Do Not Fear, Only Believe

the following message by Alistair beg is made available by truth for life for more information visit us online at truth for invite you to turn to the Gospel of Mark and to chapter 5 where we're going to read from the 21st verse and if it's helpful for you to use one of our church Bibles then it may also be helpful for you to know that the reading is on page 711 page 711 verse 21 of mark chapter 5 reads as follows when Jesus had again crossed over by boat to the other side of the lake a large crowd gathered round him while he was by the lake then one of the synagogue rulers named gyruss came there seeing Jesus he fell at his feet and 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 Jesus went with him a large crowd followed and pressed around him and a woman was there had been subject to bleeding for twelve years she had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had yet instead of getting better she grew worse when she heard about Jesus she came out behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak because she thought if I just touch his clothes I will be healed immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering at once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him he turned around in the crowd and asked who touched my clothes you see the people crowding against you his disciples answered and yet you can ask who touched me but Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it then the woman knowing what had happened to her came and fell at his feet and trembling with fear told him the whole truth he said to her daughter your faith has healed you go in peace and be freed from your suffering while Jesus was still speaking some men came from a house of Jairus the synagogue ruler your daughter is dead they said why bother the teacher anymore ignoring what they said Jesus told the synagogue ruler don't be afraid just believe he did not let anyone follow him except Peter James and John the brother of James when they came to the home of the synagogue ruler Jesus saw a commotion with people crying and wailing loudly he went in and said to them why all this commotion and wailing the child is not dead but asleep but they laughed at him after he put them all out he took the child's father and mother and the disciples who were with him and went in where the child was he took her by the hand and said to her Talitha koum which means little girl I say to you get up immediately the girl stood up and walked around she was twelve years old at this they were completely astonished he gave strict orders not to let anyone know about this and told them to give her something to eat father we pray now with our Bibles open before us that the Spirit of God will be our teacher making the truth of your word clear to us convincing us of our need of a savior convicting us of our sins and turning our hearts in the direction of you the Living God for we pray in Christ's name Amen one of the things that we try to do here as pastors at Parkside and teaching the Bible is to recognize that the task of preaching is something that takes place if you like between two worlds between two worlds the world of the Bible the world of the New Testament the world of the Old Testament and the world in which we live our everyday lives if the pastor's not careful is possible for him to prepare his arrows as it were on the island of the biblical text and then instead of setting the trajectory in such a way so as to be able to land the arrow on the island of the culture and framework of the listeners the arrows just are fired perpendicularly they go up in the air and they come back down and land on his head or at least on the island from which he starts that can readily take place the reverse also takes place there are pastors who spend so much time in the culture that some are another they're firing arrows all over the place and it seems to be only loosely connected to the text of Scripture at all it is a real challenge and one that I and my colleagues seek to take seriously so that we might recognize that what we study when we study our Bibles at home or in small groups or here Sunday by Sunday has a direct bearing upon the circumstances to which we return on a Monday and where we live the majority of our lives now I have this in mind because incoming Bank tomorrow's gospel I've been thinking this week about an article that was in Newsweek magazine on the 31st of August earlier this year is written by Lisa Miller who's a secular journalist some of you may have seen it and the heading in the relatively short article is as follows we are all Hindus now fairly striking statement and guaranteed to get the attention of the Newsweek reader I can't read it all to you you can find it online but let me give you a smattering of it she writes America is not a Christian nation we are it is true a nation founded by Christians and according to a 2008 survey 76% of us continue to identify ourselves as Christian that incidentally is the lowest percentage in American history we're not a Hindu nation either she says are only about a million-plus Hindus live in the United States which is a tiny fraction of the billion Hindus who live on the earth but she says recent poll data show that conceptually at least we are slowly becoming more like Hindus and less like traditional Christians in the ways we think about God ourselves each other and eternity she then goes on to point out that a Hindu believes that our many paths to God Jesus the Koran the practice of yoga are all kinds of different ways but she says the conservative Christian declares from Sunday school days that Jesus said I am the way the truth and the life and no one comes to the Father except through me all this is fine she says however Americans are no longer buying this according to a 2008 Pew Forum survey 65 percent of us believe that quotes many religions can lead to eternal life including she notes 37 percent of white evangelicals the group most likely to believe that salvation is theirs alone she then quotes Stephen Protheroe whose work many of us enjoy from Boston University where he says he has long framed the American propensity for the quotes divine deli cafeteria religion as very much in the spirit of Hinduism you're not picking and choosing from different religions because they're all the same he says it isn't about orthodoxy is about whatever works if going to yoga works great and if going to Catholic Mass works great and if going to Catholic Mass plus the yoga plus the Buddhist retreat works that's great to see where we live our lives then there's the question of what happens when you die Christians traditionally believe that bodies and souls are sacred that together they comprise the self and that at the end of time they will be reunited in the resurrection you need both of them in other words and you need them forever however Hindus believe no such thing death the body burns on a pyre while the spirit wear identity resides escapes in reincarnation central to Hinduism selves come back to earth again and again in different bodies so rights Lisa Miller here is another way in which Americans are becoming more Hindu twenty four percent of Americans say they believe in reincarnation and so agnostic are we about the ultimate fate of our bodies that we're burning them like Hindus after death more than a third of Americans now choose cremation up from 6% in 1975 that's very interesting isn't it I don't know how accurate it is but it's certainly interesting frankly it's startling and more than a little alarming my concern is first of all for you for you for your teenage children for the children that you've placed in the custody of our nurseries for your extended families so that you might take seriously the importance of thinking yes thinking subjectivism feel-good notions open the door to all kinds of solutions the subjective elements of Christianity of which there are many the emotional aspects of Christian faith which are absolutely vital are founded upon are grounded in the objective historical facts that are laid down in basic Christianity so when for example as we're now doing we study a gospel what we're studying is the material that has under the direction of God being left to us the historical record of the life and times and Ministry of Jesus this is not ultimately a history nor is it essentially a biography but it is a gospel it is the good news concerning Jesus and that good news has to do with his birth supernatural his life his death his resurrection his attend his ascension and his return and in it all the Bible affirms the absolute historicity and necessity of these truths as the underpinning of sincere and genuine Christian faith that means that when we study is where now doing in the Gospel of Mark in Chapter five we're now first of all study in the Bible in order that we might get a feeling out of it we're not studying it in order that we might somehow or another find that which is intriguing and worth pondering but we're studying it in order that we might be arrested by convicted by changed by the very truths that we read and that can only happen if this book is a divine book and if Jesus is the person that he claims to be now with that said we are back in this section that we left last time two weeks ago when Jesus has moved on crossed over by boat to the other side of the lake verse 21 and he has encountered a large crowd there and he has been approached by this man by the name of Jairus who is a ruler of the synagogue now we got about as far as verse 34 in our last study where they have to do a little bit of recapitulation but essentially we're picking it up in verse 35 and in verse 35 we discover that gyrus is problem has gone from difficult to impossible that is from a human perspective gyrus is problem has gone from difficult to impossible you remember when we began our study in verse 22 he had come to Jesus in verse 23 and he had pled earnestly with him my little daughter is dying now he is one of the synagogue rulers and it's no surprise that he should come to Jesus because Jesus had been moving in and out of the synagogue particularly in Capernaum it was in the synagogue in Capernaum that the man with a shriveled hand had been healed it was in the synagogue in Capernaum that Jesus had spoken with such authority that the people who were there were just confronted by the fact that this wasn't like any of the other sermons that they were routinely hearing from the folks who were their religious teachers and so it is safe to that this had caused gyrus in face of this ultimate crisis to seek out Jesus of Nazareth in order that he might present to him the problem of his dying daughter now there's no way of us knowing what their reaction of gyrus would have been to the early teaching of Jesus it's possible I suppose that he would have sided with the religious authorities who we already are discovering are not particularly on the side of Jesus to say the least if his interest in Jesus had been simply theoretical that has dramatically changed now with the crisis that is at hand the crisis that had begun my little daughter is dying the crisis that had now come to the place where his little daughter was dead that wouldn't of course be this isn't the record of the last time somebody came to Jesus in need because of a problem with health or a problem with their family and deed I wouldn't be at all surprised if we had occasion to just pass a microphone around and interview different people in the seats here this morning if there wouldn't be a number of people who said you know my knowledge of Jesus was just largely theoretical and casual until that particular day and that particular day may have been a diagnosis either of you or of one of your family members perhaps one of your children it may have been that particular day when the wheels came off your wagon that particular day when suddenly your view of the world collapsed around you and you realized I have an answer for just about everything but I don't have an answer for this and in that day you like gyrus decided I will go to Jesus and I will bring the crisis of my life to Jesus and I will ask for his help with it and if you have come in that way as G iris came in humility and in sincerity and with absolute clarity then you will know what it means to come and approach Jesus in this way you see the whole of the gospel record is the record of these and groups of people who are discovering that Jesus is a savior and a friend and we have never really understood the gospel at all until that has become our experience as well suddenly we're no longer just reading an ancient book but we're reading this book which tells us all about God who has made his love known to us in the person of Jesus at Jesus who has become our Savior and our friend once we knew it in our heads but now we know it in the core of our being for a while it was something out there like a course in university or in college but now the Holy Spirit has come and invaded our lives that's the only way we can explain it and we've become a new person and now Jesus is everything to us that's what it means to be a Christian that's what it means to be a Christian I wonder does that describe you does that describe me now gyruss would have been immediately encouraged back in verse 24 I said we would recapitulate back in verse 24 when Jesus went with him how good of Jesus to go along what a kind man what a gentle Shepherd and at the same time I think it would be safe to assume that he was probably more than a little frustrated by the interruption that took place given the predicament that he faced in relationship to his daughter my little daughter is dying please come put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live ok says Jesus let's go and they haven't gone very far and now we have this interruption Jesus is on his way so that he can deal with the predicament of gyruss is 12 year old daughter and here they're intercepted by a woman who has a 12 year old problem of her own last time we saw that Jesus care and his compassion resulted in a cure for this woman but as she was being cured Jairus his little daughter was dying and so the delay has actually proved to be fatal and so I say to you that the predicament of gyruss his problem has moved from being difficult to being actually impossible from a human perspective some men arrived while Jesus was still speaking verse 35 they came from the house of gyrus and they had to say to him we bring you the bad news gyrus but actually your daughter has died now here's the real question gyrus is faith had been sufficient to ask for Jesus help with a dying daughter but was his faith sufficient to deal with a dead daughter could he trust Jesus with this circumstance having trusted him with the initial issue and some of us are here and we have come to Jesus in a kind of a demise kind of way but a bit like people have been out on a rowing boat the oars have fallen off over the side we got ourselves in a dreadful mess and we said oh I think I could call on Jesus now in my life and as soon as we got the oars back in the boat and got stabilized that was enough we're done with Jesus now for the next until the next time the oars fall out of the board is that what gyrus is doing here or is he is he in with Jesus now is he committed to Jesus now what is going to happen they've come and told them the ultimate your daughter is dead well we're going to come to that but I want you to take a side step for a moment and notice that there are two important questions which follow in this text two important questions if you're trying to get an outline out of this I actually had as my first heading as irises problem has moved from being difficult to being impossible and then I put another heading down that just said two important questions let me point them out to you question number one is asked by these friends from the house it's there in the end of verse 35 why bother the teacher anymore the second question is asked by Jesus in verse 39 why all this commotion and wailing I summarized them as follows gives me the friends of Jairus are asking what's the point and Jesus is asking what's the problem what's the point what's the problem first of all then why bother the teacher anymore what's the point in this for their from their perspective it makes no sense for Jesus to have any further dealings with or the other way around Jerris is gone along there they may have shared in his views they may not he's gone he wanted help with a dying daughter the daughter has now died therefore there's no help coming the delay has proved fatal the appeal has lapsed the case is closed why get involved any further that's a fair assumption isn't it and I must be fair to these people there's no reason to malign them for asking the question you went there to ask Jesus to come lay his hands on your daughter so that she would be healed and would live we're here to tell you she's dead therefore let's not waste any more time with this Jesus stuff let's just get on with life we've got a funeral service to deal with gyruss and there's a number of things to take care of well that is a fair assumption if Jesus is no more than just a wandering prophet a wandering prophet with peculiar powers but if Jesus is actually the Incarnate son of God if Jesus the one who has just calmed the winds and the waves and caused his followers to say who in the world is this if Jesus is actually lord over not only the demons and over sickness but he is also victorious over death then of course it changes everything it changes everything and I don't think there's any doubt about the fact that Marcus he gives us the gospel was delighted to leave the question hanging at the end of chapter 4 where you have the terrified disciples looking at one another and saying the winds and the waves obey Him who is this who is this you see my friends that is the great question who is Jesus of Nazareth don't allow Newsweek magazine to do your thinking for you don't allow these journalists to drive you and move you learn to think learn to read your Bible learn to consider these things don't simply go to television programs into magazines that reinforce for you your own particular prejudices listen to what other people are saying and then think it out and if you have difficulty go to the bookstore get tapes get whatever you need think this stuff out who is Jesus of Nazareth that's the question a wandering prophet who can be fitted into the Roman pantheon or the Lord and king of the universe the Incarnate son of God unique in his incarnation triumphant in his death glorious in his ascension or just somebody that walked on the stage of human history and therefore who can be accommodated along with Buddha with Krishna with Hindu or Mohammed and with anybody else that you want that's the question you see if Jesus is the person that claims to be it is not arrogant to affirm that and if he's not the person he claims to be it's a waste of time affirming it that's why in chapter 4 ends that way I'm sure who is this Jesus himself us you know who do men say that I am they had all kinds of answers and when finally Peter gets and he says you are the Messiah you are the Christ then he tells them well let me tell you you got that right and let me tell you what happens from here we go up to Jerusalem I will suffer at the hands of cruel men I will be crucified and on the third day I will rise again what yes you see without the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth we probably wouldn't know there is a Jesus without the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth we wouldn't have the Gospel of Mark or John or of Luke or anything else because there's not a page of this that is written absent the conviction that the resurrection happened in a moment in time that the thing that transformed these characters who were afraid who were discouraged who were disappointed who were looking down a dead-end street the only light that they saw coming at the end of the tunnel was a train that was going to run them over and suddenly they're out proclaiming the reality of Jesus as a savior and as a friend as a king why because of the fact of the resurrection so this one who is proceeding towards the resurrection whereby he will triumph over death is able to look death in the face not only here but at the tomb of Lazarus not there but in the interruption of the funeral process involving a widow who had one son who was dead and whose burial procession was taking place and Jesus comes and arrests the burial procession and stops it in the middle of the street and reaches out and touches the man thereby declaring himself unclean because you could not touch a dead body it would be to be contaminated and Jesus goes in and he not only touches death but he transforms death so the question what's the point is not only an understandable question from the perspective of these characters from Janice's house but it is a fairly routine question from people living now in the 21st century what's the point of talking to Jesus after all when you're dead you're dead I mean if you want to go sing those songs or read that book or do whatever you want to do you go ahead if you've had a few problems in your life you need a crutch you need to but you need something to prop up your miserable existence and you need that you go ahead and do it but I'll tell you something when it all comes push to shove we're all going in the box and once you're gone you're gone or perhaps maybe you can come back as a dog or as a monkey or as a golden retriever or as a parakeet or something like that there's something for you to look forward to what's the point now the second question which is there in verse 39 and this is the question that Jesus asks if the first question is understandable the second question is actually not the question Jesus asks is frankly quite surprising isn't it why all this commotion and wailing you see the crowd that is gathered at the house of Jairus is a testimony to the fact of the girls deadness these professional mourners had already gathered in order to do their job you can read all about this in history and in parallel books but even a poor man was supposed to have one professional mourner and two flute players they took and played the flutes they had a form of clapping and they had a form of wailing and what they were doing was creating a context in which he gave an opportunity for the people who were the immediate who had immediately lost their loved one to give vent to their feelings without restraint or embarrassment that was the purpose of these professional mourners if you've been to Africa then you will know our other parts of the world you will have seen this I saw this in Liberia on one memorable occasion that I won't go to now up near the Ivory Coast but I was confronted by this very thing so all of these people had come the reason they had come was because the girl was dead and Jesus comes into presumably outer courtyard and he says to them what what's all the commotion and all the wailing for what's the what's the problem here and then he says listen the child is not dead but asleep well that got the reaction didn't it look at verse 40 but they laughed at him they laughed at him because if they knew one thing they knew the girl was dead they had come because she was dead that had been verified and the inference seems to be that Jesus has come now and he has not gone into the place where the where the child was that's at the end of verse 40 he has come far enough to encounter all these professional mourners and he confronts them as he does with this question and they essentially are saying to him listen when you see her you'll know just how dead she is sleeping sleeping Jesus that's a sick joke that's not funny she's sleeping now what is Jesus doing here he's not denying the fact that the girl is dead he is simply about to reverse the verdict of death and to raise her as if from sleep because sleep is one of the key metaphors that is provided in the Bible and in Judaism in general for death itself we don't have time to work our way through them but you can in John chapter 11 visibie Lazarus where he comes upon Lazarus and he says Lazarus has fallen asleep and I am going to wake him up that's the eleventh verse of John chapter 11 well everybody knew he hadn't fallen asleep because by the time he got there he had been in the grave for days and in a very indelicate way somebody said Jesus he stinketh in the King James Version okay so either he was very stinky and had fallen asleep in his bed or he was as everybody knew he was dead dead but Jesus says using a metaphor Lazarus has fallen asleep and I'm going there to wake him up you find the exact same thing that Paul picks it up in first Thessalonians 4 he says you shouldn't sore we do not sorrow in relationship to those who have fallen asleep you're not talking about people who fell asleep in the 9:45 service at Parkside that's a different group but he's talking about those who have died it's a metaphor same thing in fourth Corinthians 15 though I show you a mystery we shall not all sleep but we will all be changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye at the Trump of God when Jesus comes that there will be people alive believers alive when Jesus finally returns and not all will sleep the sleep of death so you see Christ because of who he is is able to look death in the face and to say listen you don't need all of this wailing she's not dead she's asleep they say you're crazy he says no because remember I am the resurrection and the life he said he who believes in Me will live and even though he dies even though he dies and whoever lives and believes in Me will never die do you believe this and what Jesus is challenging gyruss to do is to replace if you like his fear of death with his faith in God and this is the fundamental issue that confronts gyruss when his friends arrive with this news we just got a couple of minutes let me go to my third and final what you now have is faith put to the test faith put to the test because coming back to verse 36 the friends have asked the question why bother the teacher anymore what's the point mark tells us that overhearing what they said Jesus chooses not to get into that and address it with them instead he addresses it with the synagogue ruler verse 12 verse 36 and he says to Jairus two things number one don't be afraid number two just believe don't be afraid just believe the the the phrase just believe is in the present continuous tense just go on believing come on now you've made a good start you see you came to me gyruss and your helplessness and in your humility now don't allow that just to be a single moment a single act to be forgotten you've got to keep on believing you have already Jairus by your actions expressed your belief in me now the circumstances are far worse than they were when you came but gyruss lean on me when you're not strong I'll give you strength I'll help you carry on you see this is faith for gyruss this is genuine faith this is an indivisible resolute resting upon trusting in giving oneself up to the truth of God as revealed in Jesus and recorded for us in the Bible it's not simply a credo statement I believe in God the Father it is a disposition of mind and of heart that takes God at his word that trusts him no matter how impossible the circumstances might be essentially Jesus is urging gyruss to make a step forward in faith as did Martha when in that encounter in John 11 she says to him you know Jesus if you'd been here my brother would not have died and that she says but even now I know that you can fix this if you'd been here things would have been different you weren't here but even now I trust you and that's the challenge that is now represented to gyrus his friends have come and said it's over what's the point don't bother him anymore after all he's just a teacher forget him Jesus says don't listen to those characters let me tell you what to do don't be afraid just believe you come with me now and the question that confronts him is the question that confronts each of us would gyrus allow the circumstances to overturn his faith or was his faith going to be the basis upon which he faced his circumstances the whole of the New Testament constantly counterbalances fear with faith and the kind of confidence that Jesus urges in gyrus is the kind of confidence that was found in his father Abraham and there is a sense in which Jesus is urging gyrus to take a leaf out of Abraham's book and I want to finish with this now I'm quoting from Romans chapter 4 and I'm reading it in JB Phillips paraphrase because of the striking way in which Phillips does this remember the story of Abram how God promised him a child and it wasn't looking real solid this is how Zell Paul references it Abraham when hope was dead within him went on hoping in faith believing that he would become the father of many nations he relied on the Word of God which definitely referred to the I seed with undaunted faith he looked at the facts his own impotence he was practically a hundred years old at the time and his wife Sarah's apparent Baroness Yeti refused to allow any distrust of a definite pronouncement of God to make him waver he drew strength from his faith and while giving the glory to God listen to this remained absolutely convinced that God was able to implement his own promise he remained absolutely convinced that God was able to implement his own promise this was the faith which was counted unto him for righteousness this is genuine faith now can you see the little group Jesus James Peter gyruss John he throws out all the Wailers and all the laugher and they go into where the child was and then what a beautiful wonderful amazing encounter and for those of you who think that Talitha koum was some kind of magical incantation if you come tonight I'll explain to you that it isn't and I'll tell you what it is and God helping us we will finish this little section of Mark chapter 5 that is pray let me remind you of our prayer room in case you would like to talk concerning spiritual things in case you have had just a theoretical knowledge of Jesus that have never come to trust in him and you would like someone to guide you in relationship to that and you'd like to think it through or perhaps take something away to read that would help you that will be our privilege now or at your convenience Father grant that we might learn what it is to think that you will quicken our understanding because by our very nature our minds are flawed clouded the truth is obscured our logic is off help us then as we reflect upon the study that we have just engaged in to ponder where we are whether we find ourselves with these men saying what's the point once you're dead you're dead or whether we find ourselves cozying up to Jesus as he says what's the problem she's only asleep and one day for the true believer when death comes what we fear most will never experience we fall asleep in the arms of Jesus and will waken up and we'll be home until then may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God our Father and the Fellowship of the Holy Spirit rest upon and remain with all who believe for Christ's sake amen this message was brought to you from truth for life where the learning is for living learn more about truth for life with alistair beg visit us online at truthfortheworld.org

Channel: Alistair Begg

Views: 1,862

Rating: 4.8297873 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: OkxEqMINFKw

Length: 39min 18sec (2358 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 01 2020