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Good morning, MidTree .

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I have the honor and privilege of reading God's Word this morning.

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We'll be reading from Luke 8, verses 40 through 56.

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Now, when Jesus returned, the crowd welcomed him, for they were all waiting for him.

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And when there came a man named Jairus, who was ruler of the synagogue and had fallen at Jesus' feet, he implored him to come to his house, for he had only a daughter about 12 years of age and she was dying.

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And Jesus went. The people pressed around him and there was a woman who had a discharge of blood for 12 years and, though she had spent all her living on physicians, she could not be healed by anyone.

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She came up behind him and touched the fringe of his garment and immediately her discharge of blood ceased.

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And Jesus says who was it that touched me?

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When all denied it, peter said master, the crowd surrounding you are pressing in on you.

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But Jesus said Someone, touch me, for I perceive that power has gone out from me.

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And when the woman saw that she was not hidden, she came trembling and falling down before him, declared in the presence of all the people why she had touched him.

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He said your daughter is dead, but do not trouble the teacher anymore.

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But Jesus, on hearing this, answered him Do not fear, only believe she will be well.

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And when he came to the house he allowed no one to enter with him except Peter and John and James, the father and the mother of the child.

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All were weeping and mourning for her.

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He said but do not weep, for she is not dead, but sleeping.

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And they laughed at him. Knowing that she was dead, but taking her by the hand, he called, saying Child arise, and her spirit returned and he got up at once.

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And he got up at once and he directed them.

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He directed that something should be given her to eat and her parents were amazed, but he charged them not to tell anyone what had happened.

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May God bless the reading of his word and the scripture that Pastor Will is about to bring.

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What's up, brothers? Good to be with y'all.

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Special place, special people.

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We'll look at a special passage together. There you go, thomas.

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Hey, if you would grab your Bibles, jump to Luke, chapter 8.

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If you would. While you're flipping there, I want to share some really excellent news with you guys.

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I also want to give you just a little bit of I don't know a little bit of instruction as well.

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We've been praying for a long time for a family, the Johnstons, who have brought home their son, yoting, also known as Bear.

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Yeah, you can clap. Also known as Bear.

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Yeah, you can clap. In the event that you're the kind of person who makes it to church on time and you catch the call to worship, you may not realize he is actually with us this morning, and so, in the event that you see the Johnson family, certainly feel free to be warm and welcoming.

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I would just ask you not to be completely overwhelming.

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That's the only thing I would shoot for.

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Hey, I just want to tell you guys, as we're diving in, it is a very fun thing to see somebody brought into a family, because the passage we're going to look at today, we are going to see a daughter brought into the family of God in the midst of a father looking at a daughter wondering if his family is about to be changed for the worse, and Jesus steps in and makes good, better and better, great and great, excellent, all throughout the passage.

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So we have a very encouraging, uplifting time together in the Word.

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And so, if you would go ahead, luke, chapter 8, verse 40, is where we're going to be Now.

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Keep in mind, if you weren't here last week, here's how it played out the disciples and Jesus have just been through some rough waters to the point where they thought they were going to die.

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They cry out to Jesus. He looks at him and he's like come on, guys, show me your faith.

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And they are astounded when he quiets the wind and the waves and everything becomes incredibly peaceful.

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Next thing, you know that boat hits shore.

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He hops out of the boat and there's a man just riddled with demons and Jesus showing an incredible amount of power and authority without seeming to even sweat.

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Absolutely. Man handles evil on display before us.

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The reason that I tell you that is because it ends with people telling Jesus they want nothing to do with him.

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The man who is tell you that is because it ends with people telling Jesus they want nothing to do with him.

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The man who is healed wants everything to do with him.

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The disciples want everything to do with Jesus, but when these demons were cast out of this man, they were sent into some pigs.

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These pigs ran off a cliff and the people who lived in the garrisons lost their living and instead of coming to Christ and finding new life in him, they basically look at Jesus and say we really want nothing to do with you.

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This is a little too much for us. It's a bit terrifying.

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Can you please get out of here? And I bring all of that up because I just want you to appreciate this warm reception that Jesus receives when he heads back in the other direction.

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We don't always see this in Scripture, but it really does set the tone for our entire morning together Luke 8 40.

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Now, when Jesus returned from all of that, from being rejected, the crowd welcomed him.

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They were all waiting on him.

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I mean, this to me is the posture I want to have every Sunday morning.

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This, to me, is the posture I want to have whenever I'm coming into worship.

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We had a night of worship this past Wednesday.

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It was phenomenal. Thank you, guys and the team for pulling that off. But this is the way that I want to come to Jesus watching and waiting and excited about receiving what he has.

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And there was a man who was watching and waiting, but excitement would not be where he was.

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Loss, fear, anxiety is where he is and he's counting the moments for Jesus to return, because Jesus is very much his only hope.

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And there came a man named Jairus who was a ruler of the synagogue and, falling at Jesus' feet, he implored him to come to his house, for he had an only daughter about 12 years of age.

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I love the fact the Bible doesn't always give us ages when it says sons and daughters, but I think the Spirit of God wants you to be able to go here.

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I want you to think of the 12-year-old that you have or that you had at one point, maybe the 12-year-old that you are in this moment.

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And she was dying. As Jesus went, the people pressed around him and there was a woman who had a discharge of blood for 12 years, same age of this daughter.

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This other woman has been in turmoil and, though she spent all her living on physicians, she could not be healed by anyone.

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First thing that I want you to notice is this A ruler of the synagogue in the beginning of this text, falls down at the feet of Jesus.

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If I were to give you one phraseology to jot down in your notes, it would be at the feet of Jesus.

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He is not going to be the only one who finds himself at the feet of Jesus, but the fact that he is there is highlighting and underlining the authority of Christ, sort of exactly what Mitch opened us up with in Ephesians this morning.

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The ruler of the synagogue. In many cases there was only one.

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He would be the seniorest of senior pastors.

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Keep in mind there was only one synagogue in the area.

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It wasn't like you can go and find the pastor of that church or the pastor of this one or the pastor of that one.

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This was a man of incredibly high prominence.

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It would have been his job to arrange the service.

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It would have been his job to determine who was going to read, what scriptures were going to be read, what prayers were going to be prayed.

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He was in charge also of the building, making sure that the air conditioning they didn't have it, but you get the idea was working correctly, that the fabrics of the temple were being maintained properly.

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Every thread and every stitch was his ultimate responsibility, and sometimes this was a life appointment, sometimes it was for a period.

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But I bring this up to tell you that these were also the people who often were most at odds with Jesus, and our story opens with everybody longing for Jesus, even those who, for most of their lives, probably would have been fine to do without him, and maybe even those who were a little bit offended by him.

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But Jesus has been and is the place where infinite power and infinite compassion meet.

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And so this leader of the synagogue, who is probably bowed down to few, if any, now finds himself looking at the rough feet of a weary, traveled Jesus.

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Knowing this is my only hope.

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My 12-year-old daughter is at home, without me, on the brink of death, and if this man can do what others have said, the stories that I have heard, if he will show compassion on me, then perhaps Jesus will step in.

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Well, as that is happening, we've happened upon another issue.

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The other issue is there's a woman who stops Jesus in his steps.

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The text makes it pretty clear she wasn't trying to do so.

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Jesus is walking by, she's reaching out to touch him, but all of a sudden, as Jesus is on his way and what you would imagine would be ER style, the beeper goes off, the phone goes off, the sirens are blaring, there's a daughter on the brink of death.

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We're trying to get the ambulance, we're trying to get healing, we're trying to get hope to her.

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All of a sudden, jesus stops everything because of this woman who for 12 years, had had a discharge of blood and had spent everything that she had on physicians.

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Now I'm not going to read this to you because I want to make you uncomfortable.

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I want to read this to you because I want you to understand what this woman's life must have been like.

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This is Leviticus 15, 25.

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God's law outlines very clearly what life would have been like for a woman who had an issue of blood in an unceasing way.

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If a woman has a discharge of blood for many days, not at the time of her menstrual impurity, or if she has a discharge beyond the time of her impurity, all the days of her discharge, she shall continue in uncleanness.

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This would have been her word. She would have been considered by herself, by her religion, by her community, by her leaders, by any potential suitors, by a husband, by her family, unclean, as in the days of her impurity, she shall be unclean.

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Now let me pause here. We use the term in our vernacular, unclean, synonymous with sinful.

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That's not what's going on here. The Bible is not in any way claiming that she is being sinful.

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What the Bible is doing is it is saying we are a people who are impure and broken.

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And as impure, broken people, we are attempting to worship a holy God, which in and of itself is an almost ridiculous endeavor that you in your mind would be able to conceive of.

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Anything even close to the unfathomable majesty of the creator of the cosmos, who also knits you together in your mother's womb, who knows every one of your thoughts, all of the inclinations of your hearts, all of your good, bad, evil and in-between desires.

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That God, who knows you at a beyond cellular level, invites you to know him in all of his holiness.

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And this, which we would read and say, uh, that's ick and difficult and not fun to read, I want you to realize Leviticus is a gift to you, christian.

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In fact, it's not just a gift to the Christian, it's a gift to anyone created in the image of God, which is everyone created, Because what it is doing is it is putting on display a couple of things.

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God is more holy than you could ever imagine.

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You are more dirty than you will ever realize and for some reason his love and his compassionate grace want you to be near him.

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So he has tried to outline how you can draw near.

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And this woman at this point would have been considered unclean.

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This would, this hemorrhaging, would have kept her out of temple.

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It would have kept her out of synagogue. It would have removed her from normal social relationships.

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She would have not just been alone, she would have been very, very alone.

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Because this uncleanness is seen as contagious by the word of God.

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If you continue reading verse 26, every bed on which she lies all of the days of her discharge shall be to her as the bed of her impurity.

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Everything on which she sits shall be unclean, as in the uncleanliness of her impurity.

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And whoever touches these things not even touches her, touches anything that she touched shall be unclean and then notice the change in genders here and shall wash his clothing and shall bathe himself in water and be unclean till the evening.

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For a guy to have a relationship with this woman would mean that he also would have had to remain outside of social norms outside of the church and seemingly further away from God.

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The reason that I point you to this again is not to make you go through something gross on a Sunday morning.

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I want you to feel what this must have been like for her and I want you to know that in the moments in your life when you feel like there is no part of me that deserves to be near Christ, there is nothing in me that deserves to draw near to him or for him to draw near to me.

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I have this news for you. You're right, there is nothing, and somehow God, for all of human history, has been painstakingly making a way, through his own self, to draw near to you.

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And the Bible tells us that she spent everything she had trying to become normal.

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I don't know what exists in your bank account and I don't know what assets you have, but what I'm telling you about her is this she would have zeroed out the bank account, she would have run up debt on the credit cards, she would have liquidated every asset.

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To walk in those doors For 12 years, her greatest desire was to go from the concrete on one side to the carpet on the other.

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It is a privilege for us to draw near to a holy God, and not one that we earn by putting on a tie or waking up a little early.

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You are sitting in the midst of a privilege that was open to you because God saw fit to open it through his son.

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In fact, the only thing this woman has is the only thing that all of us should ever hope to have.

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This woman had faith. In fact, you have to go to a different gospel writer to see it.

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But Matthew, in telling this story, puts it this way in verse 21.

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He tells us what she's thinking to herself.

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She said to herself if I only touch his garment, I will be made well.

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If I can get close enough to Jesus, he shouldn't touch me.

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I don't deserve to touch him. Honestly, if I touch his garment he would become unclean.

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But if I can just get that close, maybe I will not be alone.

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Verse 44, she came up behind him.

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Not wanting to make eye contact, not wanting to trouble the teacher, not wanting to slow him down on the great mission of rescuing a 12-year-old, she came up behind him and touched the fringe of his garment.

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I love that Luke gives us this detail, because if you're going to find the fringe of the garment from behind, you're going to have to get incredibly low.

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And within moment one to moment two, we have two people at the feet of Jesus.

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And within moment one to moment two, we have two people at the feet of Jesus One who makes it very known, one who you would never expect to bow, and one who shuttles through a crowd, creeping, crawling, hiding, just hoping she can reach out to one tassel being left behind in the wind.

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She reaches out and she touches the fringe of his garment Remember Leviticus and immediately her discharge of blood ceased.

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This whole text is about you coming to the feet of Jesus and maybe you are bold enough to come forward and just get on your knees, praise God.

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Maybe you feel like the closest you can come is hoping to grab a thread of his goodness.

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Can I encourage you? She is completely healed the moment she comes to a thread of who Jesus is Verse 45,.

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And Jesus said who was it that touched me?

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I'm a big Peter fan. I'm a huge Peter fan.

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Everybody loves Paul. Me too.

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I hope to hang out with him. I'm sure he's gonna have a long line in heaven.

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Peter's my guy. I relate to him.

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He's a bit of a hothead. He says things without thinking about it all the time, whatever he's feeling.

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You're going to see and you're going to hear. I can relate to that.

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That is the world I live in, that is the family I live in and I just love Peter.

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You don't hear one other disciple say anything but Peter.

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And Jesus said who was it that touched me when all denied it?

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Also, just consider that nobody touched Jesus.

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What do you mean Touched Jesus?

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None of us did that. Peter said Master, the crowds surround you, they're pressing in on you.

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He's looking at Jesus and he's like what do you want us to do with these questions?

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The last question you asked me was where's your faith?

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Well, jesus, it's very small.

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I was in the midst of dying and so I cried out to Jesus and I feel chastised.

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And now we're walking through a crowd like the halls at Hardaway when I was a senior and it's like this, trying to get through.

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I don't know how many of you guys grew up in public school.

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That was my world. In public school, it gets crowded.

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They throw some portables out there. It didn't fix anything.

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Folks were always bringing stink bombs because they knew when classes broke there was no way you were gonna get caught for anything, because it looked more like cattle moving through a stall than anything else.

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If I was walking through the halls of Hardaway and I made it to chemistry class and somebody said, hey, will, who is that who bumped into you?

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I would look at them like they were an absolute lunatic, and so does Peter.

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But Jesus pauses. Someone touched me.

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I perceive that power has gone out from me.

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Leviticus 15, 27. And whoever touches these things shall be unclean, shall wash his clothes and bathe himself in water and be unclean until the evening this is amazing.

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Jesus, the son of God, the holy one, the lion and the lamb, the alpha and the omega, the one in which there is no darkness at all, the one in which there is no darkness at all, the one in which there is no shade of shadow, the one who is the light of the world and the word of God, is touched by someone that his own law declares unclean in such a way that what she touches becomes unclean.

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And what I want you to notice is Jesus does not ask who just made me dirty?

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It's not his question. Who has profaned me?

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Who has come, in their brokenness, close to my perfection?

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Jesus does not ask that question. He asks who did I just heal?

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Who have I made clean?

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Now we can wrestle with this.

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Did Jesus really not know? Is this him being fully man, where he doesn't know what's going on or what?

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I would submit to you and this is me sort of stepping away because I don't fully know.

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I think, if we look at the question, there's something more going on than Jesus being confused.

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Jesus said who was it that touched me? When I read it in that way, I feel like Jesus stops and he says who was that?

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Who was it and everybody and you know that's sort of the way it plays out, because everybody denies it.

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Whatever you're talking about, it wasn't me, okay, like not it, not it.

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And when the woman saw that she was not hidden, now, if that verse does not get underlined in your Bible, I think you've made a mistake, because this woman, who has been in hiding for a decade and change, comes to Jesus in one moment and then becomes referred to in God's word for all time as the woman who was not hidden.

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And when she realizes that, when Jesus is ultimately not saying hey, I don't know what's going on, but he's saying who was it that touched me?

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When the woman saw that she was not hidden, she came trembling and falling down before him.

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No matter, this is a picture. A week or two ago, I showed you a church in Magdala, when we were talking about Mary Magdalene and these women who had supported the ministry of Christ, and there were pillars to all of these women.

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This is a portrait from that very same church and in it is a rendition, an artist's rendition, of what it must have looked like for this woman to come near Christ in this crowd, encouraging us to realize that, no matter how well you can blend in.

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You, my friend, are not hidden.

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This morning Jesus sees you.

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He sees you in all of your imperfection.

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He knows your disease, sin and otherwise.

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He knows your deficiencies. He knows all of your disgraces and he knows his ability to heal you.

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Jesus is not asking because he's confused.

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He's asking because, even though he's in an ambulance on his way to a needed momentary rescue, something beautiful has just happened.

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Someone has exhibited faith and there's an entire crowd and a group of people for all time who need to not miss this.

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And when the woman saw that she was not hidden, she came trembling and falling down before him.

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This is now the third time she has found herself.

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The third time we have found someone at the feet of Jesus and falling down before him.

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She declared in the presence of all the people she's low, but her voice is high, her joy coming through trembling tears and a wavering voice declares in the presence of all the people why she had touched him and how she had been immediately healed.

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Why come trembling? Because, now that this is known and please notice this she doesn't say I was sick and I was healed.

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It seems like she explains exactly what is going on, and so some of the trembling may have been that there could be consequences that she should expect for this boldness.

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Do you think Jesus was the only one that she bumped into?

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According to this, it doesn't seem so.

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It seems like if you could have seen this crowd from the holy eyes of God, you would watch one become unclean and then another, and then another, and then another, not as though any of them were clean, but God would have been watching and she would have known Every bump into that guy's shoulder, into her thigh.

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She flat tired the child in front of her, and all along she knows, if I'm reading Leviticus correctly, my boldness is bordering on the irreligious, the unwise and the ungodly.

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Fear many times does not hinder faith.

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Many times your fear is a freeway to finding it.

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I think of all of the times in my life that I have been most scared, and I don't mean scared that a shark was going to swim up when I was at the beach, or scared that I was going to rear end the guy in front of me.

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Scared in the kind of way where my life was going to change because of a decision I made or someone else made that was affecting me.

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Fear, when I feel like God is calling me to walk in faith in a way that is uncomfortable, that might be socially not perfectly appropriate, which is exactly what's going on here.

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But what we see in this text is that her fear was turned into this highway, this freeway, this fairway, for her to have some reason to have faith.

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One of you sent in this question when we were doing our read-through a couple of months ago.

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We were doing the read-through and somebody said this may be a silly question, but is Jesus healing or is our faith healing?

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The text says, for I perceive that power has gone out for me, but also your faith has made you well.

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So what exactly is going on here? What is my responsibility to faith and what is God's?

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I just want to take a brief three minutes and give you a piece of theology that I think may serve you for the rest of your life, especially if you have been fearful to have faith for something, because if that thing doesn't come true, it causes you to question if you have faith in Christ at all.

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I don't know if that relates to any in this room, but it certainly related to Jesus or to Will for about 20 years of his following Jesus.

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1 Corinthians 12,. I'm going to try to put the whole text up there, but I only want to point to a couple of things.

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Let me get your eyes for just a moment.

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There is saving faith, a faith that believes that Jesus is the only one who can forgive you of your sins and desires to actually forgive you of your sins and come near you, even though you don't deserve it.

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This is saving faith. The thing that makes it a little complicated is saving faith, according to scripture, is a gift.

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It's something that God gives to us, that he gives us the ability to believe, the ability to see that we're sinners, the ability to recognize that this is a perfect sacrifice, a perfect life lived, laid down.

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For any who would say I'm trusting that when I stand before a holy God, I do not want to stand in my own merits.

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So if you're telling me Jesus, live the life I should have lived, died the death I deserve to die, and he's offering that to me as a gift, I want that.

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That is called saving faith.

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But the Bible also points to faith in another way, a different way, and that is the gift of faith.

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The that makes it complicated again is this is also a gift.

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But let me get your eyes for a minute. For those who have saving faith, the Bible tells us he gives those people, christians different gifts.

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Now, there are a variety of gifts, but the same spirit.

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Varieties of service but the same Lord.

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And to each verse 7, is given the manifestation of the spirit for the common good.

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In other words, you matter to mid-tree, you matter to mid-tree in a major way.

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And if you are not serving in your giftedness, if you have not even begun to scratch the surface on what you may be gifted in, can I just tell you we are not the primary one losing, you are Operating loving people.

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Being filled by the Spirit of God unto something that is outside of yourself is the best thing for yourself, but it is also good for the church.

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And then there's a list. By the way, there are numerous lists throughout the New Testament.

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This is just one of them. Some gifts are wisdom, some knowledge, some healing, and on and on it goes.

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Hospitality is tucked in, lots of different things, teaching is tucked in, but I just want you to notice in verse 9 that faith is also seen as a gift.

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So there is saving faith that brings you into the family and then for those in the family, some of them, or some of them at some times have a gift of faith, a simple belief that something is going to come to pass.

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I hesitate to give this illustration because it feels in some ways self-serving.

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But I am not surprised at this at all.

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Nothing about mid-tree surprises me, and it is not because I think I'm good at this or great at this.

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I watched God do incredible things from the moment I became a believer at nine years old, and I have continued to watch him do great things.

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And when the elders of the church that I was at said, hey, we think you should consider planting a church, and a bunch of folks said, hey, we wanna be a part of that thing.

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0% of me is surprised by this.

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God is amazing and good.

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That would be an example of a gift of faith.

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When we realized that God was calling us in the midst of COVID, when we couldn't even meet with people, when finances were a mess, to start raising money for a building, 0% of me was surprised when we met our budget.

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It is not because I'm cocky, it is not because I'm arrogant.

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It's because God just gave me this gift of faith that it was going to happen.

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Remember being a child praying for another child that had terminal cancer.

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I just knew I can, in this moment, remember holding on to the comforter on the right side of my bed with my knees on the ground and just knowing this child's going to be healed.

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Do you know what I brought to that?

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Do you think I prayed extra? Do you think I, like, stayed away from saturated fats that day or just really turned my worship music up in the boom box?

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No, it's just a gift, and the reason that I bring this up to you is to free you up.

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Perhaps you do not have the gift of faith in a particular place or situation.

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That does not mean you do not have saving faith.

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That does not mean that you are not a Christian.

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But 1 Corinthians 14 says pursue love and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts.

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But if you're like, okay, I don't have the gift of faith, I guess I don't want to feel bad about it anymore, kind of sort of.

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The Bible also tells you to desire the spiritual gifts.

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I would encourage you to pray that God would give you the gift of faith for something that is yet to come into being, that you would be one who is praying to see it happen.

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And in this moment, our story changes.

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It becomes the story of two daughters, verse 48,.

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And Jesus said to her Daughter your faith has made you well.

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Go in peace.

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What in that shames her for walking through a crowd of people in her uncleanness?

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What of this despises her for the 12 years in which the gift of faith was not present in her life?

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I can't find anything, but what I can see is that Jesus looks at her, this one who is oh so very alone, and he says this has become my child, this has become my family, this has become my daughter, and the only word that I have to her, in her trembling, is go in peace.

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Now, while he was still speaking. So appreciate this.

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All of this is happening. This huge hustle and bustle, everything freezes.

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Hey, somebody touched me. Who touched me? I didn't touch him.

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Nobody touched him. Peter Jesus, what do you mean?

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Somebody touched you. How are we even supposed to follow you?

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This is incredibly complicated. A woman it was me.

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Here's who I was, here's what happened, and I've been completely healed.

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My daughter, go in peace. As this is happening, a couple more people walk up to the crowd.

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While he was still speaking, someone from the ruler's house came and said to Jairus your daughter is dead, do not trouble the teacher anymore.

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I love this, I love this, I love this, I love this.

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It is as though Jesus looks at Jairus and says on my way to see your daughter, would you like to meet mine?

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She's about to be born.

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I don't want you to miss it, because you're gonna need the faith that she is about to put on.

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I don't want you to miss it because you're going to need the faith that she is about to put on display for you.

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This interruption in your life is everything but an interruption in your life.

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This is God intentionally giving to you an example of the very gift of faith, jairus, that you are going to need.

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Regardless of all of the years that you have been putting together church services, all the scriptures you've read and all the prayers that you have prayed, they have led you to this moment.

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I'm coming to see your daughter.

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Before we get there, can I introduce you to mine?

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You see, for Jesus, spiritual relationships are more important than physical ones, and this is the second time in two weeks he has shown it to us.

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And this father, this ruler of the synagogue, who rarely ever had to wait on people but was often waited on, is watching and waiting on Jesus.

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Knowing his daughter is diminishing moment by moment.

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Was he not the one there waiting when Jesus got off the boat?

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Was he not the very first one that approached Jesus?

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Why is he the second in line?

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This is what we would call medical malpractice.

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This is you coming in after a car accident holding a limp 12-year-old in your hands, walking into the ER and the doctor comes out and he sees your child, limp, lifeless.

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Their face has no light in it, worthless.

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Their face has no light in it. Their eyes are closed. You're shaking them, you're calling their name and next to you is someone who had broken their arm 12 years ago.

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They've got a magazine out.

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They've been used to this for over a decade and the good physician comes and he looks at you and he says my daughter, come here.

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How, if you're Jairus, how if you're a good father, do you not lose it in this moment?

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This daughter is all alone, without her dad nearby, a dad who was probably one of the greatest comforters in his country, and he can't be there for his own daughter.

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But God knew the condition of this 12-year-old Every moment Jesus was helping his older daughter.

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When we read this, it doesn't make sense, and that's okay.

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If you've ever felt confused, I'm sure the woman wondered why Jesus made her stand up until a little more time passed.

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I'm sure Peter was a little confused when Jesus said, hey, who has touched me?

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Until just a little more time passed and he realized the great teacher is teaching yet another lesson.

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And I am sure Jairus was confused as he is mentally and emotionally holding a lifeless daughter.

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Is this an interruption or is it godly intention?

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Are your plans being interrupted or is God being intentional?

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I only want to give you one example of this and I hope it's encouraging, but I think it's also a little bit comical.

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I've been, I'm getting through the Old Testament and my Bible reading plan for the year and I finished up Judges a little while ago and I love reading about Samson.

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The dude's just not real bright and I love it.

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And I was reading this as I was thinking about this text.

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This is Judges 14, three to four Parents.

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I give this to you on a Sunday, when children are moving up, when seniors are moving on and impact as you move out.

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I just give you what it must have been like to be Samson's parents for a minute.

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His father and mother said to him is there not a woman among the daughters of your relatives, among all our people, that you must go?

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Take a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines? I don't know if you've ever felt like this as a parent.

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You want your kid to marry the right person. Be great if they were a believer.

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Wouldn't that be nice If they were one of the good ones?

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And that's how Samson's parents are feeling.

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Samson was being led more with his eyeballs, but Samson said to his father get her for me.

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She's right in my eyes, she's hot. This is the wife I want.

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What more could I ever need in a woman than somebody who's incredibly attractive?

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And then this awesome verse.

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His father and mother did not know that it was from the Lord.

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He was seeking an opportunity against the Philistines.

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At that time, the Philistines ruled over Israel.

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I just love this. I love that these parents are doing everything that the law dictated, that wisdom dictated.

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They're looking at Samson and they're like you, idiot, you buffoon, you do this all the time.

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Can't you just marry somebody who's half decent and, behind it, telling a story that they didn't realize, was God saying even their foolishness is not outside of my control.

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So I ask you whatever that thing is in your world right now, are your plans being interrupted or is God being intentional?

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This woman was not an interruption to Jesus.

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It was intentional to put on display a gift of faith that Jairus was going to need.

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And here, in our last look at the passage, we see it Verse 49.

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While he was still speaking, someone from the ruler's house came and said your daughter is dead, do not trouble the teacher anymore.

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But Jesus, on hearing this, wasn't even talking to Jesus.

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But Jesus, on hearing this, this, answered him do not fear, only believe, and she will be well.

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And in that moment we can read in other gospel accounts that Jairus knew that if Jesus was going to come, his daughter was going to be well.

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This is an example of a gift of faith given to someone.

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And when he came to the house, he, jesus, allowed no one to enter with him except Peter and John and James and the father and mother of the child, and all were weeping and mourning for her.

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But he said if Jesus has ever confused you, this will be one more time.

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Do not weep, for she is not dead, but sleeping, and they the crowd, the mourners in the area laughed at him, knowing she was dead.

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Jesus is off his rocker, guys.

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He may be a great teacher and he may have done great things, but this is a child who is dead.

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We're here to mourn. So as soon as Jesus comes up and says, hey, for me this is little more than rousing someone from sleep, they begin to laugh.

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This is the last thing that I want you to put your eyes on before we move towards communion, and I encourage you to draw near to a God who wants you to come near his feet.

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This is my last thing that I want you to see.

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Was it wrong for this woman to break the law walking through an unclean, walking unclean through a crowd?

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Jesus doesn't say so. He tells her to go in peace, even though it went against social norms.

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Would it have been looked down on for Jairus to bow at the feet of an itinerant teacher?

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Absolutely, and yet he goes against social convention because the only place he needs to be is at the feet of Jesus.

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What social convention, what normative thing?

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What I just feel a little weird and awkward-ism keeps you from the feet of Christ.

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I was so blessed We've been praying for a long time that we, the prayer team, has been praying for a long time that we as a church would become more responsive.

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Thomas, I really appreciate you pointing that out.

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And, pax Unions, we love that you guys worship with your arms up.

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By the way, they're not the only ones, there are a number of you who do it.

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Guys, what is it that's holding you from coming to the feet of Christ?

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And if it is some kind of social norm or some kind of personal awkwardness, can I just encourage you decide, before the Holy Spirit moves, that you're just gonna follow.

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One of the greatest decisions you could make in your life, next to responding to the gospel itself, is deciding that, the moment the Holy Spirit calls me to go somewhere, say something, not go somewhere, move towards something, I'm just gonna do it.

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It's the Holy Spirit, after all.

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I may not see the whole story. This may not make sense to me, but it does not have to.

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What barriers social, cultural, personal are hindering your relationship with Christ?

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Do not be ashamed to reach out with the faith that you have.

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Jairus had the faith to kneel before a teacher that was below him.

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That's how much faith he had. This woman who had been sick for 12 years had enough faith to reach for a thread.

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That's how much faith she had, and they got what they needed from Jesus.

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For those of you feeling embarrassed or ashamed, those of you not wanting to burden those around you, jesus is not burdened by your brokenness.

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He was, but it's a past tense burden.

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He has already carried the burden to the cross.

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He has carried it up a hill, has been nailed to it, bled for it, gave his last breath to a burden that in his resurrection he no longer carries.

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Whatever burden you have that you are afraid to give to him, can I tell you that 5,000 demons don't make him sweat and your mess is not going to make him sweat.

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Stop looking at or caring about the faithless mocking crowd around you, even if it's just the voices in your own head, because he has called us to come near him, even though we do not deserve it.

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Where did I put it? Here we go. Even though I do not deserve for his body to be broken for me, he did it.

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Even though I do not deserve for his blood to be shed for me, he did it.

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And then he commands us regularly to remind ourselves that the greatest place that you can be is at the feet of Jesus, that, whatever your mess is, it is not too messy for him.

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Taking her by the hand verse 54, he called, saying child arise, and her spirit returned.

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She got up at once and he directed that something should be given her to eat, and her parents were amazed, but he charged them to tell no one what had happened.

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For Jesus, your mess isn't too messy and your brokenness isn't too broken.

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What you are seeing as an interruption in your life, whatever it is, whether it takes 12 minutes, 12 years, 12 miles or whatever else, it's likely God's intentionality to draw you near to him.

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Do not allow the fear of social appropriateness to prevent you from coming to Jesus, because if there's one thing that we see put on display for us this morning is there is nothing that a father won't do for a child that he loves, and his word to you, if you will come to him, is son and daughter.

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There's no reason to be ashamed in the hands and the arms of a heavenly father who knows everything about you and loves you anyway.

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This is how we come to him, if the guys would go ahead and come on in.

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So here's what we'll do. We'll have the opportunity to come to the feet of Jesus, and let me tell you a couple of ways that you can do that.

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The first way that you can do that is through communion. If you're a Christian in the room today, my encouragement to you is to get your heart right with God before you come and pick up these elements.

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We're not in a rush and we're not in a race. We have 15 minutes right, and so, in this time that we have, take a deep breath, look inwardly at yourself.

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Is this ritualistic? Is this religion?

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Or do you realize that you don't even deserve to be on the carpet in this room right now if it were not for the blood being shed and the body being torn?

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Another way may be to receive prayer.

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I'll be over there with Greg, a couple of pastors, and we'll have a couple from the prayer team standing next to those doors.

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If you want to pray to celebrate something that God is doing in your life, if you want to pray to receive Christ, if you want to pray over a situation, if you want to pray for boldness, if you want to pray for a gift of faith, we would be honored to pray with you, but wherever it is that the Holy Spirit is leading you, go and do it.

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Stand with me, father, as we come to this table, a table that we did not prepare for, a table that we do not deserve to be at.

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As we come to this table a table that we did not prepare for, a table that we do not deserve to be at.

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As we get ready to draw near to you, I pray that we would realize that the fairway of faith was paved not because of us or our good actions, but simply because of your charitable, compassionate, infinite love for your children.

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Pray that every man in this room would feel sonship today.

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Pray that every woman in this room would feel what it is to be the daughter of the Most High.