We’re continuing our summer sermon series on the theme “Common Objects That Build Faith,” and today’s object, the fourth one, is a band-aid. At the end of the service you’ll be given one; I suggest that you wear it at least for a day to remind you that God wants to bring healing to your life.
We all need healing! All of us have things wrong with us physically, emotionally, relationally, or spiritually.
Sometimes we aren’t fully aware of the effects on our lives caused by our imperfections. I like what one elderly person said: “I’m obviously wearing out. I’ve had two by-pass surgeries, a hip replaced, I have two new knees, I have prostate problems, diabetes, I take forty different medicines, and I have circulation problems that sometimes leave me confused — but thank God I still have my driver’s license!”
We all need healing of one kind or another in our lives. The band-aid can remind us that God wants to bring us His good measure of healing.

God Can Heal
The good news is that God can heal us! We know from the record of Jesus’ life that He healed people of physical ailments. “Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people.” (Matthew 4:23) On Friday, at the dinner following Kathy Eckhart’s memorial service, Diann and I were talking with Ray and Barbara Fritzsche. Last year Ray fell off a ladder and was in critical condition with severe brain damage. It’s taken time, but he has had nearly complete healing. Frankly, when I prayed for him that first night I wondered whether or not God would choose to heal him, but He did!
People have healing of emotions. When our three adopted granddaughters were brought into the family, they didn’t like to be around men because of previous bad experiences. Now they’re very loving, giving hugs to their dad (our son-in-law Victor), to their grandpa (me), and to the three men from our church on our recent mission trip.
There can be healing of relationships. Our son-in-law Victor watched through the window of his home at the age of six as his father walked down the street and out of the family’s life. As an adult, Victor found out that his father had accepted Christ. Victor traveled several hours to see his father, and they’ve been reconciled to the point that his dad goes along on some of the medical mission trips!

God Doesn’t Always Heal
Of course there are many examples where obviously God hasn’t chosen to heal. Jesus healed many people, but He didn’t heal all the people of His day. Jesus healed a man at the pool of Bethesda in Jerusalem; he had been an invalid for 38 years. Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” (John 5:8) The text goes on, “At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.” (John 5:8) Jesus healed him, but apparently he was the only one to be healed then, though the text says, referring to the pool at Bethesda, “Here a great number of disabled people used to lie — the blind, the lame, the paralyzed.” (John 5:5)
We know from personal experience that God doesn’t always heal. We pray for physical healing but it doesn’t come, so we have to live with our infirmities — or they end up costing us our lives, as pancreatic cancer did Kathy, whose memorial service we held this last Friday.
The great apostle Paul, who was used by the Lord to heal others, had what he called a “thorn in the flesh” that he thought hindered his work for the Lord. Paul wrote, “Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me.” (2 Corinthians 12:8) However, the Lord didn’t grant him his repeated request.
People continue to deal with emotional issues — and even as Christians, they don’t receive instant or complete healing. Charles Spurgeon, a great preacher of another generation, struggled with depression. As great and godly a man as he was, it was something that never really left him.
We can face unresolved relationship issues because another person doesn’t want to deal with them. That’s why Paul wrote, “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live in peace with everyone.” (Romans 12:18) Did you notice those qualifying words “if it is possible” and “as far as it depends on you”? We can’t always have the healing of a relationship that we so desperately want. It takes two people to make that happen.

God’s Greatest Healing Is Always Possible!
Here is the great truth for today, a truth to remember when you glance at the band-aid or feel it on your skin: God wants us to experience spiritual healing and new wholeness through our unhealed bodies, emotions, and relationships. When Paul’s three-times-repeated request for healing was turned down, Jesus told Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:8) From God’s perspective He could use Paul far more effectively with Paul still struggling with his “thorn in the flesh,” having to depend more on the Lord.
You see, God’s greatest concern isn’t for our physical, emotional, or even relational healing. His greatest concern is for our spiritual healing: that we come into a close, loving, and utterly dependent relationship with Him.
When you ask anyone when he really decided to get serious about God and turn his life over to Him, they rarely say that it was when life was going great. We don’t think much about God then. Almost everyone turns to God when things have gotten so bad that life seems hopeless. The same is true once we’ve come into a relationship with God. We grow most in our relationship to Him and our utter dependence on Him when things aren’t good or easy. As C.S. Lewis said, God whispers to us through our pleasure and shouts to us through our pain.
Terry Wardle wrote, “Thomas Kelly was a Quaker educator, missionary, and scholar who died in 1941. His small book, A Testament of Devotion, is a classic of Christian devotional literature. He said that ‘the deepest human need is not food and clothing and shelter, as important as they are. It is God.’ When a person is seeking help, whether he consciously recognizes it or not he’s looking for God, longing for His love and needing His healing. The person is often so distant from that inner need that he doesn’t turn to God for help. He’s also in distress because of the wounds and bondage that have resulted from that deep emptiness. Whether it’s depression, anxiety disorder, sexual addiction, or marital turmoil, beneath it is a desperate cry for God and a hunger to be transformed in His presence.” (Healing Care, Healing Prayer, p.21) God can bring REAL healing to our hearts and souls through our hurts — and even more, He can use our hurts to bring healing to others!

Be a Wounded Healer
Henri Nouwen wrote a book called The Wounded Healer; that’s what God wants each of us to be! When God helps us to cope with our own hurts we’re in a position to help others with their hurts and to help bring healing to them.
Throughout history people have hidden valuable treasure in common, ordinary objects, including clay pots. In fact, many valuable items have been found by archaeologists in clay pots. Paul used this imagery when he wrote, “But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.” (2 Corinthians 4:7) Paul knew that he had a tremendous message to spread — the gospel (good news) of Jesus — yet he felt limited and inadequate. However, he realized that it was God’s brilliant plan, and we should recognize that, too!
You and I aren’t in perfect physical health, and we have “issues,” as they say nowadays. We don’t always have our relationships in perfect condition; life is far from ideal. We tend to think, “When my life gets a little more in order I can do something for God.” That’s wrong, wrong, wrong! God loves to use ordinary clay jars — even cracked jars — to carry His presence anywhere you find yourself!
We should have the same attitude that Paul had when he wrote, “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; struck down, but not destroyed.” (2 Corinthians 4:8-9) We have the Lord with us in everything that we’re dealing with. Could He take all the hard stuff away? Yes, but will He? That’s not very likely, but He offers His presence and power to get through it all! A few verses later Paul wrote, “Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.” (2 Corinthians 4:16) We can always be growing spiritually, whether or not things are going our way.
It’s all right not to have life all together when you come to church. It’s good to come to the Lord before you get everything straightened out, because if you waited for that to happen you’d never come to Him! God will bring the healing that He wants us to have — in His good time and in His good way. He’ll also use us — as imperfect, sinful, and far-from-ideal as we are.
Wear the band-aid as a reminder that you can have God’s healing. Wear it as a reminder that God uses even the areas of life where we don’t see quick or complete healing as an opportunity for us to come to Him and cling to Him. Wear the band-aid to remind you that you can be a wounded healer whom God can use to bring His love and healing to others!


He can use us in our weakness far beyond what we can possibly imagine!