From Ruined to Restored - Saddleback Weekend Service

Welcome to church everyone, come on put your hands together like this. I hope you've come ready to worship tonight. From where I was to where I'm now, it's overwhelming. And more and more I see you move all around. Come on lift your voices. Oh I can't help but praise you, praise you Lord. Oh I can't help but lend a shout of joy. And when I think of how good you've been, faithful now to the end. Oh I can't help but praise you, praise you Lord. Oh for the blood you spilled to save my life, a debt I could not repay. Oh for the cross you bore with open arms, salvation they call my name. From where I was to where I'm now, it's overwhelming. And more and more I see you move all around. Oh I can't help but praise you, praise you Lord. Oh I can't help but lend a shout of joy. And when I think of how good you've been, faithful now to the end. Oh I can't help but praise you, praise you Lord. Oh I can't help but dance cause I'm free. God don't change on me, I'm healed and redeemed. Oh I can't help but call on the name that buried my shame, who opened my grave. I can't help but dance cause I'm free. God don't change on me, I'm healed and redeemed. Oh I can't help but call on the name that buried my shame, who opened my grave. Oh I can't help but praise you, praise you Lord. Oh I can't help but lend a shout of joy. And when I think of how good you've been, faithful now to the end. Oh I can't help but praise you, praise you Lord. Oh I can't help but praise you, praise you Lord. Oh I can't help but praise you, praise you Lord. Come on can we give him a shout of praise tonight.

Thank you Lord. We believe in the name of Jesus. Now lift your voice. I pray into the atmosphere. Spirit of God you're here. You have all authority. I pray over my heart and mind. I'm healed by your stripes. Your blood declares that I'm free. In the mighty name of Jesus. Oh I pray. Calling on the power of heaven. I proclaim. And every weapon formed against me. It must prevail. In the mighty name of Jesus. Oh I draw my covenant boundary line. The enemy has no rights to come. Oh near my family. Yes we believe. No scheme can ever run to God. ♪ No matter the circumstance, the cross has healed my destiny ♪ ♪ In the mighty name of Jesus, who I pray ♪ ♪ I'm calling on the power of heaven, power of man ♪ ♪ And every weapon formed against me, it must break ♪ ♪ In the mighty name of Jesus, in the mighty name of Jesus ♪ ♪ Oh, I know all the power of fear and darkness, it must go ♪ ♪ Every key to every victory, oh, I hold ♪ ♪ In the mighty name of Jesus, we declare ♪ ♪ So I will not fear, I will not fear when the enemy comes near ♪

♪ On the doorframe of my life, it's the blood of Christ ♪ ♪ Oh, I will not fear, I will not fear, it's an army of angels here ♪ ♪ I feel blood, I will not fear, I will not fear, I will not fear ♪ ♪ When the enemy comes near, on the doorframe of my life, it's the blood of Jesus Christ ♪ ♪ Oh, I will not fear, I will not fear, it's an army of angels here ♪ ♪ I'm protected on all sides by the blood of Jesus Christ ♪ ♪ In the mighty name of Jesus, I pray ♪ ♪ I'm calling on the power of heaven, I proclaim ♪ ♪ Every weapon formed against me must break ♪ ♪ In the mighty name of Jesus, in the mighty name of Jesus ♪ ♪ Oh, I know that all the power of fear and darkness, it must go ♪ ♪ Every key to every victory, oh, in the mighty name of Jesus, in the mighty name of Jesus ♪ ♪ In the mighty name of Jesus, thank you Lord, by your mighty name, oh, your mighty name ♪ ♪ So I will not fear, I will not fear, when the enemy comes near ♪ ♪ On the doorframe of my life, it's the blood of Jesus ♪ ♪ And I will not fear, I will not fear, there's an army of angels here ♪ ♪ I'm protected on all sides, but the blood of Jesus ♪ Come on, do you believe that tonight, church? Can you give them five seconds of your best praise? Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. ♪ I have a grateful heart to you ♪ Come on, can you sing this with us tonight? ♪ And all my words fall short, and I've got nothing new ♪ ♪ How could I express all my gratitude? ♪ ♪ Oh, I could sing these songs as I often do ♪ ♪ Every song must end, and you end it all ♪ Come on, we respond tonight. ♪ So I throw my hands, I praise you again and again ♪ ♪ Cause all I have is you ♪

Oh, I know it's not much and I know it's not much Nothing else fit for a king Except for a heart singing Hallelujah Hallelujah I've got one response I've got just one move With my arms stretched wide I will worship you So I draw up my hands And praise you again and again Cause all that I have is a calling Oh, a calling And I know it's not much I've got nothing else fit for a king Except for a heart singing Hallelujah Hallelujah Oh, Hallelujah Oh, come on my soul Oh, don't you get shy on me And live to be yours Oh, you've got a heart inside of those lungs Get up and Come on, let your faith rise in the room tonight Oh, come on my soul Oh, don't you get shy on me And live to be yours Oh, there's a light in these lungs Get up and praise the Lord So come on my soul Come on my soul

Oh, don't you get shy on me And live to be yours Oh, you've got a heart inside of those lungs Get up and praise the Lord Yeah Praise the Lord Praise the Lord So I draw up my hands And praise you again and again Cause all that I have is a calling Hallelujah And I know it's not much I've got nothing else fit for my king Except for a heart singing Hallelujah Oh, Hallelujah We sing Hallelujah Hallelujah Oh, Hallelujah Oh Oh, Hallelujah Come on, give Him a shout tonight Come on, give Him a shout tonight Come on, give Him a shout tonight Come on, give Him a shout tonight Come on, I need him Come on, give Him a shout tonight Come on, give Him a shout tonight Come on, give Him a shout tonight Come on, give Him a shout tonight Come on, give Him a shout tonight

Come on, give Him a shout tonight Come on, give Him a shout tonight or clicking that description and then filling out a new here form. But before we continue in the service today, we wanted to take a moment to pause. Many of you may have been following along with the news of the recent earthquakes that have struck Venezuela. There have been over 1,500 people that have lost their lives and over 50,000 people that are still missing. And we wanted to take a moment as a church to pray over them. And some of you may even know people that have been affected by this tragedy. And so we want to invite you to pray with us over Venezuela. And we also wanted to thank you, church, for being a generous church. Because of your generosity, we have been able to immediately respond by already sending resources, by sending funding, by partnering with organizations that are on the ground right now to help bring relief and to help search for those missing people. And so thank you, church, for being a generous church that has allowed us to immediately respond to moments of crisis like this. And so in a moment, we're going to also share how you can be a part of these relief efforts through your generosity. But we would love, as a church family, to pray over Venezuela. So if you will, will you join us? Heavenly Father, Lord, we come before you right now with heavy hearts over our friends in Venezuela. Lord, we lift them up to you and we cling onto your promise that you are close to the brokenhearted. And God, we just ask right now that you would wrap your loving arms around those in Venezuela, those that have been affected, those that have lost loved ones through the earthquakes. God, we pray that you would comfort them in this moment. We also pray over the first responders that are on the ground right now still searching for people, Jesus. Would you be with them as well? God, be with those in Venezuela. We lift up our brothers and sisters to you. And God, we just thank you also for our church, for being a generous church, and for churches around the world that are being the hands and feet of Jesus right now. God, would you shine your light right now in this dark time? God, we love you so much and we trust you in the midst of this.

In your name we pray. Amen. Well, thank you for praying with us in this moment. We're going to take a moment to take a look at what else is going on in the life of our church. So let's join this video together. There's a kind of love you can't just talk about. You have to show up for it. Love shows up for frontline workers, for vulnerable kids, for neighbors, for families, for our cities. Because real love is more than words. Love Local Serve Day. Saturday, July 11th. Every campus, every community. Sign up today. Let's show up together. Hey there, Saddleback. I love that reminder that real love is more than just words. It shows up. And that's what Love Local Serve Day is really all about. Being the hands and feet of Jesus in our communities and showing God's love in practical ways. And one of the things we love about Saddleback is that there are so many ways to take your next step. Whether that's serving your community or finding community, growing in your faith or discovering how God has uniquely gifted you. And that's exactly why we created Activate. See, Activate is a simple one-hour experience designed to help you get connected, but also to learn more about Saddleback and discover next steps on your journey with Jesus. You can find an upcoming Activate gathering right there in the Saddleback app. Now, before we jump into the message, I want to thank you, Saddleback, for your faithfulness in giving. Because of your generosity, we're able to serve our local communities and support ministries around the world and help people take their next steps with Jesus every single day. If you'd like to give your tithe or offering today, you can open up the Saddleback app or you can use one of the giving envelopes that are nearby.

Now today, we're continuing our message series, Jesus on the Move. So let's hear from Pastor Andy. Well, church family, it's so good to be together. I want to welcome all of our campuses and those of you who are joining us online. And I do have to say, before I jump into today's message, I'm very excited about this serve day that we're having in just two weeks. And really, the vision behind this is connected back to Dream Now. About a year and a half ago, we did this big churchwide initiative called Dream Now. And we said we want to dream in five areas. We want to dream for our life. We want to dream for our family. We want to dream for our church, our community, and our world. And when we talk about the community, the dream that's in God's heart is that we, who are followers of Jesus, would shine His love, shine brightly into the community by serving and loving people who are in need. So this is an incredible opportunity. It's a great first step. If you've never taken the step to serve. and get involved on Saturday, July 11th. You can make a huge impact and you can join us as we're showing the love of Jesus to the communities around all of our campuses. I believe there are gonna be people, their lives are touched as a result of that moment where you're out in the community serving and as a result, there are gonna be lives that later on, generationally, are impacted because of what you do. So I wanna invite you, you can sign up for that on your app. You can also sign up.

There's a card in front of you today if you just write Love Local on that card and at the end of our time together, there'll be an opportunity to turn those in. Now today, we are continuing our journey. We've been walking through the Gospel of Mark. We're looking at the life and the teachings of Jesus. And today, I wanna talk to you about how God is able to take our lives from ruin into restoration. Now, I wanna start with a little bit of a story and I think I'd like to identify with some folks here at all of our campuses. How many of you guys are the kind of people you ruin things very quickly and often? Just out of curiosity. It's okay, it's okay. I'm with you. I need some support up here. So just raise them up high. If you have a tendency to break things, ruin things, shirts, clothes, all right, I see a few of you and we're gonna start a support group after service together. But I've done this many, many times in my life. I've broken things, ruined things. Well, when I was in college, there was like a brief window before Stacey and I got married that I was working for my dad. He owns a plumbing business and he has like 10 trucks and they go out, they do their thing.

Well, every once in a while, he gets a new truck. And back at that time, this was like the moment that sprinter vans became a thing. And they were like big vans, 50,000 bucks, like these awesome, huge vans. Nobody really wants to drive them elsewhere from plumbing, but they're awesome vans. And so, sorry if you have a sprinter, God bless you. They're great vans. Wonderful people drive sprinters. Anyways, so my dad had me drive in this new van and I was on an assignment. I was going to pick up a bunch of supplies. It was like three days old. So I'm in this three day old van and my dad knows I break things, but he's like, okay, you're 22, you're about to get married. You'll be fine. So he sends me out and I load the truck up with all the supplies and then I get back into the car. And this was like before they had those rear view mirrors or the rear view cameras. Like you put it in reverse and what's behind you shows up in front of you. So I put it in reverse and I'm like, like that, this loud noise. And I'm like, man, did I run over a cat? If I did, oh man, that would, okay, I'll stop. Cat or a dog? So I get out and I go around the back

and I get around the back, there's this huge metal pole and the whole back of my dad's brand new van is bent around this huge metal pole. And I'm like standing there trying to like pull it back into order. It's not working. So I got to take it back into the office. I'm like praying to God my dad's gone and thank God he was gone. So I went into this one guy, I was like, dude, can you just help me like just a little bit, straighten it out? So he tries a little bit, but I ruined it. And I'll tell you what my dad said at another time. But some of us have a tendency to ruin things. And you know, the reality is ruin is a part of what happens as a result of sin and the fall. That there's a kind of ruin that has entered into humanity at the moment when Adam sinned all the way back at the book of Genesis. And God has a way of putting our lives back together. In fact, when Jesus would come, he brought a ministry of healing and restoration. And so much of what Jesus encountered in opposition was that the religious leaders did not like the healing and restoration that Jesus would give to people's lives. Now we see in the gospel of Mark, if you've been tracking with us, we've been reading through, we see these moments of collision where Jesus would collide.

He collided with a demon in Mark chapter one that kind of spoke out against him. And then we see him collide with religious leaders in chapter two. So all of this is happening. And what God is doing is advancing his kingdom here on planet earth. Mark has established that Jesus is king, that he's God in human flesh, and he's very powerful. He's on the move. And in Mark chapter two, we find Jesus after last week, if you were with us, Jesus has an interaction with the religious leaders around their fasting rules. Well, this is gonna get heated today. In fact, in this passage in particular, it goes up a notch into one of the 10 commandments. And they've got all these rules stacked around the commandments, in particular the Sabbath day. And Jesus is gonna break their Sabbath rules. So watch what happens. Mark chapter two, beginning in verse 23, it says, one Sabbath, Jesus was going through the grain fields. And as his disciples walked along, they began to pick some heads of grain. So the Pharisee said to him, look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath? And he answered, have you never read what David did

when he and his companions were hungry and in need? In the days of Abiathar, the high priest, he entered into the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions. And then Jesus said to them, Sabbath was made for man, not man for Sabbath. So the son of man is Lord, even of the Sabbath. Now, another time he went into the synagogue and there was a man with a shriveled hand. He was there and some of them were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus. So they watched him really closely. They wanted to see if he would heal on the Sabbath. So Jesus said to the man with the shriveled hand, stand up in front of everyone. And then Jesus asked them, which is lawful on the Sabbath, to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill, but they remained silent. Now he looked around at them in anger and deeply distressed with their stubborn hearts, he said to the man, stretch out your hand. And so he stretched it out and his hand was completely restored. And then the Pharisees went out. They began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus. Now, isn't that ironic that they're upset with Jesus for breaking their tradition with the Sabbath day

and now they're gonna break the commandment, thou shall not murder. So here is Jesus in this moment. I want us to notice a man in the crowd who Jesus restores and a group of religious leaders that they walk out into their own ruin. And oftentimes when we encounter Jesus, when we encounter the message of Jesus, there are some of us that our lives are never the same and we're restored. And there are some that walk out and just completely miss the gift that God has for them. And I believe today what God wants to do is bring restoration into our lives. I believe the same things that God did in the Bible God does today. So God wants to bring restoration into our lives. He's a God of healing and power and his kingdom is a kingdom of power that is still advancing today. But in this particular moment, Jesus comes into some of their manmade rules around the Sabbath day. I want us to look very briefly at two passages in the Old Testament about Sabbath, because I know for a lot of us, this whole idea of Sabbath maybe is new or something that we haven't thought about very much. So Jesus highlights Sabbath in this passage and he says, Sabbath was made for man,

not man for the Sabbath. And he's speaking of one of the 10 commandments that were given to the Israelites in the Old Testament. The fourth one is the Sabbath commandment. I wanna read it to you. Exodus 20, verse eight through 11. Moses is writing this passage of scripture. God's given him the commandments and the commandment is this, remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. So write in your notes the word holy. So it's set apart. That's literally what the word means. So one day of the week is to be set apart. And then it says this, six days you shall labor and do all of your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. Now, I want you to notice before we talk about the one day, that is a day of rest, it is six days that you do your work and you apply yourself to whatever it is vocationally that you're called to. It's not three days a week that you work. Somebody says, I'm in my Sabbath era in life. I'm just enjoying a chill life. And what I want us to see is there is a call to work in the scripture. Six days a week, you do your labor. And then it says the seventh day, the Sabbath day is a day to the Lord your God.

So it's set apart. On it, you shall not do any work, neither you nor your son or daughter, male, female servant, nor your animals, nor your foreigners residing in your towns. For in six days, the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and he made it holy. So notice in here, there is this one sacred day that God sets apart as a holy day. It's a gift that God gives to us as humans, that God invites us into this kind of Sabbath rest to rest from our work. He anchors it in the scriptures in creation that in six days, God creates all of the world that is around us, the created order. He speaks it into existence. And then he rests from his work. Now he invites us into his rest. Now this is a very counter-cultural concept here because we are always on in our society. We constantly are moving. We have work. It's in our face. We bring our phones home. Our phones are a place that we work from. Maybe you find yourself working in the restroom and on Saturday on your day off, that's maybe TMI,

but I'm not gonna ask for a confession on that one. but maybe you find yourself just constantly absorbed in work and what the scripture says is actually, God wants to give you a gift called Sabbath, a day of rest. That's what the Israelites had in their mind, but there was more to it that they had stacked onto it. Now in creation, it's anchored, but there's another part in Deuteronomy 5.15 where Moses is speaking again and the same commandment is given. So both times are a list of the commandments, but something different is noted in verse 15 of Deuteronomy and it's worth looking at. It says, remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore, the Lord your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day. So one is anchored in this reality of creation that God is a creator, invites us into work, invites us into rest, but the other is anchored in God's, his redeeming work that he took a nation of people that were slaves and he brought them out with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm and he's saying your identity is no longer an identity of slavery, you have been set free by almighty God with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. So because your identity is in him and you're not a slave to the Egyptians anymore, you can rest.

Now your Egyptian might be your boss, but there's this tendency to, don't tell them I said that, but they might be the person that you think of that you can never stop, that it's always on. So it's an invitation from God into a life of abundance and Sabbath is this wonderful gift to be unwrapped that God is giving to us. The Israelites understood this, but they decided in addition to the gift that they were gonna put all kinds of rules around the gift. So there's a book called the Talmud and there were 39 categories of work and it was like no plucking, no winnowing, no sowing, no plowing, no reaping, no binding sheaves, no threshing, no kneading, no baking, no shearing, no washing, no beating, no dying, no spinning, no weaving. I have a list, it goes on and on and on and on and on. And so they had in their mind all these rules. There was even one rule I read this weekend that was so funny, you could carry food, but you could only carry the weight of a plum. Like, it's okay, that's great. Or the weight of a fig, that's how much you could carry. So they added all these rules on top of God's commandment. So when Jesus breaks the Sabbath from their point of view, Jesus is not breaking God's command, he's breaking their tradition. And Jesus is not doing this accidentally. Jesus is doing this intentionally to bring them

into confrontation, helping them to realize like they have made the commandments of God burdensome for the people. And I want us to see what God does in restoration is that he removes the burden of performance that we often find on our shoulders, heavy weights that we place either on ourselves or somebody else places on us. And it doesn't just have to be religion. It could be your weight that you've placed on yourself with your job, that you're striving so hard to climb a ladder and you're flat exhausted and this weight of performance is upon you. It could be in your relationship with your parents as an adult, a full grown adult, you're still trying to please your parents, maybe even a parent who's no longer alive, that burden is on your shoulders. But in this context, it's the weight of religion that the religious leaders have stacked on people and Jesus is saying that that's no longer what it's about. It's not about your manmade rules that you can put on other people and burden their lives. There's an invitation from God and I want you to see what Jesus says. This is his invitation to you today. Matthew 11, 28 verse, 11, 28 to 30. Can we read this aloud at all of our campuses? It says, come to me, all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. So the good news from Jesus is that you don't have to be stacked under the weight of religion or the weight of performance. So he came to deal with that weight. The cross is his taking the burden of religion and nailing it to the cross so that you and I can walk in freedom. And what the Bible says is that all of that is nailed there and you and I receive the righteousness of God that we might walk in joy and peace knowing that we are declared holy because of what Jesus has done. So you're no longer a slave to sin. You're no longer a slave to an old way of identity. That when you are in Christ, it's a new way of living, and you're called up into relationship with God. And so much of what gets stacked on us often, even by ourselves, is that we find ourselves looking at God's commandments through the filter of being burdened upon us. It's a got-to rather than something that we get to. But what God is after is relationship in your heart. What God wants is for you to know Him, and the good things that you do are in response to what He's already done on behalf of you, bringing you into salvation and forgiving you from the power of sin and death. So now those commandments are a response, saying, God, thank you for your goodness. But there's also another part of it, because the religious leaders, in putting these burdens on people, Jesus would say, you stacked so much on people that you're not even willing

to lift with a finger the weight that is upon them. But Jesus says, I come to relieve that burden, that they might know God, and then secondly, He gives boundaries for blessing. So what He does to restore us is He creates a way of life that we can live into, that the Sabbath is speaking of, but all of the Ten Commandments are giving a new way of living that are God's boundaries for how we can live a blessed, flourishing life. He gives you boundaries because He cares about you, because He loves you. I remember when my kids were young, we lived in the Bay Area, and Bay Area yards are like this big, and there's like five feet by five feet, and then there was a little gate with an alley behind that. And what would happen is the boys were like, you know, they were probably nine and seven at the time, and Karis is like three, and they would go out, they would leave the gate open and then Karis would run into the alley. And I remember being like, you guys have to close the gate. That boundary is there because we're protecting your sister, because we care about her. That's what we do, we protect. And the reality of how God works is that God puts a gate in certain places to say, don't go there because that thing is not going to bless you. The thing is not going to lead you to a place of flourishing. And in Mark 2, 27, notice Jesus' words. He says, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath, so the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath. So Jesus is saying that this gift that I'm giving to you, that God is giving to you, is a gift ultimately that is about entering into rest, and you don't exist to keep all these rules, you exist to enter into relational rest with God. Now this is tucked within 10 commandments, nine other commandments, that are a part of a way of life, and all of this is within God's word. So from Genesis to Revelation, this book is God's blessing to us, and a way of life that when we live in accordance with it, there's a flourishing that happens. Now I want you to notice these 10 commandments, and you may be familiar with them if you've

been in church for some time, but if you're new, I think it's good just to come back in the Old Testament. God gave the Big Ten, and these Big Ten, everything else was kind of built on these 10 commandments that He gave to the Israelites. Let me read them to you. One, you shall have no other gods before me. Two, you shall make no idols, so there should be no other object that gets your heart aside from God. Number three, you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, so there should be a reverence for His name. Number four, remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. And then number five, honor your father and mother. Amen. Honor your father and mother. Some parents said amen. Amen. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet. Now this is a great list, and maybe you look at that and you're like, well, I don't like all the shall nots, because I don't like people telling me what I can and cannot do. And maybe that's you. God bless you. The reality is that this list from God is not a list to condemn you. It's a list to protect you and bless you. So God creates a way of life that when we live in accordance with that path, with His way of life, there is a blessing upon us. All of God's boundaries are for our blessing.

But here's a challenge that we face. There are two challenges. One, we go to one of two extremes. We add to God's commandments and we make them burdensome. And maybe you know somebody like that. They're just constantly adding to the commandments that God has given with their own rules, and then they put them on other people. And then the second challenge is that we brush them off and we make them optional. That doesn't apply to me. You know, the Bible says to not lie, but I got to get, I got to get ahead. And if I don't lie, she's going to get the promotion. And if she gets the promotion, I'm not going to get the Corvette or the yacht. So... It's different for me, you see. I gotta live different. I'm joking, this is not real, just in case you're not getting it. This is like the mentality that we often have that we will think, maybe there's a circumstance in my life, God's just gonna wink at my circumstance. I see you, buddy, it's okay if you do that. Go ahead and kill him, I know you don't like him. No, that's not God. That's not what he does. His commandments are his authoritative word for our lives that when I rebel against them, I'm the one that suffers as a result, not because God is condemning me. God put this in here so that I might live

experiencing the fullness of joy that is available in him. And I wonder, as you consider yourself, your tendency, which extreme you find yourself going to. Like, are you more the kind of person that you add to the rules or are you more the kind of person that you make some of God's commandments optional for you? Now, what happens when we add to them is we take the word of God and we turn them into binoculars, God's words into binoculars, into the lives of other people. And we're just constantly scanning for finding somebody who lied, who stole, who coveted. And we're like looking at other people with our own man-made rules. And Jesus is saying, that way of life is a burden that you are not intended to carry. It's intended to be a reflection into our hearts to show what's on the inside so that God can help us change. So God's word is a mirror to my soul. It's not a binoculars that I can look and see how bad your life is. It's literally God's word to say, I wanna transform you. And when I come into recognition of an area of my life that is not in alignment with God's word,

I have to make a decision. What do I believe about this book? Friends, I know I say this kind of stuff about the Bible a lot, but the Bible is in our culture right now, there is such a competition for ultimate truth that we think in our minds that you have your truth and I have my truth. And that's not the case. There is the truth. And the question is, do I come into agreement with the truth of God? When I disagree with the truth, God is right and I'm wrong. And so I've got to ask the question, how do I see that filter? What filter do I see that through? And if I believe that God's word is a blessing to my life, then I'm willing to come into alignment and receive from him the fullness of his blessing. So what Jesus says is come into the gift of Sabbath, come into the gift that God has for your life and live in such a way that you experience his blessing, the flourishing that comes. Now, there's another part of this that you also see Jesus is teaching in the moment where the religious leaders are frustrated, that he is on the Sabbath day in the synagogue, that he's gonna call a man to stand up and he's gonna make a very important point here

as we look at this last part of the passage. He is going to call this man to participate in the healing work that he wants to do. So he's going to take a man whose hand is shriveled and he's going to confront the religious leaders with their worship of the Sabbath and their man-made rules and he's gonna do the very thing that Sabbath was intended to do, which is to restore man, is to bring life into agreement and alignment with God's blessing. And so notice what happens in Mark 3. I wanna come back. He has him stand up in front of everyone. It says, Jesus said to the man with the shriveled hand, stand up in front of everyone. And then Jesus asked them, which is lawful to do on the Sabbath, to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill, but they remained silent. And he looked around them in anger and deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts and said to the man, stretch out your hand, stretch out your hand. And then he stretched it out and his hand was completely restored. Now I want you for just a moment, if you're not distracted,

I want you for just a moment to look at my eyes so that you don't lose the important point that's happening right here. Because in this moment, there's a tendency to forget the reality that all of us have this same condition. It might not be a physical hand, but there are parts of our lives that get shriveled up. And I want you for just a second to think about what it would have been like to be in that man's situation, coming into a church service with his shriveled up hand, that that shriveled up hand would have been his right hand. Luke tells us this. That hand would have been the hand of blessing. It would have been the hand of work. It would have been the hand of friendship and it's shriveled up. And it represents all the areas of his life that are less than what he dreamed they would be. And I wonder if there's a part of him that would walk around with that shriveled up hand hidden in his cloak so that nobody would... know his condition. In fact, in this passage, we don't even know this guy's name. We just know him as the man with the shriveled hand. And Jesus looks at him and says, stand up. Now, I wonder for some of you today, if you find yourself, there's some area of your life

that you feel is less than what it should be, and there's a kind of shame that you carry about a shriveled up area of your life. It might be related to your work and realizing perhaps by this point you thought that you'd be further along with your career. It might be with your finances, and you find yourself bad decision after bad decision, and now you're looking at bankruptcy, or you're looking at how do I get out of debt, and you feel all of the shame, or it might be in your marriage, and you thought that your marriage would be better, but you're constantly at it with your spouse, or you thought that your kid's behavior would be different by now, and it would have turned out differently, and there's this constant tendency to try to hide that thing inside the cloak of your life to say I hope nobody finds out this shriveled piece of my life, and today God brought you here for a reason. He wants you to understand whatever it is that is shriveled up in your life. The same Jesus that spoke to this man and said stand up is the same Jesus that is moving today and has the power to bring healing to whatever is shriveled up in your life. He is the same God yesterday, today, and forevermore, and he says two things.

One, stand up. Stand up. You need to identify the fact that your condition has happened, that this is where you are. Stand up. And then the second thing that Jesus says is to stretch out your hand. Take a risk. So I want you to stretch out your hand, and I want for just a moment to think about when he takes his hand out, and Jesus, he's already called him out. He's already got him standing. He's already recognized his condition, and he stretches his hand out, and the Bible says as he stretches his hand out, he's healed. In a moment, he watches that shriveled up hand be restored, and Jesus is able to restore, but he asks you to participate in his healing work, and I wonder for you today if you might be so bold as to recognize, God, I need your restoration, redeeming power to work in my life, and there may be something in your life that you are just carrying, and you're trying with religion, or you're trying with your man-made rules that you're stacking on yourself to fix up a shriveled area of your life, and this Jesus who lived among us for 33 years

is now crowned with glory. He's been crucified on a cross. He's risen again from the dead. He's come back to life, and now the Bible says that he's given his spirit to us who follow him, and the same Holy Spirit that fell on the church in Acts chapter one and two, the power that came in the early church, the Holy Spirit is in the room today at all of our campuses, and he is wanting to heal. He's wanting to restore. He's wanting to redeem the pieces of your life that you feel shame about, and he's saying, will you let me, but you gotta participate. You stand up, acknowledge it, and stretch out your hand to say, God, I need you to move in my life. It might be a physical ailment. There might be something that you've just been crying out to God, and today you're like, God, I need you to bring physical healing to a space in my life. I wanna ask you today to be bold with God about your desire for him to restore an area of your life, and I gotta believe that with the human condition and the brokenness of our world that all of us have something, some form of our lives,

some place that is shriveled up that we still hang on to in shame, and God is saying today, would you bring that to me and let my redeeming, restoring work, my grace touch that area of your life? So I wanna ask you to do something. First of all, around you, there's a card, all of our campuses. If you'll go ahead and grab that card, and there's a spot on the back that says, how can we pray for you? And the band is gonna come right now at all of our campuses, and we're gonna move into a moment of response. But what I believe happens is in the agreement and the acknowledgement of an area of our life where we need help and we ask for God to move and we pray and we come together as a church family, that there's something that God does in that when I'm just willing to acknowledge it and say, God, I need your help in this area. And so I wanna invite you as you pull that card out, just to start writing down right now, what is an area that you need God to touch today in your life? Some of you, the area that you need him to touch is the area of fear, or some of you just walking around in fear and you need God to give you courage. I wanna give you a moment.

but right now you could write a word, you can write a sentence, you could write a paragraph, but I just wanna encourage you just to write down where do you need God to touch an area of your life where his restoration power would transform and bring healing? I'll give you a few moments and then I'm gonna tell you what to do with that card as we respond in worship. Just take a few moments. The man's gonna begin to lead us now to all of our campuses as we respond to the spirit. I'm gonna give you a few more moments just to write it down, just to say this is where I need God to touch me today. This is where I need his grace. A few more moments. All of these cards this week are gonna be prayed for at every one of our campuses on Wednesday morning so you can know your church is gonna agree with you and the place that you need God to intervene. So a few more moments. Now in just a moment, we're gonna go back into a song, we're gonna worship God, we're gonna respond to his greatness and what he's done in our lives in the past, but we're gonna confess into the future his greatness and believe from our hearts that he is a God that is able to restore. And what I wanna ask as in just a moment,

we go back in, there'll be an opportunity to drop these cards in the buckets just so that your church family can pray with you. But I wanna ask, I'm gonna give a couple categories and I wanna pray over you today before we go back into a time of worship. I wonder if there's anybody today that would just say, would stand and say, I wanna ask for prayer that I would be released from the burden of performance, that I would be able to walk in freedom with God's love. Today, if there's anybody at any of our campuses, I wanna pray over you and bless you that you would just stand to say, I want freedom, I wanna be free, I don't wanna perform anymore religiously. Just stand up. Anybody else? So God, I thank you today for people who are standing today saying, I wanna be free. I wanna be free from the burden of religion and I wanna honor you. And I pray, Lord, that you would help each person that's standing today just to receive the freedom that comes, receive the love of Jesus, the finishing work of the cross. He said, it is finished. There's therefore now no condemnation. Lord, bless them that they might walk in your freedom. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. You may sit down.

I wonder if there's anybody today, I'm gonna put these last two together. Maybe you're saying, I want a fresh invigoration of a commitment to keep God's commandments, His boundaries in my life, that the Holy Spirit would just help me, help me obey the commandments that God has given to me. And then secondly, some of you are saying, there's an area of my life I need God to touch and restore. It could be physical healing, some area. Would you just stand? If any of those two represent you today, I just wanna pray and bless you and just ask the Holy Spirit to help you in this moment. There's an area maybe that you need restored. It could be a physical healing, could be area of your life mentally you need a strength, could be in your career. But God, we thank you today for your restoring, redeeming work. God, we acknowledge that you are mighty and powerful, that you are the same God yesterday, today, and forevermore. And right now, Lord, I'm asking for a touch of your spirit. I'm asking you, God, to bring your healing, Yahweh Raphae, to bring healing and restoration to marriages, to bring healing and restoration to relationships, to bring physical healing. There are some that are crying out, God, that you would touch them. And Lord, that you would make them a trophy of your grace.

I'm praying right now that you do that. Some are asking right now for your strength to obey you and to live in accordance with your blessing, Lord. So I just ask, Holy Spirit, that you would fill them afresh right now. I ask that you would touch them with your grace. Oh, almighty God, come. We want more of you. We don't wanna try to obey your commandments and our own power. We need you, Holy Spirit, to fill us afresh with hunger, with desire, with longing. longing to please the Father. We need you to come, Holy Spirit, to lift our countenance today, to help us realize that all of that sin has been nailed to the cross, that we've been set free. We acknowledge, Lord Jesus, that you are the healer, that you are the restorer. God, we pray these things in faith in the mighty name of Jesus, amen, amen. I wanna invite you, if you're not standing, come on, let's stand now, let's acknowledge he gives life. He's the source of love, he's worthy, he's great. How many of you are grateful that he's a God who gives life, that he's a God of love, that he brings healing and restoration? He's worthy of our adoration. Your bones, your heart, your mind, cry out today.

Just declare, great are you, Lord, great are you, Lord, worthy of honor, come on, lift up today. He is worthy of praise. Come on, declare it today. Pour out your praise upon him. Pour out your gratitude, just say thank you, God. I'm grateful for you, God, I'm grateful for your kindness. Worthy God is your name, we pour out our praise. ♪ It's your name in our lives ♪ ♪ So we pour out our praise, we pour out our praise ♪ ♪ It's your name in our lives, so we pour it out ♪ ♪ It's your breath in our lungs, so we pour out our praise ♪ ♪ I pour out my praise ♪ ♪ It's your breath in our lungs, so we pour out our praise ♪ ♪ It's your breath in our lungs, so we pour it out ♪ ♪ We pour out our praise, pour out our praise ♪ ♪ It's your breath in our lungs, so we pour out our praise ♪ ♪ Sing all the earth, all the earth will shout your praise ♪ ♪ Our hearts will cry, cry for you, Lord ♪ ♪ Sing all the earth, all the earth will shout your praise ♪ ♪ Our hearts will cry, cry for you, Lord ♪ ♪ It's your breath in our lungs, so we pour it out our praise ♪ ♪ It's your breath in our lungs, so we pour out our praise ♪ ♪ We pour out our praise, pour out our praise ♪ ♪ It's your breath in our lungs, so we pour out our praise ♪ ♪ We pour out our praise, sing it great ♪ ♪ We sing it great, all you Lord ♪ ♪ We sing it great, we sing it great, all you Lord ♪ ♪ Sing it great, sing it great, all you Lord ♪ ♪ Sing it great, all you Lord ♪

Well, how great is our God? We have a God of healing. We have a God of restoration, and we wanna encourage you, if there is something in your life that you need healing for, or restoration, or breakthrough in, we would love to know about it so we can come alongside you as a church family and be praying for you. Every Wednesday on our Wednesday morning prayer, we gather together as a church family and pray over the requests that come in, every single one of them. And so we wanna invite you to let us know how we, as a church family, can be praying for you. You can let us know by clicking the link in the description if you're watching on YouTube, or open our Saddleback app and submit a prayer request that way. Well, church family, we are so grateful that you are with us today, and we also wanna remind you of our July 11th Serve Day, where our entire church is going out into their communities and serving their communities on July 11th. And as an online community, you can be a part of this too. And so you can go to saddleback.com slash serve day to sign up, and we would love to send you ideas on how you can participate with us to be the hands and the feet of Jesus in the local communities on July 11th. We're so grateful that you were with us today as we worshiped together, and we are hoping that you join us again next week.

We love you so much, church family, and we'll see you again soon.