HS & Healing

Charise

Shane Sullivan

Sermon • Submitted a year ago • Presented a year ago

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The Holy Spirit and Healing

In case you’re wondering, I didn’t choose this topic. I gave the weeks that I was available around my work schedule and healing happened to fall on this one. To say I was happy about this would be a straight up lie. I talked to my mom about it and she recommended I asked for a trade. Cheryl was willing to move things around, but by the time I talked to her about this Empowered series, I had already cried twice talking to the HS about healing. I figured that meant that he wanted to push into this with me, and hoped that it meant that he had something meaningful to say to some of you through this as well. So, if you don’t mind, let’s stop and pray right now that his healing and meaning would come through and my pain and any residual areas of pain would stay out.

Thank you.

It struck me this week that I am incredibly blessed. I have an amazing spiritual family heritage. I have parents who love the Lord and try daily to live their lives based on his principle and direct direction. I’m told that one of my 3rd word was “Jesus”. I promise this is from no inherent virtue on my part. If you doubt this, just ask my sister. My parents taught me to take everything to him in prayer and as a family we would base many of our life choices on what we felt the HS told us to do even if it seemed foolish from a natural standpoint. When my sister struggled with hip pain after growing 6 inches in 6 months, my father sat her down in a chair and saw that one of her legs was an inch and a half shorter than the other. We prayed as a family and watched her leg grow out right there in that moment in our living room. Though we spent my youth vacillating above and below the poverty line, my parents found ways to send me on mission trips which they valued greatly. While in Mexico in my early teens, we were doing a service and a lady limped in with a cane. When the time came, I knelt down and prayed for her knee which was red and swollen. When she left it was without her cane or a limp. No warmth or swelling could be seen in her knee. Just in case you are wondering, I don’t know what I prayed for her. I prayed in tongues which I have been doing since before I can remember. Later that night the translator asked me why I had been having her translate for her when I spoke perfect Spanish. Guys, jut the day before the Mexican children were laughing at me because my Spanish was so poor when I offered them a bible as “un regalo”. Unfortunately for me, my spiritual gift of Spanish has not lasted and kids generally laugh at my meager attempts at it once again. Besides my parents, my grandmothers were, and one still is, some of the most God fearing women you will ever meet. They have dedicated their lives to their God, their King, their Master and their friend. I have seen the Holy Spirit move since I was in a crib raised by a family passionately in love with their God. So how do I end up dreading talking about healing and crying as the Holy spirit presses into this topic with me? Good question.

Last week Cheryl talked about 3 views of the Kingdom of God and the Holy spirit. If you missed it, go back and listen, she did an amazing job. In the short there are Cessationist who believe the gift of the spirit were only for a time and that time was set to end. There is an argument about if this was with the death of the last apostle or with the canonization of scripture.

They use 1 Corinthians 13:8 to support this view.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears.

You can guess from what I said earlier that I did not come from a cessationist background. In fact, my up bringing left me with very little understanding of that view. I had been experiencing the holy spirit in action since my youth. In reality, I still struggle to understand it. In Revelations 21 and 22 we get a pretty clear view of what perfect looks like and what God’s end game actually is

Revelations 21:1-5

Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”

And again, in the scripture our church’s name and vision is taken from in Rev 22: 1-5

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever.

This is perfect. In a world where God’s kingdom is absolute and his will is known and done in fullness, we will not need prophesy, or tongues or words of wisdom to give us glimpses and strength from the holy spirit. The fence will be gone and we will have all knowledge and see in fullness not in part. How many of you can agree that this is not our world yet today. We still desperately need the spirit acting in power and authority in our lives and our world.

The second view point Cheryl brought up was the “Kingdom is NOW” view point. This is most commonly associated with the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements. My upbringing was always explained to me as Charismatic. We believed in a God of infinite grace and power who was here talking to us and working around us today. If you knew his will and prayed with enough faith anything was possible. My church stopped short of the “prosperity gospel” which says “anything you ask for you can have regardless of whether it is biblical, because God gives us our desires, so anything you desire is of him and he has to give it to you if you ask right. Unlike some churches that are so focused on the power and experience of the spirit, I was also taught that all religion is relationship though I still find that I sometimes want more from God and am not so interested in more of him which is a danger in this view point for many.

This view point uses scriptures like

Ps 37:4

Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart

And Matthew 21

If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.”

As I said earlier, I have seen and experienced God doing amazing things by the power of the Holy Spirit. I was raised by a family that loved God. So why the pain?

Have any of you been sure of the will of God? Sure, that he would heal or give or provide at a certain time in a certain way? Positive that it was in his will? But it didn’t happen? I have.

I mentioned that my Grandmothers were amazing women of faith, and that one still is if you recall. The other probably is as well as she laughs and plays in heaven, but for me, her loss was devastating to my heart, my soul, and for many years, my faith.

My mom’s mom was named Cecile Berg though she went by ‘Sue’. For those of you who know of the multiple spellings of my name, well… I came by it honestly. From my earliest memories of my grandma’s home Christian TV was always playing in her room downstairs. She gardened and cared for grandpa until the day he died. On the heels of his passing, she announced that she was going to college. Through a series of miraculous events, she started at Christ for the Nations Institute at 60 years of age. At 62 years of age, she graduated and went to Jamaica with a local named Peter to serve him as he pastored there. On Christmas Eve 1991, many years after Peter left, as my grandmother served Christmas dinner to over 200 people she noticed that her left foot was dragging and she could not get her left hand to her mouth. Her oldest daughter, Dusty (who’s real name was Susan. I told you I came by it honestly) became aware of the situation and brought my grandmother back the US. To our home as my mother is both a nurse and, as she tells it, grandma’s favorite child. A trip to the ER, a brain scan, and a surgical biopsy later we were told that this amazing woman had 3 months to live. The diagnosis was brain cancer. Astrocytoma grade 4. The most aggressive. She declined treatment that she was told would make her very ill and might give her 3 more months. We prayed. She and my parents felt that she would be healed. One day early in May, she fell into a coma. Her last words prior to that were “I’ll be going to Jamaica this summer.” Less than two weeks later my sister called me to grandma’s bedside as we were heading out to school. Grandma was dead. We still did not give up hope. We believed she was to be healed. We knew that God could raise her from the dead. So, we prayed. We prayed for hours before finally giving up and calling the mortician. She was dead.

There was no faith strong enough, there was no magic formula, I could not make her choose life nor could I make God heal her. In my child like faith, I had poured my heart and my soul into her and into the kingdom breaking through at this moment and this place in our lives in this way, and it didn’t. I was crushed. I quit going to church. I quit praying. I just quit.

I was experiencing the 3rd category that Cheryl mentioned “the inaugurated kingdom” some of you may know it as the “here and not yet”. Jesus talks a lot about the kingdom of God. We define the “kingdom of god” as the place where god rules and reigns as king. At time Jesus says “the kingdom of God is here” and then other times “the kingdom of God is near” but since I had a lens of “the kingdom is NOW” death meant failure. It couldn’t be God’s failure because he is perfect. It had to be grandma’s or mine. I didn’t have enough faith. I didn’t pray often or long enough. I didn’t fast enough or the right way to make God do what I wanted him to do. (As if he was a genie who had to give me what I wanted if I just rubbed his lamp the right way). I wonder, if God is compelled to do what I want if I get the formula right then who is the one in control in that situation? If he MUST do what I ask because he has given me the desires of my heart and if I ask for it in prayer he has no choice but to grant it, who really is the master in the relationship him or me? It’s a scary thought.

Anyway, rather than see this as a place of the “not yet”, I went to a fourth group that Tim brought up after church last week. The 4th view of healing is where you know that God is good and can heal and that there is a holy spirit who is active and has the power to heal, but you don’t live like it. A pastor from Colorado is fond of saying “Disappointment is the mother of bad theology”. It was for me. I quit asking for healing. I quit looking for what god was doing or where he wanted to partner with me to bring the kingdom. I went to church when I had to, not to be with, or honor God. This lasted until I moved out of my parents’ house. Then I stopped going to church altogether. In my heart, I knew there was a God. I knew he had sent his only son to die for me, and I knew that demanded a response from me, but I couldn’t give it. I was hurt and angry and felt rejected and ashamed of my failure to be or do enough for my grandma to be healed. Being resistant to the spiritual healing I desperately needed, rather than press into God and invite him to heal me and others, I left the church. I told people I didn’t want to be a hypocrite and pretend to live a life I couldn’t. I was in this spiritual place for most of a decade.

It was years before the Holy Spirit was able to reach into my heart and woo me back with his kindness and love. Shane mentioned once that some say Israel is the 5th gospel. That walking in the footsteps of Jesus speaks into your soul. Maybe he is right. In 2000, with a coworker invited me to go to the UK and Israel with a group, I went. Prior to having children, I traveled anytime and every time I could. I had no idea how I’d pay for it on my $13/hr salary, but I said yes. The trip ended up being just 4 of us me, my friend (a guy) and two of his friends from kindergarten (also guys). In Israel, all of the stories from my childhood came back. Memories. These devout Messianic Christians I was traveling with would speculate on something and I would have the answer. “well as I recall….” Or “as I understand it…”. It happened over and over again and something in me shifted. I can’t say that coming home everything changed, what I can say is by 2002 when I met Shane, the holy spirit had wooed me back to church. By the time we were married, it was by the pastor of a church I had been re-baptized in and we were attending faithfully.

In December of 2007, Shane and I joined the Vineyard church in Duluth Minnesota where we were introduced to the kingdom of God as defined by vineyard. Like looking through a picket fence into God’s kingdom. Some places you see a blank white wall and next to it you get a view of the amazing beauty of his kingdom breaking through. Jesus said in John 5:19-21

Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, and he will show him even greater works than these, so that you will be amazed. For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it.

In Romans 8:11-17 Paul writes

And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you. Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation—but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live. For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.

According to this, not only do we have an invitation to live as children of God, heirs to his kingdom and power but an obligation to do so. I would also like to point out that it is his power that does it. It is not us having “enough faith” or “doing the right thing” God doesn’t need us to heal, he chooses to let us join him. Shane pointed out a couple of weeks ago that when Jesus raised Lazarus, no one with him had any faith that it could be done. They had written Lazarus off as “Dead. Dead” “don’t open his grave lord, he is 4 days dead and will stink” Cheryl pointed out last week that at the pool of Bethesda we see Jesus heal one among many who were at the pool waiting to be healed.

Writing this I thought of the account of Jesus’ arrest. In Luke 22:47-51 we read

While he was still speaking a crowd came up, and the man who was called Judas, one of the Twelve, was leading them. He approached Jesus to kiss him, but Jesus asked him, “Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?” When Jesus’ followers saw what was going to happen, they said, “Lord, should we strike with our swords?” And one of them struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his right ear. But Jesus answered, “No more of this!” And he touched the man’s ear and healed him.

Who’s faith in this situation led to healing besides Jesus’? For sure not Peter who other gospels identify as the one who delivered the blow. The other disciples? The religious leader’s lackeys who came to arrest Jesus for being a heretic? I doubt it. We don’t make God act by our faith, he invites us to come along and partner with him in making “all things new” as we read in Revelations.

Since coming to the Vineyard, I have started asking God again to heal, to move in power through the holy spirit in my life. I have continued to see victories: To partner with God to see his kingdom breakthrough in lives for physical, mental, emotional and even spiritual healings. I have also had losses. Though grandma’s death was the most devastating loss for me, its not the only one. My brother-in-law died to cancer at 35 leaving my sister with 4 young children and a broken heart in 2010. As a congregation here we have lost Nabeel and Rob in the last few years. While these did not put me in a 10 year tailspin I have struggled with understanding the here and not yet. To keep reaching out to embrace the kingdom and to risk and ask for healing specifically physical.

This is part of what the Holy Spirit has been healing in me over the last few weeks as I’ve processed through the topic of healing. Charles Montgomery, a pastor from the Columbus Vineyard said it well “real faith expects a “yes” but can endure a “no”. Real faith is asking God for what you want him to do, and where you want his kingdom to break in in your life and then trusting him to get it done his way. Trusting that he is going to bring us and this world to the Revelation 21 and 22 images that we so desperately await.

I don’t know where all of you are in this, but whether you are pumped from a recent kingdom breakthrough, struggling with a “no” or are discouraged and have quit asking, I want to encourage you today to be looking for what God is doing. Look for the holy spirits activity and step forward in faith and invite God’s kingdom to break in and heal the hearts, minds, bodies and spirits of those around you. If you need healing in any of these areas, if you are struggling to ask due to past pain, please come up when service is over and let us pray that the kingdom will breakthrough for you here today.

Does anyone have a word they would like to share?

As we move towards Pentecost and await with building eagerness the celebration of the gift of the holy spirit I want to dismiss you with this prayer over us that is adapted from one in Lectio 365 last week

Lord as we prepare to take this time with you into the coming week help us to wait and pray for you like Your disciples in the upper room saying “Come Holy Spirit.” Prepare our hearts, provoke our souls and prime our thinking for the power of another Pentecost. As Jesus says in John 20:21-22 “Peace be with you. As the father has sent me, I am sending you” and with that he breathed on them and he said “Receive the Holy Spirit.”