Today on Bold Steps with Mark Jobe, we're discussing the driving force of pain.
There are some of you here in this auditorium that you have been running for a long time, but yet some of you are here today, and it's the very pain in your life that's accompanied with shame that has actually pushed you to God. So whether you have been running from God or whether you are being pushed to God, I believe that pain is a driving force.
Welcome to Bold Steps with pastor Mark Jobe, president of Moody Bible Institute and senior pastor of New Life Community Church in Chicago. I'm Wayne Shepherd. Well, today we're continuing a series called seen getting into the unique ways that God sees and engages with our pain. Pain is a
universal struggle, though it always feels uniquely personal, doesn't it? Sometimes, private Mark, we're going to discuss how sometimes the areas of hurt in our lives are made even worse because they're they're wrapped in shame.
Yeah. You know, pain is an interesting thing. Uh, Wayne, I do believe that it drives us. You know, when you're in pain, you you want to escape that pain.
You can think of nothing else.
And it drives many people to God. It drives some people away from God. But there's a pain that is wrapped in shame. Shame because of bad decisions. Shame because of. I think of, um, a woman I recently spoke to that had had an abortion and she was going through her own pain, but it was also wrapped in shame because of the decision and really struggling with how to process that. This woman in this story is a woman that's in pain, but she is afraid of what people
think of her as well. So it's a unique type of pain that Jesus steps into.
Let's get into the Bible now with Mark Jobe on bold steps with today's lesson pain that's wrapped in shame.
I still remember the conversation. I was helping to start a new church location up on the north side. We were so excited about the new people that were coming. And this was after a Sunday morning service in the cafe. I was talking to a lot of people and this woman was waiting a few steps back. I could tell she was nervous. She seemed a little bit awkward when she approached me. She said, pastor. And then she looked down.
Her lip was quivering. She seemed uncomfortable to talk to me and she said, pastor, I have a question for you that I would like to ask. And I said, sure. And she said, I want to know if I can come to this church. I said, why wouldn't you be able to come to this church? And she says, well, you see, I've been battling Aids for a long time. I could feel the shame. I could feel the the guilt,
the condemnation. As she nervously looked up at me. Immediately I just sensed the Spirit of God say she needs a hug. So I hugged her and said, absolutely, we're so glad you're here. I could almost feel the shame lifted. I could almost feel the difference there. You see, she had pain because she was struggling with this debilitating disease. And this was years ago when Aids was first just coming out, a big thing. She was struggling with the
battle for survival. At the same time, she was struggling with the shame in which her pain was wrapped up. Today, that's what I want to talk to you about. I want to talk to you about pain that's wrapped in shame. Some of you are here today, and you're actually at a crossroads. Because pain can do two things to us. It can either draw us to God or it can
push us away from God. There are some of you here in this auditorium that you have been running for a long time, because you have pain that is accompanied with shame and guilt, and it has caused you to run as hard and as fast as you can away from God. But yet some of you are here today, and it's the very pain in your life that's accompanied with shame that has actually pushed you to God. So whether you have been running from God or whether you
are being pushed to God. I believe that pain is a driving force, and I want to take your attention and turn. Turn your attention to Mark chapter five. There's a story in the Bible that's found in three of the Gospels Mark chapter five. Matthew chapter nine, and Luke chapter eight. We don't know the name of the woman that's introduced in this passage, but we know that it's a woman that, well, she's struggling with pain for a long time. And we know from this passage that shame, guilt,
condemnation is wrapped up in her pain. Now, as the writer Mark is telling us this story, he actually is sandwiching two stories in one. It's a story within a story. And so I'm going to begin reading in verse 21, it says, When Jesus had again crossed over by boat to the other side of the lake, a large crowd gathered around him while he was by the lake. By this time, the reputation of Jesus had become pretty well known. He had cast out a demon from a wild man
that was living in a cemetery. He had healed people already. Rumors were spreading that he was well. He was this potential Messiah, possibly the king, that would liberate the Jewish people from the Roman oppressors. Some talked about the way he spoke that where he could read the minds of people and see their hearts. Uh, people gathered from all over. Some were curiosity seekers, some were people ready to worship him, and some were trying to find something That he was
saying to accuse him. But the Bible tells us that a large crowd gathered around him as he crossed over the lake. Then one of the synagogue rulers named Jarius came there. Seeing Jesus, he fell at his feet. And he pleaded earnestly with Jesus. My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live. So Jesus went with him. So you have the story. The crowds are gathered around this desperate father who has a dying girl. A little
girl pleads with Jesus, Jesus, my daughter's dying. Would you rapidly come? She's going to die if you don't heal her. So Jesus starts to walk. The crowd is pressed around. People are reaching for him, bumping against him. There, Luke tells us that the crowd was crushing him. In other words, this was a very intense crowd. Everybody trying to do something. And as he's walking, we're introduced to a second story, verse 24. So Jesus went with him. A large crowd
followed and pressed around him. Luke says they were crushing in on him. And here we introduce a second character. A woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for 12 years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all that she had. Yet instead of getting better, she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak because she thought, if I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.
So I want to talk to you about what pain and shame Do in our life and how they can drive us either towards or away from Jesus. The first thing that I want you to write down is this. Our pain often is the driving force that leads us to Jesus. Now, we don't know the name of this woman. Uh, some non-biblical literature, uh, has referred to her as Veronica, but we don't know if that was her name. What we do know about this woman is that she was a woman that was in pain. Uh, she had multiple
things happening in her life. She was more than likely lonely, isolated, impoverished, quite likely anemic. And possibly some scholars believe on maybe even dying. In other words, close to death. Why do we know this? And what was her condition? Well, she was in physical pain. It tells us she had had bleeding for 12 years. 12 years is a long time. Internal hemorrhaging. That would not stop. She had been bleeding 4380 days. Now, we don't know exactly how severe this
anemia was, but it was severe enough. This bleeding was severe enough that it had caused her to seek doctors and gone everywhere she could to try to find healing for this debilitating disease. And if you've ever struggled with any kind of hemorrhaging, you know that it will quickly lead to anemia. And when you're anemic, you can barely get out of bed, you can barely function. You can barely work because you are just drained of the life giving substance, which is our blood. Secondly, we know that
she was financially depleted. She had spent all that she had. The Bible tells us, in trying to solve this problem in her life, trying to deal with the issue of pain. She had gone to one doctor after another. Oh, some of you have been there. You tried this, doctor, do you have a solution? Oh. Try this. All this medication, it doesn't work. She had gone to another doctor. It seemed expensive, but anything that could solve her problem, she felt would be worth it. And so she spent money
on this doctor and another doctor and another one. Her hopes had gone up. And another one until she found herself economically absolutely bankrupt and depleted. She was socially alienated. You see, in the Jewish culture, if you had any kind of bleeding or hemorrhaging, you would be deemed ceremonially unclean, which meant that when you were unclean, It meant that anybody that touched you would also be unclean. It meant anything that you set on would be unclean. If she
sat on a couch, it would be unclean. If she sat on a bed, it would be unclean. If she touched someone, they would be unclean. And so they would have to go through a ceremonial washing and cleansing to be clean. So that meant that I don't know if she had kids or if she had a husband, if she had relatives that mean that when she ran into a friend or a relative, they would say, hi, how are you? Yeah, I can't touch you because you're unclean.
It also meant that she was spiritually isolated because if you were ceremonially unclean, you would not be allowed to enter into the synagogue or go for worship with other people because you were unclean, physically hurting, spiritually isolated, Financially depleted, and you can only imagine that she was emotionally exhausted. 12 years. An ongoing problem that she couldn't solve. Lonely, isolated. Depleted. Alienated and full of shame. Anybody around her that she
touched would be unclean. A stigma about her. You know, pain drives us.
You're listening to Bold Steps. The Bible teaching of Mark Jobe will continue this lesson in just a moment. If you haven't been to our website yet, we really encourage you to visit and see all the faith building resources, opportunities, and sermon series we have available. Just go to Bold steps.org and be sure to catch up on any message you might have missed on the radio. You can even have these daily lessons downloaded automatically to your phone or
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That's 312329 2011. Now let's continue. Our lesson. Here again is Mark Jobe.
I grew up around horses. And when I was only four years old, my father put me on the first horse. And what you learn about horses is that they'll move faster if you kind of just kick them slightly right here under their ribs, because it's more of a painful area and pain causes us to move quicker. I believe that pain causes us to move quicker away from God or towards God. There are some people here in this auditorium that, well, you have pain. There are people here
that have been sexually or emotionally abused. And it's painful. And maybe it's shrouded in shame. There are people here that you have been through, experiences in life. Maybe it was a very difficult, nasty divorce that's left you just depleted. Just broken. You're ashamed of that chapter in your life. Maybe there's a battle of addiction that has caused you to just compulsively have to go down that road of addiction.
Maybe you have a prison term in your background that has been symbolizing of a dark chapter in your life. Maybe there's been bankruptcy in your life that it really is a is a chapter that you'd rather not talk about. Maybe you've made decisions in your life that you look back right now and just say, I hope no one finds out about those decisions, because not only is there pain, but there's also shame associated with it. In fact, some
of you are in this auditorium right now. You don't look like it because you don't wear it on your face. You don't carry a sign that says, this is my pain. You camouflage it, you cover it up. You've learned over the years to work around it, to talk around it, to sort of block it out of your chapter in life so that you can use words that sort of deflect people. But inside, inside. Yeah. It's a lonely place. It's a place of hurt. It's a place of shame.
It's a place that drives you. And anytime there's pain, we are driven towards relief and in our relief. Sometimes we overeat. We overindulge. Some of us have tried to camouflage that pain or deal with that pain by, um, you you have tried. You have gone down the road of workaholism to try to forget about the pain. Some of you have tried to drink the pain away. Some of you have tried to smoke the pain away. Some
of you have tried to sex the pain away. Some of you have tried to, uh, achieve the pain away. Some of you have tried to, uh, just have fun. The fun, the pain away. You've tried a lot of ways to get away from that pain, but you know it's still there. The Bible tells us in verse 27 when she heard about Jesus. If you're taking notes, write this down. Faith is birthed by hearing and fueled by
our thinking. When she heard about Jesus. She came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak because she thought, if I just touch his clothes, I will be healed. There's something about the name of Jesus. When she heard about Jesus. She never met Jesus. She didn't know Jesus. She'd never seen Jesus, but she heard about him. There's something about Jesus that when you hear about him. It bursts. Something inside of you. The hope, the healer,
the Savior. When you hear about Jesus, there's something you're wired spiritually to react and respond to the name of Jesus you created by your Divine Creator to have a longing for relationship with him. You don't always know it. You can't explain it. But there's something inside every single one of us that desires a relationship with our creator. And when she heard about Jesus, something was awakened inside
of her. In fact, I believe that there's some people here in this auditorium today that you can't even believe you're in a church today. You're like, what am I doing in a church today? And this is kind of crazy that me in a church, people are waving their hands like that. I'm like, this is so weird. I don't even know what I'm doing. What am I doing in a church? Some of you have wanted to run, but you know why you're here? Because you've heard about Jesus.
You don't know what it is, but there's something about the longing in your heart that desires to connect with the divine, that desires to connect with that which has made you and you're you're you're afraid, but yet you're drawn. You want it, but yet you're you're not sure exactly what it is. When she heard about Jesus. It motivated her. And in her mind, she started to think, maybe if I just reach out and touch the hem of his garment, maybe if I just touch him, then maybe I will
be healed. Maybe he's the solution that I've been wanting, asking for, praying for, longing for in my life. In Matthew chapter nine, verse 21, when it tells this story, it uses the verbiage that she repeated to herself. So she kept repeating to herself, how many of you talk to yourself? Some of you are saying it's the only intelligent conversation I've had just talking to myself. Come on, you can admit it. Your spouse says, were you talking to me? No, I'm just talking to myself. And sometimes
we have this conversation with ourselves. And in her mind, she was saying, if I just touch Jesus, faith has been birthed in her. Faith that was undeveloped. Faith that was not really theologically grounded, but faith that had risen within her. This dream of if I just touch him, maybe I believe maybe he is the Messiah. Maybe he's
the one who he says he is. And so she thought to herself, if I can just touch it now, it doesn't tell us in Mark, but in Luke and in Matthew it tells us that she reached out and she touched the tassels on his garment.
And we'll learn more about the significance of those tassels next time you're listening to Bold Steps with Mark Jobe. Today's message about pain that is wrapped in shame is part of Mark's current series called seen. And remember, if you ever miss one of these daily messages. You can always find them online at Bold Steps. Org Mark, let's take a moment to talk about our bold step gift
the six conversations. Now you are a college president. I think it's appropriate that we have a guest who know something about that.
Absolutely. I take my hat off to all college professors, and our guest today is actually a professor at Penn State. You know, as a college professor, she has a unique perspective on how younger generations engage in conversations. And so doctor Heather Holloman is our guest. And welcome, Heather.
Thank you.
Heather. Speaking generationally, you see that, uh, young people, college students maybe interact a little bit different than previous generations. And so let me ask you, what changes have you noticed and how does your book, the Six Conversations address those challenges?
Well, because there's such a reliance on their phone for texting and just the communication through social media, my students have really lost the ability to engage in meaningful conversation face to face. Most, most. What I'm seeing is they're not really good at asking those first questions and then
follow up questions. They've sort of lost that art of interpersonal curiosity, and I tell them it's their number one professional development skill to thrive in the workplace, to become a curious person about other people.
You know, that's so true.
Yeah.
When when people are looking down at their smartphones and just engaging via social media, I've noticed a lot more awkwardness in just having natural conversations.
So, Heather, can this book help us as parents relate to our young people?
Yes, immediately. In fact, I give readers six ways to be naturally curious about people in their life and not be, and learn how to ask really good questions of especially young people. And so once you ask that first question in any of the categories of what it means to be human, parents will know how to ask a really good follow up question. And with young people, they love the social category. They love to talk about their friends. They also love to talk in the physical category. New things.
They're listening to new foods. They're trying, new things they've done with their rooms, things like that.
Hey, I love that. So if you are a parent or a grandparent and you're saying, I really want to connect with my teenager or my college student and get involved in some spiritually more deep conversations, but they seem to shut down very quickly. This book may be a great resource for you.
And we want to send you a copy of the six conversations. When you make a donation of any amount to support bold steps, just call us at 800 Moody. That's (800) 356-6639 or give online at Bold steps.org or send your gift through the mail. Send your check to Bold steps.
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pain that is Wrapped in Shame. That's coming up Tuesday here on Bold Steps with Mark John. Bold steps is a production of Moody Radio, a ministry of Moody Bible Institute.