Sermon

“Your Faith Has Healed You” | Luke 8:40–48

The Bible Guys

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  1. You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a

  2. couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun, in

  3. practical ways. Oh, good morning, good morning. We talk the

  4. whole night do good morning, Good morning to you and

  5. you and you.

  6. Man, that was it right there. I was just caught

  7. off guard.

  8. Yeah, well, you know, that's what I like to do, Jeff.

  9. I like to surprise people everybody. And it's been a while,

  10. it's been listen, it's a while. Well, it's it's only Tuesday,

  11. I know. Yeah, and I've been doing it lately on Tuesday.

  12. Did you catch it?

  13. Yeah?

  14. Yeah, yeah, Tuesday is my favorite good morning.

  15. Day, good morning.

  16. Yeah, who knows, Maybe I'll throw another good Morning before

  17. the end of the week.

  18. Wild So wow, you just Willy Nelly with his his

  19. Jeff I eat wild cherry life savers.

  20. That's how I roll. Hey, welcome to the Bible Guys.

  21. We are Chris and Jeff and we are going to

  22. start out our segment today with a dad joke compety.

  23. These are great. I haven't seen these.

  24. I have not looked at these.

  25. Desiree always chooses these for us, Yes, and so we're

  26. gonna love them. It's probably because of our delivery.

  27. It's all about us.

  28. It's all about well, we didn't choose them.

  29. That's so funny. Hey, so we're gonna vote who is

  30. the better batch?

  31. Okay, okay, better batch?

  32. Yeah, the better batch.

  33. So I have five? Do you have five?

  34. I have five?

  35. Okay, you want to start? What part of the body

  36. always loses? Defeat?

  37. Oh? I actually like it.

  38. I like that. I like that, And I didn't defeat

  39. about it too long because you would have found this.

  40. Okay, how about this one? My daughter was doing history

  41. homework and asked if I knew about Galileo. I said

  42. he was a poor boy from a poor family.

  43. Galileo.

  44. Go oh, I'm just a poolivode from four family. Okay, there,

  45. that's a good one.

  46. Yes, yeah, okay. I'm at the airport and there's a

  47. woman who's completely passed out on the baggage carousel. Oh,

  48. she's slowly coming around. Now.

  49. I like that one a lot.

  50. Okay, that's a good one. I'm two for two. I'm

  51. like Okay.

  52. I told the nurse I was bitten by a wolf.

  53. Where she asked, I answered, no, regular.

  54. What what read it? Again?

  55. I told the nurse I was bitten by a wolf where,

  56. she asked.

  57. A were wolf? No, just a regular wolf. So where? No,

  58. just a regular.

  59. Oh so it's all in the delivery.

  60. Of that was where he tried again.

  61. Only now I told the nurse I was bitten by

  62. a wolf where? But see it changes. She wouldn't be

  63. asking where, she'd say where. Okay, boo, No, I hate it. Okay,

  64. as you don't, I have crossed over to hate it.

  65. I hate number three. I'm starting a flight company exclusively

  66. for bald people. It's going to be called Receding Airlines.

  67. Okay, you are three for three. I like it.

  68. I like that one. I like airlines.

  69. And I'm i'm I'm like, I'm like a half Okay,

  70. here we go. A hacker just called and said he

  71. has all my passwords. I jumped up, grabbed a pen

  72. and paper and said, thank goodness, what are they good?

  73. I like that one. That's not sorry, that's me. Okay, okay.

  74. Number four, yep, this is a scientific one. So you

  75. have to track with me on this one. Okay. A

  76. dragon would never explode, but a dino mite.

  77. Oh my goodness, you are banging all that cylinders. Yes,

  78. I love it, I love it. Yep, all right here

  79. we go. Stephen King has a son named Joe. I'm

  80. not joking, but he is.

  81. Joking.

  82. Oh the joke King.

  83. I can't believe you.

  84. They give it.

  85. That's fantastic.

  86. I a good one.

  87. Okay, I'm not joking, but he is.

  88. Okay, all right, you like it? You like it?

  89. That was a good one. Yeah, ok for you're at

  90. least at like one and a half.

  91. Okay, I'm one and a half. You're you're four for four.

  92. Okay, here's the last one. I's see, what do you

  93. call a security guard working out outside Samsung shops?

  94. What?

  95. Guardians of the Galaxy?

  96. Okay, I love it like, I love it?

  97. Ye, Samsung Galaxy.

  98. Yes the phone, Yeah, yes, I love it. I think

  99. it's great. Guardians of the Galaxy.

  100. Galaxy.

  101. It's it's great.

  102. Except it's a little off. It needed to see what

  103. would you call some security guards working outside Samsung shops

  104. because it's guardians not guardian.

  105. Yeah yeah, yeah, okay, so little tweaking, but it's words matter.

  106. Yeah, it's a little Yeah. That's all right. My last one,

  107. I feel like I'm five for five.

  108. How does an Englishman invite a dinosaur for lunch?

  109. I don't know.

  110. T Rex. No, Okay, I get it, I get that one.

  111. I think she I just.

  112. Didn't like it. Do you think so?

  113. Do you think so she's like forget one? Said Jeff.

  114. Yeah, well you know what, Actually I don't. I don't.

  115. I don't doubt that.

  116. No, I don't put that past desiree wow conspiracy now, No.

  117. No, no, it's actually that's a compliment to her, because no,

  118. it's it's not about you, Jeff. It's about it's about

  119. knowing that that's what we were going to do, is vote.

  120. And she's like, what if I stacked one stack one?

  121. She happened to choose you, not on purpose, just because

  122. she had to choose somebody.

  123. Whatever. You have to tell yourself.

  124. All right, well that was wonderful.

  125. Okay, I loved it. I'm gonna I'm going to declare

  126. myself the winner.

  127. I'm going to immediately I share all five of your

  128. jokes with my daughter, who loves them, and I am

  129. going to share none of mine. None, or I might

  130. just do it just to show her how bad mine are. Okay, Yeah, okay,

  131. is great.

  132. That's a good one.

  133. Yeah, okay, so hey we're gonna go Hey, speaking of

  134. explosive stories, Wow, Wow.

  135. I don't know. I can't. I can't get there, man.

  136. Okay, how do you get there? Well, I know it's

  137. as good as anything, to be honest with you. Speaking

  138. of explosive stories, I was going to say that, but

  139. mine was even worse. Mine was even worse.

  140. I was going to say something like, you're talking about

  141. the lady that's slowly coming around.

  142. I was gonna say. I was going to say, my

  143. jokes were deaf, and your jokes were healing. And speaking

  144. of which, there was a woman who was on her

  145. way to death until she met Jesus, and now she's healed.

  146. That's so good. Ah. So in Matthew chapter I'm sorry, Luke, Luke,

  147. chapter eight, we're going to be reading verses forty through

  148. forty eight.

  149. Yeah, just eight verses here.

  150. Yeah, And it says on the other side of the

  151. lake the crowd Jesus is always going to the other

  152. side of lake. Wherever he's at, he's heading to the

  153. other ties, always on the other side of the lake.

  154. The crowds welcomed Jesus because they had been waiting for him.

  155. And then a man named Jerius, a leader of the

  156. local synagogue, came and fell at Jesus' feet, pleading with

  157. him to come home with him. His only daughter, who

  158. was about twelve years old, was dying. As Jesus went

  159. with him, he was surrounded by the crowds. A woman

  160. in the crowd had suffered for twelve years with constant

  161. bleeding and she could find no cure. Coming up behind Jesus,

  162. she touched the fringe of his robe, and immediately the

  163. bleeding stopped. Who touched me, Jesus asked. Everyone denied it.

  164. Peter said, Master, this whole crowd's pressing up against you.

  165. But Jesus said, someone deliberately touched me, for I felt

  166. healing power go out from me. When the woman realized

  167. that she could not stay hidden, and she began to

  168. tremble and fell to her knees in front of him,

  169. and the whole crowd heard her explain and why she

  170. had touched him, and that she had been immediately healed daughter.

  171. He said to her, your faith has been made you

  172. well go in peace, and while he was still speak Oops,

  173. that's it. I can't I can't read the next one.

  174. Oh that's a cliffhanger, I know.

  175. But we got to leave it there because we're going

  176. to come back and address it later.

  177. Oh, I see, so's it's going to be the rest

  178. of the story, hopefully, Okay, hopefully Luke chapter eight.

  179. Yeah, what Desiree told us was four through forty eight,

  180. so I'm not supposed to be reading forty nine.

  181. Okay, okay, okay, Oh, I'll start giving you bad jokes, right,

  182. but of them. But we but we learned the first

  183. half of a story. This guy named was it Gyros

  184. or is it Jerrus? Ah, whatever you want to say,

  185. because in the Chosen his name's Gyros Gyrius.

  186. Okay, let's say Gyrus.

  187. Okay, but Rus, which, by the way, it's it's one

  188. of my favorite moments. I'm not even kidding. It's one

  189. of my favorite moments in all of the Chosen Gyrus.

  190. It's it's so good.

  191. But this little girl is sick.

  192. Well, it's it's the way that they developed this character. Right,

  193. So anyway, let's not talk about him, because apparently we can't. Right,

  194. it's all about the woman who touched the robe.

  195. Jesus is on his way to go try to heal

  196. Gyrus's daughter, correct, she's sick, and.

  197. On the way he gets distracted, Yes, because a woman

  198. and this is the same woman, by the way, who

  199. had a bleeding. This is the woman who had the

  200. blood disease. And so she touched him and all of

  201. a sudden, he says, I felt healing power go out

  202. from me, which which, by the way, You know how

  203. we always have these debates. I don't know about always,

  204. but we've had debates before about Remember I told you

  205. that my professor was talking about the whether Jesus knew

  206. that the woman was in Samaria.

  207. Remember that.

  208. And it was a big debate in my Bible college

  209. in the class where Professor Pratt said, oh, Jesus just

  210. wanted to cut through Samaria because it was a shorter route,

  211. and he was trying to make a statement about politics.

  212. But it says I must go through Samaria. And so

  213. the other people in the class said, well, no, he

  214. knew that this woman was going to be there from

  215. his Jesus powers, right, And I'm saying this powers, yeah,

  216. I'm saying a tongue in cheek. And then and and

  217. what you said, as you said, I believe that Jesus

  218. relied on the Holy Spirit in the same way that

  219. you and I are capable of relying on the Holy

  220. Spirit today.

  221. Yeah, yeah, I believe that he was. There's a doctrinal terminology.

  222. I'm going to get into that, but there's a doctrinal

  223. idea that because of his incarnation, he chose to limit

  224. his deity. Not that he wasn't fully God, It's just

  225. he wasn't God everywhere. Right, So the omnipresence, the omniscience,

  226. the omnipotence, those things he chose to restrict in order

  227. to fully function as a human. So then everything he did,

  228. the only way he could do what he did was

  229. as the model man for every Christian, every christ follower,

  230. that he than the power of the Holy Spirit. So

  231. you can say, greater things you'll do than I did?

  232. Right? Right? Yes, So then how do you explain? So

  233. then how do you explain I felt Jesus powers.

  234. Like healing powers go from me. Yeah, right, because that's

  235. what he says. He says, Uh, I felt the healing

  236. power go out for me.

  237. Yeah, So so number one, the healing comes from Jesus,

  238. right and uh? And so yes, do we have the

  239. ability to pray over somebody through the power of the

  240. Holy Spirit and then for good to do miracles?

  241. And he'll how many people in the in the Bible

  242. have do miracle.

  243. No, I'm supporting this statement, Peter, I'm saying I'm saying,

  244. I'm saying that we do too, es right, So I

  245. believe that now you know whether or not a person

  246. has a gift of healing. I'm I'm still on the

  247. you know, fence about whether that he still he still

  248. throws out these gifts. I believe, I believe he does.

  249. I think he does too. But uh, you know, I'm

  250. a skeptic at nature by nature, right, So, but I

  251. believe one hundred percent that a person has the ability

  252. today to pray over somebody and for God to use

  253. them to heal somebody one hundred percent. But that still

  254. doesn't explain Jesus's comment about he felt healing powers go

  255. out from him, Because if Jesus was more like us

  256. in that moment, one hundred percent man relying on the

  257. Holy Spirit, do we feel healing power coming out of us?

  258. The answer is no, How do you know? Come on,

  259. how do you know? Well, first of all, I've prayed

  260. where somebody's been healed. Yeah, I didn't. I didn't feel

  261. any healing POWERA economy.

  262. Well, maybe you didn't have a lot of excess power yet.

  263. But by the way, did I did I my son

  264. maybe like Jesus had so much.

  265. Probably like my son.

  266. Who listens every day Stephen on his way to work,

  267. he actually tells me, he goes Chris or Dad, you

  268. need to go into hospitals and pray over people more,

  269. because uh, I did this recently in the last like

  270. five years, where I've gone into a hospital and I've

  271. prayed over somebody and laid my hands on them, and

  272. then coincidentally they were heading in one direction, and then

  273. almost miraculously, the next day, the doctors come in and say,

  274. I don't understand why, but you've taken a turn. And

  275. I'm not kidding like like and I'm not and I'm

  276. not saying it's me and I'm not saying you know

  277. that that I have these you know, the gift of healing.

  278. I am just saying that is what happened, right, And

  279. And in one case, one guy was dying and they

  280. had him on hospice and then all of a sudden

  281. he's back and he attends Heritage Church by the way,

  282. and and and then one guy. Anyway, it doesn't matter.

  283. The point is is that I feel like that's happened

  284. to me, I feel like I have you know, God

  285. has used me in that way, and and I'm like, wow,

  286. that's pretty incredible. But but the idea that Jesus was

  287. exactly like you and exactly like me, and we can

  288. you know, operating exactly like him. Statements like this say,

  289. wait a minute, he had an indifferent.

  290. No doubt with the amount of time that he would

  291. spend with his father, right that he would be deeply

  292. in tuned with the spiritual. And I think we wade

  293. into the spiritual and back out of the spiritual often,

  294. so maybe we're not as in tune with these things

  295. as Jesus was. But yeah, don't I don't think that

  296. this negates the concept.

  297. Yeah, I think I think I'm on the I think

  298. I'm on just on the other side of where you are.

  299. Whereas like, it feels good to me to say and

  300. believe that Jesus was in some ways. What you're saying

  301. is Jesus limited himself to be exactly like us. He

  302. wasn't exactly like us, but you're saying in terms of

  303. like his abilities, right, Like that feels good because that

  304. then puts us on the same level as him. And

  305. you're saying if he says, well, the only way he

  306. can say you will do greater things than I am

  307. that then I is because of that. Whereas like I'm

  308. just thinking, like, does it though, does he have to

  309. be exactly like us in order for him to make

  310. that statement, because he could. He could be making that

  311. statement by saying, through the power of the Holy Spirit,

  312. you can do greater things.

  313. Than calling you a heretic. But you walk a really

  314. fine line when you minimize his humanity. Sure, right, I'm

  315. not minimizing his deity, for sure, I know that. Right,

  316. So I'm not minimizing his deity, but we can't minimize

  317. his humanity. He was fully God and fully man, and

  318. so in that case, then if he was fully man.

  319. So here's what I find. I do find this to

  320. be true, Chris, And I'm not saying this is true

  321. about you. I do find a significant number of Christians

  322. who go, well, he did it because he was God.

  323. Also tell me that since they're not Jesus, they also

  324. can't be people of peace. And they also well, you know,

  325. I just have a temper. I'm not Jesus, and they

  326. start excusing so many of their behaviors. Yeah, but that

  327. sounds just misapplications. Well, it happens a lot though, where

  328. people just kind of go, I don't have as important

  329. of a mission. I don't have it, whereas I think

  330. Jesus came to seek and to save that which was lost,

  331. and that is our mission, and it's everybody is important,

  332. our part as his. The difference is we're not dying

  333. on the cross and resurrecting right.

  334. Yes, that that part of it.

  335. So we are not because it's not we're not sinless,

  336. but all the rest of what Jesus did, I think

  337. that we're expected to do that. We're supposed to be

  338. like him all the time, not some of the time.

  339. And we shouldn't let ourselves off the hook when we

  340. when we you know, mess up, or when we when

  341. we fall short. We shouldn't let ourselves off the hook

  342. because we're not God. And I think that that's why

  343. Jesus functioned one hundred percent as a man in the

  344. power of the Holy Spirit, rather than leveraging Hisah, his God,

  345. you know, God had his deity for it.

  346. So my response to that would be that just sounds

  347. like a big misapplication that people use as an excuse.

  348. Right, what happens all the time yeah, of course it does.

  349. Of course it does. But then if you go down

  350. that route, then it almost sounds like what we want

  351. to do is we want to conform our theological opinion

  352. so that we don't have excuses. So it's like, so

  353. there's a big difference between a theological statement because I

  354. often wonder and so I love it. I'm okay, I'm

  355. okay with the mystery of God. Right, So that's the

  356. true definition of a postmodern Christian who says, hey, we

  357. embrace the mystery of God. So I'm not I certainly

  358. don't think that that theory undermines his deity, and I

  359. certainly don't think that the other way undermindes his humanity

  360. at all. Even what I just said, it doesn't undermine

  361. his humanity. Well, I guess what I'm saying is, I

  362. don't think anybody knows. That's my statement. I don't think

  363. anybody knows how much he limited himself. And I don't

  364. think anybody understands like what he knew and didn't know.

  365. Because when I when I really truly, because I think

  366. about this a lot, and I thought, by.

  367. The way, yeah, I've thought about it comes up every

  368. time we come across these life.

  369. I thought about it a lot because of doctor Pratt, Yeah, honestly,

  370. And when he brought that debate up, and I'm there

  371. in the front row, and I made myself sit in

  372. the front row because he was super boring. But yes,

  373. and so I did it on purpose, and so I

  374. was forced to really pay attention. And I felt like

  375. I was engaged because he was so smart. He was

  376. just so dry, but I loved him, and I and

  377. I remember this debate and I'm thinking to myself, Wow,

  378. doctor Pratt really believes that. And and listening to all

  379. of these pastors kids, you know, spout out of everything,

  380. and I thought to myself, I wonder how it is.

  381. And so every time I read the Gospels, which has

  382. been my entire Christian life, I've thought about this, and

  383. I've thought about all the evidence, and I'm piecing it together,

  384. and I just think that there's evidence that he had

  385. more Jesus powers than we do walking around.

  386. Sure, So in Hebrews, the Bible says that Jesus was

  387. tempted in every way like we are, and yet he

  388. sinned not. So I don't know that there's anything more

  389. human than temptation, right, So I think that the phrase

  390. in every way really highlights the humanity side of what

  391. he's about. And then it's not hard logically if you

  392. just kind of follow it. Logically, he's not everywhere. He

  393. has to tap into the power of the Father. He

  394. has to be filled with the spirit right in order

  395. to do the things he does, which means he limited

  396. himself to even come and live in one body in

  397. one time and place. He's a creator from outside of

  398. time and space, limit all those things. He chose to

  399. limit himself, not some completely into a human body, uh,

  400. and then lived as a as a sinless man. And

  401. that's why we're without excuse, completely and totally without and

  402. Romans tells us where without Hebrews tells us in every

  403. way even as we are. And so this is why

  404. his sacrifice was one hundred percent sufficient for humanity. It's

  405. not because he had his Jesus powers to forgive our sins,

  406. but because he was one hundred percent man who lived

  407. a sinless life, didn't owe the death, and paid it

  408. anyways with his blood, and so that would be it.

  409. Now the other side is he was absolutely one hundred

  410. percent God. And there's that tension that we lived between

  411. the two.

  412. Yeah, I think I can still believe that he has

  413. one hundred percent of humanity and still believe that he

  414. had more.

  415. But anyways, he does recognize this. I love the fact

  416. that Jesus was on mission. This man comes and says, hey,

  417. would you come and hear my daughter? She's about to die.

  418. She just goes, yeah, sure, crowds are crazy. Well, we've

  419. already addressed why the crowds are crazy. Remember Jesus sent

  420. seventy people ahead of him, the seventy disciples, to go

  421. into every village he's about ready to go to. The

  422. crowds were huge because Jesus built the crowds to be big, right,

  423. That's what happened.

  424. And you know, incredible intentionality on purpose.

  425. Because a big crowd doesn't make a church, but man,

  426. you can make a church out of the crowd, right.

  427. And so he's getting exposured as many people as possible.

  428. But now the crowds are so big, he's having trouble

  429. navigating these little narrow streets getting to Cyrus's house. And

  430. then this woman touches him. The reality is Peter's right, Jesus,

  431. what are you talking about? Everybody's touching you right, right?

  432. Did you think that there was ever another time that

  433. maybe somebody reached out touched Jesus and got healed. Bible

  434. doesn't say it didn't happen. It's just this moment Jesus

  435. decided to pause, and this woman was worth his time

  436. and worth it. So her having this perpetual bleeding made

  437. her perpetually unclean for all these years. And when you

  438. are ceremonially unclean, you're technically not allowed to have physical

  439. contact with anybody of any kind.

  440. Let alone a rabbi.

  441. Right, and so the isolation, the shame, the lack of

  442. human contact. So her sneaking into a crowd, she shouldn't have.

  443. Then in that crowd, technically she made everybody else unclean

  444. that she touched.

  445. Now, is this the fall in the same category as

  446. the gentiles. If a gentile touched you, you'd have to

  447. make yourself ritually clean seven days.

  448. Yeah, it depends on what this issue of blood was.

  449. But there were multiple cleansing processes for being exposed to

  450. somebody who has you know, being exposed to blood.

  451. Yeah, isn't that crazy?

  452. Yeah? Yeah, So it's a health thing. That's why God

  453. gave those rules. But you know, it was a very

  454. deep part of their religion. So because it's technically she's

  455. making others unclean going into this crowd, she shouldn't have

  456. been there, right, So the humility probably the shame she

  457. was carrying. And then she knew what she was doing,

  458. and I think that's why Jesus turned around. She sneaks out.

  459. She touches just the hem of his garment because she's

  460. tried everything. There's you know, the Bible says she'd gone

  461. to all these doctors, she'd done all these other things.

  462. Well, another gospel version tells us what she's thinking. Yeah,

  463. another gospel says, record, if I can just tell you,

  464. if I can just touch the hem of his garment,

  465. I'll be healed. And by the way, Jesus doesn't announce that.

  466. He doesn't say, hey, even the hem of my garment

  467. has Jesus powers, right, right, he doesn't say that, right,

  468. But she says she has so much faith and her

  469. faith is great. Right. So I've honestly, we've talked about

  470. this before, but it's not necessarily the quantity of her faith.

  471. But when Jesus said little faith, he's meaning little quantity

  472. quality of faith, right, right, right, you have little quality

  473. of faith and so her faith is great.

  474. And so I love the fact that he pauses this

  475. rescue mission for this little girl, because this woman is

  476. so important, this woman who probably felt like she didn't

  477. even deserve to be there. It's why she snuck up

  478. on it. Jyrus was a leader of the synagogue. He's

  479. accustomed to power. He's accustomed to influence. He's accustomed to

  480. snapping his fingers and people coming and doing what he

  481. needed to do. He's accustomed to when other powerful people

  482. in town, he greets them and says, hey, powerful man,

  483. this is what I need you to do for me

  484. right now, right So, now he's got a problem, and

  485. you do this. I do this. Sometimes you think I've

  486. got a problem, who do I call? Well, we know

  487. so many people. We us know somebody to solve our

  488. problem for us. This is what he's Okay. My daughter said, Hey,

  489. that Jesus guy, is he in town. Let's go get him, right,

  490. this is what he deserves to go see Jesus. And

  491. Jesus responds and starts head enough to go heal him.

  492. This woman would have been exactly the opposite. She's not

  493. even allowed in the synagogues. She's not allowed in these crowds.

  494. She's ashamed, probably of this, this this physical issue she has.

  495. She probably you know, people who perpetually believe that there's

  496. going to be a smell all these things, right, everything

  497. that would go along with the embarrassment of her situation.

  498. And she pushes into the crowd. And while Jesus was

  499. giving respect to Gyrous, he decides to pause Gyrous' miracle

  500. to turn around and give respect and an acknowledgment of

  501. this woman. And I love it. I love Jesus heart

  502. in this moment that she's every bit is important as

  503. this important guy.

  504. That's great and I love it. So that's awesome. That's

  505. another great learning right there. All right, well, that's our time,

  506. so hopefully we will see you tomorrow. I'll the Bible

  507. gas h