Pastor Josh McPherson:
In 2005, our lives changed forever. We went to an ultrasound and heard the doctor say, "Your baby will be born in Spina Bifida, myelomeningocele, the most severe form, probably have Down syndrome and Trisomy 19, Trisomy 21, probably a good chance won't survive birth." And that inaugurated what has become now almost two decades of interaction with doctors and surgeons and nurses, yay, yay, yay, and genetic counselors, boo boo boo. If you are one, I'm sorry. You're welcome.
The closest I ever came to punching a woman was when she told me for the 10th time in a 30-minute meeting, it would be the merciful thing to do to abort this baby that was going to be a burden on not only our family but our society. And I said, "Lady," I said, "I'm either going to cuss, someone's going to get punched, or you're going to stop saying that, because this baby is a gift from the Lord. The only conversation we're having moving forward is what we can do to care for this baby the best."
And then we switched hospitals and moved on from there. But it has been a journey for our family that we didn't intend on taking. I did the math with my wife last night, 23 surgeries in 17 years between my wife with a heart attack and her defibrillator, and my son Gideon and my daughter Ella Mae. And so I brought some pictures here. And there's literally thousands of pictures I narrowed down to 250. So this shouldn't take long. I'm sure you'll enjoy this, be glad you got out of bed this morning. Sharon took that, this was the first surgery that Ella Mae was wheeled away in, and I was down at the end of the hallway trying to get myself together.
That's little Ella Mae there after, I think, her third surgery. That's Ella Mae in one of her surgeries. There's sweet little Ella Mae. We weren't able to touch her, hold her for weeks and weeks after she was born. It was very hard for Sharon. That's as close as we could get. I mean, look at that. Are you kidding me? And they said that was going to be a burden, come on. There she is looking pretty dang cute. There she is getting ready to go in for another brain surgery. There's a remarkable team of just heaven sent nurses and surgeons. That's her neurosurgeon on the far right there. And she's amazing.
That's Amelia Clara's reaction to, I think, Gideon's fourth surgery. And, oh, my gosh, that's funny. This was after an emergent trip over the mountains, because of some problems with Ella Mae's shunt. There they're rerouting her shunt in lieu of replacing it. There's Amelia walking her mom into the UDub Surgical Heart Center, kids walking her down the hallway to her first of five heart surgeries I believe, UDub Medical Center.
She was getting ready for the big surgery and the doctor said, "You should have some time with your wife before she goes into surgery." And he said it like... I was like, "What does that mean?" And she said, "You should just have some time with your wife." So that was our family time there. That was getting ready to go home, after the first surgery. This is back for the third surgery, a few months later, a portion of her heart that died after her heart attack. Defibrillator, they got to put in. That's how she felt... She's home right now with a head cold, so she doesn't know I'm showing these pictures. Oh, unless she's watching online. I hadn't thought of that.
Dang, sorry honey. That's her going into one of the surgeries. That's after she came out. That's her after the drugs kicked in. Oh, man. No drugs. Lots of drugs. You make the call. This is the hours before Sean Bower showed up with fried chicken and mashed potatoes. I don't know if Sean's here in the room this morning.
That's one of Ella Mae's doctors. Dr. Walker retired this year, dear sweet man. That's going in for some knee and foot surgery. That's doing some MRI stuff. That's after another one of her brain surgeries. Second time the shunt had to be rerouted. That's brother and sister watching after her. More awesome doctors, neurosurgeon on the left. Wow, smart people. I mean they have no family life, but I'm like, "As a man of God and pastor and person of the cloth, thank you for ignoring your family for 20 years to study neurosurgery." That's what I told her. She said, "You're welcome."
This is after another surgery, talking it out, coming out of the fog of drugs. That's after another surgery, talking out of the dog. That's one of Gideon's. They broke his kneecap and did a surgery. And that's one of his double surgeries on his feet, and so on and so forth. That's been our life for 17 years, almost two decades. And this morning's topic is on a topic of healing, specifically physical healing.
We're going to see an instance where Apostle Peter prays and God heals someone, actually two people, in the New Testament. We want to know how to think about that in our time today, living in the time we do. And I have three foundational presuppositions for us. And the first is this, that the two universal enemies of mankind are sickness and death. I don't care who you are, how old you are, how young you are, how rich you are, poor you are, what race you are, where you live on the globe, these are the two universal enemies on mankind, sickness and death.
So just by a show of hands, how many in the room in the last five years have had someone close to them who've died? Just raise your hand and keep it up, so we can all see. Just keep it up. Keep those hands up? And how many of you, if your hand isn't raised, have been sick in the last five years? Okay, how many of you are deaf and can't hear what I'm talking about now? Look around, that's every hand in the room, every hand in the room. We know people who've died. We know we're going to die. We've all wrestled with sickness and disease and suffering. It is the universal enemies of mankind.
Foundational presupposition number two, sickness and death are universal consequences of sin. We see this in Romans 5:12, therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, that would be Adam in the Garden, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sin. So you see the theological progression there. It's not first a scientific or a medical issue.
It's first a theological problem that God made man, put them in the Garden, and said all this is for you except this one tree. They rebelled against him, disobeyed. And as a result, the curse was given on the Garden and all mankind. And because one man sinned, we now are all born sinners by nature and by choice. And the consequences of sin is ultimately death. So that's the theological explanation for why we're dealing with these two universal enemies of sickness and ultimately death.
And then the third foundational presupposition is of course the good news of the gospel. And that is that Jesus conquers sin, and therefore sickness and death. Isaiah the prophet, spells us out in Isaiah 53, "Surely, He has born our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted." The prophet Isaiah is speaking about the coming Messiah, Jesus Christ, seven years prior to Jesus Christ showing up on the scene.
"But He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace," and with His wounds," or quite literally, by His wounds, "we are healed." So the theological explanation for the problem, and then the theological solution for the problem. The reason that you deal with sin and death is that we are under the curse as people who have chosen sin. The solution for sickness and death is not, first of all, science breakthroughs and technology advances. The solution, ultimately, for the healing of sickness and death is theological in the person of Jesus Christ.
And that He came to absorb the wrath of God and to make a way for sins to be forgiven. And when sins are forgiven, then the stain of death is removed. So those are my presuppositions. When we move into this conversation of healing, we talked about it back in Act 3, kind of laid out a grid for us to understand it with 10 questions that's there on our app or website, free to listen and watch if you'd like. I'm going to kind of build on that this morning.
And the reason I want to lay these presuppositions is because I think there's been a lot of bad teaching, therefore bad or confused, understanding in relationship to sickness, death, sin, Jesus, cross, gospel, healing. And it's something that my family's personally wrestled with through extensively, obviously, because of our experience. And I want to bring some of that to you this morning so we can align as a church family under the word of God in relationship to this question of healing, specifically physical healing.
So five questions about physical healing that we want to unpack this one. Number one, does Jesus heal people Today? We talked about this last time. We're going to say it again. Bad teaching, number one, is that no he doesn't. And there are some systems of theology in the church, in Christianity, even so in evangelicalism that say, "No, God doesn't heal today." And we reject that outright as unbiblical. Some of the impulses come from, well, the kind of healing we're going to see today, the argument they would make was unique to the apostolic era in that, "God was giving them the gift of healing to heal the sick and raise the dead, so as to put his mark of authenticity and credibility upon them to give them credibility as apostles."
To which I would say, "Totally, yes, and amen." I got no problem with that. I would not say someone going around claiming to be an apostle and healing people today carries the same weight and authority that the apostles who wrote the Bible did. And so I understand that we're seeing something unique here in the Book of Acts. We see Paul's conversion and then we see his kind of commission of the ministry. Now we're pivoting to portion two of Acts. The Book of Acts, you could break it up into three portions if you wanted. We're finishing portion one, we're opening kind of book two of the book. And it's establishing the credibility of Peter as a apostle of Jesus.
So I understand that there's something unique happening here, but that does not mean that God is not in the business of healing anymore. For instance, in James 5, we read this, "Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and an anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord Jesus. And the prayer offered in faith will make a sick person well. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective." So if your position is going to be that God doesn't heal anybody anymore, then you got to deal with why James said we should pray for God to heal sick people.
So a bad teaching number one is just to say, "No, he doesn't." Bad teaching number two, if we're going to go to the other end of the spectrum is to say, "Yes, and he has to." So there are some people who were just cheering what I said in the last 60 seconds, that's right, God still heals today. And then they would slide into camp of, and if you run the recipe, if you pray the prayer, if you dance high enough and shout loud enough and use enough oil, I mean, baptize him like a breaded cod, you're going to fry in your pan. I mean if you just do this stuff or go to the right guy or get the oil that came from Jerusalem, that's the stuff you got to get or you get the hanky woven over you or whatever it is, if you go to the right revival or go to the right preacher, then God has to heal you.
And if he doesn't, that means there's something wrong in the equation, probably, you. You don't have enough faith. There's sin in your life somewhere. You don't believe enough, and now you got to fix you. And it's a horrible theology and it's a terribly unbiblical teaching and it is burdened and stressed and depressed many, many earnest and genuine saints who want to believe that God can heal. And if he doesn't, don't know what to do with that. And so bad teaching number two is that, yes, God still heals today and he has to, and he's obligated to if you pull the right lever.
To which I would simply offer a few texts that I offered a few weeks ago, and I'll mention them again. And there's more, this is just a few in 2 Timothy 4, Paul who is an apostle who prayed for God to heal people and they were healed who rose people... I mean this guy did some big time things in the power of the Spirit as an apostle.
And here he says, "I having to happened to move on my way and leave that dude," who has the unfortunate name that I can't pronounce, Trophimus, I don't know. Trophimus, how about Troy? "Who was sick, and I left him at Miletus. And I had to keep going because he was sick and he was unable to continue traveling." And we know that Paul prayed for his healing and it didn't happen, and Paul moved on. Did that mean Paul failed? Or Paul was in sin? Or Paul lacked faith? No, not at all. It simply means that God doesn't have to heal people if he doesn't want to.
2 Corinthians 12:7, Paul prayed, "A thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But He said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power's made perfect in your weakness.'" Universal agreement with theologians and academics alike, this was some sort of physical affliction, chronic pain, illness, disease that Paul was dealing with. And he pleaded, not prayed, not thought about it, pleaded, begged in tears on the bed of his pain in the middle of the night.
I think it was back pain. I think it was back pain, because that's what I've had. So I'm like, "Back pain's the worst." And whatever pain you happen to deal with, if you have chronic pain at times, that's the worst. And I'll give it to you. I mean it's like I understand drugs for the first time after I had chronic back pain, I'm like, "I don't care, legal or illegal, give it to me now, and we'll deal with the consequences later." No, obviously I don't support that, but boy, I've been there and I get it.
Paul begged three times for him, the pain to be removed, the sickness to be relieved, the pain to be relieved. And God said, "No, my grace is sufficient for you. My power's made perfect in weakness." And what God's doing there is He's showing Paul that, "I have the power to heal you if I wanted to. And at this time, I'm choosing not to because I have purpose for your pain that's deeper and more meaningful and more important and more critical than you being relieved of your pain in this moment." And this isn't a sadistic God who enjoys to inflict pain on His children. This is a loving God who knows what's best for His kids.
You know as a parent, if you relieve your child of all pain and if you never allow them to suffer and if you bubble wrap them through life, you're setting them up for catastrophic character failure. Part of being a good parent is allowing your kids to suffer, and not always stepping in to relieve the pain. And here, what God is doing is he's demonstrating and he's showing Paul that, "I have purpose in the suffering. You can trust me for my glory and your good."
And this is the place I came to when Ella Mae was first diagnosed with Spina Bifida because as a dad, as you know, you wish you could take the suffering. And one of the most frustrating, helpless feelings is to see a loved one like your wife or your children suffer, and you can't do anything to stop it or alleviate it. You feel absolutely helpless. And I remember getting on my theological [inaudible 00:16:57] at the time, the theological system that I held was not holding the weight of this new moment.
And thanks be to God, that system began crushing under the weight, so that it could be rebuilt with a more biblical way of seeing the world. And my thought process went like this. Do I believe that God foresaw that my child would be born with Spina Bifida? Like, "Well, if the doctors can see it with the ultrasound, pretty sure God knew this was coming." Two, do I believe God could have healed my baby girl in utero or at any point in the process to this day? Yes. Did God heal my child in utero from Spina Bifida completely? No. Now I got to deal with it. Could have he? Yes. Did he? No. How do I deal with that?
And the only solution I could come to that made any sense biblically was not that God was unloving, not that God was uncaring, not that God was busy and missed something, but that God had designed in the suffering. And we see Paul saying the very same thing here. God said, "I love you, I hear you, and what you need now more than the alleviation of pain is grace from me that's sufficient for you in the suffering."
So bad teaching number two is to say that God has to. Good teaching is does Jesus heal people today? Yes, if he wants to. Are there different kinds of healing? Yes, there are. And first is the physical healing. I believe God can heal people today. I've witnessed it with my own eyes. I believe God's healed me of different pain and sickness and disease. And God can use science medicine, the advancements of technology. He can use medication. He can use prayer. He can use all sorts of means of grace to bring about physical healing. He can also just do healing supernaturally.
But God also heals spiritually. And I want to broaden the focus of our attention this morning, because the reason in which God exercises healing, physical healing in a broken world is to foreshadow and as a prophetic vision of what is to come. And that is namely the healing of all things when Jesus comes back to judge the living and the dead, and to give all those in Christ the resurrected bodies and to restore the Earth to the Garden of Eden. And the perfection there in that he designed to be with his kids unimpeded by sin.
God can bring emotional healing and mental healing and relational healing. Because see you and I as human beings are complex creatures and creations. We are not just brains on a stick. We are not just spirits. We are not just a mass of cells and blood veins and bones and muscle and sinew. We are this complex amalgamation of body, soul, mind, spirit. And we have a relational side and a mental side and an emotional side and a spiritual side and physical side. The psychological elements that separate humanity from the animal kingdom.
All these things go into making up who you are. And because of the fall and because of your nature to sin and because of the choices of sin that you've made, because of sin potentially and perhaps has been done to you, there is a brokenness in you that is deep and complex and not easily undone. The more simple something is, the more simple the fix. The more complex something is, the more complex the fix.
And when Jesus came to absorb the wrath of God and offer forgiveness of sin, He offered the beginning of the unraveling of the curse and the beginning of the healing of all the complexities of our sin. And in one sense, positionally, we are fully healed in Christ, theologically and positionally. And then practically working that out, that healing is happening in an ongoing and increasing way, Lord willing, as we follow Him in that sanctification process we unpacked last week.
And so many are broken mentally or broken psychologically, broken emotionally, broken relationally. And the breaks in those areas also plays itself out in the physical realm. A book that you don't have to read to understand the point is The Body Keeps Score. You don't have to read the book. It's an amazing book. There it is. The Checklist Manifesto, you don't need to read the book, just tells you checklists are important.
A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, the best book no one's ever read, Eugene Peterson, but everyone quotes the title. It's just that good. The Body Keeps Score, an incredible book written on how all of the poor decisions you make and all of the stress you experience and all of the anxiety and fear that you encounter, all the uncertainty that you mentally deal with every day, all of that, the score of that game is being kept in your body.
And so when Jesus comes to heal us by his brokenness, he's not just looking to heal your bad back, your rheumatoid arthritis, and the things that we can focus on, because the pain is very, very sharp maybe in that particular moment. But friend recognizes there is a far deeper complexity or brokenness that Jesus is in the business of healing, even now, that you can be grateful for that goes beyond the mere healing in the physical realm.
Number three, where does the power of healing come from? Well, here's where we're getting to our text Acts 9:32, let's read it together. As Peter traveled about the country, he went to visit the Lord's people who lived in Lydda. There he found a man named Aeneas who was paralyzed and had been bedridden for eight years. "Aeneas," Peter said to him, "Jesus Christ heals you. Get up and roll up your mat."
I love Luke's detail. He's obviously giving a nod and a wink too here that the language Peter uses in this story and the next are just so similar to the language that Jesus used when He healed a paralytic in Luke's account of Jesus' life. And when he raised the dead person back to life. And obviously Peter watched that, observe that, and is drawing on that, even now.
"Immediately, Aeneas got up." Verse 35, "All those who lived in Lydda and Sharon saw him and turned to the Lord." So just so we're clear, I do not believe that men or preachers or anyone who claims they have some special Batphone to heaven, have the power of healing. It's Jesus who has the power to heal, full stop. And He can move and work through medicine and science and the prayer of a 10-year-old girl, the prayer of the saints. He can move through whoever he wants in response to a request for healing to heal.
But let's make no mistake, it's not a pastor, it's not a personality, it's the power of God in Christ that brings about physical healing. Peter is very, very, very clear to make sure, "Just so you know, because word's going to get out and the temptation of people will be to elevate me. And just so we know I am a blue collar, fisherman with a temper, Jesus Christ healed you."
Why does God heal? Well, I think there are multiple purposes, and I spelled these out a few weeks ago. I'll just mention them quickly. Number one here in this text, I believe He's giving the gift of healing to authenticate his messages in the apostles, Paul and Peter. I mean Jesus is new on the scene. Christianity isn't even called Christianity yet. It's called the way. I mean, churches are kind of getting started, but it's just these massive crowds right now and they're having leadership issues, having to reorganize themselves. And how does this work? And they're trying to figure all this stuff out.
Who's a true apostle? Who's a true messenger of God? Who's not? And here I believe Jesus is using these instances of healing to authenticate the apostles, who would go forth to preach the gospel and write the New Testament that has become our Bible. Secondly, Jesus heals to demonstrate his love of mercy. Jesus cares about the sick and the broken more than you do. And most of the time some of us have different levels of empathy than others. I have a very high level empathy compared to my wife.
That was a joke. My wife's a nurse, because she loves people. I'm like, "Rub some dirt on it." Until I get sick, then I'm like, "Oh, my gosh, could you please come rub some dirt on it for me?" I mean I am like the most incompassionate person that comes to sickness and illness, which I think is why the Lord allowed me to walk where I walk, to beat some compassion and empathy into me, which she has done. Thanks be to God. But what can I say I take after my mom? "You're sick. Well, you're on your own." I mean the nurse of our family was my dad. Amen, [inaudible 00:26:07] Mom.

mom:
That's true.

Pastor Josh McPherson:
Yeah, that's true. There's no argument here. We're not at odds at this point of her parenting. I mean, after we went to bed, if we were sick, I mean I never saw my mom again. She's like, "I'll see you in the morning." It's, "Dad's on duty." And so it was Superman in his underwear who came running into our bedroom at night when we were crying for help. And so some ways I take after my dad, and some ways I take after my mom, and that's one of them.
But even when I think about my love of compassion for my wife, who I love deeply and my children who I love deeply and who I've asked God many times to remove from them and afflict me if he needs to, but to take it away from them. And what God's shown me is, "Josh, I'm grateful you're learning love and compassion. This is good. This is a part of the purpose. And I love them more than you do, because I made them and they're my children, before they were your children."
And so when God extends healing, it's His demonstration of love and mercy. God, the Father sent His Son to be bruised, battered, and broken so that He might heal all those who would come to Him through faith in Christ. When God heals, its equipping people to serve by removing impediments to ministry. I mentioned this a few weeks ago and I believe God healed Adam James' brain from the abuse of drugs to make it sharp, so he could challenge me and push me and be a part of growing and pastoring this church family. So he could write and articulate and argue and reason and preach and teach.
And he has a mind that he should not have as a result of the decisions that he made with his life in his early days up in P Town USA. And God I believe healed that for the sake of removing impediments to using Adam for ministry. He does it to glorify himself by demonstrating His power. And He does it to point to His kingdom, because in His kingdom there'll be no sickness, no death, no tears, no pain, no chronic illness, no disease. And He gives us windows and echoes of that when He brings physical healing to this world as a means of experiencing the now and not yet kingdom. The kingdom is here but not yet fully here.
And whenever I see someone, I talk to someone Thursday night that I believe God's supernaturally healed of relational, emotional, and even some mental brokenness. There's a joy and countenance on their face, they have never had before. There's a sense of kind of stunned awe in the face of the friends and parents observing her, expressing her faith in Jesus. And that's pointing ahead to the coming kingdom, where broken little children like her can be made whole.
But we see ultimately the purpose of healing here. And then our next story, Acts 9:36. We'll read it together. "In Joppa there was a disciple named Tabitha (in Greek her name is Dorcas); she was always doing good in helping the poor. About that time she became sick and died, and her body was washed and placed in an upstairs room. Lydda was near Joppa; so when the disciples heard that Peter was in Lydda, they sent two men to him and urged him, "Please come at once!"
Peter went with him, and when he arrived he was taken upstairs to the room. All the windows stood around him, crying and showing him the robes and other clothing that Dorcas had made while she was still with them. Peter sent them all out of the room; then he got down on his knees and prayed. Turning toward the dead woman, he said, "Tabitha, get up." She opened her eyes, and seeing Peter she sat up. He took her by the hand and helped her to her feet. Then he called for the believers, especially the widows and presented her to them alive. This became known of all over Joppa, and many believed in the Lord. Peter stayed in Joppa for some time with a tanner named Simon."
Now what what's happening here is there were two healings in both accounts, and you saw the one and missed the second. In the first healing, and the first story was that the paralyzed man walked. The second healing was that many came to faith in Jesus. The first healing in this story was that one dead woman came back to life. The second healing in this story was that many turned to Christ in faith. So that the physical healing always pointed people to the reality of God's power and potential to heal spiritually. And while one person was physically healed, many people were spiritually healed.
And that's good for us to see. It's also maybe kind of fun little theological point to clarify here, this is not resurrection healing, this is revivification. So she died, she was revived, she then died again. You know that don't you? Dorcas isn't walking around somewhere with a podcast. So she died, she was revived, she died again. And she's awaiting, with my grandma and grandpa and one day me when I die, for the resurrection that Jesus will bring about of all those who have placed her faith in Christ when He comes a second time to judge the quick and the dead, and restore all things to Himself and to establish His kingdom forever.
So this wasn't resurrection. Jesus is the first resurrected man. He's the only one who knows what's on the other side of death. And He's dealt with it. And He's come back. He's the first resurrected man and we will all be like Him when we are resurrected. We will be given resurrected bodies. She was not given a resurrected body. She was revived in her old body. Just to clarify that for you. So will all of God's children receive healing? And the answer in John is this. Jesus said to Martha, "I am the resurrection and the life, whoever believes in me though he die yet shall he live." If you live eternally, guess what? You've been healed.
And then he says in Revelation 24, "He will wipe away every tear from their eyes and deaths shall be no more, neither shall there be mourn nor crying nor pain anymore for the former things have passed away." And what God says through John in Revelation is that, "There is a day coming when all who are in Christ will be healed," full stop.
So when we ask questions like, does Jesus still heal people to today, right now? It's a very narrow question born from the minds and hearts of people locked in the time-space continuum. Because the broader theological answer that's quite simple is that, yes, God will heal all who are in Christ. It'll be a full and complete and thorough healing in giving them a new resurrected body. And the neck pain, the back pain and all the other pain will go away. Now whether he heals in this life or the next, healing is coming for those who are in Christ.
And so what God taught me is when I faced the reality of potentially losing children, and we've had three miscarriages. And so we've been close to death. We've experienced death. My uncle Larry passed away a few weeks ago, lost three of my four grandparents. We've experienced death in our family. But what God taught me is that death is not the worst thing. I remember when Ella Mae was diagnosed with Spina Bifida, and I thought, "My goodness, how could God allow this big tragedy befall upon our family?" And again, God doesn't speak to me often audibly. I'm a seer. I see things. I don't hear things often. I see things.
But God spoke to me, and I heard the Lord say to me just as a deep impression of my mind and heart, "Josh, you're using the wrong language. Your daughter growing up with two legs that don't work is not tragedy. Your daughter growing up with two legs that work and walking away from the Lord and her heart, that's tragedy." And so God just reframed what tragedy looks like for me, so that I came to believe with all my heart that dying is not the worst thing that could happen to a person, dying without Jesus is. And that's why God is still in the business of healing people today to heal them from that ultimate catastrophe of living and dying apart from Christ.
And so what I want to do now, I want to give the last word of this morning to someone who's near and dear to my heart, and who has taught me a lot about this. I'd like you to meet her. Sweetie pie, are you here? Hey, baby doll.

Ella Mae:
Hello.

Pastor Josh McPherson:
Hello. Good to see you.
I got to go get your microphone. Hang on here. Yes. You look so cute this morning, babe. You look better when I left this morning in your bed with all the hair all matted up.

Ella Mae:
That was supposed to be a secret, remember?

Pastor Josh McPherson:
I know my bad Ella Mae came back from the youth retreat last night where she was at with my youth pastor, pastor Kent, and came home with Mrs. Apple to be with us this morning. So thanks for missing the last part of the retreat to help your daddy out with a sermon. We're going to end the sermon here in five minutes, and invite people to come down and to be prayed for, for healing. We've been including a prayer portion in our service. I'll explain more of that probably to you next week. We're going to go every other week with prayer and communion. This morning our prayer teams are ready to receive people who want prayer for physical healing for themselves or for a family member.
And Thursday night was a sweet time [inaudible 00:36:09] people who have been recently diagnosed with cancer and MS and chronic pain and all sorts of maladies and illnesses that we were able to pray with them over and pray over them with. Just a powerful time to pray for friends who are struggling with difficult physical ailments. And so we're going to have a time like that at the end of this service here, in just a few moments. And so if that is you or no Solan, please just be preparing your heart, while I invite you to down to pray with the saints, to ask the Lord to bring healing to that.
So I wanted to ask you a couple questions. I called you Thursday during sermon prep and I kind of fired some questions at you. And one of my first questions, and you can answer it quickly, because I want to get to some of the new ones I haven't given you yet, I'm want to surprise you, is you've read your Bible a lot and we've read the Bible a lot, and we read portions of scripture where God heals paralyzed people. What do you think when you read those portions of scripture or hear those stories?

Ella Mae:
Well, I think that back in the day there was a lot of modern medicine that they didn't have. And so my first thought goes to that and how grateful I am for the doctors, and oh, my goodness sakes alive. And just to kind of put myself in that perspective of what that would be like to be paralyzed for eight years, and not have the modern science and technology that we have today.

Pastor Josh McPherson:
You said something about how your experience is different than his and you think his is harder.

Ella Mae:
I think mine is different from his in the perspective that I've been not able to walk since birth. And in the story we read that he has been paralyzed for eight years, and I would be guessing that he's a lot older than eight years old. And so there was a time in his life where he experienced and knew the sensation of walking. And so I think that in that perspective it's different, because I have never known the sensation of walking for 17 years. So...

Pastor Josh McPherson:
You told me, "I think he probably had it a lot harder than me," which I thought-

Ella Mae:
I think so, yes.

Pastor Josh McPherson:
... was amazing. I was like, "Wow, that's not what I would've said." When you read Jesus and Peter healing, asking the Lord to heal them, and them getting up and jumping, running, dancing, what do you feel? And to be more specific, I asked you on the phone when you were at school on a lunch break, I said, "Have you ever felt jealous?" Is the what I asked? And I thought what you said was very interesting.

Ella Mae:
Well, I think the word jealous popped into my head, but it quickly left, which is crazy. And I think the Lord has helped me in this and gave me just a supernatural sense of peace, because I don't think there's ever been a time, and yes, there's been hard days, oh my goodness, there's been such hard days, but I don't think there's ever been a time where I really wished to be different or regretted anything.

Pastor Josh McPherson:
Why is that?

Ella Mae:
Because of the help of the Lord. I don't know, I think I have a very grounded sense of purpose. I have work to do and I'm really excited to have this platform.

Pastor Josh McPherson:
What would you say to someone who asked you, because people have asked this and then we kick him out of the church, but they've asked you, "Why hasn't God healed you?"

Ella Mae:
I would say He has. He has healed me spiritually. I've accepted Him as my Lord savior and we're very close. And I would say too, He's healed me in a way that I shouldn't be here right now, at all. I should not be alive. I was not supposed to get past addition and subtraction. And I'm struggling, but in algebra, it's not working very well, but I'm there.

Pastor Josh McPherson:
Exactly. You're there. And she's getting 105% in her-

Ella Mae:
Chemistry.

Pastor Josh McPherson:
... chemistry, which is the highest grade a McPherson has ever gotten in science.

Ella Mae:
So, yeah.

Pastor Josh McPherson:
And lastly, what would you say to someone who's been praying for God to heal them and He hasn't, and they're discouraged?

Ella Mae:
I would say, "I'm sorry, but I'm not. I don't want to belittle your pain and your suffering, I really don't because I have a lot of hard days and I know what you can go through. But I get excited, because I know that there's more work to be done. And I know that God has a purpose and I've seen it in my life, and I really want to help you see it in yours."

Pastor Josh McPherson:
Awesome. The band could come out. Would you just pray for these dear folks? And we're going to invite him to come down and we're going to ask the Lord for healing this morning, and we're going to ask the Lord to take away the pain, because I think he wants us to do that, as a good father. And so would you pray after, invite you to stand, maybe you can stand up and you want to pray for us, and then we'll do some singing and some worshiping and some praying.

Ella Mae:
All right. Father, thank you for this time. Thank you for this morning. I pray that you would be with each of us. I thank you that you have been. I pray if there's anybody here that needs healing, would you give it? We know you can, whether it's physical, whether it's emotional, whether it's mental. And if not, Lord, I just pray for perspective. I pray for comfort and I pray for peace. And I pray that they would know that you have a purpose. And I pray that even though sometimes you don't reveal everything, that you would give them a sense of purpose and give them a sense that you have greater things. I pray that, again, if there's anybody that would need healing, that you would give it, by the power of your Holy Spirit. Thank you for attending our time. We love you. In your name, amen.

Pastor Josh McPherson:
Amen.