From Fear-Based Faith to Living With God's Compassion

see a blind man, and instead of asking, how can we help this guy? What can we give this guy? They say, who sinned? Him or his parents? It's such a convoluted question, question because it shows how they are living in a posture of under God. It's a perfect example. Living under God assumes that if I obey correctly, God will bless me and protect me. But then you gotta do the reverse, that if I'm not being blessed or protected, I must not be obeying God well enough. [00:10:06] (38 seconds)  #StopBlameCulture

But the text says that the night is coming when no one can work, and Jesus is implying that he understood that the opportunity to serve and to do good work was coming to a close because he knew his death was coming. And so he felt this urgency to help this man. He says, I must work the works of him who sent me while it is day. This urgency to perform this miracle in broad daylight for all to see regardless of what day it was because Jesus knew it was the Sabbath day. He knew exactly what day it was, but he says, I must work the works during the day for all to see. And he knew that healing the man on the Sabbath would bring about more opposition from the religious leaders who already wanted to silence and kill him. We saw that in chapter eight. We ought to remember that scripture, we put the chapters in. I've said this before. We put those chapters in. It's a continuous story, and we gotta read it that way because there's so many clues to why Jesus says the things he does. He knew that they were already in opposition against him, and this would further drive the stake. And yet, his compassion drove him to help the man anyway. [00:13:18] (75 seconds)  #ServeWithUrgency

Jesus' was focusing on compassion more than anything else with this man. The man can't see. He doesn't know what Jesus is doing. He can hear, he can feel, but he can't see. And so it was a massive kindness that Jesus was doing for this man by doing something because the man would have felt the weight of the clay go on his eyes. He would have felt that something is happening to me. Someone is doing something to me because he can't see. And so it was Jesus' compassion that led him to say, I'm gonna make some mud. I'm gonna put it on your eyes. You're gonna feel that. You're gonna feel that something is happening, and then I'm gonna command you to go and wash it off. [00:16:03] (40 seconds)  #CompassionInAction

``But what's interesting in this miracle is that Jesus took the initiative for it. Jesus sought the blind man out. Jesus chose to heal the blind man. The blind man didn't seek Jesus out. The blind man didn't ask to be healed. The blind man didn't even know who Jesus was. Jesus sought him out. It is a perfect example of God's love for us. It's a perfect example because guess what, Commission Church? There is nothing we can do to earn more of God's love. There's nothing we can do. We already have all of it. We already have all of it. It's the opposite of what living under God is asking of us. We have all of God's love. All we have to do is receive it. That's what living with God looks like. [00:17:27] (55 seconds)  #JesusInitiatesLove

But the pharisees were so ingrained with living under God that they started to view people as obstacles or projects and lived under the letter of the law, not the heart of the law. Their need to keep the law was so precise that they had no room for mercy, no room for grace, and it created this moral hierarchy between them and other people, an us versus them mentality, where they felt justified in their exclusion of other people. [00:22:21] (31 seconds)  #LegalismOverCompassion

If you're just good enough, these things won't happen. And the result of this, unfortunately, and maybe you grew up in this and maybe you've experienced it, is shame based faith. It's shame based faith. We pray to make sure we have our check mark so that God won't be mad. We obey so that we have some leverage to then ask God for something, and he'll bless us. It all is based on a performative faith, and that is not what living with God looks like. It's not. Instead, we see that at every opportunity, Jesus dismantles this idea of living under God. [00:32:34] (40 seconds)  #shameBasedFaith

you know that the command that is most repeated in scripture how many of you know it? Anyone know it? The command that's most repeated in scripture. You're you don't count. You heard my sermon already. It's my husband. It is do not fear. The command repeated most in scripture, do not fear. But do you know what is followed up? They give a reason why in scripture, because I am with you. Do not fear because I am with you. Jesus' ministry reveals God's heart. So the action point to this is remember who God is, and do not fear because he is with you. He desperately wants the relationship with, not to, from, under, over. [00:36:01] (55 seconds)  #dontFearGodIsWithYou

And with God, we see love restoring all of these relationships. That's what with God looks like. So your final action point for point two of every person bears the image of God is to remember who people are and ask God to see them the way he does. The twofold question is where have I withheld love from my neighbor in the name of being right? And where have I mistaken fear based religion for faithfulness? [00:38:19] (30 seconds)  #seeOthersAsGodDoes