Running To Win

Dave McAllister: Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. Jesus was not content to just preach in synagogues. At one point, a woman in a crowd reached out to touch his garment, hoping to be healed of a twelve-year disease.

In this encounter, we see how the compassion of Jesus was made real as he interacted with those in need. From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Today, we continue our look at practicing the compassion of Christ. Pastor Lutzer, it's really true that people take more note of what we do than what we say, or actions speak louder than words. In this case, we'll see the touch of Jesus.

Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer: Dave, you're absolutely right. What we have to understand is this: we might have the truth, but unless we live out that truth in compassion, showing that we care about people and that we don't simply care about truth, but we care about them, until we do that, they probably will not be ready to hear truth.

That's why Jesus is such a wonderful example for us. When it comes to the matter of living out the Christian life, we forget that we are saved by grace, but we also live by grace. That does not mean what some people think it means. At the end of this message, I'm going to be giving you some contact info for a resource that I think is going to clarify many of your questions. It will also help all of us to be compassionate and to understand we're saved by grace, but we also live by grace.

When you read the New Testament, you discover that Jesus loved outcasts. He was always looking for the marginalized. He was looking for those who were poor, those who had no support system. Jesus Christ represents the compassion of God.

This is the second in a two-part series on the compassion of Jesus. I'm preaching it so that, first of all, we might go out looking for those who need compassion, hope, help, forgiveness, and restoration, and that we might be the first to do it. But I'm also preaching this for another reason, and that is that I hope that as a community of believers here at the Moody Church, we might understand that it's not enough simply to attend services, to sing the songs, and to enjoy the worship, but to leave here with our lives representing Jesus Christ wherever he plants us.

The world is broken, all of the wells are dry, and people are looking for hope and help. That's what we're called to do. As a matter of fact, in some sense, I hope that this continues to remind us of what the promise statement is at Moody Church. I don't mention it often enough, not nearly often enough. It's 14 words: Moody Church is a trusted place where anyone can connect with God and others. May it ever be so that we can connect here together.

The story that I'm going to draw to your attention today is found in the fifth chapter of the book of Mark. Turn to Mark chapter five. It's a beautiful story with three miracles in the fifth chapter of the book of Mark. First of all, the demoniac. Jesus confronts the evil spirits, and you know that story all too well. Jesus Christ's total triumph over the kingdoms of darkness, and Jesus still has the very same authority today. You can count on it.

Then we have another story of a man by the name of Jairus. That's the way I pronounce his name. In verse 21, Mark chapter five, Jesus crossed again into the boat to the other side. This man, a ruler of the synagogue, comes, falls at his feet, and says, "My daughter is dying, please come immediately." So Jesus is on his way to the house of Jairus.

It's on his way that he is interrupted by the story of this woman that we want to concentrate on today. It's really the story of two different people in need. On the one hand, what you have is a chronically ill woman, 12 years in her condition. You have that up against a child who is very ill as well and about to die.

Of course, there are other contrasts. The child was 12 years old; this woman had the issue of blood, the discharge, for 12 years. One was more prominent; after all, he was the ruler of the synagogue, and this was his daughter, whereas the other was an outcast, a woman marginalized by society. Jesus stops and accepts the interruption.

I don't know about you, but I don't like interruptions too well. When I'm going to some place, I like to just go. Rebecca knows that when it comes to going to an airport, for example, I obsess about being there on time. I guess it's just because I don't want to be known as the late Erwin Lutzer—at least as long as I live.

Jesus accepts the interruption. He isn't too busy for people, and that leads us to our story. I'm going to pick it up there in verse 25. "And a great crowd followed him and thronged about him. And there was a woman who had a discharge of blood for 12 years, and who had suffered much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was no better but rather grew worse."

Let's just stop there for a moment. Let's look at this woman with three different descriptions, three different ways to describe her experience. First of all, she was a woman in great need. Think about it for a moment: 12 years with this discharge of blood. Think of how anemic and weak she must have felt.

Here she is, a woman who not only is weak but she is poor because she spent all of her money on physicians. It is very clear that they not only did not make her any better but they actually made her worse. She did not have an HMO or anything like that to appeal to, nor an attorney to try to set the record straight, however right or wrong that would be in our society.

The point was, here was a woman who was under duress in poverty, and then something else that you and I don't understand very well: she was ceremonially unclean. Now, I'm going to read some verses from the 15th chapter of Leviticus. I know that all of us struggle with the book of Leviticus and we try to fit things in and somehow we can't relate.

But this is the environment in which she grew up. She very probably was unable to read, but the rabbis were able to read and they would instruct the people. They read the scripture so often that oftentimes many people who couldn't read even were able to recite them. But this is what it says in the 15th chapter.

It says if a woman has a discharge of blood many days, or if she has a discharge beyond the time of her impurity, all the days of the discharge she shall continue in uncleanness. Then it goes on to say that every bed she sits on, every chair she sits on, is rendered unclean.

Then it goes on to talk specifically about the situation where the bleeding doesn't stop, and it says that she continues in her uncleanness. This does not have anything to do with moral uncleanness, because it's not a matter of morality, but it is a ceremonial uncleanness.

It seems as if in the Old Testament all the discharges of the body are considered to be unclean because they are a way in which we give off our life. Of course, the larger picture is this: God wants people to understand, as you read the rest of the book of Leviticus, that to come into his presence you have to come the right way. All of the priests had to be ceremonially cleansed before they could come into God's presence. Today, we recognize that you always have to go to God in his way.

Thankfully, we live in New Testament times and not Old Testament times. Are you happy about that? I hope so. Now, the point is though, everything she touched became unclean. Strictly speaking, she should not have been in this crowd. Did the people of the town know about it? Of course they knew about it.

I once read that in a little town there isn't much to see, but what you hear makes up for it, and I'm sure it does. So everybody talked about this woman. She had mentioned it to her friends that she was a woman who was unclean, and there she was in the crowd, a woman in great need.

There's a second description: she had a very humble faith. I'm going to pick it up now in verse 27. "She had heard the reports about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment. For she said, 'If I could only touch even his garments, I will be made well.' And immediately the flow of blood dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease."

Notice this woman first of all: anemic, incurable, destitute, untouchable. She was almost certainly unmarried because during that period of time, if a woman had a discharge like this, there was to be no intimate relationships with her husband. She probably lived alone and didn't have any children.

Then she hears whispers of a man by the name of Jesus. She hears that he's not your average rabbi. He's not going to say to her, "Now lady, don't you dare touch me because you're unclean and don't you recognize that I am clean, I am cleansed." He was not that kind of a man, she had heard.

Furthermore, there were these rumors that were circulating that he was indeed a healer. He could actually heal people. So let's just imagine for a moment what her strategy was. She said to herself, "I'm going to sneak up secretly. There are all of these throngs that are surrounding Jesus. I'm going to sneak up and I'm just going to touch him, and after I touch him, I'm going to disappear into the crowd and nobody will even know about it. But if I so much as touch him, I will be made whole."

Mark doesn't put it this way, but Luke does. Luke actually says that she said in her mind, "If I could but touch the edge of his garment, the tassel of his garment, the hem of his garment, I will be made clean." Now, what happened was the rabbis would wear a certain garment with tassels.

It represented their commitment to the law. It represented the fact that they need to be reminded of the fact that they were representing the law and were ceremonially clean and were keeping themselves from contaminated people and contaminated events that would render them impure. So there she is. She is saying to herself, "If I could touch one of those tassels of his garment, just the very edge, I will be made whole." So this woman does that, and she touches the hem of his garment.

There's a third description now, and that's life-transforming in the presence of Jesus. Everybody Jesus was involved with, their lives were changed. "And immediately the flow of blood dried up, she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. Jesus perceiving himself that power had gone out from him immediately—Mark, by the way, loves that word immediately. Everything for Mark is immediate. Immediately he turned about in the crowd and said, 'Who touched my garments?'"

His disciples said to him, "You see the crowd pressing around you, and yet you say who touched me?" And he looked around to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what happened to her, came in fear and trembling and fell down before him and told him the whole truth. And he said to her, "Daughter, your faith made you well. Go in peace and be healed of your disease."

What an amazing story of the power of Christ and grace. But let's break it down. First of all, you notice that she knew she was healed. There was something in that touch that made her realize that the flow of blood finally, after 12 long years, ended. She felt new vigor. She knew that she was healed.

Jesus turns around and says, "Who touched me?" and the disciples correctly say, "Master, you're being jostled by the crowd. You're being pushed, you're being shoved. There are people around you, and yet you say who touched me? You've been touched for the last 15 or 20 minutes trying to get through this crowd."

Jesus said, "Oh no." He said, "I know that somebody touched me. Some virtue, some power," the text says, "has gone out of me." Wow, that causes us to pause for a moment. Jesus, King of Kings, Lord of all Lords, a woman touches him and he loses power.

I think that this is an indication of the cross. It's an anticipating of the cross because there on the cross of Jesus Christ, he is going to become weak that you and I might be made strong. Here Jesus is letting this woman know in advance, "I will take upon myself your weakness, but you receive my strength."

So Jesus said some power's gone out. "I know that somebody touched me in a very special way." And so he's looking for her and she is discovered. He looked around to see it done, but the woman, knowing what happened to her, came in fear and trembling. She bows before him and she tells him the whole truth.

By the way, why do you think we know that she had this discharge for 12 years? And why do you think we know that she spent all of her money on doctors? It's because the Bible says there she told him the whole truth. The disciples were listening to her story and that's why they wrote about it in the New Testament and told us exactly the kind of experience she had had during the past 12 years. She tells them everything. Luke makes it very clear that she told everybody around why she touched him and what her problem was.

Why did Jesus call her out? Why didn't he just let her go back into the crowd as she intended so that she could leave with anonymity and nobody would know what happened? Does Jesus call her out to shame her? Does he call her out to embarrass her? Does he call her out because after all she violated some protocol? She should never come to a man without a husband on her side and furthermore, for her as an unclean woman to touch the hem of a garment of a clean man.

Jesus never does it that way. What Jesus was trying to say in this context is the opposite: "I want to exalt you. I want to validate you." Look at the beauty of the words. First of all, "Daughter." She'd not been called that before. And by the way, in no other story does Jesus ever call somebody daughter in this way.

Now, later on, he'll talk about "daughter arise," but he's speaking about it as a daughter in relationship to her parents. But here, daughter. What that means is not only was she healed as Jesus indicated, which was beautiful enough, but something else happened: namely, her sins were forgiven.

She was now a daughter of the most high God. Jesus was saying, "Now you can be integrated into society. You don't have to be embarrassed anymore. Your uncleanness has been made clean. Go in peace as a daughter of God." It's just like Jesus to take the outcasts to encourage them, to give them encouragement and to give them hope and status.

The woman leaves changed forever. Then Jesus goes on and he heals the child. You remember Jairus comes to him now and is upset with Jesus taking out all that time with that woman. He sends a delegation saying the child died. We don't have time to go into that story, but it's interesting that some of the translations say Jesus disregarded what they said and went in and then raised her from the dead. Do you ever have to disregard what other people say and just go ahead and do God's will anyway? That's what Jesus did.

But why should this story that I've told you about today transform us? What are the implications for us as believers, the implications for the Moody Church? Let me give you three transforming lessons. First of all, we are called to continue the work of Jesus. You say, "Where is that in the text?"

Whenever I preach you should always ask that question: "Where is that in the text?" It's not here exactly. But you remember how the book of Acts begins? "The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and to teach." Jesus began the work, and the whole book of Acts is the continuation of his work on earth, and you and I are a continuation of that work.

Now, it's true I can't speak the word and heal someone. I can't go into a room where there is a dead daughter and raise her from the dead, and I don't think you can either. I don't think those kinds of miracles are happening today because when Jesus was offering the kingdom to the nation, there were all of these miracles that accompanied them. Furthermore, Jesus healed these people, but there are many other people that were left apparently unhealed as they surrounded around him.

But there is something that we can do that is not quite as spectacular but just as important, dare I say more important than the physical healing. And that is to be able to represent a compassionate Jesus to a world that has lost hope and to let them know that Jesus receives sinners and Jesus Christ's grace is poured out upon his people.

Now we represent him wherever we go, not just in church but in every single environment we are dispensers of grace. I'm so greatly encouraged by the women here at the Moody Church. Many of you know that they have a great burden regarding sex trafficking, human trafficking. They've already begun plans and they are working towards certain programs and we're going to see how that is all going to turn out because this is a long process.

But we have women here at the Moody Church who actually go to the streets of Chicago and speak to prostitutes and pray with them and encourage them and let them know that there's a God in heaven who cares about them and a God in heaven who's willing to forgive and to restore. In a world that has lost its way, we need to distribute to as many people as we meet the compassion of Jesus who cares about the outcasts, the marginalized, the poor, and the rejected. Let that ever be true of us.

Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer: This is Pastor Lutzer. May I speak to your heart for just a moment? You and I must indeed be the hands, the feet, and the eyes of Jesus. I'm holding in my hands a book that I think is going to be a great blessing, but also it will give you instruction.

It's a book entitled "Grace Awakening," and it's written by Charles Swindoll. You probably know who he is and the great ministry God has given him. But what this book does is it helps us to see the connection between being saved by grace and living by grace. In other words, it is not simply understanding grace, but illustrating for us what that looks like in our marriages, in our relationships, and so forth.

Very quickly, I'm going to be giving you some contact info. I hope that you have a pen or pencil handy. Here's what you do: you go to rtwoffer.com. I'm going to be giving you that again, but for a gift of any amount, this book can be yours. You go to rtwoffer.com or you can pick up the phone and call us at 1-888-218-9337.

I want us to understand very clearly that grace not only saves us, but it gives us the ability to live a fulfilled life that blesses others. So once again, right now, go to your computer, go to rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. Let me thank you in advance for helping us in this ministry.

Dave McAllister: You can write to us at Running to Win, 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois 60614. Running to Win is all about helping you find God's roadmap for your race of life. In our series on practicing the compassion of Christ, we first learned about the heart of Jesus, and now we're seeing the touch of Jesus. Next time, final thoughts about the kind of compassion Jesus had and showed us how to display to others. For Pastor Erwin Lutzer, this is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.