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"Speak the Word, Lord, and Your Servant Will be Healed" Matthew 8:5-13; Micah 6:1-8
by Clancy Nixon
January 30, 2005
Church of the Holy Spirit
Ashburn, Virginia
I'd like to begin this time of Bible teaching with a God story. Doug Schnelzer
told me this story yesterday, and I think it will bless you to hear him tell it.
[DOUG'S STORY]
Let's pray: Thank you, God for Joey. Thank you that your Spirit of Wisdom is in
him; thank you that your power of forgiveness is on him; and thank you that your grace
of reconciliation is manifest through him. And thank you for Doug, his faithful Home
Group Pastor. Bless them both, in Jesus name.
In Micah 6:8, the prophet asks this question: What does God require of us? He
answers, what God requires of us is to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with
your God. That is what Joey did. Justice required him to stand up to his boss, because his
boss had slimed him with a racial slur. So Joey did. Mercy required him to show true
forgiveness to his boss. So Joey did. Walking humbly with God required him to take the
time with God that he needs every day so he can be at peace with himself and with his
adversarial boss enough to witness to his boss about the Lord Jesus where he has the
opportunity. So Joey did. When you know in your bones that you are a sinner,
forgiveness and mercy flow from your heart. In order to fully forgive, you have to know
that you are forgiven. Because Joey has received spiritual healing, spiritual healing can
flow from Joey. Joey is an evangelist. He led his fiancée Jeanette to the Lord.
After my talk this morning, we are inviting people forward to receive healing
prayer. Healing is a huge part of the ministry of Jesus. If you read the gospels carefully,
you will find that fully one quarter of the total text of all the gospels involve healing in
some way. Divine Healing is a sign of the in-breaking of the Kingdom of God. When
you have been healed by God, YOU KNOW that only God could have done that. The
Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.
Healing is one of the benefits of Christ's passion. The Bible says, "By his stripes
we are healed." It is because Jesus' body was broken for us by the lash and on the cross
that divine healing is available to us today. I don't know about you, but I want ALL the
benefits of Christ's passion! Amen? Divine healing gives me hope. When you have
cancer, you have to KNOW that healing is possible. When your husband is lost in an
agnostic blur, you have to KNOW that spiritual healing is possible. We need that hope.
C.S. Lewis said that Christianity is the one religion that is unthinkable without miracles.
Our God is a God of miracles, and I believe that he is going to do some miracles today.
God is able to do more than we can ask for or even imagine.
Every week, we have healing prayer ministers at the back of the gymnasium after
my sermon. They are always available to pray for you for healing or for any other prayer
need. This week, I'll ask you to come forward for healing. In the kingdom of this world,
we have hospitals for acute care. When your need is desperate, the hospital is where you
go. In God's Kingdom, there is also a need for acute care for desperate need. There is
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nothing wrong with the metaphor of church as a hospital for sinners; it is a good
metaphor but it can be a limiting metaphor. My vision for our healing ministry is that we
would be so much more than just a hospital.
A friend of mine, not from our church, recently got a vision from God about how
their church, which has a vibrant healing ministry, had become like an ambulance at the
bottom of a mountain, there to catch people who fell or got hurt on their journeys. In her
vision, God was calling that church to go beyond an ambulance ministry, to become more
of an equipping ministry for the mountain climbers. In that vision, the church is a school
for mountain climbing, a resource center, as well as first aid station for those who fall or
need patching up. We need preventive care, so we spend less time in the hospital. That's
why we've begun Men's Ministry, Women's Ministry, Marriage Mentoring, The
Marriage Course and Home Groups. By going to the clinic of God's Word and with
God's people, we receive healing, guidance, and mid-course corrections. Yes, we need
healing. We need healing so that we can minister God's mercy and forgiveness to others,
like Joey did. All physical healing is temporary, anyway. One day, our bodies will wear
out and die. Guaranteed. Only Spiritual healing is everlasting. The outer darkness that
Jesus speaks of is a terrible prospect.
Friends, we need healing in order to climb the mountain of our spiritual journey.
We need emotional healing, and we need physical healing. I don't know, but Joey may
still need healing from the effects of that slur on him. Prayer can heal those kinds of
wounds, wounds caused by harsh words. I do know that Joey brought emotional healing
to his boss. For that man, being able to apologize to an employee was a huge step. What
healed the man was a word of truth. Most likely that boss needs much more emotional
healing, not just the acute care that Joey administered to him. Like most of us, I suspect
he needs to do more business with God about his fears and prejudices.
At the bottom of every fear or emotional dysfunction is a lie or a distortion of the
enemy. God wants to speak a word of truth into our lives every day, including this
morning. I recently talked to someone who was so influenced by this world system and
the media that they think that because they are overweight that they cannot succeed at
work, in love, or at life. That is a lie. This business about the perfect body type is not a
Biblical concern. That is a Greco-Roman concern that has been blown up and distorted
by our warped culture. God is far more interested in what you look like on the inside
than how you look on the outside. Jesus shows us in this gospel story where he
commends the gentile Roman over the Jews that your ethnic background is not what is
important about you. The truth will set you free. We need emotional healing, and we
need physical healing.
The Centurion's servant needed physical healing from paralysis and torment. The
Gentile Centurion, this pagan who was not one of God's chosen people, shows greater
faith than the Jews of his day. Divine healing in those days was typically done in the
same way divine healing is done in our day with the laying on of hands. Notice that as
soon as he is asked to go to heal this gentile servant, Jesus says he will go heal him.
There is an immediate response to human need. In the words of Micah, it's loving
mercy. Not only that, but for a Jew like Jesus to go into a Gentile household breaks the
Ceremonial Law of the Jews. The Centurion acknowledges this, when he says that he is
not worthy to have Jesus come under his roof. Jesus follows a higher law the law of
love for the broken and wounded that breaks down the barriers between Jew and Gentile.
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That is how important physical healing is to Jesus. Physical healing is an open door to
faith in Jesus.
What sets this healing apart, of course, is the Centurion's great faith. Because he
is a military man, the Centurion understands authority. When he tells one of the soldiers
under him to come, the soldier must come. The Roman understands that Jesus has
spiritual authority to heal disease. The centurion says, "You don't have to come to my
house. You have authority. Just say the Word, and my servant will be healed." The
power is in the Words of the Lord. Do you know that there is spiritual power in your
spoken words? There is. That is why I counsel people to pray prayers out loud. God can
read your mind when you pray silently, but demons can't, and angels can't, and sickness
can't. I'm not sure why it is, but there is power in the spoken word. The Bible tells us
that when God spoke, the universe leapt into existence. We need more faith in the spoken
Word of God. It has power, like a double edged sword. When you pray, praying
Scripture is very powerful way to pray.
One of the reasons some Christians don't see much in the way of physical
healings is that they get caught in a cycle of unbelief. Mark 9:23 says "Everything is
possible for the one who believes." Let's say that together: "Everything is possible for
the one who believes." Jesus called those who do not believe in miracles "an unbelieving
and perverse generation." (Luke 9:41) Why do so many Christians believe so little for
miracles? A lack of experience with miracles undermines faith. We believe little because
we see little. The sad part about this is, a lack of faith will result in seeing fewer miracles,
too, creating the cycle of unbelief. We see little because we believe little. One reinforces
the other. That is hard. Friends, we cannot base our theology only on what we see with
our own eyes! That is not - faith! That's called skepticism. The alternative to skepticism
is called faith, not naiveté. The Centurion was not naïve, because he was taking to Jesus,
who had and has all power to heal and to save. Amen?
I want to close with a recent story of God's healing power in my life. I noticed
about a year ago that my shoe was beginning to hurt my right foot. I saw that I had a
hard lump on the outside of my heel, under my ankle. That lump grew until it looked like
a second ankle. I could not run on it any more, or even wear hard shoes. Anyone here
ever have chronic foot pain? [Raise hand] When your feet hurt, everything hurts. I went
to the doctor about it, and after a series of tests, including a CAT scan, I got a diagnosis
of Tumoral Calcinosis. I had a tumor growing on my foot made up of calcium, that is,
bone. There is no remedy that the doctors know for this except surgery. These things
don't go away by themselves. I have already had three surgeries on my right foot for
plantar fasciitis, so I dreaded another surgery. But my specialist doctor didn't know about
my other doctor, the Lord Jesus. I asked for concerted prayer. Several people prayed for
me, and this tumor that I had for six months just withered away in about two weeks and
disappeared. Thanks be to God! That just does not happen in the medical literature of
Tumoral Calcinosis. I was overjoyed and delighted, but not really surprised. I had
expectant faith that God would heal me. My God has healed that foot before, and not
with the surgeries those all failed but with the persistent prayer of faith. Our God is a
God who heals today. Amen?
Friends, don't get caught in the cycle of unbelief. God is healing today in our
midst. Ask someone to tell you of how God healed them, and let your faith grow as you
hear of God's miracles. Believe that Jesus can heal you with just a word. Let's pray:
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Increase our faith, O God, to believe that you will heal us just by your word. "Speak the
word, Lord, and your servant will be healed." Amen.
Now we are going to move to our time of prayer. Before we do that, we are going
to wait on the Lord to speak words of knowledge or insight into what He wants to do
among us. We believe that God gives that gift to some people in the body of Christ, so
that the body may be built up. Let's just wait in silence for a time. If the Lord should
give a word to you, please come forward to the microphone and share your discernment.
Now I'd like to ask you to come forward row by row, much like we do at
communion, to receive a brief healing prayer from one of our healing prayer ministers. If
you have a request, please share it very, very briefly with a prayer minister, and they will
pray for you. If you don't have a request, he or she will pray a brief general prayer of
healing and blessing over you. I invite you to sing along with our music team as people
receive prayer. I'd like the Healing Prayer Team to come forward first to receive prayer.
Please stand.
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