Thinking Like Jesus about Healing, part 4

What did Jesus think about sickness, disease, and healing? How can we think like him?

I’m Pastor Doug Sewell. Welcome to the Beyond Six Verses podcast. This is part four of thinking like Jesus about healing.

Thinking like Jesus takes learning how he thinks about something. Then choosing to think the same way. One way Jesus thought about healing was that he knew he could heal any disease or sickness he encountered.

Early in his ministry, Matthew 4:23 and following. Jesus went through Galilee teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom. and curing every disease and every sickness among the people. So his fame spread through all Syria, and they brought to him all the sick, those who were afflicted with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics and paralytics, and he cured them. And great crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and from beyond the Jordan.

Note every disease. That includes various sicknesses and pains, epilepsy, paralysis, demon possession – notice how the demoniac sometimes figures into sickness. Well, that’s another whole podcast – you can also see it in Mark 9 and Luke 13 as well.

In Matthew 8 – you can also see this in Mark 1 – you see Jesus healing leprosy.

Matthew 8 also, Jesus healed the centurion’s paralyzed servant. He also healed paralysis in Mark chapter 2, the man that they let down through the roof.

Matthew chapter 8, Peter’s mother-in-law’s fever. Matthew chapter 8, unspecified diseases, but he healed all of them and all of the demonized as well.

Matthew 8 also, the Gadarene demoniac. There were two here. Mark only recounts 1. I don’t have a good explanation for the conflict, but that’s another story.

Matthew chapter 9, which is also Mark 5, the woman with the bleeding disease – probably some type of hemorrhaging. I’m going to talk about this one more in a future episode.

Matthew chapter 9, blindness. Matthew chapter 9 muteness. The people were saying never has anything like this been seen in Israel. That was because healing muteness was one of the Messianic miracles that we talked about a few episodes ago.

Matthew chapter 10 Jesus commissioned the apostles to heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, and cast out demons. And if you look at some of the other gospel readings they say he commissioned them to heal all sicknesses.

Let’s look at Matthew chapter 11:20-24 then he began to reproach the cities in which most of his deeds of power had been done because they did not repent. Woe to you. Chorazin, woe to you, Bethsaida. For if the deeds of power done in you have been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have to have have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you on the day of judgment, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? No. You’ll be brought down to Hades. For if the deeds of power done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I tell you on that day of judgment, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom than for you.

This is interesting for a number of reasons. For example, Capernum was Jesus’ base of operation where he operated out of – whether he had a house there, or whether he stayed at Peter’s house, we don’t know. But you can find references to that throughout the gospels.

The second thing is he compares Capernaum’s response to the good news of the kingdom and the acts that Jesus did with Sodom, and he says that if he had been in Sodom and had done these kinds of healings and these kinds of miracles, Sodom would have repented. That, I just find that particularly interesting.

Now, if we go pick up with looking through Matthew again, we see in Matthew chapter 12 the man with the withered hand, Jesus said to the man, stretch out your hand, and it became just as good as the other, and the Pharisees got unhappy because he healed on the Sabbath.

Matthew chapter 14 – this was the episode where he was feeding the 5,000, and it says he healed all of those that were in the crowd that needed healing.

Matthew chapter 14, a little further down, all of the sick came from to see him and all of those that touched his cloak were healed.

Let’s also look at another thing in Matthew 15 starting in verse 29 – after Jesus had left that place, he passed along the sea of Galilee and he went up the mountain where he sat down. Great crowds came to him, bringing him there, lame, the maimed, the blind, the mute, and many others. They put them at his feet and he cured them so that the crowd was amazed, because they saw the mute speaking,the maimed whole, the lame walking and the blind seeing, and they praised the God of Israel.

That’s just the first 15 chapters of Matthew. The other gospels describe other healings Jesus did as well.

So in this case, how do we think like Jesus, we think that no matter what disease we’re facing, or the sickness that a loved one is facing, Jesus has the ability, and we’ve already talked about the willingness to heal. There’s no sickness bigger than Jesus is.

Even sicknesses he may not have encountered in that first century when he was on the earth – if Jesus had encountered cancer, he could have healed it. If Jesus would have encountered Coronavirus, he would have healed it. If Jesus had encountered HIV and AIDS, he would have healed it. If Jesus had encountered Legionnaires’ disease, he would have healed it. If Jesus had encountered diabetes, he would have healed it.

He didn’t ask people how they got it. He didn’t ask if they deserved healing. He didn’t have to ration healing or his power out. The gospel’s not like pie. It’s not like if one person gets a big miracle, that only leaves a little miracle for someone else. The gospel is not like pie. Jesus has more than enough to heal everyone that comes to him.

So when we think like Jesus about healing, we think that no matter what sickness or disease we’re facing, or a loved one is facing, he has the ability to heal it.

I’m pastor Doug Sewell. Come back next week for another episode of the beyond six verses podcast.

I’m in the major podcast directories now, so if you would, tell a friend about this podcast, and thank you for listening.

(Transcript courtesy of descript.com)