WEBVTT 00:00:19.000 --> 00:00:19.000 We are going to walk through this up until Easter. So it should be fun. I think we got 00:00:19.000 --> 00:00:28.980 things figured out here. Alright. Hey, raise your hand if you're in here if you wear glasses. 00:00:28.980 --> 00:00:44.620 Raise your hands if you're over 40. I just wanted to, because I think you guys, I'm looking 00:00:44.620 --> 00:00:56.500 for some support here. Something strange has been happening to me as of late. My eyesight 00:00:56.500 --> 00:01:06.740 is betraying me. I don't know what it is. Like I've always needed glasses. Funny story. 00:01:06.740 --> 00:01:12.140 I didn't know I needed glasses until I went to get my driver's license at 16 years old. 00:01:12.140 --> 00:01:17.540 I was at the DMV and you have to stick your head on this little thing. You guys know it 00:01:17.540 --> 00:01:26.660 and read the lines, the letters. And so I did that. Read it flawlessly. And the lady goes, 00:01:26.660 --> 00:01:31.420 "Cool. What about the left side?" I was like, "What do you talk?" I read all the letters. 00:01:31.420 --> 00:01:35.900 She said, "No, no, no. You missed the left side." And so I put my, and I had to, my dad 00:01:35.900 --> 00:01:39.740 tells it because he was there like laughing at me. But I like leaned in and I like kind 00:01:39.740 --> 00:01:45.320 of leaned my head over. And there were letters on that side of the screen that I didn't see 00:01:45.320 --> 00:01:51.060 for. Apparently, I have a lazy left eye that just hangs out with my right eye but doesn't 00:01:51.060 --> 00:02:00.540 do anything. It follows it. It learned like stay in line but it doesn't do anything. And 00:02:00.540 --> 00:02:03.380 she was like, "You can't get your driver's license. You need glasses." I was like, "What 00:02:03.380 --> 00:02:10.900 are you, no, I don't. I see just fine." And the problem with that is I do see just fine 00:02:10.900 --> 00:02:16.660 because my right eye has just learned to be in charge. And so when I read when I do it, 00:02:16.660 --> 00:02:22.740 I'm fine. Well, I used to be. Like, I had glasses for a little while. I did contacts 00:02:22.740 --> 00:02:29.780 which I hate touching wise. But then I ran out and insurance wasn't covering it. And 00:02:29.780 --> 00:02:40.020 I can see fine. No, I don't have anything on. No, I can see fine guys. Sorry. When I went 00:02:40.020 --> 00:02:50.020 to the military, they saw that I needed glasses. And they issued me the goggles, the glasses. 00:02:50.020 --> 00:02:55.700 They called them birth control goggles because nobody wants to have children with you anywhere 00:02:55.700 --> 00:03:01.100 in those. I never wore them. I don't even know where they went. Never wore them. I was 00:03:01.100 --> 00:03:11.020 fine. I can shoot things. I was good. But as of lately, there's one thing that I really 00:03:11.020 --> 00:03:19.260 have a problem with right now. It's when we go to a restaurant and it's dimly lit for 00:03:19.260 --> 00:03:28.940 ambiance and vibes. And then they hand me a menu. And I started looking at the menu. And 00:03:28.940 --> 00:03:34.940 I can see the title of things. Like the other night, we went to Barbara row to go eat. 00:03:34.940 --> 00:03:43.060 Molly and I were there. I'm going to eat some pizza. And she was like, you pick. And I picked 00:03:43.060 --> 00:03:53.580 a pizza. And she's like, not that one. And true story. So we went back. I was like, just, 00:03:53.580 --> 00:04:03.780 you pick one. And she's like, no. Like, just pick a pizza. Eventually, I was like, look, 00:04:03.780 --> 00:04:09.100 please pick a pizza because I cannot read the ingredients on this menu. And I don't want 00:04:09.100 --> 00:04:18.500 to be the guy that does the flashlight yet. Like, I will revert to using the screen of 00:04:18.500 --> 00:04:24.340 my phone. Just so people can't see me. I have not gotten to the point where the flashlight 00:04:24.340 --> 00:04:36.900 is going to be the thing. Not quite. But I don't know what's happening. I don't know 00:04:36.900 --> 00:04:48.900 why people use like eight point font on menus. The issue is when I finally do put a light 00:04:48.900 --> 00:04:54.260 on it, the good news, I guess, when I finally do put a light on it, everything changes. 00:04:54.260 --> 00:05:01.620 The menu, all of a sudden, has letters on it that are visible. Now, the menu didn't change 00:05:01.620 --> 00:05:05.700 when I put the light on it. The words were always there. But suddenly, I can see them 00:05:05.700 --> 00:05:15.540 more clearly because my eyes needed light. And this is this like remarkable thing that 00:05:15.540 --> 00:05:23.340 happens with vision is you need light. The light doesn't like create this object or these 00:05:23.340 --> 00:05:31.620 letters on the page, but it does reveal what's there. If you walk into a dark room, if you 00:05:31.620 --> 00:05:36.140 walked in here and it was completely dark, you would run into some chairs. You wouldn't 00:05:36.140 --> 00:05:43.060 see them. They were there. You just didn't see them. So when the lights come on, the 00:05:43.060 --> 00:05:46.820 chairs were still there, but now you can actually see them. In fact, to the point where you can 00:05:46.820 --> 00:05:54.820 start making out different aspects of the chairs, what they look like, colors, our eyes 00:05:54.820 --> 00:06:01.740 need light to focus. And this is what my eye doctor is telling me. Like your issue is not 00:06:01.740 --> 00:06:08.700 that you can't really see. It's that your eyes are just getting old, which was rude. 00:06:08.700 --> 00:06:16.020 And then it's hard for them to focus, especially in lower light. Details get lost when you're 00:06:16.020 --> 00:06:23.700 in low light. You don't see everything. If it was kind of dark in here, you can kind 00:06:23.700 --> 00:06:29.820 of see you. You may see people. You may see that Mottie has on her coveralls today and 00:06:29.820 --> 00:06:37.300 looks cool, but you don't know that they're not burnt orange, a different kind of orange 00:06:37.300 --> 00:06:41.540 because we don't wear burnt orange in my family. But you may not know that. You just 00:06:41.540 --> 00:06:46.300 know she's kind of got a darker cover all on. You don't know the color because color 00:06:46.300 --> 00:06:58.280 needs light. Your eyes need the light in order to make that out. And I think when I go through 00:06:58.280 --> 00:07:07.220 the Gospels and I read through Scripture, there's so much said about seeing and vision 00:07:07.220 --> 00:07:15.780 and eyes and what the eyes do. And Matthew 6, Jesus says your eyes are windows into your 00:07:15.780 --> 00:07:24.260 body. If you open your eyes wide and wonder and believe, your body fills up with light. 00:07:24.260 --> 00:07:31.740 If you live squinty-eyed, like you're trying to read a menu in greed and distrust, your 00:07:31.740 --> 00:07:40.380 body is a musty seller. If you pull the blinds on your windows, what a dark life you will 00:07:40.380 --> 00:07:52.180 have. If you don't see, the eyes are this necessary thing to be able to be windows into 00:07:52.180 --> 00:07:57.180 your body, to be able to see what is happening around you. And I love how in this passage 00:07:57.180 --> 00:08:02.540 it says, if you open your eyes with wonder and belief, because it talks about the idea 00:08:02.540 --> 00:08:13.380 that there is wonder in our lives. Apparently, eyes and vision are a big part of this Christ's 00:08:13.380 --> 00:08:22.580 life. I think it might be one of the reasons that Jesus says that He is the light. He came 00:08:22.580 --> 00:08:27.900 to help us see more clearly. Sometimes when we think about Jesus as the light, or we've 00:08:27.900 --> 00:08:33.620 heard the stories of the lightness shines and the darkness and things will not be hidden. 00:08:33.620 --> 00:08:40.540 It becomes very negative. I'm going to get found out. I don't think this is what's happening. 00:08:40.540 --> 00:08:45.500 I think Jesus is saying, no, no. In order to see more clearly, I came to show you what 00:08:45.500 --> 00:08:52.460 that looks like and be the light of what humanity can actually be when humans are being there 00:08:52.460 --> 00:09:02.940 best selves. So maybe the issue for a lot of us and for what's just everything going 00:09:02.940 --> 00:09:08.140 on is not that the world has gotten darker. Maybe sometimes our vision just needs some 00:09:08.140 --> 00:09:15.060 recalibrating. And I think that's what Jesus calls us back to. Last week we talked about 00:09:15.060 --> 00:09:23.420 attention. If you were here, there was a video I showed you, people passing a basketball, 00:09:23.420 --> 00:09:27.900 told you to count how many passes the team in the white shirts passed. And in the middle 00:09:27.900 --> 00:09:33.540 of them passing the ball, someone walked in wearing a gorilla outfit, beat their chest 00:09:33.540 --> 00:09:39.940 in the middle of the video, and then walked off. And half of you didn't see the gorilla 00:09:39.940 --> 00:09:45.060 because you're so focused on counting the passes. And that's a psychological study that 00:09:45.060 --> 00:09:51.220 has happened for a long time that happens every time. Half the people will not see the 00:09:51.220 --> 00:09:55.980 gorilla because they're trying to count the passes. Those of you I talked to afterwards 00:09:55.980 --> 00:10:00.700 that said you did see the gorilla, you had no idea how many passes did it work. You gave 00:10:00.700 --> 00:10:11.060 up. Your focus had to be on something. Psychologists call it the "attentional framing." Think about 00:10:11.060 --> 00:10:24.380 framing in a way of when you go to buy meat at HEB and you pick up some beef and it says 00:10:24.380 --> 00:10:35.860 it was like 80% lean. What's the wording on it? 20% fat. 20% fat. Just led with that. 00:10:35.860 --> 00:10:44.060 You'd be like, I don't want that. But the 80% lean sounds real good. That's the framing 00:10:44.060 --> 00:10:49.720 of something where we're leading, we're trying to get you to focus on the good, not necessarily 00:10:49.720 --> 00:10:58.220 the 20% fat. Same thing happens in our lives when we're looking at things. We are framing 00:10:58.220 --> 00:11:06.420 our attention on certain aspects and certain things. When we place our attention on shapes, 00:11:06.420 --> 00:11:13.580 we can perceive them, we understand what they are. Paul talks about in the law, if you are 00:11:13.580 --> 00:11:23.460 focused on the law, then the law will bring up more sin. That's because if you focus on 00:11:23.460 --> 00:11:29.660 rules, you will notice violations. If you focus on danger, you're going to notice threats. 00:11:29.660 --> 00:11:36.460 If this is your focus, then you're looking for danger, you're going to find threats. 00:11:36.460 --> 00:11:45.700 If you focus on compassion, you might start seeing suffering. It's two people witnessing 00:11:45.700 --> 00:11:52.500 the same moments and having completely different perceptions of what's going on, because they're 00:11:52.500 --> 00:12:01.980 looking for two different things. Seeing things is really important. I think this is what Jesus 00:12:01.980 --> 00:12:11.060 came to show us. I'm going to show another little illustration. I'm going to move this 00:12:11.060 --> 00:12:21.860 so you can see it. Jaden, can you do me a favor? Don't hate me. Can you run home? Amazon just 00:12:21.860 --> 00:12:32.860 delivered some packages and it was something I ordered for service today. What's wrong? 00:12:32.860 --> 00:12:54.460 Thank you. Thanks. Such a good child. Modial pay for gas. Not really. She said no. 00:12:54.460 --> 00:13:01.860 All right. We're going to do an experiment. Let me mind your way. I might be. I'll get 00:13:01.860 --> 00:13:12.820 up in a second. There's this picture. Beautiful trees. You guys see trees? We see the red 00:13:12.820 --> 00:13:32.260 color. Anybody in here color blind? I don't want to call you out. Color blind. Color blind. 00:13:32.260 --> 00:13:44.980 We're going to look at it. Who's at the slide? Daniel. Go to the next image. You see the 00:13:44.980 --> 00:13:48.660 shapes. You see what's happening. Keep looking at it. There's going to be a black dot that 00:13:48.660 --> 00:13:55.380 opens up on the center of the screen. You're going to stare at that black dot until I tell 00:13:55.380 --> 00:14:02.700 you to change it. Stare at the black dot. Focus on the black dot. It's -- no, I'm not hypnotizing 00:14:02.700 --> 00:14:14.420 you. It's going to take a few minutes. Not minutes. A few seconds. Stare at it. Keep 00:14:14.420 --> 00:14:22.220 looking at the black dot. No, nothing's going to jump. It's not scary, I promise. Keep looking 00:14:22.220 --> 00:14:35.380 at the black dot. Ten more seconds. Keep looking at the black dot. Do not move your focus. Daniel 00:14:35.380 --> 00:14:52.060 will change the picture. Now blink and look at the picture. Okay, go back to the oversaturated 00:14:52.060 --> 00:15:00.540 one. Stare at the black dot. This shouldn't take as long now. Stare at the black dot. When 00:15:00.540 --> 00:15:17.740 I say keep staring at the black dot and we change it, keep looking at the black dot. What 00:15:17.740 --> 00:15:22.860 do you see on the screen right now? A black and white image. What did you see on the screen 00:15:22.860 --> 00:15:29.580 for a split second? A fully -- a full colored image. Look, we're not playing a trick on you 00:15:29.580 --> 00:15:35.060 on slides, right? There's not an image on there that's full color. What your brain is 00:15:35.060 --> 00:15:40.860 doing is it has seen the colors. It's seen what this is supposed to look like. The original 00:15:40.860 --> 00:15:48.780 picture has the colors in it. Go back to the original one. Your brain sees this and knows 00:15:48.780 --> 00:15:54.580 this. You know trees are green. This makes sense, sky is blue. Your brain is taking all 00:15:54.580 --> 00:16:02.640 this information in. We go to the next one. There's a lot to this, but the sky is orange. 00:16:02.640 --> 00:16:08.820 If you look at a color wheel, blue and orange are opposite of each other. What it's doing 00:16:08.820 --> 00:16:14.940 is you're staring at the orange and it's really reinforcing the colors that you saw. Using 00:16:14.940 --> 00:16:21.860 opposite colors on the color wheel, we go to the next one and you see color in the image 00:16:21.860 --> 00:16:30.860 because your brain knows that it's there while you're focused on the focal point. The minute 00:16:30.860 --> 00:16:41.100 you blink or you move your eyes around, this goes back to black and white. It's wild, right? 00:16:41.100 --> 00:16:50.500 Our brains and our eyes do incredible things for us. This matters because the point of 00:16:50.500 --> 00:16:59.720 this is seeing color in light or darkness, keeping you safe. I think the guy's name is 00:16:59.720 --> 00:17:05.980 Andrew Steele that does this experiment. You can find it on YouTube. It's really cool. 00:17:05.980 --> 00:17:15.980 It is a couple of different ones. But while you're staring at that point, you're focused. 00:17:15.980 --> 00:17:24.460 And when it changes to black and white, your brain remembers what you saw before. Maybe 00:17:24.460 --> 00:17:37.020 for a split second. But it remembers what it's supposed to look like. I think for me, I think 00:17:37.020 --> 00:17:47.220 this is how the life of Jesus works for us. At times in our lives like we see in the gospels, 00:17:47.220 --> 00:17:51.460 Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, we read through these stories. We see what Jesus is doing, 00:17:51.460 --> 00:17:56.880 how he treats people, how he reaches out to the outcast, how he sits with people he's 00:17:56.880 --> 00:18:04.820 not supposed to sit with, how he loves people, how he protects people. We see the love and 00:18:04.820 --> 00:18:10.860 compassion that Jesus is showing through the gospels. It's like we're seeing humanity 00:18:10.860 --> 00:18:18.300 in full color. I think this is the beautiful picture that we get from Jesus. It's love 00:18:18.300 --> 00:18:27.380 and action. It is the life of Christ. We talk about the perfection of Jesus. And there's 00:18:27.380 --> 00:18:36.260 some interesting points to this perfection. Like perfect in what way? Did he always follow 00:18:36.260 --> 00:18:43.100 the law? Well, we see a few times. We'll look at a story today. No. He didn't follow the 00:18:43.100 --> 00:18:53.140 law. Wait a minute. What does that mean? Am I saying Jesus wasn't perfect? No, no, no. 00:18:53.140 --> 00:19:01.900 I think Jesus was the perfect representation of what love looks like. And it's the colorful 00:19:01.900 --> 00:19:07.980 image that we see in the beginning. It shows us what humanity can be at its best. Jesus 00:19:07.980 --> 00:19:13.940 shows us this. What humanity, protecting the outcast, loving those that we've been told 00:19:13.940 --> 00:19:20.980 or unlovable. We see the full picture of what humanity is supposed to look like. The next 00:19:20.980 --> 00:19:25.500 four weeks, we'll talk about the last few weeks of Jesus's life as he heads to the cross. 00:19:25.500 --> 00:19:32.260 And we're going to see some things that happen in his life where he is making really important 00:19:32.260 --> 00:19:42.940 statements. Not just through words but through actions. He's making statements to show us 00:19:42.940 --> 00:19:53.940 that we've looked at who God is through human lenses. We've looked at God and said how does 00:19:53.940 --> 00:20:04.520 this work? And all we can see is black and white. It's right and wrong, in or out. Everything's 00:20:04.520 --> 00:20:10.380 been narrowed down to very specific certainty. And Jesus comes along and says, no, no, no, 00:20:10.380 --> 00:20:16.220 you've missed it. Let me show you what it's supposed to look like. And we see this. We'll 00:20:16.220 --> 00:20:22.140 go through it the next few weeks. There's a small story that's tucked in the gospel 00:20:22.140 --> 00:20:28.140 of Luke that I think really reveals something about the person of Jesus and why he came 00:20:28.140 --> 00:20:36.180 but what he is trying to do and show us. It's in the last few weeks of his life. And so 00:20:36.180 --> 00:20:45.100 you're going to see how he challenges some things. There's this moment of what I would 00:20:45.100 --> 00:20:59.960 say and call like an awe moment where people get to see Jesus in all his love on display. 00:20:59.960 --> 00:21:08.420 And you see we kind of get a glimpse into how they process it. But if we aren't careful 00:21:08.420 --> 00:21:13.380 when we read this story, we'll miss it. So we're going to look at it today. Luke tells 00:21:13.380 --> 00:21:19.980 us that Jesus is teaching in a synagogue on the Sabbath. It's Luke 13 verse 10. On a 00:21:19.980 --> 00:21:25.260 Sabbath, Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues and a woman was there who had been 00:21:25.260 --> 00:21:32.260 crippled by a spirit for 18 years. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all. 00:21:32.260 --> 00:21:39.740 When Jesus saw her, he called her forward and said to her, woman, you are set free from 00:21:39.740 --> 00:21:46.140 your infirmity. Then he put his hands on her and immediately she straightened up and praised 00:21:46.140 --> 00:21:58.220 God. 18 years, 18 years this woman had been crippled. Jesus comes in and he's teaching 00:21:58.220 --> 00:22:04.180 the synagogue on the Sabbath and this is later in his ministry. So I'm sure the synagogue 00:22:04.180 --> 00:22:11.660 is packed because this is Jesus. This is the teacher that we've all wanted to hear. Luke 00:22:11.660 --> 00:22:17.340 says that she'd been bent over and couldn't straighten up. Which means for nearly two 00:22:17.340 --> 00:22:25.020 decades, her view was almost just of the ground in front of her. Maybe she could look up a 00:22:25.020 --> 00:22:35.220 little bit, but she had no full view of everyone around her. Imagine living like this. Never 00:22:35.220 --> 00:22:43.500 making eye contact. Always aware that people are noticing. Always aware that you don't 00:22:43.500 --> 00:22:54.980 quite fit. In the ancient world, suffering like this often came with stigma. People frequently 00:22:54.980 --> 00:23:05.820 assume that a physical ailment, physical suffering, some form of pain or visible suffering for 00:23:05.820 --> 00:23:14.100 someone, it must be connected to sin. Either their own sin or their family's sinned and 00:23:14.100 --> 00:23:21.540 so this is the outcome of that. We see it in the Gospels, we see it in John, the disciples 00:23:21.540 --> 00:23:26.180 asked Jesus like, we're talking about the blind man, they're like, who sinned? This man 00:23:26.180 --> 00:23:37.260 or his parents? This is the view of what this woman would have been seen through. So she 00:23:37.260 --> 00:23:44.820 likely carried not just physical pain, but probably carried like this quiet weight of 00:23:44.820 --> 00:23:55.380 shame, suspicion, because synagogues in that time, like imagine this happens, like in the 00:23:55.380 --> 00:24:00.460 synagogue at that time, men and women were separated. They didn't sit together like 00:24:00.460 --> 00:24:09.700 us heathens. They were separated. The men would be in the front, women would be in the 00:24:09.700 --> 00:24:19.860 back, maybe against the walls. So this woman, not only is she a woman, but she's crippled. 00:24:19.860 --> 00:24:30.780 So she's another rung down in the societal ladder. She's bent over, partially hidden in 00:24:30.780 --> 00:24:38.860 a crowd. She's listening, trying not to draw attention to herself, but Luke tells us something 00:24:38.860 --> 00:24:47.980 simple and powerful. Jesus saw her. Before the miracle, before anything happens, Jesus 00:24:47.980 --> 00:24:54.100 sees this woman. He's staying at the front, he's teaching, he sees this woman. Imagine 00:24:54.100 --> 00:25:00.620 this moment Jesus calls you out. Like you're just trying to hide out. Like people already 00:25:00.620 --> 00:25:08.860 look at me, make fun of me. I don't need this. Jesus calls her. I come forward. Room full 00:25:08.860 --> 00:25:17.620 of people turning to look at this woman who probably moved slowly down to Jesus. In the 00:25:17.620 --> 00:25:22.820 back of the synagogue, she's walking down the center of the room. How many people were annoyed 00:25:22.820 --> 00:25:28.620 how slowly she was walking? I didn't come here for this. I came here to listen to Jesus. 00:25:28.620 --> 00:25:35.140 How many people were mad that she was even in the synagogue? Because if you were handicapped 00:25:35.140 --> 00:25:39.980 at that time, there were times where you were not allowed to even be in the synagogue because 00:25:39.980 --> 00:25:45.380 you were considered unclean, because you had sinned or someone in your life had sinned. 00:25:45.380 --> 00:25:50.160 So there's probably some people in there who were like, she's not even supposed to be here. 00:25:50.160 --> 00:25:58.500 Here she comes. Says that Jesus places his hands on her and says woman, you are set free 00:25:58.500 --> 00:26:04.420 from your infirmity. Luke tells us that she immediately straightened up and she began 00:26:04.420 --> 00:26:15.820 to praise God. So many things happening here in the last weeks of Jesus' life. He's calling 00:26:15.820 --> 00:26:27.820 a woman forward in the synagogue. In a patriarchal system in the days of Jesus, this is not okay. 00:26:27.820 --> 00:26:36.300 Calls her up, heals her, and it's the Sabbath. I don't know if you guys know this, but under 00:26:36.300 --> 00:26:42.380 the law, you're supposed to keep the Sabbath day holy, which means you don't work. You 00:26:42.380 --> 00:26:46.100 don't lift a finger. You're not allowed to. You're supposed to come to the synagogue, 00:26:46.100 --> 00:26:56.940 listen, and relax. Sounds amazing. But something crazy happens. This woman gets healed. 18 00:26:56.940 --> 00:27:02.220 years. This people probably knew who she was. She gets healed. And then someone gets mad 00:27:02.220 --> 00:27:12.100 at Jesus. Right after she's praising God. Verse 14 says, indignant because Jesus had 00:27:12.100 --> 00:27:19.100 healed on the Sabbath. The synagogue leader said to the people, there are six days for 00:27:19.100 --> 00:27:30.020 work. So come and be healed on one of those days, not on the Sabbath. You got six other 00:27:30.020 --> 00:27:36.580 days to just, you can mosey on over here, get healed. But the Sabbath, that's not what 00:27:36.580 --> 00:27:44.860 this is for. Why are you, what are you guys doing? We got Jesus here today. This is the 00:27:44.860 --> 00:27:50.660 set. You can't work on the Sabbath. This synagogue leader says, indignant, not because 00:27:50.660 --> 00:27:55.100 the healing is wrong, because he says you can come six other days to get healed, but 00:27:55.100 --> 00:28:08.020 because it happened on the Sabbath. And suddenly, the room is split between two ways of seeing 00:28:08.020 --> 00:28:13.020 the same moment. Because if you're a good Jew, you've learned this growing up. What 00:28:13.020 --> 00:28:19.540 the Sabbath is a rule and we keep the Sabbath holy. The religious leader, he's so focused 00:28:19.540 --> 00:28:29.540 on the rule while Jesus is focused on this person. Same event, different attention, different 00:28:29.540 --> 00:28:40.020 perception, different focus. Do you feel this tension? This religious leader is contradicting 00:28:40.020 --> 00:28:49.140 Jesus himself in the synagogue. He quotes the law. The Sabbath is supposed to be kept 00:28:49.140 --> 00:28:56.340 holy a day where no work is supposed to happen. Jesus knows this. So Jesus quotes the law 00:28:56.340 --> 00:29:06.260 back to him. He says, you didn't finish the statement. He says, you hypocrites. Doesn't 00:29:06.260 --> 00:29:13.380 each of you on the Sabbath untie your ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give 00:29:13.380 --> 00:29:18.740 it water. You see, in the law, it says you're not even allowed to do this. In fact, it specifically 00:29:18.740 --> 00:29:24.060 says this about your ox and your donkeys. You don't even, they're not even allowed to 00:29:24.060 --> 00:29:31.660 do work. So you can't even untie them to take them somewhere to do something. And he says, 00:29:31.660 --> 00:29:40.340 hold on, you hypocrites. You already do this. You break the Sabbath by taking your ox and 00:29:40.340 --> 00:29:45.940 your donkeys down to get water. And really, what he's saying is you already make some 00:29:45.940 --> 00:29:54.680 room for some compassion here. You bend the rules when it benefits your animals, which 00:29:54.680 --> 00:30:00.580 really it benefits you, right? Because my animals are doing work for me. So you'll 00:30:00.580 --> 00:30:07.380 bend the rule when it benefits your animals. But somehow you've lost the ability to see 00:30:07.380 --> 00:30:15.500 compassion when another human being is suffering. You're so focused on the rule that you're 00:30:15.500 --> 00:30:23.820 missing the suffering. And then Jesus says something remarkable. He says, then should 00:30:23.820 --> 00:30:30.860 not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, when Satan has kept her bound for 18 long years, 00:30:30.860 --> 00:30:38.420 be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her. And this phrase matters. Daughter of Abraham 00:30:38.420 --> 00:30:46.380 in this phrase is huge. She's not considered that. In fact, most of Scripture just talks 00:30:46.380 --> 00:30:54.140 about sons of Abraham. So to even put daughter here is pushing it. But then to call someone 00:30:54.140 --> 00:31:00.180 a daughter of Abraham who law and culture would tell us is sinning or has sinned. And 00:31:00.180 --> 00:31:08.060 this is why she's like this is another statement where Jesus is naming someone and labeling 00:31:08.060 --> 00:31:16.020 someone something that society says they are not. He says, she's part of the family. She's 00:31:16.020 --> 00:31:23.260 not a problem. She's not a disruption. She's not a rule violation. She is family. She belongs. 00:31:23.260 --> 00:31:31.100 For 18 years, the world had trained people not to see her, but Jesus did. And suddenly 00:31:31.100 --> 00:31:40.280 the whole room has to see her again. He shined a light on him. Now they're seeing in full 00:31:40.280 --> 00:31:46.820 color what they'd always seen in black and white. And Luke tells us something fascinating 00:31:46.820 --> 00:31:53.420 about how people responded. When he said this, all his opponents were humiliated. But the 00:31:53.420 --> 00:32:01.300 people were delighted with all the wonderful things he was doing. They're like, Jesus finally 00:32:01.300 --> 00:32:09.140 said what we've been thinking. Like we've had this, right? The leaders feel exposed. 00:32:09.140 --> 00:32:15.780 The people feel relief. Because many of them had quietly wondered about the same thing. 00:32:15.780 --> 00:32:23.300 Why can't we do this? We know this because even another time Jesus does a teaching where 00:32:23.300 --> 00:32:27.420 he says, hey, if your kid falls down a well on the Sabbath, are you not going to save 00:32:27.420 --> 00:32:32.740 it or your animals? Are you not going to save the kid on the Sabbath? Yes, because the life 00:32:32.740 --> 00:32:39.220 matters more. And he actually goes on to say that the Sabbath was made for man, not man 00:32:39.220 --> 00:32:48.940 for the Sabbath. The idea was Sabbath is, hey, we need to rest. It is good for our bodies, 00:32:48.940 --> 00:32:57.900 not to be a rigid rule that says that you cannot love or care or show compassion to someone. 00:32:57.900 --> 00:33:18.860 Thanks, bud. I think you sped. Just kidding. He always does. He's like his dad. Like, think 00:33:18.860 --> 00:33:22.300 about like, why would helping someone ever be wrong? That like this crowd is like, this 00:33:22.300 --> 00:33:31.220 makes sense. But yeah, we've thought that before. Why would compassion need permission? 00:33:31.220 --> 00:33:36.260 And suddenly Jesus says out loud what many of them have probably felt for years. For 00:33:36.260 --> 00:33:45.020 many of us, moments like this have happened in our own journeys. Some of us grew up, let 00:33:45.020 --> 00:33:48.980 me see if it's in here. Hang on. 00:34:15.020 --> 00:34:26.340 Oh, my God. There's so many packages. Oh, my God. There's another bag. You guys are 00:34:26.340 --> 00:34:36.340 up with these? Who remembers these? And the frog bracelet. Who has one right now? Who's 00:34:36.340 --> 00:34:44.620 wearing one? Oh, wow. No good Christians in here. Oh, it's tracking. No, I'm just kidding. 00:34:44.620 --> 00:34:55.860 Okay. W W J D. What would Jesus do? We wore them on our wrist as a reminder to follow 00:34:55.860 --> 00:35:04.140 the example of Jesus. But as we grew older, some of us began noticing moments where the 00:35:04.140 --> 00:35:11.460 answers we were given didn't quite line up with what Jesus had done, what we'd read about. 00:35:11.460 --> 00:35:17.420 We saw people who were hungry, but were told it wasn't our job to feed them. We saw marginalized 00:35:17.420 --> 00:35:23.540 communities being attacked, but we were told not to stand up for them. They're not part 00:35:23.540 --> 00:35:35.180 of us. We saw families fleeing violence arriving at our borders doorstep, surviving unimaginable 00:35:35.180 --> 00:35:44.980 hardships to get here. And we're told there's someone else's problem. They need to go back 00:35:44.980 --> 00:35:51.740 where they came from. And something inside of us quietly asked the question we had been 00:35:51.740 --> 00:36:03.660 taught since we were kids. What would Jesus do? And the answers didn't always line up. 00:36:03.660 --> 00:36:10.020 Sometimes a framework we were given didn't match the compassion that we saw in Jesus. 00:36:10.020 --> 00:36:17.980 And when that happens, something shifts. And all moment begins to take place. Because suddenly 00:36:17.980 --> 00:36:24.460 you see something clearly that you couldn't articulate before. Maybe you witnessed compassion 00:36:24.460 --> 00:36:32.060 in action. Somebody actually loving on someone that you were told you're not allowed to do. 00:36:32.060 --> 00:36:39.340 Someone standing up for another person. Someone restoring dignity where it had been denied. 00:36:39.340 --> 00:36:47.940 And something inside of you says that looks like Jesus to me. It's like seeing color return 00:36:47.940 --> 00:36:56.020 to an image you thought was black and white. Maybe it's for a split second, but you see 00:36:56.020 --> 00:37:06.540 it. And once you've seen it, you can't quite unsee it. After the confrontation ends, Luke 00:37:06.540 --> 00:37:14.700 tells us that Jesus continues teaching. In your Bible there's a new heading, but it continues. 00:37:14.700 --> 00:37:20.540 All this happens. Leaders leave. People are sitting here and then Jesus asks, what is 00:37:20.540 --> 00:37:28.620 the kingdom of God like? What shall I compare it to? It's like a mustard seed, which a man 00:37:28.620 --> 00:37:34.060 took and planted in his garden. It grew and became a tree. And the birds perched in its 00:37:34.060 --> 00:37:41.700 branches. Again, he asks, what shall I compare the kingdom of God to? It's like yeast that 00:37:41.700 --> 00:37:48.180 a woman took and mixed into about 60 pounds of flour until it worked all through the dough. 00:37:48.180 --> 00:37:57.180 It permeated the whole thing. And he tells these parables. What is the kingdom of God 00:37:57.180 --> 00:38:01.220 like? He says it's like a mustard seed. It's a small little seed that grows into this huge 00:38:01.220 --> 00:38:11.780 tree that birds get to perch in and have safety and have cover. It's like yeast that it's 00:38:11.780 --> 00:38:21.460 this little bitty piece of yeast in 60 pounds of flour, but it can permeate the whole thing. 00:38:21.460 --> 00:38:30.140 Which makes you wonder if everyone in that room suddenly realized something. They had 00:38:30.140 --> 00:38:37.260 just witnessed this mustard seed moment. They saw it happen. They were in awe. Something 00:38:37.260 --> 00:38:44.820 changed. This is what we thought this was about. And the entire room had to reconsider 00:38:44.820 --> 00:38:55.080 what the kingdom of God might actually look like. Maybe the kingdom of God doesn't begin 00:38:55.080 --> 00:39:09.640 with these grand revolutions and these big things happening across the country or these 00:39:09.640 --> 00:39:13.380 massive revivals. Maybe it begins with moments of awe. Like moral acts of kindness between 00:39:13.380 --> 00:39:19.940 two human beings. Remember awe-inspiring moments happen. One of the main ways that we experience 00:39:19.940 --> 00:39:26.280 is through moral acts of kindness, you caring for another person. Moments where we witness 00:39:26.280 --> 00:39:31.800 compassion so real that it forces us to rethink everything we thought we understood about God, 00:39:31.800 --> 00:39:37.320 about people, about ourselves. Has anybody else gone through this in your journey? I know 00:39:37.320 --> 00:39:46.400 I have. Moments where someone chooses kindness when the system expects indifference. Or moments 00:39:46.400 --> 00:39:53.720 where someone restores dignity where it has been denied. Those moments may feel small. 00:39:53.720 --> 00:40:01.920 But Jesus says they're like yeast and dough. Once they enter the system, they change everything. 00:40:01.920 --> 00:40:09.400 Maybe the world isn't as gray as it sometimes feels. Maybe the color has been there all 00:40:09.400 --> 00:40:17.920 along. Maybe what we need most is to keep our eyes fixed on the one who helps us see clearly. 00:40:17.920 --> 00:40:27.380 Because when we do, we begin to see what Jesus saw. People. Beloved. Daughters and sons of 00:40:27.380 --> 00:40:35.960 Abraham. Human beings carrying the image of God that are just looking to belong and be 00:40:35.960 --> 00:40:47.360 loved and be cared for. And when that happens, love becomes the most natural response in 00:40:47.360 --> 00:40:54.840 the world. Because when you see it, the mustard seed begins to grow. You want to do that too. 00:40:54.840 --> 00:41:06.880 Then you felt good. And love begins to grow. So, what would Jesus do? These got us in a 00:41:06.880 --> 00:41:14.320 lot of trouble. Because they actually showed us what he would do. And then when we push 00:41:14.320 --> 00:41:23.680 against the system the same way Jesus did in the synagogue, people get mad. But Jesus showed 00:41:23.680 --> 00:41:31.780 us what love meant and how it works that people matter more than any rule. The compassion 00:41:31.780 --> 00:41:44.040 matters more than any idea that love is always the answer. So, what would Jesus do? He would 00:41:44.040 --> 00:41:51.920 love others well. And that's why every week we say, Arsenal, go love well. It's who you're 00:41:51.920 --> 00:42:02.160 made to be. So, this week, go do that. But if you want, grab a WWJ D bracelet. Because 00:42:02.160 --> 00:42:09.600 I think they matter. And it can be a reminder that we are part of the rebellion. Because 00:42:09.600 --> 00:42:17.680 that's what Jesus was. He was a rebel. And his guiding force was love. So, let's go do 00:42:17.680 --> 00:42:22.160 that skill of love well. It's who you're made to be.