Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Good morning.
[00:00:01] We're going to start with a little exercise today.
[00:00:05] When I say go, everybody take a deep breath, deep as you can, and hold it until I say let it out. Okay? You ready? All right, go. Take it in.
[00:00:16] Hold it, hold it, hold it. Your body kind of starts hurting, doesn't it? You feel it in your chest, maybe in your throat, and kind of goes up. Your jaws start hurting. You need that air bad. We're going to talk about that today. About how we need God the same way that we need air.
[00:00:41] You can let it out.
[00:00:43] There's a song, I guess, probably not a new song anymore, by Josiah Queen called Promised Land. And the words say this. Hold on, Wait a minute.
[00:00:53] I don't want what you ain't in.
[00:00:57] And I don't want to go unless I'm going there with you.
[00:01:01] It's you there.
[00:01:03] Rain or shining, you're the sun in my horizons.
[00:01:08] You're my everything.
[00:01:11] My promised land is you.
[00:01:13] That's impressive.
[00:01:15] Not just impressive the way he's able to rhyme minute and ain't in and.
[00:01:22] Or how he's able to rhyme shining and horizons. But what's impressive is his refusal to go anywhere without God.
[00:01:32] And that's kind of what I'm going to focus on this morning, is just how badly we need God and how desperate we are for Him. What is keeping you from refusing to go somewhere without God in your life?
[00:01:48] If we had a show of hands today, you know, if I just ask you. I'm not going to ask you to, but if I said raise your hand if you want to be closer to God, I would hope that everybody would raise their hand. Right? We all want to be closer to God. What if I said, raise your hand if you need God again? I hope everybody would do it. But what if we called us up here one at a time and said, tell us how you need God. What are you doing in your life that shows us you need God? What is the evidence in your life that you can't go another minute without God? That if you don't have him, you're gonna suffer as if you didn't have air?
[00:02:28] In Mark, chapter two, there's a story, I think, that illustrates this very well.
[00:02:33] And if you have your Bible turn over there, and this is going to be our main text today. We'll come back to it.
[00:02:38] But the story starts out like this. When he returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home and many were gathered together so that there was no more room, not even at the door.
[00:02:54] And he was preaching the word to them.
[00:02:56] And they came bringing to him a paralytic carried by four men.
[00:03:02] And when they could not get near him because of the crowd, they. They removed the roof above him.
[00:03:09] And where they had made an opening, they let down the bed on which the paralytic lay.
[00:03:16] They were desperate for Jesus to do something in their life. And they said, we've got to get to that house where he is. And they got there, and they couldn't even get in. So they said, we have to get to Him. We have to. So they climbed up on the roof and tore a hole and through the roof. But how did they know that what was inside that house was what they needed so badly?
[00:03:42] Because they had heard and they believed. A chapter before this, in Mark 1, Jesus had just rescued this man from a demon that had possessed him. In verse 28, says that at once his fame spread everywhere throughout the surrounding region of Galilee. Word had already been spreading about Jesus. And they had heard that this guy named Jesus can heal. This guy named Jesus can fix you. This guy named Jesus can do something in your life. And not only did they hear it, but they believed it.
[00:04:12] And I hope this morning that if you've been here more than once, I know you've heard every week the Gospel is preached from this pulpit, and I know you've heard. But the question is, do you believe and do you remember our desperate need for Jesus? It's a common theme throughout the bible. You see three chapters after this, in Mark 5, there's a lady who's sick. She's been bleeding out for years. She's very, very weak and very ill. And it's the same situation. Jesus is preaching, there's a crowd around him. She can't even get to him. And so she fights and she pushes, probably crawls at some point, just pushing her way through the crowd. She's probably in pain, just saying, if I could just touch the edge, his robe, I could be healed.
[00:05:00] And she did.
[00:05:01] And she was.
[00:05:03] In Acts, chapter eight, Philip's walking down the road, and here comes an Ethiopian in a chariot. Philip jumps in with him, shares the gospel. And the guy dropping the chariots like, pulls over. He goes, there's water right there. I need to get baptized right now.
[00:05:17] Sir, that's a horse trough. I don't care. I need Jesus. Put me in that water right now.
[00:05:23] When is the last time you felt like that nothing was going to stop these guys? In Mark 2, verse 4 says they removed the roof.
[00:05:33] And some versions say they uncovered the roof, the actual Greek word there is really. It's not a super great translation because it really indicates a more aggressive action, like a more violent carrying it off.
[00:05:47] The new living probably comes the closest. Anybody have new living translation?
[00:05:52] What does it say in verse 4?
[00:05:58] They dug a hole. They couldn't bring him to Jesus because the roof, because of the crowd. So they dug a hole through the roof above his head. They dug a hole through the roof. That's more what it was like. It wasn't just, you know, safely removing those things. And let me tell you, I'm a good friend, but you're going to really have to convince me before I climb up on someone's roof and just tear it off.
[00:06:21] And you know, and their roofs were largely, you know, beams covered with thatch or dirt or tiles or something like that. This wasn't a timberline 30 year shingle with 3 quarter inch decking. But you know what? If it was, I think they would have tore it off anyway. Nothing was going to keep them because they were desperate.
[00:06:41] They were desperate to get to Jesus and have him do something in their life.
[00:06:48] When is the last time we felt that way? When is the last time you found yourself just clawing and scraping to get as much of God in your life as you can get?
[00:07:01] First thing that we have to remember is who God is. And that's kind of the first step in this process is remembering who he is. Once you do that, the rest is downhill. And that's kind of our first point this morning.
[00:07:16] And you think, well, how can you forget who God is?
[00:07:19] I don't think about error all the time.
[00:07:22] Some knucklehead gets up in the pulpit and says, hold your breath. About 15 seconds later, that's all I'm thinking about.
[00:07:29] You know, I know who God is. I have a basic or a foundational understanding of God.
[00:07:37] But sometimes I tend to get distracted and I tend to kind of forget that he's there. And sometimes I need to be reminded of who he is so that I can remember who I am this morning.
[00:07:53] I want to share a passage with you. It's probably the first one I thought of. You may have already thought of it thinking about this this morning. It's out of Psalm 42. It says, as the deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God.
[00:08:10] My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
[00:08:15] That's how I try to live my life every day. I'm embarrassed to say I don't, but I try.
[00:08:22] The reason why is we live in A time of a lot of distractions, you know, and there's things that humans have accomplished that are amazing and they're supposed to save time.
[00:08:31] And you think, well, that's great, because I have more time to focus on God. But what do we focus on? Usually the next thing, right? And before you know it, you've been caught in this spiral of kind of pushing God aside or trying to kind of schedule out time instead of making him your every breath.
[00:08:49] My kids show me, probably once a week, some kind of amazing technology, you know, I'll say, all right, kids, I gotta go to the store. Ah, no need. Dead beep, beep, boop. 45 minutes later, there's groceries on the porch.
[00:09:01] Say, man, it's hot. We go get in the car. Ah, no worries, Dad.
[00:09:05] I just started the car. It's cooling. And I tell them all the time, we are truly living in the future. If you're my age or older, you probably either think or say that all the time. Man, we are truly living in the future. This is the kind of stuff that was on space shows and science fiction when I was a kid, and it's real life now.
[00:09:25] And that's a good thing, except that it sometimes can distract from God.
[00:09:29] So what I want to do this morning is take some time to remember who God is, and I really want you to pay attention. If you don't hear anything else I say this morning, it's okay. But hear this.
[00:09:39] We're going to read some scriptures, and these are important, and these are just a very small amount of the ones in the Bible that show us who God is. But I want to take some time, and I want you to really focus on this.
[00:09:52] And I got a handout, if you got one in the back that's got all these scriptures on it. So don't worry about writing them down. If you're one of the people that likes to write everything down and go back later and look it up, they're all written down on that handout. So don't be distracted writing. Don't be distracted by your kids or anything else. Let's just focus right now. Just give me a minute to just hear God. If it helps you, they're going to be on the screen. If it helps you to read along or if it helps you to close your eyes.
[00:10:21] But church, let's just take a minute to remember who God is. And I can't. You know, I thought about that. I thought, well, I can't really describe him, you know, if somebody told me, stopped me on the street and said, can you describe who God is? The first word out of my mouth would be, how do you describe him?
[00:10:42] My words are inadequate, so I want to let the scripture do it. Let's just kind of reset and remember who God is.
[00:10:49] The first one's out of John Chapter five or John Chapter one. I'm sorry.
[00:10:54] In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
[00:11:01] He was in the beginning with God.
[00:11:03] All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.
[00:11:09] In him was life, and the life was the light of men.
[00:11:14] The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. Isaiah 9 For unto us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of peace.
[00:11:37] Revelation 1 He starts, I am the Alpha and the Omega, says, the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come the Almighty. And he ends in chapter 22 I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. Deuteronomy 4 says, for the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.
[00:12:01] Acts 17 the God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by men, nor is he served by human hands as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything and he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods in the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him yet yet he is actually not far from each one of us.
[00:12:44] James 4 says, Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. The 23rd Psalm the Lord is my shepherd I shall not want anything.
[00:12:56] Isaiah 55 for my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the lord for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.
[00:13:11] First John 1 says, God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.
[00:13:18] And in Chapter four anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
[00:13:27] Exodus 34 the Lord the Lord, a God, merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin.
[00:13:47] Psalm 18:2 the Lord is my rock and my fortress and My deliverer, my God, my rock in whom I take refuge, My shield, the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.
[00:14:02] One more.
[00:14:03] Deuteronomy 10. For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty and the awesome. God who is not partial and takes no bribe.
[00:14:22] That's what I'm talking about. About.
[00:14:24] That's the God that we remember, the one that we desperately need, the one that we have to seek after all the time. We need him desperately and here's why. Go back to our story in Mark 2, the next verse, verse 5.
[00:14:41] And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic son, your sins forgiven.
[00:14:51] I know you're crippled. That's slowing your life down. But let me fix what's really wrong.
[00:14:58] Your sins are forgiven.
[00:15:00] And you may be sitting there right now already. Starting with the negative self talk, you know, Ah, yeah, I know I need God, but I've done so many bad things. I know I need God, but my marriage is so rough, it just, you know, it's not even worth it. I know I need God, but my job so bad. I know it's just stop. Because all those are is obstacles standing between you and God. And if I know anything about God, he's really good at removing obstacles.
[00:15:28] And so that's the second point. We only have two points this morning. We've got to remember who God is and remove the obstacles standing in the way.
[00:15:35] And here's the thing about obstacles is they're not the same for everybody. You know, there's some that are universal, but there's some things that you struggle with that I don't.
[00:15:44] There's some things I struggle with that you don't. But I'll tell you this about your obstacles, whatever they are, someone in this room has the same ones as you. Might not be me, might not be the person next to you, but we all share these obstacles. And that's why we have the church and that's why we need the church.
[00:16:01] All these things with our relationships, with our health, sometimes.
[00:16:06] Sometimes it's chronic sin.
[00:16:09] Sometimes it's our mental health, sometimes it is our job or our school.
[00:16:13] Sometimes it's shame. Sometimes it's things from our past.
[00:16:19] Last week, Kyle said the difference between guilt and shame is guilt is I did something bad and shame is I am a bad person. And he used the thief or the criminal on the cross as an example.
[00:16:33] The guy did bad things and he got caught and he got found guilty and he was in the process of being executed in. Is there a Bigger obstacle than that. And what did he do in that hour? He turned to Jesus.
[00:16:48] I'm going to ask you a weird question.
[00:16:51] Have you heard of Jimothy?
[00:16:54] You know about Jimothy? I didn't know about Jimothy. My kids told me about about him a couple weeks ago, and I thought about him. Jimothy is a raccoon. He lives in Seattle, and he was born with a deformity. He's got a shortened spine, and so he got this stubby little body and these long old legs, and he looked funny. But they say other than that, he's a normal raccoon. Whatever catches fish and digs through your trash. I don't know.
[00:17:17] But you know what's weird about Jimothy? Jimothy has had newspaper articles written about him. He's had a mural of him painted on a wall in Seattle. They put him in video games. If you have a Roku on the little safe screen, there's a little Jimothy bouncing across the bottom. I've seen it.
[00:17:34] The Seattle Mariners had Jimothy Knight. They had Jimothy T shirts. He's got his own baseball card. They made a bobblehead of him.
[00:17:42] I'm embarrassed to tell you this. There are. More than one person has gotten a Jimothy tattoo.
[00:17:48] They walked into a tattoo parlor, and they said, what can I draw on your body that's gonna be there forever? And their answer was a deformed raccoon that lives in Seattle. Okay.
[00:17:58] The University of Washington has granted Jimothy an honorary degree. A raccoon has a college degree.
[00:18:07] We are truly living in the future.
[00:18:12] But I say that to say, you know, it's a funny example, but just overcoming obstacles, man. He was born with, you know, a disadvantage of raccoons, but now he's world famous, right? If Jimothy can do that, you can overcome the problems in your life.
[00:18:28] And, yeah, there's. There's some obstacles that aren't of your making that you can't control. And.
[00:18:34] And the obstacle keeping you away from God. Now listen to this church. The thing keeping you away from God, it's not always your sin, but it usually is, right?
[00:18:45] Think about your life.
[00:18:47] There's things that are beyond your control, but most of the time, it's your sin. I mentioned chronic sin a minute ago. I call them weed sins.
[00:18:56] These are weed sins because there's some sins that you do on impulse, but there's some sins that they're kind of always there. And if you got weeds growing in your yard and you Go. I'm getting rid of those weeds. You mow them over. What happens?
[00:19:07] I grow back.
[00:19:09] Unless what?
[00:19:11] Pull it out by the root, right? These are the sins that. They're always there, man. And you think, I'm going to stop doing that. I'm going to quit that sin. I'm going to get rid of it out of my life. But you just mow it over. You don't pull it out by the root. And so it comes back and it's kind of your favorite sin. You've had it so long, it's like a pet, and you don't want to lose it.
[00:19:29] It's like your security blanket, right?
[00:19:33] And it can be scary to get rid of those because sometimes it's your coping. Sometimes it's just kind of your comfort sin that you go to. Sometimes nobody even knows about it. It's your private sin. It's a chronic sin. But you know what it does? It keeps you from tearing off the roof and getting to the Jesus that you need.
[00:19:54] And you got to tear those out. You got to remove all of these obstacles. And it can be scary to do that because it puts you in a vulnerable place. And a while back we had this sermon series on fear. And Kyle said many times this thing he said, fear freezes, but faith frees us.
[00:20:12] I think about that a lot because in my life there's things that scare me. And I go back to that. That stuck with me when he said that fear freezes, but faith frees us.
[00:20:26] This story closes with an episode. One of the best rivalries in the Bible. Jesus versus the religious leaders. It ain't much of a rivalry. Jesus is undefeated. But it's always fun to watch them go back and forth and Jesus picking at them. And in this particular story, they didn't even say anything.
[00:20:41] They were just thinking it. Which, by the way, you don't have to say something.
[00:20:46] Jesus knows what you're thinking and he called them out on it. And they were thinking, oh, yeah, he thinks he can forgive sins. And Jesus go, oh, you think forgiving sins is hard? How about making a paralyzed guy walk? You think that's hard? Watch this. And look what he does. In verse 11, I say to you, rise, pick up your bed and go home.
[00:21:08] And guess what he did? He rose and immediately picked up his bed and he went out before them all so that they were all amazed and they glorified God saying, we never saw anything like this.
[00:21:27] You know what you don't see in this story? There is no plan to pull him back up.
[00:21:33] We don't know how they lowered him. It doesn't say. They used ropes, but it kind of seemed, you know, their roofs weren't real tall. Seemed like they just had a blanket or a bed and just lowered him and said, somebody's going to catch this guy.
[00:21:44] It doesn't say, you know, and if Jesus happened to not heal him, they were going to pull him back up and try plan B. There wasn't a plan to pull him back up.
[00:21:54] The plan all along was for that paralyzed man to walk out the door.
[00:22:00] And that's exactly what happened.
[00:22:03] And I want to make a promise to you today as we close.
[00:22:09] I promise you that if you will remember who God is and if you will remove the obstacles that are keeping you from him, he will do something in your life, something that you have never seen before.
[00:22:29] And I know that Jesus himself said, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
[00:22:43] And I want you to remember that and hunger and thirst for righteousness this week as we seek God and try to remember how badly and how deeply that we need him in our lives.
[00:22:58] And so I encourage you in that as we go and tear the roof off.
