Hebrews 11:3:
By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God,
so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.
At the creation of the universe, God spoke. God said words, but like all words, they could not be seen. Words are invisible. When we speak, no one sees our words. They are intangible.
Right now I am talking. You can hear my words, but you cannot see my words. Words are not something material. They are not something physical.
But at the creation of the world and the universe, when God spoke His words, something amazing happened. When God spoke, something came into actual being: the universe. Everything that we see around us came about because God spoke some words.
All God had to do was say something, and physical things—things which can be seen—came into existence from something that cannot be seen: His word.
So God desires to speak today through His Word, through the Bible. He desires to take a word—the words that He said thousands of years ago—and speak them afresh to our hearts through the Holy Spirit.
And when He does, and we receive them, the same miracle that took place at creation will take place in our hearts. Something real, something concrete, will happen in us as God speaks through His Word.
Creation is the proof of that: when God speaks, actual things come into being. Things are created. So what does God want to create in our hearts this morning as He speaks in His Word?
Well, many things. But I think the main thing is that He wants us to know His Son, who is the living Word. He wants us to experience genuine union and fellowship with the Lord Jesus.
He wants that to be as real to us as all creation is real to us. Just as this world we are standing on came into being simply because God spoke, we can genuinely grow in our relationship with Christ simply because God speaks through His Word today.
This is not a fantasy. This is reality. Now, we experience it by faith, but that does not make it any less real. It is real.
So let us trust the Lord to speak to us from His Word, knowing that as He does and our hearts respond, things will come into being—namely, a life of sweet and greater fellowship with His Son. That is the concrete thing. Amen.
Heavenly Father, praise God. Amen.
Father, Heavenly Father, I am just so thankful for the truth that resides in our hearts: knowing that You are so willing to show us more of Your Son. It is Your joy. It is Your heart.
And so I am just so thankful that there is no prerequisite here for me or for us this morning. There is nothing we have to do to try to get You to change Your mind or to persuade You into helping us and showing us more of Jesus. That is Your delight, and because it is Your delight, we come claiming it.
We know Thy Holy Spirit is here, not only among us but within us, to show us more of the things of Christ. We are thankful that You have put that desire in us—Your desire in us—to know Him in a greater way through the Bible.
And so we pray in thanksgiving, knowing that this is a miracle You desire to accomplish, and we claim it by faith—not because we are worthy, but because the Lord Jesus is worthy. He shed His blood that we might have this privilege. In His name we come. Amen.
So let me review what Ed shared last night concerning the theme of our studies this weekend, and then we will pick up where he left off.
Ed and I believe the Lord has laid it upon our hearts to look at six passages from the Gospel of Mark which all have in common a unique Greek word that is often translated “to look around.”
It is a word for “look” that, with one exception in Luke, is used only in Mark’s Gospel. The Greek word is periblepō—at least that is how Ed pronounced it last night, so I am going to stick with it.
Five times it is used referring to the Lord looking in the Gospel of Mark, and once it is used referring to the disciples looking. Did I say speaking? I meant looking.
Each time this word is used for the Lord looking, with His look comes a foundational and dramatic revelation of Christ. The word itself means a penetrating, slow, searching gaze at everything, every detail, but centering on just one thing.
In each of these five events, these five Bible passages, when the Lord looks, we believe our Savior is focusing on a truth that is so very dear to His heart.
It is like the Lord is saying, “In the Gospels, you saw a lot, and I showed you a lot—many things—but I do not want you to miss these five things.”
So we have called this little series “Conformed to Christ’s Vision.” It is not so much a vision of Christ, although we hope to see the Lord in these five passages. It is our goal to see what Jesus saw in these five passages—that the Holy Spirit may enable us to see things as Jesus sees things.
We want to be conformed to His image, and that means being conformed to His vision.
Now let me list the five stories, along with one word that summarizes the truth in each.
In each story there is a radical element involved. You know, all truth is radical, because all truth goes against the natural heart of man. But we can expect the truth in these five stories to be very radical, because these are truths that are very close to the Lord’s heart.
Last night, Ed shared from the first story: the healing of the man with the withered hand on the Sabbath. There the Lord identified and looked at the truth of rest. Therefore, that is what He wants us to center upon in that story: the truth of Sabbath rest.
Real Sabbath rest is walking with Jesus in the grain fields, enjoying fellowship with Him and being fed. That is Sabbath living.
Anything less in the Christian life than that grieves the heart of God. As we saw last night, it even angers Him. It angers Him.
But the more the Holy Spirit allows us to see rest as Jesus sees it, the more all bondage in our lives will cease and all anxiety will flee—to the point where even those who come against us with a legal spirit will not be able to disturb our rest in the Lord.
Again, as our brother shared in such an amazing way, when the Lord brings us into rest, it is not a rest that He gives; it is a rest that He has. He brings us into His rest, His peace, His joy. Tremendous word: rest.
Sabbath rest is a truth dear to the heart of our Lord Jesus. As we are conformed to His image, we will see rest and enter into rest as He sees it.
This morning, we are going to look at the next two of the five stories. We are going to double up.
First, we will look at the story of the Lord’s family in Mark 3:20-21, 31-35. That is on the handout. The next story will be the woman with the issue of blood who reached out and touched the Lord.
Please follow along as I read Mark 3:20-21 and 31-35.
And He came home, and the crowd gathered again, to such an extent that they could not even eat a meal.
And when His own people heard of this, they went out to take custody of Him; for they were saying, “He has lost His senses.”Then His mother and His brothers arrived, and standing outside, they sent word to Him and called Him.
A crowd was sitting around Him, and they said to Him, “Behold, Your mother and Your brothers are outside looking for You.”
Answering them, He said, “Who are My mother and My brothers?”
Looking about at those who were sitting around Him, He said, “Behold My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of God, he is My brother and sister and mother.”
Like all of these five passages, this passage records a very interesting and striking event concerning the Lord’s mother and brothers. Another Gospel writer adds the word “sisters.”
The Greek word for “look” that we are considering this weekend is in verse 34: “Looking about at those who were sitting around Him, He said, ‘Behold, My mother and My brothers.’”
So in this passage, Jesus is looking—with that word “look” unique to Mark’s Gospel—at those who had come into the house to learn of Him. These are the ones to whom He is directing our attention in this story.
Now, so there is no mystery as to where we are going in this passage, let me tell you up front where we are going to end up.
The Lord’s conclusion clearly refers to doing the will of God. In verse 35, He says, “For whoever does the will of God, he is My brother and sister and mother.” So even before we begin, we know what this passage is all about. It is about obeying God. Jesus is declaring how we can do God’s will.
To get that before us, the Lord points us to an earthly illustration: His mother and His siblings, His family. He uses this earthly family in two ways.
First, He uses the illustration to identify a way that does not lead to a life of obedience to God. Then He uses the same illustration to show us His way, the right way, to a life of obedience to God.
So it is a very straightforward passage. It is about doing the will of God. It is about a way or an approach that does not lead to a life of obedience, and it is about His way or approach that does lead to a life of obedience—all illustrated by His mother, brothers, and sisters.
Now, many have come to this passage and do not really know what to do with it because, on the surface, it appears as if the Lord Jesus is being rude to His family.
We know that is not the case. The Lord Jesus would never be rude to His family. But on the surface, does it not look like that? That is what makes this a striking, perhaps shocking, passage of Scripture.
One day His mother and siblings came to see Him. When they arrived, He was teaching in a home, and the crowd listening was so large that Mary and His siblings could not enter. So they sent word to Him: “Jesus, Your mother and brothers and sisters are here, and they would like to speak to You.”
From the way it is written, it appears that many in the crowd, if not all, heard the message. When Jesus hears it, notice how He disregards His family’s request. He does not go out and talk to them. He does not send a message back saying, “Well, I will be out shortly, but I am a little busy right now.”
No. He turns to those in the house, those who came to hear Him, and He says, “Who is My mother? Who are My brothers and sisters? They are all those who do the will of My Father. They are My mother and My brothers and My sisters.”
Now, some think that by that statement Jesus was, in a sense, disowning His family, or at least devaluing the importance of His family ties. But Ed and I do not think that is the case at all.
We do not think the Lord was in any way being insensitive to His family. We think Jesus simply used the words He did in order to direct our hearts to a truth that is so very dear to His heart. As we look at it now, may the Lord give us eyes to see it clearly.
In verse 21, we see another striking or shocking fact in this story:
When His own people heard of this, they went out to take custody of Him; for they were saying, “He has lost His senses.”
Because Mary, the Lord’s mother, is involved here, Christians tend to tone this down. But look at what she and His siblings were planning to do when they arrived at the house that day. This was not a social visit.
The Lord’s family did not come to hear Jesus teach that day. No, it says they came to take custody of Him. I do not know a lot of Greek—very, very little—but I have read that in the original language, the words “take custody of Him” are very strong words. The idea is that they were willing, if necessary, to take Him by force.
Now picture what this would have looked like if that had happened. The Lord Jesus is teaching, and His brothers come and say, “Jesus, we want You to come with us.” When He steps outside, they grab Him, carry Him off, maybe even tie Him up.
I would think that the optics of that would not have been very helpful to the Lord’s ministry—Jesus always getting hauled down the road, you know? But on that day, that is what the family was prepared to do. That is pretty astounding.
Why were they going to do this? Because it says they believed that Jesus had lost His senses. Another translation reads, “They thought He had lost His mind.”
What was it that made His family think that He had lost His mind? Was it because of what He was teaching? No, that is not what it says. It was not His teaching that prompted them to think He had gone insane.
Was it because He was calling Himself God and they were embarrassed over that? I have heard that about this passage, but that is not what it says. It sounds reasonable, but I do not see any evidence of that here in the text.
Why did they think Jesus had gone insane? Why were they coming to take custody of Him? Mark 3:20-21 tells us. Let me reread it.
And He came home, and the crowd gathered again, to such an extent that they could not even eat a meal.
And when His own people heard of this, they went out to take custody of Him; for they were saying, “He has lost His senses.”
The reason given for their coming to take Him by force, if necessary, was because they had received information that He was working so hard and was so busy with His schedule that He was neglecting His health.
That is what they had heard: He was so busy teaching and healing that He did not have time to eat or to rest. Every time He went to eat a meal or take a break, someone would be at the door with another need. According to what they had heard, Jesus was running Himself ragged.
So that is why they came. It was not to hurt the Lord Jesus; it was to help Him. It was not mean-spirited at all. It was out of genuine concern for Him. This was not rejection on their part. They were not trying to silence Him.
This was a mother who loved her Son. This was a family who loved their brother. That is an important observation to make about this passage.
Now, were they wrong? Yeah. But you can understand their concern. In their minds, they were coming to rescue Jesus from His busy schedule. That was their motive: to save Him from Himself.
We know something that evidently, at this time, they did not know. We know that Jesus does not need what they wanted to give Him. They were sincere, but they were sincerely wrong. Jesus did not need to be rescued.
This is part of the reason, I think, why Jesus turned to the crowd in the house and said, “Whoever does the will of God, they are My mother and My brothers and My sisters.”
At this time, what His family wanted for Jesus was not the will of God. It was against the will of God. What they thought was good for Jesus at this time was not good for Jesus. It was against the Father’s will for Jesus.
So what they wanted to do in this story becomes the Lord’s illustration of someone disobeying God’s will.
There were times in Scripture when we read that Jesus went off by Himself and with His disciples to rest. When He did that, it was the Father’s will for Him to do that. But this was not one of those times.
It was not God’s will for Jesus to take a break. It was God’s will for Him at this time to do exactly what He was doing, or else He would not have been doing it, because He said He always did that which pleased the Father.
So His family was wrong—sincere in their motives, but wrong.
There is a principle here: what the Lord’s family tried to do physically for Jesus, many Christians try to do in principle for Jesus.
But here is the truth of God’s Word that will never change, and you know it: Jesus never needs our help.
Jesus never needs us to rescue Him in any way. It is the same lesson that dear Peter had to learn on the night of the Lord’s arrest.
Remember when he lifted that sword and cut off a soldier’s ear? Jesus did not need Peter to defend Him or come to His aid that evening. In fact, Peter’s actions actually placed all the disciples in mortal danger that night.
It is a wonder that the other soldiers did not kill them all as soon as Peter used that sword. I think they would have if Jesus had not immediately healed the man’s ear. That took attention away from Peter.
Peter’s effort that night not only did not help; it sought to hinder the Lord’s will. In trying to help, Peter was actually putting an obstacle in the way of God’s will—namely, the Lord’s victorious death on the cross.
That is all our self-generated effort can ever do in our Christian lives. Whenever we live with the attitude that Jesus needs us, that our effort in some way can help Him out, all we end up doing, brothers, is becoming an obstacle to God’s will.
It is far better in the Christian life to do nothing—nothing—than to try and help God out. God does not need you, and God does not need me.
Now, in His grace, He uses us. Praise His name. But He does not need us because He has no needs. He is all-sufficient.
If Mary and her children had been successful that day in what they wanted to do, they would have stood against the will of God by taking Jesus away from those who gathered to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Savior.
How subtle this is. Think about it. What makes it so subtle is that it is born out of love for the Lord. It was out of love for Jesus that His family came, and it was their love for Him that caused them to go against the will of God. Just imagine that.
There are some in the body of Christ who will appeal to our love for Jesus as an incentive to obey Him. You ever hear that? I hear it all the time.
“If you love the Lord, you would serve Him more. If you love the Lord, you would witness for Him more. If you love the Lord, you would surrender to His will. If you love the Lord, you would love your wife. If you love the Lord, you would turn the other cheek. You would rejoice always.”
But in the Scriptures, the Holy Spirit never appeals to our love for Jesus as an incentive to do His will. Never.
Romans 12:1:
I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God,
to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice.
The incentive is always God’s mercy, God’s love for us—not our love for Him.
Think about it. The Holy Spirit is never going to encourage you or me to trust in anything in us or anything that comes from us—not in our efforts, not our sincerity, not our surrender, and not even our love for the Lord.
Now, praise His name, brothers, if you love Jesus, that is the grace of God in you. But if we are looking to our love for Him to be the resting place in our Christian lives, we are headed for trouble.
Our love is fickle. Our love is imperfect. It will always be impermanent. It cannot be trusted. Nothing that comes from us can ever be trusted.
But His love for us—that is forever. It will never falter. It will never fail. It will never change.
Let Jesus and His love for you be the resting place of your Christian life, not your love for Him.
Well, if our love is not the correct incentive for obeying God’s will, what is the right incentive? This brings us to the Lord’s look in this passage.
Jesus looked around at those listening to Him, those learning of Him, and He said, “Behold, My mother and My brothers. For whoever does the will of God, he is My brother and sister and mother.”
As you know, the cults have a heyday with this. A chief characteristic of any cult is that it tries to separate people from their families. Those who use the Bible to deceive turn to this story and try to make it teach that Jesus was separating Himself from His family as an example to His followers to do the same.
Well, that is utter nonsense. Jesus here is not belittling His family ties. He is not forsaking them. Actually, He is celebrating them. He is honoring them.
He is using family ties to illustrate something wonderful: intimate union with God. “Behold, My mother. My brothers. My sisters.”
These are some of the closest relationships on earth. What could be closer than mother and brother and sister? You say, “Well, marriage. Marriage is closer.” It is.
On earth, the husband-and-wife relationship is the most intimate of earthly relationships. But here Jesus is talking about His closest earthly relationships. He said, “Behold, My mother, My brothers, My sisters.” He could not say, “Behold, My wife.” He was not married.
But He chose the closest of human relationships on earth in order to picture your union with God and my union with God.
All those who trust in Him are as close to Him as His earthly family. Brothers, as we understand it, this is the key to obeying the will of God: intimate union with the Lord Jesus.
Who are those who do God’s will? Who are those who obey the Lord? Those who know intimate union with Christ. We believe that is the Lord’s point here.
Obedience to God springs forth as a miracle out of our union with God, and that is the only way it ever comes.
He is not saying, “If you do My will, you are My brother.” That is the legal spirit. He is saying, “If you are My brother, you will do My will.”
He is saying that those who are enjoying a relationship with Him will do His will. Doing God’s will is not a requirement to become His brother. Doing God’s will is a characteristic of being His brother.
If doing God’s will was a requirement to become His brother, no one could become His brother, because no one can obey God apart from His Spirit within.
Here is the truth of God proclaimed in this wonderful passage: You do not do the will of God by trying to do the will of God.
You do not do the will of God by trying to do the will of God because you love Him. Your love is wonderful, but it is not the means of obedience. The life of Christ within you, through your union with Him, is your means of obedience.
You want to obey God? Get to know sweet union with Him. As you do, you will obey by a life not your own and a power that your love could never create. It will be there constantly.
That is why Jesus does not use the word “family” here. He does not say, “For whoever does the will of God is My family.” No, it is more personal than that. It is more intimate than that: mother, brother, sister.
Those are individual relationships. That is personal.
Look with me at 1 John 2:15-17, and then we will wrap this up and move on to the next assigned passage. Follow along, please, as I read. This, I believe, should drive it home.
Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.
If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh,
and the lust of the eyes, and the vainglory of life,
is not of the Father, but is of the world.
And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof:
but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.
On one side stands the world, and on the other side stands the will of God. They are opposites. The world is in direct opposition to God’s will.
The world has an ally on its side: me and you. That is what it says. Our own natures—all that is in us, the lust of our flesh, the lust of our eyes, our boastful pride in ourselves—we are truly our own worst enemy. We are in cahoots with the world.
The world has another ally. Mark 3 mentions it. We did not have time to develop it, but just before the Holy Spirit records this passage of the Lord’s mother and siblings, we read about Jesus responding to the accusation that He had a demon and that He cast out demons by the ruler of demons.
Mark 3:23-27 records what He said:
And He called them unto Him, and said unto them in parables,
How can Satan cast out Satan?
And if a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.
And if a house be divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand.
And if Satan hath risen up against himself, and is divided, he cannot stand, but hath an end.
But no one can enter into the house of the strong man, and spoil his goods, except he first bind the strong man; and then he will spoil his house.
In other words, Jesus is saying Satan will not self-destruct. He will not attack himself. He needs to be brought down.
That is how you steal from a strong man: you beat up the strong man, and you are free to go steal from him. Jesus is saying, “I am going to steal from this strong man. I am going to beat him up, and I will be free to set his captives free.”
So the point is that everything in the world is fighting against us in terms of doing God’s will. The world does not want you to do God’s will. All the powers of darkness stand against you. They do not want you to do God’s will.
Even what is in your own natural heart stands against you. It does not want you to do God’s will.
So, brothers, what hope then do we have of ever living a life of true obedience to God? I mean, we can fake it pretty good. We know all the right words. We can fake it. But what is our hope of truly obeying God?
Here is our hope: John 16:33.
These things have I spoken unto you, that in Me ye may have peace.
In the world ye have tribulation: but be of good cheer;
I have overcome the world.
Jesus has overcome everything in our world, and everything that has allied itself with the world that would seek to prevent us from doing the will of God. Christ has overcome that we may be able to please our Father.
If you are tired of getting beaten up by the world, the flesh, and the devil; if you are tired of fighting, thinking that if you let down your guard even for a minute, you are going down; if you are tired of seeing your love and devotion to the Lord always coming up short—making vow after vow, promise after promise, surrendering this and surrendering that, and nothing helps—if you are tired of that, today, in this passage, the Lord Jesus wants to give you eyes to behold your victory.
His name is Jesus. He has overcome the world. Why? That you could obey the heavenly Father.
He has overcome the world. That does not mean it goes away. It means He makes it all bow down in submission to fulfill His every desire for you.
He uses the world that you might become a better Christian, that you might enjoy obedience to the will of God in your life. He has overcome all the obstacles that He might enable you now to obey His will.
He has brought down every enemy that you and I may live in obedience to His will. All we need to enjoy His victory is to enjoy a relationship with Him—as His mother, as His brother, as His sister.
I know it sounds too simple to be true, but it is true. Here is the truth: to live a life of obedience to God, all we need, we already have. You are in union with the One who has overcome.
This, then, must become really the only goal in the Christian life: to know the Lord. May God write it upon our hearts: to know Him is to obey Him.
How does that come about specifically? How do we enjoy union with Christ? The answer is through faith, and that brings us to the next passage in the Gospel of Mark: Mark 5:25-34.
Let me begin again by reading the passage.
And a woman, having an issue of blood twelve years,
and having suffered many things of many physicians,
and having spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse,
having heard the things concerning Jesus, came in the crowd behind, and touched His garment.
For she said, If I touch but His garments, I shall be made whole.
And straightway the fountain of her blood was dried up;
and she felt in her body that she was healed of her plague.
And straightway Jesus, perceiving in Himself that the power proceeding from Him had gone forth,
turned Him about in the crowd, and said, Who touched My garments?
And His disciples said unto Him, Thou seest the multitude thronging Thee, and sayest Thou, Who touched Me?
And He looked round about to see her that had done this thing.
But the woman fearing and trembling, knowing what had been done to her,
came and fell down before Him, and told Him all the truth.
And He said unto her, Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole;
go in peace, and be whole of thy plague.
In verse 28, when this woman approached the Lord, she thought to herself, “If I just touch—if I just touch His garments—I will get well.”
Luke puts it this way: she was thinking, “If I just touch the fringe of His garment, just the fringe, I will be healed.”
It was this woman’s intent to quickly touch the Lord’s clothes from behind and then quickly move back into the crowd, so that no one would be the wiser. It did not work out that way. Jesus, of course, knew what had happened, even before it happened.
The disciples thought His question was an odd question. He turned around and said, “Who touched My garments?” They said, “Everyone is touching You. We are in a crowd. Everybody is brushing up against You. What do You mean, ‘Who touched You?’”
That means there were many touching the Lord that day, but they were not touching Him like this woman touched Him. Her touch was different. That is one of the main facts of the story.
The woman touching Jesus, and the Lord’s look at that, draw our hearts’ attention to at least two truths. One concerns faith; the other concerns a revelation of the Lord. I say two truths, but it is really only one truth. You break it up for the sake of study, but it is really only one truth.
The point is this: faith is nothing without Jesus.
She touched Him only because He became near enough that she could reach Him. If He had not become close to her, near enough to be touched, she would not have been able to touch Him.
You will notice in verse 34, Jesus said to the woman, “Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole.” So He called what she did an act of faith. How exactly was it an act of faith?
When this woman touched the Lord’s garments, she touched more than His garments. She touched Him through His garments. That is how her touch was different from everybody else’s, and that is how her touch was an act of faith.
It was not in touching the Lord’s clothes that she was healed. It was in touching the Lord through His clothes that she was healed. The principle of faith here is one of the most foundational principles of faith.
Someone might look at this record and think the woman’s touch of faith healed her that day. At first glance, that is how it may appear because of what the Lord said: “Your faith has made you well.”
For years, I misinterpreted that. When Jesus said her faith had made her well, I understood that to mean that there is power in faith.
I think because the Lord in His Word has attached so many wonderful promises to faith, it appears that there is power in faith. But there is no power in faith. There is only power in the Lord.
Faith does not heal anybody, right? The Lord heals. The Lord heals as we lay hold of Him by faith.
Here is an illustration. Often at supper time, my wife and I are preparing something to eat. I will take glasses down from the cupboard, from the cabinet, and ask her what she would like to drink. Darlene usually says water. She drinks water a lot.
To fill her glass with water, I go over to the kitchen faucet and turn it on. Even though I may say, “Honey, I am getting you some water out of the faucet,” I know I am not really getting water out of the faucet.
The water is not produced by a faucet, right? The water comes from the well on our property to which the faucet is connected. It is good water. We have a well on our property, so it has naturally occurring minerals, and it does not have all those harmful chemicals in what my mother used to call city water—chlorine, fluoride.
My mother was into nutrition. She was an organic gardener, so I grew up without Coca-Cola, okay? There was no packaged food. We raised a lot of our own food.
Anyway, the water comes out of the well. I go over to the faucet to get water out of the faucet, but everyone knows I am getting water out of the well, because the faucet is connected to the well.
Just so, the Lord said, “Daughter, your faith has made you well.” He did not mean that her faith had certain healing properties. He meant her faith, as it laid hold of Him, had made her well.
In the Bible, we read that faith is essential. Without faith, you cannot please God. But it is not faith that makes faith essential; it is the object of faith that makes faith essential. The object of faith is the Lord Jesus.
Faith, for it to be real, has to have an object. True faith only has the Lord Jesus as its object. There is no power in faith. There is power in the God we trust.
Someone might say, “Well, that is obvious. Everyone knows that.” I am not sure that is the case.
There was a time I thought that there was power in faith. Therefore, I went after faith with every fiber of my Christian being, and I became extremely faith-centered.
I was constantly seeking more faith, stronger faith, from the Lord. I thought, “If I just had more faith, then I could really begin to live the Christian life. Just a little more faith, Lord.”
As I look back on it now, I see that my pursuit of faith actually was a distraction. It took my eyes off the Lord Jesus, the only true object of faith, and put them on myself.
You remember one day the Lord’s disciples asked Jesus a question that I asked Him so many times: “Lord, increase my faith.” Have you prayed that? “Lord, increase my faith.”
This was His reply, Luke 17:6:
If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed,
ye would say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou rooted up,
and be thou planted in the sea; and it would obey you.
Brothers, the issue is never the amount of faith we have. The issue is always, in what or in whom are we placing our trust? It is the object of faith that is always the issue.
A little faith is enough if our faith is in the Lord Jesus, a great Savior. I could have all the faith in the world that a rotten chair would hold me up when I sat on it. But if that chair could not hold my weight, all my faith in the world in that chair would not hold me up.
It is not the amount of faith that makes faith precious. It is the object of faith that makes faith precious. I think, as Christians, we are going to get into trouble every time we look to our faith and not the object of faith, the Lord Jesus.
What we truly need in the Christian life is not more faith, but a greater heart vision of the Lord Jesus. Faith, if it is to be real, must rest in the person of God Himself. Little faith is enough when placed in Jesus because of Jesus.
In this passage, the woman’s faith is amazing only because the object of her faith is amazing.
This is what the Lord focused on in the story. His question, “Who touched Me?” was not out of place. It was not a ridiculous question like the disciples thought. He focused His eyes on that touch.
This woman did not grab the Lord. She did not lay hold of the Lord. All she did was touch Him. She just tapped Him, because she said, “If I just touch the Lord, I will be healed.”
No one that day would have thought that what she did was anything different from what everybody else was doing close to Him. Even the disciples said, “Lord, everyone, everyone is touching You.” Clearly, they did not see anything different in the touch.
It was that minor and that seemingly insignificant. It was just a touch.
Here is the wonder of the miracle: Jesus did not think her touch insignificant. That is what is amazing about the miracle.
Her touch was so slight, so small, perhaps delicate, maybe feeble. But He felt it anyway. That is the point. It is not how much faith we have. It is the fact that we have a Savior who is sensitive to our touch, even when our touch might be faint.
How delicate was her touch? Extremely delicate. How do you know? I know because her plan was to touch Jesus in a way that He would not feel it, that He would not notice it.
That is why, after the woman had been found out and Jesus turned around and saw her in verse 33, it says she was fearing and trembling and came and fell down before Him.
That was not an act of worship. My guess is that would have come later. But when He called her forth, she bowed down out of fear. She was afraid.
That is generally not what you see in the Bible. Usually, when people are healed, they rejoice. They are glad, happy, thankful. This woman is healed, and she is afraid. She is fearful. Why?
Because she did not want to get found out. She feared that she would be found out. Her plan was to do this all in secret and not be found out: “I am just going to touch Him. He will not notice. Nobody is going to see it.”
That was important to her. You know why? Because in the book of Leviticus, we learn that what she did was an unlawful act. Under Jewish law, in her condition with the issue of blood, it was unlawful for her to touch anyone.
Leviticus said, “You keep your hands to yourself if you have an issue of blood, a hemorrhage, for twelve years.”
I am quite sure her touch was as light as she could possibly make it. It was a tap.
How much faith do you need for Jesus to notice you? How much faith do you need for Him to respond to you?
No matter how small, He is a sensitive Savior. He is an approachable Savior. He will respond to the slightest, weakest, frailest touch of faith that you give Him.
It is not about enough faith. It is never about faith; it is about Jesus. It is always about the object of your faith, not how much faith you have.
Usually in the Bible, when someone came to Jesus for healing, they asked Him first. They asked Him if He was willing: “Lord, are You willing to heal me?” Or He would ask them, “Do you think I am willing to heal you?”
They would petition Him. Often, they would plead with Him for healing. The blind would lie down on the side of the road and say, “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, please, please.”
Not this woman. She did not ask permission. She sneaked up behind Him.
That may have been another reason why she was afraid when He called her, because she had done this without His permission. She had obtained His power without asking for it. She just went up and got it.
But this is a wonderful thing. Instead of giving her judgment, condemnation, and disapproval, Jesus called her “Daughter.”
“Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole.”
It sounds like, “Who is My mother? Who is My brother? Who is My sister? Well, they do the will of God—those who touch Me and do not ask and do not get permission.”
She did not ask the Lord if He was willing because she knew He was willing. She did not have to ask. She knew before she touched Him. She said, “If I just touch Him, I know I am going to get healed.”
True faith does not ask. It does not ask. It just claims. It just touches a sensitive Savior, an approachable Savior. Faith knows Him. It does not ask.
That is who He is, and faith knows it. He loves me. That is what faith knows. That is all faith needs to know: He loves me.
He is sensitive. He will feel my touch every time I touch Him. It does not matter how much faith I have.
May the Lord convince our hearts, brothers: it is not about how we touch. It is only about Him. The touch can be weak; the touch can be strong. What matters is that He always responds to any touch.
This woman had an issue of blood. The Old Testament says the life is in the blood. So symbolically, she had an issue with life.
Sometimes we use the word “issue” that way. What is your issue today? What is the issue that you are dealing with? What is your issue in life this week?
I do not know what your issue is. But I know it is the Lord’s will that you come, that you come with your issue, and that your issue becomes an occasion for you to be brought into a fuller awareness and enjoyment of His union with you.
That is what her touch did. That is what her issue was. It brought her into a fuller enjoyment of the Lord Jesus.
Let me close with one more verse: Mark 6:56. As you can see, this is the next chapter over, right after what we just read.
And wheresoever He entered, into villages, or into cities, or into the country,
they laid the sick in the marketplaces,
and besought Him that they might touch if it were but the border of His garment:
and as many as touched Him were made whole.
This is so precious. This dear woman and what she did influenced others to do the same thing, right? To touch Him. Just touch Him by faith.
She did not get up one morning and say, “You know, I think I will start a new tradition.” She did not get up and say, “You know, I am going to be such a testimony. I am going to bring so many to touch the Lord.”
She was shaking in her boots. That is why she touched Him. She was scared to death. She had had an issue for twelve years. You think she was desperate?
But what she did caused an influence. She never tried to be an influence. She never tried to bring more people to Jesus. All she wanted to do was touch Him that day. It was selfish.
He touched her through her touch, and it became an influence. All around began to touch.
Heavenly Father, how thankful we are for the Lord Jesus this morning. How thankful we are that in these passages He has given us a look, and with the look have come dramatic truths—truths that are dear to Your heart.
We are thankful, Father, for Him looking at Sabbath rest: that Your rest can become ours. We can enter into the same rest that Jesus has.
We will not ask You for rest. We do not want it as a gift apart from You. We want You, because if we have You, we will have rest.
Father, we are thankful that as we come to You, as we follow Your look in these passages, through Your overcoming the world and our union with You as Overcomer, we have victory.
Just through our relationship, our union with You, being one with You, we have overcome everything through You that stands in our way. The way has been cleared. The way to You is paved. There are no obstacles anymore.
Even ourselves, You are willing to overcome, that we may come to see You.
Father, we are thankful that it is not our touching You. It is all about You.
In Jesus’ name, we ask You to engrave these truths upon our hearts. In Jesus’ name, amen.