The King's Church in Ilford
The following is the text of the talk given on 13th August 2009 by Georges Kisombola
"The Power of Feeble Faith"
Reading: Mark 5:25-34; Hebrews 11:1; Romans 4:19-22; 1Peter 4:12-13
Mark 5:25 34
A large crowd followed and pressed around him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve 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 grew worse. 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. He turned around in the crowd and asked, "Who touched my clothes?" "You see the people crowding against you," his disciples answered, "and yet you can ask, 'Who touched me?' "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 and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering."
Hebrews 11:1 -- Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.
Faith, that vague thing that preachers preach about. Faith, that elusive word that seemingly cannot be defined. Faith, that aspect of my life that often seems absent.
I have heard said and preached, that if I just had a little more faith, God could work. When do you know when you have enough faith? Is there is a "faith" gauge on the soul that indicates either empty or full? How is it that God could work with faith as weak as what mine is? How is it that God could fulfill what he wants with feeble faith?
Romans 4:19 22 Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead-since he was about a hundred years old-and that Sarah's womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. This is why "it was credited to him as righteousness."
There are moments in my walk with God that I cannot even relate to the Scriptures of the faith of Abraham. I cannot imagine walking to the top of the mountain, challenging the prophets of Baal for my God to answer by fire. I cannot imagine walking to the Red Sea and stretching a rod and suddenly God parting the waters for safe passage. I just do not fit in with the Abraham's, with the Elijah's, and with the Moses' types.
Somehow, I just have a suspicion that I am not the only one who has trouble with their faith and trust in the Lord. I do have faith, but at times, it is just a little bit feeble.
The Bible declares to us that there was a certain woman. A woman who had endured an illness for twelve long years.
How long is twelve years?
It is 4,383 days.
It is 144 months.
It is 624 weeks.
It is 105,192 hours.
It is long enough to graduate
It is long enough to become a doctor.
It is long enough to exhaust all of your resources on doctors and health care.
It is long enough to physically be exhausted and socially rejected.
It is long enough to feel the breath of the creditors coming to take things away because of a lack of money.
It is long enough to have all hope wrestled away.
It is long enough for there only to remain just a feeble faith.
Consider with me this woman. I want to paint her with you. I want us to spend time with her and learn from her this morning. She is young, vibrant, and healthy. She has a number of friends, close friends, friends who enjoy her company. She has her eye set for one of the young men in the congregation. She is full of life and full of laughter and she suspects that the young man is interested in her just as much as she is interested in him. She has a warm home with parents who love her. She is the apple of their eye. There is nothing that they will not do for her.
All of that was to change though with one dreadful hour in her life. She suddenly finds herself in the clutches of a body that is violated by a disease. The issue of blood that refuses to stop. At first, she calmly talks to herself. "There is nothing to fear. This will pass and I will be fine." But it doesn't. It persists for a month, for two months, for six months. It continues and soon she informs her mother of the difficulty. Her mother is devastated because of the nature of the illness. There is no way she can have children, no man could even approach her.
Her mother finds it difficult to understand. How can my daughter be rendered unclean? The Old Testament Law stated that she was unclean (Lev. 15:25-27). There was nothing higher than the Law. What the Law determined was clean was clean, what was determined unclean was unclean. In this position of being unclean this young woman soon found that she was not allowed to enter the synagogue and fellowship with others. Her worship was stifled. It was taken away from her. The mother began to feel the stigma that will be associated with her daughter's illness. What will Dad say? How will he react? What will the neighbors think? What will the congregation think?
Over the following months, both daughter and mother began to try to treat this disease. They tried everything. The Talmud, a portion of the Jewish Law written by the rabbis, had no less than eleven cures for this specific illness. The Talmud stated: Take the gum of Alexandria the weight of a small silver coin; add 2 sulfate of aluminum and potassium; add crocus (Flower). Mixed together must be given in wine to the woman that has the issue of blood. If this does not help take Persian onions three pints; boil them in wine, and give her to drink, and say, "Arise from your flux." If this does not cure her, set her at a junction of two roads, and let her hold a cup of wine in her right hand, and let some one come behind and frighten her, and say, "Arise from your flux." In another place the Talmud stated: Carry the ashes of an ostrich-egg in a linen rag in summer and a cotton rag in winter. With all of these proceedings, her faith began to waver. She went to doctor after doctor. Hopeful that each could help her to recover. But nothing happened. In fact notice what Mark 5:26 has to say:
Mark 5:26 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
Over a period of time she found that with loss of blood, she became weak and anemic. She lost weight. Her eye sockets hollowed out. Her skin color changed. Her eyes lost the glow. Her hair simply wilted. But more than all of the physical changes were the mental changes. She went from bright, vibrant, and outgoing to withdrawn, and hopeless. She is full of despair, "I am not dead but I often wish I were."
Her despair affected everything about her. It affected the way she dressed. It caused her to walk with head down, alone, and isolated. It caused her to be unable to look anyone in the eye for the fear of the discovery of her secret. Her associations extended only to those who were sick. She was unable to draw much encouragement from people sick like her. But…
A Certain Man
Somewhere in this certain woman's group she heard about a man who had come to heal, to save, to remove the stigma of sin from the life of people, a man to be a world changer.
Trust in God
No matter how feeble that our faith may be, stand on the promises of God Faith with no effort is no faith at all. It took great efforts for this woman to get up, but she knew that for her to intersect the path of the Lord, she had to find Him.
That is what she did. She had just got out of the little lodge before she heard the noises of a huge crowd. Almost like a march, a parade. People were talking, dogs were barking. And then she looked up and saw the Man. He almost looked ordinary. Maybe she was mistaken about all that she had heard of him, maybe some of the stories had been taken and stretched.
But she had done other things that were considered stupid. She remembered carrying the ostrich egg dust for well over two years. That was her little secret. . . . . now if this Jesus did not heal her it would just be another secret.
So in the crowd she wades. She walked and pushed out the way. She reaches and almost touches Him. But just as her stretched hand reaches, some smelly shepherd brushes her hand aside. The little woman is doing her best to escape the attention of the crowd and of the Lord. She was an outcast, these people would throw her out if they only knew.
So she reaches out again to touch Him. This time she stumbles on some sandaled foot and begins to fall to the ground. But in her falling she reaches, totally extends her sick, weak body, and her hand barely brushes his robe before the ground explodes beneath her. Ears ringing and head bruised, dirt mixed in her hair. . . . . but. . . . but something is different. She feels different, she has been healed. Halleluiah!
Then, the Lord stops and asks who touched Him? In a sea of a million hands the Lord sees the one that is raised in faith, though it be imperfect and feeble. Halleluiah
Your faith has healed you. . . . Not your touch.
Brothers and sisters, Sometimes all that faith can do is hang on at the midnight wrestling match. Not a lot of polish, not a lot of power but feeble faith is there.
Only he who attempts the ridiculous may achieve the impossible.
The Impossible Dream -- Joe Darion
To dream the impossible dream,
To fight the unbeatable foe,
To bear with unbearable sorrow,
To run where the brave dare not go.
To reach the unreachable star!
This is my quest,
To follow that star,
No matter how hopeless,
No matter how far;
To fight for the right, the unrightable wrong
To love pure and chaste from afar,
To try when your arms are too weary,
To run where the brave dare not go.
To reach the unreachable star!
To dream the impossible dream!
The lady with the issue of blood had the evidence of feeble faith. There was that desire for healing and yet there was not that full trust that God could really do anything for her.
I love to be at The place somewhere between my desire and God's action.
There are number of Scriptures that define the God whom we serve. My problem is that too many times I try to define God instead of letting the principles of Scripture define Him.
1 Peter 4:12 13 -"Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange things were happening to you. But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed."
I want to encourage you this morning to trust in God.
No matter how feeble that our faith may be, stand on the promises of God.
And remember only he who attempts the ridiculous may achieve the impossible.
Brothers and sisters, Sometimes all that faith can do is hang on at the midnight wrestling match. Not a lot of polish, not a lot of power but feeble faith is there. Do not give up. Push through the crowd, Jesus is there!
