Robert Morris - Mary and Martha
All right, so we are in a series entitled Divinely Human. And what I mean by that is that we are 100% human. We're humans, but when we accept Christ, the divine comes to live within us. And so, God can use us in a divine way to touch someone, or to encourage someone or to minister to someone. God uses us. And we've been looking at people in the Bible like Abraham and Sarah and Moses and Zipporah, and we've looked at Peter, and we looked at John last week, and the very first message was called A Better Covenant. Really, that's the foundation. I'd love for you to go back and listen to that at least seven or eight times because of the practical theology that's in that message, to understand, we're not living under an old covenant; we're living under a new covenant. And that allows us to be humans with faults and failures and even sins, and yet still be used by God. And it's been a funny series.
And so last week, as I was preparing the message on John, I was starting to feel this. And then even as I was preaching it, I was feeling it. It was like everyone was saying, "Okay, Pastor, we got it. We got it. They're humans, and yet God uses them. They're humans, and yet God use them". And so, I began to pray about this week practical ways to allow the divine to use us even though we're humans. And the Lord took me to two sisters, very practical, Mary and Martha. All right, so that's what we're going to do today, is look at Mary and Martha. But here's what I want to say to you, that every time something happens in your life, you get to choose whether to respond as just a human or as a human saved by grace.
So, you get to choose whether I'm going to respond with just my human emotion of fear or anger or resentment or whatever anxiety or worry, or you get to choose to respond as a human saved by grace with trust and faith and joy, even though you might still experience some other emotions, right? So, I've got three points, obviously. Here's number one: quiet or busy. Quiet or busy. Let me just give you a little bit of a bottom line so you can be looking for this. When stress and worry and anxiety, something like that comes into your life, do you respond by getting quiet with God for a little while first, or do you respond by getting busy? If I just get busy, I can take my mind off of it. The problem is, that's a little bit true. But when you finish doing what you did, the worry is still there. The only one who can take care of the worry is Jesus.
So, you've got Luke 10:38. "Now, it happened as they went that he entered a certain village", that's Bethany, by the way, "and a certain woman named Martha welcomed Him into her house". We believe that Martha was a widow, and this was her house. "And she had a sister called Mary", we believe a younger sister, "who also sat at Jesus' feet and heard His word". This word heard means absorbed. It's more than just hearing. It's a taking. It's an understanding of the information, not just hearing the information, absorbed His Word. "But Martha was distracted with much serving".
Now, I want you to notice the word "much," because why was it much serving? We have this idea that Jesus traveled around with twelve guys. So, it was 13 guys. First of all, 13 men in your house would be much serving. Okay? But what we don't realize is there was, we theologians believe there were 20 to 30 people that traveled with Jesus all the time, men and women. And we're in Luke 10. Let me just back up to Luke 8. Verse one says, "Now it came to pass, afterward, that He went through every city and village, preaching and bringing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God. And the twelve were with Him", and this is what we miss, "and certain women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary called Magdalene, out of whom had come seven demons, and Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod's steward, and Susanna", watch this, "and many others who provided for Him from their substance".
Again, a lot of people don't realize that women traveled with Jesus, and I just want to just say it to you. Do you really believe that 13 men could have traveled without women and could have kept their schedule and could have planned ahead? I actually used to invite people over to our home without telling Debbie. Again, young and stupid. When I was young and stupid, okay? Literally, I'd be meeting with the pastor and his wife and say, "Hey, y'all, just come over. Just come". And, we'd just show up. And then when we got cell phones. This was me before cell phones. We got cell phones. Here's how I got so much better. I would call her on the way and tell her, don't you think? So, I'm much better at it now, most of the time.
All right, so Luke 10. We'll go back to Luke 10:40. "But Martha was distracted with much serving", that's where we left off, "and she approached Him and said, 'Lord, do You not care...'" Now, I just want to, we're going to come back to this statement, "Do You not care"?, and just talk about, have you ever felt that way? "God, do you not care what I'm going through right now"? But, "'Do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone?'" You've got to remember, Jesus is teaching. She's sitting at his feet, but everybody's listening to Jesus. Martha's in the kitchen alone. Nobody's, because everybody's listening to Jesus.
All right, now watch this. I love this. This is an older child syndrome here. "'Therefore tell her to help me.'" That's a little human, but I agree with it, but, "'tell her to help me.' And Jesus answered and said to her, 'Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things.'" The word troubled here means anxious. You are worried and anxious about many things. "'But one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her.'" Okay? First of all, I want to help you understand, I don't agree with the way most perceive this passage. I don't think Jesus was rebuking her for serving, and I don't even think He was rebuking her. I don't think He was mean in what he said. I think when you think about it, I think it's very possible that the first thing He did was give her a hug and then took her hands like this.
And the reason is, in biblical language, when you use a person's name twice, it's compassion. You're actually saying, Martha. It would be like your spouse, your wife, your husband, coming and saying, "I'm just so worried about this meeting I have tomorrow or this event we have coming up". And you give them a big hug, and then you say, "Sugar, sugar, sweetheart, sweetheart, I understand how you feel. It's normal that you would feel this way". I just want you to see this as differently than maybe you've seen it before.
I think Jesus is saying, "Martha, I understand, I get it. There are 20 to 30 people came with Me. Now people are in the yard, they're looking through the windows, they're asking where the bathrooms are, you know, and then I know Peter got into your charcuterie tray. I know, I know. I can't take Peter anywhere. I mean, it's just, that's just the way it is. I agree. I understand you're worried and you're troubled about many things, but do you not understand that the one who can multiply bread is sitting in your living room? I just need you to get back to, I'm in there teaching, and you're worried about lunch. I can take care of lunch". By the way, this is Luke 10.
You say, "Well, the feeding of the 5000 might not have even happened". Read Luke 9. It had just happened. It was 5000 families, by the way, 20,000 to 25,000 people, not 5000 men. I mean, not 5000 everybody. It was 5000 families. So, I think He's expressing love actually, and I want us to think about that in that way and not think He was rebuking her for serving. "I'm here, and I am here to, I'm teaching. And yet you're missing it". Now, again, I'm not putting Martha down because I have a tendency to get worried and troubled about many things. I have a tendency to get stressed. But what I want you to know is that every time stress and tension comes into your life, you have a choice whether to get quiet or get dizzy. And I'm just simply saying that many of us here try to work through stress instead of just sit at Jesus's feet for just a little while.
I was with this group of pastors one time. We were all speaking at a large conference, and one of them said, "Hey, guys, you know, it's almost time for us to go out. I think we ought to pray". And one of the other guys said, "Has it come to that"? And of course, he's just joking, but in other words, is prayer the last resort or the first action? So, when stress comes in, we immediately need to make that choice. All right, here's number two: temporary or eternal? Every time something happens in your life that could be stressful, and now we're going to talk about the death of her brother Lazarus, do you respond with a temporary mindset or an eternal mindset? Again, human or divine?
2 Corinthians 4:18 says, "While we do not look at the things which are seen", in other words, he's saying, don't look at what you can see, but at the things which you can't see. "For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal". All right, so let's look at the story of Lazarus, John 11. "Now a certain man was sick, Lazarus of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha". Verse five. "Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus". Now, Lazarus became very well known, as a matter of fact, because of Lazarus being raised from the dead. It says the Jews plotted even more to kill Jesus. Okay? But Lazarus became like a celebrity. People came from all over to see this. "Guy's been raised from the..." Dead for four days. Four days, four days. Decomposition sets in on the fourth day.
So, that's why Jesus, I think, waited, but he became well known on the day. This March will be... April, I guess five will be April. And I think I get confused on the date because it happened to me, and I was the one that almost died. So, it's not real clear in my mind. But as many of you know, I had the helicopter ride and, you know, things like that. But on that day, this John 11, was the passage Debbie read. And that verse was the verse that God stood out. It didn't say, "Now Jesus loved Lazarus and Martha and Mary". It says he loved "Martha and Mary and Lazarus". Okay, here's what she took from that. "God doesn't just love Robert that everybody sees on television and knows his name and buys his books. God loves me, and he loves our family".
So, when she was driving, I'm in the helicopter, and she was driving. And by the way, sheriff, she sped. She broke the law. I just felt like I should confess that for her. Mother Teresa sped. It was one of my first memories getting the helicopter. Steve Dulin was there. I don't, where was Steve? I saw Steve and James, my son, and they were putting a thing in this artery that had four tubes to be able to get blood in me, to try to keep me alive. And it was one of the first things, conscious moments I remember. And I said... The helicopter, by the way, was 45 minutes, and the drive was an hour and a half. And I said, hey to James, "Check on mom". And he said, and then I heard Debbie say, "I'm here".
So, she was definitely speeding. You just don't know how much fun that is with my sinful background to just confess her sins. "Confess your wife's sins that you may be healed". I've gotten so much healing. Okay, all right. But that's the scripture God gave her. And it wasn't so much God was going to raise Lazarus from the dead. It was that, "No matter what happens to Robert, God loves me and He loves our kids and He loves our grandkids". That's a great scripture. Then verse 6 says, "So, when He heard that he was sick, He stayed two more days in the place where He was". I don't understand that verse. Now I do. From an eternal perspective, I do, now that I've read the rest of the passage. But you would think when He heard that he was sick, He left immediately and sped. He went as fast as He could, but instead He stays two more days. Are you all with me?
So, He stays two more days. And then verse 11. Then he tells some things to his disciples. And then in verse 11, "These things He said, and after that He said to them, 'Our friend Lazarus sleeps, but I go", now, that's an eternal perspective, by the way, not a temporary one, "but I go that I may wake him up. Then his disciples said [the humans], 'Lord, if he sleeps he will get well.' However, Jesus spoke of his death, but they thought He was speaking about taking rest in sleep. Then Jesus said to them plainly, 'Lazarus is dead'", idiots, "'And I am glad for your sakes'", notice, I've never seen this before, "'I'm glad for your sakes'", idiots, "'that I was not there, that you may believe. Nevertheless let us go to him". Verse 20, "Then Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming, went and met Him, but Mary was sitting in the house".
How many years has she been sitting in the house now? It's the same thing. Martha is serving, Mary is sitting again. Now, you know what this shows? It shows different personalities. So, the brother has died. Martha's working, Mary is contemplating. What I'm trying to say to you is, I'm not rebuking you if you're a person that says, "I need to get busy". Not at all. I don't think Jesus was rebuking Martha for being busy. I think He was instructing her that, "You can get busy all you want, but if you never sit at My feet, you're not going to get over this". That's what I want to help you understand. All right. Verse 21. "Now Martha said to Jesus, 'Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died".
Now, I'd like for you to commit that to short-term memory. Now, that might not be one of your strengths, I understand, but it's, "Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died". "Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died". Now, for me, memory has been easy for me. When I was, if you remember, I didn't get saved until nine months after Debbie and I got married. And so, our first year of college, I wasn't saved, and our first year of college, I majored in pool and skipology, and I would actually have Debbie send around an enrollment, and she would put a check beside my you know, that was bad, too, that you did that. This is so wonderful. I've never seen her as human, and I'm really into this sermon. It's really helping me. So, I mean, she speeds and lies.
Okay, so anyway but she would check my name. But here's what I would do. Because of my memory, I would take her notes and read them 1 hour before the final. And then if she made a C, I'd make a B, and if she made a B, I'd make an A because of my memory. That was just something God, which you should be thankful for, that I can remember the books of the Bible at least. So, commit to short-term memory, "Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died". All right? But even now, here's a divine response from Martha. So don't, let's not, we always lift up Mary and put down Martha. Here's divine from Martha. "But even now I know that whatever You ask of God, God will give You". Well, that's good. And her brother's been dead four days. "Jesus said to her, 'Your brother will rise again.' Martha said to him", here's a human response. And human is not always bad. It's just normal.
"'I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.' Jesus said to her, 'I am the resurrection'". There's one of the I Ams we covered last week in John. "'I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me'". Now, I want to explain this to you theologically. "'though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die". Now, here's the thing, though, see, because I'm grammarian. I like grammar. I listen to words. The words jump out at me. "'He who believes in Me, though he may die'", will live again, "'And he who believes in Me shall never die". Okay, which one is it? Is it "though he may die" or "shall never die"?
Okay, let me explain to you. It's both. It's what I'm preaching on, divinity and humanity. See, as a human, you're going to die, but as a human that's been born again, you're never going to die. You're just going to transition to a new location. That's the difference. So, that's how both of these statements are true. Even though he dies physically, his physical body dies, he never dies. You all know that I get to minister to some of the people in Hollywood and things like that. And Pat Boone, when his wife went to be with the Lord, we were texting and all, but he here's what he texted me when she went to be with the Lord. His wife's name was Shirley. He said, "Shirley moved today. She has a new address".
See, Christians don't die. They just move. They transition. So now look at verse 26. He said, "'Do you believe this?' She said to him, 'Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is to come into the world". Okay, that's real familiar. There's something we read a few weeks ago that Peter said, "I believe you are the Christ, the Son of the Living God"! And Jesus said to him, "That's divine. You didn't get that on your own". So, I'm just showing you that Martha makes the divine responses in John 11. I believe you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. I believe. Then verse 32, "Then, when Mary", this is what I told you to commit to short-term memory a moment ago, "Then, when Mary came where Jesus was, and saw Him, she fell down His feet, saying to Him, 'Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.'" Exact same words. You can go back and read them later if you think I missed one. Exact same words.
Now, again, I think we take this negatively. Possibly, they were not even saying it accusatorily. Possibly they were just making a statement because, see, a centurion, a Roman centurion... Centurion comes from the word cent, which means 100. So, they were over 100 men. This Roman centurion comes up to Jesus and says, "Lord, if you'll speak, my servant is sick, and would you come and heal? Would you heal him"? And Jesus said, "Yeah, I'll come with you". And he said, "You don't even need to come. Just speak the word and he'll be healed". And it says, Jesus spoke, from that moment. He was healed from that very moment. So, they could have been saying, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know you couldn't get here, your schedule, you know, or whatever, but I wish you had been here, or I wish you had heard about it, because, you know, then maybe you could have just spoken the word and he would have been healed.
Possibly, though, they were a little upset. Possibly they knew that they had sent messengers and that Jesus stayed two more days. Possibly there's a little bit of that. The Martha from earlier, Matthew 10, when we read where she said, "Do you not even care"? I'm just saying, maybe they weren't saying it in a bad way, but maybe they were. Now, the reason I want to bring that out is this is the way we feel sometimes, and I want to let you know it's actually okay to say it to God. And I want to let you know, it actually doesn't even hurt His feelings, and it doesn't threaten Him that you say to Him, "Lord, I'm mad at You right now". He might even say kind of like, "Tamara, I understand". Possibly they were saying, "You could have intervened, but you didn't".
Now, I want you to think about because sometimes when we go through tragedies, and I'm not trying to bring up a painful memory for you, but that goes through our humanity, our human minds, thinking, "Lord, I heard about people getting healed, and yet my son didn't get healed. My sister didn't get healed". What I want to say to you is, it's okay for you to say it. And I actually think He would rather you say it to Him than just think it. And by the way, He knows what you're thinking anyway. So, I think they were expressing their hurt and their disappointment, and that's okay to do that. By the way, if you don't know this, Jesus not only knows how you feel, He feels how you feel. This is a huge, I could take an hour and show you this theologically, but this is the whole reason He became a human, so He could feel from the human side what we feel.
Hebrews 4:15 in The Message says, "We don't have a priest who is out of touch with our reality. He's been through weakness and testing, experienced it all — all but the sin". In other words, he never sinned. Most scholars believe that Joseph died when Jesus was either growing up or probably in his teens or in his twenties. He is not mentioned anywhere in Jesus' ministry. Another thing is, well, I didn't have time to cover this last week with John, but Jesus said to John at the cross, "Behold your mother," talking about Mary, his mother. And he said to his mother, "Behold your son". And it says, "From that day, she went home to live with John". Well, she wouldn't have gone home to live with John if Joseph had still been alive.
So, there's no doubt that he died. Most people believe he was married before and that his wife first wife died. Most people believe, if you just want to know, if you want to go into history, that his mother's wife had a sister named Salome. Salome married Zebedee, and Zebedee and Salome had a son named John. John, that we talked about, the apostle John, was Jesus' second cousin. Okay, there's just a little history there for you, all right? But here's the point. Joseph was many years older than Mary. Did God know when he chose Joseph to be His Son's earthly father? Did God know that he would die before His Son died? Of course He did. He knows everything. So why did He do it? I think He did it so that Jesus could experience death as a human, that He could experience it from the temporal side.
See, we have this temporary or eternal. I want to use the board here for a minute. Okay, so the first time I ever heard this was just reading a theological book years ago. This line is going to represent eternity,all right? The reason it has an error on both ends is because eternity is not from now on, eternity is for, it's always existed is what the word eternal means. Okay? All right. So, that's eternity, okay? The line I'm going to put a dot like, let's say like that, okay, that's your life. And let's just say you live to be 100 years old. And so, if that was 100 years, and I made the dot really bigger, but somewhere in here is like 10,000 years, 2030, 40, 50, 60, somewhere you get to 100,000. Then somewhere in here, maybe over here, you get to start to scale to a million and then 10 million, and you people over there to 100 million years from now.
Okay, so there we go. All right, here's my point. What's most of your focus on the 100 years are eternity. What are most of your thoughts on? Here's a good one. What are most of your prayers about? This is the old saying, "Pastor, you quit preaching and gone to medlin'". This is what we think about, pray about, have emotions about. Most of the time is this dot instead of eternity. Every time something happens in your life, you can make a temporary decision or an eternal decision. And this is what John 11 is about. He's trying to help them to understand that. All right, so then let me hit another, just a little more about Jesus understanding death. And again, I think we misinterpret this passage. John 11, verse 35, is the shortest verse in the Bible. "Jesus wept". Would you all like to memorize the verse in the Bible tonight, today? Hunt, you want to do that? You ready? "Jesus wept". You just memorized a verse in the Bible. It's got a subject and a verb, and that's it. All right?
"Then the Jews said, 'See how he loved him!'" Okay? I don't think he was weeping over Lazarus' death. And all you've got to do is back up two verses to see what He was weeping about. Verse 33 says, "Therefore, when Jesus saw her weeping [that's Mary], and the Jews who came with her weeping, He groaned in the spirit and was troubled". When he saw humans who had just lost someone they loved weeping, not just crying, weeping, He groaned and was troubled. The word groaned here means to snort with anger. Like, just makes me mad when I think about it. And then the word troubled to hear means agitated. But He wasn't angry and agitated at Mary. He was angry and agitated at death. So, on the cross, He destroyed it completely and took care of it so it would never have power over us again. He wasn't weeping over Lazarus. He was about to raise him from the dead. Jesus wept. And everyone said, "See how much he loved Lazarus!" It wasn't Lazarus. He was weeping about Mary, Martha. It was the family that had gone through that.
So, there's so many things I think we just... Here's the way 1 Corinthians 15 says it in The Message. "Then the saying will come true: Death swallowed by triumphant Life! Who got the last word, Oh, Death? Oh, Death, who's afraid of you now"? Because of what Jesus did at the cross, who's afraid of you now? And then again, I just love to see the humanity in this. Verse 38. "Then Jesus, again groaning in Himself", again snorting with anger, "came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it. Jesus said, 'Take away the stone.' Martha, the sister of him who was dead", here's just a human thing to say, "said to Him, 'Lord, by this time there is a stench, for he has been dead four days.'" Now, I like the way the Old King James says it. The Old King James says, "he stinketh". "He stinketh". It's kind of like you say to a baby, you know, "Oh, come here. Come here. Let me go. Oh, what? Mom".
Okay. She just gives a human response. "He stinketh". All right, so that's two. Here's number three, and doesn't take long to cover this: human turned divine. I want to show you that you might do something that feels completely human to you, and yet it actually turns into something divine. Now, that was John 11. Here's John 12, verse 1. "Then, six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus was who had been dead, whom He had raised from the dead. There they made Him a supper", now watch, this is not a surprise, "and Martha served, but Lazarus was one of those who sat at the table with Him. Then Mary took a pound of very costly oil of spikenard, anointed the feet of Jesus", Matthew and Mark say she also anointed His head, "and wiped His feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil".
And then, remember, Judas got mad about it. He said, "This could have been sold for a year's wages and given to the poor". And he didn't care about that because he stole out of the money box. Verse 7. "But Jesus said, 'Let her alone; she has kept this for the day of My burial.'" And Mark 14 says, "She has done what she could". That's why I want you to know sometimes you might think what you're doing is just human, but it's just what you can do. "She has done what she could. She has come beforehand to anoint My body for burial. Assuredly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be told as a memorial", or as an eternal thing.
I mean, it's still being told today. Here we are over 2000 years later, and I'm telling you about it today. This has become eternal, what she's done. By the way, this is the only anointing for burial Jesus's body had because they had to get him in the tomb quickly because it was the Sabbath. The sun was going down. And so, it says they showed up on the morning after the Sabbath, and they brought 100 pounds of spices to embalm His body. But of course, we know He wasn't there. That's what Easter is all about, the resurrection. So, here's something she thought, "I'll just do what I can". And to her it was just an impression, and yet God turned it into something that was divine.
I have a friend of mine, and the reason I'm going to tell you his name, I actually told him I wasn't going to say his name, but I won't say his name. The reason is because his wife wrote something that you can get, okay. And I think it could minister to you if you go through the same or similar trial that they went through. So, his name is Matt and Sherry McPherson. And so, if you know anything about music, he invented McPherson guitar amps. But then he thought, I can make a good living in this, but I'd really like to give a lot to the kingdom. And he asked God to give him an idea, and the Lord gave him the idea of what you hunters know. It's now the Matthews bow. Yeah, the best bow in the world and every compound. He said, "Oh, okay".
So, when Franklin Graham was here, Franklin is a good friend, and Franklin found out I was a hunter. The next day he was with Matt and he said, "Where'd you just come from"? He said, "I just came from Gateway Church with Pastor Robert". He said, "Oh, we love Pastor Robert". He said, "Do you think he would mind if I gave him a bow"? Franklin said, "I don't think he would mind, and I don't mind". And I was going to say I killed some deer with it. "I harvested some animals with it". Okay, so I think that's politically correct now to say harvested. We can edit that from for television if we need to. Okay, all right. But two years ago, Matt and Sherry lost their 35-year-old son to cancer. And so, I've been praying for them. And at Christmas, this past Christmas, I just felt like they were going through a tough time.
And so, I just started praying for him a lot. And then I was going to text him and say, "Hey, I just felt like you guys were really going through a tough time, and so I just want you to know I'm praying for you". But like all like a lot of times we get busy and we forget. Right? But I did pray, but I just forgot to text him. Well, this last week he texted me, and so I texted him and said, "Hey, I was going to text you. I just want, you know, at Christmas, thought you're going through a tough time, and I just want you to know I prayed for you". He sent me back. I guess this guy, you know, is one of the largest archery manufacturers in the world, you know. By the way, he gives 50% of his income to the Lord, so it's not bad. When you buy Matthew's bow, 50% of it goes to the kingdom. But that sounded like a commercial, didn't it? I'm sorry. But he texted me back the picture of an archery target with the arrow right in the bullseye. But what he meant was saying, you were right. We were going through a tough time.
So, I actually picked up the phone and called him, and he answered immediately, and we talked. But here's what he told me that I wanted to let you guys know about, because they're not making a dime off this. They give so much to the kingdom. But his wife, Sherry, because they sang for years, a nd that's how they invented this guitar brand, which is one of the most famous in the world, but she wrote 13 songs about losing a child, and it's on YouTube. I'm going to put it up here. It's called Heaven. So, you might want to take a, can take a picture. Take a picture because you never know when you're going to need this. I listened to it this last week. It's amazing. So, she wrote these songs, and it's on YouTube, and it's totally free. Again, they're not trying to make money. They just wanted other people who have gone through a tragedy to know.
Here's the point. I just read about Mary. Sherry did what she could do, and she was just sitting at the feet of Jesus, working through her own pain. And now they paid for it to go to a studio to be recorded professionally to try to help others, so that what they went through could become something divine. We're humans, but you can do something that God, who is the divine, could use to touch someone else. I want you to bow your heads and close your eyes, and I want you just ask the Lord. Maybe you're new to Gateway Church, but here's what we do.
At the end of every message, we just simply ask the Lord, just in our hearts, just privately to the Lord, we just say, "Lord, what are You saying to me through this message"? And maybe He's going to talk to you about, "You're the type of person who likes to work and get busy. But I also need you to sit at My feet to handle some of the stress that you're going through right now". Maybe He's speaking to you about, you're going through something right now, and all you can see is the temporary and you need to see the eternal. And maybe He's just encouraging you that even though you're a human, you could just do what you could do, and God could use it divinely in someone else's life. So just let the Holy Spirit this week, as you think back to this message, let Him speak to you about what He wants to speak to you about.
Lord, we want to tell You, thank You that even though we're human, even though we're frail, even though we have weaknesses, even though we have failures, because of Jesus Christ, we can be divinely used by God. And we thank You for that in Jesus' name, amen.