Brian Johnson is a 47 year old tech billionaire.
He is the subject of a recent Netflix documentary called Don't
Die, The Man Who Wants to Live Forever.
Speaking recently about the documentary on a podcast,
Johnson was asked the question, Do you think that you're going
to die? He answered no.
Johnson is engaged in what he calls Project Blueprint, an
effort to reduce his so-called biological age.
He thinks that if he can reduce his rate of aging enough, he can
stay alive long enough for technological breakthroughs to
eventually breakthrough the barrier of death itself and
bring him along with it into immortality.
Johnson's daily anti ageing regimen, which costs him
$2,000,000 a year and enlists a team of doctors, includes taking
111 pills every day, wearing a baseball cap that shoots red
light into his scalp, collecting and testing his own stool
samples, and receiving blood plasma transfusions from his
teenage son. Johnson recently posted on a
social media website Conquering Death would be humanity's
greatest achievements. What odds of success do you give
him more personally? What's your answer to death?
What are you going to do about death?
What can you do about death? This morning we continue our
series in Mark's gospel of chapter 5, verses 21 to 43.
The section of Mark's gospel that we are in, stretching from
the end of chapter 4 to the beginning of chapter 6,
showcases Jesus's authority. We saw Jesus's authority over
nature itself at the end of chapter 4, and then his
authority over demonic spirits in the earlier part of chapter
5. In one sense, our passage is
very simple. In it, Jesus demonstrates his
power and authority over disease and even death.
But our passage is also incredibly personal, probing and
tender. It shows us 2 intimate, soul
searching encounters with Jesus. Please follow along as I read
the whole passage. Mark 5, verses 21 to 43.
We have a couple of volunteers with Bibles.
If only he needs a Bible put up a hand.
Two young men will bring them to you right now.
Austin OK, if you need a Bible, put up a hand.
Mark 5, verses 21 to 43. And when Jesus had crossed again
in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered about him,
and he was beside the sea. Then came one of the rulers of
the synagogue, Gyrus by name. And seeing him, he fell at his
feet and implored him earnestly, saying, My little daughter is at
the point of death, come and lay your hands on her, so that she
may be made well and live. And he went with him, and a
great crowd followed him and thronged about him.
And there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for 12
years, and who had suffered much under many physicians and had
spent all that she had and was no better, but rather grew
worse. She had heard the reports about
Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his
garment. For she said, if I touch even
his garments, I'll be made well. And immediately the flow of
blood dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of
her disease. And Jesus, perceiving in himself
that power had gone out from him, immediately turned about in
the crowd and said, Who touched my garments?
And his disciples send to him. You see the crowd pressing
around you, and yet you say, Who touched me?
And he looked around to see who had done it.
But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear
and trembling, and fell down before him, and told him the
whole truth. And he said to her, daughter,
Your faith has made you well, go in peace and be healed of your
disease. While he was still speaking,
there came from the ruler's house some who said, Your
daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any
further? But overhearing what they said,
Jesus said to the ruler of the synagogue, Do not fear, only
believe. And he allowed no one to follow
him, except Peter and James and John the brother of James.
They came to the House of the ruler of the synagogue, and
Jesus saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly.
And when he had entered, he said to them, Why are you making a
commotion and weeping? The child is not dead, but
sleeping. And they laughed at him, but he
put them all outside and took the child's father and mother
and those who were with him, and went in where the child was.
Taking her by the hand, he said to her, Talitha Kumi, which
means little girl, I say to you, arise.
And immediately the girl got up and began walking, for she was
12 years of age. And they were immediately
overcome with amazement. And he strictly charged them
that no one should know this and told them to give her something
to eat. Here's the main point of the
passage. Only Jesus has power over death.
So trust Him no matter the cost and no matter how hard it is to
believe. Only Jesus has power over death.
So trust him no matter the cost and no matter how hard it is to
believe. In other words, faith is hard,
but Jesus defeats death. The sermon will have three
points. The first will be the longest .1
Jesus power over disease. We'll see this in verses 21 to
34.2 Jesus power over death. We'll see this in verses 35 to
43.3. The power and difficulty of
faith. The power and difficulty of
faith. We'll see this in various verses
throughout the passage that treat faith and unbelief.
Before we jump into .1, just a word on our passages overall
structure. Our passage is a classic example
of Mark's famous sandwich technique where he starts a
narrative, something else interrupts it, and then he
finishes out that first narrative.
So the story begins with Gyrus asking Jesus to come and heal
his deathly ill daughter. It's then then Jesus is
interrupted by the woman's act of touching his garments.
Then the story with Gyrus and his daughter breaks off until
the end of Jesus interaction with the woman.
Then it picks back up again with the news that his daughter has
died. Now Mark is reporting what
happened in the order that it happened.
The interruption really happened.
But he also deliberately draws attention in the way he tells
the story to the parallels and the contrasts between the two
situations. Why?
Why does he tell the story that way?
Keep that question in mind as we walk through the passage and I
think we'll find the answer point #1 Jesus's power over
disease. Verses 21 to 34.
Healing from grave illness is what Gyrus asks for on behalf of
his daughter, and it's what the woman seeks and finds by
touching Jesus garment. Look with me first again at
verses 21 to 24. And when Jesus had crossed again
in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered about him,
and he was beside the sea. Then came one of the rulers of
the synagogue, Gyrus by name. And seeing him, he fell at his
feet, and implored him earnestly, saying, My little
daughter is at the point of death, Come and lay your hands
on her, so that she may be made well and live.
And he went with him, and a great crowd followed him and
thronged about him. As usual, a huge crowd gathers
around Jesus as soon as he steps off the boat and onto the
seashore. Gyrus is introduced as a ruler
of the synagogue, which sounds impressive, but the position is
more like a lay worship leader. Every local Jewish community
would have had one. It's still he was a man of
standing in the community. We also learn from verse 40 in
the fact that there were multiple rooms in his house.
That means he had some type of wealth because most homes in
that day were single room dwellings.
But here Gyrus doesn't appeal to Jesus based on his status or his
wealth. Instead, he falls down before
him in a posture of humility and humiliation.
He's desperate. He's pleading with Jesus.
Why? Because he says his little
daughter is at the point of death, this is urgent, there's
no time to lose. And he expresses faith in Jesus
ability to heal her. He asks Jesus to come and lay
hands on her, that she may be made well and live now.
Most of the Jewish leaders had rejected Jesus, but here's one
whose desperate circumstances drove him to Jesus and drove him
to his knees before Jesus. And so Jesus agrees to go with
him, and the crowd comes to pressing tightly around him.
But then someone interrupts their progress, verses 25 and
26. And there was a woman who had
had a discharge of blood for 12 years and who had suffered much
under many physicians and had spent all that she had and was
no better, but rather grew worse.
This woman also is in a desperate condition.
The phrase discharge of blood closely echoes Leviticus 12,
seven and 1525, which makes it clear that her condition is a
chronic vaginal hemorrhage. In an effort to remedy this
condition, she sought out many doctors, but none of them
helped. In fact, they made her condition
worse. This is not surprising if you
know anything about the history of pre modern medicine.
She suffered not only from the disease, but from the cures.
Now, even with all the advantages of modern medicine
today, doctors, in an effort to heal sometimes make things
worse. An effort to heal can
unintentionally inflict harm, and no doctor can heal every
disease. In this woman's quest for
healing, she spent all the money she had.
Medical bankruptcy is not unique to modern America.
Imagine how discouraged she was, how disheartened she tried
everything. She'd spent everything.
After 12 years, no improvement, she'd only got worse.
Her condition was chronic and in some sense degenerating.
Also. Her condition left her in a
chronic state of ritual impurity that had a few implications. 1
was that she would have been unable to marry or to conceive
children. Her condition not only drained
away her life, it prevented her from bringing new life into the
world. Like the demon possessed man we
encountered last week, this woman's life also is a kind of
living death. She carries around within her
own body a continual source of death and impurity.
Her ritual impurity also had religious and social
implications. She was prohibited from
attending the temple and participating in the annual
feasts and pilgrimages. It's unclear to what extent she
would have been isolated from regular society.
There's some debate over that, but being indefinitely excluded
from temple worship on top of everything else would have been
bad enough. This woman's condition was dark
and desperate. If you have a chronic illness,
or you've cared for someone who has a chronic illness, you know
something of how heavy this woman's burden was.
In fact, you could even say this woman's condition was beyond
human hope. What else is she supposed to do?
What else is she supposed to try?
There's no hope left except for what she heard about Jesus.
Look at verses 27 and 28. She had heard the reports about
Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his
garment. For she said, if I touch even
his garments, I will be made. Well, she heard about Jesus and
she believed what she heard. If you are not a believer in
Jesus, that same opportunity is open to you today.
Here I am reporting to you about Jesus.
All you have to do to be made right with God is believe the
report. Trust Jesus based on this report
that I'm giving you right now. Many people pressed around
Jesus, but only this woman reached out and touched him.
As Agustin put it, flesh presses, faith touches.
Coming to church every week and hanging out with Christians
doesn't make you clean and whole.
Only faith in Christ will heal you, will save you.
Now there might have been an element of superstition mingled
with the woman's faith, evident in her kind of private thought
that if only she could touch Jesus garment, she would be
healed. But she clearly still had faith
in Jesus, and it turned out that her belief about touching His
garment was right. So she approaches him kind of
stealthily from behind, attempting to avoid detection
either by the crowd and seemingly even trying to avoid
Jesus's detection. She is not drawing any kind of
attention to herself whatsoever. So she touches his cloak.
What happened? Verses 29 and 30?
And immediately the flow of blood dried up, and she felt in
her body that she was healed of her disease.
And Jesus, perceiving in Himself that power had gone out from
him, immediately turned about in the crowd and said, Who touched
my garments? She was healed immediately, and
she knew it. She could feel the difference in
her own body, and Jesus also felt something in his own body.
Note very carefully the exact wording of verse 30.
Jesus perceiving in Himself that power had gone out from him.
Does this mean that the healing power went out from Jesus
without him knowing why or deciding in advance that it
would happen? I think that's exactly what the
text is saying. We'll unpack that.
We recently had an electrical issue in our house.
I went to the little dungeon room where the Breakers are, and
I saw on the ground some wires that were kind of tangled and
looked like they'd been chewed through, as if an animal had
gotten to them. There's also a puddle of water
on the ground. The last thing I was going to do
was touch those wires. If I did, it was possible that
electrical current would flow from them into me, to my
immediate harm. Now, thankfully, we brought in
an electrician. He said those wires weren't
really attached to anything. That wasn't really the problem.
Phew. OK, but still, what would have
happened to me if they were as bizarre as it sounds?
I think something like that is what this text is saying
happened. Jesus power flowed from him into
the woman automatically, involuntarily, but of course the
power that flowed from him into her didn't harm her.
It healed her instantly, completely, and she knew it.
Now, sometimes when you read something like this in
Scripture, you're tempted to think it can't possibly mean
that. But if you're pretty confident
you're getting the sense of the words right, it's far better to
admit ignorance, pray and ask God, what on earth does this
mean? Now, I'm going to take a little
time to unpack this. We'll pause here a while to
understand what's going on here. We have to understand Old
Testament dynamics of purity and holiness.
The primary cause of impurity, Ritual impurity was involuntary
states in which something comes out of the human body.
According to Old Testament purity laws, there were three
primary sources of ritual impurity, skin disease,
discharge, a bodily fluid, and contact with a dead body.
It's striking that already in Mark's gospel, Jesus has healed
someone who had skin disease. Here he heals the woman's
discharge of blood, and he's about to turn a corpse back into
a living person. Jesus is on a mission to remove
impurity by eradicating its sources.
Consider how blood causes impurity according to the Old
Testament ritual laws. Because it is the force of life,
blood needs to be contained. It needs to stay where it
belongs, circulating around the body.
When blood comes out of the body, it causes impurity.
It's like a kind of contamination.
And when someone is impure, they can communicate that impurity to
whatever they come into contact with, whether it's a physical
object like a cup or a vessel, or whether it's a person you
could communicate impurity to. In the Old Testament, there's
not only ritual impurity, but moral impurity.
Many Old Testament passages talk about sins making people impure
like a stain on clothing. Now here's a key point.
For Old Testament Israel to continue to dwell in God's
presence, they had to be both ritually and morally pure.
If they weren't God's, holiness would break out against them and
destroy them. All the Old Testament laws about
both moral and ritual purity were protections.
They were guardrails. They were fences protecting
people from an utterly pure God. Both impurity and holiness are
dynamic forces. Impurity spreads and holiness
can ZAP out like an electric current.
But not only that. God's own holiness was also, in
a sense, contagious. Under the Old Covenant, God's
holiness was manifested most intensely in the Tabernacle and
later the Temple, and especially in its inner room, the Holy of
Holies. For instance, Exodus 29, verse
37 teaches whatever touches the altar shall become holy.
The altar where sacrifices were offered expressed God's own
holiness. Whatever touched that altar as
it were, contracted something of God's own holiness.
Within certain bounds, God's holiness is contagious.
It makes holy what comes into contact with it.
It's like the glory that's shown on Moses's face.
When Moses would meet face to face with God, he would step
away and his face would shine. Why?
Because God's glory had been shining on him.
So all that background on purity and holiness in mind, what's
going on here? In verses 29 and 30, the passage
is showing us that Jesus possesses God's own holiness.
Jesus has the kind of holiness that makes what it touches holy.
Jesus is holy like the temple is holy, not like the priests are
holy. That's why in Mark 124 he's
called the Holy One of God. This woman experienced an
uncontrolled discharge from her body, and so did Jesus.
But whereas the woman's discharge of blood rendered her
impure, Jesus's discharge of holiness healed her and removed
the source of her impurity. Instead of her touch defiling
Him, His power healed and cleansed her.
Instead of her impurity flowing from her to Him, holiness and
healing and purity flowed from him to her.
This exchange proves that Jesus's power is inherent and
inexhaustible. Jesus power to heal did not come
from outside, it didn't come from another.
He didn't have to ask for it. His divine power to heal dwelt
within his own human body. Why?
Because, as Paul says in Colossians 29, in him the whole
fullness of deity dwelt bodily. The power that went out from
Jesus body and healed the woman did not diminish His power in
any way. We're about to see proof of
that. In giving to her, He didn't lose
anything. He always has more to give.
There's plenty more where that came from.
This passage shows us something brand new in the history of
God's dealings with His people and with the world.
The whole system of the temple and the sacrifices was ordained
to purify the people and protect them from the fatal consequences
of their impurities coming into contact with God's purity.
But what happens here? It's as if the woman is going to
reach out and touch the ark of the covenant.
She could die from that, but instead she was healed and
purified. An impure woman approached the
holy God in faith and was purified and healed.
This holy 1 still destroys the impurity, but by faith the
impure 1 is kept from being destroyed.
Concepts of ritual purity might seem foreign to many of us.
I think we all can recognize in our own experience a feeling of
moral impurity, of our own sins leaving a mark on us, staining
us, defiling us. And just about every other world
religion in one way or another presents some type of program
for you to cleanse yourself, for you to render yourself pure, to
atone for your own sins and somehow work on your own
transformation so that you can be more acceptable, whether it's
to kind of the forces of the universe or whatever gods there
are. The good news of Jesus is
something entirely different. It is not atone for your own
sins. It is not cleanse yourself so
that you can approach God. It is Jesus atone for your sins
through his death on the cross. It is Jesus provides all the
cleansing from moral impurity that you need.
You have no purity in yourself. You are impure in yourself.
But through faith in Christ, you can approach God's own holiness
and be safe, be accepted, be reconciled to him.
That's what Jesus came to accomplish through his death.
And just like this woman here, the only way to receive it is
faith in him. The only way to receive it is to
trust his power and not to come to him thinking, oh, I could
have some little mini religious assistance in my sort of ongoing
quest for self improvement. No, it's to despair.
Just like this woman despaired of any help from doctors, just
like this woman despaired of being able to fix herself.
To become a Christian is to despair of fixing yourself and
know that only Jesus can fix you.
And he proved it, as we'll see later.
He proved it by rising from the dead.
He, in his own body, overcame the impurity of death to offer a
pure, eternal resurrection life to all who trust in Him.
If you've never turned from sin and trusted in Jesus, come to
him today. He's the only way to be cleansed
from sin. So Jesus healed this woman, but
he wasn't done with her just yet.
He was going to heal her even more deeply.
Look at verses 31 and 32. And his disciples said to him,
You see the crowd pressing around you, and yet you say, who
touched me? And he looked around to see who
had done it. Now when Jesus looks around to
see who had done it, it's possible he's acting like God
with Adam in the Garden of Eden, saying Adam, where are you?
God knew full well where Adam was.
He didn't need to ask. He asked for Adam's sake.
That's possible. But given that verse 30 presents
Jesus's healing as involuntary, I think it's far more likely
that he's speaking from genuine human ignorance.
We learn in Luke 252 that as a child Jesus grew in wisdom that
is with reference to his human nature.
As God, Jesus is omniscient. As man, His knowledge is
limited. How can those two realities
coexist in a single person? That's a mystery.
I cannot psychologically reconcile it for you.
But Scripture teaches both truths, so we shouldn't be
afraid to recognize at different times in the Gospels, Jesus
speaking from genuine human ignorance.
But Jesus in verse 32 is not merely looking to remedy
ignorance. He also has other purposes in
mind for requiring this woman to publicly identify herself.
Verses 33 and 34. But the woman, knowing what had
happened to her, came in fear and trembling and fell down
before him and told him the whole truth.
And he said to her, daughter, your faith has made you well.
Go in peace and be healed of your disease.
We'll talk a little more about this exchange in the Third
Point. For now, just a couple of brief
comments. For one thing, here's an
insightful principle that Tim Keller articulated from this
passage. When you go to Jesus for help,
you will both give to and get from him far more than you
bargained for. When you go to Jesus for help,
you will both give to and get from Him far more than you
bargained for. She came seeking healing, and
what she got in addition was a face to face meeting with Jesus.
What she got was assurance, she got his tender address, she got
his public declaration to all around that she was now healed,
therefore pure, therefore to be fully welcomed back into society
and into all her relationships. What she got was far more than
she was looking for and that only happened through making her
private initiative public. In order to have a face to face
relationship with Jesus, she had to tell Him what she did.
She had to risk full transparency before him, full
visibility. She had to lay everything bare
and submit to whatever he was going to make of her.
And this is what he made of her daughter.
A term of affection, endearment, reassurance.
She came seeking healing and he declared her to be a member of
his family. Now all that required her giving
Jesus more than she bargained for.
It happened in full view of everyone, and it had to happen
in full view of everyone for her to be restored to full
fellowship with everyone. Public confession, Public
restoration. When Jesus says your faith has
made you well, he isn't saying that her faith is the power that
healed her, but that her faith is how she received His power.
When he says go in peace and be healed of your disease, He's
promising that it won't come back.
He's assuring her that the remedy is permanent.
All the while, while Jesus was interacting with this woman,
imagine how Gyrus felt. He would have had a front row
seat. After all, he's there with
Jesus, showing him the way to his house.
But now this woman with a chronic condition comes in and
interrupts and stops Jesus in his tracks.
Gyrus has no time to lose. Jesus has plenty of time.
Why? What's going on?
Shouldn't Jesus be in more of a hurry .2 Jesus's power over
death. Jesus's power over death.
We see this power in verses 35 to 43.
Start with verse 35. While he was still speaking,
there came from the ruler's house some who said, your
daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any
further? When someone has a potentially
fatal illness or other serious medical condition or
complication, there are times when every minute matters.
Some of you can attest to this experience.
My family can attest to this by experience.
This was one of those times. The delay has been excruciating.
Jesus, what about the little girl?
Get there before it's too late. The whole time that Jesus is
looking for this woman and talking with this woman, the
sands of the little girl's hourglass had been running out.
And now they have run out. She's gone.
The girl's death challenges Jesus's credibility.
Why has he been wasting his time on a woman whose condition was
chronic, allowing the little girl to slip away?
Is Jesus's sense of triage so upside down?
This is malpractice. If Jesus were a doctor today, he
could be sued for this. What is going on?
And then Jesus raises the stakes even more.
Verse 36. But overhearing what they said,
Jesus said to the ruler of the synagogue.
Do not fear, only believe. The situation has gone from bad
to awful. Gyrus has just heard the worst
news of his life. This has just become the worst
day of his life. Jesus has just let this man's
daughter die and now he has the gall to say do not fear, only
believe. What Jesus, asks Gyrus.
He also asks you, will you trust him when all hope is lost?
Will you trust in Jesus on the worst day of your life?
Now here comes one of the keys to the whole story.
I think. Here comes the key to the answer
of why Mark sandwiches these narratives and makes them so
parallel when Jesus says do not fear, only believe.
Let's say Gyrus asked how? What does that look like?
How am I supposed to do that? The answer would be the woman
who just caused the delay. Do what she did.
Have faith like she had trust in me.
Jesus is saying when you have no hope, do you think she had any
hope, humanly speaking? And yet she came to me in faith.
This woman has become an example to Gyrus.
The kind of faith the woman has is trusting Jesus no matter the
cost, trusting Jesus no matter the circumstances, trusting
Jesus no matter how hard it is to believe.
It's trusting Jesus when there is no hope.
It's trusting Jesus without limit.
It's trusting Jesus in and through and beyond death.
It's trusting that Jesus has power over death.
Humanly speaking, Gyrus and this woman have nothing in common.
He's a man, she's a woman, he's wealthy, she's broke, He has
standing in the community. She's an outcast.
All they have in common is that their desperation drove them to
Jesus. All they have in common is that
they have no hope apart from Him.
And now she has led the way for him.
If he proves to have faith like hers, he will spiritually
survive the worst day of his life.
Look at verses 37 and 38. And he allowed no one to follow
him except Peter and James and John, the brother of James.
They came to the House of the ruler of the synagogue, and
Jesus saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly.
The commotion here with these mourners weeping and wailing,
reflects the ancient practice of hiring mourners.
When someone died, they would sing out loud wailing songs.
Now, you might think that's a kind of artificial or
superficial practice. But the point was to give people
permission to freely voice their grief.
Hired mourners led the way and opened up space.
They set the tone so that it was more natural for family members
and friends to grieve aloud and grieve freely.
But Jesus tells them that their services are not necessary.
Verse 39 in the first part of verse 40.
And when he had entered, he said to them, why are you making a
commotion and weeping? The child is not dead, but
sleeping and they laughed at him.
Hear Jesus speaks in a Riddle. I don't think he's seeking to be
deliberately misunderstood, but he's speaking in a way that is
almost inevitably inviting misunderstanding.
They know the girl is dead, so to them, Jesus just looks like
he's making a dumb, obvious mistake.
Jesus is denial, not dead. But sleeping doesn't mean the
girl's not actually dead. It doesn't mean they were just
mistaken and she's in a coma and he's going to wake her up.
It means she isn't going to stay dead.
By the time Jesus gets through with her, her death will prove
to have been only a short nap. Jesus calls death sleep, not to
pretend it isn't real, but to deny that it's ultimate in the
presence of death. Jesus announces his power over
death, but the crowd don't get it.
They laugh at him. They think he's either stupid or
crazy. As we sang in Ah Holy Jesus, he
was by foes, derided. This is one of the saddest
sentences in the Bible. Jesus is proclaiming his power
over death, but they think he's lost it.
They think he has no idea what he's talking about.
The mourners mock Jesus, but Jesus is about to mock death.
Look at verses 40 to 42. But he put them all outside and
took the child's father and mother and those who were with
him and went in where the child was, taking her by the hand.
He said to her, Talitha Kumi, which means little girl, I say
to you, arise. And immediately the girl got up
and began walking, for she was 12 years of age.
And they were immediately overcome with amazement.
Here Jesus treats this girl exactly as if he's waking her up
from sleep. He takes her by the hands.
He addresses her in tender, simple, everyday terms.
His command is basically equivalent to wake up
sweetheart. Now why is it recorded in
Aramaic? That's what Talithakumi, it's in
the language Jesus spoke. Why in Aramaic here I think it's
probably because it's just such a vivid memory in the minds of
the eyewitnesses. Such ordinary words producing
such an extraordinary result. The only other time in Aramaic
saying of Jesus is recorded in Mark is Chapter 7 verse 34 where
he told a blind man's eyes to be opened.
It's if he's speaking directly to the man's eyes and the man's
eyes obey the command. Jesus says be opened and the
eyes open. Jesus says to a dead girl arise
and she gets up. Parents among us can attest that
some children wake up more easily than others, and children
wake up more easily at certain times than at other times.
Snow day? Out in the door, fully dressed
at 6:00 AM School day. Sometimes that can take
strategic tactics and careful diplomacy to gently lure a child
out of bed to get dressed and go to school.
Jesus raised a child from death more easily than I can get one
of my kids out of bed on a school day.
Jesus's direct address deprived death of its power.
He spoke the girl out of the grave.
He shut down death by a simple voice command.
Human words called the girl back from death.
How? Because the one speaking them is
divine. A human hand lifted a girl from
the grave. How?
The hand belongs to Jesus's truly human nature, which truly
belongs to the one who is truly God.
This girl's resurrection is a picture and preview of ours.
One day Jesus voice will call everyone out of the grave.
That's what John chapter 5 says. And on that day, we who have
trusted in Jesus will receive perfect, glorified bodies like
we heard earlier in First Corinthians 15.
Our transformation will be as complete and instant as this
little girl's resurrection was, and even more so because we will
be clear of death's reach forever.
For someone who is safe in the hands of the Incarnate Lord of
Life, death is no more a threat to life than sleep is.
Jesus has resurrection power in himself, as he declares in John
11. I am the resurrection and the
life. And he proved it by rising from
the grave. If you're suffering from a
chronic illness, if your health is going from bad to worse,
trust in Jesus's promise to rise you up out of the grave with a
glorified, perfected body. You may experience healing and
answers to prayer now, but even if you don't now, you will then.
The story concludes in verse 43. And he strictly charged them
that no one should know this and told them to give her something
to eat. The girl's illness left her
hungry, so Jesus sees to it that she's provided for.
And he commands silence in his continual campaign of an effort
not to be swamped by crowds. Kids in the congregation.
Imagine what it would have been like to be that girl.
One minute you are sicker than you've ever been in your life.
Then you're dead. Then you wake up and you see
your parents and a man you've never seen before standing kind
of close to you and three other men you don't know.
And you start walking around. You get a snack.
Imagine how you would have felt when your parents explained to
you what had happened. How should that 12 year old girl
have lived after that? What difference should it make
to the whole rest of her life that Jesus raised her from the
dead? This girl is a picture of every
Christian. Spiritually speaking.
Every Christian is someone whom Jesus has raised from the dead.
What difference should that make to the whole rest of your life?
What had turned into the worst day of Gyrus's life ended up
being the best day of his life by Jesus delay.
He both demanded and gave Gyrus more than he bargained for.
Jesus demanded faith in the face of death, and he gave him his
girl back from the grave. Only Jesus has power over death,
so trust him no matter the cost and no matter how hard it is to
believe .3 The power and difficulty of faith The power
and difficulty of faith. This poem will be briefer mainly
application. We're just going to look again
at how faith and unbelief show up throughout the passage. 3
brief sub points within this passage.
First, unbelief exposed. We see this in verses 35 and 40.
Verse 35 the messengers come to gyrus and say your daughter is
dead. Why trouble the teacher any
further? They thought that because the
girl's life had ended, Jesus power to help it ended.
They thought that life was the limit of his power.
They could not conceive how deep and far and wide and high his
power reached. Similarly, in verse 40, when
Jesus says in verse 39 the child is not dead but sleeping, they
laugh at him. They think Jesus mistakes death
for sleep. Someone who mistakes death for
sleep is more worthy of scorn than trust.
But the mistake is not his, it's theirs.
What's the problem that underlies both expressions of
unbelief here? It's that they measured Jesus by
human standards. They applied to Jesus human
limits. They used pre measured
categories to cut Jesus down to size rather than allowing Jesus
to explode all their categories. The only way to understand Jesus
rightly is to let him explode your categories.
The only way to begin to understand Jesus is to realize
that Jesus is beyond your understanding.
The only way to see Jesus truly is to realize that the truth
about him is more wonderful than you can imagine.
If you don't believe in Jesus, I hope you're starting to see that
this is astoundingly good news. Brian Johnson doesn't have power
over death. Jesus does.
No doctor has power over death, but Jesus does.
No technology or drug or bio hack can overcome death, but
Jesus can simply by speaking a word.
Jesus alone can overcome death. Jesus alone deserves your
absolute confidence. Sub .2 Faith's power.
Faith's power. We see faith's power in a whole
bunch of places. Look at Jairus's posture at the
very beginning, verses 22 and 23.
Seeing him, he fell at his feet and implored him earnestly.
Jairus's desperation drove him to Jesus and drove him to his
knees, and it led him to beg of Jesus to plead with him, to ask
him intensely and earnestly, When's the last time you prayed
like that? When's the last time you begged
God in prayer? Would an audit of your prayer
life reveal that you are desperate for Jesus?
Faith humbles you in order to lift up Jesus.
Faith empties you in order to fill you with Jesus.
And faith grasps hold of Jesus in order to receive his power.
Think again of the woman's faith in verses 27 and 28.
For she said, if I touch even his garments, I'll be made well.
The desperateness of her condition highlights the depth
of her faith. Her disease was incurable.
She'd suffered from it for years.
She'd been disappointed more times than she could count.
She knew there was nothing in herself to make her worthy of
Jesus. She had no money, nothing to
offer. And yet she grabbed hold of
Jesus in faith. Faith is where your need and
Jesus's power meet. Faith is how your desperation
becomes a platform for Jesus's compassion.
That's why Jesus says in in verse 34, your faith has made
you. Well, you could equally
translate that your faith has saved you.
It's the same Greek word. Literally speaking, this woman
received healing by faith. But that statement echoes with
overtones for every Christian. Your faith has saved you, How?
Not by any power in itself, but because by faith we receive the
power of Christ. Faith is not a vibe.
Faith is not a general feeling of goodwill toward whatever
powers are out there in the universe.
Faith is not a kind of optimistic sense that everything
is going to be all right in the end.
Faith is only as good as its object.
Faith is confidence in something, or more specifically
someone, because faith is how we receive Christ's power.
Faith is world conquering and death conquering, but faith's
only power is what it gets from Jesus.
Sub .3 faith's difficulty. Twice in our passage we see
faith tested. Twice in our passage, Jesus
tests someone who has already come to him demonstrating faith.
First, the woman. Verses 30 to 33.
As we saw, Jesus requires the woman to out herself.
She grabs hold of him as she thinks in private, and he
requires her to go public. He demands that she out herself
before him and before the watching crowd.
Sometimes Jesus requires us to risk embarrassing ourselves as
part of declaring our loyalty to Him.
Why? Because ultimately, that
strengthens our commitment to Him.
Proving your faith publicly deepens your faith.
It offers evidence of faith that was more than she bargained for
and it was for her good. And of course, Gyrus got more
than he bargained for and had his faith swordly tested.
When Jesus let his daughter die, Gyrus had faith.
Jesus tested that faith far beyond what Gyrus would have
thought was his breaking point. Jesus, hurry.
Jesus, don't you care? So often in trials we can accuse
God of either delay or indifference.
When's the last time you wanted God to hurry up to answer your
prayers pronto? Right now, thank you very much,
in just the terms that you're desiring and maybe even
demanding. When it seems like God is
delaying, trust Him. Resist the temptation of
arrogance. Resist the temptation to inform
God that you know how to run your life better than He does,
it seems. Instead, wait for Him, trust in
Him. If He is demanding of you more
than you bargained for, remember He's doing that in order to give
you more than you bargained for. When's the last time you accused
God of indifference? Does God care?
He cares more than you can imagine.
Look at the healed woman. Look at the girl gently lifted
out of death. Look at the cross of Christ.
Look at his resurrection. How can you look at each of
those displays of divine compassion and accuse God of not
caring about you? If God cares this much, if God
loves you so much that he gave his only Son over to death for
you, then you can trust Him. Every day you can trust Him.
On the worst day, you can trust Jesus.
On the worst day of your life. The aspiring immortalist Brian
Johnson said conquering death would be humanity's greatest
achievement. Who's going to tell him?
I'm sorry, Brian, you're 2000 years late.
There is a human who has conquered death, and it didn't
take him 111 pills a day to do it.
He just spoke a word. Then he proved his regiment by
doing it on himself. And here's the best news of all.
If you trust in Christ, if you trust in him, he'll do it for
you too. Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, we praise you for your compassion.
We praise you for your wisdom over death.
We pray that we would trust that when you are demanding of us
more than we meant to give you, that it's because you're giving
us more than we could ask for. We pray in Jesus name, Amen.