Mark 1:29-34- "By His wounds..."

Mark 1:29-34

1 Peter 2:21-26

                                      “By his wounds you have been healed”

Why doesn’t God heal everyone?

When we pray and ask for healing for ourselves or for our friend or family, why doesn’t God always heal them?

As we read through the gospels, we can see that whenever a person who was sick approached Jesus: he healed them.

He opened the eyes of blind people, he opened the ears of the deaf, he made people walk again, he healed people from leprosy, he healed deformed hands, he even raised people back to life.

As we have just read from this little passage from Mark chapter 1, it tells us that the whole city was gathered at Peter’s house and Jesus healed many, one after the other- healed, the sun had just gone down, Jesus had just finished teaching in the synagogue, the sabbath was officially over and so people gathered at his door one after the other and he healed them.

People who had various diseases, were healed.

There is no mention of which type of people were healed, whether Jew or gentile, rich or poor, tax collector, or scribe, it appears that Jesus healed whomever came to him and asked.

So why doesn’t God heal everyone today?

Why does God allow our loved ones to suffer and die, even when we pray for their healing?

I don’t know!

I don’t know why God doesn’t heal your loved one, or heal you!

But there are a few things we do know from the scriptures.

1.        God wants you to pray for healing, no matter how big or small your request may be.

Just look at verses 29-31 with me:

And immediately he (Jesus) left the synagogue and entered the house of Simon and Andrew with James and John . Now Simon’s mother-in-law lay ill with a fever, and immediately they told him about her. And he came and took her by the hand and lifted her up, and the fever left her, and she began to serve them.

Jesus had called two very ordinary set of brothers, working class fishermen, he had just taught in the synagogue on the sabbath as would normally happen and now he healed what seems to us a very ordinary or minor sickness- fever.

Jesus had such compassion for his friend Peter, that he had compassion for his mother-in-law and healed her of this fever.

Now this healing of the fever, may not have looked as spectacular as raising a person from the dead, like he did for his friend Lazarus, but it was serious enough never the less.

Remember, there was no aspirin in those days, which Peter’s mother-in law could have popped and the fever would have dropped, no, it would have been a matter of trying to cool the body and rest.  Fever was much more of a deadly sickness, 2,000 years ago.

Friends, thank God for modern medicine.

Who knows how many lives have been saved through aspirin or anti-biotics.

It is ultimately God who has given us these medicines for our good.

I think Mark put this story of Jesus healing Peter’s mother-in-law of fever in here for us, because it shows us that Jesus cares for our big and small cares, and so we should not be frightened or ashamed of asking Jesus to help and heal us, whether it is because we have a scratch on our little pinkie, or whether we have just found out we have 6 months to live.

Jesus wants us to cast all our worries on him because he cares for us (1 Peter 5:7)

The second truth I want to tell you about healing and sickness is this:

2.        Whether you are sick or a picture of health, Jesus wants you to serve him by serving others.

I love the fact that Jesus healed Peter’s mother-in-law and she immediately began to serve them.

In our cotton wool culture that we live in, some would consider this cruel or even sexist perhaps, but it was actually the opposite of cruel, you see Jesus created us to serve him and serve others and so when we are serving him by serving others, there is no greater fullness of life.

Jesus didn’t just take away her sickness, but he gave her the ability to live life to the full by serving others.

Peter’s mother-in-law, that day was doing what king Jesus came to do, as it tells us in Mark 10:45, for the son of man- Jesus, did not come to be served but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many.

And so friends, whether you are sick or whether you are a picture of health, our first thought should be “how can I serve Jesus by serving others”

Some of you may have known Liz Harris.

Liz was a good friend of kari.

She was the wife to my friend and previous boss Paul Harris who was the minister at Taree Presbyterian Church.

Liz Harris recently died after a long battle with cancer.

One of the many striking and hugely encouraging things about the funeral service of Liz, is that she continued to serve others right up until Jesus took her home. She would encourage her kids, not only her biological kids, but those she counselled at school. She would encouraged the nurse and doctors who looked after her.

Even in her suffering, Liz continued to serve Jesus, by serving others.

Friends abundant life isn’t found in total physical healing, but it is found in serving Jesus.

Peter’s mother-in-law was haled of her fever so she could serve Jesus.

The third truth I want to tell you about sickness and healing is this:

3.        A lack of physical healing isn’t because of your lack of faith.

There is no mention here about people’s faith or lack of faith. It just says that people came to Jesus and he healed them.

The healing was all dependent on Jesus- not their faith.

Your healing, your friend’s healing, your family member healing, is not dependent on your faith, it is all dependent on God.

That is why we just keep praying, just keep asking God to heal, knowing that if he heals or not, is all down to him. Whether God heals some one through medicine, that’s up to him, whether God supernatural heals, that is up to Him.

It is not up to us, it is not dependant on the strength of our faith.

This is why I would advise to going to a celebrity faith healer service. The service focuses all on the “faith healer” and not Jesus. These so-called faith healing services are not ultimately about how we can serve Jesus, but how we can serve ourselves and build a name for ourselves.

And so if you are praying for the healing of a family member or friend, let me encourage you to keep asking, and yet remember it doesn’t depend how earnestly you think your prayer is, it doesn’t depend on how may hours you put in, it doesn’t depend on what words you use, it doesn’t depend on what prayer position you take, it doesn’t depend on how loudly or softly you say a prayer, NO, it all depends on Jesus.

And just like the greatest miracle of all- salvation,

Some people God will save

Some people he won’t save

Some people God will heal

and some God won’t heal.

Whichever way God goes, it is totally up to him, not us.

We just keep asking….

My final point on sickness and suffering is this:

4.        God uses sickness and suffering for his glory.

There is a great story recorded in John chapter 9 (let me encourage you to read it today) of a man who was born blind who Jesus healed. Amazing story……Anyway, as Jesus and his disciples first met that blind man, his disciples thought that this man had sinned, hence as a punishment for his sin or his parents sin, this man was blind.

The disciples believed that individual suffering was a punishment from God for a particular sin they had committed. Leviticus 26:16 and Deuteronomy 28:22 tell us that fever was a divine punishment from God and so there could be some truth in this for some suffering.

And of course we also know that suffering and sickness is part of this fallen world we live in, and so we know that sinful actions have consequences. If a drunk person, drives a car and crashes it into a tree and breaks their legs, then that suffering is a direct consequence of their sin.

However, another reason why some people suffer is for the glory of God.

Just listen to what Jesus said about the man who was born blind, this is from John 9: 1-3

As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. ² And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”³ Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.

Just think about this…..

A man was born blind, spent years and years begging outside a temple, suffered rejection, even from his own family, and why did he suffer all of that?

So that the works of God might be displayed in him

His sickness had the purpose of glorifying God.

When Jesus spat mud in his eyes and told him to wash it off and then he could see, it was so that the work of God could be displayed through him.

Brothers and sisters, I don’t why you may be suffering today, I don’t know what illness you may be facing, I don’t know if God will heal you, but I do know this……..Even in your sickness, or should I say especially in your sickness you can glorify God.

You see friends, it was in the suffering or our king, our saviour Jesus at the cross, that God was most glorified.

Just look at 1 Peter 1:21-25 with me

²¹ For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. ²² He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. ²³ When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. ²⁴ He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. ²⁵ For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.

Friends, as Jesus went to the cross, as he suffered and died, he glorified his father

and How?

He entrusted himself to his father.

He trusted that his father had a plan for him.

And because Jesus continued to trust in his father and would not waver in his walk to the cross, he bore our sins on the tree so that we might die to sin and live for righteousness.

Through Christ’s suffering, we were saved, and God was glorified.

Through his wounds we have been healed.

And so friends, if we are suffering, if we are sick, keep trusting that God wants the best for you, keep trusting his plan is best, keep trusting by his wounds, you have been healed.

On the day that Liz Harris died, her husband Paul wrote this on his Facebook feed.

Today, Liz won her battle with cancer.

Today, Liz won her battle with cancer.

Liz, our faithful sister in Christ, served people in her sickness, she glorified God in her sickness and now her wounds are totally healed.

Let us pray.