Meeting Jesus - Breaking Rules & Changing Lives

In the 10 Commandments, God provided a pattern he desired the Nation of Israel to follow. Work six days but stop on the 7th.  God wanted the Israelites to set aside a day of the week to focus exclusively on him as a sign of trust. For six days, work the cattle, the crops, and labor. But on the 7th day – trust me. 

“I have got it.”

“Set aside the 7th day to worship me, I will take care of everything.”

Doesn’t the idea of “ceasing from all work” sound appealing?

We rush to get home after school. Rush to get homework done. Rush to the soccer fields, baseball games, the basketball games, the softball games! Rush to get the kids supper, showered, and to bed. Rush to school the next morning to get the kids there on time, then we rush to work so we are not late. God said – be busy, not go crazy! Work hard from sun-up till sun-down. But on the 7th day, stop! The idea a Sabbath day with no work, just prayer, worship, family, laughter sounds incredible to me! But the religious leaders went overboard with God’s command to stop work.

They felt God’s command to stop wasn’t explained enough, so the religious leaders developed over 39 rules to describe what it meant to work or not work on the Sabbath.  

They argued it was work if:

• a tailor went out with a needle in his robe

• a woman wore a clip in her hair

• a person wore false teeth 

• if a man picked up his child on the Sabbath Day

The Pharisees and religious leaders NITPICKED God’s people to death! If you have ever belonged to a church that focused on rules instead of relationship with God, you understand how the Jewish people felt. They could never do enough “right” to please the religious leaders. And then this great teacher and miracle worker came along and turned the religious leaders world upside down.  Jesus challenged them on how they taught the Word of God – and he challenged them with their rules about the Sabbath. Now that we understand the rules for the Sabbath, let’s read together from Luke 13.

Luke 13:10-17 (NLT2) 

10  One Sabbath day as Jesus was teaching in a synagogue, 11  he saw a woman who had been crippled by an evil spirit. She had been bent double for eighteen years and was unable to stand up straight. 12  When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Dear woman, you are healed of your sickness!” 13  Then he touched her, and instantly she could stand straight. How she praised God! 14  But the leader in charge of the synagogue was indignant that Jesus had healed her on the Sabbath day. “There are six days of the week for working,” he said to the crowd. “Come on those days to be healed, not on the Sabbath.” 15  But the Lord replied, “You hypocrites! Each of you works on the Sabbath day! Don’t you untie your ox or your donkey from its stall on the Sabbath and lead it out for water? 16  This dear woman, a daughter of Abraham, has been held in bondage by Satan for eighteen years. Isn’t it right that she be released, even on the Sabbath?” 17  This shamed his enemies, but all the people rejoiced at the wonderful things he did. 

So, Jesus was teaching on the Sabbath – and in shuffles this woman whose back was so crooked she was doubled over, she could not straighten herself out, and she had lived like that for almost two decades! I have seen older men and older woman just like that. Even though it was the Sabbath, the moment Jesus saw her, he called her to come to him, and he said, “You are healed from your sickness.”

But instead of celebrating her healing, the ruler of the synagogue continued to beat the same annoying drum. Instead of being happy for the freedom this woman had been given, he complained because Jesus had “worked” on the Sabbath. Think about this…for eighteen years, this woman suffered, unable to stand, walk, or sleep well. The religious leader did not care that she had suffered for so long. 

But for Jesus – he saw her suffering and said, “This dear woman,has suffered for so long, isn’t it right that she be released, even on the Sabbath?””  

This makes sense. 

Shouldn’t a person be freed on a day of worship?

Her suffering should remind us that…

SOMETIMES, PAIN LASTS A LONG TIME

For eighteen years, this woman could not straighten herself out.  For 936 weeks, 216 months, 6,570 days, this woman could not stand up.  She walked from place to place, doubled over, straining her neck to be able to see where she was going. This was somebody’s mother, grandmother, sister. Imagine this was your mom or grandmother. This wasn’t a few days of darkness. She faced pain every single day. When she woke up in the morning, the pain was there. When she went to bed at night, the pain was there. At breakfast, at lunch, at dinner, the pain was there. 

Her disfigurement was there. It never went away with time…it only became worse. I know some of you might understand by experience that some pain lasts a long time. 

Spiritual pain can last a long time.

Mental pain can last a long time.

Physical pain can last a long time.

Emotional pain can last a long time.

You wake up in the morning and the very first sensation you have is that of pain. Maybe you are haunted by pain from your past. Maybe you caused hurt to those you loved. Maybe they caused pain to you.

You have faced pain in your marriage, pain in your relationships with your children, or maybe daily you struggle under the weight of mental pain and mental darkness.  

Maybe you feel overwhelmed because dark thoughts continue to linger in your mind for weeks at a time. You can’t exercise them away, you can’t pray them away, you can’t seem to shake them off. There is pain that lasts for moments, and there is other pain that lasts too long. Sometimes, people get swallowed up by pain.

Suicide is the 12th leading cause of death in the United States.  In 2022, just over 49,369 Americans ended their lives. If you struggle with dark thoughts because of lasting pain in your life, please seek professional help. If you don’t know where to begin, I will help you know where to begin right now.

I understand that sometimes people feel like the only way to escape from the pain that is lingering in their lives is by ending their life.

9.8.8 is a National Hotline for Suicide Prevention. Today, if you struggle in this area, please call that number to begin down a path toward healing. I want you to know you are not alone.  If you have suffered a long time (physically, emotionally, spiritually, or mentally) like this elderly woman, keep dragging yourself to church. 

Keep getting out of bed. Keep moving forward, even though it hurts. We have a ministry called Celebrate Recovery. They meet every Friday night at 6:00PM in Adventure Beach.  If you struggle with hurts, habits, or hang ups, come check out CR and see if it is a place for you to recover.

We are for you. God loves you deeply. And, I invite you to cling to the hope found in Jesus, because…

CONSISTENTLY, JESUS CHANGES LIVES OF HURTING PEOPLE

We have been walking through the Gospel of Luke since the beginning of the year. I want to briefly point out to you how Jesus has changed the lives of hurting people:

In Luke 4:35 Jesus healed a man possessed by an evil spirit.

In Luke 4:39 Jesus healed a woman with a high fever.

In Luke 4:40, Jesus healed those brought to him from an entire village: sickness, disease, and those possessed by evil spirits.

In Luke 5:13, Jesus healed a man with an advanced case of leprosy.

In Luke 5:24, Jesus healed a paralyzed man.

In Luke 6:10, Jesus healed a man with a deformed hand.

In Luke 7:10, Jesus healed an officers’ servant.

In Luke 7:14, Jesus walked over to a grieving woman’s’ dead son and raised her boy to life.

In Luke 7:21, Jesus cured many people of their diseases, illnesses, and blindness.

In Luke 8:24, Jesus stopped the wind and waves from flipping over the boat of the disciples.

In Luke 8:33, Jesus healed a man filled with many demons.

In Luke 8:43, Jesus healed a woman who had reached out and touched the hem of his robe as he was passing by.

In Luke 8:50, Jesus gave life back to a young twelve-year-old girl.

In Luke 9:6, Jesus sent his disciples out into villages and healed the sick.

In Luke 9:10, Jesus fed over 5,000 people because they were hungry.

In Luke 9:42, Jesus healed a boy with seizures.

In Luke 10, Jesus sent out 72 more people to heal others.

In Luke 11:14, Jesus healed a man who could not speak.

And here in this passage in Luke 13, Jesus healed a woman who had been bent doubled over for 18 years. Chapter after chapter, day after day, we see Jesus changing the lives of hurting people.  He rescued people from disease, death, deformity, demons, and darkness. You might say, “Jesus had to heal people to fulfill the prophecy about him.”

Ok. But Jesus did not have to heal every person that came to him, he could have gotten away with healing only a few people to fulfill the OT prophecy.  He could have changed only a handful of people’s lives. Instead, every single broken or hurting person who reached out to Jesus for healing was changed forever.  He chose to pour his life out to meet the needs of those who were living in pain and without hope.

That’s because Jesus really does LOVE mankind and Jesus really is concerned about you. Your life matters to Him. Your joy matters to Him. Your pain and darkness does not go unnoticed. Your obedience to him matters to him – because he knows if you apply his word to your life, if you apply his teachings to your marriage, your children, to your own character, your life is going to change for the better.

You are important. You have significance. You DO matter.

So, please remember:

MIRACLES STILL HAPPEN; GOD IS NOT BOUND BY RULES

The greatest miracle that has happened in my life is when I surrendered my life to Jesus and received forgiveness for my sin. I came to a point in my life where I understood that God created mankind in his image. He had a relationship with Adam and Eve, but they chose to rebel against God. And since then, all humans have lived in rebellion against God.

We hurt others. We lie. We are selfish.

We lust. We live content with the world to revolve around us.

We call it “doing what I want.”  God calls it sin and disobedience.

And just like every loving parent has consequences when their child acts rebellious, God has punishment for our sin. The punishment for our sin is eternal separation from God.

Romans 6:23 (NLT2) 

23  For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.

In 1991, I understood that even though I chose to sin and rebel against God, God chose to demonstrate his love toward me. 

Romans 5:8 (NLT2) 

8  But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.

Just like Jesus demonstrated his love for this crippled, bent in half, broken woman, Jesus demonstrated his love for you and I by being willing to be put to death on the cross.  In that moment, he gave up his life, paid the penalty for our sin, to bring you and I close to God.

1 Peter 3:18 (NLT2) 

18  Christ suffered for our sins once for all time. He never sinned, but he died for sinners to bring you safely home to God. He suffered physical death, but he was raised to life in the Spirit. 

The greatest miracle that you will ever experience is the miracle of enjoying a relationship with your Creator that came through the death and resurrection of Jesus. If you would like to surrender your life to Jesus and experience this great miracle, our prayer team will be here at the close of the service.  They would love to lead you to a life-changing relationship with Jesus.

Hebrews 13:8 (NLT2) 

8  Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

If Jesus cared for the hurting two thousand years ago, he cares for the hurting today.

Meeting Jesus - You Can Trust God and Others (again)

Worry. 

It seems that today we worry about everything.

We worry about our finances:

Do we have enough money to pay the bills?

Do we have enough money to get the car fixed?

Do we have enough money to pay the orthodontist? 

Am I ever going to be able to retire?

We worry about our health: 

If I get sick, who will take care of my children?

Do I have enough insurance? 

I need to exercise, I need to get healthier.

I have been sick so long, am I ever going to get better?

We worry about our children, our grandchildren. We worry about their future, their success, their happiness.

Have we done enough as parents to point them to trust in Jesus and live in faith?

We worry about the future of the country. We worry about political decisions. We worry about who is sitting in the Whitehouse, who is making decisions, and who is voting for them…

WE WORRY!

So, let’s read our passage of scripture to see how Jesus teaches us how to deal with worry.

Let’s read: 

Luke 12:22-31 (NLT2) 

22  Then, turning to his disciples, Jesus said, “That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life—whether you have enough food to eat or enough clothes to wear. 23  For life is more than food, and your body more than clothing. 24  Look at the ravens. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for God feeds them. And you are far more valuable to him than any birds! 25  Can all your worries add a single moment to your life? 26  And if worry can’t accomplish a little thing like that, what’s the use of worrying over bigger things? 27  “Look at the lilies and how they grow. They don’t work or make their clothing, yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are. 28  And if God cares so wonderfully for flowers that are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you. Why do you have so little faith? 29  “And don’t be concerned about what to eat and what to drink. Don’t worry about such things. 30  These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers all over the world, but your Father already knows your needs. 31  Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and he will give you everything you need. 

In the preceding passage, Jesus had just finished teaching the parable of the Rich fool. He spoke about how a man had  so much stuff that he decided to build a bigger barn to store it all up…and God called him a fool to be rich in the world, but not have a rich relationship with God. And now, Jesus teaches the same crowd how they can develop a rich relationship with God, through living a life that genuinely TRUSTS God.

The first thing we can understand from this passage is that you can…

TRUST GOD BECAUSE HE CARES & PROVIDES FOR YOU. 

The crowd that Jesus spoke to were people who were unsure what they would eat every single day.  They were farmers, gatherers, and hunters. They could not stop off at the local Publix grocery store for a sushi roll and fried chicken wings. They didn’t drive by Chick-fil-A on the way to work for a coffee and chicken minis.

Because people were dependent on a good harvest, parents were unsure of how they would provide for their children each day. Would their family go to bed hungry this season? They would if the harvest season was slim and they had to stretch the crops out to get through the season. Families often worried about how they would get through the season, the week, and the day.

When Jesus spoke to them, he was looking into the eyes of those who had gone without, those who had eaten less so their kids could have proper nourishment, and those who often went to bed hungry.

The people worried because they knew hunger. The people worried because they knew what it was like to sleep through cold hard nights without enough clothing. The people worried because they had experienced hardship in the past.

That is often why we worry as well.

We worry about our children because we walked through hard and we do not want them to experience what we did. 

We worry about our future because we have scraped by in the past, and we do not want to experience it again.

We worry about relationships with other believers, because we have been burned, betrayed, and wounded by people who were followers of Jesus.

We worry about the things in life because we have gone though valleys of brokenness, hurt, betrayal, and pain.

For six years, as a follower of Jesus and as a Pastor, I worried that God wasn’t allowing Kristy and I to have children because we were going to somehow screw them up. I worried that God believed I would be a bad dad and wasn’t going to bless me with kids. Even though I was a follower of Jesus, a youth pastor, and seeking to walk with Jesus, I worried that God saw something wrong with me that I could not see. 

Sometimes, we worry about the future because of scars from our past experiences. We fail to truly trust God, because even since you became a follower of Jesus, you have been hurt.

So, pay very close attention to the root cause of our worry. The reason why we worry about the future is found in verse 28.

“Why do you have so little faith?”

See, according to Jesus…

WORRY IS ROOTED IN UNBELIEF; REMEMBER HIS FAITHFULNESS TO YOU!

Worry is rooted in unbelief. We worry today because our memories from our past battles are saturated with unbelief. We remember the wounds and how much something hurt us rather than remembering how God was working the bad stuff out for our good. I want to challenge you to reframe your bad memories so you can trust again and worry less.

For instance, I have shared before about my teenage years. I can either choose to recall my past experiences with unbelief or through the lens of faith and belief.

For the next paragraph, I will recall an event with unbelief:

As a child, I was in a Psychiatric Hospital for three months. I had been sexually abused by my dad. I had mood swings and had bursts of anger and rage when things didn’t go my way. I threatened my mom, I threatened my brothers and sisters. After three months, my mom said she didn’t want me, so I was sent to live with my grandmother through my High School years.

Or I could frame this event in a way that remembers God’s faithfulness can remember it through belief.

Even before I was a follower of Jesus, God was working in my life to help me recover from the impact of growing up with an abusive father. God used a network of people to place me in a Psychiatric Hospital for therapy and help. It was the first time I opened up about the abuse, and the first time I was able to trust people with my secret shame. After three months, God sovereignly allowed me to move in with my grandmother through my high school years where I would meet the girl that invited me to the church where I surrendered my life to Jesus and eventually would meet my future wife.

You can do the same thing!

If you struggle with trusting God because of past experiences that were hard, revisit your memories and look for ways God was faithful to you in the midst of the hard.

Grab a notebook or a journal.  Write down the experience through the lens of unbelief and pain…then rewrite the experience through a lens of faith.  Look at the way God led you and took care of you and provided for you and moved in your life.

There was an older man in the Old Testament, that had spent time reflecting on painful experiences from his past. His childhood and young adult years was filled with betrayals, and lies that others told about him. His name was Joseph. His brothers (who were going to kill him) sold him off as a slave into Egyptians traders. He grew up as a slave. He was accused of rape and thrown into prison. He grew up without his father. Without his family. Alone.

Yet, God used every situation in his life, including his brother’s evil actions and the false accusation of rape, for good. Toward the end of his life, Joseph was able to say without bitterness to his brothers:

Genesis 50:20-21 (NLT2) 

20  You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good. He brought me to this position so I could save the lives of many people. 

Joseph was able to trust in the sovereign plan of God. He was able to trust and live believing that God can turn any situation around.

If you believed that God created you to have a relationship with Him, but you sinned and were separated from that relationship with God, and you believe that Jesus paid the price for your sin on the cross, that you have been forgiven and you surrendered your life to Jesus received Jesus as your Savior, and you are now a follower of Jesus, then the promise and the principle that God can work all things out for good, that God can take the bad and redeem it for good, is true for you, too!

Romans 8:28 (NLT2) 

28  And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.

So, reflect back on your hurt, your pain, your times of need, and see the thread of God’s Sovereign care weaved through the tapestry of the pain. Look for the way’s he has redeemed the pain and blessed you today.

And remember,

WORRY CAN BE TAMED THROUGH BABY STEPS OF TRUST.

Luke 12:31 (NLT2) 

31  Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and he will give you everything you need. 

The worry that you have CAN be tamed! If you have been diagnosed with anxiety and are on medication, please continue to take your prescribed meds and course of therapy. Anxiety is persistent. Worry is temporary. So tame worry through baby steps of trust.

Keep attending Worship services.  God didn’t speak to you today? Believe He will. Keep on coming back.

Sign Up for Our Next Steps Event on August 27

Volunteer to serve in some capacity in our church.

Begin to give generously to the Lord through the church or to other people.

Sign up to be Baptized. Let your world know that Jesus has forgiven you and changed your life.

Invite a friend to church…God is moving in this place. Invite others to experience the movement of God.

Begin listen to Christian podcasts or Christ centered music.

We can trust God and other’s again because God will use our pain for GOOD. Maybe you have been in so much pain you don’t even want to talk about it.  That only means you need to learn to manage your worry. Understand this, your greatest impact on this world could come through reframing your past and seeing God’s faithful guidance. 

Your greatest ministry to others could come from your deepest darkest pain. 

Mine has. So can yours.

So, live today without worry because you genuinely trust Jesus.

Trust in his guidance.

Trust that God will never leave you or forsake you.

Trust that Jesus prays for you.

Trust that despite the pain, God has been working in your past.

Trust in God’s complete and total forgiveness.

Trust in God’s unending grace.

Trust in his everlasting kindness.

Trust in his overwhelming wisdom.

Trust him as your Prince of Peace.

Trust in his magnificent greatness.

Trust in Jesus.