The Nature and Necessity of Saving Faith

Good morning. It is always good to be at Christ Community Church and to be preaching here. If you would, take your copies of God's Word and open to the Gospel of Mark, the fifth chapter, where our text for this morning will be verses 21 through 34.

Mark chapter 5, verses 21 through 34. As you're turning there, I wish to bring greetings from all the saints at Trinity Reformed Baptist Church. They are praying for you as I am here today and apart from them.

Mark chapter 5, beginning in the 21st verse, hear the Word of God. When Jesus had crossed over again in the boat to the other side, a large crowd gathered round him. And so he stayed by the seashore.

One of the synagogue officials named Jairus came up and on seeing him, fell at his feet and implored him earnestly saying, my little daughter is at the point of death. Please come and lay your hands on her so that she will get well and live. And he went off with him and a large crowd was following him and pressing in on him.

A woman who had a hemorrhage for 12 years and had endured much at the hands of many physicians and had spent all that she had and was not helped at all, but rather had grown worse. After hearing about Jesus, she came up in the crowd behind him and touched his cloak for she thought, if I touch his garments, I will get well. Immediately, the flow of her blood was dried up and she felt in her body that she was healed of her affliction.

Immediately, Jesus perceiving in himself that power preceded from him and had gone forth, turned around in the crowd and said, who touched my garments? And his disciples said to him, you see the crowd pressing in on you and you say, who touched me? And he looked around to see the woman who had done this, but the woman fearing and trembling aware of what had happened to her, came and fell down before him and told him the whole truth. And he said to her, daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace and be healed of your affliction.

Let us pray. Father in heaven, we thank you for holy scripture, the meditations and contemplation we've already had on it through the words of Tim, drawing our attention to what you say about your word in your word and the songs that we have sung this morning.

As we open up now the word of God and it is explained and heard, we pray your blessing upon it. We ask that that which is true would reside within our hearts and we ask this in Jesus' name, amen.

This morning I want to speak to you about the nature and necessity of saving faith as illustrated for us here in the fifth chapter of the gospel of Mark. This is a healing that Jesus performs on a woman who had been in a desperate health situation for over a decade, for 12 years.

And she reaches forth to grab him in an act of faith, pressing through the crowds and as she touches him, power proceeds forth from him and she is healed. And so we want to see what is it that this text in particular teaches us about the nature and necessity of saving faith. Faith is one of what are called the three theological virtues that are clearly and neatly outlined for us by the Apostle Paul in the 13th chapter of 1 Corinthians where he talks about the gifts that Jesus Christ gives to his church by his spirit and as he pours forth these gifts, this is in chapter 12, as he pours forth these gifts upon his church, you see the word of God is proclaimed but there is something greater than the gifts, and they are the graces that God bestows within the soul of each and every single believer.

And he lists them for us right at the end of the 13th chapter of 1 Corinthians, faith, hope and love. This morning we want to look at faith as illustrated for us here in Mark chapter 5. So what I want to do this morning is divide the text into four different parts. We're going to draw a doctrine from this text and then we'll discern its use in our life.

So the four parts are this. First is the initial request. Second is the mission of Christ. Third is the desperate woman and fourth is the Christ's response. May Christ comfort us as we seek to read and understand his word. The first two we'll move through rather quickly, we'll spend more time on three and four.

So the first part of the text is the initial request. We see that Jesus did not initially set off to heal this woman. What we do see is that Jesus Christ was asked by a man named Jairus who came and fell down at Jesus' feet that he would heal his daughter.

So this is the initial request, it comes from Jairus, it doesn't come from this woman who was bleeding for 12 years and the request is that you would lay your hands on my daughter that she would be made well. This is after Christ has come across from the other side in his journeys with the disciples, he has just cast out demons and now people are coming to him making requests, crowds are gathering around him, right? What Christ is doing is of no small significance. People want to see who he is, people want to hear the things that he has to say and so a father comes before him because he is in desperate need.

What father wouldn't seek to do all that he can to ensure that his daughter is well and whole and that's what this man does here and so what does he do? He places himself right at the feet of Jesus Christ. What better place to be? He humbles himself, lays himself prostrate before Jesus Christ and he lays out his plea, he's imploring Jesus. This is not like, hey, if you have a few extra minutes that I could borrow of your time today, I would greatly appreciate it, just at your convenience, no, this is a man pleading that Jesus Christ would come and lay his hands on his daughter that she may be made well.

That's the initial request. The second part of the text is the mission of Christ. What do we see in verse 24? The man comes to Jesus, makes his plea, lets him know the plight of his daughter and look at verse 24, it's important to see just the swiftness of the text, and he went off with him.

It's almost like what we read elsewhere in the gospels, he came to seek and save that which was lost. So here is a man laying his request for his daughter, making it known to Jesus and what do we see Jesus do? We see Jesus respond immediately, and he goes. This is the mission of Christ.

You see in our Lord a readiness, a responsiveness, and even a resolution to do the thing that he came to do, and you see this even as the crowds are pressing in on Jesus, it does not deter him from going forth to heal this man's daughter, but then this leads to the third part of our text where the initial request and the mission of Christ are interrupted by the desperate woman. A woman, Mark just gives us a hard transition, doesn't he, right? Christ is going, you're thinking Jesus is going to go, he's going to heal the girl, she's going to be made well, and then we're introduced now to a new character in this particular story in the fifth chapter of the 25th verse, a woman who had a hemorrhage for twelve years.

Think about where you were twelve years ago. Twelve years is a very long time. I was thinking about that as I was sitting here, and I thought to myself, twelve years ago I was the youth pastor at this church. My wife was pregnant, I think probably six months pregnant with our second daughter, and now she's pregnant with our seventh, and I've lived in various states, pastored multiple churches in those twelve years.

Think about where you were twelve years ago, and ask yourself, what would it be like to lose everything and endure much for that period of time? Twelve years is no small amount of time, and what had happened in the twelve years? She'd been bleeding. She had a hemorrhage. This was no minor illness, and it had no minor consequences.

She had endured much. It wasn't just she had this little, small bleeding problem, no, she had endured much, and not only had she endured much, it was at the hands of not just a physician. This is one of those first opinion, second opinion, third opinion.

Now we've kind of got something established, so we're going to go from one doctor to the next doctor to the next doctor for twelve years and no solution. She was not helped at all. Now if you just stop right there, that's sad enough, right? Sometimes we think to ourselves, oh, if I could go back to that pain that I was experiencing just a few months ago, that's far better than the pain I'm in now. It's gotten worse. So it's not just that she had spent all she had, and she was not helped at all. It's that things also had gotten worse for this woman.

She is a desperate woman, but it's not merely that she has a health problem. She does have a health problem. That's part of the story.

She's also, according to the law of Moses, an unclean woman because of her bleeding. She's not able to be around people other than doctors. She's a hassle to everyone she comes in contact with, and in fact, if she comes in contact with someone, they too become unclean, unable to go to the temple to engage in the rites and rituals of the people of God for twelve years.

That's her situation, but Mark tells us in the 27th verse, after hearing about Jesus, she had to know something about Him, right? Just like the Father did, He can make me well. She hears about Jesus, so there's some knowledge of who He is, and then there's some coming up to Him, right? So there's something, hearing about Him, that hearing leads to some kind of knowledge, and with that knowledge, she then goes to Jesus Christ, and she goes up to Him in the crowd behind Him and touched His cloak, for she thought, if I just touch His garment, I will get well. Look at the way that this is phrased.

It's not, I will touch His garment if He can make me well. Where's the if? The if is not on Jesus. The if is on her going to Jesus.

This is a little bit different than what you see in Mark chapter 9, when you have the man who has a son possessed by a demon, and he says to Jesus, heal him if you can. And the if is then placed upon Jesus, not upon the man or his son. Here, the if is placed upon the woman. If I touch Him, surely He is capable to heal me. The surety is in Christ. So this is her present situation, where she realizes who she is.

She engages in this clear mode of reasoning, wherein she then reaches out by an act of the will and touches Jesus Christ with her hand. And then what do you see? You see immediately, everything's better. Immediately, the flow of blood was dried up.

And then what do we see happen? And she felt it in her body, that she was healed of affliction.

Note that there's two different things that are happening here. First, all the blood is dried. Then she recognizes the power has come forth from Christ. It's not some mere placebo effect, as if she just suddenly thinks she's better, and then things start to go well for her. Immediately, by His power, she was healed.

And secondarily, she realizes, I have been made well. The cause of this is Christ. The time is immediate. The power belongs to Christ. The effect is that her blood is dried up, followed by the realization that she knew what had happened.

And the fourth part of the text now is the Christ's response.

Immediately, Jesus, perceiving in Himself that power proceeding from Him had gone forth, turned around to the crowd and said, who touched my garment? There's a recognition of the healer. Jesus acknowledges that something has happened, and that the source of it was not in her. The source of it was not in her hand.

The source of it is all in Jesus Christ. She perceives the effect in her and realizes what has happened to her. He perceives that He's the cause of that effect.

It is by His power that has gone forth from Him to her that she has been made healed, or that she has been made well. She has been healed. And so there's the question, who touched me? And the answer is, everyone.

Right? What do you mean, you were in a large crowd? What do you mean, who touched you? This is like walking through Disneyland and being like, someone touched me. It's like, yes, everybody does. That's what's happening, Jesus.

But you can be around Jesus and not have the power of Jesus in your life. And then imagine what this must have felt like, just the flow of emotions in this woman. She is pressing through the crowd, reaches out, touches Jesus, blood dried up, I'm better.

She hears His voice, who touched me? And then all of a sudden, He knows something happened. Now she knows that He knows that something's happened. And then their eyes meet.

And He looked around to see the woman who had done this. So now we have this interaction between the healer and the healed. The response of the woman is not like what you see in other responses, right? Think of other passages in Scripture where people are healed and you see things like they went walking and leaping and praising God.

What do we see in this woman? But the woman fearing and trembling, the emotional roller coaster she's been on. I'm healed. He sees me.

He knows. Hey, I'm unclean. And now everybody's going to know this.

There's fear and trembling. But you see fear and trembling talked about quite a bit, especially in Mark 4 and 5. What you see is sometimes there's a fear and trembling that leads people away from Jesus. And there's a fear and trembling that brings people to Jesus.

The fear and trembling that leads people away from Jesus is a fear and trembling because of His power and how it may be worked for ill in their lives as He's the one who's going to punish sin. You see that with the demon who comes to Christ in fear and trembling. But then you see those who come to Jesus with fear and trembling, but that doesn't lead them to flee from Him.

It leads them to come to Him. And this is what happens. She comes to Him in fear and trembling, which follows after the healing.

It's almost the opposite response that we would expect. But then we also see with her humility. What does she do? The same thing that Jairus did.

She falls down before Him. She's not like, look at my hand. It touched Jesus.

She acknowledges who He is, her position in relation to Him, falls down before Him. So she's humble, but not only is she humble, she's then honest, tells Him the whole truth. Which means she would have said, 12 years ago, Jesus, I started bleeding. She would have had to tell Him the whole truth about how she came to Him.

Then we see the response of Christ. And what do we see in the response of Christ? The first thing that Jesus does is He names her.

And how does He name her? He calls her daughter. He doesn't call her sweetie. This is a specific term.

He calls her daughter. And He indicates what has happened to her. He gives a confirming word to her, which is what we want when we go to the doctor, right? We don't want just to feel better.

We want to know, hey, did it actually work? Can you tell me that it's not going to come back and that you've actually solved the problem? That's what we want to hear from our doctor, right? Christ doesn't leave her hanging. He doesn't just say, you touched me, and turn around and walk away. He calls her daughter.

And then He says, your faith has made you well. So He speaks to the fact that she is now whole. And then He instructs her, go in peace and be healed of your affliction.

That's our text. The doctrine we want to draw from our text is this. Saving faith chiefly rests upon Christ as one's Savior.

Saving faith chiefly rests upon Christ as one's Savior. When we talk about saving faith, this is sometimes what is called a particular faith, which is different than what you would call maybe a general or a common faith, right? You're required by God to believe all things that He has revealed in Holy Scripture on the authority of God alone. God is that which is true.

He is truth itself. He does not lie. Everything that He says is true.

And He is the chief authority. He is the only one who can testify to all things, because all things are from Him, through Him, and to Him. And so we are to receive the things that God has revealed in Holy Scripture on the authority of God Himself.

And although we believe all that God has revealed on the authority of God Himself, not everything that God has revealed is directly pertaining to our salvation. You are under an obligation from God to believe that Esau was a hairy red man. That doesn't save you.

But you can't not believe that either and claim to be a Christian. You just have to believe what God says. You have to believe things like Ehud was a left-handed Benjamite.

You can't be like, well, but really? Left-handed? Maybe he was right-handed. No, it says he was left-handed. You have to believe that he was left-handed.

You have to believe that Esther was related to Mordecai. You have to believe that story that comes a little bit later in the Gospel of Mark, which seems to make almost no sense, where there's this young man after Jesus Christ is arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane, and they go to grab his cloak, and he runs away naked. And you have to believe he ran away naked.

Why? Because God told you. That's why. But we are not justified because we believe in these things.

We are justified by faith alone on the promises of God in Christ Jesus as we see God's mercy displayed for sinners. Our faith imminently, supremely, chiefly, principally looks to Jesus Christ as our Savior by faith alone. And it is by faith alone that a man is justified before God. All his righteousness becomes ours. All our debt is paid by him. And all of his benefits become ours through union with him.

And we see that illustrated for us so beautifully here in this text. We feel it as we read the text, and we see the delight of the woman, and the relief we feel for her. And this indicates to us, I mean, as you read this story, do you not love Christ more as you see who he is and what he's doing in this text? And that shows us that yes, it really does all rest upon him, his person, and his work.

And so we see in this text the necessity of saving faith. And what is the necessity of saving faith? There's a necessity that all men need. Faith.

And you can take this in two ways. You can say there's a natural faith that is just necessary for us to be able to operate as humans. We have to trust one another if any of this is going to work.

Now, you're not God, and I'm not God, but because you're not God and I'm not God, that kind of means that we can't know everything. At some point, somewhere along the line, we have to trust some other human. And some disciplines are based completely on trust, something like history.

You go to, or maybe you go to court, and what's it based on? The testimony of the witnesses. You have to trust. In order to have any knowledge of history, you have to trust in order to be able to adjudicate what's happening in a court case.

Some disciplines begin with trust, right? You have to, a teacher says, these are the basic principles of math. Well, how do I know that? I'm not good at math. I've not learned a lot of math.

Well, I have to kind of trust them and then learn to see them for myself. But eventually, I can see those things. But when we're talking about issues related to saving faith and spiritual things, these are things that God alone can testify to.

How is it I can know that I've been made right with God? How is it that I can know that God is three persons? How can I know that Jesus Christ is truly God and truly man, the Savior of mankind? Because God himself has testified to these, and these are not things that any man could come to know by his own reason. These are things that we must receive by faith. And fallen man needs saving faith because there's an internal problem.

And our problem mimics this woman. She had a legal declaration upon her, and that legal declaration was that she was unclean. Our legal declaration is that we are guilty before God.

She didn't just have a legal declaration upon her, as we do. There's also something within her. She had corruption in her body. She had a bleeding problem. We have corruption not in our bodies, but in our souls. We have a sin problem, not merely a legal declaration that we are wrong, but we just continue to do wrong because we are sinners.

She had a legal declaration and an internal problem. We have guilt, and we have corruption. She had an external problem.

There was no help for her. Anywhere else she went, she had absolutely nothing. Where else was she going to go? Sounds a little bit like Peter, doesn't it? To whom else shall we go, Lord? That's what she's saying here.

I've tried it all. Her problem was 12 years. Our problem goes back to Adam.

It's a much longer time, isn't it? Our guilt and our corruption goes back to our first parents. So, faith is necessary. We see this in the natural world, but especially when it comes to matters pertaining to salvation.

But let's look then at the nature of saving faith. We've seen its necessity. Now let's look at the nature of it.

As to the person, the subject, the person who believes, we must note that it is a personal faith, though not a private faith. Nothing about what happens to this woman is private. You know about it. I know about it. But not just that. Before it was written down and we were able to read about it, everyone there knew about it.

Right? It became known. The doctors knew. Then, all of a sudden, she's through the crowds. She tells Jesus the whole truth. She didn't have a private faith, but she had a personal faith. It was truly her faith, and she was the one who believed.

She was the one who reached out and touched Jesus. Someone could not go out and touch Jesus for her to be healed. She had to go touch Jesus to be healed.

This is exactly what saving faith is. You have to believe. I can't believe for you.

Your parents can't believe for you. Your spouse can't believe for you. Your children can't believe for you.

You must touch Jesus Christ in faith. It must be personal. We also see that this text teaches us about the nature of saving faith itself.

What is the nature of saving faith and what does it consist of? First, there has to be knowledge. If you don't know anything about Jesus, you can't have saving faith. If you don't know that He's the eternal Son of God who came and took on flesh and dwelt among us and lived the perfect life and died for sinners and was buried in the grave and rose again on the third day and ascended into heaven where He sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty.

If you don't believe these things about Him, if you don't know these things about Him, you can't believe them. She couldn't believe that Jesus was going to heal her unless she knew that He was what? A healer. So there has to be knowledge and we see that here.

She heard the report. She's not ignorant of Christ. It's almost kind of like Romans chapter 10.

She heard the word about the Christ. Faith comes by what? Hearing. She heard about Jesus.

She is not ignorant even if she doesn't fully understand Him. She knows enough about Christ to know that she can go to Him and that she can be saved. So there's knowledge but then there's something else that's involved in saving faith because there's lots of things that you know that you simply don't believe.

I know a lot about Muhammad. I don't believe Muhammad. I think it's a lie from hell.

I don't believe those things. So there has to be something else. There has to be assent which is a judgment of the mind.

And it's a particular kind of judgment when it comes to saving faith. First, it's a judgment about truth. I know it is true that if I go to Him, He will heal me.

She didn't believe it was false. If she believed it was false, she would not have gone. She believed it was true that if I go to Him, He will heal me.

But she didn't just believe it was true. She believed it was good. If I go to Him, He will heal me. And this is what I need. I will be made whole.

One of the meanings of goodness or one of the ways we can talk about goodness is a kind of completion of a thing or a perfection of a thing. Something that doesn't have a deformity in it, but something that's whole. This is what is being referred to here. She's looking for a particular kind of wholeness.

So there's a judgment of the mind that it is true that He will heal me. And it is good. And it's not just, hey, it's good that other people go to Jesus and get healed. That's good. Good for them. I'm real happy for them. I'm really glad for Jairus and his daughter. It's good for him and his daughter that Jesus goes to them. No.

It's good for me to go to Jesus and be healed. I am lacking in health just as we are lacking because of our corruption and because of our guilt. So it's a judgment of the goodness of Christ.

But that particular realization that I must apply Christ to me. This is why the Scriptures will talk about Christ in terms of reaching out and grabbing Him like here, right? She's making an act where she's going out and she's grabbing and reaching out to Him. This is why we see other examples of entrusting yourself to Christ.

You're giving yourself to Him. She gave herself to Him. We talk about receiving Christ so that He may dwell within us.

We talk about going to Christ or at least not leaving Christ or setting our seal to the fact that God is true, and this is seen in Jesus Christ. Saving faith has knowledge, assent, and an act of trust whereby one gives oneself to Christ as she gave herself. She heard the things, judged that He would do good by her and it would be good for her, and she gave herself to Him.

What are the consequences of this saving faith? Again, we see that illustrated here for us in the text. First, Christ causes you to see how lost you were. This is exactly what happens to her, isn't it? She touches Him, Christ looks at her, and what is her response? Fear and trembling.

Isn't this the response of the Christian? I thought I was bad, and then I became a Christian. I didn't even realize how sinful I was. That's how deceitful sin is.

It allows us to continue thinking we're not as bad as we are when Christ looks at her, and she sees Him in all His purity, in all His perfection. She goes, oh, I was unclean, and I touched Him whose cleanliness itself. So first, Christ causes you to see how lost you were.

Second, Christ compels you to truthfully confess your faith. What does He do right there for this woman? Who touched me? And He looks at her, and what happens? In front of the whole crowd. The crowd just didn't disappear for this nice, little, sweet, intimate moment between Jesus and the woman who was healed.

They're all there, and what does she do? She does a public profession of faith, also known as baptism. When we publicly profess our faith and identify with Christ, right? If you believe in your heart and confess with what? Your mouth. A declaration that I have come to Jesus Christ because I was a sinner, and I needed to be saved.

Third, Christ calls you with affectionate, legal language. Affectionate, legal language. There's legal language that isn't affectionate, like a guardian, maybe someone who executes a will.

Not necessarily affectionate language, but legal language, and it does the job in the legal world, and it should. That's good. That's fine.

Then there's affectionate language that's not legal. Again, He didn't call her sweetie. I'm not responsible for people I call sweetie.

I'm responsible. I have five daughters. I call them daughter. I have a responsibility for them. If I don't feed these daughters, people come after me. They have a right as daughters to their father.

It sounds like John 1, to as many as believed Him, to them He gave the what? The right to be called what? Children of God. Legal, affectionate language. It's not mere affection without any binding reality, nor is it a mere binding reality without any affection. It's both.

Fourth, when there's saving faith, Christ confirms your transformation by His power. He says, your faith has made you well. You're whole. You're healed.

Jesus didn't look at her and say, go, be warmed, be filled. She said, I'm still bleeding. He said, I know, but I spoke these words that had no actual effect upon you whatsoever. Go, be warmed, be filled, be healed of all your affliction.

No, Christ confirms His transformation, or our transformation, by His power. Now the question when we come to your faith has made you well, the question is, what does this phrase mean? What does it mean that when we come to Jesus in salvation that our faith makes us well? Sometimes we can think that it's about our faith. It has nothing to do with your faith.

How do I know that? Don't you think she believed in the other doctors that she went to? She believed in them enough to give them everything that she had, didn't she? Do you think she had no faith in them? I think she had faith in them. What's the difference? The difference is not her faith. The difference is the object of her faith.

If you jump out of an airplane with a backpack, and I jump out of an airplane with a parachute, I don't care how much faith you have in your backpack, you're going to go splat when you hit the ground. I'll be fine. My faith in my parachute may not be as strong as your faith in your backpack, but I still got my parachute, and it's going to save me, and your backpack is not going to save you.

The object of her faith is that which made her well. The power did not come from her hand. The power did not come from her soul.

The power did not come from her belief. The power came from what? Jesus. It came from Jesus Christ.

Her faith did not make her well because her faith was well. Her faith did not make her well when others were the object of her faith. Her faith made her well when it was joined to Christ.

Faith is an instrument that is passive and receptive. It's the empty hand filled with the garments of Christ that are our righteousness. Fifth, when there is saving faith, Christ comforts us with a two-fold reality.

Go in peace. Jesus says, you're at peace with God. And by the way, she was also at peace with man because she was no longer making other men unclean around her, was she? She was at peace with God and with man.

Be healed. It's transformative. We see that there's a legal work in salvation whereby we are declared righteous before a holy God. And there's a transformative aspect to salvation whereby we are sanctified and become holy and more like Christ every single day.

What are some uses of this doctrine? I have four of them. I'll go through them briefly.

The first is very simple. It's: believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved, Acts 16:31. That's what she did.

She came to Jesus Christ. And what happened? Immediately she was healed. If you come to Jesus Christ, then you come to him by faith, immediately you will be healed by the mediator, by his power.

You will be declared righteous and holy and you will experience the spiritual transformation within your soul. Do not be those who are unlike that woman, who were all around Jesus. They were near him.

They too heard of him. They watched all that he did. But his power did not go out from him to them.

There are no others who can heal you. Just as this woman experienced. There was no other doctor that would be able to bring healing to her.

She spent everything. If you try to stand before God apart from salvation in Jesus Christ, you will spend everything. You will become exhausted. And it's not just that you'll stay the same. You will grow worse as she did. Come to Jesus and be saved.

Second, add your amen to Christ and all of Scripture. Add your amen to Christ and all of Scripture. When we say amen, we're saying it is true.

Yes, Lord. It is as you say it is. And the apostle Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians that all the promises of God are yes and amen in Jesus Christ.

When we see him, our heart soars. When we think of the promises that God has made for us in Jesus Christ, if they are true of you, you look at them and you say amen. All the Scriptures point to Christ and all the promises of God in Christ are yes and amen.

And all the Scriptures are intelligible, clearly putting forth Christ. One of Paul's arguments about tongues in 1 Corinthians 14 is if everyone's speaking at the same time and no one can hear anything, it's like a bugle that's playing without any distinct sound. And what's Paul's concern? That no one will be able to add what? Their amen.

Because no one will understand anything that's being said. Jesus Christ, as you've been, I believe you've been, I'm sure you've at least gotten through John 1. He is the perfectly uttered word coming forth from the Father, assuming human nature to Himself, taking flesh to Himself. He explains God perfectly to us with clarity. We see that and we say amen.

The third use is, know that Christ sees what no man sees. This is both good news and bad news, by the way, right? Because we see in the second chapter of the Gospel of John that Christ sees that people were not truly trusting who He was and so He did not give Himself to them, did He? Christ sees the hidden sins in the recesses of our hearts.

And that's damning. But that's not what this story is about. Christ sees the grace implanted in the soul of each and every single believer before anybody else knows it's there.

Christ sees it and what does He do? He causes it to flourish, right? He gives her faith in Himself and then what does He do? He gently and lovingly cultivates in her what He sees that no one else sees. This is a great encouragement to us that when there is true faith in Christ, there is true hope in all the promises of God and there is true love for God and all those who are made in the image of God, even when it doesn't manifest itself as we would hope or even when others do not see it as maybe we hope that they would, Jesus Christ sees the grace within our soul.

Fourth, the words of Jesus, go. Go. If you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you are saved, then go, knowing that God approves of all of your labors. Go with the blessing of God as you leave today, knowing that you leave here as a child of God, as a daughter, as a son, and you have a peace that surpasses all understanding and you have been healed and the springs of death and corruption in your soul have been dried up by the power of Jesus Christ.

Beloved, we ought to consider the horrible state we found ourselves in and that should lead us to praise the glories of Christ who makes us clean and heals us. We were defiled, but we did not defile him. He purified us.

It is through touching Jesus with the end of being healed of all of our spiritual diseases that we are made well. We look to Christ, the eternal Son of God, who is from the Father and came to save sinners, and by him we are healed. Let us consider how we might respond as those who were desperate and impoverished.

The fitting response for sinners such as us is to give praise to the glorious mercy of God in Christ Jesus. May we forever praise the Lamb for sinners slain. Amen. And let us pray.

Lord Jesus, we give you praise for our plight was worse than this woman's. You have, in your kindness, used such a very vivid illustration for us of things pertaining to the physical and material world to show us of greater glories and realities.

Father, we pray for any who may be here today who, like this woman, have been suffering physical pain and ailments for years after years. Lord, we pray that they would be comforted with the knowledge that their spiritual ailment does not match their physical ailment, for they have been made whole and healed in Christ Jesus. May you cause us all to rejoice in this truth, prepare us for the suffering we will endure in this life, and may it cause us to anticipate the far greater, weightier, eternal glories that are to be revealed.

We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.