May 4th 2014 Steve Rahter Matthew 9 18-38

05/06/2014

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Sunday May 4th – Matthew 9:18-38A man is asleep in bed when he hears a knock on the front door.He wakes up and looks at his clock, and it's three in the morning. He thinks, "I'm not getting out of bed at this time of night."  So he rolls over and goes back to sleep.Then, a louder knock follows.His wife says "Aren't you going to answer that?" So he drags himself out of bed and goes downstairs. He opens the door and there is stranger standing at the door. It doesn't take the homeowner long to realize the man is drunk."Hi there," slurs the stranger. "Can you give me a push?""No, get lost. It's three AM. I was in bed!" The man slams the door. He goes back up to bed and tells his wife what happened and she says, "That wasn't very nice of you. Remember that night we broke down in the pouring rain on the way to pick the kids up from the baby sitter and you had to knock on that man's house to get the car started again? What would have happened if he'd told us to get lost?""But the guy was drunk," says the husband."It doesn't matter," says the wife. "He needs our help and it would be the Christian thing to help him."So the husband gets out of bed again, gets dressed, and goes back downstairs.He opens the door, and shouts, "Hey, do you still need a push??"And he hears a voice cry out, "Yeah."So he looks out into the street for a car and shouts, "Where are you?"And the stranger says, "I'm over here, on your porch swing."The simple fact is…sometimes we need to wake up, even when we don’t want to! And here in the remaining verses of Matthew chapter 9 we see some folks who are ready to wake up and some who aren’t. (Starting in verse 18)While He was saying these things to them, a synagogue official came and bowed down before Him, and said, “My daughter has just died; but come and lay Your hand on her, and she will live.” 19 Jesus got up and began to follow him, and so did His disciples.It’s fairly likely that this synagogue official, whose name the Gospel of Mark tells us is Jairus, wasn’t a follower of Jesus. In fact he was probably opposed to Jesus’ ministry because Jesus was opposed to the established religious authorities. We could say that this situation forced Jairus to swallow his pride and approach a man whose ministry and teaching he had been taught not to believe in. This was a wake-up call for Jairus. His daughter’s life depended on Jesus being more than who Jairus once thought He was. He takes a drastic step of faith and asks Jesus to touch her and raise her from the dead. Jesus follows him without hesitation, but along the way someone else has a wake-up call!20 And a woman who had been suffering from a hemorrhage for twelve years, came up behind Him and touched the fringe of His cloak; 21 for she was saying to herself, “If I only touch His garment, I will get well.” 22 But Jesus turning and seeing her said, “Daughter, take courage; your faith has made you well.” At once the woman was made well.This woman knew that by Jewish religious law she was considered unclean because of her bleeding. She also knew that it was considered improper for any woman to touch the hem of a man’s prayer shawl.But she’s tired of being told what she can and can’t do by people who can’t help her!She wakes up to the reality that it’s going to take some desperate, drastic faith on her part to go beyond what is considered acceptable and instead just do what is necessary - and as a result she is healed. Even though society tells this woman she’s not the kind of person who should be around other people; that she should just go off on her own and continue to SUFFER, she’s going to reach out and touch the hem of Jesus’ cloak anyway.Even though the world tells Jairus that it’s too late, that his daughter is past the point of healing; even though the religious leaders have told him that Jesus is a sinner and isn’t sent by God, he’s going to come to Jesus anyway.23 When Jesus came into the official’s house, and saw the flute-players and the crowd in noisy disorder, 24 He said, “Leave; for the girl has not died, but is asleep.” And they began laughing at Him. 25 But when the crowd had been sent out, He entered and took her by the hand, and the girl got up. 26 This news spread throughout all that land.Jesus asserts that what the people are calling death for this little girl is only sleep.They laugh at Him for saying so, but then He proves that He has the power to wake the even the dead. This isn’t the only time this happens. In John 11:11-14 Jesus says,“Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I go, so that I may awaken him out of sleep.” 12 The disciples then said to Him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover.” 13 Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that He was speaking of literal sleep. 14 So Jesus then said to them plainly, “Lazarus is dead” Then Jesus goes and raises Lazarus from his “sleep”.In 1st Thessalonians 4:13-16 the Apostle Paul uses the same words as well:“But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. 14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. 15 For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.”Both the story of the Jairus’ daughter and the story of the woman with the hemorrhage illustrate the role of faith in the kingdom of God. Faith is a wake-up call!2nd Corinthians 5:7 says “for we walk by faith, not by sight.” The amazing thing to realize is that “walking by sight”, or believing what our natural senses tell us, is the equivalent of being asleep! It’s only through faith that our eyes are truly opened and we are awakened to what God is REALLY doing!That same truth appears in the encounter of the blind men.27 As Jesus went on from there, two blind men followed Him, crying out, “Have mercy on us, Son of David!” 28 When He entered the house, the blind men came up 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, “It shall be done to you according to your faith.”30 And their eyes were opened. And Jesus sternly warned them: “See that no one knows about this!” 31 But they went out and spread the news about Him throughout all that land.Let’s face it…these men had no CHOICE but to walk by faith; they COULDN’T walk by sight!Jesus puts it to them very simply. “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” They said to Him, “Yes, Lord.”29 Then He touched their eyes, saying, “It shall be done to you according to your faith.”So there is clearly an element of faith at work in these three healings we’ve looked at. But this next example gives us a little bit of balance in our understanding of the relationship between God’s power and our faith.32 As they were going out, a mute, demon-possessed man was brought to Him. 33 After the demon was cast out, the mute man spoke; and the crowds were amazed, and were saying, “Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel.”What’s different between this healing and the others? In this case there is no evidence of the demon-possessed man showing any faith at all, but he still gets healed. Why is that significant? I believe we need to be reminded that although our faith has a role in what God is doing – He is not LIMITED by our faith. He is sovereign and can show His power when and where He chooses to.Now if you need an example of some folks who TRULY needed a wake-up call, look at verse 34:But the Pharisees were saying, “He casts out the demons by the ruler of the demons.”Although Matthew doesn’t mention it, the Gospel of Mark tells us that it was that very accusation that Jesus called the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.When God is moving and you’re saying it’s the devil, you need a wake-up call!The fact is, many people were asleep to what Jesus was doing, but Jesus was walking through the world wide awake, and what He saw caused Him to be moved with compassion.35 Jesus was going through all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness.36 Seeing the people, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd.Why were the people wandering aimlessly, like sheep without a shepherd? It was because those who were supposed to be leading them were ASLEEP! God brought this charge against the shepherds of Israel in Ezekiel 34:8“As I live,” declares the Lord God, “surely because “My flock has become a prey,My flock has even become food for all the beasts of the field for lack of a shepherd, and My shepherds did not search for My flock, but rather the shepherds fed themselves and did not feed My flock.”God has compassion on the sheep, even as Jesus does here in Matthew chapter 9. Ezekiel continues in verses 11-15For thus says the Lord God, “Behold, I Myself will search for My sheep and seek them out.12 As a shepherd cares for his herd in the day when he is among his scattered sheep, so I will care for My sheep and will deliver them from all the places to which they were scattered on a cloudy and gloomy day. 13 I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries and bring them to their own land; and I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the streams, and in all the inhabited places of the land. 14 I will feed them in a good pasture, and their grazing ground will be on the mountain heights of Israel. There they will lie down on good grazing ground and feed in rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. 15 I will feed My flock and I will lead them to rest,” declares the Lord God.God promises to BE the shepherd that the people are lacking.And Jesus says in John 10:11 “I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.”But how does Jesus do that? He actually does it through US! We are called to be co-laborers with Jesus in caring for His sheep.So the last piece of this wake-up puzzle is to ask “do WE need a wake-up call?” In verses 37 and 38 Jesus answers “possibly so.”37 Then He said to His disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. 38 Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest.”Jesus’ statement that the harvest is “plentiful” indicates that the number of lost souls in this world is abundant. I’m sure most of us could think of plenty of people in our families, our neighborhoods and our workplaces that don’t have a relationship with Jesus. The emphasis here is on the need for workers to spread the gospel. But keep this thought in mind; If the laborers are “few”, then I shouldn’t be expecting some other laborer with extra time on his hands to come along and reach out to the “harvest” of lost people God has placed in MY life!Listen to how this commentary puts it:“The “laborers” are not angels sent to gather the lost for judgment, but disciples who imitate Jesus by proclaiming the coming of His kingdom. Jesus commands His disciples to pray for God to send workers. No one can do the work of the harvest without being equipped for it by God.”In closing, let’s remember Isaiah’s response when God was looking for someone to carry His message.In Isaiah 6:8 God asks a question:Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?”And Isaiah doesn’t wait for someone else to come along. He says:Then I said, “Here am I. Send me!”