I want you to turn in your Bibles
to Luke and we're going to contemplate faith today on a number of levels,
the basic concept of faith. Now, if you look carefully at
the text and you are sensitive to the narrative, what you realize
is that our Lord Jesus Christ, as I've said several times, as
I've been enjoying going through the book of Luke with you and
observing our Lord's ministry, He is in the height of his ministry,
in the success of his ministry, he is popular, he is wanted,
he is needed. And so from one event or one
occurrence, one epoch to the other, there are connecting factors,
different epochs but connecting factors. It's impossible to see
that there is an unusual connection between where he just came from
and where he is. If you will note, when we dealt
with the Gadarene people and we dealt with that man possessed
with a legion of devils, Christ miraculously delivered him from
his bondage, but the net consequence of that man's salvation was that
the whole of the Gadarene people requested that he leave their
country. So here on the tale of a very
powerful work of grace in the life of a man who was possessed
of a demon, our master is being rejected by a whole city. They said, would you please leave
this place? And now the narrative shows us
how that as he returns back to where he came from, which is
the regions of Galilee, Capernaum, where he was ministering, Luke
tells us in verse 40, now it came to pass when Jesus was noticed,
returned, that the people gladly received Him for they were all
waiting for Him. You see the connection? One group
rejects Him, the other group not only are receiving Him but
they are waiting for Him. Luke would have us to understand
that our Lord's ministry encompassed not only bizarre and difficult
issues of which only He could solve, but there were times in
His ministry where people did not want Him there. They did
not want him there and yet at other times There are people
who saw who are so eager for his presence that they are actually
waiting for Jesus this is all part of the winds and the turmoil
and the complexity of ministry that our lord is engaged in and
he would have us to know this is part and parcel of what goes
on in ministry. So there are a number of things
that I want us to consider today. First and foremost, in light
of this return to the regions of Galilee, I would have you
to know, and point one in our outline is this, whenever Christ
departs from us, it is to our loss. That's point number one. Please grasp this. When Luke
gives us this narrative in verse 40, he wants us to understand
there is a great danger in people's rejecting the gospel. If Christ
should ever leave us on any level, if Christ should depart from
us in any form or fashion, We don't want that to happen, saints.
We don't want Christ to shrink away. We don't want him to distance
himself. We don't want God Almighty to
hide himself. To do so is to leave us to ourselves,
and that will be our undoing. If God leaves us to ourselves,
that will be our undoing. Can you imagine what's getting
ready to happen? to that group of Gadarenes over
there who saw the power of God and the presence of Christ and
they rejected it. If you think that was a black
neighborhood before Christ came, you know it's black now. You
know it's dark now. It's in gross darkness. Wherever
Christ departs from a people, that people are left to themselves
and for us to be left to ourselves is for us to render ourselves
undone. We don't want Christ to leave
us. We don't want Christ to leave
us individually. God don't leave me. We don't
want him to leave our families. Lord, don't leave my family.
We don't want him to leave our church. Please don't leave the
church. I would Moses say, Lord, if you
do not go with us, I'm not moving. I am not moving. God, I need
your presence. I need your light. I need your
revelation. I need your security. I need
your protection. I need your sustaining mercy
and grace in my life. Whatever you do, don't leave
me. It will be to our undoing. See,
if we are left to ourselves and that's all God has to do. Have
you learned that saints? All God has to do is leave you
to yourself. God doesn't have to actively judge you. He doesn't
have to pour out His judgment of vengeance upon us for us to
destroy ourselves. It's in our nature to destroy
ourselves. Man, as soon as God takes His hands off me, I'm in
trouble. Can I get a witness? I am in trouble. I won't think
right. I will not act right. I will
be so far off the path, it's not even funny, without the presence,
guidance of God Almighty. His departure would be to our
undoing. It would certainly be to our undoing. Do you remember
he left Hezekiah, king of Judah? Right before Babylon came in. Hezekiah cried and whined. Remember
that? Cause he got sick. Now we're
all going to get sick. I don't care if you're the best
of believers, you're going to get sick or you're going to die
some kind of way. You got to leave this world. Hezekiah must've
been a wimp. I mean, cause he was a godly
king, but here he is getting sick and the Lord says, Get your
house in order. Now, isn't God good when he prepares
you to leave this world? We call this world a ghetto compared
to glory. To be exalted and promoted to
glory, aren't you a mess when you want to stay here one more
day? Aren't you a mess? But see, believers are fickle
like that, aren't we? We can get our priorities so jacked
up that we think somehow it would be better to be here. And Hezekiah
said, Lord, give me give me 15 more years. God gave him an additional
time on this earth. And if any of you think that
that's a better deal, I want you to think twice. The man recovered
from his physical sickness only to act a fool. See, see, can
I tell you something? We learned this in our men's
meeting last night. Our greatest enemy is us. Our greatest enemy
is us. And as soon as I can be rid of
this physical body with all of its passions and desires and
goals and objectives to live out its own selfish agenda, the
better I'll be. Soon as I can drop this veil
of flesh and be with my Savior, I'm saved from me. Hezekiah rose
up from his sickness and all of a sudden pride encompassed
him. And he thought he could open
up God's glory to the world. And he didn't know he was letting
the Babylonian intelligence come in and look at all of their weaknesses
and strengths and strategize taking over the kingdom. And
do you know what that knucklehead said when he found out God was
getting ready to give up the kingdom? You know what he said?
Well, at least it won't happen in my days. That's bad, isn't
it? No, God, don't leave us. Don't
leave us. It will be our undoing. But to. The alternative to the reverse
or to the other point, number two, his return is to our everlasting
joy and eternal benefit. You know, if Christ should ever
leave us on a providential level just because we need to be Disciplined
and corrected and some of us know what it's like for the Lord
to take his hand off of us for a few minutes Don't we we know
what it's like for the Lord to? Hide himself as it were providentially
and leave us to our devices because we have neglected To engage ourselves
in prayer neglected to engage ourself in fellowship with Christ
and we have created idols We again we talked about this And
those idols have have blocked fellowship between us and God.
And then when we realize that that fellowship has been broken,
we go to seek Christ and don't find him. And for weeks and months,
we are laboring to enter into authentic fellowship with God,
and we are surprised because it doesn't happen right away.
Well, can I share something with you? Christ is a person. Just
like you are a person. And he would have you to be sincere
in your walk with him. He would have you to value and
treasure communion with him. Am I making some sense? He's
not going to just let you come in and out willy-nilly as if
he's so desperate for your fellowship. Oh, I'm so glad you came back.
Listen, listen, God will show you that before he created the
universe, He sat in his situation of infinite glory all by himself,
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, happy with themselves without
anything. We never add to God. He always
adds to us. We never bring anything to the
table. It's always to our benefit that we fellowship with God.
God never needs anything. I'm so thankful that he would
condescend to hang out with people like you and me. Now you talk
about a mystery. Isn't that a mystery? God will
receive you. But always treasure his return
and mark this, the text says, and it came to pass that when
Jesus was returned, returned, that the people gladly received
him. They gladly received him. And
what that word really means is that they opened up fully to
him. They received him fully. See,
they understood who was returning. They understood that the person
that was returning was the master. He was the teacher. He was the
preacher. He was the prophet. He was the
healer. He was the one that had all the
answers. Think about it now. We get left to ourselves for
a month or a year. And our life dries up. And we
are like a cactus in a desert. The only fruit we're bearing
is thorns and thistles. We are prickly and profitable
for nothing. Am I telling the truth? You may
be a Christian way deep down on the inside, but don't nobody
know it, not even yourself. And we know for Christ to return
is for him to bring gifts of healing, bring gifts of restoration. bring gifts of revelation of
himself, bringing gifts to restore us, bringing repentance, bringing
faith, bringing mercy, bringing grace. That's what the gospel
does. It brings gifts to the empty soul, the soul that cannot
fill up itself. Christ will fill us up. So he
will prepare us to receive him because we will come to a place
of, watch this, needing him. and only Christ can meet our
needs. These people then, they are so
glad that Jesus is coming back. Can I tell you why? Because they're
filled with sick people all over the place. When you read Matthew's
narrative and Mark's narrative, here's how this works. Jesus
returns to the shore of Galilee and at the shore of Galilee,
Thousands of people are there with all kinds of sick folk immediately
as he gets off the boat He's right back into ministry all
over again. Do you know why because at this
moment? Messiah and we talked about what
I call the days of messiah those Unusual and limited days that
correspond only to the time of jesus ministry where god himself
is with us meeting every need You would be smart that if God
were in your season there to meet every one of your needs
Show up with all your needs to get them met because as the bible
says call upon the lord while he is near Call upon the lord
while he is near because when the lord draws away from us Then
we have nothing to answer our problems nothing to solve our
needs these people therefore are thronging christ And we have
in Mark's account that he heals that man with the palsy. Four
brothers tap the roof to drop him through the roof and Christ
heals him. He heals demonic people. He heals lepers. He heals blind
men. And that's what's going on here
when it says, and they fully received him for they were, what? Waiting for him. Now there's
a very clear prophetic truth about this before we go to our
next point that I don't want to evade us. I believe that as
we move toward the end time, as we experience the winding
down of history, the Bible sort of depicts that the condition
of our world will be a state of worldwide apostasy. It will
be like Jesus having left us as he left Capernaum and went
over to the other side. And so long as he's on the other
side, the people are left to themselves. I believe before
Christ comes again, we will not be at the height of ministry
and enjoying the fullness of blessings that come from the
gospel. We will be in a very dry season.
The church will be effete. It will be weak. It will be going
through tribulation. The church around the world will
be suffering for Christ's sake. And it will appear that there
has been a complete dismantling of the true church of the living
God. The false church will be prominent everywhere. false prophets
and false teachers and false systems of religion will hallmark
the day. Most people will be deceived
by this great antichrist system. Very few people will understand
the gospel of the glory of God in the person of Jesus Christ.
The vast majority of what will be called Christendom will be
nothing but humanism and a social gospel that has no Christ in
it, no cross in it, no gospel in it, no spirit of God in it.
It will be a dead entity that's controlled by the dark powers
of Satan. And every true believer will
understand that that's the condition of the world that we are in.
And deep down in our soul, you know what we'll be doing? We'll
be crying, Come, Lord Jesus. Come, Lord Jesus. This is a difficult
time, Lord Jesus come. We will be crying out for him,
waiting for him. As the scripture says, when these
things start to come to pass, look up, your redemption draweth
nigh. So I want you to understand,
you and I are to thank God when we have seasons where Christ
is here. We are to thank God when we have
seasons where the ministry of the gospel goes forth and people
are actually saved. Do not take the salvation of
sinners lightly. It is not always the case. There
are seasons where the spirit of God works in the salvation
of sinners, calling his elect from every nation. And then there
are seasons where God is not moving, where God is not moving. I don't know if we are quite
there yet, but there are some lessons to learn today from this. His return is to our benefit. They received him. because Christ
himself is the only source of fullness from which we all receive. Do you remember what John said
in John's gospel, John chapter one, verse 14? And the word was made flesh and
dwelt among us and we beheld his glory, the glory of the only
begotten of the father, full of what? Grace and truth. Verse
16 says, and of his fullness have we all received. Those of
us who are believers, who are trusting Christ, we are partakers
of the fullness of God in Christ. We have no fullness in ourself.
Our fullness comes from Him. Our satisfaction comes from Him. Our needs are met by Him. Christ
is the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and we are only complete
where? In Him. Him and this is the depiction
that's going on in our account now interestingly enough. I love
the way Luke Develops the narrative. He's gonna actually segue to
Essential problems into one episode. That's point number three in
your outline point number three in your outline Notice what it
says to women with a 12-year problem. Is that in your outline?
Probably not you it's probably different than mine. We'll just
take it for what I said Two women with a 12-year problem. In your
outline, it says the subject of true saving faith. That's
gonna be the subject we deal with. But here is what Luke does. Luke takes a woman and he takes
a child. Both of them are women. Both
of them are female. And within verses 40 through
verse 56, he actually ties these two situations together, sort
of intertwines them and resolves them one after the other but
in the midst of them teaches us a great lesson on the subject
of faith. Now these two women are different
but similar enough for us to combine them in the same setting
and so what again Luke would have us to understand is that
the nature of Christ's ministry becomes more important to these
people that are around him because of all the problems that he is
experiencing. So now let's talk about what
I call illustrated in this account, true saving faith. That's point three in your outline.
The subject is true saving faith. Now, when we talk about saving
faith, we could talk for weeks and months and years on a theological
level, We could talk about the origin of faith, the nature of
faith, the design of faith, how it expresses itself, the goal
of faith, the object of faith. Many things we could talk about.
I just want to say this. We understand, who have a knowledge
of the word of God, that faith has its origin where? In God. God is the one who gives us faith. Please mark this if you are new
here and have never heard the gospel, never been taught before.
Not all men have faith. Not all women have faith. All
of us are born unbelievers. I've heard from time to time
sort of silly notions coming from religious people that as
far as I can tell, I've been a believer all my life. That's
not possible. All have sinned and come short of the glory of
God. The wicked go astray from the womb as soon as they be born,
speaking lies. We don't believe God by nature.
That's what we inherited from Adam. And in order for us to
believe God, God has to instill faith in our life. Am I telling
the truth? So watch this now. If you are a believer, that was
a gift from God to you. The Bible is clear in Ephesians
chapter 2, verses 8 and 9. For by grace are you saved through
faith and that not of yourselves. It is a what? Gift. of God, not of works, lest any
man should boast. And so when we say we are a believer
and faith is believing, we recognize that faith has its origins in
God. And one day in God's good mercy,
he planted faith in my heart. Faith has its origin in God.
Now watch this. I want you to get this as well.
So faith is not indigenous to your natural fallen nature. Faith
comes from God, but faith also is a byproduct of the atoning
work of Jesus Christ. God doesn't just give men and
women faith arbitrarily. Mark this now. Faith is the fruit
of Christ's condescension from glory, his perfect obedience,
his passive submission to his father's wrath, his death on
Calvary, his descent into the depths of hell, his resurrection
from the dead, his return to glory. Faith is a consequence
of Christ's successful work on Calvary's tree. How do we know
this? Second Peter chapter one verse one tells us, now all of
us who are believers have received what is called like precious
faith by the righteousness of God in Christ. Follow me now. Christ won faith for you and
me by his perfect righteousness. His perfect obedience merited
at the hand of his father faith to give to you and to me because
he accomplished eternal redemption. So when you discover that you
are a believer, take that faith to believe God and attach it
to the atoning work of Jesus Christ and say, that's the reason
why I have faith. because Christ died for my sins. So it has its origins in God.
It has its grounds in the atoning work of Jesus Christ. God doesn't
give people faith arbitrarily. Watch this now. You might be
a believer in God, but if you're not a believer in Christ, you
don't have saving faith. You might say you believe in
God and you might have your idea about God and your notions of
God But you are not a believer unless that faith comes from
God and it comes through Calvary Then and then are you a believer
now watch this here? We are now watch this now that
faith that's given to you as a consequence of God Through
the death of Christ on Calvary has to be communicated to you
That faith has to be communicated to you. God has a specific and
ordained means by which men and women come to a saving knowledge
of Christ. You know what the Bible says?
Faith comes by what? And hearing by what? The word
of Christ. The word of God concerning Christ.
Now watch this. In order for a man to become
a believer, he must hear the gospel of the glory of God in
Jesus Christ preached. Faith is planted in the soul
through the revelation of the person of Jesus Christ as he
is explained, expounded and set forth in the scriptures. Now
you come to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what makes
you and I a believer. And this is so critical to where
we are in our text too, because these two people, this woman
and this man Jairus are coming to Jesus, are they not? This
is what our elders said. Come to Jesus with all your problems.
But watch this, saints. You can't come to a Jesus you
don't know. You can't come to a Christ you
haven't heard. You can't come to a Christ that you haven't
been convinced can meet your needs. Now watch this. This is
why people don't come. Because they don't know him.
And this is why people do come because God in his gracious providence
has made the gospel known to them and has called them by his
grace. So they begin to come to Christ. So there are several lessons
about faith that I want us to understand. I want us to deal
with faith in terms of its expression, faith in terms of its revelation,
faith in terms of its manifestation. And I also realize that when
we are talking about Expressions of faith as they are set forth
categorically in the scripture. There are many expressions of
faith But the two that are in our outline are for our learning
today. Okay? Expressions of faith. How can
a person express our manifest faith? They can do it in prayer
if you believe God you'll pray won't you? That's how you can
manifest an expression of faith. Another expression of faith.
People who are believers worship God, don't they? Don't tell me
you're a believer and you don't worship God. You don't know God.
See, when God saves you, he makes you a worshiper. The Father seeketh
such to worship Him. And when He saves you, it's natural
to our makeup to prostrate ourselves before God. When shall I come
before God? When shall I hear the gospel
preached? When shall I get to sing songs in Him? Because I
remember the day I was walking in darkness, I didn't know God
from the man on the moon, and there was no songs of Zion in
my heart. And when God saved me and brought
me out of darkness into his marvelous life He planted a song in my
heart and now I can sing the songs of Zion and I want to and
I want to and I want to do it with the people of God Don't
you I want to worship God with the people of God. That's an
expression of faith Don't tell me that a person can be a true
believer and doesn't and don't want to worship God. It can't
possibly Well, somebody tell me how do you see the glory of
God? don't worship how do you have
a revelation of his beauty and splendor and don't fall down
on your soul and say look at God how do you do it it can't
be done you don't have one account in the scriptures where a mortal
or an angel saw God's glory and did not fall down and worship
and worship but in our account As we are dealing with an expression
of faith, there are two aspects of faith here that I want us
to consider. We'll pick up the one today, and next week we'll
deal with the other. As I said, there are parallels
between this older woman and this young girl. Luke gives us
the age of this young girl. She's 12 years old. 12-year-old
girl, got an 11-year-old daughter. My heart, if I were a father
with a daughter on the brink of death, I would be tore up. Do I have to put that in regular
English for you? I would be completely devastated.
I would be beside myself. I would be begging God to take
me and leave my baby. Are you hearing me? And so we
have in the narrative a desperate situation, don't we? A very desperate
situation of which the father is pleading on the behalf of
his daughter, and we'll develop that fully next week. But then
we have a woman who is here who's old enough to come on her own. But what Luke wants us to understand
is the problem of this girl and the problem of this woman spanned
the same period of time, 12 years. This woman had an issue of blood
for 12 years. She was hemorrhaging on the inside
for 12 years. This young girl is sick unto
death. The Greek term there, almost near to death, is our
Greek term eschaton, from which we get eschatology, our last
things. She's on her last leg. And they
are both in a similar situation, ladies and gentlemen, because,
watch this, with the little girl, it's her life. With the woman,
it's her blood. Now, isn't the life in the blood?
Isn't the life in the blood? So really they have the same
problem and you and I do too. Our problem is the same as the
girls and our problem is the same as that woman. The issue
is the blood. Our blood is contaminated. Our
blood is contaminated from our first father Adam. And here's
the issue. It's contaminated with sin and
the result will be death. Am I making some sense? We're
just like that woman and we're just like that child. Apart from
Christ, we're on our last leg. Oh, isn't it great for that girl
to have a daddy who knows how to get a hold of Jesus? That's
next week's sermon, though. If you old enough, you go yourself.
And this 40 year old woman is old enough to go herself. So
let's learn some some things about this account. Now, the
difference is this. Here's how this works. The difference is
one. Is a quest. The other is a request. One is a quest. The other is
a request. One is an inward personal resolve
to pursue Christ. Now we're talking about faith,
right? One is an inward personal resolve to pursue Christ. Christ,
we call this a quest. It's private. It's secret. It's personal. Faith starts within,
doesn't it? It's private. It's secret. It's
personal. The other is open and public. This man is explicit
in his expression of his need. Do you know what he did? He's
the ruler of the synagogue. Now the ruler of the synagogue
is like an elder in the church. That's what elders are. He's
a ruler in the synagogue. His need is so desperate that
in the presence of the crowd of thousands of people, he comes
to Jesus and falls on his knees to worship the man the whole
church is going to reject in a few years, saying, Jesus, Jesus,
save my baby. Now, that's an expression of
faith, isn't it? I want you to go to Mark's gospel,
and I want you to see how this works, because in Mark's gospel,
it renders this for us, what's going on in the account. In Mark's
gospel, how does he know about Jesus? Listen to what Mark's
gospel says. This is what I was saying earlier.
People don't come to Christ who don't know him. People don't
come to Christ if they haven't heard about him. Listen to what
it says in Mark's gospel concerning both the woman and Jairus. In verse 22, it says, And behold,
there cometh one of the rulers of the synagogue, I'm in Mark
6 gospel chapter 5 verse 22 and behold there cometh one of the
rulers of the synagogue Jairus by name and when he saw him he
fell at his feet and he besought him greatly saying my little
daughter lieth at the point of death and I pray thee come and
lay your hands on her that she may be healed and She shall live
Do you see that now how on earth is Jairus gonna be able to make
that kind of request of Christ? Unless he saw him healing other
people unless he heard of Christ healing other people. You don't
come unless you know. He says, if you lay hands on
my baby, she will what? Recover. That's an expression
of faith that we'll have some time to develop next time. Notice what it says over in verse
26. This is why she's verse 25 through 27 concerning the woman. And then we'll go back and deal
with the deal with the woman and a certain woman, which had
an issue of blood 12 years and had suffered many things of the
physicians and has spent all that she had. It was nothing
better. Mark says she grew worse. And
when she had her. He said when she had heard of
Jesus, came in the press behind and touched his garment. Watch
this, this is the inner resolve of a person who has faith in
the capacity of Christ to meet her need. For she said, if I
may touch but his clothes, I shall be made whole. Do you see faith
operating there? Do you see it? Do you see it?
Go back to our text and let's work through some things concerning
faith in our outline. We get a chance to examine ourselves
whether this is the case with us. Several lessons concerning
faith that are important. Several lessons. First and foremost,
we, listen to me now, we only come to Christ when we are desperate. It's a shame, but it's true.
Am I telling the truth? It's a shame, but it's true.
Listen, you don't come to Christ when you don't have a need. You
don't come to Christ when the bills are being paid and the
job as well and you got vacation and 401ks and money markets and
stocks and bonds. You don't come to Christ in prosperity.
You come to Christ in need, don't you? You are such selfish people. Now watch this. I want you to
get this. The most selfish thing you can do is come to Christ.
The most selfish thing you can do is come to Christ. Pastor,
am I selfish coming to Christ? Yes. Come to Christ anyway. Come
to Christ with all your selfishness. See, they were coming according
to their need. They had need. And so they were
coming, we're gonna see how God utilizes our need. But Hosea
puts it like this, you don't have to go there. In Hosea 6,
verse 15, God says, because he had constantly told Israel to
return to me, return to me, but they were so happy with all the
false gods and all of the success they were having in Palestine
with all of the false religions that had come in from the different
cultures, that they had rejected and neglected Jehovah God. So
God says, I will return and I will go to my place and I will hide
myself from my people. Watch this. And I will wait until
they return to me. Here it is. In their afflictions,
they will seek me quickly. Don't God know us? Doesn't God
know us? You know how you haven't prayed
in months and then all of a sudden you get a lump on your chest.
Oh, Lord. Lord have mercy. Are you get
that phone call? Are you about to lose? Pink slips
are going that way. Are you getting ready to lose
your job? I think I better pray now. And then you know how you do
it because you're religious you come will you pray for me? Will
you pray for me? We we haven't heard from you in years now all
of a sudden you want us to pray for you Now watch this And that's
exactly what we're gonna do We're gonna pray for you Aren't we
gonna pray for you because every time we have an opportunity to
go to god whether for ourselves or for you What we have learned
who are praying people. It's a privilege to pray to god
Give me all your prayers I'll lay them all out there in a pile
and and and don't be sure of this I'm not gonna go through
everyone and read them word for word cuz I don't have to cuz
I know the God I'm praying to I'm gonna take the whole sack
and dump it out say Lord you see the sack and I'm just gonna
start exalting God and worshiping God and extolling God and thanking
God knowing that he can meet every one of those needs I'm
not going to mention your name See, because prayer is predicated
on a knowledge of God, not form and routine and words. God, again,
is not a genie in a bottle. He's not waiting for you to say
the magic word. And the Word has already told
me He hears me before I speak. So I'll take the sack and put
it in front of Him and say, Lord, You who created the heavens and
the earth, You made the sack. You made the people. You made
their problems. You made the three by five cars
they rode on. I'm dumping it all in front of
You. So we'll pray that God meets people's needs. And it is a sad
commentary that we don't talk to God. It is an expression of
our depravity and fallen nature that we only pray when we are
in trouble. But we're going to see that God
can work with that. The second thing under the subject
of the lessons of faith, which is critical to understand, it's
a wonder that any of us come to God at all. I do meet people
that, uh, even in their dire problems, don't come to God.
We do meet a few people like that who, you know, they're just
so mad at God. So, so angry at God. So they
want to prove that God doesn't exist. So you know what they
do? They suffer fourth stage cancer. They're rotting right there in
the bed with their fist in God's faith face, trying to prove that
God doesn't exist. Dummy. Isn't that dumb? Here you are wasting away in
your folly, trying to prove that God doesn't exist, when your
very death is an affirmation that God exists. The one thing
that we all will have in common for which God has proven that
he exists is that we will die the wages of sin Is what that's
what God says see and while we're all healthy we fight and we debate
we have arguments and we discuss The nature of man the ontology
of man the origin of man design scope of man But I'll tell you
what when when all of us are lying in the hospital room rotting
away. I from sin, we still have to
say God was the one that said the wages of sin is what? The
wages of sin is indeed death. And so it's very important for
us to understand that God allows these afflictions to come into
our life in order to break us. But we are not coming to God. Unless God draws us. Do you believe
that? Let me help you with this now.
I'm so glad I got a house of people that are humble before
God because religious folk are some of the proudest people on
planet. I was talking with my elder and I'm always talking with my
brother about people who pretend to be Christians who argue about
human virtue as if we have capacity within ourselves to do anything
good. That's the greatest lie one could ever swallow. We argue
that we have the ability to come to Christ. We have the ability
to choose Christ. We have the ability to believe
on Christ. Don't you know without me you
can do nothing? Isn't that what the Bible says?
Can I help you? You can't breathe in and out
without God. The very breath that you have
comes from God. Your constitution, your stability, your makeup,
your sanity, your reason, your intellect are all gifts from
God. For which, by the way, we have to answer. Let alone believing
God. It's a gift from God. Now watch
this. When a man or woman in the providence of God are finding
themselves suffering so bad that they decide to go to church and
finally listen to the gospel and finally submit the truth
and finally come to the elders and finally ask questions about
faith and they may think they're doing it but you know what the
bible says no one can come unto the father but by me All that
the Father giveth me shall come to me. He that cometh unto me,
I will in no wise cast out. He that comes to me must be drawn
of the Father. The Holy Ghost must draw you
from darkness to light, carry you. And you know what the Greek
word is? Drag your dead carcass into the presence of Christ so
that he can give you life and faith. That's what the work of
God is, to take the dead sinner and bring him to the living Savior
so the living Savior can give him life. And that's what's happening
here. They're being drawn to God. Were
you drawn to God? I was. I wasn't looking for God
no more than I was looking for anybody else. And God manifested
himself to me and his sovereign power broke me down and brought
me to himself. And I have to tell it like it
is because that's the way it was. Me and the apostle Paul had our
fist in God's face. And one day he knocked us down.
And when we looked up, we said, Lord, what would you have me
to do? It doesn't sound like we were signing a contract negotiating,
were we? He was sovereign in my salvation.
Sovereign in our salvation. So faith is expressed by God
drawing us to himself. I got three examples. I won't
develop them. But you can't be a man or woman of faith and journey
as far as the Queen of Sheba did to receive the wisdom of
Solomon. You must be a man or a woman
of faith. You can't not be under the compulsion
of the Spirit of God in order to come and hear the wisdom of
Solomon. Here this woman, she travels
thousands of miles with hundreds of camels, with riches untold
to simply hear the wisdom of Solomon. That's faith. That's
faith. We celebrate the Lord's birth.
in December, don't we? And we always read the account
of the Magi in Matthew 3, right? They're coming from the East.
They're coming from Persia. That's a long way to come to
worship a baby. Unless you believe that baby
is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Am I making some sense?
Nicodemus came by night, didn't he? And so this woman is coming. And so this man is coming because
God is drawing them to himself. Thirdly, Faith is a journey. I want you to get this. This
is in your outline. Faith is a journey from our problem to
the solution. Did you get that? Faith is a
journey from our problem to the solution. And what this means
is you and I are not exercising faith. If what we think is faith,
trying to solve the problem with our own understanding. are trying
to solve the problem by our own human means or by our trying
to solve the problem by our own human works or worth or skill
set on any kind. If we think that the answer is
solvable in ourselves, it's not faith. All saving faith departs
from self to other for the answer. All saving faith departs from
self to another for the answer. Faith is only operating when
you are convinced that the answer is not with you. Faith is authentic when you are
convinced that the answer is not with you. Now watch this.
And all saving faith, once it leaves itself, only rests and
terminates in Christ. Saving faith, once it leaves
itself, will find no rest, like those demons, until it rests
in Christ. That's the beauty of our account.
That's the beauty of the manifestation of Christ as Messiah. All these
people are coming to him. Have you come to him? So faith is a journey from ourselves,
from our problems to the solution, from ourselves to Christ. It's
a persuasion that self does not have the answer. Do you believe
that? Now watch this, I'll tell you something else. Just as faith
is a journey from our problem to the solution. It's a persuasion
that self does not have the answer. It's also a persuasion that every
other self doesn't have the answer. In other words, I'm not leaving
myself to come to you for the answer. You're just as bad as
me, if not worse. I'm not going to come to you
when you and I are just alike. We're both weak, impotent, blind,
selfish, unable to solve our problems. True saving faith,
therefore, makes a beeline to the Son of God, having heard
him and being persuaded that God is able to render an answer
to the problem. I love this. Now watch this.
Here's a very important aspect of this. The next point says
faith, the object of faith in the hand of the sinner, rather,
is to get its needs what? Met. I said that earlier, but
I want you to grasp this. The object of faith in the hand
of the sinner is to get its needs met. This is why I had us to
go to Mark's gospel and let you hear the conversation going on
in the head of Jairus and in the head of the woman. They said,
now watch this. If I can but get to him, he can
solve my problem. If I can but get to him, he can
solve my problem. And you know what they're doing?
They're owning their need. You know, proud people will act
like they don't need God. Am I telling the truth? Proud
people will act like they don't. Now, listen, we all need God
and God knows we need God. And God is so good. Even people
that don't need him, he still rains his mercy on them, doesn't
he? He rains upon the just and the unjust. His goodness and
mercy is upon all people, even though they act like they don't
need him. You know, if God wanted to play games like me, and he
doesn't do that, but if he wanted to play games, you know what
he could do? For about 10 seconds, suspend the oxygen around your
head. And then you would see how quick
you need God. You wouldn't need God so bad,
you wouldn't be able to say to God, God, I need you, because
you need oxygen to be able to say it. You know what God said? What
was that? That's how bad we need God. That's
how much we need God. And that's how good God is to
sustain this creation, even though it rejects who he is. But the
object of faith in the hand of the center is to get its needs
met, because while it may not be able to express it in literal
terms without Christ, I can do nothing. Without God, I can do
nothing. Fourthly, The object of faith. Now watch this. This is the flip
side of it. Not the object of faith in the
hand of the sinner, but the object of faith in the hand of God.
Are you with me now? The object of faith in the hand
of God. In the life of the sinner. Is to glorify God. Is to bring glory to God. Now
hear me now. The reason why God allows you
to go through trouble. is so that in your trouble you
will be compelled to call upon God and God will get glory to
himself in saving you. Are you hearing me? God is determined
to get glory in saving you. Now at this point I wanted to
penetrate. I want this to penetrate. The reason for which God saves
sinners is that through them he might be What's the word?
Glorify. Glorify. Your salvation is not
for your needs to be merely met. Your salvation is in order that
you might glorify God. See, God manifested himself in
the person of Jesus so that he might glorify the Father. Every
sinner that came to Christ, of which Christ met their need,
brought glory to his Father. That's why Christ did it. You
don't know it in this account. We'll emphasize this next week.
When Jairus came to Jesus and fell on his face before Jesus
and said, Jesus, my daughter is sick unto death in the midst
of the whole crowd, he was glorifying God. He said, would you come
to my house and lay hands on her? The text said Jesus immediately
went with him as a doctrine all by itself. That's a doctrine. Listen you pray and God gets
up and walks with you to your house Do you understand how privileged
you are? And the reason why Jesus is accommodating
the request the request is because this request will magnify his
father it will glorify God imminently as we look at it next week and
While Jairus has given his open public request. There's a sister
Who has chosen to sneak in? among this public spectacle,
behind the scenes, she says, if I can just sneak in there.
You know how sneaky Christians are? I'm talking about sneaky
Christians. Now that's a predisposition on
some of our part. This is how good God is. God
saves all kinds of sinners, doesn't he? Now watch this. I want you
to get this now. Jairus is a ruler in the synagogue.
As a ruler in the synagogue, you got to deal with people publicly.
But I got a lot of brothers and sisters who are Christians among
us right now that don't like to do hardly anything in the
presence of people. They show up early because they
don't want to see you. They leave late because they don't want
to see you. Now, don't get me wrong. It's not that they don't like you, but
it's just not their natural disposition to be up front. So think about
this woman for a moment with me. Will you think about it?
See, hers is a quest, not a request. Hers is an internal resolve.
Hers is a struggle on the inside. Hers is a battle and conflict
of an internal reality of her condition that she's had for
12 years by the providence of God. Watch this, ladies and gentlemen. She's a Jewish woman who has
a physical disability, a physical ailment. that results in her
being, now watch this now, permanently unclean. She has a physical debility
that keeps her in a status of uncleanness. Leviticus chapter
15 describes for us, it starts at chapter 13, but it goes through
the lists of those persons in Israel who were considered folks
who had to stay on the outside of the camp because they had
some uncleanness about them, whether they were lepers or persons
with sores or persons with issues. And it specifically speaks in
Leviticus chapter 15. If a woman has an issue issuing
from her, an issue of blood, she is to remain unclean and
separated from the community until that issue is resolved.
Now watch this. Her issue was never resolved
for 12 years. You know what that means? Every
day it bore on her conscious that she was unclean in the sight
of the people. Not only did it bother her mentally
and psychologically, But because she was hemorrhaging, follow
this, ladies and gentlemen, she was always weak and sickly. She was anemic because she was
constantly bleeding. Are you with me? Now, tell the
truth. You know, when you get sick,
you get an attitude. You know that, right? We all
do. We're human. Can you imagine
the attitude this woman had 12 years before? She might have
been healthy. She might have been vibrant. She might have
been a very she might even been a public speaker. But you know
how affliction wears on you and it can change your character
and it can take what used to be Attributes and virtues that
made you more confident and more Open and much more extroverted
now all of a sudden you want to retreat now all of a sudden
you don't want to be around people now and it's wearing on you because
you are spiritual you are she's called a daughter of Abraham
and Which means she really would love to be in the community.
She really would love to be worshiping God She would really love to
have fellowship with the saints, but she can't Because the law
said she's unclean you see the segue from the unclean demon
demonic man now to the sister who's unclean see the segue and
She's struggling with her affliction, but look at what faith does faith
says I Don't have the right openly and publicly come to this master
because I'm unclean but my case is so bad that I'm gonna sneak
and do it I don't mind sneaky faith do you and God doesn't
either because you remember Nicodemus he snuck Talk with the master
late at night. He waited to all his compadres
were gone You know, it's his his theological brethren with
daggers in their side. That's grace, right? He waited
till they were all gone and then he went to see Jesus at night,
didn't you know what Jesus did not do? He did not turn Nicodemus
away. He didn't say Nicodemus. You
got to come to me in the daytime No, he met Nicodemus on his terms
and I'm getting ready to explain something to you about faith
That's critically important with both of them Here's the point. Our faith, yours and mine, which
is a gift of God, is always expressed with impotence and flaws. Our faith, which is a gift from
God, is always expressed in imperfections and weaknesses and flaws. Are
you guys hearing me? There is never a time on this
side of glory where you will exercise or demonstrate or manifest
faith in God that won't be compiled with some infirmity, some weakness,
some flaw. It will always be flawed. Your faith in mine is flawed.
It's flawed for God's glory so that you don't worship faith.
Faith is not to be worshiped. It's an instrument by which we
worship the object of faith, which is Christ. And listen,
as long as it's authentic faith, it will always terminate on Christ,
even if it has to creep and crawl and dig holes in the ground and
go through the back door. Are you hearing me? What I'm
talking about is the Old Testament. Those Old Testament saints, they
did some wild things and God still blessed them. Do you know
why? They did it in faith. That's
what the children are learning over there right next door, Hebrews
11. How did Samson get to the hall of hero of faith with the
kind of life he lived? By faith. Flawed and weak. Listen, this woman's faith is
flawed and weak. Jairus' faith is flawed and weak. Can I tell you how? Watch this. Jairus said to Jesus, if you
will but come with me, to my house and lay hands on my daughter,
she'll be well. Do you know what that man did?
He put conditions on Christ to heal his daughter. You do that
too. We do that. You know what the
woman just said? She says, if I can but get up
to him, if I can but touch the tassel on the corner of his robe
on which all Jewish men wore to remind them that they were
under Torah law, If I could but touch the tassel, I'll be made
whole. Was that an act of faith? Sure
it was. Was it a weak faith? Definitely
it was a weak faith. If it was a purely powerful faith,
you know what it would be able to say? I believe God for my
healing right where I am. I don't need conditions. I don't
need to do something. I don't need to go anywhere.
I don't need to touch a tassel on his garment. I don't need
to tell Jesus to follow me a half a mile to my house. Do you remember
that brother who had a sick servant came to the master and said,
master, now you and I have a couple of things in common, but that's
it. And that's this, that we rule over people and we tell
one person to go here and another person to go there. So I understand
that, listen, you have authority and I'm simply asking you if
you will, but send your word, my servant will be healed. Now that's an excellent faith,
isn't it? That's when Jesus turned to all the Jews and said, did
you hear that, brother? Now mark it. Just send the word. Just send the word. But we would
have a lot of stuff we wouldn't have to do if we could believe
God like that, right? Just send the word. Just send the word. But there are a few things that
we must understand that's taking place here that needs to be grasped.
We're almost done here. Which brings me to my final point.
And it also brings me to the title of our message. In verse
47 of our account, here's what it says. I'll start at verse
45. And Jesus said, Who touched me? Do you see that? The woman came
behind Jesus, verse 43, and she came behind him and touched the
border of his garment. And immediately her issue of
blood was what? Stopped. Immediately. She didn't touch him and leave
and then go home an hour later. Immediately, the issue of blood
stopped and staunched. And our master said, who touched
me? Isn't that powerful? Who touched
me? Who was it that touched me? Now,
there are a number of implications. I just want you to grasp this.
First of all, omnipotence and omniscience is not asking the
question, who touched me? Because he didn't know who touched
him. Please understand that omniscience is not raising questions to get
answers for himself. God often asks us questions. Adam. Where are you? You remember Brother Joe? He
had built this long list against God and said, you know, if I
ever catch up with God, if I ever catch up with God, I got a long
list. And God says, Joe, I want to ask you a few questions. Where
were you when I started this thing? Where were you when I
created this universe and the stars of God shouted for joy
at the birth of creation? Where were you Joe? Can you tell
me anything about wisdom Joe? Can you tell me how the currents
of the wind blow Joe? Can you tell me anything about
Leviathan or behomoth or behemoth anything about the creatures
that I made Joe? Just tell me one thing Joe. Tell me how a
flower is made Joe. Tell me how a butterfly operates
Joe. Tell me something And you know what the Bible says? Joe
put his hand over his mouth. Why on earth would a man ever
question whether or not God knows what he's doing? Listen to me,
ladies and gentlemen. And this is how this is. You
and I are just like this. When the Lord Jesus said, who
touched me? You know, the disciples took
it upon themselves to try to give him an answer, right? Now, watch this. They said, now,
Lord, There's thousands of people been rubbing all up against you,
bumping you and thronging you. That's literally the Greek language,
touching him and bumping him and rubbing him. And you're going
to ask us who touched you out of a thousand people. And if
I was Christ, I would have said, listen, fellas, I wasn't talking
to you. This this wasn't for you. See, they really thought
they had to help the master out from time to time. And we think
we have to do that, too. No, I wasn't talking that this
wasn't for you. This question that was raised
by our missions was raised in order to draw out the one person. Who out of the thousands and
thousands of people. Who touched Christ that day?
Will you hear me now was the only one who touched him by faith. Out of all the people that touched
Christ, that rubbed against omnipotent God in the flesh, who had a chance
to see him and hear him, and rub up against him, bump him,
touch him, because they thronged him. That's what people do. They
touch the preacher, you know, the holy man. Touch him, rub
him. Everybody was rubbing him, but no one was touching him by
faith. That's a lesson for a lot of
us. How close you can come to Christ and not feel your need
of Christ and not feel your need. Are you hearing me? And not feel
your need of Christ. How many times we come to hear
the gospel and draw near to Christ intellectually and not feel our
need of Christ and not reach out by faith and touch Christ.
Watch this now. When he raised that question,
he said, someone touched me because virtue left my body. That is
crazy. Everybody touched him. Nothing
happened. One woman touches him by faith.
And you know what happens? Power leaves Christ. The Greek
word is dunamis, from which we get our word power or dynamite. And I've told you before, it's
not the indiscriminate blast of power going everywhere. It's
the targeted blast of energy that's designed to address a
problem and break open the strongholds of that particular problem. When
she touched him by faith, power responded to that faith and immediately
healed her of her problem. And Christ marveled at that and
took it as an opportunity to glorify his father. See, here's
how this goes. When, by faith, you receive at
the hand of Christ any grace that he gives you for every need,
your obligation, your rate of exchange for his blessing in
your life is to glorify God, to give him the glory. That woman
thought she was gonna sneak in, get her blessed, and then sneak
on out without having to ask him for that blessing. The Lord
said, who touched me? Now watch this. When God says
who, He knows who he's talking to and those to whom he's talking
to know he's talking to them Because the text tells us look
at it. Watch it now. Listen to what
the text is verse 47 and when the woman Saw that she was not
what he is Now, what do you mean pastor? I mean, nobody in the
crowd. I mean, she didn't just turn
from this this shriveled up thing into this gorgeous woman. I mean,
it was not an outward transformation. There was inward change. There
was inward vitality. The moment the blood issue stopped,
she became strong immediately. Do you know what it's like to
be sick? And then wake up one day feeling hundred times better. She immediately felt whole. She knew she was whole. Christ
knew she was whole. Nobody else knew she was whole
but God. But when God makes you whole,
you're gonna have to answer to that before God. Now watch this
now. The rate of exchange for the
gift of faith and the blessings that come by faith is you've
got to tell the world who did it for you. You've got to tell
the world who did it for you. Are you hearing me? You've got,
listen, if Christ saved you, you've got to tell the world
Christ saved you. If Christ delivered you, you've got to tell the world
Christ delivered you. If Christ rendered you whole,
you've got to tell the world, Christ rendered me whole. That's
the rate of exchange for the blessing of his salvation in
you. I'm sorry, you don't get to keep that thing to yourself.
Listen to it. Now watch the testimony. Verse
47. And when the woman saw that she
was not hid, she came what? Trembling and falling down before
him. In other words, she worshipped
him. Now watch this. She declared unto him before
all the people for what cause she had touched him and how she
was healed immediately. Immediately. Do you know what
she just did? She glorified God publicly for
the healing that she received at the hand of God. She told
everybody I was sick 12 years. I was afflicted. I was weak.
I was unclean. I've spent all my money. No physicians
could help me. No doctors could help me. Only
Christ could help me. Christ healed me of my sickness. And I'm here to tell you all,
besides, he made me do it. He made me do it. Just like he
made the demoniac do it. See, the demoniac wanted to come
hang out with the master. See, when you're saved, the person
that has loved on you like that, you want to be with them. But
your job when Christ saves you is to be with him in spirit.
But it's now time to tell men and women. that Christ is the
Savior. Christ is the healer. Christ
is the deliverer. Christ is the only one that can
deliver you. And that's what God has called this woman to
do. These are the lessons of faith
then for you and me. Is our faith flawed? Yes, it's
flawed. Is it weak? Yes, it's weak. But
if it's saving faith, it's still a faith that glorifies God. And whenever God blesses you,
he's calling you and I to tell the whole world how Christ has
touched us. Is that all right? He touched
me. He touched me. Yes, I'm touched. Are you touched? I'm touched. Yes, I'm a little touched by
the glory of God and I'm willing to let the world know I'm touched
by the grace of God. Amen. Amen.