The Healing Jesus

0:00It is good to be here today, good to be back, back in Ysaks. Natasha and I have had a great weekend and we are so grateful for your kindness and hospitality. Oasis feels like a church where people like each other. I like that. When we come here, people, people, you talk and you're active and you feel like you want to be here. I've been to churches. I've done feel like people want to be there very much, but this isn't one of those places. And that's why we look so forward to being here and have had such good journeys here in the past. I think it's our third time here at Oasis. And we've had a lot of life change. I don't want to bore you to death with biography, but I do want to update you because you've prayed for us and we've been praying for you. We will celebrate, well, we're on loan today from our home church. I'm here being borrowed by you from the good people at the Garden Church in Irmo, South Carolina have released us for a weekend to be here with you. And we celebrate our two-year anniversary next Sunday at the Garden. And so the last couple

1:03of years have been pretty exciting as we've watched God and do some cool things in the Columbia, South Carolina area. We've planted our roots there, bought a house there this year. And he essentially came off the road after about a decade of our tenor at ministry. We had pastored a dozen years or so in Missouri many years ago, but wasn't sure what I would ever pastor again. Don't tell God what you'll do. Just be willing to do what God tells you to do. And so he told us to tend our own garden. And we've been trying to do that for a couple of years. Couple times a year, we break away and go other places. And this is one of those places. And we do that because we enjoy the atmosphere here. I enjoy how it feels to preach in this house. I told Pastor Tim last night that this is fertile ground. It's an easy place to preach. And what I take, I mean that as a great compliment because I've preached in all kinds of places. And not every place is easy to present the gospel. Not everyone's ready to listen. Some places don't know how to listen. And I don't mean they're immature. I mean they just don't ever hear much word. And so

2:08they don't know how to soak it in. They don't know how to be receptive. And this is a house where people open their ears and their hearts. And I just always appreciate that so much. And I ask today that that's the latitude that you will give to the Spirit is to just open your heart and say, Father, if you have something to say to me today, I'm listening. And if you have something to say to me today, that will steer me the way you want me to go. Then I want to get my hands off of trying to control the destiny of my future and allow you to do that. And if we can all just be that open, there's no telling what the Holy Spirit will say. And so just like I said last night, when you're here, and I mean you individually, you change the direction of messages. So you today are because you're here and because you're receptive and because you're listening, what is about to come out is unique. Had you not been in the house, it might have been a different direction. I think that is a fascinating and beautiful thing. It excites me every chance I get to open the word because I don't know exactly where our foot's going to land. And that's a journey

3:09we get to take for a few minutes together. So that's an exciting part of ministry and I'm so glad to be here to share it today. If you have a Bible today, meet me in the little letter of first John. Let's get to work today. I don't want to waste your time and I don't want to spend too much of it. It's Sunday morning and I know our stomachs will grumble here pretty soon, want some lunch. But let's get the spiritual bread in us first. I want to talk to you today about the healing Jesus. And when I say the healing Jesus, probably the first thing that comes to mind is physical healing. And if you have a physical need, I understand why that would be the very first thing that comes to your mind. I very much believe that Jesus heals physical bodies. But I want to talk to you about a different kind of healing today. I don't want to ignore that physical healing. In fact, it's a good place to start. When Jesus walked the earth in his first advent, Jesus went about healing the sick, doing good. Book of Acts says healing, doing good and healing all who were oppressed to the devil. But Jesus comes to reconstitute the people of God. And what I mean is that Israel had seen

4:13herself as the people of God rightfully, the destined people of God. She was scattered within the Roman Empire. The diaspora had run Israel around the stretches of the empire and they were a people confused wondering when their king would come, wondering when their Messiah would come. Jesus comes as Messiah, but not in the way people expected. He came to redeem Israel, but not in the way people expected. On the road to Emmaus, the two disciples that see Jesus, their eyes are blinded to who he really is. They say to Jesus, have you heard what happened today in Jerusalem, how he, and they talk about Jesus. They're talking to Jesus, but they don't know it. How he died, and they say he raised from the dead that the tomb is empty. We thought he was the one who would redeem Israel. There's disappointment in their voices. There's disappointment because the redemption they thought they were going to receive was a military redemption. They thought someone was going to defeat Caesar and knock down Rome and take over. And that's what they were looking for. They were a people looking for that sort of redeemer. And I think they were looking for that

5:14sort of healer. But what Jesus comes doing is healing the sick, mostly of Jews, mostly of people who are of Israel, but he does it for the reason that sometimes it's lost on us. I think sometimes we think Jesus went about healing the sick because he hated sickness so much that he didn't want to see anyone sick. But I really believe that Jesus came to heal sicknesses in Jews specifically, not that he never healed a Gentile, but we all know that the Gospels have him focusing on his own. And that's because there is a mentality in Israel that if you are sick, blind, lame, or leper, you are excluded from temple worship and you are outside of the real family. You're not allowed to have the fellowship that everyone that's healthy has. So Jesus comes along to reconstitute Israel as a new family. And to do that, he's got to release healings and he's got to take people out of sickness, not just so that their bodies aren't broken, but so that their souls aren't broken. So that they get to come back into the family, they get to come back into the temple,

6:18and they know that there's nothing holding them back. So when Christ goes through the cross, then raises from the dead, and then is now still the healing Jesus. I don't want to exclude physical healing because I've watched God physically heal. But I don't think we give enough credence to the fact that Jesus is a healer in that he's reconstituting the people of God around himself by removing the things we think separate us from God and from the family. And so the healing that Jesus gives is a healing of the soul, a healing of the mind, a healing of our past, a healing of what sin has done to us, and a healing of all of the problems that have caused us to have a terrible identity, that have caused us to carry guilt, that have caused us to leave the place of peace. And Christ is here to relieve those burdens through his nail scars, through his suffering to take on our suffering so that we know we belong in the family of God, so that nothing holds us back from worship. And that's the kind of healing that we all need and that very few ask for.

7:21We're in the business of saying, God, heal me of this flu. Or better yet, heal me of this cancer. And I won't blame you. Why wouldn't we ask God to heal us of this? While doing so literally ask the father what he can do about this wound. And if he can take this scar and make this his own. And that's the healing Jesus I want to preach to you about today. And I want to meet you in first John chapter two, beginning with just a little bit of scripture because I want to deal with, this is really just stretching out from where we were last night, if you'll recall, those of you who weren't here, let me remind you, or let me inform you and those that were, let me remind you what I was trying to do. His last night and today deal with a couple of theological concepts that I think have thrown us off, that if we could fix them just a little bit, I'm not saying I have the answer, but I might give you a new way to think about them. If I can give you a new way to think about them, it might cause some course correction. And last night I dealt with discipline, the discipline of the Lord. And sometimes we hear the word discipline, we freak out because we think that means God's out to get us. God's going to break our leg. God's trying to teach us a

8:24lesson. And I tried to show you that discipline as presented by the New Testament is not nearly as punitive as it is preparatory. And that if the believer can start to look at the disciplines of their life as preparation for what's coming around the corner, we'll stop blaming God and wondering where He is every time something happens in our lives. We'll realize that we have a good father and that we're forgiven of our sins. Now that's a good place to start today. That's a good baseline that we have a good father and we're completely forgiven of our sins. Are we in agreement? All right, we all believe we have a good father and we are forgiven of our sins. We move forward from there because that's a really good place to start. In fact, I think it's the only real place to start. If you're going to understand the concepts of what Jesus is here to try to do, I want to deal with another one today. Another area that I think we've been a little bit thrown off. And it's not healing. I'm just calling this the healing Jesus because that's really what He's doing. I don't think that's the concept. I think it's the concept that what our issue is guilt over sin. I think that that theological concept has caused most of us to carry shame and carry condemnation

9:29and look at the world as a perpetual guilty state. And I think that if we could have a course correction and realize that maybe we've taken our modern theology, our modern ideas and we've inserted them into the scripture to try to make them say something that they may not have originally been trying to say. Here's a dangerous way to read the Bible. It's to take your theology, which is a square peg and then take the round hole of a verse and then just keep jamming it in there until you can finally get that scripture to agree with your theology. It's a really bad way to read the scriptures, but we've been doing it for a long time. Give me a show you an example today. First, John chapter 2, verse 1, my little children, these things I write to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father. Jesus Christ the righteous. He himself is the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only, but also for the whole world. Now, I don't know about your translation. Mine likes to capitalize words. That was a new King James

10:30translation like the capitalized word advocate. Make it a proper noun. We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. Yours may not have that capitalized, but it probably translates it as advocate. It's the Greek word paracletos. Paracletos oftentimes walks alongside helper. Here's the issue that I see with this text. When we see the word advocate in the modern church, we take our modern idea of advocate. We try to take that square peg and knock it into a round hole because our idea of advocate is a lawyer and what do lawyers do? They stand in front of judges. And in this case, if you've sinned and you need an advocate, we think of sin as a guilt issue. And because we think of sin as a guilt issue, what do guilty people need? I'm going to make sure we're on the same page here. We're talking about advocates. We're talking about attorneys. Let's use a better word, right? We've got an attorney. If you're a guilty person, you have the right to remain silent, whatever say, can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to end attorney. That's an American ethos. We have the right to an attorney.

11:33Why? We might be guilty. We might not, but we have the right to an attorney. What's the attorney do? He represents our case in front of the judge so that if we are innocent, he can help prove that we are innocent and if we are guilty, he can get us a lesser sentence. Because that's what we're in defense of our position. And we have taken the phrase advocate the way we define it. And we've read scriptures like 1, 2, 1. My little children, I write these things to you that you don't sin. But if you sin, you have an advocate. And what we think it means is my little children, I write these things to you so you'll live right. But in the event you don't live right and you find yourself guilty. Don't worry. Jesus is your attorney who will stand in front of God and plead your case on his behalf. And how we preach that often is God is very upset with what you've done wrong because God is too holy to look upon sin. You have failed. Jesus has shed his blood. And as the great defense attorney stands in front of the high bar of heaven and holds up the bill of sale paid and full by the blood of the blood. We love to say stuff like it, paid and full by the

12:33blood of the lamb. And then God turns and goes, okay, well, since you have the right attorney, I'll overlook it and I'll forgive you of your sins. And that's become almost part for the course for the gospel in the American church. And it sounds a little like this. Everyone in here's guilty. God is angry at sin, but Jesus has died so that he can stand in front of God and plead your case. Come to Jesus, get the right attorney and he'll take care of the sin issue. That is so common that as I said it, there were probably some of you going, yeah, I don't see what's wrong with that. That sounds like a pretty good representation of the gospel. I'm guilty. God's upset. I need an advocate to plead my case on my part. Well, the problem first of all is that it pits God against Jesus. God thinks one thing of you. Jesus thinks another thing of you. And Jesus is an agent of change on his father. He's always walking in front of God trying to change God's mind about you. And I don't believe that at all. The father and the son are one. Jesus doesn't have to act as an agent of change on the father. Jesus is a reflection of his father. If you see Jesus, you've seen God.

13:36And so if Jesus is an advocate and the scripture says that someone is an advocate, maybe it has little to do with you standing in front of God guilty, needing someone to plead your case. Maybe it has something to do, not with sin being represented by guilt, but sin being represented by a sickness. And I think where we got thrown off was somewhere around the fourth century. When Augustine began to write about original sin. And as he wrote about original sin, the Western church shifted because for almost 400 years it had not had this mentality. But for around the fourth century Augustine begins to teach and write and convince that man is born originally guilty. And that because man is born originally guilty, he passes his guilt onto his children. And then they pass guilt onto their children. And that everybody's automatically guilty up until that point for 400 years, the church had been teaching that man carries a contagion called sin. And that that contagion is activated as you walk through

14:44this life by your failures, by lust, by the things you do that trigger all of the errors in our lives. It can be it can happen because of things people do to you. It can happen because of things you do to people. But what that contagion does is eventually kill you. And that the contagion of sin kills us all. That's how the early church taught that. That the contagion of sin needs dealt with. And so if you sin, if you have the contagion, don't worry, you have an advocate. But if advocate just means lawyer, you're back in guilt talk. So let's change the terminology because I'm not the first to do this, by the way. In fact, it's right there in your scriptures. Now some of it will depend on the way that your translation reads it. But I want to read it to you as I see it in John 14. I see it in this and the translation I'm using. But we're also going to use it in the Greek. John chapter 14, I want to show you the same word you just read in an entirely different context and an entirely different scripture. John chapter 14 verse 16, I'm going to pray to the Father

15:47and he will give you another helper that he may abide with you forever. And that word is paracletos. That's the word that in 1 John 2, one got translated advocate that makes us think he attorney. But no one thinks of an attorney in John 14. Jesus just said, let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. My father's house or many matches. I'm going to go prepare a place for you. Dad's got a bunch of rooms. But don't worry, I'm not going to leave you an orphan. I'm going to leave you a helper. I'm going to pray that the Father not give you an attorney. That would denote that you have an issue of guilt that you need to plead in front of a bar. No, I'm going to pray that someone help you walk this out. Which by the way is how you translate paracletos. A helper, someone who walks next to you. But once we took our cultural idea of advocate or attorney and inserted it into the text, everything became a guilt issue. And so sin became a guilt problem instead of a sickness problem. I hope you can see why I want

16:49to preach the healing Jesus today. Because the healing Jesus is not just simply about physical healing. The healing Jesus is about healing us of the sickness, the contagion that has attacked the human family. And that contagion has attacked all of us. And Jesus comes to be our healer, the spirit of truth, verse 17, whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him for each well with you and will be in you. Spirit of truth, paracletos. No one translated it to attorney there. They just translated it spirit of truth. The one who the world can't receive because it can't see him. You receive him because you don't only receive things you can see. You receive him because you receive things by faith. John chapter 14, verse 26, but the helper, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name. He'll teach you all things. Bring to your remembrance all that I've said to you. Helper, paracletos. Some translation will call it advocate. It's okay because for those riding the Greek in the first and second centuries, advocate didn't mean an attorney that stands in court, but someone who helps you out. And so

17:54some translation will call it helper that which walks alongside of you. Once again, this is our helper. John chapter 15, verse number 16, you didn't choose me. I chose you and I appointed you that you go and bear fruit. That's not the one. Sorry about that. John 16, John 16, seven. I don't know where my eye went. John 16, seven. Nonetheless, I tell you the truth. It's to your advantage. I go away. If I don't go away, the helper, paracletos, will not come to you. But if I depart, I will send him to you. And when he has come, he'll do three things. Convict the world of sin, righteousness and judgment of sin because they don't believe on me of righteousness because I go to my father and you see me no more and of judgment because the ruler of this world is judged. And so Jesus presents the paracletos, the helper, that's doing three things when he gets here. He'll convict the world, convince the world of of sin, righteousness and judgment. Notice of

18:56sin because they believe not on me. I always love to point this out. And maybe I've pointed this out here before, but it's one of my favorite things to talk about when it comes to the paracletos. He loves to convict of sin. I didn't say and neither did John. He loves to convict you of your sins. It says he convicts the world of sin because they believe not on me. It's those who don't know Christ and who don't believe on Christ that the Holy Spirit is working to get them to believe on Christ. It is the Holy Spirit saying believe on the one, believe on the one. We like to think when the Holy Spirit convicts of sin, he's convicting of sins. So all the stuff I did, the Holy Spirit's outhitting me over the spirit head with a hammer trying to convince me that I'm wrong. You don't need that. You already knew you were wrong. You already knew you missed the mark. You already know when you have the sniffles. You know when there's a contagion, but the world's unaware of the great sin of not believing on Jesus. And so the Holy Spirit goes to work on them. What's he doing to you? Of convict the world of sin because they believe not on me. Convict of righteousness because I go

20:00to my father and you see me no more. And now Jesus turns it to his disciples and to all of us and say what do you need convinced of? You need convinced that you are the righteousness of God and Christ because sometimes your lifestyle is going to speak otherwise. And sometimes your mind's just not going to agree with what your spirit is. And so the Holy Spirit has to go to work on believers to convince them of the righteousness that is theirs in Jesus Christ. And then he's here to convict of judgment because the Prince of the world is judged. In other words, to convince us that a judgment has already happened in Christ. And as we recognize that a judgment has already happened in Christ, we don't have to fear judgment. First John says that we can be bold in the day of judgment because as he is so are we in this world and what he says is is that I don't have to be scared because fear involves punishment and torment. And since I know I'm not going to be punished or tormented, I can be bold in the day of judgment. All of that is the paracletos. All of that is God

21:00through the Holy Spirit trying to speak through us to us and upon us, each and every one of us. So that we come to an understanding that what Jesus is trying to do is exact a healing. I think as long as we think of the guilt of sin, then the issue will always go undiagnosed. Whatever our issue is, we'll always go undiagnosed because if I can convince you that you're not guilty of sin and then I leave it there. And that's the only thing Jesus come to do is convince you that you're not guilty of sin. Whatever issues you have in your life will go undiagnosed. You'll keep walking in them and wonder what's going on. And what I found is if we are a guilt-thinking people, judicially thinking people, is that we'll often carry a lot of issues that we're not yet healed of. And we will think that the healing will come if we could just convince ourself we're righteous. I've heard grace people say this. You know what your problem is? You just don't yet believe you're one of the righteousness of God in Christ. That's my problem. I don't yet believe that I'm righteous. That's

22:02what I'm dealing with is that I don't agree with you. I just straight up disagree with you. I don't think that my problem is that I don't believe that I'm the righteous of God in Christ. I'm pretty convinced that Paul White, because I've tried it, Paul White can't be righteous. I am convinced that if I am righteous, it has to be Jesus. I've got that down. There's nothing I can do to be more righteous. There's nothing I can do to be less righteous. But I still have issues. As you go, well, if you did, if you truly, and I've heard this is the argument, if you truly believed you were the righteous of God in Christ, those issues would go away. I think we need to go back to the drawing board and realize that guilt is a moot point. God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting their transgressions against them, and the committed to us, the word of reconciliation. So God is encountering our transgressions against us, and has already punished evil and sin in the body of Christ at the cross, so that we are free from that. Now, I know I have to deal with guilt and shame and condemnation because of any man being Christ, there's no condemnation.

23:06And so I don't have to deal with that. So my issue is not a guilt issue. I don't need an attorney standing in front of God, convincing God I'm innocent because of the blood. That's a one and done job. Jesus isn't running back into the high court of heaven. Every time Paul white fails and standing in front of God going, no, I got him this time. Oh, no, I got him this and give him 10 minutes. He'll pray. And when he does, I'll come back in with the bill and we'll have him paid and full. And I had that mentality for a long time, be like, well, what happens if you, man, this is how my, this is how shaky my salvation was. Well, what happens if you sin and you don't repent and then you get hit by a car and die. Everybody was always getting hit by cars and dying in my theology. It happened every time I preached. Somebody's going to go out of here and you're going to get hit by a car and die. And then what's going to happen if they didn't walk down that aisle and get that right with God because I had a judgmentality, a judgment telling is looking at everything, keeping short receipts, short books, and always declaring me guilty. But if it isn't a guilty, if Jesus is taking the guilt issue into himself and do we all need to know we're relieved?

24:09Absolutely. It's part of our salvation. Come to Jesus and know that you have been set free from the guilt and the shame of sin. Great. Now, let me introduce you to the healing Jesus. Because of healing Jesus, the paracletos, the Holy Spirit, go, you're acting like they're the same. Well, first John 2 acts like they're the same. My little children, if you sin, I'll write these things so you don't sin. But if you sin, you have an advocate with the father. Jesus Christ the righteous. You have a paracletos with the father. Jesus Christ the righteous. Now, Jesus said he's going to leave you the paracletos and we call them the Holy Spirit. But Jesus in first John 2 is the paracletos. So I don't want to argue terms. I just, I don't want to argue who's doing it. I just want us to come to an understanding that somebody is doing something on my behalf when I fail. First Peter chapter 2. Let's throw another scripture into the mix today. In first Peter chapter 2, one of the most famous healing passages in the New Testament.

25:10And I agree it ought to be one of the most famous healing passages. But I think we could maybe shift our gaze a little bit and see what kind of healing we're talking about. First Peter chapter 2 verse 24, he himself bore our sins in his own body on the tree that we having died to sins might live for righteousness. That's good news. Let me just break that down one more time. I know the verse isn't over with. I'm saving the best for last. So did Peter. bore our sins in his body on the tree. That's us. That's Jesus taking my sin, right? That's the cross right there. Bore our sins in his body on the tree that we had died to sin might live for righteousness. There's my guilt issue right there. I get to live for righteousness. God who knew who knew no sin was made sin so that we might be made the righteousness of God in Christ. Okay. So Jesus takes all of that into himself so that we can be righteous. Aren't you glad for that? All right. Now what happens by whose stripes you were healed? So the question then, because a lot of times here's how we'll

26:10quote this verse, we'll go Jesus died on the cross so that by his stripes were healed. And we only put that in the realm of the physical. And then we would know it's someone with a long pray healing over them. But according to the text, Jesus bore our sins in his body on the tree so that we could be righteous. And it's those stripes that heal us righteous people. What are we being healed of? Whatever the contagion of sin has done to us. And whatever the contagion of sin continues to do to us. So I want to call you to the healing Jesus because the healing Jesus takes your hurts and your pains, the stuff you did that hurt you, that hurt people, the stuff done to you that hurt you. And that's hurt people. Wounds from your past, problems, issues, darknesses, places you don't talk about, stuff you don't want to bring up. And I'm not asking you to raise your hand at the end of a service and go, I'm going to release,

27:12I want you to say out loud, whatever it is, because we are not the healers. But the Jesus that walks alongside of you is the active healing agent in your life. And all he's ever asked for is for you to tell the truth. When you tell the truth about who you are, about what hurt you, about why it happened and what you don't understand it, even if it's to curse God that he let it happen to you. Tell God that truth so that when you bring the reality in front of the Father, you've bared your true soul so that the healer can go to work. For so long we've preached Jesus as the advocate, we've stopped preaching Jesus as the great physician. And I think the American church needs a return to Jesus, the great physician. The great physician who never misses a house call. The great physician who only asks you to tell him what's wrong. If you go to your doctor and he says, what's wrong? And you go, I don't want to talk about it. The doctor goes, why are you here?

28:14Or maybe let's try this one on. Let's put our spiritualism in to go into the doctor. The doctor goes, what's up? What do you need? Why are you here? And we go, I'm not guilty. And he goes, well, that's good to know. I'm not even going to ask you what you thought you might be guilty of. I'm just going to ask you what's wrong. And you go, hey, nothing's wrong. I'm not guilty. And he goes, I don't know. I don't know what to do with you. I think you're confused at what office you're in. Maybe you need to see my attorney friend down the road. But I'm here to ask you what's wrong. It wouldn't make sense. Yet we're doing that a lot of times. What's wrong? What do you need? I'm not guilty. I'm God's righteousness. He goes, I didn't ask you if you're not guilty. I know you're not guilty. I've already paid for your guilt. What's wrong? And so to say what's wrong, you got to know it. You got to say it. Or even if you don't know, you go, I don't know, Doc. Right? I don't know what's wrong. That's why I'm here. Okay. Great. Where does it hurt? What are your symptoms? Maybe your symptoms are, I don't know, and they're rationally angry all the time. I'm jealous. I'm greedy. I'm lustful. Stuff's misdirected in my life. I don't know what to

29:20do with it. I keep quoting that I'm righteous and none of it works. And he goes, that's because you keep telling your sickness that you're not guilty. You don't tell your sickness. You're not guilty. You put ointment. You pour in the oil and the wine. You're the thief. Beat and have to death on the Jericho road. Most of us miss this when Jesus tells us the story of the great, I'm in the weeds now, but I got to, I already went there. So I got to get out, I got to get this out. Most of us miss this is the story of the great Samaritan because we think Jesus is giving a principled lesson about how you're supposed to treat your neighbor. And he is. But if you want to figure out which character you are on the road between Jericho and Jerusalem, you're the guy beaten in the ditch. And you just wish somebody be kind to you. And Jesus goes, who was neighborly? Go do likewise. Treat everybody as if they've been beaten up in a ditch. Go do likewise. Yeah, but they haven't been beaten up in a ditch. Have they not?

30:21What if we've all been beaten up and thrown into a ditch? What if that's the human condition? That's the contagion of sin. We've been beaten up and thrown into a ditch. We're just waiting on somebody to pour in the oil and the wine, pay the inn, keep her and take care of us. And that's the grace of God. And that's the great physician. He who is well have no need of a physician, but he who is sick does. Jesus comes so that all of us who need Jesus will find him. When you come in and say, Lord, I need you. Jesus is a doctor. He says those who need or those who are sick, what we're saying is I have a sickness. And I need you to do something. And sometimes when you go to that doctor, he says, you got to show me where it hurts. You got to point to it. You might have to take something off, right? You might have to get uncomfortable. And that's what we do in the presence of Jesus because we have to tell the truth. And by telling the truth, we come and do an identity. I risk having told you this story before, but I don't remember where I tell stuff. I just try to listen to where I am in that moment.

31:22But one of my favorite moments in the Gospels is whether one with the issue of blood reaches out, touches Jesus. You know, she reaches through the crowd and grabs the hem of his garment, just kind of tugs on it, and then pulls her hand back. And the Bible says that she's been bleeding for 12 years as she tried everything. She went to every doctor, never got better, only got worse, spent all her money on physicians. And so here comes Jesus, the great physician. And she thinks, I'll give it a try. What do I got to lose? That's sometimes that's the best faith we got. What do I got to lose? I'll give it a try. And we reach out and we grab the hem of his garment. And the Bible says that as she grabbed it, she was healed of her plague, the condition dried up. She felt it in her body, like something snapped. But she shrinks away. Mark says she shrunk away fearing and trembling. The same Greek words Paul uses when he says, God, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling for it is God who work within you, both to willing to do according to his good pleasure. So it's a holy fear and trembling. And so she falls away fearing and trembling. The Bible says that Jesus stops and goes, who touched me? And the disciples say, well,

32:24everybody's touching you know the story. And Jesus turns and finds the woman who grabbed the hem of his garment and looks her in the eye. And the Bible says that she told him the whole truth. Only Mark's gospel gives that phrase. I love it. Mark's gospel goes, she told him the whole truth. And he said to her, daughter, go thy way, you're healed of your plague. What did it take to go from the issue of blood dried up to an identity of sonship? Not re-quoting the same scripture over and over again. Tell the whole truth. Put it in front of the Father. Here's why I'm mad at you, God. You let me down when this happened. Here's what so and so did to me when I was a kid. And I've carried it forever. Oh, I know I'm not guilty of sin, but this is hurting me. This is killing me. This is what so and so said to me. This

33:28is what has been done to me. This is the battle that I've faced. Where were you when this happened? The greatest revelation that I can give that's happened in me is to find that whenever I'm at my worst, when the very worst thing happens in the world, the best revelation to get me through it is not that God is standing outside of it going sun. I'm going to get you through, but rather that God having been a man and suffered as we suffer is standing in the middle of my suffering. And if you do it to the least of these, you've done it unto me. So whatever's happening to you is happening to the Father. He is enduring what you are enduring as you are enduring it. My sins were placed in the body of Christ by his stripes we are healed. So I ask you, healed of what? Healed of whatever you need. Healed of, healed of past, healed of pain, healed of embarrassment, healed of what was done to you. It is not an overnight. It is a process of allowing the Holy Spirit to do his work. This is why we're walking with Jesus. This is why we're talking with Jesus. This is why sometimes we've cheapened these moments to finger snap moments and going,

34:30it's got to happen like this. I want a miracle where God does it like this. And the Holy Spirit says, in some cases, it took a long time for you to get down into that hole. I'm going to take a little wall bringing you out of that hole. I know the pace and the speed at which to pull you out of that dungeon. And we're going to do it because I'm the healing Jesus. It's what he does. Let's close in Ephesians 5. I want to give you some hope today. If you've got some darkness in your life, the reality is you probably do. You got some areas in your life that you're not proud of, that you're not excited about. You're okay. You can tell the Lord the whole truth. You're not guilty. He's listening. You are his righteousness. He goes, it's about time you realized it because I've known it forever. Let's talk it out. Ephesians chapter 5, verse 13, all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light for whatever makes manifest is light. Let me read to you in the NRSV. I love this. Everything exposed by the light becomes visible for everything that becomes visible is light.

35:30Let's work that slowly. Everything exposed by the light becomes visible. Everything that becomes visible is light. Here's the good news. God exposes whatever it is you've kept in the dark, not to destroy you, but to transform you. Jesus came to take whatever's in the dark, to pull it to the light, not so that he can kill you with shame and cripple you with embarrassment, but to pull it to the light is light, not the light of your friends and the church and so and so, to pull it to light so that you and he hold hands and face this issue together. And as he pulls it to the light, he transforms that dark area of your life, life into light. Paul says whatever is exposed by the light becomes visible. Everything that becomes visible is light. Your dark place becomes radiant. The space in you that was wounded and hurt becomes a place of hope. It becomes

36:35a place of healing. You become an agent of healing for someone else who has that darkness and that pain and that area in your life. And even though you don't want it and you wish it hadn't happened to you, once it gets transformed into light, you wouldn't trade it for anything. Because now that he's transformed that darkness into light, you are the person you were born and destined to be in a new creation reality. So that Christ came to reconstitute a new people around himself by taking all the things that had put them on the fringes, taking them away so that whatever used to be your issue becomes the source of your great testimony. So that every leper who lost all their appendages to leprosy and then they meet Jesus can hold up those broken appendages and show the world what Christ can do to their brokenness. So that the Lazarus is or the blind or the lame of the world of Jesus' day can move in and so that the woman with the issue of blood and so that

37:40whatever it is that put her in that state and in that case can be defeated. Our darkness becomes radiant because Jesus becomes our healer. I want to invite you today to step into the light of his love. Our God is a consuming fire. That's good news. You want the consuming fire kind. Jesus came with a fan in his hand to separate the wheat from the chaff. I want to help with this if I can as enclosing because it's too easy for us to go Jesus came to baptize the world in fire and he's going to separate the wheat from the chaff and he's going to burn up all the chaff and when we say burn up all the chaff we point out there at all the centers and he's going to gather the wheat and of course we're the golden wheat of glory and gather the wheat into his barn. Burn the chaff with unquenchable fire. We've already got hell in our mind and everybody burning up forever.

38:44But I want to present to you that what Jesus is doing when you meet him as he brings you into the furnace of his father's love and he separates the chaff from the wheat in your own life. The stuff you don't need from the stuff that he wants and the stuff that you don't need he goes to work on burning because that's what he does and the more you walk with him the more he burns up the stuff he doesn't need so that he can bring the wheat to the surface the fruit of righteousness. And so that's the consuming fire of God's love and the consuming fire of God's love is working all the time. You don't have to worry about it though. If your shadrack may shack in a bed and go and you've been thrown into a fiery furnace just open your eyes and look around. As Nebuchadnezzar said there how many did we throw in the fire and they said three and he said then why do I see four because there is a fourth man that looks like the Son of God. I love the fact that if we go into the fire he goes in with us and the only thing that burns on us are the tides that bind us. So whatever has bound you up come on into the fire with Jesus the great physician says this is going to hurt. The only way to get you better is to go through some pain but we're going to do this

39:49together. This isn't my dad breaking you because you failed. This is us walking out of this furnace into a place of restored life into a place of purified gold and the dross being torn right off the top. Let's go to the great physician together. Let's go to the healer together. Now we do this every day all the time. Anytime we want to talk to Jesus we have the opportunity to go to the great physician but at church in community is a beautiful opportunity because when we come together as saints of God something happens when two or three gathered together in his name that doesn't just happen with you in your car driving down the road and I don't want to discount you in your car driving down the road. That's a great thing and you can have great times with Jesus you and Jesus driving down the road in your car. I've had a lot of them but if two or three gathered together in my name and I'm in the midst of them that means something happens when I get iron sharpening iron and I get in the same room with people who bring their own problems and their own issues in front of my Jesus. I get to see Jesus in your eyes. I get to sit, experience Jesus through your worship you and I get to find Christ together and the healer walks amongst us to do what it is

40:53that needs done in our lives. This is why oftentimes you'll find great healing in moments of community and great healing in moments of service and what we do in the church is invite you and what we're going to do in just a little bit in a moment and I've been given a great pleasure today by Pastor Tim to pray over the communion and to talk communion to you for a moment. We're going to have a great moment, a great experience to be invited to the table Lord. What we do with the garden is every Sunday I conclude my sermon by praying over our people in whatever word the Father put in my heart. We pray our Christian confession, the apostles creed together, we pray a prayer forgiveness together and then we invite you to come to the Lord's table. Now the reason that I do this is because I grew up in invitation environments and what I mean by invitation, an evangelical invitation environments which was bring the music team back up, you guys start playing and we're going to open the altars and we want you to come down here and pray and then God's going to do a work and I that's great. I mean that people I've seen God do amazing and

41:55awesome things. I've also seen a lot of stuff that I don't think people were releasing anything to God. I think a lot of things happen in the flesh. So when I start pastoring with Lord I want to do something different. I don't want to because I don't want to as a pastor get to the end and then dread alter work because that's exactly what happens sometimes the Pentecostum Charismatic Church is like man this is going to be an hour and a half of work down here trying to get people free from stuff and that it become a work on my part like I got to have the right word to say to you. I got to have a scripture to quote to you that helps release you. So I'm going to take the burden and put it back on Jesus because it's his job to heal you. It's not my job to heal you and so I don't have anything a magic prayer for you. I don't have this scripture we're going to place over you and we're going to give you the sign of the cross and you're going to go out empowered. It's the work of the Holy Spirit but we do have something that the church has been walking in for two thousand years and that's the body and the blood of the Lord Jesus. Our oldest sacrament goes all the way back to the last supper where Jesus tears bread and

42:57half hands it to his disciples take eat this is my body broken for you takes a couple wine slides it across and says take drink this is the blood of a new covenant shed for the remission of sins and I don't fence the table because if Judas Iscariot can take communion on the last supper I don't think you've out sin Judas so I invite you to take the body and the blood of the Lord Jesus. In John chapter six Jesus said take he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has my life so the invitation that the church offers is come to Jesus his body's been broken for you his blood's been shed for you received by faith and that's the invitation I want to give to you today to come to Jesus where the body is broken and the blood is shed would you bow your heads I want to pray over this word I know they're going to be bringing to you the elements of communion but I want to pray over this word about the healing Jesus because I really believe that the Holy Spirit has spoken to some hearts today and really tendered the ground for the seed that was given so that you've been receptive you've heard the Father say something maybe unique to you maybe

44:02you heard something for the first time maybe you heard something for the thousandth time and it clicked and then you are ready to see what God will do in your own spirit father that's the word that you put into my heart was to tell this church that you are a healing Jesus and I know that their hearts are receptive to that and they're open to that and they've already prepared themselves for that I wasn't in a house today father I had to convince people that they're not guilty they already know they're not guilty because of what Jesus has done so father we've released a word today that I pray has fallen into very fertile soil where someone here who brings their pain in their scars and their issues and their hurts and their oppressions and their darknesses has now have some hope and some light to say my healing is in Jesus and I'm going to allow Jesus to do that work father I pray over this group and everyone in this house and also those who will watch and listen to this message down the road father that the healing Jesus will do the work that no man

45:03can do that no effort can do that no performance can do teach us how to get honest this is what I know I need father teach me how to get honest and tell you the truth you're the great physician and you're saying hey Paul what do you need and sometimes I come in and I lie to you Lord and I don't tell you where my heart is maybe I'm embarrassed maybe I'm ashamed of myself but father forgive me and teach me how to tell the truth teach all of us how to tell the truth so that we can lay in front of the physician exactly what it is that we need do this force father in Jesus name just let that soak would you just stay right in that place for a moment just stay right in that place for a moment in Jesus name thank you for joining us for this week's program if you would like more information please visit our website at Paulwhiteministries.com here you can find thousands of sermons shop for pastor Paul's books and series and become either a monthly partner or a one-time donor you can

46:09also visit our church website at midlandsgardenchurch.org for written correspondence or to donate by check write us at Paul White Ministries PO Box 1030 flowery branch Georgia 30542 join us again next week here in the Garden of Grace