 2: behind performance and profession.
Speaker 1: So he started that walk of shame forty nine, forty eight.
Speaker 2: Nobody stopped me yet. Forty seven I got a question,
Speaker 2: just a question. Where was Peter? Peter shouldn't have let
Speaker 2: this man get that close to Jesus. Remember when Peter
Speaker 2: cut off Malcus's ear in the garden.
Speaker 1: Where was his sword?
Speaker 2: This could have ruined the whole ministry, because if the
Speaker 2: unclean touches the clean, the clean becomes unclean. Forty six.
Speaker 2: But this man had apparently become desperate. I don't know
Speaker 2: what happened on this day, or if it was just
Speaker 2: his personality type, but he decided to try. I'm going
Speaker 2: to present myself forty five, forty four, forty three, forty two,
Speaker 2: forty one, forty still got a long way to go.
Speaker 2: But I'd rather I'd rather find out for myself thirty
Speaker 2: nine thirty eight because if he can really do what
Speaker 2: they say he can do, I can hold my daughter again.
Speaker 2: Thirty seven, thirty six thirty five.
Speaker 1: I don't even know if I'm going.
Speaker 2: To make it to him, because they could kill me
Speaker 2: for what I'm doing right now. They can stone me
Speaker 2: outside the camp for daring to bring my defiled self
Speaker 2: in the presence of the undefiled.
Speaker 1: But thirty four thirty three.
Speaker 2: Because sometimes you come to a point where you don't
Speaker 2: even care how it looks anymore, or really even what
Speaker 2: it costs you. Because I'd rather live as I really
Speaker 2: am than die in this lonely place. So thirty two
Speaker 2: thirty one, I wonder is anybody coming today? Thirty twenty
Speaker 2: nine twenty eight. I hope they don't kill me. Twenty seven,
Speaker 2: twenty six, twenty five. I know I look crazy, but
Speaker 2: twenty four, twenty.
Speaker 3: Three, twenty two I might as well. Twenty one I've
Speaker 3: already lost so much. Twenty I'm desperate now I'm closer now.
Speaker 5: Eighteen seventeen sixteen there is fifteen fourteen thirteen, twelve, eleven
Speaker 5: ten nine, Hey.
Speaker 1: Am I really gonna do this. Come too far to
Speaker 1: turn around.
Speaker 2: I'm closer to this than I am to that. Seven six.
Speaker 2: You're gonna keep marching around those walls? Are you're gonna
Speaker 2: stop them? Five?
Speaker 3: Four three two? Want somebody shot up here?
Speaker 1: Here?
Speaker 3: I am Lord.
Speaker 2: I'm a man of unclean lips, and I live amongst
Speaker 2: the people of unclean lips.
Speaker 1: And you can see.
Speaker 2: In my skin that on the surface, I'm defiled. But
Speaker 2: I have more faith than a lot of the people
Speaker 2: who have perfect skin, because at least I came. I
Speaker 2: heard that you could heal, and I'm here, and I
Speaker 2: know I'm not supposed to be here, and I know
Speaker 2: they could kill me for being here. And if you
Speaker 2: are who I've heard you are, you are the Holy
Speaker 2: One of God, and your holiness and my holiness do
Speaker 2: not belong in this same vicinity.
Speaker 1: But I'm here.
Speaker 2: I took fifty steps to get here that I wasn't
Speaker 2: supposed to take. But I'm here. I'm completely out of place,
Speaker 2: but I'm here. Put the verse up again. I'm here.
Speaker 2: I'm out of place. Oh it wasn't the fifty steps
Speaker 2: that got him healed. It was the next thing he
Speaker 2: did when he got there a man with leprosy came
Speaker 2: to him and begged him.
Speaker 1: I'm here.
Speaker 2: And I'm humble. It wasn't those first fifty steps that
Speaker 2: got him healed. It was the fifty first. You can
Speaker 2: come all the way to church and not get healed,
Speaker 2: because you won't get it like this. But if you
Speaker 2: will humble yourself under the mighty hand of God, I
Speaker 2: hit your knees in your heart and let Cotton know
Speaker 2: I don't want to be my issues anymore. I heard
Speaker 2: what you could do, and if you will, you can
Speaker 2: make me clean. I know you can. I'm just not
Speaker 2: sure if you will. I found out as much easier
Speaker 2: to get people to believe that God is great than
Speaker 2: it is to get them to believe that God is good.
Speaker 2: It's not hard to get people to believe that God.
Speaker 1: Can do anything.
Speaker 2: The universe declares the glory of God, and the sky
Speaker 2: sow forth his power, the firmament, his handiwork is not
Speaker 2: can God make an ocean that I wonder about its?
Speaker 1: Can God still the seas within me? Because I know
Speaker 1: you can? But will you and Jesus did something.
Speaker 2: So scandalous, so dangerous. See, intimacy is risky for Jesus
Speaker 2: to touch this man, it put him at risk of
Speaker 2: catching what the man had.
Speaker 1: And he touched the man. He touched the man.
Speaker 2: Some of you will even high five your neighbor in
Speaker 2: church without hand sanitizer, and Jesus touch the man is
Speaker 2: lise aden.
Speaker 1: He touched them.
Speaker 2: You can't do that, Jesus, because according to levitical law,
Speaker 2: if the unclean touches the clean, the clean will become unclean.
Speaker 2: Jesus said, I did not come to abolish the law,
Speaker 2: but to fulfill it. See when that which is perfect
Speaker 2: has come, that which is imperfect will be done away with.
Speaker 2: Now one greater than Moses is on the scene. This
Speaker 2: is one greater than he who heard I Am.
Speaker 1: This is the I Am which.
Speaker 2: Was spoken of in that bush, and he's on the scene.
Speaker 1: So Jesus says, I'm not worried about touching him.
Speaker 2: If the unclean touch the clean, then the clean becomes
Speaker 2: un clean. But if the unclean touches Jesus, Jesus.
Speaker 1: You'll better get ready. I'm a trump this.
Speaker 2: Who is the perfect sinless thunless lamb of God, when
Speaker 2: one is unclean touches one is perfectly clean, The unclean
Speaker 2: doesn't make the clean unclean.
Speaker 3: The clean makes the unclean clean, Shut up out grace
Speaker 3: not That made me happy when I read it. I
Speaker 3: thought about how he is not.
Speaker 2: A saying to be identified with me, how he's not
Speaker 2: worried about catching what I got.
Speaker 3: But if I get close enough to Jesus, it's righteous.
Speaker 3: It's a room for me. Now I find somebody and say.
Speaker 2: Catches, catch grace, catch praise, pay announcement.
Speaker 3: Grace is contagious. Praise is contagious. For all of you
Speaker 3: who are sitting next.
Speaker 2: To somebody who doesn't want to praise God, I.
Speaker 3: Dare you to break out and seize on until your
Speaker 3: home role is praising God. Come on, play meant the
Speaker 3: three people in the center section. Praise is contagious. Oh man,
Speaker 3: No five, the Lord with me. Let us exupt.
Speaker 2: Touch everybody you can reasay. Grace is contagious. It's contagious.
Speaker 2: It's contagious. It's contagious. Grace is more contagious than shame.
Speaker 2: It doesn't matter what you've done. It doesn't matter where
Speaker 2: you've been, it doesn't matter what you smell like, it
Speaker 2: doesn't matter what they labeled you.
Speaker 3: You are not what you did, and you are not
Speaker 3: what they said.
Speaker 2: Somebody shout, I am the lissness of God. Now take
Speaker 2: twenty seconds and that like you.
Speaker 3: Just got here.
Speaker 6: I am I never heard of before. I heard I
Speaker 6: am the Bread of Life. I heard I am the
Speaker 6: Light of the world. I heard I am the Date.
Speaker 6: I heard I am the Good Shepherd. I heard I
Speaker 6: am the Way of the Truth and the Life. I
Speaker 6: heard I am the Resurrection. I've never heard this one.
Speaker 6: I am Willing. God's nickname is Will. And he touched him,
Speaker 6: and he touched that man. The first time that that
Speaker 6: man felt something on his skin.
Speaker 2: He was touched by the one who wrapped him in flesh,
Speaker 2: and the word became flesh.
Speaker 1: This is just a gospel message.
Speaker 2: This is just a gospel message that's not very deep.
Speaker 1: I understand that it's not very profound. I get that.
Speaker 2: But it's so much shame that keeps us away from
Speaker 2: the presence of the God who is already willing to
Speaker 2: take it away.
Speaker 1: So much shame.
Speaker 2: When Jesus looked at that man, the Bible says he
Speaker 2: was forty one filled with compassion. He was filled with compassion.
Speaker 2: You look confused? Are you confused?
Speaker 1: Nine? Ten? Coming back? Well, thirteen forty.
Speaker 2: I saw you had that digital Bible sitting next to you.
Speaker 2: I noticed you had that digital Bible. And when I
Speaker 2: just said that Jesus was filled with compassion, you look confused.
Speaker 2: Sit down, Let's talk about it for a second. Pull
Speaker 2: it back out. Because they said Jesus was filled with compassion. Yep,
Speaker 2: there it is, Give me yours. This is a mess
Speaker 2: right here. Let me break out this woman's pink Bible
Speaker 2: to show you what the word.
Speaker 1: Of God is.
Speaker 2: Oh see, this is what your says too.
Speaker 1: It says filled with compassion. We're all reading that same translation.
Speaker 1: Who's got an orange elevation Bible?
Speaker 2: You got one we gave away like nineteen thousand of
Speaker 2: these two people who made a profession of faith or
Speaker 2: rededication in Christ last year. Praise the Lord. We studied
Speaker 2: a Bible like this. Yep, see this one we gave you.
Speaker 2: This one is the one I wanted to show. They
Speaker 2: translated it from Greece and sometimes the languages. There's a
Speaker 2: distance between culturally, how they saw certain concepts and how
Speaker 2: we see certain concepts.
Speaker 1: And when we say grace, it's a soft term.
Speaker 2: But when the Hebrew mind thought of grace, they imagined
Speaker 2: grace coming from the same place that anger came from.
Speaker 1: It all came from I'm a teacher. Word.
Speaker 2: You got any friends who make fun of you for
Speaker 2: coming to this church, break this out on them at
Speaker 2: lunch today, splug NEETs so my.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Just say it with confidence. They won't know if you
Speaker 2: said it right. Just say it, Just say in the Greek.
Speaker 2: Tell your neighbor in the Greek, it's splug NEETs so my.
Speaker 2: And here in this translation, which they did in twenty eleven,
Speaker 2: the n IV Translation Committee, they did it a little different.
Speaker 2: They said Jesus was indignant and eighty four. When they
Speaker 2: got together to translate it according to the same protocol
Speaker 2: of translation, they put it as put the other one
Speaker 2: up there again, if you can in the back compassion.
Speaker 2: And then when they translated it again, they said, no,
Speaker 2: it should be indignant, angry, furious, frustrated, annoyed, indignant, undignified.
Speaker 2: Which one is it? Was he filled with compassion or
Speaker 2: was he indignant? Yes, yes, he was filled with compassion,
Speaker 2: and he was indignant. He came from the same place.
Speaker 2: Plug needs some eye. It means the guts, the bowels,
Speaker 2: the place where you really.
Speaker 1: Feel it, which becomes.
Speaker 2: Much more meaningful when you remember that the first sign
Speaker 2: of lepers he is that you lose feeling in your extremities.
Speaker 2: And now this man who has lost the ability to
Speaker 2: feel and who has gone numb, is touched by a
Speaker 2: savior who can feel for him. This is where Christianity
Speaker 2: is different than every other world religion.
Speaker 1: This is why we're not just one.
Speaker 2: In a list, because we have not a high priest
Speaker 2: who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but.
Speaker 1: He is able to be touched with the feeling. And
Speaker 1: you know what happens in life.
Speaker 2: We go numb, especially in this age of information where
Speaker 2: we are expected to process all of the events all
Speaker 2: at once, the good ones, the bad ones. We can't
Speaker 2: feel it anymore. When you go numb, you can get
Speaker 2: hurt and not feel it, and you can die of
Speaker 2: a small cut that becomes infected because you do not
Speaker 2: feel it and you don't know it needs healing because
Speaker 2: you do not feel it. Has the enemy made you
Speaker 2: go numb to the point that you no longer feel splat.
Speaker 1: Needs some mind? Jesus felt for the man. The religious
Speaker 1: system had gone numb. The religious system. When Jesus healed
Speaker 1: a man with a shriveled hand.
Speaker 2: One chapter later in Mark, they were worried about which
Speaker 2: day he did it on. They had gone so numb
Speaker 2: that the only thing they could think about was he
Speaker 2: broke the rules.
Speaker 1: But Jesus, who.
Speaker 2: Is the righteousness of God, looked at this man with compassion,
Speaker 2: and he looked at the shame that the man.
Speaker 1: Carried with anger. Splot needs some mind.
Speaker 2: And Jesus, looking at the man's condition, breaks the rules,
Speaker 2: makes a move.
Speaker 1: He feels for the man. He touches the man.
Speaker 2: He touches him because he feels for him.
Speaker 1: I want to feel again, God.
Speaker 2: I want my heart to break over the state of
Speaker 2: my family. I want my heart to break over the
Speaker 2: state of race relations in my nation. I want my
Speaker 2: heart to break over what is not yet perfect in me.
Speaker 2: I want to feel again, God. I want to feel
Speaker 2: the joy of your presence. Cast me, not away from
Speaker 2: your prentice, renew a right spirit in me.
Speaker 1: I want to feel again. I don't want to.
Speaker 2: Go through life hiding behind screens and numb on the inside.
Speaker 1: I don't want to feel again. I want your presence
Speaker 1: more than I want to profal.
Speaker 3: I want to feel again. Why was he angry?
Speaker 1: Wasn't angry the man. It wasn't the man's fall. He
Speaker 1: had leprosy.
Speaker 2: Maybe he was mad because he knew that the man
Speaker 2: was going to do exactly what he told him not
Speaker 2: to do.
Speaker 1: Did you catch that part in verse forty three?
Speaker 2: Jesus sent him away at once with a strong warning.
Speaker 1: Again, the English is weak. It's weak. It's not wrong,
Speaker 1: it's just weak.
Speaker 2: It means Jesus charged the man with a flared nostril.
Speaker 1: That's the picture. Look this up on Google.
Speaker 2: You will see one scholar said.
Speaker 1: Jesus snorted. Now, I know you don't like snorting Jesus.
Speaker 1: You like snuggy Jesus. But Jesus snorted.
Speaker 2: And told the man, don't tell anyone what I did
Speaker 2: to you, because if you tell people, it will prohibit me,
Speaker 2: because they will just want me to do for them
Speaker 2: of miracle. But I've got to do what I came
Speaker 2: to do, which just die for their sin, not just
Speaker 2: fix their issues. And Jesus said that Marty McFly thing
Speaker 2: going on, you know that back to the future. He
Speaker 2: knew that the man was going to do exactly what
Speaker 2: he told him to do, but he healed him anyway.
Speaker 2: He knew you would still struggle with sin, but he
Speaker 2: saved you anyway.
Speaker 1: This is so powerful.
Speaker 2: I need to hurry up touch somebody said he did
Speaker 2: it anyway. He knew that even though my chains would
Speaker 2: be broken, I would still struggle with the remnant of
Speaker 2: my sin. But he did it anyway. Jesus told the man,
Speaker 2: don't tell anyone, and the man went and told him anyway.
Speaker 1: Now I could preach that a couple of ways. One
Speaker 1: way would be when.
Speaker 2: God has touched you and healed you in ways that
Speaker 2: no one can. You can't keep it to yourself.
Speaker 1: No one will have to train you to evangelize. You
Speaker 1: will just naturally tell somebody he changed me.
Speaker 2: In fact, your life will be like product placement. People
Speaker 2: will start asking you what happened to you, and you'll
Speaker 2: be like, come see a man who told me, Come
Speaker 2: see a man who wasn't ashamed to touch me.
Speaker 3: Don't just come to church with me, You need to
Speaker 3: meet a man.
Speaker 1: He went in.
Speaker 2: He went and told everybody what he wasn't supposed to tell,
Speaker 2: And the Bible says.
Speaker 1: That because he did. It's so beautiful.
Speaker 2: That Jesus verse forty five could no longer enter a
Speaker 2: place openly.
Speaker 1: You see it, do you see it, but stayed outside
Speaker 1: in lonely places.
Speaker 2: When this story started, the leper was in the lonely place.
Speaker 1: By the time it was.
Speaker 2: Over, Jesus was where the leper belonged. Here is the gospel.
Speaker 2: He did not just heal the man's skin.
Speaker 1: He took his place.
Speaker 2: And that's why I praise him. Not just because he
Speaker 2: gave me a good parking spot, not just because my
Speaker 2: family always went to church, not just because I feel guilty,
Speaker 2: but because he took my place. Somebody shout, he took
Speaker 2: my place. See, the Bible says the leper came to Jesus.
Speaker 2: I beeck to different because in the fullness of time
Speaker 2: God sent his son to be born of a virgin.
Speaker 2: The lever didn't come to Jesus.
Speaker 3: Jesus came to the leper. I want you to know
Speaker 3: he sees where you are. He knows what you struggle with.
Speaker 3: He is not ashamed to come to you. Somebody get
Speaker 3: a place because he can. He didn't just heal my issue.
Speaker 3: He took my place.
Speaker 1: He took my place.
Speaker 2: Now the leper can go in and Jesus must stay out.
Speaker 2: And he became sin who knew no sin that we
Speaker 2: might become the righteousness of God.
Speaker 1: This gospel I.
Speaker 2: Preach has the power to take away your guilt and
Speaker 2: your shame. But you've got to get in position. My brother,
Speaker 2: my sister, you can't get this grace until you're willing
Speaker 2: to bring yourself into submission. If you will, you can
Speaker 2: you see I'm weak? I heard you were strong. Will
Speaker 2: you do it for me?
Speaker 1: God? On the inside. I don't just want my screen.
Speaker 2: To be shinier. I want you to touch me on
Speaker 2: the inside. I want to feel again. I want to
Speaker 2: feel again. I want to return to my first love.
Speaker 2: I want my lamb to burn again with holy oil.
Speaker 2: Will you touch me? Lord and Jesus reached out, touch
Speaker 2: the man.
Speaker 1: And his shame was gone. Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 2: Special thanks to those of you who give generously to
Speaker 2: this ministry.
Speaker 1: Is because of you that this ministry is possible.
Speaker 2: You can click the link in the description to give
Speaker 2: now or visit Elevationchurch dot org slash podcast for more
Speaker 2: information and if you enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe.
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Speaker 2: Elevation Church thanks again for listening, God bless you.