FOLLOW | Healing

Before we get into the teaching text tonight, I just want to take a moment to introduce who's going to be bringing the word to you today. You guys are in for a treat. Tonight, we're getting ready to hear from Dr. Ron Wahlburn. Dr. Ron just recently joined the pastoral staff here at Church of the City, but he's not new to our church, and he's certainly not new to New York City. Ron's been a dear friend to Pastor John in this community for many years. His presence here is something we don't take lightly. If you've heard Pastor John mention in his sermons before about his Holy Spirit Mentor tonight, you get to hear from the Holy Spirit Mentor himself. Just so you know a little bit about him, Dr. Ron spent more than two decades at Niac College and Alliance Theological Seminary serving as a pastor of theology and eventually vice president and dean of the seminary. He holds a doctorate ministry from Fuller City Theological Seminary and most recently served as the director of urban initiatives at Asbury Seminary. There, he now serves on the board of trustees. Ron has given his life to the renewal of the church in this country and around the world, and we believe that God is moving in such a time as this in our city. We believe that Ron has come to join our team for such a time as this. So if you guys would please join me in welcoming Dr. Ron. In the teaching text tonight is coming from Matthew chapter 8, Matthew 8 verses 1 through 4. When Jesus came down from the mountainside, large crowds followed him. A man with leprosy came and knelt before him and said, "Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean." Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. "I am willing," he said, "be clean." Immediately he was cleansed of his leprosy. Then Jesus said to him, "See that you don't tell anyone, but go show yourself to the priest and offer the gift Moses commanded as a testimony to them." This is the word of the Lord. You can be seated. Well, good evening church of the city. It's great to be with you tonight and it's an honor to preach for the first time at my new home church. Juan and I have been part of the church of the city at a distance for a long time, but up close and personal just since January. I just want to thank you for how you have welcomed us so warmly. It's been a great joy. Sam didn't mention it, but one of my roles in coming here is to launch a school of ministry. I'm happy to announce that this fall we are launching the incubator year for the church of the city school of ministry. Next year we'll be offering four different courses. In the fall, starting on September 1st, at 7 a.m. on Tuesday morning, September 1st, we'll start a course called The Holy Spirit and the gifts and it's a basic course in new mythology, the study of the Holy Spirit. And then on October 8th,

we'll launch a course called Spiritual Formation for Leaders. That's on Thursdays at 7 a.m. Both these classes will be held in the ministry center on 9th Avenue and then in the spring, we'll offer Old Testament survey and we'll also offer divine healing and you'll be hearing more about that tonight. And the registration is open for the fall classes, so you can either go to church.nyc front slash school or you can, I think, use the QR code that's up here. So I look forward to seeing some of you in the classes. Now, I trust that many of you have been reading along as I have with the Bible reading plan that I think over 2,000 of us are participating in. If not, you too can get that wonderful 5 a.m. text. Dang. Time to read the word, okay? When mine goes off, it almost sounds like Sam Gibson. Get up, read the word, okay? And so all you have to do is text Bible to 2 1 2 2 1 2 and you can join us in this summer reading plan. Today in our follow series, we are moving past the Sermon on the Mount where the teaching and words of Jesus are emphasized and we're moving into a 2 chapter section, Matthew 8 and 9, where the works and the deeds of Jesus are emphasized. And I want you to know that the gospel must always have proclamation and demonstration. It's always got to be the word and the works. Or in church of the city language, it's got to be the fame, the words about God, but also the deeds, the fame and deeds of God. And so let's pray together as we look into his word. Father, thank you so much for all you're already doing. Thank you, Jesus, that you are being lifted up and glorified. so that you might do everything you want to do through us in your name we pray. Amen. Several years ago when I was teaching at the undergrad, I took a group of college students from Niac College here in New York to Taipei, Taiwan and we went over there to a missions conference and we were met there by about 200 other students from all over the United States and so at this conference on the first day I was asked to do a seminar on the healing ministry of Jesus as a mission activity and so I'm doing this seminar on healing and I look in the back and there's a young lady and her name is Meredith, she's in a wheelchair. I found out later she'd been in that wheelchair for about two years, she wasn't paralyzed per se but there was something going on with her spinal cord, with her nervous system and she'd been unable to walk for two years and so here she is in my seminar and when I finished she wheels herself to the front and she said Ron, would you be willing to pray with me? And I grabbed some pastors and some of the leaders that were there and we anointed Meredith with oil and we prayed for her and immediately we felt the presence

of God doing something but there was no physical healing in that moment and so I said Meredith, God's obviously doing something in your life, come back tomorrow we'll pray again so the next day she came again, again I gathered some pastors, some leaders, we anointed her with oil, we prayed over her, again the presence of God was rich and sweet but no physical healing. Well that night there were a bunch of students in this dorm where all the students were staying and they gathered around Meredith, they said hey Meredith could we pray for you? Now there were no pastors, there were no leaders, there was no oil, just a bunch of crazy college students who believed Jesus was the same yesterday, today and forever and they started praying for Meredith. Well they weren't maybe two or three minutes into their prayer time and Meredith said hey guys I don't know what's going on but I feel like I can walk and for the first time in two years she got up out of that wheelchair and she walked. Now, yeah, the next day we were taking a bus to the lower part of that island and Meredith showed up for the trip without her wheelchair, one of the other leaders said hey Meredith maybe you should take your wheelchair just in case, you know you haven't walked in two years, your muscles are at your feet, she said I don't need no stinking wheelchair, Jesus healed me. And so she refused to take her wheelchair and at the end of the day we were all exhausted except Meredith, she jumped up onto that bus like she had energy to spare. And the best part of that story is this happened over in Taiwan, she did not call and tell her parents what happened and so they showed up at the airport back in the US to pick her up and they had a wheelchair and she ran through the gate to meet them and a celebration broke out in the airport as they saw what Jesus had done for their daughter. Now I tell you that story for a couple reasons but primarily I want you to know this, you don't have to go to seminary in order to follow Jesus into his healing ministry. You don't have to be an ordained pastor to follow Jesus into his healing ministry, you see I believe Jesus wants to use all of his disciples in his healing ministry. Now I grew up in a church, my dad was a pastor, we believed in healing but we limited our practice of healing to kind of a James chapter 5 verse 14 model and James 5 14 says this, is there anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church, pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord and the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well. Now that's God's word, I love that verse but the problem is when you limit your practice

of healing to just that verse it's only the old special guys that get to participate. And with only focusing on that model you neglect Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and Acts where Jesus commissioned all of his disciples to preach the kingdom, heal the sick, to proclaim the gospel and demonstrate the gospel and it wasn't just the 12, it was the 72 and the 120 and every one that decided to follow Jesus was commanded to do that kind of activity. So growing up as a preachers kid in a church where there was passivity in regard to that kind of ministry and many other kind of ministry I'll be honest I was bored stiff with church. I just thought church was the most boring thing except for one week a year because one week a year at our church we had the missionaries who came from overseas and we spent a week with these missionaries and then we heard stories about whole people groups turning to Jesus, we heard about deliverance and healing and miracles and them burning their idols and I remember going to my dad I was about 10 and I said dad if you could get some stuff like that going in this church, this church would grow and once more it would be fine it wouldn't be boring and my dad looked at me and he goes you're a weird kid and I was a weird kid but I was also on to something, friends I want you to know I believe the healing ministry of Jesus. And I think if we are going to complete our mission of seeing lost New Yorkers far from God transformed into compelling missional disciples, then I think we must be compelling missional disciples who not only know the words of the gospel, but also the works of the gospel. We've not just got to proclaim the gospel, but we got to begin to demonstrate the gospel. Now, one of the patron saints of Church of the City, and if you've been around for any length of time, you've heard him quoted, A.W. Tozer. Now, A.W. Tozer was from the denomination that I grew up in, and he addressed this issue of why we're not seeing more healing and more miracles.

And he actually tied it to the failure of the Church to equip the saints to launch and advance the kingdom wherever they go. Here's what Tozer said about this issue. He said, "In the missionary society with which I have for many years been associated, I have noticed that the power of God always hovered over our frontiers. Miracles have accompanied our advances and have ceased when and where we have allowed ourselves to become satisfied and cease to advance. The creed of power, just having a theology, words only, are never gonna save a movement from barrenness. There must also be the work of power, the demonstration of power." And so friends, my goal tonight is to activate us in two ways. I wanna activate us, first of all, to receive the healing of Jesus. Because the truth is we all need it. And so I wanna activate us in a fresh way to kinda press in and receive what Jesus has for us in terms of healing. And then secondly, I wanna activate us to bring the healing of Jesus to others around us. And so we're gonna look tonight at the text, it's a short text, there's four short verses. And in this text, I believe we can learn both how to receive the healing of Jesus more efficiently and also how to give it away.

And so as we look at this, let me set the context again. I've already mentioned that Jesus is preaching the Sermon on the Mount here, and he is coming down from the mountain and there's large crowds that are following him. Now into this mix, there comes a man with leprosy. Now in the Bible, leprosy was a broad term that often referred to a variety of skin disorders and diseases, sometimes they were contagious, but always they resulted in social isolation, religious stigma, social stigma, lepers had to separate themselves from their family, from their place of worship, they had to live in isolation. And if they got too close to people, they were told they had to yell unclean, unclean, and often rocks would be thrown at them if they got too close. And so into this, this leper comes and approaches Jesus with the large crowds around him. And there's two characters in this story. There's leper, the guy in need of healing, and we're gonna look at some lessons for those of us that can relate to the leper tonight and say, you know what? I really think I need to learn from the leper as to how to approach Jesus for healing in my time of need. Now even if you don't relate to the leper tonight, take notes anyhow 'cause life has a way of getting us all and how many of you know we're gonna need a time to say Jesus I need to touch from you.

But the second character is Jesus. And the lessons we can learn from Jesus about how to minister to broken hurting people, they're lessons for all of us. And so let's take a look at this passage, and I wanna start with the leper. Let's look at how this leper receives healing. Now please remember Jesus can heal us anytime he wants. He doesn't need us to go through a methodology. In fact, I don't know if you've ever noticed, but Jesus almost never heals someone the same way twice in the scriptures. And I think the reason for that is he doesn't want us to get addicted to a methodology, he wants to get us attached to him in relationship with him. But in the context of this passage, I think the leper does some things that we can learn from. And let me give you four things that I see in the leper. The first one is this, this leper has a response of faith. Now I want you to notice he comes to Jesus, he doesn't wait for Jesus to come to him. And he comes to Jesus in spite of the fact that there's major risk involved. Now I had a friend that used to tell me, faith is always spelled R-I-S-K. But for this guy, there was risk involved. And I think maybe he heard at a distance, the authority and the anointing on Jesus' voice. And he said, I don't care what it costs me, I don't care what people think,

I have to get to that guy, he can help me. And so he takes a major risk and his response of faith is kind of dangerous. Friends, I don't know about you, but I admire that kind of faith, but I don't always replicate it. I mean, can I be honest, when I'm not feeling well, I tend to isolate. I don't want to be a bother. I don't want people to know that I'm not doing well. And so in my isolation, I almost always find myself in a place of unbelief. And I believe this leper is a healthy rebuke for me to say, I'm not going to back away. I'm not going to withdraw. I'm going to say, Jesus, I need to touch from you. And I believe a response of faith is a good place to start. A few years ago, I was down in Lima, Peru, and I was preaching at this church. Now, I don't speak much Spanish, unposquito. So I had a translator. And I wasn't preaching on healing that morning. In fact, I can't even remember what I was preaching on. But at the end of my sermon, I gave an invitation. And when I gave the invitation, the first person to stand up was a little girl about nine or 10 years of age. And she stood into the center aisle, and she stood there and waited until her mom stood up. And then she grabbed her mom by the elbow, and they made their way to the front.

And the reason she came that way was because this little girl was blind. And I've got to be honest, as she's coming to the front, I'm praying, oh, dear Lord, let her want prayer for anything other than her blindness. Because I'll be honest, I just did not have faith to pray for a little girl who was not able to see. And so she comes forward, there's a number of people there. But she's the first one in line. And so I go down to her with my translator. And I ask her this question. And this is the question I always ask. What do you want Jesus to do for you? And I ask it that way, because I don't want anyone to think that Ron can do something. I want them to know that Jesus is the healer, not me. And so what do you want Jesus to do for you? And sure enough, you know what she says? I want to see. So I prayed that prayer. Many of us have prayed, oh, Lord, I believed, helped my unbelief. But some of us have made a living out of that prayer, not expecting the Lord to answer it, OK? And so I said, all right, Lord. And so I put my hands on her cheeks. And I put my thumbs very gently on her eyes. And I started to pray. Listen, I felt no anointing. I felt no power.

I felt no authority. Just in obedience, I began to pray. I said, OK, Lord, I believe you're the healer. And before I had finished my prayer, I could feel this little girl weeping. I felt her tears wet my hands. And then all of a sudden she pushed my hand aside, and she started reading the verses that were written on the side of the church. And I found out that she had been born able to see, but had learned to read, but had lost her eyesight a few years before this moment. And so thou she's crying, her mother's crying, my translator's crying, I'm crying. And then she jumps up, and she runs out the back of the church. Her mother runs after her. My translator runs after them both. I don't know why he left. I'm the one that needed the translator. So now I've got a whole row of people up in the front, and I'm just oomphukito, you know? So the only thing I knew to pray was Fuego, and Moss and yours, and it worked, OK? And so I'm up in the front doing the best I can. Well, 10 minutes later, she comes walking back in the door of the church. And she's holding hands with this middle-aged guy, who I found out was her father, who had walked away from the Lord when his little girl lost her eyesight.

And when Jesus healed her, she said, the first thing I got to do is just say, Daddy, look what Jesus did. And we got to watch the second miracle that morning is that man rededicated his life to the Lord. Now, yeah, that's worth giving him praise. Now, listen, you need to know that healing was not precipitated by the faith of the guy praying. You know the deal. I was honest with you, and it's the truth. It was precipitated by the faith of a little girl that just simply said, I want to see. Friends, listen, tonight, I'm going to give you an opportunity to receive prayer for healing. And your response to faith is going to be very simple. I'm just going to ask you to stand in a few minutes right where you're at. You're not even going to have to come forward tonight. We're going to do lingering prayer a little differently. And here's the good news. No one is going to go throw rocks at you. It's going to be very safe. But the reality is, it's still a hard thing to humble yourself and say, Jesus, I need a touch. And so a response of faith is where the leper starts. The second thing I see in this passage from the leper is there's a recognition of power. He not only came to Jesus, but he knelt down before Jesus. Now, this word for kneel in this passage is the Greek word proscunero. And it literally means to kneel down, to worship,

to adore. And so this is not just respecting Jesus. This is worshiping Jesus. And what this leper is doing is he is getting his eyes off of himself onto the one who can do something about his condition. And friends, I want you to know, when you begin to worship God, suddenly you begin to look at him. And we know this, that he inhabits the praise of his people, and when his presence comes, his presence is his healing. And so I think the Lord can bring healing, sometimes before we even get to the prayer time. This happened in our church in Reading. When I was pastoring out in Reading, California, one Sunday morning, we were getting ready to start our 8 a.m. service. And I was in the back, the worship team had just started to worship, and I hadn't even made my way to the front yet. And in the back door comes this guy, and he is bent over, and his name was Blake. He was a regular attender at our church, and he was bent over, and I could tell he was in pain. And so I walked up to him, and I go, Blake, what's wrong? And he goes, oh, man, pastor, I threw my back out this week at work. I am in so much pain. And I said, well, man, Blake, you could have mailed

your tithe check. I actually did say that. This is before Vinmo and Zell, okay? And he said, stop, don't make me laugh. It hurts when I laugh. I said, all right, well, can we pray for you? And he goes, nah, you guys already started worship. Let me lay down in the back. You can pray for me when the service ends. I said, okay, so Blake made his way to the back row. He was laying across, I think, three seats. And at the end of the service, I went looking for Blake. But before I could find him, he found me. And all of a sudden, I look up, and here comes Blake. He's standing straight up and down, and he's walking right straight down the middle aisle, and he's got a big smile on his face. And I was ticked. I'm like, who prayed for you? You know, I mean, man, I missed it. And he goes, nobody, nobody prayed for me. I go, well, what happened? He goes, well, you're never gonna believe it. I'm laying in the back. You guys are worshiping. And I felt the Lord say, Blake, stand up and worship me. And I said, Lord, I came to church in pain. No one else would come to church in this much pain. Isn't it enough that I came, and the Lord said, stand up? So as best I could, I stood up, and I'm standing there.

You guys are worshiping. And now I hear the Lord say, lift your hands and worship me. I said, Lord, I came to church. I'm standing up. You want me to lift my hands? And the Lord said, lift your hands. And so as best I could, I tried to lift my hands. And all of a sudden, something popped in my back. And he looks at me, and he goes, I had a divine chiropractic moment. And he goes, but it's more than just my back going into place 'cause this has happened to me before. And when my back goes in, I'm still in pain for two or three days, but there's no pain. Jesus healed me, and nobody even prayed for me. It was just in the midst of worship. When I got my eyes off myself and onto him, his presence came and touched me. And so friends, we respond in faith. We recognize his power, and when we worship, we create an atmosphere for his presence and power to work. And as we move on, the third thing I see is this. This leper requests in humility. Now I love the way he approaches Jesus. He doesn't approach with arrogance. He doesn't approach with some kind of a demanding spirit. He said, Lord, if you're willing, you can make me clean. And I love this because he does come in faith. He does come with boldness, but he comes with humility. And friends, there's a tension when we approach the Lord

for anything, but for healing in particular tonight, because we are told that we can approach the throne of grace with boldness in our time of need. But friends, let's never forget that while we're approaching that throne, the one who is seated on it is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. And so it creates a humility in us as we come. And by the way, this is modeled by one of my favorite Old Testament stories. It's the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. You remember those guys? Now, my grandkids are coming tomorrow, and we're gonna tell this story at bedtime, but here's the way I tell it. Kids, we're gonna talk about Shadrach, Meshach, and Tibet, we go tonight, okay? And that's actually in the Hebrew. You can check it out, anyhow. And so I love this story because if you remember, they refuse to bow down to the king's idol. And so they're gonna be thrown in a fiery furnace, and they've heated up this furnace seven times hotter than it's ever been heated up before. And the king is saying, I'm gonna throw you in. You gotta bow down, you gotta worship the idol, and they're like, no, we're not gonna do it. And then one of them pops off with this response. I love this, he goes, our God is able to deliver us, and he will. Now there's faith, there's boldness, right?

But then he adds this, but even if he does not, we will never worship any other God. That's humility. And so when we come to the Lord, we come with confidence. We come with boldness. Jesus, you are my healer. I believe you will touch me tonight. But even if... I know you love me and I trust you and I will never worship any other God. So we come with boldness and we come with humility. And the fourth thing we see in this passage is this. This leper also results in obedience with his life. In other words, he doesn't just come for healing. Jesus then gives him some very specific instructions so that he can be restored to community, restored to his family. And Jesus wants him to know, healing is an end in and of itself. No, I'm calling you to a life of obedience. So here's what I suggest. When you come to Jesus tonight, say Jesus, I'm here for healing, but I wanna declare you, my Lord, you're my master and where you lead me, I will follow. And so when you position yourself to obey, I think you position yourself like this leper to receive a touch from the Lord. And so here with the leper, we see this response of faith. We see this recognition of power, which is that spirit of worship.

We see that he requested humility and it results in obedience. Now in just a few minutes, we're gonna pray for people who are here tonight that are saying, you know what, I need a touch from the Lord. But before we pray for you, I wanna train the ministry team. So I want us to look for a few minutes at some lessons we can learn from Jesus and how Jesus ministers healing to broken people. Now the first thing we see is this, it's really important. Jesus doesn't start with power, he starts with love, he starts with compassion. Now over the years, I've trained a lot of people to pray for healing. And I tell them the most important thing in healing ministry is not power, because if you're focused on power, people are gonna feel like projects. But if you focus on love and you lead with compassion and you make sure that you are showing them they are loved and cared for and ministered to, then they're not gonna feel like a project, they're gonna feel like a person that God loves. And so Jesus models this with compassion. Now how does he do it? Notice in the text it says, he reaches out his hand and he touches this man. Now when he touches this guy, I believe there was an audible gasp from the crowd. I think when he touches this guy, the crowd is going,

and there's mumbling, doesn't this great teacher know what he's just done? He's violated the word of God. He has violated what the scriptures say. And in Leviticus chapter five, verse three, it's very clear. It says, if anyone touches human uncleanness, anything that would make him unclean, even though they're unaware of it, and by the way, Jesus was well aware of it, but when they do become aware of it, they will be guilty. And so this broke all the rules. But I think what Jesus is doing here is very important because Jesus is showing a fundamental difference between the old covenant and the new covenant. Friends in the old covenant, when the clean touched the unclean, both were defiled. But in the new covenant, when the clean touches the unclean, both are made whole. And what Jesus is telling us to do here is don't run away from broken people. Don't run away from hurting people. As a disciple, you are called to run after them and show them the compassion and love of Jesus. Now, I want you to keep in mind, too, that Jesus, he could have healed this guy at a distance. He didn't have to touch him. I mean, he could have said, you know, you're creating a riot here. They're throwing rocks at us.

It would be a lot easier if you went over to the other side of the mountain here and I'll shout the healing word to you. He could have done it that way. But you know why he doesn't? Because he knew that this man hadn't been touched by another human being in many, many years. And when the warmth of human touch goes upon this man, I think there's as much emotional healing as there is physical healing in that moment. So friends, when we minister to people, you make sure you lead with love and with compassion and with mercy and with grace. And they will know that they are a person loved by God, not just a project that you're praying for. And so listen, not everyone we pray for this side of heaven gets healed, but everyone we pray for gets loved. And when everyone we pray for gets loved and they experience the compassion of Jesus, it's gonna be a win when they encounter him. And so Jesus starts with compassion. The second thing we see is this, Jesus responds with desire. Now when the leper said, if you're willing, you can make me clean, Jesus responds this way. He says, I am willing. Now friends, I don't believe this is just a situational response from Jesus. I think Jesus is declaring the will of God,

the will of His heavenly Father, and He is saying, I have come, I am willing to touch and heal broken, hurting people. That's my calling, that's my commission. Friends, you need to know that the will of God is perfectly manifest in heaven. There's no sickness, there's no suffering, there's no pain, and Jesus commissioned us to pray let your kingdom come, let your will be done on earth as it's done in heaven. You know what that means? That means God's will is to use you and I to heal broken people. Listen, I believe that when Jesus saved you, his main goal wasn't just to get you into heaven, it was to get heaven into you. So that you would bring the will of God and the heart of God and the desire of God to touch broken people. And when you begin to step out, you need to know this. God is willing to heal broken people. Now, that obviously doesn't mean that everyone we pray for is gonna get healed, this side of heaven. Listen, we're in a battle. Sam talked about this a few weeks ago. The kingdom of God has come. Guess what? We have a theology of power, but it's not yet here in its fullness. We're still in a battle. We don't win every battle.

And that means we also have to have not just a theology of power, but a theology of pain and suffering. That means that while we can be confident when we pray for people to be healed, we also have to have pastoral sensitivity to make sure they are loved and cared for when it doesn't happen exactly the way we hoped it would. And one of the things we wanna avoid is developing a worked theology that embraces sickness as if it were God's will for our life. Now, what happens is people begin to say, no, I'm learning some wonderful lessons from this sickness. Don't pray, I think it's God's will for me to be sick. Well, friends, I wanna tell you, God can redeem anything the world to flesh and the devil throw at you. He can teach us lessons from anything. In fact, how many of you know, even when you wander into sin, you can learn some wonderful lessons from God. But it is not his will for you to sin. And so I will never attribute sickness to a healing God. And I will never attribute sin to a Holy God. Can he redeem it? Yeah, but is his will to heal? Yes. Now, one of my heroes was a pastor in New York City back in the late 1800s. His name was A.B. Simpson. And he was one of the proponents

in the modern divine healing movement. And he addressed this issue where people have a flawed theology and they believe that it's God's will for them to be sick. And here's what he said. Now, this is kind of the language of the 1800s, but it is humorous if you get it. He says this. He says, if those who urge and claim to practice this suggestion that it is God's will for them to be sick would really accept their sickness and lie passively under it, they would at least be consistent. But do they not send for the doctor and do their best to get out from under this sweet will of God? Friends, listen, he's not being anti-doctor. He's just saying, go to the great physician. Ask Jesus to do what he can do. But you know what? If you need a doctor, let's fight for healing every way we can. Now, let me tell you, I'm living this out. Wanda and I lived it out this week. You don't know this, but last week when my wife preached to you here in this place, she was preaching with an 80% blockage in her widow-maker artery. And we had found out a week or two before and the doctor said, yeah, go ahead and preach. Just don't do it vigorously.

And she said, okay, I'm gonna preach. And we prayed, we anointed her. We asked the Lord to clear that artery, but we went ahead and made the appointment with the cardiologist that do you know that this Wednesday they cleared that artery with no damage to her heart. And I wanna tell you, when I was praying for her before we went to the doctor, I was praying, Lord, let your kingdom come, let your will be done. When I'm in that hospital and she's in there having that procedure, I'm praying, Lord, let your kingdom come, let your will be done. Because by whatever means, Jesus gets the glory. But it's his desire to bring healing. Well, the third thing I see that Jesus does is he responds with power. I love this. Once Jesus touches him and declares, be clean, this man is healed immediately. Now, you know, I said this morning, I wish we had this on videotape. Now, I don't mean the recreation of the chosen videotape. I mean, the actual video when this man's fingers begin to reappear and his face begins to be healed and his skin begins to be restored. I mean, that had to be an incredible sight. And in this moment, this healing happens instantly. There are other occasions in scripture

where healing is progressive, not instantly. In Mark chapter eight, Jesus is praying for a blind man. And after he's prayed for a little bit, he goes, what do you see him? And that guy goes, okay, I see trees. They look like men, they're walking around, and Jesus goes, okay, we're not done yet. And he prays again. Now, we can read that section of scripture in about, guy. And so sometimes healing comes instantly, sometimes it's progressively, and sometimes Jesus is healing things in your life and mind that we're not even asking prayer for. You know why? Because his power is here for broken people, and he wants to touch you tonight. I used to teach a class at a lion's theological seminary called Divine Healing. And one year I was teaching this class in a one week intensive in January. And in my class there was a student and his name was Matt. Now I found out that Matt had grown up in a church where they did not believe in healing, where they did not believe in the gifts of the Spirit. But Matt made a mistake when he was in college. He married a Pentecostal girl. And she did believe in healing. And so when God called them into the ministry and they were looking for a seminary, she said, "We are not going to your seminary that doesn't believe in the power of God for today, that Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever." She said, "We're going to go to a lion's theological seminary." And she won that argument. And so here's Matt, a guy who doesn't believe in healing, and his wife has approached him at Christmas time of that year, and said, "Matt, you need one class to graduate, right?" He said, "Yeah, one class." She said, "Why don't you take divine healing with Dean Ron?" He goes, "Because I don't believe in that." She goes, "Well, I do, and you're going to take the class." Again, she won the argument. Now Matt's in my class against his will, and he had torn his patella, playing basketball with some of the guys, and torn a ligament. And so he's in a divine healing class on crutches with a knee brace on, and he's not happy, okay? And so he's sitting in the back of the class, and he's got his arms folded, and he is scowling at me. And I mean all day long, I'm spilling gold, and he doesn't take a single note, okay? And so he's just sitting there, and I'm just lecturing, I'm going on. Well, finally, I get to the end of the day, and I said, "All right,

class is over, but we're going to pray for people. We're going to do some ministry time. If you want to stay, you can stay. If you don't want to stay, you don't have to stay." Well, Matt's like, "I'm out of here. I don't believe in this stuff." And so he gets on his crutches, and he heads to the parking lot at the seminary. So he gets to the parking lot, and for the first time in his life, he hears God speak to him. And here's what God says. God says, "Matt, if you'll go back in there, I'll heal your knee." So to his credit, he wheels around on his crutches and heads back into the seminary. He comes up to me in the front of the class, and he goes, "Dee Ron, the Lord just spoke to me in the parking lot." And he said, "If I'd come back in here, he'd heal my knee." To which I looked at the Lord and went, "Okay, no pressure here, God, okay?" And I said, "All right, sit down." So he sits down, lays his crutches down, takes his knee brace off, and a bunch of us gather around him. And I laid my hand on his knee, and I still remember what I prayed. I prayed, "Lord, let your kingdom come. Let your will be done in Matt's knee as it's done in heaven." And when I prayed that, his knee started vibrating. And literally, I moved my hand so he wouldn't think I was doing some funny business with it, you know? And his knee was just quivering. You could see it. And I looked up at him, and his eyes were this wide, and his jaw was kind of dropped down. And I said, "Matt, what's going on?" He goes, "I don't know. I think Jesus is fixing my knee." And so all we did was pray, "Moss in your," okay? Actually, we just said, "More, Lord. More. Keep doing what you're doing." And we blessed what you're doing, Lord. Well, after a few minutes, he starts to shake his knee like this, and then he gets up. Without any prompting, I did not tell him to do this. He gets up and starts jumping up and down, violently jumping up and down. And then he runs out of the class. He goes into the center of the seminary where we had stairs, and he starts running up and down the stairs. The whole class went out into the area where these stairs were, and I said, "Hey, Matt, take it easy. You're going to hurt the other knee." I don't know that you're going to get two for the price of one, so take it easy, all right? So listen, Matt is now a pastor in a church that believes in healing, and things are going a lot better with his wife these days, okay? But friends, I want you to know, nothing will change your theology like an encounter with the power of Jesus for today. And listen, he's here tonight for you. This morning, we've already had multiple testimonies of people being healed. Why? Because Jesus is the healer, and he loves to show up and touch people. Well, there's one final thing I want you to see that Jesus does here in this passage, and that is he responds by giving priorities to this guy. And so Jesus gives this man some

instructions so that he can be restored to his family, so that he can be restored to his place of worship, so that he understands that healing is not the final goal. And when you pray for people, listen, if they get healed, they're probably going to get sick again, but if they may, And so make sure that you get them beyond just the healing moment into the eternal, significant stuff that will change them forever. And so make sure you give them the priorities that will help them find that on the other side of their healing is their destiny. Let me share one last story, and then we're gonna pray. My favorite grocery store in the whole world is Costco. And I know that's probably not a popular choice. Everybody likes Whole Foods, but man, I love the free samples at Costco. So when our kids were little and I was doing everything I could to help one to out, I did all the grocery shopping. And so one Saturday, I'm at Costco, and I've got a cart full of groceries and I'm getting ready to pay for my groceries when all of a sudden this couple walks up behind me. And the man taps me on the shoulder and he goes, "Hey, are you Ron Warborn?" I go, "Yeah, I'm Ron." And he goes, "Are you the pastor of that church "north of town called Rhythm King?" And the name of our church was Risen King, but he called it Rhythm King. And I went, I didn't correct him. I went, "Yeah, that's us." (audience laughs)

Proofing that I didn't have rhythm, okay? And I go, "Yeah, that's us, why?" He goes, "Well," and he starts crying. And he said, "My wife and I are not Christians. "We don't go to church anywhere, but we are desperate. "My wife has been diagnosed with cancer, "and we're looking for someplace in town, "some church that believes in healing, "where if we go to church on Sunday morning, "tomorrow morning, would your church be willing "to pray for us?" Because somebody pointed you out today in Costco and they said, "You see that guy? "Go to his church, they believe in healing." Now listen, don't you want your church to get a reputation that people say, "Go to that church, they believe Jesus heals." Come on, Lord, let it bring it to church of the city. And so I said, "Yeah, we believe in healing. "We'll pray for you, but I have good news for you. "You don't have to come to church tomorrow." They said, "Really?" I said, "Yeah, we can pray right here. "You can sleep in tomorrow. "I have to go, they pay me to go." Now you're thinking, "What a terrible pastor you were. "Why did we hire this guy?" Listen, I wanted those people to know they didn't have to do the religious thing for God to love them.

I wanted them to know that Jesus loved them right there in Costco and that Jesus could touch them right there in Costco. So I said, "All right, let me finish paying "for my groceries and we get to the end of the line." And I said, "Look, I know you don't know what you're doing, "but lay your hand in your wife's shoulder. "I'm gonna lay my hand on our other shoulder. "We're gonna ask the Lord to come and touch your wife. "And I know you don't know Jesus, "but he knows you and he's been waiting for this moment." And so when I prayed, I said, "Come Holy Spirit, "come Jesus, touch this." She starts really weeping. Her eyelids are fluttering. The presence of the Lord is all over this woman. Next thing I know, she starts to fall over. And her husband and I awkwardly catch her and layer to the ground and as we layer to the ground, he yells, "Hallelujah!" And I look at him and I go, "I didn't think you went to church." He goes, "I don't, I watch TV." (congregation laughing) So now, by the way, this is not in Queens. This is in Redding, California. Not sure, I think it'll work in the boroughs, okay? But we're kneeling there and I look up and the manager of Costco goes to my church. His name's Danny Martinez.

He's putting orange cones around us and he's directing traffic. It's all right, she's fine, don't call 911. This is my pastor, they're just praying for it. Now a prayer meeting breaks out at Costco. We got like six or seven people that are kneeling down praying for this woman. Well, to make a long story short, they came to church the next day. They got into our Alpha groups. They got saved, they got baptized. Her cancer went into remission. They went into full-on discipleship mode. But here's the best part of that story. At the end of six months, they came to me and said, "Pastor, Jesus has done so much for us. "We want to give our lives to him. "We have sold our business. "We are leaving to work with YWAM, "Youth with a mission in Mexico, "and we want to serve him for the rest of our lives." Folks, on the other side of her healing, they found their destiny. That was 25 years ago, guess what? They are still serving Jesus as missionaries in Mexico. Why? Because on the other side of your healing tonight, God has more for you. He has a life that will transform you and change the way you view everything.

It is time to sign on and say, "Jesus, where you lead me, I will follow." Because I know you have more for me than I could ever ask for a match.