There are a lot of people and things fighting for our attention right now leaving us all feeling pulled apart. You’re finally headed back to work, but your kids still need help with school. Social restrictions are being lifted, but that doesn’t mean fear has subsided. Maybe you’d just settled into a new routine and now everything feels up in the air again.
You could ask God this week.
It would be a simple step, but he would do
this for you.
“God, help me discern the demands of my life.
Help me see them for what they really are.
Help me see what is really important.
If I’m judging this, I’m thinking the crowd
is way more important than the one little
girl, but only you can show me what really
matters.”
Otherwise, you’ll define distraction in a
way that will cause you to miss God’s direction
in your life.
You’ll skip the tea party to take the phone
call.
You can call them back, but the next time
you see your kids, they’re going to be Lord
of the Flies, at least in my house.
Touch somebody and say, “Go to the tea party.”
Just go.
2.
Locate the leaks.
It’s very interesting when you begin to study…
I need to pull this up because it’s kind of
complicated.
I’m not a sociologist.
I’m not a psychologist.
I’m not an ornithologist, proctologist, none
of those things.
Just
some things I was reading this week…
It talked about what is really happening when
we think we’re multitasking.
They’ve done enough study of this guy to tell
us that he’s not as capable as we think he
is of switching between stuff all the time.
The amount of efficiency we lose when we multitask
is remarkable.
They even say it’s like your brain is leaking
going between function and function because
your brain operates on different channels
or something like that.
You’re going between the channels, trying
to cross them over.
Yes, even you, ladies.
I know you think you’re the multitasking masters
of the universe, and I know you have to do
it sometimes.
I know you can’t always do one thing at once,
but I will say this.
I will say this.
Even Jesus could only do one thing well at
once.
He had to leave one thing to do another because
he could only do one thing well at once.
Even Jesus had to harness the power of focus
to leave the crowd and go to Jairus.
He did it, and while he’s going…
Okay, we already have distraction number one.
It’s that a crowd met him on the other side.
We have distraction number two.
A guy interrupts the church service and asks
him to come home with him.
Then it gets ridiculous.
If you are in the position of strategically
consulting Jesus on how to make the mission
happen in the next three years you have in
front of you, you certainly wouldn’t advice
this next move.
He’s moving now.
He’s on the move.
He’s going to an emergency.
Would it qualify as an emergency that a 12-year-old
girl is dying, and you’re the only one who
has the hope of healing her?
Would it?
I think it qualifies as an emergency.
It’s a code-orange situation, and Jesus is
on the move, and the entourage is trying to
get him through the crowd quickly.
“A large crowd followed and pressed around
him.
And a woman…”
She’s not important.
She doesn’t even have a name.
Not in this culture, she’s not important.
“And a woman was there who had been subject
to bleeding for twelve years.
She had suffered a great deal under the care
of many doctors and had spent all she had,
yet instead of getting better she grew worse.”
I read that description about the woman, but
it kind of reminded me of our society.
We are hemorrhaging, going to all of these
different sources, trying to get healed, yet
it’s really not making our lives much better,
is it?
Come on.
Talk to me.
We’re a whole lot more efficient than we’ve
ever been.
We have life hacks and shortcuts and apps
for everything, but are we really that much
wiser?
I mean true wisdom, the skill to live and
put knowledge into practice.
Do we really have that, or are our lives leaking
more than ever?
We’re leaking life, is what’s happening, switching
between stuff all the time.
We’re leaking life.
That was the situation with this woman’s body.
It’s the situation with our minds.
We’re leaking.
That’s what was going on inside of her.
She was leaking.
She was broken inside, and she could not hold
what she needed to be whole.
Leaking from the inside.
She comes to Jesus.
She has tried all of these other things, and
she gets his attention in a strange and unusual
way, which I will show you in a moment, but
first I want you to think about where the
leaks are in your life.
They did a study in the 1970s that you would
swear was done in 2015.
They started finding out that the way your
brain works is that information comes at a
cost.
The cost is called attention.
The only way to attain information is to consume
it at the cost of your attention.
Are you with me?
Are you with me?
The information consumes the attention.
Therefore, the article said, we are at a time
where we have a wealth of information and
a poverty of attention.
That was the woman.
That’s us.
She had a wealth of doctors’ opinions.
She had a wealth of treatment options, yet
she had a poverty of what she truly needed
to have the connection that could heal her
until this moment.
In this moment, she presses her way.
Think about all of the distractions she would
have had to overcome just to even get in the
vicinity of Jesus, all of the people telling
her to get off of her hands and knees, all
of the people telling her, “Hey, there’s an
emergency in progress.
Don’t you see the flashing lights?
Don’t you see the sirens?
Don’t you see the Escalades lining up?
The president is on the move.
Jairus’s daughter is sick.
Jairus is very important.
Jairus’s need is urgent.”
What I can’t get about the whole passage is
she does something inappropriate.
She does something impulsive.
She reaches out for God in a way that is superstitious,
but it works.
It works.
Verse 27.
“When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind
him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because
she thought, ‘I’ve tried everything else.
Maybe if I connect with this, if I can touch
his clothes, I’ll be healed.'”
Immediately, the hemorrhaging came to an end,
and immediately, the divine presence of Christ
was able to locate the leak that none of the
doctors could plug.
Immediately, her search for her source was
over, and her need was satisfied.
Wow.
I love the Bible.
Come on.
Read the Bible.
Read it this week.
Read the Bible this week.
Read it and put yourself in the situation
and think about how you’re like this woman.
Think about how you want to be more like Jesus.
Think about what it must mean that this woman
had her issue that had been incurable for
over a decade stopped in a moment that the
Savior became distracted with her desperation.
She felt in her body that she was freed from
her suffering.
Do you know what freed her?
Her focus.
She was finally freed because she got the
right focus.
Man, there is something strong on me today
to teach this.
I taught it last night.
I told Holly, “I don’t think I’ll do it better
than that,” but you’re pulling something out
of me, because I want to tell you something.
Freedom comes from focus.
Focus brings freedom.
Focus on fear and you’ll always be a prisoner.
Focus on faith and nothing in the world can
keep you locked out.
This woman, when she got the right focus,
she got set free.
Come on.
I believe God wants to set your focus free
today.
You’ve been so focused on the wrong things.
You’ve been so focused on the last 12 years.
You’ve been so focused on the childhood you
didn’t get to experience.
You’ve been so focused on the promotion you
got passed over for.
You’ve been so focused on what might happen.
You’ve been so focused on what one person
said.
You’ve been so focused on the wrong thing,
so you’ve been in chains, but not after today.
There’s a connection point in this church
today.
It’s called the Spirit of God.
If you plug into this what the doctors wouldn’t
do, what no other stream could bring, the
Spirit of God could bring into your life in
an instant.
Make the connection.
Touch seven people and say, “Make the connection.”
Come on.
Let’s hook up with something that has the
power to heal.
We’re hooking up in all the wrong places,
with all the wrong people, with all the wrong
priorities.
I want to get hooked up today with something
that can heal my life and make me whole.
Watch Jesus.
“At once Jesus realized that power had gone
out from him.
He turned around in the crowd…”
Everybody say, “Crowd.”
Y’all are going to miss the best part.
I’m telling you I’m going to do better in
a minute.
“He turned around in the crowd and asked,
‘Who touched my clothes?'”
A big crowd, and he notices just one person.
He turned around.
Remember, this is life or death.
This is not a tea party upstairs.
This is life or death.
There is a crowd.
Do you remember Michael Jackson back in the
day when they used to show him show up at
a place, and there would be like a mob scene?
Do you remember this?
Please tell me you know who Michael Jackson
is.
Jesus.
I was about to lay hands on him.
He’s in that kind of scene.
Maybe you’ve seen it with a more current celebrity,
your Elvis Presleys, the heartthrobs of today.
They crowd around him.
I actually was in a situation like that last
year.
It wasn’t me they were chasing.
It was somebody I was with, and it was crazy.
I’ve never seen anything like it before in
my life.
People were shaking the car we were in.
It was crazy.
I’ve never seen or experienced anything like
that in my life.
Jesus experienced it all the time.
It was kind of normal for him.
Every time he goes somewhere, they’re trying
to get to him, and they push him, and they’re
pushing him around.
All of a sudden, he stops and asks the disciples,
“Who did that?”
Verse 31.
“‘Really?’
his disciples asked.
‘Are you so serious right now?
You want us to find out who touched you?
A better question would be, “Who didn’t touch
you.”‘”
Jesus stops the procession that can save a
girl’s life to try to locate one life that
was leaking that needs to be made whole.
He realized power had gone out from him.
Do you see it?
It went out from him.
Hold that.
It went out from him.
When it went out, he turned around in the
crowd and said, “Who touched my clothes?”
The disciples said, “It’s going to be impossible
for us to ascertain that, sir.
We suggest you keep moving in full direction
toward Jairus’s house.
This is a woman.
Jairus is a man.
Jairus is a leader.
This woman is bankrupt.
She cannot contribute to your ministry.
She has nothing to give.
She is not a person of influence.
In order to impact the world, we’re going
to have to infiltrate the key cultural center,
starting with the Jewish synagogues, and Jairus
has a position which is helpful to us.
Perhaps if we can do this for him…
Let’s get this show on the road.”
Verse 32.
“But Jesus kept looking around to see who
had done it.
Then the woman, knowing what had happened
to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling
with fear, told him the whole truth.
He said to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has
healed you.'”
It was her focus empowered by her faith that
made her whole where her heart used to have
holes.
“Go in peace.
I don’t want to just heal your body; I want
to heal your mind.
Be freed from your suffering.”
It’s so good.
Not for Jairus.
It was good for the woman, but while all this
was going on and everybody saw such a touching
scene of a compassionate Rabbi who was able
to be stopped in his tracks by the desperation
of one woman it says, “While all this was
going on, some people came from the house
of Jairus, the synagogue leader, and said,
‘We missed our shot.
Your daughter is dead.
Leave Jesus alone.'”
See, the thing about life is that’s what happens.
While we’re trying to get one thing to live,
it’s always at the expense of something else.
This is what’s hard about living.
It’s what’s hard about focus.
“I need to make some money right now, babe,
and I would love to be around more, but I
need to do this for us, for our future, for
our family because I’m looking out and trying
to see where our kids are going to want to
go to school.
If you’re not going to homeschool them for
college, I have to get this money while I
can.
While I was out earning to provide for you,
your emotional state was unattended.
Now, I don’t know how to keep it all alive
at one time.”
That’s the struggle of it.
That’s the problem with distraction.
I can’t decide which one is the distraction.
“I want to have a tea party.
I need to make this phone call.
I have a couple thousand people coming to
hear me preach.
What do I do?
Which one should I let die?”
What he did made no sense because they teach
you from a business standpoint that you have
to know the difference between what is urgent
and what is important.
That’s typically good advice, very practical
advice.
It’s meaning that the text that came from
them that is their emergency because they
didn’t plan properly shouldn’t derail your
whole day.
Just because they didn’t plan in time doesn’t
mean you have to shut down your scheduled
activities that are priorities in order to
deal with somebody else’s dysfunctional planning.
Wow.
That’s $99.
Business seminar.
Then, if you take this situation into account,
that’s out the window because, okay, who is
more important, Jairus or the woman?
It’s not a trick question.
It would be Jairus.
Would you say Jairus?
Jairus is more important.
Which one is more urgent, a woman who has
been able to live for 12 years with the condition
or a daughter who might die at any moment.
She’s a little girl.
The woman has already lived a little while.
The girl should get the chance to live a little
while.
The kid is always more important.
Always save the kid first.
Jesus did what wasn’t as urgent and what wasn’t
as important.
Y’all have a good week.
Why?
Okay, here’s what you do.
3.
Pursue the pull.
Jesus is in a crowd being pushed down the
street.
Jesus is in a crowd being pushed along the
way.
Jesus is in a crowd.
Everybody is pushing, but one woman pulled.
One woman pulled.
Life is always pushing you in many directions,
people pushing you to be this and pushing
you to do that and, “Buy me” and, “Eat me”
and, “Tweet me” and, “Sell me” and, “Watch
me” and, “Stream me” and, “Check me” and,
“Respond to me” and, “Snapchat me.”
It’s just “Me, me, me, me, me.”
God wants to give you the ability in a world
that is crowded with people and priorities
that will push you in every direction to perceive
the pull of his power he’s trying to release
out of your life.
Everybody else was pushing toward Jesus, but
when something pulled from Jesus, it pulled.
Have you ever felt the pull of the Spirit
of God?
Have you?
I have.
I believe this because in my life, of all
of the things I could have done with my life,
God pulled on me to start this church.
God pulled on me to preach the gospel.
I’m sure I could have gotten distracted with
other things.
Maybe you think I couldn’t have been good
at anything else.
I don’t know.
Maybe you’re right.
All I can tell you is something was pulling
me from a young age.
That’s what separated the woman from the crowd.
It’s the pull of God.
The pull in the midst of a pushy life.
Jesus always refused to be pushed into anything.
He would not be pushed to the coronation before
the crucifixion.
He would not be pushed to be a king before
he suffered as a criminal.
He would not be pushed, but he could not resist
the pull.
All of the demands of life are impossible
to categorize or anticipate.
Some of the moments that are the most meaningful
will come on the porch when you have a sermon
to prepare and a conversation to have, but
when you feel that pull…the pull…pursue
that, not what Peter and James and John think
you should do next…the pull.
The Latin word for distraction is pulled apart.
The word for attention in Latin is reach toward.
Jesus being pulled didn’t allow it to pull
him apart, but he reached toward the revelation
of what God had called him to do next.