The Power of Self Examination — Shane Idleman

Matthew 8 and the Biblical Question of Healing

Let's get right into the message, and what I'm going to do, we're actually, if you have your Bibles, we're in Matthew chapter 8, but we're not going to get there quite this week either because I want to set the stage as Jesus is going to talk about healing for many different verses.

He's going to heal this person, and heal that person, and heal that person, and it's been on my heart to do a brief series on healing. What does it look like? You see this stuff on TV. You hear that God doesn't heal anymore.

We hear all this stuff, so what does the Bible say? Because both sides will say, after thoroughly exhausting the Scriptures, we believe in this. Then the other side will say, after thoroughly exhausting the Scriptures, we believe in this.

Well, who's right? I mean, we have two opposing views, so I kind of want to tackle this, number one, and bring some clarity just from God's Word, but understanding that I don't have the answers. I'm not saying, oh, let me tell you how it's really done, boom.

We're just going to look at Scripture. We're going to look at what God's Word says, and we're going to ask Him, Lord, you show us, because this is a topic that is hard to understand. I'm actually reading a book right now that was given to me last week with K .P. Yohannan and Gospel for Asia, and rescuing these kids out of sex trafficking.

These guys buy them, give them like five cents a day, and house them, and slave them to go out and beg for money, and they beat them up, so they'll look even more needy, so people will give even more money.

And we see these things, and we're like, how in the world does this happen? But he has a chapter on God healing people through these kids praying for people. They just read the Bible. They say, look, the Bible says to pray, and they're seeing healing, so is he lying about all that?

Is that just a chapter in there, and he's, oh, he's making all this stuff up? Or is it because we live in America, and we don't need God as bad? I don't know. Think about that. So to say God doesn't heal anymore, and you go tell that to a missionary, they're going to laugh in your face.

But we don't see it much in America, so where's the disconnect here? Well, let's try to get to that over the next few weeks, but the first thing that is vitally important before we get into the whole healing aspect is the power of self-examination.

Communion and the Power of Self-Examination

The power of self-examination. It is very healthy to examine yourself. I hope that many of these sermons make us go home and examine ourselves, and I say often that before it hurts you, it hurts me at home, as I'm examining myself in the light of Scripture.

And we're actually tying it into communion tonight. It's our communion. Once a month, we have communion. We try to do it once a month, and we'd like to do it more often once we get more ushers. Okay? You see how all of this is working?

And somebody just set this up. So we're going to tie in communion, because communion is vitally important, and many times we just gloss over it, oh, yeah, here's communion, but I want to tie in how this is a vital aspect of our Christian faith, and coming together, remembering Christ, remembering the cross, and in that remembrance, we come together, we take communion.

It's almost like a uniting of the body of Christ in this event. So I'm going to try to tie in this self-examination, starting healing with communion. So with that said, buckle up, sit down, and hold on, because here we go.

We have to remember the key here, that healing is done, and I might not move from this spot very much, because I've got a lot of notes. I want to make sure I stay on track. Healing is done through God's power, by His authority, by His Spirit, and His time.

You have to remember that. Healing, when God heals a person, or if He chooses to heal a person. Oh, shoot, I actually forgot, I ordered a whole bunch of inserts from Johnny Erickson Tata's ministry. I've been talking with them about trying to get her out here to speak some time, and scheduling, and she has a great little pamphlet on sometimes why God doesn't heal and how He's used her, and I want to get that into the bulletin next week, because it's very important.

She has some great insight into this. But healing is done through God's power, by His authority, by His Spirit, and His time. And that's why I have a problem sometimes with some of these guys on TV. You would think that it's through their power, by their spirit, and their time, by how loud they can pray.

And we have to forget, no, it goes back to God and Him alone. Now, most churches are prone to extremes. How many of you have been coming here a while? You know how I like to show the different extremes, right?

On this side, it's too extreme. On this side, it's too extreme. Well, there's no difference in this area of healing. You've got this extreme, where people are going to say, God doesn't do that anymore.

Nope. I mean, you can pray for it, the Bible says to pray for it. And you've got some anointing oil, right? The Bible says anointing oil, but we really don't believe that stuff. We don't teach that stuff.

We really don't practice it. But if somebody needs healing, of course, we'll pray for them. I mean, we're not, you know, we're not stupid, Shane, come on. But it's really not going to happen. But then you have the other side, right?

Where anybody should be healed. These guys are going to blow on you, they're going to knock you over, and pooh, pooh, pooh, pooh, pooh. Everybody's healed. And God has to heal. God will heal everybody.

If he doesn't, your faith is little. You don't have enough faith. If you're sick, and if you're hurting financially, you don't have enough faith. God wants you to be healthy, wealthy, and wise. And they promote that.

And I don't see that being very biblical. Because God sometimes brings us through challenging situations. And what happens, though, is I've seen this group, I know people in this group, is they'll take a scripture, your faith has healed you.

Oh, see, there you go. And they'll make a whole doctrine out of scripture. But what you have to do, and I remember, I think it was Warren Wearsby or maybe J. Verna McGee said, don't study or don't even teach on Jesus's parables until you've read them for 20 years.

And now it's making a lot of sense now, because we can form doctrines over what I've experienced or whatever I think. And look at this verse. But you have to read the entire scripture, the totality of what it says.

Because, do you guys see this in the news? And I want to be careful here because I don't want to poke fun. I do feel sorry for him and his family. But it fits in here, that came on Fox News, the Jamie Coates of snake salvation, the reality star died because of a snake bite.

You know what these guys are? They hold the rattlesnake up and they preach with it. You haven't seen that? Some people are saying no. Well, because the verse in the Bible is actually a disputed text. Some manuscripts have it, some don't.

You'll take up serpents and you will not die. You'll drink poison and you will not die. The Bible says that. But it also says, do not tempt or test your God. Do not try him in these things. Jesus even said that when he was tempted in the wilderness, you shall not tempt the Lord thy God.

Those scriptures in context would mean like Paul, when he went to the island to minister to people, he picked up a whole bundle of wood, right, to make a fire and the viper bit him. And the people said, oh, he's going to be dead.

He must be a murderer. And Paul just shook it off. Nothing happened. Then they want to worship him as a God. That's how these scriptures in context work. You can do God's will. You can go on the mission field.

You can get involved. You can do these things and know that no weapon formed against you will prosper. If you get bit, I mean, and we don't even understand back then when you walk somewhere, there were vipers, there were rats that you were, you were in danger.

The lions, the beast, we've got so easy in our nation, I think we forget sometimes. That's why we want to read the Bible in the grammatical setting, the historical setting. You want to get the whole context and God saying, listen, if you take up something like that, you'd be, you're bitten by a viper.

You drink poison accidentally as a child of God, in God's will, he will protect you. But it doesn't mean don't preach with a rattlesnake in your hand. How in the world would, I mean, that to me just doesn't, that there's no common sense there.

There's no wisdom because he can just turn and bite. And as we know that you can die from those things. So that's one example of taking, why do you think Hollywood picked it up? I mean, come on. You think they're going to show real gospel preaching on there?

No. Half of Hollywood would be convicted. The other half would throw the TV out the window. So they pick up these extreme things. So be careful on this issue. Now here's the dilemma with healing. What was normal in the new Testament is now considered bad and wrong and of the devil and false.

See, that's what we have to forget about. This side is, see, the dilemma this side has is what was really good in the new Testament now is bad. I mean, you have more, you have to make a harder case to show that God doesn't do that anymore than just reading the Bible and allowing God to work through his spirit.

Continuationism, Cessationism, and the Gifts of the Spirit

And what you'll have is you'll have different teachers, right? You've got John MacArthur, and then you've got someone like the vineyard movement or Rick, Rick Joyner, John Wimber. These guys, these different leaders are on polar opposites.

So you know what I like to do is read them both. I've got strange fire by John MacArthur on my counter next to my bed. And I've got Jack Deere surprised by the spirit on my next to my bed. Let's see what these opposing forces say.

The interesting thing about Jack Deere is he used to be a professor of Dallas Theological Seminary until he was surprised by the spirit of God and saw the gifts working. Now he left that whole thing and now wrote a book on it.

The John MacArthur comes, you know, these guys are kind of against each other. Then you have John Piper, you have CJ Mahaney, you have great godly men of God, Wayne Grudem and his book, Systematic Theology spends a whole chapter on why and how the gifts are still valid today.

But these people don't. So who's right? Somebody's got to be right, right? Well I think what happens, and we'll try to work through this, from reading them all and reading the Bible, reading them, reading the Bible, a couple things come to mind.

On this side, they see the stuff on TV and we're not going to accept that. We're not going to allow it. We're not going to promote it. We're not going to endorse it. And as a response, we kind of refrain from that.

We get to what they call the polar opposite side. We're not going to do that. And then this other side, they don't refrain. If it's odd, it's God. All weird behavior is excused and the Holy Spirit's moving and don't you see this and that and everybody's, you know, and that's not God either.

So on the one hand, I think one reason why many people are afraid of the power of the Holy Spirit, and this will be a stepping on toes sermon, I'm getting comfortable with doing that, many times, and I'm saying this in love, I'm not saying this arrogantly because I need God every day.

I need the Spirit's power. I pray before I even walk up here, Lord, you need to speak through me because this bumbling idiot who barely graduated high school cannot do this unless you empower me. The reason a lot of times is they doubt the power of the Holy Spirit.

The gifts of the Holy Spirit is because they've never experienced it. The majority of the time, it's because they've never experienced it. Think about it. If you submit, surrender, humble yourself, you're filled with the Spirit of God, and God gives you this prophetic word of utterance that you're able to speak into somebody's life, you see somebody actually healed, and tongues, what is that?

This prayer language as you're worshiping God, and then you read the Bible and go, yeah, absolutely. I've experienced, I agree with it. And then you have somebody else who says they haven't seen those things, they've been raised in a denominational setting that won't allow for those things, they've been reading books and theological studies by those professors, they've been taught this by their fathers.

Who in their right mind is going to say, could we have been wrong? So what you've never experienced, we have to take and remove it out of the Bible. We have to make allowances for what we've never experienced.

But then the other side that just lets everybody slain in the Spirit and falling over, we've got to be careful with these things. I don't gravitate toward that side either, because I don't see that in the biblical text.

I see when God moves mightily and it revives a place, revives a church, people, it's not pretty. People are weeping. I mean, I've got Whitefield's journals of George Whitefield, The Great Awakening, Jonathan Edwards, John Wesley, David Brainerd, who spent time with the American Indians before the American Revolution, all these things.

These guys, when God moves, sometimes it's not pretty. You can't, you know, and somebody just doesn't sit there in a nice little box. They fall down under the presence of God and things happen and sometimes they're just shaking because they're so convicted of their sin.

So I'm not discounting that either. But that's why you'll see a great divide if somebody's experienced healing and they've experienced the power of the Spirit in their life, then they're going to believe that.

Does that make sense? If they haven't experienced those things, then they're probably not going to believe it. Now, granted, there are people who, when you get to 1 Corinthians, tongues, word of knowledge, word of wisdom, I don't know what these things, Shane, are.

You know, I haven't experienced them, but I'm open to them because I think the Bible still teaches them. That's a healthy group, too. That's a good spot to be. And I'm not a big proponent of tongues, you know, in church and tongues and this and hopefully we'll get to teaching of it at some point because the Bible talks a lot about it.

And we shouldn't be scared of what the Bible talks about. And if it's done in context, in biblical context, these things are not bad, they're good. If they're done in context and how Paul explains them to be done and you don't have to feel not spiritual that you don't receive this or this happens, I believe it's as a person empties themselves and they're filled with the Spirit of God, that God will begin to give them giftings according to 1 Corinthians 12, 13, 14.

You'd want to look at all three of those chapters again in context. But if somebody doesn't speak in tongues, they're no less spiritual than the person who does. I mean, many of my heroes from D .L. Moody and Charles Spurgeon and the Puritans and these guys, a lot of those, they never said that they received any type of gifting like that.

And you have to wonder, too, is it more of a gifting for the mission field, you know, where or is it more of a gifting for somebody's own devotional prayer life and how the God can move their heart and pray with the Spirit?

So, hopefully, I'm going to try to unpack all those things, and I went on a big rabbit trail that I promised myself I wasn't going to go on, so I'm still here on this first point. But I wanted to show you the difference between these two sides.

And you read, you know, Jack Deere, who was Dallas Theological Seminary, didn't believe in any of the gifts. He actually used to mock the gifts. And I put a couple of his quotes in their bulletin. He said, I love to say that I live by the Word of God alone, not by my feelings.

I preach so many sermons on this theme that I come to regard feelings and the Word of God as mutual enemies. And believe it or not, that's very true of many people I know. Many people I know that go to dead ritualistic churches, just the Word of God alone.

They pound the Word of God. Feelings are divorced from the Word of God. And go back and listen to the last few messages each Saturday, you'll see that I do not believe that, that our feelings and the Word of God are together.

Because as I read the Word of God, I feel the Word of God, the Holy Spirit's crying on the father, that he's illuminating the text. I mean, if the Holy Spirit wrote the scripture, surely, surely we need to ask for his guidance as well and his instruction as well as we read the Bible.

So that's how that works. And also I like this quote, too much of the church today has more confidence in Satan's ability to deceive than in God's ability to speak to us and lead us. This is what happens on the other side, too.

We're so worried about the devil deceiving that we do not allow God to speak and lead us. And if you're a child of God living in his word, praying humility, seeking discernment, doing all the things, worshiping him, you can't be led astray.

The only way you can be led astray is to open yourself up to wrong doctrine, false teaching. Well, Shane, are they going to do that? No, if you're into the right teaching and you're listening to the right people and you're praying and you're worshiping God, you're using discernment.

A lot of people that are led astray aren't open to discernment. They think if you use discernment, you're quenching and grieving the spirit of God. But the Bible says discern the spirits, test all things.

So somebody comes up, says, Pastor, I've got a word of knowledge for you. Great. Let's see if it comes to pass. I'm going to test it. I don't know you. I don't know your character. That's it. I'm not going to go do something because of it.

He's not going to lead me astray. He won't lead you astray either if we're grounded and anchor in the word. I've seen a lot of people. I've seen people go from Christianity to Mormonism. I've seen people go from Christianity to cult.

I've seen people go from Christianity to all these weird, extreme things on YouTube and all this stuff that's going on. You've got to watch out. And the conspiracy, all these things and in every single case is because they're not grounded in their word.

They're not humble. They're not broken, broken. They're not teachable. They're very prideful. They're very arrogant and they don't have a life of prayer and worship. When you have all of that, that is a child of God on fire for God filled with the spirit of God.

The devil can't mislead that person unless that person begins to unhook the anchor. You know, anchor gets stuck in the lake. You just cut that anchor loose, let that boat drift. So if you move away from the anchor, you can be and I can be led astray.

Testing Genuine Faith Through Self-Examination

Now, let's get into the actual message. The power of self-examination. The power of self-examination. A few weeks back, I talked about or actually a few months back, well, Matthew 7. So the fruit of authentic faith and we talked about people being saved.

It's good to check yourself at the door basically and see, okay, do I have the fruit of genuine conversion? So I put the link in there. You can go on our website and click the fruit of genuine faith or actually search it.

And I'm not talking about that tonight because I already talked about that exhaustively. Do you truly have genuine fruit? If you are arrested for being a Christian, is there enough evidence to convict you?

Do you have a love for God, a love for his words, sincere humility, gentleness, kindness of fruit of the spirit? Do you have these things or don't you? So Paul says, examine yourself. Do you not know yourself?

Is Jesus Christ in you? And I've come to find out people know if they have Christ and they know if they don't. And it's kind of alarming and they say, I think so, I hope so. I mean, I'm a good person.

What are you resting in? Your good works? And I remember a few years ago now, I gave a message at a church in Lancaster on a Sunday morning, both services. And afterwards, somebody got upset at me and it was hard to believe, but it does happen.

And he went home, he told his wife, and this is what I was talking about. I was talking about the fruit of genuine faith. The Bible talks about he who does his commandments, you know, there's you can see it.

Does a person have fruit or don't they have fruit? And he got mad. He said, I don't like that guy telling me that I'm not a Christian. The funny thing was, I never mentioned that. I just went through what the Bible says is the fruit of genuine faith.

So he could see I don't have that fruit. I'm not a Christian. But what a person needs to do instead of getting upset is there's a word called repentance. You say, ah, that's what I need, Lord. I repent.

I need that fruit. Lord, I accept your sign on the cross. So I'm not talking about self-examination in that context. I'm talking about self-examination in the context of saints. As Christians, we need self-examination.

Do you know it's very important sometimes when you sit down and you read the word of God that you don't sit there like that Pharisee who said, oh, God, I'm so glad that I'm not like that other person over there.

I give and I do all these things. Aren't I so spiritual? Don't you love me so much? No, you need self-examination to examine the heart. So it's very important that we examine ourselves. Now here's the part of the sermon I want to get to.

Unconfessed Sin, Sickness, and the Need for Repentance

And this is where I want to make sure I have a big disclaimer in here. But we can't avoid talking about this because it is crucial. Unconfessed sin can lead to sickness. OK, I'm just going to get this out of the way first in the next few weeks and say, oh, I talked about that before.

Unconfessed sin can lead to sickness throughout the Old Testament. We saw this all the time. Moses, the people disobeyed David when he disobeyed the Lord Gehazi when he was he was a servant of Elisha and they let Naaman go after curing him.

And this Gehazi rode after him and said, oh, I'm not going to tell my master. I'm going to take his gold and silver and his things and my master will never know. But Elisha knew. He said, did my heart not go with you when you went to get those things?

And then he leprous, he turned into a leper and he got leprosy. And we see counts throughout the Bible of unconfessed sin can lead to sickness. But and here's my disclaimer, often that's not the case or we'd all be sick.

That's just that's I'm going to shoot you straight. So those guys who say. Oh, you must have some unconfessed sin. Well, we would all be sick, wouldn't we? I mean, I think I've got some pride. I need to go repent of tomorrow morning.

Look how big our four p .m. service is. Nobody said we would make it. Ha, ha, ha. Not good. Now, guys, I say next week you're going to have this. You see how that works. But I like that because the people said, oh, that'll never happen.

I'm like, oh, I'm so excited. So I'm trying to find the balance there between thanking God and being prideful. So open confession. Why am I not sick then? Or why am I you know, why? So we have to be careful not to say it's always tied to unconfessed sin.

However, as I'm going to show you, the Bible talks a lot about. How our spiritual health can affect our physical health. For that, I'm going to have you turn to James 5 if you get a chance. That's a good way to drink my water.

It's a big water, huh, Shaley? It's because I'm thirsty for two services. So James 5. But here's what happens when I talk about this issue. Most people say, no, I'm good. I'm good. Right. Most of you say, I'm good.

But without spending time in the presence of God, it's not until after genuine reflection takes place that our attitudes are changed. Most people say, no, I'm good, I'm good, there's nothing wrong here.

Well, why don't you go sit in prayer for an hour? I bet you'll come out with a list of things that need to be worked on. So be careful there. Don't just assume I'm good. Take time and examine yourself.

God loves that. Examine yourself. Lord, is there anything? Is there anything wrong with me? Is there anything I'm doing wrong that I've sinned in these areas? Lord, would you help me? This is a good place to start because certain habits and toxic thoughts can stick with us.

And they'll hurt us in this area. So the first step, heart examination, James 5, 13. Now, listen, he's talking about, you know, you guys have to stay for the five thirty to get this whole sermon. James 5, verse 13, is anyone among you in trouble?

Let them pray. Don't go run to the bank, don't go run to a physician, don't go run to gossip. If anybody, if you're in trouble tonight, pray. If you're in trouble tonight, pray, pray. God loves to hear the prayers of his children.

Not say, I think a thousand dollars can fix that. I'll charge. No, pray. We have a whole prayer team back in that corner that's going to meet you to pray. Is anyone sick among you? Well, let's keep reading.

Let me start over. Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let them call for the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord.

And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well. Should we just erase out of the Bible? I mean, that's pretty that's pretty explicit. I'm thinking, why don't we do that more often? We've got elders here every single Saturday.

We've got this every single Saturday oil. Why does nobody want prayer? And we wonder why things are not changing. Now, I'm going to go through this, hopefully, I didn't look at too many commentaries because they're so divided on this, it's not funny.

I hope that, you know, let me just pray right now to on this, Lord, I pray that you would help us with this topic. Lord, open the eyes of our understanding through the illumination of the Holy Spirit, Lord, that you would give us wisdom and discernment on how you can heal your people and guide your people.

And we ask this in Jesus name. Amen. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well, the Lord will raise them up. Here we go. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.

I don't know, I don't have a seminary education, but that sentence says, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man availeth much, I better read it in your what we have there, the prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

So just that chunk there makes me want to pray, I don't know about you, but what's he talking about their prayer is the focal point. Prayer is a focal point. And then he ends with the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

And on this point, we need to remember that holiness and prayer are married. The reason people don't pray well is they don't live well. Prayer and holiness is a powerful weapon in the hands of a holy person.

Humility, Spiritual Authority, and Prayer for Healing

So this issue of prayer and holiness, but then I believe that there is humility involved. Look what he says. If anyone is sick among you, call for help. Call for help. You know, I know people in this church who don't want me to put their name on the prayer chain, and I know that they need some serious prayer.

Even me, too, when I get sick, I'm I don't know, I got it, I got it, I got it, Morgan, I got it. Don't tell. Don't do that. Why? Pride, I think most of the time, right? Pride. So I think there's a there's a as you were praying, there's a step of humility saying, Lord, I need help.

Lord, would you help me? I don't care if I'm going to make a fool of myself. If I said prayer up at this altar during worship, God's going to move. We should clear our seats. We should be up here. I don't care who's looking.

Lord, I'm calling out for help. I'm calling out for you. Would you help me? And many of us don't like to do that. I don't know. I'm good. I'm you know, I've been I don't want that. So I think there's a step of humility involved here.

Look, that's what the Bible says. Call on them. Say, listen, I need help. And then pray with the elders. Now, here's the thing that's tricky. The commentaries are divided all over the place on this, whether you read John MacArthur or Jack Deere or John Piper or Wayne Grudem or R .C. Sproul or Charles Hodge or John Calvin.

A lot of different issues here. But here's the main thing. Elders don't have supernatural power. OK. People say, Shane, if you would just pray for me. I know things could change. No, no, no, no, please.

They're the cross. That's who you need to seek. Don't think somebody on TV or you have to go somewhere. You have the power of God in your life. But there is a dynamic taking place that we can't overlook, I think.

I don't mean paraphrase. We've got prayer. We've got humility. I think it's a submission to spiritual authority saying, listen, you guys are spiritually over me as the congregation. I need you to pray for me and have that spiritual authority investing into my life and praying for me.

And I think God honors that. Because if you watch this, you're praying, you're calling for help. You're the elders. I mean, if you pray with an elder, you're going to get healed. If you don't, you're not.

It doesn't. And there's no super, you know, there's not this, you know, this special force that comes out. And K .P. O 'Hannon's book, little kids were praying for people and cancerous tumors. People are beginning to walk again from little kids, no theological background.

Jesus said, and I believe it and I pray. So it's a step of humility and it's part of the submission. The humility factor saying, OK, you are over, you are my spiritual covering in this church. If you call this church home and you're submitting to that spiritual authority.

And a lot of people don't like spiritual authority. I don't even like to use that word. They don't even like they don't want to use the word membership or spirit. They don't want anybody telling them what to do.

Well, that's a hindrance to healing and that's a hindrance to God answering your prayers. We all submit to somebody we should, and if you don't, there's a problem with that. I have an elder board and I have a board over this church.

I can't even vote on some things that have to do with compensation. I can't even touch it. I can't even vote on it. It's good. It's healthy. The elder board, what are we doing this for? Why do we need there's accountability there?

There's not this lone ranger doing whatever he wants because of a lone ranger gets prideful. And then a prideful person is no longer directed by God. And when you're no longer directed by God, you get into trouble.

And any time we talk about, let's consider maybe membership or let's call it a different word, I'm not signing nothing. Well, I can relate because I feel that way. I don't like membership either. I came from Calvary chapels with me.

You know, there's no membership. However, I'm I'm learning that we need to know who calls Westside Christian Fellowship home and who does it. Who do we help with benevolence? Who do we invest our time with?

Are they coming here on Saturday and going somewhere else? Who calls us their home church members, family core, and then knowing that they sit underneath our spiritual covering. And we don't look at it as authority.

We look at it as submission to God and what they call servant leadership. We want to serve you by leading. Well, who are those people? I have no idea. Why, because we have no membership roster, we have nothing.

So that's why these things are important, I think. So I believe that there's a humility factor in submitting to those over us. What about the oil? Now, this is this is interesting because there's really no answer.

I mean, of course, we know that the oil was precious. The oil was used in the Bible for the anointing of the Holy Spirit. The oil was costly. The oil was a source of fuel. But why does it say go and pray with oil?

Well, again, in our American context, this is very easy to get biblical context, very difficult to get. It's expensive. Remember the lady who broke the little thing of oil and she said, you just wasted a year's pay.

So I think it's we're going we're saying, Lord, I'm humbling myself. I'm going I'm bringing something that costs me something that costs the church something more. David said, I won't even give to the Lord anything that has not cost me something.

So there's a cost involved. The Bible says the anointing, the Holy Spirit heals and we anoint that person with oil. We're praying, Lord, that you get to heaven. Say, well, Shane, this really doesn't apply anymore.

Well, I don't know. I'm acting as if it does. See, I'd rather err on that side going, God, I'm sorry, I'm so stupid not to realize that this doesn't apply anymore. But I don't understand the dynamic. Why?