Jesus, Interrupted

Well, happy Labor Day, everybody. If you have a Bible at one of our campuses this weekend, if you would take it out now and begin to find your way to Mark, Chapter 5. Mark, Chapter 5.

Mark is the second book in the New Testament, if that helps you locate it. Over the next few weeks, we are hitting several stories, very important stories from the life of Jesus. I would tell you, as I mentioned last weekend, that these are great messages for you to bring a friend to, especially ones that may not know that much about Christianity, because we're going to love you. We're going to look at the basic elements of who Jesus was and what he came to do. Think of it as kind of a 101 course on Jesus. These are also stories that we are reading together throughout the week in our yearly Bible reading plan. We read this particular story on Tuesday, and so I would love for you to join us in reading through the New Testament for the remainder of the year, if you have not already done that.

Mark 5, we're going to be down around verse 22. One of the things that you notice when you are overseas, like I was this summer with my family, is that not everyone in the world respects the concept of a line. At numerous points this summer, I would be standing in line for something like ordering food at a fast food place or a little kiosk or something, trying to leave a respectful distance between me and the person that was next in line. When the person, you know, somebody would just come out of nowhere and they would just slide right in front of me and put their money down on the counter in front of mine. What was weird is that they seemed to have no concept at all that I would even be bothered by this. So I would have to leave the place for a while real big and they would say, oh, from America, mister, where are you from? And I, you know, I get this indignant, self-righteous look on my face and their just grinning at me like they just won the lottery.

So one of our missionaries there taught me a move that we use the rest of the summer, and that is I grab the hands of my girls and we formed this little, like, circle up, almost like a box-out routine in basketball, and I'd just be watching and I'd be like, Kara's got one coming in at 3 o'clock and she'd hip-check them, you know, just to make sure that we stayed right there in line. All for the cause. All for the cause. Trying to be a good testament for that. Well today we are going to see the story of somebody who cut the line so to speak to get to Jesus and she does So because she's desperate and desperate people tend to do desperate things and while what she does may seem rude Jesus's reaction to her is maybe even stranger and the whole encounter is going to teach us something very important about faith In fact several important things about faith even if it's not a good model for how to order a food at a fast-food restaurant because it shows us the kind of faith that Jesus responds to and it also shows us what Jesus wants from us when he does not seem to be Responding to us mark 5 verse 22. Let's begin here Then one of the synagogue leaders named gyrus by the way is the leader of the synagogue That means he would have been one of the leading officials in the city one of the most important men in the town He came and when he saw Jesus he fell at Jesus's feet.

He pleaded earnestly with him. My little daughter is dying Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live What's striking about this is first of all his posture toward Jesus grown men in those days did not plead Particularly men of that stature it was considered shameful for men of stature to show that kind of emotion and for a ruler For a ruler to prostrate himself at another man's feet But this little man's this man's little girl is dying and you see things differently when you are desperate Luke's account of the same event tells us that this was his only daughter the fact that she's 12 years old and that it's his Only daughter is a pretty good indication that his wife and he probably Thought that they weren't ever gonna be able to have kids and they managed to have this one So you're looking at someone who is very precious to him. This little girl meant the world to him and he's desperate So he pleased verse 24 so Jesus went with him verse verse 24 a large crowd followed and pressed around him and a woman was there in that crowd who had been subject to bleeding for 12 years now, that's a very polite way in in in the New Testament of saying that she had an Uncontrollable menstrual flow which meant that not only was she sick and likely in pain She was unable to have children and even more she was ceremonially unclean which meant that nobody could touch her She was not allowed to go into public worship because she was unclean She really should not be in crowds because she might touch somebody and make them unclean. She's been this way for 12 years Which means that for 12 years nobody has touched her nobody has hugged her for 12 years Nobody's laid a hand on her to pray for her. She is an outcast. She is lonely verse 26 She suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and she'd spent all that she had yet instead of getting better She only grew worse She spent her entire family's fortune trying to get various doctors to cure her but nothing's helped In fact, the attempted cures have just made her sicker and so more better were sick and she's given up Hope one other thing that you'll notice about this woman is she's not given a name This is in contrast to gyrus. You see who's got a name that everybody knows In fact, her whole story is supposed to be read in contrast to his he's got a daughter Who's 12 years old and sick?

She's been sick for 12 years. He's the ruler of the synagogue. She's not allowed in the synagogue He was respected. She was rejected. His was a household name hers is a name Nobody knows verse 27 when she heard about Jesus She came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak because she thought if I just touch his clothes If I could just touch his clothes, I'll be healed now. You have to wonder what exactly had she heard Maybe she'd heard the prophecy given by Malachi and Malachi 4-2 that when the Messiah came he would rise with Healing in his wings. We know that already by the time of Jesus There was a legend that had grown up that the Messiah would be so powerful that even the the wings of his garment the fringes Of his garment would possess healing power So maybe she'd heard that and maybe she thought, you know, maybe just maybe this is my chance But here's her dilemma.

She's not even supposed to be in public I told you in case she touched somebody and made them unclean, but this is her only chance And so she risks the public scorn She fights her way through the crowds trying to keep her face covered up so that people don't recognize who she is and expose her and by the way, I love that the crowds could not keep this woman from Jesus and I say that because I see a lot of People who get cut from Jesus by what they assume. Everybody else is gonna think Oh if I'm just gonna make jokes around me jokes about me around the office My parents are gonna say that I I joined a cult the woman says forget the crowds I got to know the truth about this man because he just might be able to change my whole life So she fights her way through through the crowds to him and as he goes by She reaches out and just touches the hem of his clothes and the word touch there by the way verse 28 literally means clutched In other words, she grabbed it and she pulled it in verse 29 immediately Her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering It was like she grabbed hold of a rope and she pulled it and this rang this bell and power rung out of him Verse 30 at once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him Notice the passive nature of how that stated. It doesn't say that Jesus sent out his power. It says a power went out It's presented as if he is not even in control of it, which leads me to ask you a theological question.

You ready? Here's your theological question. Is Jesus not in control of his miracles is God not sovereign over the outpouring of his power. Of course he is It's presented this way because mark is trying to teach us something about the faithfulness of Jesus And that is that he responds to faith so reliably that it might as well be a reflex And so he turns around in the crowd and he asked who was it who touched my clothes now again?

Does he really not know surely he's God he can figure this one out on his own Here's how I see it when my kids were younger I'd come down and they're not three You know my four kids are sitting down there in the living room and there's a lid off of the cookie jar and all You know three of my kids are sitting there with clean faces watching TV and one of them's got chocolate smeared all over their face And so I say was one of you guys in the cookie jar now I'm not asking that because I don't know I'm asking that because I'm giving one of them a chance to come clean Of course, my kids are always like no I mean maybe it was on a mom's friends or a cookie gremlin or a cookie rapture. We don't know what happened dad What Jesus is doing here is he's inviting her to come forward and publicly confess what she's done Because you see there's always there's an a very important public dimension to all great acts of faith God wants you to own it. That's one of the reasons we say baptism is so important here You're not supposed to keep your love for Jesus private.

You're supposed to declare it That's as important for you as it is for everybody else. God wants you to own it publicly We'll give you a chance in a few weeks to follow up on that if you never have Well the disciples who are as I've told you not always the spiciest Doritos in the bag They think Jesus is genuinely asking a question. So they say well Jesus you you see the people crowding around you and yet you ask who touched me The disciples have this amazing ability to fill silence with stupidity and you almost can picture Jesus going really guys you you really thought I didn't know that there were a lot of people around me that were touching me I'm thank you for all your amazing insights. By the way These are going to be these appointed leaders of God's Church in the coming years You almost get the impression that Jesus is going to build his church not because of the awesomeness of his leaders But despite their severe lack thereof Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it verse 33 then the woman knowing what had happened to her came to her The woman knowing what had happened to her came and fell at his feet and trembling with fear She told him the whole truth.

There's something really really sweet here. I think this scorned alienated woman Who's now coming forward in the sight of all she had been trying to hide herself She didn't want to be seen now trembling with fear wondering Have I been caught is he gonna reject me? Also, is he gonna publicly shame me? He knows I'm not supposed to be here He probably doesn't appreciate that me an unclean woman has touched him What happens next might be might be the most important teaching moment in the life of Jesus? Maybe the most important teaching moment at all of Scripture because it is the central question of all religion What is it like to be exposed in all of your defilement all your guilt and all your shame? before a holy God Verse 34 he said to her Daughter Your faith has healed you the word daughter that he uses here scholars Tell us is a term of the most intimate endearment You would never use it of someone that you just met and by the way This is the only person that Jesus ever refers to in the Gospels by that term The girl that nobody wanted has just been called precious daughter by the ultimate father The girl that nobody would touch is embraced by the strongest and most tender arms in the universe The name that nobody else knew is precious to God.

Do you see the contrast? Jairus is a dad who is pleading the cause of his daughter before Jesus, but this woman has no father So Jesus becomes her father to Jairus. You're gonna see that he will be the healer to this woman He will be both father and healer because he becomes to us whatever we lack to those who are lonely He is the friend to those who are fatherless. He is the father to those who are guilty He becomes cleanliness to those who are in shame. He becomes their honor to those who are poor He becomes their riches. He is everything and so he says verse 34 go in peace daughter and be freed from your suffering Now there's something here that you and I if we're Americans and I know most of us are we usually think I know most of us are we usually miss but if you're a Jew or a Muslim you immediately pick up on it In fact, I love telling this story to Muslims a whole lot more than I love telling it to you people because They always see something in it.

We don't see and just reading the story. They're jolted by it as you tell it Here is this woman unclean and defiled Touching somebody that everybody regards to be a holy man What happens when an unclean thing touches a clean thing? Well, the clean thing gets defiled by the unclean Now I you know most of you know that I live for a couple years as a missionary over in a Muslim country And while I was there I was single and I lived with this family I'm very strict Muslim family and I became quite close close with the family and so their prayer room They were wealthy enough. They had a prayer room in their house And so but to get to it you had to walk right past my room So they had a teenage daughter and as she would make her way to the prayer room Sometimes I would see her coming and I would just hide like right behind my door And when she walked by I jumped out and touched her face At which point she would get mad and she would like start saying so she had to go back and wash again because i'm unclean I'm unclean because i'm not a Muslim and she would have to go wash again I would not suggest doing that by the way with a Muslim woman unless you are very very close to them and their family But when somebody that is unclean touches somebody who is clean then the one who is clean gets defiled by the unclean That's why she'd have to go watch again a wash again. We understand that concept Um with sickness what happens if a sick person comes in close contact with a healthy person if i'm sick and you're well your wellness Does not make me healthier We don't say my kid is sick I think i'll drop them off in the nursery with all the well kids so that their wellness will rub off on my kid If you think that way please go to a different church, okay If i'm sick and I sneeze on you and you get sick we say I gave my cold to you That doesn't mean unfortunately that I don't have my cold anymore.

That would be pretty awesome, right? Like I just gave it to you I mean, you know if I just give it to you and then i'd sneeze on somebody I didn't have it what it means is Now we both have it because when the unclean touches the clean then the clean thing becomes unclean And here's what's so shocking about all of this in this story when the unclean thing touches the clean thing When the sick one touches the one who is well When the sick one touches the one who is well she the unclean becomes clean she the sick becomes healthy So it raises a question what has happened to the uncleanness That's the million dollar question of the gospels The answer is jesus silently and invisibly takes it into himself You see he is going to end his life on a cross where he literally becomes our sin and bears our shame Isaiah had prophesied that the messiah would bear our griefs and carry our sorrows that he would be wounded for our Transgressions and bruised for our iniquities. I keep repeating this over the last several weeks the core of the gospel is Substitution on the cross he took our defilement and our condemnation So that his healing his cleanliness his fellowship with the father could be passed into us That didn't just begin at the cross.

That was certainly the ultimate moment of it It happened all throughout the life of jesus here. You see him taking her uncleanness and taking it into himself Our moment of salvation is being illustrated here We touch jesus in faith and the guilt and the shame and the penalty of our sin Passes into him and his wholeness and his purity and his forgiveness and his sonship with the father pass unto us This woman goes home to her family and jesus heads to the cross Verse 35 while gyrus jesus was still speaking some people came from the house of gyrus the synagogue leader Now as you've forgotten about gyrus You probably had mark reminds us again who gyrus is since it's been so long since we thought about it You see all this is just great for this woman But poor gyrus this story had started with him pleading with jesus to rush to his house Because his little girl was on death's door And now here is jesus stopping to take extended time to deal with a woman's chronic ailment Her ailment is not life-threatening. She's cutting in line and her issue is something that could easily wait another hour, right?

I mean she's had it for 12 years. Surely she can wait another 30 minutes. Meanwhile, this little girl is at death's door Listen those of you in the medical community will immediately recognize this if jesus were a doctor If jesus were a medical doctor, this decision would not just be insensitive It would be malpractice And he does it intentionally And then the worst happens While jesus is talking with this woman Literally as he's in the midst of a conversation A message comes from gyrus's house.

Your daughter is dead I said why bother the teacher anymore? And now comes gyrus's great test of faith Why bother Is he going to think the situation is so hopeless? But not even jesus can help Do you know how many potential miracles have died with the thought?

Why bother? It is never too late with jesus. It's always time to bother verse 36 Over here in what they said jesus told him don't be afraid just believe He did not let anyone follow him except peter james and john the brother james And when they came to the home of the synagogue leader, jesus saw a commotion with people crying and wailing loudly He went in and he said to them Why all this commotion and wailing? Some of the worst moments in my life Have been when I was with someone after their child died This guy his 12 year old little girl is dead and jesus looks at him and his wife and he says why are you crying? Is jesus being insensitive? What kind of question is that? Then he says the child is not dead but asleep There's 40, but they laughed at him.

This is not a laugh like they think he's confused. This is bitter scorn This is you insensitive fool And he put them all out He took the child's father and mother and the disciples who were with him and he went in where the child was and he took Her by the hand then he said to her talitha kum talitha, which means Little girl talitha say scholars say that the it's a very very serious problem Hey scholars say that it's a very very tender term that could almost be translated sweetheart kum just means get up not be thou resurrected or come forth, but Nothing regal or resurrection sounding simply sweetheart get up I get the image when I read that of sitting on the bed On the edge of the bed of my eight-year-old girl on a summer afternoon when she's been napping and saying hey sweethearts It's time to get up Here we have jesus facing the most feared devastating enemy the human race has ever known death And he treats it like he's waking up a little girl from a nap Verse 42 and immediately the girl stood up and she began to walk around. She was 12 years old At this they were completely astonished Let me spend the remainder of my time telling you the meaning of these stories for us Here's the first meaning shows us how jesus delivers us from death Don't get this wrong because a lot of people do these stories are not primarily About how to get miracles from jesus They are pictures of how we become christians They are reenactments of what it looks like to be converted to jesus You see we are all like this woman. Our sin has left us diseased and unclean. We are guilty and cast out Unlike this woman who was suffering through no direct act of her own We're in this dish. We're in this condition because of our sin Like this woman. We are hopeless all the cures have failed Education can't fix it scientific progress hasn't fixed it. Um, romantic relationships haven't fixed it That's where a lot of us turn right we we think oh if I just could just get married then my life will be complete But like i've told you lonely, um insecure single people become lonely insecure married people in fact, they become worse None of these things, um the scientific progress education They just scientific progress and education have simply made us more sophisticated and how we pursue our selfishness Dorothy sayers was a british socialist in the early 20th century a british socialist who believed that education Equality and scientific progress would cure all the problems of mankind Then she said I lived through world war ii she wrote this essay afterwards called creed or chaos She was a big influence on cs lewis On cs lewis.

She said we were given to believe that humankind talking about her as a british social We were given to believe that humankind consisted of essentially good human beings gradually evolving into higher better beings That we as a race were essentially teachable and so she said the appalling outbursts of bestial ferocity in the totalitarian States talking about russia and and uh germany and the obstinate selfishness and stupid greed of unregulated capitalist societies Were not merely alarming to us. They were the utter negation of everything in which we have believed Most psychologists will say that modern psychology is built on the theory of carl rogers that humans are essentially good You just have to remove the things that are keep them from being good What you see with jesus is a totally different story education can't fix it relationships won't fix it scientific progress won't fix it Religious rules won't fix it. I've told you religious rules is like telling an alcoholic not to crave beer anymore. He might agree She might agree that her craving for wine or craving for beer is not good, but they can't just make themselves stop Religious rules can tell us how we ought to be but religious rules cannot make us that way I told you that religious rules are often like railroad tracks that point us the direction that we ought to go But they are powerless to move the train along the tracks that takes something entirely different Not only do these things not fix our problem like with this woman these things tend to just make it worse Really religious proud selfish people are worse than regular proud selfish people.

Isn't that true? I mean if you meet somebody proud and selfish keep them away from religion Because they're just going to become even more really educated proud selfish people are worse Than regular proud selfish people really rich Proud selfish people are worse than regular rich regular proud selfish people Because he problems like pride and selfishness are not cured by education They're not cured by scientific progress or not cured by government regulation They're only cured by something entirely different Like this woman we got to fight through the crowds and we have to reach out for jesus intentionally Listen, I alluded to this a minute ago, but you don't get the power of jesus just by being around him You don't get him just by being around people who know him lots of people in the crowd that day touch Jesus he pointed that out, but they got new miracle only the woman who reached out for him intentionally got it The miracle came not by participating in the crowd, but by pulling on the cloak You see we got a lot of people here this weekend a lot of people who come every weekend touching jesus casually You're not going to get this power by being in the room hearing worship songs or listening to sermons Listening to sermons you only get it you only get this power of transformation through bold public acts of faith But when you do when you reach out for him in faith Believing that he has the power and grace to save you Which what we mean by that is that he can forgive you of your sin And he can put the power of new life in you when you believe that and you reach out to him in faith You will be immediately cleansed and healed regardless of the shame or the defilement or the guilt that you bring to him And like this little girl like this little girl. We need somebody to save us from certain death Death is our ultimate enemy death brings an abrupt end to every relationship and every meaningful pursuit There is nothing sadder to me than hearing an atheist talk about death When you go to a funeral, that's Somebody that's an atheist and they try to put a positive spin on it You know, he did this or here's the people that he touched his life had meaning But you know for that person, it's all gone.

There's no more of them to even care I've told you before the interview I saw with steve jobs in 60 minutes shortly before he he died of cancer cancer that he knew that he had The interviewer asked him if he believed in god and he said throughout my life. Sometimes I believed in god Sometimes I hadn't said it's been about 50 50 He said but i'll tell you freely as i've grown closer to my coming death knowing that it's coming He said I found myself really wanting to believe in an afterlife and choosing to believe in an afterlife Because I hate the thought that when you die it all just disappears All the wisdom all the relationships just gone the moment the machine turns off He said incidentally, that's why in mac products We don't really put on off switches that are easy to get to Which has been one of the greatest frustrations of my life is that he turned this thing off Right. He said we don't do that because I just don't like the idea that you can never turn the machine off Here what you see is that jesus faces our supreme enemy death So that if we go into death holding his hand, it's nothing but a little nap Paul says in first Corinthians 15, he says that christ is taking the sting out of death christ is taking the sting and I heard about a dad driving around in a car with his little girl about eight years old and she uh, It's yellow jacket gets in the car or at least see the yellow jacket. You know what that's like When you got a kid and you're driving on the interstate and there's a bee in the car you're swinging that thing And you're rolling the window down trying to get it out. Just where we're going to go Down trying to get it out just weaving all over the interstate And his little girl is panicking and she's like daddy It's um, so he pulls off the the uh, the side of the road rolls down the windows trying to shoo it out And it's just coming closer to her and she is screaming because she's really really allergic to um to bees So he hops out of the car jumps in the back seat and traps it against the back glass with his hand because that's all he has He knows that if he takes out a hand the bee's going to be mad so he Reaches or he grabs a hold of that beak with his hand and just waits a second for that inevitable sting And then he takes it he holds it out the wind and he lets it go and it flies off at which point the little Girl panics again. She's like daddy's going to come back He's mad He's going to come back at which point he just opens up his hand and Show this or the stinger that's in his hand.

He's like that. You don't worry about that bee anymore What paul tells us is that yes, we go through death But christ has taken the sting out of that death because he took our defilement and our condemnation into himself So yes death is still a nuisance to us and death still causes us some inconvenience But it's really nothing but a little nap because he absorbed the sting of death. It is completely and entirely gone Now before I go on to number two, make sure you see this the primary healing that we need is not physical. It is spiritual People read these stories and assume it's about their job or their health That if you'll just reach out and touch him that he'll change and jesus is going to help you with those those things I'll show you that in a minute But the primary meaning of these stories is about how jesus heals us from our ultimate problem sin And he saves us from the ultimate enemy ultimate enemy, which is death the one who dies peacefully in his sleep at 100 years old Surrounded by friends and family with plenty of money in the bank, but does so without jesus Still loses everything And the believer in jesus who is snatched away in the prime of life has everything to look forward to So see here's my question. What are you primarily looking for jesus to do for you this weekend? Are you hoping it'll fix your marriage? When people know their marriage dissolves and they say I got to get back in church and i'm glad for that What are you primarily looking for him to do?

Is it to fix your marriage or your family or to help your career? Those are important and jesus will help you with those i'll show you that next but the main thing you need is to have the Curse of death removed and to be restored to fellowship with the father And by the way, i'll say this for those of you who are not christians or Maybe you're just in a different religion I'll say this is one of the reasons that I believe jesus is the savior of all mankind because he was the only one Who ever went into death and came back out of it and that's something that afflicts us all Every other religious leader in the world went into death and stayed there Right, mohammed taught some great things and then he died and you can visit his grave over in saudi arabia And then you got buddha who uh, he died and you've got christian I mean all these things all these religions are going to point back to a leader who died It reminds me of a story I heard and um It took place out, uh somewhere out west where there was a little girl, um, two years old that stumbled into the deep end of a pool The only one home was the grandmother and the grandmother was you know, uh, panics And she sees this little girl go in the deep end of the pool knowing she can't swim So she runs out and she jumps in the pool to save her Two hours later the story said they pull out both the body of the grandmother and the little girl The dead body because because the grandmother couldn't swim either And so the point is that if you're going to be the rescuer you can't have the same problem as the one you need to rescue So if you're going to save me from death, you can't go into death and stay there You got to go into death and come out And he's the only one in history who said i'll take your death I'll go into your death and then i'll turn it around in resurrection That's why we say that jesus christ is the way the truth and the life. You can't come to the father except through him This is primarily about jesus's ability to save you from death And restore you to the family of god, but number two They also show us number two how jesus works in our daily lives Shows you how he works in your daily life. These stories show us how to approach jesus with our problems Let me give you a couple thoughts here letter a faith engages a power from god A power that's not available until you lean on it or depend on it This woman risked everything on the belief that jesus would help her And no he did he never turned anyone away who came to him in faith. Not one person I know god is not a genie in a bottle where you rub him in faith And then he pops out and gives you whatever you wish a lot of people think that that god's like this You know pinata and faith is the whacking stick and if you whack him you can get the goodies out of it That's not the way it is But i'll also know that scripture teaches us that faith engages a power from god that is not there until you believe One of the easiest illustrations of this from the life of jesus is when jesus was walking on the water and peter was in The boat and wanted to walk on the water so jesus said come on and peter hops out of the boat and he Starts to walk and while he's believing in jesus and his eyes are on jesus He's above the waves and the moment he takes his eyes off. He begins to go under the waves Now if you're a theologian, you're like, what does that mean? That it was jesus's sovereign will that he'd dip under the waves and my response is stop asking dumb questions That's not the point of what would happen the point is when your eyes are on jesus There is a power that he gives you to walk above the waves That is not there the moment you take your eyes off of him and I think about that when I parent my children Because I think I need a power from god and giving me wisdom and ability to be a parent to them And I know that when I look to jesus I know he promises that he will always hold me up above those waves and he will give me the wisdom that i'm asking for I think about it when I lead this church I'm like god, I need you you told me to look to you and i'm looking to you and I know I know he's not going to let me in my head go beneath those waves I know that when it comes to my needs or my provisions, I know whatever it is that when i'm leaning on him He promises he will never turn me away To our staff i've taught it this way. God doesn't just answer prayer In fact, jesus sometimes criticized people in the bible for praying too much you ever you probably didn't know that matthew six It is the hypocrites and the heathens the the people who are are don't know god They're the ones who think god will hear them because they talk a lot They're the ones who pray all night thinking if I pray all night. God will hear me.

He said He goes don't be like that. God doesn't respond to prayer in the new testament. He responds to faith Which means that one sentence in faith is better than ten thousand sentences without it Which means that when I pray I actually i'm doing this now sort of a discipline for myself I will end a lot of these things that I pray to god i'll end it with the phrase lord. I trust you with this Because what that means is is now i've put it on you And I know that i'm trusting you which means you have to deal with it because you promised that you would again Jesus never turns anybody who came to him for help with the new testament not one single person A verse i've been memorizing that has become Very important to me in this season of life you oh lord psalm 9 10 you oh lord have never forsaken those who trust in you Now hear me that doesn't always mean he does it the way I think he should do it Part of our trust in him is saying you know what your way's better And so i'm going to ask you for this and if you do something different i'm going to trust that your way's better than mine But the moment you lean on him you can be sure that he is working in your situation flawlessly for your good And that he is holding you up above the waves of destruction. He promises to do that you oh lord You have never forsaken those who lean their weight upon you Maybe you feel like gyrus. Maybe you feel hopeless about your situation Maybe you feel hopeless with the state of your family or your marriage Maybe you feel hopeless in your addiction your future because of all the mistakes you've made in your past So that you're sitting here this weekend saying why bother i'll tell you why bother Because you got a savior who is passing by Whose tenderness is deeper than the oceans and his faithfulness reaches to the skies And this savior you see in the pages of this book is not a record of a historical figure It is a living moving being and hebrews 13 8 tells you he does not change ever He is the same yesterday today and forever, which means if you come to him He'll respond to you the way that he did this woman has it been 12 years?

Has it been 12 years and still no answer keep knocking? It's like it says in the book of psalms. Don't stop believing or maybe that's the second book of journey I'm, not really sure but whatever it is.

It's a good statement. Don't stop believing. Here's letter b Here's letter b nowhere is god more confusing than in how he does miracles Nowhere Nothing about jesus is more confusing than in how he does his miracles In this story, jesus confuses everybody doesn't he the disciples can't figure out why he's stopping Jairus can't figure out why he's stopping jesus's reaction confuses and terrifies the woman But here's the awesome part everybody in this story gets more than they bargained for everybody The woman expected a healing but she also got acceptance as a precious daughter by the heavenly father She got more than she bargained for Jairus wanted a healing what jairus got was a resurrection God has so much more in store for us than our pathetic and feeble plans if only you knew God's plan is often different from ours. But for those who trust him, it's always wonderful His timing confuses us and frustrates us, but he's weaving it all together perfectly Y'all it can't be mere coincidence that the little girl was 12 years old And the bleeding woman had been sick for 12 years There's no way that's just coincidentally he points out both details because what mark is showing you is that for 12 years God has been writing a story For 12 years. God has been writing a story that he is going to weave together in one four-minute moment in one beautiful Climax on that day 12 years 12 years how long are you gonna wait for god to move before you declare that he is absent and that he doesn't care Because what jesus wants from you is the persistence of faith I don't know exactly how to say this in a way that won't sound weird coming from a pastor But I have really over the last year two years really really begun to believe in prayer I've seen god answer it in my life. I've seen an answer in other people's lives I believed in it.

Yes before them, but just in a personal way really believe it I know that he moves in response to faith. I know it and I know he'll move in your situation when you lean on him What's heaven going to be like when we see this happen with all of our stories? When we see that in all these moments these years 12 years of frustration and confusion That god was writing this story when in that one moment to use the words of uh, jrr tolkin and lord of the rings When he makes every sad thing come untrue Every sad thing coming untrue means he doesn't just wipe away our memory of it But he suddenly weaves it all into this beautiful story that's made even sweeter by the painful moments to go back to first corinthians 15 where it says that Christ took the sting out of death The the second phrase after that is he says in christ death is swallowed up by victory Now I love the imagery of swallowed up Because when you swallow something it becomes a part of you Right me you are what you eat.

So you eat the food and it becomes a part of you What he's saying is that victory is going to swallow up death So that victory will actually be made born victorious by the death that it has taken into itself What it means is that these painful situations in your life that god has let you go through that sometimes last 12 years metaphorically speaking Or actually something that god is using to weave into a more beautiful climax than you would have um gone through had you not Been through those painful chapters in your life Haven't you seen somebody go through suffering and come out on the other side of it and be Just so much better for what they went through One of our um, one of my friends was telling me about something he and his wife have walked through for the last couple years It's just been painful Especially for her and he said he said I would never want her to go through it. It's broken my heart daily To see her have to deal with these these these problems that she's dealing with He said but already he says we can see the good fruit that god has brought in her spirit Maybe not her body yet But her spirit out of these beautiful things these painful things that she's gone through and the way we've seen The both of us begin to love and trust god we look at it and we say it's worth it What's it like when we get to heaven and see how god used every moment of those bitter 12 years to weave Beauty and glory into our lives This is the story that jesus is promising to write through our lives If you trust him and you don't give up and you lean on him and you lean into him Could we end our time together just realizing? That jesus is the same yesterday today and forever and that you at any of our campuses you can approach him right now Just like those people approached him and we bow our heads at all of our campuses bow your heads and let's just say Let's just set in this for just a moment Could you understand that jesus is here as real as The garment that the woman touched 2 000 years ago his presence is as real now as it was then There are many of you what you need most from him is salvation because you've never received it Salvation is simply receiving a gift a healing that you don't have in yourself It's not a promise for you to go try to do better It's not a resolution to come to church more. It's not a promise to stop sinning Those things will change. Yes, but what it is is simply receiving Jesus's forgiveness And his power of new life in you and you can do that right now by just in your heart Lifting your heart up to him and saying I receive it jesus Right now they're where you sit use the words that i'm giving you The words that i'm giving you lord, jesus. I know that i'm a sinner and I need to be saved. I know it Forgive my sins Transform my life I surrender to you. I'll walk with you for the rest of my life Thank you jesus for your forgiveness Thank you, jesus for saving me Some of you need miracles this weekend in your marriage in your family in your career and yourself Maybe you already know that you've received him for salvation But you just need to reach out right now and touch the hem of his garment as he goes by So I haven't given up I believe that you're merciful and kind and i'm trusting you with this You can do that right now just there in your heart just reach up and touch him Some of you just need to tell him that you trust him you just need to say I trust you I don't understand but I trust you and you just need to leave it at that Lord jesus you are real I trust you You are a help in trouble you are a refuge to all who call upon you and you will never turn away never God the one who comes to you in faith and brokenness and seeks you God those who trust you will never be forsaken never I pray that you give us the confidence to believe that in the depths of our souls. We pray in jesus name