An Invitation To Healing (Bonus Week) Series

Brothers and sisters, understand today that I am in no way criticizing you, or condemning you, or judging you. I want to help you.

There is no more obvious sign of the church's weakness and lack of faith than the chronic sickness and disease found in so many of its members. Even just among you, and your immediate families, it's remarkable how many of how you have persistent, serious physical problems. Heart disease, chronic exhaustion, lupus, dementia, allergies, physical problems that make walking difficult-- and running impossible. Arthritis. Depression. Migraines. If it's not you personally, it's your wife. It's your kids. Your parents. Your in-laws.

And what do you do about it? You go to doctors who can treat your symptoms. Who can cut out the damaged part of you, or do surgery to try to put you back together the best they can. You exercise. You eat right. You take medicine. You take supplements. You delay the inevitable as long as you can. You make your condition as tolerable as you can. Mostly what you do, though, is suffer. Life is hard. Life doesn't look the way it should.

Why do you accept this? Why don't you believe that God will help you? I think there's probably three main reasons:

(1) You don't know if God wants to heal you.

(2) You have a modern, scientific worldview. There's no room for God in the practical, physical part of reality. You just rely on yourself and doctors.

(3) You lack faith.

(1) You don't know if God wants to heal you.

Most Christians genuinely worry about this. You're sick, and you think to yourself, "Maybe this is God's will." Or, you take out the "maybe." You just assume, "This is God's will. Nothing happens unless God wants it to happen. God's will always happens on earth, just as it does in heaven. I'm supposed to suffer."

Why does God want you to be sick? Why does he want you to suffer? You're not sure. But when you pray for healing, you pray, "Father, if it's your will, please heal me. If it's your will, please heal my wife, my kids, my parents."

Or, you don't even bother praying. You assume that if you're suffering, it's because God wants you to suffer. So you think your job is simply to endure, and gut it out.

Now, let me ask you two questions: (1) Where in the Bible did you get the idea that this world looks exactly how God wants it to look? (2) And Where did you get the idea that God desires for you to have sickness and disease?

The truth is that God desires to heal you. God doesn't want you to suffer. Let's turn to Matthew 8:1-3:

"8 After he came down from the mountain, large crowds followed him. 2 And a leper approached, and bowed low before him, saying, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.” 3 He stretched out his hand and touched him saying, “I am willing. Be clean!” Immediately his leprosy was cleansed.

The leper knew Jesus could make him clean. His question was, would Jesus be willing to make him clean. And Jesus was. He healed the leper.

And when we read the rest of Matthew, what we find is that Jesus was always willing and able to heal:

Matthew 4:23:

And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people.

Matt. 8:14-17:

14 And when Jesus entered Peter's house, he saw his mother-in-law lying sick with a fever. 15 He touched her hand, and the fever left her, and she rose and began to serve him. 16 That evening they brought to him many who were oppressed by demons, and he cast out the spirits with a word and healed all who were sick. 17 This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah: “He took our illnesses and bore our diseases.”

Matthew 9:35

And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction.

Jesus healed everyone who came to him with faith. No one was too sick, or too old, or too young, or too unimportant to be healed. Jesus didn't tell anyone that God wanted them to suffer or that they had to accept their disease. Jesus' will-- his desire-- was that everyone would be healed.

And why was this?

Luke 4:16-19:

16 And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. 17 And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written,