Ten Lepers.

[0:00] Father, we come now to think upon your word. We ask, Father, that your Holy Spirit would move and work in our lives so that the very best of our minds, Father, might come to listen and attend to your word, that we might have a humble spirit, Father, so that you might teach us, that we might learn, that we might, if necessary, be rebuked, change how we think.

[0:26] We ask, Father, that you help us to use the best of our mind. We ask that you humble our minds so that our mind might be changed. We ask that you make us hungry to know more of you and know more of your truth.

[0:38] And at the same time, Father, we ask that you would grant us that even deeper humility, Father, that acknowledges that unless you draw us to yourselves, even the most brilliant mind will not understand you or know you in a saving way.

[0:54] So, Father, we ask that you would do this wonderful work in our lives as we think upon your word, and now all these things we ask in the name of Jesus, your Son and our Savior. Amen. Please be seated.

[1:10] So, it's good to be back. If God wanted people to believe in him, why doesn't he do more to prove it to them? Why doesn't he do miracles?

[1:21] Why doesn't he show up? Why doesn't he reveal himself? And it's a very, very common idea, and I have to confess that for a long time I sort of thought that as well. I sort of wish that God would show up in some particular way, that there'd be some dramatic miracle that would make it easier for me to believe in him or maybe help me to start to believe him for the very first time.

[1:42] It's a very common thing. Maybe some of you have thought that. Maybe some of you are thinking that right now. The Bible story that we're going to look at today has some interesting things to say about that, believe it or not. Sort of some interesting observations in the form of a story.

[1:55] So, it'd be a great help to me. The words will be on the screen. We're doing a sermon series called Real Jesus, Real Miracles. We're going to look at a miracle story, so something where Jesus shows up, where he does a remarkable miracle, and we see how that impacts different people.

[2:10] So, it'd be a great help if you have your own Bibles to open them up because it can be very helpful to make notes in your own Bible or just to see it in the one that you actually use yourself for reading. And it's Luke chapter 17, verses 11 to 19.

[2:24] That's the story that we're going to look at. And it's interesting. All of the other miracle stories that we've been looking at, that we will look at over this series, are in several Gospels.

[2:35] This story is only told in Luke. Luke, but if you are an old Anglican, old in spirit, maybe not in body, and you're used to the old lectionary, this story actually is one of the stories that's read every year in the cycle of the readings.

[2:52] So, the prayer book thought it was an important story, and that's one of the reasons I put it down, even though it's the only miracle story we'll look at that's only found in one of the Gospels, not all of them. And just before we look at this story as well, just to understand a little bit about it, what we're looking at now, you know, I love saying this, you probably start to fade out when I start to say it.

[3:12] It now is in the Bible, and it all looks fancy and fancy paper, but what we're reading when we're reading the Gospel of Luke, look at how it begins, look at how Acts begins. There was a doctor who was a pagan, who became a Christian, and he decided that he would write a biography of Jesus based on eyewitness testimony.

[3:32] And that's what we have in front of us. It was probably written in the mid to late 60s, so it was written within 30 years of the death and resurrection of Jesus. It was written while there were many eyewitnesses around.

[3:44] You could have just said, sorry, but that's not right. You got that wrong. That didn't happen. And it's an eyewitness biography written while many eyewitnesses were alive, and that's what we're reading, and here it goes with verse 11 of chapter 17.

[4:00] It starts this way. It says, on the way to Jerusalem, Jesus was passing along between Samaria and Galilee.

[4:11] Now, just pause here for a second. If you go back, remember this is a story. It's a biography. It's a story. And the way that Luke writes the Gospel, the story, is that in chapter 9, Jesus reveals to his disciples, he's been with them for a couple of years, but he reveals to them in chapter 9 that he's going to start going to Jerusalem, and that he's going to go to Jerusalem, and this time when he goes to Jerusalem, something very different is going to happen.

[4:38] This time when he goes to Jerusalem, he's going to be captured, he's going to die on the cross, and he's going to rise from the dead. And everything that happens in the Gospel, in this story from Luke chapter 9, right up until he actually gets to Jerusalem, it's all Jesus walking towards Jerusalem.

[4:56] And it's all, it's going to be reiterated time and time and time again to the disciples. By the way, we're going to Jerusalem. In Jerusalem, I'm going to die on the cross, and I'm going to rise from the dead.

[5:09] And so he's on his way to Jerusalem. And there's an interesting thing here, which isn't translated into the English, and it happens twice in this story. There's a word, a phrase, in the story, which isn't translated into English, because it messes up the flow of the English.

[5:28] But what it is, is it says, it happened that. I was just, on Friday, when I was working in a certain coffee shop, on my sermon, one of the people who talks to me regularly, come up and says, well, what are you preaching on this week?

[5:46] And so I started to tell him the story that I was going to be preaching on. And he said, well, we know that that can't happen. There's no miracles can't happen. So is it an allegory? Is it a myth?

[5:56] Like, what's going on? And I just paused. I said, like, one moment here. Here's the ground rule. This fellow that talked to me, he's written several books of a sort of a cultural analysis.

[6:11] Those are the types of books that he's written. And so I said to him, listen here, hold on for a second here. You have to understand something. And he had one of his books right with him on the table. I said, if I took that book of yours and started reading it and said to you, this is wonderful poetry, you'd be offended.

[6:29] You'd say, it's not poetry. You don't know how to read. It's a work of cultural criticism. Or if I said, this is a wonderful myth. He said, no, no, it's not a myth. I'm giving you history. I'm giving you sociological facts.

[6:40] It's not a myth. You'd be offended if I said that it was a type of writing that it isn't. So I said, what you need to do is you need to extend that same respect to the story.

[6:55] And I can tell you that Luke, and I said, you go back, just the same thing I just said to you. 69 times in the Gospel of Luke, he says, and it happened that. It's a marker to say that I'm writing history.

[7:08] It's not once upon a time, it's, and it happened that. And if you read the beginning of the book, he says he's writing a biography. So here's the thing. I almost said his name. Here's the thing, Bob. You might say that he's full of bleep.

[7:20] You might say that he's a liar. You might say all sorts of things, but what you can't say is that it's a myth or an allegory. He's claiming he's writing history, and you have to deal with it on that level.

[7:33] And this is one of those times he nodded and said, well, that makes a bit of sense. I mean, he's a writer. He understands that. So he still thinks it's a bunch of hooey. He thinks it's wrong, but at least he now understands that it's history.

[7:45] And so that's what happens here. Luke is recording this story. And once again, on the way to Jerusalem, and because you haven't been reading from the beginning, you don't, there's this reminder why the first time Jesus said he was going to Jerusalem, he told them, I'm going there to die.

[7:58] So now, okay, he's going there to die. And he was passing along between Samaria and Galilee. Verse 12, and as Jesus entered a village, he was met by 10 lepers who stood at a distance and lifted up their voices saying, Jesus, master, have mercy on us.

[8:19] Now, just sort of, you want to pause. I don't know if there's any lepers in Ottawa. I mean, like literal lepers. There's lots of social lepers in Ottawa, but that's a separate type of thing. People who aren't sort of welcome in polite society.

[8:32] And, but, there's still, I think it's, I looked it up on the internet, so it has to be true. I think it said something about somewhere between, actually, it's one of those things that has to be true, but I saw two different numbers on the internet.

[8:45] There you go. 100 to 200,000 cases of leprosy are diagnosed every year. New cases are diagnosed every year in the United States of America. United States. All in the southern states.

[8:57] And there's a, I can't remember what it was, but it was like several million new cases of leprosy are diagnosed every year. Over half of them in India. But it's a, it's a terrible disease.

[9:11] It's now curable. And in fact, the World Health Organization funded through richer countries, primarily the United States, of course, but also probably Canada in a small way.

[9:22] Anywhere in the world that a person's diagnosed with leprosy, all the medication, drugs are free. And it doesn't reverse the problem, but it will at least heal the problem. But in the ancient society, and it would be probably the same now if you've seen pictures of lepers with their blindness, the disfigurement of their fingers, the disfigurement on their feet, maybe missing limbs as well altogether, they were outcasts.

[9:48] They weren't allowed to be part, and especially in this Jewish and in Samaritan culture, they weren't allowed to really be part of the community. They had to live separate. They could no longer live with their wives, their wife or their kids.

[10:00] They couldn't go to events. They couldn't go to parties. They had to live separate. They were unclean, not able to be part of society. So when they're standing there from a distance, it's not because they're just sort of like heckling Jesus as he walks by, you know, hey, dude, you know, or anything.

[10:17] No, it's not like that. They're just, they're respecting the social norm because bad things would happen to them if they disregarded it. And it's very interesting. It's important to the story. Remember I said how this, I began by saying how people sort of think, why doesn't God just show up in a very powerful way?

[10:37] And if he did, then I'd believe in him. And in this particular case here, they say, it's a very odd thing. They say, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. And it's the only place in all of the New Testament that the word Master is found, but it's a completely non-religious term.

[10:53] It's boss. Hey, boss. Boss man. Hey, boss. Have mercy on us. And have mercy on us is an indirect and polite way of saying, could you heal us?

[11:07] They've heard about him. They're not making any claim that he's a rabbi, that he's special. They're just calling him boss. Very neutral term. And they ask indirectly that he'd heal them.

[11:20] I don't know how many of you have seen a wedding that I've done. I have lots of fun at the rehearsal when I explain something to the couple that's getting married. And if you've been in the wedding, sometimes I say something, sometimes I don't.

[11:33] But I like to say that there's an Anglican polite, indirect way of saying, you may kiss the bride. And I say, if you've ever heard a wedding that I've done, I'll say, you may now greet each other, which means kiss.

[11:48] But it's just, it's a bit of an indirect, it's a very old prayer book way of referring to it. And here, they're indirectly making a request for healing.

[11:59] And obviously, if he's going to heal them, it's going to be an act of mercy on his part, that he's paying attention to them, he's showing them mercy. But they're asking for healing. So what does Jesus do? Does he go over?

[12:10] Does he touch them? What does he do? No, he keeps the same distance in this particular case. Look what happens in verse 14. When Jesus saw them, he said to them, he would have had to yell back, go and show yourselves to the priests.

[12:24] And as they went, they were cleansed. Now, they hear what he asked them to do and they go.

[12:34] Now, they've asked for healing in an indirect type of way. And Jesus says, I'm going to heal you in an indirect way. Because what they would have known is that the only way that they could rejoin society, that they could go back to making money, having businesses, getting married, playing sports, going to the temple, going to whatever, the synagogue, the only way they could do that is if a priest authenticates that the leprosy is gone.

[13:07] So they would hear Jesus saying, go to the priests and show yourselves. And they would take it. But that means that somehow or another, they don't know how, that they'll be healed as they go.

[13:18] And as they go, they're cleansed. You'll see in a moment that that also means healed. That actually, they're healed the leprosy is gone and that they're now clean.

[13:30] They're now able to rejoin society. That's what Jesus does for them. Now you might wonder, how is it that they know they were cleansed? How did they know?

[13:41] Well, there's two things that went on here probably. And the first thing, which had to be there, it has to be there. If it's not there, it's not a healing or a cleansing. And this is actually sort of, if you just try to picture it, I don't know if you have an imagination that you could try to picture what would happen, it would be that they're walking along and all of a sudden as they're walking along, I'll take off my sand, all of a sudden as they're walking along they hit something and they go, ow!

[14:07] And then there'd be this pause. And one of them said, did you just say ow? And you go, my foot hurts. I'm healed.

[14:23] Experiencing pain would show them that they'd been healed. Over a third of all people with leprosy, loose, have numbness and no longer feel pain on their face, their arms, and their legs.

[14:38] It's one of the main reasons why they end up having stumps for fingers and losing limbs because they can have their hand in the fire and not feel the fire. They can drop a large rock on their foot and not feel it.

[14:50] They won't feel the pain of the infection to have it clean. They don't feel pain. And so, incontrovertibly, one of the ways that they would know as they're walking that they'd been healed is when they go, ouch!

[15:06] In fact, it could have been a very, very funny situation. It could be that all of a sudden you'd see them, you try it! And they kick a rock, ouch! That hurts! And before you know it, they're crying with the pain and laughing and it would look like the weirdest thing in the world.

[15:20] Ten guys hurting themselves and cheering and high-fiving and laughing because they're healed. They feel pain. The leprosy's gone.

[15:34] The leprosy's gone. Now, it could very well be as well that at the same time that they feel pain that Jesus does this other miracle as well that the fingers that were gone are there.

[15:50] The toes that were gone are there. The eye that was blind can now see. The Bible's not clear. It could very well be that that's also part of what the miracle is.

[16:02] But it's also really important to understand that if their fingers were regrown and their eye was remade and their foot was regrown but there was no pain, they would only be in deeper despair.

[16:21] Because how much despair would it be to have your fingers regrow but you know that the leprosy is still there and you're going to be banging your finger and banging your toe and before you know it you're back to all of the disfigurement.

[16:40] You haven't been healed. So whether or not Jesus actually regrows fingers, I think he did. I think he, all of a sudden there were fingers, there were toes, there was an eye but at the same time to cure the leprosy there was the restoration of the nerve endings, the disease is gone, they feel pain.

[17:00] That's what they do. Remember I said to you that what Luke is writing here is he's claiming this is a true story. This is something that really happened.

[17:13] If Luke was able to come and be here amongst Canadians he would say that if you could have a time machine and go back in time you would see this happen yourself as well. If I took you to the right village you would see this happen yourself.

[17:26] This really happened. It's a remarkable miracle. It's not a spell. It's not medicine. It's not prayer. Jesus doesn't say Father heal them. He doesn't come and touch them.

[17:36] He doesn't do anything. He doesn't do anything like the magicians and the sorcerers do that would have been present in Jewish and Samaritan and pagan culture. He doesn't do anything that a doctor would have done. He doesn't even do anything like an Old Testament saint or you and I would do where we pray.

[17:50] He merely wills it from a distance and the leprosy is gone the nerve endings are restored and quite likely the limbs are remade all merely by willing it and it is so.

[18:15] Remember I said why doesn't God just show up and do a remarkable miracle? I've shared the gospel with so many people and they don't seem to come to faith right then.

[18:28] Like why isn't it that he just doesn't give me that ability that I could say here cut off your fingers I'm going to pray for you they're going to grow right back. You know why doesn't he do something like that?

[18:40] Like you know surely if he did something like that all sorts of people would become Christians and that's what we think but what happens in the story? Well let's see what happens in the story verse 15 then one of them remember ten of them are healed one of them out of the ten one of them when he saw that he was healed turned back praising God with a loud voice and he fell on his face at Jesus' feet giving him thanks now he was a Samaritan only one and it's very very interesting in the language here the three things he's giving thanks praising God and the falling on his face is an act of worship he praises God he starts to to worship Jesus and giving him thanks I think it's like 37 the word for thanks there is the word that we get Eucharist from and all the way through the New Testament it's only that word is only used when it's in a reference to God it's one of the small indirect ways that the Bible affirms that Jesus is God he praises God he worships Jesus and he gives thanks to God for what's happened and he's a Samaritan now we're all very well instructed in the Bible but one of the things you have to remember if you ever tell a story like this to a non-Christian is that for non-Christians when they hear the word Samaritan if they understand it at all they're liable to think that Samaritans are the good guys why?

[20:08] because one of the few Bible stories that most non-Christians might know is the story of the good Samaritan Samaritans are good and so one of the things you have to understand about this is and this is a Canadian analogy here I'm not making this as I'm not making any type of political content but this is just how most Canadians think okay so the analogy I would say no you have to understand that from a Jewish perspective Samaritans are the bad guys that's the whole point of the story they're the unclean they're the unwashed they're the ones you don't want to go near they're the ones who are confused they're heretics they don't think the right way it's a story of you know a really really good social justice warrior getting hurt and by the side of the road and you know the liberal goes by and the NDP goes by and the Green Party person goes by and then a good old boy with a big fat gut with a I love Trump and an NRA sticker on his truck he stops and helps the social justice warrior for Canadians that's the Samaritan the good old boy

[21:12] Trump loving NRA supporter for a Canadian we don't like those people that's a Samaritan it's a shock but one person out of ten the other nine they go on they they go to get cleansed so they can go and start making money so they can start making babies so that they can they can get back to worship that they can go traveling that they can play sports like whatever it is all those things good things in and of themselves they go on to do all those things it's only one person and it's the worst possible person out of the ten who comes back and acknowledges Jesus as God and gives him thanks as if he's God so what does Jesus say verse six verse 17 then Jesus answered we're not ten cleansed Jesus makes the point if we've forgotten that nine of them saw something remarkable it's saying something very important about our heart that what we can understand is this and there's constant stories like this in the Bible time after time after time after time after time the thing that keeps us from Jesus isn't that God doesn't do a miracle in front of us now the rest of the gospel is going to talk about that more but in a powerful story level it makes it very clear to us for nine of the ten ninety percent of them the miracle made no difference in their lives whatsoever zero zilch verse 17 again then Jesus answered we're not ten cleansed where are the nine was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner now just sort of pause there that word foreigner is the only place in the

[22:57] New Testament that that word is found and it sounds a little bit like it's a bit of a racist thing for a lot of Canadians when they hear it it sounds like a bit of a put down but it's actually a really significant word because Josephus reports and the Jewish readers of this gospel would have understood that if you went to the temple to pray you come to an important gate and it would say no foreigners allowed to enter and the exact same word that bars non-Jews is the word that Jesus uses here and so Jesus well look what he says in verse 19 he said rise and go your way your faith has saved you your faith has saved you it's talking about some completely new thing that God is doing in a sense it's not a new thing it's just really going back to what God had said he was going to do through Abraham if you read

[24:02] Genesis 12 verses 1 to 3 it's not that salvation is going to come through the Jews for the entire world and we see this Jewish boy Jesus and through him and what he has done and what he accomplishes it is through him that a foreigner who before is kept far from God is now able to come and be at the very feet of Jesus and to be made right with God it's not a put down word it's a word that for Jewish readers at the time would have gobsmacked them Jesus carefully picks the word that was on the walls of the temple and says this person is saved now what do some of these things all sort of mean for us you know I was having a conversation with somebody this week and one of the things I tried to get across to him is this he was having here's the thing I was trying to get across to him

[25:04] I said to him you know what if life and death are both natural why is it that you that we all sense that life is good but not death if health and sickness are both natural why is it that we pay lots of money to doctors to heal people but if there was somebody else in fact there's a case in the paper right now about a man who was intentionally having unprotected sex with other men intentionally to give them AIDS to make them HIV positive so why is it we throw that guy in jail but we give the doctor and the nurse lots of money but if they're both natural because that isn't that true like in nature you have health and you have sickness you have life and you have death you have light and you have darkness you have kindness and you have hatred it's all natural so if these things are all natural why is it in a sense that we sense that there's something on one hand that's good and proper and right and good and the other we want to say shouldn't be like why is that have you stopped to think about it and he tried to then make this claim that from a

[26:30] Christian point of view he said George you can say that but the problem is that that means that God has created all those evil things and I said no no it's not like that in fact we had this odd conversation and here's one of the things to encourage you I wish I could tell you he said that and right away I had this perfect reply and before you know it he was in tears and fell on his knees in the Starbucks and gave his life to Jesus and we all go hooray no that's not how it worked we did have a conversation but it was only when I was driving home that I came up with the analogy that I should have given him and the analogy that I should have given him is that I said you're trying to the mistake you're making is this it's as if I invite my son maybe who's come from another city and he's come back from Calgary my son Jacob and I say I got two cottages and you can have your choice of one cottage or the other and in one cottage everything's broken the fridge is filled with meat and the meat's all rancid and all the vegetables are rotten and you could choose that cottage you can choose this other cottage and this other cottage everything works there's air conditioning the lights work there's stocked with great food you just choose which one of them

[27:44] I've made both of them for you you just go ahead and choose and I said that's not how it works you see what the Bible says is this is that the Bible understands and teaches that God that in a sense if you think about it that all things I did use this part of it that all things came to be as a result of light life and love the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit John's Gospel compares them with love with life with light and light life and love creates all things and one of the reasons that God made human beings is that so we would love him that we would have companionship with him and you can't have love and you can't have companionship without freedom and if you give somebody freedom there is always a choice that they will use their freedom not for love not for companionship for something very different I did use this analogy I didn't think of the cottage analogy which is what I should have thought of so I said this is what I would say now if I could go back in time I'd say so what you have to understand is it would be like my son Jacob coming to spend some time and I say oh you can go use this cottage for a week and in the cottage it's all perfect the air conditioning works and the water is clean and the fridge is stocked with great food and stuff to drink and then

[29:00] Jacob goes and he turns off the fridge and he makes all the meat rancid and he pisses in the stuff and he makes everything broken and he doesn't have anything which is good but I made it all good and you threw out the good you made the good foul you broke things and I said that's how it is we've used our freedom and so what we see in this story if you could put up the first point is that we now know that we live in a world with brokenness and evil and death on one hand it's completely natural but we know that it's not really natural it's not good and so what we see in this story is this only health himself can do what Jesus did only life himself can do what the man Jesus did and it's really interesting because when I was writing these things I had to keep fighting I was writing himself but as I'm writing himself

[30:02] I want to not make it himself I want to make it impersonal I want to say only health itself can do what Jesus did only life itself can do what Jesus did as if it's something impersonal and I'm greater because a person a human being is greater than the impersonal I'm greater than electricity I have mind intelligence and I want to keep putting in itself but what is being revealed here only health himself can see a leper and merely by willing make the leper well only life and it's not in itself health is revealed as a person life is revealed as a person and if this story really happened it means that life himself stood before the lepers health himself stood before the lepers if you could put up the next point and so what we see in this story is that life himself has invaded his dying creation to begin to put things right and deliver his fallen image bearers health himself has invaded his sick creation to begin to put things right and deliver his fallen image bearers that's what we see that's you see the bible is in the course of the story through a narrative the bible through a narrative

[31:58] I mean like in the book of romans it might just give you certain doctrinal points very clearly but what the story does is the story helps us changes our imagination our consciousness our categories in a way that just having like a creed doesn't do it and that as we realize that's what happened you see life invading life himself invades and when life himself invades his dying creation he gives life he gives health he begins to put that right now how should we then live we're just going to close with the next couple of minutes about a couple of very important things this first point or the third point if you could put it up right now Andrew this is really important for us as Christians I think it's statistics are that 2-3% of Ottawa the population of Ottawa are evangelicals and I you know if you're a guest here and you're non-Christian and this might be a bit of a surprise to you but let me tell you often if I was to say to people that I'm an evangelical

[33:08] Christian at a party of my neighbors they smirk or they get like often in lots of settings I'm a leper so what should we do so in this city should we just say ah the heck with them you know let them all go to hell in a hand basket let everything fall apart like why should I do any no no or should we just like only if we want to feed the poor do you only feed the poor who are actually going to listen to the god no what does this gospel text tell us in this gospel text Jesus heals ten people nine of whom have no regard for him whatsoever afterwards and he doesn't say well I'm going to take it back I'm not going to do that again the story teaches this in a very significant way it teaches us it teaches us that if Jesus bestows blessing and grace on those who do not trust in him or have regard for him so will I in a very powerful way this story is saying you know what if you start a business do your business really really well if you work in the government work really really well be the man or the woman in your office or in your that really cares about your employees who cares for the other people who are with you do the best you can if you do a business start a business go ahead we want you to make money but at the same time do make business in such a way that people are really blessed that services that they really need that they get to receive them that people are treated with respect be a blessing bestow grace be the one who turns the other cheek and do that and it doesn't matter if they're a satanist an atheist a

[34:46] Christian a Catholic a Muslim a Hindu a Buddhist doesn't matter if they're rich or they're poor be a blessing that's how you should live and why should you live that why because if Jesus heals nine who pay no regard to him and he is my master so will I that's how we should then live but it's not just about doing good because in this story Jesus says something I don't know if you noticed that he says something very very significant he said only one the one who comes back only he does he say to him your faith has saved you the implication is that the other nine are lost they're not saved if you could put up next point Paul later on the Bible another author he sort of captures what's happening in the story in the conclusion of the story he says but God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead in our trespasses made us alive together with

[35:52] Christ by grace you have been saved you see everything in the story in this story here all of its lead remember I said it's all about Jesus going to Jerusalem to die upon the cross and so what this story is helping us to understand is this how on earth could a man who can regrow limbs how could he ever possibly die on the cross like how could he like the he could just keep healing himself that's even if he didn't want to use his power just to get off the cross but he could just keep healing himself he loses blood through his head and through his arms and through his feet he just creates new blood and necrosis begins to start up around those wounds he just creates new flesh like he could be at the cross he would never die how can life die how can health die only if he dies out of love for us and so what the bible is showing us is that on the cross not just a clean person but the clean itself the clean himself dies for the unclean health himself dies for the sick life himself dies for the dying light itself himself dies for those of us in darkness that is what's happening on the cross and it's offered to the lepers to the samaritans to the trump supporters to the social justice warriors it's offered to the gay activists the heterosexual activists the abortionists the anti abortionists it's offered to the good the bad the ugly and everything in between

[37:59] Jesus dies for you health himself dies for those who are sick if you could put up the final point if Jesus made clear that he came and lived and died to save those who trust in him so will I so will I please stand father we ask that you would bring this story home to us at a very deep and powerful level father that you would bring this story to our heart father I confess that I don't know why you don't say yes to all of my prayers I don't know why you don't say yes to all my prayers father

[38:59] I I wouldn't pray it if I didn't want you to say yes but father I thank you so much for this story that you reveal to me that you are health you are life and you hear and you you are love and you died for me and if you don't answer my prayer the way that I wish you would answer my prayer it's not because you're bad it's not because you are wisdom and I am not you are light and I am not you are life and I am not you are love and I am not you you know and I don't and so father we thank you so much for this story bring it home to our heart grant us father a great love for this city help us father to be a source of blessing and grace that is bestowed upon all whom we meet and at the same time father we help you ask us to we ask that you would help us to understand the lostness of the lost and the importance of the gospel that just as that

[40:02] Samaritan father did not understand everything about who you are and all of the work that you would accomplish but still he trusted in you and all those works that you would do in this life father help us to share the gospel knowing that you are still drawing people to yourself and all these things we ask in the name of Jesus your son and our savior and all God's people said amen