Jesus The Healer Series

21, September 2003

Dakota Community Church

Jesus the Healer

Week Six: Imitate Christ Series

Remember last week I said there may be one more in this series but not likely.

My plan was to move on and leave this topic alone.

There are always some who get offended when I teach on healing. We are pre-programmed in this area and experiences rule in a big way.

Then I got a phone call on Monday evening from a friend who is battling cancer, she said she is coming to church this week because she wants to learn about God.

On Teusday at the local pastors ministerial meeting where a group of about 10 of us get togeather to pray for and support one another (inter-denominatioal), someone mentioned how their congregation was wrestling with the recent death of a young man who died after much prayer and many positive words and reports from the church and medical communities.

Finally at prayer Wednesday morning as I was going over my idea of what should be preached here this evening I got the distinct impression that God was going in a completely different direction than I was.

So here we are looking at imitating the healing ministry of Jesus.

Tonight I believe the Lord wants me to focus on the will of God to heal so here goes.

1. Healing is in the atonement.

Definition from "your dictionary.com"

a·tone·ment

1. Amends or reparation made for an injury or wrong; expiation.

2.

a. Reconciliation or an instance of reconciliation between God and humans.

b. Atonement Christianity The reconciliation of God and humans brought about by the redemptive life and death of Jesus.

Isaiah 53 (Amp.)

1WHO HAS believed (trusted in, relied upon, and clung to) our message [of that which was revealed to us]? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been disclosed?

2For [the Servant of God] grew up before Him like a tender plant, and like a root out of dry ground; He has no form or comeliness [royal, kingly pomp], that we should look at Him, and no beauty that we should desire Him.

3He was despised and rejected and forsaken by men, a Man of sorrows and pains, and acquainted with grief and sickness; and like One from Whom men hide their faces He was despised, and we did not appreciate His worth or have any esteem for Him.

4Surely He has borne our griefs (sicknesses, weaknesses, and distresses) and carried our sorrows and pains [of punishment], yet we [ignorantly] considered Him stricken, smitten, and afflicted by God [as if with leprosy].

5But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our guilt and iniquities; the chastisement [needful to obtain] peace and well-being for us was upon Him, and with the stripes [that wounded] Him we are healed and made whole.

6All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord has made to light upon Him the guilt and iniquity of us all

7He was oppressed, [yet when] He was afflicted, He was submissive and opened not His mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He opened not His mouth.

8By oppression and judgment He was taken away; and as for His generation, who among them considered that He was cut off out of the land of the living [stricken to His death] for the transgression of my [Isaiah’s] people, to whom the stroke was due?

9And they assigned Him a grave with the wicked, and with a rich man in His death, although He had done no violence, neither was any deceit in His mouth.

10Yet it was the will of the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief and made Him sick. When You and He make His life an offering for sin [and He has risen from the dead, in time to come], He shall see His [spiritual] offspring, He shall prolong His days, and the will and pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand.

11He shall see [the fruit] of the travail of His soul and be satisfied; by His knowledge of Himself [which He possesses and imparts to others] shall My [uncompromisingly] righteous One, My Servant, justify many and make many righteous (upright and in right standing with God), for He shall bear their iniquities and their guilt [with the consequences, says the Lord].

12Therefore will I divide Him a portion with the great [kings and rulers], and He shall divide the spoil with the mighty, because He poured out His life unto death, and [He let Himself] be regarded as a criminal and be numbered with the transgressors; yet He bore [and took away] the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors (the rebellious).