January 19th, 2025 - "Epiphany Scripture Surprises: Decisions That Change Everything" - Ms. Angie Barrington

Matt Nelson: Welcome to the sermon podcast from First United Methodist

Church in downtown Bentonville.

If you have questions related to what you hear today, or just want to

find out more about the ministries at First United Methodist Church, please

visit us online at fumcbentonville.

org or check us out on Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok.

Angela Barrington: Good morning.

My name is Angela Barrington and I have been a member here for eight years.

And just a little about me and why you're seeing me up here today.

For the past year, I have been taking courses from the Arkansas

United Methodist Conference to become a certified lay speaker.

And one of those courses is preaching.

And so I have completed that course and have been offered the

opportunity by our pastor to preach and share a sermon with you today.

And it is my great pleasure to be with you this morning.

I am going to pass right now on reading the scripture.

It will be embedded in the sermon, and I hope you will allow me that change.

Please join me in prayer with the words of David.

May the words of my lips and the meditation of all of our hearts

be truly pleasing unto you, our strength and our Redeemer.

Amen.

One thing I know about all of you sitting here this morning

is that you are decision makers.

How do I know that?

Because you've already made hundreds of decisions this morning.

You made a decision to get out of bed.

You decided whether to have breakfast or not and then what

to eat and how to cook it.

You decided to come to church.

What to wear, what route to take to get here, where to park and where to sit.

It's almost noon, and yet you literally have thousands

more decisions to make today.

Research has shown that the average adult makes between 33, 000 and 35, 000

decisions a day, if you can believe that.

Most of these decisions are ones we barely think about.

The ones we do think about, we do so fleetingly.

We simply couldn't get through a day if we pondered every single decision.

But then there are those decisions, you know the ones I'm talking about,

the ones that change everything.

College, ask her out, marry him, buy the house, start the business, have a baby,

have another baby, don't have any babies,

have the surgery, take the treatment, turn off the life support.

These decisions are not easy because they change everything.

Once made, for better or worse, they change everything forever.

And I know that all of you have faced decisions like these, and

many others, just as life altering.

And you may even be facing them now.

In our time together this morning, I want us to think about the

biggest decision of our lives.

The ones to follow Jesus.

Your salvation story will be different from everyone else's.

Some were born into Christian families and cannot remember a

day when they did not know Jesus.

Some come slowly after years of wearing away, of doubt and indecision.

And yet others have more exciting stories of coming into relationship with Jesus

Christ through great hardship or tragedy.

life and death moments in an ER or after walking away unscathed

from a terrible accident.

Maybe your decision hasn't been made yet and your story is yet to be written.

Our salvation stories are as unique and varied as are we and the lives we've led.

My salvation story is also unique and is forever linked with a story in the Bible.

Please turn with me now to Mark 5, verses 25 through 34, and let's

Mark 5:25–34

learn about the bleeding woman.

A woman was there who had been bleeding for 12 years.

She had suffered a lot under the care of many doctors and

had spent everything she had.

without it getting any better.

In fact, she had gotten worse.

Because she had heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the

crowd and touched his clothes.

She was thinking, if I can just touch his clothes, I'll be healed.

Her bleeding stopped immediately and she sensed in her body that

her illness had been healed.

At that very moment, Jesus recognized that power had gone out from him.

He turned around in the crowd and said, Who touched my clothes?

His disciples said to him, Don't you see the crowd pressing against you?

Yet you ask who touched me?

But Jesus looked around carefully to see who had done it.

The woman, full of fear and trembling, came forward.

Knowing what had happened to her, she fell down in front of Jesus

and told him the whole truth.

Jesus responded, Daughter, your faith has healed you.

Go in peace.

Healed from your disease.

We don't know much about this woman.

Even her name is lost to history.

But let's review together now the things we do know about her and how they impacted

the most important decision of her life.

First, she needed hope.

She had hemorrhaged for 12 years.

Physically broken.

She had seen doctor after doctor to no avail.

The healthcare had left her financially broken.

She wasn't improving.

In fact, she was getting worse.

Emotionally broken.

She was lonely and isolated.

We're gonna take a small detour here to refresh our memory of

life and custom in Jesus's day.

In Leviticus 15, it explains what happens in Jewish society to a bleeding woman.

She is unclean.

Anyone who touches her is unclean.

Anywhere she sits or lays is unclean.

Anyone who touches where she sits or lays is unclean.

Attaining cleanliness involved ritual bathing, washing of clothes, and waiting

until sunset to become clean again.

Given these conditions, people steered clear of her.

She was socially broken.

Because she was unclean, she could not worship.

Spiritually broken.

She was without all hope.

Then she heard about Jesus.

His reputation had preceded him.

Within her, a spark of hope was lit. Second, she needed faith.

Jesus was the rock star of his day.

Word was spreading about his miracles.

We read that crowds, some translations even say throngs,

of people pressed against him.

She was unclean, invisible, unimportant.

It was not going to be easy to get to Jesus in this crowd of people, many

richer and more influential than her.

But she knew.

She just knew.

If she could touch but the hem of his garment, she would be healed.

She had faith that Jesus was powerful enough to heal her.

Heal her of her hemorrhage and restore her physically, mentally,

emotionally, socially, and spiritually.

She reached out and managed to touch the hem of his cloak.

As a great theologian, E. P. Hood once said, Faith is the finger with

which man reaches out to touch God.

She touched God through faith and was instantly healed.

Third, she needed peace.

Jesus, in the same instant, stops mid stride to inquire, who touched my clothes?

The disciples think Jesus has lost his mind.

People are pressed against him, yet he wants to know who has touched his clothes.

Jesus was not deterred.

He looks to see who touched him.

She is now afraid.

What has she done?

Her joy turns to fear.

She, an unclean woman, has touched a rabbi, making him unclean.

Yet, fearful as she was, she knows what Jesus has done for

her, and she knows there will be no peace if she does not confess.

No peace if she does not tell the whole, embarrassing, shameful truth and testify

to the healing miracle Jesus gave her.

Now for the happy ending.

Jesus being true to who and what he is.

Gives her the peace.

She needs.

She came for healing, but received blessing and spiritual grace.

Jesus granted her not only healing, but welcomed her into the family of God.

He calls her daughter.

She is whole.

She is his.

She has received the peace that passes all understanding.

It was 1991.

My marriage to my best friend and love of my life was ending.

To say I was broken would have been an understatement.

I had not been raised in the church, but my parents were Christians.

I knew about Jesus and Christmas and Easter.

I had consistently found ways to try and draw closer to God as a young person.

Going to revivals with school friends, singing in a youth choir,

choosing a Christian college, getting married in the church.

But I was not attending church regularly, and weeks after my husband

left, I was wallowing in self pity, pain, fear, loss, and despair.

Every weekend I had managed to get out of the apartment we had shared together.

Finally, the day came when I had to spend the weekend at home.

I woke up Sunday morning in the same nightgown I had put on on Friday night.

Being the daughter of a career Army soldier, I decided I had to

pull myself up by my bootstraps.

Enough of this.

I had to get to church.

I would barely have time to get cleaned up and get anywhere.

But I found my way to Central Baptist Church.

Up the street from my house, I sat near the back on a pew

with one other single lady.

The pastor, Alan McAllister, preached on this very same Bible passage from Mark.

I cried through the entire sermon.

I was this woman.

I was her in every single sense of the word.

2, 000 years later.

I had no hope.

No faith and no peace.

I was sure no one would understand.

You see, my husband was gay.

We still loved each other, but the marriage could not be.

In an era of AIDS and HIV, I might as well have been this hemorrhaging woman.

Physically broken, financially broken, emotionally broken,

socially broken, spiritually broken.

I saw myself in her.

It was like looking into a mirror.

And then I saw Jesus.

I really saw him with hope.

I reached out with the finger of faith to find the peace

that transcends understanding.

And I made the decision that changed everything.

What difficult decisions are on your heart and mind this morning.

What forgiveness do you need for past decisions?

Are you broken in any way today?

Are you in need of hope of faith?

And of peace have you made the decision That will change everything.

Thank you.

Matt Nelson: Thanks for listening to the Sermon podcast from First United

Methodist Church in downtown Bentonville.

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FUMC Bentonville welcomes all.

Because we believe the communion table is God's table, we invite

everyone into our church family.

We welcome and celebrate every race, gender, gender identity, sexual

orientation, marital status, age, physical and mental ability, national origin,

economic station, and political ideology.

We come together in action and outreach,

aspiring to follow Jesus' example of radical hospitality, love, and grace as a

transformative movement in our community.

Please join us for worship on Sunday mornings at 9 and 11 a. m., both

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All are welcome and we'd love to have you with us.

Grace and peace.