Jesus Heals a Ceiling Fan

Well, happy 2021. 2020 is in the history books and all of God's people said, amen. I know a lot of us are really glad to get that year behind us. That is certainly how I feel. I told you a few weeks ago that because of lockdown, you were likely to emerge from 2020 as either a monk, a hunk, a junk or a drunk. So I hope as 2020 closed out, you chose wisely and finished the year well.

But I'm actually very excited about 2021. And that is because I sense that there are some things that God has for us to do. Some of which I'm going to tell you about today. I sense just a real open door of opportunity and a new way that God is beckoning us forward. Luke chapter 5, if you have your Bibles.

Luke 5, if you have your Bibles, we have been for several weeks and will be for several more weeks in the Gospel of Luke, looking at some of just the most basic and incredible things that Jesus taught about a revolutionary way to live and a way to know God. Luke 5, as you're turning in your Bibles there, over the break, my family and I watched an old movie that I remembered from, I think it was college age years. It was called Mrs. Doubtfire. We had to fast forward a couple of scenes in it, but it was Robin Williams at his finest. In that movie, Robin Williams plays an actor who is down on his luck and he's made a complete mess of his marriage and so his wife leaves him.

Because his life is so chaotic, the courts give her, his wife, full custody of the kids, but he loves his kids passionately and he's desperate to see them so he dresses up like an old English housekeeper and applies for a job as their maid, tries to fool them all about who he is so that he can see his kids every day. And I know that sounds impossible to pull off, even in a movie, but that was the genius of Robin Williams. The movie is hilarious and it is sad and it is inspiring all at the same time, much, I might add, like Robin Williams' actual life. The movie illustrates something that all of us have experienced at some point. What the movie illustrates is that desperation will drive you to do some radical things, things you might never dream of doing otherwise.

I share that because that's the sense of desperation that you get in this story. And that's the lens through which you have to read this story on multiple levels. Luke 5.17, on one of those days while Jesus was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting there, who had come from every village of Galilee and Judea and also from Jerusalem, and the Lord's power to heal was in him. Now, that's a very interesting phrase, the Lord's power was present to heal. The New King James Version translates that phrase as the power of the Lord was present at that moment to heal. The Spirit of God, in other words, was present in that moment in a very special way, ready to heal if somebody would ask for it. And Jesus was, of course, unusually sensitive to the Holy Spirit, and so he knew that's what the Spirit wanted to do, and so he was ready to grant that for anybody who was bold enough and had the sensitivity to ask for it. When Jesus carried out his ministry on earth, he did his miracles to the power of the Spirit, and Luke is trying to show you that same power is available to you.

So he's saying it was present in an unusual way in that moment. Verse 18. Just then some men came carrying on a stretcher a man who was paralyzed. They tried to bring him in and set him down before him. Since they could not find a way to bring him in because of the crowd, they went up on the roof, and they lowered him on the stretcher through the roof tiles into the middle of the crowd right in front of Jesus.

When you are ripping the roof off of a place to get access to somebody, that's desperation. Verse 20, seeing their faith, their faith. That's an important detail we're going to come back to, seeing their faith. If you underline stuff in your Bible, underline the word there. He said, friend, your sins are forgiven, to which I imagine the friends probably said, well, okay.

I mean, that's awesome. Sins forgiven is always a good thing. That's certainly better than your sins aren't forgiven. But doesn't this guy have a more desperate problem right now? And isn't it kind of obvious what he really needs and why we lowered him through the roof? Isn't his real need pretty obvious in Jesus' response?

No. He does not have a more urgent need than the forgiveness of sins. Verse 21. Then the scribes and the Pharisees began to think of themselves. Who is this man who speaks blasphemies? Because who can forgive sins but God alone?

Now, that's a fair question. I explained this a few weeks ago. The only way it would make sense for Jesus to forgive sins is if Jesus considered himself to be the one who was sinned against. You don't forgive things that do not involve you.

And we all get that, right? I mean, say you and your spouse or your roommate had a terrible fight last night. And they said some of the meanest, rudest things that anybody has ever said to you.

And you are furious and you are hurt and their words left you wondering how you can even continue on in a relationship with somebody who thinks, much less says things like they said about you. And this morning you got up and you came on to church and of course you put on the church act for everybody. How are you?

Oh, blessed and highly favored brother, how are you? But inside you are seething and you are waiting until you get home so you can just let them have it. Well, after church, as you guys are leaving, I walk up to that person in your presence and I look at them and I say, I know about your fight last night. And I know what you said to her. And I just want you to know that you are forgiven for that. You don't have to feel bad about that anymore. You would probably look at me and say, uh, excuse me, pastor. This has got nothing to do with you. You might be a pastor, but you can't forgive something that wasn't done to you.

And you would be correct. When Jesus forgave sins and they said, who can forgive sins but God alone, Jesus said, ding, ding, ding, you got it. And forgiving sins, he was claiming to be God.

Does that make sense? I point that out because every once in a while you'll hear somebody, a New Testament professor in college or somebody say that in the earliest Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke, which were each written about 20 to 30 years after Jesus' death. They'll say, Jesus never really claimed to be God in those earlier writings. That was something only the apostle John, who wrote his Gospel about 20 years after the others. That was something only John claimed that Jesus did. And they say that that was something John added to try and get people to worship Jesus, to beef up his claims, which from the beginning, the earliest Christians didn't think he was God. In the earliest days, these scholars will say, they only thought of Jesus as a prophet. And then John comes along and added to stuff about him being God. I point this out because you can see right here in the Gospel of Luke that that accusation is not true. In forgiving sins or in allowing himself to be worshiped or in claiming to be the temple that the presence of God dwelt in, Jesus is claiming to be God. And everybody understood that. So they started to whisper to themselves, blasphemy.

Verse 22, verse 22, but perceiving their thoughts, Jesus replied to them, why are you thinking this in your hearts? Which is easier to say? Which is easier to say your sins are forgiven or to say get up and walk? Now, that's a good question.

Let me ask you, what do you think? What is easier to say? Is it easier to say your sins are forgiven or is it easier to say to a lame man, get up and walk? Well, clearly it is easier to say your sins are forgiven.

Why? Well, because you can't tell whether or not it happened. But if I say to a lame man, walk, then you can tell right away whether I've got the power that I'm claiming to have. If I say get up and walk to a lame man and he doesn't do it, you know right away that I'm a phony. So see, Jesus' logic goes like this. We know that forgiving sins and making the lame walk are both things that only God can do. So if I say to a lame man, get up and walk and he does it, then it's safe to say that if I say to him your sins are forgiven, I can do that also. If I can do the verifiable one, then you can trust me that I can do the unverifiable one as well.

Do you follow his logic? In showing that he has the power to make this lame man walk, he's also proving he has the power to make good on his promise to forgive sins. You see what he says next, verse 24?

But so that you may know that the Son of Man has that authority on earth to forgive sins, let me do the thing that you can verify. He tells the paralyzed man, I tell you, get up, take up your stretcher and go home. Verse 25, and immediately he got up before then, he picked up what he had been lying on, and he went home glorifying God. My title for this story is Jesus Heals a Ceiling Fan.

See what I did there? Right, he's a fan of Jesus coming through the roof and Jesus heals him, right? Some of you will think about that all day and you will get that later, that's just my little gift to you. Verse 26, then everybody was astounded and they were giving glory to God and they were filled with awe and they said, we have seen incredible things today.

Yes, they had indeed. There are two main things that I want us to see in this story. These are two very distinct ideas, but I think they're both really important for us right now, and they both center around this theme of desperation.

They are our desperate, I just heard somebody on this side of the auditorium laugh, which means they just got the ceiling fan reference. They are, number one, our desperate need, and they are, number two, our desperate faith. Our desperate need and our desperate faith.

Let's look firstly at our desperate need. At first, Jesus' offer to forgive this guy's sins almost seems a little cruel. I mean, at best, just insensitive, doesn't it? I mean, isn't it obvious what this guy wants? Right, here is a crippled man lying on a bed in front of Jesus, yet Jesus just ignores that and goes straight for forgiveness.

Isn't that insensitive and a little tone deaf? But what if Jesus saw that this man's greatest need, greater than his need for healing, was his need for forgiveness? This guy is desperate to be healed, but Jesus is even more desperate to see him restored to God. That is the constant theme of Jesus' ministry in Luke. People yearn for physical relief to their pain, Jesus yearns in an almost frantic way to see them restored to God. In Luke 15, he is the shepherd who leaves the 99 sheep to go after the one that is lost. He's the desperate widow who searches her entire house from top to bottom to find a lost coin. He is the scorned father who stands at the gate anxiously waiting for his prodigal son to come home, who runs with abandon when he finally sees his son coming.

In Luke 13, Jesus weeps over Jerusalem and says, oh, Jerusalem, how many times? I've wanted just to get you to turn to me. In Luke 19, Jesus summarizes his entire ministry as saying, I've come to seek, to desperately go after, to search for and save at the cost of my life those who are lost. So let me ask you, as we go into 2021, what do you think the greatest need of your life is? Here's my question, what if your greatest need is different than your most pressing desire?

What if your greatest need is different than your most pressing desire? What if the greatest, most pressing need of your life is the need for forgiveness? And maybe even me saying that strikes you as insensitive. I mean, maybe you're sitting here and you've been wronged, or you've been really hurt, maybe you've been abused. And you listen to me and you say, how dare you say that I need forgiveness? I'm the one who's been wronged. Sure, I need to learn to forgive the person who wronged me, and I'm struggling with that, but it seems insensitive for you to say that I, my greatest need is forgiveness also. Well, you're partially right, I understand that, but listen to Jesus' wisdom.

This is really quite practical. If you've really been wronged, what you need most is a way to forgive those who wronged you, to be able to be released from the bitterness that will consume you. And guess what? You can't ever forgive heinous wrongs unless you've experienced great forgiveness yourself. Embracing forgiveness from God enables you to forgive others. It may be true that you've been wronged, but it's also true that all of us have wronged God far more than any of us have ever been wronged, and realizing that and embracing that grants you the power to forgive others. Forgiveness, an experience of forgiveness turns bitter water in your heart, it turns it sweet.

Listen, I don't know who you are. I don't know what you think your greatest need is. I don't know what you would love for God to change most in 2021.

I don't know if you feel like you need a car, a job, a spouse, a different spouse, a better roommate, healing from cancer. What you most need is forgiveness. Jesus cares about all those other things.

I'm going to show you that in a minute because the way he heals this guy. But what you most need is forgiveness. And the good news is that that is why Jesus came. That's why he first offered forgiveness to a lame man lying before him in a stretcher before healing his legs. It's why ultimately the trajectory of Jesus' life was toward a cross. Jesus' main purpose on earth was not to teach great morals or to do great miracles. His main purpose was to go to a cross to pay the price for our forgiveness. Jesus' main ministry was not what he taught to us.

It's what he did for us. Saying your sins are forgiven was not just a blessing that he uttered flippantly. Forgiveness of sins was something he purchased by his blood. His death on the cross is why he can say to you, I forgive your sins.

There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins and sinners plunged beneath that flood. Lose all their guilty stain. And he proved that he had the ability to make good on that offer to forgive you. If you were like, well, I don't know if you don't know exactly what I've done.

You don't know what I carry into this year. And I'm not sure he's got the power to do that. He proved it by raising from the dead. The apostle Paul said that one of the main purposes of the resurrection was to show that Jesus' claim to be dying for our sins was true. So don't just believe Jesus has the power to forgive because he says so. Believe him because he demonstrated the power to back that up.

You see, here's the deal. If he could make the lame walk and he could command the waves and the wind to cease and he could bring dead men out of the grave and then he could come back from the dead himself. Well, see, that means he can make good on his promise to forgive your sins.

The dying thief rejoiced to see that fountain in his day. There may I, the vilest he, wash all our sins away, all my sins away. There is a power and forgiveness you can be sure of because Jesus backed it up with these kind of miracles and mainly by resurrecting from the dead.

So you've got your desperate need. In a second in this story, we've got number two, our desperate faith. Our desperate faith, I pointed this out as we were reading the story, verse 20. Verse 20 says that when Jesus saw their faith, he said, their faith. Then he said, your sins are forgiven, rise up and walk. According to Luke, Jesus did this miracle not so much because of the lame man's faith, he did it because of the faith of his friends. On behalf of their faith, on behalf of their desperate faith, Jesus healed him. Now you say, well, why doesn't the man just ask for it himself?

I don't know, doesn't tell us. Maybe he was so sick that he could barely speak anymore. Maybe he'd just been lame for so long that he'd given up hope.

He just stopped believing the future could be any different. And so into that gap, into that void of despair, their faith, not his, their faith stepped in and said, no, I believe Jesus is good, and I believe he cares about you, and I believe he will help you. It was their faith that loaded him up into that stretcher and carried him out to where Jesus was. It was their faith that pushed its way through the crowd. It was their faith that spawned the ingenuity to go to the top of the house and tear open the roof above Jesus' head. It was their faith that made them ignore all the people who were yelling, hey, what are you doing? Or ignore the guy who was like, hey, get off my roof.

You can't do that to my roof. It was their faith that set that man down expectantly at Jesus' feet as if to say, Jesus, what are you going to do about this? Write this down. When the paralyzed man could do little for himself, it was the active faith of his friends that made the difference. When the paralyzed man could do little for himself, it was the active faith of his friends that made the difference.

Hey, pay attention. What is Luke trying to teach us? He's trying to teach us that sometimes the faith of somebody around us is so weak that we have to believe for them. And maybe that comes for you in the form of a prodigal child who is confused and has stopped seeking God and maybe departed from all the things you tried to teach them when they grew up in your house.

And so you're the one. You're the one on your knees every night pleading with God to awaken them in their spiritually paralyzed state. And you're the one that's bringing them to Jesus.

And you're the one tearing open the roof. And you're the one laying them down at Jesus' feet and saying, Master, please do something, because they've even lost their ability to ask. Maybe it's a spouse or a friend or a coworker. And God has placed you in their lives because they're too spiritually weak to pray for themselves. Maybe they've just given up on the marriage.

Maybe they've given up hope. And so, see, you've got to fight your way through the crowd and you've got to do all the work to open up that roof and you've got to believe God for them. In the New Testament, this special urgency to pray, that drive to tear open a roof and lay a person down at Jesus' feet believing that he will heal them, that understanding that the power of Jesus is present to heal, that's a spiritual gift called the gift of faith. It is a gift, listen, otherwise you'll get confused. It's a gift that God gives in different degrees at different times when he wants to do something in somebody's life. It's a gift he gives when his power is present to heal. It comes in different amounts at different times to people who are walking with the Spirit. It's a gift we honestly don't talk about enough at our church, but one I really want you to recognize and embrace.

I read a book a couple of years ago written by a friend named Sam Storms who really helped me get my mind around this. The book is called Practicing the Power. Dr. Storms, he says that when the New Testament uses the word faith, it uses the word faith in three different ways. And unless you recognize the three different uses of the word faith, you will probably get confused. First, he said you've got salvation faith. That's the faith that embraces Christ as Lord and Savior, Ephesians 2.8. It is by grace that you have been saved through faith. All Christians, all Christians have that kind of faith.

That's what makes us Christians. Second, he says you've got sustaining faith. Sustaining faith is the general confidence that God is present, He's with us, He will never leave us or forsake us. It's confidence in His goodness, confidence that He is in control and sovereignly working all things for good. That's typically what people mean when they say so and so has strong faith.

We mean that they have an unshakable confidence in God's plan. Again, all Christians should have this at all times. But there's a third kind of faith, Dr. Storms says, I think points out correctly from the New Testament, and that is the spiritual gift of faith.

And that is what you see here in this story at work. It's a special bestowal of faith that God gives to certain Christians at certain times because He wants to do something miraculous through you or around you or in you. And so you sense in that moment by the Spirit an urge to pray, an urge to press into the goodness of God, an urge to tear open a roof and lay somebody down at Jesus' feet. That's the kind of faith Paul had in mind when he spoke of the spiritual gift of faith in 1 Corinthians 12, nine. Some, he says, are given the gift of faith.

I was always confused when Paul said that. Some are given the gift of faith. I'm like, don't all Christians have faith?

Isn't it our duty to trust God? Why would Paul say that some of us have a special gift of faith? Well, Paul didn't say some have the gift of purity or the gift of honesty, so why would he say some have the gift of faith?

That was always my question. So what is he talking about? Because he's not talking about salvation faith. He's not talking about sustaining faith, which we should all have. He's talking about a special spiritual gift of faith, which God gives to those who are walking in the Spirit when he wants to do something miraculous. It's a faith that moves them to pray and trust God for somebody.

Let me quote Dr. Storms here. While all faith is an expression of trust and humble dependence upon God, this, the spiritual gift of faith, is the experience of faith that arises somewhat spontaneously and unexpectedly in our hearts. We feel certain that God wants to do something. We sense his power is present to heal. When God wants to bless us with a miraculous answer to our prayer, pay attention. When God wants to bless us with a miraculous answer to our prayer, he will take the initiative to cultivate and build into our hearts the fulfillment of the condition that he requires.

What is his requirement? Faith. So he works in you by his Spirit to produce that faith, that sense that is bold and just ask. Jesus only does his miracles in response to faith. So when he wants to do a miracle, he stirs up, often in the heart of somebody around the person who needs the miracle, he stirs up in them the confidence to ask for it. Therefore, he says, each time as we pray, each time as we seek God, let us begin by asking God for an extraordinary, powerful faith.

Let us ask God that he worked in us to produce and sustain the confidence that he is pleased to bless. That's the faith that these friends in Luke five are showing. God put it in the hearts of these friends to press through the crowds so that he could work in this man the miracle that he desired. The power of the Lord was present to heal, so he put the faith in their hearts that moved them to ask for the miracle.

So my question for you I hope is obvious. What paralyzed person around you has God put in your heart to pray for? A friend? A prodigal child? A parent?

A whole people group? Missionaries out all over the world right now who have a special kind of sense that the power of the Lord is present to heal this particular nation at this particular time. I recently read a book by James Banks, who's a pastor, by the way, right here in Durham, a pastor of a Presbyterian church.

He's become a friend. He talks about the journey of praying for two prodigal kids, one of whom, they're both grown now, one of whom has come back to Jesus and the other who has not yet. Here's what he said in that book. He says, when we pray for our prodigal kids, we carry them on stretchers of faith to Jesus. We do the heavy lifting, but they receive the benefit. They may be entirely passive or even actively resisting us, but Jesus sees whose faith? Our faith as we bring them to him. Parents, don't you sense faith rising up in your heart as I say that? Do you realize that God at this very moment has put you in a place to intercede, to pray his power, his presence to heal?

And your desire to pray is evidence of that. But see, he won't grant the miracle until you exercise the faith. Had those friends not made the journey, had they not torn open the roof, had they gotten discouraged, had they looked at the crowd and said, oh well, this is just too hard. If God really wanted this man healed, he'd have made it easier. They'd have seen those things and given up.

Their friend would never have received that miracle. Hey, even if it's not a prodigal son or daughter that you're praying for, I bet there's somebody, I bet there's somebody today, this morning, that God has put into your heart to pray for. I want to urge you to obey that impulse. Years ago, I read a book. It's become my favorite book. It's old. I read it when it first came out.

It's probably been about 20-some years. Fresh Wind and Fresh Fire by Jim Cymbala. In this book, Pastor Cymbala tells the story of how God brought his own prodigal daughter home.

She was grown, she was in college, she'd forsaken God and run away from home. Their church, called the Brooklyn Tabernacle, does a Tuesday night prayer meeting each week. I've actually been. It's one of the most powerful things that I've ever experienced. One night, Pastor Cymbala shared from Acts 4 about how the church boldly called on God even in the face of discouragement.

Let me let him tell the story, okay? We entered into a time of prayer like Acts 4, everybody reaching out to the Lord in concert together. An usher handed me a note. A young woman whom I felt to be spiritually sensitive had written, she said, Pastor Cymbala, I feel impressed that we should stop the meeting and all pray for your daughter. In a few minutes, I picked up the microphone and told the congregation what was going on with my daughter. There arose from the congregation a groaning, a sense of desperate determination as if to say, Satan, you will not have this girl.

Take your hands off of her, she is coming back. I was overwhelmed. The force of that vast throng calling on God almost literally knocked me over. When I got home that night, Carol was waiting up for me. We sat at the kitchen table and I said, it's over with Chrissy, his daughter's name. You would have had to have been in that prayer meeting tonight. I tell you, if there is a God in heaven, this whole nightmare is finally over.

32 hours later on Thursday morning, my daughter walked in and we both just began to cry. Daddy, she said with a start, who was praying for me? Who was praying for me on Tuesday night, Daddy? Who was praying for me? I didn't say anything, so she continued. In the middle of the night, God woke me up and showed me I was heading toward the abyss.

There was no bottom to it. It scared me to death. I was so frightened, I realized how hard I'd been, how wrong, how rebellious. But at the same time, it was like God wrapped his arms around me and held me tight in that moment.

He kept me from sliding any farther as he assured me, I still love you and I am not walking away. That same Tuesday night, the very hour that the church was praying, God moved in her soul and showed her that she was headed toward destruction, all the while flooding her heart with a sense of his love. That's a group of friends being bestowed with the gift of faith. James Banks says, he says, our prodigal kids desperately need us to lift into Jesus on the stretcher of prayer.

Even if they don't have faith, Jesus will see ours and they'll be blessed because of it. Two ways I want us to close this weekend. Number one, I wanna tell you about something that we're gonna start this year with, something I hope that we're gonna make a lot more frequent around here. We're gonna open up this year as a church, starting on January the 11th, which will be next Monday, with a fast. Well, we're gonna ask God specifically to do some things that only he can do, a 21-day fast, 21 days of fasting and prayer. Now, we're gonna give you different options to do it. Some of you may fast for one meal each of those days. Some of you may choose to cut certain foods out of your diet for all 21 days. Others of you may be kids or teens.

You may fast from one thing, like social media or video games the entire time. We're gonna give you different options. But I would love for everybody in this church to do something to participate in this as we as a church come together and we say, God, we wanna be sensitive to where your power is present and what your spirit wants to do, and we wanna be ready with the gift of faith to ask, and so we're asking for sensitivity. We're asking for you to show us in our families and in our friends and in our own lives, in our church, in our community, in our world, we're asking you to show us what you want us to do. And so for 21 days, we're gonna give you different prayer points. We're gonna give you different ideas for how you could fast along with us, with your church body together.

You'll be able to sign up for daily email reminders. It'll all be on our website, social media. We're gonna saturate everything we do for the rest of the year with this opening time of prayer. It's all gonna culminate in an all-church night of prayer towards the ends of January, which we'll host at all of our permanent locations.

You'll be hearing more about that in the days and the weeks to come. I've told you before, Jesus said that we're to be known as a house of prayer. Summit Church, is that one of the top things you would use to describe our church? I mean, COVID disrupted things for a while, and so as we relaunch the church this year, I want us to do it with prayer as a staple, as a core, as a foundation in all that we do. We're not gonna try to fit it in at the margins while we preach and we program. We're gonna lay it in at the foundation and build the rest of the house around it.

This fast is a part of that. It's a pretty dramatic, you might even say radical thing, and I hope all of you will join me in it in some way. I'm not asking you to avoid all food for 21 days, but I'm saying there are ways that we can fast together throughout that time.

Maybe one meal would probably be the default, the easiest way to do this. Plus, listen, there are miracles in the lives of your sons and daughters and neighbors and even your own life that are waiting to happen if you'll exercise faith like this and press through for them. All right, so that's one thing.

Here's the second thing. I want to give you a chance to pray right now. Right now, it's your campus. Prayer counselors, they're gonna come up literally right now. They're gonna come up right now. They're just gonna kind of stand here. There'll be elders and pastors and prayer team leaders. They're gonna make their way up.

I'm at all of our campuses right now. I just want to ask you, what do you need prayer for? What do you need prayer for?

What prodigal son or daughter? You say, I'm gonna walk up in front of a bunch of people and I'm gonna come down. Yes, that's what I'm asking you to do.

That may be your version of tearing off the roof. All right, and if there ends up being not enough counselors, just take a knee and pour out your heart to God. Okay, so they're getting in place now at all of our campuses. They're wearing their mask. We would ask you that you wear yours. We're not gonna get close and lay hands on each other, but they're just gonna pray, okay? So I want everybody to stand to their feet at all of our locations. And guys, let's just come. Men and women, there's those of you that I know that you've got something on your heart and I'm telling you, listen, Tony, the presence of the Lord is here to heal. So I want you to boldly just come right now.

Just step out right now. I want you to walk forward, take one of these men or women that's down here and I want you to say, hey, I just want you to pray with me. I want you to pray with me. You guys just begin to pray together. After we close the service, we'll try to keep the areas down front a little bit sacred as we just take some time to listen. So again, right now, to step out, step out into that aisle, you come and you guys pray together. For those of you who are online, if you're watching through church online, you can stop now and pray with those who are in your living room.

Maybe you're in your house group. Maybe you're there and you just need to pause this right now. Pause it and pray together as a group. Or if you're alone, simply click the request prayer button.

It'll actually take you straight to a live prayer council or a live human being in a digital prayer room where you can share your request with one of the pastors or hosts. As our worship teams come at our different live locations, I want you to come. I want you to come. There are sons and daughters that need to be brought back. There's physical healing that needs to happen in this room right now.

There are things that you need to say, I'm here and I'm not ashamed to say I've got a need. And I'm going to come and I'm going to ask somebody to believe God with me and ask one of these friends to help me lower this down at the feet of Jesus. The power of the Lord is present to heal.

You come right now. Don't let this weekend end with a blessing that God wants you to have unclaimed and unasked for. Somebody needs salvation. There's something God wants to do. As our worship teams come at our live locations, okay, let's just spend the next few moments praying, all of us, everywhere together. Let's spend these moments praying.