Your best Pathway to Health 2016: His Transforming Love

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Your best Pathway to Health

Taj Pacleb

Who In the World Would Want Us?

It's been such a wonderful, wonderful joy to be here in this wonderful place to see the power of Jesus working through you, his chosen instruments of healing.

And I just have to say, I just want to thank God for the great privilege of witnessing this miracle and sharing a word of hope with you tonight.

I invite you to bow your heads with me as we pray together.

Father in heaven, Lord, we want to thank you so much for your goodness and your grace.

We pray, dear Lord, that your Holy Spirit would fill this room and fill our hearts.

Speak to us in a personal and intimate way.

Lord, I pray that through this presentation, through this Bible study, That someone here will be changed for eternity.

This is all of our prayer, and we ask this in Christ's precious name.

Our theme for this Pathways to Health is 1 that angels find intriguing, Christ transforming love.

The book Steps to Christ calls it the theme for the most profound meditation.

And I pray that the meditation of our minds tonight will truly bring about a transformation in our hearts this evening.

Tonight I'd like to begin by sharing with you a story about an elderly gentleman that met an elderly woman that lived across the street.

They were in the golden years of their life.

They were physically frail, but they were mentally sharp.

He was dependent on a walker, and she was bound to a wheelchair.

He was hard of seeing, and she was hard of hearing.

Over a period of time, they became acquainted and they began a relationship together and they would have daily visits.

He would walk across the street to her house and she would meet him there on the porch.

And this elderly gentleman started to really enjoy the company of this woman.

They would just sit there and talk about the time when life was a lot simpler, you know, the good old days.

And in the loneliness of their old age, they found a safe haven of rest in each other's company.

Well, As the months went by, this elderly gentleman decided that he really liked her.

And he felt that she felt the same way about him.

And so he thought to himself, why don't I ask her to marry me?

He thought she was cute, and he thought she thought he was sweet.

You know, his wife had passed away years ago, and she herself was a widow.

They weren't getting any younger, and he had nothing to lose.

And so, he thought for sure she would agree with the proposition.

And so he went to her house 1 day with the confidence of a teenager to propose to this woman.

And I, so he began to speak with her and he said to her, you know, we've known each other for a few months now and I've grown to really like you and I think you're a really neat person and by this time she's feeling flattered.

And she could tell that he was nervous about something but she wasn't really sure what it was.

And finally, after a bit of rambling, he blurted out his proposal.

He said to her, you know, I think we should get married.

Being hard of hearing, she didn't really hear what he said.

So he leaned over into her ear and kicked up the volume a notch, and he said again, we should get married.

And she thought for a moment, then she responded with a tone of confused bewilderment, And she said, well that sounds like a nice deal, but who in the world would want us?

But you know my Brothers and sisters, what that woman said about herself can easily be said of all humanity.

We who are messed up and marred by sin, We who have been defaced and disfigured by our own disobedience.

We who have been crippled and corrupted by our own bent sinful nature.

We who barely resemble any of the image of God that we once had.

We have cheapened the forgiveness of the Father.

We have despised the love of the Lord and ignored the King of kindness, we who have caused Him so much pain, so much agony, so much heartbreak, who in the world would ever want us?

Like an unfaithful servant, We have selfishly served the Lord for reward instead of love.

Like the ungrateful son, we have wasted our substance and we have lived our lives as though God our Father is dead.

Like the cheating wife, we have gone after other lovers, breaking the heart of God over and over and over again, we have caused God so much pain.

And so the question tonight is, who in the world would ever want us?

You know, there's a story in the Bible of an individual who had that question.

And for many years, he believed that surely God would never want Him.

He felt utterly and eternally cut off and separated from God.

He believed that the frown of the Father was forever upon him.

He believed that he actually bore the curse of God, and he was told this, and he was treated like this by the religious leaders of the day.

And each day, as he looked into himself in the mirror, and he saw his ugly face, he would think and ask himself the question, who would ever want me?

But 1 day, this man had the opportunity to ask Jesus that question.

And Jesus, God in the flesh, gave him a beautiful and profound answer that I would like to share with you tonight.

For the same answer that Jesus gave to this individual is the same answer that He gives to each and every 1 of us when we feel like no 1 could ever love us and no 1 could ever desire us.

The story is found in the book of Mark chapter 1, and so I invite you to take your Bible and open there with me the book of Mark, the first chapter.

And we'll stay in here for our study tonight.

And as you're turning to Mark chapter 1, let me give you the context.

And I want you to use your imagination as we picture the scene.

This was towards the beginning of Jesus' public ministry, as His fame was being spread throughout the surrounding cities.

The word went out that there was a great, gentle healer that came into town, a healer that was able to open up blind eyes and clear up deaf ears, a mighty miracle worker that had the power to straighten up twisted bodies, lame legs and withered hands, a compassionate Christ who brought hope and health and healing to those who were homeless, helpless and hurting.

And 1 day this good news reached the ears of this individual who was an outcast of society, 1 who was considered as good as dead by the multitude.

And this man at first brushed off that good news as something that was not applicable to himself.

For this man was suffering from an incurable and the most dreaded disease of the day.

I don't know if you know anything about leprosy, but in the East, of all the diseases in the East, leprosy was the most feared, the most dreaded disease, for it carried with it social and physical and spiritual stigma.

You see, leprosy is a chronic infectious bacterial disease that attacks the peripheral nerves, and nerve damage causes loss of feeling and numbness.

You see, leprosy caused its victim to become desensitized and indifferent to pain.

And friends, what leprosy did to the physical body is the same thing that sin does to the soul.

You see, sin, my friends, is the anesthesia that numbs us to the pain that our sin brings to God.

It weakens our spiritual sensitivity to God's Holy Spirit.

You see, friends, this leopard was a loathsome spectacle.

1 of the main symptoms of Leprosy is disfiguring skin sores all over the body and on the face, pale-colored lumps and bumps.

Many times leopards would have missing fingers and twisted limbs, disfigured faces and sunken eyes, swollen lips, bloody boils, red rashes, skin ulcers, and open sores all over the body.

Back at home in Hawaii, we have an island that used to be a leprosy, leper colony.

When I was in India, I saw individuals who had the symptoms of leprosy.

And when this disease advanced to a certain stage, the leper had to cover his face lest his breath contaminate the air that others had to breathe.

The air was polluted by his breath, and there was a constant stench of pus and blood that oozed from his putrefying sores.

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Who In the World Would Want Us?

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