This week, God gave me something
just for the stuck ones. If you've been freely roaming about with no
obstructions…there's nothing in your life that's holding you down, chaining you to something that
has been in your life for the last eight years…you can probably more valuably use this
time than to listen to me preach, but for the people who God gave me this message
for today, I'm excited to share it with you. In John, chapter 5, there is
a story about a man who was stuck. I want you to stand on your feet for just
a moment. Welcome to our eFam all over the world. Please let me know, before I read my Scripture,
where you are joining from. If you're in the room, so that this is less awkward, just tell the
person next to you what brought you here today. Why did you come today? What was the
reason for you being here? Mom made you… Tiffany gets paid to be here. She doesn't want to
get fired. But look. All over the world, y'all, I just want to point out to you this ministry
is reaching way, way beyond what we can see. I mean, all the way from Fayetteville,
North Carolina, to right next to India, just side by side on my comments…California;
Mississippi; Kenya; Tampa, Florida. Happy anniversary, Orlando, as well. Two-year
anniversary for Orlando today. Make some noise. Where is Lake Worth, Florida, Chunks? Do you
know that? Central Florida. Czech Republic, South Africa, Cozumel,
Indonesia, Lebanon, Philippines, London, Brazil, Mexico. Oh, you came
from Jersey? Good to have you. We're praying we can be in Jersey for our
Elevation Nights tour coming up that we're going to announce in the next… So you
didn't even have to come. We were coming for you, but you couldn't wait, could
you? You had to get here to the house. Are you visiting somebody or you just
came for this? Then it doesn't count. We're just like a little layover. Okay. God is going to bless you anyway.
Let's give it up for Jersey. I am not stalling. I'm just trying to slow my
brain down for a minute, because the Lord has me fired up, and I don't want to unload on you
too much too soon. I'm just trying to acclimate. John, chapter 5: "Some time later, Jesus went up
to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep
Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by
five covered colonnades [porches]. Here a great number of
disabled people used to lie…" "Used to lie." It's putting it in past tense,
that the situation is going to change. "Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the
blind, the lame, the paralyzed. One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight 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?'" "Hey, man. Do you want some of
this? Hey, do you want to get well?" "'Sir,' the invalid replied, 'I have no one to
help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in,
someone else goes down ahead of me.' Then Jesus said to him, 'Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.' At once…" Thirty-eight
years of paralysis was reversed at once. "…the man was cured; he picked up his mat and
walked. The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, and so the Jewish leaders
said to the man who had been healed, 'It is the Sabbath; the law forbids
you to carry your mat.' But he replied, 'The man who made me well said to
me, "Pick up your mat and walk."'" "I hear what you're telling me, but
I've been hanging out here 38 years, and you never made me walk. He fixed me in one
sentence. I'm going to do what he said do." "I appreciate the advice. I appreciate
your regulation. I appreciate your custom, but the man who made me well said to me, 'Pick up
your mat and walk.'" "So they asked him, 'Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?'
The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that
was there. Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, 'See, you are well again.
Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.' The man went away and told the Jewish
leaders that it was Jesus who had made him well." Today, the Lord told me to
talk to you about The X Factor. Bless your Word, Father. In Jesus' name, amen. Do you know what I mean, "X factor"? (Simon Cowell
isn't here. Don't worry.) A noteworthy, special talent or quality. That's what the X factor means.
They've just got it. They've just got something. Or a variable in a given situation that
could have the most significant impact on the outcome. That's what I want to
talk to you about today: the X factor. It's what Holly saw in me, standing
across that college cafeteria with a XXX Superman shirt. She saw beneath that Superman
shirt. She saw the super. She saw super Steve. (Y'all really are tough to
talk to sometimes. I'm just trying to introduce the topic of The
X Factor.) You know what I'm talking about. There's just something they have.
You've been around someone like that. If the first person you think of when I say
"Someone who has just got it like that" is you… Most of the people I know who
really have something special… It is the most difficult for them to see the
distinctives that make them uniquely powerful. I was coaching Tim the other day. He did a sermon
for our youth, and it was really good. I gave him this thing. I said, "You did this, and you did
that, and you did that, and that was good, and that's stuff I can't even teach. What you were so
good at is stuff I couldn't teach you if I tried, so that's not what I want to talk to you
about, because you've already got that. I want to talk to you about what
I saw where there is potential." Tim is a growth-minded individual.
He's driven, so he was like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. I hear what you're saying.
I did good. What can I do better?" I was like, "That right there, that thing in you that
makes you want to know 'What did you see that I could do better?' and not just 'Keep
telling me the stuff I did really well…' That right there makes me think you have only just
begun to see what God is going to do through you. You've got it." Especially how God looks
for people to bless. He looks for need. It's proven in the Scripture I just
read you, but you may not have noticed, because the exciting part of the text
is where the man gets up and is cured. The part of the text that's really explicit about
what made this man a candidate for a miracle is the part that… To be honest with you,
it's a list the writer starts where he says Jesus was at the pool where the blind,
the lame, and the paralyzed used to lie. Now, the list could go on and on, because we're
going to approach this Scripture today not just to talk about physical conditions God can
heal, although God has the ability to do that. I want to extend this list to say that
Jesus is on the porch for any problem you have that is paralyzing you in this season of
your life. I said it five minutes ago, and I'll say it five minutes from now. This
is for the stuck ones. The lame, the blind… You're stuck without your sight. You're
dependent on somebody else without your sight. You're stuck without the function of your limbs.
You're dependent on where someone can carry you. You are stuck without your emotional capacity, where anxiety wrestles you into a ball and
pins you to the mat and dares you to move. I've had seasons of my life where
resentment put me in a rear naked choke. Do y'all ever watch MMA? Sometimes I watch this
violent stuff, just get it out of my system so I don't swing on anybody in real life. I'll
watch them choke somebody out, and I'm like, "I've been in that position before." Not with
somebody else choking me…choking myself, cutting off my own air supply, cutting off my own ability
to receive the oxygen of the word God is speaking. Jesus looks for need. Even in picking his
disciples, he did it in a really weird way, because to change the world, you need to
pick somebody who has got it. Jesus had it, but he wasn't going to be here to finish it.
So, when he was recruiting his disciples, he probably should have picked somebody better
than an ex-fisherman, an ex-tax collector… He started walking around to pick people,
and his X factor… Heaven's X factor is not dependent on talent, height, ability, or
charisma. That's not how God chooses who to use. I'll prove it to you. There is a very small chance
that anybody by the pool that day was in worse shape for longer than this
man. Jesus said, "That one." So, you're advising Jesus. Right?
You tell him something like this: "Uh, we probably should start, if
you want to heal people out here, with somebody who has only been this way a little
while," and Jesus is like, "The problem with that is if they've only been that way a little
while, they will think they got over it." "Okay, Jesus. Let's pick somebody to
heal, if you want to heal somebody…" John's gospel is not really
about healing; it's about belief. That's what he said at the end of his gospel.
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. John tells you why he wrote his gospel. In John 20:31, he said,
"These things were written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, and by
believing have life in his name." So, the healing in this chapter is
not the meaning of this chapter. The healing is a means to an end so
that Jesus can confront unbelief. In fact, it even says in the passage that it was
one of the festivals. In the original language, it says the festival, the definite article.
That makes me think it was Passover, which makes me think it was a year after Jesus healed
the royal centurion's son in John, chapter 4. That is amazing, because John is skipping a
whole year, because he's not trying to show us chronologically what Jesus did. There's
a theme he's taking, and the theme is this: anywhere there is unbelief, Jesus stands to
confront it. That is true in your life. Where will God show up the most in your life? The area where
you have the hardest time believing. That place! The porch by the Sheep Gate with
the people who are paralyzed. Why wouldn't you hurry to the temple,
to the pulpit, to preach the Word of God and redeem the world? But Jesus is on
the porch. Jesus is on your porch today. Jesus doesn't stand in this pulpit waiting for you
to get to church. Do you think God is waiting for you to get here to speak to you? He has been
talking to you all week through your trouble. He has been talking to you
all week through traffic. Y'all, Holly preached so well last week.
I have to brag on my wife for a minute. She has got it. She told me, "I'm
not a preacher. Don't put me out there. I'll support you." She told
me that years and years ago. Ha-ha! I learned how to trick her into preaching. I
really think the reason she preached so well last week was because of me. I do. Not only did
I see that gift in her long ago and nurtured it in her… I want to take the credit right now,
so y'all let me do this. Can I have this one? Before she came out to preach to y'all last week,
she was so nervous, and I could sense it. She said, "I need you to pray for me." I said, "Okay."
I prayed for her, and she was still nervous. I thought of an idea. I started criticizing myself to her. I started saying bad stuff about
myself…not crazy bad stuff, just a little bad. This woman defends me, so she went into a
different gear that wasn't nervous little Holly. She went into another mode. I
don't know if you ever saw Spider-Man. I don't know if you ever saw
Clark Kent go into a phone booth. When Holly heard me saying bad things
about myself, she grew seven inches taller. I watched it happen right before me.
She looked into my eyes, and she said, "Don't you say that about yourself! I will not…"
I said, "Let's go. You're ready to preach now." True story. I said, "You're ready
now." I needed to switch her energy. I said, "You need to be a little feisty when
you go out there to preach faith to the people. You need to have a little bit of 'Don't you let
the Devil tell you that stuff. Don't you let the Enemy talk you out of what God gave you.' You need
a little bit of that to do what you have to do." I awakened her inner preacher, and I
think the results speak for themselves. It's a principle of provocation. I had to provoke what was inside of her so she
wouldn't be so focused on what was around her. The X factor. I had to get her to start
accessing what she had on the inside so she wasn't thinking about what she was going
to be facing on the outside. If you still think I'm talking about Holly preaching, you are
not paying attention. I am talking about you. When I said, "The blind, the lame, the paralyzed,"
I could have kept going, listing things that exist in this room and all around the world through
our eFam. I could have started listing mental conditions. I could have started listing emotional
conditions, financial, relational. I could have started listing tensions you didn't even know
were mentionable in church, but they are. The prerequisite Jesus had for who he wanted to
heal was who had given up on ever getting better. So, I'm thinking he's walking
around this room right now, and he's looking for "Who has the X factor?"
Who is the one who knows "I need God in this place"? On the porch
where the disabled used to lie. "We don't have time to stop by the porch,
Jesus. We have to get to the Passover feast." No, no, no. Jesus wasn't going to pass over the
porch to get to the Passover festival. Listen to me. He is not going to walk past you to bless
somebody who is better than you today either. He is not going to pass by you to bless
somebody who said their prayers every day this week. He is not going to pass by you
to bless somebody who never did what you did. He is not going to walk by you to bless
somebody who has Philippians memorized. He is not going to walk by you to bless somebody
who wore a Christian tee shirt to church. He is not going to pass by you, but (this is
where you know the sermon is going to take a turn) the Devil will do everything in his power to
keep you from realizing the resource that is right in front of you. We talked at the beginning
of the year about this popular phrase: "My truth. Your truth. My truth and your truth." We live
in a world that worships personal experience. Put down experience in your notes while we're
talking about the X factor. I was laughing how Jesus gave this man a true or false
question and the man answered with an essay. Jesus asked, "Do you want to get well?" That's
just yes or no. Just check the box. "Want to get well? Yes or no?" That's all he asked. The
man starts doing a "fill in the blank" exercise. "Sir, I have no one to help me into the pool when
the water is stirred. While I'm trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me."
He has practiced this crap, y'all. He has practiced this to explain. Write that
down. What I want you to realize about your life and where you're at and what you're stuck in and
what you're stuck with and who you're stuck with… (This would be a horrible time to look
at the person you came to church with. Bad timing. Don't do it.) What I want you to
realize about that is one of the most important things about your life is not what you experience
but how you explain what you experience, not to others but to yourself. How many optimists do we have in the room?
Optimists, raise your hand. I want to raise my hand with you, but I fall into a different
category. I'm not a pessimist, because I refuse to label myself as a pessimist. I refuse to stand
up here and identify myself with people who know nothing more than to say how Tom Brady could
play better, but they can't throw a football. I will not be that fat guy eating popcorn, talking
to somebody in good shape about "You should have caught that." Pessimism is easy. That's natural.
I used to say, "Oh, I'm a pessimist. I'm hard on myself." No, actually, I was easy on myself,
because it was natural for me to be negative. So, when I was hard on
myself, beating up on myself, that was just me obeying the law of
the southbound gravitational pull of my stinking, rotting flesh and not
being renewed by the pattern of my mind. All the ex-pessimists, make some noise. Do
y'all feel me? I am a recovering pessimist. I'm an ex-pessimist. I found out they even wrote a book about it called
Learned Optimism. I'm like, "I didn't know that was a skill. I thought that was a personality."
I found out that the way I explain my life to myself is the X factor that determines
whether I stay stuck or move forward. Jesus, in our terms, is called a
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, yet he breaks every rule
of counseling I've ever heard in my life. He asked the man who couldn't
move, "Do you want to get well?" At the very least, that is awkward.
At the worst, it's cruel. "Do you think I'm down here because I want to be down
here?" "Do you think I wanted to grow up in that home environment? Do you think I'm here because I
want to be here? Do you think I chose this role?" Immediately, he begins to
explain. "Sir, the reason I'm here is because somebody gets in the way every time
I try to get to the water where the healing is. Somebody gets in the way.
That's why I can't get there." The Lord said to tell you: your why is
getting in your way. "Every time I try…" "I do it for a little while, and someone stops me. I do it for a little while; I get triggered.
I do it for a little while; life happens." Any progress you make can feel like this.
Right? They call it learned helplessness. That's the psychological term. It means
you come to this point where you're like, "Why even try? If, every time I'm going to
try, I'm going to end up just getting blocked…" I believe I'm preaching to somebody today who
got blocked so many times…got blocked by people, got blocked by problems, got blocked by diagnoses, got blocked by things that were beyond your
control. The thing about the time we're living in… We all have a universal snow day we keep
referring to called the pandemic. That has become a blanket excuse for why none of us
are ever going to accomplish anything again. I know it's a reason, it's an experience, but I have learned that at the same time that
I am explaining my situation as a reason why I can't, somebody else is explaining
that situation as a gift from God. Somebody else is taking the very same situation
that I'm using to say, "Well, I can't do it because," and someone else is using the very
same situation and saying, "I can do it because…" I watched it happen not only through the
pandemic, but I've watched it happen as people have gone through difficult seasons. You know I'm
coming up on 16 years of being a pastor, so I'm not some little traveling preacher anymore who
just goes around and tells you, "You can do it." That's not this message. "You can do it. You
can get up. Just get up. Just walk with God. Just pray." I'm not talking about that stupid
little stuff anymore that I might have used to preach when I didn't know what the Bible said.
Now I know what the Bible says. Now I know what the Word of God says. Now I've seen it made
flesh in the lives of thousands of people. The way you explain your life and the way
you explain this pain and the way you explain what's going on inside of yourself will either
leave you stuck or move you forward, will either leave you on your mat or move you. The best thing
about the passage is his mat became his message. They're like, "What are you doing
carrying your mat on the Sabbath?" He's like, "Let me explain. The dude who said
'Get up' and it worked… He told me to do it, so that's what I'm doing. That's my explanation." Stop trying to explain to
people what God told you to do. You don't have to explain to
anybody how you want to be pure, why you want to be pure, why you want to let
go. You don't have to explain it to anybody. "Hey, I have a doctor's excuse. My doctor
Jesus said I could do it. My doctor Jesus said I could move on. My doctor Jesus
said I could forgive. My doctor Jesus said I could hold my head up. My doctor Jesus
said I could enter the Most Holy Place. I have the X factor." Did you ever have a doctor's excuse? You have
one right now. Jesus, our Great Physician, is trying to give you permission to move past all of
the reasons you shouldn't be able to move forward and to stop limiting the
truth to your past experience. I have to get Holly mad before she preaches
so she can see "You're not trying out. This is not an audition." I love
y'all, but y'all can't cancel her. You can't. One of y'all might not
come back next week, and it's not her. So I had to get her fired up. I had to
get her in that kind of thing, like, "Man, stand up and give us what God gave you." The Lord told Jeremiah, "Don't be afraid of their
faces." I did not know what that meant until I started preaching. I know what that means now,
because there's a part when you're preaching… People look at you. You'll be like, "Back up. Back
up." No, no, no, baby. Go forward. That's the word they need. That's the word you need,
the one that challenges what you knew. Question: Was this man lying? Not
physically. Yes, he was lying on a mat. "Come on, Steven. Give us a hard one." Let me
ask it more clearly. Was he telling the truth? Let's read it. I love your Word, Lord. Thank
you for your Word. He showed me something. This is what I want to teach you how to do today,
because this is really powerful in your life. It's not just a history lesson about a man.
John, chapter 5, is not just about physical infirmity. It's certainly not about a pool
called Bethesda, which means house of mercy. It's certainly not about a physical porch. It's
about our emotional condition which keeps us from obeying God and receiving his Word by faith
instead of walking in doubt. When he said, "Sir, I have no one to help me into
the pool when the water is stirred…" What does water have to do with walking? There was conventional wisdom around this porch… There was a truth that when the angel troubled
the waters from time to time, whoever got to the water first could be healed of whatever had
happened to them, whatever was hurting them. Everybody else got left out. So, he's giving
his truth, which is not really true anymore. "I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying
to get in, someone else goes ahead of me." I can see we need to take this slow. I need
a volunteer who has a paper Bible, a pen, and a notebook, and you don't mind coming onstage
with me for a minute, and, final criteria… I'm looking for somebody. This is the X factor
I'm looking for. I'm choosing a volunteer. A Bible, a pen, a little notepad, and
you don't mind me marking in your Bible. Who wants it? Okay. All right. Oh, it's a big
Bible too. I like big Bibles. Let's go, big Bible. Big traps. Big biceps. Big Bible. Big smile. Yeah,
I'm kind of big too. Right? What's your name? Tyrell. I was hoping it would be Matt.
What version of the Bible? I've got King James. King James! Oh, this is perfect.
And you don't mind if I write in it? No, go ahead. Are you sure? Yeah. Okay. This is so perfect. You don't know how
perfect this is. I'm not playing around. We didn't work this out. This is not
planned. This is just so perfect. I see I gave you this pen originally, so… Look at this. Let's read it
together. You love the Bible. Right? Absolutely. Nobody brings a Bible this size
to church if they don't like it. "…impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered,
waiting for the moving of the water." Do you see in your King James Bible, this massive,
jumbo-size King James Bible, verse 4? "For an angel went down at a certain season into the
pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped
in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had." This is the Bible I preach out of. I know! I'm
getting old, so I can't see it as well anymore. I need this one. Can I keep this
one? How old are you, by the way? I'm 28. What if he was 38, like the man…38 years? I
wanted to show you… I've taught this before, and I've shown it different ways,
because I think it's so powerful. In the version I have, the New International
Version… It's a great translation. It goes from verse 3 to verse 5. See how verse 4 is mentioned
down here at the footnotes where it explains how the waters would move and people would get healed.
They took verse 4 out of the ESV and the NIV and a lot of the more modern translations because
it wasn't in the earliest manuscripts. It wasn't in the manuscripts we see that are
the earliest, the closest to the original, the most accurate, so it's not in these
translations. In the King James there's a verse 4. In the NIV and most of the translations
that you'll see if you're looking at it on your phone… You're like, "Wait. There is no
verse 4. Did Steve Jobs come back from the dead and delete my verse 4? Is Apple listening
to me right now? Are the Russians here?" But it's not any of that. There's no conspiracy.
It's just a verse that was never there that was added later by scribes
to explain the situation. "Why are you taking time to show me this?"
Because we add things God didn't really say to explain situations we can't understand. I can't believe you had the King James Bible,
because if you had had any other translation, I wouldn't have been able to
share this part. I was just like, "I'm going to go in the moment and call
somebody," and I almost picked her because she has an eKidz shirt. I don't know if
you're a volunteer. Are you a volunteer? I am. Okay, good. "Security! Security!" Good fit. You've got it, man. That X factor… You've got it.
I'm serious, man. God is on your life. I feel it. But I don't want you to put in verses
about what you believe about God to explain situations or to…here's
another ex…excuse disabilities. This man is taking notes while he's helping me
preach. Did you see him reach for the notebook? So, what I want to do… You told
me I could write in your Bible. Bring me the camera. Come here. Follow me. Tell me when it's in focus. You hold
it. Put that one down. Let's use yours. Hold it. You told me I could write. Zoom in on
the verse so we can do this. We have to do this. "I'm not sure I can clap for this. I thought you were going to highlight his Bible
with a nice lime green, Elevation orange." The X factor means that you and I, brothers and sisters,
need to go through and make sure that what we believe about God is really revealed in the
person of Jesus, not just the traditions of men. Now, in case they put this on one of those
YouTube channels that talks about what I'm preaching and what shoes I'm wearing, or
something like that, I want to make sure you're not going through crossing out the parts
of the Bible you don't like because they're hard. Like, "Love your neighbor as yourself."
"I'm not sure about the neighbor. I like that 'Love yourself' part. Yeah, love
myself. I like that part." No, no, no. It wasn't there. It got added later. It's not what God
said. It got added later. I want you to know, some of the things you believe, God didn't speak. It got added later. Somebody told you
something that made you feel small, and you settled into the small they made
you feel, not realizing, "Greater is he that is in me, so I can't be that
small. I can't be that insignificant." Are y'all still with me or are you
already shopping for another church on Google while I'm preaching? "Click
off! Click off! Click off! This guy is crossing out the Bible." No, no, no.
I'm crossing out what's not the Bible. I'm crossing out what God didn't speak over
me. If he corrects me, I want to hear it. If he challenges me, I want to hear it.
If he thinks I'm wrong, I want to know it. We don't preach this anymore. We used to have a
thing: "Check yourself before you wreck yourself." But now I see everywhere, "Treat yourself."
First of all, it's just annoying. That's an annoying thing to say anyway. Secondly… Yes, I'm
all for self-care. What about self-confrontation? (I'm going to come behind my security over here.) One of the hardest things, though, is what he said
when he explained experience. "Every time I try, I get stopped. Every time I try, I get blocked.
Every time I try… I smile; they don't smile back. I asked her out; she said no." How are you
going to explain that to yourself? We used to ride around… My best friend from all through
high school is right there on that second row. When a girl wouldn't be interested in us,
we would be the Holy Spirit interpretation for each other. He'd be like, "She's
just not on your level." I needed that! We'd ride around hyping each other
all day. "Deep calls to deep, man. She's just not deep enough. That's all it
is." Quoting Bible verses to handle rejection. Then the man's explanation.
This is where I see you today. You're caught between an
experience and an explanation. His explanation is keeping him stuck. Some of
us have fallen in love with our "stuckness." We love stuck, because we
learned we can get our way if we get angry. So, do we really
want to be made well from our anger? We've learned we can get our way
by doing the silent treatment, so do we really want to get better at
communicating? We've learned we can get our way and seek attention by misbehaving. Some
of us subconsciously create failure in our lives so it will call people to our
rescue so we will feel wanted. Now I see why the genius of Jesus (Wouldn't
that make a cool series…the genius of Jesus?) made him a wonderful counselor, even though it
seems like he has a terrible bedside manner. He's like, the X factor here
is not the externals…the economy and your mom's mom's mom's mom's
mom's goldfish that made you like you are or who won't do what for you. That's not
true anymore now. Is the man lying? "Sir, I have no man when the water is troubled to put
me into the pool. I have no man. I have no help." That's not true anymore. It was true five minutes before Jesus got there.
It was true. (Let's use my Bible for this part. I don't want to cross anything
else out of yours.) What he said, "Sir, I have no one to help me…"
Can you see it? "I have no one…" That used to be true, but Jesus is here now. That was true. It wasn't an excuse.
It was true…until the Truth showed up. That's the X factor I wanted
to preach to you about today. You are still operating in your life as
if Jesus were not risen, but he is risen. You are carrying the shame as if your sin
were not forgiven, but it is forgiven. "But I'm a sinner." You were a sinner,
and you still sin, but now you have help that you didn't have when you were trying to
fulfill the law in your own flesh. "For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened…"
That's what I was. It's not what I am now. It used to be true, but Jesus is on
your porch. Jesus is on your porch! That's the X factor. Not your might,
not your power, but by his Spirit! He's here! Make the announcement to five
people. Tell them, "He's here on your porch." He's here! It's so good. God
wants to change your explanation to where you start explaining things
differently. Let your faith explain. Maybe we could do that for a part two message
if you all like it: how to let faith explain, because fear will start explaining. "See the
reason that happened to you? Because you suck, and you always sucked, and…" Let's put it in
King James. "…thou shalt suck forevermore." The Devil will speak King James
language to get you to believe a lie. A few weeks ago we said he's the Father of Lies.
That's his native language. He speaks lie like you speak tennis. Robert is a tennis coach. He'll come
up to me. He'll be like, "Man, that was like a serve in a volley," or something like that, today
on the sermon. I'm like, "Robert, what does that mean? That doesn't apply." That's his language.
The Devil's language is lie. Do you think that man on the porch was trying to lie to Jesus?
He was speaking something that used to be true. There were three things I said you needed. One
was a Bible, and you had that. One was a pen, and you had that. I said a notebook, and he
had that too, and he had a pen that I gave him. Isn't that just like the grace of God? He gives
us what we ask for. (I just threw that in. I'm having fun today.) I feel the spirit of "unstuckness" as God begins
to show you how to change the way you explain. The way you explain the experience
either keeps you stuck or sets you free. So, she could sit here and say, "I'm just a little girl. Nobody…" Can I tell
them what that lady said to you the other day? People say the weirdest stuff to you when
they don't know you but think they do. Some lady came up to her and said, "Girl, we
go to church. You've gotten so good." It's already a backhanded compliment, because
"You've gotten so good" implies…what? But then she didn't just imply it. She said it.
"I mean, you were rough when you started." "Security!" All right. I can't do this for you, but maybe
I could teach you the X factor. It's when you take something you used to be and that you
still feel… Like this. What does that say? Yeah, you were. You weren't worth the blood of
Jesus Christ, the precious eternal Lamb of God. You weren't that good. You weren't worth that much, God's only
Son, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God, but he decided you were. So,
that's what I am. That's what I am! All I'm doing is Colossians
2:14 where it said that Jesus, having canceled… You want to talk about cancel
culture? Jesus is the cancel culture king. Look at what he canceled. He canceled
the charge of our legal indebtedness. The Greek word is the handwritten indebtedness.
They would make you write your debt by your own hand, as to say, "This is my debt," and
you have to write it in your own hand. So, Jesus took his hand… Y'all don't love
the gospel? This is about as good as it gets. Colossians 2:14 is about as good as it
gets. I know. "Pressed down, shaken together, running over…" I'm excited about everything God
wants to add to my life. I am more excited about what he took away when he died for me on the
cross. That's a really astounding thing for me. He took our indebtedness, and he paid
the price for it, which stood against us and condemned us. He has taken it
away, and he nailed it to his cross. That is why I can take up my mat and walk. That's the X factor…for me. Grace
makes the difference for me. I know; you are a good person, and that's why you
deserve to be blessed. Not me. I know; you always get it right, and that's why you're so successful.
Not me. I know; you are always full of joy, and that is why the Lord is lucky to have you on
his squad. Not me! I know what I was without him, and that's why I'm so excited that I've got him, and that's why I don't mind praising God.
That's why I expect the supernatural. I want you to take every page of this
thing and write stuff that used to be true before Christ came along. I want you
to practice this week. I wish some of you parents would be a leader for your family and
take this message and say, "Before we sit down today, everybody is going to 'X' something before
I even feed y'all lunch. You know I'm paying. Don't take a bite until we 'X' something the Enemy
has said over your life that used to be true." That's the key: it used to be true. It used
to be that the only way to be right with God was for you to be perfect, for you to
keep the law, including the Sabbath. That's what the Passover was all about.
That's what the festival John 5 mentions was. They put an X in blood on the door of all
of God's people so the angel of death would pass over…on the top of the doorframe, on
the sides of the doorframe…in Exodus 12, and God said, "Not this house." This
is a Passover day for us in Jesus. He's walking up to the person on the porch who
can't move, can't function, can't get over it, can't recover, can't get it together, and
the truth stands in front of the experience. He doesn't tell him something to
understand; he tells him something to do. "I want you to take what was
holding you and hold it." "I have no one to help." But you do now. Don't let
the explanation become an excuse. You have it now. You have the Word of God. You have the Spirit of
God. Please don't just come in here every week expecting for somebody to lug you to the pool,
because you're always going to get blocked. This is the X factor. The man said, "I don't know
who healed me." "Well, go find out." It was Jesus. Say it again: "It was Jesus." You said it at the beginning of the sermon,
but now I want you to hear it. He's the X factor. He changed everything. Grace changes
everything. You're here today. You're saying, "I can't be saved. I can't be a Christian. I
can't get on the right path." God knew that. That's why he didn't make you get to
the water. He brought the water to you. It's not how smart you are.
That's not the X factor. That's not what's going to attract
the power of God to your life. It's not how manipulative you can be, how you
can work everything out according to your plan. He said, "It was Jesus who made me
walk. It was Jesus who made me whole." It starts with this question: "Do you want to get
well?" Because you've been like this a long time. Stand up. I'm going to pray for you. Thank
you, my friend. Here's your Bible back. I'm going to pray for you. I want you to fill every blank page in that
notebook with all that junk the Enemy has been telling you keeping you stuck too. Okay?
I want to see Xs all through that notebook. Father, we want to take a moment and reflect
on the X factor. It's really awesome to see Jesus in Jerusalem, to know he would head
back there and die just a little while later and that what was initiated in
the man's life through healing would be completed for us on the cross so we could
be set free. I believe in my spirit, God, that there are thousands who are hearing this message
right now who this is their moment to be saved, to receive the grace of God, not by
works but by grace through faith. Right now, if you're like that man
spiritually…not physically, but spiritually…say, "You know what? I'm dead in my sin, and I
want to receive Jesus Christ as my Savior so that the written requirement in
my handwriting, the things I've done that separated me and my heart from
God, can be nailed to his cross and so I can move forward into a new future."
I'm going to pray with you right now. Do you know the Bible says
it is by grace you are saved? That man would have never gotten to the water if
he would have kept trying to get there on his own. He had to let the water come to him.
You are at that moment right now. God brought you here, online or in a
physical building. God brought you here, and Jesus is standing in front of you. I'm going
to pray a prayer right now. We're going to pray it out loud as a church family for the benefit
of those who are coming to Jesus to be saved, repenting of their sin, receiving his new
life for the first time or coming back to God. As I pray, if you believe in your heart
that Jesus Christ is able to save you and you confess with your mouth that Jesus is
Lord, the Bible says you will be saved. Every head bowed, every eye closed.
Repeat after me this prayer. Lord Jesus, I am a sinner in need of a Savior,
and I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and today I make Jesus the Lord of my life.
I believe he died that I would be forgiven and rose again to give me life. I receive
this new life. This is my new beginning. Raise your hand on the count of three
if you prayed that. One, two, three! And all in the chat raise hands. Hands going up
everywhere. Yeah, that's it. No shame in it. Take up your mat and walk. The man who saved you
told you to do it. Jesus said you could do it. Raise your hand up high. Let's clap our hands
for everybody who got that living water today. Take up your mat and walk. We're
bringing you a Bible right now, where the Word of God is, where
it can instruct you how to walk. Hey, thank you for not leaving. I appreciate
your attention to the Word of God. This is a very important moment for somebody. I want us to seal
this moment of what God just did by giving God the most amazing 30 seconds of praise.
Can we do that right now? Thank you, Lord! It was Jesus! It was the Lord!
He made a way! It was him! It was Jesus! He saved you. He raised you. It was
Jesus! Come on. Give a mighty shout of praise! thank you for watching the elevation church
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