Love That Will Not Let Me Go - Mark 5

[00:00:05] is at Calvary.com to learn more about our church and visit Nate Holdridge.com for additional Bible teaching for my lead pastor, Nate Holdridge. Alright, so let's get ready for a teaching, put away and turn off your cell phones, and pull out your bibles.

[00:00:26] We are going to welcome Pastor Zach Vesnis to the stage. He is the lead pastor at Calvary Chapel Petaluma and he's great buddies with Nate, so they made arrangements to swap pulpits today. And we're super excited, you guys are in for a treat.

[00:00:42] Let me tell you, let's give Calvary Monterey welcome. Thank you, good morning everyone. It's great to be with you this morning, my name is Zach and I pastor a church up in Petaluma, California. Anybody know where that's at? Wow, this is NorCal.

[00:01:04] I forgot, so yeah, so we got up early this morning, my wife is here with me and we're going to spend a few extra days in the area, celebrating our 23rd anniversary this weekend. So, excited about that.

[00:01:22] And it really is a lot of fun for me to be with you. I love this church, I love your pastor, I love Nate and his family. And a Nate and I have kind of been on these parallel paths in our life.

[00:01:34] We are both Pastor's kids, handed a church to Pastor way too early. I don't recommend that. I was 24 when the guy who's planted the church in Petaluma that I'm at, he hired me to be

[00:01:46] the worship leader in youth pastor and he said, hey, I'm moving to Wisconsin, Europe. And I believe that night when my wife and I met with him, her exact words were, this is a terrible idea. And she was it wrong.

[00:02:02] And we're here still because of God's faithfulness, but just getting to watch Nate kind of do the same thing, Pastor from a young age. And we did youth ministry together and now we're doing Pastor together. It's just such a privilege to be with you.

[00:02:19] I have a lot of respect for Nate. So, I love being here, I've been here before and it's great to be back. If you would open in your Bible with me to the Gospel of Mark, Nate and I decided that

[00:02:34] doing this pulpit swap, we would bring a message that we've already brought at our home churches. And so I asked our staff, hey, of the last teachings that I've given in a little while, I had them vote on which one that I should bring here, which one?

[00:02:51] You know today they see ministry in the most, which one spoke the most to them. And so this was the one that they said I should bring to you. And I hope it is a blessing. I hope it's an encouragement to you.

[00:03:02] We're going to look at Mark chapter five. And just as we get started, I want to invite you to pray a prayer that I think has the potential to be really powerful in your life.

[00:03:15] And I don't just mean this morning right now, but maybe this next week you could commit to praying the simple prayer each day as you start your day. And the prayer is simply this, God would you show me what's important from your perspective. That's it.

[00:03:34] It's a really simple prayer but I think maybe you can see with me that if we prayed that prayer on a daily basis and really meant it, it might have the potential to really change the course and the direction and the focus and the priorities in our life.

[00:03:55] God just show us today what's important from your perspective because I'm guessing you would agree with me that we don't want to waste our lives on things that don't matter. And I think as believers, as people who are following Jesus, we have this bigger perspective

[00:04:17] than just right here right now. We have this view, this hope of eternity. So when we come to that question, God, show us what's important from your perspective, show us what really matters in light of eternity. It's a different perspective.

[00:04:34] It's a different perspective than a lot of the things that seem important right now. But here's the thing, when you pray that prayer, when you pray it sincerely, I think you have to be open to interruption.

[00:04:49] I think you would have to recognize that so much of the work that God does in our lives is not necessarily on our agendas. We all have our plans and that's not a bad thing.

[00:05:02] The book of Proverbs is a man plans his way or I think my wife's the better planter than I am, so maybe a woman plans my way and... But it's true that the Lord directs our steps, amen?

[00:05:18] So what would it look like for us to just reopen, reprioritize God? What's important to you? And I think what we might discover is that in those interruptions, when our plans are disrupted, that's often when God does his best work.

[00:05:37] Then if you found that to be true, the things that you didn't expect, the things that you didn't plan for, maybe even the things that you said, I don't know what good this could possibly do in my life.

[00:05:53] Some sort of interruption or something that is happening in your life and yet God is working sometimes. The most beautiful things come from life's most painful and difficult seasons. That was definitely true for a man named George Matheson.

[00:06:11] He was born in Glasgow, Scotland in the mid-1800s and when he was 20 years old, he was engaged and studying to go into the ministry when he discovered that he was going blind.

[00:06:27] And sadly his fiance said, hey, I can't imagine my life, the rest of my life with someone who's blind and so she left him. And broke his heart. And so he moved in, he ended up moving in with his sister who cared for him for the next

[00:06:45] 20 years while he finished his studies. He did indeed go blind but he still became a minister in the Church of Scotland. And 20 years later, his sister was engaged to be married. So once again, his heart was broken.

[00:07:02] He thought, here this person who's cared for me all of these years who's been such a part of my life is leaving me once more. And on the day of her wedding, George Matheson wrote a him entitled, Oh love that will not let me go.

[00:07:21] And how many of you, anybody ever heard that him? It's a beauty. If you haven't heard it, look it up after church. Listen to it on the way home. It's so beautiful. But these are the words, I'll just read them to you.

[00:07:31] So you get a sense for what was in this man's heart at that time. It says, Oh love, that will not let me go. I rest my weary soul in thee. I give thee back the life I owe that in nine ocean depths its flow, may richer fuller

[00:07:47] be. O' light that follows all my way, I yield my flickering torts to thee. My heart restores its borrowed ray that in thy sunshine's blaze its day may brighter ferroby. O' joy that seekest me through pain, I cannot close my heart to thee.

[00:08:09] A trace of the rainbow through the rain and feel the promise is not vain that more and shall tearless be across that liftest up my head. I dare not ask to fly from thee.

[00:08:21] I lay in dust, life, sclery dead and from the ground, their blossoms red life that shall endless be. It's a beautiful hymn. And here's how Matheson said, these words came to him on that day when his heart was breaking. He says, quote, I was at that time alone.

[00:08:42] It was the day of my sister's marriage. And the rest of my family were staying overnight in Glasgow. Something had happened to me, which was known only to myself and which caused me the most severe mental suffering. And this hymn, he says, was the fruit of that suffering.

[00:09:03] It was the quickest bit of work I ever did in my life. I had the impression of having a dictated to me by some inward voice than of working it out myself. And quite sure that the whole work was completed in five minutes.

[00:09:19] You imagine writing something like that in five minutes. I would be happy if I could write something like that in my entire life. But he says, in five minutes, these words came to him and equally sure he says, it never received at my hand any retouching or correction.

[00:09:37] I have no natural gift of rhythm. All the other verses I've written are manufactured articles. This came like a day spring from on high and I've never been able to gain once more the same, fervor in verse.

[00:09:55] George Matheson would agree as so many of us, I think, have seen some of the most beautiful things in life come from. Some of the greatest disruptions and some of the most painful seasons.

[00:10:09] And I want to look at some verses from Mark's Gospel now that tell a similar story and show us this same kind of love. And so I'm stealing the title of George Matheson's him for my sermon title.

[00:10:23] The sermon title this morning is love that will not let me go. Let's look together at Mark 5, beginning of verse 21. It says, when Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered about him and he was beside the sea.

[00:10:39] And then came one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairis by name and seeing him, he fell at his feet and implored him earnestly saying, my little daughter is at the point of death.

[00:10:53] Come and lay your hands on her so that she might be made well and live. So Jesus went with him and a great crowd followed him and thronged about him. You talk about disruption, words you would never ever want to utter as a dad.

[00:11:12] My little daughter, my little girl is dying. Jesus would you come and Jesus agrees to go and we know this man's name, Jairis because he's a prominent person. Mark tells him that, or Mark tells us that he was one of the rulers of the synagogue

[00:11:29] and yet here he finds himself in a place where his position is powerless in the face of the situation that he's in. He's in a desperate place. And it makes me wonder this morning how many of us have ever been in a place where the

[00:11:51] resources that you have are not enough to resolve the problem that you face. Doesn't matter what job title you have, it doesn't matter how much money you have, doesn't matter how many connections you have, all of us I think have found ourselves maybe even

[00:12:11] right now are in or will certainly one day be in a place where nothing that we possess is enough to meet the need of the situation that we face. That's the place that Jairis was in this story.

[00:12:29] His position didn't matter because this day as a father all he knew was that his daughter was dying and there was nothing he could do so he comes and he throws himself at the feet of Jesus and Jesus agrees to go with him, of course.

[00:12:46] That's what we'd expect, Jesus whose heart was overflowing with compassion who at this point in his ministries often healing people that are brought to him and needy goes with Jairis and then the interruption comes.

[00:13:00] Let's keep reading in verse 25, there was a woman who had a discharge of blood for 12 years who suffered much under many physicians and had spent all that she had but was no better she only grew worse.

[00:13:21] Sometimes as we're going to find out Jesus is going to do a mighty work in this woman's life, but sometimes God's greatest work comes in the middle of something else that we think is more important.

[00:13:39] The story starts with Jairis and his daughter but now our attention is drawn to this woman. This large crowd is following Jesus they're pressing in that's what the word thronging means there's this sort of pressure and pressing. This woman was there. We don't know her name.

[00:13:58] She's never given a name in the story. Instead she's identified by her issue. She has an issue of blood. If you know the story if we've been around the church like, I know the story this is the

[00:14:11] one about the woman with the issue of blood that's how she's identified for 12 years. She's been dealing with this and Mark tells us that a little bit of the background she had spent everything that she had but those who were supposed to be helping her physicians

[00:14:36] were unable to help her and in fact she had only even grown where she wasn't getting better. Mark may be eludes to might be implying the fact that she was even taken advantage of by the people that were supposed to help her.

[00:14:52] Again, I wonder if we can relate to this woman's story. If any of us have ever done something hoping it would make us feel better only to find out that we are worse.

[00:15:06] I think a lot of the solutions that we look to end up being that way in reality. If we really step back and think about it, the things that we do to feel better for a moment maybe because life can be so difficult, so heavy sometimes.

[00:15:23] The things that we look to to make us feel better often leave us feeling worse, that's the place this woman's in but look at how Mark lines this up. It's so beautiful if you just see it for a second.

[00:15:35] Here's a man with a prominent position who's in the same exact place of desperation as the unnamed woman with this issue. Both of them are facing something that their resources can't resolve. Both of them are in a place of desperation and that's what brings them to Jesus.

[00:16:03] I would think that if we had the time and we could all tell our stories this morning, it would be very similar in a lot of ways. It's not always the case but it seems like more often than not, this is what brings us to Jesus.

[00:16:19] When all the other solutions and all the other things that are being offered aren't working when we don't have what it takes in a sense in ourselves and we don't know where to look, that's often the place where people find Jesus, where they meet Jesus

[00:16:36] and I love that because what it means among other things is that Jesus is willing to meet people in that place. He doesn't say, hey, come at your best. Come whenever things work out. Come at your finest. He says, hey, when you're in the desperate place.

[00:16:54] When everything's falling apart, he's more than willing to meet with us in that place. That's where he meets this woman and we continue reading a verse 27. She had heard the reports about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garments.

[00:17:16] For she said, if I touch even his garments, I would be made well. Immediately the flow of blood dried up and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. So it suddenly takes this amazing turn, this incredible encounter, this woman has

[00:17:34] with Jesus, she's healed of an issue that she has had for 12 years. And if we start to think about how is she healed, we realize that it starts with her hearing. It says she heard about Jesus. Jesus' fame had been spreading in that region of Galilee.

[00:17:55] People were hearing that he was healing people in need and so she had heard, and that's what brought her to Jesus that day. She wasn't healed because she heard. She wasn't healed by what she heard, but it started with hearing. The Bible says that faith comes by hearing.

[00:18:21] The Bible also says that that same faith without works is dead. This woman doesn't just hear, she gets up that day, travels however far she needed to travel, she pushes through the crowd, right?

[00:18:37] She hears, but then she acts, she goes in faith and she comes and touches it says the hem of his garment. I think there's something really important when we think about how this woman was healed that day.

[00:18:53] I think there's something really significant about the fact that she reached out to touch. Jesus' garment is kind of an odd story actually, seems kind of superstitious, right? There's other people that Jesus just puts his hands on, there's other people that said,

[00:19:09] hey, you don't even have to count my house, you just have to speak the word. This woman somehow has it in her mind that she just needs to touch his garment. I think it's because she wants to do this whole thing in secret.

[00:19:23] She doesn't want to make a scene, she doesn't want to necessarily be seen, she just wants to be healed. And so she comes up with this thought, this plan. I think if I get close enough just to touch his garment, I think that's all I'll need.

[00:19:40] I think he can heal me. And the reason I think it's worth noting is because some of us often are in a position or a place where we're waiting for a touch from God.

[00:19:54] If I ever heard someone say that, I'm just waiting for a touch from God but I think maybe today we need to be more like this woman who for whatever reason woke up and because of what she'd heard about Jesus decided, I need to touch him.

[00:20:12] I need to go where he is. I need to get close to him and so she sought him. I'm sure she had a lot of doubts. I'm sure she had a lot of fears. I'm sure she didn't feel like pressing through the crowd and dealing with all that

[00:20:33] that day. And maybe she's an incredible example to some of us to say, hey, regardless of how you feel, regardless of the doubts that creep in maybe what we need is to touch him.

[00:20:50] To reach out in faith and to come and worship at his feet, no matter how we feel. And the church that I grew up at, the pastor used to say, you've got to get yourself under the spout where the blessings come out.

[00:21:09] And I've always remembered that maybe because it rhymes but I think it's also because it's true. That's what this woman does. She's like, I got to get close to Jesus. I got to get in his presence but what was it that stopped her bleeding?

[00:21:28] When did the miracle actually happen? When you slow it down, do the instant replay? We're reading through it, right? Like when did the miracle happen? How did the bleeding stop? Maybe your answer is, well, Jesus. That's always the right answer. That's a good answer.

[00:21:47] You learn that in Sunday, school. You can never go wrong but I want to point out something to you from verse 28. It says in verse 28 that she said, if I touch even his garments, I will be made well, who she talking to herself? She's not announcing that.

[00:22:12] She's not yelling it to the crowd. She's talking to herself in other words, Mark is letting us in on this woman's thoughts. Somehow and for some reason that day she thought to herself, she said to herself, if I could just touch his garments, I'll be healed.

[00:22:34] And she isn't healed because she had the thought. Her healing didn't happen when she thought it. She was healed because she reached out and touched Jesus in faith but the only reason that she reached out and faith to touch Jesus is because she had the thought.

[00:22:49] It all started with this thought. And I think this is so powerful because all of us say things to ourselves all the time. There are constantly thoughts running through our minds. Paul Trip, I think, says it really well. He says, nobody talks to you more than you.

[00:23:13] It's true. All day long, there's just thoughts running through our minds. Some of them were thinking on purpose. Some of them seem to come out of nowhere. Some of them in the front of our minds.

[00:23:25] Some of them are on the subconscious but there are just constantly thoughts running through our minds and this woman's story is a great reminder and encouragement that we get to choose which thoughts we live by. Do you think this woman had other thoughts that day?

[00:23:50] Maybe I shouldn't do this. What if he doesn't heal me? What if it doesn't work? I bet because she's just like you and me, she had a thousand other thoughts. But this was the one that she chose to run with that day.

[00:24:10] We don't get to choose every thought that comes in our mind but we do get to choose the thoughts we run with. The ones we live by. Some of us have forgotten, I think.

[00:24:24] Some of us have forgotten that we can have a thought but the thoughts don't have to have us. Paul says in this way, in 1 Corinthians 10, 5, excuse me, 2 Corinthians 10, 5, Paul says, take every thought captive. You know what that means?

[00:24:43] There's thoughts running around in your mind, wreaking havoc in your life that should not be free. Paul says, grab them, capture them, confine them, round them up, don't let them run around in your mind, don't let them run your life.

[00:25:06] There was a great preacher in the 1900s in England named Dr. Martin Lloyd Jones. This is what he said about this. He says, quote, have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the

[00:25:21] fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself? Take for example those thoughts that come to you the moment you wake up in the morning. You've not originated them but they're talking to you.

[00:25:36] They bring back the problems of yesterday, et cetera, somebody is talking, who's talking to you? Your self is talking to you. Now this man's treatment and Dr. Martin Lloyd Jones in this quote he's talking about Psalm 42 when the Psalmist says, why are you cast down on my soul?

[00:25:57] He's talking to himself. He's talking to his soul. Why are you heavy and burdened? Why are you carrying this great weight? Oh, my soul. He says, this man's treatment, that's the Psalmist in Psalm 42 is this instead of allowing this self to talk to him.

[00:26:14] He starts talking to himself. Why are you cast down on my soul he asks? His soul has been depressing him, crushing him. So he stands up and says, self, listen for a moment, I will speak to you. I love that. I need that.

[00:26:34] Maybe you do too because I think a lot of us are running with thoughts that don't belong. They're not of faith. I imagine that this woman had a thousand thoughts that day, but at some point she decided today I'm going to live with this one.

[00:26:59] I'm going to go get close to Jesus. And if I can touch the edge of his garment, I can be healed as she was. That's what Mark says. She was immediately healed. And so what we expect is we read the stories that right away then, great.

[00:27:20] The woman's healed. It happened immediately. And suddenly we remember, oh yeah, there's a guy, Jairis, we forgot about him. We've been so focused on this woman and her story and her thought and her faith. We forgot Jairis has this urgent issue. His daughter's dying.

[00:27:38] This is where this whole thing started. And we would think that the next thing you read is that Jesus hurries along to help Jairis. But instead he stops, look at verse 30, perceiving in himself that power had gone out

[00:27:58] from him immediately turned about in the crowd and said, who touched my garments? Is that incredible? There's a lot about this that's incredible to me, but one of the things is that it says, Jesus felt something. He didn't just feel the tug on his garment.

[00:28:18] He felt somehow, I don't know what this means, but he felt the power went out of him. And if you back up to verse 29, it says that the woman felt it too. She felt something come into her, healing, come into her.

[00:28:36] There was this experience, this powerful moment where healing power was released and Jesus felt it. And she received it and she felt it. It's not awesome. It happened. And so Jesus stops and says, who touched me?

[00:29:01] And I love how human this next part is because the disciples are like, you see the crowd pressing around you, why would you say who touched me? Everybody's touching you. Everybody's touching everybody. What a ridiculous question is kind of the sense of their response and Jesus looked around.

[00:29:20] He's not going to be talked out of it. He wanted to see who had done it verse 33, but the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling and she fell down before him and told him the whole truth. I love that phrase.

[00:29:37] She told him the whole truth. Wonder how long that took. I know usually the guy versions, a little shorter than the girl version, but she told him the whole truth. Jesus is calling. He's asking.

[00:30:00] He's looking and she has to decide, will she respond or will she just hide? And we don't necessarily have to imagine what she's thinking. We know that she's terrified. How do we know Marx says she came trembling? She's freaked out. Probably a lot of reasons.

[00:30:25] I mean, just to be put on the spot publicly like that in front of this crowd, probably knowing that Jaris is losing his mind because there's this delay in his urgent situation and probably because she was ceremonially unclean because of the issue of blood.

[00:30:42] And so she could really get in trouble for touching someone like Jesus. He would also have been unclean because she touched him. So maybe he's going to be mad now. Why'd you touch me when he finds out what her issue is?

[00:31:01] But imagine feeling so safe that even though there's this huge crowd in this urgent situation, she feels so safe in the presence of Jesus that she tells him the whole truth. You have to just admire this woman's courage that she not only chooses the faith-filled

[00:31:22] thought that day to come to Jesus, but she refuses to get caught up in what everyone else might think. She didn't just have to overcome her own thoughts that might compete with this idea.

[00:31:38] She had to like so many of us do compete with what might other people think. What will happen? What will they think of me? What will Jesus think when he finds out what I've done? And so she comes trembling.

[00:31:55] I don't know, Mark doesn't record what she says but I imagine it would sound something like Jesus. I'm so sorry. I know you're on your way to heal this important man's daughter and I'm not anybody

[00:32:12] important but I do have a desperate need and I didn't mean to stop you. I know I've caused a scene now. I thought if I could just sneak up and touch your garment, it'd all be good and I was just going to fade back into the crowd.

[00:32:30] But Jesus calls her out. Have you ever wondered why? Why does he do that? Seems kind of rude. Seems kind of embarrassing. Seems kind of insensitive on his part. Why does he stop and why does he say hey we're not moving until I find out who touched me?

[00:32:53] And I think the next verse, the last verse that we'll read from Mark 5 together, helps us understand Jesus said to her daughter, your faith is made you well go and peace and be healed of your disease. The first time I read that I didn't answer the question.

[00:33:12] I'm like that's great. He tells her she's healed but didn't she already know that? Says she already knew that. Says she felt it. Says she knew immediately when she touched him that she was healed. So why does Jesus stop everything to tell her something she already knew?

[00:33:34] But if you look again, Jesus actually tells her something there's no way she could have known. He tells her something that would have blown her mind and everybody else who could hear it in that moment. It's the first word out of his mouth. Did you notice it?

[00:34:01] I know that's a familiar word. That's a common word but for someone like Jesus to say to a woman like this in a situation like this is incredible. He could have addressed her in a thousand different ways. Hey lady, I mean could have said a thousand things.

[00:34:30] Did you know, did you know in all four gospels? This is the only story. This is the only moment where Jesus calls a woman daughter. Do you think that's significant? I think it helps us understand why he stopped everything because he's telling her something she didn't know.

[00:34:56] She knew she was healed but Jesus is telling this woman, you are no longer going to be identified by your past. You're no longer the woman with the issue of blood. You're no longer defined by what you've been through.

[00:35:29] He's identifying her now as daughter and that Jesus would pause everything in this urgent situation to demonstrate that this woman is just as valuable she's just as important to God as Jyrus' daughter was to him as a dad. That's what he tells her.

[00:36:06] Now I know we're sitting in church and it's like, yeah, God loves her. We know that but do you think she knew that? Do you think she knew that after 12 years of being alone, being taken advantage of?

[00:36:25] Do you think she struggled like some of us might after 12 years of wondering why her prayers weren't being answered? Do you think she ever wondered if God really cared about her? I think we all do when we suffer like this woman did.

[00:36:54] Jesus is basically saying to her, if I let you sneak away like a thief with your healing today, the bleeding will stop. It already has but you'll go on believing things about yourself that are not true. You'll go on believing things about God that are not true.

[00:37:19] The bleeding will stop but you will never know who you are to me because Jesus is basically saying, I'm not just the miracle worker who came through town and you happened to sneak your healing. I'm stopping everything so that you would know how much I love you.

[00:37:49] Daughter, any dads in the room today, anyone have daughters? Can you say with me, Daughter, daughter, daughter, different, right? If you're a dad, sons are great, I love sons. I have one son, he's amazing. I'm so proud of him.

[00:38:07] Son, son, daughter is a part and that's the word that Jesus uses. Daughter. This is how God sees those who come to Him in faith and in need. sons and daughters that he loves, that he deeply cares about and is deeply committed to.

[00:38:43] Now I don't know if you feel that today but it's true. I want to read a passage from Isaiah to you from Isaiah 43, verses 4 through 7 and this is such an interesting verse will close with this but God had called the nation of Israel

[00:39:07] a group of people to be His people and they had basically turned their back on Him. Turned other gods ignored Him, said, yeah, we're not really interested in the God whose redeemed us and saved us and delivered us.

[00:39:25] So they find themselves, Israel does, we follow the story in the Old Testament, conquered by the Babylonians, led into captivity, absolutely crushed and wondering has God given up on us? But every one of you parent knows it's impossible.

[00:39:47] No matter how broken your heart may be for your sons and daughters, you could never give up on them. And so God sends the prophet Isaiah to say these words to His people in that place, you are precious in my eyes and I love you.

[00:40:14] I give men and return for you people and exchange for your life. That's prophetic, isn't it? God would give His only son and exchange for the lives of many who would become his sons and daughters.

[00:40:31] He says, if you're not fry him with you and I will bring your offspring from the east and from the west I will gather you, I will say to the north, give up and to the south

[00:40:39] do not withhold, bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth. Every one who's called by my name, who my created for my glory and who my form did made. That's the heart of God for His people.

[00:41:01] So I realize I haven't come that far. I've only come from Petaluma, it just took me like two hours to drive here this morning. But I have come, I believe with this message for someone here today that needs to hear the heart of God.

[00:41:20] He's someone here who feels far from God, who feels forgotten by God who feels like your prayers aren't being answered that God isn't listening. And my prayers at this woman's story would be a really powerful reminder of God's heart

[00:41:42] towards you and then you would hear this invitation today to not wait necessarily to be touched by God but to reach out to touch Him by faith. I believe that He's here, that He fills in a unique way the gathering of those who come

[00:42:08] in His name with His presence. And I believe that we can reach out to Him by faith today. Let's pray. Lord, you call us your sons and daughters. And I imagine God that this morning there are so many competing thoughts in our minds, even right now.

[00:42:41] Maybe about the plans we have for the rest of the day or maybe about things that were weighing on us before we ever came or maybe we're hearing this woman's story but we're wondering if it could be true for us Lord.

[00:42:55] There's so many thoughts right now that are fighting for our allegiance which one will we choose. And God, I pray that your spirit would come right now with faith and grace that would help us to believe and to turn to you.

[00:43:29] Lord may that be the thought that we live by right now. Lord, give us the faith to run to you like this woman did and I especially pray God for those who are in need that are reaching out to you today who need your healing touch.

[00:43:58] Holy spirit would you come with gifts? For every good and perfect gift comes from the Father in whom there is no shadow of turning. Lord, this is your heart for your sons and daughters here today and so give us faith to receive it in Jesus' name. Amen.

[00:44:35] As we come to the table this morning, man he's going to lead us in communion but I would love among other things in your minds the words of first John chapter three verse one

[00:44:51] that says, behold what man or of love the Father is given to us that we should be called the sons and daughters of God. Behold, look, learn, believe, look at what kind of love the Father has loved us with.

[00:45:10] That's what these emblems this bread in this cup are here to do today to remind us Jesus and do this in remembrance of me. So as you hold this bread and as you hold this cup in his manny leads us now at the table,

[00:45:26] behold, the kind of love the Father has for us. Thank you for listening if you would like more teachings and information about Calvary Monore, please visit calvary.com. You can also find books, teachings through the Bible and articles from our lead pastor at natholderch.com.

[00:45:50] Thanks again for tuning in. See you next week.