Come With Me!

Hey, good morning, guys. It’s great to see everybody. Yeah, I just want to kind of circle back to a couple things that were talked about a few minutes ago. You know, here at Sauldam, we are extremely interested in and determined to invest in our next generation. You know, we’ve seen that already with the kids ministry, the stuff that’s going on now from the 10 to 11 a.m. hour and also 11 to 12. We’ve seen that with the George Newton scholarship, which the month of February, we are contributing to that scholarship. So I would invite you, in addition to your normal tithes and offerings, out of wanting to honor an incredible man that led our church for a long time, desiring to honor Him as well as invest in the next generation, designate special giving to that. And also, obviously, with the students as well, with the D-Now weekend coming up and the summer mission trip, we feel an extreme desire to invest in the next generation. This is important for us, but it’s also incredibly urgent for us. You know, if we’re not investing in the next generation now, then we may not have a generation to invest in later. So, please, I would encourage you to be part of investing.

And we all go through urgent situations, right? I want to share a story of an urgent situation that Beck and I encountered a few years ago when we were overseas. This is an urgent medical situation. You see, in the country we lived in, most folks got around with a motor. And when I say a motor, I’m talking something in between a motorcycle and a moped. It’s too big to be a moped, but too weak to be a motorcycle. So, you just call it a motor. And everybody rode around on these. And I’ve got a picture of Becca on one. One, because she’s really cute. But two, also to display the kind of size reference of this thing. So, this is a main form of transportation for the vast majority of people in the country we lived in. You’d have these things darting in and out of little streets and major boulevards and thoroughfares. Always have to watch out for these things. And you could even hail a taxi cab, essentially is what that is. That’s a complete stranger. I don’t know that man. And I sent Becca on the back of that thing because that guy was going to take Becca to go have coffee with another lady. And that happens all the time, every day in the country we lived in.

But that’s not just a transportation for two people. That is also considered a family vehicle. If you don’t believe me, you see the next picture. That is five people or four people on that thing. You’ve got the adults. You’ve got a kid in between them. And you’ve got a little guy with his hands on the steering wheel. That would be a family vehicle. So, imagine a country or a city. We lived in a city that’s about the land size of Greater Charleston. With a population of almost half of our state. So, there’s over two million people in the city we lived in, crammed in. So, you’d have these things all over the place. People are all the time riding on these things. And it normally works fine. Because they’re so used to it, they’re looking out for motors. And they’re looking out for the family of four and all that. But every now and then, there is a traffic accident.

So, Beck and I, we came across a traffic accident. Or rather, one came to us. A pretty urgent medical situation. There’s another picture coming up that starts to detail what had happened. We were friends with the other Caucasian lady in the picture. She and her husband were also missionaries in the city that we lived in. And they got a frantic phone call from the dad of a college student. She’s the girl that’s laying in bed. You see, she was riding on one of these motors. And she was not wearing her helmet. And though the motor is the main form of transportation in the country we were in, there were people with cars. And she and somebody else are riding on this motor. They’re not wearing their helmets. And they get hit from behind by somebody in the car. Going 20 miles an hour, not so bad. Going 40 miles per hour, things start to change. So, she got thrown off the motor 15, 20 yards. And then lands on the concrete and kind of drum rolls on the concrete for a little while. And gets a frantic phone call from the dad of that girl. And saying, “Hey, this is what’s happened to my little girl.” Incredibly terrible situation. “I hear you’re a man of faith. Will you just come and pray with her?” Our friends called me and Becca and said, “Hey, we’re going to go pray.” This is where you see some of the cool stuff of our work. Come with us. So, we got to go and visit with that family a few times. And I’ll wrap up that story here in a few minutes. But I just want to ask, anybody in the room had a situation like that? Anybody ever had an urgent medical situation where you were desperate and you just knew, “Man, God, if the Lord doesn’t intervene, something’s going to go south here quick.” Because it’s already going that way. Or maybe a financial situation where you’re in dire straits and you just don’t know how to get out of it. Or a relational situation. You know, obviously we all go through urgent situations from time to time, right? And if you’re not, or if you haven’t, you’re about to go through one. That’s just the nature of how our world works. You’re either just coming out of something hard. You’re about to go into something hard. Or you’re in the middle of something hard.

And the thing is, the Bible is not immune to that. It does not shy away from that. But instead, it embraces the totality of the difficulty and the pain of urgent, hard situations. And today’s passage out of the Gospel of Mark, you can go ahead and turn there. It’s in Mark chapter 5. Today’s passage features a moment in the ministry of Jesus with different people in different desperate, urgent situations. But thankfully, there is a Savior that we can all call on in our distress. So, if you’re a note taker, I want you to write this down. This is our main point. This is the main truth for today. Life is chaotic. Circumstances change. But faith in Jesus is the kingdom constant. Life is chaotic. Circumstances change. But faith in Jesus is the kingdom constant. So, how about this? I’m going to pray for us. And then we will jump into our passage for this morning. Pray with me.

Lord, thank You. God, thank You for the opportunity that I have to open Your Word. God, thank You for the students that we’re going to host for the D-NOW weekend coming up. God, thank You for what’s happening in our kids’ wing right now. Lord, thank You for the discipleship that happens on Mondays with the women’s ministry and Wednesday evenings with the Bible study. God, I hope that all these things serve to transform us individually and corporately to become a little more like You. God, we all go through hard, urgent, desperate situations. God, I’m extremely grateful that we can call on You in the midst of it. Lord, I pray that if somebody this morning is in one of those, God, they would take their need to You and they would trust You with faith. Lord, I also know that somebody connected to our church is or will go through something. And Lord, I pray that somebody here would take the truth of this morning, share it with them, so that they too can call on You in faith as well. Lord, get a hold of me, hide me behind Yourself, and please don’t let what I say be my words, but let them be Yours and Yours alone. God, I do love You. In a tender name we pray. Amen.

How about this? Let’s start reading Mark chapter 5, verse 21. Or sorry, verse 21. Mark 5, verse 21. It starts this way. When Jesus had crossed over again by boat to the other side, a large crowd gathered around Him while He was by the sea. And one of the synagogue leaders named Jairus, he came and when he saw Jesus, he fell at His feet and he begged Him earnestly, “My little daughter is dying. Come, lay Your hands on her. Make her well so that she can live.” So Jesus went with him. And a large crowd was following and pressing against Jesus. Now, a woman was suffering from bleeding for 12 years. She had endured much under many doctors. She had spent everything she had and was not helped at all. Contrary, she became worse. Having heard about Jesus, she came up behind Him in the crowd and touched His clothing. For she said, “If I just touch His clothes, I’ll be made well.” It’s our passage. That’s how it begins. It begins with two incredibly desperate people. And man, on the surface, these folks are very different. You know, you see there’s this man and there’s this woman. The man is named. We have his name. His name is Jairus. The woman, we’ve got no idea what her name is. There’s some church tradition that might name her with somebody else. But we don’t actually know that. And he’s like, oh, God, I’m not. He’s like, oh, God, I’m not.

Jewish community city town settlement you’d have a synagogue or multiple synagogues the synagogue would actually be the place of worship and community life especially for this very spiritually and religiously oriented society so this man named Jairus is a synagogue leader it says in verse 22 he’s not like me he’s not financially freed up to lead this spiritual gathering he is a volunteer so whatever he’s doing for the synagogue is on top of his normal life but what he would have done is he would have been in charge of getting people to read scripture to pray for the service to conduct the service he would have been in charge of receiving financial gifts and distributing to those that have needs this would be a man of incredible influence and importance for this local area for this local group of folks and then you had this woman not named all we know about her is that she’s suffering from bleeding for 12 years now I’m not going to go into the full detail here but this is not just bleeding as if she has got this cut on her arm that she can’t get to stop this would be menstrual bleeding your Bibles may reflect that this would be something much deeper much more intimate than that and it’s been going on for 12 years now the Bible has something to say about this in the book of Leviticus Moses is given the ceremonial laws about cleanliness and holiness for the life of Israel to be conducted it’ll be on our screens because it’s extremely pertinent for this morning when a woman has a discharge and it consists of blood from her body she’ll be unclean because of her menstruation for seven days now everyone who touches her will be unclean until evening continues everyone who touches the things that she has touched will be unclean he must wash his clothes and bathe with water and he will remain unclean until evening finally the priest is to sacrifice his one sin offering and the other as a burnt offering in this way the priest will make atonement for her before the Lord because of her unclean discharge so what’s what happens there is there are ceremonial laws governing how she can conduct herself in religious circles during her time of the month now what happens if that time continues the stakes get higher and her life would have been much harder you see if anybody wanted to maintain their own ritual holiness or cleanliness that would mean that they have to avoid contact with her this is just a normal situation avoid contact with her and that’s not just a normal situation but she has to be able to go and have to be able to go and worship God again now this woman in our passage has been in that situation for 12 years that’s 12 years of not going to synagogue that’s 12 years of being avoided actively by people that’s 12 years of wondering when will I be okay with God again that’s 12 years of her by herself that’s even just on the surface 12 years of bleeding that’s her situation that’s her situation it will make sense then why Jairus a person of extreme influence and respect when he sees Jesus he comes and he falls at his feet and he talks to Jesus face to face and he goes straight to Jesus with his request but that woman doesn’t have the luxury the text actually says verse 27 having heard about Jesus she came up behind him in the crowd touched his clothes this woman would have been outcast there’s a good chance that when she’d walk through the streets people would have announced who she is and they would have told people get away from her you don’t want that get away from her so she’s got a high she doesn’t have the luxury of coming face to face with Jesus she’s got to do it around the back these people are obviously very different the man and the woman yet despite those differences I would say they’re actually the same you see they’re both dealing with incurable situations am I right verse 23 the man has come to Jesus he begs him my little girl my daughter she’s dying She is on her deathbed. She’s at death’s door. It’s about to end for her. “Please, Jesus, come quick. I don’t know what to do anymore. It’s my girl. My girl’s gonna die. I can’t do it. I can’t solve it. I can’t fix it. I can’t heal her. Nobody can. I’m desperate.” And this woman was desperate too. Nobody could cure her. She spent everything she had. She’d gone to many doctors, and she wasn’t helped at all. In fact, she got worse. She was incurable.

It reminds me of that girl in our country that Becca and I went to go see after the motorcycle accident. Her name is Jessica. You know, she had one moment gone from a bright and bubbly 20-year-old college student to lame, feeding tube, can’t look at you in the eyes, can’t speak in coherent statements, everything had to be done for her, and every medical professional had just written her off. “She’s incurable, sir. I’m sorry about your girl, but I can’t do anything for her. Sir, I’m sorry, but I think this is just what’s gonna happen. This is what her life’s gonna be.” Desperate situations, huh?

But in our story, in our true moment, both the man and the woman had heard about Jesus, and they had faith in Him to heal. Why else would they come to Jesus, right? Why else would they come to Him unless they truly believed He could do something? Both of them hear and see Jesus. Both of them believe He can do something, and both of them approach Jesus. They’re really the same person. This passage has those two desperate people, but there’s also two broken daughters.

I’m gonna back up to verse 25, and I’m gonna finish the passage. Do it with me. “A woman suffering from bleeding for 12 years. She had endured much under many doctors. She had spent everything she had. She was not helped at all. On the contrary, she became worse. Having heard about Jesus, then she came up behind Him in the crowd and touched His clothes. For she said, ‘If I just touch His clothes, I’ll be made well.’ And instantly her flow of blood ceased, and she sensed in her body that she was healed from her affliction. Immediately Jesus realized that power had gone out from Him. He turned around in the crowd and says these ridiculous words, ‘Who touched me?’ The disciples pick up on it. They said to Him, ‘You see the crowd pressing against you, right, Jesus, and yet you ask, “Who touched you?”’ But Jesus was looking around to see who had done this. The woman, with fear and trembling, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell down before Him and told Him the whole truth. That’s something, right? ‘Daughter,’ Jesus said to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has saved you. Go in peace. Be healed from your affliction.’”

“While He was still speaking, people came from Jairus’s house and said, ‘Why bother the teacher anymore?’ When Jesus overheard what was said, He told Jairus, ‘Oh, don’t be afraid. Just believe.’ He didn’t let anybody accompany Him except for Peter, James, and John, James’s brother. And they came to Jairus’s house, and He saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. And He went in. He said to them, ‘Hey, why are you making a commotion and weeping? Why are you doing this? The girl’s not dead. She’s asleep.’ They laughed at Jesus, but He put them all outside. He had the last laugh. And He took the child’s father, the mother, and those who were with Him, and entered the place where the girl was. Then He took the child by the hands. He said to her, translated, ‘Little girl, say to you, get up.’ Immediately the girl gets up, begins to walk, and see, she was 12 years old. At this they were utterly astounded, no doubt, right? Then He gave them strict orders that no one should know about this. Told them, ‘Get her something to eat.’”

See, the moment begins with two desperate people, but it also has two broken daughters. And once again, man, the woman with the 12-year deal and the 12-year-old girl, they’re different. They’re different. One is the daughter of privilege, and one has fully exhausted her resources.

Now imagine being Jairus’s daughter. Your dad is the one that organizes the spiritual community life for your area. Your dad would have had the resources to be able to send you to the best schools. You would have eaten the best food. You would have had all the best toys. All of your needs would have been met, and probably most of your wants too. When you’re walking down the street, people would recognize you. “You’re Jairus’ daughter.” And they would have taken care of her. They would have looked out for her. Her parents would have sent her to the market because they probably would have given her a few extra ounces of grain. Or they would have given her a few extra cucumbers from the person selling the produce. They would have taken care of this little girl. She would have grown up in extreme privilege.

But you have this woman. Again, I read verse 26. She had endured much under many doctors. She had spent everything she had. She wasn’t helped at all. In fact, she became worse. You had this little girl that would have grown up in financial security against or pitted against a woman who had spent everything trying to deal with this one problem. And it never got better. In fact, it only got worse.

This woman would have been financially drained. She also, too, after 12 years, would have started to become physically drained. She would have been in an extremely dire predicament physically. But in addition to that, she would have been relationally drained. I’ve already talked about the fact that she’d be unclean ceremonially. What that means literally is people would have actively avoided her or driven her from their presence. No doubt. She did not live in town. She lived on the outskirts of town or in the wilderness. She wouldn’t have been able to hold a normal job like you and I can hold. She would have had to find some way to make meager ends meet just to feed herself. She wouldn’t have had a family. She wouldn’t have had kids. She wouldn’t have had a husband. Or if she did, she’s been left by them. This woman is completely by herself. She is not just barely making it by. The world’s against her.

And obviously, you have this 12-year-old girl, Mark tells us, and a woman that’s been bleeding for 12 years. A little girl that’s on the cusp of womanhood. It’s a different time in those days. And Jairus undoubtedly would have started thinking about which young man and which family to partner with for his little girl to get married. Jairus is thinking about grandbabies. Jairus is thinking, “Hey, man, one day I’m going to go to little Susie’s house and she’s going to make Christmas lunch and I’m done with this, you know.” And Jairus would have been thinking about sending Susie off on a little vacation with her husband so that he could have the grands for the weekend. That’s what Jairus would have been thinking about. All of life is ahead of her. She’s got everything she could ever want and it’s all about to come to her in spades even more. Versus this woman. 12 years. 12 years of being shunned. 12 years of not being taken care of financially. 12 years of being by yourself. So different. But yet again, the same.

You know, for starters, they both would have been ceremonially unclean. I’ve already talked about that with the woman. There’s another uncleanliness here. Numbers chapter 19. It’ll be on our screens. It talks about the uncleanliness that comes from death. The person who touches any human corpse will be unclean for seven days. He’s to purify himself with the water on the third day and the seventh day. Then he will be clean. But if he does not purify himself on the third and seventh days, he will not be clean. Anyone who touches the body of a person who has died and does not purify himself defiles the tabernacle of the Lord. That person will be cut off from Israel. He remains unclean because the water for impurity has not been sprinkled on him and his uncleanliness is still on him.

The same severity that the Mosaic law would have treated the woman’s death. The same severity that the Mosaic law would have treated the woman’s situation. It applies to the death of this little girl. At the end of the day, they’re both deeply unclean, which means physical contact with them would have put uncleanliness onto the person that touches them. They would have been avoided and shunned. But they’re both miraculously and incredibly healed, not just by Jesus’ words, but by His touch. The medium of cleanliness. What should have happened is the woman’s uncleanliness and the little girl’s uncleanliness, that should have transferred to Jesus. But instead, what happens is the power and the life and the cleanliness Jesus has transfers to the woman and the little girl, which tells us that Jesus is not afraid to get up close and personal with our pain or our dirtiness. He’s not afraid to embrace the unembraceable. He is not afraid to get into your life, which means you don’t have to clean yourself up to come to Jesus. You don’t have to get your life right to come to church. You don’t have to make yourself okay in order to be accepted by Christ. You don’t.

Because of the work that I do, a fair amount of people look at me with hand-wringing and say, “Oh, I need to get back to church, pastor.” I’ve stopped asking people what they do for work. Because I get that question back to me and it makes the conversation extremely awkward. Nobody wants to talk to a pastor unless you’re living right. If you’re living right, you like to talk to a pastor. But if you’re a little down in the ditch, you don’t want to talk to a pastor. I’ve come to learn this. So I’ve stopped asking that question.

And the last time I asked that question, I was visiting with one of our church members. And someone else came into the room. And they learned that I’m a pastor. Oh, and this person, oh, was so earnest. They said, “Man, I need to be back at church. And I’ve got to get myself right first.” Oh, my heart broke. With tears in my eyes, I said, “No, you don’t.” The message of the gospel is that God would send His only begotten Son to fix you from the real problem. Not that He would wait for you to get yourself right from all the other stuff. Come to church. Let Him take care of you. That’s what our Savior does.

He heals by touch. He gets up close and personal with us. And the healing, at least in this moment in the life of Jesus, is instant. Both for the woman and for the little girl. When Jesus touches them or when they touch Jesus, immediately life and healing happens.

Verse 29. Instantly, her flow of blood ceased and she sensed in her body that she was healed of her affliction. Verse 42. Jesus has already taken the girl’s hand and said, “Little girl, get up.” Immediately, the girl gets up and begins to walk around. In this moment, they’re healed immediately.

Life these days doesn’t always have that sort of response, right? I wish I could articulate a great theological truth about why that is. But all I want to say to you is that it doesn’t make Jesus any less Jesus. Sometimes He heals instantly. Sometimes He doesn’t. In this moment, He does. And the most beautiful thing that unites this shunned woman and this dead girl are the fact that He calls both of them daughter.

Look at verse 34 with me. You see, this woman has come up behind Jesus in the crowd, touched His robe, been healed. Jesus asked an audacious question of, “Who touched my clothes?” The disciples rebuke Him for it. But He’s looking around to see it. The woman, verse 33, knows what happened to her. So she is deathly afraid. She falls down and she tells Him the whole truth. Twelve years of history. Twelve years of pain. For one moment of hope. She lays it all at Jesus’ feet.

And you know what He says? Not, “How dare you?” Not, “Okay.” He says, “Daughter.” She hadn’t heard those words a long time. No one’s looked at her with that type of affection in a long time. In a moment, He removes her of the stigma and the shame. And He applies affection and love to her.

He says, “Talitha cumi.” He does the same thing for the little girl. Verse 41. Takes her by the hand. Whispers in Aramaic what they would have spoken in their just normal day-to-day language. He says, “Little girl, get up.” This was an idiom. This was a phrase back then.

God said in the picture of God, the way that God said Him is at the place, he Nor spat with Father, so I 21. In fact, John 3:16 has a lot to say about this because it says that God so loved the world. Not a slice of the world, not a demographic of the world, not a political party of the world, not a city of the world, not a particular country of the world, but God so loved the world that He gave. Not demanded, not commanded, but He gave. And He did not just give physical health. He did not just give financial stability. He did not just give relational stability. He gave His son, His little boy. He gave His son so that whoever would believe in Him, whoever would place faith in Him, whoever would trust and embrace Him, what church? Live. Wouldn’t perish, what would live? God is wooing and inviting a world of sinners and broken daughters and desperate dads into His family. And He’s saying, “Just come. Just come. Lay all the other stuff down. Don’t worry about getting yourself right and coming. Just come.” We can all become His children. This is true because Jesus is one incredible Savior.

I want to read the full passage now for us to get the full effect of it. When Jesus had crossed over again by boat to the other side, a large crowd gathered around Him when He was by the sea. One of the synagogue leaders named Jairus comes and when he sees Jesus, he falls at His feet and he begs Him earnestly, “My daughter is dying. Come, lay your hands on her so that she can get well and live.” Jesus goes with them. And a large crowd was following and pressing against Him. And this woman suffering from bleeding for twelve years had endured much under many doctors and she had spent everything she had and was not helped at all. On the contrary, she got worse. Having heard about Jesus, she comes up behind Him in the crowd and she touches His clothes. For she said, “If I just touch His clothes, I’ll be made well.” And instantly her flow of blood ceased. She sensed in her body she was healed of her affliction. Immediately, Jesus realized that power had gone out from Him. And He turns around the crowd and says, “Who touched me?” Disciples, “Jesus, you see this crowd here and you’re asking who touched you? You okay, bud?” Jesus looks around to see who done it. The woman. Ah, the woman. Fear, trembling, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell down before Him. Told Him the whole truth. She looks up. Jesus looks down and said to her, “Your faith has saved you. Go in peace. Be healed from your affliction.” And when He’s still speaking, people come from the synagogue leader’s house. Oh, they say, “Dad, won’t bother Him anymore.” Jesus overheard what was said. He told the synagogue leader, “No, don’t be afraid. Just believe.” He didn’t let anybody accompany Him except for Peter, James, and John, James’ brother. They came to Jairus’ house and He saw a commotion. People weeping and wailing loudly. And He went in. He said to them, “Why are you making a commotion and weeping? The child is not dead.” “Nope, she is just asleep.” The people, they laughed at Him. But He put them outside. And He took the child’s father, the mother, and the three with Him. And He entered the place where the child was. And He took the child by the hand. And He said to her, “Immediately she gets up.” She begins to walk around. She’s 12 years old. And at this, they were utterly astounded. And Jesus gave them strict orders not to tell anybody and to give her food deed.

I wanted to read it in full for us to get the impact of how Jesus or how Mark has structured this passage. He puts two desperate moments right on top of each other to show us a couple things about who Jesus is. Ultimately, the fact that He is an incredible Savior. But He is incredible because of three things. First, He can be interrupted.

Now, look at this. Jesus, in chapter 4, had spent the entire day teaching the people in parables. He spent the entire day pressed in by the crowd. We had already studied that a couple weeks ago. He finished His day and He says, “Hey, it’s time for me to leave.” So they get in the boat and they start going to the other side. Halfway across, about midnight I suppose, the storm comes up. One that Jesus knew was going to happen but He was not scared of. The storm comes up and the disciples wake up Jesus. “Hey man! Hey! Wake up! Do you even care? We’re about to die! Do you care?” Jesus silences the storm and the disciples are more afraid of Him than the storm. They get to the other side. It’s still nighttime. And this demoniac runs down from the cemetery and meets them on the beach and starts calling himself legion because there’s thousands of demons inside of them. We remember that from last week. So Jesus exercises all those demons into the pigs and the people see it. And instead of wanting Jesus to do more of the same and instead of receiving Him, they drive Him out of the country. Crazy. He drives the demons out of the man and the people drive Him out of the country. He crosses the sea again. And that’s where verse 21 is. He crosses the sea again. This is the next day. And this huge crowd swamps Jesus on the seashore. Incredible opportunity for ministry, right? Incredible numerical response to His ministry. And He’s starting, I assume, to walk into town where He’s about to grab some breakfast and start His another full day of teaching. And one man comes. One man busts into it, gets right up to Jesus and says, “Please come with me. Please leave all these people. Please come and heal my girl.” Jesus is interrupted by Jairus. And on the way, on the way to take care of this, on the way, no doubt, put yourself in Jairus’ shoes. He is for sure three steps ahead of Jesus. Like, “Come on, man. Come on.” He’s probably trying to push people away. He’s trying to encourage the disciples. “Hey, we need to get to my house.” Yeah. Left up there by the fruit stall that are right with the goats. You know, He’s trying to get Jesus to His house as quick as possible. And all of a sudden, Jesus has the audacity to say, “Hold on. Who touched me?” “Oh, I would have been infuriated if I was Jairus. I would have been hot, man.” “My little girl, my girl is dying. Did I tell you about this? My little girl is about to die. If we can just go get in my house now, that’d be great.” Jesus gets interrupted time and time again. Oh, if you don’t believe that Jesus always has time for you. Man, He’s always got time for you because He can be interrupted. But we don’t interrupt Him with our works. No. We access Him by faith. That’s also why He’s incredible. We access Him by faith. In verse 34, He affirms the woman’s faith. He says, “Your faith has saved you. Not the work you did to get to me. Not your theological knowledge. Not your Bible awareness. Not that time you gave to church. Not that time you went on a mission trip. Not that time you got baptized or walked the aisle. Your faith has saved you.” In verse 36, He looks at Jairus. He says, “Don’t be afraid, man. Believe.” Believe is the same word for faith. Just a different way to capture it in English. You can have faith or you can believe. It’s the same thing. What He affirms in this woman, He encourages in the man. He says, “Faith.” You see, faith is crucial to enter the kingdom of God. Faith is crucial to do anything with God. Because we can’t see Him. I’ve never heard His voice audibly. I must walk by faith. But here’s the thing. Faith is as sight for those that believe. And you don’t have to have perfect faith. You don’t have to have big faith. In fact, Jesus said, “Your faith needs only to be the size of a mustard seed.” Mustard seed. Now, I haven’t checked lately, but I don’t think that mustard seeds are any bigger than they used to be. And Jesus says, “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, what would it move? The mountains got any smaller than they used to be?” Faith the size of a mustard seed displaced the Himalayas. Clearly, it’s not the size of my faith that matters. But it’s the incredible one that I place my faith in. What matters is having faith in Jesus. A little bit of faith. And a really big Jesus is what you need. The third reason Jesus is incredible is because He provides the deepest healing we could ever need. I want to use this word intentionally. I’ve wrestled with this passage for a few weeks now. Jesus provides resurrection. Now see, He resurrects the dad’s hope. This dad is hopeless. His little girl is on death’s bed. He just needs something to cling to. So Jesus resurrects his hope by going with him. And He does it twice because the girl actually does die. Jesus resurrects the dad’s hope. But He also resurrects the daughter from death. He grabs her and He pulls her out of death with His own gentle, firm strength. But He also resurrects this woman spiritually. The word He uses in verse 34 says, “Your faith has saved you.” I don’t want to be really clear with my words here. I never want to over-promise and under-deliver. There’s a lot of smart folks that know the Bible better than me that can attest to this. When Mark uses “saved,” he means saved. He doesn’t just mean you’ve been delivered from something physically. He doesn’t just mean that you’ve been restored to something medically. He means saved. That word saved will be used in the rest of Mark to describe what happens spiritually when people place their faith in Jesus. This woman’s physical healing is really just a sign of her spiritual salvation. In fact, to separate the two would do injustice to this passage. She is healed physically because she is saved spiritually.

Now, that doesn’t happen for all of us. God doesn’t just do away with our physical infirmities the moment we trust in Him. But for this woman, that did happen. I wonder who it might happen for in our community. There’s a lot of folks in our community that need some help, right?

Now, I think we all relate to Scripture in different ways. So I want to ask you the question. How do you relate to this? I think some of us are like the dad and we desperately need somebody to be saved. Maybe there’s a medical situation you’ve come across or a financial one that you know about. And you’re just like, Lord, if you could please take care of so-and-so’s deal, God, that’d be awesome.

Maybe you’re like the woman or the daughter. You need to be saved. You’re the one in the midst of that moment. Or maybe you truly spiritually need to be resurrected from spiritual death into life through Jesus. Maybe you have been saved, but others don’t know it yet.

So I want to do something. Al has already teed me up here. Each one of your bulletins has these little tear-off cards. If you still have yours intact, can you just get it out with me, please? On three, we’re going to tear them off together. I hear some folks a little ambitious there. I’m going to talk us through this here in a second. If you still have yours and it’s intact, on three, will you just tear it with me? One, two.

So I want to make an invitation with this. This is just paper. On the surface, it’s just paper. But this could be a memorial of a change in your life. It depends on how you view this thing.

If you’re like the dad and you know somebody that needs to be saved, will you take a moment? You write that in. Go to the prayer request side. Put that person’s name and say, so-and-so has this going on. Will you pray for them? Maybe a medical, financial situation, or it may actually be the spiritual situation. If I know somebody who does not yet know Jesus. Man, I’ve been praying for this guy. I just don’t know how to share the gospel with him. Or I’ve been sharing the gospel. I don’t know what to do. Write their name in there and I’m going to pray for them.

Maybe you’re like the woman and the daughter. Will you tell me what’s going on? Will you write in there, hey, I’ve got this going on. I just got this diagnosis and this is extremely painful for me. And I don’t know the way forward.

Or maybe you’re not sure that you’ve ever met the Jesus that we sing and talk about. Will you be so bold as to write your name there? Let me pray for you.

Maybe you have been resurrected. You have been saved. And you don’t know what to do next. God has gotten you through a moment where you’ve met Him recently. You’ve just been saved recently. You’re just wondering, what’s next? What do I do next? How about write your name there? Al was right. You want to be prayed for? You’re going to be prayed for. This begins that step. You take this, you fill it out, and you put it in one of the offering plates in the four corners of our sanctuary before you leave. Or you just get it to me or to Al or one of the deacons. We’ll pray for you.

You see, Jesus, He could be interrupted by desperate and broken people because He’s an incredible King. What’s constant is faith in Him.

You know, I started our service, the sermon this morning talking a little bit about Jessica. You know, she was in an incredibly dire moment where life for her was frail and her own mobility, let alone her independence, was a question mark moving forward. It doesn’t always happen this way, but sometimes this is the result of those moments where we go to Christ. That’s her on the right singing in her church two weeks later. Yeah, praise the Lord.

Y’all, when Becca and I went to go visit the day or two after this accident, she couldn’t focus on me. She could not say my name. She couldn’t say Her own name. She didn’t know where she was. And two weeks later to be singing at church, she received a miracle. It’s just no two ways to put it. She received a miracle. There are people in our community that God has that planned for. And we get to be the ones that bridge the gap. It doesn’t matter what we could do.

Let’s pray. Lord, we love You. God, thank You for this incredible moment in Your word where You meet desperate, broken people right where they’re at. God, it doesn’t always happen this way that You provide the healing like that. But You did in these moments. And I take incredible comfort in that. God, Lord, I thank You for how I saw You work in Jessica’s life. And God, I’m begging You to do more of the same here in the low country. God, help us to respond in worship now. Lord, for those that are going through something where they need You to step in and change things, God, I pray they would come to You in faith. And they would let the church come alongside them. And Lord, for the lost in our community that don’t know You, I’m just begging You to give us an opportunity to share the good news of the gospel with You. God, we love You. We want to love You more.