Jesus, Interrupted, Part 2

Today on Summit Life, Pastor JD Greer talks about miracles. Nothing about Jesus is more confusing than in how he does his miracles. In this story, Jesus confuses everybody, doesn't he? The disciples can't figure out why he's stopping.

Jairus can't figure out why he's stopping. Jesus's reaction confuses and terrifies the woman. But here's the awesome part. Everybody in this story gets more than they bargained for.

Everybody. Welcome to Summit Life, the Bible teaching ministry of JD Greer. I'm your host, Molly Vidovitch. Let me ask you a question. Have you ever prayed for a miracle? Like a real, genuine, there's no way this could happen, but I'm still asking miracle. Even if you don't necessarily consider yourself religious, at one point or another, almost everyone ends up on their knees begging for the impossible. And sometimes you might even get the answer you were hoping for. But other times it feels like God doesn't respond or worse, just doesn't seem to listen to you at all.

So why is that? Pastor JD tackles this challenging topic today with a message titled, Jesus Interrupted. So let's jump into the story. Mark 5, verse 22.

Let's begin here. Then one of the synagogue leaders named Jairus, he came and when he saw Jesus, he fell at Jesus's feet. He pleaded earnestly with him.

My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live. So he pleased, verse 24. So Jesus went with him, verse 24.

A large crowd followed and pressed around him. And a woman was there in that crowd who had been subject to bleeding for 12 years. Now that's a very polite way in the New Testament of saying that she had an uncontrollable menstrual flow.

Verse 26. She suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors. And she'd spent all that she had.

Yet instead of getting better, she only grew worse. Verse 27. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak because she thought, if I just touch his clothes, if I could just touch his clothes, I'll be healed. In verse 29, immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.

It was like she grabbed hold of a rope and she pulled it and just rang this bell and power rung out of him. Verse 30. At once, Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. And so he turns around in the crowd and he asked, who was it?

Who touched my clothes? Well, the disciples who are, as I've told you, not always the spiciest Doritos in the back, they think Jesus is genuinely asking a question. So they say, well, Jesus, you see the people crowding around you and yet you ask, who touched me? Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. Verse 33.

Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and trembling with fear, she told him the whole truth. Verse 34. He said to her, daughter, your faith has healed you. And so he says, verse 34, go in peace, daughter, and be freed from your suffering. Verse 35. While Jesus was still speaking, some people came from the house of Jairus, the synagogue leader. While Jesus is talking with this woman, literally as he's in the midst of a conversation, a message comes from Jairus' house, your daughter is dead.

They said, why bother the teacher anymore? Verse 36. Overhearing what they said, Jesus told him, don't be afraid, just believe.

He did not let anyone follow him except Peter, James and John, the brother of James. And when they came to the home of the synagogue leader, Jesus saw a commotion with people crying and wailing loudly. He went in and he said to them, why all this commotion and wailing? Then he says, the child is not dead, but asleep. Verse 40. But they laughed at him. This is not a laugh like they think he's confused. This is bitter scorn.

This is you insensitive fool. And he put them all out. He took the child's father and mother and the disciples who were with him and he went in where the child was and he took her by the hand. Then he said to her, talitha kum, talitha, which means little girl. Talitha say, scholars say that it's a very, very tender term that could almost be translated sweetheart. Kum, just means get up, not be thou resurrected or come forth, but nothing regal or resurrection sounding, simply sweetheart, get up. Verse 42. And immediately the girl stood up and she began to walk around.

She was 12 years old. At this, they were completely astonished. Let me spend the remainder of my time telling you the meaning of these stories for us.

Here's the first meaning. Shows us how Jesus delivers us from death. Don't get this wrong.

Cause a lot of people do. These stories are not primarily about how to get miracles from Jesus. They are pictures of how we become Christians. You see, we are all like this woman. Our sin has left us diseased and unclean. We are guilty and cast out.

Unlike this woman who was suffering through no direct act of her own, we're in this condition because of our sin. Like this woman, we are hopeless. All the cures have failed. Education can't fix it. Scientific progress hasn't fixed it. Romantic relationships haven't fixed it.

That's where a lot of us turn, right? We think, oh, if I just could just get married, then my life will be complete. But like I've told you, lonely, insecure, single people become lonely, insecure, married people. In fact, they become worse. Education can't fix it. Relationships won't fix it.

Scientific progress won't fix it. Religious rules won't fix it. Religious rules can tell us how we ought to be, but religious rules cannot make us that way. Told you that religious rules are often like railroad tracks that point us the direction that we ought to go, but they are powerless to move the train along the tracks.

Not only do these things not fix our problem, like with this woman, these things tend to just make it worse. Really religious, proud, selfish people are worse than regular, proud, selfish people. Isn't that true? I mean, if you meet somebody proud and selfish, keep them away from religion, because they're just going to become even worse. Really educated, proud, selfish people are worse than regular, proud, selfish people. Really rich, proud, selfish people are worse than regular, proud, selfish people.

Because see, problems like pride and selfishness are not cured by education. They're not cured by scientific progress. They're not cured by government regulation. They're only cured by something entirely different. Like this woman, we got to fight through the crowds and we have to reach out for Jesus intentionally, but you don't get the power of Jesus just by being around him.

You don't get him just by being around people who know him. Lots of people in the crowd that day touched Jesus. He pointed that out, but they got new miracle.

Only the woman who reached out for him intentionally got it. The miracle came not by participating in the crowd, but by pulling on the cloak. You see, we've got a lot of people here this weekend. A lot of people who come every weekend, touching Jesus casually. You're not going to get this power by being in the room, hearing worship songs or listening to sermons. You only get it, you only get this power of transformation through bold public acts of faith. But when you do, when you reach out for him in faith, believing that he has the power and grace to save you, which what we mean by that is that he can forgive you of your sin and he can put the power of new life in you.

When you believe that and you reach out to him in faith, you will be immediately cleansed and healed, regardless of the shame or the defilement or the guilt that you bring to him. Like this little girl, we need somebody to save us from certain death. Death is our ultimate enemy. Death brings an abrupt end to every relationship and every meaningful pursuit. There is nothing sadder to me than hearing an atheist talk about death. And you go to a funeral that's somebody that's an atheist and they try to put a positive spin on it. You know, he did this or here's the people that he touched, his life had meaning. But you know, for that person, it's all gone.

There's no more of them to even care. I've told you before the interview I saw with Steve Jobs in 60 minutes shortly before he died of cancer, cancer that he knew that he had. The interviewer asked him if he believed in God and he said, throughout my life, sometimes I believed in God, sometimes I hadn't.

He said, it's been about 50-50. He said, but I'll tell you freely as I've grown closer to my coming death, knowing that it's coming. He said, I've found myself really wanting to believe in an afterlife and choosing to believe in an afterlife because I hate the thought that when you die, it all just disappears. All the wisdom, all the relationships, just gone the moment the machine turns off. He said, incidentally, that's why in Mac products we don't really put on-off switches that are easy to get to, which has been one of the greatest frustrations of my life, is that he turned this thing off, right?

He said, we don't do that because I just don't like the idea that you can never turn the machine off. Here, what you see is that Jesus faces our supreme enemy, death, so that if we go into death holding his hand, it's nothing but a little nap. Paul says in 1st Corinthians 15, he says that Christ has taken the sting out of death.

Christ has taken the sting out of death. I heard about a dad driving around in a car with his little girl, about eight years old, and she, yellow jacket gets in the car, or at least see the yellow jacket. And you know what that's like. When you got a kid and you're driving down the interstate, and there's a bee in the car, and you're swinging at that thing, and you're rolling the window down, trying to get it out, just weaving all over the interstate. And his little girl is panicking, and she's like, Daddy, it's... So he pulls off the side of the road, rolls down the windows, trying to shoo it out, and it's just coming closer to her, and she is screaming because she's really, really allergic to bees. So he hops out of the car, jumps in the back seat, and traps it against the back glass with his hand, because that's all he has. He knows that if he takes out a hand, the bee's going to be mad, so he reaches out, he grabs a hold of that bee with his hand, and just waits a second for that inevitable sting. And then he takes it, he holds it out the window, and he lets it go, and it flies off, at which point the little girl panics again. She's like, Daddy, he's going to come back. He's mad he's going to come back, at which point he just opens up his hand, and show the stinger that's in his hand.

He's like, you don't have to worry about that bee anymore. What Paul tells us is that, yes, we go through death. But Christ has taken the sting out of that death, because he took our defilement and our condemnation into himself. So, yes, death is still a nuisance to us, and death still causes us some inconvenience, but it's really nothing but a little nap, because he absorbed the sting of death.

It is completely and entirely gone. Now, before I go on to number two, make sure you see this. The primary healing that we need is not physical, it is spiritual. People read these stories and assume it's about their job or their health. That if you'll just reach out and touch him, that he'll change. And Jesus is going to help you with those things.

I'll show you that in a minute. But the primary meaning of these stories is about how Jesus heals us from our ultimate problem, sin, and how he saves us from the ultimate enemy, which is death. The one who dies peacefully in his sleep at 100 years old, surrounded by friends and family with plenty of money in the bank, but does so without Jesus, still loses everything. And the believer in Jesus who had snatched away in the prime of life, has snatched away in the prime of life, has everything to look forward to.

So see, here's my question. What are you primarily looking for Jesus to do for you this weekend? You hoping it'll fix your marriage? When people know their marriage dissolves and they say, I got to get back in church and I'm glad for that. What are you primarily looking for him to do?

Is it to fix your marriage or your family or to help your career? Those are important and Jesus will help you with those. I'll show you that next. But the main thing you need is to have the curse of death removed and to be restored to fellowship with the father. And by the way, I'll say this for those of you who are not Christians or maybe you're just in a different religion. I'll say this is one of the reasons that I believe Jesus is the savior of all mankind, because he was the only one who ever went into death and came back out of it.

And that's something that afflicts us all. Every other religious leader in the world went into death and stayed there, right? Mohammed taught some great things and then he died. You can visit his grave over in Saudi Arabia. And then you got Buddha who he died. And you've got Krishna.

I mean, all these things, all these religions are going to point back to a leader who died. And it reminds me of a story I heard and it took place out somewhere out West where there was a little girl, two years old, that stumbled into the deep end of a pool. The only one home was the grandmother. And the grandmother was, you know, panicked. So she sees this little girl go in the deep end of the pool, knowing she can't swim. So she runs out and she jumps in the pool to save her. Two hours later, the story said they pull out both the body of the grandmother and the little girl.

The dead body, because the grandmother couldn't swim either. And so the point is that if you're going to be the rescuer, you can't have the same problem as the one you need to rescue. So if you're going to save me from death, you can't go into death and stay there. You got to go into death and come out.

And he's the only one in history who said, I'll take your death. I'll go into your death and then I'll turn it around in resurrection. That's why we say that Jesus Christ is the way, the truth and the life. You can't come to the father except through him. This is primarily about Jesus's ability to save you from death and restore you to the family of God. But number two, they also show us number two, how Jesus works in our daily lives. Shows you how he works in your daily life. These stories show us how to approach Jesus with our problems.

Let me give you a couple of thoughts here. Letter A, faith engages a power from God, a power that's not available until you lean on it or depend on it. This woman risked everything on the belief that Jesus would help her. And all he did, he never turned anyone away who came to him in faith.

Not one person. I know God is not a genie in a bottle where you rub him in faith and then he pops out and gives you whatever you wish. A lot of people think that, that God's like this, you know, pinata and faith is the whacking stick. And if you whack him, you can get the goodies out of it.

That's not the way it is. But I also know that scripture teaches us that faith engages a power from God that is not there until you believe. One of the easiest illustrations of this from the life of Jesus is when Jesus was walking on the water and Peter was in the boat and wanted to walk on the water. So Jesus said, come on. And Peter hops out of the boat and he starts to walk. And while he's believing in Jesus and his eyes are on Jesus, he's above the waves. And the moment he takes his eyes off, he begins to go under the waves. Now, if you're a theologian, you're like, what does that mean that it was Jesus' sovereign will that he dip under the waves? And my response is stop asking dumb questions. That's not the point of what would happen. Point is when your eyes are on Jesus, there is a power that he gives you to walk above the waves that is not there.

The moment you take your eyes off of him. And I think about that when I parent my children, because I think I need a power from God and giving me wisdom and ability to be a parent to them. And I know that when I look to Jesus, I know he promises that he will always hold me up above those waves and he will give me the wisdom that I'm asking for. I think about it when I lead this church. I'm like, God, I need you.

You told me to look to you and I'm looking to you. And I know, I know he's not going to let me in my head go beneath those waves. I know that when it comes to my needs or my provisions, I know whatever it is that when I'm leaning on him, he promises he will never turn me away.

To our staff, I've taught it this way. God doesn't just answer prayer. In fact, Jesus sometimes criticized people in the Bible for praying too much.

You probably didn't know that. Matthew 6. It is the hypocrites and the heathens, the people who don't know God, they're the ones who think God will hear them because they talk a lot.

They're the ones who pray all night thinking if I pray all night, God will hear me. He said, don't be like that. God doesn't respond to prayer in the New Testament. He responds to faith, which means that one sentence in faith is better than 10,000 sentences without it, which means that when I pray, I actually am doing this now as sort of a discipline for myself. I will end a lot of these things that I pray to God. I'll end it with the phrase, Lord, I trust you with this. Because what that means is now I've put it on you. And I know that I'm trusting you, which means you have to deal with it because you promised that you would. Again, Jesus never turns anybody who came to him for help with the New Testament.

Not one single person. A verse I've been memorizing that has become very important to me in the season of life. You, O Lord, Psalm 9, 10. You, O Lord, have never forsaken those who trust in you.

Now hear me. That doesn't always mean he does it the way I think he should do it. Part of our trust in him is saying, you know what? Your way is better. And so I'm going to ask you for this. And if you do something different, I'm going to trust that your way is better than mine. But the moment you lean on him, you can be sure that he is working in your situation flawlessly for your good. And that he is holding you up above the waves of destruction.

He promises to do that. You, O Lord, you have never forsaken those who lean their weight upon you. Maybe you feel like Jairus. Maybe you feel hopeless about your situation. Maybe you feel hopeless with the state of your family or your marriage.

Maybe you feel hopeless in your addiction, your future because of all the mistakes you've made in your past. So that you're sitting here this weekend saying, why bother? I'll tell you why bother because you got a savior who is passing by whose tenderness is deeper than the oceans and his faithfulness reaches to the skies. And this savior you see in the pages of this book is not a record of a historical figure.

It is a living, moving being. And Hebrews 13, eight tells you, he does not change ever. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever, which means if you come to him, he'll respond to you the way that he did this woman. Has it been 12 years?

Has it been 12 years and still no answer? Keep knocking. It's like it says in the book of Psalms, don't stop believing. Or maybe that's the second book of journey.

I'm not really sure, but whatever it is, it's a good statement. Don't stop believing. Here's letter B. Here's letter B. Nowhere is God more confusing than in how he does miracles.

Nowhere. Nothing about Jesus is more confusing than in how he does his miracles. In the story, Jesus confuses everybody, doesn't he? The disciples can't figure out why he's stopping.

Jairus can't figure out why he's stopping. Jesus's reaction confuses and terrifies the woman. But here's the awesome part. Everybody in this story gets more than they bargained for.

Everybody. The woman expected a healing, but she also got acceptance as a precious daughter by the heavenly father. She got more than she bargained for. Jairus wanted a healing. What Jairus got was a resurrection. God has so much more in store for us than our pathetic and feeble plans.

If only you knew. God's plan is often different from ours, but for those who trust him, it's always wonderful. His timing confuses us and frustrates us, but he's weaving it all together perfectly. Y'all, it can't be mere coincidence that the little girl was 12 years old and the bleeding woman had been sick for 12 years.

There's no way that's just coincidental. He points out both details because what Mark is showing you is that for 12 years, God has been writing a story. For 12 years, God has been writing a story that he is going to weave together in one four-minute moment in one beautiful climax on that day.

12 years. How long are you going to wait for God to move before you declare that he is absent and that he doesn't care? Because what Jesus wants from you is the persistence of faith. I don't know exactly how to say this in a way that won't sound weird coming from a pastor, but I have really, over the last year, two years, really, really begun to believe in prayer. I've seen God answer it in my life.

I've seen it answered in other people's lives. I've believed in it, yes, before then, but just in a personal way, really believe it. I know that he moves in response to faith.

I know it. And I know he'll move in your situation when you lean on him. What's heaven going to be like when we see this happen with all of our stories? When we see that in all these moments, these years, 12 years of frustration and confusion, that God was writing this story when in that one moment, to use the words of J.R.R.

Tolkien and Lord of the Rings, when he makes every sad thing come untrue. Every sad thing coming untrue means he doesn't just wipe away our memory of it, but he suddenly weaves it all into this beautiful story that's made even sweeter by the painful moments. To go back to 1 Corinthians 15, where it says that Christ took the sting out of death, the second phrase after that is he says, in Christ, death is swallowed up by victory. Now, I love the imagery of swallowed up, because when you swallow something, it becomes a part of you.

Right? I mean, you are what you eat, so you eat the food and it becomes a part of you. What he's saying is that victory is going to swallow up death, so that victory will actually be made more victorious by the death that it has taken into itself. What it means is that these painful situations in your life that God has let you go through that sometimes last 12 years, metaphorically speaking, are actually something that God is using to weave into a more beautiful climax than you would have gone through had you not been through those painful chapters in your life. Haven't you seen somebody go through suffering and come out on the other side of it and be just so much better for what they went through? One of my friends was telling me about something he and his wife have walked through for the last couple of years. It's just been painful, especially for her. And he said, I would never want her to go through it.

It's broken my heart daily to see her have to deal with these problems that she's dealing with. He said, but already, he says, we can see the good fruit that God has brought in her spirit, maybe not her body yet, but her spirit, out of these beautiful things, these painful things that she's gone through. And the way we've seen the both of us begin to love and trust God, we look at it and we say, it's worth it. What's it like when we get to heaven and see how God used every moment of those bitter 12 years to weave beauty and glory into our lives? This is the story that Jesus is promising to write through our lives.

If you trust him and you don't give up and you lean on him and you lean into him, could we end our time together? Just realizing that Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. You can approach him right now, just like those people approached him. Do you need a miracle today?

Or do you simply need to tell Jesus that you trust him and leave it at that? Be encouraged that we have an approachable and accessible savior. You're listening to Summit Life with J.D.

Greer. Regardless of what your prayer is today, we'd love to help equip you with the knowledge of the Bible you need to deepen your relationship with God. We're actually really excited to make a new resource available to our listeners. So, J.D., what is so special about these books of the Bible cards?

Okay, Molly, honesty time. Have you ever finished reading the book of the Bible and wondered what on earth you just read and who this message was for? Can you say minor prophets?

Right, me too. That's why I want to spend my days helping you get the Bible, because I believe the Bible is the book wherein God revealed himself. And I think it gives you the hope that you need to deal with whatever problems, whatever challenges you're facing, and it will carry you into eternity. This set of cards will help you as you read to make connections with the context of the original audience. You can use them, keep them right by the place where you study the Bible.

It'll help you make connections better, know historical, you know, must-know facts. It'll give you an overview of each book, some of the relevant, most relevant points, some reflection questions, and help you connect that book to the greater context of the Bible. It's such a great resource from a friend of Summit Life, Mary Wiley, who is a brilliant Bible teacher, author, book strategist. I'd love to be able to give you these.

If you reach out to us through jdgrier.com, I can point you to these, and I think it'll be a real help to you. No matter what age you are, you'll enjoy this unique set of cards that will help you make connections when you read the Bible. Even though the design is aimed at adults, the content will still appeal to any age. So this is a perfect resource for your whole family. You might even give a copy to a friend who's a new believer or even a mature believer who studies the Bible regularly because the cards help you identify where you are in the grand narrative of Scripture.

They're compact, so they're easy to use anywhere. We can all use these daily reminders of what God is trying to teach us through His Word. You'll definitely want to ask for the books of the Bible cards when you give a gift of $25 or more today by calling 866-335-5220. That's 866-335-5220.

Or you can give and request the cards online at jdgrier.com. I'm Molly Bitovitch. You know, we don't typically think of fear as a positive thing.

However, when it comes to our relationship with God, fear is actually a good, healthy, and even an essential response. We'll see you right back here Thursday on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by J.D. Greer Ministries.