Matthew 14:34-36 The One Who Heals

You're listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsak takes us through his series on the book of Matthew called

Not Your Average Savior. Let's listen in. Well, good morning, Recast Church.

I'm Don Filsak. I'm the lead pastor here, and we're going to go ahead and get started. So if those of you that are out in the hallway could find your seats, that would be great.

I'm pleased to welcome you to this gathering of Recast Church this morning, and a special welcome to those of you that are here for the first time.

I recognize that sometimes it can be a little bit weird or strange to visit a new place, so my hope and prayer for you is that you find this place to be friendly and you feel welcomed here this morning, and be sure to help yourself to coffee, coffee juice, or donuts.

Those are all free, and they're here for everybody, so take advantage of that. I have some good news to report on the progress of the building.

Many of you know that we're in the process of building, and you've given to some degree to that expansion fund. There were a lot of volunteers out there yesterday helping

Bruce French lead the charge on planting the lawn out there, and moving rocks and wood chips and all kinds of stuff, so that's been an ongoing process.

It wasn't just yesterday. Bruce has been giving a lot of his time out there, and again, crews getting together. And a huge praise, and I don't know if you've been praying about this,

I've asked for it, and that is that the drywall is now hung, so we can praise God for that. It was a long process to get that done, but it is all up on the walls now, and the mudders are in there, and they're working, and they expect about two to three more weeks of mudding and finishing that drywall, about another week to paint, and another few weeks to finish the work.

That'll be, you know, the finished work for plumbing, electrical floors, trim, all of that kind of stuff. And I think it's likely, again,

I'm just shooting kind of a date out there, and I think it's likely that we'll be in there before Thanksgiving at this point, so we hope to get occupancy pretty quick and be able to get in there.

So please continue to pray for God's timing and all of that. And just to clarify, we have this facility that we're meeting in right now as long as we need, and we also have the office space available through the end of November if we need it, and so just continue to be thankful and praise

God for that. We are not up against any hard stops as far as timing goes, and we continue on here as long as we need.

So I'm just grateful that this has panned out the way that it has, really, and God's planning, the way that he has organized this originally.

Just to clarify to all of you, the superintendent told me that we needed to be out of here at the end of July.

Now, that's a while ago, right? Like it seems like the summer went pretty fast, but all of a sudden it's

September, and we would have been out for a few weeks already. So I'm rejoicing that God has been so gracious at orchestrating things to allow us to stay here during the delays on the building, just kind of demonstrating to us that what appears to our eyes to be a delay is not a delay in his eyes, and he was planning for us all along to be able to stay here,

I think, for nothing other than to build our patience and get us to a point where we're eager and enthusiastic for the next things that he has for us.

So I'm praising God for the crew, by the way, that helps us to set up this place every week.

It's probably been, to some degree, a little bit disheartening. If you can put yourself in their shoes, they've been doing this for about three plus years, setting up and tearing down every week, and then we were like, oh yeah,

July will be the last month that you're doing that, and now we're going a couple more months. So just continue to help out.

I just appreciate the many hands that make light work, and if you're able to arrive early at any

Sunday, let us know. There's a place to sign up for that online, and you can check with the welcome table about that if you can come and help that setup process, and then stay after, put up chairs.

That's really great. So grateful for all of that. This morning, we're going to be continuing on in Matthew chapter 14, and our text comes on the heels of Jesus doing some amazing miracles that we've seen the last couple of weeks.

He fed 5 ,000 people, remember, with five dinner rolls and two small fish, an amazing feat that he accomplished there, demonstrating his power to provide.

Then last week, we saw him walk on water and calm the storm, and this week, we pick up right where we left off with the disciples and Jesus still in the boat in the calm sea after he has walked on water out to them and got in the boat with Peter and taught him some things about faith in the process.

And we're going to now take in another miracle. Jesus is going to heal many in an area on the west side of the

Sea of Galilee called Gennesaret, and I want to be clear that there are 31 times in the

Gospels, 31 distinct different now the gospel writers record the same event sometimes, but 31 distinct times that Jesus heals someone and it is recorded for us in the

Gospels. Sometimes that healing is just generic in general, like a large group like we're going to see here.

We don't even hear a specific instance of him healing a specific disease or interacting with an individual, but we see a large group.

Sometimes it was quite personal and he sat down and talked with somebody about it. Sometimes he used actions to heal people.

He would, at one point we know, it just kind of seems strange to us, but he spit in the mud and then mixed that together and then put it on a guy's eyes who was blind and he was healed.

Sometimes he told them to go down to the river and wash to take action. Sometimes he healed people without discussion.

Sometimes he healed them with discussions. Sometimes he healed from a distance.

Sometimes he prayed to heaven first. Sometimes he had discussions about faith and lessons about his ability,

God -ordained ability to forgive sins, like the man who was lowered through the roof and he used the healing as an example of that.

So when we come to this short text, it's easy to skip over it as a more generic passage about healing that almost looks like filler to our eyes.

I think that if you're reading through the Bible in a year, these three verses wouldn't stand out to you and be like, bam, over the head with, yeah,

Jesus healed. How many of you knew that Jesus healed people? So it would be very easy to look at this text and go, Jesus healed people, okay, let's move on to the next point.

And when we come to a short text like this, it would be very easy to see it, just skip over it. As a matter of fact, one commentary that I've been reading for this sermon series, usually when

I'm preparing, I go through my study and I study the text and come to my own conclusions and then

I check myself with commentaries and I'm usually reading three or four scholars on the text and one of those commentaries that I'm reading through for the book of Matthew skips this passage entirely, which was shocking to me.

I haven't had that happen in eight years of preaching. I've never seen a commentary skip over and not even mention a passage of scripture and this is one that wasn't even mentioned in this one commentary.

A commentary by a guy, by the way, that is a scholar who is trusted, who is a great individual. Many of you in the room might even recognize his name if I mentioned it.

Not a mention, not a comment, not even a nod to these three verses' existence. Just kind of like, all of this material is covered somewhere else.

It's kind of the mindset, I think, that this guy had, but I'm not going to skip it because here we find certainly some things that we already knew, like Jesus is the divine healer.

But, we already knew that, I think you came in here and you knew that Jesus can heal, right? Raise your hand if you knew that, you had that notion, he can heal.

But we can also learn something of a model in the way that the people of Gennesar responded to him that I think is the reason that Matthew records it for us.

He wants us to respond in a way to Jesus that these guys demonstrate for us. And we further learn something about Jesus by the way that he chooses to heal here in our text.

So let's open your Bibles, if you're not already there, to Matthew 14. It's just 34 through 36, again, a short passage, but I would encourage you to open up there, navigate in your app or whatever device you use.

Sometimes that device is just a plain old book with paper and that's a great device. But if you don't have one, please raise your hand,

Mike's got some here. And he's already got them open to that passage so that you can just kind of dial in real quick and follow along as we read.

But we want everybody to have a copy of God's Word on their lap as we go through this together.

Recast, the amazing thing is, the glorious thing, the beautiful thing about our gathering is that we have an opportunity to hear from the

Almighty as we read this. And the cool thing is not only in our gathering do we have that privilege, but in your personal life you have the privilege.

Every morning, every lunchtime, every evening, you could hear from God. Do you know how you could hear from God? Reading His Word.

By reading His Word. And you have that accessibility to the words of God. How many of you would like to hear from God?

Recast, we're about to hear from God. And when they had crossed over, they came to the land of Gennesaret.

And when the men of that place recognized Him, they sent around to all that region and brought

Him all who were sick and implored Him that they might only touch the fringe of His garment.

And as many as touched it were made well. Let's pray. Father, I thank

You for Your Word that often in its simplicity, we can plumb the depths and there's just this veneer of simplicity over it that we can look at and just at a glance think that we understand it.

And then as we dig in, we find that there's layer upon layer and depth for us, Father. Just in a passage like this where we see people eager who recognize

Your Son and who eagerly bring others to Him and implore

Him for healing and come to Him seeking Him as the source of hope and help for them.

And Father, I pray that that would be a reality here in our context, in our place. That certainly in this gathering, we would see

You first as the one that we run to in times of need and for our help and for our healing and our emotional healing, our mental healing, our spiritual healing,

Father, all is wrapped up in Jesus Christ and His grace. And Father, I pray that we then would not hoard this healing for ourselves, but we would be a people who go out and share that and bring others in to meet our

Lord and Savior. And Father, I pray that we would from changed hearts, from healed hearts, from hearts that You are giving the remedy to, that we would rejoice in You this morning.

And we would worship You in truth. Worship You because You are the one who is changing us. Worship You because You are the one in whom we can turn to for hope.

That only, the only place where hope can be found is You. And so, Father, I pray that You would receive our praise and our worship,

Father, that You would ignite our hearts in a way of rejoicing and exalting in You.

That we would worship You in spirit and in truth. The words we say would be accurate about You, but our heart would reflect the zeal that is consistent with coming into Your presence.

In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Yeah, you can go to be seated. And I encourage you just like every week to get comfortable, as comfortable as possible in those chairs.

If you need to get up and stretch out in the back, feel free. And then get more coffee or juice or donuts.

You're not going to distract me if at any time during the next half an hour or so you need to get up and do that. Restrooms are out the hallway.

Men's turn right and men's are upstairs and women's are downstairs if you need that. And then keep your Bibles open to Matthew chapter 14, verses 34 through 36.

I recognize you might have lost your spot there or set that down. So navigate back over to that, Matthew 14, 34 through 36, and we're going to walk through that text, what we read earlier.

And it's not going to take us long to walk through it. The text itself is fairly short. And it's also quite simple.

And it's a short account of Jesus landing on the shore in a particular area of Israel and healing many.

And that's basically a synopsis, a summary. But leave it to a pastor to get five points, a five -point sermon out of three verses.

So yeah, that's what we're in for. But I think when we get done, you're going to see this short text says more than what we realize at first reading.

Oftentimes, I don't know if you've experienced this, you read scripture and you're like, oh, yeah, yeah. But if you go back and read it again and you dive in a little bit deeper, you'll find that there's more going on in there than you catch at first reading.

And I've read the Bible through many times, and I've still encountered passages where it's like, wow, I didn't see that before.

And I'm sure those of you that have advanced along in your walk with Christ and have been with Him for a while and have spent some time in His word, even those passages that are very familiar to you, that you think you know, can hit you at a different way, at a different time in life, or you see different insights that are there, and that's called the illumination of the

Spirit. And that's what I drive for every week is just to yield myself to the Spirit and let Him show me what the text says and to really, as faithfully and honestly as possible, dig in and see what it says.

So let me outline this text for us this morning. Five points. The first is recognize Jesus as healer.

The first three come from verse 35 and the second two come from 36. Recognize Jesus as healer.

Spread the word of His arrival. Bring others who are sick. Petition Him on behalf of those you bring.

And lastly, and maybe most difficultly, leave the healing up to Him.

So verse 34 isn't in our outline simply because it sets up the action by connecting us with last week's text.

It kind of sets up what's going on. Remember that all of this, where we're at in our text, they're in the boat at the very beginning of the text in a calm sea on their way across the lake.

But it hasn't always been that way. All of this began with Jesus catching wind that John the Baptist had been executed.

We saw that a few weeks ago. And so Jesus got in the boat and went across the lake to get alone.

But the crowds followed Him there. And then He expressed compassion on them even in His weary state, even in His grieving state over His cousin who had died.

Even in His desire to get alone, He expressed compassion on them. And He healed many there.

So this is the second accounting that we've seen in just Matthew 14 alone of Jesus healing a group of people.

And so He healed many there. He fed them all miraculously. He then put His disciples in a boat to go to the other side while He remained behind to dismiss the crowds.

Then Jesus did get His alone time. He went up on the mountain to be alone and rest while the disciples toiled all night in a storm out to sea.

He came to them in the wee hours of the morning walking on the water. He taught them all a lesson about faith with Peter being the willing guinea pig of that lesson.

And then Jesus calmed the storm. And that brings us up to verse 34 where we're at this morning.

And it says that they crossed over and came to a narrow strip of fertile soil on the west side of the

Sea of Galilee that is still called by the same name, Gennesaret. It's got a little bit of a different look to it when you see how it's written today.

But that's the same place and we know where that is. Now can you imagine, all the events that I just shared with you, can you imagine the exhaustion that the disciples are feeling?

How many of you are signing up for a night of rowing a boat and then the next morning just hitting the shore and crowds are there ready for you?

Are you ready for that? How many of you have struggled just to stay awake for a night? Some of us, maybe that would be the most miserable thing that could happen to you, right?

You just wouldn't get sleep for a night. I don't know where you're at, but I kind of value my sleep.

I'm kind of that person. I mentioned that maybe my superpower would be napping on Sunday afternoons. I don't know.

So exhaustion, the weariness of the disciples, and even Jesus is probably pretty well spent unless he got some sleep there on the mountain alone.

But it doesn't say he slept. I don't know what he did when he was alone. My hunch is that he, actually it does say that he at least prayed.

We know that. But maybe they got a rotation on the rest of the trip across the lake and somebody fell asleep in the boat.

We actually see Jesus sleeping and napping once in a while on the boat. So I don't want to spend too much time on that exhaustion.

But the people in that area, they land, and the people in that area recognize

Jesus. And that's our first point. Their response helps us to understand what they recognized about him.

So it's not just like, oh, yeah, that looks like Jesus. It's probably him. But they recognized him as the healer, and that's demonstrated by what they did next.

They brought people to him for healing. He was the one who could change their circumstances, and they saw it that way.

Now, I recognize that throughout this passage we're looking at an account of physical healing. I want to be clear about that.

This is physical healing that's going on. But I want to be clear that Scripture indicates

Jesus is the physical healer, the emotional healer, and the spiritual healer.

And my tendency when I read about these passages about physical healing is to be more prone to quickly go to the spiritual.

Does anybody relate to that? Some people that are from the same background as me where when you hear about the physical healing side of things in Scripture, you want to go to like, oh, yeah,

Jesus can heal your soul. That's a pretty quick application. Nobody else is with me on that. Nobody's going to heal me alone.

I was raised in a very conservative church where, you know, the idea of Jesus as the physical healer, sure, he could do that.

He just doesn't. Like, do you know what? Anybody? Anybody with me on that? So I'm not saying that that's what

I believe now. I'm just saying that that's the way I was raised, and so it was very quick to move away from. And so that's my tendency when

I read a passage like this, and it's going to be my tendency throughout this because I still think the more fundamental to your physical malady is your spiritual malady.

The biggest problem facing you is not some infirmity that you have in your body, not some mental illness that you have in your body.

The most fundamental issue with all of us is our sin problem. All of those things,

Jesus proves himself time and time again to be in charge of these physical things, and he does so to show us that as King Jesus, one day in his perfect kingdom, all maladies will be done away with.

All of it will be finished. And the key is that we're spiritually made whole in this life so that we can experience that ultimate wholeness.

Ultimate. So that really is the ultimate thing. I think that just kind of a little bit misleading about the physical thing is an issue because of the way that it's processed.

The physical malady or the, do you turn to Jesus for that? And I think people have abused that over time, and so a lot of us get a little skittish about that.

Are we going to have a big healing service here this morning? Is that where we're going with all of this? We need to think that through.

I'm more prone to move toward the application of this text towards spiritual healing, but don't lose sight of the fact that we ought to look to Christ for all healing.

God will use doctors. God will use medicine. God will use surgery and a whole host of natural physical things to heal us, but I'm confident that we ought to turn to God even as we pursue the natural graces that He has given to us for physical and emotional healing.

It's not one or the other. It's both. Don't put, hear me carefully,

Recast Church. This morning as we're looking at a passage about physical healing, don't put natural means into a false dichotomy with God.

Don't put doctors in one category and God in another. In the sense of what means

He might use to heal you. Now certainly doctors are God. I don't mean to say that or to conflate that at all, but what

I'm saying is a lot of people in our culture, there's historical branches of Christianity that are even cult -like where they would not even go to a doctor.

They would not have a vaccination. They would not do anything that is medical because that would be a lack of faith, and I don't see that at all.

As a matter of fact, I think that the natural things that He gives us, we exercise faith by trusting in His goodness in the world around us and in the way that we've developed in science and technology and medicine and all of those things.

Those are a gift that God has given to us and a means that He's given to us for our healing and for our benefit.

And so we ought to pursue those things. Don't put that natural means into a false dichotomy with God.

God, He who made us physical creatures, has equally granted us physical solutions as remedies for our maladies.

The problem comes when we look to the created solutions without thankfulness, without gratitude, or without even petition to God.

Hear me carefully. It isn't pray first and then if that doesn't work, go to a doctor. And it equally isn't go to a doctor and then if that doesn't work, pray.

It's do both. It's pray on the way to the doctor. Pray while at the doctor and pray while taking the medicine that the doctor prescribes.

Are you getting what I'm saying in that? And thank both the doctor and God for the healing if it should be granted.

But after that caveat, let me say that on a spiritual note, there is no other healer. There's no secondary method to spiritual healing.

The people of Gennesaret recognize Jesus here in this context as the healer. And this is a fundamental point of application for us.

Do you recognize, fundamentally in your life, do you recognize Jesus as the healer? Do you believe that he can heal your heart of the brokenness that's within?

The most fundamental problem that you have, the most fundamental sickness that you ever contracted, you contracted from birth, from conception, and it is sin and it's a brokenness within your soul that needs remedy, that needs healing.

The starting point of healing is to know who to go to for help, right? Isn't that where the start begins, is knowing the right source of healing?

Run to Jesus for the healing your soul is longing for. Recognize Jesus, recast, as the healer.

Secondly, we see in verse 35 that the people of Gennesaret spread the word about his arrival.

They told others about the healing. Praise God for people who are not content to sneak off to Jesus alone.

How many of you know some of them might have been like, I want to get first in line, I'm not telling anybody. I want to hurry up and get down there so that he sees me because of my sickness, my illness, or my friend's sickness, or my family member's sickness.

And so they could have easily just snuck off on their own to hurry. I heard Jesus is in town, let's get down there.

Praise God for people who are not content to be healed alone. How many of you are beneficiaries of someone who is bold enough to share the gospel with you and bring you to see

Jesus? Raise your hand if somebody else, if you can think of the name of the person or someone who had a hand in that and brought you to Jesus.

I fear that many of us, I don't know about this church, I can't see into your hearts, but I think that many within the church are all too willing to be saved alone.

We've come to find the source of healing, we just keep him in a bottle, refusing to share the healer with others, and only looking to him for ourselves, but not sharing him with others.

We can learn a great lesson from the people of Gennesaret, and ultimately, I want to clarify, it is a lesson of love that we see here from these people.

It is love poured out to their community and to others around them. They send around to all in that region the exciting news, the healer has come, the healer has come.

And they shared that openly and willingly and eagerly with others.

The healer has come. Let's go down to the edge of the waters where his boat is landing and let's get down there and bring the sick and those in need.

And that's our message to a diseased and dying world. The people of Gennesaret spread the word of his arrival, and it's a lesson of love that they loved everybody and they shared that out to all of the people around them, that the healer had come to their little town, to their little district, to their little area.

And that is our message, that's what we have to share to a diseased and dying world. The healer has come, and he is powerful enough to handle whatever darkness you've contracted.

Everyone's contracted a darkness in their soul, and he has the power to heal. Spread the word that Jesus has come to heal the broken hearts of humanity, and he promises a final healing for all who would come to him by faith and accept him as king and ask for his forgiveness and his cleansing.

And he's eager to provide that to any and all who would come to him. Recast, spread the word of the healer's arrival.

Spread the word of the healer's arrival. First, recognize Jesus as the healer. Second, spread the word of his arrival.

And third, the people of Gennesaret went even further than spreading the word about his arrival. They did one better.

They brought to him all who were sick. It wasn't enough to just go share it, to speak it.

Spreading the word is one thing, but carrying people to the healer is another altogether.

I don't want to mix the metaphor too far. I'm not sure exactly what it means to carry someone to Jesus in a metaphorical sense regarding their spiritual malady, but I think the metaphor works well when we think about the world around us as contracting or having a sickness.

The people carried to Jesus in our text likely couldn't carry themselves, and that's where it differs a little bit. They likely knew that they needed healing.

That's a pretty significant difference. They probably were even to some degree eager for healing. But that differs from our culture, doesn't it?

Many around us in the world do not even know that they're spiritually sick. Do you recognize that? Do you see that?

And even for many of us, that's our testimony. We recognize that there was a point in our history, in our lives, where we didn't even know that we had a sickness.

As a matter of fact, I would suggest to you that many in our culture, even the way that I'm speaking, I could get into trouble in some circles for just identifying that those without Christ are spiritually sick.

But when I consider the ways that disease and illness are a good metaphor for sin as it manifests itself in my life, more like a cancer that's internal, not just things that I do, but things that I am.

Do you know what I'm talking about? It is indeed sin is a part of human identity from birth, and it's something that we wrestle with and struggle with our entire lives, and it doesn't just come down to our behaviors, but it comes down to the very nature of...

A lot of temptations, for example, come from internally, don't they? They don't even have to be external temptations.

A lot of times, temptation even begins in our minds and in our thoughts. So we recognize that it is something that's so much more fundamental, and illness or disease is a good metaphor for sickness.

And I think we need to come to the truth of this and wrestle with it before we're ever going to be truly moved to bring people to Jesus.

That is the sickness of humanity, even the sickness of ourselves. If we only ever see people as primarily good, which is the message that our culture is just constantly beating us with, wave after wave, people are born good, and we corrupt them in some way with society or culture or rules or religion or all different kinds of things that society will tell you is ruining people who are basically good.

If we buy into that, we will not truly be moved to come alongside of others and help them to come to the feet of Jesus, to recognize their malady and their need for a healer.

But the reality is every human that you've ever met, every single one of them has a malignant, fatal sickness that will lead them to death.

Every human who has ever been born has been diagnosed with a disease called sin. And unless a person comes to Jesus, the healer, for the remedy, then that fatal curse rests on them and they will die in their sins.

So bring others to the healer. And a fundamental question, a real question, a down -to -earth question, as I apply these points as I go through, who are you currently bringing?

I would encourage you to get a name as the answer to that. If you don't have one now, I would encourage you that you would ask

God to give you that person that you could be bringing to Christ. Who has God placed in your life that is looking to you for guidance?

Who is looking to you for help? Who comes to you for advice? It's probably someone.

And don't overlook the closest people. Moms, don't overlook those kids.

It's got to be somebody out there at the coffee shop. It's got to be somebody at work. It's got to be somewhere. Sometimes it's very close to home. And a lot of times we don't have eyes to see the very closest people that God is leading into your life to speak truth into and to bring to Jesus.

I suggest to you that a lot of our parenting, a lot of my personal parenting, I'm convicted by this, but it's not leading my kids.

It's not carrying them to Jesus. It's carrying them to my cultural expectations for them. It's carrying them to the rules.

It's carrying them to obedience. It's carrying them to civility and kindness to others. What is our role as parents?

What is our role in life? What is our role? Why do we still breathe His air?

Why do we still consume His food and His space here on this planet, His followers of Christ?

Why didn't He just rapture us to heaven when we asked Jesus to bring more to Him? It's why we live.

It's why we're here. To bring more to Him. It's the goal of the

Christian life. Who is it? Who are you bringing to Jesus for healing?

The fourth thing. Petition Jesus on behalf of those you bring. Petition Jesus.

Ask Him. Talk to Him. Friend carried friend down to the shore in Gennesaret. Family members heard about Jesus and carried their loved ones to see the healer.

They acted and they carried people that they loved down there. And look at verse 36.

What did they do once they arrived there? They just stood around and waited for something to happen? Or did they just stand around and go,

Okay, we're here, now what? Verse 36 says, They implored Him. A really strong word.

They begged Him. They pleaded with Him. That they might only touch. The loved ones that they brought down, they said,

Can they just touch the fringe of your robe? Can they touch the fringe of your prayer shawl, Jesus?

Because we believe that they could be healed if you willed just by that simple act of faith.

They were so filled with hope and trust that they said, Even if we can touch the tassel at the end of your prayer shawl,

We know that those we love will be healed. The love of these people in Gennesaret for one another is clear in their desperation.

The desperation that they had for healing for friends and family. And this desperation was expressed in a very simple act.

They asked Jesus for the miraculous. They asked

Him for something that required a significant amount of faith even on their part. And certainly we can learn from this that we should seek healing from Jesus in prayer for one another.

We ought to ask for healing from Jesus when people we know are physically sick. We do so, right?

When we pray for people that are sick, that you know that are struggling with disease, Or going through surgery, or going through difficult times.

Yes, we should. But we should also pray for those who are emotionally and mentally struggling and going through illness as well.

And we should also pray for those who remain in their spiritually diseased state. Who are going through the darkness of a

Christless existence. We should pray for Jesus to allow His power to flow.

This text takes for granted something so important that we all might miss it. Jesus has the power to heal all.

So who are you praying for? That they might come to the healer and receive the ultimate healing that only He can give.

I've mentioned to you before that praying for this at the start of my day makes me more aware of my calling.

It makes me more thoughtful throughout the day to bring more to Jesus. If you were just to start out your day praying and saying,

God, would you heal people through me today? Would you bring others into your kingdom through me today?

It sets your day on the right trajectory of looking for needs around you. When I ask for God to rescue people,

I go out with my days looking for people who need rescue. When I pray that God would heal people,

I have eyes to see infirmity in those in need. When I pray for people by name, the next time

I see them, I'm reminded that the most loving thing I can do for them is lead them to the healer. Think about that.

How you petition God on behalf of others. Recast. Petition Jesus to heal those that you're seeking to bring to Him.

Let me give you a little interesting caveat before we move on to our final point. The word fringe used in verse 36 is interesting.

It's the word for tassel. And some of you really maybe just got a picture of Jesus wearing a rodeo shirt with fringes down the sleeve or something.

I don't know. Yeah, that's pretty. That's amazing. And the mustache. Yeah. And now you're thinking, now you're here and you're thinking

Jesus likes country music, which is pretty unlikely. Sorry, some of you.

Barely. And none of that was interesting. I said that it was going to be interesting and none of that was.

But what's interesting is that back in Numbers 15, verses 37 through 40, God wrote this.

And this is an interesting thing when you think about Jesus is there. And you take for granted that, okay, dude wore tassels, right?

Like you see that in the text because they're asking to touch the tassel on the edge of his prayer shawl. I'm saying that specifically because that's likely that's what prophets would wear.

And here's the reason why. You're going, why is this dude wearing tassels? Did he just come out of Texas or something?

But here's the reason. The Lord said to Moses, speak to the people of Israel and tell them to make tassels on the corner of their garments throughout their generations and to put a cord of blue on the tassel of each corner.

And it shall be a tassel for you to look at and remember all the commandments of the Lord, to do them, not to follow after your own heart and your own eyes, which you are inclined to whore after.

So you shall remember and do all my commandments and be holy to your

God. A daily reminder. Tassels on the corner of their robes, commanded by God in the

Old Testament for the Jewish people as a reminder that they belong to God and they should obey

Him. We should have things like tassels. We should have things that we do throughout our day or where you know your point of temptation is.

Maybe some of you should have a verse, a Bible verse on your computer, like as the home screen that's there when you first log in and it's like, yeah, that's a good reminder.

You should have things throughout your day that you intentionally have placed there to remind you, even if it's a

Bible on your desk, to remind you that before you go to the meeting you see that there and it's like, that's right,

I belong to Christ. And the way that I interact with others in my workplace matters. You know, there was a while that I didn't want my car associated with a

Christian. I would not have ever wanted one of those fish stickers on the back of my car, primarily because I would probably have to drive different if I had one.

And now I actually have a plate on the back of my car that says recast so that I'm now representing our church wherever I drive and I have to be careful and cautious.

And that's a good thing for me. Maybe you need to have something like that too. Not a cheesy fish symbol because you're going to lead a bunch of people to Christ in your wake.

You know, as you blaze down the highway, people are pulling over in tears, giving their lives to Jesus because you got a fish on your car.

But maybe for the way that you drive. Maybe it's just for you a reminder that the way

I drive is a reflection of Christ. The way that I act in society, the way that I respond to people around me is a reminder of who

I belong to. Well, it's interesting I point that out just simply because Jesus fulfilled the law for you and me.

It's not a legal thing. We don't have to wear tassels. I get to eat bacon for breakfast.

We get to have shellfish. Why? Because Jesus finished the law. He fulfilled it for you and me.

He was the one who perfectly kept all the law right down to the attire that he wore. Right down to the having tassels on the corner in obedience to that mosaic law in the

Old Testament. He followed all of the rules of God so that we now have a perfect law keeper.

Sinless human who would fulfill all the requirements of the law on our behalf and then die as our substitute in our place.

The sinless son of God dying for us as our substitute. So far the people recognized the healer.

They spread the word of his arrival. They brought the sick. They asked him to provide healing.

And now we come to the final and I think most difficult point for us in our hearts. And that is leave the healing up to him.

The fact of the matter is we like to heal people. We like to try to fix people. Anybody else besides me a fixer?

You like to fix things. You like to fix people. You like to get in there and tell them how to live their lives.

You have a tendency. You know yourself and you know that this is not too harsh on you for me to say you're a judgmental person.

You know who you are and you know that you wrestle with that. Not everybody in the room is the same. But to varying degrees we like to judge others.

Especially those who do things different than us. Is that why we're here?

Are we here to get people to conform to some kind of church standard? Nobody watches movies like that.

Nobody does this. Nobody dances. Nobody plays cards. Nobody does all. You know and you can come up with your own list of things that you don't want people to do.

And then impress that on others. And is that why you're here? Is that what you exist to do?

Is that why Recast Church is here? Not at all. The healing is up to Him. And what is our role? To bring people to the healer.

To bring people to the healer. There are so many accounts of Jesus healing people. I mentioned that before that we could forgive

Matthew if he would save some ink and parchment and not even record this event and we wouldn't know about it.

But I mean there's a good chance that Jesus healed people that we don't even know about. In the text, throughout the

Gospels, He heals and He heals and He heals again and again and again. But as I mentioned in the introduction,

Jesus used a variety of means to heal people. And I believe that even this was intentional.

We are so prone to look for formulas, for programs and patterns to follow. Have you noticed that in your own heart?

Your own tendency to try to look for the, you know, we could write a book about it if we could just figure out the formula and the pattern with which

Jesus used to heal, that everybody would be going out and doing that thing, right? That would be the way that we would roll.

That would be the thing that we would do and we would think that we have it figured out. But this is interesting.

I think Jesus is intentionally unconventional. He's intentionally unconventional in the way that He does things.

He avoided our ability to discern the pattern for His healings.

He didn't want you to put it in a bottle and mass produce it. He didn't want you to follow that pattern and do things just like this and then you would get the promise that you would be healed or something like that.

He doesn't do things the same way. As a matter of fact, He works according to the need of the moment. The God who has created so much variety, so much uniqueness on this planet, so many unique creatures and plants and this whole thing that we're spinning around and all of that, when

He comes in flesh, He deals with people as people. People as individuals. You want to be healed?

He comes to the shore, gets out of the boat. They come to Him and they say, can we just touch the tassel of your robe for healing? He says, you want to touch the tassel of my robe for healing?

Great idea. Let's do that while I sit here and rest and you all just file past. And the people filed past and as many as touched the tassel, that act of faith, as many as touched the tassel of His robe were made well.

Is that a pretty distinct miracle? Is that kind of strange? Is that different than the way that He usually rolls? Absolutely. Jesus being

Jesus and healing in the way that He chooses to. And He just says, yeah, sure, I'll do that that way. The people boldly made a suggestion about how they wanted this whole thing to go.

When I pray, when you pray, we ought to be boldly suggesting to God the way that we want things to go.

Think of prayer that way. Just informing Him of the way that you would like things to go.

But there's a time when the asking is over and the asker needs to pause and become a listener. And I'd suggest to you that's a tough moment.

A lot of times the listening, the waiting for an answer is hard. The people of Gennesaret teach us this final lesson.

They leave the healing up to Jesus. We must first recognize that healing comes from Jesus. Then we need to spread the word of His arrival.

We need to bring the sick to meet Him. And then we should ask Him to help those we bring and then we should leave the results in His hands.

I spent years praying for the salvation of my sister. Some of you are in that stage right now. Some of you have done the same thing for family members, for loved ones, for people that you work with, or for whatever it might be.

I mean, some of it is infirmity and you prayed and you prayed and you prayed for help. My sister and I were raised in the same household.

We grew up at the same church, experienced the same tragedy. When our father died, I was eight, she was ten.

What drove me in that event closer to Christ drove her further away and for about 20 years

I prayed without any fruit. In conversations with her, as a matter of fact, many times over that 20 years it felt like she was going further and further and further away from Christ.

A few years ago I got a call from her letting me know that she had asked Jesus Christ to save her. I don't tell you that story and it's been a rocky road since then.

Some of you have asked me about my sister and how things are going and it's not always good. It's just been a rough road for her.

But I don't tell you that story as a promise that if you're just faithful to pray you're going to get your promise, you're going to get your thing, it's all going to fall through.

But I share that to say that I can relate. I know what it's like to pray and not know when the results are coming.

I know what it's like to pray and pray and pray and ask for something without seeing fruit.

Salvation belongs to our God. Jesus is the one who heals. And we ought to see ourselves fundamentally as spiritual

EMTs driving the ambulance from our everyday life to the foot of the cross where the healer is eager to apply the remedy.

As we come to communion I would encourage everyone to make a mental journey to the foot of the cross.

Go there in your mind. It's there in that place that the sinless Son of God showed us all how utterly disgusting our sin truly is.

He shows us just how devastating the condition of our diseased hearts truly are. Think about it.

The divine Son of God was tortured and suffering, bleeding and dying to cover our sins.

Go there. Take that in and recognize that it's your sin that caused this sacrifice.

Don't let it rest there. Equally at the cross He shows us how much He loves us. These two very important lessons come into tension there at the cross.

Your sin is terrible toward Him. And His love is expansive toward you. Your sin is indeed terrible.

Don't push that aside and be like it must not be that bad. He forgave me. That's terrible.

It's so terrible that He had to pay the price for it. But He loves you so much that He paid the price for it.

Do you hear? That place is significant. Go back to the cross time and time again.

That's why we take communion every week. And if you've accepted Jesus as your Savior, if you've experienced that forgiveness, then you know what

I'm talking about. And I would encourage you to come to one of the tables and take a cracker to remember His body broken for us and take a cup of juice to remember

His blood shed for us. He became the remedy for our sin -diseased hearts there.

But if you've not yet received the forgiveness and new life that Jesus offers, then I would encourage you to please come and talk with me.

I mean, I know that that's a bold step, but come and talk with me after the service and I can explain the way that you can be forgiven and receive the ultimate healing that God provides.

Let's pray. Father, I thank you so much for healing.

And I know that there are some here who are physically sick, some here that are emotionally, mentally struggling and sick.

Father, there are a variety of illnesses ranging from just hay fever and allergies to significant diagnoses.

And that's some of us. And I pray, God, that by your grace, you would heal. But we also know that in this life, that's a temporary healing.

There's no such thing as a permanent healing from infirmity. We know that death is indeed real. So our hope is not placed in that healing.

Our hope is placed instead in the healing that you offer a spiritual healing that's available to any who would come to you by faith.

And so, Father, I pray that you would be using us to bring others to the healer and that you would bring healing to anybody in this room who has not given their lives over to Christ and received that healing that they can have spiritually to be made whole and be given a fresh start and a clean slate, so to speak, a fresh bill of health spiritually.

The hope that we have in the forgiveness of sins, the death of Jesus Christ on the cross.

And I pray that we would be mindful of that, that you would help us to mentally go to the foot of the cross with gratitude and with thanks for the great love that you've expressed to us there.

And if there's any in this room who do not know you as Savior, that you would just give them boldness, give them an unsettledness and unrest in their soul until they have the boldness to come and talk or to seek you through your word and through others that they might hear the life -giving gospel, the good news, that they can be made whole because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on their behalf.

Father, I pray that you would go with us throughout this week and help us to bring others to the healer. Let us be a church that is bold with the witness out in our culture and out in our community and in our neighborhoods and in our families that we would be quick to bring people to the healing that we have found.