The King of Wholenss

All right, so I'm reading today's verse.

We are, if you don't have a Bible with you can find one

under your seat and we will be on page 763.

All right, and today's reading will be Matthew chapter 8,

Matthew 8:14–17

verses 14 through 17. All right, let's read together.

And when Jesus entered Peter's house, he saw his mother-in-law

lying sick with a fever. He touched her hand and the

fever left her, and she rose and began to serve him.

That evening they brought him many who were oppressed by

demons, and he cast out the Spirit with his word and healed

all who were sick. This was to fulfill what was

spoken by the prophet Isaiah. He took our illness and bore our

diseases. This is the word of the Lord.

Thank you. What's going on Port City family

and friends. How we doing Good.

My name is Tanner lead pastor here.

It's a joy to be with you. One of the things we're super

passionate about at Port City is college students and tonight we

have a vision dinner for our college students.

If you know somebody, tell them to come.

We feeding them. We're hanging out and y'all

college is just such a massive time in life.

I got saved in college at 18. Praise the Lord.

Many come to campuses not knowing what God is about to do

in their life. They're just looking for, you

know, they're trying to fill the God size hole with everything

they can find and we know they're not going to find it

until they are found by Christ. And then others who love the

Lord just don't have a really compelling vision for how the

gospel changes maybe their life and all that is possible for

them. And we just want to paint a

picture of what we hope to see. I hear by God's grace through

Port City College. So tell your friend, tell your

Mama, and then tell your Mama, their Mama to tell their kid to

come to that. So yeah, hope to see you there.

Let me pray for our just our college ministry here and what

God wants to do. Guys, we're praying that one day

this room, maybe not this room, but a room that we gather in, is

full of Norfolk State Tidewater Community College, our region

and ODU students. And just just that God is just

sending students all over the place.

And also that that our great city would benefit from them

coming alive in Christ. OK, so let's pray and then we'll

dive into the word for today. Our Father, we're so grateful

for how you, God, when you unlock things for us, when you

save us from our sin, when you draw us through yourself, God,

you give us a vision for life with you.

God, you give us a Kingdom imagination.

And God, we believe you want to do that on these campuses.

God, we pray you would do it Norfolk State at OU at Regent at

Tidewater and God, you would do it for your glory and and

students would leave different than they came in.

So use this dinner even tonight for your glory.

We pray in Christ's name, Amen. We all recently you might have

seen this this come across your news feed.

There was a a hot mic picked up two world leaders having a

conversation about immortality. And they were, they were just,

you know, we talk about the weather and I guess casual world

leaders talk about organs and the ability to maybe live

forever. And I chuckled a little bit, you

know, because I know what you know, which is that death

doesn't lose, OK, that that's going to win.

And it's funny to me to think about with all that money and

all that power, you know, something deep down that we all

know, which is that you going to die.

But all that money ain't nothing you can do about it.

But also what what the concept of death brings up is a whole

host of other questions, which is something's not right.

Like we're not supposed to die, right?

Like when we get sick, when things happen.

And then there's all the stuff that's in us that's wrong.

Like how much we are so insecure, so prideful, so

arrogant. We say the meanest things to the

people we say we love the most. So there's stuff busted out

there. There's stuff busted in here and

we go die. So somewhat what our soul craves

is a story that makes sense of why things are the way they are

and where they're going to go. Like why are things that way and

what's going to happen about it? And we crave a hero who's going

to solve it, right? So we crave the story that makes

sense of it and we crave the hero to step in and help.

And y'all in the Bible, praise God, we have that story, that

true story. And in Jesus we have that hero.

And if we don't, if it's not true, we might as well start

partying right now and go join them in the conversation about

organs being able to make us live forever.

And it just, it's just, it's meaningless.

Let's just hang out. Who cares?

But y'all, praise God, that's not all we have.

We do have that story. We do have that hero.

And in today's text, what we're going to see is just a picture

of the Kingdom, just a slice, just a little taste of Christ

bringing the Kingdom to earth right in front of our eyes.

Heaven on earth, if you will. And it's going to raise a host

of questions. It helps define for us what

wholeness is. And then it kind of raises the

question, what should we expect about our life in the midst of a

broken, busted place here and now?

If we know this is our God, this is our hero, this is our story,

what does that mean for us as we live here and now?

OK, So what we're going to do is we're going to look at the

picture of wholeness, the obstacles to wholeness, and then

the path to wholeness. If you are ready, let me hear

you say I'm ready. Point #1 the picture of

wholeness. So the text said this, And when

Jesus entered Peter's house, he saw his mother-in-law lying sick

with a fever. He touched her hand and the

fever left her, and she rose and began to serve him.

That evening they brought to him many who were oppressed by

demons, and he cast out the spirits with the word, and

healed all who were sick. This was to fulfill what was

spoken by the prophet Isaiah. He took our illnesses and bore

our diseases. If you're you're new with us,

we're not just picking this story here this week like we're

we're in a series in which you've got to understand, I

don't have time to go back through all of it.

You can go listen to our other sermons in the series.

But what Matthew is doing is painting this picture of King

Jesus. He was just up on a mountain,

taught about the Kingdom for several chapters.

He comes down from the mountain and immediately is approached by

a leper. OK, he heals the leper.

Then he's approached by a Roman military official.

And now this week he's getting he is healing a woman.

I could take you into the theology of how dope this is.

But if you don't know now you know, in the temple, the the

construction of the temple and the laws around who had access

to what, there was kind of like cascading rings of removal from

the holy of holies. OK, So God's presence was said

to be in the holy of Holies. And as you kind of go out from

there, obviously lepers, you are on the outside, OK, you are not

allowed in. Then there's the court of the

Gentiles, which is represented by the Roman military official.

And then they had the court of women.

So what is being painted before our eyes?

When Messiah comes, those who were furthest are slowly brought

into God's presence. You see how that works?

He does not come first for those looking for Him.

He comes and makes worthy those who are previously considered

unworthy. Let's go with a leper.

Let's go with a Roman military official.

And then we come and heal Peter's mother-in-law.

So what we're seeing, although this this slice we get here,

we're going to zoom in on, it's a it's a building picture of who

Messiah is and what he came to do.

OK. And what I want to just burn

into our minds here today, The image you got a woman lying with

a fever, pre ibuprofen era, pre antibiotics.

The, the insinuation of the text is it's it's nearing game over

for her, right? She can't do anything.

She's on her back and upon a touch she is restored.

She stands up and begins serving.

OK, so kind of the picture is a curse is removed, purpose is

restored in the presence of Jesus.

OK, those are kind of the three images of wholeness that we get

here. We get a removal of a curse,

restoration of purpose and doing it in the presence of Jesus.

OK, so let's talk about those three ingredients first.

Wholeness requires removal of the curse.

Somebody say curse y'all, it's represented here by the fever,

but y'all life is busted, right? Like that's, that's sort of what

we have in this picture. Here is the the the the fever

represents things that are so normal to us, but we also know

it should not be this way. Right in in verse 17, Matthew

quotes Isaiah 53, which many of us know is a famous text about

Christ's atoning work to take his sin upon our sin upon

himself. But it's also a text that talks

about things like this. He came to take our illnesses.

He came to bear upon us his diseases.

And there's this sense that we've got to get in our mind

that Jesus came to make right everything.

The curse broke everything, OK, And so you've got to beg the

question, what all does the curse touch?

It touches everything. Obviously, we're going to talk

about sin. We're going to talk about the

internal struggles. But even a fever, y'all, is a

result of the curse. And if you are not a Christian

here today, we are so glad that you're here and you're checking

things out. I just want to challenge you to

think about how do you make sense of why things are not the

way you know they should be? Where does even like a fever

come from? Like, where does just stuff you

see that is apparently evil in our culture, where does it come

from? Like, what story makes sense of

it for you? Because the Bible teaches a

story that is pretty compelling, that starts with Adam and Eve's

fall. And it doesn't just impact them

hiding with leaves from God. It breaks everything.

It breaks the relationship with God, with each other, with

themselves and with the earth. And so all that is wrong in our

world goes back to that curse and y'all faith family, we've

got to keep in mind Jesus came to make right everything.

Sin took all of it. You know the old song goes like

this. No more let's sins nor sorrows

grow, nor thorns infest the ground.

He comes to make his blessings flow far as the curse is found,

far as the curse is found, far as far as the curse is found.

And if you're ever wondering what it's like to be in my head

all day, I'm just walking around like and just making up songs

all the time. But y'all, I love that.

Because y'all, He came to make right everything that's wrong,

all of it. Did he come to take sin?

Yes. But everything that's busted

should point us to y'all. It's not supposed to be this

way. All of it.

So the cursed removal just by a touch.

Don't you love that it says the fever left?

I love that. It's not that the the I just

love this image that the fever knows it don't even make no

sense. No MO.

You know, like the fever is not a person right?

But the fever left. I'm out.

Bye. Messiah touched her is gone.

OK number two thing about wholeness.

Wholeness leads to our true purpose.

Don't we love the image that she don't get up and just start

watching Netflix. Appreciate you Jesus, let me

just now I can click. I've been waiting to watch my

new show. She rises and what does she do?

It says she began to serve him. Y'all the true you is the

neighbor you, not the Netflix you.

You when you're restored are moving towards others.

You don't go in a room by yourself when you're restored.

The point of restoration is to make you somebody who serves God

and others who loves God and others, who has forgotten self,

who is in love with God and others.

And I'll point out to the to those of us who are in the the

faith community in Christ, y'all we can think that worship means

she gets healed to start singing a song and kissing his feet.

Y'all which is part of worship. But notice she gets up and just

begins serving household tasks. She grabs some plates, she makes

a meal. She just starts doing stuff we

do all the time, which is a good picture for us.

That wholeness isn't like removal of normal life.

It's restoration of who you were meant to be in normal life.

Like you don't get less human when you get saved.

When you know Christ, you become more human.

So the goal of your life is to walk in wholeness, meaning that

the curse has been removed so that you can become one who

loves God, a neighbor, through normal activities.

When I'm making this, I'm giving it to Christ.

I'm giving myself through what I do.

I'm not doing this so later I can be with God by having a

worship set. Does that make sense?

It's that what I do in the worship set is what I do when I

build the tea set. Are you with me?

Like I'm always worshipping God? All of life is wholeness, it's

in Christ. Maybe you are under the

impression today that if God is was in your life, every moment

would feel magical. Maybe you think that your life

would just become like a walking just set of amazing things after

one after another. And I can resonate with wanting

that sometimes. But let me tell you that this

woman gets touched by Jesus himself, and she just gets up

and does stuff that you and I do every day.

She started to blow her nose, you know, like she's still, you

know, like she's still normal. Like life gets fuller when you

follow Jesus, but it doesn't like, change.

Does that make sense? Like in the sense that it's not

life, Like you still got to live.

OK #3 Wholeness brings us into the presence of Jesus.

So our three ingredients are curse gone purpose restored in

the presence of Jesus. Yo, you've got to have all three

to have the Bible's view of wholeness.

OK, Everybody thinks they know what it means to be a whole

human, right? Our, our, our culture is very

into like holistic is a word we hear a lot, right?

Y'all, to be whole in the Bible's eyes is to have the

curse removed for the purposes of your purpose being restored

to love God and neighbor in the presence of Jesus.

If you take any of those three away, you don't have biblical

wholeness. That's what the Bible says

wholeness is. It is love of God.

A neighbor with curse removed for the purpose of God's glory

in the presence of Jesus. I think some of us are like,

I'll take two of those. Let me get, let me get, let me

take the curse gone and I'll take the neighbor but no Jesus

or we'll go. Let me get curse gone and Jesus

but no neighbor, right? Like let me get, let me get

those two. But none of y'all fools.

I'm just cooking for Jesus, not for my mother-in-law, right?

And that's what I love about this text is it's all three

parts is what it means to be in Christ, to be whole.

So where is God tapping you on the shoulder of like?

Your view of wholeness does not line up with what the Bible

says. If you want a life that is not

life through God, you are using him to get a life of something

else. But it's not what the Bible

envisions of wholeness. OK, so let's talk about the

obstacles to wholeness in our text.

So out the obstacles to wholeness.

Cause y'all, I'm just gonna be real with you at some level.

When we read a text like this, Jesus touches everything's

amazing. It's all good.

So what's the problem? Why doesn't everybody believe in

Jesus? Why don't we all follow him?

And then why does the church look so much like the world

sometimes when it comes to the issues we have as we'll talk

about. So we can't read this through

rose colored glasses that this is easy.

Does that make sense? So I want us to be real.

The the phrase that came to my mind this week is many people in

the church are not like this is if you're a Christ follower and

I'm just being real, we can read a text like this.

Maybe it's not your experience and what you do is just a little

bit of soft quitting on God. Like I don't actually think

he'll be the things I say I believe he is.

And I don't know how to deal with my disappointment and

expectations. So I'm just going to soft quit.

I'm not going to not show up to things, but I don't actually

trust, I don't know what to do with my disappointment.

And so I'm just slowly removing. So I, I really hope for those of

us who are not in Christ, we could see what God is trying to

do through the text, through the person of Jesus, the Messiah.

And then for the church, we've got to wrestle with some of how

a text like this shapes our disappointment and expectations

moving forward. Are y'all with me?

OK, so let's talk about the obstacles.

There's kind of external obstacles and then internal,

external. The first one is sickness,

right? Like she has a fever, yo.

That's an obstacle to wholeness. It is on the last time you had a

fever, you were probably not your best self.

I get real annoying. The man cold stuff is real.

Every man thinks they're the exception to the rule of the man

cold stuff. You ever notice that?

I definitely think I'm the exception, but I'm just being

honest in front of all of you because I love you, that it's

real. I have my threshold, but once

I'm over it, I'm done. I'm just out.

Don't ask me to do nothing. I'm not being patient.

Just watch movies. I'm out.

You're incapacitated by the sickness, right?

And again, this is what the fall does.

Is it it? It's not just sin, y'all, We're

going to talk about sin. But it's there's so many things

that are wrong that are external, like a fever, like a

toothache can ruin your week. Like the littlest things just

throw you off and they just make you, I mean, with no coffee, you

are the worst, right? Like that just speaks to some

things that are not right. And in the old days before

antibiotics and those things, if somebody was sick to the point

of dying, they got desperate. They got desperate,

superstitious thoughts. Or maybe we just made that new

friend and they're doing this stuff.

So maybe are the gods displeased with me?

And like, there was just a chaotic view of how to be well,

right? And so they were like, am I

curved? What is wrong?

What did I do? Or let me go to this person in

town that everybody says has some power.

I don't know if you know this, but many people in world history

have done miracles. Many even today, like things

happen in other countries where they don't have the medicinal

framework, that they don't even need to go to some other source.

They have control like we do. They don't have that sense of

control and things get real interesting and we need to not

turn our nose up at those type environments and cultures which

a lot of the world is still in in our in our western medicinal

headspace. We can think we don't need any

of that. But y'all, the miraculous is

still somewhat normal. Which it's interesting that

demonic activity is also listed in our text as an obstacle,

right? It's a little uncomfortable for

me to read this sentence. That evening, they brought to

him many who were oppressed by demons, and he cast out the

spirits with the word and healed all who were sick.

I'm like, why are those? Why are those like, oh, yeah,

healed demons and touch the fevers?

I'm like, why are they talked about?

Like, they're the kind of involved?

Like, what does that mean? Like, I'd love to split the

hairs of why Matthew thought, let's just throw those in the

same sentence, you know? And we're going to talk more and

more about demon activity throughout our series because

there's more stuff coming and more stories.

So we're not going to zoom in a ton on the demonic side of this

here today. But y'all, it's real.

It's not always as dramatic as the the commercials during

football games here this afternoon will lead us to

believe, which is like, come on, y'all, do we have to show these

at halftime of a 1:00 football game?

But y'all, the the demonic activity is not always as

dramatic, but these are two of the main things that give

humanity so many problems. The stuff like fevers and

demonic activity. That's why they're listed like

that. OK, let's talk about internal

obstacles. Let's talk about internal

obstacles again by quoting Isaiah 53 like he's kind of

bringing into a full picture. All that's wrong with humanity

is the external and the internal and Christ came to make it all

right. Isaiah 53 talks a lot about sin,

talks a lot about transgressions, iniquities.

So kind of the two things that are internally wrong is first,

we're wicked like we just are. Nobody makes us be as proud as

we are. Nobody makes us have the lustful

thoughts we have. Nobody makes us do these things.

They just flow out of us effortlessly.

Don't they much that's wrong with us.

Nobody made us say that thing we said.

Nobody in these past couple weeks has made anybody get on

there and start typing. I've I've heard it said out of

the overflow of the heart. The the mouth speaks and the

fingers tweet like you're. It's almost like your your

fingers are. Like whatever you've liked,

nobody made you like that. Whatever made you mad, nobody

made you mad. You did that, you know?

Like, there's something so automatic to what moments like

we're in right now is a culture show where we can't help it and

we know the problems are deeper than anything education could

solve, right? Like, these are deep problems.

The curse runs deep. We want what we shouldn't want.

And then when we want to want what we should want, we can't

want it. And we have to force ourselves

to want what we know we should want, and we don't want it.

You know, sin is so complex, it's to miss the mark.

Like when you are full of pride, you are making a mistake, you're

breaking God's law. It is error.

Like you are erroring by sinning, by having pride.

But it's also to settle. It's to settle for less than

being amazed by God. You're amazed with yourself in

every sin. You're doing two things wrong.

You're failing to be who God made you to be, and you're

failing to be satisfied by all that God wants to be for you.

Though you're sinful, he still wants to give you the feast and

you settle for a snack in your own sin.

That is what sin is. The second internal obstacle.

Y'all is our weakness, A poor city we talk about.

We're wicked and we are weak. OK, weak.

What do I mean by weak week is when you watch that toddler who

is not taking the nap yet just losing it over the littlest

things. Eventually the parent, every

parent eventually gets the point.

Like, you're just tired, sweetie, let's get you to bed.

That is your understanding of the difference between

wickedness and weakness. Like, are they wicked in that

moment where it's like the 50th thing in a row?

Yes, but they also need to get some sleep.

It'll be a different person when they wake up.

Yes right. Like we're, we're fever shut us

down Like we're, we're weak like we're, we're undone by the

littlest things. And you know what that leads to?

Because we are falling wicked people who struggle with

weaknesses. It leads to all kinds of

escapism. So what we do is we find ways to

survive and cope and deal with fevers.

Does that make sense? Like I can't handle life as it

is. So I'm going to run 2X to help

me survive. And that's what we tend to do.

And a lot of the the things we struggle with in our life are

just some form of ISM to handle what is like alcoholism is an

escape from what is it's, I can't handle the pain of this

narcissism, right? Even one as simple as cynicism.

Maybe you've developed a spirit of dismissal of everything in

front of you through humor. You can't take anything serious.

You don't take people serious because you can't face it in

your weakness. You're just like, I can't.

Your Instagram ISM, your consumer ISM, your TikTok ISM,

whatever our ditches are tend to reveal our inability to handle

the fevers of life. Does that, does that make sense?

Like we are wicked, but also when things are really hard, we

just struggle to walk in them, staying hard.

So we escape. Every ISM is an escape from what

is at some level. So we read a text like this,

Jesus comes and with a touch he can remove all that is difficult

for us. All the fevers he comes to.

We know eventually through the cross.

He is dying for our sins and our place.

So all that is wrong, He wants to make it right.

Hebrews 13/8 says that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and

today and forever. So he has the same power and

desires and heart as he did in this text.

So what are our options? Kind of the two ways people go

that I would say, neither of which are biblically healthy,

are a text like this is unrealistic and will never

happen and life is just awful and it's always going to be

awful and there's nothing you can do about it.

Do not expect this. This will never happen.

Wholeness is not possible. Give up and then all you can

hope for is escapism. Does that make sense?

All you've got is your survival tactics.

And then the other side reads a text like this and they

interpret what they think is the only issue is our faith.

And so it should be happening all the time.

So we run to either it should never happen or the only problem

is US. It should always be happening,

right? And then through our faith and

even a little bit y'all, some of the escapism the church can

develop is through the faith, if I had enough faith.

And that becomes its own form of let me be in denial.

I never weep. But only if we were happy enough

and believed enough. So mourning gets removed from

the church. You see how that works?

One group becomes cynics. One group becomes just joyful

all the time. You're like, this is weird.

One group has no tears and it's always a party, and one group is

just a bunch of cynics who are not fun to be around.

You know what I mean? I think the church is called to

something in between. Are you with me?

So here, here's what I would push us to in our expectations.

OK, the term I've been wrestled with this week is I want us to

be childlike redemptive realists.

Childlike redemptive realists. Let me flesh that out for you.

Jesus brings a slice. He touches this woman that

people are bringing to him. Everybody oppressed by demons

and those who are sick, and he's just touching them.

OK, First off, I love that image of where do you go to help

others be whole? Isn't it interesting?

You just tell them, well, just do X.

Just check out this podcast all the time.

We're giving people a path to wholeness.

So just ask yourself, what do I send people to make them?

Well, these people knew. Just go to Messiah.

I don't know what's going to happen when you go there, but

that's where you need to go. That's the source of wholeness.

So we go to Jesus to get wholeness.

We see in this text a window into eventual, unending

wholeness. It's a window into his power,

into the Kingdom, where there'll be no more fever, there'll be no

more demonic activity, there will be no more pride and

arrogance and all the stuff. It'll just be love of God, a

neighbor, unfiltered by any decay, any curse of any kind,

external or internal. Doesn't that sound amazing?

And y'all every miracle Jesus did was just a taste of what is

to come. And for everyone who received

one of those, eventually they didn't.

Lazarus gets risen from the dead and eventually he dies again.

This mother-in-law will get another fever one day she did

not recover from. Are you tracked with me?

Like every taste is just a taste.

So what we've got to have is a view of redemption.

Somebody say redemption. Redemption is the idea that God

is in the business of taking what is and making it beautiful

without erasing the painful path to get there.

They think Jesus resurrected. He comes to his disciples who

are saying we will not believe unless we see him and touch his

hands and he appears to them. Now he's going through walls and

stuff, which he didn't do before.

He just shows up and he's like, what's?

Good peace be with you. And he just shows him his hands

and lets them touch them, and they're now scars.

OK, the idea is what God wants to do is turn wounds into scars.

With scars, we have a story to tell.

It does not erase what happened. I was crucified, but now I'm

resurrected. And in a similar way, what God

wants to do is he wants to redeem us.

He wants to take what is broken and use it to build something

beautiful. But this is not a Men in Black

movie. He's not going to go.

Just look right here, Cha ching. OK, nothing bad happened to you.

Just got to get some new curtains.

We good like that, isn't He does not erase what happened.

OK. And he does not erase that you

still live in a broken world. So.

So guess what? After he heals her, she's going

to struggle with sin the next day.

She's still like, this world is still filled with frustration.

So even when the miracles come, this era we live in is still a

frustrated era. Are you with me?

One of my favorite pastors. He used to say even on his best

day, him and his wife would look at each other and say, it feels

like sometimes we are just sipping the ocean through a

straw. And I love that imagery because

like, there's so much I want to give you, there's so much I want

to do, but all I can access is through the straw.

Does that make sense? Even on the best day, life on

this earth is broken. Even when Messiah healed people,

it was a taste, but he wasn't pulling them out and taking them

to heaven. Do you see that He didn't come

on an extraction mission, He came on a redemptive mission.

He brought a taste of the future into the present to build in US

hope and belief in who He is and trust ultimately through his

atoning sin, sin bearing death so that we would trust Him in

the here and now. He is God with us.

Y'all, we live in the era where the main way God wants to be

with you is getting in the fire with you.

Doesn't mean he won't remove some fires, but he is God with

us. Does that make sense?

Like we live in the era where Christ wants to get in it, OK?

That's what he wants to do. So how do we live?

We live as childlike, redemptive realist.

Kids are awesome. Let them teach us some things.

When they're mad, they're mad. When they are sad, they're sad.

When they want something, guess what they do incessantly?

They ask for it, OK. And so I think in many ways what

we're looking for is the ability to live in the tension that

wholeness has come in part. We've been saved by grace

through faith. We could know Christ, the Spirit

and dwells you, and he still promises to bring slices of his

Kingdom if we'll ask. And we don't know when it's

going to be and wholeness is coming.

How do we live in that tension like kids, when it feels like

it's not right? You're probably right.

You should either be mourning or asking or a little bit of both,

right? Hopefully you felt that these

last couple weeks. Hopefully you've done some

mourning and some asking, not just being filled with rage.

I hope you are learning to mourn and ask.

That's what we need to be pushed towards is both.

Mourn what isn't, ask for what you want to be.

He wants to bring it, ask him and is still going to be cursed

if he does it. Does that make sense?

We're still going to live in an era of suffering even when he

breaks in. And y'all, I just got to be real

with us If we don't learn how to live and the fact that wholeness

has come and is still coming, the church becomes a space

filled with just as much escapism as the culture where we

can't handle life on life's terms.

And then we blame God as the source of our disappointment.

Does that make sense? And what I want to say is,

listen, we have to figure this out.

We have to figure out how to see that God has brought wholeness.

He is bringing wholeness. Sometimes he brings other

slices. And we, there is no formula to

that. That's the truth.

There are miraculous activities happening all over the world

right now. And we should ask like children.

And there are times where the answer will be not right now and

we don't know why. So what we have to learn is how

to live in that tension, like kids asking and asking and then

morning and morning and just sit in that tension.

And if we don't figure that out, we will become escape artists

just like everybody else. We will be filled with all the

isms with Bible verse slogans on our walls.

And that's the only difference. So part of what he's done in the

redemptive arc, the redemptive nature of being childlike faith,

is we can handle the tension and not escape from it.

Does that make sense? What if he died to bring you in

on the tension? What if he died so that you'd

become one saying your Kingdom come?

Jesus himself is telling you He's acknowledging it's not

fully here yet. Your Kingdom come like it's not

fully here yet. That's why we pray that every

day. So I want to invite you to a

reality. Let me tell you that it's going

to be hard and filled with tension and sometimes you're

going to be frustrated, but that doesn't mean God's not in it.

He died for you to bring you in the tension so you could feel

what He feels, and then you would ask him to come and then

you would mourn. You are becoming like how Christ

lived on this earth. Do you see that That's exactly

how he lived. The ultimate childlike,

redemptive realist is Jesus. He could have touched

everything. He did it.

He just brought slices. And y'all I want to.

I do want to say this before we move on.

Maybe there's some escapism in your life right now.

It could be. It could be big stuff.

It could be images, things you're watching.

It could be habits. It could be shopping.

I don't know what it is. I don't know where you run to

when you feel like you can't handle life.

Maybe it's food, maybe it's a substance.

Do not leave today without thinking about who you're going

to tell. You don't need to tell

everybody. But y'all, the superpower the

church has when we can't handle life is a thing called

confession. The point isn't you should

become somebody who can handle it.

The point is, you can't handle it, y'all.

I'm not telling you to be strong in your own strength.

I'm saying we learn to live in the tension through the strength

He supplies. Amen.

And So what we do as a church community is we are held up by

the Spirit as we share one another's burdens.

Life is hard. And I'm going to get next to you

and ask with you, and I want to get next to you and mourn with

you. That's why we become those who

rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep.

That's why we're a church family.

But if we don't learn that and it doesn't become real, we're

just a Bible verse filled version of we can't handle it.

That makes sense. So tell somebody if you got

something going on and if you get told something, this is not

the time to go into coach mode. OK, This is the time to say been

there. I get it.

If I were you and I struggle with that too.

Let's get real because otherwise, what are we doing?

Like what? What is this whole community

thing if we can't be real about how life tempts us all to

escape? For me it is chips at 8:00 PM,

OK? It helps me survive.

People, I need help. Mourn with me and ask with me.

OK, the path to wholeness, the path to wholeness.

Let's talk about the path to wholeness.

We're done. OK, Verse 17 said this.

This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah.

He took our illnesses and bore our diseases.

Want to say fulfill? I love to think of fulfill as

filling full. So imagine like a cup that gets

filled full. OK, that's what fulfill means.

You filled it full. He filled full what needed to be

filled full. He fulfilled what Isaiah

envisioned Messiah would do, which is he came to take our

illnesses and bear our diseases. So two things about Jesus and

we'll be done #1 Jesus brought wholeness, y'all.

He brought it, He did. He took our illnesses, He bore

our diseases, He went to the cross for us.

I hope you see Messiah's wholeness mission is to change

everything the curse has taken from us, y'all.

Every funeral you sit at, part of you wants to be mad at God.

I get that. And you're wondering what's he

going to do about it, y'all? He sent his son to die to kill

death. He sent his son to to take on

the weight of every cancer of everything.

When you're frustrated, know that God's solution for it is

what He did in sending His Son to take our illnesses, bear our

diseases. He came on a bearing mission, a

taking mission. You know, this is what we crave.

We crave a story, a hero that makes sense of why are things

not the way they should be and what's going to be done about

it. The Bible's answer is a hero

would come who would not blame all of us for the problems we've

created, but take upon Himself the curse.

That's Jesus. That's our hero.

But y'all, the gospel is upside down.

You are not the hero. You want to be the hero so bad,

so do I. But the gospel is upside down.

Y'all. Do you know how bad you are

asking for help? Some of y'all know you're bad at

asking for help. Let me tell you how bad some of

us are at asking for help. Your house could be burning

down, your ovens on fire, legs bleeding, dogs running out the

door, kids screaming, tires flat before you would walk outside

like, oh, cut up. Could you help me real quick,

just with a little something? And it's like your world is

about to fall apart. And your thought is, I don't

want to be a burden. OK, I'm talking to somebody.

Clearly we are so bad at asking for help and then once you tell

the friend at the 9th hour when your whole world's about to fall

apart, they're like what didn't you tell me for man?

Why'd you wait until it was in this situation?

Recently watched Sandlot with my kids and at the end of the movie

The dude's just like why didn't you tell me?

I would have gotten and gotten for you.

Like what? But then we wouldn't have gotten

this great movie. OK?

But we naturally think we are the burden.

Y'all, let me tell you something.

You're right y'all. The gospel is that actually your

burden is bigger than you think it is.

Your problem is worse than you think it is.

The cost to carry you is higher than you think it is.

Your house is more on fire than you think it is.

Your soul needs more saving than you think it does.

Your problem is actually beaker bigger.

The mountain is actually steeper.

Thank you, y'all. The problem a little bit, what

we're doing is somewhat right. We don't want a burden, people.

There's something about that that's admirable.

There is because we realize it's a cost to carry me.

The problem is you're inaccurate about what the cost is.

The cost is way higher than you think it is.

The flip side of that, the good news of the gospel, so the

gospel is that your burden is actually heavier than you think

it is, but also there's somebody more pleased to take it than you

realize. Our burden is bigger than we

realize, and somebody is more willing to take it than you

realize. The gospel is that you are a

bigger mess than you ever could imagine, and Jesus is more

willing to take all the mess than you could ever imagine.

Y'all, He took our illnesses. He bore our diseases.

I imagine like take like, give me that, give me that fever.

That's what he was doing when he looks at our sin, y'all we think

God is thinking, what are you doing?

He's thinking, give me that, give me your sin, give me your

illnesses. Give me, give it to me, I'll

take it. So y'all, we're right that we,

we got some problems, but y'all we miss assess how good he is.

And So what we do surviving is our inability, our

unwillingness, our pride for whatever it is, whatever word we

want to insert, to not go to the source, for the burden to be

carried. And we escape.

We take the exit ramp through substance, through shopping,

through whatever it is. And actually what God wants to

do is say actually the load is even heavier than you think.

You're miscalculating. Just don't get off the exit

ramp. Does that make sense?

Just keep coming to me, I will take it.

That happens initially in salvation, which some of y'all

still need to get saved. The Lord's been knocking on your

heart for a long time, and it's time to repent and believe and

trust in Christ for the first time.

For others of us who are in Christ, we need to see that

that's always the way it is. The burden is always heavier

than you think it is, and there's always one more willing

to take it than you think He is. And then learning to walk in

community as His means of helping you is often going to be

through other people. Once He's washed you by His

grace, He's going to say, OK, now let me help you through

them, OK? Second thing, Jesus is bringing

wholeness. He's bringing it y'all.

Isn't it good news that the slice we see in this text won't

be a slice forever? One day it's all gone.

All fevers. No more fevers, no more man

codes. Make fun of your husband as much

as you can now. So one day I'm not going to do

that. No more.

No more toothaches, no more things externally holding me

down. No more demonic activity, no

more struggling with mental health, No more any of this

stuff. No more sin.

No more mixed motives, no more racism, no more hatred, no more

just anger. Wanting to hurt another person

initially like they're it'll all be gone.

Doesn't that sound amazing, yo? Here's what's amazing about the

church. We get to live in that world

now. What makes us different than the

world is not necessarily who we are.

We still struggle with the same things.

We're struggling to escape just like everybody else.

I don't have some gene that makes me not struggle with life.

The difference is I've seen the taste and I live in light of

what's coming. That's the difference of the

church. Y'all listen to me.

The church doesn't just have a hope for the future.

We have a hope from the future. Jesus brought the future to the

present so you'd start living it now you've been invited to a

party that's coming, that's already started.

You're in, you know, church, you know you don't have a hope for

the future. People like man, I'm just so

glad that this and that's good. We should hope for the future.

But what will change your life is when you hope from the

future, when you live into it. Now we forgive because of what's

coming, because of who Christ is, how he forgives us.

But also, none of the things that we're seeing modeled for us

make sense if Christ is really coming back and making all

things new, right? Like we should be doing things

that align with the Kingdom to come, not with what the world

tells us things are now. Does that make sense?

So we forgive enemies because of who Christ is and what's coming.

We commit ourselves in our jobs to projects that will outlive us

because of what's coming. We build the the apple tree, so

to speak, like we, we think ahead, we become a visionary

because we see what's coming. So what in your life does not

make sense in light of the fact that the Kingdom is coming in

fullness? And where is God inviting you to

live? Like that's really true.

And it really might be a miraculous healing, by the way.

It really might in light of what's coming.

But I think what God is inviting us to do is children get hype

the second you tell them it's their birthday in three months.

They think every single day is their birthday for the next

three months. They can't handle time.

They only live in the now. There's something about child

likeness where anticipation goes away and it's just nowness,

right? And so I think what God's

inviting us into is to live in the future now like a kid.

Does that make sense? So we ask, we pray, we're

redemptive realist. I just want to call you church

dream, ask, go huge projects, things way beyond you forgive

radically. We should be asking God to turn

things upside down in our city for its good, our joy and God's

glory, knowing that it's not because we're skilled at

something. This is what God's going to do.

All of these things will not be so one day.

So I'm a build. I'm a build a village now that

makes it look like that. Does that make sense in my

neighborhood, on my team, at my job, whatever it is, y'all,

that's the joy we get. We don't have to wait to live in

the Kingdom. We're in it.

And we trust our King about what it's going to look like on the

way. OK, let's pray together.

Our Father, we love you. Thank you so much for this

slice. Thank you so much for this

picture. Fever is just running.

God, thank you for sending your son to to take our illnesses, to

bear our diseases, to to die in our place for our sin.

God, I pray for my friends who are not in Christ.

I pray they will believe the gospel.

I pray that they would see that this story, this hero is what

they've been craving. It's true.

They would repent. They would believe in God for

us, Your church. God, protect us from escapism.

Help us to run all the way to you, God.

Help us to not take the quick exit routes.

And when we feel like we can't stand it anymore and we turn to

one another in confession and need for help, may we not look

at each other like how could you?

May we bear one another up and go to Christ together.

So God filled this church with faith by the power of the Holy

Spirit. And we do ask on behalf of our

city that you would do things that the future Kingdom has in

mind here and out. For our city's good, for our

joy, and for Your glory, we pray in Christ's name, Amen.