This bag of... Everywhere you need to be this
morning, as you know, God called you to be here.
He provided all the resources. And we are grateful,
grateful for the opportunity to be together to
worship and reach new heights in Jesus today.
I have a couple of announcements just to share.
Something new a little bit. We have paper bulletins
for you today. But if you happen to be an electronic
person or that kind of really thing, we have
an electronic bulletin. And the nice thing about
an electronic bulletin is you can easily take
it home with you and not misplace it. For all
that ever are. The Prince of mighty God. That
bring me to my knees in praise. Amazing love.
Amazing grace. The Son of Him. My Savior God.
A broken heart at the bleeding side. The hill
of the soul, a hell free. The bloody shed, shed
for me. Come on. When in heaven's hill. Thank
you. The great song of the mighty God that made
me true. My knees in praise. Amazing love. Amazing
grace. Thank you. Who do you see as someone who
is a confident person? Anyone? You? Okay. Somebody
said me. So what about someone who comes off
as arrogant? I mean, we all know those people,
right? We all know those people who we all have
people in our lives that come across as a little
arrogant. So me personally, I've never really
saw myself as arrogant. confident in some of
the things i can do like one of the things i'm
really good at is i'm really good at fixing cars
and i've been doing it for most of my life so
i've gotten to be really good at fixing cars
and i can i've done it as a career for the last
15 years and there's not much on a car that i
can't fix um my wife's seen some of the stuff
i do should come visit me at work one time and
I'll have a car stripped down to, like, the whole
front end's off, the engine's out, the transmission's
out. There's bolts and parts laying everywhere,
and I can remember exactly how everything goes
back together to the point where you can just
pick a bolt up, and I'll know exactly where it
goes, but I can't remember a three -list grocery
list. So there's that. But I can remember how
to put a car back together. So I wouldn't necessarily
say that I'm the best mechanic ever because I
know there's people who are better than I am.
I know there's at least a couple people that
I work with that are a lot smarter than I am
because most of the reasons they've been doing
it a lot longer. One of the guys that I work
with, he actually has some of the Chrysler engineers
call him when they need help. So he is a very,
very knowledgeable, very smart guy. So I would
never, ever say that I'm the best mechanic ever
or I'm the best mechanic at where I'm at, but
I am good at what I do. And that's kind of the
difference between being confident and arrogant
is I know I'm good at it, but I'm not going to
brag about it. I'm not I don't have to make myself
look better. I'm not ever going to try to make
myself look better because that's just not who
I am. And for one, we shouldn't do that because,
you know, no one is better than anyone. God sees
us all as equals. We're all his children. So
therefore, we should never try to put ourself
above anyone. And I try my best to do that because,
for one, it's not a good reputation to have.
And I'm trying to be a godly leader, a godly
father in my home, and I can't do that if I'm
choosing to put myself above other people. When
we think of confidence, it's more of you know
what your abilities are. You're confident in
your abilities. You're confident in the fact
that the sun's there because you can see it.
You can feel the warmth. So there's things that
we can be confident about. And as we go to the
text, I want you to think about that. And we
are going to be going to Mark chapter 5, and
we're going to be starting in verse 25. There
you go. A little delayed, but okay. It's Mark
chapter 5, and we're going to be starting in
verse 25. Just a little bit of background. So
Jesus is on his way to heal one of the synagogue's
official's daughters who's been sick. And one
of the people came and told him Jesus was on
his way to go heal her. And something that I've
read probably 50 times. is stuck out to me really,
really big in this little scenario that happens.
And it's short, but there's so much that goes
into this. And like I said, this ties into what
I said earlier. This is why it's so important
to study the Bible, because I never really thought
about it this way until a couple days ago, really.
But we're going to start in verse 25. It says,
who had a hemorrhage for 20 years and had endured
much at the hands of many physicians and had
spent all she had and was not helped at all,
but had rather grown worse. So you can see right
away, there's a woman that has a medical problem
and she's went to many doctors and she can't
get healed and she's spent all of her money trying
to get fixed and no one can fix her. One of the
things that really stuck out to me here is how
many times do we get in that spot where we feel
like there's no one that can help. That no matter
how much we try, how many people we talk to,
how many doctors we go to or whatever, there's
no one that can fix us. I know I've been there
many times, especially with some of the mental
problems that I have with my own self, that I
feel that there's no one that will understand
exactly what I'm going through. That there's
not a single person that I can talk to, not even
my wife, to help me through what I'm going through.
In a way, that hit me hard because I'm like,
you know, this woman's been suffering for 20
years and went to many doctors who, if anyone
didn't know back then, the doctors were not great
by any means. Medical stuff back then was very,
there was a lot of very sketchy things and a
lot of trial and error. So I was like, I can't
even imagine what this woman had been through
at the hands of some of these doctors trying
to make this situation get fixed. And it got
me thinking about how we go through a lot of
stuff in our life, and there's a lot of those
times where we try to go to people for help,
and we just can't find help. And I hear that
story so many times, especially because I, those
of you who don't know, I'm the youth director.
I do a lot of work with the youth or I try to,
but there's a lot of teenagers now that I talk
to and they tell me that same thing. Well, no
one just, no one understands me. No one understands
what I'm going through. And, and it, it tears
my heart to pieces because we'll find out a little
bit later that there's definitely people who
will be able to help you, but we'll find out
that the main source of that help comes from
God. That no matter who you talk to, nobody,
is going to give you the good the good answers
that god can give you and then as we continue
in verse 27 says after hearing about jesus she
came up in the crowd behind him and touched his
cloak for she thought if she just touched his
garments i will be healed and this is where a
lot of what i really dove into was just these
two verses because the way this planned out played
out in my head is after like a winter jam concert
when the show's over and there's thousands of
people trying to get to the door so they can
get out of the building for those who've never
been to winter jam i highly recommend it it's
amazing um but my anxiety goes through the roof
in those moments because there's so many people
around and it's shoulder to shoulder and you're
pumping into people and this woman was in the
crowd And she said, for if I just touch his garments,
I will be well. So for one, she has to get through
the crowd to get to Jesus, which has got to be
a chore in and of itself. Because when you have
a bunch of people around you wanting to talk
to you and wanting to be healed and all this,
and Jesus is just trying to make his way to this
official's house. So there's people all around
him and she has to get through this crowd just
to be able to touch him. And then in 29, Immediately
the flow of her blood was dried up, and she felt
her body, that she was healed of her affliction.
Immediately Jesus, perceiving in himself that
the power proceeding from him had gone forth,
turned around in the crowd and said, Who touched
my garments? And his disciples said, You see
the crowd pressing in on you, and you say, Who
touched me? And he looked around to see the woman
who had done this. But the woman, fearing and
trembling, aware of what had happened to her,
came and fell before him and told him the whole
truth. And he said to her, daughter, your faith
has made you well. Go in peace and be healed
of your affliction. So this brings me to a lot
of things that I could talk about. But there's
really a couple of things that I really thought
God was talking to me here. And one of them is
she just had to touch Jesus. She didn't have
to go beg him. She didn't have to go bow down
at his feet and say, please heal me. She just
had to touch him. And this is pretty important
because how many times have we seen throughout
the New Testament Jesus going to people and healing
them and putting his hands on them to heal them,
to heal the blind and the sick, and he healed
the lame man that was lowered through the roof
on the mattress. But this woman just had to touch
him. Jesus didn't know, like, We probably did
know because that's just how Jesus is, but she
just reached out and touched him. And this is
so crazy to me because she didn't do anything
else but touch him. But the only reason she was
healed is not because she touched Jesus. That's
not the reason. And if you think that's the reason,
we're missing the point because that's not the
reason. She got healed because of her confidence
and her faith. In Jesus. The confidence in the
power that God has through Jesus that all she
had to do was touch his clothing and she would
be healed. So it has nothing to do with the fact
that she was in the crowd and she just touched
him and she's like, hey, here's Jesus. It's her
confidence and her faith. So if you're in a spot
where you don't think you can be helped, part
of the reason is you might not have confidence
in God that he can help you through what you're
going through. And there's so many times where
we get stuck in those spots where we're down
and we're out and we don't think that we can
be helped because we're losing our confidence
in God. And this is why this hurts so bad because
so many times I look back and where I was and
where I've been and some of the situations I've
been in and I'm just like, you know what, God,
I'm done. I don't want to do this no more. And
then I get a slap upside the head because I'm
not putting my full trust in God. I don't have
the confidence in my faith anymore. And here's
something to think about. If you can't be confident
in faith that God is real and God has the power,
just look at the way the world works. Look at
how the earth is perfectly positioned to where
we're not too far away from the sun, but we're
not too close away from the sun. Because if we
were just a little bit farther, and in the grand
scheme of things, it is a very short distance
further from the earth, we would freeze. And
if we were just a very short distance closer,
we would burn. So we're in that perfect circle
around the sun so we can sustain life. Think
about it. If we had no trees, we wouldn't be
able to survive because what do trees provide?
Oxygen. You know, without bees, we wouldn't have
plants. Because bees are one of the biggest pollinators
of all insects. So even something as small and
what people would think insignificant as a bee,
if all the bees were to die, we would lose, I
think it was like 80 % of our plant life. And
you can't sit here and confidently say that God
has the power to fix you. When you look at some
of the crazy things that scientists cannot explain.
For one, there's no scientist that has ever fully
figured out the exact creation of our universe.
If you look at them, all of them are theories.
It's all, well, this could happen. This might
have happened. But then when you read Genesis,
it makes sense. And we can't have the confidence
to say that God can help us. We lose our confidence
in our faith because of petty things, a difference
of opinion, when reality is all we have to do
is reach out and touch Jesus. But here's where
it gets a little bit harder. You can't reach
out and touch Jesus if you're not confident because
nothing will happen. Look at all those people
that he was standing around. Nothing happened
to them, bumping into him, pressing up against
him. Nothing happened to none of them. But the
one woman who was confident enough to go, all
I have to do is touch God, touch God's son, I'll
be healed. She was the one that got the miracle.
So you can reach all you want. You can try to
reach God all you want. But if you're not confident
that God's going to do it, then guess what? He's
not going to do it. So another thing is, no one
is beyond fixing. No one is beyond fixing. We
all have a purpose here. God created every single
person in this room, in this world, in this city.
God created us all for a reason, and none of
us are beyond fixing. We all have a purpose.
Psalms 46 .1 says, God can help us in our troubles.
We have to remember that we can be helped. That
we're not just worthless. We're not just some
piece of trash to be discarded. Because if you
think about it, I can only assume that's what
this woman was thinking at this point. 20 years
of suffering. I can only assume that she thought
she was worthless. That she's like, okay, well,
I guess my life's just done. I guess this is
just who I am for the rest of my life. How many
times have we thought that? Well, I guess this
is just who I am. You can't break the habits.
And you're stuck in your own ways. What's the
saying? You can't teach an old dog new tricks.
Well, with God, you can teach an old dog new
tricks. Yeah, an even better one. So you've got
to understand, your time here is valuable. Your
time here is important. But here goes, as long
as you're confident in your faith. You have to
be confident in your faith. Because I'm sorry
to say, if you're not... then of course you're
going to feel like you're not worthy. Of course
you're going to feel like no one can fix you
because you're not confident enough in God's
amazing power. Another thing is we have to reach
out to Jesus. I'm not saying there's anything
necessarily wrong with going to a pastor or a
deacon or someone in the church for help. I'm
not saying there's anything wrong with that.
But any good pastor or good deacon is going to
tell you, here's what the Bible says, but here's
what you need to do in order to figure out more
of what the Bible says in your situation. Not,
hey, you have to do X, Y, and Z. It's, this is
what the Bible says, and this is what we have
to be doing. Because our knowledge, our health,
our everything comes from God. Psalms 18 .6 says,
You got to understand, when we cry out to God,
He hears us. Even if we're not fully committed
to God, even if we're not rooted in confidence
in our faith, God is going to hear everything
that you cry out to Him. But the problem is,
is if you're not. fully confident in god's abilities
and you have that little bit of doubt god is
most likely not going to answer you because you're
doubting his ability you're doubting what he
can do so yes cry out to god but when you cry
out to god Cry out to God with your whole heart,
your soul, your blood, sweat, and tears. Something
that I've used is, I like to hear, and this is,
it's, you can't be 99 .9999999 % in for God.
Because that .0000001 % is always going to pull
you back. It is either you're 100 % or you're
0%. There is no on the fence. There's no 50 -50.
Maybe I can follow God in every single aspect
of my life, but this teeny little thing, because
it's not that bad, right? That's not how it is.
You have to be 100 % for God. And the last thing
is, obviously, the main point, stay confident.
Don't lose hope in what God can do. Don't lose
focus in the amazing abilities that God has.
You have to stay confident. Hebrews 13 .6 says,
So we can confidently say, The Lord is my helper.
I will not be afraid. What can men do to me?
There is nothing that a single person can do
to you that should hurt your faith in God. Someone
puts a gun to your head and says, I'm going to
kill you unless you denounce God. You pull up
every ounce of faith you have, and no, that's
not who I am. I'm a believer. I believe in Jesus.
I'm going to heaven. Now, I pray no one ever
has to go through that, but at the same time,
we live in a world where people have gotten killed
for their faith. Not just across seas, but even
here in America, people have died because they're
Christians. People have died trying to preach
the gospel. So how confident are you going to
be in those times? We can only hope, right? I
mean, I only hope and I pray that in a situation,
if I ever get put in like that, I can confidently
say I'm living for God and there's nothing you
can do to change my mind. But here's the sad
thing is I really don't know what I would do.
I would like to say, I'm confident enough in
my faith. But I can't lie. I've never been in
a situation like that, so I don't know. I've
never had to be threatened out of believing in
God. I've never had to face that much trial to
where I had to question God. And here's something
else to think about. What did Jesus do? He died
on the cross. Did he ever question God? Not once.
You want to know how? You can tell that Jesus
was terrified. Just look back when he was in
the garden praying, God, take this cup from me,
but not by my will, but your will. We can see
so many examples of God's power if we just step
back and look. Forget about this petty worldly
things and just take a step back and look at
how incredible everything God made is. How each
and every single person in here has a different
thought or a different opinion. But yet, we can
all collectively come together and agree that
Jesus Christ is Lord. That God is the Almighty.
That He's the Alpha, the Omega. He's got the
power. Yet, I've heard stories of churches separating
because they couldn't agree on the color of the
carpet. It's like, what does the color of the
carpet have to do with anything? What does it
matter if we sit in chairs or if we have to have
pews? None of that matters. What matters is what
we're here to do. What we're here to do is build
our faith, to be renewed in Christ. That's what
we're here to do. We're not here to debate over
money or jobs or... health, or none of that.
When we are here right now, what we are here
for is we are here to get renewed in faith and
to make our faith stronger. That's what we're
here for. Everything else is irrelevant. We're
here to see God do amazing things. We're not
here to debate what we think who's going to win
the next football game. I love football. I love
football a lot. I like watching football. Sometimes
I think I might pay a little bit too much attention
to football. I know a couple people in here is
the same way, that they love football too. But
when we're here, when we're talking about God,
that's not what we're here for. We're not here
to constantly check our phone to see what teams
have scored a touchdown. We're here to be grown
in our faith. We're here because God has called
us here. We're here for a purpose. We're here
so we can confidently say God is amazing, that
Jesus is Lord. But now here's something to think
about. How many of us have come here when we
get here? And we really don't want to be here
because that happens quite a bit to me. I'm not
going to lie. There's a lot of times where I'll
wake up on a Sunday and I just don't want to
get out of bed. I'm tired. It's been a long week.
I can laundry list of excuse. But then when I'm
here and the music starts, everything changes.
My attitude changes. I feel happier. I mean,
me and my wife, we could argue Sunday morning
and get in the car angry at each other. And by
the time we just get into the building, it's
like that never happened. And it's because that's
what God can do. When we put our hearts into
it, God is going to show you what he can do.
So just a quick little review. So the first point
is... As we go to our conclusion, the first point
is no one is beyond fixing. We all can get healed,
but we have to be willing to, which goes into
the second point, we have to be willing to reach
out to God. But not only do we have to be able
to reach out to God, this falls right into the
third point, we have to be able to reach out
to God in confidence. You cannot doubt God's
abilities. You cannot doubt what God can do in
your life. And this is why I... Like I said,
I've read this a little bit, probably 50 times,
and never have really took the time to understand
what just happened. The fact that there were
hundreds of people, probably thousands of people
around Jesus, crowding him, wanting to see the
Messiah. And they were pressing on him, they
were touching him and pumping into him. But for
some reason, just this one woman got called out
among everyone. Because all she did was have
the confidence to go, all I have to do is reach
out and touch him, and I'll be healed. I'm going
to go real quick to Jeremiah 17. Does somebody
want to read it? I'm going to go to 17 .7. Does
somebody want to read? Okay. Go ahead, Aaron.
We're going to do 7 and 8. Yep. So this translation
is a little different. I like that one, though.
What translation is that? Okay, I like that.
All right, anyway, so this is, it says, Blessed
is the man who trusts in the Lord and whose trust
is the Lord. And I spent a lot of time looking
at this because there's got to be, I was like,
man, there's got to be something more because
why does it say, blessed is the man who trusts
in the Lord and those who trust is the Lord.
So bear with me here because this gets a little
deep. So what do you think it means to trust
in the Lord? Go ahead. Okay, so far I'm hearing
a little bit of both. To trust in the Lord is
to look back at what the Lord's done, to look
at things that God's done, creation, things in
your own life, stories that you have like that.
That's trusting in God. That's trusting in God.
That's trusting, hey, I've seen this happen before,
so I know it's going to happen again. But to
go as far as to say your trust is the Lord goes
a little bit deeper than that because that's
God. You're putting your trust in God. And where
does your trust come from? God. So you're putting
your trust in someone who gives you the ability
to trust. You're putting your hope into somebody
who gives you hope. You're putting your trust
in someone who is love because God is love. You're
putting your trust in someone who gives you strength
because God is strength. You're putting your
faith in God because God is faith. You're putting
your confidence in God because God is confidence.
That's the difference. You're putting everything
into God because it's God. In a way, yeah. But
the benefit is God is always pouring into you.
Always. Even when you're not. Even when you're
not willing. God is still standing there wanting
you to be there. Wanting you to go, hey, God's
got me. God's got my back. I wore a Halloween
shirt and it's got a couple of skeleton figures
on it and one of them is holding the other one's
spine and it says, I got your back. That's...
That's God with us. He's holding us going, I
got you. And he's never going to let you go.
Even when you try, he is always going to be there.
He's only going to be in arm's reach away. You
don't have to fight through the crowds like this
woman did. You don't have to fight through the
crowd of a thousand people just to touch Jesus.
All you got to do is look up and go, here I am.
God, take me. And just like that, you're good.
So not only do we have to trust in God, we have
to trust God. Because you can trust. in someone.
Like I trust my wife to do the things that she
tells me. If she tells me she's going somewhere,
I trust that she's going to go there. And most
of the time I can do that with my kids. If my
kids say, hey, I'm going to go to my friend Jeremiah's
house, I can trust that they're going to go down
to his house. But now I know my kids ain't perfect.
I know my wife ain't perfect, but I know God
is. So of course I can't, so I can't go. My trust
is my kids. My trust isn't my wife. My trust
is God, period. So I'm going to have the praise
team come up, and I have a couple of things that
I need you guys to think about. Where's your
confidence in God? Where's your trust in God?
Have you not actually been fully confident in
God? Because I can tell you right now, there's
too many times where I haven't been. There's
too many times where I'll sit in my couch, and
I'll debate whether or not to come to church
on Sunday, or I'll debate whether or not to go
to youth group on Friday, because I'm tired.
I feel like I'm burnt out. Well, guess what?
God doesn't get burnt out for me. He doesn't
get burnt out. God is here and he's with us and
he's willing to help you if you are confident
in his ability. So stop dwelling on, well, I'm
just too tired. Then cry out to God. He'll give
you strength. God, I'm not good enough. Well,
guess what? If you're still here and you're still
breathing, you are good enough. Yeah, we're humans
and we make mistakes, but that doesn't negate
the fact that God is still calling each and every
person. So yes. We have to be confident in our
faith knowing that this is what we're here to
do. We're here to go out and to preach and teach
and make disciples of all nations. We're not
here just to sit in chairs on a Sunday and then
forget it the rest of the week. We're not here
to come here on Tuesdays and learn a little bit
of Bible study and then just forget about it
the rest of the week. Every minute, every day,
every second, every breath you take should prove
the amazing power God has. So don't lose your
confidence in your faith anymore. Put your trust
in God because... God is trust. Put your hope
in God because God is hope. God is love. God
is patient. God is caring. Don't worry about
what the world thinks of you because the world
is never going to see you the way God sees you.
The way I see my wife, I'm never going to be
able to see her the way God sees her. The way
I see my kids, I'm never going to be able to
see them the way God sees them. Trust in God.
Put your confidence in God. And guess what? When
you reach out to touch God, you'll be healed.
Stand with us and sing this song. Let the words
speak to your heart. God's calling you to trust
in him today, to make him your trust and your
response.