Healing Daughters

Welcome and Advent Reading

Good morning. Welcome to church at First Baptist Church of Arcadia. We're going to get started with our service, so you can just grab a seat. I'm going to start with a reading from Luke.

In the same region, shepherds were staying out in the fields and keeping watch at night over their flock. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Don’t be afraid, for look, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people: Today in the city of David a Savior was born for you, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be the sign for you: You will find a baby wrapped tightly in cloth and lying in a manger.” Suddenly there was a multitude of the heavenly host with the angel, praising God and saying: Glory to God in the highest heaven, and peace on earth to people he favors!

特性 — Luke 2:8-14 (CSB)

Join us this morning in song.

The Peace of Christ

The fourth Sunday of Advent: peace. Both inner peace and the outward lack of strife are elusive, so much so we often abandon any thought of ever realizing or achieving this intangible attribute. Yet in this Christmas season of love, the desire for peace becomes evident in the hearts, minds, and lives of people everywhere. As we light our fourth Advent candle, let us feel its warmth as it combines with the glow of the manger in Bethlehem and the brightness of the star overhead, and allow them to melt the conflicts in the world and in our lives. May we remember always the Christmas story's most glorious words: "Peace on earth."

One of the first things that you hear the angels say in relation to Jesus's birth is peace on earth. We are not believing in a gospel of despair or darkness, but of hope. We're not worshiping a God who expects us to come to him and present ourselves as though we're good enough to be acceptable, but rather we worship a God who, in the midst of our darkness, came to us to save us and to care for us. That's the hope that we get to celebrate every Sunday together.

If you have a Bible, go ahead and grab it and open it to the Book of Mark. We'll be looking at the end of chapter 5. Richard just read for us a devotion on how Jesus's arrival brings peace, and this morning we get to read a story of how Jesus interacts with a woman and tells her to go in peace. So we'll be reading from Mark 5, verse 21 to the end of the chapter. If this is the first time that you've read a Bible, the big numbers are the chapter numbers and the little numbers are the verse numbers. We'll be looking at the Book of Mark, chapter 5, verses 21 to 43. It says this:

When Jesus had crossed over again by boat to the other side, a large crowd gathered around him while he was by the sea. One of the synagogue leaders, named Jairus, came, and when he saw Jesus, he fell at his feet and begged him earnestly, “My little daughter is dying. Come and lay your hands on her so that she can get well and live.” So Jesus went with him, and a large crowd was following and pressing against him. Now a woman suffering from bleeding for twelve years had endured much under many doctors. She had spent everything she had and was not helped at all. On the contrary, she became worse. Having heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his clothing. For she said, “If I just touch his clothes, I’ll be made well.” Instantly her flow of blood ceased, and she sensed in her body that she was healed of her affliction. Immediately Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and said, “Who touched my clothes?” His disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing against you, and yet you say, ‘Who touched me?’” But he was looking around to see who had done this. The woman, with fear and trembling, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. “Daughter,” he said to her, “your faith has saved you. Go in peace and be healed from your affliction.” While he was still speaking, people came from the synagogue leader’s house and said, “Your daughter is dead. Why bother the teacher anymore?” When Jesus overheard what was said, he told the synagogue leader, “Don’t be afraid. Only believe.” He did not let anyone accompany him except Peter, James, and John, James’s brother. They came to the leader’s house, and he saw a commotion—people weeping and wailing loudly. He went in and said to them, “Why are you making a commotion and weeping? The child is not dead but asleep.” They laughed at him, but he put them all outside. He took the child’s father, mother, and those who were with him, and entered the place where the child was. Then he took the child by the hand and said to her, “Talitha koum” (which is translated, “Little girl, I say to you, get up”). Immediately the girl got up and began to walk. (She was twelve years old.) At this they were utterly astounded. Then he gave them strict orders that no one should know about this and told them to give her something to eat.

— Mark 5:21-43 (CSB)

Let's pray. Lord, even this morning we know that if you don't help us, if your Spirit doesn't move in our hearts, our minds will be easily distracted, hesitant, or filled with disbelief, fear, and trembling. So we ask, Lord, that you would help us not to be like the mockers that we see in this passage who laugh at your Word or distance ourselves from what you have to say, but that you would open our hearts, that you would soften them to be able to be receptive to your Word. You can only do this by your help. So we ask that you would give it. In Jesus' name, amen.

Jairus's Desperate Plea

I have a confession to make: I was a terrible student. I graduated high school with a 2.4 GPA, and it wasn't because I didn't care about the material or that I wasn't interested. I was polite in class, I interacted with my teachers, I just never did my homework. I'm not presenting myself as a model example, so if you're a student here, don't listen to me—do your homework! It'll save you a lot of heartache.

In fact, I was constantly on the fence or on the brink of getting kicked out of the school that I was attending. They had a minimum GPA, and I was playing ring-around-the-rosy, putting my right foot in and my right foot out of being kicked out, constantly coming in and out of probation. What I did was I would neglect my academics for the entire semester, and then at the end, when I was confronted with the reality of what I had done, I'd sit at my computer and write a confession to my teachers, begging them for mercy. I would go into their office and grovel and hope that these people would just have compassion on me.

Have you ever been caught and had to ask for mercy? Anxiety comes into your heart, and you start to question whether or not you'll be able to receive the help that you actually need. So much in that moment rides on the other person's compassion. My teachers were extremely patient with me, by the way. Quite frankly, they gave me grace that I probably shouldn't have had.

In this story, we see an example of people interacting with Jesus and asking him for help, and we see that Jesus in both of these interactions is both compassionate and competent—that he cares for the sinner while he's also able to save. This is going to be the main idea for us this morning: Jesus is both compassionate and competent. He's both compassionate and competent. In the first part of the story, we'll see Jesus's compassion; in the second part of the story, we'll see Jesus's competence. Let's look at point number one: Jesus's compassion.

Look again with me at verse 21:

When Jesus had crossed over again by boat to the other side, a large crowd gathered around him while he was by the sea. One of the synagogue leaders, named Jairus, came, and when he saw Jesus, he fell at his feet and begged him earnestly, “My little daughter is dying. Come and lay your hands on her so that she can get well and live.” So Jesus went with him, and a large crowd was following and pressing against him.

— Mark 5:21-24 (CSB)

Two weeks ago, we saw Jesus save a demon-possessed man in the Decapolis with other Gentiles, and now he leaves that area and returns to the other side of the Galilee. News has spread that Jesus is coming back into town, and so there's a large crowd there ready to receive him. Through the crowd comes one man: Jairus, a ruler in the synagogue. This guy, Jairus, had everything that a person could ask for. He was respected in his community, he was a ruler in the synagogue, and he was also religious. Being in the synagogue, at the peak of it, he knew the Scriptures inside and out, he followed the law, and by all accounts, he would have been considered a respectable, righteous man.

But all the respect and all the religion that this man could have didn't matter to him because his daughter was sick. She was dying, and there was nothing that he could do. Jairus has heard reports about Jesus and what he had done, so he goes to the only person that he knows can help. So the Jewish ruler comes, he falls, and he begs. Jairus is a humble man. He doesn't pretend that things are okay. He didn't save face or fake confidence that he had it all together. In front of all the people that would have thought that he had it all, he decided to trade his dignity in order to get the help that he desperately needed, because no amount of dignity was worth his daughter. So he came and he begged and begged and begged.

The only reason why Jairus was able to do this—to be able to come and have this dramatic encounter with Jesus in front of this large crowd—is because of his faith. He knows that if Jesus can get to his daughter and lay hands on her, she could get well and live. Jairus is a beautiful example of what true faith looks like. He recognizes his need, and he also recognizes the only person who can meet that need, and he's willing to forsake everything he has in order to be able to go to Jesus and ask for his help. Because, after all, he loves his little daughter, his precious daughter.

I know many of us sitting here this morning have relatives, loved ones, children even, who are not walking with the Lord. You may have been praying for years that the Lord would save them—heart-wrenching, tearful, chest-heaving prayers to the Lord asking that he would save them. Sometimes it feels like your prayers don't reach him, your words fall into the void, and the silence is violent. Take heart and know that the Lord hears you. He hears you. Jesus isn't deaf; he doesn't ignore your cries. Jesus is able to see Jairus's heart for his child, and he's able to see your heart for your loved ones as well.

You can keep asking. You can keep going to Jesus, falling at his feet, and begging him earnestly to have compassion towards your loved one. And you can trust that the Lord whom you ask to be compassionate towards them will be compassionate towards you in the midst of your struggle, because Jesus is able to hear you.

Think about our own lives. I know all of us at some point didn't walk with the Lord and then came to know him. And when I think about my own life, I think about all the prayers that my mother, my father, and other spiritual leaders in my life had for me, and God heard them. And let's be honest, our loved ones had plenty of reasons to worry about us, and God saved us anyway by his grace, and he's capable of doing the same with others. God isn't stingy with his grace; he isn't cold towards our concerns. We can go to him earnestly and know and hope for the day when our tears are covered by Christ's blood.

Jairus in his hour of need turns to the only one he trusts is able to save his daughter. So Jesus goes with him, and now this whole crowd gets to have a front-row seat to seeing Jesus in action. So they follow him; they turn into paparazzi, crowding around him to see what will happen. But someone else is also traveling around the crowd, and we get to see her in verse 25.

The Outcast Made Clean

Read with me:

Now a woman suffering from bleeding for twelve years had endured much under many doctors. She had spent everything she had and was not helped at all. On the contrary, she became worse.

— Mark 5:25-26 (CSB)

This woman was a suffering woman, and her medical condition was severe. She was hemorrhaging blood, and despite meeting with the best of the medical community, she wasn't able to find an effective remedy. I know medicine today has advanced a lot. We have CT scans, surgeries, X-rays; people are able to do surgery on a grape, which wasn't done before. And I have a lot of faith in my doctors. I'm not a hypochondriac, but I do everything the doctor tells me to do—except to eat healthier and exercise. But if my doctor gives me medicine, I'm going to take it; I'm going to do what they say. And I expect that whatever treatment plan they give me will actually fix my problem.

But medicine has its limits, doesn't it? Treatment can't beat time or tragedy. I'm sure all of us have some level of dread for the day when we hear the words, "I'm sorry, there's nothing else I can do." And this woman heard "There's nothing else I can do" more times than anyone could count: twelve years of rejection after rejection, disappointment after disappointment, until she spent her last penny on hope, and there was nothing else she could do.

And that's just on the physical side, just the medicine. Her bleeding didn't just mean that she had to struggle herself; it also meant that she was now an outcast in her community. This is what Leviticus 15 says in verses 25 to 27 about someone with her condition:

“When a woman has a discharge of her blood for many days, though it is not the time of her menstruation, or if she has a discharge beyond her period, she will be unclean all the days of her unclean discharge, as she is during the days of her menstruation. Any bed she lies on during the days of her discharge will be like her bed during menstrual impurity; any furniture she sits on will be unclean as in her menstrual period. Everyone who touches them will be unclean; he must wash his clothes and bathe with water, and he will remain unclean until evening.

— Leviticus 15:25-27 (CSB)

See, this situation for this woman isn't just physical struggle. It's not just bad enough that she's sick; she's also completely separated from her society because of her uncleanness. She lives in a perpetual, sinful mess, such that everything that she touches—whether it's the bed she sleeps on, her loved ones, even a doorknob—everything that comes into physical contact with this woman becomes unclean. And this idea of being unclean wasn't just because of the germs that come with unsanitary conditions; that wasn't the only reason why she had to remove herself. This woman's bleeding made her spiritually unclean.

We just ended in verse 27, but in verse 31 of Leviticus, they summarized why Israel had to take so much care when it came to this uncleanness. It says: "You must keep the Israelites from their uncleanness so that they do not die by defiling my Tabernacle that is among them." So to be unclean didn't just affect this woman's horizontal relationships with those around her, it also affected her vertical relationship with the Lord, because God is holy. He's perfect, he's set apart, and he's sinless. So if anything unclean were to enter into his dwelling place, his Tabernacle, it would result in their death. It would result in their death.

Think back to the Garden of Eden. When Adam is placed in the garden, God gives him clear commands about what would happen if man ate the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. And what does he say? He says you will surely die. So Adam and Eve sin, they're cast out of the garden, and it results in their death. They die. Now, if God were to dwell in the Tabernacle or in the temple amongst the people of Israel, they had to be careful to make sure that God's dwelling place didn't contain anything unclean. The entire Book of Leviticus is full of laws and regulations—I'm sure a lot of us skip it during our Bible reading plan because of the details in it and we struggle to picture it—but it's full of laws and regulations to ensure meticulously that God's dwelling place would not be defiled.

The reason why those details are there is not because they're boring; they're there because God is holy and deserves our meticulous attention to detail. Which meant that God, if he were to be with his people, could not be in contact with anything unclean, or else people would die. That's what it said in verse 31: that if anyone comes in contact with the Holy of Holies, with this dwelling place of the Lord, if anyone comes into the presence of God with any uncleanness in them, it would result in their immediate death. Which meant no contact for this bleeding woman.

This woman lived isolated from society and from her Lord for twelve years, and then she hears that Jesus is coming, who can heal the sick, who can help the weary, who can cast out demons. And in her desperation, she decides to risk it all. We see that in verse 27: "Having heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his clothing. For she said, 'If I just touch his clothes, I will be made well.'" This woman has nothing left to lose. She moves through the crowd, she defiles literally everybody she touches, and she reaches for Jesus's cloak.

So what happens according to Leviticus 15 if the defiled touches the Divine? You're supposed to die. Let's see what happens in verse 29: "Instantly her flow of blood ceased, and she sensed in her body that she was healed of her affliction." Immediately her bleeding stops. Twelve years of struggle comes to an end, relief floods over her, and she experiences true healing. See, the Levitical law, the law of the Old Testament, has been completely flipped on its head because what the Old Testament was doing was pointing to a future where this would no longer be necessary.

See, John 1:14 says that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and that word for "dwelt" is the same root word for that word "Tabernacle." The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us. God was dwelling amongst his people in the person of Jesus—fully God, fully man, dwelling with his people. Emmanuel, God with us. That's what we get to celebrate every Christmas, this miraculous thing that happens. Except, unlike the physical Tabernacle in Exodus that brings death when it comes in contact with defilement, when this woman comes in contact with this Tabernacle, the living God, the Tabernacle doesn't become defiled—the woman becomes clean.

If you're not a Christian and you're here this morning, that's the good news. And the good news begins with the bad news: you are a sinner, just like the rest of us. All of us have been cursed, diseased with the stain of rebelling against a good and holy God, and because of our sin, we deserve to be cast out, separated from the Lord and from everyone else. But God doesn't pull back from us. He doesn't separate himself from us forever. Instead, he leaned in with kindness and grace. God became flesh and dwelt among us. Jesus moved in compassion and care to those around him, and on the cross, he died, paying the penalty that you and I deserve for coming into contact with the Divine. On the third day, he rose from the dead, victorious over sin and death, paying that penalty in full.

So the good news of the gospel is that if you go to him, sin and all, dirtiness and all, uncleanness and defilement, and you turn away from your life of sin and you go to this Jesus, he will save you and make you clean. That's the good news. If you want to hear more about the gospel, I'll be right at the door after the service. There's nothing else I would like to talk to you about more than this offer that Jesus can give you: he can give you true peace. But for this woman, even after being saved, she's still full of fear and trembling, and she's about to get caught.

True Faith and True Peace

Immediately Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and said, “Who touched my clothes?” His disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing against you, and yet you say, ‘Who touched me?’” But he was looking around to see who had done this. The woman, with fear and trembling, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. “Daughter,” he said to her, “your faith has saved you. Go in peace and be healed from your affliction.”

— Mark 5:30-34 (CSB)

Jesus immediately senses the power left him, and he turns around. He asks, "Who touched my clothes?" And keep in mind, at this point, there's no sense of personal boundaries. Everyone is crowding around him, following him, making sure that they don't miss Jesus and anything that he may do. They're packed around him. And so the disciples are looking at Jesus, and they say, "Who touched you? Everybody is touching you!" But Jesus knew. So the woman comes out, trembling in fear, and confesses what she had done.

Many of us are like this—not before conversion, but even after conversion—who come to faith in God but still struggle with whether or not God is actually cool with them. Like he's some kind of stern Savior, a reluctant Redeemer who's kind of willing to deliver us, but he's also simultaneously disappointed in everything that we do. After all, don't we still have sin? Don't we still struggle week to week? Would it be reasonable for God to be disappointed or upset with us? Did we just kind of get away with some sneaky deal for salvation?

Jesus shows us here in this interaction that that couldn't be further from the truth. In fact, Jesus is so holy, so like God in his godness, that he's moved not with condemnation towards those who receive his grace, but compassion. He looks at the woman, and he calls her "daughter." Twelve years starved of human connection, no love, no care, and the Son of God adopts her into his family because her faith made her well. Because her faith made her well.

Now, if you'll allow me a sidebar: when Jesus says that her faith made her well, he's not saying that faith is going to heal whatever sickness or ailments you might have. This isn't a blank check for all of your desires. The question is what we are having faith in Jesus for. I remember when I was twelve, I was praying in my bedroom and asking God to strengthen my faith. I told him I'd do anything to show my faithfulness to him. Just to prove my point, I crossed my arms and did a trust fall by myself, trusting—having faith—that the Lord would catch me. And I hit the ground, right? And it hurt. The issue wasn't that I wasn't trusting the Lord, it was what I was trusting him to do, right?

God doesn't promise us that faith in him is going to heal all of our sickness, provide solutions to all of our problems, or provide us with all the riches that we could ask for in this life. God never guarantees that in the Bible. So if you go to him with faith for whatever you want, odds are God isn't going to give it to you. The question is what you're asking God for. When this woman goes to Jesus, she's asking for saving. It's an example to us of what it's supposed to look like for us to go to Jesus for salvation. It's not supposed to be some kind of desire for us to not go to our doctors or not care about our bodies, but rather trying to point out what we really need. What we need isn't a clean bill of health; what we need is a Savior.

So true faith has led to true peace, one that didn't need to sneak around an unsuspecting Savior, but one where the Lord saw her and provided a true, comprehensive remedy. Your salvation is not a mistake. It's not an accident. It isn't some kind of scheme where we're trying to figure out how to manipulate God into giving us what we want. It is a gift that God gives us out of his kindness, out of his love for us, and his care for us. And when you see his true compassion, that's when you can have true peace. True peace—one that recognizes that I'm a sinner in need of forgiveness while also being able to fully trust that Jesus is a great Savior, that his grace is greater than our sin, and that he does cover us.

And one sign of that true peace—one sign that you have that true peace and that you understand it—is when you profess your faith publicly through baptism and membership in a church. Whenever we get baptized, we're not just saying, "Hey, I'm dedicating my life to the Lord." You are saying in front of the whole Christian community: "My life was a mess, I deserved to be judged by a holy God, and yet Jesus saved me from my sin."

When you enter into membership in a church, you're not saying, "Hey, I'm here to present myself as a goody-two-shoes guy who doesn't have any problems in his life." Rather, you're saying, "I'm a sinner who's received grace upon grace upon grace, and I need the church to walk with me, to continue to walk with me through my struggles, through my sin, and trust that these other sinners who also received grace will be able to point me to Jesus and help me walk with him." Every single member of our church is another reminder that Christ saves sinners. And this amazing news of compassion that comforts this woman is then interrupted by news of great sorrow. See that in point number two: Jesus's competence.

Jesus's Competence

While he was still speaking, people came from the synagogue leader's house and said, "Your daughter is dead. Why bother the teacher anymore?" When Jesus overheard what was said, he told the synagogue leader, "Don't be afraid, only believe." So at the climax of one daughter's salvation comes crisis for Jairus's daughter. She was dead. Jesus was too late.

So people tell Jairus to stop bothering Jesus. After all, notice what they call Jesus here in verse 35: he's a "teacher." And what's a teacher going to do when he's faced with the unrelenting, final, conclusive reality of death? Everyone here doubts Jesus's power, and maybe, to be fair to them, they're even trying to save face for Jesus and not want to embarrass him by setting himself up for failure. Someone who's already dead can't be saved. Jesus hears this and he interjects: "Don't be afraid, only believe." What can faith do in a moment like this, when confronted with the absolute certainty that all of us have in our lives—that we're going to die?

You can see that in verse 37, it gets worse actually.

He did not let anyone accompany him except Peter, James, and John, James’s brother. They came to the leader’s house, and he saw a commotion—people weeping and wailing loudly. He went in and said to them, “Why are you making a commotion and weeping? The child is not dead but asleep.” They laughed at him, but he put them all outside. He took the child’s father, mother, and those who were with him, and entered the place where the child was.

— Mark 5:37-40 (CSB)

Coming into the house, Jesus sees people who are weeping and wailing because this is over—the daughter has died. There's time for the community to know, and now they're all in the house and mourning the loss of this precious daughter. And Jesus tells them that the child is asleep, and their wailing quickly turns into laughter because the idea of a child coming to life again is utterly absurd. Who does Jesus think he is?

Now, sometimes in our sorrow, we receive feedback or encouragement from other people that we never asked for, and oftentimes it can make things worse. People will offer platitudes like, "You'll see them again in heaven," or they'll try to comfort you like, "Another angel has gotten its wings," and rather than actually providing encouragement, it almost diminishes the sorrow that we have. It delegitimizes the way that we're actually feeling. For that, I want to say I'm sorry that that happens. It is fine to be sad and to mourn genuine loss.

In the Psalms, you see tons of examples of lament where Christians pour out their raw emotions to God and are honest with him about the pain and suffering that comes with living in a cursed world. That is okay to do. On the other hand, sometimes in our sorrow, we can end up clouding out our Savior. We convince ourselves that our own situation is so hopeless, so dire, so difficult, that no one else could possibly understand the way that I'm feeling, that no one can comfort me, that no one is allowed to give me help. And as a result, when we need encouragement, exhortation, and reminders of truth to keep us anchored, we actually end up rejecting the grace that God is trying to give us out of our own cynical despair.

Be careful not to let your misery lead to mockery, where your own legitimate pain leads to a sorrowful arrogance that refuses grace from other people, that refuses to let even Jesus come into your world and sit and weep with you. These people are so caught up in their own misery that they mock the one person who could actually save this girl. So they looked down on Jesus, and Jesus has no time for it. So he pushes them all out of the house, and he enters the room where this daughter is. You can see what he does there in verse 41:

Then he took the child by the hand and said to her, “Talitha koum” (which is translated, “Little girl, I say to you, get up”). Immediately the girl got up and began to walk. (She was twelve years old.) At this they were utterly astounded. Then he gave them strict orders that no one should know about this and told them to give her something to eat.

— Mark 5:41-43 (CSB)

Similar to when Jesus healed Simon's mom, he takes the child by the hand, except this time Jesus speaks. He uses his words. He tells her, "Talitha koum," which is Aramaic. I think the reason why that phrase is there is likely because it was such a dramatic moment in people's minds that they just remembered it like Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Terminator, right? Or other catchphrases that may stick with us. This is something that people remembered—that when he told the daughter to get up, what happened was so marvelous, so impactful in their lives, that they never forgot it. And when Jesus speaks, he tells the girl to get up, and this girl, even though she is dead, has to obey her Creator and gets up from the dead. She obeys the voice of the Lord, and everyone is astounded. Despite the doubt of the crowd, despite doubt from even the child's own household, Jairus kept his faith in the Lord, and Jesus showed his competence by defeating death itself.

At the end of the story, we see that this little girl, this daughter, gets up and eats food—an important detail. She eats; she gets something to eat. And that's not just some kind of accidental detail, it is actually something quite interesting for two reasons. One, she's eating because she's actually alive, right? She's not just some kind of ghost or apparition; she needs food in order to survive. And that's really the key point here in the story. She gets up and she eats not just because she's hungry, but because she needs to, because she's resurrected but she's still with the same curse that came with the Fall. This little daughter was alive, but she still needed to survive. If she doesn't eat, what's going to happen to her? She's going to die again.

In other words, this daughter's resurrection isn't complete. She still needs something else. She needs a full redemption. And we know that that redemption comes when Jesus pays the full penalty for us on the cross. Jesus's mission to give peace on earth doesn't stop with miracles with living individuals; it doesn't stop with him showing compassion to the sick or the needy; it doesn't stop with him casting out demons in his name. He came with an ultimate mission to defeat death itself, to swallow up death in victory.

Whatever needs we may have in this life, whatever sicknesses we may have to endure, whatever tragedies we face, none of them will last beyond the grave. All of our desires are going to expire; all of our tragedies end conclusively. But Jesus provides more than just a second chance, more than just healing disease temporarily, more than just helping a child come to life again. Jesus provides the ultimate solution to sin and death through his work on the cross.

Jesus provides more than just compassion. His competence goes beyond your problems in your life right now. He is so competent, he is so compassionate, and he's willing to give broken sinners destined to die like you and I comprehensive, everlasting life—true life, everlasting peace, true and everlasting joy. There is no reason to doubt Jesus. Paul says himself that if God did not spare his own son, how will God not with him grant us all things? If you can trust Jesus to save you from death, you can trust him with everything else. And despite the years of struggle, even when it seems all hope is lost, you can trust him even when you face death itself. You can look ahead with true faith, true peace. You can remember the words of your Savior to not be afraid, only believe, and wait for your Savior to tell you to rise, get up.

Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for this good news that you sent your Son to provide for us the ultimate solution to our suffering and sin. Pray, Lord, that you would help us to treasure that, to remember this good news, and to be able to share it with others. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Amen.

Church Announcements and Business

Thank you guys for coming this morning. We have a couple of announcements for you. Firstly, for giving, if you'd like to give, you could give online and in the offering plate in the back. Sometimes I'll read a different Bible passage. I just want to mention our church is not behind on our finances; we're not struggling. Me talking about financial passages in the Bible is not me scolding the church; we're doing fine, right? But Jesus talks the most about money than any other topic in the human life. I think it's because Jesus is right when he says that money is the root of all evil. So it's good for us to continue to think about different ways that we use our finances to honor the Lord. So if you'd like to do that, you're more than welcome to do that in the offering plate in the back or online.

And if you're visiting us this morning, we're so glad that you're here. Don't feel any obligation to give; this is something that God commands Christians to do out of obedience to the Lord and out of membership in this church. Let me go ahead and pray and give thanks to the Lord for our offering.

Lord, we thank you for giving us resources that we could use to provide for our own needs as well as to bless others. We pray, Lord, that you'll be able to use everything that you've given us effectively for the advancement of your Kingdom, for your work, and we thank you for the privilege of being able to participate in that. Pray this in Jesus' name, amen.

One more thing with that: some of you are faithful in giving, but you don't tell us who you are because you're giving in cash and you're not putting it in envelopes. If you're willing to put that cash in an envelope and write your name and your information on it, that would be really helpful for us—not so that we could sell your information or send you spam, but so that we could actually have accurate records of who's giving what. If you could do that, that'd be helpful.

And for the members of our church, if you could grab a budget in the back, we are planning our budget for the next year, for 2024. And so that's sensitive information, so I'm trusting by the honor system. If you're a member, it'll be back in the foyer on one of those desks. We'll be voting on that in two Sundays, so not Christmas Sunday, but December 31st. So if you go ahead and look at that, there's a little explainer, and feel free to talk to us if you have any questions about that.

We also have Sunday schools. Our Sunday school on Mark is on pause until next year, but that'll be in the library; you're more than welcome to go through that with Irwin. And we also have our Church Matters class if you're interested in learning more about the church or if you're interested in joining the church; we have that every Sunday morning at 9:00 a.m.

Wednesday night Bible studies are going to start up again in January, and we're going to start Sunday evening prayer services on January 14th, January 14th. So be sure to mark your calendars for that. We'd love to be a church that prays more, so we get to do that. And our church got to have Sunday evening prayer services every Sunday from 1948 until the 2000s, and so we get to pick that up again and go to the Lord in prayer.

One last thing: Joe and Caroline are going to leave this room, and the reason is because they have completed all six of our Church Matters classes and they are interested in joining our church. So I'm going to ask them to leave and go somewhere where they can't hear me. I'm trusting they're going to turn off the speakers and stuff. Give them a second to do that while I pull up my notes.

Joe and Caroline Lee have been faithful members of Bethany Baptist Church. They were married in March 2020—so good timing, just before COVID! Joe works as a software engineer while Caroline works as a stay-at-home mom. They love the Lord, they agree with our Statement of Faith, they agree with our Church Covenant, and they are eager to join us and participate in membership at this church. So, any questions about Joe and Caroline?

Okay. Well, at this time, I'd like to ask the members of this church to stand. So if you're a member of our church and you're able to, please stand, and I'll do two separate motions for each of them—not because I'm expecting anything different, but it's just the way I'm used to doing it. All those in favor of taking Joe Lee into the membership of this church say yes. [Yes.] Any opposed say no. So ordered. All those in favor of voting in Caroline Lee to be a member of this church say yes. [Yes.] Any opposed say no. So ordered.

Okay, you guys may be seated. Joe and Caroline, you can come back inside. I don't know if they can hear me or not. They will be at the door in the back, so feel free to extend the right hand of fellowship to them in the back on your way out.

And now for our benediction in 2 Corinthians 13:14: "May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen." Let's stand and sing together.