“I want to have faith strong enough to heal someone”. I wrote that in my journal July 24th after I gave my sermon to the village we were in that night.
Did you read my most recent blog?? If not read this one first and then read that one. This is a pre blog to that blog. I planned on writing this one first before July 27 events happened, but they were too good not to share first!
This is the message that I gave. I planned it in roughly 10 minutes. I typically spend longer time on planning but the day was chaotic. Leaving me with limited time. But I felt fully confident. At one point I even had the chills during it. So here is that message.
I am going to tell you a story. A story of great faith. A story of a miraculous healing. A story of a man who couldn’t walk but now can. I didn’t experience this story. My friends here haven’t experienced this story. I don’t know anyone that has experienced this story. Who did then? This story is found in this right here, the Bible.
We are going to read this story. It is found in Luke 5: 17-26 *This is the point of the blog that you look up the story and read it.
Let’s break down the story. Imagine a famous person is coming to your village. It can be your favorite actor, singer, the President, or prime minister, whom ever you would like to see. You’re sitting at your house and people are running towards this person. So you in excitement, get up and run the opposite direction, away from the crowd. Why? Where are you going? You are going to get your friend. Your friend that cannot walk, who is probably feeling left out and alone, because everyone is very excited for this person. You and your other friends pick up your friends bed and carry him towards the crowd. When you get there, there are hundreds of people gathered. You cannot get in the house. You can’t even get close to the house to see. So you think of the next best thing. The roof. You fight your way through the crowd, find a ladder and carry your friend up the ladder. I don’t know about you but I definitely couldn’t carry a man up a ladder, especially on his bed, hopefully there was stairs.
At this point people are starting to stare at you. You are a distraction, but you don’t care. You continue to move. On top of the roof, your friend below is trying to tell you where the best place is to cut a hole, so you do. You lower your friend on his bed. By this time, everyone is staring and distracted. What does Jesus do? He takes this as an opportune time to teach a lesson. Jesus knew He could heal, but He was going to use this time to teach about forgiveness.
Jesus looks at the men, sees THEIR faith, and says “your sins are forgiven”. Not his faith, not Jesus’s faith, but THEIR faith.
The Pharisees began to question Jesus’ act of forgiveness. Saying it was blasphemy. Only God could forgive sins. Jokes on them, cuz Jesus was God. Jesus “perceived” their thoughts. He read their mind and asked “what is easier, to forgive sins or to tell this man to get up and walk.” At this point Jesus told the man to get up and walk. And the man did. He got up, mostly cried, because he was so happy and he went home and glorified God. After his healing, he can walk through life and praise God. The text shows the importance of faith. THEIRS not just his. THEIR faith is highlighted.
This story teaches us many lessons. I want to you encourage you with two.
1) Have a faith so strong to heal a man but most importantly a faith so strong you can forgive anyone of their sins.
Would you rather walk or have your sins forgiven? I don’t know about you, I’d rather live a life without shame, than a life of freely walking. The inner healing of our hearts is more important than our physical healing. God wants our heart to be fully his. When we ask for forgiveness we are freed from shame and our conscience and heart are healed. When we have faith and are forgiven we can “ask and it will be given, seek, and you will find, knock and it will be opened to you” (Luke 11:9). Our spiritual, emotional, and physical healings can help others heal and come to Christ
2) God honors us when we seek to lead others to him
God rejoices when we share our faith and bring others to him. Jesus calls us to go and make disciples (Matthew 28:18) and “we will receive power when the Spirit comes upon you…and you will be [his] witnesses…to the end of the earth.” You do not need to travel to another country to bring others to Christ. He is calling us to start with our family, then our friends, our neighbors, and our community. It starts with the people around. I want to encourage you in that. Do you have faith strong enough to go out and share it? God empowers you! You can do this. “The angels rejoice and are joyful when even one sinner repents.” Do the angel rejoice for you? Let’s cause them to party all the time! Alleluia.
After giving the message, I’ve had a few after thoughts and wanted to share them with you.
- Maybe the men didn’t run away from Jesus coming. We are always running towards him so maybe God calls us to pick up people along the way. Helping and healing others so they can run too.
- If you wanna go fast go alone, if you wanna go far go together.
- How many times have I been the paralyzed man? Paralyzed by shame, sin, fear etc. Waiting for my friends to pick me up and carry me to Christ.
- I wanna have a faith strong enough to heal someone
So yes that is the story. Now go read the other blog post I wrote God Really Does Heal Why because (spoiler alert) God used my faith and prayer to heal someone!
