Good evening, everybody. Turn
with me to Mark chapter 5. The title of my message tonight is
Fear Not, Only Believe. We're going to look at the story
of this man. His name is Well, I'd say this
is kind of part of the growing up in Ashland. I realized as
I got outside of Ashland, things are pronounced a little different.
And so I learned everything in Henry Mahan's Alabama pronunciation
of J-I-R-S is the way he says it. And when I was checking online,
you know, you kind of try to figure out how to say some of
these names. It's like E-R-E-O-S. I was like, eh, it just doesn't
fit. So we're going to go with Alabama tonight. So we're going to be
at Mark chapter 5. I'm going to start reading in
verse 21. And when Jesus was passed over
again by ship into the other side, much people were gathered
unto him, and he was near to the sea. And behold, there cometh
one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name. And when he saw
him, he fell at his feet, and besought him greatly, saying,
My little daughter lieth at the point of death. I pray thee,
come and lay hands on her, that she may be healed, and she shall
live. And Jesus went with him, and
much people followed him and thronged him." So this is the
message of Jairus. Now we learn that he is one of
the rulers in the synagogue and the synagogue is the place of
religious authority in the city. Each city had a synagogue and
this is where it was their version of a church in a way where you
know the word was read and they went through a lot of religious
motions. And as we know in reading, the
synagogue kind of turned into more of a religious institution. It was something they made up
their own customs and traditions and laws and things that they
used in a way to kind of control the people. And you don't see
much far from that going on today in a lot of churches. They've
made up a lot of things that certainly the Bible doesn't prescribe
to be part of their function of religion. And so this man
was a ruler in the synagogue, so he was somewhat important.
And when we look at the people of the synagogue, Lord was really
no friend of them in a way. And in fact when the Lord would
preach to them and read the word in many cases just by him reading
the word they knew what he meant and were reacted to him and they
did not like the Lord in many cases because he was a threat.
He was a threat to the control that the synagogue had over the
people. And he broke down many of their
ways and exposed their hypocrisy. And so this man was at the seat
of power of a group that in many ways opposed the Lord. They knew
he was far superior, both in knowledge and in wisdom. Every
time that the Lord would speak to them in many ways, you'd find
them scratching their heads. They were trying to find something
to say, but they couldn't. They knew they couldn't. Yet
for this man, None of that mattered. There was one thing that was
greater even though he sat on the other side of the aisle so
to speak. One thing was greater to him. His daughter was sick
and she was dying and he brought it upon himself to put down all
these other things all this standing amongst the other rulers of the
synagogue in many ways. There was a breaking of ways
for him. He had to part ways from them. to get to Christ. And so putting aside all those
things, you think how it must have felt to know he's at home
with his daughter and they see her and she's not getting better.
And many, many of us are parents and I was trying to put myself
in, you know, because often we read a word and there's so much
that happens around that word that doesn't give context to
really the feeling of being that person where you've got a sick
child at home. They're dying. You go in and check them. Has
the fever gone down today? No. And then they keep getting
worse. You go in the next day, fever's
still there. She's getting weaker. The third
day, the fourth day, and they're seeing this is going in a bad
direction. She does not have a hope. All, I am sure, the doctors
that they employed to try to help her, to get her better,
he was seeing, her family was seeing, this little girl is gonna
die. Said she was 12 years old, I
think, in one of the other accounts. So he broke bonds with many in
the synagogue and he had he believed that the Lord had the ability
to help her or else he wouldn't have done any of those things.
And all the other things that he stood for at this point did
not matter. There was only one thing needful.
And so he as we read here he came to the Lord and he beseeched
him Lord I need you to come to my house. I need you to lay hands
on my daughter and I need you to heal her. He put aside all
those things to get there. So let's keep on reading here
in verse 25. So Jesus went with him. Much
people followed him and thronged him. They crowded around him.
And a certain woman, which had an issue of blood 12 years, and
had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all
that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse. And when she had heard of Jesus,
she came in the press behind and touched his garment. For
she said, if I may touch but his clothes, I shall be made
whole. And straightway the fountain
of her blood was dried up, and she felt in her body that she
was healed of that plague. And Jesus, immediately knowing
in himself that virtue had gone out of him, turned him about
in the press and said, Who touched my clothes? And his disciples
said unto him, Thou seest the multitude thronging thee, and
sayest thou, Who touched me? And he looked round about to
see her that had done this thing. But the woman, fearing and trembling,
And knowing what was done in her, she came and fell down before
him and told him all the truth. And he said unto her, daughter,
thy faith that may be whole, go in peace and be whole of thy
plague. So in this time, and you picture
this, he has traveled to wherever the Lord was. He had to have
heard the Lord's gonna be here or somebody told him, so he went
running. You know, as a parent, if you could do something and
your child is dying, You're going to go running if you know where
you can find help. But somebody else needed him and had such
regard. This is amazing for his ability
that she thought to herself, if I can just touch his clothes.
There's no evidence in scriptures that touching the clothes of
the Lord would heal you yet. But she had such regard for his
ability. and who he was that if I can
just, she crawled through them just to grab the edge of his
garment. So what was the foundation of
this? Because certainly there's no evidence to point to doing
something like that would heal her of all the things medicinally
at the time she subjected herself to. Great faith. Great faith in him to do What
seemed to be the impossible was made possible through the Lord. And so she had a great and high
regard for him. if I can just reach out and touch
the Lord. You know, we sing that in, you
know, the Bible school songs for kids, you know, reach out
and touch the Lord before he's passing by. And that's something
that, you know, I can remember as a kid singing and says immediately
she was healed. She knew what was done in her
when she reached out and touched the Lord. So she had great faith
and great regard for the Lord. But keep in mind here, There
is a great sense of urgency in this man, Jay Iris, because I
want to focus on him, because he's here to make sure his daughter
gets the physician to come to the house. She is actively dying,
and there is a sense of urgency about this. And now, they just
got slowed down. And I'm thinking, I know me,
and my wife certainly is getting a healthy dose of me often, I
would be clear in the way. Whatever your deal is, it's got
to wait. Like we've got something going
on and we're going there. So I can imagine this man was
trying to clear people out of the way and, you know, as best
he could pull the lure along because his goal was, I need
to get my child healed. And so now all these people are
crowding around him. And I can imagine his sense of
like, we're being delayed. This is taking time. Get out
of the way, whatever your deal is. That would be me, for sure.
May not be you, but that definitely would be me, trying to push people
out of the way. And this is coming from fear. He doesn't want his child to
die. And so he's fearful, not only will my child not make it,
but we might not make it there in time. It might be too long. How long is he going to stay
here before we get there. He thought that his daughter
would die and that there's nothing that he could do her life slipping
away and her the daughter likely you know as most children when
they're sick they don't realize sometimes how serious it is.
She's probably laying there smiling to her parents when she sees
them and them all the while knowing not wanting to scare that she's
dying. and that she doesn't have a chance, but yet her father
has heard of who the Lord is and what he had done for others.
Maybe he'll do it for us. And so he went to the Lord, asked
the Lord to come to his house and the Lord agreed. So they
get stopped along the way. He came to the Lord because he
heard that he could heal the sick and I've got to get to him
before she dies. And you think about this at this
point, you know, we have the scriptures and know and have
an understanding of the Lord's work. No one had ever been brought
back from the dead. He had only healed living people. No one in history has ever been
brought back from the dead. So at this point. I've got to
get him there so that she does not die. And if she dies, there
is no hope. There was nothing that he could
look to to say, if this happens, that it'll still be okay. So,
great sense of urgency. And what I took from this, as
I was kind of imagining this, Jairus' problem, and certainly
ours, and I'll say mine, with regards to the Lord. We've already
decided the way that he needs to handle the situation and what
the outcome should be. And often as we find in our lives
where the Lord is taking us and what he is doing for us often,
I would have not maybe chosen the way. Maybe the way the Lord
has chosen is harder for me or I've had to experience pain or
loss. You know, you ask the Lord to
increase your faith, and he shuts your ears. You ask the Lord to
give you a greater sense of love for him, and he makes you grow
cold. And you think, why is it this
way? The Lord operates in a different
way than we do. And in the case of Jairus, he
had already figured out the way. This is the way the situation
needs to be figured out. This is me. I've figured out
the problem. I need to have it done this way.
You come to my house, you touch her, you heal her, and she'll
be healed. This certainly resonates with
me, is this man and the way he's handled this. The Lord, though,
has his own way for each of us to give us what we need when
we need it. how we need it, and it's not
always, though, the way that we would have it be. And I think
that sometimes is the hard thing of faith, entrusting the Lord
when we don't see the path. Lord, I don't understand why
you've taken me this way. Why I don't see the good in this
situation, I don't understand it. It's when we're in the moment
and we're made to feel weak. That's when our faith is looking
to Christ and looking to the Lord. So I hope we remember this,
that often we decide the way he needs to handle a situation
and what the outcome must be. And I think in this story, we
see yet the Lord can work outside of our best intentions. The Lord
had a plan to be there for this girl, whether she was dead or
alive, he was going. And that was no limitation of
the Lord's ability or power. So if we'll read here in verse
35, he says, while he yet spake, in pronouncing the woman clean
of the plague, there came from the ruler of the synagogue's
house certain which said, thy daughter is dead. Why troublest
thou the master any further? So you can imagine everything
that he's worked for. He's found the Lord. He's got him to agree to come
to the house, and then he gets trapped in this crowd. He performs
a miracle on this woman, and these people are still trapping
him there. And after she's been made whole, then somebody runs
up and says, it's too late. Your daughter's dead. Could there
be any worse news? And in the moment you can imagine,
his mind starts to go. You hear that, it's like the
well of emotions start building up. And in verse 36, as soon
as Jesus heard the word that was spoken, he said unto the
ruler of the synagogue, be not afraid, only believe. But she's dead. But it's too
late. But there's nothing that we can
do now. There's nothing more that we
can do. She's already dead. And this is where the Lord works,
is when we don't have anything more that we can do. He often
has to bring us to the place to where we've exhausted all
our options for somebody like me. I'm gonna go at something
however I can. And it's only when I've spent
all my effort and I realize There's nothing that I can do. There's
no changing this, no matter what I do. It's in the Lord's hands
to do what he will. And this is where he is brought. As the Lord said, he knew what
the man was thinking in the moment. He knew when he was delivered
the news and he said, don't you be afraid. Fear not, only believe. Now, you consider this, when
the Lord says, be not afraid, or is translated, fear not, it's
not just anyone saying it. When the Lord says, fear not,
he actually has the power and ability to affect that situation
where I can actually look to him and say, okay, I cannot be
afraid. It's not just anyone saying it.
I can tell my kids when they're afraid of something, oh, don't
be afraid of that. Mostly, that's just me trying to calm them.
I can't actually do anything about it. But most of the time,
it's so that they can calm down. But I can't really tell them
I can stop this from happening. And so considering it's the Lord,
I was thinking, what is it, though, that I actually fear? When he
says, fear not, and you can look through a whole different message. Look at all the places in the
scripture where we're told, fear not. Just look up those two words
and it's a blessing just to look at all the places and what he
tells us not to fear. But in most cases, when I think
of my fears, It's mostly stupid, earthly things. It's like, oh,
I'm afraid this is going to happen, or I'm going to run out of this.
It's when you work through all the temporal things that can
happen. And most of those things are the things that could happen.
And I'm great at solving problems that could happen that never
do happen. I'm sure nobody else in here does that but me. But
once you work through all the could happen things, I'm left
with the things that are actually permanent, that I actually have
to deal with if I were to die. And the number one thing is,
I fear my sin. Because I know in my heart, if
I'm honest, it's all I see. It truly is all I see. And I
think I see it more and more and more. And that is some of
the, I believe, the life of faith. Because before you knew the Lord,
in many cases, you can't see it. You didn't know it. And I
think the shameful thing we find in many cases, certainly with
me, is it's been that way all along, and I didn't even know
it. And the Lord shows you your sin and how evil you are as a
means to come to Christ. It's the only way that you can
come. People say, well, I don't want to hear about sin. I don't
want to hear you talking about that all the time. That's the
only means by which you'll come to Christ, otherwise you have
no need of him. And this is, so I want to hear about that.
I want to know and see my sinfulness because he said he came to save
sinners. Why not me? I know in myself
there's no outward good precedence, and often the evil that is in
me, some self-serving, self-promoting thing inside of me, even when
I do something good, I know that's there. Even though I don't see
it most of the time, it's still there. I perceive it and other
times I don't, but God looks on the heart. So at the end of
the day, it doesn't matter what I think about it, it matters
what he thinks. And he says that he looks on
the heart, The second thing that I fear outside of my sin is my
righteousness. I know deep down it's no good. It can't do anything for me.
In fact, all it can do is condemn me. It's an offense to God and
it's an insult to him for me to bring anything that I do for
him to say, well, this is a reason you should love me or to show
more favor to me. It really doesn't honestly matter
what I think of it. He says your righteousnesses
are filthy rags. Word filthy means minstress.
Without getting into a biology lesson here, menstruation occurs
when there's no life. Your righteousnesses can never
produce life. Menstruation in the Old Testament
was a sign of a woman being unclean. And that was within her. Everything
she touched, if she touched the food the family ate, it was unclean. So it was not what she did, it
was who she was. Administration is the lack of
life, and it's also being unclean. It's what it pictures. So the
law can never produce life. Everything that we touch is unclean,
and it's unclean because we touched it, because we came into contact.
Therefore, it's unclean because you touched it. And lastly, the
things that I fear, honestly, is my faith. It's embarrassing
how often you come into a service and you feel like you're able
to worship. You feel like the Lord spoke
to you. And how quickly does something happen and you lose
it when you walk out the door? You got a flat tire on your car.
Somebody cuts you off in traffic. Something happens in your home
or to one of your kids. It's gone. You go back to what
my default is, how do I solve the problem? And our faith is
gone. In my experience of faith, my
experience of belief is often I see more of my unbelief. And
that causes me to fear and ask the Lord to give me faith, to
give me belief, because otherwise I won't. So when I look to my
sin, my righteousness, and my faith, the key here is if it's
my sin, my righteousness, or my faith, if it's my anything,
I've got no hope. I have every reason to fear.
If I have to bring my righteousness, My faith to God is a means to
accept me. How much is enough? How much
is enough for me to go and say, yeah, this has got to be good
enough. Surely he won't hold me accountable for this. This
has got to be good enough. And it's not. So I have a great
fear of God and a well-founded one that I would be lost if I
had to bring anything that I did. Thank God, he did make a way.
I'll read the verse to you, 2 Corinthians 5.21. The scripture says, for
he, God the Father, hath made him, Christ, to be sin for us,
who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of
God in him. You see, it's by his sinlessness,
I have no guilt before God. If his life is my life, if he
died, somebody's sin had to be there, because it's clear he
had no sin. He never sinned, so therefore,
if he died, sin had to be present. He was made to be the sin of
his people. By in doing that we are made
the righteousness of God. His righteousness is what I can
present to know I am well pleasing to God. I have no problem in
being able to look to Christ and say he didn't sin. Everything that he did is right
and perfect and accepted. I can see those things in him.
I just can't see those things in me. The problem is I'm looking
at me. I'm not looking to him because the scripture clearly
tells us my sin. He was made to be his righteousness
was given to me in him. So if I have confidence in him,
I can look to me and also say the Lord can be pleased with
me because of him and because of what he did for me. Jude 124 says now unto him that
is able to keep you from falling. That means if the Lord has regenerated
you and giving you faith and giving you the ability to believe.
It is impossible for Christ to have died for your sins and for
you to wind up in hell. It is impossible. He is able
to keep you from falling. It doesn't mean that we won't
go through a life of faith, where in many cases our faith is high. In other cases, we feel like
we're in unbelief. And the Lord gives us the strength
to persevere through that. And he's the one that keeps us
and holds on to us. and to present you faultless. That's something nobody in this
room knows anything about. Faultless, that means without
sin. Before the presence of his glory
with exceeding joy. The only way that I could be
before him with exceeding joy is if I have a righteousness
he's actually pleased with, that he can actually accept. Because
I think often When we look at God the Father, we think of Christ
dying for us. In some way, when we're in heaven,
our fleshly mind thinks, well, yeah, he forgives me for Christ's
sake, but really, he knows what I am and what I did. And so we
have this kind of, yeah, I'm forgiven, but at any time, he
can say, yeah, but I know what you are. That's certainly how
I feel, and this is not that at all. This is exceeding joy
that we are put in his presence, something that we don't even,
I don't even, it doesn't feel right saying it, but I am put
into his presence with exceeding joy with Christ as my righteousness. And the Lord says in this passage
to fear not to this man because of the unthinkable just happens. On the way, he gets stopped.
Now, Jay Iris sees the healing of this woman that he was, I
am sure, trying to push through the crowd. They get stopped. The woman is healed of the plague.
He sees the healing of this woman. His confidence is lifted up even
more. She just grabbed his clothes. She just grabbed his clothes
and he healed her. He didn't even touch her. So
what does that mean for me and for my family? He's thinking,
this is gonna work for me too. And as the Lord pronounced her
whole from the plague, the dreaded news came, your daughter is dead. Let him alone. Now, can you imagine
the well of emotions? But we were so close. If we hadn't
stopped. We'd have got there in time because
that's what I would be thinking if we hadn't stopped to do this.
These people weren't in the way. We could have got to my house
and healed my daughter. Why her and not my daughter?
That's what was going through his mind. Trust me. And that's
why the Lord said, fear not. Only believe. You'd have thought
the same thing. And as soon as the word was spoken,
the Lord knew the Lord knew the fears that were welling up in
this man. Fear not. Only believe. How far can that
be taken? How far can you take not fearing
and only believing? Well, his daughter was dead.
There's not much further you can go from there. So she is
already dead at this point. And the Lord is still giving
him the confidence to say, have faith in me. Have faith in me
to do what you came to me to do. Belief in this case passes
all earthly logic, all earthly understanding that we would be
able to hold on to. She's dead. What can possibly
be done? Life's out of her already. She's
already dead. What can be done? Well, consider
this. What can be done for you? Because
outside of Christ, you are dead and you're dead sitting here.
And it's so bad you don't even know it. There's no real love
for Christ, no love for his word, no love for his people. You know,
you don't hear when the gospel's preached, you don't see Christ
in the word, and you can't feel his presence. So what can we
clue about someone who can't hear, can't see, can't feel,
can't taste, and can't love? They're dead. What can be done for me? What
hope is there for me if I am this person? Let's read on. After
he heard, be not afraid, only believe, in verse 37, he suffered
no man to follow him save Peter and James and John, the brother
of James. And he comes to the house of
the ruler of the synagogue and sees the tumult and them that
wept and wailed greatly. And when he was come in, he said
unto them, why make you this ado and weep? The damsel is not
dead, but sleepeth. And they laughed him to scorn.
Now, you can imagine this. He's come into the house. And
you know, if you're one of the people that love this girl, part
of her family, and somebody comes in and say, why are you so sad?
She's just sleeping. She's not dead. And they're like,
what are you talking about? She's dead. And at this point,
they start ridiculing him for the hope that he's given this
father, Jairus. He's come all this way with him
only to find his daughter's already dead. And then tries to describe
a situation that in our earthly minds, we don't understand that. Like, she's there, she's dead. What are you talking about? We'll
read on. And they laughed him to scorn,
and when he had put all of them out, he rushed them all out of
the room, and takes the father and the mother of the damsel,
and them that were with him, and enters in to where the damsel
was lying. And he took the damsel by the
hand, and said unto her, Talithina Kumai, which is being interpreted,
damsel, I say unto thee, arise. And straightway, immediately,
the damsel arose and walked. For she was at the age of twelve
years, and they were astonished with a great astonishment. And
he charged them straightly that no man should know it, and commanded
that something should be given to her to eat." So what hope
was there for this little girl? There was no hope outside of
the Lord, because at this point it was impossible for anyone
to do anything for her dead. but with the Lord, the impossible
is made possible. From death sprung forth life. And we only know it the other
way, though. We know life and we know death, but beyond death,
we don't know anything because death is the end. In this case,
it doesn't end with the Lord. Death begat life, and he would
very soon demonstrate this in his work on the cross. The Lord
died. He went to the cross and he died.
He died for the sins of his people, and from death came life. By his life, many sons were brought
to glory. He conquered death. We know this
through his last words, Father into thy hands I commend or I
entrust my spirit. The darkest day of his earthly
existence in terms of what that was when he was here, to be nailed
to the cross, forsaken of the father, to have no communion
with him, to be cut off everything that He stood alone. He was truly alone on the cross
and died. Everyone that loved him ran off
from him. Yet he believed and trusted his
father to guard his spirit even when death was allowed to take
him. He believed the father wouldn't leave him there. Acts 2 24 says
it was not possible that he should be holding to it. Speaking of
death. So in taking on death and diving into the depths of
hell as it were. He paid the cost that all his
people owed. And once that debt was paid,
it was unlawful. It was wrong for him to stay
dead. And so he raised himself up because
that debt had been paid. So now he's not only conquered
sin, but he's conquered death. And so he now has the keys to
sin and death in his hand. And so he is over them. Christ
endured the unimaginable for those he loved. So that we might
believe what he did was enough to satisfy God. Because otherwise
we wouldn't believe it. If he did not come back, if he
was not raised, it would just be something that would be an
empty faith. He actually did. He actually paid for the sins
of his people. And so if I'm one of his people,
I can have the confidence. He stands there for me. He's
looking for me. He paid for me. And we are called
in many cases that when we're given spiritual life over in
Ephesians, it's the earnest of the down payment of what we're
given. And so The spirit, the Holy Spirit, when it begets life,
we are given that spirit. That's the evidence that this
is just the beginning. You can't see the rest yet while
you're here in this body. You won't see the rest of later,
but this is just the beginning of what's gonna come later. So
I say unto you who hear me now, today, believe only. These are the same words that
he told to this man whose daughter was dead. There was no hope and
it was impossible. And so when I look at me and
look at my sin and who I really know in my heart and who God
knows who I am when he sees my heart, the things that you see
on me in the outside, it really doesn't mean anything. It's what
does God see? He tells us to believe only. Stop looking at what is around
you. If Jay Iris did it, he would have just walked home and buried
his daughter. If he was just looking at what was around him
as evidence as to whether believe or not, she's already dead. There's
no point. I'm going home and I'm going
to bury my daughter. But the Lord says, fear not, and to only
believe. Fear not because he knows you
do. He knows we do. He knows that we're weak. He
knows each of our hearts and what each of us fear. And he
can say to each of us, to whatever it is that we're fearing, fear
not, only believe. Stop looking for evidence in
your life. Stop looking for evidence in your faith, for your walk,
for anything. All you will find is a reason
to think you're not saved when you start looking to those things
because you start looking to you. Jairus had nothing that
he needed to do. There was nothing the Lord told
him to do. The Lord said, I'll come to your house. But your
daughter's dead. Fear not. Believe only. And the Lord came and he raised
his daughter from the dead. So that which we could never
imagine could happen, just as we can, in many cases, can never
look at ourselves and say, could I be a son of God? Could you
be a son of God? But yet, he says, believe only. He believed in Jesus of Nathreus
that he was able to do what he said. So my question to you is,
do you? Do you believe that he is able
to save you with no contribution from you in just looking to him
in what he did, his life, his death, and the fact that he sits
on a throne now and one day will come and get all of his people,
all of his purchased possession? Do you believe that? It really
is that simple. And anything that brings you
into it, belief will only inspire unbelief. What you think, what
you do, what you say, your walk, your faith. Your faith doesn't
save you. It's the object of your faith
that does. Christ saves. Christ is salvation. And that
is the object of our faith. In looking to him, I have salvation. So the word to this man, Jairus,
and the word to you is fear not, believe only. All right, I'll
leave you there. Thank you.