He Is Good | The Difference Faith Makes | Mark 5:21-34 | Coleton Segars

We're continuing in our series, He is Good, even though we're entering into a season of Advent.

Um it's easy to find joy in this passage, it's easy to find peace in next week's passage, and so on and so forth, and every passage of the scriptures.

And so we're just gonna continue walking through this and make our way through Mark.

Uh but this is Mark chapter 5, verse 21 through 34.

Mark 5:21–34

And we're only gonna focus on one part of this particular text.

But this is what Mark writes It says, When Jesus had again crossed over by boat to the other side of the lake, a large crowd gathered around him while he was by the lake.

Then one of the synagogue leaders named Jarus came, and when he saw Jesus, he fell at his feet, and he pleaded earnestly with him, My little daughter is dying.

Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live.

So Jesus went with him, and a large crowd followed and pressed around him.

And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years.

She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all that she had.

Yet instead of getting better, she grew worse.

And when she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd, touched his cloak, because she thought, if I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.

And immediately her bleeding stopped, and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.

At once, Jesus realized that power had gone out from him.

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

You see the people crowding around against you, his disciples answered, and you can ask, Who touched me?

But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it.

And then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet, and trembling with fear, told him the whole truth.

And he said to her, Daughter, your faith has made you whole.

Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.

This is the word of the Lord.

Today I want to talk about three aspects of this woman's faith, and then the importance of faith for us.

Three aspects that you see in her faith and why faith is important to us.

I've been practicing faith uh since I was 17, and I'm that's 20 years now.

I think I'm 37.

Um, and faith is a weird thing.

Faith will get you in trouble with religious people.

Uh faith will get you in trouble because if you're seeking to follow the Bible, people who go to church don't really want to follow the Bible all that often.

Um faith will make you look weird to people in general, especially people outside the faith.

Um I remember I was driving to my home in Georgia where I lived after I had met Rainey, um, and we weren't even dating or anything like that, but uh I had broken up with my girlfriend at the time because I met Rainey.

And I was driving back to Georgia to like see her and not repair it, just be like, sorry, we're broken up, it's over.

And uh, but I was asking the Lord, I was praying, and I remember where I was when it happened, but I was asking, like, as I'm driving, I'm like, but I just I'm I want to get married, who am I gonna marry?

And if I've I've broken up with this girl that I was with for two years, who am I gonna marry?

And it sounds weird, but I promise you I can take you where it was.

But I felt the Lord be like, hey, you're gonna marry Rainey, so just don't worry about that anymore.

And I was like, perfect, that's great.

If I tell her that, she will never marry me.

Like, that will sound really weird.

And even now, like, even now, like you may hear that story and be like, that's not real.

That doesn't actually happen.

And some of you, my kindreds, you're my heart, you have you believe what I'm saying.

I'm not making that up.

Like it was an actual thing.

And then if if a prophet is proved true by his words, the Lord's word was true, because like I married that girl, I put that ring on my finger, and so it's it's it happened.

And now we have a kid together, so it's actually legit.

Um, but my point is like that's an odd story, right?

And I have tons of stories like that where it's like I'm telling you that something happened in faith, and it's like, man, how do I prove that?

How do I look at some of those things?

Faith is just hard and it's hard to practice.

And if you would have asked this woman, if I just touch his clothes, then I'll be healed, they'd have looked at her and like, you're a moron.

Like, that's the dumbest thing anyone's ever said.

And yet somehow, stepping out in faith, she experiences this thing that everybody else would have looked at her and been like, that's crazy, like it's never gonna happen.

And so faith can get you in hot water, faith can sound super weird, and yet this is this thing that we're called to practice, this thing that we're called to do.

So I want to look at three aspects of a woman's this woman's faith and why it's important to us.

One caveat before we get into that.

Um this woman had this space in her life where, to me, as you read her story, um, it's a miracle that she had faith in God at all.

Um, according to God's law, the written law about her illness, she's excommunicated.

And so people are being biblically faithful to keep her outside of community.

So God's law has made her be pushed out of community.

And then you pair that with God has the ability to heal her if he wants to.

And so you have these two things working at the same time.

He could heal me in his choosing not to, and then by his own law that he wrote, I'm forced out of community, and likely she was forced to be divorced because the Pharisees would say, then you know, you just she's uh gone, you just need to divorce her, and all these different things.

But complete isolation.

So you have the ability to heal me, and for 12 years you choose not to, and during those 12 years, you dictate by your own law how I'm treated, and I'm treated terribly by my community.

The fact that she wants anything to do with God is a miracle.

Because I think we've dealt with less.

Hard things happen in our lives, and like, God, you could have and you didn't.

You had the power to and you didn't.

And many times it leads us to abandon him because we're like, you abandoned me, I'm out on you.

And so for 12 years, this woman feels forgotten by God, abandoned by God.

And so, really, she she could have been like, I don't, I don't want anything to do with you.

You don't want anything to do with me, you're not gonna help me, I don't want anything to do with you.

But she doesn't do that.

And imagine if she did, if she entered into this space where she was like, fine, you don't want me, I don't want you, I'm out.

If she would have done that, she would have missed out on this thing that happened in her life.

She would have missed out on all of this stuff that faith did for her.

If she had lost faith in him during the difficult season of her life, she would have missed out on what faith could do for her in her life.

And so, for you, if you are walking in a season right now where it's hard for you to have faith in God's goodness, it's hard for you to have faith that he actually hears your prayers, it's hard for you to believe that he's going to do something when you pray, that he can actually change your situation, that he can actually do something.

This woman was in that season and was dealing with something for 12 years, probably going, like, just let it go.

It's not gonna work.

But she maintained this little bit of faith and that little bit of belief that she had, that little bit of faith that she kept, even though God is basically making her life a living hell.

It changed her life.

And so, just to encourage you, if that's what you're walking through, my hope and my prayer has been that this would be a space where you're just encouraged in faith to continue holding on in faith when you're sitting there waiting for something and going, I don't know how this is ever gonna change.

So that was the last caveat.

First thing three things we see in this woman about faith.

The first is we see what faith actually is.

We see what faith is.

Jesus says, uh, daughter, your faith has made you whole.

So it's important that we actually look at what he's referencing.

When he says, Your faith, this thing, has made you whole, it's important to figure out what he's referencing.

And so in verse 24 through 29, large crowd, large crowd is pressed around him.

A woman was there, subject to bleeding, twelve years.

When she heard about Jesus, then she came behind him in the crowd and then touched Jesus in his cloak, because she thought, if I just touch his clothes, I will be healed, and immediately her bleeding stopped, and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.

So the first thing we notice about faith, this thing that she has, is that it's not simply her belief that Jesus could heal her.

It's not simply belief.

If the thing that made her whole was faith, her belief that Jesus could heal her didn't do that.

And so she heard about Jesus and all the healings that he had done in Capernaum in this area that she's around.

She's heard about that.

It leads her clearly, she believes that Jesus can heal her too.

She can be one of those people that Jesus heals, and yet her illness remains.

She hears it, she believes that maybe it could be true for her, but it doesn't take away her illness.

It's not until she takes that belief and then puts it into action that she actually enters into the space that Jesus has for her.

And so just a timeline.

She heard about Jesus, she's still sick.

She believed what she heard, she's still sick, and she acted on her belief, and then she was made whole.

She was made what, excuse me, she was made well.

And so what you see is faith is taking what you hear and believe and actually putting it into action.

Just claiming to believe something.

I believe that to be true.

Clearly, in this woman's life, did nothing for her.

It wasn't until it was put into action.

And so it's like this you have hearing plus believing plus acting equals faith, or action equals faith, not acting like faking.

But you hear it, you believe it, and you act on it.

That's what faith is.

And so again, just believing that Jesus could heal her did nothing to this woman's body at all.

She heard it.

We don't even know how long ago she heard it.

The story rolls pretty quickly, but it's possible Jesus has been doing ministry for about two years now.

It's possible that she heard about Jesus a long time ago, at least, I mean it could be two years ago.

He's been healing, he's she's heard about that.

It could have been a year by the time she actually believed what she heard and then put it into action.

But just hearing it and believing it did not do anything for her.

It wasn't until she put it into action.

The reason I harp on that is because I hear people say that they believe things about God all the time.

And especially I work in the church, and so that makes the most sense.

I hear that all the time.

I believe in the Bible, I believe in prayer, I believe he can heal, I believe he can reconcile my relationships, I believe he can save people, I believe he can renew and revive Memphis.

I believe in the promises of God.

And just believing it is nice, but it does nothing for you in that space.

It did nothing for her.

It is faith that makes the difference in this woman's life, and it is faith in that thing, not just a saying, I believe something.

It is active belief, taking that belief and putting it into your life and putting it into action that actually makes the difference in her life, and that's what makes the difference in our lives.

What we claim to believe about our faith or about God or about anything, what we claim to believe will do nothing for us if faith isn't actually a part of it, if it's not belief paired with action.

Or James says it like this your faith without action is dead.

It'll do nothing for you.

So it's great that you believe it.

But if you're not putting it into action, it's gonna do nothing for you.

And I think many Christians get stuck here.

Go to the next slide.

Many Christians get stuck right here.

This is most of the modern day church.

Welcome.

Most of the modern day church is, I have heard it, I believed it, they do not act on it.

And James would say, Well, that's a dead faith.

You will experience nothing from that.

That will not do anything for you.

And I think what happens is so many people that I talk to, they experience nothing for their faith, from their faith, and then they go, This doesn't work.

Prayer doesn't work.

Following Jesus doesn't work.

He didn't, I'm not experiencing abundant life with Jesus.

I'm not doing that.

What is what is tithing doing?

Like, I like I what I don't I don't see anything, I don't think this works.

I don't think there's anything here that works.

And the reality is, these people, they are so close to actually experiencing what is actually available to them.

It's just they've heard it and they believed it.

They just have not acted on it, they have not actively put it into their life.

And Jesus, this woman would say to us, like, it's great that you believe you can heal.

But let's go get that healing.

Let's actually go do the thing.

Because right now, I'm still living in my sickness, I'm still living in my illness.

I'm going to get to him.

I'm going to take my belief, put it into my legs and my hands, and I'm going to do what it takes in order to get to him.

If people would actually put their belief into action, you would experience more of what Jesus is showing to this woman here and more of what's available to us in the reality of our faith that exists.

To me, if we had more faith in prayer, we would experience more out of prayer and you'd experience more of your prayers being answered.

If you had more faith in prayer, and the reason is because if you bel if you had a belief and a faith that he actually was going to answer your prayers, that your prayers did move the hand that holds the world, if you believed that with faith, you would begin praying for everything.

And so you would just see more prayers answered.

You would actually begin fasting and praying because some things only come out through through fasting and prayer.

You would actually seek him earnestly because you would believe he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

Believing the Bible, and people say that I believe the Bible.

It's like, do you pray?

And it's like, I not as much.

And it's like, then you then you believe something, but you're not faithing it.

You don't believe it with action.

And to me, if you had if you had faith in prayer, you'd experience more of your prayers actually being answered because it would lead you to seek him and knock and persist consistently over and over and over again.

If we had more faith in God's ability to heal, we'd see more healings in our time and in our day.

Because we'd be praying for it, we'd be asking for it, we'd be seeking it, we'd be walking up to people who are sick in the name of Jesus seeking to heal those people.

If we had faith in it, if we believe he can do it, we'll be like, I believe he can.

I don't know that he will.

But if we had faith in it, we would take that belief and we'd put it into action.

I'm not saying that he would heal everyone.

He didn't do that in the scriptures.

I'm I know that he doesn't necessarily want to do that in this world as well.

But I think the tables have shifted where we don't see any of that and is actually supposed to be seeing some of that.

And so there's this space where it's like, man, if we actually had faith in it, and not just a common everyday church belief, yeah, he can.

It's like if he if we believed that he would, if we had faith in it, we would put that belief into action and we'd see it more.

If we had more faith in God's ability to reconcile relationships, we'd see a lot more reconciliation inside our relationships and in our marriages.

There'd be more marriages and less divorce, especially in the church.

Because our faith would lead us to seek to reconcile.

Our faith in what Jesus has said would lead us to seek to forgive those who've harmed us.

It would lead us to ask for forgiveness from the people that we've harmed.

It would lead us to seek to go, let me, Jesus said I'm supposed to look at the log in my own eye and not the speck in the other person's eye.

And so if reconciliation is possible, maybe that's something I need to put into my practice of life, and I need to do that with the people in my life.

Faith would lead us to act.

And that action would, that action which is belief paired with that action, what it would do is it would ultimately break out into experiencing this is actually something that's true.

It's just not available or going to be seen by people who claim to believe it but don't actually do it.

If we had more faith in the gospel to actually transform lives and save people, we'd be sharing our faith a lot more.

We'd see a lot more salvations.

You'd see those things because it wouldn't just be I believe he can.

It would be I'm actively pursuing that you will.

And I'm gonna put that into my practice, I'm gonna put that into my the people in my life.

It's just this consistent thing where Christians get stuck.

I heard it, I believed it, it was preached, I believe it, and then I do nothing with it, and I experience nothing from it, and then we go, it doesn't work.

And it's a tragedy because it's not supposed to be that way.

G.K.

Chesterton said, Christianity has not been tried and found wanting.

It's been found difficult and left untried.

It's just difficult.

And it is harder.

It's so much easier to be like, I believe that.

I believe that.

It's like, okay, great, you believe that?

Uh you believe that God can save that person?

Yes, I believe that.

Great.

Go over there and share the gospel with them.

It's like, he, honestly, it's just easier to say, I believe it.

It's a lot more difficult to actually step out into that situation and share the gospel of that person.

You believe God can heal that person?

Great.

Go over there and say, in the name of Jesus, be healed.

That's a little bit, I'd rather just pray about it silently by myself.

Like it's just a little bit harder.

And I think there's a space here where it's like GK Chesterton was not wrong.

He's like, it has not been tried and found lacking.

It has just not been it's been found difficult and left untried.

And I think this woman would encourage us and consistently say, what is faith?

It's like, do not just believe it and do nothing with it.

Believe it and then put that into action and do something.

Because her just believing it did nothing in her life.

Nothing.

Until she actually took it and ran with it and did something.

Belief that leads to action.

That's what faith is.

The second thing we see about faith is the type of faith that Jesus does powerful things through.

We see the type of faith that Jesus does powerful things through.

Verse 27 to 29, it says, When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him and touched his cloak because she thought, if I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.

Immediately her bleeding stopped.

This is the type of faith that Jesus does powerful things through.

Some people think, uh, and I'm disagreeing with this, so I apologize, but some people think that this woman has incredibly strong faith.

She has like Old Testament background knowledge on who Jesus is and all that stuff.

Actually, our women just did a study that said that exact same thing, and I went and watched it and read it, and I was like, I don't align with that.

Uh it's fine if you believe it.

I just don't believe that.

I think she had a very weak faith, so sorry about that.

I love it, I love the study.

Uh they just did one, and it's awesome.

The whole study is great.

I'm just I watched it, I read it and I was like, I don't know, I actually think it's something else.

But it's a great study.

And if you believe it, I don't think it's wrong necessarily.

I think there's a lot of value to that.

Um, but at the same time, I just I just think that she didn't have a strong faith.

I think she had a faith that was wit riddled with weakness.

I think there was, and actually that aligns better to me, so maybe that's why I believe it.

Like, I don't have a strong faith, I got a weak one.

But it seems that there's actually more wrong with her and a lot more issues inside her faith than there are strengths.

So let me show you uh just, and if you align with Kelsey in the book study, that's great.

That's awesome.

Um, so this this woman's faith, it was it wasn't purely faith.

It wasn't purely faith.

It may even be a little superstitious.

A little superstition mixed with faith.

And so Mark Strauss says this, he says, her faith seemed to be mixed with a measure of superstition.

She apparently shared the common belief at that time that the power of a person was transmitted to uh to his clothing.

And so she went into the crowd, though she was motivated in part by superstition.

Mark makes it clear in verse 34 that it was her faith, not magic, that produced the healing.

So it's not this pure, like just strong, just piping hot faith.

It was like, it was like, I believe this thing about Jesus that might be more like superstition than anything else.

And yet Jesus still responds to that.

So it's not purely faith.

The second is it's not theologically sound.

She doesn't have like a scholarly background in the Old Testament, all these different things.

One, women didn't primarily have those things at this particular time.

They weren't allowed to sit through synagogue and in some of those spaces.

And so wasn't this theologically sound faith?

Here's what she knew.

I think he has power to heal me.

Like I have a belief in his power.

Do you know about his virgin birth?

Mm-mm.

I don't know anything about that.

Do you know uh anything about his baptism and how the spirit came down as a dove?

No, it wasn't there.

Did not have no idea what you're talking about.

Do you know that he came to remove the sins of the world?

Not at all.

What do you know?

I I know, I've heard that he has power to heal me.

My theological lens ends there.

Like I know that much about Jesus.

I don't know a ton, I just know a little bit, but I know that he has the power to heal me.

So it's not theologically sound.

And then last, her faith actually leads her to a pretty selfish act, which is because she was, according to the Jewish law, she was supposed to not get close to people because anybody she touched would become unclean.

Women, men, whatever, they'd become ceremonially, ritually unclean and be kind of excommunicated for a time until they could be pure again.

Um we know that she feels this way because as soon as she touches Jesus, she runs and hides with great fear because she's thinking that Jesus is gonna come and condemn me.

I did something selfish.

Like he's gonna come up and say, You made me unclean.

Why'd you do that?

Why would you do that?

You know what the law states.

You're supposed to do this.

And so, but she moves forward anyways with a very selfish act of one just for her.

I just want to be healed.

Well, it's gonna cost other people some stuff.

It's gonna make that person unclean and this huge crowd of people, everybody you bump into, unclean, unclean, unclean, unclean.

And you're gonna get to Jesus and you're gonna make him unclean by doing this thing.

And she's like, I don't care, I need this bad enough.

And so her faith leads her even to make a pretty selfish act.

And yet, all of those things, her faith mixed with all of those issues, and the beauty is that God's power still works through this, God's power still responds to this faith.

And again, if you think that, like, no, she was, she had just strong faith, that's fine.

But to me, the good news about it, if it's if it was a really bad, riddled, weak faith, the good news to us is it's like, then that's that then he still responds to weak faith in as much as he responds to strong faith.

Like, well, I don't even know what will happen if I pray.

It's like, I I think that's okay.

If you continue to do it, and you're like, did you have a huge like tons of faith in this prayer that was gonna happen?

Not really.

I just prayed because I know he told me to.

It's like he can work with that.

He can do something with that.

He can use that little bitty faith and he can build something great out of it.

He can work powerfully through it.

D.A.

Carson says it's not the strength of our faith, but the object of our faith that counts.

Jesus does not respond to our prayers or our faith because of its strength.

He doesn't act strongly because of the strength of how much we believe it and how much faith we have.

He doesn't do that.

He responds in strength because he's strong.

And we went to him.

And so the question, what type of faith is Jesus able to work powerfully through?

Any faith, any faith that comes to him.

Bring whatever you got.

Come with the faith that you have.

She came with superstition and some selfishness and some lack of knowledge and just going, genuinely, I don't actually want to know you.

I just need some of that power to break out.

Like that's what she came with.

And she came with that little bitty faith, and she experienced something huge.

And I think for us, again, it's supposed to be good news.

This is supposed to be so encouraging.

I don't know how much sharing the gospel with my family will do.

I don't have a ton of faith that it's going to do a lot because I'm not very good at presenting the gospel.

They're going to ask me questions I don't know the answer to.

I don't have a ton of faith it's going to do a lot.

I can't imagine sharing the gospel with them is going to do a lot, but I'm going to do it anyways in faith that he called me to, and that he said it was powerful, even though it doesn't feel powerful.

He can do a lot through that.

I don't have a ton of faith that loving my enemy and doing good to those who hurt me is going to do anything good for me.

I don't have a ton of faith that it's going to work, but I'm going to do it anyways in faith that he called me to do it.

I don't have a ton of faith that my little tithe is going to do anything big for the kingdom of God, but I'm going to do it anyways.

These few dollars, I'm going to do it anyways, believing that this thing that he called me to do, even though I'm like, what could he possibly do for this?

Powerful things.

He can do powerful things through weak, small, superstitious faith.

Because he can do anything, he can do amazingly powerful things through any faith that ultimately leads you to him, not because you're powerful, but because he is.

And again, it's supposed to be this thing that makes us encouraged to go, what if my prayer request is selfish?

It's like, then just pray it.

Just pray it.

Like all of our prayers are riddled with sin in some way.

They're coming from a sinner.

But like just pray them.

Because he does something in the midst of it, regardless.

It's not the strength of our faith.

It's the one we're actually talking to.

And so for us, it's supposed to be this encouraging thing.

What is the type of faith that I need in order for Jesus to do something mighty in my life?

Any.

Any faith of following him in any way, regardless of what you think it will do.

Ray and I talk about this every now and then when she's sharing the gospel with her class, and she's like, I just struggle to believe that it's going to do anything.

It's like, but you're going to do it though, right?

Like you're going to do that thing.

You're going to share the gospel.

And you're going to present it to them, and you're going to try and make it beautiful and all these different things.

It's like, I just don't, I just don't have a ton of faith that it's going to do anything.

But like, but that doesn't matter.

The amount that you believe it isn't the amount that you receive it.

And so it's a space where we're actually invited into to go, just come with what you have, pray with what you've got, follow him with what you have.

I don't know that following him is actually going to lead me to abundant life, but I'm going to follow him in this area, anyways.

Great.

He will do a lot with that.

All right, that's the second thing.

That's the type of faith that Jesus can work through.

And then third, the outcome of faith.

The outcome of faith.

Verse 30 says, At once Jesus realized that power had gone out of him.

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

And they said, Do you see the people crowding against you?

His disciple answers, Everybody's touching your clothes.

But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it.

And then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet, trembling with fear, and told him the whole truth.

And he said to her, Daughter, Your faith has made you whole.

Go in peace and be free from your suffering.

Two things we see the outcome of faith.

The first is that faith always makes a difference.

Faith will always lead to some difference in your life.

This woman had a different experience than this huge crowd that was surrounding him.

Everybody's touching him, but she is touching him in faith.

She is reaching out to him in faith.

The faith that she has in her life and in her mind and her heart for Jesus allows her to experience a very different experience than every other person touching Jesus.

And so what can faith do?

It will always make a difference in your life.

It will never be a space where it's like, well, I had faith and they didn't.

Our lives are effectively the same.

No, it will make your life different.

And it made her life different.

Everybody's bumping into him.

But she has faith and she experienced something very, very different.

Practicing faith always makes a difference.

And then the second faith is always better.

Faith leads us, leads us to a space that was always better than we thought it would be.

Faith always leads us to a space that's better than we thought it would be.

Here's what she wanted.

I want healing.

That's it.

She didn't want wholeness.

She didn't want any of that.

I just want to feel better.

She just wants to get brought back into the community.

She just wants to be rid of her suffering.

And yet this faith that she enters into this space with Jesus.

And Jesus doesn't just give her healing, but he says, You haven't just been healed, you've been made whole.

And then he does this thing in her life where he like pursues her, not to condemn her, which is what she thinks he's going to do.

He pursues her to state to the world, not just to her, but to state to the community, this huge crowd of people, this woman has been cleansed.

And so what he's trying to do is not just, hey, there's your healing, now get out of here.

He's like, I actually want everybody to know that you're cleansed.

I want everybody to know that now you can be invited back into the synagogue.

You can be invited back into community.

I don't want to just heal you.

I want to repair your life.

I want to repair it in every way that it's broken.

Every single thing that's been stolen from you.

I want to have this space with you.

And so for her, she had faith to be healed.

And Jesus is like, I can one up that.

I can do a lot more than that.

He didn't scold her, he didn't do any of those things.

Then he calls her a child.

She's probably not felt like a child of God for years.

She's probably felt abandoned by God.

It's been 12 years of praying and asking and nothing.

12 years of not being connected to God, feeling forgotten by she can't even go to the synagogue.

She can't hear the scriptures preached.

She probably feels very disconnected from God, and Jesus calls her daughter to let her know, like, you're still his kid.

He has not forgotten you.

And so it's this space it's like, what did faith do?

Well, it clearly made a huge difference in her life, and it was better than she thought it would be.

Because he doesn't just heal her, he brings her back into the space and he makes her whole.

Faith in Jesus will always make a difference in your life.

Faith in Jesus will always lead you into a space and into a scenario that is better than you think it was going to be.

I think if I follow him in this, it'll probably be X.

We love predicting the future, even though the scriptures say that we shouldn't.

And it's like, it will be better than you think.

Because faith in him always leads us to a space where it's like, now I have control of your life, and what I do is far more, immeasurably greater than anything you can possibly think, imagine, or ask for.

I can do more.

And so faith leads us into his presence, into this space where it's like, now you get to do what you do, and what you do is just better.

And so faith always makes a difference.

It's always better than we think.

And so if you ask, what will happen if I shift from just a southern Christian belief that prayer does something?

If I shift from that to faith in prayer, it will make a huge difference in your life and it will lead you into a space where you experience something better than you thought it would be if you make that shift.

What will happen if I shift from thinking that he cares for me or believing that he will provide for me to actively giving him my money, actively giving him my time, actively giving him my resources?

What will happen?

It will make a huge difference in your life and in the lives of other people around you, and it will lead you into a space that's better than you think it would be.

Because what we think is if I give my money, then I'm not gonna have that money to spend on my stuff, and I won't be fulfilled.

And he's going, it works the other way.

I will lead you into greater fulfillment than money can buy.

Money can buy you this life, and I can lead you into abundant life.

I'm just telling, like, this is what's available in us.

What will happen if I shift from a belief that God can heal my marriage to an active faith of pursuing those things and actually seeking to honor her and honor him above them and submitting to him and loving her as Christ loved the church, what will happen?

It will make your marriage better and it will lead you into something, it will it will make a huge difference in your marriage, and it will lead to something better than you thought it would be.

It will consistently do those things.

Any step of faith with him, he will make a difference in your life, and it will lead you to something better.

And so my encouragement to you is to shift next slide here, to shift from belief to faith.

To actually have this space where it's not just this thing that I say, but it's actually this faith paired with works, as James says it.

It's belief put into action.

This woman experienced no difference, no difference at all.

When she just believed what she heard, she experienced everything different.

When she actually took that belief and put it into practice.

And so, for you, do you believe that he knows how to lead your life better than you?

Do you believe that he knows how to lead your life better than you do, that he can do a better job?

Then I would say put that belief into action and actually begin doing the things that he says to do, even though they go against the things that you naturally want to do.

Stop doing the things that he says, don't do those things, and actually listen to him instead of doing the thing that you think it's like, no, this will lead me to fulfillment.

If you actually believe it, that he will do more with your life than you can do with your life, that's fine to believe it.

But it's in putting that into action, that belief into action, that will actually lead you to experiencing the life that he has for you, and not just claiming to believe a Christianity and actually leaving it untried.

Do you believe he can heal?

Do you believe he can save?

Then shift from just believing that to actively pursuing that and putting that belief into your life, putting that belief to action.

Do you believe he rewards those who earnestly seek him, as the writer of Hebrews says?

Great.

Yes, I believe that.

Cool.

Earnestly seek him, put that into practice.

And then the rewards will come to those who earnestly seek him.

Even if your faith isn't strong and you have doubts, questions, even if you're just praying and going, I'm genuinely, I just want something for myself.

I'm just asking this for myself.

It's a selfish request.

Fine.

He still responds to that kind of faith, any faith that comes to him.

I promise you, if you can believe me, it will lead to a difference.

It will lead to something better than you think.

And I think this woman's testimony and her story would actually reference that to us.

Like there is something here, and this faith is different than what we think that it is.

It it is not simply just believing a thing and saying you believe a thing.

It is belief paired with action that makes the difference.

And I don't want Christians who say none of this works.

It's too difficult, it's too, there's too much, and it's gonna get more difficult.

There's just too many things that are gonna lead us into a space where I just believe it, but I don't experience anything from it.

Ask, just read the New Testament.

I mean, like, anybody, there's never that testimony in the scriptures doesn't exist.

I belie I honestly I believed a lot.

I just followed Jesus, but I didn't experience anything from it.

All of them experienced something awesome and amazing from this connection and this life with this living Savior who death can't kill.

Like, I mean, all of them had this space.

This category of cultural Christianity where it's become this thing where it's like it's just what I do, but I don't experience anything from it.

It's just a bunch of rules and regulations, but I don't experience anything from it.

That's us.

We created that.

But the scriptures never do.

There's this active experience with him where he like actually wants to engage with our lives, but it doesn't come with believing it's possible.

It's actually taking that belief and putting it into action.

And so for us, faith is never misplaced.

As the psalmist says, um, I will never be put to shame.

I will never feel bad for having trusted in him, ever.

And I think that's the space that he's calling us into.

And I think the one one would say the same thing.

I had faith in him, and I looked like an idiot running through the crowd, and I looked very selfish running through the crowd.

But I'm telling you, it did far more in my life than what everybody else was experiencing because I I put my belief to in action.

I didn't just believe it and stay there.

So let's do that together.

Lord Jesus.

I pray that you would um help us, Lord, that you would actually stir um these these beliefs, these these ancient beliefs that we have in you, these things that we claim to believe, that we would actually, as Chesterton said, that we'd actually try them.

We'd actually put them into our lives.

Lord, many times it just feels like there's a space where it's like, I just not experiencing a lot with you.

And Lord, I think that's so common in the church and it's not supposed to be.

And so, God, I just pray that you would help us to shift from just a said belief to an active belief, putting it into our lives so that we experience what you have for us.

You're calling us into that space.

God, I pray that we follow you there in Jesus' name.

Amen.

We're gonna take communion, and um one of the things that um communion does, I mean, every week, is again just a reminder of the beauty of Jesus.

Um Jesus had this time in this woman's life where uh he's looking for her, and he could have, he knows everybody in the crowd now will know that she's unclean and will think that he's unclean as well, because he's gonna make it public to everybody.

He's gonna let everybody know this unclean woman has just touched me.

Um and so he has this space where he could just let her go, and then no one in the crowd will see, will think, well, if she's unclean, she touched you, certainly you're unclean.

Um, but the beauty is that Jesus doesn't mind being identified with our uncleanness.

He's like, I don't care.

They can think about me whatever they want.

And so communion reminds us that he clearly doesn't mind that because he was willing to be identified with our sin.

The scriptures say that he became our sin so that we could become his righteousness, and so that we could have those things.

And so you see it with this woman, and you see it hopefully every week as we take communion.

Communion is a reminder.

He is not ashamed of us.

He is not, our sin doesn't keep us from him.

And so if you're thinking it's like, man, I don't know what he thinks about me, I'm not totally sure if he's gonna hear my prayers.

I'm not my prayers are filled with sin, or I had a bad week of sin.

I don't know that he wants to listen to me or gonna do anything in my life.

He loves being identified with sinners.

And he was so in love with that idea that he was willing to actually have sin replace his righteousness so that what could replace our sin was his righteousness.

And so for us, we get to celebrate.

Does my sin keep me from him?

No.

Because he took it on himself in order to actually give us cleanness, to give us righteousness.

So take some time in your seats.

I encourage you just to, again, thank him for that.

Have a space in your journey with him where you ask him, what am I believing but not actively believing?

What am I believing but I don't have faith in?

And where do you want me to actually practice belief in you?

Because I don't think anybody wants a boring faith.

If you do, I'm just telling you, it's probably in the church for you moving forward, y'all.

Because I just I just cannot do that.

This is way too costly to do something like that.

And so we're gonna aim, the vision of this church is to practice the way of Jesus because that's the only way that you experience the fullness of what's available to you.

It's in discipleship with Him, walking with Him.

And so my encouragement to you is to ask where is belief there, but action not there?

Where are you calling me to follow you so that I experience the life that you have for me?

And then come and take communion.