God’s Hospital

[SPEAKER_00]: Good morning, how you doing?

[SPEAKER_00]: When should you give the person next to you a fist bump or a high five, just wake them up a little bit?

[SPEAKER_00]: Second last weekend of winter people, there's water in the car park.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a good sign when the water starts bursting out in the car park, better days are ahead.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're nearly through it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Overflowing church series, talking about the church as a hospital today,

[SPEAKER_00]: When I was at university, which feels like about a hundred years ago, about twenty-five years ago, I studied social work at university and part of my social degree.

[SPEAKER_00]: Four-year degree, every year we had to do place what we called placement, like work experience, where they train you to actually do the job that you're learning to do in the classroom.

[SPEAKER_00]: And in the fourth year, the final year, your placement is the entire final semester, four hundred hours.

[SPEAKER_00]: For free, you work for free, four hundred hours.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because, you know, they want to make sure before they let you lose on people that you know what you're doing.

[SPEAKER_00]: especially in a profession like that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you get to put in preferences about where you would like to do your placement.

[SPEAKER_00]: And they give you all these options and they say list them from top to bottom in order of what you'd really like to do at the top and what you would really like not to do at the bottom.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're very last.

[SPEAKER_00]: And they aim to give you top one or two because they want you to actually enjoy what you're doing so that you will actually go on to be a social worker.

[SPEAKER_00]: The very last preference on my list was to be in a hospital.

[SPEAKER_00]: If I could have not even put it on there, I wouldn't have put it on there.

[SPEAKER_00]: Just not my favorite place.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know how you feel about hospitals mixed reviews, probably.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're grateful there there when we need them, but we generally would prefer not to have to go if we don't have to.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not great with smells like all of those hospital smells, and so I thought that is the last place.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want to go anywhere but there.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sure enough, where did I get placed?

[SPEAKER_00]: Hospital.

[SPEAKER_00]: And on my first day I thought right, day one of like ten weeks of this, sign up, lock in, get ready.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was on the neurosurgery board, so an amazing place to be, working with people with brain injury and all sorts of things.

[SPEAKER_00]: But it was an incredible experience.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, the funny thing is I actually really enjoyed it and it turns out I was, I worked there.

[SPEAKER_00]: I got a job from my placement and I spent ten years working in that same hospital.

[SPEAKER_00]: And by the time I left, I had worked on every ward in that hospital.

[SPEAKER_00]: Having people know, there are a lot of hospitals are busy places.

[SPEAKER_00]: Most of the time people are in hospital because they're unwell or they're injured.

[SPEAKER_00]: But there are lots of other things that happen in hospitals.

[SPEAKER_00]: Babies get born in hospitals.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, people go for health education, screenings, check-ups.

[SPEAKER_00]: They go to visit other people who are in hospitals.

[SPEAKER_00]: They are very, they're like many cities, hospitals.

[SPEAKER_00]: Lots of different things that go on there.

[SPEAKER_00]: And today we're talking about as part of these series.

[SPEAKER_00]: We've talked about the Church as an Army, a people who are not militant but mobilized.

[SPEAKER_00]: We've talked about what did we talk about last week, the Church as a family, a place of belonging.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so today we're talking about the Church as a hospital.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's a curious thought, but when we think about the life of Jesus, his ministry was marked by healing and hope.

[SPEAKER_00]: You only have to just open the gospels to see.

[SPEAKER_00]: From the moment Jesus started his public ministry to the moment he went to the cross, it is just full of healing stories of healing and stories of hope as he moved through cities preaching the gospel and healing people.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so, Jesus healed people physically.

[SPEAKER_00]: Mark chapter four, twenty three, we read about Jesus that he healed every disease and sickness among the people.

[SPEAKER_00]: But what I love about Jesus' ministry is that he didn't just stop at physical healing.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus care always addressed the whole person.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's stories of emotional healing in scripture.

[SPEAKER_00]: We read about Jesus' ministry in Luke four and what was prophesied about him in Isaiah, sixty one as somebody who came to bind up the broken hearted.

[SPEAKER_00]: and bring liberty and freedom to those who were bound.

[SPEAKER_00]: We see stories of spiritual healing, the restoration of someone's relationship with God, renewal of heart and mind, and the breaking of sins power over someone's life through the power of the Holy Spirit.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we see physical healing, we see emotional healing, we see spiritual healing.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want to have a look at Queen at three quick occasions.

[SPEAKER_00]: of stories in scripture where Jesus ministered healing and hope to people.

[SPEAKER_00]: First one's this, you'll have heard some of these stories before.

[SPEAKER_00]: The paralytic man, we read about him in Luke chapter five, and it'll be on the screens for you.

[SPEAKER_00]: It says this, one day while Jesus was teaching some Pharisees and teachers of religious law were sitting nearby.

[SPEAKER_00]: It seemed that these men showed up from every village in all Galilee and Judea, as well as from Jerusalem.

[SPEAKER_00]: and the Lord's healing power was strongly with Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: So men carrying a paralyzed man on a sleeping mat.

[SPEAKER_00]: So men came carrying a paralyzed man on a sleeping mat and they tried to take him inside to Jesus but they couldn't reach him because of the crowd.

[SPEAKER_00]: So they went up to the roof and took off some tiles.

[SPEAKER_00]: They lowered the sick man on his mat down into the crowd right in front of Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the man, young man, your sins are forgiven.

[SPEAKER_00]: But the Pharisees and teachers of religious law said to themselves, who does you think he is?

[SPEAKER_00]: That's blasphemy, only God can forgive sin.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus knew what they were thinking, so he asked them, why do you question this in your hearts?

[SPEAKER_00]: Is it easier to say your sins are forgiven or to say stand up and walk?

[SPEAKER_00]: So I will prove to you that the Son of Man has the authority on earth to forgive sin.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then Jesus turned to the paralyzed man and said, stand up, pick up your mat and go home.

[SPEAKER_00]: And immediately, as everyone watched, the man jumped up, picked up his mat and went home praising God.

[SPEAKER_00]: And everyone was grouped with great wonder and awe, and they praise God, exclaiming we have seen amazing things today.

[SPEAKER_00]: So this story, there's a clear obvious need here, a clear physical need for healing in this man's life.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's paralyzed.

[SPEAKER_00]: But what's fascinating about this story is that before Jesus addresses his physical need, Jesus actually addresses a deep in need of forgiveness of sin.

[SPEAKER_00]: curious.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I want to say this, Jesus is not saying that every physical illness or disease is linked to sin in your life.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's not saying that.

[SPEAKER_00]: What is he saying?

[SPEAKER_00]: More importantly, what is he doing?

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus in this story, he's revealing his power to heal and his authority to forgive.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus is addressing an immediate need.

[SPEAKER_00]: The man's physical healing is an immediate need, but he's also addressing an even greater eternal need.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's how Jesus comes to us.

[SPEAKER_00]: He addresses the whole person.

[SPEAKER_00]: He cares about our immediate needs, but he also cares about the eternal need that each one of us have.

[SPEAKER_00]: Next story, the woman caught in adultery.

[SPEAKER_00]: You'll know this from John eight.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus returned to the Mount of Olives.

[SPEAKER_00]: But early the next morning, he was back again at the temple.

[SPEAKER_00]: A crowd soon gathered and he sat down and taught them.

[SPEAKER_00]: And as he was speaking, the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees brought a woman who'd been caught in the act of adultery.

[SPEAKER_00]: They put her in front of the crowd.

[SPEAKER_00]: Teacher, they said to Jesus, this woman was caught in the act of adultery and the law of Moses says to stone her, what do you say?

[SPEAKER_00]: They were trying to trap him into saying something they could use against him, but Jesus stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger.

[SPEAKER_00]: They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, all right, but let one who was never sinned through the first stone, and then he stooped down again and wrote in the dust.

[SPEAKER_00]: When the accusers heard this, they slipped away one by one beginning with the oldest until only Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd with the woman.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, where are your accusers?

[SPEAKER_00]: Didn't even one of them condemn you?

[SPEAKER_00]: No Lord, she said, and Jesus said, neither do I go and sin no more.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know about you, but probably in my top three things to ask when I get to heaven is what were you writing in the sand.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't actually matter because the story is so powerful.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I love this story because here we've got a woman, there's moral failure here, there's spiritual failure here.

[SPEAKER_00]: The consequences for adultery in this time was execution by stoning.

[SPEAKER_00]: Fairly brutal would you agree?

[SPEAKER_00]: So things aren't looking great for her in this moment.

[SPEAKER_00]: But it's incredible because Jesus doesn't condone her behavior here, but what he does do is meet her with compassion.

[SPEAKER_00]: And again, addresses her deeper need for freedom from condemnation and extends to her an invitation to a new way of living.

[SPEAKER_00]: He calls her towards transformation, he says go and send no more.

[SPEAKER_00]: A second chance.

[SPEAKER_00]: So again, we see Jesus addressing the whole person.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a beautiful story.

[SPEAKER_00]: One final story, and then I want to make some observations.

[SPEAKER_00]: But this is a story from Mark chapter five.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus and the demon possessed man.

[SPEAKER_00]: Says this.

[SPEAKER_00]: So they arrived at the other side of the lake in the region of the garrisons.

[SPEAKER_00]: When Jesus climbed out of the boat, a man possessed by an evil spirit came out from the tombs to meet him.

[SPEAKER_00]: The man had lived in burial caves and could no longer be restrained, even with a chain.

[SPEAKER_00]: Whenever he was put into chains and shackles as he often was, he snapped the chains from his wrists and smashed the shackles.

[SPEAKER_00]: No one was strong enough to subdue him day and night.

[SPEAKER_00]: He wanted among the burial caves and in the hills, howling and cutting himself.

[SPEAKER_00]: This story is heartbreaking.

[SPEAKER_00]: Can you just imagine the torment of this man howling and cutting himself?

[SPEAKER_00]: with sharp stones.

[SPEAKER_00]: When Jesus was still some distance away, the man saw him, ran to meet him and bowed down before him, bowed low before him.

[SPEAKER_00]: With a shriek he screamed, why are you interfering with me Jesus, son of the most high God?

[SPEAKER_00]: In the name of God I beg you, don't torture me.

[SPEAKER_00]: For Jesus had already said to the Spirit, come out of the man you evil spirit.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then Jesus demanded, what is your name?

[SPEAKER_00]: And he replied, my name is Legion, because there are many of us inside this man.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then the evil spirits begged him again and again, not to send them to some distant place.

[SPEAKER_00]: There happened to be a large herd of pigs feeding on the hillside nearby.

[SPEAKER_00]: Send us into those pigs the spirits begged.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let us enter them.

[SPEAKER_00]: So Jesus gave them permission.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the evil spirits came out of the man and entered the pigs.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the entire herd of about two thousand pigs plunged down the steep hillside into the lake and drowned in the water.

[SPEAKER_00]: Verse nineteen, Jesus said, now go home to your family until them everything the Lord has done for you and how merciful he has been.

[SPEAKER_00]: So the man started off to visit the ten towns of that region and began to proclaim the great things that Jesus had done for him.

[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone was amazed at what he told them.

[SPEAKER_00]: Crazy story.

[SPEAKER_00]: Big big story.

[SPEAKER_00]: Can you imagine seeing two thousand peaks running down a hillside into a dam?

[SPEAKER_00]: Even that is just a sight to behold.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I just want to make this observation again.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus addresses the whole person in this story, healing the mind and the inner life of this man's spirit and soul.

[SPEAKER_00]: and beautifully restores him from a place of isolation back into community.

[SPEAKER_00]: And not only that, as he goes, we see that healing is deeply connected to kingdom witness.

[SPEAKER_00]: The man goes back to the ten towns and to his family, testifying about what Jesus has done for him.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I want to just make this observation, Jesus came not just to treat symptoms, but root causes in our lives.

[SPEAKER_00]: not just to band aid our wounds, but to bring us into abundant life, not just to address immediate needs, but eternal needs.

[SPEAKER_00]: The eternal need that each one of us has.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the church's mission is to continue Jesus' ministry offering healing of forgiveness and care and restoration and hope to one another into the community around us.

[SPEAKER_00]: The church, as God's hospital, should be a place where the sick are welcomed and not shamed.

[SPEAKER_00]: The church should be a place where brokenness is met with grace.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the church should be a place where people are not just patched up, but they're restored to life and to mission and sent back into the world renewed to carry hope and healing to others.

[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then the church is God's hospital, not the building.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're not talking about the building or the auditorium.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're talking about the people us.

[SPEAKER_00]: We are God's living, walking, breathing, hospital, the overflowing church.

[SPEAKER_00]: So every hospital is made up of words, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: When you go to hospital, the first thing you do is go to admission.

[SPEAKER_00]: And some people turn up her admission, limping, or even on a stretcher if it's not a good scenario.

[SPEAKER_00]: Others turn up at admission in God's hospital, curious, and hungry, and looking for some kind of deeper meaning in life.

[SPEAKER_00]: Other people turn up reasonably healthy, but they're looking for a place to thrive and a place to grow and a place to be stretched.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus welcomes everyone.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus welcomes everyone.

[SPEAKER_00]: You go to admission and admission, you get triaged.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you know what happens at triaged?

[SPEAKER_00]: It's the community that actually helps in identifying people's needs and directing them towards the care that they need inside of God's hospital.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes the church is an emergency department.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're dealing with critical needs and people at a time of crisis in their life and that could be really practical things.

[SPEAKER_00]: Coming around people at a time where perhaps in a season of grief and loss, maybe there are really practical life challenges going on for people and the church is a place where we provide urgent care for those in crisis.

[SPEAKER_00]: and those in spiritual crisis.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the big idea is that in God's hospital, people don't have to get well first.

[SPEAKER_00]: The invitation is to come as you are.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, sometimes we think we have to sort of dust ourselves off and patch ourselves up to be presentable to Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: But in his hospital, he says, come as you are.

[SPEAKER_00]: Mark II, spare seventeen says, healthy people don't need a doctor, sick people do.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I've come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know that they are sinners.

[SPEAKER_00]: So how do we respond as a church?

[SPEAKER_00]: We respond with overwhelming compassion.

[SPEAKER_00]: Really, practically in our church, it looks like the

[SPEAKER_00]: support we provide through discovery community care.

[SPEAKER_00]: It looks like pastoral care and it looks like prem industry and partnering with other services in our community to make sure that people get the care that they need.

[SPEAKER_00]: It looks like being a safe place to wrestle with big questions about faith.

[SPEAKER_00]: So sometimes the church is an emergency department.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes the church is a surgical theatre.

[SPEAKER_00]: Actually, do you know what?

[SPEAKER_00]: This is a fun fact for you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Matt and I actually worked in the same hospital.

[SPEAKER_00]: He trained as a nurse back back in his early days.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we worked in the same hospital and he was often in the surgical theater as part of his role.

[SPEAKER_00]: We used to pass it to other in the hallways sometimes.

[SPEAKER_00]: Have little lunch dates.

[SPEAKER_00]: Moving on.

[SPEAKER_00]: The church is sometimes a surgical theater.

[SPEAKER_00]: Who knows what happens in surgical theaters?

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, sometimes God needs to cut away what's unhealthy in order to bring us to a place of healing.

[SPEAKER_00]: John fifteen pruning for fruitfulness.

[SPEAKER_00]: We don't love it, but it's essential sometimes.

[SPEAKER_00]: Says this, I'm the true great vine and my father is the gardener.

[SPEAKER_00]: He cuts off every branch in me that doesn't produce fruit and he prunes the branches that do bare fruit so that they will produce even more.

[SPEAKER_00]: Big idea is that in God's hospital, we're being transformed day by day, more and more into his likeness.

[SPEAKER_00]: for kingdom fruitfulness.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes the church in God's hospital is a maternity ward.

[SPEAKER_00]: There are two kinds of new life that happen in God's hospital.

[SPEAKER_00]: People come to faith in Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: Amazing.

[SPEAKER_00]: We see salvation decisions and we love that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Listen to this scripture from

[SPEAKER_00]: One Peter, chapter one, in his great mercy, he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.

[SPEAKER_00]: So in God's hospital, new life gets celebrated, it gets protected and it gets nurtured.

[SPEAKER_00]: But new life also happens through the spirit.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we read this in Joel chapter two, your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams and your young men will see visions.

[SPEAKER_00]: There are new dreams that get birthed in God's hospital, new assignments, new sense of call, new sense of purpose for people.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's a place where those dreams and those visions get nurtured and we're able to gather around one another and send one another into the mission that God has for us.

[SPEAKER_00]: God's Hospital has a children's ward.

[SPEAKER_00]: And in the children's ward, if you read the story of Jesus and if you read the gospels, you will notice that children are never on the outside.

[SPEAKER_00]: They are always drawn to the center of the story in Jesus' ministry.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the church is God's hospital is exactly the same.

[SPEAKER_00]: Children are drawn to the center.

[SPEAKER_00]: They get celebrated.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus welcomed children.

[SPEAKER_00]: He blessed them.

[SPEAKER_00]: He even held them up as the very picture of what faith looks like.

[SPEAKER_00]: faith like a child and for us it looks like having a priority on the next generation and intentional discipleship of our young people and preparing them for what life holds for them for kingdom impact and you know sometimes when we talk about kids in our young people we say oh the future's bright

[SPEAKER_00]: But do you know what I want to say?

[SPEAKER_00]: The future is bright, but today is bright too, because kids are not just the church of tomorrow.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're the church of today.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're right at the center, and they carry something.

[SPEAKER_00]: They carry gifts.

[SPEAKER_00]: They carry faith, and they carry a capacity for encounter that the whole body needs.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's as why we do things like every heart Sunday, and we create an intentional discipleship moment.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because our kids in our young people have something to offer the church, the bigger wider body of believers.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we want to celebrate that and we want to nurture that and protect that.

[SPEAKER_00]: So good.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes the church is an aged care ward.

[SPEAKER_00]: And in God's hospital, I want to be clear, the aged care ward is a place of honor and of comfort and of wisdom sharing.

[SPEAKER_00]: And our older generation isn't sideline, but they're celebrated as the carriers of our faith heritage.

[SPEAKER_00]: They have an important voice, listen to this from Psalm ninety two.

[SPEAKER_00]: Even in old age, they will still produce fruit and they will remain vital and green.

[SPEAKER_00]: I love that and we need the voices of our older generation in our church so that we can be a place of that overflows with healing and hope.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes the church is a recovery ward.

[SPEAKER_00]: of place for people who need rest and recovery after a difficult or painful season, and the church should be a safe place to rebuild and be restored, isn't it?

[SPEAKER_00]: We should be a living expression of Psalm twenty-three, creating room and space for people to engage with God's presence as a place of green pastures and quiet waters, because sometimes that's what people need.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes the church is a rehab ward,

[SPEAKER_00]: helping people regain strength and confidence after they've had setbacks.

[SPEAKER_00]: I love this from Isaiah Forty.

[SPEAKER_00]: He gives power to the weak and strength to the powerless.

[SPEAKER_00]: Even youths will sometimes become weak and tired and young men will fall in exhaustion, but those who trust in the Lord will find new strength.

[SPEAKER_00]: And they will saw high on wings like eagles.

[SPEAKER_00]: They will run and not grow weary.

[SPEAKER_00]: They will walk and not grow faint.

[SPEAKER_00]: The thing is in God's hospital is that care isn't one size fits all.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we all require different things in different seasons.

[SPEAKER_00]: None of us are perfectly whole and healthy inside or out.

[SPEAKER_00]: For some of us, it means it's about healing and restoration.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I wonder where you are, where you are in God's hospital today.

[SPEAKER_00]: Are you in need of healing and restoration?

[SPEAKER_00]: For others, it's about strengthening and it's about being formed in Christ and equipped for Kingdom service.

[SPEAKER_00]: about being trained for long-term health and transformation.

[SPEAKER_00]: Some need rest, some need healing, some need training.

[SPEAKER_00]: But being a place like this for the church to be a place of healing and a place of hope, a place that overflows with that.

[SPEAKER_00]: It really rests on a couple of key truths and the first is this.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus alone is the great physician.

[SPEAKER_00]: The second thing is this, we are all

[SPEAKER_00]: patients in God's hospital in need equally in need of healing.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's no one here today that's not in need of healing in God's hospital.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the third thing is this, we're also a community of mutual care where healing gets experienced in relationship with one another.

[SPEAKER_00]: Listen to these couple of scriptures, one Corinthians twelve, if one part suffers, every part suffers.

[SPEAKER_00]: If one part is honoured, every part rejoices with it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Galatians six to carry each other's burdens and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: Healing is not private.

[SPEAKER_00]: The pain or the health of one member affects the whole body is what these scriptures are talking about.

[SPEAKER_00]: And God's hospital only works or works that it's best when it's patience care for one another.

[SPEAKER_00]: when we're not passive but we're actively walking alongside one another, carrying each other's burdens, encouraging one another, praying for one another, community life.

[SPEAKER_00]: Healing gets best experience in expressing community life.

[SPEAKER_00]: So some locating questions, what are you in right now?

[SPEAKER_00]: How are you allowing God and the community around you to carry your burdens and help you towards healing in this season, the healing that you need?

[SPEAKER_00]: And how are you helping others experience healing in their own life?

[SPEAKER_00]: When I come back to that scripture, because we're all in need of the great physicians on going care to experience wholeness in our lives.

[SPEAKER_00]: Mark II, he says, healthy people don't need a doctor, sick people do.

[SPEAKER_00]: I've come to call or not those who think they're righteous, but those who know that they're sinners.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think there's a great reminder for us there that healing and restoration is not a one-time thing, but it's a daily journey of receiving God's mercy and grace and extending that same mercy and grace and compassion to others.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, in a hospital, patients don't, when you turn up to hospital, you need to be honest about what's wrong with you, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Like you don't turn up to admission and they say, what's the problem today and you say, guess?

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think you would do that.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think when you go to triage and the person's taking the notes and they say, you know, name date of birth, what brings you in today, sir, or ma'am, and you say,

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm feeling really unwell, or, you know, my legs hanging off, I've hurt myself, or I think I've broken my arm, or whatever it might be, you tell them as best as you can, what's going on with you, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: What your symptoms are, trying to the good description to set them up well to hopefully be able to diagnose what's wrong with you and give you a great treatment plan and get you back to full health and strength and sent home again.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it is the same.

[SPEAKER_00]: I just want to say, it just takes a lot of humility and vulnerability, though, right, to be honest.

[SPEAKER_00]: But as followers of Jesus and as people who know that we're not fully whole and we're not fully healed, we have to be prepared to be able to be honest about our wounds and not make each other guess what's wrong.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because we can't really come alongside one another and help each other towards healing and wholeness.

[SPEAKER_00]: When we come before the Lord and sometimes we want to hide, we want to hide our wounds.

[SPEAKER_00]: The thing is he can see them anyway and he meets us with compassion.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's what we've read about all morning is the way that Jesus meets us with compassion and grace and moves us towards healing and towards wholeness and towards restoration.

[SPEAKER_00]: And what we read in scripture is that actually healing often begins in that place of confession and repentance.

[SPEAKER_00]: And when we allow others to carry us in prayer,

[SPEAKER_00]: Listen to this in James five, sixteen, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.

[SPEAKER_00]: Team, you can come and join me.

[SPEAKER_00]: Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so you may be healed.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, in our church we have a real value on prayer and it's because we know that prayer changes things and prayer changes us and it is

[SPEAKER_00]: It's the core value of who we are as a church and so I was thinking today we've got we've got some time which is good.

[SPEAKER_00]: It would be strange to preach a message about God's hospital and about God's healing ministry and about the way that God minister to one another and about the way that

[SPEAKER_00]: Healing gets expressed in community and to talk about scriptures that talk about the value of praying for one another and how that's connected to our healing and to our transformation and then not pray for one another that would seem strange to me if I just said awesome got it guys cool have a great week

[SPEAKER_00]: See you next week.

[SPEAKER_00]: Actually, we want to be a church that practices the things that we are learning and that we model those things.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so I wanted to create some time just this morning for us to pray for one another.

[SPEAKER_00]: And some of you will be thinking, oh no, interactive morning.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to do that.

[SPEAKER_00]: I feel awkward.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not going to be awkward unless you let it be awkward.

[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't have to be awkward.

[SPEAKER_00]: just really simple.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm not going, what I'm not going to do, don't be panicking them and make you confess your sins to one another.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not going to get you to do that.

[SPEAKER_00]: I would encourage you to do that, though, in a safe place with trusted friends.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's why we also have a value on spiritual friendships and life groups, because that's a great place to be able to walk with one another.

[SPEAKER_00]: But what I am going to invite you to do is pray for the person next to you, or just in the little group of three.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's as simple as this.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want you to think of one word.

[SPEAKER_00]: Something that you just feel that you want from the Lord or that you need in this season of your life.

[SPEAKER_00]: It might be peace.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe for you, it's strength.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it's courage.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it's clarity.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you just need wisdom.

[SPEAKER_00]: Whatever it is, what's that one word?

[SPEAKER_00]: And then, no minute, we're gonna just, I'm just gonna give you a minute or two with two or three people around you just to say, I need strength.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the person next to you, I'm gonna demonstrate for you, where's Liv?

[SPEAKER_00]: Liv, what's one word that comes to mind for you?

[SPEAKER_00]: What do you need?

[SPEAKER_00]: I think I need strength, strength.

[SPEAKER_00]: Awesome, that's all I need to know.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm just gonna say, Liv, is it okay if I just lay my hand on your shoulder?

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we should ask you that before I actually do that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Wait for you to say yes.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just gonna say, Lord, I just pray right now for Olivia, that you would just give her the strength that she needs for this season in her life.

[SPEAKER_00]: In Jesus' name, amen.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Really simple, really powerful.

[SPEAKER_00]: We don't need fancy words to pray.

[SPEAKER_00]: I just want to say if for you that feels a bit too awkward and you're not really familiar with praying you can just take a moment just a quiet moment of reflection if you I'm going to force you to do this but I'd love to encourage you to if you feel like that's something you would want to do I really pray that just a simple prayer like that is a real blessing to your week this week and feel still praying you can continue to do that quietly but the final thing that happens

[SPEAKER_00]: in somebody's hospital journeys discharge.

[SPEAKER_00]: when the doctors decide that your healthy enough to leave.

[SPEAKER_00]: But in the church, I want to say that discharge is not leaving the community.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's actually about being deployed as carriers of hope and restoration into the community.

[SPEAKER_00]: Love the book of Acts and all through the book of Acts, we read that believers are continually being sent into their neighborhoods and their workplaces and other geographical regions to become field medics in the mission.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so that's what we are as we go today.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want to invite you to stand.

[SPEAKER_00]: Actually, just want to pray a sending prayer.

[SPEAKER_00]: Send us as field medics this week into the places and the spaces you will go because tomorrow you're going to be at work or at uni or at school or

[SPEAKER_00]: Even at the park, meeting up with other parents for a play day, you're gonna be out in the field.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the Lord sends us as medics in that space.

[SPEAKER_00]: So let me send us this morning, send us Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: Would you make us field medics in our neighborhoods, in our workplaces, in our schools and our families?

[SPEAKER_00]: God, would you help us to see the wounds of others with compassion?

[SPEAKER_00]: to carry their burdens and to point them to you.

[SPEAKER_00]: God by me, may we go from this place renewed, restored, and ready to overflow with healing and hope.

[SPEAKER_00]: In the name of Jesus, the great physician we pray together this morning and everybody said amen, amen, beautiful team, would you lead us?