The Great X-Change

2018, a year of Restoration! X-Change our weakness for His strength!

A parable of restoration on the Sabbath:

Matthew 12

9Going on from that place, he went into their synagogue, 10and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Looking for a reason to bring charges against Jesus, they asked him, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?”

11He said to them, “If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out? 12How much more valuable is a person than a sheep! Therefore, it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.”

13Then he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” So, he stretched it out and it was completely restored, just as sound as the other. 14But the Pharisees went out and plotted how they might kill Jesus.

  • Synagogue on a Sabbath:
  • Place of people gathering to worship & encounter God
  • Purpose of the Sabbath in question: for God or for people?
  • Does God need our worship? Will He lack? For God?
  • Do we need God’s presence & power? For man?
  • Man with a Shriveled Hand:
  • Man: type of the priesthood, ministry to people.
  • Hand:
  • Type of ministry.Five-fold ministry of apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor & teacher Ephesians 4:10-12
  • Rev. 1:20, “The mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand and of the seven golden lampstands is this: The seven stars are the messengers of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.”
  • Works of God: Psalm 10:12, “Arise, LORD! Lift up your hand, O God. Do not forget the helpless.”
  • “Shriveled”
  • Past tense: a loss has taken place, a type of death. There once was a fully functional hand able to work and produce. Not born that way. Experienced loss of function, loss of work, loss of resources, maybe loss of relationships.
  • Xeros: dry, desiccated, desert land, no water
  • Crushed? No blood flow. (Life is in the blood!) Non-functional.
  • 2 Corinthians 3:5,6 “Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.”
  • “Stretch Out your hand!”
  • Jesus created an atmosphere where the man could expose his weakness, his loss, his withered parts!
  • The synagogue was an unsafe atmosphere that made the man Hide his weakness! Shame & Sin were associated with weakness.
  • Is the church a safe atmosphere for people to expose their weaknesses in hope of being healed?
  • His faith act was to stretch out the withered hand, not the good hand.
  • “Stretch out”: ekteino: to stretch forth, X-tend
  • “stretch”: reach beyond your comfort zone! Reach beyond previous boundaries! Do more than you have done before!
  • “Stretch out”: Almost always used re: hands!
  • Acts 4:29,30, “Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. Stretch out your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.”
  • “Stretch out” the hand of God to do miracles!
  • What are the apostles praying for? God to perform? Their own boldness?
  • “En” “Now…While you stretch out your hand”. Present, active, infinitive!
  • He is Presently moving!
  • He is Actively working!
  • He is Always Healing!
  • We don’t have to pray for Him to heal! He is always healing! We pray for our boldness in the face of resistance, persecution, fear, false evidence appearing real, lack of faith!
  • “Completely Restored!”
  • Apokathistemi: “to stand up on its own again”; to reconstruct or rebuild to original design
  • He did not just “refill” the old structure! He made a new structure able to hold the new life! (Wineskin & wine!)
  • Jesus is the new wineskin to contain the new wine! Jesus is not just “seated at the right hand of God”, he IS the right hand of God! He is the “rebuilt” hand stretched forth as a new ministry from a new priesthood reaching out to the people of God!
  • What loss have you experienced? What has been crushed and rendered useless? What has “dried up” with no life?
  • Are you willing to “stretch out” your hand? Expose your weakness? Believe again & Reach beyond your past capacity? Give what you have not given? Go where you have not gone?