Rev. David Holwick
First Baptist Church
West Lafayette, Ohio
September 29, 1985
Spiritual Healing
Luke 4:14-21, NIV
My message today is on spiritual pain.
It takes many forms and disguises and everyone experiences it to some extent. Some spiritual pain is in the form of psychological problems. A recent survey found that one out of five Americans can be considered mentally ill. That sounds like an awfully high figure but you come into contact with many of these people every day and don't know it. The most common type of mental illness is depression. Everyone gets depressed every once in awhile. But some people let depression ruin their lives. They tune themselves out so completely it affects their jobs, relationships and physical health.
Other people are crippled by guilt. Dr. James Dobson tells of a woman who was walking on a sidewalk toward a busy intersection with her three-year-old daughter. The little toddler ran ahead and stopped on the curb until her mother told her it was safe to cross. "Can I go now, Mommy?" The woman was thinking about something else but nodded in approval. So her little girl ran into the street and was struck full-force by a semi-trailer truck. The mother watched in horror as the wheels crushed her precious child. The hysterical woman, screaming in anguish, ran to the road and gathered the remains of the child in her arms. This mother will never escape the guilt of that moment. The tape-recording in her mind has replayed it a million times. No one would blame her but she cannot forgive herself.
The average person does not associate depression, fear and guilt with spiritual pain. We think of them as just emotional problems. But emotional problems are a good barometer of what our spiritual relationship with God is like. God wants us to be contented and well adjusted and if this isn't the case, he wants to do something about it.
Our passage in Luke 4 shows how important this was to Jesus. It takes place at the very beginning of his ministry, right after his temptation in the wilderness. Verse 14 says it was the Sabbath and Jesus was attending the synagogue worship service. Synagogues had spiritual leaders but these leaders did not preach at every service. The messages were usually given by someone in the congregation. Sometimes the person was chosen and other times the person felt led by God to do it.
On this particular Sabbath, it was Jesus who read the scripture and gave the sermon. Verse 17 says he was given the book of Isaiah to read and he opened it to a particular passage. Some of you have difficulties looking up Bible references. I can tell because whenever I tell you to look something up, a number of you go to the wrong testament, flip some pages and look up contentedly. You don't know how easy you have it. Jesus did not have a book - he had a scroll. The Isaiah scroll found in the Dead Sea caves is twenty-four feet long. So Jesus picked up the heavy handles and twirled his way to Chapter 61. When he got there he read:
"The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted...."
When he finished reading, he sat down. Not because he was done but because that is how Jews preached. His sermon was as short as they come - "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing."
Isaiah 61 is a great prophecy about the coming Messiah. It doesn't talk about military conquests or how he will come to earth with power and great glory. The Messiah of this prophecy comes to help hurting people. The descriptions are very powerful: they are poor, brokenhearted, captive, blind and bruised. It is obvious these are spiritual conditions. And unless God is finished with you, every human being is described here.
This doesn't mean everyone wants to admit it. No matter how bad we are hurting inside we put up a strong front to the world. In seminary I spent some time as a hospital chaplain. One floor I worked on had a high percentage of terminal patients. Some had cancer, others had severe heart problems. Despite their desperate conditions very few of these people let on that they were scared. They talked about their medications and treatments and the hospital food but rarely talked about what was really on their minds. It was only towards the very end that some of them would let down the barriers and share their pain with their loved ones. Maybe they wanted to spare them but I found that the families always treasured the opportunity to be open about their feelings.
Spiritual distress is a lot like physical and emotional pain. We often don't admit it exists until we hit rock bottom. This is why many "good people" aren't Christians. Their lives are not perfect like God wants them to be but they are better off than everyone else around them. This lends to a false sense of spiritual security, the kind that Pharisees had. They could not admit their spiritual deficiencies, so they rejected what Jesus had to say. At one point the Pharisees criticized Jesus for working with notorious sinners and the outcasts of society. Jesus response was:
"Jesus answered them, 'It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.'" (Luke 5:31-32)
The first step in getting right with God is admitting we need a doctor. We cannot save ourselves. To be saved, we have to admit to God that we are spiritually poor, we are captives to our weaknesses and only he can mend our hearts.
Jesus Christ is God's only solution for spiritual pain. $100,000 invested in psychiatric sessions can definitely help you emotionally, for a time anyway, but it cannot save your soul. Salvation is a therapy only Jesus can perform. The Bible teaches that salvation is instantaneous: the moment you believe in your heart, God accepts you. The healing takes much longer.
This is the reason God established the church. You might think that churches only exist to raise money, put up new buildings and keep the attendance up. We get distracted by these things but they are all secondary. The primary purpose for the church is to be a caring community. Hurting people come in, they are accepted, forgiven and encouraged to grow in the grace of God. It's no secret that hurting people and outcasts are attracted to Christian fellowship. They see it as an opportunity to get rid of loneliness and deal with their spiritual struggles.
But what often happens? The church fails. We don't mind if messed-up people come in but they'd better straighten up quick. We let people know pretty soon that the church is for those who have arrived, not for those who are trying to get there.
As far as I am concerned, this is where hypocrisy comes in. Hypocrisy is not just when someone acts perfect, when they're really messing around. Hypocrisy is putting on a mask that says you are contented but in reality you are miserable. It's the kind of mask that prevents you from experiencing healing.
Spiritual healing can take a lot of forms. Even guilt can be part of a healing process. The Bible sets very clear standards for behavior and if we break them we should feel guilty. Guilt should guide us back to God so we can straighten up. But guilt can also be destructive. Some people feel so guilty about the past they cannot function in the present. They become captives of their sin. To such people, Luke 4:18 says, Jesus offers deliverance. (In the NIV it is translated "release" and is the same Greek word that is normally translated "forgiveness.") Jesus wants to set us free from the baggage of false expectations and phony illusions. He wants to make you real.
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Typed on April 13, 2005, by Sharon Lesko of Ledgewood Baptist Church, New Jersey
Copyright © 2024 by Rev. David Holwick
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