You know, recently on television, I watched the movie, We Were Soldiers, starring Mel Gibson. Mel Gibson, of course, plays the role of Lieutenant Colonel Hal Moore, the commander of the US forces in Vietnam, that fought the bloodiest, deadliest battle of the entire war, which was fought, actually, in November of 1965. So that was Mel Gibson, and Barry Pepper plays UPI reporter Joe Galloway, who volunteered to go into this deadly battle, armed with nothing but his camera. Well, in one of the most gripping scenes of the movie, the US command post is about to be overrun, so Sergeant Major Basil Plumlee yells, gentlemen, prepare to defend yourselves, and then he shoves an M16 rifle into the hands of reporter Galloway. Galloway quickly says to him, sir, I am a non-combatant, to which Plumlee replied, ain't no such thing today, Sonny.
Well, Galloway ended up picking up that rifle and actually fighting alongside the troops of the 7th Cavalry for the next two days, and the result of that is that he was awarded the Bronze Star with V at the end of the war, making him the only civilian in all the Vietnam War to have won the Bronze Star. Now, as I was watching this, I thought, you know, there's a great lesson about life here, namely that when things are all calm and relaxed, it's easy to decide something in our head, like I'm a non-combatant. But then when we find ourselves in a desperate situation, like Joe Galloway did, we often discover that these decisions we've made are only head deep. They're not really life deep.
In other words, we pick up a rifle and we fight for our lives. Now, this is what we want to talk about today. We're in a series entitled People Jesus Met, and today we're going to watch as Jesus meets a man named Jairus, who made some decisions about Jesus in his head when everything was calm and relaxed in his life. But then when crisis struck, this man discovered that his decisions were only head deep.
They weren't really life deep. I'm going to explain all that to you as we go back and look and see what happened with Jairus. And then, of course, we're going to bring all of that forward, and we're going to talk about, well, what difference does that make to you and me today? So Mark chapter 5 is our passage, and we begin at verse 21. Here we go. The Bible says, When Jesus had crossed again over by boat to the other side of the lake, now the lake here we're talking about is the sea or the lake of Galilee, Jesus was coming from the east side of the Sea of Galilee, the little town called Cursi there, going back to the north side to his ministry headquarters in Capernaum.
Okay, that's where we are. Verse 21, When he got to Capernaum, a large crowd gathered around him while he was still by the lake. Then a synagogue ruler named Jairus came and fell at Jesus' feet. Now, when archaeologists excavated Capernaum a number of years ago, they found a magnificent synagogue here. The foundation of this synagogue goes all the way back to the time of the Lord Jesus Christ. So this is the actual synagogue that the Lord Jesus worshiped in.
If you ever go to Israel with me, you'll get the chance to actually stand in this very synagogue where the Lord Jesus worshiped. But this was also the synagogue where Jairus was the synagogue ruler. And what do we know about synagogue rulers? Well, we know, number one, that they were in charge of all the public services of the synagogue, as well as the care of its physical facility. Number two, we know that they were the ones who would choose the person that would pray, and the person that would do the Torah reading, and the person who would give the daily sermon in the synagogue. And finally, synagogue rulers presided over the ruling elder boards of their individual synagogue. In short, next to the rabbi himself, the synagogue ruler was the most powerful man in any Jewish community at the time of Christ. And yet here we have this man, the synagogue ruler in Capernaum, falling at Jesus' feet. Why?
Well, let's look. The next verse, verse 23, says, He, Jairus, pleaded earnestly with Jesus, saying, My little girl is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live. Jairus was on his knees before Jesus because there was a desperate crisis in his life. His little girl, whom we know from other passages in the Bible, was 12 years old and was his only daughter. His little girl was on the verge of death, and certainly he had tried every other remedy known to man to help her, and now he was out of options. So he comes in utter desperation and falls at the feet of Jesus and says, Lord, please heal my daughter.
You know, as many of you know, I have a little girl named Jill, who is severely mentally retarded and has all sorts of other disabilities. But what you may not know is that in the year 2000, when Jill was 8 years old, she almost died. She lost the ability to walk. She lost the ability to stand up on her own.
She lost the ability to even sit up in a chair by herself. And so we took her to see our good friend Dr. Phillip Pearl over at Children's Hospital here locally. He was her neurologist and still is. And I'll never forget what Dr. Pearl said to Brenda and me in his office that day. He said, and I quote, Lon, I think the seizures have finally caught up with us. He said, I'm afraid we're going to lose her. End of quote.
Folks, I can't even tell you. I can't even describe in words what went through my heart as I heard this doctor say this to me about my little girl. I mean, this is my little girl. My job is to protect my little girl. My job is to take care of my little girl.
My job is to help my little girl. And here I am, totally helpless. The desperation that I felt at that moment, I mean, I understand what Jairus was feeling there at the feet of Jesus.
That kind of go anywhere, see anyone, try anything desperation that he felt. And every parent here should be able to understand it, too. Now, just for the sake of completeness, I want to say that the Lord Jesus raised my little girl back up.
She sits, she stands, she walks today at the age of 18. Praise the Lord, huh? Praise the Lord. But friends, I know what it's like to drop in absolute desperation and say, God, help me.
God, help me. Well, what happened? Verse 24, so Jesus went with him. And while they were going, some men came from Jairus' house and said, your daughter is dead.
Why bother the teacher anymore? Verse 36, but ignoring what these men said, Jesus told Jairus, don't be afraid, just believe. And when Jesus arrived at Jairus' house, he saw a commotion with people crying and wailing loudly. And Jesus said to them, why all this commotion and wailing?
The child is not dead, but asleep. But all the people laughed at him. They said, hey, listen, pal, we know a dead person when we see a dead person. And this little girl is certifiably stone cold, Jack Bauer got her dead. She's gone. Verse 40, so after he put them all out, Jesus took the child's father, Jairus, and her mother, and the disciples who were with him, and went in where the child was.
Then Jesus took her by the hand and said, talitha kum, which means in Aramaic, little girl, get up, and immediately the little girl, I love that, immediately the little girl stood up and walked around, and everyone was completely astounded. Well, I guess so. Now, that's as far as we're going to go in Mark chapter 5, our passage for today, because now we want to take the time to ask our most important question. And all of our friends, all you guys out there on the internet, we want you to be part of this. Everybody here at Tysons, are you ready? All right, take a deep breath. Here we go, one, two, three. Oh, yes. You say, Lon, you know, this is a great story, and you know, I'm so happy for what Jesus did for Jairus, and Lon, I'm happy for you and Brenda and what the Lord did for Jill, but what difference does any of this make to my life? I don't see it.
Well, let's see if we can help with that. Here's the question I want us to ask as we begin. The question is, does anything strike you strange about Jairus' coming to Jesus like he did?
You know, falling down prostrate at Jesus' feet, openly confessing in front of the huge crowd that he, Jairus, believed Jesus could really do this mighty miracle of healing his daughter. Does any of that strike you as strange, and you go, well, not really. I mean, should it?
Well, yeah, it should. And let me tell you why. Think for a moment, Jairus, remember, was the synagogue ruler of one of the largest and most prominent synagogues in all of Israel at the time of Jesus, and as such, he was a member in good standing of the religious establishment in Israel. And friends, how did the religious establishment of Israel feel about Jesus at this time?
Well, let's find out. John chapter 9, this is the story of Jesus healing the man who had been born blind, and the rabbis after the healing called the man's parents in, the man who was healed, and here's what happened. They said to the parents, is this your son? Is this the one you say was born blind? How is it that he can now see? And the parents said, well, we know that this is our son, and we know that he was born blind, but as for how he can see now, we do not know.
Ask him. He's of age, and he can speak for himself. His parents said this because they were afraid, the Bible says. And you say afraid?
Afraid of what? For the Jewish leaders had already decided that anyone who acknowledged that Jesus was the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. And his parents said, hey, wait a minute. We're not risking our synagogue membership for this guy. He may be our son, but he can talk for himself. What was the official position of the Jewish leaders?
You just saw it. Hey, one more passage. Let's go to John chapter 7, and let's look once again at the official position of the religious establishment of Israel about Jesus. John chapter 7, verse 32. Then the chief priests and the Pharisees sent temple guards to arrest Jesus. Finally, the temple guards came back, and the chief priests and Pharisees asked them, why didn't you bring Jesus in? And the guards said, well, because no one ever spoke the way this man spoke. And the Pharisees retorted, has this man deceived you guys also?
Watch now. Have any of the rulers or Pharisees believed in him? No. Only this mob who knows nothing of the law. Verse 50, then Nicodemus, who was one of their number, one of the chief priests. This is the same Nicodemus, the Bible said, who had gone to see Jesus earlier. You remember John chapter 3.
Nicodemus said, does our law condemn a man without first hearing him? And they replied, are you from Galilee too? Now, in case you don't get it, that's not a compliment.
It's not a compliment. What they're saying to him is, are you a spiritual nincompoop too? None of us have believed in this guy.
Who are you? What are you kidding? We're not even interested in knowing what he has to say. Friends, what was John chapter 7 and John chapter 9? What are they telling us was the official position of the religious establishment regarding Jesus? Of all the chief priests and all the Pharisees and all the Sadducees and all the synagogue rulers? Well, it was a position of complete and total unbelief. What's more, it's obvious that up to the point his daughter got sick, Jairus agreed with this position because there is no way he could have ever risen to be synagogue ruler of the great synagogue at Capernaum. If he had not been in agreement with the position of the rabbis about Jesus, they never would have let him get there. Now, here's the key thing I want us to see today. This is it, and that is I want us to see that this unbelief that Jairus had about Jesus that allowed him to rise to be the synagogue ruler, I want us to see that in reality it was only head deep.
It wasn't really life deep because, listen now, as soon as a crisis struck his life that he couldn't handle, meaning his only daughter was sick to the point of dying, what did Jairus do? He abandoned that unbelief and he went running to Jesus for help, falling down on his feet before the Lord Jesus and openly confessing that he believed Jesus could do the mighty miracle of healing that only the Messiah could do. Do you understand what we're saying? Do you see this?
Yes? That his belief wasn't life deep, it was only head deep. And this crisis smoked him out. Do you see that?
Smoked him out. Now, that's the crux interpretatum of this message. That's the secret to interpreting this story and of making it practical for us. Because you see, friends, today in the 21st century, we have a lot of people today in our world who are just like Jairus.
You say, what do you mean by that? What I mean is that these people, when everything is going calmly for them and everything is going smoothly for them today, they take pride. Our neighbors, our relatives, our friends, our co-workers, they take pride in telling us why they don't believe in Jesus.
They take pride in telling us why reading the Bible and praying and going to church and believing in God is incredibly stupid. Ah, but friends, wait a minute. Let some huge crisis strike their lives. Let them lose their job. Let their business fail.
Let their spouse walk out on them. Let their doctor tell them that they have terminal cancer and suddenly an amazing thing happens. Suddenly, they want us to pray with them. Suddenly, they come and ask us to please pray for them. Suddenly, all that unbelief goes right out the window.
And why? Well, because just like Jairus, their unbelief was only head deep all that time. It wasn't really life deep. And when they're in crisis, they go running for the Lord. You know, my dad was that way. I tried to share Christ with my dad for the first seven years after I came to the Lord.
And my dad, to say that he was not interested is an understatement. I mean, my dad, I would start talking about the Lord Jesus. He would get up and walk out of the room. It's not that he would just ignore me. He would leave the room.
He didn't want to even be in the room for the discussion. But then, seven years into my Christian walk, my dad had his third massive heart attack. And he was in the hospital.
And I walked into the hospital to visit him. And the first thing out of his mouth was this. He said, you know, Lon, I've been doing a lot of thinking about what you've been saying about Jesus Christ.
And I've begun to wonder if maybe you're not right. Friends, I thought I was going to have the heart attack right there in the hospital room. I didn't know he was thinking about it.
I didn't even know he was ever even listening. But see, he had been told he probably only had a few days to live. And all of a sudden, all that unbelief that up to this time had been head deep.
Well, my friends, that smoked it out. And suddenly my dad discovered it wasn't life deep. He wanted the assurance of eternal life. He wanted to know he was going to heaven.
And he was willing to listen to Christ. And you know what happened? Twelve hours later, I got down on my knees in the hospital room with my dad next to his hospital bed. And I put my arm around him, and he and I prayed together as my dad asked Jesus Christ to be his Lord, his Savior, and his Messiah. Praise God for that. And listen, my dad died one week to the day from the day we were on our knees in that hospital together of a fourth massive heart attack. But you know what?
He knew the Lord. My mom was the same way, except it took 22 years with her, and it took cancer to smoke her out. But here's my point, friends. If you have a friend, or you have a relative, or you have a dad, or a mom, or a brother, or a sister, or a son, or a daughter, or a co-worker, or somebody else that you love and you care about, and you want to see them come to Christ. But right now, just like my mom and dad, they're not the slightest bit interested right now. I want to assure you, my friend, time is on your side.
Sooner or later, a crisis will strike this person's life, God will see to it, and suddenly that door of unbelief in their life that's been closed and been locked for all of this time will swing wide open in most cases, and they will be all ears. You say, all right, Lon, so what do I do in the meantime? Well, I'm waiting for that door to swing wide open. What do I do in the meantime? Well, I have three suggestions for you, all from the Word of God.
Here they go. Number one, number one, in the meantime while you're waiting, keep the relationship going. Be their friend. Folks, the only way people will ever allow us to point them towards God in crisis one day is if you and I earn that right in the meantime by in the days of calm and tranquility being a true friend to them.
Now listen to me carefully. In saying this, I am not talking about missionary dating, nor am I talking about missionary marriage. Those are both patently unbiblical, and you will be sorry you did that. We are not talking about that. We are talking about being a true platonic friend to these folks. And you know what? It's hard to be a friend to someone who's living a completely different value system in their life as a nonbeliever than we are. It's hard to be their friend and not compromise our testimony in the process as a Christian. It's hard to stay their friend and at the same time not condone their lifestyle.
But you know what? With the Lord's help, we can do it. And if we do, and if we're there for our friends, our neighbors, our co-workers, and our relatives when disaster hits, you know what? In most cases, these same people who laughed at us and who ridiculed us and who belittled us for our faith, in most cases, they will let us talk to them about Jesus Christ, and many, many of them will come to saving faith in Christ.
It'll happen. Suggestion number two is while we're waiting for this door of unbelief to swing open, we need to keep a consistent verbal witness going with these folks for Christ. Waiting for an open door with people doesn't mean wimping out. And you know, with my mom and my dad, I kept the Lord Jesus front and center during those years when they weren't interested in believing. Not so much by always walking in and saying, you need Jesus, you need Jesus, you need Jesus, you need Jesus. You know, friends, a little of that goes a long way, and they heard you the first time.
You know what I'm saying? They heard you. No, the way I did it was I did it more by just telling them what the Lord was doing in my life and keeping that ever in front of them. I remember one time my dad said to me, he said, you know, he said, you've turned out to really be a wonderful son. Now, what he meant was you were a rotten son for so many years, and recently things have gotten better.
That's what he meant. And I was a rotten son, and I said to my dad, I said, Dad, I appreciate that, but I want you to know I am still the same rotten son that I've always been. What you are seeing is what Jesus Christ has done in my life. Listen, folks, while we're waiting for the door of unbelief to swing open, we need to keep Jesus Christ constantly in the spotlight with these folks.
Finally, number three, while we're waiting, we need to be always ready to grab the opportunity when it comes. People's door of unbelief often swings open at a moment's notice suddenly without any warning, just like it did with my dad when I walked into that hospital room. I had no idea that was coming, and that's why, friends, we need to be praying for these folks. We need to be looking for the opportunity to share with them every time we're together, and we need to be spiritually ready that when they hit crisis and that door swings open, we are prepared to go through it with the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember, a true friend doesn't just put his arm around someone and comfort them. A true friend puts his arm around someone and shares Jesus Christ with them. Now, let me conclude and say that as followers of Christ, it seems to me that far too often, we tend to give up on people too soon.
You say, what does that mean? I mean, we share Christ with them, and in their ease and in their prosperity, they're simply not interested in listening, and so what do we do? We write them off as though their unbelief was permanent, and we want nothing to do with them anymore, and we go on. Friends, that is a huge mistake because it ignores the dynamics of what often happens when the Titanic strikes a person's life. Remember, most people's unbelief is like Jairus' unbelief. It's head deep. It's not really life deep.
So, my friend, time is on your side because sooner or later, the Titanic strikes every life. And so those people that you love so much and that you care about so much and that you want to see come to Christ so much, don't you dare give up on them, my friend. Don't you do that as though their unbelief was permanent because in most cases, it isn't.
It's just head deep, and some crisis is going to come along that just like in Jairus' case is going to smoke them out, and then they need you there at that moment to share the Lord Jesus with them. What do you do in the meantime? Hey, keep the friendship going. Keep the doors open. Number two, keep a consistent verbal witness for Christ going.
And number three, be ready to grab the opportunity when that door does swing open. All right, now look here. A lot of us in this room today, a lot of us in this room are the very kind of people that we're talking about, the people we've given up on. Hey, in our younger days and in our stupider days, all of us, there were many of us here who were very excited about telling people why we didn't believe in Jesus, why we don't believe in God, why we don't have any religion. I was one of them, and then all of a sudden, crisis struck my life, and I was open to Bob Eckhart on the streets of North Carolina telling me about the Lord Jesus Christ.
Some of you know exactly what I'm talking about. In your younger and stupider days, you were just like that. And then all of a sudden, you were open, and there was somebody there for you. Aren't you glad that person didn't give up on you? Aren't you glad they were there for you when you were ready? Well, I am. Friend, those are the people we need to be.
We need to be smart enough, and we need to have enough biblical perspective to understand that most people's unbelief is only head deep, and God will use a crisis to smoke them out. Don't give up on these people. Do not give up on that son, that daughter, that mother, that father, that friend, that coworker, that relative, that neighbor. Don't you dare give up on them as long as there is breath in their body.
Don't you give up on them. You be there because God will shock you sometimes with how, even at the last moment in a person's life, he'll open that door. Let's pray together. Lord Jesus, thank you for challenging us today with biblical truth.
And Father, I pray that you would forgive us for the many, many times that we give up on people way too soon. We write them off as though their unbelief was permanent. Lord, give us biblical perspective and help us to understand that most people are like Jairus. Their unbelief is only head deep. And when crisis hits them, all of a sudden, they discover that their unbelief isn't heart deep.
It's not life deep. And they're interested in hearing about Christ. And so, Lord Jesus, help us to reengage with these people in our lives. Help us to get back into the fight for the souls of these people in our lives. And Lord Jesus, encourage us that the Titanic strikes every life sooner or later.
And in most cases, people come open to Christ. Help us be there for that moment in our friends, our loved ones' lives. Encourage our hearts today, Lord Jesus, and get us back in the fight for their souls, for their lives. And we pray these things in Jesus' name.
And what do God's people say? Amen. All right, go out there and be a witness for the Lord Jesus this week. God bless you. .
