The Parentheses

[00:00:00] This audio sermon is provided by AnabaptistSermons.com and may be freely copied and distributed. You may not sell or edit this sermon. Our prayer is that you would be blessed by this ministry. Please turn to the Gospel of Luke. We'd like to continue our study together. Luke chapter 8 and I'm going to begin reading at verse 43 Luke 8 43 and a woman having an issue of blood 12 years which had spent all her living upon physicians neither could be healed of any came behind him and touched the [00:00:59] The border of his garment, and immediately her issue of blood stanched. And Jesus said, Who touched me? When all denied, Peter and they that were with him said, Master, the multitude throng thee, and press thee, and sayest thou, Who touched me? And Jesus said, Somebody hath touched me, for I perceive that virtue, or power, is gone out of me. And when the woman saw that she was not hid, she came trembling, and falling down before him, [00:01:38] she declared unto him before all the people for what cause she had touched him, and how she was healed immediately. And he said unto her, Daughter, be of good comfort, thy faith hath made thee whole, go in peace. There's a bit of a question about how to handle this context because as you will note beginning in verse 41 [00:02:12] there is an account that begins and then at verse 49 and following That account ends, and in between is another account. That doesn't mean that the Scripture is disorderly. This is just how it happened. And so do we treat the case of this woman in the midst of how it took place, [00:02:48] or does it deserve separate treatment? And we have chosen to treat it separately. and then come back and look at the context as a whole another time. So we would call this the parentheses, though there are no parentheses there. We are in the context, the larger context of the Lord proving who he is [00:03:18] or giving evidence for who he is on the basis of his power over the sea. On the basis of his power over demons, on the basis of his power now in two instances over physical life and even over death. The Lord has called upon us in this context to be disciples, followers of Him. [00:03:51] He has identified the family as the family of God, that it supersedes the so-called blood relationships that we have as families. And then he certifies by these miracles the power of God through God the Son. As he was traveling on a mission of mercy, a woman touches him. [00:04:27] In some circles, a great deal would be made of how she touched him. We can be fairly certain of the type of clothing he had, with the so-called blue tassel and all that. And some people make a great deal of all of that. We are not going to do that. simply to understand that the clothing would be loose-fitting [00:05:01] and she reached out and touched an extension of the clothing. Let's look at the woman first of all. You'll notice in verse 43, this woman had been sick for 12 years. A lot of people try to make out what was wrong with her, and we don't know. Dr. Luke was writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and he doesn't tell us. [00:05:38] He may or may not have known. But she was hemorrhaging. and had had this difficulty for 12 years. It's interesting that the girl that he was going to heal was 12 years old. Again, some people make a lot of that, two twelves. I'm not sure that we should. If we should, we won't today. But this woman had been sick for a long time. [00:06:12] And not only that, she had exhausted her resources She had done everything she could to get well You'll notice that Luke goes on to say She had spent all her living upon physicians Neither could be healed of any I want to warn us that we don't take from this that It's bad to go to the doctor or the doctors just take your money. [00:06:42] You know, lots of things can be had from this passage, but it would be the result of a poor, inaccurate understanding of the passage. This passage is simply giving us her situation. She had gone to doctors. She had spent all that she had, and yet she was still sick. And I want us to understand that as we would make some applications a little later in this study to ourselves, [00:07:20] she had exhausted her resources and abilities to get well. That is the picture of the woman. She had come to the end of herself and her resources. Many times we are like the woman to this extent that we seemingly wait until we've done everything we can do [00:07:51] before we come to the Lord. And yet there's a flip side to that. We need to realize that after having done everything we can do, we are then ready for the Lord to work. So the two angles of attack there, as you think of those thoughts. [00:08:26] Yes, sometimes we wait, and instead of calling for the church to pray, instead of calling for the elders to come and anoint us with oil, we run to the doctor. Is that wrong? Well, it's not wrong to go to a doctor, but shouldn't we pray first? I wonder about those sorts of things that we tend to do, all of us probably. [00:09:02] And yet, on the other hand, we do need to come to the place of helplessness before God shows himself strong. As you think of the Old Testament illustration of Abraham, he came to the end of himself and Sarah came to the end of themselves [00:09:34] before God gave the promised son, before God was trusted to be good to his word. And so there is a sense in which we need to come to the end of ourselves. But there is a sense in maturity we ought to be able to say, you know, I really can't do this even though I still have some resources left. I need to trust the Lord. [00:10:04] but this woman had done everything she could she was sick she apparently had heard about the Lord and she came it says in verse 44 she came behind him and touched the border of his garment and immediately her issue of blood stopped she was healed If you'll notice, the word immediately. [00:10:43] God, through Christ or in Christ, healed her immediately. She simply extended herself, her hand, in faith to Jesus Christ, and she was healed immediately. Verse 48 says that that healing was by faith. When the Lord turns to her after their interchange, He says, [00:11:17] daughter be of good comfort thy faith hath made thee whole go in peace so this woman had been sick 12 years she had spent her resources on doctors and she was still sick she was not healed and then in an act of faith if I can put it that way she reached out and touched the Savior's [00:11:47] clothes and was immediately healed. This is a tremendous miracle. But there is more here. She was bankrupt and sick and then by faith she was made whole. But the Lord did not leave it there. [00:12:22] Sometimes we could almost think it would be nice if He had. If we put ourselves in the woman's place, hear this great crowd of people, she perhaps even embarrassed by her illness, reaches out, becomes whole, and apparently she just figured she'd fade back into the woodwork, fade back into the crowd. And the Lord said in verse 45, Who touched me? Who touched me? [00:13:02] And having asked that question, everybody denied. It says, when all denied, verse 45, Peter and they that were with him said, Master, multitude, throng thee, press thee, sayest thou who touch me? Peter was inferring that the Lord was not asking a very good question because there were crowds all around him. And apparently there was some jostling going on as they were walking to this ruler's house. [00:13:38] And how could you ask that question, Peter asked. Peter probably verbalized what a lot of people were thinking right then And Jesus said, verse 46 Somebody hath touched me, for I perceive that virtue is gone out of me, or power So those who were jostling and walking in the way with Jesus, crowded around him [00:14:09] were not the ones there was a special one that's what the Lord is saying there was someone who exercised faith for healing in Christ and that is the one he identifies and when she saw that But when she saw, and notice what it says there, he said, somebody touched me, and the woman saw, verse 47, that she was not hid. [00:14:45] She came trembling, falling down before him, declared unto him before all the people. Now, we've looked at the woman, we've looked at the healing, now I want to look at the confession. I know confession is kind of a bad word, but it's really a good word. The Lord drew out of this woman a confession, not of wrongdoing, but a confession of Him, [00:15:17] a confession of Christ and His power. Now she was afraid. She was afraid to be identified. She comes trembling, falls down before him, it says, and she declared unto him She went public, in other words, confessed She went public unto Christ for what cause she had touched him She believed he would heal her [00:15:47] That's why she had touched him And she confessed that she was healed immediately. I would put to you that the Lord seldom does secret miracles. I'm not saying we need to have a great showy sort of thing. [00:16:22] But on the other hand, the work of God in our lives and bodies needs to be proclaimed. It needs to be confessed. And that is the area of our application this morning. Confessing the work of God in our lives. The theme of this passage, I believe, is reaching out to Jesus. [00:17:00] But having done that, we are to confess what He has done for us. And what the early church is recorded as having done repeatedly is to tell among themselves what Jesus had done. What great things Jesus had done. We've heard some of that in the sharing time this morning. I would encourage us to do that on a very regular basis. [00:17:35] Tell each other and the body what Jesus has done, what Jesus is doing. Otherwise, we could be like the woman before Jesus asked the question, who touched me. We could simply be the Lord blessing, Nothing being proclaimed [00:18:05] Problem with that is The Lord is not pleased in that box And doesn't do too much in that box This is not a testimony of the great work that the woman did Though she did do something This is a testimony of the great healing that Jesus accomplished [00:18:38] In response to her faith And he says that Your faith hath made you whole But we as a people And I don't mean just Calvary We as a people are reluctant too many times to declare, to confess what God has done and what God is doing. [00:19:15] And culturally, we may have more of a problem than some others. Some groups tend to declare their faith by things that they do, or things that they wear, or whatever. And they would be very silent when it comes to proclaiming what God has done many times. [00:19:51] Bible believers need to be vocal about what God has done. When we are not vocal, we would be like the woman who in quietness accepted God's healing and wanted to hide. And God is not pleased with that. God intends, and he does this very righteously in his holiness [00:20:29] God intends to have the glory In fact, we can actually take it a step further He will have it And he will not give his glory to another And so as he draws this woman out He is, I believe, illustrating for us today Today, the absolute necessity of confessing Him before men, confessing Him before others, confessing Him before the church, saying what great things God hath done. [00:21:11] And so it says in Romans 10 that we need to confess Him with our mouth. Not only for salvation, which Romans 10 is speaking about, but in all of life. So the question is, how are you doing and how am I doing in confessing Jesus in what he has done and what he is doing in our lives [00:21:49] to other believers and even to unbelievers. How are we doing? Are we giving him the glory? Or are we taking some of that or attempting to take some of that for ourselves? We're dealing with our God who sustains our lives physically. None of us would live through this service apart from the grace and power and provision of God. [00:22:35] You say, well, God hasn't done anything for me lately. You just aren't observing very well, if you possibly could say that. Life itself, all of the provisions, the measure of health that we have, God is doing those things for you. So we have a tremendously long list of things that we can share with other believers and unbelievers. [00:23:05] for what God has done. And the Lord illustrates that sort of thing as He draws this woman out and she confesses what He has done for her. And He illustrates that's how it should be with us. I'm not saying that God will physically heal you in this way, [00:23:40] but neither can we say that He won't. But the Scripture does say that we are healed through Jesus in terms of our sins if we come and believe in Him. And we need to realize that we, like the lady here, are bankrupt, spiritually, in ourselves. [00:24:16] And we have but to reach out to Jesus for wholeness and for life. But having done so, He calls upon us to say so. We must say so. That includes how we live, but it must also include what we say. We have tension in those areas. [00:24:52] There are those who say that you shouldn't speak if you don't live it. That's true. But we are to speak. And we are to live it. To do less is to sin. But it is not enough to live it. I have some friends who would feel that that is all that's necessary. Just live it. I can't find that in the Bible. [00:25:32] And there are others who talk about Jesus, but their lives are so messed up that their lives discount what they say. We are to do both. We are to do both. Now, if you wait until your life is perfect before you speak, of course, you will never speak. [00:26:03] But if you're working on your life by the grace of God, then you should be speaking. So it is very important, I think, to take from this passage The absolute requirement to confess Jesus to the multitude. You may not know all the theology that you'd like to know. I'll just encourage you to keep working on that. [00:26:40] But everybody here who knows Christ can tell what Jesus has done for them. Everybody can do that. Every Christian can do that. Just as a woman, this is what happened. I was sick. I was sick for 12 years. I spent all my resources, and I was still sick. And I reached out to Jesus, and He made me whole. [00:27:13] I reached out to Jesus in faith, and He made me whole. that we can tell you don't have to be highly literate you don't have to be highly educated you don't have to have speaking abilities everybody who knows Christ who has had a real encounter with Jesus Christ can tell what has happened to them [00:27:43] so I would call us first of all To remember the necessity to reach out to Jesus in faith. I would call us secondly, having reached out in faith, to confess what he has done. And then to keep on confessing what he has done in your life. May we pray. Thank you, Father, for your word, for the opportunity to read it together, and for this woman who, in the eyes of some, would have interfered with the progress of another healing. [00:28:33] and yet was just where she ought to be doing what she ought to do to magnify Jesus Christ. So may we reach out to Jesus in faith for wholeness and then tell the multitude. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Transcription by CastingWords