Matthew chapter nine, our text is going to be verses 18 through 26. And the text contains two separate miracles of Jesus. There is the healing of Jairus' daughter and the healing of the woman with an issue of blood. So we will read both of these. Matthew chapter nine, starting at verse 18, While he spoke these things to them, behold, a ruler came and worshiped him, saying, my daughter has just died, but come and lay your hand on her and she will live. So Jesus arose and followed him, and so did his disciples. And suddenly a woman who had a flow of blood for 12 years came from behind and touched the hem of his garment. For she said to herself, if only I may touch his garment, I shall be made well. But Jesus turned around, and when he saw her, he said, be of good cheer, daughter. Your faith has made you well. And the woman was made well from that hour. And when Jesus came into the ruler's house, he saw the flute players and the noisy crowd wailing. He said to them, make room for the girl is not dead, but sleeping. And they ridiculed him. And when the crowd was put outside, He went in and took her by the hand and the girl arose and the report of this went out into all that land. I told Tony last night that preparing for this sermon made me feel a little bit like I'm a sales guy in a late night TV infomercial. This text has two sermons, two sermons, two sermons in one. Either of these accounts of Jairus, of Jesus raising Jairus' daughter or Jesus healing the hemorrhaging woman, either of them is a fine story for a sermon of its own. But we get the record of this day in three different accounts from three different gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. each record this day, and while there are minor differences in their story, the essence of the story is the same. It flows the same way. All three tell the story as Jairus coming to the Lord Jesus. bringing him to his house. On the way, a woman interrupts their journey to Jairus' home, and when Jesus finally arrives at Jairus' home, it seems like it's too late. But y'all, it just seems that way. There is no such thing as too late with God. But all three of the gospel writers, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, record it just that way, and so it's probably unwise to preach it some other way. So we're gonna dig into this text this morning in a sermon I would title, A Miracle in the Meantime. But the simple truth that we'll take away from the text is that Jesus has power and authority to do what you and I cannot do, but Jesus will always work in God's time, and he will always work for God's glory. Let's pray. Our God and Father in heaven, you are. Incomparable, you are glorious and gracious. You are worthy of our worship. Lord, may your name be hallowed on this earth. We're thankful for the blessing of freedom that we have to come and worship you this way. And we ask, Lord, if for any reason that freedom were ever taken away, we would still find ourselves worshiping you because you are worthy. As we open your word together this morning, Father, help us to see and to know and to love and to exalt your Son and our Savior, Jesus. Help us to see his power and his authority to do what is impossible for others. Lord, send the Holy Spirit that some might see Jesus in saving faith so that others of us would see him in a way that would cause us to commit to living in confidence in him. Illuminate our understanding and soften our wills, change our hearts. Lord, we embrace this morning your promise that your word would never return to you void, that it would always accomplish your divine purpose. And to that end, we ask your blessing on our study that we would open the text and see your son more clearly and that we would live for him more completely. We ask these things in the name of Jesus, amen. The text begins with a very unlikely encounter given the flow of the chapter. Up in verses 10 through 13, Jesus had that verbal conflict with the Pharisees, the religious leaders. The Pharisees are the religious leaders that are out in the villages. If you ever want to differentiate the Pharisees and the Sadducees in your mind, it helps to remember the Sadducees were kind of the priestly class. And so they were very much in control over the temple area in Jerusalem, but out in the villages where there are synagogues and places to worship, the Pharisees are the ones with influence out there. And Jesus up in verses 10 through 13 has had verbal conflict with these Pharisees. And after a short debate with them, he is confronted in verses 14 through 17 by some disciples of John the Baptist who were actually taking sides with the Pharisees. And given the lead-in to this story that way, you don't hardly expect anything good to follow Matthew telling us in verse 18 that while Jesus spoke to them, while Jesus was talking to the disciples of John, look, here comes another ruler. Now, interestingly, Matthew doesn't give us a lot of details about this man. Matthew just tells us he is a ruler. And with Matthew, he is an unnamed ruler. By Matthew's description, this could be a city official of some kind showing up to talk to Jesus. But Mark and Luke both give us this man's name. His name is Jairus. And they also let us know what his official work is. You can find these other accounts of the story if you want to read them sometime in Mark chapter 5 or in Luke chapter 8. I'll try to point out to you when there is an interesting tidbit that we want to note. But right up front in the story, Luke, for example, says, there came a man named Jairus and he was a ruler of the synagogue. So almost certainly this man is a Pharisee and he is a well regarded Pharisee who has some ability to exert control over the synagogue worship in Capernaum. Jairus is a man of power and prestige. You know, it's interesting when you get some man who's got power, some man who everyone looks up to, those kind of men don't have to go through what the common folks have to go through. He wants attention, he can demand it. If he wants some item, he can buy it. If he wants political influence, he can exert power at the right pressure point. But on this day, Jairus the Pharisee encountered a problem that he was helpless to solve. It is a problem that will make a proud man crumble. His daughter is deathly ill. Look at verse 18. When he spoke these things to them, behold, a ruler came and worshipped him, saying, My daughter has just died, but come and lay your hand on her, and she will live. Jairus has just discovered a timeless truth. Jairus has just found out that life-crushing problems are often the catalyst for life-changing faith. I know most of y'all have experienced some potentially life-crushing problems. In fact, for any of y'all who haven't, The y'all who think, well, everything's going good, nothing can stop this success train from pulling into the next station on schedule because I've got the time and I've got the energy and the money and the influence and I know the right people, I've got the right attitude, everything's coming up roses, whatever. I promise it does not matter how hooked up you are, you are going to run into a problem you can't fix on your own. the providence of God will conspire to bring a problem into your life that has the potential to make you crumble and render you helpless to do anything other than watch your life fall apart. If, when that happens, There's a lesson for you to learn here. I would encourage you to listen to Matthew because when that happens, Matthew is going to help you so that you know what to do when you don't know what to do. Step one in Jairus' journey of faith, the very first stop was this. Worship Jesus. Don't miss how Matthew says that came first. Verse 18 is very clear that this ruler came and worshiped Jesus. Jairus didn't come making demands of Jesus. He came kneeling down before him and submitting to him. You're gonna be tempted to think, well, I'll worship Jesus if... He checks off all the lines on my divine to-do list. Let me pull out my personal prayer list and run down my work orders for him, and I'll worship him if he does what I want. That's nonsense. Just worship Jesus. praise him, glorify him, believe in him, and maybe then after worshiping, you can ask what he thinks about the things on your to-do list. Jairus' worship of Jesus is an expression of faith. Now, I find it interesting that as Matthew writes this, he doesn't actually use that term for him because Matthew is going to start using this term faith in this chapter, but he's giving us an example of it first. So like for the hemorrhaging woman is going to be told down in verse 22, your faith has made you well. To skip ahead after our text down in verse 29, Jesus is going to say to a couple of blind men, according to your faith, let it be to you. So the word with Jairus, the word faith does not show up, but the reality of faith is clear. He says in verse 18, my daughter has just died, but come and lay your hand on her and she will live. That's faith. In some ways, this makes Jairus extraordinary. So many times we want to think about these things and start asking questions of the text. What makes Jairus different? What made him turn to Jesus when the rest of his Pharisaical friends rejected him? I suspect the answer to that is really simple. You ready? None of them had a daughter that was dying at home. They think they've got everything under control, right? But Jairus has just learned that control is an illusion. Control is something that none of us have. He's come to this point where he's like, I can't handle this, I'm helpless, is there anybody who can help me? And then he remembers Jesus and he comes and falls down in worship to the one with the power and authority to do what he can't do. Now let's just take a moment to address a question that comes up. If you read all three of the accounts of this story, Matthew here quotes Jairus as saying, my daughter has just died. Mark and Luke suggest that the child is not dead yet. Luke, and remember Luke is a doctor. Luke says this, that he had only one daughter, about 12 years of age, and she was dying. In fact, in Mark and Luke's account, they describe in more detail how Jairus and Jesus start working their way through a crowded street when someone from Jairus' home comes with the ultimate bad news. Your daughter has died. Don't trouble the Master. Like, the hope's gone. You can leave him alone because even he can't do anything now. But what does Jairus do? He keeps bringing Jesus to the house, because for Jairus, things have not changed. There's not a contradiction here at all. I think the likely scenario is something like this. Imagine Jairus sitting at his house, tending to his sick and dying daughter, and he understood the desperate situation that she was going to die soon. Her death was gonna happen at any moment. And what kind of strength does it take for that man to stand up from his little girl's dying bedside, probably leave his crying wife behind and go out on the streets looking for Jesus. And what kind of humility does it take for him too? Because don't doubt for a moment that Jairus considered the consequences of worshiping Jesus out there on the streets of Capernaum with the Pharisaical friends looking on, or at least the spies that have got sent out from the synagogue, which he was probably a part of. When he finally finds Jesus, he states his case with the desperation and realism that's called for. My daughter, she's dying. I have no doubt that she has already died. So in a few moments when the messengers arrive from the house confirming the news, that doesn't change Jairus' position at all. Well, she's died. Well, of course she died. She was as good as dead when I left the house. Believe me, I know I came and got this man because he can do something about it. Now it takes a while for all that to play out, but I think that's how it must have happened because by the girl is dead and mourners show up before Jesus did. So this all takes some time to play out. Verse 19 says, Jesus arose and followed him and so did his disciples. But that's not all. There's Jesus. being led through the streets of Capernaum by Jairus, the ruler of the synagogue, the disciples of Jesus, toddling along behind. And with them is this colossal crowd that kept following Jesus everywhere He went. Remember, we've already read many times that there were people from all around the region who have flocked in to see Jesus' ministry. When He heads down the street being led by a ruler of the synagogue, you got to see what's going to happen. And so there's all these people. In fact, Luke says, as he went, multitudes thronged him. So many people pressed together on the roadway that the traveling was slow. Everybody's rubbing elbows and bumping shoulders with the people next to them. But unbeknownst to them, in the crowd, secretly, quietly, there is a lone woman who thinks, this is my chance. And she finds a way to get through the horde of people and position herself directly behind Jesus. Verses 20 and 21, and suddenly, a woman who had a flow of blood for 12 years came from behind and touched the hem of his garment, for she said to herself, if only I may touch his garment, I shall be made well. So in the crowd on the way to the house was a woman who Matthew says has a flow of blood or an issue of blood. All of the Gospels use for this woman the word that we derive our English word hemorrhage from. This condition... possibly resulting from internal bleeding from a tumor or a cyst or some disease that caused her to be constantly menstruating. All the Gospels noted that she had this condition for 12 years. Dr. Luke even adds that the disease was incurable. And Mark talks about the poor woman being made more and more miserable as she sought treatment. And I assure you, she sought treatment. Some doctors surely, sincerely attempted to help, but without success. Others, clearly from Luke's account, abused her, knowing that they couldn't help. Luke writes that she had, quote, spent all her livelihood on doctors and could not be healed by any. Many of those doctors would have been like supposed faith healers today, taking advantage of her, who only succeed ever on one operation, which is removing that lump from her purse. So for 12 years, this poor woman has endured a difficult inconvenience, right? Always bleeding. She has suffered through constant pain. You know there's constant pain associated with this because the moment she's healed, she knows she's been healed. She's also experienced social ridicule. You know, Matthew is writing to a Jewish audience. For Matthew's original readers, there's some things that go without saying that we sort of have to say because it's not obvious to us. This woman would have been in the Jewish culture considered ceremonially unclean and excluded from the synagogue, from temple worship, shunned by everyone and anyone who knew her well enough to know what her condition was. Leviticus 15 describes the temporary ceremonial uncleanness of a woman during her monthly period. But for this woman, it's not temporary. It has not stopped for 12 years. Yet thankfully, you'd think most days she could keep this a secret from most people around her. And surely that is her intention as she sees her chance and sneaks into this crowd and this noisy parade headed down the road. And she's determined just to touch the hem of Jesus's garment, it says. This is another one of those statements that would be obvious to Matthew's original audience, but Numbers 15 describes how devout Jewish men should make fringes or tassels on the bottoms of their robes made from blue thread. in order to remind them of their commitment to be obedient and holy. That blue tassel at the end of the robe was a sign of how holy, how separate, how different the Israelites were supposed to be. And so for this woman in her mind, you can almost imagine her thinking, well, if I could just get a hold of that holy tassel from that holy different man, it could do for me what all of the doctors in the world have never been able to do. And you can identify with this woman. Listen, she is unclean, but it is in a way that is invisible. You get this? Everything on the outside seems to be okay, but there's something on the inside that she knows is not right, and in fact, it's just getting worse. Let me make the comparison even more bluntly. Many of y'all can quote Isaiah 64 verse four that says, all of our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. What Isaiah is literally saying there is all of our acts of righteousness are like bloody menstrual rags. There is an issue that flows from all of us that contaminates everything that we do. That's what this woman is experiencing, and that's the parallel for the miracle that Jesus works. Think of it, for this woman, everything appears to be okay on the outside, but she knows inside there's a problem. There's something desperately wrong. She longs to be healed. There's no one who can help. She is powerless to change it. And so she comes to the only one with power and authority to do what we can't do. This problem internally is constant, enduring, hopeless, until she comes face-to-face with Jesus, the Son of God, because He alone can do what we can't do. Except, she does not want to come face-to-face with Jesus, the Son of God. The last thing that she wants is to talk to Jesus. The last thing that she wants is for Jesus to look at her, to know about her, to talk to her, of all things to ask, why did you just do what you just did? But when she reaches out through the crowd and manages to touch the tassel at the bottom of his robe, Matthew describes it that Jesus stops and spins around. I love the description from Mark and Luke. Picture Jesus brushing his way down the road, pushing through the crowd behind Jairus with his disciples following him, and suddenly, with all of this press on him, Jesus stops in the middle of the road and shouts, who just touched me? The disciples react incredulously. Jesus, we are here in this crowd being tossed around like we're in a mosh pit at a heavy metal concert, and you're gonna ask who just touched me? Like, who hasn't been touching you? For this woman to touch anybody was an act of unrighteousness in the eyes of the Jews. Like, how dare she? And her hope, her hope was that she was gonna sneak in and sneak out. This is her chance. But Jesus, Mark and Luke say, asks, who touched me? Matthew says, he just cuts to the chase and says, Jesus stopped and turned around. Here's what Luke says in Luke 8, 47. Now when the woman saw that she was not hidden, she came trembling, falling down before him. And she declared to him in the presence of all the people the reason she had touched him and how she was healed immediately. She spoke up and admitted what she had done and why she had done it and how she was healed. Not only did she say it to Jesus face to face, she admitted it, Luke says, in front of the whole crowd, everybody listening. Now, could Jesus have healed her this way and just let her sneak away quietly? Yeah. but all that Jesus does is in God's time and for God's glory and you don't just get to sneak away without giving God glory. Listen, the healing touch of Jesus costs him something. You don't get anything for free, you understand this? You get what he pays for. As a result, you ought to give him glory. What happens to this woman is a physical display of a theological concept called imputation, not amputation. Amputation is where something gets cut off and removed. Imputation is where something is added to. It is placed on your account. 2 Corinthians 5, 21 says that Jesus, who knew no sin was made to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. The description there is that Jesus came and took our sin onto Himself so that through faith in Him, His righteousness is put onto us. When you receive the righteousness of Jesus, y'all, he keeps the receipts. He paid that price. When Jesus heals the sinner's spirit and brings them to life, it cost his own life to do that. When he heals this woman just by her touching the fringe or the tassel of his robe, it cost him something. It was a price he was glad to pay. Verse 22 tells us Jesus turns around and when he saw her, He said, be of good cheer, daughter, your faith has made you well. And the woman was healed from that hour. If you're prone to writing in your Bible at all, go ahead and mark those words, made you well, or made thee whole, in verse 22, because that phrase is actually the Greek word for being delivered, for being saved. This woman wasn't just healed physically, she experienced saving faith in the Lord Jesus on the road that day. And she was also healed physically, but being healed spiritually was the more important and the greater miracle. And being healed physically, it says she was made well from that very hour, from that time. Now, keep picturing this, In order to get this in your mind, I want you to step backward in the story for a moment, because you remember Jairus is the guy who started this. Jairus came kneeling down to Jesus, worshiping, and Jesus willingly follows him to his house. So I just pictured Jairus getting Jesus and leading Jesus down the road. And if you've ever been with people in a crowd, you walk, you'll turn around and look, you walk, like, he's still with me, you walk, he's still with me. Pressing and nudging through a busy street, keeps looking back, looking back. And then at some point he looks back and there is no Jesus. All there is is a crowd that is closed in because Jesus has stopped and turned around and is interacting with somebody in the crowd. I wish I knew what was going on in Jairus' mind at that specific moment. How must he have felt when this urgent trip home gets interrupted when Jesus decides to start chatting up somebody in the crowd? Jairus' problem seems to be the most urgent, right? I mean, I think we would all probably agree that a dead or dying 12-year-old is probably a higher priority in our minds. This woman could have waited. Jesus stops anyway. And in fairness, this poor woman had been plagued by her trouble as long as Jairus' daughter had been alive. Maybe one of the principles we can take from this is to just remember everybody's urgent problem is in their mind the most urgent problem. Even as this woman's faith is being rewarded, Jairus' faith is hitting its first major challenge. He is experiencing delay. That's not a challenge you've ever encountered, right? I don't guess you've ever thought that Jesus needs to fix your problem, your way, in your time. And by the way, don't imagine for a moment that this is just a coincidence. Don't think that Jesus is getting unexpectedly delayed. The closest parallel to this story of raising Jairus' daughter from the dead is when Jesus raises a man named Lazarus from the dead. Remember how that happened? Lazarus' sisters, Mary and Martha, sent the urgent message to Jesus saying, come because your friend Lazarus is deathly ill, come fast. And Jesus waited and starts heading to the house three days later. Just to arrive when it looks like it's too late. All that sounds similar, right? This is not an accident here. So maybe we can learn a lesson from Jairus' experience here. While Jairus was waiting, Jesus was working. Whatever circumstance arise with us or around us, we should always be glad to see Jesus working. Or maybe we could say it this way. When you need Jesus to work in your life, there is nothing more encouraging than seeing him work in the lives of the people around you. As one preacher said, when God is blessing your neighbor, that is no cause for discouragement, it is just an affirmation that God's in your neighborhood. And this particular neighborhood where Jairus lived is filled with this melancholy music of heartache and mourning. The closer they get, there's this noise that's coming from Jairus' house. It's at this point in the story where Mark and Luke tell us that messengers came out of the house telling Jairus, you can leave him alone because she's dead. And yet Jesus keeps going toward the home anyway. Look at verse 23. When Jesus came to the ruler's house, he saw the flute players and the noisy crowd wailing. And he said to them, make room for the girl is not dead, but sleeping. And they ridiculed him. But when the crowd was put outside, he went in and took her by the hand and the girl arose and the report of this went out into all that land. Funerals in first century Judea were different than anything you've encountered around here. First off, they were conducted almost immediately and they had to be, I mean, had to be accompanied by loud wailing and crying and mournful music. According to rabbinic writings, even the poorest people were required to hire a minimum of two flute players and one woman with a loud voice who's gonna mourn and sing really loud. How serious were those flute players and the wailing women? Not very, they were hired performers. Their singular goal was to attempt to raise the grief level of the family and the neighbors. Now since Matthew seems to shorten this account more than Mark and Luke for sure, it's interesting that he takes space to mention these flute players, the music, the crying. It must have been quite a spectacle. And it was a spectacle that Jesus had no tolerance for. None at all. His words in verse 24, make room or give place, are the exact Greek words meaning go away. These professional mourners quite literally have no business being at Jairus' house. And you can tell the tone of this is sharp because when Jesus adds that the girl is not dead but sleeping, they ridicule him. They mocked him for saying she was asleep. They knew better. You can wonder for a moment if their mocking was because they misunderstood what Jesus was saying. Jesus is not trying to assert that the child had not died, but that she was not dead in the sense that she was not hopelessly lost. Instead, she's asleep. So he says this because everyone understands sleep is a temporary state. If my girls walk into the house this afternoon and they find me taking a nap, they're not to call 911. And people who are going to wake up don't need mourners around. Matthew says in verse 25 that the crowd was put outside. That is really too polite and much too mild of a way of describing this. Other places in the Bible, those same words, put outside, gets translated, drive out, thrust away, cast out, expelled. Luke adds that Jesus put them outside. In other words, the Lord of glory sent those mourners packing with as much authority as he would in casting out a demon or sending the money changers out of the temple. The work of Jesus is not a magic show to be performed for the curious. It's actually a reasonable principle to draw this from the text sometimes, that to see Jesus do a great work in a house, there is a certain category of people that need to be put out of the house first. Scoffers, mockers, those making great hypocritical displays, Jesus forcefully sends them away. And it's at this point that Mark and Luke tell us that Jesus took only three disciples, into the home and restores the child back to life. Matthew simply ends the whole account by saying he went in and took her by the hand and the girl arose, right? Simple. Because Jesus has the power over life and death. The woman with the issue of blood, we'd say she got a new lease on life. This little girl literally got her life back. And most importantly, we now have concrete evidence that when Jesus promises everlasting life to everyone who believes in him, he alone has that power over life and death. Jesus is gonna prove this a short time later when he would die on the cross, he would be buried and sealed in a tomb, and he would raise from the dead himself to live forever as our Savior and Lord. Jesus alone has power over life and death. And furthermore, he can be trusted. You almost know for certain there were moments during this day when Jairus' confidence in Jesus was put to the test. Matthew doesn't tell us what Jesus said to Jairus, not at the beginning, not at the end. In fact, you can read the entire text from Matthew's gospel and not read one word that Jesus spoke to Jairus. But the fact that the Lord responded to his appeal by following him to the house is an implied promise. He's not just coming in order to gawk at Jairus' dead child, he's coming to act. And he did, he did because he's faithful and he can be trusted. And by acting, the word got out. Verse 26 says, this report went out into all the land, the entire region, heard about the ministry of Jesus, the glorious saving work of God the Son. It was not going to prove terribly convenient for Jesus that the word got out, but it did. So as we finish this morning, I ask you to just think about the similarities between Jairus and this woman and ask if those same similarities apply to you. Both found themselves in a hopeless situation. Both found themselves having to wait on the Lord for mercy. Both found themselves kneeling before Jesus as the only source of hope. Both believed that Jesus could heal, and both found their faith in Him was well-founded. What do you make of a savior who cares so much and can do so much? There's a clear lesson here that Jesus cares for us, but he works miracles on his timetable, giving healing and life to those who trust in him, and he deserves our worship and love because Jesus has the power and authority to do what we can't do. But he always works in God's time and he always works for God's glory. And so is the same experience true for you? Have you looked at your sin and realized you are in a hopeless situation? Have you found yourself waiting on the Lord alone for mercy? Have you come kneeling before Him as the only source of hope? Do you believe that He can do what you need to have done? Have you found that your faith in Him is well-founded? For those who are believers, our lesson from this is to have more confidence, more trust, more love for Jesus, knowing what he has done, knowing what we trust in that he will do. For unbelievers, the lesson in this is you are in a hopeless situation. Come to Jesus. Kneel to Jesus. Worship Jesus. There is nobody who can help except Him. But He has the power and authority to do what nobody else can do.