Welcome once again to another edition of the Weekend Sermon. Thank you for reading the blog. It is good to be with you this week.
I had a busy and eventful week this past week. At my new job, I was required to pass several exams in order to receive the licensing that I needed. The tests were difficult, but I thank the Lord that I was able to pass. We also started more training this week. Monday, I have to start implementing the training into the job. I am not very comfortable about this at this point because I don't feel as if I have mastery of all the material. I will do my best, and I will pray for the Lord's help. Please pray for me that I will be able to do a good job on all of this.
I have a couple of things I want to thank the Lord Jesus for this week. I thank Jesus for the fact that He has let me have a good job. I am also thankful that I passed the examinations. I also prayed that the Lord would heal the pain in my foot, and the pain in completely gone. Praise be unto the Lord.
In your prayer time this week, please pray for peace in the world. Let us focus our prayers on Ukraine where strife continues. Also pray for the release of those being held hostage by the Islamic extremists in the Middle East.
Over the past several weeks, we have been in a series about the kings of Israel and Judah. That series of messages concluded last week. This week we will study a miracle performed by the Lord Jesus.
One day, as Jesus was going about His ministry of teaching the people, a man named Jairus came to Jesus asking Jesus to come and heal his daughter who was sick unto death. Jesus said that He would come with Jairus to heal his daughter, and the multitudes followed the Lord.
As the Lord was traveling to Jairus' home, a woman with an issue of blood came and touched the hem of Jesus garment. She thought that if she could just touch Jesus' clothes that she would be healed of the problem that had trouble her for years. She had been to many physicians and spent all her money, yet she was still suffering with her affliction.
When this woman touched Jesus' garment, she was instantly healed. Jesus felt healing power flow out of Him when the woman touched Him. Jesus stopped, turned and asked who had touched Him.
Peter said that with all of the people that were thronging around, how could they possibly know who had touched Jesus. Jesus was determined to know who had touched Him.
At this point, the woman though she was trembling with fear, identified herself to the Lord. Jesus said to her, "Daughter, be of good comfort: thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace."
Jesus then went on His way to Jairus' house. When He arrived, the girl was already dead, but Jesus raised the girl from death unto life.
I don't want to focus on the miracle of Jairus' daughter in our message today. That message will have to wait for another week. Instead, I want to focus on what we can learn from Jesus' healing of the woman with the issue of blood. When we really delve the depths of this miracle, we will see the profound depths of what happened on this day when our Lord walked the earth.
The Bible does not say what particular health condition afflicted this woman. Obviously, it was a type of menorrhagia, but the cause is not revealed. The physicians of Jesus day certainly had no clue as to how to help the woman.
What made this woman's situation even worse than just the physical problem was the fact that according to the religious beliefs of the day, this woman would have been considered unclean and anything and anyone she touched would have been considered unclean. She would not have been allowed in the synagogue or in the Temple. She would have been excluded and rejected for years.
This is the reason that the woman didn't want Jesus to know that she had touched Him. She feared that a rabbi of Jesus' stature would be angry that a woman in her condition had touched and defiled Him.
Of course, Jesus wasn't angry with the woman at all. He called her daughter, and recognized her great faith.
So what can we learn from this miracle to help us in our day and age. First of all, this miracle demonstrates that Jesus did not consider anyone to be unclean or unworthy of His love and acceptance. The religious leaders of Jesus' day excluded people. They felt as if those who were sick, disabled, unclean or in certain professions were under the judgment of God. They didn't measure up and God didn't want them. The religious leaders excluded the people who they thought were sinners, impure and unworthy.
Jesus didn't feel this way, and this was one of the reasons that Jesus had many clashes with the religious leaders of His day. Jesus ate with tax collectors and sinners. Jesus touched and healed the unclean lepers and people like this woman with the issue of blood. Jesus expressed His love to everyone, and Jesus said that anyone could come to Him and receive His love and acceptance.
Sadly, the church often acts more like the religious leaders of Jesus' day and not like Jesus. They exclude people and heap condemnation on people. Often, those who know that they are sinners are made to feel as if there is no hope for them based on the way they are condemned by those in the church and by religious leaders of this day.
I know that I felt something similar to what the woman in this miracle story must have felt. When I was a younger man, I had to deal with multiple medical issues. In the fundamentalist churches that my parents attended, I was often looked down upon because I was sick a lot. I must have committed some type of sin in order to be sick like this.
When you are faced with this type of thinking, it begins to make you depressed and it makes you have a distorted view of Jesus. I thank the Lord Jesus that He allowed me to escape from this fundamentalist way of thinking, and He allowed me to understand who He really is.
While on this earth, Jesus loved and accepted those who others despised and rejected. Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever. He loves and accepts people today.
You may have a disease that makes people turn away from you. Jesus loves and cares about you. Jesus loves you even if you are in the depths of poverty. Sometimes, I believe that those whom this world rejects are the ones that Jesus loves the most.
Jesus came to show us how much God loves us. He came to show us that anyone came come to the Father and experience His love.
The church has found many ways to try to exclude people. We say you aren't welcome because you are involved in one sin or another. Your not "our" kind of person. I actually heard that in a church once. An elder said, "we don't want them to come to this church; they aren't 'our' kind of people." We try to exclude people based on race, socioeconomic condition, sexual orientation, gender and age. I think the worst one is when churches say, "you're not one of the elect."
Jesus demonstrated in His ministry, and in this miracle with the woman with the issue of blood, that He came to give His love to all. Jesus loves everyone, and whosoever will may come and receive His forgiveness and salvation. Jesus said that, "Whoever comes to me, I will in no wise cast out."
If you have not come to know Jesus as your Lord, Savior and friend because some religious person or some church said that your not welcome or God doesn't care about you, don't listen to that. Look to Jesus. Jesus loves you, He cares about you, and He wants to have a relationship with you. He longs for you to come to Him. Jesus said, "Come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Rest in Jesus today, and realize His great love for you.
Next week, I will post a verse on Monday and a review on Wednesday. The sermon will appear on Saturday. May God bless you. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment