Luke 8:40–56

0:00 Yes, every once in a while I get a little bit of a shock realizing just exactly how old I have become. It happens, for example, when I do a membership interview with many of you these days who are actually younger than my children. That is a weird feeling to me because I'm thinking, I am probably older than your parents at that point. It's a very strange feeling. I have another one as I start to do this introduction for this sermon this morning because even though what I'm about to talk about is kind of a thing for people that are my age, I wonder how many of you who are younger have even actually kind of heard of this guy.

0:42 So let's try it out. Raise your hand if you know anything about a man named Michael Phelps. Okay, all right, great. I'm not as old as I thought I was. For those of you who didn't raise your hand, Michael Phelps is like probably the most famous Olympic swimmer that America has ever produced. He won something like 73 million gold medals through the years. I don't even know. It was a lot. In 2003, so like a generation and a half ago, Michael Phelps was just kind of coming into his own on the world stage of swimming.

1:13 He was swimming at the Melbourne World Cup in Australia. And on TV in front of everybody, just as he was about to run this or swim this race, his coach, a man named Bob Bowman, did something that at the time set the swimming world into a flurry. He walked over to Phelps' stuff, like right before he's about to get on the block and jump in the water. He dug through Phelps' gear, found his swimming goggles that he was just about to put on to run the race, threw them down on the floor and stepped on them, crushed them. These things are probably several hundred dollars, but he crushes them, and then he goes over to talk to Phelps, and he says, run the race anyway. Swim the race anyway without your goggles, and Phelps was furious. You could see it on the TV. Fans were confused. The media was utterly flummoxed because crushing the goggles didn't make sense. It just seemed pointless. It seemed maybe even cruel.

2:06 Why would a coach walk up and sabotage his own guy? Nobody could figure it out. Well, five years later, at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, Phelps was standing on the blocks again in the gold medal race of the 200-meter butterfly. It was in the final of this race. He dove into the water. He had his goggles on. He dove into the water. But within like half a second, the goggles malfunctioned and kind of came off his face. His face filled up with water, and he went blind. in the gold medal race. Couldn't see anything. He couldn't see the lines. He couldn't see his competitors. He couldn't see the wall. What he had to do instead was run the entire race completely blind, which you do apparently by counting. You know the race so well in your own body and how fast it goes. You have to count the number of strokes that you're making and you just know that on number, you know, 27 or whatever, that's when I do the flip and the wall will just be there for me to, for me to kick off. So that's what he did. He counted the strokes. He ran the race, he won it, and in the process, he set a world record. Now it all clicks, doesn't it? Now it all

3:14 clicks, because that coach's philosophy in crushing those goggles was really, really simple. A real coach, one that wants to push you to be better than you are right now, doesn't just seek to make you comfortable. He pushes you past what you think you can handle, deliberately, sometimes even painfully, because he knows something is coming that you don't. That's what we're going to be talking about today as we look at the last part of Luke chapter 8. But instead of talking about a swimmer, we're going to be talking about a couple of people's faith. Jesus engages two people in this section. It's kind of a sandwich. We'll talk about the way the story is told here in a few minutes. But I think the way Jesus engages these people might be surprising to us because it looks an awful lot at first like what Jesus is doing is just making things worse. Let's take a look at it. Luke chapter 8, if you've got a Bible, turn over to that

4:16 chapter. If you're using one of these red pew Bibles like I've got up here, you can find that on page 866. If you're new to the Bible, new to church, for the next little bit of this service, actually the next longish bit of this service, you're going to want to grab a Bible and you're going to want to look at what we're talking about. Because this whole thing that I'm doing of preaching this sermon is going to make way more sense to you. If you can look down in the Bible, see the particular words that I'm talking about, and then you'll be able to engage in the sermon a whole lot better that way. So take a Bible, turn over to page 866. You'll see a big chapter 9 there.

4:52 We're actually not there yet. Move over to the other column, and you'll be in chapter 8, and then find verse 40, because that's where we're going to be. So it has a subtitle there, Jesus heals a woman and Jairus his daughter, and right under that you'll see verse 40. Let's start reading there. Now when Jesus returned, the crowd welcomed him, for they were all waiting for him. And there came a man named Jairus, who was a ruler of the synagogue. And falling at Jesus's feet, he implored him to come to his house, for he had an only daughter, about 12 years of age, and she was dying. As Jesus went, the people pressed around him, and there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for 12 years, and though she spent all her living on physicians, she could not be healed by anyone.

5:33 She came up behind Jesus and touched the fringe of his garment, and immediately her discharge of blood ceased. And Jesus said, who was it that touched me? When all denied it, Peter said, master, the crowds surround you and are pressing in on you but Jesus said someone touched me for I perceive that power has gone out from me the woman saw that she was not hidden she came trembling and falling down before him declared in the presence of all the people why she had touched him and how she had been immediately healed and he said to her daughter your faith has made you well go in peace while he was still speaking someone from the ruler's house came and said your daughter is dead do not trouble the teacher anymore but Jesus on hearing this answered him do not fear only believe and she will be well when he came to the house he allowed no one to enter with him except Peter and John and James and the father and mother of the child and all were weeping and mourning for her but he said do not weep for she is not dead but sleeping and they laughed at him knowing that

6:33 she was dead. But taking her by the hand, he called, saying, child, arise. And her spirit returned, and she got up at once. And he directed that something should be given to her to eat. And her parents were amazed, but he charged them to tell no one what had happened. All right, now before we get into the details of it, let me just kind of give you a running start of where this story fits into Luke's story. Because what you've got here is really the capstone of a section in which Luke is giving us a trilogy of stories. It's three stories that are put together and this is kind of the the biggest one. Over the last couple of weeks we've watched Jesus demonstrate authority over all kinds of things and we've seen him still a storm. We saw him cast a legion of demons out of a man. All of those things he did by the power of his words. So nature and even supernature demons sickness everything he commands all of those things and they bow down to him well today in this passage that we're looking at today Jesus meets

7:38 not a storm not even a demon it's disease and death things that afflict human bodies things that afflict human beings and so you get a kind of complete divine resume everything that people fail to have authority over. Jesus has authority over. He can calm the sea. He can calm the chaos. He can cast out demons in the supernatural world. And now he takes care of disease and death. There's nothing in the entire universe that does not bow down to this man. And that's what Luke is trying to show you in this trilogy of stories. But there's something different about this passage.

8:16 There's something a little bit different about it than the stilling of the storm and even the demon-possessed man. See, in those two episodes, you might call them, the question mostly, like right at the forefront of the stories, is basically about Jesus's power. Does he have the power to do this, right? The disciples wake up in the middle of the storm. They're scared. They look to Jesus, and the question is, can you do anything about this? Same thing when the demon-possessed man comes up. The question is, Jesus, what are you going to do? Well, here, that's still kind of the question but you get this shift in the story not so much to Jesus's power but our response to that power you have a lot more focus on the people themselves and the way they respond to Jesus see these two people come to Jesus with this need that no one else can solve for them and neither one of them leaves with the same faith they brought in. Neither one of them leaves with

9:19 the same faith they brought in. You might even say that through the course of this story, Jesus crushes the goggles to push them on to something that they needed that they didn't even know. Looking at the structure of this, if you look at verses 40 to 56, you can see pretty quickly that it's structured as a sandwich. So you've got the beginning of Jairus' story in the first couple of verses, then the end of Jairus' story at the end of it, and then in the middle, you have this story of the woman who has the issue of blood. So it's a Lucan sandwich, so to speak. The gospel writers will do this every once in a while. Mark is particularly famous for his Markan sandwiches, where he'll tell the beginning of a story, tell another story, and then stick the end of a story on it. It's very famous for that kind of thing. Luke does it occasionally, not as much as Mark. This, however, does not look to me like just a literary sandwich.

10:06 It doesn't look like the gospel writers have done this kind of deliberately, right, or artificially in order to make a theological point. It looks to me like this is just how it happened. This is a sandwich, yeah, but it's just a historical one. This is just how it happens. The reason I say that is because this story is told in exactly the same way in all three of the synoptic gospels. You get this story of the synagogue ruler's daughter being interrupted by this woman with the issue of blood. So that's how it happens.

10:38 Jairus comes to Jesus, right? This is the way it plays out. Jairus comes. He falls on his feet before Jesus. He tells Jesus about his 12-year-old daughter who's actively in the process of dying. Things seem to be really dire because Jairus is desperate. He wants Jesus to come with him to the house. And Jesus starts walking toward the house in order to heal the girl. And it gets interrupted by this woman. And then that's where the tension in the story comes in. Because you're supposed to put yourself in Jairus' position here. It's like, Master, come on. She's actively in the process of dying. I need you to come to the house now.

11:11 And then Jesus, with all these crowds walking by, stops in the middle of it and goes, who touched me? And his disciples are just flummoxed like, Master, everyone touched you. Like there's nobody here that's not touching you. What do you mean? And Jesus stops the whole procession in order to have a leisurely conversation about who touched him and why she touched him. And the power went out for me. daughter go now in peace your faith is he stops going to the girl's house in order to save her from death in order to have another conversation and in the meantime what happens as all those seconds tick away what happens she dies he delays and she dies now the question that should be kind of pressing into your mind at this point is why? Why does Jesus delay? When he's on his way to save

12:12 a little girl who's actively in the process of dying, why does he stop to have a conversation with this woman? Why does he let the delay happen? What is Jesus going after? Well, here's the answer and it's the main idea of the passage. Jesus will never leave your faith where he finds it. He will never leave your faith where he finds it. He's going to push you deliberately and sometimes painfully to where you need to be.

12:47 Let me say that again. Jesus will never leave your faith where he finds it. He's going to push you deliberately and sometimes painfully to where you need to be. So two points to the sermon, looking at the two stories we see here, even though they're sort of mixed up together, but I think we can pull them apart and learn something different from each of them. Number one, when your faith is real but wrong. When your faith is real but wrong. We're going to look at the woman with the issue of blood in point one.

13:19 And then second, we're going to look at the outside. When your faith is real but small. Those are the two points to the sermon. When your faith is real but wrong, and when your faith is real but small. So looking at point one, this is going to be kind of middle of verse 42 all the way down through verse 48. So that if you're looking at the Bible, that middle paragraph there, when your faith is real but wrong. Okay, so let me set the scene for you. Jairus is a ruler of the synagogue, which means that he was in charge of kind of putting together the services of the synagogue when the Jews would come together to worship.

13:52 You could kind of think of him as a pastor. You know, he probably wasn't a teacher exactly, but he's one who kind of manages things. Maybe you could think of him as an executive pastor. So he's a kind of, he's a man of standing in the community. He's got some status in the community. And this is the man who is now run up to Jesus in great haste and falls down at Jesus' feet. And the reason he does this is because his only daughter is dying. She's 12 years old. And Luke tells us that she is his only daughter, which is important.

14:25 I mean, Luke doesn't waste words. And so when he tells you she's 12 years old and this is his only daughter, he's doing a couple of things there, right? One of those things is just pointing out Jairus' desperation. It's not like he's got an heir and a spare, right? This is it. This is his whole bloodline. This girl is everything Jairus has. And so he falls down on his face before Jesus in desperation. Jesus hears the story, finds out what's going on. He agrees to go with him, and the crowd is pressing in from every side.

14:56 People touching him, and all the stuff is happening. And it's obvious in the story because of Luke's use of the word only, because of Luke's portrayal of the man is falling down at Jesus' feet. The way the whole thing goes, it's a moment of desperation, and it's a moment of hurry. We are headed to this girl's house to try to save her. She's actively, currently, right now, dying. And what you're expecting, by the end of verse 41, middle of verse 42, is that this is just going to be another miracle story.

15:28 We've seen Jesus save people before. We've seen him heal people before. It's nothing new. And you're thinking, okay, he's going to go to the house. And he's either going to take her hand or he's going to speak to her. Something's going to happen. And she's going to get well. That's what you're expecting. But then, in the middle of verse 42, you have this completely unexpected interruption. Look at verse 43. There was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for 12 years. And though she had spent all her living on physicians, she could not be healed by anyone.

16:05 So this woman comes. She's in the middle of the crowd. She goes up to Jesus, and she's had what the Bible calls a discharge of blood for 12 years. Now, Luke, being the physician that he is by trade, you know, Luke is a doctor. He's a Gentile doctor. He notes there that she has spent all her living on doctors and could not be healed by anyone. Spent all her living on doctors to try to get rid of this issue of blood and couldn't be healed by anyone. Now, when you and I read that, what we think is something like modern medicine.

16:40 This is a really serious issue, and people are giving her like serious medicines, and the medicines aren't working, and maybe there's a surgery, and the surgery didn't work, and the blood keeps coming. It seems to us like she's getting real medical treatment. That is generally not the case. Jewish writing at the time was very familiar with this issue of blood thing. and the Talmud which is it's sort of a commentary on scripture it's got all kinds of stuff in it but basically it lists 11 different cures for this exact position now some of them as you read through these 11 different cures they sound maybe like sort of legit potions like maybe if you put the right plants together maybe if you mix it all up in the right way it would have some kind of chemical effect on the body and could stop an issue of blood right some of them though were just pure superstition so let me let me read you one of these cures for this particular disease from the talmud i'm not making this up it says when a woman has an issue of blood set her in a place

17:43 where two roads meet so a crossroads set her in a crossroads and let her hold a cup of wine in her right hand and when she's not expecting it let someone come up behind her and frighten her and say, arise from thy flux. For 12 years, this woman had been doing stuff like that and giving people her money to tell her to do stuff like that. She tried it all. She had spent everything she had and nothing worked. And to make it even worse, this thing was way more than just a medical problem.

18:20 I'm sure it was all kinds of inconvenient for her, right? I mean, she probably couldn't couldn't go out in public without, you know, real preparations being made to take care of this problem. But it wasn't just medical, and it wasn't just an inconvenience, because under Jewish law, a woman who had this kind of discharge of blood was ritually unclean for a few days, right? You can go back and read the Deuteronomic law, and when a woman has her period, she becomes clean, unclean, for a few days. But once it stops, you could go to the priest, and you could be cleansed, you had to do this every month, right? It's an inconvenience, but you could be clean for most of every month. Not this woman. Because the blood kept coming and never stopped. She never got out of the period of uncleanness. So everything she touched became ritually unclean. Every chair she sat in was ritually unclean. Every person that she just brushed against at the market, it was all unclean so for 12 years this woman had been cut off from the temple had been cut off from

19:25 the synagogue had been cut off from normal human contact she was as untouchable as a leper she's not just sick she's alone she's isolated for 12 years so when she reaches out and touches the hymn of jesus's garments you got to understand both the depths of desperation that have driven her here and also the way her mind has been shaped to try to find a cure she has not been taught that it's normal medicinal processes that are going to cure her. She's been taught that it's going to be some superstitious, talismanic thing that eventually is going to create enough magic to heal her. And so when she reaches out to touch the garment of this holy man, that's how she's thinking about it. This is just one more thing to try. It's just one more superstition. If I can just reach out and touch this holy man's

20:30 robe then maybe his magic maybe his power will transfer from him to me and it'll it'll all be okay that's what she's thinking see it's all talismanic it's treating Jesus like a kind of magic object rather than a person but but here's the thing too you got to sympathize with her because in the way she's been taught she's not being stupid she's literally doing the best thing that she has been taught she's gone through 12 years of hold this cup and let somebody come up behind you and shout you know arise from thy flux that's what she's been taught so reaching for the hymn of this man the garment of this man who has actually been out there healing people is really the most reasonable thing she's ever done so listen her faith is real she thinks she really does believe that Jesus has power to heal her. It's real, but it's also wrong, because it's treating

21:35 him like a magic spell, not like a person. Her focus is on the robe, not on Jesus himself. She's very happy to get the benefit from touching Jesus, and then quietly slink away. That's where her faith is when she meets Jesus. But look what happens. Look at, look at verse 44. The whole thing works. 44. She came up behind him, touched the fringe of his garment, and immediately the discharge of blood ceased. Power goes out of Jesus, and she's healed. Now, now think about what could have happened.

22:14 Think about what could have happened here. She could just slip away into the crowd. She really could she could just she could just go away back into anonymity she could be healed and gone and Jesus could have let her go he could have felt the power go go out from him and he could have just kind of let it go and thought I've got I've got to get to this girl who's dying that's my priority and whoever just touched me and got healed of something else fine I've got to go save this girl but that's not what happens look at 45 who was it that touched me who was it that touched me now that that's interesting isn't it because there are a lot of people touching Jesus and Peter thinks it's an absolutely ridiculous question and you know if you if you listen to it a certain way it is a ridiculous question it's like Jesus there the whole crowd is around you there are tons of people touching you what are you talking about but of course Jesus distinguishes between a touch and a touch you see that he distinguishes between a touch and a touch

23:15 just just by the way a lot of us make it a point about once a week or maybe twice a year to touch Jesus but sometimes that does not translate into touching Jesus in any kind of faith whatsoever you want to be close to him you're curious about him you're curious about the people who are close to him and you touch him once a week once a year but you don't really touch him not in faith not with any understanding that he's actually going to do anything for you but jesus distinguishes the two touching him has no effect whatsoever it does nothing coming to church getting close to jesus singing the songs all of that stuff going through the motions going to mass praying the rosary none of that does anything it's just touching jesus and what you need to do is grab hold of him in faith and say jesus i am sunk if you don't save me jesus distinguishes the two

24:21 and that's important then look look what happens he says who was it that touched me when he asked that he's not offended That's not the point at all. It's not, my goodness, get your hands off of me, you dirty people. That's not the point. No, he's looking for her. He's asking the crowd, who was it that just touched me with that little bit of faith? Who was that? He wants her to come out of hiding, and she does. Look at verse 47.

24:53 When the woman saw that she was not hidden, she couldn't slink away, she came to Jesus trembling and falling down before him declared in the presence of all the people why she had touched him and how she had been immediately healed all right you see what Jesus just made her do with that question who touched me do you see what he's doing with this little bit of wrong talismanic and yet real faith do you see what he's making her do he makes her go from anonymous, hidden, talismanic, just touching, contact to a public, personal, face-to-face encounter with Jesus. He's drawing her out. And then look what he says to her in verse 48. Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace. I wonder if you can hear that that word. And what's behind it? Daughter. This woman is the only person in scripture that

25:54 Jesus calls daughter. It's an incredibly intimate word. And it speaks to the end, not just of her sickness, but the end of her isolation. She's not an outcast anymore. She is his daughter now. She's with him. It had been 12 years she'd been untouchable. 12 years isolated from all human contact 12 years of no one not even her parents wanting to be near her and Jesus finally breaks the silence by saying daughter go in peace you can't get that from just touching the hymn and slinking away you only get that when someone looks into your eyes and says you're with me now. I love you. Jesus gave her not just healing, but a relationship. He looked her in the

26:55 face, he embraced her, and he named her and brought her back into the light. I want you to notice too what he doesn't do here. He doesn't scold her for the superstitious talismanic faith that she had at first. Do you see that? I mean, he doesn't look at her down on her knees and say, you know what? Your theology is a mess. You're thinking of me as a talisman. You're thinking of me as your lucky rabbit's foot. Why don't you go talk to some priest or something from a distance?

27:26 Go talk to a priest, get it straight, and come back when you've figured it out. And when you can embrace me as a person and not a rabbit's foot, then we'll talk about your sickness. No, he doesn't do that. He met her right in the middle of a wrong, desperate, grasping, messed up faith, and he moved her from that thing to something real and personal. She came from magic. She left with a father. That's what Jesus does with wrong, unformed faith. He doesn't reject it.

27:58 He corrects it. Friends, that's so important because I know so many people. I have known so many people through the years who won't come to Jesus because they think their faith is somehow imperfect. My faith isn't good enough. My faith isn't deep enough. I still have this thing going on. And so they take this imperfect, broken, whatever kind of faith it is, and they hide it away thinking that Jesus would reject it. He won't. He won't reject it. Whatever faith you've got in Jesus, no matter how much you think it's messed up, no matter how bad you think it is, take it to him and say, Jesus, I don't know what I've got here, but I do know that I need to bring it to you.

28:39 friend, he'll correct it. He'll fix it. It may take some time. It's going to take some learning, but he will fix it. Some of you right now are sitting here in this room with faith that is real, but it's wrong. You believe in Jesus. It's sincere. It's genuine. But if you get right down to it, what you really believe in is a version of Jesus you've constructed to make him into something else. And some of you are sitting there with that exact kind of thought, that my faith just isn't good enough. Friend, if that's you, if you're the kind of person who's been staying away from Jesus because you think you're too dirty, too messed up, too far gone, look at this woman. Look at her.

29:29 She was as unclean as a person could get, 12 years deep in uncleanness. Everything she touched, everything she touched got contaminated. Contamination came off her like dirt off Linus. It's just everywhere. She touches a piece of furniture. The furniture has to go be cleansed. She touches a book. The book's got to be burned. She touches a human being. The human being is now unclean for a week. Contamination flows from her and contaminates everything clean and pure around her except Jesus.

30:02 In Jesus, it's his purity that flows to her, not the other way around. That's a beautiful, beautiful picture of the gospel of Jesus Christ. That he is so good, so pure, so wonderful. That when somebody embraces him in faith, his righteousness and beauty and purity flow to him. It's not our corruption that makes Jesus dirty.

30:34 It's his purity that makes us clean. This woman's faith was real. It was just wrong. The synagogue ruler, his faith was real too. It was just too small. And that's the second point of the sermon. When your faith is real but small. So we're going to look pretty much at verses 49 to 56. So Jesus is still talking to this woman. He's still in the middle of calling her daughter and having this conversation with her about her faith and moving her from, you know, a faith that's kind of just in magic to a faith that is in the Son of God, right?

31:10 He's having this whole conversation. And a messenger arrives from Jairus' house. Look at verse 49. While he was still speaking, someone from the ruler's house came and said, Your daughter is dead. Do not trouble the teacher anymore. And I wonder what went through Jairus' mind at that moment. You feel the weight of it, right? They're coming to him and they're saying, Jairus, I know you've been in this state of desperation.

31:44 You've been in this state of urgency for a long time now to come get Jesus and bring him to the house. But it's over. There's nothing else that can be done. This is beyond what anyone can do, even the teacher. So you, Jairus, just need to stop bothering the man because it's done. I mean, think about what he's been living through. Think about the urgency. Think about the nervousness as he watches Jesus talk to this woman for the last several minutes.

32:17 And they're on their way to his house to save his dying daughter. And he watches Jesus stop. He watches the delay. He watches Jesus look around and ask questions and have a conversation with this woman. And his 12-year-old daughter is dying just down the street. You want to grab Jesus and throw his robe over him and take him to the house. Let's go. Every single second that Jesus delays is a second that his little girl is slipping away into death. And now the messenger shows up and she's gone.

32:49 Jesus' delay cost him everything. At least that's what he thinks. But look at verse 50. Jesus overhears the message from the servant and immediately, immediately turns to Jairus. Do not fear, he says. Only believe and she will be saved. Now it's interesting that that word believe, when he tells Jairus, only believe, it's exactly the same word in Greek. The English translates it two different ways, faith and belief. But it's exactly the same Greek word that Jesus just used with this woman. Your faith has saved you. And then he tells this man, now just faith and she will be saved. Same word. But the stakes here are totally different, aren't they? The stakes are totally different. They're totally different between the woman and the man, right? But they're also different from where the man was five seconds ago and where he

33:52 is now. I mean, he sort of cleared the bar of trusting Jesus to heal sickness. That was cleared. He was trusting Jesus to heal sickness, but now Jesus is telling him to do something crazy. Trust me, believe in me, rely on me, put your faith in me when your daughter isn't just sick anymore, when she's dead. That's a whole other bar, isn't it? You see what's happening? Jesus is taking Jairus's faith, which was real. It was sincere. And he's pushing it to a place that Jairus never imagined he'd ever need to go. This man came asking Jesus for a miracle that he knew Jesus could do. He knew Jesus could heal, but now Jesus is telling him to trust him with death.

34:47 And look what happens next. They get to the house, and the scene is exactly what you'd expect. You know, when somebody in the Jewish community died, you would have professional mourners who would sort of crush into the house asking for payment, and their job was literally to make a seen that someone has died. And so it's extremely loud. There's mourning and wailing and chaos. And these women are shouting at the top of their lungs to just lament and mourn the fact that someone has died. And then Jesus walks in and says something that makes every single person in the room, all these people yelling and screaming, think he's lost his mind. The way your English Bible says it is probably, do not weep. That's the way it sounds. And the impression that you get from those words that Jesus walks up to the wailer and kind of puts his hand on their cheek and says, don't weep, don't weep.

35:37 That's what it sounds like. It's not really that. It's more like, stop wailing. That's what it is. It's more like, shut up. It's a command, not so much a cajole. Do not weep, stop wailing. because she is not dead but sleeping she's sleeping verse 53 they laugh at him well i mean of course they laugh at him there's nothing to do with a statement like that except laugh because they'd been in the room they'd seen the body they had seen her her eyes maybe half open and glazed over they'd seen her lips blue with death they knew what death looked like a lot better than we do they knew what it looked like and this girl was dead and so for Jesus to walk in not having seen anything and say she's not dead she's asleep it means that he was obviously

36:37 deluded now some people have read this story and taken Jesus quite literally here and they've said well this wasn't a miracle after all he just knew supernaturally that she was asleep but he didn't raise her from the dead. But that's why Luke is so serious about this, laughing. He says, for they knew she was dead in that verse, 53, right? It's not they thought she was dead. They laughed because they knew it. They could see it. So why does Jesus say sleep? Why does he say sleep? Well, it's fascinating. Jesus was not being naive. He wasn't being stupid, and he wasn't just using a nice euphemism to avoid saying that she's dead. He knew she was dead. He's not just euphemizing here. No, what he's doing is looking at death and interpreting what death is from God's perspective.

37:29 That's what he's doing. I mean, think about this. This is a mind-blowing stat to me. In the entire new testament in the entire new testament not one single believer is ever said to have died not one now the word death is used of course for me to live as christ and to die is gain but no one is ever said to die every believer in the new testament who dies they're all said to fall asleep why because for a believer death is always temporary always it's something that lasts for a short time and it is something that every single one of us as believers in christ is someday going to wake up from. Jesus is looking at this little girl's death and he's interpreting it from God's perspective.

38:32 He knows that her death is temporary. It's a nap that he's about to interrupt. What looks final to everybody else in the room, what calls forth all of this wailing and chaos and noise, he sees the whole thing as just a minor little pause. Everybody else sees a dead child. Jesus sees a sleeping child. And then look what he does. He puts the mourners outside. That's interesting, isn't it? The ones who laugh, the wailers, the ones who've already decided it's over. He leaves them out of the room. The only people he takes into the room are Peter, James, and John, his closest followers, because he wants them to see this happen, and the children, the child's parents.

39:09 Those are the only people allowed into the room. And then he takes the little girl by hand and says, child, arise. And in 55, her spirit returned, and she got up at once, and he directed that something should be given to her to eat. Just like that. and there's no ritual there's no there's no ceremony there's no spell there's no potion nothing like that just like everywhere else in this story that luke's been telling jesus does things by speaking he commands with divine cosmic authority and everything obeys the sea obeys the Demons obey.

39:48 Sickness obeys. And now, death obeys. So, what does this have to do with us? What does this have to do with us? Well, four things I want you to notice in this story. First of all, I want you to notice the 12 years. Now, what am I talking about there? Like, answer that in your mind. Who am I talking about? When I say 12 years, who am I talking about? Now, about half of you are thinking I'm talking about the 12-year-old girl.

40:21 About half of you are thinking I'm talking about the 12 years of an issue of blood. Because I'm talking about both. Do you think it's a coincidence that on the day this girl was born, this woman started having an issue of blood on that very day? And do you think it's a coincidence that the Lord Jesus and his father had it planned out that 12 years later they would meet Jesus on the same road.

40:54 I don't think that's coincidence. I think that's providence. I think that's the Lord making a point. What's the point? Well, think about it. The woman's interruption of Jesus going to heal the girl, her 12 years of suffering reaching their culmination and their resolution at exactly that point to interrupt Jesus going to heal the girl. That interruption is what created the delay that cost the little girl her life.

41:26 But that interruption and delay is also what pushed Jairus' faith from where it was to where it needed to be. Her life, her suffering, her waiting was not wasted. And the little girl's crisis wasn't pointless. Jesus was working on a timeline that neither of these people could see. For 12 years, he was working it out, pulling their stories together a little bit at a time, and the result was something infinitely greater than what either of them had walked in asking for.

42:01 Friend, you know that the Lord is doing that, don't you? You know that right now the Lord is doing that. He's weaving your life together with people you don't even know exist yet, but that are gonna change your life. He is that meticulous in his providence. You may look at certain circumstances in your life, like the delay, right? Like Jairus was looking at that delay and saying, I don't understand why this is happening. Or I don't understand why this is not happening. But friend, there is a purpose for all of it.

42:34 And God is, at any given moment, he is doing 10,000 things in and around you that you couldn't even fit into your head. God is always working everything together for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose. That's the point of the 12 years. Second, I want you to just think again about the delay. Just think about the delay. Think about the conversation. It is just a fact of life that sometimes our king makes life worse for us before he lets it get better.

43:08 It's just a fact of life. Things are going to get worse sometimes. by the king's command, before life gets better. Sometimes he crushes our goggles for a purpose. That's not because he's negligent. It's not because he's cruel or mean. It's not because he forgets about you. It's because he's going after something deeper in you than the thing you even thought you wanted. This is what Paul means and James means over and over.

43:39 They say this like half a dozen times through their writings, that we rejoice in our sufferings as Christians because our sufferings are producing character and our character is producing hope in the Lord. And that's what the Lord is trying to mine out of you with the hardship and with the suffering. He's mining character and he's mining hope and he's mining deeper faith. Jairus came in wanting a healing that he knew Jesus could do. He had no idea Jesus could do a resurrection.

44:10 He only got it because Jesus allowed things to get worse first. Friend, if you're in the delay, or if you're in the confusion, take heart. Take heart. It's part of life. Some of you have been praying about a situation for a long time, and the situation just hasn't gotten better. Maybe it's even gotten worse. Maybe it's a child of yours that's walking away from the faith. Maybe it's a diagnosis that came back worse than the first diagnosis.

44:42 You're going to have people in your head that sound exactly like those messengers. Don't bother him anymore. Stop praying. Stop talking to him. It's too late. It's done. Don't bother the teacher anymore. Friend, if that's you and you're hearing those voices, if you're even making those arguments to your own self, Listen to Jesus. Do not fear. Only believe.

45:15 Third thing I want you to notice here is the mourners, the mockers. These people who laugh at Jesus. These people who already declare the situation hopeless. Notice what Jesus does and doesn't do with the wailers and the mockers. He does, basically, tell them to shut up, and then he kicks them out of the room. He also doesn't argue with them. He doesn't try to get their perspective on the matter. He doesn't listen to their lies about what's going to happen.

45:46 He just tells them, shut up and get out of the room. A whole lot of you have voices in your head that are constantly causing chaos. And one of the worst mistakes that you can make with those voices causing chaos in your head, Arguments that your brain is using on you. The worst thing you can do is try to reason them away. Try to sit them down and talk to them. Because they're not there to sit and talk. They're there to just wail and scream at you. No, you, by the power of God's grace and the help of his word, need to tell them, shut up and get out of the room.

46:21 Christians talk about this sometimes. Preaching to ourselves. You've got to be active in preaching to yourself. You can't just let your own voices, your own head, talk to you. You have to talk back at it, right? Tell it the truth. Tell the wailing to be quiet and get out of the room. Fourth thing that I want you to see here is what this passage shows us about how Jesus saves people.

46:51 Because it's right here in both these stories. And this woman was unclean when she came to him. She was untouchable. She was isolated. But you notice that her contamination, her uncleanness, doesn't disqualify her from Jesus. His cleanness heals her. What do I want you to take from that? What I want you to take from that is that you don't have to get yourself cleaned up before you come to Jesus. It's just not that kind of party. You don't have to get yourself cleaned up to come to Jesus.

47:24 You come to Jesus as you are, messed up, unclean, grasping at him, isolated, and what happens is that his purity flows to you. Don't wait. Don't wait until your behavior gets better. Don't wait until your theology is better. Don't say something like, I will become a Christian when I'm a better person. Come to Jesus now and let him do the cleaning. Also, the girl, think about the girl.

47:58 She was dead. She was completely dead. She couldn't ask for anything. She couldn't believe anything. She couldn't do anything. She was just a corpse on a bed. And Jesus spoke life into her. this is what paul says in ephesians 2 isn't it you were dead in your trespasses and sins but god being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead in our trespasses made us alive together with christ you see the order of how that works the life comes before the response not after it the life comes before the response not after he He doesn't walk into this dead girl in a room.

48:44 And he doesn't say, hey, little girl, if you will believe in me, I will raise you from the dead. No, he speaks, and she lives, and then she opens her eyes. That's what God does with every single sinner he saves. Your faith is not the thing that earns the resurrection. Your faith is the first breath of a person who's already been brought to life. So maybe you're here this morning listening to all this and you're thinking, yeah, I don't know enough.

49:21 I don't believe enough. My faith isn't strong enough. Friend, look at this passage. Look at the passage. It's not a put-together life that Jesus wants. And it's not a perfect faith either. it's just faith just act on what's there I remember having a conversation with somebody some months ago and uh the person was saying you know I I just I'm not I believe all the things about the gospel I believe that Jesus got up from the dead I believe all that stuff but I just I don't know how to be a Christian and we talked for a long time and and and at the at the end of it finally I was like I have an idea for you because everything you're saying to me sounds like the kinds of things a Christian would do. It sounds like a living person would do those things. How about we try this? How about from right now? You start calling yourself a Christian and you start doing the things that Christians do

50:21 and let's see how that goes. And she did and she's a member of the church now. Do you ever, you wonder why Luke says there he directed that something should be given her to eat in verse 55? Why does he do that? Is it just because she's weak and sick because she's been dead for a few minutes and sick for a while? Why does he do that? I don't think that's why Luke records it. I think the reason Luke records, give her something to eat, is because she needs to start doing the things that living people do. That's why. Living people eat. So let her eat. She needed to do that to kind of, you know, kick her into realizing, oh, I'm alive. And the people around or needed to see that. Also, living people eat. Listen, if that's where you're sitting, if you're sitting like this person that I had this conversation with, you're like, ah, all this stuff, I don't know if I'm a Christian. I don't know if it's right. Have a conversation with somebody. See if you understand the gospel of Jesus. See if you really believe Jesus got up from the dead. And if you get a bunch of yeses, a bunch of green lights, believes the gospel, believes that Jesus resurrected from

51:23 the dead, knows about the cross, knows how that works, right? Green lights. Friends, start calling yourself a Christian and start doing the things Christians do, and let's see how it goes. You know, that coach of Michael Phelps snapped those goggles on purpose, and Phelps didn't understand it at the time. It was cruel. It was pointless. It made him furious, but when Beijing came and the gold medal race came in those Olympics and the water filled his goggles, he knew immediately why the coach did that because he was taking his skill and pushing it from where it is to where it needs to be jesus broke these people's goggles in the same exact way he broke their goggles he stopped the woman took her faith from this talismanic superstitious thing into a personal faith in him and then he pushed jairus's faith from something he was he had it nailed and pushed it to something he never could have believed. That's what Jesus does. Trust him to

52:26 do it with you. Let's pray. Our God, we thank you that you are a God who loves us, that you're a God who loves us so much that you'll even allow hardship to come into our lives, to cause us to learn how to have our faith more deeply in you. Lord, we thank you for these stories. We thank you for the way, Jesus, engage these people. And we pray, oh God, that you would help us to deepen in our love for you and our trust in your purposes. We pray all of this in Jesus' name. Amen.