As our hands are wrapped in the tassels, there's still healing in His wings. Is the message on your life Talitha kum? Does everybody who comes into your contact, do they get the message the presence of God is here, get up, it's going to be okay. You're going to make it - Talitha kum. My child, the presence of God is here; that in learning to be a minister of the spirit of God the most basics of all - before I could teach anybody how to pray for people, before I can teach any of that, we have to come to a place inside of ourself where we realise that our sole responsibility is keeping our hands wrapped in the tassels. So where are you tonight? Are your hands wrapped in the tassels, or where in your life are your hands wrapped in something else? There's a later place where Jesus is teaching in Peter's home and they lower a paralysed guy in by the roof, by the four corners of his mat. They tie ropes to the four corners of his mat and they lower him down.
Now knowing what you know now, why did they do that instead of just lowering him down by his hands? Because they couldn't touch him. Why couldn't they touch him? Because they'd be tamei. It was tamei to be crippled, so He's standing there and this guy appears and Jesus says your sins - in English it says your sins are forgiven. In Hebrew He would have said let that which is tamei be made tahor. Let that which is unclean be called clean - and remember how crazy they went? You can't call him tahor! He's crippled. It's obvious he's crippled! So Jesus said what's easier to say; let that which is tamei be made tahor, or get up and walk? Obviously it's easier to say let that which is tamei be made tahor, obviously, because who really knows? But if you say get up and walk Jack, somebody's going to know and it says so that you may know that I am who I say I am. It says He reached down and He took him by the hand. What would have been wrapped around his hands? Tassels. He took him by the hand and the guy got up and walked.
One touch from Jesus Christ makes everything that is tamei tahor. Why? Because Jesus can't touch an unclean thing. We are His hands. We are His feet and if we're the hands of Jesus Christ, if our hands stay wrapped in the tassels then there's healing in His wings. Everybody with me? Let's go before God now, let's have a moment with God and then we'll take a break and come back for our second session. But I want to close this out just with a moment with God, between you and God. What I'm going to do on the break is I'm going to leave this up here and maybe you need a moment with the tassels. I do it regularly, not because there's anything special about these tassels, but it just reminds me that God's way is the best way for my life and my best life is found in living a compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love way. So sometimes because I don't wear this, this will be in my closet, in my wardrobe and I'll be getting dressed and something will be irritating me.
I'll start to get angry or anxious or whatever and I'll be looking for a shirt. I'll look up and the tassels will poke themselves out [laughter] and I'll remember that whoever I'm fixing to meet with that is under my skin, that I have no right but to wrap my hands in the tassels and to deal with them with a compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love way. That our life, if our life can be defined by the tassels, then we will be made whole and we will be an instrument of God in making people whole; that we can go tonight in shalom. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Lord, we come to You and we proclaim that You are the king of the universe, that You're the king of the universe and we are not. And Lord, right now we just ask for forgiveness for where we've unwrapped the tassels, where we've rationalised being something other than what You called us to be. Forgive us Lord.