Open House (Block Party - Week 1)

What if Jesus looked at you right now and asked, "What do you want me to do for you?" Matt unpacks a powerful moment in Luke 4 where desperate, hopeful, unashamed people flood Simon Peter's home seeking healing—and Jesus meets every one of them. Like blind Bartimaeus who shouted through the crowd until Jesus stopped, we're invited to bring our deepest needs without managing our image or surrendering to resignation. This isn't religion on autopilot—it's supernatural transformation. Don't miss this message; it just might change everything you thought healing looks like.

Transcript

Good morning.

I was doing the math earlier, and I've probably been to church on over 3,000 Sundays because I grew up going to church. Some of you maybe did, too. I also did the math. I've probably preached or taught on a Sunday morning 1700 times. So that just seems overwhelming to me sometimes.

But I'm saying that because you are here now, today. I'm here now today. Sometimes it's easy for those that are preachers, and maybe you kind of feel like same old, same old. But the Holy Spirit's here. God's real.

He still wants to speak to us. So we're here. Let's listen to what the Holy Spirit has to say to us. So, question. Here's the picture on the screen.

Who is this person? That's me right there. Who's this person? Yeah. If you're under the age of 50, you have no idea, right?

This is Clark Kent from the television show in the late 50s. I'm not that old, but it was reruns when I was a kid. The Adventures of Superman. What's he standing in? When's the last time has anybody been in a phone booth in the last five years?

All right, Nobody has. And if you're under the age of 30, you may just need a Google phone booth and figure out what it is you had to put money in there, all that stuff. But what happened in this show? And I remember this, when I was a kid, and it's true, Clark Kent would. Ordinary, dull Clark Kent would step into the phone booth and then he'd get out, and what would happen?

Bum, bum, bum. That was the theme song of that show. He's Superman. He has on these way too tight tights in that particular TV show. But he's changed.

All he had to do was go into this phone booth. Something happened and he's changed. He's no longer boring. Clark Kent, newspaper man. He has, like, superpowers, right?

I wish God would do something like that for me, right? Not because I want to fly or whatever else, but I want to be able to step in with all my brokenness, all my issues, all the stuff I struggle with or whatever. And I want to step out and I want to be healed and gone. I wouldn't mind more black hair, too. But that's not a spiritual thing, right?

But why doesn't God do that for you? There's probably some issue in your life or in someone you love their life. Maybe it's even a physical issue. Maybe it's an emotional issue. Why can't we just Step in a phone booth and God transform us.

And ba ba da. He doesn't do that. He doesn't do it instantaneously. He can. But the reality is God does heal.

He does change us. And how does he do that? And what's our responsibility in that? We don't heal ourselves. But we're gonna look at a passage today where Jesus heals some people.

And then we're gonna look at what's true about Jesus, that he does that in our lives. What's true about the people who are healed. And how do we become the kind of people who are ready for Jesus to interact with us and to bring change in our lives. So this series is called Block Party. The whole summer is gonna be different vignettes from the life of Jesus where he's at a home, most likely they're eating, and then crowds gather and things like that.

So it's all about different place times where Jesus is in a home. This one that Quentin just read, we're gonna look at it again on the screen. But let me just set the scene. It's Luke, chapter four. Jesus has just come onto the scene in ministry.

All right? He's tempted in the desert by Satan. So it's kind of right before. And then he shows up at the synagogue in his hometown, and he reads a passage from the prophet Isaiah that basically is talking about the Messiah who's to come. Because these people, these Jewish people in this small town, were eager and hungry for the Messiah to come.

Cause he was the one who's gonna make life whole again. He was gonna turn the upside down world right side up. He was gonna bring peace and freedom. And they had long given up on that. They were overtaken by the Romans, kind of like Nazi Germany occupied Europe.

So this whole dream of a Messiah that would come set us free seemed so out of reach.

Maybe you can relate to that with some issue in your life or someone you've been praying for. And you just seem like, yeah, it's not gonna happen. So your hope, your dream has kind of slowed down and you've given it into resignation. That's these people. So Jesus goes in this.

Shows up in this small synagogue, and he reads a passage about the Messiah. And he basically says, this is me. And it says, the people were amazed at Jesus.

And as fickle as we are, moments later, Jesus said some other things to this small crowd in the synagogue. And it said they were furious at him. They wanted to throw him off the cliff. So he leaves that town and goes to another town called Capernaum just one or two days walk. They had to walk everywhere south.

And he's there and he cast a demon out of a guy. Now you might be like, what is this? Let's just stop spiritually, the Bible's very clear that there were times where demons were harassing people and Jesus set the person free. So and it says the word, the message and the news about Jesus began to spread. Cause he said this thing about himself and then he healed, he healed somebody who was demon oppressed.

And it's like, who is this the guy? Is this the one? And hopelessness was kind of, people started, maybe he's the one. So that's the context of this passage, is that they were hopeless. Something about this.

They hear about this guy named Jesus doing things that are unreal. And then this is where we pick up the passage. It's gonna be on the screen again. We're look at it again and we're gonna read it out loud together. I'll let you sit down this time.

So put it on the screen. This is Luke, chapter 4. So Jesus had just been in the synagogue where he healed a man who healed a man set free a man who was being oppressed by a demon, Right? So this is what happens next. So read out loud with me.

Jesus left the synagogue and went to the home of Simon. Simon is the same as Peter. Simon, Peter. All right, keep going. Now Simon's mother in law was suffering from a high fever and they asked Jesus to help her.

So he bent over her, rebuked the fever and it left her. She got up at once and began to wait on them. At sunset the people brought to Jesus all who had various kinds of sickness. And laying his hands on each one, he healed them. If you just slow the passage down a bit and maybe put yourself into the scene, maybe you're hanging around, maybe you're a neighbor and you're hanging out with Peter and his family and his wife.

Peter was married, he had a mother in law and says she has a high fever. And the people beg Jesus to do something. He goes in, he rebukes. The word rebuke just means speak authoritatively. He rebukes the sickness at once.

She's well.

If you put yourself in this situation, it's like what's happening here? And then things go viral. People here, who knows how, you know, Word spread. There weren't nobody texted or watched TV or read a newspaper. But word spread.

And word had already been spreading because what he had already done. And now it says people brought all their sick To Jesus. And he healed them.

He healed them. And I'm saying that because sometimes, self included, we kind of lose the sense of the supernatural power of Jesus. And we reduce Christianity to being good people, going to church, getting baptized, and doing what good people are supposed to do. Those aren't bad things. But I think sometimes we, me, you forget that we're talking about a supernatural reality that is able to totally change our lives.

So we're gonna look, I wanna look at a few things today. So these people are coming to be healed. I'm gonna fly over of all the gospels, Jesus heals a lot of people.

So I'm gonna just real quick mention some of the examples of people that he healed. These kind of people probably were some of the people who came to Simon's house after they heard all this stuff. But I wanna, and we're gonna ask the question, what is Jesus like that people are so drawn to him? I mean, it was like I saw last night on television there was something called the great American block party. This is like the great universal Jesus party.

Why were they coming? What is it about Jesus and only Jesus that was drawing them? But then I'm gonna ask the question, what's true of all these people that were healed by Jesus? Because maybe if we become like those people, we put ourselves in a situation where Jesus can bring about change in our lives. And you might ask the question, all the answer up front.

You know, Jesus heals people at once. At once. And you might say, I've prayed for people, they're not healed. I've prayed for people with cancer, they died. And you might say, what's going on there?

And all of us say, right now, I don't know for sure how God works all that, but let's not be fantastic in terms of, oh, he's gonna heal people right now. Jesus can. But let's just. So let's talk first about Jesus. What's true about Jesus in these situations?

Let me just list a couple situations through the Gospels. There's a time in the Gospels, Jesus heals a man with leprosy. Leprosy was a horrible skin disease. They were required by law to stay six feet away from people and yell out, unclean, unclean. This man with leprosy comes to Jesus, breaks the six foot rule, bows at his feet, Jesus touches him.

That's way out of line for a religious person. And he heals the man. All right, that's one healing. Then you have, there's a story where two men were demon possessed and they were running around naked in a cemetery. And they were just out of control.

One of them, for whatever reason inside of him, comes to Jesus, falls at his feet and Jesus tells the demon to leave. And he does another story. There's a Roman soldier who had a servant, Roman soldiers, they weren't Jewish, they weren't God fearing people. But he knew something about Jesus. He had a servant that was dying.

So he comes to Jesus, kind of swallows his pride, comes to Jesus, I have a servant who's dying, can you heal him? Jesus heals him. There's a synagogue ruler named Jairus comes to Jesus again, little bit of a reputation risk for him. Says, my daughter is dying, can you come? And by the time Jesus gets there, she's dead.

People laugh and Jesus says, she's not dead, she's just sleeping. They laugh at him. Jesus goes in and raises her from the dead. The woman who was subject to bleeding. And you might know the story where she says, if I can just grab Jesus robe, I can be healed.

She fights to the crowd and grabs his robe and she's healed. The woman who has a daughter who's tormented by a demon. She comes to Jesus and begs Jesus, can you heal my daughter? And he does. There's two blind men, one of them's name is Bartimaeus, we know from the gospels who cry out to Jesus for healing if they wanna see.

And he does, he heals them. So that's just some. But if you read the gospels as a whole and just look at all the healing incidents of the times where Jesus confronted a demon and freed the person, it's incredible. And sometimes if you're like me, I grew up in a church where we trusted the Bible and believed the Bible. But some of the supernatural stuff you just kinda maybe skim over, I don't know or think it's not for today.

So what's true then? Let's ask two questions. What's true about Jesus and what's true about all these people that are healed. Whether it was Simon Peter's mother in law or all the people that came to get healed. First thing is this though, what's true about Jesus.

Cause when we talk about healing, we have to ask the question, what is it about Jesus? First thing is this. Jesus is full of compassion. Often in the scripture we read, he was moved with compassion, which really means the literal is his guts were moved. He was so moved with love for somebody, he was so full of compassion for them.

Jesus is tender and he's kind to you. He's not indifferent to anything you're going through. He's not indifferent to any physical or emotional thing you're going through. He's not indifferent to the things physical or emotional or whatever that your family members or friends are going through. Jesus is not indifferent.

He's moved deeply by your suffering. There's no condition beyond his love. So no trauma you've experienced, no shame, that you have, no secrets, you have, no physical ailment you have is beyond Jesus compassion. He knows. And I'm saying that because sometimes I think we just kind of default to maybe Jesus is just indifferent, maybe he doesn't care.

No, he does. Nothing about you can make Jesus stop loving you. Nothing about you, nothing you do can make him stop loving. So we know Jesus is full of love and compassion, but that means nothing unless he's also full of power.

He has power over sickness. He just rebukes the fever that Peter's mother in law has and it's gone. He just casts out demons and they're gone. He has supernatural power. He has power over death.

He has power over disease. He has power over your despair. He has power, it's supernatural. One of my favorite quotes is by a pastor named Alistair McGrath. And this is what he says about how sometimes, about our version of Christianity, because sometimes we forget about the supernatural power of Jesus.

He, he says this modern Christianity reads like an IRS 1040 form. It's true, all the data is there, but it doesn't take your breath away.

I got my doctrine all lined up. I know the Bible, I can tell you all the right theological answers. I have all the data.

But if my Christianity doesn't take my breath away, there's no supernatural, there's no flame, there's no reality in my life of the power of Jesus. But I can answer all these questions for you. I can teach a Sunday school class.

But I don't see the power of Jesus in my life changing this issue in my life, that issue in my life, my friends, my family. Because if Jesus just has compassion but no power, he's just a really nice guy. If he has power but no compassion, he's somebody you should be afraid of. But he has both. There's nothing that you have experienced that is beyond his compassion.

There's nothing you've experienced beyond his love and his power. So I'm saying that because that's Jesus. But now I wanna look at though, what's true about the people that Jesus heals, which might tell us, what is he looking for in me. We don't heal ourselves. It's not Our obligation.

But there are things we can do that puts ourselves in the situation where we're in the hands of the great Dr. Jesus, right? So four things I want to comment about was true of all the people in the gospels that are healed by Jesus. They might have hit every story, but in general, here's four things. First thing is true about the people that Jesus heals is they are desperate.

Most people don't want me described as desperate. If you say about somebody they're really desperate, it usually is not a positive thing.

But these people are desperate because if they had leprosy or they were blind or they were harassed by a demon, they were desperate for change. Desperate.

They couldn't change the situation. Desperation is not a quality most of us aspire to. I want to be known as a desperate person, right? But in the eyes of Jesus, I do want to be known as a desperate person. Which means I'm not going to give in to resignation.

I'm not going to give in to, oh well, this is the way life has to be. Oh well, this is my cross to bear in life. But I want to be desperate for Jesus. And when people were desperate in the Gospels, they did desperate things. They yelled, they screamed, they fought through crowds to get to Jesus.

They cut roofs open to get to Jesus.

Desperation. I'll just say I'm going to encourage us all to aspire to be desperate people before Jesus, that we're so desperate for what Jesus can do in our lives that will do anything for them to bring healing. So they're all desperate. Second thing, these people are all the people that are healed. They're not just desperate, they're hopeful.

They're hopeful. I've heard about Jesus. I've heard what he can do. All these people that massed into Simon Peter's house, they had heard about Jesus. They heard what he could do, they heard what he did.

Healing. Not just healing Peter's mother in law, but expelling a demon from somebody, freeing somebody from the oppressive accusations of Satan, they heard. And no texting, no papers, no nothing. But they heard word of mouth. And who knows how it got twisted in word of mouth, but they heard enough to think this may be my only hope.

So people in the gospels who were blind or had leprosy or couldn't walk, they were hopeful. And again, I'll just say this, I think there's some times in my life I don't think so, I know so where I've kind of just lowered the hope meter. Don't want to get my Hopes up too high for what Jesus can do in my life. Cause I don't want to be disappointed. I want to encourage you and me.

Let's renew hope. Cause Jesus is powerful and he can bring about change. So these people are desperate. They're hopeful. The third one, which is probably hard to do for me and all of us, they were unashamed.

So these people that Jesus healed threw politeness out the window. They even threw religious politeness out the window. Because, like I said, the leprous guy is supposed to say, six feet from everybody who doesn't have leprosy. He goes right to Jesus feet. The women who needed to touch his robe to get healed.

She pushed through the crowds, probably a little bit aggressively, because she was. She didn't care what people thought about her anymore. She was unashamed. All the pride was gone. The blind man yelled at Jesus, come, you know, have mercy on us.

And they were told, be quiet. Don't bother him. The disciples often would tell people, don't bother him. Don't bother Jesus. But these people were unashamed about their condition.

So if you have an issue in your life, which we all do, but if you have some kind of a. In your own life or the life of someone else, stop managing your image so it looks better than, you know, you really are. This case, being unashamed is a really positive thing in the eyes of Jesus. Being desperate, being hopeful, and being unashamed. Talk about what you're struggling with.

Talk about what your family's struggling with. Don't try to manage the image. But these people were all unashamed. The last one is this. They were determined.

So they were desperate people. They were hopeful people. They were unashamed. They didn't care what people thought about him. The synagogue rule had people laugh at him when he brought Jesus like you're bringing Jesus.

She's dead, right? But the last one is they were determined. Determination is kind of this. I'm gonna get in the way of Jesus. The woman who got healed had to grab his robe.

She grabbed his robe. Some of the friends cut open a roof to drop a lame man down. Some people shouted at Jesus to get his attention. The leprous man would fall down on his feet to get his attention. So when you're determined, that means you're determined to get Jesus attention.

Not that you have to fight for it, not that he doesn't want to give it to you. But there's something about that that stirs the heart of Jesus when he sees people that are determined enough to get to him because they know he can bring healing. Some people walk for miles. Some people fight through crowds. They cross social barriers and they yell for attention because they are determined to get in the way of Jesus.

Most of them weren't polite. They got in his way. So I. My wife's name's Kathy. When she was in college, I was out of college, but I lived nearby.

And this is when maybe our relationship was a little bit fragile. This is before we got married. All right? I knew her class schedule. So I would coincidentally just show up where I knew she was gonna be.

We call it stalking today. But I wasn't doing that, right? All right? I would show up and get in her way. Cause I wanted to have a relationship with her.

So I knew. I knew what dorm she lived in or later on, what house she lived in. I knew where her classes were. I knew where she parked her car. Now you're thinking this is stalking.

No, no, no. It was love, right? But I wanted to get in her way. And I was determined, unashamed, hopeful, and desperate, right? I wanted to get in her way.

Cause I wanted that relationship to thrive. So when I say these people that were healed, Simon Peter's mother in law, all the people who came there, all the people throughout the Gospels, they were determined and desperate and hopeful and unashamed enough to get in the way of Jesus. They got in his way. They fell at his feet, they yelled, they cut the ribs, they got in his way. Because when you get in the way of Jesus, healing can happen.

You might say, how do I get in the way of Jesus? Well, Scripture tells us a couple things. Get in the way of Jesus by being in the word, reading scripture, you're in his way. You get in the way of Jesus. When you pray, you get in your way.

You get in the way of Jesus. When you come to church, you're in the way of Jesus. When you worship, figure out where Jesus is doing something and be there. And it might be simple as, like, just reading your Bible in the morning, things start shouting at you from the page. Might be praying.

I tell people, when you worship, when we sing, pay attention to random thoughts that come to your mind. Because it might be Jesus, but get in the way of Jesus. It's not just being Sunday morning, but get in the way of Jesus and see where he is and let him see what he can do in your life. So here's my example of this one, and this is one of my favorite stories. One of the blind men that was healed was a man named Bartimaeus.

So let's talk about what it was like to be blind then. It was awful. It's awful now, but then there was no social services. There was no Braille. There was no, like, federal government assistance.

If you were blind like Bartimaeus was, you were in a desperate situation. You had to beg. They just begged every day. Hoped somebody would help them find them, whatever. So there's one day where Jesus is walking with a crowd, and the blind man figure out what's going on.

They can't see it, but they hear the commotion. They probably ask people. And somebody probably said, jesus is coming. And they had heard about Jesus. They heard what he could do.

And so Scripture tells us they yelled, lord, son of David, have mercy on us. Right? They're unashamed. They're getting the attention of Jesus. They're getting in his way.

And what do the people around them say to these blind men? Be quiet. That's no longer. That's not appropriate religious behavior. Be quiet.

But these men, Bartimaeus, one of them, determined, hopeful, unashamed, desperate, yells even louder, lord, son of David, have mercy on us.

Jesus stops because they got in his way. Walks over to them and asks a question that at first glance, seems kind of like a dumb question. Jesus. I'm not saying Jesus is dumb, but, you know, he says to the blind man, looks him in the face, blind man didn't see, but I'm sure he knew Jesus was right there. And he says, what do you want me to do for you, Jesus?

That's kind of an obvious question. He's blind. You mocking him? No. What do you want me to do for you?

Sometimes I'm convinced Jesus asks that question. Cause he wants us to verbalize our need. Not in a way that's demeaning, but he knows that's part of our freedom. And Bartimaeus says, I want to see. I want to see.

Jesus touches the blind man. He cease change. So here's my question for all of you this morning. If Jesus were able, he is able, because he may be saying it to you right now. If Jesus came to you and he says, what do you want me to do for you?

You might say, I. I want this addiction in my life to be. I want to be free. And maybe it is a physical healing issue. Maybe it's. You're asking for the.

For a family member, son or daughter, parent, sibling, who's gone astray spiritually, or they have some issues and Jesus just wants to know, what do you want me to do for you? It's not a magic trick. It's not Santa Claus, but he's Jesus who's full of power and full of compassion. He's just asking you, what do you want me to do for you? What would you say?

What would you say to Jesus? What will you say to Jesus when he asks you that question? And maybe there's just one thing right now that's really on the front burner of your mind you feel desperate about, but you're hopeful, you're determined, and you finally get to the point where you don't care about your reputation. You are unashamed, and you will do whatever you need to do to get get Jesus attention. And he says, what do you want me to do for you?

And he heals the man. So that's, you know, imagine this is the. Imagine this church being a church known as the place to go for the deepest part of your heart to be touched by Jesus. Imagine if the reputation of this church was to be a church offering this healing touch of Jesus in the deepest part of your being where no human touch could enter. Imagine if that was the reputation of this church or any church for that matter, if this, this, that's the church you go to if you want to be touched by Jesus.

I think people would run to be a part of a church like that. I would, right? I'd run to be a part of a church. The reputation of the church is that's where you go if you want Jesus to touch your life.

So we finish every Sunday with a response time. And I've already asked you, maybe during this time, before you take communion or even after, maybe you tell Jesus in your own heart, this is what I want you to do for me, asking. But we also, we take communion so we don't desist our rose. So if you're new here or a guest this weekend, the juice and the bread are in the same cup. And Jesus said, everybody eat this and drink this.

Remember me. Remember the things I said. I'm going to simply ask you to remember the question he asked, what do you want me to do for you? So when you put this juice and bread into your body, you're inviting Jesus, the spirit of Jesus, to help you respond to that question. Jesus, this is what I want you to do for me.

So that's one of the response things we do. There's people on the side with lanterns on that therefore pray for you. And if you want somebody just simply pray for you for some issue of healing in your life, you can ask them if you want to be baptized, we can arrange that now. Or if you just want to talk about being baptized, but respond to Jesus, even if you're just sitting quietly while we're singing, let that question kind of roll through your head. What do you want me to do for you?

Jesus is powerful. He's loving, he's tender, he's kind, He's a little bit scary, and he's dangerous, but he's so, so good. And he wants to bring change in your life. Forget the Superman's phone booth. Jesus wants to bring supernatural transformation to your life and the lives of those you love.

Jesus, we love you.

There is no one like you. Jesus. You're not simply an option. We choose the best for us. You are the only option for humanity to be free, to be whole, to be full of joy and full of peace.

We love you and we'll do whatever you ask us to do. We'll follow you wherever you ask us to go, so we can be the kind of people that have your spirit inside of us. And we ask this in your name, Jesus. Amen.