When God shows up

Welcome to this week's message from the church at Chelsea Westover.

Our core values are vibrant worship, intimate fellowship, fulfilling service, and clear biblical truth.

We pray that this message changes your life.

Let's tune in to today's message and see what God has in store for you.

And uh man, I'm excited to be here with you this morning.

It's my privilege to get to speak to the church at Chelsea Westover.

If you could have told me a year ago that my life would be looking like it does now, uh I'd have been shocked.

And um God has done so much in a little bit of time in our life, and it's kind of overwhelming.

I watched your pastor from kind of afar, knowing him a little bit, and knowing my wife went to liberty, knowing of him, and um he would come and preach at our church in Connorsville, and I've never seen anybody preach like that.

Y'all know how that looks each week.

A lot of dancing, a lot of movement, a lot of yelling, a lot of passion and energy, and a lot of laughter, really.

And I thought, man, that is awesome preaching.

I kind of, you know, like thought, God, if you could make me a preacher like that, that'd be awesome.

Um, and so, but watching him and getting to know him has just been a blessing to us.

And he he treated us from the first moment we ever met Dr.

Lovett.

Um, we were brand new in youth ministry one month in Connorsville, and our pastor had called him to do a meeting, and he showed up, and my pastor's his wife's cousin passed away.

All this happened.

So Heather and I were kind of on duty to take care of the Lovets.

And um, anyway, their their flight was delayed, and they end up spending some time at our house, and he's coming into my house and he kind of made fun of me.

He said, Uh, Rick, you're gonna lose your car in all this grass, son.

And um I know he's kind of joking, but I said, We we've just been married a short time, we don't have a lawnmower.

I've been borrowing lawnmowers.

We lived in an apartment before this, and so um, anyways, they wanted to go to Walmart.

So we went on to Walmart, and I see, you know, I'm just following, you know, because he just does what he kind of wants to do.

And he beelines to the back of the store, and and I'm watching him, and he's in the garden department, and he looks up and he says, I'll take that one.

And I'm finding out he's getting a lawnmower.

And I said, I said, No, Doctor, I said, you don't need to do that.

I said, You don't need to do that.

He turned around and looked at me.

He said, Rick, you don't need to tell me what I do and don't need to do.

God told me to do this.

The cashier's looking at me, I'm looking at her and him.

I said, Okay, we'll take that one.

So that was my first meeting of this pastor, and so it's kind of been a joy, a privilege, and just to be in this place is very humbling for me.

I'm excited, and this church has been very gracious to us, the people in it, and uh, we couldn't be here without some of the work and love and generosity of the people.

And so I'm very thankful this morning to get this opportunity and don't take it lightly.

Um, I want you to turn to your Bibles to Mark chapter 1, and I want to pose to you a question this morning that I want you to think of throughout the message.

Mark 1 · chapter mention

If Jesus were to show up today, what would be different in my life?

If Jesus were to show up today, what would be different?

There's a story told that a lady was vacationing and she went into an ice cream parlor, and she went in to grab herself an ice cream cone, and as she walked in, she looked, there was only one other patron in the parlor, and it happened to be the famous movie star Paul Newman.

She got very excited, like anyone would see in a movie star.

And she looked she couldn't help but look over and stare into his dreamy blue eyes.

And she pulled herself back together and said to herself, You're married, you have three children.

You can't get like this, you're not a teenage girl.

And um, so she went ahead with her order and she was thinking all the while, you know, what could I say to him?

I don't want to make myself look like a fool, but uh when will I ever have this chance again?

And and and so she paid the cashier and checked out, and because of her nerves and everything, she just turned around and walked out the door.

And um, she got out the door and she was close to her car and she looked down and she had change in her hand.

In the other hand, she realized she didn't have her ice cream.

And so she thought, well, the lady must not have given me my ice cream.

So she walked back in and she was walking to the register.

She felt somebody tap her on the shoulder.

She looked behind her, and there he was, Paul Newman.

He said, Ma'am, you might want to check your purse.

So when somebody shows up, some excitement can be had.

Sometimes we get anxious and nervous, and maybe you're like me.

Maybe one of two things happen when you think about Jesus and that question, what would happen in my life if Jesus showed up?

When I was 16 years old, maybe you're like this.

My parents left for the weekend and put me in charge of uh the house and some of my dad's chores, and the main thing was feeding his dogs.

My dad had beagles my whole life, okay.

And I don't know if you like to hunt or whatever.

That's a to me, the only thing these dogs were good for was hunting.

And so at midnight when everybody went to sleep, the dogs would wake up, you know, they would smell a rabbit, and they'd go off.

And so these were these dogs.

Maybe you have them, I don't know.

But, anyways, so my dad had these.

He wanted me to feed them while he was gone.

So I went out and I fed them and did what I was supposed to do, but my dad had this kind of intricate rigged-up locking system to keep them in their pen.

And so I thought I locked it all back, and uh honestly, I forgot to go back the next day, so they missed a day's meal.

And I went back the day after that, and I got to the pen.

To my surprise, the dogs were gone.

I thought, oh no, he is gonna kill me.

Like, next to eating and hunting, my dad's dogs are his favorite thing in the world, you know, and like what am I gonna do?

And so I began to get like anxious, and um, I knew following these hound dogs, there was no use in running through the woods near my house.

And so I, you know, I let it go a day, and then you know, another day was coming, my dad was gonna be home, and I thought, I gotta, I gotta do something about this.

So I called the SPCA and I thought, well, this is shot in the dark, but maybe hope.

And so they I told them the description.

They said, well, you have to come down here and identify the dogs, you know, like it's a police lineup or something.

And I'm like, you know, if you got three beagles, I'll take them.

It doesn't matter which ones they are.

And so I get there and I'm looking at them.

They say, these three came in, they were brought in together.

I said, it has to be them.

They said, Well, can you give us names?

I'm like, names?

They said, Yeah, names.

You can't take these dogs if you don't have a name for them.

I'm like, I don't know their names.

And so they're like, Well, you have to give us something.

And so I said, All right, Pluto, Scooby, and Joe.

They're like, Okay, they're yours.

But I remember that feeling, knowing my dad was coming home, and I was not ready for him to be back because things were not in order.

And I remember feeling so anxious about that.

Or maybe, maybe you're like that, but maybe you're like this.

A few years back, my daughter Callie was in the car in Wyatt, and we were going to Orlando, Florida for the first time, our first vacation to Disney.

And we had told them all about it and tried to build them up, you know, part half the fun of vacation is the anticipation of getting there.

And so we were telling them all about it and the things that we were kind of planning.

And so we were pulling into Orlando, and right up ahead, that great big sign, the first one of Walt Disney World or whatever it was.

And as we were pulling past it, it was almost like a movie.

Okay, in that moment, Callie began to chant.

This little sweet girl, Disney, Disney, Disney.

I'm in the front and I'm like, yes, that's right, kids, everyone.

Disney! It was such a great moment for her.

And and maybe when you think about that question, if the Lord were here today, if Jesus were here today, how my life be, maybe you feel like that.

You want to shout, you want to chant.

I want to tell you something, church, that's true.

He is coming again.

Luke 21 says this, and then shall they see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.

And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up and lift your heads, for your redemption draws nigh.

He is coming again.

I want you to do this with me, church.

Let's have a little fun.

Tap the person next to you and say he's coming.

Now tap your second choice and say he's coming.

You know it's true.

They're your second choice, or you would have tapped them first.

He's coming.

Today in Mark chapter 1, I want to give you a glimpse of some scripture when Jesus did show up.

Mark 1 · chapter mention

In Mark chapter 1, as you begin the chapter, we see that John the Baptist is proclaiming Jesus' arrival.

Mark 1 · chapter mention

And Jesus, he says, There's not a man greater than this man.

I'm not even great enough to touch his sandal.

And then Jesus arrives on the scene, and his arrival is different from any other.

He begins to teach, and he teaches with an authority.

Unlike other teachers who were backing up scripture or backing up their talks with somebody else's talk, Jesus gives no backup.

Jesus doesn't have to reference somebody else's speech.

He speaks to someone who wrote the textbook because he did.

He begins to recruit, he begins to heal people, the sick and unclean.

And you see all throughout where Jesus' arrival happens in Mark chapter 1, everywhere Jesus goes, he ministers in two ways.

Mark 1 · chapter mention

He's ministering the truth of the word of God, and he's finding people where their needs are.

He's meeting people's needs and he's ministering truth.

And I want you to understand the importance of that in our church.

We must marry the study of Scripture, God's truth, because when we study the Scripture and His truth, it does something to us internally in our own heart.

And when it does that internal thing, it changes who we are, that we will go and find people where their needs are and meet their needs.

And so Jesus wants us to marry those things, and he's the master of that.

He's meeting people's needs.

And Jesus shows up, and we're going to catch up to that at his arrival and see how it changes a man's life.

I want to pray with you before we go into Mark chapter one.

Father, thank you again for this opportunity.

God, I pray God, that you would speak.

God, you know that I don't have anything that matters to say, but God, you your word changes lives.

And God, I pray that your word would be heard and spoken.

And God, that people would God, leave what they drug in with today.

God, leave it at the door just for a few moments.

God, that they'd be in tune with what your Holy Spirit wants to say.

And God, that we would be changed from it.

We love you.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

In Mark chapter 1, verse 40 through 45 is our text today.

Mark 1:40–45

And I want to take you there.

It says this.

Now a leper came to him, imploring him, kneeling down to him, and saying to him, If you are willing, you can make me clean.

Then Jesus moved with compassion, stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, I am willing, be cleansed.

As soon as he had spoken, immediately the leprosy left him, and he was cleansed.

And he strictly warned him and sent him away at once, and said to him, See that you say nothing to anyone, but go your way, show yourself to the priests, and offer for your cleansing those things which Moses commanded as a testimony to them.

However, he went out and began to proclaim it freely and went to spread the matter, so that Jesus could no longer openly enter the city, but was outside in deserted places, and they came to him from every direction.

So the first thing I want you to understand about the man in the story that Jesus shows up to is that he had a detrimental disease.

His disease was leprosy, and I think we have to spend a moment kind of defining what leprosy is for you to get the full weight of this man's need.

It's a physical condition, it's one part of it.

And literally, a leper would begin to lose sensation of his body in certain places.

And in the first phase of this, it brought fear and great dread to a person.

And what it is, is it's a disease, a bacteria on the inside would begin to work its way outside of the body, and it would form sores and kind of like ulcers or like when you get a canker sore on the side of your lip.

And so the sores would be on the inside, the disease, and working its way outside, and the sore, it was a terrible thing.

The sores would begin to have a discharge of fluid that had a terrible odor.

And so this would be happening to the person, and it was understood for the leper that this was a death sentence.

When a person began these phases of leprosy, they thought their life was over.

And so slowly you would begin to lose feeling.

Eyes, because of this disease, would begin to bulge.

Many would eventually go blind.

They would have ulcers in their mouth, in their throat, and so their voice would begin to be hoarse.

They'd be hard to understand.

Almost slowly they'd become unhuman to others.

Then it would be hard to talk.

It would be a struggle to feel things as you walked.

The muscles would begin to lose function.

And this went on slowly and slowly and slowly.

The totality of a person's physical demise with leprosy was full and devastating.

It was horrifying.

The mind would begin to go.

And so, as you can picture, it was just slow, utter devastation for a person.

And S.

Lewis Johnson put it this way: Leprosy is the type of death in which a man dies by inches.

For some, it would last 20 or 30 or 40 years.

This is our big fear today, right?

When you ask somebody if they could guess a way or talk about a way they would like to die, as long as it's not slow or painful, we're okay.

We want it to be quick and over with.

But leprosy was that.

It was slow and painful.

But it that's just the physical part.

The physical part of it.

There's a social part of it that takes place as well.

And it was seen as by others in the culture as heinous.

It was contagious.

And nobody wanted to be around a person that had leprosy.

If you can think of today, it's kind of become a buzzword, but the germaphobe, right?

In in every church, everywhere now, in every Walmart, every place you go, you got antibacterial soap, you know, somebody lathers up in before they shake hands, right?

Leaving the hospital, they're on every wall.

And so I remember a time where I went into a store and I didn't have to take a wipe for my cart.

Okay.

You just, I guess, dealt with germs.

And so, but the germaphobes big problem is partly with the dirt, but an obsession to be clean.

Um, obsessively wants to be clean.

And so a person seeing somebody with leprosy knew that it would be contagious.

They knew or felt that they needed to stay away.

And even Jesus uses leprosy in the Old Testament, you see, where Miriam and Aaron are talking down on Moses about his choice of a wife, and Jesus cast leprosy onto Miriam, kind of, you know, as as a result of her being that way towards Moses.

And so Jesus even used it, and and Moses prayed, please take this away from my sister.

Because it's a social problem.

It affects her, but it affects him and them.

And so it was a social condition.

In Leviticus, I want you to, if you have your Bible, to turn at this scripture and see, so you can feel the weight of what happened to a leper.

Leviticus chapter 13.

Leviticus 13 · chapter mention

We don't have time to break down.

There's so many laws and things, rituals for a leper.

Um, but I want you to see this particular verse because of the social um effects of it.

Leviticus 13, verses 44 and 45.

Leviticus 13:44

It says this.

He is a leprous man, he is unclean.

The priest shall surely pronounce him unclean, his sore is on his head.

Now, the leper on whom the sore is, his clothes shall be torn, and his head bare, and he shall cover his mustache and cry, unclean, unclean.

Now think about this.

I want you to put yourself in this position.

You're already having all these physical problems.

You're dreading this slow death and this pain.

And now you have to go and be away from people.

The law said that you were to be put out of your city because of leprosy, and you were you were to basically walk down a long road and find a tree.

Later on, we would find that there'd be leper communities or colonies that people were put into where all the people there had leprosy, but they didn't want you around normal people because they were thought to be so contagious.

And so the leper wasn't supposed to really go back into town for things or needs, but if he happened to have to go somewhere for something, he had to walk down the opposite side of somebody, covering himself fully and shouting, unclean, unclean, wherever he went, unclean.

Can you imagine the social weight of that?

It's like when Heather and I were at Tennessee Temple University, there were instances where the guys got to go to the girls' dormitory.

This was this was a great thing.

And so we would get to go to the girls' dormitory, and on occasion, rare occasion, you would get to go onto the girls' hall.

You know, usually it was moving in time or moving out time.

They needed help with something heavy they were carrying.

But they had a rule because now you were on the girl's colony, and you were not someone who belonged.

And so when you got on their hall, you had to yell, man on the hall, man on the hall.

And one of the things that you really didn't want to do, okay, as a man on the hall, was to ever make eye contact with the other species, right?

Man on the hall, because then for some reason, if you looked at somebody in their community when you didn't belong, you felt like you were a pervert, right?

Man on the hall, so you'd keep your hand and head down and hope that you didn't actually see somebody.

Okay, and um, but can you imagine for the leper with this great disease, the embarrassment?

You feel like you're just an outcast and a failure.

So, what they wanted you to do socially was to go down a dusty road, find a tree, live alone to yourself, and keep your disease away from anybody else.

Well, it was physical and it was social, but really the worst of all is that it was a spiritual condition.

A leper was to be excluded from any type of worship.

After all, a clean and holy and righteous God, a whiter than snow God, does not exist with that type of filth.

No temple or auditorium or serve pro building would think of having a leper walk into it.

Because that is unclean.

The leper was told that there was not any hope for people like them.

They were convinced that physically, socially, and now spiritually they were a damned person, that they were an egregious person, they were a person that was not fit for living, and they were to stay away.

And they were told even further that it was because of their sin that it was that way.

I want you to think about the illustration of Job.

In a moment, Job lost his family, his fortune, he lost everything that he knew and had in one day, and then he began to have boils on his body.

And the advice he got from his family and friends, his friends said, Job, it's obvious.

You must be sinning.

It must be because of your sin.

Repent of your sin.

Job's wife said the best thing she could say to him, just curse God and die.

Job.

Just curse God and die.

You can't live like this.

And I want to pose this question to our church.

Does CCW exclude people?

Do you personally look at someone else and think they're they're unfit?

See, a lot of times when somebody hears a message, they're through the message thinking about somebody else's sin problem.

Oh yeah, that's right, preacher.

I know some people like that.

Mm-hmm.

Elbow to the husband, right?

Y'all how many husbands you've gotten that, right?

Oh yeah.

Are you neighborly?

Are we neighborly?

Are we the type of people?

And I think this church has it.

I've seen it.

That's why we're having a feast when we're done here.

We want to be a people that spends time together.

That's why our pastor models it.

You can't get in this church without being hugged by somebody.

But that's what we want to be, that's who we want to be, and not be a person who excludes others.

You see, look back at verse number 40.

The leper had some deep disease.

He had a detrimental disease, but then we see his passionate plea.

Look again at verse 40.

Now a leper came to him imploring him, kneeling down to him and saying to him, If you are willing, you can make me clean.

He gives a passionate plea.

And Jesus manifests himself to man through this passionate plea.

And I want you to understand, church, Jesus wants to manifest himself to this church.

We call that different things throughout time, but I would love to see an awakening happen at the church at Chelsea Westover where God is real to us and we see and feel his presence.

You see, there's been some times in my life where there's been some passionate pleas.

There was a time when I was 15, I was driving 97 in a 55.

I almost drowned at 20.

Heather and I have felt the full weight of financial pain and thought, how are we going to buy diapers for our children?

We've been in the hospital with Weston, having an IV in his head.

And those close to us could ask a question they really didn't want to answer.

How are you doing?

To which we could only answer, we're not good.

We felt disappointment in ministry.

Teenagers keep graduating.

The people we get closest to.

We've been let down, we've been hurt.

But let me tell you, as long as you got a breath left church, there's hope because God sent a cop to pull me over.

He sent a boat to pull me out of the water.

He sent a check in the mail that got those diapers bought, and he took the IV out of my boy's head and brought laughter back in his voice.

I want you to know God hears our passionate please.

God wants to hear yours.

I want you to see in the scripture the leper didn't show up where Jesus was.

Jesus got up in verse 37 and 38.

He said to them, Let us go into the next town that I may preach there also, because for this purpose I've come forth.

Jesus is the one that got up and went to the next town.

And I want you to understand, church, that Jesus prayed for the Father's will.

And he saw that there was a leper who needed new life.

And I want you to know, somebody here, God sees your need.

And he wants to show up in your life, and he knows that you have a need of his touch.

He knows that you need him.

He can look at you and say, They need my touch.

They need my power.

I want you to tap somebody next to you and say, I need a touch.

First and second choice.

I need a touch.

We do, we need a touch.

The passionate plea that the leper gives manifests Jesus.

Jesus is manifested, then he mediates the law.

Look at verse 40 again.

This is a law issue.

It says, now a leper came to him imploring him.

If you are willing, there's a great issue in this verse because the rabbi certainly wasn't to touch the unclean.

He was excluded from the house of worship, excluded from his own village.

What business did a religious person have touching such a person of demise, a person with disease?

So we asked him the question if you're willing, if you're willing, Jesus, and here's the big news Jesus is bigger than the law.

If you were a leper under the tree and someone came close to you, you have to understand by the law, if you came under the shadow of the tree that they were under, you were then considered unclean.

You didn't even have to touch them.

You were just in the shadow, and you were considered unclean.

And so Jesus being greater than the law, the leper says this, will you be willing?

Jesus understood.

He would be guilty by association.

But Ephesians 2, 8 and 9 says this, For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves.

It is the gift of God, not of works.

It's not about what I can do.

You see, Jesus went to him.

The leper was there and he saw Jesus coming, but Jesus was going to him.

Jesus is bigger than that law.

It's about grace.

If you had to do something to get right, we'd never get right.

It's about grace, not works.

It's a free gift that he gave.

We don't have to do anything to be writer.

Jesus already did it.

See, he's bigger than law, and he's bigger than the culture.

The culture of that day would look at that and have something to say.

But Jesus is not bound by what culture says.

He's not held back by what others think, and he's not held down by your past.

It's not his prison.

The leper says, Man, I'm at the end of my rope.

Either heal me or kill me.

But I got no more rope.

And for some of us, that's the real issue.

You've got to get to the end of that rope and decide, is this the end of me?

Because at the end of me is where we find Jesus.

Y'all understand that?

At the end of me.

So then the plea comes, if you're willing.

Jesus mediates the law and then he makes men clean.

Look again at verse 40.

If you are willing, you can make me clean.

Then Jesus moved with compassion, stretches out his hand.

Jesus makes men clean.

See, it's interesting that the leper doesn't say, if you're willing, you can heal me.

You catch that?

He doesn't say, if you're willing, you can heal me of this disease.

He says, if you're willing, you can make me clean.

See, the leper's biggest need, and that he gets to this point that he understands, I want to know what it's like to worship God.

I want to know what it's like to walk in his temple again.

I'm unclean.

And if you have dealt with any type of sin for any amount of time, you know the feeling.

You feel unclean.

There's nothing like having that restored and being righted.

So the leper says, if you're willing, you can make me clean.

But here's a problem that we have.

Many of us, we don't want to go through the process of brokenness.

And to be clean, we have to be broken.

I want you to turn your Bibles to Psalm 51 for a moment.

I want you to look at what David said.

Psalms 51, verse 17.

Psalms 51:17

We need to be broken.

The sacrifices of a God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart.

These, O God, you will not despise.

See, our condition is brokenness.

But the answer to that brokenness that we don't want to deal with is being broken over our brokenness.

We don't want to be broken.

We are inherently broken by sin, but we don't want to deal with it by being broken or grieve about our sin.

It's like this another time when we were at Tennessee Temple.

Normally the case for Heather and I was on Sunday nights after church.

We'd go out on a date or play cards or whatever.

And this one particular Sunday night, I wanted to hang out with my friends and play football at the park.

And so I went and we're playing football and everything, and I made a quick move, you know, because it's like it doesn't matter if I'm not that good.

I'm still gonna play like I'm that good.

And so I make this move, and when I do, I roll my ankle completely over, okay?

Playing two-hand touch football in the park.

And sadly to say, the move that I made was a girl in front of me.

That okay, so I make this move, roll my ankle, and I get back and I'm I'm I'm doing everything to like mask the pain and I'm limping.

And I get back to the dorm and I call Heather and I'm like, I don't know what I did.

And she's like, Well, you should have gone on a date with me.

You know, this would have never happened had you been in the right place.

And so we get back and she pulls down this bucket and puts ice in it.

And as I kind of recall, probably the first time I cried in front of Heather, I'm like, you know, it hurt so bad.

And I'm trying to deal with it.

I get back to the dorm and and I'm and it just throbbed.

I never had something throb like this, and finally I had to deal with the fact that I needed to go see a doctor.

Something was so bad that I wasn't gonna fix it myself.

I wasn't gonna wrap it, I wasn't gonna ice it, I wasn't gonna wear the right thing or put it in the right boot.

I needed to go see the doctor because I needed a fix.

I had to come to terms with that something had been broken and I needed to deal with it.

You see, part of our plight is that we're not coming to grips with the fact that we are broken.

We're not, there's an answer, but we have to seek it out.

In Luke 17, Jesus heals ten lepers.

And in this story, there's one man that sees what happens and he returns shouting.

He's celebrating.

I was once broken and now I'm fixed.

And Jesus says to him, There was ten.

Where are the nine?

See, the problem with most people, they're like that nine.

We want a quick fix to a problem, and we don't see the full weight of it.

There's a story of another man in the Old Testament named Naaman who had got leprosy.

Naaman was a great soldier, and he was told, if you'll go to Elisha the prophet and tell him, surely his God can heal you.

And so Naaman goes, and on his way to going, Elijah sends out a messenger who tells Naaman, if you'll go and dip in the Jordan River seven times, you'll be healed.

Naaman rages at this.

He can't believe, number one, that someone had the audacity to send a messenger.

Number two, he says, Isn't there a better river?

The Jordan is a dirty river.

Can't I get this done an easier way?

Church, this is us.

We say, God, we need you.

I know that I'm unclean.

I've got this thing that's wrong with me.

But isn't there a better way, God?

Can't we do it some other way?

Can't we fix it some other way?

And God says, in 1 John 1 9, He's faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

But for us to process sometimes, well, if I have to go down in front of a whole church and bow my knee, that's humiliating.

If I have to do this, if I have to get it right with somebody who I've really been bitter against for a long time, that's humiliating.

Listen, do you want it fixed?

Do you want it righted?

Or do you just want a band-aid?

Because I can promise you, a band-aid doesn't fix a break.

You can't bandage brokenness.

It's like this, Callie and Wyatt, their tolerance levels for pain are completely different.

It's kind of funny.

So we were in a Chick-fil-A a few months back, and we hear this blood curdling scream, and we know it's Callie, and I'm like, what has happened in the Chick-fil-A playground that's like a hundred square feet?

Like, what could have happened?

And she comes out and she's like, she's already got it broken.

Her wrist must have bent back like this.

And she said, Daddy, it's sprained.

You know, she's giving her diagnosis, and you know, we would get an update for the next three, four, five days.

Okay, I'm like, you know, I just play along to it now because I know how she's I'm like, what percentage is it?

Oh, it's about 30%.

You know, if she was playing, she could really move it, but when she wasn't playing, she's like, it's about 30%, right?

Now, this is what I know as a father.

Wyatt could have done the same thing, and he probably wouldn't have even screamed.

And here's why.

Because if there is fun around Wyatt's sphere, he doesn't want to miss a moment.

He would think to himself, if I sound like I'm in pain, mom and dad are gonna pull me away from the fun.

So I'm staying away from pain, even if he was in pain.

And for us, it's kind of like that.

God, I've got this.

God, we know if Wyatt is really hurt, we're probably going straight to the doctor.

We know that.

There's no fooling around with it.

If he is in real pain, we're probably going to the emergency room to get it fixed.

Now with Callie, she might whine for three weeks.

Well, church, we've got to quit putting band-aids on problems.

Matthew 18 says this that if you have ought against somebody, you need to get it fixed.

If it's a brother or sister, we need to get it fixed.

If you have had bitterness in your life, you need to get it fixed.

Don't fake leprosy.

Don't go walking down that lonely, dusty road, throwing yourself away from the church because you got your feelings hurt, and go sit under a tree and pout when you're really not in that place.

All the while giving yourself heart leprosy.

Bitterness, swallowing the pill.

Don't band-aid that problem.

Get it fixed.

You see, once the leper realizes his broken condition and sees Jesus, his answer has shown up.

We'll get a glimpse at how Jesus approaches people's needs.

Look at verse 41 again.

We're going to see the Almighty's atonement.

Then Jesus, moved with compassion, stretched out his hand and touched him and said to him, I am willing to be cleansed.

The Almighty's atonement.

There's not anything like it.

It said in that scripture, he showed his love.

When Jesus shows up, he shows his love.

He was moved with compassion.

When you look up this word, some theologians believe that the word moved actually means being angered.

I tried to wrestle with that in my head.

How does that make sense?

Move with compassion, being angered.

How does that work?

And when looking it up further, it shows that Jesus, when he looked at the leper, he was not angry that the leper was needing him.

He looked at the condition of sin.

And it angered him.

You see the same thing when Jesus goes to heal Lazarus.

It says, Jesus wept.

And Jesus didn't weep in that moment because Lazarus is dead.

Jesus didn't weep because his friend was in a tomb.

He wept because his friends wept.

He wept because the full weight of sin would bring a man to that death.

And seeing sin angered him.

It angered him what would happen.

So Jesus moved in a way of being angered.

He moved towards the leper in a pace of being angered at the sin.

But then look what happens.

It said, move with compassion.

That word compassion here means it describes one who seeks a relationship.

Listen, church.

Luke 19, 10 says this.

He came to seek and to save that which was lost.

Jesus came to bring a reckoning and to come and to seek you.

Church, you understand that he came to seek you and me.

Seven times the gospel says Jesus was moved because he was moved with compassion.

And because he was moved by this, he did the unthinkable.

In verse 41, it says that Jesus moved to him.

He is willing and he touches him.

This is an interesting picture because Jesus could have spoken and a leper could have been cleansed.

Jesus could have snapped his fingers and a leper would have been cleansed.

But Jesus comes, he moves to him quickly, and the scripture shows that that word means he embraces him.

He touches him.

The biggest problem for the leper.

Can you imagine how long he had been without human touch?

How long this person had gone without the handshake of another, without the hug or the embrace of another, without feeling love, and Jesus, the Almighty, the one who is whiter than snow, walks through the shadow of the tree, walks to his disease, wraps his arms around him.

He was moved with compassion, showed his embrace.

Could have been months or years with no feeling of touch.

Heather and the kids one time went to Texas for 20 days.

Okay.

And um, 20 days without your family, if you've never been 20 days without your family, can make a person go a little bit crazy.

Okay.

20 days, there were days where I had full conversations with myself.

I'd go to work, nobody would, maybe nobody would be there.

I'd come home, there's a wall, there's a TV.

I don't even enjoy TV, especially not without my family.

So I'm just, what do you do?

And for 20 days I'm thinking about my kids, or I hear them on the phone, and the phone's great.

There's nothing like walking through that door and seeing little feet come and wrap you up.

Nothing like seeing my wife and her face and that embrace.

So I had 20 days once.

Kind of felt like I was a leper.

God touches the heart of the man.

He moves past what is expected and does more.

You see, he touches the heart.

There's been a lot of times where people have been to funerals or had sickness and they said something like, I don't understand really what happened, but God's grace came over me.

I don't really know exactly what happened, but he just got me through.

There's not a way to describe it.

And scripture says it like this there's a peace that passes understanding.

When the embrace of the Savior comes into your life in a time of your detriment, you know who he is.

God touches the heart.

God shows his love, his embrace, and he shows his infinite power.

Look at what he says in verse 43 and 44.

He strictly warns him and sent him away.

And he said to him, See that you say nothing to anyway, anyone, but go your way, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing the things which Moses commanded.

So he tells him, Go and do what Levitical law says you're supposed to do.

After he touches him, he says, Now go and do what the law says you're supposed to do about this.

So he was supposed to go to a priest, and the priest would kill one dove and sprinkle the blood of that dove onto another dove, and then he would take hyssop oil and spread it on the man, and he would go through this great process of cleansing, and he would have to offer the priest would have to offer a lamb for a trespass offering and a sin offering, all so that the man could be atoned from leprosy.

It was an atonement process.

And you can imagine as this leper shows up, and for the first time in the priest's history of doing this ceremony, a man shows up and he's like, I'm already clean.

You don't have to do any of the process.

Look at this skin.

It's all done.

This man touched me and made me clean.

I don't have to.

You can do it if you want to, but I'm already clean.

And the priest is looking at him like, what do I do?

And he went through the process.

But the man was already clean.

He went through that process because the man was supposed to make his atonement.

If you look back again at Psalms, I want to show you a picture of what David, Psalms 51, what David went through.

Psalms 51, and I'm going to read, skip around a few verses.

But verse 2 says this.

This is right after David has committed his great sin with Bathsheba and killed her husband, Uriah the Hittite, and it says, Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin, in verse number two.

Verse number seven, he says, Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean.

Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.

Hyssop is the same oil that the leper was supposed to use in the ceremony of being cleansed by the priests.

He says, Purge me with hyssop in verse number seven.

And it goes on in verse number 10.

He says, Create in me a clean heart, O God.

Renew a steadfast spirit within me.

Do not cast me away from your present, and do not take your Holy Spirit from me.

Sounds a whole lot like what happens to the leper.

He says, Don't cast me from your presence.

Let me worship you again.

Verse 16 says, For you do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it.

You do not delight in the burnt offering.

The sacrifices of God, we read this already, are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart.

You see, David just broke like all Ten Commandments in a matter of hours.

And unfortunately for David, his friend, one of his best friends, was a prophet named Nathan.

His friend comes to him and describes this great sin, and David says, I'll have that man killed.

And Nathan says, You're the man.

You're the one that I'm describing.

And David falls to a place finally where this has gone on a little bit over a year, where he's broken about his.

Brokenness.

He knew his sin.

He had to cover it up.

He knew what he did with Bathsheba.

He knew what he did with Uriah the Hittite.

He knew.

But he was trying to hide it from a holy God.

And Nathan tells him, look at David.

He comes to this point.

He says, God, I'm sick in ways that I don't even understand.

I don't even fully understand what's wrong with me.

He says, purge me.

Purge me with hyssop.

Atone for me, like the priest would do.

Atone for me.

Put your blood on me because this sin is so heavy.

I don't even understand it.

He says, find the ways that I'm wrong and fix it, God.

Create in me that clean heart.

I can't do it on my own.

He says, sprinkle yourself on me.

Make me white as snow.

David is saying this, church.

He's saying, I am the leper.

You are the leper.

We are the leper.

You see, Jesus showed his infinite power in the cross.

He bore the full weight of our spiritual leprosy.

See, Jesus travels down a dusty road.

He doesn't sit under a tree, but he carries one.

And he goes to the place called Golgotha, the place of the skull.

A place where he would be alone facing death.

The physical part of it was going to be crucifixion, where a person would be beaten and tortured.

It would be a slow death.

Socially, he was alone.

There was nobody with him.

Almost all of the disciples had left him.

Spiritually, he was torn from the Father.

You see, he took on our punishment.

He took on our spiritual leprosy.

He took it and covered it with the blood.

He gave his identity to you.

That's the gospel.

He took our place.

And if you look at the end of this scripture in Mark chapter 1, it says that the man went and told everyone, even though Jesus said not to, and that after that point, Jesus could not go into any more towns openly, that he had to go on the outskirts.

Mark 1 · chapter mention

And so what Jesus did was took the leper's condition.

He took it, he gave him wholeness, and instead, Jesus no longer could go openly.

He had to go around.

And I want you to understand that's what happened at the cross.

Jesus took our punishment.

We don't even have the right to carry it anymore.

We shouldn't want to carry it.

We don't have to bear the weight of sin because Jesus took it.

He bore it.

I want to close with this illustration.

There was a Navy SEAL operation where the SEAL had come in to free some hostages from a building that they were captured and stuck in and tortured.

And the SEALs came in by helicopter, made their way into this compound.

They stormed in and saw what they thought they'd see, captured men and women, shrieking along, crying out.

And one of the seals finally said, We're here to rescue you.

We need to move quickly.

Everyone up, follow us.

Not one of those captured moved.

They had fear.

They had been beaten, they had been bruised.

Their emotional scars and physical scars had been so much they were not of right mind.

So finally, one of the SEALs put down his weapons.

He got down on his knees.

He moved closely to one of the men that had been captured.

He said, Listen, we're here to help you.

Man cried out a little more.

Finally he laid down and put his arm around this man.

Never.

Never would that happen from the people who had captured him.

He whispered to him.

He said, Listen, we're Americans.

We're here to save you.

We're here to help you.

We know you've been beaten.

We know that you're broken.

But you're still alive.

You still have breath to breathe.

Let us rescue you.

We're here to rescue you.

But you're gonna have to get up.

You're gonna have to follow us.

You're gonna have to trust us.

And finally, one of the men stood to his feet.

And as the one stood to his feet and followed him, all the others followed to their rescue.

Don't you understand, church?

That's what Jesus did for us.

I don't have any reason to wallow in our condition.

It may be deep, it may have real struggle, but I bet he's whispering in your ear.

I want to rescue you.

I paid a great cost to rescue you.

You gotta deal with the fact that you're broken.

Or you're never gonna get out of this.

You won't feel clean unless you deal with it.

See, Jesus wants to show up in your life.

He's coming.

We're missing if we don't deal with the truth.

Thanks again for tuning into this week's message.

We pray that your life has been changed.

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We hope you have a wonderful day and again, God bless you.