2026.03.08 Dr Kenneth Bruce - So That You May Believe - Rise - The Healer Has Come - John 5-1 - 16_1_1

Our God is the Faith.

Lamentations, chapter 3, because of the Lord's faithful love, we do not perish.

For His mercies never end.

They are new every morning.

Great is your faithfulness.

I say, the Lord is my portion.

Therefore, I will put my hope in Him.

As followers of Jesus, we can bask and we can celebrate in our faithful God,

who is with us, who goes before us, who never leaves us,

who never forsakes us, who promises us very precious and very great promises.

And God has been so good to us by giving us His best, His one and only son.

Yes.

Someone shared the gospel with us, been told about who Jesus is and what He has done.

And we believe by His grace.

So what we are going to do now is a faith family.

We are going to intercede on behalf of those who don't know Jesus yet.

Up on the wall we have the names of people that we as a faith family have been gathering

of last several weeks of people in our life who don't know Jesus yet.

And we are going to have time to pray right now in which I am going to invite you to pray with your eyes open.

That would you, just as you scan across all of these hundreds and hundreds of names that you would pray that God would open their eyes and their hearts to the gospel.

That day would experience the faithfulness of God through the gospel.

Father, I am humbled to see these names of people whom you know, whom you love and whom you sent your son to die for.

Well, I pray you would open their eyes and their hearts to the gospel that they might believe.

That Lord, you would pursue them that right now your Holy Spirit would be.

And speaking loud and clear right into their hearts, drawing them to faith in Jesus Christ.

May they believe the good news of Jesus.

God, nothing is impossible for you.

And so, Father, I pray that you would put believers in their lives who would boldly proclaim the good news of Jesus.

God, I pray for a revival that would sweep across our community and far beyond of people whose lives are being radically transformed by your grace.

So, Lord, may your gospel go forth in power.

Lord, would you pursue and run after these and draw them to your son?

God, would you find us as a faith family, faithful, boldly sharing the good news of what Christ has done for us?

Thank you so much for your son.

Thank you for a mission that will keep going until that great and glorious day when we see you.

Find us faithful until that day, O God.

We love you and we trust you in Jesus and in my brain.

And all God's people said, they may have been, they may have been church, you may be seated.

What a good gift to gather together as followers of Jesus, to bask in His presence, to lift high His name and worship.

It's amazing to me that God has given us a singing faith.

Several years ago, I was over in the nation of Turkey with some pastors in which we were walking through and looking at the different sites of these churches from the book of Revelation.

Revelation chapter two and three and we were traveling from city to city and we stopped in a coffee house and we were having hot tea together with a man who was a Muslim shop owner.

And he said, do you mind if I sing for you?

Yes, we all said, yeah, that would be great.

He sang a song in Arabic to us, sounded beautiful.

We asked our translator what the words meant and she said, well, the words are, there is no hope in this life.

He then said, would you all sing for me?

And so all ten of us pastors, we sang amazing grace.

How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.

We sing great is thy faithfulness.

You see, we have a faith that sings.

You have a reason to sing.

Not based upon how you feel, but based upon who our God is and what He has done for you in the gospel.

You know, today is a time change Sunday and so I want to just praise you for just a moment.

You guys got up early and you're here on time and I am just so proud of you.

I think that speaks well of your character.

I think I speak highly about who you are as a person.

Now the people at 1045, I just, I've got some concerns, y'all.

I've got some concerns.

But you, you have character.

No, I'm just so grateful.

I can't wait for the great and glorious day when Jesus returns and we don't have to deal with time change anymore.

And Lord willing, that will come soon.

I want you to picture with me just for a moment that you are in the desert and you are looking across a desert floor where all you see as far as you can see across the horizon are dead people's boats.

As far as you can see it across the landscape are tibias and femurs and clavicles and vertebrae.

That's all you see out in the distance.

It's a very dark and depressing scene as before you.

And their standing is a prophet.

And the Lord says to the prophet, son of man, can these bones live?

And the prophet rightly responds, oh Lord God only you know.

And the Lord says, preach to those dead bones.

And as he's preaching, there's a rattly.

There's a shaky.

All of a sudden bones begin to find other bones.

Vertebrae, find other vertebrae.

We see these muscles and these tendons.

They begin to form.

Skin wraps around these bodies.

Air begins to fill these lungs.

And standing before Ezekiel is an army that is alive.

That story is a picture that when God's word goes forth, his word brings healing and life.

600 years after Ezekiel, Jesus marches into downtown Jerusalem.

He enters in through the northeastern corner through the sheepgate, makes a right hand turn towards the pools of Bethesda.

They're laying at the poolside where dozens of blind, lame and paralyzed people.

Men and women, lounging poolside, hoping, praying to one day be healed by these magical healing waters.

Well there on the pool dext sits a man who has been paralyzed for 38 years, discouraged, alone.

Jesus approaches him and speaks.

The word of God that came through Ezekiel that brought healing and life is now speaking to this paralytic.

And as the word of God goes forth, the word brings healing and life to this man.

And here you sit today.

Many of you walking through hardship, difficulty and suffering.

I want you to know that the word of God when it comes forth into your life, God will accomplish his purposes.

His word brings healing and life.

And that is what we see happening in John chapter 5.

Let me show you.

Grab your Bible and turn with me to John chapter 5.

We're walking through the book of John together as a faith family and a sermon series called so that you may believe.

John is walking us through the ministry of Jesus where he is displaying his deity as the Son of God.

He is inviting his gospel readers to believe upon Jesus as the Son of God.

And when you believe in him, you will find that you will find life in his name.

Now we have already seen Jesus have some really powerful one-on-one conversations leading up to this moment.

We've seen Jesus have a conversation late at night with Nicodemus in which he calls him to be born again.

We then see Jesus have a midday conversation with a sexually immoral Samaritan woman over a water well in which he invites her to drink the living water that only he can provide.

We see Jesus have a conversation with a centurion, with a local government leader back at the end of John chapter 4.

But this government leader, this royal official, is also a dad whose young boy is suffering on the brink of death.

And he begs Jesus to heal his son.

And from a distance, Jesus just speaks the word and this little boy is healed.

Now we get to chapter 5 and we see Jesus.

He is now returned to Jerusalem once again for a Jewish festival.

Now we're going to jump into God's word together and read this passage.

I think it's going to be important for you to understand what we're about to read.

What you're going to see here in just a moment, as a quick side note, verse 4 here is printed only as a footnote in most modern Bible translations.

So why is that?

As we're about to read this text, why does it look like verse 4 is missing?

It's not missing, it's usually at the bottom of the page. Why does it do that?

Because the oldest Greek manuscripts do not contain that sentence.

It shows up only in a few later copies.

And simply, this text, I'm sorry, this sentence, it simply records a local belief about the pool.

Okay. So verse 4's absence from the narrative was missing in the earliest manuscripts.

But ultimately, it makes no difference to the flow or to the message of this passage.

Okay. So you can trust God's word.

I just want to provide clarity of why verse 4 is not there in the text, but it's down below at the bottom of your page.

Let's get in the word together.

John chapter 5, beginning with verse 1 and the holy scripture says this.

After this, a Jewish festival took place and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

By the Sheetgate in Jerusalem, there is a pool called Bethesda in Aramaic, which has five colonates.

Within these lay a large number of the disabled, blind, lame, and paralyzed.

One man was there who had been disabled for 38 years.

When Jesus saw him lying there and realized he had already been there a long time, he said to him,

do you want to get well?

Sir, the disabled man answered.

I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I'm coming, someone goes down ahead of me.

Get up, Jesus told him, pick up your mat and walk.

Instantly, the man got well, picked up his mat and started to walk.

Now that day was the Sabbath, and so the Jews said to the man who had been healed, this is the Sabbath.

The law prohibits you from picking up your mat.

He replied, the man who made me well told me, pick up your mat and walk.

Who is this man who told you pick up your mat and walk, they asked?

But the man who was healed did not know who it was because Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.

After this, Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, see, you were well.

Do not sin anymore so that something worse doesn't happen to you.

The man went and reported to the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well.

Therefore, the Jews began persecuting Jesus because he was doing these things on the Sabbath.

Jesus arrives at a pool near the sheep gate of Jerusalem and encounters a crippled man who has been suffering for 38 years.

Jesus speaks a single sovereign command, get up, pick up your mat and walk, and the man is instantly made whole.

I want you to notice in the text here the heart of Jesus and how His Word gives healing and life to you.

The first thing I want you to see in the text is that Jesus seeks after hopeless people.

Jesus seeks after hopeless people.

Surrounding the pool were all these disabled people who were clinged to the hope of a folklore.

Urban legends said that periodically an angel would stir up these waters and these pools of Bethesda,

and they would provide healing to anyone who got to the waters first.

Now, I've been to the pools of Bethesda before.

And what the reality is is underneath is an underwater spring.

Periodically, water would be pushed up from the bottom, creating a disturbance in the water,

and this urban legend, this folklore, came to the understanding that whenever that happens,

whoever gets into the water first, they experience healing.

Well, superstition had given this man false hope.

For 38 years, he's been paralyzed, unable to move his legs,

desiring to get up and walk. He's discouraged because he's never experienced healing, and he's alone.

He doesn't have a friend who can pick him up and take him into the water.

He doesn't have a friend who can nudge him forward to get him to the water's edge.

But Jesus takes the first steps towards a man who has no strength, no friends, and no hope.

You may be here today full of discouragement.

Your desperate, maybe hopeless, if friends have abandoned you.

Your job has been eliminated.

Your bank number is low.

You're struggling to figure out how you're going to move forward.

Your body has betrayed you.

And you're wondering, is there any hope?

I want you to hear me today. If you are hopeless, you are a prime candidate for the hope of Jesus.

He is here seeking you out through his word Jesus wants you.

And he is here to remind you today that though you feel hopeless,

he will give you a hope that will sustain you through the hardest of trials that you will face in this life.

You see, the darker the backdrop, the brighter his grace.

For when our strength stops, his mercy begins.

Jesus came to seek, he came to save, that which was lost.

We see it in Luke 15.

And he is the God who seeks after lost coins, lost sheep, and lost sons.

You see, here comes Jesus, and he approaches this man seeking him out.

If you're here today and you feel hopeless, hear me on this.

Jesus is seeking you out today.

So that's who he is.

He is the God who seeks those who are hopeless.

The second thing we've seen in the text is that Jesus speaks healing to hurting people.

This man is dismayed over his circumstances, frustrated,

that he can't do anything to heal himself lonely with no one to pick him up.

And here comes Jesus, verse 8, get up.

Pick up your mat and walk.

A lifetime of paralysis is immediately reversed by one sovereign sentence.

By the very voice of Jesus, the curse of Genesis 3 is now being reversed,

turned upside down by the voice of Jesus.

You see, in Jesus Christ, the kingdom of God is breaking into this world.

Jesus here is showing himself as the sovereign king of the universe.

He is the one who came to reverse the curse of Genesis 3,

that when sin entered into the world through our first parents,

Jesus comes and says, I'm going to fix all of that.

I'm going to take care of those who are hurting, those who are sick.

And through me, I'm going to provide healing and grace.

And all the consequences that have been through the first Adam,

they are reversed through the second Adam.

Jesus is now showing himself as the one who is sovereign over the human body.

He is the one who is the healer of those who are hurting.

We see the kingdom of God breaking through.

You see, what he's doing here is he's showing I'm the one who's preparing a pathway

for a future world, a future true and greater Eden,

that will include everyone who trusts in me.

And in that future world, there is healing that will take place.

There's coming a day in which there is no more paralysis.

There is coming a day in which there is no more cancer.

There is coming a day in which there is no more divorce.

Jesus here is showing us a future world.

He is showing us the kingdom of God breaking through into our world.

Isaiah 35, 700 years before the arrival of Jesus,

points to a future day when the lane will leap like a deer.

Here in John 5, Jesus is waving the messianic flag over Jerusalem

that Isaiah was looking forward to and it has finally arrived.

Jesus speaks and this man is healed.

Jesus is Jehovah Rafa, the Lord who heals.

And we see the healing power of Jesus by just speaking a word.

You see the one who created this man's body is now healing it.

Jesus is Lord over this man's nervous system.

By his powerful word, Jesus heals this man's brain, his spinal cord,

his nerves, his muscles, his tendons, all of his bones,

everything he needed to stand up and walk.

Jesus has it.

He's an all-sufficient Savior.

He is a powerful King.

He is the living Word of God.

When Jesus speaks, God speaks.

And we see the power of God on display.

Jesus is Lord over all things.

How long did it take to go into effect?

Look at verse 9.

Instantly.

Instantly the man got well.

Ficked up his man started to walk.

Jesus is not a weak Savior.

He's not a fragile King.

You see the Word of Jesus is powerful to heal hurting people.

He is able to hear me.

Nothing is impossible for Jesus.

If you're hurting today, come to Jesus and ask him for healing.

He is the healer.

He loves to display his power by healing hurting people.

But let's be clear.

John 5 is not a guarantee that healing will take place in your timetable.

That's right.

Let me make sure I get this guy's name right.

Jonathan Evans, powerful preacher, pastor, endalus,

was preaching his mother's funeral who had passed away from cancer.

And in that funeral, he began to share with the congregation

about his prayer life and how he struggled and wrestled with God.

God, why did you let my mom suffer and die?

Why did you not step in and heal her?

And here's his response.

He said, God revealed to me regarding my mom.

There was always only two answers to your prayers.

Either she was going to be healed or she was going to be healed.

Either she was going to live or she's going to live.

Either she's going to be with family or she's going to be with family.

Either she'll be well taken care of or she'll be well taken care of.

Victory belongs to me because of what I've already done for you.

So you bring to Jesus your pain.

You ask him for healing and you wait on his timing.

So if God heals you now, phrase his name.

If he doesn't heal you now, phrase his name.

For on resurrection morning, on the last day,

our corruptible bodies will be clothed with incorruptibility.

On the last day, our mortal bodies will be clothed with immortality.

There is healing coming in your future.

Whether it happens on this side of the resurrection or not, it's coming.

It has been sealed by the precious blood and the empty tomb of Jesus Christ.

Healing is coming for God's people.

And there is a coming world where sin and all of its effects in our bodies will cease.

Pain will be a distant memory and we will rest all and complete in the new creation

that Jesus' blood and die to secure for us.

You keep rise on Jesus' beloved and you keep asking him for healing.

Whether he heals you or not, you're going to give him the glory.

Because you will one day be ultimately healed at his resurrection.

At our resurrection.

He's already been raised, Kenneth.

Come on.

Jesus seeks after hopeless people.

Jesus speaks healing to hurting people.

Number three, I want you to see the text.

Jesus spurns hollow rules of religious people.

Beloved, Jesus full well knew what day it was.

He knew it was the Sabbath.

He knew what he was doing.

His command to this man to pick up his mat and walk, he was deliberate.

He could have chosen any other day to do this.

Instead, Jesus intentionally is attacking the legalistic traditions of these religious people.

Forget that this man has been suffering from those four decades.

Forget that he has been miraculously healed.

Forget that the transforming work of God is at work in their city.

The response of these religious leaders, verse 10, this is the Sabbath.

The law prohibits you from picking up your mat.

I mean, what?

How disheartening.

You see these Jewish leaders?

They had created this entire system of rules upon rules.

Let me let us unpack this for a moment.

They had created a system of 39 special rules of an entire system of rules around the Sabbath.

But underneath each of these 39 rules, they had hundreds of more rules under that.

Of things you can do and things you can't do on the Sabbath.

Can I give you some examples?

On the Sabbath, you are not allowed to look into a handheld mirror.

Why?

Because you might spot a gray hair in pluckets which is considered work on the Sabbath.

On the Sabbath, if a nail on your finger was partially torn, you could not finish pulling it off.

Because it was considered work on the Sabbath.

Women could not wear a wig in public.

Because if it fell off, she would have to carry it.

Okay, Westwood, Puckquiz.

I'm going to test your Bible knowledge.

Where in the Bible does it say that you cannot pick up your mat on the Sabbath?

Anybody know?

No way.

It's not in your Bible.

You see, these religious leaders had created this entire system of all of these rules upon rules upon rules.

And they completely missed the point.

You can see why Jesus was a living with these Jewish religious leaders.

They were putting burdens on the people that they could not carry.

They were like the religious moral police who kept putting more rules and more traditions on the people.

You see, blood and Jesus came to set you free from hollow rules of religious people.

Your acceptance before God is not based on your rule keeping.

It's not based on how well you perfectly obey or you keeping the law.

No, your salvation is based on Jesus' perfect obedience for you.

You're trusting in His perfection.

You're banking your soul that He lived a perfect sinless life on your behalf.

That the one who knew no sin, 2 Corinthians 5, became sin at the cross so that in Him you might become the righteousness of God in Him.

Your righteousness is not based on how well you obey.

It's you trusting in the perfect obedience of Jesus for you on your behalf.

These religious leaders completely missed it.

In their minds that salvation was based upon our obedience, keeping all of these rules and regulations.

You got to be very specific and detailed and do all of these things after things after things.

And it created this non-biblical yardstick that the people couldn't measure up to.

I mean, think of the dangers of equating rule following with salvation.

Okay, let me, let me work on this.

If you thought your right standing before God was based upon you keeping certain rules,

you would begin to think that your acceptance before God was based upon your obedience and not Jesus.

You would be robbing Jesus of glory, do His name for what He has done.

And you're saying, Sean, the spotlight on me and all the great things I've done.

You would become prideful or despairing based upon your performance.

Instead of resting in Jesus' perfect performance for you.

You would avoid messy people who are not rulekeepers like you.

That doesn't model the compassion of Jesus.

You would communicate a false gospel to outsiders to think that Christianity is a self-improvement club.

No, the gospel is the good news for sinners.

For rule followers and rule breakers, Jesus came and says,

I want you to turn away from your sin, stop looking at yourself and look at me.

I'm the Savior, I'm the rescuer, I'm the Redeemer.

Look to my blood stained cross where I gladly gave my life for you.

I made a tonement for your sin in full.

I covered it all.

And through my death, you can be forgiven.

You can be restored back to a right relationship with God.

And through faith in me, you become a citizen of heaven, a member of God's kingdom.

I'm going to put you in a community called the local church.

I'm going to adopt you into my family.

I'm going to give you my name.

I'm going to provide for you in the future an inheritance.

I could keep going with all the benefits that God has afforded to you through your union with Christ.

You see, if we get the gospel wrong and say it's about how well I obey it,

how well I keep the rules, we're going to totally miss Jesus.

Jesus here is living and we can become just like these religious leaders.

You see, the Lord of the Sabbath, Jesus Christ, would not allow these religious leaders to usurp

his ultimate purpose of what the Sabbath was.

You see, physical rest of the Sabbath was pointing to Jesus.

We find rest ultimately in Jesus that you can be sitting perfectly still all day on a Saturday and completely disobey the Sabbath.

Because you missed the one at the Sabbath is driving you to the Lord Jesus Christ.

We Sabbath in Him.

We rest in Him for salvation.

It's when we stop working on our own and say, I'm going to lay these things down.

I'm going to rest in Jesus Christ.

I'm going to rest in His perfect, finished and complete work that He accomplished through His sinless life, through His substitutionary death on the cross,

through His victorious resurrection from the dead, through His ascension up into heaven.

I'm baking my soul on Him and Him alone.

You see, these guys completely missed it.

Now, we're going to impact this more Lord willing next week, but the reality is these legalists miss the bigger picture.

This man has been paralyzed for 38 years and they're scolding him.

I mean, talk about missing the miracle.

You can see why first century Jews were exhausted and they were stressed and they were hurting because these Pharisees and these scribes kept bringing more rules and laws for them to try and obey and say,

this is how you become right with God and you enter in Jesus of Nazareth who brings in a fresh teaching that aligns with Scripture and finds its fulfillment in Him.

And you can see why the people flocked to Jesus.

His teaching has authority.

His teaching has power.

His teaching provides liberty and freedom.

Jesus is the one who came to set me free.

Well, let me run to Him.

Jesus seeks after hopeless people.

Jesus speaks healing to hurting people.

Jesus spurns hollow rules of religious people.

The fourth and finally, Jesus sanctifies to make a holy people.

Jesus sanctifies to make a holy people.

After the man was healed, he's confronted by the religious leaders.

They're inquiring who healed him.

He finds himself in the temple and though Jesus had physically healed him, this man still needed some spiritual healing.

Later, Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, see, you're well again.

Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.

What's Jesus talking about here?

He is calling this man to live a life of repentance.

And if he doesn't repent, if he doesn't follow and trust in Jesus, something worse than 38 years of paralysis is on the horizon.

What's he talking about?

Helm.

If this man, though physically healed, would not be spiritually healed by turning from sin and trusting in Jesus, there is an even greater suffering that was ahead for him.

Once again, physical healing is good in the temporary, but spiritual healing is essential for eternity.

It is good and right to pray for people to experience physical healing.

But if someone is physically healed and do not believe the gospel, they're still in a bad shape for eternity.

It matters that people not just experience physical healing, but we want an even greater healing that comes only through faith in Jesus Christ.

Sin has to be dealt with for every single person.

And Jesus gladly says, I will deal with it at the cross.

Now look to me by faith.

And so we pray for a spiritual healing that would happen in the lives of people we encounter.

You see, spiritual healing through the gospel is more important than physical relief from suffering.

Yeah, that's right.

This is not minimize a benevolence ministry.

At Westwood, we're going to feed the hungry and we're going to share the gospel.

We're going to clothe the naked and we're going to share the gospel.

We're going to provide medicine and blessing for those who are hurting and suffering and we're sharing the gospel.

Because ultimate healing is only found through faith in Jesus Christ.

You see, it's not good news that someone is healed from paralysis and then they continue in rebellion against God.

When Jesus finds this man the temple, he warns him, sin, no more.

You see, Jesus heals us to make us holy.

God doesn't just want his body made whole here.

Jesus wants this man's heart to be made right before God.

It's after this man's heart so that he has become a holy man, a godly man, a righteous man who is healed of his paralysis.

Yes, but he was healed of his sin glorifying God in all of his life.

You see, if we're not careful, sin can make you more crippled than any disease.

So you repent of your sin. You leave it. You sprint away from it and you make a beeline to the Lord Jesus Christ who heals you for all of your sin.

He forgives you of all of your sin and then by his grace, he gives you his Holy Spirit who enables you to go out and live a life of holiness, the godly life that glorifies him.

This man did not need was the stirring of a pool in the city of God.

What this man needed was the stirring within his heart by the person of God.

He needed Jesus. Question what about you?

This man was looking to a pool to provide life and healing.

What are you looking to that will provide you life and healing?

Are you looking to a relationship?

A position, posture of prominence, a certain standard of wealth.

Is there something that you think, yes, I'll take Jesus, but I also want this.

Whatever this is for you this morning, I invite you to lay this side.

Don't return to it. In fact, this is the impact point.

Trage your pool for the person.

Trage your pool for the person.

This man thought the pool could heal him, but what he needed was Jesus and beloved so do you.

In 1969, at the age of 17, Johnny Erickson Tadah dove headfirst into the Chesapeake Bay.

She was paralyzed from the neck down.

She spent years in the hospital chasing experimental cures, hoping that doctors and surgeries would heal her of her paralysis.

Meanwhile, she grew bitter and angry.

Let her to tell despair.

She begged for her friends to help her to end her life.

By God's grace, she had Christians in her life who were praying for her.

They went by to see her at the hospital.

They were encouraging her.

They were reading her the Psalms and they read her.

John chapter 5.

Under their prayers, she eventually turned her life completely to the Lord and his plans for her life.

Today, five decades later, Johnny has an international radio show where she shares the gospel with people all across the world.

She leads an international ministry to those with disability.

She testifies through countless books of the power of Jesus to turn tragedy into triumph.

To turn suffering into service, to turn hopelessness into a hope-filled joy that's found in Jesus Christ.

And through her ministry, thousands of people have risen and walked in the new hope of Jesus.

God's Word brings healing and life.

And that same Word that came through the prophet Ezekiel and came through the true and greater prophet at the pools of Bethesda

would ultimately go to a cross in which he would speak a word it is finished.

And through his words of blessing and truth, he is making a way for you through him to find healing and life.

All that you would lay aside everything else in your life that you're looking to for hope, for healing, for life.

And you would fixate on the person of Jesus Christ.

Father, I thank you for this precious gospel, a wonderful Savior who knows us intimately, cares for us deeply.

I pray, Father, you're blessing upon your people.

Or my heart grieves, or it is so many, and our faith family are suffering.

Oh, God, in Jesus' name, would you heal them?

We ask His children coming before our good Father, who loves it when His children pray, when we seek your face.

And so I intercede, I ask for in Jesus' name, would you heal, would you strengthen, would you provide life?

Father, I pray more over, Lord, those who experience healing would ultimately find spiritual healing in Jesus.

I pray, God, that the gospel that has saved us and rescued us now and from all time, or we continue for through your people, may this precious gospel go forth.

Thank you, O God, for the healing we find in Jesus.

If you're here today, don't go Christ, please don't leave our campus without trusting in Jesus.

At the close of our service, we have some encouragement here at the front.

They'd love to talk with you and help you take that next step and follow in Jesus.

Maybe you're going through a trial, and you would like for people to pray with you.

We'll have some deacons here at the front, and they would be honored to pray with you today.

They're here to serve you church.

So stop behind and say, would you just take some time to pray for me, and they would be honored to do it?

Father, I'm so thankful for a church that just signs a spotlight on Jesus together.

I pray, God, that you would just show up and show off in the hearts of your people even now.

Oh, God, we love you and we trust you with all of our hearts in Jesus' name we pray.

And all God's people said, amen.

Church, before we're dismissed, I want to invite Pastor Rick Swing to come up and join me here on the stage.

Rick has an update for us in regards to Project 78.

As you all are about to see, and Rick's going to highlight that you look out this way, we've got some dirt moving.

We have some exciting days ahead, and so Pastor Rick is going to bring us up to date and everything going off.

Oh, thank you, Pastor Kenneth.

Can we give our pastor just a hand?

We are so blessed.

So blessed to sit under the word, and there's no compromise, right?

Ever. So thank you, Pastor Kenneth, for what you know that.

Very briefly, I've got a diagram I'm going to put up here on the board.

So this is a picture of where you're sitting right now, this building in which you're at.

That letter A you see right there is that door, right there.

So if you parked out back, you notice that there's a fence in there and construction has begun.

Amen.

It just happened on a rainy Sunday that there's no awning out there, right?

So if you remember back a year ago coming up, we did a campaign for Project 78.

There were four pieces to that project.

One piece was the canopy, another piece was right out here in the side of the building,

a preschool playground that was designed for preschoolers.

That's two of them.

The third piece of that was remodeling and moving our special needs to a bigger room that they would have,

and then the fourth part of that was a building, a multipurpose building that's going to go out here,

that our students and our senior adults, our Hispanic ministry will utilize,

there will be education space, and there will also be a big room in there,

like a worship center room over there.

And that was the four pieces to Project 78.

We're coming up on a year that anniversary of that campaign.

So this is the first phase of all that, this canopy out here that you see.

So the diagram shows us that during this time, which is going to take somebody asked me earlier today,

when we think this canopy is going to be finished, we're not quite sure yet,

a lot of it depends on the weather, as we'll find out through the month of March and April,

but probably sometime in the month of May, the canopy will be finished out here,

along with the playground.

So to get from this building, see if you're sitting here right now and you're going,

how do I get to that building over there?

Because I've got small groups, they're going to take place next.

This is how you do it.

If it's not raining and you're able, you can walk around, if you want,

around this way, out the building that way and walk that way.

If you prefer, you can go out these doors, and there's a hallway here,

that's our preschool hallway, and we have to be careful.

We have security down there to make sure nobody gets in there,

that's not supposed to get in there.

We have security at this door, we have security at the other end.

So you'd actually walk through this door, walk down the hallway, hang a left,

and you're going to come out those side doors, so the preschool entry is on this side over here,

and you can enter into the small groups building that way.

If you're in the small groups building, and you try to get over here,

you just reverse that.

You come out the side doors, near the playground, and the small groups building,

there's some signies there, it'll walk you through that door,

they're at the preschool, they'll be security there,

ushering down this hallway, out into this area here.

Does that make sense to everybody?

We know somebody already told me today, we know we were in a construction,

we have a porta potty out there.

I wouldn't recommend you use that, we have those over here in this corner,

you can leave those alone for now.

But we're excited about this progress, I want you to know,

we thank you for committing this saying,

let's get these things done in our church.

Our church is 20 years old, this building.

This building is 20 years old, it's hard to believe that 20 years ago we came here.

God is blessed, He continues to bless,

and He's going to continue to bring people to us so that we can minister to their needs.

Amen?

Amen.

And this is how we're going to exit it, I'm actually going to send us out.

I want all the names to be put back up there on the thing.

So I want you to remind yourself that we're doing all these things

for people who are not here yet.

Some of those are not here yet.

One day we pray that they will be.

One day we're praying that God would change the heart

and we'd see them in eternity one day.

We do all the things that we do for folks who are not here yet.

So as we exit today, pick out a name.

Just pick out a name and commit this week

to praying for that name.

But God will touch your heart.

And we'd see them coming out of our own safe.

Amen.

Amen.

We are set.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.