Prejudice can happen when you pre-judge someone. Pastor Steven Furtick

I still see prejudice in the synagogue on the Sabbath

in Mark 3. And this prejudice is not directed at

the man.

They are prejudice toward Jesus. I see you.

You look like you want to believe me, but you

confuse him. Let's take the word apart.

Prejudice. The definition is in the word.

Prejudice.

Judge. That's what prejudice is.

And it doesn't just happen racially or socioeconomically. Prejudice is

when you put yourself in the judge's seat or the

jury box. These men had the opportunity to witness a miracle.

But rather than be a witness, they wanted to be

a judge. And every day that you and I wake up,

we have an opportunity to witness resurrection power all around us.

We get to witness it in the lives of others.

And we get to witness it on our own behalf.

We get to be a witness, but you can't be

a witness if you insist on being a judge. What

I'm trying to say is this. Have you already made

up your mind how God can bless and who God

can bless and when God can bless? Have you already

made up your mind about how God can do it

to the extent that you miss that the very author

of life is right in front of you and they

are trying to kill the very thing that.

God sent to save them?

Why?

Because they've already made up their minds.

We pray for wisdom and God tries to send.

It through our wives. But we are prejudiced.

We prejudge the people that God sends to help us.

So rather than accept the wisdom, since we don't like

the truck that it came in, we'll send back the

wisdom because, well, she's always like that. Well, she's the

one that God might use to show you your system.

This whole chapter is worth preaching. I wish we had

all week. All right.

Touch your neighbor. Say fix the system. Fix the system.

They were looking. I see it sometimes.

I see people who look like they came to church

as a favor or like a last resort or something like,

will you stop.

Asking me if I come once?

And man, they are looking for something not to like.

I just sometimes you can you can feel the energy

of somebody where it's just like. And they will miss

a revelation because one of the worship leaders had a

rip in his jeans.

I just don't know if.

And God was trying to show you how holy he is.

And God was. You missed it.

Looking for a reason. Looking for a reason. He was

a threat to them. So they already made up their mind.

They already had their verdict and now they just needed

to collect the evidence. It's called confirmation bias. When you

wake up believing God is for me, you look for

evidence to support that verdict. When you wake up believing

that all things work together for my good and that

nothing can separate me from the love.

Of God, here's how good it is.

When you believe that, when you are looking for a

reason to rejoice rather than a reason to accuse, it

causes you to weigh things differently.

So you say, like Paul said.

In Corinthians, he said, on one hand, we're pressed, but

on the other hand, we're not crushed. On one hand,

we're persecuted, but on the other hand, we're not abandoned.

On one hand, we're struck down, but on the other hand,

we're not destroyed. In other words, what I'm trying to

say is that if you would get out of the

judge's seat and get a witness mentality. God, I want

to see the good in people. I want to see

the best in people. I want to believe the best

about people. I want to see the opportunity and opposition.

Somebody shout, I'm looking for it.

I'm not looking for a reason to be offended. I'm

looking for a way to forgive. How many are glad

that God looked beyond your fault and saw your needs?

He could have accused you. He could have condemned you.

He could have cast you down, but he didn't. How

many are grateful for what he didn't do?

For what he overlooked. But they got it twisted. We

get it twisted.

Instead of looking for an opportunity to meet a need,

they were looking for a reason to accuse. Sometimes God

puts you in difficult situations and you get it twisted.

He puts you there to change it, not to complain

about it. And you're out of order. You're out of order.

I wish I had a gavel. This isn't working. The

man can't work because his right hand, Luke tells us,

is his right hand. It must mean it's his dominant hand.

It must mean it's the hand of blessing. In Jewish culture,

they use the right hand to bless. So he needs

a blessing to be a blessing. Sometimes we try to

be something that we have not received from God, and

it never works. Jesus stands the man up, and he

picks a fight. I'm sorry to disrupt your Mr. Rogers-Jesus

relationship with the Lord. You know, the one where Jesus went,

come on, guys, stop it. We're not finding that Jesus

so far in Mark. Maybe he'll come later, you know,

the exasperated mom.

Guys, be nice.

He hasn't made an appearance so far, and we're in

Mark chapter 3, and he's challenging their whole system because,

Mark 3 · chapter mention

number one, two things I noticed. He could have taken

the man to the side.

He didn't.

He could have easily been like, Peter. Peter was always

ready to do something. Grab that guy with the bad hand.

You want me to throw him out? No, no, Peter.

Is he distracting you? No, Peter, I want to talk

to him after. I'm going to fix his hand.

But it's the Sabbath, and we're not supposed to work

on the Sabbath, and I don't want to offend anybody.

I'll talk to him later when I wrap it up.

Just make sure he doesn't leave. I want to see him.

Because on the Sabbath, remember, it's the day of rest.

Six days God created, one day God rested. It was

the order of creation. The Sabbath is the only one

of the Ten Commandments that reflects the order of creation.

It's like a chance for us to be like God,

how he rested.

Okay. But, but notice work, work, work, work, work, work.

Why am I sounded like Rihanna on this stage?

.

Okay.

So for everybody who wants to just pray, not rest, rest, rest, rest, rest, rest, work.

That's out of order.

But after you have worked, rest like God rested from

his labor.

It's a shadow, though. It's not the substance because the

real Sabbath is Jesus himself.

It's his work that enables us to rest from ours.

Love the gospel.

So they are so consumed with their Sabbath that they

are missing God's Sabbath.

It's a perversion.

I know we usually use the word prejudice for racial

reasons and we use the word perversion for sexual reasons,

but this is a perversion. A perversion is any time

that a gift is used against its intention. That's the perversion.

And Jesus heals him. Not only does he stand him

up publicly and call him out publicly, but he does it.

on the sabbath which is understandable if the guy has

a gunshot wound because the sabbath had okay here's what

the teachers of the law did god gave them this

gift called the sabbath he said i want you to

rest one day when you rest like that it is

a picture of how i rested it is a gift

to you and it is a shadow of a rest

that is to come for the people of god where

you can cease from your works and receive by grace

what you could not attain by labor So I want

you to rest to get into the rhythm of resting

from your works.

But they did what we tend to.

Do with the gifts that God gives us. When we

don't understand the intention of the gift, we get it twisted.

We get it twisted. So Jesus shows.

Up on the day where they're not supposed to work.

Little rules like this they made. They had over 600

of them. There was one command and they made 600

rules around it. They had like a system for every

possible situation.

That could come up.

Okay, so if you need to take a journey, you

can go 1,999 paces. But if you take a 2,000th step,

then that's technically work. So you have to count your steps.

If somebody has a dislocated foot or a dislocated hand,

you can't set it back into place on the Sabbath.

That's from Friday, sundown, Sunday. to Saturday sundown, observing Jews

celebrate the Sabbath in the same way today, Sabbat, and

you can't set the bones back in place on the Sabbath,

but there's an exception. If the person's about to die,

you can do it.

Well, that's awfully nice of the pastors to make that exception.

If you see someone about to die and you can

save their life, you.

Can do it on the Sabbath.

It sounds crazy to us that they would take a

gift that God gave like a day off, like a

day to rest from their labor, and twisted to the

point where they forgot what Jesus said in Mark 2, 27,

when his disciples were working one day on the Sabbath.

They were actually walking, and they did something that was

considered work. They took some heads of grain, and they

were hungry, so they rubbed the, what do you call

it on the grain, the Membrane, I'm going to call it.

It's not called that, but I'm going to call it that.

They rubbed that hard part off and ate the stuff

they could eat. And the Pharisees said, ah, they're working

on the Sabbath. Jesus said, you missed the entire point

of the Sabbath, which was a gift because you were

so caught up in your system that you perverted and

twisted the gift.

Watch what he says. This is very, very strategic.

That the Son of God would say to the people

that he came to save, the Sabbath is made for man,

not man for the Sabbath. I know it's a little

difficult for us to get much meaning out of that

because we don't celebrate the Sabbath in the same way.

So let me try this.

Stuff was made for man, not man for stuff.

The essence of the lesson is this.

When you take a good gift and turn it into

a God, it becomes destructive. Let me try another one.

Sex was made for man, not man for sex. And

what the enemy loves to do is to take a

good gift that God gave you and twist it and

disfigure it like this man's hand was disfigured. That's what

had happened to the people's hearts so that they had

taken a gift and turned it into a prison. They

were serving something that was supposed to be serving them.

When God sees you chasing material possessions, he says, that stuff.

Is meant to serve you.

Why are you serving what I gave to serve you?

It's out of order. We've got one.

Man who can't work because he has a condition, a situation.

We've got a system of religion that won't work. Why?

It's the Sabbath.

We can't do it on the Sabbath.

Jesus said the Sabbath is for you, not you for

the Sabbath.

I gave it as a gift. Why would you twist

the gift?

And it causes me to wonder how many gifts has

God given me in my life.

That I have twisted.

God gives you people in your life so you can

encourage them, and then you become so needy you twist

the gift and ruin the friendship.

Now y'all are quiet.

How many gifts has God given us? How many people

will you sleep with before you realize that sex is

a gift? It's a wonderful gift, but it's a terrible master.

Within a certain context, it's a wonderful gift. But if

you get it twisted, it begins to take over your life.

You're out of order.

You put the Sabbath before people. God puts people before

the Sabbath. Religion always gets it twisted, though. And we

always tell you 10 things you've got to do to

be a good Christian. But God taught me that I

don't change so he will love me. I change because

he has loved me. This is the revelation of the cross.

We love him because he first loved us. And when

you get that out of order, you will twist great

gifts that God gives you in your life.

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