Welcome to The Edge Church Online. My name is Steven Van Denend and I'm one of the pastors here. No matter who you are or where in the world you are joining us from we’re really glad to have you virtually gathering with us today. Really quick. I just want to say to my Edge Church fam, Hey fam, miss all of you. I miss being with you in person. I miss gathering together on a Sunday morning and I'm hoping that day is coming sometime soon. But I want to just tell you that in the meantime I'm praying for you. I really hope that you're well. I hope that your family is doing well. I hope that you are growing and thriving even in the midst of this season and that somehow by God's grace you're finding some new rhythms for you and your family that are good and fruitful. I'm also just praying and hoping that you're experiencing the Lord in this season.
I'm hoping and I'm praying that there are some things about God that you are learning, that you are growing in your relationship with him as God is working all things together for our good and for his glory. This morning we are going to continue on in our series that we're calling Faith Over Fear. We are just looking at stories of faith from God's word and hopefully like these stories, allowing God to build up our faith in him as we walk through the challenge of this COVID season and all the different worries, anxieties, fears, and uncertainties that it brings with it. I would encourage you today, grab your Bible, a pen, and just take some notes, jot some things down that God has for you.
Hold onto that so you can go back and be reminded of God's word to you. Before we jump into the message, I want to take a minute to just pray for us and just invite the Lord to speak through his word. So if you guys would join with me, let's just pray.
Father, thanks for today. God, thank you for this time that we can share together. Lord, thank you for your love and your goodness and your grace and your faithfulness. God, we sang about it this morning. Lord, you are good. You are faithful. God, you never fail us or let us down. God, I thank you for every single person who's watching this morning. God, I thank you that God you are with each and every one of us. God, I thank you that as we open up your word, God, Lord, that you are present, that you speak God, I pray that you would open our ears this morning to hear from you, Father, that you would open up our hearts to just receive of you. That we could receive your word to us, that God you would teach us and we would listen and God, that we might be transformed and changed by you today. So let me just invite you to come and have your way in this time. Come and have your way in your word, in Jesus' name, amen.
If you have your Bible or a Bible app on your phone, I invite you to open it up to Mark 5 and we're going to look at a story here in verses 21 through 42. It's two stories that have been woven together to help us get a bigger picture of Jesus and to stir up our faith in him. Let's read this together. I'm just going to read this whole section and then we'll talk about it from there.
So Mark 5:2-42 here's what it says:,
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 leaders, named Jairus, came, and when he saw Jesus, he fell at his feet. He pleaded earnestly with him, “My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live.” So Jesus went with him.
A large crowd followed and pressed around him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. 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. 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.” Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.
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, “and 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.”
While Jesus was still speaking, some people came from the house of Jairus, the synagogue leader. “Your daughter is dead,” they said. “Why bother the teacher anymore?”
Overhearing[a] what they said, Jesus told him, “Don’t be afraid; just believe.”
He did not let anyone follow him except Peter, James and John the brother of James. When they came to the home of the synagogue leader, Jesus saw a commotion, with people crying and wailing loudly. He went in and said to them, “Why all this commotion and wailing? The child is not dead but asleep.” But they laughed at him.
After he put them all out, he took the child’s father and mother and the disciples who were with him, and went in where the child was. He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha koum!” (which means “Little girl, I say to you, get up!”). Immediately the girl stood up and began to walk around (she was twelve years old). At this they were completely astonished.
Now I don't know about you, but that seems to me to be an appropriate response to what they had just witnessed. I'm not really sure how else you would respond to such a miracle, such a display of God, and the reality is that for us as the reader and the hearer of this story, that it is meant to lead us to a place of awe and astonishment of Jesus as well. We are meant to look at this story and sit back and say, wow, Jesus, you are amazing. Look at how powerful, loving, good, and compassionate God is. Truthfully, even as we just look at the brevity, the grandness of this story, there is so much that we could unpack there. There are a number of different principles there. A number of different themes and this great picture of salvation and the gospel.
For the sake of our time together today I want to walk through the story a little bit and highlight a few things for you that I'm hoping just minister to you and encourage you in your faith in Jesus. I want to just start with our characters here because the story tells us about two characters. The first is this man named Jairus that we're introduced to, who as verse 22 tells us is this leader in the synagogue, which is to say that he is a person with a position. He is a person of status, a person who has influence, a person with resources. On the other hand, our other character is this woman whose name we don't even know. The only thing we know about her is her condition. Verse 25 tells us that she's had for 12 years this condition of bleeding.
What this means for her according to the Levitical law is that she would be found to be unclean. Anything and everything she touches is also unclean, which would leave her isolated and alone. Verse 26 also tells us that she spent all the money that she had trying to be made well. So not only is she a social outcast, but she is also impoverished. So we have two very different characters, on opposite ends of the social and financial spectrum. Yet, what we see with Jesus is that Jesus receives each of them and ministers to both of them. Here's the first thing I want to just give to you to take this morning and it's by faith anyone can have access to Jesus.
You'll notice here that Jesus does not rebuke Jairus for his wealth or his social standing. And on the flip side, he doesn't ignore the woman because of her lowly position and her condition, he simply responds to their faith. Everyone and anyone can come to Jesus, demographics don't matter to God. You can be rich or poor. You can be popular or an outcast. You can be male, female, healthy, sick, young or old, black, white, or purple and none of those things mattered to Jesus. What matters to God is faith in him that you come to him believing in who he is in trusting in him.
Ephesians 3:12 says this,
In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence.
What gave Jairus and this woman access to Jesus? What caused Jesus to move in response to them was faith. Now let's keep digging here because something else that we see in this story is that both Jairus and this woman came to Jesus because of their struggles. Their situation has led them to pursue Jesus. Jairus comes to Jesus looking for him to do something on behalf of another, on behalf of his daughter who is dying. Whereas, the woman comes to Jesus for herself because of her own physical suffering and condition. Once again, what this story is doing is it's casting a wide net for us that we might be able to identify ourselves with one of these characters. And for some of us then we might identify with this woman where we would say, look, I have a need. I have this struggle. I have this suffering or this hardship that is my own that I am personally going through and dealing with and for others maybe we find ourselves more like Jairus.
Where our greatest struggle at this moment is not something that I, myself am experiencing, but something that I'm caring for. Another loved one who is suffering or hurting in some kind of way. That's the great burden of your heart and no matter which one you identify with here's what we're to see that your struggle is meant to actually be a signpost that points you to Jesus. Your struggle is meant to be a signpost that points you to Jesus. Remember here that it was their situation because of their hardship that they pursued Jesus.
I love how in verse 26 it even tells us that for the woman that she had suffered greatly under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had and yet instead of getting better, she grew worse because what this says to us is look, she did all the right things. She talked to all the “right people.” She did the thing she was supposed to do. She used all the resources she had to make her situation better. But instead of things getting better, things only got worse.
So some of you have experienced something similar where it seemed like the harder you tried to make your situation better, it only ended up getting worse. You talked to the right people, you read all the right books, you watched all the right videos, you went and saw those doctors or you went to that counselor or you attended that seminar or conference or whatever. And none of it in the end really seemed to make any difference. Maybe even it got worse rather than got better. And the answer here, what scripture’s doling out for us, is that the answer isn’t necessarily to try harder.
The answer is to come to Jesus.
C. S. Lewis famously said “Pain is God’s megaphone to a deaf world.” Pain reminds us that we are not God, we are not in control, that contrary to cultural belief that we are not the captain of our own ship and master of our own destiny. But instead there are so many things in this life that we cannot manage, that we cannot make happen, that we cannot fix. And the answer isn’t ultimately found in ourselves, and it’s not ultimately found in other people, but in Jesus. We need God.
King David said in Psalm 121:1-2 he said,
I lift up my eyes to the mountains—
where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord,
the Maker of heaven and earth.
Struggles are meant to point us upward so that we will look to God and reach out to him in faith because he is where our help truly comes from.
I want us to look at our characters individually for a little bit and grab hold of a few things that they help teach us. I want to start with this woman where in verse 24 it says that a large crowd followed and pressed against him talking about Jesus and a woman who had been there was subject to bleeding for 12 years and had suffered greatly as we just said. But listen to this in verse 27 it says, but 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. There are two things that I want us to grab hold of here from this woman's account and the first one is this, that hearing about Jesus stirs up faith in him.
Hearing about Jesus stirs up faith in him. It says that she heard about Jesus, she heard about him. Romans 10:17 says
Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ.
If you want to have a faith that is stirred up in your life and in the life of others, talk about Jesus. Now there are two ways that we can do this.
The first is simply to share his word. The first is simply to open up the scriptures and let the scripture, let the word of God speak for itself. The Bible says about itself, that the word of God is living and active. That the word of God always accomplishes its purpose. We shouldn't be afraid of God's word. We shouldn't be afraid to share God's word. We shouldn't be afraid of letting God's word speak for itself. So I encourage you, read God's word. Let's be people who read God's word. Let's be people who meditate upon the word of God. And let's be a people who share the word of God and share God's word. Text it to someone. Post about the word of God. You'd be amazed at how God will take his own words to bless and minister to other people and to minister to your own soul.
Here's the second way though, and that's simply this. Share your testimony. Tell God stories. Talk about the times where God has shown up in your life. Talk about the times where God came through, the times where God ministered to you, the times where God answered prayer, the times where God opened doors for you. This woman had heard about the works of Jesus from the testimony of others and it stirred in her a faith to come to him.
Testimony is powerful and the story that God has given. These God stories are not just stories for you to have for you, but stories for you to tell for the sake of others, for the building up of faith in Jesus. So talk about Jesus. Man, of all the things that we could talk about, and I spend a little bit of time online, but I try to stay off social media a little bit because honestly I just don't find it that encouraging. But I'll tell you what does encourage me: the words of God. I'll tell you what does breathe life to my soul: God's word. And we are people of the word of God. And so we, brothers and sisters in Christ, we have a great opportunity to share God's word and to share God's stories. Let’s be about that.
The second lead that, the other thing that I want to point out here is that the woman didn't just hear about Jesus, but that she responded to what she heard with action. She went then and touched Jesus. And so the second thing I want to just say about this is that faith requires action. It's not enough to simply hear and not respond. If hearing ultimately doesn't lead you and move you into action, then it isn't ultimately faith. It's just information. James 1:22-25 says it
Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it-not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.
Here is the one who by faith acts and who takes God according to his word and does what he says. The woman heard that Jesus healed. She heard he was a healer and by faith she acted upon that word and reached out to touch him and she received that blessing. Look at what it says. Starting in verse 29 says, immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt it in her body and was freed from her suffering. At once, Jesus realized that power had gone out from him and turned around in the crowd to ask who touched me? You see the people crowding against you, his disciples said, and yet you asked who touched me? But Jesus kept looking to see and the woman knew what happened. So she came and fell at his feet and trembled with fear and told him the whole truth. And Jesus said to her, listen to this.
He said, Daughter, your faith has healed you. Not your touch has healed you, but your faith has healed you. Go in peace then, Jesus says, and be freed from your suffering. Jesus here is in a crowd and there's a whole lot of people who are pressed against him. His disciples are like, how could you even ask this question about who touched you? Look at all these people touching you. Look at all these people buffering up against you. But the reality was that though there were a whole lot of people who were touching upon Jesus, there was only one that he touched, that there was only one that received Jesus touching for them and it was the one who reached out to him by faith. That is the one who received the blessing and not only physically, look at this, I love this because, because this woman was already healed physically after touching Jesus, but Jesus still had more for her.
And so Jesus wasn't asking cause he wasn't sure, Jesus was asking because he wanted more for her. She comes to Jesus and she's honest with Jesus and Jesus speaks these beautiful words of identity over this woman. And he calls her daughter and he doesn't just minister to her identity. He ministers to her soul and he says, look, go in my peace. Go and be free from your suffering. That word for healing is this word wholeness, that Jesus is like, look, your faith has made you whole and the heart of God for all of us. It's not just that we'd be free from suffering. It's not just that maybe you, you're healthy or you're doing it, but the heart of God is that you would be made whole in him. Jesus ministers to every part of us. And I love that about him. If you'll reach out to Jesus in faith then Jesus will come and do a whole work in you.
Let's turn and just look at Jairus. Now as we kind of wrap up, I want to just close with sort of one big takeaway from his story, because remember that all of this begins with Jairus and Jairus comes to Jesus on behalf of his daughter who isn't dead yet, but she's dying. And so Jesus says, yes, I'll go with you. Yes, let's go. Let me go and address this concern. Let me go and address this crisis. Jesus is on his way when he comes into contact with this woman. This whole thing gets delayed. Jairus was looking for Jesus to come and to come quickly. But Jesus gets delayed and Jesus is spending time ministering to this woman.
And in the process of that, before he’d even finished, verse 35 tells us this and says, While Jesus was still speaking, some people came from the house of Jairus, the synagogue leader. Your daughter is dead, they said, why bother the teacher anymore? Think about that just for a minute. Think about how Jairus came to Jesus, with critical needs. Jairus came to him in desperation, but he came to him still with hope yet because his daughter was still alive. And Jesus was on his way to minister to her. But then Jesus gets delayed and before he can even get to the little girl, Jairus receives a word already that his daughter hasn't made it, that she has died. Now there is no point according to his friends to continue bothering Jesus. It's over now. It's a hopeless situation. It's too late now for anything more to be done.
I wonder for some of us who are watching if we can't relate to this, where for some time you were holding out hope for something to happen, for something to change, for something to be healed and restored, and you've asked God, but nothing seems to be happening and you've felt defeated in the delay.
Some of you have been praying for that person, that loved one of your life to experience God and come to faith in Jesus, and it seems like the harder you pray, the further away that they get.
Some of you have been praying for God to mend broken relationships with a spouse or with your children or with a family member or a friend. But, it seems like the divide just continues to get wider and wider.
Some of you've been praying for healing in your own life or in the life of someone you love for years. You've been praying for that diagnosis. You've been praying for that breakthrough, you've been praying for that addiction and still, nothing has happened.
Maybe you're a single person this morning and you've been faithfully serving Jesus and you've been asking the Lord for a spouse, and that's a good thing, but instead it seems to be happening for everyone else but you.
Maybe you're watching this morning and you've been praying as a couple for God to give you a healthy pregnancy and to give you a baby. And it seems like you're just happened to be surrounded by all these couples who just sneezed on each other and they're pregnant, and except for you that doesn't happen. For you, it's not working for you. It's been months and years and you feel defeated in that delay.
Maybe you've had a dream or a calling that you were sure that God had upon your life, but nothing seems to be moving. In fact, it seems like that dream and that vision, and that call just gets further and further away.
Some of you this morning, you feel like maybe Jairus did and you're just in this hopeless situation and you're defeated by this delay, but perhaps let me say to you, Jesus isn't done yet, but perhaps something for you to grab hold of is that God's delays are not God's denials, that just because something hasn't happened yet doesn't mean that something isn't yet going to happen or that God isn't in it or that God doesn't care that God isn't at work, that God is at work.
God is at work for your good. God is at work for his glory and God is always right on time and it might just be that God has something more for you to encounter even in that delay and more of his glory to be revealed as a result of it than you had ever realized before. If you're in that place this morning where you just feel defeated in the delay, where it's just too late for you, now I want you to just to listen to the words of Jesus to Jairus here in verse 36 and receive them also for yourself. And here's what it says, verse 36. Overhearing what they said, Jesus told him, don't be afraid. Just believe. Don't be afraid, just believe. Just have faith. Just trust me in all of it till the end of it and look what happens. It tells us that Jesus shows up and he kicks all the people out who are just there crying and mourning and doubting and mocking and he only lets Peter and James and John and the girl's parents into the room where she is.
I'll just say this. Listen, if you're going to walk by faith, you want some people around you who are also faith-filled people. Okay? So if you're going through something like you don't need a whole bunch of people around you who are mocking you for your faith. You don't need a whole bunch of people who are telling you about how you're crazy for trusting in God. What you need is some faith-filled people who are contending with you for the things of God. So having faith-filled people is an awesome encouragement to our faith. And so Jesus takes them with him. And in verse 40 it says this after he put them all out, he took the child's father and mother and the disciples who were with him and Winton where the child was, he took her by the hand and said to her, to “Talitha koum!” (which means “Little girl, I say to you, get up!”)
And immediately the girl stood up and began to walk around. She was 12 and at this, they were completely astonished. And here's my last big takeaway for you this morning and it's simply this, that faith has no impossible. Jairus came to Jesus believing God, believing that it was possible for him to heal his daughter because at this moment in time, she's not dead. She's just dying. It's a critical situation, but there's still a little bit of hope left. She still had life and breath in her lungs and so he is in a hurry for Jesus to do something but then becomes to him the word that she is dead and now it is too late. It's no longer possible for something to happen, but what Jairus found out and maybe what God is wanting to teach some of us is that when it comes to Jesus, there is nothing called impossible.
Jesus said in Luke 18:27
Jesus replied, “What is impossible with man is possible with God.”
I want to read that again. What is impossible with man, what is impossible with you and me, is possible with God. There is nothing that is too big. Nothing that is too hard. Nothing that is too broken, too later, too far gone for Jesus. No matter what impossible you are facing or dealing with in your life right now, it is possible for Jesus. And the invitation of God to you this morning, just like Jairus, is this. It's don't be afraid, only believe. Don't be afraid, only believe, trust in God. Even now that God is the God who can restore what is dead and bring it back to life, nothing is impossible for him.
Here's what I want to do. I want to just pray for you this morning. I want to just pray and ask God to minister to you. I want to pray and just ask that God will reveal to you even right now, give you a bigger revelation of who he is and that God would just give you a bold faith to trust him and whatever you're facing today and whatever you're going through. I also want to just invite you to pray. I want to invite you to pray and just to bring whatever it is that you have to Jesus because it isn't too much for him. And so if you're here and you're watching and you're like, man, I identify with the woman in this story and I just have this need in my life. I have this thing I'm going through, I'm dealing with, maybe it's a physical thing, an emotional thing, a mental thing, a relational thing, a financial thing in your life. I need God to move on my behalf.
Bring that to the Lord. Just offer that up to God. Say, God, I need you to move. I trust you in this. And maybe others of you are like Jairus this morning and you're like, man, I am just, I got this loved one, my wife, my husband, my kid, my parents, my whoever that might be. And man, I just, God, there is a breakthrough that needs to happen for them. And so God, I'm lifting them up to you and I'm bringing them to you. God, would you just move in their life and we're just going to pray and ask God and believe God, and if you're here this morning watching and you're in that delay and you're just like, man, I feel like, for me, I'm in this delay where I've been asking and nothing's happened.
I just want to invite you to trust God again, to believe God for what he can still yet do. Let's pray.
Father, I thank you for this morning. I thank you for this time. God, I thank you for your word to us, which is true. God, I thank you that Lord, nothing is impossible for you and God, I pray that for every single person who's watching right now, God, I pray that in Your grace, by your love and your mercy, Lord, that you would grant to every single person a bigger and greater revelation of who you are, of your love for them, God, that they would just get a bigger picture of you, Jesus and just how good and powerful and true that you are and God, I pray that you would just infuse in every person a great a boldness, a great faith, God to trust you in everything and in anything and God, I pray for the person who's dealing with things personally.
I pray for the person, God who is feeling like they're in the delay and God, I pray for the person, Lord, who is carrying a burden for another this morning. Lord, I pray that you would minister hope and grace and peace and healing and wholeness in every situation. Would you just take a minute even as we're praying just to offer up to the Lord whatever it is that you're carrying this morning, would you just give that to the Lord? Just name that and just tell him, God, I give you this. Just invite him into that situation. Lord, would you just come and minister in this place? Lord, would you come and do this work and just tell him, God, I trust you, but I, I trust you. God. Nothing is impossible for you and Lord, I trust you. Lord, build up my faith to believe you for everything.
God, you're good or we can trust you. Thank you for your faithfulness to us. Thank you that you are a God who is powerful and active. Lord, thank you that your word tells us that the prayers of your people are powerful and effective, not because of who we are, but because of who you are, God or common move in every situation, in every heart, in every life. Have your way in Jesus’ name. Amen.