We continued our series called “Miracle” at Gateway Church in Austin.
Somewhere in our faith journey we stopped believing in the impossible. We traded in the God who became flesh, born of a virgin, crucified, resurrected, and ascended into Heaven, for a Divine guide-from-the-side.
Let us open our eyes once again, or for the first time, to the God who still parts seas, who still heals broken bodies, and who still transforms lives. The God of Miracles.
Miraculous healing is still available.
Digging Deeper
Work through the following questions and scriptures on your own, and get together with your running partner, life group, or friends and family to talk through what you are learning.
Discussion Questions
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Message Notes:
Today as we dive into week 2 of Miracles and we talk about Divine Healing I understand the tension we all face with a topic like this.
And quickly one of the first questions is, “Eric, if it’s true why does God heal some and not others?”
And it’s a valid question and the response is honestly… this side of eternity we have no idea. There are some things that remain a mystery of God’s will and what He allows in His sovereignty in a broken and fallen world.
And if you or someone you know needs physical, mental, or emotional healing- i want to challenge you to keep believing and keep praying for that very miracle.
BUT until that happens, whether it happens in this life or the next, in the middle, in the waiting period, our challenge is to SUFFER WELL.
Leaning in and trusting God’s heart, even when we can’t trace his hand.
Let’s be honest when it comes to prayer, for some of us we only pray when someone is sick or we need something from God.
Remember, prayer is not about telling God what to do but cultivating a relationship with Him.
Too many of us have reduced prayer to just praying for healing and when we don’t get the answer we want we give up on praying or even give up on God.
But I want our FAITH to rise up today and beyond to fully believe in a God that is willing and able to heal us. And I want us to see from the very beginning, God is a healer.
That is WHO He is. If you don’t catch anything else this is what we want you to know- Miraculous healing is still available.
God heals because He is restorative.
He heals because of His love for us.
From the beginning of Creation he created everything in the material and immaterial world, and the Bible teaches us that it was “good.”
Until sin and brokenness devolved creation into a fractured state.
But we believe in a God whose nature and character is to restore, is to HEAL.
One who pursues us to the point of holistic healing- relationally with Him, mentally clear, emotionally whole, and physically healthy.
The fulness and perfection of that healing we don’t experience in this life, but we do get glimpses.
Some people mistakenly think Jesus showed this “new” side to God in his supernatural healing ability, but truthfully this is who God has been. I want to show you just a few examples in the Old Testament.
God was healing in the Old Testament
Genesis 20:17- 17 Then Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech, his wife and his female slaves so they could have children again
Abimelech and his household are healed and able to conceive children. The irony is Abraham and Sarah are still childless. But it’s not until the next chapter, possibly years that go by, until they get the miracle of Isaac
How many of us have been in a situation where we are begging God for something like healing of infertility, just to turn around and see someone else get pregnant?
2 Kings 5:14– 14 So he went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had told him, and his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy.
Naaman the Syrian king is healed of leprosy by listening to Elisha.
As you pursue God and ask Him for the miraculous, there are times He will ask you to do something so ridiculous or absurd that does not make sense in the natural world as to why
Psalm 30:1-3- 1 I will exalt you, Lord, for you lifted me out of the depths and did not let my enemies gloat over me. 2 Lord my God, I called to you for help, and you healed me. 3 You, Lord, brought me up from the realm of the dead; you spared me from going down to the pit.
What is incredible is that this is a song of David and it was used at the dedication of the Temple. A temple He wouldn’t even see built. One of the beauties of believing in the God of the miraculous, is we get to say, “Lord, even if I never see it with my two eyes, I trust that you will do it in the generations to come.”
I want to encourage you to start praying for miraculous healing for your children, grandchildren, the students in our youth ministry and the ones running circles around our volunteers in Kids ministry.
2 Kings 20:2-6-
2 Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord, 3 “Remember, Lord, how I have walked before you faithfully and with wholehearted devotion and have done what is good in your eyes.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly.
4 Before Isaiah had left the middle court, the word of the Lord came to him: 5 “Go back and tell Hezekiah, the ruler of my people, ‘This is what the Lord, the God of your father David, says: I have heard your prayer and seen your tears; I will heal you. On the third day from now you will go up to the temple of the Lord. 6 I will add fifteen years to your life. And I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria. I will defend this city for my sake and for the sake of my servant David.’”
Hezekiah prays and is healed and 15 years are added to his life.
Mike Papale our dear friend served as our Care Pastor at Gateway South Austin passed away last year. If He were here He would recall how in 2012 God miraculously healed him of cancer the first time. He asked and prayed and said, “God if you are real, could you heal me and I promise to follow you for the rest of my life.” And it happened. He got a bonus 10 years. A second life, that he made the most of. That saw his wife and kids come to faith. [PIC of Mike and Kaye]
It is easy for us to throw our hands up, proverbially speaking, and think “Well God knows what I need and He’s going to do what He’s going to do.”
But what we find in both Scripture and in practice. Some things are only relegated to prayer.
Meaning the mystery of God is that sometimes He only moves and acts when His people PRAY.
Why?
I’m not entirely sure but I do know that in the process of prayer and interceding we tap into more of who God is and we tap into a deeper intimacy of knowing Him. It makes us as children realize- I’m utterly dependent on my father.
As we move into the New Testament we see Jesus being the living embodiment of that same restorative characteristic of God.
Jesus healed to show people God’s goodness and compassion
In Mark 3:1-6 Jesus heals a man with a withered hand in the synagogue on the Sabbath. Asks the pharisees “is it lawful to do good or harm on the Sabbath”
You might say, “well this was only to prove that His ministry was legitimate and that His power was from God.” But that is only partly true. Because Jesus healed many times out of compassion and told the recipient to not tell anyone. He didn’t care about the pronouncements and the accolades, He cared about the individual.
See that same character in this account:
Mark 1:40-44– 40 A man with leprosy came to him and begged him on his knees, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.”
41 Jesus was indignant [filled with compassion]. He reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” 42 Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cleansed.
43 Jesus sent him away at once with a strong warning: 44 “See that you don’t tell this to anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.” 45 Instead he went out and began to talk freely, spreading the news. As a result, Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places. Yet the people still came to him from everywhere.
The healing nature of God shows us not just the POWER of God, but His goodness and His kindness.
Healing was and is connected with the Atonement and preaching the Gospel
The definition of atonement is the reparation for sins; it is the reconciliation of God and humankind through Jesus Christ’s life, death, and resurrection.
The Gospel means the good news about Jesus, that He came to rescue us and reconcile us to God.
Isaiah 53:5- But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.
Healed in Hebrew is “rapha”, and though the primary context of this verse is spiritual healing, you cannot separate the reality of physical healing. It’s the same word used for other physical healings in the Old Testament. It’s also the same root word used for ‘physician’
To believe that the Atonement is ONLY spiritual healing is to fall into a Gnostic view of the work of Jesus. [The Gnostics were a cult that believed the physical world and anything material was all evil and these philosophies bled into the early church].
But We know we serve a God who is a holistic healer
By the way some of us have fallen into a modern day gnosticism of sorts when we look to God to rescue us for eternity but do not allow Him to transform how we live our lives. It’s like he saves our souls but we don’t let Him rescue our minds and bodies from the darkness in which we live in this broken world. In other words, we believe in heaven but we live however the hell we want. 🙂
Last week we mentioned that the greatest miracle is a heart made alive for all eternity and a life transformed – a life where you and I become more like Jesus.
In Matthew 9:6-7– Jesus heals a paralytic man and says it is proof that He has the ability to forgive sins. Once again connecting his Atoning work of spiritual salvation with physical restoration.
Psalm 103 connects these two things as well:
1 Praise the Lord, my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name. 2 Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all his benefits—3 who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, 4 who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion
Since God is unchanging, then healing is available for you and I today
Acts 3:1-11– Lame man healed by Peter and John
- Peter and John happen upon this man that everyone knew and everyone passed by all the time. But full of the Holy Spirit they decide to do something and in the same footsteps of Jesus they say “Silver and gold I do not have but what I do have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, get up and walk.”
- A miracle so profound that it reverberates throughout those in attendance and beyond. Peter preaches the Gospel and 5,000 people come to know Jesus
That same God is still at work HEALING today.
Friends that is still happening every day.
Healing is just one way that God proves himself faithful. But it is not the endgame, it is just an entryway
Not everyone who is sick, hurting, or burdened is healed. This is where we trust God’s will
If you recall, or don’t know, the story of Lazarus. Jesus doesn’t heal him. In fact He receives word that Laz is sick but he waits. By the time he shows up on the scene Lazarus has been dead for 4 days. Mary and Martha share how they honestly feel, “If you had been here my brother would not have died.” But they show their faith in giving him their lament.
We know the end of the story. Lazarus is resurrected, showing that there is nothing impossible for God. But guess what, Lazarus dies again.
So we know that physical healing was and is not endgame.
It is only a foretaste of the life to come. It’s a glimpse of glory that God chooses to dispense- Heaven on Earth.
Paul puts it this way 1 Corinthians 13:12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
The Book of Job shows us there are things happening in the spiritual world that we don’t always have an answer as to why or the purpose of suffering.
I was listening to a podcast with a Catholic priest, and in it he said something that jumped out of the headphones. He said, “Sometimes our Protestant friends typically don’t have an appreciation for a theology of suffering. That theology plays a big part in the Catholic understanding of God and of our vocation here on Earth. That God does call us to suffer well. We don’t seek suffering, we are not masochists. But when suffering finds us it is an invitation by God to be with Him on the Cross.” -Father Carlos Martins
There’s a beauty in not just the empty Cross that we revere. But also the Crucifix. The picture of the suffering servant, who died. And yes He prayed “Let this cup pass” but also “Not my will but your will be done.”
There is not a rhyme or reason to the brokenness and chaos agents of this world. But we trust in a God who is Lord over it. And can turn any affliction, tragedy, or pain for good and for His glory.
So what do we do? We pray boldly. We pray and believe God for the miraculous. Because it is in those bold audacious prayers that we are actually declaring WHO He is. We are saying, “God you are bigger than this. You are in control of this. You understand this better than I do.”
We are in PrayFirst and part of that is praying audaciously as we learned this past week in the Lord’s prayer. “Your kingdom come, your will be done. On Earth as it is in Heaven.” And in Heaven there are no ailments, sickness, or disease. BUT in the meantime we rely on His will.
When we don’t see the answer in our timeline, We Trust God. Understanding that most injuries the healing is progressive. Most addictions, the healing is progressive. Most trauma, the healing is progressive. Most mental illnesses, the healing is progressive. It’s a process of praying, diving into community for support, acessing the professionals that God gives us. And learning to journey with Jesus with a limp.
Paul puts it this way when He’s begging God take this thing away, heal it, deliver me… 2 Corinthians 12:7 “…Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
As we get ready to close I wanted you to hear from 3 people on what God has done, some instantly and some over time. The point of these stories is not “I gave my life to Jesus and everything was perfect.” That isn’t reality nor is it the point. It’s “I gave my life to Jesus, prayed boldly, and He is STILL doing a work in me.”
