SPEAKER_01: You're listening to the road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.
SPEAKER_00: Men and women, everybody look at me.
SPEAKER_00: You're all beloved.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus would say to you, here today, beloved daughter, beloved son.
SPEAKER_00: I love you.
SPEAKER_00: I created you for a purpose, you beloved.
SPEAKER_00: No matter where you've been, no matter what you've done, you're my beloved son, you're my beloved daughter.
SPEAKER_00: I want you.
SPEAKER_00: I want to know you.
SPEAKER_00: I want to fall in love with you as you fall in love with me.
SPEAKER_00: I love you with all of my heart, soul, mind.
SPEAKER_01: At The Road, our mission is to empower people to change the world.
SPEAKER_01: For more information on The Road, visit theroad.org.
SPEAKER_01: We hope you are encouraged by today's message from Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.
SPEAKER_00: Interesting passage we're in in Matthew chapter 8, where we concluded a couple weeks ago.
SPEAKER_00: We did do the uh, you had the four of us up here after the couples conference last week, so we had a break.
SPEAKER_00: But we're looking at the life of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And I just have to say this, men and women, that I am more impressed with Jesus than I've ever been in my whole life.
SPEAKER_00: That to go through, you're privileged that we're going through what historians have always felt was the premier gospel, that Jesus being presented as king through Levi, who were actually, he's going to autobiographically talk about how he was called to be a Jesus disciple and became Matthew, wrote to the Jews at that time of the kingdom of God and the coming of the king, like no other of the gospel writers.
SPEAKER_00: And so it's an honor to teach this book.
SPEAKER_00: And as I go through it, I'm like, man, we could camp on any one of these pericopes, any one of these passages, we could just spend the whole time there.
SPEAKER_00: But because of time, and because I want to get the flow of Jesus as our King, we're going to move through several different parts of Jesus and how he heals and how he ministers.
SPEAKER_00: So let me give you the title.
SPEAKER_00: The title I've given today is Demons, Forgiveness, and Healing.
SPEAKER_00: Demons, Forgiveness and Healing.
SPEAKER_00: Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Siegel, a pediatric and general surgeon, has said this.
SPEAKER_00: If I told my patients to raise their blood levels of immune globulins or killer T cells, no one would know how.
SPEAKER_00: So he's talking about increasing your immune system.
SPEAKER_00: But if I told them to love themselves and others fully, the same changes happen automatically.
SPEAKER_00: The truth is, love heals.
SPEAKER_00: And that's from Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Siegel's book, Love, Medicine and Miracles.
SPEAKER_00: Many women, you've heard me say this so many times.
SPEAKER_00: You don't break kingdom laws, kingdom laws break you.
SPEAKER_00: So if you overeat, it hurts you physically.
SPEAKER_00: If you over-drink, it hurts you physically.
SPEAKER_00: If you worry and you're stressed out and don't know how to handle the problems in your life, it hurts you emotionally and mentally.
SPEAKER_00: It's Billy Graham who said that if you told all the patients in any hospital in the United States that they were forgiven, 90% would walk out healed the next day.
SPEAKER_00: Many of us are carrying unforgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: Many of us are in emotional and mental bondage.
SPEAKER_00: So when we come up to get prayer for healing, and I do believe in physical healing, and we see it all the time around here.
SPEAKER_00: We've seen almost every, I don't think we've ever raised the dead, but we've seen a lot of people healed dramatically.
SPEAKER_00: I remember last year an older man in our church who was who I was told through a text that he would probably die in the next few days, but I'd come and pray over him.
SPEAKER_00: And instead, I came into the sanctuary to pray for him, and the Spirit of God came upon me like only maybe a dozen times in my life, and I began to shout to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Just shouting to the Lord that he would be healed.
SPEAKER_00: And faith just filled my heart, and he was healed that day, and he's not been back in the hospital since, and they don't understand what in the world happened.
SPEAKER_00: That stuff happens.
SPEAKER_00: It's exciting.
SPEAKER_00: But, but I say that to say this.
SPEAKER_00: That many of us that come for healing need to do also inventory of our lives on a regular basis.
SPEAKER_00: I did this because I'm getting older.
SPEAKER_00: And Liz and I were just on two days, we were in Buena Vista, and we always do this when we get away together, is we kind of take inventory of where we're at.
SPEAKER_00: How are we doing physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually?
SPEAKER_00: And you guys saw us model last week, if you were part of the couples conference, how we pray together every morning.
SPEAKER_00: And that strengthens our inner man, our inner woman, and what you're gonna read here in just a moment is gonna encourage us in aspects of how important it is to follow kingdom principles in every area of your life, and it really does work.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus' way works.
SPEAKER_00: Let me just say that again.
SPEAKER_00: The Jesus Kingdom way works.
SPEAKER_00: It actually works in your daily life.
SPEAKER_00: It's the most exciting adventure you can ever be on.
SPEAKER_00: And you that have friends that are involved in drugs, involved in illicit sex, involved in activities that are unbiblical and not right, look at their lives.
SPEAKER_00: Are they really happy?
SPEAKER_00: There's just destruction following in the wake.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus, what I love about Jesus and what I love about Matthew, is it's so real.
SPEAKER_00: Now you probably haven't seen a demonized man running out of the tombs.
SPEAKER_00: But let me explain.
SPEAKER_00: So look at verse 28 of chapter 8.
SPEAKER_00: When he had come to the other side of the country of the Gergesenes.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus, the last time we were together, was over in Capernaum.
SPEAKER_00: Now he's taking a boat all the way to the east side, the cliff area, you that are going to Israus, will go there and you'll see the land of the Gergosenes.
SPEAKER_00: There he met two demon-possessed men.
SPEAKER_00: How many would you say that you've met a demon-possessed person before?
SPEAKER_00: Raise your hand.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, the word demon-possessed, Daimonazamai, in Greek, King James Version translation gave us demon-possessed.
SPEAKER_00: Bad translation.
SPEAKER_00: It's not, in my opinion, in the 20th and 21st century, I possess my tundra.
SPEAKER_00: I possess my raphor.
SPEAKER_00: I own them.
SPEAKER_00: I think it's too strong of a word.
SPEAKER_00: The word actually that I mentioned in Greek would be demon, I would use the word demonized.
SPEAKER_00: You might write that in the margin or demon-influenced.
SPEAKER_00: So let me just say this, a caveat to this.
SPEAKER_00: Two things.
SPEAKER_00: One, I don't believe any Christian, any born-again believer can be demon-possessed from the perspective of what that word means, which means ownership, to be owned by a demon.
SPEAKER_00: You have the Holy Spirit living in you.
SPEAKER_00: I don't believe you can be owned by a demon.
SPEAKER_00: Listen closely.
SPEAKER_00: Every one of the epistles reference Satan and demons and some form of spiritual warfare.
SPEAKER_00: Ephesians 6 probably being the most pronounced.
SPEAKER_00: All of those are written to believers.
SPEAKER_00: So can you be demon-influenced?
SPEAKER_00: The answer is Y E S.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, you can.
SPEAKER_00: You can be demonized.
SPEAKER_00: I've cast out hundreds of demons in my time.
SPEAKER_00: All of them, except one, were believers.
SPEAKER_00: And most of them were missionaries when I was in Asia.
SPEAKER_00: Most of the demons I've cast out have been out of missionaries.
SPEAKER_00: So you can be demonized.
SPEAKER_00: That means, here's what I mean by that.
SPEAKER_00: And again, like I said, we could spend the entire time just on this subject.
SPEAKER_00: But demonization occurs, and listen closely, when you're entertaining any sin of the flesh and you do not deal with it.
SPEAKER_00: It could be anger, it could be lust, it could be jealousy, it could be envy.
SPEAKER_00: And you are fixated on that.
SPEAKER_00: It is a regular part of your life.
SPEAKER_00: You are setting yourself up for a stronghold to be built by demonic spirits.
SPEAKER_00: And the way I describe it is with my hand that there are demonic spirits of lust, there are demonic spirits of anger, there's demonic spirits of jealousy, and then there's fleshly sins in our life.
SPEAKER_00: And if you continue to indulge in area and you do not repent of it, there could be, it doesn't happen all the time, and I don't even understand the mystery of it all, because it's above my pay grade, but God does, that there is a time that can occur where that thing locks in.
SPEAKER_00: Locks in on that area of your life.
SPEAKER_00: So repentance is a good idea.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody say repentance is a good idea.
SPEAKER_00: It's physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually a good idea.
SPEAKER_00: You know, when you know that there's areas of your life that you haven't given over to the Lord, do it.
SPEAKER_00: Do it quickly.
SPEAKER_00: Because if you don't, there can be a point where it gets out of your control because demons are powering it.
SPEAKER_00: So that's what's happening here.
SPEAKER_00: These guys are coming out of the tombs exceedingly fierce, so that no one could pass that way.
SPEAKER_00: And suddenly they cried out saying, What have we to do with you, Jesus, you son of God?
SPEAKER_00: This is interesting.
SPEAKER_00: First time in the New Testament that Jesus is called the Son of God is by a demon.
SPEAKER_00: The demons know who Jesus is.
SPEAKER_00: Demons know if you're born again or not.
SPEAKER_00: So there was a young lady that I knew, grew up in a solid Christian home, loved by her parents, had every opportunity in the world to walk with the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: When she got to college, she started hanging out with these groupies of a particular rock band.
SPEAKER_00: And she followed them around to their different concerts.
SPEAKER_00: And she told me that one time she came, she wanted to get into the backstage with the band, and the security stopped her and said, You're not part of this band, are you?
SPEAKER_00: She said, Oh, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: I follow them everywhere, and I know so and so, and I know so and so.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, and he stopped and he started to shake.
SPEAKER_00: The security guard did, and he said, You're a follower of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And so am I.
SPEAKER_00: There's no way I'm letting you back there.
SPEAKER_00: He could sense in her that she had the Spirit of Christ over her.
SPEAKER_00: The demons recognize that Jesus is the Son of God, first time in the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: Have you come here to torment us before the time?
SPEAKER_00: Demons know that their end is torment.
SPEAKER_00: They're gonna end up in hell.
SPEAKER_00: They're gonna end up being tormented there.
SPEAKER_00: They're worried at this point that Jesus is gonna send them in a premature way.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, you guys, Satan hates the book of Revelation.
SPEAKER_00: There's probably the two books, let me just ask.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm not gonna ask you because I'll get all kinds of opinions, but I'll just tell you right now.
SPEAKER_00: We have a lot of people that talk a lot here.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but two, the two books, let me just tell you this, jot this down.
SPEAKER_00: The two books that Satan hates the most is Genesis and Revelation.
SPEAKER_00: How the beginnings were established foundationally, and then what our end is.
SPEAKER_00: And you'll find more critiques of that.
SPEAKER_00: Look at your school system.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you really are considered an idiot if you believe in creation.
SPEAKER_00: You're considered an idiot if you don't believe in evolution.
SPEAKER_00: Genesis.
SPEAKER_00: Foundation, beginning.
SPEAKER_00: I believe in Christian education.
SPEAKER_00: I believe in our kids being here every Sunday, getting equipped, down in children's ministry.
SPEAKER_00: We we do this stuff.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we train our kids from a very, from the youngest age up about the Genesis story, about the second coming of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: It's vital.
SPEAKER_00: Church, it's vital.
SPEAKER_00: Because when you go to college and even in our high schools, the myths that they teach, amazing.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, we have tons of Christian teachers in this church, and you are certainly teaching it right.
SPEAKER_00: But there's other stuff we have to be aware of out there.
SPEAKER_00: Now, a good way from there was a herd of many swine feeding.
SPEAKER_00: Now, where why would a herd of swine be feeding?
SPEAKER_00: Here's what we believe.
SPEAKER_00: We believe because of what Jesus had said that he came only for the house of Israel, that he's probably ministering to Jewish men that are demonized.
SPEAKER_00: We believe that this might have been their herd of swine.
SPEAKER_00: So they're illegally, as far as their spiritual religious background, having swine in that country, because the people would not have eaten swine who were Jews.
SPEAKER_00: The demons begged him, saying, If you cast us out, permit us to go away into the herd of swine.
SPEAKER_00: And he said to them, Go.
SPEAKER_00: So when they had come out, they went into the herd of swine, and suddenly the whole herd of swine ran violently down the steep place into the sea and perished in the water.
SPEAKER_00: Now, church, most suicide is from demonization.
SPEAKER_00: Demons at their worst are out to steal, kill, and destroy.
SPEAKER_00: So, any, if you're messing around with stuff, if you're messing around with hallucinogens, if you're messing around with pot, and I'm not talking about, you know, or those that need that for fit for uh medical reasons, but I'm talking about you're getting you're regularly doing pot and getting high, you are headed toward suicide.
SPEAKER_00: That's where it eventually goes, always with demons.
SPEAKER_00: They work in such a way to cause people to commit suicide.
SPEAKER_00: I was with a guy one time, we were in this, he was an officer in the military, he was a naval officer in Okinawa, and we spent four hours trying to cast out these demons.
SPEAKER_00: Never did get them out.
SPEAKER_00: Later he self-delivered himself.
SPEAKER_00: But the reason I was drawn in was because he had tried to commit suicide, and in the process of trying to commit suicide, he had killed two other people.
SPEAKER_00: Then those who kept him fled, and they went away for into the city and told everything, including what had happened to the demon-possessed men.
SPEAKER_00: Look at this reaction in verse 34.
SPEAKER_00: And behold, the whole city came out to meet Jesus, and when they saw him, they begged them to depart from that region.
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus starts messing with economics, usually people don't want Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: No faith.
SPEAKER_00: Amazing the power of money.
SPEAKER_00: Chapter 9.
SPEAKER_00: So he got into a boat.
SPEAKER_00: I love Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: This is what I love about Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus does not hang out where he's not wanted.
SPEAKER_00: So he goes right back to Capernaum.
SPEAKER_00: So he got into a boat, crossed over, and came to his own city.
SPEAKER_00: Then behold, they brought to him a paralytic lying on a bed.
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, Son, be of good cheer.
SPEAKER_00: Your sins are forgiven you.
SPEAKER_00: Now in Mark and Luke, here's what the story is that they is four guys, because it says he saw their faith.
SPEAKER_00: Four guys, Mark and Luke, I'm always comparing the two.
SPEAKER_00: And the house is crowded, and Jesus is in his house, and so they come up through the back way and they tear off the roof.
SPEAKER_00: Remember the story?
SPEAKER_00: They tear off the roof.
SPEAKER_00: So here's everybody in there.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus having a Bible study.
SPEAKER_00: They're in there, they're into it, and suddenly straw and mud and dirt are falling on everybody's head.
SPEAKER_00: They look up, and then here's these four guys on each corner of this litter, and they're dropping him down.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus watching this, everybody's watching this, and I'm sure even the paralytics going, this is not a good idea.
SPEAKER_00: Not a good idea.
SPEAKER_00: Levi is going to be so ticked off, gonna have to fix his roof.
SPEAKER_00: But he sees faith.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus sees their faith.
SPEAKER_00: And I want you to look at what Jesus says.
SPEAKER_00: Man, I wish I had two hours just to break down this one verse.
SPEAKER_00: Look what he says.
SPEAKER_00: He says son.
SPEAKER_00: First time also in the New Testament, Jesus uses the word son.
SPEAKER_00: It means beloved son.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying to this paralytic, You're beloved.
SPEAKER_00: Men and women, everybody look at me.
SPEAKER_00: You're all beloved.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus would say to you here today, beloved daughter, beloved son, I love you.
SPEAKER_00: I created you for a purpose.
SPEAKER_00: You're beloved.
SPEAKER_00: No matter where you've been, no matter what you've done, you're my beloved son.
SPEAKER_00: You're my beloved daughter.
SPEAKER_00: I want you.
SPEAKER_00: I want to know you.
SPEAKER_00: I want to fall in love with you as you fall in love with me.
SPEAKER_00: I love you with all of my heart, soul, mind, and strength.
SPEAKER_00: And then he says, be of good cheer.
SPEAKER_00: He says, be happy.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus wants us to be of good cheer.
SPEAKER_00: To be happy.
SPEAKER_00: He wants happiness.
SPEAKER_00: And then he says, beloved son, be happy.
SPEAKER_00: Your sins have forgiven you.
SPEAKER_00: I forgive you of your sins.
SPEAKER_00: He's come into the house on a litter, paralyzed, down, fiercely tormented and paralyzed, possibly even demonized.
SPEAKER_00: And what Jesus sees is the issue is not physical healing that he needs first.
SPEAKER_00: Forgiveness is what he needs first.
SPEAKER_00: Interesting, three things that we're learning in three decades on forgiveness and physical healing.
SPEAKER_00: Three things that science and health tell us.
SPEAKER_00: Number one, when we hold on to a resentment, grievance, shame, guilt, or pain from the past, our entire body-mind suffers.
SPEAKER_00: Our body produces excessive amounts of hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol, which over time can compromise our immune system and potentially contribute to cardiovascular disease.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody who has studied science and health knows this.
SPEAKER_00: Number two, hostility, anger, and unforgiveness is an inflammatory emotion.
SPEAKER_00: And as researchers have found, the number one emotional risk factor for premature death from heart.
SPEAKER_00: Attacks and strokes.
SPEAKER_00: Amazing.
SPEAKER_00: Number three, hostility, anger, and unforgiveness is also linked to autoimmune disorders.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a coincidence that we speak of people dying from a broken heart.
SPEAKER_00: Or describe betrayal as a stab in the back.
SPEAKER_00: Or say that a deep loss was gut wrenching.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what we're discovering is that the more we carry this unforgiveness in our lives, church, the sicker we get.
SPEAKER_00: And every one of us have been betrayed.
SPEAKER_00: Raise your hand if you've ever been betrayed by someone.
SPEAKER_00: We've all been betrayed.
SPEAKER_00: But the key, Jesus notices that he's going to heal both the symptoms and the cause.
SPEAKER_00: So sometimes when we have people up front praying, we pray for you, we pray for healing, and God heals, it's amazing.
SPEAKER_00: But the same thing comes back a month later because at the deeper level, the cause hasn't been healed.
SPEAKER_00: We've healed the symptom, but not the cause.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to challenge you.
SPEAKER_00: If you're here today and you've got unforgiveness, now listen, it's both ways though: unforgiveness towards someone, or unforgiveness that you need from someone, you have the power through the king, the kingdom, and the Holy Spirit to release forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: Let me say that again.
SPEAKER_00: You have the power within you, you have the fire within you, because of the king who rules sovereign over all, his kingdom, which cannot be shaken, Hebrews 13, and the Holy Spirit, greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world.
SPEAKER_00: You have control to release that forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: And you can't determine how other people view you, but you can determine how much power they have over you.
SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_00: Listen, write this down, jot this down.
SPEAKER_00: Forgiveness is always about you.
SPEAKER_00: Things don't happen to you, things happen for you.
SPEAKER_00: So if you let that other person continue to have control over you, that's on you.
SPEAKER_00: But if you release forgiveness and you release, this is important, control over your heart by that person, you can be set free right now.
SPEAKER_00: You can be set free when we take communion today.
SPEAKER_00: Now you may not feel it.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if this guy felt it.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't say whether he felt it or not.
SPEAKER_00: But if we continue, if we could begin today to say, I'm gonna forgive, I'm gonna release that person from the unforgiveness in my heart, because I want to walk in health.
SPEAKER_00: I want to walk in joy.
SPEAKER_00: I want to walk in power.
SPEAKER_00: I want the fire of the Holy Spirit within me to be unhindered in its flow through my life.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna release forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: At once, verse 3.
SPEAKER_00: Some of the scribes said within themselves, this man blasphemes.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, Why do you think evil in your heart?
SPEAKER_00: So, of course, what they're thinking is only God can heal, only God can forgive.
SPEAKER_00: And they're right.
SPEAKER_00: If Jesus is not God.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus knows our thoughts.
SPEAKER_00: When you're in traffic, when you're in line at Target or Walmart or wherever you shop, and you got to get to this thing, and then they take out a check.
SPEAKER_00: Who does that anymore?
SPEAKER_00: You're like, ah, I know your thoughts.
SPEAKER_00: He knows their thoughts.
SPEAKER_00: For which is easier to say your sins are forgiven, or to say, Arise and walk.
SPEAKER_00: But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins.
SPEAKER_00: Then he said to the paralytic, Arise, take up your bed and go to your house.
SPEAKER_00: And he arose and departed to his house.
SPEAKER_00: Now, when the multitude saw it, they marveled and glorified God, who had given such power to men.
SPEAKER_00: So you can say someone's sins are forgiven, and nobody's going to know whether their sins are forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus says, Your sins are forgiven, and get up and walk.
SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus verifies the power of his deity by healing sins and healing his body.
SPEAKER_00: As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man named Matthew.
SPEAKER_00: Love this.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus saw a man.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Matthew writes about his conversion.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus saw a man named Matthew.
SPEAKER_00: And he sees you.
SPEAKER_00: He sees you as a man.
SPEAKER_00: He sees you as a beloved man.
SPEAKER_00: He sees you as a beloved woman.
SPEAKER_00: He sees you that way before you know him.
SPEAKER_00: Before you're converted.
SPEAKER_00: Levi was his real name.
SPEAKER_00: His given name was Levi.
SPEAKER_00: Levi was a name almost exclusively used for the children of priests.
SPEAKER_00: So it's our belief historically that Levi grew up in a religiously Jewish home.
SPEAKER_00: And now he's a tax collector.
SPEAKER_00: No one could have rebelled more than becoming a tax collector.
SPEAKER_00: A tax collector in one of the wealthiest areas was Capernaum, in this area where the crossroads of the major trade routes were.
SPEAKER_00: He was very, very wealthy.
SPEAKER_00: A tax collector was a was used by the Romans as a Jew.
SPEAKER_00: They used Jews who had given themselves over to Rome.
SPEAKER_00: There was always a guard with a spear right behind Matthew as he would do his work and he would rip people off.
SPEAKER_00: He was hated by the Jews, pretty much hated by the Romans.
SPEAKER_00: You guys know that you can know a whole lot about who someone is by who their enemies are.
SPEAKER_00: So I think what's happening is this is Capernaum now.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew or Levi is watching Jesus and his disciples come by daily.
SPEAKER_00: He's hearing the stories and is seeing how the Pharisees and the scribes and the Sadducees hate Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And Levi hates the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the scribes.
SPEAKER_00: He considers them hypocrites, and he hears Jesus calling them hypocrites.
SPEAKER_00: And so he's watching.
SPEAKER_00: And he's going, anybody who hates those guys must be a pretty cool dude.
SPEAKER_00: And so as he's beginning to understand who Jesus is, Jesus comes by, he sees him, and he simply says, follow me.
SPEAKER_00: And he arose and he followed him.
SPEAKER_00: Church.
SPEAKER_00: Follow Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Follow Jesus wherever you are in your journey.
SPEAKER_00: Follow him.
SPEAKER_00: Become a Jesus disciple.
SPEAKER_00: Leave religion behind.
SPEAKER_00: And follow the authentic Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: The real Jesus who comes with grace and faith and love for you.
SPEAKER_00: And wants to see you transformed from the inside out.
SPEAKER_00: Wants to break the power of unforgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: Wants to heal us mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually.
SPEAKER_00: He can, you can, you can be healed.
SPEAKER_00: Turn to your neighbor and say, You can be healed.
SPEAKER_00: And you need to be healed.
SPEAKER_00: Follow me.
SPEAKER_00: So we, as far as we know, Matthew follows him immediately.
SPEAKER_00: Now it happened as Jesus sat at the table in the house that behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with him and his disciples.
SPEAKER_00: And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to his disciples, Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?
SPEAKER_00: Potluck evangelism.
SPEAKER_00: Try it.
SPEAKER_00: Bite people over.
SPEAKER_00: Best place to share Christ is over a meal.
SPEAKER_00: There's no doubt about it.
SPEAKER_00: So this is the tribe that Matthew is leaving.
SPEAKER_00: This is the tribe.
SPEAKER_00: These are sinners.
SPEAKER_00: These are tax collectors.
SPEAKER_00: This is his tribe.
SPEAKER_00: And he invites Jesus into this, and Jesus loves it.
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus heard that, he said to them, Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.
SPEAKER_00: Now I find that interesting.
SPEAKER_00: Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.
SPEAKER_00: Now, we'll find in this verse that Jesus seems to be indicating to us that it's certainly okay to see a physician.
SPEAKER_00: By the way, listen, everybody, look at me.
SPEAKER_00: The key here, I think, in our lives is who's of more importance.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to challenge us that probably many of us would be more healed, more often healed, through coming to Jesus first before we run to a doctor.
SPEAKER_00: So I want to encourage you every Sunday, any given Sunday, whether I call for it in the sermon or not, come up.
SPEAKER_00: If you need prayer for something, let us lay hands on you.
SPEAKER_00: Let our elders come and anoint you with oil and pray for healing.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus affirms right here doctors are cool.
SPEAKER_00: All truth is God's truth, wherever it comes from.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, sometimes you need a shot.
SPEAKER_00: You know, sometimes you need something.
SPEAKER_00: But come to God first.
SPEAKER_00: But go and learn what this means.
SPEAKER_00: I desire mercy and not sacrifice, for I did not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.
SPEAKER_00: Let me give you a definition of mercy.
SPEAKER_00: Can I give you a definition?
SPEAKER_00: Mercy.
SPEAKER_00: Mercy is a love that responds to human need in an unexpected and unmerited way.
SPEAKER_00: Let me say it again.
SPEAKER_00: Mercy is a love that responds to human need in an unexpected and unmerited way.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Jesus is doing all through his ministry, constantly bringing God's mercy.
SPEAKER_00: Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Blair Justice, in his book, which I would highly recommend, Who Gets Sick, writes people with high scores on intimacy, love, and compassion have higher levels of IgA antibodies and report less serious illness.
SPEAKER_00: They are more resilient with their immune system.
SPEAKER_00: Doctors and researchers are finding that people who seek friendship and accountability with others are generally more healthy.
SPEAKER_00: All of you that are in dating relationships right now think you're falling in love.
SPEAKER_00: At the miniature clinic, tests show that people who are romantically in love suffer fewer colds and have white blood cells that more actively fight infections.
SPEAKER_00: Who's in love right now?
SPEAKER_00: Raise your hand if you're in love.
SPEAKER_00: How many would like to be in love?
SPEAKER_00: You want to restoke your love life?
SPEAKER_00: Alright, good.
SPEAKER_00: Good.
SPEAKER_00: Then the disciples of John came to him saying, Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?
SPEAKER_00: Well, we could get into that.
SPEAKER_00: The importance of intermittent fasting, the power of fasting.
SPEAKER_00: Moses literally changed a nation through fasting and prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said to them, Can the friends of the bridegroom mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them?
SPEAKER_00: But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast.
SPEAKER_00: So you see, for the Pharisees at that time, it was a commitment to fasting as a religious ordinance.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus is challenging them that fasting should actually be a personal relationship with him.
SPEAKER_00: No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on the old garment, for the patch pulls away from the garment, and the tear is made worse.
SPEAKER_00: Nor do they put new wine into old wineskins, or else the wineskins break.
SPEAKER_00: The wine is spilled and the wineskins are ruined, but they put new wine into new wineskins and both are preserved.
SPEAKER_00: How many of you are old enough to remember that with old genes, you've kept the old genes so you can make patches out of them?
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: Only a few of you are as old as me.
SPEAKER_00: But what we used to do is we had genes and we break in these genes, and you didn't buy genes that were broken in.
SPEAKER_00: You broke in your own genes.
SPEAKER_00: They're always stiff.
SPEAKER_00: They were really stiff in our day, and they're really, you could always tell the kid who had the new jeans because it was like he kind of walked like this in school.
SPEAKER_00: But what you did is you start to break them in and everything, and you got your jeans, and they were cool, but you'd always get tears and stuff in them.
SPEAKER_00: But it wasn't cool to have tears back then.
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of cool now.
SPEAKER_00: You want you buy jeans that look nasty.
SPEAKER_00: But we would actually make our jeans nasty back in the day, but you kept them.
SPEAKER_00: And the reason you kept them is because you wanted to cut the old pants for patches to put on the next pair that you broke in and that were super cool because it looked really dorky to have that blue patch, right?
SPEAKER_00: That was like it just was dorky looking.
SPEAKER_00: But it was cool to have patches from your old jeans that you put on it.
SPEAKER_00: What he's saying is that the wineskins of that time that were new were subtle.
SPEAKER_00: And if you've if you've skinned animals like I have, you know that when you first skin an animal, that skin is very elastic.
SPEAKER_00: But if you've ever hung one of those skins in your garage or somewhere or seen someone, it gets brittle and it gets tight, and that's what they put the wine in.
SPEAKER_00: And so what he's saying, which is kind of obvious, is that you put new wine that's still fermenting, still expanding with the gases into new skins because they would expand together.
SPEAKER_00: Over against an old skin which is dry and brittle because it would break out.
SPEAKER_00: Well, all through church history, there have been moves of God.
SPEAKER_00: New moves of God, new works of the Holy Spirit for that generation and for that time.
SPEAKER_00: Now, nothing is new biblically, nothing's new under the sun.
SPEAKER_00: It's always a rediscovery of old truth, but delivered in a new way.
SPEAKER_00: And so when you see the Reformation, that was a rediscovery of grace through faith.
SPEAKER_00: The Wesleyan revival in London, George Whitfield, D.
SPEAKER_00: L.
SPEAKER_00: Moody, the move of the Holy Spirit falling at Azusa Street in LA.
SPEAKER_00: The move of the Spirit with the Jesus movement.
SPEAKER_00: And so movements come, and what happens, and what Jesus is saying, is that we've got to restructure, you've always got to restructure church with the new wine that's being released by the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: So can you imagine, you that are old enough to recall, a church like this 35 years ago did not exist.
SPEAKER_00: When I was in college, I went to a Baptist church and it was hymnals.
SPEAKER_00: All we did was hymnals.
SPEAKER_00: And there was a certain way we did church.
SPEAKER_00: We don't even come close to that now.
SPEAKER_00: And we're super weird.
SPEAKER_00: Like I'll say to people who are in church that are maybe a little bit older, and they're maybe they're a waiter or there's someone that I'm meeting and they're say 45 and above.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, What's your church background?
SPEAKER_00: And they'll then maybe a name a mainline denomination.
SPEAKER_00: It says, Well, if you come to the road, it's pretty weird.
SPEAKER_00: Because we have a band, we have rock music up front.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't wear a robe and I don't have a massive cross and we don't have a choir coming in, and they laugh.
SPEAKER_00: Because there's always going to be new structures.
SPEAKER_00: So, church, five years from now, things could be different here.
SPEAKER_00: God's always pouring out his wine, and in pouring out his wine, there has to be redevelopment of structure.
SPEAKER_00: So when I was at Mountain Springs, we were really big into small groups.
SPEAKER_00: And if you recall, at one point, I think we had 150 or 200 small groups.
SPEAKER_00: But small, we've redefined that.
SPEAKER_00: It's different here at the road with what God's doing in this church.
SPEAKER_00: We still have small groups, but they're in different forms.
SPEAKER_00: We have AIM on Tuesday morning.
SPEAKER_00: And Vince and I are going to be doing a panel.
SPEAKER_00: He and I are going to answer questions about what does it mean to be a man?
SPEAKER_00: What is biblical manhood?
SPEAKER_00: And we're hoping that we're finally going to meet this Tuesday morning at 6 a.m.
SPEAKER_00: We've got, what do we have, like three out of the last five canceled because of snow?
SPEAKER_00: But 6 a.m., we're over here.
SPEAKER_00: We never could get anything like that off the ground at Mountain Springs.
SPEAKER_00: But it's blowing up here with men.
SPEAKER_00: The way that Christine is doing women's ministry here is way more pronounced, way more popular than it was over there.
SPEAKER_00: So the point is at different times God's doing different things in the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And that's for you too.
SPEAKER_00: This is really important.
SPEAKER_00: God wants to pour new wine into you.
SPEAKER_00: And new wine into your marriage.
SPEAKER_00: And new wine into your dating life.
SPEAKER_00: And new wine into your finances.
SPEAKER_00: But you're going to have to be able to structurally change, or it'll spill out, it'll bust, it won't work.
SPEAKER_00: You can't put new spiritual wine into the old systems.
SPEAKER_00: So I remember in the day when you know I'd get up in the morning and I'd read my Bible and a journal, I'd do like 15 to 30 minutes, and that was my time with the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: But as I've grown, I've needed more time.
SPEAKER_00: And now I'm married, and so I have that time with Liz also, because God's pouring new wine into our marriage and new wine into our life.
SPEAKER_00: So we've had to change our structure.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: You've been listening to The Road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.
SPEAKER_01: We hope you have been blessed by today's message.
SPEAKER_01: To connect with us further, visit theroad.org.
SPEAKER_01: If you are walking through a difficult time, we want to pray for you.
SPEAKER_01: Go to theroad.org, click on the ministries tab, and go to our prayer page to send us your prayer request.
SPEAKER_01: Thanks again for tuning in today, and be sure to listen to the next edition of The Road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.