All right, so welcome everybody. Pastor Kevin is out of town this week. He is at a conference at the Grace Point. Grace Point, and I think He’s giving a message at one of the conferences there, and I think over the weekend He’s also stopping by another church, and then getting together with family after that. So He’ll be back here with us next week, but today I have the privilege to share.
And so I wanted to start with Psalm 100. So let’s read this together. “Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come into His presence with singing. Know that the Lord, He is God. It is He who made us, and we are His. We are His people, and the sheep of His pasture. Enter His gates with thanksgiving, and His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him, bless His name. For the Lord is good, His steadfast love endures forever, and His faithfulness to all generations.” Amen.
1 Make a joyful noise to the Lord , all the earth! 2 Serve the Lord with gladness! Come into his presence with singing! 3 Know that the Lord , he is God! It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. 4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name! 5 For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and His faithfulness to all generations. (Psalm 100:1-5, ESV)
So today, as you already heard, we have a lot to be thankful and give thanks to the Lord for, as you hear the healing of Julie’s battle against cancer. So yeah, let us, with shouts of joy, and all we have, let’s stand up and praise the name of the Lord, because He is worthy of all our praise. So let’s get started.
Amen, praise the Lord. We come before a Jesus who is the creator of the universe, and commands, hold everything together, including our lives. We have this amazing privilege to come before Him boldly into His throne, and Jesus, He invites us to His meal with Him.
So the Lord Jesus, on the night He was betrayed, took bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way, after supper, He took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me. For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.” Amen.
23 For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” 25 In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. (1 Corinthians 11:23-26, ESV)
So as the Lord reminds us to, invites us to this communion with Him, what a privilege it is. Let’s come and take this meal together, and continue on with our worship. Praise the Lord.
Please join me in prayer. Lord, Heavenly Father, we’re just so thankful that we can be here today to worship you. You are truly an awesome God. Nothing is impossible for you. You are the giver of life. You provide in each one of us. You’re the source of life, and you’re our sustainer.
And we’re just so thankful that even though we are fallen and still in sin, you came to, while we were still in sin, you came and gave yourself up for us so that we may have this sweet relationship, sweet fellowship with you. And thank you that you continue to, as the author and perfecter of faith, you allow us to experience your mighty work so that as we walk with you, faith is strengthened, and that we can face this world that is, so much is going on, turmoil.
So we thank you tonight. Please be with us. And really, we invite you to come and do your work in our midst tonight. So, yeah, we thank you, and we pray all this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
OK, so this song I chose because, I don’t know if you remember, we sung this last week, too. And in the right, when we were singing this, I’m going to have to kind of jump around in timing, but I’ll start from there. Last Sunday, we came here really with a heavy heart and a lot of burden because we knew our friend, our neighbor friend that you’ve been praying for for us, Julie. We knew that it was any time that she was going to pass away.
Based on Aiko visiting last week and hearing from other people who visited her, we knew that the nurses have told them, her husband, that maybe it’s going to be next week or two, but we felt like it’s going to be sooner than that based on how she was. So that’s how we came last week. And as we were still praying until the last minute in something, until the last minute. Kevin always says, doctors don’t have the final word. God does. But still, we were bracing for this is going to happen.
There was another sister that you were praying for us beforehand at the beginning of this month. She went to be with the Lord, Nancy. And so thank you for your prayer for them as well. And her husband, he’s doing well. He’s at peace and thankful that Nancy is at the best place with Jesus now. But that’s how we came last Sunday.
But somehow, as we were singing this song and worshiping God of Revival, and I’m usually back there in Aiko’s sphere, so we’re not separate. But separately, we felt this really strong sense of some kind of a victory, yeah, a peace or something. I couldn’t explain too well. But and then, yeah, we were really comforted. And we were sharing on the way home afterwards, on the way home Sunday evening in the car that there’s something going on. I don’t know why, but Judy is going to be fine. And her husband and kids will be fine.
And so we kind of assumed that she’s not going to be with us that much longer. But still, we felt peace at the time. So that’s how we kind of interpreted it. And of course, time is limited. So we wanted to try to go see her again. But somehow, the scheduling didn’t work. The husband’s busy, and our schedule didn’t match. So Monday, it didn’t work out. And Tuesday, we were trying to see if we could go Tuesday afternoon. But so by that time, we find out afterwards, she’s already, oh, let me backtrack.
OK, so Tuesday, we get this suddenly a text from her. Aiko receives a text from Judy. And the text is like a whole paragraph. And we’re like, wait a minute. That’s strange, because she didn’t have any strength to respond the last few weeks. It was either if she wouldn’t respond at all, or it’s just one or two words. But suddenly, Tuesday, boom, this long text comes. And there’s like emojis in it and exclamation marks in it. And then when Aiko read it, she says, I can’t believe. I don’t know if I understand this. What did she say? I don’t remember the exact word, but. Yeah. Someday.
So, so, you know, we knew that previously, she was starting to kind of, her mind was going and. Oh, yeah, OK. So Judy texted and saying, you know, I’m going to paraphrase again. I can’t repeat. But basically, you may not believe, it’s hard to believe this. But I’m not going to tell everybody just yet until I get the numbers. But I feel, I believe I’ve been healed. God healed me, right? And I’m going to wait until I publicize this. But please praise the Lord with me. That’s how she emailed.
And because she, she was kind of, her mind was not always clear. We were wondering, you know, did somebody else type this on her behalf? And she’s saying these things. And so we were, we weren’t sure what to make of it. But so we received this on Tuesday. And OK, we’ll go right away. Wednesday, you know, whenever you’re ready for us to come by, we’ll come over.
And so we went to see her Wednesday afternoon. And so, to our surprise, to, you know, our shock, she, she’s able to, she got up from her bed, she’s still lying down, and gave us a hug. And we knew, we knew that she had to be pulled up by her husband. And she couldn’t, you know, barely move anymore the week before. So, you know, and then we were there for two hours, two and a half hours. But then we came back after when the pastor from the other church came. And so we were there for another two and a half hours.
And throughout the time, she’s talking, talking, talking, talking. And she’s almost back to her, she’s still weak. From her, you know, fully, her strengths are not fully back yet, but she’s able to, her old self is back, and her mannerism and expression and words are back. We’re just so amazed. It was truly a 11th-hour healing, because we knew that, you know, everybody was, when she got the text, you know, everybody was, oh, you know, here we go, take a deep breath.
And it started, you know, like Iko shared earlier, she was diagnosed about, I think, more than two years ago, a summer or so. And she was fighting getting treated with chemo and all the different alternative options too. But ever since May or June this summer, her condition started to really go down, and it turned for the worse.
And this is later, we didn’t know this, you know, as she shared, but she was in pain. Her lungs were also affected by this. So, when she breathed, every breath she took, she was in pain. And she was on pain medication, the standard one, but there’s other ones that needs to, she could be boosted with, and she had to constantly boost herself with extra painkiller because she was in so much pain.
And, and we heard that she was, you know, Iko saw her coughing up blood with handkerchief and, or napkin. And, and she was saying towards the end, she was coughing up blood with yogurt side, yogurt pint carton. It will fill up with her blood because she’s, so much blood is coming.
And so, it was under that kind of condition, she was struggling, fighting. And, yeah, but little did we know, she also shares that she doesn’t remember, she doesn’t have any memory from the previous week when Iko went to visit and other people were visiting her. And she was interacting, well, you know, barely. She had really a blessed time with Judy, Iko. But, you know, every word that she would share, she had to muster up a lot of strength and, and share.
But funny, because afterwards she says she doesn’t remember any of that. And so, I think, you know, she was really getting, going back and forth between, she wasn’t sure if it’s a hallucination or not. But Sunday, she said the Lord Jesus came to her. And, and the words was that the prayer of the righteous have been heard. And, and you are going to be well. And so, she, and this is Sunday. And she cannot get off, get up on her, from the bed. But when she, of course, when, when she sees Jesus, she’s, she worships before Him, you know. And when she come, recognize where she is, she’s on the floor, prostrate on the floor worshiping, you know. I don’t know how she got on the floor, you know. That’s why she said, I don’t know how, I couldn’t get off the bed by myself before. And, and then the husband got called from the nurse on Sunday as the morning service is starting. He gets a text saying, I think you should, you need, Judy needs help. So, if you could come back, that would be great. And so, he, he didn’t know what, what it was. But he left the kids at church and he drove home. And when he got home, I think it was like a miscommunication with the nurse and the, that was supposed to be there for a short period of time. And the caregiver, the caregiver wasn’t there that morning. So, Judy asked Dan to come, come. But when Dan says, when he entered the house, he found her on the floor. And so, he had to get, help her back up to the bed.
But is that the part that you want me? Right. Yeah, that’s right. Yeah. So, that’s how she was worshiping the Lord. And so, she, she, and, and, and her husband, Dan, shared that with the pastor. And, you know, I don’t know what does that mean, right? And, and we were, they were saying, maybe, you know, you’ll be well, you know, you’re healed, means that you’re going to be with the Lord finally, you know, in an ultimate sense that you’ll be well. But they weren’t sure.
And, and the nurses sometimes say, if some, when somebody is about to pass, sometimes you have this last few hours or several hours where you, you’re, you’re physically somehow you recover, rebound a little bit and you get to, you know, you’re more conscious and aware and you can spend that last moment with. So, the nurses thought it might be those kind of things. So, you know, be ready.
And I personally have that experience with my dad. When he passed away, he, he was unconscious for probably two weeks right before, until the moment he passed. But his, his breathing was really getting shallow and, and we were all around his bed. And last moment, he opened his eyes and he looked at everybody, each, each person who were, who were sent around their, his bedside. And, and then he took his last breath and, you know, his eyes closed and that’s how he went. So, I can kind of understand that, that kind of thing may happen.
And so, that’s what the nurses thought Julie was going through. And so, Dan additionally went and got his kids so that he can spend, they can spend the remaining time with the mom. And so, this is Sunday, Sunday afternoon. And, and that’s why I made, probably Dan said, you know, today’s probably not a good time, you know, having family moments.
So, anyway, so we went on Wednesday and she’s, she’s almost back to normal. And so, we were just so, so, you know, amazed and just didn’t know what to make of it. But just, praise the Lord. And yeah, and so, if you could pray for her, continue, continue to pray for her, for her full recovery as the chemotherapy and all the treatments have taken a lot of toll on her. Her heart function is only down, it’s only down to about 20 percent function. So, you know, still weak, not able to pump enough blood in, into her system. Amen.
Yeah, and also, she has the, what is it, she has some blood clot that caused the paralysis on the side of her throat and face. So, she has a hard time swallowing even now. And so, we need to pray for that specifically, that she can start swallowing again.
But yeah, that’s, and her, her, her blood, the meter that, what is it, the test device that you put on your finger to get your oxygen from Sunday, the oxygen level was almost back to normal, meaning the lungs able to provide enough oxygen to her system. She had some lumps. on her abdomen and like a tumor, so they knew that it was spreading. They can’t feel it anymore on Sunday, and the pain medication that she had to take, she hasn’t taken it at all since Sunday.
Well, the basic ones, I think she has to slowly wean off, but the extra dose that she needed every day, she doesn’t need to take those anymore either. And to top off that, the blood test came back, and as of Thursday, the cancer, the numbers that shows the amount of cancer activity in the body is almost non-existent. So, non-existent, completely gone. Okay, back to completely normal.
So, I think when tumors are there, it secretes some kind of a compound or something into the bloodstream, so the test can detect, and that determines how much activity, tumor is active in the body. So, the number was really high until the previous test last week, and then a week later, yeah, it’s back completely normal.
And so, if you could pray for her, a lot of people are going in and out of the house, coming to see her and worshiping, and the kids are running around their house just like before, and Amy and Micah and our kids were there too, and oh, Julie’s walking on her own. She has a walker, but she doesn’t really need it. She’s going to the bathroom by herself, and Dan, yesterday, told us she got up and took a shower, and yeah, yeah, and we were there this afternoon too, and even from the time we saw her on Wednesday, she’s getting better and better, you can tell.
So, it is truly a extraordinary event that we, you know, you can kind of say, oh, you know, oh wow, but it’s really wow, you know, it’s incredible that truly. God’s hand is there, so you kind of, it’s so hard to wrap your head around this magnitude of healing that took place. It’s truly a miracle, and we praise the Lord for what He’s able to do and what He’s done.
And I was thinking, you know, considering how small our church is, now we have like, it’s almost like 100%, you know, yeah, your experience, and yeah, what a blessing it is that, you know, even with a small number of people here in Remington, we experience so much of God’s grace in this way. He doesn’t have to do that, but He, yeah, He’s so good. So, you know, I was, oh, you know, yeah, that’s all I can say today.
God is our, is God of revival, and that was the name of the song too, title of the song, and I think that’s what we have to, as we face this kind of a, and thank you so much for your prayers, and it’s funny because, you know, our church is rejoicing here for Judy that some of you have never even met.
I have some other people who used to be part of the church in South Dakota, and they were joining the service through there virtually, and they were rejoicing, and their new church that they’re part of, they’ve been praying for her, and my work colleague, partner down in LA, he’s a pastor, a biblical Christian pastor, and he and his church has been praying for Judy too, so, you know, everybody’s rejoicing, you know, from all over the place, and it’s just an amazing, beautiful picture of how God’s people lifting up our needs and requests to the Lord, and He heard the prayer of the righteous, and maybe, you know, we are those righteous prayers, and not necessarily that we are righteous ourselves, of course, but in Jesus, He’s the, He’s the source of righteousness, righteousness comes from above, and because of what He has done on each and one of us on the cross, and deem us righteous, we can pray this prayer of righteousness that God would listen to, so, yeah, thank you, Jesus, for that, for His work, and all the glory to Him.
And so, Judy, you know, she was physically revived in such an amazing way, but she’s also, I know that she was spiritually revived as well, because her relationship with Christ is so intimate and deep, especially when all the human intervention and effort to save her failed, and she had nothing left, she shares that Jesus’ presence was so real, and that was so precious, and when you have all the distractions and all the extra stuff gone, all the more, Jesus’ presence became more and more real and vivid to her, and her testimony is that she wouldn’t trade that intimacy with Jesus with anything.
She would, you know, she would, what she says, she would, she’s willing to go through this again, and in fact, I guess she’s kind of going between life and eternity, and she really met the Lord face-to-face, and when she came back and realized that she was on the floor, she said she was disappointed, you know, because she wanted to, she was fine staying there, and I think we hear a lot of those kind of near-death experience people who meet the Lord, you know, they’re, they don’t wanna come back, right? It’s just so good to be there, and so, yeah, she had this personal revival, physically and spiritually, and praise the Lord.
But, you know, that drastic work of God, this revival, is not gonna end there. It’s affecting us and you, all of us here, and the powerful testimony that we hear and just her sharing of, just even that Jesus intimacy, that stirs our heart, because that’s what we long for, and of course, we experience, you know, Jesus has been faithful, He walks with us step-by-step to help us experience Him more, and, you know, we have small victories here and there, and our journey continues, but we want more, you know, when we hear something like this, that what’s ultimately available to us, we want more, and, you know, like Kevin says, you know, why not now, you know, we could have more heaven here, now, although it’s here and not yet, but, you know, we can use a lot more heaven now, and that’s what we should be seeking for, because the kingdom of heaven is not somewhere we go after we die, but the kingdom of heaven is gonna be forcefully entering into our reality.
Of course, it’ll probably be something very different from what we know of, but somehow, this physical realm, us, we will continue into that eternity, so the kingdom is started, and it’s advancing forcefully, so we need to ask for more, more is available to us, and that’s what I want to pray, especially in this special time, to lean in and pray that way, and I invite all of you to do so.
We all need this, I guess, you know, we look around the world and all the crazy things that are happening, and, Stevan, we share about, you know, this country going in the wrong way, and the, what is it, the Spirit of Antichrist is really doing a lot of damage here, not only in this country, but it seems like the rest of the world, too, all the more it’s urgent, and perhaps, because God is preparing something big, the enemy is ramping up their attack at this time, you know, thinking about revival. Asbury revival that was happening earlier this year, February, I think, you know, it was spreading throughout different campuses, and I don’t know, I haven’t been keeping very close, keeping track of them closely, so, but I know there must be ripple effect that areas that we don’t see that’s still continuing, and perhaps, you know, when I see all this protest that’s happening that supports Hamas and all that on campus, you know, and crazy, because I see, like, UCLA and places where I was walking, you know, working, I see filled with students, you know, with these protests, and perhaps, you know, God is doing something, a great thing, these, starting with Asbury revival in campuses, and that’s why, perhaps, you know, there’s also counter-attack on the school campuses as well, and, you know, so, in a time such as this, revival is so important, you know, we’ve been praying, obviously, for revival for many months and years here at Firehouse, but, yeah, what is the Lord doing through Judy’s, this miraculous healing?
I feel like something, God is definitely at work, and we need to really pay close attention to what He’s doing, so. The revival, you know, we wanna see it happen, but it has to happen from me, from us, from within, and I need to experience this revival, because Jesus, He’s the giver and sustainer of my life, and each of our lives, and revival, we cannot fake it, we cannot try to manufacture it on our own, or try to earn it, right, but this life, a revived life, a new energy in our life, it has to come from Jesus, so He’s the person that we need to go to, and, yeah, so, we really want to do that, I really want to do that.
In Acts 3, I lost track of, okay. Okay, yeah, so, instead of trying hard, we, Pastor Kevin, this is one of my favorite, or important psalm, as well, and we often, we’ve been experiencing a lot of God’s goodness in the land of living, and especially this one is the most memorable, the most recent one, Judy’s healing, and in light of that, the word says, wait for the Lord, and be strong, and let your heart take courage, wait for the Lord, and waiting is probably not just an idle waiting, it’s an active seeking, knocking, and active waiting, so, I think that’s the posture that I remind myself I have to have at this time, you know, I pray to Jesus that He will help me stay there at this time, and then we can really wait upon Him to show the next steps.
Okay, not that one. Acts 3, also, let me see, I didn’t type it out, people there, okay, so this is the chapter 3, verse 19 is where Peter and John, He heals lame crippled man, and let’s see, and He has to make a speech in front of everybody, so here, Peter says, Peter and John answer them, whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you, rather than to God, you must judge, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard, and let me see, oh no, this is, sorry, this is chapter 4, oh here. Okay, sorry about that, chapter 3, verse 19, this is when Peter is making a speech after the Pentecost, when the fresh Holy Spirit came, and he says this, repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out. That times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, in that He may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive unto the time of restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets long ago.
19 Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, 20 that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, 21 whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago. (Acts 3:19-21, ESV)
So he says, repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord. So it also have to do, as we approach the Lord in prayer, and wait upon Him, turning to Him, or repenting, and putting all our focus on Him, what’s the result? The times of refreshing will come from the Lord. So this is the new, the wind, this Holy Spirit that they received, and Peter is offering that to the audience who also heard it. So as we come to the Lord in prayer, and wait upon Him, and through our prayer and repentance, we ought to wait for that, we need to wait for that outpouring of the Holy Spirit to fill us, and help us to experience this revival. So that’s mainly all we can do, I think, at this time, and I think it’s such a crucial time, I feel like that we need to be excited about and anticipate. So let us do that together.
Okay, so in closing, I would just quickly go back and just play the lyrics of the God of Revival. And so, come awake in your people, come awake in your city, oh God of Revival, pour it out, every stronghold will crumble, hear the chains hit the ground, oh God of Revival, pour it out, the darkness, God, you can light it up, God is the God of Revival, let hope arise, death is overcome, you’ve already won, God of Revival. Come awake in your people, come awake in your Julie, what I shared today. I think, you know, there’s a lot of things that I need to be really specific about. And God can do amazing healing, and as we physically experience before our eyes what kind of power, healing power God has, the ability and willingness that He has, you know, I can be confident that I can bring these, my areas that still I feel like I’m in chain although probably not you know Jesus is already victorious of all my sin but somehow I can’t get out get out of a certain way of thinking or certain my habit my old old way of habit that I still live by and I need to bring this up to the Lord.
And you know for me one of those things is you know like a sense of inadequacy. I can never measure up no matter how I how much I tried there’s always something that’s like that lingering in my in my mind and it’s a voice that I have to try to you know resist but it’s still there. And so when I even you know to be quite honest to stand in front of and speak or try to engage in my business or you know try to raise our kids or everything that we do there’s always this kind of a weight that pulls me down and I need to my commitment is and I sharing it openly so that I can ask for your prayers.
And I need to bring this to the Lord and He trusts in full trust that He can free me that these chains will fall off and I know He’s already done so you know the fact that I can stand here like this even from a few years before you know God is already at work but and probably you know He won’t completely out of His wisdom sometimes He heals people He doesn’t and sometimes He says your grace is sufficient in your weakness yours His strength is made perfect.
9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. (2 Corinthians 12:9, ESV)
So I don’t know but I’m gonna continue to weigh in and every area of my heart in my mind my soul that I need a revival and I have to I want to I need to invite Jesus to you know breathe in a fresh air of of life so so I hope you can do that do the same this this next few days this coming week and months and we can continue to experience victory and more of you know God’s kingdom take hold of our our lives as well and from there revival for for Kitsap County and state of Washington and the US and the rest of the world so yeah hallelujah yeah praise the Lord.
Okay so that’s it yeah I don’t I don’t remember if I’ll just the Lord bless you and keep you the Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you the Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace and in that peace go and serve and love the Lord and praise the Lord with all we.
24 The Lord bless you and keep you; 25 the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; 26 the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. (Numbers 6:24-26, ESV)
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