Living Limitless

Murphy’s Law - If something can go wrong it will

Rental Car

Rental Car

Booking a car on a flight to LA

I booked the cheapest car with a company that nobody has ever hear of

Didn’t read fine print

Limited miles (100 miles a day, 400 total)

40 cents a mile

We’ll be fine…I’ll just keep track of the miles we drive

End of the 1st day we were at 150 miles

End of the 2nd day we were at 300 miles

Starting to get anxious

Calculating coffee runs etc..

Friends asking for rides

Friends are going to Hollywood to walk the streets

These are friends we don’t see too often, and it took flying to LA to see them

I’m calculating the miles

Took us 20 minutes to decide if we were going or not just because I was so worried about our limited miles

Finally, I told Pastor Pavel....who cares

Friends that we had there were asking for rides to different places, and instead of being happy to help, I was getting impatient thinking “you’re using up our miles!”

I’m so stressed out about going over our limit, that I can’t even enjoy the miles we have.

Every mile brought me closer to my limit

Spiritual Truth

How many Christians live like they serve a limited God?

We say with our mouths we believe:

Ph. 4:13 I can do all things through Christ

All things are possible with God

God has no limitations

God works everything for the Good/He’s sovereign

He is Almighty and All-powerful

But how many times do we live in doubt and fear, as if our all powerful, almighty God has limits?

When we live as if God is limited:

We tend to forget the testimonies of what God has done in our lives

It can be hard to be thankful for what God is currently doing in our lives

It can be hard to be thankful for what God is currently doing in our lives

We don’t live in the peace of believing that God knows what he is doing

We live as if our out-of-control situation has caught God by surprise

We live in doubt, fear, and have a lack of peace and joy in our lives, because we put limits where there shouldn’t be any.

Ask yourself this morning…am I limiting God?

Have I made my problems bigger than God?

Are my hard situations, failures, shortcomings, circumstances too big for Him?

So with that question in mind, I want to take you to a passage in Mark 5

We are going to read about Jarius

He comes face to face with this question himself

But Jesus speaks something so simple but incredibly powerful to him

I believe God wants to speak this into our hearts this morning

Jarius

Turn with me to (Read)

Jarius comes to Jesus, falls on his knees and begs Jesus

He comes to Jesus, falls on his knees and begs Jesus

This is a big thing because he was the ruler of the synagogue

was a very religious man that was responsible for organizing and presiding over the affairs of the synagogue.

That included organizing worship and teaching himself

Many of these rulers were Pharisees

Now here’s why that is important:

Who opposed Jesus the most in his earthly ministry?....it was the Pharisees, the religious folk

They challenged everything that Jesus did

Miracles by demon possession

Heal the lame on the Sabbath

Conspired together to bear false witness about him and to unjustly crucify him

Everyone knew that the Pharisees were in opposition to Jesus

Now imagine Jarius falling on his knees before Jesus and begging him to heal his daughter

Jarius would have had put aside his:

Pride

Concern about what people would think

Concern about comments from other Pharisees

It tells us this…Jarius had faith and truly believed that Jesus could bring healing

But even with this faith I believe Jarius still had Jesus in a box!

This represents faith that we have in our life, but is God still in a box?

So Jesus goes with him, but :

Narrative Interrupted

Let’s continue in (Woman)

Jesus is suddenly interrupted by this woman

and all the focus and attention goes to her.

Even when we read this story we kind of forget about Jarius for a moment

What was he feeling?

The Bible doesn’t say what Jarius felt, but I can imagine that he was:

Anxious

His healing is time sensitive

Indignant or frustrated

Here is this woman that is ceremoniously unclean.

She is not supposed to be near anyone

Anyone she touches also becomes ceremoniously unclean

Thinking, “she’s not even supposed to be here”

In other words: She’s not even supposed to be here

You ever seen someone receive answered prayer and think, “I’ve been praying for that same much longer than they have!”

You’re happy for them, but at the same time it hurts you

Or you see God moving in an incredible way in someone’s life, and you wonder, “man God, where are you in mine?”

She has interrupted my time sensitive miracle

Almost as if God doesn’t have enough power to go around.

When God has limits we tend to be critical towards other people

But then the Bible picks up where it left off with Jarius

This is where He comes face to face with this question “Have I put limits on God?”

Death

(Read)

Jarius gets the dreaded news that his daughter has died

Anyone who has ever lost a loved one, you can imagine the variety of feelings that Jarius must have felt in that moment.

He was so close to getting his healing, but now it was too late

The Bible doesn’t record Jarius response, but rather it highlights Jesus’ words

Read vs. 36

Jesus said, “Don’t fear, only believe!”

Why did Jesus tell Jarius to not fear?

What else was there to fear?

Anyone who has ever lost a loved one, you can imagine the variety of feelings that Jarius must

Jarius was feeling a lot of emotions

I would think Jesus would say, “Don’t be sorrowful, or don’t be angry”

What would Jarius be fearing at this moment?

Our text clears it up for us

Jesus was speaking in response to what the family members told Jesus

Jesus was speaking in response to Jarius’ family members

Why bother the teacher any more?

Don’t you for a second believe that your situation is bigger than me! Are you limiting what I can do Jarius?!

People from Jarius’ household are telling him…hey, it’s over, leave the Teacher alone.

Believed for a healing, now needs a resurrection!

Don’t fear that your situation is bigger than me, trust me.

And Jarius believes in Jesus, and he takes him to his house, and Jesus resurrects his daughter

Application

As his need grew, his ten

So in closing, I believe God wants to speak those 5 simple words into your heart this morning.

You don’t need theology thrown at you

You don’t need me up here talking to you about a story in the Bible

You’re past hearing another person tell you “you just got to have faith!”, or “it will all work out in the end”

You don’t need me up here talking to you about how God is unlimited

What you need is to quiet your heart and allow God to speak these words to you, “Do not fear, only believe”

Don’t Fear Just Believe

Maybe some of us have been living with God in a box, but we never realized it because there was so much head room.

Maybe we’ve been living with God in a box for a while, but we never realized it because there was so much head room.

As our needs grow, and we become more dependent on God, the box that we have put Him in gets smaller and smaller

And you begin to reach this limit

Maybe some of you are there and God wants to blow the lid off of the box

Perhaps you’ve been praying for salvation for a family member

“Why am I still praying about this?”

Some of you are dealing with emotional hurt, and have been praying for healing for so long and as each day goes by and you’re still hurting, your fear you will always be in the same spot, and you question how can anything good come from this?

Some of you are dealing with emotional hurt

You’ve been praying for healing for so long

Has God forgotten, Is He good?

Maybe you feel as if your out-of-control situation has even caught God by surprise

Be more involved in ministry and reaching out to the people around you

You question can God really use me?

I believe that God wants to bring us all to a place where we trust Him so much that even when our prayers aren’t answered in the way we wanted, or in the timeframe we were hoping for, we’re still able to believe that He is good, He doesn’t have limits, and He knows what He is doing?

What are those areas in your own life that need to be resurrected that God is speaking to this morning?

Let me tell you what you need this morning:

What are those things that you have given up hope in?

You don’t need theology thrown at you

Stand with me, and lets worship together for a moment, and really quiet our hearts before God....He is speaking to you this morning.... “Don’t fear, only believe”

Close

You don’t need another person telling you “you just got to have faith!”

Stand with me, and lets worship together for a moment, and really quiet our hearts before God....He is speaking to you this morning.... “Do not fear, only believe”

You don’t need me up here talking to you about how God is unlimited

You need to quiet your heart and allow God to speak these words to you, “Don’t fear, only believe”