Turn with me once again to the Gospel of Luke chapter 8. Our scripture lesson is going to be the second. We're going to pick up the reading in the second half of verse 42. We will read down through verse 48. We will likely, if the Lord continues to lead us in this direction, circle back to verse 40 and pick up the healing of this man named Jairus, his daughter. And he has approached Christ, asked Him to come to his home to heal his daughter who was at the point of death. In the midst of that is when we find this very well-known story of this woman who had, as the King James calls it, the issue of blood. I believe many are familiar with this account, and I had read it, of course, and preached upon it in the past, and yet God has brought us around to it again. And I think there are a great many things for us to take from this passage of Scripture today. without anything else by way of introduction, and we just want to read it. As Jesus went, and again he's headed to Jairus' home. As Jesus went, the people pressed around him, and there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for 12 years. And though she had spent all her living on physicians, she could not be healed by anyone. She came up behind him and touched the fringe of his garment, and immediately her discharge of blood ceased. And Jesus said, Who was it that touched me? When all denied it, Peter said, Master, the crowds surround you and are pressing in on you. But Jesus said, Someone touched me, for I perceive that power has gone out from me. And when the woman saw that she was not hidden, she came trembling and falling down before him, declared in the presence of all the people why she had touched him and how she had been immediately healed. And he said to her, daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace. Are you desperate? The title of our message today is Are You Desperate? There are two different ideas conveyed by the word desperate. One, you look it up in the 1828 dictionary by Webster. It's defined as hopelessness or despair. That's one idea in the word desperate. And I see in this woman a sense of desperation. But as I looked that definition up, I thought that maybe that's not the right word. Maybe desperate is not the right sense. Because she's not without hope. Far from it. But if you continue to look on, I think it's maybe the seventh or eighth entry in Webster's 1828 dictionary of the word desperate, it also means boldness to excess, adventuring upon the most dangerous undertakings. And I thought, well, maybe desperate's the right word after all. If we mean by desperate that latter sense, boldness to excess, Because this woman demonstrates that. Among many other things, she demonstrates a desperate boldness. Her faith was not timid in this moment. It was not divided. It was singularly focused on Christ, and her boldness is on full display. And when I ask you, and I ask myself as well, are you bold? Are you desperate? That's what I'm asking. Because desperation, this boldness, has great power to change your life. It changed this woman's life. It changed it in a way that no one else had been able to. In moments of desperation, we do things that we would not ordinarily do. We risk things that we would not ordinarily risk. We throw ourselves fully in the direction our desperation takes us. So are you desperate? Now, I understand, and I'm like this as well. I think we all are. We generally prefer to not be in a state of desperation. We don't like to feel that, I don't think. I don't think it's something that we seek. We don't generally want to be desperate. We take measures to avoid being in such a circumstance. Many different measures. We're told to eat a certain way and to exercise and to take care of ourselves physically to avoid being in a place of desperation someday down the road. And all of that is well and good, I suppose. But we We often avoid desperation to the point that we live a life of great comfort and ease and really with very little boldness as a result. A thought, I think I've shared it before, I believe this and I believe I'm a subject of this just like so many others. I think soft beds make for soft nights of sleep and soft beds and soft nights of sleep make for soft men. Are you desperate though? Because you see, I believe that life is going to inevitably bring moments of desperation that call us to bold steps. Life is going to do that. Life is going to bring situations and circumstances where desperation is the reality of our life and Those moments of desperation often end up defining the rest of our life. Some of those steps are good, by the way. This woman's was. You see, desperate times are not necessarily a bad time. They can be the most important beneficial moments of your life. those moments when the heart begins to race, when the mind begins to run, and when it begins to look for answers in anticipation of question after question and what-if scenario after what-if scenario, in those moments of desperation, When we sense a call from God in our heart, and when we sense a move of boldness is necessary, there is within us in our human nature a desire to hold back and not take those bold steps to avoid the sense of desperation and set it aside. But in so doing, we also avoid the powerful, bold steps that can change our lives for the better when it comes to following Christ. Those steps can be good and necessary, steps taken that no one would ordinarily take. No one would willingly and knowingly inject their body with the poison of radiation or chemotherapy unless they thought and were at a point of desperation to say, this is the only hope of ridding my body of the cancer that is going to take it from me one day. But other than that, no one would put that poison in their bodies. No one sells everything they own and moves across the country unless they're desperate maybe for a fresh start. No one falls to their knees in prayer at three in the morning unless they're desperate for the hand of God to be at work in their life. And these things that cause and move us to bold steps in the right direction, though they may be fearful, and though they may bring with them a degree of uncertainty and require us to boldly place our faith in Christ, and though those moments of desperation can cause us to move in positive and right directions, we also have to recognize that desperation can also cause us to make terrible decisions. A man in a desperate financial situation can choose to risk everything on the roulette wheel or the card table. A woman maybe turns to drugs to deaden the pain of her life. Many others make terrible decisions in moments of desperation, and some make good decisions like this woman that we've read about today and we want to look at together. So we have this complex relationship. with desperation. On one hand, it can lead us to new heights, and we sung a song just moments ago, Higher Ground. Lead me on, Lord, to higher ground. I will tell you that often to make and to obtain and reach that higher ground, you must be spurred by moments of desperation. So on one hand, desperation can lead to good things and new heights spiritually and in our lives, but on the other, it can lead to new lows. When was the last time you felt desperate? What did you do with that desperation? When life presses in, and when the suffering begins, when opportunities arise, and you find yourself desperate for answers, where do you reach? Is it for Christ in the hem of His garment? Or is it in another direction? And the moment of desperation takes you further from Christ rather than closer to Him. Today we see in this woman someone who had been waiting not for a little while, not 12 days, but 12 years. 4,380 days in this circumstance and in her condition. Imagine that, waking every day 4,380 times, and you arise and you awake, and no doubt one of the first thoughts, if not the first thought, is the affliction that afflicts your body and the disease that has so defined your reality for more than a decade. She was desperate, but she took her moment of desperation and made a good and wise choice. We see her and we find in her someone to emulate because she found relief from her condition when she in desperation reached out for Christ. Desperation made her laser focused. She didn't have a complicated plan. She just reached for Jesus. So as we look at this together today, come with this question in your heart. I think it will be helpful. What would I do? What would I do if I believed that one honest reach toward Christ could change everything? What if I was so desperate for it that I was willing and bold to reach out? And you may be saved already. By the testimony of most of you, you are. You know Him. So you know what it feels like in that moment of lost desperation to reach out for Christ and to have Him grab a hold of you and pull you close and you have heard, much like this woman did, daughter or son, your faith has made you well. You are cleansed. and you may already know him, but I would challenge you today, I don't believe God is finished with us the moment that he saves us, and it's just a matter of waiting out the clock until we get to heaven. I think this life offers opportunities that are far beyond anything that we could ever imagine, and if we were desperate enough, just desperate enough, to be bold in moments when he says, go here, say this, take this job, don't take that one. Marry this person, don't marry that one. Be this person to this person in your life or not. When we have those moments, when it causes us a moment of desperation, we need to think and have a heightened awareness around, I am likely going to go one of two ways with this. This is going to lead me to a moment of boldness in Christ, or it's going to lead me to a moment, by the way, of boldness in rejection. But both are bold. Desperation is going to make you bold one way or the other. There is a boldness that it takes the human heart to reject the very Son of God and the Holy Spirit. We don't think of it that way, but I think there is an element of boldness there. What would I do today if I believe that one honest touch, one honest reach toward Christ could change everything? What would I do? What would I be willing to forsake? Now this woman, we wanna look at where her desperation came from, and it's obvious. There was a woman who had a discharge of blood for 12 years, and though she had spent all her living on physicians, she could not be healed by any. Mark, in his gospel, adds not only had she not been healed, but he said she'd grown worse. Salt in the wound. She tried everything, physician after physician, remedy after remedy, over and over and over again. She had tried one thing after another, only to add financial ruin to her physical ruin. She'd spent her whole living, her whole savings. Everything was gone. She was not only not better, she's worse. And not only that, let's continue to add to the cause of her desperation. She's considered by society as unclean and thus is isolated and cast out. One day she awakes and this issue of blood is the first. It's the first of 4,380 days that are to come. And she on that day sees and realizes there's a problem. And as soon as people find out about it, She's cast out, considered unclean, and she goes from doctor to doctor, physician to physician, remedy to remedy, cure to cure. Every new idea, she'd likely tried all of them in, quite frankly, desperation. Imagine, by the way, though, it seems in the way that the account is given to us, it seems like she'd gone through them all. Imagine getting to the last doctor, trying his healing, his cure, and it doesn't work. Imagine that. Imagine when it first sets in in her life, this condition, and she tells someone that she trusts, a family member perhaps, and she says, I've got this problem, and I need someone to help me, to cure me, and the family member begins to talk with others, and then they say, oh, there's this doctor, I think he knows what to do, and hope begins to well up, and she goes to that doctor, and he can't, but then they keep talking, and maybe the doctor says, well, I'm sorry, I couldn't help you, but I've got a colleague, maybe she can help you, maybe he can help you, and one after another, after another, after another. This woman tries doctor after doctor, and then it comes down to the end of it, and the last person she tries, she says, do you know of anyone who can help? And the doctor simply shakes his head and says, well, have you tried so-and-so? And she says, yeah, I've been to him. He sent me to you. Imagine getting to that last doctor. It was a desperate time, and this desperate time moved her to boldness, because I think for us, 2025 it can be it can be easy for us to overlook the boldness that this woman demonstrated on this day it might seem to us well yeah it's obvious why wouldn't she do what she did and in one sense that's true but there's a great deal of boldness in this woman and I want I want to highlight that if I can this woman took her desperation to Christ that's what she did with it it's what we all ought to do with it but I want you to think for a moment Many, many allow these moments of desperation, instead of turning to faith toward Christ and toward God, they allow those moments of desperation to turn to cynicism and bitterness. They say things like this, tried everything and nothing worked, so there's nothing that will. Life's nothing but a burden. God doesn't care about my pain. If God truly loved me, this wouldn't be happening to me. Everyone else gets their miracle. Why can't I? Prayer hasn't worked. I've prayed for years, for 12 years, for 4,380 days. I've asked God to take this from me, and he hasn't. Why should I keep trusting when trust has gotten me nowhere? That's when boldness, holy boldness in faith must be exercised. When we begin to feel these things and think these things, and think things again like I'm invisible and God doesn't care, He doesn't even know, God seems to help everyone else but me. That's not what this woman allowed her desperation to get to. This is the power of desperation though it can go one of these two directions, but we read what she did in her moment She'd heard, and this is from Mark, by the way, and I encourage you maybe later today to read this account as Mark gives it. He gives more detail, and I want to call this out in particular of what he says. In Mark chapter 5, verse 27 and 28, speaking of this woman, he said, she had heard the reports about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment. For she said, if I touch even his garments, I will be made well. Hearing of Jesus led to a moment of desperate action. Desperate because it was at great risk. Risk because she was ceremonially unclean. Had been for 12 years. By touching anyone in the crowd, she would render them unclean as well, according to Leviticus. She risked public shame and rebuke if she was discovered being unclean in a crowd, touching a rabbi, performing these actions. This was not acceptable behavior. But I'll tell you, when you want to get to Christ, when you're desperate enough to get to Him, Your concerns about what others might say or do dwindle and eventually fade to such a degree that the only thing that matters is getting to Christ. Many people unwilling to shed tears of burden and brokenness in front of others because of what it might look like. But I will tell you, I think in part that's because they've not reached the moment of desperation that they need to, to see their desperate need of Christ. This woman risks everything, the shame, the rebuke. She also risked this, by the way, after so many failed attempts at healing, she risked yet again being disappointed. You know, one thing that a broken heart will do is it will stay broken so as to never feel the break again. This woman risked being disappointed. yet again. I don't believe she reproached Jesus with that. I believe she approached Him with great hope. You want to know something? Faith and hope in God takes courage. It's not a whim. It's not a silly thing. It's not for the weak-minded as the secular unbeliever would say. You know what takes weakness? Weakness is cynicism and bitterness. That comes easy to us as human beings. Hope in God and hope in Christ is what we must place our trust and faith in. Her desperation on this day far outweighed her fear. She simply said, if I just touch even his garments, I'll be made well. If I just touch the tassel, of his garments and those tassels given way back again in the book of Leviticus and in the law that those tassels God said I want you to have tassels on your garments because when you see them I want you to remember that those tassels are a reminder of you of who I am and of who might of my word and that I am Jehovah, that I am your God. And there is a picture here of this woman as she reaches out and touches that tassel. She is saying, I believe in the God of Israel, Jehovah. I believe you are his son. You've claimed it. I've heard of you. Men have spoken of you. I heard about you and I've come here and all I've got to do is touch the hem of his garment. Combining Luke and Mark, the condition of heart that this woman came to Christ with was humble yet hopeful. She came up behind Him. We've seen that even recently. The woman who anointed Jesus' feet kneeled behind Him. She just came up behind Him. Now, I want to contrast this woman with the one who turns desperation into that cynicism and bitterness toward God and doesn't reach. Instead of reaching, they recoil. Instead of pressing through the crowd toward Jesus, they withdraw. into isolation and self-protection. Instead of risking one more hope, they nurse their disappointment and declare, nothing's worked. God doesn't care. I will not trust him. Instead of confessing their need publicly, hide their pain and harden their heart. Instead of hearing the report about Jesus and running to him, they hear the same report and scoff. I've tried everything. That rabbi from Nazareth can't help me. The cynic's desperation turns inward, becoming the very prison that they live the rest of their life in. But the hope and the trust of Christ leads to freedom and joy and deliverance from that that afflicts. Now this woman could have chosen either path. I actually wonder, there was a great crowd of people. I wonder if there was anyone who happened to be close by and cynically observing all that was going on. Instead of doing as what this woman did, in humble faith and in hope and in desperation, braved the crowd and reached out to touch him. This woman could have chose either path after 12 years of worsening pain and financial and societal and relational ruin. But faith directed her desperation toward the hope in Christ. And I hope that is where your desperation leads you as well. I don't hope necessarily that you don't feel a sense of desperation. In fact, I hope you do. I hope I do. Because without the desperation, without the boldness that's required to live the life that Christ has called us to, what are we doing? Where is your desperation taking you? Through the crowd and all the risk that that will include to your comfort, to your plans, to your hopes and dreams? I was listening the other day, I don't remember what it was even to, but I thought whoever was speaking, and I don't remember who it was, but they made a good point. They said, you know, really one of the main reasons that we do not have the Holy Spirit leading our lives the way we would like is we simply haven't submitted to Him. We want the Holy Spirit to move the obstacles out of the way of our planned path, rather than simply saying, Where is the path? And then confronting whatever obstacles might be in the way with his help and wisdom and strength. Look, is your desperation taking you toward Christ through the crowd or is it taking you to greater bitterness and a harder heart? Because that's really where one of the places you're going to head. And I know life can be difficult. I know it can bring pain, great, great pain. I know it's a fearful thing to hope. I know that's fearful. With the ever-present possibility that our hope might once again be crushed, I know it's a fearful thing. But I pray that you might take your desperation and use it to move you toward Christ today, this day, this moment. that you will keep pressing through the crowded days of your life until you reach Him and find the peace that your soul desperately desires, and maybe for some time has not been allowing itself to feel the hope that it can be well with your soul, that it can be right again with God, that you can sense His presence right by your side like you did the day He saved you. I know that life can throw things in our path that make hoping that such a life can be. I know that life, I know that people, I know that our own thoughts can get in the way and can cause us to react to those moments of desperation that maybe you're feeling right now because God has called you to something. But you think, no, even if I followed you, God, Yes, I believe that that end would be wonderful. But Lord, I don't believe. I don't trust. I'm not willing to bet my life on it. I'm not willing to bet my comfort on it. I'm not willing to bet being broken over a disappointed result. This woman didn't feel these things. Well, I shouldn't say that. I'm sure she did. But all of it was overridden by a boldness to move toward Christ. And that's what we want to share with you today. May God help us to be boldly moved toward Him. and that you move toward him until you feel what this woman felt, healing from Christ, either for your soul in salvation or for your walk with him thereafter. Jesus, I think this is important. Jesus, and it's a little bit of a sidestep of our primary thought, but it's so important. I felt it necessary to share and believe God wants us to. Jesus draws her boldness out into the open. by his question. Jesus said in verse 46 and 47, someone touched me. For I perceive the power has gone out from me. And when the woman saw that she was not hidden, she came trembling and falling down before him, declared in the presence of all the people why she had touched him and how she had been immediately healed. Can you sense in her an immediate need to explain herself? Can you sense her immediate mindset You know, only Jesus and the woman knew at first. The only two in all that crowd that knew something had happened was the woman and Jesus. You know, that's very similar to what happens to us when we get saved. There might be a lot of people around, there may not have been, but the only two people that know are Jesus and you. And in a sense, that's all who will ever really know. But you know, and he knows, and in that moment she had been made well and did Jesus and the incarnation of Christ and his humanity and his divinity are top of mind for me right now we won't get into all of that though but Jesus asked a question he already knew the answer to here he did not ask because he did not know I do not believe that to be the case Peter and the disciples And the crowd, they were completely unaware of what is going on. And Jesus says, who touched me, and Peter, as Peter is so good for us to do, he says, Lord, there's all kinds of people touching you. What are you asking? Your question doesn't make any sense. And he says, no, no, no, Peter. Somebody touched me. I know who it is. He didn't say this. But the woman probably felt immediately like, he knows it's me. No one else does, and she might have been playing a game, you know, and trying to slink back into the crowd and try to get away. She'd been healed, but it's not what she does, and it's not what we ought to do either when Christ touches us or when we touch him. Why did Jesus ask? It wasn't because He was unaware. He wanted to draw this woman out of her hiding for her benefit and for His glorification. It's not wrong, by the way, for Jesus to desire to be glorified in your life. That's not wrong. That is the only right thing. As His creation and Him, our Creator, glorifying Him, is why the hole in your heart is never filled by trying to glorify yourself or some other person. This woman had been in hiding for a long time. She'd spent 12 years. She had learned how to be present but unseen. It had probably become second nature. There but not there. Always at a distance. Never in the spotlight. Someone to be avoided and shunned. And I will tell you that probably after 12 years, that's probably where she felt most comfortable. She probably didn't want to be in the spotlight. She knew that all the people around her knew she was unclean. Ceremonially unclean was not someone to be near. And so she probably preferred the darkness of the anonymity that she lived her life in at that point, because anytime she was the subject of focus, it was scorn and disgust and rejection, not love or compassion, certainly not by most. Thus, I think her habit would have been not to make a scene or cause anyone to look at her. But Jesus does not allow that to happen. At least he gives opportunity, we'll say, for this not to be the case. It is as though I thought of this as I was studying and praying and thinking. It's almost like I hear Jesus saying to this woman something like this. Look, you've suffered long enough in silent isolation. You're now clean. Speak it publicly and openly. You've been long enough in the shadows. Declare what I've just done for you. This woman had spent so long in the darkness and yet Jesus here calls out and says, who touched me to bring her faith in him to light. Look, her hiddenness, her hiddenness would serve to hide what Christ had done, not just hide her. It would have hidden in the eyes of everyone around what Christ had done. And that's the real travesty of it, if that had been the way it had come about. To hide the glory due to Christ because it's what he's done in our lives by not proclaiming it, surely this is not good. Her natural tendency to remain unseen would have kept the crowd from seeing what Jesus had done. And so Jesus draws her out not to shame her, not to belittle her, not to berate her, but so that the crowd might see him. Because think of it for just a moment with me. This woman braves the crowd. She reaches out. She touches the hem of his garment. She's made whole. And then Jesus says, who touched me? And then she does admit it and she comes up, but what if she hadn't? It wasn't that, or excuse me, as she'd go down this path and she says, he just cleansed me. Now, do you see the eyes of the crowd as they go from the woman when she says, he healed me? Their eyes go from her to him. which is why he asks the question and which is why he asks us and declares to us to tell the world what I have done. That's by the way what the man with legion of demons in the previous passage that we looked at did, wasn't it? In verse 39, he went away proclaiming throughout the whole city how much Jesus had done for him. Just think of it in that moment. Be there with the dust of the road and the the loudness of the crowd. And Jesus, by the way, is already on some other journey heading to heal someone else's daughter. And this whole scene unfolds. And I can, just again, I can imagine as she said, and many of the people around no doubt knew this woman and knew her condition. And she says, he's pointing to Christ. He healed me. I touched him and he healed me. As their eyes turned to him, The crowd would not have been impressed on this day with the woman. They would have been impressed by Christ. When Christ does a work in our life, we ought to proclaim it, not to shine a light on us, but to shine a light on Him. This woman's bold act of desperation led to other bold acts. She came trembling and humbly, but she did come forth and she declared in the presence of all the people, is what the scripture says. But I wonder which one might have been in this crowd who allowed their desperation to harden into cynicism instead of faith. They received no healing because they never reached. Exhausted just like this woman, but left just as tired. Maybe one that also was facing financial ruin and left with just deepening pain. Heard the reports about Jesus, but didn't believe them. One reached and one recoiled. One pressed through the crowd in trembling hope. The other withdrew into the safety of despair. One risked public shame for the chance of healing, and the other protected their wounded heart behind walls of bitterness. And so one walked away healed. The other walked away worse than before, if for no other reason than another day had passed without healing. Desperation alone changes nothing. It is faith-filled desperation that reaches through the crowd to touch Christ. It is hope-anchored desperation that risks one more disappointment for the sake of encountering Christ. So the question remains, where is your desperation taking you? Toward Christ or away from Him? This woman is given this beautiful line from Christ in verse 48. Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace and be healed of your disease. What an untold number of doctors could not do, Christ did in an instant. He would not let that grace remain hidden. It would not be up to him for that to be the case, but he simply could have said, by the way, couldn't he? He said, I just healed that woman. It isn't what he said. He just said, well, who touched me? Don't hide grace. Ask the Lord to give you the strength. Declare what he's done. And if you've not yet met him, then may you brave your own crowd and your own desperation. May it lean, send you toward Christ. I want to conclude and simply say a few more words. Many pressed Jesus, but one truly reached out in faith There can be, you can be near him. You can even physically be in touch in a church service. But are you really reaching out for him in desperate faith, knowing that he alone has what you need? Her plan was not complex. It wasn't elaborate. There was no spiritual mountain that she was called to climb. There was no right way of living that was prescribed for her, and then you can touch him. She just said, if I just touch him, if I just touch the hem of his garment. Some people today I believe are, and we all fall into this, I think, we sometimes will hide rather than declare. Hear His naming of this woman. Daughter, your faith has made you well. She's no longer anonymous and no longer to be scorned. She's no longer to be isolated, but she is to be in the loving embrace of Christ and in the fellowship of those who follow Him. So I ask you today to move from the press of the crowd to the reach of a desperate faith in Christ. And if I can say just one more word, bold steps are required here, but which will you choose? Because I believe, as I've said before, and perhaps it's an arguable point, but I believe that bold steps are required in either acceptance or rejection. You won't regret the step of bold submission to Christ. You will regret the moment of bold rejection of Him. Life is precious. Life is short. Press through the crowd in moments of bold desperation. Use it to move you toward Christ. and declare it so that everyone near and far who you come into contact with looks not at you, but they take their eyes from you who has been healed to the one who has done the healing. May God move us in that direction. If you sense that and sense the reality of the preciousness of life and the briefness of it and the days that lead quickly into weeks and months and years and decades. If you sense that today might be a moment of desperation for you, may you find the kind of desperate faith that this woman showed for us today from this passage. And exercise that faith and trust in Christ. Pray that God would be with His word.