In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of transforming marriages and relationships by showing compassion and love to others. He encourages the audience to start at home and extend this love to those in need, such as single mothers and struggling individuals. The speaker emphasizes the power of seeing people through the eyes of Jesus and being willing to do what God asks. He also highlights the freedom and victory found in Christ and the need to set our affections on heavenly things. The sermon concludes with a reminder to allow Christ to work through us and to be obedient to His leading.

Our testimony as a church, age, is that we have no continuing city here. Yes, we have to work, as everyone else, and yes, by God's grace, we are given ways to make provision for our homes and for our families. These things are necessary. We are in this world, but this world does not give us our value system. This world does not tell us who people are. This world does not tell us what is right and what is wrong. This world does not dictate our future. The question that God puts in my heart is, do we have the courage in this generation? Can Christ take you and I by the hand and lead us to where spiritual sight is found? Can we be led by him outside of the city? Can we go with him to a place of reproach? Are we willing to love the praise of God more than the praise of men? You and I, are we willing to be led by Christ? The Lord, in Mark chapter 8 and verse 25, he says, he put his hands again upon his eyes and made him look up. Thanks be to God for his mercy. He made him look up, made him look a little higher than he looked perhaps the first time. And when it was through these hands that he began to see every man clearly, because he asked him after this, he says, and his sight was restored and he saw every man clearly. And this is an amazing thing to have the hands of Christ put upon your eyes. I can't help but wonder as I've been reading this, what did he see through these hands? When Jesus put his hands upon his eyes, he spit in his eyes first and touched him. It doesn't say put his hands on his eyes the first time. It just says put his hands on him. But the next time he put his hands on his eyes, did he see compassion? Is it possible in a moment of time, he saw scars in these hands? Is it possible he was touched in such a manner that he began to think in his heart, Lord, I've never felt this kind of compassion all my life. God, I've never understood how much you care for us, even in our fallen or misguided condition. Did the compassion of this touch overwhelm his heart? In a moment of time, could he have been taken, transported to the place where Jesus wept over Jerusalem? Because he saw people surrounded by stone walls of religion that was soon to be destroyed, as well as those that placed their misguided trust in it. Did he feel the heart of Christ when he wept at Lazarus's grave because of people who are trapped in unbelief and under the dominion of death, the power of sin? Did he somehow start to feel the compassion? This is something that has to sovereignly happen. You know, I can, I can preach a sermon here and I've done it in the past, not necessarily in this church, but in other places. I can preach, everybody would cry and you'd come to an altering and cry big tears. It'll last about an hour or so. So your first nasty person you run into on the street and then all of a sudden your benevolence is gone. The feeling of compassion is all gone because it was a superficial work of the flesh. It's got to be deeper than this. It's got to be something born in the spirit. It only comes from the hands of God. When God touches us, Lord, the cry of my heart is Jesus, you've got to touch my eyes and you've got to help me to see what you see. You've got to help me to feel in my heart, the compassion that you feel from fallen humanity, or I will never move to the poor. I will never move to the widow. I will never be able to do what is right. It would just be sporadic little bursts of kindness, but it will never be something that is entrenched in my character. I want something deeper than just sporadic bursts of kindness. I want something of God entrenched in my character that when he shows me and when he looks through these eyes, because I do have the Christ of the universe living in this body, that I'm moved with the same compassion that moves him, that I'm moved to make the same commitment. Did this man see commitment to the hands of Jesus? Did he see the scars? Is it possible to look through the scars of his hands for a moment? What gave him sight? What did he see in those hands? Did he see Calvary? Did he see a Christ who's not just willing to be sorry as it is or to weep for the captivity of humanity, but actually give himself to the cause of making a difference? Folks, it's not enough just to weep. It's not enough just to feel sorry, but we are called according to the scriptures to lay our lives down as a living sacrifice. Now, it doesn't mean that you and I have to be nailed to a cross. What that means is that you and I throughout the day are open to the compassion of God and our hands are open to doing something about what we see. Folks, it's not complicated and it's not a program. It's much deeper. You can't make a program out of this. It's something of the life of Christ that God alone can put within his church. He is the only one who can put it in my heart. He's the only one who can put it in your heart. Not only compassion, but commitment to make a difference. Now, it doesn't mean you have to get radical all of a sudden. It just means you are saying, Jesus, as I walk through my day, see through me and touch through me and flow through me. God, don't let me see men as opportunities for my own good. God, help me to see every man clearly. Help me to see them the way you see them. Lord, you see them as created in your image. You see them as destined for hell without you. You see them, the best of them is captivated with no hope of the future unless they come to know that there's a savior who loves them. God, help me to see men clearly. Help me not to be so intertwined in this society that I lose the vision that only the spirit of God can give me. As his hands touched this man's eyes, did he all of a sudden see the power that was available to those who are willing to make the commitment? Did he see the complete power that's available to represent all that he has won for mankind? Did he see it all of a sudden that it's mine? I'm not called just to be compassionate. I'm not called just to be committed. But God in Christ has given me the power to do these things. I don't have to do this in my own strength. I'm never was called to do this in my own strength. My own strength will fail me. My own heart will, as David said, will lose its courage. My eyes will become dim. Paul said it this way. He said that our Lord, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him. The eyes of your understanding being enlightened that you might know what is the hope of his calling and the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints. And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us who believe according to the working of his mighty power? Paul said, oh, that your eyes could be open, that you could see the succeeding great power. Is it possible now that we need to see one more time? If we're going to make a difference, folks, in our generation, we've got to see beyond what we're looking at in the mirror. We've got to see beyond our past failure. We've got to see beyond our own natural limitations. And we've got to see something at the right hand of God. We've got to see a savior who defeated death and hell in the grave and human weakness. We've got to see a savior who sits and has absolute all authority and power in his hands. He brought it in Christ when he raised him from the dead, set him at his own right hand in heavenly places. He's above all principality, all power, all might, all dominion, every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come. He has put all things under his feet and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him that fills all in all praise God. You've got to be able to see the power. You've got to be able to see the power. If you are willing to be led out of the town, if you are willing to hear that because of this condition, there's a judgment that's deserved. If you are willing to understand that Christ took this judgment upon himself, therefore we are free to move forward. We are free to become everything that God has destined us as his church to be. If you are willing to be touched with the feelings that are in the heart of God, who sits at the right Christ, who sits at the right hand of God this morning and say, Lord, I want to be one and hard with you. I want to set my affection on things above and not on things of the earth. I want to make a difference in this generation. Oh Lord, I don't want men and women to go to hell on my watch. I don't want people in my office and apartment building to die in their sins. When somebody who knows God is living across the hallway or working at the next desk to them. Oh Jesus, you've got to do something deeper in me than anything of religion can do. No program can do this. You've got to come and work that power that you wrought for me when you were raised from the dead. You've got to work that within my life. You've got to make me what I need to be. You've got to take me where I need to go. Oh God, you've got to do it in the power of the Holy Ghost. Paul said, oh, that your eyes could be opened, that your eyes could be opened, that you could see this, that you could understand the fullness of the victory, the incredible power that is available to those who call upon the name of God. It is Christ in me, Paul said, that's the hope of glory. It's Christ living in me, Christ flowing through me, just allowing Christ to be Christ inside of me. Then verse 26, Jesus does something very strange. He sent him away to his house and he said, neither go into the town nor tell it to anybody in the town. I thought, well, this is odd. I've heard a lot of theories about this, but here's what the Holy Spirit's told me. He said, Carter, if I touch you this way, don't make a program for me. Just go home and starting there, see people that I see. Starting at home, see them with my eyes. Changes everything, folks. Changes the way you see your children. Marriages can be absolutely transformed by this very simple thing. Starting at home and then, and then take it across the hall of your apartment building to the single mother and her three kids who are struggling. Then downtown, the kid on the street is hanging around listless, looking for some kind of direction. Then take it onto the bus and then onto the subway, then into the workplace and just see people the way I see. And then as I speak to your heart, the Lord says, then do what I asked you to do. Now he will show you, it will be an outflow of God's natural compassion that he is willing to give to your heart. Just do this. I tell you folks, it would change. It could change much of our country today. If God's people saw through the hands of Jesus again.