Message Outlines

“And the apostles, when they had returned, told Him all that they had done.” (v10a)

Sad Herod

When it comes to serving the Lord, you are always overpacked.

Some have called this the “miracle interrupted.” We have what starts out and ends as the story of Jesus healing Jairus’ dying daughter, yet sandwiched in the middle is the healing of the woman with the relentless flow of blood. At first glance, that “middle miracle” seems random and accidental -- maybe even an annoying distraction. But the Lord works deliberately, not randomly. And it was no accident that these two healings happened on this day, in this sequence, and are forever linked together. No other miracle story in the Bible is quite like this one. This is not a miracle interrupted, it is a double miracle -- and it has a double lesson for you and me.

Luke is writing to remind us that no power on earth can separate us from God’s love and protection. No storm, no demon, no stigma, no disease, can take His love away. Luke is painting a picture and emphasizing the contrast between light and dark, faith and fear. In today’s Scripture we see Jesus set a man free from a legion of woe, and then we see the response of the pathetically fearful crowd contrasted against the passionately faithful man.

In Luke 8,  Jesus leads his disciples -- not into temptation, but directly into trouble. Through four stories, Luke shows Jesus teaching his closest disciples not to avoid trouble, but to actively engage it head-on. Jesus is the one who has His crew sail right into the storm. It is Jesus who chooses to land at a graveyard where the demon-possessed man cries out in bone-chilling agony. Jesus leads his friends smack into the awkward and embarrassing social situation of being touched by a woman who is “untouchable” and “unclean.”  And it is Jesus who closes His disciples in a room with the lifeless corpse of a little girl.

“For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh”  (Galatians 5.17 KJV)

Jesus recognized that there are those who hear, and those who really hear. I enjoy the way Eugene Peterson paraphrases Isaiah 6.9 in verse 10: “Their eyes are open, but they can’t see a thing. Their ears are open but they can’t hear a thing.” Do you know anyone like that? Do they live in your house? Do they wear your pajamas?

“We love because he first loved us.” (1 John 4.9-19)

He Loves Us First.

“This is how God showed his love among us:  He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.” (v9)

If love is demonstrated in sacrifice, in the manger is perfect love.

“My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.” (James 1.2-3)

O Come, thou Dayspring, come and cheer, Our spirits by thine advent here
Disperse the gloomy cloud of night, And death’s dark shadow put to flight
Rejoice! Rejoice!  Emmanuel shall come to thee O Israel

Jesus said, “not as the world gives do I give you” peace. By the world’s low standard, peace is no more than the mere absence of strife. Thus, according to the world, peace between nations is the absence of hostility; peace in a marriage means the absence of fighting; and financial peace means the absence of debt. But that is peace “as the world gives” -- and as we know, where there is a vacuum, something is going to fill the void. 

What will it be for you?