Substitute Sacrifice

Amen. That's a hard act to follow. Go get them, girl. Eat your heart out, Taylor Swift. Amen.

Amen. I think her family's here to support her. So good. That was Cheyenne. Thank you, Cheyenne, for sharing that with us.

And that was a beautiful job. That is a victory that the Lord wants to give us. If you have your Bibles, would you turn with me to Mark, Chapter two? Mark, Chapter two. Just a little introduction to Mark.

Mark is John Mark, who grew up in a house church in Jerusalem. His mother had a church in her house, so she must have however she got money. And maybe his father passed away. He grew up in that house church. And he had an uncle named Barnabas, a cousin or uncle named Barnabas.

He was very supportive of John Mark. And he and Paul took John Mark on the first missionary journey. And he was a helper with Paul and Barnabas. But when they got to Perga, either he got disappointed or for some reason he left the missionary group and went back home and he quit. And when Barnabas and Paul got together and wanted to have another missionary journey, Barnabas wanted to carry John Mark with him.

Paul said, no, he quit on me. Once you quit on me, you're done. And so the two of them had such a clash over John Mark that they both separated and started different missionary journey. But it was later on that Paul wrote about John Mark and how he had become a very gift to him. And so he's a man who's given a second chance.

He quit the first time, but he came back. He had a comeback. And so often you and I have comebacks where we've done some things that we wish we had not done. And God gives us another chance. And so John Mark had a second chance.

And he writes this Gospel. And the first four Gospels are written about the life of Christ. And so there's Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. And Mark is the shortest of the Gospels, probably the first one written. But Matthew was written because it connects the Old Testament with the New Testament.

But Mark begins with the public ministry of Christ, whereas Luke and Matthew began with the birth of Christ. But he writes about what happened in a house church in a place in Capernaum. And it would send shockwaves throughout the whole Jewish religion. And it would even have impact as it came here. Now, in 1965, Susan and I were parked right out here on Broad street and we were headed back to Auburn.

And they stopped the traffic right there in front of the Presbyterian Church. Well, it used to be a Presbyterian church. I don't know what they call them now. But anyway, it was a Presbyterian church there. And I watched and we watched, and we had no idea what was happening.

These marchers came out from a side street and they marched towards the bridge. And a few minutes later, we watched from our viewpoint back here. All of a sudden, they came running back. We had no idea what was going on. We just thought about, hey, I need to get back to school.

And an impact was happening that would change the United States and would have an impact that would go all the way to Washington, and it would bring momentum to the civil rights movement. And so it happened here in Selma, Alabama. Now, here's an impact I want to read about today that had shock waves throughout the whole Jewish nation, but it had an impact on mine and your life so that it affects us even now and even in this day. Mark, chapter two. If you have your Bibles, and in honor of God's word, would you stand as I read for us just one verse?

One verse, but then we'll come back and look at it later. Verse 5. When Jesus saw their faith, and he's talking about the faith of four stretcher bearers who are bringing a man to the feet of Jesus. And whatever it takes, get to the feet of Jesus. If it means going through the roof, bring your friend to Jesus.

And you and I have been left with a mission to do that. So this man is in front of Jesus and he's on his pallet. The stretcher bearers bore when Jesus saw their faith. And by the way, faith is something you see. I mean, you can talk about it, but actions speak louder than words.

Jesus saw their faith. He said unto the sick of the palsy, son or child. And Matthew says he looked at him as he was laying there and he said, be of good cheer. And her eyes met as Gina was talking about this morning. Their eyes may have met and he gives them a word of encouragement.

Son, your sins are forgiven.

Awesome words.

Your sins are forgiven.

It's going to send shockwaves throughout the group that's watching there.

May God bless the reading of his word. And you may be seated.

Now, Cheyenne. And by the way, I want to say thank you, Claire. Claire played this morning. Let's give her a hand. Would you do that?

Thank you. Claire did a good job.

I forgot where I was. Thank you, Claire. Now I got to go from there now. Cheyenne did such a good job, it reminded me that on Friday night I took my wife out on a date, a dinner date. Or from Selma, you say supper date.

Amen. It went out on a supper date. And we went to that five star French restaurant called Cracker Barrel. Amen. And Cheyenne sang so well.

That made me remember Cracker Barrel. That just sounded so good. So we went there and we both like pancakes. And so we just enjoyed the pancakes of mama's Pancake breakfast. So if you've ever been to Cracker Barrel, get Mama's pancake Breakfast.

And so we're kind of frugal, so we share that. She gets one and I get two pancakes. And if you go in front of Cracker Barrel, there are all these rocking chairs that are there in front of Cracker Barrel. And so there was a grandpa was rocking in these crocking barrels and rocking chairs and there was this squeak, squeak, squeak. So he went and complained to the manager and he came out and manager took WD40 and sprayed it all over that rocking chair.

So Graham Carl got back in the barrel, back in the barrel, back in the rocking chair, and he started rocking and it still went squeak, squeak, squeak. And the problem was it was not in the chair, but it was in grandpa that had this squeak, squeak, squeak.

Because we all have a squeak. We have a sinful squeak in our lives. And from the moment in the garden of Eden when Adam and Eve ate of that fruit, something broke inside of us. Something broke that would be passed down to generations. And it would be that sin barrier, that sin squeak in our lot.

And you can put WD40 on it or whatever you want to do or try to cover it even with good works, but it still goes squeak, squeak, squeak. And if you look in the garden in chapter three in Genesis, there is the end of that is God had to do something about the entrance of man coming before him. Because you cannot come before God in a sinful attitude. God guards his direction as to how you and I approach him. And so God killed an animal in the garden.

And for the first time, there was a scream in the garden. And he covered Adam and Eve with a covering from this animal sacrifice. And from then on, mankind could not just approach God any way we chose to approach God. We had to come to God by way of a sacrifice. And Cain and Abel, Abel just brought something, but Cain brought the best that he had.

And God accepted his sacrifice. In Genesis, chapter 22, we're told that God told Abraham, Abraham, what I want you to do is to sacrifice your son Isaac, your only son Isaac. And he wanted him to go to a place called Mount Moriah. And there he is to sacrifice his son. Now, there are times in mine, in Your life.

Genesis 22 · chapter mention

We want to sacrifice our children. Amen. We thought about it. Maybe you didn't do it, but you thought about it. Or at least give them to a random neighbor for a while, you know, just take over.

But as they were marching to Mount Moriah, Abraham was asked by Isaac, where's the sacrifice? Where's the sacrifice?

And Abraham said, the Lord will provide.

And so as he drew to that place, and Susan and I have been to, There's a mosque where the temple used to be in Jerusalem. And in that mosque is there the big statue of Abraham. And he's raising a knife and he has his son on the altar. But they change it. Islam changes it.

And it's not Isaac he is about to. They call Ishmael, that's who he used to say, because they want to put it there for the. Their fate.

But the scripture says it was Isaac. And as he was raising his hand, as he was raising his hand, God called out to an angel and said, don't raise your hand. Don't kill your son. And there was a ram in the thicket, and they brought the ram for the sacrifice.

And Abraham called the place Jehovah Jireh. That is, God will provide. God will provide.

And on another hill, thousands of years later, God provided the sacrifice. Let me try to understand that. Several years ago, there was this wedding in Baldwin county, and a guy named Sam was married, was there at the wedding. And that's different for Sam because Sam doesn't frequent weddings. But he was there, and he was in a white shirt and tie and looked like he was about to choke to death.

The shirt was just about three sizes too small, and the coat didn't quite fit him. It did three years earlier, but he had kind of grown a little bit over the years that had been there.

So the preacher asked him, said, good to see you, Sam. I mean, glad you're here. And he said, well, I wanted to be somewhere else, but I'm here. And he said, well, why are you here? He said, well, my wife's cousin is getting married.

And my wife said, you're going to that wedding and you're going to wear a coat and tie. And it was struggle for Sam because he had a dove chute scheduled for that afternoon.

So he asked him, the preacher asked him, why are you here? And he said, you have to choose the hill you die on.

Now, if you're a husband, you understand that. Amen. Can I hear an amen out of that somewhere?

You choose to heal your dying. Now, he could have gone to that dove chute and missed his cousin in law's wedding. But he might have gotten past it, but his wife would never get past it. Because women never forget. Amen.

They just never forget. And 40 years later she would still remember that you went on a dove chute. And not to my cousin in law's, my cousin's wedding. But I like the phrase here you choose the hill you die on. Now all of that is set up this moment in chapter two of Mark.

Jesus is choosing to heal. He's going to die on and he knows it. And when he brings up forgiveness of sin and that he can forgive forgiveness of sin, it's going to send shockwaves throughout the religious system of that day. But it's going to be grace to me and you. Because we cannot earn our salvation.

We only come by way of forgiveness. Now if you have your Bibles, look at chapter two, verse one. There were four cities that prominent in Jesus life. One of them is Bethlehem, and that's where he was born. Another is Nazareth and that's where he grew up.

And when he went back to his hometown, they rejected him as Messiah.

Then there's Capernaum. And Capernaum was a fishing village on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee. A beautiful place. And it was there that he had his greatest ministry. And it became the kind of capital of his ministry.

And then there's Jerusalem. And Jerusalem is where he would die. But that's not the end of the story. If that was the end of the story, then payment for our sins would never be enough. He was resurrected because the payment for our sin was enough to pay for those sins.

Therefore he paid the price and was resurrected. But here he is in a house. And if you have your Bibles, look at verse one of chapter two. And again he entered into Capernaum after some days. And it was reported that he was in the house.

My prayer is that Jesus will always be in this house.

Amen. You have a past history of Jesus being in this house.

May your future be always and forever. Jesus is in the house.

So Jesus was there in the house. It could have been his house. It may have even bought a house. And as he's in that house, and Mark tells us in verse two and straightway, and that's one of Mark's favorite words, straightway. It's a moving kind of action powered kind of way of moving through the life of Jesus.

And he uses that word quite a bit. And straightway many were gathered together. There's a whole place that's Gathered and they're there from the front row back. Amen. You get that?

I mean, they're from the front row back. You know, Jesus in the house when they gather on the front row back. Okay, There are no vacant places like over here and over here and over here. So it's a house full of folks. And there so much so that there was.

You just couldn't get in that place. It was just a full house. It said they're not so much as about the door. And this is what he did on that occasion. He preached the kingdom of God.

Now the kingdom of God is a rule of God in the hearts and minds of his people. That is when you invite Christ into your life, then you become part of the kingdom of God. And kingdoms come and kingdoms go, but the kingdom of God will last forever. And so he preached to him about a new kingdom coming into existence. And the new kingdom was based on his ability to forgive us of our sin.

So he preached unto him the kingdom of God, verse 3. And there came unto him bringing one sick of the palsy. He was a paralyzed man. And these four guys holding that sheet, I'm sure as they came to, to that house, they said, you know, why don't we go get our friend and bring him to hear Jesus. If we could just get him to the feet of Jesus, something would change.

Something would change. If we could get our neighbors, we get our family, get our in laws, if we get those we work with, if we could just get them to the feet of Jesus.

Well, it's going to be a lot of trouble carrying this pallet. How are we going to get this pallet in and out? It'll cost you something to bring somebody to Jesus.

So they carried their friend in on the pallet, but they ran into an obstacle. But let me tell you, faith always pushes past obstacles. I've heard somebody say that we came to church, couldn't find a parking place, but so we went home. That's not faith. We came to church, found a way to get into church, parked it somewhere, but.

But we were going to get in that church. That's what faith is. Faith is not those listening to the obstacles. Faith is pushing past the obstacle. So they took him to the roof.

And when they could not, verse four. And when they could not come near unto him for the crowd, and sometimes it's a crowd around Jesus that pushes people away. They uncovered the roof, they deroofed the roof. That's what the word is there. And when Sally came to Fairhope, Hurricane Sally came fairhope we had our roof de roofed and we woke up the next day to find these trees on top of our roof and holes in our roof.

So we got a fortified roof, but it cost us $5 million. The insurance company, I don't know how it was here when the tornado came through, but when a hurricane comes through, there are all these people around. They promise to deep roof to put your roof back. And if you sign this paper and put down $500, then they will reroof your roof. But they leave and never heard from ever again.

Okay, so they deroof the roof and they put some things, oh wow, this is a good principle. Some things you just have to take to a higher level.

And that's what they did. They found a way to get their friend to Jesus. They put him in front of this paralyzed man. We're never told what paralyzed him, but he was paralyzed. And that's a good picture of sin.

It paralyzes our inside being. It paralyzes us from the inside out. And that's what sin does. The worst kind of sin it finds itself is, is that of guilt. And guilt is one of those things that just pushes down to the bottom parts of our being and it sits there.

And Freud talks about being repressed, those kind of things. We push down and repress those kind of things, but they don't go away. They're still there. And they come out in different ways. Sometimes they come out in greed, sometimes they come out in envy.

But greed is either we pay too much or we don't want to give enough. We hold back when we should be given places, and yet we hold back because we're scared. We use this kind of selfish kind of attitude. Or maybe it's envy. Envy has a way of crawling, of coming out of our being pushed out by guilt.

And envy says, I want to have what he has or she has and what I have. What she has or he has is more important than what I have. And envy does that. And it was Joseph's brothers who threw him in the pit because of envy. Wasn't so much he had the coat.

Although they wish that it wasn't so much he had the dreams. But it was a look in their father's eyes as they looked at Joseph that they didn't have that look because he was a favored son. And so they threw him in that pit. And they dealt with the guilt of that for the rest of time. Even at the end of Genesis, they're still struggling with the guilt of having put their brother in the pit.

And Sold him. Sometimes it comes out in anger. That's the way guilt, sometimes it comes out in anger. We have a kind of quick trigger and it holds us in those deep kind of thoughts and self centered thoughts. And that anger kind of holds us and it gives us this time for Satan to come in and have a foothold into our lives.

That's what Ephesians said.

But how do you get rid of guilt? There's only one direction and that's through Jesus. Your sins are forgiven you. And that was a surprise because he's a man who has paralysis. And you would think his immediate problem was his paralysis.

But Jesus doesn't deal with the symptoms, he deals with the cause. So he looks at the man and said, deep down inside of you is this guilt. And whatever it happened and however it got there, we're not told how it came and how it got there. Sometimes it comes because of prom night, sometimes it calls because of words that were spoken in relationship, sometimes it comes because a lot of ways. But somehow that that guilt is stuck deep inside whatever it was, is man.

And it ends up in some kind of paralysis in our life. So he spoke to the guilt, that's the immediate cause, not the symptom. The symptom was the paralysis. So he spoke to that guilt. And when he dealt with the sin, he also said, stand up and walk.

And he does that in order because that's the way he does things. And the word there is to get up and walk is the word anastasis, which means resurrection power. He put some resurrection power in his life after he dealt with the guilt. And the restoration came later on. There's a second thing.

But immediately those around him began to say, he can't do this, only God can do this. And they were right. Only they left at that step that should have been so obvious. If you're saying that only God can do this, then he must be the Son of the Father.

But they took it angrily and they charged him with blasphemy. And the sin that he will, that will be charged against him when he gets to Jerusalem is that he blasphemes, but only he can forgive sin. All those years of sacrifices, all those years of sacrifices there were done away with, with the word of Jesus. God is doing a great thing and we are the beneficiaries of where Jesus is going as he goes to the cross. And they were shouting and saying Amen.

And it was a great thing because the man was restored. But the deepest blessing was not that his paralysis was done away with the deepest blessing was that his sins were forgiven.

Now, several years ago, I was in Washington, and we had been on the Mall. Our church at Elkdale had chartered a bus. It was a man kind of thing. They have in a manned program up there, the March of Men or something like that. I forgot name of it.

But as we were there in the Mall, we had heard some guys speak. And it was a great town. But there were three of us in the group that had been to Vietnam. And so we got together and said, you know, in between speeches here, let's just go to the Mall. Go to the wall.

And the wall there has got all these thousands of names. I think 850,000 names. Name. It's a place that doesn't say a word, but it shouts. And especially does that mean people who have been in Vietnam.

And we came back and they didn't.

And as you walk the wall, you start at the top and you go down and you come up. And it's a sacred place to a lot of us.

And as we were there that day, there was a man on his knees. And as he was on his knees, he had a piece of paper. And he was tracing that piece of paper. Somebody's name.

And so we just kind of gathered around him. Cause he was just kind of sobbing. I said, what? Why do you do this? And he said just a couple of words.

He took my bullet.

Don't know the story behind it. Don't know how it ended up. Don't know how it got there. He took my bullet.

Now, if you know Christ today, then you know the hope that only Christ brings. And when he hung on the cross, he took Jerry Henry's bullet.

And he said, it is finished. Or he cried with a loud voice. It is finished. And the idea there is paid in full. Paid in full.

It's mine, but I had to receive it.

It's yours, but you've got to receive it. You can't work your way through that, but you can receive what he offers. And know that when you invite Christ into your life and invite Christ into your heart, then we receive what was paid in full for you and I. Now, if you have your hymnal, would you do. I want you to turn to our invitation hymn.

I think it's 2. 48. Is that what it is? 248. 249.

249. It's. A lady was sitting in the choir in Baltimore, Maryland. And as she heard the preacher preach, these words came to her. Jesus paid it all.

I hear the Savior say my strength Indeed is small child of weakness. Watch and pray finding him thine all in all Jesus paid it all all to him all sin has left its crimson stain but what washed it white as snow? And I hope you know the one who took your bullet. Would you bow your heads as we have our invitation time.

Dear Lord, I thank you for a hill called Calvary and how you chose to die on that hill because of me, because of us.

May this church continue to be a place where Jesus paid it all to know us ours and the guilt is paid for, but we have to receive it. Maybe you're here today and you need to receive it. Maybe you're here today and you need you've already received it, but it's really not energizing your life and not living in your life the way you ought to. Then today would be a good day to just bow your heads where you are and Jesus is in this house.

And just thank him again for paying the price, dying on the hill and taking your bullet. Dear Father, I thank you for our Savior who looked at me and said, you, sins are forgiven.

Thank you, Father. In Jesus name I pray.