Keith Battle - I Wanna Be Healed

My subject today is «I Want to Be Healed.» I want to be healed. Sin is a sickness; it is a part of what is called human depravity. It is a part of our fallen nature that we all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. It is a part of being human; to sin is a part of the human condition. Nobody had to teach you how to sin. If you watch a two-year-old without any sin training, you will see the trickery. You might ask, «Yo, did you take those cookies?» and with crumbs all over the kid’s mouth, the child will hide the cookie behind his pull-up and act like, «Dude, that’s sin.» It runs through the bloodline; it’s part of our Adamic nature we got from our parents. When sin entered into the world, death came by sin; because one man sinned, we all sinned—that’s part of what we receive. It is a nature we have; we have the nature to sin, and we will wrestle with this sin issue all of our lives. I don’t care how big your Bible is, how loud your shout is, or how long you’ve been in church; you wrestle with sin. Everybody may not know it because we become adept at camouflaging our sins. We dress ourselves up, look spiritual, and say all the spiritual stuff to make people think that we’re living holy, that our holiness is in direct proportion to our efforts. But if we’re truthful, all of us are wrestling with something that disturbs us—that we’re still doing the same thing over and over again. We’ve been praying about it, but I came to preach to somebody today who wants to be healed—not necessarily physically or medically, but healed of this sin sickness. It’s really a question as much as it is a statement. I remember in the Gospel of Luke, I believe it is Chapter 5, that Jesus came to a man, Pastor Jeff, who had been in the same medical condition for 38 years. The man was paralyzed; he was sitting by a pool. He believed that, according to legend, if he could get into the pool first when the water stirred, his condition would change. For 38 years, he sat on that porch trying to get into that pool first, but someone would always beat him into the water. My thinking is that he should have just kept scrunching down closer to the pool so he wouldn’t get left out. He could have just fallen into it and been ready to be the first in. It seems like he wouldn’t have let someone beat him every day for 38 years. I would have figured out a way to trick them, look over there, or do something to get in. When Jesus saw this man’s condition, he asked him a powerful question that blew me away—“Do you want to be healed?» Seriously! As a man who is paralyzed and can’t walk, who wouldn’t want to be healed? No, do you want to be healed? Not everybody wants to pay the cost of what it takes to be healed. Some people like being sick because it allows them to continue to be a victim. If I’m not healed, I don’t have to be responsible; you can take care of me and fix this for me. When I talk about this kind of healing today, the question is going to be asked: Are you willing to do what is necessary to be healed? This sin sickness is something we all deal with. One of the indications that you have it, if you’re wondering if you do, is that we go through something called a sin cycle. A sin cycle works like this: there is something that we know we shouldn’t do. Maybe we didn’t always know we shouldn’t do it, but after coming into a relationship with God and beginning to go to church to learn more about it, we now know that this is wrong. We used to do it; it didn’t bother us, but now it bothers us because we’ve entered into the light. When you enter into the light, you are enlightened, and now I know the things that I used to think were okay are not right for me to do, but I still do it. That causes me to sin. When I sin, I feel bad about it; it’s called conviction. Whenever you feel bad about sinning, that’s a good sign, an indication that you’re saved. If you weren’t saved, sin wouldn’t bother you. But the fact that you’re convicted about it and troubled is significant. The worst thing to be is a Christian still trying to get your freak on, your party on, and your drink on. You used to be able to get drunk, party, and do all that stuff and wake up the next day cool with it, going about your day, but now you do it and think, «God, why do I keep doing this? I can’t believe I’m in this situation again!» You say, «I wasn’t going to do this anymore, ” yet here you are right back. Then we get convicted, feel guilty, and come to God, saying, „God, please forgive me for what I have done.“ Because He’s faithful and just, He forgives us of that sin. Then we enter into a space of feeling grace from God again, and we start to feel good. „Okay, Lord, thank you for your forgiveness; you’re so faithful.“ But before you know it, over time, we find…