Crazy Faith Series "Jesus Heals"

Crazy Faith Series “Jesus Heals”

Introduction to the series: In life we say “you are crazy” in many different contexts. I like to surf and I do it all winter and usually if there is someone on the beach in the middle February if they say anything they usually say “you guys are crazy for being out there” Chris Baille likes to sky dive and people probably say “you are crazy for jumping out of planes”. We both realize when people say this they probably don’t mean it in the bad sense. But some mornings in February when it is 15 degrees out and I scrap the ice of my car window and drive to the beach I think “what am I crazy”

Then I realize I have a passion for surfing and I love to do it, if that is crazy then that is what I will be.

Faith is not much different, when you believe what the Bible teaches some may say “you are crazy” most of us would take offense to that statement because they are mocking our belief system. Maybe there are even days in your life that you say “what am I crazy to believe this” it seems far fetched or it has not always “worked” in my life. But then you realize if I really have a passion for Jesus and what he has done in my life other people will say I am crazy because from their unbelieving perspective it may seem crazy to believe the claims of the Bible.

Matthew 8 contains some accounts of things that Jesus did that most people would say it is crazy to believe or that is impossible. For the next 4 weeks we are going to work through Matthew chapter 8 and look at those things which happen to be some core beliefs of our Christian faith. So I have decided to call this series of messages “Crazy Faith”

The first thing I want to do is find out what a working definition and description of what faith is
The dictionary says
Faith is a confidence or a trust in something
Hebrew 11:1 “substance” means essence or reality
“Evidence” is proof
Faith is…proof that the unseen is real.

You may not realize it but you exercise faith everyday when you watch the news and take their word for what happened in the world. When your friend or family member tells you what they did that day and you believe them.

I guess for many of us the degree of faith we have is based on the source of information.

John 20:28-29 Blessed are those who do not see and yet believe.
Vrs 30-31 The Bible is so that we may believe and have eternal life.

Our source is the Word of God.

Turn to Matthew 8
The first 17 verses have to do with Jesus healing people of sickness. We obviously see that if the Biblical accounts are accurate Jesus did heal all those people and many more in other Scriptures.

But does Jesus heal today?

There are four accounts of healing from Jesus and two are more detailed. I want to look at those accounts and see what we can learn and how we can apply them to our lives

8:1-3 From the first account we see that the leper said “are you willing” and Jesus said that He was willing. We have to understand that any healing from sickness or disease must be in God’s will. The question most of us ask is why God did not heal? The question we should ask when it comes to healing is, what is His will for the situation I am in or the sick person is in.

We know that Paul had a “a thorn in his flesh”
2 Cor 12:7-10, here Paul received from the Lord that He displays power in our time of weakness. Sometimes it is more of a miracle to see the way people handle sickness and what they do while they are going through it, then the sickness being healed.


Acts 28:8 Paul healed a man by laying hands on him and praying for him.
Why could Paul not heal himself?
Because it was not in the will of God!

Remember if someone is skeptical about the reality of God because themselves, or another person was not healed they are in essence saying that no one would ever die. That is not logical or reasonable for that matter.

To only believe because of a miracle will also be a let down. Faith healer ill

Then you might be saying to yourself other people had the power to heal people not only Jesus? The answer to that is yes. During the time that the NT was being written God gave people the gift of healing and authenticated the Gospel of Jesus. This was a time when the Gospels or the rest of the NT were not written but being lived out. Now we have the NT and we can read it to authenticate the Gospel.

So do people today have the gift of healing? I would say no to the way that most people are thinking of healing, faith healers because the NT is closed, meaning no more Scripture is being written. And yes to the fact that some are blessed with a compassionate ministry of prayer for sick people. Pastor that said “who cares”
Bottom line is God still does heal people today, but He does not need to use people to heal other people.

The first truth about healing that we learn from this passage is it must be in God’s Will

Vrs 4 “Don’t tell anyone” and show yourself to the priest. In Lev. 14 A cleansed leper had to offer a sacrifice under the law.
-So a possibility is that Jesus did not want him to get sidetracked before he followed the law.
-He also may have wanted the man to be a testimony to the religious leaders
-As far as keeping quiet most theologians would say that until the man showed himself to the priests it would not be observed as a legit healing.
-If the man offers a gift he is attributing the work to God


The centurion’s servant healed
Verses 5-7 The centurion asks Jesus and to heal him and Jesus agrees.

Verse 8-9 Then the centurion says that Jesus should not have to go to his house. He does not feel worthy.

Verses 10-12 Now Jesus teaches a theological truth. Just because someone is Jewish does not mean they automatically go to heaven. In fact many others will become the spiritual seed of Abraham that are not the physical seed of Abraham the Jewish people and those who do not believe will not be saved Jew or non Jew.
Our entrance into heaven is based on trusting in Jesus as our Savior. Not good works and not what family we were born into.

The other thing Jesus is communicating here is “faith” This man had faith that Jesus could do the impossible, heal someone. He did not have to see the person, touch them or be in the same room. It seems as though this man understood Jesus was God.

Vrs 13 Jesus heals the man. This statement makes us ask a question.
Does our faith limit how God can work? No

We need to have faith that He can do it. If He can save us from our sins He can heal sickness and problems. We never want to say that He can’t, that would be doubting what He is capable of.

Matt 13:57-59 is sometimes used to say that Jesus does not do miracles among us because we don’t believe He can. But what it is really saying is Jesus did not do the “mighty works” because they did not recognize who He was. The Messiah



We have to remember that Jesus did not heal to convince people to believe. He healed as an act of compassion to meet the needs of people and a result of that many times was belief. In fact some people saw these things and still did not believe.

John 12:37 many will not believe even if they saw the healing.

So the second truth we learn is we must believe that God can heal.

Then we see Jesus heals Peter’s mother in law.
Vrs 14-15
Vrs 16-17 Now Jesus was casting out demons, we will actually get to this in three weeks.
He healed the sick to fulfill prophecy.

The quote from Isaiah two fold, meaning salvation and sickness

Wayne Grudem states “Our complete redemption from physical illness will not take place until Christ returns”
Is it crazy to believe that Jesus can heal today? Maybe to some but the Scripture teaches
We need to ask Him His will and believe in faith that He can do it