Speaker 1: This week. God gave me something just for the stuck ones,
Speaker 1: just for the stuck ones. So if you've been freely
Speaker 1: roaming about with no obstructions, there's nothing in your life
Speaker 1: that's holding you down, chaining you to something that has
Speaker 1: been in your life for the last eight years, you
Speaker 1: can probably more valuably use this time than to listen
Speaker 1: to me preach. But for the people that God gave
Speaker 1: me this message for today, I'm excited to share it
Speaker 1: with you. In John chapter five, there is a story
Speaker 1: about a man who was stuck, and I want you
Speaker 1: to stand on your feet for just a moment. Welcome
Speaker 1: to our evam all over the world. Please let me
Speaker 1: know before before I read my scripture, where are you
Speaker 1: joining from? And if you why don't if you're in
Speaker 1: the room, so that this is less awkward, just tell
Speaker 1: the person next to you what brought you here today?
Speaker 1: Why did you come today? What's the what was the
Speaker 1: reason for your being here? Mom made you. Tiffany gets
Speaker 1: paid to be here. She doesn't want to get fired.
Speaker 1: But look all over the world, y'all, I just want
Speaker 1: to point out to you this ministry is reaching way,
Speaker 1: way beyond what we can see. I mean all the
Speaker 1: way from Fayetteville, North Carolina, right next to India, just
Speaker 1: side by side on my comments California, Mississippi, Kenya, Tampa, Florida.
Speaker 1: Happy anniversary, Orlando as well to your anniversary for Orlando today.
Speaker 1: Make some noise, lake Worth, Florida. Chunks you know that,
Speaker 1: Central Florida, Czech Republic, South Africa, Cosamel, Indonesia, Lebanon, Philippines, London, Brazil, Mexico.
Speaker 1: What I miss, Sheller laughing? What oh, you came from Jersey.
Speaker 1: Good to have you. We hope, we hope, we hope,
Speaker 1: we hope. We're praying that we can be in Jersey
Speaker 1: for our Elevation Night's tour coming up that we're going
Speaker 1: to announce in the next So you didn't even have
Speaker 1: to come. We were coming for you, but you couldn't wait,
Speaker 1: could you. You had to get here to the house.
Speaker 1: All right? Are you visiting somebody or you just came
Speaker 1: for this, Then it doesn't count. We're just like a
Speaker 1: little layover. Okay, Okay, God's gonna bless you anyway. Let's
Speaker 1: give it up for Jersey somebody. I am not stalling.
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to slow my brain down for a
Speaker 1: minute because the Lord has me fired up, and I
Speaker 1: don't want to unload on you too much too soon,
Speaker 1: So I'm just trying to acclimate John chapter five. Sometime later,
Speaker 1: Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals.
Speaker 1: Now there is in Jerusalem, near the Sheepgate, a pool
Speaker 1: which in Aramaic is called Bethesda, and which is surrounded
Speaker 1: by five covered colonnades porches. Here a great number of
Speaker 1: disabled people used to lie. Now used to lie? Is
Speaker 1: putting it in past tense that the situation is going
Speaker 1: to change, is putting it in past tense that the
Speaker 1: situation is going to change. Here, a great number of
Speaker 1: disabled people used to lie. The blind, the lame, the paralyzed.
Speaker 1: One was there who had been an invalid for thirty
Speaker 1: eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned
Speaker 1: that he had been in this condition for a long time,
Speaker 1: he asked him, do you want to get well? Hey? Man?
Speaker 1: You want some of this? Hey? You want to get well? Sir?
Speaker 1: The invalid replied, I have no one to help me
Speaker 1: into the pool. When the water is stirred. While I'm
Speaker 1: trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.
Speaker 1: Then Jesus said to him, get up, pick up your mat,
Speaker 1: and walk. At once, thirty eight years of paralysis was reversed.
Speaker 1: At once the man was secured, he picked up his
Speaker 1: mat and walked. The day on which this took place
Speaker 1: was a sabbath, and so the Jewish leader said to
Speaker 1: the man who had been healed, it is the sabbath.
Speaker 1: The law forbids you to carry your mat. But he replied,
Speaker 1: the man who made me well told me pick up
Speaker 1: your mat and walk. I hear what you're telling me.
Speaker 1: But I've been hanging out here thirty eight years and
Speaker 1: you never made me walk. He fixed me in one sentence.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do what he said. Do. I appreciate the advice.
Speaker 1: I appreciate your regulation. I appreciate your custom. But the
Speaker 1: man who made me well said to me, pick up
Speaker 1: your mat and walk. So they asked him, who is
Speaker 1: this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk.
Speaker 1: The man who was healed had no idea who it was,
Speaker 1: for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there. Later,
Speaker 1: Jesus found him at the temple and said to him,
Speaker 1: see you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse.
Speaker 1: May happen to you. Now. The man went away and
Speaker 1: told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: need you to say that out loud. It was Jesus
Speaker 1: put that in the chat. Say it out loud. It
Speaker 1: was Jesus who had made him well. Today. The Lord
Speaker 1: told me to talk to you about the X factor,
Speaker 1: the X factor. Bless your word, Father in Jesus' name, Amen,
Speaker 1: touch somebody on your way down and say you got
Speaker 1: it the X factor. You know what I mean, X factor.
Speaker 1: Simon Cowell is in here. Don't worry a noteworthy special
Speaker 1: talent or quality. That's what the X factor means. They
Speaker 1: just got it. They just got something or a variable
Speaker 1: in a given situation that could have the most significant
Speaker 1: impact on the outcome. That's what I talked about today,
Speaker 1: the X factor. It's what Holly saw in me. They
Speaker 1: standing across that college cafeteria with a triple X Superman shirt.
Speaker 1: She saw beneath that Superman shirt, she saw the super
Speaker 1: She saw super Steve. Yo. Really are tough to talk
Speaker 1: to sometimes and trying to introduce the topic of the
Speaker 1: X factor. You know what I'm talking about, like, and
Speaker 1: there's just something that they have and you've been around
Speaker 1: someone like that. If the first person you think of
Speaker 1: when I say someone who's just got it like that
Speaker 1: is you. Most of people that I know that really
Speaker 1: have something special, it is the most difficult for them
Speaker 1: to see the distinctives that make them uniquely powerful. I
Speaker 1: was coaching Tim the other day. He did a sermon
Speaker 1: for our youth and it was really good. And I
Speaker 1: gave him this thing. I said, you did this, and
Speaker 1: you did that and you did that and that was good.
Speaker 1: And that's stuff I can't even teach. So what you
Speaker 1: were so good at is stuff that I couldn't teach
Speaker 1: you if I tried. So that's not what I want
Speaker 1: to talk to you about because you already got that.
Speaker 1: So I want to talk to you about what I
Speaker 1: saw where there is potential. Tim is this growth. He's
Speaker 1: a growth minded individual. He is he's driven. So he
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I hear what you're saying.
Speaker 1: I did good? What can I do better? And I
Speaker 1: was like that that right there, that thing in you
Speaker 1: that makes you want to know what did you see
Speaker 1: that I could do better? And not just keep telling
Speaker 1: me the stuff that I did really good? That right
Speaker 1: there makes me think that you have only just begun
Speaker 1: to see what God is going to do through you,
Speaker 1: because you've got it. You got it, You got it,
Speaker 1: you got it, you got it. Especially how God looks
Speaker 1: for people to bless, he looks for need, He looks
Speaker 1: for need. It's proven in the scripture that I just
Speaker 1: read you. But you may not have noticed because the
Speaker 1: exciting part of the text is where the man gets
Speaker 1: up and is cured. The part of the text that's
Speaker 1: really explicit about what made this man a candidate for
Speaker 1: a miracle is the part that, to be honest with you,
Speaker 1: it's it's a list that the writer starts where he
Speaker 1: says that Jesus was at the pool where the blind,
Speaker 1: the lane, and the paralyzed used to lie. The blind,
Speaker 1: the lane, the paralyzed. Now the list could go on
Speaker 1: and on, because we're going to push the scripture today
Speaker 1: not just to talk about physical conditions that God can heal,
Speaker 1: although God has the ability to do that. I want
Speaker 1: to extend this list to say that Jesus is on
Speaker 1: the porch for any problem that you have that is
Speaker 1: paralyzing you in this season of your life. I set
Speaker 1: it five minutes ago, and I'll say it five minutes
Speaker 1: from now. This is for the stuck ones, the lane,
Speaker 1: the blind. You're stuck without your side, You're dependent on
Speaker 1: somebody else without your sight. You're stuck without the function
Speaker 1: of your limbs. You're dependent on where someone can carry you.
Speaker 1: You are stuck without your emotional capacity, where anxiety wrestles
Speaker 1: you into a ball and pins you to the mat
Speaker 1: and dares you to move. I've had seasons of my
Speaker 1: life where resent me resentment put me in a rear
Speaker 1: naked choke. Do you ever watch Mma? Sometimes I watch
Speaker 1: this violent stuff just get it out of my system
Speaker 1: so I don't swing on anybody in real life. And
Speaker 1: I'll watch him choke somebody out, and I'm like, I've
Speaker 1: been in that position before, not with somebody else choking me,
Speaker 1: choking myself, cutting off my own air supply, cutting off
Speaker 1: my own ability to receive the oxygen of the word
Speaker 1: that God is speaking. Jesus looks for need, even in
Speaker 1: picking his disciples. He did it in a really weird way,
Speaker 1: because to change the world you need somebody. You need
Speaker 1: to pick somebody who's got it. Because Jesus had it,
Speaker 1: but he wasn't going to be here to finish it.
Speaker 1: So when he was recruiting his disciples, he probably should
Speaker 1: have picked somebody better than ex fisherman, an ex tax collector.
Speaker 1: You're with me now, he started walking around to pick
Speaker 1: people and his ex factor, Heaven's X factor is not
Speaker 1: dependent on talent, height, ability, charisma. That's not how that's
Speaker 1: not how God chooses who to use. I'll prove it
Speaker 1: to you. There is a very small chance that anybody
Speaker 1: by the pool that day was in worse shape for
Speaker 1: longer than this man. Jesus said that one. So you're
Speaker 1: advising Jesus, right, you tell him something like this, we
Speaker 1: probably should start if you want to heal people out
Speaker 1: here with somebody who's only been this way a little while.
Speaker 1: And Jesus is like, the problem with that is if
Speaker 1: they've only been that way a little while, they will
Speaker 1: think that they got over it. Okay, Jesus, let's pick
Speaker 1: somebody to heal if you want to heal somebody. Because
Speaker 1: John's gospel is not really about healing, It's about belief.
Speaker 1: That's what he said at the end of his gospel.
Speaker 1: Matthew Mark Luke and John John tells you why he
Speaker 1: wrote his gospel. In John twenty thirty, he said these
Speaker 1: things were written that you may believe that Jesus is
Speaker 1: the Messiah, and by believing, have life in his name.
Speaker 1: So the healing in this chapter is not the meaning
Speaker 1: of this chapter. The healing is a means to an
Speaker 1: end so that Jesus can confront unbelief. In fact that
Speaker 1: it even says in the passage that it was one
Speaker 1: of the festivals for Jesus, and in the original language,
Speaker 1: all it says the festival, the definite article, the festival.
Speaker 1: That makes me think it was passover, which makes me
Speaker 1: think it was a year after Jesus heals the royal
Speaker 1: centurion Son in John chapter four, which is amazing because
Speaker 1: John is skipping a whole year because he's not trying
Speaker 1: to show us chronologically what Jesus did. There's a theme
Speaker 1: that he's taking, and the theme is this, anywhere there
Speaker 1: is unbelief, Jesus stands to confront it. That is true
Speaker 1: in your life. So where will God show up the
Speaker 1: most in your life? The area where you have the
Speaker 1: hardest time believing? That place, that place, the porch, the
Speaker 1: porch by the sheep gate with the people who are paralyzed.
Speaker 1: Why wouldn't you hurry to the temple to the pulpit
Speaker 1: to preach the word of God and redeem the world.
Speaker 1: But Jesus is on the porch. Jesus is on your
Speaker 1: porch today. Jesus doesn't stand in this pulpit waiting for
Speaker 1: you to get to church. You think God is waiting
Speaker 1: for you to get here to speak to you. He's
Speaker 1: been talking to you all week through your trouble. He's
Speaker 1: been talking to you all week through traffic. And y'all,
Speaker 1: Holly preach so good last week. I got to brag
Speaker 1: on my wife for a minute. She has got it,
Speaker 1: you got it. She told me I'm not a preacher.
Speaker 1: Don't put me out there. I'll support you. She told
Speaker 1: me that years and years ago. Ha ha ha ha.
Speaker 1: But I learned how to tricker into preacher. I really
Speaker 1: think the reason she preached so good last week was
Speaker 1: because of me. I do not only did I see
Speaker 1: that gift in her long ago and nurtured it in her,
Speaker 1: which I want to take the credit right now. Okay,
Speaker 1: so y'all let me do this. I have this, can
Speaker 1: I have this one? But before she came up to
Speaker 1: preach jail last week, she was so nervous and I
Speaker 1: could sense it. She said, I need you to pray
Speaker 1: for me, and I said okay, and I prayed for it.
Speaker 1: And she was still nervous, and I thought of an idea.
Speaker 1: I started criticizing myself to her. I start saying bad
Speaker 1: stuff about myself, not crazy bad stuff, just a little bad.
Speaker 1: And this woman defends me. So she went into a
Speaker 1: different gear. That wasn't nervous, little Holly she went into.
Speaker 1: She went into another mode. Oh no, if you ever
Speaker 1: saw Spider Man, I don't know if you ever saw Clark.
Speaker 1: Can't go into a phone book. But when Holly heard
Speaker 1: me saying bad things about myself, she grew seven inches taller.
Speaker 1: I watched it happen right before me, and she looked
Speaker 1: in my eyes and she said, don't you say that
Speaker 1: about yourself. I will not. I said, let's go. You're
Speaker 1: ready to preach now, true story, true story. I say,
Speaker 1: you're ready, Now, you're ready. Now. I needed to switch
Speaker 1: her energy. I said, you need to be a little
Speaker 1: you need to be a little feisty when you go
Speaker 1: out there to preach faith to the people. You need
Speaker 1: to have a little bit of Don't you let the
Speaker 1: devil tell you that stuff. Don't you let the enemy
Speaker 1: talk you out of what God gave you. You need
Speaker 1: a little bit of that to do what you've got
Speaker 1: to do. So I awakened her inner preacher, and I
Speaker 1: think the results speak for themselves good. It's a principle
Speaker 1: of provocation. I had to provoke what was inside of
Speaker 1: her so she wouldn't be so focused on what was
Speaker 1: around her X factor. I had to get her to
Speaker 1: start accessing what she had on the inside so she
Speaker 1: wasn't thinking about what she was going to be facing
Speaker 1: on the outside. If you still think I'm talking about
Speaker 1: Holly preaching, you are not paying attention. I am talking
Speaker 1: about you. And when I said the blind lame, the paralyzed.
Speaker 1: I could have kept going listing things that exist in
Speaker 1: this room and all around the world through our ethm.
Speaker 1: I could have started listing mental conditions. I could have
Speaker 1: started listing emotional conditions, financial, relational I could have started
Speaker 1: listing tensions that you didn't even know that were mentionable
Speaker 1: in church, but they are. And the prerequisite that Jesus
Speaker 1: had for who he wanted to heal was who had
Speaker 1: given up on ever getting better. So I'm thinking he's
Speaker 1: walking around this room right now and he's looking for
Speaker 1: who has the X factor, Who is the one who
Speaker 1: knows that I need God in this place, on the porch,
Speaker 1: on the porch where the disabled used to lie. We
Speaker 1: don't have time to stop by the porch, Jesus. We've
Speaker 1: got to get to the Passover feast. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: Jesus wasn't going to pass over the porch to get
Speaker 1: to the Passover festival. And he listen to me, Listen
Speaker 1: to me. He is not going to walk past you
Speaker 1: to bless somebody who is better than you today either.
Speaker 1: He is not going to pass by you to bless
Speaker 1: somebody who said their prayers every day this week. He
Speaker 1: is not going to pass by you to bless somebody
Speaker 1: who never did what you did. He is not gonna
Speaker 1: walk by you to bless somebody who has Philippians memorized.
Speaker 1: He is not going to walk by you to pass
Speaker 1: somebody that wore a Christian T shirt to church. He
Speaker 1: is not going to pass by you. He is not
Speaker 1: going to pass by you. Bye. This is where you
Speaker 1: know the sermon is going to take a turn. The
Speaker 1: devil will do everything in his power to keep you
Speaker 1: from realizing the resource that is right in front of you.
Speaker 1: We talked at the beginning of the year about this
Speaker 1: popular phrase my truth, your truth, my truth, and your truth.
Speaker 1: Because we live in a world that worshiped personal experience.
Speaker 1: Y'all like to take notes, put down experience in your notes.
Speaker 1: While we're talking about the X factor, I was laughing
Speaker 1: how Jesus gave this man a true or false question
Speaker 1: and the man answered with an essay. Jesus said, do
Speaker 1: you want to get well? That's just yes or no.
Speaker 1: Just check the box. Want to get well, yes or no,
Speaker 1: that's all he asked. The man starts doing a fill
Speaker 1: in the blank exercise. Sir, I have no one to
Speaker 1: help me into the pool. When the water is stirred.
Speaker 1: While I'm trying to get in, someone else goes down
Speaker 1: ahead of me. He's practiced this crap, y'all. He's practiced this.
Speaker 1: To explain, write that down, explain, to explain, and what
Speaker 1: I want you to realize about your life and where
Speaker 1: you're at and that you're stuck in and what you're
Speaker 1: stuck with and who you're stuck with. Okay, it would
Speaker 1: be a horrible time to look at the person you
Speaker 1: came to church with that time. He don't do it.
Speaker 1: Don't do it. Don't do it, don't do it, don't
Speaker 1: do what I want you to realize about that is
Speaker 1: one of the most important things about your life is
Speaker 1: not what you experience, but how you explain what you experience,
Speaker 1: not to others but to your self. How many optimists
Speaker 1: do we have in the room? Optimist, raise your hand, Optimist,
Speaker 1: raise your hand. I want to raise my hand with you,
Speaker 1: but I fall into a different category. I'm not a pessimist.
Speaker 1: I'm not a pessimist. I'm not a pessimist because I
Speaker 1: refuse to label myself as a pessimist. I refuse to
Speaker 1: stand up here and identify myself with people who know
Speaker 1: nothing more than to say how Tom Brady could play better,
Speaker 1: but they can't throw a football. I will not be
Speaker 1: that fat guy eating popcorn talking to somebody in good
Speaker 1: shape about you should have caught that. I will not
Speaker 1: be Pessimism is easy, that's easy, that's natural. I used
Speaker 1: to say, Oh, I'm a pessimist. I'm hard on myself. No, actually,
Speaker 1: I was easy on myself because it was natural for
Speaker 1: me to be negative. So when I was hard on myself,
Speaker 1: beating up on myself, that was just me obeying the
Speaker 1: law of the south, vound gravitational pull of my sticking
Speaker 1: rotten flesh, and not being renewed by the pattern of
Speaker 1: my mind. All the ex pessimists make some noise, y'all
Speaker 1: feel me. I'm an ex pest I am a recovering pessimist.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm a recovering fessimist. I'm an ex pessimist. That's
Speaker 1: what I am. I found out. They even wrote a
Speaker 1: book about it, called Learned Optimism. I'm like, I didn't
Speaker 1: know that was a skill. I thought that was a personality. Well,
Speaker 1: I found out that the way I explain my life
Speaker 1: to myself is the X factor that determines whether I
Speaker 1: stay stuck or move forward. Jesus, in our terms, is
Speaker 1: called a wonderful counselor mighty God, everlasting father. Yet he
Speaker 1: breaks every rule of counseling that I've ever heard in
Speaker 1: my life. He asked a man who can't move, do
Speaker 1: you want to get well? Which, at the very least,
Speaker 1: at the very least is awkward. At the worst, it's cruel.
Speaker 1: You think I'm down here because I want to be
Speaker 1: down here. You think I wanted to grow up in
Speaker 1: that home environment. You think I'm here because I want
Speaker 1: to be here. You think I chose this role. And
Speaker 1: immediately he begins to explain, sir, the reason I'm here
Speaker 1: is because somebody gets in the way. Every time I
Speaker 1: try to get to the water where the healing is,
Speaker 1: somebody gets in the way. That's why I can't get there.
Speaker 1: So the Lord said to tell you your why is
Speaker 1: getting in your way every time I try. Every time
Speaker 1: I try, I do it for a little while and
Speaker 1: someone stops me. I do it for a little while,
Speaker 1: I get triggered. I do it for a little while,
Speaker 1: life happens. I do it for any progress you make
Speaker 1: can feel like this right, And so then they call
Speaker 1: it learned helplessness. That's a psychological term. It means that
Speaker 1: you come to this point where you're like, why even try?
Speaker 1: Why even try? If every time I'm going to try,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna end up just getting blocked. I believe I'm
Speaker 1: preaching somebody today who got blocked so many times, got
Speaker 1: blocked so many times, got blocked by people, got blocked
Speaker 1: by problems, got blocked by diagnosises, got blocked by things
Speaker 1: that were beyond your control. And the thing about the
Speaker 1: time we're living in we all have a universal snow
Speaker 1: day that we keep referring to called the pandemic, that
Speaker 1: has become a blanket excuse for why none of us
Speaker 1: are ever going to accomplish anything. Again, y'all don't like
Speaker 1: me today. The Lord likes this message. He told me
Speaker 1: to tell you that he thought this was a good one,
Speaker 1: and that you're wrong if you don't, because now I know.
Speaker 1: I know it's a reason, it's an experience, but I
Speaker 1: have learned that at the same time that I am
Speaker 1: explaining my situation as a reason why I can't, somebody
Speaker 1: else is explaining that situation as a gift from God.
Speaker 1: Somebody else is taking the very same situation that I'm
Speaker 1: using to say, well, I can't do it because and
Speaker 1: someone else is using the very same situation. I can
Speaker 1: do it because and I watched it happen, not only
Speaker 1: through the pandemic, but I've watched it happen as people
Speaker 1: have gone through difficult seasons. You know, I'm coming up
Speaker 1: on sixteen years of being a pastor, so I'm I'm
Speaker 1: not some little traveling preacher anymore who just goes around
Speaker 1: and tells you you can do it. That's not this message.
Speaker 1: You can done. You can get on, Just get On'm
Speaker 1: just walk was gone, just trying. I'm not talking about
Speaker 1: that stupid little stuff anymore that I mighty used to
Speaker 1: preach when I didn't know what the Bible said. Now
Speaker 1: I know what the Bible said. Now I know what
Speaker 1: the Word of God said. Now I've seen it made
Speaker 1: flesh in the lives of thousands of people. And the
Speaker 1: way that you explain your life and the way that
Speaker 1: you explain this pain and the way that you explain
Speaker 1: what's going on inside of yourself will either leave you
Speaker 1: stuck or move you forward. Will either leave you on
Speaker 1: your mat or move you. And the best thing about
Speaker 1: the passage all is his mat became his message. His
Speaker 1: mat became his message. His mat became his message. And
Speaker 1: they're like, you don't carrying your mat on the sabath.
Speaker 1: He's like, let me explain the dude who said it
Speaker 1: up and it worked. He told me to do it,
Speaker 1: So that's what I'm doing. That's my explanation. Stop trying
Speaker 1: to explain to people what God told you to do.
Speaker 1: You don't have to explain it to anybody. How you
Speaker 1: want to be pure, why you want to be pure,
Speaker 1: why you want to let go you don't have to
Speaker 1: explain it to anybody. Hey, I got a doctor's excuse.
Speaker 1: My doctor Jesus said I could do it. My doctor
Speaker 1: Jesus said I can move on. My doctor Jesus said
Speaker 1: I could forgive. My doctor Jesus said I could hold
Speaker 1: my head up. My doctor Jesus said I can enter
Speaker 1: the most holy place. I got it. The X factor.
Speaker 1: Did you ever have a doctor's excuse? Do you ever
Speaker 1: have a doctor's excuse? You got one right now. You
Speaker 1: got one right now. God Jesus, our great physician, is
Speaker 1: trying to give you permission to move past all the
Speaker 1: reasons that you shouldn't be able to move forward, and
Speaker 1: to stop limiting the truth to your past experience. I
Speaker 1: gotta get Holly mad before she preaches, so she can
Speaker 1: see you're not trying out. This is not an audition.
Speaker 1: I love y'all, but y'all can't cancel her. You can't.
Speaker 1: All right, one of y'all might not come back next week,
Speaker 1: and it's not her. So I had to get her
Speaker 1: fired up, you know. I had to get her in
Speaker 1: that kind of thing, like, man, stand up and give
Speaker 1: us what God gave you. The Lord told Jeremiah don't
Speaker 1: be afraid of their faces. I did not know what
Speaker 1: that meant until I started preaching. I know what that
Speaker 1: means now, because there's a part when you're preaching people
Speaker 1: look at you and be like, back up, back up, no, no, no, baby,
Speaker 1: go forward. That's the word they need. That's the word
Speaker 1: they need. That's the word you need, the one that
Speaker 1: challenges what you knew? Question, was this man lying not physically? Yes,
Speaker 1: he was lying on the mat. Come on, Stephen, give
Speaker 1: us a hard one. Let me ask him more clearly.
Speaker 1: Was he telling the truth? Let's read it. I love
Speaker 1: your word, Lord, thank you for your word, because he
Speaker 1: showed me something. He showed me something. He showed me something.
Speaker 1: And this is what I want to teach you how
Speaker 1: to do today, because this is really powerful in your life.
Speaker 1: It's not just a history lesson about a man. John
Speaker 1: chapter five is not just about physical infirmity. It's certainly
Speaker 1: not about a pool called bethesta, which means house of mercy.
Speaker 1: Is certainly not about a physical porch. It's about our
Speaker 1: emotional condition, which keeps us from obeing God and receiving
Speaker 1: his word by faith instead of walking in doubts. So
Speaker 1: when he said when he said, when he said, sir,
Speaker 1: verse seven, I have no one to help me into
Speaker 1: the pool when the water is stirred. Now, what does
Speaker 1: water have to do with walking? There was conventional wisdom
Speaker 1: around this porch truth. There was a truth that when
Speaker 1: the angel troubled the waters from time to time, whoever
Speaker 1: got to the water first could be healed of whatever
Speaker 1: had happened to them, whatever was hurting them. Everybody else
Speaker 1: got left out. So he's giving his truth, which is
Speaker 1: not really true anymore. I have no one to help
Speaker 1: me into the pool when the water is stirred. While
Speaker 1: I'm trying to get in, someone else goes ahead of me.
Speaker 1: Like I say, we need to take this slow. I
Speaker 1: need somebody, a volunteer who has a Bible, paper, bible,
Speaker 1: a pen, a notebook. You got all three, and you
Speaker 1: don't mind coming on stage with me for a minute
Speaker 1: and final criteria. I'm looking for somebody. This is the
Speaker 1: X factor I'm looking for, all right, I'm choosing a volunteer, Bible, pen,
Speaker 1: a little notepad, and you don't mind me marking in
Speaker 1: your Bible? Who wants to Okay? All right, Oh it's
Speaker 1: a big Bible too. I like big Bibles. Let's go,
Speaker 1: big Bible, big traps, big biceps, big Bible, big smile.
Speaker 1: What's your name? Yeah, I'm kind of big too, right,
Speaker 1: but what's your name? I was hoping it would be Matt.
Speaker 1: I know what version of the Bible I got, King James,
Speaker 1: King James, you said, Darrell Tyrell Tyrell, King James. Old,
Speaker 1: this is perfect. This is perfect, and I need to
Speaker 1: show them. You don't mind if I write in it?
Speaker 1: Are you sure? Okay? This is so perfect. You don't
Speaker 1: know how perfect this is. I'm not playing around. We
Speaker 1: didn't work this out. This is not planned. This is
Speaker 1: just so perfect. I see I gave you this pen originally.
Speaker 1: So look look at this. Let's read it together. You
Speaker 1: love the Bible, right, Nobody brings a Bible this size
Speaker 1: to urch of. They don't like impotent folk, blind haul withered,
Speaker 1: waiting for the moving of the water. And you see
Speaker 1: how in your King James Bible, this massive, jumbo size
Speaker 1: King James Bible. Verse four, for an angel went down
Speaker 1: at a certain season into the pool in trouble the water.
Speaker 1: Whoever then first after the troubling of the water, stepped
Speaker 1: in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had in
Speaker 1: the This is the Bible that I preached out to.
Speaker 1: I'm getting the old time. I can't see it. It's
Speaker 1: good anymore. I need this one. Can I keep this one?
Speaker 1: This one? Oh man? How old are you? By the way,
Speaker 1: what if he was thirty eight? Like the man thirty
Speaker 1: eight years now? But I wanted to show you, and
Speaker 1: I've talked this before, and I've shown it different ways
Speaker 1: because I think it's so powerful. It's so powerful in
Speaker 1: the version that I have, the new International version, it's
Speaker 1: a great translation. It goes from three to five. And
Speaker 1: see how number verse four is mentioned down here at
Speaker 1: the footnotes where it explains how the waters would move
Speaker 1: and people would get healed. That verse four. They took
Speaker 1: it out the ESV and n IV and a lot
Speaker 1: of the more modern translations because it wasn't in the
Speaker 1: Earth manuscripts. So the manuscripts that we see that are
Speaker 1: the earliest, the closest to the original, the most accurate,
Speaker 1: it wasn't in there, so it's not in these translations.
Speaker 1: In King James, there's a verse four in the n
Speaker 1: I V and most of the translations that you'll see
Speaker 1: if you're looking at it on your phone. You're like, wait,
Speaker 1: there is no verse four? Did Steve Jobs come back
Speaker 1: from the dead and delete my verse four? Is Apple
Speaker 1: listening to me right now? Are you spying or the
Speaker 1: Russians here? But it's not any of that. There's there's
Speaker 1: no there's there's no conspiracy. There's no conspiracy. There's there's
Speaker 1: there's no conspiracy. It's just a verse that was never there,
Speaker 1: that was added later by scribes to explain the situation.
Speaker 1: Why why are you taking time to show me this?
Speaker 1: Because we add things that God didn't really say to
Speaker 1: expel situations that we can't understand. That's a y. I
Speaker 1: can't believe you had the King James Bible because if
Speaker 1: you had had any other translation, I wouldn't have been
Speaker 1: able to share this part. And I was just like,
Speaker 1: I'm going to go in the moment and call somebody.
Speaker 1: And I almost picked her because she has an E
Speaker 1: Kids shirt. No, I don't even know if you're volunteer.
Speaker 1: Are you volunteer? Am? Okay? Good security, security, good fit.
Speaker 1: You got it, man, it's that X factor. You got it,
Speaker 1: You got it. I'm serious, man, God is on your life.
Speaker 1: I feel it, but I don't want you to put
Speaker 1: in versus about what you believe about God, to explain situations,
Speaker 1: or to here's another ex excuse disabilit This man is
Speaker 1: taking notes while he's helping me preach. You see him
Speaker 1: reached for the notebook. So what I want to do?
Speaker 1: You told me I could write in your Bible. You
Speaker 1: told me bring me the camera, come here, follow me,
Speaker 1: tell me when it's in focus. You hold it. Put
Speaker 1: that one down, Let's use yours. Hold it. Told me
Speaker 1: I could write zoom in on the verse shaw, so
Speaker 1: we could do this. We gotta do this that one.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure I can clap for this. I thought
Speaker 1: you were gonna highlight this Bible with a nice slime
Speaker 1: green elevation orange. The ex factor means that you and I,
Speaker 1: brothers and sisters need to go through and make sure
Speaker 1: that what we believe about God is really revealed in
Speaker 1: the person of Jesus, not just the traditions of men. Now,
Speaker 1: in case they put this on one of those YouTube
Speaker 1: channels that talks about what I'm preaching and what shoes
Speaker 1: I'm wearing or something like that, I want to make
Speaker 1: sure you're not going through crossing out the parts of
Speaker 1: the Bible that you don't like because they're hard. Like
Speaker 1: love your neighbor as yourself. I'm not sure about the neighbor.
Speaker 1: I like that love yourself part. Oh yeah, I love myself.
Speaker 1: I like that part. No no no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: no no no. It wasn't there. It got added later.
Speaker 1: It's not what God said. It got added later. I
Speaker 1: want you to know some of the things you believe
Speaker 1: God didn't speak, It got added later. Somebody told you
Speaker 1: something that made you feel small, and you settled into
Speaker 1: the small that they made you feel, not realizing greater
Speaker 1: is He that is in me. So I can't be
Speaker 1: that small. I can't be that insignificant. In fact, y'all
Speaker 1: still with me? Or you already shopping for another church
Speaker 1: on Google. Well, I'm preaching. Click off, click off, click off,
Speaker 1: click off. This guy's crossing out the Bible. No no, no,
Speaker 1: I'm crossing out what's not the Bible. I'm crossing out
Speaker 1: what God didn't speak over me. So if he corrects me,
Speaker 1: I want to hear it. If he challenges me, I
Speaker 1: want to hear it. If he thinks I'm wrong, I
Speaker 1: want to know it. But we don't stay right there,
Speaker 1: We don't bridge this anymore. We used to have a
Speaker 1: thing check yourself before you, but now I see it everywhere.
Speaker 1: Treat yourself. First of all, it's just annoying. That's an
Speaker 1: annoying thing to say anyway. But secondly, yes, I'm all
Speaker 1: for self care. What about self confrontation. I'm gonna come
Speaker 1: behind my security over here. One of the hardest things, though,
Speaker 1: is what he said when he explained experience. Every time
Speaker 1: I try, I get stopped. Every time I try, I
Speaker 1: get blocked. Every time I try, I smile, they don't
Speaker 1: smile back. I asked her out. She said, no, well,
Speaker 1: how you explain that to yourself. We used to ride around.
Speaker 1: My best friend from all through high school is right
Speaker 1: there on that second row. And when a girl would
Speaker 1: it be interested in us, we would like be the
Speaker 1: Holy Spirit interpretation for each other. So he'd be like,
Speaker 1: he'd be like, she's just not on your level. I
Speaker 1: needed that right around hyphen each other all day. You know,
Speaker 1: Deep calls to deep man, She's just not deep enough,
Speaker 1: that's all. It is, cold Bible versus handle rejection. And
Speaker 1: then the man's the man's explanation. This is this is
Speaker 1: where I see you today. You caught between an experience
Speaker 1: and an explanation, and his explanation is keeping him stuck,
Speaker 1: and some of us have fallen in love with our stuckness.
Speaker 1: We love stuck because we learned we can get our
Speaker 1: way if we get angry. So do we really want
Speaker 1: to be made well from our anger? We've learned that
Speaker 1: we can get our way by doing the silent treatment,
Speaker 1: So do we really want to get better at communicating?
Speaker 1: We've learned that we can get our way and seek
Speaker 1: attention by misbehaving. Some of us subconsciously create failure in
Speaker 1: our life so that it will call people to our rescue,
Speaker 1: so we will feel wanted. Now, I see why the
Speaker 1: genius of Jesus when that make a cool series. The
Speaker 1: genius of Jesus made him a wonderful counselor, even though
Speaker 1: it seems like he has a terrible bedside manner, He's
Speaker 1: like the X factor here is not the externals, externals,
Speaker 1: the economy and your mom's mom's mom's mom's mom's goldfish
Speaker 1: that made you like you are, or who won't do
Speaker 1: what for you? Because that's not true anymore? Now is
Speaker 1: the man lying? Sir? I have no man When the
Speaker 1: water is troubled to put me into the pool. I
Speaker 1: have no man, I have no help. It's not true anymore.
Speaker 1: It's not true anymore. It was true five minutes before
Speaker 1: Jesus got there. It was true. Let's use my Bible
Speaker 1: for this part. I don't want to cross anything else
Speaker 1: out of yours. What he said pulled it for me.
Speaker 1: Where it said, sir, I have no one to help me.
Speaker 1: I have Can you see it closer? I have no one.
Speaker 1: That used to be true, but Jesus is here now.
Speaker 1: That was true. No, no, it wasn't an excuse. It
Speaker 1: was true until the truth showed up. That's the X
Speaker 1: vector that I wanted to preach to you about today
Speaker 1: is that you are still operating in your life as
Speaker 1: if Jesus were not risen. But he is risen, and
Speaker 1: you are carrying watch this the shame, as if your
Speaker 1: sin were not forgiven. But it is forgiven. But I'm
Speaker 1: a sinner. You were a sinner, and you still sin.
Speaker 1: But now you have help that you didn't have when
Speaker 1: you were trying to fulfill the law in your own flesh.
Speaker 1: For what the law was powerless to do in that
Speaker 1: it was weakean. I feel my help now in that
Speaker 1: it was weakean that's what I was. It's not what
Speaker 1: I am. I am now he used to be true.
Speaker 1: But Jesus is on your fORCH. Jesus is on your
Speaker 1: porch where that's the X factor. Not your might, not
Speaker 1: your power, but by his spirit, he's here, he's here.
Speaker 1: Make the announcement, Make the announcement, Make the announcement, make
Speaker 1: the announcement. So five people tell him he's here on
Speaker 1: your porch. He's here, on your fORCH. He's here, he's here,
Speaker 1: he's here. He it's so good, it's so good. God
Speaker 1: wants to change your explanation to where you start explaining
Speaker 1: things different. Let your faith explain. Maybe we could do
Speaker 1: that for a part two message, if you'll like it.
Speaker 1: How to let faith explain, because fear will start explaining.
Speaker 1: See the reason that happened to you because you suck,
Speaker 1: and you always sucked. And let's put it in King James,
Speaker 1: thou shouts suck forever more. The devil speak King James
Speaker 1: language to get you to believe a lie. And here's
Speaker 1: what we said. We said, we said few weeks ago,
Speaker 1: we said few weeks ago, we said he's the father
Speaker 1: of lies. That's his native language. He speaks lie like
Speaker 1: like you speak tennis. Robert's a tennis coach. He'll come
Speaker 1: up to me, he'll be like, man that was like
Speaker 1: a servant, a volley or something like that. Today on
Speaker 1: the sermon, I'm like, Robert, what does that mean? That
Speaker 1: doesn't apply. That's his language. The devil's language is lie.
Speaker 1: You think this man on the on the porch, You
Speaker 1: think the man on the porch was trying to lie
Speaker 1: to Jesus. But he was speaking something that used to
Speaker 1: be true. There were three things I said you needed.
Speaker 1: One was a Bible and you had to. One was
Speaker 1: a pen and you had to. I said a notebook,
Speaker 1: and he had that too, and he had a pin.
Speaker 1: Then I gave him and then that just like the
Speaker 1: grace of God, he gives us what he asked for. Anyway,
Speaker 1: okay 's that is I'm having fun today. I'm having
Speaker 1: fun today because I feel the spirit of unstuckness as
Speaker 1: God begins to show you how to change the way
Speaker 1: you explained. The way that you explain the experience either
Speaker 1: keeps you stuck or sets you free. So she could
Speaker 1: sit here and say, well, I'm just a little girl.
Speaker 1: Nobody can I tell him what that lady said to
Speaker 1: you the other day. People say the weirdest stuff to
Speaker 1: you in it. They don't know you, but they think
Speaker 1: they do. Some lady came up to her say, girl,
Speaker 1: we go to church. You're so you've gotten so good.
Speaker 1: It's already a backhanded compliment because you've gotten so good,
Speaker 1: implies what. But then she didn't just imply it, she
Speaker 1: said it. I mean you were rough when you started security,
Speaker 1: all right, So I can't do this for you, but
Speaker 1: maybe I could teach you the X factor. It's when
Speaker 1: you take something that you used to be and that
Speaker 1: you still feel like this. What was I saying? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you were? You weren't worth the blood of Jesus Christ,
Speaker 1: the precious, eternal Lamb of God. Weren't that good. You
Speaker 1: weren't worth that much, God's only son, the sinless, spotless
Speaker 1: Lamb of God. But he decided you were. So that's
Speaker 1: what I am. That's what I am. All I'm doing.
Speaker 1: All I'm doing is Colossians Too fourteen, where it said
Speaker 1: that Jesus having canceled, you want to talk about cancel culture.
Speaker 1: Jesus is the cancel culture king. He look what he canceled.
Speaker 1: I can't wait to show you this. He canceled the
Speaker 1: charge of our legal indebtedness. The Greek word is the
Speaker 1: handwritten indebtedness. They would make you write your debt by
Speaker 1: your own hand, as to say that this is my
Speaker 1: debt and you have to write it in your own hand.
Speaker 1: So Jesus took his hand y'all to love the gospel.
Speaker 1: This is about as good as it gets. Klatchin's two
Speaker 1: fourteen is about as good as it gets. I know
Speaker 1: Frestam's taking together running over some menborn. I'm excited about
Speaker 1: everything God wants to add to my life. I am
Speaker 1: more excited about what he took away when he died
Speaker 1: for me on the cross. That's a real sounding thing
Speaker 1: for me. He took our indebtedness and he paid the
Speaker 1: price for it, which stood against us and condemned us.
Speaker 1: He has taken it away and he nailed it to
Speaker 1: his cross. That is why I can take up my
Speaker 1: mat and walk cauzuh that you ready. That's the ex
Speaker 1: factor for me. For me, grace makes the difference for me.
Speaker 1: I know you were a good person, and that's why
Speaker 1: you deserve to be blessed, not me, not me. I
Speaker 1: know you always get it right, and that's why you're
Speaker 1: so successful, not me. I know you are always full
Speaker 1: of joy, and that is why the Lord is lucky
Speaker 1: to have you on his squad, not me. Not me.
Speaker 1: I know what I was without him, and that's why
Speaker 1: I'm so excited that I've got him. And that's why
Speaker 1: I don't mind praising God. That's what I expect the supernatural.
Speaker 1: I want you to take every page of this thing
Speaker 1: and write stuff that used to be true before Christ
Speaker 1: came along. I want you to practice this week. I
Speaker 1: wish some of you parents would be a leader for
Speaker 1: your family and take this message and say, before we
Speaker 1: sit down today, everybody's gonna x something before I even
Speaker 1: feed you all lunch. You don't want paying, don't take
Speaker 1: a bite until we x something that the enemy has
Speaker 1: set over your life. That used to be true. That's
Speaker 1: the key. It used to be true. It used to
Speaker 1: be true. It used to be that. The only way
Speaker 1: to be right with God is for you to be perfect,
Speaker 1: for you to keep the law, including the Sabbath. That's
Speaker 1: what the Passover was all about. That's what the festival
Speaker 1: that John five mentions was. They put a X on
Speaker 1: the door in blood of all of God's people, so
Speaker 1: that the angel of Death would pass over on the
Speaker 1: top of the doorframe, on the sides of the doorframe
Speaker 1: in Exodus twelve. And God said, not this house, not
Speaker 1: this house. So this is a passover day for us
Speaker 1: in Jesus that he's walking up to the person on
Speaker 1: the porch who can't move, can't function, can't get over it,
Speaker 1: can't recover, can't get it together. And the truth stands
Speaker 1: in front of the experience, and he doesn't tell him
Speaker 1: something to understand. He tells him something to do. I
Speaker 1: want you to take what was holding you and hold it.
Speaker 1: I have no one to help, but you do now.
Speaker 1: But you do now. Don't let the explanation become an excuse.
Speaker 1: You've got it now, You've got the word of God,
Speaker 1: You've got the spirit of God. Please don't just come
Speaker 1: in here every week expecting for somebody to lug you
Speaker 1: to the pool, because you're always gonna get blocked. You're
Speaker 1: always gonna get blocked. This is the X factor. The
Speaker 1: man said, I don't know who healed me, Well go
Speaker 1: find out. It was Jesus. Say it again, it was Jesus.
Speaker 1: You said it at the beginning of the sermon, But
Speaker 1: now I want you to hear it. He's the X factor.
Speaker 1: He changed everything, Grace changes everything. You're here today. You're
Speaker 1: saying I can't be saved, I can't be a Christian,
Speaker 1: I can't get on the right path. God knew that.
Speaker 1: That's why he didn't make you get to the water.
Speaker 1: He brought the water to you. It's not how smart
Speaker 1: you are. That's not the X factor. That's not what's
Speaker 1: going to attract the power of God to your life.
Speaker 1: It's not how manipulative you can be, how you can
Speaker 1: work everything out according to your plan. It said it
Speaker 1: was Jesus that made me walk, it was Jesus that
Speaker 1: made me whole. And it starts with this question, do
Speaker 1: you want to get well? Because you've been like this
Speaker 1: a long time? Stand up. I'm gonna pray for you.
Speaker 1: Thank you, my friend, thank you. It'sod Bible back. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna pray for you. Yeah. I want you to fill
Speaker 1: every blank page in that notebook with that all that
Speaker 1: junk the enemy's been telling you, keeping you stuck too. Okay,
Speaker 1: I want to see is all through that notebook. Father.
Speaker 1: We want to take a moment and reflect on the
Speaker 1: X factor. Really awesome to see Jesus in Jerusalem, to
Speaker 1: know he would head back there and die just a
Speaker 1: little while later, and that what was initiated in the
Speaker 1: man's life through healing would be completed for us on
Speaker 1: the cross so that we could be set free. I
Speaker 1: believe in my spirit God, that there are thousands who
Speaker 1: are hearing this message right now, who this is their
Speaker 1: moment to be saved, to receive the grace of God,
Speaker 1: not by works, but by grace through faith. Right now,
Speaker 1: if you're like that man spiritually, not physically, but spiritually,
Speaker 1: you say, you know what, I'm dead in my sin
Speaker 1: and I want to receive Jesus Christ as my savior
Speaker 1: so that the written requirement in my handwriting, the things
Speaker 1: I've done that separated me in my heart from God
Speaker 1: can be nailed to his cross and so that I
Speaker 1: can move forward into a new future. I'm gonna pray
Speaker 1: with you right now. You know the Bible says that
Speaker 1: it is by grace you are saved. That man would
Speaker 1: have never gotten into the water if he would have
Speaker 1: kept trying to get there on his own. He had
Speaker 1: to let the water come to him, and you are
Speaker 1: at that moment right now. God brought you here online
Speaker 1: in the physical building. God brought you here, and Jesus
Speaker 1: is standing in front of you. I'm going to pray
Speaker 1: a prayer right now. We're going to pray it out
Speaker 1: loud as a church family for the benefit of those
Speaker 1: who are coming to Jesus to be saved, repenting of
Speaker 1: their sin, receiving his new life for the first time,
Speaker 1: or coming back to God. And as I pray, if
Speaker 1: you believe in your heart that Jesus Christ is able
Speaker 1: to save you, you confess with your mouth that Jesus's Lord.
Speaker 1: The Bible says you will be saved. Every head bow,
Speaker 1: every eye closed, repeat after me this prayer, Lord Jesus.
Speaker 1: I am a sinner in need of a savior, and
Speaker 1: I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God.
Speaker 1: And today I make Jesus the Lord of my life.
Speaker 1: I believe he died that I would be forgiven and
Speaker 1: rose again to give me life. I receive this new life.
Speaker 1: This is my new beginning. Raise your hand on account
Speaker 1: of three. If you prayed that one, two, three and
Speaker 1: all in the chat, raise hands. Can't go on up everywhere? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's it. No shame in it, No shame in it.
Speaker 1: Take up your madden walk. Take up the Man who
Speaker 1: saved you told you to do it. Jesus said you
Speaker 1: can do it. Raise your hand up high. Let's clap
Speaker 1: our hands for everybody who got that living water today.
Speaker 1: Take up your maden walk. Thank you Jesus. We're bringing
Speaker 1: you a Bible right now where the Word of God is,
Speaker 1: where it can instruct you how to walk. Hey, thank
Speaker 1: you for not leaving. I appreciate your attention to the
Speaker 1: word of God. This is a very important moment for somebody.
Speaker 1: I want us to seal it. I want us to
Speaker 1: seal this moment of what God just did by giving
Speaker 1: God the most amazing thirty seconds of praise. Can we
Speaker 1: do that right now? Thank you? Lord, Come, I'm on.
Speaker 1: Open your mouth. It was Jesus. And what's the lord? Hey,
Speaker 1: man away, it was him. It was Jesus. It was Jesus.
Speaker 1: Hey saved you. Hey, riise you head, what's Jesus? He's Jesus.
Speaker 1: Come on, give them money, celebrad Well. If you enjoyed
Speaker 1: today's podcast, there are a couple of things I'd love
Speaker 1: for you to do. Make sure to subscribe, rate, and
Speaker 1: review this podcast. You can also help us reach others
Speaker 1: by investing today at Elevation church dot org, slash give
Speaker 1: and thanks again for joining us on the Elevation Podcast