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 the second part of a two-part
sermon from Mark chapter 5. In part one of this sermon, we
saw a woman plagued by her own uncleanness before God's law.
We saw how the knowledge of her uncleanness was painful to her,
was a long affliction, and prepared her to hear of Christ. We saw
how she heard of Jesus and by God-given faith was persuaded
that if she but touched the hem of His garments, she would be
made perfectly whole. And we saw that this God-given
persuasion compelled her, by the invisible hand of God's grace,
to press through the crowd to touch Jesus' clothes. We saw
through her that God preaches salvation in Christ to unclean
sinners. All virtue for the healing of
our sin sick souls is through the blood and righteousness of
Christ. And so I want to continue the
account in this second part of this sermon of this woman who
knew her only remedy was in Christ. The title of this sermon is God's
Sermon to the Unclean. The main lesson God teaches by
this woman is that the only remedy for our sickness and the death
we deserve is the atonement to God for our sins by the blood
of Christ as our substitute. King Solomon in his prayer asked
God that when any sinner who knew the plague of his heart
prayed, looking to Christ, that God would forgive him. In 1 Kings
8, verse 38, Solomon prayed, Thus God's answer to a man plagued
in heart by his sin was forgiveness. The house Solomon spoke of was
the temple of God. The temple in the Old Testament
was where sacrifices were made for sin, where God met with men,
where God made himself known to men. Now, the lesson from
Solomon's prayer is that God heals men's plague by the forgiveness
of sins. The lesson is also that God heals
men who look to Christ, who was crucified, and by whose blood
atonement for sins was made. God only makes himself known
to men through Jesus Christ and Him crucified. God only meets
with men by Jesus Christ and Him crucified. God said through
Solomon that the plague of our heart is healed by the forgiveness
of our sins. We are healed by the offering
of Christ's blood in heaven itself. King Hezekiah also understood
this. For God to heal a sinner, Christ
must take away his sins. When Hezekiah was at the point
of death and God healed him, Hezekiah prayed this, Hezekiah knew God healed him
because Christ took away his sins by his death. Therefore,
it was in love to his soul that God cast Hezekiah's sins behind
his back because it was in love that God gave his son as the
sacrifice for his sins. All of these scriptures serve
to show that Christ healed this woman's plague of uncleanness
because He was her substitute to take her sins and bear them
as His own and answer God in satisfaction for them. God will
only forgive our sins because Christ made full payment of them,
full remission of them by His blood. Hebrews 9, verse 22. The psalmist prayed this in Psalm
103, verse 3. He forgiveth all thine iniquities,
who healeth all thy diseases. Healing is because of forgiveness. When God teaches this to us,
we are driven to lay hold on Christ's righteousness as our
only confidence and hope. And by God-given faith in His
saving work, we take virtue from Him to ourselves. The next thing
we see in the account in Mark 5 is that the woman knew she
was healed. In Mark 5, verse 28, she said,
If I may but touch 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. As soon as she touched
Jesus' clothes, she knew she was healed. She found rest from
the burden of sin's guilt and the condemnation of God's law. Christ's blood alone cleanses
our record in heaven, but faith in Christ's blood cleanses our
heart on earth. Christ shed his blood outside
of our experience. He purged our sins before we
were ever born, and before he ascended back to heaven, our
sins were put away. Hebrews 1.3 says, when He had
by Himself purged our sins, He sat down on the right hand of
God. But in our experience, we come
to know this cleansing when we believe. We are set free from
sin's guilt and condemnation by the eternal redemption Christ
already obtained when He offered Himself to God. But we do not
know this freedom until God gives us faith in His blood and righteousness. God-given faith is how we know
our redemption, how we know our justification and our freedom
from sin's guilt and condemnation. When we see that we have no standing
before God but what we have in Christ, and that in Him we have
a perfect standing, we then know and enjoy rest in our souls. Romans 15, 13 says, The God of
hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you
may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. In believing
Christ, in seeing that our sins were put away by His sacrifice
and God's law was fulfilled, the burden of God's law and the
prospect of God's wrath is lifted from us. We know then that we
are healed. Nothing is more liberating than
to know that God does not look to me for anything but looks
only to Christ and is well pleased with me for what he finds in
him. God justifies me only on the
basis of what he received from Christ. Romans chapter 3 verse
24 says, being justified freely by his grace through the redemption
that is in Christ Jesus. We once tried to make ourselves
pleasing to God. By long affliction we spent all
of our labor and exhausted all help. We were made desperate. We did not know what to do. Then
God caused us to hear of Jesus. He persuaded us that salvation
is in Christ alone. He compelled us to take virtue
from Christ by believing His righteousness is all of our righteousness
and salvation. We therefore run to him. As Isaiah
55, 5 says, Behold, thou shalt call a nation that thou knewest
not, and nations that knew not thee shall run unto thee because
of the Lord thy God. This same faith causes us to
press, to lay hold on Christ that we might truly know each
and every day that God has received us by the sin-atoning blood and
the justifying righteousness of Christ alone. The Lord has
said, I have laid help on one who is mighty. Psalm 89 verse
19. The believing sinner therefore
says, this is my hope, this is my plea, that in my place another
stood, one willing, one mighty, one worthy, the only one good. And Horatius Bonar said, upon
a life I did not live, upon a death I did not die, another's life,
another's death, I stake my whole eternity. What do we say to this? I say this, I will abide in Christ
here. I will rest in the truth of his
substitutionary obedience and death. I will not go beyond Christ
and him crucified. Hosea 14.8 expresses it well. I have found him. What have I
to do any more with idols? I have heard him and observed
him. And then in Mark chapter 5, when
the woman had touched his clothes, it says in verse 30 that Jesus,
immediately knowing in himself that virtue had gone out of him,
turned him about in the press and said, Who touched my clothes? On his way to raise Jairus' daughter
from the dead, Jesus stopped and turned to see this woman
who touched his clothes. Why did Jesus stop? Why did he
turn? He knows the hearts and inward
thoughts of men. He knew her. He knew it was her
who touched him in faith. A crowd of people surrounded
him, but only one touched him in faith. That is why he stopped
and turned. He stopped and he turned to make
her know that he knew her. In the same way God speaks in
Romans chapter 8 of all believers, He says this, For whom He did
foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image
of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom he did predestinate,
them he also called, and whom he called, them he also justified,
and whom he justified, them he also glorified. There is an unbroken
chain. between those who are in heaven
at last and those who were known by God before the foundation
of the world. They are the ones the Lord called.
They are the ones he justified. They are the ones he glorified.
All is spoken in the past tense. But Jesus stopped and turned
to make this woman know that He knew her. When we understand
that Christ knows us in His saving purpose and work, then we will
know, as the Song of Solomon says, I am my beloved and He
is mine. We will know that He will save
us to the uttermost. And Jesus stopped in turn because
she was His work. He always looks with delight
on His own work. He always makes His own work
known. Ephesians 2.7 says that in the
ages to come God will show the exceeding riches of His grace
towards us in Christ Jesus. Jesus did not turn to scold her,
or to accuse her, or to condemn her, but to show her that He
approved. Christ is pleased when sinners
violently press to take hold of His saving grace. He is satisfied
when His people are brought to Him. We spend so much time thinking
about our work for God, but what work is important to God? It
is His work to glorify Himself in the salvation of His people
by Jesus Christ. God is pleased and He is fully
satisfied with Christ's work, and He is pleased and satisfied
when He brings sinners to Christ. Jesus turned to make her know
and to make us know that He delights when those He loves must have
Him. Christ delights in the people
God has given to him. He delights in those he knows
in his saving purpose. He delights in those he purchased
with his own blood. He delights in every unclean
sinner who comes to him out of desperation and in unrelenting
need. He approves of faith in His blood
and righteousness. Out of the entire crowd, she
alone touched His clothes in faith. He delights to save all
who come to Him. He will not cast out any who
come to Him. Jesus said, All that the Father
giveth Me shall come to Me, and him that cometh to Me I will
in no wise cast out. Jesus turned to see who touched
him, not to scold her, not to reprove her for taking virtue
from him secretly, but to commend her faith. Drawing sinners to
Christ is God's work. John 6.29 says this is the work
of God that you believe on him whom he has sent. And Ephesians
2 verse 8 says, By grace you are saved through faith, and
that, that faith, not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast. It's God's work to save a sinner.
God gave her that faith that compelled her to presume on Christ
and to stake the cleansing and healing of herself on His virtue
that was hers through faith in His righteousness. And then in
Mark chapter 5 it says that the woman, when Jesus turned and
asked who touched him, the woman, fearing and trembling, knowing
what was done in her, came and fell down before him and told
him all the truth. When Christ turned, and when
the woman knew what was done in her, she came, fearing and
trembling. She had heard of him. She believed
he was able to heal her. But she had come to him on the
word of others. And so she would wonder, was
her desire only one-sided? Did He want to heal her? Or had
she acted out of selfish reasons? Had she presumed to take from
Christ without warrant? Had she ventured upon Him without
His approval? Had she believed presumptuously?
Had she believed Him for more than she should? She was unclean
before God's law. Was it lawful for her, as an
unclean sinner, to touch Christ's clothes? She had not asked Him
openly. Was she permitted to sneak secretly
behind Him and lay hold on Him secretly? He had not spoken to
her before she touched Him. Would He approve? Would He save
her or would He cast her out? She did not yet have the assurance
that it was His purpose and will to heal her. And so it is with
us. Scripture says God saves His
elect. And we wonder, are we one of
God's elect? Scripture says He gives faith
to His people. We may wonder if we have warrant
to rely, to venture on Christ in faith, to venture on His righteousness
as ours and to lay hold on Him as our own Savior. For all these
reasons and more, this woman came fearing and trembling. She
was ashamed of herself before God. She was ashamed of her uncleanness. She was tortured by the plague
of her heart. but she was not ashamed of Christ.
She was penniless, helpless, but she had to have Him. Therefore,
it says, she told Him all the truth. Christ is glorified when
we confess how He saved us by Himself, how God's afflictions
and the good news of His righteousness in the Gospel caused us to forsake
our own righteousness and trust Him alone, To tell all the truth
is to confess with our mouth what God has taught us and persuaded
us from His Word, what we believe in our heart. It is to confess
that Jesus is the Christ of God, that He is the Lord of all, and
that He, as Lord and Christ, is all of our salvation. Romans
chapter 10 verse 9 says, If thou shalt confess with thy mouth
the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath
raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the
heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession
is made unto salvation. Every sinner, so going to Christ
in the closet of his heart, receives all of Christ, the one he believes. If we believe Christ for all,
we have what we desire of Him. We have all things in Him. In
1 John 5, verse 14, it says, this is the confidence that we
have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears
us. And if we know that He hears
us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that
we desired of Him. When the Lord saves us, He will
call for us to tell of the secret workings of God in our soul,
how He afflicted our conscience and brought us to Himself, and
how He persuaded us that our salvation is in Him alone and
it is complete and perfect by His obedience and death. He will
compel us to tell what He is to us by what He did in His sin-atoning
death. When by the grace of God we are
compelled to violently press and venture our souls upon Christ
for all, then Christ is glorified in our confession and sinners
are converted to Him. Psalm 51, verse 13. The next thing that we see in
this account is that Jesus told her, Daughter, thy faith hath
made thee whole. Go in peace, and be whole of
thy plague. Christ commended her faith. Why? Why did Jesus commend her faith?
Christ honors faith because faith honors Christ. Christ commends
our faith because our faith is the work of God and the gift
of God's grace. Faith seeks from Christ what
God has said about Him. Faith therefore justifies God. Luke 7 verse 29 Christ therefore
honors faith. Christ honors faith because faith
causes sinners to say the same thing in their heart and with
their lips about God that God has said in His Word and so worship
and glorify Him. By faith we believe in our heart
and we confess with our lips that we are sinners. We confess
and believe that God is right in his judgments against us and
that he wonderfully saves the worst of men by Christ alone,
by his grace, apart from our works and in spite of our sins. Faith is not our work or the
exercise of our will. Faith is not our decision for
Jesus. Faith is not accepting Jesus
to get God to save us. Saving faith is a God-given grace
that compels us and persuades us that Jesus Christ and Him
crucified is all of our salvation. God-given faith is trusting Christ
as He is revealed in the Gospel without any confidence in what
I am or in what I do, but knowing that the only righteousness God
accepts is Christ's obedience and death. Faith is the God-given
hand by which sinners lay hold and take virtue from Christ in
believing His righteousness. In 2 Peter 1, the Apostle Peter
said this, Simon Peter, a slave and apostle of Jesus Christ,
to those equally precious with us, having obtained faith in
the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ. To
fail to trust Christ for all, to fail to ascribe all of our
salvation to Him is idolatry. Therefore, Christ honors faith
because it is His work and because faith gives all glory to Him. Faith is that grace given to
us by God that persuades us that Christ is everything and we are
unworthy of the least of His blessings. And so Jesus spoke
to her, Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole, go in peace
and be whole of thy plague. Upon believing, the Lord Jesus
Christ told this woman, go in peace and be whole of thy plague.
Christ spoke peace to her where before she only knew anxiety
and trouble of soul. He told her she was healed. Before,
God's law told her she was only plagued and unclean. What God
says is the way things are. She heard of Him and believed
Him before, but now He spoke to her. His word to her now assured
her that heaven was at peace with her and her healing was
by His will. What is assurance? Assurance
is to know that God thinks of me, not for what I am in myself,
but for what He finds in Christ, my sin-atoning substitute, my
Savior and my Lord. Assurance is the settled peace
in my heart that comes from believing Christ is my all. Jesus told
her to go in peace. She was to live in peace with
God because Christ spoke peace to her by His word. By His word
He created the world, and He upholds it too. He is the judge
of all. He is the one mediator between
God and men. All power in heaven and earth
are His. and having forgiven our sins
by his own blood, having been drawn to Christ by God the Father,
the Lord Jesus tells us what he did for us. He made our peace
with God for our sins in his own blood. He has healed us by
taking our sins and our sicknesses and bearing them as his own.
Jesus assured her that her healing was by His will. He assured her
that she was clean before God. There was no need for her now
to take a sin offering and a burnt offering according to the law.
He had made atonement for her by Himself. But you say, how
could He have done that? He had not yet gone to the cross.
No, not yet in time, but as certainly as if he had already offered
himself. He is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world,
Revelation 13 verse 8. Before he went to the cross,
the Lord Jesus prayed, I have finished the work thou gavest
me to do, John 17 verse 4. He spoke of an accomplished atonement
before it came to pass because as God he calls those things
which are not yet done as already done. Romans 4 verse 17. When
he told the woman to go in peace it was because he would offer
himself to God and in his offering he would make atonement for their
sins. Only Christ's blood makes atonement
for sins. Only His obedience fulfilled
God's law and made satisfaction for sin. Only He established
everlasting righteousness. but by God-given faith in believing
Christ as our Savior, as our triumphant and reigning Lord,
we have peace and joy and rest." Romans 15, 13 again says, "...the
God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that
you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." The
work of salvation is complete. It is perfect. Christ accomplished
all when he cried from the cross, it is finished. The gospel is
the word of Christ. He sends it to all men. Those
who believe the gospel by the power of his spirit receive that
peace that he made by his blood. Those who believe him were already
healed when he bore their sins. Those who believe him were ordained
to eternal life before the world began. Those who believe Him,
believe Him by grace alone. Faith is not our work, it is
God's work. How do I know Christ cleansed
my sins? How do I know He healed the plague
of my uncleanness? For this one reason, because
He has given me this grace of faith to believe Him. Because
I call upon Him. Romans 10 verse 10 says, With
a heart man believeth unto righteousness. And Romans 10.13 says, Whosoever
shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Calling
on Christ to save me, therefore, is calling on the name of the
Lord God. Jesus Christ is the Lord. There's
only one name under heaven given to men by which we might be saved. Those who call on Christ are
the called of God. All whom the Lord calls, call
on Christ as Lord and Savior to save them from their sins.
Do you call on Christ alone and look only to Him to save you
from your sins, to cleanse you and heal your sin-plagued heart?
Do I? Has the afflicting hand of God's
law driven me in desperation to Christ? Has hearing of Christ
compelled me to press to Him? Have I laid hold on His righteousness
as the woman laid hold on His clothes, believing that He is
all of my salvation? And have I called upon Him to
heal me, to deliver my soul, and say to my soul, I am thy
salvation? Psalm 35 verse 3. Have I found
that the gospel of His grace gives me warrant to come and
call and take from Him what I don't deserve, but what He promised
to sinners in His Word? Do I come to God only by the
blood of Jesus, not looking to myself or what I've done or what
I must do, but to Him alone? If you do, then Christ Himself
has spoken peace to you from His Word. If I must have Christ's
righteousness as this woman did, and if His righteousness is all
sufficient to save me, even me, from all my sin, then I have
been healed of my sin plague. Solomon said it in 1 Kings 8.38,
If any man pray toward the temple, or if any man look to Christ
crucified, God would forgive him of his sin. As Hezekiah knew,
He has in love to my soul delivered me from the pit of corruption
because He has cast all my sins behind His back. Isaiah 38, 17. If Christ is my only salvation
and Lord of all, then the Lord and the one I trust has forgiven
all my sins and healed all of my diseases. Psalm 103, verse
3. May God be pleased to preach
Christ crucified to you and to me from His word through this
woman. And may we hear from Christ in
the gospel, go in peace. Be whole of thy plague. 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