Four Gifts God Gives to Keep Me Healthy

In this Pastor’s Choice message, Mark Medley opens with the Aaronic Blessing from Numbers 6 and slows down on one powerful word: shalom. Often translated as “peace,” shalom means far more than a calm feeling or a quiet moment. It points to wholeness, wellbeing, completeness, and the restoring presence of God in every part of life. Mark reminds us that God’s heart is not for his people to live spiritually drained, anxious, disconnected, or merely surviving. God wants us healthy.

With honesty and pastoral care, Mark names the pressures that wear down the soul: fear, grief, unrealistic expectations, financial stress, painful relationships, temptation, people pleasing, and the exhausting burden of trying to hold life together in our own strength. Our lives can feel like scattered threads—frayed, broken, and disconnected—but shalom is God stepping into the chaos and weaving those threads into something whole and beautiful. Just as Jesus came to his fearful disciples after the resurrection and said, “Peace be with you,” he still speaks restoration, identity, courage, and purpose over his people today.

Mark then shares four gifts God gives to keep us healthy in a broken world. The first is the gospel, not merely as the starting point of salvation, but as the daily source of spiritual health. Through Jesus, we are regenerated, justified, accepted, adopted, sanctified, and promised a glorious future. When we forget the gospel, we begin searching for identity, security, approval, and hope in places that can never carry the weight. The good news of Jesus re-anchors the heart in grace.

The second gift is Sabbath, the space of health. Sabbath rest breaks our addiction to busyness and teaches us to trust God’s sovereignty. It reminds us that our worth is not found in productivity, performance, or control, but in the love of God. The third gift is spiritual disciplines, the tools of health. Scripture, prayer, worship, silence, service, fellowship, and other habits create space to encounter God’s daily grace. The fourth gift is the body of Christ, the incarnation of health. We need brothers and sisters who encourage us, pray for us, speak truth in love, and help us grow.

Through all four gifts, Mark points us back to Jesus, who is our gospel, our Sabbath rest, our transforming presence, and the head of his body. God gives shalom, and he gives real means to receive it.

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Transcript

The Aaronic Blessing Opens The Message

Mark Medley 0:02

So I'm going to start this morning where we normally end the service. And that's in Numbers chapter 6. If you want to turn there, that's great. You can look on the screen behind me. Numbers chapter 6. The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, Thus you shall bless the people of Israel. You shall say to them, The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. So shall they put my name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them. Lord, thank you so much for your word. We thank you so much for your heart of blessing. Thank you that we see here, Lord, a little picture of who you are and what your motivation is for us, Lord. Lord, I'm going to ask you this morning that you would highlight just one thing in this service, Lord, that you want us to hear individually, whatever you're speaking to each one of us, Lord. And give us grace not only to hear it, but give us grace also to do it, Lord, to be hearers and doers of your word. Open our eyes, Lord, by your spirit. We're hungry for you, Lord. So teach us in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.

Shalom As Wholeness Not Calm

Mark Medley 1:41

Okay, so the Lord give you peace. Peace. This word peace is the word shalom. It's a really uh an untranslatable word. It's one of those words in Hebrew which can't be really translated into English in one word. It's peace, yeah, but it's a whole lot more than just peace. It's really well-being, it's wholeness, it's completeness, it's like a restored state of being. It's like a vision of a world that's been put back together in perfect harmony with God, with God's purpose, with each other. It's perfect health in all the areas of your life and your relationships. And so it's a picture of the heart of God for us, even in a broken world. It's, I think the point I want to make this morning, the big point, is that God wants us healthy. He wants us healthy. That's his heart. Not that we would be sick or frazzled or anxious, but that we would have shalom, y'all. That we would have peace. And theologians and rabbis have wrestled with his word. What in the world? How you even make meaning of this word, especially in English. Sometimes they've defined it as the webbing together of God and humans and all of creation in justice and fulfillment and delight. It's like a tapestry of health from chaos. So here's a picture for you. You think about our lives in a world are often like scattered threads in this broken world that we're in, just thrown upon a table, right? Frayed and broken and disconnected. There's a lot of potential there for beauty, right? Um, but it's it's kind of brokenness. We've experienced broken relationships and chaotic circumstances, and inside of us, there's kind of this turmoil. I mean, life is beautiful, but life is hard. It's both. And I'm and I know that in my life, in seasons of my life, I have experienced these periods of chaos and brokenness. For me, there's serious, there's seasons when the world just kind of rubs off on me. And I think you're probably the same. It's hard to face sickness and death and heartbreaking situations and relationships, and finances are tight, and expectations from people are unrealistic, and we're trying to like live up to them. And my own soul is being constantly drained, and my fillers are less than my drainers. You know what I mean? I'm like being drained, and I'm not being filled, and I find myself spiritually empty and kind of carrying this burden all by myself. It's like feels like it's all on my shoulders. Anyone else? You know, I feel like maybe some of you woke up this morning and saying, God, I just need you to help me. I just need you to give me some kind of a word. I think he has a word this morning. Uh, in the midst of all this stuff, you kind of lose your joy. Sometimes you're just doing the next thing, you're just surviving. And in those times, I can begin to question my own identity, my own purpose, my own significance. What's my life even for? And my fears go in many directions. I can fear myself because I know my frailties, and I doubt my abilities. I can fear other people. I give too much weight to what you think about me. I can fear circumstances because things are unsure, unstable. You don't know what tomorrow's gonna bring. It's unpredictable. And then, as a pastor, me personally, um, the church doesn't expect me to be weak. You know, it doesn't expect me to get tempted or be discouraged or get lazy. It expects me to be joyful and be a model Christian and a model father and a model husband and be uh content with my pay and all of that, right? I'm not saying anything. I'm just saying, it's just this is like, you know, I'm not supposed to feel this way. I'm a pastor, right? I'm supposed to be strong. And all this stuff can beat you down, and your resistance wears down, and you get sick, like sick in your soul, sometimes sick in your body, too, sick in your spirit, weak in your spirit. So we feel all these brokennesses, right? Some seasons are particularly hard, harder than harder than others, but shalom is the presence of God in the midst of that chaos. It's peace, and God is speaking peace over his people. He says to Aaron and the and the priests, give them my peace. And God brings wholeness out of chaos, and God can weave those scattered threads into a beautiful garment, like this one. Can you imagine? He can pull all those threads together and he can make something beautiful out of it. And I was thinking about Jesus when he gathered his terrified disciples together after the resurrection, that they didn't know what was going on, but he breathed on them and he said, Shalom be with you, peace be with you. He wasn't just giving them like a little temporary relief, he was re-weaving their scattered world, their threads of their life into uh like a tapestry

Chaos Threads God Reweaves

Mark Medley 7:45

of wholeness. He was bringing health, he was saying, shalom on you. Because God wants us healthy. And this gift of shalom really is Jesus stepping into the middle of our chaos and our threads and weaving this fabric uh of his perfect purpose and uh his beauty into our lives. So the passage we read this morning and that we speak over you every week is called the Aaronic Blessing, because God told Aaron to put this blessing on the people. It's commonly used in Judaism, by the way, which is where our roots of our faith come from. But it's also used in Catholicism, it's used in Anglican churches, it's used in Protestant churches like ours. And it's interesting because in it we receive a blessing, but the whole focus is the Lord. God originates the blessing. God clearly shows his heart for his chosen people. He wants us to live in peace and wholeness. He God wants you healthy. May the Lord bless you and keep you. That is God's loving protection. May the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you. That's God's smile and his favor. The Lord lift up his countenance on you and give you peace. Shalom. That's God's attention on you, on us as his people, and give you deep peace, his presence, his wholeness, his health, a sense of rest. And that kind of blessing is an echo throughout the entire scripture. I mean, you think of Psalm 1, and it says, the man whose delight is in the law of the Lord, he's like a man planted by the river, right? The river, his roots run deep, the river is there, there's this life that's in him all the time. In the beginning, very beginning, Genesis, we see in the Garden of Eden, we see this garden, this beauty, this fruit, this uh nourishment, and this river that flows out of the garden. And in the end, in Revelation, we see a river coming from the throne and a tree and the fruit that bears all the time is fruitfulness. And we see that Jesus said, I've come that you might have life and you might have it more abundantly. It's abundant life. And John later on would write in his letter, I want you to prosper and be in health, even as your soul prospers. This is the heart of God. God wants us healthy. That's top point, right? But here's the problem: we're like, we're made in the image of God, and yet we're also like dust. We're just dust that he breathed into, right? We're fragile. So, what means does God give us to be healthy? That's what I want to talk about this morning. So, for pastor's choice, I would like to give you a gift out of my life and my experience that that really God has given to me. And he has shown me four gifts that he gives to me to be healthy, four four means, four ways that he makes me healthy and he brings healing into my life and strength into my life and restoration and and reorders and re-tapestries my life. And it's like an antidote in a broken world. So if you can visit Dr. Jehovah and tell him what your problem is, and he could call you in a prescription down to CVS, and you go by and pick it up, and you could take it, and you knew that if you took this thing regularly, you would be healthy. Would you do it? Would you? Would you, really? Okay, and I'm gonna ask you that again later on, okay? All right, I heard you. I heard you, and I think I think you I believe you, but you can pick up these meds and you can take them, okay? So four gifts that God gives us to keep us healthy. That's what I want to talk about this morning. And

Gift One The Gospel As Medicine

Mark Medley 12:06

the first gift is the gift of the gospel. The gospel. Let me read this to you from Colossians 1, 5 and 6. Paul says, the word of truth, the gospel which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world, is bearing fruit and increasing, as it also does among you, since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth. The gospel came, the gospel was planted, the gospel bore fruit, it continues to bear fruit. It always bears fruit in your life, Paul is saying. Okay, this is this is uh the gift, the first gift, like the source of all health for us is this gift of the gospel. And yes, it's the gospel, the simple gospel, the simple gospel message that most of us understand that God created us in fellowship with him, but sin separates us from that fellowship. But God loved us so much that he sent Jesus to live the life that we couldn't live, a life of perfect obedience to his commands, and to die the death that I should have died because I didn't obey his commands. And because of that, by faith, as God raised him from the dead, and by faith in what Jesus has done, God raises me back up with him, and I'm back in fellowship with him. That's the gospel. It's the simple message of the gospel. It's beautiful. And most of us agree and believe that, right? But there's so much more as you read the scripture. Uh, the gospel is like the deeper you go, it's like the mother load of the gifts of God. The deeper you go, the more gold you get out of it. You understand there's many things that that the gospel contains in it. For example, it's he God regenerates us, he makes us alive from the dead. We were dead in our sins, but God has made us alive in Christ. And so He we're born again into a new hope, a living hope, he says. So God makes me spiritually alive. And second, God justifies me. In other words, God, the righteous judge, who always judges correctly, has looked at me and declared me not guilty through the work of his son. God says, I'm not guilty. He makes me right with him. That's good news. And then we're accepted in the beloved one, in Jesus Christ, not just um, not just asserted, not just welcomed, not just um tolerated, but welcomed into his family, a relationship with God. So he not only takes my sin away, but he gives me his righteousness and accepts me fully. And even further than that, he adopted us, he adopted me and you as sons and daughters. He didn't just want servants, he wante sons and daughters. And so he's adopted us into his family. And so we have a place at his table. And you don't have to bring anything to the table to have a place at the table. That's the grace of God. That's beautiful. And then he sanctifies us, which means we can enjoy freedom from the power of sin in our lives every day. He breaks the power of sin in my life. And then there's a glorious future where there's not going to be any more death and any more sin, any more separation, no pain, no tears, a brand new body. He will fully restore our lives to what they were originally meant to be, reversing the effects of sin forever and ever. This is good news. All of that, or there's more too, but that's that's the gospel. Now, so what I want you to see though is that God has given me a gift. It's like he called in the prescription. I got to go down to CVS and pick it up. And I got to take it every day. I need to take the gospel and apply it to my life every day. I have to take it regularly. My understanding and my application of the gospel makes all the difference in my everyday life. It makes me healthy. For example, I could understand the basics of salvation through Christ and still live a life of condemnation. You can feel condemned because you don't, you've kind of attached your security to your own performance and not to the performance of Jesus. So you have this nagging little voice of condemnation that guy that kind of fills your life. I could understand the basics of salvation, and I can live my life bound by the approval of others. The fear of man, because I don't understand that I'm completely accepted by God, reconciled to him through Christ. I need to grow in the gospel. I could understand the basics of salvation, but I can live in fear of being abandoned by God. I can live like an orphan still in my mind, because I don't understand that I'm adopted into the family through the work of Jesus. I need to grow in the gospel. Day by day, I need to grow in the gospel. And I have learned that the most influential person in my life is me. Because nobody talks to me more than me. You know what I mean? And what I say to me is sometimes not what God is saying to me. I can say things to me that God is not saying to me. So I can beat myself down and condemn myself. I need to grow in the gospel. Or I can tell myself I'm not the problem. And I can make excuses, I can build arguments about my own righteousness. That's not the gospel either. I need to understand, I need to take that prescription every day. So God makes me healthy and keeps me healthy through the finished work of Jesus, my Savior. And this is the source of our health. It's the source of it. And we have to fight. I have to fight to keep the gospel the center of my life. Because if I don't, I begin to look for my hope or my security or my identity in people or in positions or in circumstances when I've already been given all these things in Christ. I already have them. God has given me all things in Christ. I don't have to look other places for them. And the gospel helps me finally be anchored in the understanding that Jesus is my never-ending source for everything that I need. And the gospel's a gift that keeps me healthy. God wants me healthy. The gospel's the way he does it. Second

Gift Two Sabbath Rest And Trust

Mark Medley 19:17

gift. Second gift. Sabbath. The gift of Sabbath. Hebrews 4, verses 10 and 11. So then there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works, as God did from his. Therefore, let us strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. Okay, Sabbath. It's interesting to me when you look at that, those two ver two chapters there, chapter four and chapter three, written to Hebrew Christians. These were people who were believers. It seems strange to me that Paul has to tell these believers to consider Jesus. Think about Jesus. Remember Jesus. He's pulling them back into alignment with what God's done for us through Christ. And he also says we have to work hard at entering into a rest. Strive to enter into the rest. It's kind of weird, isn't it? Work hard at resting. It's a little bit weird. Why would he say this to these believers? I think because it's our tendency to default to the works of man rather than to the rest of God. And the Sabbath is God's gift that teaches me to rest. So a simple way to understand the biblical Sabbath is Sabbath is a literal 24-hour period where I stop working and I delight in God and God's gifts to me. Jewish people do it from sundown to sundown. Friday, sundown to Saturday sundown. 24 hours. Every week. Two general ways that Christians approach the Sabbath. It's like either you think, oh, wait a minute, that's Old Testament. That's not really for us today. We don't really need that today. That's under the law. So they disregard it. Um and others legalistically observe it on a certain day in a certain way. And in that way they kind of exchange the life of the Sabbath, the meaning of what it's supposed to be, for law and for bondage. So there's two extremes, but neither one of those. Or Jesus' idea about it. Sabbath is a whole lot more than law. In fact, it predates the law. Sabbath happened way before the law. Sabbath happened on the seventh day. Because God created on the six days. And on the seventh day, he rested. God rested. Was God tired? No, he who keeps Israel never sleeps or slumbers. God does not grow weary. He doesn't get tired. He didn't rest because he's tired. He rests because he's a rester. He's a creator, but he's also a restor. He actually is a person, a being who is, not just a being who does. He's not the great I do. He's the great I am. That's a revelation for you. He does, but he is. And so part of who he is is he's a rester. In his nature, he rests. And so if we're going to be like him, as he and also he commanded us to rest, if we're going to obey him, we have to do it. We have to rest. So we don't need to do it as law, though. We're not a slave to the Sabbath. Jesus said this. And Jesus said unto them, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. The Sabbath was made for you. You weren't made for the Sabbath. You don't serve the Sabbath. The Sabbath is a gift because God wants you healthy. He wants you to rest. He wants you to learn to rest. And we have to learn to rest. We have to work at resting. We have to. Sabbath serves us by giving rest to our bodies and our minds and our spirits and refreshment and revelation about God. So when I practice Sabbath, I rest or I play and I tap into the joy of God. So how's your joy level? You can there's joy in resting in God. At his right hand, there are pleasures forevermore. And when I practice Sabbath, I let go of control and I trust in God's sovereignty. Okay. Just like when you go to sleep. You know you can't go to sleep if you're worrying so much about stuff. If you're carrying burdens and you're you're anxious and you feel like you, I mean, you can't sleep. If you go to sleep, the world's gonna fall apart. How many of you slept last night? Okay. How many of you are just not gonna raise your hand no matter what I say? I see that hand. We all slept, I think we all slept last night, and we all woke up this morning and the world was still here, right? It was still okay, all right. So everything was okay. I mean, I mean, it was all right. If you checked out for seven or eight hours, it was all right. You can't sleep though until you really until you get in your head that the world's gonna be okay. My world's gonna be fine if I check out for a few hours. It's the same way with Sabbath. We relinquish our control. And honestly, our anxiety comes from our desire to control, or our feel like we need to control. That if I don't hold it together, it's gonna come apart. And that's a lot of pressure. It's pressure we weren't meant to bear. When I practice Sabbath, it breaks my addiction to activity and to work. And I understand my worth as a human being is in God's love alone. He loves me, it's not in my performance. So in Christ, I'm good enough, I'm loved enough, I'm safe enough, I can rest. Sabbath is a gift for us. And I and you know what? When I practice Sabbath, I can love other people too. The best way to love other people is to give them the best version of you. So when you when you're when you're healthy, you that's the best way to love people. No, Mark, I can't do this. That's not even realistic. 24 hours? Are you serious? My work, my family, my season of life will not allow it. I ain't got time to be healthy. That's what you're saying, really. I ain't got time to be healthy. If just go down to CVS and pick up the pick up the prescription and take it, man. Take this gift of God. Believe me, I understand busyness, I understand busy seasons, but I'm asking you this morning to see the heart of God. He wants you healthy, he wants you to live in his shalom. He wants all those threads to come together like a tapestry. And he gives you these gifts, and he's given you a gift of Sabbath. And maybe you're gonna have to just take a step of faith. I mean, 24 hours. Okay, I mean, eight of those probably are sleeping. So let's say 16 hours, okay? 16, 17 hours, you can give out out of 168, I can't give 16, 17 hours to God to rest. I just can't do it because my my life will fall apart. And I understand we've got kids to feed, I understand all that. But what I'm saying is you take a step toward integrating rest into your life. And if you take a step, I think God will give you a window. I think he'll show you how to do it. I think he will. If you just move toward it and believe that God will honor your effort and receive his gift. Lord, by faith, I'm gonna try to do this. I'll just, I'll just say, let's start with 12 hours, okay? That'll be all right. Let's do it. Um sometimes we use activities to push down and to numb the pain that God wants to remove through Sabbath rest. Sometimes we feel our schedules to overflowing, trying to meet our own needs and the needs of those around us in our own power, feeling like we have to hold it all together. If God himself rested, not because he was tired, but because it's part of his nature, Sabbath is like a call to imitate God. God rested and then God said, I want you to do the same. It's like he is saying, imitate me. And I would say you can think of it this way: Sabbath is imitating God in rest so that we try we stop trying to be God. Imitating God so we stop trying to be God. God wants you healthy. Well, so um, there's a couple of uh Chinese characters I'm gonna put up here on the screen. And this is a Chinese word. It's the word for busyness, not busyness, but busyness, like being busy, right? And one of these characters is two characters together. One character means heart, like your heart, the core of who you are, and the other character means killing. So the way the Chinese express busyness is killing your heart. I think they got it. I think they got it. It makes us stop caring for the things that we care about. It makes us stop being healthy. But killing busyness requires us to review our our day, our week, our yearly schedule, and to build Sabbath into it. And you know, sometimes if you if you think I can't do this, and you you go 24-7, seven days a week, and you don't do a Sabbath and you do that for four or five weeks, you know what's gonna happen? Your body's gonna go, we're done. We're done, and you're gonna be sick for four days. Those four days that you should have taken a Sabbath, you're probably gonna take a Sabbath. You could take it as you go, like maintenance, or you can just run yourself to death and then be sick. Your body knows you need it for sure. So maybe our minds need to catch up with our bodies. So God makes me healthy and keeps me healthy through Sabbath rest. This is the space of health, the space of health. And for some of you, God's just calling, he's called in this prescription that's waiting for you, and you're just gonna have to go pick it up and take it. Are you willing to do that? All right. You told me you were. So I'm I'm I'm taking you at your word. Number

Gift Three Disciplines Make Space

Mark Medley 31:30

three, the gift that makes me healthy is the gift of spiritual disciplines. 1 Timothy 4, 7, discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness. Spiritual disciplines are practical habits of Christ followers that have been practiced by God's people since biblical times. We're talking about time in the Word of God, worship, prayer, meditation, silence, Sabbath, um, relationships, fellowship, service, all of these things. Okay, but you know, when we think of these things, kind of our default tends to be condemnation, like I am not doing that enough, I'm not praying enough, I'm not wording enough, I'm not worshiping enough, I'm not quiet long enough, I'm just not enough. I'm not enough. And so a lot of times we shy away from these things because it's a it's a law thing to us, it's a duty thing to us. But this is about grace. It's about grace. So let me ask you a question. How many of you believe Jesus is still acting and speaking today? All right. Almost all of us. That's good. Just those of you who aren't gonna raise your hand, I don't care what, didn't raise your hand. Okay, yeah, I believe it. God is still acting and speaking today. The spiritual disciplines are like my demonstration that I believe that statement. They're like, if if I truly believe God speaks and that what he is saying is worth hearing, what space am I creating to hear his voice? I believe God speaks, and so I take time to listen. I believe God is wise, all wise, so I take time to look for his wisdom. I believe God rewards those who diligently seek him, and so I want to seek him. I believe God is omnipresent, and so I make room for his presence, to acknowledge his presence in my life. That's where that's what the disciplines are about. They're the space that we create to encounter God's grace. The disciplines are the space that you create in your life to receive and encounter God's grace. It's not about law, it's not about performance, it's about grace. So Paul says, discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness. Okay, well, there's an understood subject there. The understood subject is you, you, discipline. Um there's an action, discipline, and then there's a goal for godliness. Discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness. Okay, so discipline, that's the word gumnazo, which is we get the word gymnasium from. It means work out. Okay. Work out. Uh make an effort. This is like a grace and a faith thing. The only reason we can go after God is God makes us alive and makes us hungry for him. He's already made the first step. But we have to take a step too. We have to actually go after him. We have to be hungry. We have to discipline ourselves. That's working out. And so discipline yourself. Yourself. This is self-imposed. This is not me. I can't discipline you. You can't discipline me. You have to discipline yourself. It's something you have to decide to do in yourself. For the purpose, there's an end. We're towards something, we're in the direction of something. We're moving purposefully toward godliness, devotion, being like God. That's the purpose. And as I think this is what Jesus meant when he said, abide in me, abide in me. And that's where fruit comes from. That's the river, brothers and sisters. That's the river that we're planted beside. It's abiding in Jesus. And this flow of water is constantly causing us to flourish, but we have to create space for it. So God makes me healthy and he keeps me healthy through the disciplines. These are the tools of health. And these disciplines will give me an accurate view of God. It makes him bigger to me. It gives me an accurate view of myself. It helps me to think soberly. And it gives me an accurate view of God's grace in my life as well.

Gift Four Relationships Heal And Grow

Mark Medley 36:04

Okay, the last gift that I have seen in my life that keeps me healthy is the gift of relationships. It's the gift of you. And it's just as important as all of them. I mean, if you could just take a like a stool, you can think of a stool and have like a four-legged stool, you know? And if you cut one of those one of those legs off, it's like you're you're probably gonna fall over, right? You need all four of these. It's really important. Relationships. Look what it uh Paul says in Ephesians 4, verse 15 and 16. But speaking the truth in love, you may grow up in all things into him who is the head, Christ, in whom the whole body, joined and knit together by whatever joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth in the body for the edifying of itself in love. The part that you give to me, the part that I give to you, causes us all to grow together in love. I need you. You need me. The Holy Spirit baptizes us into the body of Christ. And the body is fitted together by the Holy Spirit. Each joint supplies the other joint. In other words, you supply me, I supply you, you've got what I need. We encourage one another, we confess our sins to one another, we pray for one another that we may be healed. God wants us healthy. And one of the means he gives us is relationships. I can't be healthy without you. I need your words and your prayers and your wisdom and your rebuke and your love. I need you. And you need me too. Oh, Mark, though, these people, those people, these are these are some of the sources of my biggest pain, Mark. These are the people who've hurt me. I know. I know. That does not give you an exception clause. Sorry, I'm sorry. Jesus is not saying, oh, I didn't realize that. I forgot about that. You're right. You don't have to connect with my body anymore. You don't have to love my bride or receive the love of your brothers. You're right. You're special. I forgot. It sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? Because it is ridiculous. It's ridiculous. You're not, I'm not, I'm not the exception. I know, I know difficult, there's difficult relationships. I understand there's pain there too. Wherever there's a person, there's a rose and a thorn. And it smells great. And it hurts, right? But this is what this is part of what God gives you to be healthy, brothers and sisters. And the constant temptation of the enemy is to draw us away from fellowship. And hardness of our heart or offense can cause us to disconnect with people, not just physically, but emotionally, and not just withdraw from them, but to hide our hearts from them, to guard our hearts from them. Look what he says in Hebrews. God says, Hebrews 10, 24 and 25, let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another. And all the more as you see the day drawing near, all the more, all the more. All the more. Times are hard, times are bad, times are coming to a close. All the more. All the more. Gather together, encourage one another. We need each other. We need it. We need it. God makes me healthy. He keeps me healthy through my brothers and my sisters. This is the incarnation of health. Okay. All

Putting The Name On Us

Mark Medley 40:13

right. So we're going to finish by going back to the sixth chapter of Numbers. Remember the very last thing that God said there, because God wants us healthy, He's going to pour His peace on us. But He said, They will put my name on the Israelites and I will bless them. Interesting, isn't it? By speaking this blessing over them, you're going to put my name on them and I will bless them. We're the carriers of the name. And these gifts that God gives us for health, as new covenant believers, they come to us because we're under a name. A name by which no other name by which salvation comes. This name of Jesus Christ. We are in Christ. And Jesus is our salvation. He is the gospel. And Jesus is our Sabbath rest. And Jesus is the presence and the sanctification that comes through these disciplines. And Jesus is, it is the body of the very body of Jesus that is the incarnation of health, the incarnation of Jesus to each of us. And so through all these gifts, we get to see this ever-widening vision, revelation, understanding of Jesus more and more. That's where health is, brothers and sisters. It's in Jesus. And God wants you healthy. So, recap, God makes me healthy. He keeps me healthy through the gospel, that's the source of health. Through the Sabbath, that's the space of health. Through the disciplines, those are the tools of health. And through the body of Christ, my brothers and sisters, that's the incarnation of health.

Personal Response And Closing Prayer

Mark Medley 42:12

So, all right, so what we're gonna do, I want you to stand up. And I'm gonna just, if you guys would just keep that slide up there. So we prayed before we started that the Lord would just highlight one thing for us. And and almost all of you said, if if I knew God called me in a prescription, I'd go take it. I'd grab it, I'd bring it home, and I'd take it. So there's maybe one of these that is specifically for you this morning that God wants to just remind you. This is a this is um a provision for your health. So as they're singing this prayer blessing over you, I want you to just do business with the Lord and just say, okay, Father, I will do it by your grace. I'll receive what you've given to me, this manifestation of Jesus through these gifts. I receive your heart of health for me. I receive your means of health for me. So would you do that as they're singing this song?