Jesus Heals The Official's Son Series

I. This morning I read a story in the news about this 14 month old baby they call the miracle child

A. This boy when he was just 2 weeks old was taken to the hospital by his parents when they noticed he was ashen and cold. When they got to the hospital his heart stopped. Doctors tried for 30 minutes to get his heart restarted but it was to no avail. So, the Dr. went out to bring the parents in so they could say their last good byes. But when the nurse handed over the boy to his dad he suddenly started moving and breathing again. The medical team went back to work and today he is happy bouncing 14-month-old boy and to this day they don’t know what happened.

B. Tonight we look at another young child – older than the boy I just told you about – who suffered from a fatal disease and miraculously got better.

1) this time we know why.

2) Jesus, intervened and gave this child the gift of good health.

3) Once again Jesus revealed a little about himself via this miracle.

II. Healer of Body

A. With just a word he healed a child of a fatal disease

1. There was no fanfare or great acts of shouting

2. Rather unlike the TV type preachers yelling “Be Healed”, he simply says your child will get better

a. talk about a simple statement of fact. Doctors could only dream about this level of confidence in their healing abilities

B. What does this tell us about Christ?

1. First of all it tells us that he can do what he says

a. It establishes a track record

b. Just think about what kind of credibility this action built for Jesus in the Official. Ok well, we don’t need to think about it the bible tells us. The official and all his household believed.

2. Second, it tells us that Jesus cares about us physically.

a. Jesus is not just interested in our souls as some would lead you to believe.

b. he is interested in the whole person which includes are physical bodies.

1)some people have drawn the false dichotomy between the physical and the spiritual. Usually for the purpose of elevating one over the other. You can see it today when people seek spiritual experiences but spurn religion.

2) we Christians are even guilty of this take for instance the popular song “Jesus lover of my soul”

3) God loves more than our soul as this incident shows us, God loves us body and soul

a) what kind of a Creator would he be if he created something he hated?

b) it would be like us making the best example of something. It would be like me grilling the perfect steak with just the right amount of pinkness in the center and covered with fresh roasted garlic and olive oil and then saying this is horrible I hate it. Would you say that if you made your favorite food? No, you’d probably go on and on about how you loved it right? Right

c) well God did the same thing when he created people. Genesis 1:27-28 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28 And God blessed them. You don’t bless things you don’t like

It goes on in verse 31 And God saw everything that he had made and behold it was Good.

4) God made us good but we made ourselves go bad. Like so much forgotten leftovers in the back of the refrigerator

5) But God shows us in restoring the health of this young child that he is the divine healer who wishes to restore us to how he created us. Good.

Transition – As the Divine healer he can heal more than just our physical ailments.

III. The divine healer as I said does not love just a part of us he loves all of us

A. He seeks to not only restore our bodies but also seeks to restore our souls.

1) Because it is not only our bodies that have been ruined by sin. Our souls are also tainted.

2) Sin is a rather pervasive thing, once it gets in it spreads and lingers, you just never seem to be able to shake it, kind of like the smell of rotting food.

a) at the seminary I lived in the dorms for my first two years and in lounge we had a fridge that we could all use, well people weren’t always that great about cleaning out their leftovers. Some of us had the belief that some of the leftovers were from the first students to attend back in the 1920’s, it was so bad. The smell of course was absolutely wicked. Everything that was put in there smelled and tasted like that stench and if somebody opened the fridge the entire lounge stank for the next 5 or so minutes. It remained that way until a homemade biohazard sign was hung on the fridge asking for people to clean out their leftovers.