People Matter to God - Life of Christ Part 44

Now, if I said the name Roy Campanella, would that ring a bell for some of you?

Well, if you're young, it might not. But if this is a name, if you're a sports fan, you ought to know. Roy Campanella was the first black catcher in Major League Baseball. He joined the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1948. That was after playing eight years in the Negro Leagues where one time he actually caught two double headers in one day.

That's four games in one day. Now, every catcher I know in baseball, their contract says that nobody can make them do that anymore, but this man did. In his 10-season career, he was the National League Most Valuable Player three times. He still holds the records for the most home runs and the most runs batted in by a catcher in the Major Leagues.

He set to both in 1953. And he was the second black man ever elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. In 1958, Roy Campanella was involved in a tragic auto accident that broke his back in two places and paralyzed him for life from the legs down. And he spent the next 35 years of his life in a wheelchair. He worked in the Dodger organization. He was a community activist, was very involved in community service.

Finally, he died this past June, June of 1993. And at his funeral, Peter O'Malley, the Dodger owner said, and I quote, no one had more courage than Roy Campanella. To me, he was the greatest Dodger of them all. Now, that's quite a quote.

There's been some great Dodgers, but this is quite a quote. They say, well, Lon, why are we talking about Roy Campanella? Well, because Roy Campanella had a back problem. And we're going to see Jesus encounter a lady this morning in our passage who also had a back problem. And if you've ever had a back problem, you know that a back problem defines the meaning of the word agony.

I never had back problems when I was young. And I used to always look at people with back problems and they go, oh, my back hurts so bad. I can't get out of bed. I'm so much better. And my attitude used to be, well, just suck it up, man. I mean, what's the problem with you? Can't be that bad.

Just get up and go and just deal with this. And then I had a back problem. Man, I have never laughed at anybody else who told me they had a back problem. I mean, we're talking excruciating pain.

And this is what this woman had. Jesus heals her. Yes, he does.

But he does more than that. He uses this opportunity to teach some great spiritual truth that I want you and me to learn together. So let's follow looking at verse 10 of chapter 13. On a particular Sabbath, Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues. And a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for 18 years. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all.

Jesus often went into the synagogues to teach spiritual truth, to interact with the people. And here he was on this given Sabbath when he meets a woman who's had a chronic back problem for 18 years. Now we don't know exactly what was wrong with her.

Our best guess is that maybe she had a ruptured disc or she had a deteriorating disc situation. But it was so bad, the Bible says, that she was bent over and could not straighten up at all. Now reading between the lines, can you imagine what life must have been like for this lady?

I mean, we're talking a lot more here than just a wheelchair on a license plate situation. I mean, for example, how did this woman earn a living? Who took care of her? How did she take care of her family? How did she wash her clothes? How did she bathe? How did she dress herself? How did she cook for herself? How did she wash dishes?

How did she clean the house? Did she ever get a good night's sleep? Did she ever go through a day without being in pain? Did she ever get angry or cranky or bitter? Did she ever lose all hope and just want to give up? Did she ever get angry with God? Did she ever question God?

Did her faith ever waver and vacillate? I think this woman faced that whole range of emotions. You say, La, you seem to understand a little bit about what this woman was facing. Well, I do.

I do. After two years of dealing with a very serious seizure disorder that my little girl has, Brenda and I both have been introduced to a world that we used to know nothing about. It's the world of chronic illness. You know, folks, there's a whole segment of the world going through that out there that many of us don't know a thing about.

We knew nothing about till a couple of years ago. But I'll tell you what, it is a tough world, the world of chronic illness. It's a world of exhaustion, a world of pain, a world of all kinds of unanswered spiritual questions. It's a world where hope has a mortality rate like a first lieutenant in Vietnam.

It's a world where after 18 months of dealing with it, much less 18 years, you can begin to feel like you're in a big black hole and there's no way to climb out. This woman knew what all this was like. You know what really impresses me about this woman? What really impresses me is where she was on this Sabbath. Where was she? Well, she was in the synagogue, right?

Worshipping God. Somehow all of the pain, all of the immobility, all of the discouragement, all of the spiritual questions, all of that added together had not kept this woman from showing up to worship God. And this is where Jesus met her. I think that says an awful lot about this woman's faith and it's a faith that Jesus honors.

Watch verse 12. And when Jesus saw her, he called her forward and said, woman, you are set free from your infirmity. And he put his hands on her and immediately she straightened up and she began to praise God. Now for the first time in 18 years, this woman is able to stand up straight. For the first time in 18 years, this woman is able to walk and bend and sit and twist and turn without being in excruciating pain.

For the first time in 18 years, this woman is able to think about living a normal life. There's a lot of commentators who suggest that what Jesus did here was chiropractic medicine. The Bible says, you know, he put his hands on her.

And so there's commentators who suggest that what he did is he grabbed her and went and she was okay again. But I'm suggesting to you, this has nothing to do with chiropractic medicine at all. Now we've got some fine chiropractors in our church and I'm all for chiropractic medicine, but believe me, if there were chiropractors in Israel, this woman in 18 years had seen them.

This was not chiropractic medicine. This was a supernatural event. This was a down-home rip snorting genuine miracle that Jesus did. And is it any wonder that the woman jumped up, began yelling and screaming and praising God after 18 years of being an invalid and a cripple that you would think the people in the synagogue would have been thrilled to death.

You don't think they'd have said, Hey, let's cancel service and have a party, but they didn't know. Look at verse 14 indignant. The Bible says, because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, the synagogue ruler said to the people, he scolded the people and he said, there are six days for work. So come here and be healed on those days.

You've got Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Friday, come here on those days, but not on the Sabbath. We should not be healing on the Sabbath. This is wrong.

This is bad. Is he thrilled this lady has been given her life back? Is he thrilled this woman has been freed from 18 years of agony and pain and hardship? No, he's mad. He scolds the people. He tells them that this is not right. This is not good.

We should never do this on Saturday. Now you say, well, Lon, what was this guy's problem? I mean, this guy has a problem. What was it? Well his problem was that the rabbis had 12 books full of rules about the Sabbath. I'm not lying. Literally they had 12 books full all about what it meant to work on the Sabbath and what you could and couldn't do.

And I've shared some of them with you before, but listen to a couple. A person was only allowed to walk 3000 feet from his home on the Sabbath. If he walked anymore, it was work. Couldn't do it. If a mosquito bit you on the Sabbath, you are not allowed to plop the mosquito because then you were doing the work of an exterminator.

So you couldn't do that. On the Sabbath, the women in Israel were not allowed to look in the mirror. They hung sheets or pillowcases or something over the mirror. No woman was allowed to look in the mirror because the rabbis were afraid if she looked in the mirror, she might see a gray hair and if she saw a gray hair, she might take it and pull it out. And if she pulled out a gray hair, she was doing the work of a beautician. So you couldn't do that in Israel.

Couldn't look in the mirror. You weren't allowed to wear false teeth on the Sabbath if you had them because they might fall out. And if they fell out and you picked them up and put them back in, you were doing what?

The work of a dentist. So you just, if you had false teeth, you just gummed your food on the Sabbath. You ate nice soft food and now if a person was dying on the Sabbath, you were allowed to give them CPR and try to resuscitate them.

But if they died, you were not allowed to take their eyelids and close them because then you were doing the work of a funeral director. Right. You weren't allowed to climb a tree, ride a horse, swim, clap your hands, dance, or even spit on the ground and step on it on the Sabbath. And you certainly were not allowed to heal on the Sabbath because that was doing the work of a doctor.

Right. So this guy's all jerked out of shape because Jesus has worked on the Sabbath. He's healed this woman. He's broken some of these rules in 12 books worth that they have. Now, Jesus had some real problems with the rabbis and their Sabbath rules.

Two in particular he mentions here. Number one, verse 15, he says, you hypocrites. The first problem Jesus had with their rules is that they were hypocrites.

Look what he says. He says, doesn't each one of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water? See, they had worked into their rules. The fact that, well, you know, an ox can't go all day without water. Donkey can't go all day without water. So God doesn't want us to be cruel to animals. So we need to be able to untie our ox and our donkey and take them down and feed them and give them water. That's not work. Nevermind the fact that if that ox or donkey died, it might hurt their livelihood, see, which they also knew.

You understand. So Jesus says, what's wrong with you people? You guys are hypocrites. You've worked all these little loopholes into the system so that your livelihood doesn't get hurt and your animals don't get hurt. But what about this woman? Here's a woman who's a poor crippled lady and you can't work a loophole in to heal her, but you can work one in for your ox or your donkey so you don't lose any money. You hypocrites.

And the other problem he had was that their value system was all messed up. Look at verse 16. Jesus said, should not this woman, we're not talking an ox here. We're not talking a donkey here. We're talking a human being here.

Should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan has kept bound for 18 long years, shouldn't she be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her? You'll untie an ox. You'll untie a donkey. Why can't I untie a human being? What's wrong with you people? Here's your value system.

A human beings worth a whole lot more than an ox or a donkey. And so he healed her on the Sabbath. He said, well, Lon, you know, something really bothers me here. It bothers me that Jesus was going around breaking the Sabbath.

It bothers me. May I say something to you? Jesus was not breaking the Sabbath. Jesus never broke the Sabbath. Not the way the Old Testament defined it anyway. You can go back and read the whole Old Testament. You'll never find a word in here that says anything wrong with healing on the Sabbath. God never said a thing about that. Jesus wasn't breaking the Sabbath folks. What he was breaking was these rabbis, petty legalistic little rules, which had become more important to them than the Bible itself and which kept them from caring for the real needs of real people.

Do you understand that? They were so obsessed with their rules that they rolled right past people with their real needs. They didn't care about this woman.

They cared about their stupid little rules. Could Jesus have healed her on Sunday? Yeah. Could he have healed her on Monday? Sure. Could he have done it Wednesday afternoon? Yeah. Could he have done it Thursday morning?

Uh huh. He said, well then why did he make trouble? Why did he do it on Monday? Why go into synagogue and make trouble like this? Because these people needed to be taught a lesson. And the lesson they needed to be taught is that people's needs are more important to God than stupid little religious rules. That's what Jesus was trying to make them see.

People's needs were more important to God than their stupid little rules. Now look, verse 17 said, when he said this, all his opponents were humiliated. He'd embarrassed them. He had outflanked them.

It's too bad they weren't humiliated enough to have a change of heart. But the people, the people were delighted, the Bible said, with all the wonderful things he was doing. Why were they delighted?

Because finally somebody had come along who knew what it meant to value people ahead of stupid little rules. Now that's the end of our passage, but it leads us to ask the really important question. And you know what that is, don't you?

What is it? So what? Right. So you say, Lon, all right, so big deal.

Jesus did this. So what difference does that make for me living in the 20th century? Well, I want to tell you.

First let me ask you a question. If I were to ask you what's the most grueling sports event in the world, what would you say? You say, well, the Olympic decathlon. Well, no, that's a pretty grueling sport, but I don't think that's the winner. No, I'd like to submit to you that the most grueling sports event in the world is the Iditarod. You know the Iditarod? It's a 1,151 mile dog sled race that starts in Anchorage, Alaska and goes to Nome, Alaska.

It takes 10 to 11 days to finish it. It covers some of the most forbidding terrain anywhere in the world. They go through blizzards. They go through whiteouts. The temperature is often minus 60 degrees.

And with the wind chill added in, because the winds up there are razor sharp, with the winds added in, sometimes the windshield gets to negative 100 degrees. Can you fathom going through that with a dog sled? I mean, and it's not a closed in dog sled either.

I mean, you know, you're out and hoping here. Now, the Iditarod is kind of like the ultimate He-Man macho event in the world. Does the name Susan Butcher ring a bell? Susan Butcher is a 39 year old woman. She stands five foot six and she lives in Eureka, Alaska, population 13.

Thank you. Susan has won the Iditarod four out of the last eight years. And she won it three times in a row, which nobody has ever done, man or woman. Joe Reddington, who founded the Iditarod, said, and I quote, this race was designed to be the ultimate test for men.

Yet every year, it's Susan Butcher who's the favorite to win. Now, how do you explain that, end of quote? Well, I'll tell you the answer. It's all in the way she treats the dogs. The traditional way of treating these dogs was that the men always did is they punished them. They kicked them. They were cruel to them. They beat them. They left them out in the cold.

Why? Because it made them tough. Well, Susan said, and I quote, when I started, I had no idea what the great mushers of the past did with their dogs. I just tried to build a loving relationship with the dogs so they'd stay committed to me no matter what. When I'd get a new litter of pups, I'd hold them and kiss their faces and sing them songs. I disciplined them like a mother wolf by biting them gently on the nose or the ear.

You think it'll work with children? I don't know. But anyway, when she was doing this, the male mushers, they thought she was a nut. They said, she what? She kisses the dogs. She bites them on the nose. She sings to the dogs.

Right. You know what the amazing thing is? The dogs she produced outran all their dogs. Their dogs couldn't keep up with them. Most incredible thing they ever saw. And as one of Butcher's assistants said, and I quote, I'm not sure I understand why, but these dogs would run through a brick wall for her.

I understand why, don't you? It's all in the way she what? Treated the dogs. In fact, in 1991, she lost the Iditarod. After leading the whole way, she lost it at the very end because she stopped to protect her dogs from an especially vicious blizzard.

Now I can only imagine what an especially vicious blizzard must be like in these conditions. But she protected the dogs and her arch rival, a fellow named Rick Swenson, he pressed through, might have lost some dogs, but he won the race. And then he had the nerve to tell the reporters at the finish line that the reason Butcher lost is because she was too soft. She said, and I quote, I'll always say my decision was best, as painful as it was to lose, I took care of my dogs. And my dogs matter the most to me.

More than winning, more than medals, more than what people think, her dogs mattered the most to her. Now you say, Lon, this is really interesting, but what are you talking about? What are we doing here?

What is this? Well, it connects, trust me. It does. Trust me just a second. Let me ask you a question. When it comes to how God wants us to treat people, whose example do you think he wants us to follow? The example of this synagogue ruler in the Bible or the example of Susan Butcher? Whose example you think God wants us to follow? See does the church have our legalistic rules today? Sure we do. Say, no we don't. Of course we do. Sure we do. I've told you this before, you know, we don't drink or smoke or cuss or chew or hang around with them, which do. We've got our rules.

Got to wear a tie and coat to church. Why? Well, I don't know. You just do. Why? Because you do. That's why. Because you just got to. Why? Because it's a rule.

That's why. Well, who said? We have rules about what kind of music you can listen to and rules about what kind of movies you can go to and rules about all kinds of things.

I was at a conference one time and I was speaking. A guy came up to me and asked me, he said, how much alcohol can you drink and be a member of your church? I said, well, I don't know. We don't have a rule about that. He said, what kind of movies can you go to and be a member of your church? I said, well, we don't have a rule about that either. He said, well, how about music?

What kind of music can you listen to and be a member of your church? And I said, well, we don't have a rule about that either. He said, well, you have rules about any of these things?

No. He said, well, what in the world do you all talk about there on Sunday? I said, well, we talk about Jesus Christ and we talk about having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and we talk about letting Jesus Christ live his life through him. We talk about touching people's lives with Jesus Christ. That's what we talk about.

We don't talk about what movies you can go to and how many drinks you can have. We believe if you put people in touch with Jesus Christ in a real living way, he'll take care of the rest of this stuff. Does the church have its rules today?

Sure it does. And you know what this passage tells me? It tells me Jesus is really not interested in the church's rules. He's interested in people.

Do you get that out of this passage? He cares about people. People won't matter to him. Men with long hair and earrings and tattoos and black studded leather jackets, they matter to Jesus Christ. Women whose lives have been touched by a divorce and abortion and abuse, they matter to Jesus Christ. People who drink too much and smoke too much, party too much and do too much drugs, they matter to Jesus Christ. People with AIDS and homosexuals and the homeless and young women who are pregnant and don't have any place to go and teenagers who are in trouble, these are people. People who may not fit in with our nice little rules that we define church goers by, but they're people.

People that Jesus died for, people that Jesus loves, people that matter to him, people who need help. Now folks, if all you want to do is deal with people like us, if all we want to do is deal with people who aren't going to challenge our comfort zone and are going to be just like us, my advice is go join a country club. And there's a lot of exclusive country clubs in the Washington area, you know that? Now most of which I could not get in. I don't have enough money, I don't have enough power, I don't have enough prestige, I don't just wear white on the tennis court and my last name is wrong. You understand what I'm saying?

And I couldn't get into most of these things. But I'll tell you what, if you want to go somewhere where everything is neat and clean and safe, go join a country club. There's lots of them around, but God did not create the church to be a country club where it's us people on the inside and them people on the outside.

No, no, no. If that's what you think the church is, brother, you don't understand the church. And I believe that Jesus' words here in Luke chapter 13 challenge us as a church family to make some decisions and to keep on making some decisions year after year about what kind of church we're going to be. Are we going to be the kind of church we're going to open our arms wide to people of every kind? It doesn't matter what their problem is, what the color of their skin is, what their economic background is, what their sin level is, we're going to open our arms to them. Or are we going to be the kind of church that insulates ourselves from certain types because they wear jeans to church or they leave cigarette butts in the parking lot or beer cans in the dumpster or whatever? Friends, are we going to be a hospital for sinners or we want to be a museum where saints are on display?

I mean, do we want to be a mass unit or do we want to live in Lysol land? We got a decision to make. A few years ago when we were meeting down in Langley High School, we had a couple that started coming regularly. And this guy came in, he had long hair, he had earrings, he wore jeans and boots. And if it was summer, he wore a t-shirt. If it was winter, he wore a sweatshirt. There was a girl that came with him and she always had a skirt on that was too short.

Too short on the bottom and too short on the top, if you know what I'm saying. And she had a big old tattoo right up here on top of her chest, a big red rose tattooed right on top of her chest. And they'd always come down and sit right in the front row, right to my left. Always knew when they were there, they were right in the front row.

And I would watch people as they would walk in. People would look at them and go, must be Lon's friends from a previous life. Where did these people come from?

Can I tell you where they came from? This guy was a heroin addict who got AIDS from a dirty needle. And when he knew he was dying, he began asking some hard questions about life and about death and about eternity. And somebody told them that McLean Bible Church was the kind of church they could come to where they wouldn't be rejected and they wouldn't be thrown out, but where people would accept them and where they could learn about God. So they started coming. Do you know both of these people received Christ? In fact, we buried him not too long after they began coming.

Richard Park did the service, but I'm glad to say he's in heaven today because there was a church who let them walk in looking like that and acting like that and said, doesn't matter how you look and how you act. We've got something we can do to help you. We love you. Should McLean Bible Church have room for these kind of people? I say yes.

If we don't, folks, we're not a hospital, we're a museum. If we don't, we're not a church, we're a country club. Do I want you inviting your homosexual friends to come to church? Absolutely. Do I want you inviting your friends to come who are sexually active? Absolutely. Do I want you to invite your friends who are using drugs or drinking too much?

Yeah, sure. I want you to invite them. Do I want you to invite the friends that you know that are sleeping together and living together? Absolutely. Do I want you to invite your friends that you know whose families are breaking up and they're walking out on marriage commitments? You bet I do. Do I want you to invite friends to come here who are unconvinced and in process and aren't sure where they stand with God? Absolutely I do. Absolutely.

Why? So we can condone their lifestyle and tell them their sin is okay? No, we're not going to tell them that, but so that we can love them and care for them and extend the love of God to them and tell them about Jesus Christ who died and wants to come into their life and give them a new life and transform them into new people who have meaning and purpose and wholeness in their life. Folks, that's why we keep sending missionaries to the Muslims and that's why we keep sending missionaries to the Hindus and the Jewish people and the Amazon tribes and Capitol Hill because, not because, all right, fair enough, not because it's easy to reach these people, but because these people matter to God, don't they? Don't they matter to God? Underneath the muck and underneath all of the outer stuff that you kind of go, oh please, underneath all of that, there's a person that matters to God.

I want to tell you this synagogue ruler, he didn't think this woman mattered, but Jesus Christ said, oh yes she does. And if you're here this morning and you've never trusted Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, could I say to you, you matter to God. God loves you. I don't care where you've been, what you've done, what you've said, what experiences you've had, I don't care how bad you've been, God loves you. And Jesus Christ wants to recondition and transform your life if you'll just let him and while you're thinking about it, I'm thrilled that you're coming here. I'm thrilled that you're sitting and that you're listening and that you're learning and that you're debating and that you're questioning, I'm thrilled about that. I don't care whether you wear jeans, I don't care what you wear, I don't care what your hair looks like, I don't care what your clothing looks like, I don't care how many earrings you have.

It doesn't matter. And everybody in this church whose head is screwed on right agrees with me. Friends, we dare never forget, we're a hospital. We're not a museum, this is a hospital. And you know what's interesting about hospitals? I don't know if you ever noticed this, but sick people are the primary clientele of hospitals.

Have you noticed that? Sick people. If you're a hospital, then you're going to cater to sick people.

And we cater to spiritually sick people. While sick people are in the process of getting better, you know what, things can sometimes get a little messy. Now if you don't want things to get messy, go join a country club.

Things are never messy at a country club. But at a hospital, people bleed on the floor, they have organs that you're not sure what to call them that drop on the floor and go all kinds of crazy places. I mean, all kinds of stuff happens, a hospital's not a neat place. But that comes with the turf of people trying to get better, and it comes with the turf of the church. This is what it costs to put people first. And I'm always amazed at how people want their church to insulate them, and somehow give them this sterile little environment. Friends, hospitals are not insulated sterile little environments. This is what the real church is all about.

This is what being real Christians is all about. In 1970, I was a student at Chapel Hill, North Carolina. You know that. I was a chemistry major, although I never went to class, but I was registered. I did. I still don't know how I passed.

It really is a miracle comparable to one of these in the New Testament that I ever got out of college. We smoked dope all day. Nobody went to class. We smoked dope all day. We sat in trees and smoked dope. And I'll tell you, my life was a mess.

I had hair out to my shoulders, bell bottoms, tank tops, boots on, rode a motorcycle. And I want to tell you, friends, I didn't look nice. I didn't smell nice. I didn't act nice. I didn't talk nice. I didn't think nice. And I didn't sin nice.

I was a mess. I'm sure glad there was a man named Bob Eckhart in Chapel Hill in 1970. Bob Eckhart was a 45-year-old man who lived next door in Durham, who came to Chapel Hill once a week to hand out literature on the street about Jesus Christ. And when I passed him one day on the street, he looked past all of that muck, past all of that sin, and said, underneath all of this is a kid that matters to Jesus Christ. I'm sure glad he did. I couldn't shake him.

He was like a bad case of dandruff. You know what I'm trying to say? I couldn't get rid of this guy to save my life. And he kept saying to me, Lon, it doesn't matter what you've done, where you've been, what's on the outside, underneath all of that, God loves you and you matter to God. I didn't believe that, but he did.

And you know what? The reason I'm standing here today is because there was a man who believed I mattered to God and wouldn't put. I'm convinced I'd be dead today. I wouldn't be alive.

Not the way I was living. How about you? When you go out there in the real world, there are people out there with all kinds of muck all over them, friends. Are you and I to the point as Christians that we can look beyond that muck and see people that matter to God? I love the song that says, Jesus Christ, look beyond my fault and he saw my need.

Aren't you glad he did that? Because I'll bet there's a whole bunch of you here today who are here this morning because somebody looked past all the muck in your life, whether it was a mother, a father, a child, a friend, a coworker, a neighbor, look past all the muck in your life and said, underneath all of that is somebody that matters to God. Well, I think the agenda for the church is very clearly spelled out in the Bible. I think the question is whether you and I as Christians have the courage that we're willing to live that way.

How about you and me? Do we have the heart of Susan Butcher for people or do we have the heart of this synagogue ruler? Huh?

It's a pretty searching question, but I'll tell you this. Our impact on that world for Jesus Christ will depend more than anything else on whether we treat him the way Susan Butcher treats her dogs or whether we treat him the way the synagogue leader treated this lady. They don't care about our rules, our regulations, or our theology, but brother, you look past the muck and you love those people and care for those people and we'll make an impact on this world for Jesus Christ. Let's bow together and pray.

As we bow our heads, let's take just a moment. Let me ask you to do this and ask God, if there's somebody that you know, somebody in your life, whose sin infested world Jesus Christ wants you to enter because they matter to God. A friend, a neighbor, somebody at work, a fellow student. Ask God if there's somebody like that he has for you.

Now, if you've got somebody, the question is what are you going to do about it? Are we going to insulate ourselves? Are we going to be good doctors and nurses and go out and try to reach people for Jesus Christ? Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for the word of God this morning, which hits us right where we live. Forgive us, Lord, for the many times that really we act more like country club people than nurses and doctors. And I pray, Father, that for our church family, you would give us a real clear definition of what we're here to do, to be a hospital.

And nobody's ever too sick to come to the hospital. Lord Jesus, help us step outside of our comfort zone as a church family and not worry about how people look or how they smell or how they act or how they dress, but look beyond all of that and see their need. Thank you, the Bible teaches us, man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart. Lord, help us do the same. And as individual Christians, I pray that you would make us real disciples of Christ. A disciple is somebody who has the same worldview and the same value system and the same mindset and the same outlook that Jesus had on every issue of life. And when it comes to people, dear God, help us to be disciples who see people the way you see them, that they matter to God.

The muck makes no difference. And make us men and women who reach out to people who are willing to get involved with people. Lord, my prayer is that we as a church family would make a huge impact on this area for Christ. This is the way we'll do it. So I pray you'd help us, dear God. And I pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.