Sermon 3/26/23
This morning I’d like us to look at what the Bible teaches about what we can expect of this life. Are we promised a life free from suffering? Are we promised health and wealth? Are we promised instant healing for every sickness and perfect bodies? Are we promised luxury? What does the Bible actually say about these things?
The Bible doesn’t just acknowledge suffering, loss, and struggle in our lives. God’s word actually promises that these will be part of the life experiences of every believer. But it also promises that no matter what happens in this life, we have His sufficient grace now and the hope of a joyful eternal life with him forever.
In contrast, some Christians today, especially in the United States, teach that God’s primary goal for us in this life is personal happiness, financial wealth, and physical health. Some teach that we can receive all these as long as we have enough faith.
A popular church in our valley has a statement of their beliefs on their website listing “Total Prosperity” as one of the promises of their belief system. Their website goes on to list aspects of this Total Prosperity to include TOTAL physical, mental, social, and financial prosperity.
We’re going to look at some Bible verses that are taken out of context to support these ideas, and compare them with what scripture clearly teaches.
The first verse that’s used to support the idea of total prosperity is John 10:10: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came so that they would have life, and have it abundantly.”
The context of John chapter 10 is Jesus is revealing Himself as the Good Shepherd who loves us, feeds us, sustains us, forgives us, and leads us. He contrasts Himself with Satan who is a destroyer and thief. Satan does the opposite of what Jesus does. He tries to steal our faith, our hope, and our love. He tries to destroy our marriages, our families, and our communities. Satan tries to inject doubt in God and His word, and keeps people away from the abundant, life-giving love, grace, and mercy of God.
None of this has anything to do with financial prosperity or endless good health. Abundant life for a Christian means a full adventurous life of service, love, sacrifice, changing lives and communities, battling the forces of darkness, worship, fellowship, and lifting people out of hopelessness and emptiness. It cheapens Jesus’ words to twist them into a false promise of self-centered financial prosperity, comfort and perfect health.
Another passage that’s used to promote the idea of total physical health is this one from Isaiah 53:4-5:
“However, it was our sicknesses that He Himself bore,
And our pains that He carried;
Yet we ourselves assumed that He had been afflicted,
Struck down by God, and humiliated.
But He was pierced for our offenses,
He was crushed for our wrongdoings;
The punishment for our well-being was laid upon Him,
And by His wounds we are healed.”
Taken in isolation, the first line of this could be understood to mean that Jesus carried our physical ailments and pain so we could always be physically healed. It is true that in His earthly ministry Jesus physically healed countless people. And he does heal people today. Sometimes it’s through a medical process, sometimes it’s sudden and miraculous. Our oldest daughter had a miraculous healing as a baby and then again as a child. We are called to pray in faith, and prayer always changes things.
But Christians are not always healed physically. The most important writer of the New Testament, the Apostle Paul, cried out to the Lord three times to heal his physical affliction. Instead of healing Paul, God told Paul in 2 Corinthians 12:9: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Sometimes God’s answer is no. But if he does not heal, he promises sufficient grace to sustain us in our weakness.
Paul also mentioned his physical problem when writing to the church in Galatia. Galatians 4:13-14: “You know that because of physical infirmity I preached the gospel to you at the first. And my trial which was in my flesh you did not despise or reject.”
Notice what the Galatian church did and did not do. They DID accept Paul in the brokenness and weakness that the physical condition caused. However, the Galatian church DID NOT tell Paul that if he just had more faith he would be healed. They didn’t tell him he just needed to rebuke a demon. They probably prayed for his healing. But healing of that affliction didn’t come in this life for Paul. He understood that God allowed this weakness and brokenness in him so that the gospel would go forth through a broken, humbled person by God’s spirit, not by physical strength and perfect health.
Many of you have heard of Joni Erikson Tada, who was paralyzed in a diving accident as a teenager. She’s now an older woman, and still in a wheelchair, and still in pain. It’s not for lack of prayer or lack of faith. She has prayed all her life for healing, and countless people have prayed for her to be healed. But God has said no to completely healing her paralysis and pain in this life. As she has continually submitted her life to Christ, God has turned her disability into a worldwide ministry to help disabled people, and inspire and challenge millions more people through books, podcasts, speeches, interviews and more. Her life is not easy. She is in continual pain. Her husband has to feed her and take care of her personal needs 24/7. There’s no health and wealth in her life, but she has the abundant life Jesus promised. She radiates joy in Christ, and sees people’s lives changed because of her ministry in Christ.
When we look at the whole chapter of Isaiah 53, almost all of it refers to Jesus physically suffering torture and a lonely, painful death to carry our sins to the grave with Him. So when we read, “By His wounds we are healed,” it’s not necessarily a promise that our every physical sickness and problem will be taken away. It means we’re healed of our bondage to sin.
Every person that Jesus healed – every one of them - later died of another illness, disease, an accident, a heart attack, old age, or martyrdom. Jesus did heal people out of love and compassion. But His purpose in healing was not to permanently give them a perfect body or perfect health in this life. Our earthly bodies are designed to wear out. Jesus temporarily healed people’s earthly bodies for a time to demonstrate His authority over all things as the good news of the gospel went forth. And it pointed to the ultimate healing He would bring, giving us new, glorified bodies that will last forever.
John 14:14 is a verse used as a basis for so-called “name it and claim it.” Here’s the short verse, Jesus’ own words:
“You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.”
This verse has been twisted to make God into a genie that grants wishes for our own pleasure. In this mindset, whatever we ask for – a new house, a new car, a new boyfriend or girlfriend, perfect health, etc. - God has to grant our wish. When taken in context with the whole of Jesus’ teachings, it doesn’t mean that at all. Instead, Jesus promised this in Matthew 16:24-26:
“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?”
Rather than pointing to earthly comfort, health, pleasure and riches, Jesus points his followers in the opposite direction – suffering and sacrifice. Just as Jesus laid down His comfort, His pleasure, His earthly security, and ultimately His life, He clearly tells his followers that following Him often means laying down our earthly comforts, pleasures, security, and maybe even our very lives. He warns against gaining all the things of this world, telling us it may cause us to lose our soul in the process.
When we look at the lives of his followers in the years after Jesus left this Earth, there is no indication of health and wealth at all, but the opposite. Most of the 12 disciples suffered terrible persecution and were killed for their faith. Beyond them, many of the early Christians suffered terribly. By following Christ, many lost their businesses and income.
Maybe you’ve heard the term ‘Roman Candle’. In the time of the early church, it meant Christians burned on a pole to light the streets of Rome. A writer of that time said, “Christians were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination.” Some Christians were put alive into the Roman Coliseum with lions who tore them apart, all for the amusement of the Roman elite.
That was reality for Christians then, and it still is in some places in the world today. Especially in some parts of the Middle East, Asia and Africa, Christians are still tortured, beaten, raped, and killed. We need to care about and pray for our brothers and sisters in these horrific situations. We’re still mostly immune from that right now in the United States, which is why this false Prosperity Gospel is mainly only believed here in America. However, things will likely change in the future. The Book of Revelation points to a time of great suffering during the final struggles of this world.
In his famous Sermon on the Mount, Jesus gave a clear picture of his values. While they definitely don’t point toward health and wealth, they do point toward hope in the middle of our suffering and persecution.
“Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.
Blessed are you who hunger now,
for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh.
Blessed are you when people hate you,
when they exclude you and insult you
and reject your name as evil,
because of the Son of Man.
Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their ancestors treated the prophets.
“But woe to you who are rich,
for you have already received your comfort.
Woe to you who are well fed now,
for you will go hungry.
Woe to you who laugh now,
for you will mourn and weep.
Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you,
for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets.”
With these simple words, Jesus points us to a humble life of service, sacrifice, love, and sharing in the sufferings of others as we reach out to them. Jesus does NOT point us to a perfect house and a perfect body.
In Matthew 6:19-24, Jesus specifically speaks against making wealth our goal: “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also… No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”
One Bible verse that has especially been misused by Christians is Jeremiah 29:11. Most of us have heard this verse countless times:
“‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’”
This verse is often quoted to individual Christians as a promise that God will bring a quick and prosperous fix to whatever they’re going through. But that’s not the context or meaning of the verse.
The prophet Jeremiah wrote these words to his fellow Israelites who had been captured and carried off to an evil foreign country, Babylon. Because of their sin and idolatry, God allowed the wicked Babylonians to keep the Israelites in captivity and forced labor for many decades, far from their beloved homeland. Jeremiah wrote God’s promise not to an individual, but to the nation of Israel. And, listen: none of the people who received Jeremiah’s letter received its promises. Not one of them. After Jeremiah’s letter was received, it would be 70 more years before the Israelites would return home to rebuild their lives. It was a completely different generation who received the promise, not the generation who first read the letter. This verse is not a magic promise of instant restoration to Christians who experience heartbreak of any kind. It was a promise to the Israelites that God, on his own time, would restore his people as a whole. Even though the generation that read the letter didn’t receive the promise, it was still an encouraging promise to them that their children not yet born would once again live free back in their homeland.
Though it’s wrong to promise health and wealth to people, God does give us hope in the struggles of this life. The last verse I want to share is Jesus’ own words, and it contains three promises.
John 16:33:
“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
Jesus’ first promise in this passage is that by taking Him at His word, we can have peace even in the storms of our lives. But it’s only peace in Him. He said “in Me you may have peace.” If we are not in Christ, there won’t be real peace.
Jesus’ second promise is: “In this world you will have trouble.” It’s not a conditional promise, it’s a guarantee. We will have trouble in this world. We will suffer, we will get sick, people will hurt us, things will sometimes be messy and painful. Jesus’ words about this are pretty straightforward.
We are called to pray in faith for the sick, and He will bring healing in His way and time. It may be a sudden and miraculous physical healing, or His healing grace and guidance through a long, complex medical process, or it may be the ultimate healing of leaving behind an earthly body for the joy of heaven. We also need to pray that God will use our suffering and brokenness for a good purpose, just as Joni Erikson Tada did. We may be able to minister to someone at the hospital, or our affliction may connect us with people we never would have known otherwise. If nothing else, it will make us more humble, patient, compassionate, and helpful to other people who are hurting and broken.
Though wealth for our own selfish gain should not be our goal, we are called to work hard, make a living, support our families, and support the work of the church. As we seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, the things we truly need will be given to us.
Jesus’ third promise in this passage is “I have overcome the world.” By His life, sacrifice, suffering, death and resurrection, He became the Way for us. He defeated Satan and the ultimate power of death. He gave us hope, so this third promise comes with a command: “Take heart!”
Jesus tells us to “take heart” through all the struggles of this world because He triumphed over all of them. He made a way for us to have an abundant life now and eternal life and joy forever. And that’s a promise from God’s word we can hold on to.