A New Beginning

Greg Laurie: The Bible says draw near to God and he will draw near to you. He's touchable.

Guest (Male): In the first century, just the touch of the Master's hand and so many lives were changed. Pastor Greg Laurie says it can happen in the 21st century.

Greg Laurie: Maybe I'm talking to somebody right now who would say, "I would love to have Jesus touch me, but I don't feel his touch." If you're not feeling his touch, reach out to him and touch him. He's someone you can reach out to right now.

Guest (Male): We all need a touch from the Lord, and the Lord is ready to reach out. But too often, we're touched and jostled and pummeled by the world around us, and we can't seem to climb out from under the dog pile to feel the touch of the Lord.

Today on A New Beginning, Pastor Greg Laurie helps us draw inspiration and practical instruction from a pairing of stories in the New Testament, when Jesus' touch came to just the right people at just the right time. Good encouragement is ahead.

Greg Laurie: Hey everybody, why don't you grab your Bible now? Because we're going to have a message from the Scripture. We're in a series in the Gospel of Mark that we're calling The Gospel for Busy People, and we're in Mark chapter five. Turn in your Bibles to Mark chapter five. The title of my message is Everyone Needs Jesus.

This is a story of two very different people. One was a man, the other was a woman. One was unknown, one was relatively famous. What they had in common was they both needed Jesus. Let's look now at Mark chapter five, starting in verse 21.

We read these words: Jesus got into the boat again and went to the other side of the lake when a large crowd gathered around him on the shore. Then a leader of the local synagogue whose name was Jairus arrived. When he saw Jesus, he fell at his feet, pleading fervently with him, saying, "My little daughter is dying. Please come and lay your hands on her, heal her so she can live."

Jesus went with him, and all the people followed, crowding around him. A woman in the crowd who had suffered for 12 years with constant bleeding and had suffered a great deal from many doctors over the years and spent everything she had to pay them, but had gotten no better, but in fact had gotten worse, heard about Jesus. So she came up from behind him through the crowd and touched his robe, for she thought to herself, "If I can touch his robe, I can be healed."

Immediately the bleeding stopped, and she could feel it in her body and she'd been healed of her terrible condition. Jesus realized at once that healing power had gone out from him, and he turned around to the crowd and said, "Who touched me?" And the disciples turned and said, "Lord, this crowd is all around you. How can you ask who touched me?" But he kept looking around because he wanted to see who had done it.

Then the frightened woman, trembling at the realization of what happened to her, came and fell to her knees in front of him and told him what she had done. And Jesus said, "Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace; your suffering is over." Don't you love that story? "Who touched me?" The disciples basically say, "Excuse me, Jesus, who didn't touch you?" Everybody's touching you. They're grabbing you; they're pulling on you. They want to be near you.

No, but someone touched me in a different way because power went out of him. Maybe I'm talking to somebody right now who would say, "I would love to have Jesus touch me, but I don't feel his touch." Then be like this woman. If you're not feeling his touch, reach out to him and touch him. The Bible says draw near to God and he will draw near to you. He's touchable. He's someone you can reach out to right now.

So here's this woman, she's healed, and Jesus wants to commend her. She probably thought, "Oh no, I'm scared. He's going to be mad at me." He wasn't mad. He wanted to say, "Lady, way to go. This was an act of great faith, what you did." Meanwhile, as this beautiful story is unfolding, something tragic now happens. Go back to Mark chapter five, verse 35.

While he was still speaking to her, messengers arrived from the home of Jairus, the leader of the synagogue, and they told him, "Your daughter is dead. No use in troubling the teacher now." Don't miss this next verse. Jesus overheard them and said to Jairus, "Don't be afraid; just have faith."

How devastating that must have been for Jairus to hear those words, "Your daughter is dead." I've stood in the shoes of Jairus—not losing a daughter, but losing a son. Our son Christopher went to be with the Lord 12 years ago. He died in an automobile accident. I remember distinctly the day I heard the unthinkable news that he was no longer with us. To say my life changed is an understatement.

I bring this up from time to time, and maybe someone would say, "Greg, maybe you should stop talking about it. Maybe you need to get over it." Let me just say to you, if you know someone who's lost a loved one, especially a child, never say to them you need to get over it. That's an aberration. You see, we know that we'll lose grandparents in time. We know that our parents will die in time. We know even a spouse could potentially die, but we never make plans for our children preceding us to death.

It's out of the natural order. That is not something a parent gets over. Even decades after it happens, they still remember; it's still painful. But you can get through it. That's why I bring it up. Because whenever I bring this topic up, I'm flooded with responses. People write me, they call me, and they ask me for help because when you've heard that your child has died, you almost feel as though your life is over and your world is ending, and you don't know how you're going to get through it.

What I want to say to someone right now, if you've lost a loved one and especially a child, you can get through this by hanging on to Jesus Christ. He's your only hope at a time like this. Jairus heard those dreadful words, "Your daughter is dead." But I love the response of Jesus. He said, "Don't be afraid; just have faith." You see, Jairus had to choose which voice he was going to listen to.

Are you going to listen to the voice of the man that just said your daughter is dead, or are you going to listen to the voice of Jesus who said, "Don't be afraid; just have faith"? In the same way, we choose every day what voice we're going to listen to. Are we going to listen to the voice of God as he speaks to us through Scripture, through our Christian friends, maybe even through this message? Or are we going to listen to the voice of the culture, or even the voice of the devil who would say to you, "You're worthless"?

He'll say, "You'll never amount to anything. You're pathetic. You're a failure. You shouldn't even be alive. Your life isn't even worth living." He's a liar. Don't listen to that voice. Listen to the voice of God who says, "I love you. I have a plan for you. I have a future for you. Trust me. Don't be afraid." You know, Jairus could have beat himself up over this and said, "This is my fault. I should have been more persistent."

I think when a child dies, the father may react differently than the mother. The father feels he needed to fix it. Dads fix things, right? When a child wants assurance, they go to mom for a hug, but when they need something done, or they need some money, or something repaired, "Dad, can you do this?" We're used to fixing things, and it's very frustrating when you can't fix the child who has left you.

So he probably felt horrible about this, but it's amazing to me because we don't see him saying anything like that. We see him trusting the Lord and waiting on the Lord. It's kind of an amazing thing that Jairus approached Jesus and humbled himself and begged Jesus to help him. It's hard for us to understand this. Jesus was not high on the cultural ladder. Jairus was very high on the ladder.

He's a spiritual leader of the local synagogue. He was a somebody. Jesus? Wasn't he like the son of a carpenter? And wasn't he from Nazareth—not a city with a great reputation? As Nathanael said, "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" Yet this man of prestige and power humbles himself before Jesus because he recognized Jesus was not the son of a carpenter; he recognized Jesus was the Son of God.

Jesus has the ability to heal my daughter, but now he needs something even greater than a healing. He needs a resurrection. He's waiting on the Lord to do his work. I love what Christ says, "Don't be afraid; go on believing." There in verse 36, that could be literally translated, "Keep on believing." So now they come to the home of Jairus.

What a tragic and depressing scene they come to. They have all these wailers who are moaning and crying and playing musical instruments. This doesn't make sense to us today, but back in this culture, depending on your level of income, when someone died, you would bring in literally professional wailers. I don't know where you found them—maybe you googled it and it was like Wailers 'R' Us.

But these people would come and they would play musical instruments and scream and moan. So that's the scene Christ comes to—all these people lamenting and crying and the music is playing. Jesus walks in and here's what happens. Look at Mark chapter five, verse 38. When they came to the home of the synagogue leader, Jesus saw much commotion and weeping and wailing.

He went inside and he asked, "Why all this commotion and weeping? The child isn't dead; she's only sleeping." Don't miss the next verse. And the crowd laughed at him. Wait, what? Oh, they went from mourning to mockery in a nanosecond. Unbelief laughs at God's word, but faith believes for a miracle. Clearly this environment was not conducive to what Jesus wanted to do.

So he tells all these people, "Get out. Leave the room." They're all upset, taking the musical instruments, guy blowing the flute a couple extra times. Just leave. I don't want any of you here. Peter, James, John, come on, guys. Come with me. They go in to see this amazing sight of what Jesus is about to do. Jesus says, "The child is not dead; she's only sleeping."

Death for a Christian is often compared in the Bible to sleeping. By the way, that analogy is never used of death for the non-believer, only of the believer. The Bible talks in 1 Thessalonians about those that sleep, speaking of those that are dead or are in the graves. When I was a little kid, I hated it when someone would say to me, "It's time to take a nap." Oh, I hated naps as a kid.

Now if my wife says, "Greg, why don't you go take a nap?" I'm like, "Yes, nap!" It's all how you see it, but we don't have to be afraid of sleep or a nap. When even Stephen, the first martyr of the church, was put to death by stoning—a violent way to die—the Bible says he fell asleep. So Jesus says she's only sleeping, and then he raises her again.

We read here in Mark that he goes to the little girl and he says to her, "Little lamb, arise." Immediately life comes back into her body, and we read that she's walking around. I love this detail: Jesus says, "Give her something to eat." Isn't that great? Yeah, you're raised from the dead, probably hungry. Have something to eat. Give this girl a sandwich.

Amazing story. How my heart would have rejoiced if someone would have said to me, "Your son has risen from the dead." But that didn't happen for me. I've never shared this detail publicly, but the fact is after our son died, we wanted to go see him—his body—and we were told he was unviewable. So I never got to see him in any way after he passed into eternity.

I was given a plastic bag with the things that he had with him. It had his watch, it had his wedding ring, and it had his wallet. In his wallet, there was a little card for a carousel he would take his daughter Stella on. It just was heartbreaking, and I held this watch. This is a watch I gave to him. On the back of the watch, I inscribed these words, Jeremiah 29:11.

"I know the thoughts that I think toward you," says the Lord, "thoughts of peace and not of evil to give you a future and a hope." And now my son is gone. I'm reading the Scripture on the back of his watch and I'm thinking, "Where's the future and the hope?" Well, the future and the hope ultimately is in heaven, isn't it? It's being with Jesus. And though it was devastating that day and it's still heartbreaking to this day, I have that hope still.

Jeremiah 29:11 is still one of my favorite verses because I know I will see my son again because death is not the end of the road; it's just a bend in the road that leads to heaven. Recently I was asked to go see a lady from our church who was dying of cancer. I remember this lady in particular. She was in her 60s. She would often sit in the front row, lifting her hands in praise to the Lord.

She was one of the most joyful people I've ever seen. She'd even have a little dance she'd kind of do when she was worshipping the Lord. Now she's in a bed in hospice at home, ready to pass into eternity. So I went over to her home and her family was gathered around her, and I spoke to her. She was not conscious, but maybe she heard me. I shared Scriptures with her about the hope that was before her as she entered into God's presence.

I spoke to her family about the hope that we have in Christ—that our loved ones who precede us to heaven are not just a part of our past, they're also a part of our future. We had prayer together. So look, sometimes God heals, and it's a glorious thing when he does, and I've seen people healed as we've prayed for them, and we give him the glory. Sometimes God allows the sickness to remain so he can be glorified through it.

Sometimes he does it a little more slowly than you would like him to, and sometimes he just allows our life to follow the natural cycle. The Bible says there's a time to be born and there's a time to die, and then we're all going to pass into eternity. The Bible says our life is like a vapor of smoke; it appears for one moment and vanishes away—a vapor of smoke. Life comes and goes so quickly.

The Bible says life is like a story; it's already been told. But what really matters is the afterlife—the afterlife, which goes on forever. The before-life, the life we're in now, is pretty short in comparison, isn't it? We don't know when this life will end, but what we want to make sure of is that we have a relationship with God. As glorious as it was that this woman was healed of this medical condition, she ultimately died, didn't she?

As wonderful as it was that the daughter of Jairus was brought back to life, she died, and Jairus died, and we all die. Christ died and rose again from the dead. Because he died and rose again from the dead, we don't have to be afraid to die as Christians. That doesn't mean we have a death wish; it doesn't mean we don't take care of ourselves. But what it does mean is we know that we will go to heaven one day and be with him.

I want to ask you in closing: if you were to die today, tonight, would you go to heaven? You might say, "Well, I hope so. I hope so, I've lived a good life, tried to be a good person." Well, it's not about being a good person, because the reality is you and I and all of us are sinners and we've all broken God's commandments. Heaven is not for good people; heaven is for forgiven people.

The only way you're going to get to heaven, and the only way I'm going to get to heaven, is not based on what I've done; it's based on what he did. What did he do? Jesus died on the cross in your place. As the apostle Paul said, "He loved me and gave himself for me." Jesus summed it up this way: For God so loved the world he gave his only begotten Son, and whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.

Christ died so you can live, and you can come into a relationship with him right now and know with certainty—not a hope, know—that you'll go to heaven when you die. The Bible says, "These things we write to you that believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life." You say, "Okay, well, I want that. I want Jesus in my life. What do I need to do?" Number one, you need to admit you're a sinner.

The Bible says all have sinned and fallen short of God's glory. Just own it. Admit it. Don't make excuses for it. Say, "I know I've sinned and broken God's commandments." Number two, recognize Christ died on the cross for your sin. That's why he went to the cross. It wasn't an aberration or an interruption of his beautiful ministry; it was the focus and purpose of his ministry. He came to that little manger in Bethlehem to live a perfect life and then to die a perfect death.

Recognize Christ died for you. Thirdly, you need to repent of your sins. The Bible says God has commanded people everywhere to repent. What does that mean? It means to change your direction. It's a military term; it means to do an about-face. So you turn away from your sin and turn toward God, and then you must receive Christ into your life. You must say, "Jesus, come into my heart. Forgive me of my sin. I want to be your child."

Jesus says he stands at the door and he knocks, and if we'll hear his voice and open the door, he will come in. Have you asked Jesus to come into your life yet? One last thing: do it now. Don't do it tomorrow, don't do it in a month, don't do it in 20 years. Do it now. The Bible says today is the day of salvation. I'm telling you right now, you can pray a prayer with me, and then as a result of that, know that your sin is forgiven.

Know that you'll go to heaven when you die, and start discovering God's amazing plan for you. So if you want Jesus to come into your life, if you want him to forgive you of your sin, if you want to go to heaven when you die, if you want your guilt taken away, I want you to pray with me right now. Right now, I want you to pray with me. In fact, you could pray this prayer that I'm about to pray out loud after me. Just pray these words.

Lord Jesus, I know that I am a sinner, but I know that you are the Savior who died for me and rose again from the dead. Jesus, come into my life. I choose to follow you from this moment forward as my Savior and Lord, as my God and friend. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.

Guest (Male): An important prayer from Pastor Greg Laurie with those who are asking Jesus to be their Savior today. And if you've just prayed that prayer, we want to welcome you into the family of God. And we want to help you as you begin to live this new life of faith. Let us send you Pastor Greg's New Believer's Bible. There's nothing better than God's Word to help you begin to live a life of faith.

And this edition of the Bible has so many extra helps new believers find useful. Plus, it's an easy-to-understand translation. So ask for the New Believer's Bible when you call 1-800-821-3300. That's 1-800-821-3300. Or write A New Beginning, Box 4000, Riverside, California 92514. Or go online to harvest.org and click "Know God."

Pastor Greg, we get a lot of joy out of opening the mailbag here at Harvest. And I have a letter here I wanted to read to you. It says, "I began to listen to Harvest programming early after I returned from being a prodigal. I then found your daily message and listened each day to your recorded radio show, each day growing a bit more. One of the areas that I grew in was an understanding of being generous in my heart."

"I'm proud that after a few years of only being able to make a token donation occasionally, God has allowed me to become a Harvest partner. Although I know it's the Holy Spirit that led me there, I can see you cheering me on to build that relationship." It is such an encouraging thing for us to hear not only of the spiritual transformation that somebody will go through having listened to your teaching on a regular basis, but to see that play out in real life as their heart does become more generous.

Greg Laurie: I think that's a very insightful letter because you can see that their faith is impacted every area of their life, including their giving. I think it was Martin Luther who said there are three conversions necessary: the conversion of the mind, the conversion of the heart, and the conversion of the pocketbook. Or we might use the word wallet today. By the way, there's a digital version of the wallet called the Apple Wallet, and so you can give in that way.

It's a funny thing, I was noticing what the most popular gift for wives is to give to their husband, and it was wallets—slim wallets, because so many guys carry fat wallets around, right? Well, why don't you share a little bit of that? It's usually not money that they're filled with though; it's just junk that we collect as guys, because we don't schlep purses around. Some do—they call them man-bags, but they're just purses. Most of us don't do it.

But anyway, I'm going to ask you to be generous and let that third conversion take place in your heart as it did for that very insightful writer of that last letter that Dave, you just read to us, where they understood that their faith should affect their giving. Jesus said where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. And I think you can tell a lot about a person's spirituality when you look at their generosity.

So I encourage you, be generous when you think of Harvest Ministries and invest in our mission to fulfill the Great Commission. And what is that? It's to go into all the world and preach the Gospel, making disciples of all nations, teaching them to observe all things that we've heard from the Lord. So help us do that. And thank you for your interest in this. And Dave, there's a great opportunity for people to become Harvest partners, as the person who wrote that letter mentioned. Tell them what it means to be a Harvest partner.

Guest (Male): Yeah, Harvest partners are part of our inner circle of friends who feel so strongly about the importance of evangelism and discipleship that they invest in this ministry each month. The amount is up to them. And we have some creative ways of saying thank you. So why not become a Harvest partner today? You can call 1-800-821-3300. That's 1-800-821-3300. Or write A New Beginning, Box 4000, Riverside, California 92514. Or just go online to harvest.org.

Well next time, as Pastor Greg continues our studies in the Gospel of Mark, a look at faith, how it's the key to a fulfilled, fruitful walk with the Lord. Join us here on A New Beginning with pastor and Bible teacher Greg Laurie.