God the Healer
Mark 1:29-45
The first sermon in the series Authority to heal is entitled “God the Healer”. Click here to listen to the sermon (right-click to save it to disc, or ctrl-click on the Mac). Next sermon
Introduction
Acts 10:37-40
When Peter summarises the ministry of Jesus he stresses his death, resurrection and the mighty works he performed. Interestingly there is no mention of his teaching ministry, only of healing and deliverance.
Mark especially emphasises Jesus’ healing and deliverance ministry and records little specific teaching.
Roughly 37% of all the narrative verses in the Gospels deal with Jesus’ ministry of healing.
It is hard to avoid the conclusion that central to the ministry of Jesus is the work of healing and that when Jesus says “as the Father sent me so I send you” he is entrusting this same priority in ministry to the Church which bears his name.
The key to effectiveness in this ministry is holding on to the conviction that God actually wants to heal the sick.
“The more secure we are in the belief that God will is our health and that he personally works for it, the more freely we receive his healing and the more eagerly we work for if in others. Openly receiving healing for ourselves and confidently praying for others rests ultimately in our understanding of who God is. A theology of healing only arises when God is viewed as one who is concerned about sickness and willing to do something about it.” (Ken Blue)
In referring to sickness and disease we have in mind any affliction of body, mind, spirit or emotion. God’s goal for his people is ‘shalom’: healing, wholeness, restoration.
“Healing is Jesus meeting us at our point of need.” (John Wimber)
In the New Testament, the same Greek word is often used for healing and also for salvation.
Three hindrances to healing
The Western rationalistic world view
The attitudes which society takes for granted generally exclude God, and the possibility of the miraculous, from the arena of everyday life. The Church becomes all too easily affected by these attitudes and lives its life as if they were more true than the Biblical worldview. We see the world as conforming to ‘fixed’ laws which operate independently of God, laws with which God does not interfere.
“For me to pray for the sick demands a conscious and consistent recommitment to the Bible and its view of reality. For modern Christians this daily recommitment to the biblical world view is a practical application of Paul’s exhortation: ‘Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind’”. (Ken Blue)
Divine determinism
Everything which happens is somehow willed by God, for God is sovereign and ultimately in control.
But this is to misunderstand what the Bible really teaches about the sovereignty of God. The sovereign God has actually entrusted the world into the hands of his vice-regent, the human race. Things happen here because of human choices.
“When we want to understand God’s will, we should not try to deduce it from the circumstances of a fallen word. Neither should we form an abstract concept of God’s will from a non-biblical notion of divine sovereignty. Rather, we should look at Jesus, who is the explicit declaration of God’s will.” (Ken Blue)
The benefits of sickness
Sickness is seen as sent from God as a means for our sanctification. Texts such as James 1, where we are urged to count it all joy when we endure various trials, and 2 Cor. 12 where Paul writes of his experience of a thorn in the flesh which God would not remove, are used to back up the view that God sometimes brings sickness to us as a means of growth.
Without wishing to negate the positive growth which does at times come from experiences of suffering of all kinds, there is little in Scripture to suggest that sickness and disease are usually God’s will for his children. Paul’s thorn in the flesh was very likely not a reference to a physical ailment. On keeping with other Biblical uses of this phrase it is more likely to refer to harassment or opposition from a troublesome adversary). The Bible seems to distinguish between sickness and persecution/suffering related to living as a Christian in the end times. We are always urged to embrace the latter (hence James 1) but to pray against the former (cf. James 5)
“Sickness contradicts the salvation will of the creator God, who wants life and not death. That is why Jesus wanted to save the concrete person in his life, i.e. strengthen and maintain him... Nowhere do we find the admonition to tolerate sickness, and to come to terms with it.” (Ulrich Mueller)
“Most sermons on sickness and suffering reflect more the influence of Roman Stoicism than the doctrine of the church’s founder I think it is fair to say that every time Jesus met with evil, spiritual or physical, he treated it as an enemy.” (Frances MacNutt)
In the Old Testament God proclaims himself to be the Healer of his people (Ex. 15:26), and the spirituality of the Psalms is one in which there is an expectation that God will heal and save his people (cf. Ps. 103:3). However, it is in the ministry of Jesus that we see God’s commitment to healing most clearly expressed.
The healing ministry of Jesus
Jesus is frequently reported as healing the sick:
Not simply as a way of establishing his credentials as Messiah (indeed, the fact that he frequently healed on the Sabbath would seriously undermine his credibility in the eyes of the religious authorities (cf. Luke 13:10ff)
Not just as a way of validating his teaching
But rather because this is what God does.
Jesus stresses the ordinary nature of healing, referring to his acts of healing not as miracles but as works. Not only is healing an integral part of God’s activity, it is not an Intrusion’ into the natural order of things by a God who is somehow ‘outside’ the system.
Mark 1:29-45
Having delivered a demonised man, Jesus heals Simon’s mother-in-law (v30).
People brought all the sick and demonised and he healed many with various diseases (v32).
Jesus is filled with compassion at the plight of the leper (v41) and expresses this compassion and his willingness to heal the man by touching him.
“Throughout Christian history there have been plenty who have seen God as without feelings, for to have feelings is seen as somehow being weak or incomplete. Jesus’ compassion was not merely an expression of his will but an eruption from deep within his being. The word used to describe his compassion expresses the involuntary gasp wrenched from a man overwhelmed by a great sorrow.” (Ken Blue)
Jesus is strategic in the exercise of his ministry (v38). His overall goal is not simply to relieve peoples’ symptoms but to initiate people into the fullness of God’s Kingdom, bringing restoration and leading people to repentance. He will not be sidetracked by those whose vision is more limited.
Conclusion and application
We need to grow in our conviction that God longs to heal and restore those who are sick in body, mind, emotion or spirit.
We need to see sickness as an enemy to be opposed as did Jesus himself.
We need to ask God to fill us with the same compassion as we see in the character of Jesus.
Sermons on healing
God the Healer (this sermon)
See also
