Healing

Hey everyone, this is Josh from Encounter Church

Henley and thanks so much for tuning into our

podcast. Our prayer is that through this podcast,

you can have an encounter with Jesus that'll

change your life. And now get ready for an inspiring

message from our preaching team. Isn't absent

in our life, but you're a god of love who is

with us Father pray that right now that as I

speak as I preach this message father that your

spirit would go before me Father may your spirit

here in this room do a work in us tonight God

may you be glorified above all else We declare

you as king we declare you sovereign over this

place Father, may anything that isn't of you

in what I've prepared, may my eyes miss it, may

I forget about it, may I just go past it so that

your words and your message can be declared tonight.

In your name, amen. Some of you already know

this about me, some of you don't, but growing

up, my mum had a fight with breast cancer. I

go back through my memory, and I try and recall

a time before the diagnosis, but it's actually

really hard. For as long as I can remember, my

mom was going through this fight with breast

cancer. I have lots of memories of the time.

One of the most distinct is when my mom had just

started chemo, and when you go through chemotherapy,

your hair falls out. And so she just said, stuff

it, I'm just going to shave it. And so we all

got together, me, my brother, my sister, my dad,

we all got together and we all shaved our head

and then she gave us a bunch of textures and

she said just go to town, just draw my head.

And I was quite young at the time and so I drew

the big red car from The Wiggles. It was my favourite

thing to watch on TV and so for a while my mum

just had a big red car on the back of her head.

But I remember hospital visits, I remember...

Endless nights spent at my grandma's house because

mum and dad were going to be at the hospital.

I remember my mum calling out to me from the

bedroom as I would go past on my way to soccer

games. She didn't even really have the energy

to get out of bed, let alone to come to my soccer

games. She would always wish me good luck from

the bed as she heard me go past though. I remember

going shopping for weeks, prosthetic breasts.

That was strange. I remember meals being dropped

off for the house and I remember people coming

and cleaning up the place for us. And I also

remember praying. My mum had just come to faith

and we'd started going to this church. And she'd

given her life to Christ and so me, my family,

church, her friends who were also Christian,

we would spend time praying for mum. And eventually

we received news that the cancer was gone. There

was our own little miracle, a miraculous work

of God, a miraculous work of healing that the

cancer was gone. We celebrated, we gave thanks

to God, we were going to church and they invited

my mom up to come and share her testimony of

the way that God had moved in her life and this

miraculous healing. Everything was just really

good. For the first time in a long time, I kind

of had a taste of what a normal childhood might

have been like. But a few months go past, and

when my mum goes in for a routine checkup, they

found the cancer had come back. And it was a

lot more aggressive. She went back to going through

chemotherapy. She was back to spending days on

end in her bed. We were back to spending nights

at Grandma's house and we were back to praying

every single day. We were begging God to do another

miracle. You've done it once, God. Surely you

can do it again. Please heal my mum. But things

kept getting worse and she was eventually admitted

to a hospital ward and she spent a few days there.

Then on the 12th of September she died. 2012,

two days before my 14th birthday. We're talking

about healing today. And I share this story because

I have firsthand experience of God healing in

a miraculous way. I've seen it with my eyes.

I've seen it in my own life and my mum's life.

I've seen God's power to heal people. But then

I'm also intimately familiar with the pain that

comes when there is no healing. When we spend

hours on our knees begging and praying for God

to intervene to do a healing work and for there

just to seemingly be silence and nothing. Healing

is one of those funny things for us in the 21st

century because we read the Bible, And all throughout,

but especially in the Gospels, we see Jesus performing

all these miracles and all these healings of

different people all the time. Even in the Old

Testament, like how Harry read for us, we have

this story of Naaman, or Naaman, however you

want to say it, I don't know. He was healed of

his leprosy, of his skin disease. Now we come

to church and we sung it today in that song,

I speak Jesus, you know, Jesus your name can

heal. There is healing in your name You know,

we declare that our God is a God who can and

does heal. I think it would be pretty fair for

me to say that every single one of us in this

room has known someone unwell and If you haven't

prayed you've at least thought about praying

for that person Maybe it's been yourself The

encounter slack prayer channel where members

of the church can put in prayer requests, constantly

filled with people asking for God to, or for

people to pray for God to heal them. Even though

we read about it all the time in the Bible and

we can ask for it and we can pray for it, supernatural

healing can sometimes feel pretty foreign to

us. In an age where we have incredible medical

advancements and incredible medical technology,

You know, a first century Jew coming in would

look at it and be like, what is that? You know,

we can take healing into our own hands and take

it out of God's. When we get headaches, we take

a Panadol. When we break a bone, we go to the

emergency room and we get a cast on it and we

might wait a few weeks and then it's fine. Do

we only turn to God when it's out of our hands?

Do we only turn to God when the doctors can't

help? And if there is no healing, do we get bitter

at God? How much do we really believe in the

power of God to heal us? And for some of us,

I don't just mean physical healing, but it could

mean spiritual healing, emotional, mental healing.

The preaching series that we've been making our

way through over the last few weeks is called

The Power of Encounter. And the whole purpose

of this series is to turn up the spiritual heat

here at Encounter Church by looking at the different

ways in which the Holy Spirit can come into our

lives. How the spiritual realm is not just a

cool foreign kind of concept that we read about

in the Bible, but it's real. And it can have

real power in our lives if we let it. Because

encounter is more than just experiencing God's

power. When we're talking about encounter, it's

encountering the presence of God. And there's

a distinct difference because God's power can

change our circumstance. You know, God's hand

and his intervention can come in and it can do

amazing things in our world and in our life.

But God's presence does more than that. It changes

us. God's presence changes us despite our circumstance.

Regardless of what's happening in life, whether

it's absolutely amazing, having the best day

of your life, or maybe it's the absolute worst

day of your life. the presence of God and His

Spirit has the power to change us. By opening

ourselves up to the power of encountering the

Holy Spirit, we are opening ourselves up to a

richness of life and relationship with God that

goes deeper and burns brighter as a result. We've

looked at a couple of different things already,

humility, holiness, hearing, and now we're rounding

it off by talking about healing. If we think

of it like yin and yang, healing is something

that's synonymous with suffering. One cannot

exist without the other. You must suffer in some

capacity in order to need healing. And that can

be healing in many different types of ways. It

could be physical healing of an illness or an

injury. Maybe it's some kind of emotional or

mental healing. Maybe you have anxiety or depression

or some other mental disorder or mental health

struggle. Could even be relational healing a

fractured relationship that you have with someone

else that needs healing All different ways in

which we can encounter God through healing and

before I go in any further I Just want you guys

to stop and think Where do you need God's healing

in your life? Where do you need God's healing

in your life? It might not be for you personally,

but it might be for someone that you know. And

as you're thinking of that, I wanna preface this

message by saying that I cannot promise you healing

after this sermon. At the end, I'm gonna open

it up and we're gonna give people an opportunity

to receive some ministry and receive some prayer

for healing. But I cannot guarantee that by the

time I'm finished talking up here, that I'll

be giving you a word of knowledge. or the keys

to unlock God's power of healing in your life.

I can't promise that. I can't guarantee that.

I know that for some of you in the room, you've

been suffering. Or you know of someone who has

been suffering and you might have had some advice

given to you or maybe you've had some of your

own thoughts along the lines of maybe you just

need to pray more. Maybe you need to have more

faith. You just need to believe a little bit

harder. And if I'm being frank, and as someone

who's heard all of this before, that's rubbish.

Maybe you've given this advice to someone before

and I'm sure you've had great intentions, but

it sucks. As someone who's been through that

suffering and being told you just need to pray

more and you just need to have more faith, it

stings. Because that's not how God works Where

tears of his power are unlocked by having a particular

amount of faith? You know it's not like a Netflix

subscription Where you can just be like all right

Angus has prayed a hundred prayers this month

that means he can get more healing than just

for his block nose Now he maybe he can walk a

little bit quicker this week that pain in his

hip now that he's getting old That's gone You

know, it's not like that. It's not how God operates.

You know, more faith does not equal more healing.

More prayers does not equal more healing. That

just doesn't make sense because when we look

at Jesus, he was begging and pleading for God's

intervention in the Garden of Gethsemane. He

was pleading desperately for God to step in and

intervene when he had to go to the cross. And

this is Jesus who's the perfect man. He's lived

the perfect life. He has no sin, no shame, nothing

that he's done wrong in his life. He's been in

perfect relationship with God his entire life.

And yet when he prays for God to do something,

God says no. And so if God can say no to Jesus,

he can say no to us. It's not a matter of having

enough faith and I want to say that if you have

had a lack of healing in your life if you have

been struggling with something for a long time

and you've been praying you've been pleading

and you've been begging for God and you've seen

no breakthrough it's not because of a lack of

faith maybe you've been told that before and

I just want to break that lie it's not because

of a lack of faith It's not because you're not

good enough. It's not because you haven't believed

hard enough It's not because you haven't prayed

enough and it's not because God doesn't love

you enough While I'm up here speaking I can't

promise you all the answers But my hope and my

prayer is that wherever you find yourself today

whether you're in need of healing or whether

you're not that this message would just be an

encouragement for you and so I've already been

talking for a while, but let's jump into it Let's

get started. When we think of healing, we can

often approach it in a similar way, a similar

mindset to Naaman in the passage. Naaman, he

was a military leader and he's been diagnosed

with leprosy. And so he goes to this king of

Israel and he offers him a bunch of money and

says, heal me. And then he gets sent to Elisha,

who's a prophet. And he just wants to be healed.

That's all he wants. And Elisha tells him, go

and wash yourself seven times in the River Jordan

and you will be cured. And Naaman gets mad. He

starts ranting about how Elisha should just wave

his hand over him and be done. Or surely you'd

send me to the rivers of Damascus, far greater

than the River Jordan. Surely if there's power,

it'll be in these great rivers as opposed to

the River Jordan. And we can get exactly like

that. Or at least I can. We pray to God and we

ask for healing. We pray for breakthrough. We

pray for release. We pray for help and all these

different great things. And we have an idea as

to what kind of answer we're gonna get. We even

try to predict how God will work only to not

get the answer that we want. We don't get the

direction we're looking for. We don't get the

silver bullet. But I don't think that is up for

debate. whether God can heal or not. I'm sure

for most of us in the room, we would say, yeah,

I know God can heal. I believe that he can. It's

in the Bible. We know that God has the power

to heal. That's not a question. I think we can

all safely agree that God can heal. Some of you

have even seen it and experienced it in your

own lives. Perhaps the harder question to ask

is what do we do when God doesn't heal? Where

do we go? What do we do? Maybe even before that

we need to ask ourselves what kind of posture

does God ask of us when we come to Him for healing?

How do we posture ourselves? What are we expecting

from God when we ask for healing? Because this

story of Naaman being healed, it's not just a

story of healing. It's not just a story of healing.

First and foremost, this is a story of encounter.

Don't forget that. This is a story of encounter

and that's what this series is all about. This

is a story of a man encountering God, but it

happened in a way that he wasn't expecting to.

Because Naaman wanted healing on his own terms.

Elisha tells him what he needs to do to be healed

and Naaman refuses. He walks up to the king with

a bunch of money and says, this is how I get

healed surely. But then he gets sent to Elisha

and Elisha tells him what to do. And Naaman walks

away angry because he already had an idea in

his mind about what the miracle should be. This

is what this miracle should look like. This is

what it means for me to be healed. Naaman expected

to be healed instantly, or if not that, he expected

something far more grand than just going to a

river and dunking his head seven times. Naaman

was trying to fit God into his own expectations,

but what Elisha told Naaman and what God wanted

from him, was obedience and surrender. Naaman

is used to dishing out orders, he's a general

in the army, he's high ranking in the military,

but here he was being told what to do. In his

mind he wasn't being healed, he was being put

to work. He had an idea as to how much control

he'd be willing to give up and when that expectation

wasn't met he walked away disappointed and angry.

And how often can we get like that. How often

do we pray for healing in our bodies, in our

minds, in our relationships, or we pray on behalf

of someone else only to not have it answered

and to end up bitter and resentful? I know I

have. Because when I was praying to God for months

to heal my mom and then she died, I was bitter

for a long time. I hated God. It's a miracle

that I'm here now. I couldn't reconcile the God

who healed my mum once, but then he didn't do

it again. I couldn't make sense of that. I knew

that he could heal my mum, but every prayer I

prayed was met with silence. We often want God

to operate within our own frameworks, our own

ideas, our own paths and our own boxes, instead

of they're just letting God do his thing. But

what we learn from Naaman's story is that encounter

with God often starts with surrender. It doesn't

start with control. We can't expect to have an

encounter with God when we're trying to tell

him how he should work. God invited Naaman to

trust him rather than dictate the terms of how

the miracle will happen. And that same invitation

is there for us, regardless of whether we're

healed or whether we're not. When we surrender

control and we let God work in His way rather

than ours, we open ourselves up to encounter

with Him whether or not healing comes in the

way that we'd hoped. Because for God, healing

is about more than just feeling better. Healing

is more than just getting well. It's about growing

closer to Him. It's about getting to know Him

better. The passage shows us this because Naaman

isn't just healed, but at the very end, in verse

15, he says, now I know that there is no God

in all the world except in Israel. And I think

for many of us, we can turn healing into something

like a transaction. We can say, God, if you heal

me, if you heal this person that I love, if you

do this for me, then I'll love you forever. I

will do all these great things for you. I will

dedicate my life to you if you do this for me.

Or maybe it can be the other way around where,

you know, we're asking for something and God's

not giving it to us. And we can turn around and

say, God, I've been such a good son. God, I've

been doing all this work for you. I've been trying

so hard for you. I've been faithful. I've been

praying. I've been loving you. I've been reading

my Bible. I've been doing all the right things.

And you won't give me this one thing that I asked

for. That was me. And my mom was sick. That was

the prayer I prayed all the time. My mom, she

was a dedicated Christian. I was sitting there

going, God, she loves you. Why did you let her

die? But for God, healing isn't just an event.

Healing isn't just something that happens. God

sees healing as part of a relationship. Healing

can come and we see that in all different forms,

but The hardest part is that sometimes it just

doesn't come. The thing about God is that every

encounter we have within produces deeper trust,

deeper humility, dependence, and faith. Naaman's

story of healing, just like every other story

of healing in scripture, it points to something

greater. And it foreshadows the work of Jesus

who comes to heal more than just our minds or

our bodies. But before we get to Jesus, let's

talk about Job. The book of Job in the Old Testament

has a lot to say about suffering. A little bit

about God's perspective of our suffering as well.

If you've never read the story, it's actually

really good. I highly recommend it. There's this

guy, Job, and he has it all. He has this perfect

life. He has an amazing family. He has all these

kids. He has a wife that loves him, and he loves

her. He's got all these cows and sheep, which

are really important back then. He's got all

this money, and he is wealthy, and he's successful,

and he has a really great relationship with God.

He's faithful. He prays. He does all the right

things, and God loves him. He loves God. everything

is up for Job. And then we see a conversation

between Satan and God. And Satan says, God, let

me go a few rounds with him. Let's see how faithful

Job really is. Let me go at him and we'll see

if he's still faithful to you after I have a

bit of fun. And so God permits Job to be tested

by Satan. And Satan takes away his kids. His

wife leaves him. His wealth is all gone. He gets

super sick. He ends up completely homeless and

completely destitute. He's lost absolutely everything.

And his friends start saying all these things

and they're trying to explain to Job how God

works. They say stuff like, maybe you're being

punched. What have you done wrong? You need to

pray more. You don't have enough faith. The same

things that I've heard before or maybe you've

heard before. They tried to fit God into a formula

and they tried to explain to Job what he needs

to do in order to be blessed and healed. And

at the very end of the book, after 40 odd chapters

of Job suffering and going back and forth with

his friends, at the end of the book we see Job

have an encounter with God. And Job challenges

God and he starts asking why he's allowed all

this to happen. And God responds in a very interesting

way. He says, where were you when I laid the

earth's foundation? Do you give orders to the

morning or to the dawn? Who is this that obscures

my plans with words without knowledge? So God

challenges Job. But his point isn't to say don't

be bitter. Don't be upset. Don't ask questions.

Because Job has every right to have these feelings,

right? He's lost absolutely everything. And God

doesn't rebuke him for that. This isn't a rebuke

from God. And so maybe that's where you're at

tonight. Maybe you're feeling bitter or you're

feeling resentful and you've been praying really

hard for something and you're not really seeing

any breakthrough and you're upset about it. That's

fair enough. That is okay. Bring it to God. He

can take it. Thanks so much for tuning into this

week's message. If you felt challenged or need

prayer, we'd love to hear from you on Instagram

at encounterhenley. Or if you're interested in

how you can support this ministry, please go

to our website encounteradelaide .com .au. Thanks

again for listening. God bless you.