The Touch Test , Mark 5:25-34

Sermon Notes

Mark 5:25-34 (New International Version, ©2011)


25 And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. 26 She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. 27 When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, 28 because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” 29 Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.

30 At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?” 31 “You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’ ” 32 But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it.

33 Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. 34 He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”

God’s Word is a Rhema word, which means that it could have meant something yesterday and something brand new today; look at life with new lenses.

God is a breathing Spirit in contact with our lives on a daily basis.

Right now context for a right now problem.

Men can find a place in this message; it is not gender-specific.

Right now context: When I look at the Body of Christ (everywhere), I am saddened and disquieted within my soul. There is a lack of spiritual awareness on the part of God’s people. Many say they know God, but lack spiritual awareness of their circumstances in Him. We must understand that although we feel we know God, we are on a sinking ship. You (we) need help! We go to and fro, church to church, conference to conference searching for God, when we need to find Him in our situation.

You should be careful when people speak over your life and don’t know anything about you. This is spiritual voodoo. They are speaking out of their circumstance, not yours.

Embrace the touch test. There are people who insist that their spirituality revolves around their external circumstances. When all is well, I trust God. When it is not, I don’t. God never changes! We need to touch our lives with the finger of the Word.

In the midst of failure, she (the woman with the issue of blood) pushed her way through her problems, her current circumstance, to reach out to touch Jesus.

The place where you first met God was probably not at your peak, on the mountain-top. Ezekiel spoke to the bones only after they had lain dry and dusty in the valley.

Spiritual awareness often comes to us on the sea of calamity. We have to go through some things to find God. It is difficult to find our spiritual identity in the midst of personal prosperity. Matthew 19:26, Jesus uses the illustration of the rich man and the Kingdom of God.

In the midst of prosperity, you need to be careful. The mechanics of spiritual maturity are such that, with prosperity, we get comfortable in our condition, which can lead to carelessness, because this can become the major focus of our spiritual eye. We become concerned with self-enlargement. Be careful what you pray for. Prosperity and wealth bring with it responsibility. If you are not careful, you will squander you stuff.

Illustration: a tiny snowball rolling down a hill, can lead to an avalanche.

We must be willing to seek help. At her lowest point, the woman in the story presses through the crowd. Even though she is out of place, she pushes forward. She is broken and busted, but is willing to go through the touch test. If you have tried everything else, and it has all failed you, touch Jesus. Pinch, beat, touch, pray for yourself to check you reality. When everything else has fallen by the wayside, focus on this moment…let go and Let God.

He may be able to break through and lift you out of your life.

What qualifies us to know if we are on the plus side of the ledger?

We must possess proof of a personal passion for the Prince of Peace. Do you really love Jesus? He has paid the price for you on Calvary.

We should bear marks of the Master. These marks are not fancy cars, furs, bling. It is what is down on the inside.

Illustration: Hare Krishna. We cannot truly be comfortable with everything in this life. There are some areas of your life that you should be concerned about. We must be willing to put in the work to be able to pass the touch test in our lives.

There are ways we can begin to see what’s on the inside. We must lift the spiritual fog we walk in.

The secret to passing the test is that you must know who you are in Him. We cannot get anything from God if we don’t know who we are. We need to get comfortable with our spiritual identity.

What makes up your spiritual personality? What kind of faith engine drives you?
Each of us is unique in God. We speak and hear from God in different ways.

Many of us want to imitate others rather than being our own unique selves. Statement: “I am a person of faith!”

What kind of faith do you operate in? There are 3:

1. Like a sponge

a. Consider Mary and Martha. Mary had sponge-like faith. She sat at Jesus’ feet and absorbed what He said, and let it ruminate in her soul and spirit.

b. She just needed to be present/

2. Fisherman faith

a. You cast your net, and pull in some stuff. You look at it.

b. If it is to your liking, you eat, absorb, take it in

c. If it is not to your liking, you discard it

d. The key is that you must examine and discern what you have caught to determine what is useful.

e. These people are focused in where they throw their rod

3. Magnetic faith, as demonstrated in this passage

a. When she focused, she was able to draw out of what was going on around her, and pull it to herself

b. These people can draw stuff from people, and what they draw they can absorb and it becomes a part of them

c. These people can make it on their own


Learn how to get something from God for yourself. She could correct her circumstance because she could operate in faith. Faith is what allows the power of God to operate in your life. Press toward the mark.

When we lose people who we feel are vital and pivotal to our existence, it can be a tumultuous transition for many. At this stage, many will have to determine who their faith is in. The man (in this case, pastor) or in God? Will we continue to shine when that happens?

If we don’t shine for the Lord, the Devil will shine on without us.

At the end of the passage, the woman is trying to sink back into the shadows, to go unnoticed. But she cannot, as Jesus proclaims, “Somebody touched me!” Her life is now changed, forever, because of her faith.

Leviticus 15-16:28; Mark 7:1-23; Psalm 40:11-17; Proverbs 10:13-14 (New Living Translation)

Old Testament

1. Bodily discharges (Yuck)

- Stay away from the man with the discharge. Sounds like perfectly reasonable advice;)

- Semen, sex and menstrual periods.

- For menstrual periods, women were ceremonially unclean while they were menstruating and for 7 days after. Then they had to make a sacrifice. Was this after each period?

- Later in the New Testament we have all read or heard the story of the woman with the "issue of blood." Basically she had been bleeding for 12 years. she was therefore never clean enough to go into the temple to worship. That is why she sought healing.

2. The Day of Atonement

- Atonement-definition- reparation for an offense or injury; the reconciliation of God and humankind through the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ.

- Day of Atonement- definition- also Yom Kippur; a Jewish holiday observed with fasting and prayer in accordance with the rites described in Leviticus

3. Aaron is given instruction regarding entering the Most Holy place, purification of himself, his family, the people. Purification of the altar. Confessing over and passing sin on to the scapegoat.

4. Scapegoat- definition- a goat upon whose head are symbolically placed the sins of the people after which he is sent into the wilderness in the biblical ceremony for Yom Kippur; one that bears the blame for others.

5. Purification of himself and the people to make them right with the Lord.

New Testament

Amazingly, Jesus is teaching about inner purity today. I think it's amazing that the readings link together so well most days...

6. The Pharisees think they have found an opening or weakness in Jesus' teaching because His disciples don't follow the age-old traditions. Jesus' answer of course is that it is not outward appearances, but the heart that defiles us! Man-made traditions will not bring us closer to God.

7. It is the heart!

- "And then he added, “It is what comes from inside that defiles you. For from within, out of a person’s heart, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, lustful desires, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness. All these vile things come from within; they are what defile you.”

- We sin in our hearts first!

8. This brings up two questions / issues for me?

- Are we really any different than the Pharisees?

- What really matters to God?

- Institutional and authoritarian religions push their own agenda, which is about your relationship with the religious system, or building, or a specific group of people.

- Your relationship, says "religion" is a legal religious entity based on law. It's these laws, rules and regulations they try to tell us are the same as God's laws. Is this any different than the argument being put forth by the Pharisees?

- But if we carefully look at the New Testament we see a dramatically dufferent picture.

- We see a personal relationship with God given to us by the boundless riches of His grace! An intimate relationship with God not mediated by power structures or authoritarian dogma...but mediated solely by Jesus-God-in-the-Flesh!

- What matters to God, according to the bible, is your relationship with God, based on His amazing grace.

- As Jesus is trying to tell the Pharisees and His disciple, submitting to prohibitions may make us feel and look holy and righteous- voluntary piety and ritualistic posturing. This may make a favorable impression on the world, to humans.

- Is this what Jesus died for?

- Have we gone back to a life of bondage to religion?

- If we are alive in Christ- why not live?

- Are we not free in Christ?

- Being, not doing is what matters to God. Performing tasks does not dictate our value to God.

- God loves us based on our being...Who we are in Christ...What God does in us...That is what matters.

Psalm

9. "You are my helper and my savior"

Proverbs

10. "Wise people treasure knowledge"

See you next post...