Who Touched Me!

Scripture Reference: Matthew 9: 20-22 (NIV)

20Just then a woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak. 21She said to herself, "If I only touch his cloak, I will be healed."
22Jesus turned and saw her. "Take heart, daughter," he said, "your faith has healed you." And the woman was healed from that moment.

In the sermon on Sunday October 18, 2009, Pastor Collins’ focus was Personal Faith. The woman in Matthew 9:20 was healed by her faith. The affliction, by Matthew’s comparison to Mark and Luke’s account, is very brief: "A woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years" (v. 20). This, a female disorder, would have made her ritually unclean and defiling to others (read Lev 15:19-33), which helps to explain her seeking to make contact with Jesus inconspicuously.

Matthew's dominant interest is Jesus' authority. His omission of details found in Mark 5:25-34 and Luke 8: 43-48), serves to highlight the person and authority of Jesus. Note the woman's expression of faith, v. 21, witnesses to Jesus' extraordinary authority ("If I only touch...."); and the actual healing takes place "from that moment" when Jesus addresses her, v. 22, rather than from the moment when she touches him, v. 20 - which underscores the fact that the woman's faith is the instrument of healing, not the cause. It is Jesus' authoritative pronouncement about her faith that saves. Jesus cleanses the defiled one, rather than being himself defiled by the touch of the unclean (Matthew 8: 2-4).

Pastor Collins’ message declares the importance of personal faith and its different types.

1. Connected Faith – The experiences of others or testimonies of fellow believers.

2. Textbook Faith – Faith demonstrated by biblical characters, David faced the giant Goliath; Abraham left his home for the land of promise and whom God made the father of many nations; Daniel continued to pray to the God of Israel: Moses by faith went to Egypt; and Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego, would not bow and worship the idols. The scriptures are full of men and women of faith.

3. Personal Faith – What God has done for you—delivered you from drugs, and alcohol? Has He healed you? Has He been you lawyer in a courtroom?

The grace and love of God is not about us, it is all about God. It’s about God and what He had done for us. Jesus shows us God’s favor in the midst of our failures, which in many cases are self inflected.

To be in line for a blessing, God does not have to call you by name. You do not have to be an upstanding person in the community. All you have to do is have faith. Jesus was passing by on His way to Jairus’ house, when this social outcast, a woman who had spent all of her money seeking out a healing, touched Him.

Faith removed every barrier for this rejected woman. In her desperation, faith drove her to risk deliberately touching Jesus’ garment. In return she received a loving welcome and total healing.

by: b stevenson