Date: Sunday 12/16/2012, Morning Service
Preacher: Gale Miller
Main Bible Verse(s):Mark 2:1-12
A stretcher-bearer is someone who carries the wounded or disabled. The men who carried this ailing man had notable qualities that relate to all Christians. So in a way, God is looking for stretcher-bearers. Will you pick up on end of the stretcher? Do you have these qualities?
1) They were visionaries. Mark 2:1-4
- Numbers 14:27, 32, 33
- Matthew 23:37-39
- The man was a paralytic
- The “press” here means a large number of people in the crowd.
2) They were missionaries. Mark 2:2a
- Acts 16:9
- Why evangelize at Christmas? We want people to receive the gift of God and what better time than Christmas?
3) Challenging them was an adversary. Mark 2:2b
- Luke 2:7
- Mark 2:6,7
- There was no room for the man in the house. The scribes and pharisees had their own seats. We shouldn’t let our church be so full of us that there isn’t room for more.
- We shouldn’t allow ourselves to get in the way of people coming to know Jesus.
4) They were revolutionaries. Mark 2:4
- Think of how hard it must have been to get the man up and ladder and onto the roof.
5) They were abolitionaries. Mark 2:4b
- Do you think the act of them getting the man onto the roof and opening the roof and lowering him down disturbed the meeting?
6) And because of faith, despite an adversary, there was a beneficiary. Mark 2:5-12
Are you a stretcher bearer or are you in the stretcher?
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