Fit For Life III, How To Find The Power Of Change

I want to say to our guests today, you know, the folks up here that sing and play, they're volunteers. They're folks who just give their gifts to us. And I want to encourage you to be one of them. Following the service today, Susie's going to have a special reception. For any of you who'd like to be part of a worship choir or part of our great Christmas outreach and all that goes on to that, or maybe you can help with some of the technical things, there's lots of challenges here, and we would love to have you come. What you need to do is just right beside the gym, there's the worship room. Head back there after the service for some refreshments. Just introduce yourself and say what part you'd like to play. If you'd like to sing, you'd like to be part of the band or some other way. And just help that ministry continue to grow. If you have your Bible, I'd like you to take it out and pull out your outline out of the notes. You guys are waiting on me, aren't you? That's all right. I'm used to needing help. Thank you. These outlines are designed to give you something to take away, to just ponder, and many small groups use them in their discussion times during the week. I have to say that in the time since the attack, I've noticed a certain paralysis of sorts sitting in some people. As I've mentioned already, the emotions of the country are still very, very fragile. And when you just stop and ponder what's happened, it's no surprise. People are concerned. The talk lately about biochemical retaliation and the kinds of scenarios where they're just unthinkable. Well, those things are being at least talked about openly, and you can see why people would begin to shrink back some in fear and wondering, what's going to happen? And so there's an increasing sense of, I'm not sure what to do, and that paralysis is setting in. And it's just not even appropriate to laugh yet. Even the comedians are having a hard time breaking through all this themselves. I know if you're like me, I'm just dealing with it day by day. But I can say this. What I thought was really important on September 10th, I found wasn't quite so important on September 11th. And what I may have taken for granted somewhat on the 10th, I am going out of my way to affirm every day since that day. My family, my friends, the things I've taken for granted from God, I know my values have changed in some respect, at least how I affirm them. But I'm grateful about one thing that hasn't changed, and that is my confidence in Jesus has not been shaken one bit. In fact, I'm more confident today than ever, because as I see, in a sense, pictures of things that the Bible talks about, you know, the Bible says, if the mountains be thrown into the sea, our God will not change. And my faith and my confidence in His ability and His sovereignty hasn't been moved one bit in these times. And here's something else that hasn't changed. We as a church haven't changed what we're doing. You know, when this happened, we didn't have to scramble and say, gee, I wonder what we needed to do to get serious about following God now. We're just doing what we've always done, and we're going to continue to do it. We're just giving more opportunities to do it. There's prayer platoon opportunities that have popped up all around the city where you can plug in with your neighbors and friends. I heard of someone meeting with fellow business workers, not members of the church, but they just gather over the lunch hour to pray, things like that. You can get involved in some way to make sure that you're not just spinning your wheels in these days, but making spiritual progress. And this paralysis thing is serious. I mean, I see it. And I've had those emotional things, haven't you? I've experienced, I mean, this week I experienced fear, worry, uncertainty, grief, and even anger. And that was all in the drive-thru at Krispy Kreme. But you do know what I'm saying. I mean, there are people that are having, I mean, how many people lost their job this week? A number of our church family members lost their jobs just like that. And there are some people that have relationship things that maybe before the crisis hit, you were going through difficulty. Well, friends, listen. Here's the good news. Jesus Christ is here today to heal and to change. He is here present with us. Go ahead. You can applaud. It's all right. You don't need to applaud, but you can applaud. Because the Lord has always been here. We just aren't always as tuned into it. But I can tell you today, I know He is. I've sensed His presence here very powerfully. And He's also helping some of us who have become paralyzed in our potential. I've talked with some young people in the last few weeks, and they're wondering, what's the future going to hold for me? Am I ever going to get married? Am I ever going to find a job? Because it looks like the economy is just going to go down and down and down. You know, there are three things that paralyze us. I wrote them on the top of your outline. Fear about the future, regret about the past, and doubts about ourselves. And I want to talk about those today and how those hold us back. Fear and regret and doubt. But Jesus can change all of those, and He can do it today. When someone says, Jesus changed my life, skeptics often say, well, what do you mean He changed your life? And you look the same, you know, you drive the same car, you hang out with some of the same people. I mean, and what we're always referring to when we say that is, He changed what's on the inside. Isn't that right? He changes what's in our hearts. Let's look and see in the Bible what He did to change the heart of one person who needed a touch. Let's look at Luke chapter 5. If you have your Bible, I want to encourage you, always bring your Bible. Luke chapter 5, verse 17 and following. Now, there are some scriptures on your outline, but let's read this together. Luke 5, 17. One day as He was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law who had come from every village of Galilee and from Judea and Jerusalem were sitting there. And the power of the Lord was present with Him to heal the sick. Some men carry it. This has to be the place. Look at all these people. He has to be here. Hurry. It has been a long journey, but you will be healed, my friend. That's right, little brother. Finally, you will walk again. Yes, you will. But only if we get there. Nicaeus, if you come back and help us, we'll make better progress. I'm telling you, this Jesus is the Messiah. He might be the Messiah, but how will we get to Him? Look at all these people. We'll never get through here. Perhaps he's right. Maybe we should just turn back. We've been through this too many times before. I'll never walk. Don't get discouraged. We can't give up. We won't give up. Don't you remember the woman I told you about? She faced a crowd as large as this, and she didn't give up. She did. I was there. I saw her. He saw her. She just reached out her hand and touched the hem of his cloak, and she was healed. So loud, my friends. There may be Pharisees in this crowd. It's not the Pharisees that worry me. It's all these people. It's not going to be easy to get in to see this Jesus. Let's try over there. Yes, this side. Yes. Excuse us. Please. We have to get through to see Jesus. Everyone wants to see Jesus, but there's too many people. You'll never get through here, so just move along. They're right. No. Why don't we just sit by the road here and wait for Him to leave? No. We can't take that chance. We must get inside. Benjamin, Simeon is right. We can wait here. If it is God's will for me to be healed, then we will meet this Jesus when He leaves. No. No. Let's try the other side. Maybe there's less people. Come on. Come on. Excuse us. No. There are too many people here, too. We have to think of a way. Let's put them down. Let's set them beside these rocks over here. Hey, how about this window? The window? Yes. The window. The window. We'll just lift you up, and we'll pass you through. Someone on the other side will surely take pity on you and help you to reach Jesus. That's it. It'll be close, but it just might work. What have we got to lose? Well, my life, for starters. Come on. No. What do we have? Why don't we just wait here? He'll come by. Don't be such a lazy goat, Simeon. Pick him up. Come on. Are you calling a lazy goat? You are. I want to see Philip healed as much as you do. Just pick him up. Come on. Let's go. I think we're going about this in the wrong way. We are not. I think we are. We are not. We are. That's enough, you two. We must work together. Come on. Just do it. Easy for you to say, Nikes. Come on. Put him in there. We must pick him up. Higher. Turn it. Try to tilt him. Come on. This way. This way. Come on. This isn't working. I can't believe we're doing this. I can't believe we came all this way for nothing. I know Jesus would have healed Philip if we could only get him inside. I know we can heal him. We have to get to see Jesus. There's just these walls between us. Oh, Andrew, if we just wait here and be patient, he'll come by. My friends, you've struggled long enough on my behalf. And I am truly grateful. But Simeon is right. We will just have to wait here. What other choice do we have? The roof. Huh? The roof? The roof. Yes. What do you think? The roof. Not the roof. Philip, don't be afraid. We would never let any harm come to you. This will work. I know it. But Benjamin, the roof. How would I get through? Andrew. He's strong enough to hold us. And we can easily just make a hole big enough and just lower you through. See? We can do this, Philip. Have faith. What if I fall through? What if I'm not even noticed? Philip, a man in a bed coming down from the ceiling won't be noticed. Come on. Come on. Who will pay for the damage to the roof? The cost will be too great. The cost of not doing it will be much greater. It's the only way, Philip. We can do this together. And Jesus is our only hope. You must have courage. You must believe. To the roof. Yes! Well, I asked the team to do a little live demonstration there because I wanted you to see, you know, Bible stories are sometimes otherworldly to us. And these were men just like many of us. These were people who had fears and emotions and concerns. How do you think the paralytic felt? What was going through his head when that happened? I would expect he was very self-conscious. He was probably embarrassed to be the center of attention. He was definitely fearful and anxious. Yet in his heart, he had the one quality that every person has to have if they're to experience the power to change and heal. And that was this. He was desperate. I've discovered something about change, friends. You won't experience dynamic spiritual change in your life until you become desperate. Until the status quo is more painful than the fear of change. You will stay stuck. You will stay in your own little comfort zone of religion. And I need to tell you, that's a very dangerous place to be. If you're here today and you've come to the point where something's got to change, then you are on the right track. And I want you to notice, when you come to Jesus with those kinds of concerns and fears, here's how he treats us. Look at this. First thing that will happen is he will ease your fears. He will ease your fears. Now, there's three accounts in the Gospels of this story. Matthew, Mark, and Luke. And all three of them, Jesus comes to this paralytic, and the first thing he says is something like this. He says, like in Matthew 9, Be encouraged. The first thing he says is don't be afraid. And it's very important that you understand that the God of the universe, as difficult as this is to imagine, the God of the universe cares about how you feel. He cares about, if you feel lonely today, he cares about that. If you feel anxious, he cares about that. If you're frightened or if you're overwhelmed, if you're feeling insecure, the Lord cares about how you feel. And certainly if you're afraid. That's why the Bible, see, God was communicating to us with his word. And 365 times in the King James Bible, the Bible says, Fear not or don't be afraid. You think there's a significance to that number? Every single day, there's a promise every day of the year for those of us who have struggled with fear in our lives. The Lord speaks to that. And why is fear such an issue? Well, here's two reasons. They aren't on your outline, but you might want to remember them. First of all, fear is a universal problem. Some hide it better than others, but I want you to know categorically, all of us in the room today face some kind of fear. Whether it's fear about our job and our future security, fear about our health, fear about something in the past coming back to haunt us, fear about someone finding out some things about us we hope that no one discovers, fear about making it, fear about our dreams coming true, fear about school, our friends. These last two weeks have just heightened all those fears because they've spoken to our greatest fear, which is that of security or lack of it. Fear is a universal issue. And don't push those fears down and try to deny them. That's a classic response. I'm just, you know, I'm bigger than that all over. Well, if you push fear down, you'll lead to depression. Look at the next verse. Anxiety in your heart weighs you down, but an encouraging word cheers you up. Rather, give your fears to Jesus. Look at the next verse. Cast all your cares on Him. You've got to memorize that one. For He cares for you. All of your cares, not just the little ones, all of them. If you want to be on the road to spiritual health, and this whole series we're in right now, friends, this whole series is about spiritual health, about being fit for life. The beginning point is identifying what's holding you back. These bed carriers saw the obstacles. He said the walls that were there. You've got to identify them and begin to hear God's strategy to tear them down. The second reason why fear is addressed is because fear keeps us from getting closer to God. Now, listen carefully to this, because every one of us will face a situation, maybe even today, where God will be presenting you with a decision you need to make about your spiritual journey. I'm not just talking to people who are thinking about God in their life for the first time. I'm talking to those of you who think you're pretty secure in your journey, those of you who've been a Christian a long while. Do you know that all growth is going to require some sort of confrontation with fear? Do you believe that? Let me just tell you, it's true. If God's, if He's calling you to grow, He may be calling you to serve, and there's fear attending that, because you don't know what it's going to take. He may be calling you to learn to give. He may be calling you to learn to share. He may be calling you to learn to surrender. And all of us are afraid. All of us are afraid of what it's going to take, whether we think we're mature or not. We all wonder if getting closer to Jesus is going to make us weird or talk funny or wear our hair in a weird way. Listen, God doesn't make people goofy. We make ourselves goofy. But He will change us to be like His Son. And that is more loving and more focused on others and more caring. I remember so well when I was struggling with the difference between Jesus being Savior in my life and being Lord. And there is a difference. And I had a friend that came along, like the image that's up here on the screen, who was kind of carrying my bed to the cross and saying, you know, you just can't believe Jesus in your head. You've got to follow Him with your life. And I wrestled with that, and I said, you know, God, if I give all my life to you, like it says I'm supposed to, what are you going to do with me? You know, are you going to send me off to some remote place where it's really difficult and the weather is terrible and, you know, serving minister all the time? And, you know, I said, Lord, whatever it takes, I want to do your will. But that was a major decision, and I had lots of fear in my life back then. But I want you to know when I overcame that fear and stepped out and obeyed God, I've gained a freedom and a purpose and a relationship with Him, an intimacy with Him, that I didn't have before that moment. Come to Jesus with your fears. He'll ease your fears. And second, He will eliminate your guilt. Write it down. He will eliminate your guilt. It's interesting to me that the first thing that Jesus said to this man after He said, be encouraged, be a good cheer, the second thing He said was, friend, your sins are forgiven. Now, how many think the paralytic was just, he just couldn't wait to hear that? I don't think that was even in his mind. But Jesus Christ always deals with the things that are truly in need, not just what we feel are in need. And I want to say something very important right now for those of you who've been praying about a circumstance or a situation, some of you who've been paralyzed in a relationship or maybe a physical or some other kind of relational circumstance. Listen, we come to God with our prayers, and if they don't get answered the way we think they should, we give up on God. When all along what God is doing, He's hearing your prayers, but He's answering them in a different way. He's starting at a different point. He's not just a machine that pulls the lever down and out comes your blessing. When you come to God, you pray, and then He begins to work on the real need. And if you'll just hang in there, He'll come around and deal with your felt need, but you've got to trust Him for the real need first. And I'm so thankful that God deals with our hearts because that's what's eternal about us. That's what matters about us in the end. It's sad when people come and they don't have their prayer answered. They just give up. They go away. In America today, we're asking God, we're praying for justice and swift vengeance on those who brought this terror on us. But I wonder if God might have a different agenda in mind before He answers that prayer. I wonder if God might want to deal with the hearts of Americans. Let's not stop praying just because we may not see the answer we expect right away. Jesus ministered to the paralytic, but He touched His soul first. Guilt is a paralyzing emotion, isn't it? Guilt can cause you to lose your joy, your confidence, your strength. It can cause relationships to pull apart. And you can never have, listen, you can never have powerful faith if you're full of guilt. You can't be guilt-ridden and faithful. And the Lord wants to take away our guilt. Look at the way Jesus heals. Turn your outline over. He heals and eliminates our guilt instantly. God is merciful and quick to forgive. You just need to acknowledge your need and repent and He will instantly take away. Second, He eliminates your guilt and forgives you completely. He has forgiven, circle the word, all your sins and has utterly wiped out the evidence of broken commitment. Loved ones, I just got to stop there. Get the picture. Over your book of life, the book of life with your name on it, the page with your name on it, all these transgressions, all of these shortcomings, all of the things that you know and I know about ourselves, that we are, that we think that we do, by the blood of Jesus shed on the cross, God says, I'm going to just wipe away all the record of it. We can't do that. I can't forget the things that I did wrong to somebody or they did wrong to me. But God can't. He eliminates the record of it. What an amazing Savior who would love us so much to wipe away not just the penalty, but the remembrance of our sin. He eliminates our guilt completely. And by the way, if He does, should you forgive yourself? And thirdly, He eliminates our guilt and takes away our sin freely. Freely. God says He will accept and acquit us and declare us not guilty. Not if we go to church more, try harder, or be a better person. If we trust Jesus Christ to take away our sins, no matter who we are or what we've been like. He forgives instantly, completely, and freely. Honestly, you want to know why I love God so much? It's because He does something for me nobody else could begin to do. He gives each of us something we could never purchase. No wonder He's worthy of our worship. No wonder He's worthy of our complete devotion and commitment. He is not like the gods of this world. And I just want to pause right now and make a very important point. One of the current concerns that's growing in my mind is the way this whole incident is just sort of bringing all religions out and just sort of coming all around the table and talking as if all the religions are the same. You watched Larry King last night. It was an interesting little exchange. Maybe you watched the service last week from Yankee Stadium. We were in New York when that took place. And so you had the Muslim clerics and the Jewish rabbis and some Hindu representative and the religion of Oprah, and they're all there. It's funny, but it's true. Not that she's claiming herself to be a deity, but people just basically, that's where they get their guiding light for life. I'll tell you what I believe is going to happen. It will become increasingly like unfashionable to declare that Jesus Christ is who He said, the way, the truth, and the life. And though I am accepting and loving of people of different religions, we do not worship the same God. And we need to be very careful about that. Because it's going to become, here's what's going to happen. Someday, the Bible says that someday we'll be persecuted because we stand up and say, I don't believe that's right. I believe this is right. And you need to be prepared for that day to come. And not to ever stand up and do it in a way that's judging and condemning, but always to stand up and say, hey, well, I guess we're all the same. And it can sound so right. Listen, tolerance can always sound so right. But in the end, you compromise the essence of the revelation of who Jesus was. He is the way, the truth, and the life. We sang that as our first chorus today. And no man comes to the Father but by Him. We didn't say that. He said that. He eliminates our guilt and takes away our sin. And we love Him because He is who He said He was. And He died to prove that it's true. He's the only one who incarnated Himself. Last night in Larry King, there was a clear testimony, I think, by John MacArthur. And he turned over and he looked at this, one of the Muslim clerics and said, do you believe that about Jesus? He said, well, we believe He's a prophet. But we don't believe He was the incarnate Son of God. And you need to understand that. That's a major difference. And what I'm saying to you is there's going to come a time when believing that's going to cost you. It's going to cost you acceptance. It's going to cost you being embraced by the culture. But we need to be prepared for that. Third thing that the Lord will do, He will enable you to do what seems impossible. If the words I just shared with you are just a little bit upsetting or disconcerting, come to terms with it. It's part of our faith. It's a wonderful thing. The Bible says, blessed, Jesus said, are you when people persecute you for my name's sake. Because the Lord's going to give you grace to do what seems impossible. I love this. He turns to the man who's, this man's been paralyzed. And he looks at him. He says, stand up, take up your mat and go home. Because you're healed. Now you have to picture this. This guy, he didn't walk into this meeting. He's carried in and now he, Jesus, how about getting up and going on out of here? Now there were two things that happened to enable that miracle to take place. Two things. There was faith and there was the power of God to heal. If you read about it, it's right there in Luke 5. Faith and the power of God to heal. And I want to talk about both of those. I'm not going to digress. I'd love to digress into it. A teaching about healing. Where did Jesus see the faith? Bible says it right there. He saw their faith. Whose faith? The faith of the people that carried the bed in. How did he see that they had faith? Did they have a little sign that said, I have faith? Were they wearing a big symbol? No. How did he know that they had faith? Come on, folks. We did the whole reenactment here to show you. Why? Because he saw just how devoted, how intentional, how passionate they were about getting him in front of Jesus. You don't do that unless you really believe he can do it, you see. And that passion carried over. And Jesus said, I see their faith. They really believe that something can happen. Sometimes I don't have faith for myself, but others have faith for me. And Jesus sees that faith. The second thing was there was the power to heal. And may I say this? The power to heal is not always present in the same way at the same time. See, Jesus Christ had an unbroken communion with the Father. He only did what he saw the Father doing. That's why he didn't heal everybody all the time. But he saw that the Father wanted to heal that man, so he just spoke it. Rise up, take up your mat and go home. Unfortunately, most of us don't have that kind of unbroken communion. Therefore, we don't always see just what the Father is doing. So we don't have the capacity to call forth healing like that. That's why the blockage is there. But we should still pray. We should still believe. And there will be those times that God will come and crashing in on the scene and do the miraculous if we just believe and stay focused on who he is. There are many paralytics these days. They may not be paralytics of the body, but there are many paralytics of the soul and of the spirit. I want you to hear the story today of someone who was paralyzed. Someone whose life was not what it appeared to be, who God touched miraculously, and he's taken up his bed, and now he's walking to the glory of Christ. Welcome Ken Dash, would you, as he comes to share. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you for bringing me here today, for allowing me to be here. Thank you for letting me read my testimony three times this weekend. And this third and final time, I'd like to dedicate the next ten minutes or so to you so that I may glorify your name. What a glorious morning. God is so good. My name is Ken Dash. I was born in 1964 in Philadelphia. I'm Jewish by heritage, yet never really believed in God until my two children were born. My childhood was okay by some standards, but looking back on those days, I know that something was very wrong inside of me. When I was about eight years old, my parents separated and divorced. During that same period, I was victimized by certain people who were entrusted to my care in the form of sexual abuse. This abuse, along with my broken home, left my life in ruins. Not many people knew about the problems that were starting to eat away at me. I was very good at hiding the true me. I learned how to disassociate myself with all the anguish and pain that I felt inside of me. I did that by controlling everything and everyone around me. As I got older, I got better and better at burying the real Ken Dash. I learned how to cope with the pain and anxiety in my life by shutting out true feelings and true intimacy. I soothed my pain in two ways. First, I became trapped in various hidden addictions. Second, I learned to manipulate people so that I always got what I wanted. When I came to Pittsburgh in 1981, I was 17 years old and a freshman at Carnegie Mellon University. At the end of my freshman year, I met Marta, a student at Chatham College. We fell in love, dated for about four years, and got married in 1986. Most people who've known us over the past 20 years or so thought that we were very happy together. We had two girls that we adored. We built a beautiful house five years ago. We had nice cars, some money in the bank, and I was doing very well at my job. Unfortunately, in reality, we weren't doing well at all. Over the years, my manipulations became worse. My addictions deepened. My inner being had a sense of hopelessness that left my heart empty. Two years ago, in the fall of 1999, my wife and I had two and three months of each other. I became lost in an ocean of despair and self-pity, and I became very detached from my wife and my kids. It was at this time that I started to blame God. Who else could be causing havoc with my life in such a way? Who else had the power to make me endure all of the terrible events that had happened to me throughout my life? Who else could have turned my mind into the wrecking ball that I knew it had become? At about the same time in my life, I received a phone call from an acquaintance of mine. His name is Ken Falk. He wanted to have lunch with me. When we sat down to lunch, he told me that he had been praying for me. I was stunned. No one had ever told me that before. Also, how had he known to pray for me? My life was a wreck. I was miserable, but no one could have known it. He went on to tell me about Jesus. He read from the Bible, and I listened with some interest. When I left that lunch with him, I felt a bit bewildered. This leads me up to what happened on a particular Saturday in August of last year. It's the busiest time of work on Saturdays, but I was helpless. I felt so depressed and felt so empty that I quite literally could not work anymore. I begged forgiveness from my boss at work and drove home in tears. The house was empty when I got home, and I lay in bed, essentially motionless, for about two hours until my wife and kids arrived. After my wife begged me for over an hour to find out what was wrong, I confessed many of my secrets to her. I began to admit that I had a hidden life. Over the course of the next 60 days, my wife filed for divorce, and we separated. I certainly couldn't blame her. I had been, in many ways, a miserable husband whose only concern was myself. I only cared about getting the things that I needed so that I could function in a world that I found to be totally void of any reason or meaning. After we separated, I began to think more and more about God and what he had done to me. I became totally hopeless and despondent. Miraculously, I was still doing extremely well at work, and my outer appearance was sometimes even jovial, but I was dying inside. Soon after my wife and I separated, I got another call from Ken Falk. He wanted to have lunch again. This time, I looked forward to our lunch. Maybe it would be an opportunity to talk about some of the problems with someone whom I felt genuinely cared about me. When I told him about my situation with my wife, he was visibly shaken and saddened. I told him there was no hope of reconciliation. This was a very critical moment in my life. He told me that there was hope, that God had a plan for me, and that if I listened and heard him knocking, things would turn around in my life. The question was, would I finally wake up after almost 30 years of subservience to Satan and his evil forces and let God finally into my life? I wasn't sure at the time, but looking back, I knew that I did let God into my heart that afternoon. When I met Ken for lunch, I knew that he loved me. I was 100% sure that was God's love shining at me with all his grace and wonder. That was the proof I needed to give my heart and soul over to the Lord. Over the course of the past several months, I've discovered a whole new God in Jesus Christ. As I mentioned, my belief in God was ingrained in me after my children were born, but this was a different feeling. This God has shown me that through my faith in him, all of my problems can be healed through his love. This week's topic at North Way is the power of healing. I'm living proof that God has the power to heal anybody. Once my faith began to take root over the past year or so, I felt the Holy Spirit in me, and on many occasions, it's been so overwhelming that it's left me weeping. Recently, my wife and I reconciled, and I'm back with the family whom I so dearly love. Every day, I thank God that he's begun to heal our marriage and has given back to me my wife and children. As a way of thanking God, I put an old black-and-white photo of my wife as a one-year-old child on my desk at work. God gives us the miracle of birth, and he entrusted me for the love and caring of his beautiful creature that is now my wife. That picture