Sunday Preview – Time Machine
Sunday we begin a new series entitled “Church Folk,” where I will candidly address the issues people face when Jesus’ people block them from experiencing Jesus. The purpose of this series is to encourage people who have had difficult experiences with church, and to challenge us “church folk” in how we treat people who feel like “outsiders.” We dropped a video promo for the series this week. Check it out.
We’ll start the series with a “Time Machine” message, where I go into character and preach the message from the perspective of the Biblical character. This time, I’ll dress up and transform into one of the 10 lepers that Jesus healed from leprosy in Luke 17:11-19.
11 Now it happened as He went to Jerusalem that He passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. 12 Then as He entered a certain village, there met Him ten men who were lepers, who stood afar off. 13 And they lifted up their voices and said, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!”
14 So when He saw them, He said to them, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And so it was that as they went, they were cleansed.
15 And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, returned, and with a loud voice glorified God, 16 and fell down on his face at His feet, giving Him thanks. And he was a Samaritan.
17 So Jesus answered and said, “Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine? 18 Were there not any found who returned to give glory to God except this foreigner?” 19 And He said to him, “Arise, go your way. Your faith has made you well.”
Take some time to read this passage and mediate on it before Sunday. Put yourself in the lepers shoes and imagine what it must have felt like to be him… rejected by the world… rejected by religious people… but accepted and loved by Jesus! See you Sunday at The Heights.