“Grace Response”
Matthew 8:14 &15; Ephesians 2:10
Slide 1 – Title and Verse
John and I have been talking and praying all week and have decided that we’ve got it all wrong. All this “connecting people to Jesus and a life change community” and the strategy and the values that we’ve been pushing are just not going to work. So, in an effort to turn this deal in a different direction we worked all week to present our new strategy in this video…so watch this and tell me what you think….
(Me/Church Video)
Whaddya think? Think it will work? Yea….probably not. So let’s turn to Matthew 8 and take a look at a better idea that is more in line with what we want to do here.
In Matthew chapter 8 we see that Jesus has just come down the Mountain where he gave the “sermon on the mount”….we’ll call it Beatitude Mountain. So he comes down beatitude mountain and tons of people are following him and he is immediately met by a guy with Leprosy. This guy asks Jesus to heal him and he does. Then Jesus is met by a Roman soldier, a centurion. His servant is real sick and so he comes to Jesus and asks Jesus to heal him. Jesus sends the man home and tells him that his servant will be healed.
Then we get to a pretty cool little story in verse 14 where Jesus is going to stop by Peter’s house. Now keep in mind that he just met Peter 3 chapters ago in chapter 4 when he invited Peter and his brother Andrew to join his team. So this is kind of like Jesus’ first “meet the family” of his disciples. So he walks into Peter’s house and immediately we learn something about Peter that we didn’t know…..
Slide 2 -
Verse 14 says, “Now when Jesus had come in Peter’s house, He saw his wife’s mother lying sick with a fever.”
We learn about Peter that he has a mother in law…if he’s got one of those, we also know that he has what? A wife! Peter is married. He is one of the few disciples that we know are.
As you read through the rest of scripture and the adventures that this particular disciple was a part of, you gain a real new respect for Mrs. Peter. This lady definitely kept the home fires burning while her husband the evangelist and Pastor is out kickin’ it.
But for Peter’s mother in law there are some different fires burning right now, because verse 14 tells us she is lying sick with a FEVER.
Now something that I didn’t know about fevers in the New Testament that I now do, I really think it’s important to share with you. First of all: fevers weren’t thought of in Jesus’ day as simply a symptom of a sickness, but as a disease itself. In other words you could have cancer, malaria, emphysema or….fever. That’s how it was considered.
Something else: Fever had a more theological significance. According to Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28, fever was a punishment sent by God to those who violated the covenant of God. It was considered by Rabbinical Tradition “a heavenly fire”. If you disobeyed God, you could get a high fever.
Why did I tell you all that? Well, Peter’s mother in law is sick and in bed with a fever. Was her fever the result of her disobedience to God’s commands? I don’t know.
Depending on what kind of relationship Peter had with his mother in law, he might tell us (yes, she’s a devil woman!).
But what I do want us to see here is this. What we are about to see Jesus heal this woman of is serious. She is sick and it may or may not be because of her disobedience….but there is something that we can get from this….
We either are or once were very much like Peter’s MIL. We were sick too, with a fever. Because what do we call disobedience to God’s commands? SIN, Right.
And so while we don’t know exactly what has caused her sickness, we do know that it could have been tied to her disobedience to God….either way…when it came to our condition of spiritual sickness, we know that it was tied to disobedience to God. So, it is or was sin and very serious.
Slide 3 -
Okay, back to the story. Verse 15 goes on to say, “So [Jesus] touched her hand, and the fever left her….”
No big deal right? I mean in the context of this chapter, this was a pretty minor healing for Jesus. The first guy had leprosy – a skin condition that would kill him. The second healing Jesus did off-sight. The guy comes to Jesus and asks him to heal his servant and Jesus just speaks it from far away and it happens. This lady just has a fever. But understanding more about what fevers could have been helps us appreciate that a little more now.
This is also kind of cool because something else you probably don’t know is that Rabbinic Tradition (the rules of Jewish Teachers – of which Jesus was one) was that it was forbidden to touch someone with a fever.
Did you notice in the story of the Leper in verse 3 where Matthew tells us that Jesus reached out and touched the guy? Did Jesus have to touch him to heal him? No. And we look at that and think that was cool of Jesus but leprosy made your skin less than appealing…so it was kind of funky. But this with the fever lady is beyond funky, it’s forbidden. As a Jewish Rabbi, Jesus should not have done it. But he was never much for useless rules….
So Jesus touches her hand and the fever leaves her. If this was simply a fever because of a physical deficiency in her body then this is still a huge miracle. But if this fever were caused by an issue of disobedience in her life, then get this…..just a touch from Jesus releases her from the result of her sin. Always has. Always will. And if you can relate, if you have been there, if you were once blind but now see, then you know how big a deal this was for this woman. If this fever were caused by her sin…..or even if it wasn’t….she is healed. She no longer has to deal with the sickness that her fever has caused her. And how do we know that she knows it’s a big deal?
Slide 4 -
Look at the rest of verse 15…. “he touched her hand, the fever left her and she arose and served him.” And that is what we call a grace response.
When you have been touched by God, truly healed by Jesus, the most complete and immediate response to your having been healed by the Lord is to get up and serve him.
Most scholars tend to think that this is included in this story to show proof that she was indeed healed. I think it’s for more than that.
And even if they are right, and that’s why it’s included, then it still makes sense….proof of healing is demonstrated by service.
Some translations and other accounts (Mark and Luke) say that she got up and served them. In other words, she not only served Jesus, but those who were with Jesus…those who worked for Jesus and represented Jesus. Who would that be today? The church – Christ-followers - the one anothers.
And this caused me to think of us….how are we doing at this? What has been your response to being healed by Jesus? What has been your grace response? Some of you could answer immediately….some of you couldn’t. You have been forgiven of your sins past, present and future. You no longer are obligated to live with guilt. You have every reason to get up in the morning and do your best in the world. And when you’re life on this earth ends….you pass from life to death to life again and live forever in perfection. How do you respond to that?
Slide 5 – How’s Your Service?
You serve. You serve Jesus and you serve him by serving those around him. And you even serve those who don’t surround him. The truth of the matter is, God heals you so that you may better serve.
Ephesians 2:10 says, “For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so that we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.”
Created anew means when you were recreated.
You were created in the image of God at birth, but you were recreated in the image of his son who is the physical representation of the servant nature of God. You were redeemed to serve. Period.
So that’s the issue. How and where are you exhibiting your grace response? Where are you serving? Who are you serving? How are you serving? Have you found and committed to an area of service to God and his church?
Slide 6 - How’s Your Commitment to Service?
After you’ve determined where you’ll serve in response to your healing, the next question is, how’s your commitment to Service? Are you committed to carrying out your service to the things of God consistently and faithfully?
Can God depend on you to do what he’s called and gifted you to do when he needs you to step up and do it?
You know what I thought when I first read this 2 verse story this week? I thought that it would have been completely o.k. for Peter’s Mother in Law to stay in bed a day or so. I mean, she had what they considered back then to be a debilitating disease. If you’ve ever had a serious fever, you know that it wipes you out physically. She would have been completely justified to have stayed in bed a day or two.
But she doesn’t. She gets up immediately and responds to the grace shown her. No excuses. I’m wiped out. I was up all night. You’re staying here in town so I have all week to serve you. None of that. She gets up and serves.
Whatever your area of service to God inside or outside this place, are you committed to it? Are you dependable in it? Can we count on you?
Slide 7 - How’s Your Attention To Service?
Let’s go one more thought. You have an area of service in God’s community, you are committed to being here when you’ve your service is needed….but how about your detail to your service?
I was in Chicago several weeks ago and I am such a church leadership goob that I showed up 2 ½ hours before the conference started everyday. At 7:00 A.M. Friday morning I was walking up to Willow Creek’s building when I noticed a young college age guy on his hands and knees on the sidewalk in front of one of the entrances. So, I walked over to him and asked, ‘what are you doing?’ He said ‘Before every service here at Willow we canvass the campus and make sure everything is the way it needs to be.’ He was picking trash out of the crack in the sidewalk. I said ‘you always pick the trash out of the crack in the sidewalk?’ He said, ‘yes sir, if there is trash in the cracks.’
How’s your attention to your service? If you greet with First Impressions on Sunday morning, what’s the first impression? Are visitors impressed? If you teach in one of our Sunday morning environments, are you here early and ready to move people along in their knowledge of God? Are you faithfully carrying out your duty as a nursery worker?
If you think about it, measuring out the correct amount of Goldfish crackers or putting on the correct diaper size might just be the biggest thing you do in the kingdom of God. Somebody rocked Billy Graham in a nursery.
If you work on our grounds crew or building crew, are you faithfully going the extra step, above and beyond carrying out the minute details of your service? Does it matter to you what people think about God as he is reflected in the appearance of our building and grounds?
Are you showing up on time? Are you always looking for ways to be a servant to those around you when you are just here on any given day? They say the difference is in the details. Do you give attention to the details in your ministry? Or do you cut corners and just get by.
I remember the days in church when we were just thankful that somebody was here doing it. Those days are gone. These days are marked by a life change community where everyone knows, understands and is committed to the fact that what they do for God is the most important thing they will ever do in their lives. It’s that important.
And here’s why….
Slide 8 – The Reward for Service
Did you know that in kingdom thinking the reward for faithful service is…..more service?
In Matthew 25 when the master returned to find what his 3 servants had done with the talents he’d given them. His response to the faithful servants was “Full of praise [he said] ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant. You have been faithful in handling this small amount, so now I will give you many more responsibilities. Let’s celebrate together!”
When God knows that he can trust you with small service…he’ll put you in position to handle bigger service, more service.
Slide 9 -
“So He touched her hand, and the fever left her and she arose and served Him.” (Matthew 8:15 NKJV)
So the obligating question. Where are you serving? How’s your commitment? Is your attention in the details? Can you be trusted with more?
If you are a member of CCC and haven’t committed to a specific, strategic area of service, consider this your personal invitation to come on. If you are already committed to a specific area of ministry this is your challenge to step it up a notch. If you aren’t doing your best, then you need to start. It’s that important.
The most complete and immediate response to grace is service. You can’t argue that.
