Having Faith to be Healed

Sunday, March 10, 2024

Introductory information

Paul and Barnabas have been on their first missionary journey since the beginning of Acts 13

They have traveled across Cyprus and are now traveling through southern Turkey preaching in town after town

In each city there are many who receive the Gospel and follow Christ, but also many who oppose them and eventually drive them out of the city

In the last lesson, they fled Iconium after their lives were threatened and headed toward the Lycoanian towns of Lystra and Derbe, and that is where we pick up...

READ

Question to consider as we read:

What does it mean to “have faith”?

Acts 14:8–10 CSB

8 In Lystra a man was sitting who was without strength in his feet, had never walked, and had been lame from birth. 9 He listened as Paul spoke. After looking directly at him and seeing that he had faith to be healed, 10 Paul said in a loud voice, “Stand up on your feet!” And he jumped up and began to walk around.

EXAMINE

What are the key points in this passage?

#1 | The man “had faith to be healed” (1)

The man’s faith is clearly what opened the door for his healing

Acts 14:9–10 ...seeing that he had faith to be healed, 10 Paul said in a loud voice, “Stand up on your feet!” And he jumped up and began to walk around.

Jesus affirmed this cause & effect relationship of faith & healing:

Multiple Times in the Gospels, Jesus tells people that their faith healed them

Matt 9:22; Mark 5:34, 10:52; Luke 7:19, 18:42

#2 | Faith was the critical element to the man’s healing

To receive healing, you must have faith

James 5:14–15 “Is anyone among you sick? He should call for the elders of the church, and they are to pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 The prayer of faith will save the sick person, and the Lord will raise him up; if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.”

Matt 13:58 describes a time when people didn’t receive many miracles from Jesus because of their lack of faith

But what exactly is faith?

Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the reality of what is hoped for, the proof of what is not seen.

In other words, faith becomes the evidence that justifies our belief in God’s promises

Faith comes from past experience with God, rather than a guarantee of what He will do next

Faith is a normal part of life

We already live by faith. We have almost no guarantee of anything in the future, yet we live like we have some idea of what is going to happen next, due to our past experience

So the only question is “What do we have faith in?”

Why is faith so important in our relationship with God?

Hebrews 11:6 ...without faith it is impossible to please God, since the one who draws near to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.

Faith is important to every relationship - otherwise you could never trust a person once they left your sight

This is especially true of God, who is invisible and works far above your level of understanding

If someone doesn’t get healed, that doesn’t necessarily mean they didn’t have faith

2 Corinthians 12:7–9 “especially because of the extraordinary revelations. Therefore, so that I would not exalt myself, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to torment me so that I would not exalt myself. 8 Concerning this, I pleaded with the Lord three times that it would leave me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in weakness.” Therefore, I will most gladly boast all the more about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may reside in me.”

People might have the faith to be healed, and still not receive the healing

God has a purpose in allowing pain and struggle - James 1:2-4

We must pray in faith and keep praying even if healing doesn’t come (Luke 18:1)

Sometimes healing comes after years of prayer - will we wait on the Lord and persist in prayer?

APPLY

Explore and apply the passage with these questions:

[These questions must be focused, yet very open-ended. Allow the conversation to go where people take it - we want to encourage everyone to share and explore the topics of the passage. You don’t have to ask all these questions. Sometimes a group may only get through one or two questions. Select the questions you think are right for the conversation. Then, as it comes time to wrap up, refocus the conversation to “land the plane.”]

What do you find difficult or confusing in the relationship between faith and healing?

What are some wrong assumptions or conclusions we may draw when God doesn’t heal?

How can we be led, like Paul, to see when someone “has faith to be healed”? What spiritual gift was at work there?

Where we want to “land the plane”

We must approach God with faith, asking boldly for healing, focusing on His promises rather than trying to guess at what His response will be.

REFLECT

Prayer Points for Today

Ask the Lord for a fresh renewal of faith, to pursue Him persistently, asking boldly for Him to work miracles

Devotional Question for the Week

Maybe one of the biggest obstacles to praying in faith is wanting to know, or trying to predict, how God will respond. This is ultimately an issue of trust. How is God challenging you to trust Him in this season of your life?

FOOTNOTES

Yet, as Paul was preaching, he saw this man listening to him and recognized that he “had faith to be made well.” While the expression here refers to the recovery of bodily health, yet even in a pagan context “there lies latent in it some undefined and hardly conscious thought of the spiritual and the moral, which made it suit Paul’s purpose admirably.”22 In Acts, as in the Gospels, faith is regularly emphasized as a condition of receiving both physical and spiritual healing.23 That this lame man had faith was made plain by his ready obedience to Paul’s command to stand up: he jumped to his feet, found that they supported his weight, and began to walk for the first time in his life. 22 W. M. Ramsay, The Teaching of Paul in Terms of the Present Day (London, 1914), p. 95; cf. H. C. Kee, Miracle in the Early Christian World (New Haven, 1983), p. 101 (for the use of the same word σωθῆναι in this sense in the Asklepios cult). Cf. σωτηρία, 16:17 (pp. 312–13). 23 Cf. Mark 5:34, ἡ πίστις σου σέσωκέν σε. F. F. Bruce, The Book of the Acts, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1988), 273–274.