Yuba-Sutter Grace Church would
like to invite you to listen to a sermon by our pastor, Rick
Warda. We currently meet at the Yuba
County Library, located at 303 2nd Street in downtown Marysville,
California, on the corner of 2nd and C Street. Weekly services
are held on Sunday at 11 a.m. at the library. For more information,
visit our website at ysgracechurch.com. Now, here's our pastor, Rick
Warda. I would like to bring a two-part sermon today from
the Gospel of Mark, chapter 5. Let's read the scripture together,
beginning at verse 23. Behold, there cometh one of the
rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name. And when he saw Jesus,
he fell at his feet, and besought him greatly, saying, My little
daughter lieth at the point of death. I pray thee, come and
lay thy hands on her, that she may be healed, and she shall
live. And Jesus went with him, and much people followed him
and thronged him. And a certain woman, which had
an issue of blood twelve years, and had suffered many things
of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing
bettered, but rather grew worse, when she had heard of Jesus,
came in the press behind, and touched his garment. For she
said, If I may touch but his clothes, I shall be whole. And
straightway the fountain of her blood was dried up, and she felt
in her body that she was healed of that plague. And Jesus, immediately
knowing in himself that virtue had gone out of him, turned him
about in the press and said, Who touched my clothes? And his
disciples said to him, Thou seest the multitude thronging thee,
and sayest thou, Who touched me? And he looked round about
to see her that had done this thing. But the woman, fearing
and trembling, knowing what was done in her, came and fell down
before him and told him all the truth. And he said unto her,
Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole. Go in peace, and
behold of thy plague. Scripture records here a sermon
to the unclean. God preaches to unclean sinners
through this woman. She is just like you and me.
Therefore, I have entitled this message, A Sermon from God to
the Unclean. First, notice that she was unclean
under God's holy law. She remained in that case for
12 long years. During those 12 years, she tried
to rid herself of her plague of uncleanness. She sought out
many physicians. She paid them money. She did
all they told her to do. But she suffered many things
by what they gave her to do. For all of her effort and for
all that she spent, she did not get better, but only grew worse.
She suffered from a plague of uncleanness for twelve years.
That is a very long time. She was afflicted. Her uncleanness
before God made her desperate. God Himself gave the law. His
law said she was unclean, and God gave us the account of this
woman here in scripture. She is a sermon, therefore, to
all who are unclean before God. Listen how the sermon begins.
Every day for twelve years God's law said to her, you are unclean. What does it mean to be unclean
before God's law? It means we are unclean before
God Himself. It means we are sinful. What
is a sinner? A sinner is an offense to God,
someone who has offended God in all of His holiness. Though
we have offended God, He has given this woman to you and to
me as a sermon, a sermon to the unclean. What great mercy this,
that God who is holy would preach His grace by her to sinners like
me, who am an offense to Him. Though we have offended God by
our sin, He has made it His business and taken upon Himself to reconcile
His enemies to Himself by the death of His own Son. Romans
5 verse 10. Am I unclean? Have I offended
God? Do I need Him to make me clean? Do you? How do we know this woman's
uncleanness meant that she was a sinner before God? Because
in Leviticus 15, God said she was unclean, and that same law
in Leviticus 15 said she must bring a sin offering and a burnt
offering to make atonement to God for her uncleanness. God
only requires a sin offering where there is sin. A sin offering
is a substitute for the sinner. A sin offering is offered to
God in the place of the sinner. The sinner's offenses against
God are transferred to the sin offering. Their sin becomes the
sin of the substitute. The substitute is sacrificed
to remove the wrong against God's justice for the one who sinned.
God's law also required her to bring a burnt offering. A burnt
offering is also a substitute to God for the sinner. The burnt
offering is consumed by the fire that the sinner deserves. God's
law required these two offerings to make atonement for the uncleanness
with which this woman was plagued. Because atonement was required
by a sin offering and a burnt offering, we know that her uncleanness
was guilt before God. Do you know something of the
desperation she felt? Oh, to be rid of this plague
of sin and to be clean before God. Can you imagine what it
must have been like to suffer 12 years with the constant reminder
by God's law that you are an offense to Him and deserve His
wrath? Do you know something of the
helplessness she felt when all her efforts to rid herself of
that plague failed? When God makes us know our guilt,
we will be desperate Affliction in our conscience is painful,
but affliction in our conscience over a long period is doubly
painful. God applies His chastening hand
to our conscience, the core of who we are. In Proverbs 20, verse
27, the Lord says, When God afflicts our conscience, it is great mercy. Why? Why is it great mercy for
God to afflict our conscience? Because it makes us desperate. Only when we know our guilt and
corruptions, only when we know we are unable to do one thing
of all that God requires, unable to remove one sin, only then
will salvation by grace alone, in Christ alone, appear absolutely
necessary to us. We will be convinced of this
only when we are guilty and helpless. By this woman, God teaches us
what we are. We are plagued in heart. We are
guilty before His law. Her state and condition is our
state and our condition before God. We are helpless to do one
thing to rid ourselves of the plague of our uncleanness before
God. Notice, this woman did everything
she could to rid herself of her plague. She spent all that she
had. She suffered many things by what
those men did who took her money and told her what to do. They
claimed they were able to heal her. They lied. What does God
teach us by this? He teaches us that, like her,
we try to make ourselves clean. We seek help from men who believe
that they themselves can make themselves clean before God by
their works. We do all that they say. We spend
all of our living and all of our labors God's lesson to us
is this, Psalm 146 verse 3, put not your trust in princes nor
in the son of man in whom there is no help. Our efforts only
make us more polluted. They only bring greater anxiety
because we have a disease of sin that is incurable both by
us and by the best of men. God says that our best works
are as the cloths that women used to use to soak up their
menstrual discharge. God says this is the condition
of all of us. He said we naturally try to do
good works to make ourselves clean before God. Isaiah chapter
64 verse 6 says, we are all as an unclean thing. That's what
this woman was, unclean before God's law. Isaiah goes on, and
all of our righteousnesses are as filthy rags, and we all do
fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us
away. False preachers and false teachers
say what this woman's physicians told her to do. and anyone who
teaches sinners to get right with God by what they do are
just like them. Our best is reprehensible to
God. Everything we do to make ourselves
right with God is a mark against us. It is hateful to God. God used this woman to teach
unclean sinners what we are, shameful, filthy, unclean, and
plagued. By her, the Lord shows us that
when He saves a sinner, He first afflicts that sinner in his conscience. He makes us know what He requires. He makes us see that what we
think and do and say only validates His law and proves God's law
is right and that we are guilty. Sometimes God's law afflicts
our conscience a very long time. We may be taught by men that
we must do this or that to be saved, or to be a good Christian,
or to go to heaven. Men may tell us to exercise our
free will, or to accept Jesus, or to ask Jesus into our heart,
to be baptized, to speak in tongues, even to witness to others, and
so many other things that men tell us to do. But real sinners
can do nothing to save themselves. Why? because they are sinners
and they can only bring forth uncleanness out of their unclean
heart. But God's dealings with this
woman teach us that real sinners can do nothing to save themselves.
Now, God's ways in history are His ways with this woman. And
God's ways in history and with this woman are His ways with
us in our personal lives. God never changes. His ways are
always the same. God gave His law to the nation
of Israel. That nation agreed to live under
the law. They suffered under God's law
for nearly 1,500 years, a long time. But at God's appointed
time, He sent His Son into the world. Jesus Christ came from
heaven into this world. The Son of God was born as a
man by a woman. He was made under the law. He
stood for his people. He fulfilled God's law by his
own obedience of submission to death. He answered God's justice
with himself. And what God did in history,
He did in this woman. What God did in history and in
this woman, He does in us personally. If God brings you to Christ,
He will make your sin odious, disgusting to you. He will make
us know that we have failed to do what He requires, and He will
make us know we are helpless to get rid of our sins. When
God does this in us, we will say what King David said when
God's law found him to be a sinner. He said, against thee, thee only
have I sinned and done this evil in your sight. We will cry like
the publican, God, be merciful to me, thee sinner. And we will say what the prodigal
son said to his father, father, I have sinned against heaven
and in thy sight and am no more worthy to be called thy son.
Like Job, our eyes will be open to see what we are. When he said,
Behold, I am vile, and what shall I answer thee? I will lay my
hand upon my mouth. Job 40 verse 4. We will realize
we cannot answer God for one of our sins. If God convinces
us that our sin is against Him only, then we will know that
only He can remove our offenses. If you offend me, I might accept
something you do to remove that offense, but if we offend God,
we cannot make up for it. We fell into the pit of condemnation
by our sin, but we cannot get out of the pit by our obedience. Isaiah 64, 6 again says we are
all as an unclean thing, and all of our righteousnesses are
as filthy rags. When we do what God commanded
us not to do, we must know this, that God's law is right. Our
thoughts and words and behavior prove we are sinners. We cannot
cleanse ourselves. We cannot produce a righteousness
God will accept. That is the first thing God is
saying to us by this woman. We are all unclean and our best
works are bad. They only make us worse. Does
God, in mercy, afflict sinners? Does He prepare them to see His
goodness and His salvation by affliction? You better know He
does. The psalmist said this in Psalm
107, verse 17. Fools, because of their transgression
and because of their iniquities, are afflicted. Their soul abhorreth
all manner of meat, and they draw near unto the gates of death.
Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and He saveth
them out of their distresses. He sent His word and healed them,
and delivered them from their destructions. Oh, that men would
praise the Lord for His goodness, and for His wonderful works to
the children of men. King David said this, And the
Apostle Paul explained that the purpose of God's law is to make
the necessity of God's grace evident to us, to keep us in
the prison of His law until God's appointed time to reveal Christ
to us as our Redeemer, our complete and perfect salvation. In Galatians
3, verse 23, Paul said, Before faith came, we were kept under
the law, shut up unto the faith, which should afterwards be revealed.
Wherefore, the law was our schoolmaster until Christ, or to bring us
unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. What is that
faith that came? What is that faith that was afterwards
revealed? It was the gospel of our salvation
that Christ accomplished when He fulfilled God's law in His
own obedience and satisfied God's justice in His own death. Christ
is faith's object. We perceive and are persuaded
that He is all of our salvation when faith comes to us. God keeps
sinners under His law until His appointed time. Then he reveals
Christ to them in the gospel. They see that Christ is their
only righteousness and the only healing of their sin-plagued
hearts. But pay close attention to what
God did next to heal this woman. After spending 12 years and after
spending all of her living, God's Word says this in Mark 5, verse
27, she heard of Jesus. Though the time of her suffering
was long, At God's appointed time, she heard of Jesus. This is grace. If God saves us,
we will hear of Jesus. What does it mean to hear of
Jesus? Hearing of Jesus is not hearing
what I must do. Hearing of Jesus is hearing what
He has done. It is to hear the report of Christ's
glorious achievements by His substitutionary sufferings and
death in the Gospel. Isaiah 53 verse 1 says Isaiah
gave the report and Romans 10 verse 16 says the report Isaiah
gave is the gospel of Christ. The gospel is what Christ accomplished
for the salvation of his people and to the glory of God by his
sufferings as a substitute for his people by the satisfaction
he made to God for their sins. How did Isaiah say Jesus healed
his people? by bearing their plague and their
sins before God. In Isaiah 53 verse 4 it says,
Surely the Lord Jesus Christ has borne our sicknesses and
carried our pain, yet we esteemed Him plagued, smitten by God,
and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace
was upon Him, and with His wounds we ourselves are healed. Jesus
saved his people from their sins by bearing their sicknesses and
the plague that was due to them because of their sins. He was
afflicted and plagued in their place. He was chastised by God
for them. He suffered and died in the place
of God's elect people. Christ healed his people by bearing
their sins and removing those sins before God. As the sin offering,
Christ became the sinner's substitute. He took the sins of God's elect
and he bore them as his and suffered the punishment for those sins
at God's own hand. In Zechariah 13, verse 7, the
Lord says, The Lord is Jehovah God, the
Shepherd is the Lord Jesus Christ, the sheep are God's elect. Christ
was smitten by the sword of God's justice that God's sheep might
be saved by his sin-atoning death. Jesus healed his people of the
plague of their uncleanness by substituting himself for them
as a sin offering and a burnt offering to make atonement to
God for their sins. He made satisfaction to God for
the sins of God's elect by bearing their sins and the punishment
for those sins. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace
was upon Him, and with His wounds we ourselves are healed. Isaiah
53, verse 5. And then in verse 8 of Isaiah
53, the Lord says, For the transgression of My people was He stricken. Hearing about Jesus is not hearing
what I must do. It is hearing what He has done.
It is hearing about Jesus Christ, about who He is, that He is the
Lord God and the only Savior of sinners. If Christ is not
your only Savior, He is not your Savior at all. When the gospel
came to me in truth, by God's grace, I saw that Jesus Christ
the Lord was my only Savior. I saw that what He did saved
God's people. Without their help, by Himself
alone, He purged their sins. Hebrews 1 verse 3. He did what
He came to do. He actually accomplished my salvation. And when He rose from the dead
and entered once into the holy place in heaven with His own
blood, He then and forever obtained the eternal redemption of all
those for whom He died. Seeing Him and seeing His work,
I find confidence before God in Him alone. He is all my hope. Seeing that Christ answered God
for my sins, I rely on Him as my answer to God, as my only
answer now and in the day of judgment. He is my acceptance. All blessings from God come to
sinners solely on the just grounds of Christ's obedience unto death.
He is my life. He is the only life. His life
to sinners is given through His righteousness. He is the only
way to the Father. He is the only truth of how God
saves sinners. John 14, verse 6. Hearing of
Jesus is hearing that all blessings from God come to sinners by grace
alone, because of His blood and righteousness alone. All of Christ's
virtue to save sinners comes to them through His righteousness. Next, we read how this woman
pressed through the crowd to touch Jesus' clothes. By the
invisible hand of His grace, God drew this woman to Christ.
At His appointed time and in His appointed way, she heard
of Jesus. She was made desperate by her
long plague of uncleanness. But hearing that Christ's virtue
comes to sinners through His righteousness, she was compelled
to press to Him as she might touch the hem of His garment.
Isaiah said Jesus' clothes are garments of salvation. His robe
is the fulfilled law of God. It established everlasting righteousness
for His people. In Isaiah 61, verse 10, it says,
I will greatly rejoice in the Lord. My soul shall be joyful
in my God, for He hath clothed me with the garments of salvation. He hath covered me with the robe
of his righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments,
and as a bride adorneth herself with jewels. Both the bridegroom
and the bride are clothed in the same garments and adorned
with the same jewels. That robe is the garment of Christ's
obedience adorned in the jewels of His love that fulfilled God's
holy law perfectly and in completion. Nothing is lacking. Nothing else
is needed. There is no other righteousness
in which sinners may appear before God and find favor and blessing
from Him. Christ did what no man could
ever do. He did all that God's law required.
He suffered all that God's justice demanded for God's elect people,
who in themselves are only sinners. Isaiah said, for the transgression
of my people was he stricken. Christ removed our offenses against
God. He made full remission of our
sins. By his one offering of himself to God, he perfected
forever all those God gave to him. This woman touched Christ's
clothes, which signify the righteousness of God. By God's act of imputation,
Christ's righteousness makes sinners righteous before Him.
Adam's one sin was imputed to all men, and the many sins of
God's elect were imputed to Christ. And now Christ's obedience established
God's righteousness, and God's righteousness, by His grace,
is imputed to God's elect. It is the great gift of God's
grace. As this woman touched Jesus'
clothes, we received the truth of the gospel, how that Christ
worked out a perfect righteousness, and God accepted His obedience
and death as the righteousness of His people. The understanding
of this in the conscience and the persuasion of this in the
heart is God-given faith. By it, by this God-given faith,
sinners press to get to Christ. God-given faith causes us to
labor to know that Christ is our all before God and to find
our rest in Him. Faith makes sinners violently
desperate because of God's demands on them. All that God requires
of us makes us see the absolute necessity of His sovereign grace. This desperation prepares us
to see Christ, as the jeweler's black velvet cloth prepares the
eye for the beauty of the diamond. So, God's affliction by His law
makes us desperate and prepares us to see Christ. God's holy
law is the light that makes our guilt and corruptions and helplessness
known. It reveals the dark cloud of
God's judgment. But God's grace in the Gospel
shines the light of His holiness on the diamond of Christ's obedience
in shedding His blood. And this God-given persuasion
to be found in Christ's righteousness alone makes sinners press to
be found in Christ, to have His righteousness. The Apostle Paul
was like this woman. Under the law, he suffered much
for a long time. But when he saw Christ, he forsook
all that he formerly trusted, and he pressed to lay hold on
Christ. Paul said in Philippians chapter
3, I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge
of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss
of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ
and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which
is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ,
the righteousness which is of God by faith. Faith sees and
is persuaded and lays hold on Christ's doing and dying as the
one and only way in which I draw life and all blessings from Him.
This is what is meant by that scripture. The kingdom of God
suffers violence and the violent take it by force. Matthew chapter
11 verse 12 Believing sinners violently pressed to have Christ,
abandoning all that may be called theirs, to be healed of the plague
of their heart through faith in Christ's righteousness. And
here is the amazing thing. God is well pleased when sinners
press to get to Christ and to draw all virtue from Him through
His righteousness. And Christ is pleased when desperate,
guilty sinners, plagued in heart, are drawn to Him by the operations
of God's grace. Am I afflicted by the plague
of sin in my heart? Am I violently drawn to Christ
to have and find Him to be my all? Do I press to get to Him
to know that He is all of my salvation? Have I learned something
about the desperation of affliction under the requirements of God
because I cannot do one thing of all that God requires, and
because I am foul and completely dependent on Christ to answer
God and honor God in my place? Am I desperate to know that God
receives me for Christ's sake alone? then God has afflicted
me, and He has drawn me to Christ. He taught me to lay hold on Christ's
righteousness, and He will finish the work He started." Philippians
1, verse 6. When my soul longs to know Christ,
to know that He saved me by His grace, by this violent pressing
to get to Him, God is pleased. Because without faith, it is
impossible to please Him. May God grant His sovereign grace
to you and me to lay hold on Christ by God-given faith and
find our healing through His blood and righteousness alone. You've just heard a sermon by
our pastor, Rick Warda. You may contact us by email or
by phone, or download a copy of this sermon by visiting our
website at ysgracechurch.com.