Jarius Part 1 - People Jesus Met Part 14

You know, in 1912, to build the Titanic, it cost $7.5 million. In 1997, to make the Oscar-winning movie Titanic, it cost $200 million. And the reason that this movie was such an amazing success at the box office is because, according to reports, many, many people went back to see it five times, ten times, twenty times, or more.

So here's the question. What is it about the Titanic story that people find so compelling that they'll go back and see it again and again and again? Well, it seems to me that the most compelling issue here, the most compelling part of Titanic story, is the pathos, is the desperation that those 1,500 people on the Titanic's deck were feeling as that last lifeboat shoved off and as they knew for certain that they were going to die. And what's really interesting about the desperation that these people felt is that it pressed them towards God. According to tradition, the Titanic's musicians gathered on deck as the ship was sinking, and as their final song, they played Nearer My God to Thee, a song that they had never played during the four days of the entire journey up to that point. Furthermore, Titanic's survivor, Eva Hart, who was seven at the time, said in an article in USA Today before she died that from her seat in one of the lifeboats, she could actually hear the men on the deck singing hymns together as the ship went down. You know, I have observed people's lives over the last 29 years as a pastor here at McLean, and I've observed my own life over my 38 years of being a Christian, and as a result of all that, I've come up with a saying.

Here's my saying. God deals with the desperate, and this is what we're going to talk about today as we continue in our series entitled People Jesus Met. We're going to see Jesus meet a desperate man named Jairus, and we're going to look and see what happened in their encounter, and then 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 here we go, Mark 5, verse 21. The Bible says, When Jesus had crossed again over by boat to the other side of the lake, remember Jesus had traveled to the east side of the Sea of Galilee, the Lake of Galilee, where he met in Cursi a fellow named Legion with all the demons in him, remember, and he cast all those demons out. Now the Bible says Jesus heads back north to Capernaum on the northern shore where his headquarters were for the years of his public ministry.

So we all understand he's sailing back to Capernaum. The Bible says that when he arrived, the large crowd gathered around him while he was still by the lake. Verse 22, Then the synagogue ruler in town named Jairus came and fell at Jesus' feet, and he pleaded earnestly with Jesus and said, My little girl is dying.

Please come and put your hands on her so she will be healed and live. Now the Bible tells us here that a very desperate man comes up to Jesus when he lands on the shore there at Capernaum. But the Bible also tells us two other very important things about this man. Number one, that he was the synagogue ruler in the town of Capernaum. Folks, at the time of the Lord Jesus, the post of synagogue ruler was the highest lay position anyone could hold in a synagogue. He was usually, the synagogue ruler was a man of great wealth. He was usually a given charge of all the public services of the synagogue, as well as maintaining the facility. He was the one who would choose the person that would pray, the person that would do the daily Torah reading, the person who would give the daily sermon. He led the local board of elders that ruled over that synagogue.

The point is that next to the rabbi in town, he, the synagogue ruler, was the most powerful Jewish man in that community. The other thing the Bible tells us about Jairus is that he had a daughter who was deathly ill. In fact, Luke chapter 8 adds a little more information telling us, number one, that this was his only daughter, and number two, that she was 12 years old. Now, any father with a daughter knows exactly how this man was feeling. You know, I was out in the lobby a couple weeks ago shaking hands, and I ran into this family. It was a man and his wife and three daughters.

And we were standing there talking, and he was commiserating a little bit with me about what it was like to be in a family of all girls. And I said to him, I said, Hey, listen, you need to thank God for your daughters. I said, because when you get old, sons, they just throw you into nursing home, come to see you once a month, just to make sure you haven't changed the will. But daughters, they take care of their daddies. Is that not true or what?

Yeah. You know what they say, a son is a son till he takes a wife, but a daughter is a daughter all of her life. And that is so true.

And so, you can clap for that too if you really want. And so the point is, it's obvious that Jairus loved this little girl, and we can be sure that he had already tried everything else he could think of to heal her and to resolve her illness. And now in utter desperation, he comes to Jesus. And look what the Bible says. He fell at Jesus's feet and pleaded earnestly with him.

Man, that's the language of desperation there. Verse 24, so Jesus went with him. And as Jesus went, a large crowd followed and pressed against him, and a woman was there who'd been subject to bleeding for 12 years.

She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all the money she had, yet instead of getting better, she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, the Bible says, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his robe because she thought, hey, if I just touch his clothes, I will be healed. Verse 29, and immediately her bleeding stopped. And at once Jesus realized that power had gone out of him, so Jesus turned and asked, who just touched my clothes? Verse 33 says, then the woman came and fell at his feet, and trembling with fear, she told him the whole truth. So here, as Jesus is walking to Jairus's house, we meet another desperate person, this time a woman who's been bleeding for 12 years.

Just like Jairus, she's tried everything she can think of to resolve this problem on her own. And now, desperate for help, she pushes her way through the crowd and shoves her way through the crowd and grabs ahold of Jesus's clothing without his permission. Hey, you talk about touching Queen Elizabeth without her permission. How about touching the Lord Jesus Christ without his permission? Now there's a radical thing to do.

But you know, this woman was desperate, and that's why she was willing to do something radical like that. Verse 34, then Jesus said to her, daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering. Isn't it wonderful the Lord Jesus didn't stand on protocol, huh? Isn't it wonderful he didn't say, now wait a minute, you don't touch me unless I've heard... Isn't that wonderful that the Lord Jesus was approachable like that? Well, let's go on with the story of Jairus, huh? Verse 35, while Jesus was still speaking to the woman, some men came from the house of Jairus and said, your daughter is dead.

Why bother the teacher anymore? And I can only imagine what was running through Jairus's mind at that moment and how he was feeling. I'm sure he was feeling anger at the crowd for having slowed Jesus down, and anger at this woman for having taken the miracle that should have belonged to his daughter. Ah, but I love the reaction of the Lord. Verse 36, but ignoring what these men had said, your daughter's dead, Jesus told Jairus, don't be afraid, just believe.

It's as though Jesus were saying, hey, Jairus, my power is bigger than any time delay. And what did I tell you, Jairus? I said that I was coming to your house to heal your child. I did not say, let's go to your house so I can get delayed along the way and your daughter can die.

Now, if I said I'm coming to heal her, I'm coming to heal her, so just keep trusting me and hang on. And you say, Lon, I understand that, but this is an interesting question, isn't it? I mean, it is interesting why Jesus would let himself get delayed like this.

Well, friends, we need to understand this delay was no accident. Jesus allowed it to happen on purpose. You say, well, why would he do that?

Friends, he did it because he was trying to deepen and mature and build Jairus' faith. You say, I don't get it. Look, at the Red Sea, the Israelites saw the Red Sea, but Moses saw God. And in the Valley of Elah, King Saul saw Goliath, but David saw God. And in Babylon, the people saw Nebuchadnezzar's fiery furnace, but the three young Jewish men, they saw God. And in Moab, Orpah saw all the obstacles, but Ruth saw God.

And in front of the broken down walls of Jerusalem, the people saw the rubble, but Nehemiah saw God. God had taught all of these great men and women of God, Ruth and Nehemiah and David and Moses, he had taught them how to have a big faith, a stubborn faith, a persistent faith. And how did he teach them that?

Don't miss this. He taught all of them that by not always giving them easy and quick answers to their prayers. He taught them this by putting a few curves in the road and forcing them to persevere in faith and to go deeper in faith and to have a purer faith. And then he came along and always did exactly what he said.

But you see, my friends, this is exactly what he was trying to do with Jairus. He was trying to deepen his faith, mature his faith, purify his faith by putting a few curves in his road and teaching him to hang on to God through the curves. Now today, we need to understand as followers of Christ in our modern world that this is why God puts curves in our road too, my friends, because he's out to build in us a stubborn faith, a tenacious faith, a bulldogged faith, but we will never develop a faith like that if the road is always straight and if it's always easy and we're never challenged to have to go deeper and trust God through the curves.

We'll never get there. Well, praise the Lord. Jairus' faith did hold on.

It did survive. Here we go, verse 38, 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. Verse 40, But the people laughed at him. Well, look, Jesus, we know dead people when we see them.

This girl's dead. So after he put all of them out, Jesus took the child's father and 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 cum, which in Aramaic means little girl, get up. And immediately, the Bible says, how much do you love that?

Immediately, the girl stood up and walked around and everyone was completely astounded. Well, I guess so. Hello, you raised somebody from the dead. I guess so. Now, that's as far as we want to go in the passage for today, because we want to stop now. We want to ask our most important question. So, are you ready? Okay, here we go, nice and loud.

One, two, three. So what? All right, you say, Lon, so what? Say, this is really nice and I'm really happy for Jairus and good for him, but I don't understand what any of these differences makes to me at all. Well, let's ask the question.

Here it is. Did it seem strange to you at all that Jairus came to Jesus like he did? You say, well, I don't think so. I mean, he had a really sick little girl and he knew the miracles Jesus was doing and he figured Jesus could heal her. No, it doesn't seem strange to me. Why should it? Yeah, it should have seemed real strange to you and me.

And let me tell you why. Friends, remember now, Jairus is the synagogue ruler of one of the largest and most influential synagogues in all of Israel at the time of Christ. Remember that as that synagogue ruler, he was a member of the religious establishment of Israel.

And how did the religious establishment of Israel feel about Jesus right about now? Well, just in case you've forgotten, let's go to John chapter 9 and we'll remind ourselves. Remember, John chapter 9 is the story of Jesus healing the man who was born blind. And the rabbis, as part of that, called the parents of this man who was born blind in to examine them.

And here's what happens. John chapter 9, verse 19. The rabbis said to his parents of the blind man, he said, 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 this is our son and we know that he was born blind, but as for how he can now see, we do not know.

Ask him. He is of age and he can speak for himself. Verse 22. Look, his parents said this, the Bible says, because they were afraid.

You say, What were they afraid of? Well, watch, because the Jewish leaders had already decided, look at this, that anyone who acknowledged that Jesus was the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. This is why his parents said he is of age. Hey, we're not risking our synagogue membership for him. Ask him. I'm sorry, Senator. I cannot confirm or deny that report.

Ask him. Now, look here, folks. We all live in a political town and we all understand how politics work. Jairus did not work his way up to being the synagogue ruler of one of the largest and most important synagogues in Israel by being a political idiot. He figured out which way the winds were blowing in the religious establishment of Israel, and he made sure his ship had the sails turned in that direction. That's how he got there.

And listen now. He understood fully what it was going to mean if he went to Jesus for help. He understand fully what it was going to cost him if Jesus came and raised his little girl from the dead and healed her. And then as a result, he had to acknowledge that Jesus must be the Messiah. Do you think he keeps his position as the ruler of the synagogue after doing that?

Hey, not on your life. You say, well, then why in the world would he go to Jesus and risk all this? Because he was desperate. And when you're desperate, you do radical things.

Remember what we said earlier? God deals with the desperate. Folks, it's not that God won't deal with non-desperate people. It's that in most cases, non-desperate people won't deal with God, at least not on God's terms, because God's terms are radical. You say, what do you mean by that?

Just what I said. You want to do business with God, his terms are radical. Say, think of salvation, OK? If you want to come to Christ and have your sins forgiven and eternal life given to you and become born again and a child of God, OK. Listen, what does God demand for that? God demands, number one, that we admit that we're helpless sinners. God demands, number two, that we abandon all of our self-help remedies. And he demands, number three, that we cast ourselves 100% on the blood of Christ and what Jesus did for us on the cross as our only hope of forgiveness and eternal life. Now all of this is an insult to our human ego, to our human pride, to our human self-sufficiency.

The point is that God's terms for salvation are radical and only people who are desperate are going to be willing to pay them. I had a young man come into my office six months ago, a little more maybe, and his mom had brought him to see me because she wanted me to see if I could talk him into coming to Christ, believing in Jesus. And so we met. We sat there. And I said to this young man, I said, Well, how's your life going? He said, Pretty good. I said, Well, are you unhappy with how your life's going? He said, No. I said, Well, are you fulfilled in how your life's going? And he said, Yeah, pretty much. And I said, Well, do you want to change your life, you know? And he goes, Not really. And I said, Are you desperate at all about anything that's going on in your life, are you desperate enough to take a radical step?

And he went, No. I said, Well, son, this interview's over. I got nothing to offer you because to come to Jesus Christ, you've got to be willing to do some radical things. This is not Band-Aid surgery. This is radical surgery, and you're not ready.

And I went out and had to say to his mom, I said, Look, I'm sorry. He's not ready for any kind of radical change. And so when he gets desperate, you come back and see me.

There's nothing I can offer him. Folks, most people who come to faith in Jesus Christ come because they get desperate and they're willing to accept the radical terms that Jesus demands in order to come to Christ. But you know, after we come to Christ, we still, God's demands on our lives, still continue to be radical if we want his deepest and richest blessing on our life.

Look here a second. If you come to Christ and you don't really care after that about God's richest blessing on your life, you can live any way you want to live. But if you really want the rich, deep, full blessing of God on your life, my friends, in order for that to happen, there are some radical things that have to be true in our lives for God to be free to give us that. And this is why, as followers of Christ, God often sends situations into our lives that make us feel desperate, that make us feel like Jairus, that make us feel like this woman with the bleeding problem. He does this as a favor for us because these radical things that have got to be present in our life for the deep blessing of God, you can't learn them except in times of desperation.

There's no other way to learn these things. And so when we get on our knees and we pray, God, please bless my life, and God sends these desperate situations into our life, what we don't understand is He's trying to answer our prayer. He's doing us a favor by trying to produce in us through these desperate situations the kind of radical spiritual qualities we need in our life in order for Him to be free to bless us to the max.

Does that make sense? All right. You say, all right, Lon, well, what are these radical spiritual qualities that we've got to have in our life for God to bless us richly that you're talking about? Well, I've got three from the Bible and then we're done. Number one, want God to really deeply bless your life? Then you need the radical spiritual quality, number one, of humility. 1 Peter 5, verse 5 says, God is opposed to the proud, but He gives grace to the humble. And the essence of humility, my friends, is our being willing to openly admit that we need help. We have to be willing to admit that we can't make it on our own. And we have to be willing to accept outside assistance from the Lord Jesus Christ.

But because of our human pride, this is not something that you and I are usually willing to do until we get to the place that we're absolutely desperate. And yet 1 Peter 5 is crystal clear that God gives His richest blessing in direct proportion to our level of humility, which is why God puts us in positions of desperation to teach us humility so that He can give us His richest blessing. Number two, absolute surrender.

Want God to bless your life deeply? Then we need the radical spiritual quality, number two, of absolute surrender. And you say absolute surrender to what?

Well, friends, absolute surrender to the Lordship of Jesus Christ over every nook and cranny and part of our life. Absolute surrender means that we say, Lord, I acknowledge that you are the one who's in charge of my life, not me. Absolute surrender means that we say, Lord, it's your plan for my life that really matters, not mine. Absolute surrender means that we say, Lord, whatever your plan may mean for my life, I'm in. I'm willing to do it. I'm in, Lord. Absolute surrender means that we don't just tolerate God's plan for our life, but that we embrace it. It means that we learn to find joy in God's plan for our life, even if God's plan for our life is not exactly what our plan for our life was.

This is absolute surrender. And friends, you cannot learn this, I cannot learn this, except in times of crisis and desperation. You know, I'm a history buff, and I'm particularly fond of Civil War history, war between states. I don't know if you know right off the top of your head how things were in 1864 during the war. You say, well, I'm not right on top of that, Lon, could you kind of fill me in on that?

Okay. Well, in 1864, things were bad. The war was dragging on, going very poorly for the North.

Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians had been killed, and there was still no end in sight. President Abraham Lincoln was being criticized from every direction by the press, by the clergy, by members of his own cabinet publicly were criticizing him. According to his biography, he was discouraged, he was depressed, he was feeling desperate. He was at wit's end because he couldn't fix the war and he couldn't solve the war, and he didn't know what to do. And friends, this desperation produced a profound change in the heart and in the outlook of Abraham Lincoln. And we hear that change in his second inaugural address.

Let me read part of it to you. I quote. He said, fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, he said, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled up by 250 years of toil shall be sunk, as was said 3,000 years ago, so it must still be said, the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.

End of quote. Now here what we have is a man who has come to the point of absolute surrender to God's will for this nation, the United States of America. Here we have a man who had come to a point of absolute surrender to God's will for his own life as the president of the United States of America. And how did God get Abraham Lincoln to this point? He got him there, friends, by putting him in a situation where he was completely helpless, where he was utterly desperate, and this is precisely how God has to get you and me to this very same point in our life in those same kind of situations.

Finally, number three, radical spiritual quality number three that God wants to produce in us so he can bless our lives is absolute reliance on God instead of on ourselves. Now do you remember the story in the Bible of Jehoshaphat, you know, the king of Judah, 2 Chronicles chapter 20, and you're like, Lon, that's kind of in the white section here in my Bible. Could you help me with that? Oh, sure.

Okay. Well, what happens is this. Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, wakes up in Jerusalem one day and looks out over top the wall and hears this huge army surrounding the city. They're outnumbered. They're outgunned. They're outmaneuvered. They're outflanked. They're out everything.

There's no hope whatsoever. And so in sheer desperation, Jehoshaphat goes into the temple and prays, and here's how he ends his prayer, 2 Chronicles chapter 20, verse 12. He says, Lord, we have no might against this vast army, neither know we what to do.

Watch. But our eyes are upon thee. Here's a man whose reliance is 100% on God and 0% on self.

And how did God get old Jehoshaphat there? Well, putting him in a hopeless, desperate situation. Friends, listen to me. Success never taught anybody how to rely on God instead of relying on themselves.

Could I repeat that? Success never taught anybody how to rely on God instead of relying on themselves. This is a lesson that we only learn in times of failure and times of exigency and times of desperation because, let's be totally honest here, most of us are only willing to trust God 100% when we've got no other choice. That's why the old saying says a pig never looks up till it's flat on its back. Well, I can't speak for you, but just call me a pig because that's exactly the way I am, and I'll bet that's exactly the way a lot of you fellow pigs are as well. You say, isn't there a nicer way to say this than that?

Yeah, there is. A little nicer way to say it is Jesus is all we need, but we never realize Jesus is all we need till Jesus is all we got. And let me tell you, when you're in a situation where Jesus is all you got, you are in a desperate situation by definition.

Now let me kind of close all this up by saying that as followers of Christ here today, I know that many of us know exactly how Jairus felt. Many of us know exactly how this woman felt because we're in situations ourselves where we're desperate. We're in situations ourselves that we can't fix and we can't solve. Maybe it's a health-related situation.

Maybe it's a job-related situation. Maybe it's a situation in your family or with your children that you can't solve. Or maybe it's a relationship that's gone south and you can't seem to fix it, or a financial situation that is completely out of your control and you wouldn't be human unless there were times in this situation that you had turned to God and gone, What are you doing? What are you doing? You're a God of love. I'm your child.

What am I doing in this situation? Well, friends, God's answered the question for you today. He's told you and me that desperation is how He produces in us those radical spiritual qualities that set Him free to bless our lives to the max.

And what are those qualities? Humility, number one. Absolute surrender to the Lordship of Christ, number two. And absolute reliance on God instead of ourselves, number three. See, David understood this, which is why he said, Psalm 119, verse 71, he said, It was good for me to be afflicted.

Whoa! Now, there's a non-American approach to life right there. It was good for me to be afflicted. Why, David? So that I might learn, David says, God's ways. Now, before we leave today, I do have some good news for us. You're like, Well, Lon, please. Well, I do. And the good news is this, that friends, God never leaves us in the cave of desperation forever.

Oh, no. Folks, He only leaves us there till we learn the lessons that He needs for us to learn. And then He brings us out. You say, But Lon, the problem with me is every time He brings me out, it's like before very much time goes by, God seems to send me right back into one of these things again.

Well, me too. And you know, I understand why, at least with me, God does that. It's because I keep forgetting what I learned. And God keeps sending me back for a refresher course.

Well, that's no fun. And so a few years ago, I started praying a prayer that goes like this every day. Lord, help me remember in the light what you taught me in the darkness. Lord, when you bring me out into the light and you take all the pressure off, I'm just incredibly prone to go right back to doing it the way I used to do it.

Lord, don't let me do that. When you take me into tough times and you teach me important spiritual qualities and lessons, when I come out and the pressure is off, help me remember what you taught me. So I live it even in the good times, just like in the bad times. That's a great prayer for you to pray. You know that, my friends?

Because refresher courses are no fun for anybody. And so as we leave today, I hope we'll leave with some encouragement and some perspective on the difficult times in our life. And what the Bible tells us is that these difficult times are actually our friends in disguise. We pray and say, Lord, bless my life. And these are God's answers to the prayers.

And then when God does lift them and he brings us back out into the light, oh, man, Lord, help me remember in the light, please, what you taught me in the darkness so I don't have to go back for a refresher course. Let's pray together. Father, thank you for speaking to us today and giving us a different outlook and perspective on the tough times in our life, a biblical perspective. And Father, my prayer today is that for many people here who are going through desperate situations, that you would add some meaning to those situations and you would add some clarity and purpose to those situations so that they don't just look like meaningless suffering, but rather we understand what you're up to.

We understand your ways. Lord Jesus, teach us the lessons we need to learn in the tough times and then help us remember them in the easy times so that you will be set free to pour onto our lives your richest blessing. Change the way we see our life and change the way we see our circumstances because we were here today and we sat under the teaching of the eternal Word of God. Lord, those tough times are not easy and they're certainly no fun, but Lord Jesus, they can still be something we rejoice in if we see them biblically. So do that in our hearts and lives today. And we pray these things in Jesus' name. And what do God's people say? Amen. Amen.