Touching Jesus
Tonight, I want to continue with where Pastor Joseph has ben taking us for a couple of weeks. Prayer and fasting are important disciplines we are called to participate in as believers. And as we’ve heard Pastor say, it is not just some spiritual exercise that we go through to gain God’s favor, but instead it is a thing we do in order to draw closer to the Lord. How are you all doing with that? You know that we aren’t just asking you all to do this because we think it’s something very “spiritual” Right?
Have you ever been around someone who tells you about something they have done or a restaurant they have been to and they tell you, “You just have to try this or you just have to go there!”? And I know that when people share their experiences that way they are trying to offer you something that, in their opinion, is good, but I’m not very good at receiving suggestions that sound more like a command! So, when I hear a “you just have to try this restaurant!’ I’m like “No I don’t”!
Our call to 21 days of prayer and fasting isn’t like that. It’s not even a suggestion. It’s an opportunity for us all to find a way to get into the presence of God. We’re doing it because it’s biblical. For some of you, when you take this step and find a deeper place in your relationship with God, something profound will happen.
Jeremiah 29:12-13, Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
Connect those verses with 1 John 5:14-15, This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. 15 And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.
Fasting and prayer is not about getting God to do for us – it is about getting us in a position to receive what God has already done for us.
I want to look at a familiar bible story tonight and draw some things out for you to think about.
Mark 5: 21-34, tell the story…
21 When Jesus had again crossed over by boat to the other side of the lake, a large crowd gathered around him while he was by the lake. 22 Then one of the synagogue leaders, named Jairus, came, and when he saw Jesus, he fell at his feet. 23 He pleaded earnestly with him, "My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live." 24 So Jesus went with him. A large crowd followed and pressed around him. 25 And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. 26 She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. 27 When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, 28 because she thought, "If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed." 29 Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering. 30 At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, "Who touched my clothes?" 31 "You see the people crowding against you," his disciples answered, "and yet you can ask, 'Who touched me?'" 32 But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. 33 Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. 34 He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering."
Father, thank You for Your Word. I ask Lord that you open ears to hear, and eyes to see and hearts to understand what Your Spirit is saying to Your church tonight. In Jesus’ Name. And Everybody said AMEN!
Theologians think that the gospel of Mark is probably more chronologically correct than any other – that most of the events happened in the order that we read them, even though we may not know the amount of time in between. So up to this time in Jesus’ ministry, most of His time was spent in Capernaum and Galilee. He had just come back from an encounter with a demon possessed man on the other side of the Sea of Galilee. He had healed many, cast out demons, and taught about the kingdom of God. He even spoke of His own divinity when He said, the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath. And many of these things took place in the synagogue in Jesus’ hometown. Do you think that by this time word had gotten around about Jesus?
Leading up to the story that I read earlier we see a synagogue leader coming to Jesus because his daughter was sick and was dying. Jarius may have been one who condemned Jesus for healing on the Sabbath. He would have seen Him cast out a demon on one day and heal a man with a withered hand on another day. But now he can’t deny what Jesus has done and sees Him as his only hope. Keep that in mind. He had seen first hand what Jesus does, but it took him being confronted with great need for him to come to Jesus. And there was a great crowd with him along with the crowd following Jesus. Scripture says that they were pressed in around him – literally shoulder to shoulder.
The fact that Jesus did nothing in the dark, nothing hidden, is very significant when we read about this woman who has suffered for 12 years and had spent all her money on doctors and had not gotten any better. In fact, she got worse. What do we know about this woman? 1) She must have been well to do. It took twelve years but she finally spent all her money. 2) She would have been ceremonially unclean, so she probably didn’t have a large support group. 3) She had reached the end of her rope.
But, verses 27-28 gives us all the information we need about this woman.
1. Hearing about Jesus can move us.
Scripture does not tell us what she heard about Jesus.
Did she just hear about His healing ministry and think, well I’ll give that a try. Nothing ese seems to work! Was it just an act of desperation?
I think it was more than that. In Jesus’ time the hem of a garment was associated to a person’s identity. So if you were a high ranking religious leader, your hem would be more ornate.
Let’s think of this. In His home synagogue Jesus read from the prophet Isaiah 61, the place where it talks about the Messianic ministry.
Luke 4: 18"The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." … "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing."
2. Hearing the word isn’t enough.
Here’s personal proof for that. As a child we never went to church unless we wee visiting grandparents in Arkansas. We did attend VBS for a couple of summers. After moving to Troy, I went to church with some neighbors a few times. To the Methodist church, a Presbyterian church occasionally, to a Pentecostal church… and I remember thinking then, when I saw guitars, and horns, and drums on the platform, No Way! This is cool!
And in everyone of those settings I’m sure I heard God’s word proclaimed.
And then after we were married joining a liturgical church – I heard the gospel read every week. And didn’t do anything with it.
Romans 10:17, So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
It wasn’t until I made up my mind to do something with the Word that my life was changed.
This woman put aside her “religion” (her uncleaness), she put aside her physical weakness, she put aside the impossible odds of getting to Jesus because of the crowd, and she pressed in to get to Jesus.
(Jamess 1:22) Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.
3. Touching Jesus changes everything
29 Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering. 30 At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, "Who touched my clothes?" 31 "You see the people crowding against you," his disciples answered, "and yet you can ask, 'Who touched me?'" 32 But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. 33 Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. 34 He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering."
There’s an old Jimmy Swaggart song that has a chorus that goes like this…
Touching Jesus is all that matters,
Then your life will never be the same;
There is only one way to touch Him,
Just believe when you call on His name
That brings us back around to the whole concept of Prayer and Fasting. When we seek after Him He will be found by us.
If we seek after the Savior, He saves…
If we seek after the Healer, He heals…
After the provider, the comforter, the One who empowers though the baptism in the Holy Spirit, if you can just get to the place where you can touch Jesus, what can you have faith enough to expect?
Tonight, would you be willing to press in and touch Him?
Will you put yourself in a position to receive from Him?
Would you come join me here and let’s sing together
Reach out and touch the Lord, as He walks by
You will find He’s not to busy to hear your cry
He is passing by this moment, your needs He’ll supply
Reach out and touch the Lord as He walks by.
