WHERE THERE’S A WORD, THERE’S A WAY | Mark 5:25–34 | Dr. Anita Phillips

I just wanna say I love your pastors too. You know, you meet some people and you're just like, that's my people. And they were officially my people's. Before I ever met your pastor, Chris, in person, I would see him online and Pastor Tim was here a lot and he's a good friend of mine. So I knew it was good people, but I love the way you share the word, Pastor Chris. I love how real it is, how honest it is, and how you present Jesus as fully human and fully divine. It makes him accessible and I appreciate that. I'm gonna talk to you today about a story that if you grew up in church or you've been around church a bit, you've probably heard. A woman who had an issue of blood. Anybody heard that story before? Yeah. When the Lord first spoke to me earlier this year to look at this story again, I was like, are you sure? 'Cause I've been hearing this story my entire life. Like, could there be anything else to say about it? The story tells us often, or the preachers tell us, about a woman who had been bleeding for 12 years. She had gone to all these doctors. She had spent all her money and nothing had gotten better and she hadn't been able to be healed and then there have been plays and movies and sermon illustrations of this desperate woman who crawled through a crowd on her hands and knees

and desperation to touch Jesus and get healed. I'm here to tell you today, I don't think it went that way. I want us to look at it again that this isn't a story of desperate faith, it's a story of focused faith. And we can get this same kind of focus if we get a word from the Lord. So look at your neighbor and say, "Where there's a word, there's a way." See, this would seem like a where there's a will, there's a way story. Like she fought her way by her will. But baby, she had a word. Mark chapter five verse 23. Now a certain woman had a flow of blood for 12 years and had suffered many things from many physicians. That means they tried all kinds of trials, extra stuff, organic, medical, many things by many physicians. She had spent all that she had and was no better but rather grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came behind him in the crowd and touched his garment. For she said, "If only I may touch his clothes, I shall be made well." Immediately the fountain of her blood was dried up and she felt in her body that she was healed of the affliction. She knew in her body, she was aware of what was happening in her body and she felt the shift. She knew that she had been healed of her affliction. And Jesus immediately knowing in himself that power had gone out of him turned around in the crowd

and said, "Who touched my clothes?" We know that Jesus was powerful. He had miracle working power in him but he was living in a human body. And so when the power that he had in him from the divine moved through his human body, he felt it in his body. So we have to be aware of what's happening in our bodies. We don't give our lives to Jesus and leave our bodies. See, I grew up in church when we were taught to ignore our bodies 'cause your body is a sin and your body is a problem but these bodies were handcrafted by God. They were made to work with the divine. And so he felt in his body that power had gone out of him. Stay in your body, hallelujah. I'm a trauma therapist too. I don't know if they mentioned that. (laughs) They're like, "Oh, there she goes." So he said he felt the power had gone out of him, turned around the crowd and said, "Who touched my clothes?" But his disciples said to him, "You see the multitude throwing it around you and you say, 'Who touched me like dog?'" There's like a million people out here. And he looked around to see her who had done this thing but the woman fearing and trembling, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell down before him and told the whole truth. She gave him the whole story.

And he said to her, "Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace and be healed of your affliction." This was not desperation as much as it was focused word. The way that I know that is because it starts out by saying that when she heard about Jesus, that's verse 27. So she had heard some stories about Jesus. This was not Jesus' first miracle. And people were talking about him. Could you imagine if someone was going around New Jersey, New York, Philadelphia, DC, healing people in the streets? We would have heard about it. Maybe not quite as fast today as they would have heard. It was faster today than then. But people were talking about Jesus. This was a big deal. And so everywhere that something happened, somebody told somebody who told somebody who told somebody and it was spreading all in the region. So she heard some things about Jesus. By the time she went to Jesus to get healed, he had already cast some demons out. and he had cleansed lepers. How many people heard of leprosy? So in the Bible, at the Bible times, leprosy was the disease. It was the worst disease. It would have been like HIV in New York in the '80s. And I'm from Jersey, I grew up there. I remember that era,

where everybody was terrified to do anything. They were so scared of this disease because they didn't know how to engage with it in a way that was safe in any way because it was killing people. It started on their skin and it would eat their skin off, and then that would actually eat up the nerve endings, and then eventually they would actually lose body parts because they were in so much injury, but the nerve endings weren't there so they didn't know what was happening. So they were actually breaking arms and legs. Anyway, it was bad. And nobody was allowed to touch them. They were considered unclean and they were contagious, so they had to live outside the city and groups. And so she heard that Jesus healed the leper. Now, if Jesus healed the leper, he was willing to go where leprosy was. She had to know he'd be willing to deal with somebody bleeding. She had heard something about Jesus that destigmatized access to Jesus. Oh, say somebody's getting with me now. See, because she is a woman, she's in a marginalized position in society, and then she has this blood condition. So she's bleeding is essentially like she's having a menstrual cycle that's been going for 12 years. And so in her tradition, that Jewish tradition at the time,

because she was bleeding, she was considered impure. But for those who have heard this story growing up in church, I have to say that the impurity is often a little bit overplayed. There were so many things that made people impure at that time. Let me read a little bit. I mean, you could hardly throw a rock, you know, without being impure, okay? Things that made you impure at the time. Normal menstruation, chronic abdominal bleeding, like hers, nocturnal, male things. I know we're on G-rated YouTube. Childbirth, if you had a male child, childbirth, if you had a female child, so childbirth. If you touch the corpse, if you were even in a tent with a dead body, if you touch the dead animal, or if you had something like leprosy, all of these things were considered ritually unclean, there were hundreds of them. But most of them were like low level, in that if you touch somebody who was unclean, you went to your tent, you took a special bath, you stayed there till sundown, and you were good. It wasn't like you was gone for a month. So she was at that lower level end, where if somebody bumped into her and they knew it, that's your big consequence. Take a bath, go in the tent, stay till sundown.

She did not have to walk around saying, impure, impure, unclean, unclean, she did not have to do that. So she was able to move around in the regular world. And I think we have made it seem like she couldn't walk around, but she could. She could walk around, she wasn't wearing any special garment to set some bleeding. She, she was outside, okay? That's how she got to all these doctors. And so I think it's important to look at that, because she wasn't in that condition where she couldn't move around, but she was in an impure condition, and she also was more concerned with the fact that she was ill. And so the woman with the issue of blood hears that he healed lepers, so if he healed lepers, he definitely would be willing to deal with me. So that's the first astigmatization. Baby, there's always somebody that's had it worse than you. There isn't anything in your life that you cannot bring to Jesus. And there isn't anything in your life that you need to hide once you do. Because if we continue to hide the conditions that Jesus has cleaned us up from, that Jesus has helped us overcome, that Jesus has taken out of our lives, then how will somebody else who needs it hear the story that he did it already?

If they hear that he did it for you, they might be curious to wonder if you could do it for them. I need people to know that Jesus came and saved my life. I need Jesus to know that Jesus helped me recover from sexual abuse and a rape survivor. I need people to know that I struggle with alcoholism in college, but the Lord saved my life. And yes, therapy helped, but Jesus shifted me first. Because if I don't tell you that he did it for me, how will you know that he could do it for you? So don't ask Jesus to change your life in a way that you want to keep a secret. Be willing to have scar tissue and be willing to show it. Why do you think he was resurrected with holes in his hands and holes in his feet? Because some piece of the journey that you have survived needs to be a testimony to somebody else. What he went through is how they knew he was, who he said he was, not because he was alive, but because we saw what happened before they killed you. I got holes in my hands and feet. Do not ask God to heal what you're not willing to testify about. At some point, tell the story. Somebody needs to know that Jesus can do it for them. Amen? And so that's how she was able to know that he would deal with the impurity, but there's another story that blows me away even more. John chapter four tells us about a Samaritan woman

who Jesus met by a well. How many people have heard that story? So he was in this town called Samaria, and Galilee he's gonna heal this one with the issue of blood. So he was on his way there. He's like in DC, like coming towards Newark, headed this way to New York. And he gets there, but before he goes, he's in Samaria. Now, Samaria matters because the Jews and the Samaritans didn't like each other. There was real issues between them. I think there are some modern day fights that we could compare to how they felt about the Samaritans. And because he stopped in Samaria and he sees a Samaritan woman, so we have an ethnic group that is a total war with them and a woman. And Jesus stops to talk to a Samaritan woman. I need you to realize what a big deal this was. Such a big deal that his disciples had gone to get some food. And when they came back and saw him talking to a Samaritan woman, they backed up and sat down on the other side of the road like, "Why is he talking to him?" He's like, "I don't know." But they didn't say anything to Jesus because they already knew they'd have got fussed out. Because Jesus had shown them before that he is willing to go across man-made barriers and lines to minister to anyone. And so he's talking to this woman by this well.

I'm gonna summarize it instead of read the whole chapter, but read the story. He sees her at the well and he starts talking to her and he's thirsty and he tells her he's gonna give her, we can give her water that will make her never thirst again. And she's like, "What's up with that?" And then he begins to tell her who she is. He says, "Oh, you've had five husbands." And the one you went now is not yours, child. He came in just spilling the tea. I mean, kicked the cup over. He was like, "Yeah, no. "So God, if I'd want you to see it in the word, "John 4, verse 15, "The woman said to him, 'Sir, give me this water "that I may not thirst nor come here to draw.'" And Jesus said to her, "Go call your husband and come here." And the woman asked to say, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "You have well said I have no husband, "for you have had five husbands, "and the one whom you now have is not your husband." And that she spoke truly. But here's what I love. The woman next says, "The woman said to him, "Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. "Our father's worshiped on this mountain." And you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship. What's beautiful here is he just completely read her mail. He just completely told her her whole life.

And that is a messy life. Not someone that anyone wants to talk about. But somehow Jesus did it in a way that she felt so safe. That she doesn't run from him. It doesn't say, "And in shame she fell to her knees, "or she covered her face and ran away." When he did that and she perceived only something divine could have happened for him to her to know that, then she goes straight to the spirit. "Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet." I mean, can you imagine? I want you to hear the safety that exists in the space of Jesus. I've never felt shame in Jesus' presence. The only shame I've ever felt in Jesus' presence was the shame I had for myself. It has never come from Jesus. I promise you there's nothing that you can't bring to Jesus. It is harder to forgive yourself than it is to be forgiven by the Lord. The Lord will forgive you immediately. And any feeling you feel bad about after that is you working it out inside your own body because Jesus has done with it already. You don't have to make it up to Jesus. You don't have to prove it to him. You don't have to come to church 20 more times. Count 75 rosary beads or light 10 candles. When you say, "Father, forgive me, you are forgiven."

He throws it into the sea of forgetfulness. And you're coming back to him saying, "Lord, I know I did, I know I did." And he's like, "What are you talking about? "I don't even know what you're talking about." For God. And we can spend months and years trying to make up for the thing that we did. I just want God to know how much I appreciate him. No, you're still trying to get shame off of you. Release it. Jesus' presence is perfect love. It's perfect love. You don't have to ask him to forgive you 70 more times. He does it the first time. And so the safety is shown in the fact that when he exposes this truth about her, I'm sure she was not the most popular upstanding citizen in the town. I'm sure people weren't telling their daughters, please be like her when you grow up and have those five husbands and then move in one that's not yours. But she was so safe in something about Jesus that she went straight into trying to know more about who he was. How have you done this? Are you a prophet? And Jesus goes on and continues to talk to her. Verse 20, "Our fathers worshiped on this mountain,"

I'm sorry, she says, "Our fathers worshiped on this mountain." And you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship. So now she's asking some religious questions because the Samaritans and the Jews had the same parents. They were descendants of Abraham. But at some point they split off, long story, but they became two separate groups who didn't agree on some theology. But she recognized that there was a messiah to come. Verse 21, "Jesus said to her, 'Woman, believe me. The hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem worship the Father.'" In other words, your misunderstandings between this religious group over here and that religious group over here or the Catholic church, all this is gonna go away. These things are gonna be dismissed. Right now you worship what you do not know. We know what we worship for salvation is of the Jews, but the hour is coming and now is when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is spirit and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. I want you to release every religious weight that you had on you before you really came to know Jesus. Because so many times we are carrying traditions and ideas about how to engage with Jesus

that are not on the pages of scripture. If it ain't in the book, let it go. And that's why I've loved your pastor's words because he's always in the book. I grew up at an organization called The Church of God and Christ, love The Church of God and Christ. But there are traditions that I don't need to have hanging on me now. I would not be wearing jeans on a platform, reaching if I was at a coach at church. They would be done with me. What are you doing? And now a couple of years ago I had the privilege of who knows what coach it is. I heard somebody move. I had the privilege of speaking at Memphis. That's the national convocation. That is a huge big deal privilege. I did not show up in jeans just to be like, they need to learn that it's okay to preach it. No, I was respectful of space I was in. There's nothing wrong, we don't need to try to offend each other. I was honored to be invited. It's a hallowed stage that churches made a difference in my life and the world. I put on the dress and the stuff and I went. And I had a wonderful time. But I'm not walking around believing that because I have on jeans today, I'm not pleasing God. So we have to let go of traditions that were brought in

but don't let go of Jesus. I know you may have been heard at church. I know you have been taught maybe that you're not good enough for some shame and some sin, nail polish, earrings, listening to secular music. I grew up hearing all of those things would send me to hell. But I found out that baby, Jesus doesn't care about that external stuff. He's after my heart and he's after yours. And so he's letting them know, go higher, take it higher. Look at what's happening in the spirit realm because everybody is gonna get this thing at a higher level, this ground stuff doesn't matter. Let's go to verse 25. The woman said to him, I know that the Messiah is coming who is called Christ. And when he comes, he will tell us all things. And Jesus said to her, I who speak to you, and he. Now this is a big deal because this is the first time in Jesus' life that he admits that he's the Messiah. And he chooses to do it with the ethnic group that nobody liked to a woman who was of ill reputation. And he's like, that's the person that I wanna say I am the Messiah. Jesus is not out here looking for the highest dignitary or the most perfect person or the most powerful person or the richest person.

He's actually moving in the opposite direction. He wants those who have been treated least to know that they are in the margins no more. I am he, he reveals his full Godself in a place where nobody would expect anything good to happen. You think Jesus did that by accident? Come on. He stepped over racial and gender lines and law lines about marriage and divorce. And he's here with someone who's broken all the things and is all the wrong things to say I am he. He didn't reveal that to his disciples and they were walking around with him. He's asking them, who do you say I am? And let him know if they got to answer wrong, but he didn't say I am the Messiah. But he said it to her, I am he. Please don't believe that you cannot have Jesus be revealed to you in a personal way, in your prayer closet, in your car. I talk to the Lord all day long, all the time. He speaks to me in different places all the time, mostly because I have ADHD and do. And so it's hard for me, it's hard for me to sit for an hour. How about some shame be released about that? It's hard for me to sit still for an hour and just focus. I'll be like, Father, I'm here, I'm with you. Thank you, Jesus, I thank you. Did I turn on the, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm back. So I have learned to talk to him on the move.

I walk around, I pace, I'm in the car, I'm walking my dog because when I'm moving, my mind works better. And so that's how we talk. He meets me where I am and says I am he. He's not concerned about my ADHD. He's not concerned about my short attention span or my disorganization. I'm with him and he knows that and all I wanna do is talk to him. I just need to move around when I do it. But he's with me. Your relationship with Jesus is completely yours. As long as you are in the pages of that Bible, you'll be good, let him be who you need him to be. Amen? All right, anyway. So she finds out that he is the Messiah. And this woman then is very excited. She goes back to the city of Samaria and the Bible says she told, about some people thinking women aren't allowed to preach, but she went until all the men of the city and brought them to Jesus. So now there is no way that this thing that happened in Samaria while Jesus was on his way to Galilee, did not spread fast. Y'all know women, y'all know sisters gonna spread a message, all right? And so when she had heard of Jesus, she had heard that he had done healing, but I am absolutely convinced

that she had also heard that he conversed with a woman who was considered an outsider. And so Jesus has been destigmatized again. So when she goes to Jesus, there is no reason to believe that she was on her hands and knees crawling in terror because she didn't wanna get in trouble with Jesus. Somebody read that story through a lens, maybe a cultural lens, maybe a gender lens, and it's been repeated and repeated by many, but in my Bible, it doesn't make sense. She had heard of Jesus, and she knew that he touched people who were considered impure and healed them, and she knew that he would engage with women who were on the margins. So she had no reason to be afraid. In fact, groups of women followed Jesus in the places that he went. I'm not gonna stop for that scripture right now, I'll find it later, but there is a verse that says when he was being crucified that the women who had followed him all the way from Galilee were in Jerusalem at the cross. Those women were following him, so the word was spread. So now we know that she had words, not just a will to get healed. She had the witness of other people, and so often that is the first word that we get, but she also had a word from scripture, and I know this because her particular impurity did not mean that she wasn't allowed to go to the synagogue.

She was allowed to go to church, and so in the synagogue, they would read the word over and over again from the scrolls, they would read them, and the folks would listen so that they could memorize them because not everybody had a scroll. It took a lot of work to do a scroll, so you had to go somewhere and listen to someone read it. She was allowed to go to the synagogue. She was not allowed to go to the temple. The temple in Jerusalem were once a year, the high priest would go in and do some sacrifices so everybody could get forgiven of their sins. She wasn't allowed to go to that space, but she was allowed to go to church, what we would be like church. So she's hearing the word. So there is a scripture in the last book that they would have had to read at the time. It was a book called Malachi. And Malachi chapter four, verse two says this, but to you who fear my name, the son of righteousness shall arise with healing in all his wings, and you shall go out and grow fat like stall-fed calves, healing in all his wings. So a woman in Samaria found out that this is that Messiah, the son of righteousness that was predicted in this verse, and it says that he had healing in his wings. The Hebrew word there that's translated as wings is also translated in Numbers chapter 15

as garment corners. Where tassels are attached, priests had tassels attached to the bottom of their robe. Jesus was among them. And so the tassels were also called wings and she would have heard the word being read that when this Messiah comes, he will have healing in the tassels of his robe. And so I would like to suggest to you that that woman was not randomly grabbing the hem of Jesus' garment, that she heard he touches impure people, that she heard that he'll deal with women that others won't deal with, and that he would have healing in the tassels of his robe. And so when she walked up and touched the hem of his garment, baby, she was deliberate. She wasn't desperate. She wasn't down there because she had been crawling. The Bible said she came up behind him suddenly and touched it. She was on a mission because he had a word. She found a way. This matters so much because we often are told about this kind of healing as some desperate random Hail Mary when actually it was a shift, it was a repentance. 'Cause what does the word repent actually mean? To change your mind, to change your purpose, to change your focus, your worldview,

your way of understanding things. Because the way that you understand something precedes how you solve the problem. A worldview precedes an action. That's why we have the United Nations 'cause we have a lot of different worldviews trying to get a problem solved. That's why as a therapist, I'm training other therapists, we have courses on ethnic perspectives because you can't work with every group the same because they have different value emphases. And so when you walk into my office, depending on the space you come from, in your family and how can we have the healthiest version of your own cultural space because it's a worldview. And so when we repent, we turn our minds to look at things through the lens of scripture. We turn our minds to let our beliefs set, start with Jesus is the Son of God. Jesus has words for me. He wants to heal me, he wants to love me, he wants to change my life. And when I know that, that's my starting point. Then my decision making goes from there. And so she really repented. She had gone to all these doctors and spent all her money and none of that had worked. And she was like, let me just start all from scratch. I'm gonna repent, I'm gonna take a different frame of mind, a different perspective.

What is available to me through this faith that I've carried, but not dug into just yet? And there's this availability that I'm hearing about. Let me look at this different. So often when we talk about coming to Jesus, we talk about, hey, come and ask God to forgive you of your sins. You've been so dirty, but now you'll be washed. But I never saw Jesus do that to anyone. Nobody. There's a story about a woman who was caught committing adultery and they throw her down in front of Jesus and say, Moses has lost, says she should be stoned. What do you say? And Jesus deals with all of them. That's a different story. But when all of her accusers are gone, he says to the woman, now, we're your accusers. She says, they're nowhere, he saved her life. And then he says, go and send no more. He didn't say, oh, everybody's about to stone you. Would you agree to not send anymore? And if so, I'll save your life. That's not what happened. He saved her life. Then he said, go and send no more. How many people would have been like, no problem? Is there anything else I can do for you? 'Cause you just saved my life, God's like, I'm good. What else can I get you something to eat?

Do you need something picked up from the cleaners? How can I serve you? Because he changed their life. And I know many of you have maybe heard of Jesus through this lens of attack and what you've done wrong and he'll wipe away your heart and your shame. But man, he just loves you, he just loves you. And when you come into contact with this love, change is not a big deal for this kind of love. I promise, Jesus is like the modern, you know who knows the story, the prodigal son. We know that he took the money, he messed up, he went away, he left his family, and then he realizes what a bad choice it was. He changes his mind, he repents and changes his direction. He comes home to his father. His father is standing at the road every day, just waiting for him, waiting for him, hoping he'll see him. In fact, his father was so far out on the road because the people in the town would have stopped the son from coming to the father because in their culture, it would have been such a disgrace for that son to ever come back home. So the father had to go further than the crowd. To not let anybody stop his son from getting to him, that's the kind of dad he was. And so he's out there with his arms open. The son, he sees him and he runs and throws his arm around him. I don't see him say, get on your knees and say, you're sorry. You don't look sorry enough.

Repent for everything you did. That's why we've made repent, confess. Confess the fact that he was running towards his father. His father ran towards him. He fell on him and hugged him, took him home and threw a party. That's how much your Lord loves you. We gotta get this thing right. And I know some of you love Jesus so much and you're sharing Jesus with other people. And so I share that with you so that you give them Jesus, not fear or obligation or guilt or shame. Give them Jesus. Tell them how you had the experience that you had with his love and that that is available to them because when you touch this love of Jesus, it will change you anyway. And so she knew that, and here's what happened to her. She was actually changed. Go back to Matthew nine, verse 20. Where it says, "And suddenly a woman who had a flow "of blood for 12 years came from behind. "How you gonna come from behind? "Suddenly if you've been crawling through crowds." That's not sudden. There's no reason to believe that she was crawling. Plus that would be pretty uncomfortable. She would have surely been kicked and stomped. And she comes there and Jesus heals her. And then in verse 22, he says,

"Be of good cheer, daughter. "Your faith has made you well." He called her daughter. So he didn't just heal her body. It says, "Your faith has made you well." That word, well, means whole. Everything about her was made well, not just her physical malady, but her overall being was made well. And she was brought into deep relationship with God because he called her daughter. He made her a daughter of God. And this isn't the first time he did that. There was a man who was paralyzed who he healed. And after he healed him, he said, "Son, "your sins are forgiven you." Again, he healed him first. He didn't say, "Will you say you're sorry for your sins?" And then I'll heal you. He said, "Your sins are forgiven you be made whole." And he was healed and he called him son. is one more reason to recognize that the story the way we've heard it is not the way we've heard it. Some people like to talk about the fact that it says in verse 33, but the, well let's say 32, and he looked around to see her who had done this thing, but the woman fearing and trembling, knowing what had happened to her,

came and fell down before him and told him the whole truth. Some have said, well, she was afraid and shaken because she knew she had done something wrong. She knew she was supposed to be there. She knew she was supposed to touch him. I say no. Because Philippians chapter two lets me know that she was having the response that you have when you've given your life to Jesus. In Philippians 2, 12, it says, "Therefore my beloved, as you have always obeyed, "not as in my presence only, "but now much more in my absence, "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. "It's the same phrase." And my God would never tell me to work out my salvation in terror and shame and worry and torment waiting for God to be mad at me. That actually translates more aptly to with humility and awe. Can you imagine if you had an illness in your body that you could feel for 12 years and suddenly it was gone and you knew it was gone because the pain, the movement, it was gone? You would be like, oh my God, and that's how she came. Oh, and humility that this actually happened. We gotta dig into the, but they'd say, you can't just read the Bible, you gotta read the Bible. I hope that one of the things you get out of this message is a deeper curiosity about scripture because I'm able to see this story

because I'm reading all the stories. You gotta read this whole book. If you never learned Hebrew or Greek, if you never read 17 commentaries, if you just keep reading through it, you'll start to see that this matches this and this matches this. This book defends itself. 66 books written across thousands of years and everything matches with all those different authors. It is so much fun to me. To see the Bible, just keep proving itself. We just have to read the story bigger, but so often we've plucked out scriptures to deal with a problem or somebody wanted to condemn us. Don't let that, this book is amazing. So with fear and trembling, she fell in front of him. That is a response to having received salvation. And so when he calls her a daughter of God, essentially she has now changed into someone who is in the family of God. He has been her high priest in that moment because she couldn't go to the temple in Jerusalem where the high priests made sacrifices for everyone's sins. She's out here. Jesus decided to be her high priest in the streets. He said, high priest is right here. You don't have to go to the temple. You don't have to wait until a certain day of the year. Nobody else has to kill an animal for you.

Nobody has to sit on the other side of a great and tell you that you're forgiven. There is one mediator between God and man and that man is Jesus Christ. He doesn't need to be in Jerusalem. He's right here in front of her and he called her daughter, which meant all of her sins were wiped and now she's in the family of God. Jesus is our high priest and he makes us priests in the kingdom. Everything changed in this moment because she got adopted. And so she had a word and she made a way and now she became a child of God. And that's where I want to end with you today is what it means to be a child of God. There is so much we call it being born again. We call it being saved. We call it a lot of things in different times and generations, but to say I am now a child of God. That is what scripture gives us the most. Galatians four, it says, but when the four and four, but when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law to redeem those who were under the law that we might receive the adoption as sons. In the Greek, when a pronoun is used to cover both male and female, it defaults to the masculine pronoun.

It is a little bit lazy on King James's part. I'll speak with him. To just take those generals and always make the masculine in English, but this is sons and daughters. That's why I wanted you to see. He called that woman daughter. He called the man who was paralyzed who he healed son. There is no difference in this. So that we might receive the adoption as sons and daughters. And because you are sons and daughters, God has sent forth the spirit of his son into your hearts crying out, I'm a father, that means daddy. Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son or a daughter. And if a son or a daughter, then an heir of God through Jesus Christ. Ephesians one, verse three. Blessed be the God of the father and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as he chose us in him. Before the foundation chosen to be his child before you were ever born. Verse 5 says, "Having predestined us to adoption as sons and daughters by Jesus Christ Himself. Before the foundation of the world, you were born." And please know this. God knew the end from the beginning. He knew you'd be sitting here in this moment. And by the way, you don't even know what moment it is. Man, I found out just like two weeks ago, a lot of you are smart people, so you probably knew this, that the sun is not where we think it is. It takes so long for the light from the sun to reach our eyes that by the time we see

it, we're seeing the position. The sun was in eight minutes and 20 seconds ago. You have never actually seen the sun where it is. It has moved forward. You're catching up. When you go out at tonight, if the clouds clear and you look up and see stars, some of those stars are four or five years ago. That means you see them in the position they were four or five years ago. Some of them are 100 years ago. Some of them are 400 years ago. Some of them are literally 800 years ago. They are bigger than the sun, but they're so much further away that they look tiny. And by the time the light gets from them to where we are, it took 800 years. So I'm saying the sky is so beautiful tonight, but actually it is not seeing the stars tonight. I'm seeing what has already happened, so I don't even know where I am right now. That's why when the Bible says that we don't look at what we see, but we look at what we don't see is you think God is late, but baby, you don't even know what time it is. I don't know if this is October 11th, 2026 or October 11th, 2027. I'm just walking into what God said, because before the foundation of the world, it was determined. And so it's got to happen that I catch up with what God has for my life. Unmore yourself from the thing that has your feet stuck. You're not even where you think you are right now. You don't know if it's late because you don't know what time it is. And if that be the case, how much further up into that third heaven is the throne broom? And so the word that he said hurtling towards you the moment that you prayed, it is rushing here in this moment and this moment and even this moment. And so I need you to just catch up that what happened before the foundation of the world will intersect you. Just keep walking after the spirit and you will merge with his time. Merge with his time. Walk with him. I can't preach a separate message, but I shared this with my church last week. Let me give you this five minutes. There was a man in the Bible named Enoch. In Hebrew, chapter 11, it speaks of him and also speaks of him in Genesis in the genealogy of God. It says that he walked with God and that Enoch was and then he was not because he never tasted death. He just disappeared. It says God just took him. He disappeared. In Hebrews 11, it says that he walked with God and that before he was taken, before he disappeared, he had this testimony that he pleased God. But in order for us to please him, we have to have faith and believe he's a rewarder. But the thing that they said about Enoch, that's so unique is that he walked with God. I want you walking with God, not asking God to walk with you. See, if I walk with you, if I walk with this sister to Starbucks and she says, hey, you want to walk with me to Starbucks, then I'll say, yeah, she has chosen the destination and she will choose the route. I'm just walking with her. And if I said you want to walk with me

to the restaurant, then I've chosen the destination and I'm choosing the route and you just walk. You ever be walking with somebody, don't even know where you're at, you're like, oh, where are we going? Because you were walking with them, so you're not paying attention. They asked you to walk with them. And so you said, yes, we spend too much time in our trials and tribulations asking God to come and walk us through it. God, walk with me through this, walk with me through that. Baby, I want to walk with him because when I ask him to walk with me, I have a destination in mind and I have a route in mind. And that's why you keep getting frustrated feeling like it's delayed and it's not this and it's not this because you determine the destination and you determine the route and you determine the timeline. And then when it doesn't happen, it's because you were asking him to walk with you. What if you said, God, I want to walk with you, you determine the destination, you determine the route, you determine the timeline. And I lay down every other thing that I'm interested in, everything that would scare me. If you're scared to put it in his hands, do it twice as fast. If I walk with him, what about this? When will I get married? When will I get the job? When will I get the promotion? When will I get the part? If I just, baby, from the foundation of the world, your purpose was done with. It has been determined and it's a good thing. And if you really want to get to it, walk with God because from the foundations of the earth, he determined it. Okay, that was right. But we have been adopted as sons and daughters of God. And I'm going to read one one more, Romans 8 starting at verse 14. These are the sons and daughters of God. For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear. You may have had fear in your life before you knew Jesus. You may have had fear in your life because of your own experience in your family. Because you were the son or daughter of a parent system that wounded you. But that's okay because we have a new parent system. For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear but you received the spirit of adoption by whom we crowd out of Father. The spirit himself bears witness with our spirit

that we are the children of God. And if children than heirs, heirs of God and join heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him that we may also be glorified together. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons and daughters of God. Stand to your feet. The most amazing thing that happened to that woman with the issue of blood was that she got to be a daughter of God. That was the most amazing thing that happened. Jesus says go in peace and your body has been healed. The peace mattered more than anything. Being in the family of God mattered more than anything. Jesus meeting her in the streets because she couldn't get to a temple mattered more than anything. Whatever you are hoping for, whatever you've been suffering through, whatever you need, I promise you where there's a word, there's a way. You've heard some witnesses today. You've heard witnesses of what happened to people in scripture. I shared some of my own witness of the things that God has done for me.

You've probably heard other people tell you about things that he's done. But today I've also given you a word from scripture that says that you were predestined to be a son or a daughter of God. And when you are a son and a daughter of God, and I want you to take that, even if you already know Jesus, more literally than you ever have. 'Cause we treat it in a metaphorical kind of way. But in a moment where your mother or father, the Bible says when your mother or father forsake you, the Lord himself will pick you up. So if you have a moment where you wish you could call your mom, and for some reason you can't, maybe she passed away, maybe she's unavailable, whatever you can't. In that moment I want you to say, God I really feel like talking to my mom and I can't. But your word says that I am your son and I am your daughter. So I'm talking to you and I'm asking you to wrap your arms around me the way I wish she would. That you would hold me the way I wish she would. That you would communicate to me, that you love me or that you're proud of me. The way that I wish you would, I promise if you ask them for what you actually need. He'll give it to you. You don't have a dad that you can go to

to back your business plan. He doesn't have the money to invest. You have a new dad and he owns the cattle on a thousand hills. Go to him and say, "Dad, I got this idea and I need some backing and I'm coming to you. I got a plan, take a look at it, let me know, send me wisdom, let me know if it's right and then I'm asking you, I need help funding this plan and I know you can do it, let me know how we can do this." Watch people start knocking at doors, watch emails start coming and talk to God. Like you talk to your mom or your dad or like you wish you could. Let those same emotions rise up in your prayer closet. You may have met a God who was a judge who stood a far off and was just watching to see what you did wrong, but God is the best parent out there. In the book of Matthew, it says that if you be an evil, not a good gift to your children, how much more will he give good gifts to his children? And I think I'm a decent mom. I do okay. My son is here and smells some of them. I do okay, but I don't get it right all the time. And I apologize when I don't because I know I don't get it right all the time. But even with that trying and doing everything is best that I can, the Bible says that compared to how good of a parent,

God is, I looked terrible. I'm evil compared to how good God is as a parent. And so I can go to my heavenly parent who has both mother and father within him. The Bible calls him a father, but the Bible also talks about him being a many-breasted one. The children of that come in nurse, so there's a mother energy. It's all within God. Don't let the modern genders confuse you about what God can't or won't do for you or doesn't have for you. Talk to him like that parent is who you wish they had been. And if you don't know Jesus today, if you have never come to Jesus and let him bring you into the family of God for you to be called daughter or for you to be called son, I just wanna invite you to try that today. If something else is working, whether you feel bad about your life or not, and you want to change your purpose. I want to invite you to repent. I want you to invite you to turn away and try it differently, to put on the lens of Christ, to put on the lens of scripture and see what happens over here. It's so different. Maybe you've been lonely. Maybe you've been hurt in a church space.

But today you feel like the Jesus I'm talking about is the one you would want to know. If you're here and you want to pray for that today, just slip up your hand. Hey, I see you, can I pray for you? I love that, come on, come here. Yeah, if you just slipped your hand up for that, come here. If you slipped your hand up saying, I want to know Jesus like that, come and see me. Hi, beautiful. Excuse me, guys. Let me tell you, Jesus will grab onto you just like this. You are a daughter. You are a daughter already because you turned your heart to him just like that. Is there anybody else who wants to be called a son or a daughter today? Come here, son. Can I hug you too? Welcome. How are you? Is there anybody else? I know you're like, I just want that hug. Don't go, don't go, don't go. I'll hang around and offer those too, but this is how he receives them. So now, listen, the Bible makes this real simple. Hey, hey, yeah. Hey, daughter. The Bible makes this real simple.

It's just a few questions. It says that if you believe in your heart, you confess with your mouth, the Lord Jesus, that you're saved. And so I'm gonna just ask you a couple of questions, and I want you not to get caught up in your brain and your mind, but know what's going on in your body and your heart. Do you believe that Jesus was the Son of God? They said, yes. Do you believe that he was born in this earth and died because he loves you so much? And this is the big part, because we really believe that Jesus died and actually rose from the dead. Like you're at a funeral, and you saw a dead person, and they got up, we believe that. This is the linchpin. Do you believe that Jesus defeated death? They said, yes. And now, good news, he is sitting next to God in the heavenlies praying for you 24/7. And his prayers are always answered, especially for the children of God. So welcome to the kingdom of God, just like that. Y'all better act like you got two new sisters and a new brother in the Lord. Let me hear the praise of some sons and some daughters. Hallelujah, hallelujah.