SPEAKER_00: Alright, so we're going to be in Matthew.
SPEAKER_00: If you're new to the Bible, the book of Matthew is in the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: That's the part of the Bible that talks about Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: So you get a lot of history in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: We get over the book of Matthew.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John all tell the story of Jesus' first coming on earth.
SPEAKER_00: His birth, Virgin Mary, having a uh the uh conception of Jesus, John the Baptist is in there, all that stuff is in there, right?
SPEAKER_00: Then you get through the Gospels and you get to the book of Acts.
SPEAKER_00: That's the story of the church, and we get into the epistles.
SPEAKER_00: Those are letters written by either Paul or some of the other apostles.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: So we're happening to be studying through the book of Matthew.
SPEAKER_00: Just little check section, one little section at a time.
SPEAKER_00: This morning, we're gonna be in Matthew 9, 27 through 34.
SPEAKER_00: You ready?
SPEAKER_00: Are we ready?
SPEAKER_00: All right, let's do it.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: Um, yesterday uh I got a call with my business, my landscaping business, and the lady said, I need to get my lawn cut.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but and if I don't get it cut pretty soon, I'm gonna get a fine by the association.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but me and my husband were blind.
SPEAKER_00: And um, and so normally when people call me, I give them a quote by email, they hit approve, they sign it, and it was this fascinating conversation about how is this lady, you know, who's blind, how's you know, is she gonna approve this quote?
SPEAKER_00: And we were talking, she was telling me about how her iPhone kind of helps read the emails to her, and then she was telling me about, well, I need the lawn cut, but then the on the back fence there's some overgrowth, and I don't know how long it is, but I know it hits me in the face every time I'm walking, walking out.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, okay, and she's like, could you just cut it?
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, well, how big is it?
SPEAKER_00: She's like, I don't know, I'm blind.
SPEAKER_00: And she's like, I know it hits me in the face when I'm walking by.
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm like, okay, well, I will come over, I'll look at it.
SPEAKER_00: She was hoping we could just like, you know, it could be included in the service, but if it's too big, it's like, well, that's a separate job, and I'm gonna have to charge you extra for that.
SPEAKER_00: Well, wouldn't you know it?
SPEAKER_00: I get all the way through this conversation.
SPEAKER_00: It's not like I have blind customers every day.
SPEAKER_00: I get all the way through the conversation, all the way through my day yesterday.
SPEAKER_00: I go and I'm finishing off my sermon this morning.
SPEAKER_00: It's about two blind guys, and I didn't even make the connection.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't even make the connection.
SPEAKER_00: I thought, man, this is I was just so dumb.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how you guys put up with me.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, but this woman, this woman, and she's telling me, and we're working through um her disability and how she's gonna still she she's doing a great job navigating life, and and I was just so impressed with her ability to you still use technology and use her iPhone, but she was suffering from an FCF.
SPEAKER_00: You know what an FCF is?
SPEAKER_00: That's good because I'm gonna tell you this morning, okay?
SPEAKER_00: An FCF.
SPEAKER_00: Well, you gotta wait a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna get to it, but let's let's read the the um text together and we'll pray and we'll get into it, okay?
SPEAKER_00: As Jesus went on from there, he's in Galilee, he's still in Galilee, guys.
SPEAKER_00: He's still way up north.
SPEAKER_00: When he went on from there, two blind men followed him, calling out, Have mercy on us, son of David.
SPEAKER_00: When he entered the house, the blind men approached him, and Jesus said to them, Do you believe that I can do this?
SPEAKER_00: And they said to him, Yes, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Then he touched their eyes, saying, Let it be done for you according to your faith.
SPEAKER_00: And their eyes were opened.
SPEAKER_00: Then Jesus warned them sternly, Be sure that no one finds out.
SPEAKER_00: But they went out and spread the news about him throughout that whole area.
SPEAKER_00: Just as they were going out, a demon-possessed man who was unable to speak was brought to him.
SPEAKER_00: When the demon had been driven out, the man who had been mute spoke, and the crowds were amazed, saying, Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel.
SPEAKER_00: But the Pharisees said, He drives out demons by the ruler of demons.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, this is your word.
SPEAKER_00: And this is what you did.
SPEAKER_00: And we ask that you would speak to us through this text.
SPEAKER_00: These two stories.
SPEAKER_00: You did a lot of stuff.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, John said, if everything was recorded, not all the books could contain it.
SPEAKER_00: It'd just be volumes and volumes and volumes of all that you did.
SPEAKER_00: But we get these stories, and we ask that you would teach us.
SPEAKER_00: We recognize that the Holy Spirit is our teacher.
SPEAKER_00: And that while I have put some time into studying this text, and I'm going to lead us through it, the real teacher in the room this morning is your spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And the powerful thing is that your spirit has been with us from the very beginning.
SPEAKER_00: You know our personality, you know what motivates us, you know our wounds, you know our needs, and you know our future.
SPEAKER_00: And so we want to have ears to hear what you are saying to us this morning.
SPEAKER_00: What are you saying to us, Lord?
SPEAKER_00: Speak to us, we pray.
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, what's what's God showing you already this morning?
SPEAKER_00: What are some things that you're hearing?
SPEAKER_00: At least you think.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you don't even have to know whether it's God or not, but we're like, what are you hearing?
SPEAKER_00: What are some of the things that God's putting on your heart this morning already?
SPEAKER_00: Patience, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: That's good.
SPEAKER_00: What else?
SPEAKER_00: Mercy.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and God doesn't judge.
SPEAKER_00: What else?
SPEAKER_00: Wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: Faith, okay.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Love and trust.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Those are good.
SPEAKER_00: I know there's a lot.
SPEAKER_00: Like, I always think, like, when we walk in that door on Sundays, like we walk in with a lot, right?
SPEAKER_00: Like, we we live in just a like a crazy set, a lot of stuff going on in each of our lives.
SPEAKER_00: And the awesome thing for me as a pastor, as I care for you, care about God's work in your life, is I get to trust that God knows all that stuff, all the secret stuff, all the overwhelming, all the burdens that you have.
SPEAKER_00: He knows about it.
SPEAKER_00: And so, and then I think of like this intersection, you know, like kind of like over where the compassion centers at, or even this intersection right here.
SPEAKER_00: You have two intersecting roads.
SPEAKER_00: And it's just like, man, God, we're we're this going this way, and your spirit and your word intersects with it.
SPEAKER_00: Like, we we want to be right there at that intersection of God speaking to our lives.
SPEAKER_00: May God just speak to us during this time.
SPEAKER_00: Let's talk a little bit about the FCF.
SPEAKER_00: The FCF.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a football league, it's not a secret government organization, it's not a disease.
SPEAKER_00: The FCF stands for the fallen condition focus.
SPEAKER_00: The f can you say that with me?
SPEAKER_00: Fallen condition focus.
SPEAKER_00: The FCF.
SPEAKER_00: Why am I putting this up in front of you?
SPEAKER_00: Here's why.
SPEAKER_00: Is because I want to teach you how to read the Bible on your own.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: And this is one of the things, when you get to the Bible, this is one of the things you need to be looking for is the FCF.
SPEAKER_00: The FCF.
SPEAKER_00: What is the fallen condition in this text that we're looking at?
SPEAKER_00: Here's a definition.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to give you some definitions for this idea, because I don't just expect you to understand it.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what fallen condition focus is.
SPEAKER_00: It is the mutual, that means you and me, the mutual human condition that contemporary believers, right?
SPEAKER_00: Are we contemporary?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we're believing.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we're contempt.
SPEAKER_00: We're contemporary or contemporary as in living all today.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, contemporary.
SPEAKER_00: We're contemporary believers.
SPEAKER_00: We share this condition with those uh uh to or about whom the text was written.
SPEAKER_00: That requires the grace of the passage for God's people to glorify and enjoy Him.
SPEAKER_00: So whenever you open up your Bible, you are you have something in common with either the people that you're reading about or the people who that was written to.
SPEAKER_00: So if you're reading like the epistles, Paul's letters to like Galatia or his letter to the Corinthians, you have something in common with them, and that is the FCF, the fallen condition.
SPEAKER_00: And it's a focus, it's we want to focus in on it.
SPEAKER_00: That's where the word focus comes in.
SPEAKER_00: We want to look at that for a second in the text.
SPEAKER_00: What is the mutual human condition that the contemporary believers share with those two or about whom the text was written?
SPEAKER_00: And it requires the grace of the passage for God's people.
SPEAKER_00: So it's like something brought.
SPEAKER_00: Swiss cheese.
SPEAKER_00: Like what's what's the what what is Swiss cheese?
SPEAKER_00: Like, what do you know about Swiss cheese?
SPEAKER_00: Exactly, exactly.
unknown: It smells.
SPEAKER_00: That okay, that was not the part I was thinking of, but it does smell.
SPEAKER_00: The um this is this is the thing, right?
SPEAKER_00: When you go and you look at fallen condition, it's the holes in your condition, it's the holes of those who are in the Bible, right?
SPEAKER_00: It is this shared common ground of just brokenness, tears in the fabric, holes in the way that life happens.
SPEAKER_00: Here's another, okay, so this is Brian Chapel.
SPEAKER_00: Let me give you another one.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, this is Zach Eswine.
SPEAKER_00: Same material.
SPEAKER_00: He takes, he riffs on this, he says expanding the FCF reveals that the biblical text will demonstrate four varieties of the fallen condition focus that human beings experience and express in a fallen world.
SPEAKER_00: Consequently, the FCF can stand for one, fallen condition, as already stated, two, finite condition.
SPEAKER_00: This is like you don't know everything, right?
SPEAKER_00: You don't know the future.
SPEAKER_00: And you can feel sometimes you don't know what to do.
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes when you're reading your Bible, um you're reading about somebody who's just confused or limited in their finite nature.
SPEAKER_00: You have that and you have common ground with that person.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you're reading uh the text and it's fragile condition.
SPEAKER_00: This is like um just uh that you can get sick that you don't have the resilience that you were originally designed with before Adam and Eve fell.
SPEAKER_00: And then there's the faltering condition focus.
SPEAKER_00: Um, what I can do is if you're on Slack, I'll post like a longer version of this so you can see each one of these four.
SPEAKER_00: Because here's why here's why I'm putting this in front of you.
SPEAKER_00: Kind of like a teacher.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not really preaching at you this morning, I'm kind of more teaching you.
SPEAKER_00: Because what I want you to do is when you're reading the Bible, I just want you to see, oh yeah, they are having an experience that I can relate to.
SPEAKER_00: And if you could identify that in the text, then that's a beginning stage for you to apply it to your life.
SPEAKER_00: Because some of you come to me and you're like, I don't know, man.
SPEAKER_00: This is a book was written 2,000 years ago, and these are Jews, like I'm like a Gentile over here in the US of A, and they're over there in Israel, and I can't really relate to this, and I don't know how God, like you talk about God speaking to you through this.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm giving you these nuggets.
SPEAKER_00: Here's how you apply it to your life is you realize you do have common ground.
SPEAKER_00: You have a condition that is fallen that these people also had.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: So, last little piece, let's wrap it together here.
SPEAKER_00: Again, a third definition.
SPEAKER_00: The FCF is the common or the human condition that makes God's grace necessary.
SPEAKER_00: It highlights our brokenness, need, or sinfulness that the passage addresses.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so that's the FCF.
SPEAKER_00: Now, having said that, we just looked at the text.
SPEAKER_00: You want me to read it to you again?
SPEAKER_00: Or can you have it fresh in your mind?
SPEAKER_00: You have it probably in front of you.
SPEAKER_00: If you have a Bible, we've got two blind men that come to Jesus asking for mercy, and then we have a demon-possessed man who's mute.
SPEAKER_00: What is the FCF in this passage?
SPEAKER_00: The disability.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so we have uh blindness is a fallen condition.
SPEAKER_00: It's like fra it's being fragile, right?
SPEAKER_00: It's being um now that does not mean that these guys are blind because they're sinful, okay?
SPEAKER_00: But it does mean that their blindness is the result of living in a world that is in rebellion to God.
SPEAKER_00: Because if we go back to the very beginning of the Bible story, we go back to Genesis 1 and 2, we see that God designed humans to be good.
SPEAKER_00: And he designed them well.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, Michael.
SPEAKER_00: That's true, yes.
SPEAKER_00: The their blindness or your handicap, your physical limitation does not mean that you have to be bad.
SPEAKER_00: I appreciate that.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, so when we look at the beginning of Genesis, we see that God designed humans to be in perfect union with him, derive the knowledge of good and bad from him, to occupy that garden, to be fruitful, multiply, and rule over the earth.
SPEAKER_00: This is the earth where Satan had been subjected because he had rebelled against God before humans were created.
SPEAKER_00: And Satan shows up in the garden and gets humanity off track.
SPEAKER_00: He gets humanity into this state of unified rebellion with him, but God had originally designed humans to basically play on the battlefield and to bring into subjection these rebellious angels and to fulfill God's purpose as his friend and image bearers in the garden.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: So all of Genesis 3 through Revelation chapter 19, all of that material we have people experiencing this fallen condition.
SPEAKER_00: So let's look at this with the blind men, 27 through 31.
SPEAKER_00: As Jesus went on from there, two blind men followed him, calling out, Have mercy on us, son of David.
SPEAKER_00: Before we get to that quote, let's just talk a little bit about just some context, right?
SPEAKER_00: Whenever we study the Bible, one of the things we want to do is not take the verse in its isolated form.
SPEAKER_00: We want to see, well, where does that verse fit into the rest of the context, right?
SPEAKER_00: And so what we've been saying is that from Genesis or from Matthew chapter, remember we finished Matthew 7, the Sermon on the Mount?
SPEAKER_00: Then we went into Matthew 8, and right away we ran straight into Jesus healing people.
SPEAKER_00: Remember that?
SPEAKER_00: Healing people, healing people, healing people, and talking about discipleship.
SPEAKER_00: Follow me.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the cost of discipleship.
SPEAKER_00: You need to radically be a follower of Jesus, healing more people, healing more people, follow me, follow me, healing more people.
SPEAKER_00: So we've been in this section where Jesus is calling people to follow him.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you've grown up in the church, you've heard about this idea of the gospel, of proclaiming the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: And we often talk about the gospel as Jesus is at the center, he's the solution for our brokenness, our fallen condition.
SPEAKER_00: He brings in the grace of God into our life, and he's legally allowed to do that because of what he did on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: So the cross is where he died to pay for our guilt, and then he was raised from the dead by God the Father.
SPEAKER_00: God raised him to vindicate him and show that was a sufficient payment for humanity's sin.
SPEAKER_00: Now, when we go back to Matthew 4, we see that Jesus is proclaiming the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: But this is what's important to understand is that the gospel in Matthew is more than just a call to follow Jesus and place your faith in him, but it is a call to adopt a new society, to come into the society where he's the king, but relationships change, ethics change, the way that we relate to God changes, what is right and wrong, like how right and wrong is determined, and the level of spirituality and how God judges people, all of that stuff comes into focus.
SPEAKER_00: So the gospel, so there's this preaching, this gospel message that's been being proclaimed by Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And so when Jesus is healing people, this is the point, Jesus is moving on, he's uh and he's just healing people and teaching about entering into this new kingdom, this new society.
SPEAKER_00: And these two individuals, Matthew just tells their story, right?
SPEAKER_00: Matthew the tax collector tells their story.
SPEAKER_00: Now, blindness.
SPEAKER_00: We think of blindness as just one of many disabilities.
SPEAKER_00: Like if you go on your phone and you turn on accessibility, it's gonna help you, like if you're hearing impaired, or if you have a problem uh with your eyesight, it's gonna help you with that.
SPEAKER_00: But there's all kinds of disabilities.
SPEAKER_00: But for the Jews, blindness was um regarded, often regarded as a punishment of sin.
SPEAKER_00: Blindness was a unique disability if you were Jewish.
SPEAKER_00: You can look up some of these other passages here, but blindness um was a form of, in the Old Testament, it was a form of judgment sometimes.
SPEAKER_00: So God would inflict um blindness, and he would rarely, if you go look at the Old Testament, find for me, um, and I'm gen, I mean this because I didn't actually do this study, but I don't think you can find people in the Old Testament being healed of blindness.
SPEAKER_00: You have the there is an account where um uh Elijah's servant is um he is not, he's freaking out.
SPEAKER_00: And Elijah says God open his eyes and God gives him the spiritual eyes to be able to see this, all these angels that are surrounding Elijah and his servant to protect him.
SPEAKER_00: But that wasn't a physical healing, that was like this ability to see.
SPEAKER_00: Am I missing something?
SPEAKER_00: Is anybody other a Bible scholar?
SPEAKER_00: Can you think of an Old Testament blindness healing?
unknown: I'm gonna look it up though, find out.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, yeah, cross-check me.
SPEAKER_00: So there is, I know you will, and there are, there, but there is many instances of God inflicting blindness.
SPEAKER_00: So if you're Jewish, God never said like all blindness is associated with sin.
SPEAKER_00: But when you go into the Gospel of John, you see that there's literally a man who's born blind, and Jesus' disciples ask Jesus, who sinned?
SPEAKER_00: Was it this man or his parents?
SPEAKER_00: They just associated his blindness with direct sin, direct guilt.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus is like, no, no, this is like God's gonna accomplish his purposes in this disability here.
SPEAKER_00: This is not the result of like a direct association with guilt.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, but I just want you to know the context, as Jesus is here proclaiming a new society, calling people to follow him, and then he's engaged by these men who are outcasts by society because of their blindness.
SPEAKER_00: They couldn't, they would have a difficult time worshiping in the temple.
SPEAKER_00: They would have been considered ser they could have been considered ceremonially unclean.
SPEAKER_00: This is not a good place that they were in.
SPEAKER_00: Um they come to Jesus and they ask for help.
SPEAKER_00: Now, where is okay, here's what they say.
SPEAKER_00: Have mercy on us, son of David.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, son of David, what is going on here?
SPEAKER_00: Have mercy on us.
SPEAKER_00: Son of David, what what does it mean, son of David?
SPEAKER_00: Like who's David?
SPEAKER_00: If you're he was the king, that's right.
SPEAKER_00: So if you're Jewish and you're talking about David, you're thinking, like for us as like Americans, you're thinking of like George Washington, right?
SPEAKER_00: But if you're Jewish, you hear David, you're like, oh, one of our patriarchs.
SPEAKER_00: Like, this is the writer of the book of Psalms.
SPEAKER_00: This is the guy who received this promise of an eternal.
SPEAKER_00: Reign, right?
SPEAKER_00: God made a covenant with David, said, the scepter will never depart from your throne.
SPEAKER_00: So there's all this hope wrapped up in David and his lineage because it's from David that the eternal reign of God and for the people, for the Jews, is going to be accomplished.
SPEAKER_00: So when these blind men come and say, Have mercy on a son of David, they're talking royalty.
SPEAKER_00: They're acknowledging the royal lineage of David, and they're saying, you are, they're basically saying it, you're the king.
SPEAKER_00: Like you have the rights to the throne.
SPEAKER_00: And they're asking for mercy.
SPEAKER_00: Look at these other um passages from the Psalms.
SPEAKER_00: Like, look who, if you're Jewish, like here's what you know of God.
SPEAKER_00: Like here's what you've, here's the devotional material that you've been trained by in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Answer me when I call God, who vindicates me.
SPEAKER_00: You freed me from affliction.
SPEAKER_00: Be gracious to me and hear my prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Like if you're Jewish, you're used to asking God for gracious help and mercy.
SPEAKER_00: Freedom from affliction.
SPEAKER_00: Here's another one, Psalm 6.2.
SPEAKER_00: Be gracious to me, Lord, for I am weak.
SPEAKER_00: Heal me, Lord, for my bones are shaking.
SPEAKER_00: This is familiar material.
SPEAKER_00: If you are a follower of Jesus, who is the fulfillment of Judaism, he is the messianic Jewish king, then this is your material.
SPEAKER_00: Do you understand that?
SPEAKER_00: Like you've been grafted into this being belonging to you.
SPEAKER_00: You have every right to pray this to God.
SPEAKER_00: But it's even more real for you because we're now have seen Jesus come the first time.
SPEAKER_00: So if you're a Jew reading this in like Solomon's day, you're praying these things, reflecting on God's deliverance through the story of Moses.
SPEAKER_00: You're thinking about the ways that God's helped you win in battle and maybe the victories of David.
SPEAKER_00: And that's awesome.
SPEAKER_00: And you're leaning in and hoping for God's help.
SPEAKER_00: But for us, like we get to sink our teeth into Jesus, the historic Messiah, God, put on flesh, come to earth, died on the cross, rose from the dead.
SPEAKER_00: He's the one who is gracious.
SPEAKER_00: He is the one who can help the weak.
SPEAKER_00: He is the one who can heal.
SPEAKER_00: He is the one who knows your bones are shaking and he can help you.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And so these blind men come to Jesus saying, Lord, or have mercy on us, son of David.
SPEAKER_00: Did he dress like a king?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: This guy was a carpenter up until he was 30.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: And so the faith of these two blind men, I guess they couldn't see how he was dressed, right?
SPEAKER_00: But he's a commoner, right?
SPEAKER_00: He's a commoner.
SPEAKER_00: There is nothing that, like, Isaiah said there is nothing about him that like made him look like, you know, a G crew GQ model or anything like that.
SPEAKER_00: Like, he was a common man.
SPEAKER_00: He was a Jew, Jewish man who had been working for, you know, 20 years of his or 15 years of his life before he started his ministry.
SPEAKER_00: When he entered the house, so they're going back to Matthew, Jesus entered the house, the blind man approached him, and Jesus said to him, Do you believe that I can do this?
SPEAKER_00: And they said to him, Yes, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Then he touched their eyes, saying, Let it be done for you according to your faith.
SPEAKER_00: The important thing here to notice is first, the question that he engages with them is just like we saw last week, do you believe?
SPEAKER_00: Do you believe?
SPEAKER_00: So he could have said, like, okay, well, let me get your demographic information here.
SPEAKER_00: You know, are you a minority?
SPEAKER_00: You know, um, how long?
SPEAKER_00: You know, are you do you qualify?
SPEAKER_00: Like, there's all kinds of questions he could have asked.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, he asks, do you believe?
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: He solits he solicits their faith.
SPEAKER_00: Do you believe that I can do this?
SPEAKER_00: And he says, Yes.
SPEAKER_00: Then when he does touch their eyes, his statement is, let it be done for you according to your faith.
SPEAKER_00: According to, it's the Greek word kata.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: When you go and you build a wall, like you're building one of these, putting a brick facade on the front of a house, or you got a cinder block wall that you're gonna put up in your backyard, your bricklayers are gonna do something.
SPEAKER_00: They're gonna use probably a level nowadays.
SPEAKER_00: They're gonna make sure that something is telling you that this is straight up and down.
SPEAKER_00: It's not leaning, right?
SPEAKER_00: Used to be that you'd hold up a plum line, which is just a string with a heavy weight at the bottom of it, and you would hold up that string against your wall, kata, according to, down against is what the word means.
SPEAKER_00: Hold it up against to see how does this compare to that.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says to them, You're let this act be done to you according to, down against your faith.
SPEAKER_00: You've got faith, let this act be done for you.
SPEAKER_00: He's really highlighting.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, what were you gonna say?
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
SPEAKER_00: Amen, right?
SPEAKER_00: That's right, we saw that.
SPEAKER_00: We were just there like a couple weeks ago.
SPEAKER_00: It's the exact same material, but I appreciate you bringing that up because this is this is Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He just preached this sermon.
SPEAKER_00: He said, This is my society, this is my kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: He's going through these different towns around Galilee, people are getting healed like this, and he's inviting people to follow him with really a high bar.
SPEAKER_00: There's a there's a lot of things going on here, but it it this it's really important to see, it seems like Matthew, who's writing this for us.
SPEAKER_00: Tell me if you agree.
SPEAKER_00: This is my hypothesis, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Matthew's writing for the this for us, and he's saying faith is really an important piece of this.
SPEAKER_00: Like you, as a follower of Jesus, need to be ready to count the cost, but if you want to experience the power of God's kingdom in your world, you need to be providing faith as the arena where God can work, right?
SPEAKER_00: You go to arena, Larice likes that back there.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, thank you.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
SPEAKER_00: I got one person that agreed with me.
SPEAKER_00: Look, when you go to the Baltimore Stadium, right?
SPEAKER_00: Or you go to the Orioles Stadium, Camdenyards, or you go to the Raven Stadium, it's an arena, right?
SPEAKER_00: I I I like that as the concept of faith.
SPEAKER_00: That when we when we place our faith in God, we're creating this arena where God can work.
SPEAKER_00: We're not putting rules on him, we're saying, hey, I'm bringing the faith to the table, you bring the power.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna trust in you, and I want you to work.
SPEAKER_00: And and and so here is Matthew telling you and I this story, just saying, listen, I want you to understand, here's how this occurred.
SPEAKER_00: Here's how these two men were healed.
SPEAKER_00: He brings forward their faith, their eyes were opened.
SPEAKER_00: Then Jesus warned them, Sterling, be sure that no one finds out.
SPEAKER_00: Why does he do that?
SPEAKER_00: Why does he tell them to not tell anybody else?
SPEAKER_00: He knew they would.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, okay, so the best, I so to be so honest with you, to super honest, I don't know why he said that.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if it was good.
SPEAKER_00: So they went out and they did tell everybody.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't know if Matthew's like, uh-oh, they really disobeyed, or if he's like, well, it was inevitable.
SPEAKER_00: It was a reverse psychology.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: But the the point right now, Jesus is not trying to be the he he's it's not all about a personality, it's about this message, right?
SPEAKER_00: So it's like, yes, follow me, but but I I want you to come into the this new kingdom, right?
SPEAKER_00: He's not looking for groupies.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, he's gonna keep talking in a way that is off-putting with the h with a high bar so that so that he doesn't just have like a bunch of sycophants that like follow him around and are just kind of riding an emotional high.
SPEAKER_00: But he's saying, no, you're making a life decision.
SPEAKER_00: You're making a whole life decision.
SPEAKER_00: The trajectory of your life is now gonna change if you're ready to follow me.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't want you to understand the Messiah as just the one that's healing, I want you to understand the Messiah as the suffering servant, the king.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's it.
SPEAKER_00: I I really don't know.
SPEAKER_00: That was an interesting idea.
SPEAKER_00: If you come up with a great idea, then um let me know after church.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, just just as they were going out, uh, as he were going, and I assume he's going out of the house, a demon-possessed man who was unable to speak was brought to him.
SPEAKER_00: Um evening came after the sun and oh, okay, so yeah, no, before we go to Mark, let's just go back here.
SPEAKER_00: So look, he sets the stage.
SPEAKER_00: Demon-possessed man who's unable to speak was brought to him.
SPEAKER_00: Now, lots of questions.
SPEAKER_00: Does anybody have a lot of questions about this?
SPEAKER_00: How do we know the mutinous is associated with demon possession?
SPEAKER_00: How do they know how like is this just is is this Matthew telling us after the fact, like, well, it must have been demon possession, because when the demon came out, then he could talk again.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: But this is the this is the interesting thing, and the reason I got Mark here in my slide deck is because um this is Mark talking about Jesus in ministry, and Mark writes really fast, and so he's talking to a lot of people, he's he's kind of covering a lot of ground, and he says that they brought to him all those who were sick and demon-possessed, all that who are sick and demon-possessed.
SPEAKER_00: Um Jesus is healing, that's that's easy for us to wrap our heads around.
SPEAKER_00: The whole part about like demon possession and then how demon possession manifests itself in terms of physical ailments, that's not a very strong Western theme.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, there's a whole group of even Christians who are like, well, this was like a misdiagnosis, it's like a psychological disorder, it's kind of like we, you know, the he called it demons, but it's more of like, you know, depression, anxiety, and that kind of thing.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think so.
SPEAKER_00: I think there is a distinct teaching here about um Satan and demons, and it it seems to be throughout Jesus' ministry.
SPEAKER_00: So, what is a demon?
SPEAKER_00: I just want to put this in front of you just so you understand.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible teaches that fallen uh that demons are understood to be angels who rebelled against God and were cast out of heaven along with Satan.
SPEAKER_00: This is suggested in passages like Revelation 12, 7 through 9, which describes a war in heaven and the expulsion of Satan and his angels.
SPEAKER_00: So demons are created by God.
SPEAKER_00: Angels are created by God.
SPEAKER_00: There is a third of angels that rebelled and they were subjected.
SPEAKER_00: They were sent from heaven, they're cast out of heaven, to the realm of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: Satan leads them, but they're organized.
SPEAKER_00: Ephesians says that there's powers, principalities, hosts of wickedness.
SPEAKER_00: So they're organized in the same way that an army might be organized.
SPEAKER_00: In John 10, it says that the thief, meaning Satan, he comes to steal, kill, and destroy.
SPEAKER_00: The objective of Satan and demons is to thwart the work of God through humans.
SPEAKER_00: And the reason for that is because of jealousy.
SPEAKER_00: The demons are jealous of the special role that God has given you in creation, because you're created, it says in Hebrews chapter 2, a little lower than the angels.
SPEAKER_00: You are not as powerful as an angel, but yet you have been bestowed with an authoritative role in creation.
SPEAKER_00: And so, in the redemptive purposes of God, God's redeeming you, not angels.
SPEAKER_00: He's res even when you rebelled, he didn't go and die for angels, he died for you, so that you could be restored back to your original purpose in God's world, and that's gonna continue to play out.
SPEAKER_00: So if you've thought that like you're gonna die and become an angel, the Bible doesn't teach that.
SPEAKER_00: The angels are a totally different category, a different type of being.
SPEAKER_00: Um and so Jesus here is encountering a man who is possessed by a demon.
SPEAKER_00: And this means that this person is fully owned.
SPEAKER_00: Now, how can a demon dwell in a person?
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's very clear that you and I, the Bible teaches that we're temples, we're houses, we're tents.
SPEAKER_00: You and I are containers for spiritual work.
SPEAKER_00: So you have a spirit that gives you the communicative ability.
SPEAKER_00: You are have the ability to communicate with God because you have a spirit, but you are also a container for either God's spirit or other spirits.
SPEAKER_00: Now, when you're born, you are born in rebellion to God because you have a fallen condition.
SPEAKER_00: You have this sinful condition that separates you from God, and you need the work of Jesus to restore you back to Him.
SPEAKER_00: But through, no matter what, you're this container, right?
SPEAKER_00: You're either going to be filled with nothing, you're gonna be filled with a demon or demons, or you're gonna be filled with the Spirit of God.
SPEAKER_00: Those are your three options, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus taught, and there's stories where um individuals had not just one demon, but many demons dwelling in them.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus talks to him.
SPEAKER_00: And the guy says, My name is Legion.
SPEAKER_00: He had a whole legion of demons filling his body.
SPEAKER_00: Um, in this particular case, it's the singular, the singular demon, and it's um causing a physical manifestation here with mutinous.
SPEAKER_00: Now, as we read, we're gonna see more people who their um their being filled with demons causes um uh physical manifestation.
SPEAKER_00: This is important for you and I to recognize that the Bible teaches this.
SPEAKER_00: Um, it's important for you to understand that you are a house that Jesus has paid for.
SPEAKER_00: So when Jesus died on the cross, he purchased, he paid to purchase you.
SPEAKER_00: Once you consent to that purchase, you become the temple of his spirit.
SPEAKER_00: I don't hold to the position that you can be the temple of the Spirit of God and a temple for demons at the same time.
SPEAKER_00: You can't have demons living in you if you are a follower of Jesus, because Jesus owns you, he's purchased you by his blood.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: If um you have not yet become a follower of Jesus, it seems like you're fair game.
SPEAKER_00: How demons decide who they're gonna fill and how that works, we don't know.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible doesn't tell us that part, but um, it does seem as if like the occult and people can kind of open themselves up to um to demons and kind of invite demons into themselves.
SPEAKER_00: Um we'll we'll talk about this some more.
SPEAKER_00: I think the thing that you need to see here is that this person being healed in this instance um does not require um, it doesn't require the man's faith.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus here just intervenes.
SPEAKER_00: There is no like according to faith in order for this guy to be healed.
SPEAKER_00: When the demon had been driven out, the man who had been mute spoke, and the crowds were amazed, saying, Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel.
SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna continue to see that Jesus comes in with authority over demonic forces, and they know who Jesus is.
SPEAKER_00: Like they're talking back to Jesus, saying, Tell us what to do, where to go, please don't give us the final judgment.
SPEAKER_00: They know their future, that there's a final judgment that's coming.
SPEAKER_00: They know it even faster than Revelation reveals it, which is fascinating.
SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't know how they have the inside track on this.
SPEAKER_00: All right, let me conclude with this.
SPEAKER_00: You and I have this fallen continue, an FCF.
SPEAKER_00: Parts of your week were not the Garden of Eden this week, right?
SPEAKER_00: You were not living in the garden at points throughout this week.
SPEAKER_00: There were things that were painful, frustrating, and yes, the FCF parts of your week were their problems to solve, their character building, you were in need of patience and endurance.
SPEAKER_00: Um but, but Jesus, the son of David, the king, the Lord, has mercy on you.
SPEAKER_00: And he patches the holes with his grace.
SPEAKER_00: This whole this story is basically of two guys that are blind and a guy that's demon-possessed being having their holes patched, right?
SPEAKER_00: The the the kingdom of God comes and intersects with their specific need.
SPEAKER_00: And when you and I read this, and what I want you to do this week as you're reading the Bible is I just want you to look and see where is this fallen condition that you can relate to?
SPEAKER_00: We've got a fallen condition, right?
SPEAKER_00: We got stuff that was hard this last week, and we can come to the Lord and say, Son of David, have mercy on me.
SPEAKER_00: Have mercy on me.
SPEAKER_00: It is so you see this?
SPEAKER_00: Do you understand that in our culture we're fixers?
SPEAKER_00: We or or sometimes we take our fallen condition and we play the role of victim, and we tell everybody about our fallen condition so we can milk the system.
SPEAKER_00: Or we've got our fallen condition and it's just like, you know what, I'm gonna just hunker down and I'm gonna just charge.
SPEAKER_00: But this is the thing is like the the observation, recognizing, oh no, this is my fallen condition that God's allowed for me to experience so that he can patch it with his grace.
SPEAKER_00: You've got to recognize it.
SPEAKER_00: Recognize your fallen condition.
SPEAKER_00: That's my first admonition.
SPEAKER_00: The second admonition that I'd give you from this text is that is this response of faith.
SPEAKER_00: Understand that faith allows you to experience that grace.
SPEAKER_00: The the meeting of your fallen condition with the kingdom of heaven, that intersection is called grace.
SPEAKER_00: When we come to Jesus with our fallen condition, we say, Lord, have mercy on me.
SPEAKER_00: I trust you.
SPEAKER_00: And what follows is the grace and the kindness of God.
SPEAKER_00: Our trust in God gives space.
SPEAKER_00: We're almost there, we're almost at that point in the service with worship, but not quite quite yet.
SPEAKER_00: Our trust in God gives space for the experience of grace.
SPEAKER_00: So your faith, your faith doesn't earn you the miracle, but your faith provides the context where God can work and where you can experience that grace.
SPEAKER_00: It says in Romans chapter 5 that we receive grace, we receive grace through faith.
SPEAKER_00: We receive there's only two ways to get grace humility and faith.
SPEAKER_00: Humility is this thing where it says to God, I can't do it.
SPEAKER_00: Faith expresses itself by saying, God, you totally can do it.
SPEAKER_00: What did Jesus ask them?
SPEAKER_00: Do you believe I can?
SPEAKER_00: And they said, We believe it, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: We believe it.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we come before you, we ask that you would strengthen our faith.
SPEAKER_00: That you would strengthen our faith.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, would you work in our life?
SPEAKER_00: God, would you stir in us, speak to us?
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we ask for that work this week.
SPEAKER_00: Pray this in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.