Matthew 9:18-26- By faith alone in Christ alone

Matthew 9:18-26

                                                            1 Corinthians 15:12-20

                                                          “By faith in Christ alone”

One of my favourite tv series of all time, is a series called Ted Lasso.

It is the story of a bloke called Ted Lasso who managed a premiere league soccer team in England.

He was an American football coach who knew nothing about football (soccer).

But AFC Richmond had just had a bad run of form and sacked their coach and so the team’s owner Rebecca, hires this American Football coach as the new soccer coach who knew nothing about soccer.

As the series goes on, Ted manages to pull the team around, and famously, it all centred around a word that he pinned on the dressing room wall.

And that word was this:

Believe

Believe

There was, no specifics mentioned about what exactly the team believed in, but it was a word that was thrown around a lot- Believe.

Today, this word believe, gets thrown around a lot.

Just believe, believe in yourself, just believe, and you can do whatever you want to do or whatever you want to be.

Just believe.

Famously, the Nike brand put this on their slogan- “Just believe” – believe what though- believe that if you wear those Nike shoes, you will be a better soccer player, a better basketball player….just believe.

It seems today that most people, most companies, most TV shows are comfortable to use this word believe, as long as it doesn’t tie it down to something specific that you actually believe in.

Friends, Jesus didn’t come to this earth and just use a slogan, “Believe”- no Jesus gave specifics about belief- Jesus said, “believe in me- Believe that I am the Son of God” Jesus said, believe that “I am the way, the truth and the life”.

Friends, Christianity is a confessional faith, we confess what we believe in specifically and we confess that our faith centres on the work and person of Jesus.

It is Jesus in whom we trust in.

It is in Jesus that the object of our faith lies.

We don’t reach deep down inside ourselves to believe, we don’t reach out to the universe to believe, but we reach put to Jesus, who is the author and perfector of our faith.

In this story we are looking at today, we will see two people who reached out to Jesus, they believed that Jesus was who he said he was, they believes that Jesus could help them- they had faith in Jesus, and so they sought him out.

Let us look at the first person who sought out Jesus that day.

Look at verse 18 with me:

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.”

The first person who sought Jesus was surprisingly a ruler of a synagogue, as Mark tells us when he records the same story.

Now, as you see through the Gospel accounts, most Jewish leaders did not seek out Jesus for help, but quite the opposite, most synagogue leaders, sought out Jesus in order to crucify him, but this one didn’t- he came seeking Jesus in order for Jesus to help him.

And unlike most Jewish leaders who came at Jesus like venomous snakes trying to bite and devour him, this Jewish leader came and bowed before Jesus, as a sign of humility, as a sign of worship, that he believed Jesus was king.

This very act of bowing before Jesus would have put his whole position of power in the community at risk. This Jewish leader was showing in public the respect and possibly even worship of a man, whom all other Jewish leaders considered dangerous.

Not only did this man seek Jesus with humility and worship but he came to Jesus expecting great things from him- He believed that if Jesus could just lay his hand on his daughter who had died, then she would live.

This man believed that Jesus could bring his daughter back to life.

Remember this happened before Jesus rose his best mate Lazarus back to life and so no-one had ever seen Jesus raise someone back to life before, but this man believed he could.

Now the second person who approached Jesus was a woman who had suffered discharge of blood for twelve years.

This woman didn’t want to make a public scene, like the Jewish leader did, as she approached Jesus. And so while Jesus was going to the house of Jairus to raise his daughter form the dead, this woman crawled her way through the crowd (un noticed) and touched the fringe of Jesus’ garment.

This woman approached Jesus in a different way to the Jewish leader and she approached as someone who came from a totally different place than the Jewish leader.

Because this woman had suffered bleeding for 12 years, she would have been considered unclean. She would have not been able to worship God, with God’s people in the synagogues or the temple. The Law written in Leviticus 15:27 made this clear. Not only could she not worship God with God’s people in God’s place, but anyone she touched would have also been considered unclean.

And so instead of this woman, throwing herself at the feet of Jesus, like the Jewish leader did, she just managed to touch the fringe of Jesus garment. Some translations say she touched the tassel of his coat. And as we know from the words of Jesus, it was the Pharisees who would were these long tassels to remind people to follow God’s law. The longer the tassel, the more pious the Pharisee was.

This woman who had been bleeding for 12 years, wasn’t reaching out for the law of God to save her that day, since it can only condemn, but this woman reached out for Jesus that day, the one who was able to fulfil God’s laws perfectly.

Now, we must be careful not to turn these healings of Jesus into superstitious clap trap- there was nothing magical about Jesus’ tassel, and so we don’t need to go and find the cloak he was wearing that day and enshrine it forever. We don’t put our faith in those things, but we put our faith in Jesus- that is whom the woman was seeking that day- Jesus- not his cloak.

Friends we can so easily make idols of things which actually stop us from getting to Jesus.

When this woman finally reached out to Jesus, and had tried to tip toe up to him without being noticed, guess what?.....Jesus wasn’t going to let her slip away quietly.

He spoke with her, called her daughter and made sure that she knew that she had his full attention. After years of being treated as an outcast, Jesus made her well and he wanted others to know she was well and was primed again to worship God, with his people, in his place.

Just like Jesus did with the man with leprosy, he not only healed her physically, but more importantly he healed her spiritually.

And when Jesus finally arrived at the house of Jairus and there were professional wailers, and friends and family all gathered around, he didn’t want to make a scene for the girl he was going to raise from the dead and so he sent everyone out the house, touched the girl, spoke with her and raised her back to life.

Jairus daughter had died, the professional waliers knew that, her friends and family knew that, and so when Jesus told them she was just sleeping, of course they laughed at him, they knew she wasn’t just sleeping,- they knew she was dead.

So why did Jesus use the term sleep, when she was dead?

Jesus used the same term when Lazarus died, and Lazarus was as dead as a door nail, he had been dead for 4 days and yet Jesus told his disciples that Lazarus was just sleeping.

What does Jesus mean by this?

When Jesus refers to death as sleep, he still means it is real death, but he means that death is only temporary for those who believe in Him.

Listen to what Jesus said before he raised Lazarus from the dead

John 11:25-26

25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life.[a] Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”

Friends, this is no generic slogan, this is no abstract belief, but this is an objective belief in Jesus, Jesus who is the resurrection and the life, - those who believe in Jesus, yes we will die, and yet we shall live, we will be given new life as we pass from this life to the next.

And how can we be certain that we will live, even though we die?

Because Jesus showed us the way- It was Jesus who died, really died, not permanently but sleeping for 3 days before he rose again.

Look at 1 Corinthians 15:20 with me:

20 But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

Jesus was the first crop – he was the one who died and rose again, as an example for the rest of the harvest- we too, who die in Christ, will be raised back to live, we too will be in heaven with him, we too will be raised with a new spiritual body, we too, even though we die, will be raised back to life.

Yet, the crux of our eternal salvation is our trust, our belief in Jesus.

From these two healing stories in Matthew chapter 9 and the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, it is clear that Jesus works in his own time and his timing is best.

It must have been hard to trust Jesus when his timing appeared all wrong.

First of all, think about Jairus, his daughter was dead and Jesus had time to stop and heal a woman who had bleeding for 12 years. Perhaps Jairus, would have been thinking, well this is nice Jesus, but you have a previous appointment to keep.

And when Jesus eventually arrived at the house of Jairus, everyone there, apart from Jairus, must have thought his timing was way off, they would have thought he had turned up too late, she was dead.

Same with Lazarus, we know Mary and Martha, thought that the timing of Jesus was off, they said so themselves to Jesus- “If only you had turned up earlier, our brother would still be alive”

Friends, Jesus’ timing is always perfect and perhaps sometimes he makes us wait to show that we really do trust him. Sometimes, often Jesus will do things, the way we didn’t think it should be done, and we have to trust that he knows best.

Sometimes Jesus allows our loved ones to die, we have to trust that he knows best.

Sometimes Jesus will allow things to get worse before he makes them better- we have trust Jesus.

Friends, do you believe that Jesus is the resurrection and the life?

If you do, even though you will die, you will live.

Let us pray.