Sermon Cloud

3-2-08, SAM, CLC

Blessings Through Obedience.

Summary: Healing belongs to us today. God has provided it for us in several ways. Under the Old Covenant, He promised to take sickness away from us if we would obey His commandments, which under the New Covenant is the commandment of love. If we walk in love, we should walk in divine healing. We are to be rooted and grounded in love, it is to be what stabilizes and gives us strength. Love is the way to inheriting the eternal, God kind of life that starts when we are saved.

In the OT, God promised to take sickness from our midst, if we served and obeyed Him, in the NT, the commandment is love.
Deuteronomy 28:1-14
1 "Now it shall be, if you diligently obey the LORD your God, being careful to do all His commandments which I command you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth.
2 "All these blessings will come upon you and overtake you if you obey the LORD your God:
3 "Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the country.
4 "Blessed shall be the offspring of your body and the produce of your ground and the offspring of your beasts, the increase of your herd and the young of your flock.
5 "Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl.
6 "Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out.
7 "The LORD shall cause your enemies who rise up against you to be defeated before you; they will come out against you one way and will flee before you seven ways.
8 "The LORD will command the blessing upon you in your barns and in all that you put your hand to, and He will bless you in the land which the LORD your God gives you.
9 "The LORD will establish you as a holy people to Himself, as He swore to you, if you keep the commandments of the LORD your God and walk in His ways.
10 "So all the peoples of the earth will see that you are called by the name of the LORD, and they will be afraid of you.
11 "The LORD will make you abound in prosperity, in the offspring of your body and in the offspring of your beast and in the produce of your ground, in the land which the LORD swore to your fathers to give you.
12 "The LORD will open for you His good storehouse, the heavens, to give rain to your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hand; and you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow.
13 "The LORD will make you the head and not the tail, and you only will be above, and you will not be underneath, if you listen to the commandments of the LORD your God, which I charge you today, to observe them carefully,
14 and do not turn aside from any of the words which I command you today, to the right or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them.
Ex 23:25-26
25 "But you shall serve the LORD your God, and He will bless your bread and your water; and I will remove sickness from your midst.
26 "There shall be no one miscarrying or barren in your land; I will fulfill the number of your days.
Healing is also the children's bread.
Mt 15:26 And He answered and said, "It is not good to take the children‘s bread and throw it to the dogs."
We are to be rooted and grounded in love.
Ephesians 3:14-19
14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father,
15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name,
16 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man,
17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love,
18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth,
19 and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.
As we love, we inherit eternal life, which begins now.
Lu 10:25-37
25 And a lawyer stood up and put Him to the test, saying, "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?"
26 And He said to him, "What is written in the Law? How does it read to you?"
27 And he answered, "YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND; AND YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF."
28 And He said to him, "You have answered correctly; DO THIS AND YOU WILL LIVE."
29 But wishing to justify himself, he said to Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?"
30 Jesus replied and said, "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among robbers, and they stripped him and beat him, and went away leaving him half dead.
31 "And by chance a priest was going down on that road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.
32 "Likewise a Levite also, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.
33 "But a Samaritan, who was on a journey, came upon him; and when he saw him, he felt compassion,
34 and came to him and bandaged up his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them; and he put him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn and took care of him.
35 "On the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper and said, ‘Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, when I return I will repay you.'
36 "Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the robbers' hands?"
37 And he said, "The one who showed mercy toward him." Then Jesus said to him, "Go and do the same."
Joh 15:12
"This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.