The Healing Miracles Of Jesus Made Him Popular During His Time

At the age of 30, Jesus burst onto the scene, seemingly out of nowhere; a young rabbi who attracted the masses with remarkable wisdom, radical acceptance, and miraculous signs. Years before the crowd would call for his crucifixion, they cheered him as a celebrity. Join us as we turn to the Gospel of Luke and focus on the years of Jesus' popularity. As you uncover the truth of the real Jesus, you'll find the source of your own story's significance.

Well, I'm glad that we're here together today. As you see, our topic today is sickness. A pretty good topic since for the last two years that seems to be the national conversation, who's sick, who isn't sick. But it's not just COVID. If you live in North Texas, it's other stuff. Anybody been hearing lately about allergies? Anybody been hearing about... what else is... or bronchitis? Anybody been hearing about sinus infections? Every time you hear that from a medical professional, the answer is always mountain Cedar. Now, what I struggle with is I've lived in Texas a long time and I just don't see any mountains near me up here. So I'm thinking maybe we should call it hill country cedar because apparently it originates down outside the San Antonio and Austin, and these trees bloom every December through February, and they send all their pollen our way, 250 miles north, and then we all suffer from it.

Now, I don't know if anybody's been suffering in here from any of those things, but anybody been fighting mountain cedar lately over the last few months? Yep. If you haven't, lucky you, you probably will. It's always around and has been ever since. I can never remember having allergies. I think most of us are sick of being sick. Sickness is actually one of the least enjoyable things about this whole thing called human life. It's always been that way, and it was that way in Jesus' day. Today, we start a new section, as you just heard, of the Gospel of Luke. With Jesus now, we don't see His backstory anymore, but we see His popularity. Now, this will slowly rise. It will be almost eventually meteoric in terms of how high it goes. And then He'll face opposition. But that's not for several more weeks. Right now we're going to zero in on His popularity and why He was so popular.
Well, the main reason is because He did miracles. 21 of them we read about in Luke's gospel. And so, today we're going to look at why did Jesus do miracles? We're going to look at four particular scenes, a series of scenes in Luke chapter four and five on miracles, most of them healings. And then finally we're going to ask, "And so what are the practical life lessons for you and me today?" So that this doesn't just stay out there in Bible neverland but comes into our daily life. All right, let's start with why miracles.

Jesus performed four kinds of miracles, each with a specific purpose. Meaning that when you read the gospels and you come across a miracle, if you're wondering, "I wonder why He did this," let me just give you broad categories and explain. First, we have healing miracles. These are the ones that showed God's love for each individual and pointed to His future restoration of creation. Meaning, that one day there will be no need for healing. The fact that anyone is ever healed today is a sign that one day, as Revelation 21 tells us, there will be no more sickness, no more disease, no more pain, no more crying, no more tears. And there are many, many healings in Luke.

Second are nature miracles. These are the miracles Jesus did that met human needs and talked about God's kingdom. This is everything from turning water into wine, to walking on water, to calming a storm, to feeding 5,000 people with just a little bit of food. Nature miracles. Third are what we call exorcisms, that is casting out demons. And these were an assault of Jesus on the evil one. This was like Jesus snuck into the boxing ring and tapped Satan on the shoulder. And Satan turns around and Jesus goes boom, and bloodies his nose. I know it's a bad analogy, but just stay with me a minute. The point is not so much that Jesus snuck up on Satan, is that Jesus was saying, "I'm aware of who you are and what you're doing, and I'm not going to put up with it."
And that's what Jesus did. In fact, we will see one particular casting out of a demon in today's series of four stories. And finally, you have the resuscitations when Jesus found a person completely dead and raised him up. And that was a glimpse of the fact that one day we will be raised in the future and that death will no longer have any power. Now, for some of you saying, "Wait a minute, resuscitations, are you saying that they were out, but not really out and Jesus just gave them CPR?" No, they were dead, not mostly dead, completely dead. And Jesus raised them up fully from death to life. However, I want to save and reserve the word resurrection for Jesus because Jesus was raised and never died again. Everybody else Jesus raised, they died again at some point. I want to say even reserve resurrection for our future one day when Christ will raise us and we will never die again.

All right, we'll look at two of those in Luke but not today. Well, no wonder Jesus' popularity soared. If you can do those kind of things, everybody wants to be around you. Today, four healing scenes, two that I'll walk through without reading all the scripture related to it and two that we'll walk through together and look at the scriptures. All right, miracle one: Jesus heals a demoniac, a man who is demon-possessed. The setting this time is Capernaum. Now, on a map, Capernaum is Northwest corner, about 11:30 on the clock here, of the Sea of Galilee. Jesus had been over in Nazareth where He grew up, and if you heard Jim's message last week, you know that when Jesus preached the first time in His home synagogue in Nazareth they tried to kill Him. So He said, "Okay, it's not my time. I'll go somewhere else." So He went to Capernaum, and that was the headquarter of His ministry for the next two and a half years.

He taught there in the synagogue often. And while that exact synagogue from bottom to top does not exist today, archeologists have found remains of a synagogue dating back to 350 AD. Here are the remains. These are all 1,700 years old. That's me and Gwen Lao from the trip we took this past November with some Preston Trailers over there. What's great is when you see the next slide, you'll notice on the outside of the wall it says, "The late fourth century, 350, white synagogue," from here up, "is built on the remains of the synagogue of Jesus." So everything down there is the first century Jewish synagogue that Jesus would've walked around and where He would've been teaching.

Well, on this particular day, this Sabbath, Jesus is the guest teacher, and right in the middle of His talk, there is a shriek from the back of the room, and it is a demon who shrieks out, "Jesus, leave us alone, you're only here to destroy us." Can you imagine? Do you know what would happen if that happened in this room right now? I would lose my place. I would completely lose my place. This man would have, if you had been there, looked out his mind, and he was, literally. That is, he was not in his right mind. The reason was because there was a demon, an evil spirit, an unclean spirit that was messing with him, mind, soul, and body.

Now, in the Jewish world, there was a belief that demons were everywhere. If you were sick, it was because of a demon. If you had mental illness, it was because of a demon. If you were in an accident, it was because of a demon. That was simply their world view. So this demon yells at Jesus because He recognizes Him and says, "Leave, all you want to do is destroy us," and Jesus responds back and says, "Be quiet. Leave this man alone." And to prove that the demon left, the man is thrown to the ground as though he's having some type of terrible seizure. The demon flees, everyone is amazed, and the news spreads.

Now that's miracle one. But because it deals with this interesting topic, and sometimes scary topic of demon possession, I think there's some questions that we care about, and I want to try to bring this into our own world today. First, is demon possession a reality today? Church planters and missionaries report spine-tingling stories of demons being cast out. I have to believe that those are true, at least the ones I know of. I know the missionaries that have told Denise and me that. I believe those are true stories. However, you have to balance that with the fact that when you read the New Testament there is one particular time where demon possession is common. It's not the Old Testament, it's not the rest of the New Testament, it's the gospels. In fact, other than one story in the Book of Acts, all the references to demon possession are found in the life of Jesus, as if Satan is throwing everything at Jesus possible, every type of evil, every type of attack in order to get Jesus off track so He will not save the world.

Now today, that's the question: does demon possession exist? I think yes. In fact, I had a lady after the first service tell me that she has seen demon possession two times. She said, "What's crazy is I was a missionary in a third world country for years and never saw demon possession. And I came back to the US, and in very rare instances, I saw it and actually heard a demon speak." So, I would say, yes, I think it's probably reality, but beware of the sensationalism. Everything can be Hollywoodized in our world.

Second question: is mental illness caused today by demonic activity? I think that we care about that because either we know from personal experience or we know of people that have really suffered with mental health issues. And when it gets so bad that a person's called truly mentally ill and they are no longer themselves, we say, "That looks a whole lot like the people in the gospels who have completely lost their minds, and yet they're called demon possessed." So is that the same thing today? My answer is, "I don't think so." Much mental illness is due to chemical imbalance. It's due to a DNA issue. It's due to emotional suffering. I think there's just no need to demonize it or to spiritualize it. I thank God for medicines. I thank God for therapy. I thank God for family who loves. And all of those put together are true gifts from God.

And then the third question: can a disciple of Jesus, not just anybody, but the true follower of Jesus be possessed by a demon? My answer is, "As far as I'm concerned, categorically no." I take Jesus seriously in these words in John 10, "My sheep listen to my voice. I give them eternal life. They will never perish. No one can snatch them from me, even the evil one, for my Father has given them to me. He is more powerful than anyone else. No one can snatch them from the Father's hands." I think once you are in the Father's hands, He will not release you.

Okay, that's miracle one. Jesus leaves the synagogue, crowds are following. He goes nearby to the home, there in Capernaum, of Simon Peter, Simon Peter's wife and Simon Peter's mother-in-law. Miracle two: Jesus heals a woman with a very high fever, not just a normal sickness, but her fever is just skyrocketing. When Jesus gets there, it is Simon's mother-in-law who has the disease. Everybody says, "If you can do that in the synagogue, you can do this here in this home. Please heal her." So Jesus walks over to the bed, He rebukes the fever, and the fever leaves her and she is healed. In fact, I love the next part, she gets up from the bed completely healed, fever gone, and cooks a meal for everybody. That's a deal. That's quite a deal.

Now, here the word spreads again, everyone starts to bring sick family members to Jesus. Because if you can get rid of a fever and you get rid of a demon, then you can take care of whatever my family member has. And He heals every one of them. His popularity is just off the charts. But now think about this, Jesus has been healing nonstop. All day, people are brought to Him. They want Him to stay all evening. And yet, at some point, He can't get locked into that one location and still complete His purpose in life. And so we come to a pause in Jesus' life, a pause in Luke's gospel, and we'll see this twice today and many more times as you read through Luke. Here it is.

Jesus now retreats from the crowd, that's His pause, and He rightsizes their expectations. I want to read chapter four verse 42 through 44 so you can see what I mean. "Early the next morning, Jesus went out to an isolated place." So the crowds are around Him, He leaves them. "The crowds searched everywhere for Him, and when they finally found Him, they begged Him not to leave them." Right? Heal us. "But He replied, 'I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God in other towns, too, because that is why I was sent.' So He continued to travel around, preaching in synagogues throughout Judea."

Two things happened here. First, He retreats from the crowd. Why? Well, first off, He just needs strength from God to rightsize those expectations of the crowd in His own mind. Mob mentality, especially if they're clapping for you, can get you off course. When you and I live for the applause of the crowd, we usually betray our purpose. And Jesus wants to make sure that He is fully aligned with God, so He says, "That crowd, I don't need them telling me how great I am. I'm going to pull away to be with the Lord."

But also I think Jesus is just exhausted. I mean, I know He is divine human, but let's not forget the human piece. He is worn out. He needs a break. Have you ever thought about how much energy Jesus had to expend to simply heal one person? Did He just go, "You're healed."? Or was it spiritual warfare and everyone was a serious battle with sweat and work and energy? Well, in an episode of The Chosen, Jesus has been healing all day in all evening. And when he stumbles back into the camp where all the disciples are sitting around the fire arguing, they look at Him and they go, "Oh my, what's He been doing?" They realize He's been healing. And that is how exhausted and really energyless He is. He stumbles back in slowly. He heads for His little tent. And Mother Mary comes up to Him and says, "Can I help you?" He goes, "I don't know." And she says, "Can I wash your feet?" Jesus, just like He calls God Abba, Father, He calls Mary Ima, Mother. And there's a great line in this episode where He says, "Oh, Ima, what would I do without you?"

What did it take Jesus to heal? A lot of energy. He retreated from the crowd because He was tired. But now He has to go to the crowd again and tell them why He can't stay and why He can't heal everyone. His point: "I have a bigger purpose. I must go to other towns. You can't lock me in here. I can't get squirreled away right here and you bring people from one mile, 10 miles, 100 miles, 1,000 miles. There are too many people for me to heal for me to ever do what I'm ultimately called to do." And so He says, "I have to go elsewhere to preach." And here's the way I would summarize it. Jesus did not come to be the healer of the world but to be the Savior of the world. When you read the New Testament, you will never see that Jesus healed every single person who ever came near Him, or that His goal was to find everybody sick and heal them. His goal was to get the good news of the kingdom out there so that He could save everyone.

Healing, surely, it's a great way to show the love of God, but that was not His ultimate purpose, it was penultimate. His purpose was to save. So now Jesus leaves Capernaum. He goes from town to town preaching the good news, and in the process we see miracle three: Jesus heals a leper, chapter five verse 12 through 16. Now, leprosy was and is an ugly, ugly disease. I looked long and hard to find one simple picture I could put on the screen, but I couldn't. Every picture I looked up of leprosy was so reviling and revolting that I just thought, "I'm not going to do that to all of you." If you on your own want to go find out what does leprosy do to a hand or to a foot or to a face, you can Google it on your own. But let me tell you, the fact that it's repulsive to me and will be to you, and I wouldn't even put it here, will let you know exactly how a person with leprosy felt and how they knew everyone else saw them. Nobody wanted to see them.

In Jesus' day, sometimes it looked like psoriasis and it wasn't that infectious, painful but not that infectious. And sometimes it was highly disfiguring and very contagious. And for that reason, the Old Testament required that lepers be quarantined. Now, if lepers are quarantined, who can they be with? Other lepers. That's it what about family? Can't be with them. What about friends? Can't be with them. What about the synagogue? Nope. What about the temple? Nope. What about your job? You're out. What about the paycheck? That's gone too. Did you see how miserable their lives were? I actually believe these were simply the loneliest people in all of Israel.

So let's read the story. "In one of these villages, Jesus met and man with an advanced case of leprosy. When the man saw Jesus, he bowed with his face to the ground," and I think that's not just humility, I think there's some super shame, "Please don't look at me," "begging to be healed. 'Lord,' he said, 'if you are willing, you can heal me and you can make me clean.'" Now as you see, this man's case was bad, severe case, advanced case of leprosy. Face, hands, feet, it would've been a mess. He asked two things of Jesus. First he says, "Heal me." That means get rid of the leprosy. Second he says, "Make me clean." That means, "I want you to make me so whole that people will let me back into their company. I want to be socially viable again in this world."
Now, friends, if lepers were off limits, and if you touched one you became unclean, what's Jesus going to do right here? "Jesus reached out and touched him. 'I am willing,' He said, 'be healed.' And instantly the leprosy disappeared." I love this. Jesus touches the untouchable. Jesus should have been infected by that man. Instead, Jesus reversed the process and disinfected that man by the touch and the love and the power from His own life. And then interestingly, instead of Jesus saying, "Hey, everybody, look at this incredible miracle I've done." He says, "Now listen, Mr. Leper, you know what the Old Testament says about how you can be verified as cleansed. You have to go follow that protocol." Here's the protocol. "Then Jesus instructed him not to tell anyone what had happened. He said, 'Go to the priest, let him examine you. Take along the offering required in the law of Moses for those who've been healed of leprosy. This will be a public testimony that you have been cleansed.' But despite Jesus' instructions, the report of His power spread even faster," that's called popularity, "and vast crowds came to hear Him preach and to be healed of their diseases. But Jesus often withdrew to the wilderness for prayer."

Once again you see this pause, this pulling away to be with God. Now, the priest, besides offering sacrifices at the temple, also was the public health inspector. I don't think I would like that job. Everybody that's been contagious has got to come to you and you have to declare whether they're contagious or not. Or what if they're faking it? Sucker, you just got caught. So here's the priest, he's got to look over everybody and tell them whether they can be clean and reengage with society. When he sees this man that Jesus has healed, he knows this guy is done completely with his leprosy. So he says, "You're good. You're able to go back in." And of course, as soon as people hear that, the word begins to spread more and more and more. So what does Jesus do as the crowds build? He doesn't start an ad campaign or get His public platform right. He pulls away. Silence, solitude, time with God.
And as you read Luke, one of the things you'll can discover over and over is that Jesus was not impressed with His own popularity. He was press with God's love for people, but not with His own popularity. And Jesus never did believe His own press reports. He didn't care about that. He cared about people. And now that gets us to miracle four: Jesus heals a paralytic, Luke 5:17-26. Let's read the story first then we'll talk about it. "One day while Jesus was teaching, some Pharisees and teachers of religious law were sitting nearby, and the Lord's healing power was strongly with Jesus. Some men came carrying a paralyzed man on a sleeping mat. They tried to take him inside to Jesus, but they couldn't reach Him because of the crowd. So they went up to the roof and took off some tiles. Then they lowered the sick man on his mat down into the crowd, right in front of Jesus."
This is one of the more popular miracles in the gospel. So you may have heard this before, but let me just remind you, Jesus is now not teaching in the synagogue, He's teaching in a home. Religious religious are there, and there are some friends in town, these four guys that hang out with a fifth guy. This fifth guy is paralyzed, and they think, "Well, if Jesus can do these other miracles, we know he can heal our buddy." So they take the man, he's on his bed mat, four guys, one at each corner, lift him up, carry him to this home, looking for Jesus to do the heat. The problem is there's so many people inside it spilled over out into the alley, so to speak. It's just jammed, they can't get him in.

Well, these were not homes that were pitched like this, they were flat roofs. And there were always ladders on the side, so they climbed up the ladder, probably wrapped a sheet around the man and hoisted him up on top of the roof with them. Then they tore open the roof, tile according to Luke, and then they slowly lower him in front of Jesus. And now here he is, eyeball to eyeball with Jesus. And then the question is in the dramatic moment, what in the world is Jesus going to do? And here's how it goes. "Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the man, 'Young man, your sins are forgiven.'"

Is that what you thought was coming next? That's not what I thought was coming next. I thought what should be next, I didn't write the gospels, but I thought what should be next was, "Seeing the man's faith, Jesus said to the man, 'Young man, rise and walk.'" But instead He said, "Seeing their faith," which tells you something about the importance of us praying for people, "Young man, your sins are forgiven." Now, why in the world did Jesus say, "Your sins are forgiven."? That's not what the guy wants to hear, I don't think. And that's certainly not what the religious leaders could tolerate. Because if someone said, "I forgive sin," that's blasphemy because only God can do that.

Here's what's going on in the minds of everybody and how the conversation continues. "But the Pharisees, the teachers of religious law said to themselves, 'Who does he think He is? That is blasphemy. Only God can forgive sins.' Jesus knew what they were thinking, so He asked them, 'Why do you question this in your hearts?'" Now, is it easier to say, "Your sins are forgiven," or is it easier to say, "Stand up and walk."? "'So I will prove to you that the Son of Man,'" that's Jesus' way to talk about Himself, "'has the authority on earth to forgive sins.' Then Jesus turned to the paralyzed man and said, 'Stand up, pick up your mat, go home.' And immediately, as everyone watched, the man jumped up, picked up his mat, and went home praising God."

This is one of the most interesting conversations that Jesus has with anybody because here's what Jesus is getting at: when someone is forgiven, you can't see the results. I mean, it's an inner experience. You can see the results later on maybe if they don't live under guilt. But when God really forgives you, people can't see evidence right away. But if somebody heals you, the evidence is immediately obvious. And so, Jesus is saying to these religious leaders, "I have come to forgive this man, and I've forgiven him. But because you couldn't see the results, you don't believe it. So now, because you're so stubborn, I'm going to do something you can see. I'm going to heal him and that will prove to you that I actually had the power to forgive him in the first place." And so Jesus commands him what I expected the first time, now the second time, He commands him to stand up, be healed, and leave. And the crowds go crazy.

Now, these are the four miracles. They are powerful each in their own way, but they become more powerful when you and I look at the lessons that matter in our lives. Here's the first: Jesus healing is holistic, meaning whole person. He cares about every part of your life. He doesn't just care about whether you have a broken wrist but not about whether or not your marriage is broken. He cares about everything in you. He cared about the mental health of the demoniac and the physical health of Simon Peter's mother-in-law with the fever, and the relational health of the leper, which is why I believe He cleansed him so he could go back into society and have human contact again. And he cared about the spiritual health of the paralytic, who although He also did finally heal him physically, He first healed him spiritually.

Now, Jim and I spoke about this topic of healing several years ago in a series called 40 Days of Healing. We talked about all four of those types of healing, mental healing, physical healing, relational healing, spiritual healing. We added in sexual healing. And in all of those ways, God cares. And so if you're interested, there is the series that would take you to it. But here's my point right now, whatever's not right in your life, wherever you feel a certain sense of unhealth, Jesus cares.
Let's go deeper. If you are sick today in any area of your life, Jesus sees you. Now, in these four stories, Jesus looks at the people every time. And He looks at you, and He sees you. And this is important because it's easy in life not to be seen. I read a story recently of a woman who was in a wheelchair. She was going shopping in an outdoor mall. And as she was going shopping, there were two men who were approaching her that weren't really watching. They were just chatting with each other. I can just picture me and do Jim or somebody just walking towards her. And all of a sudden, they realize that they're going to bump into her. Now, she said that there was plenty of room on the sidewalk for her just to keep going down one side of this same sidewalk, and they just passed her right there. Nobody had to get out in the parking lot.

But for some reason it hits this guy, "Oh, let me be chivalrous." So, he makes a big deal of it. And he gets off of the road... I mean, off of the curb and down into the area where the parking is and he kind of motions her along like this. And now what is he thinking other than about himself? What's he thinking? "Let me be so polite. Let me be so courteous. Maybe everyone will say, 'Wow, you are so thoughtful.'" Well, let me just tell you now, he never saw her. Because if he had seen her, he would've known that was humiliating. All that did was draw attention to her and to him, which was his goal probably. And she never felt seen. Jesus always makes you feel seen. When Jesus sees you it's because you matter to Him. Don't forget that.

Deeper. If you are sick, Jesus is speaking to you. He speaks to people in these stories. A couple times He speaks to the demons, but I'm sure He spoke to the human afterwards when the demon was gone. And I want you to know, He is speaking to you and He always calls your name. And I don't mean by that that He goes, "Let me figure out which one they are. Social security number, yeah, that's her name." And He doesn't just mean the configuration of letters that makes up your unique name. He means what your name stands for, who you are, everything about you, the good, the bad, and the ugly. It means that Jesus, when He calls out your name calls it in love. When He calls your name, He is saying to you more than anything in the world, Romans 8:38-39, "Nothing can separate you from the love of God. Nothing in heaven, nothing on earth, nothing below the earth can ever keep you, including wherever you feel, unhealth, unwell, or sick. None of that is big enough to separate you from the incredible love of God."
Deeper. If you're sick, Jesus is reaching out to touch you. I've never been physically touched by Jesus, but I've been spiritually touched many times and I felt it. He touched sick people who came to Him. He even touched lepers. And if some of you think that you're a modern day leper, that you're kind of untouchable, untouchable in your family of origin, untouchable in your workplace, untouchable in politics, whatever, if you feel untouchable, I just want to tell you today, you're not untouchable to Jesus. He is willing to and loves to touch right where we hurt most. Every one of us.

Have you ever thought how powerful touch is, kind, gracious, tender, appropriate touch? Have you ever thought about how powerful it is? Number of years ago, there's was scientific experiment conducted on volunteers who underwent pain stimulus. May I just say I would not volunteer for that particular trial. Now, I don't know if the way they inflicted pain on the person was to pinch them or to stick them with a needle or to put a prod on their electric and go... I don't know what it was. But whatever it was, they made you suffer for a moment. They wanted to see what would happen when the pain stimulus increased. So, because they hooked you up to a brain scan, they discovered that the pain immediately went up. When the pain immediately went up, there was a spike in activity, that activity in your brain also went up in those areas of your brain related to fear, danger, and threat.

But, if a loving spouse was sitting beside you and touched your hand within a few seconds after that went up, then all those pain signals went down. Not all the way on, but they decrease significantly. Why? Because just flesh on flesh of one person that you know loves you, that is with you in that moment, walking beside you even though they can't relieve it has healing power. Other medical studies have shown that touch helps premature babies grow faster, lowers glucose levels in kids with diabetes, improves the immune system in cancer patients. Let's just be honest, is this why we love massages? Because there's a certain healing power to touch? Is this why we love hugging a family member? Because there's something there that says, "Okay, you really do accept me."? Is this why we actually love affectionate dogs? Every time I go to see my daughter, I hug her, but then I go find her big dog and I hug him. And I protect my face because he's a licker. Jesus is reaching out to you and He wants to touch spiritually. And most likely, He's going to use one of His followers to do that honor in your life.

Finally, Jesus may or may not heal your specific sickness, but He will always heal you spiritually. I say He may or may not because He didn't heal everyone when He was here the first time. And so, if sickness is in your body today, I hope and pray that God will heal it sometime in your life, soon than later. If there is a mental health issue for you, I hope God will heal that fully sooner than later. And if He heals you, it may be direct, just a boom miracle. Or it may be indirect, through medicine, counseling, self-care, family members. And I think either way, God's the healer. However, Jesus did not heal everyone 2000 years ago, and I think it is a false hope to believe that He will do it today instead, He will now finally heal everybody.

Look, you may not experience healing. And if you don't at the time you want and the way you want, it'll be very easy to blame God. And every time I find myself blaming God for a family member or my own self in any area of unhealth, I always remember this little story of Phil Yancey. Yancey wrote a wonderful book called Disappointment With God. The title should tell you everything. He interviewed person after person whose life had gone so different from the direction they expected, with so much pain and sadness and suffering and sorrow, so he thought, "I'm going to write about this and talk about people who are disappointed with God."

Well, he had story after story. One day, he went to see a long time friend, George, to ask him that question, why are you disappointed with God? And here's the backstory. George's wife had a severe stage of cancer and their little girl and George would take her to get her chemotherapy on a regular basis. One time coming home from chemo, they were hit by a drunk driver. Well, nobody was killed. The wife was fine, the little girl was hurt a little bit but recovered well, but George had significant brain injury because of that wreck. Phil thought, "Well, if there's anybody in the world that they can say, 'God has been unfair and I should be disappointed,' it's George." So he sits down, says, "George, tell me why you're disappointed with God." And George said, "I'm not." Phil said, "I've watched you eat that sandwich. It takes you 30 or 40 seconds just to get the sandwich to your mouth, and sometimes you miss. How can you not be disappointed with God?" And George said, "Because I don't confuse God with life."

One of the greatest decisions you'll ever make in this world is that God does not equal life. When things happen in this world, in your life that aren't what you hoped for, that is not the same as saying God singled you out and said, "Boom, let me see if I can make them miserable." God loves you deeply. This world is filled with tribulation, and you will have trouble. He has overcome the world, but we are still stuck with some of the side effects. And so, healing may come in your life sooner or later, I don't know. But I do know this, Jesus will always give you the gift He gave the paralytic, which He needed most, which was forgiveness and reconciliation with God.

And so, I want to pray and ask you to pray with me, and I want to name each of these four areas. If this is something that's where you need prayer, I'm going to ask you to slip your hand up and let me pray a prayer over each of these four areas, okay? So let's start with physical. In the spirit of prayer, if you are today struggling with cancer, heart disease, lung disease, skin problems, just constant pain, orthopedic issues, whatever it is, if there's a physical issue you're facing and you just like me to pray with you on that, just slip your hand up right now. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. O, Lord God, we believe Psalm 139 that says that you net us together in our mother's womb and that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. How easy it is to doubt that when we look at ourselves and we look at everybody else and we say, "Hmm, they look wonderful, but I don't look or feel so wonderful."

Dear God, I pray that for each one of these people, that in mercy and grace and kindness you would give your version of healing at the right time. Our prayer, our hope, in fact I always do this Lord, as you know, I always pray for healing. Immediately, as soon as possible, according to your purpose, and Lord, please do that for these people. And if there's a reason why there's a delay, then please give them grace to trust you.

Okay, let's talk about mental unhealth. If today you're struggling from depression, sadness, grief that will not leave you alone, anxiety, crippling fear, anything else that just has your mind not working the way you want it to work, and you'd like prayer, would you just slip your hand up and let me offer prayer for you? Thank you so much. I know the last two or three years have made it worse, so let's pray. Well, God, you made our minds, what incredible, incredible gifts they are. The ways we can think and process and focus, and at their best, they are little computers greater than anything on the face of the earth. But when they get out of whack, we think ourselves into corners, and we don't know how to get out of those corners. Remind us of the words that we sang earlier. When we feel surrounded, we're really surrounded by you. And again, God, our prayer is that you would grant mental healing and release from anxiety and depression to everybody who needs that today. Please do that. And if for some reason there's a delay beyond our understanding, then may they trust you.

Third, let's talk about relational health. If there's any relational unease or dis-ease in your life, broken marriage, bad relationship with parents, bad relationship with kids, problems with neighbors, problems with coworkers, whatever it would be, and you long for God's healing, just slip your hand up and let me offer prayer for you please. Thank you so much. Yep. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. O Lord, you made relationships. And man, at their best, they're incredible, and at their worst, they are bad. Greatest joys in our life are relational joys. The greatest sadnesses in our life, the greatest irritations are relational sadnesses and relational irritations.

And yet, you specialize in reconciling. O Lord, please bring healing and wholeness to all the relationships represented by these raised hands. And O Lord, where it's our job to take the next step, and you're simply waiting on us to make amends and to apologize and to ask for forgiveness and to listen nondefensively, then give us your courage and we'll go do that, and please bring your healing.

And finally, I want to pray for spiritual healing. If you're struggling with guilt, with shame, with doubt, anything else where you feel distant from God, would you just slip your hand up? Let me pray for you on that matter. Thank you so much. Yeah. Thank you so much. O Lord, you made us for yourself. And when we feel close to you and are close to you, there's nothing like it. But then, Lord, we sin, and sometimes we beat ourselves up so badly that we will not believe you can forgive us. And sometimes we don't think Jesus' death was sufficient. So we try to do everything else to find forgiveness. And sometimes we feel so ashamed of the way we look or the way we are because of what this world holds up as perfection. Or sometimes an event occurs where our brains can't wrap themselves around something that happens, and we ask, "Why? Why? Why?" and our doubt surface and we can't get good answers, and we feel distant from you. And so today, please let us hear these words, "Your sins are forgiven, forgotten forever. You're my beloved child, and I have a purpose for you now and for eternity greater than anything you can think. Please come home to me." And when we hear those words, may we indeed come home?

So hear all that we have asked and answer it through your great power, O Lord Jesus. In your name we pray. Amen.



Recorded in Frisco, Texas.