Sermon for 4/23/2006
Mark 5:21-43
Interruptions!
Introduction:
A. I have been studying feverishly on a sermon and it just isn’t coming together. Finally, the Lord helps me and shows me how it can come together. I am ready to record the thoughts when the phone rings. I pick up the phone and talk for about 10 minutes. Then I come back to record the notes for the sermon but unfortunately I have completely forgotten these thoughts and the rest of the day I frantically try to remember what was revealed to me before that phone call.
B. Samuel Coleridge was a great writer. On one occasion in the summer of 1797, Coleridge was taking a nap. In this nap he was given a grand vision of a poem, the verses already worked out. Coleridge woke up and quickly began writing down each line. But then, there came a knock at the door. Later in his notes, he refers to his visitor as “a man from Porlock” and gives no clue as to why he came or what took place. He returned to the poem as hour later, only to find that while he still retained a vague recollection of this dream, the rest had vanished like the morning mist. He tried to piece it together as best he could but from his point of view it never was like the original. The work is Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan.”
WBTU:
A. From our verses this morning we could talk about many things.
C. WE notice that as Jesus was on his way to heal Jairus’ daughter, he is interrupted by this woman with the issue of blood. Both of these miracles are intertwined. Something would be lost if these two accounts were separated.
D. Have you ever heard the saying, “Life is what happens when you’re making other plans?” We have the whole thing mapped out, and then life happens and our course is changed. If we truly live and experience life, we soon discover we can’t control life, that it never goes quite as planned, there are a lot of surprises along the way. Well this is kind of what happens to Jesus in this story. He has his course mapped out, plans to go heal Jairus’ daughter. Then life happens. The woman with the hemorrhage comes in and his plans get changed a bit.
E. Interruptions! What to do with them? They are frustrating to everyone trying to get some work done. Some interruptions are good and are means of great opportunities. Other interruptions are detours that lead down dead ends.
F. Is this interruption an opportunity or is it an obstacle?
Thesis: Some interruptions are sent by God (Opportunities). Other interruptions are not sent by God (obstacles).
For instances:
1. Some interruptions are sent by God (Opportunities).
A. Interruptions are often irritating. One of the most irritating is salespeople on the telephone! I feel for them. What a terrible job? Their calls never come at a convenient time, and their sales pitches are intrusions into my daily routine. There is one woman who sees such calls as opportunities from God. She witnesses to these salespeople about Jesus Christ. Many times her efforts are met with resistance but hey they interrupted her day and she might as well do something productive with the call.
B. In the hundreds of interruptions of our lives, is it possible that they really could be of a divine purpose? Could God actually be saying something to us?
C. G. H. Morling in The Quest for Serenity- A valuable study of the Gospels could be made, noticing how many times Jesus gave some of His greatest teachings in circumstances where he had simply been interrupted. How different this is from us; we hate to be interrupted. To Jesus, the importance seemed to lie in the person whose path had crossed His own. Things don’t just “happen” in the providence of God. The interruption may well be our highest task at that very moment.”
D. Look at this story. Jesus is with a large crowd. He is interrupted by Jairus. Jesus agrees to go with Jairus to see his daughter. On the way, a woman who suffered from a hemorrhage for many years heard that Jesus was coming that way. She worked her way through the crowd to get to him. As she reached through the crowd, her hand came into contact with Jesus robe. Suddenly, power flowed from the Master into her body. The woman knew that she was healed. Then Jesus stopped. “Who touched me?’ He asked. The disciples must have been a little irritated at the delay as they answered, “Who touched you? A hundred people are pressing in on you and you ask who touched you?”
E. Jesus scans the crowd looking for this individual whose touch had so much faith. As his eyes locked onto hers, the woman dropped to her knees, afraid she had done something wrong. “Master,” she yelled, “I touched you. You see, I’ve had this condition…” When she ended her story, the Lord smiled and said, “Daughter, your faith has made you whole. Go in peace. You are healed.”
F. Now just imagine the reaction of Jairus to all of this. Can we imagine his impatience, as he is waiting through this encounter with the woman? Can we imagine Jesus disciples who know that time is of the essence in this situation with this little girl? However, Jesus is more than willing in all of this to spend some time with this woman. This woman had this condition for 12 years and another hour would not have hurt anything. Jesus really didn’t even have to stop and talk with this woman. G. Then the news comes that Jairus daughter died. Jesus, what were you thinking? Just a few moments sooner! Why did you talk with that woman? That day, Jesus did not heal a little girl of a disease but raised her from the dead, a far more glorious miracle. The interruption which allowed her to die produced an opportunity for the greater power of the Lord Jesus to be displayed.
H. Notice that Jesus had time for people. He did not view them as interruptions to what he wanted to do, but they were people that needed him. How many times in the church have we viewed a person as an interruption and not as someone who needs our help and guidance and care?
I. Think about the potential interruptions that may change our plans. It may be from a neighbor who drops in unannounced, but in deep need of our concern. It may be from someone we see at the mall, a total stranger, or from the person who works beside us.
J. Sometimes we parents are tempted to view our kids as obstacles. A parent was busy trying to clean house, but was constantly interrupted by the young daughter wanting attention. The parent solved the problem by handing the child a dust cloth, and after a few minutes of dusting the little girl got tired, and then went away and left the parent to clean the house in peace. But did the parent solve the interruption problem or miss an opportunity? A child may be an obstacle to a clean house, but in some cases cleanliness is not next to godliness.
K. Interruptions are obstacles in the way of our goal of an orderly, serene, comfortable life- but God’s goal for our life is not comfort. Interruptions may be God knocking on the door of our lives trying to get us to pay attention.
L. How will we respond? How will we handle this unexpected change in our plans? I know how Jesus responded.
2. Other interruptions are not sent by God (obstacles).
A. How do we know what is opportunity and what is an obstacle? (Rom 12:2 NIV) Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will.
B. Interruptions that affect our relationship with God.
1. Jesus was interrupted in prayer. Read Mark 1:32-38
2. A preacher from Arkansas confessed, “I must be like many other ministers. My greatest battle is not with some secret sin of the flesh- but with maintaining a consistent life of prayer and study in God’s Word!”
3. Like many other Christians, this preacher is the victim of a conspiracy of interruptions.
4. When I was a bachelor, I was having a hard time and like I would often do, I would go to a park and talk it out with the Lord. One day a drunk came up to me and sat down next to me while I was praying. I said to him, “How are you?” Then that man started talking about religion. He opened up my Bible next to me and referred to John 3 the discussion of Nicodemus. I could tell this was going to be a long conversation if I let it be. I asked him, “That’s fine, I’ve heard that many times! What do you want?” “Well, I just want some money to eat.” Something I shouldn’t do, I went into my pocket and get a dollar and he left. The Lord and I talked about him and then we moved on to other areas that I needed to talk about.
5. When the job asks us, “Can you come into work an hour earlier?” We know that is our time with the Lord. What are we going to do? When our job asks us, “Can you come in on Sunday?” We know that is our time at church. What are we going to do?
C. Interruptions on our mission from God.
1. On a busy city street, a sidewalk in front of a large building was obstructed with building materials. A scaffolding had been built across the front, and from it was suspended a sign bearing the words, “We are Open- No interruption to Business.” The public did not agree because no one entered the store to conduct business. A young man had been zealous for Christ and His Church took on business responsibilities which absorbed the time he had been giving to the church. “I am not going to let it interfere with my Christian life,” he told the preacher, but it did. Eventually there were so many obstructions between himself and the spiritual influences that had once had access to his heart that they ceased to touch him. A preacher allowed himself to be caught up in politics. “I do not intend that it shall hinder my work as a soul-saver,” he said, but that was not the case. People ceased to come to him with their burdens. They saw obstructions between them and the man they had once felt free to confide in, so they came no more. The Christian’s first concern ought to be that nothing shall interrupt us in our business- that of carrying out the mission of the gospel.
2. In Mark 1, Jesus walked away from hundreds of people with needs in order to stay the course with his purpose. Jesus would not let others dictate his purpose.
3. that is one of the hardest tasks in life: to know our job and stay the course. To say “No” to sincere offers and requests that we could handle but which would interfere with our primary mission. To reject the good for the best. There’s only one way to accomplish this and that’s to know the will of God for our lives so well that our focus is pure, our discipline is consistent and our task understood.
4. How are we going and making disciples? When we find that, we need to stay the course.
5. Let nothing or no one interrupt us from our duty in telling our world the good news of Jesus Christ.
D. Interruptions in our relationships with others.
1. (Eph 4:31 NIV) Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. (Eph 4:32 NIV) Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.
2. in our church relationships- brothers and sisters. (Acts 2:46 NIV) Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts,
3. in our families, in our marriages. The TV can be an interruption- By the time a teenager is 18, he has watched 6 years of TV. Beyond all the nudity, filth and immorality, the real issue with TV is that it absorbs too much time, keeping us away from much needed communion with the Lord and with our families. The family that prays together stays together.
4. (2 Cor 5:16 NIV) So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view.
Conclusion:
A. We should not look at people as an interruption.
B. How do we know if opportunity or obstacle? From the mouth of Jesus- Not my will, but your will be done. Goes back to Romans 12:2.
C. For those here who do not know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, do not ignore the Lord’s interruptions in your life. Respond to the gospel. There might come a time when the Lord will say to you, “You don’t like to be interrupted by me. Fine, Your will be done. Depart from me and you will never be interrupted by me ever again.”
