Heroes Week 7

Welcome to the North Iron Church Podcast.

Our mission is to take the gospel from the upper peninsula to the ends of the earth.

We pray this message will inspire and encourage you in your faith journey.

Enjoy our Hero series where we dive deep into the lives of heroes in the Bible.

Good morning, everyone.

Happy Fourth of July.

So glad that you're with us this morning.

Would you greet everyone that's watching us online?

We have campuses throughout the UP.

We have people across the United States that are with us.

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We consider you a part of North Iron, and we're so glad that you're a part of this movement that God has started in the North and its fingers are moving throughout, not just the North, but across the world.

We're active in many, many places.

God's doing some powerful, powerful things when people come together.

That's how the world changes.

And we're glad that you're here and a part of that movement this morning.

We're going to dive right into our series this morning.

We've been looking at what we considered the heroes of faith that we find in Hebrews chapter 11.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

There are 16, 17 heroes that are mentioned there, people of faith that we that are really all connected because of faith.

But the one thing that God finds pleasing amongst all of them is this thing called faith.

We've been talking about what that looks like and the examples of how they activated faith in their lives that needs to be true for you also.

So we're going to be in Hebrews.

If you need uh a Bible, raise your hand.

We have a great version for you.

And you're going to find Hebrews in the latter part of your Bible in what we call the New Testament.

And you're going to find it uh after 1st and 2 Timothy.

But if you hit 1, 2nd Peter, you've probably gone too far.

It's not a very, very big book, but the book of Hebrews is very, very important to us.

Let me just start off.

We're going to be talking about Rahab, and we'll be in Joshua chapter 2 in just a moment.

Joshua 2 · chapter mention

You're going to find Joshua at the beginning of your Bible, the the end in the beginning.

Uh in chapter 2, uh, right after the book of Deuteronomy, you'll find Joshua.

In Hebrews chapter 11, verse 31, it says this about a very unlikely person of faith.

Hebrews 11:31

And if you've ever wondered about your faith, I hope this morning that you really connect with this person called Rahab.

She is a prostitute that we find in the city of Jericho.

And it's interesting the way that it's presented here.

And uh we're just gonna kind of walk through her story because it's very, very powerful for you.

It's powerful for me.

By faith, the prostitute Rahab did not perish with those who did not believe when she had received the spies with peace.

We'll dive into that in just a moment.

When I look at Rahab's story, and I imagine my own life.

Well, let me let me start this way.

Jen and I watched a documentary uh a couple, maybe it was a year ago or so, or two years ago, uh, that we've, I don't even know where, we streamed it somewhere, probably Netflix.

And so we were bored and we watched this uh documentary about a rock band in the United States called Journey.

Most of you old timers know who I'm talking about.

Journey is a uh a band of the late 70s, most of the 80s, iconic.

They were a powerhouse in the the rock scene.

They had this incredible lead singer, his name was Steve Perry.

And Steve Perry had this iconic, one-in-a-lifetime kind of voice that separates all the other bands of that that time.

Even today, they still, I mean, they're they're rocking out, they're probably, I don't know, they're in their 70s or 80s, and and maybe not really rocking out, but they're at least playing and singing.

But this this documentary was about not really so much journey the band, but a a young man named Arnell uh Pinda, who was a Filipino uh young man who really grew up in some kind of horrific situations.

When he was 13, his mom died.

She kind of held everything together.

Uh, after his mom died, his dad didn't do real well, kind of spiraled out of his life.

At 13, he left home because it was so damaging, and he lived on the streets.

He would collect bottles and cans and steel to try to uh recycle it, buy some food to kind of stay alive.

Eventually, because of his talent of singing, he would sing on the streets and people would give him money.

He had this incredible voice, and he eventually the karaoke scene, and then he ends up kind of in this band, and he's he's singing at pizza parlors and restaurants and bars and nightclubs all over the Philippines.

And in 2007, because of the internet, people visiting these restaurants or whatever, they're filming uh our um uh Arlene, um not Arlene, Arnell, uh sorry, Arlen up in Antonagan.

They're laughing right now because I I I I mess up Arlen and Kayleen.

I always call Arlene Arlene, which he hates.

I don't do it on purpose, it's just maybe it's the Lord.

I'm not sure.

But our Arnell uh eventually gets taped, and the band Journey gets a hold of this tape, and this young kid who barely speaks English sounds exactly like the lead singer of Journey.

Now, at this time the band wasn't touring because Steve Perry was having medical issues, and so they weren't they weren't out there touring in these arenas, and so they come in and they interview this young man who barely speaks English, but because of his incredible voice, and even fans say when they hear the both of them, they can't tell the difference.

No matter how iconic Steve's voice is, man, this young man matches it.

And if you don't see him physically, you would never know that it's not Steve Perry.

Will they hire him?

And I think maybe even today, uh, maybe not, but even for a while, this young homeless man toured as a lead singer of the band called Journey.

And when you you hear those kind of stories and you look at that kind of situation, you wonder how what was the mental process for him, like that that he would even ever imagine that he would be homeless one day and the next day he's touring with the largest rock band in the world?

It's amazing.

That's kind of how I feel when I look at Hebrews chapter 11.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

When it comes to a person like Rahab, like how in the world does she end up in chapter 11 as one of the pinnacles of faith, everyone?

Pinnacles of faith.

So that's kind of the question.

Why does Rahab join the group of faith heroes in Hebrews 11?

Because you gotta ask the question, maybe you guys are struggling, and this is why I think this is important.

Matter of fact, one of the biblical scholars of Hebrews 11 uh uh says that she's kind of the apex of all of these characters, like it's built up, it all kind of stems around Rahab, and the writers of Hebrew puts her as having a faith that is most pleasing to God.

And maybe you're struggling with that idea.

Man, Pastor Mark, I don't know enough about the Bible to even have faith.

I mean, I don't even I don't talk at at branches groups because I don't want people to know how ignorant I am about faith or God's word, and can I even have faith without even understanding God's word?

Or maybe do I even have enough faith?

Pastor Mark, you don't even know the things I think about, or the doubts that I have, or the dark thoughts that come through my mind.

There's just no way I could be that kind of person of faith.

Well, I think Rahab's story answers those questions for you, and this is why it's it's so important that you kind of walk through and understand the underlying foundation of what's going on in the story.

So we got to go all the way to her story in Joshua chapter two.

You'll find it again after the book of Deuteronomy.

It's the first couple books in.

And you need to know kind of the context of what's going on.

Uh, most of you guys are familiar with Moses that we find in Exodus, comes in, frees the people from the Egyptian oppression.

They come across the wilderness, they're uh eventually moving towards the promised land.

That's important for you to know.

Moses dies and is second in command, ushers the people of Israel, the Hebrew people, into the promised land, the land that God is giving them where they reside even today.

His name, their leader is Joshua.

He's the general.

Now they're moving into a season of conquest, and so when they cross the Jordan River, you find that in the first part of Joshua, we find that they push up against this incredible city called Jericho.

And it's a very famous story of eventually God tears down the walls of Jericho, and it's one of the first cities that they, or the first city that they are in conquest for the promised land.

But before all that happens, before God comes in and gives Joshua to the plan to destroy this city, this pagan city, we find that Joshua decides to send in a couple spies to kind of check things out to do some recon.

So we find that in chapter two that these spies go into Jericho and they eventually kind of land at a brothel.

Now, they're not going to the brothel to have a good time.

They're going there because during this time it was really kind of a hostel.

It was a small hotel.

And so that this is where foreigners would stay when they came into a town.

There wasn't a lot of holiday in expresses, if you understand what I mean.

And so they they went in, they they got a couple rooms.

It was actually Rahab's house.

And people saw them go into her house.

They knew they were foreigners, even though they're trying to be spies.

And so they went to the king and they said, Hey, we got a couple Jewish boys who are checking us out.

I need you to send the soldiers to this prostitute's house to figure out what they're up to, arrest them.

And so the soldiers show up and we find this interaction with Rahab.

But the woman had taken, speaking of Rahab, the woman had taken the two men and hid them.

And she said to the king's soldiers, True, the men came to me, but I did not know where they were from.

And when the gate was about to close at dark, the men went out.

You need to understand that they're upstairs, hidden.

And she's lying to the soldiers.

The men went out, and I do not know where they went, but if you if you hurry up, I'm pretty sure you'll be able to catch them on the road leaving town.

We find it goes on.

But she had brought them to the roof and hid them with the stalks of flax that she had laid in order on the roof.

And before, prior to the soldiers coming in, before the soldiers came, she had this conversation with these men from Israel.

Interesting.

Before the men laid down, she came up to them on the roof and said to the men, I know, like God's doing something here.

Like there's a there's a shift in tone.

I know that the Lord has given you the land.

Now you understand that she's a she's she's a she's a pagan, she's a Canaanite, which is an enemy to the people of God, the barrier that's stopping them from receiving the promised land, and she's a prostitute, she doesn't know the things of God, but something spiritual is going on here, a conviction, maybe a condemnation, maybe both.

I know that the Lord has given you the land and that the fear of you has fallen upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land melt away before you.

For we have heard how the Lord dried up the Red Sea before you, and and and and as you came out of Egypt, and as soon as we heard it, our hearts melted.

There was a check in their spirit that something's up, and there was no spirit left in any of the men because of you, for the Lord your God, he is God in the heavens, above the earth, and beneath.

Now then, please swear to me by the Lord that as I have dealt kindly with you, you also will deal kindly with my father's house.

Now that word kindly is a Hebrew word that is really directed to or defined as this loyal covenant.

So in her crude way of not understanding God in any way other than his works that have been rumored to her, she is asking for a covenant.

Like you have a covenant with God, I also want a loving, loyal covenant with God.

And so the men instruct her, we will do so.

And so when we attack the city, these two men tell Rahab, I want you to take a scarlet, scarlet piece of rope, a scarlet cord, and I want you to hang it outside of your window, and whoever is inside of your house will live as we take the city.

But if they're not outside of the, if they're outside of the house and not inside the house, under the red cord or under the protection of God, they will surely die.

Now you gotta ask the question that I think a lot of people ask here because uh again, Hebrews 11 is putting uh Rahab on a high pinnacle of of faith.

Was Rahab's lie sinful?

That's that's a great question.

And before we dive deep into the the core of the faith of Rahab, I want to at least touch this because I think it's important, especially in in our day.

Because there are people who would say, absolutely, she she lied.

God's word is clear that we're not uh to bear false witness.

In I think it's the ninth commandment that we find in the in the Ten Commandments not to bear false witness against our neighbors.

Obviously, she's doing that.

There's multiple places where where we're not supposed to lie, and yet scholars will say, well, she was just so new in her face that this is kind of like something that God would overlook in one way or another.

It's kind of like a little white lie.

Her intentions were good, and some say, well, no, it's sin, and she would have just trusted God, and yet she didn't have the the knowledge of God.

And listen, those are all those are all great perspectives, but I I have a different perspective, and I think I can back it up biblically, and that perspective is this that while it is true that we are commanded not to lie throughout the Bible, in extreme situations, we don't owe the evildoer.

We don't we don't we don't need to put towards the working of evil men and evil women.

I'm not going to help someone do evil.

I'm not going to enable someone who is outright trying to do evil in some way, trying to harm someone physically, socially, mentally.

Like there is something about the calling of God.

Men, let me just speak to you and the strength that God has given you.

He's given it to you for a reason and a purpose.

Men of the West, men of righteousness need to be men of morality, men of the gospel, men of justice.

I think I'm just fired up because it's the 4th of July.

Well, Pastor Mark, isn't everyone evil?

Yeah.

Yes.

Not yeah, yes.

Let me make that a definite.

But there's something about the flaunting of evil.

Do you understand what I mean?

When people flaunt their evil, that's a different, that's full of pride, that's full of arrogance, not ignorance, but arrogance.

And when people flaunt their their their evil at in parades, or flaunt their evil on bumper stickers and t-shirts, or flaunt their evil in our government, or flaunt their evil in our schools, or flaunt our flaunt their evil in the holy places of God, I am not tolerant of it.

And tolerance is not a Christian value.

Well, Pastor Mark, isn't Christianity a passive religion?

No, it is not.

And my question is: do you allow, as a bystander, evil, outward flaunting of evil to reign in your house or your business or your government or upon your streets?

There is a far greater sin of not doing.

And when men of righteousness do nothing, evil men roam the streets.

There's a reason why you're given strength.

Men, if you're not strong, you're in trouble.

Men, if you're not strong, your wives are in trouble.

Your children are in trouble.

Strength is given as a calling and a purpose, as a protector, God has placed you on your streets to bring justice and to destroy and eliminate evil.

Tolerance is not a Christian value.

So here's my biblical evidence that the Hebrew midwives lied to Pharaoh when Pharaoh wanted to come in and kill all the babies.

And they were commended for it by God.

Joshua, David's friend, lies to his father, King Saul, to protect the innocence of David.

Again, commended for it by God.

And there's just something you need to understand.

Jennifer showed me a video this weekend that kind of got me a little bit fired up.

It's probably the wrong weekend to show me, but um she's like, man, this there it was a I believe, and I might get this wrong, you can probably look it up, but it was a Louisiana pastor who had I don't know what he was doing, I wasn't really paying attention to what he was doing, but he was outside.

Maybe he was in front of the church, maybe he was washing his car at his home.

But there was a bystander, a man across the street who was yelling at this pastor, and and he proceeded to threaten this pastor's wife and children, saying, Listen, I'm going.

To come in and I'm going to rape your wife, and then I'm going to rape your children.

And then he took it farther and he says, Pastor, I'm watching you.

And when you're gone and out of town, I'm going to come in and murder your wife.

And I'm going to come in and murder your children.

And this Louisiana pastor walked across the road very calmly and literally beat the hell, the actual hell, out of this man.

Now, don't mess with a pastor's street.

I tell Jen all the time there would be less problems in this world if men of righteousness would have more fist fights.

Write that down in your Bible.

Alright, I gotta move on.

Am I clear?

Happy Fourth of July.

Alright, let's dive into Rahab.

Because something significant is happening here with the there's there's four things that are just really core and important foundationally as people of the gospel to understand for you and your family.

And the first one is the simplicity of Rahab's faith.

This is a girl, again, who's a prostitute, a Canaanite pagan enemy of God.

She has little to no knowledge of God.

We even find this in the way that she's talking.

I've heard about how God brought you through the Red Sea, and when we heard that fear of your God fell on us, our our hearts, our hearts melted.

What she's saying here is really the gospel kind of laid out, which is really this that I recognize that God is real, that judgment is coming, that I'm that I'm a sinner, I'm broken, there's no hope for me, but God, you're real, and judgment is coming, and I deserve it, and there's nothing I can do to save myself, and I appeal to your forgiveness and your love and your mercy to do something in my life.

That's the core of the gospel.

That's the posture you should have as a follower of Jesus.

This is the kind of talk that I that I have, the kind of prayers where I don't have it together, that I'm misstepping in some way, or I don't have the abilities or talents to do the things of God that He's calling me to do.

Lord, I'm a parent and my kids are a mess.

Lord, I I've lost my job and I don't know if I have a future.

Lord, the enemies are at my gate and I can't do a thing about it.

And you're gonna have to come in.

Because if you don't do something, it's gonna get ugly.

I believe you're real.

Judgment is here, and I need your mercy.

This is exactly what the the thief on the cross says to Jesus.

He recognizes right off the bat listen, you're a man of righteousness.

You're uh you you are righteousness, I am not.

And can you do something so that can move into your kingdom once I die?

It is the core of the gospel.

This is the posture that you need to have in your life.

Lord, I don't have it together.

I'm not moral enough, I'm not righteous enough, I'm not kind enough, I'm not nice enough, I need your spirit to infuse itself within me.

It's my only hope.

And when you have that kind of faith, the simplicity of it, it reminds me uh uh of the story of Charles Spurgeon, who was a 18th-century uh Billy Graham.

He was uh probably one of the greatest preachers of all times.

And he always told this story and wrote about it, how he came into saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

He was a young man and he was hopeless.

He says I was miserable, I wasn't serving the Lord.

And one Sunday morning during the snowstorm, I got up and I just had to find a church somewhere.

And there was so much snow that was that was falling in London.

He says, as I walked the streets, knowing there was a church over here, I couldn't get over the snow banks, and so I would go this way, and the snow seemed to be leading me through the streets, and I finally found myself at a backwards Methodist church.

And I walked in those doors.

There were 12 people in the room, and there was so much snow the pastor couldn't even get there.

And so when I sat down and they began to sing, and then eventually one of the church leaders got up, and he was a frumpy-looking old man who seems to be simple.

And he says, I guess I gotta get up and I gotta preach God's word because the pastor's not here.

I'm a simple man, but I'm gonna read a simple verse.

And Charles Spurgeon said he could be barely even read the verse, but he read Isaiah 45, 22.

It says, Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth.

And the makeshift preacher said, You don't have to, you don't have to be too smart to look.

You don't have to be that smart, you don't have to go to college just to look.

Even a baby could look, but you also need to look and live.

Look unto Jesus, look unto God, stop looking to yourself, you're miserable.

And then Charles Spurgeon said, the old man looked him right in the eye and said, Young man, you're miserable.

And Charles says, I'm not, I wasn't used to being called out.

He said, I've never been in a church like this.

And he looked at Charles and said, You're miserable in life, and you're gonna be miserable in death unless you look to God and live.

Charles said something snapped inside of him.

He said, the conviction and the condemnation.

I knew I was unworthy, but I also knew that God was real, and all I had to do was look and believe my whole life.

Simply look to God for you.

Understand that you are never going to be worthy.

But that he has the power.

He has the power to change your life.

It's that simple.

Not just that, it was not just a simplistic faith, but a sufficient faith.

You know, again, she was a Canaanite, she was a Gentile, she was a prostitute, and as little faith that she had to simply take a red piece of string and hang it out her window or her doorway and and to and to sit inside.

That's the kind of faith.

Matter of fact, Charles Spurgeon says this he had she had nothing to do but hang the scarlet cord and rest within the house.

And you can imagine she probably had a few doubts in her life.

Am I doing the right thing?

Is God really real?

But she was obedient.

She believed.

And for that reason, her faith was pleasing to God, even the small faith that she had.

It also reminds me of another Gentile woman in Mark chapter 7, Matthew chapter 15.

Mark 7 · chapter mention Matthew 15 · chapter mention

Jesus is preaching it, and a a woman comes to him whose daughter is demon-possessed, and she she knows that Jesus is different, that he has the power to be able to heal her situation.

And so she comes up and pleads with Jesus that we just please deliver my daughter.

Please heal my daughter.

I know you had the power to do that.

And Jesus looks at her and says something that that is politically one of the most politically incorrect things to say.

He says to this woman, ma'am, it is not right to take a child's bread and throw it to the dogs.

I'm sure the disciples were.

In Jewish society, dogs are unclean animals.

They're the lowest of the lowest.

And yet, this wasn't a racial slur.

Jesus was talking about the condition of her heart.

She doesn't balk at this.

She agrees, yes, I am unworthy.

And her response is so beautiful to Jesus.

She says, Yes, Lord, but even the little dogs get to eat what falls from the master's table.

Jesus, you are so powerful.

Your presence and who you are, and your glory and honor and justice is so strong.

All I need is the crumbs that fall from your table of presence, Father, to heal my daughter.

And Jesus does.

And then he makes one of these incredible statements where he says, I've never, from this Gentile woman, I've never seen this kind of faith in all of Israel.

You need to understand, it's not the strength of your faith.

Very important.

It's not the strength of your faith that saves you.

It's the strength of the one whom your faith is placed that saves you.

A couple weeks ago, Pastor Noah preached on Noah.

I didn't think about that.

Until I just said it.

They all had doubts.

And yet, even in the doubts, maybe their faith was even wavering.

Maybe Noah, after all those years, like, I just can't imagine this happening, but I'm gonna kind of walk through this.

At least he was inside the ark with all of his doubts.

Maybe he only 60%, maybe you only 30% believe this.

But still get in the ark, everyone.

In or out is still a decision.

Get yourself in the house with a scarlet cord.

Get your family inside the ark.

It's important for you.

Faith is less about having undaunted, unshakable confidence and more about where you choose to put your hope.

Get your butt in the seat.

Faith is like getting on a plane.

I've been on a lot of planes as a missionary.

It was it was my job, and I didn't always love it.

I knew there was um a lot of problems with Russian.

Uh ironically, Russian airplanes are called AeroFloat.

That's the company.

It's not true.

Um they don't float.

Matter of fact, they go and buy up all the decommissioned planes that are having trouble in America and Europe, and they they you know, they put a little WD-40 on them and fly them.

And at one time I was in a plane, uh Russian aerofloat, and I sat down and I uh this one actually had seat belts, not all of them have seat belts, and I reached forward and my whole row of seats fell on the ground, and people had to come and pull me, pull, pull my seat out like that.

Well, anyway, I was it's always uh a test to go on, and I had to fly out to Siberia, and I was coming back, and about two hours in, there's about an eight-hour flight to Moscow, and then uh as I was coming back, the uh the pilot gets on the microphone and says, uh, ladies and gentlemen, we're having some problems with our engine.

No one likes to hear that, and uh, we're gonna have to make an emergency landing.

And I was like, Oh Lord, here we go.

This is gonna be fun.

And the babushka next to me, when she heard that, she she grabbed my hand and started praying, like praying, praying, and kissing her cross.

Like she thought this plane was going down, and I thought maybe I should start praying with her a little bit.

And eventually the pilot gets on on, he's like, one of my our engines are are failing, and we gotta find an airport somewhere.

We're searching, and so a few minutes later we're we're descending.

Uh, he radio radios again, he says, We've found an abandoned airport and we're gonna lie, we're gonna land.

And he landed us in the middle of the Siberian uh forest, just vast, vast tracts of land.

And and and so we we we they put a ladder uh uh on the side of the the airplane and we uh we climb down this this ladder and we're sitting in the the tarmac, this old broken tarmat, and the pilots come out and they open up the hatch and they get their tools out and they start working on the engine.

And I'm like, oh Jesus.

And so it was about we were probably there for about an hour.

I decided to walk around.

It was an old abandoned Soviet airfield, had a uh a big airport, walked inside.

It's like everyone just got up and left.

There's magazines, there's food from the 1960s, the clocks, you know, it it it's pretty wild.

And we eventually we got back on the airplanes.

The the pilot says, We think we fixed it, and we took off again, and then we landed two more times to fix the um engine, and then a third time to get gas so we can get home.

I say all of that because eventually I got home.

You have you have to get on the plane.

At some point, I just had to trust the pilots and the airport, though I'm I'm not a mad mechanical engineer.

I don't really know anything about flight other than I wanted to be safe.

Listen, you can you can be this incredible scientist, understand the vastness of the universe, have all the knowledge of aeronautical, I don't even know I'm making it up, aeronomical engineering, I don't even know if that's a word, sounds like it.

You can be a this incredible gifted scientist, but if you don't get on the plane, you're not going anywhere.

When it comes to faith, there can only be one response.

I'll say it the way Mark Brooke's way it's not about the steadiness of your knees, it's about the placement of your rear end.

And are you in the ark?

Are you in the house with the red cord, the scarlet cord?

Also, there's this incredible legacy that I don't even think Rahab understood, but I don't know if you caught it, but in in Joshua 2, that salvation's not only for Rahab, but it's also her father's household.

At some point she was having conversations, I don't know how she did it, I don't even know she understood what would and how this would change her her family.

Well, first of all, she understood they were going to live, but then there was this continued steps of faith that we find.

I think in 1 Chronicles, it says that after Jericho fell, and and the people of Israel populated that area that that Rahab, even though she wasn't a Jewish person, she was a Gentile, she threw in with them, and we find very interestingly that she marries someone that is the father of Bethlehem, who had a child named Boaz, who married a girl named Ruth, another Gentile, who had Obed, who had a son named Jesse, who fathered King David, who eventually, eventually birthed Jesus.

So you think there's no hope for your family?

I'm too far gone, Pastor.

The consequences are too heavy for my rebellion, my arrogance, my pride.

No, Jesus redeems everything.

So maybe you're struggling with as a father.

Listen, your decision to look and live can change generations.

I've told you this a couple times.

Man, if you have children who are serving the Lord, it's one thing, but you have grandchildren who are serving the Lord or great-grandchildren who are serving the Lord, you're a trillionaire.

And legacy starts simply by one man or one woman who may not even know their future, but trust in the gospel and the promises of Jesus to take your ashes and your mistakes and form a beautiful crown to place on your head and your children's head, and your great-grandchildren's head, and your great-great, great-great-grandchildren's head.

It's also her faith is a symbol.

That scarlet cord, metaphorically, is is is is the cord that when when God took a lamb and Adam and Eve had had sinned and and and God sacrificed the lamb and the blood poured from the lamb to cover Adam and Eve's sin.

That's the scarlet cord.

It's also in Exodus, the scarlet cord in the Passover lamb, when the the people of the Hebrew people were instructed to sacrifice a lamb and take the blood and put it over a doorpost.

That is the scarlet cord, everyone.

It's the same in Leviticus as they were worshiping in the tabernacle and sacrificing for the remission of their sins.

That's the scarlet cord.

The scarlet cord shows up in Isaiah when when Isaiah says, I'm a man of unclean lips, and an angel comes and puts a hot coal.

That's the scarlet coal to purify Isaiah to be in the presence of God.

It comes out in Ezekiel with the river of God that heals the people.

It comes in Hagai, where or Zechariah, where it talks about the son who is pierced and by his wounds that the people would have healing, or in Malachi again, as the son of righteousness would come with healings in his wing, that's the scarlet cord.

And in the gospels, when Jesus goes on the cross and gives his life and bleeds over your sin, that's the scarlet cord.

It shows up in Revelation as Jesus returns as a King of Kings and Lord of Lords to bring justice and honor and glory and and set up his kingdom.

It says that he'll ride in with blood tattered robes.

It's throughout God's word.

It's my only hope.

It's your only hope.

Have you ever felt like damaged goods?

Francis Schaefer says it this way.

Truth is, we're all prostitutes.

We're all harlots.

Each of us is a whore in idolatry of our own heart.

And your hope, and my hope, it's simply just Jesus.

I'm a dog.

Unworthy.

So like the thief on the cross, I just look to the man.

I want to be like you.

Because I recognize you're you're righteous, you're real, you're truth.

Can you remember me?

Can you remember me in your kingdom?

Like I hope you understand that's who you are.

So I don't know what this means to you, other than let me give you a little bit of direction.

The brother of Jesus, James, writes in his book about faith in action.

It's just one thing to believe, but you also have to do.

And some of you this morning, your doing is simply like Charles Spurgeon, to surrender.

Maybe you are miserable.

Maybe you feel lost or like damaged goods.

It's true.

That's why you feel it.

But he'll come in and bring peace and redemption and healing in your unworthiness.

But it comes with the price of surrendering.

Lord, I'm a mess.

I've sinned against you, my parents, this world, and I I lay that at your feet.

And I need your redemption.

It's simple.

You look to him, you look unto him, and you live.

So I want you to stand with me.

Some of you need to surrender.

Some of you need to move faith in action.

We have pair partners that are gonna come down front here that'll pray with you.

Some of you just need to move and get into the Holy Spirit.

Some of you need prayer over your life.

Some of you are gonna walk in with the same problems that you walked in here with because you're not coming down here and getting prayer.

Some of you need marriage, healing, relational healing, financial healing.

And whenever you don't move, God doesn't move.

I'm just telling you right now, that's how it works.

There's faith in action, action in faith.

James says it, it's true.

You need to move towards God.

I promise you, He'll show up, take your ashes, and form something beautiful of your life.

Let me pray over you.

Father, right now, your spirit is moving, Jesus.

You've given us this apex of an example of someone who is broken, and yet, Father, because of her decision and obedience to simply move under your scarlet cord of redemption.

And and Father, we just know that you're gonna do something good.

We have hope, we have faith.

Like that the woman who has a demonic child in Mark chapter 7, Matthew chapter 15, we move towards you.

Mark 7 · chapter mention Matthew 15 · chapter mention

Even though we feel like an unworthy dog, Father God, we know that you have a better plan.

And Lord, we just ask for your crumbs this morning of redemption and mercy and grace, Father.

Lord, heal us, heal our marriages, heal our father, heal our businesses, Lord, heal our heal our finances, Father.

Lord, and we ask all of this in your powerful, powerful name, Jesus, across all of our campuses as we come forward to physically move into your presence, Jesus.

We ask this all in your son's holy and precious name.

Amen.

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