Leverage: Pain

Pain is universal. It's something everyone has but no body wants. But what we do with pain determines so much about who we become. In this message, we look at the healing at Bethesda in John 5 and unpack the nature of pain, where it comes from, how we often mishandle it through denial, distraction, numbing, or misplaced systems, and how Jesus invites us into true healing. Whether your pain is physical, emotional, or spiritual, this message points to Jesus as our comfort, healer, and source of wholeness.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello on this beautiful, beautiful morning. Guys, thanks for being here. If you don't know me and I haven't met you yet, my name is Ava. Blake told me to do this, but I'm now Stephen's fiance. So yeah, so I'm just gonna be reading the word for us this morning. We're gonna be in John 5, John 5, 1 through 15. Sometime later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. Now there is in Jerusalem near the sheep gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda, and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie. The blind, the lame, the paralyzed. One who was there had been an invalid for 38 years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, Do you want to get well? Sir, the invalid replied, I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I'm trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me. Then Jesus said to him, Get up, pick up your mat and walk. At once the man was cured. He picked up his mat and walked. The day on which this took place was a Sabbath. And so the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, It is the Sabbath. The law forbids you to carry your mat. But he replied, The man who made me well said to me, Pick up your mat and walk. So they asked him, Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk? The man who was healed had no idea who it was. For Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there. Later, Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, See, you are well again. Stop sinning, or something worse may happen to you. The man went away and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had made him well. This is the word of our Lord. And I'd love to pray for Jesus. Thank you for your word. Thank you for your truth. And that it is the truth, the only truth. Lord, thank you that you are in a great physician, you are the healer.

unknown 2:14

Amen.

SPEAKER_01 2:16

Thank you, my friend.

SPEAKER_02 2:19

Awesome. Thank you, Ava. By the way, I only put the nine verses up there. That was amazing. She read what she was supposed to read. No such thing as too much Bible. So this morning we're going to talk about pain. It's a beautiful day. So I just thought I would just dive right in there. It's interesting because we we literally plan our ministry year out. We try to do it a year in advance. So we we met end of last year, planned out 2026, and where we sense God was leading us in that moment. And we stayed, stayed true to it all the way up to April. And then kind of around Easter, we just sense God doing something. We were going to launch into a 15-week series through the book of first, second, third John. And we just sense God kind of moving us in a different direction. The beauty of doing life with people is you get to actually kind of know what's going on in their hearts and in their lives. And and our responsibility as we shepherd and lead a church is to shepherd and lead the people who are in the room based on what God's doing in their lives and what we sense God's stirring. And so we we shifted into this leverage series instead. If you know me, we we launched our church with a ministry of prayer. We have prayer nights. We have one this Wednesday. We have prayer ministry. We take prayer very seriously. And yet, as we kind of built up into this week and and into this moment, I just sensed this burden starting kind of last week to talk about pain. I couldn't tell why, I didn't know where that was coming from. And we we had our meeting on Monday, and we're planning on talking about prayer. We planned according to that. And then and then on Tuesday, I hit, I reached out to Sam and team. I just said, I think, I think God's leading me to talk about pain. And I don't know why, but I think I'm supposed to talk about pain. And uh, so we're gonna talk about pain. So all that's to say is if today is like an absolute dud, it's not the Holy Spirit's fault, it's my fault. Uh, okay, because I I changed, I changed the plans thinking it was him. So if it if it's if it's bad, it's not him, it's me. But we're gonna talk about pain because the reality of pain is that it's something that plagues all of humanity across every nation, tribe, and tongue, across every generation, across every life stage and season, we all feel pain. The way that we were kind of wording it this week is that we were we're gonna talk about something that everyone has and no one wants, right? Everyone has pain and nobody wants pain. And yet we've all felt the sting of physical pain, the ache in our bodies, the broken bone, the sprained ankle, or maybe worse, the disease, the sickness. Your body doesn't do what it's supposed to do. Your brain's telling it what to do, and your body's not responding because of the pain. Maybe you felt the emotional pain, the betrayal or the breakup, the rejection, the failure, the life shift and change that all of a sudden you weren't prepared for. And now you feel this emotional pain. And maybe you feel spiritual pain. Maybe you felt that before. Maybe you felt the the effects of sin, the separation that it causes between you and the intimacy with the Lord, between you and even yourself. You're just, that's not who I am. That's not who I want to be. And you feel that spiritual pain as a result of that, that feeling of divine separation. Why do we feel so much pain? Where does pain come from? Why do we have it? Well, first of all, the world is under a curse due to sin. And so from a cosmic level, pain is a result of the curse that that is on the world due to sin. Sin simply means to miss the mark. It means to be outside of alignment with God's design. And so when God created all things, maybe you know the story day one, day two, day three, day four, day five, day six, day seven, he rests, right? But first, day one through six, God is on this, on this creating adventure. We're out of the overflow of his glory and his beauty and his love and his care. He creates all things. And every single day he says, This is good, this is good, this is good, this is good. And then he gets to day six, creates humanity in his own image, and says, This is very good. This is very good. That word in the Hebrew is the word tov. And it literally means wholeness. It means operating according to God's design, it's beauty, it's perfection. And that's what God is declaring over his creation. Well, then not too long after creation comes sin, it comes rebellion, where Adam and Eve are in the garden and they sin against the will and the word of God. And sin, once again, just means to operate outside of alignment with God's design. So God's word and God's will say this, and then you operate outside that will and that design. Well, what they may not have known, uh even though God warned them or they may not have been aware of, or maybe they just didn't trust God's word, is that with that rebellion came consequences. And when you step outside of God's design, you experience pain, you experience brokenness. Uh, rebellion is the conscious choice to step outside God's design, but the brokenness that we feel is the reality or the consequence of operating outside of God's design. Maybe you've noticed this in your own life that when you operate consistently outside the will on the word of God, your life gets chaotic and you experience a lot of brokenness. Whether it's a direct rebellion or maybe just a consequent of brokenness, we all experience pain. And this misalignment brings pain. The disease of sin has infected the whole of creation, from the greatest cosmic level all the way down to the most minute microscopic level, that that sin has invaded all of creation, which is why in Romans 8, Paul says that all of creation groans for wholeness. It groans for redemption, it groans for healing. You feel that inner ache and that inner groan. Am I right? That you groan, you long for healing. You long for wholeness. You look around the world and something you see every single day brings you pain. Maybe in your own life, there's something that you feel every single day, a moment that you're reminded of, everything, and you feel that pain. I see something almost every day that brings me to tears in our city. Almost every single day. Because of the brokenness in our world. So, what is pain? Well, most physicians define pain as pain as a signal, an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience in your nervous system that's warning you and alerting you that something may be wrong. Pain is actually a tool of the brain trying to let you know that something is wrong. And it presents itself through unpleasant sensory and emotional experience. So when you feel pain, it hurts, right? When you feel pain, it often often triggers an emotional response in us because pain is bad for us. And it's our brain letting us know something is wrong. Hey, you're touching something hot. Hey, hey, something you have an injury going on in your body. Hey, there's there's there's disease happening that shouldn't be there. Hey, there was there was there was a trauma endured or or experienced that that crossed a boundary that you shouldn't have experienced, and now you've experienced, you're experiencing this pain. And so pain is a result, it's a warning system as a result of brokenness. So physical brokenness leads to physical pain. Emotional brokenness leads to emotional pain. Spiritual brokenness leads to spiritual pain. Pain as a result of brokenness. But one of the one of the reasons I think that the Lord kind of was leading us into this topic is because have you noticed that we actually live in a culture of pain? Live in a culture of pain. And what I mean by this is culture is defined, it's determined by the behavior you reward as well as the behaviors that you punish. And in our cultural moment, we reward pain and brokenness. And we actually punish people who claim that healing is even an option. We often see this happen. That what gains people influence is pain and is brokenness. And we become the the word that often people use is authenticity. But it's not really a culture of authenticity, it's a culture of pain because we determine authenticity based on what? Brokenness. Are you allowed to be authentically joyful? Are you allowed to be authentically healed? Are you allowed to be authentically whole? No, authenticity is determined by your brokenness. You're allowed to be authentically messy, you're allowed to be authentically broken, you're all you're allowed to be authentically pain in pain. You're not allowed to be authentically healed and whole. And so we actually have a culture that pushes against healing and wholeness and celebrates pain and brokenness and focuses on it constantly. We celebrate brokenness more than we celebrate wholeness and well-being. We pursue diagnoses more than we pursue healing, right? We have a culture that wants to know that something's wrong and we want to talk about what's wrong, but we actually don't want to pursue well-being or wholeness or healing. We don't like solutions. We just like to live in the diagnosis. They they define our culture as a hyper-vigilant culture, hyper-vigilant. And it means that we're constantly reacting to what isn't actually dangerous. Why? Because we are looking for pain. Our brains are hardwired at this point. They've been conditioned to look for pain, that we are searching for brokenness. And it actually has created a pervasive anxiety and depression in our culture because we're looking for something to harm us. We're looking for things that are broken. And as a result of this, we actually end up absorbing our pain. We begin to tell stories as if our pain is the most important thing about our lives and about our story. It's the defining characteristic of our lives. Our pain has become our identity. I was thinking about is it is it is it Linus and Peanuts, Charlie Brown, that like carries around the blanket all the time? Yeah, pain has become that for a lot of people. And it's become the thing that we're constantly dragging around with us, but it don't, but it almost brings us security. Because we found our our our whole identity in it. It's the defining aspect of our story. It's who it's who you are, and it's the primary story you're living out of. In her book, Rachel's Rachel Zofness. I don't have the title of the book, but the author is Rachel Zophness. Just Google her. She's got some great stuff. She defines pain as the body's warning signal, just to put it simply. But she says that pain is actually biopsychosocial. Love that word. Biopsychosocial. What she means is that bio, it's experienced in the body. Psycho, it's produced in the brain. The brain produces pain. And social is deeply influenced by social context. In our text today, you you notice that that the invalid that Jesus engages here, there's a few things that are actually pretty interesting when you think about pain in this way, is that you have someone who has been an invalid for 38 years. They've been sitting in this space and in this position for 38 years. They've been surrounded by other people who are who are suffering for 38 years, and they're not allowed in the vicinity of anyone else who has wholeness, who is seen as healthy or whole in 38 years. And so this pain, this ailment has become the defining characteristic of his life. It's become the story of his life. It's become the identity of who he is. He no longer has a name, he is the invalid by the pool. That's who he is. That's the story he's living out of. Why? Because pain is bio, psychosocial. His body is broken. His mind is telling him a story. And his social context has been consistently reminding him of his brokenness. See, the reality is the story you tell, we're known as a culture that ruminates. We love to ruminate. We love to tell ourselves a story over and over and over again. The story you tell yourself, the people you surround yourself with, and the environments that you place yourself in will form and shape your identity. Forms and shapes your mind. I think we all all know this, but the brain is plastic, meaning that it's it's malleable, it's shapable, it's formable. It's called neuroplasticity. And what can happen is when we have repeated behaviors, repeated messages sent to our brain over and over and over again, repeated environments over and over and over again, it creates neuropathways in our brain. And actually we begin to live out of, live out of what our how our brain has been formed, and it begins to dictate and direct our lives and our behavior. And so if you think about it like this, if you're constantly looking for a reason to not be safe and convincing yourself that you're not okay, you're going to do what Rachel Zofness calls practicing pain. It leads you to be hypersensitive to pain. It finds and amplifies pain that isn't actually a result of injury or danger because the brain has been shaped by pain, for pain, to look for pain. If you've ever experienced been around someone who suffers from really bad anxiety, I've had my own bouts. I've been in therapy for 10 years. So I hope nothing you hear today minimizes uh the need for therapy or any of those types of things, because that would just be hypocrisy, because I go to therapy. But but if you've ever been around someone who suffers from deep anxiety, sometimes, oftentimes it's contributed back to a point of injury, to a point of pain. And it's in it, and it has hardwired their system now as it in that space. And so maybe they have a trigger moment, right? Maybe someone who has experienced physical harm, and maybe someone surprises them, sneaks up on and puts a hand on their shoulder. And they maybe their body has a response, right? Because there's an experience that's happened that's that's created a response in their body. And we do this emotionally, we do this physically, but it's become an aspect of who we are. But but it's created this angst in us that we are constantly looking and we're constantly aware of how we might be in danger and what might happen to us. And it's created this response in us, and we live in it. Once again, in this text, you have this man who's been an invalid for 38 years and it shaped his life, how he sees himself and what he actually believes is possible. Jesus asks him, Do you want to be healed? And he doesn't even acknowledge the question of Jesus because it's not a possibility in his mind. Why? Because pain is his reality. Brokenness is who he is. And he now has not only made it his identity, but he's made it his destiny. And he goes, I'll never get out of this. This is who I am forever. So when someone says, Hey, do you want to be well? I can't even answer the question because it's not an option. And what happens for us, for all of us, whether it's emotional, whether it's physical, whether it's mental, whether it's spiritual, is ultimately Jesus. Jesus longs to heal the whole person. Physical, emotional, spiritual, even relational. Jesus longs to heal the whole person. I think a lot of us we actually want comfort. We want comfort. We're not open to healing. We just want we just don't want someone to take the pain away. We want someone to ease our pain. And when Jesus says, His word does promise that he comforts us in every affliction. But Jesus actually longs to bring wholeness and healing and restoration to the full person. That's ultimately the destiny, right? Is that if Jesus, is that when Jesus returns, he returns for the sake of what? Bringing wholeness and healing and restoration to all of God's creation, to be the answer to the groaning and the longing of creation, to be the answer to the longing and the groaning of your heart. But what if we can experience glimpses of it here now? What if you can experience healing now? What if you can ex- what if you can experience glimpses of what is to come here in the present moment? That's the beauty of the gospel. Is that Jesus put himself into human history and he said that his kingdom has come. His kingdom is at hand. And so he is already working to reverse the curse of sin, uh, the reverse the the curse of sin and the brokenness that has come with it. The question is, do you want to be made well? Do you want to be healed? Is that an option in your mind? Is that an option in your heart? Is that an option in your spirit? You know in this longing for healing and wholeness, we tend to we tend to run to a few different things. You see it in the text, you see it in our lives. The first thing that Jesus when Jesus asks, do you want to be healed? Do you want to be made well? The man responds and he says, he says, Sir, I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. He says, I'm trying to get in, but I can't do it. I think a lot of times we we try to depend on ourselves for healing. We try to depend on ourselves for healing. I think, I think there's there's really three things, three options self, systems, or savior, right? And I think I think self is the first thing that this man says. He says, Look, I've been here for 38 years and I've been trying to get in the in these waters. I've been trying to get in these pools. The the the belief here at the at the pools of Bethesda, which here recently have been uncovered, this used to be a text that a lot of liberal theologians would point to or atheists would point to as evidence that why Christianity does not is not real and doesn't exist, is because they in their mind the pools did not exist until they kept digging in Jerusalem and they discovered these pools had been built on. And and so now these pools have been excavated and uncovered, and you can actually go visit them now in in Jerusalem. And so these pools were a real space and a real place. And the belief was that an angel would come down and stir the waters and that the first one who got into the waters would experience healing. And so this man who's been here for 38 years says, I've been trying to get in the waters for 38 years, and I can't find healing. I can't do it on my own. I can't get myself there. You know, I think when it comes to the ways that we try to deal with our own pain, I think there's a few things. I think first and foremost, some of us would just deny our pain. We just deny pain. I think a lot of people it's like, I'm not allowed to feel pain, right? And so we just deny that it's that it's there. There's no pain. You're and you try to just disassociate, completely disconnect from reality. You're not even present in your body or present in your life because you don't want to experience pain. I think others of us we avoid, we try to avoid our pain. A little bit different than denying our pain. We try to avoid it. So we know what's there, we just try to run away from it. I think one of the ways that this happens is through distraction. We just try to distract ourselves away from the pain of our lives. Maybe you've maybe you've experienced a season where there was some pain in your life. And if you paid attention, maybe your screen time shot way up, right? Because you're trying to disconnect and distract yourself from the reality of your life. And maybe it's maybe it kind of you kind of slip into it, you kind of drift into it, and you don't even notice that it's happening, right? You kind of drift into distraction. And then if you kind of step back, you zoom out, you realize, oh, I'm I'm actually trying to run away from something. But we try to distract ourselves by distracting literally means to prevent concentration, to divert our attention to other things. That's literally what this means. So obviously, if I if the option is to feel and experience and acknowledge my pain or concentrate or divert my attention to other things, a lot of us are going to tend to want to divert our attention to other things. And so we do this. And oftentimes what's tricky is they're good things, right? We divert our attention to work, we divert our attention to family, we divert our attention to busyness, we divert our attention to hobbies, to just try to distract ourselves from acknowledging what's really going on in our lives. And then what can happen for people who claim to be followers of Jesus often is a different thing that has actually been coined as spiritual bypassing. Spiritual bypassing. I think we have a definition. Yeah, spiritual bypassing, also referred to as toxic positivity, is the misuse of spiritual beliefs, practices, or jargon to avoid dealing with painful emotions, unresolved psychological wounds, or difficult life realities. You don't have to name, but we've been around these people, right? And a lot of time, a lot of times they're in the church, a lot of times they're in the church where you try to bring your pain and someone, someone won't eat, doesn't even have the maturity to sit with you and process it, right? They try to move on, toxic positivity, Lord's faithful, it's already done it in and this can happen, especially in prosperity circles, where it's like we don't, we don't even want to acknowledge pain. We don't want to give it breath, we don't want to give it space. And so we it creates this toxic posity. And what and what you end up what you end up with is rather than people who can embody the likeness of Jesus, who was very familiar and comfortable engaging the pain of other people's, it was most of his ministry. We end up with a church who can't.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

Who can't sit with people in pain. We don't have the maturity disciples who can experience and endure pain.

SPEAKER_02 22:14

So we don't want to spiritually bypass. And what what tends to happen, especially if people suffer from anything like a religious OCD, is you can actually feel sinful by acknowledging and sitting in pain. Like, no, no, no, a person of faith would never would never sit in this and acknowledge this. No, no, no. You're a whole person. Yes, the resurrection is the reality of Jesus and it's beautiful. But it's on the other side of a cross. A holistic Christian experience is pain and hope. It's grief with hope. That's what the Apostle Paul says. We don't grieve as the world grieves, as those who have no hope. We grieve with hope. So we don't get we don't get lost in our pain and buried in our pain like much of the world does. But we don't live in some sort of naive naive experience. We're able to be centered. We're able to acknowledge pain, grieve pain, and not lose hope. That's the Christian experience. The second thing I think often happens is systems. We try to depend on systems in order to find the healing that we look for. And this is what the man talked about. There's really two different systems that he looks at. It's the waters, and then it's also the Pharisees. The Pharisees rebuke him at the end of this passage because he he wasn't faithful to the Sabbath, in their words. You know, one of the interesting things is yes, the Sabbath is a is an old testament law, and and and it's something that the Lord gave to the two people so that they wouldn't be enslaved to productivity or busyness, but would learn how to depend and rest in the Lord. And they wouldn't operate the same on the same rhythms in the same ways that the rest of the world did. But they would have these rhythms that were reflective of their relationship with God. But what the Pharisees did is they actually added so many Sabbath laws and rituals that it became, it became a burden to the people. It wasn't life-giving, which is why Jesus constantly reminds them that man wasn't made for the Sabbath. Sabbath was made for the man, it was given to man by God. And they would, and and Jesus does so many healings on the Sabbath, and he does this for a couple of different reasons. One, to to express right theology or thinking around the Sabbath, but two, to show his authority, to show his authority. The Pharisees believe that no one could work on the Sabbath except for God. And so every time Jesus would work on the Sabbath, he was proclaiming his divinity and identity as the Son of God, as one who could heal and work on the Sabbath. And I think in our modern, our modern day and age, we have all kinds of different systems that we may run to or that the people around us may run to. There's worldly systems that people run to. I remember there was someone in my life who was kind of in my sphere of influence who was really bought into crystals and believing that crystals had the ability to heal or bring or bring power, different things in into her life. She would she would set them on their desk. They were in her car, they were in her home. And she depended on those things. She trusted in those things to bring healing and wholeness to different aspects of her life. Maybe, maybe, maybe have people who are not just like horoscopes are a fun thing, but like horoscopes are like a really big thing in their lives and get a lot of their identity and they trust in things like that. Maybe witchcraft are different things that have been that have been displayed in recent history. But I think there's also other worldly systems that we can kind of completely remove God out of and put our whole dependence on. And even even medicine and therapy, as great and as needed as they are, with all of our medical professionals who are in our church. Amen. Once again, I go to therapy and I go to doctors. Okay. But there's a difference between utilizing what God has placed in our lives and putting our dependence and trust and hope in something. It's a difference. And this man's entire hope and trust was placed in a system that could not heal him. And what Jesus is once again talking about is he talking about holistic healing. And so praise God that we live in a moment where we have all kinds of resources for these different aspects of our lives. But what Jesus is after is healing the whole person. And it's something that only he can do. Only he can do. Just bring total healing to our whole selves. And then there's also religious systems. Whether it's prosperity gospel, perfectionism gospel, or works-based gospel, ultimately what we try to do is we try to find our good news by earning, earning God's movement in our lives, God's healing in our lives through our own behavior, through our own things. And what when what you're actually doing is you're trying to control God. You're not surrendered to him, you're not dependent upon him, you're trying to control him. And you're going, man, if I do X, Y, and Z, God has to do X, Y, and Z. And it's not the way God works. Once again, Dallas Willard, he used to always say that the gospel is an anti-word, but it's anti-earn, anti-earning. There's so many times where we're trying to earn things from the Lord. And he constantly reminds us it's a work of grace. It's the kindness of the Lord. Jesus saw this man. He went up to this man. He offered healing to this man. He didn't ask for it. He didn't earn it. He didn't desire it. He brought nothing to the table. And yet Jesus saw him. Jesus pursued him. Jesus gave him healing. What often happens in the church is that we are guilty of offering people systems and peddling systems because we're trying to control people the same way. Because we get things from them. I need you to abide by my system because I need you to get ministry done. I need you to grow this church. I need you to do X, Y, and Z. And so here's the system. I need you to do it. And if you do it, Jesus is going to work in your life. And the church is not meant to be a conduit for a system because systems do not save or heal people. And they don't heal people from pain or heal people from hurt. And they inevitably get hurt when the church fails to be a prophetic witness pointing to Jesus as the answer for salvation, healing, wholeness, restoration, and renewal. We're meant to be a prophetic witness pointing people to Jesus. James K.A. Smith said, the question isn't whether you're going to believe, but who? It's not merely about what to believe, but who to entrust yourself to. Do you really want to trust yourself? Do we really think that humanity is our best bet? Do we really think we are the answer to our problems, we who have generated all of them? He's like, you're really going to put all your trust in yourself? Think you can do this on your own? Really gonna put all your trust in the systems or the people that have been placed around you, really think that they're gonna be able to provide the healing that you want? We're the cause of all of this brokenness. It's like we think we're gonna do it on our own. And once again, what he says is it's it's about where you put your trust for healing. Where you put your trust for wholeness. You know, pain when it's experienced properly is actually a gift. Why? Because it's telling you that something is wrong. And so you could be here and you could be experiencing pain, and you think pain is the enemy when in actuality your pain is trying to be a friend, alerting you that something's wrong. Your soul is out of alignment, your life is out of alignment. Something is wrong, and you need to bring it back into alignment, submission, and surrender to the will and heart of God. Pain is actually trying to tell you and warn you and alert you that something is wrong. C.S. Lewis in his book, The Problem of Pain, said we can ignore even pleasure, but pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world, but it gives the only opportunity the bad man can have for amendment. It removes the veil, it plants the flag of truth within the fortress of the rebel soul. He says, God shouts in our pain. What's he doing? In his kindness, he's saying, You're going the wrong direction. Something's out of alignment. You're not, you're not, you're not submitted and surrender to me for your for your healing, your wholeness. You're not you're not worshiping me. And so he shouts to us in our pain, which is what this brings this man to this to this moment. He says this phrase this phrase, what? I need someone to help me. He says, I need someone to help me. Sir, I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. I need someone to help me. That's what he's saying. Which is why we need a savior. That's why we need a savior. We need a savior who can not just comfort us in our pain and affliction, but can actually heal us deeply and wholly. The uh kind of like we just said, Rachel's offness in her in her book, she talks about how the how the brain makes pain to warn you based on what it's recognizing in you and around you. And its goal is to grab your attention to get you to change your behavior. That's what the brain's trying to do. Hands on a hot stove, your brain says, pain, that's hot, move your hand. Tries to change your life. So, so what the spirit, how the spirit uses pain in our lives is letting us know that something's wrong so that what? So that we can reorient and move our lives, so that we can experience the best that God has for us. Once again, Jesus offers comfort, a state of it's kind of a freedom from pain and trying. He comforts us in our affliction. He brings ease to our pain, he comforts us in our affliction. But what he longs to do is healing, which literally means to restore health and wholeness, to restore to wholeness. That's what he wants to do. And so, what does Jesus do in this passage? And what does Jesus do in our day-to-day lives? Real quick. First and foremost, we want you to know that Jesus has the eyes to see you. Jesus has eyes to see you. What's beautiful about this passage is that in verse two, it says, Now there in Jerusalem near the sheepgate, a pool is a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda, and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here, a great number number of disabled people used to lie. They would say that there would be up to 300 on a normal day-to-day, but at a time of a festival like this, there could be up to 3,000 disabled people swarmed around these pools. The blind, the lame, the paralyzed. And it says one who had been there for was had been there for 38 years, this invalid, and Jesus what? Saw him lying there. Note once again, put yourself in the text for a second. Up to 3,000 people, a crowd of people, and yet Jesus sees one man. It says Jesus saw him. Jesus saw him lying there. And I want you to know that maybe you're here, you're experiencing pain. I want you to know that Jesus sees you. Sees you. He sees you in your pain. Man, I've I've gotten to sit across from a good number of you one-on-one, and obviously I get to I get to connect with a lot of us here. Every single one of us are experiencing pain in some form or fashion in our lives. Maybe it's family connected, maybe it's career connected, maybe it's emotional connected, maybe it's purpose connected. There's all kinds of different things that are that are broken in our lives when we're experiencing all kinds of different things. So it's like I want you to know that you're not alone and that we see you and that we love you, but I want you to know that heaven sees you. That heaven sees you. One of the things that the enemy tries to do in our pain is he wants to isolate you and make you feel alone every single time. You're the only one that's experiencing this. No one's looking out for you, no one cares about you. You're alone, you're isolated, and no one's gonna help you. That's the message that the enemy wants to send you over and over and over again. And yet Jesus says in this text, I see you. In a crowd of 3,000, I see you. You're not just another number, you're not just a statistic on the spreadsheet of heaven, you're a name. You're a name, a person that's formed and fashioned in his image. If you're not a follower of Jesus, you're someone he's pursuing for the sake of redeeming and reconciling to him so that you can become a son and daughter of Almighty God. If you are a follower of Jesus, you're someone he has already claimed, he has united himself to. According to the scriptures, he is obligated to you. But not just obligated, delighted to be. Because what is pain doing to you? It's preaching to you. Your brain is sending messages, your body's sending messages, your emotions are sending messages, you're getting preached to informed inside and out all day long.

SPEAKER_01 34:10

And what you have to do is preach back to it. Just saying no, no, no. He sees me. He sees me. I'm son, I'm daughter, I'm beloved, I'm delighted in, I'm pursued.

SPEAKER_02 34:23

Scripture says he sings over you, wakes up, sees you, breaks out in song. Why? Because you delight his heart. He sees you. But but next, it's it's not just that Jesus sees you. The second thing is Jesus has the authority to heal you. Jesus has the authority to heal you. There's typically two lies that people struggle with when it comes to things like this. Is one, either either I struggle to have faith that Jesus can, or I have, or I struggle to have faith that Jesus wants to. It's usually where it comes to. And Jesus wants you to know it's not an issue of can he. He wants to make it very clear. Jesus has the authority to heal. Right after this passage and this in this encounter with the invalid, it goes into a section that's all about the authority of Jesus, where he connects himself as the Son of God. Says, where God's working, I'm working. Why? Because we're one. We're working on the same page. So Jesus has the authority to heal you. You you need to understand that that whether it's your emotions, whether it's your body, whatever it has to be, it ultimately, it ultimately has to bow to the authority of Jesus. It does. Now the question is, will it bow today or will it bow at the restoration and renewal of all things? But at some point, everything in this world, in your body, outside your body, in this planet, at a cosmic level and at a microscopic level, will bow to the work to the name of Jesus and bring itself back into total and perfect alignment with the will and heart of God. It will. Everything will be to again, everything will be whole again, everything will be good again, everything will be very good again. And and when it is, when it is, this this is something Tolkien talks about all the time. When it is, it's almost gonna it's it's gonna be more pleasurable because we experienced pain. Have you noticed that there's something that maybe you take for granted that you've always had, and then you lose it, but when you get it back again, you take joy in it at the level that it was meant to be taking joy in? That's what this is gonna be like. That you get glimpses of what it could mean. You read it in the word, but you experience pain, you experience brokenness. But man, when you get to experience healing and wholeness and the light of the glory in the presence of Jesus for all of eternity, unending and eternal pleasure. And Jesus wants you to know, He has the authority to heal and restore all things, and he will do it. He will do it. The third thing is Jesus, Jesus has the authority to heal you, Jesus also has the ability to heal you, he's the authority to heal you, he has the everything has to come underneath the authority of the name of Jesus, but he also has the ability to heal you. In verse 8, 9, Jesus literally tells him, get up, pick up your mat, and walk. And at once the man was cured. Jesus has the ability to heal. He will heal. And so maybe you're here and you've you've you've even lost, like, can Jesus even do it? Can Jesus even do it? No, I'm gonna run to these other things because I'm maybe seeing some quicker, some quicker results here. I'm getting some moments of pleasure here, and it makes me feel better for a moment. And Jesus goes in on. I need you to reorient your whole life. It doesn't mean you don't you don't take advantage of these things that have been given to you. Don't quit therapy, don't quit this, don't quit that. If you got if you got good resources, that's great. But is your life orientation around Jesus? And are you depending on him for your healing and wholeness? Are you depending on him for the flourishing and fruitfulness of your life? And then lastly, Jesus has the heart to heal you. Jesus has the authority to heal you, Jesus has the ability to heal you, Jesus has the heart to heal you. What drives Jesus? His compassion. What drives Jesus? His heart. His love, his desire to see you make well. Yeah. Physical brokenness leads to physical pain. Jesus can heal your broken body. Emotional brokenness leads to emotional pain. Jesus can heal your broken heart. Spiritual broken leading to spiritual pain, Jesus can heal your broken soul. You know, in in Aramaic, the text tells us that this place is called Bethesda. And you know what Bethesda means? That means the house of mercy. The house of mercy. Can you imagine a place filled with the sick, with the broken, with the invalid? And what is it? What is it called? Mercy. Mercy. A place where God meets you with his kindness, mercy. So I think the question for us today is do you want to be healed? Do you want to be healed? I want you to even pay attention where your mind goes as you hear that question. You can feel your response. The doubt. Do you want to be healed? The beauty of Jesus is that we see so many times in the gospels where he does it in a moment. He can do it in a word. You know what we see more than anything throughout the New Testament? He does it in a process. He does it in a process. This is why discipleship is so important is so important. That's why community and following Jesus is so important. It's because yes, Jesus can absolutely make you healed and whole in an instant, and he will one day when you see him face to face. But most of the time, he heals through a process of walking with him over a long period of time. This is this is this is why he's why he calls us to yoke ourselves to him so that he can teach us how to do life. Why? Because he's saying, I'm gonna make you increasingly whole over the course of your life. What it means to be conformed to the image of Jesus. Then you're gonna grow in wholeness and holiness. Have you noticed that since you started walking with Jesus? If you've really been walking with, you know, there's no there's no person that's more miserable than someone who's 50% on Jesus and 50% out. No one more miserable. It's miserable to halfway follow Jesus. Because you can't enjoy sin, you don't have faith, you don't have belief, you're not really walking with the Lord, you're not even really seeing transformation in your life. Because you're halfway in and halfway out. No one's more miserable than an uncommitted disciple. No one sees less fruit than an uncommitted disciple. And so the question is, will you entrust the whole of your life to Jesus? Will you entrust the whole of your life to Jesus? Praying for healing and wholeness and believing in faith for healing and wholeness, but placing yourself, yoking yourself to him to pattern your life toward towards a destination of healing and wholeness. In Acts chapter 10 and verse 38, it says, God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and he went around doing good and healing all who are under the power of the devil because God was with them. You know where pain and brokenness comes from? The curse of the enemy. Curse of the enemy. You know what Jesus' design and desire is? Wholeness. That's all you need to know to pray in faith for healing and wholeness. Is that God's desire, God's design and his desk, and the destiny of all of creation is healing and wholeness. And so as we close, I want to ask one question. What if, what if, what if we're healed? Like what if you actually begin to experience healing and wholeness in your life? One of the beautiful things about this passage is that he takes up this mat, this mat that had been his bed place for 38 years, that had been his identity and his resting place for 38 years, that had been his story, his hope for 38 years. And where do you find him after he's healed by Jesus? You find him in the temple. Most theologians believe this is probably his first time ever in the temple. Because you weren't allowed to approach the altar as an invalid. And so, what does the God of the altar do? He comes from behind the veil to approach the invalid. Oh, the invalid can't get himself to the altar? What's the God of heaven gonna do? He's gonna come down to the invalid by the pool. And so you may be, you may be here in your mat of pain this morning. And you may be thinking, I gotta get myself, I gotta get myself, I gotta get myself. No, no, no. Jesus has already come. All you have to bring, all you have to bring is your humility, your emptiness, your woundedness, your brokenness. And Jesus will come in love, mercy, compassion, and power. Get out of the way. And allow the God behind the altar to come and meet you. Revelation chapter 12, verses 10 and 12 says that there's an enemy, and how do we overcome him? We overcome him by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony. Some of you, you're here, and you have experienced healing in your life. You have experiencing who you are today is nothing compared to who you used to be. And the enemy has shut your mouth, and you have not shared the testimony of God's goodness in your life. You've experienced healing and wholeness, and you've told no one. And Jesus is going, there's a testimony that I've given you that you need to share. Because you overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the Word, the word of your testimony. Some of you have a story to share and you need to share it. Others of you, you may be in pain right now. And you need to pray for healing. There's a there's a there was a text that we read in our reading this week in Mark chapter 5, 35 through 36. And and Jairus, his daughter has just died. Jesus is on his way to heal her. She was sick. Someone comes to Jairus and says, Your daughter's dead, don't bother the teacher anymore. And Jesus looks at Jairus and he says, Don't worry, just have faith. Can I tell you the word of the word that I felt the Lord give me that I want that I want to give you today is you need to believe enough to bother. You need to believe God enough to bother him. And some of you have stopped bothering God for healing and wholeness and restoration in different. Of your life because you've lost faith and you need to believe enough to bother. As you wait, believe enough to bother. You know, God wants to make you a resilient disciple. That's what Revelation chapter 12 says. It says someone who doesn't fear death, he wants to cultivate resilience in you. So that you can endure pain, but he's also wants it, he also wants to bring healing in your life. He can do it in a moment and he can do it over a lifetime. But it starts when you surrender. So we're gonna move into a time of response. And I I just we do this every week, and because we want to build a culture of response and prayer, because we know because I know and you know that God stirs in your heart, and then you get up, you walk away, and it dies there. And we just it's just an invitation and an opportunity for you to look someone else in the face and say, This is what God is doing in my heart, and I need you to pull on heaven for me. And that's why we do this. That's why we do this. They're gonna have they're gonna have oil. If you're someone who wants to be anointed with oil, you can be anointed with oil and we'll pray for healing. And because and listen, because scripture tells us to, okay? Not because not because we saw a TikTok video and said that might be cool. It's because James wrote and said, when people are sick and need healing, anoint them with oil and pray for them. And so all they're gonna do is pray for you. And you can say no to oil. You don't have to, you don't have to receive oil. It's the prayer, it's access to the throne room of God, not the oil that I bought off Amazon. But but I think the invitation for us today is to go, man, have you stopped believing? Have you stopped entrusting? When Jesus asked, Do you want to be healed? Are you responding with all the ways that it can't happen? Or are you going, Yes, I'm gonna surrender to you and trust you for my healing and my wholeness? Is pain the Lord of your story that's getting all the glory in your story right now, or is Jesus getting the glory in your story right now? Is your testimony I'm broken and in pain? Or is your testimony Jesus Christ died? He raised from the dead, he's filled me with the Spirit, He's coming back again, and everything will be healed and whole. I want it to happen today, but I'm believing for it for eternity. And so the invitation for us today is to believe again, to not let pain be the author and the authority of your story. If you're here and your life is out of alignment with God, tell God that and get your life back into alignment with Him. Ask for prayer, receive prayer. Whatever you need, we're here. Um, our team's here. I'll be over here. There's a Christian somewhere near you. If you just want to find them and have them pray for you, they have access to God. So, Holy Spirit, we just ask that you would come and minister to us. We're about to sing about your greatness, God, and I pray that for the person who hasn't believed that in a long time, that it would become the cry of their heart again. That their song would no longer be, Great is my pain and great is my brokenness, but it would be great are you, Lord. You would inject faith into this room today, into every heart and every spirit today. Holy Spirit, we long to be a witness to the glory and the beauty and the transformative power of Jesus. We are so thankful that you comfort us in our weakness and in our affliction. If anyone is in pain and weakness and affliction, we pray that you would comfort them right now, Holy Spirit. But God, our prayer is that you would heal them in the name of Jesus. We know you'll do it in eternity. We asked for a glimpse of it today. Would you do it, Jesus? Would you help us respond in faith and in desperation today? In Jesus' name.