Restoration In Progress

Okay, so this, like I said, is, I think, something that the Lord started speaking to me back in January of 2022, anybody ever get like a word of the year when, when you're starting your year is that, is that anybody? Okay? How many people feel like they had one and then, like, totally forgot about it? Okay, great. I always feel really uninspired. On January 1, when everybody has their word of the year, I feel like it's just that, like, Instagram post, like, tell the world like, I'm a good Christian for day one. And so we were on a vacation with my parents in a place called Death Valley. Death Valley is kind of like it sounds it's a desert, and it's known for being one of the hottest places on Earth, if not the hottest pretty, pretty regularly. It breaks the record for a hottest place in the world every year, and it's in a basin. It's actually below sea level, and I think that's part of why it's hot. But so we were on vacation in Death Valley, and you'd drive for like, seems like nine hours a day. And I was driving because I like to be in control. And as I was driving, it was New Year's Day, and I saw this sign on the side of the road. Oh, here we go. We saw this sign on the side of the road, and it was this restoration and progress. And I thought to myself, God, are you speaking to me? And I felt like he was. And here's what was going on in the context of this picture. Is this sign is set in the middle of what's supposed to be a salt flat. So all the ground there is supposed to be, like, perfectly flat. If you ever see, like the pictures of like the Utah salt flat, it's like that mirror of the sky and those kinds of things. But here you can see the ground is all tore up, and it's because somebody went off roading, and the National Park Service is like, Okay, this isn't what this is supposed to look like. So they put up the sign that says restoration and progress. And I think it's kind of to point out two things. And one is, it's not supposed to look like this. And two, don't do that, and here's why. So we were at the Park Center, and they had pictures of this kind of stuff, and it said that this kind of damage can take decades to restore in the desert because of how little rain it gets. Death Valley gets like 2.2 inches of rain every year. And like here in Nebraska, like we get like two inches sometimes in one day. For reference, like Nebraska is like 30 inches of rain a year. You probably wouldn't know that, unless you're a farmer or use Google. But I felt like the Lord started to speak to me, because another sign said this kind of damage could take as much as 100 years to repair. And so I thought to myself, like, Okay, this must be, you must be speaking to me about restoration. And like, Okay, this is long, like, grueling process, and, you know, I got this, I felt like picture, and I started thinking about other restoration projects. And, you know, if you're a broadcast location in the chapel or in the auditorium, you can look at this room that we're in an auditorium, and this used to be a basketball court, and it's different now, right? Like this is now a place that we come we meet for worship. The Chapel kind of, kind of looked like that, but there was this, like big muscle Jesus on the wall on the far side. And you'll find a picture. Somebody will post it sometime. You can see it. But we've restored the spaces. And this used to be a school, and then it was a gym, and then now it's a church. And so we've taken something old and we've made it into a new form for a new purpose. And then I thought about, well, there's stuff like the landlord special where, okay, the old tenant used and abused the space, and then you slap some paint on it and call it brand new, and charge the next guy a little bit more than the last guy. And then there's also, like, historical building restorations, right? So every City's got like, couple of buildings that, okay, this is looking like it was 100 years ago. We're gonna restore it and we're gonna perfect it to the way it was intended to. So you've got old form restored to look like it was intended to, for the purpose it was intended to. And I thought, Okay, that seems a little bit closer to what I feel like biblical restoration is supposed to look like. And when I started getting into it, I kind of found that there's like three ideas of what biblical restoration is, and the first is justification. And, you know, I'm a college director, so take notes. I'm watching those of you that are and those of you that aren't, take notes. Yes. So justification is, here's the easy way to look at it. When God sees us as righteous, it's a legal term. It's when God looks at us and he says, not guilty. This is something that happens through the righteousness of Jesus, the sacrifice he paid on the cross, and then in a moment, he says, not guilty. Now you are counted as righteous or in right standing. Easy way to think of it. In your head, justified, just as if I never sinned. The second word is sanctification, and this is the continual process of becoming more like the person of Jesus from the inside out, our motivations, change our desires, change our choices and our actions, and people notice it by the fruit in our lives. But sanctification is an internal process, and this is like a thing that you never finish the entire time that you know Jesus. It's something you get a little bit better day by day, but we'll never be as perfect as Jesus? And then there was this third one. And all through the gospel, we see moments of healing. And I got really hung up on this, because I'm like this critical thinker, and I was trying to look for a pattern. And the reality was I couldn't find a reason for why Jesus healed people. Over and over again, I'd look and I'd see, well, that person doesn't deserve it. And then I'd say, well, that person didn't even know Jesus, and He healed them. And so although there wasn't a pattern, I do feel like there's something that I noticed, and that's what I want to share with you guys today, because I do think that restoration is the story of the gospel, that God looked at us from heaven and said, My sons and daughters are disconnected from me, and the only way that they're ever going to have connection with me daily is if I send my son, have him step out of heaven, Live a life they couldn't live, offer Himself as a sacrifice so that people could be reconnected to me. And so we're going to look at a passage together. If you got your Bible, you can open up to mark three. That's what we're going to camp out. Like I said, I like word studies. I like deep diving. So we get here, I think this is going to be really fun together. So turn to your neighbor and say, Get ready to take some notes. Alright. Mark three, verse one, Jesus went into the synagogue again and he noticed a man with a deformed hand. Since it was the Sabbath, Jesus enemies watched him closely, because if he healed the man, they plan to accuse him of working on the Sabbath. Jesus said to the man with a deformed hand, come and stand in front of everyone. And then he turned to his critics, and he said, does the law permit good deeds on the Sabbath, or is it a day for doing evil? Is this a day to save a life or destroy it? But they wouldn't answer him. He looked around at them angrily, and he was deeply saddened by their hard hearts. And then he said to the man, hold out your hand. So the man held out his hand, and it was restored. And at once, the Pharisees went away to meet with the supporters of Herod to plot how to kill Jesus. So I like the book of Mark because it's really fast paced. We just went through six verses, and we had, Jesus walks into the synagogue, sees a dude, calls him out, calls him forward, and heals him. And like, That's quick. We're in chapter three of Mark and like, mark one is like, John says that Jesus is coming. Jesus is baptized. Jesus begins healing. He casts out spirits. And that's all just mark one. So book of Mark is really fast. I like that. It's almost like a cliff notes version of the Bible. But it's not because we believe the Bible is the inerrant Word of God, and it's inspired by God. Every word, I think is important when we look at Scripture. So I have three thoughts that when I look at this, I think, help us understand a picture of Jesus. Help us understand a picture of what restoration looks like. And the first is this, that our brokenness is seen. Verse one, it says, Jesus went into the synagogue and he noticed a man with a deformed hand. Maybe he shouldn't be a surprise, but when it's written, we take note of it. But Jesus is aware of our brokenness just as much. I think all of us have, at times, walked into the room and we've been dealing with maybe it's an offense in our heart. Maybe it's difficulty at work, maybe very practically, it is something physical. I got a bad knee, got a bad back, and it's so easy to forget that Jesus actually notices that there are things that bother us, but like, what is brokenness anyway? With this guy? We don't actually know what happened to his hand that made it this way. Sometimes I think Scripture, what's not written, is also just as important for us to take note of. Says the guy had a deformed hand, but you know what caused it? Was he born with it? Did he injure it in like a work accident? Did one of his friends do something, and now, now it's injured. So the reason that I think that scripture sometimes doesn't give us the whole story is because the point is for us to empathize and help, help us internalize and understand. Okay, I've experienced brokenness, and I've walked in to the house of God, and God noticed, Jesus noticed, I think that's the point of something like this. But even just the same, it says that Jesus enemies watched him closely, and if He healed the man's hand, they plan to accuse him of working on the Sabbath. And just as much as Jesus notices, I think we all notice the fact that it's the critics, the complainers, the people who are against us that notice we're afraid to post stuff on Instagram. We're afraid to let people into our lives, because what if, what if that person knows about it might disqualify me? They won't want to be my friend. I can't go to Citigroup with them. I can't talk to them about the difficulty in my life, whatever it is. And I think a lot of times, we gravitate more towards an understanding of what does somebody else think about my brokenness, struggling in my marriage, and if I talk to somebody about it, well, that's the only thing they're going to know about me. I'm going to be labeled as somebody who's struggling in my marriage. I have addictions, and if I talk to somebody about it, the only thing going to see me is as an addict. I'm and if we compare it with the fact that Jesus notices that should be the thing that we gather hope from. So Jesus sees our brokenness and he deeply understands it. Last week, Pastor Carrie shared from Isaiah 53 was verse three, and it said that he is a prophetic scripture in the Old Testament, talking about Jesus, He was despised and rejected, a man of sorrows. I love some of the other translations. It says that he was a son of suffering. Was acquainted with our deepest grief. And this word acquainted is what Pastor Carrie broke down. It was like he deeply, intimately understood our grief. And so why is this important is because Jesus doesn't see it from a point of shame for us, he doesn't see it as a point of frustration. Our brokenness isn't something that he's disappointed with. When Jesus looks at us, he says, I've experienced that. The picture I've always had of Jesus in something like this, is that he stands next to the Father and He says, what they're dealing with. I experience that deeply, the the pain that they're feeling. I experienced that you guys may have seen in Scripture multiple times, where it says that Jesus had compassion on them when it goes when he when it says he's going to heal them, or like the miracle with breaking the breaking the bread and the fish and feeding, feeding the 5000 says he had compassion on them. And if you look at the word compassion, I think a lot of us have had a misunderstanding of what this is. We think of compassion as like, oh, he empathized with them. He sympathized with them. He had feelings of sadness for them. But compassion, if you were to break it down, is really it's a Latin word and its two pieces is calm, which means with and Patty, which means suffer. And if you think about the fact that Jesus had compassion on people. That doesn't mean that he felt sad for them. It means he suffered with them, and he deeply understands our brokenness in such a way that he suffered with us so that we could receive out of it. So Jesus did more than notice. He intimately knows the the suffering that we experience, and he wants us to know that. I think that's what's noted in scripture here. The second point is that I think that reconnection is the motivation for restoration in the Gospel. If we go back to the Scripture, Jesus says to the man, come to stand in front of everyone, and then in verse four, it says he turned to the critics, and he says, does the law permit good deeds on the Sabbath? Speaking to the Pharisees, who their whole thing was the laws, the rules, the regulations, he says, or is it a day for doing evil? Is this a day to save a life or destroy it? But they wouldn't answer him. Well, why wouldn't they answer him? I understood that there was actually a reason for the Sabbath. I think it's revealed in Scripture, even just actually, if you just back up, like six verses, it's in Mark Two. You know, I like word studies, but one of the reasons that you look. At stuff in context is because a lot of times, especially in a book like Mark where it's fast paced, there's transition words. And at the beginning of verse one, it actually has a transition word, as if to say and or so, or like a semi colon. But if you back up to mark 223, through 28 it's talking about Jesus walking through the grain fields with his disciples, and the Pharisees see him, and they said, Well, don't, don't take the heads off the grain. Like, why are you doing that? That's working on the Sabbath. And then we get to verse 27 after Jesus rebukes him, and he says, The Sabbath was made for man, not man from the Sabbath. This is the thought that continues into now the story with the man with the deformed hand. So what does that mean? The Sabbath was made for man. Well, God's intention was the Sabbath was not that we would do something out of a checklist, an obligation, something that we have to do to meet with God. The purpose of the Sabbath was that we would rest and reconnect. So if you want to do a deep dive on Sabbath, we have a series called holy rhythm. You go look at that. But here's the point. Is, Jesus was saying, this was made for you, not something that you have to do, something you have to walk through, commit yourself too, just so you have the opportunity to come into my presence. No, it was made for you because I desire to be in your presence. So I think this motivation is pretty central to the idea of the gospel, that Sabbath was about reconnection. But looking back at that, Isaiah, 53 Scripture, we go from Jesus was a man of sorrows. He was acquainted with our deepest grief, and then it begins to list off all the suffering that Jesus encountered in his life. Said that it was our weakness that he carried. It was our sorrows that weighed him down. We thought his troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment for his own sins. But he was pierced for our rebellion. Jesus was crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be made whole. He was whipped so we could be healed. We go all the way down to verse 11. It says this about Jesus. It says when he sees all that's accomplished by his anguish, by his suffering, he'll be satisfied. Because of this experience, my righteous servant will make it possible for many to be counted as righteous, right, standing with God, for He will bear all their sins. And I got caught up in this word satisfied. Started looking at it and, oh, no, come back. And it's if you look in the Hebrew, I think this is cool thing that authors do. It's kind of like when a pastor will employ alliteration to make you remember something. So like all of my points will start with an R or something like that. But Hebrew writers, there were words that would look like each other so that you understood that they're connected. So a good example, Genesis. You're looking at the creation of man. It's like, okay, the word for man looks like the same. Looks very similar as the word for dirt, which also looks really similar as the word for blood. And there's a purpose that the author is trying to get you to look at. When I looked at this word, I can't write in Hebrews, so I'm just going to turn it into English, so you can see it with letters, but this is the word Saba, and this is, like, to be full, to be filled, fulfilled and satisfied. And this isn't like, satisfied, like, you know, I'm content. Like, this is okay, but this is satisfied, like you went back for seconds on Thanksgiving, and you have to, like, go to the next next button on your your buckle for your little extra space. Like you're not just satisfied, but you're so satisfied that you're overflowing with satisfaction. And this word looks really similar to another word, Saba, which is our word for Sabbath rest, Jesus is fulfilled in reconnection. Is what I think this speaks that Jesus is satisfied to be reconnected with us. He was broken. He was beaten so that we could be made whole and healed, but more so, so that we could have reconnection with Him. The word for rest and reconnection, I think, intentionally, looks like the word for fulfillment and satisfaction. So Jesus is satisfied by what his works, by him dying on the cross, by him experiencing all the pain and anguish that we've ever experienced. Not satisfied by you showing up to church and going through the motions, not satisfied by just opening your Bible and reading it, but by communing with him, by entering into relationship with Him, reconnection. So I think that reconnection is the motivator. So in the process of restoration, we see Jesus sees our brokenness. He wants to reconnect with us. And then I think the third point here. Uh, vulnerability sets the pace. Jesus is motivated by the desire for reconnection. He's pleased to see a healing work done in us. And then we see this guy with a deformed hand, like, what's the story of this guy? Well, vulnerability is exposing oneself in honesty and transparency. It's offering Jesus our full self, not just what we want to project. If you've ever felt like you've had to hide something out of shame, disappointment, anxiety, I imagine you felt a lot like this guy with a deformed hand. I would think he came in with his hands in his pockets because he didn't want anybody to notice. But Jesus did notice him. We don't know what his motivation was. Remember I said earlier that I think that sometimes scripture purposefully doesn't show us things. One of the things I noticed when I was searching in Scripture is that people consistently come to Jesus with a motivation, and especially around healing, a lot of times, it's they, well, okay, so let's look at a couple. We have the man on the mat, where it was all of his friends that had faith for him, and they carried him to the feet of Jesus so that he could be healed. We have the woman with the issue of blood, and it says that she thought to herself over and over, if I can just touch the hem of his robe, I'll be healed. We have a Roman centurion who says, if you say it, I trust it'll happen. Swarms of people, crowded Jesus, expecting healing. But this guy says that he just showed up in the synagogue.Vulnerability has, I think, a couple of steps that we see with this guy. One, he just showed up. He was there. We don't know his motivation. And if we we think about that transition where it actually implies that Jesus intruded on his Sunday experience. The guy showed up to synagogue, or for us, the parallel would be church, it's on the day of rest, and he was there, but he didn't come to find Jesus. Jesus was out in the field. The Pharisees were the ones that were with Jesus. This guy was in the synagogue. And then it says, Jesus walked in. He noticed him, and he called him to the front of the room, come and stand in front of everyone. This is the first words he spoke to this guy. You're an introvert, you're panicking. Does the law permit good deeds on the Sabbath, or is it a day for doing evil? Well, this guy I've never met, are you going to do good or evil to me? I have no idea. Is this a day to save a life or destroy it?Jesus looked around at them angrily and as deeply saddened by their hard hearts. Them, the critics, the complainers, the Pharisees. Then he said, Hold out your hand. The guy had no expectation for what Jesus was going to do, and he held out his hand, and he received healing. Did you walk in today with any kind of expectation. We come in trying to hide our brokenness, the pain that we're experiencing, the suffering in our heart. I think sometimes God wants us to be vulnerable and respond so that we can be made whole, so that we can be healed, and I'm going to give us an opportunity to respond in vulnerability. But I think it would be fair if I didn't share with you guys some of my story, because one of the things we teach our leaders is that leaders lead people the way if they want to be led. So they want people to follow. And so I'm going to share with you guys some of my story. I said that back in January 2022, I saw that picture, that restoration in progress. I felt like the Lord was beginning to speak to me. Well, I woke up one day in February and my back was in so much pain, I couldn't walk. I didn't do anything to injure myself. I didn't have, like, a sports injury. I didn't tweak my back picking up a box. I literally woke up. I couldn't walk. I had to crawl on the floor. I had to ask my wife to take our kids to daycare, and then she came back and tried to get me in the car to go to the doctor, and like, I'm in the car embracing myself against everything, because it hurts so bad. I never experienced pain this bad in my life. And we went to the doctor, and he said, Well, your spine is fine. So what's happening is all the muscles around your spine are contracting and it's pinching a nerve, it's making you experience pain. Then I went to a chiropractor, and he said, your spine is fine, and probably wasn't really fine, because I can't find out with a different chiropractor later. But what he said was, what happens sometimes is you carry so much stress trying to do things yourself, that your body will respond to a small thing as if it was a big thing. Many small traumatic events over your life will cause you to have this kind of response in your body. And so what he was telling me was, okay, stop trying to carry it all on your back. And so I entered into this season of going to chiropractor. I was having muscle relaxants when I was here in the office, I would like take breaks to lie on the floor, and I felt like an idiot. You know? I felt like this guy's a big weenie, like, Oh, my back hurts, and just laying on the floor, like, 15 minutes for that guy and so but, but I say that to say in a lot of ways, I felt like this guy with a deformed hand in that I would walk into a room, and I didn't want people to know how my back felt, so I'd muscle through it. What was I doing? I was trying to carry it myself again while I was in the process of healing, and I remember being just mad, frustrated and angry with God. And the reality was I was mad because I felt like I'm serving faithfully in your house. I'm doing the things that I thought you called me to do. I look in Scripture, I see all these stories of healing. When's it my turn? And then it doubled down. When one evening at a Easter service, not Easter service, but Easter rehearsal, our worship team was worshiping. I was playing bass. I was kneeling on the stage, weeping because we were praying for healing for a guy who was playing keys. He had pain in his back, and he'd suffered for many years with it, and he received healing that night, and he received relief. And it was a beautiful thing, but I became angry and upset and frustrated, and I remember sharing at our freedom group shortly after, with Pastor Brock. He was in my group with me, and he said, I think you know that God wants to heal you, but he wants you to learn something out of it first. And that night, as I prayed about it, and my freedom group prayed for me, the thing that I felt God speak to me was that he was more invested in his relationship with me than he was about a moment of healing. And I began to realize that restoration is a temporary fix to a temporary problem, but reconnection is an eternal fix to an eternal connection with God and the weirdest thing happened, I went to bed that night and I woke up the next morning, and I was relieved I no longer had pain in my back. Found out later my back was actually still jacked up. But I believe that God put his hand on it. I believe that He healed me internally through connection first, and that brought restoration, in a physical sense, to my body. I share all that to say that I think there's an opportunity for us this morning, that if you feel like you're disconnected from God, I think this is an opportunity to respond in vulnerability. God isn't offended by the fact that you're upset, that you're angry, that you're anxious or scared. He's not upset by the fact that maybe you're carrying pride about it and trying to do it yourself. If you guys stand with me, I want to share this with you, because there was one scripture that was stuck in my mind the entire time, and that was what Derek shared earlier Psalm 40 verses one through three. We didn't plan this. He just did it. Thought it was beautiful. I waited patiently for the Lord to help me. I did not know the expectation piece I expected for the Lord to help me. And he turned to me, and he heard my cry. He noticed me. He lifted me out of the pit of despair, out of the mud and the mire, and he set my feet on solid ground and steadied me as I walked along, I woke up every morning, and I said to myself, waiting patiently for the Lord to help me to turn and hear my cry. And there's this thing that I hate, which is when people use idioms wrong. My wife does it almost daily, and it's, I think it's just hilarious. But have you guys ever heard the phrase, pull yourself up by your bootstraps? The thing that just drives me crazy about this is, if you look at the history of it, we all think of it as, like, I'll pull yourself together, like, do the thing. Like, would you just figure your life out? And originally, that's not how the phrase was meant. Phrase was actually meant as a way to tell people, like, stop trying to do it yourself. You can't it. They were saying, like, literally, try and pick yourself up by your own boots. You can't do it? Death Valley, lowest place in North America. Me in February, I felt like I was in the lowest point of my life. You can't pick yourself up out of a pit of despair. Came to find the very. Next year in Death Valley, it received 2.3 inches of rain in one day, an annual supply of rain for a desert. And I bet you that those road tracks in the dirt healed instantly. Restoration and reconnection can happen in an instant. But what's our expectation? Do we expect with expectation? So our prayer teams are going to be coming forward here, and I want to challenge you that if you feel like the man with a deformed hand and you came into this room without expectation, what if you just tried a little expectation? Would you allow Jesus to intrude on your Sunday morning today, to meet you where you are? I'm not promising that God's going to heal your body, but I wouldn't doubt it. I do think that God wants to reconnect with us this morning, and I think sometimes the reconnection will set the pace for restoration for us.
You guys ready to move? I want to pray for us. And if you feel like this is for you, that this is a time to respond to vulnerability. I think this is a time to step out. And if you feel like you're worried about being on display for people. I would encourage you with this that we were with our college students at Brooklyn Tabernacle a couple weeks ago, if people were coming forward to receive prayer in front of a room of strangers that they never met before, I felt like the Lord just spoke to me that when you think about this man with a deformed hand, and he came forward, and he stood in front of everyone, and then Jesus said, Hold that. Said, hold out your hand. Do you think he was holding his hand out to the room? Or do you think he was holding his hand out to Jesus? I would bet he was holding his hand out to Jesus because he's the one who prompted him. I'm not telling you, to share your vulnerability with the room and in front of everybody. This is a moment for you to meet with Jesus face to face, father. Thank you for today, God, the opportunity we have to meet you in reconnection. God, I believe today that as we choose to step out in vulnerability, as we choose to step out and meet with you, God that you're faithful, God that you're satisfied in the work of reconnection. God, I pray that there would be boldness in all of us, confidence in all of us, to step out to do the thing that we were afraid to do. Because God, you see us not with eyes of shame, but with eyes of pride. You look at us as your sons and daughters whom you deeply love, Father, we love you and we honor you, and it's in Jesus name.