Three Wounds of Faith - Contrite

Before Martin Luther’s infamous moment in church history when he nailed the 95 thesis to the door of a Catholic Church that began the Protestant reformation. There’s lived a lady 200 years before Martin Luther by the name of Julian of Norwich. Her story is quite interesting. While she’s was praying one day, and of course during this time the Catholic Church had all these stuff you had to do for prayer, and the Lord appeared to her and said, “You don’t have to have all this stuff to pray; All God wants and expects is that You should believe in Him and love Him with all of your heart.” So 200 years before Martin Luther would challenge the church on justification by faith.

400 years before John Wesley her one book would teach on perfect love. Lady Julian would write: If you love God with all of your heart and believe in His son, you will be all right. She realized way before Martin Luther that we are saved by faith not by our works. And One of the things she talked about was how we should love the Lord until that love became like a burning bush, flaming in our hearts.

Another belief that she had was in divine healing. One day she became very sick and she laid on her death bed. She thought this was the end, and people began to gather because they thought she was going to die. So, of course they began to do all the ritual things they did back then. Anointed her with oil, sprinkled water on her and all sorts of things the Catholic Church believes needs to happen on the death bed.

Her feet began to get cold and dead. It moved up from her feet to her waist. She was dying, and at this moment everything from her waist down was dead. So she began to cry out to God, “Lord, Lord, I am only 30 years old. I would hate to die and leave my work. Now, it’s perfectly alright if you want me to die. I’ll die, but think about it a little and see whether it wouldn’t be a good idea if I lived, for i am still young.

I’ve got a long time on earth in the natural course of things, and if I die, I won’t do much good. So, father, just give me some attention.” She continued to die but after her prayer she was dying now from her head down. She writes, “My head began to die and i went blind. There was total darkness, and it began to settle down towards my heart, and i felt myself going.

Just when I was about to breathe my last breath, suddenly and instantaneously i was perfectly well. I know God I did it, and it wasn’t nature, but grace, because it came so suddenly and i was dying and i knew it. Now, obviously i do not claim to know all that God does and I never will. But in my heart I believed that as death began to overtake her legs and brought darkness to her mind, and once death reached her heart.

Her hearts burning affection for Christ was so stoked by the coals of adoration. That if Death was going to take her, it was going to take her with a bright burning heart of affectionate worship towards God. And perhaps, i dunno but i imagine at that last moment, death looked to the throne of grace, yes even death has a master named Jesus and said, Lord, are you sure, there much work to be done for the kingdom.

Lord, you don’t find many Hearts like this. Hearts with a burning desire to grow the kingdom. I don’t know why God spared her. I do not know why God spares some who cry out for mercy and not others. I can only imagine he does what he does because of grace. he knows more than i know… but Her heart was not only burning with affection but that affection was leading her heart to be a faithful servant.

Now, we are not saved by our works.. right? Paul reminds us in Romans 5:1: Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.. But as long as Jesus has yet to return. I believe we must realize there is Kingdom work to be done. And for death to reach the heart of this woman and see nothing but a stoked fire of affection, with perfect love for God.

I just want to believe with all of my heart God spared her to further his kingdom. And he did. Again, 200 years before Martin Luther was this woman’s burning heart for justification by faith. 400 years before John Wesley and the Methodist moment was this woman’s affectionate heart of perfection. Yes, we are not perfected totally until we are in heaven, but as Nazarenes from the holiness tradition we do believe on this side of the cross we can be relatively perfected to love God and to love others.

It’s through holiness that, it becomes possible. She lived and preached perfect love before it was something known to the world to pursue and to receive. That my friends, is all a part of the Prevenient Grace God gives throughout the generations of the world. So, why do I share this story. I shared this story because i want to share her prayer.. were in a series called saturated as we look at prayer and her prayer had a tender affect on my heart.

She prayed, “I want thee to wound me with the wound of contrition, and then i want thee to wound me with the wound of compassion, and then I want thee to wound me with the wound of very longing after God.” And God did. She lived a very long life, and people came from the north to the south and the east to the west and they found a lady of compassion and a woman pursuing and longing for God.

Three wounds.. Three faithful wounds. Our Scripture today reminds us that faithful are the wounds of a friend. It’s a weird thing to see what wounds do to a person. when we are wounded our perception changes. Soldier’s on the battlefield in WWII would have great self confidence and a youthful zeal for country. And then they head out into harms way to only have a small piece of shrapnel mortally wound them.

You’d read and hear the stories from the medics, doctors and nurses who would work on a 200 lb man who was strong and tall and as the medics worked on those men, as they cried out and they would often revert back to their childhood and talk of how their peaceful tender loving mothers would care for them. A once carnal, self confident man is now laying on their death bed with all the fight gone out of them.

The Bible tells us the same. Abraham was wounded when called by God to take his son that he loved to the hillside altar. As Abraham with love in His heart lifted that knife. God said no! Abraham was changed on that day. He was never the same man again. He was wounded by his friend. He was wounded by the saving of himself. He was loving Isaiah more than God.

That is always the reason why God wounds men, to same them from themselves. Jacob wrestled with God and the angel touched his thigh and he walked with a limp for the rest of his life. Paul was wounded in his sight and with a thorn in his flesh. And let us not forget that as the passion week is almost upon us, that God had sent his son Jesus to be wounded as well.

Romans 8:32 reminds us that; 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Peter who’s pride was wounded when Jesus said to him, you will deny me. He would also hear his Lord say to him, “get behind me Satan.” That same peter would go on to write about his wound in I peter 2:24: “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.

By his wounds you have been healed.” He knows this to be true because John tells us that Jesus has been healed. Faithful Thomas not doubtful Thomas was in the room with the disciples too which Jesus shows up after the resurrection and tells Faithful Thomas.. “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.” (John 20:27) Church, there is no need for healing if there are no wounds.

And many times we are wounded because God is calling us back to him. All through church history the people of God have been wounded. Until God had cut them, and wounded them to death, and beaten them down and wounded them, made them helpless, and then he did what? He brought them back to life again. I read the words, Faithful are the wounds of a friend… I wonder if that would put new meaning too the hymn, what a friend we have in Jesus.

and what a friend he truly is, who is willing to wound to bring us closer to him. The first wound is the wound lady Julian prayed for was the wound of a contrite heart. It’s a heart that seeks repentance. It’s a heart that cries out, not my will but yours be done. It’s a heart that says Lord, I'm hurt and wounded, and instead of running away, the person runs to and asks God with an open heart and a gaping wound…

“Lord is this your will!” Many of the wounds we experience in life is God pleading for his people to return. that’s true love. And often the love we need most is the love we want least. When we are wounded it feels harsh. It feels unfair. It feels like the world is against us. Before salvation, before the heart is regenerated it must be wounded towards repentance. Before justification one must seek the path of repentance.

We find that path most times through the wounds the Lord gives us. Most times when God wounds, he’s got to, he’s got to wound us to empty us of us. How great is our god that he’s willing to do that. That’s he says in his infinite power, I can do anything I desire but I chose to use you for my purpose. But before I can use you, i must empty you of you and replace it with my son, Jesus.

My son, who was also wounded by me for your transgressions. A contrite heart is a heart that seeks Christ above all things. Its not just a turn from sin, but its pouring our sin out of us through our wounds at the foot of the cross. It’s pouring it out from the heart where we have kept our transgressions against God. It’s running away from the uncleanliness of what defiles our souls that God would reject.

So repentance doesn’t become this change of mind. Listen, church repentance is not that, now you believe in Jesus. Every demon in the world believes in Jesus. They know him. But what makes a christian different from every enemy of God is that they are willing to submit to Jesus. A Christ follower is willing to obey him. Listen, brothers and sisters… We accept nothing, and believe in nothing unless we are willing to do the will of God.

And the enemy of God is not willing to do the will of God. A sinful person is not willing to do the will of God. A prideful; person is not willing to do the will of God. The will of God is pressed upon their hears and its seen as if His will is like gnats dancing around our eyeballs. It’s just a neuicense. To do the will of God, one must be burdened with their sin.

Unless the heart is broken open and wounded and filled with the salve of grace God gives freely through Christ, all his will becomes to us is a neuicense. We swat his presence away with our transgressions and we rather not be bothered with the will of God. We’re too busy with life… how am I to pursue my will and your will to Lord? I can’t be bothered with it.

Well, how does God get me to see that kind of lifestyle? By wounding me and calling me to repent. What I’ve learned in my life… If something bothers me and I still choose to do it, I’m not living a repetnful life. I’ve learned that anxiety in my life isn’t a call to run away and sleep, but a call for prayer. If something bothers me and I chose to do it anyway, am i truly living a repentful life?

What do I mean about that? I think of drinking Alcohol and using tobacco. SO many people will argue that there is nothing wrong with Alcohol and tobacco. The Bible is filled with people who drank wine. Jesus created wine from water. Paul tells Timothy to have some wine for his tummy. Jesus tells us that there is wine at the banquet table. There’s nothing in the Bible that tells us that smoking and chewing snuff is bad either.

I believe there are people in heaven who drank and smoked cigarettes and chewed tobacco. But I also once heard you might go to heaven chewing tobacco, but you’ll need to step into hell to spit. Now, don’t walk out of here saying that Matthew is ok with tobacco and alcohol. that’s not what I am saying. I gave it up because I’ve seen the life of a alcoholic be destroyed, while destroying other lives around them.

I gave up tobacco not because I didn’t like it, but because I loved Christ more. Holiness is a process where we walk forward and we lay down things in this world that capture us and cause us to be addicted to on this side of the heaven, so that we can be captured and enraptured by the Holy Spirit to follow Jesus. I cant be captured by Jesus if every time I get anxiety I run to the bottle.

I cant be captured by Jesus if after a meal I’m urging for a cigarette or some snuff. Well pastor, im not addicted to it… I just use them for recreation. Well, ok, but if that’s true then let me ask… have you not tasted the Lord and saw how good he is? Have you not found joy in Him? Im not saying it’s all wrong, but I’m saying what holds you captive?

I’ve seen pictures of Dietrich Bonhoeffer the famous theologian who was imprisoned during WWII for his faith in Christ and being outspoken about the wrongs of hitler. He’s there in pictures with cigarettes in his hand but he also wrote amazing words of devotion of what it cost to follow Jesus. the famous words to the book called, “the cost of a disciple.” The same book that reminds us that: “It is only because he became like us that we can become like him.” The same book that reads: “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” The same book from a man with a cigarette in his hand that reads: Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance..

Grace is costly when Jesus calls us to follow Him. Quitting tobacco and alcohol requires a sacrifice. And it requires a sacrifice to give up those things that can kinder our loyalty to Christ. Church, What have we left on the side of the road to walk freely with Jesus? What are we willing to leave behind so that there is no more carnal pull that drives us back into our old life?

Tobacco? Alcohol? Pursuit of Money? A Comfortable Christ-less life where I gain all the glory on earth to live in comfort but miss the bus to heaven? No! grace cost us something when we go from come and see, to follow me. Jesus said to the disciples of John….Come and see. To Andrew and his friend is the invitation to witness what grace is like, but responding to the words come, follow me is the first costly sacrifice we must make in a life of walking with Jesus.

Come and follow is the first costly grace we walk into because it requires us to examine our lives and lay on the side of the road all the things that hinder our walk with Jesus. A call to repentance is always a call to examine our hearts and ask the question… What am i willing to leave behind? What am I still carrying that I need to let go. If our sin does not bother us and wound us, then we’re trying to dodge the enviable.

And if something bothers me and I still choose to do it, I’m not living a repetnful life. Church, listen. The Lord is looking for a people who are hungry for Him.. who’s willing to be wounded for him and are through with sin, and they feel within them a burning desire to rid themselves of it. God is looking for people who will feel the cold press of the darkness that they are walking in and and turn their face to the warmth of the light.

Where truth is found. And God will wound our hearts so that we can realize we’re walking down a path towards darkness. Have you ever walked into the basement or cellar on a hot summer day and felt the pressing cold and darkness? When I was a young boy we lived on a 500 acre farm, and when I was asked to go get potatoes on a hot summer day. I would walk into our outdoor cellar and instantly be greeted with darkness and the cold musty air that had settled in there.

The cold darkness would feel amazing on those hot summer days. But I also knew as a kid that I wanted to be in the light. Where my family was. Where my dog was. There was nothing in the darkness for me but potatoes. My biggest fear in darkness was the spiders. there all kind of creepy things in the darkness. Man has always been afraid of the darkness. We’re afraid because we cant see.

But yet we find comfort in our darkenss because the closer we get to God, and to his all consuming burning holiness we realize how lowly we truly are. And before long, we find refuge in our darkness. Oh God, I pray that you would wound our hearts so that the darkness in our hearts will let your glory shine light into our lives. Let us feel the warmth of the son.

Wound us Lord, so that we can return to you. And many times, that is what the church needs to realize. Many times we need to have faithful wounds that are from faithful friends so that we can be reminded that the dark cellar is not as amazing as being before the throne of grace. Many times the church becomes potatoes in the dark cellar of life. There is no more prayer, there is no more joy of worship.

There is no more faithful repentance upon the alter of sacrifice. It’s sad that we witness the church become sellers where potatoes are held. Yes I understand that potatoes grow in the the darkness. And sometimes that potatoes must be wounded and cut in half to multiply. But the flower of that potatoes must reach it’s palms up and out of the ground to receive the rays of the son, shinning down upon it.

That is where it gets it strength to grow. Not from the darkenss but from the sun. And I also understand that potatoes only become useful to us when they are tilled from the darkness and brought into the light. The ground must be wounded for the potatoes to be surfaced. And it is then that they are harvested and shared with others. They can be wounded to be used for multiple things.

They are wounded to make Potato salad, French fries, baked potatoes, mash potatoes, Scalloped potatoes. Potatoes are wounded and used to smooth burns, to remove rust and to remove broken lightbulbs. Did you know if your soup was too salty you can cut a few chunks of potatoes and use them to draw the salt out of your soup. When the potato is brought into the light and wounded, it’s used for many different things.

But here is the key… it can only be useful if it surrenders to the full will of one who is using it. There are many of you here today who’s trying to be one thing and you’re purpose is another. There’s many of you here today who’s trying to be French fries when God is calling you to sooth and heal wounds. There’s many of you here today trying to be a potato salad but you’re being called to rescue a salty situation.

There are many of you who are trying to be a baked potato but your being called to be wounded so that you can be rubbed on a rusty situation. There is many of you that at this moment, God is calling you to be wounded and your pride cut in half so that you can be planted to multiply his kingdom. All of those things come from a repetnful heart and a willing soul who is willing to surrender to the full will of God and be brought into the light.

Otherwise, all we will ever be if we refuse to be used, is a bin full of stinky, rotten and dirty potatoes that are thrown out and discarded. The ultimate question this morning is this… are you willing to be wounded and used? Lady Julian prayed, Lord wound me. Wound me with a heart of contrition. And she carried that wound every day. She didn’t care whether or not she was happy or sad.

That’s the power of presence. The power of walking with Jesus and in His presence. When we are totally focused on Christ, this walk becomes a peaceful walk. Living faith is not toil. It’s not hard. Faith is peace when we’re in the presence of the Prince of peace. But when she was reminded of that faithful wound, she would be reminded of His faithfulness. Church, as I close this morning.

I want to give one more final urge. There is a friend who wants to rebuke us to lead us back to him. He wants to lead us into a path of holiness. We have a friend who wants to shoot the arrow of repentance strait through our hearts and give us a wound for him. Do you have the courage to say Lord, would you wound me? Am I running away from you Lord.

Is there an urge in my life that would say, I want you to do this to me? If so, I pray that you ask, just as Lady Julian asked, “Lord, do this without condition.” “Do it Lord at any cost.” Are you able and willing to do that this morning? When we talk about revival, repentance is the key to the door of revival. All great movements began with knees to the floor.

The saints in the upper room prayed and fasted until the Holy Spirit fell. The great revivals of the ages all began with hearts on fire in unity praying, repenting and seeking. Will revival happen in this church, and in our hearts? I cant answer that… only you can. But I wonder…….. if there is anyone here today willing to stand and say, wound me Lord? Here in a moment were going to pray..

but before we do… is there anyone who is willing to stand, at this moment where you are and say, Matthew, I pray God will also give me the wound of a contrite heart. Matthew, I know there is something wrong, and maybe this is it. Maybe i need to repent. I want God to do something more than I have known. I want you to pray for me that ill have the courage to pray for myself to request God to grant me this faithful wound.

Is there anyone here today willing to do that? Is there anyone in this room willing to stand where you are and say I want that kind of Christian life. It means ostracism. To be rejected by society. It means misunderstanding, it means wondering lonely at times. but never far from the presence of God. It means my ways are not HIs ways. It means many times I wont understand why God does something, but I rather walk into it than away from it.

Is there anyone today who’s willing to stand and ask God for that kind of wound before we pray? *