The Church of Eleven22 - Wk 8: Healing in His Wings

Episode Date: May 28, 2023

The Son of Righteousness has risen with healing in His wings. His name is Jesus. Do you need healing? Do you have faith?

Church, I hope you know that the Lord will allow things to be stripped away from us, even good things, so that we might know that we know that we know that his grace is sufficient for us, that we might know that what we really need more than anything is him, that an abundant life is not just our circumstances go in the way that we hope they would go, but that we get him and even in the midst of circumstances that we don't like. I hope you know that Romans 828 is true, that God is at work. in all things for the good of those that love him and are caught according to his purpose.

And in fact, this past weekend, Miss Becky's son and all five grandchildren were six of the 1,125 people that were baptized in the ocean. Amen? Praise God for that. Praise God. Hey, if you got your Bible and hope you do,

we're going to be in Luke chapter 8. We've been studying miracles because the point of the miracles is that Jesus was always pointing to the mission. And I sure do it. I mean, one day we're going to come in here, we're just going to have a little happy, little jolly sermon and skip out the lunch, but not today, okay?

Because what we're going to see from right out of the gate here is two people in different situations, but the same desperation. That's what's going to happen. Luke chapter 8, beginning of verse 40 says this. Now, when Jesus returned, he had been on the other side of the Sea of Galilee, casting out demons into a bunch of pigs and doing stuff like that. And when Jesus returned, the crap.

welcomed him, for they were all waiting for him. And there came a man named Jairus, who was a ruler in the synagogue. This means that he was a big deal. That he had clout, he had respect, he had position, he had authority, he had money. And yet, in humility, he falls at Jesus' feet. And he implored him. That means to beg with a whole lot of emotion. and falling at Jesus' feet, he implored him to come to his house,

for he had an only daughter about 12 years of age, and she was dying. And see, immediately what we see here is this man, and all of his position and his power and his money, couldn't do anything to help his daughter. Now, we know that Jesus is the king of kings and Lord of Lords and the second person of the Trinity, and he spoke everything into existence, and he is preeminent, but at this point, everybody doesn't know this yet,

and this man with all the position and all the power and all the authority is hoping and praying that this man is who he says he is. He's heard rumors that he heals the blind and he walks on water and he calms storms and he has miracle working power. And so this man, Jairus, he humbles himself. Why? We talk about this all the time, man. There ain't no pain like kid pain, amen?

I mean, there's just no pain like kid pain. and if you're a kid you have no idea how much your parents love you you have absolutely no idea and i just one day one day you're going to grow up and wake up one day you're going to hold your own and be like wait a minute dad you looked at me like this uh-huh and if you've ever had a kid in pain physical mental if you ever had a kid in trouble if you ever had a kid just walking through the valley of the shadow of death all of a sudden your theology of someone you have someone you've alterology gets real clear, real fast. Let me explain what that means.

You would say, of course I would lay down my life for my child. Of course I would take your place. If I could just take all the pain away, take it upon myself, that you would be made healthy and whole. I would do that in one second, right? That's what this man is doing right here. Immediately, he falls down at the feet of Jesus in a place of utter desperation.

So what would you do if this was your kid, you would do exactly what he's doing. You would do whatever it takes. Pay whatever money. Humble yourself in whatever way you needed to. Give up whatever authority, whatever power, whatever title you needed to, and this is what he's doing just in case the rumors are true and this man really is the son of God. Now here's the thing you need to consider. What if, and by what if I mean this is exactly how it works. What if God actually ordains the mess in order to position us in a place where we're set up for a miracle. I know it's hard to get your mind around, but this is the sovereignty of God, that God is at work in all things, especially the things when we can't see him, when we can't feel him, when he does things that we don't think we would do if we were in his place.

That this is the sovereign hand of God. We know that he loves us, not because of our circumstances, but because of the cross. Romans 5-8 says, but God demonstrated his love for us and this that while we were yet still sinners, Christ died for us. but listen, the sovereign hand of God, even though he's Almighty, the sovereignty of God should be like a warm blanket to you, not something that pushes you away. Why? Because what's the alternative?

If he's not in charge of all things, then that would put you in a hopeless situation. And the Bible says hope deferred makes the heart sick. You see, the sovereignty of God is like CPR to the doubting and dying heart. And so this man is believing that God is in charge. and so he implores, he begs. And Jesus hears and answers his prayer. It says, and as Jesus went, the people pressed around him,

verse 43, and there was a woman who had a discharge of blood for 12 years. This is a miraculous interruption. And there is no doubt that Luke puts this miracle here and tells the two at the same time for us to make all the connections and correlations, okay? You see, because Jesus is talking to Gyrus, who is a really big deal. And then from the first century perspective, this nobody shows up on the scene.

But in the kingdom of God, there are no nobodies. Every single person matters to him. She has been struggling with this discharge of blood for 12 years. Jairus has a little girl, and she is 12 years old. Jiris has a name, this woman has no name. He is involved in community in the synagogue. She is ostracized from the community. What Jesus is going to show us here is that his gospel is a movement for all people to discover and deepen a relationship with him.

Now, not only has she been ostracized, but everything she touches, she also makes unclean. And I know you know this, because if you back up, the Leviticus 15, which I'm sure you probably did in your quiet time this morning. There's a whole chapter in the book of Leviticus, and the chapter is called Laws about bodily discharges. This is usually like middle school boys' favorite chapter in the whole Bible, okay? It's very graphic. It's really gross. It's really gross, okay? If you get bored, you could just read it in the boring parts of the sermon.

But what's happening here is, as God is giving the law to the people of Israel, he is saying that there are certain people, and when you go through these kinds of things, you've got to be separated from the people until you get all cleaned up to get back with the people. And normally, it just happens every month. not for 12 years. She's been dealing with this for 12 years. She's been dealing with it for so long that it is becoming a part of her identity. And so what the religious people would have told this woman because you have this issue of blood, then you are defiled. It's probably the worst thing you could tell a woman. See, I've never been a woman, although I have two at my house that I study very,

very closely. And here's the thing, man, here's the thing. Let's do a little theology of men and women. Genesis 127 says, and that God created humankind, created them male and female. That, I know, it's crazy, right? There are men and women. Write your congressman. It's news slash, all right? So, according to the Bible, every single human being was created to image God, and men and women image God differently.

That men and women are different. I know, that's crazy, isn't it? And that the way a woman images God is that deep, down at the core of who she is, she has this fundamental question, am I lovely, am I valuable? And what means the most to her, what she wants to know is that she's lovely,

she wants to be pursued, she wants to be wanted. Now think for a second how that reflects the image of God. Like think about it in worship, he wants to be loved, he wants to be valued, he wants to be wanted, that's who he is, and so a woman is created to reflect that in a very, very beautiful way. And so the worst thing that you could tell her the thing that would cut her to the deepest part of her soul is this, but not you.

You're dirty. You're defiled. You're unlovable. And see, in fact, Gyrus is coming with the same problem, the same core issue when he comes to Jesus. Now, the way that a man reflects the image of God is different. The Bible says things like, the Lord is a warrior and the Lord is his name, and we have been created, men have been created to reflect the image of God, to produce, to provide, to

protect. And the fundamental question deep in the soul of every single man is this simple question, do I have what it takes? And the sad thing is, is every one of us know in and of ourselves? The answer is nope. But it drives everything your man does, ladies, okay? It's why he plays golf so much. He's trying to prove himself that this little ball, I have what it takes, and then he lies about his scorecard. That's what he's trying to do. It's why he's trying to be the CEO or trying to write the song or get the degree or whatever it is, okay? But that's God's thumbprint on his life. And the worst thing a man can feel deep down to the core of who he is is if he feels like a failure or if he feels like he's helpless.

And so here's Drirus who is helpless to take care of his daughter. And so he has to come to Jesus. And then here is this woman who has been told she's defiled and she's dirty. That's what's happening here. And there was a woman who had a discharge of blood for 12 years. and though she had spent all her living on physicians. So not only is she isolated, but she's also broke. And the reason this is such a big deal, again, man,

it's not just a physical issue. It's also a relational issue. She can't be around anybody else, or the law says that she will make them unclean to. And so she takes all of her money to do whatever it takes to try to be healed, and there's nothing that this world offers that can make her well. Now Luke, who is a physician, wants us to know she could not be healed by anyone. And so just to be clear here, the Bible, nor Jesus, nor this church, is anti-physician.

We are definitely pro-physician. And so of all you folks that work in the medical field, just know who you actually work for. That's all. Every good and perfect gift is from above. He is the great physician. And oftentimes people cry out, dear God, heal me. And he goes, I hear your prayer. And in walks you with your scrubs, okay?

Praise God for you. Just know who you work for. That's all. That's all. But here it doesn't work. So she's hopeless. She's helpless. She's isolated.

She's broke. That's not a good place to be. So look what happens. Verse 44. And she came up behind Jesus and touched the fringe of his garment. Underlined those words, the fringe of his garment. And this word touch, that would mean like just barely grazed it. It means like to grasp onto.

And she came up behind him and touched the fringe of his garment and immediately her discharge of blood ceased. This was not like physical therapy. This is not like eat an apple, take a pill, call me in the morning. This is an immediate healing. And what's crazy here, this is different than the way normally things work. You see, typically, when dirty touches clean, the clean gets dirty, right? Amen, mamas?

That's why you make us take our shoes off at the house? Because it's not like the clean house is going to clean our shoes. It's dirty shoes to make the clean house dirty. So normally when dirty touches clean, the clean gets dirty. But in the economy of Jesus, it's when the dirty touches clean, The clean makes the dirty clean. This is not only a picture of what's happening in her body, it's also the glorious great exchange that happens on the cross.

2 Corinthians 521 will say it this way, and God made Him who was without sin to be sin, that we would be made the righteousness of Christ. The moment that we believe that when Jesus died on the cross, somehow it counted for us, then we are made clean, and he takes all of the dirt away from us. So that's what happens immediately.

verse 45 and Jesus said who was it that touched me when all denied it Peter said of course who's going to talk first who's going to talk most Peter Peter says master the crowd surround you and are pressing in on you I think Peter's like but boss what are you is this a trick question everybody's touching you he touched you and she touched you and he touched you and she everybody is touching you and boss this has got to be a trick question because I remember just a few chapters ago during the sermon on the Mount, I was taking very good notes when you were teaching and preaching, and you said that not even a sparrow falls out of the sky without you knowing.

You said that you know the very words that we're going to say before they're formed on our tongue. Jesus, you said that you count the numbers of hairs on our head. Now, some of us, it's an easier count than others, okay? That's fine. Some people's turn is gray, some people's turns loose. Don't worry about it, all right? Ladies, not only does he know, he knows the number of hairs on your head, and he knows

the hairs that you're renting from somebody else. That's what he knows. That's right. You're like, how does he know? He knows, all right? So, he must be saying like, Jesus, what are you talking about? And then Jesus goes on to explain. But Jesus said, hmm, someone touched me for I perceive that power has gone out from me.

Jesus is like, no, no, no, no, I'm not talking about casually bumping into me. Somebody has purposefully grabbed onto me, and there was an exchange of power here, and this one is different. Oh, Church of 1122, please, please, please, don't show up in the presence of Jesus week after week after week and just kind of bump around elbow to elbow with people and not be touched by the miraculous power of Jesus Christ and be made different. He's saying, this one is different. I want you to be different. I want this day to be different. And when the woman saw that she was not hidden,

she came trembling, falling down before him, and declared in the presence of all the people why she had touched him. And how she had been immediately healed. See, she's afraid, but not in a good way. Part of the good news here is that she does not fully understand the grace of Jesus or the character and nature of God. And here's what's great for us

is that you don't have to fully understand to fully believe. I'm sure at some point she was told by some religious leader, you're not supposed to be here. And so the moment that she digs her way through the crowd, she's probably thinking, uh-oh, we're going to do some contact tracing here, and everybody that's made unclean is going to know that I am the source and I am the problem. And she was probably waiting for somebody to tell her, you don't belong here.

You know, I know some of you feel that way too. I've heard you. Some people will say stuff like this, like, who come to church, but it's been a while since I've been here. I pray I don't get struck by lightning. Bro, if the Lord wanted to zap you with lightning, he wouldn't wait for you to come to church. He'd got you at Beach baptism last week.

There's plenty of opportunity, okay? And quite honestly, that's just not how it works. You just don't know the father heart of God. And I will tell you, if you have ever been to a church and the person in charge of some religious person looked at you and said, what are you doing here? Listen, that person was not playing for Team Jesus. Because Jesus came to die for all. That's why this place is a movement for all people.

And I don't care who you are, what you've done, or what you're struggling with. You were welcome in this place. I remember when time I was a teenager. Amen. And I went to church with a friend of mine, and I'm not going to tell you the denomination because you would get offended and you'd email me and I wouldn't read it. And that's how that goes. But I went and it was this denominational church and it was time for communion. And they did it a little bit different than we did. And so I'm in line, like, trying to figure out the code, you know, before you get up there, and I didn't know there was, like, a secret code word, and there is.

And when it was my turn, they asked me a question, and I didn't answer the right way, and the guy with the funny hat looked at me and said, you should not have come. And I was like, I probably won't ever again. Don't worry about me, okay? So if you have ever heard that from somebody, I am here to tell you that Jesus Christ, who lived and died and was resurrected from the grave, he has invited you to come and be a part of this thing. and so she's afraid. She's trembling in fear, is what it says,

falling down before him. She tells everybody the why. Here's why I came, and here's what happened when I grabbed onto the edge of his garment. In verse 48, look at this, man, look. Think about the names that she's been called. Think about all the things

she's been told about herself. Think about the questions that she's been asked. Maybe the reason you're suffering with this is your own fault. What did you do? And Jesus says to her, daughter your faith has made you well go in peace when everybody else called her defiled Jesus said uh-uh your daughter that's who you are you see it's a lot like John chapter

8 in John chapter 8 there's this woman caught in the act of adultery so it's not like she's not guilty and they bring the guilty woman before Jesus and the religious people have rocks in their hands and they're about to stone her to death and then Jesus stands up and says tell you what, whoever has it sin, you go first. They all leave. And you think about it from the perspective of this woman. She is bracing for impact to get slammed with a rock, and instead she gets run over by the grace train of Jesus Christ

when he says, daughter, who condemns you? Then neither do I condemn you. Now go and leave your life of sin. This is what happens here. She's expecting to be told that her issue defines who you are, and Jesus says, no, no, no, no, no. This world doesn't get to tell you who you are. I'm about to tell you who you are.

Your name is daughter. You see, here's what's crazy, man. This bothers the heck out of me. Every commentary I go looking to has a title for this woman. And if you've been around Bible study, you already know what her name is, right? In every commentary, here's what she's called, the woman with the issue of blood. What? She just got healed.

Why do we always like to call people by their issue? instead of describing by their miracle. Aren't you glad we don't call you by your issue? Anybody got some issues here? Imagine you showing up to church every week. But like, oh, there's Ted. He's got the issue of anger. Oh, and there's his wife with the issue of nagging.

What's up, drippy drip? How y'all doing? Wait a minute. Okay, so I've told you this before, but listen, man, this world doesn't get to tell you who you are. Only Jesus gets to tell you who you are. And I know the world's try to slap a label on you so that it can say that you are defile,

but Jesus looks at you and calls you son or daughter. Here's what this means. You are not your divorce. You're not your affair. You're not your orientation. You're not your political affiliation. You're not your bankruptcy. You're not your addiction.

You're not your marital status. You're not your sickness. You're not your career. You're not your success. You're not your degree. You are not those things. And I know some of you're like, yeah, but those are the biggest things

that ever have in my life. Not if you know Jesus. The biggest thing that ever happened in your life is that you put your faith in him and he took all that sin away and gave you a new name. or daughter of the Most High King, that he lavish his love upon you, and that if you believe you receive the right to be called a son or a daughter of God, that's just who you are.

And for those of you, every woman at Duval Correctional Women's Facility right now, I want you to look at me, particularly to the 11 of you that have already put your faith in Jesus Christ over the last three weeks. I know this world has tried to slap a label on you, but that's not the label that Jesus uses. he looks at you and calls you daughter. Your faith has made you well. Welcome to the family of God and welcome to this family. We love you. So he says, daughter.

Then he says this, your faith has made you well. Okay, faith in what? What is he talking about here? See, faith is not a fuzzy feeling. The Bible says that faith is the evidence of things unseen. Well, the evidence that Jesus has of her faith is that she put her faith to action and she fought her way to the crowd

to get up to him. Well, what are we talking about here? Here's what we're talking about. Go back to Numbers chapter 15. Numbers chapter 15. In order to understand the New Testament, you've got to have the Old Testament. I have a prayer shawl.

I got this from Jerusalem, okay? And you know it's authentic just like Jesus is because it's a little zipper pouch that it comes in, so you know it's good. And so this is called a prayer shawl. You can see them all over Jerusalem. Muslim today and a lot of places like New York and stuff like that, you know, people that are Orthodox Jewish folks will wear this thing.

And they're not just making it up, okay? They didn't just, it wasn't like a super fashionable person said, I got an idea, let's make a cape. No, no, no. In Numbers chapter 15, the Bible says this. And the Lord said to Moses, this is verse 37, the Lord said to Moses, speak to the people of Israel and tell them to make tassels on the corner of their garments like this. Throughout all their generations and to put it. a cord of blue on the tassels of each corner,

and it shall be a tassel for you to look at and remember all the commandments of the Lord to do them, not to follow after your own heart and your own eyes, which you are inclined to whore after. Oh, that's it, my Bible says whore. I usually don't use words like that because Gretchen gets mad at me, she's like, honey, I'm like, baby, these are Bible verses, okay?

So let me read it one more time for yourself. Southern Babbers just to get you all called up here, okay? It's a shocking word on a Sunday morning, is it not? Do you know why it uses, the Bible uses such offensive language? If your wife acted like that, it would have the same kind of impact on you, except to a lesser degree than it does when we worship at their other idols to the God that would lay down his life for us. This is that big of a deal.

Heart-wrenching to the Lord. So let's read it one more time, which you are inclined to whore after. yo shall remember and do all my commandments and be holy to your God. I am the Lord of your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God. I am the Lord. What we see here is we see a picture of the gospel. What he didn't do, he didn't show up in Egypt and say, all right, here's the thing. I'm going to give you an exam. And if you pass the test, then I'll get you out of Egypt. That's not what he said. He rescued them first, and because they were rescued, he called them into obedience. You see, we are not free from obedience. We are free to obedience. In other words,

your identity precede your activity. And so he says, I want you to make these shawls, these prayer shawl things, and on the end, I want you to do these little tassels. It's called a t-z-z-se-t in Hebrew. Say t-z-t. It's spelled T-Z-I-T-T, Z-I-T. So if you're from Dillon, you say T-Z-Z-Z-T, but I know how you say it, okay? And we can spend a lot of time on exactly what they mean.

We serve a tactile God. People didn't have, like, a copy of the Bible in their pocket like King James did. So they were to be reminded of the commandments. There's five knots here to represent the first five books of the Bible. There's a blue strand, and that represents the coming Messiah. There are eight different chords with four different wrappings. Every single one of these little tassels, there's one for every positive command in the Bible, thou shalt. And there's one for every negative command, thou shalt not.

And what you were supposed to do is as you walked around in your day and would kind of play around with your little zizi on the edge here, you would be reminded of the law of God and be encouraged to follow after the law. And then the edge where all these little tassels are, that's called the canoff. Say canoff? And it means like edge or fringe, or sometimes it would get translated as a wing. So like if you take it up to the first century,

when Jesus would teach on prayer, and he would have worn a prayer show kind of like this too, okay? And I know it's sort of Georgia Tech colors, but, you know, God loves the least of these, so that's probably what that's all about. But they're real smart. There's not good sports. That's fun.

Okay. So when Jesus says, all right, so when you pray, don't be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand on the street corner, lift their hands in the air and pray as loud as they can so that everybody will be impressed by how good of a prayer they are. That's all the reward they're getting. But when you pray, he says, go into your prayer closet. Now, he didn't mean you go find the room in the temple where they keep the old shoes and shotguns and stuff in the broom.

That's not what it meant. It's like when you go into a crowded place, then you would take your canoff, the wings of your prayer shawl here, and you would close the door in this little room is called your prayer closet. This is where you would go to pray. Or like in Matthew 23, when Jesus is going into Jerusalem on the triumphal entry, and he gets to the place of the Mount of Olives where he can look over the wall and he can see all the people, and he says this, this is Matthew 2337, Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it, how often would I have gathered your children together

as a hen gathers her brood under her, what's that word, wings or khanoff? This is what he's talking about. And you were not willing. He says, I love you, like a parent would love his kids. So what does this have to do with our woman here in the first century? If you go back to the book of Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament,

Malachi is going to give the final words to the people of God before Jesus shows up. And so these are important. He's going to give a warning and an invitation. So, Mama's, this is like, you're about to drop your kid off at, like, overnight camp. And what do you do, man? You give them, you're like, listen, you listen.

Look at me in the face. You better brush your teeth and change your underwear. Whatever it is, whatever your greatest commandments are, that's what you're going to give them, right? And so this is going to be the last thing that the people have got here for a long time. So God speaks through Malachi, and again, he's going to give them a warning.

in an invitation. Here's the warning. For behold, behold means pay attention. This is important. For behold, the day is coming burning like an oven when all the arrogant and all evil doors will be stubble. The day that is coming shall set them ablaze. That means you're going to catch on fire. Says the Lord of hosts so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. This is a warning. God says to his people, and I would say to you, I would love you. I would love you enough to tell you the truth, a day of judgment is coming. God is a holy judge. He is a righteous judge and all sin must be paid for in order for God to be who he is, which is just.

And I know we live in a world, it's like, hey, man, you can't judge me. Only God can judge me. You don't want God to judge you. That's not going to go good for you. I know you're thinking, oh, here it goes. There are two categories there. He says, all the evil doers are going to get burn up. How about this other one? Or if you're arrogant. Is anybody arrogant? Okay? We're in trouble. Now, if you were to say to me, I'm not arrogant. That's the most arrogant thing I've ever heard anybody say in my whole life. How arrogant do you have to be to proclaim? You know what my favorite thing about me is? My humility. It's probably been my best quality I ever have. Here's what this means, man. We're in trouble.

We are in trouble as a sinful individual in front of a holy and just God. Uh-oh. In fact, Jonathan Edwards says this. He's an old dead period and preacher. He says the bow of God's wrath is bent and the arrow made ready on the string and justice bends the arrow at your heart

and strains the bow and it's nothing but the mere pleasure of God and that of an angry God without any promise or obligation at all that keeps the arrow one moment from being made drunk with your blood? What are we that we should think to stand before him and whose rebuke the earth trembles and before whom the rocks are thrown down? There is nothing that keeps wicked men at any one moment out of hell but the mere pleasure of God we are but sinners in the hands of an angry God. Here's what he's saying. If you got fair, we'd be in hell right now. The only thing that

keeps us out of it is the merciful loving hands of a God that would love you enough to give you a chance to hear the gospel right now. So there's the warning. God would love his people enough to give a warning. That's the diagnosis. The diagnosis is usually not good news. And then here comes the cure. Here's the invitation.

Chapter 4, verse 2 says, but, listen, for you 90s kids, I love big butts and I cannot lie, especially big ones like this. They change everything. Because it was hopeless up to this point. However, but for you who fear, my name, the son of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. The Hebrew word is Knoth.

And then Malachi keeps going. So that's the good news. There's the gospel. He says, you shall go out leaping like calves from the stall, and you shall tread down the wicked, for there will be ashes under the souls of your feet. And on the day when I act, says the Lord of hosts, remember the law of my servant Moses,

the statues and the rules that I cannot. commanded him at Horeb for all of Israel. And how are we supposed to remember? It's because he's told us to tie these little seatses at the khanoff of the garment, at the edge of the garment. And then he says, behold, this is the final words from Malachi, through Malachi to God's people. He says, behold, he means pay attention.

Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. So it's Elijah than the Lord, got it? That's what you're looking for. There's Elijah then the Lord. and he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers. And then if you turn the page in your Bible,

if you still have like a physical copy like this one, it's just a blank page, or maybe it says New Testament. That page represents 400 years, 400 years of silence, 400 years of waiting, 400 years of people looking. All right, we're looking for the Spirit of Elijah, and then it's the Lord's Day. And not only that, it harkens all the way back to the very beginning, Genesis chapter 3, when sin enters the world, and then God shares the proto-evangalion, the first gospel, and he looks

at Eve, and he goes, listen, there's going to be this offspring that you have from your line, but I'm going to put enmity between this serpent, this devil, and your offspring, and there will come a day where he bruises his heel, but he's going to get his head crushed. and every single thing in all of the old covenant is pointing to the day when the serpent crusher shows up on the sea, when the son of righteousness will rise with healing in his wings.

And so about 400 years later, if you turn a few pages in your Bible and you get to the gospel of Luke's chapter 1, verse 16, Luke is connecting these things for us. The same guy that wrote Luke 8. And he says this, he says, and the he he's talking about there is John the Baptist. John the Baptist is the first cousin of Jesus.

John the Baptist is kind of weird dude, okay? He's super eccentric. We wears funny clothes. He's got like facial hair. He screams at people a lot. He was homeschooled, only child. Strange bird, okay? And if you're like, hey, I'm an only child,

we know, man, it's cool. We love you. You're awesome. But you just didn't have a big brother to, like, beat you up and tighten you up. That's fine. And so he's out in the Jordan, screaming.

He had a very short sermon. repent and be baptized. Prepare you the way of the Lord. That's what he's doing. And so here's what Luke says about this guy. And he, John the Baptist, and by the way, he's called John the Baptist because that's what he was doing.

He was baptizing people, dip-dunk submerging people. It's not his denomination. There's not like Mark the Methodist and Paul the Presbyterian and John the Babes. That's not how it works, okay? So he's dunking people.

And it says this, and he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah to turn the heart, of the fathers to the children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.

So John the Baptist is the one who comes in the spirit of Elijah. So who's next? The Lord is going to show up on the scene. So sure enough, he's out there dunking people in the ocean, screaming at him. And then one day his cousin, a nobody from nowhere according to the people. A man from Nazareth. Can anything good comes from Nazareth? And then he points at his cousin, Jesus.

And he says, behold. Remember what Malachi said? It's like pay attention. He says, behold. Here he is. The Lamb of God who's come to take away the sin of the entire world. Let me tell you how every Jewish person heard it.

Not another Lamb of God that's gonna cover over the sins of the Jewish people until next year on the day of atonement. But those lambs that we were slaying were to point to him, the Lamb of God who's come to take away the sin for anybody who would believe. And then Jesus walks out into the water and John baptizes Jesus and then the heavens open up and God the Father says out loud,

behold my son in whom I am well pleased, which is a picture of the gospel. Because at this point, what had Jesus done to earn his father's pleasure? He hadn't done any ministry yet. So before he ever does his first thing, God goes ahead and establishes, behold, my son, in whom I am well pleased.

That your identity precedes your activity. You should hear that every morning. Every morning you wake up, before you go prove yourself, you should hear the voice of the Heavenly Father over you saying, behold my son, my daughter, in whom I am well pleased. And then Jesus begins his teaching ministry. And he doesn't just teach like life, how you could be, you know, a better version of you.

He teaches who God is and what we must understand in order to be in a right relationship with him. And he does signs and wonders. He doesn't just do random miracles. That's not what he does. Like there's no place in the Gospels where it's like, and the disciples bumped into Jesus, and he was juggling camels. Like, oh, what's up, boy, sorry, put those down.

How can I help? That's not what he does. He's never just flexing his raw power through the miraculous. He's always pointing to God's redemptive purpose because the miracles always point to the mission. And so he'll bump into people and be like, oh, you guys need something to eat here, give me a little bit of fish and bread.

Here, have as much as you want. Why? Because in my father's house, nobody's hungry. There's plenty for everybody. Oh, your legs don't work here. Let me fix that. Take up your mat and walk, because when you walk into my father's kingdom, nobody's gonna walk with a swagger or a limp.

Oh, your eyes don't work, let me fix that. And then he puts together some mud, puts it on the dude's eyes, and clears them off so that he's saying, listen, man, when you get into my father's kingdom, you're going to come eyeball to eyeball with your heavenly father. I want you to be able to behold his glory. Oh, you're dead, little girl, get up

because nobody's dead in my kingdom. This is what he's doing. And then he came to die. That's what these things were pointing to. In this miracle that we're talking about in Luke 8, there's blood, there's a death, there's a resurrection. And he's saying, because that's why I came. I'm going to bleed, I'm going to die, and then I am going to be resurrected.

And so, when he says to this woman, daughter, your faith has made you well go in peace. All kind of different people had different reactions to Jesus. Some people scoffed. That's what the Pharisees did. You're not doing this right. They should be throwing a party. They're throwing a fit because he didn't fit in their religious construct. Some people ignored him because they were so busy with their own life.

They just walked right past the Son of God and didn't pay attention. Some people were entertained. Hey, will you do another miracle to fill my belly? And some people believed. And on this day, this woman, and we don't know her name, all we know her is her issue. And she shows up in Copernium and there he is. And she begins to think, what if he is who he says he is?

What if he is the fulfillment of every promise and prophecy of the Old Covenant? What if he is the servant crusher who has come on the scene? What if he is the Lamb of God that came to take away the sin of the world? And what if the Son of righteousness is here, and there is healing in his enough? And I don't know how many people were around. The Bible doesn't exactly say, but there are five or 600 reasons for her to go back home that day, and there is one reason for her to elbow her way through, excuse me, and fight and claw past the fear, past the condemnation, past the nervousness, past the what if it's not true?

And there is one reason she fights her way to Jesus, because she believes, If I can grab on to the edge of his wing, there is healing there because he's the son of righteousness. And when she does, power is transferred out of him and into her, and immediately she is cleansed. And then he looks at her and says, daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace. Amen? And isn't that what we're looking for? We're all looking for peace.

And we know this. You'll never find peace in a set of circumstance. It says peace is found in a person. He is the prince of peace. And in that moment, she goes from defiled to daughter, and there is a peace that transcends all understanding. And then it keeps going. And while he was still speaking, someone from the ruler's house,

that's Jiris, came and said, your daughter is dead. Do not trouble the teacher anymore. But Jesus, on hearing this answer, him, do not fear, only believe she will be well. Listen, it ain't over until Jesus says it's over. Somebody comes and gives the report, this is how it is. And Jesus is like, time out.

You don't get to determine how it is. I get to determine how it is. Just don't be afraid, believe, and she's going to be all right. Again, man, there's probably some things in your life. You thought they were dead, and Jesus hadn't proclaimed them dead yet. So don't be afraid, believe, and Jesus gets the last say. Listen, years ago, about six years ago, I'm on a plane, I think I'm coming home. I travel a bunch, and I'm in Atlanta.

How many of you know you can't get to heaven without a layover in Atlanta from Jacksonville? That's just how that works. Right. So I get a phone call, and let me just tell you today. In today's time, here's what happens. If you call somebody and they don't answer, here's what happens. Somebody looked at your name and went, nope, and they say, no thanks. That's just what happened.

So let that make you feel bad. Now, I grew up back in the 1900s. There was a day where we didn't even know who was calling. It was crazy. We had a thing called a landline. It was attached to the house. Had this long cord you could get all the way out in the kitchen, and then every once in a while you have to hold it

and like detangle that thing. You don't even understand what we went through. But when it would ring, you didn't even know who it was, man. You had to be like, not yet. I'm not going into the thing, you know? But today, you know who it is. All right, so a buddy mine called, and I almost always answer it when he calls. Because his name is Hunter, and he was aptly named.

and what he does for a living is he buys and sells hunting land. And so when hunter calls, sometimes he wants to talk, but sometimes it's an invitation. And so I'm usually like, hey, bro, what's up? And but this time I'm on the plane. They had just done to put your stuff away, spiel. And so I text them, hey man, can't talk right now. I'll call you as soon as I land 47 minutes. That's how long it takes.

And he texted me back. He's like, all right, my wife and I are in the car with Christian. They had a little baby named Christian. He was a few months old. He said, we're on our way to Wolfson's right now, and we think he has Luke. chemia, please pray. And so I called him immediately. I'm like, hey dude, what's up? And he's like, yeah, man, they've run a bunch of tests and we're on, we're on our way to Wilson's right now. And they say it's not good. They say, might not make it through the night. And I mean, it's just

no pain like kid pain, amen. And I can hear mama in the back, you know, she's kind of giving some information. I was like, all right, dude, we're about to take off, but let me just pray, okay? And then I begin to pray. And I don't know how it is when you pray, man. I don't know, but sometimes I get into it, okay? And I'm on the phone and I sort of lost context that I'm sitting on the airplane. And so I start praying and praying and praying that God would heal and praying that this would be good news and praying for faith. And then after, I don't know how long, it's probably just like 30 seconds or something,

I feel a hand on my shoulder and I look over and my seatmate understands what's happening here that I'm praying for this sick kid. So he puts his hand on my shoulder and he lifts his hand up. And I was like, all right, let's go. Here we go. And listen, man, I'm going to tell you what. I like an audience. Don't you laugh at.

And I'm like, all right, so then we just took that thing up a notch, okay? And then at this point, the Delta flight attendant comes over to tell me I've got to put my stuff away, and then she perceives what is happening. And so when I look out of one eye to see what she's going to say, she's got two hands up and she's praying too. And so I'm like, all right, man. So we got a quorum now for where two or three are gathering in his name. And so we are praying and praying and praying, you know. And then I get done. And I say, all right, dude, I'll see you in a minute.

I hang up the phone. I put it down. And I go to tell the dude next to me, my seatmate right here, the dude next to me, I go to tell him, thank you. But I'm pretty choked up. I get a little emotional, especially about my kids, but sometimes just on behalf of your friend, right? I get a little emotional, and I go to tell the guy thinking, and when I look at him, I start to get to get to get to, you old heads. You cry like the Terminator, man. You cry like John Wayne, just one tear, bang, not me.

I get to like, and my voice goes, I can't talk. and try, all that stuff happens. And so every time I look at him, I never said one word to this man, not one word, never spoken to him in my life. We'll catch up in heaven. That's all I know to tell you, all right? But I'm just here to tell you, it's not over until Jesus says it's over.

Christian, the hunter's little boy, had the worst case of childhood cancer they had ever seen at Wolfson's, ever. And today he is happy, healthy, whole, cancer-free, and six years old. Amen? So it's not over till Jesus says it's over. So he says, have no fear, only believe she will be well.

And when he came to the house, he allowed no one to enter with him except Peter and John and James. And just in case you're new to Bible study, that's not because those were his favorite. These are the three that can't be trusted to be alone. That's what's going on. Everybody else out here, Peter, James, John, get in the truck. Let's go. That's what that is. And the father and the mother of the child and all were weeping and mourning for her.

But he said, do not weep, for she is not dead. and they laughed at him knowing that she was dead. Listen, if you believe in Jesus and you do what he tells you to do and believe what he tells you to believe, there are going to be times where this world laughs at you. But I don't know about you, man, but I ain't living for the applause of this world.

I don't need the approval of this world because I don't want to be like this world. You want to be like this world? You're going to be broke, you're going to be medicated, you're going to be alone. That's your only option. Yeah, call me a nut and laugh at me. I don't care because I want to believe that Jesus is in charge of all things and still has the whole world in his hands.

And so while they're laughing at Jesus, he's like, all right, that's funny. You don't approve? How about this? But taking her by the hand, he called saying, child arise and her spirit returned, and she got up at once, and he directed that something should be given her to eat. And her parents were amazed. Let me ask you, man, is there something dead in your life? relationship, hopes, dreams, call of God, it ain't over until Jesus says it's over.

You see, again, the reason that Jesus is doing these miracles with this 12-year-old girl and this woman who was struggling with this issue for 12 years is because they always point to the mission. And he's in charge of all things, including the mess. That he's the God of the mess. And you might be in a mess, whether it's your own making or not. you might be in a mess, and if you find yourself in that mess, you may be perfectly positioned for a miracle of God.

Because in his kingdom, nobody's unclean, and nobody's crying, and nobody's dying. See, here's the point of the whole thing. The Son of righteousness has risen with healing in his wings. His name is Jesus. Two questions. Do you need healing? And if your answer's like, yeah, do you. Then the second question is this.

do you believe? Do you have faith? He said, daughter, your faith has made you well. And you may say, well, I got a little bit. Perfect. Perfect. Jesus makes it abundantly clear in his teaching

that he can do infinitely more than you could ever hope or imagine with an itsy-bitsy little tiny bit of faith in an almighty sovereign king of the universe. That if you have the faith the size of a mustard seed, if I had a mustard seed here, you wouldn't even be able to see it from where you are. It's not the amount of faith you have.

It's the object of your faith. and if you take a tiny little bit of faith, faith is a gift of God, you take a tiny little bit of faith, you put it in an almighty, all-powerful sovereign king of the universe, and it is infinitely more powerful than taking all of your trust and all of your faith and put again in your current circumstances.

So, do you need to be healed, some area of your life? And do you believe? You see, this woman shows up, she's got a million reasons to just pack it up and go home hopeless. But the Bible says, hope deferred makes the heart sick. And she decides not to put her hope in her circumstances,

but hope has a name and his name is Jesus. And she fights through the crowd because she believes the promises of the Word of God that the Son of righteousness has risen and there's healing in his wings. And part of the reason God wants to make you whole is so that you can holy worship Him. Jesus said the greatest commandment is to love God with all,

all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And so for some of you, where the healing needs to begin is at the soul level. Because your soul has been dinged up by your own sin. And Jesus came to make you right with God, to forgive you of your sin, to adopt you as a son or a daughter into his kingdom. And to change your eternal trajectory forever that you would not be separated from God, but you would be face-to-face with him forever and ever and ever. This is called eternal life. And so we're going to do this a little bit differently today. Just based on the text, Jesus outed this woman in front of everybody.

And so I'm going to ask you, if you have never put your faith in Jesus Christ, and you know, it's not my words that save you, I can't save you, but if you know if Jesus, your Savior is calling your name right now, and somehow for the first time you believe that when he died on the cross, somehow that counted for you, then I want to invite you to stay. stand up right here with everybody looking with every eye open with the light lights as bright as they are is there might just be one there's a million reasons not to but if there's any person in all of our campuses anywhere if

there's somebody praise God praise God amen amen amen stay up I want you to stay up praise God man praise God hey every single one of you standing I want you to look at me sons and daughters sons and daughters daughter son your faith has made you whole go in peace

now I want you to stay up okay you stay right there because there's a bunch of us and maybe your soul has been taken care of by Jesus through salvation some time ago but there's some other areas of your life and you need help maybe it's relationally maybe you need a miracle relationally

because there is some relationship that everybody else says is dead, but you ain't ready for it to be dead. Maybe it's a broken relationship, and you need the touch of Jesus to bring reconciliation in your life. Maybe it's a friendship that went wrong. Or maybe, this was always hard,

no pain like kid pain. Maybe it's your kid, man. You got a prodigal child, and you would do anything for them to come back home, and you need Jesus to touch your life and change things right now. I want to invite you to stand. Or maybe you're like this woman

and you have a financial, burden. I mean, she has spent everything that she had and it wasn't working. And maybe you find yourself, whether it was your own mess or somebody else's mess against you. And you need Jesus to provide resources for you. Or maybe, maybe you find yourself in a hopeless situation. And you're addicted. There's this thing that wants to drag you down a road that you don't want to go. And you're trying to do all the things, man. You're going to the meetings and you're running the steps and go. And God uses those things for sure, but you need more than that. You need a miraculous, powerful touch from the Son of righteousness,

and you need the chains of addiction to fall up. I want to invite you to stand up. For some of you, maybe it's a physical healing. Like you're going back to the doctor this week, and there's another scan. And we're going to pray that God makes the cells do what they're supposed to do. And for some of you, it's your marriage. You feel like your marriage is broken. You feel like it's dead.

and you want to believe if Jesus, if God can breathe new life into his dead son, then he can breathe new life into you. For some of you, it's a spiritual healing that you need. You feel like you're stuck on that one blank page between the Old Testament and New Testament, and you cry out to God and you feel like all you're getting is a blank page back.

For some of you, it's mental. Like the warfare that you're going through is primarily in here. And your circumstances seem to be okay, but you can't turn the okay on. and you want to walk in the joy of the Lord not live up to the labels this world gives you for some of you it's an emotional healing that you need

and you are gripped by fear it doesn't even make sense but you were so gripped by fear that you're paralyzed and you want a touch of Jesus that the fear would fall away because God has not given you a spirit of fear but he's giving you a spirit of power and of love and of a sound mind or self-control maybe that's you or maybe it's something that I haven't mentioned, but you know what it is.

And you know that this enemy is trying to use this issue in your life to define you, but you're sick of being told who you are by the enemy. You want to hear the words of Jesus, right, eyeball to eyeball, actually deeper than you could hear out loud, down here at the soul level. You want to hear him say, son, daughter, your faith has made you well. So last call, if you need a touch of Jesus, then you can stand up where you are.

So here's what I want to tell you. man you're not alone you're not alone you're not alone you're not alone look at us look look around man we all need him right we all need him you're not alone so here's what we're going to do we're still going to respond the way we've been called to respond the way we do it okay we're going to sing we're going to bring we're going to pray but jesus before he left he says i'm leaving that you're going to be the beneficiary because i'm going to send a helper and you're going to do even greater things like if jesus was here right now in the flesh he'd be happy to pray for everybody but we'd be here all day everybody had to get in one line

but he sent the Spirit of God inside every single believer. So if you're a believer around somebody that stood up, I want you to get close to this person. I want you to put their hands on them just very appropriately, like on their elbow or shoulder. And I want you to go ahead and start praying over this person. And then I'm going to pray. We're all going to pray at the same time.

It's going to be real charismatic, Baptist, so hang in there, okay? And we're all going to pray out loud at the same time. And then when I say amen, we're going to continue to respond. We're going to bring our ties and offerings. We're going to pray so you're more than welcome to come on. down here as an individual or a group and we're going to sing and we're going to sing the song called Let It Be So that our prayer together as a song as we're saying amen to the prayers lifted up for all the people that just stood up. Let's pray together. Our good and gracious Heavenly Father God,

we love you more than anything because you love this prayers. And Jesus, I pray that you would do miracles in this place. God, I pray that you would restore marriages right now. God, people would be forgiven. Chains of addiction would fall. Relations. relationships would be reconciled. God, people in their brain would begin to quit believing the lies and labels of the enemy, and they would believe that this is love, not that we love you, but you loved us and sent your son as the propitiation for our sin. That means you're not dissatisfied in us.

God, I pray against the lies of the enemy, the schemes of the enemy. He's got no room in this place. This is your house, not his. He's got no room in the life of the believer because they were bought and paid for by you. They're not their own. they were bought at a price. I pray the blood of Jesus over every single person

that stood up that the chains and the shackles of sin and condemnation would fall away and that we would walk out of this place differently we would walk in a manner worthy of the gospel of Jesus Christ

that we would take off grave clothes we would get off of those mats that we would walk with you because we believe that the son of righteousness has risen and do you have healing in your wings and God we pray for

total and complete, heart, soul, mind, and strength, total and complete healing. And God, we pray this in the matchless name, the undefeated name, the only name that matters when we pray, we pray this in the good, strong name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, and all God's people said, amen. So we're going to sing. Let it be so. We're going to bring, and we're going to pray. Let's respond.