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Take your Bibles and turn to the Gospel of Mark. Mark chapter 5, reading from verse 21 to the end of the chapter.
When Jesus had again crossed over by boat to the other side of the lake, a large crowd gathered around him while he was by the lake. Then one of the synagogue rulers named Jairus 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 who had been subject to bleeding for 12 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 up 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, the disciples answered.
And yet you 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 the 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 kum, which means little girl, I say to you, get up. Immediately, the girl stood up and walked around.
She was 12 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.
Brother Jason, come show us the Savior. Forrest Gump's mom said, life is like a box of chocolates.
You never know what you're going to get. And people can be like that too, can't they? You never know what you're going to get when you get up close and personal with one of them.
Sometimes they surprise you in a good way. Sometimes they surprise you in a bad way. The employee that you thought was going to be so great turns out to be a real dud.
And other people surprise you in a pleasant way. This passage that we're going to be talking about this evening is the story of two people who, when they got to meet Jesus, found someone more and better than they could have ever imagined.
We're going to ask a question and hopefully answer it from Mark 5. The question is, what do we get when we get Jesus? What do we get when we get Jesus?
That's an important question. We are all in two boats tonight. People that have Jesus and people that need to have Jesus. In either case, you need to know Jesus better.
So we're going to open up this box and find out what's inside. What do we get when we get Jesus? We have five points tonight. The first point is that when we get Jesus, we get someone who can be approached.
We get someone who can be approached. Verse 21 tells us that Jesus had just crossed over by boat from the other side of the lake.
And there was a large crowd that gathered around him. People wanting to hear him. People wanting to see a miracle. People who knew him personally and just wanted to be around him.
There was people everywhere pressing, pressing. Last week, my wife and I went to a water park for our anniversary. The water park in Merrillville.
And one thing's for sure, for certain, when you're at a water park, you see people as they are. There's no doubt about who anyone is at a water park.
At lunchtime, I asked Steph, are you having a good time? I'm hoping she's having a good time. She says, yes, I'm having a good time, but I'm tired of seeing people's bodies.
All right. I agree. And when you're at a water park, there's old people there and young people and big people and small people.
There's men and women and children of every size and description. That was pretty oppressive. By one or two in the afternoon, we were ready to leave.
We've had enough of people. That had to be kind of what it was like with Jesus and these crowds. But Jesus was always willing to have these people around him.
People like you and I. People like those people at the water park. They're always around him. And he never grew impatient with them. He never said, just go away. Get away from me.
Jesus was approachable. You could go up and you could talk to him. You could be with him. And you felt comfortable around him. You could come up to Jesus and ask him for a favor, for help.
And you knew that down inside, there was a kind and generous spirit that was willing to help. And so we're not surprised when Jairus, the synagogue ruler, comes up and he falls down on his knees.
And he has a big request. He says, my little daughter is dying. Please, come. Lay your hands on her so that she will be healed. She will live.
Jairus didn't need to dress up his request in fancy clothes. He didn't need to put a suit and tie on his request.
He didn't need to use veiled language. With a lot of people, isn't it true, you have to sort of tippy-toe around them? It's always like walking on eggshells. You don't want to say the wrong thing and offend them.
But not Jesus. Jairus spoke right from his heart. There was no flattery. There was no trickery. No fancy words.
Just a simple request. My little daughter is dying. Please, come and put your hands on her. And look at verse 24. So Jesus went with him.
Jesus went with him. He went to help. He had compassion on this man. Jesus can be asked to do great things for us.
That's one of the lessons of this story, is that we can ask great things of Jesus, and we know that he's willing to hear us and willing to help. We find that he doesn't have a heart that's hard or careless or uncompassionate.
When we get Jesus, when you have Jesus, you have someone who can be approached, and you can know who cares about you, you can ask him for healing when you're sick, when you're having difficulties at work, and people are hard on you, and you need help.
You need help to hold your tongue. You need help just to get through another day. You can ask Jesus, and he's willing to help. He hears and begins working.
When you have a problem, when you have a financial problem, you can ask Jesus about that problem, and he hears and starts to help. When you're neck deep in sin, you're guilty, and you feel it all around you, you're swimming in your sin, and you're dying to be free, you can call on Jesus, and he will rescue you.
And it's not because he's our personal genie in the bottle that we rub three times, and he comes out, and he gives us three wishes. It's because of who he is. He's our kind, generous Lord.
And when we ask of him, we can ask in hope because of who he is. Who he is inside. Because when you get right down to the core of who Jesus is, you'll find goodness there.
And kindness. That's who he is. He's good. And all that he does is good. And so he's approachable. You can come up to him and approach him. That's our first point.
That's an important point. Because if we don't have a Lord that's approachable, we are in big trouble. And if you don't have a Jesus that is approachable, I feel so sorry for you.
Our second point. When we get Jesus, we get someone who brings peace to our lives. Someone who brings peace to our lives. The crowds are pressing in.
Remember that. The crowds are pressing all about him. And Jesus is walking towards Jairus' house. And the crowd is following him all around him. But there was one woman in particular who was trying to get closer than any of the others.
And she's squeezing through. And if there's an opening, she's moving in there and putting her shoulder in there. She needs to be next to Jesus very badly. She's trying to get close.
She's been subject to bleeding for 12 years. And she was coming to the end of a rope. There was nothing left for her if she didn't get to Jesus.
Because she figured if she can get just close enough and put her hand on his cloak, that she would be healed. So let's look at this woman for a minute.
She's been sick for 12 years. And I know that you've heard this story a lot of times. But can you think of what it was like to be sick and dying for 12 years?
For most of us, I dare say it would be unimaginable. If we get a headache, we want it fixed now. That's why we have maximum strength, etc. and all those things.
We want a cure now. For this woman, there's no cure. It's been 12 years. Think about how tired she was. How sad she was.
How scared she was. When something like that goes on with us, don't we get really scared? She's been bleeding for 12 years.
The doctors can't help her. She's been to the doctors. The standard treatments have failed. And then they moved to the experimental treatments. And they failed.
Her illness has made her unclean. She couldn't go to synagogue or to the temple. She couldn't be around people. She had spent all of her money, the text tells us.
She was broke. How scared are you when you are broke and you have no money? You don't know where you're going to get food. You don't have money to buy clothes.
She didn't have a savings stashed away for a rainy day. 12 years ago, it had started raining and it's been raining ever since. So do you feel her load?
Can you imagine her anxiety? Right now, I'm going through a job realignment, we'll call it. And I know how difficult it is to have peace in a situation like that.
When things are uncertain, it's hard to have peace. But can you imagine how much she was struggling with anxiety? She has no money. She has no friends. She has no one that she can be with.
She's dying. She's dying very quickly. The gloom was pretty thick. Her heart was broken. She's afraid. And she's hopeless.
And then she heard about Jesus. She heard about Jesus. Jesus was doing all sorts of fantastic things. She heard of how kind He was.
He was healing demonics. And He was healing people that were blind and sick. And the darkness started to lift in her heart. The dawn was breaking.
She thought, maybe if I can just find Jesus, then He could help me. But how can I get near Him?
I'm unclean. No one will be around me. And if He finds out what my problem is, then He'll drive me away. And all the people, if He doesn't drive me away, all the people around Him will drive Him away.
and a plan starts to formulate in her mind. She's thinking, thinking, how can I get near Jesus? Then she thought, if I could just touch His cloak, then I will be healed.
So, I'll just sneak in, touch Him, be healed, and go away. And no one will know. There won't be any chance to be put to shame or to be embarrassed.
So, in the middle of this crowd, there's this frightened, poor woman, and she is pressing in. Everyone else is just sort of there for the show, but this woman has a purpose.
She wants to get to Jesus, and so she's pressing in, and she's squeezing through every opening. And you can imagine, she's probably throwing a few elbows. She's getting in there. And there He was.
An opening broke, and there He was. And she reached out, and she touched Him. Bam. Immediately, she felt health rushing into her body.
Health she had not felt in 12 years. She has won the lottery. She is so happy. I can't believe it. The sickness is going away.
I'm being healed. And her joy is mounting. Can you sense like 12 years of disaster and sadness is over? And any joy that she felt was soon evaporated.
Because Jesus turned on the spot and asked, who touched me? And all of a sudden, everyone's looking around. And the disciples are looking around, and they probably have some questioning looks on their face.
And after a few moments, said, probably one of these people that are all around you, they probably touched you. But he knew that power had left him.
And the woman could tell by the tone in his voice that he knew, or she knew that he knew that a miracle had happened. She knew that he knew about her.
So there was a moment of awkward silence, and Jesus is looking around, looking around, looking around. and finally, she breaks down.
She falls at his feet, and confesses everything, what has happened. She ignores the shame, and she ignores what people might think about her, and she gives praise to Jesus, and tells him the whole truth.
And so now, we see the beauty of our Savior. He's approachable, remember that. So we're not totally surprised by this response, but we see the beauty of our Savior.
He said, Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace, and be freed from your suffering. He called her daughter.
He called her daughter. Imagine how that word sounded on that woman's ears when she said that, when he said that. And no one had loved her for so long.
no one had shown her any affection for years. No one cared for her. And now, Jesus, this relative stranger, is calling her daughter.
What was Jesus saying? What was Jesus saying about their relationship from that point on? He was saying that he was her father.
Not the father in heaven, but, in a way, she was his daughter, and he was going to be her father. He was going to be her daddy from now on.
And what does a little daughter have to worry about when the daddy is right there taking care of things? And Jesus was saying, I love you. I love you.
Love was just dripping out of our Savior's mouth, and this woman was just drinking it up. It had been so long since anyone had loved her. No one had shown her any kindness for years.
And now here is Jesus pouring out love and affection on her. Then he said, go in peace and be freed from your suffering. Go in peace.
Peace. What is it? What is peace? What did Jesus want this woman to enjoy? Tranquility? Yes.
Freedom from anxiety? Yes. The knowledge that everything is in the end going to be all right? The woman would still have problems.
That's for sure. She would have trials. Then the very next day she would have to wake up and face a mess of 12 years of no income and a hard life.
She would have trials. She would be tempted and suffer again. But from that point on, overshadowing everything, there was going to be peace. Because overshadowing everything, there was going to be Jesus.
See, peace isn't freedom from trials. Peace is knowing that Jesus is standing over us. Peace is Jesus guarding you in your trials.
peace is this woman went to Jesus to be healed. She went to be healed, but she got so much more. She got someone to give her peace, for someone to give her protection and love.
She went to be healed and she got so much more. She got her life back. She had a new relationship. She had joy for the first time.
And you'll notice that it was her faith that made her better. It was our Lord that healed her, but it was faith that laid a hold of our Lord. Her faith laid a hold of Jesus, just like her hand laid a hold of his cloak.
And it turns out that it wasn't touching Jesus that made her better. It was trusting in Jesus that made her better. And so if you have Jesus, if you have Jesus, if you possess Jesus, just like that woman possessed Jesus by faith, then you have someone who's going to bring peace to your life.
And I trust that you've enjoyed that peace. You get a person who's going to guard your heart and your mind. You get a person that when you're in difficulties, he's right there with you, like we heard this morning.
He's there in every circumstance so that we can experience joy and tranquility knowing that he is there. So I want to ask you brother and sister, do you see Jesus standing over you?
Do you see Jesus standing over you? If you look out, you see the trials, and you see horrible things out there. People dying, people sick, difficulties within and without.
But if you look up, you'll see Jesus. And that's what it means to have peace. Because the Prince of Peace will guard your heart and your mind and your life so that you can go through this life and face all the difficulties and have peace.
Praise his name. I'm fixed upon it. That's our second point. When we get Jesus, we get someone who brings peace to our lives. And the third point is this.
When we get Jesus, we get a person who empathizes with our fears and offers hope. He empathizes with our fears and offers hope. So now we have to go back to Jairus.
This woman's been healed, and now we're back to Jairus. Jesus was going to his house when this incident with the woman occurred. And so you can imagine that Jairus is seeing all this and taking it in, and his hopes are being lifted.
This Jesus just healed a woman that was sick for 12 years. My daughter is 12 years old.
This woman has been sick since my daughter was born. And with one touch, Jesus healed her. Surely, Jesus can help me.
So his hope is rising. He's being encouraged. He's probably wanting Jesus to hurry it up now. So now, just as his hopes are rising, just as he's seeing how loving and kind Jesus is, the bus comes to a screeching halt.
His balloon has popped, his hopes are shattered, and the sword goes right into his heart. messengers came, and we read in verse 35 that while Jesus was still speaking, some men came from the house of Jairus and said, your daughter is dead.
Why bother the teacher anymore? Jairus was a normal daddy. He lost his patience sometimes.
He said things that he really shouldn't have said sometimes in a way that he shouldn't have said sometimes. But in his heart, this daughter, he delighted in her.
And he loved her. And he would give anything that he could to make her happy. He would give her everything that she needed.
And he would give her lots of things that she didn't need. She just wanted just to make her happy. and he worked for her. And he taught her.
And pretty soon, she was going to be of the age where she would have a husband. And he was going to make sure that he treated her right. Or he wasn't going to be around too much longer. We know that Jairus cared about this girl.
And he called her beautiful. And he said, oh, that looks like a beautiful dress. She gave him lots of hugs. And she still sat on his lap every now and then. But all that is gone.
It's all gone. And a hole in Jairus' heart opens up and fear starts filling it up.
You go to the beach and you dig a hole near the water, it stays dry for a few seconds and then water pours into it. Well, fear is pouring into Jairus' heart and death has entered into his heart.
He was afraid before, but now he's very afraid. And the darkness descends, but out of the darkness a voice speaks.
Don't be afraid, just believe. Jesus knew what was in Jairus' heart. He knew what was in a man. He could tell the Jairus was experiencing great fear.
The fear was surging into Jairus' heart. And Jesus empathized with him. Empathized means to feel along with. And as Jairus is feeling fear, Jesus knows he is.
He knows what that is. Hebrews says, And we do not have a high priest that is unable to sympathize with our weakness, but we have one that has been tempted in every way, just as we are, yet was without sin.
Tempted there has two meanings. to be tempted with sin and to be tried in difficulties. Jesus' own heart has been put through the ringer. He knew what it was to experience poverty and death.
He knew pressure. He knew what it felt like to lose someone close to him. Most people think that Joseph, Jesus' earthly father, died before Jesus' ministry started.
Jesus knew death. His own earthly father had died. He knew sorrow. So when he says, Don't be afraid, just believe, we have to understand and pour all of the sympathy that we can imagine into those words.
Jesus offers more than sympathy. He offers hope. Sympathy isn't as good as far as it goes, but what's better is hope. So look closely at verse 36.
It begins with these words, ignoring what they said. Ignoring what they said. So we have two different things going on here. The messengers have come up and they have said, Don't bother the teacher anymore, your daughter is dead.
What are they saying implicitly? They're implicitly saying, under the literal words, they're saying, Jesus can't help you anymore. He might be able to heal, but no one can raise from the dead, so don't bother him anymore.
And Jesus says, no. He ignores what they say, and he says, Jairus, no. Listen, they say I can't help, but don't be afraid.
I can't help. So out of the darkness, Jairus hears the voice of Jesus. The gospel came into Jairus' heart at that time, and he began to see Jesus with new eyes.
His eyes were opened. He had the eyes of faith. Faith opened his eyes to reality, and no longer is Jesus just a healer and a good teacher. He is more than that.
He's so much more than that. He's powerful. Jairus is beginning to see Jesus for who he is. He is a savior, a really, really real savior. He's the destroyer of death.
That's what Jesus is saying. Don't be afraid, Jairus. Just believe. Death was holding a knife to his daughter's neck, but Jesus is coming to dispatch death.
And in his heart, Jesus asked Jairus, am I stronger than death? Am I stronger than death? And Jairus said yes. And new hope began to pour into Jairus' heart.
He had the sympathy of Jesus, and now he has the hope of knowing who Jesus is. So all the circumstances are the same. Jairus' daughter is dead.
She's really dead, but the slayer of death is coming to Jairus' house. Jairus' Jairus' Jesus is still in the business of offering hope to the hopeless and to the downtrodden.
He hasn't changed at all. He's still saying to us, through his word, don't be afraid, just believe. And can you hear him? He's saying it in the Gospels.
Don't be afraid, just believe. If you just read the Gospels, every page is dripping with this message, that you don't have to be afraid. You just need to believe.
And maybe you think your problems are too difficult. Maybe you think they're too much, but there's not very many problems, and I don't think there's any problem that's more difficult to solve than death.
And Jesus is taking on death. This man had lost his child, his daughter. And if Jesus could put hope into that situation, then he could put hope into every one of your situations.
If he can do it in death, then he can do it with anything. It might be an illness in your family. It might be an illness in your family.
It might be that lost, stubborn child that will not believe. And if Jesus can give hope to Jairus, then he can give hope to you if you believe.
There's a fight of faith in every trial like that. There's a fight of faith. So let me encourage you, when you're struggling with fear, and you're struggling with hopelessness, then go to the Gospels, go to your Bibles, and read about Jesus.
Look at Jesus, and exercise fresh faith again. Read and meditate until your eyes can see Jesus, and then cast your cares on him.
Put them on him, and let him carry them. He can handle it. That's point three. This is point four. When we get Jesus, we get a person who raises the dead.
Who raises the dead. Things proceed rapidly to the end at this point. Jesus leaves nine of the disciples to take care of the crowd, and he, James, Peter, James, and John, and Jairus go to his house.
And when they get there, they find a bigger and a worse crowd than before. If you thought the first crowd was bad, this one's worse. It's nothing but commotion and crying and wailing loudly.
And so what do we make of this group? What do we make of this group? Well, it was normal in Jewish culture to have people mourn the death of someone, which is, I guess, pretty normal in every culture.
But you would pay certain people to even mourn for you. And Jairus was a pretty important person, so he probably had lots of people to come over and mourn. He was a popular person, so he had lots of people over to mourn the death of his daughter.
But two things define this group. Two things. It's one, they're spiritually blind. And two, they're superficially sad.
They're superficially sad. Jesus came up and asked, while this commotion and wailing, this girl is not dead but asleep. And then they laughed at him. So they just went from crying and wailing loudly to laughing in the next breath.
It doesn't seem like the wailing is too serious. Kind of like my daughter. She falls down.
She cries. If you offer her a cookie, she stops crying instantly. It's amazing how much of a big deal people can make out of things when they don't really feel it inside.
Their laughter is nothing but unbelief, too. It's spiritual blindness. They laughed at Jesus because Jesus said, the girl's not dead.
She's asleep. Luke says, they laughed at him knowing that she was dead. This crowd, they had some knowledge.
They knew that this girl was dead. And so what Jesus was saying didn't make any sense to them. And so they laughed at him. They thought he was a fool. He was crazy. They scorned him.
And you know what? In normal circumstances, I suppose, if someone came up to a casket and said, oh, this person's not dead, this person's only asleep, you'd be like, you're crazy.
You don't know what you're talking about. But these aren't normal conditions. It's not just anybody saying that this girl is asleep and not dead. See, someone who they weren't expecting showed up to the funeral.
And it was God incarnate. And when God incarnate says, that girl is asleep, that's when you put your hand over your mouth. You silence yourself.
And you think about what he says. But they don't have time for that. They laugh at him. So what was Jesus saying? Was he saying that she wasn't really dead?
No. He was saying that for him, the people that are dead are only asleep. And if he wants to wake them up, he will wake them up.
1 Thessalonians 4.13, Paul talks to the believers there and he says, brothers, we don't want you to be ignorant about those who have fallen asleep or who fall asleep or to grieve like the rest of men who have no hope.
Why, Paul? And he says, because when Jesus comes, he's going to wake the dead. And those who have fallen asleep will come with him.
So to Jesus, the dead are merely asleep. To us, to us humans, they're gone. They're irretrievably gone.
But if Jesus comes, he can wake them up easily. So the Lord puts everyone out. He puts everyone out, the commotion, all the crowd, they're pushed out.
And now it's nothing but Peter, James, and John, mom and dad and Jesus and the little girl. And can you imagine the suspense at this moment? Life and death are in the balance.
Joy and sorrow are in the balance. There's so much heartache on this side. There's so much sorrow and there's so much joy in this on this side.
So what will happen? What will Jesus do to raise this dead girl? The Lord simply goes up to the girl. She's lying there and he probably sits down beside her.
He puts her hand in his and he says, Talitha kum, which means, little girl, I say to you, wake up. Now I want you to think for a second.
Why did Mark include those words, Talitha kum? The entire New Testament is written in Greek. And Jesus probably didn't speak Greek from day to day.
He spoke Aramaic. And so all of our New Testament, all the Gospels, it's probably a translation of Jesus' words from Aramaic to Greek. But Mark decides here that I'm going to leave the Aramaic there and he says, Talitha kum.
Why did he go back to the Aramaic? How many times do you think that that girl had heard those words from her mom and dad when she needed to wake up and they would come in and say, Talitha kum?
And she would wake up. How many times have you had to go into your son or daughter's room and say, hey, time to get up and they get up, don't they?
Well, they're supposed to. I'm thinking, when I was a teenager, I probably didn't get up too often. Mark wanted to show us that that girl didn't need a loud voice.
That girl didn't need magic words. She just needed Jesus to tell her to wake up. And when Jesus spoke the words, when he spoke those same old words that she had heard a hundred times before in her sleep, he or she woke up.
She just needed Jesus to speak him with new power. And when he spoke it, immediately she got up, death retreated. Luke says her spirit came back into her body and immediately she got up and started walking around.
the woman who had been healed from bleeding was healed immediately. And now that death has heard the voice of the master, it retreats immediately. And certainly Jairus got more than he bargained for on that day, didn't he?
He wanted healing. Instead, he got resurrection. He got someone who rescues from the dead. He didn't get a really super-duper doctor.
He got a savior that can solve our biggest problem. Jesus gives us hope that reaches past the grave. And we've lost loved ones around here often, lately.
And so we have a hope that goes past that, that reaches right past the grave. And it doesn't matter how withered their bodies were when we laid them in the ground, and how they're dust now.
In the centuries that have passed since, or any events, when Jesus, the Lord of death, when he tells the dead to wake up, they wake up.
And it was Jesus who went into the very jaws of death and took out the sting of death, which is sin. And now that he has disarmed death, he's broken it and transformed it into not something that is so final and so permanent, but it's now become a sleep for his people.
End of your life, you'll lay down and pillow your head and you'll go to sleep. And like every other night before your life, you'll wake up in the morning. And that's what Jesus does for his people.
He offers us hope, and he gives us resurrection power. Our fifth point is simply this. When we get Jesus, we get a person who cares about the little details of our life.
The girl's on her feet now, and can you imagine mom and dad are probably kissing everyone and everything in sight. Peter, James, John, Jesus, everyone gets a kiss. They're so happy, they're probably astonished.
It says in the literal, in the Greek, it says they're astonished astonishment. They're totally going crazy. And Jesus looks at the girl, and he realizes that her tummy is probably pretty hungry.
Isn't that crazy? I mean, isn't that wonderful? Jesus calms down the parents then at that point and says, don't tell anyone about this. The crowd doesn't need to know about this.
And get your daughter something to eat. Jesus cared about this little girl's physical, mundane, everyday problems.
In the middle of the miracle working, in the middle of the busy teaching schedule, he cared for people. And he really cared for individuals. When Jesus healed the 5,000, it wasn't like a big, giant, when he fed the 5,000, it wasn't like a giant, crowded people.
He saw them, and he saw individuals that were hungry. And so he fed them. In Mark 8, Jesus takes a blind man. One of my favorite passages, he takes a blind man by the hand.
Can you imagine Jesus holding a man's hand that's blind, and he takes him outside the village, and he heals him of his blindness. And this girl's no different. Her, she has a need.
It's a little need. It's just food. And her parents would give it to her in time, but he saw that she needed it now. And she has a need, and he cares for her.
So don't ever think that now that you're saved, it's like the big problem's over, and Jesus doesn't care anymore. He cares about the big things, and he cares about the little things.
And so when your budget's tight, you're not broke, it's just really hard going, Jesus cares about that. And when you're hungry, he cares about that. When you can't sleep at night, you're tossing and turning, he cares about that.
None of those things are going to break you and make your life horrible for the rest of your life, but they're little things. They're little things that make life hard, and Jesus cares about those things.
We can't think that he doesn't have compassion on us in those little situations. This girl is hungry, and he makes sure that she has food. So that's our five points.
And I want to ask you, is this your Jesus? And I mean that in two ways. Is this the Jesus that I've been talking about?
Is this the Jesus that you believe in? have you thought about him? Maybe less than you ought, or thought less of him than you ought.
He's approachable. He brings peace. He has resurrection power. He sympathizes with us. He cares for our needs, big and small.
Is this your Jesus? We all need to know him better. We all need to know him better. So read your Gospels. If you're between books and your devotions, pick Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John.
You get a picture of what Jesus is like, what he really is. Is this the Jesus that you present to your children, you parents?
Is this the Jesus that you're teaching your children about? Or is Jesus just this rule maker that says, well, you shouldn't do that, and you shouldn't do this, and it's a rod to hit your children with? Or do you teach your children that this is the Jesus that cares about them?
That when they're afraid of the dark, something that's very common, something that's hard for them, do you teach them about this Jesus that can be there with them and that cares about them?
Or when they're struggling at school, and they have someone picking on them, or they're having a hard time with the teacher, do you teach them about this Jesus that cares for them?
how many times are we like the disciples when the little children would come to them and we keep them away because our Jesus is so formidable and so unkind and so far out there that he doesn't care for little children.
Teach your children about this Jesus. And then finally, is this your Jesus? Jesus? And what I mean is, do you possess him? We've talked about some things tonight that are really awesome and wonderful about resurrection and about healing and about someone who cares for us and that we can talk to in any situation and bring any problem before him.
But that Jesus is not for everyone. Jesus is all those things to those who have surrendered to him, who have repented, who have believed, and he offers hope to those people.
But he doesn't offer any hope to those who go their own way, who won't listen to him, who refuse to believe, who laugh at him. And I know you don't laugh at him out loud, but you don't believe what he says, and you think what he says is foolishness and you're just like the crowd.
He's not your Jesus then, is he? I feel so sorry for you. How do you face life's trials without someone to care for you?
It's beyond me. I don't know. And what will you do when he comes back? How will you escape that day when he resurrects everyone for the judgment?
How will you escape when you scorn the one who is so good? So when we find Jesus, when we get Jesus, we get someone more than we could have ever hoped for.
So we need to strive to know him better. Let's pray. Father, we would be like that woman that we talked about tonight.
just wanting to know and to touch Jesus. So we pray that you would give us faith to lay a hold of him and to never let him go.
That faith comes from you. We can't work it in ourselves. We need you to work it in us. And so we pray that for unbeliever and believer alike, that you would give us more faith.
faith. And for the unbeliever that does not know you, open their eyes to see this Jesus who loves, who dies for people like us, needy people, hopeless people without him.
father, give us joy as we walk away knowing that this Jesus is our Jesus, that we're going to walk out those doors and be with him.
We're going to go home and be with him and all of his strength and power is available to us. And I pray that you would give us faith to lay a hold of that power. And when we stray, bring us back.
Don't let us be too proud to take his help. But give us a humble and a contrite heart. Father, will you bless us as we go on this week.
We're going to be facing difficulties. We're going to be facing scary situations. Give us courage. Give us peace in living with Jesus.
I pray for all those who are without you. Reveal yourself to them. We pray this in Jesus' name.
Amen. that.