Faith in times of need

SERVICE GRAVELHOLE JUNE 27TH2021

OPENING MUSIC

Strength of my life

WELCOME

Gracious Father,

By the obedience of Jesus, you brought salvation to a wayward world,

Draw us into harmony with your will.

That we may find all things restored in him,

Our Saviour Jesus Christ

Amen

HYMN: What a beautiful name

PRAYERS

Call to Confession

God calls us in our lives to take a risk,

to be like the woman in the gospel

who reaches out to Jesus for healing for herself,

or the father who risks the scorn of others

to bring Jesus to his dying daughter.

Let us ponder for a moment the places in our lives.

where we may resist turning to God for healing and change.

(silence)

When we resist your call to open our hearts to allow

the freshness of your grace to enter:

God have mercy.

When we close our eyes to your new and unexpected possibilities

of healing and reconciliation.

Christ, have mercy.

When we let fear overwhelm us,

and cling to the security of what we know,

instead of risking new steps toward your freedom and justice:

God have mercy.

Assurance of Grace

God’s mercies are fresh every morning.

In Christ God offers forgiving grace

and welcome into a community of trust, abundance, and hope.

Let us give thanks for the mercy of God,

and pass the peace of Christ in community among us.

Amen

HYMN: 51 Great is thy Faithfulness.

READING Mark 5: 21-43

21 When Jesus had again crossed over by boat to the other side of the lake, a large crowd gathered around him while he was by the lake. 22 Then one of the synagogue leaders, named Jairus, came, and when he saw Jesus, he fell at his feet. 23 He pleaded earnestly with him, “My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live.” 24 So Jesus went with him.

A large crowd followed and pressed around him. 25 And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. 26 She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. 27 When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, 28 because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” 29 Immediately her bleeding stopped, and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.

30 At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?”

31 “You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’”

32 But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. 33 Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came, and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. 34 He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”

35 While Jesus was still speaking, some people came from the house of Jairus, the synagogue leader. “Your daughter is dead,” they said. “Why bother the teacher anymore?”

36 Overhearing[a] what they said, Jesus told him, “Don’t be afraid; just believe.”

37 He did not let anyone follow him except Peter, James and John the brother of James. 38 When they came to the home of the synagogue leader, Jesus saw a commotion, with people crying and wailing loudly. 39 He went in and said to them, “Why all this commotion and wailing? The child is not dead but asleep.” 40 But they laughed at him.

After he put them all out, he took the child’s father and mother and the disciples who were with him and went in where the child was. 41 He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha koum!” (Which means “Little girl, I say to you, get up!”). 42 Immediately the girl stood up and began to walk around (she was twelve years old). At this they were completely astonished. 43 He gave strict orders not to let anyone know about this and told them to give her something to eat.

SERMON

One crowd sighed with relief as they saw Jesus, leave, but another crowd was waiting to welcome Him when He returned home to Capernaum. In that latter crowd stood two people who were especially anxious to see Him—Jairus, a man with a dying daughter, and an anonymous woman suffering from an incurable disease. It was Jairus who approached Jesus first, but it was the woman who was first helped.

Just looking at her you may not even know that she was in any way unwell, do we sometimes suffer and hold it in. but we may be unaware of how this affects those around us.

The contrast between these two needy people is striking and reveals the wideness of Christ’s love and mercy. Jairus was an important synagogue officer, and the woman was an anonymous “nobody”; yet Jesus welcomed and helped both of them. Jairus was about to lose a daughter who had given him twelve years of happiness (Mark 5:42), and the woman was about to lose an affliction that had brought her twelve years of sorrow. Being a synagogue officer, Jairus was no doubt wealthy; but his wealth could not save his dying daughter. The woman was already bankrupt! She had given the doctors all of her money, and yet none of them could cure her. Both Jairus and the poor woman found the answers to their needs at the feet of Jesus

The woman had a haemorrhage that was apparently incurable and was slowly destroying her. One can only imagine the pain and emotional pressure that sapped her strength day after day. When you consider her many disappointments with the doctors and the poverty it brought her, you wonder how she endured as long as she did. But there was one added burden: according to the Law, she was ceremonially unclean, which greatly restricted both her religious and her social life (Lev. 15:19ff). What a burden she carried!

However, she let nothing stand in her way as she pushed through the crowd risking making all she touched unclean and came to Jesus. She could have used any number of excuses to convince herself to stay away from Him. She might have said: “I’m not important enough to ask Jesus for help!” or “Look, He’s going with Jairus, so I won’t bother Him now.” She could have argued that nothing else had helped her, so why try again? Or she might have concluded that it was not right to come to Jesus as a last resort, after visiting all those physicians. However, she laid aside all arguments and excuses and came by faith to Jesus.

Can we relate to this attitude when we come before our Lord?

“I’m not important enough”

What kind of faith did she have? It was weak, timid, and perhaps somewhat superstitious. She kept saying to herself that she had to touch His clothes in order to be healed (see Mark 3:10; 6:56). She had heard reports of others being healed by Jesus (Mark 5:27), so she made this one great attempt to get through to the Saviour. She was not disappointed: Jesus honoured her faith, weak as it was, and healed her body.

There is a good lesson here for all of us. Not everybody has the same degree of faith, but Jesus responds to faith no matter how feeble it might be. When we believe, He shares His power with us, and something happens in our lives. There were many others in that crowd who were close to Jesus and even pressing against Him, but they experienced no miracles. Why? Because they did not have faith. It is one thing to throng Him and quite something else to trust Him.

The woman planned to slip away and get lost in the crowd, but Jesus turned and stopped her. Tenderly, He elicited from her a wonderful testimony of what the Lord had done for her. Why did Jesus, deal with her publicly? Why did He not simply permit her to remain anonymous and go her way?

For one thing, He did it for her own sake. He wanted to be to her something more than a healer: He wanted to be her Saviour and Friend as well. He wanted her to look into His face, feel His tenderness, and hear His loving words of assurance. By the time He finished speaking to her, she experienced something more than physical healing. He called her “daughter” and sent her on her way with a benediction of peace (Mark 5:34). To “be made whole” meant much more than receiving mere physical healing. Jesus had given her spiritual healing as well!

He dealt with her publicly not only for her sake, but also for the sake of Jairus. His daughter was close to death, and he needed all the encouragement he could get. It was bad enough that the crowd was impeding their progress, but now this woman had to interfere and stop Jesus! When one of Jairus’ friends arrived and announced that the girl had died, no doubt Jairus felt that the end had come. The Lord’s words to the woman about faith and peace must have encouraged Jairus as much as they encouraged her.

Jesus dealt with her publicly that she might have the opportunity to share her testimony and glorify the Lord. No doubt some people in that crowd heard her words and trusted in the Saviour; and when she arrived home, she already knew what it meant to witness for Christ.

Victory over Death (Mark 5:35–43)

It was not easy for Jairus to come to Jesus publicly and ask for His help. The religious leaders who were opposed to Jesus would certainly not approve, nor would some of the other synagogue leaders. The things that Jesus had done and taught in the synagogues had aroused the anger of the scribes and Pharisees, some of whom were probably Jairus’ friends. But Jairus was desperate, as many people are when they come to Jesus. He would rather lose his friends and save his beloved daughter.

It is beautiful to watch Jesus, deal with Jairus and lead him to joyful victory. Throughout this entire event, it was our Lord’s words that made the difference. Consider the three statements that He made.

The word of faith (v. 36). At this point, Jairus had to believe either his friend or the Lord Jesus. No doubt all of his being responded with convulsive sorrow when he heard that his beloved daughter was dead. But Jesus assured him, “Be not afraid, go on believing” (literal translation). In other words, “You had a certain amount of faith when you came to Me, and your faith was helped when you saw what I did for that woman. Don’t quit! Keep on believing!”

It was easier for Jairus to trust the Lord while his daughter was still alive, and while Jesus was still walking with him to his house. But when Jesus stopped to heal the woman, and when the friend came with the bad news, Jairus just about lost his faith. Let’s not be too hard on him. We have probably given way to doubts when circumstances and feelings have overwhelmed us. Sometimes God has delayed, and we have wondered why. That is when we need that special “word of faith” from the Lord, and we receive it as we spend time in His Word.

Are you struggling with a long-term problem in your life that doesn’t seem to get any better, we see in this passage how Jesus responded to people in these situations?

Is that what we sometimes do try to resolve our issues by our own strength, and in the end, we can only come to the one we know can aid us in our suffering.

The New Testament is filled with examples of people meeting God through Jesus. This promise is as true for us today the good news of Jesus is our message to the world.

In our reading today when people saw what Jesus did the were completely astonished and amazed.

of course like today, not everyone had that reaction. Some as it tells us laughed at him and some took offence at him.

in his own town Jesus was a prophet without honour Those closest to him failed to recognise him. Sometimes we find it hard to take things from those who know us best.

Just like today, some recognised Jesus and some totally missed out. The key distiction was wether or not you had faith. He said to the sick women “Yours faith has healed you”

he said to Jairus “Dont be afraid , just believe”

In fact Jesus was amazed at the lack of faith is his own town.

Through his death on the cross Jesus fulfilled the criteria for meeting God. Now it is by faith that you and I encounter Jesus and through him, meet with God.

I am reminded of something Corrie Tenboom said about being prepared for persicution, or lack of faith she told the story about her childhood.

When I was a little girl, I went to my father and said, “ Daddy I am afraid I with never have the faith to be stong enought to be a martyr for Christ”

“Tell me” said father, “When you take a train trip to Amsterdam, when do i give you the money for the ticket? three weeks before?” “ No Daddy, you give me the money for the ticket just before we get on the train.” “Thats right” my father said “ And so it is with God’s stength. Our Father in heaven knows when you will need the faith and stenght to be a martyr for Jesus Christ, he will supply all you need just in time”

Lord, thank you that it is by faith that I encounter you,

Lord, increase my faith.

When I am seized with alarm or struck with fear help my to keep on believing

Amen

HYMN: 526 Lord of all Hopefulness

PRAYERS

It says in Psalm 91 that no matter what we go through, God will cover us with

wings.

Let us pray:

God our rock and our shelter,

who walked our path in Jesus?

and suffered fear and pain,

you know how it feels when times are hard,

when life feels overwhelming.

You know the fears that we harbour,

for our loved ones, ourselves, our world.

When we are beset with worry,

when we feel anxious or afraid,

when we lose the ability to enjoy life,

carry us through the storms,

and rest us in the comfort of your presence,

safe under your wing.

We bring our prayers for our world,

for the insecurity of our times,

for those who make decisions that affect many,

for those who misunderstand religion and use it as a means to foster division,

for those who believe they are driven to desperate measures,

for those living in the wastelands of war.

We pray that they might know peace,

and the comfort you bring.

We bring our prayers for our church,

as we seek to worship you and serve you.

We pray for… (particular groups, events in the life of the church/circuit/local

area)

We pray that we might support each other through times of difficulty,

and be a community of love and light to all who are in need.

We pray that your church might enable all to know your love and peace,

The healing spirit of Jesus is amongst us. We, bring our prayers for our loved ones,

and those we are concerned about,

in a moment of quiet naming them in our hearts before you…

We pray that they might know peace,

and the healing touch of Christ be amongst them.

Thank you, God.

for your indestructible love

which can carry us through the darkest night,

you are with us all the way,

and wait to comfort us,

to give us your peace

Amen.

LORDS PRAYER

Our Father, who art in heaven,

hallowed be thy name,

thy kingdom come,

thy will be done,

on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our trespasses.

as we forgive those who trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation.

but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom,

the power, and the glory

for ever and ever. Amen.

HYMN: 351 In Christ Alone

BLESSING

May our God of strength and comfort,

bless us and uphold us.

in our journey of faith.

May the Christ of compassion and grace,

inspire in us renewed discipleship,

that we might share our hope.

May the Spirit of freedom and joy,

crown us with delight

as we remain in divine love,

now and for eternity,

Amen.

MUSIC

Healer