Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick. I'm the pastor of Elevation Church, and this is our podcast.

I wanted to thank you for joining us today. Hope this inspires you. Hope it builds your

fate. Hope it gives you perspective to see God is moving in your life. Enjoy the message.

Mark chapter 1, verse 40, 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 do not 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, and 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.

I'd like to speak today for a few moments about danger in the distance. Danger in the distance.

Certain phrases in our Christian vocabulary lose their power, or at least their ability to penetrate our psyche, because of usage, like when we say grace.

This is a phrase or a word, a concept that is so familiar to many of us, that I am afraid when we sing

amazing grace, we can barely, through our yawning, understand just how scandalous the concept is.

I also thought that maybe one of our worship leaders at one of our locations would write us a song called Dangerous Grace.

Because to really understand the grace of God is to understand that it jeopardizes the way you have lived your life and it will not be contained by our conception of it, but our conception of it must come up to the level of its efficacy

In March chapter 1 verse 40 through 45, we see an example of this kind of grace and I'd like to spend the majority of my time in just one verse the first verse

verse 40 says that a man with leprosy came to him.

I looked in Matthew's Gospel, Luke's Gospel, and John's Gospel,

to see if I could find a little more information about this man.

Mark doesn't tell us much about his background, his hair color, his eye color.

He doesn't even give the common courtesy of stating his name. Now come on, you even ask your server his name at the restaurant,

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