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The Grace of Healing
02 - Your Healer
Church on the Park via Zoom | Sunday, 20 MAR 2022 | Glen Gerhauser
Text: “Yes, the burden of our sicknesses, he lifted up; the weight of our soul’s sorrows, he carried away” (Isa.
53:4a, Inspiration Translation).
Theme: The Father feeds, satisfies and heals us by his grace.
Intro: Exodus 15:22-26 tells how Yahweh revealed himself as his people’s healer and restorer.
He did it by bringing Israel through a tough time.
They went three days searching for water and found none.
This week our family lost hot water for a few days, which was difficult––though I started to enjoy cold showers.
But having no water is the ultimate challenge.
After three days, Israel found water, but it wasn’t good water––they couldn’t drink it.
The people complained and Moses cried out to God.
The solution was discovered when God showed Moses a tree, and when he threw that tree in the water, the water was restored and became drinkable.
Today, we will continue to focus on how Yahweh is our restorer and healer.
And I want to show you what the Lord has taught me through my own health battles with Crohn’s disease.
So for me, this is not theory.
I need to feed on the Father’s grace of healing every day.
1) Healing flows from God’s grace, not our works (Matt.
8:16-17; Isa.
53:4a).
There’s a classic Biblical verse that says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Eph.
2:8-9, NASB).
Since healing is a part of God’s saving work, we can also say, “For by grace you are healed through faith.
It’s not of yourselves – it’s a gift of God.
It’s not the product of your works so that you don’t boast about it” (my paraphrase).
When we look at Jesus’ ministry of healing, we see that it is all based on grace.
Jesus is not going up to people and saying, “Are you worthy to receive this healing?
Are you living a sinless life?
What work have you done to deserve it?”
Actually, when Jesus heals someone, only a small amount of words are exchanged.
And there’s no evidence that the people healed are less sinful than others or have worked hard to prove themselves as good.
Instead, Jesus embodies grace.
Jesus was––and still is––God’s living embodiment of grace.
He walked around helping people in need––and he didn’t ask for a resume of good works before acting.
Let’s see this in Matthew 8:1-17.
In the story of the Leper, we see Jesus is willing to heal.
In the story of the Centurion, we see that Jesus’ healing is based on his authority and word––Jesus doesn’t even need to be physically present.
In the story of Peter’s mother-in-law, we hear no words exchanged.
Rather, Jesus touches her, and she’s restored and starts serving.
In the story of Saturday evening, Jesus heals ‘all who were ill.’
Matthew reveals that this is a fulfillment of Isaiah 53:4: “He himself took our infirmities and carried away our diseases.”
In all these stories, God is keeping his Word.
Jesus himself is healing––he is our restorer.
It’s not based on us, but on him.
In all these stories of healing, Jesus is responding to people’s faith in him.
It’s their trust that he can do it.
And that trust is expressed in hunger, prayer and drawing near.
But in saying that they trusted Jesus, we have to be very careful.
Their trust was not self-focused––it wasn’t a self-absorbed spirituality.
Their trust shifted their focus off themselves and their work and on to Jesus and his work.
In other words, they weren’t earning their healing through their faith.
Instead, the healer––Jesus––was present, and they were receiving the gift of his healing by faith.
2) Healing springs from the grace of the cross (Exo.
15:22-27; Isa.
53:4-7)
Let’s read Exodus 15:22-25 and discover the water God healed (restored) the waters, making the bitter waters sweet.
Yahweh showed Moses a tree.
When Moses threw the tree in the water, the tree made the bitter waters sweet.
Or we can say it purified the polluted waters.
Jesus and his cross is the tree.
And when you receive the work of the cross into your bitter waters, they become sweet.
All of our healing––body, soul and spirit––is based on Christ’s work on the cross.
Listen to Isaiah 53:4-7 (Inspiration Translation).
It prophesies the vicarious, intercessory and substitutionary work of the cross.
Yes, the burden of
Our sicknesses,
He lifted up;
The weight of
Our soul’s sorrows,
He carried away.
We even arranged
To afflict him,
We devised
For God to strike him dead
Like a wretch.
Yet, he was struck down
For our crimes,
Crushed like powder
For our sins.
The discipline for our shalom —
Our genuine peace and wholeness —
Fell on him.
It’s by his wounds we are
Healed, restored and made whole.
All of us
Like a flock
Wandered away,
Each turned from
His way —
Yet, Yahweh moved him to
Intercede for the sins
Of us all.
The health movement (which is very popular today) focuses on yourself.
You have to do all these things to be healthy and healed.
There are lots of hoops you have to jump through and advice you need to take.
People condemn you if you’re not eating the right foods and practicing the latest exercise and diet trends.
If they don’t say anything, you sense that they look down on you.
This whole self-focus and self-work seep into our beliefs about spiritual healing.
The health movement may say many good things about health, but it can also say many contradictory things.
However, the world’s views about health are often fundamentally flawed because they are based on self-absorption.
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