Thy Will Not Mine Healing Service 06
" The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me, for the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to comfort the brokenhearted and to proclaim that captives will be released and prisoners will be freed. He has sent me to tell those who mourn that the time of the Lord’s favor has come, and with it, the day of God’s anger against their enemies. To all who mourn in Israel, he will give a crown of beauty for ashes, a joyous blessing instead of mourning, festive praise instead of despair. In their righteousness, they will be like great oaks that the Lord has planted for his own glory." (Isaiah 61:1-3, NLT) [1]
Bob Weber, past president of Kiwanis International, told this story. He had spoken to a club in a small town and was spending the night with a farmer on the outskirts of the community. He had just relaxed on the front porch when a newsboy delivered the evening paper. The boy noted the sign Puppies for Sale. The boy got off his bike and said to the farmer, "How much do you want for the pups, mister?" "Twenty-five dollars, son." The boy's face dropped. "Well, sir, could I at least see them anyway?" The farmer whistled, and in a moment the mother dog came bounding around the corner of the house tagged by four of the cute puppies, wagging their tails and yipping happily. At last, another pup came straggling around the house, dragging one hind leg. "What's the matter with that puppy, mister?" the boy asked. "Well, Son, that puppy is crippled. We took her to the vet and the doctor took an X ray. The pup doesn't have a hip joint and that leg will never be right." To the amazement of both men, the boy dropped the bike, reached for his collection bag and took out a fifty-cent piece. "Please, mister," the boy pleaded, "I want to buy that pup. I'll pay you fifty cents every week until the twenty-five dollars is paid. Honest I will, mister." The farmer replied, "But, Son, you don't seem to understand. That pup will never, never be able to run or jump. That pup is going to be a cripple forever. Why in the world would you want such a useless pup as that?"
The boy paused for a moment, then reached down and pulled up his pant leg, exposing that all too familiar iron brace and leather knee-strap holding a poor twisted leg. The boy answered, "Mister, that pup is going to need someone who understands him to help him in life!"
The heart of this young boy toward the crippled puppy is the heart of God who became man in order that we might be made whole at every front in our lives.
1. You know Jesus is drawn to broken things.
If he came today as he came 2000 years ago, I still think that it would be the broken that would captivate his heart and consume his passion. I think that his eyes would be always looking for broken people.
If we could only come away from this service today with one thing, I would pray that we would come away realizing that we all are just that . . . broken people dearly loved by God.
Whether you are willing to acknowledge it or not, the truth remains. We all suspect it about ourselves. Perhaps it is in reality, our greatest fear, our most guarded secret. It’s the thing that we’ll go to most any length to hide. We’ll get downright angry when people come to close to discovering our secret.
I am afraid of this service today on several fronts. I am afraid that no one will seek God today. I am afraid that a new person coming to this service for the first time will look at us as a group of whacked out religious fanatics and conclude that there could not possibly be anything here that they would. I don’t want to scare people away from us – because I don’t really think that we are scary.
The very fact that we want to run away from a God who wants to bring wholeness to our lives, . . . to our relationship with Him and with others, . . . this in itself is perhaps the greatest evidence of our brokenness.
2. Our brokenness is much more than merely a physical brokenness.
Perhaps the easiest thing of all for God to do is to heal the body. In my own experience as well, it is the thing that I have seen him do the least. There is a natural order of healing that we miss by times. The body was built to heal and regenerate itself. We cannot forget that we will not be physically healed forever. We have a clock that is winding down far more quickly than some would ever imagine. Our assumption is that we will live for 70 or 80 years and we measure off of that. Even if this happens, it passes all too quickly and we fail to ask ourselves the significant questions and to develop the higher aspirations in the earlier years of our lives. About the time that we are ready to retire we understand to a greater degree but then we feel that we have put in our time we try to figure out how we can ride life out in ease.
For the follower of God I have to say that I feel that this is never the perspective that should guide us. I believe that we need to be recalibrating with age to determine how we can remain most productive and effective. You see a sick body that houses a healthy spirit is much better than a healthy body that houses a sick spirit. I think that “health” proceeds from what is within us. And our healing begins with what the inside is all about.
"But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you. It is written: “I believed; therefore I have spoken.” With that same spirit of faith we also believe and therefore speak, because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you in his presence. All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God. Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. " (2 Corinthians 4:7-18, NIV) [2]
I am not offering these verses today as a loophole for God’s answer to your prayer for physical healing. But I am telling you that physical healing begins with your brokenness.
3. Your healing begins with seeking Christ as your soul satisfaction rather than seeking healing as your sole satisfaction.
It comes from seeking Him not as a means to some self-prescribed end but as the end itself.
Jesus, praying in the garden of Gethsemane, . . . the man-God, . . . experiencing everything that you and I would be experiencing in His place and even more, . . . feeling the weight of the world, literally upon his shoulders and anticipating what was to come, prayed from a place of brokenness.
"He took Peter and Zebedee’s two sons, James and John, and he became anguished and distressed. He told them, “My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.” He went on a little farther and bowed with his face to the ground, praying, “My Father! If it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.”" (Matthew 26:37-39, NLT) [3]
More than the pain and anguish that Jesus was encountering as a flesh and blood man, he was wanting the will of His Father. I believe that this needs to reflect our desire today as we come to Him.
Paul’s prayer to remove his “thorn in the flesh” gave birth to a higher level of awareness that served him better than the answer that he self-prescribed to God – the removal of the thorn.
"even though I have received such wonderful revelations from God. So to keep me from becoming proud, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger from Satan to torment me and keep me from becoming proud. Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong." (2 Corinthians 12:7-10, NLT)[4]
Regardless of what you ask for today, you need a higher perspective to guide you as your physical experience of life diminishes and your spiritual experience of life grows stronger. That’s the thing that is so thrilling to me as I age and as I grow. It is the spiritual experience of life that is vital and the spiritual experience of life that helps me to the greatest degree.
As we come to Him today, I am convinced that we do what we need to do. In our brokenness we seek Him and the gift of a healing. It could be immediate, it could be gradual. It might be miraculous and impacting at all kinds of levels but it could be a new perspective, a greater desire for Him. There might be an imperceptible change inwardly that results in something far greater than anything that you could have asked Him for. Don’t tell him what the end result is – let Him do as He chooses. You might choose in brokenness to come to the front as we pray together today – you might look around to find a brother or sister who could pray for you where you are. It is God who heals, no man or woman. You could find healing today right where you are. But you need to come to Him broken, not resistant or proud. You have to allow Him to become the architect of your healing today, in whatever forms that will take. We are going to pray right now and then invite you to come as members of our prayer team gather to pray with you and for you. Someone will anoint you with oil today as the scripture indicates in James.
" Are any of you suffering hardships? You should pray. Are any of you happy? You should sing praises. Are any of you sick? You should call for the elders of the church to come and pray over you, anointing you with oil in the name of the Lord. Such a prayer offered in faith will heal the sick, and the Lord will make you well. And if you have committed any sins, you will be forgiven. 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." (James 5:13-16, NLT) [5]
As you come today to pray, we will worship together as a congregation. We will lift His Name in prayers and praise as we support you in your seeking today.
1st Prayer Time
There is an emotional brokenness that draws the heart of God to you today as well. For some it lies deep and buried, hurts covered with layer upon layer of mechanisms. This is truly a frightening area of our lives. Most of us know that to find healing here, we must first experience pain. Around injury or abuse or neglect we have armored ourselves. There are those areas of our past that we refuse to re-visit – we just don’t want to go there. You have them, I have them. We are the walking wounded. I remember a ministerial peer saying that the job of the church is to walk with the wounded until they are made whole.
" One day as he saw the crowds gathering, Jesus went up on the mountainside and sat down. His disciples gathered around him, and he began to teach them. “God blesses those who are poor and realize their need for him, for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs. God blesses those who mourn, for they will be comforted. God blesses those who are humble, for they will inherit the whole earth. God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be satisfied. God blesses those who are merciful, for they will be shown mercy. God blesses those whose hearts are pure, for they will see God. God blesses those who work for peace, for they will be called the children of God. God blesses those who are persecuted for doing right, for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs. “God blesses you when people mock you and persecute you and lie about you and say all sorts of evil things against you because you are my followers. Be happy about it! Be very glad! For a great reward awaits you in heaven. And remember, the ancient prophets were persecuted in the same way." (Matthew 5:1-12, NLT) [6]
4. The Beatitudes are God’s promises for those who are beaten up and broken by life.
I have to say that I think that the Beatitudes are the promise of ultimate healing and comfort to those who live productively out of their brokenness rather than their bitterness. Let me ask you is a bitter person could ever fit in one of these categories.
Bitterness blocks God’s blessing and is an indicator of an inner rebellion against the Will of God.
I think that bitterness disqualifies us for this particular list of blessings. Bitterness never forgets the offense or the offender. Bitterness looks for a chance to get even, to repay wrong for wrong. A bitter person cannot experience the full blessing of God.
Brokenness is a result of the blows and the wounds that come from life. We can’t always tell the gravity of a wound. We are vulnerable at different points and what may seem so minor based on one person’s response can be fatal to another. Dale Earnhardt’s fatal crash seemed so tame compared to others that he walked away from. I think that he suffered from a broken neck. At a vulnerable point he met his demise.
One child is disciplined by a spanking, another is crushed by a word that is thoughtlessly spoken by a frustrated parent. The spanking is quickly forgotten, the word is a knife to the heart, the psyche that cuts to the soul. Every one of us are different. People who truly care for others learn about the things that make one person different from another and they don’t treat any two people the same. They treat them according to the uniqueness that God gave them. People are loved when we treat them like no one else. We have Tupperware glasses in our cupboards. I exercise very little care when I pick one of these up. That’s because I know that I can replace them relatively cheaply – they won’t break. Elaine also has a china cabinet. These things mean something. Her pattern is discontinued and they are fragile. They are costly and in all likelihood can never be replaced if they are broken. Do I handle them like Tupperware? Nope. If I did, Elaine would handle me like Tupperware.
One of the things that grieves me within the church is that all too often we handle each other as though our value were limited, perhaps insignificant. There are certain “bullish” Christians who leave a trail of broken people behind them. It seems that they do this with little if any regret. I struggle within me to know how to deal with people who are always smashing people. I can’t see how this is in any way justifiable before God. What you do to people is what you do to God. If you recognize the value of a person, created in God’s likeness, then you treat them with proper care and respect. There are people in any given church fellowship who will drive people away as fast as someone else can love them in. We tell them that we have a “bull-free” environment. And the first thing they know they have waved a red flag and her the snorting behind them and the thunder of hooves digging up clods of dirt as some enraged “brother bull” charges. The new person doesn’t even realize that he has stepped into the “bull pen”. But bulls have pens and people who have been around very long know where the fences are and they stay out of the pens. Most often it’s a turf thing. A bull erects his or her own fences and the damage occurs around the same types of turf.
God help us. There are times when I wish that God would take away the things that we begin to worship. If we worship our buildings and they become the bull pens then it would be better if God would take away our buildings. If it is our programming or our traditions that we take license from to trample a person who trespasses unwittingly then it would be good if God would wrench these from our bullish control and give them to a lover of people, a lover of God rather than a bull dog.
Bitter people need healing. Broken people need healing. Like physical healing, God can bring our hearts back to wholeness and health. If we are willing to submit to the principles of His Word and to engage in every area that He highlights by His Spirit, then we can find a new and vital experience of life. Most often it is more than a moment in time. His answer for you could be a friend who will not allow you to hide behind the façade that you have constructed. I have a relentless friend or two who can read me like a book. They have made decisions to not let me hide when I am hurting. My dear wife is the greatest of these. I can’t hide from her. She sees right through me. There are times when this makes me mad and my initial reaction is wrong. She loves me enough to suffer my poor reactions and persevere so that God can touch my heart and help me to make it through the moment.
I’m not sure what you may be seeing or feeling right now but I know that as we speak this way today there are numbers of things that you would like to bring to God right now. Again, God can heal through another person – perhaps someone right beside you today. But I do think that you need someone to pray through this with you. God will keep your secrets, He Knows them before you’re willing to admit them to yourself. But I think that someone else playing a priestly role in your life can be used by God to bring about your healing. Perhaps you want to come with a dear friend, a trusted friend to seek His Face today?
Let’s love Him in worship as you come today.
2nd Prayer Time
5. The greatest state of human brokenness comes in the relationship that is severed by sin.
The sin that literally cuts us off from God. This is the state that we are born into. We have something in us that longs to be fully connected and that longing is something that we are driven by – we misinterpret its’ meaning and try to fill it with many different kinds of substitutes. All of our trying leaves us wanting.
" “Is anyone thirsty? Come and drink— even if you have no money! Come, take your choice of wine or milk— it’s all free! Why spend your money on food that does not give you strength? Why pay for food that does you no good? Listen to me, and you will eat what is good. You will enjoy the finest food. “Come to me with your ears wide open. Listen, and you will find life. I will make an everlasting covenant with you. I will give you all the unfailing love I promised to David." (Isaiah 55:1-3, NLT) [7]
The evidence for Christian truth is not exhaustive, but it is sufficient. Too often, Christianity has not been tried and found wanting -- it has been found demanding, and not tried.
... John Baillie (1886-1960)
You know what, every time you try again and fail, you are beaten up just that much more. And God waits all the time, watching each time you hit the wall at the end of the dead end street. With each disappointment, His Spirit tries to tell us that there is no lasting satisfaction and peace apart from God.
Deliverance can come to us only by the defeat of our old life. Safety and peace come only after we have been forced to our knees. God rescues us by breaking us, by shattering our strength and wiping out our resistance.
A. W. Tozer (1897-1963)
And nothing that you give to God, nothing that He would ever ask of you could ever represent a personal loss. You see He didn’t suffer such a horrible death on Calvary to take away anything but the results of a sinful life and a sinful heart. To take away the bad and the potential for bad and to replace it with what is potentially good. The blessings that flow so naturally from His character.
I’d like to invite you finally today to come to Him. It came to me this week that repentance, brokenness is the door through which we walk to find Him. This is a service of healing. I have to say that this week I actually began to wonder about the legitimacy of death bed conversions. I think that it requires more than a fear of going to hell to find reality in Christ. One thief on the cross “hurled insults” at Christ. If you are the Christ – save yourself and us. All that he wanted was to get off that cross – to escape punishment. There’s no indication from that particular example that there was any result that came from that plea.
The other man in brokenness/repentance said, “We are getting what our deeds deserve but this man has done nothing wrong.” He then looked at Jesus and said, “Remember me when you enter into your kingdom.” Jesus response, “This day you will be with me in paradise.”
Jesus is drawn to broken things to broken people.
In a 3rd-century debate on Christianity, Celsus said to Origen, "When most teachers go forth to teach, they cry, 'Come to me, you who are clean and worthy,' and they are followed by the highest caliber of people available. But your silly master cries, 'Come to me, you who are down and beaten by life,' and so he accumulates around him the rag, tag and bobtail of humanity."
And Origen replied: "Yes, they are the rag, tag and bobtail of humanity. But Jesus does not leave them that way. Out of material you would have thrown away as useless, he fashions men, giving them back their self-respect, enabling them to stand on their feet and look God in the eyes. They were cowed, cringing, broken things. But the Son has set them free."
Prayer of Faith
We trust that beyond absence there is a presence.
That beyond the pain there can be healing.
That beyond the brokenness there can be wholeness.
That beyond the anger there may be peace.
That beyond the hurting there may be forgiveness.
That beyond the silence there may be the word.
That beyond the word there may be understanding.
That through understanding there is love.
Author Unknown
Unused Stuff
When the frustration of my helplessness seemed greatest, I discovered God's grace was more than sufficient. And after my imprisonment, I could look back and see how God used my powerlessness for his purpose. What he has chosen for my most significant witness was not my triumphs or victories, but my defeat.
Charles Colson (1931- )
The kingdom of God is a kingdom of paradox, where through the ugly defeat of a cross, a holy God is utterly glorified. Victory comes through defeat; healing through brokenness; finding self through losing self.
Charles Colson (1931- )
God can never make us wine if we object to the fingers he uses to crush us with. If God would only use his own fingers and make us broken bread and poured out wine in a special way! But when he uses someone whom we dislike, or some set of circumstances to which we said we would never submit, and makes those the crushers, we object.
Oswald Chambers (1874-1917)
So Here I Stand
So, here I stand and hang my hope
On this and this alone,
That Christ has died and paid the price
To make me all His own.
No marshalled powers in earth or hell
Can pluck me from His grace.
Though bruised and battered, tossed and torn,
I yet shall see His face.
And on that face, love's richest smile
That puts to death my fears…
Sweet balm for all my brokenness,
Sweet end to all my tears.
John G. Young
Watchman Nee writes:
Our spirit is released according to the degree of our brokenness. The one who has accepted the most discipline is the one who can best serve. The more one is broken, the more sensitive he is. The more we desire to save ourselves, in that very thing we become spiritually useless. Whenever we preserve and excuse ourselves, at that point we are deprived of spiritual sensitivity and supply. Let no one imagine he can be effective and disregard this basic principle.
----
[1] Tyndale House Publishers. (2004). Holy Bible : New Living Translation. (2nd ed.). Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House Publishers.
[2] The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (electronic ed.). Grand Rapids: Zondervan.
[3] Tyndale House Publishers. (2004). Holy Bible : New Living Translation. (2nd ed.). Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House Publishers.
[4] Tyndale House Publishers. (2004). Holy Bible : New Living Translation. (2nd ed.). Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House Publishers.
[5] Tyndale House Publishers. (2004). Holy Bible : New Living Translation. (2nd ed.). Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House Publishers.
[6] Tyndale House Publishers. (2004). Holy Bible : New Living Translation. (2nd ed.). Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House Publishers.
[7] Tyndale House Publishers. (2004). Holy Bible : New Living Translation. (2nd ed.). Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House Publishers.