WEBVTT

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I'm thinking today of a very specific verse.

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It's kind of like, it's nested in a story. It's

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about a paralyzed man who is before Jesus, and

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Jesus forgives his sins. He says, your sins are

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forgiven. And then they're really like challenging

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him in their heart, and they're wondering, how

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can Jesus say that? I mean, that's sort of, you

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know, blasphemy or whatever. And then the man

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is still laying there on his mat, paralyzed,

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and Jesus says, which is easier, to say to the

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paralyzed man, your sins are forgiven, or to

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say, get up and pick up your pallet and walk?

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And then he says, but so you can know that the

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Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive

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sins. And then there comes this verse. He looks

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at the paralyzed man and he says, I say to you,

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get up, pick up your pallet and go home. The

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man immediately gets up and he takes his pallet

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and he walks away. Now, this causes all kinds

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of problems, of course. And that's the way it

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was with Jesus during his public ministry. Everything

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that he did that was good for one person caused

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a lot of trouble with other people. And I think

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it's a little bit like that in life. That's why

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people say no good deed goes unpunished, because

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there's always complications every time you try

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to do good. But guess what? We've got to do good.

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You can only overcome evil by doing good. And

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so it is our job to be going around helping people

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pick up their pallet and go home. If you see

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a need, I'm not talking that you have to give

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up everything that you are, everything that you

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have, or really sacrifice or whatever, but you

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ought to want to meet that need. We ought to

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want to help a person get moving again. So I'm

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encouraging you today that you would, I would,

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that we would all get moving again, that we would

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make a difference again. We remember that to

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be a city is to be in community. To be in community

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is to care about your neighbor. It's a Christian

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foundation. It's not stodgy.