 My name is Garrett and I have the privilege and the honor to serve as one of the pastors here at this incredible church and this incredible place that we all get to call home. And I have the honor today of teaching the next installments in our Gospel of John series. I hope that you've been enjoying this series as we are going through the Gospel of John and looking at the magnificence of Jesus and seeing how it touches and applies to our lives today. Last week, Pastor Sean, you just heard a recap from last week, Pastor Sean preached a powerful message out of John chapter eight on us knowing who we are because we know who our father is. And so it's important that you, if you miss last week, that you go back and you watch it or you listen to it because it provides context and even a forward progression as we go through the book of John. And so if you missed it, I wanna encourage you to go back and watch it or listen to it. And today I'll be picking up right where Pastor Sean left off because right after John chapter eight becomes John chapter nine. It's pretty amazing, isn't it? How that works? Yes it is. So today, whether you have a digital copy or you brought your analog copy, your old school Bible, let's, which I have today, let's turn to John chapter nine. John chapter nine, something big is about to take place in John chapter nine. We are gonna read verses one through 25. It says this, as he, being Jesus passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, Rabbi, who sinned? This man or his parents, that he may be born blind. Now, at this time, there were some, there's some things that are really distant from us. And so theologically speaking, a lot of people believe that sickness was always the consequence of sin. And so the disciples are asking a cultural question and even a theological question to Jesus. Did this man sin and did his sin cause him to be blind or did his parents sin and when he was born because they sinned, did it cause him to be blind? In fact, the Jews had some beliefs that would say that if the parent sinned when the baby was in the womb, the baby would have an infirmity because of it or an inflection as a consequence. Some even believed, get this, that a baby in the womb could sin. And so this is what they are asking. They are trying to figure out. They're trying to get a diagnosis, if you will. A firm place of where this sickness came from when Jesus answered them. It was not that this man sinned nor his parents, now get this, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day. Night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. Having said these things, he spit on the ground. This is awesome. He spit on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man's eyes with the mud and said to him, go, wash in the pool of Siloam which means sent. So he went and washed and came back seen. The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar were saying, is this not the man who used to sit and beg? Some said it is he, others said no, but he is like him. He kept saying, I am the man, I'm the man. So they said to him, then how were your eyes open? He answered, the man called Jesus made mud and anointed my eyes and said to me, go to Siloam then wash. So I went and washed and received my sight. Then he said to him, where is he? He said, I don't know. They brought him to the Pharisees. This is where it gets really good. This is fun right here. And this is where if you think the Bible is boring, I just want to let you know that you're boring and you need to wake up, okay? Okay, so they brought him to the Pharisees and the man who had formerly been blind. Now it was a Sabbath day because of course they want to harp on this. It was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. So the Pharisees again asked how he had received his sight and he said to him, he put mud on my eyes and I washed and I see. He's getting frustrated. Some of the Pharisees said this man is not from God for he does not keep the Sabbath. But the others said, see they were more concerned with that fact than they were with the miracle that happened right before him. He said, how can a man who is a sinner do such signs and there was division among them. So they said again to the blind man, what do you say about him since he has opened your eyes? He said, he's a prophet. The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight and asked, is this your son who you say was born blind? How does he then now see? His parents answered, we know that this is our son and that he was born blind. But how he now sees we do not know nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him, he is of age. He will speak for himself. His parents said these things because they feared the Jews for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone should confess Jesus to be Christ, he would be put out of the synagogue. Therefore his parents said, he is of age. Ask him, verse 24. So for the second time they called the man who had been blind and said to him, give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner. He answered, whether he is a sinner, I do not know. One thing I do know. One thing I know. One thing he says, I do know that I was blind. Now I see. Jesus, we come to you this day and we thank you for this day that you have made. We make the purposeful intentional choice to rejoice and be glad in it. Lord, I pray a dangerous prayer that was prayed or spoken to you 2000 something years ago. Lord, we believe, but help us with our unbelief. Help us Lord. Help us to see your word. Help us to see you for who you are. And Lord, I ask for an incredible work to be done in this room in all of our lives today. Lord, as your word says, the grass withers, the flowers fade, but your word will stand forever. And we trust in that in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. While preparing for today, my typical bend is to go theologically deep into things. It's to highlight areas of things that were happening culturally and some things that are maybe hidden to most of us theologically unpack them and then apply them to our lives. And as I was preparing for this week, I felt convicted by the Lord to not do any of that, even though some of that may come out just unintentionally. But instead, the Lord put two things heavy on my heart and both of them have to do with our healing, with our healing. And the first thing that the Lord put on my heart is, it kind of caught me off guard. It's slightly obscure, but it is significantly relevant to each and every single one of us in this room, regardless of where we are, who we are, what we've been through and where we are going. It is relevant to each of us today. It is called bitterness, bitterness. You might ask Pastor Garrett, bitterness, what does that have to do with the blind guy in John chapter nine spit in mud and being healed? Well, I am so glad that you asked that question. Thank you for having a conversation with me this morning. I'm gonna quickly turn to Exodus chapter 15. In Exodus chapter 15, this is what happens, starting verse 22. Then Moses made Israel set out from the Red Sea and they went into the wilderness of sure. They went in three days into the wilderness and found no water. When they came to Mara, they could not drink the water of Mara because it was bitter. Therefore, it was named Mara. And the people grumbled against Moses saying, what shall we drink? And he cried out to the Lord and the Lord showed him a log. Why, let's see, this is where I have to go theological for a moment, why a log? Of all the things, why a log? The word log, in the original language, if you break it down, it means tree. Hear this, it means tree. This is a prophetic foreshadow pointing us to Christ. This is a prophetic foreshadow of Christ. On a tree at Calvary, we're cast the bitter waters of our sin. Through the death of the one who bore them, the waters are now made sweet. Oh, what a savior we have. Oh, what a king we have. Oh, what a healer we have. Moving on. So he threw it, being the log into the water and the water became sweet. There the Lord made for them a statute and a rule. And there he tested them saying, if, most powerful two-letter word in the Bible, if, if. If, if, he says, if you will diligently listen to the voice of the Lord your God and do that which is right in his eyes, not my eyes, not a political party's eyes, not your friend's eyes, not Facebook's eyes, not the TikTok's eyes, in his eyes, in his eyes. If you will do what is right in his eyes and give ear to his commandments, he keep all his statutes. He says, I will put none of the diseases on you that I put on the Egyptians. Now hear this. He says, for I am the Lord, get this, it's personal, your healer, not just the healer, your healer, your healer, not just the healer, but your healer. Friends, this is the first time that God revealed himself to his people as healer. In the Bible, in scripture, this is the first time that he makes it personal. And he says, guess what? I am your healer. I am Jehovah Rafa. I am the God. I am the Lord who heals you. Now don't miss this. This is key. The first time God reveals himself as healer to the people of God was by healing the bitter waters of the people of God, of the people of God. Beloved, God doesn't want his people drinking from the cup of bitterness because he doesn't want his people bitter. Please hear this again. God does not want his people drinking from the cup of bitterness because he doesn't want bitter people. He doesn't want his people bitter. He healed the bitter waters back then with them. And I believe he wants to heal the bitter waters today with us, the bitter waters of our hearts, the bitter waters of our minds, the bitter waters of our souls, the bitter waters of what that person did to you and said to you, the bitter waters of that loss, that disappointment, that trauma, that experience that you had, God wants to heal the bitter waters of our lives. He wants to heal us. You see, while not everyone will experience what it actually means and feels like to be physically blind, every single one of us, all of us will experience what it means and feels like to be blinded by bitterness. Every single one of us will experience that. And here's why. Because bitterness makes us blind to everything except the thing that we are bitter about. It's all we see. It's all we focus on. It consumes us. It consumes us. Bitterness makes us blind to everything except the thing that we are bitter about. And then when left unhealed, it consumes us to the point where we spread it to others. You know what I'm talking about. Ever heard of the World Wide Web, the Interwebs? Ever heard of something called social media? Oh, Pastor Garrett, I'm just sharing what we call sharing. The Bible called slandering. Be careful. Be careful with what you share. I'm just sharing how I feel. We need to stop making addendums, concessions and taking hall passes to the word of God because I'm just sharing. We have to be careful. We have to be careful. Even worse, when left unhealed, guess what we do? We pass it down to our children. Hey, here's your inheritance. Have my bitterness. Here's your inheritance. Be bitter about this people, this thing. Have my bitterness. Understand our bitterness speaks more about the cup we are drinking from than what happened to us. The bitterness I am talking about could be with a sibling, a parent, a spouse, a friend, an ex, a pastor, a pastor, a coach, a boss, a colleague, an elected official, the government, the church, culture, business, a people group. It could be any one of those or multiples of those. Whichever it is, beloved, he was Jehovah Rafa back then. He is Jehovah Rafa right now and I believe that he wants to heal the bitterness that is blinding us today. The bitterness that is poisoning us, consuming us. The bitterness that is choking us to the point where all we have is tunnel vision about that one thing and now we're blind because of it. The second thing the Lord put on my heart today was for physical healing. Now, this particular miracle is one of two miracles that scripture identifies that Jesus used actual spit to bring about the healing in a person's life. The other time that he did this was in Mark chapter seven. Turn with me to Mark chapter seven real quick. Mark chapter seven in verse 31. It says that he returned from the region of Tyre and went to Sidon to the Sea of Galilee in the region of Decapolis. And they brought to him a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment and they begged him to lay hands on him and taking him aside from the crowd privately. He put his fingers into his ears and after spitting touched his tongue. So we have the blind man in John chapter nine. God spit it on the ground using the saliva to make mud, rubbing in his eyes. Now we have God giving this other man a wet willy and touching his tongue. We have some interesting stuff going on here right now. You know, for many of us, the use of spit may seem strange and it's definitely unconventional. I think we can all agree that this is a little unconventional. It's minimally unhygienic and possibly offensive for some of us. I bring this up because what might seem odd or off to us in our day was seen completely different in Jesus' day. It was seen completely different. You see in the ancient world, the use of spit was more common than we might think for a medicinal use, if you will. Spit, especially the spit of a distinguished person who for most people in this area, Jesus was a distinguished person. Spit was believed to possess certain medicinal qualities. So much so that their famous Roman philosopher, Pliny, he wrote chapters on the use of spit for healing in these ancient times. He wrote things like the use of spit can cure being bit by a poisonous snake or the use of spit can be used to cure leprosy and the spots of leprosy and the use of spit can be used as an anointing agent to help infected eyes. See what's happening here. Do you see what's happening here? Obviously, beloved, we know that spit and mud did not heal this man nor did any combination thereof. We know this, Jesus healed this man. It wasn't the spit, it wasn't the mud, it was Jesus who healed this man. The fact that Jesus used methods and customs of his time and used them to bring about a miraculous healing in this man's life does not teach us that spit and mud came together to form a medicine in order to bring about healing for this man. Rather, it teaches us this, that anything in the hands of Jesus can bring about healing. Anything in the hands of Jesus can bring about healing. You know, over and over again, the Gospels tell us how Jesus would often take something natural and then do something supernatural with it. So what matters is not what we get hung up on, especially when it comes to healing. What matters is not what is used or how it happens. What matters is whose hands. We put our faith and our hope and our trust for healing in. That's what matters. That's what matters. The point is, believe and have faith and trust that Jesus is going to heal you. Please hear this. Believe, have faith and trust that Jesus is going to heal you. And I'm not just talking about the big, big moments and the devastating diagnosis. I'm talking about anything and everything, any affliction, any sickness, any disease, any infirmity, a cold, cancer, doesn't matter. Anything. Have faith, believe and trust that Jesus is going to heal you, but please hear me. Still go to the doctor, still go to the specialist, still go see your counselor, still go see your therapist, still have the meeting with the pastor, still do those things, still do those things. And this is why, this is why, are you ready? Are you ready? This is why it's vital you're here. This is why. Portage, are you ready? Downtown, are you ready? This is why, please hear me. Medicine and miracles are not rivals. They're not at rival with each other. We have made this big dichotomy of the two and we need to stop doing that and we need to put our faith, our hope and trust in Jesus. And we need to say, Jesus, I am doing this, but I know you're my healer. This medicine's not my healer, you're my healer. This spit isn't my healer, you're my healer. Jesus, you're my healer because medicine and miracles are not rivals, church. Our faith, hope and trust are not in a doctor or not in medicine or not in the method. Our hope and faith and trust are in Jesus. And just like with the spit, he can work a miracle with all of those people and all of those methods in order to bring about your healing. He can, he can. In 1999, I was a senior in high school and for the last 12 years prior, for the prior 12 years, I spent over 300 days a year, do the math, starting at the age of seven. I spent over 300 days a year. I'm not exaggerating, this is not pastoral hype. If you knew my dad, you'd be like, yeah, this is legit. I spent over 300 days a year, seven years old, practicing a sport. I told my dad I wanted to play football and my dad was a semi-pro football player and he is a very, if you think I'm intense, that's cute. He said, you wanna be a football player then I'm gonna teach you how to be a football player. Seven years old, probably 75 pounds. I was in the front yard with my dad laying out my dad, he was 230 pounds. He bought pads for me, he bought pads for himself and I was tackling my dad at the age of seven and eight in our front yard. That's how we spent our evenings, that's how we spent our weekends. I had private coaches early, early on with speed, with strength and with forms of the positions that I was playing. I spent the majority of my childhood learning how to be a football player. And my hips and my feet still tell the story today. Well, in 1999, I was a senior in high school and I had worked so hard at this game that I loved that I was being recruited all across the nation. My wife can tell you about the boxes of letters that I was receiving from colleges, day in and day out to play football. And in the early winter of 1999, I made a verbal commitment to play football for the University of Oregon. While leaving school one day, right before graduation, I was on my way to go to my strength coach and I was stopped on the backside of a hill and a girl from my school came up and over that hill in California and she rear ended me. The rear ending that took place even though it was under 20 miles an hour because of the way the energy transferred through the car and into the position that I was seated in my car, I fractured my L2 and L3 vertebrae. My back was fractured. For the next two years, I lived in a full body hard cast. I couldn't tie my shoes, I couldn't put on my socks. Sarah dealt with the emotions that I went through every single day even though we were dating at that time. She dealt with my pain, my emotional pain in every way. I had monthly MRIs and CT scans and all these testings to see if my back was going to heal itself if things would take place and the progress that was happening would help bring healing to my life but nothing got better. After two years of going through this, we finally made the decision that the doctor that I had wasn't gonna help us take the next step that we needed to take and so I was transferred to one of the leading spine specialists at the university at UCLA, at UCLA University, I'm sorry. And we began to see this leading specialist and he looked at everything, the years of scans and tests and procedures and everything that we did and he just concluded, hey, we're just gonna keep doing this. I think either you needed to make a decision to either find a way to live with it which will be hard and painful and we don't know what else can come of it or we need to fuse your back together. We made the decision to fuse my back. Well, at a Wednesday night service in my back brace, knowing this was about to take place and knowing that my life was gonna be changed forever because of this procedure, I slowly crawled to the ground which was very difficult for me to do, even in a back brace and I laid down on the ground and I just begged God to heal me and I remember weeping and just saying, Lord, if you'll heal me, I will devote my life to serving you. I will never turn back. I'll never second guess you. I'll never doubt you if you will heal me right now. I remember a bunch of people coming and kneeling beside me and laying their hands on me and then saying this, Garrett, your body is cold but where your break is on your back, it's searing hot and I felt this heat, this really, really hot iron right over my L2, L3. That Friday, two days later, we went to UCLA to have my final consult before the procedure took place and as always, I had to have a scan done. So I had a scan done and I wasn't wearing my back brace. I wasn't in pain anymore but I'll never forget what happened next. This doctor walks in and he's got this massive Manila envelope with all the scans and he's staring at me with amazement and he just says this, what'd you do? And I said, what'd you say? He goes, well, two weeks ago, we took scans and put them up on the thing that, whatever it shows it, the screen thing, that thing, you know, he goes, there's your break right there. Do you see it? Do you see it? Yeah, I see it. Yeah, I can point to it. Puts up the other one. That's the same spot. Where did it go? What did you do? God healed my broken back by way of miracle. Amen. This is where it gets really good. In 2013, we started to plan our church. For those of you who know, we planted a church in Colorado and then God called us here two years ago, almost today, we were packing our moving truck today to come here. And in 2013, we started preparing to plan our church and I was having immediate esophageal issues, painful esophageal issues. It started at random, but within a year, it rapidly progressed to all the time. And here's what I mean, I couldn't swallow food. It would back up right here at my sphincter. It would back up to the point of here where it choked me and then I would have to vomit my food up. It got so bad, it progressed so rapidly that I couldn't drink much water. I would be drinking all day. I would only hold a certain point down. It got so bad that I would carry around one of those red solo cups because even the spit that we naturally swallow would get blocked up and I would have to spit it up. My body was becoming so malnutritioned that I was rapidly losing weight. I couldn't hold food in all while planting a church. In 2016, the doctors who I were going to were struggling to find a remedy and so we went to a specialist in Denver and I'll just tell you this. I had some of the most horrendous things that like our firm, a sci-fi channel done to me in order to figure out what was wrong with me. Probes jammed down my esophagus and then like they would shoot electricity into my esophagus to get it to respond. What they figured out is I had a rare disorder called eclasia. They don't know where eclasia comes from. They don't know what causes it. It's a very rare disorder. And the only condition is to have a procedure called a Heller's Myotomy, which is where they cut the sphincter right here that goes from your esophagus into your stomach open so food can pass by gravity. And so I had this procedure done. I had to have it done. It was the only way for me to actually live. I had gone from 205 pounds down to 145 pounds. I was a stick. I looked like I was going through other type of things. The only way that I had nutrients in me was by drinking organic bone broth that we made daily in Pediasher. And even that, I would still have trouble keeping it down. So I had this procedure done and then we got home and within hours of me being home after this, after having this invasive surgery, I found myself on my bed curled up in the fetal position in the worst pain I've ever experienced in my life. And to remind you, I broke my back. My elders came and got me. They loaded me into the car and we rushed to the ER. After tests, the ER could not figure out what was going on, but they wanted to keep me overnight for observation because of the pain that I was having. They figured out that I was having acute pancreatitis, but they didn't know why. And my levels from the blood work were skyrocketing and they were elevating more and more and more. And so they were worried about what was taking place. Well, the ER doctor woke me up early in the morning, the next day after I was heavily medicated because of the pain. He woke me up and said, I was up all night. I've been reading and researching. I even pulled up medical books that I didn't even know I still had trying to find out what's going on with you and I'm worried. And so I want to go back in and I want to make sure that maybe when they were doing the procedure, they didn't poke something and that you're leaking. I want to make sure you're okay. It's great, please just take care of it, it hurts. So I went back in and this is what happened. He's going around inside of my stomach and he's looking and his words were, you look like you're 10 to 15 years younger inside. You are extremely healthy, extremely fit. Everything looks good. And so as I was looking around, I was like, there's nothing here. So it just may be a reaction to the first procedure. And I began to pull my instruments out and then I heard a voice say, flip the gallbladder. And so I looked at my team and I said, who said that? No one said anything, doctor. It's just us and no one talks in your room unless we're asked to talk. He begins pulling them out, flip the gallbladder. Who said that? No one, flip the gallbladder, he heard again. So he thinks, okay, I'm gonna flip the gallbladder. He flips it over. On the front side, I looked like a 30 year old. On the back side, it was gangrene filled with massive stones and about to burst. He estimates I had 36 to 48 hours before it ruptured and I became septic. So he removed my gallbladder. I tell you that story because we know, just like who healed the blind man, we know that it was Jesus in that ER room talking to my doctor. His voice, a man that did not know God heard the voice of the God. Here's why I tell that. The first story I told you, God healed me by way of miracle. The second story is this, God healed my disorder by medicine. Again, medicine and miracles are not rivals. One of the things that John 9 teaches us, one of the things that my two healing testimonies testify of is we don't have to know how God heals. We just have to believe and trust and know that he heals. Sometimes it's a woman touching the robe of Jesus as he walks by like in Luke 8, 43. And sometimes it's Jesus touching the eyes of a blind man like in John 9. Sometimes it comes when other people lay hands on your infirmity like in my testimony with my back. And sometimes it comes from a whisper in a ER room when a doctor is giving care to his patient, like with my disorder. Whichever it is, church, understand it doesn't matter if it's a moment in a service medicine, in a hospital spit or mud in the desert. Our attention, our attention is our faith and hope and trust. Our attention are not in how we are healed. Our faith and our hope and our trust are on who heals. And that is Jesus, Jehovah Rafa. I wanna ask our band to make their way up our team or worship team as they're making their way up. Beloved, I don't know how God healed me. I don't. Like the blind man from John 9 who said in verse 26, all I know is that I was blind, but now I see. All I know is that my back was broken, but now it's whole. All I know is that I had a disorder, but now I don't. So regardless of how, at the end of the day, beloved, God is my healer, and since he is my healer, I put everything into his hands. Everything goes to his hands. Every single thing. I want us to know today that what matters is not what mode, it's not what method. God heals by what matters is who gets the glory. Verse three, Jesus answered. It was not that this man sinned or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him, in him. You see, God didn't cause my back to be broken, but he used my broken back to display his great works. God didn't cause my esophageal disorder, but he used my esophageal disorder to display his great works. The point is God will use our difficult afflictions to display his great works, especially when we put them in his hands, when we give them to him. And this is my hope for every single one of us today. This is my hope. This is it. That you would know that one of the ways that he loves to display his great works is by healing his people, is by healing his people. He may use a doctor and a surgeon to heal your body, but, hear this, he is Jehovah Rapha, so he is your healer. He may use a counselor. He may use a therapist to heal your mind, but he is Jehovah Rapha so he is your healer. He may use a pastor or a retreat to heal your marriage, but he is Jehovah Rapha, so he is your healer. He is your healer. He may use a friend. He may use a rebuke. He may use a log to heal your bitterness. But he is Jehovah Rafa. So he is your healer. So beloved, he is Jehovah Rafa. He is your healer and he wants to heal. And I believe, I believe that he is a testimony of healing for us today. Today. And so would you stand with me and let's respond by belief and with faith and with hope that he is our healer.