Sermon Tone Analysis

Intro

Asbury Revival: 2 weeks in.

If you haven’t heard about this, or if you have, I just want to give you a little summary of what has been going on there.

It is at Asbury University in Kentucky.

This is a University that is a Christian University, and they have a seminary program, but that doesn’t mean all the students are Christian.

However, it does mean that they have Chapel services.

And unfortunately, Chapel requirements in school, whether it is at your christian HS or a Christian university like where I went- when a Chapel service is a requirement- you have to get a certain number of chapel credits each semester to pass and graduate- people often become numb to actually worshipping and wanting to be a part of those services, it becomes a burden or like homework.

Well, on February 8th, they had their normal morning chapel service and there wasn’t anything outstanding about the songs or message, the attendance was average and unimpressive.

But, after the service as people were leaving, a few students stayed and sang longer.

The band kept going for about 15 students that remained, and they stayed longer so the band kept playing for them.

Then, students started coming back in to the chapel, people walking by came in to see what was going on, students who had left felt compelled to returned, and hours later the chapel had completely filled up with people praying, confessing sin, and singing together.

This led to by the 5th day, busses and vans from churches around the country travelling to be a part of what they were hearing about.

No news crews were allowed to come, no one was live streaming, but people were continuing to come and worship, share stories, struggles, sins, and bring their needs to the chapel.

I have heard specifically of people who have come from as far as Brazil and Chile.

Stories of miracles and healing have been coming out of these services, tens of thousands of people have travelled to the Asbury campus to see and be a part of this movement of God.

There was no special secret plan by the leadership there, there was no agenda, there were no fancy lights or big names- the students simply responded to God moving in their hearts and led this moment of revival that has swept across the world.

Why do I share this?

Because, it is clear the Spirit of God is moving in a special way.

Revival is breaking out, meaning the spiritually dead and drifting are coming to life by God’s powerful move in that place.

And I want you to be aware of it, take some time to go look up stories from Asbury when you get home, it is encouraging to hear, and inspires us to pray for God to have his way in us, to come move here and bring revival to Greensboro as he is at Asbury.

Revival like this shouldn’t surprise us or confuse us, it should be normal to us.

Revival isn’t going from normal to something special, its the Church getting pushed back into where it is meant to be! Jesus came to bring a revival that is never meant to stop!

Jesus came to bring the dead to life, in every way possible- the physically dead to physical life, but more importantly the Spiritually dead to spiritual life!

Transition

So, I share this so that we would pray for God to likewise bring that revival to us, that we wouldn’t miss this special moment of God’s movement.

But I also bring it to mind tonight for the sake of the passage that we will be spending time in together.

We are going to be in the second half of Mark 5 tonight and we will be reading a very powerful story of the revival that Jesus bring in a few particular peoples’ lives.

Turn with me to Mark 5, starting in verse 21.

We are going to see, as we have been talking about all series, the power of the Kingdom of God changes everything.

Just like this moment of revival is highlighting and reminding us of.

The Power of the kingdom unleashed in and through God’s people is EXACTLY what Jesus came to bring and allow us to walk in.

But there is something about seeing and hearing about miracles, and powerful life-change that seems unusual and abnormal to us.

But the story of Scripture, the story of Jesus, as we will read tonight, is full of these moments, these stories and as we will see tonight- Jesus came to bring new life to the lifeless and hope to the hopeless.

When Jesus shows up, that is just what happens.

Let’s read this story together and see what can happen when we actually have faith in this Jesus!

Mark 5:21–24 (CSB)

When Jesus had crossed over again by boat to the other side, a large crowd gathered around him while he was by the sea.

One of the synagogue leaders, named Jairus, came, and when he saw Jesus, he fell at his feet and begged him earnestly, “My little daughter is dying.

Come and lay your hands on her so that she can get well and live.”

So Jesus went with him, and a large crowd was following and pressing against him.

Let’s pause there for a moment.

Jesus and his disciples, at this point, have crossed back over to the west side of the sea of Galilee- remember they were crossing over to the east side last week to a place called the Gerasenes.

This is where Jesus met a man full of many demons, called Legion.

And we referenced this last week, the demons immediately recognized Jesus and knew he was the son of God come to bring the Kingdom of God.

Jesus casts out the demons and the man is healed and made completely well.

But the people in that town see what happened, they freak out, get upset and reject Jesus.

They didn’t like what Jesus did, how different and powerful he was and they tell him to leave.

They have NO faith in Jesus and don’t want him interrupting their lives and kick him out of the town.

Now, they have returned from their trip across the sea back to the west side where many of Jesus’ stories take place.

They are likely near Capernaum again and surrounded by a large crowd, as usual.

Jesus is approached by a man named Jairus and this man comes to him boldly in front of the crowd.

But what do we know about Jairus?

Well, he is a synagogue leader- which seems to mean that he was a leader in the local synagogue.

This can mean a variety of things, but he wasn’t a priest or pharisee, but he was a recognized leader in the local synagogue who helped with practical and logistical items, along with spiritual leadership.

Regardless of the specifics, he was a recognized and respected leader, who likely had a high social and economic standing at that time.

But at this moment, this well respected and likely wealthy man falls down at the feet of Jesus as a beggar.

He is not just a big synagogue leader, he is a dad.

And at this moment, a desperate dad who afraid of losing his 12 year old daughter.

Imagine for a moment, the person you love most, care about most, do everything for, is on the brink of dying any moment.

Imagine the fear, sadness, and desperation.

This father is running to Jesus in the most dark and desperate moment of his life.

We don’t know what his experience with Jesus before this moment may have been, but it’s clear that he believes that Jesus can make a difference in his situation.

Otherwise, he would’ve have left his dying daughter and wife to come get Jesus.

He tells Jesus his daughter is dying and asks him to come, lay his hands on her, so that she will recover and live!

He has faith in Jesus to heal his daughter.

I want you to remember that, Jairus came with faith that Jesus could HEAL his daughter and prevent her from dying.

And of course, we see Jesus stop everything he is doing and follow Jairus home.

But something happens on the way.

Let’s keep reading!

Mark 5:25–34 (CSB)

Now a woman suffering from bleeding for twelve years had endured much under many doctors.

She had spent everything she had and was not helped at all.

On the contrary, she became worse.

Having heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his clothing.

For she said, “If I just touch his clothes, I’ll be made well.”

Instantly her flow of blood ceased, and she sensed in her body that she was healed of her affliction.

Immediately Jesus realized that power had gone out from him.

He turned around in the crowd and said, “Who touched my clothes?”

His disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing against you, and yet you say, ‘Who touched me?’ ”

But he was looking around to see who had done this.

The woman, with fear and trembling, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell down before him, and told him the whole truth.

“Daughter,” he said to her, “your faith has saved you.

Go in peace and be healed from your affliction.”

This is called a Markan Sandwich.

Mark wrote with this technique in his Gospel account, where he would start one story, interrupt it with another, then come back to the ending of the first story- see, like a sandwich.

He does it for the sake of emphasizing one main point through the two stories playing together in our minds- comparing and contrasting one another.

Mark here uses that technique by introducing Jairus and his faith in Jesus to come save his daughter, but then bringing in the story of the woman in the crowd in the middle of that story.

With Jairus in mind, let’s look at this woman.

She has had a disease of some sort for 12 years that has caused her body to continually bleed.

I mean, even the oldest student in here is only a couple years older than 12- so imagine if you were plagued by an illness that impacted your life every day since you were BORN!

But more than just being medically sick from this, she had an even bigger problem in that society.

See, this sickness of bleeding was deemed unclean in the Jewish Law.

She was UNCLEAN, meaning she wasn’t allowed to worship in the temple and other people wouldn’t be around her because being close to her could make them ceremonially unclean as well.

So, this woman has a medical disease that likely made her weak and sick, and it led to her never being allowed to worship as a jewish woman, and she would’ve been outcasted by society.

She was as low as the dogs in the streets at that time.

And she knew and understood this.

Look at the way she approached Jesus.

She sneaks in through the crowd- remember she shouldn’t have been around people since she was unclean.

She approaches Jesus from behind and has one goal- just touch the edge of his clothes.

If she can just get a finger on the tassels of his robe she believed she would be healed!