Discipline And Healing, Part 3
Notes
Transcript
The Connection Between Sin And Sickness:
The Connection Between Sin And Sickness:
This is an issue because sin affects our relationship with God, now and forever.
On a macro level, suffering is in the world because of Adam and Eve’s sin.
Sin causes suffering.
Sinful people hurt other people.
A sin cursed world hurts people.
Sin that we commit hurts ourselves.
Sin causes sickness / weakness
On an individual level:
I commented last week that sin in its basic form is anything that stands in the way of us giving the totality of our being to God.
Anything that we are holding back on, holding on to, or holding our selves from God’s best for us is sin.
When we can embrace God’s best for us in all areas of our lives that is when healing comes.
When we hold back our hearts from Him. That’s sin.
When we hold on to our way of thinking (mind). That’s sin.
When we hold back giving our strength to Him. From doing what He has and is calling us to do. That’s sin.
When we don’t give Him our souls, that’s sin, and that one can send us to the pit of hell.
Why do we hold back from God?
Lack of Trust / Faith
We don’t believe that God really does have all the answers.
We don’t believe that God can save or restore.
We don’t believe that God deserves full allegiance.
We don’t believe that God is all powerful.
We don’t believe that God will protect or provide.
We don’t believe that God...
Holding back is a lack of submission and surrender.
And as a result we pursue other things to bring about everything that we think God is not supplying.
Money, sex, drugs,
People, positions, possessions.
And then we find ourselves trapped in a spiral downward away from God instead of towards Him.
So this I say, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart; and they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness. But you did not learn Christ in this way, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus, that, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.
This is the crux of the struggle and I believe is the connecting point to sin, suffering, and healing in this text. Jude 4 also says:
For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.
sensuality - an excessive, uncontrolled, and insatiable desire for pleasure.
Excessive - beyond what is normal and accepted. Skydiving is not a sin, but skydiving every day might be.
Uncontrolled - can’t stop doing it. Eating is not a sin, but excessive eating is gluttony, which is a sin.
Insatiable - brings no satisfaction or the initial normal satisfaction no longer satisfies and so I need greater doses of it, or need it more frequently. Obviously, drugs come to mind in the negative way.
We actually have another word for this: addiction.
And I think sometimes we are more addicted to things than we realize.
How do we pervert the grace of God in this?
Oh, God understands my weakness (astheneia) in this area, and so He’ll overlook it.
God knows how much I struggle in this area, I’m so glad He forgives me, without having any desire to turn from it.
It’s any way that you use the grace of God to justify your sin.
There is a standard of righteous living that is expected by God, and He makes it possible to live that way through the power of the Holy Spirit.
The question always is, “Will we submit to the conviction of the Holy Spirit in our lives?”
God wants to heal these things for sure, but often we’ll wear the scars and be hindered afterwards.
In one example of Jesus, Jesus implies that after being made well, if one continues in sin, something worse may happen.
In these lay a multitude of those who were sick, blind, lame, and withered, waiting for the moving of the waters;
A man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years.
Jesus said to him, “Get up, pick up your pallet and walk.” Immediately the man became well, and picked up his pallet and began to walk. Now it was the Sabbath on that day.
Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “Behold, you have become well; do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse happens to you.”
“Well” here is not sozo, where we see others healed and saved.
“Well” here in Greek means to be healthy / sound (hygiene), and is the antonym to astheneo and carries primarily the thought of physically healthy without any though to spiritual healing.
Bringing this issue forward to James.
This is why in Chapter 4 James says:
You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures. You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you think that the Scripture speaks to no purpose: “He jealously desires the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us”? But He gives a greater grace. Therefore it says, “God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom.
The word for pleasure here is a synonym to the word for sensuality in Eph 4 and Jude from earlier.
reemphasizing the jealousy of God for our attention, affection, and adoration. His jealousy for our relationship with Him.
God is most glorified when we are most satisfied in Him.
When we seek satisfaction for anything other than God first, then we are committing spiritual adultery.
There is nothing wrong with enjoying the blessings, benefits, and good things that God gives us, but we can’t take those things and replace God with them.
The beauty of this is that God gives what? Greater grace...
So, this becomes our fifth contextual constraint in effective praying, and the question simply is:
Is there active sin in our lives that is hindering our relationship with God and/or hindering what God wants to accomplish in and through us?
What are we holding back or hanging onto in our love for God?
and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’
How Healing Comes Through Confession
How Healing Comes Through Confession
vs 15 - If he has committed sins, they will be forgiven.
vs 15 - If he has committed sins, they will be forgiven.
Notice the big word “IF” here.
First of all, remember, some sickness is caused because of our sin, but not always.
So don’t think that since I’m sick, I must have sinned.
But it is an opportunity to evaluate my relationship with God.
Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me and know my anxious thoughts; And see if there be any hurtful way in me, And lead me in the everlasting way.
This is where the elders come in.
The elders pray over them and anoint them with oil and we see at the end, IF he has committed sins, they will be forgiven.
The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Volume 13: Hebrews–Revelation (Revised Edition) Commentary
As the second part of the condition, James writes, “and someone should bring him back.” The verb epistrephō (GK 2188) means to “turn around” or “go back” and can be used figuratively to speak of turning from one spiritual path to another, either from God’s way (e.g.,
The elders who are required to have some spiritual maturity, and coming before the elders gives opportunity to pause, reflect, and confess, if needed.
Brethren, even if anyone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; each one looking to yourself, so that you too will not be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and thereby fulfill the law of Christ.
In the process of being prayed over, we simply ask the question, “God am I missing something?”
Jesus’ Half-Brothers Speak: James and Jude Word and Phrase Study
In the spiritual battle for purity and wholeness, confession and prayer are the believer’s major weapons along with a knowledge of the gospel and the Word of God (cf.
Jesus’ Half-Brothers Speak: James and Jude Word and Phrase Study
Confession was and is an important part in the healing process (cf.
Application: Let’s heal together! (vs 12)
Therefore - Self-Discipline. This is your spiritual therapy.
The Spiritually mature in the church are like the Spiritual Therapists who are taking you through spiritual therapy.
So these commands are for both the therapists and the ones in therapy.
Strengthen...
to make straight or upright because it was bent, crooked, or leaning due to stress, weight
It was bent out of shape.
Where are you being bent out of shape? Straighten it. How? Through Therapy.
This is why James 5 tells the one needing prayer to come to the elders.
The elders help with the evaluation and therapy process.
To have courage / To conquer in battle
“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous! Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”
Draw strength from the Word of God.
Takes discipline to read it and learn from it.
The hands that are weak
hanging from weariness or despondency.
exhausted - slack hands. Can’t pick up another bale.
Where have your hands gone limp? Strengthen them. How?
Through prayer and praise.
Through recommitting to follow through on whatever task God is asking you to do.
The knees that are feeble.
Feeble
to dissolve
Where have your knees buckled under the burden of your trial?
Where have you melted from fear or anxiety?
It is used in the sense of a paralytic.
What has paralyzed you from moving forward?
How?
Make Straight (level) Paths For Your Feet.
Make - form, produce, bring about,
this is effort you have to put forth.
It doesn’t just happen on its own.
Straight - as opposed to crooked,
Level out what’s rough.
Detoured - by our own choices
We can’t risk going off course into rough ground (sprained ankle) or take a short cut. DQ’d
Deflected - pushed off course by someone or something else. James 5:19-20
What area of your spiritual walk is a little rough? Smooth it out.
What has caused you to get off course? Stop it.
Paths - a wheel track or rut
ways of life or conduct
stuck in a rut, but in the positive - good habits.
habits that are upright, true, and good.
We are to be walking in and making good habits. Spiritual Therapy.
So that the limb which is lame may not be out of joint (disabled), but rather healed.
So the one who has fallen down and dislocated his leg be healed / Saved
to cure, to restore to bodily health
to heal or save from the consequences or effects of sin.
equivalent to sozo
passive in form.
Able to get back in the race and on course again. Pit stop.
