The Compassion of Power

To watch the sermon The Compassion of Power | Jesus Heals and Fulfills Isaiah’s Prophecy

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All right, let's dive right in. So we are on week number three of the Kingdom in Action series. Last week we looked at Jesus interaction with the Roman centurion. And the week before we looked at the testimony, or at least the obligation to testify of the priesthood when Jesus cleansed the leper. All of this comes on the heels of a 15 week series from Brent on what was the Torah of the Kingdom, commonly known as the Sermon on the Mount.

And then what are we supposed to do with the teaching? Because what good is it to learn something if we're not going to do anything with it? What good is it to go to school for all these years if you're not going to do something with it? What good is it to apprentice under somebody if you're not gonna learn the skill? Some of us have college degrees, some of us have trade skills, some of us just have street smarts.

But either way we learn stuff. You can tell which one Isaac has.

You could tell when somebody goes and they study under something, whether it's at a university. Brent has been honest about the fact that he's been going through this lengthy process of getting his master's, writing the thesis paper, all that kind of stuff. He is a better man than me. I hope he gets to accomplish it because in the end, I know how much work he has put into that and I know that his dad would be proud of all of the work he's not only done, but the work that he's putting in. So let's think of that.

Okay? We're talking about Brent and his thesis. We're talking about somebody in their baseball career or whatever. But think about how much work you would put into your life to learn something, to not do it.

Doesn't that seem somewhat wasteful? You know, I'm going to spend 20 years of my life, 15 years of my life, 30 years of my life, whatever it is, honing a skill or a craft to do nothing with it.

Doesn't seem like that's a really good use of your time, does it? Like I'm going to become the world's greatest Star wars expert, only to never watch a Star wars movie again, or to speak of a Star wars thing or go to the comm things. What is it? Rom com and all those Comic Con? I don't know.

I don't do any of that stuff. So I don't know. I'm just trying to be somewhat relatable to people who aren't like me. So I appreciate you showing grace and mercy and compassion to Me as I step outside of my comfort zone. Why is this important?

Because the last two weeks we've seen Jesus did things that were outside of the religious leadership's comfort zone, outside of the cultural comfort. He used someone who was unclean to testify to somebody who was clean. He used a Gentile to testify to the Jews. Jesus has a way of kind of flipping the culture that we see upside down to cause us to not think too highly of ourself. I think it was Isaac I was talking to, maybe it was Isaac and Matthew or some of the deacons.

And I was saying as I was listening to Brent go through the series for 15 weeks. And then as I was studying for the series that we'll continue to do Matthew 8 through 10, I started to see a common theme that was in every single one of the passages. And I started to really struggle to put together sermons because Jesus is combating narcissism in every single one of those situations. He's combating the over emphasis of self in every one of those passages. Now everybody has it in a little bit different way.

Brent called them the wildfire narcissist. You know, the ones that are out lighting fires as quickly as you possibly can. And then you have the ones who are very intentional about their narcissism. But we all wrestle with some element of over self worth. And this is no different than what we saw in the first century.

The religious leadership, both the Pharisees and the Sadducees, thought that they had the correct interpretation, which led to them wanting to place a burden upon other people that was heavier than the burden of the actual Messiah, who was the lawgiver. Can you think about that for a second as we look around the room? Some of you know each other, some of you don't. But if each one of us were to try to place our religious burdens or judgment or condemnation onto somebody else, you're going to have a lot of people that you're going to make unhappy because there's a lot of people in the room if you say, okay, well, let's just narrow it down to pastors. Well, I've been honest.

Brent and I don't share the same thoughts on everything. You know, as a church we have female elders. He doesn't personally share that same theological outline. And so Tanya is not an elder of the church. She is a wife to the elder of the church.

And yet somehow we get along and somehow I can learn from him, and somehow one day he'll learn something from me. I don't know what it is. But hopefully one can hope eventually. I see you, I see you there with the bright blue shirt looking all Santa, like, one of these days we can learn something from other people and we can grow and we can work together. This is what Jesus is doing.

He's saying, I think it's great that you love me, but this is not how I've asked you to love me, and this is not how I've asked you to walk. And he flips the script by using a gentile to minister to the Jews and someone who was unclean to minister to somebody who was clean. We talked about the importance of our testimony. We talk a lot, myself included. Guilty.

But what is the power of your testimony? Is it I had a horrible week? Is it everything was bad? Is it this, this, this? Or is it I'm alive, Jesus did this for me.

I didn't get killed in a car wreck on the way to Saturday church. A lot of things. We like every nuance of negativity, but we very often gloss over the nuances of positivity and the blessings in our life. And then ultimately we're faced with the same choice that every human has ever been faced with throughout the dawn of creation. Who is the authority by which you walk in?

Last week we talked about the kingdom's authority and who the king was and what the king's authority did and what that should mean for us. And even in this church as we have elders and we have deacons and some of you are new and you'll be a part of the newcomers lunch afterwards and we'll talk about that entire structure, we're under an authority too because there's really only one king. There's only one throne. Shocker. It's not mine, it's not Brent's, it's not the Stallsworths, it's not the Di Fatas, it's not the Zinkers, it's Jesus.

It's his throne, it's his majesty and his authority. And this church will always be a church that thrives when we submit to the authority of the King. The moment we try to take the authority of the king, it's just like if we did it in our own life, this church will struggle, will fall apart, will no longer have the blessing. As long as we understand and have the testimony that Jesus is on the throne of our lives and of this church, he is the King of kings and the Lord of lords, and we submit ourselves to that authority, then there is not a single spiritual battle that we cannot win. You know, why?

Because I don't have to fight it.

You know that Old Testament where he says stand still and see the salvation of the Lord? That whole Passover motif? Oh wait, Matthew does the same thing. Gene, by the way, it's really good to see your smiling face today. I pray for you daily.

It's really good to see your face today, brother. There's a time and a place for us to focus in on just a motivational feel good message. And then there's a time and a place where we have to understand that what we say from the pulpit and what we hear at church must actually do something. It must actually do something in our daily life because nothing that happens in here can sustain you for the rest of the week.

I'm never going to preach good enough. Brent's never going to preach good enough to sustain you in the kingdom's authority and the kingdom's testimony throughout the week. Why? Because the kingdom is a daily bread. Remember that kingdom prayer that Brent talked about?

Give us the this day our daily bread. Every day we need the sustenance, every day we need the filling of the Lord. And so every day we must understand that there's a power source that we are to tap into. There's some electricians in this room. You can do all the most beautiful wiring in the world, but if you don't tap into a power source, the wiring is nothing.

You're not even going to get a like on TikTok for that. You'll be like, that's nothing. You need a power source. And that power source is Jesus. That power source is not just so that you can survive.

Survival was never the goal of the kingdom. And we do see that a lot. In the first century. They were just trying to survive and keep themselves together. That wasn't the goal.

Jesus, Kingdom is not just for you to survive. This is definitely not for you to escape. And it's only through the endurance that we can have eternal life now, which is life abundant. However good you think your life was without Christ, with Christ your life becomes more abundant because it's a power source that not a single human being can offer you that only Jesus Christ and his spirit can do. So today we're going to come to one of my favorite parts in the kingdom of action.

It's Matthew, chapter 8, verses 14 and 15.

When Jesus came into Peter's home, he saw his mother in law lying sick in bed with a fever. And he touched her hand and the fever left her. She got up and she waited on him. In the first teaching of Matthew, chapter 8. I gave a brief overview of Matthew's writing style.

It's important to understand that if you pick up a technical manual and you read it as if it is poetic love letters to your wife, you are in serious trouble. Men put the screw into the hole. Twisted three times with this Allen wrench number B. Yeah, that's not poetic. It's not a love letter.

So we can't approach the writings in the scripture as if they were all written by the same person with the same literary style. It's important to understand this. Matthew's is narrative. Matthew is not going to give you every single nuance. Knowing where our origin story is, we thrive on nuance.

That letter has to have 75 meanings. And there's more because we don't even understand it. We're going to dissect that Hebrew and we're going to make hesh. And when we make heblish, we're going to make Aramaic, and then Aramaic is going to tie to heblish again and we have some sort of tongues that only we can interpret.

That's not what Matthew is doing. Matthew is taking a high point and a high point and he's putting them together to solve a point, to tell a story about something that is important. That's the narrative style of writing. He's not going to get super technical about every nuance. He's going to focus on the larger portions so that we can highlight the main points that are there.

It's also important to note that the stories have the same type of interactions. Also in the Gospel of Luke and Mark, we just see added details because of their writing style. Again, that's not uncommon. If I were to be in a room with Brent and we were to see the same thing and we were to write about it later, I would most likely assure you I would write about it differently than Brent because we see things different. Where there's things that are different points, then when you add more people.

Remember there was 12 that followed with Yeshua all the time. We talk about them a lot, but there was always more that traveled. There was a whole group of women, whole group of women. In fact, most of the women were the ones who, for the most part, funded the ministry of Yeshua. They traveled as well.

And then there was crowds that came in the Sermon on the Mount. There's thousands of people, at least, that heard and saw what was happening at that time. And even the testimony we have of the leper and of the Roman centurion, these were things that involved a Lot of people. So there was a lot of perspectives on what they saw and what was important.

Both in Luke and Mark's recount, Jesus was in the synagogue when he found out about Peter's mother in law. He was at Saturday church and he left the synagogue to go to the sickbed. Yeshua was ministering from the synagogue to the sickbed on the Sabbath. Try to say that five times fast.

Mark and Luke both point that out. Matthew does not. It's a further testimony to what we've talked about the last couple of weeks. And Brent introduced it during the Sermon on the Mount. That is what are all commandments rooted in the preservation of life.

If you believe in God, you're believing in a life source that you cannot provide for yourself. If you're loving other people and you're believing in them and you're helping them, you're helping them have life and preserve life. The pekuach Nephesh, the preservation of life. Some will say, well, you can't work on the Sabbath.

And yet if a doctor didn't work, someone might die. If a firefighter didn't work, then we might have wildfires. If a police officer didn't work, then we might have robberies or murders or other things. Everything is funneled into the pekuach nefesh, which is the preservation of life. It trumps all commandments.

And Yeshua understood this and so did the culture that was there. So while it's important to honor the Sabbath, you all are, you're here. We must also understand that the gathering together does not trump the preservation of life. And when we sometimes take and we say, well, I have a theological difference, I think differently of this. I don't think Pastor Chris should be allowed to wear floral shirts on the stage ever.

Like, well, that doesn't trump coming together and forsaking meeting together. As the book of Hebrews says, we can find something and we can try to put a weight, some measures. It's what we do. It's what humanity does. We have our own scale of this sin is worse than that sin.

And we take the word of God and we somehow put our culture into it, rather than letting our culture being transformed by the word of God.

So what would Jesus do? He would honor the Sabbath. Countless times Jesus honored the Sabbath. He would honor the Sabbath by going to church. I know that's not necessarily common in the place where we've come say, hey, well, we don't need the church.

The church is. Church is evil. The church is bad. Okay, how's that working? Out for you live in a van down by the river.

And everything is.

It's true. It's not trying to be rude. It's just the truth of the testimony. And then Jesus would put the needs of others above himself to preserve life. This is one we don't talk about a lot because we talk a lot about the Commandments.

We're a commandment loving, feast keeping, Sabbath gathering, Israelite, Lord, mess of people.

And we talk about that a lot. But the preservation of life was the most important thing to Yeshua. The reason why Yeshua came to this world wasn't because he wanted to show you how to keep the Torah perfectly. It's because he wanted to fulfill it so you could have life through him. The perfect culmination of the Torah and the prophets.

We talked about that last week. So why is the healing of Peter's mother in law important to me? Why do I like it so much? I was talking about that with the worship team earlier today. Why do I like it so much?

Because it is one of the least flashy things Yeshua does from a healing standpoint. Last week we talked about having the first recorded testimony of Jesus being able to heal from afar, where he didn't actually touch with the leper, he actually touched. Everybody talks about the leper and they talk about, well, was Jesus clean, unclean? What was this? What was that?

That's a conversation a lot of people have. Most people gloss over a fever. Unless you're a new mom. Most people gloss over a fever. The dad thought, spit some dirt on it, he'll be fine.

The mom's like, give him some Tylenol, give him some Advil, give him some Benadryl. They'll be fine. They'll sleep it off. Put a cold rag on it. People are texting Alicia.

People are texting Becky. Like, are they gonna die? They're like, no, take a little 5 ounces. We're good. Sleep it off.

That's not what you did with a fever in that time. Fevers could be far worse. They could be far more serious. And so when we read about a fever in the 21st century, we forget about the fact that the 21st century has advances that the 1st century did not. This is important for us because a fever is not something we would consider serious, but it is definitely something that in that time frame, they would consider serious.

Now, they wouldn't consider it the same as some major disease or leprosy or any of that type of stuff. But it's still important to understand that when you read The Bible. You have to read the Bible in the cultural context of when it was written. You can't just immediately turn that into 21st century Oklahoma City. It's important for us to understand that.

I also want to point out the intimacy of this healing. Most of the time, when you look at the previous healings, that God had come down off the mountaintop and there was a grouping of people, whether there was a large crowd or there was a smaller crowd, there was a grouping of individuals that would be present to see this. Yeshua leaves the synagogue where, culturally speaking, would have been the largest gathering. Now, I've never been to Israel, but I've been blessed that Brent has. And Brent can testify that in Israel, large portions of cities just completely shut down on the Sabbath.

Completely shut down. So if you think about that, we can look outside our door right now and we can see cars driving by all the time. Super busy. People are going about their life, they're doing their own thing. That's okay.

I'm not their judge. In Israel, that would be like a ghost town for the most part. And everybody would be in a synagogue for the most part, that would be in a community synagogue. And they would be coming together and they'd be reading the writings and they'd be doing the prayers and they'd be doing all these things. So Yeshua is leaving the crowded place to go to the intimacy of a home where a mother in law is there with an illness the Sabbath day.

Why is this important to me? Because Jesus cared about the intimate moments as much as he cared about the large grandiose moments.

I didn't fully grasp this in all of my years of international ministry. For those of you who don't know my testimony in a small NutShell, for about 20 years I operated or founded some of the largest international messianic ministries. Hebraic roots, Hebrew roots, Torah, observant, Torah, pursuant, Hebrew, passionate, whatever. We come up with new names for it all the time. I ran or established all of those.

I didn't fully understand the intimacy of this type of moment until I became a pastor. When you're running ministries, you operate in more of an apostolic type of role. And so there's a lot more of do's, don'ts, moves, that type of stuff. Pastoral ministry. I see you guys on Saturday from the pulpit when the lights are on.

But the majority of the work that happens for my wife and myself as pastors is not here.

Definitely not here. And while I don't want to diminish the amount of time and study that it takes to put something like this together. This is a small potato in comparison to the amount of work that happens on a regular basis. And while I don't want to say that this isn't important because preaching the word of God has been happening on the Sabbath day for a long, long time, this is important. Some of the greatest work with the greatest rewards has nothing to do with this room, this stage, this haze, this shirt, this microphone.

It has to do with being out in doing life with other people, whether that's in their homes, it's at coffee shops, it's in meetings, it's in counseling, it's in pr, praying for people, it's in rejoicing for people, whatever that might be. And Yeshua sets right here. That is a precedent. If you. If you think of the offices of the Holy Spirit, and Paul calls the Holy Spirit the Spirit of Jesus, then I think it's safe to assume that the perfection of God in the flesh.

Yeshua Ha Mashiach Jesus the Christ, he operated in all offices because if they're the office of the Holy Spirit and they're given as gifts of righteousness, well, gifts of righteousness of what? They're the manifestations of the king, and the king is God. And so Jesus also offers us a way to not only understand how to be apostolic, how to be evangelistic, how to be pastoral, they're not all the same. I can tell you this. I can run around this stage.

I get super passionate about Jesus, and I can run around this stage, but that's about as evangelistic as I get. You're like, oh, that dude's got some big tent revival in him. Brent's going up to IHOP and he's like, oh, Chris has got like 5% IHOP every once in a while. I think it's just because he drank too much coffee this morning. He might be right.

But what happens when I step out there? Do I have the same evangelistic passion to talk to people? Not always. I struggle with that. It's not the same.

It's not identical. Jesus, mission and authorities weren't just for the crowds. They weren't just for the people who watch on YouTube or TikTok or Facebook or Meta or whatever new name they have.

Jesus cared about the intimate moments as well. And we talked about this a little bit in December when we talked about how Jesus led in the mission series. We talk about Jesus in the crowds. But remember, Jesus would go away and be in silence and solitude with his Father. And rather than leading from a place of obligation.

He led from a place of prayer and calling.

When we wake up in the morning, whether it's tomorrow or Monday, and our phones go off and we feel obligated to hop out of bed and run to work very quickly, Jesus didn't lead that way and he didn't live that way. His ministry was also for the quiet times and for the small times. We see that when Jesus goes to her and he touches her, he immediately the fever left. Brent had spent weeks talking about righteousness. What is biblical righteousness?

Because we like to say we're righteous. How's her giving? Oh, pastor came with the tithe message. It's more than money. Are you giving of your time?

Are you giving of your spiritual gifts? Are you giving of your compassion? Are you giving of the fruit of the spirit? It's more than just writing a check.

The righteousness of God involves some form of giving and the power of the kingdom involved going. So to be on mission with the king and the kingdom and the kingdom in action should involve some sort of giving and some sort of going.

The power of the kingdom manifests through doing something.

This is why I personally struggle in counseling sessions and struggle with people who are very idle and lazy. Because the kingdom of God is active, it's moving, it's constantly going. And so when we say, well, we're followers of Jesus, we love Jesus. Sing beautiful song. We crown you king of glory.

We crown you king of Glory. And then we go home and we sit on the couch for five days a week and we do nothing. Man, I'm talking to you too.

Well, I'm not going to mow the lawn. Tired and your wife has to go mow the lawn or I'm not going to clean up whatever it is. The kingdom wasn't lazy. The king definitely wasn't lazy. He was methodical in everything to be on mission.

And so we can't live a lifestyle that doesn't reflect the King and that starts in our physical, because everything in the physical and the spiritual have some sort of connection. The kingdom of God is active. And Jesus confirms this with the very next verse, Matthew 8, 16, 17. When evening came, they brought to him many who were demon possessed. And he cast out the spirits with the Word.

And he healed all who were ill. This is to fulfill what was spoken of through Isaiah the prophet. He himself took our infirmities and carried away our diseases. Here we see the climax of this section. Jesus didn't just go heal Peter's mother in law on the Sabbath day and then call it Quits.

Jesus continued during the Sabbath and through the Sabbath day into the first day of the week, manifesting the kingdom and the power of the kingdom through his service of righteousness by giving freedom to those who were not free, by taking away the infirmities of this world the only way he could. Now, Jewish tradition taught that all sickness is caused directly or indirectly from sin. Anybody heard that one before? I mean, it comes from Judaism, but, you know, I've been around conservative Christianity for about 20 years, and I've heard a lot of people who's like, pharmakeia is the devil, and if you're sick, it comes from some sort of root of sin or whatever. Read the Book of Job.

This conversation has been had over and over again. Let's not dig up that grave and keep burying it. That's inerrant theology. Not everything that is sickness comes from some sort of sin. Not everything does.

Maybe it's you just made a bad decision. Like, it's cold outside, your hair was wet, you walked outside, you got the sniffles. Thanks, Mom.

Or you're allergic to trees and you went and took a nap under a grove of trees. Or you have some sort of gluten intolerance and you gorged yourself at Panera.

That wasn't a sin. That was stupidity.

It's gotta stay balanced in everything that we do. Attempt to be balanced. Not every illness has a direct spiritual root. Sometimes there is, and most of the times there is a physical factor involved. This is why you cannot smoke 10 packs of cigarettes a day and then go to the Lord.

And like, by the blood of Jesus, I claim no, lung cancer doesn't work that way. God is not your personal genie.

You are invited by God to walk and bring his kingdom on earth. You're invited to accept the invitation to walk with him, which means there's something you must do in your walk to help reflect his character and his nature.

Confession, repentance, and adjustments in your thoughts and your actions are foundational for the Christian faith. But I've seen that concept of medicine and modern medicine and doctors, and I've seen it grossly, grossly abused. And I've seen people who've gotten very, very sick because they said, oh, well, we've just got to pray it away.

Need I remind you of my personal testimony? I thought we could not have children because of the things I did in my young adult life.

I thought God was judging me. I thought God was so upset with everything I had done, even though I had confessed them, even though I had repented of them, even though I had changed my behavior, that we spent almost four years doing baptisms and mikvahs and mikvahs and mikvahs and mikvahs and mikvahs. That's when everything was a mikveh. You got a mikveh for everything. Somebody looked at you wrong.

You got a mikveh like, it's probably the cleanest I had ever been in those two years. You got a mikvah because you didn't mikveh the right way, following the Jewish principles. At that point, I didn't understand and I was doing the best I could. But God didn't bless me with a child because I did 7,000 mikvahs in 4,000 days.

I honestly believe, looking back at the timeline, that God blessed us with children when I finally released it to him, and stop thinking that I actually had anything to do with it.

Because you see, the Bible says that when you confess and you repent and you ask the Lord for forgiveness, that it's like the fever. It's as far as the east is to the west. It's gone. So when that chirping voice is in your ear goes, it ain't gone. God didn't forget.

He's like your dad. Remember, your dad said that he loved you, but he didn't do that. That is not the voice of the Holy Spirit. That's not the voice of Yeshua. That's the voice of the devil.

You need to rebuke it and get it behind you when you repent of your sins. He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. That would be like, why do we struggle with that? But when we see about the fever, like, well, he cast out the fever and she was healed immediately. But then it came back the next day.

She wasn't really healed. He just temporarily. We don't use that weights and measures in other areas of Scripture.

Remember, Jesus was here to fulfill the law and the prophets. Well, we must be Torah observant. We must be Torah pursuant. We must do this because he was here not to nullify. And then we forget about the prophets, the law and the prophets.

He was here to fulfill both. Thus it says in Matthew, by doing this, he was fulfilling what Isaiah the prophet had said. What did Isaiah the prophet say? Isaiah 53 and what is commonly known as the suffering servant prophecies of the coming Mashiach. They should have known he wasn't going to come.

The line of the Tribe of Judah right out of the gate. They should have known. Isaiah foretold it. Isaiah is one of the greatest Hebrew prophets. They should have known he was going to be a suffering servant.

And when Yeshua came on the scene, they should have known it and they should have seen it, but they didn't. And this should be a wake up call to each and every one of us. Doesn't matter how much you know the Torah, if you don't know the king or the Lawgiver, you're in trouble.

Because sooner or later, you will take the Torah, you will take the prophets, you will make yourself the king, and you will make them say whatever you want. You will be in a cult and you will be the cult leader. There's only one king. There will only ever be one king. His name is Jesus Christ.

Yeshua hamashiach it ain't you and it ain't me. I'll say that till I'm blue in my face. Because in the end, it's the humility of him that we understand that we have power and giftings to do anything. It's not so that we can boast.

Isaiah 53 says, Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we esteem him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, and he was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace. And with his wounds we are healed.

How could his chastisement bring us peace?

I actually heard something this week in a conversation with somebody reached out to the church and I went and I looked it up and did some more research. And I love this concept. I had both concepts, but I had not connected both concepts yet. We love the word shalom, right? Peace.

Shabbat Shalom. One of the most popular songs out there for Jewish loving people of Shabbat Shalom. They're like, Shabbat Shalom. Shabbat Shalom sounds super awesome until you sing it in English. Sabbath peace, Sabbath peace Sabbath a Sabbath a Sabbath peace hey, but Shabbat Shalom sounds awesome.

It's like Shabbat Shalom. Shabbat Shalom just rolls off your tongue. Shabbat Shabbat, Shabbat Shabbat Shalom. Hey.

Peace.

What is true shalom in your home?

Order. No chaos.

What is the first thing God did to creation? Hovered over the waters where there was a void and there was chaos. And he started to speak and enact order. When he flooded the world, what did he do? Reestablish order.

This is why in all of the sermons we've done, the Holy Spirit, the interaction, all of those types of things. You can tell what Spirit is manifesting in your midst, in your home, in your marriage, in your relationships, at work, with your children, whatever. You can tell what Spirit, if it is providing order and lacking in chaos, it's removing chaos from your life. It is the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit works through order and establishes order in the void of the chaos of this life. The Holy Spirit does not have to bring chaos.

We're really, really, really good at doing that ourselves.

The adversary does not like the order of the king or the kingdom at hand. And so the adversary wants chaos. So if the Spirit is bringing chaos, then you can tell that's not the Holy Spirit. Probably want to get out some oil. The power of Christ compels you on that thing.

Rebuke it, send it out. Don't want to play games there. Why establish order? That's what the Holy Spirit does. I love the fact that the Lord establishes order.

So through. Through. Tie all that together for you. Through the death of Yeshua, the chastisement for our sins. He was the only one who could bring order for all creation.

The book of Hebrews, we did that a couple years ago in December, says that from the. From the dawn of time, the Lamb was slain. We argue over, like, how does Noah fit into Moses with Abraham and then the 12 tribes and all this before them. I am during them, I am after them. I am all of them.

I am through the death of Yeshua, he has allowed us to be brought into order and peace with him. Lacking in chaos, he's the only one who can wipe out the chaos of this world. I don't know about you, but some weeks, everything is chaos. Even Chick Fil A messes up my order.

And I need the Lord to step in and provide order because I just can't. Everything I try to do to provide order just brings chaos. This is a small reminder to me of what it will be like in the kingdom, where I will no longer have to strive to bring the order to the life around me. Because at that point in time, Jesus will have conquered all, all will be cast away, and there will be nothing but order.

And all I get to do, all I have to do, all I'm invited to do is to do a little dance and sing consistently about how awesome God is. I can sign up for that? Yes, please. Can I buy more raffle tickets? I'm all in that one.

You can Take the jobs, you can take the mortgages, you can take the health, you can take the chaotic schizophrenic weather that Oklahoma has this year. You can take it all. I'll just praise you.

The Torah and the prophets consistently testified and pointed to, I'm a shiach, an anointed one, or a sent one. So Jesus the Mashiach was the sent One, from whom? From God the Father. He was told to go and sent on a specific name under the mission and authority of the One who sent him, the Father. This means that Jesus's authority and the power that was given to him was for action, for mission, and for teaching.

There is literally nobody else in all of recorded history who comes with the same action, who comes with the same mission, who comes with the teaching. And guess what? They don't come with the same authority.

Everything, up until this moment of Scripture, whether it's Zachariah, Moses, Isaiah, Obadiah, there's a book people don't want to read, Jonah. Everybody testified from that dawn of creation up to this moment. They all testified of this sent one, this coming, one that would come. And yet most missed Him. And the ones who did see him or accepted him momentarily also would fall away at various different points in time.

Worship team, you can come back.

Jesus was fully God and fully human.

He was coming to fulfill the Torah and the prophets so that we can start to live life abundantly. Because before Jesus came, they had the Torah and they had the prophets, and they had their own interpretation, and their own interpretation caused them to be at odds. When the King came, he says in Isaiah as well, I hate your foolish feasts. I hate your fasting. I hate all these things that were commanded to do at specific time.

Not because he hated the Sabbath or because he hated the feast. He hated what we as human beings had done with them.

And so when Yeshua comes and Yeshua steps his feet on the ground and he starts to teach us, come and apprentice with me so that I can make you fishers of men.

He's teaching them how to walk in the manner and by the power that only he can give. And it's absolutely fundamental that we understand this concept before we transition in Matthew to the next portion.

The next section of Matthew, chapter eight, will deal with people who are struggling to fully grasp and understand what authority must look like if they're going to become the apprentice of Jesus. They were in a crisis of belief. They were raised one way. They had seen one way their entire life. And here they are in the early stages of Their life.

Remember, they were young. I'm most likely older than all of them were.

Here comes the Mashiach and says, follow me. Everything I knew, everything I was taught, everything I was raised with, I have to make the decision that maybe. Maybe my parents won't be with me anymore. Maybe they'll cast me aside. Maybe all those people that I ministered to or I fished with or I hung out with, they'll cast me aside.

They were forced with the decision. A fork in the road, per se. Keep doing what you had done.

Turn and put your eyes on the king and allow him to teach you how you should walk. December 3rd of 2022. I stood from this pulpit in the other facility that we were renting at that point in time. And I had testified that I had gone through that same fork in the road where I had spent 20 years of my life feeling like I was caught in the middle of two kingdoms.

I love the Torah. I love the feast. I love the festival. Obviously, I'm a Saturday church pastor. We're here on the Sabbath.

We meet on the Sabbath. But I felt like I was caught in the midst of two kingdoms with more than one king. And I stood on this pulpit and I repented for choosing the wrong one for many, many years and for trying to figure out how I could somehow be a better. I could be a better speaker. And that would somehow cause you to have more power in your walk or you would grow closer to God.

And I repented from all of those. Because what I realized when I was on my sabbatical that year is that it doesn't matter what I do. It matters what he does. It doesn't matter how I walk as long as I'm with him. I could walk the greatest of walk.

I could do all these things. I could be the coolest person under the sun. I could take all the classes to learn how to say all the cool things that you would like me. And the power of God cannot show up and manifest, and it's worthless.

There's no healing there.

There's no setting free there. What was I going to do? Whose kingdom, whose power, whose testimony, whose majesty was I going to walk in? And I made a shift, honestly, one I knew I needed to do for a long time. But I wrestled.

Let you in on a little secret. People think I move very fast and make decisions very fast. I sit on things for a really, really long time. Maybe not as long as Brant, but I do sit on things for a long time because I don't want to make a Bad decision. I don't want to say something from this pulpit that could cause you to go home and do something in your life that could cause chaos or confusion in your life.

I don't want to say anything or do anything in my walk or my life that would lead an example that could cause the death of marriages or death of children, of all those. And when I started to be honest with myself and put my ego and my narcissism aside, I realized that for thousands of years, I helped run youth camps that had no testimony of any real fruit with children. I needed to repent. I needed to change. I needed to do something different.

I didn't know exactly what to do. So here's what I did. I said, you know what? If it was good enough for Peter, it was good enough for me. I'm gonna take a step out of that boat.

I'll take another step out of that boat. I'm gonna keep my eyes on Jesus, and whatever happens, happens.

And I'll let you in on another little secret.

Because the last three years, I've seen the power of God manifest itself. I've seen things happen, seen life set free. I've seen my marriage grow in ways that I've never seen before. I've seen my kids thrive in ways that I'd never seen before. I've seen people who come back, who I damaged relationships with, who have a desire to come and meet with my wife and I and test, testify, and do these things.

I was in a place where I could have sat in guilt, shame, and condemnation. And I said, no, adversary, you're not going to win. Jesus heals. Jesus can heal me so I can move forward with him. And guess what?

There's nothing in your life that you have done. There's no fever you've had, there's no illness you've had. There's nothing that you've had that Jesus cannot remove, heal you from, and use you for your kingdom. Why? Because his breath is still in your lungs, which means you have an opportunity, opportunity left.

But today, as we respond and we sing Honey in the Rock, and we're reminded of just how sweet it is to trust in Jesus.

We take a shift next week. We take a shift. Matthew 8. We go from the healings and the signs and the wonders to then Jesus is like, now that you've seen a couple, here's the cost to follow me.

And that's one of the problems we have. Whether it's from our origin story where we come from, or it is a lot of other Denominations and Christians. A lot of people will profess with their lips that Jesus is the Christ. And that is important and that's great. But when it comes to actually changing your walk or changing something you do, I ain't got time, Lord.

I know, Lord, I know somebody in the church needs help, but I really wanted that Popeyes chicken sandwich. I know, Lord, I know. I passed somebody who's been wearing the same clothes on the court corner for the last month. Or I've seen somebody at church where it looks like, you know, their sandals are falling apart or there's holes in their shoes. But guess What?

I have 30 pairs of Nikes at home.

There's many, many ways and many, many examples. And I'm not here to beat you up, and I'm not here to give you guilt, shame or condemnation. But I'm here to tell you that next week it shifts. We're not talking about the laying on and the healing of the lepers. We're not talking about Jesus speaking in the the centurion's servant being healed.

We're not talking about Peter's mother in law being healed. Next week Jesus comes in and says, now that these things have happened, you want to follow me? Here's what it costs. You still want to follow me.

Everything in life that's worth having comes with the cost.

Every relationship that you value cost you something. It costs you time, it costs you energy. You invested in the people, you invested in your spouses. You invested in your home. You invested in your career.

Whatever it is you invested in, it wasn't just poof. God is not a genie you invested in by sowing and doing into kingdom things with the help and the power of God. Next week we'll cross into a new portion of Matthew where we will be forced with what the cost is to be an apprentice of Jesus. And we'll look at what does that mean for us 20 centuries later. If you will stand with me and let's respond.