A message for Akron Alliance Fellowship Church, Sunday, February 16, 2025.
For the “Live in Church” audio of this message, select here.
Well, we’re a week removed from the Super Bowl, and we’re officially into the off-season. If you’re a professional athlete, your time off is actually very, very brief, because you need to stay in shape to be ready to hit training camp during the heat of the summer. There is even another professional football league that will start play in March. The United Football League is a developmental league where players strive to get to the place where they can get a job in the National Football League, so they need to be ready to play right now. Their off-season starts later this year, but a true professional is always ready to play.
In order to compete at the highest level in any professional sport, you need to be in the best physical shape that you can possibly be if you expect to compete at the highest level and win games. With that said, we know full well that there is often a risk of injury. Professional football teams are required by their leagues to provide injury reports. The injury report, which is provided as early as three days before the game, was to provide information about a team for the Vegas oddsmakers and potential bettors. Now that there is so much money out there pertaining to betting on college sports, injury reports are being created for universities to protect the student-athletes from gambling-related harm.1 The pros, at one time, used the following terms for players who have suffered from some sort of injury prior to gametime: Probable, Questionable, Doubtful, Out, and Injured Reserve. Isn’t it interesting that we can even use this same terminology for how we move around day after day—especially if we are now past age 60. We can make our own injury report (perhaps to keep things light when it hurts a little). Some days we are ready to go, while others we may be probable or questionable (and we gut it out), and there are other days where we are doubtful because we’ve got a migraine, or we just can’t do very much because we are out of action or on injured reserve.
For some of the young whippersnappers out there who are confident that they can do anything, be careful! There are a number of things that can get you tripped up and on the injury list! The sad part of this discussion about injuries is that you don’t even need to do anything physical to get hurt. I remember the time when I bent over to pick up a briefcase, and I pulled something in my back that caused excruciating pain that traveled down my leg. If you have ever dealt with sciatica, you know what I mean. It hurt enough where I was walking with a cane before things calmed down. A lot of us can relate to physical pain really doing a number on us. And we don’t get an off-season to rest and rehabilitate. We still have to navigate through life. We may stretch and exercise to experience some relief, and we rest at night. Through all of this, we ask—and sometimes plead—for the Lord to heal our bodies.
This message is about healing. It is appropriate to review the subject of healing as some of us have seen a very public example of a television personality sharing his journey of recovery from oral cancer. Wayne Dawson, morning news anchor of Fox 8 News, discovered that he had mouth cancer. After surgery, the growth was successfully removed, but the cancer returned, and now Mr. Dawson is undergoing multiple chemo and radiation treatments with several more treatments to come. Watching what he has had to endure through this process has been a little tough at times. He has had to get his jaw rebuilt from bone that came from one of his shins. It’s hard when a healthy person goes through an illness that turns life upside down, and as a man of God, he admittedly began to question the very foundation of his faith. In spite of that, he relishes the power of prayer, and he knows that he has a lot of support. He said recently, “It means so much to know you have a community of people who love you, and I just want to let everyone know, I love you so much for what you have done. You can’t walk this walk, you can’t fight this fight, you can’t take this journey without support.”2
Some journeys to a place of wellness take quite some time. Others are relatively short. The common factor is that those who are suffering from illness are seeking God’s healing power along with His comforting presence.
I want to explore this subject with a perspective of healing and the expectations that come with it. This gets more personal for those who have experienced healings from cancer or different types of illnesses or ailments. If you have not experienced these things, perhaps you will see how this essay will be helpful in the present and in the future as we go through aging, our changing bodies and dealing with life’s challenges.
Let’s look at some Scripture.
1.) God’s name of healer.
Exodus 15:22-26 NIV
22 Then Moses led Israel from the Red Sea and they went into the Desert of Shur. For three days they traveled in the desert without finding water. 23 When they came to Marah, they could not drink its water because it was bitter. (That is why the place is called Marah.)24 So the people grumbled against Moses, saying, “What are we to drink?”
25 Then Moses cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a piece of wood. He threw it into the water, and the water became fit to drink.
There the Lord issued a ruling and instruction for them and put them to the test. 26 He said, “If you listen carefully to the Lord your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, who heals you.”
This last section of the passage refers to God as Jehovah Rapha, which is Hebrew for “the God who heals” or “I am the Lord who heals you.” As God establishes that He is a Healer, He also reminds us here that His healing is not because of the obedience to God. He reveals to us that God, in His sovereign nature, heals IN SPITE of who we are. He provides healing to show us who He is and eliminates any reason for us to presume that we experience His healing because of what we do. Remember, the people with Moses were complaining about the bitter waters. God used this as an opportunity to show who He was, and if the people would listen to God and do what was right, He declared that He would withhold any diseases to the people. Of course, we know that the people struggled with obedience and lacked faith, but God remained true to who He is.
God is telling us very clearly of His ability to heal. He heals without the need for assistance from anyone or anything else, and I think that this is important to point out (and I learned something from this statement). A. B. Simpson, in his essay The Gospel of Healingpoints out that God, in His sovereignty, heals independently. Simpson, in his reference to how God healed Job, he writes that there is no doctor or drugs present. He continues: “When Job recovers, it is wholly from God’s direct hand.” In Leviticus, God healed leprosy without a “remote intimation of a doctor or a drug store.”3 We have a tendency to look at the doctors and nurses who work diligently to treat their patients. This is not intended to diminish the efforts of those who are called to serve in the medical profession, but we must remember that God does not need the help of physicians or medications to heal us. If anything, the doctors and nurses need to draw upon the power and wisdom of Jehovah Raphaas they do their work; as a result, we pray correctly when we ask the Lord to provide wisdom to the people who are appointed to oversee our health. They need God, but God does not need them.
Next, God provides much more to us than physical healing. This next section covers arguably an even more important realm of healing. Your spiritual healing and well-being are at stake.
2.) God provides healing in the atoning work of Christ.
Isaiah 53:1-5 NIV
1 Who has believed our message
and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by mankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
4 Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
Isaiah’s prophetic message about the One who would be punished for our sins was Jesus Christ. By the punishment He endured on the cross and from His shed blood, we are healed from our sins in the past, present and future because we believe in Him and His healing power.
Matthew 8:16-17 NIV
16 When evening came, many who were demon-possessed were brought to him, and he drove out the spirits with a word and healed all the sick. 17 This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah:
“He took up our infirmities
and bore our diseases.”
Jesus, in His earthly ministry, healed hundreds of thousands of people according to what is recorded in the gospels. The gospels record 37 miracles that Jesus performed, with the vast majority of those involving healing.4 Before we get hung up on that number 37, please be reminded of John’s words at the conclusion of his gospel.
John 21:25 NIV
Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.
Literally and figuratively, there is no limit that should be given to the accomplishments of Jesus; therefore, we should also trust in His Word that assures every believer in Him WILL NOT perish but have eternal life with Him (John 3:16). He is our Remedy from experiencing the penalty of our sins.
In order to acknowledge the healing presence of God, we are to pray. In fact, prayer is the foundation of our exercise of faith in the power and ability of Jesus.
Philippians 4:6-7 NIV
6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Psalm 34:7-8 NIV
7 The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him,
and he delivers them.
8 Taste and see that the Lord is good;
blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.
3.) For those of us in the church who are ailing, we are to call on the elders to pray for our healing.
James 5:13-16 NIV
13 Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise. 14 Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. 16 Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.
Prayers and petitions, for the believer in Jesus, should be the immediate go-to whenever we are in need, and when we are sick, we need to implement group prayer with our church elders. It’s good to pray on our own, but it is also good to involve others to elevate the prayer requests for healing. The more righteous people who get together in prayer, the better. It’s also to show support for someone in a time of need.
4.) Jesus is Healer.
Who is the healer? Jesus is the Healer. A. B. Simpson points only to Jesus as our Healer, and that you are to believe in Him and His ability to heal in your present reality.5
1 Peter 2:24 NIV
“He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been healed.”
Peter also draws upon the words of Isaiah in his letter to reveal what God had already revealed to him during Jesus’s earthly ministry:
Matthew 16:13-18 NIV
13 When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”
14 They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”
15 “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”
16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”
17 Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. 18 And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.
Make no mistake about this. In order for you to truly experience the power of Jesus and His healing, you must acknowledge that Jesus is Lord and Savior of your life. We experience His love, His presence, His power and His glory when we fully give ourselves to Him. His ability to heal you is not arbitrary nor is it contingent upon your understanding of who He is. We know there are many examples of people experiencing the physical healing power of Jesus. He also has the power and ability to rescue anyone who needs His saving grace in what He accomplished for all of us when He went to the cross.
What ails you? Please know that Jesus knows where your heart is. If you haven’t already done so, draw nearer to Him and let Him provide the cure for your present state. He is waiting to hear from you.
Copyright © 2025 Melvin Gaines.
1 Byers, J. (2024, August 30). Rise of sports betting leads SEC to require injury reports. SBC Americas. https://sbcamericas.com/2024/08/30/sports-betting-sec-injury-reports/
2 Naquin, T. (2025, January 13). How is Wayne Dawson after oral cancer diagnosis. Fox 8 News. https://fox8.com/news/wayne-dawson-overwhelmed-by-support-during-cancer-journey
3 Simpson, A. (1890). The Gospel of Healing, Fourth Edition., p. 21. Christian Alliance Publishing Co., New York, NY.
4 W, A. (n.d.). The 37 miracles of Jesus in chronological order. Sunny Hills Church, Wytheville, VA. https://sunnyhillschurch.com/3301/the-37-miracles-of-jesus-in-chronological-order/
5 3 Simpson, A. (1890). The Gospel of Healing, Fourth Edition., p. 13. Christian Alliance Publishing Co., New York, NY.
Melvin Gaines 