Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - How To Find Faith

Episode Date: May 25, 2026

This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on November 8, 1998. Series: Jesus – On Finding God. Scripture: Mark 5:21-43. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Welcome to Gospel and Life. How do you find your true self? In our culture today, self-definition and self-expression are prized above all, but Jesus lays out a very different way to establish our identity. Today, Tim Keller explores how the gospel addresses our most profound questions about identity and purpose. Mark Chapter 5, 21 to 43. This is a sandwich of two stories, two narratives of Jesus healing people. people. One in the middle, in the middle, the second story is in the middle of the first one. It's sandwiched between it. Mark 5, 21 to 43. 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. And then one of the synagogue rulers named Jarus 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'll be healed. Immediately her bleeding stopped and she 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 people crowding against you, his disciples answered, and yet you ask who touched me? But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. And then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet,

and trembled 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. And while Jesus was still speaking, some men came from the house of Jerus, 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. And when they'd come to the house of the synagogue ruler, Jesus saw commotion with people crying and waddling loudly. He went in and said to them, while 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 Coom, 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 tell anyone, let anyone know about this, and told them to give her something to eat. God's word. We're looking in an age of spiritual searching at what Jesus Christ says about how to find spiritual reality. And today we see what Jesus teaches about faith, because faith is the way you find spiritual reality.

It's the way you connect. And one of the things that began to open up to me, after reading the things that, you know, this over and over again, and having read it for years, I suddenly began to realize that Jesus is the consummate teacher here when it comes to faith. Faith, believing, is clearly the key. It's something he brings up in each situation. But look how carefully, look how carefully he arranges things. So each healing has only, has a particular audience. Notice how he goes out of his way to absolutely set things. up so that what happens to the woman with the flow of blood is done in the most public way. He wants everybody to see this. He wants everybody to know this. He wants everybody to remember this.

He gets her out there so everybody gets to see that one. And yet with Jerris's daughter, he's very, very particular about keeping it a very small number of people to see it. He won't let all of his disciples go. He only lets Peter, James, and John go. He will not let the the rest of the family and all of the friends and neighbors stay in, only the parents, only the parents of the child go in. Why? It's very interesting. Why?

And he says, don't tell anybody. I don't want anybody to know. This is for you. Why? It's because Jesus is giving us wonderful lessons. He's the tonsimate teacher. And he's giving us basic lessons with the healing of the woman on how to have the kind of basic faith you need just to connect with Jesus. But with the other, the little girl's healing, these are

advanced lessons to his disciples, to the ruler of a synagogue. These are advanced lessons on how to grow into mature faith. You see, he says, here's the basic lessons on how to have a basic faith that just connects you to Jesus. Here are advanced lessons on how to have mature faith that grows you into the likeness of Jesus. And that's why when we look at this, you really have a manual on faith. Now let's just look at what we're taught in three ways. First of all, the need for the lessons on faith, the basic lessons, and the advanced lessons. First of all, the need for the lessons, this is pretty brief, but you know, you miss this, unless you stand back and look. Why do we need lessons on faith? Why is that so important? Here's the comic part. This woman comes up and touches him,

and everybody's crowding around him. We're told twice. They were crowding around him. They were crowding what? Against him. And this is Mark's way of trying to say. People were pushing up against him. They were hugging him.

They were kissing him. They were grabbing him. You see, he was being thronged. And Jesus turns around at one point, and his disciples are all around him. You know, his bodyguards are all around him. You know, they're trying to push through this crowd. And Jesus said, somebody touched me. And the disciples, Mark retains the disciples' rudeness, disdain, and

clear, disdainful confusion when they say, everybody's crowding around you and so you say somebody touched you? In other words, it's like this. Jesus says, somebody touched me. And the disciples say, duh, you know, everybody's touching you. What do you mean somebody's touching you? They're hugging you, they're kissing you, they're throwing them at your feet. Somebody touched you? But here's the scary thing. These people were all around him. They were all, they were thronging him. They were literally in proximity. And only one person had the faith that actually connected. to him. You can be around Jesus all your life. You can be crowding him. You can be talking about him. You can be admiring him. You can be inspired. You can go to church. You can go to Bible studies.

It's the same thing. It is possible to be very much up against Jesus and not really touch him. It's faith. He says, here's the difference. When she comes out, he says, it was your faith. You thought it was some kind of magic power. Hey, everybody was touching me on the cloak. Everybody. Every single person. In this crowd was. touching me on the clothes. I want you to see that it really wasn't you're touching me physically. It was the faith. Now, that's pretty frightening, actually, because there's an awful lot of us that have crowded Jesus for a long time, and yet we've never touched him. Have you not seen this? A lot of us have, we felt inspired when we were part of that little church back home we always grew

up in, but when we moved away from it, God wasn't very real. Or we were kind of, we were inspired in help by the religious practices of our family or this group of friends. And then we moved away from that crowd. Jesus wasn't real. What does that mean? It means we experienced the experience of those who are experiencing Jesus, but we never experienced Jesus. We never touched him. You can throng and crowd him, but you need faith if you're going to have any connection at all to him. That's the need for the lessons. Now, secondly, let's look at the basic lessons. And there's four words I'll give you as a way of trying to keep these four lessons in your memory. Okay? Extremely helpful.

Almost for sure, the reason that this story was preserved was because Peter and people who saw it probably used it in their preaching. They didn't preach propositional sermons when they went out preaching. What does it mean to be a Christian? They gave examples like this and said, here's how you connect to Jesus. And he remembered this story. And this is the reason it's preserved. It's a whole manual of how to have basic faith and connect with Jesus.

Four things. we're taught here. Okay. Desperation, information, direction, and substitution. Desperation, information, direction, substitution. First of all, desperation. Mark is very careful to say, not only the suffering she experienced of her condition, but the suffering she experienced and through her cures. See, for example, First of all, we know something about her condition. She had a flow of blood for 12 years. It was something wrong with her reproductive system.

And as a result, she was passing blood constantly, constantly. And of course, even though we don't know exactly the reason why, there's a number of possible reasons for that, that would have been something that certainly would have been very weakening to her. But Mark goes out of his way to say, that wasn't the only thing that she was sick with. That wasn't the only thing she was sick of. She wasn't just sick of her suffering.

She was sick of all the cures of her suffering. She had been going to doctors for a long time. Now, and it said, what had happening? First of all, she had suffered in the hands of the doctors, and she lost all of her money. The cures were terrible back then. In fact, we happened to know what the cures were. You can get them in the Mishnah. There's a whole chapter in the Mishina on this.

I mean, one of them I read. It says, if a woman has this flow of blood, one of the cures was to take a goblet of wine and to fill it, fill it with a power. of pulverized rubber, alum, and garden crocuses. You pulverize it, stick it in, drink up, you just imagine. And all the other cures were just awful things. They were terrible things. And not only she had gone through that, but she had lost all of her money.

She probably was a woman of means. And so Mark makes the point that she was not just desperate because of her suffering. She had also decided the world cannot help me. I can't help myself. No human being can help me. Nothing can help me. Now, this is extremely important. Let me give you an example.

If you find yourself doing some spiritual searching, maybe you're here and you're surprised. Somebody invited you to church and you felt like coming. Maybe you've been reading the Bible. Maybe you've been doing some spiritual searching. Why? Usually it's because there's some trouble. Usually it's because there's something wrong.

The Bible says that deep inside all of us, we have an empty, bleeding center of our soul. We have a feeling of inadequacy. We have a feeling of certain emptiness. We feel a need to prove ourselves, and we're going to doctors, and what are those doctors? We look for cures. We have to do something about it. So we work in our career, or we look for love, let's say. And maybe you're searching spiritually because recently somebody you thought would love you

pulled away from you, or maybe, because recently you found that you thought your career was going to do better. Maybe you've come to New York to make it in some field and you're starting to realize you're starting to realize it's not happening. Now, it's one thing to come to Jesus and say, if I come to you, will you help me in my career? Will you help me find true love? See, it's one thing to come to Jesus because you're bleeding and suffering and you're hoping he's going to give you, he's going to give you help to get to the doctor. Or there's another thing to say, wait a minute, I am coming to Jesus Christ not as a means to get to these things,

but as an alternative to these things. I not only want to come because I'm suffering, but I'm also ready to give up all my doctors, all my old doctors, all my old cures. I'm not coming and saying, Lord, if I come to you, will you help me find true love? I'm coming to you as my true love. I'm not coming to you and saying,

Lord, can you help me feel significant? through my career. I'm coming to you to find my significance. In other words, she didn't, she was desperate. Finally, and she realized there is nothing on earth. There is no, until I see that the world cannot help me, I'm never going to find Jesus. That's the reason why she was different. Everybody wanted a miracle. Don't you think they were all coming after him? Why were they crowding him? They all wanted a miracle. They all said, I'm suffering, but she had also come to the end of her rope spiritually. She'd come to the place where she wasn't looking to use Jesus to get her salvation. She was beginning to look to Jesus as her salvation. All of our alternative salvation had failed,

and that's the first step. The first step is a negative one. Do you see that? If you're going to find faith with Jesus, the first thing is actually a negative one. You've got to start doing that. You've got to be desperate. In other words, the main first reason that people don't find Jesus is not because they've got too little faith, but because they've got too much pride. See, this is a wonderfully comforting story. This is not saying faith is something you've got to conjure up. Faith is simply admitting, I am helpless. I am weak. The main reason, if you don't feel like, hey, if today you say, I haven't connected to Jesus, the main reason you haven't connected to Jesus is not because you haven't conjured up some kind of faith. The main reason is because you've still got too much pride.

to admit, without you, I am nothing. First step. Desperation. Second step, information. Now, I'm only going to be very brief, but notice, she came to Jesus because, what does it say? In verse 27, she'd heard of him. One thing you must keep in mind, the Bible talks about faith, not as opposed to thinking, but faith is something that goes in line with and beyond thinking. I mean, if you, she came to him and it was very, very scary to do what she did, as we're going to see here in a second, but she did it because she'd heard. She'd got information about him. She'd learned something about him. We have a tendency, the common view today, is to think of faith as opposed to thinking. We think of faith as going against what we know. Absolutely not. It takes tremendous faith to

act in line with what we know because faith is not opposed to your thinking. Faith is opposed to your fears. Faith is opposed to self-protection. See, for example, let's just say you and five friends come to this gorge, this huge gorge in the middle of the jungle, and there's this terribly rickety bridge. And the first four go across it, and they're all, let's say, heavier than you. And it comes to you. You've got a lot of information. You've got a lot of information. So does that mean? It's not going to take faith to step out on that bridge? Oh, yes, it's going to take a lot of faith. But you see, it's not faith against the information. It's faith in line with the information and going beyond the information. And if you want to find faith

in Jesus Christ, you've got to learn. about him. You don't just close your eyes and say, you know, what I'm going to believe in what God's there be. Come on. You need to learn about them. You need to study. You need to find out about them. I mean, that's maybe a no-brainer, but you have to say it. And she heard. So first, there's desperation. Then there was some information. Then thirdly, this is very important. It's the direction, not the dimension of your faith that will save you. She has terrible faith. She says, I just touch his cloak. She's got a quasi-magical understanding.

She's superstitious. She has no idea who he is. The reason he has to pull her out and make her see that it was her faith that saved her, she has no idea who he is. She has no idea who he is. She needs more than just magically to be cured, but she needs actually a spiritual cure and that she needs to become one of his disciples and a person who's willing to confess him publicly.

I mean, the reason that Jesus pulls her out and does all that is because her faith is such a mess. It's such a wreck. It's incredibly, theologically, flawed. It's incredibly weak. It's incredibly superstitious, but he heals her and he doesn't say, now will you have faith? He says, I healed you because of your faith. Now, what does that mean? It is not the strength of your faith that says you, but the object of your faith. It is not the dimension of your faith that you don't have to, it's just, it's the direction. What do you have faith in? See, this is the 180 degrees

opposite to what the common view of the man or woman in the street is today. What do you hear over and over and over again? I hear it on the op-ed pages. I hear it on talk shows. I hear it in the books. I hear it everywhere. They say, it doesn't matter what you believe as long as you believe it with all your might. And Jesus Christ is saying here, it doesn't matter how heartily you believe it as long as you're believing in the right thing. It's exactly the opposite. Total opposite. And the common view is not common sense. people. And they're being chased by a bear. And they're running through, you know, the snow-covered forest. Come on. And they get to a ledge, and they realize the only way they're going to escape is

if they jump down onto the frozen pond. And the first guy jumps and he says, I'm going to die, I'm going to die, I'm going to go right through, I'm going to drown. But he hits the ground and it's six inches thick and he's saved. And the second guy says, 50-50 chance. I might drown. I this might work. And he hits the six inches of ice and he's fine and he's saved. And the third guy says, I'll probably, this will probably work. It's pretty pretty cold for a pretty long time. And he hits the six inches and he saved. Which one is more saved? Well, the one with the most faith? Absolutely not. Nothing to do with the amount of faith. The guy says, I'm going to die, I'm going to die, I'm going to die. He's saved. Why? He jumped. Why was she healed? She just came. How much faith do you have to have in the ice?

for it to save you, just enough to jump. How much faith do you have to have in Jesus? Just enough to come. Just enough to say, listen, I'll tell you how it goes. This is a comfort, and this is a challenge. Here's where the comfort is. The comfort is, don't you dare look at your faith? Don't say, oh, my goodness.

Doesn't the Bible say that you're saved by faith, not by your good deeds? You look at your faith, and you say, oh, it's just filled with doubts, it's filled with fears, it's filled with fears and doubts. It's so imperfect. But you see, when the Bible says you're saved by faith, it doesn't mean, unfortunately, this is an English translation problem, it doesn't say you're saved because of your faith.

If you start to look at your faith like that and think, well, God won't hear my prayers because I'm so filled with doubts and I'm so filled with fears, it doesn't say that. It says you're saved through faith. You see? The guys jumped, and they were saved through the fact that they were willing to jump. But it wasn't because of their faith, the faith just connected to the ice. And when one had a very tiny bit, one had a whole lot, didn't make a bit of difference. It's the object of your faith.

And see, what Jesus is saying is it doesn't matter that you believe it with all your heart. Give me a break. He says, all it matters is you come to me. Jonah is one of the most widely known stories in the Bible. But it's so much more than a simple account of a prophet who runs from God and gets swallowed by a great fish. In his book, Rediscovering Jonah, Tim Keller uncovers the deeper message of this familiar your story, revealing how Jonah's resistance to God exposes our own reluctance to trust and obey him, and how Jonah's experience ultimately points us to Jesus and his saving work on the cross.

During the month of May, we'll send you a copy of rediscovering Jonah as our thanks for your gift to help Gospel in Life share the transforming love of Christ with more people. So request your copy today at gospelandlife.com slash give. That's gospelonlife.com slash give. Now, here's Dr. Keller with the rest of today's teaching. You know, there's that hymn that the Billy Graham Crusades. They always sing. Here's a verse that I've actually never heard.

I guess I've always turned a TV off by the time they got to it. Just as I am, though tossed about with many a conflict, many a doubt, fightings and fears within without, a Lamb of God, I come. Now, you see, that's what connects you to Jesus. You say, if today, you say, I really don't know what Tim Keller is talking about, but I want to come. If you say, I've got all those Christian friends that bugged me to death. They're so this and they're so that and they're so goopy and all that, but I'm going to come.

I was turned off by the hypocrisy of the church that I was raised in, but I'm going to come. Determination, not a mount of, you see? And by the way, it's not just a comfort, it's a challenge because you cannot, you cannot do what people do all the time. and that is, you can say, I wish I had your faith. My wife believes or my mother believed or something like that, but I wish I had your faith, but I just don't have your faith. Look at this. What is Jesus saying?

How much faith did she have? How great was this? She's scared. She's superstitious. You know, she's in a quasi-superstitious state. She just came. What connects you to Jesus Christ is to get rid of your pride and to come in spite of your fears and say,

I really don't get it. I don't understand, but I know no other doctor is going to cure me. That's all it takes. But then there's a fourth. Direction, information, oh, pardon me, desperation, information, direction, substitution. There's something that happens here that we could spend a little bit of time on, and I guess I'm going to have to. Something happens here, and if you look carefully, you'll see it even surprised Jesus.

When she touched him, he felt weak. This is something that probably had never happened before in his life It's the only way to explain why it seems to kind of get him. And it also is unprecedented anywhere else. And here's the reason why. When you read books and stories of magicians and shamans and sorcerers and all that, it takes exertion on their part in order to use magic. They roll up their sleeves, especially if it's a major spell or if it's a tremendous spiritual opposition.

And they do incantations in the name of this and in the name of that. And the one thing you find whenever you see Jesus exerting divine power all through the Gospels is it's something utterly unlike anything you see in any other legends, any other myths, he never, ever exerts himself. When he's in the storm, remember, and this is like a little earlier in Mark, at the end of Mark Chapter 4, a little earlier in the narrative here, there's a nor'easter, a hurricane. You know how strong a Northeaster is? You know how strong a hurricane is? People say, you know, when a hurricane comes, maybe we should drop atomic bombs in it,

Maybe that would stop it. Atomic bombs. That would be just like dropping dandelions in a hurricane. And what does Jesus do? They're about to sink. What does Jesus do? Does he get up? Does he roll up his sleeves?

I mean, this is the reason that this is never going to turn into a screenplay. Does he say in the name? No, what does he do? He gets up and what does he say? He said, shut up. It stops. Or right here in this text, death. The power of the universe.

And what does Jesus do? Death. Does he sit down and he says, stand back? In the name of, does he know? What does he do? He sits down and he says, little girl, get up. He never breaks a sweat because the claim is that this is not a magic man. This is the creator who's come down in human form.

This is divine power. This is not derivative power. This is authority. They keep saying, who has this kind of authority, such authority that he can steal the storm? authority means from the author. The one who built these things. The one who built the body. The one who built storms.

The one who built nature. But for the first time, when she touches him, he loses power. No wonder he stops. What is this? For her to get strong, he has to get weak. And here's the reason why. She's unclean. Because of her blood flow,

she hasn't been able to go into public worship for a long time. If somebody wants to ask me about more of this in the question and answer time afterwards you can. The ceremonial laws said, if you were diseased, if you had running sores, if you'd touch somebody who's dead, or if you touch somebody who was dead, or if you had any blemish, anything wrong, including this, you couldn't go into public worship. You were ceremonially unclean. You were unfit, unacceptable for the presence of God. Now, even though sometimes when we look at these ceremonial laws, we can very often get confused about some of the particular ones, but we shouldn't be confused about the purpose of them. This was God's way of showing people that we are sinners, that we're not acceptable in the presence of God,

and no matter how hard we try, we're never going to make ourselves clean. It's impossible. And that's the reason why there's this very cryptic and strange place in the Old Testament. You can go look it up if you want to. It's in Exodus chapter 28, verse 38. And it describes the garments of the great high priest who goes before God with the sacrifices of the people. And there's this strange verse that says, and when Aaron, that was the first high priest, goes in with the gifts of the people. It says, any guilt in the offerings of the people will be upon his head so that the people may be acceptable to the Lord. A completely cryptic, utterly inexplicable point that we have no idea what it means,

certainly if you just read in the Old Testament. It says that even the very best sacrifices that people would possibly want to bring in order to go in before the Lord in his presence will be unacceptable. and therefore, the only way that they can get in is if the priest bears the guilt of their uncleanness. And probably, the reason that even Jesus had never experienced this was because God was giving him a foretaste and he was giving us a foreshadow or was going to happen on the cross. The reason that this woman became clean, it wasn't her uncleanness went into the thin air, it wasn't because her weakness went into thin air, he took her uncleanness. she got strong because he got weak.

This is the substitution on the cross. You see, it says God took him who knew no sin to become sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in him. The only way she could become clean, the only way you can become clean, the only way I can become clean is at his expense. He has to be cut off. He has to be thrown out.

He has to be killed outside the camp, outside the gate. He has to be forsaken so we can be taken. in. And therefore, the thing that connects you to Jesus Christ spiritually, the thing that'll get you past where most of us are, and that is just being kind of generally inspired by his example, you've got to look not just at Jesus in general, but at the cross in particular, and of him crying out, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me for you? She touches him, and she's not struck dead. My goodness, why isn't she? You meant God came down on Mount Sinai. He said, don't anybody touch the mountain, because I am holy, and you will die. And here's this.

this woman coming up to touch the Lord of glory, not just the mountain on which God happened to rest his feet, but the one in whom God dwells bodily and she touches him, either she has to die or he does. Either she has to break or he has to break. And that's it. Desperation, information, direction, and look at the substitution, and you will connect to him. Now then there's the advanced lessons, and I'm only going to briefly look at them, but they're very important, and they build. Here is Jerus, and here's the disciples, and they're very excited. Why? Because Jesus Christ is on his way to save this little girl. So they're kind of like in the EMS truck, you know, and the sirens are going, and they're very excited.

And Jesus Christ stops the truck and talks with this woman, and everybody's going crazy. Nobody more than Jarus, and certainly even the disciples, why in the world? is Jesus doing this? And the answer is Jesus is not only stopping here and delaying, but he's not only delaying now, but he's also delaying to set something up so that Jarus and the disciples see something they wouldn't have seen otherwise to build their faith. He's not here just to give him the basic faith that connects you to Jesus. He's here to give them the advanced faith that really makes them like Jesus. And what he's really doing is he's showing us this, three quick things. And they're advanced lessons, so why am I taking so much less time on him? Here's what's

great about this. This is a book for everybody, whether you're a seeker or whether you have been at Christianity for years and years and years and years. Those of you who have been at Christianity for years and years and years know what this is about. You don't need as much instruction. This is here for your reminding, not so much for your instruction. Number one, Jesus Christ, the first lesson is he delays, the delays show his love. He shows his priorities. He stops for a marginal, a socially marginal, unclean woman. and puts her before a male religious leader. And over and over and over and over and over again in the Bible,

whenever there's a, whenever Jesus has before him, religious people and immoral people, men, women, insiders, outsiders, moral people, immoral people. Whether it's a bunch of nice people alongside of Zakeas, who was a political outcast, or a bunch of Simon and the fallen woman in Luke 7, remember? or who's a sexual outcast, or at the woman, the Samaritan woman at the well in John Chapter 4, who's a racial outcast, Jesus always finds the connection first, first, with the outsider, the marginal person, the person without power. What does that mean? Jesus is showing them,

he's showing us. And this is an advanced lesson, because a lot of people connect with Jesus Christ and don't learn this for years. He is a God of grace. He has choose the world's standards of power and of beauty and of status and of achievement. And he says, I, my power is made perfect in the ones who admit their need. That's the reason why these people usually get to me first. It's not your achievement. All you need is need. All you need is nothing.

But most people don't have that. And that's the reason why they don't have Jesus. All you need is need. All you need is nothing. And when and only when you finally. come to understand, he's a God of grace. And usually his delays are to teach you that he's a God of grace. They would never have learned that if he had just taken this important Jaris, this synagogue guy, you know, he's, you know, and all these marginal people and Jesus goes right on through.

Why? What would that? That would have never taught us or them. He's a God of grace. And when you finally find that out, when you see his priorities, when you see who he spends time with first, you'll finally relax, and you'll finally become like him. And you'll not worry so much about being on the inside crowd and you won't care so much about being with the right people and you'll get a servant heart. Second, advanced lesson, the first advanced lesson, okay, look at the love, the love, look at his priorities. His delays always show us his priorities as a God of grace. Grace, grace, grace. We don't understand it. I don't understand it. You don't understand it. That is an advanced lesson. The second lesson is that not only does his delays show us his love and his

grace, but the delay shows us his wisdom. Look at these two people. The woman comes to Jesus and says, I need help. Immediately she gets help. Beyond what she expected. Jerus comes to Jesus Christ, and the immediate thing that happens after he comes to Jesus Christ, his little girl dies. Now, this is very, very much like what just happened a few verses earlier. The disciples are on the boat, and there's a storm coming up, and they wake Jesus up and they say, don't you care that perish. And you know what they're saying? They're saying, if you loved us, we wouldn't be going through storms. Tragedies wouldn't be happening to us. And Jesus says, peace be still. And he says, where's your faith? And here, what's going on is Jesus is saying, do you understand that my loving, caring power

in your life is compatible with tragedy and trouble? But here's why it is. When he walks in, he says, she's just sleeping. And they laugh at him. Now, she's dead. There's no doubt about it. I mean, there's no reason in the world why he would have sent everybody out and said, tell nobody about this, except this was a resurrection. But why does he say she's sleeping then? Because he says she's sleeping because I'm here. But here, what he's saying to the disciples, what he's saying to this family, what he's saying to us is this.

The only real storm that can really sink you, I'm taking. So all other storms are fairly small by comparison, and I'll be with you in them, and they'll just refine your faith. And he walks in and says, the only real death that can kill you, eternal death, forsakenness by the Father, I'm taking. And all other deaths are just sleep. If you understand what I have done for you, if you understand that, then you are not going to get so bent out of shape by the troubles that come into your life because they're not real troubles. I've taken the real troubles. Therefore, let's make, this is a second

advanced lesson, let's make a distinction between believing in him and believing in our agenda for him. A lot of people think we have faith in God, but he's let me down. You didn't have faith in Jesus. He had faith in your agenda for what you wanted him to do, and he hasn't done it. So you never had faith in Jesus. He had faith in your wisdom instead of his wisdom. But he says, trust me, look what I've taken. I've taken the real death. I've taken the real trouble. I've taken the only disease that can ever really get you down. I'm taking the only death that can ever really take you out. I've done the only storm that can ever really sink you. you see when we think about the cross then we're able to say like john newton says in that sweet

little hymn that's just dog roll but helps me so much his love in time past forbids me to think he'll leave me at last in trouble to sink lastly the first advanced lesson is grace the second advanced lesson is his wisdom he's working in this the third advanced lesson is this he doesn't just want followers He wants intimacy, he wants touch. When he sits down and he speaks to her, Mark says, he said, Talifa Kum. That's Aramaic. And because Mark is writing in Greek and he's writing for Romans, he has to translate it. Why would he put that in there?

Well, there's probably two reasons, and one of them we can get to next week. In fact, the next part of the series. The reason Mark would put this down in here is because it happened. There is no reason to suddenly stick an Aramaic. phrase, if you were making this up and you're writing for Greek-speaking Roman people, you would never stick it in the Aramaic phrase. It wouldn't occur to you. Not only that. Mark ends this incredible story with the most anticlimactic thing. He says, Jesus said, give her something to eat. She's probably hungry. Now, who in the world, thinking up a legend, would put that in there?

Who would end like that? This is Mark's way of almost pushing it up in our face and saying, I am not a playwright. I am telling you what happened. I put that here because Peter remembered it. That's not the only reason. For many years when I read Talitha Kum, and I saw the little, you know, little translation, it said, little girl, get up. Calitha means little girl. But I always thought of it the way we in English would use the word little girl. I mean, if I saw a little girl and I said, where's your mommy? I'd say, little girl. It's the sort of thing a stranger would say. That's not the way the word was used. This was a diminutive, this was an affectionate word. This is the word that her mother would have used with her, and she, he is saying to her at this moment exactly what

his, her mother would say in the morning. He sits where her mother would sit. He says what her mother would say. Basically, he's saying, honey, it's time to get up. And he gives her the hand his mother would have, her mother would have given her. And what he's saying is, your real parents here, your real family's here. Jesus Christ wants touch. Jesus Christ does not want, simply people to know about you. Him. He doesn't want people just to follow him. He doesn't even want people just to obey him.

He wants people in his family. He wants people to touch him. He speaks so tenderly here. It's incredible. What does that mean? He is saying to everybody in this room, friends, wake up. This is what I want for you.

If you finally take a look at what Jesus did here, he refused to hurry. Never try to hurry Jesus. Never try to hurry Jesus. He won't be hurried. And guess what? When you realize why he won't hurry, when you realize why he doesn't have to hurry,

he doesn't have to hurry because the real death has been dealt with. It will be dealt with on the cross. The real storms have been dealt with. When you realize what he did so that he didn't have to hurry, you'll stop hurrying yourself. And you'll start, and you will find in that empty place in your soul, you'll be filled up. and you'll begin to live like him with his priorities, and you won't be hurried either.

Friends, time to wake up. Let's pray. Thank you, Father, for granting us these truths. Help us to apply them to our lives by your spirit. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Thanks for listening to today's teaching. It's our prayer that you were encouraged by it and that it helps you apply the gospel to your life and share it with others. For more helpful resources from Tim Keller, visit Gospel. InGospoenlife.com. There, you can subscribe to the Life in the Gospel quarterly journal. When you do, you will also receive free articles, sermons, devotionals, and other great gospel-centered resources. Again, it's all at gospel and life.com. You can also stay connected with us on Facebook,

Instagram, YouTube, and X. Today's sermon was recorded in 1998. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel and Life podcast were recorded between 1989 and 2017, while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.