Mark 5:21-43
Father, may your will be done. Jesus, may your word be proclaimed. And spirit, may your work be accomplished. In us we pray. Amen.
Well, this morning we come to two healings that Jesus himself does. And before we get there, though, unfortunately, we're going to have to read a little bit more scripture to fully grasp what's going on. Every time that I have heard about the bleeding woman who touches Jesus cloak, it's a very great story. And what we noticed here, and it's several verses. This is coming from Mark, chapter five, verses 21, all the way to verses 43.
And what you have is you have these two stories. One is Oreo'd, if you will, or sandwiched in between the story of the synagogue leader. I like Oreos. This morning, Blake and Andrew realized that I love Oreos because I talked about it for, like, three minutes about this very thing. This whole text starts off with Jairus, a synagogue leader whose daughter is about to die.
And as Jesus and Jairus are going to his daughter, we are interrupted with yet another episode of Jesus healing by the woman coming and approaching him and touching the hem of his garment or his cloak. And so before we can, like, dive into this, because this is a treasure trove, if you're reading this, I wish I could go line for line. We don't have time today. I know I've been off for a week, so I am geared to talk for the rest of the afternoon, but we don't have time. I hope that you will see these things and come and approach me with more questions or more comments, because almost every line is packed with theological import, meaning, like, there are deep treasure troves in this passage, in these two healings that should speak to us as believers in Christ.
But before we can do that, before we can see what Jesus is ultimately doing and these two examples of faith are ultimately doing, we need to understand and frame our understanding from the Old Testament, because that's how these people who heard the gospel of Mark, the early church, would have understood. They are very familiar with the Old Testament. So I have to take you back to an amazing book that all of us from its name will probably cause us to fall into deep sleep, and that is Leviticus. Leviticus is that book of do's and don'ts, right? We often think like, man, what is Leviticus all about?
There's a bunch of do's and don'ts, what they ought to do, what they ought not to do, just so that they can be identified as the people of God. But I hope to open your eyes and illuminate your mind by the power of the Holy Spirit this morning to see Leviticus in a different light. Everything that the Lord prescribes to his people. In Leviticus, the do's and don'ts are met with purpose and intention. There's a reason behind the madness, so to speak.
It's intentional. And it all begins because of the problem of sin and death for his people. And in order for his people to be separate from that, in order for his people to not be so easily entangled with sin, in order for them not to continue in moving towards death so quickly, he prescribes to them an antidote of his law of rules, to steer them directly straight. Don't veer from it to the right. That's the left, the left or to the right, but straight on my word, listen to it, take heed of it, follow it, and you will curb the effects of sin in your life.
You will curb the reality of death. So let me just paint for you this picture that specifically addresses these two healings. So I'm going to read from Leviticus 15, one through one through 15, and then another little passage in Leviticus 21. So just hear the word of the Lord here in Leviticus. The Lord also spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, when any man has a discharge from his body, his discharge.
Discharge is unclean. This, moreover, shall be his uncleanness. In his discharge. It is his uncleanness whether his body allows its discharge to flow, or whether his body obstructs its discharge. Every bed on which this person with the discharge lies upon becomes unclean, and everything on which he sits becomes unclean.
Anyone, moreover, who touches his bed shall wash his clothes and bathe in the water and be uncleaned until evening. That's baptism. And whoever sits on the thing on which the man with the discharge has been sitting shall wash his clothes and bathe in the water and be unclean until evening. Also, whoever touches the person with the discharge shall wash his clothes and bathe in the water and be unclean until evening. Or if the man with the discharge spits on one who is clean, he too shall wash his clothes and bathe in water and be unclean until evening.
Every saddle in which the person with the discharge rides becomes unclean. Whoever then touches any of the things which were under him shall be unclean until evening. And he who carries them shall wash his clothes and bathe in the water and be unclean until evening. Likewise, whomever the one with the discharge touches without having rinsed his hands in water, shall wash his clothes and bathe in water and be unclean until evening. However, an earthenware vessel which the person with the discharge touches shall be broken, and every wooden vessel shall be rinsed in water.
Now, when the man with the discharge becomes cleansed of his discharge, then he shall count off for himself seven days for his cleansing. He shall then wash his clothes and bathe his body in the running water and will become clean. Then on the 8th day, he shall take for himself two turtle doves and two young pigeons that come before the lord to the doorway of the tent of meeting and give them to the priest. And the priest shall offer them one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering. So the priest shall make atonement for it on his behalf before the lord because of his discharge.
As you can see there, there is a lot that his discharge somebody who is bleeding, that can happen. And it tends to often spread from one person to the other. You touch something that a person with discharge or person has been bleeding, it gets on you. That's the concept. That's the reality.
Right? And we have to be cleansed from that. And we have to make atonement payment for that concerning death. Leviticus 20 111. Twelve.
Nor shall he approach, this is a person. This is a priestley. Nor shall he approach any dead person, nor defile himself even for his father or his mother. Nor shall he go out of the sanctuary, nor profane the sanctuary of his God for the consecration of the anointing. Oil of his God is on him.
I am the Lord. What are we to make of these two passages in Leviticus? Well, they're very intentional when it comes to today, when we're reading about these two healings. Look at the two healings that we're confronted with. A jewish leader in the synagogue, that is a pastor in the synagogue, we're told that he is not to come out of the synagogue for his mother or father if they have died, he is not to go and approach that dead body's corpse because he's been anointed with the oil of God.
And what we have here is Jairus comes out of the synagogue and humbles himself and presents himself to Jesus the Christ and asks for Jesus for help because his daughter is approaching death. We have a woman with a discharge. We have a woman who is bleeding, who comes into community to touch Jesus because she believes that she will be healed by his power. And without this understanding, Leviticus, we don't really fully grasp or understand what has taken place with Jesus, what Jesus is doing here, what mark is trying to present to you this morning by testifying to these two examples, is how Jesus changes everything. That all up to Jesus death has been producing more death.
Death spreads to each and every one of us because of our sin. It first started with Adam and Eve and every generation since. We're all sinful. We all have this disease of sin which makes us unclean, like the bleeding woman. And we are all moving towards death, like the little girl.
And what God offers his people is a way to curb it doesn't save them, it doesn't remove sin, it doesn't remove death. But what it does is it limits the parameters of uncleanness, sin and the potential of death. That if you abide by these rules, God says, do this, do this, do this, don't do this. Then sin won't spread through camp as fast. You won't be led to death quickly.
I'm trying to preserve your life. God says, and this is how you do it. You're going to be unlike all the other nations. We're going to be a people that seeks cleanliness. We're going to be the ones that operate our lives with this reality, that sin is real and it leads to death.
And this is how we can curb some of those things. And then Jesus comes on into the scene, and jesus does something drastically different everywhere he walks in his ministry. This is what we are very familiar with in the gospels. People are touching him, he is touching people, and yet he never once goes to the synagogue or never once goes in hiding because he's unclean. What happens is opposite.
When he's touched, he should be unclean according to Leviticus. But when he's touched, that person becomes clean. He reverses death and produces life. And this is all theologically super significant when we come to this text, because what Jesus is doing is he's giving life to the people. And it begins with Jesus.
Just like Adam now spread sin and death through every generation, the second Adam, the son of God, Jesus Christ, now produces and gives life and life begins spreading. And I hope to show you that this morning. So Jesus gives life, he gives it for the unclean, and he also gives life to that which is dead. He reverses it all. That's his whole entire ministry.
And we're told this because in John 1010, it says this, the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. But I, Jesus said, I came, that they may have life and have it abundantly. It's one thing to get life from Jesus. But he takes it to the next level. He doesn't stop there.
I'm going to give life abundantly, so much life that as you have been given life for me, you can go and start giving life, Jesus life to others as well. That's abundance. When you have so much, when your cup overflows with life, that you can go to those who are unclean and dead and begin giving them the life that you've received from Jesus. And we see that in these two examples, as Jesus comes and gives life, right, he represents life. He's undoing sin and death in his ministry.
And now we're given two examples of Jairus, a jewish synagogue leader whose daughter is approaching death, and a woman. We're not told whether she's a jew or gentile, but what we ought to know is that if she was a jew, she was cast out of community, because for twelve years she's been unclean. Nobody wants to touch her, nobody's going to talk to her, right? Because they don't want to be unclean themselves. So she is outside the community, representing gentiles, representing those who are not Jews.
So what we have here are two examples of faith. And faith, as I'm going to show you, a life fueled with faith is what receives the power and life from Jesus. And so we begin to look at these two examples. First, Jairus. Right?
We look at Jairus, and he's that jewish leader synagogue. He's not supposed to be out of the synagogue at this point, but he is moved by the death of his dying daughter. Pay attention to that word, daughter, right? And he goes and he presents himself to Jesus. And what's interesting about that is that Jesus, we're told, just came from the other side of the sea where there was a demoniac, and he healed the demoniac.
And the people said, get out of here. So he goes, okay, I'm out of here. The people didn't want him. And then here he crosses the sea. And now he's presented with people that want him, who need him and desire him.
Mark makes a point to reference this. And so Jairus comes down and says, I need you to come to my house, lay your hands on my daughter so that she might live. If you really want to know what that translation is, it's actually to be saved. Salvation's in play here, according to Mark. And so Jesus says, let's go.
And as they're going to Jairus House, a woman is in the crowd. The crowd is pressing in on Jesus. They're pushing him around. He is surrounded by a host of people. But there's only one among all the people that are touching Jesus that receives power from him, that receives healing, that receives salvation.
Because she uses the words, I'll be saved if I can touch. We're told Mark tells us what she's thinking to herself. She's an unclean person cast out of the community. And she crawls. Jesus is walking around.
Cause we're told that she comes from behind and she has to. She's crawling through these people, coming through the crowd, probably accidentally touching people, making them unclean. But that doesn't seem to dismotivate her. She moves and advances on Jesus because of her faith and the one who she believes can change everything for her. See, she's been to every doctor.
She's been to everything, and nobody can do anything for her. Matter of fact, they've made it worse. And so she goes, and maybe this is the only hope. This is her last opportunity to see if this is Jesus the Christ. Can he truly heal me?
Can he bring life to this unclean body? I bet that even if I don't get to touch him or see him, because he probably will have nothing to do with me if I just touch his cloak. I don't have time to go into this. But ask me about why a cloak cloak represents somebody's position and power. And in other, like in Matthew, when he recounts this, he says, matthew says that she touched his tassel.
Right in Matthew's gospels for the jewish community to understand who Jesus is from a jewish perspective. And here Mark is referencing everything on behalf of Peter, and he's representing Christ as a king. And a king wears a cloak, a robe of authority. And I don't have time to get into this. I've already started, so we won't get into that.
I just want to point that out, that that's something to also talk about. But she goes, if I just touched his garment, I will be healed. And what does she do? She crawls through, she touches, and immediately she's healed. Withhold immediately if you want one word that Mark always says, immediately, immediately this happens.
Immediately this happens. He's just going through all the points. Jesus is king. Boom, boom, boom, boom. And so what happens is she goes and touches, and immediately she's healed.
She senses that she is healed completely. And Jesus pauses, stops. And he says something here in Mark. He says, something, who touched my garment? If you were to, like a little kid, were to come and reach and tug on my pant leg, I may not feel it.
If I'm wearing baggy clothes, if I'm wearing, like, a trench coat, and you were to touch my trench coat, I probably wouldn't know. But Jesus knows somebody touched his garment because he felt the power of life go out from him. And we're told that one of his disciples say, everybody's pushing in on you. What do you mean, somebody touched you? Because he didn't understand, which is the point that as everybody is pushing in on Jesus, maybe they're all trying to seek Jesus for their own gain.
But only one received anything from Jesus, and that is the woman that he will later say, daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace. That's interesting, isn't it? It's interesting that out of all the people touching Jesus, there's only one that received life from him. What are we to make of that?
Well, we're to make of it that faith must be something that draws life from Jesus, not anything else but faith specifically. And that's pointed out by the reality that everybody was wanting Jesus. Everybody wanted to touch him for him, to do for them whatever is in their mind. But the woman is an example of somebody fueled by faith that gets a blessing from Jesus. His power goes forth from him into her, and she's completely and radically healed.
So he turns around, the woman, comes and tells him everything. I did this because I've been sick. I've been to doctors. Nobody can help me. I believed that if I just touched your garment, that I'd be healed.
And he says, fear not. Your faith has made you well. Go in peace. And as that's taken place, Jairus friends come and report to him over here on the side and says, your daughter's dead. And this is another interesting point that Jesus talks about here.
We're told that Jesus hears this, so he moves his attention from the woman to Jairus, and immediately before doing anything else, he says, hey, fear not only believe, can you imagine a father just heard his daughter's dead. Jesus, being the compassionate lord and savior that he is, moves his attention back to Jairus, and he says, hey, don't fear. Believe. Let's go. And they go to Jairus house, and they got this whole entourage of just professional weepers and playing sorry music and just mourning over the girl.
And Jesus walks into that situation with three of his trusted disciples, and he says, why are we doing this? The girl is just simply sleeping. And they laughed at him. They laughed themselves right out of the room because Jesus puts them out. So all that's in the room is a father and mother and his three disciples and hime.
And Jesus lays his hands on the little girl and he speaks to her. Arise, arise. She wakes up, she begins walking around because she's twelve years old. We're told Jesus raises her from the dead. He says, give her something to eat.
What do we make of this? What do we make of these two examples? They are similar in a lot of ways. Some of the ways is we have a bleeding woman for twelve years. We also have a little girl who's twelve years old.
We got a woman who's a community outcast. She's not supposed to be around anybody representing Gentiles. And we got a jewish little girl who's twelve years old who represents the Jews. Do you know what kind of ministry Jesus came to do? We're told this in Romans chapter one, verse 16.
For I am not ashamed of the gospel. For it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. To the jew first and also the Greek. To the jew first, but also the Greek or Gentile. Isn't it interesting that the order that Matthew presents this little Oreo sandwich is that the first one who comes in faith to Jesus to ask for his help with his daughter is a Jew?
And he responds, but as they're going along, one, like a gentile outside the community, unclean also comes to Jesus and touches him and receives healing. And then Jesus continues on and goes and heals the jewish daughter. He calls them both daughters. Daughter, your faith has made you well, daughter. Arise, little girl, arise.
They're both representing twelve. You know what the twelve, I'll tell you what the twelve represents. One, the twelve tribes of Israel. Jewish little girl, the Gentiles. The twelve disciples who will go out and spread the gospel to all the world.
What Mark is telling us that twelve is significant. It represents the nations, it represents tribal communities, it represents everybody. Mark is telling us through numbers that hey, numbers matter. And what I'm telling you is that anybody with faith can come to Jesus and receive life. That's the whole point of these two examples.
Whether you're a jew, whether you're a gentile, no matter where you come from. I'm telling you these two stories because Jesus has life and he wants to give it and he's going to give it abundantly. But he doesn't give it to just anybody. You come to him, press on him, but you lack faith. You don't receive the life that Jesus is wanting to give.
Only those who are fueled by faith will receive the life that Christ has come to abundantly give us that is the message of this Oreo story. If I could continue to say that of these healings, these two examples, and Mark specifically references their faith. And that's what we need to understand. We got to be a people of faith that we just don't get to make things up and come to Jesus willy nilly or however we want to. Just like that crowd.
I bet there's all kinds of really good, justifiable reasons, but they didn't receive anything, or at least we're not told, and we can only deal with what we're given in scripture. But we are told of the one who did receive life from Jesus, and she had faith. I would say she had direct faith. She had personal faith. Right.
This is another point of the text, is that in these two examples, a lot of similarities, but where they're different is that a dad intercedes for his daughter and one is a personal faith that she goes to Jesus herself. What that points to is that faith matters regardless of its indirect or direct, that we have personal faith and trust in Jesus and receive life from him. But we, as faithful people as his people, can also intercede and bring life to others. It's very important. This is the reason why we want to collect prayers.
This is why only us, the people of faith, can only bring life into this world. There's no other avenue that anybody can pursue that will bring them to life. It's only us. It's only Jesus. And we act on behalf.
As those who received life from Jesus, we are the ones, the bearers of his life, and we can go and intercede on their behalf. Father said, you have children that are not yet alive in Christ. We can pray and we can kneel before Christ in our faith and intercede for our children. And Christ will respond and go and bring them to life. That's the example.
Intercessory is good. We can intercede for one another. We can intercede for those who can't personally go to Jesus so that they might have life. We should be praying for people's salvation. We should be giving them life.
So what does the faith fueled life look like? Here's what the faith fueled life looks like. It's a faith fueled life engages in exchanging this exchangement with Jesus. We trust Jesus immensely. We exchange our death and sin for his life and righteousness.
Theologians often call this the sweet exchange. As people are touching Jesus, he absorbs their sin and he carries it to the cross and he does away with it. But that's one sided. He also gives them life. He also gives them his righteousness.
Let's talk about faith in works for a second. You're not saved by your works. You're saved by the works of Jesus himself. You're saved by faith in Jesus and trusting in his works, that they are highly approved by God the Father, and that you are able and restored to come to God the father in a relationship through Jesus Christ. Because you trust in that.
You're not trusting in your own works. You're not trusting in your church attendance. You're not trusting in your own personal devotions. You're not trusting in anything else. You're trusting in Jesus and what he's done for you.
That's a faith fueled life. Everything you do needs to be infused with faith. Like I mentioned earlier, you could come and read the scriptures that without faith, it is not pleasing to God and it has no effectual thing for you.
Before I. I need to tell you this because this is what the scripture said. Hebrews eleven six says this, and without faith it is impossible to please him. For he who comes to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of those who seek him. That means I don't care how good you look, I don't care how righteous you might think you are.
Your righteousness pales in comparison to the righteousness of Christ. It is better to be robed and cloaked in the righteousness of Christ so that because we know that's approved by God, then your own righteousness. There are people walking around believing that if they just behave good enough, if they act and do all the right things, they follow the law to a t. They've never lied, steal, cheat or do anything like that. They don't associate with people that do.
They believe that that is going to afford them approval for God to have a relationship with them. He says no. If you believe that you can do anything to have a relationship with God, and you bypass Jesus, then what you're doing is saying, God, you didn't know what you're doing. You spared your son Willy nilly. He didn't have to die because I was born.
And I can do whatever you ask me to do, and I will be perfectly obedient. You're calling God a fool by saying he wasted his son for no reason. I wouldn't want to be in that position. But every time you think about your works, I do this, I do this, I do this. And it's not infused with faith.
Know that. Hebrews eleven six says it's not pleasing and we're told in the gospels over and over again that Jesus, that God speaks from heaven and says, this is my son with whom I am well pleased. And it's our faith in Jesus, our trust in Jesus that is approved by God. That's that sweet exchange of, he takes away from us our death and sin, and he gives to us the righteousness, his righteousness. He did everything perfectly, he honored his father, he perfectly was obedient to the point of death for his father.
And Jesus says, I'm going to give you my works and you will be approved, and you will please God, if you trust in me. When I went to seminary and took preaching class, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, we had to. It's very intimidating to have to take a preaching class and preach to people wanting to be preachers. And at the time I didn't have money, I just graduated from college, I was new in seminary, and I'm taking a preaching class with the right hand man of Albert Mohler and all these other southern baptist preachers. And I'm nervous and I asked my papaw, cause I didn't have a suit.
I said, papa, I need a suit. So I put on my papal is a little bit bigger than me, but he definitely had shorter legs than me. And so I'm wearing his suit, I got this big suit, it was actually a red, what do you call this shirt that I wore that day, and it had missing buttons on this sleeve. You why? Later.
But I remember preaching with this suit from my grandfather, and all I can remember before I get up there was like my papa, by his demonstration of his faith in Jesus, an 8th grade educated farm boy from Kentucky who sat in the dining room table with long blue jeans and no t shirt, studying. A Sunday school lesson told Brucey to sit down, eat figs and drink milk with him, and he wanted to share a Sunday school lesson. I came to faith through the example and the witnessing of my papa, and I put on his suit on the time I had to preach in this class, and that's what christ does when I talk about, he robes us in his righteousness. It was because I was wearing my papa suit that I walked in faithfulness to who he was. That makes sense.
When Christ says he gives us this righteousness, it's not that there's some kind of passive activity. Well, I have Jesus righteousness, so I'm good, I don't need to do anything. No, having the righteousness of Jesus on us, covering us through which God the father sees us, it motivates us to carry ourselves in his likeness. I knew wearing my papal suit, I better wear it well. And I remember I got through my introduction, and the professor stood up, and he goes, all right, that's enough.
I was like, I just failed this class. He says, if anybody wants to go and listen to the Russell Bruce's sermon, we can go to chapel right now, but we got to move on. And so then you're just berated in front of everybody. The only negative comment I got was that I had buttons missing on my suit. And I said, I can't afford these nice suits that you guys wear.
This is my pabble suit. And so that was the only thing. But I'm only mentioning that because that is the imagery. I hope that you understand when I say that there's this sweet exchange that it doesn't cause us to just. Some people just think like, oh, I got Christ's righteousness, so I could do whatever I want.
No, it's Christ's righteousness that becomes effectual for you. If you're wearing the cloak of Christ, he's a king. You walk around like he's king, and then he rules your life. That's how it manifests. There's this story called the prince and the Pauper, right?
It's this beautiful story of this exchange. The prince comes out of the castle, meets this lowly pauper, and he exchanges clothes with him. That's what Jesus does. He puts on our filthy rags, and he goes and buries them in death. But his righteousness raises him to life, and his righteousness is given to us, and we're clothed in majesty.
His Majesty. His righteousness. So when God looks at you, he sees you covered in the precious robe of Christ's righteousness and his blood that was shed for you. You are clean before him. So it's not really dependent on your works.
But that doesn't mean you get to live passively. That means you get to live actively being robed in King Jesus robes, and you walk around with such. That's what it means. That's what it means to be living a faith fueled life and trusting in Christ's righteousness and trusting that he paid it all and trusting that he is the one who brings life. There's nothing else that I can participate in in all the world that will bring more life to me.
Only Jesus. That when I do devotions, it doesn't matter how I feel that day. What matters is that I come in faith. When I do food pantry on second or fourth Saturdays of the month, you could be doing that. Not in faith, and that is not a pleasing work.
We have to be a people of faith with everything that we do is infused by faith. I get up out of bed in faith that God is going to use me. I go tonight to bed believing and trusting that God has me. I go out and I share the gospel because I trust that I've been a steward of this life that Christ has given me, and I want to give it to other people so they can quit dying and sinning and be unclean. I can give them the way.
I can give them the truth. I can give them the life. And that's what faith fueled people do.
They give and bring life to others. I don't have time to go into all the examples, but the book of acts is a great book to show that when Jesus dies and is resurrected and ascends to the right hand of the Father, to intercede for us, right? That's where he is navigating the world. That's where he's ruling and reigning and is from a throne at the right hand of God the Father. He gives us his ministry.
He says here, disciples, I want you to go and make more disciples. All authority that I have has been given to you. Now you are to go out and to be me into the world. You are to act like the way I have acted. You are to do what I have done.
I have given life to people who believe and trust in me. Now, I want you to go tell people about me so that they might trust in me and so that through you, I can give them life. And just to point out one indication, there is a similar story that we've read today in the Gospel of Mark that Peter himself does. And that's in acts, chapter nine. I'm going to briefly read this.
You're going to see the similarities. How is it that Peter knew how to do this? Now, in Joppa, there was a disciple named Tabitha, which translates Greek in the Greek called Dorcas. This woman was abounding with deeds of kindness and charity, which she continually did. And it happened that at the time, she fell sick and died.
And when they had washed her body and laid her in the upper room, since Lyda was near Joppa, the disciples, having heard that Peter was there, sent two men to him, imploring him. Do not delay in coming with us. So Peter arose and went with them. When he arrived, they brought him into the upper room, and all the widows stood beside him, weeping and showing all the tunics and garments that Dorcas used to make. While she was with them.
Remember when Jesus came to Jairus house? All the weeping people were there, right? So Peter's like, I've been here before, because he was the ones in the room with Jairus. But Peter sent them all out and knelt down and prayed and turned to the body and said, tabitha, arise or little girl, get up. And she opened her eyes.
And when she saw Peter, she sat up, and he gave her his hands and raised her up. In calling the saints and widows, he presented her alive. It became known all over Joppa, and many believed in the Lord. And Peter stayed many days in Joppa with a tanner named Simon. Exact same story.
Only this time, it wasn't Jesus. It was Peter. It was his disciple who was in that very room. And what this shows us and what the Bible is trying to tell us is that we are now Christ believers. The people fueled by faith.
And this, and us being a faithful people, can go out and do what Christ has asked us to do, to bring life to them, and we need to do that. There's other examples of Paul's handkerchief, of Peter's shadow healing people. And all that is to point to you that as the whole of scripture, you can understand it this way. It is moving from death to death, and then it goes from life to life as death was spreading, namely in the Old Testament. It's under the cloak of darkness because of sin and death.
And then Jesus shows up, and now everything starts to produce life moving forward. Life starts spreading all over the world. Death and sin don't spread anymore. It stopped with Jesus. And now Jesus, who is the giver of all life, abundant life, it starts spreading all over the world, and it spreads through his faithful ones, the people fueled by faith.
A couple more things I just want to mention that we can gather from these two examples of faith, these two stories of healing, is that notice what Jesus puts out and what Peter puts out. The only people left in the room were people of faith. I think there's a point of application here that we can apply to our lives is that the people that we allow to influence our lives and our closest people need to be faithful people. There's five people, maybe six now that I allow to speak into my life, because I've had a bunch of people try to speak into my life, to try to give me certain pieces of wisdom that they've gained over their life, think it's fine and dandy, but there are five people that I trust with the deep secrets of my heart and who can speak into my life. So if they were to tell me, hey, you need to stop or you need to do this.
I will listen to them because they demonstrated that they are faith fueled and I trust them. I think there's a point here that Jesus is casting out those people that are just mourning and who are laughing at him. He says no, only the faith remains here because only faith can accomplish much. I want to be surrounded by people who trust and believe.
I think that's a point we need to understand and take home. Don't just allow anybody to speak into your life, only allow those to have influence over you who are fueled by faith in Jesus. And lastly, a faith fueled life believes it's never too late. How many of us would have given up upon hearing the fact that our daughter is dead? What more is there to do?
The very thing I came for Jesus to help out on is it's too late, it's over, it's done with. Faith fueled people do not believe it's too late because if Jesus can rise from the dead, so can whatever he touches, whatever he decides to bring to life. And maybe you've been praying for somebody over and over for twelve years and maybe they've gone so far off that they are just dead. It's never too late. I can't find it in the scriptures of any time being too late for God.
We have to be a faithful people, a people fueled with faith that infuses faith in everything we do, trusting in Christ and him alone for all things in life. Where might your faith be weak? Where might you need to have faith increase in your life? Are you trusting in Christ for all things or are you trusting in Christ but then adding some extra stuff from yourself? Place your faith in Jesus for all things, in his righteousness, in his life that he offers in his salvation and you will see how you will be spreading more life around your area of influence and even out into the rest of the world so that maybe us as the church, the people of faith, can be shining over the canvas of the sky, the light of Christ, over this dark and dreary world.
We are the only ones who can, nobody else can because we are the people of faith. So I challenge you. Find areas, search your heart, know ask God, where am I? Where is my faith lacking? Because I want it to increase.
I want to grow in grace and in knowledge of Jesus Christ and then take your faith and employ it to bring more life and spread life into this dark world. Let's pray.
Jesus, we thank you that as we come to you in faith you respond to us with life and present us with your power. We thank you that anyone can come, that you've allowed anybody who comes to you in faith to receive from you a fountain of life. I pray, as faithful people here, people who claim to place our faith in you, that we would be that city on the hill, a radiant beam of light into the world that spreads life to life and eradicate sin and death. And that as we do so, people will be giving you glory and honor and praise. May you be famous in this community because of your faithful people here.
I pray that those who might have areas of weak faith, that you would strengthen them, that you would give them more faith. For we know that you open up your hand and satisfy the desires of our hearts, and may our hearts desire to be, to place our faith in you and nothing else. It's in Jesus.