Encounters with Jesus: Part 6- Jesus the Healer - Pastor Dave Patterson

Hey, this is Andrew Damasio, the lead pastor of Rose Church here in Portland Oregon.

Welcome to our podcast.

Our mission here at Rose is building a big people, becoming like Jesus in community while growing in our faith.

Whoever you are, wherever you are, I pray today's message challenges you and encourages you on your walk with Jesus.

Thank you so much for listening.

Enjoy today's podcast.

It is so good to be at Rose Church, man.

This place is unique and amazing.

I do have the privilege and opportunity to travel a bit around the nation.

And so I see a lot of different churches and communities.

And I just want to remind you, if you don't know, how unique this is, what God is doing in this place.

And the fact that people just pack into this building and stand around the walls, and what God is doing is so unique, and you should honor it and treasure it.

And just the fact that you found a parking place today in this neighborhood and you're here.

God is a God of miracles.

That's what I'm saying.

We're still doing some crazy good stuff.

But I love I love the presence of God here.

There is a tangible weight of the Holy Spirit on your worship.

And so I want to encourage you to treasure that and honor the presence of God.

And man, you are singing so good.

I don't know if it's the vaulted ceiling and the stained glass, but y'all sound like a choir out there today.

Sounded amazing.

I do want to encourage you before we go to the word to pray, intercede for your church.

So I've watched a lot of churches, and usually the trajectory and the bell curve is a church will grow, they'll have momentum like you have, they'll get two, three services, a decade will go by, and then decline hits.

And usually that's not the will of God, and that's not the intention of the Lord.

What it is is churches divide and teams get weird and the pastor goes nuts and different things happen in a lot of different places, and that's never God's design.

You're gonna be just fine, by the way, Andrew, because all these folks can be praying for you and Julia.

But I want you to pray for your church and stand and say, God, we want to guard what you're doing here.

Amen.

And churches like this don't happen without amazing leaders that have committed their whole life to step out there and to you know, plant the stake in the ground and to pioneer something.

So I love your pastors.

I have known Andrew and Julia for all their lives.

And uh so I just want to take a moment and honor you guys.

And would you just help me say, hey, we love you, Pastor Andrew?

Love you so much.

And you know, planting a church here in Portland through the Father's House, we've planted the Father's house in cities like San Francisco and Oakland and Sacramento and Seattle and now Los Gatos and Santa Barbara.

And when you go into a city where there's spiritual resistance and there's really not a move of the Holy Ghost, it takes an army of prayer warriors.

So I want to call you up to that today.

Jesus said you should always pray and never give up.

Paul said, pray without ceasing.

That is a lifestyle of prayer and intercession.

So I want to call you up to that today.

And also I want to honor Sharon.

It's good so good to see you on the front row and uh love you so much and just want to honor your legacy.

There's probably not a month that goes by that I'm not quoting Pastor Frank and reading his sermons and using his resources.

So uh you've been a good steward of the legacy of Pastor Frank, he was a close friend of mine, and so I honor you today.

Um, I I love when the Holy Spirit is working in his church, and I've been praying for y'all.

And here's what I believe today Jesus is gonna come and he's gonna start healing some people, he wants to heal you, he's a healing God, and we know that because Isaiah said, By his stripes, we are healed.

It was a prophetic statement over the coming Messiah, and then Peter quoted it, looking back and said, By his stripes you were healed, referring to the cross.

Healing is the children's bread, and God wants to heal you in four areas of your life.

He wants to heal your spiritually, he wants to heal you emotionally, relationally, and physically.

Okay, and we know that this is his will because he told us to pray.

You know, the disciples were watching the prayer life of Jesus, and they said, Lord, and teach us to pray like you pray.

And his response was what?

He gave us a template, a pattern, what we call the Lord's Prayer or the Our Father.

In fact, maybe let's just do a little bit of it together, shall we?

You ready?

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

Okay, time out right there.

Your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.

How are things in heaven this morning?

I would submit that they're quite lovely.

There's no debt, there's no crazy politicians, there's no wars, there's no rumor of war, there's no bombs being dropped, and there's no sickness, there's no pain.

And so he said, I want you to pray that the kingdom be established in the earth.

And when the kingdom comes, listen, when the kingdom comes into your family, he'll heal the marriage.

When the kingdom comes into your relationships with your kids, there's restoration.

When the kingdom comes into your emotions, if you've been traumatized or gone through some rough stuff, he'll begin to heal your soul.

He's a healing God, amen.

So I want to talk to you about Jesus the healer.

Thank you, Carolyn.

Give it up for Carolyn, ladies and gentlemen, on the keys.

So the revelation of God being a healer goes all the way back 1,500 years before the ministry of Jesus, when God told Moses this back in Exodus 15, 26.

He said, For I am the Lord who heals you.

There are nine compound Hebrew names of God in the Old Testament, and this is one of them.

It's Jehovah Rapha.

And Jehovah Rapha means exactly that, the Lord who heals.

Now, Jesus comes on the scene as Messiah.

He's beginning to be recognized as Messiah.

About two years into his ministry, we're going to pick up a story in just a moment.

But everyone knew, oh, wherever Jesus goes, people are getting healed.

And I love these verses.

In fact, I want to ask you to read with me a little audience participation here.

Matthew 12, 15.

There's several verses like this in your New Testament.

This is coming up.

Yeah, let's read this out together.

Let's go.

Great multitudes followed him and he healed them.

Say, what?

I want to be in that meeting.

I want to be in the meeting where Jesus heals everybody.

And when he went into a village when everybody got healed, they didn't have to qualify.

They didn't have to have the faith for it.

Didn't matter if you were Jew, Gentile, believer, pagan, heathen, if Jesus shows up, everybody's getting healed.

Because it was the full manifestation of Jehovah Rapha.

Now, in our culture, we live in a culture of skepticism and of doubt and unbelief and really self-reliance.

So if you wonder why there's not the kind of healings right now that we would see in the book of Acts or in the Ministry of Jesus, I believe the church is in a process of restoration.

Go with me on this.

We've gone through some dark times and America would be accurately accused of being self-reliant as much as we can.

Prayer in church are like the final option after I've ran out of options.

But see, the New Testament believers, I believe they had a childlike faith.

And if Jesus said in James chapter 4, hey, is anybody sick?

James 4 · chapter mention

Huh.

Call for the leaders of the church.

They will anoint you with oil, and the prayer of faith will raise you up.

And if you have any sins, they will be forgiven.

So we simply obey what the Word of God says.

Let me just make a statement over your church, because I know your pastors and your doctrinal position here.

If you're a part of Rose Church, you are a part of a church that believes that all the gifts of the Holy Ghost are for today.

We believe in prophecy, we believe in healing, we believe in words of knowledge and all of the gifts listed in 1 Corinthians chapter 12 and chapter 14.

1 Corinthians 12 · chapter mention

So even if we don't see healing as much as we would like to, we will never stop laying hands on the sick and seeing them recover.

At the Father's house, two of our campuses now, and we're starting at a third campus, we have healing rooms.

And uh every other Saturday there's a trained group of intercessors and people that are highly anointed.

Many have the gift of healing, and people will stand in line and we'll take three, four hours on a Saturday morning, and we're hearing about all kinds of miracles.

But my heart longs for the day when people come into the house of God and they just get healed in the presence of Jesus.

They just get healed standing in his presence.

And I'm not just talking about physical healing, I'm talking about spiritual healing and emotional healing and relational healing.

Because wherever Jesus is, the healer is in the house, and there's potential that you will be healed today.

Bit of my testimony, I was a rebellious pastor's kid.

I went deep into drugs at the age of 12 years old, and I spent a decade running from God because the spiritual covering in our house was messed up, and my dad was living a dual false life as a pastor.

So I went deep and I came back to the Lord.

Every kind of drug, this guy did it.

I mean, I'm not proud of it.

I just know that's my testimony.

God heals and delivers from heroin, cocaine, on down, LSD, all the rest.

God is a delivering and a healing God.

So when I came back to Jesus, man, I was just one of the craziest worshipers.

I was always on the front row, and every time that we had altar calls back in the day, old school Pentecostal church.

Any Jesus?

Come to the altar, like and I would just run down to the altar.

After about three months, one of the elders, one of the guys said, Dave, you've been coming to a salvation call every service for three months.

I think you're good.

I'm like, dude, if they're called, I just know God is thicker and heavier and something goes on down there.

So I'm getting down there.

But I remember standing in worship in my brokenness and my addiction, pouring my heart out to God and just experiencing waves of healing.

So today, you know, the reason you need healing in all four areas, especially what's been on my heart today, relationally and emotionally, we've all been through some trauma and some drama.

Many of you, you've seen divorce, or the breakup of a family, or the estrangement of a family member, or you've gone through something in your life where your soul was traumatized.

And you would say, spiritually, yeah, I belong to Jesus, but yet your soul is still carrying some wounds.

Now remember this salvation is instantaneous, it's in the moment.

Believe in your heart, confess with your mouth, Romans 10, 9 and 10, right?

And you will receive the gift of salvation.

It's a miracle, it's beyond what we conceive.

But the healing of our soul is a progressive work.

God wants to come and heal those emotions and the wounds of your life because he is in fact a healing God.

Now, I want to just make one doctrinal statement because I hear people say things like this well, God gave me this sickness to test me.

I'm like, nah, he probably didn't.

Or no, God is God is showing me something and he will.

He will use sickness and pain and brokenness and the chaos of our planet.

All things work together for good to them who love the Lord and are called according to his purpose.

But God is not the author of sin, sickness, chaos, war, disruption.

Those come because you're part of a broken planet.

And because of that, everybody in the room today, and this is not even a prophetic thought, everybody's jacked up at some level.

You're welcome.

And because of that, God brings healing.

Now, here's here's where here's the doctrinal statement.

God is not the author of sin, sickness, and pain.

These are the results, both directly and indirectly, of the entrance of sin into the human experience.

And we'll find this in Romans chapter 5, verse 12.

Romans 5:12

When Adam sinned, sin entered the world.

Adam's sin brought death, so death spread to everyone.

You don't ask, have to ask for death and decay in your life.

When you're born, you inherit it.

The word says, We are born into sin and we're shaped, we're crafted in iniquity.

Hebrew word for iniquity, it means to have a bent or a pre-given disposition.

Some of you in the room have a pre-given disposition to addiction or adultery or whatever it might be or to greed.

You were raised with that.

That's why we must have a redeemer.

But this all happened at the fall.

God looked at Adam and Eve.

He said, Because of your sin, you will have pain.

Pain is a direct result of sin.

And then he said, You will have, okay, how many moms we got in the room?

Little Mother's Day wave?

Okay.

Here's what the Lord said because of sin, you will have pain in childbearing.

So thank Eve for that.

Thanks, Eve.

And then he he tells Adam, he says, No longer are you just gonna cruise into the garden and have all the fruit and the vegetation and it just grows freely.

He said, The ground is gonna be hard.

There's gonna be thorns and thistles.

You're gonna have to work by the sweat of your brow to eat and make a living.

That's because of the fall and of sin.

So my wife and I live in a track home.

We downsized all the kids, you just got grandkids over.

So I'm out mowing my lawn in the front yard.

Because if you don't keep your lawn right, the HOA they come cracking down on you, man.

It's rough.

And if you live in a track home, don't kid yourself, it's a competition.

Neighbors driving by, they're just checking out your lawn.

How's Dave's weeds today?

You know, so I'm out there with the weed and the feed.

I'm making it look good.

So I get out there and mowing my lawn.

I was just studying this stuff, and I got a three-foot weed in the middle of my yard overnight.

And I saw it, I'm like, that's the devil, and that's Adam's fault.

And that's this is sound doctrine right now that you're receiving.

Like, really?

Is it?

But Jesus comes and he says, I will I will live my life in a sacrificial way and die upon a cross and stretch out my arms and receive these lashes upon my back that by the stripes and my shed blood you will receive healing.

This is the children's bread that you would be healed today.

So I want you to get your faith up.

You know, faith is the non-negotiable to receive healing.

Without faith, it's impossible to please God.

Without faith, you will never move the needle.

But here's the deal with healing: it doesn't necessarily have to be your faith.

There are three origins of faith and healing in the Bible.

The first one is the faith of God Himself.

When Jesus showed up on the scene, he was healing people without their permission.

He was healing heathens and pagans and confused folks.

He even heals some dead people.

How many of you got absolutely nothing to do with that healing when you're Lazarus in a tomb and Jesus shows up and says, Come forth.

So there's the faith of God, but then there is third-party faith.

That's when, like Jairus, this guy in the New Testament, we'll read about, he had a 12-year-old daughter.

And uh, if you're a father or mother in the room, you're 12-year-old, your kid is sick, man, there's nothing that drives you closer to God than to see a healing because she was gonna die.

So he goes to Jesus and says, Lord, would you come to my house?

My 12-year-old is gonna die.

And Jesus said, Let's go.

But it was Jairus' faith, not the daughter's faith.

Oh, remember the four guys that came to Jesus and they brought their friend on a stretcher?

And they're like, We're gonna get our buddy healed.

So they go to the meeting and they get there, and when they show up, it's kind of like Rose Church.

There's no parking spots, there's no room, you can't get in.

They're like, go to the next service.

They're like, so they're standing there, what did they do?

They look up at the roof, and Bob looks over at Levi and goes, I think we can tear the roof off this place, which they did.

It was third-party faith, so you can have someone else believe for you.

But the most common faith in the New Testament for healing is first person.

It's your faith that stretches out to God.

Look at this.

Here's some quotes from Jesus.

Matthew 9, Jesus said, Your faith has made you well.

In the book of Mark, your faith has healed you.

Again in Matthew, oh woman, great is your faith.

Let it be to you as you desire, and then according to your faith, so be it unto you.

So I want to look at a day in the life of Jesus.

I want to talk about healing, but how do we position ourselves?

What are some ways where we can receive healing?

The Lord would look at you and say, Great is your faith.

According to your faith, so be it unto you.

We're gonna go to Luke chapter 8, verse 40.

Luke 8:40

Here it is.

On the other side of the lake, the crowds welcomed Jesus because they've been watching for him.

Then a man named Jairus, a leader of local synagogue, came and fell at Jesus' feet, pleading with him to come home with him.

His only daughter, who was about 12 years old, was dying, and Jesus went with him, as he went with him.

He was surrounded by the crowds, and a woman in the crowd had suffered for twelve years with constant bleeding, and she could find no cure.

Coming up behind Jesus, she touched the fringe of his robe.

Immediately the bleeding stopped.

Who touched me?

Jesus asked.

Everyone denied it.

And Peter said, Master, this whole crowd is pressing in against you.

But Jesus said, Someone, look at this, someone deliberately touched me.

For I felt healing power go out for me.

And when the woman realized that she could not stay hidden, she began to tremble, fell to her knees in front of him.

The whole crowd heard her explain why she touched him and that she'd been immediately healed.

Daughter, he said to her, Your faith has made you well.

Go in peace.

Now, this is a powerful story, but there are layers of cultural complexity.

I would like to extract three attributes of dynamic faith from this woman who got healed of a deadly disease.

She was getting ready to die and she carried it for 12 years.

First off, I want you to understand that this lady lived a life of shame.

She lived a life of rejection.

She lived a life of not being able to come around her community because she would have been categorized with the unclean.

So back in the day in the Mideast, the Far East, uh leprosy is still the thing to this day, but it was very common to have leper colonies.

So the lepers would stay a prescribed distance from the community, and if they got within 50 yards of you, they had to cry out according to the law, unclean, unclean.

She was unclean.

If you touched her, if you came in contact with her, you would be defiled.

You could not go to the place of worship.

You'd have to do a ceremonial washing and then check in with a priest on the next day.

It was a 24-hour quarantine.

So because of that, her life was filled with rejection and shame.

She would have been restricted from worshiping in the temple.

She would not have been welcomed in a public setting like this one, rejected by everyone she came close to, and known in the village as the person to stay away from.

And when I see that, I see a target for the grace of God.

If you've ever been rejected, if you've ever carried shame in your life from your past sins and failures and reputation, Jesus is looking for you.

He loves healing the broken and the messed up and the farthest from God.

He came to seek and save the lost.

I love this.

Jesus said, Hey, here's my job description.

I seek, I pursue, I look, I and I find the one that's lost, and I go after him and I get them.

So three behaviors of healing faith.

Number one, you ready?

She got up and she left the house.

Bigger than you think.

She just got up and she left the house.

In other words, dynamic faith makes a move.

And I want to ask you a question.

I want I want you to answer it personally right now.

Let the Holy Spirit just settle this in your heart.

Here you go.

You ready?

What's your move?

What is your move?

What is your next move?

Because this young lady here, God's got a move for her, but it's it's not his move.

That's a different move.

This couple back here, it's a different everyone has a specific thing, and God is saying, What is your move?

Now, the complexity of her situation was she was staring death in the face.

In fact, Mark says it this way this woman had a flow of blood.

Look at this.

Verse 26.

She spent all she had and was no better, but rather she grew worse.

In other words, there was no welfare program back in the day.

There was no uh organ health plan, right?

HP, whatever it is, OHP.

There was no Medical Medicaid, there was no Jerusalem care.

You were relegated to sit on the corner of a sidewalk or a curb in the city square, and I've been there even to this day.

Here's what they do they pull their cloak up over their head in shame and they will not look at you eye to eye, and they stretch out their hands and they cry, alms, alms, all day.

That's how they survive.

But she could not even do that because she would be rejected if people recognized her because of her condition.

So she was out of options, but she made a determination that I'm not gonna sit here in my pain, I'm gonna make a move toward Jesus.

The slightest move, when it's done with faith, produces amazing results.

Hey, there was a there was an anthem back in the uh like 2000s.

There's a group.

Anybody remember a group called Switchfoot?

All right, you're my people.

People.

But what was their main song?

I dare you to move.

Oh, I love that song.

But here's the line because it's a sound doctrine.

It's in Leviticus somewhere, don't trip.

I'm gonna read you the verse.

You ready?

Welcome to the fallout, welcome to resistance.

The tension is here, the tension is here.

Check this out.

Between who you are and who you could be, between how it is now and how it should be, but I dare you to move like today never happened before.

That's faith.

Like today never happened before.

Like you've carried this condition for 12 years, you've been an addict for a decade, you've been in brokenness for this long, you've been addicted to porn for a decade.

Whatever it is in your life, faith says, I'm gonna move like today never happened before because Jesus is in town and I'm going after him.

You gotta make a move.

What's your move?

It might be something as simple as reaching out to somebody for some prayer, getting counseling for your marriage.

In our church, we have a celebrate recovery program for addicts, getting in on that.

Whatever it is, maybe it's stretching out in faith and beginning to give God the first and the best and watch you move in your finances.

There is always a move, and she made a move that day.

Second thing is she pursued Jesus despite resistance, criticism, and rejection.

Here's the thought there's always gonna be obstacles and critics in the way of your pursuit to Jesus.

There's always gonna be roadblocks to a miracle.

Like some of you in the room, if you go full on in for Jesus, become a Bible carrying Jesus, prophesying, worshiping, come on, just one of those guys, you're gonna have rejection from your family.

You might experience rejection from friends and coworkers and be mocked.

But when you begin to go after what Jesus has for your life, there will be resistance and rejection between where you are right now and what God has for you.

You know, I I've seen this in my life, and some illustrations might be a little too personal and awkward, and we just met each other, but uh one I can share.

Um, 30 years ago, God put in my heart to start a church.

And I was a disillusioned, kind of dropped out of ministry worship pastor.

And I love Jesus, but his people, I'd kind of had it.

And it's like, Jesus, I love church.

Ah, I can do without.

I was in that zone, right?

But I waited on the Lord and He put in my heart, He showed me a vision one day of the church that he would build.

And as Andrew mentioned, it's kind of like Rose Church.

We went from eight to 150 to 1,000 to 5,000 to 10 and campuses, and I just what God has done is is Ephesians 3.20.

It's exceedingly abundantly above all I could ask or think.

Because remember, I was a drug addict that retired early from high school, and I had a recreational pharmaceutical distribution organization that I that I launched from the trunk of my 55 Chevy.

It was entrepreneurial and quite successful in bringing others temporary joy.

That's what I did.

And God took that broken kid, rejected kid, messed up kid, and said, I gotta call for your life.

So I decided I'm gonna plant this church, right?

And I tried to be gracious with the church I left.

I asked for their blessing.

You know what they gave me instead of a blessing?

A curse.

And they began to tell the leaders told other people, don't go with Dave, don't plant a church with Dave, he's not a pastor, he's not a lead pastor, it's gonna be a train wreck.

He's just a cool worship dude.

Yes.

And by the way, they didn't say cool.

I inserted that myself because I had a raging mullet back in the 80s that waffed in the breeze.

The glory of God was on that mullet, I tell you.

So I started this church.

We had we had my wife and I and and three couples strumming the guitar, kumbaya, my lord, and and it was it was not pretty, but I saw Jesus saying, follow me and I will make you into something.

Right?

That's the line to a disciple.

Just stop right after that line.

Follow me and I will make you.

He said, I'll make you fishers of men.

I would extrapolate that and say, follow Jesus, and he's gonna make you into something you're not gonna be able to believe five years from now, ten years from now.

But you will not get there without facing some rejection, and some people say, Whoa, stay away from that, and you can't do that, and you're not qualified.

Jesus loves showing off his grace and glory with broken, beat up people that others have passed by.

This is who our Jesus is, amen.

And then there's I love this beautiful moment.

So she presses through the crowd, and and finally she touches the hem of his garment and and he stops the parade.

He goes, Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, someone touch me.

And Peter's like, Lord, you're embarrassing us.

There's a crowd of people pressing up against you, and he they clear out the crowd, and she's trembling in fear.

And Jesus does something that he never did before in his ministry or after.

He looks at this woman, he only did this once, and he calls her daughter.

He says, Daughter, your faith has made you well.

The reason that is so significant is because that Greek word for daughter that you're looking at actually means one acceptable to God.

One acceptable, one who belongs to the father.

It's a term of affection and endearment.

Can you imagine the rabbi, the one they're calling Messiah, looking you in the eyes and saying, You're my daughter?

You belong to God with this affection of a father.

One word from God will heal you.

One clear prophetic word will change your life.

See, I was raised in church, but it was a Pentecostal, religious, uh authoritarian, legalistic environment.

They preached hell's hot, and you're going there, boy.

Like, yeah, I got it, got it.

Right?

That's all I knew growing up.

There's a real hell, and I'm probably going there.

But legalism is rules, it's an absence of grace.

So in our church, it was what you didn't do, what you didn't say, where you didn't go.

In fact, our mission statement could have been a big banner on the back wall that said, No.

Welcome to our church.

No fun, no liberty.

So I came to the Lord, and this wise pastor back in the day that I met, he said, Dave, because I said, like, how am I how do I grow in the Lord?

How do you grow in the Lord?

He said, Here's what you do: you get up every morning, you pray through five Psalms, and then read the Proverb of the day and pray for wisdom.

What's the day today?

I got a 12th.

Is that accurate?

I got a confirmation.

Okay.

So you get up and read Proverbs 12 and ask for wisdom.

God, give me an uh enlightened heart, and I ask for your grace and wisdom.

And so I would do that, and then I would start praying through the Psalms.

And I would challenge you.

If you get stuck in your prayer life, like if you kneel down to pray, and you know, God bless me, and bless mom and dad, bless grandma and grandpa, uh, and you start tapping out, you're like, whoa, I'm 45 seconds into this thing.

Get out your Bible, get out the book of Psalms, all right?

And use it as a runway to proclaim the greatness of God.

Get in the uh the 90s, they're really saucy, uh, adoration.

Get in the 30s if you're depressed and you feel like that life is over.

Uh, but it's all good.

It's all the eternal canon of scripture.

So I started praying, praying through the Psalms.

I'm not kidding you.

I I remember one day uh I was I was seeking the Lord and I was praying through the Psalms.

I had never heard this before.

And the Holy Spirit whispers to my heart, and the only way I can define that wasn't an audible voice, but it was this internal, like I knew this was another voice that wasn't me, it was God.

I felt his nearness, and all he said was, Dave, I love you.

Never heard that, grew up in church, never heard that.

And the love and acceptance of Christ will wreck you for anything else.

I've been a worshiper now for 45 years.

Whether the lights are on and I'm on stage, or whether I'm in my my little house, you know, in my office with a six string in my hand.

Why?

Because the presence of God is what satisfies your eternal soul.

It will heal you, it will change your perspective.

Stay in his presence, go after his presence, and it'll break off rejection.

Amen.

So he looks at her and he says, daughter, daughter.

You know, I I even believe today that we're gonna go into a time of worship in just a few minutes, but the Lord would look many of you in the face and say, You're you're my beloved son, you're my precious daughter.

I'm I'm proud of you.

Wow, think about that.

Another time I was a young pastor and I was struggling, man.

I didn't know how to preach.

I was a worship pastor, and then all of a sudden I had to come up with a sermon every week.

I'm like, this is crazy.

And we had a young couple in the church, and the church was small, and um my drummer, who was also one of our worship leaders, was having an affair with the percussion players, the percussionist player's wife.

And so I find out about it.

Man, we're a small team, and I got a mess on my hands, and God gave me wisdom of how to deal with it graciously.

I had to get up and make a public statement because at the time the church was about 150.

Everybody already knew about it.

And so the Holy Spirit led me on how to navigate those waters as a young pastor.

I remember I got through that morning and there was grace on it, and the lady who was in the affair, by her own volition, she wanted to apologize to the church.

So she got up, and this is not on the notes.

I'm I'm just out here winging it by the way.

I don't know where we're going next.

So she gets up and she goes, I sinned against my husband, I sinned against my family, I sinned against you.

And then she said, I asked the Lord to forgive me, and he did.

And then she said, I asked my husband to forgive me, and he did.

And she stood there, her tears running down her face, and she said, and I'm asking you as my church family to forgive me.

What do you think that felt like?

There wasn't a, you know, no, are you kidding?

It was just grace and love and the presence of God, and immediately the church grew.

We tripled like in a year of people coming because of the grace of God that was released on that morning.

I remember getting in my car and I was exhausted.

I went home and uh just watching some golf as therapy because that's what you do.

I'm sitting in my chair, and the Holy Spirit again, he whispers this.

He goes, Dave, I'm proud of you.

That's all I need.

I don't need a big stage, I don't need a church of 10,000 people, I don't need reputation, I don't need conferences.

You know what I need?

I need my heavenly father looking at me and saying, Well done, good and faithful servant.

I'm proud of you.

It'll break shame, it'll change your life.

Number three, she determined to deliberately reach out to Jesus.

And I'm gonna ask the band to come up, giving the illusion I'll be done soon.

That's why pastors do that.

Right.

Bison 15.

Look at this.

For she said to herself, if I can only touch the hem of his garment, I know I will be healed.

I won't elaborate on this, but self-talk is biblical.

It's called meditation and confession.

Y'all talk to yourself, but most of us talk to ourselves negatively.

Do you know the psychiatrists are saying that now that talking to yourself out loud is very healthy?

It's just good for your brain, it's good for your psyche, it's good for your soul.

Unless there's voices talking back, then that that's a danger.

That's called schizophrenia, that's a different series.

Pastor Andrew will take care of that.

But here's the deal you gotta you gotta say what God says about your life.

I'm a son of God, I've been purchased by the blood, I'm above and not beneath.

I am more than a conqueror in Christ Jesus, I'm an overcomer, I'm loved by the Father.

You begin to speak out.

And she made this statement.

She says, if I can touch the hem of his garment, but that wasn't some random faith grab.

It wasn't like if I can elbow my way through the crowd and get to Jesus.

Actually, it was based in faith.

This is some conjecture, but it's a solid foundation, as you'll see.

There was a prophet uh 400 years earlier by the name of Malachi, and it would be the final book in the Old Testament canon.

There was 400 years of silence after Malachi.

But Malachi prophesied this about coming Messiah, Malachi 4, 2.

But for you who fear my name, the son S-U-N, it was poetic language.

The son of righteousness will rise with healing in his wings, and you will go free, leaping with joy, like calves let out to pasture.

I don't know what calves let out to pasture look like, leaping, but do that on your way to the car today.

It's gonna be great.

But here's the line I want you to see: Healing in his wings.

So when Messiah arrived, they knew that Messiah would have healing in his wings.

But it doesn't mean wings like a dove or cherubim or seraphim.

The word in Hebrew, kanaf, means the edge, the corner, the fringe, or the hem of a garment.

So catch this.

The priest in the first century would wear these garments that had four corners, many of them had tassels, and it's believed that Jesus, being a teacher, they called him rabbi, he would wear an outer cloak or garment.

And here's what she knew.

If I can touch the hem, there's healing in the hymn.

If I can get and just touch that garment, I know that I will be healed.

You see, faith moves the hand of God, and so she wasn't coming just randomly.

Oh, I hope they don't kick me out of the parade.

She knew in her heart if I can get through the crowd and just touch the hem of his garment.

And then in Luke 8, 46, he says, Someone deliberately touch me.

Intentionality.

I mean, just challenge you.

Do not be satisfied with a passive church existence.

Our nation, I mean, it's just people go to church, it's a spectator sport, they go to what they call megachurches, you know, and watch the band and the lights and you know, clock in for an hour and seven minutes, and hey, see you in two weeks.

The average Christian in America that's committed to a local church goes less than 50% of the time.

And so we have this spectator mentality.

Feed me, pastor, and then we just go out and live life and come up back a couple weeks later and go, feed me.

Don't be one of those.

Be a disciple, be one that says I'm deliberately running after Jesus, even if the crowd is not.

I'm going after all he has for me.

I don't care what people think, I don't care what people say about my life.

I'm gonna be one who gets close to Jesus, and let's just see what happens after that.

I'll pray soon, but I gotta share one more story that's coming to my mind.

So we started this church, right, with the eight people in the living room, and then we're packing out elementary cafetoriums.

What is that anyway?

Smells like tater tots and sweat socks, but that's that's where we started the church.

And then we went to a community center, no, no joke.

They would have parties and bands in there on Saturday night, and a lot of times they'd have helium balloons.

And while I would be preaching, one of these balloons would fall down because the healing would run out right in the middle of my sermon.

And everybody's like, uh, like I never saw one, and sure enough, it came down.

So finally, I would be like when a balloon would fall, I'd be like, We have our 10,000th worshipper, you're a winner, give it up for ding ding.

The balloon would come down.

But the beer was so thick on the tile floor that when people were worshiping and they try to move their feet to dance, it would shh, shh, people get stick, they'd stick to the floor.

So I don't know why I'm telling you all this.

I feel like we're bonding.

We should all go to lunch, go to chilies together.

So, anyway, so the place is packed, and I'm learning how to preach, and I'm preaching out of this passage.

This was probably 29, 28 years ago.

And I'm talking about don't let anybody keep you from Jesus.

Don't wait till religion gives you permission.

I don't know what I was saying, but something along those lines.

You just gotta go after God.

I'm preaching my best, you know, I'm sweating, I'm swinging for the fence.

And this girl gets up from the back and starts walking down the aisle.

I'm like, okay, so at first it wasn't a distraction.

She gets closer, like, she's still coming.

I'm trying to preach, right?

Stay focused.

And then she gets to like to the third row.

I'm like, truly, the security is gonna pick her up at any minute.

We got big guys with badges, you know.

And I see, I look down on her face, bawling, weeping.

I'm only in the middle of my sermon.

Come on, you know, I got a sermon to preach.

But but I'm saying, don't wait, don't hesitate.

She walks down, she opens up her purse and begins to pour out paraphernalia and drugs on the stage, just weeping.

And the Holy Spirit wishes my heart says, This this is the sermon.

This is what I love.

When people are deliberate, when they will make a determination.

I'm telling you today that your God loves you so much, He loves me so much, He loves us so much, He doesn't want to leave us like we are, and He came to heal us.

So, whether it's spiritual healing, if you're away from God, today's your day to come home.

If it's physical healing, at the end of our worship, we're gonna lay hands on the sick.

If it's emotional healing, it's not an event, it's a process, but start the process today because Jesus died on a cross and fulfilled the prophecy from Exodus that I am the God that heals you.

That's who we worship today, amen.

Would you stand to your feet?

And as we stand, uh we're gonna ask the baptism folks to uh to move out and get ready for that.

I'm gonna pray that even as we go into this time of worship, that we'd worship with a fresh level of faith that Jesus is gonna heal whatever you're in the middle of.

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