Churches That Heal - Part 2
Thesis: We need to commit here at New Life Community Church to create an environment that fosters spiritual healing for those who are wounded and in need of God’s touch.
Scripture: John 5:1-17 (NIV):
1Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews. 2Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. 3Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. 5One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”
7“Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”
8Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” 9At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.
The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, 10and so the Jews said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.”
11But he replied, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’”
12So they asked him, “Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?”
13The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.
14Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” 15The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well.
16So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jews persecuted him. 17Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working.” 18For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.
Luke 10:25-40 (The Message):
DEFINING “NEIGHBOR”
Just then a religion scholar stood up with a question to test Jesus. “Teacher, what do I need to do to get eternal life?”
He answered, “What’s written in God’s Law? How do you interpret it?”
He said, “That you love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and muscle and intelligence—and that you love your neighbor as well as you do yourself.”
“Good answer!” said Jesus. “Do it and you’ll live.”
Looking for a loophole, he asked, “And just how would you define ‘neighbor’?”
Jesus answered by telling a story. “There was once a man traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho. On the way he was attacked by robbers. They took his clothes, beat him up, and went off leaving him half-dead. Luckily, a priest was on his way down the same road, but when he saw him he angled across to the other side. Then a Levite religious man showed up; he also avoided the injured man.
“A Samaritan traveling the road came on him. When he saw the man’s condition, his heart went out to him. He gave him first aid, disinfecting and bandaging his wounds. Then he lifted him on to his donkey, led him to an inn, and made him comfortable. In the morning he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take good care of him. If it costs any more, put it on my bill—I’ll pay you on my way back.’
“What do you think? Which of the three became a neighbor to the man attacked by robbers?”
“The one who treated him kindly,” the religion scholar responded.
Jesus said, “Go and do the same.”
Introduction:
Doug Murren wrote the book Churches That Heal and this book has impacted me in a deep and spiritual way. It revealed to me the necessity and the importance here at New Life Community Church that we be a church that heals and restores people’s lives. Murren states, “Churches should heal because people need healing” (2).
Such a simple statement but so filled with deep spiritual truth. The church needs to get to work and focus on its divine purpose which is to assist in helping people to heal by the power of the Word.
We learned last week that we must be committed to developing a church that helps people heal. This means each one of us here at New Life must be intentional in helping the healing process be developed and implemented.
We also learned last week what to do to help foster a place of healing: We need to lose the masks of phoniness and not take ourselves so seriously, we need smile and get happy, we need to quit burning ourselves out and then turn around and blame others for it, we need to get busy in the healing process if we are not involved, we need to understand that spiritual sabbaticals are a necessary part of life and will enrich our lives and encourage our lives, and finally we need to quit talking so much and learn what it means to become an active listener.
We also learned that healing is a process. I shared how I have desired to have an instant healing from my knee surgery and I have discovered that’s not going to happen. The healing process takes time and patience. It can seem at times tedious and never ending but the process does progress forward as we persevere through the process. So we need to understand that 95% of all miracles happen over a period of time and commit to sticking with the healing process of others. We must guard against frustration and unrealistic expectations of overnight miracles. We must be sensitive to the ones who are wounded and going through the process of healing and learn to nurture them along the way.
T.S. - The bottom line is we must make sure that we do not hinder people’s healing instead we need to help them progress to the point of being healed. So we need to understand what kinds of characteristics does a healing church have and then commit to see that they are prevalent here at New Life Community Church.
I. Characteristics of a church that heals.
a. The following thought’s on characteristics of a church that heals is gleamed from Doug Murren’s book, Churches That Heal.
i. The church people must emphasize good news.
1. We must focus on the good going on in the church not the bad.
2. We must build thoughts and words of hope not negative and critical thoughts of all the bad.
a. Philippians 2:1-5: 14, 15: 1If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. 3Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. 4Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:… 14Do everything without complaining or arguing, 15so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe
b. Philippians 4: 8, 9: 8Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. 9Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.
i. We need to attain the positive attitude of Jesus and learn to approach things from the positive angle in life.
ii. We need to look at the wounded with the right mindset and heart of Jesus Christ.
3. The preaching and teaching in the church needs to focus on the positive not all of the negative aspects in the world.
a. We should have 2 positives for every negative thought in our lives to keep people encouraged in the healing process.
b. Too many people come to church and all they here is negative critical comments and decide I don’t need this.
i. Would you want to return to a place were all you heard were complaints and criticism?
4. Murren states, “They really don’t care how badly the church budget is doing. And even if they did, we should be sensitive enough to know that that’s not what they need to hear…Do you find yourself taking care of dirty laundry in public services? If so, you are detracting from a more positive healing environment in your congregation” (173).
ii. The church people must emphasize affirming news to one another.
1. The truth is when people come to church they want to be affirmed. They want to know what they are doing right and encouraged to keep on doing it.
a. We can deliver the message of Jesus in a positive way without beating people up with the Bible.
2. People want to know that others can see what they are doing right and affirm them for it. We are not to focus on the areas they are doing wrong and then shame them into healing. It does not work that way!
iii. The church must let others know that they can with God’s help make a new start in their dysfunctional lives.
1. 1 Corinthians 5:17: 17Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!
2. John 3: 1-21: 1Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council. 2He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him.” 3In reply Jesus declared, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.” 4“How can a man be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb to be born!” 5Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. 6Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. 7You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ 8The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” 9“How can this be?” Nicodemus asked. 10“You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things? 11I tell you the truth, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. 12I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? 13No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man. 14Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. 16“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. 19This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. 21But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.”
a. Jesus tells us that we can be born again. In others words we can have a new start at this life. To get his new start we need to surrender ourselves to Him and then He will give us a second chance at life.
b. Jesus tells us that if we choose to be Born Again and we choose to follow the Truth then this will lead us into the light and the result will be others will see His light in our lives and say, “Wow look what the Lord has done!”
3. If we make this offer to others we will discover many who will be healed and given a new start in their lives.
a. But we have to care enough to tell others about this great opportunity in this life.
iv. The church must make the wounded feel accepted by what they say or do to them.
1. They must feel the love of acceptance from those who they meet in church.
2. They must feel that they are loved and not rejected as they enter into the church.
3. They need to know that when they come to New Life people care about them.
4. Acceptance is what they want not rejection. They receive enough rejection on a daily basis in a loveless world. So they want to come to church and experience the wonderful feeling of acceptance.
5. Matthew 23; 23, 24: 23“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. 24You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.
a. The Pharisees did not help the hurting instead they rejected them because of their wounds.
b. Murren states, “Rejection is a common experience in today’s fast moving world, where sexual experience so often replaces love, and the quick fix replaces any attempt to alter one’s lifestyle in a disciplined way. Ours is a world where marriages are easily terminated, kids are shuttled between homes, and employees are laid off after giving the best years of their lives to the company. This compounding of rejection has created a crying thirst for acceptance” (174, 175).
c. Jesus demonstrated to us that we are to accept the hurting into our arms and help bandage their wounds and lead them along the path of healing.
v. We must express transparency to one another and not be phony.
1. When we present ourselves as perfect and flawless then people’s radar perks up and says, “They are liars!”
2. People know that no one is perfect or flawless in this life. We all fall short and have flaws. These flaws may be masked with a lot of makeup or religious talk but they can see the bulging flaw under the disguise.
a. Roman’s tells us that we have all have fallen short and the truth is we must be willing to admit it.
vi. We need to learn to communicate what we are “for” not always what we are “against”.
1. We need to tell people why we are pro-life
2. We need to tell people why we are pro-marriage
3. We need to tell people why we are pro-Bible
4. We need to tell people why we are pro-conservative
5. We need to tell people why we are pro-giving
a. We need to tell others why we are pro something instead of just talking about why we are against something. This approach to the good news will impact and heal more people than the other way.
b. We need to approach things in this life form the positive angle than from the negative angle in life.
vii. We must also tell people about how other people got healed and transformed.
1. We need to tell people about our testimony and others testimony’s.
a. Revelation 12:11: “They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony…”
2. In today’s culture and society people want to hear true to life stories about others not just word studies or hermeneutics they want real life dramas with miracles endings.
3. They want reality life stories.
4. They want to hear that Jesus still heals today and here is proof.
b. Murren states, “It’s true: A church that is consciously pursues a healing environment by encouraging optimistic, hope-filled thinking will positively affect the physical health of its members. According to scientific studies, the body’s T cells (the kind that drive the immune system) actually increase when optimistic thinking is applied. In a positive environment, the immune system works better, and overall health is approved” (177).
T.S. – For New Life Community church to be a church that heals it will require us to have the characteristics we just explored. All of the characteristics above are Biblical characteristics that are taught and role-modeled for us and we have to follow His lead to be able to help people through the healing process.
II. If you want to be healed and help others be healed then we must do what Jesus says.
a. Jesus asked the crippled man by the pool of Bethesda, “Do you want to get well?” (John 5:1-17)
i. The man answered “No one will help me into the pool!” Yes, I want to get healed but there is no one to help me!
ii. So Jesus said, “Get up, pick up your mat and walk!” and the man listening to what the Lord told Him did it and was healed.
iii. One of the keys in the healing process for each of us is to understand that our healing is linked with listening to the instructions of Jesus and following His Word.
iv. The reality is healing starts with “Asking for it” then following the directions of the Lord to get it!
b. The story of the Good Samaritan Luke 10:24-30:
i. Jesus shares how we are to attain eternal life and how we are to help others heal from the devastating ambushes in life.
ii. He shares in detail about a man who chose to help out a stranger in need of healing.
1. This stranger unlike the other religious ones chose to get involved in this hurting - wounded man’s life. Why? Because his heart went out to him!
a. This showed that this man knew what it mean’s to sacrifice for another.
b. It showed that this man cared about others because he knew “Everyone matters to God!”
c. Maybe being an outcast himself had taught him that God does love all of us and he needed to help out others who are in need.
d. This man unlike the two religious men had a heart of compassion for another human being.
2. He chose to stop what he was doing to reach out and help someone in need.
a. He did not allow his busy schedule to stop him from helping out others.
b. He knew that life was about serving others not his own interests
c. He showed that our priority in life should be to help others make it through the healing process.
3. Not only did he choose to get involved but he spent the time to clean up his wounds and put bandages on were they were needed.
a. In a sense he did not just go over to the man and say “Are you okay?” then leave. No he administered healing actions to this man’s wounds. He cleaned off the blood and the dirt and addressed his wounds with bandages of care and concern.
4. This man had heart because he not only bandaged the stranger’s wounds but he put him in his car and took him to the nearest place for more care and for rest so that he could heal.
5. He transported him to an inn were he could recover and here is the amazing part of the story -- He paid the bill for the injured man!” He had a big enough heart that he even paid for this man’s recovery.
a. He found another person who could help in this stage of healing and paid him for his service so that the injured man could recover.
b. Remember the man was a stranger and he paid for his recovery when the religious ones wanted nothing to do with the injured man.
c. This man truly had a big heart that was in touch with the heart beat of God.
d. The religious one’s in this story did not have the heart beat of the Lord in their lives because they chose to not help.
6. I find it interesting how the two religious leaders choose to not get involved in this man’s situation. But the scenario is far to common in the Christian circle today: Listen to what chambers says about this type of mindset:
a. The Spiritually Lazy Saint: “Let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together …” (Hebrews 10:24–25).
i. We are all capable of being spiritually lazy saints. We want to stay off the rough roads of life, and our primary objective is to secure a peaceful retreat from the world. The ideas put forth in these verses from Hebrews 10 are those of stirring up one another and of keeping ourselves together. Both of these require initiative—our willingness to take the first step toward Christ-realization, not the initiative toward self-realization. To live a distant, withdrawn, and secluded life is diametrically opposed to spirituality as Jesus Christ taught it.
7. Jesus concludes his story by asking a question “Which one was this person’s neighbor?” Remember what Jesus said earlier, ‘the commandments can be summarized into two “ Love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, mind, soul and strength and love your neighbor as yourself.”
a. “So which one in the story was the genuine neighbor to this man?”
b. The answer the non-religious – outcast was!
c. He knew the heart beat of the Lord and he modeled what a healing individual looks like and acts like.
8. Then Jesus’ final words to all of us “Go and do the same!”
T.S. – We must learn and understand for healing to take place in our lives and in others lives then we need to do what the Lord Jesus instructs us to do. If we fail to follow His instructions then we will fail in the helping others and ourselves to heal.
III. We often fail in helping the healing process progress. You ask. “How do we do this?”
a. Murren gives us reasons why we fail to help people heal and recover:
i. “We tend to rely too heavily on ascribing a moral solution for everything” (202).
1. When Jesus went to heal the blind man the disciples asked, “Who sinned this man or his parents?” Jesus said in John 9:2 “It’s for the glory God.” In other words neither he nor his parent were to blame for his blindness, But he was born blind and going to be healed at this moment to give God the glory! (202).
a. In this situation morality had nothing to do with this man’s physical condition.
b. The lesson to learn here is, do not jump to conclusions about another’s wounds to quick.
i. Show compassion and mercy to them.
c. Sometimes wounds are caused by the sinful choices people make but the bottom line is help them to heal don’t say, “You deserve that knife wound in your heart you sinner!”
2. Far too often we write people off with moral answers to wounds that a person has sustained in life.
a. The story of the pastor who took my support group while I was on vacation.
ii. “We often have little patience for the relapses that all addicts face” (202).
1. 85% of addicts relapse at some time in their life. But the truth is we all slip and blow it in life. We all make mistakes in our lives. The key is to help these individuals get back up not kick them when they are down.
a. We need to learn to forgive and forget and decide to help others up. We must be committed to helping others move toward the completion of their healing.
iii. “We tend not to let people grow” (204).
1. We far too often hinder people’s growth by making them adopt our ideas, our methodologies and theologies. And if they deviate from our ideas we criticize them for what they are doing and even blame them for their wounds.
a. We have a tendency to not allow the Holy Spirit to led them into who he wants them to be. Because we want to be what we want them to be.
b. This is what the religious leaders did to this healed individual in our text today. Listen to them:
i. John 5: 8Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” 9At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked. The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, 10and so the Jews said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.”
ii. They were not excited that he was healed. They are mad that he is carrying his mat on the Sabbath.
1. Talk about being blind and legalistic.
iii. Then they want to know who did this terrible thing to him. Not his healing but told him to carry his mat.
1. They were more concerned about doing things their way then rejoicing in this man’s supernatural healing.
2. The sad fact is this happens far too often even in the church today.
c. We also tend to hinder people’s growth by the way we keep reminding people how they are imperfect.
i. When we can only see the flaws n others then we are the one’s with the problem not them!
ii. We are to help people heal not re-hurt them!
d. We need to forget who people where and rejoice in who they are today we don’t they will never grow or be healed!
e. Remember our job is to help people through the healing process and for this to happen at New Life it requires the commitment of each of us to make it happen.
Conclusion:
Murren helps us to see a clear picture of a healthy and a healing church by reminding us what the Bible says we as the Body of Christ should be doing: This is taken from the the book Churches That Heal.
The Believers are devoted to one another and give preference to one another (Romans 12:10).
They love one another (Romans 13:8).
They refrain from judging one another (Romans 14:13).
They edify one another (Romans 15:14).
They serve one another (Galatians 5:13).
They don’t hurt one another (Galatians 5:15).
They don’t provoke one another through conceit (Galatians 5:26)
They help carry one another’s burdens (Galatians 6:2).
They are patient with one another (Ephesians 4:2).
They are kind and forgiving toward one another (Ephesians 4:32).
They submit to one another (Ephesians 5:21).
They esteem one another (Philippians 2:3)
They stimulate one another to do good works (Hebrews 10:24).
They don’t slander one another (James 4:11).
They don’t complain against one another (James 5:9).
They confess their sins to one another and pray for one another (James 5:16).
They extend hospitality to one another (1 Peter 4:9).
This is what a church that heals looks like and acts like.
