Jesus’ healing ministry

     When read the Bible and the stories about Jesus, we see Jesus doing basically four things and not much else. We see him preaching, teaching, healing and driving out demons. Four things. He did a few other kinds of miracles as well like multiplying the loaves and the fish, but the vast majority of what we see Jesus doing is these four things. 

Matthew summarises Jesus ministry in these words, Matthew 4:23 – ‘Jesus went throughout Galilee teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness among the people.’ 

Now when we read all the healings that Jesus did in his ministry- we could ask, why are all these stories in the Bible? Why are all these healing miracles there? Were they put there to tell us the amazing things Jesus did long time ago in the past, but is doing no longer? Or are they there to help us see what Jesus wants to do still? 

When I read the life of Jesus in the gospels, I realise they are a long way from what church looks like! We have got the teaching and the preaching bit ok, Jesus taught and preached and the church teaches and preaches, but where are the healings in the church, where are the deliverances from demons? 

Aren’t we called to follow Jesus? Isn’t He our model? Shouldn’t we then be seeing dramatic healings and other miracles? 

John Wimber was a young man living in California, he converted to Christianity in 1963 at the age of 29 and started attending a church. After three Sunday services, he was getting a bit fed up, he had been reading this Bible and he loved reading about the stuff Jesus was doing, the feeding of the 5000 and the walking on water and healing the sick. And after three Sundays going to church he was confused and frustrated, nobody was doing the things he read Jesus doing in the Bible. So he went up this guy who had name badge, 

And asked him; ‘When do they do it? 

Do what? 

The stuff. 

What stuff?’ 

The stuff in the Bible.

What do you mean? 

Multiply the fish and loaves and feed the hungry and all that stuff.’ 

The guy said; ‘we don’t do that, we believe in it, we pray about it, but we don’t do it.’ 

Wimber was terribly disappointed and he said to the guy- ‘wait a minute, I gave up drugs for this, I gave up my career for this. You mean I don’t get to do it? He said ‘when I worked for the devil, I got to do the devil’s stuff. If I’m working for Jesus, I want to do what Jesus did.’

Actually, Wimber was right, the church should be doing the stuff Jesus did. 

We read right at the end of Matthew’s gospel .

Jesus at the end of his earthly life speaks to his surviving 11 disciples and tells them ‘ All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.’

So Jesus is telling us that disciples are to go and make more disciples- out of all nations. Which is what we are doing some of here- making disciples out of 3 or 4 nations at least, here this morning. And then He said and ‘teach them to obey everything I have commanded.’ 

One of the things Jesus commanded his 12 disciples was to go out in pairs and preach the gospel and heal the sick and cast out demons. So when Jesus says to these 12, or remaining 11, go and teach them to obey everything I have commanded you, well Jesus had commanded the 11 disciples to heal the sick and cast out demons. Doesn’t that effectively mean that we are being called to heal the sick and cast out demons? 

And Jesus will be with us as He promised- his power will be present. Nick caught a glimpse of Jesus that day in his Bible study meeting. And he had an experience that showed him Jesus was with them there in that flat. Just as He had promised He would be. 

The book of Acts is the story of the early years of the church – right after Jesus ascended to heaven. 

The book of Acts was written by a man called Luke, who also wrote the gospel of Luke. So first of all he wrote the gospel of Luke which is a biography of Jesus and then he wrote the book of Acts, which is the history of the early church.

This is how Luke begins the book of Acts. ‘In my former book Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus, began to do and teach, until he was taken up to heaven. ‘

Ok so he is saying that his gospel is telling the story of what Jesus began to do and teach. But hang on that means, that his second book, Acts, is the story of what Jesus continued to do and to teach.

And in the book of Acts, we see the early church doing just what Jesus did in his earthly life. Teaching, preaching, healing the sick and casting out demons.

What is happening? Jesus is continuing to do and to teach through his church. Jesus is in heaven, but he is now operating through his church. 

How can He do this?

Well because He is still present with his church. ‘Lo am with you always, even to the end of the age.’ He is still with us and in us by his Holy Spirit.

And secondly because he has been given all authority on heaven and earth. That word all means Jesus is in overall command of everything. Jesus is Lord.

 So with the presence of Jesus and the authority of Jesus, we, Jesus’ church, can continue the deeds of Jesus. And that is what we are called to do.

So that means that when we study the miracles in the gospels, we are not just reading impressive stories of what Jesus did a long time ago. We are reading the operating manual for our congregation. We are reading what our congregation is called to do. We are reading a how to guide that is designed to help us heal the sick and do the other stuff that Jesus did and wants to do through us. 

That’s a different way of looking at the gospel stories than we are maybe used to. But it’s important. 

We have a Healing Rooms in the Church. But healing is not just for the Healing Rooms, it’s for the church, it’s for every Christian to be involved in. It’s our birth right as born again believers, it’s our calling, it’s what God has gifted and called us to do, heal the sick, cast out demons and do the stuff. It’s not for advanced Christians. You don’t need to be a Christian for 30 years and gone to Bible college before doing it, as soon as you believe in Jesus you can start getting results. Because its faith that matters.

So let’s look at the stuff Jesus did. Jesus comes down the mountain where he has preached his famous Sermon on the Mount and large crowds are following him and a man with leprosy – or a real bad skin condition (it might not have been leprosy but another skin condition) comes to him and kneels before him and said; ‘Lord if you are willing, you can make me clean.’

Now that man wasn’t sure if Jesus was willing or not to heal him. He knew Jesus had the power to heal him, but he wasn’t sure if Jesus was willing to heal him.

That is the question that many Christians have when they are sick. They know Jesus has the power to heal them, but they just don’t know if He wants to or not.

That is why they pray- ‘if it be your will. Heal me, if it be your will.’

And when they pray that way, they are saying- I don’t really know your will regarding my sickness, my illness, my infirmity, I don’t know your will, but if your will is to heal me, please do it.

The problem with that approach to healing is- you never come to Jesus with faith. How can you have faith in Jesus to heal you, if you don’t know Jesus will? You are in constant doubt about Jesus will. 

That theology, ‘if it be your will’ creates doubt and stops healings happening. Please don’t pray ‘if it be your will’ when asking God to heal you or someone else.

Jesus’ reply to the leper was; ‘I am willing, be clean.’ 

Can you think of a single time in the Gospels where someone came to Jesus asking for healing and Jesus said ‘sorry I am not willing. It’s not my will for you to be healed.’ 

I have read all the healing stories in the gospels and I have not found a single example where Jesus said no. 

Is the Jesus we worship today, any different to the Jesus we read about in the gospels? Is the Jesus we are praising this morning, more reluctant to heal than the Jesus of the New Testament? The Jesus of the New Testament was a reliable healer. He never said no. Is Jesus now saying no all the time? 

The Bible says Jesus is the same ‘yesterday, today and forever.’ Jesus is just as willing to heal today as he was then. 

When you pray for healing, you can be confident it is Jesus will to heal. Because he is the same Jesus who always said yes to everyone who came to him asking for healing. 

Notice that Jesus was willing to break the rules in healing this man. It was against the Law of Moses to touch a leper, he was ceremonially unclean and also a health hazard- he was contagious. But Jesus did it, He touched him. The law of love and his mission to heal was more important than obeying the uncleanness laws. 

It must have been powerful for the man to experience a human touch, he hadn’t been touched for a long time. And to be healed by the touch must have been overwhelming for him. I pray that we all experience more of the touch of Jesus. 

Notice what Jesus said to the leper. ‘Go show yourself to the priest and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a proof to the people.’ This was what was commanded in Leviticus 14 in the Bible. But notice that Jesus tells the man to do it as a witness, a testimony, a proof to them. What Jesus is wanting is the man to show witness to the Temple Priests and others that Jesus is the Messiah, the long awaited deliverer, the conqueror of disease. 

Healing is a witness to who Jesus is. When Jesus heals a person today, He gets glory, he gets honoured and praised. People get saved when they experience or see a healing. It really opens them up to Jesus.  

We want the testimony of the lepers of Edinburgh. Of the sick and ill of our city- that Jesus healed them. What a witness that is, when Jesus starts doing in Edinburgh what he did in Galilee. It’s our job to give the people of Edinburgh a proof of Jesus. A witness to the people, by healing the sick. It’s actually our calling as a church.

Jesus travels on and he goes into the town of Capernaum and a centurion comes to him asking that Jesus heals his servant.

The centurion was a Roman soldier who had about 100 men under him. This man was part of the Roman occupation of Galilee, a man who was thus socially superior to Jesus who was just a Jewish rabbi. But he comes to Jesus in the town- it’s a town of 1500 people on the north bank of the sea of Galilee. It was Jesus’ base of operations when he ministered in Galilee. 

And in the town this centurion comes to Jesus asking for help. He has a servant who is paralysed and is in great pain. This centurion cared about his servant and he had faith in Jesus and so he is willing to come to Jesus asking for help. That takes humility, especially since he was socially superior to Jesus. This man recognises the greatness of Jesus, because he calls him ‘Lord’- he says ‘Lord, my servant is suffering. ‘

And Jesus recognises that the man is asking him to heal his servant.

Jesus reply is ‘Will I go and heal him?’ His reply is really a question. He is saying ‘ Are you really asking for me to come and heal him?’

Jesus was a Jew and it was not socially acceptable for a Jew to enter a Gentile’s house.

Jesus is giving the man a discouraging reply. He is saying to the man ’are you serious? Are you seriously asking me to come into your house and heal him?

Jesus is testing the man.  

And sometimes Jesus will test us when we come to him for healing or something else. Are we serious in our prayers? If we are serious in our prayers, then we won’t be easily put off. And this centurion was not put off. He replied, ‘Lord I don’t deserve you to come, but just say a word and my servant will be healed.’ 

In other words he is saying ‘I see you have the authority to heal my servant just with a word, you don’t need to go to my house.’

A soldier is someone who obeys orders and someone who gives orders which are obeyed. This soldier recognised that Jesus had authority to give orders –even to sickness. He had faith in Jesus’ authority. 

And Jesus replies with commending the man’s great faith and says ‘go it will be done just as you believed it would.’ 

And the servant was healed at that moment.

Jesus met the man’s faith. 

Jesus will meet our faith today. 

When two blind men came to Jesus, in Matthew 9, Jesus asked them; ‘Do you believe I am able to do this?’ ‘Yes Lord,’ they answered. Then He touched their eyes and said ‘according to your faith will it be done to you.’

That’s a rule for miracles - according to our faith will it be done to us.

Faith is what God is looking for and what Jesus responds to. Expectancy is another word for faith. He wants us to expect the healing. 

Jesus said after seeing the centurion’s faith- he said many will come from the east and west and take their place at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. That means non-Jews, Gentiles will make it to Heaven and share the banquet of heaven with the ancestors of the Jews, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Why? Because the passport to heaven is not your racial background, but faith.

That verse is literally being shown to be true in this room today. Because some of you have come from the east- Hong Kong and some of us have come from the West, the UK and not many of us are ethnically Jewish, maybe none of us are, but we are trusting in Jesus.

But then Jesus says ‘the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown out into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ Jesus is giving a picture of hell, awful. Heaven and hell are both real. 

And He is saying many descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, many Jews, will not believe in Jesus and thus won’t make it to heaven.  

That evening, Jesus goes to Peter’s house, he saw Peter’s mother in law was lying in bed with a fever. Which tells us that Peter was married. 

And Jesus healed Peter’s mum and she got up and began to wait on him. Which probably means she got up and cooked a meal for him. 

When you are healed, you can much better serve Jesus. Being sick it’s difficult to serve Jesus, you are limited, but when Jesus heals you then you can. Here is another reason why we can expect Jesus to heal us. So we can serve him.

That evening many came to Peter’s house. Why? Because they had heard that someone who could heal the sick was there. There were many demon possessed and Jesus healed them with a word of command. The demons recognise Jesus’ authority. 

That’s how Christians cast out demons today- with a command. I’ve seen that done many times.

And it says that Jesus healed all the sick.

Jesus healed every single person who came to him that evening wanting healing. Every one. He never said ‘no’. 

The healing that Jesus did for a person was in response to what that person expected from him. 

The Jesus of the Bible was a reliable healer. Let’s believe in that Jesus. The real Jesus. The Jesus who is very willing to heal, who never said ‘no’. 

Let’s raise our faith in Jesus for healing. 

How do we believe more? 

Well read the healing miracles of Jesus and reflect on them. That will raise faith. Read about Elijah and Elisha’s miracles in the Old Testament also. Elijah and Elisha are great examples of what God wants to do through his Spirit today. 

Listen to testimonies of healings. There are plenty on the internet, on YouTube for example.

Pray for yourself, pray for your family- for healing. Use the faith you have. Exercise your faith muscle and it will get stronger. 

I have been dipping into a great book of testimonies written by Doreen Davidson. Here is Doreen. 

Doreen has seen God heal other people through her ministry and she herself has received a good number of healings by Jesus. Maybe one Sunday Doreen will share some of her testimony and tell you some of the other example of God healing in her life. 



But let me just share one story. When her children were small she used to take them to the swimming pool. Meanwhile Doreen practiced diving, hoping to improve her skills, but she damaged the ligaments in her back when she attempted to dive from the highest diving board. (Note to self, don’t try diving from the highest diving board! ☺ ). She got it X-rayed and was told there was nothing that could be done for it. She wrote: ‘I’d just have to put up with the discomfort which meant I always had to support my back when sitting down.’ 

Well Doreen developed a great desire to be healed- by God. She asked some Christian friends if they knew of any healing meetings locally. One friend, told her how a Christian minister called Ian Andrews was coming to speak and minister here in Edinburgh and offered her a lift. 

Ian Andrews had the spiritual gift called ‘Word of Knowledge’ it’s one of the nine gifts of the Holy Spirit mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12. A word of knowledge is when you get a piece of knowledge from the Lord about a person or a situation- a bit of knowledge that you didn’t pick up from natural means- it was just the Lord gave it to you. And Ian Andrews was given this little piece of information by the Lord- that a few people in the congregation had back problems and needed healing. Ian said ‘if you believe that He is able to heal you, receive it tonight and thank Him for it.’ 

She believed, she thanked him for it, she received. She felt immediate relief in her back and she was able to bend backwards which she hadn’t been able to do for 11 years. Healed by Jesus! 

So praise the Lord! 

And maybe someone here has a back problem and needs healed. Come forward and myself and one or two others will pray for you. 

Let’s go after healing. Let’s do the ministry Jesus did and heal the sick. For their relief, for their blessing, and for Jesus glory and as a testimony to who Jesus is. For the salvation of souls. Salvations will follow healings. It’s what we are called to do. Amen.