When A Heart Breaks with Pastor Noel Laws

Welcome to the Medicurch Podcast.

My name is Clayton.

I'm the pastor here at Medicurch.

And my hope is that today's podcast finds you the perfect time in your life.

God uses it to inspire and enlighten you.

I hope that you enjoy today's message.

Awesome, man.

We are so glad that you can make it to today's service.

I gotta tell you, I'm excited about a few things.

Baseball fans, the Astros won last night.

Anybody?

Okay, there are some people who didn't share.

I just want to let you know right now that we have a prayer team ready for you.

After service, we'll pray for you.

You can get on the Astros bandwagon if you like.

I'm also excited about the cold weather, right?

I get to wear my warm shirt.

My AC hasn't been on in like two weeks.

That's nothing to be excited about.

But mostly I'm excited about the series that we started last week.

Now, to be fair, I'm excited about all the series that we do here at MetaCurch.

And it's not just because I'm one of the pastors here, it's not just because I have something to do with putting on these services.

It has everything to do with the fact that at MetaCurch, we take biblical scripture and we give you real life application.

That is to say, I think that if you apply what we preach here in service, that your life will become better.

And it's not because we're super insightful or super smart, it's because that's how the Bible's written, so you can know Jesus and that you can live a life filled with purpose.

We just saw this in the series we ended, Recession Proof, where we took this very practical look at our finances, right?

It was huge in helping us not only frame how we look at our money, but how we approach our giving.

Back in the summer, we looked at our romantic relationships, right?

In the series called Love Up.

Who remembers Love Up?

Okay, that's not very many of y'all, which is good because this is where I'm gonna let you know.

If you ever miss out on a sermon, you can go to YouTube, search for MetaCurch.

We have all of our sermons listed there, and maybe you're not gonna watch sermons on your computer or TV.

We also have them in podcast format.

So wherever you find podcasts, search for MetaCurch, you can get caught up.

Those are all really amazing series.

But the series that we're in right now is the most important thing that we will ever, ever preach on at MetaCurch.

Now, we are so grateful to Pastor Lee Wong for getting us started last week, and he taught us a Greek word.

Now, I've been racking my brain.

I watched all three services, but I was trying to remember if he ever actually said the word in Greek.

And I know you put it on the screen, but I'm gonna tell you what this Greek word was anyway, and you'll understand why he may not have said this.

It's spagomitsiomai, right?

It's a beautiful word, rolls right off the tongue, spagnitsomai.

Here's the good news you don't have to memorize how to say that word today, but you do need to understand what it means.

And Pastor Lee showed us this last week.

It means to be moved to, who can fill in the blank?

Starts with the C move to compassion.

Yes, thank you.

It's move to compassion.

This word spagnitiomai was used 12 times in the New Testament, and every single time it was used in connection with Jesus and how he responded to something that was happening right in front of him.

Well, today we're gonna continue our conversation on this word, and we're gonna see that again when a heart breaks, love breaks out.

Can we just say that together like it's like a 90s rap song?

I'll say when a heart breaks, y'all say love breaks out.

When a heart breaks, okay.

Now, this is not the last time that's gonna happen because I'm gonna say when a heart breaks, there you go, man.

Y'all are on it.

Man, when a heart breaks, love breaks out, even when you don't feel quite worthy of that love.

Would you guys pray with me?

Heavenly Father, we're here, we're here to hear from you, Holy Spirit.

We know that you're here, and we thank you for your presence.

Um, we just open ourselves up to what you have for us, uh, and we receive it.

And we love you, Jesus.

We pray it in your name.

Amen.

Now, we're gonna start our discussion out today with a question, and I'll just shoot straight with you.

I already know the answer to this question, but I'm gonna ask it anyway.

Has there ever been a time where you felt left out?

And I mean, really think about that.

Has there ever been a time where you felt like you just did not belong?

Like maybe it was in a group of friends, maybe it was with some coworkers at work, or maybe it was even in your own family.

You felt like this outcast, this pariah.

I think everybody in the room has felt like that at some level.

I know that I felt like that multiple times in my life.

I shared with you guys that five years ago I went through divorce, and by far, this was the hardest thing that I have ever dealt with.

And I know so many of you in the room know exactly what that feels like.

Statistically speaking, about 50% of y'all know exactly what I'm talking about.

There's so many things that I had to deal with that I just never thought were gonna be in my life.

Like, I didn't think I was gonna be divorced, believe it or not, that wasn't on my vision board at home.

Like, that wasn't part of my plan, but here I was losing a marriage that I thought I'd have until I was very old.

I had to let go of dreams that we had made together because that wasn't my reality anymore.

I had to deal with the inevitable custody arrangement that we had to make with our son.

I had to mourn the loss of my very best friend, someone that I had done life with for over ten years.

It was difficult.

And that was just the beginning.

The overall feeling that I felt about getting divorced was one of embarrassment.

Here I was, this worship pastor, getting in front of everybody, leading y'all in worship, speaking into your life, and I couldn't even keep my own marriage together.

Like, who wants to listen to that kind of pastor?

At least that's what I told myself.

And that was just one side of my work equation.

I also worked with a bunch of amazing, amazing, happily married co-workers, right?

And I had to hear about their domestic life, this one that I used to live.

I had to hear their married jokes, and I had to hear about their married vacations.

And listen, no shame on them for being happily married, right?

I was happy for them, and it certainly wasn't their fault that I was getting divorced, but I felt like the outcast in a place where I always knew I belonged, I felt like I didn't belong any longer.

I think I'm a relatively funny person, like I guess that depends on who you ask, right?

But I like to make jokes.

We'll leave it at that.

I like to make jokes.

Whether they're funny or not, I don't know.

But during this time, one of the ways I would cope with my divorce is I would make jokes about it.

And let me just tell you, I'm using joke very loosely here.

Like, it was extremely awkward, make everybody in the room uncomfortable kind of jokes.

Like, and maybe that was a point.

Maybe somewhere subconsciously, I wanted people to feel as uncomfortable as I felt.

Let me show you what this would look like and just get ready for this.

I already know.

It's cringy.

Just I'm I'm warning you guys already.

Say we come into an all-staff meeting after a weekend apart, and one of my coworkers is saying, Oh man, me and my spouse, we had an amazing weekend.

We went to Fredericksburg.

Oh my gosh, the bed, uh, the bed and breakfast we stayed at.

It was so cute.

And we went to all the wineries and enchanted rock couples, you know what I'm talking about.

All the Fredericksburg things.

That's what they were talking about.

And all my other coworkers are like, oh wow, man, I want to do that.

I want to go on that same little vacation.

That sounds like so much fun.

I'm gonna talk to my husband when I get home.

And all I'm doing is just sitting there, like separating myself further and further in my mind, because all I can think about is the fact that I stayed in my apartment the entire weekend, sitting on a couch, binging Netflix and eating pizza, like that was it.

That was the entire weekend.

And so I would say something along the lines of, wow, that really sounds great.

I remember what it was like when I was married.

And then everybody would just stop, dead in their tracks, nobody could look me in the eye.

I had effectively ruined the conversation.

Or maybe it was when somebody was giving me some tough feedback, it's something we value as a staff here at MetaCurch, that we can have the hard conversation with each other.

And usually I welcome these, they help you get better, and I definitely know that I am not a perfect person, but during this time, it was hard for me to receive this type of information.

They would let me know of something that I had done that maybe upset them.

And I would say, Yeah, wow, man, thanks for sharing that with me.

I really need to know that.

Hey, you think that's why my wife left me?

Yeah, it's cringy.

That's weird.

Nobody says that.

It wasn't helping me at all, but in that time, all I could see myself as was this divorce man that would always be a divorce, and that's all anyone would see in me.

Now I didn't need confirmation that these jokes weren't helping me at all, but I did get it.

And it came in the form of Pastor Clayton.

Me and Clayton have uh what we call one-on-ones every three weeks, and we talk about a variety of things, but in this particular one-on-one, I sat down and he sat maybe like two feet in front of me.

He leaned over, elbows on his knees, looked me dead in the eye, and lovingly but sternly said, Bro, you have got to stop making those jokes.

You are not helping yourself, and you're making everybody uncomfortable.

Stop.

This wasn't a suggestion.

He was telling me I had to stop doing this, and you know what?

He was absolutely correct.

I wasn't being kind to my coworkers, I was making them feel extremely uncomfortable, and I certainly wasn't being kind to myself.

I was keeping myself in a frame of mind that wasn't helpful, and it certainly wasn't helping me find the healing that I was so desperate for.

That feeling that I had of being an outsider, feeling like I didn't fit in any longer.

It reminds me of this amazing moment in the life of Jesus where he encounters a man that felt very similar, way different circumstances, but he felt like an outsider.

And we read his story in the Gospel of Mark.

We're gonna start in chapter 1, verse 39.

Feel free to follow along on the screen with me.

It says, He went into all of Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and driving out demons.

Now, I'm gonna give you a little pro tip on reading the Bible.

Maybe you're new to reading the Bible.

If it says he, him, or his in any of the four Gospels, that's Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, then it's talking about Jesus.

The Gospels were written to tell the story of the life of Jesus.

So it says he, Jesus, went to all of Galilee.

And we're just gonna pause for a second because there's something we need to make note of.

Jesus didn't just sit sit around waiting for people to come to him.

Actually, Jesus went out.

He was mobile, he was going to where the people were.

This wasn't absolutely normal.

Now, there were some well-known rabbis, which is another word for a Jewish teacher, that would go to neighboring towns and they would preach in the synagogues for anyone that wanted to come and hear their teachings.

But Jesus not only taught in synagogues, he taught on the sides of hills, out of boats.

Anywhere people were is where Jesus would preach, and anywhere Jesus was preaching, that's where people wanted to be.

And for good reason.

Jesus had insight into the scriptures like they had never heard before.

He had wisdom like they had never heard before.

Even the rabbis that were older than him noted how well he knew the scriptures.

But it wasn't just his preaching that stood out.

Jesus could heal people, like miraculously heal people.

People who came to Jesus and couldn't walk left running.

People who came to Jesus that couldn't talk, left screaming what Jesus had done for him.

Jesus also had a spiritual authority like no one had seen.

He had authority over evil spirits, over demonic spirits.

He could cast them out of people.

So I want you just for a second to imagine that you're one of these people who have come to be close to Jesus.

He's in your town, maybe your area of town, and you hear that he's near.

So you get up and you join a crowd, maybe a couple hundred people, they're all encircling Jesus.

You're hearing him preach, it's amazing.

You're seeing him heal people, that's miraculous.

When all of a sudden, out of the corner of your eye, you see a divide forming in the group, maybe in the far outer edge.

It's a little odd, so you pay attention to it.

That divide grows and grows and grows until there's a sizable, spacious walkway from the very far edge of the group all the way to Jesus.

And all you can think is, why are people walking away from Jesus?

Why are they giving up their position?

This isn't normal.

In verse 40, it says, A man with leprosy came to him.

A man with leprosy, this is probably the only thing that can make people actually lose their proximity to Jesus.

They didn't want to be anywhere close to this unclean man, and so they move out of his way.

Let me tell you what it was like to have leprosy during this time.

And I'm gonna quote a man named Dr.

Thompson.

He wrote this in his famous work, The Land in the Book, where he speaks of lepers in the East and what they had to go through.

Here's what he says: he says, the hair falls from the head and eyebrows, the nails loosen, decay, and drop off.

Joint after joint of the fingers and toes shrink up and slowly fall away.

The gums are absorbed and the teeth disappear.

The nose, the eyes, the tongue, and the palate are slowly consumed.

This was a horrific disease, a disease that nobody wanted any part of.

Now, thankfully in America, we're like removed from the reality of leprosy largely, though it does still exist.

In fact, the CDC says that in any given year in America, there's anywhere from 150 to 250 reported cases of leprosy.

And I'm like, that's 150 or 250 too many in anywhere in the world, right?

But worst case scenario, there's 250 reported cases of leprosy in America out of 329 million people.

That means about 0.000076% of the population has been afflicted with this disease in America.

It's safe to say that you and I are not going to get leprosy, right?

But in biblical times, leprosy was much more of a pervasive problem.

Leprosy is contagious.

Granted, it's not as contagious as other diseases, but you could get leprosy by touching someone who had leprosy.

And if you can imagine, in ancient biblical times, cleanliness left something to be desired, right?

It's not like you went to the local restaurant and went to the restroom and saw a sign on the window or the mirror that says, employees must wash hands before returning to work.

Like that didn't happen.

In fact, there probably wasn't even a bathroom in any place that would serve poop.

People weren't walking around with their like antibacterial lotion, right, from Bath Body Works.

So I did wonder while I was writing this what smells Bath Body Works would come up for ancient Israel.

That would be interesting to know.

But that wasn't happening.

There was no fist bumping, like to slow the spread of disease.

None of that was happening.

Instead, what would happen is if you showed the first signs of having leprosy, you would be removed from your home into another structure, maybe like a barn or a stall or something like that.

Effectively, you were being quarantined.

And we know a little bit about being quarantined, don't we?

Like in 2020, all of us were quarantined for some amount of time.

It was really lonely.

It wasn't a fun time, except for all the introverts in the room.

Y'all loved it.

The rest of us hated it.

It was not very much fun for us.

Even after the mass quarantine was lifted, if you came into contact with someone who had COVID, who had tested positive for COVID, you had to quarantine again, right?

Until you knew whether or not you had COVID yourself.

And do you remember at all what it felt like when you tested positive?

Because I do, unfortunately, I had COVID twice and it was not fun.

I felt a lot of shame as I was calling people and saying, hey, bad news, I got COVID.

Also, I may have given you COVID.

Sorry for ruining your next week or so.

You know, I felt shame.

And there was nothing I could do about it.

It's not like I was hanging out with the shady COVID crew, right?

It's not like I was going into the COVID den and making some bad decisions.

It's just something that happened.

And the same was true for these people with leprosy.

Imagine that same feeling of shame, but with a disease that at the time ended in death of one out of one people.

It had a hundred percent mortality rate.

Once it was confirmed that you had this disease, you would be immediately cast out of your city.

Like you weren't allowed to live within the city limits any longer.

You could live in a colony of other lepers where you eked out an existence until you eventually died, but you couldn't be among the general population.

You lost everything.

You lost your home, you lost your family, you lost your livelihood, you lost your dignity.

It was almost as if you were no longer human.

In fact, if you did find yourself even relatively close to the general population, you had to yell out, unclean, unclean, just so the clean population could know not to come anywhere close to you.

I have to imagine that.

You feel unclean.

Maybe it was something that was done to you, maybe it's something that you've done to yourself, but you know that you don't belong and with the rest of the clean population.

A lot of times when we feel unclean, these are this comes from the inner narratives in our head.

Because I can tell you, when I was going through divorce, I had questions that would not stop haunting me, like, what's wrong with me?

Why don't they love me?

Why did she leave?

And the answer was always generally the same.

It's because I'm unclean, I'm unlovable, I'm unworthy.

That's largely what all those awkward jokes were.

Anytime somebody would talk about marriage, I would realize how ostracized I felt.

And so I'd make a joke just so the people around me knew that I knew that they knew that I was unclean.

Like I don't belong in this conversation.

Maybe you felt that way.

Sure, it probably looked different, but maybe you didn't feel very smart because you couldn't make the grades everybody else was making.

You didn't feel like you would ever do a good enough job because you never got the promotion at work that you were looking for.

Maybe you were just constantly bombarded by guilt and shame because of the habits or the addictions in your life.

You're unclean.

Maybe you only really feel unclean when you're around people that are cleaner than you are.

The leper knew he was unclean.

He was in a group of people that were all clean.

As he made his way towards Jesus, all of them side-eyeing him, right?

What is this man doing?

Doesn't he know that he's possibly giving us leprosy?

That he is making us unclean?

But the leper was undeterred.

Says a man with leprosy came to him and on his knees begged him, if you are willing.

The amount of courage it took for this man to already walk amongst all the clean people is uh just incredible.

He falls on his knees before Jesus in an act of submission.

He looks up, face disfigured from this disease, and he says, If you are willing.

He doesn't say if you are able.

There is no question in this crowd whether Jesus was able or not to fix this problem.

Everybody knew that Jesus could.

He says, if you are willing.

He says, if you are willing, because for the crowd that surrounded him, he already knew that answer.

Not only could they not do anything for him, they would not do anything for him.

They couldn't risk what that would bring on them and their families.

The leper knew that the crowd was unwilling to help, but he knew that Jesus could if he was willing.

It continues, it says, if you are willing, you can make me clean.

Now, if I have leprosy and I make my way towards Jesus, I'm probably not gonna be asked to make clean, right?

I'm like, Jesus, heal me.

I saw you heal that guy that couldn't walk.

Heal me, make me whole, make me complete.

But this leper says, make me clean.

This is where we got to look back at the cultural context that this man was living in.

He was living in a Jewish society, which means they followed the Jewish law, 613 of them to be exact.

These Jewish law told you how to live and act and how to behave.

In this Jewish law, there were 61 defilements.

These are the things that told you that you went from clean to unclean.

Now, in this society, it wasn't like America, right?

It wasn't this melting pot of ethnicities and beliefs.

It was Judaism, and that was it.

And their faith was connected to their society.

So if they were unclean before God, they were unacceptable before their uh the people that were around them.

Out of the 61 defilements, leprosy was next to the worst.

The only thing worse than that was coming into contact with a dead body.

However, what sets leprosy apart from all the other defilements is that with all the other defilements, there was a process by which you could be made clean again, but not with leprosy.

Once you had it, you were forever unclean unless you were miraculously healed, which didn't happen all that often.

This man didn't want healing.

He didn't want to just be saved from the effects of leprosy.

He didn't want to just not die.

He wanted his entire life back.

He had to be made clean again.

He wanted his family, he wanted his home.

And he doesn't ask if Jesus can do it.

It's a statement of faith.

If you are willing, you can make me clean.

He knows Jesus can.

He has faith in that fact, and now he's asking Jesus if he will.

Verse 41 says, Moved with compassion.

Jesus reached out his hand and touched him.

And there's that word, compassion.

It's called mitzomai, guttural.

Jesus was eaten alive by the plight of this man.

His heart was broken.

But remember, when a heart breaks, I told you I was gonna get y'all again.

Love breaks out.

Jesus was moved to compassion.

He was moved to compassion because he knew that this man's life wasn't the way it should have been.

He knew that God the Father, his father, did not create the world to experience death and disease and hurt and pain.

This wasn't just sympathy that Jesus felt where he intellectually understood what this man was going through.

This wasn't just empathy where Jesus felt what the man was feeling.

This was compassion.

It was true heartbreak that moved him to action.

And Jesus did move into action.

He didn't just stay ten feet away from this man like everyone else did.

He didn't just like shout this prayer over him and say, Okay, you're clean over there at a distance.

He could have done that.

We do read in scripture that Jesus did heal people that he was never even in contact with.

He could have done that, but that's not what he did.

Jesus moved towards him.

Man with leprosy.

He was unafraid of catching this disease.

He was unafraid of what people would think about him.

All he cared about was this man.

He goes to him, he reaches out his hand and he touches him and he says, I am willing.

He told him, Be made clean.

And immediately the leprosy left him and he was made clean.

I can even explain this.

Imagine again that you're in that group.

Maybe you're one of the ones that like dashed out of this guy's way as he made his way to Jesus.

Fingers missing from his hand, flesh decaying, face disfigured, and all of a sudden, this man who had leprosy suddenly didn't have it any longer.

He was whole again, he was clean.

Jesus told the man to tell no one, but come on, Jesus.

Like, how's he not gonna tell anyone?

This man who formerly had leprosy went out and he proclaimed what Jesus had done to everyone he came into encounter with.

In fact, scripture says he did this so thoroughly that Jesus could no longer openly enter any town.

This man's life was changed, and it was changed because of the compassion of Jesus.

I didn't take anything with me when my marriage ended.

All the things that we had accumulated throughout our 10-year marriage, I just left in the home we shared together.

I brought my clothes, of course I need something to wear about, some toiletries.

I rented an apartment I needed somewhere to live, and I bought a bed because I needed something to sleep on.

But that first night in my apartment, I had none of those things.

A bed hadn't been delivered.

And I'll never forget how I felt being in an empty apartment.

I sat alone on the living room floor with just a blanket and a pillow next to me, like I was some kind of hobo or something.

And I just thought, this is so weird.

This apartment looks exactly how I feel.

Completely empty, completely abandoned.

I was convinced in that moment that my life would never be the same.

That at some level I wear the stain of divorce as a badge of dishonor forever.

That I would be unclean.

At some level, I felt like that leper felt.

The part I love most about this story of the leper being healed actually happens before the miracle.

It's where we say Jesus was mobile, right?

He went to all of Galilee.

That means before the leper ever moved towards Jesus, Jesus was already moving towards the leper.

And I learned this in the most incredible way in the lowest point of my life.

My friends, my coworkers, my pastors, they didn't allow me to continue walking around screaming out, unclean, unclean, get away from me.

They didn't let me make these jokes about divorce.

They didn't let me put myself down anymore, which I did a lot during the time.

They didn't let me isolate myself, they didn't let me dive into a depression.

Instead, what these people did was point me towards Jesus.

And let me tell you, it took a lot of work.

It took a lot of patience because they would point me towards Jesus and I'd be fine for a little bit, and then I'd kind of go back into my despair.

And then they point me towards Jesus and I'd go back in my despair.

But over time, I could focus on Jesus, and my life did get better.

Jesus showed me compassion.

And so did his people.

Because when their hearts broke from my situation, love truly broke out.

That empty apartment that I had.

It didn't stay empty.

Pretty soon I began getting phone calls and text messages saying, Hey, Noel, I have this.

I thought maybe you could use it.

Before I knew it, I had a whole living room set of furniture from a close friend.

He even delivered it to the third floor of my apartment.

That's true compassion.

I got a washer and dryer from my brother.

I got a TV stand from a coworker.

I even got a TV from Metachurch because we were in a bar and we couldn't keep it there.

And so they said, Hey, why don't you take this TV for now until we need it back?

So I had a TV.

Probably the thing I got that I loved the most was a bed for my son.

It was one of those like low loft beds that's four feet tall, right?

Had a ladder and a slide he could go down.

It was just like this little thing that brought both of us joy in a time where there wasn't much joy to be had.

All these things just kept on coming in, and I had done nothing for them.

I hadn't even made it known that I needed these things.

By the end of it all, I had an apartment filled with everything I needed to live.

All these people and so many more were showing me true compassion.

But here's the thing about the compassion they showed me.

I had to receive it.

I couldn't reject it.

I had to receive it.

They could offer it all day long, and if I said no, then there was nothing they could do.

I had to receive it.

I had to let go of pride.

I said at the beginning of the message that this is the most important thing that we'll ever preach on, but I think I should be clear about this.

This is actually the most important thing that you will ever hear.

And I'm talking specifically about salvation, the compassion of God towards his children to take us from being unclean to clean.

You've heard us say this over and over at Metachurch, but there's no perfect people here.

We're all messed up, we're all jacked up, we all have sin in our life, and in a very real since that sin has made us spiritually unclean.

But we don't have to stay there.

The truth is that in this room, there are people who are united with God, and there are people who are separated from God.

And the only differentiating factor between the two is not how many things you've done right, it's not how many things you've done wrong, it's whether or not you have put your faith in the one that can actually make you clean.

And I know, I know what you're thinking, you're right.

I don't know what you did last night.

I don't know all the skeletons in your closet.

I don't know what drugs you're on, I don't know what you use to cope with the difficulties and the disappointments of life.

I don't know if you're addicted to things of a chemical nature or a visual nature.

I just don't know any of those things, but I can tell you for sure that Jesus actually does know those things.

In fact, he's known you before you were ever you.

It's one of the benefits of being God.

He's omnipresent, it means he's all places and all times, all at the same time.

He's omniscient, he knows all things, he's aware.

And while there are things in your life, surely that you have done that have surprised yourself, I can promise you you have done nothing that surprised God.

He already knew everything that would happen.

In fact, God looked over the course of time and saw all sin: your sin and my sin, everybody's sin.

And it broke his heart.

He was moved to compassion.

Guttural, have to do something compassion.

And so he did.

He sent his own son, Jesus, to die on a cross for all sins, every single one.

And I know it seems weird, but even the ones that you haven't done yet, when you receive this compassion from God, you're not forgiven for a time, you're forgiven for all of time.

It's an amazing, all-consuming kind of sacrifice.

But if you're going to receive it, you have to come out of hiding.

You have to have the faith that the leper had, that when you move towards Jesus, he's not gonna run from you and that he's not gonna hide from you, but instead move to compassion.

He'll move towards you, reach out, touch your life, and make you clean.

You have to put your faith in the one that can take away the debt of your sin.

Because that alone will bring you from death to life.

That alone will move remove the uncleanliness from you and make you clean before God.

Here's what Paul says in his letter to the Romans.

It's in chapter 10, verse 8, it says, This is the message of faith that we proclaim.

If you confess with your mouth Jesus is the Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

One believes with the heart, resulting in righteousness, and one confesses with the mouth, resulting in salvation.

We say it this way at Mediturge.

You have to believe that Jesus is who he says he is, and that he did what he said he did.

You have to believe that Jesus is who he says he is, the Son of God, the sacrificial lamb, and that he did what he said he did, that he died on a cross to pay the debt of your sin and was raised three days later.

That's a faith that brings salvation in your life.

That's a faith that removes the uncleanliness from your life.

There's no special prayer you have to pray.

I know we do that a lot in church, but it's a moment of belief.

And I know there's so many of you in here that aren't ready to make that or take that step.

You're sitting there thinking, yeah, but Pastor Noel, you don't know this about me.

Or you don't know that about me, and you're right, I don't.

But I say some verses for the end of this message.

These verses actually happen directly before the story of the leper that we just read through.

It's Mark chapter 1, verse 35.

Mark 1:35

It says, Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he, Jesus, got up, went out, and made his way to a deserted place.

And there he was praying.

Simon and his companions searched for him, and when they found him, they said, Everyone is looking for you.

And he said to them, Let's go on to the neighboring villages so that I may preach thereto.

This is why I have come.

All those things that make you feel like you're separated from God, like you could never be in close proximity with him.

These are the things that he came for.

He came to die for your sin.

This is why he came.

He came to take all of it away.

Would you guys pray that?

Heavenly Father, I thank you for your truth.

I thank you for the salvation you offer to us through Jesus.

God, I pray that many people would be moved to put their faith in you, God.

That they would be forever saved in your sight, that you would no longer look at the sin in their life, but instead see the righteousness of Jesus on them.

Father, I pray for every person that's not ready to take that step.

God, I pray that even as they leave, Holy Spirit, that you would just follow them and speak to them and press upon them that you love them, that there is no such thing as too far gone.

There's no such thing as too far away, that you've always been moving towards them.

And God, I pray that in time they would move towards you.

We love you, Jesus.

And we pray it all in your name.

Amen.

Thanks so much for listening to the message today.

If this was helpful to you and you want to help us get the word out, you can subscribe to this podcast.

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If you want to get connected further with what Medicurch is doing, you can go online to Medichurch.tv.

There you can learn how to take the next steps.

You can learn where our different venues are at if you ever wanted to visit.

And you can also give financially to help push this movement forward.

And I love you guys, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.