Authority Over Disease

She had tried everything the world had to offer. She had paid everyone. And scripture tells us she was worse. She was not better. Some of you might know what that feels like. You've chased the doctors. You've chased the diets. You chase the relationships. You chase the paychecks, the therapists, the podcasts, the self-help books. And every single one of them took something from you, but did not give back what they promised. the world had nothing left to offer her. But we are glad that you are here. And if you maybe this is your church family and this has been the place you are part of or maybe you're visiting for the first time and I don't think it's ever an accident when we are in God's house when we are doing God's work and he is calling us to be closer to his voice. You see, today is an exciting day in Mother's Day. But also, Mother's Day is a complicated holiday, but there are a lot of emotions and a lot of different places that people come from when they approach this day. You see, there's a lot of moms in this room. There are a lot of moms that will be watching online. And those moms come from different sources. the mom to the moms that maybe are in this room that have children crawling over them or maybe this is your one-hour break from having a child crawl on you for the rest of the week. I want you to know that we see you. To the moms who maybe your kids have grown up and they have left your house that once you got to cuddle them and those days are long gone cuz they are grown up and cuddling their necks. And maybe there's a little bit of as you're rejoicing in grandchildren, maybe sometimes you miss those early years. To those moms, we see you. To those moms who maybe were never physical mothers, but spiritual mothers inside the church and who have loved and impacted generations of kids that have come into your life, we see you. to maybe those moms whose windows have been shut prematurely or that maybe motherhood isn't coming as quickly as you'd like and you're hoping then wishing and praying that God would see something more. We see you or maybe today for the first time you have lost your mom or you're missing your mom particularly more on this day. I want you to know we see you. We love you moms and we are glad that you are here. Because here's the honest truth. As much joy as there is in this holiday, there is also a lot of hard emotions that come alongside of it. Maybe some of the moms walked in today and you feel a little weary that you are weary from caring people who can't carry themselves yet. You're weary from maybe a job that seems to take more than it gives. Maybe you're weary from a marriage that feels like it's running on fumes. Maybe you just walked in and you're weary and tired. Some of you might be worn. You see, there's a difference between weary and worn. Weary is what happens at the end of a long week. Worn is what happens after a long season. And maybe you've been showing up. You've been holding it together. You've been keeping everyone fed and clothed and functioning. And somewhere along the way, something in you got thin. Your patience got shorter. And you've just been worn down. And some of you, if we're being really honest this morning, are wounded. Maybe there's a hurt you're caring that nobody at brunch is going to ask you about today. Maybe it's physical. May maybe it's relational. Maybe it's a child that isn't speaking to you. Maybe it's a loss that you've never really grieved out loud. Maybe it's 12 years of something that doctors still can't fix. Well, I want you to know that you are all in really good company this morning because today as we read from God's word in Matthew chapter 9, and here's just the sovereignty and the you could say irony of how God works as we message map our passages as a staff and we mapped out and we did not mark that it was Mother's Day as we chose this passage and we chose a passage where a woman has been bleeding for 12 years. And I'm like, I'm going to change the passage until I started studying it more and saw what God had in here. Because today, we're going to be introduced in Matthew chapter 9. We're going to be starting at verse 20 to a woman who was all three of these things. She was weary, she was worn, and she was wounded for 12 years. and what Jesus does for her in about 60 seconds is going to preach to every single one of us today. So, if you have your Bibles, I encourage you to open to Matthew chapter 9 starting at verse 20. You can follow along with us. And it says then this just then a woman who had suffered from bleeding for 12 years approached from behind and touched the end of his being Jesus's robe. For she said to herself, "If I can just touch his robe, I'll be made well." Jesus turned and saw her, and he said, "Have courage, daughter. Your faith has saved you, and the woman was made well from that moment." Dear Lord, I thank you this morning. God, I thank you for your word that you have put in here for a reason. God, I thank you for all who are on the room that as we hear your word read, as we explain and we understand the context of how it was written, Lord, that it just speak to us on this special Mother's Day. Lord, it just grip us on how it says about the women in our lives, but Lord, what it says about all of us and how we are to respond. Lord, just let your spirits rest in this room. God, move through the reading and the preaching of your word. And Lord, let this time just glorify you. God, we lift all this up in Jesus name. Amen. In Matthew chapter 9 verse 20 through 22, we see three verses. That's all Matthew gives us for this whole story. three verses, but they are wedged inside a bigger story. And we actually read this bigger story and studied it last week that this synagogue leader, Jarius, came to Jesus cuz his daughter had died. And as Jesus is on the way to go raise this little girl from the dead, which he did, all of a sudden this story interrupts that bigger one. And as he's walking through this crowd and Jesus pressed on every side, this woman who is unnamed, who is unclean, and who is unwell, she reaches out and grabs the hem of his garment. Mark and Luke, the other eye w some of the other eyewitness and gospel accounts, they fill in a little more details about this story, and we'll pull those in as we go. But here's the question that this passage is asking and the question that every weary, worn, and wounded woman and man in this room is asking this morning is how do we move from weary, worn, and wounded to well. You see, that's how this passage ends up in verse 22. It says she was made well. But how did this woman who was so hurt, who was so cast out, how did she all of a sudden get to this wellness that changed everything in her life? That's our question today in this text gives us three moves, three things this woman did to get her to the feet of Jesus and three things we need to do if we're going to get there, too. And the very first thing we see is we need to recognize the limitations of this world. We need to recognize the limitations of this world. Check out verse 20 again as Matthew is starting this story. And in this interruption, he says, "Just then a woman who had suffered from bleeding for 12 years, Matthew at the start of this, he gives us kind of the headline of it. It's like the newspaper headline. Does anyone remember what newspapers are anymore?" All right, we don't really have those anymore. It's funny actually last night I had dinner with with my parents and our family and all the grandkids and and we were celebrating my mom for Mother's Day and she said, "Do you remember my first job?" And I was like, "I wasn't alive, mom." All right. She's like, "Well, I told you. Do you remember? I do you remember what I said?" I was like, "I don't." She said, "I was a newspaper girl." And then my kids were like, "Huh?" Like, right? They're like, "It was a newspaper." But this is the headline of it is woman suffers from bleeding for 12 years. But Mark gives us the story behind the headline. If you flip over to Mark 5:2, we're going to flip back and forth between these two passages. Uh, and we'll also show these on the screen as we go. In Matthew 5:25, he gives a little more context. He says, "Now a woman was suffering from bleeding for 12 years. She had endured much under many doctors. She had spent everything she had and was not helped at all. On the contrary, she became worse. Mark doesn't hold any punches. Mark doesn't like dress up the story a little bit. We get the Reader's Digest version from Matthew, but Mark is like, "Hey, uh, peel back the layers." is this was a horrible situation that she had tried everything and it didn't work. Now, now let's like think a little bit more and let this land for a second. It says 12 years. If you started bleeding in 2014, you would still be bleeding this morning. 12 years. 12 years of appointments, 12 years of specialists, 12 years of draining her savings and her hope at the same time. And Mark says that she had endured much under many doctors. This is Mark's polite way of saying that the cure had become worse than the disease. My wife and I, uh, full disclosure, and if if you work in the medical field, this is not a reflection on you. It is more a reflection of hospitals and insurance companies in general. But we hate hospitals, okay? I don't think anyone like hospitals. Even like nurses and doctors probably don't like hospitals at this point, but we hate them. All right? And we got four kids and we hate them so much that we had the last kid at home in a tub. All right. Um it's actually cuz she wanted a hippie home birth and it was the last kid. So I was like whatever. Uh it was actually delightful. Um I'm not doing it again and I've witnessed more births than I ever want to and will never witness another one. That's what I said. But but it was so much we want to avoid hospitals that like my arm could be falling off and I'll be like I think like let's give it a day. Like I think I can it might heal itself. All right, let's just pray about it as long as we have to go to urgent care or the hospital. Like I don't want the bill that comes after that. All right, but as much as we dislike hospitals, I've put my feet or my sho my feet in the shoes of this woman who she was in first century Rome. First century Roman medicine was a nightmare. We're talking about they used ashes that they would put in the wound. They used animal dung to cover your body with. They had at some ways they would take a kernel of barley and they would stick it in your ear. Maybe your grandma still did that to you when you were a kid cuz they're like, "Hey, something's got to happen there." She had tried everything the world had to offer. She had paid everyone. And scripture tells us she was worse. She was not better. Some of you might know what that feels like. You've chased the doctors. You've chased the diets. You've chased the relationships. You chased the paychecks, the therapists, the podcasts, the self-help books. And every single one of them took something from you, but did not give back what they promised. And here's what was also so true about this woman in this time. According to Leviticus 15, not only was she in pain, was she suffering, but her condition made her ceremonially unclean. That meant that she couldn't go into the temple. That meant that she couldn't worship with God's people. Anything she touched became unclean because she touched it. And and anyone anyone she touched became unclean. There's a good chance if she was married before that her marriage had ended. There's a good chance that she never had children. She had lived 12 years outside the walls of everything that made her a full member of her community. The world had nothing left to offer her. And you see this is the first thing, the first move that the text requires of us is before you can reach for Jesus, you have to recognize that the world has run out of answers for you. As long as you think that one more appointment or or one more relationship, one more pay raise, one more parenting technique is going to fix what is broken, you will not reach for him. You can't move toward Jesus until you stop moving towards the worlds. You see, I think we see this all the time in our worlds. That a lot of times people don't think they need Jesus because they are pacifying and they are numbing themselves by moving towards the world. But if you almost think of this from a visual standpoint, if Jesus is that way, the world is that way and we keep inching closer to the world and we realize we're like, "Why can't I get closer to Jesus?" It's cuz we're moving in the wrong direction. And often time we need people to break to get to their lowest point to realize that everything the world offers us is just fool's gold until we see our need for something greater. You see, this woman had reached rock bottom. She had tried everything that the world had given to. She recognized the limitations of our world. And this allowed her then to the move to the second stage of this passage is she reached for the savior of this world. Here's the second move we need to make in our lives is we need to reach for the savior of this world. Check back into Matthew and we pick up in the second half of verse 20. It says after she had suffered from bleeding for 12 years, it said she approached from behind and she touched the end of his robe. For she said to herself, "If I can just touch his robe, all be made well." Now, there's so much happening in just this one sentence that we see here, and I want us to unpack it for a second. First, it tells us that she approached from behind. Now the reason for this is she is trying not to be seen. Remember what we said under the old law in the old covenant and under uh what we see from the laws in numbers in Leviticus is she is unclean by the Jewish law. She's not even supposed to be in this crowd. If anyone around her knew her condition, she would be publicly shamed and she would be outcast. So she sneaks up from behind. And then the second thing she does as she is approaching from behind is she is being very sneaky. I don't know if you're good at being sneaky. I'm not good at being sneaky. My kids think they're sneaky, but they're not, right? Um, but sometimes they're like they're sneaky when they don't want to be. Like in the middle or like the morning at like 5:00 a.m. when they just come to your bed and then you open your eyes and you're like and they're just right there. And she's like approaching really quietly. And then here's the second thing it tells us is she touched the end of his robe. The Greek word here is caspedon for the end of his robe. It is the word for tassel. And you see every Jewish man wore tassels on the corners of his outer garment. Numbers 15:37-41 tells us why is because God commanded Israel to wear tassels as a reminder, a reminder to look at them. And when they looked at those tassels, they would remember the commandments in the word of God. So you see this tassel that was on Jesus' robe was a visual representation of the word of God. Was a visual representation of the Bible. So here's this unclean woman who who is reaching for the tassel, the symbol of God's word. And get this, on the garment of the living word of God. Now, she didn't have all this in mind, but John 1 will later tell us that Jesus is the word made flesh. that she doesn't know all of this theology, but her hand reaches for the right thing. This past weekend, uh I went up to Lost Canyon and and it was surrounded by 400 dudes um from around Southern Baptist churches in the state of Arizona for a men's retreat that we do every year with all these churches that gather together and and it was a great time. Um, I only stayed one night cuz I came back here to preach. And in that one night felt like 10 nights because uh all of the men in there snored so loud. I put in my AirPods in blazed white noise. All right. Uh just so I could sleep. And then at one point they died. So then I had to plug them back in and charge them. So then I was doing one ear at a time. All right. Like shoving the pillow and like white noise. Um but but it was great to hang out with some of our guys from our church. But then also the pastor there, the speaker, it was a friend of mine, Jeremiah, who has a church in North Phoenix, City View. And one of the things he said that just stuck with me, he says, "We always like come to church and we hear and we're convicted and we hear about things that should change in our lives and then we and we leave and be like, I'm going to stop that addiction or I'm going to start reading my Bible. I'm going to start praying." And you're like, "I'm going to just will it. I'm going to have the discipline to do it." And then you get about 3 days in and you quit. He's like, why is that? And he said, one of the reasons is because we don't know God's word. We don't memorize God's word. Is God's word does not return void. So when we start quoting scripture, when we start knowing what is in our Bible, it is the power, the strength to push us through. And what I love that we see this representation here in this passage is this woman knew she didn't have the answers, but what does she do? She literally is reaching for the word of God on the living word of God in Jesus himself. >> And for us so often we just need to reach for the word of God despite us not having all the answers. We see this woman, she approached from behind. She reaches for Jesus. But the third thing I think we need to see in this passage is notice what she says to herself. She says, "If I can just touch his robe, I'll be made well." Commentators note here that her theology might have been a little wobbly. She may have been a little superstitious. She may have been thinking that there was something magical in that tassel. But here's the line that gets me. And when I think about this in praying of this passage is her theology may be weak, but her faith was strong in that moment. Amen. >> And listen, I am so encouraged by that because some of you in this room right now are like, "Pastor, I'm not sure I know enough about Jesus." We just saw sang a song that says, "You are enough. Your love is enough. Your pursuit of us enough." And sometimes we're like, "I don't know if I have a strong enough basis. I don't know if my faith is strong enough." And the truth is, it's not. You don't have perfect theology. We never will on this side of heaven. is you are not going to have the answer to every single question in your mind that pops up in the middle of the night that keeps you in your brain moving. But sometimes you just have to reach. Next Sunday, I'm excited about this is our baptism Sunday as we announced and we've been doing this throughout the year. And here's what's crazy. It is through from January through right now, we have baptized 46 people just here at Cross Church. Surprise. All right. It is crazy. My preaching hasn't gotten better. All right. Uh just the Holy Spirit has gripped and just moved in that time and it's been awesome. And we're baptizing I think already like seven and whatever. But here's what I love when we have baptisms is it is people who are declaring exactly that. That they don't have every answer figured out that they don't have a full theology that this isn't like a wana that we make them quote all of scripture before they can get in the tank. But they know enough that I want to start this journey. Jesus is my savior. I am reaching for him. And we are going to walk hand in hand down this path to getting closer to him. >> And we see the beauty of this passage that she didn't have all the answers, but she reached for the one who did. And here's what Mark says happens next in Mark 5 29. She reached for that and she touches his robe and it says instantly her flow of blood seized and she sensed in her body that she was healed of her affliction. Instantly 12 years of pain gone in a split second her fingertip brushed the edge of her robe. And here's what I want you to see. She had been running to everything else for 12 years. and none of it worked. But the moment she stopped running to the world and instead the moment she reached for Jesus, her healing came. And I think for us is we need to stop reaching for what can't save us. We reach for the one who can. And here's where it transitions into this last movement of this power. She recognizes that the world does not have the answers. She reaches for the one who does have the answers. And this is what it calls us to do today is you must receive the power that is not of this world. To receive the power that is not of this world. Matthew chapter 9 verse 22 it says Jesus turned and he saw her and he says have courage daughter. Your faith has saved you. Mark Mark's account is a little richer and even more detailed in this. In Mark 5:30, it says Jesus immediately knew that power had gone out from him. That that's just like a crazy there's a lot of theology to unpack there. We don't have time for that. All right, that's a whole different sermon, but it's just like what did that look like? Like Jesus is a superhero, so it's awesome. Uh but it's like they're just crazy scene. But he he could feel that power had gone out from him and he stopped in the middle of the crowd and he turned around. and he said, "Who touched my clothes?" And the disciples look at him and they're like, "Dude, he's lost his mind." Like, "We're going to go raise a dead girl." That and the disciples are probably thinking, "That's not going to work. This guy's asked us to raise a dead person and we haven't done this yet. Like, Lazarus will come later. Like, we haven't raised from the dead and seen Jesus do that." And it's crazy. And then he's like, "But we're being swarmed by people. It's like they're in a mosh pit right now." And it's just swaying as they're going down the street. You can barely get by. And Jesus is like, "Who touched me?" You're like, "Dude, everyone is touching you right now. But he's like, "No, no, no. This touch was different." He's like, "This touch," he he knew the difference between the crowd that was just brushing past him and the one desperate woman who had reached for him in faith. And there's a difference here that we need to understand is there's a difference between being near to Jesus and reaching for Jesus. I think one of the tragedies of what we see in the American church is we have a lot of people in chairs and pews throughout our country who are near Jesus, but maybe they've been near Jesus for 30 years if they've never actually reached out to him. There's a difference between sitting in a service, hearing some songs, listening to a dude talk on stage, bow or closing your eyes while everyone else is praying and just letting the routine happen. Is people can do that. It can become cultural. It can become tradition. It can become white noise. But there is a difference when it becomes personal and instead of just being near Jesus and hearing people around us talk about him that we actually reach for him and our lives change because of it. >> And Mark tells us here it says when she does this when she finds out that Jesus asked this question she falls down before him. She is trembling with fear and she tells him the whole truth of her life. every part of her 12 year story she lays in front of him and everyone else that is there. And right here is the moment. This is the moment the whole story has been pointing to. Jesus looks at this unclean, this untouchable, this unnamed woman and he says one word that changes everything. In Mark 5:34, he says this as she is crying, as she is weeping. Her physical needs have been made clean. But now she's like, "I messed up. I did something." And here's the word Jesus says right in our Bibles is he says daughter. He calls her daughter. Now this is not Jesus just being a nice Baptist and saying like brother or sister or daughter or son cuz he doesn't know her name. He knows her name but he calls her daughter. Now, here's what's crazy about this is this is the only recorded time in all the gospels that Jesus ever calls anyone daughter. He will go on and just after this, he will call Jarius's daughter little girl. He has called his disciples friends, but no woman in any of the four gospels is ever called daughter by Jesus except this one woman. She came in as an outcast and she walks out of this encounter as family. And here's what just happened here. This is the deep theology of this miracle is under the Old Testament law as we said is if she touched Jesus technically he would become unclean. But when she touches him, he doesn't become unclean. Instead his cleanliness flows to her uncleanliness and makes her clean. is her impurity when she touches him should make him impure. Instead, his purity takes her impurity and makes it pure. Everything changes when she touches Jesus. In this church is exactly what the gospel is summed up in. This is what the cross does for us. In 2 Corinthians 5:21, it says, "He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." That Jesus took on our sin. He took on our failures. He took on our struggles. He carried it on the cross. He died in our place, but he raised again. So that instead of it, our sin infecting him, all of a sudden, his grace and love and purity changes our sin and forgives us for all of eternity. You see, the cross is the ultimate version of what happens in this text that Jesus takes all that mess, that uncleanliness, he cleans it, and he gives it back in something so much greater. her bleeding stopped so that one day his bleeding could start on a cross for her, for you, and for me. But here's what's awesome about this is it doesn't just stop at the miracle. He didn't just heal her body, but he adopted her into her his family. He go back to Matthew in Matthew 9 22, the very end of this verse and says, "And the woman was made well from that moment." Mark's gospel says, "Daughter, your faith has saved you. Go in peace." And here is what is beautiful about all this. And here's what all this leads into the beauty of this passage and what it teaches us today. As we ask of how do we go from weary and worn and wounded to well as Jesus made this woman is Jesus. This is this miraculous truth we see in this passage is he makes us well by giving us hope by giving us healing and giving us a home. See how she did this in this passage. She gave hope that no one else could give. She had spent 12 years with no hope. Then she reached for Jesus and he says have courage daughter. Literally you could translate that as take heart daughter. And that became her new reality. No longer was she searching for the next doctor to give her a glimmer of hope. All of a sudden, she had the one who could give hope now and for all of eternity. But she didn't just get hope, she got healing. This was not just a physical healing. I love the Greek word translated of well is in this passage is soo. And it's the same word used throughout the New Testament to say that someone is saved. Jesus didn't just stop her bleeding. He saved her soul. He gave her a healing in her soul that nothing else could give. But ultimately, he gave her a home. He called her daughter. She walked into that crowd an outcast. She walked out of that crowd a member of God's family. All of a sudden, she had a home. Hope, healing, a home. That's how Jesus moves us from weary, worn, and wounded to well. And here's the deal. On this Mother's Day morning, I want every woman in this room to hear this, that Jesus sees you. He sees you more than your kids do. He sees you way more than your husband does. We are so stupid. Amen. That should be the best amen of the day. Jesus sees you greater than anyone else in this world. He knows your hurts. He knows your 12 years of struggle and suffering. and he sees you so much that Jesus will stop the crowd for you. And when you reach for him, even with trembling, even with weak theology in the moment, even from the back of the crowd, so no one notices you, he will turn around. And he will simply call you by your name, daughter. If you're a believer this morning, this calls us to stop living like a stranger in your own family, your church family. Some of us has been Christians for years, but we still approach Jesus like we're sneaking up from behind, hoping he won't notice. Sneaking in at night, hoping he won't notice the sin we just committed. He sees it. He knows it. And yet he chooses to keep forgiving, to keep loving despite our failures. Church, he already knows your name. He's already called you son or daughter. We need to live like it. We need to stop settling for a lie of if I can just get this in life, I'll be okay and start living in the reality of he called me his own. And maybe if you're here this morning and you've never trusted Jesus, maybe you are just like the woman in this story. Maybe you've been weary and worn and wounded for 12, maybe 20, maybe even 40 years and it's exhausting. Maybe you've tried everything the world has to offer and you are worse, not better. You need to hear this. That the same Jesus who stopped a crowd to turn around and call this woman daughter, he will stop the crowd for you this morning. You don't need a perfect faith. You need a real faith, a genuine faith. And I encourage you to reach for him today. And here's what this leads for all of us as we've fallen into the trap of trying to find our identity, trying to find our community, trying to find our purpose from a world that just can't give it to us. No matter how many friends or followers you have on social media, it's meaningless if you don't have a real community and how many playdates you take your kids on that get all their energy out. If it doesn't go deeper where people see you and love you and walk with you, it's meaningless. It's just passing the time. No matter how many community groups you're in in Sun City Grand or West, you're playing pickle ball, you're playing golf, you're playing softball, and you're doing something else on the side. No matter how much of that, if Christ is not at the center and people are walking hand in hand, there is a hole for what you need. And the challenge of this passage is for us to stop trying to find the answers. Stop trying to find a community in a world that casts us out and to find it right here in this church family that is united by Jesus Christ. who he is our foundation. Who he is our sustenance, who he makes us honest, he makes us humble. He makes us walk through this life broken as we are locking arms knowing our hope is in him and not in the world around us. So, here's what I want you to do this summer is that as it gets hot, as you start to ghost, as you start to go in and out of town because it's Phoenix next to 115°, so you're getting out of here as much as you can. Don't do that at the expense of forsaking a community around you. Stop coming to a place and being near to Jesus but not reaching for him and reaching for him, locking arms with one another. We are brothers and sisters in this room when we declare Jesus Christ. And we need to start living like that family who has been saved by the savior of the universe and it changes everything for us. And we need to start acting like we have a friend in Jesus, but we also have friends in this church that we do life with, that we lean on, who not only Jesus can see us, but the community around us sees us. Because just as that woman once was an outcast, Jesus changed everything for her when he brought her in. And he gave her a family. He gave her a purpose and he gave her a home that she could be a part of. We want to be your home. We're extending our hands. Jesus has extended his. Will you grab it and come home?