How God Heals Our Hidden Wounds

Health Quiz -

How many here have ever broken a bone?

How many here have ever had stitches? 30 or more stitches?

How many have cut yourself?

Anyone wounded in combat?

Talk about a different type of wound… our hidden emotional wounds.

What are our hidden wounds?

memories, resentments, regrets, worries, fears, compulsions,

memories of abandonment, abuse, criticism, ridicule, Pain, rejection, prejudice...

Where do you get these hidden wounds?

Everywhere. school, work, growing up in your home...

Biggest Lie ever - Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me

Names and words hurt way more than physical pain. You don’t remember the physical pain, but you remember the words spoken to you.

You get them from friends, neighbors, relatives

You get them at work,

You get them from the culture. prejudice - woman, color of your skin,

The deepest wounds com from our own families. parents, siblings…

Everyone has hidden wounds. And these hidden wounds are much harder to heal than physical wounds. These wounds happen to everyone despite race, job, amount of money...

ILL - think about how many celeberties have died recently to over dose or suicide. They were wounded people just like you and I.

The good news is that God wants to heal your woulds.

Look,

Psalm 147:3 NLT

3 He heals the brokenhearted and bandages their wounds.

How does God heal our wounds? How does he heal our hidden hurts?

Jehovah Jireh - provider

Jehovah Shalom - Your peace

Jehovah Rapha - your healer

How does God heal our hidden hurts? That’s what we are looking at tonight.

6 Elements of how God can set you free from your past and heal you from your resentments, your regreats, your shame and your insecurities.

Steps in God’s Healing Process

1. Admit my Hurt.

You will never get well until you face your feelings straight on. Holding onto grief and hurt is like taking a hot coal inside your heart.

People say, time heals everything. Wrong!!! Time doesn’t heal anything. Time doesn’t heal cancer, heart disease…

Psalm 39:2–3 NCV

2 So I kept very quiet. I didn’t even say anything good, but I became even more upset. 3 I became very angry inside, and as I thought about it, my anger burned. So I spoke:

David is focused on his hidden wounds. He is thinking about the hurt and the people who hurt him. The more he thought about it, the angrier he became.

Anyone here been there?

We all handle it differently.

Some clam up. This is just like a coke bottle you shake up… eventually it will explode.

Some of you are tired all the time. Worn out. You drag through each day.... barely making it through. You are sick and tired of being sick and tired.

Why do you feel like this? You are using all of your emotional energy on the past. You only have so much emotional energy and if your keep it focused on the past, you will not be able to move forward. It will drain you.

David....

Psalm 32:3 NCV

3 When I kept things to myself, I felt weak deep inside me. I moaned all day long.

Some of you are feeling this way, or you have or you will. You feel weak all the time because you are holding onto emotional hurts. They may have happened yesterday or years ago, but they are pulling you down.

You may try to forget it… repress it and push it down. You may try to avoid it or ignore it. some try to minimize it… no big deal.

Some try to escape the pain. Our culture is built on avoiding pain. People do it all sorts of ways:

Moving from relationship to relationship thinking this relationship will fill the empty spot.

Some use medication. illegal and legal...

Some fill their minds with TV or music.

Some use hobbies.

Some use sports.

Some use shopping.

Some will stay so busy they wear themselves out. The reason some are workaholics is because they don’t want to slow down and think. They wear themselves out so that when they walk down the hall to the bedroom, the collapse and don’t have to fight to go to sleep.

You must reveal your pain … admit your hurts if you want healing.

You have to be honest with three people. God, yourself and at least one other person. You have to be honest with all three.

You have to be honest with God.

share with him how you feel. Don’t sugar coat stuff with God. Be honest. God can handle your anger.

When you were crying, he was crying. When you went though the abuse, the shame… he was with you crying.

Be honest with God… it’s a cleansing experience.

You have to be honest with yourself.

You have to be honest with one other person.

This is essential. You will not get well on your own.

James 5:16 NLT

16 Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.

Whenever someone comes up and says, Pastor Robert, I have never told anyone this.... I get excited because I know they are about to get freedom. They are fixing to release it and experience freedom… maybe for the first time.

Share those things you held onto…

That secret (you are as sick as your secrets)

That thing that embarrasses you.

That think you resent.

Tell someone you can trust.

First Step - Admit your hurt.

2. Release those who have hurt me.

You have to release the people who have hurt you. You cannot get well as long as you have resentment in your heart. For your own sake, you have to give up the right to get even.

You can get well, or you can get even, but you can’t have both. Even if you get even, you will find that it doesn’t make the pain you feel go away.

There is only one way to get rid of your pain - forgiveness. Forgiveness is the only way to get emotionally healthy. You don’t forgive them because they deserve it. No one deserves it. Not you or anyone. None of us deserves God’s forgiveness, but he gives it. Forgiveness has nothing to do with fairness or being deserved. It’s given as a gift. You forgive because you want to move on with your life.

Romans 12:17 NLT

17 Never pay back evil with more evil. Do things in such a way that everyone can see you are honorable.

Romans 12:19 NLT

19 Dear friends, never take revenge. Leave that to the righteous anger of God. For the Scriptures say, “I will take revenge; I will pay them back,” says the Lord.

The reason we hold onto the past is we forget that God knows what happened. When we do this, we act if it’s our responsibility to get even. It’s not, it’s Gods. Who do you think can do a better job… you or God?

Here is one reason we hold onto resentment. You think of you stop holding onto it, they will get away with it. All of us think that is some way.

If you saw the passion, you saw how they beat Jesus to a pulp and then hung him on the cross. He was badly wounded. describe. His deepest wounds were not his physical wounds, but his spiritual and emotional wounds.

Betrayal, Rejection, hatred, humiliation, prejudice, wounds of taking the worlds sin on himself, the wounds of guilt and shame that was ours.

If you have ever experienced any of these, Jesus says, been there… He experienced it all.

1 Peter 2:23 The Living Bible

23 never answered back when insulted; when he suffered he did not threaten to get even; he left his case in the hands of God who always judges fairly.

Even Jesus, the SOG, did not blow them away. He could have but he did not. He left it to his father. Jesus words were Father forgive them...

So why should you forgive others?

1. You have been forgiven by God.

2. You will need more forgiveness in the future and you do not want to burn bridges you may have to walk back across.

3. Unforgiveness does not work.

You only hurting yourself with resentment. You are allowing people from your past to continue to control you and hurt you.

Hebrews 12:15 The Living Bible

15 Look after each other so that not one of you will fail to find God’s best blessings. Watch out that no bitterness takes root among you, for as it springs up it causes deep trouble, hurting many in their spiritual lives.

Your resentment hurts those around you while it’s hurting you. You are going around angry and they are doing what they want… oblivious to you and your pain. It makes you miserable, but they have forgotten about it and moved on.

ILL - some of you have been hurt in a prior relationship and you are taking it out on the person you are in a relationship with now.

Bitterness can also be passed down from generation. Angry dad raise a child to be an angry dad. You can break that cycle right now.

Law - what you resent you eventually resemble. We move towards what we focus on. When you see a TV show you don’t like, you change the channel. Change the channel. Stop focusing on the past and release those who have hurt you.

Admit my hurt, Release the offender who has hurt me...

3. Replace old tapes with God’s Truth.

We have to replace the thoughts in our minds with God’s truth.

We never forget anything. And our unconscious does not distinguish between real and not real. That’s why you can watch a movie and have an emotional and physical reaction. If you think someone is in your house, you will be hyper vigilant… Your mind doesn’t know the difference between real and unreal in it’s emotional reactions.

When you put all kinds of harmful stuff into your mind, that’s what will come back out. So you have to replace the old false lies of the devil in your life with new stuff - God’s truth.

People have said you don’t measure up… You are too shy… you’re clumsy… not athletic… fat… overweight… ugly… why can’t you be like…

Those people lied. You can be healed of those lies by replacing the lies with God’s truth.

Romans 12:2 NLT

2 Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.

The way you think determines the way you feel which determines the way you act. The Bible says we we can be transformed by changing the way we think.

Ask God to heal your memories.

Memories of hurt, rejection, of sin… guilt, shame

Ask God to fill your mind with His Word.

The more of this you put into your mind the more it pushes the garbage out.

How many of you believe everything you hear on the radio or TV? Movies? Paper?

How many of you believe everything God tells you?

But we will go home and spend an hour watching the news or reading the paper, but not the Bible. Many people will watch the news or a TV show, but would not even read the Bible for 10 min per day.

Listen, 10 minutes a day will change your life in the WOG.

Listen to what God says about you.

Ephesians 1:4 The Living Bible

4 Long ago, even before he made the world, God chose us to be his very own through what Christ would do for us; he decided then to make us holy in his eyes, without a single fault—we who stand before him covered with his love.

God says you are lovable so he chose you. The world says you don’t measure up. who are you going to believe?

Psy - the way we see ourselves is due in part ot how we thing those who are important to us see us. I recommend that you make Jesus the most important person in your life because he says you are lovable, forgivable, usable, successful, etc.

4. Refocus on the Future.

You must refocus on the future. That means you stop living in the past. You have to deal with the past, but you must look forward to the future.

God tells us how to get rid of painful memories in his word.

Job 11:13–16 GNB

13 Put your heart right, Job. Reach out to God. 14 Put away evil and wrong from your home. 15 Then face the world again, firm and courageous. 16 Then all your troubles will fade from your memory, like floods that are past and remembered no more.

Put your heart right.

This means yo do the right thing in regards to others. They may not, but you do. Their response is irrelevant, you do the right thing. You don’t need their approval to be happy, to feel clean, to live your life.

What’s the right thing? To forgive them. You may not feel like, but grow up. Mature people don’t just act on their feelings. They do the right thing whether they feel like it or not.

You release, forgive and do the right thing,

You reach out to God.

You need to reach out to God, receive His forgiveness, receive his salvation. You need to give him access to every room in your house or heart. Invite him into and give him access to those painful memories.

Reach out to God and ask him to heal your hidden wounds. Then ask Jesus to bring good from the evil.

The question is the same question Jesus asked the man who was lame. do you want to get well? Sounds like a dumb question, but some want to hold onto blaming others and remaining a victim.

If you want to get well, reach out to Jesus and let him heal you.

You face the world again.

I mean you don’t withdraw, and isolate yourself. You don’t put up walls around yourself, That’s the tendency. Get with other people do not isolate.

Read this...

Proverbs 4:25 GNB

25 Look straight ahead with honest confidence; don’t hang your head in shame.

Your past is not your future… doesn’t matter what you have done. With Jesus your past is not your future.

5. Receive Support from a small group.

All of us have to have a group of people who will support us, no matter what.

Some of you are thinking, I have a habit… I don’t want anyone to know about. You won’t get well.

I understand your shame, but you don’t have to remain ashamed. God offers Grace. Grace is God saying “I will cover it and I will forgive it and I will forget it and you’ve got to get on with your life.”

But to get well, you have to talk to someone. If you don’t, you will not get well.

Ecclesiastes 4:12 NLT

12 A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken.

God says hidden wounds only get healed with the support of others. You’re never going to get well on your own.

We need to encourage each other.

1 Thessalonians 5:11 GW

11 Therefore, encourage each other and strengthen one another as you are doing.

1 Peter 3:8 The Living Bible

8 And now this word to all of you: You should be like one big happy family, full of sympathy toward each other, loving one another with tender hearts and humble minds.

Friends look after each other.

6. Reach Out to help others.

We get well as we help others. You redeem your pain. You don’t waste it. You use your experiences to help others. You let God bring good out of bad. God meant for us to help each other.

2 Corinthians 1:4 NCV

4 He comforts us every time we have trouble, so when others have trouble, we can comfort them with the same comfort God gives us.

Galatians 6:1–2 NIV

1 Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted. 2 Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.

The law of Christ is forgiveness.

2 Corinthians 5:17 CEV

17 Anyone who belongs to Christ is a new person. The past is forgotten, and everything is new.