I Will Give you My HEALING

Introduction

It is SO good to be with you all here at Hope City Church! I cannot begin to tell you how thrilled and honored I am to be here with you today! Pastor Chad has shared with me some of the details that have led up to this season and all I can say is… GOD IS ON THE MOVE!

Honor Pastor Chad - And I want to take a quick moment today to say a few words regarding your pastor. Hope City… you have one of THE BEST. I have known your pastor since the fall of 2016… we were beginning our masters work at AGTS.

I had not known him before… but it didn’t take long to realize a couple of important things about your pastor.

One, Chad hears from the Lord… and more importantly, Chad is obedient in what the Lord tells him to do.

Two, Chad is one of the most genuine, authentic men of God I have ever met. His pursuit of God is real, his desire to shepherd and disciple God’s people is real, and his love for this church… for this congregation… is off the charts real!

Hope City, you have one of the best and I wonder if we can take a moment to honor Pastor Chad and his family for their dedication to the call and work that God has placed upon their hearts for Harrisonville Missouri!

I am excited to get to the Word of God this morning! My family and I are in full-time ministry in Agra, KS… a blip on the map that is literally 30 miles from the geographical center of the United States.

Agra is a town of about 250… so it is likely that there are more people in this room right now then there are residents of Agra, KS! And God is on the move!

We have seen healings, we have seen hearts set free! We have seen God moving in amazing ways! I believe, church, that God is doing something unprecedented...

Remember how that word was used so much during the pandemic… to describe the season we were in? Well… now I believe it will be used to describe the move of the Spirit, the power, and the presence of God in these last days!

Yes… we are going to face challenges… yes we will face obstacles and come against strongholds… but aren’t you glad for the promises that God has given us to keep us anchored in such times?

This morning, I have the privilege of talking to you about one of those promises. I have the joy of continuing the series “Anchor: Finding Assurance in God’s Promises.” And today I am going to talk about the fulfillment of one of these promises… in my own life. In fact, If not for this promise, I would not be on this stage with you today.

Turn with me in you Bible to Isaiah 53:5. This verse tells us about the promise firsthand.

Isaiah 53:5 NKJV

5 But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed.

Today, I want to talk to you about the promise of… healing. I want us to find assurance in the truth that through Christ, HEALING HAS COME. I want us to understand today WHY it is so important that we believe in this promise… even and especially in the moments when we don’t feel… healing… when things FEEL like they are falling apart.

What I want us to see in Isaiah 53:5 is this: Jesus Christ was BROKEN… so that you and I could be made WHOLE again.

Through His crucifixion and death on the cross… Jesus literally took on our brokenness and laid it all down. In its place, He offers us the PROMISE… say that word with me… the PROMISE of healing.

I fear sometimes we tiptoe around this promise with this concern, “I believe God CAN heal me… but I’m afraid God WON’T heal me.”

Why is it that people might feel this way? Because the promise of healing… is tangible. It is a supernatural act of God that is observable and verifiable through natural means.

This statement is the result of the anchor… coming loose. This is the result of trusting in how we feel… instead of trusting in what God has promised… and in what Jesus HAS delivered!

Maybe you feel like God’s promise of healing is for someone else… but not for you. Maybe you see and hear about God’s miraculous power in the lives of others, but you haven’t experienced it yet yourself.

Here is the reality today… IF YOU ARE IN CHRIST… YOU HAVE BEEN HEALED. Look at the text again… By His stripes we ARE healed. This promise is not based on how we feel… it is based on what we believe… it is a matter of faith and receiving. It is a matter of walking and living in His healing!

God has recently taught me a valuable lesson on this truth… something I will never forget. I walked through a season that felt… terrible. It is something I hope to never experience again! Yet, despite how I felt, GOD WAS ON THE MOVE. HIS PROMISE REMAINED! I just needed to be reminded of that promise!

Personal Testimony

When the Covid 19 pandemic hit… our world was shaken in a way that we had never been shaken. Not only were we facing a new viral threat that we knew very little about, we were trying to combat it with methods we had never attempted before as a society. Our world… was turned upside down. I had no idea just how crazy things were about to get!

I can remember saying something during the shutdown as my wife and I were watching the news. As the talking heads were debating about the situation I remember saying, “I’m not going to worry about this… If I get it, I will beat it, and move on.”

Do you recall what was said regarding the Titanic before it set out on its maiden voyage?

“Not even God Himself could sink this ship.”

The man’s name was Edward John Smith and he was one of the inventors of the Titanic. Edward was so sure of his design… his assurance was beyond confident… he felt it was impossible for his creation to go down at sea. And then… history happened. And the iconic ship met its doom… 1,500 lives were lost at sea. Wanna bet he wished he could take back those words?

“If I get it, I’ll beat it, and move on.” My “assurance” was place in MY strength. My assurance was based on MY understanding. I made this statement based off MY experiences… I did not say this in regard to the promise we see in Isaiah… I placed my assurance in the wrong place.

About a year later, summer of 2020, I went to youth camp with our High school students and we had an incredible week. I was helping with worship and assisting with security at night. Thursday evening rolled around and I began to feel.. yucky.

When I got home, I tested positive for Covid 19. We quarantined the family, and started the process of recovery. A few days later, I consulted again with the doctor and found I was also fighting strep. I was battling a double infection.

Things seemed to get better, I even went back to the office and preached a Wednesday night message, but then… things turned south.

I developed double pneumonia. My right lung was full. My left lung was filling up. All I remember was the struggle to… breathe.

I was in a local hospital for 5 days while they worked to clear my lungs.

I was released on the following week, only to go back a day later because of something new… pain in my right lung.

My oxygen saturation was going down. They did more scans and found fluid on my right lung. I began Lasix treatments but there was no change.

I came back in on Friday and they decided we had to drain the fluid. So I was sent to Hastings Nebraska to have my lung emptied of the fluid. And from there… my life was on the line.

As the fluid was drained, I experienced a pain I had never felt before. My lung felt as if it had a knife stuck in the side of it. The techs said it would subside but it continued to get worse.

They scanned my chest and then placed me in the hallway. At this point, I was leaning over an oxygen bottled yelling in pain. I could not breathe, I could not stand. My wife found a nurse and they wheeled my to the ER… at this point my blood oxygen was at 64% and I began to crash. Then they discovered the problem.

I had a blood clot in my right lung. The clot had gone undetected for a long period of time... so a large portion of my lower lung… had died. The pain I was feeling was the damaged lung tissue coming into contact with my rib cage. The fluid had been acting as a cushion. Morphine wouldn’t touch it. Fentanyl wouldn't touch it. I was hit with so many pain meds the room was now spinning.

Once I was stabilized, I was taken to ICU… a place I had never been as a patient. The doctors and nurses were coming and going, Kristy was receiving instruction and reports… I was simply trying to regain my bearings… the ship… if you will… had been rocked… HARD. We didn’t see this storm coming. We had no idea what to do… or even feel.

That first night in the ICU… as I laid in bed listening to the machines… watching my wife try to sleep in a rolling arm chair… I began to try to process what in the world just happened!!!

And it was in that moment… I heard someone I had never heard before. And it’s not who you might think it was. I heard the voice… of the enemy.

I have experienced his attacks before… but I had never heard his voice. It wasn’t audible… but it was clear. He said something I will never forget… “Look what I did. I took your strength away.”

Now I want to explain why this was significant to me.

My strength… has ALWAYS been my lungs.

I never had much athletic ability. I wasn’t built for football or wrestling. I know… what a shock! I mean look at these toothpick arms and this dad bod… who would have guessed that the weight room wasn’t my thing???

However, God gave me a voice… God gave me a musical talent. Singing and playing the sax was what I was built for. Both required strong lungs. And now as a preacher… what can a preacher do if he has no lungs to preach with?

And I get it… someone might try to say “preacher, that was just the pain meds talking. you weren’t really hearing the devil talking to you.”

And that might work except for one issue… there is only one time in this whole journey I cannot remember… one time when I was so doped up my awareness was compromised and that was in the ER. In that moment… my wife said I wasn’t hearing “voices” but I was praising God! My mind was… shall we say scrambled… but my spirit… my soul… was calling out to the Lord!

LOOK WHAT I DID! I TOOK YOUR STRENGTH AWAY!

As if the situation wasn’t bad enough… I now had the devil rubbing it in my face!

And I wish I could say that I rebuked him on the spot. I wish I could say that I denied that lie access to my life. I wish I could say that I had FAITH ENOUGH… ASSURANCE ENOUGH… to not listen… but how could I? Look at where I am! Look at the damage done to my body! Feel the pain that I am in! I don’t have breath enough to walk 10 feet to the bathroom on my own!

The enemy took advantage of the situation I was facing… and he went for my soul. He knew how I was FEELING… and he went for my FAITH. My body was broken. My world had been ROCKED. And now the enemy was looking to cut the anchor loose… he was trying to send me adrift… he was attacking… my assurance in Jesus.

And for a day… I believed it. Nurses would come in and I was becoming defeated. I started telling them, “This was supposed to be my strength. This is where I was strong.” I listened to the lie… and I began to shift into the FALSE reality the enemy spoke over me instead of trust in the PROMISE that I was healed.

The day went on… and we were now in night number two.

Much was the same… many machines doing what they do. Kristy sleeping in a chair. Me… as weak as I had ever been in ICU. And then… another voice.

This time… I recognized this voice. This time… I recognized this presence. This time… I knew it was God speaking to me. And He asked me a question.

“Do you still have breath in your lungs?” It was as clear as my voice is to you in this sanctuary today. “Do you still have breath in your lungs?” And I answered Him by speaking out. I simply said, “Yes.” I didn’t think it, I said it out loud. That is how clear God was speaking to me.

Then He said this, “Use that breath to start praising me.” And so with what little breath I had left I began to sing, “Great… is you faith… fullness… to me. Great… is your faith… fullness… to me. From the rising son to the setting same I will praise Your name. Great… is your faith… fullness… to me.”

The song is called promises by Maverick City. And I sang that song all night long. And I want you to hear the words of the pre-chorus… words that carried me through.

“Though the storms may come and the winds may blow, I’ll remain steadfast. And let my heart learn, when You speak a word It will come to pass.”

From that moment on… I was not focused on my strength or the lack thereof. I was not focused on my position or situation. I was not focused on the machines or on the doctors or anything else. From that moment on… I was focused ONLY on the promise of HIS HEALING!

Yes I was broken… but God, through the power and work of His Son Jesus… WAS MAKING ME WHOLE AGAIN!

My faith had been re-anchored through the promise of healing. And God began to turn my situation around.

Each day the nurse came into the ICU, she made a statement I will never forget. She repeatedly told me “I do not know what to do with you. We have seen other patients like you and in every other case, they were septic by now. They had to be placed on vents. When I come in here and you pop up and are responsive it is something I am not used to seeing. You are incredibly lucky.”

And then… I corrected her. I told her, “luck has nothing to do with it for I am being sustained and healed by the power of God. HE is the reason I’m still here!”

About a week later, I was dismissed from the hospital. I was a month out of the pulpit, and I had gone through a storm I never saw coming. But through it all, it was GOD that kept me going. I held onto God’s promise of healing.

I don’t know where you might be today. I don’t know what kind of situations you might be facing or what you are walking through. But this I do know… healing is found in Jesus Christ. He was broken, so that you can be made whole again.

So how is it that we receive this wholeness? How is it that we experience this healing? The key is to not get stuck in how we feel, but rather lean on the promise of healing by faith! James 5:14-16 highlights what this looks like.

James 5:14–16 NIV

14 Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. 16 Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

James is a book that talks about placing our faith in action. And from this passage there are some very important action words I want you to see.

James offers three actions on our part that will help us remain anchored in God’s promise of healing.

We Remain ANCHORED in Healing Through Prayer.

I cannot tell you how many people were praying for me as my family and I walked through that Covid season.

And I cannot emphasize to you enough how important that it is that we pray when we are… broken. Prayer should be our first active response.

One of the core values we have at HWC is “We believe in the POWER OF PRAYER.” It is more than just a stated value… it is something WE DO because we believe in what God can do through prayer.

We make a point to pray for the needs in our church every single Sunday. Those who need a physical touch from God come forward and we anoint them as we pray.

There is nothing magical about the oil we use. We don’t do this to fill up time in our service. We do this because we have seen God heal many people through the power of prayer! I have a few more quick testimonies to share if that’s okay. We believe in the power of prayer but we also believe testimonies need shared. Revelation 12:11

Just recently we had a man healed of severe heart problems.

Jerold McCartney Testimony.

Just recently we had a man healed of a brain tumor.

Sam McCartney Testimony

Last year we had a man healed through a heart transplant… and then a brain surgery!

Rex McDowell Testimony.

The Word of God tells us plain and simple… are you sick? Then we need to pray! Is your body or spirit broken? Then begin to reach out the One who can make you whole again!

The promise of healing should lead us to pray! Similar to how a headache leads us to a bottle of Tylenol… if you are sick… GO TO GOD IN PRAYER! STAND ON HIS PROMISE OF HEALING! And these prayers need to be offered up in a very specific way according to James… we must PRAY BY FAITH!

We remain ANCHORED in Healing Through FAITH.

This seems simple, yet it can sometimes be the most difficult part. Why can it be hard to believe in God’s healing when we face moments of physical or spiritual brokenness?

Simple… because what we FEEL goes directly against what is promised. How we feel… what our bodies are telling us… can sometimes be the hardest thing for our FAITH to overcome!

Be honest for a moment… it can be hard to proclaim healing when you’re body is hurting. It can be hard to proclaim healing when your world gets rocked with a rough medical diagnosis. It can be hard to believe that God is moving in you… when it hurts you to move anywhere!

The storm that is our brokenness is fierce and relentless. It’s hard to see beyond the pain… it’s hard to see beyond the ICU room. It’s hard to see beyond the weakness, the lack of strength, and the inability to breathe. All of these things we can see and feel… but Hebrews tells us that is NOT what faith is.

Hebrews 11:1 tells us

Hebrews 11:1 NIV

1 Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.

Faith moves us BEYOND what is felt and seen into what God has PROMISED for everyone who believes!

In the moments after God spoke to me… I still didn’t feel very good. But my focus had shifted. Even though my body felt terrible… my faith led me to praise. Even though I couldn’t speak two or three words in a row for lack of breath… I BEGAN TO SING!

Someone might have said, “Save your strength.” Someone might have said, “Don’t waste your time.” But my faith had been renewed! I stopped trusting in what I could see and feel, and trusted in the Words given to me by God through His Spirit and Word!

It is by faith that God will raise you up today! Stand on His promise of healing by acting on faith!

Lastly...

We Remain ANCHORED in Healing Through Confession.

James 5 brings out something very important regarding our healing. Verse 16 said clearly to pray for one another AND to confess our sins so that we may be healed.

Here’s the deal, church. And we are going to get serious here for a moment. Sin… separates us from God. When we actively engage in sin… we turn from the promises and commands of God. Sin is rebellion. Sin is ACTIVE disobedience.

Sin is the greatest “sickness” (if you will) that we face. Deliverance or healing from sin is the greatest need that anyone of us face.

Now this might sound odd at first but stay with me… The promise of healing… of being made WHOLE again… is an act of God’s supernatural deliverance - God DELIVERS us from our brokenness. God DELIVERS us from our infirmity.

The greatest healing you and I can receive today is NOT physical by nature, but rather spiritual. The greatest need you and I face is the need for deliverance from sin… the healing of our souls.

Sometimes, when we experience a lack of healing… it might be because we have failed to seek deliverance.

It is NOT because God can’t heal you… however, if you are anchored in anything else other than His promises… your assurance has been misplaced! You are choosing to sail through the wrong waters!

Now I am not suggesting that your infirmity is caused by some underlying sin in your life. However… if we are anchored to anything else outside of the Lord… we have chosen to walk and live outside of His promises. No matter what the sin might be… sin leads us AWAY from what God has for us. So instead of missing out because of sin… confess that wrongdoing and be forgiven! Receive the healing God wants to pour into your soul!

Hear me today: God wants to deliver you! God wants to heal you! Will you stand on the promise of God’s healing today?

It’s Time to Un-Rock the Boat

Maybe you are here today and you feel rocked by the storm. Maybe you are wrestling with this today because of the severity of your situation.

I get it. I do not know how you feel. I don’t know the challenges you might be facing. I don’t know what the doctor told you. I don’t know the struggles you are holding within.

But this I DO know… I know that God is in this place today and He has promised to heal you of this brokenness.

Brokenness takes on many different forms and sizes. It can bear many different titles and names… but there is one name we call on today that can deliver you, that can heal you, that can make you whole again! His Name is Jesus.

It’s time to un-rock the boat! It’s time to trust in what God has promised instead of in what we feel.

Instead of saying ““I believe God CAN heal me… but I’m afraid God WON’T heal me” we need to be saying “I believe God CAN heal me and I believe God IS healing me!”

This statement is anchored faith… a promise that we believe NO MATTER how we feel! By His Stripes… finish it with me WE ARE HEALED!

Are you in need of being made whole again? Are you ready to be made whole again? Are you willing to believe in and call on the name of the One who can make you whole again?

Today I want to give you the opportunity to call on His name for the greatest healing a person can receive, I want to give you the chance to do so right now.

The healing of your soul is the greatest healing anyone can experience. Jesus died on the cross that we might be forgiven and set free of the brokenness that comes with sin.

Sin is something we cannot overcome on our own. That is why God sent His Son to this world to become the answer for our sin problem… just like He promised He would.

Jesus made the way… He paid the price. He laid down His life that you may be forgiven today. Are you ready to be made whole again through the cleansing power of the blood of the Lamb?

PRAYER - Salvation

Secondly… I believe God is wanting to heal you today. I believe God is getting ready to mend some broken bodies. I believe some came broken… but will leave transformed!

Again, your healing … is promised of God and found in Jesus.

Are you ready and willing to place action on that promise?

Are you willing to offer prayers of faith? DO YOU BELIEVE THE LORD CAN HEAL YOU? DO YOU BELIEVE THE LORD IS GOING TO RAISE YOU UP!

Then STOP being restricted by how you feel and respond right now by faith! Receive His healing in Jesus’ name!

His grace is sufficient - 2 Corinthians 12

The storm has been fierce and the boat has been rocked, but find stability right now in the power and promise of our God. By His Stripes… WE ARE HEALED!