You Are Freed From Your Sickness

So, this morning's topic, we're continuing going through Luke, and we'll be in Luke chapter 13, but this morning I want to tell you what the sermon's about ahead of time, and it's about mercy. And mercy goes by a different name in our culture. We don't really talk about being merciful. You don't hear this kind of talk, at least not in our society, about what it means to be merciful. Which doesn't mean that the idea or the concept of mercy is gone, it just means that describing it that way is gone. And so we need to start this morning by thinking about what does mercy go by these days? What is it called? If it's not called mercy, what is it called? Anyone want to venture a guess? Just be kind? So yeah, just be kind. Yeah, it could be kindness for sure. Tolerance. Yes. Yes. Tolerance. Tolerance. That is what's mercy today. And what does it mean to be merciful? Well, it means to not...

to someone who is deserving of some sort of judgment. It means to withhold judgment. And now you say, well, that's not the definition of tolerance. And I say, you're right, it's not the definition of tolerance. But the aim is the same. The aim is to get you to, as a Christian, to pull back, to withhold some sort of judgment or some sort of correction in the name of love and of mercy. And kindness and grace and all of these sorts of things. And yet that's not merciful. You know, today is, I'm not going to be talking about abortion. That's not the point this morning. But today is Sanctity of Life Sunday. And so if you've been on Facebook or on the news, you've noticed there's been lots of people out marching and talking about abortion. And then there's been people who've stood on the other side and opposed them. And what are the accusations that come?

Who is the merciful one? Who's the merciful one? Is it the one who says we need to stop killing them? Or is it the one who says you're oppressing and you're being nasty and mean to these poor women? You realize which way the stream runs and which ones are standing in the stream going, that's not merciful. That's murder. But as a society, we don't know which one's merciful. We're not sure. And so what I want us to see this morning, before we even get into our text, is that mercy is up for grabs. The definition of what it is. What is merciful as opposed to being unmerciful or judgmental or harmful or critical. And I want you to know that what we're dealing with today in our culture, in our society, surrounding abortion or same-sex marriage or all kinds of other things, that question of what is merciful has been being dealt with since Jesus' time and even before. It's what's being dealt with in our text this morning. Who's merciful and who's not? Would you please stand now for the reading of God's word from Luke chapter 13, verses 10 through 17. This is the word of the Lord and it is eternally true. And he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. And there was a woman who for 18 years had had a sickness caused by a spirit.

and she was bent double and could not straighten up at all. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said to her, Woman, you are freed from your sickness. And he laid his hands on her, and immediately she was made erect again and began glorifying God. But the synagogue official, indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, began saying to the crowd in response, There are six days in which work should be done, so come during them and get healed. and not on the Sabbath day. But the Lord answered him and said, You hypocrites, does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the stall and lead him away to water him? And this woman, a daughter of Abraham as she is, whom Satan has bound for 18 long years, should she not have been released from this bond on the Sabbath day? As he said this, All his opponents were being humiliated. And the entire crowd was rejoicing over all the glorious things being done by him. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. Now, we're going to come to the talk of mercy. But I want to start by talking about church attendance. Because that's what our text starts with. They're at the synagogue. They're there to be taught. They're there to be instructed. And I want you to notice who's there. First of all,

Jesus is there. And you have to realize that at this point in Jesus' life and in his ministry, he's not unanimously received and liked. He's made some enemies, particularly amongst the Pharisees, the leaders of the synagogue, those who are ruling and conducting the worship of God's people at this time. They're not very fond of the Lord Jesus. They don't like him. And yet he's there. And it says that he's teaching in one of the synagogues. And you get the impression from him teaching in one of the synagogues that it was his habit to go to the synagogue wherever he found himself and to teach. This was his normal habit. He was there regularly. It wasn't he showed up once in a while or he was doing something out of his normal habit. On the Lord's Day, he found himself in the synagogue worshiping God. He found himself there teaching.

We have other accounts of him being in the synagogue when they hand him the scroll and he reads from Isaiah and he says to them, this has been fulfilled today in your hearing. We see that this is what Jesus does. He goes to worship his Father in heaven every chance he gets. And we ought to do the same. And the reason this is important to us and the reason we need to see it is that he wasn't well liked by everyone there. And isn't that what it's like in any family? In any church? In this church? and sovereign king. Isn't it true that there's often conflict and there's often division and things aren't as they should be or as they will be yet? And we would be dishonest to say that there are times when we don't want to go because of it. And yet Jesus is there, as is his habit, each week worshiping his father. Being alone is no life for a Christian. It's not more pious. You're not staying clean by staying away from sinners who sin against you.

The synagogue was full of hypocrisy. And yet Jesus was there. Who else was there? Well, this woman was there. This woman who's been plagued for almost 20 years by a spirit. In the same sort of circumstance that you might think of Job. She's been allowed to have been afflicted for 18 years. Now, I want you to raise your hand if you're younger than 18. Okay. Your whole life, you're not younger than 18. Your whole life. It's a long time. Bent double. She's at church. Now why is it significant that she's at church? Well, who wants to go to church like that? Who wants to go to church and have to have their shame exposed for everyone to see? She can't hide it. She can't stand up straight. For almost 20 years, she's like this. Can't look. Can't meet your eyes.

And we would be crazy to think that it wasn't painful. That even getting dressed or traveling wouldn't have been painful for her. And yet she was at church. Consider the things that keep us from wanting to come to church. You know, you have the thought, you know you can't, you're like, I can't stay home, but, you know, the barber messed up my haircut. I got a pimple. I got in a car accident. I lost my job. The list could go on. I could continue to name the things that are not nearly as severe. As what this woman was enduring. Neither in the longevity or the severity. And every one of us has thought, man, I don't want to go there like this. I want to go there when I stand up straight. And there she was. A number of you are familiar with a man named Bob Kaplowitz. Lives down in Bloomington from our sending church. He's 60, probably almost 70 now. Probably 67, 68. And he's got cerebral palsy and he's been in a wheelchair for,

40 years now, and he can't feed himself, and he can't care for himself, and he can't talk hardly at all, and he's in constant pain. He's been bedridden for the last few months because of his inability to move and care for himself. And when I lived in Bloomington, I took care of him for a year. And it was the sweetest year of my life to have to take care of someone who couldn't do anything for themselves. And as I was preparing this text, I thought about Bob, and I thought, you know, If there ever was a man who just would have gotten tired of going through the hassle and the inconvenience of being with God's people, it would be him. He's sort of polarizing. The people who know him, they make a point to go talk to him every time they see him. But nobody comes up and talks to Bob who doesn't know him. And the reason is you can't understand him. And you might get spit on. And he might headbutt you. Because he can't control himself.

You have to get right down in his face and he swings his head and sometimes you get smacked in the head and sometimes he spits on you when he's talking. And we're all sitting here thinking, that's gross. And I say, yeah, what about for him? What if you were that guy who had to worry about what kind of pain you were going to be in? To have to worry about what was going to happen when you were at church? It's very difficult for him. And you know, I say this not ever having heard him say, anything like he didn't want to go to church. He always wants to be there. But it's a lot of work and it's hard for him to be there. Nevertheless, people have a hard time being around him. They don't know how to relate to him. They don't know how to talk to him. He can't quite do the, hey, how are you? Oh, I'm fine. How are you? Great, thanks. Cool. He can't do that. That's what it would have been like for this woman. And so I want you to see that everything in her life would have...

have contributed, which one of us would have had a problem with saying she could be a shut-in? She wanted to be there. She wanted to be with God's people and she wanted to be worshiping God. You note that when she came and Jesus healed her, she didn't come like some other people came to Jesus for healing. She didn't come and say, Lord Jesus, can you make me stand up straight? It says that Jesus saw her and he called her over to himself. She didn't come there and say, oh, I heard the healers in town. I'm going to go over there and see if he can't straighten me up. She came to be with God's people, worshiping God. And she came with a cost. And she came with her shame. She came by faith. And so the first point from our sermon this morning is, you need to be at church. You need to be at church. And you say, well, it's hard. And I say, yeah, I know. Jesus, it was hard. And you say,

but I got this thing wrong with me. And they might find out. And I say, it would be good if they did. It would be good if we did. It was good for her to be there. You can also understand her infirmity or her weakness. If we were to move away from her body and we were to move into a discussion of souls and say, how do you come to church? You come to church once you're all cleaned up? You come to church once you're all straightened out? no more problems, no more hunchbacks, no more pain, no more nasty, it's all cleaned up before you get here, then what's the point? What's the point? Why are we here? If we were given a commission to build God's kingdom, to make disciples of the nations, and you know how disciples who haven't been made erect yet, you know how they come to you? They come hunched over. They come with all kinds of shame and all kinds of pain and all kinds of a mess, and they need mercy. And you know what?

They don't want to come because they know about their shame. And it's our place to invite them in, to welcome them in, to love them, to care for them, to take the unlovable of the world and say, you'll be loved here, come. So each of us has been or needs to be straightened up like she was by Jesus. And this is the place you come to get that work done. This is where you need to be. So what is probably the most common thing? that keeps people in our church away from church. Do you know what it is? Not pregnancy. Sick children. Sick children. If I could show you the chart of our church's attendance, and you can watch every November through February, it kind of goes... And then it comes up about March and April. And why does it do this? Well, because the kids get sick. That's why. If you have kids, you know it. You mothers, how much time do you spend?

worrying about, caring for, complaining about, frustrated by sickness. Can't come to church. We're sick. Now, I'm not saying you have to come when you're sick. You're puking sick. And actually, you can say, but I don't want to come because we're going to get everybody else sick. And I say, you're right. And unless we just disband, that's the nature of being in a church. You're going to spend the winter sick. I'm sorry. You can, you should. You should take vitamins, and you should eat healthy, and you should get your sleep, and you should drink your water, and you should do all that stuff. Good on you for doing it. But you're going to get sick, especially if you have little kids. It's what's going to happen. My whole family is sick. They got what I had last week, this miserable headache and a runny nose and a sore throat. So we came. We didn't put them in nursery today. I don't know where Vanessa's at, but...

There are strollers back there and she's got all the little ones. David's back there carrying his little one. My guess is she's not in the nursery because she's sick. Is that right, David? Okay, so I get to see that stuff from up here. I'm not telling you you have to drag your sick, feverish, flu-riddled child to church or you're sinning. It's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that it is very important that you be at church and you have to work to figure out when you should and shouldn't come with sick people. And we have nursery policies that make you think that you're not welcome here if you're sick. And I say, no, you're welcome here. David's carrying his daughter. Vanessa's off with some of my kids right now. And we're sick. And there are times that we don't send our kids here. We don't come to church because they're sick. But I'll tell you, When you stay home, you mothers, when you stay home from church for a week or two or three in a row because the sickness is slowly working its way through the family, it's not a discouraging time. Why is it discouraging? It's discouraging because you're away from the worship, the public worship of God. That's why. It's just that simple. You think it's because you're tired because you've been cleaning up messes and changing diapers and wiping noses and your laundry, you know.

quadrupled and all the rest. And that's all true. But the number one reason you're discouraged is because you've been away from the worship of God's people and you need to make effort to get back to it. Now, some of you are like, well, I don't have kids and I get really sick and I can't miss work. And I don't really like what you're saying. I think you're telling people to bring their sick kids to church and I might get sick. I am. That's what I'm saying. And you know what it's going to mean for you? It means that being a part of a family means you're going to get sick too.

The other option is to not be a part of a family. And I'll tell you, sickness, you lie to yourself if you think that sickness won't work. If you're sick and you stay away from church, that if that becomes your habit, that that won't have a negative effect on your soul or your disposition toward the people here or your desire to be here. You will simply get used to not attending or making excuse. And there are some things, you know, you just... There are some temptations in our lives that are really big, they're really acute, and they really need a lot of attention. And then there are other ones that are kind of like dandelions. And you just spend a lot of time out there plucking them up. And they keep coming, and you keep plucking, and they keep coming, and you keep plucking. And that's the way church attendance is. None of us are going to go from, we're here every week and we're happy and all of this, but all of a sudden, where'd they go? They fell off the map. That's not normally what happens.

Normally what happens is, oh, they got sick and something else was going on and they got discouraged and no one called them and they didn't feel loved and then they get frustrated and it just sort of can spiral downhill out of control. Why? Where's all this come from? It comes from not being here regularly. So the first point, be here. Be at church. You say, well, are you telling me I can't travel? No. saying, go to church when you travel. Organize your travel around going to church. I like going to other churches. And it's not because I don't like you guys. I love you guys. But I like going and meeting other Christians. I like worshiping the same God with people I have never met before. Go to church. It's profound. Go to church. Come to church. Jesus was in the church. The woman was in the church.

So here they are all together. And Jesus sees the woman hunched over. And what does he have? Compassion. He acts with mercy toward this woman. He calls her over and says to her, Woman, you are freed from your sickness. Laid his hands on her and she stood up straight. He healed her. And you'd think, you know, when I read this, you can't help but think about Benny Hinn. You just can't help but think about it, right? And some of you know that terrible, awful song that they set when the bodies hit the floor? You know, Mark knows it. And I know, and it makes a mockery of what Benny Hinn has done because he's abused this text. He is not Jesus Christ, and he is not helping those people. But people come to church, and you would expect if someone actually came in here, was actually sick, hurt, doubled over, a non-Christian, and they came under conviction, And they cried out. What would the response of you all be? Praise God. Hallelujah. Glory to God, right? That's what we would do. What did the synagogue official do? Stop it. What are you doing? And note, Jesus is there teaching. And I'm not going to go into the structure of synagogue worship and how there's a synagogue official, but how Jesus is teaching. If you're interested in that, you can read about it. I'm not going to talk about it right now.

But the synagogue official is like the guy he's in charge. But there's other people who lead and who teach and who do other things during their worship. So that's what Jesus is doing. Jesus heals this woman, and the guy's radar starts going off, and he's like, there's a problem here. There's a problem. Now what has happened? All that's happened is Jesus has been merciful. And this man's radar goes off, and he goes, there's a problem here, and what does he do? He speaks up and he says, there are six days to do your work. Don't come here on the Lord's day to be healed. Come here different days. Now there's all kinds of things wrong with what he says, and that's what we're going to go into now. The first thing is, he's a coward. And the reason he's a coward is because he doesn't address Jesus, he addresses the crowds. He enters into a power play with Jesus about who's actually in charge and who actually has authority. He's trying to steal away, he sees Jesus as a threat.

Jesus is here. Jesus is healed. The people are doing what you or I would do if someone was healed, and this guy says, I've got to stop it. Why? Because he's going to lose control if they do. They're not going to follow him anymore. And he's a coward in the way he addresses it. He does not oppose Jesus to his face, but rather addresses the crowds. There are six days in which work should be done, so come during them, and not on the Sabbath day. So contrary to our first point, when we come to church, and it's a necessity, This guy says, don't come to church and expect anything. Don't come here and expect mercy. Don't come here and expect healing. You make sure what? You make sure you keep the law. Everything's nice and everything's clean and everything's orderly and it's in its place. There are six days to do your work and Jesus is just doing some work here and just today is not the day. And so he turns the mercy of Jesus Christ into work, common work, work that's forbidden on the Sabbath.

He's accusing Jesus of sin. You realize that. But he's not accusing him directly. He's appealing to the court of public opinion and saying, sinner, things need to be done decently in order. You know that when Jesus would heal people or the disciples would heal people, things would get kind of frayed around the edges. Right? You remember the woman with the blood who snuck up and touched Jesus? And there was all these crowds pushing in. It was kind of a... And you remember when Paul was teaching and they ripped open the roof and lowered the guy down because they couldn't get to him? Why were they doing that? Because they needed mercy. These people were sick and they needed to be healed. Now could you imagine if someone were to rip open the roof to get in to the church? We'd all go, you can't do that. The door.

Wait your turn. And don't we sound like synagogue officials? And so I want you, before you just write off the synagogue official and you're just like, oh, wicked man. Yeah, he was. Not doubting that. You have to see your own temptation to do what he did, which is to maintain control. For you to be the one who meters out how things are going to be and how they're going to work. So he accuses Jesus of breaking the Sabbath. And if you think about it, his accusation is absurd. This woman, being as she was, would have been known by the synagogue official, right? He's the synagogue official there. She doesn't get around much. He would have known her. So she comes in, 18 years bent over. Jesus straightens her up. And what does the synagogue official call it? Common work that you can come have done during the week. Come during normal business hours. You can get that done anytime. Really.

18 years, 18 long years, it hasn't been done. You haven't done it. It's extraordinary what Jesus did. And the synagogue official calls it common. Common work that should take place in its proper time. So the synagogue official is grasping to maintain control of the people. And Jesus is a threat to that. So he denigrates Jesus' work. He threatens Jesus with having sinned. Because he can see what the crowd's doing. We read at the end of our text, it says the entire crowd was rejoicing over all the glorious things being done. You can understand that's what he's seeing happen. He's losing the people. So he accuses Jesus. And what does Jesus say? He says, you hypocrites. You hypocrites. Because you realize, if Jesus has just been accused of breaking the law, the Mosaic law, he broke the Sabbath.

Jesus responds to him and says, you hypocrites, do you not have animals that you have mercy on? In the law, we're provided for them to be able, they couldn't work on the Sabbath day, but they were allowed deeds of mercy and necessity, like watering your ox, for instance. And so Jesus, through rebuking this man, reframes what's actually going on here. He says, this isn't work, this is mercy. This is kindness. And if your animals in your stall that you make money off of and you live off of, if they can receive mercy on the Sabbath, how much more so this daughter of Abraham? Jesus is not doing common work here. He's doing a deed of mercy, a deed of necessity. Proverbs 12.10 says, A righteous man has regard for the life of his animal, but even the compassion of the wicked is cruel. Do you think that the synagogue official fancied himself a compassionate man? Let me ask you this. Which one of you would say you're not compassionate?

Whoever thinks of themselves and says, you know, I'm not a compassionate person. I mean, as a part of your confession of your own sin and acknowledgement, I get that. But I mean, if you were to just describe your character, and I were to say, are you compassionate? Are you merciful? Who would say, no, I'm not? You would? Wendy would? But you're acknowledging it as a failure. You're not like saying, and this is a good thing, right? Yeah. Did you know that about your wife? And so, It's not too far of a stretch to think that this synagogue official thinks he's a merciful, compassionate man. And yet Jesus says, no, you're not. No, you're not. You've taken the mercy that I've extended to this poor woman who suffered long. And you've said, I shouldn't have done it. That rather, I should have allowed her to continue suffering. That I should have withheld mercy from her. If you care for your animals, How much more so this woman, one who suffered for so long and dealt with so much shame and so much pain. It's become the defining feature of her life. How could you be doubled over for 20 years and not have it be the thing that your whole life is dictated by? And she's been healed. And we say, you shouldn't have done that. It's monstrous, isn't it? It's monstrous to think that you would ever come to say that. Is that not the accusation of...

against anti-abortion ministry. For example, they're being killed by the million and it's unmerciful to say, stop that. Please, we'll help. That's a lack of mercy. Our society is not sure. Can't figure it out. But we who know God understand what mercy is because we've received it. We've gone from being bent over and made to stand up straight. We had eyes that couldn't see and now we can see. And so we understand what mercy is. We understand what compassion is. And we understand that the accusations are going to come against you when you actually do it. Because everyone wants to be merciful, but no one wants to change. That's why the definition of mercy is up for grabs. It's because I need to change the definition of mercy to be defined by what I already do. Does that make sense to you? But we don't get to define it. The synagogue official doesn't get to define it. Jesus Christ defined what was merciful. He healed this woman.

And he said, so far from saying we shouldn't do this on the Sabbath day, Jesus says there's no better day of the week to do it than today. There's no better time than now to be merciful. It's better than tomorrow. It's better than yesterday and every day in between them. The Lord's Day is the day when deeds of mercy and love should rise to the top. So what's it mean for us? Well, probably... does not mean that you're going to take someone who's hunched over and straighten them up on a Sunday. So is there any mercy for you to extend to people? Do any of you need mercy? Did any of you come here this morning hoping that someone would put their shoulder under your burden and help carry it? Or did you question this morning about whether you should come in case they might find out about your burden? How many of you came and thought, man, I hope such and such, I hope I don't have to talk to them. They got problems.

That I'm tired of dealing with. How many of you thought, man, I bet I've got problems that they're tired of dealing with. These 18 long years or two. Today is the day of mercy. Today is the day that you ought to make a point of extending mercy to those that are around you. Loving them and caring for them and bearing their burdens. So far from waiting for the needs to come to you, you have a further responsibility. Your responsibility is to seek them out. That's what Jesus did. He sought this woman out. Sometimes people come with their needs and they say, hey, I got a need. And sometimes they hide in the corner with their need. And it's your job to see them in the corner. And it's your job to go and find out what their need is. It's to listen to them, to pray with them, to bear with them, to give them what they need. If it's something you can tangibly help with, it's your obligation to do it today.

Not later. Not go and be warm and well-fed and we'll pray for you. No, not if you have the ability to meet their need. So what's underneath all of that? Well, you've got to be at church first. You can't do it if you're not here. You say, yes, I can. I say, well, maybe you can. Okay, fine, but that's not the norm. You do this work here with these people. You seek it out. But what's underneath it? You know, there are people who come to church and if you're listening and you're going, you know, Dave, I don't think that's what church is about. What I say to you is it's more blessed to give than to receive. You're not here to receive. But you have needs. That's right. And we're here to meet those needs. You're here to give. You will receive. You will be cared for. You will be loved. But you're here to give. That's your responsibility. Your goal is not to come here and to be a mooch or a leech. Your goal is to come here and to offer a sacrifice of worship and of praise by serving your brothers.

That's what you're here for. That's what it means to worship God. Those who would oppose this kind of work and say, no, you know, one of the things we do when new people come to church, David's brought this to my attention, it's very helpful. When you talk to new people, one of the things that we ask them is we say, what are you looking for in a church? It's a great diagnostic question because it's open-ended. What are you looking for in a church? Well, what kind of answers can you get? You can get style of worship. You can get type of theology. You can get children's ministry stuff. You can get mercy ministry stuff, certain types of ministries that people are interested in. But most of the time, you don't get, I'm here to help. I came and I want to help. You know what one of the best indicators of visitors and whether they're going to come back, I think?

One, if they stick around, but if they help with the chairs. Some of you guys don't know. Every one of those tables and 450 chairs go in this room when we leave. And they're here when we get here in the morning. And they tear it all down, set this up, and then we've got to put it all back later. And so I'm watching to see visitors and seeing where are they at. Now, I'm happy for them to be talked to and stuff, but eventually the conversation kind of, you know, there's a lot of work to do. And so we're talking and we're moving chairs, and you watch to see if they help or not. And if they help, You know that they have, whether they even thought about it or not, you know that they have some place in their mind for serving the church, for serving Jesus Christ, for deeds of mercy and necessity. If they just sit there or they leave, well, you know that they don't necessarily have that place in them yet. They need it. And so we continue to reach out to them and we love them. We don't say, oh, you didn't help set up the chairs, good riddance. No. But we recognize that we've learned something.

How about when someone's been at church for a couple of weeks and they say, what can I do to help? Do you know how encouraging it is when someone says, what can I do to help? Our nursery is understaffed. Our setup crews are understaffed. We've got lots of work to do and a few people to do it. And if you're a part of that work, God bless you and thank you. You know, I was getting out of bed this morning, and it was probably like 7.30, 7.45. I looked at my phone, and I was like not with it yet. And you know what I thought? I thought there are already people here preparing at 745 in the morning. And I haven't even brushed my teeth yet. And praise God for the people who do that work. There's plenty of opportunity for deeds of necessity and of mercy, especially on the Lord's Day. And that setup work and that nursery work and that coffee work and those signs and the greeting work and all this stuff that goes on, it all falls in this category. So do you want to be a part of that work?

That's the most basic, first-tier, entry-level sort of stuff you can do here. Just pitch in, help, ask to help. See someone who's struggling? Or quiet, keeping to themselves, kind of playing with the kids? Did you know that's one indication an adult's having a problem is they'll go play with the kids? Because the kids won't ask them what's wrong. The kids just want to play tag or whatever. But I watch. You go see an adult just over there all the time, wants to go play with the kids, play with the kids. You women, you want to go hang out in the nursery all the time? I got your number. Today is the day of mercy. And God's people rejoice when they see it. And they rejoice when they receive it. And they rejoice when they give it. You'll never feel more useful than when you found a need and you meet it. You say, I'm going to help. I'm going to do it. Whether that's moving chairs or...

or counseling someone. Today's the day for that work. It means you've got to stick around. You can't slide out the door. You've got places to be and things to do. Today's the day of mercy, and it brings great joy. And so we need to be about the work of it. That's our place. That's what we're here for. Trust God that the needs that you have will be met, that you would do the work that he's put before you, and that other people will do the work that he's put before them. You're to care for them, and they're to care for you. That's how it works. You can't take care of yourself. You remember Romans 4, and it says, What did Abraham, our forefather in the faith according to the flesh, what has he found? Well, if he found works, if he was able to save himself, then he found something to boast in, but not before God. You're able to take care of yourself. You've discovered something, but it's not pleasing to God.

He didn't make you to take care of yourself. He didn't make you to bear your own burdens by yourself. He didn't make you to suffer in silence and isolation. He just didn't. It wasn't good for Adam to be alone, so he made Eve. And then he told them, have kids. Why? Because people should be with other people so that they can carry each other's burdens. They can be merciful to each other. That's our place. That's our work. And it's delightful work. So join in it with me. Let's pray.