Weak Faith and Great Grace

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Okay, if you have your Bibles, then, if you would, turn to the Gospel of Mark.
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If you remember, if you were here last week, or if you remember last week, we considered a miracle, and it was the miracle of the 10 lepers, and how we looked at the wonder-working power of Jesus, and how the Son of God, the Son of Man, was continually going about and doing great things, compassionate things, glorious things, things that made men and women and young and old, and even in that sense, at times, dead, whole again.
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And so, I wanna look this morning at a second miracle, and it's the miracle that we'll find in Mark 5, in verses 25 through 35, and, you know, it's so wonderful if you think about it, and I hope we do think about it, that the Gospels give us such understanding, if you will, of all the myriad of miracles that Jesus did, and how many lives he restored, and how many ways he made people whole that were not whole, and the great demonstration of really nothing but mercy, and power, and grace, and, you know, you remember what it says in John's Gospel? It says, of all the things were written, of all that Jesus said and did, all the books in the world, what? Couldn't contain it.
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Couldn't contain, and I think that's part of what eternity will be, when we are given explanation and understanding of these glorious acts of God, not only from the heavens, but even among the children of the earth, and so I do wanna look at another miracle this morning, and I will add to that, that if you and I would consider it, all those miracles that we see in the Gospels, particularly, and also as it is in the whole Word of God, but that you and I would realize that God hasn't changed, and the God who did and does great miracles for those who are in need is the same God that we came to worship this morning.
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God has not diminished, God has not lost his power, God has not lost his purpose, and so when you and I look at these miracles, I hope we will understand that the same wonder-working power of God is present with us today, and if we only could think of it right and see it right, we see miracles about us all day long, from the giving of life, in that sense, to the taking home of God's people, to the acts demonstrated within the creation itself, but particularly this morning, I do wanna look at the account of the woman with the issue of blood, and so let us read in chapter five of Mark, and you can read this in the other Gospels, again, remember talking about the Synoptic Gospels, how they have similar accounts of similar things that took place, you could read about it in Matthew chapter nine or Luke chapter eight, but the fullest account is given to us by Mark, so we'll focus in on that account, and let me just read to you from verse 25 through verse 35, and then hopefully we can expand on it.
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Now, a certain woman had a flow of blood for 12 years, and had suffered many things from many physicians, and she had spent all that she had, and was no better, but rather grew worse.
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When she heard about Jesus, she came behind him in the crowd and touched his garment, for she said, if only I may touch his clothes, I shall be made well.
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Immediately, the fountain of blood was dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of the affliction, and Jesus immediately, knowing that in himself the power had gone out of him, turned around in the crowd and said, who touched my clothes? But his disciples said to him, you see the multitudes thronging you when you say, who touched me? He looked around to see her who had done this thing.
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But the woman, fearing and trembling, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell down before him and told him the whole truth, and he said to her, daughter, your faith has made you well.
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Go in peace and be healed of all your affliction.
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May God bless his word to our hearts and to our minds again.
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There are similarities I would ask us to consider.
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There are similarities between the miracle that we are going to focus on this morning and the miracle, the wonderful power of Christ that was demonstrated in the 10 lepers last week, and perhaps we can see as we go through this some of the similarities of how certain things follow the power of Jesus.
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And I wanna point out to us that as the lepers were healed, so God is going to heal this woman, and that it is a picture, if you will, and it's a real historical event.
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It really happened.
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There really were people who had issues in their lives, and they were truly healed, but it also is to teach us, to teach us that these things that happen so often in the physical realm are examples to us of what is in reality in the spiritual world or in the world of relationship to the Lord our God.
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As far as the setting, I would mention if you remember, and again, I probably go back more than I thought I would to the lepers, but if you remember when we talked about the healing of the 10 lepers, Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem.
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He was on his way to be mistreated, mishandled, accused, and ultimately taken to the cross and crucified.
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And as we read about this this morning, we will see that this is earlier on in the ministry of Jesus, and not only is it earlier on in the ministry of Jesus, but it's interesting that this miracle is kind of enfolded in another miracle.
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And if you are not familiar with it, it's about the man, the servant, Jairus, whose daughter was sick, and he has come and he's requested Jesus to come and to heal his daughter because she's at the point of death, and Jesus agrees to go, and as he's going to demonstrate his power and his goodness and his compassion, this woman is kind of inserted into it, and we ought to consider, if you will, the miracle of this as well as what he's doing for Jairus's daughter.
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I kind of want to stress this over and over again because I think it's so important for us, and I wonder sometimes, and I know for myself, that I don't consider the things that I ought to consider as much, and I usually consider the things I ought not to consider more than I should consider them.
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Now, I could not repeat that again.
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But I would hope that we can understand and consider that faith does not always begin in great strength.
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Matter of fact, I've titled it, and if you looked in the bulletin, it says weak faith in God's grace, and what I want to try to have us consider this morning as we look at this miracle of the woman with the issue of blood, that what is absolutely essential, friends, is that we have faith in God, amen? Amen.
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But that that faith is not something that just comes upon us, and that's the end of it, but it goes through many different phases in our lives, and that at times, and I would hope you would agree, that we could and should all say our faith is weak, but God's grace is great, and that as we consider certain theories of our life, that we do not underestimate the power of even weak faith, nor the grace, the amazing grace of God's ability to take things which are weak and make them strong, and that you and I should be able to relate to that, that strong faith many times starts out as weak faith.
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Not everyone is born John Calvin.
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Not everyone is born Keith Foskey.
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Not everyone is born with great, overflowing of faith, and not only faith, of service, because there is a connection, I believe there's a connection between faith and service, and that weak faith will grow by the grace of God into strong faith, and then service will grow from perhaps what is considered as weak service into strong service, and there's a relationship between them, and that strong faith, again, many times starts out as baby steps.
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So, Baby Raylands, he's here, right? Yeah, I see you.
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He's not walking yet, is he? Not yet.
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And we know about Theo, Theo's still, I asked Brother Keith this morning, how's Theo doing, he said he's doing baby things.
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But, here's the point, although babies will be weak in the beginning, right, they're still alive, praise God, there's still movement, there's still activity, but it's weak until God's grace is what? Added to it, right? It's not just the vitamins, or the nutrients, or the physicians, or this, or that, or anything else, it's God's grace that takes even that weakness of body, and mind, and even of a person, and by God's grace, he turns it into something strong.
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So, sooner or later, Baby Rayland will be asking for the keys to the car, but it's all to be considered as a demonstration of God's grace.
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So, I've given you an introduction of what I really want to accomplish as we look at this, and as we look at it, remind us that God is always working, brothers and sisters, always, whether we observe it, whether we comprehend it, whether we even acknowledge it, God is always at work.
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God was at work this past week, wasn't he? God was at work fulfilling his purposes, accomplishing his desire, and although many do not understand it, it still took place.
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And so, as we are introduced to this woman, and we begin to see the power of Christ, I just wanted to remind us that God neither slumbers, nor sleeps, God never ceases to be God.
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And so, as we look at this woman, let us consider some of the details of what takes place.
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And so, in verse 25, a certain woman had a flow of blood for 12 years, I want us to consider that, just consider that that she's had a prolonged time of sickness.
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Now, I do not know exactly what this issue of blood was, however, I do believe that it had to deal with the cost of a woman's life, and if you want to read more about that, you can read, remember last week, I told you, if you wanted to read more about the lepers, read Leviticus 13, and I told you, if you read Leviticus 13, 14, and 15, actually, you'll see a much wider understanding of many things than actually in Leviticus 15.
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It talks specifically about the cost of life for a woman and the issue of blood.
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But here's the point, the point is that we're not, we might not exactly know the details, although I do believe that it has relationship to that, but the point I want to stress is that we find this woman with a disease that is disabling, and not only disabling, but a disease that renders her, and don't misunderstand me, renders her unclean, because if you read again in Leviticus, when it talks about the lepers, remember I told you that if you had leprosy, you had to what? You had to cover your mouth and cry out, unclean, unclean.
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Well, if you read in Leviticus 15, of what the law was set up, and the way it was to work out concerning a woman that had a prolonged issue of blood, she also was considered unclean.
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And that you and I need to consider that both of these, both of these are given to us as a teaching, not only of the physical issues that we face, but of the spiritual issues, and that as we think about the unclean spiritually, that being those who are separated from God, because of what? Sin, right? That as, even as we read of this woman who would have been considered unclean because of her infirmity, and we read last week about the 10 lepers who were considered unclean because of their disease, so spiritually anyone, listen, friends, please, young people listen to me this morning, old people listen to me this morning, sin separates man from God.
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Sin separates God from man, and that spiritually, all apart from the amazing grace of the Savior are unclean.
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Isaiah said, your iniquities have built barriers between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.
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And so, as we look at this woman and her issue, and we look at the healing power of Jesus, consider it not only physically but spiritually, and ask yourself, do I need healing? Do I need healing physically? I guess we could all say amen.
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Do we need healing spiritually? I hope we would all say amen.
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That you and I are, in many ways, no different than the 10 lepers, no different than the woman in the account we are reading, that both pictures are to teach us not only of the physical issues of life, but of the spiritual conditions of life.
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So we meet a certain woman, she had a flow of blood for 12 years, verse 26, and she had suffered many things.
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From many physicians, she spent all that she had, and was no better, but rather grew worse.
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Not only was her condition bad and sad, but the sadness, listen, the sadness was made worse by her attempt to try to get rid of the issue.
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That's pretty bad.
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When the solution that you follow does not help, but rather makes things worse.
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She had suffered many things from many physicians, and she spent all that she had, and was no better, but rather grew worse.
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She was afflicted.
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She was in a bad way.
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She was in a way of suffering.
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I can't even imagine, and I can't even imagine what might have been some of the ways in which physicians would have tried to help this woman.
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I just, I can't even begin to think about that.
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However, I know this, that there was many who suggested many things, and probably did many things in order to try to seek to help her, but the reality is those physicians only made her worse, and she spent all that she had to seek to recover.
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Now, would any of us fault her for doing this? I would hope not.
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None of us would fault her for seeking to be relieved from the condition that she was in.
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Otherwise, we'd put doctors out of business.
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So, although she was right in following, trying to follow a course that would have healed her, the reality is it cost her everything, just like some today will go, will spend all that they have and all that they can to try to remedy a particular situation, and again, I am not against that.
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I'm not a Christian scientist, and I don't believe that we should just say if God's gonna heal, he's gonna heal.
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If my finger starts to fall off, if I cut it in half, I'm gonna try to get him to sew it back on, and that she spent all that she had, my friends, and for all of that, she just grew worse.
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Think about it again in the spirits, and I'm kind of trying to, going back and forth, because I'm trying to make us think about as we move through this and how weak faith, how God's gonna take even weak faith and make it strong, but just think about the reality of so many today.
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There are so many today, friends, who are spiritually unclean before God, and they are making all manner of attempts to remedy that, and many of them will spend all that they have and only grow worse, and the reason for that is simply because there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved, and that as people even today seek for all kinds of remedies to all kinds of maladies, I just gotta say this.
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Often I watch these commercials sometimes, so if you have a rash on your arm and you take this medicine, if your nose don't fall off and your eyeballs go sideways, you might recover from the rash, but it's not funny, it's sad, because even in today, there's all kinds of things that are used to try to heal people's conditions, and thank God, many of them work, but so many of them have so many strings attached to it.
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Let me say this to you, and I hope you will agree with me.
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If we have even but weak faith in Christ, if it's a true faith, then we have all the remedy that we will ever need, and that as we look at this poor woman's condition, and she spent all that she had and she only grew worse, how frustrating it must have been, how sad, how tragic, and then we read in verse 27, when she heard about Jesus, she came behind him in the crowd and touched his garment, for she said, if only I may touch his clothes, I shall be made whole, I shall be made well, and I think this is the most interesting description, and this is where I began to really think about this reality of weak faith in God's grace, because I do believe that she has faith, and I do believe it's weak, and I do believe God in Christ Jesus is going to take that weak faith and use it and strengthen her.
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Now, I will also say this, some have looked at this and said that they believe that this woman has such strong faith that she just felt that all I have to do is just touch his garment and I don't even have to say anything and I'll be healed, and if that's the position that you take, then that's fine for discussion perhaps, but I can only say to you what I believe is taking place at the time in my own mind and my own understanding of it, and I do not believe that this woman is of such strong faith that she just feels all I gotta do is touch his garment and I will be healed, but rather that her faith is weak and she does what she does because of that and that Jesus, and I hope the text will prove that out, Jesus will then take that and turn it into something greater.
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And then when it says that she had heard about him, again, I was reminded of what we talked about with the lepers, they had heard about Jesus, they had heard about the healer, they had heard about the great physician, they had learned, they had heard, and I would think she has of someone who has, if nothing else, has these great powers and they've been demonstrated, and as a matter of fact, it says that Jesus' fame, what? It went out through all the land, and that people have heard that to come to this great physician is to leave with great healing and so she has heard about Jesus and she came behind him in the crowd and she touched his garment, where she said, if only I may touch his clothes, I shall be made well.
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Now, let me just again stress this, faith in the Savior many times can begin in a very weak way.
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Faith in Christ, if it's true faith, if there's true life, and again, I'm not suggesting that there's something that's not faith and then faith, but that even weak faith, faith in Christ, many times will begin in that sense in a very small way.
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As I said, not everyone sees the heavens open when Christ opens their hearts.
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Now, some of us have, I would think if we had a testimony time that some of you would say that it was, I wish I could snap loud, but I can't, but it was like Paul on the road to Damascus.
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He went from Saul to Paul in this grand movement of the Spirit of God.
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I would say, I think of my own life and I would more be in line with that, the Saul-Paul thing, than I would in that faith began in such a weaker state.
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And yet the reality is, I do believe that she has faith and that is why she had heard about Jesus and she comes and touches his garment.
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And she said, if only I may touch his clothes, I shall be made well.
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And here's another thought to think about and just leave it to you to think about it.
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Does she just come up behind him and touch his garment because she thinks there's something magical about the garment? Is it weak faith and is it just superstition? Like it just touches clothes.
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Or is that a demonstration even at times of weak faith? You and I have to consider it, but I do believe she does not have a strong abiding faith.
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She does not approach him from the front.
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She does not speak at this point.
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And remember, there's a crowd all around.
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She's, Jesus is thronged, right? He's surrounded and she comes up behind him and she touches his garment.
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She does not speak directly to him, but rather seeks to come up.
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And she has that faith to believe if I, and I can't tell you what she's actually thinking.
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And I don't think you can tell me what she's actually thinking.
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But nevertheless, she comes up and the thought was, if I can touch him for whatever reason, I will be healed.
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As we think of it further, she said, if I only may touch him, I may become well.
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This must've been something for her that really moved her.
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Because remember, she has spent, basically she spent at least 12 years and at least a great deal of a substance trying to be made whole again.
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Again, which one of us, if we had a malady for an extended period of time, would not desire to be relieved, released, restored, whatever way you want to put it.
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And so as she comes up, I would think that there is great anticipation, whether it be weak or strong, but there is a reality of faith to come up and to touch him.
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And that if I touch him, I will be made whole.
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And again, I want to encourage, listen, for any here who do not know Christ, for any of you who this morning do not know the Savior the way you need to, I want to say this to you, that if you can but believe that God is and believe he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek after him, you will find him.
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That even if your faith is not that of Saul or of others that have demonstrated, even if your faith is weak, trust him.
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I say that to you young people, particularly this morning, you're going to have many issues in your life.
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It is not an easy road to walk in this world.
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It's easy to be in mom and dad's house.
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It gets rough, the water gets rough once you get outside those doors.
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And I want you to think about this and seek to remember, always have faith in God.
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Maybe it won't be faith that you can move a mountain, but faith to believe that he is and that he's a rewarder of those that seek after him.
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And that even in your weakest faith, if it's true faith, God can take that and do exceedingly, I so love that verse, God can do exceedingly abundantly above all we ask or even all that we think.
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I'm sure she had some thoughts what was going on in her mind.
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So consider that you young people as you grow and as you find yourself with many issues that you can always come to Jesus.
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You won't always be able to go to your parents, by the way.
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Well, maybe you can, I don't know.
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But still ultimately you need to go to Christ.
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And so she said, if only I may touch his clothes that shall be made whole in verse 29.
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And immediately, a fountain of a blood was dried up and she felt in her body that she was healed of the affliction.
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Wow, 12 years spent all that she had suffered under the hands of many physicians.
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And she but touches the hem of his garment and she's immediately made well.
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That's one of the neat things in the gospel of Mark, by the way, if you read through the gospel of Mark.
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Mark uses this thought of immediacy immediately very often of the absolute miraculous power that takes place concerning those who come in contact with Jesus of Nazareth.
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And so immediately the fountain of blood was dried up and she felt it in her body that she was healed of her affliction.
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You remember the lepers? Remember we looked at last week? As they went, what happened? They were cleansed.
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And then there was this, if you will, outpouring of amazing grace to take someone from a condition of hurt and pain and suffering and misunderstanding and affliction and all of a sudden to be made whole.
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Because really, I'm gonna tell you, that's what salvation is.
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Salvation is to be taken from spiritual uncleanness and spiritual affliction and spiritual sickness and then by the power of God, when faith comes by the mercy and grace of God and we believe we are immediately made whole.
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Now we might not fully understand that, but that's the reality.
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And I say this and I'll say it again.
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Friends, if you believe in Jesus this morning, you are just as safe as the one who has been believing in Jesus for a half a century because you've been made whole.
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You don't need any more remedies spiritually.
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And so she immediately feels in her body that this affliction has been taken away.
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And then verse 30, and Jesus immediately knowing in himself that power had gone out of him, turned around to the crowd and said, who touched my clothes? Here's when the Savior begins, I believe, to start to draw out of this woman a confession of faith.
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Maybe weak, but nevertheless.
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And I don't think any of us, I would hope none of us here this morning would think when Jesus said, who touched my clothes, that Jesus was ignorant, that he did not know.
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He who knew and knows the heart of man and the thoughts of man, did he not know who touched his garments? Remember, he's not only the son of man, he's the son of God.
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And that might be a different discussion to think how that all worked out, but that's not my point.
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My point is Jesus immediately knowing in himself that power had gone out of him and that someone had believed concerning him and his ability and his power to restore.
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And when he says, who touched me, it was really by design.
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He's seeking to bring that woman's faith out, draw it out of her.
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And not only to draw it out of her, but that there would be a public confession of it.
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And so he looks around at her.
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Who touched me? Verse 32, he looked around to see her who had done this thing.
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In Luke's account, I just wanted to read this at this point.
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In Luke's account, it says, then the woman seeing that she could not escape notice, came trembling and fell down before him in the presence of all the people.
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She explained why she had touched him and how she had immediately been healed.
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Again, remember the crowd is surrounding.
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Even the disciples, look at it.
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Even the disciples say to him, and in the other accounts, it's even drawn out more.
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As disciples in verse 31, you see the multitudes thronging you and you say, who touched me? Even the disciples could not discern how God in his amazing grace is at work.
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Very often it's that case today, right? That many people come to Christ in small beginnings.
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And that many times it's not even observable to others.
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And again, it's not always in the fire.
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It's not always in the whirlwind, right? God doesn't always speak in the whirlwind.
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Sometimes God, what? Speaks in a still small voice.
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And the disciples even themselves are struggling with understanding this.
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And so he looks for her and at her and he looked around to see who had done this thing in verse 33, but the woman fearing and trembling, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell down before him and told him the whole truth.
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Faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God.
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And there needs to be a public confession of that.
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And I believe that's what he is drawing out from her.
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That she is noticed and known to him.
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She knows that power has gone out in a way to which she has been healed and that she now is going to come and it just amazes me how the word of God is so descriptive in so many different places.
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The woman fearing and trembling, knowing all that had happened, came and fell down before him and told him the whole truth.
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Do you remember when we looked at the lepers? The lepers, when we first met the lepers, where were they? They were far off, weren't they? They had to be a far off.
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And remember, he sent the tent to the priest and the point of the message in Paul last week was, are we wearing a nine? Because the one returned, right? And you remember where we found the leper after he was healed? He's at the feet of Jesus.
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Well, this woman comes up from behind, is healed and now she falls at his feet.
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You see, my friends, and I want to reiterate that.
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True faith, weak faith, strong faith.
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True faith will always elicit worship.
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It will always cause us to see and understand God in a way that we never understood him before.
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It will always bring us to him, not drive us from him.
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And that you and I, again, we ought not always to be thinking about seeing great manifestations of the spirit of God, but listen, just to draw a nine to him.
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That's the position we'll be in for all eternity, by the way.
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We'll be right at his feet.
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Now, I'm not saying that we're not going to be active.
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That's another subject, but we will worship, won't we? There'll be no problem.
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You talked about two hours of worship.
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There'll be no end to the worship service, friends.
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And guess what? By God's grace, you'll never get tired of it.
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And so now this woman comes and he's, in a sense, removed her cloak.
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And there she is, fearing and trembling, knowing what had happened to her.
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She came and fell down before him and told him the whole truth.
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And the response of Jesus to me is just so glorious.
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Verse 34, and he said to her, daughter, your faith has made you well.
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Now, again, everyone has to be fully convinced in their own mind of what manner of faith she had, but I do believe she had faith, weak faith, but she believed that Jesus was able to do what she desired for him to do.
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And that weak faith, if it be true faith, is saving faith.
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And that God can then take us and by his grace, add to us that we will grow more and more and more in faith.
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And therefore, more and more and more in worship.
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And therefore, more and more and more in service.
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And I say it and I'll say it again until the next time I am able to preach.
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If your life and my life is not changed from the first time we said that we believed in Jesus, then I seriously doubt whether we really believed in Jesus.
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There are things that accompany salvation.
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And so now he looks to her and he says to her, isn't that great? He calls her daughter.
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Daughter, your faith has made you well.
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And then if that's not enough, he says to her, go in peace.
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Man, I don't know about you, but that must have lit her up.
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I say not only in her body, but in her soul.
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She has been struggling, she's been searching, she's exhausted it all.
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And not only now does she find peace of body, she finds peace of soul, because I believe that's exactly what he meant when he said, go in peace, daughter.
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What more could be desired? Friends, what do you and I desire more than to have peace with God this morning? Well, if I could only have peace with the stock market.
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Oh, if I could only have peace with this, and I can only have peace, if I can only have peace with this one or that one.
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Well, my friends, the greatest peace that could ever be had is peace with God.
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I thought about it as the waves crashed this week down there in South Florida, and how the Bible talks about how those crashing waves are a teaching of the restlessness of men's souls.
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And that the waves, which constantly are crashing, they're constantly kicking up dirt and mire, and they do not present peace.
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And remember what it says in Isaiah? There is no peace.
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Sayeth my God to the wicked.
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And yet here comes someone, and even in perhaps weakness, believes, and Jesus is going peace.
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I'm gonna ask you this morning, do you have peace with God? Now, I truly wish I could just stand here for the next 10 minutes, and pray that the Spirit of God would convict us all to answer that question honestly.
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Do you have peace with your Creator this morning? Do you have peace with the Redeemer? Do you have peace with the ultimate judge of all? Do you have peace this morning knowing that when that final breath is taken, when the light begins to go out, that as you take your last breath, do you have peace to know that you will be in the very presence of a loving Savior? Or will you be in the presence of an angry God? Because I assure you, it's one or the other.
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And so he says to her, go in peace, daughter of your faith.
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Be healed, and she is healed.
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So again, I ask you this morning, friends, as we close, to think about that.
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That's why Jesus came.
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I've come that they might have life, and what else? And more abundantly.
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People always talk about the abundant life.
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You wanna know what the abundant life is? Faith in God, trust, belief, pressing on.
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Though he slay me, yet I will praise him.
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I will tell you this.
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I would rather God slay me 1,000 times over because I know that he who slays me will save me.
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Isn't that great? Even in the tearing down of everything that's wrong with us, God's at peace with us.
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He is prepared to strip it all that he might clothe us all.
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Isn't that wonderful? Remember what Jesus said as I close? He said, he who believes on me, what? Has life.
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This is life eternal.
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To know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you sent, don't leave here this morning without having peace with God.
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And just as quickly as God healed the lepers, and just as quickly as God stopped that flow of blood, I say to you this morning, if you will repent and believe in the gospel, then you too will leave here this morning with eternal peace.
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Because he's the prince of peace.
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And may God help us.
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Let's pray.
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Our Father in God, thank you for who you are.
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Thank you for your word.
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Thank you for these great examples of your mercy, and of your healing, and of your wonderful power as you restore, and revive, and renew, and recreate.
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And oh God, help us this morning to not only believe, and even Lord, if it be but weak faith that you would take that weak faith and cause it to grow, that we might bring forth fruits, some 30, some 60, some 100.
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Bless us we pray in Christ's name, amen.