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John 14:9-10 NLT – Jesus replied, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father! The words I speak are not my own, but my Father who lives in me does his work through me.”
God is revealed through Jesus.
If we want to know God, then we need to get to know Jesus. And luckily there are four entire books of the Bible dedicated to the life of Jesus. We call them the Gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
Through this series, we are working through the book of John and observing the way of Jesus. What we’re finding out is that the way of Jesus is different than the way of the world.
Divine Partnership
Last week we found out that to follow Jesus, we must pursue partnership.
God designed us to work together. We are the body of Christ. We each have a specific function. We are to discover it and develop it and then bring them all together to make it complete.
Ephesians 4:16 NLT – As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.
You have a special assignment in the body of Christ. And when you engage in your assignment, you help everyone else grow.
We can’t do this without you. We need you. If you choose to take a back seat, this church will never become what God intended for it to become.
But if we all fully engage in our own special work and then bring it all together, our church will accomplish infinitely more than we could ask or think.
Just a few days ago I met with someone who watched last week online. She is in her 60s and she said to me, “For my whole life, I’ve known I had a special assignment in the body of Christ, I just didn’t know what it was.”
Then she went on to explain how after the message last week, God spoke to her in a vision and revealed what she is supposed to be doing. She saw herself organizing and orchestrating all kinds of outreach activities.
She brought me a list of outreach ideas that she has. One of which was car maintenance for single moms, widows and the elderly.
I was smiling from ear to ear as she was telling me these things. I almost couldn’t wait for her to stop talking because I wanted to share how amazingly her vision aligned with what has already been going on here.
Get this. I’ve been praying for a community outreach coordinator for well over a year. And that’s exactly what she saw herself doing. And it gets even better.
Just a few hours before my meeting with her, I had a meeting with Cary Sims. Guess what we were talking about? Organizing a car maintenance outreach for single moms, widows and the elderly.
Y’all, I can’t make this stuff up. It’s like I am just sitting here watching God put a puzzle together in the most beautiful way.
The Holy Spirit is showing me every week what to teach and how to teach it and it’s amazing to watch as it activates your faith and causes you to move into something that has been there all along.
It’s not too late to step into the special work that God has for you. It’s never too late. We are in the beginning of the third great awakening and we get to be a part of it!
God did not curse you by putting you here in 2021. He honored you.
He chose us to be a part of one of the most exciting times in history.
The Book of John
We’ve been working through the book of John and we ended last week in the middle of chapter four talking about how Jesus partnered with the Samaritan woman to reveal the Messiah to an entire village.
Jesus very well could have done it all Himself, but that’s now how He works. He delights in partnering with us to accomplish His desire to bring salvation to the world.
Before we move on, I want to point out that this is all a partnership with Jesus. Yes, He gives you an assignment. But He doesn’t leave you to do it on your own. He partners with you and you work side-by-side with Him.
Just like Jesus with the Samaritan woman. At first, she went into the village to share her testimony, which caused many to believe in the Messiah. But Jesus was right behind her and here’s what happened next:
John 4:40-41 NKJV – So when the Samaritans had come to Him, they urged Him to stay with them; and He stayed there two days. And many more believed because of His own word.
Jesus and the Samaritan woman worked together to lead people to salvation. And that’s how we do it too. Side-by-side with Jesus and combined with the body of Christ, we all work together to lead people to salvation.
The Kickoff to Healing Miracles
We are now six weeks into this series and the book of John is so jam-packed with meaning that we’ve only made it to chapter four. It’s been so exciting already, could it get any better? Yep. It’s about to get even better.
We are about to witness Jesus kick off a slew of healing miracles. One after the other after the other. And I don’t believe it’s a coincidence that we’ve landed on this right now.
We are standing on the starting line of a move of God. I believe we are about to see a wave of healing miracles unlike anything we’ve ever seen before. It’s going to make the Azusa Street Revival look like a warm up.
And here we find ourselves studying the life of Jesus and have landed at the place where Jesus is standing at the starting line of a wave of healing miracles. On top of this, this series is all about following Jesus. So, here we go.
After Jesus had stayed with the Samaritans for two days, He went back to Cana where He had turned water into wine. There, He met a government official who begged Him to come heal his son.
Keep in mind, Jesus had yet to perform a healing miracle. However, these people in Cana knew about Him from the time when he made a whip and drove out the money changers and animals and turned over tables at the temple. Remember that?
Interestingly enough, it says that’s why this town welcomed Jesus because they remembered what happened at the temple. It seemed like Jesus would have scared people off, but it did quite the opposite. It attracted people to Him.
But what moved this guy into thinking Jesus could heal? They had yet to see Him heal. They had only seen him turn over tables and run people off with a whip. But somehow this man was able to sense that Jesus was standing at the starting line of a wave of healing miracles.
So this guy asked Jesus to heal his son. And in true Jesus fashion, He responds to this man in a way we wouldn’t expect:
John 4:48-53 NKJV – Then Jesus said to him, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will by no means believe.”
I mean, come on. That’s how He responds to a man whose son is dying? That’s just cruel. Shouldn’t He have said, “Oh, I’m so sorry to hear about your son. I’ll pray for you.”
I hope by now you are seeing that the way modern Christianity paints this soft picture of Jesus is totally inaccurate. Trust me, He would not be part of the “woke” culture of today. Actually, the “woke” people would rip Him to shreds for hate speech.
I sure hope you haven’t drank the woke-a-cola. That stuff is more toxic than Coca-Cola.
But before I make too many people upset by confronting this wave of new teaching that we should have nothing to do with, let’s move on. Here’s how this guy responds to Jesus:
John 4:48-53 NKJV – The nobleman said to Him, “Sir, come down before my child dies!”
I just love how this guy wasn’t offended by Jesus being insensitive. He wasn’t looking for Jesus to be nice, He was looking for Jesus to be powerful and work a healing miracle.
John 4:48-53 NKJV – Jesus said to him, “Go your way; your son lives.” So the man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him, and he went his way.
Here’s the compassion of Jesus coming through. He’d rather us believe in Him without seeing a miracle. But if a miracle is what it takes, He’ll give you a miracle.
It seemed as if Jesus was upset that this man would ask for a miracle before believing in Him as the Messiah. And maybe He was. But He didn’t let that stop Him from doing what this man had asked for.
Another thing to notice here is that this man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him. He didn’t yet believe in Jesus as the Messiah, but He believed that his son would be healed by the words of Jesus.
Some of us who have been in church for decades don’t even believe the words that Jesus says. We believe the pastor that said healing went away with the early church. We believe our professor who said sex is a freedom with no boundaries.
But hear me on this:
Receiving miracles is as simple as believing the words of Jesus.
If you need a healing miracle in your life, Jesus is not withholding. You don’t have to earn it. You don’t have to deserve it. You don’t even have to believe in Jesus as your Savior. Jesus will heal you when you believe His word.
This government official that we are talking about right now did not yet believe in Jesus as Messiah, but He did believe Jesus could heal. And look at what happened:
John 4:48-53 NKJV – And as he was now going down, his servants met him and told him, saying, “Your son lives!” Then he inquired of them the hour when he got better. And they said to him, “Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.” So the father knew that it was at the same hour in which Jesus said to him, “Your son lives.”
This is the kickoff to the healing miracles of Jesus. He wasn’t even physically there to heal the boy. He healed the boy with His words.
This blows to smithereens the idea that healing miracles went away with Jesus. He doesn’t have to be here in the flesh for us to receive healing! Even when He was here in the flesh, He didn’t have to be physically there to heal someone.
Receiving miracles is as simple as believing the words of Jesus.
Somebody is getting this. Years of wrong thinking are being washed out of your mind right now. You are about to receive your healing miracle.
Healing wasn’t the only miracle that happened to this government official. Look at what happened next:
John 4:48-53 NKJV – And he himself believed, and his whole household.
His whole family got saved. Now they will spend eternity with each other in heaven. That’s why Jesus heals.
Yes, He wants you well. But more than that, He wants you to believe in Him so you can be saved from eternity in hell.
This reminds me of another amazing healing miracle of Jesus. I want you to see this one for yourself. Take a look at the screen.
Did you catch how the priority of Jesus, once again, was to forgive this man’s sins so that he could spend eternity with Jesus in Heaven?
That’s why Jesus heals. Yes, He wants you well. But more than that, He wants you to believe in Him so you can be saved from eternity in hell.
Healing after Healing after Healing
There are at least nine other healing miracles recorded in the gospels before the next one that is mentioned in the book of John. They weren’t all individual miracles either. There were also times when Jesus healed an entire crowd of people.
Matthew 8:16-17 NKJV – When evening had come, they brought to Him many who were demon-possessed. And He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying: “He Himself took our infirmities And bore our sicknesses.”
There’s many people that believe in healing, but they’re not convinced that Jesus wants to heal everyone every time. But the truth is, Jesus wants to heal ALL who are sick. Not some. Not every now and then. But everyone, every time.
The only thing that gets in the way is ourselves. God doesn’t force His will on anyone. Yes, His will is for you to be healed, but He will never force it on you because He never forces anyone to do anything. He gave us free will.
Excuses Block Healing
The next story in the book of John illustrates this really well. There was a pool in Jerusalem called Bethesda. An angel of the Lord would come down on occasion to stir up the water. And whoever got in the water first was healed.
So of course, there was a crowd of sick people around this pool all the time. They were blind, lame or paralayzed, and they just sat and waited for the water to stir.
To give you an idea of the kind of people hanging around this pool, the Bible points out one man in particular:
John 5:5-9 NLT – One of the men lying there had been sick for thirty-eight years.
This guy had been sick longer than I have been alive! And there he was, sitting by this pool, hoping he would be the next person to make it to the water first.
John 5:5-9 NLT – When Jesus saw him and knew he had been ill for a long time, he asked him, “Would you like to get well?”
This was a rhetorical question. Of course he wanted to be well. Why else would he be by this pool?
Anybody who’s sick wants to be well. But we come up with all kinds of excuses as to why we have to stay sick. Just like this man did:
John 5:5-9 NLT – “I can’t, sir,” the sick man said, “for I have no one to put me into the pool when the water bubbles up. Someone else always gets there ahead of me.”
“I want somebody else to believe for me. Can’t the pastor just come over so I can piggyback off his faith?”
“The doctor said it is incurable. I have no choice but to live my life trying to manage this sickness.”
“I can’t help but believe WebMD more than I believe the Word of God. I mean, isn’t science the end-all-be-all? The intellectuals will make fun of me if I believe the Word of God more than I believe medical science.”
Excuses, excuses, excuses. Jesus knew this man wanted to be healed, but his excuses were holding him back.
So what does Jesus do? Gives him another chance.
John 5:5-9 NLT – Jesus told him, “Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk!”
He gave the man a choice. You can lay there and stay sick, or you can believe the word I just gave you, put action to it and be healed.
If this man would not have believed and acted what Jesus just told him to do, he would have remained sick probably for the rest of his life. But when the Word of the Lord comes to you, and you believe it and act on it, here’s what happens:
John 5:5-9 NLT – Instantly, the man was healed! He rolled up his sleeping mat and began walking!
Praise God! This is God’s will for every person. He wants to heal everyone, every time.
There’s no sickness too great. There’s no disease incurable. There’s no cause of sickness that prevents God from healing. Even if you did it to yourself, He still wants to heal you.
Receiving miracles is as simple as believing the words of Jesus.
We just witnessed the kickoff of the many healing miracles that Jesus performed. One after the other after the other. And the timing of this message is perfect for what God wants to do through our church.
It’s time for us to kickoff the healing ministry that Jesus has given to NoLimits Church. I’ve sensed this coming for well over a year, and now it’s time.
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