Hurts Heal
“But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 8 We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 10 We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.” 2 Corinthians 4.7-12 NIV
Intro: It is great to see you here today . It is humbling to be part of this community of faith.
To be pastor of a really great church, a growing church.
There is so much opportunity and potential for God to awesome things in this place.
You can’t help but feel better and uplifted and encouraged when you are here
and that is what church is really all about.
The title of today sermon is “Hurts Heal.”
I am the father of two grown children. They both loved to play football.
There is almost a four year difference in their ages.
So I was very involved in football for over a decade.
I worked the concession stand as a dad and did my tour as President of the Football Boosters.
My oldest son Brandon could not get enough football.
Out of high school he played for the Knoxville Knights a simi-pro branded team.
Here is a picture of Brandon
Another picture of Brandon with the love of his life my granddaughter. She is on her way to becoming 6 now.
Trent is my youngest son and he also loved to play football:
Here is a picture of his junior year of high school.
See his name at the top team lift 585 lb.
That makes my whole body hurt just to say that.
He is a beast.
(He played rugby at Eastern Kentucky University)
Here is another picture of Trent and his girl friend Taylor.
I shared all of this because I know what it’s like to ride the roller coaster of losing and winning.
Everything from stupid offside penalties to injuries on the field.
To ice water being dump on the coaches after a District Win.
One time we had to rush to the hospital at half time to find out my son had a concussion.
To watching my son take a knee on the field
After he tackled another player on the other team.
The other player was a senior.
It was senior night and the other player was taken off the field with a broken leg.
It was a clean tackle.
It was an accident but it still got emotional to the beast of my son.
That he had injured another player especially a senior player.
Sports is just like life. It is filled with ups and downs.
Life is filled with highs and lows. Breaks and break-ups.
There are times when you ignore the injuries
There are times when you play through the pain and hurts.
Life is just like that.
One night there was this lady who surprised a burglar in her kitchen late one night.
She was home alone
She didn’t have any weapons. She didn’t know what she would do.
She thought to herself. I will just say a scripture verse.
She shouted out Acts 2:38
The burglar suddenly froze in this track…, wouldn’t move.
Soon the police arrived they were a amazed at a woman with no weapon could do this.
They said to the burglar what was it about that scripture that had such an effect on you?
He said, Scripture? What scripture? I thought she said she had an ax and two 38’s.
I want to talk to you today about how to get over some of the fears, frustrations and hurts in life.
We all have had negative things happen to us.
In life we often charge forward in spite of both physical pain or emotional pain.
It is interesting that in the scripture text the bible teaches us , our physical bodies are as “jars of clay.”
But God doesn’t focus on the perishable container
But on the priceless content.
That is you. The priceless content.
The person on the inside.
It really doesn’t matter whether you are a tuff guy, a beast, cheerleader, coach or average person.
The bible uses this broad brush to describe us a “jars of clay.”
As you were greeted this morning.
Hopefully you were welcomed and greeted by someone in the church.
You were probably asked something like: How are you this morning? How was your week?
I expect you answered something like, “doing great, went fine, pretty good week.”
And for many of you that was a lie.
If you were honest you would say, “I am dying on the inside.”
I want to affirm if you got here early this morning and maybe was in the Family Life Center getting donuts
And someone said, “How are you?”
And you said, “ I am fine.”
I just want to affirm that I know it is awkward when someone asks how are you
and you look at them and say, “I am dying on the inside.”
Maybe the donut line is not the best place to say something like that.
But I want you to acknowledge that would not be the first time and it want be the last time
that you will try to hide your pain.
It is not the first time and not the last time you told someone that you didn’t hurt but you are really hurting.
I know that standing in a donut line or being greeted by someone you have never met or barely know
is not the best place to say that.
But who are you going to say that to?
Who are you going tell, “I just had a week from hell.”
and I could hardly see myself getting out of bed this morning.
Tomorrow I don’t want to go back to school or back to work.
Who are you going to say that to?
Would you say it to God?
Will you just be honest and talk to God this morning?
What’s hurting you?
Where do you need healing?
I believe in the healing power of Jesus Christ.
I believe that God holds within his hands the capacity that no one else has
and that His capacity is wholeness and strength and healing to the brokenness in us.
There are a lot of frustrations and hurts that we hang on to
It is easy to go through life offended.
In self pity. Blaming others. Blaming ourselves. Even blaming God.
Because we are always looking back…, we live in the negative.
We end up carrying around all this baggage that weighs us down.
One of the best things we can learn is that God wants to “Heal our Hurts.”
God wants us to get over the bad things that happen to us in life.
Weather it happened twenty years ago or twenty minutes ago.
Don’t carry negative baggage from yesterday into today.
You want live a victorious life…, if you are always reliving what didn’t work out.
Who hurt you.
The mistakes you have made.
The reason it is called the past is because it is over.
It is done. It is history. Now do you part and let it go.
There was one time when I thought I had been overcharged at a department store.
So I took my items and my receipt and showed the clerk what I thought was an overcharge.
He tried to show me where he had given me the discount.
I added it up and multiplied it out and it still didn’t look right to me so I asked to speak with the manger.
The manger came over and the three of us stood there and went over the receipt
And sure enough I was wrong.
The clerk was right.
The charge was just like he said it was.
I said I understood and was sorry for the misunderstanding.
But even as turned to walk out into the parking lot I was still carrying with me some of that anger.
I was wrong.
They proved I was wrong but there were still remnants of anger that remained.
In fact I started to get angry about being wrong.
Then it hit me.
I had even started to get angry about being angry.
So I thought about it and as I was thinking I had to ask myself where is this anger coming from?
Surely I wasn’t that angry over a few dollars.
It wasn’t that I was angry at some checkout clerk that I had just met.
He was just doing his job.
And I realized I wasn’t really angry about being proven wrong.
I was carrying around with me a lot of other stuff in my life…, that was going on.
I had a lot of things I was dealing with in my life.
We all have that kind of messy stuff.
We all have different things we are dealing with in life.
We can get over the anger at the checkout line.
We can get over someone cutting us off and taking our parking space.
Hopefully that kind of surface anger goes away pretty quickly.
People can betray you.
Family can make you feel bad about yourself.
People we look up to who let us down.
Co-workers can throw you under the bus.
Or that so called friend who keeps saying things about you that just are not true.
These are some things people find it difficult to let go of.
It makes you tender and bruised and sometimes bleeding.
It hurts.
These hurts affect our heart.
They affect our relationship with other people.
They affect our relationship with God.
They hurt you once. Don’t let them continue to hurt you by always thinking about.
As long as you are dwelling on that…, it is going to keep you from the new things God wants to do!
Everything you have gone through has deposited something on the inside.
You are not defined by your past.
You are prepared by your past.
You may not realize it but you came out stronger
With more confidence.
Greater experience.
If that had not have happened…, you would not be prepared for the new levels that are coming your way.
I have heard it said, “You can be pitiful or you can be powerful. But you cannot be both.”
Bit by bit. Piece by piece we can find a way to lay down our anger, to get over our past, and our hurts.
“Hurts Heal”
But we know that God doesn’t always just take our hurt away from us all at once.
The Good News is we can start healing today, right here, right now.
You need to do two things this morning.
One, you need to give your hurt and your life to Jesus Christ.
If you've never done that, don't wait another second.
Do it right now in your heart.
It doesn't matter what you say. You don't have to tell me. You don't have to tell anybody else. But do it.
In your heart say, "Jesus Christ, I need help.
I don't understand it all but I need You in my life
and I want You to be number one
and I ask You to heal my hurts and help me."
Give your life to Christ right now. Say, "Jesus Christ come into my heart."
The bible says: We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair;
9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.
Pressed but not crushed
Perplexed but not despair
Persecuted but not abandoned
Struck but not destroyed.
All of those things are in the past
That’s where you was.
Not where you are at today.
Today is a new day.
There are new victories. New opportunities. New relationships.
Quit living in what was…, come over to what is.
Some of you are already Christians and you've had a hurt and you've given it to the Lord,
but you've taken it back.
You need to say again, "Lord, I need to give this back to You."
It's human nature to try to hold on to our hurts even though they hurt us.
You need to give your hurt and your life to Christ.
The second thing you need is spiritual support.
You will not make it by yourself.
You need other Christians.
Nothing that has happened to you is a surprise to God.
Before you were born God already knew every person who would hurt you.
Every mistake you would make.
Every loss you would go through
The “Good News” is that for every setback…, God has already arranged a “Come Back.”
For every disappointment…, a new beginning.
For every failure…, restoration.
For all the Hurts He has Healing.
We are all frail and fallible human beings.
So no matter whether it is anger or pride of jealousy
God is our source of hope and healing.
Here is the key. If somebody hurts you. If you will give it to God.
He will be the vindicator
Romans 12:19 says, “Vengeances is mine saith the Lord.”
God says, It is my job to take care of those who hurt you.
Your job is to find forgiveness.
Not retaliation…, but restoration…
Don’t repay evil for hurts that will only make an enemy. Shame on you.
But forgiving him or her will free you of a heavy load of bitterness and hurt.
You have to be mature enough to say, “God I don’t understand it. But I trust you.
I’m not going to go through life defeated, bitter, angry, hurt.
I’m not going to go through life looking over my shoulder, looking in my rear view mirror.
I am going to keep moving forward…, knowing my best days are up ahead.
God has more wins for you than losses.
God has more victories for you than defeats.
God is greater than your past.
Ecclesiastes says, Better is the end than the beginning.
You may have had a rough start but can have a better ending.
I have heard people say, “Preacher the end of you sermon was much better than the start of your sermon.
I have a promise. “Better is the end.”
If you will get your mind and heart going forward…, you life will go forward.
Today I want to I challenge you, I encourage you
To get more involved in church.
Find a youth group a Teens Group and be loyal to the Team.
Make that group your church home.
We will be your home.
We will be your spiritual family.
Is there something you need to drop?
Someone that someone has done to you that you need to let go?
An offense, a failure, a hurt.
There is no better time than now to let it go.
Let your “Hurts Heal.”
Closing: Heavenly Father, We all have hurts that need healing.
We all get angry. We all get wounded. We all have broken places in our life.
Right now we turn them all over to you.
Right now we trust in you to
