HEALING: Toward a Biblical Approach

Memorial Drive 7/19/20 FAITH AND HEALING: A Biblical Approach James 5:13-20 and Other Texts HEALING AND FAITH FORMULA TEACHING ... * What Is "Faith-Formula" Teaching? If you have ENOUGH FAITH you can/will be healed! God isn't much different than a genie in a bottle! People end up feeling GUILTY, ANGRY, or CONFUSED * What Is the Supposed "Biblical Foundation" For Faith-Formula Teaching? Matthew 17:19-20 If you have enough faith, you can move mountains! Matthew 21:20-22 If you have enough faith, you can move mountains! Everything you ask for in prayer, believing, you will receive! James 5:14-15a The prayer offered in faith will restore the one who is sick * How Are We to Respond To These Texts? o Understand That Faith IS Important To God and AT TIMES God Acts In Accordance With the Presence or the Lack of Faith Christ both rebukes and applauds for faith or lack of it Matthew 13:58 Sometimes God responded according to faith o Understand the NATURE of the Faith That Pleases God The faith that God calls us to and that pleases Him is a faith that is primarily directed NOT at an object or outcome but rather TOWARD a person, God Himself. Example of false teaching: Name It, Claim It! Positive & Negative Confession Philippians 2:26 Epaphroditus was SICK unto death! 2 Timothy 4:29 Paul left Trophimus SICK in Miletus! The faith that pleases God is faith NOT in THE OUTCOME I DESIRE but in GOD as the PERSON I SUBMIT MYSELF TO! It is not a faith that insists "My will be done!" but that reverently subjects itself to "Thy will be done!" I Peter 1:6-8 Real faith LOOKS AT God and LOVES HIM and is willing to REJOICE even in the fires of life! Matthew 8:5-10 A centurion understood that Jesus could speak and it would be done because He was under God's authority! Power from above doesn't come by "working up enough faith" to DEMAND anything! It comes with a submissive heart and a will more concerned with God's will than it's own. "Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner. For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself is doing ..." (Jn. 5:19-20) Luke 17:5-10 In response to the disciples wanting "more faith" Jesus reveals the secret of God-honoring, effective faith: SUBMISSION the master's will! "So you too, when you do all the things which are commanded you, say, 'We are unworthy slaves; we have done only that which we ought to have done.'" If that's YOUR attitude, and if GOD'S DESIRE is to include you in some work He's doing, then you'll HAVE the faith! You won't have to "work it up!" o Understand That Christ's Teaching On the Relationship Between FAITH and RESULTS Is Informed or Moderated By His Teaching On the Will of God "This is the confidence which we have before Him, THAT IF we ASK anything ACCORDING TO HIS WILL He hears us. And IF we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we KNOW that we have the requests which we have asked from Him." (I John 5:14-15) o Understand That There IS a Kind of "Faith" That Comes with Certitude There is a "faith unto salvation" - Ephesians 2:8-9 There is general, ongoing, "faith for daily living" kind of faith Heb. 11:6 There is also a special faith that is directed toward specific outcomes DESIRED BY and INITIATED BY God Himself I Corinthians 13:2 If I have faith to move mountains I Corinthians 12:9 The "spiritual gift" of faith Perhaps James 5;15 "THE prayer of faith" "This rather is faith to perform some extraordinary work, the kind of faith, in Jesus' terms, that can move mountains ... This special faith ... enables a believer to trust God to bring about certain things for which he or she cannot claim some divine promise recorded in Scripture ..." (Carson, Showing The Spirit: A Theological Exposition Of 1 Corinthians 12-14, 38-39). Is EVERY prayer for healing a response to God's having revealed His absolute intention to heal? Can we ALWAYS prayer "THE prayer of faith?" Should we obey James 5 and pray for healing with PRAYERS of faith? Should we leave the end result up to God? Should we allow the many abuses that surround healing keep us from praying for healing? 2