4-To The Tyranny Of Disease | Series: No Longer Slaves | Rick Atchley

Well, hello, West Fort Worth. Pastor Rick here, and I love it when I get to come to West Fort Worth. Every time, you just fill up my heart with happiness. I mean, my Joy Cup is overflowing, so thank you for that. I've told my wife, we should buy a house out here and just move to this side of town, and now that you've got a QT and a McDonald's, I think if you'll just put in a Chick-fil-A or an In-N-Out, she'll do it, okay? So, did you know that the very first Christians were not called Christians? That came later. The very first Christians were called people of the way for a couple of reasons. One, they really did believe that Jesus was the way to God, that through his death and resurrection, he had opened up a way for sinners to be clean and reconciled to God. By the way, our church believes that about Jesus. He is the way. But they also believe that Jesus was the way to live, that he gave us a way to have life before life after death, and that they should do life the way their rabbi, Jesus, was teaching. We believe that, too. We want everyone to follow the way of Jesus. Here's how we put it. The Hills Church exists to make and grow followers of Jesus,

and we do this together by being with Jesus, becoming like Jesus, and doing what Jesus did. In other words, we spend time with Jesus so that we can pursue his character, that's become like him, and we can continue his ministry, do what he did. And so, this past year, I've been reading the four accounts of Jesus' life. We call it the Gospel of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, with a particular emphasis and focus on what did my rabbi spend most of his time doing? You've got to understand, when Jesus said, follow me, it was not a call to accept him. It was the invitation to apprentice under him so that we could keep what he started going. So what did our rabbi spend most of his time doing? And I've given you two big, strong verbs, proclaim and reclaim. I see that over and over in the Gospels. He'd tell people good news about the kingdom, and he would set people free that were in bondage to his enemy and to a dominion of darkness. And when you investigate his mission of setting people free, it's clear he had a particular emphasis on delivering people from the tyranny of disease. But we're gonna go there today,

and we're gonna talk about healing. And for all of you that are sick of my preaching, this sermon is especially for you, okay? When you read the Gospels, did you know that almost 40% of the narratives about Jesus, about what he actually did, are stories about him healing people? Of his 37 recorded miracles, 28 of them are miracles of Jesus healing the sick. That's what he did. And it's what he trained his apprentices to do. Luke 9 says, he called the 12 together, he gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and cure diseases, and he sent them, notice, to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. Now, I want to be clear that I cannot cover in one sermon everything I want to teach you about healing, so next year we're gonna come back and do some more teaching on this. But I want you to hear me today say that I don't believe that if you follow Jesus, you should never get sick. You're not gonna hear me ever say that if you're sick, you must not have enough faith in Jesus. Even Jesus acknowledged there will be sick people in his community. Matthew 25, parable of the sheep and goats, whenever you went to visit the sick, you were visiting me. So Jesus acknowledged the sick will always be among us. But I do wonder if the modern church's typical response

to disease and suffering is more passive than our rabbi would want it to be. Heard about two young guys in a grocery store, and one said, I need to get a card for my girlfriend, so they found the greeting card aisle. He grabbed a card that said, get better soon. His buddy said, oh, is your girlfriend sick? He said, no, I just want her to get better soon. Well, we all want people to get better, but we don't always know the best way to do that. So what can we learn from our rabbi? Well, again, one thing we can learn is that he really did address sickness. Now, let me just say that all healing is divine healing. I believe that. Natural healing, our body just healing itself, does it all the time, that's from God. Medical healing, doctors and medicines, every good gift comes from God. Supernatural healing. Healing is a gift of God. I agree with the doctor who had a sign in his office who said, God does the healing. I charge the fee. That's how it works. But even Jesus' sharpest critics had to admit He had a powerful healing gift. They denied His Messiahship,

but they could not deny His miracles, because He did it everywhere. Matthew 4, Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness among the people. You see those two big things? Proclaim and reclaim. Matthew 9, Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. Jesus never engaged a battle with sickness and loss. And it was a battle. I use that word on purpose. In fact, the way I say it is that Jesus' approach to disease was not just supportive, it was combative. He seemed to possess an almost hostile attitude toward sickness. The same Jesus that would rebuke a demon would turn right around the same word and rebuke a

fever. Now, that's not suggesting that every particular illness is demonic in origin, but I think it is suggesting that Jesus saw that all sickness had a satanic origin. Let me explain. I'm sometimes asked, Pastor, if God's so good, why is the world so hard? So much evil, so much suffering, so much sickness. Let me remind you, the world that we're living in is not the world God created. It's the world sin corrupted. He didn't create it like this. Back in 1985, I lived in Abilene, and back then, there was no Internet. If you wanted to know what was going on in the world, you had to watch a newscast, and there weren't that many channels. There was a terrible earthquake in Mexico City, and I was watching footage. And you could see the rubble and the crumbled buildings and

people digging for bodies. And at the bottom of the footage were these two words, courtesy, sin, S-I-N. Well, I knew that stood for Spanish International Network that provided the footage, but I saw a double meaning, that all the misery and all the suffering that you see in the world is courtesy of sin. This is not the world God created. It is the world sin has corrupted. So they bring a guy to Jesus. He's on a mat, and Jesus said, Your sins are forgiven. And everyone says, You can't say that. Look how Jesus responded, which is easier to say, Your sins are forgiven, or to say, Get up and walk. But I want you to know the Son of Man has authority on Earth to forgive sins. So He said to the paralyzed man, I tell you, Get up, take your mat, and go home, and He did.

Jesus could wipe sickness away because He had authority to wash sin away. So when you read the Gospels and you read these miracle stories, I want you to read them as acts of spiritual warfare. They are intentional, active, deliberate affronts to the work of the enemy in order to set people free. That's what a rabbi did. But that raises the question, in light of this, what are we supposed to do? How are we supposed to respond to sickness today? Well, the first thing we need to do is cure some unhealthy ideas we might have about sickness and healing. Like, for example, you hear sometimes that, well, it's a blessing in disguise. That's not true. Good can come from sickness, but sickness is never good. God created a good world, and it did not include disease. He didn't write sickness

in the script. Subjection to death was not the original intention, although it's now everyone's condition. And here's why, Romans 5. When Adam sinned, sin ended the world. Adam's sin brought death. So death spread to everyone. For everyone, sin. And this is why Jesus is hostile towards sickness, because it is a reminder of what sin did to what God made good. He never sanctions sickness for anyone for any reason. Our rabbi treated sickness the same way the first Christians treated persecution. You don't seek it, and if it comes, you pray that it will go away soon. Now, we affirm that our God is sovereign, and because God is sovereign, He can bring good out of things that are not good, including illness. And my guess is almost every one of us could testify to that. There's a time in your life where you were in a season of suffering, and in desperation, you called out to God for grace, and you received a blessing. But that doesn't mean being sick was a blessing.

One of my heroes when I first came to this church 35 years ago was a man named Doug McKnight. Doug was married, had two beautiful twin girls. In his 30s, he contracted multiple sclerosis. Now, there's different forms of that horrible disease. His was the worst. Within three weeks of his diagnosis, he was in a wheelchair and would never leave it. He spent 17 more years completely invalid. Doug led a ministry at our church called World Bible School. He graded thousands of correspondence courses and saw hundreds of people around the world confess Christ. His wife and his daughters will tell you that taking care of Doug strengthened their faith, taught them about selflessness. In fact, his two daughters married ministers. In the last years of his life when his disease got really bad, he had to have caretakers, and four of his caretakers professed faith in Christ after hearing Doug's testimony. God brought good out of it, but don't tell his family that watching him suffer was good. I never say to anyone diagnosed with a serious disease, oh, this is a blessing in disguise. Sickness does not glorify God. Now, the way people respond to sickness can, the way people serve the sick, the way sick people lean on God for grace in their suffering, the way the sick and that those who serve them display unwavering faith, these things can honor God. But it also honors God to attack sickness and to ask God to heal it, either naturally or supernaturally, which means we need to address another thought that isn't healthy, and that is this idea that, well, God doesn't care about the body, all that matters is the soul. No, the gospel is good news for the whole person. There's simply no biblical support for the notion the body's unimportant and the soul is all that matters. The Bible views salvation holistically. God made our bodies, and He was proud of His work, He said it's good.

God declares that He owns our bodies. Your body doesn't belong to you, do whatever you want with it. God's very clear in the Bible, your body belongs to Him. And God says in His Word, I want you to offer your body to me as an act of spiritual worship. Then God declares that He has plans for our bodies in the future, to restore them to their original sin-free, sick-free state. Look with me, Romans 8, for we know that all creation has been grown as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. And we believers also grown, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. Can I get an amen to that, church? Amen. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as His adopted children, including the new bodies He has promised us. Remember, Jesus came in a body. Jesus died in a body. Jesus was raised from the dead in a body. Jesus ascended into heaven in a body, and He's coming back in that same body to set up the new heaven and the new earth. Our rabbi cared for people's bodies, not just their souls. That's why he told us to feed the hungry and to clothe the naked and to go and take care of the sick. You know, one thing scholars have always been perplexed by is how do you explain the success of the early church? A bunch of uneducated, under-resourced people persecuted by the mightiest empire the world has ever seen, and they conquered. How? Rodney Stark, historian in his classic book, The Triumph of Christianity, pauses this theory. One of the things that commended the early church to the pagan world was the way they responded to sickness.

We know in the first several hundred years of the church there were two devastating plagues. in the Roman Empire. We think the first was probably smallpox. At any rate, it wiped out about a third of the people alive. What did you do back then when the plague came? If you were rich and had money, you left town. You got out into the country and you got away from sick people. If you couldn't leave town and someone in your house started showing signs of sickness, you threw them out in the street. Unless you were a Christian. The Christians didn't run away from sickness. They ran to it. They went out into the street and grabbed the sick people and brought them into their houses, gave them food and water. And the pagans noticed a lot of these people they're taking care of are getting better. Some of them supernaturally. They noticed the Christians don't seem to get as sick as we do and they tend to get better. Sometimes supernaturally. We have many stories the first 700 years of the church of supernatural healings among the Christians. They didn't just minister in the natural, they ministered in the supernatural. But it seems to me today that we often take a more benign attitude towards sickness than the first Christians did. We may say that God can still heal, but do we pray what we say? One of my early memories as a baby preacher, visiting the church, I preached a message on John 4. A father comes to Jesus, my son is sick, please come. Jesus said I don't have to go, you go home, he'll be okay. On the way home he gets word the fever is broken, the father becomes a believer. And I made the statement, does your family need a miracle? Maybe you need to ask Jesus for a miracle for your family. After that service an old preacher found me, he was angry. You don't believe in miracles, you believe in providence. What? I thought maybe I made a semantic mistake, but the more we talked the more I realized he didn't believe in a supernatural God intervening anymore. God gave us a Bible, he doesn't do miracles anymore. So I asked what I thought was a reasonable question, then why do we pray? And he said because God tells us to. In other words, God tells us to do something that makes no difference after we do it. I can't go there. I can't believe that apprentices of Jesus today are to live so different than the very first apprentices lived. And here's why. Because

I believe our Savior is still a healer. So I had the privilege a few years ago to visit the ruins of Carthage in North Africa. Incredible Roman outpost had a strong Christian presence. Many Christians were martyred there. And Augustine, the great church father, told a story about a Christian woman in Carthage. Her name was Innocentia. She went to her doctor and was diagnosed with breast cancer. Now I know they didn't have scans, but even then they knew enough about the body to know that there were masses and lumps that didn't belong. And the doctor said you have two options. You can do nothing, you'll die soon, we can amputate your breast, you'll live longer, but you're still gonna die from this cancer. Well she took it to God in prayer and she had a dream. And in that dream, according to Augustine, God said the next woman that comes out of a baptistry ask her to make the sign of the cross over your breast. So she did. He went back to the doctor, he did his exam, he said there's no lump, there's no mass, there's no cancer. I can't explain it. He was hoping maybe she had some new cure. She explained no, she just prayed. And at first he was frustrated, but when he saw her face he backed up and said I'm sorry. Why should I be shocked that Christ could cure cancer? He raised a man who'd been dead for four days, didn't he? This was the faith of the early Christians. I think I'm gonna ask us a question today. Do we still believe that Jesus is the resurrection and the life? Why do we have all those stories of healings in the Gospels? Why does God want us to read them? So that we will know how powerful Jesus was or so that we will know how powerful Jesus is. So I read every miracle story of Jesus in the Gospels just asking the question, why did he do it? Is there a reason he did it then that he wouldn't want to do today? One reason Jesus healed was to authenticate his identity. John the Baptist is in prison. Are you the one? Go and tell him all the people getting healed. Peter Acts 2. God accredited him by signs and wonders. Jesus healed so people would know who he was. Does he want people to still know who he is? Another reason Jesus healed was to illustrate his authority over sickness, over sin, and over evil. Does he still want people to know that? Another reason he healed was

Demonstrate his compassion many times he had compassion in fact six of his miracles were on the Sabbath day now back then Healing on Sabbath was considered wrong and none of the six were fatal illnesses He could have avoided controversy. He could have given the person his card said meet me at Starbucks tomorrow. I'll fix you But every time he healed he had too much compassion to wait a day if someone was in suffering Does he have compassion today? I Know the reason he healed was to validate somebody's faith He would say to someone your faith has healed you or it's actually the word saved you Sometimes it was someone else's faith. That's kind of cool a centurion for a servant of mother for a daughter My favorite story four friends let a guy down through a roof and says when he saw their faith How cool is it to think that? Your faith could bring a miracle from Jesus to somebody else Does he still want to validate faith? And finally he healed to stimulate praise of God He would heal people they would praise God and all the people watching would praise God now Here's did I give you a single reason rooted in a temporary historical basis? Every reason Jesus healed he still cares about today. I Don't know why everyone isn't healed But I know why some are Because Jesus is still Jesus. He still wants to destroy the works of the devil and set captives free now I need to add this a Sick Christian has more reason to praise than a healthy pagan If you've been washed in the blood of Jesus if you've been sealed by the Holy Spirit if you know you have a future With God for eternity you have a reason to praise Regardless of whether you're sick. I need to add this to unless Jesus returns every one of us is going to die and Most of us are going to die from a sickness But followers of Jesus no sickness and death don't get the last word And that's one of the reasons I think God

still heals Because healings are a preview of the ultimate healing to come. Let me be clear. I don't worship healing. I worship God. I Don't worship health. I worship God Healing is not the end Healing is a gracious glimpse of the end Healing is a reminder of the way things were supposed to be and a picture of how things are going to be Again remember our hope is not resuscitation. Our hope is resurrection Remember that verse we said that we await our full adoption our new bodies the very Next verse says we were given this hope when we were saved Elsewhere Paul says we're waiting for our Savior the Lord Jesus Christ to come from heaven By his power to rule all things he will change our humble bodies and make them like his own glorious body That's the future healings our previews of coming attractions and when they come they boast to our faith and When they don't come We cling to our hope but either way as followers of Jesus we Refuse to be slaves to the tyranny of disease so what do we do as Apprentices of our rabbi, what do we do? When we are faced with sickness, here's what we do We boldly ask for disease to be removed or redeemed in Jesus name We don't just take an attitude of well, it is what it is. What can you do? No, we go and boldly ask in Jesus name God either take it away or redeem it We are our audacity to ask Can never exceed his capacity to answer so Here's what we're gonna do next Sunday at every campus at every service Right here in this room There's gonna come a moment where the elders are gonna stand and take their places around the room and they're gonna have some oil with them

And we're gonna pray for the sick We're gonna do what Jesus did. We're gonna do what the early Christians did. We're gonna pray for the sick You need to come you have a sick friend or neighbor or a family member. You need to bring them We're gonna pray for the sick. Some of you are thinking. Yeah, but what if the prayer doesn't work prayer always works Prayer always works because prayer takes you into the presence of God and when you are in the presence of God something good is gonna happen God gives presence to people who Sometimes the presence of supernatural healing. James 5, go to your elders, be anointed and pray, and the prayer of faith will heal the sick. I believe someone's going to get healed next week. But then another blessing you get is supernatural peace. Philippians 4, don't worry about anything but in everything. With thanksgiving, take your petition to God, and the peace of God will guard your heart and mind. Some of you are going to get supernatural peace, supernatural grace. Paul said, I had a thorn in my flesh, I asked God to take it away three times. He said, I'm not going to, but here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to give you supernatural strength to redeem your suffering. And sometimes you get supernatural revelation. Paul got the word after he prayed to be healed. So prayer always works. God's going to do something supernatural. We just have to go and ask and wait for his gift. Sometimes he delivers us from it. Sometimes he delivers us through it. But followers know every time we should take it to a rabbi. So let me close with one more story. You might recall a couple years ago there was a case before the Supreme Court about praying on a football field. A football coach in Washington State was fired because after games he'd go down on the field, he would pray, players would join him. He didn't coerce them or tell them they had to, but critics said, that field belongs to the county, it's paid for by taxpayers, and we've had a long debate in our country. Is it appropriate to pray in taxpayer funded spaces? Well, the Supreme Court said he was unjustly fired and he got his job back. But it was just a few months later. And some of you might remember this. I'm watching a football game late in the football season, a big important game between the Buffalo Bills and the Cincinnati Bengals. And safety for the Bills, DeMar Hamlin tackled a player. And when he did, he stood up and after a second he fell down. Well, that happens in football, people get hurt. But then as we watched, we suddenly realized DeMar was not hurting. DeMar was dying. Something happened in that collision and it caused his heart literally to stop. CPR officials immediately began to administer aid, but it was very, very dire. And when his teammates became aware DeMar might die, they did what you would think they would do. They began to pray. And the whole nation is watching all this right in front, in live, right in front of our eyes. The game was stopped. Suddenly players from both teams just got out on the field and they just began to pray. And by the way, that field was owned by the county and funded by taxpayers and no one tried to stop them. The commentators of the game said, we send our thoughts and our prayers. People in the stands held up posters they made on the spot, pray for DeMar. They took him to a hospital and there was a prayer vigil of fans from both teams outside praying for DeMar. The most amazing thing to me, on ESPN, a commentator named Dan Orszewski, in front of an entire nation watching live, bowed his head on national TV and prayed for DeMar.

And the two colleagues at the desk with him, they bowed their heads and said amen when he was through and nobody complained. Because in that moment, when it's that desperate, we all know we need to pray. Church, that's who we need to be as apprentices of Jesus. That the first thing we do is we pray. That when people in our community get sick, the first thing they think is, I need to find some apprentices of Jesus. I need prayer. And we don't know what God's going to do. But we know what He's done. And so, we ask boldly. That's what we're going to do next Sunday. That's what we're going to do right now. Bow your head, please. In the powerful name of Jesus, we ask God that you would give us every blessing right now that Jesus wants us to have. That He purchased with His blood. I pray fear Him over every person in this room. That we will be released from anything the enemy is doing in our life. To keep us from thriving in our faith and in our joy. You're good God. You're sovereign. You know what's best. And we believe that when we come to you, you are going to either take away or you are going to redeem whatever it is we struggle with. Because Jesus has authority over all things. And the enemy cannot stop what he wants to do. So again, our prayer is that we receive today every single blessing Jesus wants us to have. And we ask for it in his name. Amen.