Sermon

Dual Desperate Daughters Delivered from Disease and Death - Matthew 9:18-26

Redemption Church North Ogden Sermons

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  1. One of the pastors here, we are going to be reading today from

  2. Matthew Chapter 9, verses 18 through 26.

    Matthew 9:18–26

  3. So if you would stand with me one more time, we're going to

  4. read the Word of God. And at the end you, you will say

  5. this is the word of the Lord, Amen.

  6. While he was saying these things to them, behold, A ruler came in

  7. and knelt before him, saying, My daughter has just died, but come

  8. and lay your hand on her, and she will live.

  9. And Jesus rose and followed him with his disciples.

  10. And behold, a woman who had suffered from a discharge of

  11. blood for 12 years came up behind him and touched the

  12. fringe of his garment. For she said to herself, If I

  13. only touch his garment, I will be made well.

  14. Jesus turned seeing her. He said, Take heart, daughter,

  15. your face has made you well. And instantly the woman was made

  16. well. And when Jesus came to the

  17. ruler's house and saw the flute players in the crowd making a

  18. commotion, he said, go away, for the girl is not dead, but

  19. sleeping. And they laughed at him.

  20. But when the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took her

  21. by the hand, and the girl arose. And the report of this went

  22. through all that district. This is the word of the Lord,

  23. Amen. You guys can have a seat.

  24. We are continuing in our Book of Matthew series where we call it

  25. our King and his Kingdom. Because as we see in this

  26. scripture, not just in the gospels but in all of the

  27. scripture that God is the King of the universe.

  28. Jesus is that God made flesh who came down to bring about his

  29. Kingdom on earth and his will to be done.

  30. We prayed that prayer. He prayed that prayer and he

  31. taught us that in, in the sermon on the mound in Matthew chapter

    Matthew 6 chapter mention

  32. 6. And he is king.

  33. That means that he has authority.

  34. He is sovereign over all. And, and that means even over

  35. sickness and death in, in, in chapters 8 and 9, we've been

  36. seeing Jesus doing all these different miracles, casting out

  37. demons, healing people. Today we're going to see that he

  38. even raised the little girl from the dead.

  39. And we're, so we're focusing on kind of his authority over his

  40. creation and created beings and, and his authority to bring about

  41. his goodness and his mercy and his grace in our lives.

  42. Now you're going to laugh at this title, but today's title is

  43. this dual desperate daughters delivered from disease and

  44. death. Often times preachers try to

  45. use, you know, kind of the same letter throughout all their

  46. points to to make it memorable. And I couldn't do that in my

  47. points, but it really worked with this title.

  48. There are two women in this story that God delivers and

  49. heals. It's it's amazing.

  50. And it's interesting because these two stories have nothing

  51. to do with each other, by the way.

  52. These two women don't actually know each other.

  53. And we have this, this narrative, this story, this is

  54. real history about when Jesus was walking on the earth 2000

  55. years ago, how things happened in a moment of time where

  56. someone confronts him. Gyruss is his name, his daughter

  57. is sick and he says come heal her.

  58. And so he's going to to to heal the daughter.

  59. And on the way, another woman confronts him and she gets

  60. healed as well. That's called an intercalation,

  61. by the way, when a story like that where you have two

  62. different stories kind of joining, but they actually don't

  63. have anything to do with, they don't have anything to do with

  64. each other, but yet are making the same point.

  65. That's one more proof that God the Holy Spirit was working and

  66. he wrote this down and that these aren't coincidences, but

  67. there's something supernatural happening when Jesus was walking

  68. the earth and when God caused these words to be written down

  69. in this way. So let's get into this.

  70. I have 5 points I want to look at in these two women's lives

  71. and how there's these similarities to both of their

  72. stories in this narrative. And the first one I see is this

  73. desperation. There's both a story of

  74. desperation in the Father and in the woman.

  75. Let's look at the first verse again.

  76. It says while he was saying these things to them, behold, A

  77. ruler came in and knelt before him, saying, my daughter has

  78. died, but come and lay your hand on her, and she will live you.

  79. You don't quite necessarily see it, but you can just imagine as

  80. if when you're reading something, you have to put

  81. yourself in the place of the, the person that we're reading

  82. about, right? You've got to kind of get in,

  83. get in your imagination what it would have been like.

  84. Now, this guy, he was a, this specific gospel doesn't tell us

  85. his name, but in Mark's gospel and Luke's gospel, it tells us

  86. he was a, a ruler of the synagogue, a Jewish place of

  87. worship. His name was Jairus.

  88. And this man comes desperate for his daughter, his daughters just

  89. died. And, and he's, he's been hearing

  90. about the commotion and, and the things going on, the power of

  91. Jesus for him. He wouldn't have really been a

  92. follower of Jesus because he was very high up with the religious

  93. leaders in Judaism. But what we see here is

  94. desperation causes him to leave his faith that he grew up with,

  95. his faith that he was holding on to in order to go to God

  96. himself, who we believe to be the true faith, the only one who

  97. actually has the power to raise anybody from the dead anyway.

  98. Like you see this man's faith come from desperation.

  99. Now that's often how God works, by the way, we are so prideful

  100. that we won't actually come to him until we know we need him.

  101. God uses that he used that in my own life, right?

  102. I, I struggled with addiction for many years of my life in my

  103. teenage and my early 20s and, and I grew up Christian and I

  104. had a heart for the Lord. But when I was off on my, you

  105. know, prodigal sin moment in that lifestyle, I wasn't really

  106. thinking about God, nor did I care about him that much.

  107. He was in the back of my mind, but when I became desperate,

  108. when I started to realize I my life was spinning out of

  109. control. I didn't have control over what

  110. I was doing and even the choices I was making anymore because my

  111. sin was so heavy. I finally got to a place of many

  112. would call it rock bottom, where the only place I had to do was

  113. look up. I dug myself such a hole that

  114. all I could do was look up. I was desperate for Jesus, and I

  115. mean you. We can Fast forward and say we

  116. can. We know that He delivered me.

  117. Otherwise I wouldn't be standing here today preaching this word

  118. to you. And I know there's a similar

  119. story in your own life. If you haven't gotten there yet,

  120. I pray you do get there. But I pray it doesn't have to be

  121. that serious or that deep. Maybe you can put down the

  122. shovel right now and look up instead of digging that hole in

  123. your sin. But sometimes it's not sin.

  124. It's it's despair over life circumstances like this guy.

  125. Maybe someone's sick, maybe you've had someone pass away.

  126. Maybe there's some medical complications or, or, or

  127. something that's going on with financial issues in your life or

  128. your job. And and you've gotten to this

  129. point of desperation and this guy is a model of what we should

  130. do. This guy was very high up in his

  131. in his faith and religion. People look to him for answers,

  132. but this guy dropped his pride and was even willing to say,

  133. maybe I don't know everything. Maybe what I've always believed

  134. my entire life is nothing compared to the truth about who

  135. Jesus is. Now let's look at the the the

  136. other woman in this scenario in this story in verse 20.

  137. And behold, a woman who had suffered from a discharge of

  138. blood for 12 years came up from behind him and touched the

  139. fringe of his garment. For she said to herself, if I

  140. only touch his garment, I will be made.

  141. Well, this, this is something that's, I mean, traumatic for

  142. this woman for 12 years. It says that she has had a

  143. discharge of blood. This would have been really a

  144. really difficult medical complication for her to deal

  145. with. So much so back in that day that

  146. she probably didn't have much of A social status, probably

  147. couldn't go out and and do the things that a lot of other

  148. people in her life were doing. This also meant that she

  149. probably couldn't have children. This meant that she probably was

  150. outcasted from her, her, her faith community, because in the

  151. Old Testament, there was there were these laws and rules about,

  152. about people who suffered from this type of thing, especially

  153. when blood was involved, that there were certain rituals that

  154. had to take place in order for her to be restored.

  155. And so this woman would have been basically alone and, and

  156. helpless. And actually, Luke 843 in his

  157. version of the story, adds that there it's said that she had

  158. spent all her living on physicians and she could not be

  159. healed by anyone. She had tried everything she

  160. could to get out of her situation and nothing was

  161. working. Again, I think that's kind of

  162. like us, if we're honest, right? When we are desperate, we don't

  163. always run to Jesus first, right?

  164. We start looking at everything else.

  165. ChatGPT, right? How many times do you have a

  166. question or you're struggling with an issue or medical issue

  167. and you're like, I'm going to ask Google what he thinks?

  168. And we don't we don't even call it it anymore because it has

  169. either a male or a woman voice. It's all, it's become like a

  170. human friend to us, right? Almost like a higher power.

  171. You should be, you know, you should be cautious about how

  172. much you use it and what you think about it.

  173. I'm not saying I'm against, you know, AI and the Internet, but

  174. how you use it and what it will start to become possibly an idol

  175. in your life. Maybe.

  176. But what else do we do? We run to doctors.

  177. We run to, to and fro everywhere.

  178. The new the next new supplement, the next new medication, the

  179. next new diet. We want to solve a problem,

  180. right? And we are desperate and many of

  181. us are are are very have ingenuity or ability to to

  182. figure things out. But man, if you're a Christian

  183. here today, shouldn't we be going to Jesus first, Not last

  184. you ever heard those people say like, oh, we've tried

  185. everything. Now all we can do now is pray

  186. right after I've exhausted all the human options, then I'll go

  187. to God. But the very definition of a

  188. Christian is someone who follows God.

  189. God is is is is is who they trust.

  190. They submit their whole lives to him.

  191. They believe there's not, it's life isn't just natural, but

  192. it's there's this supernatural, there's the spiritual element to

  193. to our lives. Wouldn't we go to the one who

  194. has all the power and all authority first?

  195. That's what we see in these two stories.

  196. There's a desperation to go outside of the norm, go outside

  197. of the cultural, the natural, the the internal pride of our,

  198. our education or our background or our experience and go to

  199. someone who can truly help us and that's Jesus Christ alone.

  200. So that's the first similarity that I see.

  201. And I already alluded to the next similarity then is

  202. uncleanness. Let's go back to these verses

  203. again. Verse 18.

  204. While he was saying these things to them, behold, A ruler came in

  205. and knelt before him, saying, My daughter had just died, but come

  206. and lay your hand on her, and she will live.

  207. And then Fast forward to verse 25.

  208. But when the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took her

  209. by the hand, and the girl arose. Now in the Old Testament as I

  210. was talking about, there are these certain laws and one of

  211. them was when when someone passed away, when someone died

  212. that automatically made that person like you weren't supposed

  213. to touch a dead body. Actually Numbers 1911 it says

  214. whoever touches the dead body of any person shall be unclean 7

  215. days. This was God's holiness standard

  216. in the Old Testament so that people would be sanctified for

  217. worship and coming into the temple.

  218. There were cleansing rituals and a dead body made it so someone

  219. was unclean 7 days. So they had to wait from going

  220. to do certain ordinances and and sacrifices.

  221. There were some special laws. If you were, you were the

  222. closest of kin, you could go, you know, bury them and take

  223. care of that. But you weren't supposed to

  224. touch a dead body. And here Jesus is being asked to

  225. go touch a dead body. So there's this uncleanness.

  226. And then in the next story, again, we have a woman who had

  227. suffered from a discharge of blood for 12 years, came up

  228. behind him and touched the fringe of his garment.

  229. The same thing with this very circumstance that I alluded to.

  230. That person would also be unclean for seven days.

  231. And both of these people are going outside of their religious

  232. beliefs in order to be touched by Jesus.

  233. A healing touch in hand by Jesus.

  234. They had to believe that he had the power not only to heal them

  235. and save them, but to not be tainted with their uncleanness.

  236. And that's really kind of the point I'm trying to make here

  237. is, is kind of like earlier, we saw Jesus healed A leper and

  238. lepers were banished outside of the camp because people were

  239. afraid of contracting the disease of leprosy.

  240. Nobody ever touched them. And there were laws about that

  241. as well. But what we see here is the

  242. compassion of Jesus on humanity. This is is symbolic.

  243. It's a real story. But what we need to glean from

  244. it is that Jesus is willing to come to the outcasts of society,

  245. the unclean, the sick, the unholy, the ones that are

  246. unworthy to come to worship. How many times have we heard

  247. people say, I won't darken the door of a church?

  248. If I went in there, the whole thing would burn down or I'd be

  249. struck by lightning because I'm so evil.

  250. I'm such a Sinner. I've never had a relationship

  251. with God. Well, I'm sorry to let you know,

  252. but all of us are on equal ground when it comes to the

  253. Lord. We're all sinners.

  254. We're all unclean like this dead body or like this woman.

  255. We come ceremonially unclean to God.

  256. If you think about God, God is we, we say it all the time,

  257. holy. What does that mean?

  258. It means set apart, sanctified. He is completely other than us,

  259. set apart from us. He has no sin, completely pure,

  260. completely perfect. And so anything below him is

  261. unworthy. Anything, any person that

  262. doesn't measure up to that standard is unfit to come to

  263. him. And we as human beings, the

  264. Bible says, is our unclean. The prophet Isaiah in the Old

  265. Testament said it this way. We've all become like one who is

  266. unclean. All our righteous deeds are like

  267. a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf and our

  268. iniquities like the wind, take us away.

  269. Interestingly, without getting too weird here, but this story

  270. of the woman who's had the discharge of blood for for 12

  271. years, back in the olden days, they, you know, they had to have

  272. garments and and rags that were, you know, cycled to be cleaned.

  273. And this is what Isaiah is talking about when it says a

  274. polluted garment. Literally what he's talking

  275. about is that same menstrual rag that this woman would have had

  276. to keep recycling over and over again and cleaning over and over

  277. again. We all are polluted.

  278. We all are unclean. Why?

  279. Because of our sin. Now let me give you a little bit

  280. of a theological lesson about Christianity.

  281. It it begins with men and women were created in a good perfect

  282. relationship with God. They had their free will to make

  283. decisions and choices and and when they chose in the beginning

  284. to go against God and break His law and commandment in Genesis

    Genesis 3 chapter mention

  285. chapter 3 from then on. The curse of sin was imputed to

  286. all human beings. We all have been in inherited

  287. because by the way Adam and Eve were the only ones like

  288. supernaturally created by God. Every human being after Adam and

  289. Eve was made by procreation. So we've inherited their fallen

  290. DNA. Often times people question why

  291. did God make a bunch of sinners? No, God made two people and they

  292. were in in good standing with God and they chose to go their

  293. own way. They chose to follow false

  294. teaching from Satan and to to to follow pleasure to follow what

  295. they saw was a better life than what God had offered, which

  296. plunged them into sin. God said you will surely die,

  297. but not only us, but every human being after now we've inherited

  298. that same thing. The spiritual fall of humanity

  299. is where all of us are and things are broken and things

  300. don't work right and we don't last long and disease comes in

  301. and not only that but evil in our hearts.

  302. From a very young age. The Bible says I was conceived

  303. in iniquity. David says that in one of the

  304. Psalms. That means that at conception we

  305. inherit the the sin nature that all humans are plagued with.

  306. And now you don't have to go too far to see it, right?

  307. If you have kids, you know, like at, at the very youngest of

  308. ages, you don't have to teach them to be disobedient, do you?

  309. You don't have to teach them to be mean.

  310. You don't have to teach them to be selfish.

  311. They do it naturally. They do it naturally.

  312. And one of my, my favorite theologians that passed away

  313. last year, he said, Bodhi Baakum.

  314. He said it's the grace of God that that children are grown or

  315. they start off very small because they're evil enough that

  316. if they were full size, they'd probably try to kill us.

  317. Isn't that right? I mean, I have a toddler at home

  318. and he hits US from time to time, you know, and if if he was

  319. bigger, it would hurt. I know that sounds kind of

  320. harsh. I'm being, I'm being truthful,

  321. but I'm trying to make a point here.

  322. The point is, is that all human beings are following.

  323. We don't start in some neutral state.

  324. We are unclean. Therefore this what this also

  325. means then is not only are we born in this state, but we

  326. continue to contribute to our sin.

  327. And if you are honest, you like sin, you and I like sin.

  328. I'm not just speaking down to you.

  329. If you're honest, we we like our pleasure, we like our sin.

  330. We like the thing that God said don't do and we don't like doing

  331. the thing that God said to do. And we just need to own the fact

  332. that. And then when we think somehow

  333. when we do a good thing, like help old lady across the street

  334. or, you know, give a donation to the, the, the nearest school or,

  335. or whatever it is, we think somehow that earns us some kind

  336. of points in some good box somewhere.

  337. But that that does not compare. And it's actually does, it's not

  338. even real because every time we do a good deed, it comes from

  339. some selfish tainted motive. Anyway, even the purest motive

  340. that we try to do, it's still tainted.

  341. And that's the point here. That's what we need to see in

  342. these, these two women. Thirdly, what I see is

  343. symbolism, and we've already talked a little bit about kind

  344. of spiritual symbolism, but there's there's something I want

  345. to zero in on here that maybe you wouldn't have caught in

  346. Mark's version of it. It says the girl was 12 years of

  347. age. It said immediately the girl got

  348. up, began walking for she was 12 years of age.

  349. And they were immediately overcome with amazement.

  350. And the girl who had the discharge of blood was 12 years.

  351. There's 2 numbers here and they're both 12.

  352. And I know we can't go too far down the rabbit hole of what

  353. some would call biblical numerology.

  354. You know, you can get really superstitious with numbers, and

  355. maybe we do that outside of the Bible, right?

  356. There was a time in my life where I was really weird about

  357. the number 7 and I was like, I got to get gas at pump #7 or, or

  358. whenever I stopped the microwave or it input a number on the

  359. microwave, it would have the number 7.

  360. And anybody do weird stuff like that or is that just me?

  361. Oh, couple people raise their hands and I just say that to

  362. make fun of myself but and to say that there's weird stuff out

  363. there. But that's not what I'm talking

  364. about. I am talking about there are

  365. numbers in the Bible that you need to pay attention to because

  366. they are symbolic. Not all numbers, but a lot of

  367. them. 12 is one of those numbers.

  368. If you know, there's the 12 tribes of Israel, why 12?

  369. Why not 11 or 13 or or something like that?

  370. And then after that there's the 12 disciples.

  371. Why the 12 disciples? And then in the Book of

  372. Revelation it has that #144,000. Where do we get that number?

  373. Well, it comes from the 12 tribes of Israel Times.

  374. What 10,000 * 10,000? Is that the math?

  375. I don't know. It's 12,000 * 1012.

  376. Yes, 12,000 * 12. Sorry, Casey, that's I'm not a

  377. math guy. We got a lot of engineers in the

  378. crowd, but I'm trying to make a point That 12, you see it over

  379. and over again and it's it is kind of like the number 7.

  380. Now there are some numbers, there's the number 37 and 4012

  381. and then 1000. Those 5 numbers, you see them

  382. all throughout the Bible and they're symbolic of something.

  383. 12 is a kind of represents the Kingdom of God.

  384. If you think about the 12 tribes of Israel, the 12 disciples,

  385. you're going to see them again in in the Book of Revelation as

  386. well. It's it's symbolic of the

  387. Kingdom of God. I started out saying that God is

  388. the king and he's come. Jesus has come to bring his his

  389. Kingdom. And this is what it looks like

  390. when his Kingdom comes, mercy and grace, healing of disease,

  391. things that were wrong being set right.

  392. That's what God wants us to know, that Jesus has started the

  393. coming of Jesus 2000 years ago, has started what God's will is

  394. for the earth, and not just generally for the earth, but for

  395. humanity, and not just for general humanity, but for God's

  396. people, the people who come to faith in him and believe in him.

  397. We are the spiritual Kingdom of God, and therefore we can look

  398. forward to things like this. They may not happen in this

  399. life, but in the life to come we know that there will be no more

  400. mourning, no more crying, no more sickness, no more disease,

  401. and no more death. That is the Kingdom of God

  402. ultimately fulfilled. And when Jesus is walking on the

  403. earth, he's bringing a little bit of the Kingdom with him

  404. wherever he goes. And now we as the church, since

  405. Jesus ascended, he sent the Holy Spirit into his church, and all

  406. of us now are walking the earth. We are trying to expand the

  407. Kingdom of God because we want all of us to be in the full

  408. culmination of the Kingdom one day, and that's by faith in

  409. Jesus and following him. Now there's something

  410. interesting about this also, this woman who comes up and

  411. touches the fringe of Jesus's garment, all men in the Jewish

  412. tradition would have worn kind of a a robe that had tassels on

  413. it like corners. And those represented also a lot

  414. of things have symbolism. In Numbers 1537, back in the Old

  415. Testament when God was speaking to Moses, he said, speak to the

  416. people of Israel, tell them to make tassels on the corner of

  417. their garments throughout their generation and to put a cord of

  418. blue on the tassel of each corner.

  419. And it shall be a tassel for you to look at and remember all the

  420. commandments of the Lord to do them, not to follow after your

  421. own heart and your own eyes, which you are inclined to whore

  422. after. Those tassels were a reminder

  423. that God had said what His will was.

  424. God had come down and came to save these people.

  425. In fact, in that very context of the Book of Numbers, God had

  426. just got done saving the Israelites out of slavery in

  427. Egypt. And by the way, slavery in Egypt

  428. is a symbolism of what it is that sin is to us.

  429. Sin is slavery. We are enslaved to sin, but God

  430. reaches down, walks among us, and then communicates, leaves us

  431. with His Word so that we can know how do we find Him and how

  432. do we follow him. And this woman represents her

  433. faith by coming and grabbing on to one of those tassels, the

  434. fringe of his garment symbolizing her faith in God.

  435. And she'd probably heard about the things that Jesus had been

  436. doing in her day, in her time in her area.

  437. And all the other people have been delivered.

  438. And again, she wasn't supposed to do that, but by faith, she

  439. came and grabbed the fringe of his garment.

  440. Another pastor friend of mine recently pointed out something

  441. that was pretty rich and deep to me.

  442. And he says in Malachi chapter 4, verse 2, this is the last

    Malachi 4:2

  443. book of the Old Testament. It says, But for you who fear my

  444. name, the Sun of Righteousness shall rise with healing in its

  445. wings. You shall go out leaping like

  446. calves from the stall. And the original word in Hebrew

  447. for wing, there is skirt, edge or hem, the the same thing in

  448. the Greek word for the fringe. It's the same word but in Greek

  449. and in Hebrew, because in Old Testament was written in Hebrew,

  450. New Testament in Greek, this verse was prophetic.

  451. We're looking forward to Jesus, the Son of righteousness.

  452. Some translations make the sun uppercase.

  453. That's his name, one of his name's Son of righteousness

  454. rising with healing in his wings.

  455. And you can imagine for a moment, in a small way, this was

  456. being fulfilled in this woman as the Sun of Righteousness had

  457. come upon the people in Israel. And this woman grabs for the hem

  458. of his garment. There's so much symbolism there.

  459. It's a beautiful thing. And we know that Jesus is coming

  460. has has prophetic fulfillment. When Jesus in Luke 4 went to one

  461. of the synagogue's, it says he opened the scroll and found the

  462. place where it was written. The Spirit of the Lord is upon

  463. me because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.

  464. He sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives into recovering

  465. of the sight of the blind, and to set at liberty all those who

  466. are oppressed and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.

  467. That was written in the Old Testament of Isaiah.

  468. And Jesus was trying to get everybody to understand this is

  469. talking about me and you're missing it.

  470. But there's a select few people who aren't missing it, which

  471. leads me to the next point. Adoption.

  472. It's often not a word talked about, but adoption, there's a

  473. there's a doctrine of adoption talked about in the Bible.

  474. What when you become a son or daughter of God by faith, you

  475. are adopted into the Kingdom of God.

  476. And here's an interesting point I want to make out of about

  477. these two women is that they're both daughters.

  478. Now, if you think about that, it's not that profound because

  479. all women born had to be a daughter, right?

  480. So I guess all women are daughters, you know, so that's

  481. not that profound of a a statement.

  482. But again, when you look at the scripture, they're both called

  483. daughter by well, one Jesus calls daughter and there's

  484. meaning to that. So let's look again at these two

  485. similarities of these two girls or a girl and a woman being

  486. daughters that ultimately adopted by God, becoming

  487. children of God. In Mark's version of the story,

  488. it tells us a little bit more about what happened when Jesus

  489. raised her from the dead. It said when he had entered, he

  490. said to them, why are you making commotion and weeping?

  491. The child is not dead but sleeping.

  492. And they laughed at him, but he put them all outside and took

  493. the child's father and mother and those who were with him, and

  494. went in where the child was, taking her by the hand.

  495. He said to her Talitha kumai or kum, which means little girl.

  496. I say to you, arise now we know that the scripture says that

  497. Jairus said my daughter. So it is said in there that she

  498. is someone's daughter. But when Jesus says now these

  499. words to Lethakum are written in Aramaic.

  500. Now just a little bit more education for you.

  501. Most of the Old Testament, Hebrew, New Testament Greek, but

  502. there are little portions and comments and quote written in

  503. Aramaic, which was the modern language of the day.

  504. OK, Those are the only three languages in the Bible.

  505. OK, but mostly Hebrew, Greek. But in Aramaic, Talitha means

  506. little lamb, which was also a pet name for children.

  507. But for Jesus to call her little lamb and him grabbing her by the

  508. hand and raising her from the dead meant that this girl was

  509. now Jesus's little lamb. It was now she was a daughter.

  510. There are all these kind of analogies or illustrations like

  511. the church is called the flock of God and we are sheep, right?

  512. Or we're the children of God and he's our father.

  513. And Jesus is the great shepherd, and the Bible says that he knows

  514. his sheep, and they know him, and they follow him, and they

  515. hear his voice. And this she heard Jesus's voice

  516. from the dead. From the dead he called little

  517. lamb, and she rose from the dead.

  518. That is a beautiful thing. That is how it works for you and

  519. I, by the way, when your name is called, when Jesus comes to you

  520. and reveals himself to you, he raises you from the dead.

  521. And what happened today in the baptism was a picture of what

  522. happened as we read in Romans 6. It says that just like Christ

  523. was buried and raised, we too are buried and raised with Him.

  524. Our identity goes from whatever we thought it was, whatever

  525. identity we made-up or assumed in our life, from our old

  526. nature, our sinful nature. And when we follow Christ, we

  527. are buried and die to that nature.

  528. We no longer cling to that or hold on to that sin, but Jesus

  529. causes us to raise to new life. He resurrects us all.

  530. Every believer has already had one resurrection.

  531. Have you ever heard of that before?

  532. You have been spiritually raised from the dead.

  533. The first resurrection, your spirit and your soul was dead.

  534. The Bible says we're all dead in our transgressions and sins in

  535. the garden. When he said you shall surely

  536. die when you take of that fruit, He wasn't just talking about

  537. physical death but spiritual death.

  538. We no no longer have a connection to God through the

  539. spirit anymore, but humans are spiritually dead.

  540. But God raises us from the dead when he calls us by the Spirit

  541. and we become adopted again. Let's see what he says about the

  542. the woman. It says he turned and seeing her

  543. he said take heart daughter, your faith has made you well and

  544. instantly the woman was made well.

  545. Jesus. Here's the thing, why would

  546. Jesus call her daughter? And this is where we all get

  547. confused about the Trinity. And #1 He can call her daughter

  548. because he's God. And so that proves that he's

  549. God, but he is not God the Father, he's God the Son.

  550. But here's what I'll tell you. In Isaiah, it says that it's a

  551. famous Christmas verse. He shall be called wonderful

  552. counselor. Mighty God, everlasting Father,

  553. Prince of Peace. And you've always wondered like,

  554. why is he called everlasting Father in that verse?

  555. Well, that word means Father of eternity If you flip the words

  556. in the original language, He is the creator of eternity.

  557. The New Testament tells us that there was not a thing made that

  558. wasn't made through Jesus Christ the Son.

  559. He is the father of time. He is the creator of all things.

  560. Jesus is the creator. So in that aspect, being God,

  561. being creator, he can come and he can say daughter, another

  562. adoption, right? You're now in the family.

  563. He says the same thing, Jesus in another story about a woman who

  564. we've been bound 18 years by Satan and he calls her a

  565. daughter of Abraham, again, trying to help them.

  566. And they did not like that because Abraham was the father

  567. of their faith and they thought they were the sons of Abraham.

  568. But Jesus says no, anyone who has faith is in the family, not

  569. just people who were born with this lineage, but all people who

  570. come to faith. In fact, John talking about

  571. Jesus in the 1st chapter says, but to all who did receive him,

  572. who believed in his name, he gave the right to become

  573. children of God. Nobody is born a child of God.

  574. I've already tried to teach you that earlier on that we're all

  575. born in iniquity and sin. We're all on level ground.

  576. I'm glad you're at church today because if there was a perfect

  577. person at church, we wouldn't fit in with that person.

  578. You know, I think I said this a couple weeks ago, no perfect

  579. people are allowed here because they don't exist.

  580. We're all sinners and we've come by the grace of God through

  581. faith. The Bible says to be adopted by

  582. God. And here's the the kicker to

  583. this verse though. And we talk about, well, who's

  584. responsible and who? Who did what first?

  585. Did God call me or did I come to this conclusion?

  586. And it says who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the

  587. flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

  588. By the will of God, we have been adopted from eternity past.

  589. The Bible even says in in Ephesians 1/5 in love, He

  590. predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus

  591. Christ, according to the purpose of his will.

  592. There's so much to this idea of adoption, but these two ladies

  593. were adopted by God. Have you been adopted by God?

  594. You say, preacher, how can I know?

  595. How can I know that God wants me and has chosen me?

  596. Well, I don't think there's any coincidences, first of all.

  597. So secondly, you're here and you're hearing the word of God.

  598. God is calling you whether you like it or not, whether you got

  599. drug here or not, God is calling you because this message is for

  600. you and you specifically. Every ear that hears.

  601. He's calling on you to believe in the Son of God, the one who

  602. has all authority and power and brings the Kingdom of grace and

  603. mercy. And yes, you do have a choice to

  604. come in faith like the Father came for his daughter.

  605. Sometimes it takes somebody else's faith to get us here,

  606. right? Or the desperation of the woman.

  607. If I could just touch Jesus. Quit trying all the other things

  608. out there that you've been trying to get yourself healed

  609. and out of this situation that you are in, in life living in

  610. shame and guilt or not knowing whether you stand in right

  611. standing with God. You can know you can be a child

  612. of God if you believe in his name.

  613. If you believe in Jesus Christ, you know you are adopted by God,

  614. which takes me to the last point.

  615. It's by faith. They both have faith.

  616. There's faith in this story. As I said, the Father, the

  617. Father's faith. Now here's what I said.

  618. You cannot believe for any other person.

  619. My faith isn't going to save my child ultimately, but it might

  620. initiate it. It might start it.

  621. So do you have a family member, friend, neighbor, someone?

  622. It does. God does use your faith to bring

  623. about the faith in another person.

  624. That's how it works. He wants to use us.

  625. God doesn't need to use us. He's all powerful.

  626. We see His authority, but for some reason He wants to use us

  627. in this plan of building the Kingdom.

  628. He put His spirit into us so that we could be that spark of

  629. faith in other people. Jairus faith ultimately led to

  630. his daughter being saved, adopted, delivered and the same

  631. thing is true then for the woman.

  632. If I only touch His garment, I will be made well.

  633. He said take heart daughter, your faith has made you well,

  634. made well. Now did he just heal her or did

  635. he save her? We need to understand when Jesus

  636. heals someone, it's it's symbolic of salvation.

  637. But even if we look at this Greek word, it says the Greek

  638. word is sozo, which is often translated to save.

  639. Other translations would say, and you're this woman was saved

  640. by her faith. In fact, it's the root word

  641. where we get, you know, the study of salvation.

  642. So teriology, so sozo to be healed, to be made well, to be

  643. saved, It's all it's all synonymous.

  644. We're sick, we're unclean, we're unwell, we're diseased, we're

  645. spiritually dead. But God through Jesus Christ

  646. comes to save us by faith. And Hebrews 11/6 says without

  647. faith it is impossible to please him.

  648. For whoever would draw near to God must believe that He exists

  649. and rewards those who seek Him. There are those who are already

  650. seeking Him, and they are being rewarded by the blessings of

  651. just knowing who Jesus is. But anything you do, as the

  652. prophet Isaiah said, you will not please God with if you think

  653. you can do more good than you do bad.

  654. And one day God's going to pull out the scales.

  655. And every one of us, if we live like that, will be found wanting

  656. on the scale of bad. The only good that we can come

  657. to God with is our faith in the one who and only one who was

  658. good, Jesus Christ. The one who came to this earth,

  659. ultimately died in our place, the death that we deserved.

  660. He died on the cross as the ultimate fulfillment of all the

  661. sacrifices, to be a sacrifice for us, so that if we look to

  662. Him and believe on Him, we can be saved.

  663. And Ephesians says this, it's by grace.

  664. You've been saved through faith. This is not of your own doing.

  665. You did nothing to get to that point.

  666. And you will do nothing when you stand before God.

  667. You won't have any words to say, But I did this, but I did that.

  668. No, this is purely a gift. My question to you, would you be

  669. like these two women today in this story?

  670. Be desperate enough to know your need because you're unclean to

  671. recognize what God's Word does actually say about His Kingdom.

  672. Would you long to be adopted by Him as He does that work?

  673. Because we know how adoption works.

  674. The child really had no choice in being adopted, but it was

  675. really the parents who do the work.

  676. And that's, that's our God. He's not waiting for you to do

  677. something to make him want to choose you.

  678. He wants you. And if you can right now believe

  679. in Him, you can repent and agree that you're a Sinner by faith.

  680. Then I implore you to do that today.

  681. I implore you to do that today. And for the rest of us, let us

  682. just rejoice in that. These two women represent the

  683. grace of God to us. Let's pray.

  684. Father, I thank you for your grace, your kindness to us.

  685. I thank you for your word. It's so rich.

  686. It's like a a full meal. We come here starving,

  687. spiritually starving. All week long we've been gorging

  688. on every other piece of spiritual, mental, and emotional

  689. junk food that's out there. And we have lacked coming to the

  690. dinner table. We've lacked coming to the

  691. fountain. But you're a gracious God.

  692. You forgive us. You love us.

  693. Thank you for bringing us here today.

  694. Help all of us here. Follow your will and not ours

  695. anymore, and receive the grace and love that you display to us

  696. in your Word. Thank you, Jesus.

  697. Amen.