If You Are Willing Series

If You Are Willing

Never The Same Again (3)

IN – the beginning God created the heavens and the earth… HE – spoke… AND - light, land, oceans, mountains, rivers, birds, trees, fish, streams… came into existence.

And God saw that it was good. Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness,… So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

- Genesis 1:25-27

the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

– Genesis 2:7

The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die." The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. – Gen 2:15-18

QUESTION – do you agree with what Almighty God said at the dawn of creation… that it is not good for man to be alone? Have you ever been alone? Do you feel alone now? Have you ever felt like you were on the outside looking in at life? Have you ever felt like an outcast? Have you ever longed for someone to reach out to you? To hold you? To listen to you? To be with you? BUT – there was no one that would even come close?

THIS - morning as we continue taking an in depth look at some of the people that Jesus met we are going to meet a guy who has been alone for years… The truth is no one would even get near him. We meet Him in Mark chapter 1…

A man with leprosy came to him and begged him on his knees, "If you are willing, you can make me clean." Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. "I am willing," he said. "Be clean!" Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cured. Jesus sent him away at once with a strong warning: "See that you don’t tell this to anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them." Instead he went out and began to talk freely, spreading the news. As a result, Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places. Yet the people still came to him from everywhere. – Mark 1:40-45

Prayer…

When I was growing up, the most dreaded disease in my world was not measles, mumps or chicken pox. It was a more subtle and mysterious disorder. There was no vaccine for it, no antidote, no known cure. There was no method of inoculation. It was highly contagious. NOW - nobody ever elaborated what would happen to you if you contracted this disease. BECAUSE - you never knew exactly what the consequences were.

The mere mention of this particular disease was enough to strike terror in me and my friends. It was a fate worse than death. The only way to be safe was to make sure that all carriers of this disease were strictly quarantined, and that you had no contact with them.

Fortunately, it was easy to recognize. This disease was carried by girls. Every girl except my mother was loaded with it. The name of this disease was "cooties" -- the dreaded cooties disease. All a carrier had to do was touch you, breathe on you or look at you real hard, and you would be infected. Nobody was crazy enough to touch somebody with cooties. I MEAN - it was like every carrier wore a big sign that said, "Don’t touch."

WE - live in a world where there are a lot of untouchable people. A world where a lot of people have been diagnosed with cooties… AND – as a result, they are at best ignored and at worse ridiculed and attacked… YOU SEE – because of the color of their skin, their economic status, their language, their education, their physical appearance OR some wrong choices they have made in life… THEY – have found themselves on the lowest rung of the ladder, at the bottom of the food chain…

YES – for many the world points their fingers, hangs a ‘do not touch’ sign and says, “ouuu don’t go near them, they have cooties.”

• It may be the homeless guy on the street corner holding up the ‘I’ll work for food,” sign whose eyes you try to avoid when you go through the intersection.