SPEAKER_00: 0:35

Good morning, everyone. My name is Ron McCauley, and I am a senior at Alhambra High School. This morning I will be reading Mark chapter 1, verse 40 through chapter 2, verse 12. A man with leprosy came to him and begged him on his knees. If you are willing, you can make me clean. Jesus was indignant. He reached out his hand and touched the man. I am willing, he said. Be clean. Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cleansed. Jesus sent him away at once with a strong warning. See that you don't tell this to anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing as a testimony to them. Instead, he went out and began to talk freely, spreading the news. As a result, Jesus could no longer enter a town openly, but stayed outside in lonely places. Yet the people still came to him from everywhere. A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home. They gathered in such large numbers that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them. Some men came, bringing to him a paralyzed man carried by the four of them. Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through it and then lower the mat the man was lying on. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, Son, your sins are forgiven. Now some teachers of the law were sitting there thinking to themselves, Why does this fellow talk like that? He's blaspheming. Who can forgive sins but God alone? Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts, and he said to them, Why are you thinking these things? Which is easier to say to this paralyzed man, Your sins are forgiven, or to say, Get up, take your mat and walk. But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. So he said to the man, I for I tell you, get up, take your mat, and go home. He got up, took his mat, and walked out in full view of them all. This amazed everyone, and they praised God, saying, We have never seen anything like this. This is a word of the Lord.

SPEAKER_01: 3:14

Thanks be to God. Hold on, Ron. Stay right here. Hey, so Ron's one of our students. She's a senior. I think that um what you value is what you celebrate and love celebrating students. So I'm gonna tell you guys just to celebrate with her. She just found out not that long ago, the end of this last year, uh, that she got a full ride scholarship to Harvard this next year. So she's a senior. So we're proud of you. We're proud of all of you guys that work hard, but just want to celebrate you one of our students for that. So thanks for reading our scripture today. Thank you. Uh, we got a ton to get into, as you heard. Uh, Courtney is gonna do more verses. This is one of our teaching pastors here. So go ahead and welcome Courtney Beard.

SPEAKER_02: 3:50

All right, church, how you feel today? Are y'all good? Is your team in the Super Bowl? Oh, it's so quiet in here. So quiet in here. Some of y'all are like, it's at our stadium that matters. There we go. My team is not in the Super Bowl, so I can preach for six hours today if I'd like to. You you you just heard a passage about the book of Mark, and Pastor Lawrence has been talking for the last few weeks about the book of Mark. And if you've been reading it in your private time, the book of Mark is where this young generation says they get active up in there in the book of Mark. It's loud, it's noisy. So here's Mark, who many theologians believe he's really pinning it on behalf of Peter. And if you read your Bible about Peter, Peter's that cousin who's a little bit bolder than most. You know, you don't tell him the thing not to say at Thanksgiving, Peter's gonna say it. Okay, and so Peter is speaking, and Mark is the one who's writing, and Mark is giving this story about Jesus. And you just heard from Ron, who's going to Harvard. You just, I mean, celebrate that. Come on, one more time. Shout out to you, you're just really smart. And and and and as she was reading, you were hearing this story about Jesus. Jesus encounters this guy with leprosy. Leprosy is not really, maybe because we've all walked through COVID now, we have an understanding of what isolation feels like. But leprosy is this disease in the Bible that does not just come overnight. It's this disease that starts with one little thing which leads to another. Can you imagine? Do you remember anybody in here that actually had COVID? Do you remember when you thought you had it, but you weren't sure you had it? You just said, wait a minute, what was that? There was a dick that sneezed on the flight on the way here. I put my coat all the way up. I said, Whatever you have, I won't be catching leprosy from you. And so leprosy is this thing that starts with it's something small. And this guy is probably wondering, Oh my god, do I think do I have it? He's probably wondering, do I have it? Because he knows the end result. The end result of leprosy is not being healed. The end result of leprosy is shame. You are moved away from your family. You are now somebody's like, I'll take that today. No, stay focused. It's away from my kids. I got whatever the Bible says I have. And so they're moved away from their family. They cannot work, but they cannot worship. They have to walk around the town and they have to yell a phrase, unclean, unclean. Before they can get near people, they have to announce this thing unclean. In other words, dirt is coming through, filth is coming through. He has to wear his hair in his face, kind of similar to my wife's seventh graders at her school, they're wear their hair in their face now. I don't know what that's about, but they just walk where the hair in their face. And so they have to wear their hair in their face, their clothes have to be torn, and they have to walk around unshaved, unshowered, to give the actual illusion that when you see them from far away, stay far away from that person, do not touch them, they're unclean. And if you touch them, then you will be unclean, and we'll put you out there too, and you too have to live in isolation. This man walks up to Jesus, Mark 1, uh uh in verse 40. He says, A man with leprosy came and knelt in front of Jesus, begging to be healed. If you are willing, he says, if you are willing, leprosy is not just a death, it's a social death. Leprosy is not just a death, it's a skin condition. But here's what happens it attacks and destroys your skin, but it really destroys your identity. If you've ever been stuck in isolation, you realize the attack that happens on your mind. You realize the attack that happens, and some of us, if we're quite honest, we know what it's like to be in a room full of people and still feel isolated by ourselves. Everyone's clapping, but no one sees you. Everyone's smiling, but no one sees what's going on on the inside. And this man walks up to Jesus and he says, A man with leprosy came and knelt in the front of Jesus, begging him to be healed. He's begging him, his heart posture is begging him. He's saying, Please, is there anything you can do? And his opening line is if you are willing, not can you, but do you have a desire to? And that's how many of us walk into our relationship with Jesus. I I know that you have all power, but you know, if you think I'm worthy enough, would you would would you do something for my house? If you if if you if you think I'm good enough, would you do something for my house? Here's this brother with leprosy. And he's not asking Jesus, do you have the power? He's asking him, Do you have the preference to heal me? Is it your desire to heal me? And Jesus, he looks back at this guy and he says in verse 41, moved with compassion. Somebody say, Moved. The old uh hip hop hymn, you say, When I move, you move, just like that. He said, Moved with y'all should not know that song. Move. I thought this is a Christian church. Okay, and some of y'all were like, When I move, you move just like that. Stop. I saw your shoulders, fourth row over that side. Moved with move with compassion. That would that that that phrase, I'm I'm jumping a little bit ahead here, but that that that word move with compassion is a Greek term. And here's the definition: it says an internal disruption and shock, so strong that action becomes unavoidable. Have you ever seen something, heard something, felt something that happened to someone else, and it stirred you so much that you said, I have to do something. Jesus looks at this man who has no family around him, no opportunity for destiny. And Jesus, the Bible says, moved with compassion, violently shaken to the core, disrupted on the inside. He looks at this man and he says, I'm willing to heal you. Move with compassion. Jesus reached out and touched him. Jesus did first the one thing that hadn't been done in a while. Do you know how long it had been since someone had touched this man? Jesus said, I won't just speak something over you and let you run off. The first thing you're gonna do, the first touch you're gonna feel is a touch from the master. I want to pause right here and I just want to say this. If you've been feeling paralyzed inside of your emotions, your mental space, your relationships financially, I just want to encourage you that Jesus is still willing to walk up and to touch whatever's paralyzed. Whatever someone said was untouchable about your story, Jesus is willing to walk in and say, Is that shame? I'll touch that. Is that a sabotage? I'll touch that. Is that a trigger or trauma? Is that abuse? I'm willing to come in and put my hand on it so that way that thing that was unclean can now be made clean. Anyone in here happy for Jesus, for that kind of Jesus that's willing to walk into your story? Has anybody had him walk into your story before? There you go. And so then here's this moment with Jesus, and he touches the sky. He touches brother. Verse 42, and it says instantly. I love this language right here. You're gonna hear this on the course of every one of these sermons. You'll hear instantly, the Bible says, instantly, the leprosy disappeared. Can you imagine what it's like? He has scales all over, he's smelling. I wonder if he smelled better. That the Bible doesn't say that, but in my mind, the Lord sprayed him with some Holy Ghost acts, gave him a little underarm stuff, showered him up in the spirit, and in the in my mind, this brother wasn't just healed in his body, but I know that God heals in a whole way. So he's not just healed in his body, he's healed in his image. Can you imagine what it's like for you to get healed? And God says, I got you. Not only is your skin better, you're gonna smell better, you're gonna see better because your story is bigger than the sabotage that tried to take you out. Hear me again. Your story is bigger than the sabotage that tried to take you out. You better own that for your NFL team. Your story is better than the sabotage that tried to kill the Washington commanders. Come on, somebody. Verse 44. And Jesus tells him, now listen, don't tell anybody about this who believes he's really not gonna tell anybody. This guy has been ostracized for years, not said one word. If I'm the guy with the leper, I'm going live on my phone right then. I'm with Jesus, he just healed me. Everybody that denied me, it's over. Don't take any any, don't tell anyone about this. Instead, go to the priest, let him examine you, take along the offering required in the law of Moses for those who have been healed of leprosy. This will be a public testimony that you have been cleansed. The next verse says this but the man went and spread the word. When is the last time you've had a touch from the Lord so strong in your life that you have to go tell somebody about it? I'm praying that you begin to experience the Lord in such a fresh way that you can't hide it when it comes along, that you have to go and tell somebody. You have to go tell somebody who tell somebody who tell somebody. May your testimony become the best version of phone tag that you've ever seen in your life. You remember back in the day when you would line up in school and they would tell you something, and then you tell somebody else, and by the time we got to the fifth person, it was totally different. But I pray that in your life you experience the type of presence of the Lord that when you tell somebody, they gotta tell somebody else and tell somebody else and tell somebody else. He says, But the man went and spread the word, proclaiming to everyone what had happened. As a result, large crowds soon surrounded Jesus, and he couldn't publicly enter the town anymore. All of a sudden, Jesus is a big deal. Did you hear what he did with the guy with leprosy? Jesus is a big deal. Jesus had to stay secluded, and the man got to go back into town. The man was on the outskirts of the town, and Jesus was inside the town. They literally switched places where now Jesus is taking the seat of the man who was secluded, and the man is taking the seat of Jesus who's now included. That is actually the power of the cross, where Jesus took my place and took your place. He said, I'll go where you're supposed to go, so you can go where I'm supposed to go, and we'll rock it just like that because I need you to be free. So then we get over to Mark 2. Mark 2, you know, Mark's still telling this story. And Mark 2, and if you're taking notes, I'll just jump right in. Point number one, no more shame. Point number one, no more shame. I pray that whatever in your story has been a place of shame, that you would surrender it to the Lord and like the person with leprosy, you to realize he's done more healing with your story than you already realize. May you have to open your mouth. And I don't want you to destroy anybody's Super Bowl party today, but I pray that something on the inside of you, in the uh middle of a timeout, in a 30-second timeout, you can just say, Hey, you know, I used to be a hot mess, but Jesus saved my life. Okay, cool, let's watch the game. Here we go. Pastor Nachos. They're gonna think you were weird, but somebody's gonna be like, Hey, do you think that Jesus could do something for me? And you will be known as the person who led someone to Jesus in the middle of a third and five, and it was a 30-second timeout. Point number one, no more shame. Mark two comes around, and now let's read this. When Jesus returned to Capernaum, several days later the news spread quickly that he was back home. I bet it did. Soon the house where he was staying was so packed with visitors that there was no room even outside of the door while he was preaching God's words to them. Another translation said it was noised that Jesus was there. It was noised. When I hear noise, it just means that nosy people were around. It was noise. You know how nosy people always find out if you're not from here and you ever go back home and everybody discovers that you're home, that's just nosiness. It was noise that you were back home. And I was telling Pastor Lawrence that Mark is such a noisy gospel. There's instantly and there's noise for this, noise for that. And they're telling people it's noise that the guy is here. Because by the time we get here chronologically, Jesus is on his seventh miracle and news is traveling fast. Of course, the house is gonna be packed because by this time, Jesus has already turned water into wine. He's invited to everybody's house. Huh. Baby, just fill it up with water. He's coming over tonight. Of course, the house is gonna be packed. They want to see is he gonna do the thing thing again? Of course, the house is gonna be packed. By this time, Jesus already drove out an evil spirit from a man living in their city. That man was probably terrorizing the whole village, and Jesus drove an evil spirit out. Jesus had already helped the fishermen who were in drought, and he helped them to bring in more fish that they can handle. What does that mean? Jesus had already touched their economy. And here's the fourth thing Jesus healed the man of leprosy. Of course, the house is going to be packed because Jesus has been building some evidence. I'm praying that in your story that Jesus begins to build even more evidence. I pray that you begin to see all of the evidence. If you pause, sit back and think about your life. If you pause and think about your story, man, Jesus has some evidence with your story. You remember what it used to look like, and Jesus has been building evidence. And here in this moment, there are so many people in this house. The Bible says that nobody else could get in. It was noised that Jesus was there. When I hear noise, I hear expectation. Have a friend of mine, and when he preaches, he says the atmosphere of expectation is the breeding ground for miracles. The atmosphere of expectation is the breeding ground for miracles. Noise is a part of the Bible. You see it in the walls of Jericho. When they come tumbling down, it's because of some noise was made. Gideon with the 300, they were making noise. At the day of Pentecost, they were making noise. There should be noise in the middle of your faith story. And in the middle of the city rocking with noise, there's no room for a man to get into the room who actually needs a miracle. Because the house is filled with a bunch of witnesses. Everybody's there to see something. The man can't get in because everybody's there to see it. Can you imagine? There's a man outside who needs a miracle, but there's a bunch of people on the inside witnessing what Jesus is doing, but the real need can't even get in the room because the witnesses are there, because it's a very thin line between witnesses actually turning into walls. If you stay in that position long enough, what used to be your witness for the Lord will you get comfortable, and now that's a wall. Nobody can start serving in your area because your witness is turned into a wall. Nobody can hear your real story because your witness is turned into a wall. Why? Because you used to behold Jesus, used to say, Oh my god, I can't believe what he's done. And now we just stand there with coffee in our hand, talking about, yeah, I just showed up to church. It's no longer about our faith story. My witness is turned into a wall. Nobody can get closer to Jesus. And so here's this room. Now, and I love what the old hip hop theologian Biggie Smalls said. He said, more money, more problems. Let me just pause. I'm seeing people out of the Biggie Smalls age demographic laugh at that joke. How do you know Biggie Smalls? Okay, that's what I want to know. Tell me after church how you know who Biggie is. Biggie said, more money, more problems, but I actually think it's different than that. I think it's more people, more pressure. I think it's more crowds, more opportunities for ceilings. And in your building of a church, you have to recognize that God wants to do miracles. So imagine this. We'll get over to verse number three and four. And it says, while Jesus is teaching, four men arrived carrying a paralyzed man on a mat. They couldn't bring them to Jesus because of the crowd. So they dug a hole. Imagine me preaching right now, and you're just starting to hear this over top of your head, and there's all of a sudden you hear knocking, and then you start to see daylight. We should not see daylight right here. And all of a sudden, you see four guys say, Look out below. I can tell you now, Zach is gonna go up there and see what's going on. Because that's not the light he paid for. But can you imagine right now? I'm in the middle of preaching. You guys are struggling to stay focused on me because you hear something knocking in the ceiling above you. And there are four guys who are so desperate that they're looking at their friend who's been paralyzed for a long time, and they're deciding if there's an answer, it has to be an answer. And I love the idea that they did not take an excuse of saying, I can't get through the front door because faith will make an opening wherever it needs to. They open the sky and they start lowering their friend. If I'm their friend and I'm paralyzed, I'm scared out of my mind. Please do not drop me. Those friends are thinking we will not drop you. But if we happen to drop you, I know a guy who can heal you. And they lower and they lower him down. Let me help you for a second. You walked in here today and say, I don't really even trust church because I don't want anybody to drop you. I know a man that can heal you. Come on here with somebody. Four men arrived carrying a paralyzed man on the mat. They couldn't bring him to Jesus because of the cross, so they dug a hole through the roof above their head. Then they lowered the man on a mat and right down there in front of Jesus. And Jesus, he started working. I want you to think about this. I want you to make sure that you're surrounded by some friends that you give permission to reposition you when you get paralyzed. If you get paralyzed in your faith, if you get paralyzed in your fight, if you get paralyzed in your fire. Make sure you're around some people that can get you in the right position for healing. Point number two, no more ceilings. Somebody say no more ceilings. Tell the person beside you, no more ceilings. There you go. Ask the person on the other side for a breath a minute in case you need it. Just we we want to be we we want to make sure in church we understand. Ceilings are obstacles, not outcomes. Ceilings are simply obstacles, they're not an outcome. That ceiling that you thought was over your life, that's not your final story. That ceiling is simply just an obstacle that needs to be made. What ceiling has someone spoken over your life that you're like it is time for somebody to walk into my life and to start ripping the layers off of this ceiling? Because I know that my hope is supposed to be better than this. I know that my joy is supposed to be better than this. Most people don't ever confront their ceilings, they just conform to them. I'll just accept it. I'll never be all that I can be, I'll never be what I'm supposed to be, I'll never have a healthy marriage, I'll never get to get forward in this job, I'll never have my mind uh not full of chaos, my mind will never be at peace. And God is looking at your story and he's saying, Most people don't confront their ceilings, they conform to them, but that is not your story. And so you have this brother right here. His friends are lowering them down. Verse 5 seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralyzed man, My child, your sons are your sins, not your sons, but your sins are forgiven. Y'all was like, I didn't see that part in the Bible. No, no, no, they're like, this story just really took on some life. Your sins are forgiven. Why is that so important? Because Jesus is letting him know sometimes it's not always going to be your faith. Sometimes you just need to be connected to somebody where you can walk in some borrowed faith. Somebody got to invite to church today. You walked in off of borrowed faith. Somebody really believed that if you come to my church, you can meet Jesus. They believe if you come to my church, you can meet family. If you come to my church with me today, something can happen on the inside of you. Somebody didn't want to come to church today. You almost stayed home and started the Super Bowl early, but someone called you or something rose up on the inside of you and said, You gotta be there today. Hello, you walked in on borrowed faith. And Jesus looks at borrowed faith and says, Your sins are forgiven. I can make you whole. Don't you ever say that borrowed faith is a bad thing. If you got to walk in on borrowed faith, it's still usable. Bible says that inside those that group, you had the guy with his friends, you had the man, the mat, the miracle, but in the middle of you kept reading what Ron was saying to us. She started talking about the religious leaders, and it said, they said in their mind, How in the world can this man forgive him of sins? They said nothing about the healing. They said, How can this man forgive of sins? How can this even happen? Jesus heard them whisper. Parents, mothers, let me ask you this. Have you ever heard what your kids said on the inside of their voice and you responded out loud? I know you rolled your eyes on the inside of your head when I turned my back. I heard you roll your eyes. Pause. How did you hear them roll their eyes? But you heard them roll. I heard you stomping your feet going up there. Jesus answers them. Because in every scenario where there is healing, most times there is Christ, there's a crowd, but there's also some critics. Because some people are walking into the building looking for hope. Some people are looking, walking in the building looking for healing, but some are just looking for headlines. Can I come in and discredit the move of God? Can I come in and say, I don't really like this church because they got all this LED wall stuff, and you don't really need all that? All you need is Jesus. Somebody's always looking to be a critic. And their Jesus, he addresses the critics. He lets them know, hey, you know what? I know you think I don't have power for that, but I want to deal with this right here. Because the man is paralyzing his body, but they're paralyzing their belief. It's a terrible thing to be paralyzing your belief. Because when you're paralyzing your belief, you have no vision, no faith, your relationships are bad, your worship is not connected, and your destiny looks far away. Point number three: no more limits. Restored access. Here's what I love about this. Jesus has the man with leprosy, he has the man who's paralyzed. Both of them share the same things. They both have limitations to their life. They both share the same things. There are places and spaces they don't have access to. I love the fact that Jesus looks at this man and says, Your sins are forgiven. He says, Not only am I going to heal your body, I'm going to make sure that you have access to the Father again. That is actually removing that shame. One of the things that keeps us from actually connecting and talking to God is that shame that sometimes feels like in between this. Well, I didn't pray for three days. I don't have permission to talk to you. You have permission to talk to God all of the time, and He's always listening, He's always tuned into you. He's just waiting for you to voice activate the conversation. Verse 11 comes around and it says, Stand up, pick up your mat, and go home. The thing that carried the man into the room, the man is now carrying it out of the room. The shame that carried you into the room, you're now carrying the shame as your testimony out of the room. The thing that tried to walk you in in change, you're now holding it in your pocket, saying, Look what the Lord has done. When is the last time you looked at your story and you said, Look what the Lord has done? The Bible says he told the man, pick that thing up that used to hold you down and take it on home. And now what used to be the thing to hold you back, now you're holding some evidence in your hand. Here's what I love about this. It gets to the last part. Verse 12. And I like this part, I prefer this in the message translation. And it says, and the man did it. He got up, he grabbed his stretcher, he walked out, and with everyone there watching him. There's a part of your story that, like this passage in Mark, that when you give it over to the Lord and He begins to touch it, you will be like this man, and everyone there will be watching you. You thought there's no way that God can use me, there's no way that God can heal me, and everyone will be watching you. Are you okay with everybody looking at your story? There are parts that you've tried to hide, there's parts that you tried to just step away from, there's parts that you've not been happy with. Maybe I don't know what it is. It could be that rage that comes up in a moment and you feel like, oh man, I was doing so good with the Lord, but then I just kind of went off on everybody and made my house really weird because I said some stuff that does not look like who I am on a Sunday morning. But there's a moment when you start walking in the truest identity of who you are, and you say, I may have failed, but God still loves me. Let me step up again. Hey, everybody, I really messed that up right there, and I'm gonna get some discipleship because God's gonna walk me out of these wounds and I'm gonna make sure that our family wins. Why? Because everyone there is watching you. The Bible says they rub their eyes, stunned, and then praised God, saying, We've never seen anything like this before. My prayer is that in your life you run across miracles, moments, and seasons of momentum where somebody can look at your story and say, We've never seen anything like this before. Did you imagine that could be your story? I've never seen anything like this before. You used to have the worst attitude, but I've never seen anything like this before. I didn't think your marriage was gonna make it. I've never seen anything like this before. You've been sick as long as I've known you. What do you mean you're healed? I've never seen anything like this before. You actually did get that promotion. I've never seen anything like this before. Your kids going crazy, but now they're not crazy. I've never seen anything like this. Wait a minute. Your kids going crazy, but you refuse to go crazy with them. I've never seen anything like this before. Because you're like, you can go crazy, but I'm not losing it. I've never seen anything like this before. What leprosy tried to walk in with you today? You're literally just a touch away from God saying, I can use that. I can refresh your story, I can redeem your story. I was on the plane yesterday, and for a half second, I was scrolling through some stuff for a half second. We lost Wi-Fi. I was mad. I was I was looking up something that was unimportant but important to me at the moment. You know you're looking up something that's weird, it's like, how fast do snails run in June in Phoenix? You will never use this information, but in that moment, you're 30,000 feet in the air. You want to know how fast do they run? And and I as I was looking it up uh in my trusted uh study chat GPT, uh uh chat told me failed, retry and connect to Wi-Fi. I was looking for an answer, but because I wasn't connected to the Wi-Fi anymore, I couldn't get the answer I wanted. I did not look at my phone and say, Courtney's not good enough. I did not look at my phone and say the phone is not good enough. I looked at the scenario and said, Let me get reconnected to the Wi-Fi, because the answer didn't say that I don't deserve it, it just said try again. And I want to push you, like an old song that I heard that says, dust yourself off and try again. It is time for you to try the Lord one more time. God, if you're still healing leprosy, even if it's not dealing with my skin, but it's dealing with my sabotage, I want you to do it. And God, if you can heal a paralyzed man whose friends loved him enough to break open the ceiling and to lower him down, I want you to do it. Can you imagine that the end of the story? The Bible doesn't talk about this, but you know, sometimes in my mind I just think about other things like what else happened? Can you imagine that everyone is there? The homeowner at the end of the event is walking around like Jesus is here. Man, Jesus was at my house, it was packed. You should have seen it. Everybody was here. Man, they lowered a guy through the roof. It was craziness. Can you believe that happened in my house? And I can imagine at the end of the night, he's just walking around like, whoo man, this was this was this was a who's gonna pay for this hole that is now in the middle of my living room. And in my mind, Pastor Lawrence, I thought about it because we all want miracles, but often we don't want to pay the price that miracles demand. That every now and then things are gonna get a little bit disruptive, and you're gonna have to lean in and say, I know that got a little crazy, but I'll stay behind and help you clean up the debris of the evidence that the miracle happened. I just want to challenge you for a second. As God is doing miracles in your life, are you also willing to help somebody else clean up the evidence that the miracle actually happened? Would you stand on your feet with me? You're here today and you're like, Pastor Courtney, I I I I I hear you, fam. I hear you. And I just want to know this. Would you pray for me? Because I want to see those miracles. I want the things that are paralyzed in and around my life. And even I'll tell you this maybe it's not you. Maybe you can be like those friends. And maybe you're saying, it's not me, but it's somebody I know. But by faith, you are lowering them into this atmosphere for healing. If that's you and you want to stand on behalf of somebody who's not here, or you want to stand for yourself, and you say, Pastor Courtney, I want to pray over paralyzed areas. Would you just lift your hands up for a second? Come on. There you go, there you go. Some of you lifted two hands because you've been crying and desperate for family members. You've been praying that their lives would be changed. You've been praying that God would do something bigger than yourself and bigger than this moment. Come on, let's pray together. Lord God, in Jesus' name, I'm praying that right now, that by that beautiful name of Jesus, that we are declaring that there will be miracles. And as our hands are up, we're saying, not just for me and my house, but do it for my friends, do it for my kids, do it for my family, do it for my coworker. This is me lowering down somebody who's paralyzed so they can discover the power of Jesus because I know a name, and it happens to be the name above all names. Would you give that name, Jesus, some praise in here? Come on, let's go.