Mark 2:1-12 :: "Love God and Know the Bible Better"

[Music] hey good morning calvary nexus today is the fifth sunday and fifth sundays at calvary nexus are youth sundays today both on our online service and our on campus service at 11 o'clock we have youth serving in a host of different capacities they'll be involved in greeting serving refreshments providing for the set up and the tear down helping in prayer leading us in worship and we're going to be blessed today to hear from our middle school director austin palmer as he teaches the word of god so let's open up our hearts let's engage with christ and others join me in prayer father we have gathered this morning online and we will gather together on campus to worship you we pray that you would bind the enemy of men's souls that you would take away any distractions father we're excited to see the youth ministries serving today because they're not only the future leaders of the church but they're leaders today and so we're excited to see how you're moving in their lives father we commit everything to you today and we pray this now in jesus name amen pastor chris lead us in worship with the team please [Music] [Music] who you are who you are [Music] foreign [Music] only you provide cause you know we [Music] who you are who i am you are perfect [Music] oh [Music] i [Music] i can hardly think as you can [Music] love who you are [Music] [Applause] who you are [Music] you are [Music] you are perfect in all of your ways [Music] clouds [Music] every chain will break [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] oh [Music] free [Music] is [Music] god [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] who can serve the lord oh my [Music] who can stop the lord [Music] who is stop the lord [Music] of almighty he's roaring with power and fighting our bottom [Music] lord thank you that we get to sing your praises now and forevermore that you are the lord almighty that we can trust in you depend on you in any circumstance or that there are infinite reasons to celebrate and praise your name lord we thank you for this opportunity to worship and uh lord thank you for the ability to do it online church is not what i anticipated it to look like if i look back a year ago today and yet you have called us into such amazing things you've provided in such incredible ways lord you are faithful we recognize that lord we recognize that you don't need us but you want us or that you pursue us and so would you pursue our hearts this morning lord as we sing as we pray as we study the word as we take communion lord however you want to work on our lives help us to humble our hearts before you we thank you we praise you and it's in your name we pray amen amen guys it is great worshiping with you well last week we got to celebrate uh what the lord was doing in individuals lives through baptism and we got to celebrate as a community so for you who are viewing in community online we have a video for you that just highlights all that the lord did last week so let's take a look at that now together that you have been restored and you're seeking to walk in that restoration today i want to encourage you that you are welcome to come up we're going to provide t-shirts for you towels for you this is my friend austin he's our middle school director and uh the two of us are going to have the privilege today of just welcoming people who are making that decision in the name of the father in the name of the son in the name of the holy spirit [Applause] [Music] okay [Applause] this is very special for us why did you want to be baptized today want to let us know well i really like road trips but uh i decided to go on a lifelong road trip with god and it's going to be really fun yeah amen [Music] right here right here [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] good morning calvary nexus i just want to talk about the baptism real quick it was so amazing to be there and just see the lord move through through baptisms i actually got to see a lot of our youth be baptized that's who you saw in the video and it was just so amazing to see that so when the next baptisms come around if you feel called to or you missed it last time it's not going to be our last time this year so yeah my name is yvette hazeltime i'm the student ministry slash media intern here at calvary nexus and you might be wondering hey where's jeremy um today is youth sunday so they thought hey it'd be pretty cool if i get up there like you may have seen last time so i get the honor of doing the program announcements with you today and you probably will notice i'm a little shaky i'm not the best at looking straight at the camera and talking so just bear with me um so um it's not announcements without um explaining who we are and what we do or why we do what we do here at calvary nexus we are a movement of jesus followers devoted to loving god and loving our neighbors um and that is why we do all of this why we put on live service we go outdoors just to worship lord together and be able to love our neighbors and for the announcements uh if you want to follow along um we have our app or calvary nexus app available on all platforms uh android apple i don't know the other ones windows i don't know if they have phone um but they have the app on there um so that's what um matters um and i'm at this time if you want to get connected you can fill out a form i think a button is going to pop up on the screen or you can go on to the app and fill it out there as well and if you are new you've joined with within the past nine months i think 10 months when at the time when the pandemic started when we started gathering online if you are new within that time range we have welcome gifts we would love to do our best to get you a welcome gift so if you're interested in that contacts hey they didn't tell me who to contact but you can probably reach out somewhere on the app that's my bad and this week's spotlight is of course today is youth sunday i personally get to work with the youth and it is such an honor to see the lord stir through these junior hires these middle schoolers and it has just been such a blessing to be able to see these kids just fall in love with jesus just more and more each week um and so today they're just giving an example of that serving um in the outdoor service we had juliana on the cajon which is killing it i'm sure you guys can agree with me um yeah and it's just such an amazing experience um and so if you are interested in becoming a leader if you have youth that are junior high and high school age um you can get connected by talking to chris at calvarynexus.org austincalvarynexus.org anthonycalvarnaxis.org or i guess info calvaryonexis.org and we'll get you all the information on what our youth ministries is and we also have an app a website not what app we have a website all right um mission spotlight rich and samantha payne now i personally know rich and samantha payne they're super awesome people but rich and samantha payne have been part of calvin x's family for quite a while and they're currently serving as missionaries in vicente guerrero mexico and their ministry involves worship teaching construction and a variety of other disciple-making opportunities so if you want to learn more you can visit samanthapain10. that's a huge website but i think the website's on the app i'm not going to read all that um and on the connect thing so yeah if you want to learn more about who they are and what they do you can go visit their website and next if you have a kid or a child ages i think preschool age to fifth grade i mean you're just looking for a way to get connected and also just get out and just be active but are just not sure how to do it like with other people um kids ministry hosts i think about each week or maybe yeah i think it's each week um at 4 p.m at mission oaks park on every week if what day is it at oh um you know days on i think it's either wednesdays or thursdays um you can find out more on the app it has all the information on what that is what day that is but if you want your kids to go get out get active and you can also just hang out and fellowship with the parents as well i think it's a good great opportunity for both parents and kids to just get out there and just be excited to fellowship play yeah it's just a great time and for our neighborhood groups i should have this one in the bag because i help lead these ones we have our journey or junior high middle school girls neighborhood groups i help lead that with my friend kayla godin it's every wednesday night on zoom we're currently not able to meet in person of course but we have a lot of fun these kids the girls love it every wednesday 6 30 p.m on zoom yeah on zoom sorry um if you want more information on that you can go to the calvary nexus website and we have all the information on the um on that neighborhood group we also have our high school girls neighborhood group i also help lead that we have the information on the neighborhood group website and then last we have our boys neighborhood group which also meets actually meets on sundays i think they're meeting today you can talk to anthony at californians.org about that or just visit coventrynexussm.com to get information on all of our neighborhood groups and last um we're going to go into a time of prayer and online giving so if you want to go on to our app or i think also a button might pop up on there but i'm not 100 um and yes so if you want to pray with someone online you can click the button or if you just want to send in a prayer request you can visit our app but we're going to go into a time of online giving and pray right now [Music] do [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] all right will you pray with me jesus i thank you for today i thank you for this opportunity to serve you and i thank you for our youth who are just so excited to serve you i thank you for all the people joining us online right now i thank you for all the people making this online service happen and i pray that no matter where we are where we're worshiping from today that we remember that you are being glorified no matter where we are i pray we wouldn't be discouraged during this time we would just be excited to worship you whether it be online or in person and i pray for all of those who are just struggling right now during this time i thank you for all of those who are just so devoted to you to this church and to just loving their neighbor and i pray that you bless everyone here during this time i pray you bless everyone on this online service um and i pray that this is just a you speak through austin yeah and this is just an amazing time of worshiping fellowshipping and hearing about your word i pray this in your name amen and now it is my honor to welcome up my good friend middle school director austin palmer good morning church good morning live stream church this is definitely more my speed than doing a recording this is cool this is really neat i've even got paper notes just in honor of going all analog like that please turn with me to mark chapter two we're going to be continuing our study through the book of mark this is a really cool really cool passage i mean it's the bible so i can't say that a passage isn't cool but this passage specifically really spoke to me and blessed me as you're turning again to mark chapter two we're going to be going through the first 12 verses and this passage directly helped me process something that i went through early on in my walk with jesus i got saved around the age of 18 that's when i really decided to follow the lord i think i had had some times in church where like i didn't have a lot of church experience i went to church for a little bit in junior high and throughout high school girlfriends would try and take me to church to reform me that didn't work um so after that once i i hung out with this group of friends and they their families really showed me the love of the lord and then told me the gospel and so i accepted jesus by faith and then you know a couple years in i'm going to this young adult group um in camarillo it was called the mass it was this really really it was a cool group and one night the teacher the preacher was just talking about healing and he's talking about how healing works in the bible how healing works today and after his message he said all right let's uh let's just start praying for healing for people and i was like okay before this i had a physical with a doctor which is usually where you have physicals anyway i don't know why i needed to tell you it was with a doctor and he was just doing like routine stuff just like you know doing a little hammer on the knee and he looked into my nose and he went whoa and i was like that's not what you do when you're looking in people's orifices sir and he said you have like slits for nostrils i was like well thanks i didn't have enough to be self-conscious about i really appreciate that he's like no like i could send you i should probably recommend you to a a nose and face specialist because like it's do you have a hard time breathing like yeah i do i get stuffed up every morning i feel like i have a cold all the time and now i'm thinking of like oh this is like i sound like someone with a permanent cold all the time so you know i'm struggling with that wishing i had bigger nostrils not not these parts like the actual openings to the outer part anyway so i'm at this thing and i really desperately wanted to be healed of this like i wanted to be able to take deep breaths in through my nose um and quickly and so i was like you know you guys can pray for my nose like i've gotten it looked at a doctor looked at by a doctor and he said it's kind of rough so you can pray for me for that and um they prayed for me and i'll kind of wait till the end to tell you what happened after they prayed for me but first we're going to read through this passage in the gospel of mark again chapter two starting at verse one i'm just gonna read the whole thing if you hear nothing else today hear the word of the lord starting in verse one and again he entered capernaum after some days and it was heard that he was in the house immediately many gathered together so that there was no longer room to receive them not even near the door and he preached the word to them then they came to him bringing a paralytic who was carried by four men and when they could not come near him because of the crowd they uncovered the roof where he was so when they had broken through they let down the bed on which the paralytic was lying when jesus saw their faith he said to the paralytic sun your sins are forgiven you verse 6 and some of the scribes were sitting there and reasoning in their hearts why does this man speak blasphemies like this who can forgive sins but god alone but immediately when jesus perceived in his spirit that they reasoned thus within themselves he said to them why do you reason about these things in your hearts which is easier to say to the paralytic your sins are forgiven you or to say arise take up your bed and walk but that you may know that the son of man has power on earth to forgive sins he said to the paralytic i say to you arise take up your bed and go to your house verse 12. immediately he rose took up the bed and went out in the presence of the moss that they were all amazed and glorified god saying we never saw anything like this pray with me please lord i thank you for my family that is listening and watching live to this and my family that's going to listen to this later lord hope speak through me help me get out of the way of your word help me to just minister to your people with your word and minister to my own heart right now as i preach and teach this in jesus name amen all right so again we're in the book of mark chapter two starting at verse one going to verse 12. what we're talking about today is that jesus forgives sins and he rewards faith he forgives sins and he rewards faith and the goal is that we would walk in god's forgiveness that we'd walk by faith in god's forgiveness so where are we at we're it says that he was at home in capernaum again he entered capernaum after some days it was heard that he was in the house what house are we talking about the house we're talking about is probably the same house that jesus healed peter's mother-in-law so that's where we're at he just he's gotten a lot of fame i love the book of mark because it's so quick and fast and action-packed in this passage alone it says the word immediately i believe three times so this is in a very immediate passage especially so in the first two verses jesus is preaching at home jesus is probably resting after he just got all this fame he just did all this ministry all these miracles and he just wants to go home and he wants to rest and we see jesus do this a lot he rested in a lot of points throughout his ministry just because he was the son of god just because he is god incarnate does not mean that he did not need to rest jesus needed to rest and he needed to seek the father often so he's resting at home same house he healed peter's mother-in-law after recently preaching and performing miracles and then uh you know when people kind of know where jesus is at uh they don't tend to keep it a secret so it just says that and it was heard that he was in the house someone lets loose uh that jesus is resting at this house and probably told everybody where they could go and find him so of course immediately verse two many gathered together um a massive crowd gathers at the house literally fills up the whole house fills up the outside of the house instantly draws a crowd and what does he do immediately many gathered together so that there was no longer room to receive them not even near the door like people are way past the door at this point and he preached the word to them jesus's reaction to people coming to him in need and let's be honest they were probably coming there not to hear what he had to say maybe but probably because of the miracles that he's been performing people were coming to him with needs wanting to be healed of their circumstances wanting their circumstances to be fixed not realizing that they had a heart issue that was even more important to be fixed he was reciting the word and he was teaching what it says at home and so what i want to get out of these first two verses of jesus preaching at home is that jesus used home to minister to others with the preaching and the teaching of the word i know we think of the word and we think of the word of god we think of the bible scripture and we kind of associate it with church well that kind of that should not should stay at church but for the most part like that's where a lot of people get the majority of their bible that's the where people get the majority of their bible reading and you know what maybe a few centuries ago that made a lot of sense because it was hard to find a good translation of the bible in your language right it wasn't until bibles were also being printed off a printing press that people even had access to bibles i mean they were pretty rare so to tell someone in you know probably the 1100s to the 1500s they go home and read your bible they'd be like i don't know how to read also bibles are extremely expensive because you'll have to like write those down and so people didn't have the privilege of go home and read your bible because no one owned bibles they would go to church and that's where they would hear the majority of the word but we have a huge opportunity in the modern world not only are we all basically literate but now we have even if you're not even if you struggle with dyslexia like we have audio bibles and whatever translation you want and now there's an app called dwell where you can have it read to you by about a dozen different voices all with their own style all with different translations so now we can hear the word in whatever way is best for us and we should be doing this at home on the in the car in between places like especially as a youth guy we here at calvary nexus we don't want to just like have kids dropped off to us and okay we're going to disciple your kids now for you just come back and we'll feed them pizza and stuff here we really want to partner with the parents we want to partner with families and guardians we want to disciple their kids along with their kids and just be a support to what main discipleship is going on in the home and the main way that we do discipleship is the word like the fact that we all have our bible and the fact that we can all read it in our language is huge and even if again you you know reading is difficult for you there's audio bibles yesterday i got so bored of video games this sounds horrible i got so bored of video games i was like why i can listen to the word so i i air played the bible the audio bible onto the tv and i just listened to the bible and i read along on my tv and used the sound system coming off of my tv to listen to the bible and it was great i got through way more than i normally would just sitting down and reading it not only should the our homes be full of the word but we should be opening our homes to others so that they can meet jesus through the word many of us keep our faith kind of private even when i was working in you know secular job it was hard for me to bring up my faith i really did want to bring up my faith but it was extremely difficult and so in a sense my faith was practically private um many of us keep our faith private and some of us keep our homes even more private if someone knocks at my door it's i feel like i'm being robbed and a lot of people kind of experience that in the modern world like even just getting a phone call instead of a text message is like well who do you think you are calling me with your voice like just send me a text message right things have changed a lot especially i feel like in camarillo it's a very private very private community it's really hard not only to get into other people's homes but to open up our own homes i get it there's a lot there but we see here that the home is so important for ministry it's so important for discipleship like how better to preach the people the gospel the forgiveness of sins through jesus than by walking by faith doing what jesus did and opening up our homes it's important to come home and rest like jesus is doing yes but it's vital that we never stop hearing and preaching the word especially especially in our homes so that's the first two verses are talking about jesus preaching in the home now we're going to talk about how jesus rewards faith by forgiving sin and how he also rebukes unbelief i'm going to read three through eight again then they came to him bringing a paralytic who was carried by four men let's just stop right there actually paralytic was someone who was paralyzed so it was either from birth or as a result of some accident right some thing that they went through in their lives there he's unable to walk and if you are a paralytic in the ancient world and you were unable to walk that was not good like they didn't have um contingencies for people with disabilities right like in the book of john people who are blame blame lame blind and paralyzed they were called invalids meaning that they were invalid to be able to contribute to society because society didn't know what to do with them outside the jewish world in ancient time like at best they thought you were cursed by the gods if you were paralyzed right they thought that you did something to deserve this and even in jewish circles this was going on in the book of john there's a man with a disability and they said who okay so who sin jesus was it his parents who sinned or what did he do to sin so this man was judged his whole life just by looking at him he was judged his whole life this still goes on today right if something happens to someone a lot of us believe in karma which is not a christian system at all it's not it's an unbiblical belief of whatever happens to you that happened to you because you deserved it that's the problem with the book of job job's miserable lousy friends are just telling him well we don't know what you did but you had to have done something because all this bad stuff can't happen to you that way right so this man needed jesus he needed a miracle but he actually needed something more than the miracle which we'll get into verse 4 and when they could not come near him because of the crowd they uncovered the roof where he was so when they had broken through they let down the bed on which the paralytic was laying so we've got these four guys that are helping them write and a lot of people always call them the four friends even though it never says that they're friends to this guy but you can tell they're friends to this guy because of their reactions towards him and how they're helping him right so when it says that they uncovered the roof and had broken through it was very common in ancient israel at this time that there would be roof access right people would hang out on their roofs to try and get away from you know the heat of the home or just to go up in stargaze at night because that was their form of entertainment that was their tv it's pretty cool and so when it says that they uncovered the roof and they broke through i mean this is a roof where people were walking on this had dirt and clay and sticks and wood and luke says in his gospel that there was tile on top of this thing this was a dense roof so the guys show up oh we can't get close let's go up on the roof and literally destroy part of the roof above where jesus is so that we can get our friend to jesus gonna be honest guys it's not hard to make me uncomfortable that would make me super uncomfortable if i were there and all of a sudden i'm in the room with jesus right and like some dust starts coming down i'm like that's kind of weird but you know it's ancient israel there's dust everywhere but then like more dust starts to come down more dirt big clumps of dirt start to come down i'm getting way uncomfortable i'm probably freaking out i wonder if jesus would just keep on teaching probably he knows it's coming so he's just like don't worry about that i'm going to just keep on telling you guys the word of god this was extremely uncomfortable like this would be like you having a bible study or something in your house and someone just throwing a rock to break your window to come through and be like you weren't answering your phone so i just i wanted to hear about the bible and stuff like you wouldn't be chill with that like i think we downplay what happened here someone destroyed part of a roof right it almost sounds like they just like oh they just removed part that's they didn't have removable parts of their roof in this day like they had roofs so you had to literally destroy it so what's jesus's reaction to them literally vandalizing this home in order to get to them i would almost expect him to be like hey guys you just need to believe in me no need to start destroying people's homes like this okay but that's not his reaction so they let him down super awkward like at a certain point he'd probably have to stop teaching because everybody's eyes are looking up they make a big hole enough for them to lower this man down on like his bed and like probably letting him down on ropes at each corner how is he going to react to that verse five when jesus saw their faith he said to the paralytic son your sins are forgiven you i love that verse when jesus saw their faith they never said they believed like they haven't said anything the the four men or the paralytic have not said a single thing this whole time but jesus saw their faith in him and he said to the paralytic son your sins have forgiven you and at first i read that i'm like that guy had to have been bummed out right like he's expecting to go and maybe not be a paralyzed man anymore maybe he's expecting to be able to walk around and stuff and so his friends destroy someone's home to let him down and he's like man if jesus doesn't do something this is gonna be really weird and what does jesus do son your sins are forgiven you and that first i almost expect him to be let down but again this man was judged based on his appearance his entire life he was probably accused of sin people probably assumed the worst things about him like oh you're paralyzed what did you do to deserve that and so for jesus the son of god the messiah to look him in the eyes call him son and say that his sins were forgiven him that probably fulfilled his greatest need that he ever had and it did fulfill his greatest need more than any other of our circumstances getting better more than us knowing how we're going to make it through the next month knowing how we're going to get our next job knowing how we're going to raise our families and all that stuff our most important our deepest need is the forgiveness of our sins because our sins separate us from god we'll get more into that in a moment but there's a couple of dudes we gotta talk about who don't like this verse six and some of the scribes were sitting there and reasoning in their hearts why does this man speak blasphemies like this who can forgive sins but god alone understand the scribes were like religious rock stars um they were the guys who were writing down the bible like because you couldn't just like go and buy a bible it was all on individual scrolls right so these are the guys literally writing it so who knows the word of god better than these dudes these guys were the rock star bible teachers of their day and they hear jesus say son your sins are forgiven you and it's interesting that they're sitting down right it's like not even standing room only we're past that but they've probably got good seats in front of jesus just because people would like oh the scribes are here like let them sit up at the front and they say why does this man speak blasphemies like this who can forgive sins but god alone and so they don't say it they're just kind of like sitting there pouting thinking it in their minds and half of them is right half of what they said is correct only god can forgive sins but the tragedy of this is that they literally failed to recognize that god was right in front of them and they accused god of blasphemy jesus calls them out but immediately boom right when they think it when jesus perceiving the spirit that they reasoned thus within themselves he said to them why do you reason about these things in your hearts that must have been weird like you're sitting there with your buddies and you're thinking this thought and someone's like why are you thinking that thought uh i don't know you're talking about okay he's he can read minds i am afraid and it's interesting that they were he rebukes them for thinking these things and for judging silently and accusing god of blasphemy but they never actually bring it up so we see in this that the greatest reward for our faith is the forgiveness of sins there's nothing greater i know we all want our circumstances to get better trust me i i understand we all want that next thing to work out if that one thing could just improve or get better if i could get it it's going to get better but the next thing is just going to give way to the next thing and the thing that we need to rest and anchor our hope in is the forgiveness of our sins and the fact that we've been granted eternal life by the son of god but we also see here that jesus will not forgive those who do not believe and that's why he rebuked the religious leaders especially if they know god's word and so there is that thing of yes we should be constantly in the word constantly hearing and preaching the word to other people but at the same time not letting that allow us to be self-righteous right not thinking that just by knowing more of god's word or reading more of god's word that you're better off than the next guy it should have the opposite effect reading the word of god and immersing yourself in scripture should humble us it should make us realize how unworthy of god's grace we are the more and more that we read it jesus even says hey you guys search the scriptures looking for eternal life but you're not coming to me it's just kind of a weighty thought god knows and judges our hearts we see that when jesus perceived his spirit and in the sermon on the mount he talks about hey anger is equivalent to murder lust is equivalent to adultery coveting wanting something that isn't yours is equivalent to idol worship like god cares very deeply about our thoughts and about our hearts like god could not look at a single thing we did and he could just bring up a list of all the things that we thought or thought about and that would be enough to condemn us condemn us to eternal separation apart from him we also see that our faith should be visible jesus saw their faith like yes it's by no work that we're made right with god but at the same time our faith has to work if our faith doesn't produce work if our faith does not produce works it doesn't work faith works through love also like if it's not in love that we work then our faith again doesn't work i know a lot of people that and even i've done this where it's like yeah i believe it's like okay well where's the evidence in your life well you can't judge me like i've got my personal thing with the lord going on and so it's not your job to go around being like what are you doing for jesus but at the same time it's your job to ask that of yourself how does your faith work is your faith visible to other people we're going to get more into that in the next point so yes while we need to know the word we need even more to come to jesus in faith for the forgiveness of our sins so we see that jesus rewards faith by forgiving sin and now we're going to see that jesus restores through our obedience and verse 9 jesus does not shy away from the religious leaders and he actually ups the ante he says which is easier hypothetical to say to the paralytic your sins are forgiven you or to say arise take up your bed and walk well i don't know jesus unless you're god both of those things are very difficult to be able to say to someone so he's not shying away at all he calls people out for their thoughts which was probably super awkward imagine not being the scribes or jesus just going what is going on someone just got let through the roof uh these guys are just sitting here and then jesus is like why are you thinking that so apparently he can also read minds this is getting really uncomfortable he states in verse 10 which is easier to say the paralytic your sins forgiven you or to say arise take up your bend walk verse 10 but that you may know that the son of man has power on earth to forgive sins he said of the paralytic so whatever he's about to do right now he's doing it he just said so that you may know that the son of man has power on earth to forgive sins he's not restoring this man just for restoration's sake he's restoring this man so that the man his friends the scribes and the crowd knows that the son of man jesus has authority on earth to forgive sins and so in verse 11 he says i say to you arise take up your bed and go to your house jesus tells him three things he has not been able to do before ever rise take up your bed and walk without faith in jesus this man would not have been able to obey what jesus had to say the man obeys jesus we see in verse 12. he does obey him immediately he rose took up the bed and went out in the presence of the moss that they were amazed and glorified god saying we never saw anything like this so the man obeys the commandment of jesus and it is interesting jesus heals in a lot of different ways throughout the gospels sometimes he'll just say hey uh that person that you're talking to me about right now who isn't even here yeah they're healed i don't even need to see them i don't even need to be near them they're healed other times he would lay their hands on them other times they would just touch his cloak while he was walking by and they would be healed my favorite time is when he spat into dirt and he made mud which meant he probably had to use a lot of spit to make dirt into straight up mud and then he rubbed it into a guy's eyes and that guy was able to see that's probably my favorite uh healing miracle just because of again how awkward that must have been but this time he heals through a commandment like this man's already forgiven of his sins this guy can die knowing that he will spend eternity with the living god because of the fact that his sins have been absolved but now jesus has given him the opportunity for further restoration he's already been ultimately restored with god and that restoration cannot be taken away from him whatsoever there's nothing that this man can do to either add to the restoration that god's given him or take away from it even if this guy were to end up paralyzed for the rest of his life he will again die knowing he will spend eternity with god as david did so through obedience we prove not only to ourselves but also to others that we have been forgiven so yes there's faith and that's all you need we're big here at calvary nexus that there's no work that you have to add to faith god grants you faith to believe in him and be saved of your sins period you can't take it away you can't be so bad that that status is lost to you anymore but that's not the end of the story it's not just like okay cool i believe and jesus there's that check mark i'm good to go i don't have to worry about this ever again it's like no now we get to prove that jesus has forgiven us of our sins now we get to show it to other people now we get to be ambassadors of god's gospel of his good news to humanity that he forgives sins and grants eternal life through jesus so jesus immediately gives this guy the opportunity to do that we're restored positionally with god by faith but we also experience restoration practically through obedience the more that you align your life with the word of god and god's expectations for us the more a lot of things in your life heal and recover in romans it says to be transformed we are literally transformed from form to form by the renewing of our mind by immersing ourself in scripture through obeying what he says we are transformed more into the likeness of jesus in that way jesus calls us to believe in him yes but once we're justified we're sanctified through living out our faith we're already completely sanctified in god's eyes god doesn't see a dirty sinner when he looks at us now that we have placed our faith in christ he sees the righteousness of christ so you don't have to try and make yourself right with god now you get to please god by faith now we actually get to all of our whole life on this earth the rest of it now is just how do i please god knowing that i'm already made right with him and there's nothing that i can do to add to that jesus again doesn't restore for restoration's sake like yes he has compassion for people and he does heal people but he heals people to show them that he has authority to absolve us of our sins and he was able to do that here because of his coming death and his coming resurrection don't let self-righteousness from anyone either your own self-righteousness or other people's self-righteousness don't let that convince you that you're not reconciled with god and that's why walking in obedience is so helpful we can only even imperfectly obey and follow god because of the holy spirit that he grants us when we believe when we believe he actually gives us his spirit and empowers us to be able to follow him and walk by faith in him and so by doing that you prove to yourself and to other people that yes you really are forgiven of your sins you're saved you're sanctified and justified so again don't let self-righteousness convince you that you're not reconciled with god and that's always the temptation the more you walk with jesus the easier it is to rest on your laurels the easier it is to go to forget at your your gratefulness and your humility when you first believe when i first believed i was so grateful i was so aware of the sin in my life that god was forgiving me of and then as time goes on i notice i can get self-righteous i can forget that i need jesus still for the forgiveness of my sins like yes it was a one-time thing but i forget that and the more i read the word and the more i see god's standard and his goodness and how far short i fall of it it can the enemy of men's souls the accuser can use that to try and make us feel like we have not really been reconciled with god that we haven't been restored to god don't let that don't let the enemy don't let yourself or anyone else convince you that you have not been reconciled with god by faith and you do that by walking in faith that your sins are void once we receive the forgiveness of sins through faith in the death and resurrection of jesus we can look forward to actually experiencing practical restoration in this life through obedience to jesus in the word and we get to look forward to the ultimate restoration of christ's return to establish his kingdom like that's what we get to look forward to that is what life becomes now so again going back to that healing meeting that we were doing after the sermon i go up to some guys and i asked for healing and like so i guess some people around me were getting healing and they were talking about tingles i'm like oh i'm gonna feel some like tingly feeling or something so they're laying hands on me and they're praying they're going at it they're going hard they're really asking the lord to heal me so i can breathe his glorious air i don't even remember what the prayers were but they were beautiful and i sat there and i thought maybe i felt something and then like i i go outside to breathe some fresh air it doesn't work i still got what my doctor said were slits for nostrils and i'm really upset i'm upset with the lord i'm like why do all these other guys in the word just go to jesus and he didn't even have to pray hard he just says yeah you're healed what about all these other stories of my friends getting healed and we i'm not the only one there are other people in the new testament who don't experience healing for their whole lives there's testimonies of christians who don't experience this practical restoration in terms of health and i think the lord allowed me to go through this and he didn't take that away to show that i don't need to be able to have a perfect body now to be able to walk by faith in him like by being able to kind of go through this thing i can better show people that i'm looking forward to the ultimate restoration of jesus restoring the earth and his people and establishing his kingdom on this earth and i just want to encourage that for you too yes god works in awesome ways and sometimes he comes through in the ways that we really expected him to practically and he restores us or he grants us that thing that we were really hoping for but sometimes that practical earthly restoration doesn't come and we have to place our faith and walk by faith in the fact that we've been restored ultimately with god through the forgiveness of our sins let's pray father i thank you so much that i don't have to work to make myself right with you lord i can't lord even if i wanted to if i tried every moment of my life i couldn't absolve myself of sin only you can do that and only jesus did that so thank you lord that is just by faith it's not by any other work or it's not even by baptism or communion that i'm saved and i'm made right with you and i get to look forward to spending eternity in your heavenly kingdom it's just by faith and so now i get to walk by obedience i get to obey you in walking by faith in hearing your word and in preaching your word to other people lord lord yes help us pray for practical restoration help us like the poor widow just continually bring things to you and pray that we want healing for and we want restoration and relief from but help us to do that knowing that however you answer those prayers we get to look forward to the ultimate restoration that you've already given us thank you again in jesus name amen amen what an encouraging word of just coming before god and faith recognizing all that he's done for us so we're going to continue in worship we're going to sing together we're going to reflect on god's goodness if you have the elements of communion at home whether it's bread or crackers or juice we would encourage you guys to to grab that in this time to partake together the bread and remembrance of jesus body being broken the juice and remembrance of his blood being shed and if you don't have those with you that's okay they're simply symbols of an act that god is doing in our hearts as we press into him in obedience as we place our faith in him and his saving work as we look forward to eternity with him and with one another forever and so i'm gonna pray for us let's remember his faithfulness and let's sing together lord we ask that he would allow these words to find good soil in our hearts that we wouldn't respond to all that's going around us with more efforts by our own strength but by coming before you by recognizing that your spirit moves in powerful ways lord in that when we put our faith in you we become temples of your holy spirit you dwell with us personally what a wonderful reality would help us to never lose sight of that to take that for granted lord we give you our lives we worship you together amen [Music] i need you to soften my heart to break me apart i need you to open my eyes to see that you're shaping my life [Music] give me faith [Music] is [Music] break me apart i am [Music] my [Music] [Music] my [Music] your love is [Music] is give you my [Music] [Music] do [Music] when the music longing just [Music] foreign [Music] and it's all about you [Music] when it's all about you it's all about you jesus [Music] [Music] [Music] is or a song in itself it is much deeper within through [Music] [Music] and it's all about you it's all about you jesus [Music] i'm coming back to the heart of worship and it's all about you it's all about you jesus i'm sorry lord for the [Music] lord wherever we've strayed from you would you draw us back to place you at the center of our lives lord to give you all that we have recognizing we are poor in spirit and yet we can rejoice in our inheritance that is set before us in heaven because of all that you have done for us lord help us to be obedient that we might experience your healing but help us to find that your grace is sufficient that your strength is made perfect in weakness lord help us to gaze upon you with adoration and awe but thank you that we get to be your disciples be glorified in us and through us and we pray all this in your precious name jesus amen amen guys what a wonderful opportunity to gather with you online we pray that the spirit would continue to build community would continue to grow you as disciples in obedience and faith that you might have healing in your life that you might receive salvation look forward to the hope of heaven have a wonderful sunday guys if you need anything feel free to reach out to us we love you guys we hope to see you soon god bless oh [Music] carry [Music] [Music] yourself [Music] oh [Music] is is [Music] is [Music] [Applause] bye [Music] [Music] [Music] oh lord of my heart not be all else to me say that thou art [Music] my presence my light [Music] empty praise [Music] in my heart i my treasure thou art [Music] my victory one may i reach heaven's joys o bright heaven son [Music] [Music] all oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] oh [Music] you

Channel: Calvary Nexus

Views: 303

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: calvary, nexus, camarillo, church, online, mark, austin palmer, jesus, came, serve

Id: cjfF8SzoS74

Length: 75min 57sec (4557 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 31 2021