Latest / Reformed Thinking / The Touch, the Word, and the Cross: Jesus the Burden-Bearing Servant-King (Matthew 8:14–17)

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The Touch, the Word, and the Cross: Jesus the Burden-Bearing Servant-King (Matthew 8:14–17) · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to Reformed Thinking and thanks for joining us for
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  another deep dive. It's good.
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  To be here. Today we're zeroing in on a
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  passage that's, well, it's surprisingly short, but just
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  incredibly dense. We're looking at Matthew's
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  Gospel chapter 8, verses 14 through 17.
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  Right. It's the account of Jesus
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  healing Peter's mother-in-law and then this big scene in the
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  evening where a crowd gathers just 4 verses.
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  Just 4 verses and it seems on the surface like a pretty
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  straightforward story of compassion.
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  But then Matthew ends up with this, this absolute bombshell of
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  an interpretation. He really does.
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  He doesn't just let the event speak for themselves.
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  No. He concludes his whole little
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  scene by quoting Isaiah 53, verse four.
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  And this is a text that anyone familiar with the tradition
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  knows is all about substitution, about suffering.
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  Matthew says that Jesus, healing a fever, fulfilled the prophecy
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  that the Servant took our infirmities and bore our
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  diseases. And that's our whole mission for
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  this deep dive. Why does Matthew force that
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  connection? He immediately tells you how to
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  read this act of compassion. He's saying don't just see this
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  as sentimentality, see it as a messianic declaration.
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  Exactly. It's not just a nice story, it's
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  theology in action. So we're going to trace how
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  Matthew presents Jesus as both the King who commands and at the
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  same time the servant who shoulders the load.
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  And getting this right is so important.
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  It really helps guard against two pretty common errors.
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  On one hand, you have a kind of triumphalism that sees Jesus as
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  just a dispenser of comfort here to fix all our earthly problems
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  right now. But on the other, it guards you
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  against a cold fatalism that pictures God is, you know,
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  detached from all the misery in the world.
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  Matthew shows us a Christ whose mercy is always, always moving
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  toward the cross. OK, so let's start with the
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  context. Where does this passage sit in
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  Matthew's Gospel? Well, we've just come out of the
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  Sermon on the Mount. Three massive chapters, 5-6 and
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  seven. A huge block of teaching Jesus
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  lays out the righteousness of the Kingdom.
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  And the final word from the crowd in Chapter 7 is that they
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  were astonished because he taught as one who had authority
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  and not as their scribes. And that line is so important,
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  isn't it? It's like a hinge.
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  It is the hinge of this whole section of the Gospel.
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  For three chapters, Jesus has shown his authority and
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  proclamation. He defines righteousness.
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  He presses the law right to the heart.
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  The scribes could teach the law. They could quote it.
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  They could, but their authority was all derivative.
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  It was borrowed, they'd say, Rabbi, so and so says this.
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  Jesus's authority was well, it was inherent.
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  So he makes these monumental claims with his mouth, but the
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  question that's just hanging in the air is, can he back it up?
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  Can he actually do anything in the real world where things are
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  messy and broken? And Matthew immediately answers
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  that question in chapters 8:00 and 9:00.
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  It's a decisive shift from authority and declaration to
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  authority in action. From the courtroom to the to the
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  public square. Exactly.
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  He's demonstrating with his hands what he just claimed with
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  his voice. He's showing that the king who
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  announced the Kingdom standards is also the king who
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  demonstrates the kingdom's power.
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  So the miracles aren't just a break in the action, they're a
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  continuation of the argument. Unnecessary continuation.
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  If he's going to demand perfect righteousness, he has to show he
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  can rescue people from the consequences of unrighteousness.
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  And Matthew is so careful about which miracles he includes, it's
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  not just a random scrapbook of wonder.
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  No, no, not at all. It's a curated, intentional
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  display of his messianic identity.
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  He's making a point with the sequence.
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  Right. He's showing the scope of
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  Jesus's authority. He starts with a leper, right?
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  The ultimate outsider. Someone ritually unclean on the
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  absolute margins of society, and Jesus's purity flows out to him.
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  Then he heals the Centurion servant, an outsider, in a
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  different way, a gentile, and he does it from a distance.
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  Proving his authority isn't bound by geography or ethnicity
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  or even proximity. His word is enough.
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  And then we get to our passage. The focus shifts from the public
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  to the private, the intimate space of a home.
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  And then right after that, in verse 16, it explodes back out
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  into the public sphere with the crowd at the door.
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  So you see the pattern margin, outsider, home city.
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  Matthew is systematically showing that Jesus's reign is
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  comprehensive. It penetrates every sphere that
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  sin has disordered. And that's why the fulfillment
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  language is so necessary. Matthew keeps saying this was to
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  fulfill because he wants you to see that Jesus isn't just a new
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  teacher, he is the climax of Israel's entire story.
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  And the Kingdom isn't some vague feeling, it's a concrete
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  invasion. OK, let's zoom in then to verses
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  14 and 15. We move into Peter's house.
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  And the lens really narrows, doesn't it, from these big
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  public spectacles to a quiet domestic scene.
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  He saw his mother-in-law lying sick with a fever.
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  The ordinariness of it is what's so striking.
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  A fever is such a common human affliction.
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  But Matthew highlights Jesus's intentionality.
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  He entered. He saw.
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  His compassion isn't this abstract, far off thing.
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  It's attentive. It's personal.
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  He moves toward the weakness. It's the pattern of the
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  incarnation itself, right there in a single room.
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  God the Son coming near to redeem.
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  He doesn't stay away from the messiness of our lives.
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  He steps right into it, and Matthew gives us this one
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  specific crucial detail about how he heals her.
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  He touched her hand and the fever left her.
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  The touch. That's the same action we just
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  saw with the leper a few verses earlier.
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  It is the Greek word. Hopsatto is the same, and in
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  both cases the power flows out from Jesus.
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  He doesn't get contaminated by the uncleanness or the sickness.
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  His wholeness, his purity, it just overwhelms it.
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  So the touch is an act of authority.
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  It's tender, but it's absolutely an act of authority.
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  And notice the language the fever left her.
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  It's almost like it was dismissed, like an intruder
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  being told to get out. He commands the disease.
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  He doesn't bargain with it. And this small act, a touch in a
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  bedroom, is like a window into his whole mission.
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  It is. It's a foretaste of the cross.
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  He is meeting the curse head on in person.
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  He's beginning the work of lifting the burdens that crush
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  us because he came to bear the ultimate burden.
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  Then we get to what you called the punchline of this little
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  story. Her response?
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  And she rose and served him. That's so immediate, she doesn't
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  just feel a little better, she rises.
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  The verb there? Auger Faye.
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  It's from the same family of words used for resurrection,
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  isn't it? It is.
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  It's a little signpost pointing to the final hope.
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  This immediate physical rising anticipates the final
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  resurrection of the body, but the real theological weight for
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  Matthew here is on what she does next.
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  She served him diaconia. Service diaconia.
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  This is the natural grateful outflow of a life that has been
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  touched by grace and we. Have to be clear this isn't her
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  paying him back. Absolutely not.
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  You can't pay for grace. It's the fruit of it.
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  It's the only logical response when you've been set right.
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  It completely flips our modern consumer mindset on its head.
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  We come to Jesus asking, what can you do for me?
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  And this story turns it around to now that I've received mercy,
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  how do I live for him? The whole theology of
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  sanctification in one sentence. Christ saves us not just to make
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  us comfortable, but to make us useful for His Kingdom.
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  And there's a real dignity in her service, too.
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  It's just domestic work, probably getting a meal ready.
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  But Matthew presents it as the right and proper response to
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  being healed. Restored strength is for
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  fulfilling your calling, whatever that is.
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  The point is that the Servant's Kingdom reverses the fall.
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  It restores bodies, yes, but it also restores households and
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  purpose and vocation. It's a beautiful picture.
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  The king who receives service is the one who is about to become
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  the ultimate servant himself and the.
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  One who makes others rise is the one who will humble himself to
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  death before he rises in victory.
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  OK, so from that quiet, intimate scene, Matthew immediately pans
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  out verse 16. He does that evening.
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  The time reference is important. The Sabbath would have just
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  ended at sundown, so now it was legal for people to travel and
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  seek healing. And you can just picture the
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  scene. The word has gotten out, and
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  this wave of human need just descends on Peter's doorway.
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  It's the fever of one household becoming the accumulated sorrow
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  of an entire city, and Matthew tells us what they were dealing
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  with. Some were sick and many were
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  oppressed by demons. He's very plain about it.
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  He's showing the Kingdom of God invading a world that is under
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  real bondage, both physical and spiritual.
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  And look at the royal simplicity of Jesus's response for the
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  demonic oppression. He cast out the spirits with a
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  word. With a word, that's all.
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  That phrases everything. It shows this effortless
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  sovereign ease. The opposition is real, it's
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  plural, but for Christ is no contest.
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  He doesn't need rituals or incantations.
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  He just speaks and the spiritual realm obeys.
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  It confirms what the Centurion had just said, right?
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  Only say the word and my Servant will be healed.
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  Precisely. His word carries its own
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  authority. He rules by speech because he
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  rules by right. It's not just that he's
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  compassionate. He's competent.
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  He doesn't just wish things were better, he commands them to be
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  better. And then Matthew says he healed
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  all who were sick. Now that phrase all has caused a
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  lot of debate. How should we understand that?
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  That's a critical question and we have to read it in its
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  context. This is a theological
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  description of that specific evening's ministry.
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  It's not a universal contract for all believers for all time.
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  So Matthew's goal is to show Christ's sufficiency.
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  Exactly. His point is that in that crowd
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  on that evening, no sickness was too hard for Jesus.
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  No disease was beyond his power. He is the comprehensive healer.
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  It's a sign of his messianic identity.
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  So there's a double emphasis. His compassion is vast enough to
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  receive the many, but his authority is so absolute he can
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  heal them all with a simple command.
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  Yes, and that breath is so important for his larger
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  mission. He's not just here to patch up a
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  few isolated wounds, he's come to shoulder the entire burden of
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  a fallen world. Verse 16, then, is this dazzling
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  display of power, but you're saying it also disciplines our
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  expectations. It has to because it forces you
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  to ask, am I just coming to Jesus for relief, for a pain
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  free life? Or do I see that these healings
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  are signs pointing to something much deeper, A Redeemer who has
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  come to bear my griefs and carry my sorrows in the fullest
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  possible sense? Which brings us directly to
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  verse 17. Right to it.
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  Matthew doesn't let you sit and wonder what it all means.
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  He gives you the inspired interpretation.
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  He says this was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet
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  Isaiah. He took our infirmities and bore
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  our diseases. The divine caption.
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  This is how you are required to understand what you've just
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  read. And his choice of prophet is
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  just, it's everything. He could have picked a lot of
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  places, but he goes straight to Isaiah 53, the absolute core of
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  the Suffering Servant songs. He's insisting that you must
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  read these acts of physical healing through the lens of
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  vicarious substitutionary suffering.
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  Let's look at those verbs he took and bore.
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  Those are strong words. It's not just sympathy.
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  Not at all. It's the language of burden
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  bearing. It means to lift something up
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  and carry it away, something that belongs to someone else.
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  Matthew is framing Jesus's healing ministry as the
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  beginning, the inauguration of this mission.
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  So when he. Removes a fever.
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  It's a down payment on removing the curse.
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  That's a great way to put it. He's confronting the outward
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  symptom sickness demons, because he's come to deal with the root
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  cause, which is sin and the curse that flows from it.
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  The miracles are enacted parables of redemption.
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  And the fact that Matthew connects this to Jesus's
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  ministry before the cross is so profound.
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  It shows the cross was never an afterthought.
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  It was the destination from the very beginning.
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  Everything he did was moving in that direction.
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  He can bear away our sicknesses because He has come to bear away
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  our sin. That's the logic.
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  The smaller act proves his identity Commission for the
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  larger one. The physical taking of diseases
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  demonstrates he is the one with the authority for the spiritual
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  bearing of sin on the cross. Isaiah 53 demands we see this as
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  substitution. He suffers in our place.
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  So Matthew's doing something much more theologically rich
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  than just saying the Atonement provides physical healing now.
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  Much more, he's using the physical healings to establish
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  Jesus's identity as the burden bearing servant.
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  These miracles are the signposts on the road to Calvary, all of
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  them pointing to the ultimate act of substitution.
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  And this gives us such a crucial pastoral balance.
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  It does. On one side it completely
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  rebukes any idea of a distant, indifferent God.
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  The Son of a God comes into our homes, touches our sickness.
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  He is near. But on the other side.
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  On the other, by anchoring it all in Isaiah 53, it rebukes any
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  kind of health and wealth triumphalism.
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  The meaning of the healings isn't God wants me to be
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  comfortable right now. The meaning is salvation comes
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  through a suffering, burden bearing servant.
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  They are foretastes, previews of the final restoration, but not
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  the full thing itself. Exactly.
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  They are merciful signs of the already, but they remind us we
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  are still living in the not yet. OK, so let's try to synthesize
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  this a bit and maybe put up some practical guardrails for how we
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  read and apply this. Good idea.
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  Christologically, what we have is this perfect unity.
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  He's the sovereign Lord who commands with the Word, and He's
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  the gentle servant who comes to touch.
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  Power and mercy held together in one person.
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  You have to have both. If you were only merciful, he
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  wouldn't have the power to save. If you're only powerful, we
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  would only fear him. But Matthew shows us his power
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  is always clothed in mercy. And the theory logically, what
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  it means for our salvation. It means that salvation is the
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  removal of our burdens by a Redeemer who takes those burdens
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  onto himself. The healings deal with the
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  symptoms, but they point to the cross, which deals with the root
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  cause, sin. Which protects us from reducing
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  this passage to just a moral lesson like be nice, like Jesus.
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  Yes, and it also protects us from a therapeutic view of Jesus
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  where he's just there to meet our felt needs.
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  Remember, the mother-in-law gets up and serves.
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  Salvation restores us to Worshipful usefulness, not
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  self-centered comfort. And that tension you mentioned
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  the already and not yet, is so key here.
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  It is. Believers still get sick, we
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  still suffer, we still die, Romans 8 says we groan, waiting
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  for the redemption of our bodies.
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  The heal all in Matthew 8 was a sign of Christ's perfect
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  sufficiency for that moment, not a timeless promise of perfect
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  health now. OK, so let's walk through those
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  guardrails. What's the first big misreading
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  we need to avoid? The first is definitely the
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  prosperity impulse. It's the idea that because Jesus
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  healed them, perfect health is a contractual right for believers
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  now. And Matthew's link to Isaiah 53
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  is a corrective. It is, he anchors a story of
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  physical relief in a text about substitutionary suffering that
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  forces us to place our ultimate hope not in present comfort, but
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  in the final resurrection that the cross secured.
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  Guardrail #2. The technique, mindset, the idea
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  that faith is a force we wield or that prayer is a formula.
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  If you just say the right words with enough confidence, you get
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  the result. But Matthew's focus is all on
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  Christ's authority. Exclusively.
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  He heals with a touch, with a word.
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  It's all about his initiative and his power, not the quality
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  of the person's performance. This protects us from the awful
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  teaching that says if you're still sick, your faith must be
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  defective. OK, third guardrail.
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  This is a big one, reducing Jesus to a humanitarian hero.
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  He was just a really nice guy, a great moral example of
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  compassion. And again, the Isaiah 53 quote
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  just demolishes that. It does.
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  If the point was just be kind, Matthew wouldn't need the
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  fulfillment formula. These are messianic signs
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  identifying Jesus as the one who fulfills prophecy through
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  substitutionary love. Our mercy must flow from that
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  Gospel. It can't be a substitute for it.
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  And a fourth guardrail on the demonic.
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  Right. Matthew is sober about this.
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  Demonic forces are real, but his focus is on Christ's effortless
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  sovereignty over them. With a word.
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  With a word, there's no panic, no sensationalism, just the
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  calm, absolute authority of the King.
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  So that our response should be confidence in Christ, not a
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  fascination with the demonic. These are also helpful.
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  The passage itself seems to guide us away from those errors
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  if we read it carefully. It does, and the final image of
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  the healed woman rising to serve is the ultimate guardrail
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  against a consumer faith. Mercy produces mission.
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  Grace restores us to usefulness. So wrapping this all together,
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  Matthew 8.1417 gives us this unforgettable picture.
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  It's the serving King, the one who is powerful enough to
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  command anything that harms us, but tender enough to come near
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  and touch us in our weakness. His Kingdom doesn't bypass
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  suffering, it enters right into it and overcomes it through His
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  own substitutionary love. So what does that mean for you
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  listening right now? Well, it means you can bring
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  your need to Christ, whatever it is, without trying to bargain.
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  He's tender, He draws near. And you can trust his authority
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  without panic. He's the king who speaks in all
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  creation, seen and unseen obeys. And the goal, the response, is
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  to rise like that woman and to serve him in gratitude, whether
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  that's in the strength of an immediate deliverance or through
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  the faithfulness of patient endurance.
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  That's right. The king who relieves suffering
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  for a season is the same one who has already borne the curse
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  forever. And so your current burden,
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  whatever it may be, physical, spiritual, emotional, it's
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  already addressed by that same authority, that same
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  substitutionary love that guarantees a day is coming when
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  every single burden will be removed forever.
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  Fix your heart on that final wholeness.