Healing From Life's Hurts // Healing from Trauma

Serpent top is gonna start community talk, okay?

We're gonna be in Mark chapter five this morning.

Mark chapter five.

Growing up in school, there was something that I didn't like.

No, I wasn't gonna say the teachers.

Although, did we all have like one or two where we were like Growing up, I did not like pop quizzes.

You guys remember pop quizzes?

Right?

I had to go in the classroom when our teacher would say, clean off your desk, you're taking a pop quiz, and immediately my prayer life strengthened.

Strengthened quite a bit.

Yeah.

Lord help me to remember all of those notes, especially the ones I didn't take, which is pretty much all those notes.

In Jesus' name.

In Jesus' name, okay.

And I think we could all look back on experiences, whether in our schooling life or life in general, that we're like, yeah, I didn't really enjoy that that much.

But there are other experiences that we look back on, that it's not just that we didn't enjoy them, it was that they deeply wounded us.

Experiences that maybe we're still carrying with us to this day.

Things that affect how we think, things that we affect how we feel, things that even affect how we relate to others, things we carry into our relationships.

How many of you know what I'm talking about?

Right?

The the really smart mental health experts, they would call these traumatic experiences.

And in really in a really general way, what trauma is, is trauma, it refers to any experience that overwhelms us and leaves us with lasting wounds.

If we can get this slide up on the screen, and leaves us with lasting wounds that affect how we think, feel, trust, and relate to others in Mark 5.

We we find a woman that experienced trauma in some of the deepest ways.

Trauma that defined every moment of every part of her life.

But healing was gonna require some risk.

And what do you do when your healing is on the other side of you taking a risk?

What do you do when your healing requires you to get out of what is comfortable and what is known and takes you into the unknown?

What do you do when your healing happens there?

That's what this woman experienced.

Now, for some of us, some of us, uh, some of us naturally are risk takers.

How many of you guys, how many of you are risk takers?

You like Preston likes taking risk, okay, right, right?

How many, how many of you are like, hey, I jump out of an airplane tomorrow?

Like, sounds fun.

Yes, risk taker, risk taker.

Yes, yes, risk.

You know, how many of you are like me?

I'm not as much of a risk taker.

Okay, okay.

Except for with gas.

Do you remember the story?

Go back on YouTube and listen to part one of this series, okay?

We'll just say this, Angela 1nate zero, okay, right?

As I got older, I don't like taking risks as much.

Like, like I was supposed to say, when I go to a restaurant, I barely even order new things.

Because I'm like, hey, I got this and it tasted good.

If I go back two months later and I get something different, I may not know if it tastes as good.

So why should I take the risk?

Well, sometimes there's a reward for the risk.

And sometimes when it comes to our trauma, healing is on the other side of risk.

And what feels like a risk is sometimes just faith in action.

Faith in action.

How many of you know that it's one thing for us to say, oh, I have faith, but if I actually have faith, there's gonna be some action that's connected to that faith.

If you know what I'm saying, right?

Sometimes risk is just faith in action.

Now we are in a series right now called Healing from Life's Hurts.

Healing from Life's Hurts.

And we are in part three.

And what we're gonna see today is we are going to see how do we heal from trauma from a biblical example in Mark chapter number five.

And here's something that we need to see about the woman that we're gonna talk about.

We need to see this is this woman had trauma that never ended.

You know, it's one thing for us to have experiences in life that are traumatic.

And we say, okay, I need to heal from this, I need to work through this.

This is probably most of us at some point in our lives.

But it's a whole other situation where the trauma never ends.

When every moment of every day the trauma doesn't end.

What do you do then?

What do you do when the trauma's all around you?

And what do you do when there's possible healing, but it's on the other side of risk?

This is what we see in Mark chapter number five.

If you're ready for it, would you say amen?

Mark 5, verse number 25.

This is what it says.

It says there was a woman that was suffering from bleeding for, watch this, bleeding for 12.

12 years.

She had endured much under many doctors.

She had spent everything she had and was not helped at all.

On the contrary, she became worse.

This is a polite way of saying this woman had an uncontrollable menstrual flow for 12 years.

This affected every part of her life.

Obviously, there was sickness.

She was sick and likely in pain, but also she was unable to have children, which is a really big deal.

In this society, your value as a woman was completely connected to your ability to have children.

She couldn't have kids.

She did not have value.

This is a Jewish society.

In a Jewish society, something like this meant that you were unclean.

So you could not touch anybody.

Nobody could touch you.

You could not be around people.

So she lived her life in isolation.

On top of this, she also was misunderstood because in a Jewish world, they thought wrongly that if somebody has a prolonged sickness or they're having issues in their life, it's because they're bad people.

So she must be a bad person.

So she's misunderstood.

She lives in isolation.

She doesn't have value.

Can you imagine how this must have made her feel?

Can you imagine the lack of self-esteem she must have had for twelve years?

Not twelve months, not twelve weeks, not twelve days, but twelve years.

Every moment of every day is defined by trauma.

You ever wanted something so bad and prayed so long that eventually you stopped asking because disappointment hurt less than hope?

That's where this woman was.

And even sadder is it says that she actually became worse.

She had endured much under many doctors, she had spent everything she had.

I I I guess doctors aren't just expensive today.

I guess they were expensive back then too.

She ran out of money.

So what does she do?

What does she do?

This woman takes a risk.

Here's the risk that she takes, number two.

She takes a risk to step out.

A risk to step out of isolation.

Look what the passage says in verse number 2027.

It says, having heard about Jesus, she came up.

Can we say those words together, ready?

She came up.

This means she had to come out of isolation and put herself around a crowd of people because Jesus was walking through.

Earlier in the text, it says people were all around him.

She comes up behind him in the crowd and touched his clothing.

For her to come out in public is extremely risky.

For her to come out of isolation is extremely, extremely, extremely scary because if she goes in the crowd and somebody recognizes her as unclean, this is what they can do.

They can call her out.

Unclean, unclean.

And this woman that's already suffered so much now is going to be humiliated publicly in front of the entire crowd of people.

She's going to have fingers pointed at her.

She's going to be shamed.

She's going to be condemned because she doesn't go out in front of people because she's not supposed to, because she's unclean.

Talk about making yourself vulnerable.

Why would she do this?

Because her healing was worth the risk.

And what seemed like a risk was actually just faith in action.

Look what verse 28 says.

It says, this is what this woman said.

If I just touch his clothes, that his, in case you're wondering, his name starts with a J.

That was Jesus.

If I just touch his clothes, I'll be made well.

You guys see the faith in this verse?

This faith.

This is faith.

She says, I have this trauma that defines every single moment of every single day.

That affects how I think, how I feel.

But if I just get to Jesus, I can be made well.

And this woman wants her healing more than she wants what's easy.

Easy is staying in isolation.

Easy is not going out in front of people.

Easy is not letting herself be known.

But she knows that Jesus can heal me.

But for her to get to Jesus, this is what she's going to have to do.

She's going to have to come out of isolation and she's going to have to not worry about what everybody thinks about her.

She's going to have to not worry about what this guy thinks about her or what this girl thinks about her or what those people that maybe they saw her years ago and it's like, is that her?

She's got to say, I'm not worried about that.

Now, this why this is why this matters so much.

It's because some people never experience healing from their trauma because they let other people and other people's opinion keep them from coming to Jesus.

A lot of us, we have family and friends that are okay if we have some pseudo-spirituality in our lives.

Like, yeah, you have a little Jesus, you go to church service, like that that's okay.

That's that's fine.

But when you fully surrender yourself to Jesus, and you fully come to Jesus, there are people that won't like it.

Because when you fully come to Jesus, you ain't gonna do everything you used to do.

You know what I'm saying?

When you fully come to Jesus, there's gonna be some things you start doing that you used to not do.

And when you fully come to Jesus, what could happen?

Is it can feel like a risk because we don't exactly know what everybody else is gonna think about us?

And let's also be honest, sometimes it's not just what other people think about us, but we wonder if we actually fully come to Jesus and surrender our lives to Jesus, will it even work?

Is it gonna be worth everything I'm gonna have to give up?

Is it is it going to be that I actually am gonna have purpose and meaning in my life because that's how you're living in the world?

There's some fun stuff over here.

Is it actually worth giving all this stuff up?

And here's even another question that we might wrestle with is if I fully come to Jesus, is he even gonna accept me?

If I bring my wounds to him and I open myself up to him, what's he gonna say to me?

Maybe you grow up in an environment where you we're taught, or you see God as an angry judge that's gonna get you, and you think if I come before God and I really open myself to him and I really surrender to him, what's he gonna say?

Because some of my some of my wounds that I have, some of them are from other people, but some of them are self-inflicted.

Some of them are from things that I've done.

And if I come before Jesus and I actually take the risk and actually open myself to up to Jesus, what's he gonna say?

What's gonna happen?

Am I gonna feel more condemnation?

Am I gonna feel more shame?

Am I gonna feel more hurt?

Look what happens in this woman's life.

She took the risk, and verse 29 says this.

Instantly, her flow of blood ceased, and she sensed in her body that she was healed of her affliction.

Healing, healing, because there was a reward for the risk.

And what sometimes feels like a risk is actually just faith in action.

It says in Hebrews chapter 11, without faith, it's impossible to please God, since the one who draws near to him must believe that he exists and that he, what's that word?

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

That he rewards those who seek him.

It wasn't until this woman exercised some faith that she was rewarded with healing.

And friend, I wonder in our lives, are you a risk or two away from experiencing the healing that can be found in Jesus?

And what if the risk that seems like a risk that's so scary for you to do this or for you to take this step?

What if it's actually faith in action?

The story gets better.

It says in verse number 30 immediately Jesus realized that power had gone out from him.

He turned around in the crowd and said, Who touched my clothes?

His disciples said to him, You see the crowd pressing against you, yet you say, Who touched me?

But he was looking around to see who had done this.

And the woman with fear and trembling.

And Jesus and this woman, of course, she's fear and trembling.

In a society where men are here, women are here, in a society where she's unclean, Jesus is a rabbi, he's a spiritual leader.

What's gonna happen?

She comes to him, she fell down before him, she told him the whole truth.

She opened herself up to him.

And then what happens next might be one of the most powerful teaching moments in the entire life of Jesus and the entire gospels.

Because what we're about to see is what happens when somebody comes to Jesus in simple faith, with their baggage, with their trauma, with their what society says is unclean.

What does Jesus say in that moment?

Look what it says in verse number 34.

What does Jesus say?

He says, daughter.

Hold on, hold on.

A girl in Mark chapter 5, a woman, she's introduced in verse 25 by her trauma.

Mark 5 · chapter mention

She has this, what's going on with her?

Jesus sees her, she risks having faith in him, and this is what Jesus says.

He says, You are my daughter.

He doesn't say, woman, when you get your act together, when you start doing what you're supposed to do and stop doing all that stuff over there, what then you can be my daughter.

No, no, no.

He says, You are my daughter.

And then he tells her, be healed from your affliction.

He tells her to go in peace.

You see, friend, when you know what it means to be a child of God, it is then and only then when you can live your life in peace.

When you know what it means to be a daughter or son of the living God, it is then and only then that you can live your life in peace.

This woman experienced healing.

And I want to get really practical for us this morning because I want us to see what this woman did that allowed her to experience healing.

And there are three risky things.

And I want to also note that for some people, healing can happen in a moment, but for other people, healing is a process, but healing happens on the other side of risk.

Here's the first risk this woman took.

She risked being known.

For you to be healed, you need to risk being known.

This means you come out of isolation.

It says in the text here that she told Jesus the whole truth.

Let's be honest.

Letting somebody know us is pretty scary.

This is why some of us we have our walls up all the time.

This is why some of us come in and out of here like we're ninjas.

Don't talk to me, don't why some of you guys avoid me like the plague.

Like the pastor, don't talk to me.

It's risky to be known because we fear being judged, being condemned, and being rejected.

And if we let ourselves be known, we're risking being judged, being condemned, and being rejected.

But part of the process of healing is also us feeling love and acceptance.

And we can only feel love and acceptance when we actually let somebody know us.

So we can live our life in fear, like with the walls up, like, hey, I'm not ever gonna let anybody know me because I did this last time I did that, it didn't work out for me.

I'm never letting anybody know me.

And you're you're you can have walls between you and people, but really what you need to realize is you're building a wall between you and your healing.

And it doesn't mean that you tell everybody everything, but there needs to be somebody that's a godly person that you open yourself up to.

Because healing happens from allowing ourselves to be known to some degree.

This is one of the reasons why I love Pastor Cody's talking about our groups that we have coming up.

We already have, I think, 150 group signups for groups that are starting in just a couple weeks.

But groups allow you to be in a relationship in an environment where you can let somebody know you.

Now, maybe you're not gonna be in a group and let everybody know you, but you can let some people know you.

Risk to be known.

Number two, you need to risk coming to Jesus.

You know, trauma, when we experience trauma, it has a way of causing us to overthink and overanalyze and stay stuck.

When this woman came to Jesus, she came to Jesus in full surrender.

And coming to Jesus, it begins with salvation.

Here's what I mean when I say the word salvation.

When we understand what the scripture teaches that we are sinners in need of a savior.

Jesus came and died on the cross for our sin.

And when we believe, when we trust in his death, his burial, and his resurrection, we can be saved.

We can have the forgiveness of our sin.

It's not by being more religious or by being more good, doing more good things, it's by believing and trusting in Christ alone.

But when we do that, that Is just the beginning of us daily surrendering ourselves to Jesus.

How many of you know you can trust the Lord and know the Lord, but not live your life in daily surrender to Him?

And I'll say this showing up on a Sunday is not enough because it's possible to show up to a service on a Sunday, but never bring your whole self to Jesus on a Monday.

It's possible to show up on a Sunday and go through the motions, but never live your life in full surrender to Jesus in the moment.

See, when we live our life in full surrender, this is what this is the biggest, biggest, biggest challenge of it is when we do this, we are giving up control to Him.

We like to retain control.

It's easy for us to say, Jesus, you can have this and this, but I still am in control of this and this.

That's not surrender.

Part surrender is no surrender at all.

Part surrender is no surrender at all.

And what this lady did is she came in full surrender to Jesus and said, Jesus, you can have all of me.

And she told him the whole truth.

And some and one of the reasons why some Jesus followers never experience the healing that God wants to bring is because they go to this and they go to that and they go to all these things that might be good things, but they never come to Jesus in full surrender and say, Jesus, here is all of me, here's my baggage, here's the ugliness, here's my wounds, here's my pain.

It's all at your feet.

We have to risk being known.

We have to risk coming to Jesus, and then there's one more risk we need to take.

This is a risk the woman take.

We need to risk letting Jesus define you.

Here's the hard thing about trauma is that trauma has a way of seeping into our identity, and trauma becomes who we are, not just something we've experienced.

So when trauma is who I am, then I see everything through that lens.

So how I think about myself, how I think about other people, how I relate to other people, how I think about the world is through the lens of my trauma.

When Jesus saw this woman and she came to him, he didn't say, hey, trauma girl.

Hey, turmoil person.

Hey, broken person.

He didn't say this, daughter.

You realize this, and I'm asking about our worship team to come up here.

You you realize this.

When you let Jesus define you, when you put your faith and trust in Jesus to be your Lord and Savior, when he sees you, this is what he sees you as my child.

And when you let the fact that you are a child of God be your identity, this is what happens.

You can actually, like the text says, you can live your life in peace because you know you're loved, you know you have worth, you know you have value, not because of what's happened to you, but because of who Jesus says that you are.

Now it's risky to lay down our identity, all these other identities, because there's almost a comfort in the chaos.

There's almost like a comfort in like, well, I'm just broken, I'm just filled with baggage, I'm just this.

But let me pastor you.

That is not who you are.

That's not who you are.

And it might seem risky to lay down those identities.

Yes, that describes you, but that is not who you are.

And friend, the root the things that feel risky are actually just faith and action.

And I just wonder in the room this morning, who in the room would just say, hey, I'm willing to take a risk for healing?

I'm willing to take a risk.

I'm willing to risk myself being known.

I'm willing to risk myself coming to Jesus in full surrender.

All of it baggage, junk, trauma.

Here it is, Jesus.

And I'm willing to risk letting Jesus define me.

Guys, this is the path to healing, and this is what it means to follow Jesus.

Let's all stand together to our feet.