When a Physical and Spiritual Need Collide

good morning nothing like a little static to quiet the crowd i want to welcome everyone want to especially welcome visitors here this morning with us we're so glad you've chosen to come and worship with us here at victory this morning and uh you know when we all come we all come some days we're just up and ready to go for it and worship and just enjoy the presence of the lord enjoy one another other times we come we're just dragging a bunch of garbage behind us so i want to encourage you to let get rid of the garbage quickly today and worship the lord and spirit and in truth and if you would like prayer for anything we want to invite you to come forward for prayer those of you that are joining us online we want to welcome you also this morning and we just pray that you're ready to worship god and just he will meet you right where you're at wherever you're at he will meet you there i do have a number of announcements i want to mention hopefully if you were here early you might have noticed some on the screen or those of you at home but we do have a worship and healing service coming up finally so many people say finally it's coming here we're doing it the 16th of october so i want to encourage you to be preparing for that praying for that and inviting people to come to that that evening will be an awesome time of corporate worship and healing also our marriage night is coming also this month the 23rd i want to encourage you to be registering for that online you actually have to register through right now media and if there are any reason the registration tree is more than you can handle right now just talk to somebody here at the church and we will definitely make sure money doesn't prevent anybody from participating in the marriage evening i just want to encourage some of you last year i know one of them one of our comments that was made and i was one of the worst ones i said gee part of it got a little long well our organizers are shortening up some things in it so we're probably going to have some different catered food it's going to be awesome so i want to encourage you to get registered and i want to encourage you to invite some people to come that would be great the uh victory glor classes are taking place i know some of you might say well i've missed the first two or three i can't join please i encourage you brian is teaching just this first step of the classes and nine o'clock in the morning here and then we'll be going right into the next steps so i encourage you to try to attend those if you can we are going to do a hallelujah night again this year on the 31st so we'll be talking a little bit more about that as a safe alternative to all of the other things that go on on halloween these days so invite you to pay attention for that coming also today uh our firemen in baltimore are doing a fundraising lunch free will offering lunch more of a brunch breakfast i think egg bake sausages french toast i'm not sure what else but if you haven't planned your lunch i would invite you to go downtown to our little community center and support our local fire department also we've sent out a couple things on our prayer chain i just want to encourage you to be praying for this north georgia revival that's coming up to the twin cities this week on monday tuesday and wednesday i would encourage you if you've not looked into it at all just google it there's so many videos what god is doing through this revival it's unique in the way that god has been moving in it i know that there's a number of people in the church here that are going up to it both pastor bob and i will be up there elder allen is going to be there and i know there's at least one or two other carloads of people from the church going up there just encourage you i know monday tuesday wednesday evenings are not an easy time to get away but if you are able to and would like to i would encourage you it might be worth your while and the very least just be praying for what the lord might do and start here in minnesota through this north georgia revival who can tell me if i'm forgetting anything thank you young man [Laughter] it's always great when a five or six-year-old raises their hands and i can tell you all right with that let's stand together if you're able and just invite you to enter in our giving we want to continue to encourage you to give to you can give via text 84321 or on our online services or there's a box in the foyer we just continue to thank you so much for your generosity it allows us to do so many things as a church in ministering and outreach let's pray heavenly father we we first come to you with thanksgiving father we thank you so much we thank you for your son jesus for the life that's available to all through jesus christ god we pray this morning that as we worship you we are being led by your holy spirit we respond to your holy spirit lord we thank you and praise you for all your goodness towards us god we pray this morning that everything we do pleases your heart lord and all of us that are here god you know every one of us you know all there is to know about us those watching online god you know them everything about them i pray holy spirit you administer each one of us individually as well as corporately father we pray for your glory to really minister in this house today father we pray that we will be sensitive to the holy spirit and respond in obedience quickly to whatever it is you might have for us we ask this in jesus name for our visitors here sometimes people will come forward to prepare during our time of worship for the praise and music we just want you to know that's what's taking place and if you'd like prayer for anything we invite you to come forward [Music] the too but it couldn't fill me a man's empty praise and treasures everything [Music] and put me back together [Music] oh there's nothing better than you there's nothing better than you lord there's nothing nothing is [Music] and i'm not afraid to show you my my weakness and flaws lord you've seen them all and you still call me free [Music] cause the god of the mountain [Music] your mercy and grace won't find me again [Music] oh there's nothing [Music] better than you there's no faith better than you lord there's nothing nothing is better than you there's nothing [Music] oh there's nothing better than you there's nothing [Music] better than you lord there's nothing and nothing is [Music] dancing you get beauty for ashes [Music] you turn shame into glory you're the only one who can you turn you turn morning to dancing you give beauty for ashes you turn shame into glory you're the only [Music] you turn seas into highways you're the only one you can you turn great you turn praising to god you're the only one you care you're the only one who cares oh there's nothing [Music] better than you there's nothing better than you lord there's nothing [Music] nothing is better than you there's nothing oh there's nothing better than you there's nothing better than you lord there's nothing nothing is better than you there's nothing oh there's nothing better than you there's nothing better than you lord there's nothing nothing is better than you [Music] nothing's better than you [Music] [Music] to come and take your place [Music] come and take [Music] come and take your place in the center of our hearts come and take your [Music] come and place your place in the center of our hearts come and take your place [Music] my [Music] we're [Music] you [Music] land [Music] dry [Music] in the center of [Music] your [Music] [Applause] [Music] come and take [Music] you're the only one [Music] is [Music] your face [Music] you're the only one deserving [Music] you're the only one deserving to have it all all my love [Music] come and take your place [Music] in the center of our hearts come and take your one place [Music] to have it all all my love the only one is worthy you are the only one deserving to [Music] you're the only one deserving to have it all my love the only one is worthy you are you're the only one deserving to have it all for my love you're the only one who's worthy to have [Music] and oh your place in the center of our hearts come and take your face [Music] in the center of [Music] it's where you belong jesus that's where you belong [Music] come and take your place to where you belong oh holy spirit god i pray that you just show us any distraction that's taking that place of you and our hearts father if we are focusing our eyes on something that's not of you god i pray that you'd reveal that to our minds right now maybe it's something that we didn't even realize was a distraction god i pray that you'd bring that to our forefronts of our mind right now in the name of jesus we cast those distractions away god so that we can focus on you this morning father god i pray that you would take your place in this room in our hearts god in our minds we bind the enemy in the name of jesus this morning that you will be glorified you will be the one that we are focused on and our worshiping father god we thank you that you are living hope this morning amidst of everything going on god you are in control and you love us and you're watching us and giving us exactly what we need before we even need it now we thank you for your hope this morning in jesus name amen [Music] i'll greet the chasm that lay between us how high the mountain i could not climb in desperation i turned to heaven and spoke your name into the night then through the darkness your lovingkindness tore through the shadows of my soul the work is finished the end is written jesus christ [Music] what heart could fathom such boundless grace the god of ages stepped down from glory to where my sins [Music] the king of kings calls [Music] jesus [Music] [Music] your buried body begins me out of the silence [Music] began to breathe [Music] is [Music] [Music] jesus christ [Music] lord god i just ask that you meet us here today this morning jesus lord god for those that are struggling with defeat for those that are struggling with just disappointment even in themselves lord jesus that they know better lord lord what's just more powerful is that you are bigger your love is stronger to overcome anything that we have been stuck in lord i just ask that you bring a freedom this morning jesus i ask that those that are in here that are struggling jesus let them know that you're here you see every step you see every tear every cry every frustration and lord just let them reach up to you lord jesus or let them know what their worth is or their the love that you have for them lord god there is no disappointment lord god you love them you're waiting for them to come to you this morning jesus to set them free from what's holding them back to live the freedom in life that you have for them lord jesus [Music] you were the word at the beginning one with god the lord most high [Music] what a beautiful name it is what a beautiful name it is the name of jesus christ my king what a beautiful name it is what a beautiful name it is the name of jesus you didn't want heaven without us to jesus [Music] what a wonderful name it is what a wonderful name it is the name of jesus christ what a wonderful name it is what a wonderful name it is the name of jesus what a wonderful name it is [Music] the heavens are [Music] [Music] yours is [Music] [Music] the name of jesus christ what a powerful name it [Music] powerful is it is [Music] [Music] yours is [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] what a is name it is what a powerful name it is the name of jesus christ what a powerful name it [Music] is the name of [Music] jesus amen [Music] i won't forget the moment i heard you call my name out of the grip of darkness into the light of grace and just like lazarus oh you brought me back to life and where there was dead religion now there is living faith all of my hope and dream are found in jesus name and just like lazarus oh you brought me back to life no longer i who live but christ in me for foreign [Applause] [Music] i'll point to the price you pay when something says i'm not worthy i'll point to that empty grave just like lazarus oh you brought [Music] [Music] my foreign is [Music] how can i begin to thank you for all that you've done and for me jesus fully praise you it will take all eternity and just like lazarus oh you brought me back to life [Music] my heart is free for the hope of heaven [Music] [Music] but jesus you said you're mad the enemy thought he had me but jesus [Music] foreign [Music] is [Music] [Music] amen thank you lord thank you lord thank you lord thank you lord hallelujah thank you lord we need to remember that when the enemy is attacking us when our mind is working against us when the accusations come whatever they are if you've accepted jesus christ as your lord and savior jesus is standing before the father they're not guilty of that father i paid the price no matter what it is don't ever ever forget that amen you may be seated or we dismiss our kids to the victory for kids classes and i want to thank all the volunteers that are taking care of all these kids and putting the word of god in them we appreciate it so much thank you for serving and this morning we have a special time of sharing the church as a as a group as a church corporately we've supported the mission trip to iraq that just complete was completed a couple of weeks ago and i know many of you have been asking questions and many of you have been part of the support of that so jody is going to come and share and and well elizabeth and dylan in whatever way they would like or not amen um so like mike said we returned from iraq a couple weeks ago elizabeth and dylan were both with us um this is a picture of our team this team was made up of 41 people from nine different countries 10 if you include iraq what was really cool about this team was it was literally made up of a wide variety of people so we had elizabeth and there was another 14 year old so i wasn't the only crazy one who brought my child into the middle east um so 14 up to like the upper 70s was the age range we had a diplomat we had ceos we had stay-at-home moms we had um people from the underground church so it was just a really cool even like a former pentagon employee so we kind of brought all different aspects um into this so it was really amazing there was like 35 different languages spoken between everybody i felt very inadequate knowing my very poor english skills um so yeah that is the team uh we came together really for the sole purpose of partnering with ministry back to jerusalem which is a ministry that partners with the underground chinese church and the chinese believe that the lord has given them the commission um in this time to send a hundred thousand missionaries from china to the 1040 window so the 1040 window is basically from china they want to fulfill missionaries to every people every people group that's unreached between china and jerusalem and so they are fulfilling that they are the number one sender of missionaries to the 10 40 window um they wholeheartedly believe in this in the scripture i think it's matthew 24 14 that basically says like the good news is going to go to all nations and then christ is going to return and so they want to be part of that and they allowed us to kind of partner with them you can go to the next slide so one of the ways that they do that is the the chinese when they go into these countries they establish a business and so they call it a business as missions model so they don't rely on any like long-term foreign support so in this particular case this uh chinese family bought a farm so back to jerusalem supported them and being able to find this land they run a completely self-sustaining farm now uh you can go to the next slide natalie so all of this oh yeah that one kind of all the way up until those houses that's the property that they own so it's one family that owns it all does it everything by hand so they even dug their own well by hand i mean everything is done they're just amazingly hard-working people and so that is one of and then they basically just hire local arab people or yazidi people to come in and be able to minister to them that way uh we also we're not allowed to take pictures of any of the chinese or any specific work and so we also got to see a ton of other businesses within kurdistan that are run by chinese we got to pray with them um yeah just got to bless them one of the ways that we bless them in this particular way was buying all of the vegetables that they had available so that was like a ridiculous amount of eggplant and a ridiculous amount of onions that's the only thing ready you can go to the next slide natalie and then we took them out to this village of seji and so um we this is elizabeth dividing up we had to take these huge sacks and then put them into portions but the reason that uh we went to the village of sedji is because seji was a christian village up until the isis invasion at that point about 50 percent of the village fled most of them actually were in the process of building houses and so these there was just half of this village with half finished houses um isis the main people group besides christians that they decided that they were going to wipe out was the yazidi people they are from northern iraq in the sinjar region and so when isis invaded sinjar a lot of people fled into the mountains but then also a lot of people fled south eventually making it to the village of seji finding a whole bunch of unfinished houses and so since that point they became squatters in all these homes um the christians in this village were not so kind at the idea of having yazidi people there the christians are in this particular area um of chaldean descent and they see the yazidi people as very like dirty cursed people and so living in the same village with them they were they very much persecuted them they wouldn't supply any food anything and so back to jerusalem kind of heard about this group of yazidi who are an unreached people group many scholars actually believe that they could be a lost tribe of israel and so um this we were able to go in and uh provide food for them like the local mootar who's like the village leader gave us a list of the yazidis in the area and then we did food distribution so dylan kind of was able to wrangle when it kind of came into a hot mess things just were getting really chaotic and um so he was able to step up to the plate and and help with that and elizabeth really played with the kids and helped just kind of occupy them in that time but what was interesting about this so we served about 900 yazidi people we had plenty of leftovers which would go to the christians in this village but the christians were not happy we were there to serve the yazidi people and so they actually kind of mounted a little bit of a rebellion against us and we're throwing fireworks and firecrackers um into the crowd which the very first one that went off you could tell every foreigner in about three seconds because everybody hit the ground pretty sure there was gunfire going off but we were able to bless the yazidi people in that way and then also the believers the next outreach main outreach that we did you go to the next slide at you can keep going okay so we went into a refugee camp now what's really cool about this is that there has never been a foreign group ever allowed in a refugee camp in iraq they are super super strict because they're really afraid of all of the people who live there falling to a victim mentality and not ever wanting to move out and so they only let kind of the big you know like un unicef kind of those giant organizations that to be able to come in and so barbara the head of the dream center language institute which was our local partner in kurdistan um she called them she's actually the last known jew in iraq she's like she's a believer but her cult like culturally she's a jew and under saddam hussein all the jews were wiped out or fled to israel and so she is a fiery jew and she called them and she said before you say no i want you to know that i'm bringing this group is different they're a group of victors they bring victory with them they bring hope and light with them they're not interested in sorrow they're not interested in victimhood um so this is going to be different and that's why you're going to let us come in and the guy said okay and so i mean really a miraculous thing even despite everything that's gone on in iraq for these years and years to us be the first group to allow to go in was phenomenal so we were able to provide these food boxes to 1000 families so this camp particularly was divided into three parts there was the arab part the yazidi part in the christian part again because of the focus of reaching unreached people groups we served the the yazidi and the arab section of the camps elizabeth was able to play this man right there now i can go back a second so this man um i was able to be one of the people who got to like carry boxes all the way to these tents which i thought was not going to be that big a deal because it didn't look very big when we like came into the camp until you realized i'd be like oh you're like a mile that way and it's 112 degrees out um and so i was i carried this man he had two boxes and i carried it with him and you know we were told like just be led by the spirit and go with these people and so as i got to his house you're really unsure of like do you enter i mean this is a muslim man you want to be respectful of his culture and so i kind of stopped at the door and he quickly waved me in and he gave me water and offered me food and we had learned a phrase that was jesus loves you in arabic i didn't remember any of it except for the fact that um in arabic the name jesus is esau and so um he just kept saying he saw something something something esau something something and um i just was like okay lord i obviously i don't understand what he's saying but he's saying jesus like i know he's seeing christ in me he's seeing christ in this situation and so to just be able to pray in the spirit and like all right lord like let us bless him i prayed with him he just kept hugging me so the harvest is ripe here i mean they are longing for the hope of jesus and it was just an amazing opportunity to be able to see the way that these people live i think you can keep going natalie there's some photos of just kind of inside their tent um nope not that one yeah so on the left side here is literally just like a big open tent area that's where they sleep on the right is a kitchen and that is all of their all of their home this camp in particular is like short food and supplies every a single month so it was a huge blessing to be able to give them food this camp actually was ready to close there's a camp every about 60 miles in iraq in kurdistan um and this one was was almost ready to close there was barely any people in it all of the people who had fled from isis had either been able to go back into their villages or gotten visas to leave the country but recently in the last six months turkey has significantly started bombing syria and so it has now filled up with syrians who are arab christian or yazidi and so there's another giant influx into this country and kurdistan in particular there are a population of 500 000 people they took on two times their population during the isis invasion and so their population is now 1.5 million people and they are just the most generous people um it was beautiful to see their hearts and just see the way that they cared for one another you can go the next slide um okay so the gal in the purple that's barbara but what's really cool about this picture is the man on the right that is zaid he is yazidi and so his family actually fled sinjar many of his family didn't make it out and so he lived through the genocide he now lives in de hook and works at uh in partnership with this language institute that we partnered with um so it was really interesting to just hear his stories to hear the stories of the people that he knows many people they still don't even know where they are one of the days when we were driving he stood up and he just started praying and we were like what's going on and then he sat down and he said those two people they were holding like pictures like almost like a picket sign but it had a picture on it um and he said those two people we just found out were finally dead they went to fight isis in 2016 and we had not heard of them until last week we found out that they had been murdered and so it's still very raw in the country and they're still figuring out how to heal and there was some people on our team who tried to evangelize him and zaid was not having it i mean he was just like i don't you know i'm not sure how to have hope i'm not i've just watched people be murdered and um i've barely survived this land has been riddled with war for year after year and so he just is searching and longing but he said i see something different about you guys i see it and i feel it and one day i know one day i'll follow jesus but i'm just not quite ready yet so then also the man on the left he was actually the head of our private security so never has back to jerusalem ever had private security on any of their things but i'm pretty sure my mom's desperate prayers are allowed um uh general mohammed who was a man that we worked with there too he paid for our private security but what's really neat about this guy is he is a syrian and so his native tongue is um aramaic just like jesus spoke and so he is a believer there's only 50 000 known aramaic people or who speak aramaic known in the world today and he's one of them he can actually directly link the salvation of his family to the disciples of thomas and thaddeus like as they brought the gospel into northern iraq like they preached to the assyrians despite you know the torturous aspect of the assyrian army and what they um how they treated people and now generations later he's still um worshiping and following jesus and so that was just such an amazing story to realize like obviously we know thaddeus and thomas didn't have a great end to their lives but like they forsook all to go and tell people who didn't know jesus about jesus the truth and hope of the gospel and because of that not only was assyria changed but families you know countries lives were changed for generations and generations so it was just really fun to like see that in the flesh of like this is why we go to the darkest parts of the world um it's not because you know there's good food or it's fun or the you know hotel is amazing because ours was less than stellar but it's because of the hope of jesus and what it does for generations to come you can go the next slide so um this kind of correlates with us we went um on one of our kind of off days well we were waiting for covent testing we went up to this um this is an um a syrian monastery an assyrian church built up into the mountains so the disciples brought the gospel in the first century to iraq this was built in the 17th century all hand dug inside there's an entire tunnel system you know the next slide natalie shows them some of it in the next couple um so um you go into this church and you literally kind of go into the back and there's this giant tunnel system and what was really neat is that these assyrian christians um hid uh christians and locals from saddam hussein when saddam hussein was trying to wipe out the kurds in the 90s and so thousands of people lived in tunnels like these these little like carved out rooms and the assyrians believers that were there just said like this is this is how we show jesus this is how we um help people to come to know the gospel is by saving their lives and so they just spent thousands and thousands of hours digging these tunnels um and then even when isis was invading many people hid in these tunnels again i mean there would be little like openings that you could see up on the mountain kind of in that first picture where if the if anyone was coming up they would have guns and be able to shoot them before they got up to the top but um again just kind of amazing to see how the ripple effect of the gospel going forth has saved people and allowed like so many believers to hear the gospel because of that you can go to the next slide okay so this is nineveh this is the region of nineveh and we got to stand uh we're standing actually on this in this big gate area that has been going to be restored um and so this valley is what people would have walked up to and then there's these big steps up to this city on top of the mountain and one of the things that the lord really just showed our team and that we were encouraged by leadership is like look at this land like jonah didn't want to come here you know jonah wanted to run in the other direction and yet when he did nineveh repented and nineveh followed the lord and uh we have that same opportunity there are you know 90 of the unreached people live in the 10 40 window that have never heard the gospel and a really embarrassing statistic for america is that in america we spend more money on halloween costumes for pets than we do sending any dollars let alone people to the 10 40 window like one penny out of every hundred dollars of american missions is sent to the 1040 window even though the majority of the people who've never heard the gospel live there and so it just really challenged me um it challenged me to really want to like be part of this like how do we go how do we send what does that look like and you know nineveh was changed this land was changed because people were willing to go and so i have just really been encouraged by the lord to challenge you like where where is your nineveh in this um you know there is people longing for the hope of jesus uh back to jerusalem they go everywhere i mean one guy on our team was like you want to go to north or north korea let's go i'll take you next week like go there all the time you want to go to iran no problem like these being even just in the presence with people on this team who it's so normal to them like why wouldn't we these people are are going to hell without us like why would we ever consider like oh i might have to go without coffee or i might have to sleep with cockroaches as a reason you know to not go and share the gospel with these people um so that's kind of a mini super shortened version of what we did we were able to connect with the chinese many more times one of the other things that we really did that was amazing was after we would get back at night we did praise and worship just as a team we were literally in the upper room of this hotel it's like 140 degrees ridiculously hot everyone's disgusting and we would just worship and we would just pray and it literally was like living in the book of acts i mean people were praying in different tongues all of a sudden you could just feel the environment shift and people are prophesying people are being slain in the spirit i mean just to hear all of these languages going up and it was like no one's singing the same thing no one's saying the same thing and it was just perfect harmony it was it was like a piece of heaven and to just be able to to do that and be with that group was was so phenomenal elizabeth do you want to share well speaking of cockroaches for me the scariest part of the entire trip was the cockroach that nearly fell on my hand in the bathroom shower so that wasn't fun but i think my favorite part of the trip and one of the parts that was most impactful was just to see like all of these kids that most of them had grown up through this entire thing and yet they were still all so happy and joyful just to like get a little bit of food or to see us and like a little wave me and one of my friends waved to just this little girl and she was like we saw her skipping around the camp for like the rest of the day so it's just crazy to see how joyful they are even through all of that i guess the biggest thing for me there was just seeing the people's um there's thankfulness for what we were able to bring to them it really wasn't that much just a little box of some basics and just seeing how happy they they were to just to get that was just amazing to me um and not just that they were thankful for it but that they were happy to get and it wasn't just the the kids but the adults and the men too they're just so so thankful for it so yeah so thank you again for your support um on this trip it really was life-changing and certainly we will be going back and probably to one of the other scary places that you don't think we should go but we will be going and so um we have a ton more that we could share so if anyone wants to hear more about it or specifically about back to jerusalem how to partner with them with getting people into the 10 40 window or even going yourself feel free to contact one of us thank you thank you [Applause] awesome just again wanna thank the church body for the generosity that allows us as a church to be part of that you know there's a passion for it obviously and jody and the family to do these kinds of things and some of us would go i'm never going to do that that's okay you may not be called to do that but we can be a part of it through our financial giving and praying for people like this when they do go i'm just so thankful for the congregation and their willingness to share things like this and before you get worried that i'm going to give a full message i'm not i'm going to give more of an introduction but it's interesting because i didn't even think about this when i the title came to my mind but the title is when a physical and a spiritual need collide physical and spiritual needs collide i was going to give some examples from my own experiences in russia but i think we got enough examples you can see how meeting like like dylan said how excited and open they got just because they got a little box of food you know when we look at the physical needs you know the physical needs are always pretty easy to see you know they're kind of out there whether we're talking about people like these in iraq or people in other parts of the world that don't have anything i i remember one of our our trips to siberia we we brought just children's shoes and some medicines that was kind of the the the key that unlocked the door to address the spiritual need you know just simple things they took us to the pharmacy in the hospital and they opened a little cabinet about this tall and about this wide that was their pharmacy and it was pretty much totally empty just bringing over the counter meds open the door so we were able to go to school after school show the jesus film do all these things so physical needs and spiritual needs we're going to be looking at a story in the scripture where the physical and the spiritual really do collide and the thing that's we need to remember and i'll get into this way more next week when i go a little deeper with this story is the reality is the spiritual need the unseen need if you would is the most important need by far meeting that spiritual need but we can't ignore the physical need because so often it is truly the key that opens that door for us to meet the spiritual needs i'm going to have us be looking at a very familiar story in the gospel of mark it's in chapter 2. some of you have probably heard it way many more times and you want to hear it and some of you may have never ever heard it for your and it's in the the gospel of mark chapter 2 first 13 verses and we're going to look at this story and today i'm going to read the text and then i'm going to show a short video but i really what i would like for us to be able to do today is to to use our imaginations if you would to try to really picture the scene be a part of the scene be a part of this story there are so many different parts to this what we would think of as a very simple story one that we've heard it a bunch of times it's it's amazing to hear stir some curiosity but i want us to really be stirred and try to try to picture ourselves in the middle of this story before we get to the actual text i want to give us a little bit of context in mark the gospel of mark chapter 1 jesus had been in the in the desert and he had been tempted by by satan himself he'd used the word of god to resist and then after that happened immediately jesus goes out and starts teaching and he starts by teaching that the time has been fulfilled the kingdom of god is at hand repent and believe the gospel that's his message that was his message repent and believe the gospel we think of the gospel now he hadn't been crucified buried and resurrected yet the gospel that he was preaching was the kingdom of god is at hand and it was standing before them it was him it was jesus repent and believe in who i am i am the messiah that the father has promised i'm here i'm here now and he went and he chose his first disciples he picked his first disciples peter and andrew and james and john and they they went about capernaum and they went to the synagogues and they began to teach in these different synagogues and it was interesting and this is the overall emphasis of what i'm really wanting to focus on however long we're in the book of mark is the the power of the gospel the power of the word of god the primacy of the gospel there's nothing more important that jesus came to earth to do than to spread the good news of the gospel and then he actually fulfilled it through the death burial and resurrection so the word of god is what i really want us to be focusing on in the days and weeks ahead as we go through this and he began to teach and i it's interesting he went to the synagogues and they were used to teachers they taught all the time in the synagogues the scribes did all this teaching and we're going to see the scribes some of the scribes are present in this story but the interesting thing was when jesus was teaching in the synagogue you know they're looking at this guy they're not sure who he is yet he's somebody from the nazareth whoever he is but it says they noticed when he taught he taught with an authority and it says unlike the scribes what was so unique about the way he talked and taught this authority that was recognized by them we might call it wow there was an anointing upon him i'm sure there was but he taught with an authority so even the people recognize something special here when jesus was speaking forth because everything that came out of jesus was the word the word jesus was the word jesus is the word and he spoke and as he's traveling around he casts out demons and all of a sudden people start to catch an interest and who is this guy and he continues to travel around and he went back to capernaum and he went back to peter's and andrew's home and that's the story about peter peter's mother-in-law being healed so here's this guy that the people are discovering the demons listen to him he has authority over them disease listens to him he has authority over disease and then he's going to be doing some teaching and all of a sudden they're going to realize he also has authority over the hearts of man also well it was at peter's house and after he'd healed his mother word really spread and you've got to remember you know we're talking a small geographic area you can imagine when things start happening like this the things that people have not seen before where it spreads and it says the crowd started coming and they started gathering and he healed and cast out demons until he couldn't do it anymore and then that night came and this strikes me and i'm not going to develop this but it so strikes me when i read this introduction it says they're healing all these people casting out all these demons and jesus when night finally comes for him to rest he he goes off by himself to pray to be with the father to get refueled refreshed by the spirit of god and then the next morning here come the disciples looking for him and they finally found him and they said jesus where have you been all the people are looking for you the crowds are coming and gathering and if you read this you know what jesus said let's leave let's leave can you see a modern day evangelist doing something like that signs and wonders are going on like crazy and the dead you know the pastor says boy stay at our church where this is great stay here stay here stay here and the evangelist said nope we're out of here. that's what jesus did why'd he do that he tells us why he did that i have to go to the other cities and teach the word i have to teach the word the primacy of the gospel the primacy of the message and that's what he did they went to village after village after village healing more people casting out more demons and teaching and teaching and teaching and he comes back to capernaum after being in galilee and this is one of the stories you will read if you read chapter one a leper comes to him we all are familiar with leprosy the disease you are a total outcast if you had leprosy and the leprosy comes to jesus and falls down before him and there's this famous little interchange between him and jesus he says to him if you are willing you can heal me and jesus filled with compassion looks at him and simply says i'm willing i am willing and he heals the leper and that brings me all the way up to what's been going on and we get to chapter two of the gospel of mark all of it his fame is starting his recognition being recognized as this guy because they don't really know who he is yet they're trying to figure out is he is he some sort of rabbi is he some sort of prophet who is this guy no one's done what he's done and no one teaches with the authority he teaches with so the crowds are gathering so in mark chapter 2 i'm going to start reading in verse 1. when he had come back to capernaum several days afterwards it was heard that he was at home and many were gathered together so there was no longer room not even near the door and he was speaking the word to them now again why are they coming yeah the signs and wonders i'm sure but what was jesus doing he was speaking the word to them and they came bringing him to to him a paralytic carried by four men now is where i want your imagination if you've if you heard this story 100 times pretend like you're hearing it for the first time okay first time try to picture this taking place there's crowds and it says it came to him four men carrying this paralytic being unable to get to him because of the crowd they couldn't get to jesus they removed the roof above him and when they had dug an opening they let down the pallet on which the paralytic was laying and jesus seeing their faith said to the paralytic son your sins are forgiven not what he came for but some of the scribes were sitting there and reasoning in their hearts why does this man speak that way he is blaspheming who can forgive sins but god alone immediately jesus aware in his spirit that they were reasoning that way within themselves said to them why are you reasoning about the things in your hearts which is easier to say to the paralytic your sins are forgiven or to say get up pick up your palate and walk but so that you may know that the son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins he said to the paralytic i say to you get up pick up your pallet and go home and he got up and immediately he picked up the pallet and went out in the sight of everyone so that they were all amazed and were glorifying god saying we have never seen anything like this that's got to be a big understatement doesn't it and what did he do he went out again to the seashore all the people were coming to him and he was teaching them so i want you to try to imagine the scene i'm going to show this short video clip the points in it that are important are very biblical obviously there's some creative license taking and filling in the gaps in the story but i want you to watch this with me take just a few minutes jesus yes i saw what you did to the leopard on the road this morning my friend has been paralyzed since childhood he has no hope but you please do for him what you did for the leper that's a rule put it back man if you are willing rabbi i know you can do this [Music] [Applause] jesus [Applause] [Music] [Applause] yes [Music] this is what you wanted get out your tablet at least harry is he in danger i don't know no i don't think so he's got room in there can you believe we're really here for this yes [Music] you but whose authority do you teach answer me if you are willing rabbi you know you can't i'm talking to you by whom do you teach certainly not the authority of any rabbi from nazareth where did you study your faith is beautiful son take heart your sins are forgiven who is this who speaks blasphemies who can forgive sins but god alone right but i ask you which is easier to say your sins are forgiven or rise up and walk it's easy to say anything no but to show you and so that you may know that the son of man has the authority on earth to forgive sins i say to you my son rise pick up your bed and go home easy does it [Music] [Applause] yes [Music] [Applause] thank you now go on [Music] how's your imaginations mine's too good i cry every time i watch this can you imagine what was all going on in the different groups of people can you imagine what was taking place in the minds of these different characters the goofy looking guy sitting on up there with the two kids if you're not watching the chosen that was matthew the guy that stood up there and said mary that was mary magdalene can you can you believe we're seeing this that was peter nicodemus was the the pharisee that didn't say anything so those of you have some biblical background those names and things resonate with you but i want us to think about what was going on in the minds of the other people what was taking place we see this crowd and jammed to the doorway and you can't hardly hear but jesus is teaching and the crowd is just enamored with what they're hearing and here are four friends so filled with compassion for their friend who's a paralytic from life from birth his entire life and they're trying to get there and they couldn't because there was a barrier between them and jesus the people there's always barriers between people and the truth and what they need to hear in this case it just happens to be the crowd these four men trying to get their friend to jesus their love for their friend their compassion for their friends physical need wouldn't let them be stopped try to imagine you're one of those four friends i should have for you to come up here and be those four friends but i won't the first one says i got a plan let's get him up on the roof and the second one says what are you talking about jesus isn't on the roof he's in the house he says well we got to do something let's remove the roof the third friend what are you thinking they love their friend they're not gonna let them be stopped so the fourth friend says i don't know you have a better idea i don't let's go do it so they get up on the roof of the house now imagine you're inside you're listening to this man that people are coming from distances to see and hear and he's teaching and his message is the kingdom of god has come and all of a sudden you hear some crazy noise or footsteps or something up above on the roof and you wonder what in the world is going on and but jesus keeps teaching and you try to listen and eventually all of a sudden stuff starts falling from the ceiling jesus even stops he's lost the attention of the crowd and they look up and all of a sudden there's a hole in the roof where there's not supposed to be a hole in the roof and they're all wondering what in the world's going on they didn't know there was a paralytic they couldn't get close enough to the door to show anybody jesus is looking on the friends are tearing the roof off the house whose house was it what would you have said if it was your house hey what are you doing man what are you doing they're not going to let any of those barriers stop them from taking this man to where they think that he can get help compassion was compelling them no matter what you can imagine what the crowd might have started yelling and he just kept working and jesus knowing what's going on step back out of the way now i don't know what he did stuff's falling from the roof jesus stops now they're finally lowering the man down i tried to put myself in the position of that guy being lowered down i've probably been looked down upon my whole life quite possibly been ridiculed and made fun of most of my life and here i am the center of attention for this crowd of people what must have been going through my mind had he seen jesus i don't know quite possibly not but his friends knew of jesus and they they knew they had faith that he could help him and the four friends up above what were they thinking when he looked at the crowd as as they're being lowered down what was the paralyzed man thinking what are they thinking i'm so embarrassed pull me back up quick and jesus just waited marx mark doesn't tell us anything about anything that was or wasn't said we have no idea if there was conversation probably was but mark doesn't tell us anything matthew really doesn't either and the man finally gets laid on the floor everybody's apparently quiet waiting and wondering what is going to happen next probably could hear a pin drop and when jesus finally speaks he says he sees their faith that word there to me is critical he didn't just see the faith of the paralytic who had the need he's looking and seeing these four characters who just wrecked the guy's roof lowering him down through the hole believing that jesus can heal him maybe word had really spread about the leper that they'd saw on the on the road and he says to him your faith i see your faith that's all we know that he says he saw and then he looks at the man and what does he do well we all know what the obvious need is right there's a physical need here that needs to be met but in jesus with jesus he knows the spiritual need is much greater than the physical need and the spiritual and the physical needs collide instead of healing the man he says son your sins are forgiven that's quite a statement for a man to make because only god can forgive those sins or the scribes were quick to point that out at least in the video but we know from the text it appears they didn't say anything they were all thinking these things in their heart and jesus all of a sudden demonstrates he knows the heart of man and he confronts the scribes your sins are forgiven you know the physical needs that we encounter are great there are many many of them and we should be meeting them as best we can but we never can lose sight of kind of what jody was really emphasizing the spiritual need is so much greater than any physical need you know to the jewish people in that day they very well could have thought that this man had sin that's why he was a paralyzed person a lot of the jewish people at that time and in that culture if there was something physically wrong with you you must have sin in your life that could have been going through their minds but i don't think that was jesus point i think he had many points to be made one he saw the greatest need and he knew his mission and why he came to earth he came to earth for the forgiveness of sin of all mankind that's why he came but then he does speak and he confronts the scribes and i love the way he said it which is easier to say your sins are forgiven or get up and walk i think what he's saying is anybody can say anything i could look at anybody in here or go sit in any place and have somebody say to me hey mike don't worry about things your sins are forgiven anybody can say anything but jesus is saying who's going to say get up and walk and they get up and walk and we see from the story and we see in the text that he did this to really prove that he was who he said he was and that his message was the important thing and the man gets up and he walks and i love the line wow that's pretty cool we've never seen anything like this one great understatement how many of us how how would we respond if we saw something like this well many of us have seen things like this how has it changed our lives when we see god do something like this how long does it last what impact does this have on us we get all enamored with the physical things the things we can see with our natural mind and we forget about the greatest need of all mankind sin needs to be forgiven through christ is the only way the scribes the crowd the four friends the paralytic man amazing characters in this story there's so many things that you can pull out of this story the barriers to people getting what they need what are the barriers of leading your friend to christ what things stop us what are the barriers in our own life to receiving those things that we sang about in our worship songs what are the barriers that prevent us from walking in the freedom and liberty that jesus died to give us what are the barriers we can't remove them ourselves who are your four friends brian talked about this in adult bible class this morning who are those friends who are those friends that are going to rip through a roof that your need can be met we need those who are you that fourth friends for there's so many things in the story that we're going to look at at least some of them in a little bit more detail next week we can talk about the barriers we can talk about evangelism we can talk about compassion who wouldn't like four friends like those four guys want to go to war with those four guys the determination that they had so next week i want to encourage you if you haven't or even if you have reread this story it's only 13 verses reread it let the holy spirit speak to you what is in this story that god wants us to receive and what he wants us to hear there's so much there and i'm going to give a cheap plug if you've never watched the chosen you should remember they all take creative license in these movies and videos but i've i have not yet seen anything doctrinally blasphemous or anything like that but i encourage you if you're going to watch tv might as well watch something that edifies kind of a cheap shot isn't it i know some of you think those vikings they edify or they tear down so with that we're going to close i'm going to close with prayer i want to remind you again if you're able to to support our fire department that would be great heavenly father your word is such an amazing thing your holy spirit brings it to life it's not just an old story you bring it to life your truths are everywhere in your word and you've given it to us and then you've given us the best teacher there ever was the holy spirit lord i pray you would draw each one of us to your word in greater and greater ways to this particular text but also just to your word that we would develop an appetite and a hunger for your word that can't even be satisfied that we would want more and more of it lord your word brings life your lor your word cleanses us sanctifies us it can't do what the blood of jesus did but it brings life so i pray you would just draw us to it speak to our hearts holy spirit speak to each one of us i pray you would help us to see those things that we can be that kind of friend that we don't need to be letting barriers that are really insignificant prevent us from sharing hope and faith in jesus christ father that we can be the kind of friends that those four were for that man so i pray you bless us today lord watch over us keep us safe father we thank you for your love and your goodness towards us in jesus name amen amen have a great week i'll see some of you down for lunch you

Channel: Victory Christian Church

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Id: RhbelQoMxCA

Length: 97min 40sec (5860 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 03 2021