A Sermon for Flinders Park Church June 2018
About sixteen years ago, my oldest daughter got glandular fever. This is nothing strange since many teenagers get glandular fever. But she did not seem to get better. Months went by in which she had many days and weeks off school because she was too tired to get up and get dressed. After an entire school term in which she slept 16 hours a day we were very worried. She was admitted to PMH and they did some tests. The conclusion was that she had something wrong, perhaps chronic fatigue. She went to PMH again the next year. Still no solution to the problem. We prayed and yet Izzy was still exhausted and could barely get to school. I even had a pastor come to our house and anoint her with oil. After several years we found a doctor who helped a lot. But after 16 years of chronic fatigue the symptoms are still present, even if they are not nearly as bad as they were to start with.
Before this happened I assumed that if a Christian got sick all that was needed is prayer and God would heal. And yet Izzy has not been healed, even to this day. I know many Christians expect to be healed every time and some people in this church believe that we are all healed and just need to believe that. Yet the truth is something different. I can say this not just because of my own experience, but because the Bible does not promise that Christians will never be sick. The Bible does not promise that we will always be healed. There are many godly people in the Bible who were sick and did not get healed.
Let’s consider a few. 2 Kings 13:14 mentions, “Now Elisha had been suffering from the illness from which he died.” Elisha was a powerful prophet who healed a man of leprosy (2 Kings 5) and raised a boy from the dead (2 Kings 4). Why did he not simply heal himself from that particular illness? Why did he not pray in faith for healing? Because even godly people can get sick and not be healed.
In the New Testament there are further examples. Paul wrote to Timothy and told him, “Stop drinking only water, and use a little wine because of your stomach and your frequent illnesses” (1 Tim 5:23). If there were a promise of God that Christians would always be healed, then why did Paul not remind Timothy to claim his healing in the name of Jesus? Later he wrote to Timothy again, saying, “Erastus stayed in Corinth, and I left Trophimus sick in Miletus” (2 Tim 4:20). Paul was an apostle who did extraordinary miracles (Acts 11:19) and healed many people who were sick (e.g., Acts 28:8). Yet he did not heal Trophimus. Why not? Perhaps he could not because it was not the will of God. In his letter to the Philippians, Paul informed them that Epaphroditus became so ill taking care of Paul’s needs that he nearly died. God had mercy on Epaproditus and he did not die (Phil 2:25-27), but there is no indication that Paul healed him.
Paul himself mentions his own illnesses on at least two occasions. He told the Galatian church, “As you know, it was because of an illness that I first preached the gospel to you, and even though my illness was a trial to you, you did not treat me with contempt or scorn. Instead, you welcomed me as if I were an angel of God, as if I were Christ Jesus himself” (Gal 4:13-14). Many people think that there was something wrong with Paul’s eyes because he went on to say, “I can testify that, if you could have done so, you would have torn out your eyes and given them to me” (Gal 4:15b). The fact that he was sick was a catalyst to the salvation of many people. It did not make Paul ashamed or mark him out as someone with no faith. It was simply part of his life as an apostle and servant of Christ.
The second example is Paul’s thorn in the flesh. At the end of 2 Corinthians Paul explains why his ministry is genuine. He has great revelations from the Lord and yet he said, “Even if I should choose to boast, I would not be a fool, because I would be speaking the truth. But I refrain, so no one will think more of me than is warranted by what I do or say, or because of these surpassingly great revelations. Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me” (2 Cor. 12:6-12).
Paul had some kind of affliction. The exact nature of his affliction is not stated, but most people believe that it was some kind of illness. This mighty man of God pleaded with the Lord to take this sickness away from him and yet Jesus said ‘no’. It is not because Paul had no faith that he was not healed. He was not healed because Jesus chose to use this sickness for his purposes.
Although we all want to have healing for our illnesses and bodily issues, it is a fact that God does not heal every person every time. The truth is that many people in the Bible were sick and were not healed. We cannot demand healing. We can pray and ask in faith with the expectation that our God is able to heal and he is merciful towards us. However, there is no promise in the Bible that every sickness will be healed. Our hope is not in being healed every time but in the ultimate healing of the body that comes in the resurrection of the dead. Sometimes sickness and disease come and stay.
Christians can get sick and often do not get better. Now I want to consider this reality from two directions. The first thing I want to consider is what happens when there is an expectation that everyone will get healed every time as long as we have faith.
There are some reasons why it is a bad idea to insist that every Christian will be healed every time. The first issue has to do with faith and sin. Possibly the most famous sick man in the Bible is Job. Satan told God that Job would surely lose his faith if he were sick. So Satan afflicted Job with painful sores all over his body (Job 2:1-10). Job’s friends soon began to offer explanations as to why Job was sick. Surely he had sinned and God was punishing him for his sin. All he had to do to be healed, according to these friends, was to repent of his sin. After all, all righteous people are always healthy and financially blessed (e.g., Job 4:7; 8:5-7). Or at least that was their assumption. If we assume that people are always healed then someone must be to blame if a person stays sick. Condemnation often follows. There is either an explicit condemnation or an underlying assumption that the person is in sin. Then instead of offering compassion or help, other people spend too much effort trying to root out the sin which supposedly caused the illness.
The second problem when we assume that God always heals people with faith is that a person who is not healed seems to lack faith. The person who is sick has no need of extra stress placed there by Christians who insist on praying again and again for healing and exhorting others to have faith. Faith does not always result in healing. But those who are sick can exhibit great faith. When you are unwell constantly or in pain you must hold tight to Jesus and trust that he is at work and that he will be your strength. That is faith.
Thirdly, it is easy to utter a declaration over someone that he is she is healed. This does not require much except words. It is much harder to put in the effort to be a support person. The person who is sick needs practical support: chores done, transport to doctor’s appointments, gardening, dinner cooked or errands run. This takes time and effort. The sick person needs to be supported in prayer, to have visitors who will just sit and listen, to be loved in the midst of their pain. Declarations of healing do not provide any of these kinds of support. Nor is the family of the person who has died helped by statements that more faith would have healed their loved one. I have heard people say this sort of thing and it only adds to people’s pain and grief. God is a God of comfort, not a God who seeks to condemn his children.
Another issue arises when the person everyone is assuming will be healed dies. This can devastate people. Insisting to the last that the person will be healed when that is clearly not the case only weakens the faith of the church. It does not strengthen it. Instead of insisting on healing, let us seek out the will of God and actually listen to him. G has terminal cancer and he will die. A needs our support now and in the future. It does not help anyone to insist that G will not die. He is going to Jesus. We will be sad but he will be in glory. We must not just cling so tightly that we are unprepared for the day that he leaves us.
From a more positive perspective, it is important to have eyes to see what God is doing through an illness. If you assume that everyone will be healed every time then the work of God will be ignored. The will of God will not be heard. God is bigger than we think. Putting him in a box that demands healing every time diminishes God and is a way of us trying to control him. Instead of asking him what he is doing in the situation you end up persistently ignoring any value that may come from the time of illness and weakness.
So what does God do in the midst of people being sick and not being healed? Let’s go back to Paul’s thorn in the flesh. Instead of healing Paul, Jesus said to him, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor 12:9a). Paul responded, “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor 12:9b-10).
The word translated “weakness” in this passage is often used of sicknesses. It can also mean other kinds of weakness. Once Jesus had given him a definite ‘no’ to his prayer to take away his problem, Paul did not lament about the fact that he was sick. He did not confess his healing. Instead, he rejoiced and even boasted about being weak. This seems quite contrary to logic and yet it is not contrary to the gospel. There are some powerful promises in this passage.
When we are weak, “Christ’s power rests” on us. What does this mean? The word translated as “rests” only appears in this verse in the New Testament. However, it is connected to some other words. The basic root of the word means “tent” and is the word often used of the tabernacle in the Old Testament. Jesus is the Word who became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). Dwelt might be translated as tabernacled. He is God who makes a physical body his tent so that he can dwell among us. Revelation 7:15 also uses a similar word. It speaks of God sheltering his people with his presence, or more literally God spreads a tent over them. So the idea of Christ’s power resting on us in our weakness might be expressed as Jesus covering us with his power or causing his power to dwell in us.
Our weakness gives room for God’s strength. We need to be stripped of our own ability and power before we can experience the power of Christ working in and through us. There is nothing like having a long-term illness to do this for you. You can no longer rely on your own reserves of strength to get you through the day. You must rely on the grace of God. Strength in weakness is utterly in keeping with the gospel. In 1 Corinthians Paul writes, “For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength” (1 Cor 1:25). So Paul can conclude, “For when I am weak, then I am strong (2 Cor 12:10b).
Aside from God making his power manifest in our weakness, God has other purposes in our experience of illness. God had a sanctifying purpose in Paul’s thorn. Paul had many amazing revelations from the Holy Spirit. He insists, “Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me” (2 Cor 12:7). God may well have a sanctifying purpose in your bodily illness. He is far more concerned with making us into the likeness of Christ (Rom 8:29) than he is in making our lives easy.
As we saw earlier (Gal 4:13-15), God had a purpose Paul’s poor eyesight that included the salvation of many in Galatia. Who are we to say that God is unable to use the weaknesses of our bodies for his purposes and his glory? What if you being sick and not healed results in a long visit to hospital where you can proclaim the gospel to someone there who would not hear the gospel otherwise? What if the patience and love you display when you are sick makes others wonder how that is possible? Then you can testify to the work of Jesus in your life. What if you do not see what God is doing in your sickness but you trust him through it anyway?
The danger of always insisting that everyone will be healed every time is that we will miss out on seeing what God is doing, both now and in the future. Our thinking is very short-term. We want immediate fixes for our problems. But God does not think that way. He is eternal. He makes known the end from the beginning (Isa 46:10). He wants something far greater for us than our immediate happiness. So being sick and not being healed is one means by which he transforms our humanity into something wonderful. The body may not be healed but the person and the church may be transformed into someone who trusts and knows the living God. Our growth into the likeness of Christ cannot happen without this trust. Faith is not always about believing for healing. Sometimes faith is believing God when there is no healing.