The Church of Eleven22 - Wk 4: Pool of Bethesda

Episode Date: April 30, 2023

Do you want to be healed? Your past does not have to define your future. In Christ, your past pain can be a platform for God’s glory.

Amen and amen. How we do it, church. Good? If you got your Bible's grabbing, we're going to be in John, chapter four, then we'll leak into chapter five. And as you're turning to John, chapter four, I've got three announcements.

Number one, get your kids to camp. If you've got a middle school or a high schooler, get them to camp. There would be no 1122 without student camps. It's where I got saved, where I matched Coach Lee. Much of what we do here every Sunday is like the last night at camp.

Okay, I cannot emphasize it enough. Number two, if you've never been baptized as a believer, get baptized at Beach Baptism this year. Just get over yourself, quit making the excuses, go sign up and do it. It'll be one of the greatest things you ever do in your entire life. And the rest of us are going to show up and cheer like crazy. And then the third announcement I have is, because of your generosity in the 10-10 life, would you please join me in welcoming our 11th campus, which is the Duval Women's Correctional Campus?

Amen. So ladies, welcome, welcome, welcome. We have been in two men's prisons for a bunch of years now, and hey, man, we're a movement for all people. and all means all. And so you ladies are a part of us. We are you, you are us. Grab your Bibles and you get to John four also. Now, just in case you're new here,

I'm going to give you a little 1122 hack. If you ever show up here and you see this little anointing oil on the podium, if this is your first time, you're going to think, what have I gotten myself into? I'm going to tell you what you have gotten yourself into. This thing we do ain't a little TED talking

some Christian karaoke, that we want to encounter the presence of the living God because he's the one that can change us. And I'm no faith healer, but I am a Bible believer. And what we are going to do, I mean, for four weeks now, we've been studying about miracles. It's one thing to study about it. The Bible says that we have not because we ask not.

So why don't we ask God to do the miraculous in our life? And so at the end of this service, that's what we're going to do. We're going to have a prayer and anointing service. I will explain it fully by the time we get there. You're not ready. I can tell by your shocked faces. You're like, holy, what have you brought me to? You'll be all right.

It'll change you forever, but you'll be all right. okay we're just going to do what the word says that that the god is a healing god and i've read my whole bible many many times and i cannot find an expiration date on the power of the spirit of god in the life of the believer amen and so there's some people that need to be made whole man it could be physically it can be mentally it could be spiritually it could be relationally it don't matter but the invitation of christ is going to to come to him to be prayed for and anointed and that's where we are going to go by the end of the service i fully believe i've already seen it happen in two previous services. There are some of you right now, and you walked in here with chains of addiction,

and those chains are going to fall off today, and you're going to walk out free. There's some of you that have had a cloud of depression on top of you, and you hadn't been able to live the abundant life that Christ has for you, and today that day is changed. For some of you, reconciliation is going to happen. We're believing for physical miracles. We're going to believe that the liar who tries to condemn you all the time, for the first time, you're going to be able to live out for the rest of your days. Therefore, now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. That's where we're going today.

You ready for it? You're almost ready. I'll check back in 50 minutes. Here we go. John, chapter 4, verse 46, says this. So he, that's Jesus, came to Cana in Galilee where he made the water wine. Remember that one? And at Copernium, there was an official whose son was ill.

This official was a big deal. This official probably worked in King Herod's palace. This official has heard rumors, that the miracle makers come into town. And he's heard rumors that this guy speaks to the wind and the waves and it does what he says, that this guy can walk on water, that this guy makes the blind sea and the lame walk, and he's resurrected people from the dead. And he's beginning to think, what if it's true?

What if this guy is who he says he is and he can actually do those things? Because what the Herod's official knows this, he's a man of power, he's a man of prominence, he's a man of position, he's got a lot of possessions, and none of that can do him any good in what he actually needs because he's got a sick son. Verse 47, and when this man heard that Jesus had come from Judah to Galilee, he went to him and he asked him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death. And so Jesus said to him, unless you see signs and wonders, you will not believe.

That's a quick rebuke there. But the thing Jesus doesn't do is Jesus doesn't bring up who this guy works for, because who this guy works for, he works in Herod Palace. Not this, Herod, but the previous Herod tried to kill Jesus when he was two years old. But he doesn't hold that against him at all. He just meets this dad right where he is. And here's what the dad says. The official said to him, sir, come down before my child dies.

This man is in a place of utter desperation. Again, he's got everything this world offers, man. He's got money, prestige, power. He tells people what to do, and they do what he says. He's a man of authority. And yet, and yet, he can't fix his kid. You ever been in a place like this? I mean, this is a real dad with a real kid.

We talk about it all the time. There is no pain like kid pain. If you've ever had kid pain, there's all kind of stuff that goes on in you, right? I mean, you hurt like you've never hurt before. And two things tend to happen with your theology. One is good and one is bad. One of the things that happens if you have kid pain is your understanding of why God would save you make sense real quick.

Because you look at your child and you would say, I would take your place in one second. I would take whatever pain you've got, give me all that pain, give me all of that strife and all that try. I would take it in one second if you could be holding and heal, wouldn't you? I mean, every parent would do that. But then there's this other weird thing that happens. You let your kid get sick.

You let your kid run off, be a prodigal. You let your kid struggle. And you begin to hold up the mirror to yourself and you say, is this my fault? Is this my fault? Did I not pray enough? Did I not bring them to camp enough? Did I spend too much time at work and not doing Bible study at home? Like, is this my fault?

And then this really weird thing can happen to some parents. And you begin to say, God, are you trying to punish me via them? Yeah, man, there is no pain like kid pain. Do you ever been in that kind of position where you want to cry out to Jesus? All right. Jesus, can you just come down before my child dies? Like, just in case he is who he says he is. And look what Jesus does.

This is crazy. Jesus said to him, go, your son will live. By the way, how you like this? Distance doesn't matter to an almighty omnipotent God, which, by the way, if you're worshipping with us online, this means that you can be prayed for and anointed just by clicking some buttons. Why?

Because Jesus is going to heal people way over there that ain't in the room. So Jesus says, go, and your son will be healed. And the man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and went on his way. That is not very much information, is it? He doesn't get a receipt, doesn't get a confirmation number. Husbands, can you imagine the thousand questions that he walked into when he got home?

He walks on. Well, what did he say? He said that our son would live. Well, how? I don't know how. He just said, go, and our son will live. Well, when? Well, he didn't say when.

He just said, go, and our son will live. Well, what about, well, listen, why don't you go next time? I don't know. This is just the information I have, okay? But here's what happens. How does this happen? Here's how it happens. Go, your son will live.

And the man believed the word. that Jesus spoke to him and went on his way. Let me ask you this. Do you believe? I mean, do you believe? Some of you are like, oh, you know what? Honestly, I don't know. I don't know if God can heal me.

All right, let me ask you this. Do you want to believe? Because the want to comes before the how to. That's how that works. Do you want to believe? Because God can take your little tiny bit of I want to believe and he can change the world. In Mark chapter 9, it's one of my favorite passages in the Bible.

I know somebody after the last service said, Pastor, you say that every passage is your favorite. It's a great book. You should get into it, all right? Mark chapter 9, Jesus is with the father being transfigured. Moses is there. Elijah's there. Peter James and John are there.

It's pretty cool. God, the Father speaks out loud over his son, Jesus. Behold my son, and whom I am well pleased. And then Peter wants to stay on the mountain, and Jesus is like, no, no, no. The ministry doesn't happen up on the mountaintop. It happens down in the valley. And so they march their way down the mountain. And when they get to the bottom of the mountain, they come across to this dad.

This dad is in utter desperation because his son is. possessed by a demon, and he's brought his son to the disciples, and then the disciples and the religious people getting this denominational battle about something, which, quite honestly, is a picture of the modern-day church. A bunch of people fighting about some silly stuff while there's some people over here need to be healed. Listen, here's the thing. I ain't got time for your denominational fights.

I ain't got time for it. So when you send me that little argumentative email about, you know what, you didn't do right? You know what? I put that in the Jimmy Crass Gordon, and I don't care slot, because we got the gospel to be preach and people need to be healed and people need to be delivered, okay? All right? Listen, if that's you, go to the internet, it was created for you. You're going to love it there. So that dad, it's like, I brought my son to be healed by your disciples, but they couldn't do it. And then the dad looks at Jesus and says, but if you can, would you heal my son? And Jesus says,

if I can. Anything is possible for one who believes. Then you know what the dad says? The Bible says, immediately he cries out. I believe. and help me overcome my unbelief. Those two things can be true at the same time. God, I believe, and I want to believe, and I'm hoping you can do it. But when I look at my belief as compared to the circumstances that are surrounding me,

my unbelief gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. And I just got this itty-bitty little tiny bit of belief in Jesus and Matthew is going to say, that's fine. You could have fate the size of a mustard seed. Faith is a gift of God, man. You can't manufacture it. You can put yourself in an environment, to grow it. And he said, you can take a tiny little itsy-bitsy, teeny faith in an almighty, all-powerful,

everlasting God, and it's infinitely more powerful than taking all your faith and putting them in a change of circumstances. Because it's not your faith that moves mountains. It's who you have your faith in that is the mover of mountains. It is the object of your faith, not the amount that changes the world. And so Jesus does not look at the man and say, I tell you what, want you go get your faith meter up to miracle level, and when you do, come back. No, no, no, he heals the boy. This is where this official is. And the man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him, and he went on his way. And as he was going down, his servants met him and told him that his son was recovering. And so he asked him the hour when he began to get better. And they said to him, yesterday,

at the seventh hour. That'd be like one o'clock. The fever left him. And the father knew that that was the hour when Jesus said to him, your son will live. Isn't this crazy? He hears the word from Jesus, go when your son will live, and he doesn't even rush home. He goes and gets the night at the holiday and express

and just takes the night off. What is he doing? I tell you what he's doing. He has faith. He believes. Here's what faith is. Faith is not a feeling. Faith is the evidence of things unseen.

Faith is acting as if you actually believe Jesus is who he says he is, and he keeps his promises. This is like, when we invite you in a little, while to come forward and be prayed over and an anointed. And I know you've got a whole bunch of reasons why. I don't know that this will work. But you just need to want to believe that what if Jesus is who he says he is and he always

keeps his promises. That's what this guy does. You see, we studied it in the last series in Philippians chapter 4, Paul from prison, says, be anxious for nothing. But by prayer and supplication, with Thanksgiving, make your request known to God. That means pray. And the peace of God that transcend. understanding will guard your heart and minding Christ Jesus. That's what's happening to this

dad. And then he himself believed and all his household. How many of you know that God will often use your own mess to help you believe the message of salvation? Like if this boy don't get sick, they might not meet the Savior. This was now the second sign that Jesus did when he had come from Judea to Galilee. This is a sign. Remember in John, John doesn't call miracles, miracles. John calls them signs, because signs always point to something bigger than themselves. And the thing that he's pointing to is this, is there will come a day for anyone who will believe. There is no death. There is no pain. Nobody walks with a swagger or a limp in the kingdom of God. In fact, the book of Revelation says this, that Jesus will wipe away every tear.

I mean, think about that. The day you walk into heaven, if you walk in with some tears in your eyes, you carried a little baggage with you, Jesus is going to wipe that away. way. You ever wipe the tears out of your kids' eyes? No way had to teach you. This is what you do. Man, you do the double thumb windshield wiper. Squoop, that's what you do? So when Jesus does that to you, and he reaches out his hands to wipe away your tears, what do you see? You see the holes in his hands that purchase for you the fact that there are no tears in heaven. You see, he's at work in all things for the good of those that love him and are called according to his purpose. So he heals this boy, chapter 5 verse 1. It says, and after this, there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

Now, there was in Jerusalem by the sheep gate, a pool in Aramaic called Bethesda. Now, this is not the VIP interest. This is like the, this is like the servants' entrance. The reason it's called the sheep gate is because this is the gate when you were bringing in your livestock for sacrifice at the temple. There were some pools by the sheep gate, and you would wash your sheep. It was dirty, it was nasty. And Jesus comes in that way. And it has five roof colonnades. In these lay a multitude of invalids.

Blind, lame, paralyzed. There's a couple of things I want you to see here. One, notice how Jesus has no problem going from the club level to the overlooked. One minute, he's with the officials, and he's cutting it up with him, and the next minute, he's with the people, the least of these, the people that are overlooked by our society. Because here's the thing, when Jesus comes eyeball to eyeball, he doesn't look at people the way we look at people. We see position.

He sees an image bearer of God. And so he walks up and it says this. There's a multitude of embellets, blind, lame, and paralyzed. That's our church. Just need you to know this. If you're new here, we ain't a fancy bunch. I mean, look around. This is the dressed up, we get Easter, we kind of roll out on Easter.

But other than that, a bunch of jeans and T-shirts, okay? And here's the thing, man, this is a movement for all people to discover and deepen a relationship with Jesus Christ. And all means all. That means all kind of people, all kind of backgrounds, all kind of struggles, all kind of temptations. That's who Jesus came for. This place has never been a country club.

It will never be a country club. This place is a hospital for the sick and the hurting. That's what this place is. So it's always going to be a little grimy. It's always going to be a little busted up. If you grew up in a real buttoned up church, you're going to get uncomfortable. This is the kind of place where you might get up

and come down and pray and then go back and your purse ain't there. I'm just telling you, I'm just warning you. So just pray about that. They probably needed it more than you do. And I hope God saves them and sanctifies them and they come to Christ through your purse, all right, whatever. Now listen now, if you think you've got your stuff together, just do us a favor and just you might want to scoot on out of here. Because you're going to ruin it for all of us, okay? And if you think you've got to get your act together before you come to church, that's like thinking you've got to wait for the bleeding to stop to go to the ER. That didn't make no sense at all.

Not, man, this is a hospital for the hurting. So he rolls up in this place. The blind, the lame, the paralyzed. Now, if you pay close attention to your Bible, which I hope you do, you will notice that in the ESV, the English standard version, that's the translation that we use, the reason that we use this, that really smart people put it together,

it's a word-by-word translation, not a phrase-by-phrase. That's why sometimes it reads kind of awkward because they've got it in the Greek order, not necessarily the English order. But there's a verse missing. Verse three, verse four, I'm sorry. Verse four isn't there. And the reason verse four isn't there,

it's footnoted in the bottom of your Bible. It should be. It's because in the earliest manuscripts, verse four was not there. Verse four got added later. Because this legend began to happen in the first century. And so here's the way

some of the later manuscripts read. It says, waiting for the moving of the water, for an angel of the Lord went down and at certain seas into the pool and stirred the water. And whoever stepped in first after the stirring of the water was healed of whatever disease he had.

So again, that's not in the original text, but apparently there was this legend. Theologians argue about whether that actually happened or not, but this guy, these people at the pool of Bethesda believed it happened. And so what I want you to see here is they've got their eyes focused on their healing in the wrong place. Because the temporary things of this world cannot put you back together. The temporary things of this world cannot make you whole. And so here's this man laying there waiting.

Verse 5 says, and one man was there who had been an invalid for 38 years. Look at that word invalid. If you break that word down in English, very simply, is this, invalid. This is how the first century would have seen these people. You are invalid. Because you cannot contribute to our society, we see you as not valid. We live in a culture right now that says there's a whole bunch of people that are invalid. It's a cancel culture.

If you said something wrong, it's any point in your life, you're invalid. If you don't line up to our cultural norms, you are invalid. I am just here to tell you, according to the authority of the Word of God, there are no invalid human beings ever, ever, ever. Born or unborn, regardless of your mental capacity,

regardless of your physical capacity, there are no invalid human beings. They are all image bearers of the most high God. In fact, not only are you, valid, but you're valuable. The Bible says this in 1 Corinthians chapter 6. Paul says to the church at Corinth, you were not your own. You were bought with a price.

You know what you were worth to God? You know how you determine something's worth? It don't matter what you feel about it. It matters what is somebody willing to pay. This is the gospel according to eBay. You thought you were going to get hundy for those sweet sneaks, and you put them on. You're like, three bucks, what you're talking about? So your sneakers are worth $3.

Period. Man, you come up for sale on eternal eBay, and God Almighty looks at you and says, here's what I'm willing to pay for you, the blood of my very own son, Jesus Christ. You are not your own, you are bought at a price. Every single human being is not only valid, but valuable to God. Again, born or unborn, regardless of mental condition or physical condition or age or anything, man. And you're infinitely more valuable than anything else on the planet. The most expensive animal in the world right now is a horse, a race horse, last name Pegasus. They say he's worth $72 million. Here's what I would tell you. Every single human being on the planet is infinitely more valuable than that horse. Because you were an image bearer of God. You are not invalid.

And so there was a man who had been an invalid for 38 years. Now sometimes when I talk about pain and prayer and those kind of things, people ask questions, well, pastor, why pain? I mean, if God is almighty and he's omnipresent and he's loving, then why doesn't he just fix it all? Like, why do people suffer? I'm going to tell you. I'll tell you the theological reasons. If you were in pain, though, it's going to help your heart about zero. Just know that to be true. The only thing that can help you in those moments is an encounter with the living God. There's five reasons. Some of you're in pain right now. One could be, we live in a fallen world. We live in a broken world. When Adam and Eve, sent again,

against God, they held the door open to chaos and pain. And that could be everything from weather systems to your own cells. Sometimes they don't do what they're supposed to do, and we live in a broken world. But Jesus not only came to save sinners, he came to make all things new. Number two, sometimes the reason that you're in pain is because of you. Nobody loves you enough to tell you this. I do. Sometimes it's you.

It's either sin or stupidity. May I have people? Come up to me. Pastor, pray against the enemy. attacking me, I got fired for my job. I'm like, okay, let's go. Talk to me about your job. They talk for a minute, I'm like, the reason you got fired for your job is because you don't work. You show up late and don't do nothing. It's been all day scrolling to Graham. Okay, I'd fire you too. The enemy doesn't even have to attack you. It's all self-sabotage. You killing you

just fine. So sometimes it's you. So don't be stupid. Three, sometimes other people sin against you. It's not your fault whatsoever. There are sinful human beings in this planet. And sometimes people do awful things to one another. And sometimes it is a specific enemy attack against you. That there is a thief that wants to steal, kill, and destroy you. Every time I bring it up, somebody's like, Pastor, do you really believe in demons? Yeah. And if you don't, that's adorable.

You're too dumb to talk to. And you're going to get whipped. I'm just going to tell you you're going to get whipped. In the Gulag Archipelago, Stolson Nitzin says this. He says, don't. who decide that violence as a prerequisite are always stronger in the fight. Like if you walk into a fight

and you don't realize you're fighting, you're gonna get whipped. Do you not realize we have an enemy who wants to steal, kill, and destroy? I always think it's kind of funny that we call hunting a sport. Because half the players don't know the game started. You realize that?

It's why they never win. Well, don't be like that, man. My friend Charles Martin's wife told him one time, she said, Charles, do you see a demon behind every bush? because sometimes I see two. Because here's the thing, man, you ever met somebody with an addiction or a depression or a thing that feels like it's outside of them trying to lead them in an area where they know it will kill them if they go down that road and they've promised I'm never going again,

but in the wrong circumstances, something just bates. What do you want to call that? Poor decision making? Come on. Turn on the news. You don't think there is an enemy with some evil schemes? Sometimes it is a direct enemy attack. And then the fifth one is this.

Sometimes God just tests his people. Because no matter what it is, it all trickles through the fingers of a sovereign God. Sometimes God allows you to go through pain so that he can use it as a platform for his glory, man. I can't fully explain it. How about this? At the end of Luke, Jesus leans over to Peter and says, hey, the devil wants you and the devil's going to sift you. I don't even know what that means. The devil's going to shake you up.

And then Jesus says, but I will pray for you. I'd be like, pray for me. Why don't you just stop it? You're the King of Keynes. Tell him no. How about that? But he doesn't. He lets him walk through it.

So there's this man. He's been an invalid for 38 years. And when Jesus saw him lying there and he knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, do you want to be healed? Now, when I first read that, I'm like, what kind of question is that? Of course he wants to be healed. That's why he's been laying at the pool of Bethesda for 38 years. You know, what else?

It's not a spa. He ain't in line for Taylor Swift tickets. That ain't what he's doing. Of course he wants to be healed. Now listen, when Jesus talks about healing, by the way, he's reverencing the Shama. We studied it for two years ago in the one initiative. That we should love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. So it is mental, physical, spiritual healing, not just physical.

This is putting him back together. But he asked this question, do you want to be healed? So let me ask you that question. Do you want to be healed? Because the want to comes before the how to, man. Because if you don't want to, you won't get healed. Here's what I mean. I don't really do marriage counseling anymore, you know, for your sake.

But it's real short. In the first bunch of years, I've been doing ministry for 30 years. In the first bunch of years, man, I messed up because people would come in. They'd be like, yeah, this is my thing. I'd be like, okay. and I got to the how to. Oh, here's five love languages and here's some techniques

and here's some, you know, like that kind of stuff. And then eventually it landed on me where I would just first ask people, do you want to be married? Because if you don't want to be married, I don't care what kind of techniques you try to perform, it ain't going to happen, man. And if you don't want to, you at least got to want to want to.

Do you want to be healed? Do you want to want to be healed? Because here's what's crazy, 30 years of ministry talking right here. Some people would say, If they're honest, and I know this is church, no place for that. But there are some people that are like, I don't want to be healed. I don't want to be healed.

And you say, why in the world would somebody not want to be healed? Some people have had their identity wrapped around the axle of their pain that they identify themselves only as a victim and a person of pain. And you begin to take that identity away and then who are they anymore? God has more for you. I mean, listen, it's like a baby in a dirty diaper. They're like, I know it's nasty, but it's warm and it. mind, I'm going to just sit right here in it, okay? That's what it looks like.

This is probably the scariest one. Some people don't want to be healed because if you were healed, it will take away your excuse for your bad behavior. Then you'll just have to actually take responsibility for your own behavior. But, you know, if you're the victim, it's not your fault. If you primarily identify yourself as just a person of pain, then you can have the excuse man. You can drink all you want to.

You can take whatever you. you want to. Because if you get healed and God makes you whole, then all of a sudden, what's your excuse for that attitude you wake up with every day? Or you might actually have to act like a husband and love your wife like Christ's love the church and quit standing up all night looking at porn by yourself. Do you want to be healed? This is what he asked this man, do you want to be healed? And look at the answer. And the sick man answered him, sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up. And while I'm going, another steps down before me. Oh my gosh. This is the original Gen Z right there.

There it is. And I ain't talking to y'all. Y'all are at church. Nobody made you come. Y'all are like the remnant, man. Well done. All right, plug in. I got big hopes for you Gen Zers at 1122.

Y'all going to change the world. But the rest of your people, you got to, you better start sharing the gospel better or something because, good, gracious. Can I just tell you, dude, entitlement and complaining is kryptonite to me, man. I can't handle it. I just can't. That like, um, I, uh, people can either. make a difference or make excuses, they never make both. Thank God I'm not the Savior.

Because if this man's healing was up to me and I walked him in the place and I had the gift of healing and I kneeled down to the man there 38 years and said, hey, bro, you want to get healed? And he was like, oh my God, I'm triggered. I need a safe space. I was like, oh, no, that's fine. How about you? You want to get here? What's that?

Shut up, man. I'm going to finish it. How about you? You want to get here? I'd have people popping up all over the place. I'd be like, Oprah, just you get a healing and you get a healing. I'd heal everybody there. But that one guy, I'd be like, no, man, no, whatever.

I still got a long way to go on my sanctification process. We all can agree with that. But aren't you glad Jesus is so patient with us? And he's so patient with us? I mean, a couple weeks ago, we're shutting this thing down. And we're saying, hey, man, you need to pray about something. You've got a burden. Why don't you cast all your cares about him because he cares for you?

And you know, beyond a shadow of doubt, the spirit of God said, get out of your seat and walk down here and kneel down for the first time. But then the enemy started coming. And you're like, what's everybody I rode with going to think? I don't know. And you began, and so you were paralyzed by fear. What's crazy is Jesus was going to heal the man anyway. He didn't miss a shot.

He's so patient. Maybe this is why it's called the pool of Bethesda. And that means mercy. That Jesus is so merciful to us, and he's not going to contend you for what you didn't do two weeks ago. He wants you to walk in freedom today, and you still have the chance to do that. And so Jesus said to him,

ultimately what he's going to be saying is this, I mean, you're looking in the wrong place for healing. That's sturd up water right where it's at healing is standing right here face to face with you. Jesus is the great physician. All healing comes through him. Sometimes it's through people, sometimes it's through prayers,

and sometimes it's through pills. Praise God for it all. Every good and perfect gift has come from above. I mean, you think about this. The things that we would call a miracle 100 years ago, now we call an outpatient procedure. No problem, man, he heals. And he gets eyeball to eyeball with this.

man, this invalid person, that everybody else has ostracized. And he says, get up, take up your bed, and walk. And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked. When it says bed, it means like bed roll, like a mat. Now, when I read this for the first time, I thought, why, hold on. Seems like Jesus would say, get up all that nasty mat and let's leave that behind because you have a new life. But he doesn't tell him to leave it. He says, pick up that mat and walk. Why? think about this you don't think about this that mat is nasty man that mat is gross he's been laying on this mat for 38 years what you think that mat smells like i mean some of you got a little yoga mat and it smells like asparagus and you wipe it down every time this man ain't got chlorox wipes to

like clean up no no no no no where does he go to the bathroom he can't get up and pop over there somewhere no no no that's it and jesus says i want you to pick that thing up and walk around with it under your shoulder why here's why so that people people can identify who this man is. Because people are going to see him walking and be like, that looks like that guy, is that? I don't think. That's him.

You see, God does not mind using your past pain as a platform for the glory of God. And the reason the guy is not ashamed to carry his mad is because God ain't ashamed to him. Listen, man, you have nothing to be ashamed of if God has delivered you. This is God once again. So, listen, therefore now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And so when the enemy begins to whisper that shame and point you back to your mat, you just remind him of the miracle. When he starts trying to point back and identify you by your scars, you just remind him that you're not identified by your scars. You're identified by the scars of Christ on the cross.

That when the enemy tries to condemn you, listen, I just roll with the punches. Because I get the whispers as bad as anybody I know, man. That I don't deserve to stand up here. I get it. I get it. I'm the biggest center in the room. And so when the enemy begins to give me those whispers and spit those lies of condemnation,

I just go with it. But you know what you're right? It's actually worse than you think. There's some stuff I struggle with you don't even know about because you're not omniscient. You don't know what I'm thinking and feeling. Only the Lord does. So I had to be forgiven some stuff.

I didn't even do. I just thought about doing it. And yet the cross is out of us all. He knows everything. There's no lie that you have against me that the Lord doesn't know. In fact, the Lord ran a Carfax on me and you, and it came back, busted up, broke, leaks oil, needs to be a line, lemon, lemon, lemon.

And the Lord, to tell you what, I'll pay full price, sit in the driver's seat, and then we'll begin the restoration process. See, this dude ain't a shame. Now let me tell you what would be done, though. If two weeks from then, you walk by and the guy's laying back on his mat, you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, what are you doing, man? People that can walk don't lay in a cripples man's mat. That's what sin is.

When you return to sin, that's it. It's not that it's just bad. It's dumb. You don't have to do the things you used to do. You're not the person that you used to be. The old you is dead, and Christ has given you a new life, and you can walk in the newness of life. I know we stumble, and I know we fall,

but when we fall, we fall upon the same grace that saved us, and it picks us back up and go, come on, you're on your feet. You can walk. Get off that mat. Now, everything's pretty cool up to this point. If there's the soundtrack, it changes here. Now that day was the Sabbath, and so the Jews, and this is important, especially these days,

when the New Testament says the Jews, it doesn't mean all the Jewish people, it means the religious leaders. Because everybody here is Jewish. Jesus is Jewish, the disciples are Jewish, the guy getting healed is Jewish, everybody's Jewish. So these are like Sadducees and Pharisees, the religious leaders. So the religious leaders said to the man who had been healed, it is the Sabbath and it is not lawful for you to take up your bed. Let me ask you, man. When God does a thing in somebody's life, do you see the man? mat or the miracle? Because that's what religion will do, man. They couldn't see past the law of God

to see the lavish love of God on this man. By the way, there's no verse in the Bible about not carrying a mat. They come up with 49 rules on what it meant on what you could and could not carry on the Sabbath day. And the 49th one was you can't carry a mat. They just made that stuff up. But he answered them. By the way, by the way, the moment you find yourself critical of a move of God, you plan for a team, it ain't team Jesus though. I mean, the amount of energy that is spent from people claiming Jesus as their Lord that want to point out everything,

hey, you didn't do it right, you didn't do it on the right day, you didn't sing the right song, you didn't say the right word, listen, man, Jesus never has that kind of critical spirit against the move of God. But he answered them.

The man who healed me, that man said to me, take up your bed and walk. Here's what he's saying, I don't care what you think. Unfollow me all you want to. Y'all didn't heal me. That brother that put life in my legs,

if he wants me to carry a mat, I'm going to be a mat tootting on Saturday pork rind eating Jew. You understand what I'm saying? I'm going to do whatever he tells me to do. He's not identified by his mat anymore. You see, what this world tries to do, I'm just telling you, is this world wants to put a label on you because then it doesn't have to deal with you

and just deal with the label. So please hear me, you were not your past, you were not your sin, you were not your affliction, you were not your struggle, you're not primarily your race, you're not your political party, you're not your sin, you're not your marriage situation, you're not your divorce, you're not your affair, you're not your abortion,

you're not the abortion you paid for. Whatever the thing is that the enemy continuously tries to shame you with, that is not who you are if you were in Christ Jesus. And you begin to think, yeah, but it's the biggest thing that happened in my life. No, it's not, not if you're in Christ. If you were in Christ Jesus,

the biggest thing that ever happened to you is Jesus Christ, pushed on his nail, pierce feet, and says, it is finished, and he redefines you, and he gets to tell you who you are. And so that's what he's saying. Only Jesus gets to tell me who I am. And I love this. He doesn't let me know all the answers yet.

and they ask him, who is this man who said to you, take up your bed and walk? And he's like, I don't know. It's a very legit question when people ask you questions and you don't know. He's like, I don't know. Now, the man who had been healed did not know that it was Jesus because he had withdrawn,

and there was a crowd in the place, and afterwards Jesus found him in the temple. This is such a big deal, man. He found him in the temple. This guy's never been to temple, at least for 38 years, because if you were blind and lame and crippled, you couldn't go to the temple. but you know what the first thing this man wants to do?

He wants to pour out his gratitude to God with the people of God. This is what the church is. That every single time we gather together, listen, this is a big deal what happens in this place. This ain't a TED talk with some Christian karaoke, man. The people of God, this is a thin place where heaven and earth come together. And we get together some people that were blind and cripple and lame and dead, and we have been transformed by Christ,

and we get around other people of God, and we make much of the one who is word, of our worship because we were lame and he made us walk. We were dead and he brought us to life. That's what he does, man. I'm telling you, miracles happen in this place. Marriagees get restored. The blind sea, the lame walk, addictions are broken. And the biggest miracle of all, sins are forgiven. So he shows up at the temple. And Jesus said to him, see, you are well, literally shalom. Like, I didn't just come to heal your legs. So what if I heal your legs? You can walk your way to No, no, no.

He wants to heal his whole body. He says, see you are well, sin no more that nothing worse may happen to you. And you're like, what can be worse than being crippled for 38 years? Going to hell. See, Jesus cares about all human suffering, especially eternal. And so do we. And the man went away and he told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him. And this was why the Jews were persecuting Jesus because he was doing these things on the Sabbath.

but Jesus answered them, My father is working until now, and I am working. So, you all ready to do some work. I mean, it's one thing to do a study on miracles. It's another thing to ask the Lord for the miraculous in our life. Here's the point, man. Do you want to be healed? Your past does not have to define your future.

In Christ, your past pain can be a platform for God's glory. You see, Jesus wants to make this man well. Jesus wants to make you well. He wants you to be able to walk in the abundant life. That's not just physical healing, man. That's heart, soul, mind, and strength. A.W. Tozer says, the most important thing about you is what you think when you think about God. Like, what's the image of God that you get in your mind?

He says, that's the number one thing. And here's the thing. Most of us have this image of God like he looks at us with this kind of look on our face like, because he's frustrated. Why? Because the Bible calls him a father. And kids are frustrated. can I get a witness?

And if you had a dad, you were frustrating to him. My friend Matt Chandler loves to say, God's not in love with some future version of you. He loves you right now. You see, the Bible tells us that this is love. Not that we loved him. He loved us and sent his son as the propitiation for our sin. Propitiation means a payment that satisfies.

That means if you're in Christ, then he fully satisfied the law and justice of God, which means that he can't be dissatisfied in you. He's not frustrated with you. If the most important thing about you is what you, think when you think about God, maybe the second most important thing about you is what do you think God thinks about you? I can tell you if you're in Christ, he loves you, he delights in you, he's so patient with you, he's for you. In fact, I want to read to you what God says about you

according to God's word if you are in Christ. I did a little Bible study this week from the help of a guy named Neil Anderson, and I don't even know how, there's three pages. So right when you think I'm about halfway done, I'm just getting around. turn one. You understand? And so if your neighbors asleep, wake him up because this is the most important thing. It's one thing to be able to identify our brokenness. It's another thing to be able to identify what Christ has for us if we would just allow him to make us well. So according to the word of God, because of what Christ did on the cross, if you put your faith in him, this is who you are. You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world. You are a child of God. You are a part of the

truvon, a channel of Christ's life. You are Christ's friend. You were chosen and appointed by Christ to bear his fruit. You were a slave of righteousness. You were enslaved to God. You are a son of God. You were a joint heir with Christ sharing his inheritance with him. That your body is a temple, by the way, that has nothing to do with what you look like in a bathing suit. Can I get an amen as it's getting warm? That your body is a temple, a dwelling place of God. That you are united to the Lord, and you are one in spirit with Him. That you are a member of Christ's body. You are a new creation.

You are reconciled to God, and you are a minister of reconciliation. That you are a son of God, and you are one in Christ, that you are an heir of God since you are a son of God. That you are a saint, that you are God's workmanship, you are God's handiwork, and you have been born anew in Christ to do his good work. That you are a fellow citizen with the rest of God's family, that you were a prisoner of Christ. You are righteous and holy.

You are a citizen of heaven, seated in heaven right now. That you are hidden with Christ in God. That you are an expression of the life of Christ because he is your life. That you are chosen of God. You are holy and dearly love. That you are a son of the light and not of the darkness. That you are a holy partaker of a heavenly calling. That you are a partaker of Christ and you share in his life.

That you are one of God's living stones being built up in Christ as a spiritual house. that you're a member of a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, that you are an alien and a stranger to this world in which you temporarily live, that you are an enemy of the devil, that you are a child of God and you will resemble Christ when he returns, that you are born of God and the evil one, the devil cannot touch you. That you are not the great I am, but by the grace of God you are what you are. That you have been justified, completely forgiven, and made righteous, that you died with Christ and die to the power of sins rule over your life, that you are free forever from condemnation,

that you have been placed into Christ by God's doing, that you have received the Spirit of God into your life, that you may know the things freely given to you by God, that you have been given the mind of Christ, that you have been bought with a price, you are not your own, you belong to God. You have been established, anointed, and appointed, sealed by God in Christ, and you have been given the Holy Spirit as a pledge, guaranteeing your inheritance to come. And since you have died, you no longer live for yourself, but you live for Christ. You have been made righteous. You have been crucified with Christ.

It's no longer you who live, but Christ who lives in you. And the life that you now live is Christ's life. That you have been blessed with every spiritual blessing. You have been chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy, and you are without blame before him. You have been predestined, determined by God, to be adopted as God's own son. You have been redeemed and forgiven. you are a recipient of his lavish grace. You have been made alive together with Christ.

You have been raised up and seated with Christ in heaven. You have direct access to God through His spirit. You may approach God with boldness and freedom and confidence because he is your father. You have been rescued from the domain of Satan's rule and transferred into the kingdom of light. You have been redeemed and forgiven of all your sins and the dead against you has been canceled forever. You have been firmly rooted in Christ and now you were brought. being built in Him. You have been made complete in Christ. You have been buried, raised, and made alive with Christ. You died with Christ and having been raised up with Christ. Your life is now hidden with

Christ in God. You have been given a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline. You have been saved and set apart according to God's doing. And because you are sanctified and you are one with the sanctifier, he is not ashamed to call you, brother. You have the right to come boldly before the throne of God to find mercy and grace in a time of need. You have been getting, given exceedingly great and precious promises by God, by which you are a partaker of God's divine nature. God is a good dad. That's just who he is.

You are loved by him. That's just who you are. You are the beloved in Christ. That's just who you are. And if you're not walking fully in that, if you're not walking fully in that, it sums off. It's because we have an enemy. We have a thief. He wants to steal, kill, and destroy.

He wants to steal, kill, and destroy. every promise of Christ that we just read. So this is what Christ has for you, that kind of life. And again, I don't know if it makes sense to you. It don't really matter. When you hear the voice of the shepherd, you do what he says, and every step of obedience in the direction of the good shepherd that leads to eternal life.

Everyone. So Jesus, his brother, writes a letter. It's in our Bible. His name is James. It's called the Book of James. We're going to study it all summer. Ain't a lot of frills in the book of James. I think James grew up with Jesus, and he's like, I ain't telling stories, I'm just going to tell you how it is, okay?

And here's what James says in James Chapter 5. He says, is anyone among you suffering, let him pray? Some of you are suffering, and we need to pray for you. Then he says, is anyone cheerful? Praise God, man. Hopefully a bunch of us are cheerful. He says, let him sing songs of praise. So that's what we're going to do.

And just a second, I want to invite you, if you need to be prayed for, then you're going to come. we're going to pray over you. And there are no casual bystanders in this one today, man. This is an all-scape. And everybody else is going to sing a prayer over the people being prayed for. Then he says this, anyone among you sick, that word just literally means broken. That's what it means. It means not whole.

Like when Jesus told that man, you are well, this would be unwell. Not all that Christ had in mind when he came up with the idea of you. So for some of you, it could be physically broken, physically sick. Well, come, man, come and pray. And we're going to pray that God heals you. And honestly, we don't care how. It could be doctors, nurses, technology, medicine, cool. It could be a supernatural touch of God.

He does it. And so if that's you and you need prayer, I'm going to invite you to come. Some of you, some of you are mentally sick. You're broken mentally. It's a hard thing for a Christian to struggle with depression. We did a whole series on the book of, Philippians, the book of joy. 20 times, rejoicing the Lord always.

And again, I say rejoice. And you wake up and you know Jesus out on the cross for you, but you can't turn the joy on and you go, what's wrong with you? I'm telling you, man, he wants to take away that spirit of heaviness and give you a spirit of joy. Some of you are crippled by anxiety. It's like, you wake up worried. You don't even know what you're worried about.

And you take this misplaced worry. You don't have a place to lay it. So it's deep down in here somewhere and it's eating you up. and some of you mentally are very broken and you have these demonic thoughts about hurting yourself. Suicidal thoughts. Look at me. God loves you.

We love you. Do not hurt yourself. There are people, we love you on behalf of God. You come and you tell somebody out loud, out loud so that we can come alongside of you. Listen, man, God's not done with you. He's got a purpose and a plan for you. The fact that he woke you up this morning

means he is not done with you. And the enemy has no hold on you, man. No hold. So some people are physically sick and some people are mentally sick and some people are relationally sick. And you're saying, my marriage is sick. Some of you may feel like your marriage is dead. I got good news, man.

If God could breed new life into his dead son and he walk out of the tomb, he could breed new life into your dead marriage. And it could be everything that God had intended it to be when you promised what God has joined together to let no one tear apart. Some of you are just dealing with loneliness. Listen, I want you to be able to tangibly experience the promise of Jesus when he said, and lo, I will be with you always, even to the end of the age. And if you've put your faith in Christ, he has deposited the spirit of God, the comforter to live on the inside of you.

You can never be alone. And he's giving you a family of God, the body of Christ that will be around you. So maybe it's a relational thing. Some people feel hopeless. Proverbs says, hope deferred makes the heart sick. Some of you've been praying and praying and praying. Well, listen, man, hope has a name, and his name is Jesus. And he's bigger than your circumstances.

And some of you are spiritually sick. I mean, there's an addiction. And it might be to pills or pot or pornography. I don't know. Might be to food. And listen, I'm just telling you, there is an enemy that is trying to take you out. And he's got no hold on you. He's got no place in your life.

Not if you're a believer in Christ. You are blood bought paid for by Christ. And we're going to pray that those shackles come falling off of you. And like the dad, some of you need to come and pray on behalf of somebody else. Because the kid did not come to get prayed for. The dad came on behalf of his son and said, Jesus, my son is about to die. Will you please come down and heal him? And we're going to pray for the miraculous to happen.

So was anyone among you sick? He says, let him call for the elders of the church and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. So we got oil. The reason that we do this is because the Bible says to do it. I am not a faith healer. I'm a Bible believer.

Oil was used in the scriptures as just a tactile representation of the anointing of the Holy Spirit. It's not actually the Holy Spirit. It's just oil that I bought in Jerusalem. So I probably paid nine times what I should have. That's it, man. He says, so we got pastors and elders and deacons and a bunch of prayer warriors. They're going to be standing up here.

And it says, pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. You see, it doesn't matter whose praise for you. It matters in whose name you're praying. Then he says, and the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he's committed sins, he will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed. Now, there's a difference between healing and cures, for sure.

but sometimes God cures us on this side of eternity and sometimes he heals our heart think about this man the apostle Paul prays three times that God would remove this thorn for his flesh and God says my grace is sufficient God gives him a greater miracle that he learned the secret of being content in every situation but listen we're not going to give God an out on this

we're going to pray like Pentecostals we're just going to pray by his stripes you're healed that he was pierced for our transgressions we're going to pray like Shadrach Meshach in a bed to go before they go into the fiery first us, here's the prayer of faith. They go, we know God can save us. So we know we can. We just read about two healings today. So we know God can. And we are believing in this moment that he will. And even if he doesn't, we're not going to bow down to the idol of these circumstances. That's the

prayer of faith. So I'm going to invite you to come and be prayed for. And then we're going to sing. We're going to sing a new song. It's my new favorite song. Our team wrote it. The real name is Let It Be So. I call it the Amen song. I change all the names. or something. Do you know what the definition of amen is? Let it be so. Let it be done. The reason that you pray at the end of your prayer, like when you're saying, on earth as it is in heaven, and then you get to the end of that and you say amen, you're saying, Lord, would you let it be so? Would you let all those things that I just poured out to you? Would you let them be done? Because I can't make them be done. Only you can make them be done. And so the song starts out this way. Lord,

I'm on my knees. I'm crying out. There's so much I think I need, but God, all I really need is you. And then we're going to sing Bible verses. You said, ask, and I will give, seek, and you will find, knock, and I will open up to you. You want your prayers to be answered in heaven. You start with words that were created in heaven. These are Jesus' words out of the sermon on the mount right there. God says, ask.

The reason you don't have is because you don't ask. So ask and seek and knock. And then the chorus is, so let it be so, let it be done. we're asking in the mighty name of Jesus because all of our hope is found in the power of your blood it's more than enough so let it be done so do you want to be healed do you want to be healed healing has a name

his name is Jesus and he wants for you to be made hope heart soul mind and strength do not surrender to fear of the lie of the enemy right now you be bold and in just a second you get down here and be made whole. Would you please stand? I would invite all of our prayers and anointers to come forward right now

at all of our locations. If you're worshiping with us online, there are instructions there of how you could be prayed for. And I'm going to start praying. And if you know, I mean, the moment you saw the oil on the thing, you're like, yep, that's me, I'm coming. Just come on now. You don't even have to wait till the end of the prayer, okay?

Just come on right now, and we will pray for you. Won't you come? Our good and gracious, Heavenly Father, God, we love you more than anything. and God, we do. We think we need so many things, but what we need first and foremost is we need you. So, God, I pray for a supernatural encounter with you,

the living God of the universe. Lord, we pray in the name of Jesus that the chains of addiction would fall, that depression would be lifted, that people who once thought evil thoughts about hurting themselves would see themselves the way you see them, and they would know that they are beloved of God

and the enemy would no longer have a voice in their life. God, we pray that marriages would be reconciled and resurrected. God, we pray that bodies would be put together, God, that cells would obey the sovereign king of the universe. And God, what we need more than anything is we need you. So won't you come? We pray it in Jesus' name, amen. If you need prayer, come on.