Transcription
Um, the church met for the first time, and so here we are. We had a big celebration last year. This year's been a little more muted, but we're just as thankful, if not even more thankful, uh, a year later than we were last year for all of God's goodness and God's faithfulness.
And I was thinking about this church and how it was birthed and how it took faith, how it took courage, how it took boldness, how it took leaving something behind that was comfortable and familiar and stepping into the unknown. And how God has blessed that. And I want to think about faith a little bit today. Let's pray together as we come to the word of God. We're going to be in Mark chapter 5, if you have a Bible with you. If not, uh, the words will appear on the screen. So, uh, let's pray.
Holy Spirit, we thank you that this is your inspired word. Every word is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness. So that as men and women of God, we may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. So Lord, may we be thoroughly equipped today by your word. Will you speak to us, Holy Spirit, in Jesus' name. Amen.
When we were going through marriage prep, uh, many years ago, we were given a book to read called "The Five Love Languages." Anybody read it? It feels like it's everybody who goes through. I, I didn't read it. I, I, I pretended I did, but I didn't. Uh, it's written by this Christian guy, Gary Chapman. And the general thesis of the book is that we all have a love language that is predominant in our lives. We all have a way that we feel most loved by other people. And the five love languages are quality time, words of affirmation, gifts, acts of service, and physical touch. Quality time, words of affirmation, gifts, acts of service, physical touch. And while you may appreciate all of them, one of them is the one that speaks to you most. And it's really important. That's why they give it in marriage prep because you could, if you don't understand your, I mean, I'm not sure about this stuff, I'm being honest with you. But if you don't understand your, your spouse's love language, you could do all of these things and wonder why you're not getting the response you desired.
So if their love language is words of affirmation, which is actually Becky's love language, which is great because I, it means I don't have to get her gifts. Um, you know, it means I don't have to do lots of acts of service. I mean, she appreciates all of those. But if I were to buy her a gift every day, cut the grass, h, do all the dishes, and clean the car, and do all of that stuff, and uh, h, and not tell her how wonderful she is, she wouldn't feel loved, which is a good deal for me. If, if, if you're married to someone who doesn't care about other stuff and only wants gifts, we'll pray for you after the service that day, God would prosper you in every area of life.
But it got me thinking about, I wonder, does God have a love language? I wonder, is there something that God actually loves to see in his people? I wonder, is there something that God desires to see in his church? And I was thinking, well, what would it be? Would it be holiness? Because God loves holiness. He loves purity. He, he loves consecration. He loves worship. He loves generosity. H, he loves prayer. H, he loves service. I, I, I was just thinking, he loves obedience. Um, he loves love. And so all of those are great things. But as I studied the scripture, I realized there was one thing that above all pleases the heart of God, and that is faith. Faith. Uh, Hebrews 11:6 actually says this, "Without faith, it is impossible to please God."
So, a bit like those love languages, you could do everything else. You can go to church, you can tithe, you can read your Bible, you can pray, you can do serve, you can give, you can do all of that stuff, but without faith, God says, "I'm not impressed by that." Any of those things not connected with faith is empty. It's hollow. It's redundant as far as God is concerned. Faith moves the heart and the hand of God more than anything else.
So what is faith? The word for faith in the New Testament is that word, and it means to trust in, to have confidence in, to have a firm persuasion about, and to have reliance upon, to be convicted about the truth of something. The, the most basic illustration I could give is when you walked in here today, you sat in that chair, and you had faith in it. You didn't think, "Who made this chair?" You didn't ask, "Has this chair been tested?" You didn't ask, "Could I have the manual that came with the chair just to see what load it can carry?" You trusted that this chair could carry your full weight. It wasn't just that you believed it in your head. You sat on the chair believing, had the conviction that it could carry you. And faith is not just intellectual believing. It's not just a theology that you have in your head. It is actually something that you put your trust in. You put your weight in. You put your full weight upon.
And there's two different types of faith in the New Testament. Faith that saves you and faith that you live by. Saving faith is the one we're most familiar about. Ephesians 2:8 says, "It is by grace you have been saved through faith." You have been saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. In other words, h, God's gift is free. God's salvation is free. It is by grace. But you have to put your faith in it. You have to put your faith in him. It is not just saying, "I believe in Jesus." It is putting your full weight on what Christ has done on the cross through his saving work, through his shed blood, through his resurrection. You are saying, "I don't only believe that as an apostle's creed. I put my weight for salvation." That when Jesus said, "It is finished," it was finished. And I am trusting in him for salvation. Not in my own works, not in my own abilities, not in my own righteousness, but fully and completely in the finished work of Jesus. I put my full weight in that.
And so when we say to people sometimes at the end of a service, "Will you pray a prayer? Will you raise a hand?" I often will say this, praying a prayer and raising a hand doesn't save you. Jesus saved you 2,000 years ago. What you're doing by doing that is you're saying, "I'm putting my faith in him. I am putting my full weight in the finished work of Christ. I am receiving by faith what Christ did 2,000 years ago. I'm receiving it today as part of my life and I'm making Jesus Christ my Lord." And that is my faith. So that is saving faith that hopefully we all have. Uh, it says in Galatians 2:16, "We know that a person is not justified, put in a right relationship by God, through the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ." So that's saving faith.
Then there is living faith. There's faith that we live by day by day. 2 Corinthians 5:7 says this, "For we live by faith and not by sight." And over and over again, it says, "The, the righteous or the just shall live by faith." Our lives are to be lives that are characterized by faith. As a Christian, when's the last time you did something that you needed faith for? It's something I asked myself. When's the last time that I did something that I didn't just rely on my experience or my intellect or my ability or my gifting, that I, I had so much dependence on God that if God didn't come through, it would fail miserably? When's the last time I stretched? When's the last time I, I did something that in my own capacity I didn't have the strength to do and I had total faith in Christ?
What about as a church? When's the last time we're doing that right now with the building? We don't know if I've got it or not, but we have put our faith in that. We have stretched and we have stretched and we have stretched in our giving and in where we h, and where we have h, built for the building. We have stretched. We, if we don't get it, it'll not be because of our lack of faith. It'll be because it's not the right one for us. We have done everything we can do and now we're leaving it in the hands of God. When's the last time you did something that you needed God to come through?
And faith is one of those words, a bit like prosperity, that we get a little bit, uh, because of the extremes. We turn on Christian television and you know, if you just have enough faith, everyone will be healed. And if you just have enough faith, you'll drive a Rolls-Royce. And if you just drive, have enough faith, you'll be a millionaire. And there's hyper-faith. And because of that, we go to the other extreme and we kind of push that whole thing away completely, like we do with prosperity. And what I've discovered is that any theology you build as a reaction to something that's wrong will never be right. Any theology you build in reaction to an abuse, you will go too far the other way. And that's what the church often does.
Take even, I was thinking about this even with the sexuality issue because the world has such a messed-up view of sexuality. So much of the church then goes and we become harsh and we become unloving and we become unkind when actually we have to have this balance of grace and truth. But we go to the other extreme because we're in reaction to that with prosperity. We, we, we, we don't like the prosperity gospel. So we gravitate to a poverty gospel. And any theology you build in reaction to an abuse will also be wrong as well. We need to find the biblical middle ground in all of this.
But when we read the gospels, over and over, we see Jesus looking for faith. Jesus wants to see faith. He responds to faith. He's moved to faith. He gets annoyed when people don't have faith. He says to his disciples five times in Matthew's gospel, "Where's your faith? You of little faith." It even says that when he went to his hometown that because of the dishonor that was shown him, he couldn't do many miracles there because of their lack of faith. Their lack of faith and their dishonor shut something down, and people went home who weren't healed that day because Jesus couldn't or wouldn't do things because the people didn't have faith.
Active living faith is so important if we want to see God work in our lives and in our church. And today I want to look at someone who demonstrated this living act of faith. A familiar passage for many of us. Um, and I've called this aggressive faith. And I know that title will jar some of us a little bit because aggressive is a word we don't like. But everything about this passage is uncomfortable. The woman's condition that we're about to talk about is uncomfortable. How she got her healing is uncomfortable. Everything about this passage and this, this h, story that appears in Matthew, Mark, and Luke's gospel. And God wanted it there for a reason. Is uncomfortable. But there's something we need to learn about aggressive faith.
Let's read verses 24-26. In Mark chapter 5, "A large crowd followed and pressed around Jesus. And when, and a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for 12 years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had. Yet instead of getting better, she got worse."
Let me give you the context. Matthew or Mark 5, Jesus is actually on the way to the house of a religious ruler called Jairus. He's an important guy in the community, and he's come to Jesus and he's begged Jesus, "Come to my 12-year-old daughter. She's about to die." In other words, this is an emergency situation. And so Jesus is going to this important guy, Jairus's house, where his daughter is literally hanging on by a thread. And on the way there, on the way there, um, there's this huge crowd pressing around him. This would have been my worst nightmare. I don't like crowds. Every person has their own reasons to be there. Some had needs, physical, some had emotional needs. Some were curious. They'd heard about Jesus, but they're all there for a reason, and they're pressing in on Jesus. We'll come to that a little bit more in a second. Um, and then we have this woman who intercepts Jesus on the way. She jumps the queue. Jesus is on the way to this emergency. Time is of the essence. The blue lights are flashing. If there were some, you know, the disciples would have had the blue lights flashing in the donkey ambulance. And, uh, and Jesus is trying to get because this little girl is literally dying, and she actually does die, and Jesus resurrects her. Spoiler alert if you read on in the text. But, uh, but this woman gift-crashes the healing. She doesn't ask for permission. She interrupts Jesus on the way to this emergency.
And we don't know much about her. We don't know her name. We know Jairus's name because he's important. This woman doesn't even have a name. She's defined by her issue. We know her as the woman with the issue of blood. And when you have lived with something long enough, that thing can begin to define you. It's not just what you have. It becomes who you are. And it becomes how people see you. And this woman has had this bleeding condition for 12 long years. That's 4,383 days. I asked Siri yesterday. H. And it says she has done everything she can. She's gone to every doctor, anyone that she thinks can heal her, she has done it all. And she has spent every penny she has trying to find healing because this is destroying her. She's broken and she's broke. And it's a bit like the world today. They're broken and they're broke and they're going here and they're going there and they're trying to find what they need and they're trying to find satisfaction and they're trying to find fulfillment and they're trying to find purpose and they're trying to find meaning in life, and they're empty and they're broke and they're lonely and they're desperate and they don't know where to turn. And it's not visible to other people her condition, but she's aware of it every moment that she's awake.
And there's one other thing we need to know about this condition. And it wasn't just the physical side. There was a, a, a spiritual and religious stigma. Leviticus 15 said that a woman with this condition was unclean. And if she touched anything, it was unclean. If she sat in that seat, that seat was unclean. And if you sat in that seat after her, you became unclean. If you touched her, you were unclean. If anyone went too close to her, they were unclean. And so she was an outsider. She was isolated. She was seen as unclean, a religious reject. She wasn't allowed into the temple. She wasn't allowed into the synagogue. She was unclean. No one for 12 years had touched this woman. No one had held her hand. No one had kissed her on the cheek. No one had given her a hug. No one had even sat beside her in 12 years. And so she's in this crowd, but she's completely alone. Jairus comes for help for his daughter. This woman has nobody coming on her behalf. You know, you can be in a crowd, but you can feel all alone. And nobody knows what's going on inside you, but you know, you can be surrounded by people and noise, but you feel empty and you feel so discouraged and you feel completely alone.
But Jesus notices you. And so, 12 years this woman has been bleeding, and she must have been so exhausted. She's done everything and nothing's worked. Instead of getting better, she's got worse. Every day the life was draining from her. And some things are like that. It's not one big thing that, that, that knocks us. It's, it's just the draining every day. It's, it's the constant thing that won't go away. It's the, it's the, it's, it's the things that drain you slowly. They drain your joy. They drain your strength. They drain your confidence. They drain your hope. They drain your finances. They drain your expectations. Some people aren't spiritually dead. They're just spiritually drained. They've just been pouring out and pouring out and pouring out, and they've nothing left to give. They still love God, but they're, they're, they're drained of dis through disappointment and grief and fear and hidden battles and silent struggles. And she must have been at the point where she was about to give up all hope. 12 years, you would just assume this is the way my life's going to be. Nothing's ever going to change.
But then one day, something happens. Verse 27, "She heard about Jesus." She heard about Jesus. We don't know how she heard, but somebody came and told her about Jesus. Maybe they didn't get too close, but they knew her condition. Maybe it was someone who had been healed. Maybe it was a leper who had been touched by Jesus. Maybe it was someone whose deaf ears had been opened or their blind eyes had been opened. Maybe it was someone who had had demons brought cast out of them. We don't know how it happened, but they said to her, "There's a miracle worker from Galilee that you need to go and see. There's a miracle worker. He's walking through the area. You need to go and see Jesus. If anyone can sort you out, he can." And that becomes the turning point in her story. Someone told her about Jesus.
And isn't that the turning point in all her stories? Someone somewhere told us about Jesus. It might have been a, a, a family member, a granny, a parent. It might have been a Sunday school teacher. It might have been in church. It might have been an evangelist. It might have been a work colleague. Might have been someone in school. Someone told us about Jesus. And our life was never the same again. That became the turning point. And that is why it is so important that we share our testimony. That is why it is so important that you tell people in work, in school, in your street, wherever you are, what Jesus has done for you. You don't need to have a degree in theology. You don't need to have a PhD. You just need to tell what Jesus has done for you. And that can be the turning point in their life.
Thank God for those who told us about Jesus. Thank you for Sammy and Selene Best who took me in Sunday school. Thank you for Billy Blair who taught me in youth fellowship. People you don't know, but without them I wouldn't be here. For Keith Neil who gave up every Friday and Sunday night for, for youth fellowship and youth club in St. Mark's. Put it down. Thank you for those people who told me about Jesus because without them I wouldn't be here and I wouldn't get to preach the word to you. You never know when you tell people about Jesus what the knock-on effect's going to be. He takes your two lo, or your, your five loaves and your two fish, and he multiplies it. It's your simple offering. You're just telling someone about Jesus, and it changes them.
And for the first time in a long time, this woman began to have hope. The Bible says that faith comes from hearing and hearing by the word of God. Faith comes through hearing and hearing the word of God. She heard the testimony of Jesus, and it began to stir faith within her. She had heard enough to know that maybe, just maybe, actually, she was more than maybe. She thought, "If I can only get to him, her situation can change. If he did it for them, he can do it for me because he's no respecter of persons." That's why it's really important who you listen to, what voices you allow into your life. You cannot listen to negativity and be a positive person. You cannot surround yourself with unbelief and be a person of faith. You cannot meditate on defeat and live in spiritual victory. We are a people who need to build our faith on the word of God. We read the word of God. We study the word of God. We meditate on the word of God. We listen to the word of God. Right now, as I am preaching the word of God, your faith is being built, even if you don't know it. Not because I'm preaching it, but because God's word brings faith. We need to be selective in those voices we listen to, especially in our world today. What shapes your expectations of the future? Is it what you see in the news, or is it what you read in his word?
And so this woman didn't wait passively for someone to invite her. She made a decision. She formed a definite goal. And that's the next thing I want to say. Aggressive faith has a goal. "When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak because," and this is a bit, she thought, "If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed." Her faith moved her to action. The Bible says that faith without works is dead. Faith without action is dead. Somehow this woman knew that if I don't know how, I mean, I was thinking about this even yesterday. How did she know if she touched his clothes? There's nowhere else before this or anywhere else that I can even think of after this in the gospel. Maybe there is afterwards. There was no example that she had before this but where someone touched Jesus' robe and they were healed. He touched them, he spoke a word to them, he touched their ears, ears, he, he spoke, he, he did all, but there's nowhere else where it just, if you touched his clothes. But this woman, maybe it was some sort of superstition, I don't know, but she just had this determined thing. That's what I need to do. I don't even need to touch him. I don't need him to touch me. I just need to touch his robe. I just need to touch his sleeve. I just need to touch what he's wearing somehow. And yet the very thing she wanted to do was the very thing she was forbidden to do by the law because she wasn't allowed to touch anyone because under the law they would become unclean. But at this point, she didn't care about religious rules because she had nothing else to lose.
There comes a point where you have nothing else to lose. What's the worst that could happen? She keeps on living like this. They stone her. Who cares? Life wasn't worth living anyway. She had reached the point where she didn't care what other people thought. That's a good stage to get to sometimes. There's a kind of faith that waits, and there's a kind of faith that moves. There's a kind of faith that hopes something will happen, and there's a kind of faith that says, "I'm going to press until it happens." Not arrogant faith, not human striving, not forcing God to do something against his will, but active faith, focused faith, determined faith, anchored in the revelation that you have of who Jesus is. She had one goal, one goal, one mission: touch Jesus' clothing. Faith must have a goal.
This woman wasn't vague. She didn't say, "Well, maybe, h, maybe I just, if I can be in the area, it'll be a good day. Maybe something good will happen. You never know. Maybe Jesus will kind of pay attention to me. Maybe somebody will notice me h, and bring me to Jesus. Maybe if I can get close enough to him." No, she had a target. She moved with intention. Her goal was clear: touch his garment, get healed. Most of us don't see our prayers answered because they're not specific enough. They're so vague and so general that if even God did answer them, we wouldn't know it because we don't. It's like, "Lord, bless my family." Like, I mean, we, I pray that. What does that look like? Bless my family. I think God would say to us sometimes, in the words of the prophets of Spice Girls, "Tell me what you want, what you really, really want." What does bless my family mean? Bless my job. What does that mean? Get me more orders. Help me get on better. Give me a different job. I don't know what that means. We're so vague. We're so general in our prayers that if God were to say, "Well, I answered that," you'd go, "I didn't even realize because I didn't really know what I was, I was praying for." Um, we want breakthrough, but we're not pressing towards anything specific. We want a different life, but we haven't any clarity.
And a girl, somebody messaged me yesterday, and they were talking about how they keep moving from church to church, place to place, um, job to job. And I said, "You, they said, 'Why is that?'" I said, "Because you don't know what you want in life. You have no clarity about what kind of church you want to be in and what kind of job." The thing you need to do is actually get really clear on what you want to do, where you want to be, and what your priorities are. Because if you don't have a target, you can, you could be the best archer in the world, but if you don't have a target, you're hitting nothing. And most of us just pray these scattergun prayers and these vague things, and we wonder why we don't really see any answers.
This woman had a goal, and it was to touch Jesus. That was it. Faith must have a focus. I remember when I first met Becky properly. She, I was in the Jethro Center in Lurgan at a thing I'd started called A Rise on a Sunday night, and my friend, stroke former friend, uh, was Becky was dating him, and he brought her along on a Sunday night. And I remember she was sitting over there, not over there, but in the Jethro Center over there, um, because my eyesight isn't that good. Um, and, uh, and she was wearing white jeans, and I remember I was trying to preach, but I was distracted. And we got talking afterwards, and my friend afterwards said, "So, what do you think of her?" And I said, "Just so you know, if you two ever break up, I'm moving in there." And he laughed. I didn't. They broke up two weeks later. I consoled him for all of about five seconds. Then I got on email or or Bibbo, as it was in those days. And I messaged her, and she tried to play hard to get for a month or two. Believe it or not. I know, hard to believe. I tell you, I didn't care. You know why? I had a focus. I had a target. I was aiming for something, and that was to get that girl to go out on a date with me. Even though she h wasn't as, as open to the idea initially as I thought she, I mean, she was just playing hard to get. Do you know what I mean? Um, but I don't care. I had a focus, and I was going to make that happen. That sounds stalkerish. I realize that.
But think about Bartimaeus. Blind Bartimaeus. Jesus said, "What does Jesus say to Barnabas?" "What do you want me to do for you?" What do you think? Jesus wanted to hear it from his lips. And then he was healed. What if Jesus stood beside you tonight physically and he said, "What do you want me to do for you?" How would you answer him? Would you know? Or would you go, "Well, I just, bless my family." What? Give me more than that. Give me something to work with. What does that look like for you? Lord, help me. You help me with, with my health. What does that look like for you? Lord, just h, bless my children. What does that look like for you? Instead of saying, "Lord, bless my son who's drifted away from you," why don't you say, "God, in the next six months, I pray that Jason would have an encounter with you that brings him back to you. That someone somewhere would have a conversation with him, and his heart would be open to receive the gospel again." Be specific.
And you know what the next thing to do is? Write it down. Write it down. If you don't write it down, it becomes a vague, general prayer. And not writing it down is not magical. But writing it down, it gets you specific. It's one of the things that I have learned over the years. If I don't write it down, it just becomes something I forget about. I write it down. I have a prayer list that I come back to again and again and again and again. And there's so many old prayer. I have these little F5 jars. I have dozens of them. And I read through them from 10 years ago, 12, 20 years ago. And I can just tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, all of the prayers that God has answered. I write it down. I get clear. I get specific about what I'm asking for. And I keep bringing it before the throne of grace where I can find help in my time of need. >> And I pray it, and I pray it, and I pray it. And sometimes I see the answer, and sometimes I don't. But I would rather see 50% of the specific prayers that I pray answered than 0% of the prayers I don't pray answered.
Remember when we, 10 years ago, we left Dublin, we went on sabbatical. We thought that during the sabbatical. It's amazing how things come in 10-year patterns. Um, we, we came to the end of our sabbatical. We're in America, and by that stage, we thought God would have opened up something next for us, and nothing was opening up. And so we're sitting there, and we're like, "We don't know. We have no home. We have no jobs. We don't know where we're going to go." This is August 2016. What do we do? And we took out a bit of paper and we said, "What would we love to do? What's the desire of our heart?" And we wrote down, "We'd love to live in Portstewart for a year. We'd love to live in a house where we can walk to the beach." And we wrote it down. We began to pray to that. And Elijah was about to start preschool, but nowhere for him to start preschool. This is August. We found, we looked, researched the preschools. Little school called Castle Row. Wrote down Castle Row Nursery School. What would I love to do? You know what I wrote? Teaching pastor at Causeway Coast Vineyard. They had never had a teaching. I preached once 12 months before that. That was it. But we, we, we knew the guys there, and I just, I wrote it down, teaching pastor, call. And we wrote down a number of other things, and we began to pray every day into those things.
Can I tell you, we came back from, actually, we even before we left America, I, I found, I went on Gumtree and saw a house in Old Church Court in Portstewart where the Baptist church used to be, and we stayed in that little development before. And I emailed, it was on Gumtree for a summer rental, and I emailed her and I said, "Do you mind, would, would you be open to renting it for six months?" And she said, "I would." And she said, "I don't even need a deposit," which was good because we didn't have any money. Turned out she was a Christian from Durn. And we lived there and had six wonderful months, and then God got us another house. And we got, we contacted the school in Castle Row, and they got Elijah a place. And the last week of our sabbatical, I was getting really stressed because my bills coming in and no money. And Allan Scott from the Vineyard messaged me and said, "Can we meet for coffee?" They said, "Craig, do you want to come and work? Would you come and be teaching pastor of the church?" And that's where we spent the next year. And I'm not saying writing it down was magic. I'm saying once I got clear and specific, I gave God something to work with. When's the last time you were actually really specific that you would know if he answered your prayer or didn't answer it?
You know, there were so many reasons this woman could have just said, "Well, it's not going to happen. You know, it's been 12 years. Look at the crowd. I mean, Jairus is more important than me. I'm never going. And if Jesus, you know, if Jesus wants to talk to me, he'll talk to me." There's so many things that could have stopped her. But she didn't care. She wasn't willing to settle. She had a focus. Who are you praying for God to heal? What three people are you praying for God to save right now? Can I encourage you? Write down three names when you go home to death of people that you know that aren't Christians. And pray for them every day. Remember, we did this years ago. We agree. We're not going to get through this sermon today. That's all right. I'll pick it up and I'll pick it up next time. That's fine. You're all bringing a sigh of relief because you know where I am in this story and you know how long I'm going to go. We're going to stop halfway. Okay, everybody. I'd rather just not rush through it. If another 60. No, I don't. Um, I remember we had a prayer group, and there was a guy, what was the guy's name, um, owned a hardware shop in? Stevie. We were, there was a group of six or seven of us guys would have met to pray. And Stevie said, "My brother-in-law is not a Christian. I would love us to pray for him." And we committed as a group of guys that we would pray for his brother-in-law every day for the next 40 days. 16 days later, Stevie messaged to say his brother-in-law, "Come to faith in Christ." We were clear. We were specific. We had a goal. Stevie's brother-in-law get saved. 16 days it took. The guy was in his 30s that never had any interest in God whatsoever.
When's the last time you were so clear that you knew if God answered it, and if he didn't? Get specific, get clear, name it, write it down. The h, the Bible says in, in somewhere, um, now, um, Habakkuk 2:2, "Write the vision. Make it clear. Write it down. Write it down. Write it down. Pray it back to God. Pray God's promises. Stand on his word. Speak it back to him. Declare it over your life." What does that mean look like? Well, that's where we'll maybe get to finish up today. Verse 28.
Aggressive faith speaks because she thought, "If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed." The NIV uses the word thought there. It's actually the word lego, L-E-G-O. But it doesn't mean thought. Every other translation, because she said, because she said. So let's change it. "If I just touch," she said, "If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed." And it's in the imperfect tense, which means she continually, repeatedly said it over and over again. So most scholars would say this: as she was pushing through the crowd, she was muttering, "If I can just touch his clothes, I will be healed. If I can just touch his clothes, I will be healed." She's pushing, and she's prophesying over her life. She's, she's preaching to her own body, prophesying it before it happens. She's muttering as she's moving. "If I can just touch him, I will be healed."
You know, the Bible says that life and death are in the power of the tongue. I really believe that. And this isn't name it and claim it. This is scripture. And I've seen it in my own life. I've been a Christian for 36 years. And I have seen how what we speak very often determines the life we live. The Bible says life and death are in the power of the tongue. Most of our mouths are thermometers. They describe the temperature when they should be thermostats setting the temperature. It's easy to describe a problem. It's easy to talk about what's wrong in your life, what's wrong in the world, what's wrong in your job. It's really easy to describe what's wrong with anyone. Why not start speaking life? Start speaking healing. Start speaking wholeness. Start speaking blessing. Start speaking God's goodness. Start speaking God's favor. I've been doing this every day for years. And can I tell you, my life isn't perfect, but it's a lot better than it was before I started doing it. Every day I speak God's blessing over my home, my family, our health, our finances, our h, our ministry, over this church, over every area and aspect of my life. It takes about 5 to 10 minutes every day. And I speak God's blessing specifically over, over our, our where we're going, over every part, over all my books, over every part of my life. I speak God's blessing and favor. I would rather prophesy blessing than prophesy curse. I would rather prophesy God's goodness than prophesy what the enemy is doing in the world. What are you speaking over your life right now?
The book of James says this, "The tongue is like the rudder of a ship." In other words, this little slimy thing in your mouth determines the direction of your life. That's what it's saying. Your tongue is like the rudder of your life. It determines the direction that your life goes. And Jesus says, "Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks." So what you speak will reflect what's in your heart. Sort out what's in your heart and change your words. This woman could have said things like, "I'm too unclean. I'm too weak. I've tried everything already. It's been too long. There's too many people in the way." But she didn't say any of those things. She said, "If I can just touch his clothes, I will be healed." Aggressive faith speaks the word of God. It speaks what God has said. It speaks the promises of God. It prophesies the goodness of God over your current condition.
A lot of us pray one thing and prophesy something else. Let me say it. "Lord, would you send me a husband?" "Nobody would ever want to be with me." "Lord, would you get me out of debt?" "I'm never going to get out of debt." "Lord, would you get me a job?" "Nothing's ever going to change." And it's like, the Bible says a double-minded man is unstable in all he does because our prayers are trying to pull us this way, but our prophecies are pulling us this way. In other words, we're unstable. We're all over the place. Let your prayers and your words align together. If you're praying for something, start speaking it. Start declaring it over your life. Oh, so much I want to say here. Let's do one more.
Aggressive faith presses through obstacles. "A large crowd followed and pressed around him." Or Luke puts it like this: "As Jesus was on his way, the crowds almost crushed him." This miracle didn't happen in a church building with Psalm on the keys in the background and the pad going, you know, that atmosphere of faith. It didn't happen in an empty room where she had the full attention of Jesus. It happened in a crushing crowd. It was a mob. This wasn't a religious crowd. This was a mob. You ever see one of those, uh, pop stars where, um, they just, they mob around them? That's what this was like. The word actually for crushed here, a crushing crush, it's, it's the word thlibo from which we get the word. It actually is the word used for tribulation in scripture. It's an intense pressing, a crushing. It, in the amplified version, it says they were almost suffocating Jesus. They were pressing on him so much. So this wasn't a gentle, respectable religious gathering. She didn't have a clear path to Jesus. She had a wall of bodies blocking her way. Plus, she had the barrier of disappointment. After 12 years, nothing. That would you'd start to just go, "What's the point?" But instead, she pressed through. She didn't care who got in her way. She put aside her politeness and decorum. She was contending for breakthrough.
Aggressive faith moves despite opposition. Sometimes the greatest evidence of faith isn't that everything's going right in your life. It's when everything's going wrong, but you press through anyway. When there's obstacles and opposition and walls and barriers and things and people and circumstances coming against you, and you don't have the resources, and you don't have the people, and you don't have what you need, but you say, "You know what? We're doing it anyway." That's how this church started 11 years ago this Sunday. They were not impressive. We're still not that impressive. That's okay. But they were even less impressive then as they met in that social club in Craigavon with a sticky floor from the night before, and the place stinking of beer. That's where we started. But you know what they had? They had a belief that if we gather, God will move. If we gather and we have faith, and we are, we're doing this in response to what we believe is a movement of God in our lives, God will show up. Everything was against them. People were against them. Institutions were against them. People were talking against them. People wanted them to fail, but they pressed through anyway because faith moves in spite of opposition and resistance and barriers and obstacles.
I loved this woman's faith in the story. There was nothing passive about it. It wasn't, "If the Lord willed it, it'll be h, it'll happen anyway." That's what we think so often. If this woman had done that, would she have been healed? No. We don't even like that. But if this woman had said, "Lord, if she, you know, if the Lord really wills it, he'll come to my house and find me." She would have been bleeding till her day of death. This wasn't about, you know, "whatever the Lord wills." This was what she willed. She was pressing through whatever was in front of her. Her attitude of faith was this: "If he's not going to touch me, I'm going to touch him." It was an act of faith, a tenacious faith, a determined faith, a breakthrough faith, an aggressive faith. One woman or one person describes it as a bulldog faith. Nothing was getting in her way. God help you if you got in her way that day. You were getting pushed out of the way. So often we blame the devil for the things in our lives. Sometimes it's just our passivity that we have allowed the, whatever happens to us to shape us, rather than saying, "No, that is not going to happen in my family. That is not going to happen under my watch. That is not going to happen in my home. That might, the enemy might be sending that against me, or people might be sending that against me. I don't care. I am not going to allow that. I'm going to push through. I'm going to persevere. I'm going to endure. I'm not going to stop praying."
I think of Luke 11 where the guy goes to his neighbor and he's looking for bread. And the guy says, "Go away. I'm not going to give you any." And it says, "Because of his shameless audacity." That's what we need. We need shameless audacity. We need to push through, persevere, no matter what comes against us. We are going after what God has for us. Everyone else in the crowd was hoping to get pity from Jesus. That Jesus would have pity and notice him. Do you know what? And I don't want this to sound wrong. Jesus generally doesn't respond to pity. He responds to faith. And I have sat in 36 years and not thankfully here, but in prayer meeting after prayer meeting where I've heard a sob story. "Lord, would you just heal Gertie? Lord, you know how much she's done for you over the years. And Lord, you know what? How awful her life is. We've, anyone saw it." It's like we're trying to convince Jesus to to feel sorry enough for poor Gertie with her bunions that he would heal her. God doesn't respond to pity. He responds to faith. Without faith, you cannot please God. The rest hoped to bump into Jesus, but she was taking hold of Jesus.
Now, I'm actually going to finish here. Aggressive faith takes hold of God's promises. Look at that verse again. "If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed." That word touch, haptomai in the Greek, doesn't mean a casual brush or graze. It means to fasten, to grip, to grab, to take hold of with intent, to seize. It's the word. Remember when Jesus is resurrected and Mary Magdalene, he says, "Do not hold on to me." It's the same word. He's not saying don't touch me. He's saying you're holding on to me really tight, and I have other things I need to do. I have other people I need to go and see. She was grabbing hold of him. It's.
the same word. She was seizing hold of him. That's what this woman is doing. She's not passively brushing past him. She is going to grab Jesus. She doesn't keep her hands in her pockets. She stretches. She reaches. She grabs because she has an aggressive faith.
You know, in the Christian life, there is a time for waiting. There's a time for resting. There's a time for trusting. But there's also a time for contending. There's a time for pressing through. There's a time for pushing through. There's a time for going to war. There's time for getting aggressive in our prayers, not letting go until we see God move.
Matthew 11:12, Jesus said this, "From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men grab it. They lay hold of it." May God give us a holy boldness like this woman. May we be a people who say, "I know what my Bible says. I know what my God can do, and I'm not giving up, and I'm not shrinking back, and I'm not passively waiting. I'm pressing on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me."
I'm going to finish with this story. You may have heard me, I don't know if I've probably told this one before. About 10, nine years ago, I was asked to do a wedding of a couple called Judith and Johnny. And to be honest, I didn't know them that well, so I couldn't, but they were determined that I would marry them. And they were a lovely couple. And so I said I would do it. And I did the wedding. And it was a lovely service in in uh in the Clandy Boy and Banger. And afterwards I I'd say to them uh I'm not able to go to the reception which all anyone who's got B in this church means that I don't want to go to the reception. Um and uh and so as I was leaving I went to say goodbye to them and they said can we talk to you for a second and they pulled me aside that the photographer was taking pictures said give us a second and they came to me and said Craig you were probably wondering why we asked you to marry us. I said it did actually cross my mind because there's a lot of other people could have done this today.
And they said Judith said this. She said, "In 2015, you preached in Cosby Coast Vineyard, and I was in the second service that day. There was about a thousand people in the room." And she said, "You came to the end of the message and you felt inspired or or or there was something stirred within you to talk about a girl in your church who was older and who had had met a husband and she had given up hope and God had brought a husband into her life." And she said, "As you told that story, you looked over to your right and you began to prophesy and you said, 'There's a 36 year old girl over there and she's not married and she's about to give up and God's going to give you a husband in the next year.'" And she said, "I'm sitting there. I'm 36. I'm tired of going through the motions. I'm tired of failed relationships." And she said, "I was about to give up hope, but when you said that, I grabbed hold of it." She said, "I literally put my hand up and I took hold of that." And she said, "I took hold of that that I was going to meet my husband." And she said, "Six months passed and nothing happened. Seven months, 8 months, 9 months, 10 months, 11 months, nothing. In the 11th month, she meets Johnny and a year later, I'm marrying the two of them." She said, "That's why I wanted you to do my wedding today because you prophesied this and I took hold of it by faith and I believe God saw that and he brought Johnny into my life."
Listen, listen, folks. This isn't magic. This isn't I can and we'll get to that next time. This isn't saying that anything that you want by faith, you know, this is not the manifestation. This is not the secret. This is this is not the universe. This is faith in Jesus Christ. Okay? It is not so much about your faith. It is about the one you put your faith in. He is the source. And we'll see that next week that it was her faith released the power, but ultimately the power came from Jesus or in two weeks time should say. It was her faith that grabbed hold of it, but the power came from Jesus. It's always him. Our focus isn't on our faith. Our focus is on the object of our faith, who is Jesus Christ.
And finish verse 29. "Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was free from her suffering." Immediately her bleeding stopped. 12 years stopped. And we'll get to that in a few weeks. 12 years stopped. Didn't take years of intense counseling. Because she had had a problem for 10 years didn't mean it would take 12 years to heal. There's nothing wrong with counseling. We believe in gradual healing. But last week, remember Acts chapter 2 on the day of Pentecost suddenly. We believe in process, but we also believe God does suddenly. There are people who need to go through recovery for addiction and there's people who God delivers like that. There's people who go through a process of coming to Christ. Off the course is great for that. And there's people who just like that come to Christ. We believe in both. One is not better than the other. They're just different.
But we need to remember God can heal a condition that you have had, a problem you've had, something you've been living with. It's 12 years. 12 years healed in an instant. He can do both and he can take you through a process of healing. And what I felt to do today as we finish, I felt we were to pray for those who have been living with something for a long time and not seen any change. I believe that's what God wants us to pray for. And that can be anything. I believe we're to pray for those who have been living with anything for a long time that you don't believe is God's best for you in your body, in your physical body, in your health, in your job, in your finances, in a relationship. Maybe you've been single for a long time and you want to get married and it's got to the stage where you're kind of giving up hope like Judith had. Maybe it's having a child. You know, one Sunday there was a dedication in here like this morning. It was actually Katton's dedication and there were a couple in the room and I had a word. Sometimes in the middle of service I'll have words for things and I I don't think I've ever had this word any other time in nine years I've been here. I had a word that there was a couple in the room who were struggling to conceive and God was going to give him a child. And I had no idea. They were guests of of Jamie and Donnie for kids dedication. I had no idea of their situation and within how long pregnant that month. They've been trying for years. That month they got pregnant because God gave them a word and they took home with it after years of meeting. I believe today God we've been praying a bit for chronic conditions recently. I feel like we're going to press into that. But anything that you've been living with for long, for a long time, I want us to pray for that. As the band come up now, let's pray.
And if that's you, just just put your hands out in front of you. Put your hand on your heart just as a way of saying, "God, I'm grabbing. I'm grabbing today. I'm receiving. I'm receiving from Jesus Christ. My faith is in Jesus. My faith isn't in faith. My faith is in Jesus." And so Lord, we pray for every person who has their hands open today, who has their hands on their heart, every person who has been living with something that isn't what they believe to be your your best for them in their physical body, in their home, in their job, in their finances, in their relationships, whatever that is. Lord, we thank you that you're a God of process, but you're also a God of suddenly. That like God, you can change your situation. And so, we speak healing. We speak faith. We speak marriages. We speak children being conceived where there's been barrenness and emptiness. We speak healing over chronic conditions in the name and the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ. We speak to chronic conditions. We speak healing and wholeness. We speak to arthritis. We speak healing and wholeness in Jesus name. We speak to heart conditions. We speak healing and wholeness. We speak the