Two Journeys

In this episode, Luke tells of the triumph of Paul and Silas over suffering resulting in the conversion of the Philippian jailer and his family.

The post Acts Podcast 33: Triumph of Grace in a Philippian Jail appeared first on Two Journeys.

In Mark 6:1-6 account, the people from Jesus' hometown despised Him and His public ministry, as they lacked the faith to unveil His glory.

Turn in your Bibles to Mark Chapter 6. We continue our journey through this incredible Gospel of Mark. One of the ways that we evaluate great men, sometimes, is by looking at what those closest to them thought about him, or think about him; the man's wife, his children, his close relatives, the people who know him best, who have access to his private life. We think that's very significant, if they think highly of that man, if they esteem him, you get a glimpse into his private life that way. Ordinarily, that would be true. When it comes to Jesus Christ, if you came to him at a certain point in his public ministry, and you asked those questions, you might be shocked to find that those closest to him despised him. They thought little of him. They did  not believe in him. The Scripture reveals that that is in no way a fault of Jesus, or would, in any way, cast aspersion on him.

This text that we're going to study, today, gives us a glimpse into that. One of the reasons that we might give, for why it was that his own relatives, people in his own house, people that watched him grow up, did not believe in him, one of the answers that we might give is this old slogan, or statement, "Familiarity breeds contempt." What does that mean? The more you know someone, and you have daily access to their private life, their physical life, the more you may be tempted to despise them, to belittle them, to think lowly of them. That's what despise means, not hate them, but you just think lowly of them. "Familiarity breeds contempt."

This tendency can cause trouble at many levels of human experience. It can happen in marriage. Little by little spouses can lose their esteem for each other, when they live life together, day after day, year after year. Children can lose respect for their parents in the same way. As they get older, and they see their parents' feet of clay, the way they struggle with sin, some of their habits, their sin patterns, even their physical weaknesses. They get older. They get sick, and begin to fall apart physically. There may be some disdaining that creeps in. While this tendency, "Familiarity breeds contempt," can be damaging in many human relationships, there is no case in which it is so dangerous as in the case of Jesus of Nazareth.

In our account, today, that we're going to study, the people who watched Jesus grow up from boyhood into young manhood, who knew his parents and his family, who watched him begin his trade as a carpenter, who never saw any open indications of supernatural greatness, were secretly despising him now that his public ministry was in full swing. The text says they took offense at him. That is, they stumbled over him, especially his outrageous claim to be God in the flesh. They could not believe in him because of this contempt. 

This very condition had been predicted six centuries before Jesus was even born, by the prophet Isaiah. In Isaiah 53:1-3, Isaiah wrote, "Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been reveals? He grew up before him like a tender shoot and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering like one from whom men hide their faces. He was despised and we esteemed him not." Isaiah spoke of the fundamental challenge of believing the central message, the truth about Jesus of Nazareth, that he is God in the flesh, the savior of the world.  The problem Isaiah lifts up, there, is his outer appearance. The humble circumstances of his physical life. The fact that he grew up before him like a tender shoot and like a root out of dry ground. Jesus, growing up in Nazareth before the onlooking eyes of his neighbors, was in the most ordinary way like any other boy. Physically, he had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him. Nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. The outer appearance of Jesus, Isaiah said, is the problem. He looked like any other man. That outer appearance kept them from seeing his true nature, his true glory as God, thus, did they despise and reject him. 

The only possible remedy to this, Isaiah said, was faith.  Before faith must come the sovereign work of revelation. Revelation, as Isaiah said right from the beginning. Isaiah 53:1, "Who has believed our message?" That's a matter of faith. "Who has believed our message, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?" You see the combination. "Who has believed? To whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?" The arm of the Lord represents his true power, his saving power. It is hidden. The arm of the Lord is hidden, and it must be revealed. If it is revealed, people may believe in it. That's the connection. Everything comes down, then, to this miracle of revelation. What is that? We could go over to the Book of Revelation. The apocalypse, the “apokalupsis” means “the unveiling”. Both the Greek word and the English word are connected to that concept of an unveiling, a pulling back of a veil.  The Book of Revelation is that. It's an unveiling, but, of what? Well, not only a revelation of the future, as most people think it to be. It is that. Not only a revelation of heaven and of all the worship that goes on, there, constantly, it is that. Not only a revelation of the destruction of Satan and his evil forces, it is that. Not only a revelation of Judgment Day, and of the eternity beyond both hell and heaven, it is that. It is all of these, but is infinitely more than that. It is, as Revelation says, right from the beginning, Revelation 1:1, "The revelation of Jesus Christ." That's what it is, the unveiling of Jesus Christ. The question is, "Why does Jesus Christ need to be unveiled? What hid him from our eyes?” Was it not the humility of his lowly incarnation?  At Christmas time we sing Charles Wesley's hymn, Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, "Veiled in flesh, the Godhead see. Hail, the incarnate deity." Kind of gets to it, doesn’t it? "Veiled in flesh." Only the eye of faith could pierce this veil, and see the glory of God behind it.

That's what's in the text we're studying today, Christ eternal glory veiled, and it's veiled because of his incarnation. How do we understand the incarnation? It’s the greatest mystery of Christian theology, I think. How do we understand it? We see the humility of Christ in his incarnation. We believe that He was pre-incarnate deity, and chose to take on a human body.  That humility is described beautifully in Philippians 2:6-8, "Jesus, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant. Being made in human likeness and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross." That's the mystery of the incarnation. He was truly God, robed in glory, constantly worshiped in heaven. 

The Old Testament gives us glimpses of the pre-incarnate Christ.  In Ezekiel 1:26-28, Ezekiel has a vision, I believe, of the pre-incarnate Christ, seated on a throne of glory. Ezekiel 1:26-28, "Above the expanse over their heads," [the heads of the Cherubim] "was what looked like a throne of sapphire, and high above on the throne was a figure like that of a man. I saw that, from what appeared to be his waist up, he looked like glowing metal as if full of fire, and that from there down, he looked like fire; and brilliant light surrounded him. Like the appearance of a rainbow and the clouds on a rainy day, so was the radiance around him. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. And when I saw it, I fell face down." The glory of the pre-incarnate Christ, seated on a heavenly throne.

Isaiah had the same vision. Isaiah 6, "And the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphs each with six wings, and with two wings, they were covering their faces and with two, they were covering their feet, and with two, they were flying. And they were calling to one another, Holy, holy holy, is the Lord almighty, the whole earth is full of his glory.”  The apostle John, in his gospel, tells us, "Isaiah said this, because he saw Jesus' glory and wrote about him." Before Christ came to earth, He shared the Father's glory. He sat on the throne of the universe. He was the focus of perfect and continual heavenly worship. He gave all of that up to come to earth, veiled in a robe of human clay, veiled in flesh, the hidden glory of the incarnation. 

This was the central stumbling block for the people of his day. In John 10:30, Jesus makes this incredible assertion, "I and the Father are one." Again, the Jews picked up stones to stone him. Jesus said to them, "I've shown you many great miracles from the Father, for which of these are you stoning me?" "Oh, we're not stoning you for any of these, but for blasphemy because you, a mere man, make yourself out to be God, claim to be God."  A mere man claiming to be God.He had a physical body, He had a face, eyes, hair, hands. He had a certain height, a tone of voice, He had a personality, a physical look, a mere man. He had a normal development. "He grew in wisdom and stature, in favor with God and man," Luke 2:52. 

There’s no mystery of his growth and development from infancy to boyhood, to young manhood, to full manhood, he just developed in the normal way.  He had normal family relations. He had parents. We understand Joseph's special relationship. His true father was God, but He had a human mother. He had extended family, mentioned in our text, relatives. He had brothers and sisters,  it talks about that, also, in the text, normal family relations. He had normal physical issues. He got hungry, and needed to eat. He got thirsty and needed to drink. He got tired, and needed to sleep just like anybody else. He had the normal range of human emotions, joy, astonishment, anger, grief. He had physical limitations, He could only be in one place at one time. He had to travel by walking like everyone else, and seeming frailty. As He traveled, He got tired. He sat down at that Samaritan well, and rested, tired as He was. Most difficult of all, He could die. Not just any death, but the painful, and shameful, and humiliating death on the cross.  Yet, for those with eyes to see and ears to hear there was ample evidence of his deity, if you knew what to look for. If the arm of the Lord was being revealed to you, you could see it. You could see it from growing up, if you knew what to look for. 

Let's start with perfect sinlessness. He never committed any sin. I find that unusual in a boy or girl.  Imagine watching Jesus grow up, and He never sinned, ever, that’s unusual. He was the only one that ever did it. He was constantly, perfectly filled with love for the Father, and horizontal love for others. That's who He was. He had an unusual, to put it mildly, knowledge of God's word, which He displayed even at age 12, a deep, thorough, rich knowledge of the word of God. As the ministry developed, then, He displayed supernatural knowledge of hidden things. He could read people's minds. He knew what they were thinking. He knew things that were happening in other geographical places, beyond his location. He knew that somebody was healed without anyone, a messenger, coming to tell him. He knew the future. He could predict things that were going to happen tomorrow, or later that same day. As He made physical arrangements for the Passover feast, He says, "Go into Jerusalem. You'll meet a man carrying a jar of water, follow him." Now, that's interesting. He knew the future, and He knew things that would happen at the end of time.  He had amazing power over every disease and sickness among the people, and over every demon, effortless power. Over nature, the ability to speak to the wind and the waves. They instantly did what He said. The big catch of fish, making fish swim into a net. He had this kind of power, but more than anything, He fulfilled prophecies. Christ's glory was still there, but it was veiled. Once, on the Mount of Transfiguration, he briefly pulled back the veil, slightly, to show a glimpse of his radiant glory, a bright shining radiant glory.[Matthew17:2]. 

Especially, the glory was there if you knew what to look for in Christ's atoning death, a perfect revelation of the attributes of God, a perfect display of God's justice, on display, there, in the bloody death of the only begotten son, Jesus, and a perfect display of love, also, in the cross, in that God killed his son rather than us, so that we could have eternal life.  Now, this is a glory that only the eye of faith can see. The unbeliever, looking at Jesus dead on the cross, He's only the grotesque, twisted figure of a dead, bloody man. It's gross. The believer says, "When I survey the wondrous cross on which the King of glory died,” survey it, and you see beauty and glory, there, as you see it nowhere else. Glory, there. Jesus has this glory, but you could only see it by faith.

This dishonor that Jesus experienced, here in the text, is only temporary. He's going to get his glory back. He already has his glory back, but He's going to get more of it. We see this in three great requests that he made of his father. The first, "Give me my glory back." John 17:5, "And now, Father, glorify me with the glory I had with you before the world began." Do you realize how blasphemous that request would be if Jesus were not God? "Give me that glory that you and I shared before the world began." He has it, now. When He ascended into heaven, God had him sit at his right hand in glory.

His second request, "Give me the nations, that I may rule over them." Psalms 2, "God said to me," [this is Jesus speaking in the Psalm,] "'You are my son, today, I've begotten you. Ask of me, and I'll make the nation's your inheritance, the ends of the earth, your possession. You'll rule them with an iron scepter. You'll dash them to pieces like pottery.'" "Give me the nations, that I may be king." In Matthew 28, it says, "All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me." It's been given. That is the glory of Jesus, to rule over all things. He has asked for the nations, and the Father's given him the nations.

Now, the full display of his sovereign rule over planet earth will not be obvious until the end of the world, but it will be obvious, then. Every eye will see him, and they will mourn because of him. They will see him in his glory. He will come at the head of a powerful, heavenly army. Revelation 19, "I saw heaven standing open, and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True, and with justice, he judges and makes war. His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns, and on his robe and on his thigh, he has this name written King of Kings and Lord of Lords." It's a future full of glory of Jesus, the King of the earth ruling over all things. Now in Christ's authority over the nations, especially powerful, now, daily, in his calling out from the nations his elect for conversion and for salvation. He says, in John 17:2, "You granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those whom you have given him."

This is Christ's third request. "Give me my glory. Give me the nations. Then, give me my chosen ones, that I may save them, that I may raise them up on that final day, that I may protect them, every day of their lives, from the world of flesh and the devil, from every assault on them. Give them to me, Father, because I want them to see my glory in heaven.”  John 17:24, "Father, I want those whom you have given me to be with me, where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me, because you love me from before the creation of the world." Those three requests mean Christ's dishonor, in the text today, is temporary because those three requests have been, and will be, answered. "Yes. Yes, my son, I will give you all of your heavenly glory back. The glory we shared before the world began. Yes, my son, the nations belong to you. Now, you rule over them, secretly, for your own purposes. Then, you'll dash them to pieces like pottery, with your rod of iron. Yes, my son, the elect will come to Christ, all of them, to be totally forgiven, totally saved, and will see Christ's full glory forever." God the Father is zealous to see his son glorified. Jesus laid down his glory temporarily, but the zeal of God Almighty is to see his son exalted to the highest place.

Now, this is a brief text we're looking at, today. We have to understand Christ's glory dishonored by their unbelief. His glory is dishonored by them as He visits his hometown. Look at verse 1, "Jesus left there and went to his hometown, accompanied by his disciples." Now, in his Galilean phase of his ministry, his ministry base was Capernaum. That was his base. In Mark 6, however, He goes back to his hometown Nazareth, the place of his growing up years. He immediately begins his ministry the way He always does. The central part of his ministry is teaching, what He does. We have verse 2, "And Sabbath came, he began to teach in the synagogue." His priority was always his public ministry.

Later in the same chapter, when Jesus tries to get away from the crowd after the death of John the Baptist, He tries to get his apostles away so they can have a rest, He goes to the other side of the lake, and a huge crowd as waiting for him. It says, there, in verse 34, "When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd so he began teaching them many things." The teaching ministry is Jesus' top priority. They were perishing in sin because they did not know the truth. Their greatest need was not their physical healing. Their greatest need was not their growling empty bellies. He would address both of those needs. Their greatest need was the salvation of their souls through the ministry of the word.  Jesus' teaching ministry was varied. He taught in fields, He taught in the streets, He taught in the temple. He was out in a boat, but He consistently also taught in the synagogues on the Sabbath. That's where the Jews would gather out in the precincts, out in the towns and villages. They would gather in the synagogue. It was a gathering place. The Jews would come together on the Sabbath, and they would read Scripture together. The center of synagogue worship was the reading of The Old Testament Scriptures, and the explication thereof.

Jesus began his public ministry in Nazareth, sometime before this. At the very beginning of his public ministry, after his baptism, after his temptation in the desert, He came to his hometown of Nazareth, and on the Sabbath, He went in the synagogue. This is earlier, maybe a couple years before this, year and a half, maybe. At the appropriate time, He got up to read and comment on the Scriptures. He took the scroll of Isaiah the prophet, unrolling it, He found the place Isaiah 61, where it has written, "The spirit of the Lord is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor." “The Lord has anointed me.” That's messianic. That's what the word means, “anointed one.” After reading that Scripture, He rolled up the scroll, gave it to the attendant and sat down. Everyone's looking at him. He said, "Today, in your hearing, this scripture is fulfilled." Wow. People were stunned. They spoke graciously about him at that point.  Then, He said something that really angered them. He said, "You're going to reject me. You're going to hate me, but the Gentiles will welcome me." They didn't want to hear that. They took him by force to the top of a cliff, and meant to push him off and kill him, right there. His time had not yet come, and He moved right through the crowd, and went on. That was his last time at Nazareth.

Now, He's back in his hometown, and this is the last time He will be there. They were amazed, but unconverted. They asked questions, but they were not really seeking. Look at verse 2 and 3, "When Sabbath came, he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were amazed. Where did this man get these things?" They asked. "What's this wisdom that has been given to him? That He even does miracles? Isn't this the carpenter? Isn't this Mary's son, and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon? Aren't his sisters here with us?" They took offense at him.

Two great evidences that God gave to his son to prove his deity were his mighty words and his mighty works. His mighty words, no one ever spoke like that man. His mighty works, no one could do the miracles that Jesus did. They took offense at both, though they are amazed.  They're amazed at Christ's supernatural wisdom, but verse 2's amazement is actually a form of unbelief. They can't believe it. They ask a series of unbelieving questions, none of them seeking the truth. They've already reached their verdict. All of these questions, six of them, are questions of origin. "Where did it all come from?" Trying to understand it.

Question one, "Where did this man get these things?" Then, "What's this wisdom that has been given to him, that he even does miracles? Isn't this the carpenter? Isn't this Mary's son? Aren't his brothers, James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon, here with us? His sisters, aren't they here with us?”  A series of questions, probing at the roots of Jesus's astonishing person and powers, but no faith. The conclusion, they took offense at him. The Greek word here is “skandalon.” They were scandalized. They stumbled over this stumbling stone, which is the incarnation. Notice their shock at watching Jesus grow up from a boy with family surrounding him, a normal Jewish boy. They were unwilling to look any closer. By the way, that kind of proves the normalcy of Jesus's boyhood life, his life as a youth. It was pretty normal. 

This completely refutes the spurious pseudo-gospels that came a century or two after the real Gospels. You've heard of some of them. The National Enquirer probably wrote about them. Gospel of Thomas, pseudo- Matthew. Hey, they're fun reading. Let me tell you something. Jesus' boyhood miracles. Wow. I bet you haven't heard this one.  This is from pseudo -Matthew. Right? "Jesus and the whole town knew that a lioness had given birth to her cubs in a nearby cave. Jesus went into the cave. Bad idea usually, but the lioness and all her cubs adored him. The cubs played with him. People had no idea what was happening inside the cave, and were very sorrowful, thinking Jesus had been killed by the lions. Suddenly, out walks Jesus with the lioness and all the cubs. They're all together, walking out of the cave. The people did not come any closer. Then, Jesus rebuked them, and chastised them most sternly for not recognizing who he was, when the lions clearly did know who he was. Then, Jesus and the lions crossed the Jordan River, which parted for them like the Red Sea. Jesus, then, dismissed the lions, telling them, "Go in peace." What do you guys think? It's pretty awesome. I bet you never heard that one. Never happened. Jesus's first miracle is changing water into wine at Canaan in Galilee. He didn't do any miracles as a boy. He had a normal childhood.

Then, these family ties. We see this "Familiarity breeds contempt." We've already seen this in Mark 3.  Remember how Christ's own family did not believe in him? They went to take charge of him because they said, "He's out of his mind." [Mark 3:21.] Well, that was true of his immediate family. How much more of his neighbors did not believe in him? By the way, this is strong evidence of Mary's other children. The Roman Catholic church teaches the perpetual virginity of Mary, but that's not biblical. Clear evidence that Jesus had half brothers. Joseph was their father, though, not Jesus' father. These four brothers are listed James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon. Then, at least two sisters. Matthew actually says, "All his sisters," so there's a good number of sisters. This refutes any doctrine of Mary's perpetual virginity. We must put scripture above tradition. Scripture asserts that Mary had a normal family life with Joseph.  The contempt's clear, here, verse 3, "They took offense at him." They rejected Jesus.

Then, Jesus makes this pronouncement in verse 4, "Jesus said to them, Only in his hometown, among his relatives and in his own house is a prophet without honor." Christ is clearly stating, here, "Your unbelief strips me of honor.  In other places I will have honor. I will have honor among the poor and needy sinners, the tax collectors, and prostitutes who repent and turn to me. I will be honored among the Roman centurions who are humble and needy. I will be honored by the Samaritan woman, and her village of Samaritans. I will be honored by the children of Jerusalem. I will be honored by the Gentiles in Macedonian Arabia, and Libya, and Rome, and even to the ends of the earth, and to the ends of time, chosen before the foundation of the world, to repent and belief. I will be honored by them, but in my hometown, and even some of my own family, I am dishonored." Notice that the statement in verse 4 gets closer and closer to Jesus. "Only in his hometown," closer, "among his relatives," closer, "and in his own house is a profit without honor." "In my own house, my own house. I'm stripped of honor.”  Thank God, in time, his brothers would repent of their unbelief, and come to faith in Christ. Thank God for that. They'll be with Mary in the upper room, in Acts I, waiting for the coming of the Holy Spirit. James will be a pillar in the church in Jerusalem, the brother of Jesus, who will write the book of James. Jude, as well. They're spending eternity on their faces before Jesus and his heavenly glory, not claiming any special privileges. They remember, "When we were brothers." None of that. It's only because God revealed Jesus to them, and worked faith in them, curing them of their unbelief in their contempt. 

The unbelief that Jesus had found there, in Nazareth, resulted in a few miracles. Verse 5 and 6, "He could not do any miracles, there except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. And he was amazed at their lack of faith." This is a clear statement of a decisive link between faith and miracles. There is a link to the desperate woman that we saw two weeks ago, the woman with the bleeding problem. He said, "Take heart, daughter. Your faith has saved you." To Bartimaeus, he's going to say, in Mark 10, "Go, your faith has healed you, and Bartimaeus followed him along the road." The connection, here, is strong. He could not do any miracles there except a few healings. He was restrained in some way by their lack of faith. Please, don't misunderstand this. It’s easy to misunderstand, here. A lack of faith does not stop Jesus from doing miracles. Jesus actually did many miracles to bless and benefit unbelievers. I would say most of his miracles blessed and benefited people who had no faith in Jesus. Think about the demoniac man.  He didn't believe in Jesus, and then was healed. He had no capacity for faith in Jesus. He was out of his mind, Jesus just healed him. The paralyzed man of John 5, after the healing, turned Jesus into the religious police. Jesus circles back with the man, and says, "Behold, you are well again, stop sinning or something worse may happen to you." He was no believer. That man didn't need to believe in Jesus to be healed.In the feeding of the 5,000, we know, from John 6, most of them rejected Jesus the next day, and would no longer follow him. They weren't believers. He fed them, anyway. Jesus is not restrained. "You have to believe, or he can't do a miracle." There's no, "He can't do." There is nothing too difficult for Jesus. It's not that.

Conversely, we don't say, "Strong faith guarantees miracles." "The stronger your faith is, the more you can make God do a miracle." I don't know, against his will, or something like that? "I didn't want to do a miracle, but her faith was so strong. I had no choice." That's just not how it works, dear friends. Faith is passive. It's like eyesight of the soul. You're going to receive whatever God gives. You don't make God do things he doesn't want to do. That's not what it is. The eyesight of the soul, by which, if there's available light in the room, you'll see it. So it is with the glory of God. If God wants to show his glory in a certain way, faith is the conduit by which He does it. It doesn't force him. However, we know faith is the key attribute of the soul by which sinners, like you and me, are made right with God.It is by faith our sins are forgiven, and no other way. 

When it comes to this unbelief in Nazareth, Christ's hometown, He chose to shut down his healing ministry, rather than lay miracle upon miracle on unbelieving people and increase their judgment on judgment day, which it would've done. He chose to shut it down. Christ is free in the matter of miracles. He's not compelled. He does whatever he chooses. Here, we see, in the point of the text, is a shocking dishonor of unbelief. Christ is adored and glorified in heaven. Mighty archangels hide their faces before him, but Christ is dishonored and rejected on earth. The greatest honor is to believe his claims. 

 Finally, Christ's glory is unveiled by faith. The apostle John says that Christ's flesh was no final hindrance to their view of his glory. John 1:14, "The word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we have seen his glory, glory of the only begotten who came from the Father full of grace and truth.”  Faith lives by the truth, by the word of God, not by sight. Faith receives revelation of truth about Christ from the word of God. Faith understands that no one else could speak the words that Christ did. Faith understands that no one else could do the miracles that Christ did. No one else could fulfill the prophecies that Christ did. Faith sees through the veil of his physical body to see the glory of deity.

Faith sees glory where unbelief sees only shame, I mean, especially at the cross. His enemy stood there, at the foot of the cross and said, "If you're the son of God, come down from the cross and we will believe in you." Since that day, Christ's faith-filled people from every nation have stood at the foot of the cross by faith, reading about it in the text, and have seen glory there, and have seen salvation there, and have trusted in that saving work for the forgiveness of their sins. Faith alone saves the soul. Prior to faith must come revelation. God has to reveal Jesus to you.  Do you remember in Caesarea of Philippi? Jesus was saying, "Who do people say the son of man is?" There were various opinions. "What about you? Who do you say that I am Simon?" Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the son of the living God." You remember what Jesus said to him? "Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my father in heaven." No one can be saved unless God reveals Jesus to you. This He does by the ministry of the word and by the secret working of the Holy Spirit. That's how it happens.

As we walk through the Gospel of Mark and you hear story after story, after story, about Jesus, you have every opportunity to see through the veil of the flesh, and to understand the deity of Jesus, the son of God. That's the theme of the whole Gospel. The Spirit has the power to save your soul. By that power, He can make the light of the glory of God, in the face of Christ, shine in your heart. Corinthians II 4:6, “For God, who said,’ Let light shine out of darkness’, made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.”  By faith, you can see where we're heading with all this, you're heading to a whole world, a new heaven, a new earth, and a new Jerusalem, radiant with the glory of God. The city does not need the light of the sun, or the light of the moon, or light of the lamp, to shine, for the glory of God will give it light. The lamb will be its lamp. That's where we're heading.  

There are four ways that we humans dishonor Christ. First, by disbelieving his claim to be God in the flesh. Second, by disobeying his commands to take his yoke upon us, and learn from him, and submit to his kingly rule in every area of your life. Third, by delighting in his competitors, which are idols, by putting value on created things, rather than Christ. Fourthly, by delaying his coming in not sharing the Gospel, which has been entrusted to us to share.

The call is to repent of those ways that we're dishonoring him, believe his claim that He is God in the flesh, believe that He is the Christ, the son of God. If you've already believed that, and believe it for some time, you ought just stop and thank God that the Father revealed Jesus to you. You wouldn't believe any other way. You could look at this evidence forever. You would never believe, but trust in him for the forgiveness of your sin. 

Secondly, obey his commands in every area of your life. Find ways that you're disobeying and say, "I want to submit to your kingly rule. I don't want to fight against you. I don't want to strip you of your honor by disobeying you."  Thirdly, look at his competitors. What idols are there in your life that are drawing your affections away from Christ? Allow your love for Christ to drive out those idols. Smash them like those reforming kings and prophets always do. They go find those idols, and they smash them to powder.

Finally, it has been given to us in Peter II to look forward to the day of God, and what speed it's coming. Let's not delay is coming by not telling people about Christ this week. Take some story from the Gospel of Mark that shows the greatness of Christ, and share it with a non-Christian person this week. Say, "What do you think about this story?" See what they say.

Close with me in prayer. Father, thank you for the time we've had to look at the dishonor that Jesus' family, and neighbors, and countrymen, gave him by unbelief, to look at that dishonor and understand it, and then see that we would be the same if you had not revealed your son to us. We thank you for that. We pray Lord that you would please continue to reveal Jesus by the ministry of the word. Help us to see his greatness, his majesty, his glory. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

The people from Jesus' hometown despised Him and His public ministry as they lacked faith to see His glory that others got from revelation.

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Christianity is truth about the totality of reality, not just religious truth.

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Paul’s missionary work in Europe with the thrilling events of the vision that brought him to Philippi and Lydia’s conversion.

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Pastor Andy Davis preaches on Mark 5:35-43. In the account of Jesus’ interaction with the bleeding woman and Jarius, we see both Jesus’ power over death and his great tenderness and desire for intimacy with his people. 

Turn in your Bibles to Mark chapter 5. We're going to continue our study in the Gospel of Mark with this incredible account. I want to preach today on the infinite power and the intimate tenderness that Jesus Christ displays. I've meditated on those themes in God for a long time. Two verses in Isaiah 40 capture the staggering combination of God's infinite power with his gentle tenderness for his people.  Isaiah 40:11-12, “He tends his flock like a shepherd. He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart. He gently leads those that have young. Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, over with  the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens? Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket or weighed the mountains on the scales and the hills in a balance?” The same God that measures the waters of the oceans and the seven seas in the hollow of his hand. And who, later in that chapter, marks off the dimensions of the heavens with the breadth of his hand?  It also says, "Carries the lambs, tenderly in his arms and gently leads those that have young." The same God.  

Now, in our text today, we're going to see Jesus Christ picturing both aspects of God. We're going to see him displaying infinite immeasurable power in raising this little 12-year-old girl from the clutches of the monster known as death. But he does it with the gentle touch of his hand, an intimate tenderness. As he touched her, he spoke these words, "Talitha koum." Talitha, as I'll discuss later, the etymology of it as “little lamb.” Little lamb. Jesus, just in saying that, fulfills these marvelous words of Isaiah 40, “He tends his flock like a shepherd, and he gathers the little lambs in his arms.” We're pondering a God who is infinitely majestic over us and yet desires intimate closeness with us.

The infinite majesty of God is taught in the Bible from the very first verse of the Bible. In the beginning, “God created the heavens in the earth.” Almighty God is infinitely beyond. He soars beyond anything we can possibly comprehend. The boundless scope of the nature that he has created confirms this, the ocean, which stretches out to the horizon as far as the eye can see, unfathomably deep roaring with power. God made it. The towering mountain ranges peak after peak, dwarfing us, looming over us with their brooding magnificence, the limitless reaches of outer space, which has no boundary, stretches to infinity in every direction from our tiny planet.  It is the power of God, creating all of that saying, "Let there be," and there is. It's the majesty of God.

And yet, the intimate closeness of God, the Bible reveals a God that is closer to us than we can possibly imagine.  We are dependent on him every moment for our very existence as Paul said in Acts 17, God is not far from each one of us “for in him, we live and move and have our being.” More than that, God yearns to have a close relationship with us, a love relationship with us. He wants to love us. He wants us to love him moment by moment. He created humanity in his image with the capability to do that, the capacity to have a relationship, a love relationship with God. Therefore, this intimate relationship with God is truly what life is all about.  As Jesus said in his prayer to his heavenly Father in John 17:3, “Now this is eternal life that they may know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” But sin ruptured that intimacy. As soon as Adam and Eve sinned, if you read the account, they immediately sought to hide from God. With sin, a terrible barrier has been erected between us and God. And in our sin and in our misery, we live our lives distant from God.

God seems distant. To some, he seems literally non-existent. Suffering people cry out to God for relief, and they seem to get no answer. They thought that the lack of an answer proved that God doesn't exist or that God doesn't care. But the problem is sin. The problem between us and God is sin. As Isaiah 59 says, verse 1-2, "Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save nor his ear too dull to hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he will not hear.” Because of our sins, our intimate relationship with God is severed, destroyed. God is distant from us relationally, ready to judge us for our sins, not seeking intimacy with us, apart from atonement for our sins. 

The incarnation of the Son of God is God's answer to that problem that we cannot solve. In Christ, we have God drawing near to us. Christ is Immanuel, God with us. By his incarnation, Christ has come to live among us in very close intimacy.  John, 1:14, “The word, Jesus Christ, became flesh and made his dwelling among us. And we have seen his glory. Glory is of the only son from the Father full of grace and truth.” The Greek says he literally “pitched his tent among us,” hearkening back to the days of the patriarchs, their tent dwelling days. He came in our midst and pitched his tent right in the middle of us.  God, in Jesus, came to draw near to us seeking an intimate relationship with us. He is near to us in our misery, in our sin, in our alienation from God, in our suffering, our diseases, even in our death. All of Christ's ministry is to achieve one end, a reconciled relationship between us and God, between a Holy God and sinful humanity.The restoration, the perfection of intimate closeness, as it says in I Peter 3:18, “for Christ died for sins, once for all the righteous, for the unrighteous to bring you to God.” Meditate on those words. That's the work of atonement, to bring us to God. Therefore, in II Corinthians 5:20, we are told that we have been given a message and a ministry of reconciliation,"We are, therefore Christ's ambassadors as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf be reconciled to God.”

Reconciliation is a restored relationship with God, intimacy with God. I think Jesus's parable of the Prodigal Son perfectly gives me a picture of that from the father's point of view. As this sinful son comes back, trying to get a job on his father's plantation working with him, it ends with [Luke 15:20], “but while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him. He ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.”We sinners should meditate on that much. That is our father running to us, throwing his arms around us and kissing us while we're still stinking of pig manure and covered with filth, just recently come out of rebellion. This is what our father does.  Jesus's ministry is all designed to repair the breach between sinful human beings and a Holy God.  In Christ, therefore, we have the perfection of intimate tenderness but also infinite power. He was compassionate toward broken sinners. He showed them astonishing tenderness. He also displayed stunning power to heal their diseases and even to raise the dead.

Let's talk about the context of today's account. We're spending two weeks on one lengthy account, two encounters that Jesus has with two desperate people, a desperate father with a dying daughter, and then a desperate woman with an incurable illness. They're united together in Jesus' display of tenderness and power. It began last week as we saw and continues this week with a man named Jairus, a synagogue ruler, a powerful man, well connected with a Jewish religious leaders of the day, but a desperate man whose precious little daughter is dying, his only daughter. He has nowhere else to turn. Abandoning all restraint and all decorum, he comes and throws himself down on the ground before Jesus and begs him. Verse 23, “My little daughter is dying. Please, come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live.” Now, we know from other accounts, Jesus could easily have healed her from a distance. Occasionally, he did that, but generally not. He wanted intimacy. He wanted relationship. So in humility, he gets up and goes with this sorrowing man, surrounded by a crushing crowd. On route, the second desperate person approaches him, a woman suffering from a chronic bleeding problem, heard about Jesus's healing power, a kindled hope and faith in her heart.  Mark tells us her sad story of seeking healing. Verse 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 only grew worse.” She sought to be healed from Jesus without any interaction at all. I don't mean to disparage her at all. But she seems to be a miracle shoplifter, like kind of a smash and grab job. Come up behind, touch the hem of the garment, and get out of there quick.

Verse 27- 28, “When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak because she thought, ‘If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.’" Her healing was instantaneous. She felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering. But Jesus felt in his body that the power of God had flowed through him to someone in that crushing crowd, someone different than all the others. Verse 30, “At once, Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, ‘Who touched my clothes?’” 

As we have noted, Jesus had come into the world, not merely to be a dispenser of miracles, like a miracle-vending machine, a pipeline of impersonal blessings. You need to know that God and his goodness does that every day. He causes the sun to rise on the good and the evil. In his goodness, He sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous to unbelievers, atheists, whoever. He's an impersonal goodness vending machine, and they never think to thank him.  Jesus didn't come to do that. He wanted an interaction with this woman. Verse 32, “Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it.” The surging massive humanity was not his focus at that moment. One person in that crushing crowd was his focus, one desperate sinner. He wanted to do more than just heal her body, He wanted to save her soul. Verse 33:34, “then the woman knowing what had happened to her came, fell at his feet, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. And he said to her daughter, ‘Your faith has saved you.’" The Greek said “saved you” though healing is involved. “Go and peace and be freed from your suffering.” But in the intervening time that Jesus spent with this woman, Jairus's daughter died. The flickering candle of her life went out.

This brings us to this man's terrible crisis of faith. It begins with the faithless bearers of bad news, verse 35, “While Jesus was still speaking, some men came from the house of Jairus, the synagogue ruler. ‘Your daughter is dead,’ they said. Why bother the teacher anymore?” These messengers are curt, they’re unfeeling. They crush Jairus with this devastating news, with the delicacy of a sledgehammer, "Your daughter is dead.” Behind this blunt news is a significant measure of unbelief. Why bother the teacher anymore? In other words, there's nothing he can do. Everyone knows death is final. It's the end of the line. In our technologically advanced world, we have the advantage here in the Raleigh, Durham area of being surrounded by some of the best doctors, nurses, medical practitioners in the world, state of the art.  You could picture them working in an emergency room on a person who comes in right on the edge of death. You can imagine all of the frantic activity and the commands and the energy and people running in and out of the room and bringing equipment or medicines or techniques, whatever's needed to try to save this person's life.  But when the physician in charge declares that the individual is dead, all of that stops. Time of death is noted. All that activity, then people slow down. They walk. There's nothing more that can be done. We know that. It's finished. That's how these messengers were. That's how it is in almost every case. They believe there is nothing Jesus can do.

Death is the final enemy, the monster no one can defeat. Along with this is the great sorrow of a dead child. Few things  are sadder than the funeral of a child. Death is hard in any case, but the agony is greater when someone's young, a teenager or younger child. It's a sense of rage, a sense of injustice and fairness, like something was stolen.  In 1741, Jonathan Edwards preached a sermon for a young teenager named Billy Sheldon who died in their community. The name of the sermon and the funeral sermon was “Youth Is Like a Flower Cut Down.” Later with many tears,  Edwards revised that same sermon and used it to preach the funeral of his own beloved daughter, Jerusha. The message said, in part these words, "Youth maybe liken to a beautiful wildflower growing in a field. And their death is like the sudden cutting of the flower in the stem. Youth is an age wherein people are commonly full of hopes and promises to themselves of the good and the prosperity that they shall see in this world.  They're just entering upon the stage of this world. And they promise themselves much that they shall see and enjoy afterwards. And their parents and their friends are also ready to promise themselves much future comfort in them and are full of hope in seeing them settled.”  He told the young people at the funeral to come and look on the face, the dead face of this young boy, Billy Sheldon, "Come and look at him. Do you see how cold and gray is his power, how stripped of color his cheeks, like when a wildflower is cut and soon droops and withers and loses all of its beauty in its vitality, how instantly this happens.”  

So it was with Jairus's daughter, the end of the account. We're told that she's 12 years old. You picture her happy, energetic, promising life and joy to her parents, still happily hugging her beloved father, kissing his cheek with tender affection. He imagined the years ahead.  Soon, she would be of an age to be married, bear them grandchildren, perhaps even a beautiful little granddaughter to kind of take her place and then jump up in his arms and kiss his cheeks. He's imagining this. But suddenly, sickness gripped her, and it just got worse. We don't know much about the sickness, maybe she had a fever or something like that burning up. As the days passed, she only got worse, not better. Her mother nursing her, caring for her, patting her, fevered brow with a cloth. Not much anyone could do. Parents crying out to God for healing, but to no avail. Instead of getting better, she grew worse. But Jairus had one hope. He'd heard about this healer, Jesus, and he went to find him. It's a last hope for his daughter, Jesus wasn't there. He'd gone across the Sea of Galilee. There was no no telling when he was going to come back.  It seems he just stood there and waited by the shore, waited for Jesus to come because in the account, as soon as he has got back from the gatherings, he's there right away. With urgent anguish, he comes and throws himself on the ground before him and Jesus gets up and humbly goes with him. 

But on route, we have this encounter with the woman and the bleeding and all of that. And that must have taken some time because by the time they get back to Jairus's home, the funeral rituals are well on.  They're well established, so it must have been a while. Then the messengers come with that cold blunt message, "Your daughter is dead. Why bother the teacher anymore?" Now, what did Jairus feel? We don't know, but it's not hard to imagine, waves of dark grief, sorrow. What he dreaded has now happened. And perhaps some anger at the crowd. Jesus could have gone faster. If it weren't for the crowd. Maybe he's even frustrated with the woman, perhaps questioning Jesus in his priority structure.  And like the men who brought the message, it doesn't seem like his faith is much beyond theirs, “There’s probably nothing more Jesus can do.” His faith in Jesus had reached a crisis level, so Jesus addresses Jairus's faith right away. Verse 36, “Ignoring what they said, Jesus told the synagogue ruler, ‘Don't be afraid. Just believe.’" 

In all of the accounts, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, all of his encounters with people, Jesus never coddled unbelief. He never excused unbelief. It was never okay to not believe, ever.  Even the most extreme circumstance, like a raging hurricane, professional fishermen in the boat seeing their boat filled with water. Matthew 8: 26, he said, "You of little faith, why are you so afraid? You shouldn't be." Now, we know in the economy of God and salvation and the gospel work, we are justified, forgiven of our sins by faith in Jesus, by simple faith in Christ, not by works. By trusting in Jesus are our sins forgiven. Jesus knew that.  So when any disciple doubts or begins to doubt, it is a big deal. It is a bigger crisis than any fever or any bleeding problem, so he addresses the problem. He speaks directly to Jairus's soul. Literally in the Greek, it's this, “stop being afraid and keep believing.” Stop being afraid and keep believing. Fear and faith are often opposites in the Bible. Jairus needs to beat back his fear by trusting in Jesus.

He did believe, but he needs to keep believing through this, even in the face of our greatest and our final enemy, death itself. Jesus gives an additional promise to help him. Faith feeds on the promises of God. That's where faith comes from, the promises of God. In Luke's gospel, Jesus gives Jairus an additional promise to help feed his faith.  In Luke, 8:50,”Hearing this, Jesus said to Jairus, ‘Don't be afraid. Just believe, and she will be healed.’" She will be healed. 

So it is with us. In our greatest trials, God has the power to speak directly to our souls based on the scripture and remind us of things maybe that we had forgotten so that our faith can be fed and strengthened in the midst of the suffering to renew our faith in Christ.  Notice also, and isn't it beautiful again, and again, how beautiful, the serenity, the leadership of Jesus, the majesty of his person, never flustered, never distressed, never not knowing what to do, always in command of the situation. So beautiful. He is the captain of our salvation. That's Jesus. 

So now, we see the commotion of unbelieving grief in the account.  First, Jesus weeds out the crowd, whittles them down quickly, he doesn't want them coming. He filters out his own apostles, nine of them and the disciples, the huge crowd that's following him. Then, just the hangers on, all of them, weeded out. It doesn't let any of them follow, verse 37, “He did not let anyone follow him except Peter, James and John, the brother of James,” the inner three. The inner circle of the 12 apostles was Peter, James, and John, the rest of the apostles are excluded. The disciples are excluded. The huge crowd is excluded. No one else can come. Then, Jesus arrives at Jairus's house. He's confronted by another crowd. But this time, a crowd of noisy mourners, verse 38, “When he came to the home of the synagogue ruler, Jesus saw commotion with people crying and wailing loudly.”

Jewish funerals back then very different than what we are accustomed to, very different. If you go to a funeral home now for the visitation, everyone there speaks in hush tones. Everybody's whispering and go up quietly and say to the grieving family, "Praying for you," expressing condolences, this kind of thing. I've been to lots of them. That's how it is.  It would not be appropriate for me to wail loudly and express grief at the funeral home. People would be thinking I was out of my mind. But in the first century, this is what they did. People were actually expected to give loud and boisterous voice to their grief and anguish. The more they did, the more they were connected with the family and showing the anguish that they have in reference to this death. They're also expected to tear their clothing in displays of grief.  Now, along with this apparently, there was a class of professional mourns who did this for a living. They would show up and they would do some wailing and grieving for a fee. Hard to believe but there it is. They would bring along musicians, flute players who would play in loud discordant notes to kind of represent in musical tones, the anguish everybody's feeling.  That's what's going on as Jesus comes. Now, these professional mourners are merely actors. They don't have any genuine compassion for the people. They felt no appropriate level of grief for Jairus and his wife. Why do I say that? Well, look at the account. In a short time, they are instantly laughing at Jesus. Where did all the grief go? Where was all the grief? It was fake. It wasn't genuine. Even worse though, they're unbelieving toward Jesus.  Verse 39, “He went in and said to them, ‘Why all this commotion and wailing? The child is not dead but asleep.’" 

Jesus is about to show his infinite power in the greatest possible context. Our ultimate enemy, death, will be defeated effortlessly. But he's not going to do it in front of these unbelieving people, so he has to rebuke these fake mourns. He makes this clearest assertion, "She is not dead. The child is not dead, but asleep." Death is like sleep. It's only temporary.  In other words, it is no more difficult for Jesus to raise this girl from the dead than it would be for her parents to wake her up from an afternoon nap. Jesus' resurrection is going to prove this for all time. But the mourner's reaction is pure faithlessness and mockery, verse 40, “They all laughed at him.” They laughed at him, so Jesus clears them all out.

After He'd 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. So picture this, our powerful commander, the master of our souls, going down into the valley of the shadow of death alone to defeat the foe for us.  Now, picture that. I know that there's people with him, but in terms of who's going forth to do the battle, it's Jesus. Now we see the tender touch of infinite power. As I've said, everything Jesus did was for relationship. He could have healed this girl from a distance, no problem, but instead, he wanted to touch her hand with his own hand. He wanted to reach out his hand and take her by the hand. He wanted to display his power nestled in his astonishing tenderness in gentle mercy.

Verse 41, “He took her by the hand and said to her, "Talitha koum," which means, “little girl”, I say to you, get up.” You have the touch and the word. It's beautiful. In Franco Zeffirelli's classic Jesus of Nazareth, it films this encounter with tremendous sensitivity. Jesus goes into her room. There's three square windows, way up high. She's laying flat on the ground on a palette, and sunlight is streaming in through these three little kind of portholes, but mostly the room is shrouded and shadow.  Jesus goes over and kneels down near her. The camera zeros in on Jesus's face. Look on his face and then down on his hand. The hand, just the way it's shot, is covered with light, but there's darkness all around it. Then, he reaches down and takes her by the hand. Instantly, she just sits up and puts her arms around his neck. He hugs her and picks her up. That's how Zeffirelli pictured it. Probably something like that.  Along with that are the words that he spoke, which I've already noted. Only Mark's gospel gives us the Aramaic, “Talitha koum.” Now the word Talitha's translated for us “little girl,” but like I said, etymologically, it means “little lamb.” It's definitely a term of endearment, tender affection for a little girl. Though she was 12 years old and would soon be entering into the duties of adulthood, of motherhood, of marriage and motherhood, still to her parents, probably, especially to her dad, she's a little lamb, but so, it is with him. That's the way it is for Jesus.

This scene is why Christii and I named our daughter Daphne Talitha, because we trusted that Jesus would raise her from the dead spiritually while she lived, which he has through faith in Christ and that he would raise her from the dead physically at the end of the world, which he will. Talitha koum, “little girl,” arise. Instantaneous healing.  Jesus has absolute effortless power over death. Verse 42, “Immediately, the girl stood up and walked around.” She was 12 years old. As with all of Jesus's healings, there's no need for convalescence, no need for rehab or long process of recovering her strength. Her body is as healed as it was before the sickness came. This dark enemy, this powerful implacable, undefeatable foe of the human race, death, Jesus defeats with effortless power. 

After his own resurrection, Jesus will claim absolute power forever over death for all of his people. Then comes worship, verse 42, “At this, they were completely astonished.” Jesus's awesome power is breathtaking. We're going to spend eternity in heaven, completely astonished in wave upon wave upon wave of astonishment. It's never going to end. As he keeps telling you and teaching you things he did, you never knew he did, you'll be on the ground praising, worshipping. Then you'll get up ready for the next wave, completely astonished. This is the essence of worship.

But then comes this strange command, “Don't tell anyone.” In verse 43, he gave strict orders not to let anyone know about this. Again and again, we see this restriction in these gospel accounts. We must acknowledge this is obviously temporary. How do you know that? Well, it's in the Bible. The Bible's a very famous book. The Holy Spirit inspired this account to be written. Clearly, God wants this story published abroad. There is no restriction now. There's no strict command, “Don't tell anyone.” Actually, we have strict commands to tell everyone. So I just charge all of you this week. Tell this story in the workplace. You're free to do it. 

Then, why did he restrict them? Why this Messianic secret? Why this command? I think it really just comes down to crowd control. They had misunderstandings of the kingdom.  So, it's already crazy. Remember that the whole woman with the bleeding problem, Jesus can't even breathe just because of the healings, but this knowledge would make it more difficult. That's probably the reason. Another interpreter says it's also because Jesus hasn't finished his work over death yet, so the message isn't complete yet. He wants to finish the message by his resurrection from the dead. Then this can get out. That's possible.  After Jesus rose from the dead, he appears to the apostle John in the island of Patmos and in Revelation 1:17-18, he says, "Do not be afraid. I am the first and the last. I am the living one. I was dead and behold, I am alive forever and ever. And I hold the keys of death and the grave." Isn't that awesome? The message has been completed by Jesus' historical bodily resurrection from the dead.  He also gives one final practical command. Did you notice? He told her parents to give her something to eat. I love that. “Give her something. She hasn't eaten in a while.” I just love it, this show of tender care. He cares for every aspect of life. 

What lessons can we take from this?  First, the way I couched this entire sermon was infinite power and intimate tenderness. Ponder that. Ponder both sides. It is vital for us to realize how powerful Jesus is. There is nothing he cannot do. There is no enemy we face that he cannot defeat. There is no need we have that he cannot meet. He created the universe by the word of his power and sustains it by the word of his power. That's who Jesus is.  He rules the win and the waves. But instead of that making us terrified of him and distant from him, we need to see how tender he is with sinners and with little girls and with women and with weak people. He's so tender with them. “The bruised reed He will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out.” He is skillfully tender with broken people, perfectly gentle. All of his power, his ministry, his miracles, his teachings, his atonement on the cross, his resurrection from the dead, all of it is toward one end, to bring us to God. 

Do you know him today? Do you know him?  Have you trusted in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins? Have you realized he shed his blood on the cross so that you would not have to burn in hell forever and ever as you would deserve to do? So would I if it weren't for the blood shed. He died the death we deserve so that we could live a life with him forever. Do you trust him? Have you trusted in him?

Secondly, this theme of faith versus fear, there is a category of faithless fears that we're all plagued by in life. I've seen it a lot in COVID. I still see it sometimes. I worry about some folks. I can't judge him. I don't know. But I wonder if they're enslaved to some faithless fears. If it wasn't just COVID, it’s just in general. We're all plagued by faithless fears by that, I mean fears, we should not have, fears that faith in the word of God and Jesus should drive out. There are some fears we should have, fear of the Lord, the beginning of wisdom, fear of what sin might do to my life.  There are certain things we should fear. But there are faithless fears, usually having to do with circumstances, things that go on in life. Are you suffering from any faithless fears today? Jesus says right in this text, "Don't be afraid. Keep on believing. Stop being afraid. Keep on believing. Bring your faith into that fear."

The big lesson of this text must be Jesus' power to raise the dead. That must be the big lesson here. Death is the final enemy, and we have no answer to it. There is no pharmaceutical company, there’s no research hospital that's working on this problem of death. They may be working on not dying in this way or that way or the other way. But death itself stands over all of us. It is the final enemy. Jesus has absolute power over it.

Think about Revelation 1, “I hold the keys of death and the grave. I was dead, and behold, I'm alive.”Jesus claims to be able to give that power to us. He is going to raise us from the grave. As John 5 28 says, "Do not be amazed at this. A time is coming when all are in their graves will hear his voice and come out,” just like Talitha koum. He won't say that to you. But he'll say like, "Lazarus come forth," something like that. Only you'll come forth in a resurrection body never to die again. He has that power.  In John 11, he says, "I am the resurrection in the life. He who believes in me will live. Even though he dies and whoever lives and believes in me will never die." Like he said to Martha, "Do you believe this? If you believe in Christ, he is resurrection in life.” 

Finally, we have a responsibility to liberate people in this area, this geographical region, from their fear of death. We have the power to do that.  Jesus by his death, Hebrews 2 tells us, destroyed him who holds the power of death, the devil, so that he might liberate or set free those who all their lives are held in slavery by their fear of death. I want to say it comes in two steps. First, if they are lost, if they're dead in their transgressions and sins while they live, they ought to fear death because if they die in that condition, they will spend eternity apart from God in hell. So I want them to be afraid and then flee to Christ. As Newton said in Amazing Grace, "T'was grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved." We get to do that with people. We get to help them to fear like they should and then say, "Jesus will relieve those fears through the gospel.” 

 Close with me in prayer.  Father, thank you for the time we've had to walk through incredible account. Thank you for the infinite power and the tenderness of Jesus. I pray that you'd help us to understand what this teaches us about Jesus to draw close to him. I pray for brothers and sisters who have been trusting in Christ for years, but are going through trials that they would be able to draw near to you and allow your words to drive out faithless fears. I pray, Lord, that you would strengthen each of us to be faithful to share this gospel message with people who are lost in our community, lost who need to hear of Christ. And we pray these in Jesus's name. Amen.

Andy surveys the different views on how the church should relate to culture. 

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Here we see both Jesus’ power over death and His great tenderness and intimate compassion as He raises Jarius' daughter from the dead.

The post Infinite Power and Intimate Tenderness, Part 2 (Mark Sermon 24) appeared first on Two Journeys.

Luke records Paul and Barnabas parting ways over a controversy, Paul’s second missionary journey, his relationship with Timothy, and the growth of the churches.

The post Acts Podcast 31: Paul And Barnabas Split, Paul Begins Second Missionary Journey appeared first on Two Journeys.

Pastor Andy Davis preaches on Mark 5: 21-43. Christ's miraculous healings were meant to bring sinners into a reconciled, personal, intimate relationship with the Almighty God.

Turning your Bibles to Mark 5, we continue our incredible journey through this gospel of Mark. When our kids were little, Christi and I would put them to bed using bedtime rituals, and we would sing them songs. For a while, one of the songs that we sang, of course is Jesus Loves Me, which you know very well. “Jesus loves me, this I know for the Bible tells me so. Little ones to him belong, they are weak, but he is strong.” “They are weak, but he is strong.” Friends this is a message for everyone. For all of us. To some degree, we all have to become like little children in order to be saved. Jesus said this in Matthew 18:3, , "Truly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven."

All of us underestimates both sides of that statement, how weak we are and how strong He is. We all have to come to understand both sides of that, how weak we are, how strong Jesus is, but we tend to think of ourselves as so very powerful, don't we? The tower of Babel, for example, displayed man arrogant because of his technological inventiveness, the ability now to make bricks that could be stacked higher than ever before, and build a tower that reached up to heaven. If anything, the human race is even more arrogant now. We actually have built a rocket and flown to the moon less than seven decades after Orville and Wilbur built the first airplane. So we tend to think that we are powerful. We have ridden the coattails of modern science to defeat countless diseases like polio and smallpox. We think we are powerful. We have flexed our muscles to build ever more devastating weapons, even harnessing the power of the atom to build thermonuclear weapons that can erase whole cities in an instant. We think that we are powerful. We probe the mysteries of the genetic code of nature and develop seeds and genetically engineered living organisms. We think we are powerful. We have unleashed the power of the electron and digital technologies and developed stunningly powerful computers that perform astonishing feats. We think we are powerful, but friends, we are weak. 

We have not conquered nature. The wind still blows wherever it wishes, and we cannot stop it. We don't even know where it's going. We have not conquered space, for the distance of the nearest star will forever mock our insignificant achievement of going to the moon and back. We've not conquered disease for people still suffer daily of diseases, which continue to defy medical science. We have not conquered sin for people still lust and rage and defraud and wage war against one another daily. We have not conquered death for the death rate continues 100%. In the face of this overwhelming weakness, in the face of this, Jesus came to save us and to show us that though we are weak, He is strong, and He is strong for us on our behalf.

We see the awesome power of Jesus displayed in these gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, in his miracles. The miracles of Jesus put on plain display his awesome power in ways that absolutely boggle the mind. We've seen his power over the wind in the waves simply saying to raging storm, a hurricane, “peace be still” and instantly the wind stopped, the sea became as calm and placid as a mill pond, just at his word. We saw him deal last week with a wretched maniac, I think the most wretched human being in biblical history. No one, I think, was more wretched, more powerless tormented by a legion of demons, maybe as many as 6,000 demons. Despite their overwhelming supernatural power, they knew clearly that they were no match for Jesus. They were terrified of him. They caused the man that they had dominated to run and fall on his knees before Jesus and confess Jesus to be the son of the most high God. Jesus effortlessly commanded those demons with the single word, “Go”, and they went.Tthe 2,000 pigs rushed down the steep bank into the sea and were drowned. Jesus' power was absolute, complete, effortless. He's the absolute master over all demons, over every disease, even over nature itself. But what about death? Our final and greatest enemy. What about death? In the account that we will begin this week and finish next week, God willing, we're going to see Jesus's absolute power over death in raising a little girl, Jairus' daughter, from the dead.

We are all weak before the power of death, but Jesus rules over death. He rules absolutely over death. He says in Revelation 1:18, "I am the living one. I was dead and behold I am alive forever and ever, and I hold the key of death in the grave." Jesus claims absolute mastery in power over death. He did that by his own death and his own resurrection. But in the midst of all this awesome power of Jesus, we also see his tender mercies. We see his relational tenderness, his desire for intimacy with us, the basic promise of the gospel and the most important verse in the Bible for me is Matthew 5:3, "Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

I think that word “poor” means “beggars”, so I translated it in my mind. “Blessed are the spiritual beggars for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” To enter the kingdom of heaven, you have to acknowledge that you are a spiritual beggar. You are weak, powerless, destitute, actually even repulsive. To come to Christ, you have to see him as powerful and capable of saving you, but you also have to see Jesus as tender and compassionate, willing to receive you. This account that we are following today and will again, God willing next week shows two spiritual beggars who have absolutely nothing to offer to Jesus. They're both desperate and they know it.

First, we have a father, Jairus, whose little 12 year old daughter is dying, and his heart is being torn to shreds. He casts all dignity aside and falls down before Jesus to beg for his help on her behalf. Second, we have a woman with a bleeding problem which has lasted as long as that little girl has been alive, 12 years. She's physically defiled, she's spiritually outcast. She is effectively no better than a leper in that society. She's desperate. She has done everything she could to be healed and has nowhere else left to turn. It's two spiritual beggars who know that they're weak and who believe that Jesus is strong, but they're also going to find out how tender Jesus is in his affections, his mercies toward weak spiritual beggars. 

What's the context of this account in Mark's gospel? The central message of Mark’s Gospel is declared right at the very beginning, Mark 1:1, “The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the son of God.” The word “gospel” means “good news”, so that Jesus is the son of God is our good news. That's the gospel. Jesus is the gospel. The attributes of Jesus are put on display so that by reading these accounts, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, by reading them all, we come to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the living God, and that by believing, we may have eternal life in his name, full forgiveness of sins.

Now, we have just read the most astonishing day of Jesus' life in terms of spectacular displays of his power. It's not going to get more spectacular than what we've seen. The stilling of the storm or hurricane with a word, I mean that's spectacular. Then the driving out of the most spectacular exorcism recorded in the Word, the gospels in the New Testament, the driving out of a legion of demons. That wretched man has now been saved from the demons, but not just saved from the demons, he's saved. Like we understand, his sins are forgiven. He wants a relationship with Jesus. He wants to spend the rest of his life with Jesus. Jesus does not let him, but sends him home to his family. He sends him on mission to go to his family and tell them how much God has done for him, and how He has had mercy on him. So the man goes off on his mission. 

Tragically, however, we saw also the people of that region, of the Gerasenes, are more afraid of Jesus than they were of this demon possessed, man. They could live with him. They were putting up, they just stayed away from that area, but they didn't want Jesus there, they ask him to go. Jesus never forces himself on any unwilling people, the demons do that. Jesus never forces himself. Instead, what he does is He makes people willing to have him through the spirit. That's the transformation of our inner nature. The heart of stone removed, the heart of flesh given, and central to it is, "I want Jesus in my life." He doesn't ever force himself.

And now He just gets in the boat and leaves and crosses back across the Sea of Galilee. In this account that you heard read, you have effectively a double account. It's like one of those wooden Russian dolls. You know those nested dolls, where you take one out and then the next one pops in. You get a miracle within a miracle going on here. Just in my judgment as a preacher, I was like, "There's no way I want to run through this," so we're going to focus on the beginning of the story with Jairus, but we're going to interrupt it. Then as Jesus was interrupted, we have that second miracle, the healing of this woman, the bleeding woman. Then, God willing, we will finish the account of Jairus, the resurrection of Jairus' daughter next week.

We start with the first beggar, this desperate father. Look at verses 21- 24. “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. Then one of the synagogue rulers named Jairus came there. Seeing Jesus, he fell at his feet and pleaded earnestly with him, ‘My little daughter is dying. Please, come and put your hands on her so that she'll be healed and live.’ So Jesus went with him.” The account begins with something that we should recognize by now as a reality in Jesus' life, the constant crush of the crowd. This has been a regular feature of Jesus's ministry. Every day of Jesus's public life at this point, his life, there are literally thousands of people who want to be around him. The reason for this is his astonishing healing ministry. His reputation as a healer has gone out far and wide. There was no disease or sickness He could not heal. He did it effortlessly. So people came, thousands came.

Beyond this, to some degree, they came because of his reputation as a teacher. There were some people there who just wanted to hear him teach. Mark 1:22 says, "The people were amazed at his teaching because he taught them as one who had authority and not as their teachers of the law." Later in John's Gospel, John 7:46, "No one ever spoke the way this man does." They wanted to hear him give the words of life, so some of them were there for that. Remember how Jesus had to sit out in a boat to get away from the crush of the crowd so they could hear him and enable him to teach? There was a huge crowd, and, in the midst of this crowd is this man, Jairus. He's a powerful man, a leader in the community, he's called the synagogue ruler.

The synagogue was the center of Jewish life out in the communities, outside of Jerusalem. So out in the hinterlands, you've got synagogue, the place where the Jews would gather together every week on the Sabbath to hear the word of God. The Old Testament, we know it's the Old Testament read and taught now to be a synagogue. To be a ruler meant to be a leading man of the community, a man of power, a man of piety. Almost certainly. He would've been a Pharisee because they really controlled the religious life of Israel. But the Pharisees have already blacklisted Jesus to some degree. We don't know how official this is at this point, but they are against him because He's violating their understanding of the Sabbath. He's already doing things they consider to be blasphemous, declaring people's sins forgiven, calling himself the Lord of the Sabbath. That'll do it right there, so already there against him. And I think most significantly, psychologically, they are against him because He rejected their piety. He said, "Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees, you're not going to heaven." So He's saying they're not going to heaven as they are. Their righteous is not enough, and they took offense to that. Later, by the time we get the healing of the man born blind in John's gospel, John chapter 9, it's clear that the Jewish authorities had already decided that if anyone said that Jesus was the Messiah, they would be put out of the synagogue, blacklisted from Jewish life. So we're on the way to there if we're not already there. But Jairus was not thinking about any of that, was he? There was one thing on his mind and only one thing, his little girl. She's dying, and despite all of his power and all of his piety, he knows he's weak in the face of this. There's nothing he can do to save her. Her life is like a flickering candle. It's about to be snuffed out at any moment. Indeed, it was while Jesus was on route. That's how close to death she was. Now, Jairus knows Jesus reputation. He's convinced that Jesus can heal his daughter if only he can come there in time, so he comes and makes a desperate request. Look at verse 22, 23, "He fell at his feet and 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." He throws himself on the ground prostrate before the feet of Jesus, and in doing this, he has officially thrown his reputation out the window with the Pharisees. They hate Jesus. He doesn't care about that at all. He's treating Jesus like a king, perhaps even like the son of God, though I'm sure he doesn't really understand what that means. The Greek verb here in verse 23 speaks of “desperate treaties.” "He beseeches him greatly," the text says, "I'm begging you, Jesus, come. She's at the point of death, right at the edge. She's been getting worse and worse." And that was whenever he saw her last. I get the feeling, he was waiting for Jesus to come back from the region of the Gadarenes. He's right there on the shore waiting for him. Remember that messengers have to come and tell him what's going on, that she's died. I picture him waiting there for Jesus to get back. Jairus knows that Jesus is the only one that can save her life.

It's interesting to ponder, if the people of the Gadarenes had asked Jesus to stay, instead of demanded that He left, and if He had yielded to their desires, she would've died, the moment where the window would've passed. Everything is orchestrated by the mighty perfect plan of God here. Jesus leaves the Garasenes, goes across and hears Jairus waiting for him. Jairus knows he cannot demand anything from Jesus. He's a beggar with nothing to offer. His power, his position, his wealth, his piety mean nothing. If Jesus doesn't come and save her, she will die. There's nothing that Jairus can do to force Jesus to come if He doesn't want to come. 

So just, I want to say to all of you that are listening to me, stop right there. Put yourself in that position. Do you see yourself as a beggar with nothing to offer God. You have nothing in your hands that you're bringing that's of any interest to him. No way to beguile him, to turn his attention toward you. Do you see that if Jesus were not willing to die in your place under the wrath of God, you could never persuade him to do it? "Would you please drink the cup of God's wrath against me? Would you please shed your blood on the cross for me? So I can go to heaven and not hell, would you do that for me?" There's nothing you could do to make him do that. If He’s not willing. We are truly beggars.

One of the most moving moments when I was studying the life of Martin Luther was the words of his death. He was dying, he knew it. His final words were in two languages, first German, and then Latin.” We are all beggars. This is true.” Those are his final words, and then he died. Do you see yourself that way? Do you see yourself as a sinner saved by the grace of God in Jesus Christ? That's our gospel. That's what we're hoping in. We are all beggars. 

Jairus comes with a limited faith. Now faith is not all of one kind. It's not static, it can grow, it can develop. We can be those of little faith and grow into greater faith. There's little doubt at the beginning of their encounter, Jairus believes Jesus can heal his daughters. There's no doubt actually about that. If only can get there in time to place his hand on her, he does not imagine that Jesus can heal her remotely. He doesn't think about that. He's got to get there. He's not thinking at this point that He's going to raise her from the dead. It's not on his mind. Jesus is going to work on this man's faith during their time together. By the end of the entire encounter, his faith will be far beyond what it was at the beginning of the encounter. We also see in this, Jesus's availability in his humility.Ttime and time again, people come in and treat of Jesus and He just yields to them, He just does what they want. Jairus comes and begs, he just gets up and goes. Jesus came to be, as Mark 9:35 says, a servant of all. Other people's needs were more important to him than his own. He never refused. He never said, "Can't you see I'm busy here?" Or thought himself too important for others or sighed and said, "I really think I've done enough for one day." Never. It's not his attitude. We are so selfish, aren't we? We pass every request, every opportunity to serve or whatever through the grid of what's pleasing to us or whether we're willing or not. Jesus just wasn't that way. He was serving of all.

Now, the crowd came along too. They're going everywhere Jesus goes. Look at verse 24, "So Jesus went with him and a large crowd followed and pressed around him." This crowd was literally crushing him physically. When Christii and I were missionaries in Japan, I had the opportunity one weekday morning, somewhere around 8:15 in the morning to take a local train from Cobe to Osaka in Japan. What was I thinking? Some of you will know how ridiculous and foolish that is because that local train made four stops. The first, when we all got on in Cobe was the most crowded train I've ever been on. Those four stops, not a single person got off, but about... It seemed that same number of people got on. There are these Japanese officials with white gloves on whose job is to shove people physically into the train. I don't have claustrophobia, except I did that day. I was standing there and all of these people are crushing in on me so that I could not expand my rib cage to get the air that apparently my cells needed to stay alive, so I was breathing like I had emphysema. I was panting at the top of my breath, just hoping that ride would continue and then we'd get to the next local stop, but then more people are getting on. Unbelievable. The Greek gives us a sense that that's kind of what's going on here. In Luke 8:42, it says, "As Jesus was on his way, the crowds almost crushed him." The Greek is literally “choking him.” They're depriving him of air, He's crushed by these people.

On route, we see the second beggar, a desperate woman. Look at verse 25, "And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years." Let's talk about her condition. The bleeding problem was almost certainly a female problem, a gynecological problem. It tells us that she'd been suffering in this condition for an incredible twelve years. Clearly, the bleeding was not life threatening, she was not bleeding out, but her condition was life altering in that Jewish context. She was considered to be spiritually defiled because of the blood. In the law of Moses, such a condition rendered her spiritually unclean, unable to participate in Jewish life, Leviticus 15:25, "When a woman has a discharge of blood for many days at a time other than her monthly period, or has a discharge that continues beyond her period, she will be unclean as long as she has the discharge." Long as it goes, she's unclean. She could not go to the synagogue. Anyone who touched her would be unclean. That's what made her effectively a leper, not a lot of difference actually. These laws were not just meant for the hygiene of the Jewish people, but also to teach a spiritual lesson. One of the more famous verses in Isaiah, Isaiah 64:6 says, "All of us, all of us have become like one who is unclean. And all our righteous acts are like filthy rags." The Hebrew related to the rags as used for such a flow of blood. All of our most righteous acts are defiled in the sight of God. People who think that they're going to save themselves by their good works, hoping their good works outweigh their bad, they don't have any good works. Romans 3 makes it plain, “There is no one who does good.” All of our righteous acts are defiled like that. It's a picture of that.

So this woman was desperate, and she had had desperate measures for years and years. Look at verse 26. I talked to Daphne, me daughter, about this verse driving in. Ponder this story locked up in verse 26, it's hard to read without emotion what it was like, what her life was like. 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. It's wave upon wave of sorrow for this woman. It's a quick sketch of what those twelve years have been like for her. It's hard to imagine what she's gone through. The text says, "She had suffered a great deal under the therapies of the primitive doctors of the time." Their therapies, had caused suffering for her. Physically invasive, humiliating, painful, she'd suffered these treatments. The cures were bizarre, invasive, disgusting and ineffective, and they were costly. What a contrast to the words I've given already many times for Jesus' healings. Effortless, effective instantaneous, and free. He didn't charge anything for his healings, but these doctors did. The text says the woman had spent all the money she had on these cures, and they were ineffective. Instead of getting better, she just got worse. Can you sense the desperation she must have had? “There's nothing for me.” She spent all the money she had, she had no money left. Now, she heard the reports about Jesus and that gave her faith. Faith comes by hearing the word.

The reports gave her faith. Look at verse 27, 28, "When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak because she thought, ‘If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.’" The reports had reached her ears of Jesus's amazing healings. She'd heard of his tenderness toward women in particular; many of Jesus's most affecting and tender encounters were with women. He treated them with dignity. He treated them with respect, treated them as created in the image of God, treated them with absolute purity. So her faith, when she heard of these accounts was kindled within her, and she made her way to where Jesus was. The text tells us of her faith in his healing power. Her plan was based on Matthew 9:20, to touch the fringe of his garment, the tassel on his garment. These would be down near the ground. Jewish men were required to wear tassels on the edge of their cloaks as constant reminders to keep the law of God. this woman felt all she had to do was get to the hem of his garment, the tassels on his garment, touch them and she'd be healed. She also clearly wanted to avoid the embarrassment of an interaction, so she came in physically low. The fringe of Jesus' robe would've been down near the ground. Picture Jesus, unable to breathe because of the crowd, and she's down near the ground, trampled. She forces her way through the throng, gets down near the ground and reaches her hand out. Verse 29 speaks of the healing, "Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering." Oh, hallelujah, the power of Jesus to bring about this instantaneous healing. Pain was gone instantly. "She could feel," the text says, "In her body, I'm healed." After 12 years. The Greek word translated “suffering”. She was freed from her. Suffering is very strong. “Mastigos”, the same word that would later be used of the flogging that Jesus would undergo for our salvation. John 19:1 uses the same, the flogging, she'd been flogged by this problem, and now it was done. Effectively, Jesus had taken the flogging, her flogging onto himself. It says very beautifully in first Peter 2:24, "He himself bore our sins in his body, on the tree, on the cross so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness by his wounds." You have been healed. So he takes it into himself. 

But now, the text just goes off into infinite mystery. I believe as a theologian, as a pastor, there is no harder, higher mystery in theology than that of the incarnation. We'll never get done thinking about it. The rest of this account has the power to trip the circuit breakers of your mind. Just like, I don't know. I don't understand this. How is it? Look at verse 30 -34. "At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked,”Who touched my clothes?’ "You see the people crowding against you,’ his disciples answered, ‘Yet you can ask who touched me?’ But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her came and fell at his feet and trembling with fear told him the whole truth. ‘He said to her daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.’” There are different ways to read it, but I just really believe the text reads most naturally that he truly did not know who touched him. It wasn't a trick question. He realized that power had gone through, so something hit him. It wasn't voluntary on his part. Power had gone through him and He realized that. it came into his mind, "Power has gone through me," and he was trying to find out who touched him. 

So here's the thing, the central message is that Jesus of Nazareth is the Son of God, the second person in the Trinity. The incarnate son of God. That means God in the flesh. As God in the flesh, he has godlike nature powers. Powers over nature, such as controlling the wind and the waves. As God in the flesh, he has godlike healing powers, such as driving out demons and healing, every disease and sickness. As God in the flesh, he has godlike knowledge. He has the ability to read people's minds. He knows what's happened far away even if no messengers have come to tell him. He can tell people what's happened in some remote distant location. He knows in detail what's about to happen when he goes into the city of Jerusalem, who's going to be carrying something at a certain moment, amazing. He knows the distant future things that still haven't even happened about the second coming and about the end of the world. Supernatural knowledge. As God in the flesh, he has godlike authority. He has ability to declare to a sinner, "All your sins are forgiven." He has the right to interpret the Sabbath, godlike power to interpret the Sabbath. He has all of that. But clearly, as a man, he's limited physically, He can only be in one place at one time. And as a man, he's limited mentally in some mysterious way.

What do I mean by that? God, the first person in the Trinity, God, the Father, has never learned anything and He never will. But when Jesus was growing up, it says in Luke 2:52, that He increased in wisdom. That means He was more wise on day X than He was day X minus 10 or something like that. He learned stuff. He also openly says concerning the events of the Second Coming, "No one knows about that day or hour. Not even the angels in heaven nor the son, but only the father." Wow. So the most natural way to read this is this among the things that Jesus didn't know and had to learn was who had touched him. Then what happened? The power of almighty God went through Jesus to this woman. It's incredible. Then Jesus stands and begins this inquiry. Put yourself in the disciples place. Jesus is getting crushed, He can't breathe, and He just stops, and He's like, "Wait a minute. Who touched me?" This is an interesting moment. Do you not imagine his disciples? They don't want to say it, but it's like, "What a dumb question." They are thinking disparaging thoughts of Jesus, they did it many times. Five minutes later however, after the encounter happened, it's like, "Oh, something did happen." But initially, just initially it's a cautionary tale for all of us, don't ever question Jesus. He always knows what he's doing, always. Never doubt him. Never think low thoughts of him. There was a kind of touch that Jesus had experienced. Unlike all the jostling random crushing actions that was going on, this was different. He said, "Power went through me." As if in our 21st century understanding, He was an electric cable and electric power went through him or some kind of conduit.

Now, we've been saying again and again, that all of Jesus' miracles were done only at the will of his Father. He did nothing apart from the will of his Father. He was never on his own thinking of something. He was always in response to what the Father wanted him to do. He sent him out to do the works of the Father. We also have said that Jesus did not do any miracles except from the power of the Spirit. It says in Acts 10:38, "God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the holy spirit and power and how he went around doing good and healing, all who are under the power of the devil, because God was with him by the power of the spirit were all the miracles done." Why would half of them be done by the spirit?

Does Jesus says to the Spirit, “You can take the day off. I've got this day, but come back on Wednesday, I'll need you then.” It's ludicrous. He always did his miracles at the leading of the Father by the power of the Spirit. This time, however, He didn't know. It didn't pass through his conscious awareness. So we have this inquiry and this encounter. So why does He do it? Why does He stop and say, "Who touched me?" That's a powerful question, isn't it? And the answer to me is clear. He wanted a face to face encounter with this woman. I don't mean to disparage her, but she seems a little bit like a miracle shoplifter. I can understand it, but it seemed like a smash and grab job here; come and get the miracle and go. She wants out. She does not want any interaction. She's had all that. The doctors, all that. She doesn't want that, she just wants to get well and be gone. But Jesus wanted a relationship with her. She came up behind him.

What does He do physically? Turns around and says, "Who touched me," right? He wanted face to face with her. He did not come merely to dispense power, healings. He could have done that from heaven. He came to reconcile us to God that we would have an intimate, close friendship with God.Look at the text, 32-34, Jesus has kept looking around to see who had done it. After his disciples said, "What are you talking about? You see all the people crushing it," Jesus kept looking to see who had done it. Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet, and trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has healed. You go in peace and be freed from your suffering." The woman did not want this at all. But I would say, don't you think when she looked back on this day the rest of her life, the best part was this encounter, and not the healing. The look on his face, the tenderness with which He spoke to her. The way He called her daughter. The text doesn't say, but I picture him lifting her up to her feet, face to face. He wants that interaction with her and He called her daughter. And it doesn't just say... In one translation, your faith has healed you. But the word is the Greek word for “saved.” Your faith has saved you. The healing's temporary. We're going to die. Our bodies are going to mold in the grave.

All of the healings are temporary, they're all temporary. But this saving work, now that's eternal, and that's what He wanted. So he calls her daughter. I love John 1:12, it says, "As many has received him to those who believed in his name. He gave the right to become whatchildren of God." We are healed for a personal relationship with Jesus. Sin has estranged us from God. Jesus came to bring about that reconciliation, aright relationship with God. That means an intimate, personal relationship with a loving, tender God, and with Christ who died for us individually. In Galatians 2:20 Paul says that the son of God loved me and gave himself from me personalized. At one time, we were enemies, but now beloved children of God. And he knows us intimately, Isaiah 43:1, "Fear not, for I've redeemed you. I've summoned you by name, you are mine." Think about that. The intimacy that I've summoned you by name, you are mine. John 10:03, "He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out."

So do you know that intimate love? Do you know the closeness that Jesus wants with you? Have you felt yourself, a weak defiled, polluted sinner who Jesus came to die for, and that he did die for. He shed his blood so that we might have eternal life. Do you know that? Do you have that sense of intimacy? Do you know that your sins are forgiven by him? Next week, God willing, we will have the chance to finish the miracle concerning the raising of Jairus’ daughter from the dead.

 Now we have a chance to celebrate the Lord's supper. I'm going to close our preaching time and prayer. And as I do, I want you to consider that what's going on with the Lord's Supper is a for-taste of a heavenly banquet that we're going to actually sit, God and man at table. We're going to sit down and feast with God at the table. And this Lord supper is a for-taste of that. Now, we would ask, this is for believers who have testified to their faith in Christ, by repentance and faith and by water baptism. If you've not, we ask that you refrain, but if you have welcome and come to the feast. Let's close in prayer.

Father, thank you for the ministry of the word, for the things that we've learned from Mark's Gospel. Thank you for the intimacy you seek with each one of us. Thank you, Lord Jesus for your incredible power, but also for your tenderness and compassion and your love. We thank you for all of these things, and we pray in Jesus name. Amen.