3rd Anniversary Service

Hello, and welcome to the Kalamazoo church of Christ podcast.

Thank you so much for listening.

We're startup church.

We just planted in September, 2020 and at the Kalamazoo church, we believe that Christianity is done best when it is done together.

And so if you live in the Kalamazoo area, we would love to connect, be it coming to a Sunday service, one of our small groups, or even just grabbing coffee with a member to learn more.

You can visit kalamazoo.church in order to do that.

We pray that you are inspired by what you hear today.

Grateful to grateful to see you all.

I hope that you guys are doing well.

I think this is, well, this is our third year that we've been here in the month of October.

And that's exciting.

Yes, this is, this is the most fall weather that we've had as well.

I don't know if maybe you guys don't remember, but I remember the last two, it being so warm in this greenhouse.

And so, uh, you know, we're just grateful.

We're grateful to God for that.

I wanted to go through just a little bit of the ways that this church has changed over the last year.

Okay.

And so, and if I'm missing anything at the end of it, you can, you can shout out a couple as well.

Um, so the first is we started the year or we rather, we started at the end of October with basically no teen ministry.

And now we have routine, uh, teen events.

There are team leaders.

Um, and then in the next month or two, there's going to be a, this team leaders conference that two of the couples in our church are going to.

And so we're excited about that kingdom kids kingdom kids started.

They, we started out with only one classroom and it was a crazy mess of, uh, of good hearts.

And now there's two kids kingdom classes, which is exciting, which is a crazy mess.

But now there's two of them.

We've had some people move in.

We've had some, uh, we've had some people that were sent out.

Uh, they're not here this morning, but there's been a, there's a new baby who, uh, last year was not here.

And now baby Nina Somerville is here and we're excited about that.

We've, uh, we've moved locations to a place that allows for us to continue to grow and to continue to, uh, to serve the community, but be, uh, the family that we know we are and we really want to be.

Uh, we separated into three house churches as opposed to two.

Uh, we hired a campus minister.

And on top of all of that, God has, uh, God has added to the number eight people who've gotten baptized in the last year in our church.

I think, I think this can be a time where we can certainly in this moment, but then maybe in this next week, just dream a little bit.

So many of you have been coming for a little bit of time or an extended period of some, this is maybe your first Sunday, your first couple of Sundays.

I want to challenge you to just take a moment, uh, not right now, but maybe during your week to really dream about what God can be doing certainly in your life, but then in your life and then in the lives of the people around you, uh, as well, amen, uh, to, to consider just for a little bit about where this church is, is going to go.

Uh, it's, we can do that forever and it's exciting, but, but what I would say is without Jesus, it's impossible, right?

We can come up with the most amazing ideas and plans and organize it perfectly and it can be so wise, but without God working in this church, it's, it's meaningless and it's nothing and maybe we accomplished the goals, but God is not glorified by it if it's not in his name.

Amen.

So this, this last, you guys can go to Luke eight.

Uh, also at the back of the, the handout is also the scriptures.

Well, it's the main text that we're going to be in.

And so if you don't have a Bible, you can just look at that sheet and if you don't have a Bible and you want one and you, you can just keep it, you can go at the back.

There's a, there's, there's a few giveaways.

We'd love to do that.

Uh, so, so just recently at last two weeks ago, I sat down with, uh, with this guy that we're starting to work with.

We're starting to work with him basically about what does it mean to be a disciple.

And uh, and he has a background in faith and I asked him what is one word he could, he would use, or I didn't say one word, actually I said, what would you use to describe Jesus?

Like what would you say about it?

And the only thing he could come up with was crazy.

Uh, there's truth to it.

I think it's interesting.

He said crazy.

And that's not where I would go.

Initially.

That's, it's true.

It's accurate.

Um, but, but if I had to ask you, okay, describe your best friend to me, you, you wouldn't say stuff that they do or it's something they did.

If you had to ask me to describe, Hey, describe Bianca, I wouldn't say, well, she graduated in 2014 with a nursing degree from Marquette university.

And that's, that's not what I would say to describe her, right?

Your best friend, you wouldn't say, well, they're, you know, and, and go with the, they're, well, they're wearing red today and they love their, their favorite color is orange.

And yeah, no, you, you would share about experiences you've had with them.

You, you would share about how they make you feel.

If you got really deep, you might share about the things that they've done and how they personally touched your life.

And so for us, the challenge today is when I asked this question is how would you describe Jesus?

I, I hope that, that we can mature from saying, well, he walked on water or well, he fed 5,000.

These things are true, but if, if it's, if our understanding of Jesus is just exclusively what he has done, then, then we're missing the life that Jesus lived and really our discipleship is going to be short-lived.

Because if we look at, if we look at the life Jesus lived, then we can understand, this is how I can live my life a little bit better.

You know, right?

If I say, what did Jesus do?

Well, he walked on water.

Well, let's walk on water too.

And you'd say, no, we can't do that, but, but you can have a sense of humor and we can say, well, you can't feed 5,000 people, but you can have compassion for large crowds of people and you can't die for someone's sins, but you can die to yourself and show someone who did die for their sins, right?

See, the key to unlocking a dynamic relationship with Jesus is not learning more about what he did, but paying attention to and embracing why he did it.

So today we're just going to look at one story in the Bible and there's a couple of people that Jesus heals forever.

We're going to look at one story though, and I want, I got the seven quick points.

You say seven, that's going to take forever.

We're going to go through them very quickly, but I bet that seven, what I would say is it's not comprehensive.

There's, there's more that you're going to see just in the text that we won't even cover.

And so the, the goal though, again, if we grow in our adoration and admiration of Jesus Christ, then we'll have no choice but to grow in our followership of him.

So if you grow in your adoration to say, wow, he's, he's amazing so much so that I'm going to live how he lived or try to, and if you grow in your admiration so much so that to say the teachings that he has are exactly perfect and it's incredible if you grow in both of those things, you'll have no choice but to grow in your followership, followership of him.

It's Luke eight, the title of the lesson today is worthy to follow in verse 40 we'll pick up.

It says now when Jesus returned, a large or rather a crowd welcomed him for they were all expecting him.

Then a man named Jairus, a synagogue leader came and fell at Jesus's feet pleading with him to come to his house because his only daughter, a girl of about 12 was dying.

As Jesus was on his way, the crowds almost crushed him and a woman who, who was there who had been subject to bleeding for 12 years, but no one could heal her.

She came up behind him, touched the edge of his cloak and immediately her bleeding stopped.

Who touched me?

Jesus asked when they all denied it, Peter said, master, the people are crowding and pressing against you.

But, but Jesus said, someone touched me.

I know that power has gone out for me.

Then the woman seeing that she could not go unnoticed came trembling and fell at his feet in the presence of all the people.

She told why she had touched him and how she had been instantly healed.

Then he said to her daughter, your faith has healed you go in peace.

Jesus had, has just gotten back from interacting with some non Jewish people and he healed them and did amazing things, uh, did amazing things there.

Then he went back and there's people who are just waiting for him.

Uh, he's there's, there's so many people and they're, they're, they're expecting him to show up and you get the image.

I don't know if you've ever been, uh, popular enough and I, I've not that as soon as you go somewhere, there's a bunch of people around you.

Uh, maybe you've been in a big crowd of people where you feel like, I, I don't know where I'm going next.

I guess just recently we were at, uh, well not recently, I guess we were at Dayton and Owens, uh, high school or rather middle school promotion and I felt like leaving that space.

It was cramped and we're all trying to get out and so you've been in a spot like that, but now imagine that instead of all trying to go out in the same spot, they're all pushing against you to try to talk to you, interact with you and have you heal them.

This is what is going on with, with Jesus right now.

This, this woman then comes up to him and some, some, uh, other translator, rather other accounts will say that she spent everything she had.

She was extremely desperate.

She had no, uh, no hope for, for healing outside of Jesus.

She spent all of her, whatever she made to, to get this and get this healing, but it didn't work.

Uh, so what I want to start with and the first thing, what are we pulling from the life of Jesus?

How are we growing in our adoration or admiration of him and understand that Jesus is not concerned with your place in society.

There's a well respected man, the synagogue leader.

This is the guy who might've been, uh, he would have been really well known to almost everybody there.

They would have been, they would have seen him and he might've been like, if you can imagine, perhaps this is the image I get like a mayor, but who's also, uh, involved in religious activity so much so that he would have organized the service.

He was like a pastor who was also a mayor of sorts and like he had some ownership.

He had some clout as he walked around.

Uh, they thought people thought highly of him and then there's a woman who is viewed at a distance, uh, from society.

She's ceremonially unclean.

She couldn't interact with her people.

Everything she sat on, every person she touched would, would be deemed unclean.

One person respected the other entirely despised and Jesus doesn't heal based on their standing in society.

Right?

Jesus doesn't go to the, the, the, the amazing guy, the guy who's respected and say, I got you and I'm going to leave that woman to the side.

Nor does he say, you know what?

You don't, Jairus, you got a lot going for you.

I don't think you really need much help.

You kind of got, you're working okay.

You know, you'll be okay without your daughter and I'm going to worry about these lowly people.

He doesn't do either of those things.

No, he, he decides to heal them both.

What does that mean for us?

Well, I think for you and me, it's a question of what do we look at when we decide who is open to hearing the message?

I would, I would put before you that you probably go one of two ways.

Uh, you, you might, this is what I would say.

Maybe you go to a spot of, you're like, you know, this person is a lowly person.

They don't, they're just here for a handout.

I don't, man, they're, they're exhausting.

They're too much work.

They don't need to hear the gospel or if they do, they're going to find it somewhere else.

We're not that kind of church.

Or maybe you go to a spot and you say, you know, this person, he's respected, he's wealthy, he has everything going for him.

He doesn't need to hear the gospel.

He's got it.

He figured life out.

If anything, why would he listen to me of all people?

Jesus is not concerned with that though.

The next thing we see is that Jesus, he doesn't fit your status quo.

In that day, it's frowned upon to interact with any woman who, who's not your relative in public.

And, and even from what I understand, a little bit of study, even interacting with your family would have been a little bit frowned, it would have been frowned upon or a little bit seen as, as being weird.

Jesus has this conversation with her in front of everybody and, and, and understand what she's saying.

If she had to go through all of these people, then what it would mean is that this, this woman was saying, everybody I interact with, I'm unclean.

You get the image of this woman just wants to go, birds are amazing.

This woman just wants to go and, and touch his cloak and get out of there without anybody noticing.

She's very content.

She knows he can solve it.

And yet he decides, no, I'm going to have this interaction with her.

He's not, he's not concerned with what's appropriate.

He's not concerned with, with what society says is normal.

No, he's not concerned with your status quo.

Next thing is that you can be in proximity with Jesus without being healed by him.

That Jesus couldn't move around, right?

And so he, but he asks, who touched me?

His most loyal follower said, Hey, Jesus, everybody touched you.

Think about being in that crowd.

Put yourself there.

Now you're in the crowd and you, maybe you, you're a little bit sick.

You got your coffin and you know, your, maybe your, your leg hurts or there's something wrong maybe from birth or maybe in the last, you know, little few years or maybe in the last few months, there's just, there's something going on.

You're interacting, you're, you're there, right?

You're, you're waiting for him to, you're in, maybe you're in line to get him healed or you're trying to make it there and, but, but it doesn't, it doesn't happen for whatever, whatever reason this woman decides it doesn't, I don't, I'm going to get healed or I'm going to go for it.

You know, what's, what's incredible about, about this, this woman, what she was saying when she decided to go touch his, it would have been like a tassel basically.

And so this is basically, she's looking at the book and she understood at least from what somebody taught her in the book of Malachi, you don't go there, but in the book of Malachi, it says that when the Messiah comes, there's going to be healing in his, in his, in his wings or in his garments basically.

And so she's like, I think he's the one I got to touch that guy, however, which way I'm going to, I'm going to get to him.

She had faith to be healed.

These other, these other men, women, presumably around Jesus, they were next to him, but for whatever reason, they weren't, they weren't healed.

And you can be in proximity with Jesus without being healed by him.

Jesus has this connection with this, this woman.

This is the only place in scripture where he calls, where he uses the word daughter to describe somebody for you and me.

What does that mean?

Well, going to church, it doesn't get you healthy.

Reading your Bible doesn't get you healthy.

Praying doesn't get you healthy.

Only Jesus can make you spiritually healthy.

Certainly those are the means, those are some means to get to Jesus.

But if we take those to say, that's the end of it.

I just need to read my Bible.

I need to pray.

I need to show up to church and I'm good.

Then we're missing it entirely.

Are you, are you calling out to Jesus?

Do you, do you see that you are spiritually or emotionally unhealthy?

We see also that Jesus, he desires to partner with you.

He could have attributed this healing.

He could have just said, you know what?

No, my, my feeling.

I did it.

I'm the one.

And he would have been right.

He would have been justified.

Right?

But instead he decided to empower this woman.

Jesus, Jesus, work with me here.

He does virtually everything, but he does ask for something.

When I was in eighth grade, graduating to high school, there was two schools that joined up into this bigger high school, two middle schools that joined into this high school.

And then there was also like some kids from a neighboring school that would come.

And then, then there was a Catholic school that kind of filtered in.

And we got a bunch of different kids going to this high school.

It's, it's a, it's a normal occurrence.

You guys know what I'm talking about.

And basically though, during this time, there's kind of this, the freshmen, at least I experienced it.

Freshman history was kind of this feeling out process of sorts.

And you kind of figured out like, who's, who's the, the go above and beyond student and who is the one that's riding the coattails type of student.

People assumed that I was the riding the coattails type of student and I was okay with that as long as I got a good person to, to, to lead me basically.

I was fine with not doing very much of the work.

And as long as I got the grade and the grade was decent enough, I'm I'll live.

I don't know if there's a confession or if that's something, you know, but what I would say is what, what, what do I mean, or what's, what's the point?

Maybe you've been in a, in a group project and maybe you, maybe you're in the other, the other end.

You said, I mean, I did all the work and now I don't want to put this guy's name on the project.

Or maybe you said, no, I did all the work.

I'm content with it.

Whatever.

Or you didn't do any of the work, but your name gets on the project.

Jesus is, uh, if he's, if he desires to partner with us and he's doing 98, 99, it's not even worth talking about percentage of the work in healing, in healing you and in healing the people that you interact with.

What does he ask of you?

He just says, put your name on it though.

Put your name on the project.

That's all you got to do.

I got the rest.

You just need to do a little bit.

And so you think about how much God is working in your life and what does he ask of you?

Well, he asks you to give your entire life, but in the grand scheme of everything, what is that really?

Right?

Let's continue reading.

Uh, it says, while Jesus was still speaking in verse 49, someone came to someone came from the house of gyrus, the synagogue leader, your daughter is dead.

He said, don't bother the teacher anymore.

Hearing this, Jesus said to gyrus, don't be afraid.

Just believe and she will be healed.

When he arrived at the house of gyrus, he didn't let anyone go in with him except Peter, James or Peter, John and James and the child's mother and father.

Meanwhile, all the people were wailing and mourning for her.

Stop wailing.

He said, she's not dead, but asleep.

They laughed at him knowing that she was dead, but he took her by the hand and said, my child get up.

Her spirit returned and at once she stood up.

Then Jesus told them to give her something to eat.

Her parents were astonished, but they ordered, but he ordered them not to tell anyone what had happened.

Think about being a Peter, James and John in, in this story here.

And imagine the, uh, imagine the difficulty of keeping this quiet until Jesus rose from the dead.

Right?

You've got, you, you, you have this amazing story and, and you're like, man, this, this is so cool.

This is exactly what happened.

And then maybe your brother asked, Hey, I'm one of the disciples too.

My name's Andrew.

Yeah.

What, what happened back there?

How did he raise her?

And you'd say, I just can't tell anybody.

I don't, I don't know.

I was sworn to secrecy.

What a, what a difficult proposition.

It's amazing that they kept their mouths shut for as long as they did.

Notice Jesus's words.

What, what does he tell to, uh, to, to the father?

Yes.

Don't be afraid.

Just believe, you know, Jesus, this is the fifth thing that we can gain from Jesus.

She empathizes with nuance issues and emotions.

If I had to ask you, what would you say to somebody whose child just died?

I bet you, you wouldn't say, don't be afraid.

That doesn't make any sense.

Don't be afraid of what, how, how, what are you talking about?

Jesus?

I'm more sad than I am afraid.

I'm angry.

Perhaps that you, you could have healed her.

And if you would have just not made a big deal out of that woman, we would have been good.

Jesus.

I'm frustrated.

I'm frustrated.

I feel discouraged.

I'm having to think about what is my life going to look like without my, my daughter.

Jesus understands the human heart better than you or I could ever dream though.

Right?

And he, he, he speaks through and, and really if we say, don't be afraid, understand that there's an emptiness to it.

When Jesus says, don't be afraid, just believe he's actually going to raise her from the dead.

But Jesus empathizes with, with multifaceted issues and emotions and he's not afraid of them.

He doesn't shrink back from them.

He embraces them entirely.

Another thing we can get is that Jesus, he's not looking for empty followers.

He sends everybody out, but these three men and the girls, mom and dad, he doesn't give them a chance to see this miracle.

These people, it was, it was a normal thing to hire mourners and they were, that was their job.

Their job was to wail and cry and that was what they were supposed to do in order to bring attention and allow the family to grieve.

I wouldn't want that job.

I don't know if, uh, if any of you would, I wonder how well they paid.

But anybody who says Jesus was doing miracles in order to gain a following is totally inaccurate.

Certainly he, he did that to some extent, but not, that's not the extent of all of his miracles were so that he could gain a following.

This one in particular, he says, don't tell anybody what just happened.

No, we can't be looking for empty followers, either them, right?

Any church or group of people that's not calling its members to what the Bible teaches, not just on Sunday, but every day of the week, uh, is on thin ice according to Jesus.

Another thing that we see is that maybe the most important, the thing that permeates all is that Jesus cares.

He had already, he'd already shown to people that he was able to fit, to heal somebody without being in physical proximity to them.

He healed.

You can go, I think it might be one chapter before the, the healing of the centurion, uh, the centurion servant, the centurion says, I don't need it.

You don't need to come by me.

Just say the word and you'll be healed and he'll be healed.

I know it because I know you, why, why did you just walk with her then?

Why think about Jesus is, is entirely perfect, totally incredible.

He subjected himself to be tired.

He subjected his feet to hurt.

He didn't have to.

He could at any point said, I don't want my feet to hurt.

I'll just keep walking.

And he's God.

He could have done that.

But, but why then, why, why would he decide to do this?

Why waste?

Why waste his time?

Maybe if you or me were in his shoes, we'd say, ah, I got you, you know, and, and just snap your fingers and you'd have been, the child would have been healed.

I believe Jesus saw the condition of humanity at every, every single day that he woke up.

He saw the impact that sin and its consequent decay had on the world.

Every single moment that he was walking.

I'm sure that he took great joy in feeding 5,000.

I'm sure he took great joy in, in walking on water.

I'm sure he took great joy and then feeding 4,000.

I'm sure he took so much joy in that, but I'd have to imagine that there's something special to be able to look at this, this little girl and to say, no, no, get up.

And so if someone asks you, this is a rhetorical, if somebody asks you to share what impresses you most about Jesus, what would you say?

You know what, what, what's we're going to transition here into a time of communion.

And I, I think it's, it's incredible that I, you've heard it and I've heard it a lot that I don't believe in Jesus.

I don't believe in, uh, I believe he was a good man.

I believe that, but I don't believe he rose from the dead.

I don't believe he's God.

I don't, I don't believe that.

And, and almost always that person has never read the Bible because you can't hear me.

You can't believe that, that Jesus, uh, only has good teachings if you don't also believe he's Lord.

Jesus says in John 14, he says, I am the way, the truth and the life.

No one comes to the father except through me.

And then he Phillips says, Hey, show us, show us the father.

That'll be enough.

He says, no, no, no.

You don't understand me and the father.

We are one.

If Jesus is not God, then his teachings are arrogant and self-centered there.

He's a narcissist.

If he's not also Lord, he's a narcissist.

He just desires attention.

He desires praise from everybody, but he can't really, he can't really entirely back it up.

Jesus in his calling out to humanity is different than any other religious leader who you respect that you've ever known in your entire life and any other religion that you look at is always pointing towards, Hey, I'm, I am a way I'm, I'm leading you to the way.

They don't say I am the way they can't say I am the way they realize if I say I am the way that I have to back it up and I'm not able to back it up us, us deciding to take communion and really embrace Jesus dying for our sins.

And then, and then raising from the dead is us saying, Jesus, we know you're different.

We understand that you're not just a good teacher.

We we're committing ourselves to, to living for you every day, but specifically this week.

That's why we take it on a weekly basis is to remember, remember him and remember his sacrifice.

And so I want to challenge us as we, as we close, we're going to close in a prayer.

And then there's a, there's some communion cups and if they're, if you're, if you're missing some, you can just put your hand up after the prayer and, uh, and, and people will make sure you get a communion cup.

But as we take communion, I want, I want to challenge you guys to really consider one, what impresses you about Jesus, but then, but then to consider what it means to take communion and to say, you are Lord, you are King.

And what that means not only right now, but what ramifications it has for the rest of your life.

Amen.

Let's pray right now.

Dear God, Jesus, we come before you and we're, uh, we're in awe.

We can't stand up.

We, we, the Lord, there's going to be a day when, uh, when every knee bows, Lord, the, the most staunch atheist is all going to be on their face, Lord.

And we're going to be right there with them or we, we can't, uh, we, we can't stand up when we, uh, when we see you, father, we're, we're so grateful, Jesus, for the Lord.

Life that you live, we're, we're in awe of, of how perfect you were at every step of the way.

Jesus, you, you never said anything wrong.

You looked at people and loved them.

You are impressive in every, every facet you, you didn't make any mistake.

Everything was calculated and yet you were entirely warm.

We don't know how to do that.

God, we, we need you to, uh, to, to cover our sins.

Father, please forgive us of our sins.

Lord, please wash them away.

Lord, I pray that we will make decisions today to turn away from whatever is ailing us and turn towards you forever.

This is in, uh, this is in your name, Jesus, that we pray.

Thank you so much for listening to the Kalamazoo church of Christ podcast.

If you're in the Kalamazoo area, we'd love to get connected.

Please go to kalamazoo.church and fill in your information to come to a Sunday service or any other event that we have going on.

In any case, you'll be hearing from us next week.