Personal Faith First
Luke 4:38-39
Imagine taking your car to be fixed by someone who has not prepared himself in car repair.
Yep, that’s a Chevy!
If that person’s car is sitting on blocks and the pieces are strewn about the yard, you might have questions.
What is that car all about, an on going project?
Nah, I took it apart last night. It wouldn’t start. Haven’t figured out what all that stuff does yet.
Your next line might be something like:
Well, I was just stopping to say hi. Hope you have a happy New Year.
You would then direct the tow truck to take your car to another part of town. We only go to Mechanics who know what makes a car tick through experience or at least some study in the field. We also cannot expect to help others follow Christ well, if we haven’t learned how to do it ourselves. Jesus started Peter off with a personal lesson.
Jesus left the synagogue and went to the home of Simon. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was suffering from a high fever, and they asked Jesus to help her. So he bent over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her. She got up at once and began to wait on them. Luke 4:38-39 (NIV)
Jesus stayed with Peter
What is Jesus doing? Jesus has already done a number of things with Peter.
• Called him three times
• He fished with him
• Taught from his boat
• Demonstrated miracles to him
Jesus is establishing Himself with Peter. He knew that it did not matter what He said or taught, with a man like Peter, it had to be more personal. In modern leadership language we would say
They don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care.
Jesus was so directly involved in Peter’s life that there was no place Peter could go to get away.
• Jesus had attracted his brother
• Jesus had taken over his boat
• Jesus had taught him how to fish
• Jesus was now bonding with his wife’s family
Jesus was not content to be a great man that Peter ran into a few times, or to be a distant but significant teacher in Peter’s life. He wanted to be a personal mentor. The only way that was going to happen was for Jesus to be involved in Peter’s life.
He gave attention to Peter’s family
This is the second or third miracle Luke mentions. When we look at it in the broader gospel context, we know that there were others too.
But that was impersonal. Family was important to Jesus. Since the gospels focus on His public ministry, we don’t see His family much. However, if we compare the role of Jesus’ family and those of Peter and John in the gospels, with the role of family in, for example, Moses’ accounts, we see proportionally much less of Moses’ family ... with the exception of Aaron who was essentially a partner in ministry.
• Jesus’ mother and brothers
• John
• Elizabeth
• Zechariah
• Mary, Martha and Lazarus
• Peter’s mother-in-law
• James and John’s mother and father
are all given significant space in the gospels. When Jesus is in the middle of ministry, these people crop up everywhere. Their needs and concerns form an integral part of Jesus’ approach to ministry. He heals their illnesses (even raising Lazarus). He addresses their questions, and in so doing establishes important spiritual truths. His relationship to them is crucial to His identity.
Jesus is showing Peter in this act of healing, that his family is important ... that Peter would not be who he is, or doing what he is doing if it was not for his family. What better way for Peter’s ministry with Jesus to be validated in his family than for his wife’s mother to directly experience the power of that ministry?
Jesus treated her illness seriously
The word "rebuke" suggests that Jesus treated the fever as if it were a person. The same way Jesus rebuked the pharisees and the demons that possessed people, he rebuked the fever. He did this with the sea later. He commanded it to be still as if it were a person. The suggestion is like a command with a threat attached.
Jesus told the fever, "Get out and don’t come back or else."
His power was such that the fever left immediately and completely so that Peter’s mom was able to get up and make dinner. These are the same kind of results that Jesus saw everywhere and with every patient He healed.
However, Jesus did not neglect his inner circle in favor of others. Ministers sometimes neglect their own families to reach out to others.
A long time ago, I spoke with a very popular Christian musician. I asked her about her family, she had two small children. She indicated that her travel schedule was quite hectic and full. I asked if this affected her family life and she sighed and said that she prayed that her children would not be affected by it. This is not a responsible approach to ministry.
Some people say, "Charity or missions begins at home." This is true. But if it stays home then we are no longer reaching the world God called us to reach.
There is a balance to be struck. We must not sacrifice our families for the world and we must not sacrifice the world for our families. Paul recognized this when he challenged those who criticized his team for bringing their wives along on their journeys.
Jesus did not encourage Peter to extend into the world when he had a sick mother at home. Instead, Jesus stayed and met her need first, demonstrating to Peter that his own family’s needs were as important as anyone else’s. Just as Jesus spent time with His own family before he launched his ministry into the rest of Galilee, He helped Peter spend time with his.
He healed Peter’s mother-in-law
Let us not leave this passage without recognizing one of the central and obvious points of the passage. Jesus healed Peter’s wife’s mother. The healings of Jesus are important on a couple of levels.
The miraculous nature of the healings show who Jesus is and what He is concerned with
The healings are real. They are not just symbols. If the living Son of God healed people, then it has a significance. It shows that He was who He said He was.
The healings themselves do not prove He was God’s Son. The prophets Elijah and Elisha had healed. Certainly they had not healed on the scale that Jesus healed, and it is the scale of Jesus’ work that demonstrates that He is the Messiah. This is a direct fulfillment of Isaiah who told us that the Messiah would be a healer.
His healing also demonstrates His concern. He is concerned not just with abstract theological ideas. He is concerned with how God interacts with our lives and affects them, making them better from God’s point of view. Sometimes that involves making our physical lives easier for us. It may involve other things. But the main thing it demonstrates is that He cares for us and is moved by our pain.
The miraculous power of Jesus Christ demonstrates the power that he still holds in our lives. He can heal and He does heal, and performs other mighty acts that are beyond our explanation or understanding.
Jesus’ healings also illustrate the affect He has on every life He engages
Although His healings are not only symbols, they are symbols as well as everything else. It is part of the paradox of Christ. When He healed Peter’s mother-in-law, He also showed how He could heal the spirits of anyone who came to Him.
In another place he forgave a man, and then healed him specifically to demonstrate His power to forgive. Jesus was showing in a physical way the affect He has on the Spirit.
Jesus healed people’s bodies to show us that He could heal our spirits. What does that mean?
• The alienation from God we feel
• The burden of guilt we bear
• The eternal questions we ask
• The ultimate love we need
• The moral direction and courage we lack
• The internal peace we crave
• The connection with the infinite we long for
• The purpose our lives need
Are all spiritual issues that are addressed by God through Christ who is the centerpiece of His spiritual plan for humanity. When we pursue Him, we are chasing the answers to spiritual questions.
When Jesus healed Peter’s mother-in-law, He was showing Peter that all the spiritual lessons He had taught were true. He was demonstrating the authority and power He held in His hand, by using that same power to do something that could be directly observed and understood by mortals.
In Christ, our own spiritual journey is the beginning
Jesus knew that Peter could not invite others to drink from his own empty, personal well. If Peter was to fish for men, he had to begin in a place that was well established. He had to be convinced in his own mind of Jesus’ place in his life before he could convince others that He should have a place in theirs.
Jesus went to all kinds of effort to gain Peter’s faith, including going to Peter’s house and healing his mother-in-law. In this way, Peter more personally experienced the power of God through Christ and stood confidently to speak of it to others.
It is the same with us. We must give attention to our own spiritual walk if we are to be effective disciples of Christ. We must allow Jesus to come to us with the care that He so wants to extend. Only from that place can we launch out to minister to others and introduce them to Jesus’ ministering Spirit.
That is not to say that we need to arrive or everything has to be perfect for us spiritually. That will never happen this side of Heaven. However, if we don’t cultivate our own spiritual garden, how can we expect to feed others from the fruit?
When you are getting ready to take off in a jet liner, the flight attendant gives you instructions.
Among the things she says is:
In the event of rapid cabin depressurization an oxygen mask will be released from the overhead compartment. Place the mask over your nose and mouth and breathe normally. Secure your own mask before helping young children with theirs.
The airlines know that there is no point in trying to help someone else breathe if you are not breathing yourself.
Let’s look again at that list of Spiritual concerns:
• The alienation from God we feel
• The burden of guilt we bear
• The eternal questions we ask
• The ultimate love we need
• The moral direction and courage we lack
• The internal peace we crave
• The connection with the infinite we long for
• The purpose our lives need
The healing of Peter’s mother-in-law strengthened his connection with God and offered him a level of internal peace. It also would have fed a purpose for his own life ... to bring this power to others. It told Peter that he was loved, because the people important to him were also important to God.
How large do these issues loom in your life?
It is a fact that we become distracted from these larger issues by what Jesus called "the cares of this world." Our relationship with God and the resultant personal spiritual health we experience takes a back seat to:
• our health
• our finances
• our sex lives
• our work
• our pleasure
• our comfort
• even our families and ... God help us ... ministry
Now I want to walk carefully here. All of these things have a spiritual component that cannot be ignored. It is a mistake to divide our lives between the sacred and the secular. All of our lives should be altered by the spiritual. After all, Jesus healed Peter’s mother-in-law and her body’s health had a spiritual component. The moral implications of many of these facets of life make them crucial points of focus for our spiritual health.
However, in themselves, they are not the pursuit of spirituality. But just as health and food are related but separate, these temporal pursuits are related but separate from purely spiritual concerns.
Even Paul was concerned that after preaching to others he would become disqualified "for the prize." What he was talking about was the denial of fleshly concerns for the pursuit of Christ and His spiritual freedom.
I know a man who was a deacon in his church, but now he no longer maintains any kind of personal faith walk as far as anyone knows. His pursuits have become comfort and materially oriented. There are some relational consequences of his straying, but the important consequence is his own disqualification for the prize. He may consider himself a Christian, but he can no longer honestly say he maintains a friendship with Jesus. It is a neglect that will bear its ultimate fruit in eternity and in his own spirit:
• He will feel alienated from God
• He will bear the burden of guilt
• His eternal questions will leave him in doubt
• He will sense a need for the ultimate love
• He will lack moral direction
• He will crave internal peace
• He will feel no connection with the infinite
• He will lack purpose in his life
As a pastor, the greatest joy of ministry is in seeing people who have these spiritual questions as their concern. Note the difference between this and theology:
• The theological asks how much we know about God and what others think of Him
• The spiritual asks how our friendship with God is doing and what we are doing to deepen it
It is a fact that I hear much more about:
• health issues
• financial issues
• relational issues
than I hear about the cultivation of a spiritual life. Sure, these issues have spiritual components that should be met. But pursuit of the spiritual is both a related and a separate thing. Ask yourself ... and God:
• How can I know and love God more fully?
• How can I develop a reliable moral compass?
• How can I experience God’s love?
• How can I find forgiveness for the wrong I have done? And how can I forgive others?
• What does it mean to "die" to my own self?
• How can I make Bible reading and prayer more than just a good habit?
• How can I find the purpose God has for my life?
• Can I really love others, especially my enemy?
As your pastor, it would make my heart sing for you to ask me some of these questions too. Pursuing answers to these questions makes us faithful disciples of Christ. The temporal things in our lives may not always reflect our inner pursuits, but if the inner pursuits are active, hope remains.
As disciples we are poor reflections of what it means to walk with God if we have not cultivated the health of our spirit. There is more to spirituality than reading a daily devotional and praying before meals. Jesus calls to us similarly to the way he called Peter. He says, "Let me do a powerful work in you, then you will be a more authentic witness of my power to others."
Do not neglect your spiritual walk
In the interest of things of the world
Even in the interest of ministry
Walk with Christ first, then help others
