Spiritual Healing - Operation Restoration, Part 2

God’s two-part strategy for restoration is, number one, pray for them. I mean really pray. Jot in your notes: Proverbs 21:1. The fact of the matter is the reason I have drifted away from God, the reason anyone drifts away from God is your heart gets hard.

And pretty soon you don’t hear His voice. And you have a responsibility and I have a responsibility to love them, to care for them, to show compassion, to speak words of life, to speak words of accountability or even rebuke done in the right way. But words just can bounce off. The only One who can change a heart is – who?- is God.

The second is: Care enough to, here’s the big word, confront. Confront. Galatians 6:1 and 2 says, “Brothers, if someone is caught,” literally, “trapped in sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, for you also may be tempted. Carry,” or, “bear one another’s burdens and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ,” which is what? It’s to love.

And out of that passage will be a very clear instructional manual about what ordinary people like you and me are to do when we know someone who has wandered from the truth.

The first thing we do, the prerequisite, is that you are spiritual. Now, the idea is there is spiritual maturity.

This passage says: You need to be really, really careful and you need to be mature and be ready and mature and able to address this kind of issue, because sometimes we send someone to help a person who has wandered away and about three weeks later, we have two people who have wandered away.

I know you’re struggling with addiction. I’ve been through that, I’ve been clean for eighteen months, you’re back in it, I really want to help you. So you go hang out with them where they’re at, on their turf, to try and…

And the temptation is too great. So you need to ask yourself, first of all, Am I the right person in this particular situation, in this environment to help this person? Are you spiritual? Are you spiritually mature?

Second, what’s the aim? Notice it’s, “Restore him.” Restore her. It’s not blast them. It’s not condemn them. This word is used in the New Testament, in the Greek language, for someone who has had a compound fracture and you reset the bone so it can heal.

The temptation, if someone has hurt you deeply, or hurt one of your kids, or hurt someone that one of your children is married to, or ripped you off in a business situation and they have wandered, the anger, it can be, Okay! They are wandering? Hey! What do you think you’re doing? You’re messing up this, you’re ruining your life, you’re squandering your life, you’re killing your kids, this is what is going to happen. And I’ve got news: That doesn’t work. The goal is to restore them.

Proverbs 15:1 says, “A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” And for some of us, that person, the issue is, one, they have wandered but they may have hurt you or hurt someone you love and you’re going to have to really pray to where you have it in your heart to want to restore them, because there is anger.

But he says the goal is, brothers, you who are spiritual, restore them. And how? Gently. The attitude of gentleness. Jesus, He said, “My yoke is easy. Following Me is easy because I am gentle,” same word. Gentleness is a quality of alertness and it’s a quality of willingness to yield.

It’s a powerful quality. It disarms people. It’s the person who sits down and you get coffee or you meet them because they didn’t want to meet you and you know their habits, you know where they’re at and you meet them at work with two cups of coffee, “I’ll only take fifteen minutes.” And you lean forward, and with tears streaming down your face, “Look, I know you think what you’re doing is right. I want to help. You can work this out in your marriage. You’re going to wake up in ten years and your eight-year-old son is going to wonder what happened. The kind of lifestyle that you’re leading, this is what is going to happen. You’re going to be financially ruined. God loves you. You’re on a path of destruction. I would beg you. Turn around. I know it’s hard, there might be some consequences. I will go through this with you.”

It’s an attitude and a heart. Is there anyone here who hasn’t blown it? Is there anyone here who hasn’t, at some point in your lives, really messed up? And what was it? How does God, when He restores us, what’s His heart? What’s His attitude? How does He woo us back? How did He treat Peter? What was it like?

There are all kinds of sin, but I think betrayal is probably the worst sin in the world.

Remember what Jesus did? It’s kind of a process.

In fact, the Scripture says that when He was resurrected, one of the first people He went to see was Peter. Later on, after the multiple times where, in His resurrected body, He mad appearances and then in John 21, you have this amazing picture where He makes breakfast. And He calls the guys and, “Hey, Peter, remember the old days when you first started following Me?” “Yeah.” “Hey, throw your net on the other side of the boat!” “Who is it? John, I think it’s the Lord. I don’t know.”

And so they do it and, oh my. This is what happened when I first started following Him. Oh. The same thing is happening now. God’s goodness would be shown to me now after I betrayed Him?

And then they come in, what does it say? The text says what? There’s a charcoal fire. Do you remember what the text says the night, what was Peter doing, sitting around, what kind of fire when he betrayed Jesus? Charcoal fire. The same smell. The same remembrance. And He fixed some fish. And then He, eyeball to eyeball. It’s a process. It’s not something, “Peter, do you love Me?” “Lord, You know I love You in a very insufficient, failure kind of way.” “Peter, then I want to invite you to get back in the game. Feed My sheep. Peter, do you love Me?” “Yeah.” Three times.

And it’s almost like the Lord, in His gentleness, is saying, I get where you’ve been. And I love you! And I don’t want to just forgive you and say you’re a second-class citizen forever. I want to love you and restore you and I want to use you.

Have you ever thought through your Bible and thought about who God has really used after He has restored a Rahab? A David? A murderer like Paul?

Some of the people who have wandered away from God who you know may be the instruments of God that He wants to use in this valley or somewhere else beyond your wildest dreams and they are one intercessor away, one person who is courageous enough to confront, who is spiritual, and wants to restore and will do it gently.

And, finally, who will never give up. You just don’t give up. Bear one another’s burdens. And you fulfill the law of Christ. What is the law of Christ? It’s loving people, right? What’s love? Love isn’t an ooey-gooey feeling. Love is giving another person what they don’t deserve at great personal cost. That’s what Jesus did on the cross for all of us. And so He calls us to be like Him and to extend.

The need for this is personal and private and the result is life and healing.

Literally, the New American Standard is a little bit more literal translation says you will save his soul from death. And death certainly is separation, but I would ask, jot down a worthy passage. One rarely quoted is 1 Corinthians chapter 11, verses 28 to 30.

The debate in this passage, obviously, despite brothers among you, is this turning people back to God is this: Were they ever really Christians or not? And the text seems very clear that this is brothers. But it’s so strong, “turn a sinner,” a sinner is just someone who misses the mark. We are saints in our position, but we are loving sons and daughters who still sin.

And that passage that I gave you 1 Corinthians chapter 11 is an application of Hebrews chapter 12 and God, out of His great, great love, when I begin to stray and when you begin to wander and stray, God, out of His great, great love will discipline us like you do for your kids, right?

You don’t let your kids get near the road or put their hand on the stove and you go, “Well, you know. You only burned off two fingers. Do what you want.” Is that what you all do?

You love them enough. Why? You see behaviors or some of us have said to our kids, “You can’t date that person. You can’t run around with that group.” Why? Because show me your friends, I’ll show you your future. That’s a dead end. Bad deal. No.

And they scream and tell you, slam the door, “I don’t love you anymore. And I wish…” I have heard it all. But mine are all grown now. And all mine have come back and have said, “Thank you.” Because, see, a father or a mother who really loves their kids always disciplines them. Because, “All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful but sorrowful, yet those who have been trained by it,” training is a process, “ultimately it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.”

So God does that. So a lot of health issues. Not all, again, but a lot of health issues. A lot of circumstances. A lot of money issues. A lot of frustrations in relationships. When you are wandering away from God, here’s the deal, He is saying, I want your attention! Yo! I want your attention! And you say, “No.” Okay! Errrg! I want your attention! “No!” Okay! Errrg! I want your attention! I want your attention. I love you. I’m for you. You’re on a path. You’re going down. There’s a waterfall. You’re going to get hurt. You’re going to ruin your life. Errrg!

And if you read 1 Corinthians 11:28 to 30, you will find there are some people who are genuine believers who stiff-arm God and say to God, I am going to keep doing my own thing, and it says that some of them are sick and some of them are asleep. And the word for asleep is a New Testament word that is a technical word for a believer who has died and gone to heaven.

Sometimes God will discipline a person and take them home prematurely if they are genuine followers and they continually will not listen. I don’t know about you, that is sobering. And so he says, “When you cause a fellow brother or sister to return, you save them from death.”

And in this passage, I think it’s a literal death. A separation from God, but just literally.

I think the application is very powerful for you and for me personally. But I want to suggest that there is a bigger and corporate application. I read this just this week. It’s a study by Duke University and the University College London, very recent, 2015.

And it reveals that although there has been a decline in religion around the world, the U.S. has been supposedly not having the same trends. Ninety-four percent of Americans born before 1935 claim to have a religious affiliation. Only seventy-one percent of those born after 1975 claim to have a religious affiliation.

Now listen to this. Only forty-five percent of adults eighteen to thirty say they have no doubt that God exists. And nearly seventy percent of sixty-five years or older say the same thing.

The study basically puts it this way: The decline that we have in a turning away from religion and God is generational. None of these declines are happening fast, but the signs are unmistakable. David Voas, the social scientist with the University College London and co-author of this study said, “It has become clear that American religiosity has been declining for decades and the decline is driven by the same dynamic – generation differences – that has driven the religious decline all across the developed world.”

Parents: Many of you in this room have kids who have wandered from the faith. In fact, as I have been talking, your mind has gone there probably more than anyplace else. What we know is that children who don’t wander from the faith have three characteristics. And by the way, even though these three characteristics may be true, they can still wander from the faith.

This is not about fault or blame. This is about research and reality. The earlier a child takes responsibility for their faith and begins to have some kind of devotional life on their own, apart from their parents, the probability of them staying with the faith is very high.

Second issue is they see their parents living out their faith, not simply by religious activities, a la going to church or a class, but where those priorities and values are practiced at home. Genuine prayer, tough decisions, the Bible and God’s Word and communication where the Christ on weekends is the same Christ throughout the week in the family system.

And the third is children who begin serving and getting involved where they actually serve in church ministry or outside church ministry where they are giving a life away to others, those are the three primary characteristics.

Of that group, about ninety percent of them continue to walk with the Lord after their teen years.

The essence is kids don’t own a faith when you come to church, make that a little compartment of your life, drop them off at the greatest, coolest, best children or youth ministry and what has happened is all their time in church there was a place and a person who gave substance to their faith. This is the place and there was a person, either a youth pastor, someone here, a network. When they go away, either to a trade school or to college, that person and place are removed and what you have is their faith is attacked, they don’t know the Bible, they haven’t owned their faith, the temptations morally are like never before in the history of our country, and so it’s like, I’m done.

The biggest group that has wandered from the faith are our own children. We have to address that. The way to address that, first and foremost, is by asking ourselves, Okay, is there a log, right? Is there maybe a log in our eye?

Do we need to own some stuff? Do we need to turn around? Do we need to become people who they would emulate in terms of our commitment to Christ? Our priorities? Our values? How we spend our money? How we spend our time? Get it?

And then I think we have the very difficult job of reconnecting with our young adult children and beginning a journey and a dialogue of talking to them and where we have blown it, just own it and say, “You know something? Your growing up years, I wish I would have done this, but I didn’t. Now let’s talk about what makes a living faith and what do you believe and why. And let’s just make this a topic of our conversation. I’m not going to pressure, I’m not going to push. But I just want you to know how much I love you, honey. Son, I want you to know how much I love you.”

What does God want you to do with your kids? Where do you need to go?

As you turn to the back page, I want to summarize, because there is a word to those who are wandering. And there are three things that tend to be excuses. One is: I’ll come home later. If you are wandering, come back this moment, this day. You have a heavenly Father, Luke 15, who has been looking and waiting and searching and whose arms are open.

Second, I am too far gone. Romans 5:20 says, “Where sin abounds, grace super abounds.” And what that Scripture means is that if you have dropped yourself in a twenty-foot hole and you are looking up and going, This is impossible, God says, I will drop a twenty-one foot rope. And if you have dropped in a hole, you go, You have no idea, man! You have no idea what I have done. In fact, I could go to jail and on and on and on. I’m in a hundred and fifty-foot hole. And God says, I get it. Here’s a hundred and fifty-one-foot rope. Hang on and I will pull you up. You have never, ever, ever gone too far unless you are willing to turn, ask for forgiveness, and let Him help you.

And third, God could never accept me now. Somehow this shame…and He says, “Though your sins be as scarlet, I will make them white as wool.” You never were good enough, I was never good enough, no one will ever be good enough. Christ has made us good enough. His death on the cross paid for your sin – past, present, and future. And He wants to wash and forgive you and me.