Luke 8:40-56

Sermon Notes

Luke 8:40-56

Faith in the Waiting: Trusting the Timing of the Unhurried Healer

Associate Pastor Tom Yarbrough

The Miracles of Jesus:

1. Display the power and authority of Jesus
2. Arouse curiosity about Jesus
3. Reveal the compassion of Jesus
4. Affirm the identity of Jesus
5. Inspire discipleship and worship of Jesus

1. A public petition from a desperate father
2. A secret application by a diseased woman
3. A generous adoption by an unhurried Healer
4. A miraculous resurrection of a beloved daughter

“…many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing. But Jesus did not entrust himself to them because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man.”
John 2:23-25

“Jesus healed without the use of medical or surgical means, without delay, degree, or remission, but immediately, completely, and permanently, so that even hostile eyewitnesses said, ‘We cannot deny it.'”
John Stott

“Faith has value because of the object to which it connects us. Think of skating on a frozen pond. Faith is the means by which we get out on the ice, but it is not the reason we do not sink. We are kept out of the dangerous water below by the object of our faith. It is the thickness of the ice that saves us.”
Kevin DeYoung

1. We can trust that Jesus allows us to approach him in our need.

“We cannot present a reason for Christ to finally close off his heart to his own sheep. No such reason exists. Every human friend has a limit. If we offend enough, if a relationship gets damaged enough, if we betray enough times, we are cast out. The walls go up. With Christ, our sins and weaknesses are the very resumé items that qualify us to approach him.”
Dane Ortlund, Gentle and Lowly

2. We can trust that Jesus delights in and will encourage whatever faith we come to him with.

“The great joy of God in our faith is not just in the act of believing, but in the relationship it establishes between us. God delights in the trust of His children, just as a parent delights in a child’s trust.”
J.I. Packer, Knowing God

3. We can trust that Jesus exercises his initiative in calling us to him, cleansing us of our sins, and meeting our needs.

“You can never take God by surprise. You can never anticipate him. He always makes the first move. He is always there ‘in the beginning’. Before man existed, God acted. Before man stirs himself to seek God, God has sought man. In the Bible we do not see man groping after God; we see God reaching after man.”
John Stott, Basic Christianity

4. We can trust that Jesus is not busy, overwhelmed, or distracted, in responding to our suffering.

“We have a hard time trusting in God’s timing because we believe we are missing out, but the truth is we are missing out only when we don’t wait for His perfect plan.”
Tim Keller, Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God’s Work

5. We can trust that Jesus has the power to set the world right because not even death is beyond his authority.

“The miracles of Jesus are signs of the right order of things. Jesus was not so much turning things upside down as turning them rightside up or, at least, giving his followers glimpses of the rightside up. The miracles of healing, deliverance, provision, and resurrection all reveal that God, through Jesus, is making all things new, that he is restoring what once was unbroken.”
Matt Chandler & Jared C. Wilson, The Explicit Gospel