Happy Father's Day to you men
out there. May God richly bless you. We thank God for you and we thank
God for all of the sons out there and daughters out there that
were providentially brought into this world by you men who braved
the challenges of reproducing in your own image. I want to
say happy Father's Day to my two son-in-laws as well, Will
and Ramel. And I want to thank God for all
the families that are here represented today. As I've said so many times,
I have no problem whatsoever taking the occasion to honor
that which God had established and instituted in the beginning,
whether it's Mother's Day, whether it's Father's Day, whether it's
Christmas, Easter, or Resurrection Sunday, or what have you. because
those are always opportunities to remember how God has created
this world and purpose this world to exist. I hope that the church
of the living God will always reinforce and strengthen and
edify those things that God has done and be a model to this world
that you cannot destroy the foundation that God established and expect
to be happy. I hope that the church of the
living God would learn how to walk in step with the Lord Jesus
Christ who always did the will of his father in heaven. I would
hope that the church of the living God would understand that it's
integrity, that it's virtue, that it's character, that it's
exaltation, that it's hope and destiny is rooted in obedience
to the scriptures versus complicity to this world system. I would
hope that the church of the living God would learn what it means
to obey the word of God incessantly in order to be blessed of God.
I would hope and pray that the church of the living God would
know what it means to walk by faith and not by sight and thus
accrue to itself testimony upon testimony of the goodness of
God, of the faithfulness of God, of the mercy and kindness of
God and the preservation of God's hand in our life. We know, do
we not? We know that there's no other
way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey. Don't we know
that by now? We know that. And so today I want to exercise
your thoughts once more on the concept of faith as we began
to look at our Lord's ministry The gospel of Luke and we've
been going through the book of Luke particularly and specifically
in order to bolster our understanding of what it means to be the witnesses
of Christ you are my witnesses and What God did in order to
bring that privilege to full bear was to send his son into
the world God manifests in the flesh and show us exactly what
he would have us to do and And one of the privileges of going
through the gospel of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John is that
you get to see how God acts in the flesh and thus have a model
for you in terms of your walk of faith before God as well.
I'll share with you what I shared with our men last night in our
men's Saturday meeting. You guys are welcome to get the
tapes. The uniqueness of having the testimony of Scripture concerning
Jesus Christ, his birth, his life, his ministry, how he acted
visibly and practically laid out in front of us in the scriptures
is God's mercy to the human race. Because what you get with the
testimony of Christ in scriptures is exactly how God is. There is no right representation
of God apart from Jesus Christ. And all that Jesus Christ came
to do, watch this now, was to reveal to us an accurate knowledge
of God, now watch this, and an accurate knowledge of ourselves.
So that if we are children of the living God, we already have
a blueprint in the person of Christ as to what should be our
priority, our protocol, our modus operandi, our agendas, our motives,
our goals, our methodology, and our techniques are all laid out
in Christ. Christ and I would encourage
every one of you to ratchet up your sensitivity to the uniqueness
of the testimony of Jesus in Scripture because see God has
so wonderfully shown us himself in Christ that when Jesus said
if you've seen me You've seen the father. In fact, you cannot
see God apart from me So to the to the degree ladies and gentlemen
that we can grasp the beauty and the fullness of Christ To
that degree, we will know God. One of the things that we find
in the gospel account concerning Jesus Christ is that He challenges
His people to believe Him. He challenges His people to walk
by faith. You and I have been looking at
a number of studies recently where He chides His disciples
for not what? Believing. And here we have the
same case in front of us of which is going to exercise our senses
today. So I do want you to understand we're taking up where we left
off last week. The subject that we are dealing
with is vital living faith, what it means to walk by faith, what
it means to live by faith, faith in its authentic sense, faith
in its objective, faith in its expression. And last week, did
we not see how that Luke gave us an account where Jesus is
coming back from the country of the Gadarenes where he has
healed that demoniac And the people in the gathering country
has ran him out of town because they understood the implication
of the power of the gospel in a culture that was making money
in unjust ways. Let me say it like this. If the
gospel ever gets a hold of a wicked country, it will turn its economy
around. If the gospel ever gets a hold
of a country where the balances are unjust, where the wicked
rule with unjust scales, the gospel will turn that economy
around. Because where hearts are turned around, then governments
are turned around. And we saw it in the book of
Acts, where the apostle is preaching, and that sister with the python
spirit was falsely giving advertisement to the apostle, and the apostle
rebuked that demon, the demon left, and that was the end of
the Philippian bank account, because those in Philippi were
making much money off of this woman going around soothsaying.
The whole city came together to destroy Paul, because the
gospel will cause a man Listen to me now to change his ways.
He'll stop hooking and crooked. He'll start actually paying his
taxes. And if the gospel ever reaches
the high echelons of government, then the government rulers will
start making legislation that reflects a much more biblical
orientation as to how God would do it. We would stop killing
children in the womb and every other debased thing that we do
to control the masses. Am I making some sense? But it
starts with the church of the living God. And so what we saw
last week, I want to just kind of recap this so I can go on,
was that Luke gave us a narrative of Jesus leaving the country
of folks that rejected him, coming back home, and Luke 9 opens up
with the people having been waiting for Jesus. Waiting for Jesus. And I share with you, what condition
is a society that's waiting on Jesus? What kind of people is
a city or a country who is waiting on Christ. I'll tell you what
they are. They are believing city. They
are a believing country. Not only that, if you are waiting
on Jesus, as I said last week, that's because your life is filled
with trouble and you know you need him. People who wait on
Christ need Christ. People who wait on Christ want
Christ. People who wait on Christ trust
Christ. They believe Christ. That's in
your outline. The privilege of waiting for
Him. Do you see that in point one
in your outline? That's the way that the Luke narrative develops
it as Jesus comes back to the shores of Galilee, verse 40,
and they were all waiting for Him, having received Him gladly.
To wait for God is to know Him, it's to believe Him, it's to
trust Him, it's to desire Him, it's to expect Him. Are you expecting
Christ? Are you expecting God to show
up in your life? Are you expecting God to manifest
His glory in your life? Watch this. Do you want Him?
Because the construction in verse 40, ladies and gentlemen, implies
when we work that text through, is that the people were waiting
for Him. And all true saving faith has
as its ultimate objective to know everything it possibly can
about Jesus. Because faith is born out of
love. The man or the woman that believes
God loves God. Faith works by love. This is
why before Jesus left, he said to his disciples, straightening
Peter out, Peter, I only want to know one thing, brother. Do
you love me? Because if love is resident in
your heart, being placed there by the Holy Ghost, faith will
never fail. It will never fail. And we have
to understand that too. Now, if we can detect the love
of God in our hearts, having been poured there by the Spirit
of God, if we can detect faith, all we have to do now is watch
how faith grows, because faith is organic. It's not static.
Faith is organic. It's just as living and vital
as your own spirit. And it grows and matures to the
degree that it comes into a knowledge of Christ, both academically
in the book and experientially through life. Jesus is real. The true and the living God is
real. And his manifestations are real
manifestations. And we have the privilege of
seeing how he works in the scriptures. So last week we learned that
there was a distinction between the woman with the issue of blood
and Jairus, this public ruler of the synagogue in terms of
the manifestation of their faith. Didn't we learn that? Last week
we learned that the woman with the issue of blood had a quest. She had a journey. She had a
purpose. She had an agenda. But it was
secret. It was private. It was personal. And she pursued that quest. And
that's a form of faith as well. But the man Jairus is coming
with a request. His is public. His is visible. His is demonstrative. It's open
and above board. And as Jairus comes to Jesus
requesting of him to meet his needs, Jesus immediately capitulates
and goes with Jairus. And as Jairus and Jesus are headed
to Jairus' house, this woman sneaks up and gets her blessing. Isn't that what we learned last
week? She sneaks up and gets her blessing because Christ is
large enough to bless you and you and you at the same time
in different ways. Only when he blesses you you
got to pay the dividend of telling somebody Faith is designed to do two things
in the hand of the sinner is designed to get your needs met
God reveals himself to us so that we can go to him to get
our needs met The other thing that faith is designed to do
bring glory to God. I If you call on the name of
the Lord and He delivers you, you must bring glory to God. You've got to tell somebody,
it was Christ that delivered me. That's all He told that woman
to do. See, she thought she could get
in, get a blessing and hide. Jesus said what? Who touched
me? Now remember, omnipotence doesn't
ask questions because it doesn't know. Omnipotence and omniscience
always ask questions in order to manifest its glory. Adam,
where are you? And so the point was, is lady,
you're not going to sneak in, get your blessing under my garment
and then leave and not have to tell somebody you got it from
me. See, now that's the whole of the narrative of Matthew,
Mark, Luke and John. And the other thing is when Jesus, when
the Lord Jesus blesses you with a real revelation of himself
and it roots in you the kind of overcoming faith that only
true saving faith can root in you, you are going to now have
to suffer the cost of identifying with Christ. A whole lot of people
got in trouble for meeting Jesus, didn't they? Remember the blind
man of John 9? He wasn't bothering nobody. He
wasn't even looking for Christ. Christ was looking for him. He
took his disciples on another lesson. He said, come on boys,
I want to show you something. We must walk while it's day because
the night is coming when no man can work. He heals the blind
man and all of a sudden the blind man is in trouble with the religious
leaders of the church, isn't he? All because his eyes are
open now and he sees a sham in religion. And when they kicked
him out of the church because Christ touched him, when Jesus
heard that the man was kicked out, Jesus went and found him. Isn't that a good Savior? And
he simply asks one question. Do you believe on the son of
God? And that blind man said, if you ever tell me where he
is, I will believe. Jesus said, you're looking at
him. And that man fell down right there and worship God. See, here's
the point. When God plants faith in your
heart, you don't have the right to go around being a secret Christian.
I'm sorry, you don't. The cost to benefit factor is
that he died to give you faith, and now you've got to give him
glory as a consequence of it. But faith in terms of the journey
sometimes can be challenging because the journey of faith
is by nature challenging. Am I telling the truth? Those
of us who have been believers for some time now know this.
Our walk of faith is a wonderful walk, but boy, it's difficult. Isn't it difficult? And some
of you guys are still trying to reconcile God's love and approval
in your life with the difficulties you go through. You think they're
mutually exclusive, but they're not. Faith is organic. And faith has to be nurtured
and cultivated and strengthened. And that's what's getting ready
to take place here. In our outline, a father's mediatorial role. Boy, we are blessed when we have
men who go to God in behalf of their children for every need
that only God can solve. Are we blessed to have fathers
who know how to go to the throne of grace in time of need and
ask for mercy for their children? You are a blessed son or daughter,
grandson, granddaughter, great-grandson, great-granddaughter. If you've
got parents, grandparents or great-grandparents who know how
to get to the throne, and seek omnipotence to help your grandchildren
out of plights they can't fix for themselves. Boy, you are
blessed. You are blessed to have somebody
love you enough to talk to God for you, especially when you
are so jacked up, you can't talk to God for yourself. Am I telling
the truth? I'm so glad somebody prayed for
me. There's a wonderful song by one of the African-American
sisters called Somebody Pray For Me. We're going to be singing
that too. It's a wonderful song, isn't it? Somebody prayed for
me. Somebody prayed for me. It might
have been my mother. It might have been my brother.
It might have been my sister. But somebody prayed for me. The humble soul that gets delivered
from his plight because someone prays for him. We are honoring
fathers today because we are understanding that fathers play
a radically important role in the success and guidance of the
life of their families, their loved ones. We really know that
the father is the priest of the home. He's the priest of the
home. So let's learn a few things.
We have often in our culture, so divided the roles of men and
women that in many cases, what is supposed to be a mutual and
common task for both is often placed on the one. For instance,
in our minds, we really think of the only ones praying for
us as grandma and mama. That's, that's what goes on in
our generation. Very seldom do we think of papas and grandpapas
doing any praying. But I want to share something
with you just to keep us biblical as thinkers. When you read your
Bible, here's what you learn. There is an equal ratio of men
and women that are depicted in the scriptures praying for their
children. You might remember that Hannah prayed for her baby,
and she said, Lord, as soon as you give him to me, I'm giving
him right back to you. That's a good prayer. You'll
remember that Hagar had gotten kicked out because Sarah just
wasn't having it. Remember that? And she got kicked out of the
house. Her and Ishmael had to take a walk, you know, take a
walk in the wilderness. And it appeared that they were
going to die from starvation and thirst. And she prayed. She
cried out to the God of heaven. And God answered her prayer,
didn't he? And so we will find occasions in the scripture where
women will pray. But I'll tell you, you'll find
more occasions in the scripture where men pray for their children.
Abraham prayed, oh Lord, that Isaac might live before you.
Job prayed often for his knucklehead children. The book opens up that
way and he prayed for them constantly because he was wealthy and rich
and they were living large and he knew, hey, these might be
Christians, but boy, they, you know, money and Christians seem
to have a lot of problems. And so Job prayed often for his
sons. We read of David praying passionately
for Absalom. He loved him some Absalom. Didn't
he love him some Absalom? And then he prayed, I mean, one
of those most instructive prayers you could ever pray for the child
that was born out of adultery of which God was gonna take because
David wasn't gonna steal God's glory, but he prayed. As long
as that child had breath in his life, he prayed that that child
might live. You guys remember that? Fasting and praying. David
was a man of prayer. Job was a man of prayer. Manoah
prayed when he found out that him and his wife, who were barren,
were going to have Samson. They prayed and asked God to
teach us how to raise this child up. And God taught them how to
raise him up. So the Bible is clear with examples
of prayer. Jairus, before us, is one of
them. A father's mediatorial role.
In Matthew's account it tells us that when he came to Jesus,
He fell at Jesus' feet, he worshiped Jesus, and he begged Jesus, begged
him to save his daughter. Have you spent time praying like
that in a while? You know, when you pray like
that for someone, you love that person. That's point number three
in your outline. Look at it. Father's prayer is
a manifestation of your love. I'm gonna hit you upside the
head with this one, but you deserve it. Father's prayer is a manifestation
of your love, which means by inference, if you are praying
for your children, you don't adequately love them. Is that
OK? I can leave that right there.
And so when we pray for our children, we are supplicating before God.
We are laying out our petitions. We are clearly delineating categorically
what we desire to do for our children. We are praying meditatorial
prayers as we're standing in the gap for our children because
often our children are challenging the authority of God, the word
of God, the ways of God because they know better than God and
know better than us for a little while in their life. Isn't that
true? So we stand in the gap between God's righteous judgment
over against them and their disobedience asking God to have mercy. and
we intercede for them because they are not bright enough on
many occasions to intercede for themselves. See, when you live
for God long enough, you learn the ways of God. You learn what
pleases God, what doesn't please God. And when our children are
ignorant of those things, they don't know how to ask for what
they should as they ought, but we do. And we see them making
choices that we know these are not prudent choices. And so while
we may not tell them, we go to the Lord and we go, Lord, they
just told me that they plan on doing such and such a thing.
Lord, thwart that plan. Stop that plan. Hinder that plan. Break the cogs on their legs,
Lord. Shut the door, Lord. Close the door, Lord. Close that
door. See, you're interceding, aren't
you? Because you know better, don't you? And so prayer is Extremely important
and I want you to mark this in our account Luke is drawing out
of us all of the humans human spectrum of the gospel ministry
in a life of faith that we need to be sensitive to and he tells
us that when Jairus calls upon him he tells Jesus that his child
is his only child this is my only daughter my my only child
she is 12 years old verse 42 for he had one only daughter
about 12 years of age and she lay a dying so What we have here
is this only principle like often in the scriptures It will talk
about the one son or the one daughter like Isaac was in the
covenant since Abraham's only son His only son in our particular
account with Jairus. This daughter is his only daughter
now when you bring a child into the world your child is an extension
of your strength and Your child is an extension of your strength.
Read it in the law of God. The book of Deuteronomy says
that the firstborn of every person is the strength of their family.
In other words, God has created you and I in his image. God is
eternal in nature, and he's called us to reproduce. And what we
do by reproducing our children is extend our own life through
them. If you have one child, girl or
boy, and that child's life is threatened, when that child dies,
your life dies. That's it to you. Are you guys
hearing what I'm saying? And in Jewish culture, because
they were looking for Messiah, the life of the child was more
important in Jewish culture than the parents themselves. They
wanted their children to live to perpetuate the legacy and
the promise of the coming Messiah. Any one of those children could
have been a progenitor of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so here
Jairus, is begging Jesus on this ground. This is my only child. Let me ask you a question. Did
Jesus feel his pain? Did Jesus know something about
being an only child? See, these are illusions to the
redemptive truth that's in Christ that's being brought out. Watch
this, ladies and gentlemen. The danger The danger of the
loss of an only child before they fulfill their role is the
danger of the loss of everyone. The danger of the loss of every
child before they fulfill their purpose and role is the danger
of everyone. Christ understands that it's
necessary now that this case has been brought to him publicly,
that he would intervene because he's all about restoration, recovery,
healing, reconciling, establishing the redemptive scheme. If Christ
would have let this child die, it would have implied that God's
plan of redeeming sinners from every nation, kindred, tribe,
and tongue by his own darling son. could have also been aborted
somewhere between his birth and his resurrection. Did you guys
hear that? It'll sink in one day. See, God
doesn't do anything in the manifestation of his purpose of redemption
without it pointing to some aspect of his larger redemptive scheme.
So this is the lesson that we are about to engage upon now.
So let me share a few things with you. First of all, praying
for your children is an indicator that you love them. Secondly,
as this man is appealing to Jesus to save his daughter, to deliver
his daughter, her condition is that she is almost dead. Our text says she lay a dying. Other gospel texts, Matthew,
Mark would say she's at the point of death. It's a Greek Now that's
used also as an adjective and a verb. And what it describes
is her being on the brink of her last breath. And humanly
speaking, what it's saying is there is no other recourse of
recovery for her, but for God to intervene. You know, when
somebody is about to die, we know all the signals, don't we?
We know all the signs. We see the loss of strength.
We see the loss of vitality. We see the weakness in their
physical structure. We see the dimness in their eyes.
We sense the cold starting to drape over them. In our own experience,
we know that we are on the brink of a permanent cessation of things
that have been, which will be no more. We're getting ready
to exercise our senses in this fundamental point. If you've
never seen anyone die, then you can't empathize with this. But
this man has run to Jesus because his daughter is just like the
woman with the issue of the blood. There is nowhere else to go. Doctors can't help her now. She's
way beyond the doctors. Have you ever been in a situation
where the matter was so extreme that the only recourse was to
cast yourself on the mercy of God. You knew that if God didn't
do something, it's over with. You weren't even hedging your
bets or banking on alternative means. There was no other door.
This is the last door. I've got to go to the throne.
Only heaven can fix this. Can I share something with you?
That's a wonderful place to be. In this occasion, our Lord Jesus
Christ is going to show us something about faith when you are in a
situation like that. So I want you to learn something,
children of God. This child here can serve as a metaphor for any
precious thing that God has given you of which you want to value.
You want to see it come to full fruition, but you are worried
now that somehow in the mystery of providence that it's about
to be taken away from you. And when a thing that has been
given to you by God is threatened to be taken from you, It is natural
for us to call on God and say, Lord, help me. Did you get that? That's the application here.
Now, watch this now. Watch this. Here's my next point. As this
man is struggling, as this man has gotten a hold of Jesus, as
he's called upon Christ to help him in this matter of which only
Christ could help him, this man is now interrupted by some news. Verse 49 says, now watch this,
this is after Jesus has been And on his way to Jairus's house,
the woman with the issue of blood has intervened. She's gotten
her blessing as Christ has just finished talking to her. We read
this over in verse 48. And he said unto her, Daughter,
be of good comfort. Your faith hath made you whole.
Go in peace. He has just confirmed the blessing
of this woman who has been healed of the issue of blood. Verse
49. Now watch this. Watch how Luke segues. He says,
Now, while Christ was yet speaking to the woman. Now, for the context,
he's crowded. by all kinds of people who are
hearing him having dealt with this case of the woman with the
issue of blood, who also heard Jairus come to him before this
and asked that he would go with Jairus. Everybody's on the way
to Jairus' house. Everybody. The crowd is. The
woman is sneaking in. Jairus and Jesus is. And so Jesus
takes the time to address this woman's healing so that his father
could be glorified. And while he finished talking
to her, Some folks come interrupting Jesus and Jairus with these words
verse 49. Are you there while he yet spake? there comes From the rulers of
the synagogue one saying to him Thy daughter is dead No longer
trouble the master. I Want you to watch how this
works now because we can really learn some lessons here you have
come to Christ and you have successfully pleaded to the true and the living
God. Ladies and gentlemen, hear me
now. And he has heard you. I've taught our men as we're
going through Psalm 130, you can get the CDs. Listen, God
doesn't have to hear your prayers. Who do you think you are? Please understand, God doesn't
have to hear any one of us. There's nothing about us that
merit God's listening to us. Well, listen, in the psalmist
said, Lord, would you simply, if you would just turn your ear
towards my cry. You don't have to hear me, but
I have heard that you do hear the prayers of those that are
afflicted. Would you just turn your ear
towards my cry? He didn't say, would you answer
my prayers? I've told you this before too, and I'll tell you
now. It's a good thing that God does not always answer your prayers.
And whether you want to tell the truth or not, you don't want
to tell the truth, but you might as well tell the truth. Most
of your prayers, God doesn't answer. All I need is one witness
in the house. When we pray, you know what we
come to find out? God is going to be God no matter
how much we weep and cry and beg and make promises to God.
Now watch this. Because he knows that nine times
out of ten, your prayers have nothing to do with his glory. That sister said exactly. Isn't
that true? Listen to me. He knows 9 times out of 10 that
your prayers have nothing to do with his glory. And because
he's such a good God, he would never give you the serpents that
you want or the stones that would crush you when his objective
is to feed you bread and fish to sustain your faith and grow
you in your walk with Christ. That's Luke chapter 11. And so
often God doesn't answer our prayers because he loves us.
And over time, we learn from the prayers that God doesn't
answer how God acts, don't we? Lord, I'm not going to ask you
about this because I've been asking you for this for the longest
and I know you're not going to answer it. So I'm not going to ask you about
this. I'm going to ask you about this thing. But when you have prayed and
you have gotten a hold of God and God has begun to move, because
there are prayers in which God answers us where he is going
to move incrementally and increasingly in that particular request. Remember we're dealing with faith
manifesting itself as a request. God is now moving He's moving,
you know when you have like a pile of issues that you need to have
unraveled and dealt with They are all like mountains that are
too large for you to move God has to move stone after stone
after stone and you are watching him do it and you're going you're
going God's answering my prayers He's actually answering my prayers.
He's moving this issue. He's moving that issue all of
it's not done yet, but he's starting to move now watch this and Very
often in that process he tests you because that's what's happening
here. My dear brother has gotten a hold of God. In fact, not only
has he gotten a hold of God, he got the number right. God
picked up the phone and started talking back to him and said,
wait a minute, I'll come over there and I'll walk with you
through your difficulty. Jairus is highly blessed now.
Christ is walking with this man. This man has actually got Jesus,
the son of God, God Almighty, to go with him to his house.
Isn't he blessed? But listen to me, saints, your
faith must be tried. So here comes a voice saying,
well, I'm sorry to let you know that while Jesus intended to
help you out, the process of him coming to your house getting
distracted by this other issue your daughter died and it's too
late and it's impossible and it's irresolvable now let me
ask you guys a question as we work through this this is important
right here what I'm sharing with you is important this is one
of the things God has taught me over the years it's impossible
to be a legitimate faithful minister of the gospel without learning
these things God's taught me over the years how to hear the
voice and spirit and attitude and construct of people who do
not believe God. God has taught me how to hear
people whose premise is rooted in unbelief, who don't know God
and don't know Christ and their world stops with them. And everything
about them is based upon what they see. versus what they know. And they talk like that. See,
the man that has just come to give Jairus just bad news is
a false gospel preacher. He actually is a professional
unbeliever. I'm going to help you with that
here in a moment. He's a professional unbeliever. He is gifted at unbelief. He is skilled at rhetoric that
basically makes everybody thinks he got his answers from God. He just told Jairus to stop troubling
the master. Now, I want to help you now.
These are the religious folk that come to you saying, I got
a word from the Lord for you. When you had already went to
the throne of grace and called on God and God's begun to answer
you. And God's moving things out of
the way because he's answering you. And then somebody comes
along and say, you got it wrong. Are you hearing me? You got it
wrong. Jairus is halfway to the house.
And this fella has already been to his house. He's been around
the whole group that's at his house. Now, you know who's at
Jairus' house? The professional minstrels, the
professional mourners. You know those folk in the church
who love to show up at funerals and show out. Remember those
people? They are professional criers
and whiners and mourners. These are the folks that fall
all over the casket asking to food. You know what I'm talking
about, right? These are the people that they
get super pious when somebody dies. For them, it's a form of
celebration. It's a morbid celebration with
them when somebody dies. Back at Jairus's house is a whole
house full of unbelieving professionals. They just sent out one of their
preachers to go tell Jairus to abort his mission. Now you get
tried like that often. I want you to hear this. This
is so very good. This is why I say pay careful
attention when you're reading the scriptures to how Christ
acts. Listen to what the text says.
Verse 49, watch this, verse 49 and 50. I want you to hear this
now. Hear this now, watch this now. While he yet spoke, there
comes one from the rulers of the synagogue's house saying
to him, your daughter is dead. No longer trouble the master. Stop talking to him. Abort your
mission. Abort your plan. It's impossible.
It's too late. But when Jesus heard. I want to teach you something.
This is critical here. This here is the necessary observation
of the swift intervention of Jesus Christ in this man's life,
knowing that this man is now being challenged to continue
his request. Jesus doesn't even speak to this
unbelieving professional. He turns directly to Jairus.
Are you guys hearing me? He turns directly to Jairus.
Watch this, ladies and gentlemen. And he says, verse 50, he says,
Do not fear. Believe only, and she shall be
made whole. See, if you were to go through
the other narratives, it's larger than that. If you were to go
to Mark's narrative and Matthew's narrative, you've understood
the original language behind it. Jesus heard this guy. He
paid him no attention. Christ ignores unbelievers. He
hears him because he hears everything, but he ignores them. The Greek
word is paracusas, and it means to hear alongside of, but not
be in agreement with. I heard it, but I didn't hear
it. Jairus, don't pay him any attention. Jairus, you continue
to believe. Jairus, continue to believe. It's in that present verse. He
said, Jairus, you started believing. You believed enough to pray to
me. You believed enough to get a hold of me. You believed enough
to have me to respond to you. You believed enough to have me
walking with you. Are you ready? Don't stop believing.
Don't stop believing. Don't stop believing until your
faith comes into full perfection with the thing that you aimed
at. Remember, faith is designed to get the knees met. You don't
stop in the middle of the request. Now, that's a good teacher, isn't
it? See, Christ is teaching. That's why the word there, master,
didoskelon, is being used. The master heard it. The master
heard it and said, yes, I heard it, but I didn't hear it. But,
Jairus, this is what I want to tell you. Do not stop believing. Do not stop believing. Isn't
that a good word? Do not stop believing. Point
number five in your outline. This is critically important.
From bad to worse, to best. From bad to worse, to best. We need to get a handle on this
particular proposition. Our life is full of evil and
full of trouble. That's bad. But it's just bad
enough for needy sinners to call on God. I thank God, don't you? It's just bad enough for me to
get on my knees. It's just bad enough for me to
understand I can't solve it myself. It's just bad enough for me to
acknowledge that there's a God higher than the heavens that
rule all things, that control the universe, governs everything
providentially by his own power. There is a throne of grace to
which I can go, but I won't go until I need to go. This is true.
Things are bad. And when you call on God because
of the bad things that take place in your life, watch this, sometimes,
and I would dare to say more frequently than not, because
this is about God's glory and your edification. Now watch this,
this one here is free. This ain't gonna cost you nothing.
When you call on God, a thing will often go from bad to worse. before it gets better. It will
go from bad to worse before it gets better. Because we're getting
ready to find out, do you really believe God? Do you really believe that he
is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek
him? Do you believe that God is able
to make all grace abound, that he's able to render to you above
and beyond everything you think, everything you ask. Do you believe
that God's promises are yes and amen to the glory of God in Jesus
Christ by us? Do you believe that God is able? That's what faith is going to
be tried on. See, listen, listen, most people get shaken off this
journey of faith halfway through the journey. We look around,
they're not around anymore. Do you know why? Because things
go from bad to worse, and when they get worse, we find out they
never were really believers in the first place. Can I keep talking
to you? So brother Jairus has gotten
a hold of Jesus, but the goal of the devil is to try his faith
to determine whether or not he really authentically believes
Christ. See, because faith is predicated on love, love is predicated
on knowledge. You can't love someone you don't
know. Oh, I love God. No, you don't. Not if you don't
know Him. To know God is to love Him. And this is eternal life,
that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ,
whom Thou hast sent. And I'm here to tell you, you
can't love God, not believe on Jesus. And faith is rooted in
love. Love is rooted in knowledge.
And when a man loves God, he loves God for who God is. As
God reveals himself to us as children of God, don't we love
him more and more and more? See, right now I'm loving Christ
more. You mean Christ heard this ruler
of the synagogue's prayer? See, I can put my feet in Jairus's
place. I'm a president in the church too. I got daughters too.
I could have at any time my daughter can be in such an exigencical
state in such a difficult state that I'm on my knees 24 7 warning
God to solve that problem. God could take me through that
same test. I could be believing God for her healing her recovery
her restoration her reconciliation and I'm in the process of seeing
some things happen and then all of a sudden the enemy comes in
and then she goes from bad to worse and now I'm challenged
as to whether or not I will believe God And look what God does. Michael, watch what God does.
He doesn't pay any attention to the false prophet, false teacher,
professional unbeliever. He looks directly at me and says,
continue to believe. Watch this. And your daughter
will be made whole. Isn't that amazing? Now watch
this. Pastor, I don't know if I believe
you. I don't care if you don't believe me. Listen, watch this. This
is not about you. Our master was so jazzed about
this man calling on him because our master lived totally for
the glory of his father. My goodness, Christ would say,
I'm getting ready to glorify my father. This is about my father. We're getting ready to go over
here and show out for my father. Jairus just happens to be the
instrument by which this gets done. Jairus, hold on, brother.
Hold on. This is not about you. Hold on.
Let me give you the answer from the beginning of the movie. Your
daughter gonna make it, okay? I just want you to roll with
me for a minute. Roll with me. Am I making some sense? Roll
with me. Jairus, roll with me. This ain't about you. That's
why our faith does this. You know how our faith does this?
Faith goes... Christ goes like this all the
way. he got you on that string we have an anchor of the soul
which is steadfast and sure already in heaven as a forerunner for
us we can never be lost we have an anchor of the soul steadfast
and sure already in heaven for us we cannot be lost I don't
care how deep into the depths you go you can't be lost Christ
made the depths He made them, there's no depth too deep for
Him. And He plunged those depths in
our behalf. We have to go into those depths sometime to learn
how to call on Him authentically, to shed all of the pretenses,
all of the facade, all of the veneer, all of the barnacles,
and have that authentic need for God. And He shows up every
time. Jairus, hold on, Christ says, stay on point, Papa. Stay
on point, Daddy. You prayed, didn't you? You believed
I could do it, right? I've entered into the journey
with you thus far, haven't I? You came to me. You didn't come
to that unbeliever. You didn't come to that false
prophet. You came to me. Now watch this. And you did it
publicly. You worshiped me, calling on
me publicly before all these people. Do you know what that
means? I am obligated to answer your
prayer because you showed the world you believed on me. Pastor,
what are you talking about? Psalm 50 verse 15. In the day of trouble, call on
me and I will deliver you and you will glorify me. See, he's
obligated now. He's obligated. If you will believe
on God, God will work through your life to get himself glory.
Is anybody hearing what I'm saying? See, Christ is obligated now.
And so now all he's saying to Jairus is, Jairus, don't stop
believing. That's a verbal. Do not stop believing. Do not
stop believing. Now watch this. I love this.
Give me a few more minutes of your time. Watch this. And when
Jesus had dropped this word of security and reaffirmation and
clarity on his servant, Verse 51 says, and when he came into
the house, he suffered no man to go in except Peter, James,
and John, and the father and mother of the maiden. Let me
share something with you. In Matthew's account and in Luke's
account, you know what it says? As soon as he had told Jairus
to continue believing, he told the rest of the crowd, stay here. Y'all stay here. Now watch this
now. This is so important. Y'all stay
here because I don't want one person who does not believe God
with me. As we make our way to this man's
house, I don't need unbelievers because the glory that's about
to be manifested is for believers. It's not for unbelievers. And
so you who don't believe, you who bought this man's message
that it's over with, no more possibility, all right, then
go buy you some hamburgers, get a Coke or something, because
the show's over for you. I only want, listen, I only want
people, I only want people who heard this man's request and
believe that I can do it to come. And so he takes James, John,
Peter and James because they're pillars of the church. They've got to
learn how to walk in the spirit the same way their master did
they've got to learn how to deal with the most difficult thing
that comes into our life and that's death they've got to learn
it so he takes them with him to the house and they get to
the house where all these professional religious unbelievers are now
watch it verse 52 says and all well do
you see that and bewailed her. So when Jesus came in and Matthew's
gospel says the minstrels were playing and the mourners were
weeping loudly. It was a show going on. Jesus
walks in and he looks at all this unbelief. Just it was as
thick as a cloud. You know how they do it. Thick
as a cloud. Don't nobody believe God. If
life ends at death, you don't know God. The Bible tells me
that God is the true and the living God. He is the God of
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He is the God of the living,
not the God of the dead, which means death is no problem for
God. And why then should the people
of God act like when death occurs? That's it. Oh, you know, we did
far. Don't we have to fool? Oh, oh. Now, if they were a believer,
you should be rejoicing. You should be singing and worshiping
God that he was willing to reap the harvest of his sheave, of
his plant, of his branch, of his tree of righteousness. He
planted that child. He planted that believer. And
whenever God wants to, he can take that believer home. Do you
understand whenever a believer goes home, they are being promoted?
They are being promoted. That God is saying, I want you
with me. After all, that's why he created
them. See, we got to get it right, don't we? Oh Lord, why'd you
take him from us? Because you couldn't do him any
good. That's why he took him from us.
Listen, we can't do that man any... That man is flying all
around the universe in glory now, enjoying the limitless power
Of his being in the presence of his God and the fullness of
joy and everything that comes with being liberated from these
cursed bodies And I want to tell you now brother banks. I'm, sorry.
He ain't thinking about us And they ain't they definitely ain't
looking down here Listen, let me help you with this Oh, I know
he's looking down on us Sorry, he's not looking down
on you that great cloud of witnesses
in hebrews chapter 12 are the stands in which in the stadium
where the races run around the track every one of those seats
in there has a name of one of god's elect for those of us who
are still running to look and see that they finish the race
it's a witness to us not to them that great cloud of witnesses
is to us. They done, they crossed the finish line. And they not
looking down. Why would God torment the saints
in glory with looking at you? I just want to know. I just want
to know. Is your, listen, is your life
so intact and so glorious that here we are in heaven now, spending
our time looking down on what's going on down here. Isn't that
ludicrous? Ain't nobody, no, no, no. They don't care what you do when
they leave. Now the saints under the altar
are praying for you, but they don't need to see you to pray
for you. I got to straighten some theology because I'll be,
you know, doing a funeral here this week and I'll probably hear
some of this stuff because, you know, they get up in the stands
and they get to talking all this old crazy non-biblical stuff
at funerals, you know, then I have to come up and straighten it
all out. Pray for me. A situation can go from bad to
worse. But with God, it will always
end up best. From Genesis to Revelation, all
the people of faith have had their faith tried even while
God was completely in the middle of their process. Joseph received
his revelation of ruling over the sun, moon, and stars. having
dominion over the whole covenant kingdom leading up to Messiah. He tells his daddy, he tells
his brother, next thing you know, they try to kill him. Throw him
in a pit, then they sell him to Egypt. He becomes a slave
in Egypt, then ends up going to jail. All these are lies.
He would have never taken this descent into the pit to get to
the throne of Egypt unless God had decided his faith will go
from bad to worse before it would become the best. And that's true
for every one of us. That was true for Joseph. That
was true for Joe. That was true for David. That
was true for Ruth. That was true for Naomi. That
was true for Hannah. It will be true for you and it
will be true for me as it's true for Jairus. Look at what happens
when we get to verse 52, 53. All of them are weeping and wailing
and playing their violins and their guitars making all kinds
of noise. And he said, weep not. She is not dead. The child is
asleep. Point number five, number six,
here's the question. Dead or asleep? Dead where there's no possibility
of returning, where things are at a final end, where there will
be no recovery on any hand, no retrieval, no restoration, no
more life, dead. Who gives that decree? Who tells
us when to assign a thing as dead versus sleep? It all depends on who you listen
to. Isn't that right? It all depends on who you listen
to. But let me tell you, Church of the Living God, I'm talking
the whole church, the whole church of God, all around the world.
With God, the potential of the dead is always only sleep. With God, the dead, in his eyes,
are only always sleep. With God, the dead are always
only what? Now watch this, I want you to
hear this now. Even the ungodly, even the reprobate, even the
lost sinner, the damned sinner, in God's eyes is only sleep.
Because every dead man has to face the resurrection. Every
dead man has to wake up again to the reality of God. Am I making
some sense? You can call it dead all you
want to, but the Bible calls it sleep. Now watch this, and
sometimes a situation can look dead, And it might very well
be dead because the girl had physically died, as it were,
her breath expired from her body. We know this. We'll see this
in a moment. But Christ never called her dead. He never called
her dead. He never said it's over. He never
said it's done. Now, here is a word of comfort
and exhortation to every one of us. Our children may be lost. They may be spiritually dead.
They may be spiritually blind. They may be living like hell.
But it's your choice, based upon your knowledge of the Word, to
believe whether or not God has determined them to be dead or
asleep. And if He has determined them
to be asleep, your job is to pray that He wakes them up. Lord,
wake them up. Lord, wake them up. Lord, wake
them up. Lord, wake them up out of sleep. You're able to wake them up.
You can wake them up. You have the capacity to wake
them up. You are the God of the resurrection. You wake people
up. After all, you wake me up. I was asleep and you wake me
up. That's our verb form here. And what I love about what Christ
is doing as he's teaching his disciples is true. He's not using
the term. He's not using the term dead.
For him, it's just a temporary sleep in order that God might
be glorified in a miracle of grace that only God can do. Am I boring you? Can I keep your
attention just a few more minutes? Please understand, this is about
the glory of God, and it's the glory of God with regards to
the person and work of Jesus Christ. Listen, what Jesus is
about to do has everything to do with what he's about to go
through when he goes to Calvary. and he dies on the cross and
he's buried and raised again the third day. I told you this
before in the Old Testament context of which Matthew, Mark, Luke
and John are, this is Old Testament, Christ is operating out of New
Testament principles. Every person that actually authentically
is saved is saved because Christ was the lamb slain from the foundation
of the world, already dead, already buried, already raised again,
already seated in glory. Guess what? And because we were
in him, we are seated there too. He can actually call those things
that are not as if they were because with omniscience, all
things are at one time. Am I making some sense? And every
time he raises the dead, he gives affirmation to the success of
his work on Calvary Street. God could never raise a person
from the dead if it wasn't certain that Christ would die, be buried,
justify the sinner, and then raised again from the dead. Am
I making some sense? He could never do it. He could never do
it. So we get precursors of the triumph of Christ on Calvary
every time Jesus raises someone from the dead, every time he
heals someone, every time he opens their eyes, every time
he opens their mind. It is a byproduct and fruit of
his conquest Calvary so for us So long as we have breath in
our bodies, please listen to me Papa So long as we have breath
in our body and our children are still living on planet earth
I don't care how bad their situation is as far as we're concerned. They may just be sleep and I'm
gonna stay at the throne until God raises them from the dead
and until God raises him from the dead. Now watch this. Watch
it now. Watch this. Watch how this works.
So Jesus comes into the house and finds all of this unbelieving
religion going on. And he says, the child is asleep,
not dead. And they laughed him to scorn.
Do you see that? Do you see the arrogance and
pride of ignorance? These folks are just plumb ignorant. God just came into the house. And the way they're acting tells
me they don't know it. Why should I have anybody around
me in a situation that requires God who don't know God? Am I making some sense? Jairus
left the house, but he should have ran all those people out
before he left. But Jesus takes over and watch
what he does. They laughed him to scorn. just
knowing that she was dead. See what they know? Verse 54,
and he put them all out. Well, that wasn't, now that wasn't
nice, Jesus. That just wasn't nice. That wasn't,
hey, you, you, you, get out. Get out. Out. Out. All of them. every one of
you. You you you don't even play that
well on the instrument. Get out. You can't sing. You sing off
key. You're singing in flats. You should have been. So, get
out. All I want, Peter, James, and John, you three and and and
mom and daddy, come on. Just you five. And in the presence of these
witnesses, our lord Jesus Christ does something that amounts to
what I want you guys to grasp now and it's called compassion
It's called compassion Compassion The ministry of the gospel is
a ministry of compassion. I want you to get this now The
only people that can actually identify with what I'm saying
right now are mamas and daddies with babies Who need God to intervene? You see what he's about to do
is give an exclusive showing of his glory to mom and dad and
three of the pillars who are about to turn the world upside
down. What he is about to do, none of the people who were unbelievers
were privileged to see. This is an act of infinite compassion. Their baby lay there in their
view, expired. They are hanging on the word
of the master. They have never, ever seen what's
about to take place occur. But faith is the substance of
things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. So faith
now is stretched to the limit, stretched to the limit because
the carping unbelievers have scorned and mocked and ridiculed
and love saying this man's a fool. He's a madman. Ah, But I must
tell you, Brother Luke had us prepared for this. Because before
we get to this account, in chapter 7, our Lord is doing ministry.
It's chapter 7 of Luke. Our Lord is doing ministry and
as he's walking by the way, he sees a funeral procession. A mama has just lost her only
child. That's Luke chapter 7. Now I
want you to see how compassion works. He's going about his preaching
and teaching and he sees the buyer there, the casket. And
he goes over to the casket without the woman even requesting it.
And he stops the casket and he says, child, get up. And the child gets up. Do you
see the magnanimity of the love of Christ for people who lose
all that they have? Do you know that woman's life
was changed forever for Christ to show up like that? He just
went over, touch it, get up. The sow got up, got out the casket,
start talking with Jesus. And this is before we got here,
because he's teaching his disciples that the goal of the gospel is
to go deep down into death and retrieve God's elect out of hell.
And it doesn't matter what the external circumstances are. Do
you see that? What an act of compassion! What
an act of absolute, infinite, God-like compassion! And so here
he goes in verse 54, and when he put them all out, he took
her by the hand. Oh, mercy! Mom and Daddy get
to watch this. The Son of God goes and takes
that child by the hand. You know what he says? Little
lamb, wake up. That's the literal Aramaic translation
of the text. See, it defies logic. Little
lamb, wake up. And immediately she woke up like
she had been what? What's the word? Sleep. Because
she was. Little lamb, wake up. Our text says made arise. It's
the Greek form of the verb means to awake. Verse 5 tells us she
was really physically dead so that her spirit came again and
she rose up straightway. Now watch this. Look at Christ. He said, go get that girl a sandwich
and a cup of milk. See, this is all about the glory
of God. Go get her a sandwich and a cup
of milk. Get back to life as normal. Don't even hesitate to
go back to life as normal. Yeah, you get to marvel that
I'm here Yes, you get to marvel of what I'm doing, but I'm trying
to show you something deeper than this your baby Was never
in trouble so long as you trusted me Do you see it so long as you
trusted me your baby baby was never really in trouble Go back
to life as normal. And by the way, this miracle
manifestation of the redeeming glory of God in Christ to you
is for you. Let me show you how this flips. I'm done. When the woman with
the issue of blood snuck up surreptitiously and quietly crept in, got her
blessing, the Lord Jesus said, because you did that thing in
secret, now you got to publicly tell everybody. That's just the
cost to benefit factor. This man publicly worshiped God
openly, putting God to the test of the promise of faith, that
if he would believe him, God would bless him. And now he gets
the private, personal answer of God that satisfies him and
his wife's need. And it does not need to be told
to the public. Do you know why? Because in a
few hours, they're getting ready to walk down the Safeway with
their daughter and get dinner. Don't tell nobody nothing. Just
go get dinner for the night and keep on doing life. Watch this,
like you know me. Keep doing life like you know
me because I am the god of the resurrection I know how to raise
people from the dead give them life and faith in jesus christ
restore them from their lost estate place them back in their
state of dignity give them normalcy again, I believe god don't you
I believe god and so we close with the last point if you believe
You will see the glory of god If you believe see this is why
John Jesus told Mary and Martha and Luke John chapter 11 Remember
Lazarus was dead. His case was more extreme than
the girls It was more extreme than the boy that was in the
casket in Luke 7 because he was dead How many days four days
and he told Mary and Martha listen did not tell you to believe If
you believe you would see the glory of God watch this. I'm
not late. You're late See the test from
bad to worse to best, from bad to worse to best. And what I'm
getting at is don't determine how God is going to form and
shape your faith. He knows what he's doing. The
goal of the believer is to believe God. Will you believe him? Amen.