Discovering Jesus: Mighty Physician
Discovering Jesus • Sermon • Submitted
0 ratings
· 10 viewsJesus purpose was to teach people the truth before He left. However, in compassion He healed as many as He could without compromising His main objective. His compassion and ability to heal reveals His identity.
Notes
Transcript
Psalm 147:1-11, 20c
1 Praise the Lord. How good it is to sing praises to our God, how pleasant and fitting to praise him! 2 The Lord builds up Jerusalem; he gathers the exiles of Israel. 3 He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. 4 He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name. 5 Great is our Lord and mighty in power; his understanding has no limit. 6 The Lord sustains the humble but casts the wicked to the ground. 7 Sing to the Lord with grateful praise; make music to our God on the harp. 8 He covers the sky with clouds; he supplies the earth with rain and makes grass grow on the hills. 9 He provides food for the cattle and for the young ravens when they call. 10 His pleasure is not in the strength of the horse, nor his delight in the legs of the warrior; 11 the Lord delights in those who fear him, who put their hope in his unfailing love.
20 He has done this for no other nation; they do not know his laws. Praise the Lord.
21 Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood since the earth was founded? 22 He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in. 23 He brings princes to naught and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing. 24 No sooner are they planted, no sooner are they sown, no sooner do they take root in the ground, than he blows on them and they wither, and a whirlwind sweeps them away like chaff. 25 “To whom will you compare me? Or who is my equal?” says the Holy One. 26 Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one and calls forth each of them by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing. 27 Why do you complain, Jacob? Why do you say, Israel, “My way is hidden from the Lord; my cause is disregarded by my God”? 28 Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. 29 He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. 30 Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; 31 but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.
16 For when I preach the gospel, I cannot boast, since I am compelled to preach. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel! 17 If I preach voluntarily, I have a reward; if not voluntarily, I am simply discharging the trust committed to me. 18 What then is my reward? Just this: that in preaching the gospel I may offer it free of charge, and so not make full use of my rights as a preacher of the gospel. 19 Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. 20 To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. 21 To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. 22 To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. 23 I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.
Introduction:
When I was a Sophomore in high school, my parents decided to sell our dairy farm and buy a ranch with the intent of creating a Christian Retreat Center. We all talked about it and were excited, but it took months of searching before my parents felt they had found the one.
Once the place was selected, things moved fast. The man selling it needed a caretaker. The ranch had many antiques and was in an extreme wilderness area that would make for easy pickings for thieves. So he convinced my folks to move right away and act as caretakers until the sale went through.
Well we flew into motion. There was a lot to be done. Cows and horses to be sold, household packed up, moving vans ordered, school changes arranged, etc...
Then came the day of our leaving. We started out as early as we could to drive the nearly 580 miles to our destination. We were moving with another family and we had several cars and moving vans all headed out I-84 in the dead of winter. It was a cold, icy February day. We had some mechanical issues that slowed us down along the way making the trip longer than we had anticipated.
It was sometime after midnight when we were so close we could hardly stand it, only to have our moving truck get stuck. My dad had to walk up the long dirt road to get a cat to clear the road so we could make it the rest of the way.
We waited anxiously in the cold, even though it was below zero outside. Finally, dad arrived and was able to plow enough snow out of the way to get the truck all the way up the mountain.
It had been a long difficult day of traveling, yet we were so excited it took awhile for us to fall asleep. But finally exhaustion won out and we did sleep. Things were busy at first, but then we settled in and found time to rest.
Ministry is often like that. We sense God place a dream in our heart. We are anxious to do it, but there is a waiting period. During that time, whether we are aware of it or not, God is preparing us. It is often a slow time and can even border on boredom as we anticipate what we want to be doing. Then the time arrives and quickly things begin to happen faster than we feel we can keep up. However, in time things fall into a routine we find space to rest, only to eventually repeat the pattern. It is a rhythm of life in general when you think about it. We see this same rhythm take place in Jesus life. He begins with a normal life, but aware of a gigantic task God has for Him. When the time comes, things begin to move quickly and events explode around Jesus. During those times, He seeks space to rest. Eventually, things become somewhat routine in His life only to escalate again.
In today’s event, we see this sudden escalation of activity around Jesus and we see how He handles it, where He puts His focus. Stand with me as we read from today’s text.
29 As soon as they left the synagogue, they went with James and John to the home of Simon and Andrew. 30 Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they immediately told Jesus about her. 31 So he went to her, took her hand and helped her up. The fever left her and she began to wait on them. 32 That evening after sunset the people brought to Jesus all the sick and demon-possessed. 33 The whole town gathered at the door, 34 and Jesus healed many who had various diseases. He also drove out many demons, but he would not let the demons speak because they knew who he was. 35 Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. 36 Simon and his companions went to look for him, 37 and when they found him, they exclaimed: “Everyone is looking for you!” 38 Jesus replied, “Let us go somewhere else—to the nearby villages—so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.” 39 So he traveled throughout Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and driving out demons.
Pray
Sermon
Last week, we found Jesus in the Capernaum synagogue on a Sabbath (Shabbat) morning. It had been an eventful morning in synagogue made so by Jesus calling a demon out of a man from their congregation. You can imagine that there was probably a lot of excited people leaving the synagogue that morning. In fact, the last verse reads that the news spread all over Galilee.
Let me review a little about Shabbat/Sabbath. It started with the appearing of the first three stars in the sky Friday night. It was announced by the Hazzan blowing the shofar (Ram’s horn). That night families would partake of a nice meal together (Note: All Shabbat/Sabbath meals had to be prepared ahead of time to prevent work taking place on Shabbat (Man’s rules not God’s). The next morning, those who desired to, could go to synagogue. It is interesting that women were not measured to be much more than servants to their husbands. In fact, it was seen as shameful for a Jewish man to talk to a woman in public yet women were welcome in the synagogue and even allowed to participate. The only thing they couldn’t do was read the scripture (Their rule not God’s).
To hold synagogue you had to have at least 10 people. Ten was considered a quorum and the ten could be made up of both men and women. I cannot remember if I shared this last week, but boys and girls spent time in the synagogue school memorizing scripture until the age of 12. At age 12 the boys continued their education with the Rabbi while the girls typically were married about that time and were busy with household chores. Yet the girls and women were able to ask questions in the synagogue. For this reason, they were educated in their faith, but not to the level of the boys. This should bring an “aha” moment in looking back at young Mary, the mother of Jesus. It is believe that we was 12-13 years of age as she was engaged to Joseph. She had memorized scripture as a girl and so understood and had enough faith to believe what the angel Gabriel told her. It fit what she knew from scripture.
Our world and culture go to a lot of extremes to try to force acceptance of all, yet God has always been the equalizer by virtue of love. He created us all and acknowledges we are all equal in Christ. Paul makes this clear in Gal 3:26-28.
So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
In Acts 2:17-18 God says,
“ ‘In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy.
Many misinterpret Paul’s letter to Timothy to mean that women should not preach, but to do so takes that text out of the context of his letter and the cultural setting it addressed. In other letters Paul commends women in ministry, even Phoebe who was pastor of the church in Cenchrea. So it is revealing that women had more status in the synagogue than any other place.
After synagogue their tradition was similar to ours. I grew up with a tradition of inviting someone from church to join us for lunch after church. Now days, with both adults in the home working, it is more common to go out to eat. Speaking of which, have you seen the large table Dale built to accommodate our church folks at Cowboy and Angels after church each week? :-)
Well, they had a similar practice. They would bring some people over to eat together. It was a celebration. They probably carried on some of the discussion from the synagogue. I do think it is interesting that they were strict about not working on Sunday yet the women were expected to serve the meal, though as I said, the meal was actually cooked the day before.
Later that afternoon there was one last large meal just before the end of Shabbat, but my guess is that by this time the company had returned to their homes and this was more just family.
On this particular occasion, we find a group going to Simon Peter’s house. Scripture tells us that this included James and John and others feel it is implied that there were more with them. It is easy to believe there were more as there would be many interested in hearing more from Jesus.
By Mark’s account, it sounds like perhaps Simon and Andrew have gone on ahead while James and John lead the company including Jesus. Probably to alert the woman folk to the number that are on their way.
Apparently, when Simon arrives home, he discovers his mother-in-law is not well. I assume this to be the case as I think Simon would have probably said something to Jesus sooner if this had been a long illness.
When Jesus arrives Simon explains the situation and asks Jesus to help. Simon has now witnessed what Jesus can do and even may have heard the story of Jesus’ healing of a centurion’s son.
This is quite a request when you consider their view of talking to women in public. Perhaps it is different since they are in the house. Yet it is still in front of a household of Jewish male guests, Simon requests Jesus help for his mother-in-law.
Jesus does not hesitate. In fact, between the accounts of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, we find a description of a very tender act. Jesus steps over to her, bends over her and rebukes the fever holding her. Again, I refer to His authority and even though this is a rebuke (of the fever, not the woman) it is not spoken loudly, just firmly. Then Jesus takes her hand and helps her rise. Instantly the fever is gone!
Now, if you have ever had a high fever, you know that when it breaks it leaves you exhausted. You just want to roll over and sleep. However, Jesus healing is so complete, that this woman is able to stand and serve the meal. I suspect she served Jesus a double portion. ;-)
After the noon meal, over time I am sure the numbers dwindled. Maybe even sooner than later as they have witnessed another incredible event in the woman’s healing. They may be anxious to share what they witnessed. Shortly after finishing the evening meal and probably anticipating a quiet evening with the finish of Shabbat, they hear noises outside. Voices are approaching. I am sure they did what any of us would do and glance out the window to see what was up. What they saw was probably a bit concerning. People were coming from all directions to their house! Now, remember, this has already been a busy day even if it was in celebration. They have not had much alone time and there was the event at the synagogue and the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law and now there is a huge group gathering at their door.
The whole town gathered at the door,
This really tells you how desperate these people are. They knew it was considered work if they came during Shabbat, so they waited until just after, but they could not wait until morning.
Now remember, Jesus is in the body of a man with all the same issues of a man. He would have already been tired and now here are all these people wanting something from Him.
Look with me for a moment at the scriptures that show His humanity.
rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.
Even though these verses are saying much more, we see here a man with all the same human limitations as any other man. Jesus had to be tired that night. Yet we also see His compassion as He does not turn them away.
and Jesus healed many who had various diseases. He also drove out many demons, but he would not let the demons speak because they knew who he was.
In His fatigue, it must have been so tempting to allow the demons to declare His deity. You ever wonder if He thought to Himself, “Oh, just what did I sign up for?”
Yet, despite how tired He was, He recieved them. In Matthew’s account, he shows us how this was a fulfillment of prophecy.
Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted.
So why did He do it? Isaiah tells us in the next verse.
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.
With the crowd we see, I cannot imagine it ended too early. However, as tired as Jesus is, He knows there is something more important than His fatigue. He needs to connect with God in a quiet place. He longs for that time as it is a healing time. It will give Him encouragement to continue on.
So despite His fatigue, He rises before the sun and before anyone else does to go find a quiet place where He can talk with His Father.
Can you see it? It may have been something like this...
“Oh Father, did you see all those people? There are so many suffering with diseases and others enslaved by demons. How can I ever keep up? I am so tired, it is hard to feel motivated today. What am I going to do Father? How can I do this?”
When He is through the Father speaks gently. “My Son, I am proud of the work You did today! I knew You were tired but I gave You the strength. You brought hope to them all today. However, there is much more today. You must be careful as it would be easy to get trapped here. They will not want you to leave, but they are just a few of a whole lot more with the same needs. You have to spread the good news of salvation. Physical healing will help them for a few years, but salvation will heal them for all eternity. I am with You! I will give You the strength You need each day. Just be sure to find time to connect with Me. I will guide You.”
However, God the Father does not just offer that to His Son, but to each of us. He encourages us and strengthens us if we give Him the chance to do so. But I must confess, there have been too many times in my life when I have been less fatigued than I am sure Jesus was that day that I have wimped out of getting up early to be with the Father. Doctors cannot often help us without seeing us. God can see us, but His medicine for us is not taken by way of a pill, it received through prayer. The healthy diet we need to eat on is His Word.
Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
Can you imagine Peter rising that morning? He would be feeling pretty big in that moment. Jesus is the man of the town and He is staying at MY house. When Jesus doesn’t come out from wherever He was sleeping, his first instinct is that He is probably sleeping in after a day like yesterday. I suspect that breakfast was barely ready when the people start arriving. Peter goes for Jesus and finds Him gone. I bet there was a bit of panic in that moment. Had He left permanently? Where could He be and what was he (Peter) going to do with all those people arriving at the door?
A quick search is made. Probably by Jesus disciples. By the time they find Him, Jesus has resolved to move on. Move on?!! Peter, Andrew, James and John would have viewed the previously day as highly successful! Why would you move on? You are the man of the hour, build on it. But Jesus does not allow them to persuade Him. You see, there is more He has to do. He did not come just for a few, but for everyone.
What He knows that they do not know? His time is limited. He has to get the good news out. Yes, there is not much doctoring for the average Jew, but Jesus main objective is to provide healing for the soul. Physical healing was temporary, but spiritual healing would be permanent and in time would provide true physical healing.
Conclusion:
Was Jesus who He said He was? Our series is called, “Discovering Jesus.” Next week is our last sermon in this series and then we will turn our thoughts to Lent and Jesus journey to the cross and emphasizing the “Wounds that Jesus healed” between our relationship with God.
But this week, I believe we see evidence that Jesus was the Christ. We see it in His power to heal the sick. We see it in His compassion that put people first before His own physical needs. We see it in His devotion to God the Father and in His desire to share the good news.
It was not easy for Him. He went from a quiet and normal Jewish household in a little town, to become to center of everyone’s attention. Some adored Him, others wanted to use Him, and yet others hated Him enough to plot to murder Him.
Jesus went from having a home to being homeless to accomplish His task.
Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”
He did not have an income and had to rely on the generosity of others for His meals. I do not know about you, but after a trip, I am glad to get home to my favorite meals. For three years Jesus traveled around and was not often able to enjoy His favorite meals at mom’s house.
If He were a false prophet, why would He live as He did? When we find false prophets, they are usually living high on the hog. They are acquiring money, homes, jets, and fame. Yet, Jesus turned from all of that. He had opportunities. Satan offered Him those things right after His baptism. After days like this one, Jesus could have decided, “you know, Satan’s offer was not so bad? I bet if I went back he would offer it again.”
Personally, I think C.S. Lewis put it best.
“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say.
A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice.
Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher.
He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. . . . Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend:
and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God.” (Mere Christianity, 55-56)
Who is He to you? If you agree He is God, seek Him with all your heart.
You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
Pray