The sick: Part 1

Image courtesy of Graur Razvan Ionut

"But when Jesus heard this, He said 'It is not those who are healthy who need a physician but those who are sick.'" -- Matthew 9:12.  Jesus, responding to the Pharisees' question as to why Jesus was eating with "tax collectors and sinners."  Furthermore, in Matthew 9:13, Jesus says He did not come to call the righteous but sinners.  Jesus came to heal the sick. 

The sick.  Given that we are at this point in Matthew, I think this concept of the sick is one we can all relate to at this time of year.  As I look around me, it seems that this cold weather is causing a lot of people to get sick in one form or another.  So far I have been blessed and have managed to avoid getting sick but I am most definitely not immune to the possibility.  Of course in Jesus' time, we know that people then were not much different than they are today in that they too got sick.  Makes me wonder if there was ever a time where Jesus healed a common cold? However, while we know Jesus healed many diseases including paralysis as found in Matthew 9:1-8, Jesus came to heal primarily spiritual sickness.  

The sick.  Matthew 9:13 explains to us who "the sick" are and Jesus contrasts it with "the righteous" which I find somewhat amusing simply because Romans 3:10 tells us that there is none righteous, not even one.  We know the Pharisees were self righteous.  A point we will look at in a moment when we tie Matthew 9:13 into all this.  But for now we will focus on the sick. 

The sick. Many times when we are first getting sick, there is a tendency to ignore the fact that we are getting sick.  Minor symptoms might show up but we think it will pass on its own and sometimes it does but more often than not, the sickness gets worse.  It is only when it gets worse that we do something about it as opposed to doing something about it early on.  The point is the first step to healing sickness is acknowledging that you are sick.  When it comes to our spiritual sickness or more specifically our sin, it's acknowledging that we have what many Christians call "a sin problem."  

The sick.  There is a second problem many of us run into when we are physically sick.  Even after acknowledging that we are sick, we have a tendency to try to fight it off on our own thinking it will pass.  Sometimes it does, but sometimes it does not.  The same is true with our spiritual sickness.  We tend to want to fight our spiritual sickness on our own thinking we can somehow get rid of our sin problem on our own.  This fails 9 times out of 10.  Actually, 10 times out of 10 because the fact is only Jesus, the Great Physician, can heal our sin sickness.  

The sick.  All that being said though, we have to go back to the fact that the first step in taking care of sickness is acknowledging that we are sick. Again the same is true with our sin, the first step to taking care of sin, is acknowledging that we have a sin sickness.  It is those who acknowledge that they have a sin sickness that Jesus came to call.  This was the problem that the Pharisees had.  They didn't think they had a sin sickness.  They thought they were righteous.  We know from Matthew 9:13, Jesus did not come to call those who thought they were already righteous but those who knew they needed healing from their sin sickness.  

So what does this mean to us?  To close off in keeping with the sickness analogy, another common phrase we will hear from someone who is getting sick is "I'm fine" when they are clearly sick or on their way to getting sick.  Sometimes this is our attitude when it comes to our sin sickness.  In order to avoid this "I'm fine" mentality we need to be realistic with ourselves and take a look at the symptoms.  The same is true with our sin.  Sin sickness also has symptoms.  Galatians 5:19-21 tells us what the deeds of the flesh or the acts of the sinful nature are.  These are symptoms of our sin sickness.  At the end of your day today, take some time to look at Galatians 5:19-21 and see if at any point today you displayed any of those "symptoms" of sin sickness.  If you have, acknowledge that you have and take steps to get rid of that particular sin in your life.  It might mean removing yourself from a situation.  It might mean having to get rid of something in your house that is causing you to sin in that area.  Whatever the case, the first step to healing our sin sickness is acknowledging that we are sick.  When we do that, Jesus, the Great Physician is more than willing to heal of us of that sin sickness.  If you haven't done so and are tired of being sin sick, healing begins with belief, repentance, and obedience to the gospel.   Don't try to fight sin sickness off on your own, fact is we can't do it.  Come to Jesus who is the Great Physician who "did not come to call the righteous, but sinners."  Tomorrow we will look at what our attitude toward "the sick" should be in relation to this same passage. In the meantime I leave you with the words of Jesus, "It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick."

DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! PRAY ABOUT IT! LOVE Y'ALL! GOD BLESS!