The Gospel of Mark | When Hope Is Lost (June 3rd, 2018) - Mike Armstrong

And that is a very uh very appropriate song for uh where we're going here today as you get your Bibles turned to Mark chapter 5.

Mark 5 · chapter mention

Uh Mark chapter 5.

Mark 5 · chapter mention

I remember uh when I was a kid, I remember going swimming.

It was my brother and a couple of uh of our friends.

We were hanging out at their house for the week, and you know, without our parents and stuff like that.

We went swimming over at the uh at the rec center pool.

And uh, you know, as I don't know, we were like 13, 14 years old, and you know, as as boys get, we get going kind of rough sometimes and having a lot of fun with that.

And uh we were playing on, you know, those big like floating mats that you can kind of walk on and sort of half sink and and fall off.

We were on we were on one of those, and there's a bunch of other kids on on it.

And I remember you know falling off as you always do, and I got I found myself uh trapped underneath it.

Now, in uh, you know, if you were to stop and think about it, you're just like swim in one direction as hard as you can and you'll be fine.

Right?

But in in in that moment of, I think kind of panic, and you know, I didn't it's not like I'd taken a deep breath.

You know, you fall off not expecting to.

And so I'm kind of like I'm kind of trying to get around this, around this thing, and I stop over here, I'm trying to look, I'm reaching for the edge, and I I can't find it.

And uh in this sort of moment of of panic and and I think sheer adrenaline, really, I just kind of burst out of this thing, and all my friends go kind of flying off of it, and and they're like, man, that was amazing, and that was so fun, and they're all kind of laughing and everything, and I'm you know, sucking air big time, uh, just really thankful to be alive and and holding on to the side of the pool kind of thing.

And you know, it's one of those moments that I've thought about a lot kind of through throughout my life uh since then, and you know, as I think about it, I was probably really only uh I don't know, a second or two, a moment away from kind of losing hope uh that I was gonna make it.

You know, and it may sound kind of funny, but I think in my own, you know, kind of situation that I was in, you know, my lungs were burning, and you know, I just I had to take a breath here, and you know, I was pretty close, I think.

At least that's how I felt at the time.

Now, losing hope generally in life is I mean, that's just a horrible experience.

Right?

I I was talking to somebody at our church just recently who was in a car accident a little while ago, and you know, there was that moment as the car's kind of spinning and turned on you know on the QEW and the and the truck's headed at her, where she's just like, you know what, I I it's over.

That's the thought that went through her mind.

And of course, uh the Lord spared, and and you know, there was a miracle even right there.

But you know, maybe for you, you know, uh, you're maybe losing hope that you'll be able to pay the bills.

You know, it's this kind of crushing financial pressure.

I need I need to take care of my of my family here, and and I can't seem to hold down a job, or things just aren't you know really working out.

Maybe for you, um, you're losing hope that your marriage is is ever gonna get any better.

You know, and and intimacy is is a thing of the past.

Maybe it's never been good, and you know, you're you know, no one no one knows about it, but but you do, and and and the hope is is draining from you, or or for you, hope slipping away is because you've been praying for for somebody, a loved one, uh a child, a parent, someone that you know that you're close to, that they would, you know, maybe it's returned to the Lord or that they would get saved, and the person's heart seems to be getting harder and harder, and they seem to be going in in a different direction, not in the direction that they need to in Christ.

And and so your heart is you know starting to despair with all of that.

Maybe, maybe for some of us, and you know, we don't talk about this nearly enough, but maybe it's you know been to the point of suicidal thoughts or or perhaps even attempts.

And maybe it's a completely private thing that you've told nobody about, or you know, maybe it's been incredibly difficult.

Right?

I mean, hopelessness, despair, all of that.

That's that's heavy, isn't it?

That is a that's a dark place to be.

Now, this morning what we're gonna do is we're gonna look at uh three individuals here from uh Mark chapter five, for whom all hope was lost.

Okay, they were they were kind of they were at the end as far as they could see, the end of the road, and and they were they were desperate.

Okay, these weren't minor situations.

No, these were, I mean, these were three, you know, different circumstances, but but all three of them met Jesus Christ and their hope was restored.

Jesus healed them.

And now these aren't for us, you know, reading these stories.

These aren't for us just uh, you know, an opportunity to hear what Christ did in somebody else and think, oh, that's that's great.

You know, maybe even to the point of jadedness.

That's fantastic that God did that for them, but you know, haven't seen much of that come in my way, and you know, kind of adopt this sort of fatalistic, you know, kind of approach to our own circumstances.

No, Christ came to restore us too, right?

To bring us healing and to bring us hope again when when all is lost.

And so this is where we're going here.

I want to pray for us and pray for you, especially uh if a lot of what I've said has described you and you are uh suffering here today in a major way, uh praying, been praying for you all week, that the Lord would uh continue to encourage you and breathe hope into your life.

So why don't you join me as as I pray, Lord?

Thank you for this time.

Lord, we thank you for your word.

We thank you that uh you heal.

Lord, we thank we're thankful that that you restore hope when all hope is lost.

And so, Father, for all of us here, but especially one, uh Lord, the ones who are particularly hurting, the ones who are dealing with despair, the ones who are dealing with depression or just starting to spin out and and maybe lacking faith in you and belief that you care, belief that you love them, or maybe it's belief that you could even do anything.

God, I pray that you would draw near to those folks, especially here today, Lord, and teach your church what killing is all about.

Lord, I pray that we would understand and think through these things really well, Lord, and you would give us growing confident faith in you.

So God help us, we pray.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

All right, well, in this chapter here in Mark chapter four, uh, he, uh, as I said, he restores the hope of these three people through healing, okay, through healing them.

Now, I don't think you can really tackle uh a passage like this or uh, you know, a the topic of healing without you know addressing the elephant in the room, you know, or maybe the objection that some of you uh have come to have when it comes to Jesus.

You know what that is?

It's that, hold on a second, wait a sec.

Christ doesn't heal everyone.

Right?

He doesn't.

At least not physically, okay?

He doesn't take away every hurt.

He doesn't take away all of our pain and all of the illnesses that we have.

He doesn't remove every single problem and roadblock.

Right?

He just doesn't.

Okay, for all the people, think about it this way, for all the people that had this uh you know amazing confrontation or you know, uh meeting with Jesus, for all the people in Scripture that Jesus met and healed.

Just think about all of the hundreds, but likely thousands, okay, who who saw him, who who maybe touched him in a crowd, who even talked to him, and yet went away unhealed.

Right?

Went away still in this place of suffering in in various ways.

And the exact same thing goes today, right?

For us in his church and the Lord in his sovereignty and in his control and his in his understanding and wisdom, he heals some physically and changes our situations, uh, but he doesn't do it with every single person.

Okay now, how are we supposed to understand this?

Like, how do we wrap our minds around this?

We say things like God is a good God.

Why?

Because that's catchy?

No, because we believe it.

So, how do we understand the goodness of God and the fact that he sovereignly works to perform miracles of healing in certain people's lives and in their situations but not in others?

Well, I've been thinking about that this week and kind of been asking that question, and so let's just ask it then.

Why might Jesus withhold physical healing?

Okay, or why might he not uh fix all our problems now?

And so we're getting into this before we even dive into the text here, because I think it's important and kind of sets the tone for where we're going here.

Well, here's the first one.

Okay, maybe he will, but just not yet.

All right, I think we are in Canada.

You could you know lump our American brothers and sisters into this as well, but we are the furthest thing from patience.

We're so not.

I I want God to move and I want him to move now.

Right?

I need this healing, I am done with this suffering thing, and Lord, why aren't you giving it to me?

Well, I think we need to understand that, and the scriptures talk about this in so many different places, the Lord is building up in us endurance.

That is a really important thing.

We are very weak spiritually.

You know, some of you go to the gym and and you put a lot of money into diet and nutrition and fitness and a lot of time and energy and resources into all of that because why?

You want to get strong.

You don't want your body to break down and and you don't want to get sick and you want to be able to live a long life as much as much as you can.

Why don't we approach our spiritual walk like that as well?

We're kind of weak and and we're and we're sick spiritually, and so the Lord uses, he withholds the healing, the answer of the prayer sometimes, because it's making us tougher.

He's building up that endurance and he's building up that that perseverance, he's building up that that long suffering.

Okay, so maybe he will still heal you, but just not yet.

Okay, be patient with this.

Get on board with God's plan.

Stop trying to force him into yours.

Okay, here's the second reason you might withhold it.

Okay, to create a longing for him more than the healing itself.

I think this describes so many of us.

So many of us just like, God just take care of my grocery list, my shopping list.

Gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme.

But what do we do with God?

Push him to the side.

Right?

We we don't want, we don't want him.

It kind of reminds me, and you know, we've we've talked about this in other contexts, but it kind of reminds me of the little child, you know, at their birthday or with or at Christmas.

You know, you you buy them the gift, and maybe you've seen this as grandparents or parents, and what do they do?

They open the box, take the gift, toss out aside, they start playing with the wrapping.

They start playing with the box.

The box is kind of cool, but it but it's the gift, right?

Jesus is the gift.

A relationship with him is the gift.

The healing, the circumstance ironed out, that's great, that's good.

But sometimes we want that than we more than we want a relationship and and fellowship with Christ.

Don't be like the child in the box.

Allow the withholding of the healing in your life to give you more of a desire for the Lord.

Here's the third one.

Why might Jesus withhold physical suffering?

Well, because we're not in heaven yet.

We're not in heaven yet.

Okay, how many of us, again, it's a Canadian, North American, American problem.

We're trying, all of us, in certain ways, we're trying to create heaven on earth.

Right?

What are you living for this summer?

Vacation! I can't wait to get away.

I've been saving my pennies all through the year so that my wife, my kids, and I, we can go and do something awesome.

Right?

We're trying to create.

I'm not saying vacations are wrong.

Please don't hear that and send me emails, okay?

Vacations are good, we need rest.

Okay?

But I'm saying we live for this.

Right?

We're trying to create a little piece of heaven on earth here, but the reality is this is not our home.

This place is not perfect.

We're gonna get into more of this a little bit later on here as we go.

But earth is is broken, and we just have to understand that and in some ways accept that reality.

Christ is coming, he is making all things new, and it's gonna be awesome, and it's gonna be perfect, and it's gonna be better than anything our money can save up for.

It's gonna be better than all of that, but it's just not yet.

Okay, why might Jesus withhold physical healing?

How about this?

Because he doesn't have to.

He doesn't have to heal us, he doesn't have to do it.

I think sometimes in our hearts we can get into this place where we think that that God exists to serve us.

And I've talked to many believers over the years who are just straight up angry with the Lord because he hasn't done their bidding yet.

And I'm so sick of this, and and my attitude's going south, and you know, whatever.

The Lord doesn't exist to come to every beck and call, right?

He doesn't do that.

He's under no obligation, listen, he's under no obligation to physically heal us.

That should that should wake us up.

I hope that doesn't make you bitter.

I hope that doesn't, you know, further your spiral of jadedness if that's where you happen to be here today.

But we need to, you need to know God is bigger than you.

We are here to serve him.

Regardless of the ailments, regardless of the bumps and bruises, regardless of the darkness that we have to endure and have to carry.

He doesn't have to heal us.

How about this one?

Why might Jesus withhold physical healing?

We don't always know.

Is it okay to say that?

We don't always know why Jesus might not heal us.

We do not have every single answer.

I can't look into your specific situation just because I have a Bible college degree and say, oh yeah, I know exactly what your problem is and I know exactly why the Lord has it.

Sometimes we don't know.

Why does he answer some and doesn't answer others?

Some of those, some of those answers are with the Lord, and maybe someday he will reveal some of those things to us.

But at the end of the day, we don't always know.

And the Lord doesn't promise us every single answer.

He calls us to trust him, to trust his goodness.

I love Isaiah 55, verse 8.

Isaiah 55:8

His ways are not our ways, his ways are higher than our ways.

Here's the last one here.

Why might Jesus withhold physical healing?

How about this?

He actually does, but maybe just not in the way that we want.

He is healing you.

I think this is this is the heart of it for so many of us here today.

Okay, he is all about healing us spiritually.

Okay, spiritually.

He cares so much about our holiness and our sanctification and like I said, making us making us strong and growing us and maturity and our spiritual maturity, all of those things.

Unfortunately, that's not really what we want.

We want the felt needs taken care of because it can just be so painful and so miserable at times.

And so we we just quickly say so easily, well, the Lord doesn't heal anymore.

There are no such things as miracles.

Sometimes, again, maybe you felt that way.

The Lord is healing us, but maybe just not in the way that we want.

For example, someone is suffering and it may be, let's say, an illness, and they're praying, Lord, would you heal me of this?

And would you give the doctors wisdom?

And can we figure all of this out?

And so sick of all the question marks, and they're praying for that, that, that, that, that.

And, you know, through that crisis, the family kind of draws together, and and years of hurt and years of pain that have not been addressed, and the bitterness and all that.

That the Lord begins to heal and begins to work in those ways, and he begins to heal other situations in life that we, you know, in our maybe in our pride or in our blindness or our unawareness, we weren't even thinking about that.

We didn't even, we weren't even asking for that.

But you see the Lord healing.

Again, it's just in a way that we weren't looking for.

Hey, let's not forget that Jesus is absolutely in the healing and restoration business.

He redeems.

Okay, sometimes he restores and heals us physically and circumstantially, okay?

We've talked about that.

Okay, but again, other times he's gonna withhold that that physical healing that we long for, or or he'll allow that circumstance to continue to be this heavy burden and this weight, and you know, he's trying to draw your small group around you or the church around you and and all of that.

Why?

Because he's because he's less concerned, okay, listen, not unconcerned, but he's less concerned about what's going on on the outside and and the physical healing, okay, and more concerned on what's going on inside it, okay, healing hearts and restoring hope uh within us, okay, creating you and I uh to be encouraged, fueled, uh, faith-filled pillars of spiritual maturity.

He's looking to grow you close to him.

Okay, so listen, and and don't miss this.

You might even want to jot it down.

Your hope being restored today is not contingent on your physical healing.

I'm gonna say that again.

Your hope being restored today is not contingent on physical healing, or I would even say this, or a circumstantial fix.

In other words, you can remain, we can, remain in our state of physical suffering and things not all working out the way we want, and it even being real bad, yet at the same time have very real, very Christ-filled, fulfilling, abounding hope in Jesus.

You can have that.

You can be restored in a very profound sense.

Okay, listen, church, this has to be ringing in our ears here as we work our way through this text.

You and I, I believe our church, that the church, needs a more robust understanding about what healing is.

It's not just a feel-good thing where we come in and sense a touching from the Lord and it's experiential.

It's not just that.

It's about maturity, it's about Christ-likeness.

So again, we want to have a more biblically well-rounded understanding of all of these things and get to the place where, like, yeah, he might not renew every single ailment and every single situation, but listen, he will renew me.

Okay, that's the healing that you and I need most of all.

Okay, now a lot of a lot of preamble here today, all right, because I think it sets the tone for where we're going here.

Let's jump into this here.

Um, it's all gonna be on the screen, of course, and you've got notes, some of you.

Uh, this.

When all hope is lost, Jesus restores.

Okay, seeking to believe that in deeper ways here today.

Here's the first thing.

When my torment is excruciating, he heals and deploys me.

Okay, take a look at verse one here.

We got a lot of verses, so we're gonna, you know, strap in here, get the seatbelt done up tight.

Uh, here we go.

Verse one, all right, follow along with me.

It says, They came to the other side of the sea.

Okay, isn't that interesting?

Connecting that to what we talked about last week, and how the Lord promises, hey, we're gonna get across to the other side of the lake here.

Well, here it happens, verse one of chapter five.

They get across to the other side of the sea, Jesus and the disciples in the boat, to the country of the Garosenes.

And when Jesus had stepped out out of the boat, immediately there met him out of the tombs, a man with an unclean spirit.

This guy is often referred to as the demoniac.

That's how we that's how you know smart Bible guys, I guess, uh call him and refer to him as.

But just listen to the listen to the torment that this man had to deal with this.

Okay, keep going.

It says this.

He lived among the tombs and no one could bind him anymore.

Not even with a chain.

For he had been bound with shackles and chains, but he wrenched the chains apart and he broke the shackles in pieces.

No one had the strength to subdue him night and day among the tombs, and on the mountains he was crying out and cutting himself with stones.

And when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and fell down before him.

Do you sense this man's desperation?

This guy, like all hope was lost.

What a what a miserable, miserable existence.

But this is what he says.

It says there, and crying out with a loud voice, he said, What have you to do with me, Jesus, son of the most high God?

I adjure you by God, do not, what's the word?

Torment me.

Do not torment.

This guy has gone through so much.

Being tormented is so awful, and that's what he thinks Jesus is about to do.

Now listen, he is so overcome by demons that it's kind of like switching back and forth between his words and the demons overtaking him and speaking through him.

Okay, for Jesus was saying, if you keep going, he was saying to him, Come out of the man, you unclean spirit.

And Jesus asked him, What is your name?

And he replied, My name is Legion, for we are many.

You know, Legion is a it's a military term, right?

And in the Roman army, it was it was their largest unit.

Okay, so 5,600 soldiers.

And so these demons call themselves Legion.

Now that doesn't mean that he he you know specifically had 5,600 demons exactly.

I think believe it it signifies more that he had a lot.

Okay, not your, if there's such a thing, standard demon possession, right?

This guy was overcome and controlled and ugly scene.

I think that's what we can take away from this.

Okay, keep going.

It says, and he begged him earnestly not to send him out of the country.

Now a herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside, and they begged him, saying, Send us to the pigs, let us enter them.

So the demons are kind of freaking out here.

And so Jesus gave them permission.

So listen, maybe we breezed over this, but this is kind of weird, right?

What's happening?

Right?

A bunch of demons in a man, a bunch of pigs grazing nearby.

They're like, hey, let us go into them.

Don't send us out of the country.

Jesus is like, you can go.

Right?

Wild.

But it's showing here that every step of the way, Christ is in full control.

Okay, and so it says the unclean spirits came out and entered the pigs, and the herd, numbering about 2,000, 2,000 pigs, rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the sea.

How do you think the people responded to this?

Well, it says the herdman, uh, the herdsmen fled and told it into the city and in the country, and people came to see what it was uh what it was that had happened.

They came to Jesus and saw the demon-possessed man, the one who had the legion, sitting there, clothed and in his right mind.

And they were afraid, it says.

I think we fear things that we don't understand.

It says, and those who had seen it described to them what had happened to the demon-possessed man and to the pigs.

Okay, and they began to beg Jesus to depart from their region.

There's like, we're we can't handle this.

Can you please uh leave?

Okay.

And as he was getting into the boat, it says the man who had been possessed with demons begged him that he might be with him.

So he wants to join the disciples.

He wants to join Jesus and become uh one of their group and travel around.

But it says there that Jesus did not permit him, but said to him, Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you and how he has had mercy on you.

And he went away and began to proclaim in the decapitus how much Jesus had done for him, and everyone marveled.

It might be pretty safe to say, I think, that the demoniac here was likely the most tortured soul that these people had ever seen.

Right?

The pain that these demons had put him through, and I mean, we're not told the whole story of his life, and you know, we don't know how much responsibility is on him and how much he maybe you know opened his life up to that.

I mean, it doesn't give us all those details here, but the demons were you know putting through him through an incredibly excruciating experience, you know, causing him to cry out in anguish constantly.

He's he's cutting himself with stones, just trying to find some kind of release, some kind of relief there.

He's got supernatural, demonic strength to break chains.

Okay?

How about the fact that he needed to be bound by chains in the first place?

Right?

This guy was uh he was a he was a wild man, he couldn't be contained, and people didn't know what to do with him.

It suggests that he's naked, he's living among the dead, right?

Among the tombs, he's he's ceremonially unclean according to Jewish law.

I mean, just a horrific quality of life.

And yet Jesus, he meets this man and and shows him compassion, he commands these demons uh to flee, and then all of a sudden we know just in the next scene here that that this man is you know he's fully clothed, right?

He's in his right mind, he's he's sitting at at Jesus' feet, right?

And he wants to he wants to follow Christ and and be a disciple.

Okay, but you see that Jesus doesn't allow it, and you may be like, that sounds a little bit cold.

Like, what's that all about?

Well, maybe it had to do with something, you know, something to do with the fact that the guy was a he was a gentile, and maybe that would have been too much of a stumbling block for uh the Jews in Christ's uh mission to uh the Jews during that time, but regardless, okay, Christ doesn't try to hush him up either.

He tells him, He said, Go, right, deploys them for service.

He said, Go, tell, tell your friends, tell people that you know how much the Lord has done for you and the mercy that he has shown on you.

Now, I'm not sure, you know, if we've been tormented, any of us, as much as that guy.

Okay, but frankly, that's that's not really the point.

It's not important to you know compare one's suffering to another and you know, kind of like a badge of honor, share, you know, mine, mine's worse.

You can't understand me because you haven't gone through everything I've gone through in every single way.

I I don't think that's that's really it.

Okay, but the truth is here that some of us have been truly tormented.

And some of us are maybe going through it right now.

Maybe it has been demonic.

And again, maybe you have given the devil a foothold and you're engaged in or have been engaged at some point in your life, some kind of new agey, demonic, satanic type of behavior.

And maybe for you it was, you know, innocent and it seemed like it was fun, it was just a bunch of friends, you know, when we were teenagers or whatever, but but you've opened a door there.

Okay, perhaps it's been torment of a completely different nature.

You know, it's it's chronic pain.

I mean, how many of us are, you know, maybe you're at you're at home, it's just like it's a daily thing, constant.

You're just you're just aching in some way, and you don't sleep well, and it wakes you up, and and and nothing seems to really help, and you don't really want to go down the meds direction because you don't want to get addicted to that, but you're you know, you're you're torn, and perhaps for you it's it's a it's been a misdiagnosis.

You know, you've gone to a doctor and it's again they've misdiagnosed you about some ailment, and it's it's led to the wrong medication, and that medication's kind of you know got you going all haywire, and it's not helpful, and it's not it's not good, and in certain ways, it's it's tormenting.

Maybe it's a mental illness of some kind.

And for you, maybe it's been you know a trip to the to the mental health unit at the hospital or or multiple ones.

And maybe you're on medication for all of that.

And by the way, I want to say this really clearly: we're not anti-that here.

Okay, we're not, I'm not trying to make you feel bad about all of that.

If it helps, great.

Maybe for you the torment has been abuse.

It's physical abuse.

Maybe you're suffering right now.

Maybe it's been sexual abuse, and it was while you were a child and you've told nobody about this, or you're trying to ignore it, or maybe you have talked about it and it's great, and you're sensing healing.

Maybe it's been emotional abuse.

That's torment.

Perhaps it's been persecution.

And maybe it's been real.

And we often talk about how in North America the persecution isn't half bad as it is, you know, around the world, and while I believe that is very true, we can still be persecuted.

We live in a world that screams tolerance unless you're a Christian.

It's all good to hate them, and so there's a real disconnect there, and maybe it's been somebody at your workplace, it's somebody in your family who is just on you, slamming you, getting people against you.

It is persecution.

Okay, torment comes in many forms.

Okay, but let me be real clear on this.

We're not talking about inconveniences in life, like having the flu during the winter time, or getting a flat tire during rush hour.

Listen, those things are a pain.

But I think sometimes we take every little thing that happens to us and we exaggerate it, and then we post it on social media because we've got to share our pain with everybody, right?

But we're just like, you know, what is my life?

You know?

It's like, well, no, you got a flat tire, but you've got CAA and it's all good.

Like, or it's it's a common cold, the man cold, right?

And we're like, life's over.

No, we're talking about, right?

We're talking about real torment here.

Legitimately excruciating kinds that just wear down the hope that you've got.

It's like constantly poking holes, and and the hope is just leaking out of you.

And you're getting to the point where like, am I ever gonna see the light of day here?

It doesn't take too much to it to imagine.

That's how this guy here probably felt in his in his more lucid moments, if he even had any.

Okay, but in an instant, he has this meeting with Christ, and he finds himself healed, finds himself restored, and he's in his right mind.

And and beyond that, listen, beyond that, he finds himself deployed for ministry in the kingdom of God.

How amazing is that that God uses the most broken down, tormented people with the most awful past ever to do sometimes some of the most amazing things in his service.

Listen, I don't know how God is gonna choose to heal you and restore you or what that's gonna look like.

Again, he might remove that ailment that you're longing for him to remove, but again, he might not.

But again, he desires to breathe new hope into you and I, into our soul by his grace.

Because you're his child.

You have great worth to him.

You matter, you are you are you are created in his image.

You are not dirt, you are not garbage to him at all.

He wants to give you hope and help you understand this.

And listen, beyond that personal peace that hope floods our souls with, that man, we we want so badly, listen, he desires to use you in his kingdom.

I love it how let's say we're we kind of look at it this way: like, here's normal for us, okay?

This is like normal life.

This is like really awesome, this is normal, this is not so good.

Okay, if you're losing hope and you're in the yeah, not so good kind of stage of life, I love how the Lord doesn't just bring us up to normal.

Right?

He's not just like, well, I'll get you back to square one or back to par.

But then that's it.

No, he desires to take you past that and actually use you in amazing ways.

I mean, we see him do it with this demon-possessed man here.

He wants to take you to new heights of joy and maturity and humility and hope.

In fact, again, it's some of us who've experienced the most awful, heaviest amounts of torment.

Where you know, you're the ones who are accomplishing the most by his spirit, by his grace.

You're doing amazing things for the kingdom.

And listen, if if the Lord's done a lot in you and he's breathed hope into you, and you're just kind of taking that and sitting on it, listen, you need you need to get in the game.

There are people around you, maybe sitting next to you here in this building, in this room, who could use a little bit of encouragement, who would just love to hear the scriptures and and and the path that you took, not to make it all about you, but to encourage them and to push them and to show them that that Christ is worth clinging to.

Get deployed.

Be used in ministry, engage with other people about all of this.

Okay, let's keep going here.

When all hope is lost, Jesus restores.

When my shame is all encompassing, he heals and encounters me.

Okay, well, in the next, immediate next couple of verses here, we're introduced to a man named Jairus and his daughter.

But we're gonna get actually get to him, we'll save him to the last thing here, because in the middle of his story, uh we're introduced, Mark introduces us to uh another person who is uh suffering from an extremely hopeless situation here.

Uh so let's pick it up in verse 24.

You see part down there, part way down there in your Bible, next paragraph.

It says, and a great crowd followed him and thronged about him.

This scene, and there was a woman who had a discharge of blood for twelve years, some kind of menstrual illness, and who had suffered much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was no better, but rather, what does it say?

It says that she grew worse.

Okay, so this woman, totally losing hope, right?

Because of her situation, understand the context of this here, because of her um her illness, her disease that she had, she was considered unceremonially clean, just like the demoniac was.

And so she was essentially an outcast.

So not only did she have this illness, okay, but she wouldn't be able to just go and worship in temple worship with God's people.

She wouldn't be allowed to do any of that.

Not to mention, on top of that, anytime she went out in public, she would have had to make it real clear that I'm unclean.

Because if someone touched her, then they would be unclean.

Imagine the shame of all of this.

Imagine just thinking year after year, and I'm trying, I'm pouring my money, this is getting worse, it's not getting better.

Think about how dark of a place that would have been.

Awful, awful shame to endure.

Keep going here.

It says that she had heard the reports about Jesus, and so she's thinking, okay, this guy's healed people before.

This is my this is my last final hope.

It says that she came up behind him.

That's interesting, she doesn't engage him face to face, behind him in the crowd, and touched his garment.

And she said, If I touch his garments, I will be made well.

She says incredible faith.

And immediately the flow of blood dried up.

And she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease.

Amazing.

And Jesus, this is interesting, perceiving in himself that power had gone out from him, immediately turned about in the crowd and said, Who touched my garments?

The disciples react, maybe like we would have.

They said to him, You, uh Jesus, like you see the crowd, right?

Like, there are a lot of people here.

They're pressing up against you, and you know, in this one kind of, in their minds, random moment, they're like, You, you say, Who touched me?

It says that he looked around to see who had done it.

Does Jesus know who did this?

Of course, of course he does.

He's God, he knows all things.

So, what is he doing?

He's drawing her out.

Right?

He's drawing her to himself.

Remember, she came up from behind.

She wanted to do like a quick touch and then disappear.

That's how she was approaching it.

Right?

But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling.

Why?

Why was she why was she so scared?

Why was there this fear and the trembling?

Well, well, possibly because she knew that again, when in touching other people, which would have happened in the crowd here, she's making them unclean and she didn't want to experience any more of their wrath and their disgust and their banishment and all of it.

Perhaps it was that.

But I mean, this can also be understood as great awe.

She sensed that she was healed, right?

She knew in that moment, and Jesus is calling her to him, and she's like, wow, this is this is incredible.

Great fear that in that sense.

And then it says that, and she fell down before him and told him the entire truth.

She comes clean, she spills the beans.

And he said to her, daughter, your faith has made you well.

Go in peace and be healed of your disease.

Okay, obviously, Jesus heals this woman, he chooses to, and in itself, that's amazing.

But but listen, don't don't miss the fact that if he wanted to, he could have, after she touched him and the power flowed from him, he could have just kept walking.

Right?

He didn't have to kind of create a little mini appropriate scene here and engage with her in all of that.

He didn't have to talk to her personally at all.

But instead, uh he does just that, right?

He engages her in a very brief, but very, very profound moment.

He has an encounter with this woman that dramatically changes her life.

She'd be able to come away from that encounter with him, able to say, I know him now.

I didn't just take something from him and then go away without a personal connection.

I know Christ.

Check out this quote, it'll be on the screen here from James Edwards.

I love this.

Says this, talking about the woman.

She wants a cure, however, a something.

Whereas Jesus desires a personal encounter with someone.

He's not content to dispatch a miracle, he wants to encounter a person.

In the kingdom of God, miracle leads to meeting.

Discipleship is not simply getting our needs met, it is being in the presence of Jesus, being known by him and following him.

Again, we've touched on this a little bit here today already.

But I think so many of us tend to kind of take a similar approach that this woman does.

We want Christ's help.

But do we want him?

We want that hope restored.

We want that healing.

We want that circumstance fixed.

Honestly, we just want to feel better for once.

Is that too much to ask?

But we often want it while keeping God at arm's length.

Give me the thing and then let me go on my merry way and live life as I want to.

But listen, that is never God's game plan.

If you want that, just know that that is a wrong desire that the Lord needs to redeem.

If you've got that desire in you, and and it's the vending machine, God, where you put your prayers in the coin slot and tap the buttons and hope he answers.

Listen, that's that's a that's a faulty approach.

That's not at all what God's interested in.

Now he may have mercy on us and still give us far more than we deserve.

That's true, uh, absolutely.

But that's not Christ's game plan.

Okay, everything that he is doing in us or preparing us for is for greater depths of relationship with him, a greater quality of discipleship.

Again, he's not interested, as this quote says, in meeting our felt needs only.

That's not it.

Now, thankfully, he does more often than than we than we deserve.

But as our creator, he he knows that what we really need, what deep down our souls are really longing for, even in those painful moments, even in the torment, even in all the question marks and all of that, what we really need, really want, whether we can identify that in our hearts, is a is a deeply fulfilling encounter with him beyond that of felt needs.

So listen, if you are here today and you're carrying around intense amounts of shame, you're just like this woman.

Right?

And it's all encompassing, and maybe you've got the exterior kind of figured out and and and and you've fooled enough people, but inside.

You think you're worthless, and you think that God cares, and it has completely affected your personality, and it has completely affected your mood, and you are sad and down and in the dumps and super negative about every single thing, or maybe it's caused you to be angry.

And I am cold and I will never let anyone in close before.

And this shame, I will not allow that to grip me.

And so I will I will cast myself in a different way, and I will try to fulfill myself and all kinds of other things.

But what you don't understand is that shame is still just eating away at you and controlling you, and maybe it's turned you into a super judgmental person.

And you are in this, you are you are stuck held fast in that comparison game and comparing yourself to other people and trying to judge whether or not you're better than them or they're better than you, and however your parameters work in your heart.

Shame fuels, I think, a lot of that stuff today.

And understand that Christ is calling you to a new hope in Him.

It's found in an all-encompassing encounter with Jesus.

Why do you think that we talk so much about, hey, church, it's so important that we be in God's word?

Why do we talk about, hey, it's so important that we gather every single weekend here as a community and press in?

Why do you think we push things like small groups so hard and getting with people and serving all of that?

Because through these things, we're putting ourselves in the path to encounter Christ.

We're not doing these things to impress him.

Okay?

We're not, you know, dogs at a dog show trying to earn points.

That's not what it is.

We're trying to press into Christ and see him heal our shame.

See him replace that with confidence in himself, with boldness, with intimacy.

Here's the last thing, going quickly.

When hope is uh when all hope is lost, Jesus restores.

When my future is unpromising, he heals and fortifies me.

Verse 21.

Okay, we're gonna look at Jairus here.

It says, remember, I said we have to go back to that.

Verse 21 says, and when and when Jesus had crossed again in the boats, they're going back across the other side of the lake now, and he was beside the sea.

Then came one of the rulers of the synagogue.

So this is Jairus, and and he would have been in charge with kind of managing the day-to-day operations of the synagogue and making sure that services ran smoothly and there were people in place and sort of like before planning center existed, I guess.

Some of you understand that, some of you don't.

That's fine.

Okay, so it says here, Jairus, okay, by name, and seeing him, he fell at his feet and he implored him earnestly.

This is Jairus, this is what he says.

He says, My little daughter is at the point of death.

Come and lay hands on her so that she may be made well and live.

So you see the amazing faith of this man.

And he went with him.

Okay, and at that point, that's where you know Jesus is moving towards Jairus' house, and he meets this woman that we just read about.

Well, jump down to verse 35.

Okay, while he was still speaking to that woman, there came from the ruler's house someone who's some who said, Your daughter is dead.

Why trouble the teacher any further?

In other words, what's the point with bothering Christ?

Why, what's the point of connecting with Jesus about this now?

It's over.

This is the definition of a hopeless situation.

She's dead.

But overhearing what they said, it says, Jesus said to the ruler of the synagogue, Do not fear, only believe.

And he allowed no one except, or no one to follow him except Peter and James and John, the brother of James.

And they came to the house of the ruler of the synagogue.

And Jesus saw commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly.

And when he had entered, he said to them, Why are you making a commotion and weeping?

The child's not dead, but sleeping.

Look at the response.

And they laughed at him.

They're like, This is ridiculous, man.

Like it's over.

As great as you are, we've heard about you.

You can't fix this.

There's no hope.

But he put them all outside and took the child's father and mother and those who were with him and went in where the child was.

Taking her by the hand, he said to her, Talitha kumi, which means, little girl, I say to you, arise.

And immediately the girl got up and began walking.

She was twelve years of age.

And they were immediately overcome with amazement.

Yeah, I guess.

And he strictly charged them that no one should know this and told them to give her something to eat.

Death, I think we understand death as final.

Right?

It's over, right?

It's done, finished.

Right?

That's what that's what death is.

As far as Jairus was concerned here, again, all hope was lost for him.

Put yourself in his shoes for a second here.

Just imagine that the crushing, sickening, overwhelming sense of despair that would have been overtaking his spirit here as people from his household came and delivered this horrific news.

He's heartbroken, he's devastated.

All he's thinking about here is my my future's shot.

Right?

It's utterly unpromising.

Some of you here, okay, likely different circumstances than Jairus.

Okay, but some of you here tend to approach life like that.

When you think about what tomorrow has in store, you're utterly despondent about it.

Can't move forward.

But Christ shows us here in this passage that even in death, it's not over.

Not with God.

Why is that?

Because he's God.

Right?

Because he's God.

He, you know, even in those life's over moments in Christ, for us, it's still really not.

Why?

Well, because he might do something awesome yet.

He might take us to the 11th hour.

He might take you beyond that.

But listen, beyond that earthly fix, beyond the hope of having our situation fixed, it's because he is our hope.

Jesus Christ is our hope.

More than the physical healing, more than, again, circumstances being taken care of.

He's our hope of hope of salvation.

Think about that.

We were dead, Ephesians 2 tells us, we were dead in our transgressions and sin.

That's over, right?

Done.

None of us have the hope of salvation anymore.

Wrong.

Because Jesus came and made us alive in him.

Even in death, it's not over.

He's our hope of salvation.

He is our hope of sanctification.

Some of you are just like, man, it's the same old, same old with me.

It's the same old, same old with members of my family and friends, and I see them, and you know, they haven't changed, and I haven't changed, and maybe I won't ever change.

Listen, he's the hope of your sanctification as well.

And listen, even this, he's our hope of a future that is perfect.

Okay, endlessly filled with boundless hope for all eternity.

That's the hope that Christ has called us to.

And listen, I believe that he wants to fortify and strengthen some of you here with that today.

You're facing a very uncertain, unpromising future in terms of kind of earthly life.

And it does feel very much over, and maybe in certain human perspectives, it it is.

Right?

It's as it's as good as as in the grave.

But listen, your eternal future in Jesus Christ is secured.

And there is hope in that because He has secured it.