Calvary United Methodist Church

June 28, 2015

FEELING DRAINED

Rev. R. Jeffrey Fisher

Children’s Sermon: 2 Corinthians 8:10-12

We’d like to invite our children to come forward at this time for the

Children’s Message. Please come forward. Come on up!

That was a hard job, but I’m very thankful to see your smiles up here

this morning. Did you all have a good week?

Well, I want to talk today about being whole-hearted. I am sure some-

times people have talked to you about putting everything into whatever

you do. What are some of your hobbies? Do you have some interests?

Do you like to go swimming in the summer? Do you like to swim?

What else? Do you like to go camping? What are some other things

you like to do? Nothing in mind?

Well, there are a lot of times we all have many things to do and some-

times we don’t often put everything into it. Sometimes we have, like if

it were a school year, thankfully it is not a school year and most of you

are probably just starting school anyway, but if you have a subject to

do you want to give it your very best and this person was probably

studying math. Sometimes you hope for getting the best grade, you

want to get an “A” but maybe all of your work and all of the time and

all of the energy you spend still only camp up to a “C”. Now, if you

gave it all you had maybe that’s good, but sometimes we don’t work as

hard as we should at something.

Sometimes…have you ever baked a cake with Mom or Dad? Have

you ever done that? I have tried to bake cakes from time to time and I

like baking cakes, but sometimes we want them to look like this, just

perfectly puffed up and everything.

But just sometimes it just doesn’t come the way we want it.

Have you ever tried to run in a race and you thought you were going to

win and somebody beat you? Has that ever happened to you? You’ve

never run in a race? Never?! These are really bad times! We all ought

to take time to run a race once in a while.

Sometimes there are people faster than us. Sometimes in swimming

there will be someone that’s a better swimmer. Sometimes a better

baker. Sometimes someone is better at painting or drawing or doing

whatever it is that we like to do. I know sometimes when I remember

through the years lots of people like to run, but sometimes in running

if there are five people running, how many people can be first? Help

me! Just one. Only one person can be first and then there’s the sec-

ond, third and fourth and the fifth if there’s only five people, because

we can’t all be at the top. Sometimes things happen. We might trip or

fall, but if we help one another we can get through.

The part that I’m talking about today isn’t whether we are a winner or

not, but that we try the very best. That we try the very best because

even in the Olympics where it’s the best of the best around the world,

someone won’t be first, they will be second or third or even last.

So, the point is that we be whole hearted and to be whole hearted

means that if Mom or Dad or a school teacher tells you to do some-

thing, you say: Yes, I’m going to draw the best I can draw! I’m going

to do my subjects. I am going to read the best that I can read. I’m go-

ing to be what sport the best I can do. I’m just not going to, let’s say,

run and I’m not going to bother running. We are going to always try

the best we can. We are going to look ahead and see what is it that I

could do to put my whole heart into this. If I’ve got to read a book and

I look at how many pages it is and I say I have five days, I have to read

so much a day to get done.

We have to make a plan and in the Church of Jesus Christ we are al-

ways supposed to not half-heartedly but whole-heartedly love our

neighbors and to serve our God and so it is a very difficult thing to do,

but we keep trying.

This gentleman wanted to be a racer and he might not have raced with

his whole heart. I read a story that he was in his 80s. That’s even a

little older than me. He still finished the race. His whole heart was in

the race.

If we are going to help clean up the dishes we do the very best job we

can.

If we are going to rake the leaves in the fall, we do the very best job.

When Jesus was calling for people to help him, he didn’t look just for

the best people; he looked for people’s hearts. He wanted people who

say “I will follow you.” And sometimes when we see people we know

how to follow because I bet sometime in your life you have felt like

this, which probably means he’s sad. Have you ever been sad or hurt

or lonely and you would know what to do for a person like this right?

You could go and listen to them and just sit there maybe and be quiet

with them because you care.

If you have a younger brother or sister and you see them and they are

doing this, it probably means they need help, they are hungry or they

need help in some other way.

If you saw a person and you were driving along with your parents out

on an old country road and there was no one else around and their car

was broken, what do you think you should do? Any idea? Maybe help

them instead of letting them there by themselves? I

t is to be whole-hearted and that means we give not only just a little bit

of our time, but we give everything that we have to try: our time;

sometimes it means we have to help them buy gas;

it means we are willing to go whatever direction it takes that we can do

the right thing.

There’s a scripture lesson in Corinthians that I want to share with you

this morning: So here’s what I think: The best thing you can do right

now is to finish what you started last year and not let those good inten-

tions grow stale. Your heart’s been in the right place all along. You’ve

got what it takes to finish, so go. Once the commitment is clear, you do

what you can, not what you can’t. The heart regulates the hands.

So, there’s a lot of things you say you are going to do: I’m going to

help do the dishes today for lunch. And it doesn’t mean you do two

dishes and say, “I’m tired. I’m not doing any more dishes.” Right?

Whole-hearted says “I’m going to do it until it’s finished.” And it’s

that way with our hands when we are trying to help other people, we

help the best we can.

Thank you for coming up this morning. I hope you’ll be whole-

hearted this week.

Message: Mark 5:25-34

Have you ever felt drained? Really drained? You thought “there’s

nothing more, I can’t take it.” I was sitting there looking across the

congregation. As pastor we see people in hospitals and in nursing

homes and other facilities. We hear stories. I can’t imagine the drain

that some of you have had on your lives. I know what it’s like to be

drained in my own life. And it’s because sometimes there are things

going on in our life that are way beyond our control. And we pray and

we pray and we pray and with persistence, God relieves. God refuels.

God picks us up.

A part of the message today is talking about the baggage we carry and

why we can become so drained.

And if you think you don’t have any baggage, I want to tell you, Dr.

Phil says this: “I’m not pointing fingers, but you have issues.” Right?

We all have issues. Sometimes we don’t like to think of it.

I have a friend who has imaginary friends and they even have serious

issues.

I don’t know what your serious issue is. This morning when I got up, I

had something on my mind. I went out to my car and I thought, “Oh,

my gosh! I have to get new tires before winter comes.” Then you

think that’s pretty small, but what I’m saying is our minds don’t rest,

do they? It’s: oh my gosh, the bill’s coming due this week and I’m

not sure if I’ll pay it. I’m not sure with the political changes if my

job’s still going to be in there. I know a few people in that position.

I’m not sure that I can get through this college exam. I’m not sure

whatever it is. We have something on our mind all the time.

The story I’m going to read to you is an old story that if you’ve been in

the church long you’ve heard it before. It’s the woman who has had an

issue of bleeding for twelve years. Talk about baggage. Talk about

being drained, not only physically because of the hemorrhage and los-

ing blood which of course removes your strength, but the baggage that

goes along with that because of the scriptural possibilities of that day.

I want to read that to you and as we look at this today, I want us to im-

agine what it would be like to free ourselves from the baggage, from

the issues that we have, to allow God to heal us. So many times the

issues we have wouldn’t be issues at all if we would stop trying to be

the solution maker. There is someone bigger than you and me and if

you have not discovered that yet, it’s going to be a long road the re-

mainder of your life. There is someone bigger than you and me: God

wants to help us with our issues.

Hear these words from Mark 5: A woman who had suffered a condi-

tion of hemorrhaging for twelve years, a long succession of physicians

had treated her and treated her badly,

taking all of her money and leaving her worse off than before, had

heard about Jesus. She slipped in from behind and touched his robe.

He was thinking to herself,

“If I can put a finger on his robe, I can get well.” The moment she did

it, the flow of blood dried up. She could feel the change and knew her

plague was over and done with.

At the same time Jesus felt energy discharge from him. He turned

around to the crowd and asked, “Who touched my robe?” His disci-

ples said, “What are you talking about?

With the crowd pushing and jostling you, you’re asking, ‘Who touched

me?’ Dozens have touched you!” But he went on asking, looking

around to see who had done it.

The woman, knowing what had happened, knowing she was the one,

stepped up in fear and trembling, knelt before him, and gave her the

whole story.

Jesus said to her, “Daughter, you took a risk of faith, and now you’re

healed and whole. Live well, be blessed! Be healed of your plague.”

Praise be to Almighty God! This woman was willing to step out of her

zone to do what she believed in. She had heard of this man, the healer,

the one who had done miracles, the one who had fed thousands and

she believed if she would allow him into her life, if she would just

touch him the healing power of Almighty God would be there.

I want to ask you to join me in singing this some “He Touched Me”

and imagine what it would be like if today, God would touch you in a

new way.

(Singing of hymn)

I want to be made whole and I’m sure you do as well. And yet there

are parts of us we refuse to turn over to God.

This woman, do any of you know her name? No, it’s never recorded

in the Bible. She is defined totally by her illness. The rest of her life

she will be known as “that’s the woman with the issue of blood.”

Wow! Isn’t that a wonderful name?

We do this. I’m thinking if you see people and if you would see this

flag you would say “Oh, they are Canadian.” I saw a program on TV

last night, the guy was going to China and someone said “Well, be sure

you eat Chinese food.” He says, “In China they just call it food.”

We have all kinds of things that we name. Someone that was in prison

forever, they were in prison maybe when they were 21 years old and

50 years later: “Well, they were the one in prison.”

I’m going to my class reunion in a couple of weeks, maybe. Forty

years, I can’t imagine. And do you ever know when someone says

“Oh, I can’t remember the name of the person; she’s the one that was

pregnant.” Right? He’s the one that was always drunk, he did drugs.

That’s the pastor that had moral failure. That’s the woman in the

street, you know, she’s been with every…

We do that, don’t we? It’s a terrible horrendous thing that this woman

wasn’t known as a person. She lived a life of suffering and her name

was “Suffering”. The people around her were a part of that. It was a

devastating life because of the scriptures of the Old Testament that

kept her that way. And I think of you and me so often when we do

those conversational pieces of picking on other people. We really need

to find their names. We really need to forget what people did in the

past. Some of us might get self-righteous and think “Well, at least we

didn’t do that.” But I can tell you this: if God were to put the list out

of what we’ve all done, all of us would be fairly embarrassed. There

are none of us who are holy. There are none of us who escape mis-

takes, moral failures in life. There are none of us who want to be

named by the mistakes of our life.

This woman was disqualified in many ways because of the scripture of

that time. And I read this to you: Anyone who touches them will be

unclean. They must wash in their clothes and bathe with water and

they will be unclean until evening. For twelve years this woman bled.

4380 days. She could not be with her husband. She could not visit

with her children. She could not worship her God. The Old Testament

said when you have an issue of blood or bleeding those were impossi-

bilities. So while other people were gathering for celebrations, July 4th

(they wouldn’t have had that) she couldn’t have gone. The Holy days

of the church at that time, the Old Testament, she could not have cele-

brated. She could have not gone for the national holidays were she

was living. She was an outcast. She was a loner. She was devastated

and disqualified because of what was happening in her life.

There are people in the church who disqualify ourselves because of

things we imagine, not things that are and sometimes that are as well

and we think: I can’t do that anymore.

I believe there are areas of worship, volunteering, studying with the

Bible, praying and giving that we all make up excuses and sometimes

have legitimate things, but they don’t disqualify us in God’s sight.

There are times people have told me though the year as a pastor “I

can’t come to church.” And I say, “Oh, why?” “I just don’t have any

clothing that would fit.” When was the last time you were at

someone’s house they didn’t have any clothing that there wouldn’t be

something suitable to come to a church? I met one person who told

me they’d never had shoes, their feet were swollen. I’m thinking

“Come in your socks.” You go everywhere else. I see people in malls.

There are times when we make excuses of what we can’t do because

we don’t want to be there. I don’t want to go to the sunrise service or

to early worship or to other some special program because it is either

too late, it’s too early. I always loved it when I was in Clearfield area

and up around my home area where it is winter nine months of the

year and we can’t go to these because it’s cold. Now, I was in the Blue

Band at Penn State. We would sit in football games in snow and ice

for three and four hours and get up early to beat the traffic to get there

and stay late to tailgate and you tell me you can’t get up early, you

can’t go out in the rain, you can’t go out in the cold.

We disqualify ourselves because it is convenient instead of doing what

we ought to do. We love to volunteer, but I can’t go because there’s

some of those people I just can’t stand. Huh! That’s true of pastors!

You think we’d be here and like everybody? But we deal with you.

And you deal with us, right? We all have bad traits. We all have fail-

ures. We all have difficulties, but we try to learn in the name of Jesus

Christ to work together even when we don’t always agree, God ena-

bles us to work together.

There are times when we need to study and we say we can’t study. “I

don’t like the Bible.” Well, I didn’t as a young kid because they were

very difficult to read. There must be thirty translations now, some are

very wonderful. We don’t read, but we can read the paper, the sports

column and sit and watch two or three favorite programs. How can we

not read God’s word? It is the foundation of everything we are as

God’s people. Whether it is young or whether it is old, we need to

read that word and when we make excuses and disqualify ourselves

from it, we are really fibbing to ourselves.

We don’t like to pray and we don’t like to think that we can pray pub-

licly or anything else. How many of you love to get up in school and

recite things. No one does! But you learn to do it. How long will we

use excuses “I can’t do this. I can’t do that.” And no, not everyone

will ever be up here. That might never be your gift. I’m not saying

that, but to pray with a friend in privacy, just the two of you, just like

you’re talking. And if you don’t know, in the day and age we live in,

you can type “prayer” in Google and get more prayers than you have

time to read the rest of your life.

The options you see are there if we don’t want to disqualify ourselves.

If we don’t want to make excuses we can find the way to do it. It

comes to giving and it’s the same way. We have time to get the extra

phone. We have time to buy the season tickets.

We have time to do everything and we have the funds to do it, but

when we want to give, the idea of tithing, the idea of putting God first,

the idea of doing that before we reach out for the things we want, it’s

like I disqualify myself. I know I can’t afford to do those things, when

it’s a choice. It’s a choice of where we spend our dollar, where we

spend our time, how we take our time for prayer and for reading and

volunteering or do we cut God out of it.

We should not let our problems define it. We should not be disquali-

fied and we certainly need to be like this woman: be a little bit driven.

I have seen folks driving in this church when doctors were all but

ready to give up and they are here. Praise God! Right? That you’ve

beat illness, you’ve beat surgical procedures, you’ve beat the problems

that someone said you could no longer do it and you’re here and

you’re able because you were driven.

I don’t know what gets in your mind from day to day and what’s on

your mind, but I know what was on that woman’s mind for 12 years,

for 4830 days. Can you imagine everyday thinking I want to be cured?

She went to dozens of doctors. She spent all of her money. She had

been away from her family and she heard of this man Jesus. “I don’t

know what it’s going to take to get near him,” you know, it would be

like trying to get near some presidential campaign person. It’s tough

to get near, but she did whatever she had to do, convinced in her own

mind “If I can just touch the hem of his garment, I know God will heal

me through this man.”

What will it take to drive you to do what you need to do, to get where

you want to be? No one becomes an Olympian without being driven.

No one becomes able to ever accomplish whatever the problems are in

your life. And they are many. What are our issues? Overspending,

maybe? Mismanaging money? There are all kinds of addictions and

every one of us has some kind, right? Every one of us.

There are all kinds of other problems that we have in our lives and we

need to be driven by the Power of God to overcome whatever it is.

This lady more than wanted healing. She sought it with her whole

heart and thinking “I can’t live like this the rest of my life, not seeing

my family, not worshipping my God, not caring for my children.” She

couldn’t even hold her children! Can you imagine? Because every-

where she went she had to, if she saw a person coming, shout out ac-

cording to scriptures “Unclean! Don’t come near me! I’m dirty!

Don’t come near me!”

When I am sweaty and dirty working and somebody wants to give me

a hug, I hate it because I want the hug and yet I’ll say “Don’t hug me,

I’m dirty.” Can you imagine if by law, the scriptural law, you have to

say “Don’t come near me or you then are unclean and you won’t for a

day be able to be near your family and friends?” It was a difficult

thing. And she wanted some change. She wanted to be able to touch

God and the thing about God is 24/7 God is available. 24/7, open all

the time. “You come to me with your needs and I will be present for

you. I will be the one who will touch you in a new way if you will just

trust me, but you must humble yourself.” Boy, that’s one of the most

difficult words to come to. I must humble myself.

In 30 plus years of ministry, I have seen brokenness in so many ways.

I have seen devastation in many ways. I have seen two families sepa-

rated and lose everything because of gambling. Everything. House.

Family divided, no more put up with it. I have seen the problems with

alcohol, not only buried those that have been killed by drunk drivers. I

have seen the devastation when people abuse, people neglect, people

use everything they have for drinking and their families are gone. I’ve

seen the same in drugs. I’ve seen how issues with children and parents

relate and how the issues with spouses relate. I have seen the issues

that continue, the money issues, the health issues, all those things that

we have and in the midst of it we are told if we don’t want to be devas-

tated, we must keep trying and yet sometimes people say “I’ve had

enough. I’m not going to try anymore doctors. I’m not going to try

anymore procedures. I’m not going to invent any more money. I’m

not going to do anything else. I have given everything like that wom-

an. I have given everything for my spouse, for my children, for the

problem. I am done giving!”

Have you ever been to that edge? I am done! I am finished! When

you have lost everything, when you are on the edge of divorce, you are

on the edge of a friendship that’s going to end, you are on the edge of

failing and “I’m not going to try any harder.” There are lots of edges,

employed, “I’ve had it with the employment, I’ve had it with the

church, I’ve had it with this volunteer organization. I’m not putting

out any more!”

And God says “Maybe you need to sit back and evaluate.” What is it

that God can bring to this situation that you’ve not yet tried? What is

it? How desperate are we? Shame? She had shame. Have you ever

had it? Oh. I’ve lived in it way too many times in my life and you

probably have too. You’ve done something that you can’t undo and

you continue to once in a while have that fly into your mind and

you’re saying “Why did I ever do that or say that or act in that way?”

Shame is one of those things that can beat us into the ground if we

don’t turn it over to God and say “Lord, I know you don’t want me to

live there. I know you’ve forgiven me and whether other people can

or not, I don’t know, Lord, but you know my heart that I didn’t want to

do what I said or did.”

A part of what drove her was that she was tired of believing in all these

human beings that had failed her. She had beliefs. She had heard of a

man named Jesus Christ. She had heard of the miracles, of the miracu-

lous things he had been doing. She had heard about hope.

She had heard that if she would seek the Holy, seek the Divine, one

more powerful, that God would cure her. Don’t you want that? Don’t

you really want that if you have been carrying your issue with you for-

ever? If it is in a relationship with someone? If it is finances? If it is

some sort of addiction? But it takes a brokenness within us, the devas-

tation to get us to the point of saying “I need help. I know on my own

this is never going to improve. I need to reach out to God.”

She was not the only one who reached out: those who were blind,

those who were lame, those who were deaf. God wants to come into

our life, but we have to open the door. We have to be willing to accept

it. We have to put these issues aside, behind us. We have to move for-

ward with total trust in God and the Power of God to work through

people around you. It is not just God. God works through organiza-

tions. God works through physicians. God works through counselors.

God works through all kinds of things and agencies and groups and in-

dividuals to make miracles occur even today and God wants to do that.

We should not be defined or disqualified or driven or devastated or

desperate because we work and live daily in the man of Jesus Christ

who comes with his arms open wide saying “Come to me if you are

heavy laden and I will give you rest.”

One of the greatest things that occurred at the end of that, he never said

“Woman, I’m going to heal you of your disease.” That wasn’t the big-

gest issue. He said “Go in peace and may you find comfort.”

Oh, wouldn’t it be great if all our issues today remained in this place

and we go forth and have peace in our hearts, that God is with us, that

we can move through whatever, wherever we are in life to know that

God will be with us. I would pray that somehow you find that peace

today or in the coming days, that we can live in that daily. And when

those issues pop up again, that we put them behind us, that we trust in

God who is ever present for us.

Let us pray.

Almighty and Everlasting God, we all have issues and they are diffi-

cult. Sometimes we thing we will never get over it. Help us face them

directly. Come into our lives, bring healing. Send your light. Be salt

in our lives and power us. Bring your peace to us and send us forth

with your comfort. We ask in thy Holy Name. Amen.

We are privileged to be able to give our gifts unto God and the ushers

will wait upon you at this time.

NOTE: The outline and much of the content of this message was done

by Pastor Steve Ely in a pervious sermon.