Whatchamacallit // Under New Management // Read
For many, Christianity is an exercise in behavior modification. God gives us a list of “To Dos” and “To Don’ts”, and it’s our job to do and don’t them as best we can—right? Wrong! Actually, being a follower of Jesus isn’t about a change in behavior…it’s about a change in identity! Christians are people under new management. We’re not who we used to be. So why do so many of us struggle with our new identity? Why is it hard to believe God when He says we’re loved, chosen, and blameless? It’s time to address the gap between who we think we are and who God says we are, and see what it really means to be under new management.
Often we let a “what” define us instead of a “Who.” Rather than listening to who God says we are, we follow the “whats” for our identity: what we experience, what they said, what we think. But the fact is that who I am is more important than what I experience. And when I have my identity set by God, I don’t shift and shake with the changing circumstances in my life.
Thank you, man. It's good to see everybody today. It's great to have everybody here. You guys are happy to be in the house of God this morning. Feels good, doesn't it? Can I? Can I tell you, I needed this today like I needed to be here bad? It's been a hard week. It's been a hard week. And not just in one way, like there have been multiple things that have happened this week. personal issues, sickness, frustrations with the hangs, there's just been a lot of that going on. And there's just something. When you get together with the body of believers, when you get together with other people who are following Jesus, it just gives you as Pastor Brenda said, a spring in your step it does something. So I needed this today. I hope if you're like me that you're in the church today, too, because man, there's just something about being around each other encouraging one another. So thank you for being my church family for being here today. For me, because man, it is good to see all of you. Welcome to Cornerstone Welcome to everybody watching online, on Facebook, and YouTube. I want to say if you're new today if you're new, and that can mean one or two things that can mean today is your first Sunday ever with us. Or that can mean you've been here for like a year, but you've just never connected. Service is over, you're out. Whatever that means. We want to connect with you. We want this Sunday to be the Sunday that we finally connect with you. So make sure that you do that after service, you can come to find me in the south by the Welcome Center, we just want to connect with you and get you hooked up to what's going on here. Cornerstone so whenever you're having bad weeks, whenever you're having rough, rough times in life, you have other people to connect with to we want that for you. The same thing goes if you're watching online, we have an E family who's watching with us, we have hosts who are watching, you can connect with them in the comment section. We don't want you to feel left out as well. You can call Cornerstone your home online as well. Thank God for technology, right? So good to have everybody watching with us today to now today.
We are in part three, part three of this series under new management. Now what we're looking at in this series is our identity in Christ, what it means for us to be a Christian, if you are someone who says Yes, I'm a Christian. Yes, I follow Jesus. He's my Lord. And he's my Savior. What does that exactly mean? What does that exactly entail? If you miss week one or two, you can always catch up online on our podcast, but I'll give you the cliff notes version real quick of where we've been.
Alright, so where are we been? week one, we talked about the fact that if we're going to look at our identity, the first thing we have to do is look at God's identity. Right? Like if we want to know who we're supposed to be, we need to know who God is. Because teams, people have a way of adopting the identity of their leaders and their bosses. Isn't that right?
If you're a Browns fan, we talked about it. You saw this play out a few seasons ago, whenever the Browns hired Freddie Kitchens as their head coach, and you saw the Browns adopt his way of thinking and his way of doing things. Man, they were undisciplined, they are all over the place. No one knew what was going on. It was just, it was a mess, right? The Browns had a terrible season. The next year, the hair Kevin Stefanski, this dude who is just disciplined, he knows what he's doing. And suddenly, the team is disciplined. Suddenly, the team is on message and everyone's falling in line. It's because the team adopted the identity of the leader. In the same way we as Christians, man, if we want to know who we're going to be and who we're supposed to be, we have got to look at who God is, and what his identity is because that means everything for us.
So that was part one, part two, the next week, what we talked about last week is the idea that as we look at who God is, and what that means for us, it can be very tempting for us to look at how we're supposed to be in our lives and say, yeah, that ain't gonna happen. I can't live up to that, who God calls me to be in here and who he says I am. God says I'm the light of the world. God says I'm his masterpiece. I'm his handiwork. God says that I am a saint. God says that I'm righteous and holy, like, Yeah, not so much. Right? Like not so much. I don't feel like those things that often. I don't feel like I'm all these things that God has said I am and all these things that he's called me to be.
But what we talked about last week is the idea that whenever we start following Jesus, we don't have to hold on and wait for one day for him to equip us to be who we're supposed to be that the second we start following Jesus, we have everything we need to be everything he wants us to be, right. We have everything we already need. So we don't need to say, Well, if I could just get a better church, then I would be where I need to be if I could just get a better pastor. If I could just get a better Bible study. If I could just get a better group of friends, if I could just get a better way of doing habits if I could just do those things, then I would be who God created me to be. And what we learned from Scripture is to know that the second that we start following Jesus, God does not under equip us. He's a good father, right? God's a good father. That means he doesn't under equip us he doesn't, how messed up would it be for me to ask my children to do something that I haven't given them the capability to do? That's cruelty, right? Asking someone to do something they can't do. And some of us have felt that way about God, we don't think he's a good father, we think he's cruel, because we're like, You're telling me to be a saint. But I've got a lot of sin. You're telling me to be patient, I want things to happen now. So we think that there's this big gap, there's this big divide. But the fact of the matter is that God bridges that divide for us, he bridges it with connection to the power of the Holy Spirit. And as we follow Him, we can see that we can start becoming who He created us to be that we have everything we need to be all He created us to be.
Now we continue today, we're going to be in Mark chapter five. So if you want to follow along, you have a physical Bible, you can turn to Mark chapter five. If not, you can follow along on your phone, do a Google search for any way like that. Have you have a Bible app, you can follow along on there, but we're going to be Mark chapter five, starting in verse 25. What we're going to be looking at is a specific instance, from Jesus's ministry, one of the most famous instances Actually, it's recorded in three Gospels. it's that important of a moment in Jesus's ministry that three of the gospel writers thought, Hey, we need to record this. So we're in Mark chapter five today, we don't always do this. But occasionally, I think it's good for us to have a moment like this. So if you would, if you're in the house with us, would you stand in the honor of the reading of God's word today, as we read from Mark, chapter five, Jesus is on his way to see a sick girl when a woman encounters him. And this is where we pick up in verse 25. A woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for 12 years, she has a hemorrhage, and it has been bleeding. Think about this, for 12 years of her life. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better, she grew worse. So this poor woman is dealing with this for over a decade of her life, she throws every penny that she has at it. And instead of getting better, her condition turns for the worse. Verse 27, when she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, if I just touch his clothes, I will be healed. Immediately, her bleeding stopped. And she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering. At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. So he turned around in the crowd and asked, Who touched my clothes? Do you see people crowding against you, his disciples answered, and yet you ask who touched you. But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. Then the woman knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet, trembling with fear, and told him the whole truth. Jesus said to her Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace, and be free from your suffering. You see, what we're going to be looking at today. And what we see in this woman's story, as she approaches Jesus, for healing in her life, is that so many of us, I want you to know, I'm preaching to myself today, as well. So many of us can be so consumed by the what in our life, that we forget who we are, and who God is, we can get so consumed with what we're dealing with what we're going through with what we're experiencing, we lose sight of who we were meant to be, and who God created us to be. And I think God has a word for us today about that.
So if you would, let's pray together real quick. Heavenly Father, I believe that you have a word for us today. And quite frankly, I don't want to screw it up. I don't want to get in the way. So, God, I ask that you would help me today to communicate clearly what you have put on my heart, that we would be able to hear your word today in a new and in a fresh way that we would take what we hear, apply it in our lives and see the change, see the transformation, see ourselves become more like your son, Jesus in the way that we act in a way that we speak. We love you, Father, we believe that and we ask all this in your name, amen. Amen.
You can grab a seat. So today's sermon title, you got a candy bar on your way, and can we all say it together? Whatchamacallit. Whatchamacallit, kind of disappointed I didn't have any hoozywhatsits. Just had to settle for the… I'm a dad. I'm sorry. Whatchamacallits, anyone had these before? I'm Shocked how many people came in are like I've never tried these before, right? They've been around forever. See and that's what you miss if you're, if you're watching online, you're not in the area, you could have got a free candy bar this morning. You need to come to check us out in person. But today we're focusing on this idea of what versus who, right? Whatchamacallit. What versus who. I want to start just giving a few examples of what I'm talking about whenever we say what versus who.
So my wife, Jessica, and she's running tech today. So she's already heard this once she so now she knows what I'm going to be talking about today. But my wife, Jessica, she's terrible with names, like just terrible with names. Not good for a pastor's wife to be like, Oh, hey, it's you. Hey, how are you doing? You know what I was eating badly with it. She's bad with it. So she does things to try to help her remember who people are. And so one thing that she does is she'll put people's names in her phone, if she doesn't know who they are as like an identifier like, Oh, that's who it is because she's just terrible names. So there's a girl who goes to our church. Tina Heiberg used to be Tina Kaufmann. Tina Heiberg, and she's got really beautiful It's like super curly hair. Like I'm not talking about curls, like curly hair, just like super curly hair. And so Jessica, knowing this is a good identifier for her. Put Tina and her phone as first name Tina, last name hair. And that is still to this day how Tina is listed and Jessica's phone. Tina hair. It's crazy, right? But it's funny because the what is how Jessica identifies the who. Tina hair curly hair. Oh, yeah, that's Tina Heiberg.
This happens a lot. In my own experience, there was a family that attended here for a long time they were volunteers. Whenever we were at our old building on Killian road, I was leaving a meeting getting ready to go to another one. And I had picked up my computer and book and I had my power cord from my computer and I didn't have a hand so I just like kind of looped it around my neck real quick and was walking out and as I was the one the kid in the family the brother probably like 12 or something he came walking by me He opened the door just as coming in and he sees me and he sees the cable he goes hey cable guy like that? Yeah, cable guy. Funny right? So we walked by guys I kid you not every time I saw this guy for like the next five years. I was a cable guy. Every Sunday morning walk to church. Hey cable guys here. I'm like, Oh, yes, you have cable guys. So I am still a cable guy to you. Right? That's still how you know me. You know me from this obscure what that happened five years ago, we experienced this actually, as a church here. Cornerstone. Before I stepped into leadership last year, we're coming up on a full year. Can you believe this place hasn't burned to the ground yet? Isn't that incredible? We're still here, by the grace of God alone, I guess. Right? But just about a year ago, I took over and leadership so this especially happened before that. But if in the community if you ever talk to anybody about your church, and you're like, yeah, I go to Cornerstone, you probably would have gotten this response, Cornerstone. the way is that the church with a woman pastor, right? Because that's a pretty quick identifier for who we are people know pastor Brenda. Now some people would say it like this. Is that the church with that woman pastor because they have a good experience? Of course, I love it. And you know, that's gonna be a great conversation then some of the other people that's not the church or that woman pastor is it you're like, oh, boy, here we go. I'm gonna have to fight somebody, I've got to throw down in this parking lot. Right. But that was like our identifier for like, for some people in their mind, that's how they identify with cornerstone was, Oh, this What? A woman pastor, you're that church.
That's the common theme between all of those things. Tina hair, her hair. Me the Cable Guy, Pastor Brenda, the church with the woman pastor, all of these identities completely shaped not by who, but by a what? All these identities are shaped by what is very often in our lives. A what will define who we are, what we've been through, what we've struggled with, what we've experienced, what's happened in our past what's happening in our present what people have said about us, what we've said to other people, what very often defines who we are.
As I said, I started the summer off by letting you guys know, it's been kind of a rough week for me. It's been a rough week. And what's crazy is how this week in a lot of ways, has had a very big say on the kind of Jacob, I've been this week, though what that I've been experiencing this week has affected who I am. To a degree, they've dictated who I am. Because of the frustrations, I've experienced because of the sadness I've experienced because of the just like, the things not going my way that I wanted to go my way that haven't they, they've changed who I am to a degree, these whats have defined who I am.
That's exactly what happened with the woman that we read about in Scripture today from Mark chapter five. Listen to this, again, Matt, Mark, chapter five, verse 25, and a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for 12 years, she had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had yet instead of getting better, she got worse.
I want to ask you this isn't a trick question. What's the woman's name? For you know, put it in the comments online. What's the woman's name? doesn't have one. She doesn't have one. We start reading about her. And Mark, verse of chapter five, verse 25, we hear about her down to verse 34. And get this we don't just hear about her. And Mark, we hear about her and Matthew and we hear about her and Luke, that important of a story we hear about in three out of the four gospels, and yet no name, only her issue. We don't know who she is, but we know what she's going through. We know what she's dealing with. But we have no idea who she is her what has come to completely and utterly define her identity. Whenever you look this story up, whenever you type in Mark chapter five, you'll see people refer to her as the woman with the issue of blood, the woman with the hemorrhage. That's how she's described, that's how she's defined. That's how she is identified. That's who she is. Her ‘what’ has come to completely and utterly identified by her issue by her what that defined her for 10 plus years, her what that ate up her life savings her what the as we learn about the law, and we learned about what this woman must have been going through, think about this, what this woman must have been going through if she was bleeding if she had a hemorrhage and she was bleeding, what that meant in her day. What that meant for her life is that she would be called ceremonially unclean. Someone who has a bleeding issue like that has a hemorrhage. They're unclean. What that means is they are ostracized. They're held out from the community, what we're doing today, she wouldn't have been allowed to do, she wouldn't have been allowed to go to the synagogue or to the temple to worship, that would have not been allowed, she wouldn't have been permitted to come in because she was unclean. Not only that, think about this, her husband would have been in the right to divorce her over this, to just completely walk away from the marriage, leave her to care for herself leave her on her own, because of this issue that she was dealing with. So this woman 10 plus years of her life dominated by this what. Her life savings, her money, all gone trying to fix this, what she's ostracized from society, most likely divorce because we don't read about her husband anywhere. That's what could have happened in this situation and determined to be ceremonially unclean her what completely and utterly ran her life.
And what I want to ask you today, what I want to ask you, can you relate to that? Because some of us have an issue, but we're not the woman with the issue of blood. We're the man with the issue of addiction. And we can't put the bottle down, right? We don't have an addiction. We just like the way it tastes. I'm a social drinker. I'm you know, occasionally, but it's an addiction. Right? We're the woman with the issue of gossiping, where the man with the issue of judgmentalism of legalism. We've got this one in our life, that we are lying to ourselves, but it is defining who we are. It's defining who we are, and it's affecting our relationships and it's affecting the way that we are with our family and we are with our friends. We have to be careful, these words can sneak up on us and they can start to define who we are. And when that happens when we live as a what it will keep us from who we were meant to be. When we live as of this woman when we live like her when we live completely and utterly defined. Our identity is found in what we're going through and what we're experiencing and what we've been through how many people People know people like that or you're that person who you know everything about that person's past because their past so utterly defines who they are, what they've been through what other people have said about them.
We've been there, man, we know people like this, we are like this. We're what we've gone through defines who we are. That keeps us from who we were meant to be. Sadly, we see this happen. We see it in churches, I mean, Cornerstone, we've done this before. And it's something that we're better with now. But a lot of times, even in churches will get so consumed with the what that we neglect the who's right, we'll get so consumed with programs we forget, people will get so consumed with the what's in life that we forget the who's and so what we'll do, we'll have people who will come to Cornerstone who are dealing with some crazy what's in their life. And we just tried to fix those without ever addressing who that person is supposed to be in Christ, who that person is supposed to be in Jesus. So people will come in, they'll come and be like, young gone through a divorce. Do you guys get anything for me? And we'll just instantly just plug them into a divorce group, but never address? Well, hey, yeah, I know you're going through a divorce. But do you know who you are in Jesus? Do you have that foundation? Do you know what you were created for? Because if we try to put activity in front of identity, it won't solve anything. It won't solve anything. We got to figure out who we are in Christ, get that baseline settled before we do anything. Before we take any more steps, we have got to put the who before the what. Because when we put the what before the who what that is, that is a waste of time. That's a waste of money. That's a waste of resources. And we end up like this woman decades down the road, still in the same crap we were on day one. Still with that same addiction, with that same jacked-up mindset. And nothing has changed. Because we put what, over who.
And a lot of us, man, if I'm being honest, that's how we see Christianity, we see Christianity as behavior modification. Let me just try to modify my behavior to kind of be a little bit better of a person. So my wife won't ask for a divorce. So my kids will hate me and have someone to take care of me when I'm older. I just modify my behavior a little bit. And we have jacked up if we think that's what Christianity is, it is not behavior modification. It's life transformation. It's, it's death in life, it's becoming a brand new person. In Jesus, right? It's becoming, it's becoming something completely different. It's about a who, not a what, it's about who so we need to get things in the proper order, we need to start looking at who we were supposed to be. We're not intended to be a whatchamacallit. We're not intended to be a what. And if you don't let God define you, if you don't look for your identity in him, then you're what will define you. That's just the way it is. If you don't let God define you, your words will define you.
I told you guys this before I've shared about my wife when we moved to Cleveland to start a church a few years ago back in 2016. How just like crazy, that whole process was, and God used it. He used it as a blessing. But my goodness, it was like, the hardest times of my life. Were during that period. That was tough stuff that we were going through. And we had some crazy what's going on in our life, during this time, financial what's going on where I'm working at all state, and I'm trying to bring in money there while we're trying to make this church happened. And we're just not making enough and it's stressful. And it's hard. And it's difficult. And we're away from our family. We're not seeing them as much as we wanted to. And things with the church are hard because people are coming and I'm only able to meet with people during certain times because I work at all states and my hours were weird. And so we're up there, things are going crazy. Things are going haywire. And it's difficult and I'm on the phone and I'm you know, I'm trying to believe the best. I'm watching my car get repoed for the second time. And as it's going out, I'm on the phone like Yeah, yep, no, God's good. God's good. He is good. Hey, do you guys just wondering do you happen to have a used car for sale? A bus pass? I could borrow it for a little bit. Right? Because we're trying to make the church stay afloat. So we're paying that not paying other bills. It was crazy. Let me tell you that during our life what we went through became who I was that stress that we were going through. I internalize that crap for six periods for six months. I had a time where I had like an ongoing consistent twitch in my I just an ongoing twitch my right I wouldn't stop. Just stressed out. I internalize that stress in such a crazy crazy way. It wasn't what I was going through anymore. It was who I was. You could read it on me I was not as happy as I used to be. I was stressed out, I was depressed. I was like, how are we going to make this happen? I felt like a failure. I felt like man, I moved my family up here. And it's not working out the way that we thought it would. It was a crazy time.
And let me tell you, in those moments, there were so many times where I did not let God define who I was. Instead, I let those what's defined who I was. And so whenever that car was peeling out, I'm gonna Wow, what just happened? Not Who am I not? Who is God? And no, no, what just happened? I'm a failure. I'm a failure. How am I letting this happen? I'm a provider, the provider of our family, and this is happening, what is going on, if you do not let God define who you are, then what's in your life will. They will define who you are, they'll tell you who you are, and it will lead to a place of self-loathing, it will lead to a place of depression, it will lead to a place of like we talked about last week where you feel like why even bother? Why even bother, cuz I'm never gonna be able to get to where I'm supposed to be.
That's where this woman was. 12 years of dealing with this issue. 12 years, we were in Cleveland for three, it felt like an eternity. This woman was dealing with this for 12 years, through every penny she had at it probably got divorced in the middle of this probably lost all her friends in the middle as she was going through it. If there was anyone who had an excuse to just say, Yep, my what is going to define me the rest of my life and just keel over. It was her. But she didn't do it. Because Jesus came up, Jesus entered the picture. And when he entered the picture, everything changed. Everything changed.
Listen again, to what it says verse 27, when she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, if I just touch his clothes, I will be healed. If I can just touch his clothes, I will be healed. If I can just get close enough to Jesus, I know I've been going through a lot of what in my life. But man, if I can just get close to who he is, maybe who I am, can change. If I can just get close enough, she understood there is power, in proximity. If I can just get in the close proximity of Jesus things in my life can completely and totally change. Even this issue that has dominated my life for 10 plus years, even can change. If I can just get close enough. I love the way that this woman says it you can just feel you can feel the desperation, can to listen, listen to that, again. If I can just touch his clothes, I will be healed. If can just do this thing if I can just do this one thing I will be healed. And what I want to say to you today is we need to have that same mindset saying you know what, man, if, if I just God will, like, like, if I just do this one thing, because we can so often feel like we have to do these gigantic. How many people have ever like been saved 1000 times.
Every time you sin, like Jesus, I'm sorry, coming to my heart again, forgive me, you send the next thing like Jesus, I'm sorry, again, forgive me coming to my heart again. Like, we feel like we have to do it over and over again. And if you grew up a Christian, if you grew up in church, chances are at one point in your life, you thought you were supposed to be a missionary, right? Because like, I messed up so bad, God's gonna he's gonna send me to Africa. And that's what he's gonna do. He's gonna send me to China, he's gonna send me to Indonesia, he's gonna send me somewhere because I've been so bad, I have to make up for it. Right? So I have to go live somewhere where my family's on, it's gonna be so hard, it's gonna be difficult. But so often the big changes in our life, the moving from what to who is in this gigantic, huge thing, it's, if I just do this one thing. If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed. If I just do this, God will come through for me. And that's where a lot of us we just need to make that if I just stated. In our own lives, in our own situation, when you say God, I know I've been letting this define who I am. I know I've been letting this what that I'm going through, tell me who I am. But if I just take this one step towards you just this one step of putting my faith in you putting my trust in you seeing if what you say is actually legit, if I just will you. Like if I just Will you meet me? Will you come through? Why be able to see that you're actually good on your word.
And when you do that, you see time and time and time and time again, that God is good on his word that God does see it through that God does fulfill his promise to you. If we just he will. If you just take that first step, that first act of faith that first trust in God you will be blown the heck away by what God will do with and if I just, you'll be blown away. You'll see relationships, not just change, you'll see them transform. You'll see them completely become something different. If you just start with you know what, God, I know things have been so broken here. But if I just make this first step where you come through, will you move in their heart? Will you move in my heart Will you bring healing and reconciliation here if I just your approach to work your approach to your family or approach to school, to college, to kids, to your parents, all of that can change. If you just take that one small step and trust God, He will take what's in your life will take them away from you. And here's the thing God wants you're what the one that you're dealing with. The one that you've been identifying with, he wants it. He wants it and not only has gotten one he's not intimidated by it. You are, I am I got some whats in my life that are intimidating to me. Some things that I struggle with are some fears that I have some little bits of depression or worry that I have these watts that I struggle with that are intimidating to me because I think man, how is that ever going to change? How am I ever going to be able to do this? How is that ever going to be able to happen? These seemed huge to me, but they don't intimidate God. They don't scare God. He can handle them.
Listen to what it says in Mark 5:29. As this story continues, so the woman goes up to Jesus and touches him. Verse 29. Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was free from her suffering. Now, I told you earlier this woman was ceremonially unclean because of her hemorrhage because of her bleeding issue. So according to the law, according to what that means, when this woman touched anyone, they would become ceremonially unclean is like early Coronavirus, right like six feet of distance, don't touch me because you get infect me. That's what was going on here. If this woman would touch anybody else, they would be labeled as ceremonially unclean. And then what happened to her What happened to them? Now you're ostracized. Now you need to leave now. You can't be with the crowd. Now you need to go off somewhere else. But look at what happens. This thing that just destroyed her had owned her for 12 years of her life. She touches Jesus and instead of her making Jesus unclean, he heals her. He heals her, this thing that has completely and utterly dominated her life for a decade-plus, this thing that she couldn't fix on her own, she goes to Jesus, it doesn't screw him up. But she becomes whole. She becomes healed. She finds healing at this moment.
And that's what I want to tell you is that that thing that you're dealing with that it's so embarrassing that you like this woman, you want to sneak up and just touch Jesus's cloth, you just want to touch his clothes, because you're like, I'm not, I'm not worthy to actually have a conversation with you. Because of the stuff I've thought, I'm not worthy to have a conversation with you because of the way I've treated my parents the way I've I've treated my friends the way that I've done things, and so on. It's embarrassing. I'm just going to I just want to touch your clothes. I want to steal a blessing real quick. I guess I'm gonna steal a blessing and get out of here that stuff in your life that is embarrassing that you feel like you can't handle that, you know, you can't handle that it's going to repulse God. It doesn't repulse him, doesn't take him off guard doesn't make him look at you and go, Wow, really, you struggle with that. He's not scared of it. He's not intimidated by it, and he can handle it. He can handle it. He handled it for her. He'll handle it for you. He'll handle it. For me.
God wants the what in your life. And what's so cool is as God handles it, God isn't just a God that we just throw our stuff to. And he just takes care of it. He's not like a glorified Butler. We're like here, God can just take this and handle it for me. He doesn't just handle stuff for us. Yes, he handles our sin but then he does something more he empowers us to live a different way going forward. Isn't that amazing? He empowers as we discussed this, in part last week that God empowers us that Jesus whenever we start following him, that we don't become robots. Like we don't become mindless automatons that you know, I gave my life to Jesus and now I don't like any music but worship. Hallelujah. That's all I get down with is worship music. I'm in Scripture all day and I just love it. I love it. Like, that's not what happens.
Jesus doesn't erase who you are and erase your personality. What he does is he empowers you. He is empowering you to live differently. He empowers you to start following him, following the Holy Spirit, and doing what you are supposed to do. Jesus handles it and he empowers us.
Mark 5:30 says, that when the woman touched him, and when she touched them at once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked who touched my clothes? He felt power leave him. Do you know that out of four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, there is one miracle that's ever recorded, where Jesus actually feels the power leave his body, and goes to someone else. And this is it. This is the only time that ever happens, where Jesus actually feels, hey, there's something happened here, power, left my body and went to someone else.
Jesus was empowering this woman at that moment, empowering her, and he does the same thing for us. He doesn't just save you from your sin. He doesn't just heal you from the watts in your life. He says I'll do you one better. Now, I'm also going to empower you to avoid that, what From now on, to avoid those relationships to avoid that situation to avoid that addiction to break the chains on that, like, I'm going to actually empower you to live a different way. Jesus doesn't just erase, he empowers who we are supposed to be. He powers who we are supposed to be.
Which that's just kind of a little side note. If, if you're someone who's ever wondered, what's my calling, like that, that's something that even people who aren't Christians ask, what's my calling? Or if you do a Google search, you know, how does an autofill if you start typing into Google search for what is God's? And like, let it finish. It was a finished will? What is God's will? Because everybody wants to know that even people who don't believe in Jesus, people who aren't Christians want to know, what's God's will for my life. What was I created? to do? What what what what what what was that created? Do? What am I supposed to do? What am I made to do? And whenever we ask that we are so asking the wrong question. What is God's will in my life, what is my calling? It was never about what it's always been about who? Who are you want to know what God's calling for your life, you can let everyone know, you can post on Facebook today found my calling in life today. I found out what God's purpose for my life is. And when people say what is it you'll say, I know it's not what it's who. It's who I'm supposed to be. That is God's will for everybody that he has in mind, who you are supposed to be that you're supposed to be patient, kind, good, gentle with people merciful, that you have a balance of a perfect balance full of grace and full of truth. When you talk to people that you're supposed to be loving. That's who you're supposed to be in your Who is your calling. We're not supposed to be a what? That's the wrong question. God is calling you to be someone before he calls you to do something. He wants you to be someone before you do something, and we get that so jacked up and backward, we look for something to do, we're just looking for something to do, and God saying, I don't want you to do a what? I want you to become a who, frankly, until you become a who, until you become who and you know who you are in God, I don't want you doing jack squat. Like I don't want you doing things because you're not doing it out of the basis of who God created you to be. So whenever you do something, you're not doing it out of the love of Christ, you're doing it for a different reason. Until you know who you are. Until you have your identity, there sitting be activity. Always lead with who you are. In Christ. God calls you to be someone before you do something.
So in this situation, we see this woman she goes up to Jesus, she touches him, she receives healing, Jesus starts asking, Who Who touched me. And it's funny, because at this moment that this woman, she gets this healing, she gets this healing from Jesus. And what's so cool about it is the disciples, we read what they were saying, right? Like, Jesus says, Hey, Someone touched me. And the disciples are saying, like, what do you what are you talking about? People are crowding against you. Verse 31, says, and you ask who touched me, but Jesus kept looking around for who had done it. So the disciples are saying, Jesus, what do you look like? There's a crowd dude, there are people around like of course, you got a touch, of course, you got brushed up against the disciples completely missed what had happened here because Jesus knew there is a difference between casual contact and intimate intention. And this woman had intimate intention. She was trying to get close to Jesus, she with intention was pursuing him, wasn't just casually bumping into him.
And can I, this is this becomes a little catchphrase of mine. But can I be honest with you guys? A lot of us in our lives, don't throw anything at me. A part of us in our lives. We are being defined by the whats in our life because we are going and having casual contact with Jesus and expecting change to come out of it. That ain't how we work. It's never been how it works. we bump into Jesus by coming to church once every, you know, Christmas and Easter, once every couple months we bump into Jesus by the most scripture we ever read is whenever our one friend who posts one Bible verse, every other day, we read it on Facebook. And that's it. We bump into Jesus whenever we pray, but the only reason we pray is that someone in our life got really, really sick, and we're scared. We're like, Oh, God, and we bump into them. And then we, whenever people talk about God, and you're like, man, I just, you know, I've never really it's been hard for me, God doesn't really come through it feels like I've some of the what's that I'm struggling with, I'm still struggling with and God hasn't done this for me. And this is because you're casually coming into contact with Jesus. And you're wondering why there's no change.
This woman experienced change, this woman experienced healing, because she didn't just casually contact Jesus. She wanted to intimately get to know, she wanted to actually say, you know what, I'm coming to know who you are. I want what you have to offer Jesus, I want actual healing in my life. I'm not just kind of bumping into you, I want to know who you are and what you have to offer. And at that moment, she received healing. She received healing and the same is true for us. We can expect healing, whenever we are pursuing Jesus whenever we're reaching out and actually pursuing him in his will in our lives and we can have us what healed we can have our what forgiven when we all need it. We need what's forgiven we need or what's taken away so we can see who we were supposed to be. Because our what always leads to shame. They always lead to shame. Even this woman had been living in the shadow of her what for so long. Look at this. Even after Jesus healed her she's hiding. She's hiding. Jesus is looking around the Who? Someone touched me, like who, who was that this woman received healing and she's not saying it was me. You rescued me. She's not saying that she has been living in the shadow of her what for so long?
She is hiding until we see in verse 33. Then the woman knowing what had happened, came and fell at his feet trembling with fear and told him the whole truth. Do you notice what words we saw play out right there? Jesus is looking around saying who touched me? Who was it? But the woman was afraid because of what had happened. What she did, probably gave her PTSD of like, Oh, no, I shouldn't have touched him. I shouldn't have touched him. I'm not supposed to touch anybody. I've been unclean for so long. And I touched him and I'm she is so focused on the what in her life and Jesus saying, Who? Who was it? Who reached out and touched me. And so at that moment, she reaches out she says to Jesus, the whole truth what had happened. And Jesus's response in verse 34, he said to her Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering. And you want to know it's beautiful. When Jesus calls her daughter, the only time in all four gospels, he refers to someone with that title. That intimate close title of a daughter, not outcast, not person who we don't even know your name, daughter. The first time and the only time he uses this title when addressing someone so this woman who was worried her what would define her for the rest of her life. Jesus says no, if you come to me, with your one, I'll replace it with a who you're not defined by that anymore. You are my daughter, and I love you. And you don't have to be defined by that going forward. You can have something better you can have you're what become a who. And the same thing that was offered to this woman is the exact same thing that Jesus offers to every single one of us whatever we are going through. He can replace it and he wants to replace it. Because you are not supposed to be defined by you’re what. You're not supposed to be defined by what happened to you, or what you struggled with, or what you're currently experiencing, or what your family's going through. That was never supposed to be your identifier ever. The activity was never supposed to be your identifier. Your identity is always about who you are, and who God says you are. And until you find that you'll be chasing activity after activity after activity looking for it and you won't find it. You won't find And I want you to find it. because let me tell you that the times whenever I had those, like borderline meltdowns, when we were in Cleveland, the times that I've had the meltdown two times this week, whenever I felt so frustrated and felt so just like, Ah, man, I'm at a loss. The only thing that ever brings me down and gets me re-centered is not remembering what I've done. What I've accomplished, the only thing that ever makes it right is remembering who he is and who he says I am. You know what I'm going to be alright. I'm his son. And if I'm his son, everything's good. I know how the story ends. I know how the movie ends. I know how this all plays out. And so I don't have to worry. Yeah, day-by-day thing, things will stress me out. But man, in the end, I know how this works out. And that is the ultimate piece and it only comes through identity, not activity.
I want to pray with you. All right. Father, God, thank you for these moments. Thank you for these moments that we spend together, learning about who you are. And what that means. For us. God, I ask that you would be with me be with everybody on site be with everybody watching us on Facebook and YouTube today. Help us to realize, help us to see. Help us to know what that we have allowed becoming our identity. Help us to see these things to call them out for what they are. And to replace them with who you are and who you say we are. Because until we get our identity set, our activity will never bring us happiness and will never bring us joy. It will never bring us purpose that you have in mind for us God you didn't call us to be what you called us to be a who. So help us going forward. Help us through the power of your Holy Spirit to know who we are, and what that means for us. Because as we get that set. As we get that foundation laid of who we are, we will see things in our life start to change, because we will be focusing on what truly matters, our identity, not our activity. So help us God help us with this. When it's not so easy to remember, this stuff sounds good on a Sunday morning and it's a little harder to live out on a Monday night or on a Friday morning at work. Help us to remember this as we go forward from this place that we can be more and more like Jesus in every relationship and in every interaction we find ourselves and we will give you all the honor all the glory and all the praise that nobody else deserves. But you and it's in your name that we pray. Amen.
