Bringing Your Scars to the Light

Good morning, church.

It is so good to be with you.

My name is Russ.

If I hadn't had a chance to meet you, I want to say that we're so glad you're here.

And if you're here for the first time, maybe second time, we want to specially say welcome to you.

We value and I believe God values hospitality and warmth.

And regardless of how our church grows, I want us to maintain the family feel and every person matters.

But please feel free to approach me in the lobby.

That's scary to think of, but we'll we'll I I love I love building relationships with people in the church.

Can I just be honest with you?

Like if you if you come to church and you might like everything about our church, or you might like most things about our church, maybe you love our music and our worship leadership, and I'm so thankful for our team.

They sound great, but you know what's most important is they have a heart to lead us into the presence of Jesus.

And so you may say, man, I like the fact that this is a church where I don't have to go buy a buy a new dress or a new suit or something like that.

It's pretty pretty casual, which is kind of obvious, right?

Um and and you you may like all those things, but but I'm telling you, if you do not get connected in relationships, in about six months for sure, I can guarantee you six months, eight months, um you will you will slowly begin to fade away.

And that's just uh that's I've learned that 30-something years of ministry.

And so there's really two ways to get connected.

You need to get connected with some people.

It doesn't have to be the everybody, it could be a small group.

As a matter of fact, here's the truth.

A lot of people say I don't like going to big churches.

I want to go to a smaller church.

It doesn't matter how big the church is, you're gonna have the same close relationships regardless of what size the church is.

That's just kind of a fact of life.

Um but but we I I'm gonna tell you the two ways to get connected, and and one of them is community groups.

And we've got we've got actually a table, and and David Dishiron is one of our elders, and he's gonna be out in the lobby between the services and after the second service.

Um, and and there's a big sign that says community groups.

That is a way for you to get connected into a group.

And I know that's that's that that might be tough to think about, whether it's driving up to somebody's house or walking into a new place and building friendships with people that you haven't known before.

But but that is one of the primary ways to get involved and to get connected.

The second way is to serve, to get in a serve team, to get in a place where where you're gonna be missed.

It might be uh part of our first impressions team, which starts in the parking lot and the lobbies.

And uh, you know, we we've got we've got a security team.

A lot of you don't know that, and I don't I don't want you to know who they are.

But but there's people that kind of watching out and and keeping their head on a swivel, so to speak, uh making sure that we're safe, that that we've got uh ways that we take care of our kids.

We've got we've just got teams.

One of the greatest privileges to me would be to invest in the next generation, serving our children or serving our students.

Um and when you when you get involved into a serve team, it might be serving at the cafe and and ministering to people, you get to know people and you get to put a face with a name and see in six or eight months, you don't you don't find yourself slipping away without being noticed.

And so I'm telling you that so that that that has nothing to do with the sermon today, but but I wanted to I wanted I wanted to share that.

I wanted to share that.

We're in a new series this morning called Scars.

Scars.

And um I have two significant scars on the right side of my body, and and one of them is on my right knee.

And in 1997, um I was playing basketball with students.

I was a student pastor playing basketball with students, planted my foot, heard a big pop, uh, you know, and and I don't you ask my wife, she's she's actually in Texas at a funeral for one of her lifelong best friends yesterday.

And so she she will tell you, I do not do well with pain.

I am not a good, I I I and so I I thought that my life was over when I heard that pop, and and and it was an ACL tear.

I mean, you know, that's pretty pretty normal.

And and so in 1997 I had um uh ACL reconstruction on the right knee.

So I've got a I've got a little scar there, and I I decide not to preach in shorts because I want you to come back.

And so um nobody wants to look at the pastor, old pastor's legs.

Um and so then I also have a more recent scar that that that came two years ago, and I actually have a couple pictures to show you about that.

So this is this is right after um, yeah, it's pretty, isn't it?

Uh and so some of you who've had surgery, you you you might recognize this.

That is a uh that scar was not supposed to be that big.

But when my surgeon got in to my shoulder, he realized, man, this is way more significant than what I thought originally.

So I went to my for my second year checkup back in July.

He says, I want you to come back in a year.

Not because I think you need to, he says, but you are, you don't know this, but you are a we there's a group of doctors doing a study because the significance of the surgery on your shoulder.

They had to do a bone graft and all these things, and and that's so that scar should have been half that size.

Um but um and so I, man, it took about a year and a half before I could really start being active again.

And so I have a scar right here.

I I would show it to you, but you might be um you might get distracted by the the python.

Um just I'm just kidding.

Uh but he listened he he told me, and I I've always been active.

Always exercise has always been a part of my life.

And and working out, going even back to high school, and and so he told me, so Russ, you'll probably never be able to do another push-up.

He said, You probably will never be able to do another-up, which is all he had to do was to tell me that I'll probably never be able to do a push-up.

Because I love a challenge.

I love a challenge.

And so, so so the second picture, I don't know if you saw the second one, is the scar.

The first one is is the wound.

First one is where the wound was.

This is a scar, and this is still during time of healing.

You see the bruising taking place, but but um uh and so a lot of us, a lot of us have stories.

A physical scar usually has a story, and and and so I don't know what the story is with my shoulder.

My doctor said, What in the world did you do?

And I said, I don't know.

I I played sports, I worked construction uh through college, and um, and then I've planted a church.

And he said, Oh.

And so I mean, see, I think unloading a trailer and and and loading it back up probably had something to do with it.

Um, but there there's a story, and there's no no exciting story of that, but sometimes we have we have stories.

I fell, I hurt myself, and I had to have surgery.

I had to, I, I, I got cut, or I had some kind of major cut um uh that has left a scar.

Um I I remember being a child, and and and my father and mother had had some major scars, and I remember as a child wanting to hear the stories that led to the wounds and that led to the scars.

But that there's scars that that are deeper than physical.

And those scars are sometimes harder to talk about.

The deeper unseen, harder to explain scars are harder sometimes to address.

Matter of fact, we we we push them, we push them away to the side.

We we kind of we kind of bury them, we cover them up.

A lot of times we do things we shouldn't do to ourselves that will numb us to the pain, not just as a physical scar, but of a deep inner emotional, spiritual, relational scar.

See, emotional scars don't always show up on the skin, but they still shape how we live.

Spiritual scars can impact how we see God, ourselves, how we view the church, relationships, how we view the future on this earth and even after this earth.

And some of us are not carrying scars yet.

Uh some of us are still carrying open wounds.

Man, it's it's it had to be scarred over yet.

Man, and the wound is real.

One of the most dangerous things we can do is to call something healed just because we stopped talking about it.

Hey, let's just don't talk about it.

I will be okay.

And then you you end up years later paying a price for something that you feel like maybe just kind of faded away, but it's it is alive.

And as my friend uh the other Russ says, ugly things grow in the dark.

See, I imagine everybody in this room probably has been wounded in some way.

Some of us are carrying wounds from childhood.

Uh maybe there's been a divorce, we've been, there's been a betrayal, maybe, maybe we've been hurt in church, in relationships.

Um maybe there's been a rejection in our life that has affected us deeply.

Maybe there's been abuse.

And it can be physical abuse, it can be emotional abuse, verbal abuse.

Maybe it's grief.

Maybe it's grief.

I mean, it's the reality that that we're all going to experience loss at some time in our life.

We're going to to we're going to have to take care of someone, and they might end up leaving this earth.

And we are scarred or we are wounded, and and grief is the result of that.

Maybe it's just your own sin and the consequences of your sin.

See, see, there are scars that are inherited scars.

And these these wounds we didn't choose.

Family dysfunction, generational addiction, uh, a parent's absence, divorce, maybe abuse, physical, verbal.

You do not choose the wound, but you get you do get to choose what you hand down to the next generation, which is one reason we're doing this series.

And it's one reason I want you to think about what the wounds are and the scars that are left from those wounds, because if we don't address it and we don't talk about it, as I as I said, we kind of sweep it under the rug, it will resurface at some point.

And you potentially will hand it right just on to your children.

And your unhealed, your unaddressed issue will become their wound, eventually their scar.

And then there's inflicted scars.

These wounds are caused by other people.

Betrayal, broken trust, abandonment, words spoken over us.

Listen, there are some of us in this room that have had things said to us, said to us by our parents, said to us by family, said to us by friends, said to us by somebody in school.

And it might have been years and years and years ago, but it's never been addressed, and it left a wound and maybe a scar where there was never true healing.

And God may want to bring that out of the darkness back into the light where He can heal.

Some of us have self-inflicted scars.

These are connected to our own choices, sin patterns, addiction, anger, sexual brokenness, pride, bitterness, decisions that damage marriage, friendships, family, or a calling on your life.

There's shame over what we did or who we became.

We'll address shame in more detail in the next coming weeks.

And some wounds weren't done, they were not done to us, some wounds came through us.

Just a pastoral thought.

Naming self-inflicted wounds is not about condemnation.

Listen to me, listen to me, and listen to the heart of a pastor that loves his sheep.

It's not for you to have to live with something that's unaddressed.

And to live with a wound that maybe you think it's scarred over, but it's never been addressed.

Listen, it's not about condemnation.

This series is not about condemnation.

And I don't want you to hear that.

It may be about confession.

Because sometimes we need to confess what has had, especially what has come from ourselves.

Confession is not where God shames us.

Confession is where healing begins.

And listen to this, listen, listen.

Here's kind of the big, big, big idea, big statement.

If you don't get anything else, get this.

Because Jesus cares about our hurts.

He came to heal what is broken.

Because Jesus cares about our hurts.

He came to heal what is broken.

And you know when I talk about what is broken, what do you mean, Russ?

What do you mean by what is broken?

What is broken?

I'm talking about the separation and the broken relationship between humanity and our Creator.

That is the most important wound, a scar to address.

It's to understand that Jesus came to make us whole again.

And he can, listen, listen, there is going to be complete wholeness when we step into eternity, but why not start now with experiencing eternal life?

Jesus even prayed, he said, God, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Because Jesus cares about you.

He cares about our hearts.

He came to heal what is broken.

And that is my prayer is that we, we as individuals and as a community of Christ's followers, that we would be stronger than at the end of this series than we were at the beginning, and we will walk out of here whole and healed.

And you know why that's important?

Because there's other people in this community that are hurting, that have wounds, that maybe have scarred over, but really haven't had healing down to the core issues.

And they're gonna look to somebody else, and there's gonna be a peace that surpasses understanding in your life because you've experienced the healing that Jesus provides.

And that is their gateway, that is their open door.

So this story we're in, John 5, it's about healing.

It's not just a healing story, it's a picture of the eternal dilemma of humanity.

Bethesda was full of people close to the place of healing, but still stuck in the condition that brought them there.

And this may be the picture of the church.

It's possible to sit near spiritual things.

It's possible to be around the presence of God and still miss out on the wholeness and the healing offered right in front of us.

So can we take a look at this story, John 5?

We're gonna look at verses 1 through 15 and make some observations, hopefully, that have the potential to speak to these areas of our life where we still need the healing touch of Jesus.

And here's the first observation: Jesus sees the wound that we we've learned to live with.

A lot of us have just said, you know what, I'm gonna learn to live with this.

Jesus sees it and says, No, you're not gonna learn to live with it.

I'm gonna bring you to a place.

I'm gonna bring this out of the dark.

I'm gonna bring this to a place where you can experience healing and wholeness.

It says in verse 1, John 5, it says, after this, a Jewish festival took place, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

And so by the sheep gate in Jerusalem, there's a pool called Bethesda in Aramaic, which has five colonnades, and within these lay a large number of the disabled, blind, lame, and paralyzed.

One man was there who had been disabled for 38 years.

38 years.

He's been laying by this pool.

And when Jesus saw him lying there, he realized he'd already been there for a long time.

And he said to him, Do you want to get well?

Other translations would ask it this way, do you want to be healed?

Do you want to be healed?

So I mean, so I want you to think about areas in your in your life.

Maybe there's a feel a physical need in your life.

Maybe there is something emotional and you can pinpoint it.

Some of us hurt.

Some of us suffer with some things that are manifested in anxiety or depression.

And we want healing, but we're not sure where to start.

And maybe we need to start with just listening to the question.

This man has been, and the legend says that at this pool of Bethesda, uh the waters would be troubled, which means the waters would move.

This is some supernatural, this is supernatural type of thing.

The first one to get in the water would experience healing.

And so this man has lied.

He's been laying beside this pool for 38 years.

I mean, that's just barely, you know, almost as long as I've been alive on this earth.

38 years.

And here, let me just, so so our team works together, you know, we we we love to discuss some of these messages.

And it's it's it's a sobering thing to have, you know, to be in a small setting and to present something that you have written and to have a few other guys just rip it apart and tear it apart.

Uh but it is fun.

It's fun to talk through this because I'm I read this story and I I just have questions.

38 years.

Let me tell you this.

I don't care what my condition is.

If I think I can get over the end of this hole right here, I'm gonna find out a way.

It's not gonna take 38 years.

I'm gonna find a way.

So why?

Why 38 years?

Jesus sees the wounds that we have learned to live with.

This man for 38 years, he has a wound, and it's no longer just something he had.

It had become part of who he was.

And I think that's why he lay there for 38 years.

It became his identity.

Jimmy Evans writes a book and did a series called The Hurt Pocket on Healing and Pain.

He says, for 38 years the man's identity had been wrapped up in his affliction.

And see, the wound everybody else walked past was the wound that Jesus.

Walk toward.

Everybody, this guy became like the ugly couch in our house.

Right?

Everybody's got an ugly couch, and you don't have an ugly couch.

Well, I came to your house.

I would I would probably find something.

And I say that jokingly, we've got all kinds of ugly stuff, but we grow accustomed to it.

It doesn't bother us because we grow accustomed to it.

It could be a couch, it can be a chair, it can be it can be something you wear or a hairstyle.

I mean, you you know, there's those things that that we grow accustomed to.

Some people have built their life around the wound, the pain.

And everybody else walked past, and we we we get used to one another's pains and hurts.

And Jesus walks in the room and he walks right toward where you are.

He stated he wanted healing, but he had built a life around rhythms and patterns that kept him in his wounded state, and he seemed attached to those habits over and above his willingness to be healed.

I'm telling you, I would, 38 years I would have found a way.

I would, I mean, I I would have tried, I said, somebody push me.

I mean, I'd have been yelling, screaming, and all the other people around the pool would have been so sick of me, they would have, they would have said, please send him first, because I would have been the obnoxious person.

I mean, and so so in what ways do we do the same thing with the habits and rhythms in our life?

How we cope, how we deal, how we how we just kind of uh let it become part of us, like like the that piece of furniture in the house.

And here's the second observation: healing starts with an honest answer to an uncomfortable question.

Healing starts with an honest answer to an uncomfortable question.

I mean, think about what Jesus did when he walks upon this scene and this this the pool of Bethesda, that there would have been disabled people all around waiting for the waters to be troubled so they could dip, get into the water, and be the first ones to experience the healing.

And Jesus asked a question and it had to it had to be a bit awkward.

Do you really, and I and I'm I'm I'm this is me my paraphrase, do you want to be healed?

Do you really want to be healed?

And it's so healing starts with an honest answer to an uncomfortable question.

When Jesus saw him lying there and realized, verse 6, that he'd already been there a long time, he said to him, Do you want to get well?

And the question is the center of the message.

Jesus doesn't ask because he doesn't know the answer.

He asked in order to prepare the man's heart for a deeper revelation in his heart and life.

Listen to me.

What do I mean by deeper revelation?

It's it's it's listen it's knowing God.

See, you can know about God, which is head knowledge, but it's a huge difference of about 18 inches to go from the head to the heart.

And you can even have a relationship, you can even have eternal life, you can be a believer, and you've repented and believed, but you get mired down in the circumstances and the pain and the hurt in our world and in your own personal life.

And so he asked this question Do you want to be well?

Do you want to be healed?

See, it uh it exposes deep desire, it exposes identity, it exposes responsibility, it exposes surrender or lack of.

Jesus says, Do you want to be healed?

The man answered, let me tell you why I'm still wounded.

Oh, we've got an answer for everything.

We've got an answer for everything.

I've I've uh over over the course of uh of 30 plus years, even before I was in ministry, I I I personally have sought out counseling.

I went through counseling um in my 20s.

Uh I was in a group with adults who had grown up in alcoholic homes.

Um my wife and I have have been to counseling during our 31 years of marriage.

Uh we we've been to counseling on behalf of our kids because of what they did to us.

Um, and it wasn't all three.

Uh I won't mention which one one it is.

Um but he's getting married next year, it's okay.

Um it exposes surrender or lack of.

And the man says, hey, I I let me, Jesus, you need you need to know my story.

And I just think sometimes I there's I find humor.

Jesus, you need to, you don't want my story.

This is what because when I I counsel people, I don't know that I'm a good counselor, but I counsel people.

And this is what I hear.

If you but if you knew my story, it's different.

All of us, when it comes down to it, we've got to answer the question do you want to be healed or do you want to wallow?

In whatever physical, emotional, or spiritual dilemma you have.

Wounds need to be identified.

They need to be named so they can be addressed specifically.

Inherited wounds, inflicted wounds, self-inflicted wounds.

This plays a huge role in our healing, according to James.

What James says.

See, inherited wounds say, this is just what my family does.

This is how I was raised.

I mean, a lot of us feel that way.

I mean, that we think that it's normal to grow up with the dysfunction that we've had.

And so we, when somebody says, Do you want to be healed?

You would say, What are you talking about?

And at some point you've got to be willing to ask the Lord to reveal to you what your need for a new, fresh revelation is.

And it's in that new revelation that God will speak and reveal Himself to us and point us in the right direction.

Inflicted wounds say they hurt me.

They left me.

They were supposed to be safe.

And all those things can be true, but but but it becomes our excuse for seeking out wholeness and healing.

And then self-inflicted wounds say, hey, I chose it.

I sinned.

I stayed too long.

I hurt people.

And which leads it to James 5.16 says, therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed.

See, see, that's that's why community is important.

That's why you you what this I this is a band, this is one of my soapboxes, okay?

I I've always said I didn't want to be a soapbox preacher.

But I got I got one.

Is this idea that we can say we believe and we love Jesus, but ignore his body and his bride and his people.

See, you you can't you can't have Jesus without his people.

Jesus gave his life for you, but he gave his life for the church.

And listen, I we're all, everybody's messed up.

When I I mean I hear people talk about church hurt, I get it.

I I it's awful to hear when someone who has an author a place of authority or place of leadership, when they they mess up, and especially when they take advantage of people under their responsibility, it's a real deal.

But let me tell you this the the the the the expectation and understanding we should have about life is that there are people are imperfect, and imperfect people can hurt other imperfect people.

And see, we can't ask, we cannot ask Jesus to heal what we insist on continuing to hide.

Name the wound.

Here's what Jesus does.

Jesus always, listen to this, Jesus always looks deeper than our physical needs.

He is calling us into a new life.

That's what he's doing.

But look at verse 7.

It says, Sir, the disabled man answered, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up.

But while I'm coming, someone goes down ahead of me.

Get up, Jesus told him, pick up your mat and walk.

And instantly the man got well, picked up his mat, and started to walk.

Now that day was the Sabbath.

Now there, there's, listen.

I I could chase this rabbit about Sabbath, because Jesus, one of the things the religious leaders didn't like about Jesus is he would do ministry on the Sabbath.

They had made Sabbath a God.

And so Jesus even says, He said, you know, he said this this the Sabbath was was was something that was made for our benefit.

But it's not in it and it the literal Sabbath is one day a week, but there's something deeper here about this man.

That was the Sabbath.

Jesus heals on the Sabbath.

I believe Jesus is leading this man into what is true Sabbath rest.

And that's the wholeness and the healing.

Eternity will be a Sabbath.

We won't need a Sabbath in eternity.

It will be our Sabbath.

And so part of the truth of the Sabbath, which we don't practice in the modern church, and we probably should, but but there's something deeper.

There's a spiritual Sabbath.

How many of you like to sleep?

At least a little bit.

Some of us, if we were honest, we all have struggles.

We all have struggles with sleep.

I mean, um, and and and they say there's there's there's sleep and then there's good sleep.

Is it is it called REMs?

Isn't it R E Ms?

The best kind of healthy sleep is when you enter into the REMs kind of sleep.

It's that deep sleep that we're, I mean, it's true rest.

True kind of sleep.

And and I I have an app and my phone, and it tells me how many R E how much REM I get during the night, and it's it's probably never what I want it to be.

But there's there's a Sabbath rest, and then there is a Sabbath rest.

And it's the R E M type of Sabbath where you truly, truly step into a relationship with God, that I mean everything around you feels like it is falling apart.

I mean, have you ever been on a trip with your kids and and they fall asleep and like they're and you you like, you know, you run off the road and and you almost hit something, and or maybe you do hit something, and and I mean you you can think of all the things that would wake them up and they sleep through it, and you think, man, I wish I could sleep like that.

Listen, I'm telling you that God is calling this man to understand that, hey, there is a Sabbath in your life that that will take you not just to a physical healing, but to a state, a spiritual place that is true Sabbath.

And so he gives three commands.

He says, get up.

This is a call to fate.

Jesus calls him to do on his own what he hasn't been able to do for 38 years.

Then he gives him the second command, pick up your mat.

This is a call to leave the former identity.

The mat had carried him long enough.

Now he would carry the mat.

And see, the thing that used to carry him became the thing that he carried around, and it became his testimony.

See, scars can become a testimony.

Scars don't have to just ruin your life, they don't have to consume you.

Scars can be something that are used for the glory of God and the good of other people.

They become part of your testimony.

So the mat, Jesus picked up your mat.

That's no longer your identity, that's your part of your testimony.

And the third command is walk.

This is a call to leave behind the old.

2 Corinthians 5.17 says, says, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, new identity.

The old has passed away.

Behold, all things have become new.

And that's what, that's what I believe at the heart of what Jesus is getting here, right here.

Healing, listen, Jimmy Evans says this again.

He says, healing is not just about being free from something, it's about walking into something new.

Which leads us to this observation of this the healing will challenge the rhythms and habits that kept you stuck.

That have kept you stuck.

Verse 10, so the Jews said to the man who had been healed, This is the Sabbath.

The law prohibits you from picking up your mat.

He replied, The man who made me well told me to pick up your mat and walk.

Who is this man who told you?

Pick up your mat and walk, they asked.

But the man who was healed did not know who it was because Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.

See, religious leaders don't understand, religious leaders right here, they don't celebrate the healing.

Isn't it crazy?

Isn't it crazy?

We don't suck, and this is where churches go really sideways.

Rather than celebrating and focusing on what we're here for, which is to glorify God and to make sure that we lead people into a relationship with God that is that is made visible by the obedient step of going through the baptismal waters and beginning the journey of following Jesus and being a part of his church.

They're not celebrating the healing, they're critical about the mat.

Sometimes when people begin to heal, not everyone knows how to respond.

Some people prefer you wounded.

It's what they're accustomed to.

Some people, listen, I know that some of you have have grown up in a maybe an irreligious family.

You got saved and your family didn't know what to do with you.

And so they they they they they're they make up things to be critical about.

Well, that church.

I know that pastor.

That church, man, you know, you you could go on, they can everybody they're gonna come up with an excuse.

They don't know how to respond.

Some people prefer you wounded, some people know that they they only know how to relate to the old version of you.

Many religious people focused on the rule being broken.

Jesus saw a man being restored.

The goal of this series is not to make everyone relive your pain.

That was my concern.

Going into a series like this, is it's gonna stir up some things.

And so, in a second, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna have a time of prayer, and and I and I I want some things to be stirred up in your heart.

Because it's when you are stirred up that God can do the work.

It's when you come to the altar, you take a physical step, you ask somebody to pray for you, to pray with you.

Which brings us to the final observation.

Our healing is rooted in the wounds experienced by Jesus on our behalf.

Our healing is rooted.

In verse 14, after this, Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, He finds this man.

He says, See, you are well.

Do not sin anymore.

That's what he tells him.

So that something worse doesn't happen to you.

The man went and reported to the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well.

Therefore the Jews began persecuting Jesus because he was doing these things on the Sabbath.

And Jesus responded to them, My Father is still working, and I am working also.

I am working.

God was working.

God was speaking through his prophet Isaiah.

And he prophesied that our healing would come through the wounds of Jesus, through the affliction of Jesus, through his stripes, we would be healed.

It says there, Isaiah 53, 5 and 6, but he was pierced because of our rebellion, crushed because of our iniquities.

Punishment for our peace was on him, and we are healed by his wounds.

We all went astray like sheep.

We've all turned our own way, and the Lord has punished him for the iniquity of us all.

All of us.

Jesus can heal wounds because Jesus carried wounds all the way to the cross.

The resurrected Christ still had wounds.

He still had the marks from his crucifixion.

But they were no longer signs of defeat, no longer signs of death.

They were signs of victory.

They were marks of victory, that he had crushed the head of the serpent.

And the very first prophecy in Genesis 3.15, where it says that the serpent would bruise his heel, but the seed of the woman would crush his head.

Yes, hallelujah.

And so the question is, are you do you want to be healed?

Do you want to be well?

And some of us have been carrying stuff for way too long.

So in a moment, we're gonna we're gonna go into this time of response, and and and it sure it's a time we've sing, but it's also a time for us to possibly deal with the mess and to let Jesus into our mess.

And when we let him step in to the places where we have been wounded and where the scars are still are still relevant in our life and have power over us, he says, Come to me and I will set you free.

So the question is, do you want to be well?

Do you want to be healed?

Or do you want to let this secret thing that you've been hiding in the past that goes way back in your past, are you just gonna continue to sweep it under the rug where James says, confess your sin one to another, confess something one to another.

Listen, there's healing that happens in the community of Jesus.

And so as we as we prepare to just spend a moment in response and prayer, I'm gonna ask, man, if if if if David and Pat and Jonah would come, I'd love to have one or two ladies that feel comfortable praying with other ladies.

I'm looking around the room, but if you if that's you and you feel comfortable, just go ahead and make your way up here.

And and I want to I'll listen, I don't want you to sit just sit there or stand there and just say, you know what, I'm gonna I'm gonna let just kind of let this moment slide by.

No, listen.

Monty, would you would you help us?

And it's it's an opportunity for us to step into the healing waters that Jesus provides through his wounds, by his stripes.

See, Jesus, that's the gospel story.

He came, he lived a perfect life, he surrendered his life, he was beaten and nailed to a cross.

By his wounds, Isaiah would prophesy 700 years before that we would find healing.

If you're here and you never put your faith in Christ, all you've got to do is come and one of us will be glad to pray with you.

You say, Russ, I'm I'm not really sure, but I know that I'm hurting.

I know I'm wounded, I know I'm I'm hurting.

And if you don't know what it is, just come and and and ask for for us to pray for a new revelation.

God says, God says, hey, he's telling this man, he's saying, Listen, I'm not just healing you for the purpose of healing you and and just so you can take your mat and you can walk around.

No, I'm trying to bring a new revelation into your life, a new identity, a new, a new purpose, a new significance.

So will you pray with me?

Father, thank you for your goodness and your grace.

And as we close this time, Lord, I pray that people would put aside their pride, put aside their excuses, God, that they would they would consider this question, do you want to be healed?

And then and then simply obey what Jesus has called us to do, which is to address it.

Get up, pick up our testimony, and walk.

So Father, I pray that people would take steps, physical steps, and ask for healing through prayer.

Maybe you've got a physical wound.

Maybe you have an emotional wound, maybe it's spiritual, maybe you don't know Christ and you want to know him.

There's people we're here, we're here and available to pray for you.

Thank you, Jesus.

We pray all of these things in the precious name of our Savior.

We thank you.

Thank you for the cross.

In Jesus' name, we pray.

Amen.

Could y'all stand?