(Apostolic Vision) the Healing Community — Dale Heisey

The Mission Field and the Purpose of the Church

On a Thursday night. But I was wondering, as our brother was praying, for how many of you was he praying, for how many of you was he praying when he prayed for those who are on the mission field? For how many of you was he praying when he prayed for those who are on the mission field?

How many of you are on the mission field and when do you plan to get there if you're not there? What in the world are you doing here? Why are we here if we're not on the mission field? What are we doing here?

We have absolutely no business being here unless we're on the mission field. I wonder for how many of us he was praying when he prayed for those who were on the mission field. I suppose that's enough of a sermon for us to dismiss and go home.

We can think about that. Are we on the mission field? And if we're not on the mission field, what kind of field are we? We must be on more than just the clover field. We've got to be on the mission field.

I do appreciate this wonderful group that's come out here this evening on a Thursday night. We welcome everybody to this service and we welcome you in the name of Jesus. And he has a missionary heart and he loves the Lord.

The Healing Community and the Church’s Responsibility

I had the opportunity to work for several years in the emergency room of a hospital and along with that responsibility, I served on the AMBU team of that particular research hospital where I was working.

An AMBU team is a team of supposedly trained people and doctors that are called in that case of emergency when a patient somewhere in the hospital on one of the floors goes into cardiac respiratory arrest.

And then you're called there to do what you can as rapidly as possible to resuscitate them and try to revive that person. And that kind of experience helps you appreciate the value of life. It helps you appreciate the brevity of life.

It helps you appreciate what is necessary to sustain life. And it helps to create in your heart a healing mentality. No, I'm not going to make you wait in suspense for very long to know what we're speaking about tonight.

I am concerned about the large number of hurting and wounded and suffering people we have in our churches about whom or for whom we can do virtually nothing to help them. I'm concerned about the large number of people who have great needs, be they spiritual needs or emotional needs and maybe even physical needs, but especially spiritual and emotional needs that we need to send to the outside specialist for their help.

I don't understand why when somebody sins in the healing community of the church, why when somebody sins inside the context of the healing community of the church, why we need any help outside of the healing community of the church to meet the needs of those suffering people.

I don't understand that. I guess I'm too simple to understand that. I guess I never studied a course that could explain that to me. Why someone who has sinned, someone who's struggling in their emotions and in the attempts to regain and restore the feelings inside, why we need some kind of outside professionalism to help us with a problem that Jesus would so easily be able and desiring to heal.

I don't understand that. Now, you would, and I realize this, I realize this, and I try to be careful if I'm preaching in the States to not make this mistake. You might sense this mistake in me sometimes, but I try to be careful to not, I try to remember that I'm in the United States of America when I'm up here.

I'm not in Costa Rica or not in Peru or not in Nicaragua. And listen, I'm just asking you a simple question, and you just please tonight, take yourself out of the Willamette Valley long enough to answer this question.

With our cases of emotional disturbance and with our cases of deep sin and personal problems, with our cases of deep woundedness and our members in Costa Rica, where is the deeper life conference where I'm supposed to send our members?

And where is the psychological help? And where are the, I don't know what, the specialty places where they send these people for these needs? Where am I supposed to send them? And listen, do you want to pay the plane tickets to send them all up here?

Or how do we do that? And if throughout the ages the church has met these needs, if throughout the ages, throughout history, the church of Jesus Christ, the healing people of God, the church, the healing community has met these needs, then what is wrong with the church today?

I mean, right here. And we're responsible for this work. We have been given this work. Our Lord Jesus has given us this healing ministry. I'm not afraid of a doctor. I believe in doctors. I'm not afraid of medicine.

I believe in medicine. I mean, I think I do. But I, maybe you could understand these thoughts. The church is not a Sunday school class. The church is the church. The church is not an auditorium filled with people listening to a preacher.

The church is the church. The church is not a group of men ordained to certain positions. The church is the church. And the healing community is the church. And I suppose that the church is no more the church in all of its existence as it is the church when it is ministering to the needs of its people.

That is what the church is for. The church is to meet the needs that we find around us. Be that need someone on Skid Row, or be that need someone out in the alley, or be that need someone down the street, or be that need a sinner that doesn't know Jesus, or be that need a personal struggle in the hearts of those of us who meet together.

But the church is to meet those needs. That's what the church is for. The church was given equipment for that. In fact, we are to edify the body of Christ so that it can be functioning in its ministry.

We'll read those verses in Ephesians 4. And that's not the work of the professionals. And that's not the work of the pastor. That is not the work of a few people, of a few select ones. That is the work of the church.

It's the work of the church to heal the needs of the church. Now, I've worked with doctors for years. And I know very few doctors, there might be some, I know very few doctors who are not well aware, wait, the doctors that I work with are well aware of the fact that they cannot heal the patient.

The only thing they can do is put bones together, remove certain tissues, close up certain openings, pull together skin, suture the organs back together and the layers, the subcutaneous that comes up to the top and finish it off with, hopefully, a nice line down the end of the skin and finish this thing off when it heals.

That's about as much as they can do. And they know that. The healing, God has created our bodies to do that. Now, who's going to heal this body here? This body right here. How's that supposed to heal?

I would just like to think about that. The church is a healing community. And I'm concerned about all the needs we have for counseling here and there and counseling centers and this and that. I don't understand all this.

And I'm not looking at it this evening from a theological point of view. I'm not looking at but this, that Christ wanted people to heal the needs in the church. And there are tremendous needs in the church.

And it would be a day of revival. It would be a revival meeting. It would be a day of revival if those needy ones, the ailing ones and aching ones and hurting ones and lonely ones that we have among us would come to the church to have their needs met.

It would be a day of revival. It would be a revival meeting. That meeting would be a revival meeting. I'd like to ask you something. How many of you have ever been present among the body of brothers and sisters when needs of that kind were being met in the church?

We have never had better revival meetings in Costa Rica than we have had in such meetings. When everybody is so humbled before God that nobody can talk. When no one needs to say a word. When every eye is filled with tears and everybody is humbled in the presence of God and the needs are met.

Biblical Foundations for Restoration and Healing

That is what the church is for. And if you're not experiencing that, you need a revival meeting. Now let's just see what this Bible says about the introduction that I just gave. Is this Bible truth that you just heard?

Is this the heart of God, what we have just heard? Did someone just simply put that on their plane and haul it up here from Costa Rica? Or is this in the Bible that we read from every day? Is this a Bible position for the church?

And we could read a lot of scriptures this evening, but let's start in Psalm 23. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters.

What does he do to the soul? What does he do to the soul? What does it say in your Bible? What does he do to the soul? What does that word mean? What does restore mean? What does restore the soul mean?

He's here and he's not restoring the strength. He's restoring the soul. He leadeth me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.

For thou art with me. There's much fear in the church. Thou art with me. Thou art with me. How do you know God is with you? Thou wrought in thy staff, they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies.

Thou anointest my head with oil. We need to be, as Brother John Oberholt used to say, an oil-pouring church. We need to be an oil-pouring church, an oil-pouring community, the church, the healing community.

My cup runs over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Isaiah 58. There's much worth reading here, but we'll read just verse 12.

And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places. The old waste places. Thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations. Thou shalt be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of paths to dwell in.

This is the message. This is the call. This is the ministry of the church. Build up the old waste places. Raise up the foundations of generations. The repairer of the breach, the restorer of paths to dwell in.

And when Jesus began his ministry, and read from the prophets, and we have this record in the fourth chapter of Isaiah, the fourth chapter of Luke, I'm sorry, I want to read verse 18. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor.

He hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.

And this was on the heart of our Lord Jesus. This is what he wished to do, planned to do, was prophesied to do, and did do when he came. And when he sent his disciples out, his early apostles in the tenth chapter after you, he said this to them in verses 7 and 8, And as you go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils, freely you have received, freely give. This was the message, this was the ministry he gave to his disciples. Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils, freely you have received, freely give.

Matthew 18 and the Process of Restoring a Brother

Now we're in the book of Matthew there. That was chapter 10. Let's take a look at Matthew 18. We read this the other night. But this is the ministry of the healing community, the church. Verse 15 says, Moreover, if thy brother shall trespass against thee, doest tell him his fault between thee and him alone.

If he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. If he shall neglect to hear them, tell them unto the church.

But if he neglects to hear the church, let him be unto thee as a heathen man and a publican. I could ask you a question tonight that would be very, for me, it would be very illuminating, the biblicism of the Willamette Valley.

I could ask you a question tonight that would help me believe if we truly believe the Bible and if we are obeying the Bible and we hear the Bible and we practice the Bible here in this valley, I could ask you one question that would give me a very clear indication if we are Bible-believing people or not.

And the question would be this. How many of you have ever participated in verse 16 that I just read? And that would be an indication to me of how biblical we are as a people. In our community, we very seldom have to go to verse 17.

When someone was faithful in doing verse 15 and 16, and I have had many, many opportunities when someone has come to me and said, Brother Dale, would you go along with me to visit so-and-so? Would you go along with my wife and I to visit a certain person?

Would you go along with us? It is the most beautiful thing to see what happens when somebody in all honesty and all desire to gain the brother, not to shame the brother, not to suspect the brother, not to point out the brother, not to ridicule the brother, not to shame the brother, but to gain the brother.

And the attitude to gain the brother goes with one or two others because the first attempt did not work and goes a couple days later with one or two others and says, Brother, you remember I was here before.

We need to work on this. That's what the church is for. Are you practicing this in your churches here? The church at Brownville, the people are from Brownville tonight, the people here from Harrisburg, are you practicing at the church, the people of Valley Fellowship, are you practicing this in your church, the people of Kansas, are you practicing this in your churches here?

Won't you make a commitment tonight to practice this in the church? This is not for the preachers to do, but don't wait for Jason Schwartz to do it. Don't wait for Wilbert Krupp to do it. Don't wait for one of the ministers to do it.

Don't say to your neighbor, I wonder when the preacher is going to get busy. It looks like I'm not doing nothing. I don't see him working on this. I wonder when they're going to get after him. Look at what he's doing over there.

And what have you been doing? The sweetest thing in all the world, the sweetest thing, no, the beautiful thing is when you go there. You go there and maybe you thought you were the only one. You were just the only spiritual one in this church.

You were the one that took this responsibility. You came and you got there and found out that others were concerned also and were speaking to the person about the same need. The brother senses that instead of being gossiped about and being ridiculed, he is being deemed by brotherhood.

That's what the work of the church is, the reconciling and healing community. Now it says here at the end of this 17th verse, if you neglect to hear the church, we teach in Costa Rica that there's only one reason why we can excommunicate somebody from the church.

We don't have a long list of reasons to excommunicate people. We only have one reason. We don't excommunicate people because they adulterated, because they stole, because they told a lie, because they got drunk.

We don't excommunicate people because they told a lie, because they said a bad word. We don't excommunicate people because they weren't faithful in their church attendance. We don't excommunicate anybody, but for only one reason.

There's only one reason that I know of in the Bible for excommunicating somebody. Now you look at that verse once again, tell it unto the church, that if you neglect to hear the church, let it be unto thee that he is a man of the public.

And just keep your finger right there, turn to 1 John chapter 4. I'd like to read here verse 6 in this same connection. But we are of God, he that knoweth God heareth us. He that is not of God heareth not us.

Hereby know we the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. He that is of God heareth us, and he that is not of God heareth us not, or heareth not us. And the only reason I know to excommunicate somebody, when we've taken the Bible steps, we've taken the Bible order, we have done all we can to win this brother, this sister, this airing one, this needy one.

And we brought it before the church, and the church spoke to this need. The church, the reconciled community spoke. The church spoke. He was a young father, and he was delivering some tap or something like that.

Community Discipline and the Story of Johnny’s Father

One of the people in our community, in a truck, and took some neighborhood boys along with him. And on the way home, after the truck was empty, on the way home, they had some money in their pockets, and it was a hot day.

They were thirsty. They stopped at a tavern and drank three beers, each of them. He bought beers for the young fellows that were with him from the community, and they came home. And for some way or another, the church learned about the experience.

And having taken all the steps we could to solve the problem, we finally got to step three, verse 17, and we brought Johnny before the brotherhood. And I tried to explain, as we opened the meeting, why we were here, and I asked for the brothers to speak to Johnny.

And one by one, they stood and spoke to Johnny. And the last person that spoke was Johnny's daddy. And Johnny's daddy stood to his feet, and he could not look at his son. He just put his head down and cried, I am so sorry, Johnny.

I am so sorry, Johnny. It's my fault. If I had been a better daddy, you wouldn't have done that. If I had been a better daddy, you wouldn't have done that, Johnny. If you were to be in a revival meeting, be in a meeting like that.

If you were in a revival to come to your church, have a meeting like that. If you want to see healing come upon a group of people, get yourself in a meeting like that. That's what the church is for. That's what the church is being the church.

That's the purpose of the church. If I was pointing any fingers, do you think that was a finger-pointing meeting? Was that a shaming meeting? Was that a slamming meeting? I should tell you this, that most of the people that spoke before Johnny's daddy spoke didn't say a word about Johnny.

Almost everyone who spoke before Johnny's daddy spoke came front before the group and said, I'm worse yet. I'm going to tell you what I did. And one by one they came. And nobody was forced to say anything.

And they said things that I knew nothing about. But when the night was over, we had had a revival meeting and the church was the church. I do beg you to hear these words. Would you turn to Galatians chapter four, chapter six.

Restoring the Fallen in Gentleness

The church is a healing community. Why can't we heal the needs we have in our churches? Doesn't Jesus want us to heal them? Isn't Jesus the healer of all diseases? Doesn't he forgive? Doesn't he heal?

But this is verse one now. Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such in one in the spirit of meekness, considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted. For ye want another's burden, and so fulfill the law of Christ.

And I asked you just a little while ago, what does the word restore mean? And to help us understand what the word restore means, I'd like to take us to Mark chapter one. And look at this word in Mark chapter one.

Restore such in one in the spirit of meekness, considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted. Mark chapter one. Jesus says here, verse 17. Come after me, I will make you to become pictures of men. Verse 18 says,.

And straightway they pursued him, and followed him. Now 19. And when they had gone a little further since, they saw James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, who also were in the ship mending their nets.

The word restore in the Greek language is katartiso. And katartiso is the same word we have in verse 19, mending their nets. Katartiso. Now, let's go out fishing for these nets. And the fishermen take their nets out during the day, and they pick up the nets that are filled with fish from the day before, and leave the new nets and come back.

And then the next day they change those nets again. And that happens on the Pacific coast of Nicaragua every day of the week. And I'm sure that's something about what they did here. But you come home now, and you brought these fish in to shore, and you brought the net along that you had gathered up out of the water.

And you come in shore here, and you found that as you were gathering that net up, some of the fish were slipping through the net and going back out to the sea. Well, that's not very profitable fishing.

So we've got to do something about this problem. So before we go out the next morning, what are we going to do? Thank you. Mend that net. Now, this net has holes in it. What is the holy net worth? I'm talking about holes in the net.

What is the net worth that's got holes in it? And how good is a net that has holes in it? And so it's worth it. I mean, you might as well be out there fishing with a hooly hoop, because it's not going to catch any fish.

And so you've got to fix this thing. You've got to patch it. And you've got to sit there and meticulously work that thread and repair all those holes. You've got to, I don't know, I'm not a seamstress, but you've got to fix that thing.

And someone is there sewing, I suppose that's how they do it, mending the net. And when you're done mending the net, the net has the value that it had before it broke, before it tore. And so when you restore the net, when you re-mend the net, you put it back to its original value.

It is now capable of doing what it could do before. Now let's leave the fishing. Let's leave the net and go out there to the needy brother or sister in the church. And what are we supposed to do? The command of the gospel is to restore that person to his original value.

Brethren, here's someone that was overtaken in something. You spiritual ones that have the patience to do it, that have the time to do it, that have the love to do it, that have the humility to do it, that have the meekness to do it, that have the compassion to do it, you restore this person to his original value in the spirit of meekness.

Get that done. The same word is found, just for those of you who are interested in it, in Ephesians chapter 4. We're right close to that. When you're in Ephesians, when you're in Galatians 6, just turn to Ephesians 4, you have that same word in verse 12.

It talks about here, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. This perfecting of the saints is the same word. So the whole Christian body is a perfect net.

It is like a brand new net ready to go to work. And I wanted to read these verses anyway, so I'll start with verse 10. He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.

And he gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. And this phrase, and please understand it, brethren, for the work of the ministry, does not mean for the work of the bishop, for the work of the deacon, and for the work of the minister.

This work here is the work of ministry, the work of ministry. And we have these apostolic gifts. We have this giftedness that Christ gives to his church in verse 11. And these brethren, when they do their job, when they are pastoring and when they are teaching and when they are preaching and the office is functioning like it should, the result is a body.

It is a body of the church, a body that can minister. It is a body that is equipped to minister. It is a body that's equipped, it's a body that is prepared and perfected and restored and in order and in good shape to minister to the needs of the church.

This next sentence is not so easy to say, but when the church is not prepared for ministering, it's because we have not prepared the church for ministering and we are here to prepare the church for ministering.

And if we are not using the church, if the church is not ministering to these needs among us, then there's something we ought to be doing for our brothers and sisters in the congregation that we're not getting done and we're satisfied to have it so.

This is not good. You preach the sermon so the church can minister. You teach a Sanskrit class so the church can minister. You give careful instruction to that new believer so that the church can minister.

You visit that home and give that word of counsel so that the church can minister. You try to meet the needs that are present in the congregation so that the church can minister. You work in the church so they can minister and the ministering comes from the church.

And that's when it's effective. It's very effective when that happens. Verses 14 through 16 in the same Ephesians. That we henceforth be no more children to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the splinter men and cunning craftiness whereby they lie and wait for the sea.

But speaking the truth in love may grow up in him in all things which is the head even Christ from whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supply every joint supply according to the effectual working in the measure of every part make an increase of the body onto the edifying of itself in love.

This is the plan that God has for his church, the healing community, every member involved, everyone contributing to the ministry of the church. And what is the ministry of the church? It's a ministry to people.

It's a ministry to need. It's a ministry to the needy. It's a ministry to the lonely. It's a ministry to the ones that are emotionally drained and sin sick and needy. And it's the whole body contributing to the ministry of the church.

Wise Judgment Within the Church

This is what the Bible teaches. First Corinthians chapter six. And up to now, maybe it was only one person that was needy. But in this situation, we have two or more needy ones at the same time in the church.

Verse one says there any of you having a matter against another go to law before the unjust and not before the saints? Do you not know that the saints shall judge the world and that the world shall be judged by you?

Are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Know ye not that we shall judge angels how much more things that pertain to this life. If you then have judgments of these things pertaining to this life, set them to judge who are least esteemed in the church.

Now I want to just say a word about verse four before we go on. I don't have a a Greek text in front of me here. I think some of you have one right there in front of your eyes right now. But I think the end of verse four is more properly a question instead of a statement.

In the Spanish Bible, it is a question. And and in that kind of setting, it would read like this verse four again, if you will. If then you have judgments of things pertaining to this life, do you set them to judge those matters who are the least in the church?

I speak to your shame. Is it so that there is no wise, not a wise man among you? No, not one that shall be able to judge between his brethren. And we see here again that God intends for the healing of the needs to be met within the context of the fellowship, within the context of the community, not going outside of the community to find these answers, but inside the church.

So the two of them decided to raise pineapple together. The one had the land, the other had the knowledge to do it. The one had the money to provide the hijos de piña, the seed. And so the other one had the knowledge of doing the work.

And so they made a agreement there and they worked together. But then problems began. And the man who owned the land had a bunch of cows and his cows get into the pineapple field and chewed that pineapple to shreds and ate a bunch of it up right at harvest time and made an awful mess.

And the man then that had planted this and waiting for his half of the investment felt bad because the man who owned the land could easily afford the loss, but he could not. And it came to be a serious problem in our congregation.

And so what shall we do? And the one says the other doesn't care. And he was told to put that fence up and he left the gates open. The cows get out and he's not doing anything about it. So the brethren got together.

We tried to solve it and we didn't get it solved. And so the brethren named two brethren in the congregation. I remember this so very well. The name, the Rodrigo and Louie. And these two, uh, brethren listened to the whole story.

And then they went out into a room and closed the door. And we sat there and we were praying back here and they went out there and the door shut. And that's why they came back and they said what each brother should do.

Two national brothers. One was a Christian, a very short time. The other one maybe for six or seven years, other than probably only two years at that time, but they were named because of their wisdom.

They both understood pineapple production. They both had good rapport with both of the brothers involved in the problem. And there's the ones the church chose. They went out there and they can, when they came back in the room, they both were crying and they explained what both his brothers should do to solve this problem.

And no one ever had the least doubt about the wisdom of their decision. That's a little simple example of what we just read here. We just read that. Now I do not have any idea how much you do these things here.

Maybe this is your normal practice continually. Maybe you have many meetings at that time, but for as large as your churches are, I can well believe that your congregations could spend a lot of their time ministering to needs among you as large as your churches are.

Commitment and Accountability in a Healing Community

Your churches are larger than ours. And we spend a lot of our time in this kind of ministry in our churches. Now with what we've read, I want to give you this evening some of the characteristics of a healing community.

A community that has the capacity to restore, to restore one to its original value, to mend the net, to mend the brother, the sister that is faulty and ailing and lonely and needy, and restore them to their full usefulness of such a community.

And you might want to pay close attention to these points. The healing community is a community that consists of commitment and accountability. If we are not committed to each other as brothers, if we're not committed to seeing this thing through, and that's probably one advantage that we have over Joe.

You see, our members cannot jump out of La Merced and jump into Brownsville. You can't jump out of Brownsville and go to Fairview. You can't jump out of Fairview and go to Shiloh, Solo, Hiloh. I don't know what all you have around here.

You've got all the churches around here. I don't know what all you've got. You can't jump out of one and just go to the other one. If we lose a brother, we lost a brother. If we lose a brother, we can't afford to lose a brother.

And so, you're forced to do something about it. And so, we've got to make commitments to each other. I mean, we're either in the church or we're not in the church. We're either part of this brotherhood or we're not part.

It's not just a matter of what we do. We don't have Jack Travis in history. Those are up here somewhere. And so, it takes commitment. And if you're not committed, when you run into a problem, if you're not committed and you're the Aaron brother, if you're not committed and you're Aaron, you just simply put a little bit more in your suitcase than normal and go out the back door.

And you can soon find a flight down a moving van and you're soon on your way when you're not committed. And when you're not committed and you're not the Aaron brother, but you're a brother that should be helping, but you're not committed, you say, such a church.

I didn't realize we had problems like this in this church. I'm not going to put up with any more of this. And that one goes. Because we're not committed. You've got to be committed to it or it doesn't work.

This, what we read this evening does not work apart from commitment, apart from accountability. It's a surrendering of myself. That those two brethren in the pineapple business had to let those two brethren go out that door and they had to be satisfied to accept what was said when they came out that door.