luk08-46

17 April 05

“IS THERE ANY LEFT?”

Luke 8:40-50

How many times has it happened to you?  You’re out somewhere and you taste a food that is particularly delicious to you and you then go back for seconds only to discover that it’s all gone. You’ve had your eye on that particular shirt or suit and you saved your coins together. You saw it on Tuesday but you don’t get paid until Friday.  You tuck it away where no one could find it but you and then you go back and it’s gone anyway.

You come to a worship service or a gathering of believers with a great burden or problem on your back. Too much on your plate, a troubled mind, a broken spirit and the Spirit of God gets moving, you watch as an anxious onlooker as others express their joy in being freed,  It doesn’t seem fair. They are no less burdened than you but somehow they are freed and you have to go back with the same burdens you carried into the worship. 

This s the context of our story today.  Here is a man who rushed to see Jesus because he has a sick daughter at home but while Jesus is on his way to the man’s house, someone touches Jesus and takes his virtue.   Almost but not quite.  Jairus has to wonder, Is there any left.

Jairus comes to worship and to get Jesus to come to his house with him.

With all the problems that may be present in a gathered assembly, in a church, we are still worse off at home.  WE really need Jesus in our homes.

Verse 46

On the way to Jairus’ house, Jesus was touched by someone.  The crowd pressed Jesus but never touches Him.

Did the unclean woman somehow taint Jesus?   According to tradition, the unclean were prohibited to touch the teacher.

Do we think that Jesus’ blessing of the undeserved somehow short circuits His ability to help us?  (The alleged upstanding and righteous?)

Virtue, power, healing power gone out.

WE Give up too soon

Matthew declares, the girl is dead already

Verse 49

Naysayers, doubters, killjoys, bearers of bad news, media trucks, reporters with breaking stories.  “This just in” 

You must stop worrying the teacher.  The bearer didn’t misidentify Jesus but he partially identified Him.    From this text and our text last week, we discover teaching and healing go together.  Some folks will not get the healing that the want because they won’t receive the teaching that they need.

Teaching and healing go together.

Was her confession an encouragement?

Hang on to someone else’s testimony until yours is perfected.  “He who has began a great work in you…

The Savior goes anyway…

In the room

Those who do not believe have to get out.  Watch the people you’re hanging around when God is trying to work out His will and purpose in your life.

The mourners, Strangers, negative folks, people who love death songs, pessimists, doomsayers.

Jairus’ intercessory:  some of our children are forced to grow up too fast and die too quickly.  NO one to make intercessory

FEED HER

Once Christ is done with the miracle part, we’ve still got work to do.  The working of growing, nurturing and nourishing.

DON’T TELL -  JUST STAND UP

You cannot hide life

Whom does Jesus Help? 

Contrasting of Jairus and the woman

Jairus                                                                      The Woman

Daughter -12 years old                                           12 years sick

Named                                                                     unnamed

Ruler in Synagogue                                                 unemployed

Wealthy                                                                   lowly, poor

Intercession                                                            for herself

He can make you clean

He can pick you up

He can raise you

He can save you

He can give you a new start

He can turn you around

He can heal you

He can lift you