JESUS CONFRONTS DISEASE – MARK 5:21-34 PAGE One

ST ANDREW’S, ABBOTSFORD 2 JUNE 2024, 9.30AM

INTRODUCTION
How is your head for heights?
How would you like to dangle 90 metres above a raging river on a thin highwire?

Charles Blondin was a highwire artist who travelled the world displaying his skills.
His most famous feat in 1859-60 was to walk on a highwire 1 km long,
strung 90 metres above Niagara Falls – he did it some 83 times!
He even cooked breakfast on a little stove – in the middle of the wire!

One day he took a wheelbarrow across the wire… then a sack of potatoes in the wheelbarrow…
Everyone agreed he could even take a person across in the wheelbarrow…
but only Henry Colcord, his manager, got into the wheelbarrow – and once actually rode on his back.
That’s faith – knowing something is true – and acting on what you know.

The passage we look at today is about faith… and at the centre is a woman no one noticed.

1. GENUINE FAITH IS DIRECTED TOWARDS JESUS verses 25-28

A large crowd followed Jesus and pressed around him. Mark 5:24b

The large crowd pressed around Jesus was welcoming him as he arrived from the other side of the lake.
One of the synagogue officials had met Jesus with a desperate problem,
and was hurrying him towards his house… (but more on that next week).
The town was probably Capernaum, which was Jesus’ usual lakeside base. RT France, NIGTC
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And lonely in the excited crowd,

an anonymous woman came with her own desperate problem.
A woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. Mark 5:25

a) her condition was hopeless

Think about what this meant for her
• She’d been ill for twelve years
(what were you doing in 2012? That’s how long this had been going on!)
And for twelve years she had been anaemic, weak and tired.
• She was unable to take part in normal religious life.
Anyone with a bodily discharge, man or woman, was ceremonially unclean.
• That meant she was also socially outcast – even from her family.
Anyone who came into contact with her, or anything she touched, became unclean.

But it was worse than that:

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. Mark 5:26
• no doctors could help
(Doctor Luke tones it down: “but no one could heal her”!)
• she lost her health and her wealth
• she was a religious and social outcast
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b) she trusted Jesus

i) she knew what Jesus had done before
Capernaum was Jesus’ home-base for his ministry in Galilee
ü in the synagogue he’d healed a demoniac and, on another occasion, a man with a withered hand
ü in a house in the town he had healed a paraplegic – the man let down through the ceiling
ü many people in that town had been set free from demons and disease

When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak,
because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” Mark 5:27-28

She knew Jesus displayed God’s mercy and compassion to the needy.
She knew the power of God was with him to heal.

ii) she did something about what she knew

Just a touch, that’s all she needed. Her faith was a little mixed up.
It was great faith: she didn’t need Jesus to say or do anything –
like the army officer who believed Jesus could heal his servant without even going to him,
“Just say the word!”
It was imperfect faith: it was almost superstitious…
“If I touch his robe, I’ll be healed.” Mechanical, impersonal.
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But it was centred on Jesus himself – and that’s what made it real and effective.
û not just wishful thinking
û not just a bizarre optimism (who could be optimistic after all she’d been through!)

Her faith was based on solid evidence,

for she centred her faith on Jesus, and God blessed her faith!
Immediately her bleeding stopped
and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering. Mark 5:29

˜™

These days, some people think it’s only feeble people who need faith to prop them up.
Weak people who think they have run out of options.
Pathetic people who limp through life on a crutch.

But I don’t need faith to get by, they boast, I can take care of myself.
If you need to trust Jesus, that’s ok – we’re tolerant, we won’t laugh at you – not to your face…

But the woman’s helpless condition is a picture of the human condition.

Our condition is hopeless.
The disease that afflicts us is called SIN – a defiant declaration of independence from God.
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• we are outcast from God

Ephesians 2:12 (NIV)
Remember that at that time you were separate from Christ,
excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise,
without hope and without God in the world.
• we are unable to save ourselves
Are we cripples who need a crutch? In the spiritual realm, you bet we are.

Jesus told the church in Laodicea:

Revelation 3:17 (NIV) Laodicea
You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’
But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.
In fact it is much more serious than that!
Ephesians 2:1–2a (NIV)
…you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live …
Not only are we sick, we are already dead – as unresponsive to God as a corpse.
• Jesus is the only Saviour
He died and rose again to square things off between us and God.
No one else had the power or compassion to do that.

If we are to be healed from this deadly disease of sin

we must put our life in his hands – get in his “wheelbarrow” and cross the river.
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Acts 4:12 (NIV)

Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind
by which we must be saved.
The woman showed that genuine, effective faith is directed towards Jesus.

It’s the same for us – we have to trust Jesus for forgiveness and new life.
• we can’t trust our own goodness to get ourselves back into God’s favour – we haven’t any of our own
• we can’t trust our own ability to control our sinful nature – we just can’t do it

We need to trust Jesus – and it doesn’t matter how much or how little faith in him you have.
It doesn’t have to be perfect faith that knows all there is to know about God.
It doesn’t have to be perfect faith that understands all God’s ways.

All that matters is where we put our faith; all we need to do is trust Jesus: he’s shown his love and power.

2. GOD BLESSES FAITH IN JESUS verses 29-30, 34

What happened when the woman trusted Christ…
Immediately her bleeding stopped
and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering. Mark 5:29

It seems that Jesus heals her unconsciously.

At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him.
He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?” Mark 5:30
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God himself heals the woman, in response to her faith, through Jesus – power goes out of him.
The disciples’ understandable but rather rude response doesn’t put him off finding her.
“Lord, you’re in the middle of a crowd. Everyone is touching you!”

No. Not that. He knew someone had touched him:

• not by accident, but on purpose
• not just with a finger, but with faith

The poor woman got more than she bargained for. When Jesus draws her out of the crowd…
He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you.
Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.” Mark 5:34

Healing = saved (σώζω) – it was more than healing (ιάομαι) ἡ πίστις σου σέσωκέν σε
= free from her suffering and her life was restored
Peace = peace with God, peace with people

She could go home to her family and friends.

She could go back to the synagogue – and the temple, and worship God.

It’s exactly the same for us.

Romans 5:1 (NIV)
… since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
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All physical healing in the Gospels points to this greatest healing – salvation –
which Jesus won on the cross.
Isaiah 53:5 (NIV)
… he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.
All healing comes from God.

But there is no promise in the Bible that God will always give us physical healing in this life.
• Paul had a “thorn in the flesh” that God decided to leave in place 2 Corinthians 12:7-9
• Paul left Trophimus sick in Miletus 2 Timothy 4:20

But God does promise to save all those who put their trust in Jesus.
Acts 2:21 (NIV)
… everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

And God blesses those who trust him with all good things, whether in sickness or in health.
Romans 8:31–32 (NIV)
What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?
He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all –
how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?
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Whatever you are going through in your life right now God is not holding out on you.
He’s already given you his best – Jesus – he will not now begrudge you anything good.
And by good, I mean God’s work in your life to make you more like Jesus,
and God’s work in your life to bring glory to his name – which is what you want above all else…
Philippians 1:20 (NIV)
I eagerly expect and hope…
that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.

3. BLESSED FAITH CANNOT BE HIDDEN verses 30-34

At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him.
He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?”
“You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered,
“and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?' ”

But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it.
Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her,
came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. Mark 5:30-33

It was hard for her to own up. That’s why she was trembling with fear.
She shouldn’t have been there – touching all those people in her unclean condition.

But Jesus doesn’t call her out of the crowd to humiliate her.
He wants to give her a chance to publicly express her faith,
and for him to confirm and encourage her trust in him.
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Jesus doesn’t want secret disciples.

As he blesses us, he wants us to honour him before people. God says through the psalmist,
Psalm 50:15 (NIV)
… call on me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will honour me.
If we really have received God’s gift of salvation: forgiveness and peace with God,
who can keep it secret?

It’s difficult to believe with the heart and not let it come out of your mouth.
It’s like saying the fire is lit, when there’s no flame in the fireplace or heat coming from it. from John Calvin

Romans 10:9–10 (NIV)

If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,”
and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified,
and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.
It’s almost a test of the genuineness of faith in Jesus: real faith is blessed, and blessed faith is open.

CONCLUSION
A woman went home that day with far more than she could ever have hoped for.
• free from twelve years of suffering
• free to embrace her family and friends
• enjoying a new relationship with God himself

And all that when she trusted Jesus, all that when she acted on what she knew.
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You know about Jesus…

• his compassion towards the hopeless
• his power towards the helpless

If you have acted on what you know…

• asked him to forgive you
• asked him to take over the control room of your life

…then you know the blessings of God in your life. So come out of the crowd…
Psalm 40:9–10 (NIV)
I proclaim your saving acts in the great assembly;
I do not seal my lips, LORD, as you know.
I do not hide your righteousness in my heart;
I speak of your faithfulness and your saving help.
I do not conceal your love and your faithfulness from the great assembly.

Do you trust Jesus? Has he saved you? Then let others know.

Next week…
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Sermons 2024 – Mar5_21 AAC.docx