Preparation for Worship: Luke 4:36

Call to worship: Isaiah 61:1-3

Reading of the Law: Proverbs 10:26 (Note to me: we have been called by our LORD to work… where we find ourselves being lazy, we need to repent).

AOPG: Romans 4:7-8

Old Covenant Reading (read first): Isaiah 61

New Covenant Reading: Matthew 4:23-25

(This is the inspired and holy word of God.)

Sermon – Jesus Went About

Introduction –

It’s not often that you can read a book of fiction and find true biblical insight. That is what happened when I was reading the Lord of the Rings to Heidi recently. I had finished reading about the Ride of Rohirrim, and in the chapter called The Houses of Healing, I had the “aha moment.”

The old wife, Ioreth, was tending to the wounded Faramir, afraid for his life. She then said, “Would that there were kings in Gondor as there were once upon a time, they say! For it is said in the old lore: The hands of the king are the hands of the healer. And so the rightful king could ever be known.”

It was at that moment, that I realized where it was that Tolkien came upon this idea, of the king being a healer.

He got the idea from the gospels, that show that our King truly is a healer.

And, this is what we should expect to find when it comes to the Messiah. Remember what was promised about the Messiah in the Garden of Eden: And I will put enmity between you (Satan) and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.

We are also told:

Isaiah 53:5

But He was wounded for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,
And by His stripes we are healed.

Jesus has come to reverse the curse. He is not only coming to defeat Satan, but also the work of Satan. Jesus is our sacrifice. He is the One who redeems us. He is the One who heals us.

All this is necessary for us to be citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven. We are beneficiaries to all of these things in Christ and without the regeneration that is necessary, we cannot be citizens of His Kingdom.

In this, we begin to see that Christ’s Kingdom is a different kind of Kingdom, with a different kind of King. The world offers us messiahs that can only lead by applying different levels of coercion.

But not Christ. He leads us by regenerating our hearts so that we believe. He leads us by working faith in us to believe. He leads us by bringing freedom from sin. He leads us and works in us by giving us the Spirit of God Himself. He leads by dealing with all that plague us. He leads us by dealing with His and our enemies. He is a different kind of King. He is a healing King.