Our scripture today comes from Luke 8, starting at verse 40 in
the Bibles that are in the seat back in front of you.
It's page 918. When Jesus returned, the crowd
welcomed him, for they were all expecting him.
Just then a man named Jairus came.
He was a leader in the synagogue.
He fell down at Jesus feet and pleaded with him to come to his
house because he had an only daughter, about 12 years old,
and she was dying. While he was going.
The crowds were nearly crushing him.
A woman suffering from bleeding for 12 years who had spent all
she had on doctors and yet could not be healed by any approach
from behind and touched the end of his robe.
Instantly her bleeding stopped. Who touched me?
Jesus asked. When they all denied it, Peter
said, Master, the crowds are Hemming you in and pressing
against you. Someone did touch me, said
Jesus. I know that power has gone out
of me. When the woman saw that she was
discovered, she came trembling and fell down before him in the
presence of all the people. She declared the reason she had
touched him and how she was instantly healed.
Daughter, he said, your faith has healed you, go in peace.
While he was still speaking, someone came from the synagogue
leaders house and said, your daughter is dead, don't bother
the teacher anymore. When Jesus heard it he answered
him, don't be afraid, only believe and she will be saved.
After he came to the house, he let no one enter with him except
Peter, John, James and the child's father and mother.
Everyone was crying and mourning for her, but he said stop crying
because she is not dead but asleep.
They laughed at him because they knew she was dead.
So he took her by the hand and called out, Child get up.
Her spirit returned and she got up at once.
Then he gave her orders. But then he gave orders that she
be given something to eat. Her parents were astounded, but
he instructed them to tell no one what had happened.
Good. Morning Church.
We've been in this great section of stories of Jesus and his
power. Luke stacked these together.
We're going to continue on. Today is a startup so I was
going through this story this week.
I was reminded of a story from 2010 in the news.
Maybe you remember this story of a mine collapse in Chile was a
golden copper mine. The entire mine collapsed in on
itself and 33 miners ended up trapped 2000 plus feet
underground. There was tons of rock sealing
the entrance, blocking the way out.
For 17 days, the family members of those miners came and they
gathered outside of this mine with no sense of what had
happened to their loved ones who were deep underground.
All they could do was come and hope and pray and ask for a
miracle and wait to see if any news would be given.
And it was on Day 17, AS rescuers were attempting to
drill a shaft down through the mountain and figure out just how
blocked everything was, just exactly what was going on
underground, that when the drill came back up, something
incredible came up with it. The attach to the drill bit was
a single piece of paper and with red marker written on it was a
note that said we're alive in the shelter, all 33 of us.
But there was still this huge problem, right?
Because the miners were down there under 2000 feet of rock
and freedom and escape was on the other side of all of that
rock. There was no way that they could
dig themselves out. They needed rescue from above.
For the next 52 days, the world watched as as engineers, as
excavators worked around the clock 24/7 to try and reach
those 33 miners trapped over 2000 feet underground.
And finally, on day 69, a narrow rescue capsule was sent down the
shaft. And that's the shaft right
there. That's the rescue capsule.
You can see a guy in it. 1 by 1, 33 miners were raised up out of
the darkness and back into the daylight. 1 by 133 miners were
taken from what seemed like certain death to the life, love,
and laughter of the people that they loved and cared about.
Now, I'm going to assume that no one in this room has ever found
themselves trapped 2000 feet underground in a Chilean mind.
I'm just assuming that I'm guessing that that's not us.
But I'm also going to guess that sooner or later, every single
one of us in this room will find ourselves in spots where we're
in need of some rescue, we're in need of some intervention, where
we're in a spot that we can't seem to dig ourselves out of,
right? It's a situation that you can't
fix. It's a problem that you can't
solve. So so maybe, maybe it's a spot
where you find yourself with the grief that is too much and too
heavy for you to carry. Maybe you've got a challenge in
front of you that requires wisdom, that you just are
sitting there thinking, I don't have the wisdom, the experience
necessary to navigate this. Maybe it's a family that feels
like it's beyond repair. We already talked about the debt
center today. What a great morning to have
that, man. I've met so many people who
found themselves in spots where they just have a financial need,
a crushing debt, and there just doesn't appear to be any
solution to it. Or maybe it's a health problem
and all the diet and exercise and right living in the world is
not going to fix what you're going through.
In fact, maybe one of those moments brought here today.
And if today is the first day that you've been at church in a
while, I'm going to guess it was a desperate situation to bring
you out on time. Change Sunday.
If if you have found yourself in a spot where you are running out
of hope and you're just looking for someone or something that
can do what you can't do for yourself, then this is a great
story for you to be here for today.
Because in Luke chapter 8 we find 2 stories, 2 individuals
who are just in that exact place.
First we have a father whose daughter is dying, and then we
have a woman who has been suffering in in just really
devastating ways for 12 years. There are two people who are out
of options, two people who are desperate.
And Luke is going to show us this morning, there's good news
for desperate people because Jesus is the one who meets us in
our desperation. So let's dive into the passage
that Amanda just read and unpack it a little bit and see what we
learned today about who Jesus is.
So in verse 41, we're introduced to a man by the name of Gyrus
and says that a man named Gyrus came and he was the leader of
the synagogue. He fell down at Jesus feet and
pleaded with him to come to his house.
Now Luke gave us in that sentence a really interesting
little fact about Gyrus. Gyrus was the leader of the
synagogue. Luke says so.
So Gyrus isn't just any old guy. Gyrus is a guy in the community
who is respected, who's influential.
He's a religious guy, right? He's the leader of the
synagogue. But none of his influence, none
of the respect that other people have for him, and none of his
religious piety mean a darn thing in this moment because his
daughter is dying. Nothing about his life can fix
what is breaking in his life right now.
And so this is what he does. He falls down at the feet of
Jesus. He fell down at the feet of
Jesus because he had an only daughter, about 12 years old,
and she was dying. I mean, if you're a dad and
anything happens to your kids, you know, this dads everything
in you as a dad wants to fix things.
And yet sometimes as parents, we run into stuff then we can't
fix. It's the worst part of being a
parent. It's the worst part about
watching my kids grow up is the problems get bigger and I can't
fix them anymore. And this man is in that spot.
He's desperate. He has no answers.
He has no options. And and, and desperation reveals
something, right? It reveals the truth that all of
us struggle so hard to deny we are not in control.
Some of you, you just hate hearing that right now to to
even grapple with the fact that you are not in control.
But there are moments that happen in life.
They just kind of lay that bare about us.
Do we really don't control much? There are moments like what is
happening in Gyrus's life. They just absolutely wreck us.
It just strip us of all pride, like that's what we see here,
right? Look what Jairus does.
He is so wrecked. He's so desperate.
He does not care what people think.
He throws himself down at the feet of Jesus because the only
thing that matters in that moment is the possibility that
maybe Jesus could do what nobody else seems to be able to do.
Maybe Jesus can fix what nobody else seems to be able to fix.
Maybe Jesus can heal what no one else has been able to heal.
If there's even the slightest possibility that Jesus can save
his daughter, he does not care what it looks like.
He does not care what other people think.
He's going to throw himself at the feet of Jesus.
And I just look at this and I, I was thinking this week,
sometimes the very thing that I think all of us hate so much
that that realization, that feeling of hopelessness and
desperation, you know, sometimes that can be the greatest gift
that God could ever give us. It can be the greatest gift that
God gives you if it drives you to the feet of Jesus, the one
who actually can do something about it.
And sometimes the most powerful prayers start like this.
Jesus, I don't know what else to do Jesus, I'm, I'm at the end of
myself. I can't do anything about this
because although our power, our authority, our ability has
significant limits and limitations, as we've seen over
these past couple weeks and we're going to see again, Jesus
power has no limits. The first thing that you see in
this story is that Jesus is the one who notices desperate faith.
He meets Gyrus in his desperate faith.
And as we're going to see, he's going to notice desperate faith
when it's presented to him in a different way.
See, it says Jesus heads on his way to go see Gyrus's daughter,
and a crowd is pressing in on him.
And this is where Luke introduces us to the second
desperate person. He says there was a woman
suffering from bleeding for 12 years who had spent all that she
had on doctors and yet she could not be healed by any.
So what? What do we learn about this
woman? Will we learn?
First of all, she is sick and absolutely physically exhausted
and she's totally and utterly financially drained, right?
She spent all that she had on doctors and yet no one has done
anything for her. But there's actually something
else here that if you don't actually understand the culture
and the context, you'll miss. See, not only is she broke, not
only is she sick, she's a total social outcast at this point.
If she's been bleeding for 12 years, for 12 years in Jewish
society, she has been religiously unclean.
That means she is isolated. She is alone and she's broke and
she's sick and in her desperation, what do we see her?
Do we see her reach out for Jesus?
Verse 44, it says that she approached Jesus from bind as
he's navigating through the crowds that are coming in on him
and she touches the very end of his robe and again, look at
this. This is she is desperate, but
it's a different type of desperation.
And we have Gyrus, who throws himself down at the feet of
Jesus, a very public cry of desperation.
Here we have a woman who is quietly desperate, alone,
silently just reaching out with a shred of hope that Jesus can
do something. She's trying not to draw any
attention to herself because she knows she shouldn't be there.
But when she reaches out and she touches the end of that robe,
Luke tells us that something happens.
It says instantly her bleeding stopped again.
This scene is total chaos. I was saying to the team back in
the green room as we were doing communion together before coming
out. If you've ever been in Toronto,
like when a Blue Jays game releases and then at the same
time, maybe at the Scotiabank Center, a Leafs game or a
Raptors game or a concerts coming out at the same time and
you're trying to get on public transit.
Maybe you're trying to get on a GO train or the subway.
That's the scene. It is utter Panama.
There's just crowds and you're just trying to kind of navigate
through and Jesus trying to get somewhere quickly, right?
And in the midst of this, it says the crowds are pressing in
as Jesus trying to navigate through them.
When when he's touched, Jesus is like, who touched me?
Luke said. Peter's like Jesus.
There's like a whole bunch of people touching you right now.
Like, there, there, there are tons of people around here.
And Jesus, Jesus is like Peter. No, no, no.
Something different is taking place here.
This power that just went out for me.
Then we read. When the woman saw that she was
discovered, when she saw that Jesus had stopped, Dennis
tracks. He knew something had happened.
She came trembling and she falls down before him, and now she's
in the presence of the people. She declares the reason she had
touched him and how she was instantly healed again.
She's not holding anything back. Now, surely this was not the
only woman in that moment or the only person in that moment who
was touching Jesus, who was sick or suffering.
So what was it about her in her sickness, in her suffering, that
led to the power flowing out from Jesus and bringing her
healing? Jesus tells us verse 48.
He says, daughter, your faith has saved you, Go in peace.
Now. First of all, the way Jesus
responds to this woman, you just have to stop and read that first
word first. It's just beautiful.
Look what he calls her. I mean, she's in fear, She's
terrified. She's been found out.
Jesus looks at her and he says, daughter, daughter, imagine just
with those words must have meant to a woman who for 12 years had
been an outcast, who for 12 years had been isolated.
So, so you see, Jesus, Jesus doesn't just restore her health
here. Just like last week when we
looked at the story of the demoniac, Jesus isn't just
restoring health. He's not just restoring saying
no. He's restoring her to community.
He's restoring her dignity. He's restoring her personhood
and look how he finishes it. He says go in peace.
It would have been the Jewish greeting, the Jewish blessing of
Shalom, which is this idea of wholeness.
It's this idea of restoration, because that's what Jesus does.
He, he brings wholeness, he brings restoration.
He says daughter and and he says daughter, this your faith has
saved you. It was not her touching of the
robe as if the robe had some type of magical power in it.
It it wasn't her faith in anything other than the fact
that Jesus was her hope. Jesus was her rescue in and
Jesus always responds to those who reach out in faith to him.
You're never too unclean to reach out to Jesus, right?
That idea of being religiously unclean, religiously unworthy,
Maybe you feel that. Maybe you feel like there's too
much garbage in my life, there's too much sin in my life.
There's been too much history in back story.
Jesus wouldn't want anything to do with me.
He couldn't bring healing into my life and into my story.
That's not the way Jesus operates.
There's never anyone who is too unclean.
Jesus is never too busy. He's never too distracted.
Jesus has important stuff. He's trying to get to Gyrus's
daughter, but he's not too busy for this woman.
Again, I love the contrast of how these two individuals come.
Jesus 11 is coming publicly, right?
Coming, the fullness of just everybody seeing and not caring,
and the other is trying to come silently to Jesus.
But Jesus meets them both. There is never a desperate act
of faith, no matter how loud or how silent, that escapes Jesus's
notice. But as this exchange is taking
place, as Jesus is talking to and having this conversation
with this woman, someone comes up at the same time and
approaches. Gyrus says while he was still
speaking, someone came from the synagogue leaders house and
said, your daughter is dead, don't bother the teacher
anymore. We aren't told in this moment
what Gyrus is thinking, but I've got some thoughts.
If I put myself in Gyruss's shoes, I can imagine some of the
things that might have been running through her head.
Maybe you can too. Geez, why did you stop you?
You knew my daughter was in desperate situation.
Why? Why did you stop with this
woman? If you hadn't stopped with that
woman, maybe my daughter wouldn't be dead.
I think the delay in this story for Jairus had to feel
absolutely devastating. His hope had just been kindled a
little bit. Jesus was going to come with
them. And yet Jesus doesn't apologize
to Jairus here. You think he'd say, Jairus, I'm
oh, man, I'm so sorry for your your loss.
I can't believe I got held up like that.
This is what he says. He says, don't be afraid, only
believe, and she will be saved. She's dead.
How's she going to be saved? And then he arrives at the house
and instead of greeting the grieving mother of this daughter
in the household and saying, guys, my heart breaks.
I'm so sorry for your loss. I can't believe what's happened.
He says stop crying. If you go back, remember right
at the beginning of this, this section of Luke, but a similar
deal. Jesus stopped the funeral
procession and he said stop crying.
He says stop crying. She's not dead, she's asleep.
And at this point it says they all laugh at him, but I don't I
don't think this is the like the oh, Jesus, you're so funny type
of laugh. I think this is the like, I'm so
angry at what Jesus is saying right now.
I, I can't help. I'm either going to hit him or
laugh like I, I think this is total shock.
Can you believe this guy? He was supposed to come help our
daughter. He got distracted.
Now he's telling us, don't cry, it's OK, she's going to be
saved. Look what happens next.
So he took her, the little girl by the hand and called out,
child, get up. Her spirit returned and she got
up at once. And I just want to say this to
you because I know some of you heard the last part that I said
about Jesus always responding to our desperate faith.
And you're like, well, I've been desperate and he's not
responding. Don't despair if Jesus is
delayed in answering your desperate cry.
Jesus is never late, even when he feels like it is.
I've been there, been there where you're going through stuff
and you fall into doubting Jesus.
Just think, really, Jesus? You get disappointed with Jesus
because you've been calling out in desperation, in belief that
he could do something. And Jesus just doesn't seem to
be answering. I, I know in this place, some of
you are there today. Maybe you haven't verbalized it
or articulated any. I mean, you haven't said those
words, but you're just like, I'm just about done with Jesus.
I just want to say if you call out to Jesus with faith, you
never have to fear if he's going to fix things and if he can fix
what you can. It's so easy for us to mistake
delay for denial with Jesus, and then we end up disappointed,
right? But look at what Luke is telling
us here, what Luke wants us to know.
Even death isn't beyond Jesus's fixing.
Jesus makes this promise at another point to a woman by the
name of Martha who has also lost her brother who was a dear
friend of Jesus. And in John 1125, Jesus makes
this statement about himself. He says I am the resurrection
and the life, the one who believes in me.
Even if he dies, he will live every day in my prayers.
I pray that Jesus will heal my wife of type 1 diabetes and
celiac every day. And for 25 years that prayer has
yet to be answered. But here's what I am confident
of. One one thing I know without a
doubt, one day that prayer will be answered in this life or in
the next, and if in the next, for all eternity that prayer
will be answered. And that is true for every
person who places their faith in Jesus Christ.
Death doesn't stop Jesus from fulfilling and fixing what is
broken. In fact, sometimes death is how
he goes about fixing what is broken.
If your faith is in Jesus, my promise to you is this.
Your story will end in a miracle.
See, one day, no matter what your financial struggles are
right now and no matter how difficult it is.
And I know it's hard out there for so many people.
Jesus is going to make it so that you never struggle again.
You think I'm never going to be able to afford or buy a house in
this market? I'm telling you, the promise of
Jesus is that for eternity you're going to have a mansion
beyond compare. If you know and trust Jesus one
day, that addiction that you may be so weary of because it feels
it's a fight every single day of this life between you and your
addiction and the struggle there, one day that fight is
going to be over and won forever because of Jesus.
One day your heart that has been so broken that really your only
hope right now is that it it scars over and scabs over enough
that it doesn't keep on bleeding out all the time.
One day, the promise that we find in Revelation 21 of a new
heaven, a new earth, means that your heart is going to be fully
fixed and repaired and there will be no more sadness or
crying or tears. I don't know if it's going to
happen today. I don't know if it's going to
happen tomorrow. I don't know if it's going to
happen a year from now, but whether it happens on this side
of heaven or the next, if your faith is in Jesus, it's coming.
This whole series we've been saying who is Jesus?
Who is Jesus? Start.
He said. He's the one who teaches like
nobody else. He has an authority in his
teaching like nobody else. He's the one who who forgives
sins like nobody else is able to forgive.
He's the one who calms storms and casts out demons.
And today, Luke answers this question one more time.
Again. He is the one who hears and
answers desperate prayers. He's the one who stops for those
that everybody else ignores. He's the one whose timing is
never late. And he's the one who has
authority. Not over, not just over storms.
Not just over demons, but over death itself.
And it shows us again that there's no situation that you
can bring to him, that he is beyond his power and his ability
to fix. It started this morning by
talking about 33 men trapped in darkness for 69 days.
They couldn't get themselves out.
They needed a rescue to come from above.
And then eventually a rescue capsule comes and breaks through
the darkness. For the first time in 69 days.
Something breaks through that darkness, and one by one they
get into that capsule, they're lifted out, and they step into
the light. But in Luke 8, we see something
even greater than that rescue. See, Luke doesn't just rescue
the living, he raises the dead. Or Jesus doesn't just rescue the
living, he raises the dead. And the only the question isn't,
can Jesus rescue? The question isn't whether you
need rescue. The question is whether you will
admit that you need rescue and that Jesus is the only one who
can rescue you. The question is, have you come
to a point where you realize you are in a spot where you can't
fix it? You can't fix your sin, You
can't fix your brokenness. You can't work your way out of
the darkness that you're in. You can't raise yourself from
the dead, that Jesus had to come down from above and bring rescue
to you. That Jesus had to die on the
cross for your sin so that you could be taken from darkness to
light, from death to life. And that's the invitation that
is available to any and every person is that Jesus offers
rescue if you call to out to him in faith, believing that he and
he alone can save you. And the moment we do that, we
enter from darkness to light. We enter from life or from death
to life. But if you've already called out
to Jesus to rescue you from sin and death, and you find yourself
still in desperate situations, the question for you this
morning is, will you lay your unfixable situation at his feet?
Will you fall down at his feet and trust Him again?
Will you cry out to Him over the problem that you can't solve?
Will you trust Him with your financial debt?
Will you trust him with your broken family?
Will you trust him with your crippling fear?
Will you trust him with your grief and loss and addiction?
Will you trust him with your seemingly unanswered prayers
that seem to be delayed Because Jesus is the one who always
meets us in our desperate situation?
We're going to close this sermon.
We're going to close this series and section of Luke with
communion today. And so we've got some of our
hospitality team who have some community elements.
If you don't have those, they're going to come down to the front.
You can put your hand up and they will make sure to get that
to you. If you're a follower of Jesus, I
want to invite you to take communion with us.
You don't have to attend this church rarely.
Just if you placed your faith in Jesus as your rescuer, as your
Savior, as your Lord, then then let's take this together.
Because as we take communion, we're declaring that Jesus is
the one who has already met us in our desperate need.
We're declaring that him meeting us in our desperate need that
did not come cheaply, that our rescue was at a cost that is
beyond imagining. And we're declaring this if he
died to save us, we will be saved.
I want to invite you to take the bread from the top here the way
firm Luke 2219 Jesus in the upper room says to his disciples
as he takes bread and breaks it amongst them.
This is my body which is given for you.
Do this of in remembrance of me and I just just invite you to
pray with me. We're going to pray over the
bread and as we pray, would you just pray to him?
Jesus, thank you for paying the cost of my rescue.
That's what this wafer represents.
And pray to him. Jesus, I trust that you will
complete what you start. If you have saved me from death
to life, then life is where I'm headed, even when I'm struggling
in the midst of this life. And as you, as you take this
bread on your hand, you remembered of the fact that
Jesus has rescued you, that you have called out to him in faith
for that rescue. Can you also call out to him and
just say, I trust you with this situation.
I trust you with my kids, trust you with my marriage, trust you
with my health situation, trust you with my job.
I trust you with my finances. Father, thank you.
Thank you for the beauty of communion, for the opportunity
to remember together who our rescuer is and where our rescue
comes from. Thank you that you have paid the
cost, that our rescue has been paid in full.
We've received the down payment of that rescue with your Holy
Spirit in knowledge that one day we will be glorified with you
and receive the fullness of all that you have promised.
But in the midst of this world of struggle and sin, of pain and
hurt, we pray that you would enter into it.
We we pray that you would meet us in our desperation even now
let's take and eat together. Says that in the same way Jesus
took the cup in that upper room. He said this cup is the new
covenant in my blood which is poured out for you.
It is because of the blood of Jesus that we get to be called
sons and daughters of the King, that we get to be brought into a
relationship with God. It is because of the blood of
Jesus that we have been rescued and forgiven.
That's the way we stand in front of our heavenly Father because
of Jesus. So let's pray together over this
cup, let's thank Jesus, thank him not only that He hears our
prayers for healing, but that he brings us into wholeness.
He brings us into right relationship with him.
And then just call out to him and save me.
God, would you help me be faithful?
Would you help me be patient? Help me to wait while you bring
about the fullness of life that you have promised.
Keep my faith strong in that. Father, thank you that if Jesus
blood has covered our sins, we are set free.
There is no limit to the extent of your forgiveness.
We are called sons and daughters of the King.
It is who we are because of Christ.
And if we're your kids and you're our Father, then unlike
we as heavenly, as earthly fathers, as earthly moms, as
we're limited in our power to fix things, you are unlimited in
your power to fix things for your kids.
We love it, we love you. We love the fact that we can
trust you in the midst of our difficulties.
In Jesus name, let's take and drink together.
We're going to close with a song that declares the truth.
Not only the story of these two individuals in our story in Luke
today, but it's true for every single follower of Jesus.
Because the same Jesus that took a little girl by the hand and
told her to get up and prod her from death to life does that for
every single one of us. He brings us from death to life.