The Faith Of Jairus

Title: The Faith of Jairus

Text: Mark 5:21-36

In this text we read about a religious leader named Jairus. His daughter was lying on her deathbed and so Jairus goes to Jesus and tells him about his situation. Notice that as soon as Jairus spoke his faith, Jesus was attracted by that faith and went with him to heal her. As He and Jairus and the disciples were making their way through the multitude, a woman came up behind Jesus and secretly touched the hem of His garment. This was a touch of faith.

Jesus turns and asks, “Who touched me?” His disciples said to Him, “Lord, You see this huge crowd of people that is pressing against You on all sides, so how can You ask who touched You? Everyone is touching You!” But Jesus said, “This touch is different, because I felt virtue go out of Me.” Someone paraphrased it by saying, “Someone has made a demand upon My ability.”

Now put yourself in Jairus’ place. He has desperately made his way through the crowds to Jesus to beg Him to come and heal His daughter who is at death’s door. Obviously, he wants Jesus to hurry up and come as quickly as possible because there is not a moment to lose. She could die at any given moment.

Then on the way, some woman sneaks up behind Jesus and by an act of faith makes a demand upon His ability. As Jesus stops to minister to her, Jairus is left standing there to watch the scene and think within himself: “This isn’t fair. This woman has been sick for twelve years, but my daughter is dying right now. I came to Jesus first. He should come with me and heal my daughter, and then He can attend to this woman. Besides, since she is unclean, she doesn’t even have a right to be here.”

At the time the Levitical law stated that because this woman had an issue of blood, she was ceremonially unclean. By law, she could have been stoned to death just for going out in public. Here Jesus was taking up precious time with this social outcast when it seemed that He should have been dealing with the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue.

This story is evidence that Jesus is no respecter of persons. He will minister to the highest-ranking official, and He will minister to the lowest outcasts of society. He had started going along with Jairus in response to his faith, and on the way He stopped and ministered to this poor woman in response to her faith. This demonstrates the fact that the Lord is not looking for those who have wealth; position or power, all He is looking for is someone with faith. Faith always gets His full and undivided attention. There are couple things concerning the faith of Jairus that we need to remember.

HE DIDN’T PANIC

As Jesus is talking with the woman, messengers come from Jairus’ house to tell him that his daughter has died, so there is no reason to “trouble” the Master any further. Jesus hears what the messengers told Jairus about his daughter being dead. Immediately He turns to Jairus and says to him, “Be not afraid; only believe.” In other words, what Jesus was saying is: “Don’t panic!” He was telling this man to act just as he had been acting before he received this bad report.

As far as Jesus was concerned, death was no greater a challenge than sickness. He knew that if He had the power to restore health, He had the power to restore life. That is why He told Jairus not to panic.

Let me give you a dictionary definition of the word panic: “a sudden, unreasonable, overpowering fear.”

Since panic is unreasonable fear, it is groundless fear, which means there is no factual evidence to support it. Some may say, well there was factual evidence. Based on what! Jesus, the Messiah is right beside Jairus, trust me, there is no factual evidence that she is going to be dead. When Jesus is walking with you, there is no reason to fear no matter what the report may sound like. When you are hand in hand with Jesus, there is no report bad enough that should cause us to panic. We are walking with the Master of the Universe. We are walking with the One that rose up from the grave Himself, if He can raise up from the dead after being dead for three days, please, tell my why He cannot handle your problems.

If you are in panic, then you are operating in groundless fear. Fear of any kind negates faith. Faith and fear are mutually exclusive. They cannot exist at the same time in the same person. Either you have great faith or you have great fear, one or the other. Satan knows that if he can drive your faith out of you by fear, he can bring to pass in your life the very thing that you fear. But if you keep faith in your mind and heart, God will bring to pass in your life the very thing that you are believing.