This really is one of the most bizarre encounters in Jesus' life. Both people in this story came to Jesus for one thing, but ended up with something far greater. Yet, Jesus required a lot more of them than they were expecting. Jairus came to Jesus in need of a healing, what he got was a resurrection. Welcome back to the Summit Life podcast.
I'm Molly Vitovich. You know, prayer is one of the most important parts of the Christian life, but many of us still feel unsure, inconsistent, or stuck. That's why our team created a resource called the Gospel Prayer Catechism. It combines memorable gospel truths with Q ⁇ A prompts and scripture for reflection. It's simple enough for families to use around the dinner table, deep enough for small group discussion, and personal enough for quiet time reflection.
When you give to Summit Life this month, we'll send it to you as our way of saying thanks. This is just one of the many ways your generosity helps us reach more people every day with clear, bold, and faithful Bible teaching. Take a look over at jdgreer.com. Today we're diving into a new teaching series called The Difficult Sayings of Jesus. We're putting aside our assumptions we may have held and taking a fresh look at who Jesus really is and what he taught.
We're headed to the book of Mark. Here's Pastor JD. We are starting a new series this weekend called The Difficult Sayings of Jesus. One of the biggest misconceptions about Jesus was that he was this tranquil, unflappable, religious guru who just went around spreading peace and love and groovy vibes. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The real Jesus was divisive. He was polarizing. You either loved him or you hated him. In fact, that's kind of how you know you've encountered the real thing: you either love him or you hate him. Perhaps the greatest irony today is that most people in our culture find Jesus boring.
Nobody in the Bible ever found Jesus boring. Hated him? Yes. Thought he was full of it? Yes.
Bored? Never.
So, we're going to take a look over the next several weeks at some of the most challenging, divisive things that Jesus ever said. These statements are going to do two things for us. One, you're going to find that some of the most confusing things that Jesus said actually answer some of the deepest questions that you and I have ever asked about life. Second, it's going to show you exactly where you stand with Jesus. Do you love him or do you hate him?
If you pay attention over the next several weeks, you'll find there is no third category. There's no kind of like, well, he's okay. You're either going to love him or you're going to hate him. The first one we're going to look at is a statement that Jesus made at a little girl's death. You'll find the story in Mark chapter 5 if you've got a Bible and you want to open it there.
But this statement is going to be in Mark 5, verse 39. Jesus makes it a little girl's death. The father and mother are beside themselves with grief. She's only 12 years old. And so Jesus walks into the place where her little body is lying on the bed, and he said, Why are you making a commotion and weeping?
This child is not dead. She is sleeping. And then they laughed at him to scorn. Maybe that statement doesn't seem like that big a deal to you, but Just imagine if you're a parent, if that were your little girl. Or if you are not a parent, imagine if it were your little sister.
I have a girl who is about 12 years old, and I think about what it would be like if suddenly she was struck down in death. Maybe she got hit by a car or she got sick and died, and how heartbroken I would be. And then, for you just to walk in and kind of casually cast a glance at the casket and be like, oh, she's not dead, she's just taking a nap.
Furthermore, what you're going to find out in this story is that her parents kind of blamed Jesus for her death. You see, Jesus had been on his way to heal her when he got delayed, and because he delayed, she died. And her parents are like, why did you delay when you knew she was just hanging on by a thread? I mean, Jesus, if you really cared, if you really cared, why would you have let this happen? Why wouldn't you have come immediately?
Let me ask you: have you ever felt that way? You ever find yourself looking up at God and saying, if you're actually there, If you really care, why wouldn't you have changed this? Maybe it concerned the death of somebody that you loved. You know, throughout my life, I've had seasons where I really struggled with faith. I know that I'm a pastor, and I'm probably not supposed to admit that.
I'm supposed to tell you that I'm just, you want to see me as this stalwart kind of bulwark of faith who has no questions at all, but that's just not true. There have been seasons of my life where I've really struggled to believe, and usually it surrounded that question right there. If Jesus loves us as much as He says He does, why is the world the way that it is? And why do you let this happen to that person? In this story, you're going to see that this mother and father have a choice of whether or not to love Jesus or to hate him.
And I think you're going to see that you have that exact same choice. There is no third category. This really is one of the most bizarre encounters in Jesus' life. So let's just go back to the beginning of the story and let's just kind of walk through it. Verse 22 is where it begins.
One of the rulers of the synagogue, which means he's a pretty important guy, he's a religious ruler, Jairus by name, came and fell at Jesus' feet and implored him earnestly, saying, My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her so that she may be made well and live. We're going to find out later, this is his only child. All parents love their kids, of course, but there's a special bond, they say, between a daddy and his oldest girl. I think I know that because I have, my oldest child is a daughter.
He's rich.
So he's hired, I'm sure, the best doctors that money can buy, but they've now told him there's nothing left that they can do. Um that she's beyond hope, that she's probably not going to make it to the end of the day. And so in desperation, he thinks. Jesus, maybe, maybe Jesus. He's heard about this miracle-working healer.
You see, on the whole, religious leaders were not that excited about Jesus. We know that probably he had been publicly critical of Jesus if he was like most religious leaders of that day, but now he's desperate. His little girl is about to die. And so his dad instincts kick in and he thinks, maybe, maybe Jesus, what if it's true? What if he could actually help my little girl?
So he ran all throughout the town looking for Jesus, asking people, have you seen Jesus? Finally, he finds him and he falls on his face and probably says something like, I know that I haven't been the biggest supporter of yours. I know that I haven't really believed, but if you can do something, please, my little girl, she's dying, please. Verse 24. And Jesus Went with him.
Could you imagine for a minute what Jairus' joy was at this moment? I mean, Jesus saying, I can do something. And yes, I'll come with you.
Next verse. But as they were going, a great crowd thronged about him.
So now Jairus is fighting through that crowd. He's trying to push people out of the way because he's got to get Jesus to his little girl. Right? In that crowd, there was a woman who had a discharge of blood for 12 years. Discharge of blood means that she had a disease that gave her menstrual irregularity.
And in those days, Jewish law would consider a person in that condition to be perpetually unclean. I know we don't think that way, and that seems very foreign, but that's how they saw it back then under Jewish law. Here is a woman that has not been able to go into the temple, into the presence of God for 12 years because she's considered unclean. And not only that, people would not touch somebody who was unclean, which means she has not been hugged in 12 years. She'd suffered much under many physicians and had spent all that she'd had Maybe she used to be rich, but she's not anymore.
Instead of getting better, she just got worse. She also had heard the reports about Jesus, and so she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment because she had thought: if I could just touch his garments, I'll be made well. And immediately, when she did so, the flow of blood dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. But Jesus, perceiving in himself that power had gone out from him, Immediately turned and said, who touched my garments? And his disciples are like, What do you mean who touched your garments?
There's a crowd thronging around you. Everybody's touching your garments. What do you mean who touched me? But he looked around to see who had done it. The woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling and fell down before him and told him the whole truth.
And he said to her daughter, Daughter, by the way, that's the only time he ever uses that term in all the New Testament. It's a word that means precious child. She's the only one who ever gets called this. Precious daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace and be healed of your disease.
Which is an awesome story, right? I mean, here's a woman who for 12 years has been disconnected from God and disconnected from other people. who thinks if I can just touch his clothes, he'll heal me. And so she fights her way through this crowd. She's on hands and knees, risking being trampled to death.
And she finally gets close enough, right as he's coming by, and she lays on her or on her stomach and she reaches out her hand as he goes by just to brush the hem of his garment. And she's healed. And then Jesus stops and turns around. and says, who touched me? And she's just trying to slither back into the crowd.
but he won't let it go. No, I know somebody touched me. And so she comes forward. Thinking she's about to be castigated because she had the audacity as an unclean woman to touch a holy man, but instead of rebuking her. He calls it the most tender term he calls anybody in all the New Testament, which is an awesome story, but Jairus.
He's like, Jesus, my daughter is at home struggling with every breath, every second counts. While Jesus was still speaking with this woman. There came from the ruler's house someone who said. Your daughter just died.
Now, could you imagine? As a parent, what's... It would have been like to have been gyrus at this moment. What Jesus did here, by the way. Could be considered.
in certain standpoints to be considered It can be considered criminal malpractice. You see, doctors practice a thing they call triage. In which, in an emergency situation, you prioritize people who are in critical condition. Jairus' daughter is minutes away from death, and here you got a woman who has a non-life-threatening disease that she's had for 12 years. Surely if she has made it 12 years, she can make it another 12 minutes.
But Jesus stops, engages the woman, and while he does, Jairus' daughter. Dies. How do you think? Gyrus Felt. How would you feel?
You knew, you knew Jesus, you knew she was hanging on, and you stopped with something that was non-urgent. And while you delayed, she died. Would you be confused? I would be. Would you be angry?
I would be. But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to Jairus, Do not fear, but boldly believe. They came to Jairus' house and Jesus saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly, and then that statement. He goes in and says the child is not dead, but sleeping. And they laughed at him.
But he put them all outside and took the child's father and mother and those who were with him and went in where the child was. Taking her by the hand, he said to her, Talipha Kumai, Talitha is an Aramaic word that means little girl. It's a pet name, which is probably why the translators didn't put it into Greek. They left it in Aramaic because there is no good translation. Literally, it's like saying honey.
Honey? Kumai is Not a very strong word either. It's a very gentle word that means get on up. Get on up. It's the word they say you would try to use when you were rousing someone out of a nap.
So, in other words, Jesus did not go into this room and say, Child, I command thee, come forth. We sat down on her bed, like her mother would have. Took her hand. Probably stroked her face. And just whisper to her, honey.
Get up. And immediately the girl got up. and began walking. Could see she was 12 years of age. There are five crucially important things about life and death.
That Jesus teaches us in that Story. Number one. To Jesus. Death is as easy to fix as waking somebody up out of a short nap. What scares you most?
What scares us most, is it not our death? Or maybe the death of someone that we love. Do you see what a beautiful picture of death this is? Do you see the tender details? You want to know what it's like for a believer to die?
Just like this little girl. Jesus sits by your bedside. He takes your hand. When you awake, the first voice that you hear is his, the first face that you see is his. He sits there and carries you like your mother.
That's what Jesus is showing us here about the death of a believer. You see, there are two predominant views of death in our culture. The first is that of the what I'll call the secularist. That is the person that believes that we are the result of a random collusion of particles emanating out of a Big Bang. If that's true, if that's all there is, then when we die, it's all over.
The machine just got turned off. Bertrand Russell, who's one of the most famous skeptics in our Yesterday said that We just got to have the courage to embrace that. In fact, he says this. He says, don't console yourself with Christmas carols. You and everything you love will die in the death of the universe.
No heroism, no sentimentality can preserve any life beyond the grave. All our labors, all our accomplishments, it's all destined to extinction in the vast depth of our solar system. And only when you admit that can you ever begin to live life courageously.
Now there's an Easter message for you, right? You see, the alternate view is that death is not natural. That God made us to be eternal beings. And that means there is something not right, there is something foreign, there is something unwelcome about death, and that's. What terrifies us about death?
That's what makes us hate it so badly because we weren't created for it.
So here's my question for you. Which one resonates more with your heart? Which for you? You know, C.S. Lewis asked this question.
Doesn't the fact that we yearn for eternity point to the fact that we were created for eternity? Fish don't complain about being wet because they were designed for the water. They complain when they're out of the water. That's when they flop around. That's their version of complaining.
Doesn't the fact that we yearn for eternity show that we're designed for it? Isn't that the reason we flop around in the face of death? Because we're not designed for that? If I find in myself a desire which nothing in this world can satisfy? The only logical explanation, Lewis says.
Is that I was made for another world. Listen. Don't just as your heart know that to be true? I saw an interview with the late Steve Jobs. Who I think was the last interview he gave before he died.
was asked the question by the interviewer. Do you believe in God? And he said this to try to jot down his words. I was listening to it. I got it mostly correct here.
Throughout my life, he said, I've been unsure, but as I approach death, I find that I do believe in God more and more. He then went on to say, he says, because if the human body is just a biological machine, then when it's turned off, it's over. And he said, but that can be right. I don't want it to be right. He said, incidentally, by the way, in the interview, he said, that's why I've never had Mac products that have on-off buttons that are really easily accessible.
Which annoys the heck out of me because I'm like, how do you just turn this thing off? But he says, I just don't like that because I don't like the concept of a machine ever just shutting down. I'd like it rather just going to sleep. You see, your head might tell you one thing. And there's a time and a place where we can engage your head, but I'm just asking you a question about your heart.
What does your heart know to be true about eternity? You see Ecclesiastes says that God created you with eternity in your heart.
So even when your head says one thing, your heart always tells you the truth. And your heart says, this is not welcome. It's not right. You were created for more. Number two, here's the second thing that This story teaches us, is it Jesus's delay?
Is not inconsistent with his love. Jesus' delay is not inconsistent with his love. Jairus could not fathom why Jesus delayed if he loved me. If you cared, surely you'd have gotten there in time to help my little girl. But Jesus knew.
That the delay, listen to this. He knew the delay wasn't going to make any real difference. Because to him death was as easy to fix as waking somebody up out of a short nap. It wasn't harder for him to raise the dead than it was for him to heal the sick. And so this little girl's death was of no lasting significance.
Just a temporary delay.
Now the point Of this story is not that if you pray long enough, then you can escape death on earth. Of course not. I mean, this little girl died again, right? She's not still alive today, which means she died at some point. The point of this story is to give you a picture of what all of us will experience in the resurrection.
And in the resurrection, the joy of what Jesus restores to us. Will make any pain that we experience from the delay now seem just like a temporary inconvenience, like a short nap. I mean, to Jairus in the moment, it felt devastating. From Jesus' perspective, it's like, it's just like a little delay. Your pain right now feels devastating and it feels permanent.
But I'm telling you, when you know Christ, he says even the greatest pain is like a short nap compared to what's coming in eternity. Paul would say it this way in 2 Corinthians 4. Our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory. Watch this, that far outweighs them all.
So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. Our afflictions, our troubles, Paul says, no matter how bad they seem, listen. We're only light and momentary. And by the way, when Paul talks about pain and trouble, he's not talking about JV level pain. Paul knew what extreme loss was like.
He knew what it was to have loved ones die. He knew what it was to be betrayed by close friends. He knew what it meant to lose his job and run for his life. But he's saying, compared to the weight of joy in eternity and the length of time in eternity. Even the worst pain here is light and momentary.
You say, well, it doesn't feel light and momentary. My little girl is dead. This person is gone. This feels like the darkest chapter of my life. I'm just showing you that the moment you step foot into eternity.
And you feel in that moment the weight. of joy and the beauty that God created out of these things. You'll see that all this delay. was so light and momentary, it's like What one guy said is a A bad night in a cheap hotel. It's just like waking somebody up out of a short nap.
Listen, I'm not trying to minimize your pain. There are some of you who, right now, at this moment, are walking through chapters of your life that I probably can't even fathom. They are so dark. I'm not trying to minimize your pain. I'm trying to maximize Jesus' victory over death, and sin, and pain.
And I'm trying to tell you, the weight of glory in the one so far exceeds the pain of the other that the moment you step foot into eternity, it'll seem like a short nap, like a temporary delay that was not even there. His delay is not inconsistent with his love. Jesus had a plan for Jairus. He's got a plan for you. Number three.
Jesus both offers more and requires more. Than you've ever imagined. He both offers more and requires more than you've ever imagined. Both people in this story came to Jesus for one thing. But ended up with something far greater.
Yet Jesus required a lot more of them than they were expecting. For example, Jairus came to Jesus in need of a healing. What he got was a resurrection. That's a miracle upgrade, is it not? But Jesus required Jairus not just to believe that he had power to heal, he required Jairus to trust him in the midst of completely bewildering circumstances.
Now he wasn't expecting that. The woman with the issue of blood, she wanted to hit and run with Jesus. Get in, get her healing, get out, get home. That's what she wanted. She not only got her healing, she was called precious daughter, the only person in all the New Testament to be called that.
She got called precious daughter by the Son of God. But the cost was that she had to expose herself to Jesus and publicly profess him before the crowd. Coming, listen, coming to Jesus always offers more and also always costs more than you've ever realized. And I say that because many of you Have been drawn to Jesus because of a need of your own. Maybe it's a need for forgiveness.
Help with a family that is falling apart, maybe putting back together a life that has been broken. Maybe you need deliverance from an addiction or you need purpose or meaning or maybe you're just afraid of death. What Jesus offers to you is far more than you've imagined. He not only offers you help with your problem, he offers you something better than the solution that you seek to that problem, which is himself. A presence that goes with you not only in this life but through eternity.
A presence that promises to take every bad thing and weave it for his beautiful plan, where he'll make every sad thing come untrue, so that even when you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, you won't be afraid of evil because you'll know that God is with you and goodness and mercy is following you all the days of your life. An inheritance incorruptible that can never be taken away. He offers you far more than you have ever dreamed, yet, he requires more. than you've ever imagined. In fact, here's how he said it: if anybody would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.
You see, when you take up your cross, that means you lose any semblance of control you believe you have on your life. Because when you're fastened to a cross, you're not calling the shots anymore. And Jesus said, that's what it's like to follow me, is total trust, total surrender, total denial. We'll return to our new teaching in just a moment, but I wanted to quickly introduce you to our featured resource this month. What if prayer wasn't just about asking God for things, but responding to what he's already done?
That's the vision behind our newest resource, the Gospel Prayer Catechism. Based on the Gospel Prayer that Pastor JD has taught for years, this tool uses short biblical Q ⁇ As to help you anchor your prayer life in God's love, power, and grace. It's more than a tool. It's a framework for daily renewal. And when you support Summit Life this month, we'll send it to you as a digital download right away.
Every gift given also helps others go deeper in their faith by making Summit Life available on the radio, online, and beyond. If Summit Life has become a trusted source of spiritual encouragement for you, would you consider paying it forward by helping us reach others with the life-changing truth of the gospel? Find out more about how your support makes a difference by visiting jdgreer.com. You see, I make this point because I feel like I'm talking every, you know, on a weekend like this to a lot of people who would say they believe in Jesus. I'm assuming that's why most of you are here.
I believe if I said, Are you a follower of Jesus? You would say, Yes, I'm a follower of Jesus. But it seems like for many people, if they're a follower of Jesus, more like I would think of myself as a follower of Justin Bieber on Twitter. I follow him. He gives advice.
I mean, you think the jail sentences would like tone him down a little bit, but no, he's still telling me how to run my life like he knows the best.
So I I'm looking at what he says. He gives advice on various things. I don't pay att I don't pay attention to him half the time. You know, I mean, maybe he influences it here or there, but I just take it or leave it. Because I'm not really a follower of Justin Bieber.
I'm a fan. I mean, back that up. I'm not a fan of Justin Bieber either. He is a curious spectacle to me. That is why I follow him on Twitter.
I'm not a fan of Justin. Let's just make that really clear, right? Many of you are You call yourself a follower of Jesus, but you're actually a fan of Jesus because There's some things about him you find intriguing, sentimental. But you're not a follower of him because you have not forsaken all that he's forbidden. You've never really picked up your cross and begin to follow him because you're still in control.
You see, there's only one trade that Jesus will ever make. And that is all of him for all of you. He offers you far more than you've ever imagined. Far more. He wants not only to help you with your problem and forgive your sins, he wants to give you an eternity that you could not even begin to fathom.
The only trade he makes for that is complete and total surrender, complete and total denial, all of him for all of you. That is the only trade he will ever make. There is no third way. There is no negotiation. He's either lord of all, we say, or not lord at all.
Have you actually come to him? Number four. Personal stature contributes nothing. to overcoming death. You see, the two characters who got miracles in the story are pretty unequal.
Jairus was a religious leader. She was religiously outcast. In fact, he is probably one of the ones that had her outcast. He's rich, she's poor. He has servants, she is a servant.
He's got a name everybody knows, Jairus. Her name's not even recorded because Nobody knows her and nobody cares. Yet Jesus gives healing to both of them in response to faith. He makes no distinction. Their stature, their accomplishments, even their righteousness.
Mean nothing. I'll tell you why. There's a little interpretive clue in this story that unites them together. The woman has this issue of blood. I told you that in their day, in Jewish law, that meant she was a picture of uncleanness.
She was unfit for the presence of God, they believed. Jairus looks like her opposite. He is a religious man of stature. He's got it all together. He wears the beautiful garments.
There's your guy that is the best of the best, yet Isaiah 64:6 says that all of our righteousness is to God like a filthy rag. Which means our best works on our best days are to God like filthy rag. Scholars say that that means one of two things: it either means a bandage that you would have used to wrap a leper.
So it's now filled with pus and blood and disease, or it means minstrel rag. And what he's showing you is that this religious leader, watch. Is the same as this woman because both of them have the same disease in their heart, and that is the disease of sin. And so, Jesus' salvation is not a reward for righteous living because there is none that are righteous in his sight. We are all stained to the core by sin.
So, it is not by works of righteousness that we have done, but according to his mercy, he saves us by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit. And it means that Jesus can and will save all who call upon him because the point is never how righteous you are before he saves you, the point is the power he exerts when he saves you. In other words, it doesn't matter how bad of a sinner you are, it matters how great of a Savior he is. The point is not the wickedness of your sin, it's the power of his grace. You see, you might be like that woman.
Here You don't feel like you even have a name. You don't want people to know you. You don't want people to know what you've done. You're in the crowd. You're broken.
You feel dirty. I'm telling you, you just reach out your hand in faith, and he will save you. He will cleanse you from your real uncleanness, and he will call you my precious daughter. On the other hand, Do you think that God's going to accept you because you're a pretty good person? You think, well, on the scale of people, I'm pretty good.
Not perfect, but compared to other people, I'm not bad. As long as God grades on the curve, I'm going to be fine. Then you have no part. in his forgiveness. No part in his resurrection.
At all. Michael Bloomberg, former mayor of New York City. Said in an interview, pointing to his work on gun safety, obesity, and smoking cessation. He said this in the New York Times, and I quote: I am telling you: if there is a God, when I get to heaven, I'm not even going to stop to be interviewed. I'm heading straight in.
I have earned my place in heaven, it's not even close.
Now, I know some of you conservatives are like, yeah, stick it to the libs. Yeah, I heard Bill O'Reilly say almost exactly the same thing the other night.
Okay, so.
So what you find is that everybody. Everybody has the streak in them where, if you say, why do you think God's going to let you into heaven? You'll start to give me a list of things that you've done that sets you above other people. I'm a good person.
Well, I'm a good dad.
Well, I'm a good worker.
Well, I'm good to the poor.
Well, I come to church, or whatever it is that you think it should do. As long as you have righteousness in your heart, a sense of righteousness. You will never receive the gift righteousness of Christ. because Christ only fills empty hands. You have to come with empty hands.
Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to thy cross I cling. It is when I know that I am not fit for the kingdom of God that I am then open to his resurrection and his righteousness, which he gives as a gift. You see, the good news is that all you need is need. All you need is need. And Christ's righteousness is sufficient for you.
What will get in your way is not the depth of your sin, what will get in your way is a false illusion of your own righteousness. All their righteousness, all his righteousness, didn't help him the first bit, which leads me to number five. Our victory over death. Came only at great personal cost to him. Verse thirty.
It says that when the woman touched him, power went out from him. Which is an odd phrase. Because scholars say what it means is in that moment. He became weak. And here's why that's odd.
It's the only time it's used in the New Testament. And Jesus And you know this had done far more impressive miracles than that. He knocked a hurricane out just by speaking a word, didn't even bring a sweat. Cast a legion of demons out of somebody without even raising his voice.
So why is it that this miracle Would make him weak. Why did it take power from him? Because our cleansing, listen, like this woman's. and our resurrection like this little girl's would only come to us. at great personal cost to him.
You see, in order to give us the power of forgiveness and the power of new life. That power would have to come out of him, and he would have to be made weak. In order to cleanse our sin, he would have to become dirty for us. Exodus 38 says that if a priest was wearing a righteous garment, a religious garment, and someone who was unclean touched him, his garment would become unclean. This woman touched Jesus.
She became cleansed. But Jesus took upon himself her uncleanness. God made him who knew no sin to become sin for her so that she could be made the righteousness of God in him. In order for Jesus to raise that little girl to new life, he'd have to be struck down in weakness and death for her. In order for God to forgive your sin, in order for God to give you new life, he had to become sin for you, had to become death for you, and die in your place.
That's what the gospel is: substitution. Jesus in my place. God made him who knew no sin and had never tasted death. He made him to become sin, become uncleanness, become death, and die in your place so that you, by faith in him, could receive the power of new life. Jesus in your place.
I told you, listen, I've struggled to believe in my life, and that's sincere. I'm not pastoring when I tell you that, but this I do believe. That Jesus came from heaven to do what I could not do, and that he lived the life I'd always known I should live and always wanted to live. And then die the death that I've been condemned to die in my place. And then he overcame the one thing that scared me the worst.
And that was the grave. He walked into it. He walked out of it. And he said, it is finished because he did it for me. That's the gospel.
And Jesus is the only Savior. That can do that. People say, why do you think Jesus is the only Savior? Because He's the only one that ever overcame sin and death. That's my problem.
And somebody that's trying to save me. Need to be able to overcome the things that I need to be saved from. Remember the story about the grandmother who sees her little two-year-old fall into the deep end of the pool? That she goes out there to try to rescue her two-year-old. Two and a half hours later, they pull out of the deep end of the pool the body of the two-year-old and the grandmother.
Why? Because she didn't know how to swim either. The one who wants to be the savior can't have the same problem as the one who needs to be saved.
So, why can't Buddha save me? Why can't Muhammad save me? Because they're sinners and they died. That's why. Jesus Christ went into the tomb as a perfect man bearing my sin, and he conquered it because he was the only one who could do what I could not do.
That's what it means to be saved. Have you ever trusted Christ personally as your own? Have you ever received Him as your Savior? Because it's a gift. It's a gift.
He said, God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever would believe in him, which means to receive him, he would give them everlasting life. They would become the children of God. You got to believe it. You got to receive it as your own if you've ever done that. And if not, might I implore you.
Might I implore you in light of what you know is your coming death. Which might be 50 years from now and it might be tonight. that you think very seriously. About what Jesus is offering you. And you think about what it means to walk away.
Jesus would ask it this way. It's a very logical question, whether you're religious or not. The logic's easy to follow. What's it profit a person? What should profit a person if they gained the whole world?
and then lost their salt. Let me think about that. What if you could gain the whole world? and then lost your soul. Light and momentary joy.
For an eternity of sorrow. Continue how I try to make this make sense to teenagers. I always ask, whenever I'm talking to high school students, I'll say this: I'll be like, all right. Let's say that I had $10 billion on stage. I don't even know if fit on stage, but let's just say it was up here.
And I was going to offer it to you. $10 billion. Cash. But you gotta walk up here on stage and let me pull out a knife and let me cut off your pinky right on this table in front of everybody. I always ask them, how many of you would take that, take that?
99.9% of everybody in the audience raises their hand. There's always like one girl that won't do it, you know, because she's a my pinky's awesome, you know. Look at that nail, you know.
So, right. But 99.9, yep, you have my left pinky.
So I was like, all right. Let's go from your pinky, let's take all the way up to your wrist. $10 billion, how many of you do that? Usually about 70% of the audience will raise their hand.
So then I say, okay, well, not just your wrist. Let's go all the way up to your left shoulder. At this point, it's only about 40% of the audience raised their hand, and they're always all guys, right? They're like, yeah, whatever, $10 billion. I'm going to throw an arm, you know?
So, so. Then I say Left arm, right arm, both legs. poke out your eyes, plug up your nose, plug up your ears, cut out your tongue. Who's in? And there's nobody.
There's always one guy out there that'll raise his hand, and I'm like, there he is, ladies and gentlemen. There's your class clown, there's your fool, because nobody in their right mind. Would trade $10 billion or trade that for even $10 billion because what good is $10 billion if you have no faculties with which to enjoy it? Jesus' question is, why are some of you Giving up far. Far more.
For far, far less. You are consumed with the pursuit. of dreams. And Jesus becomes irrelevant.
So you put him on the back burner and you're like, I'll get to that when I'm old. What's it profit you if you gained the whole world and then lost your soul? What are you going to give in exchange for your soul? Jesus plus nothing equals everything.
Now there's some math I can get behind. If you'd like to see the message transcript or explore related resources, you can find everything at jdgreer.com. See you next time. Today's program was produced and sponsored by JD Greer Ministries. Yeah.
