Unshaken by Frustration

There are a lot of frustrations that I think we all face throughout our days. I was curious what some of the biggest frustrations of the modern day. Coming in first we have bad wifi connection.

Following that we have:

Calls from unknown numbers

Running out of phone battery

Advertisements with no skip button on Youtube

Shows buffering while watching them

Cracking your phone screen

People who call you when you asked for a text

Straightening your hair and then it raining

Modern life is frustrating and it’s usually the small, seemingly insignificant things which, over time, all add up to an even bigger frustration. What about the big things in life? What about the times when our frustration affects our faith? In our passage of Scripture tonight we see a familiar story that I believe we can relate to. It is here that we learn about a woman who has dealt with a medical issue their entire life and how her faith shaped her approach to dealing with that frustration.

Faith Starts with a Choice (v.43-44)

This woman was in desperate condition

Her bleeding made her ceremonially and socially unclean

Meaning she would have difficulties in social aspects and unable to be around people

She was living with this burden for 12 years

According to Jewish ideas of the time

If this woman touched anyone, she imparted her uncleanness to them

An uncleanness that would not allow them to take part in any aspects of Israel’s worship

If we were to define what a frustration is we would simply define it as a reaction to an interruption to our normal day to day.

She spent all of her livelihood on physicians and could not be healed

She went to the doctors to get better

But only suffered worse and became poorer

Luke the physician knew how doctor bills take all you need

Despite all of the different opinions and the different frustrations of not finding answers

She only had one desire. Her desire was to be made whole

She dreamed of a day in which she could interact with people without judgment

She longed for a day in which her body would not fight against herself

She heard about a person named Christ who had done miracles and who had healed a variety of people.

During this time, she only had the testimony

The word of those around her

Non the less, she had to make the choice to seek out Christ

Despite her frustration, despite the failure of others

She searched for the one that would not let her down, the one that would not fail her.

It is interesting to note that according to the text here there are a lot of people that show up to listen and to watch Christ

Peter makes mention of this when Jesus ask for the person that touched him

He says the multitude touches and presses you

Of course someone touched you

The difference between the crowd and this woman was that she wasn’t there for a show

She wasn’t there to spectate but rather she was there for a solution

She was there for healing

The crowd knew of the works of Christ but she believed in the works of Christ

The same is true for each of us

We live in a world that that is filled with frustration and failure

The people around us fail us repeatedly

Many of us stop at simply knowing the works of Christ.

Knowing in theory what he has done for us

But it takes years of watching, listening, and sitting on the sidelines for us to believe in the work of Christ

We miss the power of Christ. We expect big things but never truly believe that He is capable.

The truth is everything we do is a choice.

We choose to trust in people and they often failure us

We trust in things and they never fulfill us

We look at the world to do only what Christ can do

We have to realize that faith is simply a choice to believe in what God has done for us through Christ

Faith Shares with a Crowd

After this woman’s first interaction with Christ

People begin to question her about it

This drama unfolds before the multitude and she is faced with only choice

Either she will flee or she will forecast the person of Christ

This was not a woman who desired the attention of people

She certainly did not come with this expectation that she would be called out in front of the multitude

This is the same group of people that she was not allowed to be around

The same group that avoided contact with her because of medical issue

The same group that pushed her aside and for all intents and purposes forgot about her

The Bible tells us that she tried to hide in the crowd as to not bring attention to herself

But it is her faith and her decision that immediately brings everything to a halt.

When she could not hide, she begins to explain herself to Christ and to the crowds

The woman had to come forward, because Jesus knew who she was.

He called her forward and it embarrassed her; but Jesus’ purpose was not to embarrass her, but to bless her.

Jesus did it so that she would know she was healed

The bible tells us that her issue of blood stopped immediately

But this woman was like any other person

She would begin to doubt and fear that she was really healed

Would her ailment return

Jesus called her forward so she would absolutely know that she was healed

Jesus did this so that others would know that she was healed

This woman had an ailment that no one could see and that made her a public outcast.

It would sound suspicious to many if she just announced that she was healed.

They would think that she made it up to be considered clean again.

Jesus called her forward so others would know that she was healed

We live in a culture that has developed everything that is needed to create perfection. Photo adjustment, enhancement, editing, and various filters. The ability to capture the right moment in the midst of chaos. We tend to only share the perfection with others. We show the side of ourselves that people want to see. We learn to conform to the standards and requirements of society and those become our new normal. All the while, we find ourselves in suffering internally and isolated. This woman came to Jesus with all of her raw problems. Her rejection, isolation, social, physical, mental, emotional, and most importantly spiritual problems. She brings them to Christ and when, by faith, she touches the hem of his garment she finds healing from all of those issues. That is what she shares with the crowd. She shares her testimony

Faith Shows with Comfort

This woman was made completely whole physically and now she stands socially healed

Her faith is so powerful that it causes Jesus to do something that he has never done before

He calls her daughter

Jesus wanted her to come forth and hear this special name

This means that she is no longer an outsider

She has been brought into the family

She is not separated anymore

She’s been accepted

She is not pushed away at a distance anymore

She belongs

She came to Jesus simply seeking physical healing and received so much more

The same is said for us. Many times we come with the hopes, dreams, thoughts of Christ doing one thing for us and he often times he does.

He does exactly what we ask of him and so much more

She was asking for healing and she got acceptance

She received the comfort that she had been denied for the past 12 years of her life

She received what no one else could provide for her!

All because she had faith in Christ

All because she made the choice to seek after the one she heard that could change her life

She receives a two-fold kind of healing

Your faith has made you whole, go in peace

Can you imagine what it was like to have the turmoil and the burden of confusion and doubt and fear and worry to roll away off her heart, to go in peace.

That inward kind of healing where you can say ‘Nothing between my soul and my Savior and I can live my life now in perfect peace.’

Then he took care of the physical plague as well and said, “Be whole of thy plague.”

Illustration: A survey conducted by the American Academy of Family Physicians shows that ninety-nine percent of doctors believe a relationship exists between faith and physical healing. Recently, more than one thousand health-care professionals met at Harvard Medical School to examine the connection between spirituality and healing.

Doctors' faith in faith was bolstered by a California study of the effect of prayer on recovery from heart problems. About two hundred heart patients were assigned to Christians who prayed for them, while an equal number, a control group, received no known prayers. Neither group knew about the prayers, yet those who received prayer developed half the complications that were experienced by those in the control group.

A similar study by the Dartmouth Medical School examined the effect of prayer on healing when the patients prayed for themselves. The death rate six months after bypass surgery was 9 percent for the general population but 5 percent for those who prayed for their own healing. And none of the deeply religious patients died during the period of the study.