Real Conversations | Do You Want to Get Well? | Chad Bruegman

To everybody at the Missouri City campus, we want to welcome you guys, hoping you're having an incredible time of worship over there.

Everyone downtown at our West End campus, we love you guys.

Um incredible morning as well.

Of course, everybody that's watching with us online, it's such a privilege that we have technology so that you can be with us today.

And then let's do this at every campus as usual.

Let's give the most gracious welcome to all of the men at our God Behind Bars campus at the Rams Unit.

We love you, gentlemen.

Such an honor uh to get to worship with you every weekend.

Um, we are starting a new three-week series that will get us through uh Father's Day, and I am, as usual, super excited about this series.

This series I would put under the category of a selfish one, because this for me is maybe a wheelhouse, not because I'm great at teaching about it or anything, but because it's something I'm incredibly passionate about.

We're doing a series that we've titled just really simply Real Conversations.

And I love when we get real in church, man.

Not all of us love that, and I get that for different reasons, but I love it, man.

I believe since we are saved and justified by nothing more than the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ in Christ alone, it's not by works, the Bible says, or anything that we do.

It's the belief we have in everything that Jesus has done for us on our behalf.

And so I believe we should be the freest people in the whole world to have the most honest and sincere and real conversation.

I believe we should be the people who are the fastest and the first to go below the surface without fear, without um worry or anxiety.

We should be the people that have the most honest talks on planet earth because we have not put our hope in ourselves, we have not put our hope in systems, we have not put our hope in governments, we have put our hope in the kingdom of God, which came when Jesus Christ came into this world.

And so we are gonna have a real conversation for the next uh three weeks.

We're gonna wrap it up on Father's Day.

I'm saving my, I think the realest moment that I believe in all of the Gospels for Father's Day.

It's a beautiful moment between Jesus and between a father and between a son.

But today, uh, if you have your Bibles, go with me to John chapter 5.

John 5 · chapter mention

If you don't, at every campus, don't worry.

All of the scriptures are gonna come up on the slides so that you can read along.

This is John chapter 5, and it starts by saying this.

John 5 · chapter mention

Sometime later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals.

Now there is in Jerusalem near the sheep gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda.

That simply means the place of mercy, and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades.

Here a great number of disabled people used to lie.

The blind, the lame.

Now, lame in their day meant some type of paralyzation.

It didn't mean like you don't like to party or you're a Dallas Cowboys fan or something like that.

It meant it meant lame.

It was a different thing.

The lame and the paralyzed.

I'm gonna be in trouble for that one.

I said that in Texas.

I don't care, man.

I stand by it.

Anyways.

Now, here's what's interesting.

Sorry, let's move on.

Here's what's interesting.

Uh, you'll notice there's not a verse four.

It goes right from verse three to verse five.

Here's the reason.

Verse four was always intended to be uh at best a footnote.

So most Bible translations don't add verse four, some do.

Um, and the reason why is this is because it wasn't in the earliest manuscripts.

It got put in sometime later.

And I think they put it in as a footnote sometime later, which some translations kept so that we would understand as we continue to read what this person is talking about.

So what it said in verse chapter 4 is simply this there was a pool that we've just read about.

And there was this legend, possibly true, but possibly an urban legend, that every now and then throughout different seasons of the year, hundreds, sometimes during festivals like we have here, thousands of people would be at these pools.

These were large pools, there were two of them.

We know because they've since been excavated.

There's two pools, they're about 150 by about 150.

One they said was about 150 by about 180 feet, and they were somewhere between 30 feet and 40 feet deep.

That's why they needed five porticos or five colonnades so that they could have shade for everyone that was there.

And the reason that so many hundreds of blind and lame and paralyzed people would show up is because the urban legend was every now and then they said the angel of the Lord would stir the waters.

And the first person that was paralyzed that got into the waters would instantly be made well.

Is that true?

Did that happen?

I I bet at some point something like that happened, or they wouldn't have kept showing up in droves waiting for something like this to happen.

But only one of all the hundreds of people that would have been there that were paralyzed would have gotten healed.

And so that's what they left out.

Then in verse 5 it says, there was one guy who was there who had been an invalid for 38 years.

Think about that.

Let's put our hearts into this story.

Thirty-eight years of being unable to walk.

When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, Jesus asked him, Do you want to get well?

Sir, the invalid replied, I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred while I am trying to get in.

Someone else always goes down ahead of me.

And then Jesus simply said to him, Get up, pick up your mat and walk.

At once the man was cured, he picked up his mat and he walked.

Now I'm going to tell you why I was so drawn to doing this moment in Scripture in week one, in terms of having a very real conversation with you, and it is because of this.

Well, the majority of us at our church don't have literal paralyzation, like literally, I would venture to say, just based on my own testimony, my own life, and sitting in my office for 20-some years now, uh talking to people at the other end of the couch and telling me about their moments in life that I would now consider what I call mat moments.

Moments where you feel stuck.

Life's lifed on you.

And now for whatever reason, whatever's came your way, you literally feel stuck, and there's something in the back of your mind and heart that knows that if I stay stuck long enough, eventually I'm gonna graduate on this mat from being stuck to being like this man, paralyzed.

So when I'm talking about paralyzation today, of course, I'm not talking to the few of you that have literal paralyzation.

I'm talking to the masses of us that would say, you know what, Chad, I don't know to what degree I feel stuck, or I wasn't even coming into church today, even thinking about the fact that I might be stuck, or maybe even paralyzed in this current season of life.

But now that you think you talk about it, that could be me.

We're all gonna have map moments in our life.

And when I say map moments, I'm just talking about those key, profound moments where you in life, as we say, get knocked down.

Where you've been traumatized.

And I know a lot of people in the Christian world have a little lot of different thoughts about therapy and trauma and trauma therapy, and I'm just gonna tell you right now, I am a believer in it.

Love me or leave me, baby.

I am a believer in it, and here's why: because life with sin in the world is traumatizing.

Every one of you to varying degrees, yes, it is a spectrum.

Every one of us in the sound of my voice today, to varying degrees, has experienced different types of trauma in life.

And if there's one thing that can knock someone down fast and keep them down for a long time, longer than God ever wanted it to keep you down, longer than you ever wanted it to keep you down, it's those traumatic moments in life that we all experience.

Now, in the therapeutic world, they give you some framework, very simple framework as to how we as humans have notoriously responded to trauma.

And they give you three simple different ways that we respond, and it's usually based on wiring, experience, personality.

They all start with F, and the first one is this fight.

Where's my fighters at in the room?

You get knocked down, and your first instinct, even before you got your senses, is you're crawling back up swinging, man.

You're like, bring it on.

Like your first response is just start swinging harder, right?

You're a fighter, and that's a beautiful thing, and there's some godly characteristics in that, but let me tell you the hard truth about being in fight mode when you've been traumatized, is there is a shelf life on fighting.

You ask any professional fighter, and they will tell you there's only so many hits, only so many bruises, only so many concussions, and eventually there's only so many scars before you gotta hang the gloves up.

And the brutal reality for those fighters is after they hang the gloves up, they usually have a whole lot of life left to live.

Then what do you do with yourself?

But not all of us are fight mode when traumas happen.

Some of us it's called flight mode.

You're not the fighter, you're the runner.

I get that.

God gets that.

It's just part of our protective response to difficult seasons, getting knocked down.

You run.

And I'm gonna give you some real bad news.

See, anytime you've been traumatized by anything in life, and usually those are external forces that have traumatized you, here's what the truth is: no matter how external those forces were, it always has an immediate effect internally.

And what trauma does to us is it starts to create fear and anxiety, worry, depression.

Here's a big one.

Insecurity.

And I'm gonna give you some bad news real quick so I can give you some good news.

Here's the real bad news to the runners today.

You are not faster than fear, you are not faster than anxiety, you are not faster than depression, you are not faster than your insecurities.

Because as fast as you run, as long as they're internally affecting you, they will run right along at whatever pace you want to go.

Let me say it this way: there is no geographical safe space when it comes to dealing with the hardest things in life.

There's no beach with white enough sand and blue enough water and pretty enough fish to heal your soul.

There's no cabin on a mountaintop with crisp and clean enough air to heal your soul.

There's no city on the globe that has healthy and whole enough people around you to move to and get healing for your soul.

So, what do you do when fighting no longer serves you and you've been knocked down?

What do you do when you've been knocked down and you start to realize that no matter where I run, I can't outrun my problems?

The good news about not being able to outrun your problems is although you are not faster than fear, you are stronger than fear.

We're called not to run, we were called to look it in the face, give it a name, and confront it in the name of Jesus with the power of Jesus, the mercy of Jesus.

You're not faster than anxiety, you're not faster than depression, you're not faster than your insecurities and all of your worries, but you are stronger.

I believe Jesus said, uh, greater is he that is in me, John wrote, than he that is in the world.

We don't have to swing against the enemy.

No, we let Christ swing for us, and we're gonna talk more uh about that.

So there's flight mode, fight mode, flight mode, and then what's the third one?

It's freeze mode.

And this is oftentimes what happens to people who don't have any more fight left.

You're stuck, paralyzed.

Or the runners, you've exhausted yourself trying to get away from it and realizing you can't get away from it.

And now you go into freeze mode.

And you know what's interesting is a word that's synonymous with freeze is what?

Paralyzed.

You're in freeze mode.

You you hunker down.

Here's how you know you might be stuck, here's how you know you might be on a mat and paralyzed in life.

You start to say things like, Well, I think my best days are behind me.

We don't say that out loud, but did maybe any of you at any one of our campuses, maybe some of you men for sure at God behind bars going, Man, definitely my best days are behind me.

That means you're paralyzed, that means you're stuck.

That means you're frozen.

Maybe you say, Well, what happened, happened, and again you won't say it out loud, but in your mind you hear yourself say this what happened, happened.

It is what it is.

So I am what I am.

So love me or leave me, baby, right?

This is me now.

This is the new me.

I didn't like it, I didn't want it, I didn't go looking for it, I didn't ask it, but I'm tired of fighting and I'm tired of running, and so now I'm just frozen.

Once you're paralyzed, you've hit the acceptance stage.

And this, my friends, is where the devil loves to pounce.

This is where he loves to come in with all of the lies.

It'll never get better, it could never get better, I could never get up because I've tried and it keeps failing.

This is where he comes in with accusations.

Can I remind you that the Word of God calls the devil the accuser of the brother and the sisters?

He loves to accuse us.

He loves to put, well, it was your fault, well, you're not strong enough, well, you don't have what it takes to get back up.

You're just gonna be stuck for the rest of your life.

And when lies and accusations start to work, you know what comes?

Condemnation.

You're condemned to your mat.

This is your story for the rest of your life.

But can I remind you what Romans 8 says therefore now?

There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because in Christ Jesus you and I have been set free from the law, the laws, the accusations that come with sin and that come with death.

The devil is the ultimate anti-Christ, which means he is anti-resurrection.

If there is one thing the devil hates to see in you and I, it's when through the power and grace of Jesus Christ, you start to get up.

You start to resurrect from a place of paralyzation, you start to resurrect from being stuck.

He is anti-resurrection.

But can I remind you, one of the things Jesus said to a group of people was, I am, I'm not bringing the resurrection.

I am the resurrection.

I am life.

I love what King Solomon said.

I refer back to this in my own life all the time.

He says, Though a righteous man falls, seven times he rises again.

Seven in the Bible is the word that represents in the Hebrew culture completion, fullness, or wholeness, right?

There were seven days to create everything and make it whole and perfect.

There's seven days in a week.

Seven times that means you never forfeit the right to get up off a mat when life's knocked you down.

And it's not you, it's a righteous man or woman who gets to do that.

And we know from the new covenant that our righteousness is not in our own strength, it's not in our own merit.

Our righteousness isn't in how good or bad our resume is or isn't in terms of getting back up.

Our righteousness, meaning our right, no matter what we've done, even if our mat situation is a self-inflicted wound because of your own poor choices, you still, because of Jesus, not you, have the right to say, I'm getting up.

I'm gonna start again wiser, I'm gonna start again smarter with the love of God and the mercy of God as my fuel.

Some of you, it was the divorce that put you on the mat.

And can I say this?

I get it.

God gets it.

We're not here to beat divorced people down at this church.

We're here to serve them.

We're here to be a part of their healing journey.

We are there to tell them, though a righteous marriage falls seven times, you can get up again.

I know my grandma was married six times.

I would say that to her if she was still alive.

She literally was the woman at the well, man.

I'd say, Grandma, you can do it again.

Number seven, let's go.

Some of you is the divorce, some of you is this is a big one, the diagnosis.

Man, you want to talk about getting knocked down.

You want to talk about going into a doctor, not having a clue you were about to receive the news you were going to receive.

And those stories are peppered throughout our church.

Some of you, it was the devastating job or career loss, which led to deep and profound financial insecurity.

Some of you, you think uh you're most known in life right now for the chapter 11 or for the chapter 7 that was filed.

As if God's not bigger than that.

As if God's up in heaven worried about that.

As if God doesn't own it all, and doesn't always have through the power of Jesus a way to get yourself through that.

So that is a chapter in your story, not the thread of the whole book in the name of Jesus.

Some of you, like I mentioned earlier, it's trauma, childhood trauma, man.

You want to talk about an early in your formative years?

You want to talk about getting knocked down on the mat when it had nothing to do with you, when it was not your fault?

Do you know how incredibly difficult it is for people that have had some profound and dark childhood trauma to get up off that mat, to not live life frozen?

Some people, it wasn't just losing a loved one, which is hard enough, but tragically losing a loved one.

You know when when when we say they were gone way too early?

When their years were cut short, or when a parent has the worst thing, in my opinion, in life, which is when a parent has to bury a child instead of a child bearing a parent.

You want to talk about being paralyzed, you want to talk about getting knocked down, and then of course, many of us can relate to this, some type of moral failure.

The scarlet letter A for adultery.

And now you feel like, well, it is what it is.

I am who I am.

Love me or leave me.

And you just sit for the rest of your life on your mat thinking everyone just sees you as an adulterer.

Or the addiction.

Everyone knows me for the addiction.

I've hurt a lot of people in my addiction, and so I've just frozen, this is who I am, and hopefully, some nice people will come by and look past my mistakes and maybe help me out a little bit because I can't help myself anymore because I've frozen.

It could be a lot of different reasons, but I want to do this with the rest of my time.

I want to go back and I want to revisit the question that Jesus asked.

Now I'm always nervous that you guys are gonna be so annoyed with me because I say this so much, but it is so important in the reading of Scripture that you understand this.

Whenever Jesus asks a question, it's always what?

It's always because you need to answer it, not because he needs to know the answer.

Whenever Jesus asks a question, he already knows the answer.

Whoa, that would have been a good clip.

I'm not trying to go viral, I'm good without it.

It's because Jesus needs you to listen to yourself answer the question.

So let's go back to verse 6 because this is where it gets so real.

If we're talking about having real conversations in church, here's where Jesus gets so real, and I love it, I'm here for it.

When Jesus saw the man lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, what's he ask him?

He asks him, Do you want to get well?

Isn't that an odd question?

It's been 38 years.

Putting all of your hope in a potential urban legend?

That if I can be the first one of hundreds to get in the pool, I might eventually have my number call to be first?

Can you imagine putting all your hope while you're paralyzed and frozen and stuck in life on a mat?

Putting all your hope in time and chance and hitting the lottery of the pool waters and it being your time?

If I can get in those waters when God's stirring them, man.

And it's at the expense of everybody else not getting in.

Like, think about that.

Jesus has the audacity to say, do you want to get well?

Wouldn't you assume his response would be like, Are you serious, man?

Who are you?

Because he didn't know Jesus.

This is the first time they met.

Like, who do you think you are?

Of course I want to get well.

Do you know what it took for me to get down to this pool again in hopes that I get lucky and hit the lottery so I could walk and live for a while?

But what's Jesus doing?

He's he's simply saying what I think he would say to a lot of us and surprise us.

But do you really want to get well?

Because Jesus knows the human condition better than we do.

He knows what it takes to get well, and he knows all the reasons we can be incredibly comfortable in staying the way we are.

So I just came up with four universal reasons.

These are based on my own testimony, and these are based on, again, hundreds and hundreds of people over a couple decades that I've sat across and talked with when it comes to this thing of change or being stuck in life.

The first one's the most practical, and it's this, and it's really practical.

Sometimes you choose the mat instead of walking, staying stuck instead of moving forward, simply because change is hard.

Can I get an amen?

Let's be real in church.

Change is just hard.

Even good changes are hard.

You know why?

Because in a very chaotic, sin-stained, fallen world, you know what can be a friend real fast to us?

Familiarity.

Man, familiarity.

And I think there's a time and a season for familiarity to be the theme.

But I can tell you, in a world where we live by faith and not by sight, if you're putting your hope in familiarity to be one of your closest friends, you will find yourself stuck on a mat for way longer than God ever intended you to be stuck.

Change is hard.

William Barclay is a long passed away, an incredible theologian, man of God.

He wrote in commentary based on this question, Jesus asked these words.

He said, In this man's particular Case, the paralytic, it was reasonable to wonder if he really wanted to be healed.

Here's why.

In an Eastern, in an Eastern beggar often loses a good living by being cured of his disease.

He goes on to say, as bad as his current situation was, at least he was familiar with it.

So just ask yourself, maybe, if you're if you're one of the people, and as we're fleshing this out, you go, I might be a little more stuck or froze than I thought.

How much of that is the life from the pit of hell that change is going to be too overwhelming?

That it's going to demand too much energy.

That the unfamiliar territory that change is going to bring isn't worth the cost of getting up and walking.

That's a fair question.

That's Jesus going, do you really want to be healed?

Because change is hard, man.

This is going to be beautiful, I promise, but it is going to disrupt status quo.

It is going to radically overnight change your life.

Second thing is this.

This is a big one, y'all.

Fear that if I change, friendships change.

And this happens all the time.

You ever heard them say, like, you want to know what kind of person you're going to be?

Look at the five closest friends in your life.

That'll tell you a lot.

Why?

Because we attract familiarity.

We attract like-minded people.

That's why I imagine these paralyzed people, the the lame and the paralyzed, the invalids, I imagine they had a pretty strong community of friendship because they got each other.

They understood each other without even talking to each other.

And it's not bad to have those type people in your life, but they can't be the only people in your life.

You got to have some people that can walk faster than everyone else, saying, come walk with me.

You can walk, man.

I believe you can walk.

I'll be here to help you walk.

I'll show you how to walk again.

I'll be right by your side when you walk again.

But you got to get up, man.

You can't limit yourself.

Yeah, but I've built uh this thing we humans need so bad, which is a community, and yeah, we may be dysfunctional community, but at least we got each other, and I'd rather have each other in dysfunction than nobody with functionality.

Right?

We say that.

But sometimes there's certain people that as soon as you change, your new story doesn't serve their story anymore.

And Jesus goes, So do you really want to get well?

Because it's gonna change your community, it's gonna change your circles.

The third thing is this.

This is a big one too, guys.

The lie is this.

This part of my story is where I've always been seen, and where I've always received help, and where I've gotten the most compassion, and I've gotten the most empathy.

And so the lie is if you really want to be healed, here's the lie.

Will I still be lovable if I'm well?

Will I still be interesting if I'm well?

Because I've gotten a lot of attention simply because people are intrigued with the mat or feel empathetic towards my mat.

And I'm not sure that I have anything interesting anymore about my life if I get up.

Because this is where I draw attention, and we all want attention.

We all deserve, listen to me, we all deserve to be seen.

We all deserve to be known.

We all deserve compassion, we all deserve to be loved.

And the great lie from the devil is are you gonna be lovable if you get up and walk?

And then the last, which is a result of the first three things, is this you stay down long enough, you stay stuck long enough, you you make your peace with status quo long enough, this will become your identity.

Do you really come to church this weekend believing that you simply were put on earth for uh uh this to be your identity?

To play small, to live small like that?

You came to bring glory to Jesus.

We were designed and created to bring glory to Jesus.

It's to glory to Jesus that you get up.

Though you fall, though you feel stuck, that you feel froze in the name of Jesus through the power of your relationship with Jesus because you are the righteousness with Jesus, a righteous man and woman gets up seven times every time.

This becomes your identity, and listen to me.

The diagnosis, and I don't want to make light of anybody's diagnosis, it is a very real part of your story.

It is a very real chapter that's being written, but please hear me.

It is not your identity.

Your identity is in Christ Jesus and everything He speaks and says over you.

Your identity is not in your addiction.

You hear that?

Please hear me when I say that.

Everyone here today, secretly or outwardly struggling still with addiction, you still feel knocked down, you still feel paralyzed by this thing that you just don't know how to stop and how to quit.

Listen to me.

That is a real part of your story, but it doesn't have to be the thread throughout every chapter.

There are new chapters ready to be written.

We have to come back to at some point, do we really believe in the power and the workings of God and Jesus Christ in us?

Do we really believe that miracles, get up and walk type stuff can happen?

Sometimes life can life so hard that we just resign to the fact that, man, I don't see much supernatural thing or beauty going on around me.

And so I will just stay stuck on my mat.

The addiction, the trauma, and I'd never want to minimize any of our traumas, but please, please hear me.

This is not your identity, and I know it's powerful and it's deep in you, and it feels like this is just who you are because of what happened to you, but your trauma does not have to be and should not be your identity.

Your identity is in the healer of trauma, the healer of pain, the healer of wounds, God who is the ever-present help in time of trouble.

Your job success, your job failure is not your identity.

I know job success is powerful.

This is why when you meet someone at a party for the first time, what's the first question we humans ask?

So, what do you do?

I've never had someone at a party, hey, great to meet you, Chad.

So tell me who you are.

No one's ever said that as the leading question.

It's what do you do?

And so, man, when what you do goes south, it can have paralyzing effects on you.

It can start accusing you, it can start lying to you about who you are or what you've become, it can start putting these failure syndromes on you that a loving God would never ever put on one of his children.

And it keeps you down, and I could go on and on.

So, what's Jesus after he says, Do you really want to get well?

What's the guy's response?

This is interesting.

I want you to note, he doesn't say, Of course I want to be healed.

I think when Jesus asked him that, he was like, Oh man, I've never really thought of that.

Should have been the number one question on his mind, shouldn't it?

Because I've never really thought of it.

Do you want to be healed?

He goes right into his trained response.

This is how long he's been on the mat.

This is 38 years of acceptance.

He goes, sir, the invalid replied, I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is being stirred.

While I am trying to get in, someone always, someone else always goes down ahead of me.

Did you hear what he's saying without even realizing he's saying it?

Sir, I've put all my hope in time, chance, and luck.

I've put all my hope that some point into this 38 years, I'm gonna hit the pool lottery and I'm gonna get in there first.

Geez, like, how's that working out for you?

Like, you're you're you're putting your hope in the stirrings of some proverbial earthly water when you could stir up right now that who is amongst you, which is me, the healer of all healers.

The question is when you're on a mat, is what are you stirring up?

What are you hoping for?

You just waiting for someone to come save you?

You just waiting for that lucky break?

Come on, we don't say it out loud, but you you think that if this one thing could just happen, man, if this one break could just happen, then everything will be okay.

If this one thing comes my way, then I'll be unstuck.

As soon as that pool gets stirred, so to speak, and I get in first, and it's my time, that's what I'm waiting on.

And Jesus comes by and says, Don't wait for that.

I'm here.

Like, I and here's my heart for this real conversation.

Here's what I was feeling for us pastorally, as I was praying for myself through this, I was praying for you guys.

Here's what I was feeling God speak to my heart so strongly was simply this.

Remind people about the supernatural power of God.

Remind my children not to forget that I have a power to get people up.

I have a power to wake souls up, I have a power to create change supernaturally.

It's almost always gonna start internally and then start to manifest in beautiful ways externally.

But get up.

That's the voice of Jesus.

Get up.

I've got you.

I'll walk with you.

And so I'm gonna let you hear some preaching that's way better than anything I've done so far.

I'm about to show you my favorite realist moment I've seen in the last year.

I caught this on social media.

There's a comedian who is having a really good season as a comedian.

He's in a really important cultural moment for himself.

He's become very popular.

Now, I don't know this comedian.

I haven't heard tons of this comedian's stuff, so there's no endorsements here.

Please don't write me emails.

I want you to listen to this guy's heart because I don't know where he's at on the spectrum in terms of Christ, but I know this just on what he says.

This is a guy who Christ is meddling with.

This is a guy who Christ is going, Do you do you want to get well?

Do you want to get well?

And I just want this, this is such a real moment.

I want to show you this because this is the heart of the next three weeks.

What I want us to be able to do as a church is just get honest again.

And sometimes we have to look at the seeker.

Sometimes we have to look at the person that's not playing religious or Christian games to remind ourselves about how real this is.

This is a comedian named Theo Vaughn.

Watch this.

You know, I've been struggling, man, the past like couple years in certain ways with certain behaviors that I'm just not proud of.

Or really just behaviors that I didn't want to do anymore.

I couldn't change it.

I couldn't change the cycle.

And even as I say this, I'm afraid that I'll fall back into those behaviors.

But I'll tell you what for me has been helpful recently.

I would pray to God to help me get away from certain behaviors in my life, but at the same time that I was praying, there would be a part of me that knew I was probably gonna do those things again.

God, please help me and I don't want to do this anymore.

I don't want to have this behavior.

There'll be a little part of me that was like, I know even as I ask for God's help that I'm gonna do it again, I would know that.

So I started praying like this.

I started praying like, God, this is a broken part of me that I'll bring to you.

I need help with it.

And then I would add to my prayer, I would say, God, even as I pray to you right now, there's a part of me that knows I'm probably lying to you.

There's a part of me that knows I'm gonna do that behavior again.

So can you come into that part of me and help me there?

Help me in the part of me that knows as I pray that I am that I'm lying.

So I've just been praying that God comes into those parts of me.

Don't just come into like the water inside of me, come into the well, come into the walls of the well, come into the mortar or whatever that's between the bricks, because I'm broken all the way there.

Like past the roots.

And so uh something that's just been helping me recently is just praying differently, like as honestly as I could, and even honest past that.

Because whatever's inside of me that's broken is really it's manipulative and it's it would be good at pool because it's good at the angles.

But if there's a part of me that doesn't even want the best for me, then that there's something inside of me that is called.

I was looking on this Bible and there's a story called John 5, and it's about a guy who's got these pools, there's a sick man there, he's been sick for a long time.

And Jesus asks him, do you want to be healed?

Yeah.

Do you want to be healed?

That's a crazy question because you know, if I get healed, then I'm different.

If somebody gets healed, they have a new story.

So that's just been something that I've been having to ask myself.

It's like, yeah, do I want to be healed?

Do I really want something different?

Sometimes a lot a lot of the answer is no.

I don't I want something different, but I don't want to.

I don't know.

I'm scared of it, I don't know what I am.

I don't know, I don't want to do what it takes to get out.

I can't even tell what it is.

It's awful.

So it starts a little bit off of me.

I think I don't even know why, but I I think I want a new story.

You know, I'm tired of that story.

I just don't want that story anymore.

You know, I want something different.

Because the more I just tell that story, it's just like I stay in that cycle.

And so that's one thing that I'm asking God for.

I'm asking God for a new story.

I'm asking God for the next part of my of me.

Dang, homie.

I'm I'm leaking.

I don't even know what I'm telling you, dude.

And I never thought I would be saying some of this stuff, but I'm glad that I am because I just I'm ready for a new story.

That's real right there, right?

I mean, what got me when he's like, man, I as I pray to you, God, there's a big part of me that knows I'm probably lying.

That's beautiful.

You don't think God's leaning over heaven listening to that kind of prayer?

That's a David-like prayer.

That's from the heart, that's from the gut, that's with nothing to lose, that's with nothing to hide.

He did that, by the way, with millions of people that follow his podcast.

And then a bunch more like me who don't came across it.

And it was almost like God using that as like a thing to say, this is the type of realness that I want to work with in the healing process.

That right there, if you're going, Chad, I think I'm a little more stuck or a little more froze or paralyzed than I thought before I walked into church today.

That's your step right there.

God, get into the places where I'm not even sure I want to get up.

God, get into the places where I've accepted status quo and just said it is what it is, I am who I am.

This is the rest of my life, the rest of my story.

This is the continuing thread to finish the rest of my book before I leave to breathe my last.

And I just gotta tell you, if you've received Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, the Bible says the same spirit that raised Christ from the dead now lives in you.

Resurrection is always going to meddle with you.

You want to talk about frustrated.

Here's the ultimate frustration.

I've resigned to my mat, and yet I carry this voice and spirit on the inside that refuses to ever resign to being knocked down.

I've got this resurrection voice meddling in my heart that will never let me go, and until I receive it, believe it, and expect that it is possible, that resurrection voice is going to meddle with the voice of me resigning to this, and it's going to add more worry.

It's going to add more insecurity, it's going to add more fear of failure and failure syndrome because I'm staying down when there's this powerful voice on the inside of me that keeps saying, get up.

I wish that voice would shut up, right?

But if the presence of God is active in your life, here's one word, phrase you're going to hear all the time.

Get up, take your mat, walk.

See, you can wait for the pools of Bethesda to stir and hope that some urgent urban legend calls your name and time and chance is on your side, and then you won't have to do any of the work or any of the confrontation to get up.

But Jesus is just waiting for you to meet him with, could you just meet me in the places where I don't want to get up first?

The places where I'm probably lying to you?

Could you just get into those, like he says, could you get into the mortar inside the brick, like below the roots?

Because I think I'm ready for a new story.

And you could tell he's kind of afraid of a new story.

Especially one that relates to Christ, because that might be really inconvenient to his bottom line.

Because I don't think his comedy shows really lift up Christ.

But if Christ starts to be the center of that change he's praying for, he probably knows, man, there's going to be some friends that are dear to me that might not be as close to me as they once were.

There's going to be some opportunities and some moments that I've really relied on that might not be around anymore because I can't glorify Christ in those anymore.

Man, getting up's hard, y'all.

Jesus knows this.

He's not mad about it.

That's why he's kind enough to go, do you really want to get well?

He's not being obnoxious or sarcastic when he says that.

He's saying, no, I want you to get up and I want you to stay up.

So let's not waste time playing games.

Do you really want to get well?

And so that's the question we came here for in our first of three real conversations, is to all of my friends that have found yourself on a mat, or you currently find yourself on a mat, frozen, paralyzed.

Maybe you've hit the stage of acceptance because you're exhausted.

And can I tell you, I have been there, and I have been there recently.

I'm not going to share because of time, and I've shared some of this before, and I'll share it again because it's my story, and our stories matter and they're powerful.

But man, it's it wasn't too many years ago where I got knocked down so hard.

And there was a season for a longer than I care to admit where I had just started resigning.

I felt every force on inside of Chad Brugman resigning to this as the new normal.

But by God's grace and by still sometimes choosing to stir up the presence of God, that get up voice just would not leave me alone.

It haunted me.

That's why they called Jesus the hound of heaven.

Would not quit haunting me.

And something in me said, Chad, life is supposed to be lived to the fullest.

Get up.

You are the righteousness of Christ.

You, if you go by your own merits, you don't deserve to get up.

You don't have any great resume to prove that you deserve to get in the pool first.

But the beautiful thing about Jesus is you don't have to have any of that.

You just have to say, Jesus, I want to be well.

Yes, I'm scared.

Yes, the unknown of what that could look like is scary, but it's better than the alternative, and I'm tired of the alternative, and I'm tired of feeling stuck.

And if that is you at any one of our campuses, I just want to end this weekend by having a very real moment in church.

And so I'm going to ask out of respect for all of you on your mat right now.

You feel stuck.

This is for you right now, with every head bowed and every eye closed.

I want to have a moment of response.

You need this, you deserve this.

We as a church need this.

You say, Man, I came in, Chad, and this was an on-time thing for me because I'm frozen right now, man.

And a big part of me's lost the fight, or I'm tired of running, and now I'm froze.

And that's a scary place to be.

And I'm starting to get comfortable in that state.

I'm starting to make my peace with it, and I'm scared of that.

If that's you at any campus, would you just, with every head bowed and eye closed, would you just have an honest moment between you and God?

Would you just put your hand up?

Because we want to pray for you.

There's something about putting your hand up, and I know that can be vulnerable.

Thank you.

There's hands all over the place.

I imagine at every campus.

Hands all over the place.

Come on, minute God behind bars, let's make this one of the most honest moments you've had in a long time at your place of worship.

Hands all over the place.

Probably more hands up than are not.

See, this is beautiful because there is no shame in being froze.

There is no condemnation in being froze.

God gets it, God understands it, and in his kindness and mercy, he's good enough to say, get up, man.

I got you.

Take your mat and walk.

So, Jesus, with every person that has by faith acknowledged that this is the season they're in, and they're ready to take steps in the direction of getting up and moving forward and getting well, we now believe and lean on your grace.

There is nothing else we can ask for right now.

There's nothing practical enough to solve this, or it would have already been solved.

There's no time, chance, or luck anymore that we're hoping for.

It's the grace, mercy, and the supernatural power of God.

Come on, at every church right now, with your own faith, ask God for these people.

Ask for the supernatural healing power of Jesus.

If we don't believe that is still real and still for today, why are we even here, right?

Come on, in the name of Jesus, I pray strengthen to these beautiful souls.

These hands that are lifted right now.

Be their strength, God, be their portion, God, be their wisdom, God, be their hope, God.

May that resurrection, get up and walk spirit be renewed in them.

Something they have not felt in a long time.

I come against every mind game, every lie, every accusation that the enemy of our souls, the devil, is bringing their way.

Every fear that's getting in the way of them wanting to get up, may that as of today be gone in the name of Jesus.

May the spirit of get up, take your mat, and walk be what we receive today because of your awesome mercy and your healing grace.

Jesus, we pray this in your beautiful name.

And everybody said at every campus, Amen.

Amen.

So may the Lord bless every single one of you.

May He keep you in the grip of His grace.

May He cause His face to shine upon you.

May He be radically gracious to you as you leave right now.

May He turn His countenance towards you.

And may the peace that passes understanding guard your heart and guard your mind as you walk out of the doors of your campus.

Guys, we love you so much.

Please don't miss next week.

It is going to be powerful.

We have a bunch of people that are going to pray.

They're going to stay and pray at every campus.

They'll be down front.

We love you.