transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:03] Amen, and amen, and amen. Church, if you came to play church, you came to the wrong place. We're about to get after it today. Matthew 9 is where we're gonna be. And for those of you that just catch this on YouTube at your own convenience, you don't always get to see the testimony video before. And what we just all experienced is the testimony of two women who were strippers back in the day, and God saved them and redeemed them, and now is using them to preach the gospel and speak hope to people that feel hopeless. And I need you to know that the Church of Eleven22 is a movement for all people to discover and deepen a relationship with Jesus Christ. And so we support all kind of ministries to all different kinds of people, particularly people that are being trafficked or in that kind of industry. We support the Tim Tebow Foundation, primarily through her song. We support Hadassah's Hope and Arise Together and ReThreaded and Villages of Hope. And if you would like to be involved, one of the ways you do that is every single time, bring your first and best to this place, a portion of that goes to support these kinds of ministries to take the good news of the gospel to those places. And if you would like to volunteer in one of these ministries, if you will text the word FREEDOM to 441122, then somebody will get in touch with you of how you could participate. And part of the reason that we support these folks, these ministries, it actually comes out of a place of deep failure on my part. And if you've been around for a long time, you've heard this story about three or four times, or 10 or 11 or whatever, but you don't remember what I preach anyway, so I can keep saying the same things. That's the good news about my job. But the last time I told this story about an event in my life was 2023, and we have doubled in attendance since then. So at least half of you have never heard this. So way back in the 1900s, when I was in seminary, I lived in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, all right? The Redneck Riviera, we call it Dirty Myrtle. And so there's no reason to go there. It's not like our beach here. It's way worse. If you do decide to go, make sure you have your tetanus shots up to date, please, okay? And I had three jobs because I was in school and I had no expectation that somebody else was gonna pay my bill. I had to pay my bill, stand firm, act like a man. That's a different sermon. So I had three different jobs. I waited tables at Barefoot Landing. I worked at a gym. I opened up the gym. It was called World's Gym. I was like the front desk guy. And I was a youth pastor at a very Southern Baptist, First Baptist Church in this little tobacco town, about 45 minutes inland. And because I worked three jobs and never had time off, and I had to write my sermons, and so I would do it at the desk at World's Gym. Now, the guy that owned the World's Gym in North Wyrtle Beach, he was a smart guy. And so what he did is directly across the street, there was a strip club called the Crazy Horse. And so he went to the Crazy Horse, and he says, girls, I'll make you a deal. You girls can work out for free at the World's Gym. And so pretty much every day at about 10:30 a.m., all the strippers would come bebopping in, and then we would charge about $50 a head for every hormonal dude in North Wyrtle Beach, and they would show up too. And that was just kind of the thing. Now, again, I'm a young little youth pastor. I think I was 20, 21 years old or something. And at first, when these girls would come in, I was like, oh my, you know? And then what would get to happen over time is when they would get finished working out, they would come sit at the desk, and they would ask for protein smoothies. That was, I was the protein sommelier. That's my job, okay? So I'd make the things. And then they would just sit up there at the counter and everybody would hang out. And what began to happen very quickly is those girls became my friends. I thought, oh gosh, these are human beings. And as I was sitting there, they would be like, what are you doing? I have my Bible out, I have my notes out, and I'm like, well, I'm working on my youth sermon. So I said, let me run it by you real quick, because I thought if I could connect with the strippers, then maybe I could connect with the 10th graders. You know what I mean? And I don't know who should be offended by that, but I don't care. And I found out all these things about these girls, man. None of them really wanted to do this. This was not their plan A. Just through a series of choices, they found themselves here, and they all thought it would be very temporary. But in North Myrtle Beach, with all the scuzz buckets that go down there for golf trips, they made tons of money. And then they began to feel trapped because they had so much money, and they didn't know, you know, it was the only way, their source of income. Almost all of them had kids. None of their kids knew what they did, so they had this whole lie about what their actual job is. Virtually all of them had to drink something, take something, ingest something so that they could do what they did because there was a whole bunch of shame there. And so, they would always invite me to come see them at work. Why don't you come see me at work? I'd be like, eh, that's not gonna happen. I'd say, but why don't you come see me at work? Why don't you come to church with me? And for months, everybody's like, nah, we're not going to church. And then one day, one of the girls said, I'll go to church with you. And I thought, oh crap. Now that'd be no problem here at this church, but at my church, we didn't have bring a stripper Sunday. You know what I mean? Like there was a dress code, if you know what I mean. I got in trouble because I didn't own a suit and a blue blazer and khakis was business casual and that's not what the Lord deserves according to this church. Now I can't find a dress code in here except for the priest in the Old Testament, but you know, that's the church I worked at. And I thought, okay, yeah, sure. And then I was like, hey, listen, now, I was trying to talk her out of going. Her name was Sunshine. I was like, all right, Sunshine, here's the thing, I got to get there real early because I'm kind of a big deal. I do the announcements. And so we got to leave at like 730. She's like, no problem. I'll come pick you up. And she comes rolling up in her convertible white corvette. And I thought, oh, this would be great. We'll just slide right into First Baptist in the convertible white corvette. Nobody will see us. And she had a personalized license plate that said topless fun. Convertible corvette. And that must be what it meant, right? And so we were very illegal because she had her daughter with us. There was only two seats. I don't think seat belts were a thing back then because, you know, Gen X was tough. And so the three of us piled in her corvette. I was like, at least let me drive. So I drove. It's normally like a 40-minute ride. It took 23 minutes to get there. We went fast. And we go walking in to First Baptist. And we dropped her kid off in Sunday School. And then she and I, me and Sunshine, go walking into the church. Now listen, man. She had on what she would have thought was her Sunday best, but it was not the dress code that this church required. She just had a little sundress on, and she was heavily invested into her career, if you understand. Don't think about that too much. She had these huge high heels on, and then we go walking in, and you could feel the stairs, and you could hear the whispers. And I did my announcements, and I sat down next to her on the front row, and I have no idea what the dude talked about. I know he preached that in the Bible. And then when the service was over, one of the deacons came up to me and says, hey, I need to meet with you. Now, deacon in the Bible means servant, or dirty footwasher. Deacon in this church meant power broker. And so he said, hey, we need to meet in the pastor's office. So I go back into the pastor's office. I told Sunshine, go pick up your kid. I'll meet you at the car in just a second. This will only take a minute. And we walked in, and one of the deacons looked at me and said, why in the world would you bring a girl like that here? He went on to tell me this place exists to protect our children from people like that. And I wish I could tell you that I stood firm against the devil and his evil schemes, and I wish I could tell you that I stood with the confidence of the good news of the gospel, and I wish I could tell you that I did not seek the applause of man, but the applause of God, but I didn't do any of those things. I was afraid, and I thought more about my career in ministry than anything else, and so I just bowed my head. I said, I'm sorry it won't happen again. And I walked out, and I go to the car, and all the cars are gone out of the parking lot except the convertible white Corvette. And Sunshine's leaning against it with these really cool Ray-Bans on with just tears rolling. And she says, that was about me, wasn't it? I said, no, no, no, and I lied. I said, no, we had a casserole mishap in the fellowship hall or something. So we get in the car and we're riding back, her daughter sitting in her lap, coloring a picture of Jesus that she got from Sunday school. And the silence was just deafening. So I didn't know what to say. So I said, so what did you think about church? And she said, that's the most humiliated I've ever been in my entire life. The most humiliated I've ever been in my entire life. In the house of God that was sent forth by Christ to preach the good news that God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son that who so ever would believe would receive the right to become a child of God. That three days before this, she's drinking something to get drunk enough to take all of her clothes off in front of a bunch of dirty men on a pole for a dollar at a time. And that wasn't as humiliating as the way she got treated at church. And I don't even have a good end of the story, man. It was the end of the season about three days later. She packed everything up and moved on to the next place, and I never saw her again. And I'm telling you, my failure haunted me, but I got really good news, man. Failure's not final. And so, I decided, I made a promise to God, God, if you ever put me in charge of one of these things, then it will be a movement for all people to discover and deepen a relationship with Jesus and especially the sun shines in this world. And listen, man, if you've ever been beaten up by a church, I am so sorry. And I am not like the Pope of evangelicalism, I don't get to speak for every church, but that's not what Jesus came, bled and died for. And that is not what the church is supposed to be about. And the reason that I want to bring that up is, one, to give a little bit of context to that video. But two, is that's the kind of mentality that you have to bring into Matthew chapter 9. Because Jesus is going to encounter a woman and everybody else that says she doesn't belong here. And Jesus is going to have a different word, Matthew, chapter 9, beginning of verse 18. The Bible says, And while Jesus was saying these things to them, and when you read that, you got to say, well, what things was he saying? Go back to last week's sermon with Pastor Matt Carter. Here's the things that he was saying. Then this is verse 14. Then the disciples of John came to Jesus saying, why do we in the Pharisees fast, but your disciples don't fast? And Jesus said to them, can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then you will fast. No one puts a piece of un-trunk cloth onto an old garment, for the patch tears away from the garment, and a worse tear is made. Neither is new wine put into old wine skin. If it is, the skin bursts and the wine is spilled, and the skins are destroyed. Here's what Jesus is saying. And he goes on to say, but new wine is put into fresh wine skin so that both are preserved. Jesus is saying, I'm coming to do a new thing, and if you let your religious traditions, and the traditions of man be the lead foot in the way you see God, then I'm not going to fit in that construct. That's the context of what he's talking about. And then he's going to do a couple of miracles to demonstrate what he's saying. He's saying, don't let your traditions and your religious activity and the traditions of man get in the way of people getting to Jesus. That's what he's saying. So while he was saying these things, behold, a ruler came in and knelt before him. Now I told you, I think it was on Easter, I told you that we've got four different gospels, gospel accounts in the Bible, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. And the gospel writers are led by the Spirit of God to share different details because they have different audiences. And if you go to the gospel of Luke, I'll just read it for you. You don't have to look it up. In Luke chapter 8, this is the same account and we find out that this guy is not just a regular ruler, he's a ruler of the synagogue. That his name is Jairus, that he's a really big deal in this area, in Capernaum. That he would live at the synagogue. He was in charge. Everybody in the crowd would know exactly who he is and he humbles himself, comes and kneels before Jesus. Luke says he implores him. That means to beg and to cry. And the reason why, we'll find out just a second, that he's got a 12-year-old little girl and she's dying. And he finds himself in a desperate situation. And there's no pain like kid pain, amen? And when your need finally exceeds your ego, you will kneel to Jesus and say, Jesus, I need some help. So what would you do for your sick kid? You'll do anything, anything, anything. And he says, if you'll just go put your hand on her, here's the thing, man, a Jewish rabbi is not supposed to touch sick and dead kids. And Jairus, the guy that's in charge of the religiosity, says, I don't care. I'm more concerned about a miracle than my money or my status or what you think about me. And here's the thing, this is a rich dude, this is a powerful dude, and I don't care how much money you have, I don't care how many followers you have, it will not protect you from suffering. He falls on his face before God. Now here's the thing, you have to get your head around this, is that when you go through suffering, regardless of why it comes, it could be your fault, it could be somebody else's fault, it could be an attack of the enemy, but regardless of why you are where you are, everything we walk through has to pass through the sovereign hand of an almighty God. And that shouldn't make you mad at God, that should give you hope, because sovereignty is CPR to the hurting and dying heart. Because if God is not in charge, then you are hopeless, and the Bible says hope deferred makes the heart sick. But the reality is that God is at work in all things for the good of those that love him and are called according to his purpose. And so finally, Jairus is at a place where his need exceeds his ego, and he bows before Jesus, and here's what he says, my daughter has just died. Now, Luke and Mark say that when he first gets there, his daughter is dying, but for the sake of time, Matthew writes the story in a much shorter way, so he condenses the timeline, and he says, my daughter has just died, but you come and lay your hand on her, and she will live. That's a bold prayer, right? We need to pray in bold prayers. In fact, if our prayers are not a little intimidating to us, they may be insulting to God. And this is what he prays. And by the way, Church of Eleven22, it's never a bad time to get on our face before Jesus and to pray for the children and the students in this upcoming generation. Because we have a thief that wants to kill, steal and destroy, and yet, especially right now in the Church of Eleven22, God is doing something significant in the life of our students and our student ministry, and we have to be the kind of church that tells the devil of hell, you can go back to hell, you're not getting to our kids, you gotta walk over my dead body. And so this is what Jairus is doing, he's begging Jesus to save his little girl. And then look what happens, verse 19, this is crazy. And Jesus rose and followed him with his disciples. You know what this is, man? Prayer moves the heart of God. If you think about prayer too much, it'll make your head explode. I mean, think about it, I just said God is sovereign, God knows all things, he's never been surprised, you don't have to inform him on stuff, he knows all the things that God always accomplishes the will of God, this is all true. And yet, Jesus tells us to pray, he tells us how to pray. He says knock and knock and keep on knocking and ask and ask and keep on asking and seek and seek and keep on seeking. And he says that when we pray, we should pray in alignment with who he is, we should pray in the name of Jesus. And then, Jesus says to the right hand of God the Father, gives us the Spirit, if you have faith in Jesus, you have the Spirit in you. And the Book of Romans says that when you don't know how to pray, the Spirit instructs you and directs you on how to pray, and we pray to a heavenly Father who loves his kids and loves to give good gifts to his kids to a sovereign God. Well, how does that work? Nobody knows. But somehow, when we pray, God moves in a way that he wouldn't move if we didn't pray. Jesus says, you have not because you asked not. And so Jairus prays, and Jesus moves. And as he is on the move, again, Jairus is a big deal. There's no way he walked there by himself. He's got a whole entourage. You know, Jairus' team is back there with him. And Jesus is, all right, let's go to your house. And everybody's moving this way. And this is urgent. This is time sensitive. Verse 20, and behold, a woman, we never find out her name, behold, a woman who had suffered from a discharge of blood for 12 years came up behind Jesus and touched the fringe of his garment. For she said to herself, if I only touch his garment, I'll be made well. Well, Luke gives us a lot more details. Why? Because Luke is a doctor, and they're into details. This woman began her cycle, and after a week, it's still going, and after two weeks, it's still going, and after a few months, and after a few years, this is not just an inconvenience. This is a serious issue, and it's not just a medical issue, it's also a social issue, and it's a religious issue for her. Why? Because according to Luke, I mean Leviticus 15, which I'm sure you all read this morning for your quiet time. Leviticus 15 lets us know that during that time of bodily discharge, then that woman would be unclean and would have to remove herself from society. In fact, Leviticus 15, the chapter of the title, is laws about bodily discharge. Don't read it now, it's gross. It's like a middle school boy's favorite chapter in the whole Bible, okay? So this is what's going on. And so she has been told that she is defiled. She is unclean, and yet what's going to happen is she gets there, and the Bible doesn't tell us exactly how many people are there. Call it, let's say 500 people. There's 500 people there, and she's got 500 reasons to stop, and yet she presses through the crowd to get to Jesus. And here's the thing, man. For the last 12 years, every time she bumped into a religious leader, what they told her, they told her she was defiled. That she was dirty. There's not a worse thing that you can tell a woman. Let's do a little theology of men and women real quick. In Genesis 1, verse 27, the Bible says, and God made mankind in his own image, male and female, he created them. Shocker, there's two genders. Write your congressman. I know, I know. Sorry to trigger you. It's just the Bible. And women image God differently than men image God. And a part of the beauty of the divine in what God created as a woman is the deepest desire, their deepest question is, am I lovely, am I valuable? So the worst thing you could tell her is nope, you're dirty and you're defiled. Now in the heart of every man, his deepest question is this, do I have what it takes? Do I have what it takes? So actually, Jairus is in the same place as this woman because there's no worse feeling for a man to have your kid being sick and you feel helpless and you cannot provide and protect. They're both in the same place. Luke also lets us know that she spent all her money on physicians and she's not better. I think this is interesting. Mark says not only did the physicians take her money, but they made it worse. Luke doesn't mention that. You know why? He's a physician. He's like, you know, they're not bad. And so she gets there. She has the label of dirty or defiled. And I'm sure the whole crowd is like, what's she doing here? And here's the thing, according to Leviticus 15, not only is she defiled, but anybody or anything that she touches also becomes defiled. She doesn't let us stop her, man. She fights through the crowd and fights through the crowd. But in the kingdom of God, there's just a different economy. You see, in our world, when clean touches dirty, the clean gets dirty. But where Jesus rules and reigns, when the clean touches dirty, the dirty gets cleaned. This is what 2 Corinthians 5.21 means when it says, and God made him who was without sin to be sin for us, that we would be made the righteousness of God. This is what's happening. Luke lets us know that when she touches the hem of the garment, power is transferred from Jesus to this woman and immediately she is healed. Luke lets us know that when he feels that power, he says, who touched me? And who's going to talk first? Who's going to talk most? Peter's like, my boss. Everybody's touching you. Look around. It's a huge crowd. And he goes, no, no, no. I know everybody's bumping in to me, but this one's different. He says, I felt power go out from me. Oh, Church of Eleven22, this is what I want for you. This is why I tell you, I ain't got time to play church, man. Please, please don't get lost in the crowd. Please don't show up here whenever it's convenient for you and the presence of the Spirit of God is in this place and you're near him, but you never feel the miraculous touch of his power. I mean, we sang it. First song we sang. I didn't come here to hide in the crowd. I'm pressing through to you and I don't care how because if you don't experience the resurrected Christ, nothing in your life is going to change. And this is what she experiences. And then Luke says that after Jesus says, who touched me? She finally says, it was me. She identifies herself and she's afraid and not the good kind of fear of the Lord. That's not what she's afraid of because every religious leader that she's encountered up to this point says, you don't belong here. Now you got to ask yourself, so why in the world is she reaching for the hem of the garment? Why did she say, if I only touch his garment, I will be made well? Well, here's why she's believing that is because she has been discipled by the word and not the world. You see, Jesus would have had on a prayer shawl. I have a prayer shawl. I got it from Jerusalem. You know it's authentic because of the zipper pouch in which it comes in, just like Jesus. It's kind of cool, man. We serve this tactile God. The only thing that's not cool about this one is it's got Georgia Tech colors, so I don't know what that's about. God loves the least of these. I think that's what it is. Hey, listen, if you went to Georgia Tech, you're real smart. You're just not good at sports. That's fine. Okay, so these prayer shawls that a first century rabbi would be wearing, all the men would be wearing these things, God is a tactile God and He wanted us to remember His laws and obey His laws. So in Numbers 15, this is what God tells Moses to tell the people of God to do. He says make these things. Numbers 15–37, the Lord said to Moses, speak to the people of Israel and tell them to make tassels on the corner of their garments. These are the tassels. In Hebrew, it's tzitzi, say tzitzi. It's spelled t-e-z-i-t-e-z-i-t. In Dylan, we'd say tzitzi. That ain't how you say it, all right? So he says speak to the people of Israel and tell them to make tassels on the corner of their garments throughout their generations and to put a coat of blue on the tassel of each corner and it shall be a tassel for you to look at and remember all the commandments of the Lord to do them and not to follow after your own heart. And so man, I could go for hours, like there's five different knots to represent the first five books of the Bible, that all of these little tassels have strings and there's one string for every positive command of the 613 of God and one string for the negative commands and what you were supposed to do because they didn't have like a copy of their Bible in their iPhone in their pocket. And so it's like you're scrolling around like playing with your titsy over here. It would be a reminder that you would be quoting scripture so that you could remember the commandments of the Lord and do them and not to follow after your own heart and your own eyes, which you are inclined to whore after. It's kind of a strong word for a Sunday morning service, isn't it? Whore? See, normally I don't use words like that because Gretchen gets mad at me. She's probably sweating right now. She's like, babe, you said whore. I didn't say it. God said whore. And I know a bunch of you are recovering Baptist, so I'm going to say whore a few more times. One, because if you got to explain what a whore is to your kid, thanks for not listening to us to tell your kids to go to kids ministry. Salah, if you can pray about that. Yeah, leave it up there too. Look at that whore. Why would you use such offensive language? Because Christ is the bride of the, or Christ is the bridegroom of the church. And we don't take sin seriously enough. And every single time we reject God, and every single time we lust after our own eyes and our own flesh, and every single time we say, forget you, I'm gonna do what I want, and every single time we go, well, this isn't that bad, this is just like on the miniature sin, you know, you're just kind of a whore. Husbands, if your wife treated you like that, how would you feel? This is how God feels about the obedience of his children. This is a big deal. So that you shall remember and do all my commandments and be holy to your God, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God, I am the Lord your God. By the way, here is a foreshadowing of the Gospel. God does not give the commandments to the Hebrews while they are slaves and then come back and do a progress support and if they get a B+, then he will bring them out. He saves them because of his goodness, not theirs, and then gives them a law to walk by for their own well-being. And so, Jesus would have had one of these things on. And like I said, these little tassels are called the tzitzit and the edge of the garment on this thing was called a knaf. Say knaf. It could be translated edge or hem of the garment, it could also be translated a wing. And we see it show up all out in the Bible. Remember, back on the sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, because all the religious leaders, especially, would have really big fancy ones. And the bigger your knaf was, the more spiritual you were. And he would say, all right, listen, when you pray, don't pray like the hypocrites, who like to show everybody off, you know, and babble with their words, but look at the size of my knaf. Ha, ha, ha, no, no, no, no. When you pray, don't do that. When you pray, go into your prayer closet. When he says prayer closet, he doesn't mean find the room in the synagogue where you like keep the broom and the shotguns and the old skates. No, no, no, no. What you would do is you would go into a crowded room and everybody's trying to pray to impress each other. And he would say, you take the wings like this and you fold them up in front of you and ha, this is your prayer closet. And I see you and I will reward you. Or when Jesus, right after the triumphal entry, comes in, in Matthew 23, and he says this, oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stone those who are sent to it, how often would I have gathered your children together as they hen her brood under her canoff wings. And you were not willing. So what does this have to do with our woman? You see, she was discipled by the word and not the world. If you back up a few pages, you'll see this prophet named Malachi. This is not an Italian prophet, Malachi. This is a Hebrew guy named Malachi. And in the last verse of the last book of the Old Testament, God through his prophet Malachi is going to give a warning and a way out, a warning and a way out. And then the next page, if you look, there's a blank page in your Bible because that represents 400 years of the people of God waiting for this prophecy of Malachi. Moms, this is like when you drop your kids off from middle school camp and you give them the law. You're like, listen to me, and you say the most important thing, right? Brush your teeth, whatever it is, change your underwear, whatever the thing is. And so here's the warning. Malachi says, Behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven when all the arrogant and evil-doers will be stubble. The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the Lord of Hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. Here's what this means. A day is coming where every single one of us will stand before an almighty, holy, just God. And if we get what we deserve, we will go to hell forever. And you're like, well, that's mean. Is it? Is it mean to tell somebody who is driving down a path that leads to their destruction, you don't want to go to the end of this path. And here's the two categories of people that go to hell. You ready for this? Evil doers. Anybody an evil doer? Uh-oh. You're going to hell. Apart from Christ, you're going to hell. And if you're like, well, I'm not an evil doer. What an arrogant thing to say. So you fall into the arrogant category. Not good news, man. God's judgment is real, and we don't take it very seriously. We have lost the awe of an almighty God. And I ain't mad at you, man, because in just a second, he's going to show us the way out. But if you don't know Jesus, you need to be saved from the judgment that you and I deserve. This old school Puritan preacher, Jonathan Edwards, says it this way. The bow of God's wrath is bent and the arrow made ready on the string, and justice bends the arrow at your heart and strains the bow, and it is nothing but the mere pleasure of God that keeps an angry God without any promise or obligation at all that keeps the arrow one moment from being made drunk with your blood. We, we are those that should stand before him, at whose rebuke the earth trembles, and before whom the rocks are thrown down. There is nothing that keeps wicked men at any one moment out of hell, but the mere pleasure of God, we are but sinners in the hands of an angry God. That sermon has been so misinterpreted. What it means is by our own sin and rebellion, we are standing on a trap door over the pit of hell, and the moment we breathe our last, that thing springs and that's where we go. And the thing that keeps us out of hell, even today, even if you're not a believer, it's the merciful hands of God that are holding you up so that you could hear the good news and you could take the way out. He gives a warning. And he says, but, verse two, for all you 90s kids, I like big buts and I cannot lie, especially big ones like this. I mean, that's a devastating message. But, however, I've got some good news. But, for you who fear my name, the son of righteousness shall rise with healing in his knop, wings. This is what we're supposed to be looking for. And you shall go out leaping like calves from the stall and you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day when I access the Lord. Remember the law of my servant Moses. You remember it by playing with the little tzitzit and playing with the strings on the edge of the knop. Remember the law of my servant Moses and the statutes and the rules that I commanded him at Horeb for all of Israel. And behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day that the Lord comes. He's like, pay attention, there's going to be Elijah and then the Lord. Elijah and then the Lord. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers. And then if you turn the page, there's that one page with nothing on it. That blank page. And then 400 years later Luke says in Luke 1, and he, John the Baptist, will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord and to their God. And he will go before him in spirit and the power of Elijah to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just to make ready for the Lord a people prepared. And they were supposed to be looking for Elijah. And when Elijah shows up, the Lord is on his heels. And so here comes John the Baptist in the spirit of Elijah, preaching, repent, preparing you the way of the Lord. And then one day Jesus shows up on the scene and he says this, behold, here he is, the son of righteousness. This is the one we've been looking for. He says it this way, behold, the lamb of God who's come to take away the sin of the entire world. And Jesus gets baptized. And God the Father speaks over him, behold my son in whom I am well pleased. And then Jesus begins to teach the gospel. And he didn't just teach stories of morality about how to be a better person. He taught about God the Father and how we could be reconciled to him. And he had the audacity to say things like, I am the way, the truth and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through me. He had the audacity to say that whoever would believe would receive the right to become a child of God. And then he is falsely accused, he's arrested, he's beaten, he's tried, he's crucified, dead and buried. Because he is who he says he is and he always keeps his promises. And this woman shows up in Capernaum and she's heard this guy teaches with an authority that we've never seen before. And when he tells the storms to calm down, they've gotta listen. That he's bringing dead little girls back to life and he's healing people at a distance and he's cleansing leopards and the blind people see. And she begins to think, that must be the son of righteousness with healing in his wings. Now again, man, there's 500 people there and everybody reacts differently. Some people scoffed. The religious leader's like, who does he think he is? This is crazy, man. The Pharisees should have been throwing a party, but instead they're throwing a fit because Jesus didn't fit in their little religious box. And then some people just ignore him because they're busy. They got carpool to run and laundry to do and a career to chase after, and they just miss him. Some people are entertained. They just want their bellies full. Or they try to hijack the message of Jesus to support their political party. Listen, man, Jesus didn't come to take sides. He came to take over. And then some believed. I can't wait to meet this tenacious woman when we get to heaven, man. She shows up on the scene. There are 500 reasons to go home. Everybody's looking at her going, What are you doing here? And she does not seek the approval of man. She just knows if I can get to the hem of his garment, something is going to change. And she fights through and fights through and fights through. She doesn't let the fear tell her what to do. She doesn't let the whispers of the enemy tell her what to do. She doesn't let the condemnation of her past tell her what to do. And she fights her way through to Jesus. She touches the hem of his garment. She's been outside of community. She's been outside of the synagogue. She has been far from God. She's interrupting this guy who's a really big deal. Back to Matthew, the Bible says in verse 22, in Jesus turned and seeing her. Church, he sees you. I know some of you feel alone and like nobody sees, Jesus sees you. And he ain't mad at you. If you're in Christ, the Bible says in this is love, not that we first loved him, he first loved us and said his son is the propitiation for our sin. Propitiation means a payment that satisfies, which means if you're in Christ, he ain't dissatisfied in you. He sees her and he said to her, take heart. He said, it's gonna be okay. I know I didn't feel okay, but because of the resurrection of Christ and the promise of a new heaven and a new earth, it's gonna be okay. Jesus, seeing her, and he said to her, daughter, not defiled, not dirty, but he calls her daughter. Listen to me, only Jesus gets to tell you who you are. Not your past, not your dad, not some religious leader, not your circumstances, not your feelings. Only Jesus gets to tell you who you are. And let me tell you what makes me mad about the church. Every commentary I read gives a title to this woman. Gifted class, you're gonna know this. She's called the woman with the issue of blood. She's healed. Why do we call her by her issue? Anybody else got issues? Yeah, Ben, raise your hand. You got all kinds of issues, man. Thanks. Aren't you glad people don't call you by your issues? Here comes Leroy with the issue of anger. Oh, there's his wife with the issue of nagging. What's up, Drippy? I mean, we don't do that. Jesus, this is the only person in the Bible Jesus calls daughter. And then he says, your faith has made you well. You see, faith is acting as if you actually believe that God is who he says he is and he always keeps his promises. And she believed according to the prophecy and promise of Malachi, when the son of righteousness shows up, there's healing in his wings. And if I can just do what the Bible says and I can just get to that place, and there's more power in the hem of his garment than the camp of the enemy. And he looks at her and says, your faith has made you well. And here's the thing about faith. Ephesians 2 lets us know that we are saved by grace through faith and not by work. It also lets us know that faith is a gift of God. Romans 10 lets us know that faith comes by hearing and hearing the word of God. She heard the word of God through the prophet Malachi, and she believed and she received healing. Let me ask you, where have you given up and you need to exercise some faith? Like maybe you quit praying for your one more. Maybe you need to take that next step of obedience and join the disciple group or serve or get baptized. And the whispers of fear are too big, and you need faith over fear. Some of you, you know, you know, you need to quit your job and go home and raise those babies. Some of you fellas, you need to quit perpetually dating, stand up, act like a man, get on your knee, and ask her if she will marry you. For some of you, you need to quit that dumb job because all you're doing is chasing after more stuff, and you need to do what God has called you to do. Some of you need to start that ministry. Some of you need to receive the forgiveness that Jesus is offering you today. The Bible says, and instantly the woman was made well. That word in Greek is sosa. It means saved or delivered. The Hebrew word is shalom. It means whole or complete. So sometimes Gretchen helps me write my sermons. Because I don't know if you know this, I've never been a woman. I married one and we made one, so I studied two at my house intensely. And so I asked her, I was like, what's the deepest wound for a woman? She said, yeah, it's it, to be devalued. I asked her, what's the best thing you've ever heard? JP is a part of a ministry called Fellowship Adventures out in Nebraska. And on Mother's Day, he wrote Gretchen this incredible letter. And in it, there was this one line. He said, you make our family work. That's value, right? This lady, because of her condition, if she's married, can't be around her husband for 12 years. If she has kids, she can't be around her kids for 12 years. She's been told she's dirty. And then when she gets healed, here's what Gretchen told me. So all these things happen all at once because of her faith. She was touched again. She was loved again. She was healed. She was valued and she was acknowledged. You see, when we believe that Jesus is who he says he is, then there is a peace that transcends understanding. Meanwhile, as all of this is going on, you gotta think Team Jairus is like, we got somewhere to go, man. I mean, she's been dealing with this for 12 years. Can we just make an appointment for next Tuesday? Why in the world would you stop for this nobody? And here's why, because there are no nobodies in the kingdom of God. Verse 23, and when Jesus came to the ruler's house and he saw the flute players and the crowd making a commotion, this is great. The Talmud says it's for any funeral, regardless of how rich or poor you are, you need to hire a flute player and a loud wailing woman. That's what it says. I know some of your husbands are like, babe, I think I know you're calling. That's different, all right? So the funeral has already started, but verse 24, he said, go away for the girl is not dead but sleeping. Here's what I love, man. Aren't you glad Jesus gets the last word? Let me put this down on the bottom shelf for us here. It ain't over till Jesus says it's over. Some of you think you're in a dead marriage, it ain't over till Jesus says it over. Some of you got a bad prognosis from the doctor, it ain't over till Jesus says it's over. Some of you think you could never forgive, it ain't over till Jesus says it's over. Some of you think that you sinned so bad that God could never love you, that's a lie from the pit of hell. Jesus says it ain't over till he says it's over. And they laughed at him. Hey, listen, we talked about it at the end of the Beatitudes, but if you do whatever it is that Jesus tells you to do, we live in a world that's gonna laugh at you. And if the world ain't laughing at you, you might be indistinguishable from this world. But listen, man, the world can call me crazy all it wants. I don't care what you wanna be, normal. You can have normal, you know what normal is in this world? Broke, medicated and alone. No, no, no, no, no. I want the abundant life that Christ has for me. You do money the way God says do money, no financial advisor will laugh at you. You take joy when you face trials of many kinds, the world's gonna think you crazy. You offer forgiveness to people that do not deserve it, the world's gonna laugh at you. Let them laugh because you cannot simultaneously chase after the applause of man and be a servant of God. Says in verse 25, but when the crowd had been put outside, he went in and he took her by the hand. And again, man, Jewish rabbis aren't supposed to touch dead people. But when the clean touches dirty, the dirty gets clean. When the living Christ touches the dead, the dead come alive. And the girl arose and the report of this went through all that district. Listen, when Jesus does miracles, he's not just flexing. He's always demonstrating the message. And see, in the kingdom of heaven, no one's unclean, no one's crying and no one's dying. Why? Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And this miracle is not random. This miracle is put here together on purpose. We have a named man, Jairus, who's a big deal. He's rich. He's important. People know who he is. And we have this nameless woman who's an outcast, a nobody. Jairus has power. She has nothing. Jairus has a girl who's 12 years old. She's been bleeding for 12 years. And this thing points to the gospel. There's blood, there's a death, there's a resurrection. When we get to the end of Matthew, what we are going to see is there will be blood on a cross, there will be death, and there will be a resurrection. So what does this have to do with you? Everything. Everything. Man, what a waste of time it would be if we all gather up at all of our campuses and now you know what a tzitzit is. Who cares? Here's why I believe God inspired Matthew to put this in the Word, because Jesus is still in the healing business. Like listen man, I'm no crazy charismatic, but I've read through my entire Bible and I still can't find the expiration date on the power of God. Because he still does what he's always been doing because he's the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. So the son of righteousness has risen with healing in his wings. His name is Jesus. My question to you is, do you need healing? He looks at this woman and says, your faith has made you well. And when he says well, that the Hebrew word is shalom, you have been put back together, heart, soul, mind and strength. And the reason that God wants to make you whole is that you can wholly worship him with all of your heart and all of your mind and all of your strength. That everything that you have, and it starts this way. It actually starts with your soul. Some of you need to have your soul healed because you've never trusted Christ for your salvation. You've been in the crowd, but there's never been the transfer of power that you put your faith in him and he puts his righteousness in you. Today, we're going to do things differently because of the text. We're not going to bow our heads, and we're not going to close our eyes, and we're not going to dim lights. Everybody's going to look around because Jesus called this woman out in front of the whole crowd. If you're ruled by fear, you won't play along at all. But fear will crush you and faith will set you free. So with every head up and every eye looking, maybe you need to put your faith in Jesus Christ for the very first time. And you don't know how to explain what's going on right now, but you know that you know that you know for the very first time somehow you believe that when Jesus Christ died on the cross, that counted for you. Not some future version of you when you quit sinning so much that when Jesus died on the cross, it counted for you. And you know and you want to hear for the first time, I'm not defiled, I'm not dirty, but the king of the universe wants to look you in the eye and say, son, daughter, your faith has saved you. And so if that's you, and you're ready to fight through the crowd and fight through the fear and fight through the anxiety and fight through the whispers of the lie of the enemy. And today, right now, you want your soul to be healed by the blood of Jesus, that you believe that when he died on the cross, somehow that counted for you. You want to put your faith in him. And I know this is scary, but I want you to stand up right where you are. No matter what campus you're at, you might be at Arlington, you might be at Bay Meadows, you might be right here at San Pablo. Is there a person who would like to stand and say, I need Jesus? Praise God. Praise God. Praise God. Praise God. Praise God. Praise God. Praise God. Praise God. Praise God. Praise God. Stay on your feet. Stay on your feet. Every one of you, stay right there. Listen, man. On behalf of Jesus, on behalf of Jesus, His word to you is, you're not dirty. You're not defiled. He says, daughter, son, daughter, sons, daughters, your faith has saved you. Praise God. Now, you stay right there. You stay right there. Stay up. Because some of you, stay right there. There are some of you, and you need healing too. You believe in Jesus, but you need healing. For some of you, it's relational. It's a heart thing, man. You got a broken heart because there's some broken relationship. Maybe you feel like your marriage is on life support, and you need the power of Christ to come in and redeem that thing. Stand up. For some of you, you're like Jairus. It's not about you. It's about your kid. You got a prodigal son. You got a prodigal daughter. Stand up. Fight through the crowd. For some of you, like this lady, man, she had spent everything that she had. She was out of money and she was freaking out. And you need to put your trust in a God that has every good thing that you need. And you need financial help. Please stand up. For some of you, you feel like you're in a hopeless situation because you're being tormented by an addiction. It could be food or it could be drugs or it could be pornography. But there is this thing that has a grip on you and you're ready for the chains to fall down. Stand up. For some of you, it's physical. And you've got another test this week and you're begging God to make the cells do what they're supposed to do. Stand up. For some of you, it's spiritual. You feel like you're on the blank page, the 400 years of silence, and you just feel far from God. Stand up. For some of you, it's between your ears, man. You're battling depression and anxiety. That you're so ruled by fear that you're paralyzed, and you want to be able to walk in the freedom of faith. Stand up. For some of you, it's the whispers of the enemy. That he's telling you that thing that you did back then has defiled you, and you want to actually live out that therefore now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Stand up. For some of you, I didn't name your thing. But God knows, and so last call. If you want a fresh encounter with resurrected Christ and you want power to transfer from him to you right where you are, you stand up. Now listen, here, look around, look around, look around. You ain't alone, man. You ain't alone. A real Jesus died on a real cross for the real you, and if you trust him, he'll really change everything about everything about everything. So we're going to do things a little bit different. If Jesus was still in his flesh right here with us, he'd stand right here. He'd pray over each and every one of us. But he said, I'm leaving. And that's good news is I'm going to send the helper inside every single believer, and you're going to do even greater things than I did. Not greater in magnitude, but greater in breadth. So here's what I want to do. If somebody is standing around you, basically we're all standing, just start praying for each other. Just put your hand on somebody's elbow and on their shoulder. And I want you to just go ahead and pray. Baptist, you're going to get rid of this. It's going to sound Pentecostal. Get over yourself. Pray out loud. Okay? The Spirit of God in you is the same as me. My prayers don't work better than anybody else's. And you just pray. You pray for the healing touch of Jesus. Dear Jesus, Lord, we love you. We thank you that you showed up with power in your name. God, we thank you that your blood speaks a better word over us than this world and the devil of hell himself. God, we pray for freedom. We pray that addictions are broken. God, we pray that marriages are restored. We pray that prodigals come home. We pray that cancer is healed. Demons, you got to get out of this place, because this is the house of God. And with the name of Jesus rules and reigns, you are not allowed. Behold, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Repent, God, so we repent and we turn to you. And we speak your name, Jesus, over every hurting person. God, would you mend hearts? Would you repair souls? Would you clear minds? Would you make us strong so that we can worship you and you alone? And we pray this in the only name that matters when you pray. God, we pray this in the good, strong, victorious name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ and all God's people said amen. And we're gonna respond. We're gonna sing the name of Jesus. We're gonna pray. This would be a good opportunity for you to come down and pray and not by yourself grab somebody and say, hey, will you come pray? Yeah, just come on right now. It's gonna take a minute. And we're gonna bring our first and our best, our tithes and our offerings for one reason. This world doesn't get to tell us who we are and it ain't over till Jesus says it's over. Let's sing. Let's bring. Let's pray. Let's respond.