The Kingdom Way | Luke 4:38-39 with Pastor Clayton Tyner

Welcome to the MetaCurch podcast.

My name is Clayton.

I'm the pastor at MetaCurch, and I hope that today's message is inspiring and enlightening and really builds you up wherever you're at in life.

Well, MetaCurch, I want to welcome you in.

If you're watching this right now, it means that the winter storm did come.

The roads are icy or snowy or maybe even both.

I hate not having service, but God has given me every single one of you to not only shepherd, but to steward.

And so two things are true.

At the same time, the book of Hebrews tells us to not neglect gathering together.

And that's written to people who are in extreme suffering and persecution.

What also is true is that the church is not the buildings we meet in.

The church is not the Holodas 4 H.

The church is not our building off of Petrenko, where we broadcast from.

The church is the body of Christ.

The biblical word is ecclesia.

It means the called out people of God.

And so although we could not safely gather in person today, as the called-out people of God, we just thank God for the ability to gather together around the Word, to gather together in spirit.

As much heartache and tension as the internet causes us, Jesus is in the business of redeeming things, and we are so thankful to get to gather like this, to worship like this.

We're grateful for those who tune in online every week from all around the country, who consider yourself a part of MetaCurch, you're faithful here, you're investing here.

We're all joining you digitally today, and we are going to continue going through the gospel of Luke.

Now, if you are new with us, and this is your first time tuning in, my name's Clayton.

I'm the lead pastor here at MetaCurch.

I am joined by a handful of our volunteers who at the very last second came out so that I would not be preaching to an entirely empty room.

So thankful to them and all of the volunteers who are helping us run this ministry.

Now, we are going line by line through Luke's gospel.

We're in the second series in Luke, and it's called the Kingdom Way.

This is the very beginning of Jesus' ministry, and every second of Jesus' time on earth, we believe he's demonstrating for us the way of the kingdom of heaven, and we should slow down and pay very, very careful attention to that.

Now I want to set the scene because here's what's happening.

Last Sunday, which you can get caught up on our YouTube channel, uh, this Sunday's passage, and next Sunday, there are three passages, but they're all happening on the same day in Luke's gospel.

Three passages, one day in the village called Capernaum.

Now, Capernaum, we learned last week, is Jesus' base of operations.

And even though Luke hasn't really introduced us to the disciples yet, that's happening in a couple of weeks, Jesus is staying at the house of Peter.

And I just want to give you the context of our passage.

Today we're looking at two verses in Luke chapter 4, starting in verse 38.

Luke 4 · chapter mention

It says that after Jesus left the synagogue, he entered Simon's house, that's Peter.

Simon's mother-in-law was suffering from a high fever, and they asked Jesus about her, so he stood over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her, and she got up immediately and began to serve them.

I just want to point out how dynamically different the beginning of the day in Capernaum is from where we are at today.

In the morning, he's in the synagogue and he casts out a demon.

It is jarring, it is public, people are astonished, everyone sees it, news about it spreads all over Capernaum.

That's in the morning.

In today's passage, we are now in the afternoon.

And in the afternoon, the miracle looks completely different.

It's not public, it's not jarring, the news isn't spreading.

Instead, it's in the home, it's small, it's intimate, it's private.

And this teaches us something very instructive about the life of Jesus, and it shows us something very important about how we are called to follow Jesus and live the kingdom way in our own lives.

What this shows us is that the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, which are the synoptic gospels, giving us a synopsis of the life of Jesus, the Gospel of John, which is a salvific gospel written so that everyone who reads it can believe in Jesus for eternal life.

All four of these narratives of the life of Jesus Christ, they are in fact highlight reels of Jesus' time on earth.

They are not telling you every single miracle, every single powerful sermon, every single exorcism, every single important moment.

As a matter of fact, in John's gospel, he only gives us seven of Jesus' miracles.

And if you look at the last chapter of John, the last verse of the last chapter in John, his closing thought for his letter for us, here's what John has to say.

John says, there are also many other things that Jesus did.

How many other things?

John tells us, if every one of them were written down, I suppose not even the world itself could contain the books that would be written.

The reason we know about Jesus healing Peter's mother-in-law is because Peter becomes one of Jesus' closest friends and he happens to give witness to it.

In fact, it is small, it is off the radar, it's not outdoors, it's not in a synagogue, it's not on a hillside, it's not in front of crowds.

There is a part of Jesus' ministry that is public, and the public ministry matters, and it points at the mission that Jesus came to fulfill, but the majority of his ministry was in the small moments.

It was in the private, it was in the quiet, it was in the intimate.

The kingdom of God is not built on production value.

The kingdom of God is actually not built in services.

The kingdom of God doesn't show up best as pyrotechnics.

I love pyrotechnics.

I love fire, arguably, I love fire too much.

When I was a single man and I didn't have any responsibilities, no wife, no kids, the fireworks stands would fight over my business, all right?

I would drop stacks on fire.

I love fireworks, but the kingdom way is not the way of fireworks.

The kingdom way is the way of compassion.

The kingdom way is the way of a heart that breaks for things that break the heart of God.

And the power of our own personal ministry and the power of our movement will not be found in spectacle.

I don't know how many times I can preach this, but I'm gonna preach it probably until the day I die.

Revival will not come through metachurch because I can preach a good enough sermon.

I'm amazed that God uses somebody like me because you think you know me, you don't really know me.

I know me and the Lord knows me, and he uses me anyway.

I'm so grateful for that.

But revival will not come because I can preach a good enough sermon.

And revival will not come because Marisella can put together a good enough set, or Celeste can hit a good enough note, or our production team can put on a good enough production.

I think we have the best production team and the best worship bands, and our preacher does all right.

But that's not where revival comes from.

Revival comes when we come together in our buildings to be filled up, but revival actually happens outside of our buildings.

It doesn't happen because of spectacle, it happens because of these small moments, the quiet moments, the private moments, the intimate moments.

And it's startling to think as much as we know about Jesus, and there is no historical figure that has as much direct, firsthand uh uh attestation that people who have seen and observed and written down what he's done, there's no historical figure that has that at the level of Jesus, and yet the majority of what he did on earth we do not know.

And so it's just very convicting to me because part of what this made me think is out of all of the moments that are public in my following of the Holy Spirit, how many times for every public appearance do I have private moments of following the Holy Spirit?

For every moment that you post your following of Jesus on Instagram, how many moments do you have in the quiet and the private and the intimate following the Holy Spirit in your everyday rhythms that don't get posted online?

Because if we're not careful, we will look at the highlights of Jesus that we find in the gospels and we will think that the way that revival comes is through spectacle.

We can start thinking about this completely backwards.

We can start thinking about following Jesus the way that we think about building our own brand across all the other things we do in life, which is a thought something like this what good is it stepping out of my comfort zone to follow Jesus if I don't get to post it on Instagram?

And so we have to pause and consider that if revival comes, it will be because the body of Christ, filled with the Holy Spirit, gets out of the walls of our Sunday service and takes into a broken and dying world the actual hope and love of Jesus, not for applause, not for spectacle, not for social media consumption, but just because we understand who Jesus is and what he's done for us, and we live to now pay that forward.

We're looking today at this intimate moment.

And part of the question on this three-part examination of a day in the life of Jesus in the town of Capernaum is he has a very big morning, like a very big morning.

As a matter of fact, what happened last week in our passage is going to set up what happens next week in our passage.

But what happens on the in-between?

What happens after you go to service in the synagogue?

And you might be surprised to find out that what happens right after the synagogue is not all that dissimilar from what happens right after we attend service on our holy day.

The same way that so many of you are peeling out of our parking lots to get to lunch.

You gotta beat the Catholics to cracker barrel, I understand, right?

The same way in the ancient Near East in Israel, when they would finish with synagogue, they didn't have restaurants to go to, but they had a Shabbat meal that would be prepared at their home.

And the Shabbat meal was hosted and it was overseen and it was strategized and it was put together by the matriarch of the home.

Now it is true that in the ancient Near East, women were truly second-class citizens.

They couldn't own property, they couldn't vote, they couldn't give testimony in court.

There were a lot of things that were not quite an equal playing field.

What is not true is that women were not also honored and reverenced, especially the matriarch of the home.

Now, in America, we largely have single-generation homes, so you have a mom and dad and some kids.

But in the ancient Near East, and still today in much of the world, you have multi-generation homes.

And so you might have grandparents and great-grandparents and the kids and the grandkids and the great-grandkids all living together in the same compound.

And this is true of Peter's house.

His mother-in-law, who is presumably a widow because the father-in-law is not in the home, is living with Peter.

Now we have these ideas of mother-in-law in our culture too, right?

Sitcoms teach you that mother-in-laws are nags and they are annoying, and when mother-in-law comes over, you go to the garage and work on the car, or you go out to the bar with your buddies, you avoid mother-in-law at all costs.

Now, not me, because my mother-in-law is Mary Young and I love her very much, and I'm gonna make sure she sees that clip because I have a very good mother-in-law.

But that is kind of our cultural stereotype of the mom-in-law.

That was not true in the ancient Near East.

This is not how Peter would have viewed his wife's mother.

As a matter of fact, the mother-in-law was reverenced, they were honored, and they had a significant role to play.

They were the relational glue of the family, they were the social center of the home.

They were the host in a culture where hosting really actually mattered.

In a large sense, the matriarch of the home, she would raise up the younger women, she would mentor and mature them, and she was partly responsible for keeping shalom in the house.

Godly peace.

All of this was a part of their purpose, it was a part of what gave them power, it was a part of their gifting.

But Peter's mother-in-law is sick.

And what that means is she is sidelined from her purpose, she's sidelined from her power, she is sidelined relationally, and she is sidelined socially.

Now that's a big deal because all of those things are a part of how God uses her in the world, but not only is this happening to her, it's happening to her at the absolute worst possible time.

Because not only is she going to host Shabbat dinner, which is something that the mother-in-laws would do across many homes in Capernaum, but she had been chosen by a rabbi to host and keep the rabbi in her home.

And it's not any regular rabbi.

Jesus has already started to make a name for himself.

People already know he is speaking with power and authority they have never heard before.

And even though she does not realize it, she has the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to host in her home and host for Sabbath dinner, God in human flesh.

But there is a problem, and we see the problem at the beginning of verse 38.

It says, After Jesus left the synagogue, he entered Simon's house.

Simon's mother-in-law was suffering from a high fever, and they asked him about her.

Now, she doesn't just have a mild fever.

This means she is very sick.

She has a high fever.

Now, we are like post-Enlightenment, we are in the scientific age.

We don't really worry about fevers.

If you have a fever, it's like, hey, take an ibuprofen, drink some water, you'll be fine, you know?

In the ancient world, where they don't understand these things, if you get a bad fever, it often precedes death and sometimes quickly.

The things that we just brush off and we don't even worry about could kill you 2,000 years ago in a matter of days.

And so a high fever was treated as a highly, highly contagious and dangerous sickness.

Not only that, but although this was not biblical truth that they could have gained from their Hebrew scriptures, the superstitions around them had informed them that when somebody gets ill like that, it might also be a curse or a punishment from God.

And so this is the plight of the mother of Peter's wife, Peter's mother-in-law, not only is in real danger with a high fever, not only is seen as potentially cursed, but she is sidelined from everything that her life is meant for.

It's very, very difficult.

And the truth is that any other rabbi, any other rabbi, as soon as they heard that someone in the house that was hosting them, where they would eat their meals and spend their mornings and sleep at night, as soon as any other rabbi heard that someone has a high fever in the house, they are immediately getting on Airbnb, they are immediately finding a new host.

Like, there's no possibility they are staying there.

Number one, if they pick up the fever, then they don't get to do their job.

They don't get to travel and teach.

They don't get to go into the synagogue the next Sabbath.

The whole reason that they have come to town.

There's no possibility beyond that.

Sickness is seen as being ritually unclean, impure, defiled.

No rabbi is taking on that risk.

This woman has everything against her.

First of all, we just have to acknowledge she is a woman in the ancient Near East, which means she is a second-class citizen.

She's not just a woman, she is a widow, and widows were seen as the most vulnerable part of the population.

Not only is she a woman, and not only is she a widow, but she is also very sick.

She has a very high fever.

And so at best, she's unclean, and maybe even worse, she might be cursed.

And here is why Jesus is no ordinary rabbi.

We're gonna take verse 39 very slow.

It says at the beginning of 39 that Jesus came and stood over her.

Here's my guess.

Uh, any other rabbi, they would have felt very inconvenience first.

And after they got over their inconvenience, maybe they would feel a little bit of compassion.

And of course, as a traveling rabbi, you're always building your brand.

You need people to see how pious and righteous you are.

So maybe most traveling rabbis would have stood outside of the door to the house, made sure there was a crowd, you know.

Everyone gather, while you see how the righteous rabbi can, and then they might pray like through the door across the house, and just hope the prayer like hit her in the room or something.

And then they are on to a new house.

It says not only does Jesus go in the house, he goes in the house and he goes into her room.

And not like you know, when your kids are really sick and you feel bad not going in the room, but you also don't want to get sick yourself because then you can't take care of the kid.

So you don't really go in the room, you just kind of lean on the door jam like this.

Everybody?

Is everybody okay in here?

It says Jesus came right up to her and not just stood by her, stood over her.

Now, I only draw out these Greek terms when I think they're really, really instructive and really important.

But this verb stood over.

It's the Greek verb epistos.

And this is the word that would be used of a shepherd who gets in between his sheep and whatever other animal might be attacking.

It is simultaneously a posture of compassion and a posture of defense.

And what it might look like is not just going and standing awkwardly by the bedside, but almost like a good father would stand and then would come and stand over.

It means that Jesus got close.

It means he bent over where he could get eye to eye, soul to soul, with the woman who is vulnerable and second class, unclean, and to many, maybe even cursed.

And I just need you to know that this is how Jesus approaches you.

If you are a believer and you're struggling in your faith and you feel disconnected from Jesus, you need to know that Jesus stands over you.

He's never distant, he is never far, he never rejects, he never pushes away.

We do that.

Jesus pursues and he comes after, and he stands over and he looks you right in the eyes.

And if you are willing to look back, what you will see is a love and a grace and forgiveness that will draw you back into the appropriate relationship with him.

If you are not a believer in Jesus, you need to know that wherever you're at, at the very deepest part of your rebellion, day after day, spitting in the face of God, rejecting him, you know of his teachings, you decide not to follow them, you're going after the things of the world, you're trying to be your own God, trying to be your own king.

Jesus comes after you.

He wants to defend you.

And I know you probably have your excuses for why you are excluded from God's plan.

And I just wonder.

I wonder what your excuses are.

Maybe you feel like you are spiritually a second-class citizen.

Maybe you feel like your story has been so difficult that you are just too psychologically, emotionally, or spiritually vulnerable.

Maybe you feel unclean because of your sin and rebellion, your mistakes, your lies, the people that you have hurt, the messes that you've made, maybe you even feel cursed by God.

Jesus, every second of his life was demonstrating the kingdom way.

And part of the kingdom way is Jesus goes to the one person in Capernaum who is a second class citizen, that is the most vulnerable, that is unclean, and everyone thinks it's cursed, goes right up right up to her where no one else dares to go and stands over her.

The power that Jesus has, if you're willing to acknowledge him, willing to allow him to demonstrate his compassion towards you.

Verse 39 goes on and says, So he stood over her and he rebuked the fever, he rebuked the fever, and the fever left her.

Now we have to talk about what it means for Jesus to rebuke something, because not only did we see it last week, not only are we seeing it today, but next week in our passage, we will see it again.

Three times in one day in Capernaum across three passages, every time Jesus stepping in with a rebuke.

If we go back to last week's passage and we just look at the beginning of verse 35, it says, But Jesus rebuked the demon and said, Be silent and come out, and the demon had to come out, and the demon had to flee.

There are all these magicians, so-called healers, so-called exorcists, and they're trying, man.

They're coming in, they're having these little supernatural battles, but they cannot rebuke.

All they can do is fight, and sometimes they win, and sometimes they lose, and they are dealing with the supernatural, and they're doing magic, and they're doing incantation, and they're trying to leverage their authority, and they're trying to use the right words in the right order, and they're turning circles, and they're holding different idols, they're trying all of the things, but they cannot rebuke because rebuke requires authority.

Rebuke is always top-down.

A commander rebukes soldiers, soldiers cannot rebuke commander.

A teacher rebukes students, students cannot rebuke teacher.

Parents rebuke their children, their children cannot rebuke their parents.

It requires an authority that is granted to you.

And what this means is that when Jesus rebukes a demon, it is the end of the story.

The demon must flee.

There's no argument.

When Jesus rebukes, it is not opening up a conversation, it is the end of discussion.

It is not starting an argument, it is making a decision.

And we have to understand that.

Because we think about dealing with the supernatural in our own flesh, and in our own flesh, it is a fight.

In our own flesh, we are trying to land blows, we're trying to stay protected.

It's not a fight for Jesus.

We have to get this out of our minds.

When Jesus rebukes the demon, when Jesus rebukes the fever, this is not Jesus, a spiritual fighter, trying to land a punch.

It's the wrong picture.

This is Jesus, the king of the universe, taking his rightful place as the judge of all things and dropping down a gavel and making a decision.

This is the kingdom way.

We're gonna look, I don't know how long, 45 weeks maybe in the kingdom way.

I have no idea, there's no way of telling how long this is gonna be.

We're gonna spend so many weeks looking at the kingdom way, this second series in the book of Luke.

But I can sum it up for you.

Here's the kingdom way.

Jesus says it and it happens.

Jesus says it and it happens.

That's the kingdom way.

It's very interesting.

After the cross, after the grave, when the church starts and the gospel spreads, the apostle Paul uses a very specific term to describe the moment that our sins are forgiven and we receive eternal life with God.

He describes this moment with the word justification.

We are justified, scripture says, through the moment of faith in Jesus.

And you know what that word means?

Diacono in the Greek justification.

It means a judicial ruling.

What that means is the kingdom way is Jesus says it and it happens.

And at the moment that you put your faith in Jesus, Jesus says, your sins are forgiven, and you are forgiven immediately.

You are made righteous through the covering of Christ immediately.

You are adopted into the family of God immediately.

That's the kingdom way.

Jesus says it and it happens.

Jesus who loves you and who comes after you and who pursues you and who stands over you and patiently waits for the moment where you will come to the end of yourself and put your faith in him and in him alone.

Let's look at the nature of this healing.

It says that Jesus stood over her, he rebuked the fever, and it left her, and she got up immediately.

Got up immediately.

When Luke is writing, we know this, he's writing with so much intention.

It is so deep.

If I preached everything I wanted to preach in every single verse, we would never possibly get to the book of Luke.

But I do need you to know that verb got up, it is the same root word for when Luke will write 20 chapters later.

He is risen.

This is a snapshot.

It is a picture of the resurrected life that you and I are meant to live.

And if that is true, then we should pay very careful attention to what Peter's mother-in-law does next.

Let's finish our verse.

It says that he stood over her, rebuked the fever, it left, she got up immediately, and then began to serve them.

She got right back to serving her family and to serving Jesus.

Now I'm always trying to do my best to help us read the scripture, how Luke wrote it, how the original audience would have read it.

And I'm also trying to assess how we naturally read some of this through our own cultural lenses in the year 2026.

And I have to acknowledge that in our culture today, we've been through five different waves of feminism that make us look at the roles in the Old Testament and the New Testament with very, very difficult lenses.

And so here's how we might read this moment.

Like we're tracking with the whole miracle, like that's so cool.

She was marginalized.

Jesus came in there when no one else would, and then he stands over her, and that's so cool.

And then he just rebukes it, and the fever leaves.

I love all that.

I love the miracle.

I love her getting healing.

And then it's like, and then she got right back in the kitchen, and we're like, really?

She can't have a second?

She can't breathe for a minute?

Like we read this as if Peter is like, oh, thank God, I was about to burn the roast so bad.

If you could please just get back in the kitchen to get back to work, so glad you're back.

This is definitively not what is happening.

We have to remember that we have this multi-generational home.

We have a very different society, we have matriarchs who do not carry the same rights as their male peers, but who are honored and reverenced in their role, and who have purpose and power in their home.

And so you might find it interesting that the same word where it says she immediately got up and she immediately started to serve, to serve them, the verb to serve, it's translated almost everywhere else to minister.

As a matter of fact, when Jesus is in the wilderness fasting for 40 days, Matthew's gospel adds a detail that in his physical weakness, God sent angels.

And it says the angels ministered to him in the wilderness.

It's the exact same word that now Peter's mother-in-law ministers to Jesus in Capernaum.

Remember where we started this message?

That the kingdom way is not about spectacle.

Revival will not break out because of spectacle.

Revival breaks out, the kingdom breaks out because of compassion.

It happens in the rooms where nobody sees.

It happens in the private, it happens in the quiet, it happens in the intimate.

What it actually means when you look at how Luke describes her service, her ministry to Jesus is it puts her in line with actual angels that God the Father sent to earth to take care of his son.

We, as believers in Jesus, should not despise the small things.

Because believe it or not, just grabbing the bag and taking out the trash is ministering to your family.

It might be ministering to your wife, ministering to your kids, making your daughter a peanut butter and jelly sandwich is a moment of ministry.

Gathering your family around a table and praying over them is ministry.

Nobody sees it.

We do not Instagram it.

If you Instagram those things, as your pastor, please hear me.

Stop.

Let the little moments be little.

Let the quiet moments be quiet.

Let the things done in secret be done in secret, where only your Father in heaven can see them.

You have no idea how little moments of service are actually building the ministry of the kingdom.

She steps back into her role.

She doesn't quite know it.

In her mind, she's resuming the opportunity of a lifetime.

A traveling rabbi has come to her house.

Opportunity of a lifetime?

She doesn't yet know.

She's actually ministering, protecting the shalom and her house to God and human flesh.

I think that what we see in her life is this picture of how all of us are called to minister.

I think it is this picture of what Jesus has done for us and an appropriate response from us.

Because Jesus did not just heal her from something, he healed her to something.

And so what I see in this and what the Lord laid on my heart is a template for us in Peter's mother-in-law.

And it's very simple.

It looks like this healing, rising, and serving, ministering, healing, which leads to rising, which leads to serving.

I want to break this down for you.

Healing is what Jesus does for us.

That's what healing is.

We have healing, rising, and serving, but healing is what Jesus does for us.

We cannot do this on our own.

We cannot do this by our own strength.

As a matter of fact, Peter's mother-in-law is on her deathbed.

She cannot get rid of her own fever.

She cannot heal herself.

She cannot bring herself back to her power and purpose in life.

She needs Jesus to do it for her, and what scripture says is that we are actually in a much worse condition than Peter's mother-in-law.

We are not just physically sick, but we are spiritually dead apart from Christ.

We are not just on our sick bed, we are not just on our deathbed, we are actually in our grave.

We cannot get ourselves up, only Jesus can do that for us.

We need his power, we need his authority, we need his kingship, we need him to be our savior.

And we have to be very careful with this because we are naturally prideful people.

We want to involve ourselves in the process.

We want to save ourselves.

We want to play a small role or maybe a big role in our salvation, and you cannot.

Scripture says you are saved by grace through faith and not of yourself.

It is a gift of God, not by works.

Scripture says, says, not by works of righteousness that we have done.

It is only according to his mercy that we have been saved.

Healing is what Jesus does for us.

Rising is what Jesus does in us.

Let me say it this way: healing is believing in Jesus.

It's the moment of faith where Jesus declares you justified, forgives your sin, and gives you eternal life.

That's healing.

It's all Jesus.

Rising is what Jesus does in us.

If healing is believing in Jesus, rising is beginning to follow Jesus.

Listening to the Holy Spirit, obeying even when it's difficult, putting our sins to death.

Let me paint a picture for you.

Imagine that Jesus comes into the house that no rabbi would have entered.

Not only does he go into the house, he enters the room of Peter's mother-in-law.

Not only does he enter the room, he goes right up to the bed.

Not only does he go right up to the bed, but he stands over compassionately, eye to eye.

He rebukes her fever, heals her of his power and his power alone.

And the fever leaves her.

And she's not a little bit better.

She feels better than she's ever felt at any point in her life.

And imagine that Jesus says, in probably a very cool voice, I imagine his voice is way cooler than mine, you know.

Rise.

I don't know how it would be, but rise.

And just imagine Peter's mother-in-law was like, look, man, I totally appreciate the fever, the headache I had five seconds ago, bro.

I can't thank you enough.

Also, I haven't had a Sabbath to myself in a minute.

I'm just gonna get like a little bit of beauty sleep.

I'm gonna take maybe 48 and just kind of keep my feet up.

Imagine.

And yet, this is the picture of many Christians throughout the world today.

As we have come to the point where we're convinced in our mind, convicted in our heart, that Jesus is who he says he is, he actually is God in human flesh, that he actually did what he claimed to have done, he really came to earth, really lived a perfect life, died to pay the price of my sin, rose again, proving he can give me life after death, ascended back to heaven, promised to return.

We got there, we believe all of that.

He's our only hope.

We put our faith in him, we are justified, we are healed.

And we just haven't quite made it out of our graves yet.

We've believed in Jesus, and we're very excited about the prospect of not being eternally damned.

That's very exciting to us.

But taking the next step and actually rising and removing our grave clothes, getting off of our deathbed and walking into what Jesus has for us, we have been healed, we just we haven't risen.

We've become comfortable with the grave.

We were spiritually dead for so long that it's all that we know.

And sometimes the devil that you do know is more comfortable than the incredible opportunity that you can't quite imagine.

Sometimes the pain that has touched your life in your season of being spiritually dead still has a louder voice in your life than the Holy Spirit that Jesus has given you.

And so, look, the healing has nothing to do with you.

It is a free gift, and all you have to do is accept it.

If somebody saved their entire life and bought you the house of your dreams and the car of your dreams, and the boat of your dreams, and everything that you could possibly want, and all you had to do is receive the gift from them, no one ever in their right mind would ever one time say that they earned that in any way.

They just received the gift.

That's your healing.

It's what Jesus does for us.

Rising is what Jesus does in us.

It is powered by the Holy Spirit, but it involves us.

Our surrender, our humility, and our willingness to get off of our deathbed, to start walking, to get out of our grave and take off those grave clothes and see all that Jesus has for us, not just believing in him, but beginning to follow him.

We have healing, that's what Jesus does for us.

We have rising, that's what Jesus does in us.

And then what did Peter's mother-in-law do?

She started serving.

That's what Jesus does through us.

And you have likely heard me say hundreds of times, if you have been at Meta over the years, that God created you on purpose and God created you with purpose.

Now we know as followers of Jesus that we all have a general purpose, which is the proclamation of the gospel, the sharing of our testimony, the giving away of our lives to all of those that God puts in our path.

We are called to build the kingdom of God one person at a time, to empty out hell and fill up heaven.

That's our general purpose.

God also has a unique purpose on your life.

And so what we think is we think, you know, I don't really know much about Christianity.

I don't really know much about the Bible.

And I've kind of lived a rough life for a little while.

And so, like, I'm gonna serve.

I'm just gonna serve when I figure some stuff out.

Like, I need to really clean some stuff up.

I got some sense, I got, man, I got a potty mouth, like you wouldn't believe, bro.

You know, I like if you're around me for too long, and I don't want to be a bad example, so I'll get there when I get there.

Here's how we think we think something like this I will serve when my purpose, my gifting, my ministry becomes clear.

I'm just gonna wait until it develops.

I'm gonna wait to get things right.

And what we see in Peter's mother-in-law is she is healed, she rises, and immediately she begins to serve.

And that, brothers and sisters, that is our path.

Let me let me give you some scenarios just so you can see how foolish it is to think that as new believers, we should just sideline ourselves until somehow magically we get to this level of righteousness.

And then, you know, it's like once I memorize 50 verses, and once I've been through 10 classes, and once I completely change everything about myself, it's like before you go and change everything about yourself, maybe you should consider that God actually wants to use who He created you to be just in a redeemed way.

So let me give you some examples.

This is kind of like saying, you know, I think I'll start dating around once I get married.

It's like, well, number one, that's not gonna go well for your marriage.

And number two, I think you have that backwards.

You have to date so you can get married.

Or we might think like this um I don't really, I don't want to drive, um, so I'll start driving the car once I get to my destination.

But I'm not sure how that will work because you have to drive the car to get to the destination.

And in our spiritual lives, we don't want to start driving because it's like, well, but what if I go left and I'm supposed to go straight?

And let me just tell you, you will.

And that's okay.

Because God works through movement.

Uh, I had a supervisor for several years, and he had all these little sayings.

They were awesome.

I think about them all the time.

And one of the things he would say when we got this analysis paralysis where we were so afraid to move and try and create and do anything, is he would say, you know, you can't steer a parked car.

So short, so pithy, so powerful.

It's like, will you navigate your Christian life perfectly?

Will you navigate your service perfectly?

Will you execute your personal ministry perfectly?

No.

But God can steer a moving car.

God cannot steer a parked car.

And so we get moving and God works through movement and he speaks through movement.

We think it works like this.

I will serve when my purpose, gifting, and ministry becomes clear.

Here's how it actually works: my purpose, my gifting, my ministry will become clear as I begin to serve.

It's about starting, it's about moving.

The Holy Spirit is always moving.

And often we feel like we can't hear from the Holy Spirit, and it's because we're standing still.

And the spirit is moving.

The spirit moves you as you move with it, speaks to you as you move with it.

It's time to get moving.

It's hard because as I preach Luke, I'm like, I'm so excited about next week, and I'm so excited about the next week, and I'm so and I try not to preach all of them at once.

But in two weeks, we're gonna start meeting the disciples, and I want to remind you that when Jesus called the disciples, he didn't say, drop your nets and go to seminary for three years.

And then I'll come back through town and then I'll make sure you graduated, and then I will give you an IQ test, and then maybe you can join my posse.

Jesus said, Drop your nets.

I know that you're a fisherman.

Now you will be a fisher of men.

Come and serve, come and minister, come and move.

And as we move, you will get clearer and clearer.

And so, yes, you will get clearer.

You will learn more from Scripture.

Scripture will speak to you, it will mold you, it will sanctify you.

Yes, you should go to the Meta Movement Academy, and we will help you start honing in on your unique purpose.

Yes, God will continue to mold you more and more into the image of Christ over time, but that happens as you serve and as you move and as you minister, not while you sit on the sidelines and wait.

Some of you aren't on a life team because you're like, I need Christian community, but I'm gonna wait until I figure this Jesus thing out.

It's backwards, bro.

You need to get in a life team because they will help you figure this Jesus thing out.

The key is movement.

Who you are right now is not who you will be in five years, but you can move today.

And who you will be in five years will be molded through your movement.

Some of you need to serve inside the capacity of the ministries of the local church here at MetaCurch.

You need to serve in Metakids or on production or on first impressions or on the prayer team.

And maybe you don't know where to serve.

Good.

That means you can serve anywhere.

And it will probably be the wrong fit.

And so six weeks later, your leader will go, let's try something else.

You're moving.

And God can steer you and mold you and speak to you.

Some of you will serve inside of the local church.

All of us are called to serve the world as the church.

And we have to stop giving up service opportunities, ministry opportunities, especially the small ones.

Because revival doesn't come through spectacle, it comes through compassion in the small, quiet, intimate moments of your life.

I have a couple of questions for those who are already believers.

What are the areas of your life where you have stayed on your deathbed?

You are a believer, you will spend eternity with God.

The Holy Spirit has sealed you and dwelt you, but you just haven't really risen to the occasion.

You're not walking in the Spirit.

You're not actively following Jesus, or maybe you are, just not in every area of your life.

You've really handed over your relationships, but Jesus hasn't really touched your career yet.

And likely Jesus won't even change your career.

You'll still work construction, you'll still work at the bank, you'll still be in the Air Force.

But God will start using you not to just get a paycheck or climb a ladder, but even in your career, you'll be building the kingdom of God because you'll rise to the occasion.

Some of you are not yet believers, and if that is you, I need you to know that whatever has kept you from God, Jesus stepped onto this earth to remove every excuse.

And whether you feel second class, marginalized, vulnerable, impure, unclean, or cursed by God, today's text shows that Jesus comes closer than close, he stands over you, he leans over, he looks you in the eyes, and he speaks life into you.

And Jesus loves you.

But he has given you freedom, the freedom to choose his healing or to reject his love.

And my encouragement would be to choose to allow Jesus to heal you.

And if you do, he will drop a gavel in the courts of heaven.

He will declare you innocent, he will heal you, and then you can rise, and then you can serve.

As we close, let's pray together.

As we enter into this time of prayer, I want to really focus on anybody who has never had that moment in time in their life where they have realized their need for a savior.

Maybe to you Jesus was like another religious figure.

It's like there's Jesus and there's Buddha and there's Muhammad.

You know, there's kind of all of these guys who started some things.

Maybe today, even just through the word of God, you have had an encounter with the one true living God who came to earth in a man named Jesus who loved you so much that he healed you, he gave his life for you.

Loved you enough to come back out of his grave and promise you life after death if only you would put your faith in him.

And so, if that is you, wherever you are watching this from, I'm gonna give you an opportunity to come into that moment of faith.

If you are ready to do that, I want to invite you right where you are to pray this prayer with me, acknowledging your faith in Jesus.

And so you can repeat this prayer right after me.

Jesus, today I choose to put my faith in you.

I believe you are God that you died for my sins and rose from the grave.

I thank you for loving me and forgiving my sins.

So glad you joined us for today's message.

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