Well, if we haven't met before, my name is Josh Myers. I'm the lead pastor, and we are in a series that I'm really fired about up about, which is called Who is Jesus. And this is a series that's going through the Gospel of John.

Is looking at the Gospel from John's perspective about Jesus's life and ministry here on Earth. And it's giving us a full picture as to who Jesus is and what he was about. And oftentimes what happens is we get hung up on life's really big questions and they kind of prevent us from fully seeing the real Jesus.

And so, , I want to just kind of pause because next week we're we're taking a break from the series just a little bit. , and we are, , I I just kind of want to recap with you guys. So, if you've missed, this is a really good kind of catchup.

, I want to show you a visual map of where we've been. So, we had John chapter 1 where we talked about all of these things about Jesus and creation and who to trust with telling you about who Jesus is. But then we saw Jesus's journey start in a place called Galilee. And he did this miracle that you might have heard of called turning water into wine.

And so Jesus leaves Galilee and and shows us that miracles are possible. He goes and goes all the way to Jerusalem where he clears out the temple and he talks to a man named Nicodemus. Now Nicodemus is this guy who's just he's got everything together. He looks on the service like this altar, a church guy like he knows his stuff and Jesus kind of helps him to understand who he is. So then this is where the story kind of gets in interesting.

So Jesus then leaves Jerusalem, tracks back towards Galilee, and stops in a place called Samaria. This is what we talked about last week. Jesus is not supposed to be in Samaria.

Samarans and Jews do not get along. And so he stops there with somebody who is the exact opposite as Nicodemus. Nicodemus is this wellput together religious guy. And now Jesus is over with a woman at the well. And this woman has a past.

A past that is where she has done a lot of things that she's not proud of. And so last week we talked about forgiveness and repentance. And then now what we're going to see today is Jesus is going full circle all the way back to Galilee. He's going to go to Galilee and he's going to heal, spoiler alert, he's going to heal a Roman official son.

Roman official son. Then he's going to track all the way back over to Jerusalem and he's going to heal a man by the pool who's been sitting there for 38 years and can't walk. Okay, there's your little premise for what we're going to be doing today. I wanted to show you this because this is such a an amazing representation that Jesus is for all people.

And so when we say our mission here at Destination is to help people find and follow Jesus, I should add a little caveat to that. It's to help all people find and follow Jesus. The people that have grown up in the church and the people that don't feel like they belong in the church.

For the people that have a wellput together looking family and the people who have been broken and in pain for a very long time. Jesus is for all people. And so if you call destination your home, I'm just going to tell you the next like month and a half is the time to invite somebody. It's the time that you can help somebody know and follow Jesus cuz you might not be able to help them find a Valentine's date, but you can help them find Jesus.

Okay, so we're good there. I hope by the way you guys all had a good Valentine's Day. We got to celebrate.

It was like our first time doing a date on Valentine's Day in quite some time cuz you know kids and stuff. And I want to I want to just like confess something about Valentine's Day here here this morning. , I would rate myself confidently that I I am like a 1011 on the scale of romance and and being a good husband.

Okay, I'm going to I'm just I'm putting it out and you can confirm with her and but I would say I would say I would say something very important to that. , our first Valentine's Day I maybe bumped down to about a 9. Okay, so let me tell you why.

Okay, the first Valentine's Day that we ever spent together, by the way, we celebrate Valentine's Day on February 25th. The reason is for that is because that's when we met. We met at a Caribou Coffee on February 25th. And that's we celebrate that every year. And so we met very shortly after Valentine's Day, started dating shortly thereafter, , February 25th, and then a whole year goes by.

And in January, , I proposed, and it was about 2 weeks before Valentine's Day. Do you know how much an engagement ring costs. Okay, it was a lot of money. So, we come up to Valentine's Day and I I'm having this discussion with her. Maybe you've had this discussion with your significant other.

I I think this is just kind of like a commercialized holiday, don't you think. Like it's just kind of like a cash grab to get flowers and chocolates and all of the things. And we had this conversation and we we we agreed.

And so I I thought I thought I'm off scot-free. See why can we go back in time and tell past Josh that because he was an idiot and the first Valentine's Day that we spent together, I did not get my wife anything. Now, let me tell you why that's a big deal, too.

Because I was her first boyfriend. I am fiance and I'm future husband. And so, I felt like I royally screwed up. So, to again, I've asked for forgiveness so many times.

I'm so sorry. I've made it up every year, just so you know. And it it's just kind of shows the humanness because I like think about that almost every Valentine's Day because I think about how in that moment Chelsea probably felt a little forgotten, a little maybe unloved and a little bit like she had an expectation for this is how Valentine's Day with my boyfriend fiance is going to go, right.

And I think that a lot of us have expectations on what we think God should do. We have expectations when we when we say prayers and and when those prayers are not answered or not answered in the way that we think they should be answered, we feel unloved or forgotten and we feel like God has just forgotten me in my pain, in my suffering. And so that's what we're going to talk about today. We're going to talk about how healing happens and why doesn't Jesus heal everyone.

And so, , for this very, very light topic today, why don't we, , go ahead and grab our our blue Bibles and turn to page 915. , we open the word of God every single week here at Destination. We believe that when we're talking about love, this is God's love letter to you.

And so if you don't have a Bible, take this one home with you. , and we just look to this every week for life's big questions. Now, what we're going to see is we're going to start in chapter 4.

We're going to end in chapter 5. And these are two stories, as I showed by the map of Jesus radically healing somebody. And they're going to teach us a lot more about healing and why Jesus doesn't heal everyone.

So starting in verse 46, if you follow the numbers down to the number 46, that's where we're at. So once more, he, that's Jesus, visited Canaa in Galilee, where he had turned water into wine again on the map. He's going full circle. And there was a certain royal officials whose son lay sick at Capernaum. When this man heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea, he went down and he begged him, "Come heal his to come heal his son who was close to death.

" Jesus says, "Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will never believe. " The royal official said, "Sir, come down before my child dies. " Let's just stop there because this is this scene just like man right away right out the gate we are just we are dealing with it cuz there's no pain like kid pain right parents like if I could take all of the emotional and physical pain away from my kids and carry it myself. I would rather do that.

And so this father is in his desperation. He is in his desperation to just to to say, "Hey, Jesus is here. I know that he can heal my son.

" And then Jesus, he says this phrase. And by the way, when Jesus says this phrase, he's not addressing just this father. He is addressing the crowd that is watching this conversation with this father. And this shows us something just very important about Jesus's healings. And probably the most important answer to this question is that Jesus's healings are a sign of what's to come.

Did you notice here that Jesus doesn't call this a healing. He says, "Unless you people see signs and wonders. He's calling it a sign. " Well, what is it a sign to.

You remember that comedian. This is your sign. Like, what is the sign to.

And Jesus is is showing that this sign is that heaven is coming to earth. And that's what healing is. Is it's the answer to that prayer, the Lord's prayer.

When we pray, "Your kingdom come, your will be done. " When we experience any kind of healing, whether it is in church on a Sunday or in a hospital room or in a living room, wherever it is, whatever kind of healing that we're witnessing, it is a piece of what is to come in heaven down to earth. Because we believe as we walk with Jesus that when we get to heaven, there's no more pain. There's no more tears.

There's no more emotional, physical pain. And so we get to walk in the splendor and glory of heaven and being fully restored in the way that Jesus intended us to live. And when healing comes here on earth, it's like Jesus is giving us this little taste of heaven here on earth.

And so if we believe that, if we collectively can say, "Yes, I believe that when we get to heaven that we will be fully restored, and if we can collectively believe that when healing happens, it is a sign of what's to come in heaven. " Then the big point here is it's a not a matter of if you'll get healed, it's when. And so this is the tension point that we sit in because for some of us, I'm just going to address a lot of elephants in the room because a lot of us are going through or know somebody who's going through physical emotional pain. And so the question if we agree with this statement is well when when for them when for that person are they going to be healed when for me am I going to get healed and the hard truth is that we may we don't know we get to sit in this tension of not knowing when and so in Christian circles What happens in every church or hospital room is we start to walk with two schools of thought.

I kind of I love visuals. So, so I'm going to give you a visual this morning that I created. , in in churches, what you'll hear oftent times with healing is stuff kind of in opposing each other.

We're going to talk about why that's wrong in a second, but you'll see that there is a charismatic type of healing. This is a this is a healing that says, "I'm going to make it happen. I want to pray over that person. I'm going to , you know, anoint them with oil. I'm going to pray over them that that God would heal them in this moment.

We, by the way, at Destination still believe that this happens. Like, we believe healing can happen. We we believe that God can do it. And then on the other side of things, which this isn't neither one of these are wrong. We'll talk about that in a second.

On the other side of things, we have hopeful healing. This walks in, hey, I hope that this happens. I walk with this assurance that I know who God is and I'm anchored in this hope that hey, it might I don't know the when, but I'm not God.

He's God and I'm not. And so I I'll walk in this hope and this expectancy that Jesus is going to move. Now what happens is is we can go too far in either direction and it becomes harmful to not only our own beliefs but it becomes harmful to the people around us.

So in the charismatic circles, if we go way too far on the other side, we'll see a dismissal of a person's value. And so what will happen is, and this has honestly happened to a lot of friends that I have, is they'll go and they'll try to get prayed over and nothing will happen. And they'll just be like, "Well, where's my healing. " And then some people in charismatic movements will say, "Well, you must be living in some kind of sin or something that's stopping you from experiencing God or you just didn't pray hard enough or believe hard enough.

" Friends, can I tell you if anybody's ever told you that, that is wrong thinking. Because here's the thing. The royal official and the next man that we're going to meet, neither one of them was praying for this.

Jesus just came and he did it and he healed. But then on the other side of things, what we'll do is in the hopeful healing is we'll go way too far on the other side of the scale and we'll start to dismiss God's power that the charismatic side carries so well. And so what'll happen is we'll just come into an apathetic kind of acceptance. Well, my pain is what it is.

I mean, I guess if it's God's will to heal me, he'll do it. But here's the thing is that totally dismisses the Holy Spirit's power here on earth that Jesus at any time can bring that peace of heaven into our situation. And so where we as Christians want to sit is right in the middle in this space of faithful healing.

And what this space is is it believes and walks in hope and it walks in the reality that Jesus can do it at any point in any time. Faithful healing says, "I'm going to seek Jesus above all else, and I'm going to pray with this hope that he can and he will do it. And I'm going to walk with this expectancy that he can use anyone and any situation to bring that healing into into existence. " And so that's what he does here with the royal officials son. Look at this verse 49.

The royal official said, "Sir, come down before my child dies. " Jesus says this, "Go. Your son will live. " Like, oh my gosh, how vague. Wouldn't you have like as a parent, wouldn't you have like 20 questions.

I have 20 questions for my doctor, for my kids physical. But like here, Jesus is just saying, "Go. Your son will live.

" This is what the man does. The man took Jesus at his word. That's the second time we've heard that phrase in this series, by the way. The man took Jesus at his word and departed. While he was still a long way, his servants met him with the news that his boy was living.

When he inquired as to the time when his son got better, they said, "Yesterday at 1 in the afternoon, the fever left him. " Then the father realized that this was the exact time at which Jesus had said to him, "Your son will live. " It's almost as if like he knew that, you know, Jesus knew like , you know, it's going to be okay.

And he's now just finding this out, right. And so his whole household believed. And this was the second sign Jesus performed after coming from Judea to Galilee.

Now the key phrase again in this section is that he took Jesus at his word. And a lot of us would question and question Jesus on I can this really happen. Is this even really possible to experience healing. And this is a really important thing for us to know and learn about healing is asking for healing will exercise your faith. It will be a thing that brings you to your knees.

Not just to seek the healing, but to seek the person of Jesus. Now, let me tell you, if I went to the gym right now and I said, "I'm going to work out day one and then I told you I expect that after day one, I'm going to go stand on the scale. I'm going to be 20 lbs lighter and I'm going to have a six-pack.

" Like, not a six-pack, like a six-pack, right. Like, you tell me what you're crazy. That's not how it works, right.

You got to put in the work. And so and and so I would have to go to the gym day in and day out. Seeking healing puts us in the place of then not just seeking the result but the person who can bring the result which is Jesus.

And so it puts us in this place where we would come to our knees and say Jesus I need you. I need you just as this desperate father needed somebody, some savior to come and heal his son. And so when we ask for healing, it's actually bringing us closer to the person of Jesus. And that's where we should be. Now, you might look at this story and say, "That's great.

The boy was healed in an instant. " But that still hasn't addressed the problem of when like cuz he was healed in an instant. But why not me. Well, this is the next story as Jesus travels and then we start John chapter 5. Look at this story in John chapter 5 starting in verse one.

Sometime later Jesus went up to Jerusalem for the Jewish festivals. Now there in Jerusalem near the sheep gate, a pool with araic is called Bethesda in which is surrounded by five colonial I cannot say this word. I'm just going to say it like I get tongue tied every time.

Somebody else say it. >> Okay, there we go. I I literally like practiced it before I came up here and I was like, "Nope, not going to do it.

" Okay, here we go. A great number of disabled people used to lie. The blame, the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. And then if you notice, we're in NIV. If you're looking at numbers, we go from number three to verse five.

There's no verse four. If we're reading ESV, we're seeing a verse four. Patty's like, "Yes, I know where you're going. " , so I can get into a whole side sermon about why verse four and why there's some controversy there, but I want to summarize what verse 4 is. Verse four is basically just saying in short that it was believed that angels would descend from heaven into this pool and whoever was in the pool at the time that the angels descended into this pool that they would be healed.

So verse 5, one who was there had been invalid. That means he couldn't walk for 38 years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, "Do you want to get well. " No laughs there. I'm so surprised.

I read this for the first time. I still read it and think this is the craziest question that Jesus ever asks. Do you want to get well. Are you kidding me.

He's been sitting there for 38 years. Of course he wants to get well. Like that's just a silly question from Jesus. Of course you want to get unstuck out of your situation.

Can I tell you how ridiculous this is. Okay, cuz you're not getting the ridiculousness of it. It's hilarious when you think about this question to some extent.

It's like at my old house I had a really really long driveway and I had a roommate who could not drive or back out of this really long narrow driveway. He had an old Buick with tires so bald that like it would make a bald man like really happy because it had more character or whatever. Okay, I'm getting off on a tangent. So he would back out of this driveway and he would get stuck at the end of the driveway when all the ice and snow built up there.

And so I as as his roommate would come out and I would just watch him like this and I just like like something was going to happen that was different that was going to get him unstuck and I'd have to come up to him and be like you want some help with that. Like he he every single time he would back out of the driveway for like two months straight, he would get stuck. And every single time he said, "Yeah, help me.

Cuz we want to get unstuck. And so here Jesus is saying, "Do you want to get well. " Of course we do. But here's the thing. When we sit in physical and emotional pain for so stinking long, we sit in that place and we start to build up these pathways that spin our minds and spin our hearts into thinking that we are always going to be stuck in that place.

And so asking for healing, this is hardest truth part of the message. Asking for healing will bring you out of your pity and patterns. Now, hear me and hear my heart on this. I know pity and patterns are really harsh words because anybody, myself included, who wants healing in their life does not want to be pied or does not want to say that it's a pattern. They want to say, "No, I don't want to be a burden to anyone.

I don't want to burden anybody with my my disability or my pain or whatever I'm going through. And so what happens is we'll live into these these pies and patterns because we don't want to be a burden. Can I just say whatever pain you're walking through this morning, you are not a burden.

You're not a burden to us. You are not a burden to God. And he walks with you through it.

But what happens is when we live in this distress, in this pain for so long, it becomes a part of our identity. It becomes a part of who we are. And so it's, "Hi, my name is Josh and I have depression.

Hi, my name is whatever and I get frequent migraines. Hi, my name is whatever and I have back pain. " or I have whatever your blank space is there.

It becomes a part of who we are. It becomes a part of how we define ourselves. And then even a step further for some of us, and I'm not saying this is anybody in this room, but this is definitely happening out in the world that some people don't actually want to get well because they love the vices that come with the pain.

They love that they can be pied by others or treated like the center of attention or have an excuse to run to things like alcohol or porn or pills to just numb pain because people believe the lie that this is just who I am. This is just what I need to walk with now. And let me tell you, the enemies loves to attack your identity.

He loves to attack who you are. But Jesus But Jesus loves to remind you who's you are. That you are a child of God and that you are not defined by this pain any longer.

Can I just tell you because I'm on stage this does not make me invalid to any of these things. Can I just give you just a snapshot little bit of my my story here. , I have not dealt with physical pain like some of you have, but I have dealt with emotional pain.

, at age seven, I was diagnosed with ADHD and a neurological learning kind of disability. And so, if you're like, why is he so weird sometimes. , so, , and then later in life, they identified that as dyslexia. And so, if there's ever something spelled wrong up here, yeah, that's on me. , and so this though, getting this at seven years old changed my life because I no longer had the same educational experience as all of my peers that I was watching.

I was behind in one thing, ahead in another thing. I had to be moved to a separate classroom to take a test because I couldn't focus. And if I'm being honest, I kind of got used to the special treatment.

I kind of got used to being pied. I'll tell you why. , in any kind of class, I could request from the teacher, "Can I get the notes.

" And all I would have to do is ask, and they would give me a print out of the notes, and I could sit in my desk, and I could just listen to them talk with the notes in front of me while everybody else is having to write it down. I thought I was so cool that I was able to do that. But what I didn't realize is that I was living into that I couldn't take notes.

I just couldn't do it. You know, I I can't keep up with them. Can I tell you something.

One of my favorite things to do is to take notes now. Every conference, every teaching, I have so many notebooks. That's why we give away notebooks, by the way, cuz I want you guys to be writing things down that God is teaching you because I think it's just so powerful. And I missed that. I missed that because I just believed that this is who I am.

I can't do that. I have a limitation, but there are no limitations with God. And so, here's the truth right here. This is your take-home.

Your pain doesn't define you. It describes you. It describes something that you're going through, but it is not who you are and it is not whose you are. And so Jesus wants this man to get well. Look at what he responds with.

He says, "Sir, I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. And while I am trying to get in, someone else goes there ahead of me. Then Jesus said to him, "Get up, pick up your mat, and walk.

" And at once the man was cured. He picked up his mat and walked. Now, this is the miracle, right.

38 years this guy's been sitting there. And notice his response to, "Do you want to get well. " His response is,"I have been isolated for so long, nobody cares enough to bring me to the pool.

" Can I tell you something. Oftent times when we live in physical and emotional pain, we will isolate. That is one of the traps that we fall into.

Nobody's going to understand this pain. Nobody's going to be able to walk with me through it. And then we as in our human nature don't help this.

By the way, I'm victim to this, too. When somebody shares like, "Oh, man. I got I got a lot of back pain right now. " We'll be like, "Yeah, you know, mine's been bugging me, too.

" Or like, we'll try to relate the story. And sometimes that's just not helpful. Sometimes somebody just needs to let it out and they need you to cry with them. They They need you to sit with them. They need you to pray with them instead of just being relatable for a minute.

And so Jesus is standing right in front of this man and he's healed in an instant. And this shows us something so important about healing. That asking healing, asking for healing will show your need for Jesus.

Can I just tell you this man didn't need to make it to the pool to get healed. >> He had the healer in front of him. So many times we run to things for healing instead of running to Jesus. And so the main thing that we need to take away from this section is that we need to seek the healer that is Jesus more than the healing because this man for 38 years is trying to get to this pool and he can't get to the pool. No matter how many things he tries, how many medications, how many people, how many doctors, how many things, right.

That's in our 21st century experience. He's trying to get to the pool. But instead of getting to the pool, the person of Jesus is right there to heal him. And this shows us how important it is to not just to seek the result of the healing, but to seek the one who can bring it, to seek the healer himself, and that is Jesus. And so this story ends with this man getting up, picking up his mat, and walking.

Okay, now let's do the rest of this just really quick here. It's It's going to We're going to go just a little long. I I think th this is just such a good story.

Okay, so here's how this story continues. Look at this verse verse 9. The day that which this t took place was the Sabbath. It was unlawful to heal on the Sabbath. And so the Jewish leader said to the man who had been healed, it is the Sabbath, and the law forbids you to carry your mat.

But he replied, the man, look at this, he doesn't even know Jesus's name. He's just like, "The man who who made me well said, pick up your mat and walk. " And so they asked him, "Who is this fellow who told you to pick up your mat and walk.

" The man who was healed had no idea who it was. For Jesus pieced out of there and he slipped away into the crowd. He's like, "I want to see what happens here.

" Like he's just getting out of there. And so Jesus wants to watch this scene happen. But now look verse 14.

Later Jesus found him. That was the man who got healed at the temple. And he said, "See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you. " Then the man went away.

Then he told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus, that's the guy, Jesus, who made him well. Can I just say really quickly about this verse. Whole another sermon in itself.

We can read this verse wrong. We can read this verse as karma. God is not a god of karma.

It's not that he was paralyzed for 38 years because he was a sinner. We're all sinners. We all fall short.

He's saying here, what Jesus is saying here is stop sinning because the result of your eternity in hell is way, way worse than your suffering here on earth. And so he's reminding him the need for Jesus, the need to walk with Jesus. And now verse 16, look at this. So Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath and the Jewish leaders began to persecute him. This is where this is going to start.

Now the controversy about Jesus. In his defense, Jesus said to them, "My father is always at work to this very day and I too am working. " Listen, in all of your physical pain, mental pain, take this with you home that Jesus is always working. And it is my prayer today that you are not just chasing this healing that has come up in your mind for you, for your significant other, for your friend, but you are chasing Jesus. And knowing that Jesus is always working.

So I believe that Jesus can work in this space on a Sunday morning and heal somebody. >> I believe that Jesus can work through your growth group and heal somebody. We walk in that expectant hope that Jesus can do it at any time as we seek him. And so this is what I want to do. I want to invite the worship team up and I want to just invite you to close your eyes, bow your heads.

This is something we do every week at Destination. It's kind of our time to to reflect on the message and and to take action. And I just want to I want to know who to pray for.

As your pastor, I want this to be a private moment. So, please just eyes closed, head bowed. , and I just want you to if you are in this room right now and you are experiencing or have been experiencing for a long time some kind of physical pain, I just want you to just simply raise your hand for a second. Raise your hand. Physical pain.

All right, you can put your hand down. If you're in here and you have dealt with maybe the other side of things, the emotional pain from everything from depression to maybe just some heightened anxiety or some poor self-image. If if that's you, would you just raise your hand.

Now, let's do one more. If you know somebody that is suffering with physical or mental pain that you've been praying for, can you raise your hand. I want you to think about those people, those things that are on your mind. And I just want to read for you this morning how Jesus sees your pain.

How Jesus walks with you in your pain using just scripture. So I want you to reflect on these words as I say them. In Psalm , the Lord says that he is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. That God is not far from your pain.

That he moves towards it. That Isaiah 53 says that Jesus was a man of suffering, that he was familiar with pain and that he took your pain and bore your suffering on the cross. And so he knows the pain and he sits with us in pain. That his word says that we can ask and seek and knock and call on him and he won't cast us away.

That he'll make our burdens light. That his word says that our troubles and our pain is just temporary and that healing will be eternal. That his word says that his grace is sufficient for us.

For Christ's power is made perfect in our weakness. So God, I pray I pray for all of the physical pain, for all of the mental pain, for all the emotional pain, the things that we've been carrying. God, we believe that you are the healer who is always working. That you can work in this small startup church in East Bethl. That you can work miracles anywhere that you want to.

That you can bring a little piece of your kingdom here on earth. And so God, we ask you, we pray that you would do this. And for maybe some of you, I just want to give this invitation to you that maybe you've been chasing the healing, but you don't know the healer. And so, if you're in here today and you're saying, "Hey, I want the healing, but I need to know the healer. " Please meet us at the next steps table.

If you're here today and you're like, "I still want some people to pray over me. " Don't be shy. Go over to that table.

There are people that want to pray with you. And so, let me just close us. God, I thank you so much that you're here, that you are in our midst, and we believe for it. God, you are worthy of our praise. You are worthy of all of it.

And so, God, we seek you. We seek you above all things in Jesus name. Would you stand as we close in worship.