All right. Let's pray. Father, we praise you. Thank you for this for this great day. Thank you for the springtime. It's going to be so great having longer, longer days. I just praise you for what's ahead of us. Holy Spirit, thank you for being our counselor and our teacher. And please teach us this morning. Speak to each one of us and uh and give us something that we need. Jesus, we just praise you. We thank you for coming, showing us what God's really like, connecting us with our Father, your Spirit. And so we praise you and thank you for that. And it's in your name, Jesus, that we pray. Amen. Last week I talked about this man who had met Jesus. This man was at the lowest of lows. Jesus just transformed transformed him. Jesus then instructed him to go back home and explain what had happened, how he had changed inside. And at the end of that, I was uh explaining that sometimes we can feel like the pinnacle of Christianity is to go to another uh country, and often our greatest joy and our greatest impact is going to be here at home. Um, I have a real heart for for Uganda, and I've been over there a lot. And my experience has has been that people are just as hungry for God and need God, obviously need God just as much, but but but are just as hungry for God all over. And I was trying to explain that. And I talked about what God had done relative to here, relative to a couple churches that that um I've been involved with in Uganda. And I haven't heard a word about that from anybody. But that afternoon, and really all week, I've kind of been unsettled about how I explained that. And the part that that was unsettling and um is that we shouldn't compare. And um, you know, we shouldn't compare ourselves to each other. And I definitely shouldn't compare us as a church um to any other church. And so um I apologize for that. And uh, you know, I'm in process, we're all in process, and so we'll we'll process together. Um God is doing great stuff just all over the world, obviously. If we ever feel like there's no one around us here that needs Jesus, well, we just need to get out more. We just need to uh to make some new friends. Um that's what Jesus did. He met a lot of people, made a lot of new friends, and so for a few weeks we're looking at some of those uh introductions. This morning we got a I don't know if it's that big a story, but it's a big, it's a big topic, and especially on one uh one less hour of sleep. But uh I think we're gonna be all right. It's an unusual story how uh how Jesus meets this particular person. It starts in Mark 2. When Jesus returned to Capernaum several days later, the news spread quickly that he was back home. Susan talked about about um home. Um Capernaum was Jesus' home base. And where he lived once he had uh once he was old enough to decide for himself. Many of us have experienced that. I was born uh just outside Portland, Oregon. I was raised in Salem, Oregon. Um my home I live in is Woodstock, Georgia. Jesus was born in Bethlehem. He was raised in Nazareth, and Capernaum was his home, so where he had chosen to live in the small sea sea uh town, um, Capernaum, 1,500 or so people. Uh Peter, Andrew, James, and John were all from Capernaum. Uh Matthew was the tax collector for the area around Capernaum. It was Jesus' hometown. Soon the house where he was staying was so packed with visitors that there was no more room, even outside the door. We don't know where he was staying. It might have been Peter's house. He'd already stayed with Peter before. But either way, this house is just packed. I mean, people can't move. There's no room. There's no room inside, there's no room outside. Everybody's come to uh to see Jesus. While he was preaching God's word to them, four men arrived carrying a paralyzed man on a mat. They couldn't bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, so they dug a hole through the roof above his head, then they lowered the man on his mat right down in front of Jesus. This man had great friends. Great friends. I mean, how far had they come? They were determined. He was determined. They had a lot of faith. They just had to get to Jesus. Now, I don't know how Peter, or whoever was uh owned that house, was reacting. I mean, he was probably already worried about the furniture, and now it's like, hey, you're digging a hole in the roof. But these people were determined. And before long, this man was in front of Jesus. Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralyzed man, My child, your sins are forgiven. What do you think his reaction was to that? My guess is he didn't dig a hole in somebody else's roof to get his sins forgiven. He wanted to be healed, wouldn't you think? That's why he was there. And Jesus is definitely, definitely not making a connection to his paralysis and his sin. I mean, Jesus goes out of his way to make sure we understand that's not a connection. Once there's a blind person and he's asked, uh, who sinned, him or his parents? Jesus said, Neither, neither. No, there's a time and a purpose when he's going to receive his sight. And so when Jesus says to this man, My child, your sins are forgiven, he is doing two things. He is forgiving his sins. That's the first thing. He is forgiving his sins. And secondly, he is throwing everybody the old curveball. See, as we get to know Jesus, this is how he teaches a lot. A twist, something unexpected. Of course, he's going to say this. He says something else. It challenges their thinking. It challenges our thinking. What is it he wants? What is it his friends want for him? It's obvious to be healed. Jesus says, My child, your sins are forgiven. But some of the teachers of religious law who were sitting there thought to themselves, what is he saying? This is blasphemy. Only God can forgive sins. Jesus knew immediately what they were thinking, so he asked them, Why do you question this in your hearts? Is it easier to say to the paralyzed man, your sins are forgiven? Or stand up, pick up your mat, and walk? Jesus is forcing an answer to a key question. What is the biggest thing? What's the most difficult thing? What's the most important thing? This man is on a mat. His four friends are looking through a hole in the ceiling, wondering, is that it? Is that the end of the conversation? So here's our question. Are you okay with Jesus if that's the end of the story? If the very next verse is, and so Jesus went out to the lakeshore again and taught to the crowds that were coming to him. Are you okay with that? You know, it's a little challenging, but if we're not okay with that, we might have answered his question. Which of the two do we think is the bigger deal? What do we think is the most important? Jesus cares deeply about our physical needs. He cares about our health. He cares about our emotional needs and the way we we think and the concerns we have, everything. But none of them outweighs forgiveness. In Acts 13 and 38, it says, We are here to proclaim that through this man Jesus, there is forgiveness for your sins. Everyone who believes in him is declared right with God. Something the law of Moses could never do. Just thinking about that, that you know, I definitely take forgiveness for granted. I mean, I I just do. You know, I've had it for 16 years now. I know I have it. I know I'm not going to lose it. I know I was forgiven for what I did. I know I'm forgiven for what for what I do. I forget that of everything God will ever do for me, that's the biggest. It's the biggest. Forgiveness. We turn to Jesus, we turn to Jesus, we are forgiven, we are connected with God, and our spirit inside of us comes to life. In John 3, Jesus is talking to Nicodemus. He says, Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life. So don't be surprised when I say you must be born again. The wind blows wherever it wants. Just as you can hear the wind, but can't tell where it comes from or where it is going, so you can't explain how people are born of the Spirit. Our spirit comes alive. Now, if Jesus can't explain it, I'm not going to take 15 minutes trying. It just does. It just does. We turn to Jesus, we receive forgiveness, our spirit comes alive. We're reconnected with our Father. In Romans, it says that his spirit testifies with our spirit, that we are children of God. Now there are some things that Jesus does explain to Nicodemus. Like he says, For God loved the world so much, he's talking to Nicodemus, that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life. God sent his son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him. And so the first thing Jesus saves is our spirit. Our spirit comes alive. Then he starts saving our souls. And we get the two confused. You know, we hear soul and we think spirit. You know, and there's some overlap and they're intertwined. But but when the Bible is talking about our souls, most often it's talking about our inside self, the way we're wired inside, the way we think, the way we feel, how we make decisions. We might say our personality. Jesus says that in him we find rest for our souls. We're talking it's the inside stuff. Now that part is a process. The inside stuff is a process. Now the changes can be fast and they can be dramatic, but it's still a process. And what that means is that we don't have to pretend with each other that our inside stuff has already been completely saved. The way I think isn't perfect. My emotions aren't perfect. See, we're all in a process. Can we all agree that we are all in a process? It's okay. It's okay to have doubts. It's okay to have fears, even. You know, Jesus all the time when he's saying, Do not fear, do not fear. He's not giving us the new do not fear rule. He is having compassion for us because he knows there are going to be times when we have fear. And he's saying you don't have to fear. You can transform the way you think, you can transform the way you feel. It was compassion. Because we're just learning. We're learning to trust, we're learning to have faith, we're learning what it looks like to be loving. And so when we make mistakes, we're not freaked out. Oh, I thought they were saved. They were saved. Their spirit was saved like that. My spirit was saved like that. Eternally. The soul part is in process. And so we help each other. And we get God's great help. We get God's great help. He does the heavy list lifting. He strengthens us. He teaches us. He encourages us. And we apply ourselves. We pray. We forgive people. We learn what God says and how God thinks. And over time, the outside starts catching up with the inside. And we're being transformed. You know, we're being transformed from the inside out. And when does that process get finished? Who knows? When does the process get finished? When we get to heaven. The process gets finished when we get to heaven. Then we're gonna we'll know like we're fully known. And we'll grow, I'm sure, still, even in heaven. But that's when the process gets completed. And so our spirit gets saved. Inside our soul, being saved. You know what I mean? We're being saved. It's a transformation, it's a process. Now, what does this have to do with this man who was Lord through the roof and he met Jesus? So he has shown his belief in Jesus. Jesus has forgiven his sins. His spirit is alive eternally. What is it he is probably wondering about? His body. His physical body. I've known God for, I've known about God for my whole life. I mean, really, I mean. I was probably born in a church. I don't know. It seemed like I spent my entire childhood there. Knew all about God. When I was 32, man, I turned to Him. I really turned to Jesus. I was totally forgiven. My spirit connected with God's Spirit. It came alive. And just like that, I had eternal life. Inside, he's changed me dramatically over time. I mean, dramatically. I mean, you think there's big room for improvement now? You should have known me then. It's a big change, and uh he's got a lot, a lot left to do. But he is transforming me. Now my body's changing too in that 16 years. Muscle tone, not quite the same. Still very good. But not quite the same. You might not believe this, but I've even started to notice a few gray hairs. I mean, what's going on? What's going on? That in this context, God hasn't saved my body. He saved my spirit. It came alive. He is saving my soul. I'm being transformed. He is going to save my body. See, God's healed me from time to time, and hopefully he'll keep doing that. He heals us. God heals us physically sometimes in very dramatic ways. It is a reprieve. It's a small gift while we wait for the big gift. Say that again. I've experienced God heal in myself and with other people in supernatural, dramatic ways. He does it often, but not every time. When he does, it is a reprieve. It is a small taste of what is going to happen on that dramatic day when our bodies are finally saved. 1 Corinthians 15 says, What I'm saying, dear brothers and sisters, is that our physical bodies cannot inherit the kingdom of God. These dying bodies cannot inherit what will last forever. But let me reveal to you a wonderful secret. We will not all die, but we will all be transformed. We will all be transformed. It'll happen in a moment, in the blink of the eye, when the last trumpet is blown. For when the trumpet sounds, those who have died will be raised to live forever, and we who are living will also be transformed. For our dying bodies must be transformed into bodies that will never die. Our mortal bodies must be transformed into immortal bodies. Spirit saved, soul being saved, body will be saved. The question Jesus asked these people crammed into this house. Which is easier to forgive? Which is easier to forgive our sins or to heal our bodies? Which is more difficult? Which is the bigger deal? It was just a rhetorical question. The answer was obvious. What was also obvious to Jesus is the Pharisees were going to have the wrong answer. He says, so I will prove to you that the Son of Man has the authority on earth to forgive sins. Jesus is saying the most important thing, the biggest thing, the most difficult thing is to forgive our sins. And he has taken care of the most important thing first. Forgiveness. Forgiveness. But it wasn't the end of this story. Then Jesus turned to the paralyzed man and said, Stand up. Pick up your mat and go home. Can you imagine? The man jumped, jumped up, grabbed his mat, and walked out through the stunned onlookers. They were all amazed and praised God, exclaiming, We have never seen anything like this before. For this man, a small taste of heaven, of what it is going to be like for him when his body gets completely saved. Why does Jesus go out of his way to take this big pause in the story? Why does Jesus go out of his way to help us understand his priority? The most important thing. It's because at some time in each of our lives, we are going to need to know. We are going to need to know what is most important, and that there's more to the story. A loved one lost. A child going to our Father God before us. An illness not healed. Deeply difficult things that won't crush us. If we know there's more to the story. We're going to have a great Sunday together. Trisha and her husband Jack Frost, you might know of Jack, not Jack Frost, the winner of Jack Frost. We all know. We all know of him. Jack and Trisha started a ministry that helps people understand and experience how much our Father God loves us. Helps people understand and experience and get it in our hearts, just not our heads. How much God loves us. He wrote a book, Embracing the Father's Love, sold over a million copies. And four years ago, Jack gets diagnosed with an aggressive form of lung cancer. They have great faith. I mean, great faith. And they have a great relationship with God. And some of their closest friends are people who are renowned for their faith and their power in their prayer. And thirteen months later, Jack goes home to be with his father God. Three years later, almost to the day, same week, Trisha will be here, giving of herself, telling us how much God loves us. Her son-in-law will be here. All their children are involved in their ministry. And it was a hard time for them, as you can imagine. But their faith was not destroyed. They were not crushed. Why was their faith not destroyed when Jack's body wasn't healed? Because they knew what was most important. They knew what was most important, forgiveness. And they also knew that Jack's death was not the end of the story. Next time Trisha sees Jack, they're going to both have saved bodies. Transformed. Spirits that are alive, souls completely transformed. And are bodies that they'll never have to worry about or think about or pray about again. So we're going to finish here in a second. And if the worship team wants to come up and get ready, don't be discouraged. Don't be discouraged. Don't be discouraged if your insides haven't completely changed yet. It takes God and it takes some time. But He is transforming us. He is transforming you. Don't be discouraged. If you have a physical condition that hasn't changed, or even if you have a loved one that has gone on before us to be with our Father God. See, all of us, all of us can be encouraged, all of us can be excited because Jesus has already done the most difficult part. It's the whole point of the story. Jesus has already done the most difficult part. We are forgiven. We are forgiven. Reconnected with God. Our spirits inside of us come into life. And it is not the end of the story. One day our thoughts and our decision making and our emotions will all be completely healed. Completely healed. Our thoughts, our emotions, completely healed, and our bodies. Then our bodies will be saved. Saved instantly. See, that is the story. That is the story of this man that met Jesus. There was a pause. But that was his story. It's also your story. Your story. Let's pray. Father, I just praise you for being such a great and loving God. I thank you that we're all here this morning. God, speak deep into our hearts that you have a plan and that you have a process and you have a way. And that we can trust you. Thank you, thank you, thank you for having done the most important thing. Jesus, thank you for coming. And so our sins are completely forgiven. Our spirits are alive. Thank you for changing us, God, from the inside out. Changes faster, changes more. And Father, thank you for the promise that someday we'll completely be alive. Spirit, soul, and body. We praise you for that. We trust you with that. Jesus, it's in your great, wonderful name we pray. Amen.