at verses 21 through 43 this morning. It's on page 1069 if you're going to use one of the Bibles that we have underneath the chair in front of you. We'll be continuing our sermon series called The Cross-Shaped Life as we've been moving through the book of Mark. Here now God's holy and true Word from Mark chapter 5, starting in verse 21. And when Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered about him and he was beside the sea. Then came one of the rulers of the synagogue, Gyrus by name, and seeing him he fell at his feet and implored him earnestly saying, my little daughter is at the point of death, come and lay your hands on her so that she may be made well and live and he went with him. And a great crowd followed him and thronged about him. And there was a woman who had a discharge of blood for 12 years and who had suffered much under many physicians and had spent all that she had and was no better but rather grew worse. She had heard the reports about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment before she said, if I touch even his garments, I will be made well. And immediately the flow of blood dried up and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. And Jesus perceiving in himself that power had gone out from him immediately turned about in the crowd and said, who touched my garments? And his disciples said to him, you see the crowd pressing around you and yet you say, who touched me? And he looked around to see who had done it. But the woman knowing what had happened to her came in fear and trembling and fell down before him and told him the whole truth. And he said to her, daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace and be healed of your disease. While he was still speaking, there came from the ruler's house, some who said, your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further? But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the ruler of the synagogue, do not fear, only believe. And he allowed no one to follow him except Peter and James and John, the brother of James. They came to the house of the ruler of the synagogue and Jesus saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. And when he had entered he said to them, why are you making a commotion and weeping the child is not dead but sleeping? And they laughed at him. But he put them all outside and took the child's father and mother and those who were with him and went in where the child was. Taking her by the hand, he said to her, Talitha Kumi, which means little girl I say to you arise and immediately the girl got up and began walking for she was 12 years of age. And they were immediately overcome with amazement and he strictly charged them that no one should know this and told them to give her something to eat. The word of the Lord, let's pray. Father, we do thank you so much for your word and its power. And so we ask now that you would use it in a mighty way to transform us and to equip us. We want to be better able to share the gospel and word indeed when we leave here today. And so we just ask that you would use this time for your glory and for our good in Jesus' name. Amen.
You might have heard about the couple in California who about a year ago was walking their dog and on their property their dog started scratching at something and they decided to go look and see what it was and it turned out to be a really old tin can and they decided to see what was in it and there were dozens of gold coins and now a year later they've started to talk about the fact that it's probably valued around ten million dollars as far as what they found. So they were just going out for a walk and they came home ten million dollars richer. They haven't really announced the names of this couple but I think we know that the dog's name is Good Dog. I think that's probably what they call him now. Good dog. Good dog. But you know is it amazing how occasionally you hear a story about that where somebody was expecting one thing and then got a tremendously greater thing in return. And that's really what we see here in this text. You see two people who have a hope. They have an expectation. They come to Christ. They get something far greater than they ever could have imagined. And so we're going to see that as we look at these two stories that are together here in this section of Mark and our gospel fact is this that through faith we receive far more than we could ever ask or imagine. So let's see that from the text here this morning. We're going to look at three things. We want to talk about Gyrus's situation and then we'll talk about the woman's situation and then how those things help us understand our situation. So keep your bottles open. We're just going to walk right through these verses. Let's start with 21 through 24. Just real quick, let's looking at Gyrus situation and this is one of Mark's sandwiches. So he sets us up with the beginning of the story and then he'll insert the story about the woman. But basically what you have is a man Gyrus he's hoping for a healing. His daughter is sick. The text says that she's at the point of death. That means she's literally about to die. And so he comes to Jesus. He's a ruler of the synagogue. It means he's prominent in his community. Probably a Pharisee. So it's actually pretty interesting that this type of person is running to Jesus in faith that he can help him because a lot of the Pharisees that we've seen so far are against Jesus. But Gyrus has this dying daughter and he knows that Jesus heals people. So he runs to him, falls down at his knees and says come lay your hands on her so that she may be made well and live. And then it says Jesus went with him. In other words, Jesus agreed to help him in his time of need. So that's that's the scene right now. That's the setting. Jesus is going to help this man. This man is expecting his daughter to be healed. That's what his hope is in. And then Mark puts that story on pause. And we take a look at the woman's situation. So let's do that. Looking at 25 and following. And noticing here that she's hoping for a healing as well. But she gets way more than she ever expected. Look at this. Verse 25 talks about her having a discharge of blood for 12 years. So when you think about the situation that she's in, this is a really, really difficult thing that she's been wrestling with for a very long time. And not only has she been bleeding, hemorrhaging this blood for this time, but according to Levitical Law, she would have been determined unclean. Somebody with this type of condition would have been sort of an outcast. They would have been forced to stay away for purity sake, for the rest of the people so that other people didn't catch the disease. And so she is at this point in her life. She is feeling like an outcast. She's probably feeling very unloved. This gives us a little picture of what's really going on with her. And look at verse 26. Verse 26 said that she suffered much under many physicians. And what Mark is referring to here is back then, you know, they didn't have any of the medical advancements that we have today. And so doctors were a lot of times a student from the hip. And when they would try to heal somebody in her condition, they would try all sorts of incredibly painful, painful procedures that didn't even work. And then so not only is she feeling like an outcast, she feels unloved. She's had all this pain, but look at also in 26 says that she spent all that she had. So now she didn't even have enough money to go to a doctor, even if she wanted to. But another thing that that tells us about her situation is she's probably totally alone. Because it's just talking about her money. So she doesn't seem to have any family. And she doesn't seem to be married. It doesn't refer to her and her husband's money. And you know, it's speculation as to why she might be alone. Maybe she never was able to get married because of this disease, or maybe she was married, contracted the disease, and the guy left, we don't know. But what we can assume though, that since it says her money, that it's just her, she's just alone. So this unlovable outcast, person who's been through tons of painful situations, she's totally bankrupt. She's totally alone. This person, this woman hears that there's this man, Jesus. And he's healing people by touching them. And so she goes to him and she wants to sneak up behind him and touch him because she believes if she touches even his garment that she'll be healed. And there's probably some superstition in that. It was sort of a common belief back at this time that if you touch even the clothes of some sort of dignitary that sometimes there was some power in that. So her views aren't quite right, but she does have some hope in Jesus. And that's what her hope is, is verse 28, that she would be made well. So that's what she's hoping for. That's what she's maybe even expecting a little bit from Jesus. And so that's the scene that we have to see that she actually receives so much more than she ever could have imagined. Look at verse 29. Verse 29 says that she immediately, the flow of blood dried up and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. I mean, what an amazing moment if you think about it. She's been wrestling with this for so long and suddenly she can tell that it's gone. I can't even imagine what that would be like. The closest thing I can come to is one time I get at a fish hook stuck in my thumb and it hurt really bad. And like I don't know if you've ever experienced this, but when you have a fish hook in your finger, normally what they do is they actually push it all the way through and cut the barb and then slide it back out. Sorry if that grosses you out, but they couldn't do that with me because it was actually sticking into my bone a little bit of my thumb. And so, sorry, we'll get through this. You know me. I can't handle blood either, but if I can do it, you can do it. But so what happens is when the hook is going into the bone, they can't push it through obviously. And so they just have to pull it back out the way that it went in, which can be very painful. But here's the thing. When they pulled it out, for about half an hour I had been in pretty, you know, not terrible pain, but pain for about a half an hour and we got to the emergency room. The second they pulled that thing out, it was like it never happened. It was amazing. And I was amazed at it. And so thinking about her situation being a thousand times worse than that, this is a huge moment for her. She finally is healed and she can feel it. I can't imagine what joy must have been in her heart, except for the fact that then it says that Jesus turns around and looks to see who had done this, what a frightening moment for her. So he, verse 30 says he perceives in himself that power has gone out. So he turns around and he says who touched my garments? The disciples think 31, they think he's nuts. They're like, you know, everybody's touching you. There's tons of people around. How are we possibly going to know who he's talking about? That's what the disciples are thinking. And look at 32 because you see Jesus' heart. It says that he looked around to see who had done it. And that verb looked is in the imperfect tense, which means he didn't just take a quick look. It means he looked until he found her. He has so much to tell her. He has so much good news for her and he looks intently until her and his eyes lock. And when they do, you know, she is absolutely terrified. It says she, with fear and trembling, she falls down before him. She, she tells him the whole truth. And you can almost imagine in that moment, you know, she knows that she wasn't supposed to touch him. She wasn't supposed to touch anybody. She wasn't supposed to be there because she was considered unclean because of her disease. And so in that moment, you know, she's probably trying to justify herself. She's saying, you know, it's been 12 years. I've been struggling with this. I've been to so much pain. I have no money. I have no options. I'm all alone. And she's just crying out to Jesus in this moment. And keeping in mind that what she was hoping for is simply to be healed. And then look at what Jesus says to her. It's absolutely amazing. She gets so much more than she would have ever asked or imagined. He says, verse 34, daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace and be healed of your disease. This is an incredibly packed sentence. Let's look at this. First off, he says daughter. He calls her daughter. It's the only place in Mark where he refers to somebody as daughter. Now, what's so interesting here is he's addressing her in sort of a positional sense. He's saying to her that she is a daughter. Now, what's interesting is when this word is used in normal cases, it just means a female biological child, a daughter. But in this case, it's used in the vocative sense. You don't know what that means. But what you need to know is what it tells us is that it is used with incredible affection. That Jesus is looking at this unloved outcast and saying, you are a daughter. You are somebody whose God has said his affection on you. Jesus has said his affection on her. It's an incredible announcement of incredible affection. It's the kind of the same way, like I wouldn't necessarily ever refer to my daughter's Lydia or Hattie or the one that's on the way is also a girl. Pray for me. But I would never look at my daughters and just say, this is my female biological child. When I refer to my daughter, I'm all three of them. I'm thinking she is. They are my daughters. They're my little daughter. Like, Jairus would say, my little daughter that I love so much that I have so much affection for. So this woman who came hoping to get healed is now finding out she is cherished by Jesus and by God. Jesus is acting like God here. This is beautiful. See in Psalm 10, it says, God is the helper to the Fatherless and Psalm 68 says, God is Father to the Fatherless. So Jesus is coming to the aid of this woman who is totally alone. And he's telling her she is a child of God. It's amazing. He also addresses her a theological way. She's got some goofy stuff in her theology. She knows that to have faith in Christ is important, but she sort of felt like it was her touching him that would make her clean. And so he wants her to understand that faith is what has made her well. And what's interesting is the word that Jesus uses here to say healed you is also the exact same word as saved. So he's saying two things. He's saying your faith has saved you. Your faith has healed you. And what we see in that is Jesus is showing that faith is an instrument through which God saves people. So it's not about what you and I do. It's not about her touching the garment. It's about faith and through faith as an instrument people are saved. People are healed. And what's also so interesting about this is that Jesus touches this unclean woman, but he does not become unclean, rather she becomes clean. Another thing he addresses is her. He addresses her spiritually. He says, go in peace. If you grew up in church, a lot of times we'd say at the end of the service, just go in peace, serve the Lord and it's just kind of a phrase, but not here. He's not just uttering some phrase. This is a massive declaration here. This is a huge thing. What he's saying is she is at peace with God. She has been reconciled to God through faith, not because of something she did, but because of what Christ would ultimately do on the cross. He's sharing this peace with her. He wants her to know that she is reconciled. God is loves her, has affection for her, has not mad at her, has adopted her as a child. She is at peace. And then I love this too. He also says, go and be healed of your disease. And the purpose behind this is he's wants to address her socially. Let's think about this. She knew that she was healed. He knew that she was healed, but in order for her to ever be welcomed back into community, especially back into the synagogue, she needed to be declared healed and declared clean. And who is standing there watching Jesus say, you are healed, but the ruler of the synagogue that she would attend, unbelievable. And so you have this picture for her, and it's a picture for us of the gospel because that's what happens. That is the gospel that when we put our faith in Christ, we get way more than we would ever expect. Not just forgiveness, but we get God's affection. We are a child of God. We know that this happens through faith, so it's not about what we're doing. We don't have to worry about if we're good enough because it is through faith that God saves us. And then also we know that through faith we have complete reconciliation with God. We celebrate every time we worship Him. And also that we socially, we're brought into community as well. We're welcomed into the community of their deemed, which is the church. Her life, her situation here, such a beautiful picture of the gospel. You see, she needed gyros in her story, so that one day when somebody would say to her, hey, you're that woman with the disease. Are you supposed to be here? The ruler of the synagogue could say, yes, she is. But gyros needed her in his story, too. We'll see that. Notice this. Right after Jesus calls this woman daughter, people run up and tell gyros that his daughter is dead. Look at 35. Jesus is still speaking, and they came up and they say to gyros that his daughter is dead. Don't trouble the teacher. And Jesus overhears this, but then turns and says this incredible thing to say to gyros in a moment like this. He says, do not fear only believe. And gyros has this choice. Can can move forward in fear or in faith, in fear or in faith. You and I are in this situation so often. But then it says that he allowed no one to follow except for Peter James and John. So he takes just a select group of the disciples. They go to gyros his house and there's the commotion. There's weeping and wailing. Back then they used to hire people. When someone would die, they would actually hire professional mourners to stand outside the house and cry aloud and weep and wail. That's why when Jesus says she's sleeping and they go from weeping to laughing in a fraction of a second, it's because they don't really care. They're actually kind of like paid actors. And this shows such a contrast between their superficial care and Jesus' incredible affection and care for this woman and for gyros' daughter as well. And so you have Jesus saying that she's sleeping. He's not unaware. He's not saying that she's not actually dead. He's using it as a metaphor like he does in other places. The other gospels record him using this as a metaphor. And then Paul in his epistles uses sleep as a metaphor for the death of a believer because our death is not the end. We will arise. So Jesus does says that and then he puts everybody outside except for the child's family and his disciples and then he does this other very profound thing. He's just been touched by an unclean woman and she became clean. And then he goes and takes the hand. Look at 41. 41. He takes the hand of this girl, this dead girl, which would render him unclean except for the fact that he's so powerful, he says, Talitha Kumi, which means little girl I say to you arise and she gets up and starts walking around for she was 12 years of age. Don't forget that the woman had been suffering for 12 years. It shows that these stories are interconnected. And so they're overcome with amazement and he says don't tell anybody about this and he told them to give her something to eat. What a beautiful picture of the reality of that scene, right? She just has been raised from the dead and Jesus says by the way she's probably hungry. It's amazing, his compassion and his care. But again, in the same way that being touched by an unclean person made the person clean through Jesus power, Jesus touches a dead person, that dead person comes to life. You see, the woman needed gyros in her story so that she could be welcomed back into community. Gyros needed her in his story to push his situation from desperate to totally hopeless. Because notice it was in the time where Jesus was ministering to this woman that the child died. And so she needed to be in his story to push this situation for gyros from very desperate to completely hopeless so that gyros, just like the woman, could get far more than he ever asked or imagined because he was hoping for a healing and he gets a resurrection. It's an incredible picture of how Jesus responds to our faith. And that points us to our situation. Because gyros and the woman need each other in their stories and you and I need these two in our stories as well because we're like the woman. The reality is through faith, we receive freedom from the penalty of sin. This is what Jesus was saying to her when he's saying you're at peace with God. We are saved through faith, through faith. We are delivered from the penalty of sin. And then also in this life, the thing that plagues us the most, the thing that we can't fix, the things that no human beings can fix in us is our struggle with sin. And through faith, we receive power over sin. We're delivered from the power of sin. We're healed to an extent in this life through the renewing grace of the Holy Spirit through knowing that God's affection is upon us and through being in the community, the church. So we're like her. And then also we're like gyros daughter because one day you and I will be resurrected as well. Through faith, one day we will be delivered from the very presence of sin. That is phenomenal news for us to look forward to the reality of glorification. That one day we will be raised to new life made perfectly new. We won't be able to get sick. We won't be able to get hurt. We won't be able to sin or be sinned against. It's beyond our imagination. And all we're going to do is eat. We're going to worship God and eat. Look at verse 43 again. I love this. This picture, this future picture of resurrection. What needs to happen after the resurrection is eating. And that is a picture looking forward to Revelation 199 when we are ushered into the New Heavens and New Earth by Christ. And it says, blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb. That's what will happen when we are resurrected to full and new life. We're going to eat. And it's going to be amazing. Now, how does this happen? And that's the whole message of this passage that it's all through faith. See, where did the woman's bleeding go? Where did the girls' death go? And they went to the cross. They went to Christ. These things point us to him because Jesus willingly chose to become like the woman, an unlovable bleeding, suffering outcast. They also chose to be like the woman or the child who died. And like the child who was raised to new life, Jesus by God was raised to new life to prove to us that God has accepted what he has done on our behalf and that we are truly reconciled to him. Through faith like the woman, we become children of God. We are reconciled to God. We are at peace with him. And we are welcomed into community. So the application for this text is very simple, no matter what you're going through, no matter what difficult situations, no matter how bad it seems to get, Jesus is calling to you and me saying, do not fear only belief. Do not fear only belief. I repeat that to myself a lot. It's a verse we should all memorize. Do not fear only belief. Knowing that he's going to in the end, we're going to receive from him far more than we're even expecting because that is the kind of savior that he truly is. And in a moment, we get to eat. We get to share the Lord's supper with one another. This picture of the day when we all are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb. Let's pray. Father, we do thank you. We praise your name. It is hard to believe sometimes. It is hard to believe, especially when things aren't going well or when we're in a desperate situation. Help us to hang out of the truths and these passages. Help us to remember that you know what's going on. You are in control. You're good. Help us to believe and to not have fear. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.