Unlock Genuine Forgiveness In Christ Today

Ross Sawyers: Amen. You can be seated. Wow! What an awesome time to fix our eyes on Jesus. He's the King and is worthy to be praised. And it is a gift for us to have the freedom to gather and be able to praise him, not everyone across the world gets that opportunity. So we're incredibly grateful today that we get to sing his praises together.

Ross Sawyers: One of the books that I've been reading in the study that we're doing right now is called King's Cross by Timothy Keller, and I tend to think about books as being mentors for me through print. I am very limited in the way that I think and the way I process, and I find having multiple mentors through books that are solid in who they are in their faith, is helpful both to me and helpful to us as a church body. In the King's Cross, thinking about the Gospel of Mark where we're spending our time. Timothy Keller talks about a lady named Cynthia Heimel, who was a publisher, a writer, in New York. And he was talking about an article that she wrote where she was speaking of actors and actresses who struggle, that they're oftentimes unhappy in the midst of their struggle. And yet when they become famous, something happens to them, they actually become more arrogant and more unhappy than they were when they were struggling to become what they thought would make them happy. And she makes kind of this quote or says this idea, "If only I can make it in the business, or if only I can make it in this, if only I had this or that, then I'd be happy." But again, her observation is that's not actually what happens. And she said, "I think when God wants to play a really rotten practical joke on you, he grants you your wish." For you and me, what would we say is our deepest wish, and then everything would be okay? The wish, Keller goes on to say, "Has become your savior. If you never quite get it, you're angry, unhappy, and empty. If you do get it, then you're ultimately more empty, more unhappy, and it actually turns on you."

Ross Sawyers: If you turn your Bibles to Mark chapter 2, verses 1 through 12, we're going to continue in our study of the Gospel of Mark that we began a week ago. And what we want to think about today, in Mark, is in chapter 2, a bold faith and a genuine forgiveness. And we'll find that Jesus is actually bringing to us what is the deepest need that should be met in us as human beings. And the question I want us to ask as we think about this is, are you living in and experiencing a bold faith and a genuine forgiveness? So two things that run through this story. This is one of my favorite stories I've probably preached from this part of scripture in Mark chapter 2 more times than anything else, and I've always seen different things in it. And this time, this is where I'd like us to anchor ourselves, and that ultimately flows from who Jesus is and the way he reveals himself.

Ross Sawyers: Coming up to chapter 2, Jesus has been out. He's been healing people. He's been removing demons from people. He's been teaching along the way. Massive crowds have been coming out to him everywhere he goes, and at the end of chapter 1, it says the news of him has been spreading everywhere. And that's how we find ourselves in chapter 2. There are four things I'd like to think about to help us in regard to that idea of a bold faith and a genuine forgiveness, and is that what, as Christians, that we're experiencing more and more of?

Ross Sawyers: The first idea, I would say, for us to anchor ourselves to, would be to gather in meaningful places. And I want to look at verses 1 and 2, and I think this will make more sense as we unfold these two verses in thinking about bold faith and genuine forgiveness. Chapter 2. verse 1, "When He had come back to Capernaum several days afterward, it was heard that He was at home." So he'd been away for a long bit, and he's back at Capernaum. Here are a couple of pictures, from when we were in Israel, this is Capernaum, and it's just kind of some remains of it. It sits on the Sea of Galilee, which was a major point of Jesus's ministry all around the sea, and that's a picture out to the Sea of Galilee. I just thought the tree was cool. but that gives you an idea, at least a picture, maybe, of the remains or what Capernaum is like. It's about 20 miles from Nazareth, where Jesus grew up. And it would be assumed the home that he's at, in verse 1, is Peter's home, and that is kind of a base of operations in Capernaum and at Peter's home.

Ross Sawyers: Verse 2, "And many were gathered together, so that there was no longer room, not even near the door; and He was speaking the word to them." So they're in this home, and all of these people had gathered with Jesus. It is assumed that there were probably around 50 people in the home based on the size of a typical home in that day, and it was absolutely packed inside of that home, and then people were outside the door also trying to get in. And I just love that imagery of people so hungering and desiring to be with Jesus, that they just poured in. The crowd didn't matter, there were still people trying to press in from the outside. And then no doubt, the people that had gathered around him in this moment were people who were curious, they had seen or heard all of these things Jesus had been doing. There were those that were evaluating him. There were those that were critical of him which will see in this story, and they were skeptical of him kind of creating a little bit of a hostile environment as well. There were difficult people in there, which, by the way, Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his book Life Together, which is one of my favorite books about community, says it's not a true Christian community unless there's somebody difficult in your group. And you laugh, but you might be the difficult person. But we really grow in our faith when there are difficult people in our world, we have no choice but to lean on God when we have difficult people; there were difficult people in this particular setting with Jesus.

Ross Sawyers: And what was he doing with this crowd of people in the home, and that were pressing outside trying to hear? He was speaking the word to them. He was speaking in a way that the Greek word for speaking there is the idea of birds chattering back and forth. A few weeks ago, my wife and I were in Colorado, and as we were hiking, we would just hear the birds singing and just chattering back and forth, it was just a really pleasant sound as we were hiking. And that's how Jesus would teach in the home, it was conversational, winsome, it was pleasant as he was teaching them from the word. And I believe it's in these kinds of settings that we find our faith built up, and that we understand where real and genuine forgiveness comes from in Jesus himself. What would some of those meaningful places be for us, where we could gather up and our faith would be emboldened, and we'd be reminded of the forgiveness, just as we were a moment ago in song.

Ross Sawyers: In Mark chapter 1, verse 35, it says that Jesus, it seems his habit would be to go to a secluded place every morning to be alone with his Father. And I believe one of those spaces that we build up a meaningful faith and are reminded of the forgiveness of God is in that daily kind of carved-out time with God himself in Christ and following the same habit of Jesus. We sometimes talk about that as a table for two, just a table for you and God alone. Do you have that kind of space where you just get alone with God? Is there a place in your home that you go to? It's just for you and God together, that's a place for faith to be built. And then this is happening in a home, and what better place than in someone's home for faith to be built and for forgiveness to be received from God and to understand his forgiveness?

Ross Sawyers: If I could just say, often I want to challenge our men as much as I can, and I just am saddened every time I hear a man tell me that they have abdicated the faith in the family to their wife. By abdicate, I mean they've given it over to the wife to lead. And I would say, where there's a man in a home, the man is to lead in the home. And I can't imagine a faith growing more strong than when a dad or a husband is leading the charge in the faith, that is God's design. I understand there are homes where men are not there, and I just commend the ladies in our church who are leading the charge well in your homes. But if I could just say to the men today, all you have to do is find somebody to mentor you to lead in your home, there are people who love to do that so that that's a place where faith is being built, where forgiveness is being received, and everything changes when the man in the home is leading the charge in faith. And then the home is where we gather for our life groups, for our smaller group community, and it's in the home that we have all kinds of people gathered to be around God's Word and to build community in life together. It's where we can gather with friends, and we can build faith together. Last night, I was in somebody's home, and there were all kinds of people in that home, and we just had multiple side conversations. And I think for several of us, the men that I was hanging out with in the home, we were mutually sharpened and encouraged in God's Word. My faith was built last night just in a gathering of friends and even people I just met that are in the faith and they're following God.

Ross Sawyers: And then we have this is a meaningful gathering space where we come together and we pray and we sing praise together, and we open God's word together. There was a friend of mine years ago, I met on an airplane, who said, we crack open God's word together, and we just hunger for Jesus. And then we'll soon have a location in Keller that'll be a base of operations, just like in Capernaum; so we have two places in Grapevine and Keller that are bases of operation for people to be able to gather in a meaningful place around Jesus and around God's Word. We have that opportunity online, to gather online as well, where our faith can be sharpened and forgiveness received.

Ross Sawyers: What was the message that Jesus was speaking? I think it would have carried some bit of these themes. We've talked about it often in God's story. You heard in the life groups that there's been a study written for this year called The Story of God, 27 of our life groups are doing that this year, maybe you'd want to jump in on it and become aware of it. You'll meet and then gather, one time a month, men and women, but you'll detail in what God's big story is. And I just think Jesus would always be talking about some version of this story where God is the very center, he gets the glory, and he gets all the honor. God is the creator, he created everything in perfect harmony. Unfortunately, sin comes into the world, and then the human heart is now broken, and we'll see that unfold in this story. We call that the fall, we're separated from God. The good news is there's a redemption plan that God has, and that's through Jesus Christ bearing our sins on the cross, and it's through him that we have forgiveness, and we're restored to God. Now, we have purpose in life, we don't have to wonder anymore what our purpose is, our purpose is God himself, and we just kind of let it unfold from there. And then we anticipate one day when everything will be made right in the new heavens and the new earth, and when you read your Bible from beginning to end, Genesis 1 and 2, you'll see Revelation 21 and 22, the last two chapters of the Bible, and everything is remade the way God intended it to be in perfection. It's a beautiful story to be a part, and the only way into that story is through Jesus Christ. And it's in meaningful places where we gather, where we can be emboldened and understand and be reminded of that story. Are you experiencing living in a bold faith, and walking in the genuine forgiveness that we have in Christ?

Ross Sawyers: Well, the second thing I would tie us to in verses 3 and 4 is to be a creative risk-taker, that those who have a bold faith will be creative risk-takers. And we see that unfold in this story, "They came, in verse 3, bringing to Him a paralytic, carried by four men." So we know there are at least four men here who are carrying a mat, a quilted kind of mat, with a paralyzed man on it, and so they come into the story. And then, no doubt, they had heard that Jesus had been healing people and removing demons. In verse 4 it says, "Being unable to get to Him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above Him; and when they had dug an opening, they let down the pallet on which the paralytic was lying." Now here's the creativity and the risk. Here's these four guys, and it says they, so there might have been a group of friends that were together, and they say, hey, look, we believe the deepest need our friend has is to be healed of his paralysis. And so they're doing whatever it takes to get their friend to Jesus, who they heard was healing people like their friend. And there is a tenacity in these guys, there's a whatever it takes kind of mentality in these guys. They believe that Jesus can actually help their friend, and they're going to do whatever they need to do to get them there.

Ross Sawyers: Years ago, I learned from a friend of mine, Gary Taylor, he loved this story. And he said, I think we ought to call this GAC, and it stands for Grab A Corner, these guys grabbed a corner of that mat in order to get their friend to Jesus. And what if everybody had to grab a corner mentality that we recognize that only Jesus can help, he's the only one that can actually meet the deepest need, and I'm going to grab the corner, whatever corner I have to grab, and I'm going to get my buddy to Jesus because Jesus can actually do something about the problem. And that's what they're doing, and they're doing whatever it takes. This term is only used one time in the whole New Testament, and it's unroofed the roof is what they did. Houses in that day would have had a staircase along the side, and apparently, the crowd wasn't so friendly to let them come through the door, so they worked their way up the stairs onto the roof, some kind of a thatch, perhaps wood trusses. And then we learn in Luke chapter 5, in this story, that there were clay tiles on top of the thatch. These guys get up on the roof and they start unroofing the roof, they start digging away. No telling what's going on in Peter's mind, this is his house. Hey, what are y'all doing to my roof? But nonetheless, it continues to unfold, and they lower their friend down to Jesus. Their hope is in Jesus that he can heal their friend, so it is a creative risk they took to do it.

Ross Sawyers: When we launched into Mark chapter 1 last week, we talked about John the Baptist, and that John the Baptist was out in the wilderness, and he was preaching to clear the path so that people could see Jesus. That's a creative risk, just go hang out in the wilderness for a while, start preaching, and see if somebody will come. But I'd ask you today, what's the most creative risk you've taken to get somebody in your family, a friend of yours, somebody you don't even know to get them to Jesus? Here's some. John Davis is in our church, and he just built a complex over here called Ulete. It's a sports complex for a number of sports to be utilized, and for training to take place, but his desire and goal as a Christian is that Christ's name will be made known to everybody who comes through there, and it's happening. That's a costly risk to get the name of Jesus to people where their help can be.

Ross Sawyers: Jhejuda Ehrbar is on our staff, just loving the community around us, every Sunday night playing soccer. There are 30 or 40 different kids and so forth playing soccer, just loving them with the hope that he can help them see that Jesus is their ultimate hope, you know? It's just kind of using the thing you like to do and getting out there and inviting people in.

Ross Sawyers: Or maybe it's a guy in our church I met with last week and he told me his story. He's an immigrant from the Congo, he emigrated from the Congo to Maine, I really didn't know that was usually a pathway for people. He and his brother were at home one night, and a lady knocked on the door and proceeded to share the Gospel with them, they thought that was a little weird. She invited him to her church. They were curious about this lady who would just show up and knock on their door. They went and he came to Christ. So later, hearing Doctor Tony Evans on the radio, he said, I like what he's teaching and I want to come down, so he moved down to this area. Would you scoff at the idea today of knocking on somebody's door and telling them about Jesus, or would you take that risk? Our neighborhood got pummeled by hail a few months ago. Roofers are not afraid to risk knocking on my door. If a roof is that important, is Jesus even more so?

Ross Sawyers: What's the risk that you and I are willing to take? What's the bold faith we're willing to step into? And candidly, for some of us, the biggest risk we could take would be this week to actually just invite somebody to come and get them to where they can hear about Jesus, that would be a big risk for you. Are you willing to risk that at work, or where you play, just to invite in? Sometimes we don't need to just be outside the four walls, we need to figure out how we get people inside the four walls, that's what these guys were doing. Jesus was inside the walls, and they were risking to get their friend to him. Inside those four walls.

Ross Sawyers: We talk about a bold faith. Is this the kind of bold faith that you have, or are you increasing in that bold faith? And then a genuine forgiveness, and we get more to that part in this piece of the story. So here are these guys, bold faith, they get their friend to him, they're fully expecting that Jesus will heal their friend of paralysis. And just like Jesus, he does something totally different. So the third thing I would say we consider here is to lean into the one who sees the deeper need. In Keller's story, The Kings Cross, he said, there is a deeper need here than what most of us see. We think if this gets done or I have this or that, then I'll be happy and I'll be okay. Jesus, fortunately, does not play a practical, rotten joke on this guy and give him what they're asking for. Instead, he reaches in and meets a deeper need inside the man.

Ross Sawyers: Verse 5, "And Jesus seeing their faith said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” Wait a minute, the man can't walk, that is the biggest need here. No, Jesus looks inside the human heart and says, no, that's not the deepest need here, the deepest need is at the level of the human heart. Jesus is impressed with their faith; he loves that they've gotten this man to him. And just as a little side note, we don't see Jesus irritated by this interruption. It doesn't seem to bother him that the roof came kind of dropping in a little bit, and this man interrupted his teaching. When I was at Ouachita Baptist University, which is actually where I attended, my sons went to A&M, and since we're in this kind of a world here, I usually talk about A&M because nobody knows about Ouachita, where there are about 1500 students, a fantastic university, by the way. But when I was there, I was in a campus ministry in Mark Barbour was the leader of that ministry. And Mark Barbour one time did a devotional talk at our chapel on a Tuesday, and he said, he talked about the blessedness of interruptions. And that's what I see, you don't see Jesus agitated when he gets interrupted. How often do we get agitated when we're focused on our work, focused on this or that, and we get interrupted? We say why are you bothering me? It's my professor in seminary, who, with his children, every time he was studying for his doctorate, and they came into his office, he didn't have time for them to regret what happened with them later, to get a second chance in adopting his grandchildren. And when the grandchildren came knocking on the door and he was studying, he always pushed it aside. See if we are good in who we are in Christ, and we look at a day and eagerly watching for what God wants to do in that day, we'll be okay with the interruption, because God must have wanted this to be interrupted. Maybe he has a different idea for right now than what I thought it was going to be. Aren't we glad that Jesus is never agitated when he's interrupted?

Ross Sawyers: So they get their friend to him. He sees their faith. He's impressed with their faith. And then he acknowledges, just by what he does, that the deepest human problem is the human heart. It's the human heart that needs to be taken care of, because the human heart, it's sinful, it's broken, it's deceived, and it's the human heart that's the problem, and that's what Jesus immediately deals with. What they don't know in this moment that we know on this side of the scriptures, is that Jesus Christ on the cross would pay the penalty for our sin. He would become the substitute for us. He would take on the wrath that you and I deserve. He would satisfy the divine justice of God. God cannot just sweep our sin under the rug and act like it never happened, he's a holy and pure God and he has to do something with it, and he punishes it by punishing his own son so that you and I can be spared from it. And they don't know all this is going to happen yet, but Jesus is sitting here saying, son, your sins are forgiven, and he's bringing release to him at an ultimate kind of level, the deepest kind of level. What does forgiveness mean? The word means to release. What Jesus is doing is releasing him from his sin. God is able to forgive in a way that you and I are not able to forgive. The Scripture says, that as far as the East is from the West, God removes our sins. Sometimes we might get troubled by the idea of forgive and forget. I don't think as humans that we're capable of that, depending on the degree of sin against us. We might not ever forget some things that were done. We can still forgive, though. To forgive, as Lewis Smead said in a book I read years ago on forgiveness, "I know I've forgiven when I no longer hold the sin against you." That's in human forgiveness, and that's not always easy. But God forgives in a way that he no longer holds it against us.

Ross Sawyers: This is what true love is, by the way. First Corinthians 13, "Love does not take into account a wrong suffered.": That's what love does, it forgives, and it releases, that's genuine love. We're only really able to do that once we've received the genuine forgiveness from God himself. In Psalm 86:5, it says, "For You, Lord, are good, and ready to forgive, and abundant in lovingkindness to all who call upon You." Can you imagine that? How many of us are in a posture? I've been watching a lot of pickleball videos because I still play with a bunch of guys that don't want to play with me. I can see it in their face, they're just looking and thinking, surely somebody else will just walk in the room that's a little bit better than you. So I'm trying to learn, and I watched this little video on what the readiness position is. So if you're a pickleball player, you're going to look at me and say, no, you have it all wrong, but I think I'm close. And you're supposed to have your knees bent, and your feet are kind of like this, and the feet need to be out, you don't want them in; not sure why that is, I think it's because you're supposed to be able to do that or that. And then you're supposed to hold your paddle right here, where it's just like this so that you can do this or that, otherwise you end up doing this and that, and you end up getting caught and you can't return the shot, I'm in the hunt. But it's a position of readiness, and you don't drag this hand, by the way, you keep this hand up so you can kind of move. All right, there's your pickleball lesson for the day, but that's the readiness position. God is ready all the time. You should have your chest up, sorry, I was bending. I don't know how you move, actually, when you do this, it doesn't feel ready to me. But God is ready to forgive you, that is his posture, always, he's ready to forgive. And God is the one who can release us from our sins.

Ross Sawyers: In Psalm 51:4, King David had committed adultery and murder, and in the psalm that he writes to God in chapter 51, verse 4, he says to God, he says, "It's against you, and you only, that I have sinned." He doesn't first go to the other people, he recognizes his sin is primarily against God, and he comes before God in confession before him. In Psalm 32:3, David said, his body is wasting away because of his sin. See, we are body, soul, and spirit, all of it's connected. And sometimes our sin is actually why we have physical and emotional problems because of unresolved guilt over sin that we've committed, and we haven't received forgiveness from God, or we haven't believed that he's forgiven us. Ultimately, that comes by way of Jesus in Luke 23, and Jesus, on the cross, while he's on the cross, after suffering all he suffered, he looks out and he says, "Father, forgive them." He gives us what we need when we don't even know that's what we need. "Father, forgive them, they don't know what they're doing." And yet he's the one that gives us release.

Ross Sawyers: R.C. Sproul, in one article that he wrote, talked about unresolved guilt is one of the most major reasons that people have emotional and mental health problems. And I recognize we're in a mental health crisis in our country, and I want to be very careful in what I say here. But I will say that for many people, if you would just bring your unresolved guilt to God, you would start to free up with some of the physical and emotional problems and challenges that you face. But what I don't hear that talked about much today, instead, we say certain things and we do certain things. But wouldn't it be worth it to at least sit before God for a little bit and say, you know what, I'm still feeling guilty that I did this to so-and-so, or I can't believe I committed this sin, and it has weighed me down for years, and it has started to affect me physically and mentally and emotionally. Billy Graham used to say that 50% of people would not be in mental institutions today if they could just receive the forgiveness of God and let go of bitterness and resentment. I know there are other reasons that there are mental health issues, I totally get that, but we cannot discount that God is able to release and free us from unresolved guilt, and that might solve some problems as well. And the answer today is not for you to forgive yourself, the issue is, do you believe that God has forgiven you? You'll find yourself in the same jam again and again if you keep trying to forgive yourself for what you did. God is the one who can release you. It's a matter of do you believe Him, and that what he did for you on the cross actually frees you from your sin. That's genuine forgiveness when we believe what God has done on our behalf. So we lean into the one who sees the deeper need.

Ross Sawyers: Now, when we talk about these things, and when I talk about these things, there are people that will be skeptical about that, there are people that will be hostile towards that, that you don't understand, and so forth. And that's what happens to Jesus here, verse 6, "But some of the scribes were sitting there and reasoning in their hearts, 7“Why does this man speak that way? He is blaspheming; who can forgive sins but God alone?” And we're actually moving to what is the climax of this whole story. Yes, they are gathered in a home, and this is all happening, and yes, these men have brought this guy to them, brought their paralytic friend to Jesus. And, yes, Jesus has forgiven him, and now we really start to see the move to the climax, because this is the problem that we've seen. Jesus is solving the problem, and they're saying, who can forgive sins but God alone? Remember in Mark, the core idea here is that Jesus is King. The King that we just sang about a few minutes ago. And Jesus is Deity, he's God, and God alone can forgive sins, they're absolutely correct. And Jesus is establishing Himself as God, who alone can forgive Sins. "And immediately, Jesus...That's 41 times in Mark that we see the word immediately, "...Jesus, aware in His spirit that they were reasoning that way within themselves, said to them..." By the way, we get this right, sometimes you're in a room with people and you think, you know what, something's off here. And I know they're thinking something about what I've been saying or doing, and that's all Jesus is doing here. He recognizes this, and he said, “Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven’; or to say, ‘Get up, and pick up your pallet and walk’?" Which is easier to say? Well, it would be easier to say, your sins are forgiven because you have no way of knowing did that really happen or not happen? There's a shot that if you say to the paralytic you're healed, that if he doesn't get up and go, you can see that that's visible, the forgiveness is invisible.

Ross Sawyers: But Jesus says in verse 10, this is why this whole scene happens, "So that you may know that the Son of Man..." That's one of his favorite terms for himself, it both identifies himself with humanity and is God. In Daniel, chapter 7, verses 13 and 14, this term is used and it's a reference to the mighty character of God Himself, and Jesus is applying it to himself. And he says, "So you'll know the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins." We have an authority problem in our culture. We don't trust institutions. We don't trust authority. But Jesus is saying, I'm the authority. We'll see this again and again; he has the authority to forgive sins because of who he is. He has the authority to do it. And he says, "I'm doing this so "That the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—He said to the paralytic, 11“I say to you, get up, pick up your pallet and go home.” It's like a bonus in this case, because the deeper need is the forgiveness that he needs, and yet he also receives the healing. So we see that Jesus both has the power to heal and the power to forgive. He's given them a visible way to see that he has the power to forgive, and that's really what he's wanting to say. In the Scripture here, when he says to get up, pick up your pallet, and go home, the idea there is to get up, start walking, and keep walking, you're healed. And they see all this miracle play out right before their very eyes so that they can see that Jesus is the one that you lean into because he knows the deeper need, and he has the authority and the power to release us. In this room today, no one has to leave here weighted down by sin. The invitation is to Jesus, to believe him that he can forgive and release your sin. So we want to lean into the one, if we're going to have a bold faith, we lean into the one who can actually give genuine forgiveness. And when we receive genuine forgiveness, it's tough to imagine to me that we would not want to communicate and tell that to somebody else and be as creative and risk-taking as we possibly could, because we have the deeper thing that people really need.

Ross Sawyers: And the reaction to this in verse 12, and it's the fourth thing I would say, is to give credit to the one who's worthy, "And he got up and immediately picked up the pallet and went out in the sight of everyone, so that they were all amazed and were glorifying God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this.” We've never seen anything like this before, it is amazing, and God is getting the glory for it. And Bob Goff's book, Love Does, it's a fun read of a guy just jumping out in multiple things and then tying it to the faith. But he tells a story about The Incredibles, and he said, the dad, you know, gets kind of bummed, and he'd given up his superhero thing and he was doing a desk job. Then he realized that's not what he was meant to do, he's meant to be a superhero, So he's going to Edna, who makes superhero costumes, and he keeps drawing these things, and he wants to have a cape, and she keeps saying the cape is a bad idea. When you look at superheroes, it gets like caught in jet engines, and it just seems to be a problem for people, so get rid of the Cape. And Bob Goff's whole point in telling the story is that we just need to get rid of the cape. Christianity is not for superheroes, it's not for us to get the glory, it's not for us to get the credit, it's a bunch of unknown people. We'll never know the names of these four guys, maybe we'll meet them in heaven and the new heavens and new earth, I don't know, we'll have a long time to be able to do it. So maybe we'll get to find some of these people and say, hey, what did you do after this? But we don't know who they are, these are just guys who had a buddy who had a need, and they believed Jesus could meet it, and they took him to Jesus. So all credit, all glory to God. And this room is full of stories of God intervening, meeting you, and releasing you of your sin, and you have nothing today but praise and thanks to God who freed you up with genuine forgiveness, so that you might have a bold faith.

Ross Sawyers: So I started by asking the question from Timothy Keller's book, in light of this story today, how would you fill in the blank? If I had blank, I would be okay and happy. If I had success in X, I'd be happy. If I had this relationship, I'd be okay, I'd be happy. Or would you say today if I had Jesus and the forgiveness that he gives, I would be happy, and whatever else that comes, let it come? Are you increasing in a bold faith and continuing to receive and enjoy genuine forgiveness that comes in Jesus Christ and Christ alone?

Ross Sawyers: Father, thank you for our time in your word. And I love the strength and power of it, God, and I pray that through your Spirit, that you would work in our hearts. And, God, I pray that we would be a people who figure out how to be in meaningful places, where our faith can be built and we can be reminded of your forgiveness, God. And, Lord, I pray that we would be people who are known as creative risk-takers for the sake of our family and our friends. And, God, I know it won't look the same for most anybody. So will you, just in our own relationship with you, stir our hearts in the ways that would help us best grab a corner and get our family, our friends, the stranger, and people across the world to at least get them in front of you so they can hear you. And, Father, I thank you that you see our deepest need and that you're gracious enough to us to expose that so that we're not after those things that will not ultimately bring us the happiness we desire. And, Father, where we get twisted up in our thinking, and I just start with myself, and I think this will do it and that will do it, and if had this health or this money or this thing or that thing, the human heart is so deceived. So I pray, God, you'll crush the deceptions in us today, and that we would just enjoy you, and lean into you. You're the only one who can meet the deepest need within us, and we thank you for all the bonus things you give beyond it. So Jesus, turn our hearts more to yourself today, and I pray in everything it will be for your glory and to your credit, Jesus the King, the God who has authority today. It's in His name I pray.

Ross Sawyers: Let's be quiet for the Lord, and then Eric will wrap us up here in a moment.



Recorded in Grapevine, Texas.