Comfort or Christ: Matthew 9:18-34

The declaration of the woman with a hemorrhage is not, “Jesus, you can heal me,” but rather, “Jesus can save me.” She was trusting in Jesus’s authority to save her. But what does this woman mean by “saved”? Is she saying, “Jesus, I believe you can clean me up so I can go to heaven”? No. She believes that Jesus can free her from the disease that separates her from her friends, community, family, and worship. This woman believes that Jesus can transform her life from one defined by shame, separation, and isolation to one of love, health, and peace.

The faith that merely believes Jesus can get you to heaven is no faith at all. The concept of salvation through mere intellectual acknowledgment of Jesus does not exist in the Scriptures. Only those who FOLLOW JESUS are saved. Declaring Him as Lord has an obvious consequence: you must actually obey your Lord. Someone is only your Lord if you obey them (Romans 6:16). The biblical authors did not understand faith or belief as separate from a transformed life, and neither do we in any other area of life. If someone claims to believe something but their actions don't align, we call them a liar or a hypocrite. Paul goes so far as to say that you should not associate with those who profess Jesus as Lord but do not live a changed life.

The synagogue official—who, we learn in Luke’s Gospel, is named Jairus—risked intense social scrutiny from his peers by approaching this rogue prophet, no matter how dire his situation. He was not able to “personally believe” without it changing his life. Jairus had to approach Jesus in the light of day and bow down in reverence to a man whom his peers considered a heretic. While we are not saved by works but by grace, this grace has a cost. The cost of experiencing the saving power of Jesus is surrendering your old life to Him.

Jairus put his entire life on the line to experience the saving power of Jesus. He did not approach Jesus with a sense of entitlement, thinking, “I am a synagogue ruler. Jesus has helped all these outcasts and sinners; therefore, he has to help me.” Instead, he came to Jesus as humbly as everyone else.

Too often, we rely on our own righteousness when approaching God. We think to ourselves, “I pray every day, I read my devotions, I give to the church, I attend church, I serve in the church… so why doesn’t it feel like God hears my prayers? Why is my health getting worse? Why are my friends dying? Why am I going through such a hard time?” We try to give God our résumé when He wants our surrender. We need to stop relying on our positions and routines, no matter how spiritual they seem, and lay them down at Jesus’s feet so that we can be available for His will rather than trying to dictate it.

The woman with the hemorrhage of blood had to believe Jesus could heal her before she acted on that belief and went into the city to find Him. She risked a great deal to find Jesus. As a woman considered ceremonially unclean, she would not have been permitted to live within the city limits. Even if she did—since we cannot know how strictly this rule was enforced under Roman occupation—she certainly would not have been on the crowded streets because of the shame she carried.

Not only did this woman have to come out of isolation and journey to the center of the city, but she also had to navigate the crowds that always surrounded Jesus. As we see in Luke’s more detailed version of the story, she had to push her way through the crowd, perhaps even crawling, risking a public scene. If she touched anyone, they too would be made unclean. Based on the disciples’ reaction to Jesus’s question, the streets were packed, with everyone shoulder to shoulder. This means the woman was likely touching other people for the first time in over a decade, terrified that someone would feel her at their feet and expose her condition.

Therefore, when this woman heard about Jesus and his healings, she not only believed he could do this for her, but she also made the decision to leave her home outside the city, find Jesus, and take all the risks associated with getting to Him. The woman was not “saved” the moment she thought, “This man Jesus can save me.” She was healed after she lived in obedience to that belief and went to find Jesus. The implied consequence of belief is life change. You do not truly believe something unless it impacts your decisions. This is why Jesus tells His followers to go and make disciples, not merely to get people to believe in Him. The raised hand is not enough; it must be followed by a life changed by the belief that Jesus is Lord.

However, it is not our place to judge whether someone is “doing enough” to be saved. It is not our place to judge whether someone is worthy of being part of our community. When we judge, we may miss what God is doing. When you are following Jesus, you have no time to look around and judge others; you do not even have time to judge yourself. A disciple’s life is one of action, not judgment. You are freed from judging so that you can live!

While the Pharisees wasted time judging, they missed the healing that was pouring out on those who left their old lives behind to follow Jesus. They were too busy thinking, “But look at who they were before they met Jesus.” While the woman with the hemorrhage was walking around, reunited with her family, friends, and community, rejoicing in what God had done for her, the Pharisees were still sitting in the dark, casting their judgments.

The Pharisees had their religion, their culture, and their way of life, all intimately rooted in God. But rather than experiencing the fulfillment of what their lives were centered on awaiting, they continued to live the same old life, waiting for something that had already arrived. Even if your life isn't centered on religion, we all make excuses to avoid a life of action. We say, “I will change my life when…” or we rationalize inaction by saying, “It’s too late for me,” or “I’ve already lived my life.” Jesus does not give us the option of living a life of inaction. He did not leave his disciples to continue their everyday lives; they had to give up everything to follow Him.

When was the last time you had to make a decision for Jesus that was uncomfortable? When was the last time you had to step outside your comfort zone to follow Him? When did Jesus last mess up your routine or intrude on your mundane existence? When has God spoken to you and revealed something you had never realized or seen before?

If you cannot answer these questions, the issue is not the quality or quantity of your prayers, but the possibility that you are not living a life aligned with Jesus. You may have stopped along the way; you stopped living and started judging.

You and I have the same access to God. Therefore, there is no excuse for living below the standard the Bible has set. There is nothing in this book you can dismiss by saying, “That’s just for the pastor,” or “That’s just for Starla,” or “That’s just for Shane as our deacon.” You are under the Lordship of Christ every day, and you are to follow His will in every situation. Your faith cannot be isolated to a church service or your daily prayer and Bible reading. He is the Lord of your life at every single moment. What is His will? To reveal to the world that in Jesus, heaven and earth are reunited. The purpose of every decision you make is to reveal the life of Jesus to the world. Nothing else matters.

This doesn't mean you spend every day on the streets with a bullhorn. Rather, it means that the filter for every decision should be, “How can I show people Jesus in this moment? What can I do to serve the person in front of me? Am I putting my own preferences, desires, and wants above those of the people around me? If so, how can I put their needs above my own in this situation?” When we think like this, we will sometimes have to do things that make us uncomfortable or that we would prefer not to do. Worship is not centered on how it makes us feel; it is centered on God’s desire for the world, which is for all people to know and live in a relationship with Him.

In your life, are you putting yourself first and claiming it is in the name of Jesus? Is your worship all about how you feel, or is it about what God wants?

If Jairus and the woman had been more worried about their feelings than their faith in Jesus, they would have never received their healings. They would have never even searched for Jesus. They would have remained in the position of the Pharisees, who, rather than doing anything to help Israel, sat back and focused on making their own lives more comfortable and righteous. Yes, you could say they suffered inconveniences to maintain their purity—and they certainly did—but it was all in vain because their worship served no one but themselves, no matter how much they thought it honored God. Jesus never once looked at the Pharisees and told them they were doing a great job. Why?

The Pharisees of the first century were faithful to the rules of purity, they went to the temple, and they followed the law. However, they forgot that the law was given for the good of Israel, not to add to its suffering. While the Pharisees were focused on their own cleanliness and holiness, the new wine of Jesus was spilling out into the world, and those who drank it celebrated the new life He brought. The citizens of Heaven rejoice while the rest of the world mourns. In these stories, impurity comes near Jesus, and He does not run or back away. The dirtiness of the world does not contaminate Him; instead, He cleans up the mess that sin has caused. Jesus does not catch the sickness; He brings the cure.

Therefore, Jesus took a risk by being willing to heal these people. If they had not been healed, Jesus Himself would have been declared unclean and would have had to go through the purification process. Yet Jesus never shied away from risk; He always embraced it and emerged unscathed. His purity transformed the impure, not the other way around. In every situation, Jesus had to have complete faith in the mission His Father gave Him and in His own identity.

If you want to experience this new life that frees you from worry, fear, lack of purpose, anxious thoughts, and everything else that makes life on earth so hard, then it will be done according to your faith. Do you believe that Jesus can free you from these things? If not, why not? Is it because it hasn't happened for you yet, leading you to believe these stories are just examples of what Jesus can do, but chooses not to?

In my own life, most of the time when I stop hearing God’s voice and stop experiencing His power, it is because I have stopped living in His will. The most confusing time of my life was the two and a half years between when I stepped down from being a youth pastor in Pryor, Oklahoma, and when you voted me in as your pastor. Why? Because I was living outside of God’s will. While I still talked to people about Jesus, read my Scripture, and went to church, I had stopped living on mission to reveal to the world the new life available through Jesus. The moment I decided it was time to go all-in on the Great Commission, everything made sense again. I still have questions and I still have struggles, but I am much freer from anxiety, worry, and fear than I was before. I have learned that it is easier to confront and live within the tension of those questions when you are living in faith rather than in comfort, fear, or anxiety.

Jesus calls us to follow Him, not merely to acknowledge Him. Jesus calls us out of the corners we hide in and into the city centers to live for Him before the world. You can experience the new life of Jesus and its benefits if you make your life about His mission rather than your own comfort and self-righteousness. As Jesus shows us through His confrontations with the Pharisees, personal righteousness is not righteousness at all—it is just plain selfishness with God-glitter on it.