How do I see breakthrough? - LIFECENTRAL CHURCH ONLINE

and see i am going to open up james five for us now and continue our series to stick with us i really believe that god wants to do something significant at the end of our time today and we may run over but i think you'll forgive us for that and you know in james five he opens up an interest intention in five verse 13 because he says this is anyone among you in trouble let them pray is anyone happy let them sing songs of praise and we all have this tension in life don't we i'm sure leon and alison in their 20 years have had this tension of people in unbelievable pain and unbelievable joy maybe if you're in the room today the person on your left might be going through the greatest season of their entire life and then the person on your right might be going through the worst season of their entire life and that's the reality of community that's the reality of family that's the reality of the world and you know there'll be a lot of people in the room today and watching online who are desperate for breakthrough and that's why we're asking the question how do i see breakthrough and i want to make it really really clear from the start this it is god who gives us breakthrough but you might have to wait for it i'm sure leon and alison can can attest to that in their 20 years that it is god who brings about the breakthrough but you might have to wait for it and james opens it up further in verse 13 he says is anyone among you ill let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the lord and the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well the lord will raise them up you see james goes into detail about praying for healing and praying for breakthrough and i want to give you confidence today that god can bring about your breakthrough that god can heal you but i want to make sure that we have the correct theology because some of these verses in james people have pulled apart and given incorrect theology and so the first thing i want to say is this breakthrough and healing is coming it's on the way and the oil that james talks about you know when he says um ask the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil that's really significance because oil is representative of the holy spirit it's representative of the presence of god in fact oil is mentioned over 200 times throughout the bible and it represents the anointing of kings and of prophets it represents the presence of god and in the new testament it represents the presence of the holy spirit you see god heals supernaturally god by the power of his holy spirit can heal you and can't bring about your breakthrough and so what james is saying here today is he's saying we should be praying for people to be healed but let me be clear it's not our amount of faith that heals us it's not as though if we have 49 faith that god is not going to heal but then if you get to 51 somehow then god releases his reluctant hand of healing it's not the amount of faith that heals you see the outcome is not determined by us and our faith but we are called to pray for people in faith that god will heal them let's not be so arrogant to say that our faith heals us it is god by the power of the holy spirit that heals supernaturally we just need to ask him and that's what we're going to do at the end of our time together online leon and alison once they stop crying we're going to lead you through that if you're watching online in the in the studio and in the room here we are going to be praying for healing as well but you know oil was also widely used for medicinal purposes you know in egypt it was often used as a cure for the plague in fact in europe it was used for various different diseases and you see oil doesn't just have a spiritual symbolism it has a physical use as well and some theologians go as far as to say that the word that james uses here for oil has more of a medicinal meaning than it does a spiritual and so i'm not necessarily saying that but i think what james might want to say to us here is that we need to have a hybrid approach when it comes to healing it's miracles and medicine in fact adam clarke who was a theologian in the 18th century he said this saint james desires them to use natural means while looking to god for in a special blessing and no wise man would direct otherwise so i'm not going to direct you otherwise i think our approach to healing should be that god can heal us supernaturally and he can't intervene supernaturally but he also wants to heal us through the natural world too you see let's not be so foolish as to go against medical advice to flush our tablets down the toilet to not get the vaccine and say but god is gonna heal me listen seek god for the healing that you need through natural means and supernatural means god can heal you through either one of those and you need to know that your prayers are powerful and effective your prayers are powerful and effective every single one of you in the room here today your prayers are powerful and effective if you're watching online at home your prayers are powerful and effective and if you don't believe me let's have a look at what james says because james says in james 5 16 he says the prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective james is saying your prayers are powerful and effective i don't know whether you're getting that maybe maybe it's something you need to speak over yourself maybe every time you come to pray saying my prayers are powerful and effective in fact coming up in the online community our facebook group we i've got some how-to videos and we want to equip you in how to live the christian life and some of the things that we might not talk about as much on a sunday and one of the first one that's coming out this wednesday is how to pray out loud we want to equip you to pray out loud why because your prayers are powerful and effective and you know you might be saying but i'm not a righteous person i wish i had the time to unpack the theology of you are writers if you've made the decision to follow jesus you are considered righteous in the eyes of god and so we're going to pray for you later in fact we're going to pray together online and in the room but what if you're not healed does that mean that god doesn't love you of course it doesn't does that mean that god can't heal of course it doesn't you know there's a tension here that some of which i i don't know i really don't know but what uh what i do know is that healing is coming and breakthrough is coming but we might have to wait for it and that is point number two you but you might have to wait for it in fact we've probably read james five the wrong way round because before james talks about healing he sets up the foundations in james 7 to 12 and you can read it in full yourself i've pulled out some of the highlights to to so that we can dig into the right points he says this be patient then brothers and sisters until the lord's coming you too be patient and stand firm because the lord's coming is near brothers and sisters as an example of patience in the face of suffering take the prophets who spoke in the name of the lord as you know we count as blessed those who has persevered let's read that again we count as blessed those who have persevered the lord is full of compassion and mercy you see james keeps using this phrase the lord is coming the lord is coming that's because jesus is coming back like he didn't just die rise again and go off to heaven and god be like see you later lads enjoy your best all the best see you never like he promised that he is going to return and it says in revelation 21 it says when jesus returns he will wipe every tear from their eyes there will be no more pain or mourning or crying or pain for the old order of things has passed away you see jesus promises that when he returns we will get our healing and so some of us might have to wait till jesus returns for our healing but james says we count as blessed those who have persevered and we're not that good at waiting are we let's be honest if you're like me like i have spent so much money on amazon prime in the last 18 months it is ridiculous okay and and you see what i love about amazon prime is you order it and then the next day it's there it's amazing it's like magic and you know when when you order something there's there's different ways that you can wait isn't it i could order it and then forget about it and go about my day and just be like oh look the amazon package has been left on my door for four hours completely forgot about that one why have they stopped knocking on door anyway that's a that's a run for another time or i could i could track it couldn't i because you get a little track and update and i can see that it arrived in the depot and it's been been dispatched and you get all these details and sometimes you can even track on a map the guy driving towards your house or i could sit and stare out the window waiting longingly for my amazon package to arrive the reality is none of those methods make it come any quicker but it affects the state of my heart because if i sit and look out the window i'm agitated i'm angry i'm frustrated hurry up hurry up is that an amazon van nope just a big car like i it can affect the your heart and you see it's not just that we wait it's how we wait how we wait is so so important and james calls us to be patient in waiting for our breakthrough and waiting for our healing james calls us to be patient and to persevere and i think it's this we overestimate what god will do in the short term in the moments and we underestimate what god will do in the long term you know how we wait is so so important and you know when we wait it does things in us it brings about perseverance god brings out things as we wait you know about five or six years ago laura and i decided that we wanted to think about starting a family and so we started stopping getting pregnant if that makes it we stopped using contraceptives essentially um and we we went on that journey and you know after a couple of years it was evident that we weren't getting pregnant and so we started to look at some tests and as we went through the testing process it was long it was really frustrating in fact we had some tests done and it took so long that the original tests were now invalid and we had to get more testing done and it was in that process that both of us felt god say we need to look at adoption and for us adoption has always been something that's been on both of our hearts and we wanted we wanted to start a family in a way that adoption wasn't the last choice but it was our choice and we we wanted to we wanted to make that decision so we still don't know whether we can or can't conceive officially but we've been pursuing a route of adoption and and we started the training around about 18 months ago and in november we were approved to become adopters and you know what this has been a long process of waiting and frustration and like it's been i think it's been difficult but it's it's not been heartbreaking but it's been hard and we're still in that period of weight and we're still looking and and looking at profiles and it's it's at the moment it is being way slower than we anticipated it and we're you know we're we're not much further on just being approved and so we're in this place where we're waiting for breakthrough we're in this place where we're having to almost daily say god we're trusting your time god we're waiting we're trusting that your timing will be right and it's hard and we're saying god god we're waiting because because what you need to do in us will mean that we can you can do stuff through us and so in that frustration in that waiting for breakthrough we're trying to wait in the right way and it's not always easy as i'm sure a lot of you will agree and i love what stuart said a couple of weeks ago when he said you know i've been through some stuff in my life but i wouldn't want to go through that again i wouldn't choose to go through it again but i wouldn't want to lose what god did in me in that season and so how do we see breakthrough i think it's this we pray for it and then we wait for it and then we pray for it and then we wait for it and we pray for and we keep going in this circle and we wait until god brings about that cycle until god brings about our breakthrough and our healing and you know it might be that today we pray for it and you're healed i really believe that god could do that but for some of us we'll pray for it and you'll have to wait for it and you'll pray for it and sometimes i think we pray for it and we give up and actually go god wants to take us on this cycle and allow us to learn in this cycle and you know when i started writing this talk i was listening to the new elevation worship album and there's a song on there called wait on you and it's not often that a song hits me right between the eyes first time of listening but it it's just so powerful and it used so many words that i wanna wanted to communicate today and so i asked our life central collective if they could put it put together their own version of weight on you by elevation worship and maverick city and what they have put together is not just an incredible piece of music and editing and film and it is that but i think it's an anointed song because as as a number of people have watched it in the last week as we've been preparing for sunday there's been a lot of tears in fact when the guys filmed it on this stage on tuesday nights the presents the guys have told me the presence of god was incredible they've all been texting each other saying i still can't get over how much god moved and i think this song is so powerful and could actually be something that god really ministers to you if you are somebody who is waiting for your healing and your breakthrough the words of the song say this i've never seen a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow but i've got a promise i can hold in the middle of the struggle god if you said it you're performing may not be how i want you to but here's what i'll do i'm gonna wait on you i'm gonna wait on you i've tasted your goodness i'll trust in your promise i'm gonna wait on you allow god to speak to you in these next few moments as we watch the live central collective's version of weight on you i don't believe in fairy tales i guess i've outgrown them but that doesn't mean that i don't believe that there's something bigger than me cause i've seen it in a hospital room but the doctor said sorry there's nothing more we can do [Music] but i've got a promise i can hold [Music] but here's what i'll do [Music] i'll trust in your promise [Music] going [Music] but there's no predicting what comes next but you [Music] you've always been true i'm wait [Music] oh help me [Music] oh [Music] [Music] he will renew your strength [Music] wait oh i know [Music] oh is are you gonna wait [Music] i'm gonna wait on you oh i'm gonna wait on you [Music] i've tasted your goodness but i'll trust in your promise i'm gonna wait on you [Music]

Channel: LifecentralChurchUK

Views: 1,151

Rating: 4.9452057 out of 5

Keywords: church, meaning, purpose, life, calling, lifestyle, Jesus, God, Spiritual Growth, God’s wisdom, Make better decisions, faith, decisions, peace, covid-19, coronavirus, worship, giving people hope, evangelism, telling people about jesus, good news, latest news, Sunday, hope, lockdown, jesus, why do christian believe in Jesus?, Church, life central church, lifeCentral, my next step, works, faith in action, character, online ministry, healing, perseverance, breakthrough, wait on god

Id: 75cGwWZ_NXU

Length: 23min 45sec (1425 seconds)

Published: Sun May 30 2021