Introduction

James 5:13-18 ESV  Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise.  (14)  Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.  (15)  And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.  (16)  Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.  (17)  Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth.  (18)  Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit.

• You know something… the devil is a liar!
  • He comes to kill, steal, and destroy.
  • He has been wrecking lives since the garden of Eden.
    • He is like a child who didn’t get his way and now he is throwing the biggest hissy-fit tantrum the world has ever seen.
      • He knows he can’t win so he is going to try to spoil it for everybody else.
      • BUT I FOR ONE AM SICK OF IT.
      • I AM NOT HAVING IT ANY MORE.
      • SATAN YOU CAN’T HAVE ME.
        • SATAN YOU CAN’T HAVE MY FAMILY.
          • SATAN YOU CAN’T HAVE MY CHURCH.
            • WE ARE SAVED, WE ARE REDEEMED, WE ARE SANCTIFIED.
            • WE HAVE BEEN GIVEN POWER FROM ON HIGH.
            • WE HAVE ALL THE AUTHROITY OF CHRIST AND YOU, SATAN, YOU. HAVE. NOTHING.
• Church y’all need to know something… I am a Christian. That means I follow Christ, and all of His words…
  • That means that I believe in the Bible… ALL OF IT.
    • I believe in the parts that make me uncomfortable.
    • I believe in the parts that I don’t understand.
    • I believe in God’s word more than any man’s word.
      • So when you come to me with a word that contradicts the word of God, and I have to chose who the liar is… I am going to chose YOU…
      • Romans 3:4 says “Let God be true and every man be a Liar”
• Let’s correct some lies that the enemy has been spreading in the body of Christ about healing.
  • Let’s correct some lies that the enemy has been spreading about sin and sickness.
  • Let’s correct the lies of the enemy so that only the truth of God prevails. Amen?!

Point One –  God’s Job is to Heal

• Point one is “God’s Job is to heal”
  • We have three points this morning, and it is going to be a firehose of information, because I believe the Lord has need of this all being in one sermon… The three points are this:
  • 1) God’s Job is to heal
  • 2) Your Job is to pray
  • 3) Your Job is to Praise
  • So let’s get into point one, God’s Job is to Heal… God’s will is for you to be health. God did not come to Steal, Kill and Destroy, but God came to give LIFE and LIFE more abundantly.
• Now I don’t want to hit you with my logic and my opinions this morning… no I want to give you the Word of God… let God be true and every man a liar.
  • Hear from the Word of God church, because this subject may be a hot button issue for some…
    • It may make you uncomfortable.
    • And you may not agree with ME on all of it… But please, agree with the Word of God… because we are Christians, we believe the Bible.
      • Now for this point there is going to be so many slides and scripture, you can find the slides latter this week on our website CedarRapidsChurch.com or you can take photo’s as we go, but I suspect you won’t have time to write them all down…
      • Let’s get into it, it is God’s Job to Heal… it is God’s will to heal.
• Health was Natural and eternal before the fall of Mankind.
  • Genesis 1:26-31; Genesis 2:1
    • I think we can all agree that there was no sickness in the garden of Eden… this means that God’s original and eternal plan was for man to be healthy eternally.
• Both death and Sickness originated with sin.
  • Romans 5:12-21
    • Romans 5:12 says very clearly that death, and by implication sickness, came into the world because of Adam’s sin.
    • Before sin, there was no death, there was no disease.
• Satan, not God, is the propagator of sickness.
  • Job 2:6-7, Luke 13:16, John 10:10, Acts 10:38, 1 John 3:8
    • Luke 13:16 says Satan binds people with sickness.
    • John 10:10 says the devil comes to kill and destroy
    • Acts 10:38 says Jesus healed all… but not just all… but all who were OPRESSED by the devil.
• The First Prophecy and promise of Redemption included healing.
  • Genesis 3:15, Isaiah 53:5, Matthew 8:16-17, 1 Peter 2:24
    • The first prophecy recorded in scripture is Genesis 3:15 in which God says to Satan “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall crush your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”
    • Now you pair that with Isaiah and Matthew and Peter…
      • Isaiah 53:5 ESV  But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.
      • 1 Peter 2:24 ESV  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.
    • Look the first prophecy EVER recorded in scripture was that Satan would bruise the heal of Jesus. Meaning he would have Jesus beaten and killed… but that Jesus would rise again.
      • But listen church… connect that with Isaiah… by your stripes we have been healed.
      • By the bruise that Satan gave our savior we find healing! That is the first prophecy church, HEALING is a part of it!
• All throughout Scripture God has made promises to heal His people.
  • Exodus 15:26, Exodus 23:23-25,  Psalm 91:1-16, Proverbs 3:1-8, Isaiah 53:5, Mathew 8:17, 1 Peter 2:24, James 5:14
    • God does not want His people who are walking faithfully with Him to be sick. If we obey God, if we follow after God, and because of the blood of the Lamb that makes us right we God… we are healed… Scripture is clear on this.
• Christ Came to Redeem from both sin and sickness.
  • Isaiah 53:1-12, Matthew 8:17, Matthew 9:5, Galatians 3:13, Romans 8:11, Acts 10:38, 1 Peter 2:24, Matthew 13:15
    • One of my favorite things that Jesus said was when He told the paralyzed man “Your sins are forgiven” and the pharisees got angry at Him and Jesus responded “What is harder to say “Your sins are forgiven” or “Rise and walk”?
      • And then He was like “Get up, take your bed, and go home” and the paralyzed man was healed… Jesus was literally making the point “If I can heal your sickness, then I can forgive your sins”. That brings me to my next point…
• Jesus proved His divinity by healing the sick.
  • Matthew 4:23-24, Mattew 11:3-6, Luke 4:16-21, Acts 10:38, 1 John 3:8
    • You see so many times we think of healing as a “me centered” gift.
    • But that is not how Jesus saw it… Jesus wasn’t just healing His family and His friends and His church… HE WAS HEALING ALL SORTS OF PEOPLE… why?
      • Because God heals! And when Jesus healed it proved He was God.
      • The physical healings lead to spiritual healings… And this isn’t what the sermon is about… but we would do well to see healing as an Evangelistic gift… using it to heal others that they might know that Christ is God.
• Part of the reason the Holy Spirit was sent was to empower us to heal.
  • Acts 1:1-8, Acts 2:33, 1 Corinthians 12:1-31, Hebrews 2:3-4
    • Is the Holy Spirit not God?
    • Was the Holy Spirit not sent to endue us with power?
    • Is not part of that power, according to 1 Corinthians 12 to provide miraculous gifts of healing?
• So throughout the scriptures we see God the Father healing, we see God the Son healing, and we see God the Holy Spirit healing.
  • Healing is prophesied.
  • Healing is promised.
  • Healing is given.
    • Now of course healing is not the most important thing in scripture… God being glorified eternally through the salvation of man by the blood of the Lamb is the most important theme of Scripture.
      • But non-the-less if you are a Bible believing Christian you MUST believe that God heals. That God cares about healing. And that God continues to heal today.
• It is God’s Job to heal… In fact one of the Names of God is Jehovah Rapha, the LORD WHO HEALS.
• IT IS GOD’S JOB TO HEAL… Now this is important to note, because if it is God’s Job to heal, then it means it is not our Job to heal…
  • So then, what is our Job? Our Job is to pray…
    • Point One this morning: God’s Job is to Heal.
    • Point Two: Your Job is to Pray.

Point Two – Your Job is to Pray

James 5:13-14 ESV  Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise.  (14)  Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.

• Is any among you suffering? Let Him pray.
  • Is any among you sick… let Him call for the Elders of the church and let them pray.

Hebrews 4:16 NKJV  Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

• Pray for the sick… ask the elders to pray… come boldly before the throne of God.

Matthew 7:7-8 ESV  “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.  (8)  For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.

• Ask, seek, knock… boldly before the throne… pray… ask for prayer.

Philippians 4:6 ESV  do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

• IN ALL THINGS… ask, seek, knock… come boldly before the throne… with prayer and supplication…
• You see church, God’s Job is to heal, our Job is to pray…
  • Our job is to be the persistent widow who doesn’t give up asking and seeking and knocking and praying.
  • Our Job is to stretch ourselves over the child three times and pray for healing.
  • Our Job is to be like Peter who prayed for Tabithia to be raised from the dead.
  • Our Job is to be like Paul who laid hands on and prayed for the father of Publius in Acts 28 that he may be healed.
    • IT IS OUR JOB TO PRAY… IT IS GOD’S JOB TO HEAL!
      • STOP ACTING LIKE IT IS WITHIN OUR POWER TO HEAL… WE ARE NOT GOD… But God lives in us.
    • But pastor the Scripture tells us to go and heal the sick… does that not mean that we have the power to heal?
      • NO IT DOES NOT. It does not mean that we have the power to heal, but that we have the RESPONSIBILITY to heal.
      • Let me say that again. We, as redeemed human beings do not have the power to heal, not in and off ourselves… but we have the responsibility to heal.
        • Now follow with me… because that statement by itself could be heritical… you need to hear all of this…
• Let me explain it with this horrifying modern example…
  • Maui is on fire… right… and I saw in the news something horrifying…
  • Dash cam video of a car full of young men fleeing the fires…
    • They are slowly driving, surrounded by smoke…
    • And then they break out into celebration… they can see the end of the fire… the end of the smoke… just ahead… they have almost made it…
      • Then the horror… they see a woman face down on the road… barely moving…
      • The cars in front of them are all driving around her.
      • The men in the car say “There is nothing we can do for her now” as they drive around her… leaving her to die just a few hundred feet from the end of the smoke.
    • Now I don’t know if that woman died or lived… but I know this… those men had the RESPOSIBILITY to save that womans life.
      • They could have EASILY stopped and pulled her into the car and driven her to the hospital.
  • Now none of them are doctors, grant it… BUT THEY KNOW WHERE THE DOCTORS ARE AND THEY HAVE THE POWER TO GET HER TO THE DOCTORS.
    • If they got her to the hospital and she still died… Fine… they filled their role.
      • But as it is, her blood is on their hands.
• I remember once, shortly after Hannah was born, Amanda had high blood pressure issues.
  • So much so that I had to learn how to manually take her blood pressure.
  • And one evening she had a bad headache so I took her blood pressure… and it was high… really high…
    • It was so high that when I called the doctor he said “Get her to the hospital NOW! There is no time to wait for an ambulance… get her in the car, get to the hospital… ignore speed limits and don’t stop for red lights if you can safely go through them. THERE IS NO TIME! GET HERE THERE”.
      • Now in that moment, in one sense, I did not have the power to save my wife’s life.
      • I did not have the medical expertise, I did not have the medicine or the equipment… under my power she would likely die…
      • But in another sense I did have the power to save her life… because I could get her to the healer… I could get her to the hospital… and that I did. I got her to where the healers could heal her.
        • And if she would have died in that hospital it certainly would not have been on me to explain.
• So yes, in ONE sense you have the power to heal… in that you have the POWER to come boldly before the throne of Grace… to petition JEHOVA Rapha… to bring the patient to the hospital.
  • But ultimately it is God who does the healing.
    • That is why I say you don’t have the power to heal but the responsibility to heal… because you are responsible to pray to the God who heals.
    • And in that sense, yes you have the power to heal… but ultimately it is not you who is doing the healing… but God.
• BUT PASTOR! Why are some people not healed when a righteous man prays for them?!
  • This is a silly question… I am going to try to answer it… but it is a silly question.
    • WHY IS IT A SILLY QUESTION?! Because that question is outside of our responsibility… that question is outside of our job description.
    • Remember it is God’s job to heal, it is our job to pray.
      • SO YOU FOCUS ON YOUR JOB AND YOU LET GOD DO HIS JOB.
  • Now, again this isn’t what the sermon is about this morning… but the Bible does reveal some reason people don’t get healed…
    • You may not get healed because your prayer is not a prayer of faith…
      • The solution to that is to pray “Lord I believe, help me in my unbelief”
      • And if you can’t even pray that prayer… the prayer that says “God I am going to take you at your Word… and even though my flesh does not believe, I BELIEVE… so help me in my unbelief… Because if you said it I am going to believe it…
        • If you can’t pray that prayer, Lord I believe, help me in my unbelief… then you have bigger issues than sickness or suffering… because you are saying God is a liar who can’t be trusted.
        • LORD I BELIVE… I BELIEVE YOUR WORD… I BELIVE IN YOUR POWER… I KNOW YOU CAN HEAL… I BELIEVE BUT MY FLESH WANTS ME TO DOUBT… LORD I BELIEVE HELP ME IN MY UNBELIEFE.
      • Faith is the vehicle that brings our prayers to God… if my wife needs to go to the hospital by my vehicle is in disrepair… I have issues!
    • So one reason people don’t get healed is because of sickness.
  • Another reason people don’t get healed is because of sin.
    • The Bible talks about sin almost like it is a freeway… and one direction leads to God and the other direction leads to hell…
      • This is why Christians are called to repent… that word literally means “TURN AROUND”.
      • When you are sinning you are driving the wrong way on the free way… TURN AROUND.
        • If my wife needs to go to the hospital, I actually need to drive TOWARDS the Hospital.
      • And so many of us are driving toward our sin and away from God… and we are trying to bring ourselves or others to God to get healed BUT WE ARE GOING THE WRONG DIRECTION.

John 9:31 ESV  We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, God listens to him.

• God does not hear the prayers of the wicked… You know what that verse is in reference to? HEALING OF A BLIND MAN.
  • The guy who said this was blind, and Jesus healed Him… he was telling the Pharisees that God does not listen to sinner… therefore the Man who healed him (Jusus) must be from God.
  • So if you are in sin, don’t be surprised if your prayers are not answered… but there is a solution…

James 5:15-16 ESV  And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.  (16)  Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.

• If you are born again and you are in sin, it is so important to CONFESS your sins to one another…
  • Praying in secret is good, asking God for forgiveness is good… but the Bible also tells us to Confess… don’t ignore that part of scripture… you need to call your discipler up… or an elder… or a deacon… or a mature believe you know well… or even a pastor… and CONFES your sins… there is power in the tongue… POWER TO BREAK CHAINS…
  • Confess, repent… get right with God… THEN PRAY. It is our Job to pray.
• Now there are other reason people don’t get healed…
  • The saw of sowing and reaping… demonic influence that needs to be dealt with…
  • And frankly, sometimes people don’t get healed and I don’t have an answer for why they don’t get healed.
    • But my ways are not God’s ways.
    • My thoughts are not His thoughts.
    • AND MY JOB IS NOT HIS JOB.
      • MY JOB IS TO PRAY. GOD’S JOB IS TO HEAL.
        • I am going to do my Job and I am going to let God do His job… amen?
        • And I am not going to tell God how to do His job…
        • I am sure I will understand it all one day in heaven… but right now my job is to pray.
          • Like Elijah, a man just like you an me, prayed for rain… I am going to pray for healing.

James 5:17-18 ESV  Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth.  (18)  Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit.

• I want to close this sermon by clearing up one final misconception: Praying for healing is something ALL believers should be doing and have the authority and power to do…
  • It is not just for elders and pastors… though elders are granted special authority in James.
• The power (and responsibility) to pray for, receive, and help others receive healing is promised to every believer, not only the elders of the church.
  • Matthew 17:20, Matthew 21:22; Mark 9:23, Mark 11:22-24, Mark 16:15-20, John 14:12-15, John 16:23-26
  • I think the most clear of these verses, that power to pray for and receive healing is for all believers, is  John 14:12-14
• John 14:12-14 ESV  “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father.  (13)  Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.  (14)  If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.
  • WHOEVER BELIEVES IN ME ALSO DOES THE WORK THAT I DO.
    • Jesus healed… and He healed a lot. This is for ALL BELIEVERS Y’ALL…
      • It is our Job to Pray, and God’s Job to heal… now let’s conclude by practicing what we preach…

Conclusion – Praise And call fourth healing

James 5:13 ESV  Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise.

• It is not only our job to pray, but is it our job to praise… so the worship team is going to come up and lead us in some praise… tell God thank you for all He has done for you. Glorify him this morning… and if any of you are sick… why don’t you come down to the front so we can pray for you.
• Pray over sick…

Aaronic Blessing