Beyond the Hurt Pocket: Is God a Healer or a Life Coach?

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:00:00] Good morning, everybody. It is good to see you this morning. It's wonderful to be here. You are stuck with me for the next four weeks. I'm coming back for four weeks to preach at you guys. So I'm doing this series. It's called The Hurt Pocket. And I want to talk about hurt. This is called Life Hurts, But God Heals. And I want to talk about just the pain that we go through in life. For four weeks, I want to talk about this issue of how we deal with pain. I want to, in this message,
[00:00:33] I wanna talk about the five emotional facts of life.
[00:00:36] And just the things that we need to understand about our emotions when we're dealing with pain.
[00:00:41] The first is, the first emotional fact of life is life hurts.
[00:00:45] You're not gonna get out of this thing without getting hurt.
[00:00:49] Sin, parental failure, the things that our parents do, the death of loved ones, disappointments, rejection, the devil, and all the different things that happen in life, we're just gonna get hurt.
[00:01:01] It's inevitable.
[00:01:02] The second emotional fact of life is, unless we deal with pain properly, when it occurs, it accumulates within our hearts.
[00:01:10] It just doesn't go away.
[00:01:12] And the two unfortunate realities about pain is, few of us know how to deal with hurts.
[00:01:17] You know, when you're growing up, and I remember when I was growing up, here in Amarillo, is that, you know, there was pain in my life, some very deep pain in my life.
[00:01:26] I didn't know how to deal with it, so I just didn't.
[00:01:27] I just stuffed it.
[00:01:29] It caused problems, unbelievable problems until the Lord healed me later on.
[00:01:34] A lot of my behavior growing up was just the pain that I was going through, but I didn't know how to deal with that.
[00:01:39] I don't think anybody does, unless you've got really good parents or something like that.
[00:01:43] The other unfortunate reality is time heals nothing.
[00:01:48] You hear the statement that time heals all wounds?
[00:01:51] No, it doesn't.
[00:01:52] See, if you cut your body or if you hurt your body, There's just a natural healing process that takes place.
[00:02:00] It's just automatic.
[00:02:01] It's the way our bodies are.
[00:02:02] When your emotions get hurt, emotions only heal in light.
[00:02:07] As long as your emotions are hidden, you're hurting and you're stuffing it and you're hurting and you don't know how to deal with it.
[00:02:13] In my opinion, emotional pain gets worse with time, not better.
[00:02:19] And so when I started, I started on staff here at Trinity in August of 1982 as a counselor.
[00:02:26] a marriage counselor and a counselor.
[00:02:29] And one of the first counseling, no one ever trained me.
[00:02:32] They just put me in an office and started sending people in there.
[00:02:34] God help everybody that I talked to back then.
[00:02:37] You know, I don't know what I told them.
[00:02:38] But this man came in to see me.
[00:02:41] I was 28 years old when I came on staff here.
[00:02:45] I was young one time.
[00:02:46] Did you know that?
[00:02:47] I was young one time.
[00:02:49] But I was 29 years old and this guy came in to see me and he was 60 years old.
[00:02:53] This man was 60 years old.
[00:02:54] And he sat down in my office and he talked to me for about 10 minutes.
[00:02:58] He started sobbing.
[00:03:00] I mean, he was just in tremendous pain.
[00:03:02] The pain that he was in was over something his father said to him when he was 10 years old.
[00:03:09] 50 years later, and the man was still hurting terribly every single day over a word that was spoken to him 50 years ago.
[00:03:18] Time heals nothing.
[00:03:19] You have to bring things into the light, into God's light before they heal.
[00:03:23] Here's the third emotional fact of life.
[00:03:26] accumulated pain and unresolved problems compromise our mental emotional spiritual and relational health the more pain that we have that accumulates within our hearts and i call this the hurt pocket that pain drops into our hurt pocket and the more full that hurt pocket becomes
[00:03:45] the more it compromises us and our ability to relate to other people our ability to relate to God and things like that. More fear, less trust, wrong concepts of God, a fear of intimacy, control issues, those kinds of things. So I grew up here in Amarillo. I grew up in the deadest
[00:04:02] church in the history of churches. It was awful. Uh, I did, I never heard the name of Jesus in the church I grew up in when we were, when we were at my brothers, my older brothers, Damien and Lucifer,
[00:04:13] when they, in our family, when you turn 13, you didn't have to go to church anymore, which my parents never went to church.
[00:04:18] I never saw my parents in church.
[00:04:20] Now they became believers later on.
[00:04:23] But when my brothers turned 13, they stopped going to church.
[00:04:27] So I went, grew up in this church till I was 13.
[00:04:31] Never heard the name of Jesus.
[00:04:34] I tried to listen to the pastor.
[00:04:36] He was just boring, just terribly boring.
[00:04:39] I mean, he just never said anything interesting at all.
[00:04:41] And I was listening, trying to.
[00:04:43] The people were mean.
[00:04:44] I was, you know, I was a little kid.
[00:04:45] And I understand, you know, they probably, I was annoying, but they just didn't like kids.
[00:04:50] I mean, there was nothing fun at the church to do.
[00:04:53] It was just, they didn't like kids.
[00:04:54] And so when I was 13, my concept of God was terrible.
[00:04:58] I never wanted to go back to church again, number one.
[00:05:00] So then growing up, I went to Paramount Terrace Elementary School.
[00:05:05] And now this is, before I tell this story, I wanna say this is by no means the worst thing that ever happened to me.
[00:05:10] There are things that I can't talk about, I may never talk about.
[00:05:13] But this is what I'm gonna tell you about.
[00:05:15] It affected me when I was growing up.
[00:05:17] So my brothers went to, my brothers and I went to Paramount Terrace Elementary School.
[00:05:22] Back then, there wasn't kindergarten back then.
[00:05:25] That's why I am the way I am.
[00:05:26] I never went to kindergarten.
[00:05:27] I was done it.
[00:05:28] So you started in first grade and you went to sixth grade.
[00:05:31] That was elementary school.
[00:05:33] And so my brothers went six years at Paramount Terrace, both of them.
[00:05:36] When I was in the fifth grade, they changed the boundaries.
[00:05:39] And so they told me, you can't come back to Paramount Terrace next year.
[00:05:43] You've got to go to Coronado Elementary School.
[00:05:45] Well, I hated it.
[00:05:46] Well, I mean, it was traumatizing for me because all my friends were at Paramount Terrace.
[00:05:51] So the first day of school the next year, when I was supposed to go to Coronado, I went to Paramount Terrace.
[00:05:56] Instead of going to the right school, I went back to the old school.
[00:06:00] And I walked in and I stood in the hallway there and they said, hey, Jimmy, all my friends said, we thought you were going to Coronado.
[00:06:07] I said, no, I go here.
[00:06:09] And they said, what class are you in?
[00:06:10] I said, what class are you in?
[00:06:12] And they told me, I said, that's the class I'm in too.
[00:06:15] I mean, this is pitiful, it is horrible.
[00:06:16] So I walked into the class and sat down and the teacher said, Jimmy, I don't have you on my roll.
[00:06:21] I said, yes, ma'am, I'm in your class this year.
[00:06:23] And she said, well, why don't you go down to the office and get a slip and bring it to me and then I can let you be in my class.
[00:06:31] Well, that wasn't good news.
[00:06:32] So I went down to the principal's office.
[00:06:34] My principal's name, Mr. Thorne.
[00:06:36] And he scared me to death.
[00:06:38] Now later, as an adult, I knew him.
[00:06:40] He was the sweetest Christian man in the world.
[00:06:42] But I went down to the office and Mrs. Mullins was in the office there.
[00:06:45] And I walked in, she said, hey, Jimmy, I thought you were going to Coronado.
[00:06:47] I said, no ma'am, I go here.
[00:06:49] And I said, but I do need a slip for my teacher to know I go here.
[00:06:55] And she said, wait for Mr. Thorne, he'll be here in a minute.
[00:06:57] That was not good news at all.
[00:06:59] So Mr. Thorne walked in the office and did a double take when he saw me.
[00:07:02] Now I knew Mr. Thorne well, let me say that.
[00:07:06] He recognized me easiest from the back.
[00:07:09] I'd been in the office a few times.
[00:07:11] So he walks in the office and does a double take.
[00:07:15] And so Mrs. Mullins walks up and tells him, you know, Jimmy should be at Coronado, but he's here.
[00:07:20] He was so sweet to me that day.
[00:07:22] He drove me over to Coronado.
[00:07:26] He put me in his car, drove me.
[00:07:27] So I was just traumatized at Coronado.
[00:07:31] Nothing against the people at Coronado.
[00:07:32] I had a horrible year.
[00:07:33] I did the worst things in my entire life over at Coronado.
[00:07:36] Then I got word that I could go over to Crockett, the school that I would have gone to if I was at Paramount Terrace.
[00:07:42] I could go to Crockett in junior high where all my friends were.
[00:07:45] HAD A TERRIBLE YEAR AT CORONAVIRUS. I THINK, WELL, I'M GOING TO GO TO CROCKETT NEXT YEAR.
[00:07:48] SO I WENT TO CROCKETT, PLAYED FOOTBALL, BASKETBALL, RAN TRACK, HAD TWO FANTASTIC YEARS, ALL MY FRIENDS, MADE NEW FRIENDS, ALL THAT KIND OF STUFF. THEN THEY INFORMED ME THAT I HAD TO GO TO STEPHEN F. AUSTIN IN THE NINTH GRADE. I COULDN'T STAY AT CROCKETT. I HAD TO
[00:08:02] GO TO STEPHEN F. AUSTIN IN THE NINTH GRADE. AND I COULD SEE TASCOSA HIGH SCHOOL FROM MY FRONT DOOR, but they told me I had to go to Amarillo High School in high school.
[00:08:11] Amarillo High School was downtown.
[00:08:12] That's before it burned down and they moved over here.
[00:08:14] So again, I was traumatized.
[00:08:17] So my parents went down and met with the school administrator and the administrator said, well, Jimmy can stay at Crockett, but he can't play sports.
[00:08:25] But when he gets to Tascosa, he can play sports.
[00:08:26] We'll let him go ahead and go to Tascosa and he can play sports.
[00:08:28] So my parents came home and told me, they said, well, you can stay at Crockett, but you can't play sports.
[00:08:32] I said, why?
[00:08:33] They said, they didn't tell us.
[00:08:34] They said, you can't play sports.
[00:08:36] And I said, well, okay.
[00:08:37] So I stayed at Crockett and just supported my friends.
[00:08:40] And so they were playing football.
[00:08:42] So I was in the ninth grade.
[00:08:43] My friends were playing football.
[00:08:44] I was at the game.
[00:08:45] And there was one of those vending trucks at the end of the football field.
[00:08:49] And I walked down there to get a Coke.
[00:08:51] I went down there and got a Coke.
[00:08:52] And the cheerleaders from the other team, I knew some of them, and they walked over and said, hey, Jimmy.
[00:08:57] And so I walked over and talked to them for a minute.
[00:08:59] And I walked over and finished the game and stuff like that.
[00:09:01] So the next day I got to school and there was a note that I was supposed to go to the principal's office.
[00:09:07] which was not shocking.
[00:09:08] I was just thinking, why are they asking?
[00:09:11] What did I do that they're asking me for?
[00:09:12] There could be several reasons they're asking me to come down there.
[00:09:15] I was just trying to figure it out.
[00:09:16] So I go to the principal's office and the principal, Mr. Wooldridge, who's a member of the church here for many years, he said, okay, bend over, you're getting swats.
[00:09:27] And I said, excuse me?
[00:09:29] I didn't do anything wrong.
[00:09:30] I was thinking, what have I done?
[00:09:32] And he said, bend over, Evans, you're getting swats.
[00:09:35] I said, Mr. Waldron, what did I do?
[00:09:38] He said, you know what you did.
[00:09:39] And I said, I have no idea what I've done.
[00:09:42] He said, yesterday at the football game.
[00:09:45] I said, okay.
[00:09:47] He said, when you went to that vending truck.
[00:09:50] I said, yeah.
[00:09:52] And he said, and you talked to those cheerleaders.
[00:09:54] I said, uh-huh.
[00:09:56] He said, you cannot go to the other side of the field during a football game.
[00:10:00] It's against the school rules.
[00:10:02] And when you pass that, I took like three steps past the vending truck.
[00:10:05] He said, when you pass that vending truck, you were on the other side of the field when you were talking to those cheerleaders and I bend over, you're getting swats.
[00:10:12] I said, you're giving me swats for passing that vending truck?
[00:10:15] He said, yeah.
[00:10:16] So he gave me like four hard swats.
[00:10:19] I mean, that's when my spirit broke.
[00:10:21] And I was mad.
[00:10:24] You know, swats never bothered me.
[00:10:26] Now, this is just a word to the wives.
[00:10:28] If they would have ever made me do detentions, I would have been nice.
[00:10:31] I didn't mind swats, I just hated detentions.
[00:10:34] So he swatted me.
[00:10:35] So he, I was mad.
[00:10:37] And I went back to class and I was so mad.
[00:10:40] And I thought, he's gonna pay.
[00:10:42] That man's gonna pay for what he did.
[00:10:43] And all these people, these administrators, and these schoolteachers that have been treating me, they're all gonna pay for this.
[00:10:49] And I went back to class and my friends said, what did you get swats for?
[00:10:51] And I told them, they said, really?
[00:10:54] You got swats for going past that vending truck?
[00:10:56] I said, yeah.
[00:10:57] And I said, hey guys, let's have a contest this year.
[00:10:59] And they said, what?
[00:11:00] I said, let's see who can get the most swats.
[00:11:04] And my friends, they said, awesome.
[00:11:07] They weren't very smart, but they were sweet.
[00:11:10] And I won.
[00:11:11] And the last time I went to the office, I found reasons.
[00:11:15] I mean, I just acted, I was so angry.
[00:11:17] And by the way, school administrators and teachers are wonderful and they deserve respect.
[00:11:22] They have a tough job, okay, let me say that.
[00:11:24] So I was just a kid with a bad attitude.
[00:11:26] So, oh my gosh, I was so terrible that year.
[00:11:28] So the last time I went to the office, Mr. Wooldridge, he met me at the door and said, if you see my face one more time, you'll never see high school.
[00:11:37] And he meant it.
[00:11:38] Now, that was kind of a bad moment.
[00:11:39] So the other shocking moment is I was introducing in this room one day, 20 or so years ago, 25 years ago, I was introducing the members, and I read Glenn Wooldridge is his name and his wife.
[00:11:54] I think her name was Faye.
[00:11:56] I said, Mr. Wooldridge, this is the guy that beat me to death.
[00:12:01] I said, Mr. Wooldridge, he was looking at me.
[00:12:03] He loved me to death.
[00:12:04] He was the sweetest man in the world as an adult, when I was an adult.
[00:12:07] So I got to high school.
[00:12:10] I got so many spots in high school.
[00:12:13] I was a terror.
[00:12:14] Mr. Martin was my principal in high school.
[00:12:17] He did not like me and I didn't like him.
[00:12:20] And so I did the baccalaureate service for the Amarillo Public School.
[00:12:24] The last baccalaureate service, the Amarillo Public School, I did it as a pastor.
[00:12:28] And so I walked in to do the baccalaureate service.
[00:12:30] There's 7,000 people there.
[00:12:33] And Mr. Martin walks up to me.
[00:12:35] And I hadn't seen him since high school.
[00:12:37] And I thought, well, this is kind of a nice thing.
[00:12:38] YOU KNOW, I BECAME A PASTOR, YOU KNOW, I'M SURE HE'S PROUD OF THAT, AND HE WALKED UP TO ME AND SAID, SERIOUSLY, YOU'RE A PREACHER.
[00:12:47] I SAID, YEAH.
[00:12:48] HE TURNED AND WALKED OFF.
[00:12:50] VERY IMPRESSIVE.
[00:12:53] IT ALL CAME FROM THAT MOMENT WHEN THAT GUY GAVE ME SWATS.
[00:12:57] IT BROKE MY SPIRIT.
[00:12:58] AND I JUST THOUGHT, WHY ARE THESE PEOPLE, WHY ARE THEY MESSING WITH ME?
[00:13:02] WHAT'S WRONG WITH THEM?
[00:13:03] AND I GOT MAD.
[00:13:04] AND I DIDN'T KNOW HOW TO DEAL WITH IT.
[00:13:06] I WAS HURT.
[00:13:07] YOU KNOW, I WAS HURT.
[00:13:08] WHEN YOU'RE ASKED TO LEAVE YOUR FRIENDS AND LEAVE YOUR SPORTS AND ALL THAT KIND OF THING, THEY MOVE YOU OVER HERE AND THEY MOVE YOU OVER HERE LIKE YOU'RE JUST A, YOU KNOW, JUST A PIECE OF FLESH AND THINGS LIKE THAT.
[00:13:16] WELL, SOME OF YOU, I'M TALKING ABOUT THIS AND YOU'VE GOT THAT TIMES 100 THAT YOU'VE BEEN THROUGH.
[00:13:21] IT CHANGES YOU IS ALL I'M TRYING TO SAY.
[00:13:24] AND I LOOK BACK ONE DAY AND I WAS THINKING TO MYSELF WHEN I WAS WILD AND ALL THAT KIND OF STUFF AND I THOUGHT TO MYSELF, WHEN DID I CHANGE?
[00:13:33] WHAT WAS THE EVENT IN MY LIFE WHEN I TURNED INTO A BAD KID?
[00:13:38] kid. It was in his office that day when he broke my spirit. And so whenever we have accumulated pain, it changes us. It just changes. We, we become different. Here's number four, emotional fact of life. We all deal with pain in some way, right or wrong. You can't not deal
[00:13:55] with pain. And so right or wrong, we deal with pain. I want to talk about David, King David for this minute and a couple of his sons, because he's a case study in dealing with pain. And so David
[00:14:06] DAVID WAS WOUNDED EARLY IN LIFE, AND HE HAD ISSUES.
[00:14:10] DAVID WAS THE EIGHTH SON.
[00:14:11] REMEMBER WHEN SAMUEL THE PROPHET CAME TO JESSE, DAVID'S FATHER WAS NAMED JESSE, WHEN HE CAME TO JESSE'S HOUSE TO ANOINT A KING, AND HE TOLD JESSE, I'M HERE TO ANOINT A KING.
[00:14:23] AND SO JESSE HAD EIGHT SONS, AND DAVID WAS THE YOUNGEST.
[00:14:26] HE BROUGHT SEVEN SONS BEFORE JESSE AND HAD DAVID WATCHING THE SHEEP.
[00:14:32] AND SO, NOW HOW WOULD YOU FEEL if the prophet came to anoint a king and your father had the least amount of of hope or you know respect for you is the other son so David probably didn't get a lot of his father um he
[00:14:47] was rejected by his brothers when he went to the battle line when he killed Goliath his brothers mocked him and rejected him he was attacked and hunted by King Saul after he killed Goliath Saul tried to kill him continually as long as Saul was alive and David had many sons but I want to
[00:15:03] talk about Solomon and Absalom. But first of all, I want to talk about David. There are three ways that we deal with pain. If you don't deal with it properly, there are three main ways that we deal
[00:15:13] with pain. The first is that we medicate it. David has sexual problems. And we know that David has sexual problems. He had multiple wives. And in spite of the fact that he had multiple wives,
[00:15:22] he had an affair with Bathsheba. He had the means to which to solve all of his sexual needs.
[00:15:31] but he not only had an affair with Bathsheba, he killed her husband to cover it up.
[00:15:37] And David had issues.
[00:15:39] Food, drugs, alcohol, gambling, sex, all of those kinds of things.
[00:15:46] It's just a way to numb the pain.
[00:15:48] When you're dealing with addiction, the issue is never the issue.
[00:15:52] The issue is never drugs.
[00:15:54] If you're a drug addict, the issue is never drugs.
[00:15:57] If you're an alcoholic, the issue is never alcohol.
[00:15:59] If you have eating problems, it's not food.
[00:16:01] it's pain. You're in pain. You're medicating. It's just an opportunity to do something, gambling, whatever it is. It just is a way to feel better for a little while.
[00:16:15] Healthy people will misuse substances, hurting people, abuse substances. When you give a healthy person something, they may misuse it, but they're not going to abuse it because they're not hurting.
[00:16:29] But when you go to Alcoholics Anonymous, for example, what Alcoholics Anonymous will tell you is you have to fess up. You have to start getting honest about what you're going through because pain is the root of addiction. Why am I medicating? Because I'm hurting. I'm hurting. The
[00:16:45] issue is not the issue. The issue is pain. It's always pain. So David, David was medicating.
[00:16:52] Solomon motivated his pain. He just stayed busy. He's the ultimate overachiever. And you say, what was Solomon's pain? Well, first of all, he's the son of David and Bathsheba.
[00:17:03] His parents were notorious. And so he was the son of a torrid affair that had taken place.
[00:17:10] The other thing is he had to kill his brother to become king. One of his brothers was trying to usurp him. He had to kill his brother. Solomon had all kinds of pain. So the way
[00:17:18] he dealt with this pain was just busyness. Well, first of all, Solomon had, he had medication issues. He had a thousand wives. Two or 300 wives, not a problem. When you get over 300, you got problems. Okay. And that's a joke. The only, the only thing dumber than a thousand
[00:17:34] wives is a thousand husbands. And so he, he built the greatest nation in the history of the world.
[00:17:43] You say, well, what's the issue of motivation? I can't stop because the ghosts show up.
[00:17:50] If I stay busy, if I just keep the TV on, keep the radio on, keep working, keep doing something, stay busy with my hands. As long as I'm busy, the ghosts don't show up. But when I stop,
[00:18:01] I've gotta deal with the pain.
[00:18:02] So you motivate it.
[00:18:03] Now this is at the end of Solomon's life, he records all the things that he did.
[00:18:09] Listen, Ecclesiastes 2, this is Solomon.
[00:18:12] I became great and excelled more than all who were before me in Jerusalem.
[00:18:17] Also my wisdom remained with me.
[00:18:18] Whatever my eyes desired, I did not keep from them.
[00:18:22] I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure, for my heart rejoiced in all my labor.
[00:18:26] And this was my reward from all my labor.
[00:18:28] Then I looked on the work of my hands, which had been done and on the labor in which I had toiled and indeed it was vanity and grasping for the wind there was no profit under the sun after everything he did he didn't say you know
[00:18:44] something I served God all of this was great stuff he said it's vanity it was just total vanity the inability to stop and focus on God in close relationships is a warning sign that you just
[00:18:57] can't stop. You just can't stop. You're just like the energizer bunny. You can't stop.
[00:19:01] Absalom, the son Absalom meditated his pain. David medicated, Solomon motivated, Absalom meditated. His sister was violated by his half brother in a horrible way. It was never dealt with. David, the father, David never dealt with Tamar's circumstance with Amnon, her brother.
[00:19:22] and after two years of just sitting there and stewing on what had happened and David did nothing, Absalom murdered his half-brother in response, Amnon.
[00:19:34] And then he fled.
[00:19:35] And then later on he came back and tried to kill his father and tried to take over the kingdom.
[00:19:40] There are some people that just internalize their pain and they just get mad.
[00:19:44] They hate everybody, they're mad, they got anger issues and they just sit and stew about it.
[00:19:49] You see people that they got hurt 30 years ago, but it's like it was yesterday.
[00:19:54] It's the only thing they think about.
[00:19:55] It's the only thing they talk about.
[00:19:57] We have a family member that has not been a part of the family for 50 years.
[00:20:03] Karen and I have been married.
[00:20:04] Karen and I, we'll be married 50 years next month.
[00:20:08] And this family member lives literally on the other side of the world, hates all of us, has never been to a funeral, didn't come to his father's funeral, has never come to a wedding, has never come to a graduation,
[00:20:20] has never come to a holiday because he hates everybody.
[00:20:24] And you say, because we hadn't done anything to him in 50 years, we hadn't seen him.
[00:20:28] And what's he mad at?
[00:20:29] He's mad at everything that happened to him when he was growing up and he can't get over it.
[00:20:33] And so when you meditate, it just means you're stewing.
[00:20:38] You've got bitterness and anger.
[00:20:40] And see, when you have anger issues, you have unforgiveness issues.
[00:20:43] It's like a pot that's boiling.
[00:20:46] And because you've never forgiven and you've never dealt with this properly, so it's just, you just blow up.
[00:20:53] Medicators cause pain because of their addictions.
[00:20:57] Medicators in a family, alcoholism, drug addiction, sexual bondages, gambling, whatever it might be, their addictions perpetuate family pain.
[00:21:07] Motivators cause pain because of their avoidance.
[00:21:10] They just, they don't want intimacy.
[00:21:12] They don't want deepness.
[00:21:13] They just wanna stay busy and they avoid relationships.
[00:21:17] My father was that way.
[00:21:19] I mean, I never, growing up, I never had any of my father.
[00:21:22] He worked all day and came and sat in a chair all night quietly.
[00:21:25] And just, I never, never had it in.
[00:21:28] Meditators cause pain because of their attacks.
[00:21:31] They're verbally vicious people to be around.
[00:21:34] They're just hurtful, hurt people, hurt people.
[00:21:37] And these people, they're mad and they're looking for revenge.
[00:21:40] They wanna share their pain.
[00:21:41] They have a victim mentality that justifies their behavior.
[00:21:44] They're deeply deceived and hard to reason with, so on and so forth.
[00:21:47] And so everybody deals with pain.
[00:21:50] If you don't deal with your pain properly, you're gonna medicate it, you're gonna motivate it, or you're gonna meditate it.
[00:21:55] And that's going to perpetuate the pain in your family system.
[00:21:59] And so here's number five, emotional factor of life.
[00:22:02] The only way to stop the hurt and to totally resolve it is to turn it toward God.
[00:22:07] The only way you get rid of pain is to turn the pain toward God.
[00:22:10] And this is Matthew 5, 4.
[00:22:13] Blessed are those who mourn.
[00:22:15] This is Jesus, the Beatitudes.
[00:22:17] Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
[00:22:22] I'm gonna disagree with this scripture for this minute, but I'm gonna say I'm sorry because Jesus is always right.
[00:22:27] But I'm gonna disagree with this for just a minute.
[00:22:29] I know a lot of people are in pain right now that are not blessed.
[00:22:33] So when Jesus says, blessed are those who mourn, they shall be comforted, I'm just gonna say, I just think there are a lot of people in the world right now that are mourning and hurting
[00:22:42] and they're not blessed, they're not comforted.
[00:22:45] Okay, let me read you a paraphrase of this.
[00:22:47] blessed are those who turn their pain toward God for their pain will be vindicated understood and totally healed therefore producing lasting comfort and peace Jesus isn't saying blessed are you if you're hurting Jesus is saying blessed are you if you bring your pain to me see when you bring your
[00:23:06] pain to God and he touches it he heals it and I'm saying this is my testimony I was Karen and I were the walking wounded when we got married Jesus healed our pain I remember what it was like I
[00:23:17] I remember what it was like to sit in church before I was a pastor here, and I was a member of the church.
[00:23:21] I remember what it was like to sit in church and just every, just I had all these hurts and all these things inside of me, and I didn't, you know, I was insecure.
[00:23:30] I was, you know, I was all these kind of things, and with Karen and me, it affected our relationship terribly.
[00:23:34] I didn't know what it was until I got healed.
[00:23:37] You know, when you get healed, it's just not there anymore.
[00:23:40] You just don't have the same responses.
[00:23:41] You don't have the same sensitivities because you get healed.
[00:23:44] How do you get healed?
[00:23:45] You have to bring it to Jesus.
[00:23:47] Emotional pain only gets healed in the light of God.
[00:23:52] It doesn't get healed pouring alcohol on it.
[00:23:55] It doesn't heal when you keep it tucked in inside and don't talk about it.
[00:23:59] It only heals when you come to Jesus and say, Jesus, I'm devastated.
[00:24:03] Jesus, I'm hurting.
[00:24:04] Here are the essential requirements for emotional healing and I'm done.
[00:24:08] Number one is honesty before God.
[00:24:09] You have to open the hurt pocket.
[00:24:11] Just get, what is it that happened?
[00:24:14] You have to talk about it.
[00:24:15] You can't sit silently.
[00:24:16] It's the worst thing you can, Satan is the prince of darkness and anything you won't talk about, he has authority over it.
[00:24:23] Anything you keep in darkness, he's going to sit there and torment you over it. But when you bring it into the light, everything in the light belongs to God. And so you have to be honest. You have to
[00:24:32] talk and bring it out in the open. Number two is responsibility to God. You cannot live your life blaming other people and feeling sorry for yourself. I heard a couple of statements. One is life doesn't form me, my response to life forms me. I think of one family, a horrible family,
[00:24:50] very dysfunctional, painful family. One child came out, turned to God and got healed as the most wonderful person you'll ever meet. Another child came out of the same family system, became a drug addict. The third child came out and hates everybody they see, and they're still mad
[00:25:05] many years later. Same family, different responses. Here's another saying that I heard, THE ROAD TO RECOVERY IS A ROAD NOT A COUCH YOU CAN'T JUST SIT AND BE HEALED GOD WANTS YOU TO DO SOMETHING YOU HAVE TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR WHAT'S HAPPENING IN YOUR LIFE AND BE OBEDIENT TO
[00:25:23] WHATEVER GOD SAYS AND HERE'S NUMBER THREE AND THIS IS THE BIG ONE YOU HAVE TO HAVE YOU HAVE TO FORGIVE THE PEOPLE WHO DID IT TO YOU YOU HAVE TO OKAY INCLUDING YOURSELF NOW WE HAVE TO BEGIN
[00:25:34] WHEN I LOOK BACK AT MY I WASTED MY CHILDHOOD WHEN I WAS 19 I GOT SAVED AT 19. I WASTED MY ENTIRE life up to 19 years old i did some really terrible things in in town here a woman came up to me in
[00:25:44] church one day and she said uh pastor jimmy my mother quit teaching because of you well she did she i said who's your mother she told me i said oh gosh you know so oh i did such horrible
[00:25:58] things so i'm so she was sitting over there in church one day right over here her the mother that quit teaching because maybe sitting right she was as sweet as she could be that was just
[00:26:06] one little bitty thing that i did but i mean it's just so terrible you have to forgive yourself You ever done anything dumb?
[00:26:14] You ever done anything you've regretted?
[00:26:17] An abortion, an affair, a crime, said something really terrible, done something really terrible?
[00:26:26] You know, just some things.
[00:26:26] Of course you have.
[00:26:27] We've all done a lot of dumb stuff.
[00:26:29] Sometimes the hardest person to forgive is ourselves.
[00:26:33] But if you're going to be free from, because the devil's always there condemning.
[00:26:36] He's always there trying to make you feel ashamed of everything you did.
[00:26:41] But God isn't ashamed.
[00:26:42] This is Ephesians 2.
[00:26:43] Listen to this.
[00:26:43] but God who is rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us.
[00:26:50] Even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.
[00:26:54] For by grace you've been saved and raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace
[00:27:04] and his kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
[00:27:07] For by grace you have been saved through faith, not of yourselves.
[00:27:10] It is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
[00:27:21] So you have to put faith in God's love.
[00:27:22] You have to put faith.
[00:27:24] See, the devil wants to focus on everything you've done wrong, but the focus is not what we've done wrong.
[00:27:29] The focus is on the love of God.
[00:27:32] We have a merciful God.
[00:27:34] If God wanted to be hard to get along with, he would have never sent Jesus down the cross.
[00:27:38] God had sufficient reason to send us to hell, but God loves us and he wanted to reconcile us to himself. And so he sent Jesus, his son. And so I'm saying to you, God forgives you of every
[00:27:49] sin you've ever committed. Will you forgive yourself? Will you stop being tough on yourself?
[00:27:54] Will you stop condemning yourself over it? You know, we've all done dumb stuff that we regret and sometimes really, really, really dumb stuff that we regret. But when Jesus forgives us, it's blotted out. It'll never be talked about in all of eternity. And we have to forgive
[00:28:07] ourselves and just realize I did it for whatever reasons. And I repent and God forgives me.
[00:28:13] whatever that might be.
[00:28:15] We also have to forgive the people that have hurt us.
[00:28:17] This is Luke 6.
[00:28:19] This is Jesus.
[00:28:20] Jesus said, I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who spitefully use you.
[00:28:28] Now here's something that I hear from people a lot.
[00:28:31] And they'll say, Jimmy, I have forgiven my mother, my father, my stepfather, my stepmother, my ex-husband, my ex-wife.
[00:28:38] I've forgiven them 100 times and I can keep saying it, but nothing changes, I'm still hurting.
[00:28:44] And I'm still angry with them.
[00:28:45] Well, Jesus said, bless those who curse you.
[00:28:49] You have to bless the person that you're forgiving.
[00:28:52] Listen, blessing moves forgiveness from our heads to our hearts.
[00:28:57] And if you can't bless them, you're not forgiving them.
[00:29:00] You say, Jimmy, you're saying to me, the person who abused me my entire life, I'm supposed to forgive them.
[00:29:05] Yep, that's what I'm saying.
[00:29:07] You're saying the person who murdered my relative, I'm supposed to forgive them.
[00:29:11] That's what I'm saying.
[00:29:12] Jesus Christ hung on the cross naked in front of his mother died the most cruel death in the history of the world and he hung there and said father forgive him and our sins put him there
[00:29:25] and he forgave us forgiveness does not make them right it just makes us free unforgiveness is like an invisible umbilical cord that connects us to all the pain and people of our past and you never get away from it till you cut that cord when they go free you go free god will not
[00:29:46] let our future live until we let our past die and so there comes a point that we just have to say lord this this is what's in here i'll do anything that you want me to do but i forgive myself and i
[00:30:04] get forgive the people around now for some people that really hurt you you may have to bless them and forgive them 10 times a day for a month or two but i can tell you this in the process you're
[00:30:15] you're gonna get healed.
[00:30:17] It's in the process of blessing them you're gonna find that your heart heals.
[00:30:21] And here's what it means.
[00:30:22] When you hear their name, you're not gonna wanna kill them.
[00:30:26] When you see them, your blood pressure's not gonna go up.
[00:30:30] And you're gonna be able to go on with your life without having them in your mind constantly.
[00:30:35] We all hurt.
[00:30:37] You're not getting out of this place without hurting.
[00:30:40] But when those hurts accumulate, it compromises us.
[00:30:44] But God heals us when we bring the hurt to him and we forgive ourselves and forgive other people.
[00:30:50] Let's pray.
[00:30:51] Lord, just, if there's something inside of us, Lord, that is unhealed, there's a relationship, there's something spoken to us, something done to us that hasn't been healed, and it's still affecting us, Lord, we don't want that in there anymore.
[00:31:08] And Holy Spirit, we're just asking, we're just praying that you will reveal supernaturally whatever that is.
[00:31:18] Lord, we open our heart to you today, and we pray for the light of God to shine on the innermost part of our being.
[00:31:29] And we say to you, Lord, whatever it is that we need to do.
[00:31:32] We don't wanna blame people anymore.
[00:31:34] We don't wanna be mad at people anymore.
[00:31:36] We just wanna be free.
[00:31:37] We wanna go on with our lives and be healed and be healthy.
[00:31:41] Lord, I just bind every addiction in the name of Jesus.
[00:31:45] If there's an addiction present here, anyone hearing my voice right now, if they're dealing with food, if they're dealing with sex, if they're dealing with alcohol, if they're dealing with drugs.
[00:31:56] I bind that addiction in Jesus' name, but I pray for the pain inside of that addiction to be healed.
[00:32:04] In the name of Jesus, Holy Spirit, supernaturally heal the pain within that addiction.
[00:32:10] And Lord, I just pray.
[00:32:12] We pray, we forgive, we make a decision to forgive ourselves for all the dumb stuff we've done, all the sins we've committed and the really bad things we've done.
[00:32:20] And Lord, we can't work it off.
[00:32:23] And that's why we need your grace.
[00:32:25] We just need forgiveness.
[00:32:26] And we receive your forgiveness.
[00:32:28] And we forgive ourselves.
[00:32:29] And we're not gonna let the devil come back and condemn us anymore.
[00:32:32] It's over.
[00:32:33] And Lord, we forgive all the people that have hurt us.
[00:32:36] And we make a commitment to bless them until our hearts are different.
[00:32:41] Lord, bless these precious people over the next few weeks.
[00:32:44] Lord, let us completely be healed and be agents of healing in Jesus' name.

[00:32:51] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_02]
[00:32:51] amen if you would right there where you are if you could just keep your head bowed and your eyes closed just for a moment longer and as pastor jimmy was talking maybe holy spirit brought some
[00:33:08] things up and i know he did in me that he maybe still wants to process with you or begin to walk you through so just give you some give yourself some space right there to respond
[00:33:18] to holy spirit and there's a group of people that are here today and you're here and you've never given your life over to jesus christ just as pastor jimmy was saying that with our pain it's
[00:33:32] important we turn our pain over to him but today there's an opportunity for you to turn your life over to him jesus already gave up his life he took on all of your sin all of your shame all of your
[00:33:45] guilt he lived the life you could not live and he died the death we could not die the death that we deserved he took on himself then he rose again from the grave and the bible says if we believe
[00:33:58] in our hearts that jesus is lord and we confess with our mouths or confess the mouth jesus is lord and believe in our hearts that god raised him from the dead we will be saved so as every head
[00:34:10] bowed and eyes closed there's an opportunity for you today where jesus is saying come let me in so if you're here and you want to receive jesus as your personal lord and savior i just want you
[00:34:22] to pray this prayer in your heart after me just say jesus i ask you forgive me of my sin thank you for loving me i choose today to give my life over to you and i say i love you too
[00:34:45] come and be king of my life i'll receive you in jesus name amen and amen church family let's put our hands together for anyone who made a decision for jesus today we're so proud of you and i want
[00:35:04] you to know if you did pray that prayer today the truth is you are saved in a moment in an instant a prayer of faith you are one with jesus you're his chilled child and so i want to encourage you if
[00:35:15] you did that will you take one more step i'd love for you to pull out your smartphone and text the word decision to 88787 what that will allow us to do is actually put a resource in your hands
[00:35:25] we have a team of people on on standby ready to text you back to pray for you and really help you know what it looks like to go from here once you've made a decision for jesus christ but we're
[00:35:35] so proud of you um so with that said if you're here today what we're going to do now is take communion so if if you're here and you have your communion elements you can grab those i want to
[00:35:45] welcome our teams if you did not get an element will you raise your hand our teams are here to hand you one of those as well this is a wonderful opportunity we have every single sunday to remember
[00:35:58] jesus his death his burial his resurrection his body that was beaten his blood that was shed what i love about this is every time we take communion we can know that there's a seat at the table for
[00:36:10] us jesus has made a way for us to have a seat at his table and so if you have that will you pull out um the bread once you have that will you lift it up we're going to pray over it together
[00:36:25] jesus we say thank you so much that your body was broken for us that you willingly laid down your life we thank you that is by your stripes we are healed today and we remember the price you
[00:36:40] paid and we say thank you for it we also receive today what your death has done for us we receive the healing that comes as we remember who you are and what you've done in jesus name you can
[00:36:54] take and receive. Once you're done with that, if you just turn your cup over there and peel back the next layer, revealing the juice, which represents the blood of Jesus. Once you've peeled that layer back, will you hold it up together? We'll pray over it. Jesus, we say,
[00:37:17] thank you so much that your blood was poured out for us. What a precious blood. This blood established a brand new covenant with us that allows us to have relationship with you and the father and with holy spirit and we thank you that that blood still speaks a better word over us
[00:37:35] even now there is power in the blood of jesus so we honor you today as we remember it we receive all the benefits in jesus name you can take and receive the cup as you're putting your elements
[00:37:53] down will you do me a favor let's put our hands together one more time for jesus so thankful for him without him any of this would not be possible so i want you to know a couple things as we're as
[00:38:05] we're wrapping up, a couple of things that are happening even today here and going into this week. You know, today, right after this service, we have a Trinity member candidate meet and greet that's taking place down in the main foyer, right outside of where you drop off your kids. So if
[00:38:21] there's about eight or nine candidates that are members here at Trinity Fellowship Church, we'd love for you just to go and meet them, greet them. They may have some signs for you to take home and represent them if that's what you feel led to do, but they're going to be here. We'd
[00:38:33] for you to check that out and then next sunday in the evening at 6 p.m so april 23rd and we're going to have a trinity member candidate q a forum so there's an opportunity for you to come next
[00:38:46] sunday night at 6 p.m in this west auditorium and ask questions to our candidates that are running um for their uh spot or office whatever they might be running for we'd love for you to come
[00:38:57] it's open to you um to come and ask questions there we'd love for you to be a part of that and And then also, happening this Tuesday and Wednesday, I wanna encourage you, if you're here
[00:39:06] and you've maybe never been baptized in the Holy Spirit and you're wondering what that means and what that looks like, we're having Hearing God Seminar taking place in this room on Tuesday night and Wednesday night this week.
[00:39:18] It's here in person and it's also available online.
[00:39:21] So we'll talk about being baptized in the Holy Spirit, but more importantly too, we'll talk about what it looks like to hear God.
[00:39:27] And so if you're here and you've ever wondered, you've maybe even asked yourself, you know, I don't know how to hear God.
[00:39:31] but I don't think I really hear him well.
[00:39:33] We wanna come, it's a free event for you to come, to learn, to practice.
[00:39:37] It's really, really special.
[00:39:38] We'd love for you to check it out.
[00:39:40] We'd encourage you, you can register for this online at tfc.org forward slash events.
[00:39:45] It's a free event, but that'll help us know who all is coming with us.
[00:39:48] We can make sure we have enough booklets to give you when you come.
[00:39:52] We'd love for you to be a part of that.
[00:39:53] Tell your family, tell your kids, that'll be this Tuesday and Wednesday, and childcare is available for all of those events.
[00:39:59] Okay, everybody, right there where you are, you stand to your feet with me? I want to encourage our prayer teams to come down to the front and a couple of things as we, as they're coming down to the front, I want to
[00:40:08] encourage you, like we mentioned earlier, we are having water baptisms today. So if you're here and you've never taken the step to get water baptized, this is an opportunity that we have every single Sunday, but we today have a team ready to help you. And so if this
[00:40:23] is you, or maybe someone's coming later, you know, encourage them. You can come get signed right outside the west auditorium and we'd love to help you with that and if you're here today and you need prayer for anything we encourage you our prayer teams are here they're ready they're
[00:40:35] prayed up and they love to pray for you so let me bless you as you go today father in the name of jesus christ i bless everyone under the sound of my voice i bless them with the confidence and the
[00:40:46] comfort that comes from knowing jesus the confidence and the comfort that comes from knowing holy spirit i bless them today in every area that they might be hurt or they're carrying pain i bless them right now with with power lord to know that you are there present in their lives
[00:41:03] i bless them jesus with comfort lord i bless them jesus lord with your peace and your health in jesus name in jesus name we pray amen and amen thank you guys so much for being here we hope to

[00:41:17] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_01]
[00:41:17] see you again next sunday have a great week i'm so glad you were able to be with us for today's service, and I hope you enjoyed the message. You can join us live for Church Online every Sunday
[00:41:30] on any of our online platforms. No matter what platform you're joining us from, we have a team ready to pray for you, so feel free to ask for prayer. To those hungry for an extraordinary life,
[00:41:41] Trinity Fellowship Church is a healthy family pursuing God, growing stronger, and impacting the world. A great way to grow stronger in community and in your faith is by attending sessions. We are now offering sessions online at 10, 15 a.m. You can learn more about what
[00:41:56] sessions we offer and how to access them on our TFC app. Thank you for coming to church with us today, and we'll see you again soon.