SPEAKER_00: Please be seated.
SPEAKER_00: I want to encourage you to turn with me to the passage that was read earlier in the service, Luke chapter 17, verses 11 through 19.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't have a Bible with you, there should be a Bible located there in front of you in that little shelf pocket.
SPEAKER_00: And you can find the scripture on page 876.
SPEAKER_00: And I do want to mention, if you're here and you don't own a copy of the Bible, or maybe you don't have a copy here with you in Grand Forks, I want to encourage you to take that Bible that you're using right now and take it home with us.
SPEAKER_00: Take it back to the dorm with you as our gift to you.
SPEAKER_00: We want you to have the Bible for yourself to read and to study, and then I encourage you to come back each week and we'll study it together.
SPEAKER_00: Luke chapter 17, we're looking at verses 11 through 19.
SPEAKER_00: What is it like to be an outcast?
SPEAKER_00: What is it like to feel unwanted, unclean, rejected, isolated?
SPEAKER_00: Leprosy was a horrible disfiguring disease.
SPEAKER_00: The word was used for a number of skin diseases, including Hansen's disease, what we most often think of when we hear that term.
SPEAKER_00: One online dictionary described it this way: that it's primarily a disease of the peripheral nerves of the upper respiratory tract, but skin lesions are the primary external sign, it says.
SPEAKER_00: Left untreated, it can be progressive, causing permanent damage to skin, nerves, limbs, and eyes.
SPEAKER_00: Contrary to popular belief, leprosy doesn't cause body parts to fall off.
SPEAKER_00: However, because of secondary infections that occur because the body's defenses are compromised by the primary disease, because of the lack of sensation, oftentimes infection and injury cause disfiguring difficulties.
SPEAKER_00: Fingers, toes become shortened, deformed, cartilage is absorbed into the body.
SPEAKER_00: And as I was looking and seeing images of this disfiguring disease, wondering what it's like to be an outcast.
SPEAKER_00: In the Old Testament, in Leviticus chapter 13, verses 45 and 46, of the leprous person, this is what it says, the less leprous person who has the disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head hang loose, and he shall cover his upper lip and cry out, unclean, unclean.
SPEAKER_00: He would have been an outcast from his society.
SPEAKER_00: It says he shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease.
SPEAKER_00: He is unclean.
SPEAKER_00: He shall live alone.
SPEAKER_00: His dwelling shall be outside the camp.
SPEAKER_00: He would live outside of the village.
SPEAKER_00: And whenever anybody would come close, whenever he would see somebody, he would have to begin to shout out before they were within distance of him unclean! Unclean! How would you feel?
SPEAKER_00: Inferior?
SPEAKER_00: Alienated?
SPEAKER_00: Embarrassed?
SPEAKER_00: Ridiculed?
SPEAKER_00: Weak, powerless, a failure, different, insulted, rejected, inadequate, humiliated, ignored, a loser?
SPEAKER_00: Really, those words aren't even strong enough to express what would go on in your heart.
SPEAKER_00: How about unclean, dishonored, filthy, shunned, disgusting, defiled, outcast, unlovable, discarded, repulsive, disgraced, worthless, loathed, scorned, vile?
SPEAKER_00: You would feel both helpless because you know there's nothing that you can do to change your situation, and hopeless because you know the fate of people who have this disease.
SPEAKER_00: If that were you, what is it that you would want most?
SPEAKER_00: Really, that's a question that all of us ought to think about.
SPEAKER_00: What is it that we want most?
SPEAKER_00: I would think that these men, these ten men who were living outside of the camp and finding perhaps their own community among the lepers, they thought their greatest need was to be healed of their leprosy.
SPEAKER_00: And if they had that, that would be enough.
SPEAKER_00: We think sometimes of heaven and we think of all of that that we would have there that we would be delivered from.
SPEAKER_00: And uh, Pastor John Piper writes this: Would you be satisfied to go to heaven?
SPEAKER_00: Have everybody there in your family that you want there, have all your health restored, uh, restoration of your prime, and everything you disliked about yourself fixed.
SPEAKER_00: Think about that.
SPEAKER_00: Everything you dislike about yourself fixed.
SPEAKER_00: Have every recreation you've ever dreamed of available to you, have infinite resources of money to spend.
SPEAKER_00: No more temptation of that thing that you struggle with, that area of your life.
SPEAKER_00: Would you be satisfied if God wasn't there?
SPEAKER_00: This is the difficulty that we have.
SPEAKER_00: They thought their greatest need was healing.
SPEAKER_00: But they had a greater need still.
SPEAKER_00: So this is an important question for us to consider.
SPEAKER_00: Is Jesus our goal?
SPEAKER_00: Or is deliverance our goal?
SPEAKER_00: Is Jesus our goal or is healing our goal?
SPEAKER_00: Is Jesus our goal or is peace our goal?
SPEAKER_00: And this morning I want us to examine this unusual miracle, and it's unusual for the very fact that the miracle isn't what is central to the message.
SPEAKER_00: That isn't the main focus that we find here.
SPEAKER_00: The healing isn't the main focus, the heart is.
SPEAKER_00: And so we're gonna walk through this passage together again.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna see the great need that these men had.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna see the step of faith that they took, and then we're going to see the shocking return of one of them.
SPEAKER_00: And so let's look first of all at the great need.
SPEAKER_00: Look with me, Luke chapter 17, beginning in verse 11.
SPEAKER_00: The great need.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, this isn't uh the first time that we find this in the Gospel of Luke in chapter 9, verse 51.
SPEAKER_00: It says, When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: He was resolute in the fact that he was on a mission and he set his face towards Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: He was moving towards the cross, moving towards the sacrifice that he was going to make on your behalf and mine.
SPEAKER_00: In Luke chapter 13, verse 22, again it says, He went on his way through the towns and villages, teaching and journeying towards Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: And now, here in verse 11 of chapter 17, on the way to Jerusalem, he was passing along between Samaria and Galilee.
SPEAKER_00: He was taking this circuitous route, this roundabout way, but he was on his way to Jerusalem to fulfill the purpose for which he had come.
SPEAKER_00: And it says here that while he was on his way, in verse 12, and he entered a village.
SPEAKER_00: Luke doesn't give us a lot of details about this village, that it's along this border, Samaria and Galilee, and he enters this village, and as he enters this village, he's met by ten lepers.
SPEAKER_00: And apparently, at least in large degree, they were following the Levitical law.
SPEAKER_00: They were following what they should have been.
SPEAKER_00: They were outside of the village, they weren't mingling among the people, they were outside, and they they see Jesus, and when they see him, they begin to cry out.
SPEAKER_00: It says they stood at a distance and they lifted up their voices.
SPEAKER_00: And at first, maybe they only said unclean.
SPEAKER_00: We don't know, but but that would have been what they would have been crying out to those who had passed by.
SPEAKER_00: But but there was something, maybe something they knew about Jesus, because when they saw Jesus, they knew enough to say, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.
SPEAKER_00: And so they began to cry this out.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.
SPEAKER_00: This was good.
SPEAKER_00: They realized they had no claim upon Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: They had no way to demand anything from Jesus, but they cried out for compassion and mercy and help.
SPEAKER_00: This was their great need.
SPEAKER_00: Have mercy on us.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't ask for healing, but surely that was what was in their mind.
SPEAKER_00: Have mercy on us, heal us.
SPEAKER_00: They couldn't heal themselves, they couldn't change their situation.
SPEAKER_00: There was no practical hope of deliverance.
SPEAKER_00: And in their eyes, it was a hopeless situation.
SPEAKER_00: At the moment, they couldn't, they couldn't consider any need more pressing than this one need.
SPEAKER_00: If only this situation in my life would change, I would be content.
SPEAKER_00: I would be satisfied.
SPEAKER_00: I would be complete.
SPEAKER_00: They did the one thing that they could do, they cried out to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Well, what is your great need?
SPEAKER_00: Deliverance from temptation?
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps not knowing, with a lack of wisdom and foresight, one night you clicked on an image on the internet, not knowing that that would start a pattern and a habit that would enslave you.
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps you grew up in the church, and as you grew into a young man, you found yourself attracted to people of the same sex, and you think, if only I could be delivered from this.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's anger and rage that you can't control that you put your fist through the wall at the slightest provocation.
SPEAKER_00: I saw a video just last night about a man giving a testimony of God's transforming grace, and he said, His two-year-old spilled his milk, he picked up a chair and he threw it against the wall.
SPEAKER_00: What is your great need?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's financial freedom.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you didn't think about the consequences of using the credit card over and over again and not keeping account, and now you find yourself just drowning in debt.
SPEAKER_00: And you think, if only I was free from this bondage to this debt.
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe it's finding a life mate, you're single, and you feel like life has passed you by, and you have these feelings of being alone, and that everyone else has something that you don't have.
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe it's a functioning family, that your family is so dysfunctional that every time you get together, all you do is fight, and you're at each other's throat, and you think, if only I had a family like other families, I wouldn't have the stress and the problems and the factions and the fights.
SPEAKER_00: What is your great need?
SPEAKER_00: These men thought that their need was to be cleansed from leprosy.
SPEAKER_00: But they didn't realize that they had a greater need.
SPEAKER_00: These were, these were, this was a good need to be delivered from, but there was something deeper still that most of them had no recognition of.
SPEAKER_00: Their greatest need was not to be healed from leprosy.
SPEAKER_00: That was huge, don't get me wrong.
SPEAKER_00: That was significant, but that was not their deepest need.
SPEAKER_00: They could be healed from leprosy, but eventually they were going to get some other disease.
SPEAKER_00: Eventually, they were gonna get an injury or accident.
SPEAKER_00: Eventually, if they lived long enough, they were going to get old and they were going to die.
SPEAKER_00: Even if they were healed from leprosy, leprosy wasn't their greatest need.
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't their deepest need, and it's not our deepest need either to be delivered from our problems, from healing and wholeness, physical deliverance, deliverance from temptation.
SPEAKER_00: All of those are good things, but they're not our deepest need.
SPEAKER_00: The greatest need that we have is the greatest need that every human being who has ever existed has, and that is to be forgiven of our sins and to come into a relationship with God through the person of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: I think leprosy is a fitting illustration for the deeper reality of our sin.
SPEAKER_00: Sin has infected and affected every area of who we are.
SPEAKER_00: It's touched every part of us and tainted every relationship that we have.
SPEAKER_00: Most of all, sin has cut us off from God.
SPEAKER_00: We feel defiled and unclean and separate.
SPEAKER_00: And we are in a condition that there is nothing that we can do to change it.
SPEAKER_00: These lepers couldn't scrub themselves clean.
SPEAKER_00: It didn't matter what they did to change their lives.
SPEAKER_00: They couldn't change the situation.
SPEAKER_00: No matter what they did or where they went, this condition followed them.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing they did in the future could change the reality of who they were.
SPEAKER_00: And left to ourselves, that's the problem that each one of us has with sin.
SPEAKER_00: There is nothing that we can do in and of ourselves to change the reality of who we are, of our nature, of our disposition, of our condition.
SPEAKER_00: It's interesting here, unlike the other encounters that Jesus has with lepers, uh, most of those, if you read them, Jesus touches them and he heals them instantly.
SPEAKER_00: But here, uh, it's unlike those other times.
SPEAKER_00: Look at what happens here in the text.
SPEAKER_00: They cry out, Master, have mercy on us.
SPEAKER_00: It says, when he saw them, he said to them, Go and show yourselves to the priest.
SPEAKER_00: They had to respond with a step of faith.
SPEAKER_00: So we see here this step of faith.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus gives them a command.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Go, show yourself to the priest.
SPEAKER_00: Did they debate among themselves?
SPEAKER_00: We don't know their reaction.
SPEAKER_00: I wonder what was going on when they heard Jesus say this.
SPEAKER_00: They were still in their leprosy when they heard these words.
SPEAKER_00: Did they debate among themselves?
SPEAKER_00: Should we go?
SPEAKER_00: Should we not?
SPEAKER_00: What do you think?
SPEAKER_00: Are we going to look foolish?
SPEAKER_00: Are we going to get in trouble?
SPEAKER_00: Did they doubt?
SPEAKER_00: We don't know.
SPEAKER_00: Did they immediately rush off or did they take a vote and the majority decided to go?
SPEAKER_00: And so they went as a group.
SPEAKER_00: We aren't sure of the circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: But the text tells us that they went.
SPEAKER_00: They stepped out in faith.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Show yourselves to the priest.
SPEAKER_00: The priest acted as a health inspector in situations like this.
SPEAKER_00: If somebody, typically, if somebody had a skin disease, leprosy, uh, if they were healed, uh, if the if uh they had met the certain prescribed uh requirements in the Old Testament, then they would go to the priest, and the priest would examine them and then set them in quarantine, and they would come back a little over a week later and they would examine them again to make sure that uh they were no longer defiled, and then they would be declared clean and they could enter back into the community.
SPEAKER_00: But a person usually didn't go to the priest until his skin had already cleared up.
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps they had hope and they took a step of faith.
SPEAKER_00: Now, was this genuine faith?
SPEAKER_00: Was this genuine?
SPEAKER_00: I think at some level it was sincere.
SPEAKER_00: I think at the moment they were sincere in hearing Jesus and believing him.
SPEAKER_00: But I would say for most of them, and this is what we will see, for most of them, they had genuine faith, but it was only a temporary faith.
SPEAKER_00: It was only a momentary faith.
SPEAKER_00: It was a faith that said, God, we're in a desperate situation.
SPEAKER_00: We cry out to you.
SPEAKER_00: And we do the same thing.
SPEAKER_00: We find ourselves in a fix, we find ourselves in a difficulty, we find ourselves in danger or with disease, and we cry out to God.
SPEAKER_00: But once the situation passes, it's back to business as usual, and we forget all about God.
SPEAKER_00: So I think that they had a level of faith, a temporary faith, and they and they left in earnest.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus talks about this, and we we saw this earlier when we examined the parable of the sower and the seed and the and the four soils in Luke chapter 8, verses 4 through 15.
SPEAKER_00: Let me read a few of those verses, verses 11 through 15 of Luke chapter 8.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said this.
SPEAKER_00: Now the parable is this: the seed is the word of God.
SPEAKER_00: The one along the path are those who have heard, then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved.
SPEAKER_00: But then he says this about the second soil, and the one on the rock are those who, when they heard the word, received it with joy, but these have no root.
SPEAKER_00: They believe for a while, and in time of testing fall away.
SPEAKER_00: And as for what fell among the thorns, they are those who hear, but as they go on their way, they're choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature.
SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus says here that there are some that express an initial response, and yet it is only temporary.
SPEAKER_00: He says, lastly, and for those in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold fast in an honest and good heart and bear fruit with patience.
SPEAKER_00: Quite literally, with most of these ten, their faith was only skin deep.
SPEAKER_00: Look at what it says.
SPEAKER_00: As they went on their way, verse 14, as they went on their way, they were cleansed.
SPEAKER_00: As they went, they were cleansed.
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine that reaction?
SPEAKER_00: Think about it.
SPEAKER_00: If you were one of those ten lepers, you had lived in that situation in isolation, uh, abandonment from your family for years, perhaps decades.
SPEAKER_00: You might not even remember what it was like to feel the embrace of another human being because nobody had touched you in years, because of your defilement and your uncleanness, and you're you're separate from society.
SPEAKER_00: And as you're walking, as you're walking among this group, maybe you begin to feel tingling in your hands, like when you're when you fall asleep on your arm and you wake up and and the blood starts to circulate again, and and you feel those pins and needles.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe, maybe they didn't even realize they were healed until they turned and they looked at one of their friends and they saw him and they thought, is that me too?
SPEAKER_00: Was I healed as well?
SPEAKER_00: And they begin to look at their hands, they begin to look at their body, and they see that they have been delivered from their great need.
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine what it was like?
SPEAKER_00: But wouldn't you wonder if that was you?
SPEAKER_00: Who was that man who changed my life?
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't this even enter your mind?
SPEAKER_00: I can't imagine the shock and joy and the and and just the Explosion of various emotions that they must have had at the moment that they realized that they were healed.
SPEAKER_00: We want to explain away the fact that nine out of ten didn't return but continued on their way.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus addresses this.
SPEAKER_00: The shocking return.
SPEAKER_00: Lastly.
SPEAKER_00: Why is it so shocking?
SPEAKER_00: Look at what happens here.
SPEAKER_00: It says, one of them, when he saw that he was healed, when he looked at his body and he saw the reality of what had happened, he turned back, praising God with a loud voice, and he fell on his face at Jesus' feet, giving him thanks.
SPEAKER_00: Why was it so shocking?
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't shocking that one returned.
SPEAKER_00: What's shocking is that nine did not.
SPEAKER_00: That's what's shocking in this passage.
SPEAKER_00: As soon as this man realized that he began to praise God, it says with a loud voice, he couldn't be contained.
SPEAKER_00: Spurgeon tells a story about a woman that came up to him and he was talking to her and he was sharing the gospel with her.
SPEAKER_00: And this woman, and Spurgeon was the prince of preachers, and rarely was he at a loss for words, but this woman talked so much he could barely get a word in edgewise.
SPEAKER_00: And so the woman kept talking and talking, and Spurgeon kept trying to share the gospel here and there, and there became a growing awareness of what Spurgeon was telling her about forgiveness in Christ and new life and a relationship that begins now and goes on forever.
SPEAKER_00: And she says, if this is true, God's never gonna hear the end of it.
SPEAKER_00: And that was this man.
SPEAKER_00: He was healed, and God was never gonna hear the end of it.
SPEAKER_00: But there was more than that.
SPEAKER_00: This revealed something deeper that had gone on in his life that didn't happen in the other nine.
SPEAKER_00: Because he was praising God.
SPEAKER_00: God had turned his heart towards him, he's praising God.
SPEAKER_00: He falls at the feet of Jesus and giving him thanks.
SPEAKER_00: And what's interesting here, this in the Gospels, the only time it says giving Jesus thanks is this passage.
SPEAKER_00: Every other time it's used in reference to God the Father.
SPEAKER_00: And most of the times it's Jesus giving thanks to God the Father.
SPEAKER_00: And I think Luke, in a very subtle way, is pointing to the reality of who Jesus is, that he is God Himself.
SPEAKER_00: But this man recognizes his heart is turned to Christ more than just physical healing.
SPEAKER_00: Something had happened at the core of who he was.
SPEAKER_00: He had been converted, he had placed his faith in Christ, and he comes back praising God.
SPEAKER_00: Notice what Luke adds here at the end of verse 16.
SPEAKER_00: Now he was a Samaritan.
SPEAKER_00: Luke hasn't mentioned that up until this point.
SPEAKER_00: We would assume by reading this that they were all Jewish, but here now Luke points out that there was one that wasn't Jewish.
SPEAKER_00: He says, now he was a Samaritan, the one who came back.
SPEAKER_00: This is significant.
SPEAKER_00: Jews did not get along with Samaritans.
SPEAKER_00: In 722, when the Assyrians came and overran the northern kingdom, and most of them were, most of the ten tribes were displaced.
SPEAKER_00: Some, particularly the poor, were left, and the Assyrians came in and they began to mingle together.
SPEAKER_00: And so they were half-breeds.
SPEAKER_00: And in addition to that, their worship was corrupted.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't understand the true reality of God in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: And they were outcasts because they were Samaritans.
SPEAKER_00: This man was doubly an outcast.
SPEAKER_00: Not only was he unclean because he was a leper, he was also a Samaritan.
SPEAKER_00: So even in his best days, he would have still been rejected.
SPEAKER_00: And so Luke notes this man, he was a Samaritan.
SPEAKER_00: Rather than commending this man, Jesus expresses shock that the other nine didn't return.
SPEAKER_00: Look at what Jesus says.
SPEAKER_00: He says, verse 17, were not ten cleansed?
SPEAKER_00: Where are the nine?
SPEAKER_00: Thanksgiving would have been the natural response to being healed.
SPEAKER_00: That should have been the natural overflow of a heart.
SPEAKER_00: And the lack of thanksgiving reveals the reality of their hearts that they were hardened and unbelieving.
SPEAKER_00: Ungratefulness is often a mark of unbelief.
SPEAKER_00: And unbelief is characterized by ungratefulness.
SPEAKER_00: And these nine, and by Jesus pointing out, notice what Jesus says.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?
SPEAKER_00: The other nine, presumably, were Jewish.
SPEAKER_00: The other nine had the scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: The other nine at some point were trained in the things of God.
SPEAKER_00: And they were representative, I believe, of many of the Jews, most of the Jews of Jesus' day.
SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus is shocked here.
SPEAKER_00: Oftentimes in the gospel, it was the Gentiles that turned to Jesus and showed genuine faith in contrast to the Jews who ought to have.
SPEAKER_00: I think of Matthew chapter 15, verses 21 through 28.
SPEAKER_00: There was a Canaanite woman that's crying out for healing for her daughter who is demon-possessed, and Jesus commends her for her faith, even though she was a Canaanite.
SPEAKER_00: She was not Jewish.
SPEAKER_00: Or the Roman centurion, we saw in Luke chapter 7, verses 1 through 10.
SPEAKER_00: He comes to Jesus for the healing of his sick servant, and he understands the authority that Jesus has and he demonstrates great faith.
SPEAKER_00: We saw in Luke 13 that Jesus said that many of the Jews would find themselves outside of the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said this, in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
SPEAKER_00: When you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, all of the patriarchs of the Old Testament, he says, and you yourselves cast out.
SPEAKER_00: And then he said, And people will come from east and west and north and south and recline at table in the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: And this was already beginning to happen.
SPEAKER_00: Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?
SPEAKER_00: What Jesus was asking at this point were, where are God's chosen people?
SPEAKER_00: And here's the heart of the problem that Jesus is addressing here.
SPEAKER_00: All ten wanted healing, but only one wanted the healer.
SPEAKER_00: They got temporary deliverance.
SPEAKER_00: The other nine, they got, they received temporary deliverance.
SPEAKER_00: This man received eternal life.
SPEAKER_00: Notice what Jesus says here at the end of this.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 19, and he says to him, Rise and go your way, your faith has made you well.
SPEAKER_00: Literally, what it says there is, Rise, go your way, your faith has saved you.
SPEAKER_00: This man had received salvation.
SPEAKER_00: What lessons can we learn from this?
SPEAKER_00: Even if we're believers, I presume that most of us here have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: We can still miss the mark.
SPEAKER_00: One author writes this.
SPEAKER_00: He says, if you're a Christian mainly because you want to be changed, that's a problem.
SPEAKER_00: If you're giving your life to God mostly because you're tired of yourself and want to be a different person, well, that may suggest you're merely using God to fix you.
SPEAKER_00: That's not faith, that's not love of God, that's love of self.
SPEAKER_00: All of them were desperate.
SPEAKER_00: All of them wanted healing.
SPEAKER_00: All of them pled for mercy.
SPEAKER_00: But only one wanted a savior.
SPEAKER_00: Our goal isn't healing.
SPEAKER_00: Our goal isn't deliverance from our problems and our struggles.
SPEAKER_00: Our goal isn't even victory over temptation.
SPEAKER_00: Those are all good things.
SPEAKER_00: Don't misunderstand me.
SPEAKER_00: Don't mishear what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_00: Those are all good things, but that is not our goal.
SPEAKER_00: They're really good things, but they're not our goal.
SPEAKER_00: Our goal is God.
SPEAKER_00: Our goal is Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's so easy for us to look at our lives and look at our problems and look at our struggles and look at our temptations and think, if only I was delivered from this.
SPEAKER_00: And we make that the goal of our lives.
SPEAKER_00: But the goal of our lives isn't us, it's Him.
SPEAKER_00: The goal of our lives isn't what God can do for us.
SPEAKER_00: The goal of our lives is God.
SPEAKER_00: In his book Redemption, Mike Wilkerson says this you see, we don't just get peace from God.
SPEAKER_00: God is our peace.
SPEAKER_00: He gives us himself.
SPEAKER_00: We don't just get joy from God, he is our joy.
SPEAKER_00: He gives us himself.
SPEAKER_00: He is our hope.
SPEAKER_00: He is our love and he gives us himself.
SPEAKER_00: Where do we find our freedom?
SPEAKER_00: Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
SPEAKER_00: It is in the presence of God, beholding his glory in the face of Jesus Christ, that is where we are changed.
SPEAKER_00: When we recognize our goal is not us and our goal is not our transformation, our goal is a relationship with Him.
SPEAKER_00: But when we pursue Him, He begins to change and transform us.
SPEAKER_00: What is our greatest need?
SPEAKER_00: Our greatest need is not deliverance from our problems.
SPEAKER_00: Our greatest need is Jesus, and that is who God gives to us and calls us to pursue Him.
SPEAKER_00: Let me close with words of an old hymn written in the late 1800s.
SPEAKER_00: I'll just read a couple of the stanzas.
SPEAKER_00: It's by a man, a missionary statesman A.
SPEAKER_00: B.
SPEAKER_00: Simpson, and the the title of it is Himself.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you've heard this before, but he writes this in poetic lyric.
SPEAKER_00: Once it was the blessing, now it is the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Once it was the feeling, now it is his word.
SPEAKER_00: Once his gifts I wanted, now the giver own.
SPEAKER_00: Once I sought for healing, now himself alone.
SPEAKER_00: Once was painful trying, now 'tis perfect trust.
SPEAKER_00: Once a half salvation, now the uttermost.
SPEAKER_00: Once was ceaseless holding, now he holds me fast.
SPEAKER_00: Once was constant drifting, now my anchor cast.
SPEAKER_00: Once I sought for healing, now himself alone.
SPEAKER_00: Our greatest need is not deliverance.
SPEAKER_00: Our greatest need is Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And that is who God gave to us.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to join me as I lead us in prayer and we sing our final song.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're here this morning and you have never placed your faith in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: You've never asked Christ to forgive you, to come into your life, to live with you, to understand that Jesus Christ died on the cross to pay the penalty for sin and that all who cry out to him, he gives forgiveness and new life and a relationship with him.
SPEAKER_00: And so this morning, if you have never done that, I encourage you as we close in prayer to say, Jesus, have mercy on me.
SPEAKER_00: I want to know you and have a relationship with you.
SPEAKER_00: And I believe that you died on the cross to pay the penalty for my sins.
SPEAKER_00: Join me as I lead us in prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Father God, each one of us needs Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: More than deliverance from our problems and our struggles, our trials and our temptations.
SPEAKER_00: We need Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He is our peace.
SPEAKER_00: He is our hope.
SPEAKER_00: He is our joy.
SPEAKER_00: He is our satisfaction.
SPEAKER_00: And so, Father, I pray for each one of us that we will recognize that it is not the gift that we ought to desire, but the giver.
SPEAKER_00: And may we seek Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: I pray for each one and for those who this morning are placing their faith and trust in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Holy Spirit, do your work that only you can do.
SPEAKER_00: We pray in Christ's name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.