03-25-20 Kevin Goins - The Church's Ministry of Healing, Part 2

“Anatomy of an Illness: The Church’s Ministry of Healing”

John 9:4 (Part 2)

I First, sickness gets our attention and it gets the attention of Jesus (9:1).
II Second, sickness makes us uncomfortable (9:2).
III Third, sickness is caused by alienation (9:2).
IV Fourth, oftentimes our best theological or commonsense explanations for sickness are not good enough (9:3a).
V Fifth, sometimes sickness happens for a good reason, so that God can be glorified in our life (9:3b).
VI Sixth, all believers in Jesus are called to help sick people find health (9:4).
A. The first thing this verse tells us is that we are living in the day.

B. Second, this verse says that we are ____________ with Jesus.

1. We would expect Jesus to say, “______ must do the work of him who sent me.”

a. At first glance we might expect that the “we” is Jesus, the ______ and ______, the Father.

b. That makes ______ sense because “him who sent me” is clearly God the Father and so Jesus would be saying, “God the Father and I must do the work which God the Father sent us to do.”

2. If the “we” isn’t Jesus and God, who is it? The “we” is Jesus and his ______________. Why do I say that?

a. It is to his followers that Jesus is ____________.

b. It was the followers of Jesus who _________ his attention to the blind man’s situation in the first place.

c. Jesus knew his followers were ________________ him into the blind man’s circumstances, and it is to them that Jesus says, “We must do the work of him who sent me.”

3. The disciples followed Jesus as ___________ following a ___________. They learned from him how to minister to _______ ___________.

4. Like the disciples we ________ _______ needy people to Jesus by bringing them to him in ___________.

5. We, _______ and ______, are the “we” who join Jesus in his work.

6. The truth is, all of our life is _____________. God has directions for us _________ day of our life.

7. When we encounter the sick, we have a calling to be agents of ______________ to them.

8. When believers tell us about their illnesses, not only can we pray for them, we can also encourage them to follow the instructions found in ______________ _____:_____-_____.