Churches in Deerfield

“Hang hang in there with me. Uncleanness spreads. If you're clean and you touch a dead body, now you're unclean. If you're clean but you touch someone with a skin disease like leprosy, now you're unclean. You read in the book of Leviticus that you're ceremonial ceremonially clean, but you touch the blood of a human or a dead animal, you become unclean. You see impurity, uncleanness spreads. That's the problem of purity. But then you get to the New Testament, and this figure comes on the scene. His name is Jesus. He says he's the king, and and he touches those with leprosy, and he doesn't get unclean. But instead, the leper gets healed.”

“But part of it is being open to come and see, to be seen, and then to invite others to come and see. Because here's the deal, friend, sometimes you may be the only person that will invite somebody into a relationship with Jesus. You might be the only person that invites somebody to worship or to an event or something off-site or anything. You might be the very person, the only person, the essential person that someone's looking for to be able to begin a relationship in God's love and grace. Right? Did you ever think about that? Hello? Right? Have you? You may be the only person, and if you're reluctant to ask, if you're reluctant to say, come and see, you don't have to have a perfect invitation. If you don't offer come and see, that might be the missed opportunity for that person who's in sadness or depression or looking for a place to serve or is longing for sacred community. We spent all week this week in this regional meeting. Do you know we talked so much about isolation and loneliness? Do you know it's an epidemic? And so the reality is people across our communities are lonely and and they're longing for somebody to say, come and see.”

“A woman who's been bleeding for twelve years comes along, she's spent all that she had on doctors and the text says in the Gospel of Mark that she only gets worse and fearfully, she knows she's unclean, she's gonna touch this rabbi who is ceremonially clean, she takes the step of faith, she grabs the hem of his robe and she's healed. Jesus is not unclean, He heals her. She's freed immediately from her pain and suffering. See, purity in the whole testament apart from Jesus is degenerative. You lose it and you have to get it again, but the purity of Jesus is generative. He gives it and never loses it.”

“``When they fall from the pedestal you place them on saying, I thought he was pure. I thought he or she was better than that. You're left empty, but you can dig all you want in the life of Jesus. You're only gonna find purity. You're only gonna find perfection. And that's why he's the perfect sacrifice. That's why he and through his blood alone can we experience freedom, atonement from our guilt and sin. Our need for a king with a pure heart is only met in king Jesus, fully God, fully man, fully pure in heart.”

“The main problem of the bible could be summarized as how can an unpure people live in the presence of a pure god, and the answer we have found is that Jesus makes us pure in his sight. Amen? He cleanses us. He makes us pure in his house. He gives us a pure standing before god, and then throughout our lives, by his spirit, he cleanses and purifies us as we come to him.”

“Was there ever an analogous moment to this in the life of our king Jesus? Yeah. There was. And I think I I thought particularly this week about holy Saturday, the day between Jesus' death on Good Friday and when he rose from the dead on Easter Sunday. On that Saturday, as Jesus lay in his tomb, there was no possible answer to the question, how can God claim to be faithful and claim to be committed to his covenant with his son? It was as clear as day. God has allowed his son to die. Death has won. Either God has given up on his son or he's been overpowered by death. Either way, all is lost for us.”

“Can I ask you what pastor Richard asked us in June about a different psalm of lament? Do you pray like this? Do you lament like this when your circumstances suggest that God has abandoned his promises? If you skip over the lament, if you skip over expressing these negative so called feelings to God, if you just try to rush yourself through to look at the bright side or to find a silver lining, you and I will become malformed humans. And there will be a ceiling, a pretty low one actually, on our walk with God.”

“``How can you promise I'll thrive, but then let me be sealed in a tomb? On one of those holy Saturdays, so to speak, when we've written down our complaints and we've stretched them out before heaven, where we've shown God where he has failed to make good on his promises, what's left to do? The last thing done here is to ask in faith. After Ethan looks to God and states his complaint, he asks in faith. How do you ask for anything when you're sealed in a tomb? Turns out, God loves to answer prayers from tombs.”

“And so for those of us who have been joined to him in faith, as dire as our circumstances may be, Remember, Holy Saturday is not the last page of the story. There are many chapters left to be written, and there is no fine print that could ever cancel the promise that he will come through for us. Let's pray.”

“He says he's gonna rescue. Right? He'll bring justice for the afflicted ones, verse two. In verse four, we're praying that he'll vindicate them while helping the poor and crushing the oppressor. Here in verses 12 through 14, he's rescuing the poor and snatching them out of the clutches of violent people. Wouldn't it be incredible to live in a kingdom like this? To be living under a king who exercised his authority in this way? Not to look the other way, but to rescue. Not to buddy up to oppressors, but to crush them. All motivated by the fact that he genuinely, in his heart of hearts, considers the lives of the poor precious. Can you imagine that?”