Luke The Orderly Account of Truth - Do You Believe He Can - Luke 8:40-56

We've been in a series going through the Gospel of Luke, and it's called

Luke The Orderly Account of Truth. Luke investigated and wrote an orderly account of

all the things that Jesus taught and said, and the whole purpose was for

us to know the exact truth about who Jesus is and what he taught.

He investigated this, so I say he put on his cape and cow,

he turned into batman, the greatest detective, and looked at what happened,

interviewed people, and wrote it all down for us to have in our hands

so we can know the exact truth about who Jesus is. And last week

Pastor Jordan took us through when Jesus actually displayed some of his authority and how

the people responded. You guys, remember Jesus crossed the lake. He cast

out a legion of demons and put him into the pigs, and then they

all ran down and drowned themselves in the lake or the Sea of Galilee.

The people freaked out and told Jesus to leave because there's because they were so

scared, you guys, remember that. But one of the most common responses

we see that when Jesus shows his authority is fear. That's one of the

most common responses that we see. The disciples saw him command the storm,

and the storm actually obeyed him. They were terrified. They asked, what

manner of man is this that the wind and waters obey him? But the

kind of fear between the people will be different based on our relationships to Jesus.

Right for those who are believers, who believe in Jesus and followers of

him, we may experience fear and we see Jesus power and authority. But

our fear is what I call reverent fear, having reverence for Christ, one

that shows honor, respect, and worship. That our response as believers to

Jesus authority is to humble ourselves and to worship that. That's when we see

His power on display, that we are awe struck and we show honor and

reverence. And last week ended with Jesus telling the formerly demon possessed man to

go home and tell everyone how much God had done for him. Exactly what

we should do too. Right when we see what God has done for us,

or maybe when we recognize us. Sometimes he's doing things and we don't

recognize it. But when we recognize it would be to go and tell everybody

what God has done for us. So we go out and tell the world

how much He has done for us. And this week we're going to be

finishing out chapter eight in Luke. So if you have your Bible, start

turning to chapter eight. We're going to be starting in verse forty. And

if you don't have a Bible, we have some at the connect booth in

the lobby, so grab it. We want you to have a Bible,

so take it. It's yours. He'll have a Bible reading plan and some

good prayer verses in there, but we want you to have the Bible.

So we're going to be in Luke chapter eight, verses forty through fifty six.

Let's go and read through the text now now, and Jesus had returned,

Or when Jesus returned, a crowd welcomed him, for they were all

expecting him. Then a man named Jyrus, a synagogue leader, came and

fell at Jesus' feet, pleading with him to come to his house because his

only daughter, a girl of about twelve, was dying. As Jesus was

on his way, the crowds almost crushed him, and a woman was there

who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years, but no one could heal

her. She came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak,

and immediately her bleeding stopped. Who touched me, Jesus asked, When they

all denied it, Peter said, Master, the people are crowding and pressing

against you. But Jesus said, someone touched me. I know that power

has gone out from me. Then the woman, seeing that she could not

go unnoticed, came trembling and fell at his feet in the presence of all

the people. She told why she had touched him and how she had been

instantly healed. Then he said to her daughter, your faith has healed.

You go in peace. While Jesus was still speaking, someone came from the

house of Gyros, the synagogue leader. Your daughter is dead, he said,

don't bother the teacher anymore. Hearing this, Jesus said to Gyros,

don't be afraid, just believe she will be healed. When he arrived at

the house of Gyros, he did not let anyone go in with him except

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

all the people were wailing and mourning for her stop wailing. Jesus said,

she's not dead, but asleep. They laughed at him, knowing that she

was dead. But he took her by the hand and said, my child,

get up. Her spirit returned and at once she stood up. Then

Jesus told them to give her something to eat. Her parents were astonished,

but he ordered them not to tell anyone what had happened. Got a big

chunk of texts to go through today, but we're going to make it.

And as I was thinking through all that textas past week when I was studying,

it made me think of when I was a kid. You guys,

remember when you were a kid growing up, and you go to your parents

whenever you needed help with anything, or you needed an answer. You'd always

go to your parents. When we're kids, we didn't even think twice.

We would just go to our parents because we knew that they had an answer

for us. And whole childhood, my parents are here by the way,

sitting right in the middle. It's awesome. My whole childhood, I operated

as though they knew everything about everything. They had all the answers. And

now I have two boys on my own. There's Jackson, Grayson's in the

middle too, I have two boys. He's waving at me. He's really

proud of his new Lama stuffed animal he got, So if he shows you

later, just give him my thumbs up. So now I have two boys

on my own, and they come to Jesse and I whenever they have questions

about something or need to know answers about something. They operate the exact same

way that we did when we were kids with our parents. But now I'm

the same age as my parents were when I would go to them for everything,

right, So I'm the same age as they as they were, and

now I know the real truth. They had no clue what they were doing,

secrets out. The reason I know they didn't know what they were doing

is because I don't know what I'm doing. I'm kind of just making it

up as I go. My boy's coming. I'm sure I got the answer

I'm telling myself, and I know that all the kids are in service.

Kids listen to your parents. They do know a lot of stuff. But

I know the secret, which is they were figuring it out too, just

like I'm figuring it out now. But that's not Actually the point of why

I'm telling you is the reason I want you to The thing I really want

you to focus in on here is to remember how you felt as a kid

going to your parents when you needed help. There was zero doubt in your

mind that they could help you. You didn't have a doubt, You had

complete faith in your parents' ability to help you. Right. And I think

that today's text, what it's going to do, is is going to challenge

us to return to that exact same feeling we had as kids with our parents,

but instead towards Christ, towards Jesus, to have faith in and believe

in his ability to help us, because unlike humans with our limited power and

authority or ability, Jesus is omnipotent. There is no limit to his power,

there's no limit to his authority, there's no limit to his ability.

So my whole goal today is to march through this text. I'm telling you

where we're going so it makes it easier to track along with. But my

whole goal today is to march through this text and let it grow our faith

in Jesus. To let the scriptures and I say this way, to let

the scriptures pour gasoline on the spark that is our faith now and make it

grow into an uncontainable, unquenchable wildfire. That's what I want to happen.

Today's message is called this. Do you believe he can? Do you believe

he can? I want us to walk away today answering this question with a

resounding yes and Amen. That's what I want us to walk away today,

to believe that God, or to believe God when he says through his word

things like now, to him who is able to do immeasurably more than you

could ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work in us.

That's from Ephesians three, to let God's word grow your faith in him.

All right, let's get into this. Let's start in verse forty.

Now, when Jesus returned, a crowd welcomed him, for they were all

expecting him. Then a man named Gyrus, a synagogue leader, came and

fell at Jesus' feet, pleading with him to come to his house because his

only daughter, a girl of about twelve, was dying. So it starts

with now, when Jesus returned, return from where, well, from the

other side of the Sea of Galilee, where we learned last week Pastor Jordan,

that he was in Garrisoness I hope I'm saying that right. He was

casting out demons over there, but stop it. Imagine that for a second.

You hop in a boat with Jesus to cross a lake, which is

it's a really big lake, that's what they call the Sea of Galilee.

But you're crossing an on the way across, a giant storm hits and it's

such a big storm that you think you're gonna die. You are literally fearing

for your life. And then Jesus gets up and tells a storm to stop

it, and it does stop it. Then you get to the other side.

If that wasn't crazy enough, you get to the other side and a

crazy naked demon guy comes up to you. It's real, and Jesus tells

the demons to beat it. He's like, get out of here and get

out. Eh. That's how I wrote it my notes. I don't know

why. He tells the demon to get out of here, and then like

two thousand pigs run to the sea and then you get kicked out of the

area. That's a lot to happen in not a very long amount of time.

And I don't know about you, but my head would be spinning thinking

about or seeing all of what's happening and thinking about what all that means,

and seeing what Jesus was doing as he displayed his power and authority. But

Jesus and the disciples came back across the lake, no storm this time.

It was an easy trip on the way back, and everyone was waiting for

Jesus when he arrived. And one of the people that was waiting was a

man named Gyrus, a synagogue leader. That's one of the people who was

waiting for Jesus. And being he was a leader, it kind of makes

sense that he could make his way up to Jesus. And I figure that

he would have been respected in the area by all the Jews come to see

Jesus and they would have made a way for him to get up there to

see Jesus. So it makes sense why he got up to the front.

But Gyros approached Jesus differently than most of the religious leaders of the day.

It was a little different because we've been reading through Luke, and if you

read through all the Gospels, you know that the interactions between or how the

Jewish leaders and religious leaders of the day, how they approached Jesus was much

different than this most, if not all of the Jewish leaders when they approach

Jesus would be questioning him in a way, trying to trap him, or

they'd be accusing him of something, accusing him of blasphemy, trying to stone

him to death. Jesus and the Jewish leaders didn't mix well because Jesus came

and told them the truth about God's kingdom. So the fact that Gyros would

come to Jesus and fall to his feet and plead with him was a huge

deal. As far as the religious leaders of the day were concerned, Jesus

was an enemy. Someone even would go as far as to say that he

was demon possessed, which is crazy, but that's how they viewed Jesus.

They were all clear, you don't go to Jesus for help. But Givers

broke a mold. He did, and he went to Jesus for help.

But what would drive one of the Jewish leaders who viewed Jesus as an enemy,

what would drive him to do such a thing? What would cause him

to not care what anybody thought? Did you ever think about that for a

second. If everyone who in your crew views this person as an enemy,

and you walk up to him and talk to him, you figure, he'd

be thinking, like, what are people going to think? What would drive

him to not care what anyone thought? He didn't care what to look like?

What made him so desperate? Well, Verse forty two A the first

half of verse forty two because his only daughter, a girl of about twelve,

was dying. His twelve year old daughter was dying. That's why he

was desperate. And I look at my son, Jackson, who's thirteen.

He's throwing the deuces up at me. Thanks buddy, being a true teenager.

I love it. But is there anything I wouldn't do to help him

if he was dying? There's nothing I wouldn't do. I would do whatever

it took. It wouldn't matter how stupid I look to others. I would

grovel if I needed to. It's also the same for my youngest, but

I'm using him because he's closer to age twelve. I would do it.

Didn't care how stupid I looked. It wouldn't matter what it costs me.

I would pay anything. We went hiking yesterday. Actually it was beautiful.

We went Eatonville. What was the name of the Maychell I kept saying Marshall,

but it's not what it was it was a fun hike, but there

was a couple sketchy spots where like you're kind of like finding your footing and

it's like angled, and then it's just like death. And so if one

of my boys went over, I guess I'm going over too, because I'm

going to chase him. I will do whatever it takes. This is the

kind of desperation. Right. If my enemy, who I swore to never

talked to, could help my dying son, I would be begging him to

help. This is the kind of desperation the Gyros had. The level of

desperation he had, he would go and follow the feet of his enemy,

pleading for him to help. And Jesus said yes. So let's keep reading

Versus the second half of verse forty two. We'll start there as Jesus was

on his way. He was on his way to help Gyros. The crowds

almost crushed him, and a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding

for twelve years, but no one could heal her. She came up behind

him and touched the edge of his cloak, and immediately her bleeding stopped.

Jesus agreed to help Gyrus' daughter and started to follow him to his house and

there were so many people that the crowd almost crushed Jesus. Has anyone here

been to a metal show or a rock show here have been that mash pit?

Oh yeah, Well, Jordan and I go to some pretty loud and

cool shows. I'll just say that he's the one who drags me there,

right, even though we both love the music. I'm like, Okay,

the pit, it's just a thing though, you know that, right,

And he's like yeah, yeah. So we go to these shows and Jordan

loves the pit. Crowd gets rowdy. I personally hate the pit with an

undying passion. But I don't know if you noticed, Jordan's a little bit

bigger than I am. Jordan I call him the immovable pillar in the pit.

So it was I mean, he's had I've witnessed people walking up to

him being like, hey, thanks for just standing there so I could just

be next to you. So I was okay, And these are straight up

strangers walking up to him. It's great, But in these mashpits, everybody's

pushing everybody. Music's getting crazy, people are getting rowdy, everybody's pushing against

everybody. It's sweaty, it's smelly. It's like a bunch of angsty teenagers

in a sardine can. It's mega gross. I will say that. So

think of this crowd around Jesus like a little, less smelly version of a

mosh pit. Maybe, I don't know. There's lots of people are pushing

against him so much solid their cram together they might even get crushed. The

crowds almost crush Jesus. Well, what would cause that to happen? If

everyone's trying to get to Jesus to talk to him, or everyone's trying to

get to Jesus to maybe like the woman touch his cloak, they're going to

push through and do whatever it took to get to Jesus. You've heard all

kinds of stories of mass panic and crowds running and people getting trampled. Well,

if you're gonna get to Jesus no matter what, you're going to crush

some people on the way. Maybe, so they all are pushing against each

other like a mosh pit. But what I want to do here, And

it's kind of interesting because the way this story goes, we start talking about

something and then something like it just kind of changes. Now we're talking about

something else. I promise we'll get back to Gyrus and the rest of the

story. But right now I want to talk about this woman a little bit

more. We don't know her name. We just know our condition. We

know a little bit about our history. She has been bleeding for twelve years

and no one has been able to help her. And some translations will say

it's a chronic discharge of blood. Gross, but it's continuous. Sorry,

that was insensitive. I apologize, I repents, but it was a it's

continuous for twelve full years, and constant blood loss would leave her anemic and

week, but only that. If you read through Leviticus fifteen, then she

would be considered ceremonial, ceremonially unclean. And it's not just for a moment,

it's for the entire time she's bleeding. She's constantly considered unclean. That

would have mean she's been unclean. That would have meant that she's unclean and

kept from regular fellowship and interaction with people for twelve years. Okay, so

let's add complete isolation to the mixed. That's not good for our hearts and

our heads. Oh and just to put a cherry on top, anyone else

she touches is also unclean too, so that's not helpful. And I do

I do want to mention a side note because we talked about it before,

when Jesus touched the casket basically of the dead boy and rac him back to

life. We saw there when Jesus touches unclean things, he doesn't get unclean.

He makes unclean things clean when he touches them, right, and thank

God for that that he would reach out and touch them. He reaches out

and touches us. But this is not some small, insignificant thing that she's

been suffering for twelve years. This is a big deal. And we actually

get a little bit more insight into her situation if we look at Mark chapter

five, which is the same story different gospel accounts. So let's look in

five verses twenty five and twenty six. And a woman was there who had

been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under

the care of many doctors and had spent all she had. Yet instead of

getting better, she grew worse. So we see that not only has she

been suffering for twelve years, she spent everything she had on doctors and got

worse. It didn't get better. There were all kinds of crazy remedies back

then. I mean, there's all kinds of crazy remedies now. Doctors will

tell you to do all kinds of crazy stuff. Let the hear understand.

But they would create all kinds of weird concoctions back then, saying they're going

to fix your problems. And they would put in these things, things that

the human body is not meant to consume, saying it'll help you. But

after going to all these doctors, spending everything she had, she didn't get

better. She got worse. She grew worse. This is the woman who

came up behind Jesus bleeding for two twelve years, ceremonially unclean. She was

broke, getting worse. She was desperate. She was desperate. She came

up behind Jesus and touched the edge of his cloak. And if we read

the next two verse or three verses here in Mark, it tells us why

she touched jesus cloak. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind

him in the crowd and touched his cloak because she thought, if I just

touch his clothes, I will be healed immediately. Her bleeding stop, and

she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering. That's amazing.

She thought, this Jesus guy has the power to heal. If I

just touch his clothes, I know I will be healed. She had faith.

She had faith that if she pushed through this cloud and just got close

enough to touch jesus cloak, that's some massive faith. That's some massive faith

in Jesus' ability to heal her. And you know what, she was right.

She was right. As soon as she touched the edge of his cloak,

her bleeding immediately stopped. It stopped, and she felt her body healed.

She put her faith in the right person, which leads me to,

like our first big point for today. Faith in general does nothing. Faith

in Jesus does everything. Faith in general does nothing. Faith in Jesus does

everything. You believe, okay? In what just some general faith that I

think things are gonna be? Okay? Why doesn't do anything? Faith in

Jesus does something. This woman didn't have some general, unspecific faith. She

had a very specific faith in Jesus. Her faith was in the one who

could actually do something about her problem. Her faith was rightly placed in Jesus,

who does what. No one else can. It's the one who has

all authority. Our faith must be placed in Jesus, where it's a pointless

faith. Who else can guarantee anything? Only the creator of all things can

guarantee. And the next thing that happens here in Luke is Jesus asks kind

of a weird question. So let's look at verse forty five. Who touched

me? Jesus asked? When they all denied it, Peter said, and

Master that people are crowding and pressing against you. But Jesus said, someone

touched me. I know that power has gone out from me. Remember they're

in this mash pit, right So I imagine Peter basically saying, any serious,

Jesus, Like everybody's touching you right now. That's how I read that.

Sometimes it's helpful to put in your own words, and remember that your

own words are not scripture. Always go back to scripture. But it might

be helpful, like, are you serious, Jesus? Like everybody's touching you

right now. Look at the crowd around you. But this is a different

kind of touch. It wasn't just somebody just bumping into you or leaning against

you or pushing against you in a mosh pit. It's different. There's a

touch that caused power to go out from Jesus. And Jesus is not some

like passive holy relic or a superstitious trinket, as some religions would try to

make him. No, he's active in his power, and he knew that

power had left him. And since she had knew that she had been caught,

the woman came forward. Let's look at the next verse. Then the

woman, seeing that she could not go unnoticed, came trembling and fell at

his feet in the presence of all the people. She told why she had

touched him and how she had been instantly healed. Then he said to her,

daughter, your faith has healed. You go in peace, joke and

say he can't get away with stealing from Jesus like he stole her power.

He didn't, but or she didn't. But but she did come forward,

trembling, knowing that she couldn't go unnoticed, and she fell at Jesus' feet.

She told him everything that she knew that if she just got close enough

to touch his cloak, that she would have been healed. Did Jesus get

mad at her? No? Did you tell her that because she was unclean,

like you really shouldn't be in this crowd, touching everybody, making them

all unclean. No, he didn't say that either. He cut through all

of that and he told her that her faith had healed her to go in

peace. What he did is he explained to her what had just happened,

the process she just walked through. He explained, this is what just happened,

that she put her faith in the right place and the result was that

she had been healed. And I put a big side note in here.

I'm not going to spend a lot of time talking about it because I think

this is probably a side note specifically for me. So come along the journey

with me. But Jesus allowed this woman to interrupt what he was doing.

He was on his way to Gyrus's house, right and he stopped and allowed

this woman to interrupt what he was up to. And so I say,

it's a personal challenge because I really don't like being interrupted doing anything that I'm

doing. That doesn't matter what it is. But the question in the conviction

I felt was do I have enough compassion to stop and let people who are

neat interrupt what I'm doing? Or do I hold so closely to my own

schedule that I can't allow it. I can't allow even God to convict me

of something. So well, that's for me, But if you feel challenged,

you're welcome. Okay, let's keep moving. In the text, verse

forty nine, well Jesus was still speaking, someone came from the house of

Gyros, the synagogue leader. Your daughter is dead, he said, don't

bother the teacher anymore. The Bible doesn't tell us how far away Gyrous' house

is, so we don't know how long it took the messenger to get from

Gyrous's house to where Jesus was. We don't know how long it took Gyros

to get to where Jesus was, So maybe the daughter had died even before

Gyros got to talk to Jesus. But if you're anything like me, you

might actually start blaming the woman for stopping Jesus. If Jesus hadn't stopped,

maybe my daughter would still be alive. And that's kind of like if you

remember the story of Mary and Martha when their brother Lazarus got sick and died,

that Jesus waited a whole two days before he went there found out the

news waited two days before he went to Lazarus to go see him and help,

and both Mary and Martha said, if you had been here, my

brother wouldn't have died, which means they had faith that Jesus could have done

something, but their faith only went so far. Right now, we know

from the story of Mary or from Lazarus being raised from the dead, that

this all happened for their benefit, so they would know who Jesus is and

that they would believe. But maybe that was God's purpose in allowing Gyrus's daughter

to die, so that everyone there would see jesus power at work and they

would believe. That they would grow their faith in Jesus and his ability to

do the impossible. But after finding out that she's dead, what did Jesus

say to Giros. Let's go back to verse fifty. Hearing this, Jesus

said to Gyros, don't be afraid, just believe and she will be healed.

Don't be afraid, just believe and she will be healed. And I

can't think of a more terrifying thought than getting news that one of my children

has passed. Doesn't matter if it's expected or unexpected. I can't think of

more terrifying news. I mean, there would be a mix of all kinds

of emotions, but chief among them would be fear. But Jesus tells him,

don't be afraid. Believe, Or to say it another way, like

this our next kind of point for the night. Replace fear with faith.

To replace our fear with faith. We replace our doubts and our disbelief with

belief. No matter what we see in front of us. Is God's arm

too short? No? Is there anything beyond his grasp? No? Is

there anything outside the control of the all sovereign, all powerful God. No?

No, We replace those fears and uncertainty with faith and belief. And

just like we said before, it's not some general hope it goes well kind

of faith or happy, go lucky, good attitude. No, it's faith

in Jesus, who can do the impossible, Faith in the one whose voice,

the wind and the waves obey. I think that's crazy. And if

anyone doesn't think that's amazing, think about it a little bit harder. Anyone

seen a tornado, an earthquake, a tsunami. I'm talking about like terrible

disasters right now, And for someone to say stop and it obeys, that's

Jesus. That's who our faith is in. And there are tons of verses

that tell us not to fear, but to have faith in God. But

I want to look just at one really quickly in Psalm fifty six, and

that's verses three and four. When I am afraid, I put my trust

in You, in God, whose word I praise. In God, I

trust and am not afraid. What can mere mortals do to me? You

read the whole chapter and it's just more of this. I feel like this

is a good little summation of it. Trusting God. He's the only one

who can actually do something about your situation. You're afraid, you put your

trust in God. You don't sit in fear, but you grow your faith.

You put faith and trust in God. So let's look at this last

section of text. We're going to see what happens next verse fifty one.

When he arrived at the house of Jyrus, he did not let anyone go

in with him except Peter, John and James and the child's father and mother.

Meanwhile, all the people were wailing and mourning for her. Stop wailing.

Jesus said, she's not dead, but asleep. They laughed at him,

knowing that she was dead, but he took her by the hand and

said, my child, get up. Her spirit returned and at once she

stood up. Then Jesus told him to give her something to eat. Her

parents were astonished, but he ordered them not to say or to tell anyone

what had happened. When Jesus and the disciples finally did arrive at the house,

Jesus only brought in his inner circle Peter, John and James and the

parents inside, and once inside, Jesus talks to the mourners, who weren't

just family members. That's not who these people were. Back then, when

someone died, you'd actually hire people to come to like funeral services for you,

and they would be you'd actually hire mourners to mourn for the people who

passed, and their specific job was to play pipes, flutes, to whale

and to mourn. They're professional whalers, which I think is just weird,

but culturally that's what it was back then. But you can see that they

didn't see they didn't really seem to have any family ties. Because of their

reaction, their mourning quickly turned to mocking laughter. When Jesus said that the

girl isn't dead, she's just asleep. They flipped the switch. They knew

she was dead, so they hit pause on their morning and turned and play

on their laughter. But Jesus reached out and did what He grabbed the girl

by the hand and told her to stop being dead. And you know what

happened. She obeyed and she stopped it being dead. And this leads me

to a point that I think is very very crucial that we have to grasp

in order to grow our faith at all. And if we don't understand this

or grow in our understanding of this, I don't think that our faith really

will grow. And that is this point. Jesus has all authority and power.

I've said it like a hundred times a day so far. But we

have to understand this. We have to understand that Jesus has all authority and

power, all of it. Not some of it, not a lot of

it, all of it. Jesus has all authority and power. There is

no one with more power and authority than Jesus, no one. We have

to understand this. Luke recorded this orderly account of truth for us and for

theophilis right. He recorded this orderly account for us, and we've seen Jesus

heal this sick, forgive sins which only God can do, cast out demons,

control nature, and tell dead people to come back to life. He

is all authority and all power. Remember, one of the goals for today

is to grow your faith in Jesus. That's what we're trying to do,

is grow our faith in Jesus and his ability to do the impossible. And

look what he's already done in just the book of Luke alone a lot.

And when Jesus rebukes the disciples and asks them where their faith is, or

says you of little faith, I think that should be a momentary pause.

Go look in the mirror and say, where's my faith? Where is my

faith? Are we the ones who have forgotten all that Jesus has done?

Have we forgotten that all authority on heaven and earth has been given to him?

Have we forgotten that it's in the name of Jesus that every single knee

will bow and every single time will confess that he is Lord? Have we

forgotten that we learn the truth and it makes our foundation of faith solid.

It gives us a firm foundation. Are we closing with that song? By

the way, I was like, is it possible because it would fit really

well with a message gives us a firm foundation. All other ground is sinking

sand, but the rock that is Christ. We put our faith in Jesus

for everything, not just our salvation. So let's get back to the text.

Go back to the verse fifty four. Please, But he took her

by the hand and said, my child, get up. Her spirit returned,

and at once she stood up. Then Jesus told them to give her

something to eat. Her parents were astonished, but he ordered them not to

tell anyone what had happened. Jesus commands the dead girl to get up,

her spirit returns and stands up. Then, I mean, and then Jesus

tells them to give her something to eat, which I think shows us that

this resurrection was an actual bodily resurrection. But also saying that her spirit returned,

would let us know like, oh, this is a real resurrection.

This isn't metaphorical, this isn't symbolic. This is an actual bodily resurrection where

she needed to eat food to still be sustained. This is mega miracle right

in front of her eyes. Her parents, Gyrus and his wife were astonished.

They were astounded, They were amazed, but Jesus told him not to

say anything. That would be a really hard secret to keep. For me,

I'd be shouting that bad boy from the rooftops. But why didn't Jesus

want him to say anything? And I think it's just it's not crucial to

the point of the message today, but it's helpful for us to understand.

Why would Jesus not want to say anything. And in the end of Mark

chapter one, after Jesus had healed the man with leprosy, he told him

not to say anything. The man didn't listen, and he went and told

everybody, And verse forty five in Mark one tells us that as a result,

Jesus could no longer enter a town openly, but stayed outside in lonely

places. Yet the people still came to him from everywhere. And if you

look in John chapter six, after the people saw all the miracles that Jesus

was doing, it says, surely this is the prophet who is who is

to come into the world. Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and

make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself. So

Jesus knew that if word kept getting out his infamy continued to grow, it

would not only be harder for him to get into the towns, which would

hinder his like the ministry that he's trying to do, not that they really

could hinder him, but it would make it harder for him to go through

towns. But also the people would try to force him to be their definition

of their king, because you know, Jesus flipped that whole thing on its

head, because they thought he was going to be the mighty ruler that would

help get rid of oppressive Rome. But Jesus had something much bigger in mind.

So that's why Jesus would tell them, don't say anything, because it's

going to be very hard to keep doing what I'm doing if they keep telling

can have the band come up? Please? So what I want to do

is I want to try to summarize everything. To summarize everything we've talked about

today. What we're gonna like, zoom out a little bit. We're gonna

get in the imagination copter and go up to ten thousand feet. Actually,

I don't think helicopters can go ten thousand feet. No. Just airplanes,

yeah, just size my resident like airplane expert. But We're gonna take a

look at this from a zoom outain, take a bigger look at this.

There's two people in two different situations. Both of them are out of options

and completely desperate. That's a pretty broad summation of the first part of this

whole text. But both of them had a hope. They both had a

hope. Both believe that this extraordinary man, Jesus, was the one who

could help them. And when they turned to Jesus, he told them,

your faith has healed you. And he said, don't be afraid, just

believe, and she will be healed. So with that big zoomed out look

at what's going on. What are we supposed to take from this? And

this is how I put it. Jesus can do the impossible. Just believe

Jesus can do the impossible. Just believe. That's the argument being made.

That's what I'm arguing. Jesus has proved time and time again that he can

do what no one else can. Over and over and over again. He

has proved that he can do the impossible, more than we could ever think

or imagine. Just have faith, just believe that he can. I mean,

if you've put faith in Jesus. We trust him for our own salvation.

And I think that's the most impossible thing ever to bring us from spiritual

death to spiritual life. There is no greater miracle than that, and we

believe in him for it. We believe that in the last day he will

raise us up with him to eternal life. We believe that. And John

six forty tells us that the Father's will that all who look to the Son

and believe in him will have eternal life, that they will be raised up

in the last day. So for those who have put faith in Jesus finished

work on the cross as payment for their own sin, we are forgiven and

we get to experience eternal life. Amen. It's amazing. And if Jesus

can do that impossible thing, then isn't he capable of doing everything else?

Look at Chapter eleven and Mark verses twenty two through twenty four. Have faith

in God, Jesus answered, Truly, I tell you, if anyone says

to this mountain, go throw yourself into the sea, and does not doubt

in their heart, but believes what they say will happen, it will be

done for them. Therefore, I tell you, whatever you ask for in

prayer. Believe that you have received it and it will be yours. When

you pray and ask God, do you have doubt in your heart? Then

maybe he can't do it. I didn't say maybe he won't do it.

I say maybe he can't do it. What evidence has he given you that

he's incapable of doing something? What's his track record that he can or that

he can't. He's given you no evidence, zero evidence that he is incapable.

God has only given us evidence that he can, that he is able.

The whole reason we pray to God for anything is because we know that

He is the only one who can actually do something about it. It's not

the one who's praying, it's the one we pray too. The end of

service, when we're standing on the sides asking to pray for you for whatever

you need. It's not because we're cool. It's because God is awesome and

he can do the impossible things that we can't. We rely on him,

not us. When we pray. We replace our doubts with belief, We

replace our fear with faith. Believe that he can do something because he can.

I do feel like I need to mention here we aren't talking about those

selfish prayers that's mentioned in James. If you guys have read the Book of

James, James four to three says, when you ask, you do not

receive because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get

on your pleasures. It's not what we're talking about here, But what about

when we're praying for something not like what James is talking about. We're praying

for something and we start to struggle to believe. What if we start to

struggle to have faith and the fear starts to get louder. We'll turn to

Mark nine. I'm gonna let you guys turn there because I want you to

read along with and to prove that I'm not lying. We're gonna be reading

verses fourteen through twenty four. This is one of my favorite Bible stories.

I think. Starting in verse fourteen, when they came to the other disciples,

they saw a large crowd around them and the teachers of the law arguing

with them. As soon as all the people saw Jesus, they were overwhelmed

with wonder and ran to greet him. What are you arguing with them about?

He asked? A man in the crowd, answered teacher I brought you

my son, who is possessed by a spirit that has robbed him of speech.

Whenever it seizes him, it throws him to the ground. He foams

at the mouth, gnashes his teeth, and becomes rigid. I asked her

disciples to drive out the spirit, but they could not. You, unbelieving

generation, Jesus replied, how long shall I stay with you? How long

shall I put up with you? It sounds like Jesus, a little frustrated

in this moment, bring the boy to me. So they brought him.

When the spirit saw Jesus, it immediately through the bold into a convulsion.

He fell to the ground and rolled around, foaming at the mouth. Jesus

asked the boy's father, how long has he been like this? Which I'll

by the way, like this is all happening. He's like, how long

has he been like this? So he's letting this happen from childhood? He

answered. It has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him.

But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.

If you can, said Jesus, everything is possible for one who believes.

Immediately, the boy's father exclaimed, one of my favorite verses, I do

believe, Help me overcome my unbelief. I do believe, Help me overcome

my unbelief. What do we do when we struggle to believe? Exactly what

this father did? Rios asked God to help us overcome our unbelief. God

is a good father who gives good gifts to his children. If any of

us lacks wisdom, we should ask him and he will generously give it to

us. When we struggle to keep believing, we pray and we ask him

to help us. To stop trying to push through something you can't do in

your own strength. We're kind of stubborn that way. Sometimes we think we

can do in our own strength. We can't. We rely on God to

build our faith in him. And when you ask for Him to help build

your faith, don't you doubt it for a second that he won't help you.

No doubt, because he will. He promises to deliver. So if

there's one thing to take away from today's message, let it be that God

can do the impossible. All you have to do is believe. Scripture shouts

that over and over and over again. Do you believe he can do?

You believe that he can? And I don't know where you came from.

Some of us came from We all came from all different places. I came

from a little bit more of the charismatic side of things, and sometimes these

verses got abused. So what that made me want to do in my own

heart is overcorrect, way on the other side and be like, God will

never do anything for me because I'm a worm, which is true, I

am a worm, But He's also a loving father, and he shows that

he cares for his children and he can do the impossible. So I will

respect and show honor and glory and utmost gratitude anytime God gives me a glimpse

of his ability to do something impossible? Do you believe that he can?

In mm hmmm, we're gonna move into a time of response, So can

you guys actually stand to your feet for me? Please? H