Faith to reach out
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Bert and Catherine are Christian parents. In 2009, their son, Kent took sick with a cold, and so Bert and Catherine, being Christians prayed to God that Kent would get better and be delivered from his illness.
Kent continued to be sick. His cold got worse, but Bert and Catherine kept praying. They didn’t take him for medical treatment because they BELIEVED that Jesus would heal their son.
But Kent gradually got worse and worse, but Bert and Catherine still would not take Kent to a doctor for treatment, believing that prayer and anointing oils were sufficient for healing. Their faith was such that they believed that God would heal their child.
Kent’s condition grew worse but Bert and Catherine kept praying. Until after 2 weeks of battling this cold, suffering congestion and fatigue, Kent contracted pneumonia and eventually died.
How do you feel about that story? Sad? Angry? Embarrassed to be associated with Christians if THAT’S what they’re like?
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A few weeks ago we looked at another passage where Jesus healed and, if you remember back then, we looked at the fact that there’s more than one way to be sick - we can be physically sick but we can also be spiritually sick. And there is more than one way to be dead - we can be physically dead and we can be spiritually dead.
And the point of that sermon is that Jesus DOES heal...Spiritually, which from an eternal point of view is more important that physical healing. Cos if we’re healed physically and we’re not healed Spiritually then what’s the point of being healed if we’re going to die and end up in a lost eternity anyway?
But there was something I didn’t say in that sermon that needs to be addressed today, and it’s this…Jesus DOES heal physically. And part of the reason why I don’t think we see much of that today is because we don’t EXPECT him to.
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There is a load of amazing stuff in our text today - stuff about purity laws and temple worship and so on. But I’m ignoring all that for the sake of this message. I was going round in circles trying to figure out what road to take as I was looking at the passage on Monday.
And I read and reread the passage about Jairus and about the woman who couldn’t stop bleeding. I was consulting the commentaries and rereading the passage and praying over it - “Lord, what direction do I go?”
And then I received a text from a friend of mine whose wife was in hospital. And he asked me to pray for her because…wait for it…she couldn’t stop bleeding.
So I have been wrestling with this text about a woman who couldn’t stop bleeding but who reached out and had faith that Jesus could heal her, and now I’ve been asked to pray for a woman who couldn’t stop bleeding. And I thought - NO WAY. This is too similar to be a coincidence.
And I felt God speaking to me and saying this… ‘Andre, have faith - believe that I can do this and pray with faith.’
So I prayed that Jesus would heal her like he did the woman in our passage today.
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The reason I’m telling you this is because of the passage in front of us.
What we have here are two people - two people who have faith that Jesus CAN heal.
Jairus says in verse 23...
and implored him earnestly, saying, “My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well and live.”
That sounds like faith to me.
And then we have the woman with the bleeding who said in verse 28...
For she said, “If I touch even his garments, I will be made well.”
And THAT sounds like faith to me too.
But in case of the woman, the woman was healed. But in the case of Jairus, his daughter wasn’t healed and she ended up dying.
And I can imagine Jairus in a state of panic when Jesus stops and talks to this woman. Cos every second that passes when Jesus is distracted with this woman, Jairus’ daughter is getting sicker and sicker and is coming closer and closer to her death. I can just imagine his impatience as Jesus stops, and turns and looks around to see who touched him.
And I can just imagine Jairus thinking - ‘seriously Jesus? Who TOUCHED you? Everyone is touching you - the crowd are pressing around you and you’re wasting time asking, ‘who touched me,’ when my daughter is dying? Seriously Jesus? Seriously?
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And as a result of this delay Jairus, who had faith that Jesus could heal his daughter, is told that his daughter had died.
The woman with the bleeding had faith and she was healed. Jairus had faith, but his daughter died.
And I can further imagine Jarius thinking, as the woman walked away healed - ‘that could have been my daughter.’
So today we’re going to look at asking for healing, but we’re also going to look at what happens when healing doesn’t come.
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But let’s look at the woman in light of the story I told at the start. Cos this woman had tried doctors and had spent all that she had on trying to get better, but they couldn’t help her…But she STILL tried the normal means to get better - and God works through the normal means. He’s given people skills and abilities to heal others. And he’s created the human body and he’s also created plants and herbs that contain molecules that will cure illnesses. God uses nature and the gifts that he’s given us to heal and we should use these things to find healing.
In other words, yea - pray for healing, but don’t be like Bert and Catherine - that’s a misunderstanding of healing. That was the mistake with Bert and Catherine - not recognising that God heals through normal means.
But in this woman’s case, all that stuff didn’t work. And she was desperate to be healed. She was desperate to be restored. And because of her condition her restoration also included spiritual restoration - because a woman bleeding was considered unclean and therefore she wasn’t allowed to enter the temple to worship - so this woman had been excluded from God and from worship for 12 years.
And so her healing not only allowed her to have a better quality of life, but more importantly - her healing brought her back to God.
So this woman was desperate - and she touched Jesus in an act of desperation believing that if she only touched his cloak she’d be healed.
But she wasn’t the only one who touched Jesus. Look at the text...
And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing around you, and yet you say, ‘Who touched me?’ ”
So catch the scene in your head…There’s a crowd pressing in on Jesus. Pushing him, touching him, and yet not one of them caused any power to come out of Jesus EXCEPT the woman. No one.
Which means this… It wasn’t the physical act of touching Jesus that healed this woman, it was her FAITH that healed her - and Jesus says this in verse 34...
And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”
You see, the crowd were touching Jesus but they weren’t expecting ANYTHING of him. This woman touched Jesus EXPECTING to be healed, and that faithful expectation is what healed her.
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And I think that’s where we go wrong today - especially in this denomination…cos we don’t EXPECT anything. A lot of people don’t expect miracles today. And there are different theological and experiential factors that play into that - and we don’t have time to go into that.
But as a result of that we don’t pray for miracles and we don’t expect miracles.
So what we have in our churches, is a crowd of people pressing in on Jesus and EXPECTING NOTHING. And so they don’t see any power come out of Jesus.
If we want to see miracles happen we need to expect miracles to happen - but that requires faith.
And remember that the miraculous can happen miraculously, but it can also happen though the normal means of medicine and doctors and nurses. BUT that DOESN’T make it any less miraculous.
We’ve seen in this church, people who were on the brink of death and attached to drips and everything…and then Paul has prayed over them and all of a sudden they make a miraculous recovery…THAT’S Jesus’ power at work. Was it the drips or the medication? - probably…but until that prayer went up it looked like that wasn’t working. But when that prayer was prayed in faith and expectation, healing came.
Now tell me how that is different to our story today…It’s not.
Later on in Mark’s gospel, Jesus says this...
Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.
Now, this verse has been abused by the prosperity gospel, but I think in an attempt to react to that, we’ve gone too far in the opposite direction. How about we expect Jesus to act when we pray.
How can we expect Jesus to heal if we don’t expect him to heal?
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But what happens if healing DOESN’T come. Cos, let’s face it, healing doesn’t come in all cases.
Maybe it’s something to do with our faith…
But let’s look at Jairus - cos he DID have faith...
Jairus had faith. He was desperate enough to fall down at Jesus’ feet - something a synagogue leader wouldn’t do unless they were desperate.
And despite his faith that Jesus COULD heal, his daughter still died.
Now, why did HIS faith not save his daughter? Was he not desperate enough? Did he not have enough faith? Did he not EXPECT Jesus to heal?
Yet even after Jaiurs’ daughter had died, Jesus reassures Jairus...
But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the ruler of the synagogue, “Do not fear, only believe.”
Don’t fear - just believe.
‘Believe what? That my daughter’s dead…what is there to believe anymore?’
Believe that by having a faith in Jesus means that not even death can defeat us!
But notice that Jairus’ faith kept him following Jesus even when healing didn’t come the way he hoped it would. Jairus STILL followed Jesus to the house and witnessed the impossible.
You see, It’s one thing to have faith that Jesus can heal…almost more impressive and miraculous is to have faith in Jesus when healing DOESN’T happen. It’s easier to believe when we see the miraculous - but how much harder is it to KEEP on believing that God is sovereign when we DON’T see the miraculous? I think this requires even MORE faith.
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Now, what Jesus did with Jairus’ daughter is NOT the norm. And don’t forget that Jairus’ daughter would have died a second time. But what happened here shows us that Jesus has power OVER death. Which means this...
It’s the same point I brought up a few weeks ago - that for those who trust in the Lord, death is not the end…Death is the final, ultimate healing. But do we believe it?
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So when I heard about my friend’s wife who couldn’t stop bleeding, I was moved to pray IN FAITH that Jesus COULD heal that woman. I prayed believing in my heart of hearts that Jesus can do ANYTHING he wants. And I expected him to heal.
And I remembered the words from James, which were reminded to me recently...
You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
You have because you do not ask and when you do ask you don’t receive because you ask with the wrong motives.
And I know this is out of context, but it was like God was telling me - ‘Ask me for this, and have faith that I CAN heal and I DO heal - Have faith to reach out.
So I prayed, like that. And I expected Jesus to heal. And my friend’s wife came out of surgery and the bleeding had stopped. Was it a miracle? It depends on your point of view…I believe God used the normal means to heal...
But did I see the POWER of Jesus in action and did I witness the power of expectant prayer - Absolutely.
We don’t receive because we don’t ask - and if we do ask, we ask with the wrong motives.
And in our passage, the woman’s healing brought her back to God. When Peter’s mother-in-law was healed in Mark 1 she SERVED Jesus. And so when we pray for healing, maybe we should pray in the same attitude - that this healing will bring glory to God and a deeper attitude of worship and service to the Lord.
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Now, I’m aware that there may be people here this morning who need physical healing and there are also people here with loved-ones who need physical healing. And maybe in some cases, the normal means of healing through doctors and medication isn’t working like you thought.
Question is… Do you have the faith to reach out and touch Jesus? Do you have faith to ASK for healing? But will you ask with the right motives?
But let me ask you this...Do you have the extra faith to trust that God is sovereign, and that if healing DOESN’T come that Jesus will give you the strength to face this storm head on? And if healing doesn’t come the way you might think, do you have the faith that Jesus has POWER over death itself and that he can bring ultimate healing and eternal life to those who have FAITH in Jesus?
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I’d like us to bow our heads and close our eyes. And if you have an illness and you’re desperate for healing - I want you, while everyone else has their eyes closed, I want you to reach out your hands in faith - just in front of you on your knees. This is symbolic - Like the woman, the action won’t heal you, but have the faith to reach out and believe that Jesus DOES have the power to heal.
And if you want Spiritual healing, cos maybe you DON’T know Jesus as your saviour, reach out your hands and let’s pray.
Jesus Christ - some of us are reaching out to you now - in desperation - maybe because all normal means of medication doesn’t seem to be working or because we are desperate to be healed. And so we call upon you to SHOW us your power over sickness and death. Give us NEW life - eternal life and restore our health. But may we glorify YOU in our restoration. May we not be selfish in our healing, but may we worship and serve you in our health.
Father, I believe that you can heal and you do heal - but your ways are not our ways, so may YOUR WILL be done. But at the same time, Jesus, show us a glimpse of the power that you have over sickness and death. Move your Spirit in this place and manifest it to us through your grace.
In Jesus name we ask it. Amen
This evening we have a healing service. If you’re desperate enough for healing, come to that service and there are people who will pray over you. Powerful stuff can happen if we have expectational faith.