The Gifts That Move | Pastor Jason McKinnnies | Purpose House Church

I'm Jason McInnis, the pastor here at Purpose House Church. I want to thank you for joining our broadcast on the Pando app. We love you and we're praying for you. All right. If you have a Bible, just a few moments, you're gonna need to turn to James chapter five and then we're gonna come back to first Corinthians chapter 12. And we're in the series called Move. I thank you for all the emails and the texts that I received. How much the last two weeks have helped you. I pray that today does the same. It helps you understand some of the more complicated or shall we say misconstrued things that go on within the church. And today, we talked a few weeks ago about the stirring up of your gift. Last week we talked about the gift that speaks. And today we're gonna talk about the gift that moves. And what happens when God begins to move is the moment that God doesn't just say something through a person, but he does something through that person. And we'll call it today, just for today's focus, the gifts of healings. And so I want you to just notice right away that I said that plural, the gifts of healings. So that's not a typo. I didn't mistype that.

That's exactly how it is, especially in the authorized version here, which is the New King James. The NLT does it a little differently, but it's the nearly inspired version. I'm sorry, that's the NIV. And I think this topic carries a lot of weight in this room, especially even what I just introduced in talking about Briggs. And last week I even talked about my own self and what's going on in my life. And so I will say this to you, that I typed this sermon and wrote this in probably the most excruciating pain that I've had in 23 years, even to the point where I thought Melissa was gonna take me to the hospital. Instead, she gave me an EpiPen and she went to sleep. But I texted John Gordon during the week and I said, John, I know that what I'm to teach is the right thing because the enemy is certainly stirred about this. So we're gonna talk today about the gifts of healing. And I know that somebody like me have been, you've been praying for a body that hasn't cooperated in months, maybe even years. Somebody here has watched a prayer seemingly go unanswered and then quietly decided in your mind or in your heart that that particular gift either isn't, number one, it isn't real or it isn't for you.

Then somebody here has had a measure of faith for this that you've never even been given the chance to use it. And then there's somebody in the room that you're just simply tired. You're tired of waiting rooms, you're tired of test results, you're tired of explaining the same diagnosis to people who don't know what else to say to you. And so I wanna have an honest conversation with you today about the gifts of healings. And I think scripture has something to say to each person that I wrote about. And so I'm not going to promise you a formula today. I'm not gonna stand up here and tell you that if you say just the right words with the right amount of faith and every sickness in this room walks out the door behind it, that's not what the text actually says. And I would rather tell you the truth about what it does say than hand you a guarantee scripture that the scripture never made. I wanna talk to you about what the word has to say and not what our opinions are, what our hope is. And I wanna walk through this verse by verse because these verses are some of the most hope filled verses that you can find in scripture, yet they are the most misunderstood conversations in the whole New Testament.

And so I wanna end kind of with talking about why I'm using the word plural, what that means and how that's good news and how that's not a technicality that we should just skip past and how we'll end today. And I see the time, how we'll end today is by praying for the sick. So number one thing we need to ask ourselves a question, whose job is it to make a call? So let's start in James, before James gives us a very practical entry point before Paul ever gives us theology behind it, James gives us some great practical points here. James chapter five, verses 13 through 16. I'm gonna read it out of the New King James. Says, is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing songs, that's Melissa. Is anyone among you sick? Then let him call for the elders of the church and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. The prayer of faith will save the sick and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he'll be forgiven. Confess your trespasses to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man

avails much. Now notice whose responsibility it is to initiate the call. It says let him, the one who is sick, let him call for the elders. It doesn't say let the elders go looking for him. It doesn't say let the prayer team track you down. It's the sick person's job to reach out to make the call. And I do recognize that that's not always comfortable because reaching out and making the initial call means that you have to admit that you're in need of something that you could not produce yourself. There's a key word for that. That's called humility. And James had already told us the chapter before. He said this is what humility does and does not do. James chapter four verse six, it says, he, meaning God, gives more grace. Therefore, he says God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. Peter in 1 Peter chapter five verse five, he says almost the identical thing. Solomon back in Proverbs chapter three in verse 34, a thousand years before either of them, he says the identical thing. And so they're saying, listen, the reason why it's up to you to call is it's showing that you're humble. So that's not a minor point that's just showing up every now and it's woven throughout scripture that pride is actually the resistance,

the very posture that healing requires. Humility is simply telling the truth about what you cannot fix yourself. And you hear us say it like this, there is no healing in hiding. So if we refuse to humble ourselves enough to just even make a call, we are not protecting, what we're doing is we're trying to protect our dignity, but we're also protecting the sickness that's coming onto our lives. So we stand in pride and James tells us very plainly what God does with people who have pride, he resists them. So calling for prayer is not a weakness. It's actually the first act of faith in the whole process before a single hand gets laid on anyone, before oil touches anybody's forehead. The sick person has already done something very significant. It's really hard for church people to do this. You ready for it? To tell the truth. Church folks, when you ask them, how you doing? Fine, that's the F word in Christianity. Doing so fine, yeah, your marriage is a mess, your finances are a mess, you just left the doctor's office, but you're doing fine. And what the enemy has tricked us into saying is that I don't wanna confess anything to my brother, but the scripture says if we confess our faults to our brother, that we may be healed.

The reason why, listen, the reason why we've got that F word in the church is because church folks are the ones that are asking you the question and you don't trust church people like the pastor don't trust church people because they won't stand with you in faith, they wanna stand and gossip about you. So he said, now listen, so we wanna tell the truth and when somebody asks, don't tell them you're praying for them, pray for them. I'm praying for you, thanks. It would've been nice if you'd have laid hands on me so that I could recover. It would've been nice if you'd anointed me with oil, but thanks a lot for putting on Facebook that you're praying for me. And you never got down and prayed, you just wanted the gossip, you just called to find out what's going on. And the reason why we don't have people healed in the church is because we're doing it with the wrong intentions. So if somebody's gonna tell you the truth, then you should act out the truth and lay hands on the sick so they can recover. So I just wanna slow down on the actual language, if you will, the scripture uses for healing because both the Hebrew and the Greek give us way more than the English translations do. So I wanna take you all the way back

to Exodus chapter 15. So this is right after Israel comes out of Egypt. God gives them water at a place called Marah. And there he attaches a name to himself. So, and he doesn't use this name anywhere else before this. He is now attaching something about his character and who he is with his name. And it's Exodus chapter 15. and verse 26, and I'm just gonna read one little line out of it, he said, for I am the Lord. Aren't you glad he's the Lord? I am the Lord who heals you. Now, heals is the Hebrew word rafa, and this is where the name Jehovah Rafa comes from, the Lord who heals. Now, this is not a title that God picked up just along the way. He introduces himself when at the very moment that his people are now having to learn to trust him with their bodies. Because equally true, how many of you ever been on vacation and you're like, I don't know if I can get sick, I don't know any of the doctors here. I don't know where the hospital is at. Go out west, you don't even know if there's a gas station, let alone a doctor. And you're like, I get bit by a rattlesnake, what's gonna happen out here? The children of Israel were in Egypt, they had everything they had grown accustomed

to that neighborhood and all the stuff that was going on there. Now, they're gonna have to trust God with their direction, they're gonna have to trust God with their protection, and now they're gonna have to trust God with their bodies. They don't have anything out there in the wilderness. They were brick makers and they were slaves. They were not physicians and doctors. They had nowhere else to turn but to the Lord who heals you. They're gonna have to trust God with their bodies. And so God introduces himself and he says, I am the Lord who heals you, not just in your freedom, but also in your body. So listen to this, healing then is not an afterthought attached to salvation. He knew that if he was gonna save them out of their bondage, he also had to be their healer. It's how God names himself to his own people. Now, in the Greek, because now we're gonna come into the New Testament, it actually uses three different words that all get translated heal in English. And each one shows you a slightly different angle to healings. First, there is sozo, S-O-Z-O. It's the broadest of the three. It means to save, to heal, to deliver, to make whole. It's the same word used for salvation itself. So when the woman with the issue of blood touches Jesus' garment,

the word for what happens to her in Mark chapter five and verse 34 is sozo. It's the same word that Paul uses for being saved from sin. So healing and salvation are not two separate categories in the Greek, the way that they can feel in the English language. They're facets of the same word. Then there's another word, laiomai, and it's the more specific word for a physical cure, the healing of a wound or of a disease. It's where we would get our English word, like psychiatric or pediatric. It's literally to do with healing. Then there's therapeua, and it's the word behind our English word, therapy. It originally meant to serve or to attend to someone, and it came to mean healing through that service and through that care. As they served you and as they cared for you, it brought healing to your body. And it's the word Luke, who was a physician, uses more than any other gospel writer. And if you put all three of those definitions together, you get a fuller picture of the English word to heal. So when we would just say heal, you're like, oh yeah, that means heal. Like they got healed, but which way are they getting healed? Were they getting saved? Were they getting delivered?

Was somebody serving them? So was somebody caring for them? Or was the physical issue completely eradicated out of their life? So here we go. God saves and he makes whole, that's sozo. He also cures specific conditions. And he serves and he attends to people in their need. He gives them therapy and all three are him. None of them are less spiritual than others. So we have this thing in the church that if somebody comes down and they get prayed for and they're like, well, I didn't get instantaneously healed. You're not talking about healing there. You're talking about a miracle. And some of us, we've over-spiritualized this. So we start judging people. We judge the person who prayed for them and we judge the person who got prayed for. If it didn't happen the way we thought it should happen. But there may be times where God is just saving them from that. There may be times that he's trying to make them whole, but it also may be times where he's trying to bring them along by serving and caring for them while they're in that condition. And all three of those, the church folk, the Pharisaical folk need to shut their mouth and let God do what God wants to do in somebody's life.

If you're new here, God bless you. That's why they call it a three week challenge. I do not like church people. Because church people wanna put everything into a system, into a methodology. And listen, if Jesus healed blind people the same way three times, we would have a spittoon up here. With a bunch of mud in it and be wiping in their eyes. It is not the methodology and it's not in your power It's has nothing to do with you has everything to do with God And if we would step out of the way and let God get all the glory it may happen more Smiling way boss smiling way Okay So before we move out of Exodus, I want you to notice something about where this name shows up. It's an exodus chapter 15 God doesn't introduce himself as Rafa in a vacuum 14 chapters earlier Exodus opens up with a man who has offered miracle after miracle and Never once lets the miracle soften his heart. I Want to spend a few moments on him on Pharaoh? because healing isn't always physical and And Pharaoh gives us one of the clearest pictures in Scripture of a heart that refuses the very thing that it needs the most The first condition that Pharaoh had is the hardening of the heart itself Watch the pattern build across the place It says in Exodus chapter 7 verse 13 Pharaoh's heart grew hard and he did not heed them That's after the first side then he hardened his heart again Once the frogs let up in in Exodus chapter 8 verse 15 then in third verse 32 of chapter 8 he hardens his heart again after the flies Then the sixth plague Something shifts in the language of the scripture. It's no longer only Pharaoh hardened his heart Now it reads in Exodus chapter 9 verse 12 the Lord

Hardened the heart of Pharaoh So scriptures giving a very sober warning right there in that shift a heart that keeps refusing correction Eventually gets confirmed and the very hardness it chose for itself Can I say that to the wishy-washy people who are lukewarm Christians who come in here and come out of here blow in and blow? out listen consistency matters to God Faithfulness matters to God and if you only come in here when you need a healing you have forgotten what salvation actually means And can I tell you that it is you are not guaranteed that God is going to come back when you decide to be on fire God is getting ready to come back and you need to be ready In season and out of season Okay, all the announcements. So Paul begins this describes this very same pattern of Pharaoh in Romans chapter 1 They weren't thankful and then God gave them over God to give them over to what they had already chosen Repeatedly, so if you've been hardening yourself against something God keeps bringing back around Don't assume that you can do that with God indefinitely without consequence ask yourself honestly whether pride or stubbornness is standing between you and Something God has been trying to heal in you for a while Then the second decision was not the second condition is not just hardening the heart. It is indecision Watch Pharaoh during the plague of hail. He calls for Moses and he confesses Chapter 9 verse 27. I've sinned this time the Lord is righteous in my people and I are wicked and then he promises to let Israel go and then the hail stops and When the hail stops by the next verse he's reversed himself completely That's just chapter 9 verses 34 and 35 then it happens again with the locusts in chapter 10 verses 16 through 20 so he gives a confession a promise and then a reversal a Confession a promise and then a reversal Pharaoh is not a man who doesn't have any spiritual sensitivity. He actually has a lot of spiritual sensitivity He's a man though that even though he is sensitive spiritually He cannot hold a decision long enough for his decision to change him I hear this all the time if God will heal my dad

Then I'll if God will heal my mom then if God will do this Then I will do that and then just let some time pass and even if God did or did not do it You're nowhere to be found to serve the Lord You got a sickness of the Egyptians You're indecisive. You make a confession you make a promise and then you make a reversal and my friend That's why I have so much admiration for the Buehler family Even though there were confessions and promises there has been no reversal. They're still here It didn't end up the way they thought it was going to end up but here we stand for me in my house We will serve the Lord and my friend not everything's gonna go your way But listen, you're gonna have to make up in your mind This is like the 10th time I've said that this week because people are asking me how can you preach this and what's going on in your body? I decided a long time before I needed a healing that I knew that God was a healer. I decided a long time ago So when my dad was in his condition or I'm in my condition That's not out as a jury pool on whether God is or is not a healer It doesn't matter what happens there as for me. I'm going to serve the Lord and I know that God is a healer You're gonna have to make up in your mind that no matter what comes your way, this is what you believe So when the enemy starts doing stuff you're like are you tried that before you tried that before and I didn't walk away from God Then I'm not gonna walk away from God now And so eventually you're like listen Joker you should get the point that I'm not going to backslide off of what I believe Anybody else in the room that the enemy just keeps trying to get you to back up off of your confession No, I'm not going to back up off of my confession. I'm going to do it all the more He's Jehovah Rapha the Lord who? heals So God isn't just looking for sincere feelings that last as long as hail storms He's looking for decisions that survives after the hail has stopped And we could change that hail to hell God is not interested for a sincere feeling that lasts as long as the hell storm He's looking for a decision that survives after the hell has stopped in your life The third condition is fear

Go all the way back to chapter one before moses is even born fear sets into pharaoh He's told the people the children of israel are more and mightier than we let us deal wisely with them wisely is to kill them Wisely Wisely lest they multiply Everything that follows the oppression the slavery the eventual the order to kill the hebrew infants is all fear of losing power Can I tell you that that spirit is still rampant in the world today? Fear that if the christians get a hold of things they're going to lose their power So they do everything in their power to kill the christian to kill them and listen If they think they're going to be a christian we might as well abort them in the womb Fear rarely stays quiet it moves into cruelty when it isn't brought to god Paul tells the philippians that god offers something specifically to counter this He says the peace of god which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds through christ Jesus, I want to say that to some of you they're going through some situations that fear unconfessed will turn into cruelty And god has a better solution for you And so while you want to come down and get your leg lengthened from one to the other It might be that god wants to remove the fear out of your life so that you won't be cruel in your old age Instead the peace of god will guard your heart and mind some of us need more of a spiritual healing than we need a physical healing Because fear untreated becomes oppression Of yourself or somebody else but fear brought to god becomes peace that doesn't even make logical sense given the circumstances The fourth condition that pharaoh showed us is outright rebellion When moses first delivers god's command pharaoh's response is immediate. Who is the lord? That I should obey his voice to let israel go. I do not know the lord nor will I let israel go That's not indecision. That's a direct challenge to god's authority stated out loud And rebellion eventually has to answer the same question Who is the lord that I should obey him and pharaoh spent nine more plagues finding out the answer the hard way How about we learn it the first time? Who is the lord? He is jehovah Rafa he is jehovah. Nisi. He is the lord who saves and heals and keeps and satisfies

Just answer the question right the first time Then there are at least five more of these worth naming very quickly there's pride and arrogance his sense of superiority there's Manipulation and control then there's lack of compassion. And what does god say to them? He says I am the lord who heals and I will not put any of the diseases of the egyptians upon you Now we most often think that's the malaria. That's the lice. That's all but it's also these diseases Of the heart that god said i'll heal you of those two So every one of those conditions describes the same basic problem From a different angle. It's a heart That saw god's power up close Repeatedly yet. It would not allow it to produce a change in his heart Can I tell you the bad thing about attending a church like this? Is you start getting numb to the power and the presence of god? And you think i'll come back next week and god will move on me like that again You are not guaranteed that my friend Pharaoh thought I can see it up close and see it and See it and see it, and I'm not gonna let it produce any change in me. And then, Pharaoh, you lose everything you were trying to keep in the first place. Now let me give you another story, just totally, it's striking in the comparison of the two stories. I wanna show you Sozo in action. There's a story in Mark chapter five, and it puts, if you put these two stories right next to Pharaoh, it's striking the comparison or the contrast. Pharaoh watches 10 plagues up close and stayed hard in his heart. This woman in Mark chapter five had one chance.

Pharaoh got 10, this woman has one chance, and the chance she has is to get dressed up and just maybe, when Jesus is passing by, she can touch the hem of his robe. Pharaoh had 10 opportunities. This woman's like, I got one shot at this. This woman had one chance in the crowd. He's walking by, people know, if they knew she was there, they'd be taking her back home. She's like, I gotta take this once in a lifetime opportunity to touch the hem of his robe in a crowd, and she reaches for, in spite of all the odds, she reaches for the bottom of his robe. Now this woman had been bleeding for 12 years. It wasn't a headache, not a bad season, it was 12 years. Mark tells us that she had suffered many things from many physicians. She had spent everything that she had and was no better, but rather grew worse, that's verse 26. So 12 years of trying everything and watching it fall. See, I can put this into my own words, right? I can put this, I've tried the Western doctors, I've tried the Eastern doctors, I've tried the Northern doctors, I've tried the Southern doctors, I've tried every little drink, every little herb, I've rubbed my skin with things that would make you go, my God, what in the world is he doing? I've done everything I could possibly do. I've went to Minnesota, I've went to doctors

all over the place. People told me, you should drink this and drink that, and the things I'm like, my God, that's the weirdest concoction you've ever heard in your life. But hey, I'm in pain and misery, I'll give it a whirl. And I would drink it, and I wouldn't go into the bathroom and throw up, and they're like, how was that? And I'm like, wonderful, it's just glorious. I mean, let's try that again. I remember when my dad was sick and he lost his voice, people were telling him, you should drink marshmallow root. What in the world is the root of a marshmallow? The last I knew that marshmallows were made in factories, Pastor Pete, but here, drink this marshmallow root, drink this and drink that, and people are doing anything they can to try to find relief from whatever is going on. And you have good godly Christian people like, try this root and try that root. And not one time will they say, you know what? Listen, I'm done trying to tell you all the things that you should try. And my grandma said, if you cook it three times and you turn it around and cook it again a fourth time, upside down, and if you ate that, you'd feel better. And whatever wives tell, have they ever said, let me get some oil and lay my hands on you so that you could be healed?

Have we ever done that? But see, you got more faith in what your grandmammy told you than what Jesus said. It's tight in here, isn't it? We just turned into the first church of the frigid air. Oh, he came against my grandma. Well, you come against Jesus. Because this woman, under Jewish law, her condition made her ceremonially unclean, which meant 12 years of not being able to fully participate in worship. Some of us would be fine with that. All it did was take the government to tell you you couldn't join. 12 years of people keeping their distance. I don't know if you know this or not, although you're watching me on camera, COVID's over. You can come back to church now. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. 12 years of keeping their distance. 12 years, that's why it's called the three-week challenge. I'm the challenge. Three, right? 12 years of keeping their distance. 12 years of being defined by what was wrong with her body.

And she hears about Jesus. She knows he's coming by. She gets dressed. She has to hide herself. She's wearing a mask. He's doing all that, all because if the Pharisees see her, they're gonna say that the ceremonial law is more powerful than God's spiritual law. That's when you know you found a church person. When the protocol and the schedule is more important than the move of God, you've just ran into that same spirit. Well, we don't have time for you to get prayed for right now. Why? Well, because we gotta get to the third song. Well, no, we gotta get the pastor up. Listen, the whole point of church is not for you to hear three songs and hear my sermon. The whole point of church is for you to experience the power of God. Whenever that happens. And so. She hears, she's like, I need to, I gotta get all dressed up and she works her way through the crowd and the crowd's pressing in on every side and she does something the law would have considered scandalous. It had been all over Facebook. They would have written letters to the pastor

without return addresses and without a signature. I know who you are. And they would write it all and it was just scandalous and pastor, don't you know, she has an issue of blood and don't you know what they did in their past? Pastor, you can't bring them to church. Pastor, you can't do that. If you'll let people touch the hem of his garment, it'll eradicate everything that the enemy has put on them in their life. Can we please stop acting like the church is for the sanctimonious? My friend, the church is for people who need healing. He said that I may enter his throne room in the time of need. That's what church is for. Stop sending me emails and letters telling me I need to throw people out of here. You, my friend, need to pray through so that the power of God will land on you like it needs to land on them. I'm not looking at the crowd, I'm looking at the cameras because folks sit around and watch the tape. I gotta watch the tape and who can I disqualify? You're disqualified. Can I just define for you what blasphemy actually is? Blasphemy is not somebody that has committed a sin and they're, blasphemy is saying that the Holy Spirit does not exist and it is not operational in our world today.

That's the sin of blasphemy. And if you want to tear people down, my friend, tear them down biblically. I'm preaching to an issue that most of you have no idea what's going on. You have no idea, I'm just dealing with the National Enquirer folks who want a scandal that somebody got saved. They want a scandal that somebody got out of prison and they're serving the Lord. They want a scandal about somebody serving in God's house. You have no idea what the blood of Jesus has done in their life. How about we just let the Lord be the Lord over people's lives and stop trying to judge everybody. You know, let me explain something to you. This is not in my notes, so Pastor Melissa, you don't have to come. Listen, I have been tempted my whole pastorship here in Southern Illinois to stick my hand down in the bucket and try to separate them. But here's the thing, a snake is a snake. And I'm not gonna stick my hand down into a bucket of snakes and find out which one's venomous and which one is not. It's just a bucket of snakes. And what I want is this church to come out of the bucket of snakes and be separate from the things that are of the world and stop trying to identify, are they venomous?

Are they not venomous? I don't like snakes. I don't care what shape their head is or what pattern is on their back. A snake is a snake. And here's what happens. If you keep feeding that snake, it turns just like in the scripture. It was a snake in the garden and it turned into a dragon in the book of Revelation because church folks were feeding that thing. And we need to be healed of some of this stuff in the bondages of Southern Illinois. And if somebody climbs up out of the bucket, we need not to pull them back down into the bucket of snakes. We need to be pushing them up over the top of it so they can escape that stuff. So my help come, this spirit of suicide, spirit of oppression, spirit of depression, this spirit of poverty that's in Southern Illinois, we come against that spirit. We do not participate in that spirit. We do not condone that spirit. We don't give people biblical reasons to take their lives. There is no biblical reason for people to commit suicide. There is no thing that's going to make them commit suicide. We don't give people biblical reasons to commit suicide. For people to commit suicide.

There is no thing that tells people they need to be depressed and oppressed. The gospel of Jesus Christ brings you up to a higher level of living and a higher level of thinking. We need to be safe from those Egyptian mindsets. Because here's what happened. As soon as she touched his robe from behind, hoping nobody would even notice because the church folks would judge her. The Bible says immediately the fountain of her blood was dried up and she felt in her body that she was healed of the affliction. And I would have put in there, the new modern translation should say, and the church had to be able to say, prove it. No, we don't have to prove it. All I need to tell you is that Jesus touched me and he healed me. I had it for 12 years and oh my goodness, the joy that has flooded over my life because I'm healed now when I prove it. Well, see, and immediately, Jesus immediately, Jesus immediately knowing in himself the power had gone out and turned around to the crowd and said, who touched my clothes? All them Pharisees are jostling him and beating him up and moving him. Nothing happened, but one person who had a need and said, this is my chance, this is my opportunity. Jesus is like, something happened.

12 years undone in a single touch. Jesus just doesn't let her slip away back into the crowd and notice he stops and he says, who touched me? Not because he doesn't know, but because she needs to be seen. He's gotta make some things right, not just healed anonymously. She comes forward trembling and tells him the whole truth and he says to her in Mark chapter five, verse 34, and here's where church folk get in trouble. He says, daughter, how can she be a daughter? She's unceremonial and clean, Pastor Pete. She ain't been in church in 12 years. Yeah, but one touch from the master. He says, listen, the healing isn't just in your body. The healing isn't just for your disease. It's also a change in your identity. Now you're no longer banished to your house. You are my daughter and you're a part of my family. You can sit at my table anytime, you daughter. Your faith has made you well. Go in peace and be healed of your affliction. Made you well. There is sozo, the same word for salvation. This woman didn't just get a body fix. She got seen, she got named daughter, and she got sent out in peace. That's the fullness of what these gifts are reaching for. Not just a symptom removed, but a whole person restored in public with dignity given back along with the healing.

So here's the question. Does sin cause sickness? As most church folks would say, oh, you must be doing something so wrong. Well, scripture doesn't give us a clean, one size fits all answer to that question. And I'd rather tell you what the scripture says than pretend about what it doesn't say. John 5, Jesus heals a man who'd been lame for 38 years at the Pool of Bethesda. Jesus has to go back into the crowd because it's the Sabbath. The law says, can't be healing nobody who had been sick for 38. If you were sick for 38 years, do you care what day of the week it is? I'll take any day that ends in Y. 38 years, the guy was at the Pool of Bethesda. He finds the man later, verse 14, he finds the man later in the temple, and he tells him, see, you have been made well. Sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you. Now, Jesus there is directly connecting that particular affliction to something that happened previously in his life. So we see something similar in Mark 2, when four men lowered their paralyzed friend through a roof to get him in front of Jesus. And before Jesus heals the man's body, he says something unexpected first.

He says, son, your sins are forgiven you. Now, the religious folks in the room are offended. Imagine that. Not realizing Jesus is making a specific point about that man's particular condition. In John 9, when the disciples asked Jesus a direct either or question about a man that was born blind, they say, was it his sin, or did his parents sin? Certainly they, and we don't like them. It's gotta be them that caused this. That caused this, and Jesus says, neither, nobody sinned in this. Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him. John chapter nine, verse three. Same guy healing, same category of affliction, two completely different answers, because they're two completely different situations. And here we go again. People want methodology. We want a method, because we wanna have faith in the method instead of trusting God. We want, pastor, just tell me the answer. You're gonna have to seek the face of the Lord. That's not an answer. No, it is an answer, and it's the best thing I can tell you to do. Seek the face of the Lord. Pastor, I wanna know what to do. Find the will of God for your life.

Well, what is the will of God for my life? You know, I have a hard enough time trying to keep track of the will of God for my life. And I even argue with God about what he has shown me is the will of God for my life. Moved to Heron, what? Pastor in Southern Illinois, are you kidding me? All I knew about Southern Illinois leading up to this was the Grey Plaza Motel. Am I lying? Cockroaches going up the wall. My brother jumping out of the bed with a pillow and smacking it up against the wall. And then God's like, you're gonna move to Southern Illinois now. I kid you not. That's all I can think about. I ain't staying at no Grey Plaza Motel. They said, I had never heard of the Drury either. And they said, no, we got you over at the Drury. I'm like, we just went from the Roach Motel to the Drury place. And Bob Evans down on the farm. Are you kidding me? Some people say, I'm not kidding. Pastor, I need to know the will of God for my life. I'm gonna ask you. You have an advocate with the Father. You can go to the throne room of grace. I can help you, in other ways,

understand some things about the will of God, but I don't know what the will of God is for your life. You're gonna have to seek his face. We want that methodology. Sometimes sickness follows sin, sure. Sometimes it doesn't follow anything at all, except living in a broken world under the weight of the fall. And I'll put this personal antidote in there, because I've said this to God. Sometimes a sickness comes on when you're trying to do something good. I have told the Lord that numerous a time. As needles are going into my arm, I'm like, I was just trying to save their house. I didn't know the sewers had backed up. I was doing something good. I was driving the church band, Jesus. Sometimes these things happen. Neither this man nor his parents say that the works of God should be revealed in him. Sometimes God just has to let us go through some things. We have an entire book dedicated to what happens when people get this assumption wrong. It's called the book of Job. Job. Three friends thought it was their job to tell Job. They sat with him for seven days saying nothing. Then they spent the rest of the book insisting that Job's suffering had to do

with some punishment from some hidden sin. They were confident of this. They were persistent. They were also completely wrong. God said so at the end of the book, in Job 42 verse seven, he says, my wrath is aroused against you and your two friends. For you have not spoken to me what is right as my servant Job has. If the friends of a righteous, unusually blameless man couldn't correctly diagnose the cause of his suffering, what makes you think you're an expert? So if you're sick in this room today, the first question isn't what did I do wrong? The first question is who do I call? Now here's where I just wanna slow it down and I got like two minutes to do the last 14 pages. The heart of the message is this. In the Greek, the phrase behind gifts of healing in 1 Corinthians chapter 12, verses nine, verse 28 and verse 30 and I'll skip over some of this just to help you get out of here on time to Chick-fil-A. It says to another, gifts of healings by the same spirit. God has appointed these in the church, first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, administrations and varieties of tongues. And why does that matter so much? Because often what we do is we wanna pin one gift onto one disease.

Oh, that person has cancer, then we need that individual who has that gift for that disease. He says it's the gifts of healings. It was never meant to be one single gift for every disease sitting permanently on one person like a title that they carry into every room. There's the cancer healer right there. And if they're not at church, ain't nobody gonna get healed of cancer. If that person is missing, is the spirit still present? If that person dies, isn't the spirit still present? The spirit distributes healings, plural, as he wills, situation by situation for the good of the whole body. I'm summarizing 1 Corinthians 12. Nobody carries the healing gift the way you carry a badge that guarantees that every person who comes to them walks away healed. What they carry in their life, just like we talked about Tina with the grace of interpretation, what they carry in their life is an ongoing availability to be used by the spirit again and again, different each time for different needs. Think of it like this. If I went to the hospital and I said, my heart is hurting. And they said, all we have here is a pediatrician. Like I don't need a pediatrician. I need a heart doctor. And the guy next to me is like, hey, I got strep throat.

And they're like, all we got is a pediatrician. No, the hospital has a diversity of ways to heal people and to help people and to move the expert into where they need. And listen, this is the way the church should be. We say, well, if Pastor Pete ain't here, we can have no deliverances. The same spirit that operates in Pastor Pete operates in you, in the gifts of healings. And listen, this should take some pressure off some people and it should put some pressure on some people. See, what we do is we say, no, people need to be healed. And we put pressure on Pete and John Gordon to perform. And the rest of us just sit back and act like the spirit of God ain't moving in us. What if you are the one that the spirit is wanting to step out in your gifts and to operate in that healing on that day and not John Gordon or not Pete Moak or not Pastor Jason? Because the spirit of God operates in all of us and we all have the ability because we all are operating only to the same spirit to lay hands on the sick and watch them recover. So we should take some pressure off of the Ernie's and the John's and the Pete's and say, we're just gonna step back out of the way. The reason why they have to do it all the time is we all sit back and let them do it. And they would have no greater joy than to know that their children

are operating in those gifts like they can operate in gifts. That makes sense to everybody. So gifts of healings, the spirit isn't just handing out one universal prescription he's distributing exactly what a given moment calls for through whoever he chooses to use in that moment. Now there's a beautiful pattern that happens. The manifestation of the spirit is given to each one for the profit of all. Given to the church in verse 28, where God appoints some specifically to that ministry. And listen, what we often do is say, they somehow are more spiritual than we are. Stop with that judgment. Just because somebody operates in a gift does not make them more spiritual than somebody else. It means they've made themselves more available. We should check our availability. Acts chapter 28, Paul just survived a shipwreck. He's washed ashore on an island that he never planned to visit. The island is called Malta. He's helping gather firewood and a snake grabs a hold of his hand. The islanders are watching Paul with this viper on his hand. And they are certain that he's about to drop dead. And some of them assume then, because this is how we operate, he must be a murderer and justice has finally caught up to him.

And he shakes the snake into the fire and he walks away in harm. That gets everybody's attention. Something just happened. Then Acts chapter 28, verses eight and nine. And it happened that the father Publius lay sick of a fever and dysentery. And Paul went into him and prayed and he laid his hands on him and healed him. So then when this was done, the rest of the island who had diseases also came and were healed. Now, look at the progression. It starts with a snake on one guy's hand. Nobody expected it. Then a private healing in one man's house. And all of a sudden faith is starting to build because now, oh, he's not a murderer. He shook the snake off. I saw my father-in-law, he was sick, he's healed. Now the whole island is coming and they're wanting to get healed and they all get healed. This is the pattern throughout the book of Acts. The gift in operation repeatedly is giving the apostles the opportunity to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. The healing has a purpose. The purpose is to bring people to know Jesus Christ and he is the God who heals because a healed body gets attention

in ways that words alone cannot. Oh, you had cancer in your body, you're at stage four and it's gone? What happened? Well, I was at church and there was a word of knowledge that came forth and they said, oh, you have cancer. And then I went back to the doctor and they're like, well, tell me what happened. Because now, the reason why I'm saying this is because if you wanna know how to break through all this witchcraft and all this new agey stuff, have a bonafide miracle service break out and watch and see if their little witch doctor can do that. Oh, pastor, you mean there's witch doctors? Oh yeah, there's witches that come here to church. They wanna see. And what needs to happen is a healing happened and then God, in the middle of a healing service, it turns into a deliverance service because we need deliverances now before we can even have salvations. Go get tied in here for a moment. And so we need to have deliverances and we can have that in the church. There were people growling and throwing themselves in the floor. That's the evil spirit that does. He doesn't want to come out to the peaceable spirit of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Amen. And the enemy's gonna bring these things in to try to get people to say, we don't need the gifts to operate. Pastor, if you'll just shut it down, I can just feel this email coming. Pastor, there was somebody next to me speaking in tongues. Why aren't you? Pastor, I mean, Pastor Melissa, remember this story. Hang on, I need to change a couple of details. I gotta keep the guilty guilty. So Pastor Melissa and I got invited out to dinner and they said, we don't wanna talk about anything. We just wanna hang out with you and get to know you. That lasted about 15 seconds. The menus got slapped down on the table and they were like, we wanna talk to you about what happened on Wednesday night at the impact service. I was like, well, I didn't think we were gonna talk about anything about church. Yeah, but we need to talk to you about this. Like, you liar. I was grabbing Melissa, get your purse, let's go, like some people do in church. Get your purse, let's go. Instead, they were upset because somebody that operated in the gift said, asked somebody to do something in faith. And I said, well, did it work? Well, we're not talking about whether it worked or not.

We just never seen anything like that before. You need to stop that. Well, I didn't do it. I didn't even know what happened until you told me it happened. I was just up there minding my own business. Saying, saying it again, Melissa. And God healed this guy over in the old building right down front and people got offended about that and took me out to dinner under false pretenses. That's called a lie. And I didn't enjoy my whole meal because I was bracing, trying to defend something that is biblical to people who are supposed to believe in the Bible. And I'm like, it worked, right? And they're like, yeah, I mean, I guess if you want to go like that, yes, it worked. Like, yeah, the guy got healed. I remember. I don't know how it happened. I just remember the aftereffects of it that he came in one way and he walked out a different way and you have a problem with that. Okay, just so we're clear here. So what we have to do is we say, and that's weird to me. You better hang on to your britches about what God's getting ready to do in these last days when he pours out his spirit upon all flesh.

So what God needs from you is not the right platform, not the right title. God just needs you to be available in whatever house you happen to wash up in like Paul. Now I want to take you to somewhere probably you didn't expect. I'm gonna take you back to the very beginning to end this. All the way back to the first three verses of the Bible. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Everybody good? If you don't believe that line, there's no point in going any further. Otherwise, Pastor Pete's gonna come and deliver you of that spirit right now. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And then God said, let there be light. And there was light. Now that phrase, without form and void, is one phrase in the Hebrew, and it's tohu bahu. Shows up again in Isaiah chapter 45 in verse 18, where God says plainly that he did not create the earth, tohu bahu. God did not create the earth in vain. He did not create it without form and void. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And then there's a pause, and it says,

and the earth was without form and void. That's not how God created it. So if Isaiah is saying God did not create it that way, but Genesis says it was that way, something happened between verse one and verse two. Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel chapter 28 both describe a war, a rebellion. An archangel was cast down, taking a third of heaven's angels with him. And Jesus references this same event in Luke chapter 10 and verse 18, where he said, I saw Satan fall like lightning. Whatever that fall did to the earth, it left it without form and void, a mess, wiped out, wasted, needing something to move over it before order could return. It needed something to come into its life. It needed something or someone to come and do for it what it could not do for itself. And all the earth. has wanted to do is to return back to the way it was originally created. The Bible even says that creation cries out. It wants to return back to the way it was created. It's a mess. It was, it was broken. And what does the scripture then say? He said, I created it one way, but a fall made it into something I did not create. It created chaos. He created your body in your mother's womb. He formed you in your mother's womb. He designed you in your marvelous are his works. And now something is gone wrong in your body and it's chaos and confusion. And what does the scripture say to us? When the spirit of the Lord saw that it was told by Bo, he says his spirit hovered over the top of it. And when your body is in a mess and it is chaos, it's then that the spirit of God sees the toe by Boho in your life. It sees the void that is in your life. And he says, that's not how I created that body. That's not what I did. And

you are crying out like the earth saying, I need something to do for me. What I cannot do for myself. And the spirit of God dwells over the top of it. And then God says, let there be. And there was. And I want to tell you today that when God sees the chaos and the confusion in your body, the spirit of God dwell over this place just a few moments ago, and it just entered back in here again, that God sees the chaos and he sees the confusion in your life. And he says, let there be. And there was. When did it happen? It happened immediately. The chaos and the confusion was gone. And there was light. And there was, when God speaks it, it happens. And the same spirit that hovered over that formless chaotic deep is the same spirit that indwells you. It hovered over the earth, but it indwells you. My friend, when it came in you, the same power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Think about that. What disease is that? It's the incurable disease called death. And he says, no, the spirit that dwells in you, the same power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead lives inside of you. My friend, whatever chaos is going on in your life, the spirit of God sees it, feels it, and understands it. And God wants to speak a word over you like this. Let there be. With every head bowed, with every eye closed, Holy Spirit, speak to us right now. Lord, anoint us right now with oil. Anoint us, Lord, with oil today. And the chaos and confusion of every person that is here, I say, let there be peace. And may the peace of God, may the peace of God guard our hearts and our minds. May the peace of God right now enter in where there is chaos and there is confusion. For every person under the sound of my voice that needs a spiritual healing, let there be right now a healing take place in their life. Serve them, Lord, and steward them right now into a full restoration of who they are intended to be according to your will. Every person who is indifferent or indecisive, let them come right now into a place where their yes is yes and their no is no. And that they would remain consistent, fully engulfed in flames of fire and not lukewarm any longer. For every hard heart, let it be set upon the potter's wheel right now and be molded and made, Lord, into who you would have it to be. And every person under the sound of my voice in need of a physical healing, may I introduce to you the God who heals and that by his stripes you are healed, saved, delivered, set free, out of bondage. Physical healing come into your body even now. I speak to every person struggling with cancer and I say the name of Jesus right now over you. To the cancer in the shoulder, to the cancer in the spine, to the cancer in the femur, we strike

you down by the authority of the name of Jesus right now. To every person under the sound of my voice who has an issue in your blood, may you touch the hymn of God. garment even right now and may you be healed I don't care if it's been 12 years 38 years or you just got the diagnosis last week right now may you reach out and touch him as he goes by Jesus thou son of David have mercy Lord for every person in the sound of my voice who has the faith to lay hands on the sick may they stir up the gift of God which is in them by the laying on of hands and may we anoint the sick with oil and may they recover today in Jesus name right now if you need it I'm not gonna even open my eyes if you just need a healing I want you to stand from where you are I want you to come to the front and then those of you that are sitting in the seats I know you might be waiting on the prayer teams to come but if the gift is stirring inside of you I want you to grab a bottle of oil out of our prayer bins and I want you to anoint their head with oil this is what they did for prophet priests and kings who were taking places of authority they would anoint them with oil and what you're going to do is anoint them with oil so that the person that you anoint now takes the position of authority and their own life and they can even speak to themselves and begin to pray over their own life and begin to play that the Lord is the one who heals them right now Don when I hugged you today I begin to pray that God would restore your speech it is not your mind it is your speech that the Lord would restore what that stroke took from you I begin to pray that and I'm just praying that God would manifest that right here on the earth that what everything that the enemy has stolen from you that God would return it back to you and restore it back to you and the chaos that's going on in your body let there be right now in Jesus mighty name the rest of you just stand with me if you have to go say the Lord bless you we're gonna be here a moment we're gonna pray for every person that needs to be

prayed for they're joining us on the broadcast the Bible says that he released a word and his word healed them all may the Lord heal you right now where you are in Jesus name