A Messiah of Power
Text: Matt. 9:18-26
Introduction
1. Illustration: Once there was a lady who had a small house on the seashore of Ireland at the turn of the century was quite wealthy but also quite frugal. The people were surprised, then, when she decided to be among the first to have electricity in her home. Several weeks after the installation, a meter reader appeared at her door. He asked if her electricity was working well, and she assured him it was. "I’m wondering if you can explain something to me," he said. "Your meter shows scarcely any usage. Are you using your power?" "Certainly," she answered. "Each evening when the sun sets, I turn on my lights just long enough to light my candles; then I turn them off." Yarborough goes on to say, “She tapped into the power but did not use it. Her house is connected but not altered. Don’t we make the same mistake? We, too-with our souls saved but our hearts unchanged - are connected but not altered. Trusting Christ for salvation but resisting transformation. We occasionally flip the switch, but most of the time we settle for shadows.
2. As Christians we believe in the unlimited power of Jesus, but far too often we do not make use of that power.
3. If we truly wanted to live the abundant life the our Lord intends for us we need to:
a. Trust His Power
b. Touch His Power
c. Take Hold of His Power
4. Read Matt. 9:18-26
Proposition: The power of Jesus is available to anyone who will tap into it.
Transition: The first question we need to ask ourselves today is do we...
I. Trust In His Power (18-19)
A. But You Can Bring Her Back to Life
1. In our text today, we see a series of events that took place right after Jesus authority is questioned.
2. Immediately following this questioning of his authority, "As Jesus was saying this, the leader of a synagogue came and knelt before him."
a. Exactly who is this "leader of the synagogue?"
b. Based on other ancient writings, we know that synagogue officials were highly respected (Turner, Cornerstone Biblical Commentary: Matthew, 141).
c. The ruler of the synagogue was one of the most prominent men of the congregation and was responsible for the order of the synagogue service and the keeper of the sacred books. He was also the administrative head of the city (Horton, CBL: Matthew, 175).
d. As you might imagine, he was a man of considerable authority and power.
e. However, what is so amazing about this man is his extraordinary faith.
f. The ruler’s exceptional faith in Jesus is demonstrated by both his words and the fact that he knelt before him, which is an act of worship.
g. Here is this man of great authority and power, yet he humbles himself in the presence of Jesus recognizing that he is in the presence of one whose authority he is no match.
3. The leader of the synagogue says to Jesus, “My daughter has just died, but you can bring her back to life again if you just come and lay your hand on her.”
a. Matthew’s version of this story is a little bit different from that of Mark and Luke’s.
b. In those accounts, the father is only asking for healing, but here the girl is already dead.
c. Therefore, Matthew’s account focuses not on Jesus power over sickness, but rather his power over death (France, NICNT: Matthew, 362).
4. This account is also unique in that it does not mention the word faith.
a. However, it does show that this man had an "even more remarkable ability to see beyond a natural impossibility" (France, 362).
b. Hebrews 11:1 (NLT)
Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see.
c. Not only did he have the confidence to hope for something that had not happened yet, but he also had the ability to see something that from a mere human standpoint was impossible.
d. His actions speak for themselves.
5. Now a way that this account is not unique is that this man is asking Jesus to do something that is forbidden.
a. He is asking him to touch someone who is dead.
b. Just as it was forbidden for Jesus to touch the leper, it was also forbidden for his to touch a corpse
c. It is possible that he was thinking that if Jesus touched her and she lived that would cancel out the fact of touching a corpse.
d. On the other hand, he probably didn’t care because he wanted his daughter back, and was willing to risk asking Jesus to do what was forbidden.
6. So what was Jesus response to the man’s request? Matthew tells us that "Jesus and his disciples got up and went with him."
a. Jesus does not say a word but reacts with his feet; he got up and went with him (Turner, 141).
b. Jesus never rejects those who come to him in need, and He also never rejects those who trust in His power.
B. Trusting God’s Power
1. Illustration: The great Christian reformer, Martin Luther, in fact, once spent three days in a black depression over something that had gone wrong. On the third day his wife came downstairs dressed in mourning clothes. "Who’s dead?" he asked her. "God," she replied. Luther rebuked her, saying, "What do you mean, God is dead? God cannot die." "Well," she replied, "the way you’ve been acting I was sure He had!"
2. We need to trust in His power to save us.
a. 1 John 5:13 (NLT)
I have written this to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know you have eternal life.
b. Some Christians I’ve seen have been saved about 50 times or more because they keep coming back to the altar again and again asking Jesus into their hearts.
c. What’s the problem? Didn’t it take the first time?
d. The Bible says that if we confess with our mouths that Jesus is Lord and believe in our hearts that God raised Him from the dead will shall be saved!
e. Don’t misunderstand me, I do not believe in once saved always saved.
f. There may be times that we need to get right with God because we have fallen away and into sin needing to recommit ourselves to the Lord, but that doesn’t mean we have to get saved all over again.
3. We need to trust in His power to heal us.
a. Isaiah 53:5 (NIV)
...and by his wounds we are healed.
b. There is no sickness that God cannot cure.
c. There is no disease that God cannot heal.
d. There is no ailment that God cannot mend.
4. We need to trust in His power to provide.
a. Philippians 4:19 (NLT)
And this same God who takes care of me will supply all your needs from his glorious riches, which have been given to us in Christ Jesus.
b. The President cannot provide for you.
c. Congress cannot provide for you.
d. Your own abilities and resourcefulness cannot provide for you.
e. But the Lord God Almighty can and will provide for your needs according to His riches in glory.
Transition: We also need to...
II. Touch His Power (20-22)
A. If I Can Just Touch His Robe
1. It has been said that desperate times call for desperate measures. Thus is the case of the next person that Jesus encounters.
2. As He was on his ways to the synagogue leaders house, "a woman who had suffered for twelve years with constant bleeding came up behind him."
a. This woman’s twelve year condition is generally felt to have been a menstrual disorder.
b. In addition to the physical discomfort, she also had to deal with the issue of ritual impurity.
c. Not only was anyone who she touched considered unclean, but anything she sat on or lay on was also considered unclean (France, 363).
d. It literally kept her in a constant state of personal prison.
3. Her ailment probably had kept her from marriage if it started at puberty, and almost surely would have led to divorce if it began after she was married.
a. Since intercourse was prohibited under such circumstances, and childlessness normally led to divorce (Keener 1991a:75).
b. Singleness is difficult for many people in Western society, but to be a unmarriageable woman in first-century Jewish Palestine must have often been terrifying.
4. So in her desperation "She touched the fringe of his robe, for she thought, “If I can just touch his robe, I will be healed.”
a. Most Jewish men wore a shawl similar to the one I am now wearing.
b. Numbers 15:37-39 (NLT)
37 Then the Lord said to Moses,
38 “Give the following instructions to the people of Israel: Throughout the generations to come you must make tassels for the hems of your clothing and attach them with a blue cord.
39 When you see the tassels, you will remember and obey all the commands of the Lord instead of following your own desires and defiling yourselves, as you are prone to do.
c. These tassels reminded the wearer to obey God’s commands and to be holy to God (Wilkins, NIV Application Commentary, New Testament: Matthew, 371).
d. Like many others who were desperate enough to reach out to touch Jesus power, she was taking a risk in making Jesus unclean, but she was also taking the risk that anyone else she touched in the process would also be unclean.
5. Yet her desperation also begets confidence that Jesus is an absolutely certain source of her healing.
a. Desperation has driven many of us to a faith that refuses to be deterred.
b. This woman was undoubtedly more desperate than most of us have been, and she pressed her way to Jesus with the determination of faith, regardless of the consequences (Keener, IVP NT Commentary: Matthew, 193).
c. She took the risk because she had no other option.
6. Mark’s rendition of this story tells us that Jesus sensed immediately that healing power had gone out from Him. Matthew tells us that "Jesus turned around, and when he saw her he said, “Daughter, be encouraged! Your faith has made you well.” And the woman was healed at that moment."
a. Jesus’ expression "Take heart, daughter" again underscores his compassion, while his declaration "your faith has healed you" points to the source of healing.
b. Faith itself does not heal; God does. However, her faith brings her to the place where God can heal her.
c. By making her healing pubic with his announcement, Jesus removes the public stigma of her physical condition and thus facilitates her reentry into normal social and religious life (Wilkins, 371).
d. The word used in Greek for "healing" can also mean "to save" or "to rescue from danger and to restore to a former state of safety and well being (Louw and Nidda, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament: Based on Symantic Domains).
e. It may well be that her act of faith in coming to Jesus for healing is also the moment in which she exercises faith in Jesus as the One who can save her from her sins (Wilkins, 372).
f. In other words, Jesus healed her in every way imaginable.
B. Touching Jesus
1. Illustration: Touching the power of Jesus is kind of like electricity. Someone can tell you that there is tremendous power in an electrical current, but the reality of their statement doesn’t really hit you until you get shocked.
2. We touch the power of Jesus in prayer.
a. Hebrews 4:16 (NLT)
So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.
b. When we come boldly before the throne of God we have a greater understanding of the power of Jesus.
c. When we come boldly before the throne we touch the power of Jesus.
d. When we come boldly before the throne we are touched by the power of Jesus.
e. If you want to experience the power of Jesus you must touch the throne of heaven.
3. We touch the power of Jesus in the Spirit
a. Acts 1:8 (NLT)
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
b. The baptism in the Holy Spirit is God’s promise of power.
c. It gives us power over sin.
d. It gives us power over the devil.
e. It gives us power to be witnesses.
f. It gives us the power to be used by God with greater effectiveness.
4. We touch the power of Jesus in the Word.
a. Hebrews 4:12 (NLT)
For the word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires.
b. The Word gives us power over discouragement.
c. The Word gives us power over temptation.
d. The Word gives us power over false teaching.
e. The Word gives us power to believe.
Transition: Once we have trusted His power and touched His power, we can...
III. Take Hold of His Power (23-26)
A. Took The Girl By the Hand
1. Jesus finally arrives at the synagogue leader’s home to find total chaos.
2. Matthew tells us, "When Jesus arrived at the official’s home, he saw the noisy crowd and heard the funeral music."
a. The NLT’s "funeral music" is normally translated "flute players" which makes explicit what is implicit in the text, because hired musicians were normally included at funerals in Jesus day (Turner, 141).
b. Amos 5:16 (NLT)
Therefore, this is what the Lord, the Lord God of Heaven’s Armies, says: “There will be crying in all the public squares and mourning in every street. Call for the farmers to weep with you, and summon professional mourners to wail.
c. There probably were a number of mourners considering her father’s lofty status in the community.
d. Funerals were generally held the same day that the person died because of the hot climate and because the presence of a dead body in the house made it ritually unclean (Horton, 177).
e. The picture that Matthew paints for us is one of complete chaos.
3. It didn’t take long for Jesus to have had enough of this mess, so he said, “Get out! The girl isn’t dead; she’s only asleep.” But the crowd laughed at him.
a. Jesus saying that the girl was not dead does not deny the reality of her death, but only the finality of it. He was merely indicating that she would be risen from the dead (Turner, 141).
b. Death is not the end of the story, and in her case, it was only a temporary experience. It was real, just not final (France, 364).
c. "With God, indeed, death is sleep, for God can bring a dead person back to life sooner than a sleeping person can be wakened from sleep by humans; and God can sooner restore life-giving warmth to limbs frozen by death that humans can infuse vigor in bodies immersed in sleep" (Peter Chrysologus, Ancient Christian Commentary On Scripture, vol. 1a, 184-185).
4. However, these professional mourners just laughed at Jesus.
a. "Laughed" (katagelao) occurs only here (v. 24) and in the synoptic parallels of Mark and Luke.
b. After all, they were professionals and certainly knew when someone was dead.
c. The crowd mocked Jesus, not just because he had said, "The girl is not dead but asleep," but even more because they thought that this great healer had arrived too late (Carson, Expositor’s Bible Commentary, The, Pradis CD-ROM:Matthew).
5. Matthew then tells us, "After the crowd was put outside, however, Jesus went in and took the girl by the hand, and she stood up!"
a. We need to ask ourselves why Jesus took her by the hand?
b. He certainly could have just spoken the words or said nothing at all and she would have come back to life.
c. But His touching and speaking to her demonstrated a compassion and tenderness that far exceeded what was only necessary (MacArthur New Testament Commentary – Matthew 8-15).
d. Jesus not only wants to get the job done, but He wants to make our lives better than they were before.
B. Take Hold
1. Illustration: Four ministers were discussing the pros and cons of various Bible translations and paraphrases. Eventually each stated which version, in his opinion, was the best. The first minister said he used the King James because the Old English style is beautiful and produces the most reverent picture of the Holy Scriptures. The second said he preferred the New American Standard Bible because he felt it comes nearer to the original Greek and Hebrew texts. The third minister said his favorite was the paraphrased Living Bible because his congregation was young, and it related to them in a practical way. All three men waited while the fourth minister sat silently. Finally he said, “I guess when it comes to translations and paraphrased editions of the Bible, I like my Dad’s translation best. He put the Word of God into practice every day. It was the most convincing translation I’ve ever seen.”
2. Take hold of the power of Jesus for yourself.
a. James 5:14-15 (NLT)
14 Are any of you sick? You should call for the elders of the church to come and pray over you, anointing you with oil in the name of the Lord.
15 Such a prayer offered in faith will heal the sick, and the Lord will make you well. And if you have committed any sins, you will be forgiven.
b. Take hold of the power of Jesus by obeying His Word.
c. If the Bible says when your sick call for the elders of the church to come and pray for you - do it!
d. God has promised to heal you, but if you want His healing you’ve got to follow His instructions.
e. If you don’t do what God says you won’t get what God promised.
3. Take hold of the power of Jesus for others.
a. Mark 16:17-18 (NLT)
17 These miraculous signs will accompany those who believe: They will cast out demons in my name, and they will speak in new languages.
18 They will be able to handle snakes with safety, and if they drink anything poisonous, it won’t hurt them. They will be able to place their hands on the sick, and they will be healed.”
b. Does it say "they might be healed?" No, it says "they will be healed!"
c. The same Holy Spirit that lives in me lives in you. So get out the Crisco, lay hands on them, and watch a miracle happen!
Transition: God’s power is available to all who believe.
Conclusion
1. Trust Jesus and you will know His power.
2. Touch heaven and you will experience His power.
3. Take hold of His power and you will see it in action.
4. Are you unleashing the power of Jesus in your life?
