Healing 1982

I'd like to begin by reading from Acts chapter 4, verse 29, 30, and 31. And thou, Lord, look upon their threats, and grant to thy servants to speak thy word with all boldness, while thou stretchest out thy hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of thy holy servant, Jesus. And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and spoke the word of God with boldness.

They prayed for two things, first, Lord, behold their threats, and grant thy servants to speak thy word with all boldness, second, while thou stretchest out thy hand to heal. They connected the bold, strong, powerful speaking of the word with signs of healing. Lord, we have to be able to speak that word with power, but we also need to have you stretch out your hand and heal people while we speak that word.

They understood that the clearest evidence of the truth of the words they were speaking about Jesus was that people who received that word were touched by Jesus, experienced some kind of healing. Grant thy servants to speak thy word with all boldness while thou stretchest out thy hand to heal. We're still praying for the power to speak God's word with boldness.

We pray for this all the time. But are we also praying that the Lord would stretch out his hand to heal while we speak that word? As we read the New Testament Gospels, the picture that we are given of Jesus of Nazareth is that of a man who's very down to earth. There was absolutely nothing about Jesus that appeared to be supernatural.

You looked at him, you looked at an ordinary man, and yet, and this is the thing that drew the multitudes to him. People were healed by a word from his mouth, by the touch of his hand, by taking hold of the hem of his garment. Everywhere Jesus went, people ran to be where he was and to hear what he had to say, because everywhere Jesus was, rivers of healing were flowing.

Example, the setting of the Sermon on the Mount is this giant multitude of people. Jesus is sitting on a rock, the disciples are at his feet and stretched out along the slope on and on and on. People, people, people, how did they get there? Reading from the end of Matthew four and to the beginning of Matthew five, and he went about all Galilee teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every infirmity among the people.

So his fame spread throughout all Syria and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics and paralytics, and he healed them. And great crowds followed him from Galilee and from the Decapolis and Jerusalem and Judea and beyond the Jordan. Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain and when he sat down, his disciples came to him and he opened his mouth and taught them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

The Sermon on the Mount begins with healing and it also ends with healing. And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority and not as their scribes. When he came down from the mountain, great crowds followed him and behold, the leper came to him and knelt before him, saying, Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.

And he stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, I will be clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. As he entered Capernaum, a centurion came forward, beseeching him, saying, Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home in terrible distress.

And he said to him, I will come and heal him. And you remember how it goes. The centurion objects and says, I'm not worthy to have you come under my roof.

Just speak the word, Lord, and my servant will be healed. And it goes on and on and on. Healing, healing, healing.

Now, keep in mind, Jesus never made any effort to stamp out all disease. When he was hanging on the cross on Good Friday, there were still plenty of sick people in Israel. One day he went into the pool of Bethesda, dozens of people lying around waiting for the water to stir so that it could get in there and get healed.

Jesus picks out one man who'd been waiting a long time. Do you want to be healed? Are you willing to take the responsibility of being whole again? He heals him, goes on his way. Why didn't Jesus heal everybody who was there? Because healing was not the end, it was a means to the end of manifesting the kingdom.

Healing was and is. One of the major signs of the presence of the kingdom of God among people, healing is a revelation of God's heart. Of God's will toward us.

Here's how Jesus began his ministry of healing. And he came to Nazareth where he'd been brought up and he went to the synagogue as his custom was on the Sabbath day and stood up to read. And there was given to him the book of the prophet Isaiah.

He opened the book and found the place where it was written. The spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering the sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.

And he closed the book and gave it back to the attendant and sat down and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. Now, remember, this was the place where he grew up.

These people knew him from the time he was a small child. He opens the scripture, reads this passage from Isaiah, and from that moment he begins his ministry of healing to people. People are drawn under the sound of his teaching by healing.

And it's by healing that they are convinced of the truth of the things he says, convinced of the fact that indeed the kingdom of God has come into their midst. And now, Lord, behold, their threats and grant thy service to speak thy word with all boldness while thou stretchest out thy hand to heal. And signs and wonders are performed in the name of my holy servant, Jesus.

Now, we've been praying for the boldness to speak that word, and we need to continue to pray for that. But we also need to pray that as we speak that word, the Lord will stretch out his hand to heal. When healing becomes a matter of serious concern among us, we will begin to see the spirit of the Lord moving among us with healing grace to a degree we've never seen it.

Now, how do we make healing a matter of serious concern? Not just wishful thinking, not just something we argue about theoretically all the time, but serious concern by doing three things. First, we need to pray that the Lord will indeed stretch out his hand to heal while we speak his word with boldness. Second, we need to believe that the spirit that anoints the body of Christ now is the same spirit, the same anointing which was on Jesus during his ministry of flesh and blood.

Third, we need to open our hearts to people who are sick. First, we need to pray for the Lord to stretch out his hand to heal while we speak his word. Peter and John had just been used to heal a man who had been lame from birth.

Then they were arrested and then they were released back with the body of Christ with their brothers and sisters. They pray for more healing because they see the need and they see the opportunity. Lord, if you'll heal while we speak this word, people will know that Jesus is risen from the dead and all how we need to rise up out of our lethargic, resigned, unbelief and our fear of failure and start pounding on the father's door for the bread of healing to pray for that pastor and for that father, a friend of mine is coming on a journey and I have nothing to set before him.

People are coming to me with wounds and needs, twisted, broken, sick, troubled, tortured minds are crying out to me, Lord God, and my hands are empty unless you fill them. When we care enough about the need to manifest the kingdom of God for healing, to faithfully, persistently, confidently lay this before our father, we will begin to see him stretching out his hand to heal and signs and wonders will be done among us in the name of his holy servant, Jesus. Second.

We need to believe that the spirit that anoints the body of Christ on earth at this hour is the same spirit that was on our Lord Jesus during his ministry of flesh and blood. The spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed.

Now, the same spirit is calling us to do the same thing. To proclaim good news to the poor, release to the captives, sight to the blind, and our confidence is, of course, not in ourselves, but in the spirit, God, the spirit we've asked, we've received, we've sought. We've waited, he's come and he keeps coming, and now we go forth to those places where God puts us to continue the work which he began on the shore of Galilee.

The spirit of the Lord is upon me as I drive to work, the spirit of the Lord is upon me as I sit down and drink coffee with my neighbor. The spirit of the Lord is upon me as I'm standing in line at the checkout counter at Kmart, and for the same things, to bring good news to the poor, release to the captives, sight to the blind, hope and help and life and evidence of God's grace. And finally, we need to open our hearts to people who are sick, to care about them and to reach out to them.

I'm reading from Matthew, chapter nine, verse thirty five, and Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every infirmity. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. He cared about these people.

He took time with them. He opened his heart to them. How can the spirit of healing move with any freedom among us until we care enough about the sick to at least visit them? The man down the street was always aloof.

All he'd ever say would be, hello, and that was it. Don't get too close to me. Or so it seemed.

Now he's in the hospital and you're really concerned about him. But you're afraid to go to see him. He might not appreciate it.

Take a chance, go see him. What an opportunity to show this man that you care about him. Healing figured big in our Lord's ministry because he cared about the sick.

Healing flowed in the apostolic church because they cared about the sick and healing. Healing will return to us as the neglected sign of heaven when we begin to demonstrate to ourselves and to the Lord that we have some care for the sick. Nursing homes, hospitals.

Shot in relatives, sick friends, disabled neighbors, the spirit of the Lord is upon us because he's sending us to go to these people and touch them with his love. And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant thy servants to speak thy word with all boldness while thou stretchest out thy hand to heal. And signs and wonders are performed in the name of thy holy servant, Jesus.

Let's go for the boldness, but let's also go for the healing. And when they had prayed, the place where they were gathered together was shaken and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God with boldness. And the Lord did indeed stretch forth his hand to heal.

And when we ask, as they ask, we, too, will be filled with the Holy Spirit. We, too, will speak the word of God with boldness. And the Lord will again stretch out his hand to heal.

Let's wait a minute. We're asking, Lord God, that whatever whatever was true of these words that were just spoken will be confirmed to the mind and to the spirit and to the body of every every soul that we see. And we pray that, Lord, whatever you would have us do in the way of making changes in our personal or corporate life.

To give scope to the spirit in this matter, that you would direct us and guide us. Help us, Lord, to be open to your leadings in these these things. Give to us a spirit of repentance for our hardness of heart.

Open our eyes with vision to see what ought to be what can be done.