Recover deleted text message

Assuming you do not house your messages in iCloud, they are stored on the latest iPhone backup that was created while the message(s) was/were present.

Restore that backup to retrieve the message(s).

Restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch from a backup - Apple Support

Buckeyeflu wrote:

So you need to restore an entire phone backup to recover a single text message?

That is correct. A restore is an "all or nothing" operation. Restoring brings the entire iPhone back to the way it was when the backup was created.

So you need to restore an entire phone backup to recover a single text message?