Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Foreign.
[00:00:06] Good morning. Hey. If I have not met you, my name is Michael Fueling, the lead pastor here at the village church, and I want to invite you to open up your Bibles to the Book of John. We're going to be in chapter five this morning, and we are going to be launching a new summer series. We finished Galatians, and the series this morning is called the Questions of Jesus. And if you read the New Testament, There are roughly 275 to 300 unique questions that Jesus asks, and many of them are doozies. For example, are you able to drink the cup I am to drink?
[00:00:45] Or this one.
[00:00:47] What do you want?
[00:00:50] Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and not do what I tell you? Okay, so when Jesus asks a question, it's usually on purpose. And I want to read to you from Proverbs chapter 20, verse 5. It says this.
[00:01:04] The purpose in a man's heart is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out. And Jesus was the master at getting to the deepest parts of the heart through perfectly designed questions. So In John chapter 5, here's the question that Jesus asks a man who has been an invalid for 38 years.
[00:01:31] He asks him, do you want to be healed?
[00:01:39] Do you want to be healed? So here's my question for you.
[00:01:43] Do you really want to be healed?
[00:01:49] I know who has a problem that they do not want immediate healing for that problem, but kind of just hold this question in your heart till we get to the end of the message, because I really want you to ponder this question. Do you really want to be healed?
[00:02:06] And then specifically, what do you want to be healed from? Is it something physical? Believe it or not, when you ask most people what they want to be healed from, it is not a physical issue.
[00:02:17] Most people kind of do understand, especially as they get older, physical issues.
[00:02:22] For many people, it's actually the internal issues that they want Jesus to intervene on. Is it something emotional?
[00:02:31] Is it something someone did to you?
[00:02:36] Is it healing from something that you can't seem to stop? Is it healing from something that if you're gonna just be really honest with yourself, you did it to yourself? Is it mental?
[00:02:46] Is it thoughts you can't control? Is it relational? And so when we get To John chapter 5, there is a whole lot going on here into this morning. We're gonna do is we're gonna focus only on the details that are relevant to the question that Jesus asks. This invalid. And you shouldn't be surprised. With Jesus, the question is never just simply about the question. There are levels to this question that John is going to show us and we're gonna unpack them together. All right, John, chapter five, we're gonna start in verse two.
[00:03:13] Says now there is in Jerusalem, by the sheep gate, a pool. In Aramaic it's called Bethesda, which this pool, it has five roofed colonnades. And in these, the colonnades lay a multitude of invalids, blind, lame and paralyzed. So this pool, it's in Jerusalem, it's just outside of the temple. This pool, it's actually a set of two pools, a larger one that drains into the lower one. And they are bigger than Olympic sized pools. So I want you to get out of your brain this idea that it's like a swimming pool in someone's backyard, that these are large bodies of water. And we're almost certain by looking at the archeological evidence, by we, I mean people smarter than I, that this pool is what you would call a mikveh M I K V E h, which basically means this is a pool outside of the temple that the Jews would go to and they would ritually cleanse themselves before they went into the temple complex. And so the way this pool is structured, there are colonnades. This is basically places where you can go be under the shade. And under these colonnades, there was a large group of blind, lame and paralyzed people, men, women, that sat and they waited. And the question that needs to be answered, what is it about this pool and this place that the invalids are staying and waiting? Okay, so this is in la where you go get paid to be homeless. There's something about this place. Too soon. Okay, I wanna draw your attention to the page. I want you to look at this, the page of your digital or biblical Bible. Okay. Or your biblical Bible. No, the paper Bible. So if you have a Bible, I want you to look at it. And here's what I want you to look for. I want you to try and find in your Bible, in John, chapter 5, verse 4.
[00:05:07] Do you see it?
[00:05:08] Now? Some of you, like 10 minutes from now you're gonna start looking. So as you look, okay? For the most part, if you are reading the King James Version or the new King James Version, it's going to be in there. If you're reading the new American Standard B, it'll be probably in brackets. But if you are reading any other version of the Bible, it's going to be missing. And you're thinking, wait a minute, did the people who put the chapters and verses make a mistake? No, they didn't. Okay. If you're reading the King James Version or the new King James Version, let me explain to you what is going on here. At the end of verse three, there are some words added and all of verse four, I want to show you the words that, that these versions add. Okay, it goes like this. Verse three, talking about the blind, lame and paralyzed. They were waiting for the moving of the water.
[00:06:00] For an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool and stirred the water.
[00:06:07] Whoever stepped in first after the stirring of the water was healed of whatever disease he had. Now let me tell you why all of these words are omitted from almost every single modern translation of the Bible.
[00:06:23] The end of verse three and verse four are omitted because they were not a part of the original text. John himself wrote when he penned the Book of John.
[00:06:33] It was an addition, probably put in a thousand years later.
[00:06:40] But this addition, there are, I'll just say examples in the early church that this was a part of the tradition that surrounded this event. So as early as the second century, there were pastors who they believed because of Jewish tradition, that this is what happened. This is why the water was staring at the pool of Bethesda. But what we know with almost certainty, without a shadow of a doubt, is that when John penned the Book of John that we now call these words were not originally in there. And some of you might wonder why. I'm gonna give you hopefully less than a one minute description of what went on. This is a whole sermon that I'm hoping in January we're gonna do more on. But the King James Version, when it was originally written in the 17th century, the version most people use was in the 18th century.
[00:07:28] They did the absolute best that they could with the Greek New Testament manuscripts that they had.
[00:07:35] I wanna illustrate this. The King James Version, we call it the kjv, it used about eight available Greek manuscripts. Do you guys know that a lot has happened in archaeology over the last 400 years? 500 years?
[00:07:49] Now, your modern translations are using about 5700 cataloged Greek New Testament manuscripts.
[00:07:57] The, the King James. The Greek texts are mostly from the 10th through 15th century.
[00:08:03] Modern translations, the texts are as early as the second and fourth century. The King James Version translated only from limited printed Greek text. But the modern translations, they use everything from comparing thousands of Greek manuscripts, ancient versions, early citations, scribal patterns, early church fathers, and there is so much more that goes into this. Now here's what's wonderful.
[00:08:26] 98 to 99% of them are identical. And the 1 to 2% the discrepancies are inconsequential. They're grammatical for the most part. Every once in a while they'll add some things, but they are also inconsequential to major doctrine. It doesn't blow anything up. But I am really grateful that we live in a time where we have found literally thousands and thousands and thousands of Greek manuscripts to help us put together what we know is now they call it 101% of what the original authors wrote. Not 99%, 101%, because we know what they wrote with almost a shadow of a doubt and 99.9%. But we also have some extras that we're like, we think they weren't in there, but there are some questions. But even the extras, they don't ever challenge any major or minor doctrine of the Christian faith. Praise God. Why do I say all this? Well, one, it's fun to talk about. Two, you need to know three, because there is technically no biblical evidence that there was ever an angel that stirred the waters. So in a few verses, the invalid, he's going to give us a tiny bit more insight, but not much. And I don't know about you all, but I want to know what happened to the waters. I want to know what's going on. I want to know why all of these people aggregated here. All right, back to the actual text of scripture, John, chapter 5, verse 3. Here's what it says. In these the shaded colonnades lay a multitude of invalids, blind, lame and paralyzed.
[00:09:50] One man was there who had been an invalid for 38 years.
[00:09:57] Okay, so the text says nothing about an angel.
[00:10:00] And the text is a little irritating to me at times, tells us almost nothing about this invalid. What was his name? Was he born this way? What happened to him? Does he have a family? I mean, these are questions that are going to be left unanswered until we get to heaven. So verse six, it brings us to Jesus. I just think his perfect question.
[00:10:19] When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, do you want to be healed?
[00:10:34] And just the more you sit in this question, the deeper it gets.
[00:10:38] Do you want to be healed?
[00:10:43] There are three levels to this question in John 5, and here is the first. It's the most obvious level.
[00:10:49] Do you want to be healed physically?
[00:10:53] So in verse seven, the invalid responds to Jesus question, sir, he doesn't know who Jesus is. By the way, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred. And While I am going another steps down before me, I want you to notice two things. Number one, I want you to notice that something miraculous is happening. Or at the very least, people believe that something miraculous is happening.
[00:11:24] It may or may not be true. Could you guys just concede for a moment that a whole bunch of people think miraculous things are happening on tv, and they go to these large events and pay these faux pastors a whole lot of money because they think real things are actually happening, but they're actually not?
[00:11:38] So we can just conclude for a moment that it is not outside of the human experience to believe big things are happening and that we desire for them to happen so bad that we can be easily deluded into believing that they're happening. But we don't know. Maybe it is, maybe it's not. I want you to notice also that this invalid, he does not say yes. He does not say no. Do you want to be healed? If Jesus came to you right now and said, do you want to be healed? I think the intuitive response for most people is gonna BE, yes, absolutely, 100%. Bring it on. I'm ready. I'm done living with this problem, whatever it is.
[00:12:14] And it's kind of unclear. Is the guy giving an excuse?
[00:12:17] Is this, like, an actual reason? And part of me read this, and I was like, I'm sorry. For 38 years or however long you've been at this pool, like, not one time could you get any help from somebody who's gonna help you get in. But here's what I just want you to catch here. This man wanted to be healed physically. If he did not, he would not have been at this pool, like, every time the water apparently bubbles. This guy missed his moment. And we learn this kind of, like, we infer, but we see it pretty clearly.
[00:12:49] This man, this invalid, he wasn't just disabled physically.
[00:12:53] This man was isolated. He was dependent. He was disappointed.
[00:12:57] This man was unable to access the very help that he believed he needed in order to be healed.
[00:13:04] Verse 8. Jesus said to him, get up, take your bed and walk.
[00:13:08] And. And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and he walked. And here's what John wants everybody to know. Whoever reads this book, he wants everyone to know this. There is no sickness, physical or otherwise. Jesus cannot heal with a word. Amen. Village, church, Nothing. Nothing at all. And so many of you have begged and you've pleaded, intervene, intervene, intervene. And Jesus has either said no or not yet.
[00:13:34] The answer will never be no, forever. Because if you have trusted in Christ One day you're gonna get a new body and you will be healed. And what you're enduring now, the Bible will calls it a momentary affliction because this life is but a blip. But you know when you're asking Jesus, you're not asking him because you don't believe he's capable. I think for most Christians, our issue is not a matter of faith. Whether or not we believe he can, we know he can. Our question is, we why won't you?
[00:14:04] And so if Jesus can heal a physical invalid with a word, we already also know that he can also heal a spiritual invalid with just a word.
[00:14:13] We know that there is no part of your life that is off limits to Jesus that he looks at and says, that's too much for me to handle. I created the entire world with my words. But you, in your life, you're too big of an issue.
[00:14:28] If he wills, he is able.
[00:14:31] Now, here's the second level to Jesus question.
[00:14:35] Do you want to be healed spiritually?
[00:14:39] I want you to jump down with me to verse 14. I want you to watch this.
[00:14:43] It says, after Jesus found him in the temple, and what's this former invalid doing walking around? Would you guys do that also?
[00:14:50] And Jesus said to him, see, you are well.
[00:14:56] And then Jesus drops a bomb on him. Here's what he says.
[00:14:59] Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.
[00:15:09] Jesus finally tells us why this man was an invalid for 38 years.
[00:15:19] This man appears to be an invalid. He appears to be in this debacle because of some sin in his life that led him to this worse, terrible situation.
[00:15:34] Okay, so I can testify after pastoring for 26 years, and by the way, I think you just need to be a mom or a dad or a grandma and grandpa to be able to see what I'm about to tell you.
[00:15:45] Very few people are willing to accept that their current circumstances, their current issues, might be the result of their own sin.
[00:15:59] Okay, so have you ever asked Jesus to intervene to heal? The answer is for most of you, yes. Something in your life, and I need you to hear this, there is a very real responsibility that accompanies divine intervention and spiritual healing.
[00:16:20] If you are healed physically or spiritually, and you go back to that sin, to that relationship, to that addiction that broke you in the first place, you are asking for judgment on yourself.
[00:16:43] It's interesting.
[00:16:45] When the pastoral team and I sat down to study this text, we thought it was going to be a text about physical healing primarily.
[00:16:55] And then when we got into this text, we realized that this was actually about something far deeper than Jesus ability to physically heal somebody.
[00:17:04] This is about what this man would or would not do, what with the healing that Jesus gives him. So God has structured this world so that when you receive the good gift of healing and then you treat it like trash, the latter judgment will be worse than the original.
[00:17:22] And so before you ask God for healing, let me encourage you to ask a different question.
[00:17:29] Am I ready to steward the healing?
[00:17:36] Here's what's fascinating about this story.
[00:17:38] It's not about a guy who just had some bad luck, found himself in a hard time.
[00:17:44] This is about a guy who trashed his life and is living in the consequences of his sin. It's about a guy who wants a restart.
[00:17:55] And here's the question that we aren't able to answer.
[00:17:59] Will this former invalid steward his healing? Or will he find himself in a worse place than when he began?
[00:18:08] All right, so John, who wrote this, he seemed to be aware that some people might read this story and come to the following.
[00:18:18] My current physical disability must be the result of sin in my life, or maybe sin that my parents committed.
[00:18:29] And Jesus and John wanna make this very clear. So in John 9, there's another story of a healing. And the disciples ask, so is this man essentially unwell because of his own sin or because of his parents sin? And Jesus responds and says, oh, no, no, no, no, no.
[00:18:44] This guy's physical issue had nothing to do with his mom, his dad, or himself or his sin. And this is just part of the hard part of living in this world.
[00:18:51] Sometimes there are issues that we have, and it is a result of our own foolish behavior. And sometimes we live in a world where the issues that we have are because of something someone else did to us. Sometimes we live in this place and we're just like, why is this happening? And we have no idea. Sometimes Jesus allows us to be in certain situations where we need healing so that when he does heal us, he can show off his goodness and his power and his glory.
[00:19:19] But there are all different kinds of reasons. But what we're focusing on in this story is the situations where our own sin got us into a predicament. Because that is the issue that this guy seems to be dealing with. It brings us to the third level of Jesus question.
[00:19:35] If Jesus healed you today, are you willing to do the hard work of. Of staying healed? Look at these three word phrase in verse 14.
[00:19:48] Sin no more, sin no more. That nothing worse may happen to you. So everybody wants healing. Everybody wants healing. But very few people are willing to live healthy.
[00:20:03] So if you don't take care of your soul before the healing, why should God conclude that you'll take care of your soul after the healing if you don't take care of that relationship before the healing? So why would God conclude that you're going to take care of that relationship after the healing?
[00:20:21] If you don't take care of your body before the healing, then what makes God think that you're going to take care of your body after the healing?
[00:20:31] So many of us are begging God to heal that which we refuse to repent of.
[00:20:38] And even if he did heal it, you're gonna be right back to where you started because you refused to repent.
[00:20:44] That's a hard work. Believe me. Like pastorally, I have learned you don't sit down with somebody and say you dug your own grave and threw yourself into it.
[00:20:53] Most people who have done that don't hear that well. All I can do is ask you, maybe even today, maybe in the future, you might have to step back and say, maybe the chaos around me is my own fault. Maybe the relational chaos, maybe the emotional chaos, maybe the mental chaos, and for some, maybe the physical chaos. Because of your early sin, you are now reaping what you have sowed. And here's the deal. Would the Lord love to forgive and transform you? Absolutely. But my guess is the reason the Lord doesn't intervene most of the times we ask is because he knows we have no intention of repenting of the very thing that got us in the mess in the first place.
[00:21:28] Now, some of you are thinking, amen. Because people are going through your head. I want you to stop thinking about other people. I just want you to look into your own heart for a moment. I'm sure you're aware of the stories of people who won the lottery. They squander it, they file for bankruptcy. We all ask ourselves, how do you receive $100 million and squander it? You guys know those stories.
[00:21:48] There's a different study, and the study is entitled the Ticket to Easy the Financial Consequences of Winning the Lottery. And so what they did is they studied Florida lottery winners and they connected them to bankruptcy records. And I want to read to you their finding.
[00:22:04] People who were on the verge of bankruptcy and won 50 to $150,000. That was the range, by and large, did not change their spending habits, and the winnings did not prevent bankruptcy. Their winnings just postponed bankruptcy. Let me summarize it like this. A windfall can interrupt the consequences for a while, but a windfall cannot redeem a life pattern. Let me, Let me apply this to us. Healing can interrupt your discomfort for a while, but it cannot redeem a life pattern.
[00:22:43] Jesus is giving this man a windfall. And here's the question, is he going to squander it?
[00:22:48] And here's what Jesus knows. Unless this man gets his inner life right, he'll end up right where he started. But worse.
[00:22:55] And something most of them consider is that sometimes healing someone can actually bring a greater curse on them. We all look at Jesus and get mad sometimes. Why don't you intervene more? What if the most gracious thing that Jesus could do would be to not intervene and bring about a greater curse on someone's life?
[00:23:18] This is not the message we expected to give when we studied this, but this is the message that arose from this guy. I would love to have a message where it's just like, ah, let's all get healed physically, right? But that's. This message brought us in such a different, different direction than we expected and required deep levels of introspection from each one of us. I want to share with you 3. So what's number one?
[00:23:40] Saying yes to the very real healing power of Jesus is risky.
[00:23:46] Not that I haven't already said some hard things, but could I just say some more hard things before we get to some of the fun things?
[00:23:53] Even if Jesus healed, the problem you're facing most will not pursue the deeper spiritual healing. You need to sustain it for one big reason.
[00:24:04] The health you desire spiritually, relationally, physically, emotionally, mentally requires an extraordinary amount of discipline, hard work, humility, and submission to Jesus. And here's the word that trips people up indefinitely to keep it.
[00:24:21] Have you guys ever noticed that it's really hard to be healthy relationally, physically, spiritually?
[00:24:30] Like when you look at somebody who has some semblance of health, that didn't happen by accident. Unhealth is the default.
[00:24:39] Health happens on purpose.
[00:24:42] And so here's what we find.
[00:24:45] We want Jesus to heal the unhealthy parts of us, but we're not willing to steward and to sustain it. Now, I want you to be clear. No one's ever going to be perfect. Amen.
[00:24:56] You're going to have seasons, you're going to have lows, you're going to have hardships. It's going to be unbelievably challenging. In a world, in a fallen world with fleshly bodies, this is a fight.
[00:25:07] But some people, they trend up into the right because they pursue discipline and humility and submission to Jesus, nobody will ever do this perfectly. But one of the things I just, I love to give people is not just this vision of, like, here's the perfect you that you could be. That's not gonna happen till heaven. What Jesus wants to do into your life is intentional. It is up and to the right. It is often very slow. And it is a healing transformation that happens from the inside out. But I'm gonna ask you some questions, and I want you to be honest with yourself.
[00:25:41] If Jesus healed you today, would you daily take care of your healed body?
[00:25:49] And I think for many people, the answer is absolutely like the experience you had. You're like, I don't ever want to go through this again. I will change.
[00:25:58] If Jesus healed that broken relationship today, would you own your fault?
[00:26:05] If Jesus healed that broken relationship today, would you forgive them and set them free?
[00:26:11] If Jesus changed your husband or wife today, would you give them a full restart?
[00:26:19] If Jesus healed your emotions today, would you fight to control the mental lies that you were tempted to believe?
[00:26:29] Let's just offend everybody, okay? If Jesus healed your money today, paid off all your debt and gave you more than you needed, would you be crazy generous?
[00:26:40] Would you tithe 10% or more? Would you bless freely? Would you save? Would you change your spending habits? I wanna give you nine reasons not to pursue Jesus healing. We're gonna fly through these, okay? And I hope you hear a little bit, tiny bit of sarcasm in this.
[00:26:56] Nine reasons not to pursue Jesus healing. Number one, you'll probably lose old friends and possibly family when you get the healing someone else desired. Jealousy and bitterness are inevitable. Relationships will end.
[00:27:10] Just wait, watch it happen over and over again. Number two, unkind criticism will increase when you start to heal as a person unwell. People are threatened by it because you now represent what they know God wants to do in their life.
[00:27:28] Number three, flesh battles will increase. You should know this as a default. But do you know that your flesh hates everything healthy? It like, resists all of it. So if you're going to pursue anything, healthy relationship with God, physically, emotionally, spiritually, mentally, doesn't matter. Like, the flesh is going to push back. It hates health. Demonic temptations will increase. I think the only entity in this world that hates you pursuing the healing power of Jesus in every aspect of your life are demons. Because every time a Christian begins to to heal, it is a living testimony to everyone of the power of Jesus Christ. They are in the business of sabotaging healing. They're in the business of keeping Christians trapped in a jail that is actually just unlocked.
[00:28:12] Number Five. You'll need to admit that you were doing life wrong.
[00:28:18] Every once in a while I pick on the older men. And the reason I do this is because do you know who the people who are the least to repent in this world? It's men over 40. Do you know why they're the most difficult to come to faith in Jesus Christ?
[00:28:32] It is because men don't like being wrong. Amen. Dudes, we really want you to look up to us and to respect us and to think highly of us. But if I come to Christ at 50 or 60 or 70 years old, here's what I'm admitting, and this is really hard. I'm admitting that I was wrong the whole time. On the most important questions.
[00:28:50] I'm admitting that I was doing it all in my own power and I did not have the power of God resident in me. It takes a profound amount of humility for an older man to come to Christ. Which is why God almost always has to crush them into pieces before they come to Christ. If you're an older dude and you're here, you haven't trusted in Christ. Don't play the game.
[00:29:09] Repent and come to Jesus before he has to break you.
[00:29:12] Because this is what most older men require.
[00:29:16] Number six. You'll need to change your life. You'll need to end or boundary unhealthy relationships. End old hangout places, expose your secrets.
[00:29:25] Ugly things grow in the dark. So we gotta shine light on the ugly. 7. You'll have to change your relationship with your phone. Oh no. I can't believe you said that. We were Ryan shared with you earlier. We were in Mexico. And so do you know what happened every time our students were uncomfortable, they went to their phone and they started doom scrolling.
[00:29:45] And so what we did is we took their phones away. You know what happened when we took their phone away?
[00:29:49] They were forced to face whatever was in front of them. It was really interesting. Like we would sit at dinner and the kids weren't supposed to have their phones out. And all of a sudden the adults would look over like why are they all on their phones? And they would not be talking. And then we would take their phones away. You know what they started doing?
[00:30:03] Playing, talking. Going deep.
[00:30:07] How many issues have gone unaddressed because rather than facing them, we doom scrolled.
[00:30:12] For so many of our sin struggles, it requires a brand new relationship to our phone number. 8. You will need to make right what you've made wrong. The habits that got you here. You're gonna have to repent the Patterns that broke your body, you're gonna have to repent. The patterns that broke your relationships, you're gonna have to repent. The patterns that formed your broken thought patterns, you're gonna have to repent. Are you guys getting why most people will not pursue actually healing?
[00:30:35] You want divine healing, you want God to intervene and give you like an acceleration.
[00:30:41] But what is required of healing is stewardship.
[00:30:46] Finally, number nine, some of you will have to start doing healthy things.
[00:30:50] This is interesting. I don't know if you consider this, but do you know what? This guy who's been an invalid for 38 years is going to have to start doing work.
[00:30:58] Talk about a life change. You've been working for 38 years and now you have to learn how to work. He's going to have to learn how to do things differently. And this is what's interesting, is that when you experience healing, there is a responsibility to steward it. Well, I want to skip to my third. So what? Because we're going to run out of time.
[00:31:23] If you want the greatest chance of healing, steward now that which you want God to heal.
[00:31:30] So most people, when they read the Bible, they think that God is healing all the time, which is actually not true.
[00:31:38] Healings in the Bible, they come in batches.
[00:31:42] So what you find is around Moses and the time of the Exodus, tons of miracles. What you find is the time of Jesus, earthly ministry, tons of miracles, the apostolic era, tons of miracles. And so the batches are in major significant moments of theological history.
[00:32:01] The vast majority of history, the vast majority of the scriptures that are written healings are not happening. They come in historic batches. And at the end of the apostolic era, God heals all the time and he does incredible things. But we don't see is this level of batch healing over the last 2000 years like we saw in the ministry of Jesus and in the ministry of the apostles.
[00:32:25] And so here's just my own personal experience with this. I have to date, I've prayed for it. I've been in a lot of rooms, I've been to a lot of conferences, I've been to a lot of places. And I have never seen God heal someone physically like he did this invalid.
[00:32:40] I have seen God transform life after life after life from the inside out. I have seen the power of Jesus at work in relationships. I've seen Jesus at power, the power of Jesus at work in people's souls and addictions and overcoming. I've seen the power of Jesus unbelievably at work in so many lives. There Are people that like the people I know now are not the people they were when I met them. And there is no reason for the radical transformation except for the power of Jesus. And do you know who they all give credit to? Jesus. No behavior modification, no amount of therapy could ever produce in these people what is happening. It is the power of Jesus to absolutely transform a person.
[00:33:25] I want to bring this home. I'm going to bring this home for the Christian and then for the non Christian.
[00:33:29] First for the Christian, if you want the gift of divine intervention, it's not lost on me, and I hope it's not lost on you, that God requires repentance non Christians before he heals them spiritually.
[00:33:52] And yet for us, we don't apply the same rule to ourselves.
[00:33:57] What if the divine healing you want comes after the repentance?
[00:34:03] What if in the same way that God would look at a non Christian and say, if you will believe in Jesus Christ and you will confess him as your God and Savior and repent of your sins and I will not just save you and forgive you, but I will begin the process of healing you and give you the power of the Holy Spirit. Like the healing comes after the repentance.
[00:34:23] And so for most Christians, we get this entitlement mentality like you owe me. And I'm like, what if God doesn't owe you?
[00:34:29] What if the same rule applies for Christians that the healing you want comes on the back end of you repenting?
[00:34:37] What if God is waiting for you to steward the healing you want before he gives you the level of divine intervention that you are begging him for?
[00:34:46] For the non Christian, I get it.
[00:34:49] You like, if you had a list of things and you'd be like, here are all the things I would like your intervention on and I would like you to heal stat.
[00:34:56] Here's the challenge when non Christians think about healing is they want the power of God without the proximity of Jesus in their life.
[00:35:05] And that's not how it works.
[00:35:09] If God heals you of any problem or infirmity that you have, let me tell you why he's doing it. He's doing it because he wants a relationship with you and he is trying to draw you to faith in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, that is why he's doing it. That is the only reason he will do it. It is to push you toward a real relationship with Him.
[00:35:33] But the vast amount of healing that you want non Christian in your life, Jesus reserves for those who are in a relationship with him. I don't know About y', all, do you like being used? I don't.
[00:35:47] Somebody wants your resources, but they don't want relationship with you. They just call you only when they need to. I don't want that. And yet we do this with God. We're like, God, you owe me. No, God doesn't. God doesn't owe anybody anything.
[00:35:59] And so here's what we find. That God is going to be more inclined to intervene in miraculous ways in your life when you are already in a relationship with him. Because more than the power, you want proximity to Jesus.
[00:36:13] And here's the thing, all the stuff you want in this world, spiritual life, health, hope, forgiveness, all of it, hinges not on getting that problem in your life fixed, but on a relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ.
[00:36:28] And I just have awesome news for you. God wants to be in a relationship with you. His hand is extended. He will offer you forgiveness today if you will ask him for it and believe in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. And if you're here, I just want to ask you, are you willing to do that today?
[00:36:43] Are you willing to come to him and say, you know what?
[00:36:46] You are the source of all good, powerful, amazing, beautiful things in this world. And I don't just want what you're capable of. I want you. And God is willing to be your God. He is willing to forgive you if you will ask him. In Jesus name. Amen. Village church. Amen. Not the message we thought was gonna come out of do you wanna be healed?
[00:37:05] But I think it might be the message that I needed and that all of us needed. Amen. Amen. Let's pray. Father, we love you.
[00:37:11] I am so thankful that salvation and keeping salvation is not by good works. We are saved by grace through faith. And Lord, when we get to heaven, not one of us are gonna look at you and say, we, we kept our salvation because we were faithful.
[00:37:27] Lord, when you save us, you save us once for all and forever, thoroughly and totally. And at the same time, God, in this life, we have the power to make a lot of mistakes and to make a mess of our life.
[00:37:38] Lord, some of us are in messes.
[00:37:40] I thank you that the messes don't invalidate what you have objectively done in our life. One day we're all going to get 100% complete and total healing. I cannot wait for the resurrection body, the new earth, and all the stuff that you're gonna give us there, mentally, emotionally. We're gonna just see everything with absolute clarity. All the accusations towards you and the hurt relationships you're gonna just resolve all of those things in a moment. I can't wait. But until that day, God, we do. We just confess that we approach you with a spirit of entitlement. We don't wanna do that. We want you, we wanna be in relationship with you. We want your power to be working in our hearts. We want transformation that is real and long lasting. And we just. We confess that that comes through Jesus.
[00:38:23] And so, God, we thank you that you, no matter what mess we've made in our life, Lord, that you can look at us and say, sin no more. And Lord, you are the God of second chances and third chances and hundred chances. Thank you for that, Lord. If there's anybody in this room who's never trusted in Christ, I pray God you would show them not just your power, but your goodness. That they wouldn't just want your resources, but they would want you, God, that you would give them faith.
[00:38:45] Lord, it is our joy and our privilege to respond now to your miraculous spiritual healing. And in our life, and those who've trusted in Christ through communion, we love you and we thank you and we pray all this in Jesus name, Amen. Amen.
