IT MATTERS WHAT YOU BELIEVE | Why Do We Get Sick

It's not Sunday if there's not a sound (issue). All right, welcome to church. Well, so last week, let me back up. We've been in the series about what we believe matters. And last week I thought foolishly that I would speak about healing for a week. So as I said, no, I'm going to need a part two. And now, as I've been working on part two, there will at least be a part three. So we're going to be talking about healing for a little while. We'll see what happens, but let's pray and we'll get started.

Father, thank you so much for the gift of your word. Thank you that it speaks to us right where we are. Thank you that you did such a great job of authoring it. That even though it's written so many thousands of years ago, it still works in 2026 and however long forward goes. Lord, you said your word wouldn't return void and that's proving to be true over and over. So I pray, Lord, that as we look at your word, what you would say to us would speak and that what would come from any other source would just be silenced or the truth would shine. In Jesus' name, amen.

All right. So for sure next week, we'll talk about mental health. So if you've got any kinds of questions, concerns, comments, whatever about mental health and why I didn't bring them up today, it's because it's too big of a topic to put into physical health. This week I want to talk about—I said last week we would talk about how to pray for the sick. There's not like a how-to, like how do you talk to your parents, right? Kind of a thing. How do you talk to your significant other? How do you talk to your kids? You know, there's some things you don't do and there's some good ideas. But when I say we want to talk about how to pray for the sick, it's not "here's a formula and if you do this God will answer". It's just some concepts and some ideas.

Diagnosing the Problem: Where Sickness Comes From

One of the things I think is most helpful when it comes to evaluating the situation, which is kind of part of what we want to do when we pray for people, is to understand where something came from, right?. Where's the problem?. If I have a flat tire and I need to repair it, where's the problem?. Do I just need to add air because somebody was being silly and let all the air out of my tires, or did I drive through a construction zone and there's something in my tire that caused it to be flat?. So to correctly repair the tire, I need to know what happened or where it came from. It might not seem like it, but the Bible will show us that there are some different places that sickness can come from. There are at least three, maybe four. The fourth one is some people are contentious on it, but we're going to talk about it anyway. I don't want to shy away from it.

Source 1: A Broken and Fallen World

So the first thing—and I'm not going to read this, I'll tell you the story and then I'll just read a couple of verses—but right in the very beginning, God created everything in the early chapters. In the first three chapters of the Bible, we see this story arc where God created everything and He said it was good. He said it was good, good, good, good, very good at the end. And then He puts humans on earth and He tells them what to do and then they do the exact opposite of what He said. And so the world creation fell away. We talk about how creation fell or it was corrupted. And the reason for that is because humanity was given dominion and care over the earth and they failed.

That's part of why in Romans Jesus is called the second Adam because He comes in and makes everything right. He re-establishes dominion and takes it. It talks about how He took keys to death, hell, and the grave. But when humanity falls, God says this to Adam and Eve: "I will sharpen the pain of your pregnancy and in pain you will give birth. And you will desire to control your husband and he will rule over you". And to the man He said, "Since you listened to your wife and ate from the tree whose fruit I commanded you not to eat, the ground is cursed because of you. All of your life you will struggle to scratch a living from it; it will grow thorns and thistles for you. Though you will eat of its grains, by the sweat of your brow will you have food to eat until you return to the ground from which you were made; for you were made of dust and to dust you will return".

The Hope of Future Glory

So what happens is that God puts humans in a great place. In fact, if you ever wonder why bad things happen to good people, we just read the answer. The reason bad things happen is because God made everything perfect and He gave humans choice and Adam and Eve just bungled it for us, right?. And you might be like, "Thanks, Adam and Eve," but we would have done it too, y'all. They probably had the best chance of success, but let's go to Romans 8.

Sickness comes from the fact that the world is broken and busted, but it's not going to stay that way. Romans chapter 8 verse 18—I've been using this kids' Bible, which is great fun, specifically the New Living Translation. This is one of the places where the New Living Translation loses some of the original language and I'm going to talk about that. Other English translations handle different things differently, but if you look at some of the original Hebrew thoughts and terminology, and you look at some of the stuff said by Paul—who was like the best Pharisee ever until Jesus saved him—I'm going to read this and update a word as I go.

It says, "Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory He will reveal to us later. For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal His children, who His children really are". That part is actually a title; it's called "The Sons of God". It says, "Against its will, all creation was subjected to God's curse. But with eager hope, the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God's children [The Sons of God] in glorious freedom from death and decay".

For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. And we, believers, also groan. Even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We too wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as His adopted children, including the new bodies He has promised us. We were given this hope when we were saved. If we already have something, we don't need to hope for it. But we look forward to something we don't have yet. But we must wait patiently and confidently.

The Authority of the Sons of God

Why do the "Sons of God" matter? In the Old Testament, the title "Sons of God" refers to spiritual beings, angels, and demons. They are ruling over different places or different things. For example, Michael in the book of Daniel is identified as the guardian of Israel. Now, obviously God is the ultimate guardian, but he's working with Michael. Why does all this matter?. We're not going to worship angels and we're not afraid of demons. But just so you understand what the title was used for in the Old Testament. In the New Testament, the title gets transferred to Christians. It’s never a spiritual being in the New Testament; it's only Christians, male and female, because it's a title of authority and dominion.

Paul tells us that all of creation that's broken is waiting for the revealing of the children of God or the sons of God. What does any of this have to do with sickness?. The world is broken. There is sickness and terrible things that happen in our bodies, but as believers, our confidence is that at the end of time, everything will be made right. As long as we're on earth, our bodies will decay and break as we age. These things occur because we live in a broken system. If you put healthy fish in a sick fish tank, the fish will get sick, right?. We are waiting for God to make a new fish tank for us.

Source 2: Demonic Influence

The second place sickness comes from is demons, right?. Let me be super clear: I have zero interest in making demons cool because they're stupid. Jesus beat them like they stole something. One of my favorite scriptures is when it says Jesus made a spectacle of the powers and principalities. In the Iliad, Achilles kills Hector and drags him around behind his chariot to show everyone he is victorious. When I read that Jesus made a spectacle of demons, I imagine Jesus hooked them up to the back of His horse and rode around the sky to let everyone know how defeated they are.

Jesus is absolutely 100%—the devil has no authority and no power. But that doesn't mean demons don't cause sickness. Let's read Mark chapter 9. Jesus, Peter, James, and John have just come down from the mountain where Jesus was transfigured. They saw a large crowd and teachers of the law arguing with the disciples. A man said, "Teacher, I brought my son so you could heal him. He's possessed by an evil spirit that won't let him talk. Whenever this spirit seizes him, it throws him violently to the ground... I asked your disciples to cast out the spirit, but they couldn't do it".

Jesus rebuked the spirit: "Listen, you spirit that makes this boy unable to hear and speak... I command you to come out of this child and never enter him again". Afterward, the disciples asked why they couldn't cast it out, and Jesus replied, "This kind can only be cast out by prayer". It's important to talk about this because some people, because the world is broken, are just deaf or can't speak. But in this story, there is a demon at play causing the deafness or lack of speech. You don't want to cast a demon out of someone with a common cold, and you don't want to give Nyquil to someone who needs deliverance.

Source 3: Human Choice and Sin

This is the hardest pill to swallow. Sometimes you're sick because of you, or because of another human. James 5:13-16 says, "Are any of you sick? You should call for the elders of the church to come and pray over you... Such a prayer offered in faith will heal the sick... And if you have committed any sins, you will be forgiven. Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed". James is telling us that healing is connected to the confession of our sins.

In the book of Acts, Ananias and Sapphira lied to the Holy Spirit about money they gave to the church. Both of them fell dead right then and there because of their sin. Familiarity breeds contempt; we speed until the cop catches us and we pay a fine, which changes how we drive. Sometimes we have sickness in our life connected to choices we made. Sometimes that choice, like James indicates, is sin. But there are also practical things; sometimes we get sick because we chose to stay with people who were sick, or someone was negligent with safety on a work site.

I recently went to the doctor because I hadn't been feeling good since November. The doctor told me what I needed to do, and I changed my eating. I feel 100 times better. My sickness was directly connected to the choices I was making with my diet.

Source 4: For the Glory of God

The fourth source is one where there is a divided view in the church: that God might make you sick for His glory. In John 9, the disciples asked why a man was born blind—his sin or his parents'?. Jesus said, "It was not because of his sins or his parents' sins, this happened so the power of God could be seen in him".

We see this with Job and with Saul (Paul), whom God showed how much he must suffer for His name. Whether you believe God "makes" people sick or simply redeems the brokenness that already exists, both views square with scripture that God is good and faithful. It is our own self-centeredness that tells us we are too important to suffer for God’s glory. If God redeems the brokenness of the world for His glory, that is in line with His character.

Practical Prayer: How to Pray for the Sick

James 4 says we don't have what we want because we don't ask God, or we ask with wrong, selfish motives. 1 John 5:14-15 says we are confident He hears us whenever we ask for anything that pleases Him.

How do we pray? Pray for everything—even your animals. A toddler knows how to ask for help before they even have language; a parent knows the different cries of a baby. God knows what you need before you ask, but He wants you to ask. As we grow in Christ, our prayer should grow too. We should take responsibility to learn.

Things we don't do:

1. "Claiming your healing": This is not in the Bible. It assumes God owes us something. God is magnanimous, but He doesn't owe us physical healing in this life—if He did, no Christian would ever die.

2. "Losing your healing": This idea that you lose healing if you don't believe hard enough is not in the nature or character of God. Sickness might return if it was demonic and the person didn't fill that space with God, but God doesn't take back gifts because of a lack of faith.

The Prayer Process:

• Step 1: Ask what is happening. Be specific. How long has it been happening? Did anything cause it?.

• Step 2: Be slow to speak. Wait for the Lord. Let your clever human ideas pass. Wait for the Holy Spirit to whisper what is actually going on.

• Step 3: Pray with compassion. Don't hold people hostage with long prayers. God doesn't need 50,000 words. Just ask for His healing and glory to be known.

I’m going to pray until the person is healed, the person dies, or God says "Stop". We pray with boldness because Jesus brought the future reality of the Kingdom into the present.

Conclusion and St. Patrick's Day

We’re celebrating St. Patrick's Day today, not for luck or green beer, but to celebrate the revival St. Patrick brought to Ireland where Christ changed a country.

Father, thank you for hearing us. We pray with boldness that your healing would come now. May people be overtaken by your goodness and your power. In Jesus' name, amen.