The One Who Meets You in Your Desperation (Derik Fuller) | Who Is Jesus?

Our scripture today comes from Luke 8, starting at verse 40 in

the Bibles that are in the seat back in front of you.

It's page 918. When Jesus returned, the crowd

welcomed him, for they were all expecting him.

Just then a man named Jairus came.

He was a leader in the synagogue.

He fell down at Jesus feet and pleaded with him to come to his

house because he had an only daughter, about 12 years old,

and she was dying. While he was going.

The crowds were nearly crushing him.

A woman suffering from bleeding for 12 years who had spent all

she had on doctors and yet could not be healed by any approach

from behind and touched the end of his robe.

Instantly her bleeding stopped. Who touched me?

Jesus asked. When they all denied it, Peter

said, Master, the crowds are Hemming you in and pressing

against you. Someone did touch me, said

Jesus. I know that power has gone out

of me. When the woman saw that she was

discovered, she came trembling and fell down before him in the

presence of all the people. She declared the reason she had

touched him and how she was instantly healed.

Daughter, he said, your faith has healed you, go in peace.

While he was still speaking, someone came from the synagogue

leaders house and said, your daughter is dead, don't bother

the teacher anymore. When Jesus heard it he answered

him, don't be afraid, only believe and she will be saved.

After he came to the house, he let no one enter with him except

Peter, John, James and the child's father and mother.

Everyone was crying and mourning for her, but he said stop crying

because she is not dead but asleep.

They laughed at him because they knew she was dead.

So he took her by the hand and called out, Child get up.

Her spirit returned and she got up at once.

Then he gave her orders. But then he gave orders that she

be given something to eat. Her parents were astounded, but

he instructed them to tell no one what had happened.

Good. Morning Church.

We've been in this great section of stories of Jesus and his

power. Luke stacked these together.

We're going to continue on. Today is a startup so I was

going through this story this week.

I was reminded of a story from 2010 in the news.

Maybe you remember this story of a mine collapse in Chile was a

golden copper mine. The entire mine collapsed in on

itself and 33 miners ended up trapped 2000 plus feet

underground. There was tons of rock sealing

the entrance, blocking the way out.

For 17 days, the family members of those miners came and they

gathered outside of this mine with no sense of what had

happened to their loved ones who were deep underground.

All they could do was come and hope and pray and ask for a

miracle and wait to see if any news would be given.

And it was on Day 17, AS rescuers were attempting to

drill a shaft down through the mountain and figure out just how

blocked everything was, just exactly what was going on

underground, that when the drill came back up, something

incredible came up with it. The attach to the drill bit was

a single piece of paper and with red marker written on it was a

note that said we're alive in the shelter, all 33 of us.

But there was still this huge problem, right?

Because the miners were down there under 2000 feet of rock

and freedom and escape was on the other side of all of that

rock. There was no way that they could

dig themselves out. They needed rescue from above.

For the next 52 days, the world watched as as engineers, as

excavators worked around the clock 24/7 to try and reach

those 33 miners trapped over 2000 feet underground.

And finally, on day 69, a narrow rescue capsule was sent down the

shaft. And that's the shaft right

there. That's the rescue capsule.

You can see a guy in it. 1 by 1, 33 miners were raised up out of

the darkness and back into the daylight. 1 by 133 miners were

taken from what seemed like certain death to the life, love,

and laughter of the people that they loved and cared about.

Now, I'm going to assume that no one in this room has ever found

themselves trapped 2000 feet underground in a Chilean mind.

I'm just assuming that I'm guessing that that's not us.

But I'm also going to guess that sooner or later, every single

one of us in this room will find ourselves in spots where we're

in need of some rescue, we're in need of some intervention, where

we're in a spot that we can't seem to dig ourselves out of,

right? It's a situation that you can't

fix. It's a problem that you can't

solve. So so maybe, maybe it's a spot

where you find yourself with the grief that is too much and too

heavy for you to carry. Maybe you've got a challenge in

front of you that requires wisdom, that you just are

sitting there thinking, I don't have the wisdom, the experience

necessary to navigate this. Maybe it's a family that feels

like it's beyond repair. We already talked about the debt

center today. What a great morning to have

that, man. I've met so many people who

found themselves in spots where they just have a financial need,

a crushing debt, and there just doesn't appear to be any

solution to it. Or maybe it's a health problem

and all the diet and exercise and right living in the world is

not going to fix what you're going through.

In fact, maybe one of those moments brought here today.

And if today is the first day that you've been at church in a

while, I'm going to guess it was a desperate situation to bring

you out on time. Change Sunday.

If if you have found yourself in a spot where you are running out

of hope and you're just looking for someone or something that

can do what you can't do for yourself, then this is a great

story for you to be here for today.

Because in Luke chapter 8 we find 2 stories, 2 individuals

Luke 8 · chapter mention

who are just in that exact place.

First we have a father whose daughter is dying, and then we

have a woman who has been suffering in in just really

devastating ways for 12 years. There are two people who are out

of options, two people who are desperate.

And Luke is going to show us this morning, there's good news

for desperate people because Jesus is the one who meets us in

our desperation. So let's dive into the passage

that Amanda just read and unpack it a little bit and see what we

learned today about who Jesus is.

So in verse 41, we're introduced to a man by the name of Gyrus

and says that a man named Gyrus came and he was the leader of

the synagogue. He fell down at Jesus feet and

pleaded with him to come to his house.

Now Luke gave us in that sentence a really interesting

little fact about Gyrus. Gyrus was the leader of the

synagogue. Luke says so.

So Gyrus isn't just any old guy. Gyrus is a guy in the community

who is respected, who's influential.

He's a religious guy, right? He's the leader of the

synagogue. But none of his influence, none

of the respect that other people have for him, and none of his

religious piety mean a darn thing in this moment because his

daughter is dying. Nothing about his life can fix

what is breaking in his life right now.

And so this is what he does. He falls down at the feet of

Jesus. He fell down at the feet of

Jesus because he had an only daughter, about 12 years old,

and she was dying. I mean, if you're a dad and

anything happens to your kids, you know, this dads everything

in you as a dad wants to fix things.

And yet sometimes as parents, we run into stuff then we can't

fix. It's the worst part of being a

parent. It's the worst part about

watching my kids grow up is the problems get bigger and I can't

fix them anymore. And this man is in that spot.

He's desperate. He has no answers.

He has no options. And and, and desperation reveals

something, right? It reveals the truth that all of

us struggle so hard to deny we are not in control.

Some of you, you just hate hearing that right now to to

even grapple with the fact that you are not in control.

But there are moments that happen in life.

They just kind of lay that bare about us.

Do we really don't control much? There are moments like what is

happening in Gyrus's life. They just absolutely wreck us.

It just strip us of all pride, like that's what we see here,

right? Look what Jairus does.

He is so wrecked. He's so desperate.

He does not care what people think.

He throws himself down at the feet of Jesus because the only

thing that matters in that moment is the possibility that

maybe Jesus could do what nobody else seems to be able to do.

Maybe Jesus can fix what nobody else seems to be able to fix.

Maybe Jesus can heal what no one else has been able to heal.

If there's even the slightest possibility that Jesus can save

his daughter, he does not care what it looks like.

He does not care what other people think.

He's going to throw himself at the feet of Jesus.

And I just look at this and I, I was thinking this week,

sometimes the very thing that I think all of us hate so much

that that realization, that feeling of hopelessness and

desperation, you know, sometimes that can be the greatest gift

that God could ever give us. It can be the greatest gift that

God gives you if it drives you to the feet of Jesus, the one

who actually can do something about it.

And sometimes the most powerful prayers start like this.

Jesus, I don't know what else to do Jesus, I'm, I'm at the end of

myself. I can't do anything about this

because although our power, our authority, our ability has

significant limits and limitations, as we've seen over

these past couple weeks and we're going to see again, Jesus

power has no limits. The first thing that you see in

this story is that Jesus is the one who notices desperate faith.

He meets Gyrus in his desperate faith.

And as we're going to see, he's going to notice desperate faith

when it's presented to him in a different way.

See, it says Jesus heads on his way to go see Gyrus's daughter,

and a crowd is pressing in on him.

And this is where Luke introduces us to the second

desperate person. He says there was a woman

suffering from bleeding for 12 years who had spent all that she

had on doctors and yet she could not be healed by any.

So what? What do we learn about this

woman? Will we learn?

First of all, she is sick and absolutely physically exhausted

and she's totally and utterly financially drained, right?

She spent all that she had on doctors and yet no one has done

anything for her. But there's actually something

else here that if you don't actually understand the culture

and the context, you'll miss. See, not only is she broke, not

only is she sick, she's a total social outcast at this point.

If she's been bleeding for 12 years, for 12 years in Jewish

society, she has been religiously unclean.

That means she is isolated. She is alone and she's broke and

she's sick and in her desperation, what do we see her?

Do we see her reach out for Jesus?

Verse 44, it says that she approached Jesus from bind as

he's navigating through the crowds that are coming in on him

and she touches the very end of his robe and again, look at

this. This is she is desperate, but

it's a different type of desperation.

And we have Gyrus, who throws himself down at the feet of

Jesus, a very public cry of desperation.

Here we have a woman who is quietly desperate, alone,

silently just reaching out with a shred of hope that Jesus can

do something. She's trying not to draw any

attention to herself because she knows she shouldn't be there.

But when she reaches out and she touches the end of that robe,

Luke tells us that something happens.

It says instantly her bleeding stopped again.

This scene is total chaos. I was saying to the team back in

the green room as we were doing communion together before coming

out. If you've ever been in Toronto,

like when a Blue Jays game releases and then at the same

time, maybe at the Scotiabank Center, a Leafs game or a

Raptors game or a concerts coming out at the same time and

you're trying to get on public transit.

Maybe you're trying to get on a GO train or the subway.

That's the scene. It is utter Panama.

There's just crowds and you're just trying to kind of navigate

through and Jesus trying to get somewhere quickly, right?

And in the midst of this, it says the crowds are pressing in

as Jesus trying to navigate through them.

When when he's touched, Jesus is like, who touched me?

Luke said. Peter's like Jesus.

There's like a whole bunch of people touching you right now.

Like, there, there, there are tons of people around here.

And Jesus, Jesus is like Peter. No, no, no.

Something different is taking place here.

This power that just went out for me.

Then we read. When the woman saw that she was

discovered, when she saw that Jesus had stopped, Dennis

tracks. He knew something had happened.

She came trembling and she falls down before him, and now she's

in the presence of the people. She declares the reason she had

touched him and how she was instantly healed again.

She's not holding anything back. Now, surely this was not the

only woman in that moment or the only person in that moment who

was touching Jesus, who was sick or suffering.

So what was it about her in her sickness, in her suffering, that

led to the power flowing out from Jesus and bringing her

healing? Jesus tells us verse 48.

He says, daughter, your faith has saved you, Go in peace.

Now. First of all, the way Jesus

responds to this woman, you just have to stop and read that first

word first. It's just beautiful.

Look what he calls her. I mean, she's in fear, She's

terrified. She's been found out.

Jesus looks at her and he says, daughter, daughter, imagine just

with those words must have meant to a woman who for 12 years had

been an outcast, who for 12 years had been isolated.

So, so you see, Jesus, Jesus doesn't just restore her health

here. Just like last week when we

looked at the story of the demoniac, Jesus isn't just

restoring health. He's not just restoring saying

no. He's restoring her to community.

He's restoring her dignity. He's restoring her personhood

and look how he finishes it. He says go in peace.

It would have been the Jewish greeting, the Jewish blessing of

Shalom, which is this idea of wholeness.

It's this idea of restoration, because that's what Jesus does.

He, he brings wholeness, he brings restoration.

He says daughter and and he says daughter, this your faith has

saved you. It was not her touching of the

robe as if the robe had some type of magical power in it.

It it wasn't her faith in anything other than the fact

that Jesus was her hope. Jesus was her rescue in and

Jesus always responds to those who reach out in faith to him.

You're never too unclean to reach out to Jesus, right?

That idea of being religiously unclean, religiously unworthy,

Maybe you feel that. Maybe you feel like there's too

much garbage in my life, there's too much sin in my life.

There's been too much history in back story.

Jesus wouldn't want anything to do with me.

He couldn't bring healing into my life and into my story.

That's not the way Jesus operates.

There's never anyone who is too unclean.

Jesus is never too busy. He's never too distracted.

Jesus has important stuff. He's trying to get to Gyrus's

daughter, but he's not too busy for this woman.

Again, I love the contrast of how these two individuals come.

Jesus 11 is coming publicly, right?

Coming, the fullness of just everybody seeing and not caring,

and the other is trying to come silently to Jesus.

But Jesus meets them both. There is never a desperate act

of faith, no matter how loud or how silent, that escapes Jesus's

notice. But as this exchange is taking

place, as Jesus is talking to and having this conversation

with this woman, someone comes up at the same time and

approaches. Gyrus says while he was still

speaking, someone came from the synagogue leaders house and

said, your daughter is dead, don't bother the teacher

anymore. We aren't told in this moment

what Gyrus is thinking, but I've got some thoughts.

If I put myself in Gyruss's shoes, I can imagine some of the

things that might have been running through her head.

Maybe you can too. Geez, why did you stop you?

You knew my daughter was in desperate situation.

Why? Why did you stop with this

woman? If you hadn't stopped with that

woman, maybe my daughter wouldn't be dead.

I think the delay in this story for Jairus had to feel

absolutely devastating. His hope had just been kindled a

little bit. Jesus was going to come with

them. And yet Jesus doesn't apologize

to Jairus here. You think he'd say, Jairus, I'm

oh, man, I'm so sorry for your your loss.

I can't believe I got held up like that.

This is what he says. He says, don't be afraid, only

believe, and she will be saved. She's dead.

How's she going to be saved? And then he arrives at the house

and instead of greeting the grieving mother of this daughter

in the household and saying, guys, my heart breaks.

I'm so sorry for your loss. I can't believe what's happened.

He says stop crying. If you go back, remember right

at the beginning of this, this section of Luke, but a similar

deal. Jesus stopped the funeral

procession and he said stop crying.

He says stop crying. She's not dead, she's asleep.

And at this point it says they all laugh at him, but I don't I

don't think this is the like the oh, Jesus, you're so funny type

of laugh. I think this is the like, I'm so

angry at what Jesus is saying right now.

I, I can't help. I'm either going to hit him or

laugh like I, I think this is total shock.

Can you believe this guy? He was supposed to come help our

daughter. He got distracted.

Now he's telling us, don't cry, it's OK, she's going to be

saved. Look what happens next.

So he took her, the little girl by the hand and called out,

child, get up. Her spirit returned and she got

up at once. And I just want to say this to

you because I know some of you heard the last part that I said

about Jesus always responding to our desperate faith.

And you're like, well, I've been desperate and he's not

responding. Don't despair if Jesus is

delayed in answering your desperate cry.

Jesus is never late, even when he feels like it is.

I've been there, been there where you're going through stuff

and you fall into doubting Jesus.

Just think, really, Jesus? You get disappointed with Jesus

because you've been calling out in desperation, in belief that

he could do something. And Jesus just doesn't seem to

be answering. I, I know in this place, some of

you are there today. Maybe you haven't verbalized it

or articulated any. I mean, you haven't said those

words, but you're just like, I'm just about done with Jesus.

I just want to say if you call out to Jesus with faith, you

never have to fear if he's going to fix things and if he can fix

what you can. It's so easy for us to mistake

delay for denial with Jesus, and then we end up disappointed,

right? But look at what Luke is telling

us here, what Luke wants us to know.

Even death isn't beyond Jesus's fixing.

Jesus makes this promise at another point to a woman by the

name of Martha who has also lost her brother who was a dear

friend of Jesus. And in John 1125, Jesus makes

this statement about himself. He says I am the resurrection

and the life, the one who believes in me.

Even if he dies, he will live every day in my prayers.

I pray that Jesus will heal my wife of type 1 diabetes and

celiac every day. And for 25 years that prayer has

yet to be answered. But here's what I am confident

of. One one thing I know without a

doubt, one day that prayer will be answered in this life or in

the next, and if in the next, for all eternity that prayer

will be answered. And that is true for every

person who places their faith in Jesus Christ.

Death doesn't stop Jesus from fulfilling and fixing what is

broken. In fact, sometimes death is how

he goes about fixing what is broken.

If your faith is in Jesus, my promise to you is this.

Your story will end in a miracle.

See, one day, no matter what your financial struggles are

right now and no matter how difficult it is.

And I know it's hard out there for so many people.

Jesus is going to make it so that you never struggle again.

You think I'm never going to be able to afford or buy a house in

this market? I'm telling you, the promise of

Jesus is that for eternity you're going to have a mansion

beyond compare. If you know and trust Jesus one

day, that addiction that you may be so weary of because it feels

it's a fight every single day of this life between you and your

addiction and the struggle there, one day that fight is

going to be over and won forever because of Jesus.

One day your heart that has been so broken that really your only

hope right now is that it it scars over and scabs over enough

that it doesn't keep on bleeding out all the time.

One day, the promise that we find in Revelation 21 of a new

heaven, a new earth, means that your heart is going to be fully

fixed and repaired and there will be no more sadness or

crying or tears. I don't know if it's going to

happen today. I don't know if it's going to

happen tomorrow. I don't know if it's going to

happen a year from now, but whether it happens on this side

of heaven or the next, if your faith is in Jesus, it's coming.

This whole series we've been saying who is Jesus?

Who is Jesus? Start.

He said. He's the one who teaches like

nobody else. He has an authority in his

teaching like nobody else. He's the one who who forgives

sins like nobody else is able to forgive.

He's the one who calms storms and casts out demons.

And today, Luke answers this question one more time.

Again. He is the one who hears and

answers desperate prayers. He's the one who stops for those

that everybody else ignores. He's the one whose timing is

never late. And he's the one who has

authority. Not over, not just over storms.

Not just over demons, but over death itself.

And it shows us again that there's no situation that you

can bring to him, that he is beyond his power and his ability

to fix. It started this morning by

talking about 33 men trapped in darkness for 69 days.

They couldn't get themselves out.

They needed a rescue to come from above.

And then eventually a rescue capsule comes and breaks through

the darkness. For the first time in 69 days.

Something breaks through that darkness, and one by one they

get into that capsule, they're lifted out, and they step into

the light. But in Luke 8, we see something

even greater than that rescue. See, Luke doesn't just rescue

the living, he raises the dead. Or Jesus doesn't just rescue the

living, he raises the dead. And the only the question isn't,

can Jesus rescue? The question isn't whether you

need rescue. The question is whether you will

admit that you need rescue and that Jesus is the only one who

can rescue you. The question is, have you come

to a point where you realize you are in a spot where you can't

fix it? You can't fix your sin, You

can't fix your brokenness. You can't work your way out of

the darkness that you're in. You can't raise yourself from

the dead, that Jesus had to come down from above and bring rescue

to you. That Jesus had to die on the

cross for your sin so that you could be taken from darkness to

light, from death to life. And that's the invitation that

is available to any and every person is that Jesus offers

rescue if you call to out to him in faith, believing that he and

he alone can save you. And the moment we do that, we

enter from darkness to light. We enter from life or from death

to life. But if you've already called out

to Jesus to rescue you from sin and death, and you find yourself

still in desperate situations, the question for you this

morning is, will you lay your unfixable situation at his feet?

Will you fall down at his feet and trust Him again?

Will you cry out to Him over the problem that you can't solve?

Will you trust Him with your financial debt?

Will you trust him with your broken family?

Will you trust him with your crippling fear?

Will you trust him with your grief and loss and addiction?

Will you trust him with your seemingly unanswered prayers

that seem to be delayed Because Jesus is the one who always

meets us in our desperate situation?

We're going to close this sermon.

We're going to close this series and section of Luke with

communion today. And so we've got some of our

hospitality team who have some community elements.

If you don't have those, they're going to come down to the front.

You can put your hand up and they will make sure to get that

to you. If you're a follower of Jesus, I

want to invite you to take communion with us.

You don't have to attend this church rarely.

Just if you placed your faith in Jesus as your rescuer, as your

Savior, as your Lord, then then let's take this together.

Because as we take communion, we're declaring that Jesus is

the one who has already met us in our desperate need.

We're declaring that him meeting us in our desperate need that

did not come cheaply, that our rescue was at a cost that is

beyond imagining. And we're declaring this if he

died to save us, we will be saved.

I want to invite you to take the bread from the top here the way

firm Luke 2219 Jesus in the upper room says to his disciples

as he takes bread and breaks it amongst them.

This is my body which is given for you.

Do this of in remembrance of me and I just just invite you to

pray with me. We're going to pray over the

bread and as we pray, would you just pray to him?

Jesus, thank you for paying the cost of my rescue.

That's what this wafer represents.

And pray to him. Jesus, I trust that you will

complete what you start. If you have saved me from death

to life, then life is where I'm headed, even when I'm struggling

in the midst of this life. And as you, as you take this

bread on your hand, you remembered of the fact that

Jesus has rescued you, that you have called out to him in faith

for that rescue. Can you also call out to him and

just say, I trust you with this situation.

I trust you with my kids, trust you with my marriage, trust you

with my health situation, trust you with my job.

I trust you with my finances. Father, thank you.

Thank you for the beauty of communion, for the opportunity

to remember together who our rescuer is and where our rescue

comes from. Thank you that you have paid the

cost, that our rescue has been paid in full.

We've received the down payment of that rescue with your Holy

Spirit in knowledge that one day we will be glorified with you

and receive the fullness of all that you have promised.

But in the midst of this world of struggle and sin, of pain and

hurt, we pray that you would enter into it.

We we pray that you would meet us in our desperation even now

let's take and eat together. Says that in the same way Jesus

took the cup in that upper room. He said this cup is the new

covenant in my blood which is poured out for you.

It is because of the blood of Jesus that we get to be called

sons and daughters of the King, that we get to be brought into a

relationship with God. It is because of the blood of

Jesus that we have been rescued and forgiven.

That's the way we stand in front of our heavenly Father because

of Jesus. So let's pray together over this

cup, let's thank Jesus, thank him not only that He hears our

prayers for healing, but that he brings us into wholeness.

He brings us into right relationship with him.

And then just call out to him and save me.

God, would you help me be faithful?

Would you help me be patient? Help me to wait while you bring

about the fullness of life that you have promised.

Keep my faith strong in that. Father, thank you that if Jesus

blood has covered our sins, we are set free.

There is no limit to the extent of your forgiveness.

We are called sons and daughters of the King.

It is who we are because of Christ.

And if we're your kids and you're our Father, then unlike

we as heavenly, as earthly fathers, as earthly moms, as

we're limited in our power to fix things, you are unlimited in

your power to fix things for your kids.

We love it, we love you. We love the fact that we can

trust you in the midst of our difficulties.

In Jesus name, let's take and drink together.

We're going to close with a song that declares the truth.

Not only the story of these two individuals in our story in Luke

today, but it's true for every single follower of Jesus.

Because the same Jesus that took a little girl by the hand and

told her to get up and prod her from death to life does that for

every single one of us. He brings us from death to life.