Power Gifts: Faith, Healing and Miracles - The Power & Gifts Of The Holy Spirit

Hello everyone, I'm Dr.

Steve Holtz.

I want to welcome you to the Road Church Podcast.

Each week we go into God's Word.

We teach chapter by chapter and verse by verse.

And we are here to build a Kingdom of God revolution through empowering people to change the world.

So we pray this will minister to you at your heart level and change your life.

Today, be encouraged by our guest speaker.

Well, good morning.

If you don't know me, my name is Pastor Josh Floyd, and I uh direct our prayer and worship ministries here at The Road.

And we're in a series on the power and gifts of the Holy Spirit.

And today, Pastor Steve asked me to preach on what's known as the gifts of power.

We kind of have these different categories of the gifts.

So I'm just going to read our anchor passage.

If you have your Bible, you can turn to 1 Corinthians 12.

I'm just going to read from verses 7 through 11.

1 Corinthians 12, verse 7, but the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all.

1 Corinthians 12:7

For to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, to another the word of knowledge through the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit.

To another, gifts of healings by the same Spirit.

To another, the working of miracles, to another, prophecy, to another, discerning of spirits, to another, different kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.

But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as he wills.

So today I'll be talking about verse 9 and the beginning of verse 10, the gift of faith, the gifts of healings, and the working of miracles, which are known as the power gifts.

And I believe that the church was meant to be empowered.

Do you believe that this morning?

You know, Jesus gave the great commission, go into all the world, preaching the gospel, making disciples.

And before they were to carry out that mission, he gave another instruction.

And in Luke 24, verse 49, he said, Behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you, but tarry in the city until you are endued with power from on high.

Luke 24:49

And again, referring to this promise of the Father in Acts 1, verse 4, he commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which he said, You have heard from me, for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.

Acts 1:4

And in verse 8, you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be my witnesses.

So that's what the power is for, is to be witnesses, which is the word martyrian, which is where we get the word martyr from.

So it's very significant to me that the purpose of power is to enable me to be a self-sacrificing witness of the gospel.

And I think that very beautifully fits in with 1 Corinthians 12, where Paul is saying this is for the common good, right?

Each manifestation of the Holy Spirit is for the common good, and each one of his gifts as well is for the common good.

So Jesus never intended for his disciples to complete the Great Commission through human strength alone.

Thank goodness.

He knew it would require divine empowerment through the Holy Spirit and his gifts.

Spiritual gifts are not ornaments on the lives of a few special people, but they're God's given, they're a God-given equipment that enables the church to accomplish her mission.

The Greek word for gifts is charismata, which comes from the root word charis, meaning grace.

So even the way I think about spiritual gifts is these are little channels for the grace of God to flow from one person to another person.

Where God actually releases the enabling power, his grace, the enabling power of God, through spiritual gifts to another person, where what was previously impossible becomes possible.

And I love that definition of grace.

Grace is the unmerited favor of God, where you didn't do anything to gain it, to earn it by your own efforts.

But by faith, through grace, just like salvation, we receive this divine enablement, this divine empowerment that makes what was previously impossible possible, namely to overcome sin and Satan.

And both of those things are accomplished, and this could be a whole sermon on itself throughout church history, throughout the beginning of the early church, those things are accomplished through the empowerment of the Holy Spirit.

You were not intended to fight sin without power.

You were not intended to fight demons without power.

But God, through his grace, wants to empower you, empower us as his church to overcome sin and Satan.

So as I'm speaking on the gifts of power, I thought it was appropriate to talk about being empowered.

And as I do, I believe that signs and wonders confirm the preaching of his word.

You know, when Peter preached the gospel in the house of Cornelius, this is very interesting to me, it's in Acts 10.

While he was still preaching, he actually just finished a sentence about the forgiveness of sin through believing in the name of Jesus.

And while he was still preaching, the Holy Spirit fell on the house of Cornelius, on Gentiles, and they got saved and filled with the Holy Spirit all in one shot, all at the same time, without ever saying a sinner's prayer, without ever, you know, standing or raising their hand, who wants to accept Christ today?

There was such an anointing on the truth of the gospel that I just think they got so hungry they couldn't stand it anymore.

Have you guys seen that?

There's a little video of this little boy in a Black Baptist church, and he's waiting for the pastor to baptize him.

He's in his like white gown and he's sitting standing there in the water, and the pastor is talking and talking, and he's in the water, and he keeps looking up at the pastor, and then he just goes, ah, and dunks himself in the water.

You know, he was tired of waiting.

So my hope is that as I am preaching the gospel today to you, and I'm speaking from the Word of God today to you, that your spiritual hunger would be stirred up, and that your faith would be stirred up, and that you wouldn't wait to receive the empowerment of the Holy Spirit.

But that's in even as I'm speaking, that the Lord would touch your bodies, would touch your minds, would touch your hearts, and empower you with his grace.

Now I want to increase your faith and expectation for God to do today, what he has historically done in the house of Cornelius, in other meetings throughout history, and in many of the meetings that I've been in.

You know, Revelation 19.11 says that the testimony of Christ is the spirit of prophecy.

What that means to me is that when you hear a testimony of something that Christ has done, you can receive that testimony as a prophetic word for your own life.

Because Romans 2.11 says that God is not a respecter of persons, meaning that what he did for me, he'll do for you.

What he does for one, he'll do for another, because he's a good father who doesn't pick favorites, but he is constantly working passionately to bring us into closer communion, to bring us into greater freedom, to bring us into more healing and wholeness, to set us free from bondage, to heal broken hearts, and he wants to do that today.

I've seen hundreds, maybe even thousands of people healed this way.

While someone's preaching on healing, people are given faith for healing and receive it before anyone prays, and often without realizing that they're healed until they check their body and they go, Oh wow, that problem that I used to have is not there anymore.

And I've seen this happen many times.

I'll say that probably the last ten times that I've preached on healing, there's been a handful of people that were healed just listening to the word.

So today, as I'm preaching on faith, on healing, and the workings of miracles, I want to encourage you to have an open posture in your heart to receive from the Holy Spirit.

And you don't need to wait until the end of the service to receive a miracle from God today.

Okay, He wants to heal you.

He wants to bring you into greater freedom.

He wants to set you free from demonic oppression.

So I just want to encourage you to begin monitoring your body even now in anticipation of what God's going to do.

I remember in uh in September, I was preaching at a very small house church in uh Campinas, Brazil, and there were maybe 30 people present, and I was just talking about Psalm 103 and the bridge between the forgiveness of sins and the healing of disease.

And while I was still preaching, there were three people whose hearing was restored.

Nobody prayed for them.

I just said, hey, before we start praying for people, would everyone in the room, well, we were actually outside, like outside of this barn.

It was kind of cool.

Just preaching outside with no sound system or anything, said, check your bodies.

And three people had hearing and ears that they could not hear out of before.

So that testimony is a prophetic word for someone here today.

That what God did for them, He wants to do the same thing for you.

And you can begin to stir up your hunger and your faith to receive from God even now.

Amen?

Okay, wonderful.

You know, I think another reason that that happens is I think that uh, you know, Psalm 103 in Hebrews 1, it talks about angelic ministry.

It says that angels perform the word of the Lord and they also minister to the heirs of salvation.

And I just think they can't help it.

When they hear the word of the Lord, they start moving to perform those things.

So, Lord, we just receive and activate your angelic ministry today as well.

And uh, as the Lord touches your body, this might be a little new for you or strange for you, but if you feel the Lord touching your body in a physical way, I want you to just raise your hand toward me while I'm preaching.

And all that I'm going to do is I'm just gonna bless you in the name of Jesus and I'm gonna keep preaching.

Is that okay?

If we do that today?

Because I what I want to do is I want to bless the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

So anytime he is ministering to someone, I want to make sure that I'm blessing it and I'm asking him to do more.

So as I begin preaching the word, I want to ask you humbly that if the Holy Spirit starts to move on your body, you might feel heat, you might feel trembling, you might feel electricity, you might feel a deep sense of peace, you might begin to weep, you might begin to laugh.

Any of those things are very common manifestations of the Holy Spirit.

And if you feel any of those things, I just want you to slip your hand up until I can see you, and I'll bless you, and then you can put your hand back down.

I promise not to embarrass you or to make you come up to the front and share your testimony or anything like that.

Okay?

Amen.

So that's on you.

You've got to you've got to do it now.

I can't force you to.

I love in John 14, 12, Jesus said, Most assuredly I say to you, he who believes in me, the works that I do, he will do also, and greater works than these he will do, because I go to my father.

So Jesus vacated the earth to make wit room for you to step in.

So he says, Because I go to my father.

And he actually expects us to do greater works than he did when he walked on this earth.

And he doesn't expect it to do it out of our own strength, but he expects us to do it out of his strength, which is the Holy Spirit, the same way that he did it.

You know, we see power demonstrated by Christ and his church through both of their ministries in the Gospels and the book of Acts.

Jesus demonstrated what it looks like to walk in the power of the Holy Spirit, and he expected believers, not just apostles, not just pastors, not just the people that are on the stage with the microphone, believers to do the same thing.

And throughout the Gospels, Jesus healed the sick and cast out demons.

And these gifts of power served as signs confirming his identity as the Messiah.

You know, when John the Baptist questioned whether or not Jesus was the Messiah, what he did is he immediately turned and he started healing the blind, the lame, the deaf.

And he quotes from Isaiah 35: go back and tell John what you see and hear.

Blind men see, crippled stand to their feet, deaf men hear, the dead are raised, and the poor receive good news, and blessed are those who are not offended in me.

Signs and wonders confirmed the authenticity of Jesus' messianic role.

And they do the same thing today.

When you preach about the Messiah, signs and wonders are supposed to confirm that word and point people to him.

Beyond healing, Jesus also worked miracles that demonstrated God's power over nature and death, such as calming storms, walking on water, multiplying food, raising the dead.

Jesus lived and ministered in the power of the Holy Spirit so that his disciples would understand how to continue his mission after his ascension.

You know, and I've I've uh heard testimonies.

We've even had testimonies in this house of people raised from the dead.

Um Pastor Als raised several people from the dead.

I had friends that lived in uh, they still live in Pagosa now, and uh before the husband was married, he's a pastor down there and he's married, but before that he lived in a house they called the Ohana House, and they just left the doors unlocked at all times, and people from kids from the neighborhood would come in and eat food out of their cabinets, and that was kind of the whole idea.

And every Tuesday night they would have Ohana night, family night, which I think is kind of funny there in Colorado, but they were using Hawaiian words, but whatever.

And they would make a spaghetti dinner for anybody that needed food, anybody that wanted to come, and they would make enough for about 30 people, and every single week, more than 30 people would show up, and every single week they would send home leftovers with every single person.

Every week.

And that happened for several years.

Bless you in the name of Jesus.

That's amazing.

That's what we would call a miracle, right?

It's it's something that defies bless you in the name of Jesus, the laws of physics.

It's something that supersedes natural laws.

And that's what we're all supposed to walk in as believers, to the same degree that Jesus did.

So after Pentecost, this pattern, this same pattern of power became evident in the life of the church.

As believers began to live in this new life of the Spirit, miraculous works of power became a regular part of their experience.

And in Acts 2, 43, it says that awe came upon the people, and many wonders and signs were performed amongst them.

You know, it's very interesting.

The early years of the church, there was a steady, about 40% growth yearly in believers being converted in the midst of some of the most intense persecution and scattering.

It's just really amazing to me.

You know, in Acts 3, Peter healed the lame man at the temple gate through revelation, probably a word of knowledge.

Because I mean he passed by that guy so many times before.

Why this time was it different?

I think he had a word of knowledge in the moment.

God wants to heal this guy right now.

It quickened him and gave him a gift of faith.

And he told that lame beggar, look up at me.

And it says that the guy looked expecting to receive something, and he says, I don't have any silver, I don't have any gold, but what I have, a revelation of Christ as the healer, I give unto you.

Get up and walk.

And he picked him up.

And the man was healed.

The gift of faith brought a strong conviction of what God wanted to do to Peter.

In Acts 4, the believers prayed for boldness and asked God to stretch out his hand to heal and perform signs and wonders.

And God answered by filling them again with the Holy Spirit and empowering them to speak the word with boldness.

So there's even this boldness that is supposed to come on us as believers, for outside, we don't have four walls, the six walls of the church, however, the sanctuary works.

We're supposed to be preaching with boldness the word of God outside the church, and signs and wonders are supposed to confirm the preaching of his word.

This power was not limited to the apostles.

Stephen, who was full of grace and power according to Acts 6, performed great signs and wonders among the people.

And he was martyred and he faced martyrdom with great faith and great boldness, just like Acts 1 said, you're going to receive power to be a martyr.

And Philip carried out an evangelistic ministry in Samaria, marked by healings and deliverances.

Neither of those guys were apostles, they were just believers, they were just deacons.

As believers were scattered through persecution, they continued preaching the word, and the hand of the Lord was with them.

And it says that in Acts 8, and it says that in Acts 11.

In Jewish terminology, the hand of the Lord was a term for signs and wonders.

So whenever you read in the book of Acts about the hand of the Lord, or when they prayed in Acts 4, Lord, stretch out your hand, they're asking for God to do signs and wonders through the name of his holy servant Jesus.

So those actions, that extending of his hand, is supposed to be a marker for the church and not just for pastors.

I bless you in the name of Jesus.

It's bless you in the name of Jesus.

It's supposed to be a marker for believers.

You know, even in Mark 16, it says that signs would accompany those who believe.

Not those who are specially anointed, not those who are appointed by an elder team, not those who are ordained as pastors, but those who believe.

Which is you.

And if that's not you, then we can fix that really quickly this morning and introduce you to belief in Jesus.

Paul's ministry followed the same pattern.

He described his work as being accomplished not merely through words, but through the power of signs and wonders and by the power of the Spirit of God.

In 1 Corinthians 4.20, I remember in college, 420 was a big thing.

That's when everybody smoked weed.

So people would be like, 420, and I'd be like, yeah, bro, 1 Corinthians 4.20.

It's not a matter of talk, but of power.

And they're like, you're weird.

And I'm like, I know.

That says a lot coming from a pothead, you know.

Romans 15, 18, I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to bring the Gentiles to obedience by word and deed, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God.

So Paul didn't have any faith in his ability to preach outside of the power of the Holy Spirit.

And he actually considered the complete preaching of the gospel a preaching accompanied by signs and wonders.

So if you want to fully preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, perform signs and wonders.

Heal the sick, cast out devils.

Freely you've received, therefore freely give.

And Paul wanted it to be clear that the preaching of the gospel without demonstrations of power was incomplete, but also that this power was not from him, but from the energetic power of the Holy Spirit working within him.

Signs and wonders were the continual affirmation.

So in Colossians 1.29, he says, This I toil, for this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.

So it's the energy of God.

And that word energy is also in 1 Corinthians 12, when it talks about there's a variety of gifts by the same God, there's a variety of ministries but the same Spirit, and then there's a variety of works.

That word works is the word energis, energy.

It's the same word here in Colossians 1 29.

And it's also the same work when we get into the three specific power gifts where it says the working of miracles, that word working is energes.

It's a supernatural energy that is supposed to flow through the believer.

And Paul was saying that he struggled and toiled with all of his energy powerfully working within him.

That's really good news for all of us today because that means that we don't have to have the power or the strength in ourselves to complete the Great Commission, but He will provide His energy.

Does anybody need some energy?

I bless you in the name of Jesus.

Amen.

That could be confusing.

So the gifts of power in 1 Corinthians 12, Paul lists the gift of faith, the gifts of healing, the working of miracles, and casting out of demons is not in this list, but Jesus said that would accompany those who believe in him, and I would also categorize it in these gifts according to Mark 16, 17.

These gifts demonstrate God's power over disease, demons, death, and every destructive force.

That's what the power gifts are for.

That's what the power of the Holy Spirit is for, is to demonstrate that God is above those four D's: disease, demons, death, and destruction.

The first gift is the gift of faith.

The gift of faith is distinct from saving faith.

Saving faith is the trust by which we come to Christ.

But the gift of faith is a situational, spirit-given confidence that God intends to act in a specific moment.

So it's less about trying to believe something.

I think a lot of times faith can be categorized as our trying to believe something.

I bless you in the name of Jesus.

But the gift of faith is like you can't even not believe this.

It's this overwhelming conviction that comes upon you.

It doesn't feel like, you know, John Wimber said faith is spelled R-I-S-K.

So taking risks is really the way to grow your faith.

Taking risks is the way to exercise your faith.

But the gift of faith doesn't feel risky.

It feels like being apprehended by God's faith.

It feels like being apprehended and arrested by God's belief, where you know that you know he is about to do something.

And Jesus described this when he cursed the fig tree and it immediately withered in Matthew 28, verses eight twenty-one, verses eighteen through twenty-two.

He said, Have faith in God, for assuredly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, be removed and be cast into the sea, and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says.

Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them and you will have them.

So I think this is a great definition of the gift of faith.

It's believing and not doubting.

And that's pretty much impossible to do without the Holy Spirit coming upon you in a moment.

You know, most of the time when I'm operating in faith, there's a little bit of doubt there too.

So the gift of faith is those moments when you know that you know, that you know, that you know, and you can't help yourself.

And usually what will come out of you is a sharp command.

Come out in the name of Jesus.

Be healed in the name of Jesus.

And this overwhelming feeling of faith comes upon you.

Jesus' language in Matthew 21 and Mark 11 suggests that this kind of faith originates with God Himself.

So when he says have faith in God, if you literally translated the Greek there, it actually should say, have faith of God.

Have God's faith.

So Jesus is saying there is the potential for you to operate not out of your own measure of faith, but to operate out of my faith, which is awesome.

I want to operate out of God's faith all the time.

And a lot of times, this gift of faith, you know, Pastor Steve is talking about in the last few weeks that some of the gifts kind of work together in tandem.

And in my life, the gift of faith is most often partnered with a word of knowledge, where the Lord will speak to me something specific, usually through a picture in my mind or a physical pain in my own body.

When Mark was here, he demonstrated that, where he had physical pains in his body that corresponded to someone that was in the room.

And what that does, that word of knowledge, it's like God saying, Whoever you are, I want to heal you right now.

Now, if Jesus walked up to you, if Jesus walked up to you and he said, I want to heal you right now, would you be excited?

Yeah.

When when would you decide to be excited?

When he said, I want to heal you right now, or would you wait to be excited until he actually healed you?

Right when he said it, right?

Because you believe him.

Because this is Jesus.

Jesus is saying, I want to heal you right now.

So in that moment, excitement would start to erupt inside of you, and that excitement is a gift of faith.

So when you become convinced of something that God wants to do, his faith starts to erupt inside of you, and many times people are healed in that moment before anyone prays.

It's really amazing.

I don't understand how that works.

It's a mystery of the faith.

It's just something that God does.

And uh I heard someone say faith is the currency of heaven.

So I just love any moment, any environment where I can be in where faith is increasing in the room.

I actually can feel faith increasing in the room right now, which is really exciting.

The gifts of healings, the Greek is charismata ayamaton.

So it's a spiritual gift, charismata as spiritual gifts, and it's plural, and that reminds me that healing restoration takes many forms.

Scripture doesn't limit healing to physical recovery alone, but it includes emotional healing, rational, relational healing, spiritual wholeness as well.

Wherever something broken is made whole, the kingdom of God is being expressed through the gift of healing.

The gift of healing is the result of the life that Jesus came to give.

Remember John 10, 10, he says, the enemy comes to steal, the thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy, but I've come to give you life, and that you may have it in abundance.

That abundant life in Romans 8.11, it says the same power, the same spirit that raised Christ from the dead will also give life.

The word is Zoe.

It's this life-giving energy from the Holy Spirit, and it says it will give life to your mortal body to quicken you.

So many times when people are being healed, it's that release of life that Jesus came to give.

I bless you in the name of Jesus.

And that life is the release of healing, and it can impact our bodies, it can impact our minds, it can impact our relationships, it can impact our spiritual, our entire wholeness, spirit, soul, and body.

And this is the express promise of the work of the cross, right?

By his stripes you were healed.

1 Peter 2.24.

Throughout Scripture, one of my favorite connections is the pairing of the forgiveness of sin and the healing of disease.

And uh I love taking communion as the blood spilled represents the healing of brokenness, or represents the forgiveness of sin, and the broken body represents the healing of the body.

Right?

His body was broken so that mine wouldn't be.

His blood was spilled so that my sins would be forgiven, and his blood is shouting mercy from the mercy seat over all of our lives.

I love that marriage in Psalm 103.

Bless the Lord, O my soul, forget none of his benefits.

He who forgives all your sins, he who heals all your diseases.

So, in order to believe he who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, to the same degree that we believe in the forgiveness of sin, we should also believe in the healing of disease.

That's how I see it.

God's blood was fully spilt and his body was fully broken.

Paying the price for full forgiveness and full healing.

And you know, we live in a kingdom that's now but also not yet.

But I'm never going to lower the standard of God's scripture to match my experience.

I'm gonna keep preaching the standard, believing the standard, praying the standard of his word until my experience rises to that degree.

I bless you in the name of Jesus.

You know, in Matthew 9, verses 5 through 7, this group of friends lowers a paralytic through the roof, right?

Matthew 9:5–7

And Jesus says, Take heart, son, your sins are forgiven.

It's a very strange way to respond to a paralytic who obviously is there to be healed.

But Jesus intentionally uses this as a demonstration for the Pharisees and for everyone that's there.

And he says, Which is easier to say?

Your sins are forgiven you, or to say, Arise and walk.

But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins, then he said to the paralytic, Arise, take up your bed and go to your house.

And he arose and departed to his house.

Therefore, the healing of your body is actually a witness to the forgiveness of sins.

Jesus used healing as a proof that he could forgive your sins.

He heals bodies as an expression of his forgiveness.

I just think that's incredible.

I think that's amazing.

Because if I was in that situation and I saw a paralytic being lowered through the roof, I would say, be healed in the name of Jesus.

But Jesus wanted to take advantage of that situation to show his deity and to also demonstrate that sins could be forgiven at his word, not based on your works.

And I think to the same degree, the healing of our bodies is accomplished through his word and not based on our works.

I think a lot of us are trying to work our way to healing.

You know, we're like, oh, well, if I just tithe a little more, or maybe if I do a little more good works, then maybe I'll do enough that God will heal me.

Christ did enough on the cross for the gift of healing.

Okay?

Amen.

So healing is a sign of what the gospel accomplishes, it shows what the kingdom of God looks like.

When Jesus sent out the disciples, he told them to preach the kingdom and heal the sick.

You gotta do both.

The message and the demonstration of the kingdom of God is inseparable.

So the third gift is the working of miracles.

These are the words energimata dynamion, which is fun to say.

But energy, we already talked about that.

That's that spiritual working energy.

It's the same thing when Paul was talking about the sons of disobedience and the spirit of the Antichrist, which is already at work within them.

That's energis.

But on the flip side, for us, there's the power of the Holy Spirit that is at work within us.

And it works miracles, which is dunamis.

It's the word for miracles, it's also the word for power.

It's where we get the word dynamite from.

It's the explosive power of God.

It's really exciting.

While healing restores what is damaged, miracles often go beyond restoration.

They describe moments when God intervenes in ways that suspend natural laws.

So in the healing ministry, we call creative miracles a form of healing where something that was missing is suddenly there.

So for example, if someone was missing a part of their eye, and that's why they're blind and they were born without it, and then you pray and now they can see.

Well, that was more than a healing because it's not just restoring something that was broken, it's actually replacing something that was missing.

Something is being created on the spot.

When Mark was here, there was someone who had metal in their hip that was uh restricting their movement and their ability to move pain-free.

And after prayer, the hip that had the metal in it had more mobility and less pain than the good hip.

I would say that that is a working of a miracle.

Because we have a foreign object that is the cause for the immobility.

You know, the the first time that I went on a trip to Brazil with Global Awakening, my friend Miguel Guzman was praying for a guy who had a metal plate holding his collarbone together with eight or nine screws, and you could see the metal plate sticking out through his skin.

This is a big old bump, and you could see the little individual screws that looked like little bumps on his skin.

You could feel it on his collarbone.

And uh Miguel even posted this on his Facebook page, but they prayed for him like 45 minutes, nothing happened.

Miguel just quoted Mark 16 to him.

He said, Hey, it says that they'll lay their hands on the sick and the sick shall recover.

So don't lose faith.

You know, sometimes people get their healing later on, sometimes people get their healing progressively.

And you know, that's what we're kind of taught to say to people to keep them from moving into hopelessness or despair.

And I can tell you that my friend Miguel probably had a lot more faith than I would have in that situation.

But the very next day, the guy came back with his x-rays from home from when he had the surgery because he woke up the next morning and he couldn't find any of the metal in his body.

That's more than a healing, that is a miracle, right?

That's a creative miracle.

Yeah, bless God.

And the same God who did that wants to do that for anyone that's here today.

He wants to restore mobility to your body.

He wants to heal the sick, he wants to do creative miracles.

I know that everything just kind of changed a little bit.

That's okay.

We're back.

Amen and amen.

So I remember this is a cool testimony.

One time Des and I were doing a worship and healing night at my old church in Pueblo.

And uh the drummer came on crutches.

His name's Zach Gonzalez.

And he came in on crutches because he'd blown his knee out in a football game.

Like it went sideways the way your knee's not supposed to go.

And he had played that football game the day before.

I bless you in the name of Jesus.

And he showed up on crutches, sweating invisible pain, and he showed up to play the drums.

I was like, wow, bro, you are a dedicated believer.

And this is a good testimony for those of us that sometimes we stay home, but sometimes we feel like the Lord's telling us to show up anyway.

And that was him.

He was like, I felt like I was supposed to show up anyway, so instead of going to the hospital, I came here.

So we did worship rehearsal with him, playing the drums.

It was his left leg, so all he needed it was for the hi-hat, so he just didn't really use it.

And we go through, I bless you in the name of Jesus, we go through the whole service, the rehearsal and everything, and then we start the healing service, and we're doing worship, and we finish worship, and people are, the worship team is leaving, and he just gets up off the drum set and walks off the stage and goes and sits down.

And I looked at him and I said, Zach, and I pointed at his crutches, and he's sitting down and he looks down at his knee and he stands back up and he does a couple of these like parallel squats, and he immediately starts weeping and laughing and running around the church.

And that was that was a great way to start a miracle service, you know.

But nobody prayed for him.

You know, I'm ashamed to say I didn't even pray for him before rehearsal.

I was like, bro, you're committed.

I didn't even have the faith for him to be healed in that moment.

And just during worship, God healed him sovereignly.

You know, it was about a year ago on a Sunday that Pastor Ryan was preaching and I was leading worship, and this uh young woman came up to me in between the first and the second services out by the coffee, and she said, I gotta tell you this testimony.

I'm like, okay.

She goes, This morning I was in excruciating pain, and I was about to go to the emergency room.

My back, I have a lot of back and spinal problems.

I have a lot of uh pain constantly, and my hands were so swollen that I was afraid that my rings on my fingers were gonna start causing my skin to bleed.

So I couldn't get any of my rings off.

So she said, I was getting ready to go to the hospital, and I felt like the Holy Spirit said, no, go to church.

So I did, and I came here, and she said, I had two Bibles in the small of my back just to make it through the message, and that's no offense to Ryan's preaching at all.

She's just in excruciating pain.

And she said, During worship, toward the beginning, as we all stood, you said, Lift your hands to the Lord in faith.

I don't remember saying that, but I I guess I said that.

And she said, as I raised my hands, waves of love.

She said, I could feel God's love like waves washing over me, and all the pain left my body.

And as she's telling me this testimony, she's taking her rings on and off.

That was here in this church about a year ago, between first and second service.

So even as we're about to go into worship ministry and we're singing to the Lord, you know, we don't worship to get stuff from God.

You know, that that's transactional intimacy, and we have words for that that I'm not gonna say from a pulpit.

But we're not here to make a transaction between God, we're here to worship God because He's worthy.

But at the same time, God is your father who wants you well.

He wants to heal you, he wants to restore, and he wants to empower you and to thrust you forth as a living witness of his gospel.

He wants to visit you with the power of the Holy Spirit today and change you, make you different from how you were before.

I have uh I have some in the my notes here about principles to living a life of miracles.

And I'll just read these and we'll go into worship.

I think some of these principles are how I try to live.

Try to.

I fail pretty miserably most of the time.

But number one, for principles to living a life of miracles, is be continually filled with the Holy Spirit and abide in Jesus.

Stay spiritually hungry for more.

One of my life verses is Luke 11, 11 through 13.

You being evil know how to give good gifts.

How much more does your heavenly father want to give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?

There's a principle of spiritual hunger, even in the 1 Corinthians 12 through 14 passage, where it says it's by the will of the Spirit that gifts are distributed, but then in two places it says to earnestly desire them.

So somehow there's a partnership between our spiritual hunger and our desire to be filled and the will of God to fill us.

So some people, the Holy Spirit comes upon them, and it can be very dramatic, but when they stand back up, they're operating in gifts they weren't operating in before.

They're operating in a level of self-control that they didn't have before.

They're operating in a power over sin in their life that they didn't have before.

And that's been my experience that throughout the visitations of the Holy Spirit in my life, I always came out of them empowered for ministry and empowered for living a life of holiness.

Another principle for living a life of miracles is to have God's heart for the lost.

You know, the primary purpose of the power gifts is to confirm the gospel so they work better outside than they do in here.

If you're operating in a gift of healing in the church, you should try it at Chipotle, and you'll be surprised at how much easier it is to see miracles outside of the church than it is to see them inside of the church or even at your workplace.

I've probably seen more people healed before I was a pastor, and now it makes sense that I see people healed in my workplace.

But before I worked at a church, I saw more people healed in my workplace than I ever did in church services.

You know, working at the college, working at uh at public schools, praying for my coworkers, just real casually.

People knew that I was a believer, and sometimes they would come and ask me for prayer.

The Lord would give me a word of knowledge.

God wants to do that in your life too.

I'm not a special Christian.

And I certainly wasn't a special Christian then, for sure.

Probably even less special now.

Faith grows by taking risks.

John Wimber said faith is spelled R-I-S-K.

Through radical obedience to God's subtle promptings, faith grows.

You know, I was uh prophesying over a guy over the phone through an interpreter.

So he spoke Portuguese.

I had an English-Portuguese interpreter.

I spoke English.

And while I'm praying for him, I have the most subtle thought, so ignorable.

But I figured I'm never gonna see this guy again, so I'll just take the risk.

And the thought was you have a sister who's also your cousin who is ready to give her life to Christ.

And you need to preach the gospel to her.

Very strange thing, but I just went for it and I said that in English, and my interpreter looked at me like that doesn't make any sense.

So I just shook my head, like, yep, you heard right.

You have a sister who's also your cousin, and he didn't live in.

No, I'm not gonna make that joke.

Sorry.

Ah, I caught myself.

That's the power of the Holy Spirit at work.

You have a sister that's also your cousin who's ready to give her life to Christ, and you need to preach the gospel to her.

So then the interpreter said it in Portuguese to him, and he starts crying, and he says, That is so crazy.

Because when I was a kid, my aunt and uncle were no longer able to be parents.

And I think that they passed away.

I can't remember if they passed away or if they were deemed unfit.

I think they passed away.

So he says, So they had a daughter who's my cousin, and my parents adopted her when I was a little kid.

And I've been praying for her for the last three months.

And I said, Bro, you need to go preach the gospel to her because she's ready to receive Christ.

That was the most subtle thought, so easy to ignore.

But when you take risks like that and you do it in a spirit of humility, like I didn't say, Thus saith the Lord, you have a sister who's also your cousin.

I said, Hey, I don't know if this makes sense.

But what I think the Lord is saying is that you have a sister who's also your cousin, and she's ready to receive Christ.

And by taking that risk, it then gave me confidence to take more risks and to grow my faith.

So that's a principle for living a life of miracles.

The last two, discover your authority and identity in Christ and remove mental obstacles like unworthiness.

You are a son or a daughter of God because of what Christ did on the cross, not because of what you do.

And that makes you worthy of operating in a life of miracles.

And lastly, learn from others who've developed these gifts and seek out testimonies to stir your faith.

So find somebody who's operating in the gifts you want to operate in and ask them to show you how.

You know, we're doing a Monday night class right now with the Kingdom Ministry team.

Right now it's full, but we'll continue to do these trainings on how to pray for the sick, how to pray for people up front.

And part of that is just praying with people that have been doing it for a long time and learning.

That's how I learned.

Pastor Jay Kirby at my old church, he just brought me up to the front with him every Sunday, and he said, You're gonna help me pray for people.

And I had no idea what I was doing, but he would just, okay, now you pray.

Sometimes he'd say, Put your hand here, say these words.

And that was what really grew me more than anything else was somebody else pouring into me.

Thank you for listening to the Road Church Podcast.

We pray today's message has empowered you to make a difference in your world.

For more information about the Road Church and to find more content like this, go to theroad.org.

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