Everyday Faith

Listening to that song, there's a man who comes to Jesus wanting healing for his kid. And Jesus says, if you trust me. And the man says, I trust you. Help me to trust you. And I just wonder.

I have a sense that some of us need to pray that prayer today.

Father, I trust you. Help me to trust you.

So if that's you, you can pray it with me. Father, I trust you. Help me to trust you. Amen. I'm Russ.

I'm one of the pastors here. I get the pleasure of being a pastor here. And if you're new to us, I want you to hear this. Really, really glad we are really glad you're here. And if you're curious about the kind of people you've stumbled in here with, who we are, what makes our heart beat, what we care about, or how to participate with us, all you got to do is when you walk out these doors, head over to that info table, walk up and say, I'm new, and there's some wonderful people will love to help you with that if you're not new.

If you've been around a while, you may have figured out we care a little about learning around here that you see. Yeah, I think so. So we got a friend named Josh who loves to teach the Bible. Right? Right.

And so. And is fantastic at it. He's not here, so you don't have to clap. It's fine. So.

But when we say learning, we care really about two things, because we have this deep belief that to get good at something, it takes more than head. It takes getting it into our being and our body and our doing. And so we use this phrase like study and practice. That's really how you get good at anything. Right.

If you're a doctor, you studied. There was classroom work, but then there was also lab work, practice. We believe in study and practice, and we study all the time. What we're about to do, we're gonna open the Bible and look at a story from the life of Jesus, and we're gonna Bible study. Right.

We care about study here, but we also care about practice, getting it into our being and doing. The assumption is we can have it all up here and still kind of be terrible people if we aren't putting it into practice. And so we've done this this year. If you were with us going into Easter, we taught, studied about fasting, and then what did we ask you to do with us? To actually fast.

Right. So we studied and we put it into practice, and many of you joined in with us to do that. We're going to do it again. Not fasting. Sorry.

I don't want to scare anybody. You're like, we just did that. We're going to do a practice together again. Starting next week, we're going to spend eight weeks teaching through the book of Colossians. Cannot wait.

Cannot wait for you to see how good Jesus is in the book of Colossians and what life with him looks like. But we're not just going to teach that. We're going to invite you to join us as we all read Colossians together, simply reading scripture. There's lots of things we can do with scripture. You can memorize it, meditate on it, lots of really good things.

We're just gonna practice reading it and let it get into us. So you can read it or listen to it. There are apps out there that'll help you listen to it. And so we're just gonna take time over the next eight weeks as we study, we want to be practicing. And so there's a sheet on those tables.

On your way out, you can pick it up. It just says Colossians, communal practice. Reading scripture. There are ways you can do this for me. I will be doing.

I will be reading. This is gonna sound heavy, but listen. Fifteen minutes a day, you can read the entire book of Colossians in 15 minutes. I'm gonna read the entire book of Colossians every day through this eight week process. And by every day, I mean five days a week, right?

It'll count. So read the entire book of Colossians if you got 15 minutes. If you've got five minutes a day, you can read a chapter a day. If you got two minutes a day, you can read the selected passage. We'll be teaching on that coming Sunday.

So for eight weeks, we want to be studying Colossians and practicing scripture, reading and letting it get into our beings and seeing what God begins to do with our hearts and our motives and our behaviors. Good study and practice. So let's see what God has for us and study. Today we're going to look at a story in the life of Jesus from Mark, chapter two. But as we read it, I want to get a question firmly set in the forefront of your mind.

This is one of those deep human questions, one of those questions we all are asking in some way. And it's very simple. Am I okay?

I heard no right up front. Am I okay or can I be okay? You. Maybe that's the better way to ask it. It's a deep human question.

Because every One of us knows what it's like to not be okay. We know what it's like to grieve the loss of somebody we love, or to struggle through treatments, or to have our hearts weighed down with shame, or to worry all the time, or have anxiety run through our veins. I could keep going on, right? Am I okay? We desperately want to be okay.

Emotionally, physically, spiritually. Is that possible? Let's hold that question as we step into Jesus in Mark, chapter two. A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home. These are his people, right?

And home is. He is in a house. They gathered in such large numbers inside this house. There was no room left, not even outside the door. And he preached the word to them.

Some men came bringing him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them. Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, homes in Capernaum would not have been huge. A very large house would have. Would have been able to fit about 100 people. Whatever the size, there's more people than room.

And so it is packed out. And these men bring their friend to Jesus and they can't get him to him. But they are problem solvers. You gotta love them. Here we go.

They made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through it and then lowered the man the mat the man was lying on. So just so we're clear, this isn't just a makeshift house or a makeshift roof. It is a solid roof. People spend time up there. There are stairs up to that roof.

You would do chores up there, like maybe drying out your laundry, or you would go up there in the cool of the day to try to catch a breeze. It was a solid roof made of clay and branches, layers of these things and tiles. And these men go up there and tear it apart. They tear it apart. So what does Jesus do in response?

When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, son, your sins are forgiven. Now some teachers of the law were sitting there thinking to themselves, why does this fellow talk like that? He's blaspheming. Who can forgive sins but God alone? Teachers of the law.

These are the spiritual elite. Jesus is drawing crowds. They're interested in what's happening. They show up. But Jesus isn't fitting into what their plan for God looks like.

And they're right about one thing. See, Jesus does what nobody expects. He forgives the man. Nobody expects it because you're not supposed to do that. Humans don't forgive sins.

That's something only God can do. And there are strict rules about how God does it. He doesn't do it impact houses in Capernaum. He does it at the temple with the priest and with sacrifices. And here's Jesus saying, son, your sins are forgiven.

So he is claiming to do something only God can do. So if he's a teacher or if he's a prophet, this is blasphemy. And he knows every bit of what he's doing. In fact, I think he's in part doing it for them, that he's demonstrating that he can do things only God can do. Because he is the king.

He is the Messiah God has sent to set things right. But he is also God among them. God who has moved into the neighborhood. He can do what only God can do immediately. Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts.

And he said to them, why are you thinking these things? Which is easier to say to this paralyzed man, your sins are forgiven? Or to say, get up, take your mat and walk. But I want you to know that the Son of Man, this is an Old Testament reference that he uses for himself. The Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins in collaboration with the Spirit.

Jesus is aware of what they're thinking. He speaks directly to it. And then he says this. So he said to the man, I tell you, get, get up, take your mat, go home. He got up, took his mat, walked out in full view of them.

All this amazed everyone. And they praised God, saying, we have never seen anything like this.

And if you're like me, you're wondering, what about the roof? We will never know.

Here was a man who was not okay, physically broken, spiritually shamed. And he gets to Jesus and he leaves whole, right inside and out, put back together. So if you were here right now, and you can't ever imagine being okay, I want you to know there's reason to hope. And his name is Jesus.

Jesus occasionally talks about why he showed up, his purpose. And in one instance, he says this in Luke 19. For the son of man again, that's him came to seek and to. Here's the word save. The lost.

We read that word save, and we limit it to, oh, that means I get to go to heaven one day after I die. I want you to know this. That word, it's written in the ancient language of Greek. It's the word sozo. S O Z O sozo.

It is a thick word, gets used over and over and over again throughout the New Testament. And it gets used when Jesus protects the Disciples from the storm, he saved them. It gets used when he delivers people from demonic oppression, he saves them. It gets used when he raises. Raises them from the dead.

He saves them. When he heals people, he saves them. When he forgives people, he saves them. This word means to save, to heal, to deliver, to be made right, to be made whole. Christian Author and psychologist Dr. Henry Cloud said it this way.

He said the word salvation actually means healing. Redemption meant that God was bringing us back to the way that we were supposed to be and reconciling all things unto himself. Salvation was, in essence, healing all that had gone wrong. God was restoring life. And when he does that, our emotional and relational problems get healed as well.

These friends bring this man expecting and wanting a physical healing. But Jesus does more. He restores Him. Son, your sins are forgiven. This is just one story in the biographies of Jesus Life.

In all four of them, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. About 40% of all of those, all of those books, 40% of them include Jesus doing some kind of healing. Spiritual healing, physical healing, emotional healing, healing from demonic spirits. Jesus saves. Jesus heals.

And catch this. He wants us to be whole in every facet of our life because evil has impacted us at every facet of our life.

He wants to put us back together. And for this man, he did it in a moment. And he sometimes does that today, healing in a moment through his power. But most often he heals over time through. Through his presence.

So when I ask, can I be okay? What I've experienced with Jesus, my answer is yes, because I've experienced healing and most of it has taken place in my life over time. And much of it has been inner healing, from generational sin and deep wounds, to freeing me from unbearable shame, to taking what was a deeply insecure heart and filling me today with a profound sense of safety and security, even in the hardest of circumstances. And all of that happened over time. And that healing process which I'm continually in, it was and is and continues to be long, hard, and really, really murky, confusing.

Not always sure where it's going, but every bit of it worth it every time. So Jesus heals. So he heals. In the Gospels, we see him heal some people of some things, some of the time. How clear is that?

But he doesn't heal everyone.

But he does heal all of us. Ultimately, through his life, death and resurrection. He makes it possible for us to experience and to be whole and right people in a world that is whole and right for eternity.

Because no healing on this side of the eternity is forever. He raised his friend Lazarus from the dead. Beautiful story. Do you know what happened to Lazarus later? He died.

Wasn't permanent. Eternity for you and me is permanent. Jesus heals.

So Jesus has the ability and wants to put things back together. What do we need to bring to the table? What is our part in this? Here's the line from the story. When Jesus saw their.

What's the word? Faith, their trust in him, he said to the paralyzed man, son, your sins are forgiven. He's able and wanting, but we have to show up and trust him. And he responds to faith or trust wherever he can get it. But apparently nothing pleases him more than when we show up and trust him to be good and notice.

In this story, faith can be seen. He saw their faith. It is something you can see. There's a hole in the ceiling. You can see the hole in the ceiling.

It's a result of their faith, result of their trust. But what they do doesn't earn the healing. The healing is a gift. It is grace. But the effort is in the trust.

Those men trusted Jesus to make their friend okay. So much so they couldn't wait. Do you ever wonder this? Why not just hang out? Eventually people are going to leave and you can just walk up to Jesus.

No, instead you vandalize a house, right?

Jesus own brother would write later, his name is James. He's got a whole book in the Bible. He would say, look, faith, trusting God, without works, without effort, without something you can see is dead.

My colleague Natalie this week was telling me a story about people who were translating the Bible into a language for a tribe in Papua New Guinea. And they were struggling to find a word to translate for the word faith until they found a word that the tribe had for hanging a hammock on a tree. Because you see, to have faith in Jesus is like trusting a tree to hold your full body weight in a hammock. And you can see it.

Here's the challenge, man. We reduced faith to, like, mental agreement, and we think it's obedience.

Resonance. To resonate with the word of God is not the same as obedience. Agreeing is not the same as acting. Listening is not the same as doing. It takes both.

In fact, Jesus is profoundly confused by people who only listen, who only agree with him. Why do you call me Lord? Lord, he said, and don't what? Do what I say. Study and practice.

We got to have new habits, not just of attending and listening, but habits of trusting and acting. Out of that trust, Jesus saw their faith. Four uninvited, untrained barbarians. You tell me what other word fits four dudes who will rip up the roof of your house. Barbarians who decide getting their friend in front of Jesus is the most important thing they can do that day and that it's worth whatever kind of trouble they may get into.

And the man is made whole as much due to their efforts as it is to Jesus ability. Can I say that again? As much due to their efforts.

Jesus saw their faith that man would never experience the healing if his friends hadn't gotten him to Jesus. They probably could have waited, really, if you owned the house, they really could have waited. Here's a Bible scholar talking about this passage. There's a little question that here we've reached the deepest point in the gospel so far. A man is being made completely right with God not by virtue of having kept or even having promised to keep God's law or even the Sermon on the Mount.

Nor is this deepest of all healings given to the on the basis of prior repentance. In none of the three accounts this story is told in Matthew, Mark and Luke of this healing. In the other gospels is the healed man investigated. He is put right simply on the basis of the faith of his little company of friends. One observation.

You want to experience the healing that Jesus has for you? Have better friends, have friends who will get you to them. So we got some folks here, some people in this church who are those kind of friends. They hang out here on Wednesday night. It's under the banner of a thing called Celebrate Recovery.

But man, it's just people like these four uninvited. They're not barbarians, some maybe, but everyday people who want to join in with what God is doing to help heal people. And I'm going to introduce you to a couple of them. This is Anna and John. Watch this.

Well, Celebrate Recovery is a 12 step Christ centered program that helps folks with hurts, habits, hang ups which can include a multitude of things. Codependency, relationship issues, alcohol, grief, grief, anxiety, rage. It's a misconception. Only about a third of participants with Celebrate Recovery is drug and alcohol related. So everything else is just a smorgasbord, I guess of things and issues that we deal with.

It's a very safe place. There's no judgment whatsoever and people get to tell their story and we're not there to fix one another, we're just there to support each other. Well, God prepared me for Celebrate Recovery by my bad choices that I've made in life in the past. As soon as I heard that we Were going to have one here at Whitewater almost 10 years ago. I think I literally ran to sign up.

I figured, well, I like to help people. A lifetime ago I was in prison. I can help people. I soon found out that I was the one who really needed to work the steps, work the principles, start peeling the layers of the onion off and, and get involved, which I did. You did not start with me at the time.

No, he did it probably at least a year, maybe two. You went for a year or two before I started and he asked me to come. And then I'll admit that I was like, you got a lot of work that needs done, a lot of fixing, a lot of things have to happen. You work on your stuff. I'm good.

Unbeknownst to me, several people in CR had been praying that I would come. I finally broke down and said yes and showed up on Wednesday night thinking, I can help people. This is good. I've got it together. My life is good.

I know what I'm doing. I can help people. That was shattered almost instantly. I realized I needed help and that I was broken. And there were so many issues that I had that I needed to work on.

When you see people come, whatever the hurt and the habit of the hang up that they have, and the Bible talks about coming to a moment of clarity, I don't want to live like this anymore. And as soon as that happens, a celebrated recovery person jumps in that pit with them. Despair, isolation, loneliness. And they look at you and say, why are you jumping in this pit with me? And we respond, we've been here.

I know the way out. Let's go. We are there with them and we just start to show them. By our example, by our love, we don't condemn, we accept. We love them right where they are.

They don't have to have their ducks in a row. They probably don't even know where their ducks are. And we love them exactly in that moment. And that's what Jesus commands us to do. NCR It's a journey.

There's not a destination. I've been doing it for 10 years and I've still got things I'm working on. We say if you're lacking in hope, we got extra. You know, if you're lacking in faith, 10 or 12 of us will give you some of our faith, you know, and see you through. We've had the joy to witness the change that's happened in people's lives.

And it's just, it's so amazing. And you just want everybody to know, I just wish I could tell everyone, you know it. If you had seen this person on the first day they walked in and see where they are now, you would think they were two different people. And it's an amazing thing. And God does such amazing things with our lives once.

We just give our life to him.

Man, if you're here today and you are deep into that question, can I be okay? If deep down you're like, I'm longing to be healed, to experience more and more of the life that Jesus is saving, me too. If you need healing and freedom from your hurts, your habits, your hang ups, Wednesday nights here, you'll find people like that here. People who do you hear it. You need hope.

You don't have any hope. We got some. We'll share it with you. You need faith. We got faith to share.

We'll share it with you. Man, can I be okay? They would say, yes, yes, yes. And you can look for John and Anna. They hang out in that landing on Sundays with their people.

So show up here Wednesdays or look for them, walk over and say, hi, I saw you on screen, and you'll be in the best hands. You hear John say that he went to help people, then realized he needed help.

See, both of these can be true. That God can be at work healing us even as we he invites us to collaborate with him in healing others. They are both true. He saw their friend's faith. Who knows what the guy's faith was like?

Jesus doesn't respond to his faith. He responds to the faith. Friends, so what does it mean for you to be that kind of friend?

And here's the consistent trouble. And that's why we continue to say following Jesus is for everyone and everyday people, not just church experts. Because we can look like we got things together that we really don't. It's not just pastor types or people that you perceive as super Christians. It's for little old you and little old me.

And we can read the Bible in a way where we find heroes and we're like, oh, they're heroes of the faith. But man, if you really get into the Bible, you recognize, you read it, you recognize these people are profoundly flawed just like me.

The Bible will show you over and over again. It takes four untrained, barbaric dudes to see healing happen.

People just like us.

What is it like for us to be those kind of friends? See if it's true, if what I'm saying is true, that God wants to partner with an everyday person to make the world Right. And their world. Right. The people in their world.

Right. If that's true, that means God wants to, to and will partner with you. And to be honest, it's part of his plan. He chose you to be alive in this moment of history, in this place, with your relationships, with your circle, with your family, your home, your neighborhood, your work.

There is nobody else that has that world that you have. And he's saying, let's get kingdom to come and will be done in that. Will you help me? Here's a sad truth. Without those four friends, that man would never experienced healing.

Who in your life needs you every day? Joe and Jane. To be that person. And if that sounds way too hard, let me. Let me confess for a moment.

Here's the thing that's true about me. I am the best thing I do. I am best at doing nothing. Some of you were giggling a little bit because you're like, I think I'm married to somebody like that. I mean, I've mastered doing nothing.

I once went home, I had this phrase come up, and I thought, well, that might be me. That I start slow and I taper off. And I went home, and I told Jen, my wife, I said, I think I might be the kind of person that starts slowing, tapers off. And she laughed, and then she cried.

And some of you know what this is like, right? And underneath this, I'll tell you why I'm really good at doing nothing. It's my way of control. Because the thing I hate most is conflict. And I can avoid conflict all day by doing nothing.

If I write a poem and I show it to you, and you go, well, Russ, that poem stinks. We now have conflict. You know how I avoid it? Never write the poem.

I've mastered this. Why do I tell you this? Because if joining God in your life, if that feels like too much, let me tell you. I am the low bar. It has to be simple.

If it's complicated, I'm not gonna do it.

And if you know me, this is true. And I'm not exaggerating. It is so simple. And I honestly believe most of us here in this room want to do this. We want to be those kind of four friends.

We just don't know how. And if that's you, I am so glad you are here. Because we are the kind of church who wants to put into practice. We are the kind of church who will show you how.

This year, some of you, we've showed you how to pray for people, and it's simple. How to read scripture. With people. And it's simple. Just between services, as I sat with some folks talking about how to share a meaningful meal with them.

And it's simple. Keep looking for those things. But if there's something Jesus is doing that you read and he's doing, and you're like, how do you do that? You ask me, and we'll show you.

Will show you. Because the invitation Jesus gives is, come join in to all the good things I'm going to be up to in the lives of your people, and they will experience healing and growth, and you get to be nothing more than a junior partner. You show up because here's the truth. When I show up with all that I've got, the best that I've got, I just get what I can result in. When Jesus shows up, kingdom comes, sins get forgiven, healing happens.