Sunday 18 January 2026

Nollamara Church Of Christ Sermons.

Raw transcript of meeting:

Date Of Sermon: 18^th January 2026

Speaker: Steve Borgogno

Sermon Title: Fully Known

Scripture Reading: Mark 5:21-34

 Our Bible reading this morning is from Mark chapter five, verses 21 through to verse 34.

When Jesus had a again crossed over by boat to the other side of the lake, a large crowd gathered around him while he was by the lake. Then one of the synagogue leaders named Jairus came and when he saw Jesus, he fell at his feet. He pleaded earnestly with him. 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. A large crowd followed and pressed around him, and 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 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 touch his clothes, I will be healed.

Immediately, her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering. At once, Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, who touched my clothes? You see the people crowding against you? His disciples answered. And yet you can ask who touched me, but Jesus kept looking around to see who he who had done it.

Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and trembling with fear. Told him the whole truth. He said to her daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering. May the Lord bless his word.

Okay. I think I'm on. Yes. Good morning everybody. Good morning. Lovely to be at Lumara Church of Christ today. What a, what a pleasure and a privilege it is for me to be here and speak with you and, uh, what a warm welcome you've given me this morning. So thank you for that. And I must say, Ian, thank you for that reading.

Uh, I've been dwelling upon this, this, um, part of scripture for a while, but just to have it read back to me the way you did it, it just hits me again. It, it's even more powerful. And that's the, the beauty and the benefit of scripture. It just continually speaks to us all the time. We can read afresh a new, every day.

It's, it's a wonderful privilege that we have, uh, the word of God in our hands every. I should never take that for granted. Well, uh, as, um, um, Jamie mentioned before, my name is Steve Bugo. I, uh, attend Baine Church of Christ. I've been working for Compassion Australia for the last six months, and it's with compassion that I'm here.

Um, today to speak to you about our work at Compassion, and I also serve on the Board of Churches of Christ. So I, I throw around a few different roles. Um, try to keep myself busy. I'm also married, uh, my wife was gonna attend this morning, but she's got a couple of other duties at our church to, to attend too.

So, um, she's busy this morning, but we've been married for 26 years. My wife's name is Alana. We have three adult children, uh, 23-year-old Ethan and 21-year-old twins. Uh, Josiah and Bethany. And they're all busy doing their own thing, but they're all walking with the Lord and they're all serving in, in God's church.

So praise God for that. I'm very grateful. Well, uh, as we come this morning, we, uh, have, uh. Read about a story. Actually, there was two stories there in, in Mark's Gospel and at Compassion. We have so many stories. We've been doing this for many, many years, and we have just amazing stories that we can share with you.

So as we go through these, uh, I hope that they can be a blessing to you. And as we, um, unpack this one story, we'll delve into it a bit more. And, and, uh, hopefully, uh, we can all draw something out of it. We're going to, uh, I'm gonna open in prayer first, but then, uh, we'll watch a video about a, one of those stories that I mentioned.

So let me open in prayer.

Loving God. Lord, here we are. Just quiet and still before you. We, we thank you so much for your deliverance, your providence over us, your amazing grace and your mercy to us every day. Uh, father, thank you for this congregation. Thank you that we can all join together and be encouraged, uh, by each other and by your word through, through singing, through the reading of your scripture.

And, and now as we unpack your word. Father, may you speak to us through your Holy Spirit. Father, it is a, a wonderful privilege that we are Christians and we know that it's all because of what you've done. And thank you, father for Jesus, our precious savior, and we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Okay. We have a video, so I'm just gonna click here.

Hopefully the video will come up and play. It goes for about three minutes and it tells us the story of James from Uganda. So let's

watch's the video next. Maybe, maybe the intro. Yeah, I'll do the intro first. Um, so, oh, here we go.

Getting water as a child was not the choice. If it meant for you to go late to school, you bullied.

It's now that I actually know that things like typhoid affected us as a result of the nature of water, but as a child, you have no idea.

So when you are in a state of poverty, it puts you in that situation of this is it.

I first met James at this project in 2000. I first James was quiet. You're not able to get the things which other children are getting. It makes you pull back. He could actually express himself. No one had ever really taken time to listen or pay attention.

We used to fill out books. A child would write things like what they. Dream to become what they would want to do and all that,

while filling that document, I feel that I wanted to be an engineer, so she picked it, read it, and uh, I don't know what came to her mind.

I, I called in engineer dreams. It, it's strange.

I, I cannot explain why I did that, but I guess now it makes sense.

Today I look at what I've become, and I imagine if my sponsor done, not done this, do they even have an idea that now I'm able to influence communities to access safe water? Now, what would they think? Considering my past experience today, in my role, I see myself as a little child. As a child advocate, we shall be able to reach more children more quickly.

Other people are going to. Blessed as a result of him having been blessed, and that means our work was not in vain. That means compassion works.

My name is James and I was released from poverty in Jesus' name.

Isn't that beautiful? What a, a lovely and encouraging story that we can see there. Um, the life of James and I particularly loved, sorry, is that me doing that? Apologies. I particularly loved, uh, the part where, um, the teacher actually adds that part to his name, that descriptor, and that gave him hope and inspiration to go on and actually fulfill that name to become an engineer.

There's a lot of power in that, and that's, uh, it's just as I was starting to think about that, that's what sort of brought me to this verse. But before I go into that, I just want to go back a couple of slides, guys, if I can, motor. I think it's that one. Yes. We'll start with that one. So I just wanted to tell you a little bit more about Compassion Australia.

So compassion has been releasing children from poverty in the name of Jesus for over 70 years now, working closely with local church partners, uh, in more than 25 countries. We're now up to about 29 countries actually, uh, who deeply understand their community's needs. Compassion programs have helped assist over 2.4 million children living in poverty around the world.

But I'll speak a little bit more about that a bit later. So if we go to the map, uh, the next slide. There we go. I just wanted to show you, uh, a, a world map. And you can see the countries in blue are the countries that support compassion, whereas all the countries in the light blue are the countries we're working in right now.

And there's a few that are in yellow where we've started projects and it's still part of the process. We haven't actually got, um, programs running there, but we certainly have been doing a lot of groundwork to get them going. So it's quite extensive. The countries that we work in and the work that we do.

And this slide is just a little snapshot of what we achieved last year in Australia. Last year, we sponsored 122,758 children. They were sponsored through generous people within Australia, and that sounds like a wonderful number and we certainly do celebrate that. But in uh, perspective, some of the stats I can bring to you in the world, it suggested that there are over 400 million children living in, um, extreme poverty right now.

So although we feel we are making a difference, it is a small difference. But nonetheless, every child that is sponsored through Compassion has the chance to have hope and a future. But more importantly, they have a chance to hear the gospel and change their life. Some other stats, uh, through compassion, uh, roundabout, somewhere between 70 and 80% of the children that go through the program make a commitment to follow Jesus.

And out of that, it's uh, 3.4 members of their family also make a commitment. So from one child's commitment, it flows through. The impact is, uh, progressive. It just keeps going through whole communities and whole countries. So we transform countries by one child at a time. It's very impactful. So before I go into the topic today, I've been thinking about, um, James and his name, and the name that was given to him, and it made me consider my own name and, and just about names.

What are the significance of names? So I'll ask you, have you ever used a person's name incorrectly? Have you ever mispronounced somebody's name or completely forgotten somebody's name? I do that all the time. I'm terrible with names, with faces. I'm great with names. I'm not very good. So I'm sure we can all relate to this as quite embarrassing, but it makes us realize what power there is in names, the significance of that.

So if we think about a name, A name is part of our identity. It's part of the language that we use as part of how we communicate with each other. It's our relationship. We show affection by using someone's name. All of those things. If I was to call to somebody, I don't say, Hey, you. I say, Hey, Jamie, as part of our relationship, it's how we communicate, and it's a very important part of our communication.

So as I think about this, a funny thing happened to me the other day. I went to a meeting with Compassion and there were six people in the room and three people were named Steve out of six. That's quite funny, isn't it? In my office at Compassion, my boss's name is Steve, on the board of Churches of Christ, the head, the executive pastor was Executive Minister.

His name is Steve. Uh, I know within Compassion there are seven Steves all up that I know of so far. And my youngest son got married in November and no, he didn't marry a Steve. His father-in-law's name is Steve and he's a very good friend of mine. So there's another Steve. So, uh, there's significance in a name, as I said, and it's part of our identity.

It's hard to know somebody unless you know their name. You know, God blesses us, uh, with the ability to communicate and with language and with words, but he has also made us relational beings. He's, he's given us a desire in our hearts to want a relationship with each other, but also with him. There's something missing in our hearts unless we have a relationship with him and he invites us to call him Father, what an affectionate name that is.

And he provides us an advocate whose name is the most precious, most beautiful, most powerful name in all of the world, in all of history. And that name is Jesus. So names are significant, and there's no more powerful name than Jesus. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Well, that's what intrigues me about this story that comes from, uh, mark chapter five.

Is that this character that is featured in this story, uh, it's a wonderful story of faith and restoration and the goodness of God and the kindness of Jesus, and yet the character remains unnamed. Now, you might think in the Bible there are many stories where the character is not named, and that is actually quite true.

But this female character is featured in three of the four gospels. Her story has been recorded and shared thousands of times over all around the world to millions of people. It has helped us to see the heart and compassion of Jesus for the weak, for the poor, for the outcast of society. Those of little status and seemingly little value is who Jesus cares about most.

And yet still, we don't know who She's, we dunno her name. And that's what intrigued me about these verses. So we're gonna have a look now. We're gonna dive in and have a look at the, uh, the verse itself. I'm sure you all have your bibles with you, but I'll have the, uh, verses up on screen. So I'll just read them to you.

Now we're gonna read verses 21 to 28. First of all, of chapter five of Mark, when Jesus had a gain crossed over by boat to the other side of the lake, a large gathering gathered around him, uh, while by the lake. Then one of the sin synagogue rulers named Jairus came, and when he saw Jesus, he fell at his feet.

He pleaded earnestly with him. My daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live. So Jesus went to him.

A large crowd followed and pressed around him, and a woman was there who had been the subject of 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 behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak because she thought, if I just touch his clothes, I could be healed.

Now firstly, notice that there's two stories here. They're intertwined, Jairus and his dying daughter, and this suffering woman. And those stories. Uh, the second story is the one I'm gonna focus on today, but both of these stories demonstrate great faith in both mark's gospel and Luke's gospel. This woman's profound story is a mere nine verses, dunno if you picked that up nine verses and in Matthew's gospel it's a very abbreviated three verses.

And I say that just to highlight how amazing and impactful a story can be, even though it's so briefly encapsulated in the Bible.

So this woman, she's, uh, just to highlight again, she's, uh, she's suffered a great deal. We read there that her condition was severe enough that she had, uh, sought out all different options to try and heal herself. She had suffered greatly under the care of many doctors, which we can, we can assume that has prolonged her suffering.

You can imagine she's gone through a great deal now. She has exhausted all her funds on doctors as well, so she's desperately poor, I would say, and although not specifically mentioned here, but perhaps quite likely, she's most likely alone. She's probably single. She may have been married once, but perhaps, um, not now or is separated, whatever it might be, but she's most likely alone.

That is an assumption. The the, the text doesn't tell us that, but with her condition, uh, under the Jewish ceremonial law, she would've been deemed unclean and imagine if it was persistent bleeding, she would've been deemed unclean permanently. Now the, those laws, which you could read about in Leviticus, uh, chapters 12 and 15, they determine that, that someone, uh, who is deemed unclean should be separated, should be isolated and away from the people for a period of time.

So think about this woman who's suffered permanently in this condition. She would have to be segregated from people per. So if she had a husband, I'm sure they couldn't really live in the same house, they couldn't have a relationship. If she had children, they would suffer the same fate as she was 'cause they'd all be deemed unclean.

So if we take a moment to think about that, if this is true and there's no reason to think otherwise, she would've had no physical contact for 12 years. No hugging, no kissing, no handshakes. And even the simplest experience of sharing a meal together would've been rare if, if at all. So her chronic condition meant that she would be permanently deemed unclean.

Her social isolation made it very difficult, I would say to earn a living, she would've been living in poverty. She would've been recognized everywhere she went in her town. She would've been avoided and treated as less than human, publicly shunned if she was around somewhere, get away from us. Her condition controlled her life in every way.

It segregated her. It made her alone. It made her poor and weak, and I'm sure desperately sad.

And then think of the spiritual toll without hope, desperate getting to Jesus, even just to touch his cloak. For her would probably be life or death. This is it. This is the moment.

So as, uh, Jesus makes his way over it says in, in Luke's verse that Luke's version, I should say that the crowds were so tight that they crushed around him. So if you just think about that, her making her way through those people to try and reach, to touch that cloak would not have been easy. Lots of people around, and if they identified her as this lady who was unclean, what would've happened to her?

She would've touched, I'm sure many people on the way through there.

And every person that she touched would've been deemed unclean. And if you think about that, even Jesus touching his cloak meant she was making him unclean. She took a big risk.

But we're gonna read on in the story a little bit more. So as she goes through, uh, immediately her bleeding stopped. This is after she'd touched the cloak, and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering. And at once Jesus realized that the power had gone out of him. He turned around to the crowd and asked, who touched my clothes?

And the disciples around him said, uh, you see all the people crowded around you, and you ask Who touched me? They're almost mocking him in the question that they're asking, but Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it.

Now, the woman then knowing, uh, what had happened, uh, she had, she came and fell at the feet of Jesus, trembling with fear and told him the whole truth. He said to her daughter, your faith has healed. You go in peace and be freed from your suffering.

Jesus feels the power. Leave him. He knows instantly what has happened. He could have just left it there. He could have just kept going on his way. And he could have left her to go on her way, and she would've been freed from her disor disorder and able to live a new life, a different life, although now healed.

What else hasn't changed in her life?

Would, would people have known that she was healed to all those crowd there? They wouldn't have known any different. So her social standing would not have changed. She would still be carrying the same uh, reputation and people would still see her, still probably identify her as that lady had her heart changed.

She had heard obviously about with all the other crowds that oppressed around, that Jesus was coming and this man could perform these miracles. She's probably heard it. Lots of people were talking about it and she thought, this is my chance. I'm gonna get healed. But did she believe that he was the Messiah?

Did she even know that? Did she know that he was the son of God? Did she know that he would be her personal savior if she only put her faith in him?

So Jesus stops and asks the question, who touched my garments? Now, given that he knew the power came out of him, I dare say he knew who received the power as well. So the question is not for him to know the answer to. It's for everybody else to know, for everybody in the crowd to know the answer that this lady had been healed.

So I wanted to, well, just before we go to that slide, um, before, but the woman was fearing and trembling as she, uh, approached Jesus. She didn't know what her fate would be as she approached but aware at what had happened to her. She came and fell at the feet and told him the whole truth as we just read, and Jesus' response was, daughter, your faith has made you well go in peace and be healed of your affliction.

What beautiful words to say to her in front of everybody. He's just healed her, but he's also restored her. In calling her out, he calls her to own up to what she had done to make a public confession to all present. And although she's still unnamed, she's no longer unknown, although now healed and able to slip away in the crowd, Jesus had something greater for her and that would come through open confession and absolute faith.

She's now fully known by Jesus confirmed in him calling he her daughter.

Daughter, your faith has healed. You go in peace and be freed from your suffering. Now, interestingly, this, uh, word is a Greek word, satia, uh, dunno how to pronounce it, but, um, how to go. Now, interestingly, this word has two meanings. In the Greek, often Greek words have multiple meanings, and in the Greek, salvation and healing are the same word.

So as we think about this, this dual meaning adds significance to the healing. She received physical healing in her body, and she had been brought to a personal relationship with Jesus receiving spiritual salvation, her unclean state in her unclean state. She would've been barred from access to God. She would've been prevented from entering the temple and having fellowship with God's people prevented from worship.

And now in this climactic moment, all of that has been erased. Everything has changed. She's no longer unclean. She has been publicly restored in the, in the face of all the people, all the crowd that had gathered around.

She had been spiritually healed, all because Jesus showed compassion. All because Jesus stopped and turned. What a difference it makes. In the middle of that crowd on his way. Mind you, on his way to a life or death situation, an emergency Jairus's daughter was dying, and yet he still finds the time to stop and help this poor woman.

Psalm 1 45 verses eight and nine, it says, the Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, and rich in love. The Lord is good to all. He has compassion on all he has made. What a wonderful God it is that we serve, and this is the heart of Jesus, the heart of compassion to each individual who is precious in the sight of God, who is made in his image, and Jesus has shown compassion on us all.

I hope you realize that. I hope you've come to appreciate that, that he loves us and has amazing compassion on each and and every one of us. He saves us from our sins. He calls us in gratitude to respond to this, this immense sacrifice that he has made for us to respond in gratitude, to care and show compassion for one another and for others in the kingdom of God.

As I said, we're all made in his image, so all of us are to show compassion to all of all of God's creation, all of God's people, and this is such a beautiful picture of Jesus' heart for people. His care for the lost and the broken, the poor, and the downcast. It's also a beautiful picture of the mission that he undertook to heal our relationship with God, which was broken through our sin.

Now, we heard about James' story before. It was a beautiful story to start with and that's a transformed the life which happened through compassion, not the organization, but through having compassion for one another.

And you know, that's still happening every day. Everyday lives are being transformed, everyday lives are being changed by God. And you know, I, I've heard people and I've been praying for it myself, people all around the world that are going through different things that we are aware of. But you know what, this has always been happening.

It's nothing new. Before, we didn't know about it. We didn't have social media, we didn't have the news popping up every moment before all of that. People were still suffering and we didn't know anything about it often anyway. And yet God did and God's heart would break for these people. He has such love and compassion for them.

So James life was transformed and lives are being transformed and changed every day in the mighty name of Jesus all around the world.

But the sad part about it is that poverty gets in the way. Poverty robs a person of dignity, of choice, of opportunity, and of hope. And poverty is the gateway to all sorts of darkness in this world,

but there's hope. There's hope in Jesus. Really, I don't know how the world operates without hope in Jesus. I, I can't even comprehend that the light of Jesus shines into the darkest places in this world to break the cycle of poverty. And compassion stands in the gap to help or to prevent children from falling into desperate circumstances.

Because of the darkness of this world, we, we aim to bring hope and transform lives in the name of Jesus.

So our compassion, we take a holistic approach. Our approach is to address the whole part of a child's life and development. Their spiritual, their physical, their emotional, and their relational wellbeing.

When you sponsor a child, you empower a local church to meet all of these things.

Now we are Christ-centered, child-focused, and church-based. This is our, our key driver, if you like. It's what we're all about. So being, uh, child, uh, sorry. I should say child, uh, Christ-centered. It means compassion goes in with Jesus first, with the gospel first, we know great humanitarian work can be done, but without the gospel, it misses the key part.

The miss is the key part of hope and transformation in someone's life. So compassion gives hope to the hopeless spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ and that will never change. We are child-focused. Children are the hardest hit by poverty and they're the least able to make a change in their life. And we are church based, which means our programs are tailored for that particular church.

They know best what to do. They know their people, they know their culture and their environment. So we help the church to deliver the programs. We don't tell them what to do. We just assist the church to provide the programs.

So we are continually doing work all the way through the world using this model. And as a highlighter to you. For 70 years this has been happening and we have great plans to move forward. We have plans, uh, we're we're embarking into Asia at the moment with helping countries like the Philippines, for example, who have been a country to receive funds and receive support for so many years now, become a country where they can be givers of, they reckon 2% of the population in the Philippines is wealthy, like very wealthy, but that's quite a large number.

And there's a lot of middle class people as well within the Philippines, so we're trying to get them to have a heart for their own people, to take up that mission that we have started and shown them what to do and now they can run with it themselves. That's part of our new, new project. I just wanted to share with you, I think, yeah, here we go.

We're talking about the power of a name and. When we think about it, if you don't know somebody's name, you don't really know them that well. And there's so many people around the world, like the woman in this story that is not named, we don't know her personally. We don't know her name to attach that attachment, that uh, relation to her.

And that would be the same for all of these children. We dunno who they are and we wouldn't know unless we were introduced to them. So let me introduce you to these, these guys.

Let me just find their names. So first of all, we have McKayla, who's five years old. She's from the Philippines. Such a little cutie has only just had a birthday, I believe. We've got James, who's five years old, also from the Philippines, in the middle. What a beautiful smile. And we've got Yesha. She's five years old.

She just turned five in this month, a little bit earlier this month. We wouldn't know the names of these children unless Compassion actually brought them to you and introduced them to you.

So can you help us in releasing children from poverty in Jesus' name? There's a lot of ways you can do this. Firstly, obviously, sponsoring a child means you have a direct connection with that child. You can write letters to one another, get to know them and follow their life journey. It can be an encouragement to them for around $55 a month, you can sponsor a child for their education, their healthcare, their wellbeing, their food, nutrition, all of that.

Another way you can make a tax deductible, donation of any size if you had a business or um, had funds extra, or even as a church, you can combine, you can sponsor a project, something like a Mums and Bs project that delivers support and help to someone in that region. Perhaps a mum with a baby who, who needs some help.

You can join our prayer newsletter, which comes out every month, and it talks about our critical needs where we really need prayer, where there's great suffering within our, our projects or or areas that we're working in. And we've also started a new fund of supporting children before they enter the program.

Just helping them be maintained until they get sponsored by a sponsor that's $20 a month.

Well, just one la uh, last thought, I'll, I'll be at the, uh, in the other room over there if you have any questions. I have some, uh, child profiles as well with me today. Even if you wanted to share some stories of your own, um, encounters with compassion, I'm here. I'd love to hear from you and I can answer any questions from you.

But one last thought is that Jesus has transformed the life of this unnamed woman. He also changed the life of Jairus daughter. The trajectory of her life changed dramatically. He changed the life of James from Uganda, and he's also transforming lives today in our own country and all over the world. And he can transform your life if you don't know that yet.

He is waiting. He's the transformer, and he can transform all of us from inside out. And if you need to know about that, pastor Jamie's here, I'm here. There's many others that can speak to you about that after the service.

Alara Church of Christ. I just wanna thank you for your warmness and your, um, openness to have me come and speak to you today. Thank you for allowing me to share my heart. And, uh, as I said, I'll be here later, so I'd love to get to know you. I'm just gonna pray now and, uh, we'll, we'll close off this part before we sing again.

So please, um, yeah. Pray with me. Father. God, we thank you that you know us and we know you. We know that that required an intervention that was miraculous. Father, you, interceded, you introduced yourself to us, not the other way around. So father, we are so grateful. Um, we, we just filled with, with gratitude and, and love for you, father, for the, the change that you have done in our lives personally, but also the change that you're making in the world, the transforming that you are doing in little children from countries living in poverty.

Father, we thank you for your work that is done even out of our sight, even the what we're not aware of and we ask Father that we know that you haven't completed the work in us either. We ask that we will be humbled enough to follow you and to serve you and be led by you throughout our life for every day that you've given us.

Uh, father, thank you for your blessing. Uh, may your spirit be working through us this morning and continue to bless us. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Thanks everyone.