What I want you to do right now is turn to the person on your left or right,
and I want you to tell them if you remember, and it's appropriate,
your most embarrassing moment.
I'm going to give you a minute each to tell each other your most embarrassing moment.
Does anybody want to share their own?
Don't share the other person's because I might be embarrassing.
But if you would like to share, I'll take one or two.
Anybody want to share their most embarrassing moment?
If you don't want to, that's fine.
Find a little bit.
When I tripped over my tongue and made myself embarrassed when I asked my future father-in-law,
if I could marry my wife.
Wow. Okay. Well, it turned out well.
The embarrassing moment. Anybody else want to share?
Okay. Do you mind running the mic back?
Sorry. I didn't realize he had one as well.
They want me to share.
But I told them this is not really my most embarrassing moment,
but I can't share the other one.
But anyway, my most embarrassing moment,
my second most was when my skirt fell off in high school.
Oh, my goodness.
Can't imagine what the other one was.
Luckily, I was wearing a coat.
It was a wrap around skirt and it just fell to the floor,
but it was the talk of the high school all the way.
I'm sorry.
My most embarrassing, well,
one of the most embarrassing definitely is when my son was in a wedding,
and I could see him walking,
his back was to me, and of course,
all the groomsmen are wearing the same uniform or whatever,
same suit jackets.
He's walking and he's talking to my daughter-in-law.
I thought it was the two of them.
I ran up behind him and I put my arms around him like this,
and I was just holding him like that,
and walking with him because he was walking.
Then finally, my daughter-in-law,
she goes, you know that's not David.
I go, it was one of the other groomsmen.
He didn't say anything, he said that felt so good.
I didn't want to say anything.
So I just thought, oh, that was embarrassing.
So anyway, I want you to think about what do you think if we asked Adam and Eve,
what their most embarrassing moment was?
What do you think they would say?
Well, they discovered they were naked, maybe.
Yes, definitely.
Let's look together at Genesis 3,
and we don't have a lot recorded,
but we do have this recorded and I believe it must have been extremely embarrassing,
and perhaps it even became humiliating at some point.
So Genesis 3, and we're going to start with 6 and 7.
I'll go ahead and read it,
and I'm going to ask you a question.
So pay close attention here.
So when the woman, so she had taken the fruit,
when the woman saw that the tree was good for food,
that it was pleasant to the eyes and a tree desirable to make one wise,
she took of its fruit and ate.
She also gave it to her husband and he ate.
Then the eyes of both of them were opened and they knew that they were naked,
and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings.
So their eyes were opened,
and what did they see?
Did they see what they expected to see?
They thought their eyes were going to be open and it was going to be just wonderful,
all the knowledge they were going to have,
and they just see that, whoops, were naked.
What was their reaction? What did they do right away?
They hid and they were sewing clothes together.
They were sewing clothes together.
So let's look at 8-10.
They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden.
When? In the cool of the day.
Adam and Eve, what did they do?
They hid themselves from the presence of the Lord among the trees of the garden.
Then the Lord called to Adam and did he say,
what did you guys just do?
Is that what he said? What did he say?
Where are you? I would like to have maybe some volunteers.
I need two males and a female.
They can be children.
They probably would do a better job maybe.
People who are children, who feel like children, young at heart.
Oh, awesome.
Adeline is coming. Okay, he can come too.
There's Adam and Eve right there.
I need someone who'd be willing.
Maybe a man. There we go, Colton.
You're going to be pretending you're God.
You're going to stand over here.
Go to the end of the pew.
Now, I'm going to read or I'm going to say the story and you're going to pretend to be Adam and Eve.
Whatever you do, I'm sure, it's Aiden, right?
The little one is Aiden.
I'm sure he's going to do just like you.
I'm going to tell you what you're going to do.
No, you're going to stay back here.
Stay back here. You go all the way to the end of the pew because we need a little space.
All right. Whatever I say God does, you do.
So God came in the cool of the day walking in the garden.
Walking this way, walking this way.
Now, is he stomping in the garden in the heat of the moment?
No, he's walking.
What are you guys doing? Wait, stop right here.
What are you guys going to do because God is coming?
What did Adam and Eve do?
They hid. So you go hide over there because you're scared.
Okay. And what are you going to ask them?
Because you don't see them.
Well, you don't see them.
You pretend you don't see them.
What are you going to say? Where are you?
Where are you?
Now, I want to pause here.
Who changed? Did God change when sin happened here on earth?
Did God change? No, God was still walking.
Look, and I love the way he's standing.
Look at that. Hands in his pockets.
And I believe that's a little bit the attitude of the Lord.
He didn't come in like this, right?
He came in walking as he usually did in the cool of the day.
And he asked a simple question, where are you?
Very good to show us that attitude.
And they are hiding because what do they feel at this point?
Shame and fear.
For the first time, they fear who?
They fear God because he's different?
No, because they are different.
Thank you. Thank you, kids.
You can go back to your seats.
I might call you back up here sometime.
So he asked a question.
And what did the question reveal?
When he asked the question, where are you?
And he asked, I think he did ask at that point,
so did you eat of the fruit that I told you not to eat?
How did Adam respond?
Oh, yeah, it's a woman who's going to bring that one up, right?
The woman that you gave me.
So what is this revealing about what happened to them, the change?
All of a sudden, that woman, he didn't want to give up for anything
and he ate that fruit because he wanted her so badly
and now he's throwing her under the bus, right?
And then when he asked the woman, what happened?
Yes?
That shows how fast the relationship can go down.
The woman that you gave me.
That's right. And then Eve, what did she blame?
Oh, well, that serpent you made, right?
It all goes back to God, right?
You did it. You made it.
It's a serpent you made.
And so we discover that their feelings for each other have also gone south.
So their relationship with God is there's nothing but fear on the side of man.
And then their relationship with each other is like this.
And, you know, the rest is history.
The rest of the Bible and the rest of our history is like that, right?
Where we mess up constantly, right?
We have problems in relationships.
We have problems with the Lord.
And actually, this is the very beginning of shame.
This is the beginning of shaming.
This is the beginning of disease, of mental illness.
This is the beginning of bad influences.
The beginning of addiction, of not just not feeling good physically and not feeling good about yourself.
This is the beginning of bitterness, resentment, lack of forgiveness.
But I want to point you, there's hope.
Because when he came to the garden, he already had a plan.
He already had a plan.
He was going to try to give it to them in any way that they could somehow absorb it.
So let's look at verse 15.
And this is the first time the gospel is spoken to mankind.
And we're going to read it.
And what I want you, because I'm going to ask you afterwards, is look at everything that God is doing in here.
And then look at what man is doing in here.
OK?
It's very delineated.
OK?
So let's see.
We're going to read it.
Now, language is a little confusing, so we're going to talk about that too.
And I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed.
He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel.
So what's enmity mean?
First of all, dislike.
Yeah.
It's the word we get the word enemy from it, you know?
So yeah, it just means basically I'm going to make you, right now you're friends.
He's talking to the serpent.
He says, right now you're friends with them, but I'm going to make you enemies with them.
Say it.
Yes, I'm going to create animosity.
And I think there's versions that say hatred between you and the woman.
I'm going to do that.
Who's doing that?
Who's I?
God says, I am going to take care of this.
OK?
And then he says, he, so he's referring to that person who's going to come and do that,
which we know is from this side of history.
We know that's Jesus.
So we can put Jesus' name in there.
Jesus shall bruise, he's talking to the serpent, Jesus shall bruise your head.
OK?
When you bruise the head of a serpent, in other versions it says crushed or it says wounded.
When you wound the head, what happens?
Yeah, it's pretty much it, right?
If you can get, smash a snake's head, you pretty much, you don't have to worry about the rest of his body, right?
He's dead.
OK?
So he's going to bruise your head, but you shall bruise his heel.
And what does that mean?
It's not fatal for who?
Who's going to bruise who's heel?
Satan is going to bruise Jesus' heel, right?
It's not fatal, but he's going to get hurt.
And so God is basically saying, I am coming.
I will heal you.
You messed up, but I'm going to clean up.
I'm going to heal your relationship with me.
I'm going to heal your relationship with other people.
And I'm going to heal your relationship with yourself, because mentally you are going to feel guilt.
You're going to feel shame.
And I want to take that away from you.
But it's going to be at my expense.
You're not going to suffer for this.
I am going to suffer for this.
And I love that today, Joe talked about John 316.
Because John 316 is actually the text that I'm going to talk about right now.
And we know it all by heart.
And let's repeat it together.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes
in him will not perish but have everlasting life.
So God is basically taking all the responsibility.
And Billy Rice says, I'm coming, I will make you friends again with me.
I will take care of this serpent.
And I will get wounded in the process.
And so what do we have to do?
What's our part?
It's cooperate.
What's John 316?
We have to believe.
And believe of course means not just mental assent, right?
It means our whole life, our whole world becomes like.
And especially somebody has done that for us, then we're like, what do you want us to
do?
I'll just obey you.
Because you're the most awesome God.
Now are there people in this audience that might be under 17?
Perhaps a few?
Okay, well I'm about to give a gift to anybody who's 17 or under, okay?
So anybody who wants a gift.
If you're under 17, first person that can get here is gonna.
She really wants this, folks.
She really wants this.
Okay.
So for her to get that gift, what did she have to do?
She had to come.
I was reaching out, right?
I was reaching it out, but someone, she had to come and grab it out of my hands.
Okay.
Now there were some that, yeah, like Colton, he started a little bit late, it was too bad.
She was a little bit closer.
Maybe there are others that say, man, I should have just taken off.
I was kinda disbelieving.
Is it really, you know?
But that's what God's gift is like.
He just says, here, he's reaching it out and we have to run and grab it, right?
We have to say, yes, God, we want it.
He's reaching it out to you.
We confess our sins and he gives us forgiveness.
Okay.
I wanted to, yeah, oh, that's what I wanna make a point.
What if Bella said to me, thank you so much for these five dollars.
Okay, I'll come over to your house and I'll clean a couple of rooms for you because you
gave me this gift.
Is that...
Yeah, I'm putting it, yeah, no.
Yeah, or sometimes, what if somebody gave you a birthday gift?
You say, oh, let me give you some money and you search in your pocket to give them.
Would that make it a gift?
What would that do for the person who just gave you the gift?
It would be literally a...
Right?
It would be an insult.
I mean, if somebody wanted to pay for a gift that I gave them, that would be a total insult.
And God does not need payment.
He does not need your good works for you to give you this gift.
He just wants to give it to you for free.
The works, yes, are there, but the works are an outpouring of, I just wanna do this for
you God, because I love you so much.
We could never pay for that gift, right?
That gift that he gave us, we could never do anything to repay him for that gift except
love him and obey him and follow him the rest of our days.
I wanna look at one story, Luke 5, 17, and here we see a combination of healing.
And of course, we know Jesus healed so many physical illnesses, but I wanted to look at
a story where we see Jesus also healing an emotional illness, a mental illness perhaps.
So we're going to read Luke 5 and starting with verse 17.
Now it happened on a certain day as he was teaching that there were Pharisees and teachers
of the law sitting by who had come out of every town of Galilee, Judea, and Jerusalem.
Okay, so there were Pharisees and scribes who came out from every single of those major
cities there.
How many do you think there could be there?
There maybe were hundreds.
All of these people who knew everything about the law and everything.
So here, listen to Jesus, what it says about Jesus, and the power of the Lord was present
with him to heal them.
The presence of the Lord was with him to heal them.
Who is them?
The scribes and the Pharisees in particular, because what it just said, right, there's
all these Pharisees that came from all over the place and the presence of the Lord was
with him to heal them.
He wanted to heal the Pharisees.
Now were they sick physically, most of them?
Probably not.
So did they need healing?
Obviously they needed healing.
We're going to look at what happens next.
So Jesus is already in that mindset.
They need healing too, and all these people are coming and he's healing, but they need
healing, not just the crowd.
They need, what can I do?
And so, story.
We know about the man, right?
This man is on a bed, he cannot move, he's paralyzed.
And what happens?
Colton, you have your hand up, what happens?
Oh, sorry, I thought you had your hand up.
Oh, how many friends came?
Four, good.
Four friends came to help this man.
One on each corner of the stretcher, right?
And they got there and all those scribes and Pharisees are there and they can't get through.
He's not going to say, excuse me, no one's going to move.
So what do these friends do?
Where do they climb up to, Colton?
That's right.
They climb up on the roof.
Okay, what if somebody did that to this church?
No, but we wouldn't be happy, right?
Especially when that stuff started crumbling on our hair that we just washed today or whatever,
right?
Yeah, can you imagine the faith of these four to literally tear open a roof, the part of
the roof, to bring down the stretcher before Jesus?
Now, did Jesus say, okay, you're healed?
What was the first thing that Jesus said to this man?
Yes, Colton.
That's right.
Your sins are forgiven.
What does that tell you if Jesus told the man his sins were forgiven?
What did the man need more than physical healing?
The man in his heart, you know, if he's paralyzed, can you imagine laying, I don't know how many,
they don't say how many years, but let's say years and years and years and all he can think
about is, if I had only not done that, I wouldn't be in this position.
Can God ever forgive me?
And as a paralytic, there's no hope, right?
The Pharisees say, well, that's your problem.
Too bad.
Yeah, God rejected you.
You now are paralyzed.
So this was heavy on his mind.
And so saying your sins are forgiven, it was just like total relief.
And I suppose if Jesus had not healed him physically, he would have felt still so much
lighter, I am forgiven.
I am forgiven.
But then Jesus goes a step further because of course, what do the Pharisees do as soon
as he says your sins are forgiven?
Blasphemy.
Is it, if he were not God, is that blasphemy?
Yes.
I mean, if you said your sins are forgiven to somebody, would that be blasphemy?
Yes, because none of us can forgive sin.
Only Jesus can forgive sin.
And so he said, just so you know, by the way, that the Son of Man has the power to forgive
sins, he said, take up your bed and walk.
And this hopeless case, totally hopeless case, got up, picked up his bed, and he was probably
jumping for joy.
And it says he went out glorifying God.
And the Pharisees and the scribes, I'm sure, it was a little seed.
Some of them didn't accept it then.
Some of them would accept it later, but I'm sure it was a seed in their heart.
Wow.
It's not just physical healing.
We need also spiritual healing.
We need forgiveness.
So let me ask you, what did the man have to do to be healed?
Did he ask for forgiveness?
He didn't even ask for forgiveness.
He wanted it in his heart.
Jesus knew.
Yes, Sally?
He had to obey, right?
Jesus said, pick up your bed and walk, right?
And he had to physically make an effort and realize, oh, this hand is working.
Oh, so is it.
Oh, my leg is working.
Oh, I can actually get up.
You know?
And oh, I can pick up this bed that I was lying in.
He had to obey.
He didn't heal himself, but God healed him and he obeyed.
And boy, was he happy for it.
He was happy for it.
You know, it's interesting.
Yes?
He healed himself, but he didn't ask for forgiveness.
That's right.
He healed until he was a man of 25 again.
You know?
You know, because maybe, I mean, if you, yeah, that's awesome.
God heals totally.
God will heal you totally.
That is such awesome good news.
Thanks for bringing that up.
In the next part, in verse 31 and 32, I want you to look at that.
And this is when the tax collector has a big party and he invites all his tax collector
friends and once again, the Pharisees are saying, what are they saying?
What are you doing having, you know, hanging out with a bunch of cussing, drinking people?
Why do you do that?
And he says, I didn't come for who?
The saved or the righteous, right?
Who you think you are, by the way.
He didn't say that, but I didn't come for the righteous.
I came for sinners.
And again, he was still trying to get them.
Don't you get it?
You need forgiveness too.
You are sick too.
You are a sinner.
And later on, we know the parable that he talked about, right?
The tax collector and the Pharisee, you know?
And I want you to skip forward in your heads.
We're going to Calvary.
And actually, there were two pivotal moments in Jesus' life and one was in Gethsemane where
he had to accept, you know, he went through that, God, please take it away.
Okay, but your will be done.
And so he fought there.
He obeyed.
But now he's on Calvary and I want you to read Luke 23.
We're still on Luke.
We're going to go to Luke 23 and see something.
This is for me the most incredible thing.
I still cannot understand it when I think of what Jesus was going through and everything
he had gone through.
If you can imagine at this point, he's on the cross.
Where are all his disciples?
They're hiding like Adam and Eve, right?
They're scared to death.
Where's Judas?
You know?
The leader who said he was going to stand up and fight for him.
Okay?
Where, what are all the Pharisees doing and the scribes?
And I mean, he is, what about the Romans?
They're down there rolling dice.
Jesus is, what does he look like on the cross?
Is he wearing clothes?
So he is naked, but he is voluntarily naked on the cross.
He says that's what sin does.
And physically he was naked, but he was also exposed in his heart.
And yet, this is what he says.
Look at verse 34.
So he's looking at all of this and he sees there's nobody, there's no friend out there.
Everybody's betrayed them or gone their way or whatever.
There's no one there for him at all.
And he says, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.
He forgives everybody unreservedly.
Of course, it's a gift.
Once more, it's a gift.
They have to take the forgiveness.
But he says on his side, I forgive you all.
That's what I'm, that's why I'm on this cross, because I want to forgive you.
You take the gift.
I don't care where you're at.
I don't care if you're cussing me out.
I don't care if you're spitting on me.
I don't care if you're hiding in a room because you're ashamed to be with me.
I don't care where you're at.
I forgive you.
That is total healing.
That is total healing right there on the cross.
I love Isaiah 53-5, and that's actually my last verse today.
Isaiah 53-5.
Isaiah 53 is beautiful.
The whole chapter is beautiful.
It's all about Jesus' suffering.
But verse 5, it says, he was wounded for our transgressions.
He was bruised for our iniquities.
The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed.
And I want to go through it a little bit different versions, because I realize that can be complicated,
but language for some people.
Basically it's saying, I looked at other versions, he was pierced for our rebellion.
Yeah, and that's different almost than transgressions.
I mean, it's willfully we wanted to hurt him.
We wanted to run away from him.
And he was still, he still went to the cross for those rebellious moments in our life.
He was pierced for our rebellion.
He was crushed for our iniquities.
The punishment that brought us peace was upon him.
Because he's punished, we can have peace.
With his wounds, or with his stripes, stripes, of course, when they beat people on the back,
flog people on the back, that's what it refers to, the stripes from that flogging.
It says, with his wounds he was healed.
And in the New Living, I love where it says, he was beaten so we could be whole, so we
could be healed.
Before we have a closing prayer, I have something that again, I need, oh, anybody who wants
to come up because I need kind of three teams, teams of at least two, let's say.
So I know Colton wants to come.
Adeline, do you want to come with Colton?
Because I'm going to give you, I'll give you something but you don't, don't.
Okay, just stand there.
You guys stand over here, okay.
Oops, sorry, no problem.
Okay, just wait, don't touch it yet.
You go over there, Adeline, you're going to go with Colton, okay?
Adeline, you're going to go with Colton.
Okay, I need some more people.
They can be bigger kids.
What's that?
It stinks over there?
Oh, okay.
Okay, here we go.
Janet, we have, yes, okay.
So I'm going to give you guys this one and here.
We need two more people.
All right, good.
Here we go.
Okay, and here's your tape.
Now you guys are going to be kind of separate.
You can probably do it down there.
You don't have to show, don't show anybody what you're doing right yet.
It's kind of like a puzzle.
So what you have, you need to, don't peek, that's cheating.
But I forgive you.
Yeah, just go to a little corner and put it together.
And then we're going to put these, before you, don't show it, because we're going to
put these three, afterwards you're going to try to put the three pieces together, big
pieces together.
You can do yours right there, okay?
And you can go up there somewhere and you can do yours right here.
Okay, so on your markets let go.
You're going to need a big spot, a big space, you guys, because you have a, all right.
And this is something I wanted, I had a puzzle idea in mind, but I didn't know what to do.
And yesterday when I went to the meeting, something that the man said, who was speaking,
really it hit me in a totally different way when we think of health.
Health is this.
This is health.
If we love God, love God with all your soul will help you to have healthy, a healthy emotional
and spiritual life.
If you love God with all your strength, you'll have a healthy body.
If you love God with all your mind, you'll have a healthy mind.
If you love, oh, and if you love others, you will have healthy relationships.
Isn't that cool how it all fits together like a puzzle?
The basic thing is to love God.
When you love God, also the loving others comes naturally.
And so thank you so much for helping me put this together.
You guys have been such a big help.
Thank you so much.
So I want, as we close, I want you to think you want to be healed holistically.
We want healthy bodies, right?
That's kind of the craze.
But you know, really, that might not happen in this life, but we can right now have a
healthy spiritual life and emotional life and a healthy mental life, right?
He wants to give us healing in that way.
And he will, one day of course, we'll be healed holistically, like totally every part of us.
But he wants to heal.
And what is it?
What is it come down to?
Loving God with all of our heart, soul, strength and mind.
Loving Him with everything we have.
And so I'm going to pray, and I want you in your heart as we pray to tell God, God, I
want this healing.
I want this healing maybe for you right now.
Loving God is hard.
Maybe loving others in your life is hard.
But you can ask God.
He doesn't care.
He knows already.
So He wants you to come to Him and to tell Him.
He wants you to say, look, I'm having trouble forgiving my brother or my sister or my father
or my son.
God, I want it though.
I want it because I want total healing.
Okay, let's go ahead and pray.
But you pray in your heart to God.
Heavenly Father, Lord, I just thank you that you want us all to be totally healed.
Lord, I thank you for every person here, all the way down to the smallest child.
You want healing for everybody.
And not just physical, Lord.
Many of us are seeking physical healing.
It's important for us.
And Lord, I do pray that you will help each person in that way.
But Lord, I'm praying even more for spiritual healing because when the spiritual is healed,
the mental, the emotional just falls into place when we love you and love others.
And Lord, I'm just going to pause for a moment so every person can pray their own prayer
to you right now.
So thank you, Lord.
You know it's difficult for us, for some of us in particular, it may be difficult.
But Lord, we know that you have a solution for every single one of us.
And I thank you for this.
And I praise you.
And I pray that we go out this door different than when we came in.
Lord, I pray for total healing for every person who can hear my voice, including those online.
In Jesus' name, amen.