VIP Ministry Network

Sermon in a nutshell: Acts 5:12-16 “All of Them Were Healed.”
God wants to heal us. Healing is God’s gift. In the Bible, we can see many stories that show God’s healing power. People say that one third of Jesus’ ministry was healing ministry (preaching ministry and teaching ministry are the other ministries that Jesus did). However, actually the whole ministry of our Lord is healing ministry.
Healing is different from cure. Healing is the restoration of the wholeness of our being and cure is restoration of our physical well-being. Sometimes people can be healed without cure. For example, Nick Vujicic was born without limbs and he is still without limbs. However, he is enjoying a meaningful life with abundant fruits. He goes around the world and sharing God’s love for us.

Sometimes people can be cured but still not healed. Doctors cured so many people from the physical illness but they still do not find peace with God and with other people. They waste their lives in pursuing meaningless fames, riches, titles. They still live in agony. In those cases, they do not experience “healing.”
Now you can understand the reason why I said that all the ministry of our Lord, Jesus, were “healing” ministry. Jesus was concerned about the well-being of our whole being, not just our bodies. Jesus cured so many people, crippled, blind, deaf, demon-possessed, and even the dead. For example, Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. Let me ask this question: Is Lazarus still alive physically? No! He died again! Then what was the point? Jesus raised him up to show that life was in God’s power. Is Lazarus still alive spiritually? Absolutely! That is the point. Jesus wants us to have eternal life in God, not just extended physical life. What God wants us to enjoy is not just cure from the illness but the “healing” or “shalom” (in Hebrew it means well-being of our whole being, both individual and communal sense).
All the signs and wonders that the Apostles performed were to give us “treasure of heart.” The signs and wonders are mere entrance points to the precious relationship with God and with our beloved ones. More and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number. Why? Because they longed for this “treasure of heart” as you and I do. Crowds gathered also from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing their sick and those tormented by impure spirits, and all of them were healed.
Some of them were cured physically. Some of them gained peace that surpassed beyond all human understanding even though they were not physically cured. All experienced God’s love and found the meaning and purpose of their weaknesses. Like Apostle Paul, they received God’s final answer and accepted with that with gratitude: Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it (thorns in flesh) away from me. But God said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
Today, we are going to pray for God’s healing. You can pray for yourself. You can pray for your neighbors if they want you to do for them. You can come forward to the altar and our Stephen Ministers will pray for you. All of us would be healed today through the Grace of God.
1. What is your weakness that you want to be healed? Pray with us.
2. What is the weakness that you see in your beloved ones? Pray for them.