We are looking at Luke chapter 8 verses 49 through 56 this morning. The section concludes Luke's account of this series of miracles. that are highlighting the Lordship of Jesus Christ. We have seen that He is Lord over the physical world. We have seen that He is Lord over the spiritual world. We have seen that He is Lord over sickness. And finally, we need to see today that He is Lord even over death. So again, the text is Luke chapter 8, beginning in verse 49, which says, while he was still speaking, someone came from the house of the synagogue official saying, your daughter has died. Do not trouble the teacher anymore. But when Jesus heard this, he answered him, do not be afraid any longer, only believe and she will be made well. When he came to the house, he did not allow anyone to enter with him except Peter and John and James and the girl's father and mother. And they were all weeping and lamenting for her. But he said, Stop weeping, for she has not died, but is asleep. And they began laughing at him, knowing that she had died. He, however, took her by the hand and called, saying, Child, arise. and her spirit returned, and she got up immediately, and he gave orders for something to be given her to eat. Her parents were amazed, but he instructed them to tell no one what had happened. Let's pray for God's blessing on his word this morning. Our Father in heaven, as we come before you, we recognize that we are your servants, that you have brought us into your kingdom in order to serve you. And in order to do that, we need understanding. We need to know your testimonies. We need to be well acquainted with them, not just as a sort of information dump, but rather deeply in our hearts, Father, we need to understand why you want us to walk the way that you have called us to walk. We need to understand how we are to do that. And then we need the strength and the help to walk in your ways, Father. So this morning, we pray of you to remember our weaknesses and to grant us everything that we need for life and godliness. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. We've seen that there is healing for every ailment. There's healing for every sickness. There's even resurrection from the dead to eternal life for all of those who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. We just have to wait for it. I've always enjoyed or I always did enjoy the rhetorical device of Paul Harvey, the late radio commentator who would broadcast these little known facts. I have fond memories listening to the radio, which I know we don't do anymore. But early in the morning at work, Paul Harvey would be on there and he'd give you these facts about a historical event or a person. in the morning broadcast, and you would have to wait for the afternoon to have these crucial elements that he left out of the story to get this whole picture. You had to go through the whole day, and you remember, some of you remember the famous line he used to use, and now you know the rest of the story. That was that rhetorical punchline that he used day in and day out as he filled in those details. And he would relieve the tension that he created earlier in the day with his audience. And I think there's a similar sense in which as we look at this story with Jairus and his sick daughter, We need the tension to be relieved. We need a conclusion. Initially, we find him waiting on the shore of the Sea of Galilee for Jesus to come back over. Jesus gets out of the boat. Jairus comes up to him, falls on his face, and begs him to come and to heal his sick daughter. As they go to do this, they get interrupted by the woman with the hemorrhage. And in that delay, In that period of delay, Jairus's daughter dies. But that's not the end of the story. That's not all that we have here. And I think that it's a good picture in this. Sickness and death come, and they shake us from the apathy and the wrongly focused concerns on the things of this life. As I've said often, tragedy, sickness, especially death, nothing more than death, has a message to tell us. And the message is, you're not home. You haven't made it yet. Our time here is short. Our life here is going to be hard and difficult, but that's not the end of the story. And nothing compares in its power to speak to us to death. Death has this ability to create a tension that really drives us to a longing to hear the resolution. We want that tension to be taken away. We want to know the rest of the story, to know that everything's going to be all right. And in this story of Jairus's daughter, we have sickness, we have delay, we have death, we have resurrection. And what it is, it's a very small picture of each and every one of our lives here in this world. And what it's doing is it's helping us to hear the voice of Jesus who is speaking to us in the midst of sickness, in the midst of delay, in the midst of death. and in the midst of longing for this resurrection, where we want the tensions of our own stories, our own lives to be relieved by hearing the voice of Jesus say, do not be afraid any longer, only believe and you will be made well. So because Jesus is the Lord, even over death, and because Jesus is the author and the giver of life, we should trust in him. to overcome death, to give us life, and to finish the story by bringing us to our eternal home. So what does that kind of faith look like? What does that kind of trust look like? Here's three things from the text. Number one, we should not fear death. As hard as that is to say, death should not be something that we fear. Number two, we should see death for believers as only temporary. And then finally, we should be hoping in the resurrection of our bodies. And so now, let the Lord of glory, let the Lord even over death, relieve the tension of life, relieve the tension of sickness, relieve the tension of delay, relieve even the tension of death with the rest of the story. Notice verse 49, while he was still speaking, someone came from the house of the synagogue official saying, your daughter has died. Do not trouble the teacher any longer. So while Jesus is still speaking, remember verse 48, he said to her, Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace. As these words are coming out of his mouth in front of Jairus, in front of the crowd, the woman with the hemorrhage is hearing this. At that moment, someone from that synagogue's officials house comes with bad news. Jairus's daughter has died. The delay, you might say, has cost the girl her life. And now you have a great tension introduced into the story. At first, Jairus is just very concerned because his daughter is ill. She might die. And he wants to get Jesus there quickly to heal her. But now, the worst has happened. She has actually died. And death has come in, and as death does, it charges in, and it interrupts life in all those unsettling, all of those terrible ways that drastically change the world in which we live. In fact, you notice in the story that death makes no distinctions. It comes for the rich, like the synagogue official's daughter. It comes for the poor. It comes for the old. It comes for the young. It comes to all of us who are kind of somewhere in between. No one can stop death. No one can halt it. When it comes, it comes. Even when we think that we can delay death somehow, we find we're actually powerless to stop it. And death doesn't care about your plans. It doesn't care about your dreams. It doesn't care about hopes and ambitions. And in fact, death comes in and in spite of all of your desires, it breaks all of those dreams and hopes and it buries us and our loved ones in the dirt. Stops everything. And this is why in Ecclesiastes 7-2 it says, it is better to go to the house of mourning than a house of feasting. because that is the end of every man, and the living take it to heart. It really has to be something that you think about a lot, and it's not morbid to think this way. It is just dealing with reality. Death is coming for you. Death is coming for your loved ones. It's going to take them away, whether you like it or not, and whether you want to hear about it or not, whether you want to reflect on it or not, This is the end of every single person. And the wise person takes it to heart. The living takes it to heart. Notice what the servant says here. He says, do not trouble the teacher any longer. What is he saying? He's saying it's too late. She died. There's nothing left to be done here. All you can do is mourn. All you can do is weep over the fact that she's gone. And what's happening here is that this servant does not believe that Jesus has any power over death. It's just a done deal in his mind. And I think very often we begin to view God's power only in relation or only within the realm of the temporal world. His plan can only be good if it fits the narrative of the here and now that we have determined beforehand is the best narrative, right? When someone dies unexpectedly, We begin to think, well, death interrupted my plans, it interrupted my ideas, it didn't work out the way that I wanted to, and we don't see it as all part of God's plan to work together for good, right? Death is such an interruption. It brings such a horrible reality to bear on our lives that we really struggle to see how it could ever be any part of God's plan. But this is, in reality, a stunted faith. It's a small understanding of what God is doing. Death is awful. Death is painful. Death is full of sorrow. It should be all of those things. But again, we have to remember this. Death for a believer is never the end of the story. I'm always interested when I hear people talk about the death of Jesus in such a way that it makes them, you know, you would think if you had a time machine that could send somebody back there, they would stop the death of Jesus. They would stop the crucifixion from taking place. And remember, the death of Jesus, the innocent lamb of God, was the greatest piece of the puzzle to come together for our good. And even here with Jairus' daughter, God's going to work this together for good in order to speak to us about the power of Jesus over death. And so the reason we should listen carefully to the message of the funeral, the reason why it's better for you to go to a funeral than to a birthday party, is not to drown out the reality of death with a million distractions. It's so that we would consider death and that in the consideration of death, we would turn and entrust ourselves to the one who has power over death. In order that believing on him, we would know that death has no power over us and that we have eternal life. You know, I can read this story of Jairus' daughter dying. I can talk about death all morning this morning, but you actually have to be the one to consider it. You have to be the one to consider that death is coming for you, it's coming for every person in this room, and you have to take that to heart yourself. Because it's only in that reflection that the focus on the reality of death will drive you to Jesus. And Jesus is the only one who can assuage that fear and give you hope in the rest of the story. Give you hope in the eternal life that he's promised for all those who believe. In verse 50, but when Jesus heard this, He answered him, do not be afraid any longer, only believe and she will be made well. Well, what is Jesus addressing there? He's saying to Jairus, this death is not beyond my power. Don't be afraid any longer. The Lord over death, the author of life is here. He's going to handle it now. Only believe and she will be made well. I mean, this is this is a stretching of faith in every way here, a stretch from. OK, I think Jesus can heal the sick, which is one thing. But can Jesus bring someone back from the dead? Does Jesus have power over death. And he says to them, do not be afraid any longer. And I think those are words, again, we all need to hear. This is for every parent with children, right, specifically in the context. Don't be afraid any longer. Every parent that is afraid for the well-being and the health of their child, every spouse who is concerned for their loved one, every child afraid for the life of their own parents, every one of us who are afraid of our own death, Jesus is saying to us, he is calling on us to entrust to him our lives and even our deaths. and the lives and the deaths of our loved ones. He will do what is right. He will do what is good. He will do what is best with the living and he will do what is best with the dead. Only believe. and she will be made well. There's two senses in which you need to hear this, right? The immediate narrative that's taking place, the immediate sense in the story, he's telling Jairus, I'm going to raise your daughter from the dead. Only believe and she will be made well. He's speaking here to Jairus about the resurrection he's about to perform on this day nearly 2,000 years ago. Now there's a second sense though in which it is applied to us and it is the resurrection he is about to perform when he comes again. He's telling us just believe. Believe on me and you will have eternal life. Believe on me and you will be made well again. J.C. Ryle comments, it says, these words no doubt were spoken with immediate reference to the miracle our Lord was going to perform. But we need not doubt. Yet they were also meant for the perpetual benefit of the Church of Christ. They were meant to reveal to us the grand secret of comfort in the hour of need. That secret is to exercise faith, to fall back on the thought of Christ's loving heart and mighty hand in a word, to believe. What's the difference between the then and the now? It's just the time period. That's it. We're just waiting. Just as Jairus had to wait, you know, I don't know, 10, 15 minutes to move from where they were in the city to wherever his home was so that she could be raised again. We're just waiting the few minutes for Jesus to come back and to raise the dead to life. Death comes. Death takes away from us. We feel the pain of that. We feel the hurt of that. We fear in some sense our own deaths that are coming. And we have comfort in two things in this life. Number one, we have comfort in the fact that in Christ we will be raised to new and eternal life. And secondly, we have comfort in this, and don't forget this, that when Jesus comes back on that day to raise us to new life, he is also going to wipe away every tear. He's going to wipe away all the pain, and he's going to wipe away all the sorrow of death. The loved ones that we lost, even the loved ones that we have no hope for them to be in heaven, Jesus is going to take away the pain. And we have hope in that. That's a great comfort to us to know that one day the pain of death is going to stop. And so in a world full of death, a world full of sickness and pain, we are called to believe and to take comfort in the reality that the story isn't over and that because of Jesus, we don't have to fear death. Number two, We should see death for believers as only temporary. Notice verses 51 through 53. When he came to the house, he did not allow anyone to enter with him except Peter and John and James and the girl's father and mother. Now they were all weeping and lamenting for her, but he said, stop weeping for she has not died, but is asleep. And they began laughing at him, knowing that she had died. Well, a couple of things. First, Jesus doesn't allow a big gaping crowd to enter the house. It's interesting, there's a contrast here. The woman with the hemorrhage who tried to do everything in secret, all that was brought to public light in order that she would be vindicated of her uncleanness in front of everyone and could reenter society. But Jesus isn't there just to do miracles, you know, like a circus act. He's there for the best good of the people he's doing them for. The little girl did not need a whole crowd gathered around her to see that she had risen from the dead. There's plenty of witnesses at this point. And so Jesus, Jesus just makes the crowd smaller. Now he walks in and he says something astounding. Okay. Stop weeping. That's the first astounding thing he says, but then he follows it up with something even greater, for she is not dead, but asleep. I wanna make a note here on the first part, okay? Only Jesus gets to tell people to stop weeping. When someone has suffered the loss of a loved one, Our hope in this life is not that we will get over it. You just don't get over it. That's just the reality. You can forget about it. You can so fill your mind with distractions that you temporarily kind of lose a sense of it being right on the forefront. But our hope in this life is not that in this life we get over the death of loved ones. Okay, I think one of the worst things you could ever say to someone who has suffered the loss of a loved one is to tell them to get over it. You can't. The world is irrevocably changed forever. That person is gone from the world. It is a different world and it's not going to change. And pretending like you're okay with it is not going to the funeral house, right? You're going to birthday parties and you're not considering the massive implications of death and the loss of a life. Only Jesus gets to say, stop weeping. And he's only going to say that to us on the day that we're resurrected when he wipes away the tears from our eyes. And through the power of his word, our sorrow and pain is gone, okay? I really want to emphasize that only Jesus brings a message of healing in the life to come. Now, there is comfort in his words, okay? When we lose brothers and sisters in Christ, there is still comfort here when he says, They have not died, they are only asleep, okay? The New Testament does something very interesting with death, okay? The New Testament talks about the death of believers in the terms of sleep. I just want you to notice this, and I think it's important because it will help you deal with the death of loved ones. In John 11, verse 11, You know this. After he said this to his friends, Now, Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought he was speaking of literal sleep. So Jesus said to them plainly, Lazarus is dead. So Jesus is setting the standard about how we are as believers to think about death in this world. OK, when another believer dies in the Lord, it's not death. It is sleep. It's temporary. In Acts 7, I think this is probably the most astounding one. Stephen, the whole chapter is dealing with Stephen, who we often call the first Christian martyr. The Jews, after hearing him speak and testify about Jesus, they're stoning him, right? Which means they're picking up big rocks and a crowd of people is throwing them as hard as they can at him until he dies. And in verse 60, it says something interesting. Then falling on his knees, he cried out with a loud voice, Lord, do not hold this sin against him. Having said this, he fell asleep. He was not taking a nap. He didn't just decide, well, I'll just sleep this baby out here and wake up and everything will be fine. They killed him. They killed him, but the New Testament isn't referring to our deaths in terms of death anymore. In fact, in 1 Thessalonians 4, beginning in verse 13, you all know this one, but we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep. so that you will not grieve, as do the rest who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. And we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore, comfort one another with these words." What are the comforting words? This whole death thing for us is temporary. We need to think of it in terms of, yeah, they've just fallen asleep for a while. This isn't the end. This isn't all there is to the story. And so back in Luke chapter 8, as we come back to this story of resurrection, Jesus says, stop weeping. She has not died, but is asleep. They start laughing at Jesus, knowing that she had died because they don't understand the way that Jesus is using sleep now. And the point extends back to us. He's saying death, this death is temporary. One day they're going to be raised up. And this is so valuable for us as the church and how we think about the death of loved ones who die in the Lord. They aren't dead. They're asleep. They're waiting for that great day when Jesus returns and calls us all to new and eternal life. You know, in 1 Corinthians 15, it talks about the sting of death being taken away. And I've been asked about that by people who are mourning the loss of a loved one. Well, it still hurts. Why does it still hurt when someone dies? Well, it's not that the full sting of death is taken away in that sense. It's that the sting of death is taken away for those who are in the Lord because it's temporary. They're coming. They're coming back. And we miss our brothers and sisters who die in the Lord. And it's painful as we we miss them and we mourn them. But we do so in hope. We do so knowing. that the rest of the story is going to come to a great conclusion, that their going to sleep is going to be resolved in their waking up along with all of us to new and eternal life. Now, there's a question there. What about unbelievers? Well, that's what real death is all about. They die ultimately. They die separated from God. And our only comfort in their death is this. the promise that Jesus will wipe away every tear from our eyes. That's our only comfort that Jesus one day is going to give us joy. Jesus one day is going to give us comfort. We think how could we ever be comforted in the reality that knowing that our loved one didn't die in the Lord and went to eternal punishment. I don't know. I mean, this is like an Abraham, God has promised him the land and he doesn't see it in this life, but he's gonna see it one day. One day, Jesus will wipe away those tears. But for us as believers, the story is this, just wait, right? Paul Harvey gave that morning tension, he resolved it in the afternoon, we're just waiting. We're waiting for the tension to be resolved Because when Jesus returns, we will see him as he is, we will be made like him, and we will be raised to new and eternal life. And so we should hope. We should hope in the resurrection of our bodies. Notice verse 54. He, however, even though they're laughing at him, even though they think it's all funny, just as the world thinks that our great hope is just a big joke, he, however, took her by the hand and called, saying, Child, arise. Occasionally I wonder why I went to seminary for so long. And it's in moments like this where understanding Greek in an idiomatic way really speaks to the text. That phrase, child arise, that is an idiomatic way of saying to a kid, wake up. or get out of bed. Jesus is going on with this. We would say, out of bed, kids. And, you know, sometimes you do have to grab them by the hand and yank them out of the bed. He's continuing this whole idea. This is just sleep. It's just temporary sleep for this girl. And as you hear Jesus say that, pull it all the way in to when he returns, because there's going to be a day in which you and I hear Jesus say, child, arise. And we're going to rise up. Our bodies, these bodies that are gonna disintegrate to some degree in a grave somewhere, our spirit will then be reunited with that body made new and we will be resurrected in glory and reunited with our spirit and body forever and ever to be with Jesus. That's just a precursor right there in this story of what Jesus is going to say to each and every one of us. And her spirit returned. And she got up immediately. And he gave orders for something to be given her to eat. This is so great. If you start putting this all together, this is so great. Because again, one day you're going to hear Jesus say, child, arise. And that spoken word is going to come with all the creative power that spoke the universe into existence. And you're going to get up immediately. And once you are up, resurrected, we're all going to be led in these new, glorious, eternal bodies to the wedding feast of the Lamb. where we will spend out eternity eating and drinking whatever we desire without any effects to our bodies, whatever we want, without any fear of pain or sorrow or death or bad health, and we will live with Jesus for all of eternity. Her parents were amazed, but he instructed them to tell no one what had happened. And in the day that we're called forth from the grave, in the day that we go into Jesus' presence and he commands that we be given something to eat from his table, we're all going to be amazed, but we won't be silent. We will be praising God for all of eternity for the great things that he has done. You see, our hope, our hope is not in It's not a strong desire for something to happen. It's not like, man, I really hope I win the lottery tomorrow. It is a sure hope. It's a certain hope. It's a hope that is fixed on a promise that will come to pass. And here in the resurrection of this little girl, this is all just a picture of what's coming for you and I. As certainly as this little girl came to new life, so we will come to new life again on that day. We who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ will be raised to eternal life. And now, In light of that, you know the rest of the story. That's the end. That's how it turns out. It all turns out good. And what this story does is it's the highlight in Luke where we're talking about the lordship of Jesus Christ. He calms the storm. He calms the winds with just the word. He casts out the demons with the word and sends them back to the pit. He heals the woman with just a touch of faith. And he defeats death itself with nothing but a word, a word of power. And also he calls us to new and eternal life by the power of his word. In other words, Luke is telling us this about Jesus. There is nothing too great for him. There's nothing beyond the power of Jesus, not even death. And so we should not be afraid. We should only believe and know that in believing we will be made well. Let's pray.