The Church of Eleven22 - Saturated 2022 - Thursday: Pastor Clayton King

Episode Date: September 15, 2022

tell you, I've been preaching, you have a seat, I've been preaching 35 years. I have never had an introduction like that before. Your worship team, Pastor Jobi, is either filled with the creativity, the Holy Spirit, or they were smoking weed when they made that. And I know it was the Holy Ghost. I know it was the Holy Ghost. I am dumbfounded. I cannot believe that. Thank you. whoever came up with that, you deserve a raise. Wow. Man, thank you guys and thank you ladies so much for having me tonight. Before I get started, it's just part of my culture and part of who I am.

I just want to say to not only my cousin, but my friend, Pastor Jobi and Gretchen, the Bible says that those who teach and lead us are worthy of double honor. That's from the New Testament. And I just want to tell you, I'm going to say this directly to you in front of your people. when my mom and dad died, my parents had adopted me, I felt like an orphan at 39 years old. And when I found my biological family a few years ago, that was one of the most amazing experiences in my life. But I think the greatest gift that God gave me throughout that entire process of finding my biological family was to find out that I wasn't the only one

from the Martin line that God had called to be saved, to know Jesus, and to preach the gospel. and in the little bit of time that we've had to spend together in person and the time that we spend on the phone, I just want to tell you, I really respect you. I love you as my cousin, as my friend, as a family member, but I have a tremendous amount of respect for you, Jovey Martin, and I'm glad that we're related. And Gretchen, it's also great to finally meet you. I have prayed for you. I've prayed for your family. I've prayed for God to protect your marriage. And I just wanted to have a moment to tell you both how thankful I am for your faithfulness to Jesus Christ and to the gospel. And before y'all clap, wait, wait, I've done this. a long time, a long time. You have a very rare gift in this shepherd that God has called to

pastor your church. Pray for him, support him, and the greatest thing you can do for Pastor Jobi is to live your life for the glory of Jesus Christ and to live your life sold out to the Lordship of Christ. I thank God for you both. I got a little emotional there. I do live in the great state of South Carolina. I was born in Charleston. Just found that out when I found my biological family. And fun story, I was here in this room right here at this campus, the night that it opened, the grand opening, was the first time I got to meet my cousin and your pastor. And I was here also for one weekend this past March preaching for the students. And I'll be back this coming March to preach again for one weekend. And I'm bringing my 20-year-old son,

Jacob, with me. God's also called him to preach. He's a, an evangelist who is in college now. I'm married to my lovely wife Shari. Today is actually our wedding anniversary. We've been married, yeah. That's how much I love y'all. It's how much I love y'all. I could be home having sex with my wife, but no, I'm here. So much I love y'all. Today actually, so today, it is our anniversary. Today is our 23-year, five-month, and 12-day anniversary. today. And I've got two boys. Jacob is 20. Joe Joe is 17. They both love Jesus. They love their mama. They love sports. They love the Clemson Tigers because we're a South Carolina family. But now listen, don't be booing me. Don't be booing me because this is Florida. Sometimes y'all

got stuff to brag about when it comes to sports, and sometimes you don't need to keep your mouth shut. Like it just depends on the year. So to prepare for coming down, I posted a picture today on Instagram of me and Pastor Jobi and asked people to pray for me and a buddy of mine texted me and he goes, hey, if you've not tried this before, Google Florida man and your birthday, Clayton, and just see what comes up. So I googled, this is a fun game, y'all. I got stuck on this. Florida is crazy and y'all know it. That's the thing. You know I'm telling the truth. I Googled Florida man and my birthday, and the article that popped up was Florida man stabs his wife for an undercooked baked potato. Welcome to Florida. Hey, it's an honor for me to preach. I've got

my Bible tonight. I want to go ahead and dive in. If you brought your Bible, get it out. I'm going to be preaching to you, and we're going to be looking in Mark Chapter 5, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Mark Chapter 5, it's one of my favorite Gospels. It's the Action Gospel. Scholars believe that Mark was the first of the four Gospels written and that the other three Gospels, specifically Matthew and Luke, follow the chronology of Mark's gospel. I love this passage of scripture. And when Pastor Jobi invited me to come and preach it saturated,

I began to pray, and I began to ask the Lord, like, what do you want me to preach on? This is one of my favorite texts in the whole Bible. So if you have a Bible, you can look along, if not follow along on the screens. My goal tonight, I just want to honor the Lord. But I want to do more than just honor the Lord. I want to honor the Lord by proclaiming the gospel. I want to proclaim it as the scripture tells it.

I want to make Jesus the star. I want to lift him up because the promise of John 1232 from Jesus himself, the promise of scripture is, Jesus said, if I will be lifted up, I will draw all people to myself. Y'all, I've learned this over the years. We don't have to try to manipulate the presence of God. We don't have to beg for it. We don't have to plead for it.

We just got to put Jesus in his proper place, acknowledging he is king of kings, Lord of Lord's, resurrected son of the living God, and there is no bigger deal in the universe than Jesus. If we do that, Jesus breaks down walls. He melts cold hearts. He draws people to repentance and salvation. And my goal tonight is to lift up Jesus along with you as we worship him by basking in his glory, by looking at his beauty.

But this particular passage of scripture is special. I'm going to tell you how it became so special to me. Pastor Jobi told you, one of the things I do in ministry is I'm a writer. I love to write. and my 17th book, Reborn, I was working on the book, and the book was really inspired by this story. It's a story if you grew up going to church, you may have heard this in Sunday school. I grew up going to church. I grew up in actually three church traditions.

My parents had adopted me, they were Southern Baptist. Just curious, any Southern Baptists in any of our campuses tonight? My grandfather was Pentecostal. Just curious, any Pentecostals here at 11-22? You'll know us because we're the ones with tambourines and we're the ones running laps. My grandfather's Pentecostal and I went to a Presbyterian Christian school. So let me run that back by you just one more time. I'll back it up and say that again. Parents for Southern Baptist, grandpa was Pentecostal, went to a Presbyterian Christian school.

Christian school. I was so jacked up. You know what that means, right? It means I was predestined to speak in tongues while eating fried chicken and drinking wine at a deacon's meeting. Come on, y'all. You know that's funny. You know that's funny. I don't care who you are. So I grew up, going to Sunday school, I went to Christian school. My daddy was a deacon. My mom sang in the choir. A little small farming community in South Carolina called Fountain Inn. That's where I grew up. And I, I knew about Jesus in my head, but I did not know Jesus in my heart. Big, big difference. Big, big difference.

And I'd heard this story so many times. Well, I got saved as an eighth grader. And the night that I got saved, God also called me to preach. Never wanted to be a preacher. No preachers in my family. My dad just had a high school education, blue collar, country is cornbread kind of family. Never wanted to be a preacher, but God called me to preach that night. So I started reading the Gospels.

in a different light. I started realizing, man, these are real people who are meeting Jesus. And everybody is messed up. Everybody's sinful. Everybody has a need. Everybody's broken. And so this woman in her story in Mark Chapter 5 was one of the first stories I remember reading after I got saved. And so I'm working on this book called Reborn about 12 people who met Jesus in the Gospels. This was the first chapter I started. It was also the last chapter I finished because God just would not let me go about this story. So when I read this to you, whether you're a man or a woman, whether you were raised in church, or you just got saved last night when Tim Tebow preached, we can all find ourselves in this story relating to this woman because this was a woman

who had to fight to have any kind of closeness to Jesus. So if you take notes, the type of of the message is pretty simple. Faith to keep fighting. Faith to keep fighting. Here's a woman who really had to fight to get close to Jesus. Mark chapter 5 beginning in verse 25. Now a woman suffering from bleeding for 12 years. Let's stop right there. 12 years. It's a long time. remember your first day of first grade. Just think back if you're old enough to remember first grade. Now, fast forward to the day you graduated from high school. That's 12 years.

That's a stretch. This woman had been sick for 12 years. So let that set the tone for this story. And the kind of woman that Jesus is about to meet. She had been sick for 12 years bleeding. Now, when Mark tells us that she was bleeding, I want to let you know that this was a big deal in Jewish culture. If you go back and read the book of Leviticus, there are rules on top of rules and laws on top of laws and expectations on top of more rules. And one of the primary rules was that if a person was bleeding, specifically a woman, they had to leave the camp.

They could not be around other people because for the Jews, being clean was everything. That's why they had to eat a certain diet. They had to abstain from certain kinds of food. These were laws that God gave the Israelites, and then Jesus would one day come and fulfill the law by living a perfect, sinless life, by keeping every law that we had all broken, by never missing the mark not even once. And when he died on the cross, he not just died for you, he died as you. Jesus didn't just die for Clayton King.

He died as Clayton King. I should have been on that cross. I deserve to die. I deserve damnation. I deserve the judgment and the wrath of God. But God who is rich in mercy, stepped in with a plan. Because the Lamb of God, his son Jesus Christ, was slain from the foundations of the world. God was not surprised when you messed up in high school.

God was not surprised when you had an affair. God was not surprised when I lost my temper and I swore at the top of my lungs at someone I was angry with. God was not taken aback when that abortion took place. Or when that one night stand happened on a business trip. or when that one drink turned into five and you got drunk and did something you still regret. God has never once been surprised by our sin and brokenness, ever. He has already made provision for it in Jesus Christ's crucifixion and resurrection from the dead. So, this woman was unclean.

She had not only been bleeding, but for 12 years. Leviticus said that she was an outcast. Leviticus would say that this woman, for whatever had caused her bleeding, could not be part of the community. Now look at the next verse, verse 26. It says that this woman had endured much under many doctors. She spent everything she had and was not helped at all. On the contrary, she became worse. having heard about Jesus. I want to pause right there for a second. I want to point this out.

This woman had not yet met Jesus. She'd only heard about Jesus. And in all seven campuses tonight, plus right here in this room, I know because this is the deep south, y'all, everybody has heard about Jesus in the deep south. As a matter of fact, in the deep south. And I am as southern as southern can be. I like my tea sweet. I like my biscuits with gravy on top. I like vitamin D, whole milk.

And if you're one of those weirdos that drink skim milk, drink all you want. You might live longer, but you're going to die in misery. I will enjoy my life until Jesus calls me home. In the South, everybody thinks they're a Christian. You drive a truck, you're a Christian. You vote Republican, you're a Christian. You're a Christian. You eat meat, pro-Christian. Kill deer. I'm a Christian. Like everybody think, Grandma was a Christian, Paul Paul was a Christian, and a lot of people who have just heard about Jesus, they think they're just hearing about Jesus is what saves them. But this is the difference in hearing about Jesus and actually experiencing the grace of God for yourself. She heard about Jesus, but she knew that wasn't enough. She had to go get her some. She wanted not just a miracle, she was waiting on a Messiah. We'll see that in a minute. So she hears that Jesus is coming to her town, because this is early in his ministry,

and he's going to villages, and he is proclaiming the kingdom of God, and he's healing sick people, and he's casting out demons. Mark of all four gospels puts Jesus on a collision course with demons. You see that the devil is real. And, hey, by the way, if you don't believe the devil is real, that's exactly what he wants you to think. The most effective enemy is the one you don't see coming. And if you don't believe Satan is real, he has already devised a plan to eat your lunch and ruin your life. John 1010 says he's a thief and he came to steal, kill, and destroy.

So when this woman, like all the other people in Mark's gospel, hears that Jesus is coming. She's heard the rumors and the stories of all the other miracles he's already performed. So she just says to herself, I'm going. Having heard about Jesus. Verse 27. She came up behind him in the crowd. and touched his clothing. Now I'm going to pause right there for a second.

I noticed in this room, from what I can tell, all of you wore clothing to saturated tonight. Thank you. Thank you for doing that. You just never know, but thank you. Thank you for doing that. We all thank God for that decision, right? Our English word clothing is, of course, it's English,

but the word in Hebrew was not clothing. Now there are two words that are used here. This is really important for this message. Okay? There are two words used here. The first is a Hebrew word Knaff. K-A-N-A-P-H, Knav. Knav.

Let me tell what a Knav was, and still is. In four weeks, four and a half weeks, my wife and I will be leading another trip to Israel. It'll be my 10th trip. You can still see people wearing Knoffs in Israel now and in other parts of the world as well. It's basically like an overcoat. Think about a blanof.

square blanket with a hole cut out for the head and you place it over the top of your head and it has four corners and it hangs over your other clothing. It is something to keep you warm. That's a kanaf. From the bottom of those four corners of the kanaf hung four tassels. And those tassels are mentioned in numbers 15. And they're called zit-zit. That's what they were called. And those tassels were symbolic. They were often blue and white or purple and white, and they were symbolic of God's covenant to the people of Israel, God's promises. They were a reminder of who God was and that God had made a promise to have a people for himself, for his own purposes, for his own glory, that one day a Messiah would be born from those people and he would save their people from their sins. He would be

their God, we would be his people. And those four tassels would hang from the four corners. And if you go to Jerusalem right now, you will see men walking around Jerusalem from the conservative or Orthodox Jewish tradition, and they will still have those zit-zits, those tassels hanging from their corners. So the woman, let's get back to the story, the woman comes up behind Jesus in the crowd. There are dozens of people, maybe hundreds, there could have been a thousand people, and they're all surrounding Jesus, and she says to herself, if I can just, and the English says touch is clothing, but the Hebrew literally says,

says, if I can just grab a corner of his garment, if I can just take a tassel in my hand, I will be healed. This is so important to the story. That's why I love this story so much. For she said, again, verse 28, if I just touch his clothes, I'll be made well. Instantly, I told you, Mark is the action gospel. He doesn't mess around. He gets down to business. instantly her flow of blood ceased. And she sensed in her body that she was healed of her affliction. At once, I'm telling you, I love Mark. At once, Jesus is not playing around.

She gets healed, immediately she knows that something's different. And then Jesus at once realizing himself that power had gone out from him. So he turned around in the crowd and he said, I love this question. Who touched my clothes? In other words, somebody grabbed the corner of my outer garment who did it. Now 1122, hear me saturated. When Jesus asks a question, it's not because he does not know the answer. Y'all realize that, right?

Like Jesus knows everything. Everything. He knows what you did last summer. He knows what the hokey pokey is all about. Hey, try to tell Jesus a knock-knock joke sometime. Just try it. Like, think up a joke for heaven. Like, rehearse it.

Dear Jesus, hey, Jesus, yes, my child. I've got a knock-knock joke for you. Go for it. Knock, knock. And Jesus is like, I know. I know who's there. He's omnipotent. He's omniscient.

He's omnipresent. Jesus knows everything. It's one of the most amazing things about the gospel. That Jesus knows every hideous, horrible, terrible, sinful, wicked, deplorable thing I have ever done. And he still loves me. Can I get a little more personal for you? It's not just the things I do because, look, I've been in ministry 35 years. I'll be 50 in November. It's not just the things I do that Jesus knows and still loves me that amazes me.

It's the stuff I think. Because I figured out, like, I'm a public figure, I'm a pastor, people know who I am in my town, it wouldn't pay for me. I mean, it would just be a bad idea for me to lose my temper and cuss people out and be out in public, you know, smoking beer and drinking pot. Just making sure you're paying attention, okay? Making sure you're paying attention. A lot of times, even for pastors, I will tell you this, and for professional Christians,

I say that with air quotes, because a lot of us have been Christians for so long. know how to modify our behavior that everybody else sees, and we pretend like we're righteous when we're really in our own hearts filled with jealousy, anger, rage, self-righteousness, insecurity, comparison. It's the stuff I think that convicts me and amazes me that Jesus still loves me in spite of some of the things I think. So Jesus asked the question, who touched my clothes? Who touched my clothes? He knew that somebody had come there that day to fight.

To fight. And this is a different kind of fighting. I grew up, I like to fight. I'm a big extrovert. I never meet a stranger. And I never, I really honestly never met a fight. I didn't want to join. I don't know what it is about me.

I don't know if you're that way, Jobe. We got to talk about that tonight at supper, but I just like to fight. Like, I don't physically fight anymore, but verbally, like, I'm pretty quick with my tongue because I do this for a living. And, man, I'll just throw stuff out there just to get somebody riled up. Because I have fun doing that. My wife told me after we got married, she's like, honey, you got to quit doing that. You can't keep picking fights with people about politics and sports and how Ford is better than Chevy. And theoretically I'm saying that.

I'm not saying I really believe that. Or how the Dallas Cowboys are going to win another Super Bowl this year finally, which obviously has been a hard 25 years for Dallas Cowboys fan. But there's a different kind of fight that this woman has in her heart. And that's what I want you to see. Because I want to encourage you. Some of you have given up. You've quit fighting for intimacy.

with Jesus. You've gotten so worn out by the constant battle. Some of you have given up on your marriage. You've just thrown in the towel and said, forget about it. This is not worth it. It won't work out. She was unfaithful to me. He was unfaithful to me. We're like roommates. There's no spark anymore. We don't do anything fun. I would rather trade this one in for a newer model. Can I just move on? You've given up. Some of you have given up on your kids because you've got and you raised them right or so you thought, and now your kids don't want to have anything to do with God, or maybe their question of their faith,

or maybe they have deconstructed, or maybe they've decided, I'm not the gender I was born into this body with. I've decided I'm going to be something else, and you are freaking out, and you have prayed and you have asked God, please change my kid, and your children are not showing any results of your faith and your prayers that you've prayed for them.

Maybe the last two years have gutted some of them. you. And for the first time you've gone through depression or you're anxious or you find yourself not trusting people because you feel like the media has lied to you and you don't know if you should trust this network or that one or the left or the right or right down the middle and you're so sick and tired of all the division and you just don't know what to believe and you've almost given up on believing in anybody and so now you become cynical and when somebody tells you anything you're like, I don't even know if I believe that. And maybe the The pandemic got you in a place of just not knowing what you could even expect for the future.

Or maybe, hey, here's one. Maybe you just got lazy and you just quit reading your Bible and you quit praying. Because you know you can log on Netflix and watch one million episodes of everything. And you've got Amazon Prime and you've got Netflix and you've got HBO Max. And it's not that you've given up necessarily on Jesus. It's just that you have been wooed and pulled by all. the things of the world and you would rather sit down in front of a screen and maybe scroll an Instagram account of people you don't even know looking at pictures that aren't even real because

they're edited and airbrushed and you're comparing that to your boring normal everyday life and you're thinking why are they so blessed and my life still feels like I'm stuck in a rut I'm here to tell you this woman is exhibit A of what happens when you decide whatever it costs me and however long it takes, I'm going to fight to get to Jesus. Because he's better than the doctors. He's better than the medicine. He's better than the rules. He's better than the law.

He's better than all of the failures who try to represent him imperfectly. I'm going to get to Jesus. Somebody needs to hear that. Who touched my clothes? His disciples said to him, verse, I believe that's 31 or 32. What is that? I need to get glasses. I'm so stubborn.

31. His disciples said to him, you see the crowd pressing against you, and yet you say, Who touched me? I'm so thankful for these doofuses. Because when I read how these guys misunderstood Jesus, how they were so thick and dull and slow, I'm like, there is hope for me, Jesus. There is hope for me. If you can use these guys, I know you can use me in your plan to redeem humanity.

So just be filled with hope, 1122. You think you come from a bad background? Just look at these guys. How can you say who touched you? There are a bunch of people here, do, but do, purdoo, everybody's touching you. But he knew. Jesus knew. He was looking for that one woman.

Because listen, everybody came that day with an expectation. Everybody came that day with a need. One woman came with faith. One woman showed up and said, I don't need to talk to him. I don't need him to sign my Bible. I don't need to get a selfie with Jesus. I don't need any. I don't need anything.

I just need to touch his garment. Just grab hold of the corner where the Zit Zit hangs off of the Knoff. That's all I need. They're like, everybody's touching you. Jesus, how can you say who touched me? And this is how the story ends. But Jesus was looking around

to see who had done this, verse 32. The woman with fear and trembling, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell down before him and told him the whole truth. Daughter, he said to her, your faith has saved you. Go in peace and be healed from your affliction. I got just about an hour and a half left to preach this message. I'm just kidding.

In the time I got left, y'all let me clean myself out of spot up here and just rear back and preach for a second, okay? because this is so good. I want you understand something. Faith, listen, faith is not the absence of fear. And some of y'all think that you can't have faith because you're afraid of something. You're afraid God will let you down.

You're afraid God will turn out like your earthly father because he wasn't a good dad. You're afraid that God's going to bail out on you because your mom and dad bailed out. I don't know what the fear is. But some of you think you can't have faith because you've got fear and you think that those two can't live together.

Listen, faith is not the absence of fear. Faith is trusting God in the face of fear. That's what faith is. Faith is saying, I'm sick, but I'm still going to keep praying. My cousin is living for the devil. I won't even return my text messages, but I got a secret weapon. I'm going to have faith and pray for her until she quits living like the devil, and she's going to get saved. Faith is, I don't know how I can pay the Bible.

bills this month and I'm afraid I might lose my lease, but I am going to tithe anyway because I believe that God can do more than I can do if I keep it for myself. Faith is trusting God in the face of fear. This woman was scared to death. How do we know she was scared to death? Because the Bible says it. The Bible says it. Mark records. She came down and knelt in front of Jesus with fear and trembling. I want to show you, this woman had enough faith to fight through the crowd that day and crawl on her belly if she had to. And even after she was healed, she was still afraid. The results, the residual of the fear was still there. In a former life back in the 1900s, I went skydiving. I just decided, a buddy of mine said, hey, I think you'd be a good skydiver. He taught me how to do rock climbing and stuff.

and I was like, okay, let's go. I wasn't married at the time, and I jumped out of an airplane. Now, I didn't jump tandem. I did, like, skydiving training. Like, I paid the money, and the first time I jumped, I jumped by myself with a jump master that graded me, and my first jump, I trained all day, and they took me up 14,000 feet, opened the door, I've got the goggles, I've got the parachute that I helped pack,

and my jump master looks at me and goes, it was loud up there. The engines were roaring, and he goes, are you afraid? And I want you all to hear what I said to him, because it was probably the wisest, smartest thing that ever came out of my mouth. He looks at me and goes, are you afraid? And I looked at him and I cannot believe the wisdom with which I answered him. I said, yes. That's what I said.

And he said, good. And I'll never forget this. He said, feel the fear and do it anyway. Just feel the fear and do it anyway. Get to Jesus anyway. Come to church on Sunday anyway. Tithe anyway. Share the gospel anyway.

Apologize to your wife when you snap her head off and talk to her like she's one of your buddies at work when she is the bride that you prayed for and the queen of your house and you talk to her like she's one of your boys. Just to go ahead and feel the fear and apologize and beg her to forgive you. Feel the fear and do it anyway. This woman did not let her fear keep her from Jesus. That's not what faith is. Your fear may not ever go away, but you know what you can do? Your fear won't go away, so you might as well put it to work.

Let the things that you're afraid of in life push you to the king of kings. Let the things that you fear drive you to Jesus. Just get to him. Just get to him. That's not what faith is. Faith is getting to Jesus, even in the face of fear. I'm going to show you just a few things about this woman. These are pretty obvious, but she was weak and poor, just like all of us.

She was weak, physically weak, and she was financially and emotionally poor. How do we know that she was weak? Well, she bled for 12 years. I don't know if it was a bleeding ulcer, if it was a chronic nose bleed, maybe she was a hemophiliac and her blood didn't clot. Who knows? But I know a little bit about blood and what it does. Blood oxygenates your body.

It carries iron to your cells. She bled for 12 years. That means for 12 years she was constantly, physically weak. When I was in high school, we did a blood drive. Hillcrest High School. ville, South Carolina, 1990, my junior year. And I was a football player, big, strong, arrogant, stupid. And they said, if you want to give blood, you can miss first period.

So I was like, sign me up. So I went to the library and the lady that was taking the blood, one of the nurses, she knew me. She goes, Clayton, did you eat breakfast this morning? I'm like, nope, didn't eat breakfast. Why not? I'm a busy guy. She's like, well, you need to go eat some cookies and some orange juice right over there. I was like, I don't need it.

She's like, why not? I'm like, I have bread that you know not of. I was so stupid. She's like, no, people pass out. People pass out when they give blood for the first time if they haven't had breakfast or anything to eat. And I'm like, not me. I'm just built different.

I'm from the west side. And she's like, okay, whatever. I sit down, they take my blood. An hour later, I woke up on the couch in the library with her lab coat draped over me because she said I was cold. I passed out. I'm talking stone cold Steve Austin, out like a light.

I am out. That's what happened to me when I gave one pint of blood. That's how weak I was. I just want you to know that if you feel weak, then you're in the perfect place for Jesus to save you and change you. You're in the perfect place. You're the perfect candidate. She was poor.

Spent all of her money on doctors, and now she's broke. Not just broke, but like broke is a joke. She has nothing. She comes to Jesus empty-handed. She can't pay him anything. Well, that's good, because Jesus doesn't want your money. Jesus wants your heart. Hey, if Jesus wanted your money, he'd beat you up

and take it out of your pocket, out of your purse. He's a big boy. He's the king of kings. He doesn't want your money. He wants your heart, because if he's got your heart, he's got everything. Your money, your wallet, your credit card bills, your language, what you look at on TV.

If Jesus has my heart and he is Lord of my life, then my money is not an issue. It's all his. She was weak and poor, but that's okay. because Jesus was strong and rich. You feel weak and poor? Great. Jesus is strong where you're weak,

and Jesus is rich in mercy where you have nothing but poverty in your broken attempts to do it on your own. Just give up, quit trying to do it on your own. You can't. Admit you're a failure in some area, whatever area it is, admit you're a sinner. Just own up to it.

Some of y'all are like, well, that hurts my feelings. I can't believe that you'd say, that I'm a failure. Are you married? Can I talk to your spouse? Yeah, real talk. You got kids? You know they weren't born perfect. You know they were born sinners. If you believe that everybody is born nice and good and everybody's okay, just have some kids. They'll teach you real quick. If you're weak and poor, Jesus is everything you need. She was also frustrated and afraid. She was frustrated and she was afraid.

What do I mean by she was frustrated? Can you imagine 12 years she can't go to the temple? Can't go to the synagogue? Because she's unclean, remember? She can't be around people. For 12 years, everybody knew that she had a bleeding issue. And so that means when she's walking down the street, all these good religious Jews who keep the law,

they just cross over to the other side. They see her coming and they cross over because they don't want to be on the same sidewalk as her, same side of the road as her. You know, I heard one scholar, say this, it is conceivable that this woman had not known human touch for 12 years. The pandemic was hard on me because I'm a big extrovert. People energize me. I never get tired of people, especially the crazy ones. Because y'all got the best stories. I'll be talking about y'all on the way home

tomorrow, calling my wife, you'll never believe what this guy said to me. I love people. and the pandemic was tough because when we were isolated, like my wife and my kids are there, but like people telling me I can't be around other people, I was going crazy. This woman could not get married, couldn't deliver children, couldn't have a family. No husband would marry her, she's unclean. She was frustrated, isolated. Can you imagine the spiritual frustration that she had? Why does the Bible say she was afraid when she came and knelt down before Jesus?

Well, I can't prove this, but my theory is simple. This is a good Jewish woman. And this woman, if she had prayed one time a day, just one time, one time a day for 12 years, dear God, please heal me. Please stop the bleeding so I can go worship you in the temple, go to the synagogue, have a family, get married, have children. Please heal me, God. one time a day for 12 years, she would have prayed 4,380 prayers unanswered. 4,380 prayers.

But a good Jew, a good Jewish woman like I believe she was, would have prayed five times a day facing Jerusalem. They still do this, five times a day. So if this woman had prayed five times a day for 12 years, God, please heal me and stop the bleeding. She would have prayed 21,900 unanswered prayers. Can I ask you a question? Have you ever prayed for anything?

21,900 times? I don't think I have. I got a family member that's a homeless meth addict. And I have to be honest with you, I quit praying for him a couple of years ago. He tried to kill me. He literally tried to take my life. and I quit praying for him. And then I'm writing the book and I'm reading about this woman.

I'm like, man, I've got to start praying for this guy again, a family member that tried to take my own life. I bet you I didn't pray for him 2,100 times. She prayed 21,900 times. And it looked as if God. Can you imagine what she thought God thought about her? What's wrong with me? What did I do wrong?

I'm damaged goods. I'm too broken. God can't love me. I said something y'all feel. Let's be honest, that's how I felt in my life. You do something wrong, you mess up, you look at porn, you lust again, you tell a lie again, you cheat again, you get drunk again, you pop a pill again, you do it again, and you swore you were done, you swore you'd never do it again, and then you do it again, and the devil, the enemy

is in your ear going, you are, see, here's a devil, he is such a punk, he's such a liar, he will give you permission to sin. Satan will tell you, it's okay, it's not wrong to do that, sleep around before you get married, sleep around, shack up, try it out, drink a little too much, get drunk, get high. It's not wrong. It's legal in Colorado. Why not go ahead and do it? You can go ahead and have sex.

You can go ahead and cheat. You know, your wife, she's not as intimate with you as you would like her to be. Go ahead and get your little sidepiece. Satan will lie to you and tell you to sin. And then the minute after he has given you permission to sin and you sin, and you sin, he's right there in your ears saying, you're the rotten, dirty, horrible, terrible hypocrite that you always said you'd never be. I cannot believe you would do that. God can never love you. That is why we must resist the devil if he is going to flee from us, because he is a liar and the father of lies.

That's what Satan does. He will give you permission to sin and condemn you when you do it. But all Jesus does is, say to you, come to me all you who are burdened and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. confess your sin and he is faithful and just to forgive you. This woman comes to Jesus with faith, even though she was frustrated and she had prayed 21,900 times with no answer. So here's how I want to wrap this up. I'm sitting on the couch in my house. And I'm trying to finish up the chapter on this woman's life because the book is due.

And Pastor Jobie's just written a great book and got another one coming out. Deadlines are awful. I hate deadlines. The deadline's coming, and I'm sitting there. I've got my laptop out in front of me. I'm reading some commentaries. I'm sitting on the couch in my house. Now, you understand something about my house?

There are 1,212 pillows in my house. And I bought exactly zero of those pillows. Zero with the rim knocked off. That's how many pillows I've ever purchased in my life. I need one pillow, the one from my big bald, beautiful watermelon-shaped head. That's all I need. My wife needs pillows because they're cute because they bring everything together. It's like drapes and curtains and the couch and a rug and rugable.

Have you all heard of rugable? I have. You know why? Because boxes with rugable keep showing up on my porch every other day. So let me get back to my clothes. Okay. So I'm sitting on a couch and I'm surrounded by pillows. And this scholar that I'm reading says that this woman,

when she reached up to grab the corner of Jesus' garment was quoting, he believed, Malachi 4-2. And I'm like, oh, what? Wait a minute. And it's all starting to come together. Kind of like the pillows pull all the colors together in my den. It's all starting to come together. And Malachi 4-2 says this. Actually, it'll be up on the screens.

For those who fear my name. for those who fear my name, the son of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. It is the last chapter of the last book of the Old Testament before Jesus shows up in Matthew's gospel. For those of you who fear my name, this woman feared God, the son of righteousness shall rise with healing. That's what she was praying for, healing. Where in his wings? Now when I think about wings, I think about the wings of an airplane. I think about wings on a bird, or I think about the wings I eat every single Saturday

during college football season. That's what I think about. But that's not the word here. The word for wings here is more like the wing of a building, the side of a building, the side. It's the word zet-zit tassel. When the son of righteousness comes, he will rise with healing in his tassels around the khanoff. I'm sitting there on the couch. I kid you not.

I'm sitting there on the couch, and I'm reading this. And I'm like, this is the craziest most amazing thing I've ever heard in my life. Wow. Just like little cotton tassels, little wool sort of looking tassels. And I look down, and I've got my arm resting on my wife's pillow. And I look down and I realize there are four tassels hanging from the four corners of this pillow. God, this was your will for me to be here in this moment. I look around to make sure my wife isn't watching.

And I grab that tassels and I pop it right. right off the corner of that pillow, and I brought it here tonight. This is it. This is the tassel. This is it. This is the one. I have carried this thing all over America

in my backpack. Do not tell my wife what I did because I don't know that she knows. This is the actual tassel. There is no magic power in this. There is no healing power in this. There is no healing power this, please hear me, it was the faith that she had when she took God's word to be true and she

grabbed hold of it with faith. Jesus said to her daughter, your sins are forgiven, go and be healed. He didn't just heal her body. He forgave her sin. And that is all I want for you. I want you tonight, both the Christian and the unbeliever, I want you to have faith enough to grab hold of Jesus. That's what I want for you. And I cannot emphasize this enough, so let me say it as plainly and simply as I can. It is your decision now. It's up to you. Jesus has done the work. He died on the cross to take away your sin in mind. He has given us the promise of the Holy Spirit for those that will be saved. And if you'll repent of your sin and ask him to save you, he will. If you're not a believer, I believe in the next two minutes you're going to become one at every campus. But if

you're a Christian, the altar is going to be open. It's open right now. And when I begin to pray right here in about 10 seconds, I'm going to invite Christians who know Jesus that need prayer for physical healing, emotional healing, a family member, a broken relationship, a financial miracle, or to just come and repent of being lazy or giving up or quitting on Jesus. I want you to, the altar is open. I'm inviting you to come. You're like, is Jesus up there at the altar? No, but faith makes you move.

Faith makes you take a step. Faith makes you get up out of your seat and come to where you know you can meet with the living God. I'm done preaching. Let's respond. Close your eyes and open your hearts at every campus. Just close your eyes and open your hearts. The altars are open. If you need to come and pray, come right now.

Just begin to make your way right now. The altars are open. Whatever you need to come and pray for. But while people are coming to pray with eyes closed and hearts open, I want to give a very clear invitation for those of you that need to be saved. To be born again. Romans 1013 says anyone who calls on the Lord will be saved. You can be saved right now.

Please don't leave saturated tonight, hoping that you're saved, wondering if you're going to go to heaven or hell when you die. You can know. 1 John 513 says you can know. If you believe, you can know that you have eternal life. But you've got to believe. So the altar is open. People are coming to pray at every campus. But I want to give you an invitation right now to come to Jesus for salvation.

So if you need to give your life to Christ, repent of your sin. have an assurance that you have been pardoned by God's grace and begin to follow Jesus Christ's Lord. The Bible says if you'll believe in your heart, God raised him from the dead and confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, you'll be saved, Romans 10. Someone invite you to pray this to Jesus right where you sit. Just pray this to him right where you are.

If you need to give your life to Christ, nail it down, quit worrying, quit wondering, quit being afraid, feel the fear and do it anyway. Jesus is listening. Pray to him right now. This prayer. The prayer doesn't save you, but Jesus does. Jesus, I need you. Please save me. I know I'm a sinner and I'm not perfect. So I repent of my sin. I confess you are Lord. I give you control of my life. I invite you in. Rescue me, Jesus. Take away my guilt and heal me. Thank you for loving me, Jesus. I'm all yours and I'm all in. I'm going to keep your eyes closed and your hearts open. I can only see this room. I can't see every campus,

but I'm going to ask every campus to respond to this. If you just prayed that prayer to Jesus and you meant it, I want you to do something very quickly and boldly. Every campus, do this right now. if you just prayed that prayer, would you raise your hand up above your head right now? Right now. In your seats at the altar. Raise your hands up as high as you can get them. Just raise them up really high. Straighten your elbow out if you can.

Put them up as high as you can, every single campus. Keep them up, please. Hands up. Now eyes closed, hearts open, and hands raised. Everybody with your hands up, including those at the altar. This is the only other thing I'm going to ask you to do. I'm going to ask you to take one more bold step of faith, every campus. If you just came to Jesus and you fought through the fear and you received him and you prayed that prayer,

I'm going to ask you with your hand up to stand up. Right now. Go ahead. Right now. Right now. Stand up. Right here in this room. Right there at your campus.

Stand up. Stand up. Don't be embarrassed. Don't be afraid. Don't be ashamed. Just stand up. Praise God. Just stand up.

Stand up every campus. Go ahead. If you just prayed to receive Christ, once you stand up, you can put your hand down. You can put your hand down. Don't sit down. Don't sit down. Don't sit down.

Don't sit down. I want all the Christians to turn around and look. Look, with no secrets. Look at this. Don't sit down. We want to celebrate every single one of you. We want to celebrate every single one of you. They have prayed to receive Christ.

Hey, the angels in heaven rejoice in the presence of God over one sinner who repents. There are, in this room it's over 100. I'm pretty good estimating. It's over 100 in this room. I can tell you that for sure. No telling how many. Before you sit down, we're going to put a phone number up on the screen. We're going to put a phone number up there right now.

And if you pray to receive Christ at your campus, would you just text the word? I forgot the word, Jovey. Surrender. Thank you. Surrender to 4-4-1-1-2-2. So go ahead and do that right now. All of y'all that are standing, we already see you. We know who you are.

We are so proud of you to get your phone. Get your phone. Get your phone right now. Go ahead. We're proud of you. Get your phone. You can have a seat if you want. You can stay at the altar if you need to.

But please text the word surrender to 4-4-1-1-2 because this church wants to help you take your next step, which is going public with baptism and beginning a life of discipleship, which you just began tonight by giving your life to Jesus. The altar is still open. Jesus, I want to say right now, thank you for what you have done tonight. Thank you for the power of the gospel. Thank you, Jesus, that you are the Lamb of God who is worthy to receive the reward of your suffering. You have received it tonight by saving sinners.

Be glorified, Father, Son, and Son, and Son. Spirit. And Satan, in the name of Jesus, the Lord God, rebuke you. You have lost another multitude to God. You'll never get them back. They have been bought with a price, the blood of Jesus. And now, God, we say to you, receive the glory that you deserve. You are worthy of it all. We commit every single new Christian from last night and tonight, and in faith, tomorrow night when Ben preaches, and Saturday and Sunday when Pastor Jobi preaches continue to save the loss. And God, I pray, we would never, as I've heard Jobi say to me before, that we'd never ever get over the gospel and we'd never stop going to camp. That we'd still be as fired up for Jesus today as we ever were.

And that tomorrow would be even better because you just keep getting better. We love you, Jesus, and we praise you. Amen.