Forever Changed

Thank you so much.

Well, I am honored to be here.

I'm honored to be a part of Gateway Church and to call Gateway Church my family.

Obviously, I have been a part of the church since the very beginning and when it started my parents' home, and I've grown over the last 15 so years to call this my family.

And so I'm really honored to be among family today.

So thank you for having me.

And I do believe that we have one of the best pastors in the world.

And I know you all agree with me.

But I really have come to learn that you are some of the best people in the world.

I've learned as we've traveled with my parents and we've gone to all over the world, we get stopped everywhere, and people tell us how much Gateway has impacted them.

And we've come to know that that is because of you.

It's because of how you love and how you serve and how you give.

And so I just wanted to say thank you for being you and making Gateway who it is because of y'all really are the best people in the world.

So thank you so much for being who you are.

Well, today I've titled the message Forever Changed.

And if you have your Bibles, you can turn to Luke chapter 8, and we're gonna talk about the woman with the issue of blood.

Luke 8 · chapter mention

But before we get there, I thought I would tell you about my brothers who have an issue with blood.

Now you've heard my brothers, you've heard stories about them, that they are awesome hunters.

They are fantastic.

They've cleaned deer, they've cleaned fish, they just, they're all around animal blood all the time.

And never once has it bothered them.

But in their words, people that they love, in essence, human blood, just makes them a little queasy.

It I mean, really, they'll pass out.

And so about 10 years ago, if you were part of the church, you might remember this.

My father and I were in a motorcycle accident and it was pretty severe, and they careflighted me to downtown, and then they uh by ambulance took my father to Baylor Grapevine.

And so my mom and my dad decided that my mom would meet me in downtown, and my two brothers would go to the ER and Grapevine with my father.

And so here my brothers are in the room with my father, and just to kind of set up the scene for you, if the bed was here, my brothers are standing next to each other, next to my father.

And Josh, my oldest brother, is holding my father's hand, and James is touching my father's leg.

And so they come in to change the IV on my father's arm, and when they go to unplug it, some blood comes out.

Now I got my family together and I asked them the story so I could get the full context of it.

And when I asked this part of it, my father said it was a drop of blood.

My brother Josh said it was a stream of blood.

Now, James, he replied back, it was a mini super soaker.

It was going like this.

And so here, obviously, we all agreed it was a little bit more than a drop, probably not a mini super soaker.

So here it is, it's going, and so they're touching my father, and all of a sudden, James says there's this wall right here, and he just leans on it like this.

It was cold, and he begins to shake, and he's getting a little clammy, and he's like, and he just starts to go farther and farther down the wall.

And Josh said there was this pole right here on the like a hospital bed, you've seen it, and it was cold, so he just went and put his head on it.

Never once did they take the hand off of my father.

So Josh looks around, and James is now laying on the hospital room floor because it's cold.

Gross.

Josh is looking at him, and James is going, floor, Josh, floor, Josh, floor! And so Josh looks down, he said, He looked awesome.

So he goes, okay.

And then they laid on the floor together.

Not once did they let go of my father.

And so here they are, they're laying, and they open their eyes and they are face to face, and they notice a drop of blood has landed in between them.

So a few weeks after this had happened, we were all sitting around as a family, we had extended family in, and my father begins to brag on my brothers, and he said it was just so sweet.

They were in the room with me the whole time, and I just remember this one moment when they came in to change my IV, and I was in so much pain, and I just looked over and my sons fell to their knees to pray for me.

Obviously, we had a little confession session later that day.

My brothers have an issue with blood, and so I wanted to talk about a woman with an issue of blood.

So we're picking up at the end of chapter 8, and right before this, Jesus has just healed the demon-possessed man from legion, which means many demons.

So he's coming back from that over the Lake of Galilee back to this crowd.

And just real briefly, I just want to notice that about the demon-possessed man, he was obviously under the influence of Satan.

But the moment he saw Jesus, he fell to his knees to worship.

And I just want to notice that no matter how much influence Satan has, he can't stop us from worshiping Jesus.

And so, whatever we're going through today, or whatever our children or our friends are going through today, I hope you'll hear the truth that Satan can't stop our nation or us from worshiping Jesus.

So we're gonna start in verse 40.

It said, on the other side of the lake, the crowds welcomed Jesus because they had been waiting for him.

Then a man named Jairus, a leader of the local synagogue, came and fell at Jesus' feet, pleading with him to come home with him.

His only daughter, who was 12 years old, was dying.

As Jesus went with him, he was surrounded by the crowds.

A woman in the crowd had suffered for 12 years with constant bleeding, and she could find no cure.

Coming up behind Jesus, she touched the fringe of his robe and immediately the bleeding stopped.

Who touched me?

Jesus asked.

Everyone denied it.

And Peter said, Master, this whole crowd is pressing up against you.

But Jesus said, Someone deliberately touched me, for I felt healing power go out from me.

When the woman realized that she could not stay hidden, she began to tremble and fell to her knees before him.

The whole crowd heard her explain why she had touched him and that she had been immediately healed.

He replied, Daughter, your faith has made you well.

Go in peace.

While he was still speaking to her, a messenger arrived from the home of Jairus, the leader of the synagogue, he told him, Your daughter is dead.

There's no use troubling the teacher now.

But when Jesus heard what had happened, he said to Jairus, Don't be afraid, just have faith, and she will be healed.

Today I want to look through the eyes of the woman with the issue of blood, and I believe an encounter with Jesus will change three things in our lives.

And so the first thing that I believe an encounter with Jesus will forever change is our perspective.

Our perspective will be forever changed when we have an encounter with Jesus.

When I look at this story, I see three different perspectives.

I see the first one, that being the crowd.

People just following people.

They have no idea who's in their presence.

They have no idea what's truly going on.

They're just following the crowd.

The second perspective I see in this is that of the disciples.

They're saved, they've committed their lives to follow Jesus, but they have no idea how capable their God is.

They have no idea the fullness of who God is.

And on that day, the disciples learned a lesson.

They learned that we do not rob each other of God's gifts.

See, while God was on his way to heal one person, he stopped to have an encounter with another.

But that didn't rob Jairus' daughter of the healing needed for her.

It didn't rob Jairus' daughter of the power that was within Jesus.

When the woman reached up to touch Jesus, that didn't steal the healing power away from the daughter.

Because, see, Jesus is an unlimited fountain.

He's so full of power that he can meet all of our needs.

Because he has leisure of heart for both, and he has power for both.

He can feel for both needs going on, and he can heal both needs going on.

The disciples learned that day that all are welcomed.

That day they encountered a woman who was poor and all alone.

But on another moment, they encountered a man who was wealthy and well known.

They encountered a woman who was powerless and a man who was full of power.

Jesus said, No matter who you are, you're welcome at my feet.

And what brought me to think about that is because he met both people right where they were.

Because our means are no need, no ground for our king.

No matter how much money or how little money we have, we are still welcomed at the feet of Jesus.

And no matter how much money or how little money we have, it does not matter how big our God is in our life.

He doesn't look at our means and say, Well, for you I'll be big, but for you I'll be small.

He looks at our means and he says, For you I'll be God.

The third perspective that I notice in this story is that of the woman.

This woman acknowledged her need for a savior.

In Mark 5, it's the same story, but in a different gospel, it said she had heard about Jesus.

I'm sure that this woman had heard the whispers going around, that this man was the Messiah, that he was healing people all over.

And I wonder if that woman had a thought that said maybe he would heal me.

And so on that day, she decided I've tried everything else.

I'm gonna lay all that I have on the line.

And I'm just gonna see.

I'm gonna test the rumors and see if this man would heal me.

And on that day, not only did she receive physical healing, she received spiritual healing.

If you remember how he responded to her in verse 48, it said, Daughter, your faith has made you well.

On that day, through his eyes, he didn't see a random girl in the crowd.

He didn't see a burden, he didn't see an issue, he didn't see a problem.

On that day, he saw a daughter.

And on today, no matter what you've walked into the church with, God doesn't look at you, and his perspective of us is not that we are a burden, an issue, or a problem.

We might have all of those, but that's not who we are.

See, when God has a perspective of us, it is that we are his children.

And so today, God's perspective of you and I is that we are his sons and we are his daughters.

I believe that our perspective will determine our encounter with Jesus.

Many have and will come into church with a perspective that he is a man that heals some.

But my prayer is that all of us today would have an encounter with Jesus, that our perspective turns to be one that he is my messiah.

See, this woman's perspective changed.

It was no longer who rumors said was the Messiah, it was this is my messiah.

It was no longer who rumors in the story told that this is just what he does for some.

It was now he does it for me.

It was now this is my story, this is my healing, this is my savior, my great I am.

When I was a little girl, my father traveled to speak, and so one time while he was out of town, my mother was at home with me and the boys, and when I was a little girl, I tended to be a little bit um bossy.

I don't, I've obviously outgrown that.

Obviously.

So I just, you know, I was.

And so one time my mother said, Hey Elaine, can you do this for me?

And I replied back, I don't have to.

She said, Excuse me.

I said, I don't have to.

She probably, in all honesty, was just trying to collect herself before going crazy on me.

She goes, and why is that?

And I said, Well, because dad's the boss, and when dad's out of town, I'm the boss.

It didn't take long for my perspective to change after an encounter with my mother that day.

The second thing that is forever changed when we have an encounter with Jesus is our relationship.

Our relationship will be forever changed, it will be deepened, it will be uh, we will grow within our relationship when we have an encounter with Jesus.

If you remember, Jesus said, Who touched me?

Just a point to take from that is that our God is aware.

He knew when the healing power went out from him and he acknowledged it.

He noticed that the virtue left him and he acknowledged her.

I think sometimes we think that God is so busy healing everyone else that he won't notice if we just slip in, grab what we need and leave.

Maybe we think of him something like an ATM.

We can drive up, we can tell him what we need, we type in a pen, whether that be a prayer, a scripture, or a tithe, and then we grab what we need and we go on about our life.

But see, God won't allow us to slip in and to slip out because he desires a relationship with us.

God is aware of us and he's aware of our needs, he's aware of our wants, and he wants to have an encounter with each and every one of us today.

He asked, Who touched me?

And Peter, being Peter, replied, the whole crowd is pressing up against you.

And Jesus said, No, no, Peter, someone deliberately touched me.

See, there's a difference between pressing up against Jesus and deliberately reaching out to touch him.

Many that day had involuntarily reached out and pressed up against Jesus, but only one deliberately reached out and touched him.

And that one was the one that received a life-changing encounter with him.

I wonder how many of us come into church and we just merely follow the crowds and press up against Jesus.

But are we coming in with faith that says, I will deliberately reach out and touch Jesus?

When Ethan and I were first married, um, we had been married a little over a year, so we had lived in one apartment, one apartment for a season, and we are moving into a new home for a little bit.

And at the time, I had a desire that I asked Ethan to sleep closest to the door.

And so in our first apartment, that worked out great.

We had become acquainted with our sides, but then the next apartment caused us to have to switch sides.

And so, as you might imagine, that caused a little bit of learning.

And so after the first couple nights, it was one morning and I was awoken by this loud, obnoxious sound.

And I was getting more and frustrated because the noise kept getting louder and louder.

And finally, I woke up enough to realize that it was his alarm.

And so when I opened my eyes, I noticed that we are face to face.

We are facing the middle of the bed.

And he is sound asleep.

So I'm staring at him, trying to figure out do I touch him?

Do I just wait here a minute?

And finally, there's some stirring that goes on over there.

So I think, praise God, he's waking up.

I'm going back to bed.

I got another hour of sleep.

Good night.

So I close my eyes and I feel a movement come across my head like this.

And I open my eyes.

And I was like, what?

He's out.

I was like, okay, going back to sleep.

The noise isn't stopping.

He's stirring, he's gonna get it.

And then again, I feel a movement a little bit more intense this time, go across my forehead like this.

Um, okay.

Now, if you have an iPhone in the home in this house, you immediately, it's dawning on you what is going on.

But if you don't, let me just quickly explain.

Any eye feature, when you have an alarm on it, it makes an annoying noise until you slide your finger across the bottom of the phone.

And so here he was going across my forehead.

So for the third time, it's dawned on me.

I'm looking at him.

I'm now giggling but not trying to wake him up.

You know the laugh.

And he reaches out and with full force all the way across my forehead.

Now, if you could have seen his face, he would have been just like you and I would if we were extremely tired and we wanted the noise to stop.

I'm now laughing.

Finally, it dawns on him.

He rolls over, he turns his phone off, he gets out of bed, gets in the shower.

Because that's what men do.

They don't acknowledge it.

Right?

All the men in the house, amen.

Uh-huh.

Okay, he gets out of the shower.

I'm crying.

And I look at him and he goes, What?

What's so funny?

And I go, Did you try to silence me?

He learned that day, you can never silence me.

On that day, because of a touch, our relationship was deepened.

Why did God ask this woman to give a public confession?

Many might think it was an embarrassment to her.

But in all actuality, this public confession was for her, not for him.

See, this public confession led to an encounter with Jesus.

This public confession was an encouragement to Jairus.

It was a rebuke to the crowd.

And a public confession, no matter whether it be for salvation, for repentance, or for acknowledgement of who God is, it will always be for our sake and not for his.

Because it will always remind us who our God is.

And God doesn't want us to come in and just steal away from the crowd because he desires a relationship with us.

And on that day, if this woman would have come in and stolen away with her healing, she would have never gotten to meet Jesus personally.

See, Jesus called her out that day because he wanted her to realize that it wasn't the mere physical touch that healed her, that it was more than merely physical, it was also moral.

See, on that day, she had received the power of his healing.

She had received the blessing of his power, but she needed to stop to receive the blessing of his word.

How many of us come into church and we receive the blessing of his presence and of his power?

But do we ever stop to receive the blessing of his word?

In verse 47, if you remember, it said that she realized she could not stay hidden, so she fell to her knees before Jesus.

My daughter, who will be two in August, she is quite funny.

Her little personality is coming out, and she's learning to talk, but she loves to play this hiding game.

But it's very funny to Ethan and I to watch her hide because it's something like this.

And we just laugh because she assumes that because she can't see us, we can't see her.

I wonder how often we do that with God.

We think because He can't see or we can't see Him, He doesn't see us.

But because we cannot stay hidden from God, I want us to realize that we should be okay to come before God and lay out all of our problems, to lay out our heart and to lay out our troubles because He already knows them.

And he desires so badly to have an encounter with us.

That same daughter climbed into a chair that we have.

We call it the taco, but it's really like a rock and play, and it's for her little sister Kate.

And so she climbed into that, and one day she got stuck.

And so Ethan and I watched, so she tried to get herself out of that.

And she finally gave up and she goes, Dada, I need help, I need help.

And so Ethan walks up and he picks her up and he sets her on the floor.

And this little girl with all her might jumps as high as she can and goes, I did it, I did it, I did it.

And we began to laugh, but the more I thought about that, I said, you know, although she didn't get herself out of the predicament she got herself into, she did do it by asking her father for help.

Our efforts will not bring forth our healing, but our faith can activate the gifts of God.

The third thing that will be forever changed when we have an encounter with Jesus is our future.

Our future is forever changed when we have an encounter with Jesus.

This woman was considered ceremonially unclean.

It explains it in Leviticus 15, verse 25.

Leviticus 15:25

It says, if a woman has a flow of blood for many days that is unrelated to her menstrual period, or if the blood continues beyond the normal period, she is ceremonially unclean.

As during her menstrual period, the woman will be unclean as long as the discharge continues.

Any bed she lies on, any object she sits on during that time will be unclean.

Just as during her normal menstrual period.

If any of you touch these things, you will be ceremonially unclean.

You must wash your clothes and bathe yourself in the water, and you will remain unclean until evening.

Because of this, it was actually very um uncommon or it would be rare for her to be among the midst of crowds.

Because if she were to have touched somebody, they would have been considered ceremonially unclean.

So because of that, she probably was either divorced or never married.

She probably had very few friends, if any.

She probably felt unwelcomed in church, and she might have been unwelcomed in church.

In Mark 5, verse 26, that same story, it says she had endured much at the hands of many physicians.

Mark 5:26

And she had spent all that she had and was not helped at all, but rather had grown worse.

This woman had tried everything the world told her would heal her.

And instead of receiving relief or healing, she grew worse.

I'm reminded of how some of us have an issue of blood.

And we've tried everything that we can to fix it, and we can't fix it.

We might be looked down on by others, and we probably look down on ourselves because of this issue in our lives.

We've tried everything to get rid of it, we've tried everything to overcome that habit, but for some reason we just can't heal it.

We just can't fix it.

But in an instant, just like this woman who had an encounter with Jesus, if we will stop to have an encounter with Jesus, we will be forever changed because our God is powerful enough to heal even our habits.

When I was going to ORU, um, I was an average girl in the crowd.

And then one time my father got invited to come speak at chapel.

And so he had come a little bit early so I could show him around campus a little bit and spend some time with him.

And so students began to see me with this guy.

And then he gets up to speak and he stops and before he gets into his message and he introduces me as his daughter.

After he finishes, he leaves.

Our relationship didn't change.

It was actually probably deepened from the time spent together.

We continued to talk, we began continued to grow closer and closer.

But my relationship with the crowd that I was among changed.

My identity was no longer an average student among the others.

My identity was now his daughter.

My identity was now, oh, you're Robert Morris' daughter.

Yeah, I am.

So now I had friends that wanted to be my friend because of who my father was.

I had people that wanted to hear my story because of who my father was.

And see, this woman, here she was, an average, probably an outcast among the crowd.

And then her father came into the scene.

And he called her out by daughter.

And no longer was she an average outcast in the crowd.

She was now his daughter.

And people now wanted to talk to her because of who her father was.

People now wanted to talk to her because of her story, because of her healing.

They wanted to be her friend because now she had been healed by the Messiah.

And the point in my illustration there is not that I have a well-known heav or earthly father, but my point is that we all have a well-known heavenly father.

And because of that, we have a world that would like to know our story.

They would like to know about us because of who our father is.

They would like to know about our healings because we are no longer the average person in the crowd.

We are now the ones that have been healed by the Messiah.

And so wherever you are in your scene of life, whether you're a stay-at-home mom or whether you're a CEO, I pray that you would embrace where you are and tell your story.

Because you are no longer an average Joe.

You are now his sons and his daughters.

That day, this woman encountered Jesus, and in that encounter, he silenced her fears.

He commended her faith and he sent her away in peace.

Wouldn't that be just a sweet moment to be sent away by the peace, our peace, with the term go in peace?

Wouldn't that just mean so much more to you to hear the words from the peace of all peace saying go in peace?

Maybe he was saying something like, Don't forget me, let's stay in relationship.

On that day, it was her faith, her strong confidence that was the means for her restoration.

It was the power of Jesus that cured her, but that power would not have been exerted, but in connection with her faith.

So, in salvation or in anything else, no one is saved who does not believe.

But faith is the instrument, not the power that saves.

We all have a story to tell.

And my story is that I grew up in a Christian home.

But I believed that I had no need for a savior.

I was a good kid.

I lived in a very good home.

So why would I need Jesus?

And then I grew older and I began to believe more and more lies, and I began to get in a more and more dark and sinful life.

And I you could say I had an issue with blood.

I had this void, I had this herd inside of me that I could not fill.

And I tried what the world told me would help fill this void.

And just like this woman, I didn't get any relief, I didn't get healed.

Instead, I grew worse.

Maybe you can relate.

But one day I was tired of living this shameful, sinful, hurtful life.

And so I remember saying, Okay, I'll test the rumors.

Okay, I'll see if you are who you say you are.

And I laid down on this cold cement floor of an empty garage, and that night I cried out to God.

It was as though I deliberately reached out to touch the hem of his garment.

And on that night, for me, he turned and had an encounter with me.

And in that encounter, my perspective was forever changed.

My relationship was forever changed, and my future was forever changed.

But since that moment, since that moment, I've had so many encounters with him that have changed my perspective and my relationship and my future.

And I believe that God is a God who wants to have daily encounters with us that will change our perspective and our relationship and our future.

Every single time we have an encounter with Jesus, it will forever change our perspective and our relationship and our future.

Would you bow your heads and close your eyes?

I want to ask you something today, and I realize that the majority of us here will probably say yes to this, but I just want us to take a moment and to acknowledge it.

If you are here today and you would say, I need a touch from God, I have this issue in my life, I have this child that's run away from God, I have this job issue, I have marriage issues or relationship issues or whatever that issue might be.

If you're here today and you say, I have an issue and I need a touch from God, would you just lift your hand up so I can see it?

There are hands all over the place.

You can put your hands down.

I want to tell you that sometimes we need to come into agreement with someone else.

We need to do what this woman did when we press through the crowds and we come up before the feet of Jesus and we deliberately reach out to touch him.

And so, in just a moment, we're gonna go back into a worship song.

And I'm gonna ask you to do what this woman did.

And as soon as we stand up, would you press through the crowds?

Don't leave if you don't have to, because there will be people coming up here to have an encounter with Jesus.

But if you need that touch from Jesus, I'm gonna ask you to press through the crowds.

And I'm gonna ask you to stand up and come to the altar and allow someone to come into agreement with you and to say, we're gonna reach out and touch God and have an encounter with God that will forever change our perspective and our relationship and our future.

So, in just a moment, if you uh need prayer for anything at all, at any campus, in the overflow rooms, wherever you are, if you need prayer, you just step up.

As soon as we stand out, stand up, you step up and you come out, come up front and let us pray for you.

So, Lord, I ask that you would draw every single person that needs an encounter with you today, and that you would have that encounter within that will forever change their relationship, their perspective, and their future.

In Jesus' name, amen.