Your best Pathway to Health: Christ's Method Alone

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Your best Pathway to Health

Mark Finley

The Master’s Methods

The news media descended upon the Alamo Dome, and whether it was ABC or NBC or CBS, or 1 of the Fox affiliates, whether it was the San Antonio newspapers, all of the reporters asked us 1 single question, why?

And the answer was very simple, We're doing this because of what Christ has done.

Jesus touched the eyes of the blind and they were open, touched the ears of the deaf and they were unstopped.

And Jesus ministered unselfishly and tirelessly, And that is our motivation.

It's the motivation of the 1 that has done more for us than we could possibly imagine.

I observed smiling, gracious people at registration, no matter what challenge they faced.

I observed chaplains working lines of people, telling people that they had to go home because we were already filled up in our services, in dental particularly, And I watched how those chaplains diplomatically handled the crowd.

I was there in vision and dental, there in medical services, watching medical care providers provide so graciously and lovingly, noted the nutrition demonstrations that people were so interested in and wanting a better life, saw the media team working together, watched those giving out literature, beheld some giving massages, although I didn't receive 1.

Saw our wellness team from Weimar just doing such an outstanding job.

Every place I looked, the hospitality group, there was a real synergy, a real working together.

The 1 skill that I wish I would have had a little more adeptly this week was dental, because I had to turn away 700 people and I wish that I could have pulled a few more teeth outside.

Now I do have some dental practice in case some of you are unaware.

I worked on the Amazon River when I was 21 years old and did pull a number of teeth.

I will tell you about the first patient that I had on the Lucero 6 and my first experience at Dento.

I was working far up the Amazon River and I knew 2 Portuguese words, obra and fecha.

And Our dentist that taught me told me, now Mark, he said, look, we have so many patients today that you're going to have to help me pull teeth.

We had little anesthesia then and Novocaine in those days, and I didn't have any sophisticated dental chairs like we have here.

All I had was a little stool on the deck of our boat, and so I sat the lady down and he had told me how to put her head on my knee, how to say, obra, and pull the tooth, which I tried to do.

And the first attempt wasn't too skillful, and the second might have been worse, because it takes a lot of arm strength to pull teeth, they often don't just fall out.

And so I kept working and working and working and pulled out the tooth, and I was so proud, called the dentist and said, Doc, I did it!

He came over and sat me, and he looked, and he looked at me, and he said, you pulled the wrong 1.

So if there is a lady in the Amazon today watching 3ABN who I've pulled the wrong tooth, I'm exceedingly sorry.

I'm so glad we had skilled dentists and that I didn't have to work the line this week.

Thank you for what you have done for Christ this week.

Father in heaven, we thank you so much for the call to serve like Jesus.

How boring life would be if we were wrapped up in the little packages of ourselves.

How narrow life would be if it were circumscribed to our own joys and pleasures.

How empty life would be if it all involved around our super egos.

We're thankful for the call of ministry for our own sake because as we serve we're blessed, as we minister we're ministered to, as we share with others you share with us, And as we share your grace and love, grace from the cross and from the sanctuary flows into our own hearts.

And tonight, teach us from your word, we pray thee, that you'd touch our lives and this would be a life-changing service.

Give us vision, not only of what we've done, but what you long for us to do yet.

I've chosen this evening the topic, the Master's Methods.

Evans was a surgeon here in America who went on a short-term mission trip to Korea.

And there he worked with a career missionary who was working in the remote mountain villages up in the northern section of that wonderful country of Korea.

Evans tells the story about, the career missionary was doing surgery in a makeshift tent.

Our surgical procedures this week were much more sophisticated than that 1, and I thank God for the over 200 surgeries that we did here this week.

Evans tells the story of going in to a very traumatic stomach surgery.

And he stood by the side of his colleague as for hour after hour he operated on a tumor in a particular Korean peasant woman's stomach.

But hour after hour, the steady hands of that godly physician worked tirelessly over that woman.

After 7 hours, the operation was over, and The physician simply smiled, pulled up his mask and he said, Dr.

And as they came back to the modest office of that physician, the physician sat down in his chair and took a deep breath and he said, Doc, she'll survive.

Evans looked at his friend and he said, I have a question for you.

How much are you going to get for an operation like that out here?

I know what I'd get in the States, but how much would you get?

And the doctor said, the surgeon said, to begin with, I'd get this.

And he reached down, pulled out the drawer of his desk, and he said, I'd get this old, dirty, dented copper coin.

She came in here a couple of weeks ago and I gave her the diagnosis about the operation and she said, Doc, how much is it going to cost?

And I said, well, how much can you afford?

And she looked at her old ragged purse, she pulled out this old dented copper coin and said, Doc, this is all I can afford.

And he said, the first thing I'd get this is this old dented coin.

But then he said, but most of all, I have the priceless awareness that for 7 hours, these hands become the hands of Jesus ministering to 1 of his needy children.

As you work this week in dental and stood for hour after hour after hour, you have the priceless awareness that Jesus is working through your hands.

As a physician this week, as you worked laboring in that little cubicle and you stood, you have the priceless awareness that Jesus is working through these hands.

As you worked in registration or hospitality or vision, whatever your assignment was, There was a sense that Christ was there.

Did you not see Him smiling through you this week and touching people through you this week?

Jesus at times has no eyes but our eyes to see the needs of human beings.

He has no hands but our hands to touch them.

He has no heart but our heart to love them.

He has no ears but our ears to hear their cry of woe.

Jesus sees through our eyes, He listens through our ears, He speaks through our voice, He loves through our heart, He touches through our hands.

Some time ago, Sister Teresa had a heart difficulty, and she needed a stent in her heart.

And a friend of mine is very good friends, in fact, business colleagues with her cardiologist.

And he told me this story that Sister Teresa's cardiologist told him.

Sister Teresa had gone in for her, or Mother Teresa had gone in for her stent there in India, you know, and She was the amazing commitment to the poor, the underprivileged, providing them medical treatment.

And she had gone in and gotten this stent in her heart.

And after she did that, she talked to her cardiologist and she said, you know, I want to spend a day with you in cardiac peds.

I want to go to the children that you've done life-saving heart operations on And I want to walk through the ward with you." And he said, fine.

And he said it was kind of amazing all that day, 5 hours, 6 hours, 7 hours in the ward to have Mother Teresa by his side.

And all she did was pray and pray at every bedside.

Finally at the end of the day, this Hindu physician in India came to a little boy.

The little boy was about 2 and a half to 3 pounds, and the cardiologist surgeon had performed a very delicate cardiac operation on this little 2 and a half to 3 pounder.

The little baby had the tubes up his nose and intravenous.

The cardiologist held up the little baby in his arms before Mother Teresa and he said, Mother Teresa, I just have 1 question.

Where is He in this baby's life?" And without missing a beat, Mother Teresa said, you know, doctor, God's pretty busy today because He had 750, 000 other kids to take care of like this.

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The Master’s Methods

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