Snapshot Series: "Our Faith Needs"

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Community Group Questions

1. Have you ever been in a hopeless situation that you finally realized Jesus was the only one who could do anything about it?
2. What happened and what was the outcome?
3. If negative, did you fall into the trap of feeling like you did not have enough faith for things to turn out differently? Why is that a wrong way to look at the problem?
4. Generally speaking how does your faith in Christ help you daily? Does it force you to live with a different perspective?
5 Think back to when you became a Christian...what made you finally realize you had a need for Jesus?
6 Do you find yourself living in your own power and not relying on the power of Jesus? When & Why?


Snapshot13 “Our Faith Needs” Mark 5:21-43

We all have faith in something and we will hold to that until it fails

Big Idea: We exercise the most faith when we have the greatest need.

In this account we see two people who are at their darkest moments and have nowhere else to turn. So they turn to Jesus. We also see a group of people who are blinded to their own personal darkness.

-A ruling official with a dying daughter. Vrs 21-24a & 35-43
-A hopeless situation
The fact that Jairus … fell at Jesus’ feet demonstrates his real need and his sincerity. He was a ruler who came in humility.

-A women bleeding for 12 years. Vrs 24b-34 (uterine hemorrhaging)
-Was a socio-religious outcast because she was unclean
Lev 15:25-27 By touching Jesus’ garment, she technically renders him ceremonially unclean (cf. Lev. 15:19–23), but Jesus is greater than any purity laws, for he makes her clean by his power instead of becoming unclean himself.
-Went to all the physicians
-Spent all that she had
Jesus wanted to know who touched Him.
not that he might blame her for her presumption, but that he might commend and encourage her faith.
-Jesus was the object of her faith.
BKC states “Faith, confident trust, derives its value not from the one who expresses it, but from the object in which it rests.” (Jesus)

Her faith for physical healing at the same time resulted in her faith for salvation.

-The Mockers These people did not realize there own personal darkness or their need for Jesus.
-Are you laughing? Vrs 40
-Do you think Jesus is too busy to help you, your problems are insignificant to Him. Vrs 35

I think any person who reads these accounts has an itching question of “does God work like this now? Or why doesn’t God work like this now?”
Here is what happens if a physical healing does not happen all the time, for some then it negates the fact that it could ever happen. For others it forces them to explain away that God had another plan or purpose. For the skeptic these answers usually don’t cut it.
Some of you may remember Karl Marx’s comments on religion and faith “religion is the opium of the people” For Marx, the problem lies in the obvious fact that an opiate drug fails to fix a physical injury — it merely helps you forget pain and suffering. Marx is saying that faith only makes you forget the suffering but does not do anything about it.
This is what I think we need to take away…Jesus is the God that is capable and His time spent here on earth displayed that. It also gave us a small glimpse at what living in the eternal kingdom of heaven will be like.
-Jesus the healer. He was willing to act on and help those who expressed faith in Him

Jesus knows our greatest needs and wants us to realize them and express faith in Him to take care of them

So what do we do? What are our greatest needs?
- We have a need to have faith for salvation : Realize there is a problem that needs to be taken care of.

We all have a desperate need for Christ. We were all sick with sin and only Jesus can heal us through faith. We were all dead and only Christ can raise us through faith. This life is constantly showing us that there are problems that need to be fixed. (Gospel).

Francis Schaeffer said in The God Who is There. “The true basis for faith is not faith itself but the work which Christ finished on the cross.”

That is why we look to Revelation 21:1-4

Matthew Henry Said: “Most people do not apply themselves to Christ, till they have tried in vain all other helpers, and find them, physicians of no value. And Jesus will be found a sure refuge, even to those who make him their last refuge”

-We have a need to have faith in Jesus’ power: Live with faith in Jesus knowing that we are powerless and He is powerful.

How does that work? Everyday life. What are you trying to do on your own and not having faith in Christ to accomplish it through you. We all have a problem with only going to Jesus when there is nowhere else to go.

We only exercise faith when it is a last resort. Christians should live with faith in Jesus for everything first. That involves a vibrant prayer life. Here is what happens when you pray…you are inviting God the Holy Spirit to work in and through you.

Today being January 1st many people will start to make resolutions because we want to better ourselves. Before we make any resolutions we have to come to the reality that without the help of the Lord we are destined to fail.

God our Father has made all things depend on faith so that whoever has faith will have everything, and whoever does not have faith will have nothing. Martin Luther.
Jesus wants to bring us all to the point in which we rely on Him for everything and in every situation.

The habit of a Christian should be to go to Jesus first because we are really deficient in all areas. We just fool ourselves into thinking we are something when we are not.

-We have a need to persevere in faith: Keep on going. Finish the race Vrs 35-36

Its tough to keep focus living in a sinful world and things do not go the way they should. People laugh and mock and we get discouraged.

But despite this we need to exercise faith daily because we are daily at the point of our greatest need.