March 8, 2026 - The Hurt and The Healer

Join in to listen to this week's sermon from Dan MacGillivray as we prepare for the upcoming Soul Care conference.

For further information about Fort St John Alliance Church, check out our website fsjalliance.ca

Our desire is to become a community of people who practice the Way of Jesus together, and through the empowering of the Holy Spirit, live on mission to meet the social and spiritual needs of the world around us. Each week, we gather as a community to worship, learn from God’s Word, and be encouraged in our walk with Christ.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the Fourth St. John Alliance Sermon Podcast. I'm Nate Perry, the youth pastor here at the church. We're so glad you've joined us today. Our desire as a church is to become a community of people who practice the way of Jesus together and, through the empowering of the Holy Spirit, live on mission to meet the social and spiritual needs of the world around us. Each week we gather as a community to worship and learn from God's Word and to be encouraged in our walk with Christ. In this podcast, you'll hear the latest message from our Sunday service. Whether you're listening from right here in Fort St. John or from afar, our prayer is that God will speak to your heart and strengthen your faith. Let's lean in together as we hear today's sermon.

SPEAKER_00 0:46

Please remain standing. My name is Eliot Solmond, uh, and I will be reading from John 5, 1 through 9. Sometime later, Jesus went to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish vegetables. Now there is in Jerusalem near the sheepgate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethheeda, and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here, a great number of disabled people used to lie. The blind, the lame, and the paralyzed. One who had been an invalid for 38 years saw Jesus when Jesus saw him lying there, had learned that he had been in this condition for a long time. He asked him, Do you want to get well? So the invalid replied, I have no one to help me into the pool when the waters are stirred. While I'm trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me. Then Jesus said to him, Get up, pick up your mat and walk. At once the man was curteared, he picked up his mat and walked. This is the reading of the Lord.

SPEAKER_02 2:08

Appreciate that. Thanks for reading the word this morning, friend. Well, good morning, everybody. It's good to be with you this morning. I just love seeing your smiling faces, by the way. You guys look great. So keep it up. I've got a question for you since we get started this morning. Uh, how many of you have ever used the phrase that's gonna leave a mark? Have you ever said that before? Most parents have said that, right? When you want your kid face planted on the ground, right? We've said that before. Um I have been doing youth ministry for about 20 years before this, uh, about five years as a volunteer, 15 years as a role of pastor. I use that phrase more times than I can count. And every now and then it was also said about me, uh, because that's just what happens when you're doing youth ministry for that long. Um I remember uh about six, seven years ago or so, we um when I was in uh St. Albert there, uh we had an idea on my team. We should invest some money and some fun, right? We should do that. And so we bought what's called uh Zorb balls. If you're wondering what those are, they're just on the screen behind me there. Those are Zorb balls, so they're the ones that you put over your head and you get your feet underneath, right? Great investment for students. Like they love that kind of thing. Um, right? What could go wrong too, honestly, right, when you're investing in that kind of thing. I remember we ordered eight of them, and uh the day they showed up, we had them all ready to go, you know, we make sure, okay, they're all working, right? You know, they're all just kind of pumped up. Um, and we had to test them the way you're supposed to test them, which is you run really fast at each other when they're on, and you just watch each other go flying across the room. That is how you test the Zorball. We made sure that they were perfectly fine, everything worked, okay, everything is good. So we're like, okay, we gotta get it going now tonight, right? So that minute youth, we had uh four on four soccer. We thought, you know, this would be an easy way to get into trying out these fun things. And um, you know, I'd already, you know, kind of had my fun with them already early in the day, so I'm now the referee, you know, watching them play just soccer. And like most games in youth, the objective that we started with is not the objective that we end with, right? Like we we say to ourselves, okay, we're gonna try to score, but what ends up happening is they end up just playing this new game, and it's basically let's just run really hard at each other and see what happens, right? Good game. That's what we were doing earlier, so it's all good, you know, right? But so you know, everyone's laughing, we're all having a good time, brutal hits, too. Like, I'm like, oh man, you're gonna feel that, right? Like those moments, right? And I do what most youth pastors would do. Um, I noticed that there's one of our students, he's a bigger guy, he was just like totally hitting everybody, like really hard. And I thought, well, that's not right. I should help. And so and so I see him at one point, and and so you know, he has on this, I mean, a master's overball, and he's kind of turned away from me, right? Right? So he has his back, you know, to me, and I'm thinking to myself, this is perfect. I can run straight towards him, and I can just knock him flat. What a dream for a youth pastor, too, by the way, right? To knock a student down. Um, and so you know, right? So I'm like, you know, kind of getting a little bit closer, and then all of a sudden I'm just gonna run as fast as I can. So I start to book it for him, like as fast as I know how. And just then he like slightly turns and he can see that I'm coming. And he kind of crouches down like this, and then does this. Now, physics is real. That's what I've learned in this moment. Because what happened to me is he turned and hit me so hard that for those who are watching, I went about five feet in the air horizontal, right? Like I'm not even like in right, I am just like totally aboard in the air. And I came down head first and then on my neck. So the room just goes quiet, just like it did right now, right? And all I hear is a leader of mine from the other side of the room being like, that's gonna leave a mark. That's all I hear. And yeah, I can say uh that it left a little bit of a mark. Uh later on that night I had to get up to teach in front of all these kids, and I had this huge welt growing out of my head. They looked at the welt the whole time, just like that. Like they did not even pay attention to what I was saying. They just stared at me. Now, I'm willing to wager that if we went around this room, the vast majority of us have some kind of a story about leaving a mark, right? Some of the guys in this room, you know, you may have a scar from something that you did play in sports growing up or something that you'd be happy to show afterwards, perhaps, right? Or maybe there's a story around, you know, when you were on ice once and you went for a big slip and now you fell, or whatever it might be. For the most part, we can just, I mean, share these stories in a way that feels lighthearted and easy, right? Because there are things that are external, right? And it feels safe to share those kind of stories often because they can be funny, they can be lighthearted. Most of us have some kind of external mark at one point or another. We've experienced something like that. Even things with our health can feel a bit safe to share at times because at least somebody in the room has experienced something like that before. They know what it's like to be in your shoes. They have experienced it. It's probably not as lighthearted to share about your health concerns, but we know that someone in the room knows what it's like to be you. And then there's those marks that we don't talk about as much. The ones that live under the surface of what others generally see. But so often impact our day-to-day lives. The things that linger right below what we show to others, words that have been just, I mean, spoken over you as a child that have stuck. That's a mark that's left on you. Words that leave you feeling like you will never be enough, or maybe someone that you trusted and loved did something horrible to you growing up that has left a lasting imprint on your soul. They may have hurt you in the worst of ways. Maybe it's a cutting comment, maybe it's a moment of just feeling like you don't fit in, the follow-up failure, the feeling of loneliness. It's the things that are done to us and the things that we do to ourselves that often leave the deepest marks and the ones that we have such a hard time sharing. The ones that we just keep to ourselves and we don't bring out. And yet for all the hurt that we have, for all of the things that have done that have just been just I mean done to us or that you know we have done to others, we scarcely talk about it. It's so hard to share because for so many of us, the pain itself is hard to look at, right? Like it is hard to go back to those moments, it's hard to return to them. And so we just live with the shame of thinking no one can really relate to what I've been through or who I am or what I'm going through. No one can handle what I've done. No one wants to hear about the things that I did to others, and so we just keep it in. I think in this moment of culture we find different ways to cope, right? Just to kind of push it a little under the surface. We just, I mean, uh, self-medicate, right? We turn to food or alcohol or return to our screens or devices or behaviors that just distract us just enough to not think about it anymore. You turn to just things like just, I mean that control in hopes that you never have to feel that way again. You live with this harsh, just I mean, an inner critic where it's easy just to tell yourself how awful you are. That's the default in which you live. You get angry, you decide it's all about how I can help people and just make them feel good. You shut down emotionally, you try to work as hard as you can to outrun the hurt, and you avoid it because if you think to yourself, if I don't have to think about it, I don't have to feel it. We so often live in those spaces. Meanwhile, to everyone around you, everything looks fine. But what if you and I were not meant to live in the hurt? But we invited Jesus to experience healing for the soul at a deep level. What if Jesus is not only after your holiness, but he's after your wholeness too? What if he cares about both of those things? And what if the next step towards that healing requires something of you, actually? That it's not just about waiting for it to arrive, but maybe Jesus is inviting you and I to take a step towards this abundant life that he has offered us. I think as many of you know, we are just a handful of days away from uh soul care here this weekend. And I am so excited about it this weekend. All that the Lord has in store for us, for those who are going, all of our hurts, our hangups, our sins from our past are met in practices of uh confession and uh repentance and forgiveness. And so it's a weekend about giving Jesus room to start this just I mean, a journey of what it means for the soul to be healed. It's just such a beautiful time. And whether or not you are actually planning on attending, or maybe you're in just right now, in the moment, you're in a space in which you are still thinking about it, still wondering if Jesus would invite you in. I promise you he's invited you in, by the way. What I want to do this morning is I want to just, I mean, I prime the pump a little bit here, just as we kind of get ready for the weekend and all that's to come. And I want to look at a story about a man who encountered Jesus in his deepest hurt. Because there's more than what we see just on the surface. So that you're right, so whether you've been following Jesus for a long time or a short time, or maybe you're here this morning just thinking, I'm not sure at all about faith in Jesus yet. I am glad that you're here. I'm thrilled that you chose this morning to be here. And my hope this morning is that you might catch a glimpse of the abundant life that Jesus is offering to you. And that you might take a step towards wholeness this morning and all that he has for you. And so with that, let's dive into the word. If you have your Bible, turn to John chapter 5. We're gonna start in verse 1. If you don't have your Bible with you, it's gonna be up on the screen behind me as well. If it's on your uh phone, you could look on there too. John is the fourth gospel in the New Testament and gives this unique top-down perspective of the life of Jesus. It's so unique when you look at this one and compare it to the other three Gospels. And what we get from John is not only his own view of just, I mean he had Jesus and being a part of it, you know, kind of the inner circle of Jesus, which he was, but he fills in the facts about Jesus with this look from heaven. It's looking at his life the way that heaven sees it. It's a beautiful written story of Jesus. And so we see this in uh John chapter 5 that, you know, for just, I mean, just that um, excuse me, we see in John chapter 5 that Jesus' ministry is well underway and he finds himself in the city of Jerusalem, doing what Jesus does, bringing God's kingdom to bear, his rule and reign, his life, his love, his grace and mercy is going with him wherever he goes to be seen and experienced by those who encounter him. And so in verse 1, he encounters this moment with this man. This is what it says in verse 1. Sometime later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for the feast of the Jews. Now there is in Jerusalem near the sheepgate a pool, which in Aramaic is called uh uh Bethesda, and which is surrounded by five covered colonades. Here is a great number of disabled people used to lie, the blind, the lame, and the paralyzed. Right? So here is Jesus at this pool. Around the pool are five walkways that are covered up, these long colonnades that provide shade from the hot sun, and you would find people lying underneath there for shade. Right? You'd find people who were blind, people who couldn't walk, people who were sick, and they all gathered there day after day. And the reason why so many people came to this pool is because there was a belief, a legend, if it were, that every now and then at this pool there would be an angel that would come down, they would get the water stirred up, and the first person to make it to the water would be healed. Not the second, not the third, but the first. And so they just waited constantly for the water to stir up, which it rarely ever did. But they just firmly believed that if you were the first in there, you would be healed. Right? So, you know, just imagine this scene, all of these people sitting around the edge of the pool, trying to get there just in case, watching the water, waiting it day after day after week after month after year, just waiting for their healing to come from this water, hoping that if it started to move, that just maybe this time they would beat that person next to them and they'd make it into the water. You might notice here's this almost kind of like a fun fact, there isn't a verse four. Have you noticed that in your other translations? I think unless you have the King James Version, there's no verse four. That's because the uh the manuscripts we had when we wrote the King James Version were actually newer than the manuscripts that we had when we wrote the uh New International Version. And so in the older manuscripts, um, verse four is actually not in there, and so they actually chose to left it out. So, anyway, just a fun fact in case you were wondering. Um, right, so again, this scene though, right? You know, we have all these people desperate for healing from a place that actually doesn't offer healing, right? It is a legend that this happens. It doesn't necessarily mean that that's true. They come day after day, though, just waiting for it to happen, right? They come back to this place that offers nothing for them. As much as they think that it's gonna give them what they need, it actually provides zero of what they are looking for. That sounds familiar, doesn't it? Right? We're living in the most just, I mean, advanced time in history. We have information at our fingertips, loads and loads of technology for almost any issue or problem. We can figure out just about anything if we just buy this or try this, or the way to feel whole is just to do anything you want. That way you'll feel good about yourself. And the answer to all of your problems lies within you. You just need to figure it out. Yet, no matter how much we try to create, we build and we tell ourselves that we have the power to heal our own hearts, we are left with empty promises and wounded souls. It is a pool that doesn't heal. We just continue to go back, waiting for the water to stir up and it never does. We continually do this. The world does not need more wellness, it doesn't need more fixes that are quick, it doesn't need more easy answers, it needs more Jesus than anything else. We are looking for wholeness and freedom in all the wrong places. There are still some hurts that only Jesus can heal. That only he can heal. And Jesus has a not has just this, I mean, a knack for being able to spot those who need healing all through the gospels. And in verse five, he spots somebody down by the pool. It says this in verse five. One who is there had been had actually been there for 38 years. Just imagine this for a second, right? This man has been there almost 40 years, almost four decades, 38 years he comes down to the pool waiting. Right now, whether that means he's actually been living down there for that long or whether he comes back and forth every day, we're not sure. But either way, that is still an incredibly long time, right? To be waiting that long, you would think by now he would totally give up, wouldn't he? Right? Like, man, like I have been here so much. Why do I keep coming back to this pool time and time again when it hasn't happened? And yet when Jesus sees him, he asks what only feels like a condescending question to him. It kind of takes him off guard. It's this in verse 6, it says, When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, Do you want to be healed? Now, I know and you know that Jesus is not trying to be mean or sarcastic here, right? He is not trying to be anything other than loving and kind and caring. But in just looking around where this man is, right? He is surrounded by those who have been coming day after day to this pool. It is clear he's not there for the view, right? He is not there just because it feels like a good idea today. That's not it. No one is there because they don't want to be healed. Every single one of them comes to the water expecting it, hoping for it. So then why does Jesus ask him, Do you want to be healed? Why would he throw that question? I've always thought this was the strangest moment in this story. Why would he ask him that? But listen to the response that this guy has. He says this in verse 7 Sir the invalid replied, I have no one to help me into the pool when the water stirred. And while I'm trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me. He says, People keep getting in my way. He says, when the water starts to move, I'm last of the pool. Someone pushes me out of the way, whatever it is, people step in ahead of me. You see, he's looking to all the things around him that's keeping him unwell. He sees all the excuses and he says, Man, I can't get there. I've tried. Every time the water stirred, I can't make it. He looks at his circumstances and thinks, I can't get to the water. He thinks if I could just be the first one, then I'd be healed. But here's Jesus' point in his question is that he's waiting around for something that will never come. Not from there. But this man is good with that. I mean, think about it, he's been there for 38 years. You would think by now he would try something different. But he's just learned to live with it. He's learned to be comfortable on his mat right where he is. And rather than doing anything different, he just blames and he feels sorry for himself. Rather than doing anything different at all, he just looks to his circumstances. You see, this is likely all that he's known for most of his life. He doesn't have another way of being. Why are you still sitting here? Why are you waiting? Because Jesus knows that this pool is not the answer. And somewhere deep inside of this man, I think that just maybe he knows too that the pool is not the answer. You know, if you watch the show The Chosen, you've probably watched this scene if you've seen that show. It's this beautiful moment. It's breathtaking as Jesus doesn't look at the external, but looks to what is going on inside this man who's been lying there for 38 years. He dives deep and he sees that healing won't happen just by waiting around for it in the same place he's been waiting for 38 years. It's not coming there, but he is inviting him and inviting you and I to take a step towards him in a different way to find true healing for the soul. That he would do something different instead of just lying here that Jesus in a moment is going to invite him to do something different than what he's done in order to receive the healing that he's been waiting for. You know, one of my favorite authors, uh, John Orpberg, I just love that guy. He's got so many good things to say. And John has talked at length about the beauty and marvel of um Alcoholics Anonymous and the Freedom that is found there. There is this honesty and openness for those who attend, where they just come and they just share all that they are. They find freedom there because they can't hide who they are when you attend. You have to share everything about yourself. You've got to share your struggles, all of these things. It's all on the table. Everything is out in the open. In fact, there's a common question among so many people within the church, and I've heard this all my life in the church. Why can't the church be more like AA? I've heard that so often. I love what it's said by uh John Arberg. He says this. He says, I think the church can be more like AA if Christians are more willing to be like alcoholics. In fact, for years at a lot of AA meetings, they would be held in the basement of a church. Did you know that? They would actually meet in basements of churches all the time. And one of the things they would say when you walk into a church is you can go upstairs to hear about miracles, or you can go downstairs and see them. I agree with John when he says we gotta get downstairs. We've got to be open about who we are and where we've been. We hide so much. How many of us this morning walked in and said, I'm just fine? When in fact that's probably not the case. There's probably things going on under the service. We need to shed the masks of who we are trying to be. We need to take a step towards freedom. Do something different. We need to live in openness about who we are and who we've been, to show up in honesty about the things that aren't right in our souls, the things that have hurt us, the things that we've done to others, to let those things bear. But that takes courage, doesn't it? That takes a tremendous amount of courage to do something different, to take a step towards healing and wholeness. I was connecting the other day with my uh spiritual uh director, and we were just, I mean, yeah, talking about what needs to happen in order to see real change and transformation of the heart and the soul. And he said you can't just lie around waiting for that to get better. As if the pain in your life, the things you've done, the things you have done to others, things have been done to you, will be so far removed that hopefully they won't affect you anymore.

unknown 24:18

Right?

SPEAKER_02 24:18

No, can I just say this in love? And this is from uh John Arperg, he says this too. Uh spiritual power that can transform the heart cannot flow when we are pretending to be someone we're not. It can't flow when we're pretending to be someone we're not. We need to take a step forward. Look what Jesus says in verse 8. Then Jesus said to him, get up, pick up your mat and walk. And then once the man is cured, he picked up his mat and walked. Notice what Jesus didn't say. Jesus didn't say, just keep waiting. I'm sure someone will come by and put you in the water. Jesus didn't say, you know what, give it another decade or two. I'm sure it's gonna work out for you. Right? Just keep waiting there. Jesus also didn't say, let me help you get close to the water. Did you notice that? Or that Jesus doesn't take him down any further. Because Jesus again knew that this pool was empty. It had nothing. Instead, Jesus said the pathway to your healing, the pathway to your freedom is that you need to get up from where you are. You can't stay here anymore because this has nothing for you. You have to take a step. And I know as well as anybody in the room that even this moment for this man and how we experience it today, this isn't easy. It's hard to take a step. I remember my second time going through uh soul care. I've done two conferences and um I've gone through the book separately a few different times with some friends of mine. Um but the second time going through the conference, I remember when I got to the conference, I thought to myself, man, this is gonna be an easy conference. I'm good. Like I don't have anything to talk about. I have no past hurts. I dealt with that the first time, everything's good. And I remembered on the second day we got to talking about the things that have been done to you and the things that you've done to others. Right? Those deep wounds, right, that we talked about earlier here, right? Those things that we just can't shake, those things that just feel like they're just lasting on our hearts. And I remember sitting down with Jesus, it was just this time of quiet where we could just simply pause and ask Jesus, is there anyone in my life that I need to just just um um that I need to uh forgive? And as I sat there thinking about it, at first no one came to mind and I thought, oh man, Jesus, this is great. I don't have anyone to forgive. Isn't this good? And then in the moment he brought to mind someone that I used to do ministry with years ago. And we had a falling out. And it wasn't easy, it was hard. It was a very, very difficult time. And the moment that their face came to mind, I just had this like anxiety hit my heart. And I could just tell in a moment that Jesus is like, man, this is something we need to deal with because you shouldn't feel anxious about that. And so as I sat there, I thought, okay, I want to know there's something there, and he just brought me to this deep place of wholeness and forgiveness where he said, Dan, in order for you to be done with this, you need to reach out to this person and forgive them for what they've done. And I thought, man, like I can't do that. Right? Like, I don't know about you, but that's terrifying, isn't it? You know, even as a pastor for me, that can feel humbling, that can feel really scary. But yet though Jesus knows that the pathway to feeling free and whole lies just beyond what we're currently comfortable. And that he's going to ask you and I to do something that feels uncomfortable in order to experience the wholeness that he's longing for. So after that, though, I sat there for a moment and I said, Okay, Jesus, I'm willing to do that. I'm willing to do that. And then he starts this other path with me. He says, Dan, who in your life have you hurt? And right away a face came to mind of a friend of mine from years ago that I took a legalistic stand about something in his life, and I chose to not have anything to do with him because of something he chose to do. And I remember Jesus said to me, Dan, what if you had just walked with him instead of being so hard on him? And maybe you need to go to him today and ask that he might just I mean, forgive you for things that you've done. And I just sat there in tears realizing how much more of my soul needed healing, that I was operating out of these places of hurt, not even noticing it. And so later that day I reached out to both of those guys. Hard phone calls, difficult, but man, was it freeing. Just to be able to let that go. But those moments don't happen if we just simply think that we can stay where we are. Jesus is inviting you and I to move towards wholeness. You know, here's what I know this morning. I'm actually gonna invite the band up here now at this time. This weekend is uh soul care, and I know that there are many of you that are going. I've been so encouraged to see how many people are coming out this weekend. And I recognize that it is a ask to come, and that for some of you it's gonna be quite hard because you can't necessarily get all the time off of work. Like, I get that. Here's what I would encourage you to do prayerfully consider if maybe Jesus has that for you. Because, like I say, the next move of God in your life lies where you're currently lies just beyond where you're currently comfortable. That maybe there's something going on that Jesus wants to surface. But here's where to know that no matter where you are today, Jesus wants to move you towards healing and wholeness. And so our practice would be this first one here. Prayerfully consider soul care. I have now done it twice in conference, done it a few times with friends. There is always more. I'm always surprised and yet not surprised at how often I just get the sense from Jesus that there's more in my heart that He wants to pull out. Here's what I know for you there are things in your life that you don't have to carry, and that Jesus wants to provide a space for healing and wholeness in those areas of your life to confess, to repent, and then to seek his heart of forgiveness for you and for others. It's a beautiful expression. So I want to encourage you, think about soul care. I am so glad that I did this. Here's one other thing about soul care that really, really blew me away last time I did it as a conference. One of the folks that I met with, like to just, I mean, to share about what's going on in our lives. He was a guy, he was in his late 60s. And I still remember as he was sharing things that had happened to him when he was eight. After we were done the conference, he said to me, He said, I can't believe that I walked around with those things in my heart for over 50 years. I can't believe I walked around with that kind of pain for that long. Some of you in this room have been walking around with pain for decades. Jesus is inviting you to experience healing. To be done with that. And so this could be a space for you in which he's invited you in. Okay, so this is one way to do it. Here's another practice for you. Pay attention to the soul. Start noticing in your heart where you find angst about things, where things start to surface in you, because just maybe that's an area where Jesus wants to say, we need to talk about that, we need to address that. Maybe there's a hurt from your past every now and then that starts to surface. Maybe there's something that you've done to others that every time you're in the room with that person that you've done it to, you feel like there's something between you and them. This is an invitation from Jesus. He is signaling to you that there's something that's off. But you don't have to stay there. You don't have to remain in there. A great way to start this, a great way to move down this road, find a friend that you trust, that you love dearly. Could be someone in your small group, perhaps, if you attend a small group here, somebody that you know that that is a person that feels just, I mean, safe to you. Start to confess to them those spaces in your heart that just don't feel like they add up. Start to share with them the hurt that you've experienced, start to share with them the hurt you've caused, and just start to experience the freedom that Jesus has for you in this. Right? That'd be that thing. Practice confession. I love this church. I love what the Lord is doing in us, I love what he's doing through us. And I want each and every one of you to experience the same kind of healing that I've experienced. And it could be you saying this weekend, yes, Jesus, I will come to soul care. It could be you meeting with somebody in which you just start to share. It could even just be this simple practice of just starting to notice what's going on in your heart. What are the things that Jesus is surfacing that he wants to address? And just trust that Jesus will not leave you where you are. He wants to bring you out of that. He wants to meet you where you need healing the most. And so I'm gonna pray for us this morning. I'm gonna pray for you. And I'm gonna have a moment of prayer. We just pause and invite Jesus in. We're just gonna sit with him and then we're gonna close with a song here. So let's pray together. So, Lord Jesus, thank you. Lord, thank you that you care so much for us that you can spot our hurt from so far off. And Jesus, I recognize that in a room this size, that there are many sitting here today that have experienced hurt of some kind. Hurt from a friend, hurt from a family member, from a parent, hurt from a teacher, hurt from the church. There have been things in their lives that have been said to them, Lord, that have just left a lasting imprint, that just leave this mark of shame. They don't feel like they're enough. They don't feel like they will ever measure up because of the things that have happened to them. And Jesus, equally, as much as there are those in this room that have done things to others. Lord, even despite the times when we try our best to not hurt people, we end up doing it anyway. Because we are sinful, broken people. And even as a result of those things, Jesus, we walk around with shame for what we've done. We wish so much that we could go back in time and just change what's happened. But Lord, with all of these things, they just have left an imprint on our soul. They change the way we engage with people, whether or not we walk in a room and feel anxious, whether or not when we see that one person, we feel shame or sheepish around them. Whether or not even when we sit down with those that we say we love dearly, we feel like there's something between us because there's some kind of sin that's left unanswered or unspoken. And yet, Jesus, in your mercy, just like you did with this man, you come down and you say, Do you want to be healed? That we do not have to stay where we are, we don't have to continue to linger, we don't have to continue to come back to the same spot. But Jesus, you invite us into a life that is full of grace and mercy and abundance, full of peace and calm for the soul. Jesus, thank you that you don't just want us to be holy, but you want us to be whole. That you came for so much more sometimes than what we realize, that the deep parts of our heart that we feel are so wounded, you said, I have come to heal that. And Jesus, sometimes it just takes a step. And so, Lord Jesus, this morning I recognize with all that's in this room that you want to meet us in the moment. And so, Jesus, I pray that for those who are sitting here now, that you would just start to gently and calmly and just with such ease and grace that you would start to bring to mind, perhaps, Jesus, spaces and places where we need wholeness. Jesus, perhaps even now you want to bring to mind something that was done to us, that we just feel like is unresolved, that has never fully been healed, that the wound has never closed up. Or Jesus, perhaps you want to bring us to a place in which we have left a wound on someone else. And as much as we try to ignore it or run from it, it just continues to haunt us. It just continues to linger in the deepest part of our hearts. Jesus, I pray for each one in this room. If that is them this morning, and so if that is you today, if you were in a place in which you have something to bring towards Jesus, that just as you sit there, you would just simply open your hands to him in an offering to him that says, Jesus, it's yours. And so in the name of Jesus, I pray healing over this room. For those who are wrestling with the soul, for those who have deep wounds of the heart, I pray healing over each one in Jesus' name. And I pray that this today might be the start of moving towards further healing. That for some in this room it may mean having to go to someone even right after the service and saying to them that you're sorry. It may mean after the service you get home and you make a phone call. It may mean even for some of you right now that you just sit knowing that Jesus was with you in the moment you were hurt. That he knows your tears, he knows your pain, he knows all of it. So I just invite you, Jesus, come. Minister to our hearts. Jesus, would you lead us down a path of what it is to be fully healed? Jesus, would you teach us to be the kind of people that would have open hands with our lives? Lord, that we would be open and honest about where we've been and who we are. And Lord, in that practice, that we might experience deeper healing than we've ever had before. So, Lord Jesus, thank you for this church. Jesus, thank you for the ways in which you are shaping us to become more and more like yourself. And we just offer this time to you now. We just thank you for your word and we ask these things in your name. Amen.