TD Jakes - The Personal Touch (09/21/2018)
In the intertwined stories of the woman with the issue of blood and Jairus's daughter, both faced terminal despair and isolation, but Jesus responds with radical faith-stirring action: the desperate woman touches Him for healing despite the rules, while He personally touches the dead girl and commands her to arise, showing that He prioritizes people over principles and brings life to what seems hopelessly dead.
Jairus's Desperate Access to Jesus
The text comes from Jairus's daughter. Jairus is a rich young ruler who has a daughter who has fallen sick, and he does the thing that only rich people really understand. He uses his strength against his weakness. If he were poor, he might not have been able to immediately get access and travel to Jesus. But when you have money, you can get to folks that poor folks cannot get to.
You can get people in your Rolodex, in your phone—you know I am old. I say "Rolodex." In your phone that you could not get, that other people could not get an appointment with in ten years. You could text them right now and you have access.
Jairus had access to Jesus. He could get to Jesus, and he went to Jesus and says, "My daughter is at the point of death, and I need You to go fix it." Nothing makes you feel weak like when your kids are hurting, nothing. It is like kryptonite and vulnerability. You feel helpless. You feel worried.
He had enough money to get to Jesus, but his money would not heal. She was at the point of death, and he went for Jesus. And he gets Jesus, and Jesus immediately drops everything and He is going to Jairus's house. A house call from Jesus is a pretty big deal.
The Interruptions on the Way
I do not know what kind of housecleaning you do when Jesus is coming over. And then maybe we should if He lives in us. But anyway, Jesus is coming over. And while He is coming over, there is this woman, and this woman is in a situation where she has run out of options. She has run out of options, and in a desperate, last attempt, she goes after Jesus.
Now, I wrote down some things that were common between the woman and the girl because on one hand, you have this dead girl lying here, who is sick and dies at 12. That is one little girl, one generation, one reality. On the other hand, we have this woman who has been sick 12 long years.
And the girl has an appointment, and the woman does not. So both cases were terminally ill. Both were in crisis mode. Both of them had no cure for what was wrong with them. Both of them were terminally ill. Both of them were locked away from normalcy.
The Isolation of Sickness
This woman was not going out. She was not hanging out with the women, washing clothes down at the riverbank. They were not hanging out at the women's spa. They were not doing stuff, because sickness disconnects you from society. You do not believe it, go up to the hospital. The people in the hospital are having a whole different reality.
They live in Dallas, but they do not live in them. When you start hanging out in hospitals, you find a world that you have been driving past, that you did not even know existed because sickness always separates you from normalcy.
Please hear what I am saying because I am saying something while I am saying something. Whenever there is something sick in you, you will always isolate from other people because of your sickness, and you will live in a ward, and only feel comfortable around people who have the same disease.
You want to know what is wrong with you? Look at your friends. See, what we want, if we cannot get change, we want to feel comfortable. And anytime we do not feel comfortable, we are alienated.
Both of them, the woman and the girl, are shut off from the world. Watch the devil that wants to shut you off from the world because the more he shuts you off, the closer he is coming in for the kill.
Beyond Human Power
Both of them were beyond the power of capital. They could not give a command. And Jairus's daughter, if her father could have given a command, he would have commanded her to be healed, but he could not do it.
Life will always present something before you that leaves you vulnerable, that throws you off. No matter what your advantages are, you will always be tested in an area that you cannot fix by yourself. And some people would rather die alone than go for help because their pride will not allow them to admit that "this is too big for me."
Both of them were untouchable. You see, the law said that as a Priest, Jesus could not touch a bleeding woman. It would make Him unclean. The woman herself was declared unclean. She was untouchable. Nobody touched her.
He could not touch the dead girl. He was a priest. Nobody touched this woman.
The Woman's Radical Faith
This woman decided, "Whatever I have to do, whatever it takes, I am all in. If I have to crawl on my belly, if I have to walk up behind Him, if I have to catch Him while He is looking at some other woman, all I want, all I need, I do not want to shake His hand. I do not need an autograph. I do not need a selfie. If I can..."
"Who... who? Everybody comes to church, but who...? I am used to touching people, but this time, somebody..." Everybody who is not on program, everybody who is not on the schedule, everybody who is not next to get a blessing, you can either sit there and die in your own blood, or you can get radical enough to say, "Whatever it takes to get out of this condition, whatever it takes for my will to break, whatever it takes for my life to be better, whatever it takes for me to be made whole, whatever it takes for me to get out of my dungeon, if I have to crawl, if I have to get down on my knees, whatever it takes, I am all in."
Called Out into the Light
And then He asked this amazing question. "Who touched Me? Who? You think you are going to get privately healed and walk away? I call you out of your shadows. I call you out of your insecurity. I call you out of your circumstance. If you are going to get this healing, you are going to have to come out."
"Go thy way, daughter, thy faith has made thee whole. It was not what I did that made you whole. It was what you did." You all do not hear what I am saying. You have been waiting on God to do something, but God is waiting on you to do something.
I do not know who I am talking to, but whoever it is, bust a move. It is not going to change till you change. It is not going to get better till you make a move. Stop waiting on something to happen. Nothing is going to happen till you crawl out of your circumstance.
The Personal Touch for the Girl
The reason I wanted to preach about this little girl, because she is the star of the text to me. I told you what was alike about them. Let me tell you what is different. Whatever is wrong with her is so bad that she has stopped reaching out.
There comes a place in your life where things get so bad that you stop reaching out. And I called it "A Personal Touch" because it would not be personal if He did not come to the house. If it was done in church, it would not be personal.
If the only experience you have with God is in your church, then you do not have a personal relationship with Jesus. She cannot reach Him. He has come to the house, and she cannot reach Him.
There are some of you in this service right now, Jesus is in this house, but you cannot reach Him because you have lost your ability to reach out. You can stand, but you cannot reach out because whatever is broken in you has stopped seeking.
So you can be right in the presence of God, right in the presence of your healing, right in the presence of your deliverance, and you cannot reach out.
Breaking Rules for People
Some of you cannot reach out because you are phony. Some of you cannot reach out because you would rather be dead than to break your image. You would rather be dead than to admit you were wrong. You would rather be dead than say, "I am sorry." You would rather be dead. You are going to wait till that thing kills you.
Jesus came to this girl's house and He put everybody out of the room. Them people around you are not good for you. I am telling you right now, they are not good for you. He put everybody out of the room.
Some of you are in a situation right now where everybody has been removed from your life. It is because God is getting ready to do a personal touch.
This is what is amazing. Maybe Jesus could say as a Priest, you must realize, maybe Jesus could say that what she did was not His fault because what she did was illegal. The Bible says that she was forbidden to touch anyone. She broke a law to get hers. She broke a rule. She broke protocol. She broke all order.
But maybe Jesus could say, "Well, that is not my fault because I did not even see her coming. She walked up behind Me and she took it while I was not looking."
But this girl here, Jesus now breaks a law... because He regards people more than principles.
Jesus Prioritizes People Over Principles
Some of you watching right now, you are so principled, you have so many rules, you have so many orders, you have so many thou shalts and thou shalt nots that you are willing to kill people to keep your principles, and you do it in the name of a Jesus who broke the principle to save the person. Whatever it takes.
Jesus now has a decision. "Do I keep the law and lose the child? Or do I keep the child and break out of the law?" The law said, "Do not touch her." The law said, "Do not use her. Do not get near her. Do not connect with her."
The law says He should not be dealing with you. If He would go by the book, you would not even be sitting here right now. If God would regard iniquity, you would not even be where you are right now.
He broke a law to get you. Shake yourself, you have something to thank God for. He broke a law to get you. He called you. He did not need your talent. He did not need your money. He did not need nothing about you. He looked over your faults, saw your need.
The Power of the Personal Touch
He is everything that she is not. He is up. She is down. He is right. She is wrong. He is clean. She is filthy. He is living. She is dead. And through no goodness of her own, no effort of her own, no movement of her own, she is totally lifeless and listless and helpless.
The message I was called to preach today is for somebody who is stuck. You have been lying there like this girl. You have been lying there for a long time. You have been a victim of your own problem. It has robbed you of relationships. It has thrown you behind on your schedule.
You should have been further. You should have been higher. You should have done more, but you are lying there, and you cannot get up. "Help, I have fallen and I cannot get up. Help, I am down here and I cannot get up. Help, I am bleeding and I cannot get up. Help, I am silent and I cannot get up."
And so the text about the woman, everybody preaches that. They preach about the first touch, but the second touch, they do not say nothing about this second touch. They preach about the woman who touched Jesus, and they never say nothing about the woman Jesus touched.
The woman Jesus touched represents potential. She represents the future. She represents possibilities. This girl is 12 years old. She has not accomplished her dreams.
She got sick, saying, "Well, maybe I am not. Maybe I will not. Maybe I cannot. Maybe it is not for me. Maybe I am not supposed to." As she is dying, she is talking herself out of her dreams and out of her future because she cannot get up.
And the Bible said He came and He took her by the hand and stood her up on her feet.
And the one that everybody thought was dead, the one that everybody thought would never be nothing, the one that everybody thought would never get up again, the one that everybody thought her future was over, the one that everybody thought she was down, never to be seen again, He said, "Damsel, arise."
I speak to every dead thing in this building. I speak to every dead circumstance. I speak to every vision unfulfilled, every promise that has never gotten up, everything that died before its time. I command you, in the name of Jesus, to get up, in the name of Jesus. Give Him a praise right now.