Sermon: "Gripping Minds and Healing Bodies"

4th in the "The Healer at Work" series.
Delivered January 27, 2008 by Rev. John Schmidt.
Other sermons in this series - 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5

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I would like to read now from the gospel of Luke, Chapter 4, Verses 31 to 44. It's on page 727 I think of your pew Bibles. Luke, the gospel of Luke, Chapter 4 beginning with Verse 31.

"Then he went down to Capernaum, a town in Galilee, and on the Sabbath began to teach the people. They were amazed at his teaching, because his message had authority. In the synagogue there was a man possessed by a demon, an evil spirit. He cried out at the top of his voice, "Ha! What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are-the Holy One of God!" "Be quiet!" Jesus said sternly. "Come out of him!" Then the demon threw the man down before them all and came out without injuring him. All the people were amazed and said to each other, "What is this teaching? With authority and power he gives orders to evil spirits and they come out!" And the news about him spread throughout the surrounding area. 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. When the sun was setting, the people brought to Jesus all who had various kinds of sickness, and laying his hands on each one, he healed them. Moreover, demons came out of many people, shouting, "You are the Son of God!" But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew he was the Christ. At daybreak Jesus went out to a solitary place. The people were looking for him and when they came to where he was, they tried to keep him from leaving them. But he said, "I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent." And he kept on preaching in the synagogues of Judea."

Let's pray: God as we go in to your word today we pray that you will open our eyes and strengthen our faith, for we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

A friend of mine, Charlie Hummel, who has passed away one time, wrote about some friends that he had. He had served them earlier in his ministry. One of these people is a guy named David. David had some severe stomach pain. Because of that he went to the doctor and the doctor diagnosed it as being ulcers and said that David was going to have to take medicine and was probably going to have to get surgery. Hearing this David gathered together several of his friends from church to have them pray for him. They spent some time praying for the wisdom and the skill of the doctors. They prayed for perseverance and encouragement in David's life and they also prayed even for the finances of the whole deal. And then one of the people in the prayer meeting suggested why don't we pray for David's healing as well. At that point, the group got a little bit uncomfortable. There was some silence and finally after a few moments of silence one of them hesitantly said, "Well maybe it's not God's will to heal him." And as they talked another said, "Maybe it's a test for his faith". And then it was suggested that it might be a witness too for him to be ill and how he handles that illness; that might prove to be a witness to other people. And so, the prayer meeting kind of ground down to a halt and they left.

One of the people in that prayer meeting was a woman named Laura. Laura went home, went to sleep and they were awakened later that night when their child, their son had a fever and an earache. Laura and her husband immediately woke up and made a call to the doctor in the middle of the night. They got a prescription and went to an all night pharmacy. As soon as they got home they gave him the medicine immediately. It never occurred to Laura or her husband to stop before they called the doctor to ask, "Does God really want to heal our son?" It didn't occur to them to do that. They immediately assumed that that would be the case and then they did everything they could to seek that healing. And the question arises, "Why the difference that night in their lives?" When they were praying why did they ask the question, "Does God even want to heal?" And yet later that night when they are seeking a prescription that question doesn't even come to mind. Why the difference?

There is a lot of hesitation in Christian circles about praying for healing and I think there is some good reason for it, because there has been so much bad teaching on the issue of healing in the church and it has caused so much damages. There has been so many promises made to people that haven't been fulfilled. There has been so many con artists taking advantage of people's gullibility and there has been so much guilt poured into people's lives when healing hasn't come about the way they expected. And so we are a bit gun shy about praying for healing and I think because of this history there are some good reasons for that. But in today's passage that I just read Jesus goes around preaching and healing and casting out demons and we are forced to face that pattern of ministry. There is a certain rhythm in his ministry. He preaches. He heals. He releases people from bondage's. He preaches some more. Jesus is going around and he is very concerned about gripping people's mind with the truth of the gospel; of the good news he is preaching, things about God, about how God is working in his life to bring a whole new angle on history, that God is intervening to deal with our relationship with God, to deal with sin and in that, He is bringing all kinds of other good news. He is concerned about gripping their minds, but He is also concerned about healing their bodies. And so Jesus goes through this cycle and since it is such a major part of what Jesus did it forces us to have to look at this issue of healing.

Jesus' action in this passage happens across one days' time. It's on the Sabbath day and the section we read reinforces the importance of preaching. It begins by saying, "He goes in to Capernaum and on the Sabbath he began to teach the people." This is a core thing that Jesus is doing in his ministry. Now, we go down to Verse 43 and 44; we see this emphasized again. At the end it says,"But I must preach the good news of the Kingdom of God to other towns also, because that is why I was sent and he kept on preaching in the synagogues of Judea." People were trying to keep him there, because God was healing people through him. They were receiving so much and Jesus says, "No, I have got to move on because I have a message that I must proclaim." The passage begins and ends with this proclamation. Indeed, the preaching of the gospel, the teaching of God's good news to people was absolutely paramount in Jesus' life. Even when people see him heal they say, "What is this teaching?" In other words, the healing's were supporting the message that Jesus came to proclaim.

But Jesus does directly confront spiritual evil. He goes in to the synagogue. A man comes before him with an evil spirit. Directly and quickly Jesus deals with it. There are no ceremonies. There is no secret incantations. He commands and it happens. Now earlier when they heard his teaching they said, "he has authority and power." And now as they see him act they say, "Look, he's got authority and power". His actions and his teachings both were showing there was something uniquely powerful about what Jesus was doing.

After the service he goes to Simon's home. The passage we looked at last week happens after this event. He goes to Simon's home. Simon's mother-in-law is ill. He is asked to heal her. He confronts the illness and Simon's mother-in-law is healed. We see very little detail about what he does; just the core details. Then he leaves Simon's house and then we see and I think its Verse 40 that when the sun was setting the people started bringing out to Jesus people who had all kinds of sicknesses. This is because, if you remember, this is the Sabbath and on the Sabbath you couldn't walk too far; you couldn't do anything that seemed like work. So people are waiting for sundown; they know Jesus can heal, they know he has a message of unique power that they have to hear. They want to get close to Jesus. It's Sabbath; they wait. As soon as the sun goes down they start coming out of their houses. They start coming from other parts of town. They start coming from outside the town to be with Jesus and Jesus meets them and begins to heal them; a busy day.

And yet, we see right at the end of the passage again Jesus doesn't let the success of this healing ministry determine what he does next. He goes off to get alone with God and when it's done despite the pressure from the people to stay there. He says, "No, I've got to get on, because I have a message to proclaim."

Now Jesus heals many times in the gospels. It's part of what Israel expected the Messiah to do. It was an absolutely natural thing for the people of Israel to expect of Christ, the Messiah, the special one that God had sent to save Israel and to restore Israel; they expected him to heal. And that was because God was their healer. Exodus 15, Verse 6 says this: "I am the God who heals you." Psalm 103, Verse 3 talks about God who forgives your sins and heals your diseases and Jeremiah, Chapter 17, Verse 4 there is a prayer; "Heal me Lord and I will be healed. Save me and I will be saved." Again, linking healing and being delivered from our sin.

Isaiah, Chapter 35; there is a whole chapter that talks about the ministry and the restoration of the Messiah; what the Messiah would do for Israel, what the king would do and he would restore the land, he would bring vindication and he would bring health to the people; a whole chapter talks about it. Israel was ready for this. And this was natural for them, because they didn't view spiritual things as being so different than physical things. One of the things we carry in our thinking is somehow there are spiritual things over here; there are physical things over here, there is emotional things up here and we somehow believe that we can experience something spiritually and it not impact us physically or vice-versa. The Hebrews never thought that way. They thought of life as a unity and the physical and the spiritual and the mental and the emotional were all facets of one hole and we experienced it all together. And so, naturally they would expect anything that liberates us spiritually is going to have impact on our emotions and on our bodies.

There is a word "Shalom" in Hebrew. There is a related word, "Shalem". One of them shalem has to do with being healthy and whole and then the word shalom has to do with being at peace and being whole. The way it was defined one time is that shalom means that nothing is broken and nothing is missing. It's a wholeness and a completeness and a health; not just the absence of controversy. So it was natural that Jesus should do that. It was part of the mindset and it was also natural because it shows things about the character of the kingdom that Jesus came to bring. Jesus said, "If you look at me you see the Father. What I do I do because the father tells me to do it." So when he heals he shows the Father's will. It shows his compassion. It's a sign of the Messianic age and it's a proof of the veracity and the truth of his teaching. Jesus would teach some controversial things, do some controversial things and then he would do a healing to support it. So the people could get a little bit of help and understanding that maybe what Jesus is saying is true. And he had said that he was sent to destroy the works of the devil and healing was part of that.

So it was natural for Israel to expect healing. It was natural for Jesus to do it, but what about the church? What should we expect 2,000 years later? Now I can't answer that by just looking at the passage that we looked at today. So I am going to have to dip in to a broader part of the New Testament for a few minutes. Now I have given you a handout that deals with this particular section. It deals with a series of statements about what I believe is a proper understanding of what we should expect as the church. The first point; we should still expect God to heal. We should still expect God to heal. Now there are a number of reasons for that. The first reason is Jesus healed as part of his ministry. The second is that Jesus sent his disciples to heal in Luke, Chapter 9. Then the apostles in the early church healed in Acts, Chapter 3. Then we get to the Book of 1st Corinthians, Chapter 12, Verse 9; church members have given healing gifts and then we get to the Book of James, Chapter 5, Verse 14-16; we are told to ask for prayer for healing. Jesus did it. He sent his disciples to do it. The apostle's did it in the early church. Church members were given special gifts to do it and then we are told to do it. The case is very strong in the New Testament. We should still be seeking God to heal.

The second point; God does not always heal immediately. God does not always heal immediately. We have an interesting section in the Book of Philippians, Chapter 2, Verse 25 to 30. Paul is talking about Epaphroditus. Epaphroditus was this wonderful Christian who came and spent time with Paul representing one of the churches; they go through all kinds of things together, Epaphroditus gets very seriously ill and Paul talks about how they feared that he would lose his life and it intimates how long his recovery was. Now if you were immediately healed then Epaphroditus would have gotten seriously ill, Paul would have come over and prayed about it, it would have been dealt with and it wouldn't even be a footnote in any book in the New Testament. It would just be another thing that passed by. But this was on Paul's heart and I can't help but believe that Paul did everything in his power, spiritually and physically to deal with this.

We see 1st Timothy, Chapter 5, Verse 23; Timothy is told to drink a little bit of wine for his stomach; the medicinal use of wine. It wouldn't be necessary if Timothy had been healed at every possible level of physical ailment. His healing had not yet come and so he needed to do what he could and Paul suggests using wine. And sometimes it seems like God doesn't heal at all. For example, Paul talks about the thorn he has in the flesh. In 2nd Corinthians, Chapter 12, Verse 7 he has a thorn in the flesh, almost certainly a physical one that God specifically reveals to him he will not heal. And let's face it, death is the final illness that doesn't get healed and we find people dying in the New Testament. We find people dying in the church.

So God doesn't always heal immediately and sometimes there is this mysterious thing that happens when he doesn't heal at all and that's because we still live in the already and not yet. I mentioned this other times in the past, but there are things that are already true because Jesus has come. It is already true that we can receive forgiveness from God. It is already true that we can receive the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives to change the character of our lives. We can receive the power to do ministry. We can receive healing; that's already true. But the not yet part is, its not yet complete. It's not yet total. It's not yet entirely predictable. And so, we don't get healed every time. We don't get healed immediately every time. And there is a mystery about this. And this is one of the worse things that has happened in the church, is as we discover the God's grace in healing, we start expecting that its got to happen every time. We have the faith. Our lives are in order and when it doesn't happen we start feeling guilty or we start putting that guilt on to someone's else's life. But there is a mystery here. Some things are not yet totally predictable. So we receive; we receive unexpected, enormous, gracious things and at the same time we don't have total control over what's happening.

The next point; God uses natural and supernatural means to heal. It's our mindset that pushes supernatural and natural to extremes. It is all a part of one package in the minds of Hebrews of Jesus. And so, Epaphroditus might have gotten better through natural means, through natural help. Timothy might have gotten better through natural means. We see it happen all the times in lives, as we pray and we wait on God, as we seek his blessing. He uses every possible thing. We take all of the tools we have, natural tools, supernatural tools, prayer, medicine, everything and throw all of it towards the goal of healing and wholeness that God so lovingly gives in to our lives. So prayer is part of healing, but so is medicine.

The next point; faith is important to healing. We find that Jesus mostly healed people who came to him expecting something to happen. And in fact, Jesus says on some occasions, "Your faith has made you well." He honored faith. The problem is, is that sometimes we take that scriptural truth and then we go in to a situation and we say, "Do you believe?" and they say, "Yes I trust God for this" and if it doesn't happen then we start to put guilt upon the person and say, "Ah, the healing didn't happen. What's wrong with your faith? What's wrong with you that the healing didn't happen?" Now let me, I challenge you to find in the New Testament anytime that Jesus or an apostle took someone who was coming in brokeness, seeking a solution from God when they said, "Oh, I would love to do it and I will try to do it, but you know what's holding us up, it's you." It doesn't happen. And in fact, the only time that Jesus does confront a lack of faith in a situation of healing or demonic possession is in a situation where he is after the disciples, that they didn't have the faith and they didn't know how to handle the situation. It has not guilt, no pressure on the person who was seeking the wholeness. And I think that is an important thing for us to keep in mind that we don't put false guilt on top of all the other brokeness people are experiencing. We have faith. We trust God, but we are not in total control. There is a mystery here. Sometimes God leads us through and we come to a solution. Sometimes we don't. It's part of reality.

And so that comes to the last point that I want to make about the church and healing. Healing is a gift to be received and never a right to be claimed, to be demanded. We are always receiving. We can never say our lives are so much in order; our faith is so strong that God you must do it right now my way. It will not happen. It's always a gift.

So let's go back to the first question that I raised, do we expect God to heal? Does God want to heal us? If we want to know the answer to that we need to look no farther than the ministry of Jesus; God's son. He said, "I have come to do the will of the father. What I see is what I do." So Luke 4 tells us and all the Bible tells us, "Yes God wants to heal." It's part of the blessing he wants to pour out. It's not miles away from the spiritual blessing he wants to pour out. It's part of the whole. Experience tells us yes too, because we see God healing around us. Today in the News and Views you've got a wonderful story about how someone has experienced step-by-step God's grace as they as a family have sought healing in the area of cancer. It's a wonderful testimony. But last week I told you about a lawyer friend of mine named Kevin who works with the State of Louisiana helping protect the rights of the mentally ill and the developmentally challenged. Now I spoke to Kevin for about a half-hour on the phone yesterday and I want to tell you the rest of Kevin's story.

Kevin grew up in Pittsburgh. He was an athlete and he especially enjoyed tennis and was on the tennis club and in his senior year in high school he started to notice that his strength had gone from his right arm and he couldn't get any overspin. And so this got worse and worse and finally it affected his performance on the team. It came in to summer. His family led a tour in Ireland and he was part of that. His family took him along and while they were on the tour they had a talent night and as Kevin was part of it, his parents noticed that he couldn't hold the microphone up to his face without using both hands. If he had only one hand it kept on dropping. They were very concerned about that and so immediately they took him to the hospital; Adelaide Hospital in Dublin. They gave him a myelogram and a host of other tests and after a little bit of time they diagnosed it as being motor neuron disease; what we now call ALS, ametropic lateral sclerosis; often known as Lou Gehrig's disease. It's a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord and it always gets worse and they expected that he would not live, but a few more years. Now having bad news like this immediately when they got home they went and got a second opinion. They went to the University of Pennsylvania, the medical center; they did all kinds of tests and came back with the same diagnosis, ALS. He was very young to be getting it and they suggested that he not even bother to go away for college, because it was going to get bad fast enough that college would be very difficult. Kevin decided to totally ignore that and he went to the College of Worchester. When he got to Worchester things were getting worse and it came to the point where he couldn't hold his lunch tray up with his arms bent. He had to keep his arms straight; this is the only way he could keep the tray. It was worse in the cold weather and so he started working out with the school, every time a semester allowed him a chance to go down to Florida or over to California he took it. But it still got worse. His mother at that time started to go to healing ministries in Pittsburgh and she would even go when he wasn't there and at one of those meetings after going to many the person who was there said that her son was healed, that he would get better. She took that as great encouragement, but nothing changed. Kevin himself was willing finally to go to one or two of those meetings, even went to some by himself. He thought Christianity was bunk at this time in his life, but he was so desperate he went to some of the meetings and at one of those meetings a registered nurse called out "Someone here has holes in their mylan sheets. God is filling those holes. He must love you very much." And so, Kevin met with them later after the meeting, got some encouragement, but nothing changed. He actually got worse. It actually got so bad he couldn't take the exams and he had to take oral exams at Worchester, because he couldn't hold a pen anymore. His whole body would shake. His legs got worse and got to the point that if he fell he couldn't' get up on his own; he would have to push against a tree trunk or a wall and scoot himself up. The only way he could get up and down steps was by leaning against the wall and taking one step at a time. He got one more chance to go to a warm place, figured that would be bound to make it better, so he goes to San Diego for an urban immersion semester. It made sense too because his girlfriend was going. He was a normal college student in that regard. Kevin boarded with an African-American woman there in the inner city. He had a good time with the project. The project ends and everybody goes home but Kevin decides to stay because he can't face the cold weather again. While he is there in the inner city he would go out and try to exercise as much as he could. He would go to a local park to run, to try to run or try to walk and all of the kids would gather him around him and make fun of him and ask him "Why do you walk so funny?"

He started to go to some healing ministry meetings there in San Diego. After going to several, one day he remembers having this conversation with God. "Okay God, by my own power I have only gotten worse. I give you what's left. If anything ever comes from my life we will all know it's only from you." Nothing spectacular happened. He still had the shakes. He still had the weakness, but he began to get stronger. And this became so pronounced that he went back to his doctor who had been walking with him through this whole experience. The doctor confirmed it; he was getting stronger, but couldn't explain it. He had no answers. He got stronger and stronger. He graduated from Worchester. He went in to Tulane Law School. I met him while I was at LSU and he was at Toulane. I never saw any evidence of this when I had first met him. I didn't know about this until years later. And finally one day after he had graduated from Tulane he went one more time to a doctor to get you know some understanding; this time in New Orleans. He presented his medical history, walked through it with the person and the doctor said, "It looked like ALS. They treated you right. There wasn't anything else they could do, but it wasn't ALS, because if it were ALS you would be dead." And that is all they could say. It's never been an issue in his life since. Kevin has now been healed for 35 years just about.

God wants to heal our lives; spiritually, emotionally, physically. He wants to heal through natural and supernatural means. He wants to heal immediately or gradually and there are some times that in the mystery of God we don't receive the healing. That's part of reality as we live in it, but God is on the side of healing. And so, the very least we can do is ask. It's the very least we can do, because God longs to grant things that we have not yet received.

And so, we are going to do that now in this service; at least in a very small way. In a few moments I am going to ask Elder Neil Polhaus to come to the front and we will each have oil, which is a sign of the Holy Spirit and a sign of healing and we if you chose to come forward we will anoint your head or your hand with oil and say "Shalom" to you; the peace, the wholeness of God be on your life. And then we will have some prayer teams over in the corners; they can't pray in any great detail about your situation; that cant be a full fledged you know prayer time about specific problems, but they will pray a blessing on you. So this is a time for us to show, give us symbolic representation of our faith, a symbol of our dependence on God, a symbol of our expectation from God, a symbol that we trust that God is the God of all of life, body mind and spirit. Now feel no necessity to come forward. If God is leading you, if you have that desire, please come. There is no guilt about this. If there is a brokenness and need and you feel God leading you to take that step right now, as part of a bigger journey, please do it. We also have the offering up here if you want to give your offering when you come forward. So I would like to invite Neil and the prayer teams to come forward and then I would like to pray for us to begin.

Let's pray: Lord we come before you now trusting that you in great love want to heal us, want to deal with the brokeness in our lives, on whatever level it is and so Lord take this time that we now offer to you and use it for your glory and for our blessing, for we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

© 2008, Rev. John Schmidt
Central Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD 21204 410/823-6145
www.centralpc.org