Cross Timbers Church, Message, 8/25/2024

you know today has been a challenge in a bunch of different ways y'all can be seated while we're waiting on this that's okay unless you just really want to stand but you can be seated we're waiting today has been a challenge so I have a feeling that there's something in um the word that of God that the Holy Spirit wants to get across to some people today that's really important because there's been several things that have come across against people in this congregation today and some frustrations in my life and now we have some technology issues and stuff like that but if we can't get it up then we will we will go on with the thing this way I'm going to say that if if you take the the bread that you have it's unleavened the word of God said to use unleavened bread because it's a symbol of taking out the things that we shouldn't have in our lives and separating them out all through it's you know so if you look at the Old Testament or the Tanakh the Hebrew scriptures you'll see that God has been laying out things that are symbolic that are fully fulfilled in Jesus Christ in the New Testament and so Jesus told his disciples to be aware of the leaven of the Pharisees that is the teaching of the Pharisees and so when you come to the Passover meal you see that it has unleavened bread because the idea was to get the things out of your life that shouldn't be there and so it's unleavened bread and the body of Christ of Jesus Christ Christ being the Greek word for Messiah the anointed one the one who was to come and set us free this body was broken for us the word of God says that by his wounds by his stripes in some translations we are healed we're set free he suffered and died for us so that we could be set free so since we don't have the responsorial thing to come up go ahead and take the bread and I always break it before I eat it because it helps me to remember that Jesus was broken his body was broken for [Music] us the word of God says that that likewise he took a cup at the end of the meal and he told his disciples to drink from it it wasn't more than just a symbol of Unity by drinking and sharing from a cup the same cup the idea was he said that this is the Covenant of my blood the New Covenant because the blood of Jesus purifies us it sets us free it redeems us it cleanses us from sin it causes us to live a new life some people sometimes think that that's kind of icky or gross to talk about the blood of Jesus but if it wasn't for the shed blood of Jesus there would be no Christianity there would be no church there wouldn't be anything like we have today right Jesus then would just be another good teacher of History you know that throughout history there have been teachers who had a lot of nice and good things to say that about how people should get along but Jesus was more than that Jesus was more than a teacher he was more by far than a prophet he was and still is the Eternal Lamb of God the Eternal living second person of our Trinity God Triune god father son and spirit and when he became flesh and lived among us he was tempted and like always ways that we are and so that because he was tempted and experienced that but then he died for us as you know propitiation that is paid the price the just demands of the law for our sins and then rose again from the dead he's able to set us free from the bondage of our past the sins of of our past and the word of God says that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins and so the blood of Jesus Christ forgives us God forgives us through the blood of Jesus Christ and we're washed clean we don't have to live the way we used to live because we're clean by the blood of Jesus so if you'll take the cup and remember what Jesus did for you and actually is still doing for you [Music] today remember that Jesus in heaven is seated at the right hand of the father making intercession for us for his [Music] people Lord God I thank you for your grace I thank you for this provision I thank you for the Covenant meal that you've given us that Jesus you established a New Covenant in your blood that's what you did at the last supper and then you carried it out in your person that you suffered and died for us but you rose again from the dead ascended into heaven sits at the right hand god father almighty and you make intercession for us and that you will return for your church someday and we're grateful and thankful for that Lord God Amen and so you know there's advantages to having technology but there's different there's difficulty sometimes with technology too oh those slides are coming up all right although now the uh the projector has made some adjustments so it's cutting off the edge of the slide up on the the front but that's okay it'll be all right we will persevere sometimes in life you just have to deal with the stuff that comes up and you just keep going right you know and you know sometimes it's little stuff sometimes it's big stuff sometimes the little stuff causes you more R than the big stuff right you can deal with big stuff because you say oh that's something but then it's the little frustrations that we like to whine about at times and stuff so anyhow we're going to talk about what it is when Jesus uh had a leper come up to him and say if you will you can make me clean and I think that this is really important for us today this is more than just a miracle that Jesus did a lot of times when we read scripture you know we see one of these Miracles that Jesus did and we just kind of like oh well that's nice oh that's nice and we just kind of blow past it because we said that that's something that he did all right but the reality here is that there is a truth here in this passage about Jesus cleansing the leper that's important for us to get and I think that you're going to see that as we go through this and so we're going to go to the gospel of Mark The Gospel According to Mark so we're in chapter 1 verse 40 of Mark and a leper a leper came to him and this is a big deal because remember in the time you know skin diseases not all of them were leprosy but there was a group of things that were lumped together and called leprosy in the day and the ceremonial law of the time says that these people had to declare themselves as unclean not sinful but unclean they're not ceremonially clean and so they had to stay away from other people and they had to announce that and Shout out if somebody came near that I'm unclean they had to hold a hand over their mouth you know and they had to tear their clothes and other things like that to symbolize and show that they were not clean to participate with society and so this deal with Jesus coming in and excuse me and healing the leper is a big deal in society of his day in reality it's a big deal for us too because the leper was made clean clean you know it's not that far removed from the woman with the issue of blood who was ceremonially unclean men could be unclean too right I don't want to get into that right now in church but the issue is is that she had this flow of blood that made her ceremonially unclean she couldn't do certain things not sinful it's not about Sin this is about being ritually impure it's a symbolic thing for righteousness that we'll see in a minute but she came up and she grabbed the sece the fringes on the cloak of Jesus His Garment these are the tassels that Jewish people wore in the day and some still wear today too to remind them of the teachings of God the power of God she grabbed hold of that and she was instantly healed Jesus said who touched me not because he was worried about becoming unclean but because she needed to understand that even though she had been instantly healed from her problem and the flow of blood but that she wouldn't have any doubts that she had committed a sin by making Jesus unclean ritually unclean because she being impure touching him would make him ceremonially unclean Jesus can't be made unclean his power his majesty his godliness cannot become unclean right and so but she needed to understand that she needed that reassurance she needed to be lifted up after all of the problems she had experienced for so many years in their society because of her problem the leper is kind of the same way he has this problem that he can't associate with other people because of his uncleanness it's more than just the spread of disease he is an outcast right and he's purely dependent upon the kindness of other people to provide because he can't work he can't do things because he'll pass this uncleanness on to other people you know in the day they had this the rabbis would debate if you had a container of something wine olive oil whatever that was clean ritually clean and you poured something into it right that was you know let's say some insects had gotten into it or something was in and it poured out into there a lizard or rat or whatever you know it came out of the container it made the other thing unclean right well if you were to take a container and you didn't realize that it was unclean right and you poured something into it and all of a sudden you notice that there's a thing in there it's kind of like sometimes I've seen around here you know out out in the storage thing or something like that you go to a trash can and I looked into it out there and there's a dead mouse in there how did that Mouse get in there well it got into the trash can you know because it was attracted to something and then couldn't get out and it died you're saying oh that's gross well I'm telling you real life things and so the deal is so in the day you might have this container and so you start to pour something into it and you realize there's a a dead mouse in there well that thing is unclean but in their mind now because you were pouring that liquid from one container into that one the unle cleanness that ceremonially uncleanness ceremonial uncleanness would flow up that stream of olive oil or wine or water or whatever and make the whole big container unclean now too so you couldn't use it either you see they get into this thing of saying oh this is unclean this is unclean I can't do this I can't touch that I can't participate with anything with Gentiles I can't do this this was a whole big deal in the book of Acts where Peter was having was starting to go to associate with Gentiles and the church back in Jerusalem was whacking on him for participating with unclean people you got to understand Jesus made everyone clean okay and so that's where this is going and so the idea here is as a leper came up to him and knelt before him and implored him and begged him and he would have had you know if he was following the rules he would had to talk to him with his hand over his mouth right if he was talking to Jesus he'd have to put like this he'd have to talk like this because he's unclean now the scripture doesn't say whether he did or didn't but that would be the thing of the day that's what they had to do you can go look it up in Leviticus if you want but Jesus in his Mercy in his concern and his love before he said anything he reached out and touched him nobody would have touched that guy ever not just an issue of I don't want to catch what he has but he's unclean right I'm not going to do that the question is do we treat people like that sometimes you know sad part is that sometimes Christians think of other people as beneath them or unclean Jesus our lord reached out and touched him it was more than just healing the leprosy he was healing his inner self that man's self the hurt on the inside the separation from others the rejection that he had felt for however long Jesus healed him inside as well as on the surface on the outside but you notice the things that are unlined on the on the screen in the word of God is be clean you know the guy came up to him and said you can make me clean but it's more than just a disease thing the issue here is what's ceremonial but more than that it's the righteousness of what's inside Jesus makes us clean on the inside right because notice this in the word of God it says immediately that the leprosy left him and he was made clean it's not just that he was made clean quote unquote the disease is gone there's two things that happened here he had this healing from Jesus of the leprosy but then he was made clean whole righteous on the inside redeemed on the inside okay now Jesus sent him away and said don't tell anybody well why did Jesus not tell him this is a Side Story you know Jesus all through the gospel first half of the Gospel of Mark keeps telling people in these Miracles don't tell anybody and they go off and tell everybody but he's why is he telling them to do that it's because once people find out then they start showing up and wanting Miracles and a show and an act you know and all this stuff and he can't openly go anywhere he has to stay out in the you know in the desert regions and you know unpopulated areas and people would come out to him he had a hard time getting around because there were so many crowds showing up that's the general idea why but the other thing is is that Jesus said go to the temple and show yourself to the priests and make the offering as a witness to them as you know proof to them that you have become ceremonially clean you're righteous and set free you know the idea here is then what did that do they're going to be like well how did you get clean well I went to Jesus and Jesus healed me well that's going to spin them up don't you think right and so they don't you know Jesus is doing all of this stuff and they can't figure it out but the important part for us today is this idea of being made clean the word that's you know the original Greek word that's in there is this word about well there's there's two words in um in biblical Greek in in the New Testament about being made clean and they're very close to each other there's two there the word we're talking about today has two letters more in it than the other and you might think that this is a minor thing why is RA talking about that because the one one of them Jesus talks about uh with the disciples when he says that I'm the vine and you're the branches and my father prunes so you produce more fruit okay that's one type of cleaning you know you're cleaning your up cleaning up your act you know kind of thing and doing stuff but this cleaning is the idea of making you righteous and making you acceptable to in the sight of God this is the kind of cleaning that that sets you free and so that's what we're talking about right now and so Jesus said go to the go to the priest at the temple and and let them see that you really are clean and pure and you've been set free but that's going to spin the priest up and the whole religious establishment it's going to help spin them up against Jesus and he knows that's going to happen but that's what he's telling this guy to do but in the meantime the guy told everybody else about his healing now somebody who would have been present right there seeing it at the time Jesus did that would be the Apostle John okay so John now he wrote the The Gospel according to John but he also wrote these letters and so he's talking about being made clean in the first letter of John so that's where we're all we're going with this and so Jesus is so John is talking about Jesus when he says this that this is the message we have heard from him that is Jesus and Proclaim to you that God is light and in him there is no Darkness at all literally it's there is no Darkness none that's that's what the the literal word of God says in in Greek there is no darkness in him he is pure light and so why is this a deal because because in the Gospel of John it says that Jesus came into the world the light of God came into the world and the Darkness could not overcome it it could not comprehend it it could not overcome it and John is in this letter emphasizing this point that God is light now remember darkness is nothing there darkness is emptiness darkness is the absence of light there is no such thing as something in darkness light is something and darkness is simply the absence of light this is a big deal in terms of the Rel our relationship with God now physically light pure light is the presence of all kinds of different colors like white when you look at something that's white it's reflecting light back with the presence of all colors in it when you look at something like these walls up here that are black the idea is it's absorbing the light it's not reflecting light but when we're talking about this idea of God is light light radiates from something right it is what God created for us for our benefit but it is his nature the radiance of God the power of God the essence of God radiates out and is described as light and the power of light is that it exposes the works of darkness if you have Jesus Christ in you you have the light of God in you and it should be shining out from you you everywhere you are because you with God's presence in you should be bringing light into darkness and this world has lots of Darkness right what happens in darkness right at night theft happens sin happens you do things that we want to hide in we don't want people to know about happens at night right oh you go look at social media you know the ads you get because they know you know social media the computer knows whether you're male female it has a good idea of your age and da d da they can statistically Say by what you look at what you've seen what you've done in the past and they that computer remembers everything you've ever touched on on social media and on YouTube and everything else it's sticking it all together and they sell that stuff because they're going to Target ads to you when you come into Friday evening or in the middle of the night it's going to start sending you stuff to lure you into sin more than it does during the day that's what social media does I'm not saying go test me on it because I don't want you getting into that stuff right but if you've been there on social media you know that these ads show up and if you you click on it and say I don't want to see those Facebook reels anymore of those women not wearing anything okay it'll go away and then the next day it'll be back because it's going to try and lure you into something now it may not be now your thing that is sending you may not be a sexual thing but it may be a oh buy this buy this because it's going to make you feel good on the inside they're lying but they're going to try and make you say oh if I just have this materialism it'll make me better it'll make everything better for me it's it's it's alluring but it knows that if I do it at night when it's dark the computer knows this I mean programmers are not stupid it's a statistical thing right and so you start luring people this way with these ads we as Believers need to live in the light not in the dark right because all of these things are going to get exposed sooner or later it's just like what Isaiah dealt with in his day and we deal with today there's darkness in the world of government and we need more Godly people and godly influence fluence in that world right because when godly people are involved they overwhelm the darkness because the light of God in them is causing a change so we need more Godly influence even if that means you're praying you're giving to Godly candidates your your campaigning for whatever it is voting at least but make it a Godly thing where light is changing the world and overwhelming the darkness the letter the word of God says if we say we have fellowship with him that is with God while we walk in darkness we lie and do not practice the truth in other words you can't can't walk with God and live in the world system and then say not live with the world because we have to live in the world we are in the world but not of the world the idea is are we following God and God's ways are we following the world and the world's ways we need to follow God's ways because when we do that we're changing the world system to be the way God wants it to be but if we walk in the light as he is in the light we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus his son cleanses us from all sin that's why a while ago when the the slides weren't working for the communion thing the the the emphasis would have been on how the blood of Jesus cleanses us and sets us free that's why I was saying you know there's some opposition today because if that's not working there's somebody here who needs to hear this message that you have been set free by the blood of Jesus but you're sitting here going I keep condemning myself I I I don't know who you are there may be a group of people but there's some of us here I keep whacking on myself because I did something wrong and I can't get past it I keep going back to God and say forgive me for doing that the reality is you have been forgiven if you're a follower of Jesus and you you've given your life to Jesus Christ you know and become a Christian you're forgiven your sin is done your blood of Christ has washed that clean stop asking God to forgive something that's already forgiven instead turn around and start thanking him for the Redemption and the Forgiveness that you've experienced and that you can live the way God calls you to live in other words this is how you change your mind you know the word of God says the let your behavior change modeled on your new mind Romans 121:2 the idea here is is that start thinking about God things and stop thinking about Sin things right because if I put my mind on the things of heavenly things and things that are above instead of things that are on the earth I'm going to change the way I think and it's going to change my behavior I change from the inside you're not a Christian because of what you do on the outside you're a Christian because of who you are on the inside because of Christ changing you and then you do Christian things because you have Christ Living in you not the other way around you don't make yourself change by doing stuff you change on the inside and then you'll change what you do so the idea here then is let the word of God God change the way we think because I have been cleansed I have been set free by the power of God and the blood of Jesus Christ and I need I can stop focusing on what I did wrong right okay because there are a bunch of us that have some things that we really don't want anybody to know about from years ago right however many years they you know there there's stuff that that and it isn't always because of sin sometimes it's stuff that happened to us and we think we're dirty because of it I'm telling you you're not you've been washed clean by the blood of Christ and whatever happened to you God wants you to be healed from that and want you to realize that's not your fault now now things you we may have done in the past that we don't like like the scripture says Paul wrote that he said you know now now we get kind of embarrassed by the stuff of the past right there is stuff that we have in our past that we don't want anybody to know anything about because we know that they'll look down on us condemn us talk about us whatever but I want you to understand Jesus has washed that clean if you've given your life to Jesus he's washed that clean you don't have to keep condemning yourself anymore that's what all of this is about in the letter of John first letter of John the blood of Jesus Son of God cleanses us from sin you are adjudicated judged legally it's in the New Testament the these were legal terms of the day you've been adjudicated judged declared righteous before God and in the community you are clean so stop banging on yourself for something of the past that God's already forgiven you for now I'm going to tell you don't keep doing it right okay yeah I've been forgiven now I can go do it again no no well I probably shouldn't tell the story if you want to hear the story about you know the Philippines U we can talk after church I probably shouldn't right Bill we shouldn't talk about that here anyway so any but the blood of Jesus cleanses us from that sin you understand and I just want to encourage you this is not a bang on people thing this is a thing I want you to be lifted up and understand that God loves you so much that Jesus died and rose from the dead suffered so that his blood can purify us from these things that we have doof up so bad right and if you think well I've never done anything like that you better deal with that pride thing because you've done something even if it's just the pride so you know the deal is is that we exist and live by the grace of God right all right so if we say that we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us if we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness I my my big deal is with this message I really feel like the Holy Spirit has been saying it isn't about this idea that sometimes we think that okay we get saved because we turn our lives to Jesus we become a Christian we want to follow make a declaration I'm going to follow Jesus as Lord as Savior Redeemer Master but all of the past then is washed away but now I have to live through life as best I can right I tell you that's not the Christian message the Christian message is now that Christ is living in me I can live a life of righteousness and good things and I don't have to continue in the past I don't have to worry that I'll stumble and fall and then now I'm I'm lost again and separated from God you're not separated from God you're not lost again you just get up you dust off you go boldly before the throne of grace before God because he wants you back and you confess your sin and God cleans that you were you were righteous all of your sins were done and paid for at Calvary you understand that how many of your sins had happened before Jesus died none of them right everything that we've done wrong happened after the cross and so they're all dealt with now there are consequences to living and doing stupid things right if you drink a quart of whiskey a day you're going to hurt yourself I mean it's not healthy and 32 packs of cigarettes a day are not sin but but it's not smart okay if you smoke 32 packs of cigarettes a day you're going to hurt yourself and that there's consequences to that I'm not saying that that's sin I'm saying that that's dumb right and so so the deal is there are consequences though to doing things that God says don't do they're not there to constrain us they're there to to protect us right and so when God says don't commit adultery why does he say that it's it's not because he says I don't want you to have fun he's saying it's not good for you it's not healthy for you it's not healthy for your spouse it's not good for your family it's not good for people he's trying to protect his people understand these things these rules are set up so that and I shouldn't say rules God's commands are set up to protect us people make rules thinking well God's rule commands aren't good enough so we got to add to them right you know you got to dress this way you got to act this way you got to cut your hair this way you know blah blah blah blah blah blah right this is like the Pharisees you know churches today do the same thing they act like Pharisees you got to create more rules oh it's like the government you got to have more laws you know you know it doesn't matter anyone of us could be arrested for something at some time because of all the crazy laws that are out there right you don't even know you're breaking a law when you break a law what where'd that come from you know and so you could get arrested for something I'm sure I could get arrested for something in fact I know that if if we lived in France or England since you don't have guarantees of freedom of speech like they do here I could get arrested for stuff and a bunch of y'all could too you know and so the idea here is is that people make the bad laws and that's why people sometimes will say church is just full of all these rules and regulations and hypocrites and everything like no Jesus wants us in relationship he's not calling us to do Church gathering together in church and being a part of a body is for our benefit right it isn't about saying okay here's the rule stay in the box right that's part of the problem why the nation is in the mess that it's in is because for decades the church is of whatever denomination or non- denomination or whatever you want to look at have failed as a whole not each and every one but as a whole to help people understand the idea is to become like Jesus the follow Jesus it isn't about following all the rules and getting your check marks there's a lot more to it than some of them the what I call turn the crank religion you know just go through the motions and do your thing and here's your ceremony show up put some money into the collection plate you know we'll marry you and bury you you know and and baptize you and blah blah blah you know and do go through the emotions God wants you he doesn't want your behavior he wants you okay and so that's why there's this thing about the grace of God cleanses us from that unrighteousness you see where I'm going with that and so that's why when Jesus touched the leper he did much more than just say leprosy be gone he healed the guy's broken heart and he set him free from his past made him clean physically emotionally mentally spiritually he was set free and clean and Jesus Christ can do the same for each one of us let's pray stand and let's pray and we'll be dismissed thank you Lord God for your grace I thank you for making us clean each of us who have come into a relationship with you Lord Jesus Jesus Christ you have made us clean you have set us free from Hell death in the grave you have created in us a new creation your word of God says behold all things are gone the new has come we are New Creations in Jesus Christ you have set us free you have cleaned us up and when we fall short you're willing to take us back and clean us up again oh Lord God we don't want to be like the proverb where it says the dog goes back to its vomit we don't want to do that we've been there some of us have been there literally had to go clean up our mess afterwards Lord God we don't want that we know that you've made us clean we know that you've made us clean and we want to stay clean I thank you Lord Jesus for your grace I thank you for everybody that's here today I thank you for your blessings upon each one to bring to be able to bring glory to God and I thank you excuse me I thank you Lord God for touching whoever it was that I that you inspired me to know that there's somebody here or somebody's that need to hear the message that you're clean stop beating yourself up for what's been done in the past and focus on the things that are above not on the past not on the sin but on the things of God when those Temptations come to me I just say scripture holy holy holy is the Lord God of hosts who is and who was and who is to come just like in the Throne of Heaven in the Book of Revelation when I start repeating that things to myself I start forgetting the things of the past the Temptations of the present because I'm focused on the things of God and I've set my mind on Heavenly things above I thank you Lord God for giving me that and I pray that you touch whoever it is here that needs your touch to be able to set their minds on the things above I'm going to pray a blessing on us from the letter Paul to the Colossians may you be filled with the know knowled of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord fully pleasing to him bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might for all endurance and patience with joy giving thanks to the father who has qu qualified us to share in the inheritance of the Saints in light he has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the domain of his beloved Son in whom we have Redemption the Forgiveness of sins