Confess & Pray for One Another | The One Another Way - James 5:13-20 | Tony Walliser

Well again, good morning, everybody.

So thankful you're here at Silverdale worshiping with us.

I'd like to all welcome all of you here at this campus, but like to welcome all of you at all of our campuses and all of our venues and those of you that are worshiping with us online.

If I haven't had a chance to meet you personally, I'm Tony Walliser, one of the pastors here at Silverdale, and have the privilege today to share with you God's Word.

So this one encourage you to do.

Take your Bibles, open up the New Testament to the book of James.

You can turn to James chapter 5.

James 5 · chapter mention

You've got a smartphone Bible app.

You can open to James 5 as well.

And then do this.

Take out these Bible study outlines that we provide for you.

We give these outlines so you can follow along and take notes as we study God's Word together.

We have been in a series called The One Another Way.

And each week we've been looking at these one another principles that are found in the New Testament that really help transform relationships.

And so far, we've learned that we are to love one another.

We're to encourage one another.

We're to care for one another.

We are to speak the truth in love to one another and communicate well.

We are to forgive one another.

Last week we learned that we are to, you know, bear one another's burdens.

And today we're going to need all those one another principles to come together so that we can do the final one another principles.

You go, what is that?

Today we're going to learn how to confess our sins to one another and pray for one another.

You go, what?

Yes, that's in the Bible.

And so let's look at it together.

James chapter 5, verse 16.

James 5:16

Notice what God's word says.

Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed.

There's two one another principles in one verse.

Confess your sins to one another and then pray for one another.

It's not just praying, it's not just confessing.

The two go together.

Why?

What's the result?

It leads to healing.

Now, all of us, we read the end of that verse, we go, yeah, that's what I want.

I want the healing part.

God heal me physically, God healed me emotionally, God heal me relationally, God healed me spiritually.

God, I need your healing.

I got some broken stuff in my life that needs some mending.

God, would you please do that?

But confessing my sins to somebody?

I don't think so.

That's pretty vulnerable.

Don't know if I want to go there.

Why?

Because we've all learned to hide, right?

We learn that as little children.

I mean, think about it.

Whenever a little child does something wrong, what does, what do they do intuitively?

They go hide, right?

You can go into the kitchen and suddenly you see the cookie jars open.

And there's cookie crumbs all over the floor.

And you got, you know, chocolate spread across the counters, and you're like, okay, somebody's gotten in the cookie jar, and there's no child anywhere around.

And so what do you do?

Where are you?

No answer.

Where are you?

And then you hear from another room, I'm in here.

And you go to the living room, and what do you do?

You find your child hiding, you know, underneath a blanket with chocolate all over their face.

Right?

I mean, that's what we do.

And it's it's funny as a children, we know children do that.

But can I just tell you, we do that.

We've grown up and we are a little bit more mature.

We don't hide underneath blankets, we hide behind masks, we behind hide behind smiles or betwe behind lies.

How are you doing?

Fine.

Um, how's your marriage?

We're good.

Any struggles in your life?

No, no, no.

I'm good.

I'm good, right?

And the whole time you're lying, and behind that smile, you're hurting, you're struggling.

Maybe your marriage isn't good.

Maybe you're hurting, maybe you're angry, maybe you're bitter, maybe you're struggling with something you thought you overcame years ago and now it's back in your life and you feel ashamed.

What's the point?

Here's the principle.

What stays hidden often stays powerful.

Let me just tell you something.

What stays hidden often stays powerful.

If Satan can keep something hidden in your life, he's got power over you.

And so James says, the way you break that cycle is confess your sins to one another.

See, I hope that you know church is the safest place.

You don't have to hide here.

Now, what's interesting is that James, he's gonna describe in James chapter 5 a church, a church filled with strugglers, people that are sick.

James 5 · chapter mention

Some people that have wins and celebrating, but others that, you know what, they're confessing sins, they're praying.

You got some people wandering away, and others people that are coming back, right?

How do we do that in a church?

Well, James is gonna tell us how we do that as Christians in James chapter 5.

James 5 · chapter mention

Four principles I want you to jot down.

Number one is this first of all, we need one another in our struggles.

We need one another in our struggles.

The problem is that when I'm struggling, I want to handle it myself.

Now, personally, true confession, I'm a very independent person, right?

I mean, basically what I say is I don't want to inconvenience anybody, right?

I don't want to inconvenience anybody and ask for help.

But God showed me, Tony, that's really pride.

That's what's really going on there.

I mean, I think an example of this is a number of years back, we're having some flooring done in our house, and um, they were gonna, you know, pay, I mean, I mean, you would pay a fee for them to move the furniture from that room.

And I'm like, I ain't gonna pay somebody to move my furniture, I'm gonna do it myself.

And so the problem is there were I had two couches in that room, and I had to bring them upstairs to get them out of that room.

That's a problem by yourself.

But I'm like, okay, I can shift it here, I can push it there, I can maybe flip it up the stairs.

Can I just tell you it was ridiculous, right?

Finally, I did call somebody for help.

Well, James says there's times in our life when we we call for help.

Notice again what he says.

He starts it off, verse 13.

Is anyone among you suffering?

He should pray.

Is any among you cheerful?

He should sing praises.

If any among you is sick, you call for the elders of church.

Three times he's asked the question, is there any among you?

And the assumption is there is.

There's some sick people here, there's some suffering people here, there's some praises here and wins that are here, but you know what?

There's some joy here, but there's some needs here, there's some prayers that are needed here.

And the and the point is that your Christian faith is not a solo project.

I mean, your faith is personal, but it's not private.

We need one another.

Now, here's our problem.

We believe this lie.

Nobody else is struggling like this, right?

That's a lie.

We're all strugglers here, right?

Notice how the apostle Paul says this in 1 Corinthians.

He says, No temptation has come upon you except what is common to humanity.

We all got struggles, we all got brokenness in our life, we all have a little dysfunction in our families.

The apostle Paul in Romans 7 says, Ah, the things that I don't want to do, I do.

Oh, wretched man that I am.

Who's gonna save me from this wretched self that I am, right?

And the fact is, Christ alone, but he's given you the body.

Because what do we do?

We only show what we want people to see, right?

I mean, you don't see the real me.

You only see the person I portray to be, right?

I mean, we're we're all like icebergs.

You got the little bit of ice that's above the water, and then you got the largest part that's underneath the water that nobody sees, right?

And so what do we do?

We portray, okay, everything's great when everything, everything may not be great.

The marriage may be struggling, there may be some strain, there may be some fear, maybe some guilt, maybe some shame, right?

Maybe some struggles and habits that are going on.

You go, how do I get past this?

I can't share this with anybody.

And so what does James say?

James says, okay, first, you do things individually, like what?

All right, if you're suffering, pray, right?

Talk to the Lord.

See, why is it that prayer is often our last resort rather than our first response?

Rather than staying up in the middle of the night worrying and counting sheep, why don't you talk to the good shepherd?

And go to him in prayer.

And then whenever he answers prayer, he says, anybody got some praises?

Hallelujah, celebrate those.

But then he says, Hey, is any of you sick?

And what's real interesting about that word sick there, it means literally without strength.

You feel feeble, you feel unable to do it on your own.

You you're sick, yes, you you may be physically, emotionally sick, but you're without strength.

An independent self says, I can handle this on my own.

And guess what?

A lot of us we can coast through life on our own when things are smooth sailing, but guess what?

Storms come and they hit every one of us.

And whenever the storms come, that's when we realize I can't do this on my own.

And a crisis comes, and we need the church in those moments.

Now, as a church, it's real interesting.

Of course, we have a huge church, and we have a lot of people that reach out to us for us to assist them and help them, and we try to do the best we can.

We have a couple hundred thousand dollars that we have in our budget every year to help people out, you know, church members and non-church members.

But what's amazing is that sometimes I'll get emails or we'll get phone calls at the church office, and they'll say, Hey, we attend Silverdale, and you know, could you see us or do this or whatever it may be, whatever the need may be.

And so what I typically will do, I will look in our church database.

Okay, our church database has about 15,000 people in it.

So it's we got a huge church, a lot of people, okay?

And so I first look in the church database, and if I don't see your name anywhere, that tells me something.

You may attend, but you're not really a part of Silverdale, right?

Because the fact is, is that you know what?

If you are a member of Silverdale, that means you've gone through a new member class, you would be in the database.

Or if you had joined a small group, you'd be in the database.

If you served on some ministry team and you volunteered around here for something, you'd be in the database.

If you gave just one dollar to our church, you'd be in the database.

And so if I look for your name and you're not in the debate database, that's telling me something.

That's saying you're not really involved in this church at all.

You go, but I attend.

Okay, great, you attend.

But are you really making this your church?

Because folks, you know, if it you're saying call for the elders of the church, that presupposes something.

You're part of the church, right?

So if you want help, you need to be a part of the church.

That's what the Bible's telling us here.

Now, I know, you know what, being a member of the church doesn't make you a Christian.

But being a Christian without being connected to the church makes no sense at all.

That's like saying, you know, I'm a football player, I just don't have a team.

Okay.

I'm married, I just don't have a spouse.

Well, that doesn't make any sense, right?

It doesn't make any sense.

The truth is, is that if you are married to Jesus Christ, you're a follower of Jesus Christ, then you are part of the bride.

The bride is the church of Jesus Christ.

Folks, quit dating the church.

Say I do, and get involved.

Go through one of our new member classes.

I've I've put on your outline, a QR code of just upcoming new member classes.

Almost every month we'll have a new member class, right?

Where you, you know, you can sign up for one of these.

And you go, well, I can only take make it at the one at Appison Campus.

No problem.

We are one church in like six locations.

That's okay, right?

You wherever you take your new member class, you're part of Silverdale, right?

And then after you join our church, join a small group.

Start getting real people in your life.

That's where real church happens, is in a small group.

Can't happen in a room with a thousand people.

Or, and then after that, find a place of service and plug in.

Why?

Because all of us are going to have the storms hit us, and we need people around us that we can call to pray for us in those moments.

And if you're not connected, guess what?

You're not going to experience what God's really wanting you to experience.

So the first thing is that we need each other in our struggles.

But James gives us a second principle, and it's this.

Jot this on your outline.

We must be willing to be honest.

We must be willing to be honest.

Now, this one another command is one of the most difficult commands in the Bible.

We are to confess our sins to one another.

You go, oh, I don't know if I can do that.

That would mean I would need to be really vulnerable with somebody.

Again, look at it.

Here's the command, verse 16.

Therefore, confess your sins to one another, right?

What does that mean?

That means you bring the thing that's been hidden out to the light.

And what do you do?

You call sin.

You confess your sins to one another.

We're not gonna, you know, whitewash this and sanctify it and say, well, it was just a mistake.

No, it wasn't a mistake, it was sin.

Well, I sort of got a little out of control.

No, you got angry and you were out of control and you spewed your hate all over that person.

Well, I, you know, we got a little communication problem.

No, you got bitterness and anger, and that keeps coming out in the relationship.

It's time for us to quit acting like we don't have a problem or we excuse it away.

No, call it what it is, it is sin, right?

And so James says we've got to confess our sin to one another.

This is really where I'm struggling here.

But one thing that James is not doing, James is not creating another human mediator between us and God.

Listen, we don't need another mediator.

We got Jesus, right?

It's not like we're creating a new priest system around here.

Okay, go confess to this priest and he's gonna forgive you of your sins.

That's ridiculous.

I mean, the fact is, the Bible says we have one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.

And so God alone can forgive sins.

And so what do we do?

Whenever you have a sin, you go to the Lord with that sin.

You confess that sin, you repent of that sin, and He's faithful and just to forgive you of that sin and cleanse you of that sin.

That's what the Bible promises.

But guess what?

There's times when we struggle that we then need to go, I need to confess this to somebody else.

Because I need somebody else praying with me, holding me accountable in this situation.

And the goal is not humiliation, the goal is healing.

Okay?

Now you may go, okay, what does it mean to confess your sins to one another?

What we are not saying, we're not saying that, okay, you come up on stage and you just, you know, you know, air all your dirty laundry and all the sins of your past.

And there's been churches that have done that, right?

But that's not what James is saying here.

In fact, here's a principle.

You can see it on the screen.

Confession should fit the reach of the sin.

Confession should fit the reach of the sin.

That means, okay, if I've done a public sin that has brought shame to the church of Jesus Christ, then guess what?

That needs to be a public confession, right?

But if there's a private sin, then you confess it between you and that person, or you and God, right?

You offended your spouse, you you confess that to your spouse.

Or if you're struggling in an area, you've confessed it to the Lord, it's private, but then you go to a trusted friend and say, hey, I'm struggling in this area.

Why do we do that?

Because what we hide keeps hurting us.

If we're not honest, we're never gonna get healed.

I mean, think of it like this.

Imagine you have a splinter in your finger, and you go, okay, uh, this hurts me, but I'm gonna hide it.

I'm gonna put a band-aid on it.

Does it heal?

No, it doesn't heal.

You you touch, well, it still hurts.

Why?

Because you you you've covered it up.

What do you got to do?

You gotta take the band-aid off.

You gotta expose it, you gotta get some tweezers, you gotta pull the thing out, and then the healing can begin.

That's what happens with sin.

So many times we have sin that we hide and we think that we're gonna be okay.

We're not.

It destroys us.

Notice how King David puts this in Psalm 32.

He says, When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long.

My strength was dried up as by the heat of the summer.

He's saying, when I was silent about my sin, it was consuming me.

It was literally making me sick.

And so let's be honest with each other.

Okay?

If you've had a struggle with a certain habit or sin or hang up or hurt in your past, and you said, I got it, I can handle this, I can overcome this, I can I can get past this, and you've tried year after year after year, and you keep failing, it's time for you to confess that to somebody else.

It's time for you to get somebody else involved in that area of your life.

You can't do it by yourself.

James is saying, confess your sins to somebody else, have them pray with you, have them walk with you.

That's how you're going to experience healing.

Now, if we as a church are going to do this, then that means we've got to be the safest place on the planet, right?

Jot this on your outline.

We must become a safe place for confession.

We must be a safe place for confession.

So if you become vulnerable and you confess something to another Christian and you say, Hey, would you pray for me, hold me accountable, check on me, would you please do that?

And then suddenly that confession turned into a conversation with somebody else, and you started gossiping about them, right?

Or they they confess something and suddenly they got condemnation from you and shame from you.

You know what's gonna happen?

They're gonna go, I ain't never doing that again.

There's no way I'm gonna become vulnerable in that place because it's not a safe place.

But let me quickly add this safe does not mean sin is approved.

Let me say that again.

Safe place doesn't mean that we're going to approve your sin.

No, we're gonna speak the truth in love.

Jesus was full of grace and truth.

Listen, you confess sin, there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

We're not gonna give you shame here.

We're not.

But we're also not going to just allow you to stay in that sin.

We're not gonna love you enough to say, hey, this is wrong.

You need to repent of that and turn away from that.

See, we live in a culture today that says this you must approve my lifestyle, and if you don't, you're not loving me.

That's a lie.

You can love somebody, and you can say, hey, I'm not gonna shame you, I'm gonna accept you, I'm gonna, you know, no condemnation on you, but at the same time, I'm gonna tell you the truth.

This is wrong, this is sin, right?

And so you go, where do you find safe places like that?

Well, you may have a close friend that you can do this with, or maybe in your small group you can do this with.

I am so thankful in our church.

We started a ministry at our church called Celebrate Recovery.

Celebrate Recovery is amazing.

Yeah, you can do to celebrate recovery, it's true, right?

I mean, the fact is, is that our Celebrate Recovery meets every Thursday night here at the Bonnie Oaks campus at the um you know student ministry building at 630.

And um, and it's a place where you can be real with other Christians.

It's a safe place.

And you've got hurts and hangups and habits that you can't seem to get past.

Well, guess what?

This ministry is here for you to provide the healing of Jesus Christ in you.

And so, if you want more information about celebrate recovery out in the atrium, there's gonna be folks that are out there to answer questions.

You can, there's a QR code that can get information about it as well.

We want you to experience healing.

That is a great place.

And so, here's a simple question for you to ask yourself today.

Ready?

Who knows the real you?

Who knows the real you?

Not the Sunday morning image that you portray to everybody else.

Who knows the real you?

Can I just tell you?

I'm your pastor.

I need people in my life.

I'm in a small group.

Why?

Because I need it.

I have an accountability partner.

Why?

Because I need it.

I'm broken just like you're broken.

We need each other.

And so that's what the church is for.

And so if somebody does come to you and they say, hey, this is where I'm struggling with you, pray with me.

You know what?

Again, don't turn that confession into a conversation.

That's private between the two of you.

It's a treasured trust that you now have to love them, encourage them, speak the truth to them, walk with them, but you know what?

They've invited you into a healing moment.

So don't mistreat them.

Okay?

So, first, we need each other in our struggles.

Second, that means we've got to become vulnerable and honest.

But then there's a third thing.

Jot this down.

Number three is this we should pray for one another.

We should pray for one another.

It's not just enough to confess to one another.

No, we need to pray to one another, pray for one another.

Verse 16 confess your sins to one another and pray for one another.

Why?

So that you may be healed.

Can I just tell you, prayer is one of the greatest ways that you can take the hurts that are in people's lives and enter into that hurt with them and bring them to Jesus.

You go, Pastor, I can't heal their marriage.

I know, neither can I.

I can't fix their problems.

I can't either.

Um, I can't resolve their issue.

I can't get rid of their past.

I I I can't um help them overcome that.

I can't neither can I.

So, but what does prayer do?

Prayer takes what we can't do and puts it in the hands of the God who can do anything.

I mean, I can't raise the dead, so what do I do?

I take your needs and bring it and put it in the hands of the one who conquered sin and death and hell, and he can bring life back again from those things that are dead and dying.

That's what prayer does.

And so James says that's what we need to do with each other.

Now, what's real interesting here, we typically do something else.

Somebody shares something with us, and what do we say?

We give the little Christian little talk.

We say, Well, I'll pray for you.

Okay, I'll pray for you.

And sometimes we do, but many times we forget.

James does not say, promise to pray for one another.

No, he says, pray for one another.

So what does that mean?

That means when somebody shares something heavy with you, you just say, Hey, can we pause right now, stop, and pray?

And you just take that hurt, you take that hang up, you take whatever they've confessed, and you just take it to the Lord and you talk with them.

And man, something healing happens in that moment.

Now I know James anticipates that some of us are gonna object to this.

They're gonna think, now, wait a minute, we get that elders they can pray, God's gonna answer that prayers, but for the rest of us, can we really do this?

And so what James does is he knows that objection is coming, so he points us to a man who had struggles just like us, a guy named Elijah.

Look at what it says in James 5, 17.

Elijah was a human with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the land.

Now you may go, Elijah?

I mean, he's like an Old Testament superhero.

There's no way I could be an Elijah.

Listen, James brings up Elijah not to make prayer inaccessible, but to make it accessible.

Why?

Because Elijah was a guy just like us.

He had struggles like us.

Elijah was a guy who struggled with depression.

He had suicidal thoughts, he ran, he had fears in his life, he had issues, and yet he was a great prayer warrior.

Why?

Because he believed in God.

He had faith in God.

Listen, listen, faith is not some self-sufficiency or bravado, oh God, uh, you must do this.

No, it's dependency on the Lord.

You know, we take our little mustard seed of faith and we put it in the hands of a big God.

Prayer is powerful because God is powerful.

So we go to the Lord in prayer.

James is inviting us.

He's saying, hey, you know what?

Stop the secrecy.

Let's start intercession.

Why don't we stop the isolation and commit to community?

Why don't we stop self-reliance and start dependence on the Lord?

Pray for one another.

But there's one final principle James gives us in our passage, and it's this.

Jot this down.

Number four, we go after those who've wandered away.

We go after those who wander away.

Now, so far in our passage, the person who's struggling has the responsibility to reach out to somebody else and say, Hey, would you pray for me in this way?

Right?

But now James ends this book with people who, you know what, they've gone and drifted so far away, they can't reach out.

So we've got to reach out to them.

Notice how James ends this book, verse 19, he says, My brothers and sisters, if any among you strays from the truth and someone turns him back, let that person know that whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death and cover a multitude of sins.

James says, Hey, you became a follower of Jesus?

Awesome.

Hallelujah.

If you start wandering away from Jesus, we're coming after you, okay?

Now what does it say?

It says that we stray from what?

We stray from the truth.

Now, how do we stray from the truth?

Well, it's a slow fate, it's a gradual process.

I mean, we don't wake up one morning and go, I don't think I'm gonna follow God anymore.

No, it is a gradual step away from the Lord.

I've seen it hundreds of times.

Let's just say, okay, Bob the businessman.

Bob the businessman, he's involved in church and he's really plugged in and he's serving the Lord and everything's great, and um man, his family's being raised in the church, and man, Bob is all in.

But then Bob's business really starts getting successful.

And suddenly Bob, you know what, his priority is no longer the Lord, it's it's just the business.

He thinks about business, all business, all business all the time, right?

So what happens?

You see this slow process happen in Bob's life.

That suddenly, you know what, ministry and service, oh, it's just an inconvenience.

Or, you know what, his attendance in church, oh, it's just sporadic.

And next thing you know, the marriage is struggling.

And why?

Because he's made his business God rather than Jesus his God.

And so what's happened?

He's crowded the Lord out.

And it was a slow fade away from the Lord.

So what do you do when you see somebody who's wandered away from the Lord?

Well, you have a responsibility to go to them.

This isn't just the elders go after them.

No, all of us are called to a ministry of reconciliation.

You as a parent, you see your child or grandchild drifting, try to reach out to them, bring them back.

Got a spouse that's drifting away, try to bring them back.

You got a friend who's drifting away, try and bring them back.

That's what we're all called to do.

You go, how do we do that?

Well, we studied this verse last week.

Look at it.

Galatians chapter 6, verse 1.

Galatians 6:1

If someone's overtaken with a wrongdoing, you who are spiritual, restore such a person with a what?

A gentle spirit.

Gentleness matters, right?

You don't go to another person with a holier than thou attitude.

I'm a saint, you're a sinner, let me look down on you.

No, can I just remind you, we're all broken, and if not for the grace of God, there go I, right?

And so we don't come with a superior attitude, we come with humility.

I can remember there was a man in our church who had drifted away, and God brought him back, and he he explains the situation like this.

He says, I felt like I was in these deep waters and I was drowning, and I couldn't make my way back.

And I had some Christian friends who were standing on the shoreline and they would yell verses at me from the Bible, but it didn't help.

But then I had a friend that swam out to me, put a life vest around me, held on to me, and wouldn't let me go.

And then his concluding thought was this sometimes love has to get wet.

It's true, right?

Whenever I've done this, I go through this process, I will pray.

I'll say, I'll pray, Lord, um, would you please remove the fog from their mind, the deception is that that is there that it's caused them to drift away from you.

And then I'll pray, Lord, will you make them receptive to me talking with them?

God, work in my heart.

Help me to have the right spirit and the right gentleness and love as I say this.

And then I go to the person and I say, Hey, you know, I see these things going on, and it breaks my heart.

And how can I help you?

You know, get back to the Lord.

What's going on?

How can I help you?

And it's amazing.

Sometimes just a conversation like that will turn a person back to the Lord.

Now it doesn't always work, right?

Sometimes people will just shut you down, right?

Sometimes they'll get mad at you.

Jesus said there's times when you're casting pearls before swine.

You go, what?

Jesus called people swine?

Yeah.

He goes, what does that mean?

He goes, whenever you're trampling under your feet the truth of God and you turn and attack somebody, you go, okay, okay, I don't need to keep trying to reach out at this person.

It's it's not not what God wants me to do anymore.

But the fact is, God really does use us to bring people back.

That's what the community is about, that's what the church is all about.

Let me close with this.

A number of years back, there was a mining accident in Philadelphia.

There were these nine miners that were stuck 240 feet below the earth in 55 degree water.

There was a documentary done called Nine for Nine.

And these guys survived three days, and everybody considered it a miracle because they're like, no one could survive those conditions for three days.

How did they survive?

Well, in their um, the book that was written about that event, this is what they said.

They said, we decided early on that we're either going to live or die as a group.

When one of us would get cold, the other eight would huddle around that person and warm him up.

And whenever the other person got cold, the favor was returned.

Everybody had strong moments, but everybody had weak moments as well.

And when one guy got downed, the rest of us pulled together, and that is how we survived.

Well, church, that's how we survive as well.

We cannot do this thing by ourselves.

And so quit hiding.

Come out in the light, find a group of Christian friends that you can be real with.

Why?

Because this is a spiritual hospital for broken people, and you are welcome here.

I mean, think about it.

You broke your arm, you go to the hospital, would you go?

I'm so embarrassed that you got to look at my broken arm.

No, that's what it's made for.

Folks, this is a hospital for broken people.

If you're struggling, if you're suffering, welcome.

This is the place where you'll find healing, but we only find healing God's way.

Amen.

Let's pray together.

Father, thank you so much for your word.

I thank you, Lord Jesus, for showing us how desperately we need you and how desperately we need each other.

Lord, forgive us for our self righteousness, for our self independence.

God, I pray that we would be the church, we would be the community of believers that we so desperately need here today.

God, even in this moment, would you speak to us and bring healing to our body?

We pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.