When Enough is Enough | Ryan Kramer

Well, good morning. Good morning. We're doing well today. Welcome to week eight. We've been in a series called That's Crazy, and we've been looking at some of the miracles that are found in Matthew chapter 8 and 9, and just learning a little bit about who Jesus is and what He's trying to teach us for our everyday life. Before we jump into today, I want to give a quick shout out to those that are watching online and our Liberty Correctional Campus. Would you give it up for them today for joining us today for the service? Today what I want to do is I want to introduce you to a friend. I want to introduce you to a friend that maybe you don't realize you have. It's a friend that if you could cut them out of your life, you would probably do it. And yet, it's a friend that's been a part of your life that has probably had more to do with shaping the way in which you live than just about everybody else. But before I mention who this friend is, I want to ask you this question. What does it take? What characteristics are in a good friend? You know, when I think about that, oftentimes we can think it's somebody that will tell us what we want to hear, somebody that will always encourage us, or somebody that's going to agree with our positions or the feelings in which we're feeling. But I would suggest to you today that oftentimes the best friends in our life are the people that are willing to have some awkward conversations with us. It's the kind of people that will look us in the eye and say, you were made for more than this, that you shouldn't settle, that this is not who you are in life. And when we have people in our life and friends in our life that bring those kind of things out and have those kind of awkward conversations initially, we struggle with it. But I think over time we began to look back and realize that these friends didn't, they weren't trying to make our life harder, they were trying to make our life better. And maybe that's why Proverbs tells us this in chapter 27, verse 6, that wounds from a

friend can be trusted. Wounds from a friend can be trusted because friends, the best of friends, are the ones that are willing to wound our pride in order to protect our destiny. Today I want to introduce you to one of those friends that are in your life that maybe you've not really thought or considered before. This friend's name is Frustration. It's Frustration. And I feel sorry for Frustration because as a friend, like nobody likes Frustration, right? When Frustration starts to show up in our life, we're constantly praying that Frustration would move away, that it would get out of our life, that typically when Frustration begins to come in, we just assume that something might be wrong. But today what I want to do is I want to suggest to you that what if Frustration isn't always a sign that something's wrong in your life? The sign of Frustration can also be God's way of telling us that we don't belong on this level of living anymore. Last week we talked a little bit about this theme of faith and frustration, and we looked at the paralyzed man, and we looked at how many of us in our lives we experience obstacles and what we do when those obstacles come that it matters. Well today I want to look at another miracle in Matthew chapter 9, and I want to piggyback off of this theme of faith and frustration because what we're going to look at today is we're going to look at a woman, a woman who wrestled with the question of what do we do when frustration in our life won't go away? What do we do? And this woman wrestled with that question 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for 12 long years. And we're going to see what she ended up doing that ultimately changed everything in her life. So, if you've got your Bibles, turn with me to Matthew chapter 9, if you're taking notes today, I've entitled today's message, When Enough is Enough. When Enough is Enough.

Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the opportunity that you've given us to be able to dig into that today. Lord, I pray that, Lord, we'd open our hearts and our minds to hear and to receive all that you have for us today. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, if you've been with us on this journey, that that's crazy journey, you could attest that Jesus has been a little busy lately. Matthew 8, 9, he's covering a lot of territory, walking around with many of his disciples and ministering and healing people. And as we step into this passage today in Matthew chapter 9, Jesus is still in Capernaum. All right, Capernaum is a small fishing village. It's probably population in those days was probably around 1,500 people. And this is the spot that Jesus last week, he heals the paralyzed man. And today what I want to do is I want to do the same thing we did last week. I want to read through this passage in Matthew, and then I want us to look at the same passage in Mark. And I want to remind you the differences in case you missed last week, that Matthew is writing his gospel specifically to the Jewish people. And what he's trying to do is he's trying to help the Jewish people recognize that Jesus is the promised Messiah. And so in that, he's less focused on the details of the story, and he's more focused on helping them see the authority in which Jesus walks and operates in. And then you've got Mark who is actually writing the memories that Peter had, okay? So Mark is the writer of the gospel, but it's actually Peter's memories as he walked with Jesus and what he saw. And as they do that, Mark is trying to help to fill in the gaps. Mark wants us to be able to feel what's happening in the moment, and that's why you see the difference between the details that are listed. And so in Matthew chapter 9, starting in verse 18, it says, as Jesus was saying this, that

the leader of a synagogue came and knelt before him. My daughter has just died, he said. But you can bring her back to life again if you just come and lay your hand on her. And that's where we're going next week. So Jesus and his disciples got up and they went with him. And just then, a woman who had suffered for 12 years with constant bleeding came up behind him. She touched the fringe of his robe, for she thought that if I can just touch his robe, I will be healed. Jesus turns around and when he saw her, he said, daughter, be encouraged that your faith has made you well. The woman was healed at that moment. So that's the miracle. But let's look at Mark's account in Mark chapter 5, because here we're going to see what this woman actually had to overcome in order to get close enough to Jesus. In Mark chapter 5, verse 25, it says, a woman in the crowd had suffered for 12 years with constant bleeding. She had suffered a great deal from many doctors. And over the years, she had spent everything that she had had to pay for them. But she got no better. In fact, she'd gotten worse. I think this is a powerful picture here in verse 26, because this woman isn't just losing her health, she's losing everything in her life. She's losing her money. She's losing her options. She's losing confidence. She's losing her future. And if that wasn't enough, Leviticus 15. tells us something even more heartbreaking about her situation.

You see, what Leviticus 15 tells us is it is the law, it's describing the law, and there's a portion in Leviticus 15 that talks about women who have a flow of blood like this, that they are considered ceremonial unclean. And they're considered that way for as long as the discharge continued. So this meant that everyone and everything that she touched was unclean too. And since this had been going on for 12 years, it means that everything in her life, think about this, everything in her life was off limits. Chances are she didn't have a husband, probably didn't have any kids because she's unclean to touch. She has no community in her life, she can't go to church, she can't worship, she can't go to the marketplace. Think about this for a second and it's hard to wrap our mind around it, but she most likely had no physical touch for 12 years. Not one person to come up and shake her hand, not one person to put their arm around her and to draw her close, not any kind of community because she was considered unclean and if they were to touch her, they would then be considered unclean. I mean, this disease, this issue of blood, it impacted every area of her life

and most likely stole every dream that she had ever had. I mean, her condition wasn't just affecting her body, but now all of a sudden, it's beginning to rewrite her identity. It's all of a sudden becoming who she is and what people notice and what they see every time she comes around and then Mark tells us this in verse 27, that she heard about Jesus, that she heard about Jesus, that after being frustrated for 12 years, not being able to find any solution or any fix to her problem, just the mention of his name begins to bring hope to what appeared to be a hopeless situation in her life. It says in verse 28, that she thought to herself. How many know that sometimes the most important sermon that you'll hear is the one that you preach to yourself, right? When you're not able to be in a church service and you're going through a difficult time in your life, it's what you preach to yourself that often becomes the most important words that determine the course of your life. Are you gonna speak negative? Are you gonna tear yourself down? Are you gonna continually speak on the guilt and the shame and all that stuff that might be associated

with decisions that you make? Are you gonna be able to preach to yourself to begin to bring hope that there is another day, that there is forgiveness because of the blood of Jesus, that I don't have to live in the shame of yesterday, that I can walk in the hope and the fulfillment of God's purpose in my life when I walk under the blood of Jesus? Now, it's so interesting, if you wanna dig a little deeper this week in this passage, because I don't have time to unpack this today, but this is a connection. When she says here in verse 28 that I thought to, or she thought to herself that if I can just touch His robe, that I will be healed, it's a connection to Malachi chapter four, verse two. You see, in Malachi chapter four, verse two, it says, I will touch His robe and I will be healed. In Malachi chapter four, verse two, it says that the son of righteousness shall arise with healing in His wings. That is a prophecy that was given and the connection to today is that it was this, this talit that Jesus was wearing and it was hanging with the fringes and they represented, it represented the word of God and she's thinking, she's thinking about this promise from Malachi witnessing Jesus as the coming Messiah and so in her heart and in her mind,

she's thinking, if I could just touch the corner of His garment, that I could be healed. It just, it brings clarity to the profound level of faith that this is a promise that Jesus is going to come. This woman had in Jesus, the coming Messiah. Verse 29, it says, immediately the bleeding stopped and she could feel in her body that she had been healed of her terrible condition. And then notice this in verse 30, that Jesus realizes at once that healing power had gone out from him and so he turns around to the crowd and he says, who touched my robe? I love what Luke says here. Luke says it this way, that Jesus said, someone deliberately touched me. I love this because hundreds of people were around Jesus. Hundreds of people were pushing in on Jesus but only one person reached for Jesus. And how many know there's a difference between being around Jesus and reaching for Jesus? In verse 31, it says that his disciples said to him, look at this crowd pressing around you. How can you ask who touched me? But he kept looking around to see who had done it. And then the frightened woman trembling at the realization of what had just happened to her came and fell to her knees in front of him and told him what she had done. Now think about this moment before we read the next verse.

What she had done? She touched Jesus. What does a woman with an issue of blood, what does that mean? That means that in their culture, she has now made Jesus ceremonial unclean. And Jesus looks at her and calls her daughter. Think of the significance of that statement. For 12 years, people had called her by her condition. Jesus chooses to call her by her identity. And he says, your faith has made you well. Go in peace. Your suffering is over. Is over. You know what I find crazy about the story is that it wasn't 12 years of frustration that changed her life. It was what 12 years of frustration finally produced in her life. Because one day she just determined that enough was enough. You know, I think about disappointment in our life. I think about the frustration that we often experience when we're navigating disappointment in our life. I think that disappointment and frustration could be one of the greatest weapons that Satan uses in our life to begin to pull our spirits, to drag our spirits down. And here's what I've noticed, and maybe it's different for you,

but I've noticed that frustration in my life, it doesn't necessarily destroy my faith in God, but it certainly keeps my faith from moving. You see, I think as we look at these miracles that are happening in Matthew chapter eight and nine, one of the things that we naturally do as human beings is we think about faith and we kind of picture it as some formula, that if I do these things, then it will equal God doing something and showing up in a special way in my life. But I don't really think faith, from Jesus's perspective, is a formula. I think it's trust in action. I think faith is us coming to a place where we have this trust in who Jesus is to the point that it's no longer just something that we believe, but it's something that we decide to act out on. Here's what I mean by frustration oftentimes causing us to stop moving in our faith. Think about the last time that you sat down and your leg fell asleep. Your leg falls asleep. At first, it's not a big deal, right? But after a while, you can hardly move it. And then what happens? The tingling starts to set in, right? All of a sudden, it starts to get uncomfortable to the point where it feels like hundreds of needles are like pressing in on your leg. And so how do you get the feeling back? How do you get mobility back from your leg falling asleep?

You have to get up and move. And here's what I find interesting is that your leg didn't fall asleep because something was wrong with it. It fell asleep because it stayed in one position too long. And I wonder if that's where some of us are spiritually. If we've stayed in one position too long, been sitting in the same place for so long that you've started calling that numbness in your body and in your spirit normal. You've learned to cope with the anger. You've learned to cope with the guilt and the shame and the fear and anxiety. You've learned to cope with the secret sin in your life. You've learned to cope with a critical spirit or whatever it is that has been frustrating you for a long period of time. And what happens is our spirit begins to become numb over time and we begin to just kind of cope with it. But we do it not because we want to. We do it because after enough disappointment, after enough unanswered prayers, after enough failed attempts, we slowly start to convince ourselves that maybe this is just the way that it's going to be in life. And friend, that's where this woman, that's where she was and that's where she had been for 12 years. I mean, can you imagine the internal dialogue that she must have had to battle with? The dialogue from all the places that she had gone to try to get better and to change her condition and the frustration that she had given everything that she owned, everything away to try to find solution and never could find a solution. And then all of a sudden she hears about Jesus. Think of the internal dialogue in this moment. The dialogue of, don't you go get your hopes up again. Like you've tried this before and nothing, nothing no matter what you've tried, nothing ever changes. This is just who you are meant to be.

But there was something about the name of Jesus that when she heard about Jesus and saw the uproar of Jesus beginning to head to Jairus' house, there was something about that that moved her. Friend, I don't know what you're going through today. I don't know what is the constant frustration in your life where expectations just, they're not being met and it's frustrating and it's time and it's been months and maybe years. I don't know what that is, but sometimes we just have to slow down and to settle in a moment and just say, Jesus, Jesus. I think about this woman in this moment, that before anything changed in her body, something changed in her heart. That she reached this moment where the pain of staying the same became greater than the uncertainty of moving toward Jesus. All of a sudden she came to a place where she considered the cost of what it would mean for her to navigate through a crowd that looked at her, looked down on her, that all they knew of her was her condition, and she would have to navigate through touching multiple people in order to get through the crowd, in order to touch Jesus. Church, there's a difference between despair and desperation. Despair says that I'm always going to be here. Life is always going to look like this, nothing is going to change. But desperation says I refuse to stay here. Friends, so many times we ask, we get desperate for a touch from Jesus. My question to you today is when was the last time you got desperate to touch Jesus? That's why I don't think that this miracle started when she grabbed the corner of Jesus' garment. I think it started when she took the first step. When she took that first deliberate step of I am going to touch Him no matter what the cost. Because it was a moment in her life where she decided that yesterday's story doesn't have to become tomorrow's reality. No longer.

Because here's, here's what I've learned is that sometimes frustration is God's way of refusing to let us settle. Sometimes it's His way of refusing to allow us to continue settling on the level in which we are living. That sometimes the very thing that's been frustrating you is the very thing that He's using to try to move you. Not because He likes to see you hurting or frustrated, but because He loves you too much to let you stay where you are. So let me ask you this morning, where's frustration been showing up in your life? In your marriage or maybe it's your body and your health or finances, kids, anybody ever been frustrated by kids before? Your wife, your husband, your career, relationship with God? Friends, if you've been frustrated lately, I want to, I want to suggest to you that maybe, Maybe the best question isn't, why am I frustrated? Maybe the best question is, is what is my frustration producing? Has it made me more cynical towards God? Or has it made me more dependent upon God? Has my frustration made me more cynical towards people? Or more compassionate? Has it caused you to pull away? Or has it caused you to move in? When I think about that analogy with the leg, I think about the numbness. The Bible says that hope deferred makes the heart sick, that frustration over time makes our spirit numb. I want to suggest to you today that that numbness, that it's not punishment, that it's information, but it's your body telling you that you've stayed in this position long enough. Could it be that your frustration is doing the same thing in this season? Listen, you and I can't choose what frustrates us. I wish, believe me, I wish that I could do that myself, but we don't get the choice. But we can choose what that frustration produces.

Is it going to produce despair where we just give up on our hopes and our dreams? We choose to settle in the numbness in our life like this woman who got so desperate. Will your frustration lead you to desperation? Because here's what I know, is that miracles begin when we get so desperate that we refuse to stay where we are. So friend, maybe today, maybe today your miracle doesn't begin with a change in circumstances. Maybe it begins with a change of heart. And friend, do you know how that starts? With one deliberate and desperate step towards Jesus. Would you bow your head with me today? Holy Spirit, we invite you into this moment. Speak to us, speak to our hearts. Friend today, with every head bowed and eye closed, I want to ask you, was there an area in your life that God brought to your mind today? An area of your life that's been creating frustration? Friend, if you'd say yes, I want to dig one more layer below that and I want to say, what's your frustration producing? Has it been producing despair or desperation? Because friend, could it be that God brought that to your mind today not to continue, not to push you down, but to remind you that yesterday's story doesn't have to become tomorrow's reality. Friend, your circumstances may not change yet, but today can be the day that your heart does. So friend, what's one desperate step that Jesus might be prompting you to take in response to the frustrating season in which you've been experiencing? It's something to consider. Thank you so much for tuning in today. We hope you enjoyed it and if you did, make sure you subscribe. Also if something spoke to you in a special way, share it with a friend because you never know how it could transform someone's life. If you're interested in checking out our service times, make sure you go to our website at transformtlh.com and we hope to see you at TC on a Sunday.

Thanks so much and have a great day.