Rapha

Title:  Jehovah Rapha

Focus Statement:  

Function Statement:  

Tweetable Phrase:  

Main Text:  Exodus 15:22-27

Supporting Text:  

God heals physically: 2 Kings 5:1-14 / Matthew 8:1-4 / Mark 10:46-52

God’s priority is spiritual healing: Luke 5:17-32

Many times, God uses physical infirmities to heal spiritually: Isaiah 19:19-22 / 2 Corinthians 12:7-9

Redemptive Closure (point to Jesus):  Matthew 13:54-58 / John 9 / 1 Peter 2:24-25

Benediction:  Psalm 30:2

WELCOME

Good morning!!! My name is Ryan Hanson, and I have the honor of serving here at The Light KC as the lead pastor. I’m so glad you’re here with us.

‌Welcome to those joining us online. We hope you're doing well and hope to see you in person in the coming weeks.

And a special welcome to those joining us for the first time. We’re so glad you chose to be here.

ME/INTRO - Tension

I’d like to tell you a story. There once was a doctor who worked in a hospital. On day while making his rounds he felt a very strong call from God to start praying for his patients. He wasn’t going to stop giving them the very best medical care he could provide, but that day he committed to God to pray for one patient per week.

Shortly after this doctor committed to praying for his patients a 53-year-old man came into the emergency room suffering from a massive heart attack. This doctor provided the very best treatment he could, but unfortunately the patient didn’t make it. He died and was pronounced dead. The doctor left the patient and after a while the nurses came in to prepare the body to be taken to the morgue.

As the nurses were preparing the body the doctor felt a very strong conviction from the Holy Spirit to pray for this man. This man had been dead for a while now, but in the words of the doctor, “When the Holy Spirit talk to you, you have to respond.” The doctor went back to the body. There was no life left in him. His face, feet, and arms were black with death.

But...obediently the doctor sat next to the man and prayed. A few minutes later, in an act of faith, the doctor checked for a pulse, and found one. Continuing to pray, after a few more minutes, the man started moving his fingers and toes. Then...he started to mumble words.

Three days later the man was completely healed, the doctor shared the gospel with him and he dedicated his life to Christ.

When you hear a story like this, what do you think?

Do you believe stories like this really happen? That God still miraculously heals?

Does your mind drift to thinking it probably happened in a 3rd world country where they “need” miracles but miracles don’t happen anymore in 1st world countries?

Would you believe me if I said this is a true story?

It occurred in 2006 in Palm Beach Florida

The doctor’s name was Dr. Chauncey Crandall and he is a cardiologist

The patient’s name was Jeff Markin

It is very well documented

You can find articles and videos about this all over the internet

Since this miracle Dr Crandall has since become very vocal about the power of prayer

I don’t know what you think about miraculous healing, but God is very clear about His ability and desire to heal the sick and dying.

In Exodus 15:22-27 there is a story about the Israelite nation right after Moses led them out of slavery in Egypt through the 10 miraculous plagues that God inflicted upon Egypt. It is after God miraculously split the waters at the Red Sea so the Israelites could walk across on dry ground. It was shortly after the Israelites experienced these powerful acts of God that they ran out of water while traveling in the desert.

They had been without water for three days. And after arriving at Marah and finding water, they discovered the water was bitter, full of minerals, and undrinkable. It was then that they started to grumble to Moses. And honestly, can we blame them? They had been traveling in the desert with only the food, water, and items they can carry. They haven’t seen water for three days. Presumably, whatever they had in canteens was gone, having drank it themselves or given it to their animals.

People don’t live much longer than three days without water.

Moses brought the Israelites complaints to God and God told Moses to throw a piece of wood into the water, cleansing it and making it suitable to drink.

After miraculously cleansing the water, God said this...

Exodus 15:26 NIV

He said, “If you listen carefully to the Lord your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, who heals you.”

This is where God reveals one of the names that He has chosen to be known by

Jehovah Rapha - The LORD who heals - heals / cures / restores

WE - Tension

But again, do we really believe that God heals miraculously in modern times?

Even if we do conceptually agree that God could heal miraculously, do we believe that God actually does?

Do we believe that God heals even here in the United States?

When we pray, do we pray for healing, or do we pray that God gives the doctors wisdom and the family comfort no matter the outcome?

If I were to honestly answer these questions, I would have to say that throughout my life, I have really struggled with the concept of miraculous healing. I have considered it something that God did back in Bible times to help people see the truth of who He is and to help people put their faith in Him,

But... we now we have the church to introduce people to and teach people about God.

We have hospitals and doctors and medications to heal our infirmities.

God gave the doctors and scientists their ability to develop the medications and procedures and with all the medical knowledge we have, miraculous healing is not as needed as it once was.

Right???

I hear lots of stories of people praying for healing, very few stories of people being healed. And the stories of people being healed always seemed to be questionable. Most often sounding something like, “God healed “this person”, after 6 months of Chemo and Radiation they are now in remission”.

That doesn’t sound very miraculous.

If I was honest, if I am struggling with some ailment, I rarely even think of praying for God to heal it.

But...God caught my attention about six months ago. Training for the 1/2 marathon last fall my ancle was not good. It hurt all the time. When I woke up, it would take 30 minutes or more of stumbling around the house before it would loosen up enough to even walk right. About the same time, Rachel Boone and I were talking about her desire to put on a prayer workshop and start a prayer ministry. She was in my office, and we got talking about healing prayer. Out of the blue she asked if I had anything wrong with me. I mentioned my ancle. She asked if she could pray for it. I agree, but had no belief that anything would happen. She prayed. She then asked me if I felt any warming, which I did not.

But...when I woke up the next morning it didn’t hurt. And hasn’t hurt since. This isn’t on the scale of curing cancer, or coming back from the dead, but I truly believe that through Rachel, God healed my ancle that day.

But...if God can heal my ancle, when realistically it wasn’t even remotely close to a life threatening issue...

Why doesn’t God heal everyone we pray for?

Why did God bring Jeff Markin back from the dead, make water drinkable for the Israelites, and heal my ancle, but doesn’t heal so many other people we pray for?

He can. So why doesn’t He?

Today we’re going to look at God’s name, Jehovah Rapha, the God that Heals, and try to see what we can learn about God through this name that He choose for Himself, and as image bearers of God, hopefully also learn a few things about who we were created to be and what we were created to do.

If you missed the previous messages, please feel free go to our website, TheLightKC.org, to catch up.

As we begin, please turn with me to [Luke 5: Sanctuary Bible Page # 836]

We’ll have the scripture on the screen, but if you have a Bible with you, or Bible app on your phone, I’d encourage you to turn to the passage and follow along. There is nothing that replaces having God’s word in your hand.

AND... if you don’t have a Bible, we have Bibles under the seats. If you don’t have a bible and would like one, please come see me after the service and I’ll get you one you can keep.

Let's dive in.

GOD - Text

God heals physically

The first point we need to make is that God can and does heal physically

If the bible is God’s love letter to us, showing us who He is and how much He loves us, we have to acknowledge that there are a lot of stories where God intervenes and heals people’s physical ailments.

Most of us grew up hearing many of them.

2 Kings 5:1-14: God miraculously healed Naaman, the commander of the armies of Aram who suffered from leprosy. Through the faith of his wife’s servant girl, Naaman traveled to Israel, seeking Elisha who could get His God to heal him. Elisha refused to see him but sent his servant to tell Naaman to wash 7 times in the Jordan. Initially insulted, but eventually convinced to do so by the servant girl, Naaman washed and was cured of the leprosy.

Matthew 8:1-4: Jesus healed a man with leprosy with a simple touch.

Mark 10:46-52: Jesus heals a blind beggar, restoring his sight

And there are many, many more stories in the bible of miraculous physical healing.

And just like the story I told earlier of Jeff Markin, there are plenty of other verified stories of healing throughout the world today.

When do look for it, it is hard not to agree that...

God miraculously healed people’s physical infirmities in the bible, and God can / and does heal people’s physical infirmities today.

God’s main priority is spiritual healing

But...it is also true that, God doesn’t always heal people.

Even when we pray, in faith, many times God does not provide the healing we seek.

This is where I want to spend some time.

If you’d turned earlier to Luke 5, please join me as we take a look at a story of Jesus healing a paralyzed man.

This is a story of paralyzed man and his 4 friends.

These friends had heard that Jesus was teaching in a house and they believed that if they could get their paralyzed friend to Jesus, Jesus could and would heal him.

Unfortunately, the house was full, and they could not get in.

Not willing to give up on their friend, the 4 men brought their paralyzed friend to the roof, dug a hole through the roof, and lowered their paralyzed friend down to Jesus.

But...here is where the story takes a turn.

Just when we think Jesus is going to heal this man, in Luke 5:20, we read.

Luke 5:20 NIV

When Jesus saw their faith, he said, “Friend, your sins are forgiven.”

Jesus doesn’t heal the man, he forgave his sins.

This caused quite the stir. The religious leaders that were there accused Jesus of blasphemy, stating that only God can forgive sins.

In response, to show the people that Jesus was the son of God, Jesus proceeded to heal the man as well.

At this point, the story makes a pretty big shift

Right after this interaction with the paralyzed man, Jesus leaves the house and meets Levi, a tax collector, and asks him to follow Him as one of His disciples. Levi accepts and throws a party inviting all of his tax collector friends.

Not approving of who Jesus was associating with, the religious leaders started to complain.

Jesus responds directly in Luke 5:31-32

Luke 5:31–32 NIV

Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

The second point we need to make is that For God, the priority is not physically healing; God’s main priority is healing us spiritually

In the book “Names of God”, Nathan Stone says it well

But as with Jehovah of the Old, so with Jesus of the New Testament, physical healing was only incidental to His chief object, which was the healing of the souls of men. His opening words in the synagogue at Nazareth declared His mission to be to preach the Gospel, to preach deliverance, to set at liberty. His miracles of healing were proof of His identity and mission - His credentials. Many references to sickness and wounds are simply figurative expression of moral and spiritual ills, so that it is rather in this sense that God is known as Jehovah-Rapha.

God’s main priority is not the restoration of our fallen bodies, but the salvation of our eternal souls.

God uses physical infirmities as tools to heal spiritually

So then why does God heal anyone?

If God’s main priority is healing us spiritually, why “sometimes” does God also heal our physical infirmities?

I think we need to go to an easily overlooked section in the book of Isaiah where Isaiah writes prophesies directed to certain countries. In Isaiah 19, Isaiah writes a prophesy for Egypt. It reads as follows:

Isaiah 19:19–22 NIV

In that day there will be an altar to the Lord in the heart of Egypt, and a monument to the Lord at its border. It will be a sign and witness to the Lord Almighty in the land of Egypt. When they cry out to the Lord because of their oppressors, he will send them a savior and defender, and he will rescue them. So the Lord will make himself known to the Egyptians, and in that day they will acknowledge the Lord. They will worship with sacrifices and grain offerings; they will make vows to the Lord and keep them. The Lord will strike Egypt with a plague; he will strike them and heal them. They will turn to the Lord, and he will respond to their pleas and heal them.

God told Egypt that he would strike them with a plague, and through the plague God would heal them.

It was through the physical infirmity that God would heal them spiritually.

The third point we need to make is that God uses our physical infirmities as a tool to heal us spiritually

Sometimes that means that God heals us to show us who He is and get our attention.

Sometimes that means that God does not heal us, and uses the infirmity as a tool to teach us.

God did this with the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 12:7-9:

2 Corinthians 12:7–9 NIV

Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 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.

We don’t know what the thorn in Paul’s side was, but we do know that it created enough pain that Paul prayed for it to be taken away 3x.

In God’s sovereign wisdom, God did not heal Paul. God allowed Paul to suffer with his physical infirmity to teach him, to keep him humble, and to help him rely more fully on God’s power.

I don’t know if you have heard the story of Jodi Earekson Tada.

Jodi was a star athlete in high school. She played tennis and swam competitively. She was voted “best athlete” by her senior class. In her words “being an athlete defined everything about her”.

But a month after graduating, she was playing with her friends on a raft in the Chesapeake Bay. She attempted to dive off the raft and misjudged the depth of the water. Her head hit the bottom of the bay and her neck broke. She lost function of her arms and legs.

Through high school, she considered herself a Christian, but admitted that her faith did not define who she was.

After the incident she turned to her faith for healing. She combed the bible trying to find hope. The passage we just read in Luke 5 about Jesus healing the paralyzed man was one she turned to regularly.

Jodi prayed for healing. She attended three separate healing crusades. Yet she was not healed.

After the third crusade, she went into a deep depression. She decided she couldn’t live any longer as a quadriplegic.

Yet, in a moment of GRACE she turned to God. She prayed a simple prayer. In her words, she prayed, “I can’t live this way. I’m so lost. God, show me how to live.”

She learned that the core of God’s plan is to rescue us from sin and heal us spiritually.

God main goal is not to make us comfortable.

For Jodi, God used her paralysis to teach her to die to self and rely completely on Jesus.

She’s been in a wheelchair for 50 years and in her words,

A “no” answer to my request for a miraculous physical healing has meant purged sin, a love for the lost, increased compassion, stretched hope, an appetite for grace, an increase of faith, a happy longing for heaven, a desire to serve, a delight in prayer, and a hunger for his Word.

God may choose not to heal us from our physical infirmities, but God will use those infirmities to teach us, to shape us, and to heal us spiritually, bringing us closer to Him.

YOU - Takeaway

I don’t know where you stand on the subject of physical healing.

I don’t know the prayers that you’ve prayed or the people that you’ve prayed for, as you’ve sought God’s miraculous intervention in your life or the lives of those you care about.

I know it is hard to understand how God can let us remain physically broken, when healing us is well within His power.

But I take a lot of solace in the fact that God cares so much about my eternal future, my relationship with Him, and the healing and salvation of my soul, that He will do whatever it takes (even if that means that He doesn’t heal me physically) to heal me spiritually

WE / JESUS - Redemptive Close - Call to Action

The priority that God puts on healing you spiritually before any considering for healing physical infirmities can be seen no clearer than in 1 Peter 2:24-25.

It reads:

1 Peter 2:24–25 NIV

“He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been healed.” For “you were like sheep going astray,” but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.

God allowed His only son Jesus Christ

to be flogged

to have a crown of thorns put on his head

to be slapped and mocked

to be forced to carry the cross He would later be killed on through the streets

to have nails driven through His hands / wrists and feet

to die an agonizing death by suffocation

and to have His dead body stabbed to verify death had occurred

And God did it all...allowed all this physical pain to happen to His son...

so that we could be forgiven of our sins

so that we could be healed spiritually

so we could again have a direct relationship with God that was lost when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit

so that through belief in what Jesus did for us on the cross, we can spend eternity with Him in heaven

God can heal, and sometimes does miraculously heal physical infirmities.

We should be praying in faith for people that we know and for ourselves for God to heal us

But, we should understand that God does not always choose to do so

Because, God cares much more about our souls, about healing us Spiritually

And in God’s infinite wisdom, if (like Paul) we need a physical infirmity to help us become the people we were created to be, God will choose not to heal us

God will use that physical infirmity as a tool to help us become a spiritually healed and whole person

So, no matter what you, or your friends are suffering with currently.

No matter how faithfully you’ve been praying for healing.

Know that

God hears you

God loves you

God may still choose to heal you

But, God may choose not to heal you, because that “thorn in your side” could be exactly what you need to be healed spiritually.

PRAYER 

Will you join me in prayer...

SONG 

As we enter into our final song, I want to open the steps up front as an altar to anyone who needs God this week. The steps are open for you to pray to the God who is with you, who loves you, you wants to give you His peace.

‌

You may feel a hand on your shoulder as I or one of the elders join you in prayer.

BENEDICTION 

Psalm 30:2 NIV

Lord my God, I called to you for help, and you healed me.

This week...

Let’s rest in the knowledge that we serve Jehovah Rapha, a God that Heals

Let’s pray, in faith, that God will miraculously intervene our our behalf and on the behalf of the people that we know to bring physical healing

But...

Let’s understand that God cares so much more about our spiritual healing than our physical well being

Let’s acknowledge that in God’s infinite wisdom He may choose not to heal us, allowing us to suffer with a physical infirmity like Paul, to teach us what we need to learn to be spiritually whole

Let’s praise God for not saving His Son Jesus Christ from the physical pain (and death) that He endured, because it was through that pain and His death that we are forgiven of our sins, that through belief in what Jesus did we can receive the Holy Spirit, and through the power of the Holy Spirit be sanctified, healed of our spiritual wounds, becoming shaped more and more into the likeness of Jesus Christ himself.

Quick reminder...

Superbowl Party - Tonight at 5 PM in the cafe. Bring a dish to share.

Digging Deeper Bible Study - Wednesday at 6 PM - Programming for all ages

Valentines Date Night - 2/13 - sign up

Marriage Group - starting 2/18 - sign up - invite friends - FREE

Financial Peace University - starting 4/22 - sign up - invite friends

If you’re new, please fill out the card in the seat back and stop by our info desk, or see me. We’d love to say “hi” and get you know you a bit better.

If you’d like to get more information about taking your next step of faith, fill out the card in the seat back and give it to me or turn it into the info desk.

I hope you have a great week.

Go in peace.

You are dismissed.

DISCIPLESHIP QUESTIONS (download into APP)

Why do you think it's sometimes hard for people to believe in miraculous healing today?

What does the name Jehovah Rapha mean to you personally in your spiritual journey?

How can we cultivate a deeper faith in God's power to heal as depicted in the miracles of the Bible?

In what ways has God used physical challenges in your life to reveal spiritual truths or deepen your faith?

How do you respond to the idea that God might prioritize spiritual healing over physical healing?

In your opinion, why is it important to pray for healing, even if God doesn’t always answer in the way we expect?

Can you think of a time when someone’s physical struggle turned into a spiritual lesson for you? What happened?

What steps can we take to better seek God’s healing in our lives or the lives of others?

How can you encourage your friends when they’re struggling with illness or physical challenges?

What is one thing you can do this week to trust God more in the area of healing or health?