The X Factor

with you. In John chapter five, there is a story about a man who was stuck, and I want you to stand on your feet for just a moment. Welcome to our evam all over the world. Please let me know before before I read my scripture, where are you joining from? And if you why don't if you're in the room, so that this is less awkward, just tell the person next to you what brought you here today? Why did you come today? What's the what was the reason for your being here? Mom made you. Tiffany gets

paid to be here. She doesn't want to get fired. But look all over the world, y'all, I just want to point out to you this ministry is reaching way, way beyond what we can see. I mean all the way from Fayetteville, North Carolina, right next to India, just side by side on my comments California, Mississippi, Kenya, Tampa, Florida. Happy anniversary, Orlando as well to your anniversary for Orlando today.

Make some noise, lake Worth, Florida. Chunks you know that, Central Florida, Czech Republic, South Africa, Cosamel, Indonesia, Lebanon, Philippines, London, Brazil, Mexico. What I miss, Sheller laughing? What oh, you came from Jersey. Good to have you. We hope, we hope, we hope, we hope. We're praying that we can be in Jersey for our Elevation Night's tour coming up that we're going to announce in the next So you didn't even have to come. We were coming for you, but you couldn't wait,

could you. You had to get here to the house. All right? Are you visiting somebody or you just came for this, Then it doesn't count. We're just like a little layover. Okay, Okay, God's gonna bless you anyway. Let's give it up for Jersey somebody. I am not stalling. I'm just trying to slow my brain down for a minute because the Lord has me fired up, and I don't want to unload on you too much too soon,

So I'm just trying to acclimate John chapter five. Sometime later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. Now there is in Jerusalem, near the Sheepgate, a pool which in Aramaic is called Bethesda, and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades porches. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie. Now used to lie? Is putting it in past tense that the situation is going to change, is putting it in past tense that the

situation is going to change. Here, a great number of disabled people used to lie. The blind, the lame, the paralyzed. One was there who had been an invalid for thirty eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, do you want to get well? Hey? Man? You want some of this? Hey? You want to get well? Sir? The invalid replied, I have no one to help me

into the pool. When the water is stirred. While I'm trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me. Then Jesus said to him, get up, pick up your mat, and walk. At once, thirty eight years of paralysis was reversed. At once the man was secured, he picked up his mat and walked. The day on which this took place was a sabbath, and so the Jewish leader said to the man who had been healed, it is the sabbath.

The law forbids you to carry your mat. But he replied, the man who made me well told me pick up your mat and walk. I hear what you're telling me. But I've been hanging out here thirty eight years and you never made me walk. He fixed me in one sentence. I'm gonna do what he said. Do. I appreciate the advice. I appreciate your regulation. I appreciate your custom. But the man who made me well said to me, pick up

your mat and walk. So they asked him, who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk. The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there. Later, Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, see you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse. May happen to you. Now. The man went away and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus. I'm gonna need you to say that out loud. It was Jesus put that in the chat. Say it out loud. It

was Jesus who had made him well. Today. The Lord told me to talk to you about the X factor, the X factor. Bless your word, Father in Jesus' name, Amen, touch somebody on your way down and say you got it the X factor. You know what I mean, X factor. Simon Cowell is in here. Don't worry a noteworthy special talent or quality. That's what the X factor means. They just got it. They just got something or a variable in a given situation that could have the most significant

impact on the outcome. That's what I talked about today, the X factor. It's what Holly saw in me. They standing across that college cafeteria with a triple X Superman shirt. She saw beneath that Superman shirt, she saw the super She saw super Steve. Yo. Really are tough to talk to sometimes and trying to introduce the topic of the X factor. You know what I'm talking about, like, and there's just something that they have and you've been around

someone like that. If the first person you think of when I say someone who's just got it like that is you. Most of people that I know that really have something special, it is the most difficult for them to see the distinctives that make them uniquely powerful. I was coaching Tim the other day. He did a sermon for our youth and it was really good. And I gave him this thing. I said, you did this, and you did that and you did that and that was good.

And that's stuff I can't even teach. So what you were so good at is stuff that I couldn't teach you if I tried. So that's not what I want to talk to you about because you already got that. So I want to talk to you about what I saw where there is potential. Tim is this growth. He's a growth minded individual. He is he's driven. So he was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I hear what you're saying.

I did good? What can I do better? And I was like that that right there, that thing in you that makes you want to know what did you see that I could do better? And not just keep telling me the stuff that I did really good? That right there makes me think that you have only just begun to see what God is going to do through you, because you've got it. You got it, You got it, you got it, you got it. Especially how God looks for people to bless, he looks for need, He looks

for need. It's proven in the scripture that I just read you. But you may not have noticed because the exciting part of the text is where the man gets up and is cured. The part of the text that's really explicit about what made this man a candidate for a miracle is the part that, to be honest with you, it's it's a list that the writer starts where he says that Jesus was at the pool where the blind, the lane, and the paralyzed used to lie. The blind,

the lane, the paralyzed. Now the list could go on and on, because we're going to push the scripture today not just to talk about physical conditions that God can heal, although God has the ability to do that. I want to extend this list to say that Jesus is on the porch for any problem that you have that is paralyzing you in this season of your life. I set it five minutes ago, and I'll say it five minutes from now. This is for the stuck ones, the lane,

the blind. You're stuck without your side, You're dependent on somebody else without your sight. You're stuck without the function of your limbs. You're dependent on where someone can carry you. You are stuck without your emotional capacity, where anxiety wrestles you into a ball and pins you to the mat and dares you to move. I've had seasons of my life where resent me resentment put me in a rear

naked choke. Do you ever watch Mma? Sometimes I watch this violent stuff just get it out of my system so I don't swing on anybody in real life. And I'll watch him choke somebody out, and I'm like, I've been in that position before, not with somebody else choking me, choking myself, cutting off my own air supply, cutting off my own ability to receive the oxygen of the word that God is speaking. Jesus looks for need, even in picking his disciples. He did it in a really weird way,

because to change the world you need somebody. You need to pick somebody who's got it. Because Jesus had it, but he wasn't going to be here to finish it. So when he was recruiting his disciples, he probably should have picked somebody better than ex fisherman, an ex tax collector. You're with me now, he started walking around to pick people and his ex factor, Heaven's X factor is not dependent on talent, height, ability, charisma. That's not how that's

not how God chooses who to use. I'll prove it to you. There is a very small chance that anybody by the pool that day was in worse shape for longer than this man. Jesus said that one. So you're advising Jesus, right, you tell him something like this, we probably should start if you want to heal people out here with somebody who's only been this way a little while. And Jesus is like, the problem with that is if they've only been that way a little while, they will

think that they got over it. Okay, Jesus, let's pick somebody to heal if you want to heal somebody. Because John's gospel is not really about healing, It's about belief. That's what he said at the end of his gospel. Matthew Mark Luke and John John tells you why he wrote his gospel. In John twenty thirty, he said these things were written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, and by believing, have life in his name. So the healing in this chapter is not the meaning

of this chapter. The healing is a means to an end so that Jesus can confront unbelief. In fact that it even says in the passage that it was one of the festivals for Jesus, and in the original language, all it says the festival, the definite article, the festival. That makes me think it was passover, which makes me think it was a year after Jesus heals the royal centurion Son in John chapter four, which is amazing because John is skipping a whole year because he's not trying

to show us chronologically what Jesus did. There's a theme that he's taking, and the theme is this, anywhere there is unbelief, Jesus stands to confront it. That is true in your life. So where will God show up the most in your life? The area where you have the hardest time believing? That place, that place, the porch, the porch by the sheep gate with the people who are paralyzed. Why wouldn't you hurry to the temple to the pulpit to preach the word of God and redeem the world.

But Jesus is on the porch. Jesus is on your porch today. Jesus doesn't stand in this pulpit waiting for you to get to church. You think God is waiting for you to get here to speak to you. He's been talking to you all week through your trouble. He's been talking to you all week through traffic. And y'all, Holly preach so good last week. I got to brag on my wife for a minute. She has got it, you got it. She told me I'm not a preacher. Don't put me out there. I'll support you. She told

me that years and years ago. Ha ha ha ha. But I learned how to tricker into preacher. I really think the reason she preached so good last week was because of me. I do not only did I see that gift in her long ago and nurtured it in her, which I want to take the credit right now. Okay, so y'all let me do this. I have this, can I have this one? But before she came up to preach jail last week, she was so nervous and I

could sense it. She said, I need you to pray for me, and I said okay, and I prayed for it. And she was still nervous, and I thought of an idea. I started criticizing myself to her. I start saying bad stuff about myself, not crazy bad stuff, just a little bad. And this woman defends me. So she went into a different gear. That wasn't nervous, little Holly she went into. She went into another mode. Oh no, if you ever saw Spider Man, I don't know if you ever saw Clark.

Can't go into a phone book. But when Holly heard me saying bad things about myself, she grew seven inches taller. I watched it happen right before me, and she looked in my eyes and she said, don't you say that about yourself. I will not. I said, let's go. You're ready to preach now, true story, true story. I say, you're ready, Now, you're ready. Now. I needed to switch her energy. I said, you need to be a little you need to be a little feisty when you go

out there to preach faith to the people. You need to have a little bit of Don't you let the devil tell you that stuff. Don't you let the enemy talk you out of what God gave you. You need a little bit of that to do what you've got to do. So I awakened her inner preacher, and I think the results speak for themselves good. It's a principle of provocation. I had to provoke what was inside of her so she wouldn't be so focused on what was

around her X factor. I had to get her to start accessing what she had on the inside so she wasn't thinking about what she was going to be facing on the outside. If you still think I'm talking about Holly preaching, you are not paying attention. I am talking about you. And when I said the blind lame, the paralyzed. I could have kept going listing things that exist in this room and all around the world through our ethm.

I could have started listing mental conditions. I could have started listing emotional conditions, financial, relational I could have started listing tensions that you didn't even know that were mentionable in church, but they are. And the prerequisite that Jesus had for who he wanted to heal was who had

given up on ever getting better. So I'm thinking he's walking around this room right now and he's looking for who has the X factor, Who is the one who knows that I need God in this place, on the porch, on the porch where the disabled used to lie. We don't have time to stop by the porch, Jesus. We've got to get to the Passover feast. No, no, no, Jesus wasn't going to pass over the porch to get to the Passover festival. And he listen to me, Listen

to me. He is not going to walk past you to bless somebody who is better than you today either. He is not going to pass by you to bless somebody who said their prayers every day this week. He is not going to pass by you to bless somebody who never did what you did. He is not gonna walk by you to bless somebody who has Philippians memorized. He is not going to walk by you to pass somebody that wore a Christian T shirt to church. He is not going to pass by you. He is not

going to pass by you. Bye. This is where you know the sermon is going to take a turn. The devil will do everything in his power to keep you from realizing the resource that is right in front of you. We talked at the beginning of the year about this popular phrase my truth, your truth, my truth, and your truth. Because we live in a world that worshiped personal experience. Y'all like to take notes, put down experience in your notes.

While we're talking about the X factor, I was laughing how Jesus gave this man a true or false question and the man answered with an essay. Jesus said, do you want to get well? That's just yes or no. Just check the box. Want to get well, yes or no, that's all he asked. The man starts doing a fill in the blank exercise. Sir, I have no one to help me into the pool. When the water is stirred. While I'm trying to get in, someone else goes down

ahead of me. He's practiced this crap, y'all. He's practiced this. To explain, write that down, explain, to explain, and what I want you to realize about your life and where you're at and that you're stuck in and what you're stuck with and who you're stuck with. Okay, it would be a horrible time to look at the person you came to church with that time. He don't do it.

Don't do it. Don't do it, don't do it, don't do what I want you to realize about that is one of the most important things about your life is not what you experience, but how you explain what you experience, not to others but to your self. How many optimists do we have in the room? Optimist, raise your hand, Optimist, raise your hand. I want to raise my hand with you, but I fall into a different category. I'm not a pessimist. I'm not a pessimist. I'm not a pessimist because I

refuse to label myself as a pessimist. I refuse to stand up here and identify myself with people who know nothing more than to say how Tom Brady could play better, but they can't throw a football. I will not be that fat guy eating popcorn talking to somebody in good shape about you should have caught that. I will not be Pessimism is easy, that's easy, that's natural. I used to say, Oh, I'm a pessimist. I'm hard on myself. No, actually, I was easy on myself because it was natural for

me to be negative. So when I was hard on myself, beating up on myself, that was just me obeying the law of the south, vound gravitational pull of my sticking rotten flesh, and not being renewed by the pattern of my mind. All the ex pessimists make some noise, y'all feel me. I'm an ex pest I am a recovering pessimist. I'm I'm a recovering fessimist. I'm an ex pessimist. That's what I am. I found out. They even wrote a book about it, called Learned Optimism. I'm like, I didn't

know that was a skill. I thought that was a personality. Well, I found out that the way I explain my life to myself is the X factor that determines whether I stay stuck or move forward. Jesus, in our terms, is called a wonderful counselor mighty God, everlasting father. Yet he breaks every rule of counseling that I've ever heard in my life. He asked a man who can't move, do you want to get well? Which, at the very least, at the very least is awkward. At the worst, it's cruel.

You think I'm down here because I want to be down here. You think I wanted to grow up in that home environment. You think I'm here because I want to be here. You think I chose this role. And immediately he begins to explain, sir, the reason I'm here is because somebody gets in the way. Every time I try to get to the water where the healing is, somebody gets in the way. That's why I can't get there. So the Lord said to tell you your why is

getting in your way every time I try. Every time I try, I do it for a little while and someone stops me. I do it for a little while, I get triggered. I do it for a little while, life happens. I do it for any progress you make can feel like this right, And so then they call it learned helplessness. That's a psychological term. It means that you come to this point where you're like, why even try? Why even try? If every time I'm going to try,

I'm gonna end up just getting blocked. I believe I'm preaching somebody today who got blocked so many times, got blocked so many times, got blocked by people, got blocked by problems, got blocked by diagnosises, got blocked by things that were beyond your control. And the thing about the time we're living in we all have a universal snow day that we keep referring to called the pandemic, that has become a blanket excuse for why none of us

are ever going to accomplish anything. Again, y'all don't like me today. The Lord likes this message. He told me to tell you that he thought this was a good one, and that you're wrong if you don't, because now I know. I know it's a reason, it's an experience, but I have learned that at the same time that I am explaining my situation as a reason why I can't, somebody else is explaining that situation as a gift from God.

Somebody else is taking the very same situation that I'm using to say, well, I can't do it because and someone else is using the very same situation. I can do it because and I watched it happen, not only through the pandemic, but I've watched it happen as people have gone through difficult seasons. You know, I'm coming up on sixteen years of being a pastor, so I'm I'm not some little traveling preacher anymore who just goes around and tells you you can do it. That's not this message.

You can done. You can get on, Just get On'm just walk was gone, just trying. I'm not talking about that stupid little stuff anymore that I mighty used to preach when I didn't know what the Bible said. Now I know what the Bible said. Now I know what the Word of God said. Now I've seen it made flesh in the lives of thousands of people. And the way that you explain your life and the way that you explain this pain and the way that you explain what's going on inside of yourself will either leave you

stuck or move you forward. Will either leave you on your mat or move you. And the best thing about the passage all is his mat became his message. His mat became his message. His mat became his message. And they're like, you don't carrying your mat on the sabath. He's like, let me explain the dude who said it up and it worked. He told me to do it, So that's what I'm doing. That's my explanation. Stop trying to explain to people what God told you to do.

You don't have to explain it to anybody. How you want to be pure, why you want to be pure, why you want to let go you don't have to explain it to anybody. Hey, I got a doctor's excuse. My doctor Jesus said I could do it. My doctor Jesus said I can move on. My doctor Jesus said I could forgive. My doctor Jesus said I could hold my head up. My doctor Jesus said I can enter the most holy place. I got it. The X factor. Did you ever have a doctor's excuse? Do you ever

have a doctor's excuse? You got one right now. You got one right now. God Jesus, our great physician, is trying to give you permission to move past all the reasons that you shouldn't be able to move forward, and to stop limiting the truth to your past experience. I gotta get Holly mad before she preaches, so she can see you're not trying out. This is not an audition. I love y'all, but y'all can't cancel her. You can't. All right, one of y'all might not come back next week,

and it's not her. So I had to get her fired up, you know. I had to get her in that kind of thing, like, man, stand up and give us what God gave you. The Lord told Jeremiah don't be afraid of their faces. I did not know what that meant until I started preaching. I know what that means now, because there's a part when you're preaching people look at you and be like, back up, back up, no, no, no, baby, go forward. That's the word they need. That's the word

they need. That's the word you need, the one that challenges what you knew? Question, was this man lying not physically? Yes, he was lying on the mat. Come on, Stephen, give us a hard one. Let me ask him more clearly. Was he telling the truth? Let's read it. I love your word, Lord, thank you for your word, because he showed me something. He showed me something. He showed me something. And this is what I want to teach you how to do today, because this is really powerful in your life.

It's not just a history lesson about a man. John chapter five is not just about physical infirmity. It's certainly not about a pool called bethesta, which means house of mercy. Is certainly not about a physical porch. It's about our emotional condition, which keeps us from obeing God and receiving his word by faith instead of walking in doubts. So when he said when he said, when he said, sir, verse seven, I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. Now, what does

water have to do with walking? There was conventional wisdom around this porch truth. There was a truth that when the angel troubled the waters from time to time, whoever got to the water first could be healed of whatever had happened to them, whatever was hurting them. Everybody else got left out. So he's giving his truth, which is not really true anymore. I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I'm trying to get in, someone else goes ahead of me.

Like I say, we need to take this slow. I need somebody, a volunteer who has a Bible, paper, bible, a pen, a notebook. You got all three, and you don't mind coming on stage with me for a minute and final criteria. I'm looking for somebody. This is the X factor I'm looking for, all right, I'm choosing a volunteer, Bible, pen, a little notepad, and you don't mind me marking in your Bible? Who wants to Okay? All right, Oh it's

a big Bible too. I like big Bibles. Let's go, big Bible, big traps, big biceps, big Bible, big smile. What's your name? Yeah, I'm kind of big too, right, but what's your name? I was hoping it would be Matt. I know what version of the Bible I got, King James, King James, you said, Darrell Tyrell Tyrell, King James. Old, this is perfect. This is perfect, and I need to show them. You don't mind if I write in it? Are you sure? Okay? This is so perfect. You don't

know how perfect this is. I'm not playing around. We didn't work this out. This is not planned. This is just so perfect. I see I gave you this pen originally. So look look at this. Let's read it together. You love the Bible, right, Nobody brings a Bible this size to urch of. They don't like impotent folk, blind haul withered, waiting for the moving of the water. And you see how in your King James Bible, this massive, jumbo size

King James Bible. Verse four, for an angel went down at a certain season into the pool in trouble the water. Whoever then first after the troubling of the water, stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had in the This is the Bible that I preached out to. I'm getting the old time. I can't see it. It's good anymore. I need this one. Can I keep this one? This one? Oh man? How old are you? By the way, what if he was thirty eight? Like the man thirty

eight years now? But I wanted to show you, and I've talked this before, and I've shown it different ways because I think it's so powerful. It's so powerful in the version that I have, the new International version, it's a great translation. It goes from three to five. And see how number verse four is mentioned down here at the footnotes where it explains how the waters would move

and people would get healed. That verse four. They took it out the ESV and n IV and a lot of the more modern translations because it wasn't in the Earth manuscripts. So the manuscripts that we see that are the earliest, the closest to the original, the most accurate, it wasn't in there, so it's not in these translations. In King James, there's a verse four in the n I V and most of the translations that you'll see if you're looking at it on your phone. You're like, wait,

there is no verse four? Did Steve Jobs come back from the dead and delete my verse four? Is Apple listening to me right now? Are you spying or the Russians here? But it's not any of that. There's there's no there's there's no conspiracy. There's no conspiracy. There's there's there's no conspiracy. It's just a verse that was never there, that was added later by scribes to explain the situation. Why why are you taking time to show me this? Because we add things that God didn't really say to

expel situations that we can't understand. That's a y. I can't believe you had the King James Bible because if you had had any other translation, I wouldn't have been able to share this part. And I was just like, I'm going to go in the moment and call somebody. And I almost picked her because she has an E Kids shirt. No, I don't even know if you're volunteer. Are you volunteer? Am? Okay? Good security, security, good fit. You got it, man, it's that X factor. You got it,

You got it. I'm serious, man, God is on your life. I feel it, but I don't want you to put in versus about what you believe about God, to explain situations, or to here's another ex excuse disabilit This man is taking notes while he's helping me preach. You see him reached for the notebook. So what I want to do? You told me I could write in your Bible. You told me bring me the camera, come here, follow me, tell me when it's in focus. You hold it. Put

that one down, Let's use yours. Hold it. Told me I could write zoom in on the verse shaw, so we could do this. We gotta do this that one. I'm not sure I can clap for this. I thought you were gonna highlight this Bible with a nice slime green elevation orange. The ex factor means that you and I, brothers and sisters need to go through and make sure that what we believe about God is really revealed in

the person of Jesus, not just the traditions of men. Now, in case they put this on one of those YouTube channels that talks about what I'm preaching and what shoes I'm wearing or something like that, I want to make sure you're not going through crossing out the parts of the Bible that you don't like because they're hard. Like love your neighbor as yourself. I'm not sure about the neighbor. I like that love yourself part. Oh yeah, I love myself. I like that part. No no no, no, no, no, no,

no no no. It wasn't there. It got added later. It's not what God said. It got added later. I want you to know some of the things you believe God didn't speak, It got added later. Somebody told you something that made you feel small, and you settled into the small that they made you feel, not realizing greater is He that is in me. So I can't be that small. I can't be that insignificant. In fact, y'all still with me? Or you already shopping for another church

on Google. Well, I'm preaching. Click off, click off, click off, click off. This guy's crossing out the Bible. No no, no, I'm crossing out what's not the Bible. I'm crossing out what God didn't speak over me. So if he corrects me, I want to hear it. If he challenges me, I want to hear it. If he thinks I'm wrong, I want to know it. But we don't stay right there, We don't bridge this anymore. We used to have a thing check yourself before you, but now I see it everywhere.

Treat yourself. First of all, it's just annoying. That's an annoying thing to say anyway. But secondly, yes, I'm all for self care. What about self confrontation. I'm gonna come behind my security over here. One of the hardest things, though, is what he said when he explained experience. Every time I try, I get stopped. Every time I try, I get blocked. Every time I try, I smile, they don't smile back. I asked her out. She said, no, well, how you explain that to yourself. We used to ride around.

My best friend from all through high school is right there on that second row. And when a girl would it be interested in us, we would like be the Holy Spirit interpretation for each other. So he'd be like, he'd be like, she's just not on your level. I needed that right around hyphen each other all day. You know, Deep calls to deep man, She's just not deep enough, that's all. It is, cold Bible versus handle rejection. And then the man's the man's explanation. This is this is

where I see you today. You caught between an experience and an explanation, and his explanation is keeping him stuck, and some of us have fallen in love with our stuckness. We love stuck because we learned we can get our way if we get angry. So do we really want to be made well from our anger? We've learned that we can get our way by doing the silent treatment, So do we really want to get better at communicating? We've learned that we can get our way and seek

attention by misbehaving. Some of us subconsciously create failure in our life so that it will call people to our rescue, so we will feel wanted. Now, I see why the genius of Jesus when that make a cool series. The genius of Jesus made him a wonderful counselor, even though it seems like he has a terrible bedside manner, He's like the X factor here is not the externals, externals, the economy and your mom's mom's mom's mom's mom's goldfish that made you like you are, or who won't do

what for you? Because that's not true anymore? Now is the man lying? Sir? I have no man When the water is troubled to put me into the pool. I have no man, I have no help. It's not true anymore. It's not true anymore. It was true five minutes before Jesus got there. It was true. Let's use my Bible for this part. I don't want to cross anything else out of yours. What he said pulled it for me. Where it said, sir, I have no one to help me. I have Can you see it closer? I have no one.

That used to be true, but Jesus is here now. That was true. No, no, it wasn't an excuse. It was true until the truth showed up. That's the X vector that I wanted to preach to you about today is that you are still operating in your life as if Jesus were not risen. But he is risen, and you are carrying watch this the shame, as if your sin were not forgiven. But it is forgiven. But I'm a sinner. You were a sinner, and you still sin.

But now you have help that you didn't have when you were trying to fulfill the law in your own flesh. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakean. I feel my help now in that it was weakean that's what I was. It's not what I am. I am now he used to be true. But Jesus is on your fORCH. Jesus is on your porch where that's the X factor. Not your might, not your power, but by his spirit, he's here, he's here. Make the announcement, Make the announcement, Make the announcement, make

the announcement. So five people tell him he's here on your porch. He's here, on your fORCH. He's here, he's here, he's here. He it's so good, it's so good. God wants to change your explanation to where you start explaining things different. Let your faith explain. Maybe we could do that for a part two message, if you'll like it. How to let faith explain, because fear will start explaining. See the reason that happened to you because you suck,

and you always sucked. And let's put it in King James, thou shouts suck forever more. The devil speak King James language to get you to believe a lie. And here's what we said. We said, we said few weeks ago, we said few weeks ago, we said he's the father of lies. That's his native language. He speaks lie like like you speak tennis. Robert's a tennis coach. He'll come up to me, he'll be like, man that was like a servant, a volley or something like that. Today on

the sermon, I'm like, Robert, what does that mean? That doesn't apply. That's his language. The devil's language is lie. You think this man on the on the porch, You think the man on the porch was trying to lie to Jesus. But he was speaking something that used to be true. There were three things I said you needed. One was a Bible and you had to. One was a pen and you had to. I said a notebook, and he had that too, and he had a pin. Then I gave him and then that just like the

grace of God, he gives us what he asked for. Anyway, okay 's that is I'm having fun today. I'm having fun today because I feel the spirit of unstuckness as God begins to show you how to change the way you explained. The way that you explain the experience either keeps you stuck or sets you free. So she could sit here and say, well, I'm just a little girl. Nobody can I tell him what that lady said to you the other day. People say the weirdest stuff to

you in it. They don't know you, but they think they do. Some lady came up to her say, girl, we go to church. You're so you've gotten so good. It's already a backhanded compliment because you've gotten so good, implies what. But then she didn't just imply it, she said it. I mean you were rough when you started security, all right, So I can't do this for you, but maybe I could teach you the X factor. It's when you take something that you used to be and that

you still feel like this. What was I saying? Yeah, you were? You weren't worth the blood of Jesus Christ, the precious, eternal Lamb of God. Weren't that good. You weren't worth that much, God's only son, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God. But he decided you were. So that's what I am. That's what I am. All I'm doing. All I'm doing is Colossians Too fourteen, where it said that Jesus having canceled, you want to talk about cancel culture.

Jesus is the cancel culture king. He look what he canceled. I can't wait to show you this. He canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness. The Greek word is the handwritten indebtedness. They would make you write your debt by your own hand, as to say that this is my debt and you have to write it in your own hand. So Jesus took his hand y'all to love the gospel. This is about as good as it gets. Klatchin's two fourteen is about as good as it gets. I know

Frestam's taking together running over some menborn. I'm excited about everything God wants to add to my life. I am more excited about what he took away when he died for me on the cross. That's a real sounding thing for me. He took our indebtedness and he paid the price for it, which stood against us and condemned us. He has taken it away and he nailed it to his cross. That is why I can take up my mat and walk cauzuh that you ready. That's the ex

factor for me. For me, grace makes the difference for me. I know you were a good person, and that's why you deserve to be blessed, not me, not me. I know you always get it right, and that's why you're so successful, not me. I know you are always full of joy, and that is why the Lord is lucky to have you on his squad, not me. Not me. I know what I was without him, and that's why I'm so excited that I've got him. And that's why I don't mind praising God. That's what I expect the supernatural.

I want you to take every page of this thing and write stuff that used to be true before Christ came along. I want you to practice this week. I wish some of you parents would be a leader for your family and take this message and say, before we sit down today, everybody's gonna x something before I even feed you all lunch. You don't want paying, don't take a bite until we x something that the enemy has set over your life. That used to be true. That's the key. It used to be true. It used to

be true. It used to be that. The only way to be right with God is for you to be perfect, for you to keep the law, including the Sabbath. That's what the Passover was all about. That's what the festival that John five mentions was. They put a X on the door in blood of all of God's people, so that the angel of Death would pass over on the top of the doorframe, on the sides of the doorframe in Exodus twelve. And God said, not this house, not

this house. So this is a passover day for us in Jesus that he's walking up to the person on the porch who can't move, can't function, can't get over it, can't recover, can't get it together. And the truth stands in front of the experience, and he doesn't tell him something to understand. He tells him something to do. I want you to take what was holding you and hold it. I have no one to help, but you do now. But you do now. Don't let the explanation become an excuse.

You've got it now, You've got the word of God, You've got the spirit of God. Please don't just come in here every week expecting for somebody to lug you to the pool, because you're always gonna get blocked. You're always gonna get blocked. This is the X factor. The man said, I don't know who healed me, Well go find out. It was Jesus. Say it again, it was Jesus. You said it at the beginning of the sermon, But now I want you to hear it. He's the X factor.

He changed everything, Grace changes everything. You're here today. You're saying I can't be saved, I can't be a Christian, I can't get on the right path. God knew that. That's why he didn't make you get to the water. He brought the water to you. It's not how smart you are. That's not the X factor. That's not what's going to attract the power of God to your life. It's not how manipulative you can be, how you can

work everything out according to your plan. It said it was Jesus that made me walk, it was Jesus that made me whole. And it starts with this question, do you want to get well? Because you've been like this a long time? Stand up. I'm gonna pray for you. Thank you, my friend, thank you. It'sod Bible back. I'm gonna pray for you. Yeah. I want you to fill every blank page in that notebook with that all that junk the enemy's been telling you, keeping you stuck too. Okay,

I want to see is all through that notebook. Father. We want to take a moment and reflect on the X factor. Really awesome to see Jesus in Jerusalem, to know he would head back there and die just a little while later, and that what was initiated in the man's life through healing would be completed for us on

the cross so that we could be set free. I believe in my spirit God, that there are thousands who are hearing this message right now, who this is their moment to be saved, to receive the grace of God,

not by works, but by grace through faith. Right now, if you're like that man spiritually, not physically, but spiritually, you say, you know what, I'm dead in my sin and I want to receive Jesus Christ as my savior so that the written requirement in my handwriting, the things I've done that separated me in my heart from God can be nailed to his cross and so that I can move forward into a new future. I'm gonna pray with you right now. You know the Bible says that

it is by grace you are saved. That man would have never gotten into the water if he would have kept trying to get there on his own. He had to let the water come to him, and you are at that moment right now. God brought you here online in the physical building. God brought you here, and Jesus is standing in front of you. I'm going to pray

a prayer right now. We're going to pray it out loud as a church family for the benefit of those who are coming to Jesus to be saved, repenting of their sin, receiving his new life for the first time, or coming back to God. And as I pray, if you believe in your heart that Jesus Christ is able to save you, you confess with your mouth that Jesus's Lord. The Bible says you will be saved. Every head bow, every eye closed, repeat after me this prayer, Lord Jesus.

I am a sinner in need of a savior, and I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God. And today I make Jesus the Lord of my life. I believe he died that I would be forgiven and rose again to give me life. I receive this new life. This is my new beginning. Raise your hand on account of three. If you prayed that one, two, three and all in the chat, raise hands. Can't go on up everywhere? Yeah, yeah, that's it. No shame in it, No shame in it. Take up your madden walk. Take up the Man who

saved you told you to do it. Jesus said you can do it. Raise your hand up high. Let's clap our hands for everybody who got that living water today. Take up your maden walk. Thank you Jesus. We're bringing you a Bible right now where the Word of God is, where it can instruct you how to walk. Hey, thank you for not leaving. I appreciate your attention to the word of God. This is a very important moment for somebody. I want us to seal it. I want us to seal this moment of what God just did by giving

God the most amazing thirty seconds of praise. Can we do that right now? Thank you? Lord, Come, I'm on. Open your mouth. It was Jesus. And what's the lord? Hey, man away, it was him. It was Jesus. It was Jesus. Hey saved you. Hey, riise you head, what's Jesus? He's Jesus. Come on, give them money, celebrad Well. If you enjoyed today's podcast, there are a couple of things I'd love for you to do. Make sure to subscribe, rate, and

review this podcast. You can also help us reach others by investing today at Elevation church dot org, slash give and thanks again for joining us on the Elevation Podcast