Examples of Faith
Notes
Transcript
Introduction:
What is faith? Why is faith important for us as Christians?
Samples in stores - something to show what the full thing will be like.
18 While he was saying these things to them, behold, a ruler came in and knelt before him, saying, “My daughter has just died, but come and lay your hand on her, and she will live.”
19 And Jesus rose and followed him, with his disciples.
20 And behold, a woman who had suffered from a discharge of blood for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his garment,
21 for she said to herself, “If I only touch his garment, I will be made well.”
22 Jesus turned, and seeing her he said, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.” And instantly the woman was made well.
23 And when Jesus came to the ruler’s house and saw the flute players and the crowd making a commotion,
24 he said, “Go away, for the girl is not dead but sleeping.” And they laughed at him.
25 But when the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took her by the hand, and the girl arose.
26 And the report of this went through all that district.
As we continue on through Matthew’s gospel and we keep in mind that Matthew is writing to show how Jesus is the promised Messiah of the Old Testament, Matthew now turns to several examples of faith.
He has already shown us that Jesus has:
Power Over Creation
Power Over the Spiritual Realm
Authority to Forgive Sins
In these sets of miracles that Matthew uses in groups of three, we see Him pulling the events out of chronological order to prove a point about Jesus.
Matthew does the same thing here and his theme is to demonstrate two things.
The Necessity of Faith by Giving Us Examples of Different People Who Had Great Faith
The Evidence that the Messianic Age Had Come Partially with the Incarnation of Christ.
I’ll explain in a moment what I mean by this, but first let’s look at some of these examples of faith by looking at the evidence that the Messiah had arrived.
1. The Dead Are Raised to Life (vv.18-19, 23-26)
1. The Dead Are Raised to Life (vv.18-19, 23-26)
18 While he was saying these things to them, behold, a ruler came in and knelt before him, saying, “My daughter has just died, but come and lay your hand on her, and she will live.”
19 And Jesus rose and followed him, with his disciples.
This ruler has a name that is given to us in Mark and Luke’s account. His name is Jairus, and these accounts also highlight that the girl was not fully dead yet.
Why would Matthew leave out the name and why would he say that she was dead if she was not?
Matthew is not concerned with the individual people in the stories as much as he is with pointing out Who Jesus is. This doesn’t mean that Matthew is not caring, but that is simply not his purpose for writing.
Now, as for the reason that Matthew says the girl is dead is because she was so close to death that she might as well have been. Jesus and the ruler don’t even make it to the house before the girl has died.
Capernaum is not a huge city and it wouldn’t take very long to get from one part of the city to another. So this girl is so close to death that she might as well have been described this way.
The account of Jairus’ daughter is broken up by another account of a woman who has a bleeding issue. We will come back to her in a moment, so let’s skip down to vv. 23-26.
23 And when Jesus came to the ruler’s house and saw the flute players and the crowd making a commotion,
24 he said, “Go away, for the girl is not dead but sleeping.” And they laughed at him.
25 But when the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took her by the hand, and the girl arose.
26 And the report of this went through all that district.
Jesus is compassionate and caring towards the family. He reassures Jairus that he didn’t need to be afraid (Luke9:49-50).
They are on the way to the house and someone had come running from the house to tell them that the little girl had died, according to Luke.
Can you imagine Jairus in that moment? You are hopeful. You’ve come to get Jesus to save your little girl and you are so close to getting home with Jesus only to have the worst news of your life given to you. Your little girl is dead!
Jesus shows the compassion of a shepherd and assures Jairus that he doesn’t need to be afraid. All he needs is faith.
When Jesus gets to the house, the mourners have already gathered. Mourners were hired and a great deal was made for the death of the wealthy in the ancient world.
The body would also have had to be buried rather quickly because they did not embalm them.
We have the option of waiting a while before having a ceremony because we have freezers to keep the body in and there is an embalming process, but that would not have been the case in Jesus’ time. They would need to quickly bury the body before decomposition began.
When Jesus gets to the home and the mourners are there, He makes everyone leave the house but the girls parents and Peter, James, and John.
Part of this was probably because of the size of the crowd, but a lot of it also had to do with keeping people out who just wanted to see a miracle.
Jesus takes the little girl by the hand and raises her back to life.
Look at how Luke describes this.
53 And they laughed at him, knowing that she was dead.
54 But taking her by the hand he called, saying, “Child, arise.”
55 And her spirit returned, and she got up at once. And he directed that something should be given her to eat.
56 And her parents were amazed, but he charged them to tell no one what had happened.
Her spirit had already left. The Bible says that the spirit of the believer goes immediately to be with the Father, but for the lost it goes to a place of torment. The word is translated Hell, but it is not the final resting place of the lost.
This girl gets up at once. She is not weak. She is not resuscitated and still half-dead. She is all the way alive.
This is a description of how the Kingdom will be when the Messiah comes.
8 He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken.
It also says of the Kingdom,
20 No more shall there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not fill out his days, for the young man shall die a hundred years old, and the sinner a hundred years old shall be accursed.
We know that these things are not yet, but while Jesus walked the earth, if you were around Jesus, these things were present even then.
Let’s see the second example of faith.
2. The Sick Are Healed (vv.20-22)
2. The Sick Are Healed (vv.20-22)
20 And behold, a woman who had suffered from a discharge of blood for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his garment,
21 for she said to herself, “If I only touch his garment, I will be made well.”
22 Jesus turned, and seeing her he said, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.” And instantly the woman was made well.
We have a woman who has been bleeding for 12 years. No doctor can help her and it has not only wreaked havoc on her health, but also it has kept her from worship.
She is considered unclean and ceremonially cannot come into the temple with this bleeding problem. It was actually illegal for her to touch Jesus and would have normally made Him unclean, but you can’t make God unclean.
Jesus heals the woman and she is made whole.
But, Jesus is not willing to let her be healed and slip away. He confronts the woman, not to embarrass her but to show her that it is her faith that has made her well.
She believed that by simply touching the hem or tassel of Jesus garment she would be healed. These tassels were to be worn by Jewish men and were blue. The Bible tells us
38 “Speak to the people of Israel, and tell them to make tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and to put a cord of blue on the tassel of each corner.
39 And it shall be a tassel for you to look at and remember all the commandments of the Lord, to do them, not to follow after your own heart and your own eyes, which you are inclined to whore after.
They were a reminder of the Word of God.
Listen, God’s Word has the power to heal the sin-sick soul. Never forget that. All you have to do is reach out and touch it by faith and just one glancing touch of faith and the Word will make your soul whole.
Notice I am not talking about your physical health. God may heal you if you pray and ask Him, but God may not. It isn’t necessarily about your faith either. It is about God’s purposes and God’s timing.
You see, every person who is sick will one day be made well if they have faith in the Jesus. It may be that their sickness in this life ends in death, but they will have a body that is raised to life and glorified, just like everyone who believes and that body will never see sickness. It will never see death as we’ve already seen.
Do you have that kind of saving faith this morning?
But we have two more to go.
3. The Blind Receive Their Sight (vv. 27-31)
3. The Blind Receive Their Sight (vv. 27-31)
27 And as Jesus passed on from there, two blind men followed him, crying aloud, “Have mercy on us, Son of David.”
28 When he entered the house, the blind men came to him, and Jesus said to them, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” They said to him, “Yes, Lord.”
29 Then he touched their eyes, saying, “According to your faith be it done to you.”
30 And their eyes were opened. And Jesus sternly warned them, “See that no one knows about it.”
31 But they went away and spread his fame through all that district.
As Jesus moves along His way, we see here two blind men that can’t see to follow Jesus, but they are making their way as best they can and crying out to Jesus to have mercy on them.
They use a messianic title and call him the Son of David. It’s clear they believe Jesus to be the Messiah, but you can just picture them crying out in desperation.
They can’t look around and see Him, but they are groping their way toward him in the darkness of their blindness. They have a ray of light in their minds as they’ve heard about Jesus and now they cry out, hoping that Jesus will hear them.
26 And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place,
27 that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us,
We don’t know if these men were Jews or Gentiles, they were just feeling their way toward Jesus and Jesus came to them.
He asks them if they believe that He could do this. The language is vague because they ask for mercy. It is implied that they want their sight but what they need is God’s mercy.
Only God can have mercy towards us. They ask Jesus for this and He asks them if they believe He can do this. Do what? Have mercy or give them sight?
How about both! That’s what happens to them. Jesus links His healing and mercy to their faith.
The same is true of us. We are groping towards God and He has to come find us. We must cry out for his mercy by faith and if we do, we will be given it according to our faith.
If you don’t possess true faith, you will not receive true mercy. If you do, you will be given spiritual sight.
4. The Oppressed Are Freed (vv.32-34)
4. The Oppressed Are Freed (vv.32-34)
The last example we see is that the oppressed are freed; however this example comes with a negative expression of faith.
32 As they were going away, behold, a demon-oppressed man who was mute was brought to him.
33 And when the demon had been cast out, the mute man spoke. And the crowds marveled, saying, “Never was anything like this seen in Israel.”
34 But the Pharisees said, “He casts out demons by the prince of demons.”
A demon-oppressed man is brought to Jesus and this demon makes the man mute. Nothing is said about this man’s faith, but the Pharisees claim that Jesus is only able to do what the crowds have declared has not been seen in Israel.
The Pharisees see all the same signs and they say that Jesus does this by the prince of demons.
This makes no sense and would not advance Satan’s kingdom at all if it were true, but it is a clear example of a willfully hardened heart.
We see people today who have this same spirit of unbelief. There is not amount of evidence that would convince them that Jesus is the Savior. They simply refuse to believe.
Conclusion:
What do all of these examples share in common with each other besides faith?
Isaiah says of the Messiah:
3 Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees.
4 Say to those who have an anxious heart, “Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you.”
5 Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped;
6 then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy. For waters break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert;
Matthew shows us that these prophesies are fulfilled in Jesus. The Pharisees should have seen it but refused.
We should see it, but will we.
Now one last thing I want to say before we close. Some people today will try to replicate what they see Jesus do in the Bible, and while Jesus said that we would do greater things than these, we should understand that Jesus is not talking about replicating His miracles.
These miracles were extraordinary. They were indisputable evidence that Jesus is the Messiah and that the Kingdom of God had come.
The Kingdom of God is a tricky thing because it is a now/not yet kingdom. We still await it’s full fulfillment. When Jesus came at His first advent, we get a glimpse of what the final kingdom would be like.
Glimpses are not staring contests. They are brief and for a moment. I think God can and does occaisionally give us these glimpses, but we have to wait to see the full picture later on when Jesus comes again one day.
We should focus on healing people spiritually and pray for people who need God’s physical healing. Perhaps God will grant it through prayer, but even if He doesn’t He will heal the soul.
The question is whether or not we will be examples of faith. How has God healed your soul? How has He manifested His presence in Your life to show you more of His goodness and love?
Let’s go out into this fallen world and be living examples of faith our self.