July 6, 2025 • 42 mins
Real healing requires true dependence on God because He didn’t create you to carry the weight of life on your own. Let go of self-sufficiency and trust the One who can truly make you whole.
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Scripture References:
John 5, verses 1-6
Mark 2, verses 13-17
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
I'm the pastor of Elevation Church and this is our podcast.
I wanted to thank you for joining us today. Hope
this inspires you. Hope it builds your faith. Hope it
gives your perspective to see God is moving in your life.
Enjoy the message.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
My name is Lisa, and I can't even tell y'all
how excited I am to be here, how overwhelmed I
am to be here. You are family to me, whether
you claim me or not. I claim y'all. I deeply, deeply,
(00:40):
deeply love and respect Pastor Holly and Pastor Stephen, and
I know full well you could have anybody from around
the world and it would be an undeserved privilege for
them to be in this house. And so I'm always
surprised flying from Nashville to Charlotte that, yeah, I kind
(01:02):
of feel like the girl and the math club and
the quarterback aster to prom it is. I mean, not
that there aren't amazing girls in math clubs. My apologies
if you're in the math club, but.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
I just I'm always.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Just kind of undone that I get to be with
y'all because I love this house so much. Chunks and
Amy Corbett. I would follow y'all off a cliff. I
just think you hung the moon. And I'm feeling especially
nostalgic this week, and so I'm glad I get to
be with surrogate family because my little girl, some of
(01:39):
you I've met, and some of you know I became
a mom through the miracle of adoption, and the year
I turned fifty.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
I don't have a baby daddy yet.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
So if you know somebody, I'm sixty one, If you
know somebody between fifty five and death, I'll go younger
who's employed and loves Jesus and doesn't live in his
mother's basement.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
But anyway, it's just Missy and me.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
And she's turned in sixteen a week from today, and
so just all those all those mama feelings have been
well enough over the last week, and I've been talking
to her about all these memories I have from when
I first brought her home from Haiti in twenty fourteen,
(02:24):
and she had all these just precious habits, like one
of them was she called me Pablo the entire time
that I was adopting her from Haiti for two years,
she called me Mama Blah White mama in Creole.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
And then the day I.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
Brought her to Haye, Haiti to Nashville from Haiti, she
started calling me Pablo, and I thought that's just odd.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
She would switch to.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
Pablo and I'd go, no, no, baby, morialy mama, blah,
my name is white mama, and she'd go, no, Pablo,
And I thought, this is going to be just awkward
when she gets married, because if y'all don't get on
the stick and I don't have a husband, I'm going
to be the one that the pastor says, who gives
this woman, I'm going to go meet Pablo. And so
(03:14):
I kept trying to dissuade her from calling me Pablo.
She was insistent for about a month until we found
out that the very last Sunday stool Sunday school curricula
she had done in her orphanage, they don't make enough
curricula to print them in Creole, and so they'll borrow
from Spanish curricula because that's close enough to Creole that
(03:34):
the kids can usually get it. And the very last
little lesson she had done was on the missionary journeys
of Paul Pablo, and when she asked one of the
nannies at the orphanage. What does my mama blanc do,
my white mama do? Does she sell mangos?
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Does she?
Speaker 3 (03:49):
So they said, well, she's kind of like a missionary.
She travels around and talks about Jesus. And so my
punkin conflated those two stories and decided I was apostle Paul,
and so I could just imagine Paul and Glory going
really Jesus, like, really, could we get a better doppelganger.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
So that was one of her habits.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
Another thing that I thought was precious that she got
confused was her last name. Because I love teasing and
given nicknames, and the whole time I was adopting her,
I called her Scooter mctudor, And so the first couple
of times people asked her what her last name was
in Nashville, she'd go Missy Maketuda. I was like, no, no, no,
(04:30):
it's Harper, baby, It's Harper. Her last habit I told
her about this last week that was priceless. It was
a little alarming, but it was priceless was anytime we
came near a wall, like if we were walking next
to this or a fence, if I wasn't paying attention.
Missy would run up on the wall or the fence,
(04:51):
and then without any warning, she would just hurl herself
off the water fence toward me because she just knew,
like she knew her name, that I would catch her.
And it was so precious and a little scary to
just have this precious little little Haitian hurling herself off
high things into my arms. She, after about maybe a month,
(05:15):
dropped that habit. I was glad it might be hard
to catch her now. But are you okay if I
tell the hurling story?
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Okay? Will you put in your earbuds for this next
little cart?
Speaker 3 (05:27):
Hurling is still a habit in the Harper household. It's
not Missy though, it's me. I was driving her to
school for the last week of school just a few
weeks ago, the end of May, and we were going
over her history final, going over notes for her history final,
and we were driving to school and Missy had stayed
(05:48):
up most of the night studying for her finals, so
she wasn't in a good mood. Do you have them
in another one? And she was, I'll let you know
when you can pull them out. She did tell me
I could tell this story. But she's turned sixteen, and
I don't want to embarrass her unduly. When Missy, there's
how many of y'all have teenage daughters, you know, there's
just like three days a month that they swallow grimlins,
(06:12):
And so only like three days a month that she
Missy is normally the kindest. That's how you can tell
she doesn't have my DNA. She is kind, deeply kind,
But three days a week, she's a bear.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
So she had stayed.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
Up most of the night studying for her finals, and
then she had swallowed PMS grimlins, And so we're driving
to her Christian private school and she's just mad. And
I'm I think I'm Jesus junior. You know, I'm driving,
I've gotten her sausage biscuit from her favorite place. You know,
I'm just very patiently going over electromagnetic fields and characteristics
(06:47):
with her on the way to school so she'll pass
her test. And I said something, I remember what I said,
and Missy said something very sarcastic under her breath.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Now, I can handle j.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
About anything as a mama, except for disrespect.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Disrespect it's my achilles heel.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
And so I looked at this beautiful miracle child of
mine who was tired and had PMS. But I have
PMS two. It's called post menopausal demonic syndrome. And my
grimlins are big and tatted. My grimlins have little tears
(07:34):
on them, and they want to fight. And so when
I'm around disrespect my PMS, grimlins come out in hordes,
big angry hordes. And so I looked at Missy and
I said, what did you say?
Speaker 1 (07:51):
And she said hmmmm.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
And I pulled the car over to the side of
the road and I said, in this home, we at
least have the integrity to speak disrespect out loud.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
We don't say it under our breath.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
So would you like to try again and say that
out loud?
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Any of y'all have a mama like this?
Speaker 3 (08:18):
I mean, I should have been in time out myself.
But Missy, because of that three day period, she gets
braver than usual. She said it out loud, and you know,
I was backed into a corner at that point. I
had to do something, and so I didn't really know
what to do, and so I just snatched her biscuit and.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Threw it out in the window. It's her older biscuit
out the window and.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
Missy just went and I was like, I know, I
can't believe I her old true biscuit. I was so
grateful that within like thirty seconds, humor and humility invaded
our car, and some of my fruit of the spirit
came back. Patients came lipping back, my pms. Grimlins had
(09:07):
beaten patients. But it finally crawled back in the car
and we laughed, and I gave her my breakfast biscuit
so she wouldn't have a headache, dear in your history exam,
and we laughed by the time we got to school.
But I was like, man, it is different raising an
almost sixteen year old than it was raising a four
year old.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
When she was four.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
I put just I'm so sorry I scared your child, baby,
your mama, Your mama will not throw your biscuit. I
can cross. I'm the only hurler in the house this morning.
When she was four, I put most of my attention,
my affection into her, establishing roots so she would have deep,
(09:50):
deep roots, that she would know that she was loved,
that she was affirmed, that I wasn't going anywhere that
unlike her first mama, who passed when she was a baby,
I was going to do everything I could to stay here.
So those formative years were all about roots. Now that
Missy's growing up, it's all about wings. It's all about
(10:11):
me learning how to get behind her and affirm her.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
I've given her the parameters. She knows the boundaries.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
Now it's about giving her the grace to fly and
to become the woman God has created her to be.
When she was little, our intimacy was all about her
total dependency on me. Now that she's growing up, our
intimacy it's no longer based on her being totally dependent
(10:44):
on me. As a matter of fact, the more she matures,
the less dependent she'll be on me if she's healthy.
Now hang on and listen to me, Epham, do not
mess with your an espresso machine right now.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Hang on to this next truth.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
For human children, it's important as they grow up that
they become more independent. For children of God, it's exactly
the opposite. If you want to mature as a Christ follower,
we should be increasingly dependent on our creator, Redeemer. It's
(11:25):
counterintuitive in this world where plopped in you want to
grow as a Christ follower, it means you become increasingly
dependent on God. You don't cut the apron strings, they
become steel cables.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
If you brought your.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
Bibles turned to John's Gospel, We're going to look at
John chapter five today, very very very familiar story.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
You have heard this story before.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
If you grew up in a conservative church, you've seen
at flannel graft. You may have taught it before. John
Chapter five, verses one through nine. We're gonna look at
my favorite healing in John's gospel account. John is different
than the other three Gospels Matthew, Mark, Luke. Those are
called the Synoptic Gospels. That's just a fancy seminary word.
That means those three are written in a similar literary format.
(12:16):
They all have some type of a birth narrative. They
all have parables. Those are the stories Jesus taught. That's
half of his sermonic material. And they have a lot
of healings forty healings. In the Synoptic Gospels. John's Gospel
there are no parables. John is very different in the
way he describes the earthly ministry of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
He wrote it much later in his life.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
Theologians think he was probably in his sixties when he
wrote the gospel.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
According to John, and he only has four healings, And.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
This is my favorite of the four John Chapter five,
beginning with verse one, I'm reading from the ESV. After this,
there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went
up to Jerusalem.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
Now there is in jerus Us Islam by the sheep Gate, a.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
Pool in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades.
In these lay a multitude of invalids, blind, lamb and paralyzed.
One man was there who had been an invalid for
thirty eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and
knew that he had already been there a long time,
he said to him, do you want to be healed?
(13:24):
How many of y'all have heard this story before? Do
you want to be healed? One of my closest friends
grew up really close to here in Concord, North Carolina.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Her name is Eva Whittington's self one.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
Of the godliest, most amazing friends I have, And when
she was seventeen years old, she was in a hint
and run accident on an icy road. Her car flipped
into a ravine and her spine was severed, so she
was paralyzed. When she was seventeen years old, has two
steel rods to stabilize her spine. She's been pair lized
(13:58):
from this level since she was seventeen. She's a little
bit older than me in her early sixties, so she
has not been ambulatory for over forty years. She walks
in faith much more stable than I do. Has the
most amazing life, most amazing story, has two kids, miraculously
(14:19):
got pregnant and delivered her children, married to an amazing man,
a judge in Kentucky by the name of Andrew's self.
That I love Eva Whittington's self, and I love being
with my friend at women's conferences because every time, if
there's a ramp and I'm wheeling, even she's strong as
(14:40):
can be, super independent, drives herself, does everything, is much
more accomplished than I am.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
But if there's a ramp, I have to help.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
Wheel or wheelchair and I'll watch women and it's like, oh,
college cheapers. I might as well have walked into a
Kido convention with hot bread. I mean, it's just like
I know somebody's going to come up and ask Eva
if they can pray for her healing.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
It happens every time.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
Now, God absolutely could heal her spine if he wanted to,
but her spine was severed when she was seventeen, severed.
Medically speaking, it is impossible for her spine to come
back together again if she had had that accent. Today,
things have changed in the way they treat those type
(15:27):
of victims. There's a chance in a couple of years,
with what they're doing now, maybe maybe some stuff could
be regenerated, but not when Eva was injured. And of course,
thousands of people, including a lot of well known saints,
have laid hands on Eva, on an auditor with oil,
and in God's merciful sovereignty, He's chosen not to heal
(15:49):
that facet of her life.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
But if you talk to.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
Eva, she'll say, I don't hate this cheer. God has
used this chair to introduce me to my husband. God
has used the chair is a canvas on which to
paint what a good God he is. Her testimony includes
this part of her story. Well, we were at a
conference recently and I saw a woman and I thought
she's going to come up and be insistent about praying
(16:14):
for Eva.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
So sure enough she comes up and she said, I
would like to pray for you, and Eva said that
would be lovely.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
Now I'm holding her chair and I'm like, she said
that would be lovely. I'd really appreciate if you would
pray for my patience because I've been really short lately
with my daughters and my husband, and I know when
we get the through of the spirit, we have all
the fruit. But my patience is it's just a little
bitty green orb on my tree. And so would you
(16:43):
pray for God to give me more patience? Y'all?
Speaker 1 (16:45):
This woman got so ticked because she had an agenda.
Speaker 3 (16:49):
She wanted to be the hero who prayed and Eva
would stand up and walk. So when Eva said that,
I watched this woman's face and it just kind of
went you like she'd been sucking on lemons or her
spanks were just too tight, and she went, don't you.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Want to get out of that chair and walk? And
I was like, do you want to call nine one
one before I punch you in the threat?
Speaker 3 (17:18):
I'm so sure you have the arrogant audacity to ask
my friend if she wants to get out of this
chair and walk. You don't know what it was like,
was she wanted to stand up and kiss Andrew when
they got married. You don't know what it was like
when her baby started crying and she had to transfer
(17:38):
into your chair and roll down to the nursery. You
don't know what that was like for young mamma, And
yet you dare to question her. Oh I got so
ungodly mad. I mean sorry, I'm in leather pants, have
probably squeaked really terribly. But it made me so mad
because it was so condescending. And yet, and yet, if
(17:59):
we're on it, doesn't it almost sound like that's what
Jesus is asking the sky. Thirty eight years, he's been
going to the Pool of Bethesda. If you've studied the
background of the story, you know that people have gone
to this particular body of water for centuries because even
(18:20):
the Pagans believe there's something supernatural there. Something happens when
the water ripples and it has healing properties in it.
The Pagans weren't sure what it was, and then the
Jews came along. They believed it was the finger of Yahweh.
It's actually underground springs, but they believe there's something in
(18:40):
that pool that could bring about physical healing. This guy's
been going there for thirty eight years, and the first
question Jesus asked, is do you want to get well?
I mean, humanly speaking, that's almost an eye roller. Well,
of course, I've been dragging myself here for thirty eight years.
(19:07):
And we don't actually get the poignancy of this question
unless we get the sociohistorical context, because we think as
first world modern believers, this is a first century culture based.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
On shame and honor.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
If you're a note taker, write down t z e
d a k a h.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Tz ed ak ah.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
It's a pronounced saduka, almost like the game math game
you play in the airport, but not quite. It's a
Hebrew word. Some say sideka saduka. You can just say
it with authority in your small group and they'll think
you're smart. It's a Hebrew word that describes alms giving, charity,
or it's even translated righteousness in some of our English Bibles.
(20:06):
Their culture hinges on sideka when it comes to invalids,
when it comes to the blind, when it comes to
the lame, because in this shame and honor culture, they
were taught it is honorable to beg if you are
legitimately sick. So if you're blind, if you're paralyzed, as
(20:32):
this man was it is actually honorable for.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
You to beg and provide for your family.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
Several rabbis who are contemporaries of Jesus Christ actually taught
that begging was positive for the community because it gave
the community an opportunity to be generous. It was basically
the cultural ancestor of humble brags on social media. What
(21:00):
better way to prove you were a good person than
to drop some coins in somebody's outstretched hand in the
middle of a public place. So for this man to
be able to provide for his family and it to
be considered honorable for thirty eight years, I'm not suggesting
(21:21):
that he enjoyed being a paralytic. I am saying he
had grown comfortable in that he's able to do that
and provide for his family. He's able to do that
and actually be honored by culture, and Jesus says, do
you want.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
To get well, because this is going to change everything
for you. Son. For you to get.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
Deeply healed is going to cause some serious discomfort in
your story. Here's an old movie called The Shawshank Redemption,
and I don't want to encourage y'all to watch it.
I see a lot of you have when you were
struggling in your quiet times, but those you haven't watched
some real questionable language in it.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
But there's this one scene.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
It's a movie that kind of centers around a prison
and around this wise old convict played by Morgan Freeman.
There's this one scene where Morgan is sitting next to
a guy who's only recently been incarcerated for I think
he embezzled. Tim Robbins is the actor who plays them
so young convict and the Morgan Freeman's sitting there and
(22:27):
Tim Robbins is just completely discompopulated because one of their
friends had gotten out after years of being in prison.
He had gotten out and he reoffended really quickly and
was brought back on conditions of parole after only being
out for like a week or two, and Tim is
just undone.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
He's like, what a yay?
Speaker 3 (22:47):
Who I mean?
Speaker 4 (22:49):
He got out, He made it out of here, and
then it seems like he almost purposely got arrested and
go what info world?
Speaker 3 (23:01):
And Morgan Freeman is listening to him complain about why
in the world would this guy give up his hard
won liberty? And he waits for a minute and he says,
you know, at first these walls, and he gestures to
those prison walls with a barber wire on top.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
He said, at first these walls, you hate.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
Them, and then after a while you get used to him,
and then if you're in here long enough, you realize
you need them.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
I wonder how many of us have gotten so comfortable
being sick that we've started decorating our prison cell so
it'll feel more like a living room. How comfortable are
(23:59):
you being sick? Do you want to get completely well?
Because to be completely well it'll change everything. Do you
want to be well?
Speaker 3 (24:15):
Stick a finger in Luke and head backwards to Mark's gospel,
Mark chapter two, another very familiar encounter Jesus has with
some up adeat Pharisees. He went out again beside the sea.
(24:38):
This is Mark chapter two, beginning in verse fifteen. And
all the crowd was coming to him, and he was
teaching them. And as he passed by, he saw Levi,
the son of Alphaeus, sitting at the tax booth, and
he said to him, follow me.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
And he rose and followed him.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
And as he reclined at table in his house, many
tax collectors and sinners were reclining with Jesus and his disciple,
For there were many who followed him, the scribes of
the Pharisees. When they saw that he was eating with
sinners and tax collectors, said to be his disciples, they said,
why does he eat with sinners and tax collectors. When
Jesus heard it, he said to them, those who are
(25:16):
well have no need of a physician, but those who
are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.
Underneath that question, which is irony. Underneath that question, was
(25:37):
what's more important to you? Healing or comfort? Okay, because
oftentimes for a mature Christ follower who recognizes neediness as
a spiritual necessity, deep healing does cause discomfort because it
(25:58):
means we have to acknowledge I'm sick.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
I don't have it all together.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
I can't carry the weight of my whole life anymore.
I became a christ Follower when I was five years old,
and right after I became a Christian. Right before I
became a Christian, my father had left us for another
woman and her child. And right after I became a Christian,
partly because I wanted a dad who wouldn't leave. That's
what the pastor preached on when I walked an aisle
(26:27):
and they sang just as I am seven hundred times
because you used to. They'd sing it until somebody walked forward,
and then you could finally go to lunch.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
But I put my hope in Jesus.
Speaker 3 (26:37):
I was just a peanut, and I understood at a
very very very basic level that I was a sinner
and God was the only one who had the deterchant
to clean my heart. I understood at a very basic
level that he was a heavenly father who doesn't abandon
his children.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
That's all I understood. And after I gave.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
My heart to Jesus, some men came and went from
our family who did things to.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
Me that no man should do to any woman, much
less a little girl.
Speaker 3 (27:06):
And so from my earliest memory, I have felt dirty,
And so I learned really early on I conflated a
dirty heart with being just dirty because of what had
been done to me, And so I conflated those two truths,
and I just resolved, I'm just going to try to
do better and be better. I'm just gonna try to
be good. I'm gonna fill in all the Bible state plants.
(27:28):
I'm gonna go to youth group. I'm gonna volunteer at
youth group. I'm gonna stack chairs, I'm to go to
youth camp. I'm just gonna do everything good that I
can possibly do to make up for how bad I am,
to somehow make.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Up for how dirty I am.
Speaker 3 (27:43):
So I became a class a poser, just a poser.
I love Jesus, and I believe this was true. I
didn't think this was a rule book. I really did,
at some level think it was a love story. I
just couldn't understand how God like that could really love
a girl like me.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
So I just tried to do better, be better, do better,
be better, do better, be better. It's exhausting.
Speaker 3 (28:10):
It's so exhausting to pretend like you don't need more healing.
How often in America do we pretend like atonement is
one and done.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
I came to Christ, I got baptized. I'm good.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
I'm good. I'm sixty one in single. I have four
chain sauce chain sauce. I mean, that's like an obsession.
I just want to cut things up. The reason I
have four chain saws is I live out in the
Boonies and we have five acres, and whenever we have
(28:47):
a storm that comes through, and these Charlatans who masquerade
as tree service guys tell me it's going to be
thirty five hundred dollars to cut up a tree that
fell down.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
I'm like you, I can.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
Kiss my big two because I'm not paying you thirty
five hundred dollars. Oh cut up my tree. So I
bought a chainsaw, and then I couldn't figure out how
to get the chain back on, so I'd buy another
one not messed up, and so then But I am independent, baby,
(29:21):
I mean, I grew up in an era where one
of the famous advertisements I think I had to do
with perfume, but the melody was I can bring home
the bacon done on fried up in a pan, thank.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
You, and never ever let you forget you're a man.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
That part of miss because I'm a warm I just
believe that hook line and sinker. Because I wasn't cared
for when I was young, I decided it was a
high value in my life to learn how to take
care of myself. When I begin to hear me say
say those things to my creator redeemer, I've got it.
(30:03):
I'm fine, I've got it, I'm fine. I realized I'm
not as healed as I thought I was because I
can't admit I'm sick anymore. And he came for those
who recognized they're sick. How well do you want to be?
Do you want to be healed or do you want
(30:27):
to be comfortable? Because those two are really congruent for
a Christ follower. Fifteen years ago, God mercifully kicked my
self reliant legs out from under my stool. I lost
two primary relationships, and I was diagnosed with cancer that
(30:49):
initially presented as brain cancer. And y'all, I just lost
the capacity to be self reliant, and I was ashamed.
I was so ashamed that I couldn't carry the weight
of my own life anymore. And I remember being curled
up and lived by myself little cottage south of Nashville.
I remember being curled up on the floor and God
(31:11):
spoke to me as clear as a belle. I've never
heard an audible voice, because sometimes his voice is so loud.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
Do you ever hear him when you're wrestling? Does he
ever whisper encouragement to you? Like you know? It's a lord?
And it's different than your dad's voice, isn't it. It's
just you know.
Speaker 3 (31:29):
John says that if you put your hope in Jesus,
you recognize his voice. It's different than any other voice.
And he said, and I'm so stupid. I'm shocked he
comes back again and again and again. I can be
so slow to learn and listen. But he said, Lisa,
you've been running scared your whole life, and so I'm
(31:51):
going to take you to the basement and I'm going
to sit there with you in the dark until fear
doesn't own you anymore. Great church father from the sixteen hundreds,
Saint John of the Cross, he called those seasons in
our lives when we feel like we can't carry the
weight of our own life and we feel like we're
(32:12):
in a dark valley.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
He called that a dark night of the soul.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
My dark night of the soul lasted for six months.
I was so weak I couldn't get out of bed.
And I'm not being hyperbolic. I could not physically get
out of bed without.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
Saying the name Jesus out loud.
Speaker 3 (32:34):
I just speak in the quietness of my little cottage, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.
I'd get out of bed and go to the bathroom
and I had scripture laminated next to my sink, and
I just had to speak those promises out loud to
remember them. I don't know about y'all, but sometimes my
heart's a calender. I mean, I'm finishing a doctorate in seminary.
(32:58):
I know enough Greek and Hebrew to bedous. My poor
little crooked heart lags so far behind my head because
I spent so long staying I'm fine, I'm fine When
I wasn't. He so graciously carried me when I was weak,
So gracious. I would go back to that valley again
(33:22):
because it's in that weak place that I learned what.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
A kind, strong god he is.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
That's where I learned to peel off my emotional spanks
and say, Lord.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
I need you.
Speaker 3 (33:39):
Oh, I need you every hour. I need you. Do
you want to get well?
Speaker 1 (33:51):
How well do you want to get?
Speaker 3 (33:55):
Because he had to leave this place of comfort and honor,
and I bet you he thought, how am I going
to provide.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
For my kids? Now?
Speaker 3 (34:05):
For thirty eight years, I knew who I was. I
got pretty comfortable using my arms in my brain. If
I walk behind him, everything is changing.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
I want to ask y'all.
Speaker 3 (34:23):
A couple of questions if I can be so old bold.
I was thinking old because I feel like I'm your nana.
Do you trust Jesus enough to become solely dependent on him? Y'all?
I have to answer these, but I want you to
think about him. Is being his beloved more important to
(34:48):
you than being a husband, a wife, your bestie's first call,
your children's parent, your company's CEO or volunteer the year?
Is Jesus a high life right in your story? Or
is he the sole author? Which is more important to you?
(35:14):
Comfort or healing. Intentional dependency is not an option for
healthy christ followers. Deep intimacy with Jesus requires conscious neediness.
(35:36):
As soon as this fella in John five said I
can't heal myself, Jesus said, take up your mountain walk.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
He didn't have to go to the water.
Speaker 3 (35:50):
He had to acknowledge I'm sick and I can't heal myself.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
Y'all, let me tell you this from experience.
Speaker 3 (36:00):
Hands you can have stage four emotional cancer and come
to church and raise your hands and sing the songs.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
And nobody knows you're sick because I did it.
Speaker 3 (36:14):
For a long time. I did it, and the questions
in my head were.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
Is this all? Is this all there is? Is this
all there is?
Speaker 3 (36:23):
And I knew I was posing, but I was scared
to death. One of y'all would look under the hood
of my life and say, she's sick. Yeah, apart from Jesus,
I am the sickest one of the lot.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
Apart from Jesus, I have no hope.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
Apart from Jesus, I will hurl sausage biscuits every single morning.
Apart from Jesus, I can't carry the weight of my
own life. I want to be so increasingly dependent on
Jesus that I can't get out of bed without saying
(37:04):
his name. And you know what that does for my
relationship with you? It lets you off the hook. Then
I can just be your friend. Then I can be
your mom. But I'm not looking to you from my identity.
I'm looking to you as brothers and as sisters. But
I've taken y'all off the cross. We've got to learn
(37:26):
what it is to be interdependent with each other as family,
as community, and solely dependent on Jesus. Chris and the
worship team are to come back up and just usher
us into the waiting arms of God. But if I
can be. Is it okay if I just act like
(37:47):
your old nana for another minute or two. The thing
I love about being sixty one is man I can
hug like a boss. And now I hug everybody and
it's not sexual. Big old boys, little bitty girl. It's
fun to be like a gorilla hugger. I'm going to
ask y'all to stand up as a family. And again,
(38:12):
I know, as a as an undeserved guest in this house,
I have not earned the right to ask you such
an honest question, and so thank you forgive me the
grace to do so and bearing with me. But if
you resonated maybe a little bit with me, maybe when
(38:34):
you were a kid, you weren't cared for the way
God designed you to be cared for, and so you
learned to take care of yourself as a survival skill.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
That too, is God's gift.
Speaker 3 (38:49):
It's just when we carry it into adulthood, it can
become armament that puts distance between us and others, and distance.
Speaker 1 (38:57):
Between us and God.
Speaker 3 (38:59):
If you consider yourself to be independent, self reliant, and
the Holy Spirit is whispering right now, you've done a
little bit too much of that with Jesus.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
You've got to learn how to be needy with Jesus.
Would you just sit down wherever you are. Thank you
Jesus for those of you.
Speaker 3 (39:37):
Who had to take care of yourselves because nobody else did.
Maybe you had a dad who left, or a mom
who didn't hug, or a spouse who hit. I'm so
sorry that that was a reality for you. As a
child of God. I want to remind you you don't
(40:00):
have to be strong with him. Your weakness he actually
transforms into strength. That doesn't mean victimhood. That means I
don't have to be scared because He's already assured the victory.
I don't have to pretend I'm something I'm not because
he says I'm beautifully and wonderfully made. Perfection is overrated,
(40:21):
he says, come as you are and I'll clean you up.
Those of you who are standing, can I encourage you
as they lead us in worship, and then we're going
to have a closing prayer. Can I encourage you to
just scoot over by one of those saints around you,
one of those brothers or sisters in the faith, and
lay hands on them. If this is your first time
(40:42):
at elevation that might not be in your comfort zone.
But again we're elevating heat, elevating healing over comfort. This morning,
would you just reach over and put your hand on
a saint and just pray for him. Pray that even
in this moment of such beautiful honesty, they would recognize
(41:02):
the nearness of God, that they'd recognize that His grace
really is sufficient for us, That they'd have the same
grace that this gentleman did in John's gospel when he said, I.
Speaker 1 (41:15):
I can't heal myself. I need you Jesus.
Speaker 3 (41:20):
That's all we have to confess, y'all. That is the
gateway to intimacy with Jesus is to say I need you.
I needed you for salvation and I still need you.
Speaker 1 (41:35):
Jesus. You are my breath.
Speaker 3 (41:38):
I can't breathe without you. You are my hope.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
I have no hope in my heart without you. You
are my peace.
Speaker 3 (41:46):
Apart from you, Jesus, I have too much anxiety. I
need you. Oh, I need you. I need you every hour.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
Thank you for joining us. Special thanks to those of
you who give generously to this ministry. Is because of
you that this ministry is possible. You can click the
link in the description to give now or visit Elevationchurch
dot org slash podcast for more information and if you
enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe. You can share it
with your friends. You can click the share button, take
(42:19):
a screenshot and share it on your social stories and
tag us at Elevation Church. Thanks again for listening. God
bless you.
Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
I'm the pastor of Elevation Church and this is our podcast.
I wanted to thank you for joining us today. Hope
this inspires you. Hope it builds your faith. Hope it
gives your perspective to see God is moving in your life.
Enjoy the message.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
My name is Lisa, and I can't even tell y'all
how excited I am to be here, how overwhelmed I
am to be here. You are family to me, whether
you claim me or not. I claim y'all. I deeply, deeply,
(00:40):
deeply love and respect Pastor Holly and Pastor Stephen, and
I know full well you could have anybody from around
the world and it would be an undeserved privilege for
them to be in this house. And so I'm always
surprised flying from Nashville to Charlotte that, yeah, I kind
(01:02):
of feel like the girl and the math club and
the quarterback aster to prom it is. I mean, not
that there aren't amazing girls in math clubs. My apologies
if you're in the math club, but.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
I just I'm always.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Just kind of undone that I get to be with
y'all because I love this house so much. Chunks and
Amy Corbett. I would follow y'all off a cliff. I
just think you hung the moon. And I'm feeling especially
nostalgic this week, and so I'm glad I get to
be with surrogate family because my little girl, some of
(01:39):
you I've met, and some of you know I became
a mom through the miracle of adoption, and the year
I turned fifty.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
I don't have a baby daddy yet.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
So if you know somebody, I'm sixty one, If you
know somebody between fifty five and death, I'll go younger
who's employed and loves Jesus and doesn't live in his
mother's basement.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
But anyway, it's just Missy and me.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
And she's turned in sixteen a week from today, and
so just all those all those mama feelings have been
well enough over the last week, and I've been talking
to her about all these memories I have from when
I first brought her home from Haiti in twenty fourteen,
(02:24):
and she had all these just precious habits, like one
of them was she called me Pablo the entire time
that I was adopting her from Haiti for two years,
she called me Mama Blah White mama in Creole.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
And then the day I.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
Brought her to Haye, Haiti to Nashville from Haiti, she
started calling me Pablo, and I thought that's just odd.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
She would switch to.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
Pablo and I'd go, no, no, baby, morialy mama, blah,
my name is white mama, and she'd go, no, Pablo,
And I thought, this is going to be just awkward
when she gets married, because if y'all don't get on
the stick and I don't have a husband, I'm going
to be the one that the pastor says, who gives
this woman, I'm going to go meet Pablo. And so
(03:14):
I kept trying to dissuade her from calling me Pablo.
She was insistent for about a month until we found
out that the very last Sunday stool Sunday school curricula
she had done in her orphanage, they don't make enough
curricula to print them in Creole, and so they'll borrow
from Spanish curricula because that's close enough to Creole that
(03:34):
the kids can usually get it. And the very last
little lesson she had done was on the missionary journeys
of Paul Pablo, and when she asked one of the
nannies at the orphanage. What does my mama blanc do,
my white mama do? Does she sell mangos?
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Does she?
Speaker 3 (03:49):
So they said, well, she's kind of like a missionary.
She travels around and talks about Jesus. And so my
punkin conflated those two stories and decided I was apostle Paul,
and so I could just imagine Paul and Glory going
really Jesus, like, really, could we get a better doppelganger.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
So that was one of her habits.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
Another thing that I thought was precious that she got
confused was her last name. Because I love teasing and
given nicknames, and the whole time I was adopting her,
I called her Scooter mctudor, And so the first couple
of times people asked her what her last name was
in Nashville, she'd go Missy Maketuda. I was like, no, no, no,
(04:30):
it's Harper, baby, It's Harper. Her last habit I told
her about this last week that was priceless. It was
a little alarming, but it was priceless was anytime we
came near a wall, like if we were walking next
to this or a fence, if I wasn't paying attention.
Missy would run up on the wall or the fence,
(04:51):
and then without any warning, she would just hurl herself
off the water fence toward me because she just knew,
like she knew her name, that I would catch her.
And it was so precious and a little scary to
just have this precious little little Haitian hurling herself off
high things into my arms. She, after about maybe a month,
(05:15):
dropped that habit. I was glad it might be hard
to catch her now. But are you okay if I
tell the hurling story?
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Okay? Will you put in your earbuds for this next
little cart?
Speaker 3 (05:27):
Hurling is still a habit in the Harper household. It's
not Missy though, it's me. I was driving her to
school for the last week of school just a few
weeks ago, the end of May, and we were going
over her history final, going over notes for her history final,
and we were driving to school and Missy had stayed
(05:48):
up most of the night studying for her finals, so
she wasn't in a good mood. Do you have them
in another one? And she was, I'll let you know
when you can pull them out. She did tell me
I could tell this story. But she's turned sixteen, and
I don't want to embarrass her unduly. When Missy, there's
how many of y'all have teenage daughters, you know, there's
just like three days a month that they swallow grimlins,
(06:12):
And so only like three days a month that she
Missy is normally the kindest. That's how you can tell
she doesn't have my DNA. She is kind, deeply kind,
But three days a week, she's a bear.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
So she had stayed.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
Up most of the night studying for her finals, and
then she had swallowed PMS grimlins, And so we're driving
to her Christian private school and she's just mad. And
I'm I think I'm Jesus junior. You know, I'm driving,
I've gotten her sausage biscuit from her favorite place. You know,
I'm just very patiently going over electromagnetic fields and characteristics
(06:47):
with her on the way to school so she'll pass
her test. And I said something, I remember what I said,
and Missy said something very sarcastic under her breath.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Now, I can handle j.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
About anything as a mama, except for disrespect.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Disrespect it's my achilles heel.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
And so I looked at this beautiful miracle child of
mine who was tired and had PMS. But I have
PMS two. It's called post menopausal demonic syndrome. And my
grimlins are big and tatted. My grimlins have little tears
(07:34):
on them, and they want to fight. And so when
I'm around disrespect my PMS, grimlins come out in hordes,
big angry hordes. And so I looked at Missy and
I said, what did you say?
Speaker 1 (07:51):
And she said hmmmm.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
And I pulled the car over to the side of
the road and I said, in this home, we at
least have the integrity to speak disrespect out loud.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
We don't say it under our breath.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
So would you like to try again and say that
out loud?
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Any of y'all have a mama like this?
Speaker 3 (08:18):
I mean, I should have been in time out myself.
But Missy, because of that three day period, she gets
braver than usual. She said it out loud, and you know,
I was backed into a corner at that point. I
had to do something, and so I didn't really know
what to do, and so I just snatched her biscuit and.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Threw it out in the window. It's her older biscuit
out the window and.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
Missy just went and I was like, I know, I
can't believe I her old true biscuit. I was so
grateful that within like thirty seconds, humor and humility invaded
our car, and some of my fruit of the spirit
came back. Patients came lipping back, my pms. Grimlins had
(09:07):
beaten patients. But it finally crawled back in the car
and we laughed, and I gave her my breakfast biscuit
so she wouldn't have a headache, dear in your history exam,
and we laughed by the time we got to school.
But I was like, man, it is different raising an
almost sixteen year old than it was raising a four
year old.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
When she was four.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
I put just I'm so sorry I scared your child, baby,
your mama, Your mama will not throw your biscuit. I
can cross. I'm the only hurler in the house this morning.
When she was four, I put most of my attention,
my affection into her, establishing roots so she would have deep,
(09:50):
deep roots, that she would know that she was loved,
that she was affirmed, that I wasn't going anywhere that
unlike her first mama, who passed when she was a baby,
I was going to do everything I could to stay here.
So those formative years were all about roots. Now that
Missy's growing up, it's all about wings. It's all about
(10:11):
me learning how to get behind her and affirm her.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
I've given her the parameters. She knows the boundaries.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
Now it's about giving her the grace to fly and
to become the woman God has created her to be.
When she was little, our intimacy was all about her
total dependency on me. Now that she's growing up, our
intimacy it's no longer based on her being totally dependent
(10:44):
on me. As a matter of fact, the more she matures,
the less dependent she'll be on me if she's healthy.
Now hang on and listen to me, Epham, do not
mess with your an espresso machine right now.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Hang on to this next truth.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
For human children, it's important as they grow up that
they become more independent. For children of God, it's exactly
the opposite. If you want to mature as a Christ follower,
we should be increasingly dependent on our creator, Redeemer. It's
(11:25):
counterintuitive in this world where plopped in you want to
grow as a Christ follower, it means you become increasingly
dependent on God. You don't cut the apron strings, they
become steel cables.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
If you brought your.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
Bibles turned to John's Gospel, We're going to look at
John chapter five today, very very very familiar story.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
You have heard this story before.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
If you grew up in a conservative church, you've seen
at flannel graft. You may have taught it before. John
Chapter five, verses one through nine. We're gonna look at
my favorite healing in John's gospel account. John is different
than the other three Gospels Matthew, Mark, Luke. Those are
called the Synoptic Gospels. That's just a fancy seminary word.
That means those three are written in a similar literary format.
(12:16):
They all have some type of a birth narrative. They
all have parables. Those are the stories Jesus taught. That's
half of his sermonic material. And they have a lot
of healings forty healings. In the Synoptic Gospels. John's Gospel
there are no parables. John is very different in the
way he describes the earthly ministry of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
He wrote it much later in his life.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
Theologians think he was probably in his sixties when he
wrote the gospel.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
According to John, and he only has four healings, And.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
This is my favorite of the four John Chapter five,
beginning with verse one, I'm reading from the ESV. After this,
there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went
up to Jerusalem.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
Now there is in jerus Us Islam by the sheep Gate, a.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
Pool in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades.
In these lay a multitude of invalids, blind, lamb and paralyzed.
One man was there who had been an invalid for
thirty eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and
knew that he had already been there a long time,
he said to him, do you want to be healed?
(13:24):
How many of y'all have heard this story before? Do
you want to be healed? One of my closest friends
grew up really close to here in Concord, North Carolina.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Her name is Eva Whittington's self one.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
Of the godliest, most amazing friends I have, And when
she was seventeen years old, she was in a hint
and run accident on an icy road. Her car flipped
into a ravine and her spine was severed, so she
was paralyzed. When she was seventeen years old, has two
steel rods to stabilize her spine. She's been pair lized
(13:58):
from this level since she was seventeen. She's a little
bit older than me in her early sixties, so she
has not been ambulatory for over forty years. She walks
in faith much more stable than I do. Has the
most amazing life, most amazing story, has two kids, miraculously
(14:19):
got pregnant and delivered her children, married to an amazing man,
a judge in Kentucky by the name of Andrew's self.
That I love Eva Whittington's self, and I love being
with my friend at women's conferences because every time, if
there's a ramp and I'm wheeling, even she's strong as
(14:40):
can be, super independent, drives herself, does everything, is much
more accomplished than I am.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
But if there's a ramp, I have to help.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
Wheel or wheelchair and I'll watch women and it's like, oh,
college cheapers. I might as well have walked into a
Kido convention with hot bread. I mean, it's just like
I know somebody's going to come up and ask Eva
if they can pray for her healing.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
It happens every time.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
Now, God absolutely could heal her spine if he wanted to,
but her spine was severed when she was seventeen, severed.
Medically speaking, it is impossible for her spine to come
back together again if she had had that accent. Today,
things have changed in the way they treat those type
(15:27):
of victims. There's a chance in a couple of years,
with what they're doing now, maybe maybe some stuff could
be regenerated, but not when Eva was injured. And of course,
thousands of people, including a lot of well known saints,
have laid hands on Eva, on an auditor with oil,
and in God's merciful sovereignty, He's chosen not to heal
(15:49):
that facet of her life.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
But if you talk to.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
Eva, she'll say, I don't hate this cheer. God has
used this chair to introduce me to my husband. God
has used the chair is a canvas on which to
paint what a good God he is. Her testimony includes
this part of her story. Well, we were at a
conference recently and I saw a woman and I thought
she's going to come up and be insistent about praying
(16:14):
for Eva.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
So sure enough she comes up and she said, I
would like to pray for you, and Eva said that
would be lovely.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
Now I'm holding her chair and I'm like, she said
that would be lovely. I'd really appreciate if you would
pray for my patience because I've been really short lately
with my daughters and my husband, and I know when
we get the through of the spirit, we have all
the fruit. But my patience is it's just a little
bitty green orb on my tree. And so would you
(16:43):
pray for God to give me more patience? Y'all?
Speaker 1 (16:45):
This woman got so ticked because she had an agenda.
Speaker 3 (16:49):
She wanted to be the hero who prayed and Eva
would stand up and walk. So when Eva said that,
I watched this woman's face and it just kind of
went you like she'd been sucking on lemons or her
spanks were just too tight, and she went, don't you.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Want to get out of that chair and walk? And
I was like, do you want to call nine one
one before I punch you in the threat?
Speaker 3 (17:18):
I'm so sure you have the arrogant audacity to ask
my friend if she wants to get out of this
chair and walk. You don't know what it was like,
was she wanted to stand up and kiss Andrew when
they got married. You don't know what it was like
when her baby started crying and she had to transfer
(17:38):
into your chair and roll down to the nursery. You
don't know what that was like for young mamma, And
yet you dare to question her. Oh I got so
ungodly mad. I mean sorry, I'm in leather pants, have
probably squeaked really terribly. But it made me so mad
because it was so condescending. And yet, and yet, if
(17:59):
we're on it, doesn't it almost sound like that's what
Jesus is asking the sky. Thirty eight years, he's been
going to the Pool of Bethesda. If you've studied the
background of the story, you know that people have gone
to this particular body of water for centuries because even
(18:20):
the Pagans believe there's something supernatural there. Something happens when
the water ripples and it has healing properties in it.
The Pagans weren't sure what it was, and then the
Jews came along. They believed it was the finger of Yahweh.
It's actually underground springs, but they believe there's something in
(18:40):
that pool that could bring about physical healing. This guy's
been going there for thirty eight years, and the first
question Jesus asked, is do you want to get well?
I mean, humanly speaking, that's almost an eye roller. Well,
of course, I've been dragging myself here for thirty eight years.
(19:07):
And we don't actually get the poignancy of this question
unless we get the sociohistorical context, because we think as
first world modern believers, this is a first century culture based.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
On shame and honor.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
If you're a note taker, write down t z e
d a k a h.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Tz ed ak ah.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
It's a pronounced saduka, almost like the game math game
you play in the airport, but not quite. It's a
Hebrew word. Some say sideka saduka. You can just say
it with authority in your small group and they'll think
you're smart. It's a Hebrew word that describes alms giving, charity,
or it's even translated righteousness in some of our English Bibles.
(20:06):
Their culture hinges on sideka when it comes to invalids,
when it comes to the blind, when it comes to
the lame, because in this shame and honor culture, they
were taught it is honorable to beg if you are
legitimately sick. So if you're blind, if you're paralyzed, as
(20:32):
this man was it is actually honorable for.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
You to beg and provide for your family.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
Several rabbis who are contemporaries of Jesus Christ actually taught
that begging was positive for the community because it gave
the community an opportunity to be generous. It was basically
the cultural ancestor of humble brags on social media. What
(21:00):
better way to prove you were a good person than
to drop some coins in somebody's outstretched hand in the
middle of a public place. So for this man to
be able to provide for his family and it to
be considered honorable for thirty eight years, I'm not suggesting
(21:21):
that he enjoyed being a paralytic. I am saying he
had grown comfortable in that he's able to do that
and provide for his family. He's able to do that
and actually be honored by culture, and Jesus says, do
you want.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
To get well, because this is going to change everything
for you. Son. For you to get.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
Deeply healed is going to cause some serious discomfort in
your story. Here's an old movie called The Shawshank Redemption,
and I don't want to encourage y'all to watch it.
I see a lot of you have when you were
struggling in your quiet times, but those you haven't watched
some real questionable language in it.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
But there's this one scene.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
It's a movie that kind of centers around a prison
and around this wise old convict played by Morgan Freeman.
There's this one scene where Morgan is sitting next to
a guy who's only recently been incarcerated for I think
he embezzled. Tim Robbins is the actor who plays them
so young convict and the Morgan Freeman's sitting there and
(22:27):
Tim Robbins is just completely discompopulated because one of their
friends had gotten out after years of being in prison.
He had gotten out and he reoffended really quickly and
was brought back on conditions of parole after only being
out for like a week or two, and Tim is
just undone.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
He's like, what a yay?
Speaker 3 (22:47):
Who I mean?
Speaker 4 (22:49):
He got out, He made it out of here, and
then it seems like he almost purposely got arrested and
go what info world?
Speaker 3 (23:01):
And Morgan Freeman is listening to him complain about why
in the world would this guy give up his hard
won liberty? And he waits for a minute and he says,
you know, at first these walls, and he gestures to
those prison walls with a barber wire on top.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
He said, at first these walls, you hate.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
Them, and then after a while you get used to him,
and then if you're in here long enough, you realize
you need them.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
I wonder how many of us have gotten so comfortable
being sick that we've started decorating our prison cell so
it'll feel more like a living room. How comfortable are
(23:59):
you being sick? Do you want to get completely well?
Because to be completely well it'll change everything. Do you
want to be well?
Speaker 3 (24:15):
Stick a finger in Luke and head backwards to Mark's gospel,
Mark chapter two, another very familiar encounter Jesus has with
some up adeat Pharisees. He went out again beside the sea.
(24:38):
This is Mark chapter two, beginning in verse fifteen. And
all the crowd was coming to him, and he was
teaching them. And as he passed by, he saw Levi,
the son of Alphaeus, sitting at the tax booth, and
he said to him, follow me.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
And he rose and followed him.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
And as he reclined at table in his house, many
tax collectors and sinners were reclining with Jesus and his disciple,
For there were many who followed him, the scribes of
the Pharisees. When they saw that he was eating with
sinners and tax collectors, said to be his disciples, they said,
why does he eat with sinners and tax collectors. When
Jesus heard it, he said to them, those who are
(25:16):
well have no need of a physician, but those who
are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.
Underneath that question, which is irony. Underneath that question, was
(25:37):
what's more important to you? Healing or comfort? Okay, because
oftentimes for a mature Christ follower who recognizes neediness as
a spiritual necessity, deep healing does cause discomfort because it
(25:58):
means we have to acknowledge I'm sick.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
I don't have it all together.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
I can't carry the weight of my whole life anymore.
I became a christ Follower when I was five years old,
and right after I became a Christian. Right before I
became a Christian, my father had left us for another
woman and her child. And right after I became a Christian,
partly because I wanted a dad who wouldn't leave. That's
what the pastor preached on when I walked an aisle
(26:27):
and they sang just as I am seven hundred times
because you used to. They'd sing it until somebody walked forward,
and then you could finally go to lunch.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
But I put my hope in Jesus.
Speaker 3 (26:37):
I was just a peanut, and I understood at a
very very very basic level that I was a sinner
and God was the only one who had the deterchant
to clean my heart. I understood at a very basic
level that he was a heavenly father who doesn't abandon
his children.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
That's all I understood. And after I gave.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
My heart to Jesus, some men came and went from
our family who did things to.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
Me that no man should do to any woman, much
less a little girl.
Speaker 3 (27:06):
And so from my earliest memory, I have felt dirty,
And so I learned really early on I conflated a
dirty heart with being just dirty because of what had
been done to me, And so I conflated those two truths,
and I just resolved, I'm just going to try to
do better and be better. I'm just gonna try to
be good. I'm gonna fill in all the Bible state plants.
(27:28):
I'm gonna go to youth group. I'm gonna volunteer at
youth group. I'm gonna stack chairs, I'm to go to
youth camp. I'm just gonna do everything good that I
can possibly do to make up for how bad I am,
to somehow make.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Up for how dirty I am.
Speaker 3 (27:43):
So I became a class a poser, just a poser.
I love Jesus, and I believe this was true. I
didn't think this was a rule book. I really did,
at some level think it was a love story. I
just couldn't understand how God like that could really love
a girl like me.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
So I just tried to do better, be better, do better,
be better, do better, be better. It's exhausting.
Speaker 3 (28:10):
It's so exhausting to pretend like you don't need more healing.
How often in America do we pretend like atonement is
one and done.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
I came to Christ, I got baptized. I'm good.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
I'm good. I'm sixty one in single. I have four
chain sauce chain sauce. I mean, that's like an obsession.
I just want to cut things up. The reason I
have four chain saws is I live out in the
Boonies and we have five acres, and whenever we have
(28:47):
a storm that comes through, and these Charlatans who masquerade
as tree service guys tell me it's going to be
thirty five hundred dollars to cut up a tree that
fell down.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
I'm like you, I can.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
Kiss my big two because I'm not paying you thirty
five hundred dollars. Oh cut up my tree. So I
bought a chainsaw, and then I couldn't figure out how
to get the chain back on, so I'd buy another
one not messed up, and so then But I am independent, baby,
(29:21):
I mean, I grew up in an era where one
of the famous advertisements I think I had to do
with perfume, but the melody was I can bring home
the bacon done on fried up in a pan, thank.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
You, and never ever let you forget you're a man.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
That part of miss because I'm a warm I just
believe that hook line and sinker. Because I wasn't cared
for when I was young, I decided it was a
high value in my life to learn how to take
care of myself. When I begin to hear me say
say those things to my creator redeemer, I've got it.
(30:03):
I'm fine, I've got it, I'm fine. I realized I'm
not as healed as I thought I was because I
can't admit I'm sick anymore. And he came for those
who recognized they're sick. How well do you want to be?
Do you want to be healed or do you want
(30:27):
to be comfortable? Because those two are really congruent for
a Christ follower. Fifteen years ago, God mercifully kicked my
self reliant legs out from under my stool. I lost
two primary relationships, and I was diagnosed with cancer that
(30:49):
initially presented as brain cancer. And y'all, I just lost
the capacity to be self reliant, and I was ashamed.
I was so ashamed that I couldn't carry the weight
of my own life anymore. And I remember being curled
up and lived by myself little cottage south of Nashville.
I remember being curled up on the floor and God
(31:11):
spoke to me as clear as a belle. I've never
heard an audible voice, because sometimes his voice is so loud.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
Do you ever hear him when you're wrestling? Does he
ever whisper encouragement to you? Like you know? It's a lord?
And it's different than your dad's voice, isn't it. It's
just you know.
Speaker 3 (31:29):
John says that if you put your hope in Jesus,
you recognize his voice. It's different than any other voice.
And he said, and I'm so stupid. I'm shocked he
comes back again and again and again. I can be
so slow to learn and listen. But he said, Lisa,
you've been running scared your whole life, and so I'm
(31:51):
going to take you to the basement and I'm going
to sit there with you in the dark until fear
doesn't own you anymore. Great church father from the sixteen hundreds,
Saint John of the Cross, he called those seasons in
our lives when we feel like we can't carry the
weight of our own life and we feel like we're
(32:12):
in a dark valley.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
He called that a dark night of the soul.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
My dark night of the soul lasted for six months.
I was so weak I couldn't get out of bed.
And I'm not being hyperbolic. I could not physically get
out of bed without.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
Saying the name Jesus out loud.
Speaker 3 (32:34):
I just speak in the quietness of my little cottage, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.
I'd get out of bed and go to the bathroom
and I had scripture laminated next to my sink, and
I just had to speak those promises out loud to
remember them. I don't know about y'all, but sometimes my
heart's a calender. I mean, I'm finishing a doctorate in seminary.
(32:58):
I know enough Greek and Hebrew to bedous. My poor
little crooked heart lags so far behind my head because
I spent so long staying I'm fine, I'm fine When
I wasn't. He so graciously carried me when I was weak,
So gracious. I would go back to that valley again
(33:22):
because it's in that weak place that I learned what.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
A kind, strong god he is.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
That's where I learned to peel off my emotional spanks
and say, Lord.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
I need you.
Speaker 3 (33:39):
Oh, I need you every hour. I need you. Do
you want to get well?
Speaker 1 (33:51):
How well do you want to get?
Speaker 3 (33:55):
Because he had to leave this place of comfort and honor,
and I bet you he thought, how am I going
to provide.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
For my kids? Now?
Speaker 3 (34:05):
For thirty eight years, I knew who I was. I
got pretty comfortable using my arms in my brain. If
I walk behind him, everything is changing.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
I want to ask y'all.
Speaker 3 (34:23):
A couple of questions if I can be so old bold.
I was thinking old because I feel like I'm your nana.
Do you trust Jesus enough to become solely dependent on him? Y'all?
I have to answer these, but I want you to
think about him. Is being his beloved more important to
(34:48):
you than being a husband, a wife, your bestie's first call,
your children's parent, your company's CEO or volunteer the year?
Is Jesus a high life right in your story? Or
is he the sole author? Which is more important to you?
(35:14):
Comfort or healing. Intentional dependency is not an option for
healthy christ followers. Deep intimacy with Jesus requires conscious neediness.
(35:36):
As soon as this fella in John five said I
can't heal myself, Jesus said, take up your mountain walk.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
He didn't have to go to the water.
Speaker 3 (35:50):
He had to acknowledge I'm sick and I can't heal myself.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
Y'all, let me tell you this from experience.
Speaker 3 (36:00):
Hands you can have stage four emotional cancer and come
to church and raise your hands and sing the songs.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
And nobody knows you're sick because I did it.
Speaker 3 (36:14):
For a long time. I did it, and the questions
in my head were.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
Is this all? Is this all there is? Is this
all there is?
Speaker 3 (36:23):
And I knew I was posing, but I was scared
to death. One of y'all would look under the hood
of my life and say, she's sick. Yeah, apart from Jesus,
I am the sickest one of the lot.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
Apart from Jesus, I have no hope.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
Apart from Jesus, I will hurl sausage biscuits every single morning.
Apart from Jesus, I can't carry the weight of my
own life. I want to be so increasingly dependent on
Jesus that I can't get out of bed without saying
(37:04):
his name. And you know what that does for my
relationship with you? It lets you off the hook. Then
I can just be your friend. Then I can be
your mom. But I'm not looking to you from my identity.
I'm looking to you as brothers and as sisters. But
I've taken y'all off the cross. We've got to learn
(37:26):
what it is to be interdependent with each other as family,
as community, and solely dependent on Jesus. Chris and the
worship team are to come back up and just usher
us into the waiting arms of God. But if I
can be. Is it okay if I just act like
(37:47):
your old nana for another minute or two. The thing
I love about being sixty one is man I can
hug like a boss. And now I hug everybody and
it's not sexual. Big old boys, little bitty girl. It's
fun to be like a gorilla hugger. I'm going to
ask y'all to stand up as a family. And again,
(38:12):
I know, as a as an undeserved guest in this house,
I have not earned the right to ask you such
an honest question, and so thank you forgive me the
grace to do so and bearing with me. But if
you resonated maybe a little bit with me, maybe when
(38:34):
you were a kid, you weren't cared for the way
God designed you to be cared for, and so you
learned to take care of yourself as a survival skill.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
That too, is God's gift.
Speaker 3 (38:49):
It's just when we carry it into adulthood, it can
become armament that puts distance between us and others, and distance.
Speaker 1 (38:57):
Between us and God.
Speaker 3 (38:59):
If you consider yourself to be independent, self reliant, and
the Holy Spirit is whispering right now, you've done a
little bit too much of that with Jesus.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
You've got to learn how to be needy with Jesus.
Would you just sit down wherever you are. Thank you
Jesus for those of you.
Speaker 3 (39:37):
Who had to take care of yourselves because nobody else did.
Maybe you had a dad who left, or a mom
who didn't hug, or a spouse who hit. I'm so
sorry that that was a reality for you. As a
child of God. I want to remind you you don't
(40:00):
have to be strong with him. Your weakness he actually
transforms into strength. That doesn't mean victimhood. That means I
don't have to be scared because He's already assured the victory.
I don't have to pretend I'm something I'm not because
he says I'm beautifully and wonderfully made. Perfection is overrated,
(40:21):
he says, come as you are and I'll clean you up.
Those of you who are standing, can I encourage you
as they lead us in worship, and then we're going
to have a closing prayer. Can I encourage you to
just scoot over by one of those saints around you,
one of those brothers or sisters in the faith, and
lay hands on them. If this is your first time
(40:42):
at elevation that might not be in your comfort zone.
But again we're elevating heat, elevating healing over comfort. This morning,
would you just reach over and put your hand on
a saint and just pray for him. Pray that even
in this moment of such beautiful honesty, they would recognize
(41:02):
the nearness of God, that they'd recognize that His grace
really is sufficient for us, That they'd have the same
grace that this gentleman did in John's gospel when he said, I.
Speaker 1 (41:15):
I can't heal myself. I need you Jesus.
Speaker 3 (41:20):
That's all we have to confess, y'all. That is the
gateway to intimacy with Jesus is to say I need you.
I needed you for salvation and I still need you.
Speaker 1 (41:35):
Jesus. You are my breath.
Speaker 3 (41:38):
I can't breathe without you. You are my hope.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
I have no hope in my heart without you. You
are my peace.
Speaker 3 (41:46):
Apart from you, Jesus, I have too much anxiety. I
need you. Oh, I need you. I need you every hour.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
Thank you for joining us. Special thanks to those of
you who give generously to this ministry. Is because of
you that this ministry is possible. You can click the
link in the description to give now or visit Elevationchurch
dot org slash podcast for more information and if you
enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe. You can share it
with your friends. You can click the share button, take
(42:19):
a screenshot and share it on your social stories and
tag us at Elevation Church. Thanks again for listening. God
bless you.
Host
Steven Furtick
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