Trust Him, He is Trust RJ Shope

This bag of... Everywhere you need to be this

morning, as you know, God called you to be here.

He provided all the resources. And we are grateful,

grateful for the opportunity to be together to

worship and reach new heights in Jesus today.

I have a couple of announcements just to share.

Something new a little bit. We have paper bulletins

for you today. But if you happen to be an electronic

person or that kind of really thing, we have

an electronic bulletin. And the nice thing about

an electronic bulletin is you can easily take

it home with you and not misplace it. For all

that ever are. The Prince of mighty God. That

bring me to my knees in praise. Amazing love.

Amazing grace. The Son of Him. My Savior God.

A broken heart at the bleeding side. The hill

of the soul, a hell free. The bloody shed, shed

for me. Come on. When in heaven's hill. Thank

you. The great song of the mighty God that made

me true. My knees in praise. Amazing love. Amazing

grace. Thank you. Who do you see as someone who

is a confident person? Anyone? You? Okay. Somebody

said me. So what about someone who comes off

as arrogant? I mean, we all know those people,

right? We all know those people who we all have

people in our lives that come across as a little

arrogant. So me personally, I've never really

saw myself as arrogant. confident in some of

the things i can do like one of the things i'm

really good at is i'm really good at fixing cars

and i've been doing it for most of my life so

i've gotten to be really good at fixing cars

and i can i've done it as a career for the last

15 years and there's not much on a car that i

can't fix um my wife's seen some of the stuff

i do should come visit me at work one time and

I'll have a car stripped down to, like, the whole

front end's off, the engine's out, the transmission's

out. There's bolts and parts laying everywhere,

and I can remember exactly how everything goes

back together to the point where you can just

pick a bolt up, and I'll know exactly where it

goes, but I can't remember a three -list grocery

list. So there's that. But I can remember how

to put a car back together. So I wouldn't necessarily

say that I'm the best mechanic ever because I

know there's people who are better than I am.

I know there's at least a couple people that

I work with that are a lot smarter than I am

because most of the reasons they've been doing

it a lot longer. One of the guys that I work

with, he actually has some of the Chrysler engineers

call him when they need help. So he is a very,

very knowledgeable, very smart guy. So I would

never, ever say that I'm the best mechanic ever

or I'm the best mechanic at where I'm at, but

I am good at what I do. And that's kind of the

difference between being confident and arrogant

is I know I'm good at it, but I'm not going to

brag about it. I'm not I don't have to make myself

look better. I'm not ever going to try to make

myself look better because that's just not who

I am. And for one, we shouldn't do that because,

you know, no one is better than anyone. God sees

us all as equals. We're all his children. So

therefore, we should never try to put ourself

above anyone. And I try my best to do that because,

for one, it's not a good reputation to have.

And I'm trying to be a godly leader, a godly

father in my home, and I can't do that if I'm

choosing to put myself above other people. When

we think of confidence, it's more of you know

what your abilities are. You're confident in

your abilities. You're confident in the fact

that the sun's there because you can see it.

You can feel the warmth. So there's things that

we can be confident about. And as we go to the

text, I want you to think about that. And we

are going to be going to Mark chapter 5, and

Mark 5 · chapter mention

we're going to be starting in verse 25. There

you go. A little delayed, but okay. It's Mark

Mark 5 · chapter mention

chapter 5, and we're going to be starting in

verse 25. Just a little bit of background. So

Jesus is on his way to heal one of the synagogue's

official's daughters who's been sick. And one

of the people came and told him Jesus was on

his way to go heal her. And something that I've

read probably 50 times. is stuck out to me really,

really big in this little scenario that happens.

And it's short, but there's so much that goes

into this. And like I said, this ties into what

I said earlier. This is why it's so important

to study the Bible, because I never really thought

about it this way until a couple days ago, really.

But we're going to start in verse 25. It says,

who had a hemorrhage for 20 years and had endured

much at the hands of many physicians and had

spent all she had and was not helped at all,

but had rather grown worse. So you can see right

away, there's a woman that has a medical problem

and she's went to many doctors and she can't

get healed and she's spent all of her money trying

to get fixed and no one can fix her. One of the

things that really stuck out to me here is how

many times do we get in that spot where we feel

like there's no one that can help. That no matter

how much we try, how many people we talk to,

how many doctors we go to or whatever, there's

no one that can fix us. I know I've been there

many times, especially with some of the mental

problems that I have with my own self, that I

feel that there's no one that will understand

exactly what I'm going through. That there's

not a single person that I can talk to, not even

my wife, to help me through what I'm going through.

In a way, that hit me hard because I'm like,

you know, this woman's been suffering for 20

years and went to many doctors who, if anyone

didn't know back then, the doctors were not great

by any means. Medical stuff back then was very,

there was a lot of very sketchy things and a

lot of trial and error. So I was like, I can't

even imagine what this woman had been through

at the hands of some of these doctors trying

to make this situation get fixed. And it got

me thinking about how we go through a lot of

stuff in our life, and there's a lot of those

times where we try to go to people for help,

and we just can't find help. And I hear that

story so many times, especially because I, those

of you who don't know, I'm the youth director.

I do a lot of work with the youth or I try to,

but there's a lot of teenagers now that I talk

to and they tell me that same thing. Well, no

one just, no one understands me. No one understands

what I'm going through. And, and it, it tears

my heart to pieces because we'll find out a little

bit later that there's definitely people who

will be able to help you, but we'll find out

that the main source of that help comes from

God. That no matter who you talk to, nobody,

is going to give you the good the good answers

that god can give you and then as we continue

in verse 27 says after hearing about jesus she

came up in the crowd behind him and touched his

cloak for she thought if she just touched his

garments i will be healed and this is where a

lot of what i really dove into was just these

two verses because the way this planned out played

out in my head is after like a winter jam concert

when the show's over and there's thousands of

people trying to get to the door so they can

get out of the building for those who've never

been to winter jam i highly recommend it it's

amazing um but my anxiety goes through the roof

in those moments because there's so many people

around and it's shoulder to shoulder and you're

pumping into people and this woman was in the

crowd And she said, for if I just touch his garments,

I will be well. So for one, she has to get through

the crowd to get to Jesus, which has got to be

a chore in and of itself. Because when you have

a bunch of people around you wanting to talk

to you and wanting to be healed and all this,

and Jesus is just trying to make his way to this

official's house. So there's people all around

him and she has to get through this crowd just

to be able to touch him. And then in 29, Immediately

the flow of her blood was dried up, and she felt

her body, that she was healed of her affliction.

Immediately Jesus, perceiving in himself that

the power proceeding from him had gone forth,

turned around in the crowd and said, Who touched

my garments? And his disciples said, You see

the crowd pressing in on you, and you say, Who

touched me? And he looked around to see the woman

who had done this. But the woman, fearing and

trembling, aware of what had happened to her,

came and fell before him and told him the whole

truth. And he said to her, daughter, your faith

has made you well. Go in peace and be healed

of your affliction. So this brings me to a lot

of things that I could talk about. But there's

really a couple of things that I really thought

God was talking to me here. And one of them is

she just had to touch Jesus. She didn't have

to go beg him. She didn't have to go bow down

at his feet and say, please heal me. She just

had to touch him. And this is pretty important

because how many times have we seen throughout

the New Testament Jesus going to people and healing

them and putting his hands on them to heal them,

to heal the blind and the sick, and he healed

the lame man that was lowered through the roof

on the mattress. But this woman just had to touch

him. Jesus didn't know, like, We probably did

know because that's just how Jesus is, but she

just reached out and touched him. And this is

so crazy to me because she didn't do anything

else but touch him. But the only reason she was

healed is not because she touched Jesus. That's

not the reason. And if you think that's the reason,

we're missing the point because that's not the

reason. She got healed because of her confidence

and her faith. In Jesus. The confidence in the

power that God has through Jesus that all she

had to do was touch his clothing and she would

be healed. So it has nothing to do with the fact

that she was in the crowd and she just touched

him and she's like, hey, here's Jesus. It's her

confidence and her faith. So if you're in a spot

where you don't think you can be helped, part

of the reason is you might not have confidence

in God that he can help you through what you're

going through. And there's so many times where

we get stuck in those spots where we're down

and we're out and we don't think that we can

be helped because we're losing our confidence

in God. And this is why this hurts so bad because

so many times I look back and where I was and

where I've been and some of the situations I've

been in and I'm just like, you know what, God,

I'm done. I don't want to do this no more. And

then I get a slap upside the head because I'm

not putting my full trust in God. I don't have

the confidence in my faith anymore. And here's

something to think about. If you can't be confident

in faith that God is real and God has the power,

just look at the way the world works. Look at

how the earth is perfectly positioned to where

we're not too far away from the sun, but we're

not too close away from the sun. Because if we

were just a little bit farther, and in the grand

scheme of things, it is a very short distance

further from the earth, we would freeze. And

if we were just a very short distance closer,

we would burn. So we're in that perfect circle

around the sun so we can sustain life. Think

about it. If we had no trees, we wouldn't be

able to survive because what do trees provide?

Oxygen. You know, without bees, we wouldn't have

plants. Because bees are one of the biggest pollinators

of all insects. So even something as small and

what people would think insignificant as a bee,

if all the bees were to die, we would lose, I

think it was like 80 % of our plant life. And

you can't sit here and confidently say that God

has the power to fix you. When you look at some

of the crazy things that scientists cannot explain.

For one, there's no scientist that has ever fully

figured out the exact creation of our universe.

If you look at them, all of them are theories.

It's all, well, this could happen. This might

have happened. But then when you read Genesis,

it makes sense. And we can't have the confidence

to say that God can help us. We lose our confidence

in our faith because of petty things, a difference

of opinion, when reality is all we have to do

is reach out and touch Jesus. But here's where

it gets a little bit harder. You can't reach

out and touch Jesus if you're not confident because

nothing will happen. Look at all those people

that he was standing around. Nothing happened

to them, bumping into him, pressing up against

him. Nothing happened to none of them. But the

one woman who was confident enough to go, all

I have to do is touch God, touch God's son, I'll

be healed. She was the one that got the miracle.

So you can reach all you want. You can try to

reach God all you want. But if you're not confident

that God's going to do it, then guess what? He's

not going to do it. So another thing is, no one

is beyond fixing. No one is beyond fixing. We

all have a purpose here. God created every single

person in this room, in this world, in this city.

God created us all for a reason, and none of

us are beyond fixing. We all have a purpose.

Psalms 46 .1 says, God can help us in our troubles.

We have to remember that we can be helped. That

we're not just worthless. We're not just some

piece of trash to be discarded. Because if you

think about it, I can only assume that's what

this woman was thinking at this point. 20 years

of suffering. I can only assume that she thought

she was worthless. That she's like, okay, well,

I guess my life's just done. I guess this is

just who I am for the rest of my life. How many

times have we thought that? Well, I guess this

is just who I am. You can't break the habits.

And you're stuck in your own ways. What's the

saying? You can't teach an old dog new tricks.

Well, with God, you can teach an old dog new

tricks. Yeah, an even better one. So you've got

to understand, your time here is valuable. Your

time here is important. But here goes, as long

as you're confident in your faith. You have to

be confident in your faith. Because I'm sorry

to say, if you're not... then of course you're

going to feel like you're not worthy. Of course

you're going to feel like no one can fix you

because you're not confident enough in God's

amazing power. Another thing is we have to reach

out to Jesus. I'm not saying there's anything

necessarily wrong with going to a pastor or a

deacon or someone in the church for help. I'm

not saying there's anything wrong with that.

But any good pastor or good deacon is going to

tell you, here's what the Bible says, but here's

what you need to do in order to figure out more

of what the Bible says in your situation. Not,

hey, you have to do X, Y, and Z. It's, this is

what the Bible says, and this is what we have

to be doing. Because our knowledge, our health,

our everything comes from God. Psalms 18 .6 says,

You got to understand, when we cry out to God,

He hears us. Even if we're not fully committed

to God, even if we're not rooted in confidence

in our faith, God is going to hear everything

that you cry out to Him. But the problem is,

is if you're not. fully confident in god's abilities

and you have that little bit of doubt god is

most likely not going to answer you because you're

doubting his ability you're doubting what he

can do so yes cry out to god but when you cry

out to god Cry out to God with your whole heart,

your soul, your blood, sweat, and tears. Something

that I've used is, I like to hear, and this is,

it's, you can't be 99 .9999999 % in for God.

Because that .0000001 % is always going to pull

you back. It is either you're 100 % or you're

0%. There is no on the fence. There's no 50 -50.

Maybe I can follow God in every single aspect

of my life, but this teeny little thing, because

it's not that bad, right? That's not how it is.

You have to be 100 % for God. And the last thing

is, obviously, the main point, stay confident.

Don't lose hope in what God can do. Don't lose

focus in the amazing abilities that God has.

You have to stay confident. Hebrews 13 .6 says,

So we can confidently say, The Lord is my helper.

I will not be afraid. What can men do to me?

There is nothing that a single person can do

to you that should hurt your faith in God. Someone

puts a gun to your head and says, I'm going to

kill you unless you denounce God. You pull up

every ounce of faith you have, and no, that's

not who I am. I'm a believer. I believe in Jesus.

I'm going to heaven. Now, I pray no one ever

has to go through that, but at the same time,

we live in a world where people have gotten killed

for their faith. Not just across seas, but even

here in America, people have died because they're

Christians. People have died trying to preach

the gospel. So how confident are you going to

be in those times? We can only hope, right? I

mean, I only hope and I pray that in a situation,

if I ever get put in like that, I can confidently

say I'm living for God and there's nothing you

can do to change my mind. But here's the sad

thing is I really don't know what I would do.

I would like to say, I'm confident enough in

my faith. But I can't lie. I've never been in

a situation like that, so I don't know. I've

never had to be threatened out of believing in

God. I've never had to face that much trial to

where I had to question God. And here's something

else to think about. What did Jesus do? He died

on the cross. Did he ever question God? Not once.

You want to know how? You can tell that Jesus

was terrified. Just look back when he was in

the garden praying, God, take this cup from me,

but not by my will, but your will. We can see

so many examples of God's power if we just step

back and look. Forget about this petty worldly

things and just take a step back and look at

how incredible everything God made is. How each

and every single person in here has a different

thought or a different opinion. But yet, we can

all collectively come together and agree that

Jesus Christ is Lord. That God is the Almighty.

That He's the Alpha, the Omega. He's got the

power. Yet, I've heard stories of churches separating

because they couldn't agree on the color of the

carpet. It's like, what does the color of the

carpet have to do with anything? What does it

matter if we sit in chairs or if we have to have

pews? None of that matters. What matters is what

we're here to do. What we're here to do is build

our faith, to be renewed in Christ. That's what

we're here to do. We're not here to debate over

money or jobs or... health, or none of that.

When we are here right now, what we are here

for is we are here to get renewed in faith and

to make our faith stronger. That's what we're

here for. Everything else is irrelevant. We're

here to see God do amazing things. We're not

here to debate what we think who's going to win

the next football game. I love football. I love

football a lot. I like watching football. Sometimes

I think I might pay a little bit too much attention

to football. I know a couple people in here is

the same way, that they love football too. But

when we're here, when we're talking about God,

that's not what we're here for. We're not here

to constantly check our phone to see what teams

have scored a touchdown. We're here to be grown

in our faith. We're here because God has called

us here. We're here for a purpose. We're here

so we can confidently say God is amazing, that

Jesus is Lord. But now here's something to think

about. How many of us have come here when we

get here? And we really don't want to be here

because that happens quite a bit to me. I'm not

going to lie. There's a lot of times where I'll

wake up on a Sunday and I just don't want to

get out of bed. I'm tired. It's been a long week.

I can laundry list of excuse. But then when I'm

here and the music starts, everything changes.

My attitude changes. I feel happier. I mean,

me and my wife, we could argue Sunday morning

and get in the car angry at each other. And by

the time we just get into the building, it's

like that never happened. And it's because that's

what God can do. When we put our hearts into

it, God is going to show you what he can do.

So just a quick little review. So the first point

is... As we go to our conclusion, the first point

is no one is beyond fixing. We all can get healed,

but we have to be willing to, which goes into

the second point, we have to be willing to reach

out to God. But not only do we have to be able

to reach out to God, this falls right into the

third point, we have to be able to reach out

to God in confidence. You cannot doubt God's

abilities. You cannot doubt what God can do in

your life. And this is why I... Like I said,

I've read this a little bit, probably 50 times,

and never have really took the time to understand

what just happened. The fact that there were

hundreds of people, probably thousands of people

around Jesus, crowding him, wanting to see the

Messiah. And they were pressing on him, they

were touching him and pumping into him. But for

some reason, just this one woman got called out

among everyone. Because all she did was have

the confidence to go, all I have to do is reach

out and touch him, and I'll be healed. I'm going

to go real quick to Jeremiah 17. Does somebody

want to read it? I'm going to go to 17 .7. Does

somebody want to read? Okay. Go ahead, Aaron.

We're going to do 7 and 8. Yep. So this translation

is a little different. I like that one, though.

What translation is that? Okay, I like that.

All right, anyway, so this is, it says, Blessed

is the man who trusts in the Lord and whose trust

is the Lord. And I spent a lot of time looking

at this because there's got to be, I was like,

man, there's got to be something more because

why does it say, blessed is the man who trusts

in the Lord and those who trust is the Lord.

So bear with me here because this gets a little

deep. So what do you think it means to trust

in the Lord? Go ahead. Okay, so far I'm hearing

a little bit of both. To trust in the Lord is

to look back at what the Lord's done, to look

at things that God's done, creation, things in

your own life, stories that you have like that.

That's trusting in God. That's trusting in God.

That's trusting, hey, I've seen this happen before,

so I know it's going to happen again. But to

go as far as to say your trust is the Lord goes

a little bit deeper than that because that's

God. You're putting your trust in God. And where

does your trust come from? God. So you're putting

your trust in someone who gives you the ability

to trust. You're putting your hope into somebody

who gives you hope. You're putting your trust

in someone who is love because God is love. You're

putting your trust in someone who gives you strength

because God is strength. You're putting your

faith in God because God is faith. You're putting

your confidence in God because God is confidence.

That's the difference. You're putting everything

into God because it's God. In a way, yeah. But

the benefit is God is always pouring into you.

Always. Even when you're not. Even when you're

not willing. God is still standing there wanting

you to be there. Wanting you to go, hey, God's

got me. God's got my back. I wore a Halloween

shirt and it's got a couple of skeleton figures

on it and one of them is holding the other one's

spine and it says, I got your back. That's...

That's God with us. He's holding us going, I

got you. And he's never going to let you go.

Even when you try, he is always going to be there.

He's only going to be in arm's reach away. You

don't have to fight through the crowds like this

woman did. You don't have to fight through the

crowd of a thousand people just to touch Jesus.

All you got to do is look up and go, here I am.

God, take me. And just like that, you're good.

So not only do we have to trust in God, we have

to trust God. Because you can trust. in someone.

Like I trust my wife to do the things that she

tells me. If she tells me she's going somewhere,

I trust that she's going to go there. And most

of the time I can do that with my kids. If my

kids say, hey, I'm going to go to my friend Jeremiah's

house, I can trust that they're going to go down

to his house. But now I know my kids ain't perfect.

I know my wife ain't perfect, but I know God

is. So of course I can't, so I can't go. My trust

is my kids. My trust isn't my wife. My trust

is God, period. So I'm going to have the praise

team come up, and I have a couple of things that

I need you guys to think about. Where's your

confidence in God? Where's your trust in God?

Have you not actually been fully confident in

God? Because I can tell you right now, there's

too many times where I haven't been. There's

too many times where I'll sit in my couch, and

I'll debate whether or not to come to church

on Sunday, or I'll debate whether or not to go

to youth group on Friday, because I'm tired.

I feel like I'm burnt out. Well, guess what?

God doesn't get burnt out for me. He doesn't

get burnt out. God is here and he's with us and

he's willing to help you if you are confident

in his ability. So stop dwelling on, well, I'm

just too tired. Then cry out to God. He'll give

you strength. God, I'm not good enough. Well,

guess what? If you're still here and you're still

breathing, you are good enough. Yeah, we're humans

and we make mistakes, but that doesn't negate

the fact that God is still calling each and every

person. So yes. We have to be confident in our

faith knowing that this is what we're here to

do. We're here to go out and to preach and teach

and make disciples of all nations. We're not

here just to sit in chairs on a Sunday and then

forget it the rest of the week. We're not here

to come here on Tuesdays and learn a little bit

of Bible study and then just forget about it

the rest of the week. Every minute, every day,

every second, every breath you take should prove

the amazing power God has. So don't lose your

confidence in your faith anymore. Put your trust

in God because... God is trust. Put your hope

in God because God is hope. God is love. God

is patient. God is caring. Don't worry about

what the world thinks of you because the world

is never going to see you the way God sees you.

The way I see my wife, I'm never going to be

able to see her the way God sees her. The way

I see my kids, I'm never going to be able to

see them the way God sees them. Trust in God.

Put your confidence in God. And guess what? When

you reach out to touch God, you'll be healed.

Stand with us and sing this song. Let the words

speak to your heart. God's calling you to trust

in him today, to make him your trust and your

response.