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Your Faith Has Saved You
Dr. Eric J. Gilchrest, Pastor
I hope you'll stick around as we pack together for the community that is around us. As I was watching that video, it strikes me that what we're doing downstairs in just a few minutes is a wonderful extension of what I want to say today, which is that, maybe in brief, that Jesus cares about our bodies as much as he cares about our souls. He cares about this world as we see it and experience it, as he does about wherever we end up in the next life. And too often, Christianity, and I am guilty of this myself, we focus so much on what's to come that we fail to see that the here and now is actually where heaven and hell begin. And so unless we can take care of the bodies in front of us, our own included, I do wonder how we are prepared to enter into the next life. Let's pray and we'll jump into what I'm trying to say here. Heavenly Father, we come this morning expecting you to be present and speaking, to be active in the world that is around us and the world that is inside each of us. Lord, our minds can race, our hearts can thump, anxiety can get the best of us. Thinking about what tomorrow might bring can get us all wrapped up around the axle. But Lord, today, in this second, we ask that you set those aside, that you breathe your breath of peace into us and that you speak to us the truth that you have for us this morning. We pray this in Christ's holy name. Amen. The sermon takes place in three parts. I've tried to give you the three parts on the bulletin at the bottom of your, at the bullets, at the bottom of the bulletin. Part one is kind of stating to you the problem that often exists. And then part two is maybe showing you the path forward and where I see a solution to this problem. And then three, as often is who cares, is the question that I'll pose. Like, what does it mean for us today? The question at hand is, what do Jesus miracles have to do with the crucifixion and the resurrection? I don't know if you've ever thought about this question, but Jesus spends his whole life doing all kinds of things. He lives in earthly existence, just like you and I do. And then he has at least three years of a ministry where he's going about doing what? He's healing people of their diseases. He's casting out demons. In today's story, he he power came out of him to heal the bleeding woman. There was a girl who had died and he raised from the dead again. But then he goes to the cross and he forgives us of our sins. And I don't know if you feel this way, but sometimes it feels like those two things are worlds apart. And what is his healing of all the bodies in the first part of his life have anything to do with what he does on the cross? Have you asked this question? Have you wondered this? Has this ever come into your mind at some point that these two things feel a little unrelated? I heard a speaker a number of years ago. His name is NT Wright and there's a quotation from him at the bottom of the bulletin. He's a famous biblical scholar. And he was talking at a conference that I was at. And he named this ever so clearly. He said that too often in American Christianity, we split these two things up. And truth be told, we actually mostly just focus on the cross and maybe the resurrection, though mostly the cross and the forgiveness of sins. And then the hope that we have at some future point in heaven someday. But then we don't always know what to do with those miracles that he did. And they just kind of become a sign that, well, maybe maybe Jesus is just like proving he really is God. And so he's done all the signs to prove that he's God. And therefore, the cross is real. I suggest to you actually that's maybe an anemic or small view of what Jesus is doing in his earthly ministry. And he's showing us a much, much better way. But the problem doesn't seep in recently. It's actually an older problem. It actually if you were to read the Apostles Creed, right, it goes like this. It says, I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. And I believe in Jesus Christ. And then what does it say about Jesus? It says he's God's son. He's our Lord. He's conceived by the Holy Spirit. And he's born of the Virgin Mary. And then it skips over all the life of Jesus. And it says he suffered under Pontius Pilate. He was crucified, dead and buried. Right. And so even the Apostles Creed jumps from his birth, which seems really important, and then the suffering and death, which is obviously very important, doesn't really give us some theology or an understanding of why it all mattered at all. I think there's help on the way, though. So the first place I turn you to is Matthew, Chapter eight, verses 16 to 17. We read the following. That evening they brought to him many who were possessed by demons, and he cast out the spirits with a word. And then he cures all the sick. And this was to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah. He took our infirmities and bore our diseases. Here, Jesus is quoting from Isaiah 53 for which is often called the suffering servant passage. If you've been with us on a good Friday, there's a good chance you've heard this passage multiple times. It's a famous one. And it's a really important one, because in Isaiah, we get this foreshadowing of the kind of Savior we should expect. It's the kind of Savior who dies that we might live, who suffers. But very specifically here, he bears our infirmities and our weaknesses or diseases. I know we often just immediately kind of translate that into he bears our sins, and he does. Like this is mission critical. Like I'm not trying to lower this. I'm trying to explain to you that salvation might be a little bigger than we've thought it is. And so Isaiah tells us and Matthew echoes that there's something about Jesus bearing the infirmities and the diseases of us. And this is part of what he's doing on the cross. The quote from NT Wright goes like this. Jesus' resurrection is the beginning of God's new project. Not to snatch people away from the earth into heaven, but to colonize earth with the life of heaven. The project that God has embarked on from the day Adam and Eve were ushered out of the Garden of Eden is not to one day create this place off in the sky somewhere that we all fly up to by and by. It's to redeem and restore the creation that is, which is to say that your lives matter here and now in deep and profound ways. Your bodies matter here and now. The trauma that sits in your mind, it matters. And God is desirous to heal it all. But we also know that we live in a fallen world. It's become almost cliche to say we are living in a fallen world, but it is true. And so the difficulty of living in this life is a real one. And while I would wish to you that all of our infirmities can be whisked away today, before you leave, just come on up and I'll pray over you. And you'll walk out a healed person. I can't make that promise to you today, but I do hope to show you some other things. Part two of the sermon is about the many faces of salvation that we find in the Gospel of Luke. In Luke's Gospel, he uses four times the same phrase, and it says, Your faith has blanked you. Now, the most obvious translation is to just simply say your faith has saved you. This is what the Greek says every one of these times. Sozo is the Greek word. Your faith has saved you. And if you've been around the church at all, and if you've read Paul's letters, and if you've just simply had conversations with Christians, you know that faith and salvation, they go hand in hand, don't they? Faith, salvation. But in a few of the translations of these words, we actually don't get salvation as the word. And in fact, we saw it today when I read to you the ESV. But ESV isn't alone. It's actually most translations. The Greek is up here on the screen in case you want to learn Greek someday. It says, Your faith has sasoken se, has saved you. Sozo is the root word here. Let's go ahead and read Luke eight again, and I'll show you where it pops on the on the scene. Now, when Jesus returned, the crowd welcomed him for they were all waiting for him. And there came a man named Jairus, who was a ruler of a synagogue. And he fell at Jesus feet and implored him to come out of his house. For he had this only daughter about 12 years of age, and she was dying. As Jesus went, the people pressed around him. And there was a woman who had a discharge of blood for 12 years. And though she had spent all her living on physicians, she could not be healed by anyone. She came upon him and touched the fringe of his garment. And immediately, her discharge of blood ceased. And Jesus said, Who was it that touched me? And when they all denied it, Peter said, Master, there's a bunch of people around you. They're all pressing in on you. And Jesus said, No, somebody has touched me, for I perceive that power has gone out from me. And when the woman saw that she was not hidden, she came trembling and fell down before him. And she declared in the presence of all the people why she had touched him and how she had been immediately healed. And then Jesus said to her daughter, Your faith and here's the line has saved you. At least that's what the Greek says there. Daughter, your faith has made you well go in peace. Your faith has made you well. Indeed, her faith has made her well. It is what has healed her. She came to the Savior. She touched the garment and power flowed out of him. Whatever that means exactly, I'm not sure, but it sounds awesome. And I wish I were there to see it. And flows into her and she's healed. Or as Luke says, she is saved, but doesn't actually stop there because then there's the next two lines. And it says, while he was still speaking, someone from the ruler's house came and said, Your daughter is dead. Do not trouble the teacher anymore. But Jesus on hearing this answered him and said, Do not fear, only believe, and she will be saved. Sozo is the word sitting here. But of course, the ESV and probably most of your translations, maybe all of your translations out there say she will be well. She will be well. So what is going on? What is happening in this passage? I first want to offer a shameless plug. You should come to Wednesday nights at six thirty. We're talking about how to study the Bible. We're spending about an hour together. Half of that is spent in some study. And then we break out into sessions with the men in one room and the women and another. It's a good time. And we talk about these kinds of things. On this Wednesday, we're going to talk about translations, in fact. And so if you've ever wondered what are the differences between the translations, how do the translations work? Where they all come from? Are they connected to one another? The answer is yes. Well, you should come on Wednesday. This last talked about the contexts in which you should read your scripture. We talked about like the the the really near context, like the paragraph that sits around it. Maybe it's the chapter around it. Maybe it's the book that it comes from, the linguistic, the historical. There's lots of context to read scripture in. I want to start in this passage by showing you a little bit of how this might work. There is the immediate context of this passage. We'll say Luke eight as a whole. It uses the word sozo four different times. Back in verse 12, there's this cryptic passage where Jesus is kind of prophesying. I think it's Isaiah he's quoting from that they may not believe and be saved. Here's sozo again. They may not believe in faith, by the way, faith and salvation again, hand in hand here. Or first thirty six. There's this demon possessed man and it says that he was saved or made well. And then there's daughter. Your faith has saved you as we saw in verse forty eight or again in verse fifty that if she believes or if the father believes Jairus, then she will be saved or made well. And so you can see in this path in this chapter rather the theme of salvation is running pretty hot. And it seems to be ever present. But if we kind of scan out just a little beyond that to maybe the book level, then what we find in the book level is this exact phrase. Hey, Pistis Sue, so can say those five words used the exact same way for separate times in one book. You cannot tell me that there's not something tying all of that together. But there's not a tradition that Jesus hasn't said this to the disciples again and again and again. And what is he saying to them again and again? It is that your faith has saved you. I mean, that's the literalist translation. And so Luke seven fifty back a chapter. This is actually how your ESV or your translations are going to translate it. She comes to him and she she wipes his feet and and she's crying. Meanwhile, the Pharisees are all scandalized by the fact that this woman's in there and he looks at her and he says, your faith has saved you. But then we get to the chapter we're in and there's the bleeding woman. And the choice of translation here is that your faith has has made you well, which might make you think that this is not somehow part of the salvation that Jesus is bringing to this earth. I would say that you'd be wrong if you thought that or there's in Luke 17, the Samaritan leper. And there's all the lepers who go and then there's this one who comes back and to that one who comes back. Jesus looks and he's like, where where'd all the others go? Why didn't the other nine come back? And then Jesus says to the leper, your faith has again saved you or made you well. Or again, one last one, the blind man in Luke 18, where we see much the same thing. If we pan out one more layer to Luke's other writing this time, it's not his gospel, but the Book of Acts, which was also written by Luke. We find something very interesting in Chapter four. In fact, I love that Dave read this this morning. We hadn't planned this, but here it is in Chapter four, verses nine and twelve. You see two very different uses of this word or seemingly different. If we are questioned today because of a good deed, maybe the context of this is Peter's on trial. He has done a good deed. He's healed a lame man. And now the tribunal is upset with him. And how could he do that? Why? Why? Why has he done this? And so he says, if we're questioned today because of this good deed done to someone who was sick and are asked now how this man has been sozo, how he has been saved or healed. And then just a few verses later, it says there is no salvation. Same words, sozo in no one else. No other name under heaven by which we must be sozo saved or healed or however you want to put it. What I'd suggest to you is that an ancient context in a biblical context pulls together this immaterial salvation and a material salvation in a way that you and I might feel uncomfortable with. Or or maybe we've gotten too comfortable pulling these two things apart as if the only thing that matters are the souls that go off to heaven and not the bodies that we inhabit in the here and now. And I think we see this throughout Luke's writings. He teaches us that faith and salvation are not only interdependent, salvation is a little bigger than we think it is. One more pulling out. This time, let's bring Paul into the picture. We all know Paul likes to talk about faith and salvation. So, for example, in Ephesians 2, 8, by grace, you have been saved through faith. All right, this is Paul, classic Paul. In fact, you've been saved through faith or in Romans 1 16, another passage that's very famous. I am not ashamed of the gospel. It's the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith. Again, faith and salvation. But now the kicker and the one that we often miss comes from Romans, Chapter eight. It's a passage you've certainly heard before, but maybe after today, you'll read it slightly differently. Romans 8 23 and 24 goes like this. Not only the creation, but we ourselves, although I would add the creation to the stuff of Earth. Who have the first fruits of the spirit, we groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for the adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope, we were saved.
We were saved. Paul holds out this hope that the creation itself is in groaning and is in need of a savior. That our bodies are in need of salvation.
Part three. What is on offer this morning? What is it that Jesus is offering to you? There is a prosperity version of this offer, and it simply says that if you go to Jesus, if you pray hard enough, if you just believe enough, or maybe you know what? If your tithe is big enough, well, we are going to find ourselves completely healed and great, just like the bleeding woman or like Jairus and his daughter. You too can be saved in this fashion. I don't want to make you that promise this morning because it's not always what is on offer. What is on offer is nothing less than the person of Jesus himself. And the person of Jesus is standing before you and saying to you, have faith, believe, trust me, follow me.
And so I don't come making empty promises. I do not stand here to tell you that if you pray to Jesus, your cancer is just going to magically go away. Or that your marriage is going to be fully restored, or that your PTSD will go away immediately. Like the bleeding woman who grabbed the hem of Jesus' garment or the desperate dad who did everything he could to find Jesus, the one he knew who could save his daughter. But I would say this. We shouldn't underestimate the power of Jesus. Miracles can and do happen, not just back then, but still today.
When miracles happen, they almost always happen with some sense of faith and trust that it is Jesus who is doing it. Truth be told, if you can't see it as a miracle, then you're probably not walking with faith. And so maybe it requires the faith and the trust to even see the miracle at all for what it is. A miracle.
I might not even need to ask, but I will. This morning, what is it for you that is crippling you? What is it that you would immediately bring to God if you could? And if you could wave that magic wand and say, take this away, what would that be?
Like I said, I probably don't know what that is. Like I said, I probably don't need to ask, but my guess is you were already thinking it.
I got choked up as I was reading the scripture because I was thinking about the bleeding woman who had been laboring for 12 years under this pain that she had. And how hard that must have been and the relief she must have felt in the moment. The power went out of Jesus and into her.
And then I got doubly choked up when it was clear in the scripture that there was a dad in the world who existed at some point who lost his daughter. And he was desperate to find Jesus, and it felt like all was lost.
My guess is you can find yourself on the pages of scripture in the people that Jesus reaches out to and who reach out to him. And they are looking for answers because we all are. We're all looking for some kind of answer in this life. The answers don't always get answered the way we want them, and so I want to be careful here to say that we can reach out and sometimes what we get back. Is that God's will is enough.
God's will is enough.
Jesus teaches us this himself. The days before he's crucified, he's in the garden the night before he's in the garden and he's praying and he's saying God take this away. I don't want this at all. And then he says, but your will be done. Your will be done. How many of us would say, God, I don't want this at all. And then he says, but your will be done. Your will be done. How many of us would say, God, I don't want this, whatever it is at all. I don't want this.
But we must follow it up with your will be done. It's not just Jesus who teaches us this. It's Paul himself too. Paul, he has the thorn. He's walking around. He says, Look, I don't I pray for this thing all the time. I want this rid of me. But what happens? Jesus says to him, like almost in a vision, maybe like that. What I offer to you is enough. And Paul says that actually I've learned in my weakness that I am strong.
And so this morning, what is on offer to you? What is on offer to you is nothing less. Than the creator of the world is on your side. When we look at Jesus healing the bodies of the the girl who was 12 and the woman who was bleeding for 12 years, we see the face of God who desires that we all be made whole, that this world be made whole.
But we live in a fallen world. Things are broken.
So what is on offer is that Jesus is enough that we follow him. And that we do things like packing lunches for people in our community who need it because we can help feed them and we can help sustain those bodies because it turns out Jesus cares about them deeply. And so should we. Let's pray together.
Heavenly Father, this morning as we have gathered together, I firmly believe that you are looking at your children in this place and you are saying, I love you. I love you. And I want what is best for you. And I want you to trust me. So, God, we reach back out and we say, Lord, we do trust you. Help us when we don't trust you enough. Help us keep walking in the trials and may we rejoice when things are going well. And for those who are around us, may we rejoice with those who are rejoicing and and weep with those who are weeping, as we just read in Romans 12. Lord, for the ones who are indeed hurting right now, my heart breaks. It is difficult walking through the valley of the shadow of death. It feels like the world is caving in. And so, Lord, surround that person. Surround them with people who can weep with them, but who can also lead them out of the valley, who can walk with them in this time. Hold them upright until a better day arrives, where they are once again walking with head held high, knowing that you brought them through that valley.
Father, we give you thanks. You are a good God. And when we look into the eyes of Jesus, we see a God who loves us dearly. And for that, we give you thanks. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.