Physical Healing - A Biblical Assessment, Part 2

Notice on the next part of your notes, it says, “The general application.” How do you stay physically healthy, then? Okay? How would you remain physically healthy? It’s a New Testament time. It’s not like there are lots of doctors.

By the way, sometimes you get sick because of bacteria. Okay? What we do is one group wants to spiritualize everything and another group wants everything to be super empirical and I’ll tell you what: I sure don’t understand it all. But I don’t think anybody does.

But here’s what we can know as followers of Jesus that will highly impact our physical health. Therefore, notice, in light of physical illness, in light of what you should do when you get in a desperate situation, in light of what elders do and how God works and in light of the high probability that that physical illness often is rooted in sin, not all sickness is sin, but a lot of it is. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another – why? So that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.

And that group, then, this was the very first book in the New Testament written. That group then would be like us, “You know, hey, when Peter prays, yeah, I get it. When the apostle John prays I get it. But we’re just regular people.”

And so notice what James says. He says, Elijah was a man with a nature like ours and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain. And it didn’t rain on earth for three and a half years. And then he prayed again and the sky poured rain and the earth produced its fruit.

Literally, what he is saying is: He’s a regular guy like us. And, literally, the phrase here when he prayed, literally, it’s with prayer he prayed. In other words, he really prayed in his prayers.

I ask myself sometimes, Do I really pray in my prayers or do I just say words? He’s talking about fervent, focused, believing. I’m coming before You, God. This is the situation. This is who You are. These are Your promises. I am asking You, specifically, to intervene. And I am going to keep coming and I’m going to press into You and I want to hear from You.

If there is an issue in my life or an issue in this situation, God often uses health issues to get our attention to bring about major things in our life and relationship with Him and others.

So let’s ask a few questions of this passage.

What is the presumed relationship between sin and sickness in this passage?

Very high. Now, jot a note, okay? Because someone is going to walk away with, Chip said that people are always sick because they have sinned. Errrrrrgg. Okay? No.

But is there a very high correlation between a number of illnesses and sin? Yes. Let me give you a list of some common sins that create physical illness. Unresolved anger. Anxiety and worry. And when you worry, your stomach acid goes, right? And when you worry and when you’re under stress, your immune system drops.

Stress. Unbelief. Bitterness. Rebellion. Addictions. Gluttony. Gluttony gets a lot of press in the Bible. When was the last time you ever, in a small group, Let’s confess our sins one to another.

Can anyone remember a small group like: Gluttony. That’s me. I eat too much. I eat bad stuff. I eat when I’m not hungry. I use comfort food. I eat lots of food that has no nutrition. And, by the way, my doctor, he says I’m thirty-two pounds overweight. He says I have high blood pressure. He says I put too much salt in my diet. He says this and this and this. And because of that I’m on blood pressure medicine over here and I’ve got this medicine over here and I’ve got this medicine over here. Now, has it ever dawned on us as Christians, it’s called gluttony!

Or when was the last time in a small group, someone in prayer said, “Please forgive me because I am materialistic.” Well, how do you know you’re materialistic? Well, because I’m never satisfied with what I have. And so I have this humongous debt because the new TV came out and then a new car came out and I couldn’t pay cash and so I keep buying stuff and everyone does it. And it’s the new plan. You can get a twelve-year plan to buy a car. I’m joking.

And so I have to have the next best thing so now I have overwhelming debt. The overwhelming debt has produced stress. Now I have stress and I have conflict in my marriage. Now I’ve got a problem with this. And, oh, I’ve got all this stomach acid. So now I’ve got migraine headaches that I can’t explain. I have ulcers.

How much of that, how much of that, if we just cleared the deck, and said: those are rooted in unhealthy, ungodly, sinful patterns and lifestyles.

And you and I live in a therapeutic world where what we do is treat the symptoms with, you can’t watch a half hour program without at least two of the commercials – what? Here’s the pill that will change that. Here’s the remedy that will change that.

And then at the last half of every commercial is what? They run the B-roll of people having fun, right? Sunlight. While they’re going, “This may cause damage to your liver. Some people have died according to this. There are seven implications of people who have taken this. If you can’t choke, can’t breathe, can’t see, can’t urinate, can’t do anything, call your doctor,” while the pictures of the people on the pond. You know?

And so we live in a world where we sinfully have lifestyles that are killing us. We create drugs to treat the symptoms and our souls are starving. So what is the solution?

What are we told to do regularly for our health? Confess. And he says, “Confess your sins,” literally it’s the sin specifically, “to one another that you might be healed, and pray for one another.”

Literally, the word is intercede. Intercede means: I have heard your struggle. You confess that you have resentment toward your husband. You confess that it’s not a glass of wine, it’s three or four. You confess that you have resentment toward your boss.

You have confessed that your priorities are out of whack, you’re not giving your children the time that you know they need. You have confessed that there is someone at work that you have this emotional attachment and you’re fantasizing. You have confessed that you’re logging on to the Internet. You confess that you’re a shopaholic or a workaholic. And these are unhealthy things. And I am going to stand before God and I am going to ask Him to help you.

The power of sin is secret. If you go through Church history, when revivals happen, whether it’s the Moravians, whether it’s the Wesleys, whether it’s movement in our country with Whitefield the small groups in the Wesleyan groups, they would meet twice a week and they had this set of questions on a card. They would ask one another, “How is thy soul with God?” Second question, it went something like this, they were all doing King James so forgive me, right? “Has thou sinned against thy Creator or anyone else by thought, word, and deed?”

And you know what they did in these small groups? They confessed their sins to each other. What we do is pose. We project we are doing better than we are. And what I can tell you, what we have all experienced, see, we start confessing when we get desperate, right? When there’s nowhere else to go.

That’s like taking a bath once a year. Man, I just feel so dirty and everyone has told me how much I stink. I’m just going to break down and go ahead and take that bath. And where the prescription is, like, try a shower every day or at least every other day. Good for you; good for us. Right?

1 John says, “If any of us claim we are without sin, we are a liar and the truth isn’t in us.”

And it is not something that Christians normally do, but I will tell you, when someone says, and it goes something like this in a very unthreatening way, “He’s got different questions. Questions about our finances, about our health, about our thought life.”

And someone will ask the question and you’ll have time, and you just pray, Search me, O God, and know my heart. Test me and see if there is any wicked thing. And you know what? Condemnation is from the enemy. If you hear voices like, You’re a terrible mother, you’re a terrible dad, you’re a bad person, that’s not from God.

The Holy Spirit will speak like this: Last Thursday afternoon, in that business meeting, you blew up. Oh. Your son asked you to do so and so and you blew him off. You were tempted and you made a commitment that you were no longer going to and you logged on. It will be very specific.

And the rules are that it doesn’t go outside that room. I will tell you, if we will follow Scripture and confess our sins to one another, one, you’ll be shocked at how regular everybody else is. And, two, God promises He will bring healing.

This is preventative healing. I have practiced this and seen this in very, very powerful ways. We are to confess to one another.

And then notice what kind of prayer has healing impact. It’s earnest, fervent, believing prayer. Godly people shooting it straight, being for one another.

Who qualifies to be heard by God for healing and the miraculous? Ordinary people like you and me.

So, my wife is interesting. When I’m teaching things and studying things I run them by her, “What do you think?” And she goes, “Oh, Chip, this is really interesting. I have a question for you.” This is my sweet wife. Cute, little blonde-haired wife. “So there are four different reasons for sickness. Why do you think your back? What do you think God is up to? I said, “Honey, look, I just teach this stuff. Okay?”

And, actually, I have laid on my back for a lot of hours. I said, “Honey, I think God has revealed to me, and He may intervene in a supernatural way, but God made it very, very clear. I confessed it but last fall, I violated the Sabbath. There were some really important meetings on Friday and I started going to those. And I was on a board that they only could meet on one Friday a month and so I went to those. And I was very disciplined for a lot of time where I really set my phone aside and email and I began to slowly violate that. Honey, I think during the fall I got myself into an unsustainable pace and did not take twenty-four hours and honor the Sabbath principle and life.” And I feel like God graciously, I actually think He has been kind. And what He did to Israel when they didn’t honor the Sabbath, He said, Hey, we’ll make it up here for seventy years. And He did.

And I feel like God said, Chip, I love you a lot. And you’re living in a way that is unhealthy for you. It’s ungodly. It puts you in a bad spot. It’s going to hurt your lifespan. At the heart of it is something, it’s not just work. It’s grandiosity. What makes you think that the world can’t go on without you for twenty-four hours? We have been down this road before. You broke this pattern before. You have slid back into go, go, go, go, go. And so it’s a lack of faith and unbelief. You think if you don’t make this meeting that the church won’t catch the next wave or you’re going to miss out on something. I’m God! Cease striving! Shut it down. Believe Me.

And so I confessed my sin to the Lord. And I have known this. We privately had been talking about it. But it was really interesting this week in preparation to come clean with my wife. And when your wife’s voice and the Holy Spirit sound exactly alike, it’s hard. And she looked at me like, Like that was rocket science? I’ve seen that one! But it’s freeing.

I want to summarize, because I want to give you something that is very tangible as you walk away that you can think through healing in a very, very specific way.

And as you do, the big picture is you are going to meet people who have very strong, emotional views. And they have had experiences and all I am saying is I am all for everyone’s experience. I just don’t want to build my theology on anyone’s experience or anyone on radio or anyone on TV or myself.

I want my theology about everything to be around: What does the Bible actually say? And I would encourage you to take these notes, look at these passages, and agree or disagree. But get your convictions from God.

But by way of overview, I think there are three things we can learn about healing.

Number one is at times, it’s called the intervention of God. It’s Acts 3, right? Peter and John are on their way to the temple. And there’s a guy there, they don’t have any money. He has been lame since birth. “Silver and gold have I none, but in the name of the Lord Jesus, arise and walk!” He reaches up, bam! Miraculous intervention. I always pray for that one.

The second one is the interaction of God: 1 Timothy 5. Timothy, you’re my son in the faith. Paul had a lot of faith. Paul healed a lot of people. Take a little wine for your stomach. In other words, there’s some medicine you should take. God is going to use the medicine prescribed to heal your body. It’s going to be the Spirit of God using medicine to heal your body.

And third is what I call the enabling of God. And this is like the Joni Eareckson Tada answer to prayer. The apostle Paul said…Paul had faith. Paul believed. Paul had been to the third heaven. Paul healed people. “Heal me, God!” “No.” “Heal me, God!” “No.” “Heal me, God.” “No. Paul, My grace is sufficient for you.”

Here’s the deal with healing: It’s not primarily, even when Jesus did it, it was never primarily about simply solving a physical problem.

Every miracle and every healing, almost always was to affirm or make clear or deliver a person. But it was to make a major, major point. Sometimes God heals to make that point. Sometimes you endure it and His grace is sufficient and He gets glory through it. Sometimes He uses a doctor and an MRI and a medicine and a surgery.

Biblical, medical, spiritual integration is what I believe the Bible clearly teaches and is the call of God for us to believe He can intervene, to believe and step out, to have lifestyles of nutrition and rest and wisdom and obedience and confessing our sin to one another. And finally, where at the right time, in the right way, we use medicine that God has given us. That’s what He uses to bring about transformation.