Hope for the Hopeless

Take your Bibles, would you? And open them to Luke chapter 8. It seems like we've been in Luke chapter 8 for a year.

If it seems that way to me, I know it does to you, but we are sure you are going to finish that chapter this morning, Luke chapter 8. And I'm going to read verses 40 through 56. Find it? Luke chapter 8. Say amen if you found it. I don't know. Are we ready to start? Okay. Amen.

All right, listen as I read God's Word, God's Holy Word. So it was when Jesus returned that the multitude welcomed Him.

By the way, a little bit different than when He arrived at the other side of the Sea of Galilee. He was approached by a demoniac, but this time the people are there, back on Jewish territory, and they welcome Him.

Because, why? They've been waiting for Him. And behold, there came a man named Jairus. He was a ruler of the synagogue, and he fell down at Jesus' feet and begged Him to come to His house.

For he had an only daughter, about 12 years of age, and she was dying. But as he went, the multitudes thronged him. Now a woman, having a flow of blood for 12 years, who had spent all her livelihood on physicians and could not be healed by any, came from behind and touched the border of his garment.

And immediately her flow of blood stopped. And Jesus said, Who touched me? And all denied it. Peter and those with him said, Master, the multitudes throng and press you, and you say, Who touched me?

But Jesus said, Somebody touched me, for I perceived power going out from me. And when the woman saw that she was not hidden, she came trembling and falling down before Him.

She declared to Him in the presence of all the people the reason she had touched Him and how she was healed immediately. And He said to her, Daughter, be of good cheer.

Your faith has made you well. Go in peace. While He was still speaking, someone came from the ruler of the synagogue's house, saying to Him, Your daughter is dead.

Do not trouble the teacher. And when Jesus heard it, He answered him, saying, Do not be afraid. Only believe, and she will be made well.

When He came into the house, He permitted no one to go in except Peter, James, and John, and the father and mother of the girl. Now all wept and mourned for her. But He said, Do not weep.

She is not dead, but sleeping. And they ridiculed Him, knowing that she was dead. But He put them all outside, took her by the hand, and called, saying, Little girl, arise.

Then her spirit returned, and she arose immediately. And He commanded that she be given something to eat. And her parents were astonished.

But He charged them to tell no one what had happened. All right? Interesting story. Actually, two stories, right? Two stories kind of woven together here.

Now, by way of introduction, what can we say about this passage? I mean, just, I've read it, and hopefully you've read along in your Bibles.

And so you have the whole story there from start to finish. What can we say about it? That's a good place to begin when you're studying God's Word, by the way. If you, before you ever consult the tools that you may have, commentaries and other things, when you're studying God's Word, you ought to just simply look and consider the obvious.

What are some of the obvious things about this particular passage? I mean, those things that you don't really have to think about. Well, in the first place, you shouldn't have to think about this.

Jesus is the main attraction in this passage, right? He is. He's the main attraction. And this should be the first and most obvious thing that we notice from this passage.

In fact, as we're reading through the Gospels, we notice that about every portion of the passage. Jesus is the main attraction. But clearly in this passage, all you have to do is highlight the main verbs, the key verbs in the passage, and then notice how that many of them are directed toward Jesus, that Jesus is the object.

It's kind of a little grammar kind of lesson as you read the passage. You start with the subject, and then you find the verb, and then you see the object or the direct object. And in most cases, in this passage, Jesus is the object, direct object.

For example, right off the bat there in verse 40, the multitude welcomed Him. They were waiting for Him. The very next verse, verse 41, Jairus fell down at Jesus' feet.

He begged Him to come to His house. Verse 42, the multitudes touched His garment. See, just on and on throughout the passage.

You get on into verse 44, the woman did what? She touched, there's the verb, touched His garment, Jesus' garment. In verse 47, the woman, just like Jairus did before her, the woman fell down before Him.

And in verse 53, the mourners ridiculed Him or laughed at Him. And on and on we could go. All the major key verbs in the passage have Jesus as their direct object.

And so, apparently, it seems clear to me anyway, and I think it all does to all of us, that Luke wants his readers to learn something about Jesus here. Who He is.

What He's able to do. The second thing that I would say, just by kind of general observation of the passage, is that the two separate people in the passage, Jairus and the other woman, these two people come to Jesus, each one with a hopeless situation.

That's pretty clear, isn't it? A hopeless situation, each one of them. Jairus comes to Jesus, he's the father of an only child, a daughter. And she is on her deathbed.

And we can assume that he's tried every known medical remedy of his day and nothing has helped. Hers is a hopeless case. And she's going to die.

And none of the physicians are going to be able to do anything about that. Jairus himself, the father, is not going to be able to do anything about that. In fact, she does die, doesn't she, in the story.

And making the situation absolutely hopeless. It's a hopeless situation. The same is true of the unnamed woman. She also comes to Jesus and she has, the Bible says here, at least in this translation, she has a flow of blood or a hemorrhage.

And for 12 torturous years, this woman has suffered with this particular disease. By the way, as long as Jairus' daughter has been alive, this woman has suffered this terrible, terrible disease.

And she has tried everything. We get that right from the text. She's tried everything. She spent everything that she had, every penny that she had, to find a cure.

She has, no doubt, tried all the conventional cures of the day. And I think there's even an indication, when we look at some of the other gospel accounts of this, that she tried some non-conventional cures.

She had been, I think, subjected herself to experimental medicines of the day. I think that's pretty clear. She had become, kind of subjected herself to be a lab rat or a guinea pig for the cutting-edge medical technology of the day.

Which, by the way, had only made her condition worse. And she had suffered even more. We can look at Mark's account of this. In Mark chapter 5, verse 26, the Bible says that she had suffered many things from many physicians.

I think the implication is here that she had not only tried the conventional wisdom of the day, the medical wisdom of the day, but she had also tried some of the experimental remedies for the day.

And nothing helped. Nothing worked. In fact, it made her condition worse. And she suffered worse. The blood loss. The fatigue. The fear of death. Constant fear of death.

Hers was a hopeless case. Now, that's very clear from the passage. We don't have to really think very hard. We don't have to dig very deep into the passage to see this.

It's right there on the surface. We can see that very clearly. Let me point out a third observation. Something that I think is very obvious from the passage, and I think you would agree with me.

And that is third, that both people in the passage genuinely believed that Jesus is the only remedy for their hopeless situation.

They genuinely believed that. He's the only answer. Jairus believed. The Bible says that Jesus said, by the way, to Jairus, Do not be afraid.

Do not fear. Only believe. And she will be made well. Matthew, in his account, in Matthew chapter 9, verse 18, reveals that after Jairus received, even after Jairus had received the news that his daughter was dead, that he said to Jesus, Come.

He said, come anyway. Come and lay your hand on her, and she will live. Now, that's faith. I mean, he genuinely believed that Jesus could not only heal his daughter in the first place, but now that she's dead, he could bring her back to life.

He genuinely believed that. It's clear from the passage. The woman also believed, didn't she? As a matter of fact, both Matthew and Mark, if we were to read their accounts of this same story, both Matthew and Mark tell us what this woman was thinking when she was approaching Jesus in that crowd.

She said, if I could just touch his garment, just the edge of it, even the hem of it. Some translations have the tassel.

Even if I could just touch him, I shall be made well. Now, that's clearly faith. She really believed that. In fact, we have Jesus' own testimony about it, don't we, in our passage in Luke.

He said to her, daughter, be of good cheer. Your faith has made you well. Go in peace. So clearly, without really digging deeply, without even really hardly thinking about it, we see these things very obvious from the passage.

Let me give you a fourth observation. In both cases, Jesus responds to their faith with miraculous healing.

Now, that's obvious, isn't it? I mean, if we notice anything, we notice that. But let's make sure we notice that he connected faith with the miraculous here.

Jesus' daughter is raised from the dead. That's clearly a miracle. Incredible miracle. The woman with the hemorrhage, the flow of blood, was instantaneously healed.

And Jesus was the one in the passage that connected these miracles to faith. He said to Jairus, only believe and she will be made well, and she was made well.

He said to this woman after he healed her, your faith has made you well. Now, those are four things that we can see from this passage after reading it, without even really studying it, without even hardly thinking about it.

These four things jump right out to us from the passage. Of course, we need to look a little deeper. And with every passage of Scripture, when we're studying it, we look at the obvious, and then we begin to look at those things that are not so obvious, that we have to dig a little deeper for.

And I would say that part of this is obvious. I mean, surely you've noticed from the passage that we have two separate stories here. Right? They're not really connected together in that Jairus and the woman, know one another, they're related in any way.

It's more incidental, isn't it? There are two stories taking place here, but the thing that's interesting that we ought to notice is that the second one interrupts the first.

I mean, you notice that, don't you, from the passage? You say, well, big deal. Well, I say that's interesting. It's obvious, but it's interesting. And, by the way, all three of the synoptic Gospels, that's just a technical term that means those Gospels that are looking through the same eye, that would be Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

All three of the synoptic Gospels record it just this way, where the story begins, and then we have a second story interrupting the first, and then we get back to the second story.

That's kind of unusual in the Gospel accounts. And so it begs the question, why? Why was it recorded just that way? You say, well, Pastor, because it just happened that way.

All right? That's obvious, isn't it? But, you know, that's true, I think. There are other instances in the Gospel accounts where the Gospel authors changed the order of things and did not necessarily follow a chronological order.

We're not going to look at those this morning. That's not important. We just know that that happens in the Gospel accounts. And so why, in this case, do the Gospel writers keep those two stories together and not separate them as individual stories?

Why do they do that? Well, I think that it is a signal to us as readers. I mean, obviously, the Bible was written by earthly authors, and yet we believe very clearly that they were moved by the Holy Spirit of God and that so that what we have in this book is the inspired, God-breathed Word.

And so the Holy Spirit, very much involved in the writing of Scriptures as the Holy Spirit moved in the lives and minds and through the pens of the Bible authors.

And so I think this is a signal from the Holy Spirit to the readers, that's us, that we should look a little closer, that we should dig a little deeper.

You see, I would say to you this morning that these two separate miracle stories, and they are separate in a sense, these two separate miracle stories that are woven together have something else in common with one another, something that we have to dig a little deeper to see.

And it's because we're Gentiles, by the way, that we have to dig deeper to see this. We're not Jews. I would say to you that to the Jews this would have been very obvious, this other kind of commonality between the stories.

it would have been very obvious to a Jewish reader. In fact, I would say that a Jewish reader would find this particular aspect of the two stories disturbing.

Disturbing. Initially, anyway. But when the readers, any reader, Jew or Gentile, when the readers see this, this point of commonality, this connection that the two stories have with one another, when we see that, then we're going to then see a vivid picture of the gospel, the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ.

These two stories, woven together, present a vivid picture of the gospel. far more than just simply being examples of Jesus' power to heal and examples of miracles in the Bible.

Far more than that, way beyond that, there is a vivid picture of the gospel. And you might be saying right now, well, tell us what you're talking about here. Three things.

By the way, this is still introduction, so this is not point number one, all right? Don't worry. Three things. We're talking about three things that the two stories have in common with one another that are not necessarily obvious to us on the surface.

But when we dig deeper into the passage and bring into play other passages in the Bible, then these things become evident. Three things. First, Jairus' situation, a dead daughter.

and the woman's situation, an incurable hemorrhage. These two things represent two of the three defiling conditions spoken about in the law of God, in the Mosaic law.

Two of the three defiling conditions under the Mosaic law. Two of the three conditions or situations that defile, that are unclean according to the law of God.

And I'll explain this in more detail in a moment, but Numbers chapter 5 verses 1 through 4 list these three defiling conditions. Number one, leprosy.

Now that's not in our story. That's the third of the three. But the next two are in our story, our passage. The second one is a discharge of any kind, but especially of blood.

And so that's the condition of this woman, a discharge. And the third is a dead body, a corpse, like Jairus' daughter.

Those are the three defiling conditions, unclean conditions, conditions, outlined for us in the law of God, in the law of Moses, according to Numbers chapter 5 verses 1 through 4.

Now let me add a second thing here. In both instances, now you've got to follow this very close because it's so important. In both instances, the two separate stories that are woven together, in both instances, Jesus allowed personal, physical contact to take place between him and the ones having the defiling condition, which according to Numbers chapter 5 verses 1 through 4, and I would add to that, Leviticus chapter 15 verses 19 through 27, that would make him unclean.

All right, so, this is what these two stories have in common, that they represent two of the three defiling conditions according to the Mosaic law, and that Jesus allowed himself to have personal contact with these defiled people, which under the law would make him unclean, and then I'll add a third thing, and here is the clincher, the most important part.

In both instances, Jesus did not become unclean. Rather, the ones with the defiling conditions, the unclean conditions, they became clean.

That's the most important thing we should see about this passage, and that's why I say that the passage, this passage, is a vivid picture of the gospel, the saving gospel of Jesus Christ.

Now, that's all introduction. That's all groundwork for the real sermon, and you'll be amazed to know that I have just two points in this sermon.

Two points. Considering everything that I've said so far, the obvious from the passage, those things are just right there, you don't have to dig deep for them, you don't really have to think very hard about them.

And added to those obvious things, some of those things that you must dig deeper for and find, and I've done that, and I've laid it out here before you, considering all of that as foundation, and I want you to consider, first of all, the hopeless problem of sin.

this passage, these two stories communicate loudly, clearly, the hopeless problem of sin and lostness.

A hopeless problem that countless millions upon millions, even billions, I would say in the world today, are caught up in a hopeless problem.

There are millions and millions and millions, and I really would say billions, living today, walking around this planet today, who have a hopeless condition that we call lostness.

They're lost, hopelessly lost in sin. Millions. And it's staggering when you get to thinking about it.

Staggering. The sheer numbers of people who have this hopeless, hopeless condition, and many of them, the majority of them, don't even know it. It's hopeless.

A little hard for us to get any real sense of that living here in small town Bartlesville. If you've lived here all your life, you say, well, this isn't a small town. This is a town of great significance. But in comparison to most of the cities in the world, this is a small town.

And it's difficult to get a sense of the staggering numbers of people in the world who have this hopeless condition of lostness.

You travel to any city, any major city in this world, in the United States and other parts of the world, fresh in my mind, is the city of Guangzhou, China.

Walk the streets of Guangzhou, China, a city of a staggering 20 million people, six million, a full six million of them, migrant workers, who are coming from all different places and small villages and communities in China, and they're coming from places, so the majority of the people there have not even one time ever even heard the name Jesus.

Hopeless, a hopeless condition, the hopeless problem of sin, do you have some sense of that? We don't have to go outside of Bartlesville to see that, it's right here, all around us.

And I'm saying to you that Jairus' daughter is a picture of that, meant to be a picture of that for us. she's dead. She's dead. And listen, according to the Bible, death is the hopeless condition of the sinner, right?

Spiritually speaking. Death, Romans 5, 12, for example, therefore just as one through one man's sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, and all mankind, because all sin.

That's hopeless. A hopeless word. The Bible doesn't end there, thankfully, and we're not going to end there either today. But think of how hopeless that is.

Romans 6, 23, the wages of sin is death. And spiritually speaking, death is symbolic of utter separation from God.

A hopeless condition. And what about this woman in the passage? Well, she clearly pictures for us the hopeless problem of sin. Her condition is incurable.

Her condition is hopeless. She has tried all the remedies of man. She has consulted the highest wisdom of man, and nothing would deliver her from her hopeless condition.

Nothing. I mentioned Numbers 5, verses 1-4. What does it say about this woman's condition? Well, listen to it. Here's the law according to Numbers 5, verses 1-4.

Command the children of Israel. Now, listen to this very carefully. Command the children of Israel. This is God's word. It's His law. Command the children of Israel that they put out of the camp every leper, everyone who has a discharge, and whoever becomes defiled by a corpse, a dead body.

You shall put out both male and female. You shall put them outside the camp, that they may not defile their camps in the midst of which I dwell.

Now, that sounds pretty severe, doesn't it? Even maybe a little bit heartless and cruel. to do this. But we need to understand what this passage is all about and what the law of God is all about.

Especially the ceremonial law, which is what this is. It is God revealing a spiritual reality. And it's a spiritual reality about sin.

And He's using leprosy and a discharge and death as symbols of sin and the seriousness of sin because sin defiles. It defiles the one who is the sinner defiles things around the sinner.

It defiles. Sin makes us unclean. Sin also, and this is worse, separates us from God. Every sinner is separated from God. And so, considering the passage, the law itself, sin puts us outside the camp, you see.

Meaning, we cannot worship God. God. We have no access to worship God, no ability to worship God. We're completely separated and excluded from worshiping the one true God because, according to Numbers 5, the Bible says God dwells in the midst of the camp.

But those who are defiled are outside the camp. And that was the hopeless condition of this poor woman in the passage, by the way. For 12 long years, she was perpetually unclean.

She could not go to the temple to give sacrifice, which is part of vital worship of Yahweh God. She could not attend the synagogue for worship. And so, that meant she was separated from God.

She could not worship God. And not only that, but none of her family members could come near her for fear of touching her, coming in contact with her, and then becoming unclean themselves.

And so, not only separated from God, but separated from the people of God. outside the family of God. But now again, that was the condition of this woman. But again, this is symbolic.

It's symbolic of the hopeless condition of mankind. The hopeless condition of lostness. Romans 3.23, For all have sinned, and what? Fall short of the glory of God.

Separation from God. No matter how much the sinner wants to get to God, because of sin, that sinner is separated from God, and there's no way to access God, no way to get to God, there's no way to worship the one true God, because of this hopeless problem of sin.

I say to you that Jairus' daughter, that that situation, and the situation of this woman with the flow of blood, are symbolic of that separation from God.

Hopeless. Hopeless condition. Now the story doesn't end there, does it? Thankfully. Because there is in this passage hope for the hopeless.

Not only in the physical sense, I mean if you just take the story in its immediate sense, its physical sense, each of these hopeless cases, their only hope was Jesus.

We're to go deeper than that, and see that in a spiritual sense, this passage not only presents the hopeless problem of sin, but it also presents the selfless provision of the Savior.

That's number two. The selfless provision of the Savior. Now the law of Moses, the ceremonial law, clearly stipulates that not only are lepers and those with a discharge and dead bodies defiled and unclean, but also as I've said, those who come in contact with these conditions, with these things, are unclean as well.

Right? That's clear from the law of Moses. And therefore not only the one with the defiling condition, not only must that one be separated from the camp, be outside the camp, but those who touch or come in contact with them must be put outside the camp until they fulfill the requirement for cleansing.

Prescribed in the law as well. All right. That's very clear from the Mosaic law. All right, now, clearly from the story we understand that Jesus was touched by the defiled woman.

now, he allowed that. But according to the law, by the way, it didn't make any difference whether it was premeditated touching, touching by choice or action or incidentally touching.

It was the same. You were defiled and outside the camp. And so Jesus allowed this woman to touch him. And also clearly, he touched the defiled body of that dead daughter, the dead daughter of Jairus.

Took her by the hand. That's touching. So in both cases, he touched. And by law, by the law of Moses, he would then be unclean.

Now, I want you to notice that Jesus did not try to conceal this. He didn't try to hide that or keep that unknown to the people around him.

In fact, I would say to you that he, in the case of the woman, for sure, he went out of his way to reveal publicly not only her condition of defilement, but also that she had touched him, that they had come in contact with one another, and also that she had been healed.

He went out of his way to make sure everybody there knew that. If he had not taken the steps that he took, we would have never, ever even heard about this woman. So Jesus went out of his way to make sure it was known.

And that's what verses 45 and following are all about. Look at it. And Jesus said, who touched me? As if he didn't know.

Who touched me? Did Jesus know? Of course he did. But he asked the question, who touched me? And everybody denied it.

They denied it. Everybody around him denied it. And Peter and those with him, his other apostles, disciples, said to him, master, the multitudes throng and press you and you say, who touched me?

It could have been dozens, dozens have touched you. What do you mean asking the question, who touched you? It's almost as if Peter's reprimanding Jesus. Or at least saying, you've got to be kidding who touched you.

And so that's why we know that Jesus questioned, he had a motive for that question. He knew full well who touched him. But he goes ahead and asks the question and then he goes on to say, but Jesus said, somebody touched me.

That is, they touched me in a certain way. And a certain thing happened. For I perceive power going out from me. And probably like me, you think, well, what is all that about?

And I think just simply this, Jesus saying, I know when I've healed somebody. Now when, now look at this, now when the woman saw that she was not hidden, now how in the world did she know that?

I don't know. The Bible doesn't say. But in my sanctified imagination, hopefully, I just had the idea that Jesus was looking at her.

Eye to eye. eye. He turns and he looks right at her. Who touched me? And everybody's denying it and Peter says, you got to be kidding.

And he said, somebody touched me. He's looking right at her. And that's why she knew she'd been exposed. But the important thing is what she does.

She declared to him in the presence of all the people. Now that's key here in the passage. This helps us understand why Jesus asked the question. She declared, she gave a full disclosure in the presence of all the people around her, the reason she had touched him.

And I think a minute she gave the reason, told the reason, probably the people around her were going, this defiled woman touched Jesus.

Jesus. He's unclean. She declared it all. The reason why she touched him and also how she was healed immediately.

So the two things come together. She became clean. Now that's what Jesus wanted. Now certainly he wanted the woman to confess publicly her faith in Jesus.

I think that's part of this. Yes, certainly. We'll get to that here in a moment. But I think also he wanted this because he wanted the woman to reveal publicly that she had a defiling condition and that she had touched Jesus, the unthinkable, and that she had been healed.

That's what Jesus wanted. Why would Jesus want everybody to know that? So that the people would begin to see the power of the gospel.

It's all about the gospel. The good news of salvation in Jesus Christ. He wanted everybody there to begin to see that.

I say begin to see that because they would not see the full gospel until Jesus died on the cross. But we can see it.

Do you see it? It's easier to see it in the case of the woman, though the principles are clearly there in the case of the dead girl.

Do you see it? remember, the law said that the woman was unclean. It's a picture of sin.

But Jesus made her clean. Right? Picture of salvation. How did the woman become clean?

How did that come about? By the law? By obedience to the prescriptions of the law for those who are defiled?

Is that how she became clean? No. faithful. No, not at all. How then? Faith. Her faith.

Jesus said, your faith has made you well. Matter of fact, the word well there is the same word that is usually translated saved.

faith. Your faith has saved you. Now pay attention. Does faith negate the law?

Nullify the law? God's law? Be careful how you answer that. Does faith put aside the requirements of God's law concerning sin?

Does it? The answer is no. It does not. Jesus did not break the law of God to make this woman clean. To cure her defiling condition.

He did not break the clear law of God in order for this woman to be clean. Jesus did not disregard the law so that this woman could be saved.

could be cleansed. And likewise, God does not break his own law concerning sin in order to save sinners. Your faith did not disregard God's law concerning sin.

It did not. So how did she become clean when the law said that she was unclean? The cross.

The cross. The cross. Jesus' cross. Now listen. Don't miss this.

God's law required that she be separated and be treated as an outcast because of her defiling condition.

She must go outside the camp. But she was cleansed. How? Because Jesus fulfilled the law for her.

Jesus went outside the camp in her place. Jesus. This is such a beautiful picture of the gospel. Jesus could cleanse and save this woman because one day soon in her lifetime he would take her defilement to the cross and sacrifice himself in her behalf.

And that is what he has done for every one of us. Hebrews chapter 13 verse 11 puts it very clearly. For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin.

Talking about the Old Testament sacrificial system. They were brought into the sanctuary. The blood of those sacrificed animals brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin to atone for sin are burned outside the camp.

Therefore, and here's the connection, Jesus also that he might sanctify, save the people with his own blood suffered outside the camp.

On a hill called Calvary. You see the picture of the gospel. The third stanza of that great hymn, the old rugged cross, goes like this.

In that old rugged cross, stained with blood so divine, a wondrous beauty I see.

For t'was on that old cross, Jesus suffered and died to pardon and sanctify, make clean me.

See, Jesus is the only hope for the hopeless. Would you bow with me this morning? And as your heads are bowed, eyes are closed.

If you're a sinner here today, and I mean you're not saved, then what should you do?

The first step is to do what we hear about in verse 40. Welcome Jesus. Welcome him. You've been waiting for him.

welcome him. He's here. He's the only hope for the hopeless problem of sin.

Is that you?