Reasons for Healing

God and Healing
Reasons for Healing

I. Introduction

A. “I didn’t receive the parenting I deserved—but God is sovereign, so I guess I got what I needed?”

This assumption comes from a common belief in many Christian circles: because God is sovereign, because He is all-powerful and in control, everything that happens must be part of His plan. Either He intended it, or at the very least, He allowed it as part of His hidden, mysterious plan yet to be revealed.

1. Does God always get what He wants?

B. Two Views of God’s Sovereignty

1. Blueprint Worldview: The perspective that God sovereignly designs, determines, and causes every event in history, and nothing happens outside His specific intent or control.

2. Warfare Worldview: The belief that while God is sovereign, He is in a real battle against evil, and not everything that happens is His will, but He works to redeem what the enemy meant for harm.

a. In a warfare worldview, God is not the author of evil—He is the redeemer of it!

II. Why Does God Heal?

A. God heals to destroy the works of the enemy.

1. What we see in Scripture is that everything in creation is, at least to some degree, currently out of sync with the Creator and oppressed by hostile powers.

a. God’s sovereignty is best understood as His power to overcome evil to further His pursuit and good intentions toward the creation He loves.

2. I John 3:8b (NIV) The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.

3. John 17:4 (NIV) “I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do.”

4. Luke 9:1-2 (NIV) ¹When Jesus had called the Twelve together, he gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases, ²and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal the sick.

5. John 14:12 (NIV) “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.”

B. To His message and His

1. John 10:37-38 (NIV) ³⁷”Do not believe me unless I do the works of my Father. ³⁸But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.”

2. Acts 2:22 (NIV) Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know.

3. John 20:21b (NIV) “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.”

4. Jesus didn’t come to only show us what God could do, He came to show us what God intends to do through us.

5. John 14:12 (NIV) “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.”

a. (Greater things than these …) Greater in scope and scale

C. To bring to Himself

1. John 11:1, 3-4 (NIV) ¹Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. ³So the sisters sent word to Jesus, “Lord, the one you love is sick.” ⁴When he heard this, Jesus said, “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.”

2. John 11:4 (NIV) “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.”

a. God didn’t cause the sickness, but He will use it to reveal His power, His love, and His identity through what He’s about to do.

3. What does it mean for God to be glorified through healing?

a. It means people see His goodness in action.

b. It means people are drawn to worship and awe.

i. Matthew 9:8a (NIV) When the crowd saw this, they were filled with awe; and they praised God….

c. It means God gets the final word.

4. Acts 3:12-13a (NIV) ¹²When Peter saw this, he said to them: “Fellow Israelites, why does this surprise you? Why do you stare at us as if by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk? ^13aThe God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus.”

a. Healing is not about our power or worthiness.

b. Healing glorifies Jesus, not us.

c. Our motive is love, not performance.

III. Conclusion