Introduction:
Knowing Jesus' Perspective (John 11:1-16)
- Suffering is about seeing Jesus' Glory . (John 11:1-4)
- Delaying is an act of Love . (John 11:5-15)
- I will follow Jesus even when my faith is Weak . (John 11:16)
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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00:48-00:51
Open up your Bibles, please, to John 11.
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John 11.
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And while you're turning, you know, we've all had those moments in our lives where we have no other statement to make than, "That was random." You know what I'm talking about?
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just random moments in our lives.
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Probably number one for us, many, many years ago, Aaron and I went to see Rod Stewart in concert.
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I don't know why you're laughing.
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It was great.
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Kicks the soccer balls into the crowd.
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How many people have seen Rod Stewart in concert?
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Okay. All right. Isn't it great?
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Yeah, it is great. It is great.
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He's fantastic.
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But on the way back, brought us to the important part of the story here.
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On the way back we stopped to get gas just up here at the A+ and Cranberry on 19 here, you know.
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We had stopped to get gas and while we were pumping the gas, coming north on 19 was this pickup truck.
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And it stopped right in front of the gas station, it's right on 19.
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And this guy falls out of the back of the pickup.
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And Aaron and I are watching this, the guy's laying on the street for a few seconds.
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And then all of a sudden, he jumps up, and he runs behind Eaton Park into the night, into the forest.
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Gone!
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And Aaron and I just looked at each other, and we were like, "What was that all about?" We were like, "That was so random." "Why are you telling us this story?" Well, here's why I'm telling you this story.
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Because sometimes, if we're going to be honest, we encourage honesty here.
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Sometimes God seems random to us, doesn't He?
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I'm not saying He is random, but let's be honest.
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Doesn't it seem sometimes that God is random?
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For example, let's talk about prayer.
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Let's talk about healing.
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We had an amazing prayer service last week, and I think of prayer services we've had in the past.
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I have seen people in this church healed.
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Supernaturally, no other explanation than the Lord showed up and brought healing.
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I've seen that.
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But some people that we have prayed for in this church have not been healed.
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Why is that?
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How can we pray so fervently for this guy and he's healed, and we pay just as fervently, maybe a little more, for this gal and she is not healed.
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I mean, that seems kind of random, God, doesn't it?
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Back in 2014, we had this betta fish.
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We had this fish for years.
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I think his name was Marvin the Betta Fish.
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Was his name Marvin?
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And he was like floating and his little betta fish gills They were all just spread out, and he was like floating on his side.
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My son and I, Kate, we sat down at the table, didn't we?
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We prayed for Marvin, and what happened?
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He was healed, wasn't he?
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He was healed!
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And he lived for years after that!
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He eventually died, but he lived for years!
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And I've got to be honest, My prayer for that fish wasn't the most fervent prayer I've ever thrown up to heaven.
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But he was healed.
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And you know, I have been fervently praying for my children.
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To not see some healing.
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And I'm just like, God, if I can choose one, how about answer the prayer for my son, selfish.
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But it just seems random sometimes, doesn't it?
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And we're like, wait, wait, wait, didn't God promise to heal?
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What about that whole ask, seek, and knock thing that Jesus said?
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Everyone who asks receives, everyone who seeks finds, everyone who knocks the door will be opened.
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Remember that?
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What about this whole pray expectantly thing that the Bible keeps going over and over and reminding us?
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That's what we're going to talk about today.
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We're going to talk about the hardest problem that Christians face when we are being honest.
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This is the hardest problem for Christians.
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What do I do when God does not do what I have been taught to expect Him to do?
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Enter John 11.
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We're going to be spending a few weeks on this is arguably Jesus' greatest miracle.
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I mean, aside from His own resurrecting from the dead.
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Aside from that one, this is the greatest miracle that Jesus performed.
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And we're going to take our time and dig in.
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But this is the miracle where Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead.
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Oh, I'm sorry.
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Spoiler alert for those of you You might not be familiar with this story.
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But this passage today will forever change the way you view prayer.
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You will tune in with me and look at what the Word of God says.
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This will forever change the way you view prayer.
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You know, when I was a kid, I didn't understand much of what my parents did or said.
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Until I became a parent.
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Because as a kid, I only ever saw one perspective, right?
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The kid's perspective.
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That was the only perspective I ever saw.
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I mean, now I know both sides, kid, I was only on one side of this thing and there was a lot I didn't understand why do my parents do what they did and why did they what did they say what they said and but as a prayer as a prayer we only ever have one perspective right we're like the kid but God like the parent he has a whole different perspective that we usually aren't mindful of.
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That's why when we pray, oftentimes we say, "Why God? What are you doing?
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What's going on up there? Hello!" We only see the one side.
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But, and this is the beautiful thing here, this passage right here that we're looking at that you see God's perspective.
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And once you see God's perspective, it changes the way you pray.
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Alright?
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So on your outline, let's talk about knowing Jesus' perspective.
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Knowing Jesus' perspective, number one, jot this down, we're going to see it very clearly in the text.
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Jesus' perspective.
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You're like, "Jesus, we pray for things, but what's Your perspective?" Here's the first thing He would say.
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He does say, he did say, he would continue to say, suffering is about seeing Jesus' glory.
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Alright, let's look at verses 1 and 2 here together.
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It says, "Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha.
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It was Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair." He's like, "It was that Mary." "Whose brother Lazarus was ill." So here, John just sort of introduces the family, and he clarifies for us, thankfully, which Mary is in the story here.
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You know, when you read your Bible, there's a whole bunch of Marys, right?
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There's a whole bunch of Marys.
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I feel like a mobster when I say that, "A bunch of Marys." a bunch of Marys in Jesus.
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Even Jesus' mother, what was her name?
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Mary, right? There are a whole lot of Marys.
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It's actually a derivative of Miriam from the Old Testament, Moses' sister.
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So it was a popular name.
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It was like the "empty" word there, right?
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Very popular name.
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All the nice Jewish moms were naming their little girls Mary back around that time.
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But he says, "Let me tell you which Mary this is.
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This is the one who anointed Jesus." And that story comes in chapter 12.
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Spoiler alert there.
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But he's just clarifying for us who we're talking about.
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Verse 3, it says, "So the sisters sent to Him (Jesus) saying, 'Lord, him who you love is ill.' But when Jesus heard it, He said, His illness does not lead to death.
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It is for the glory of God.
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"So that the Son of God may be glorified through it." Now, Mary and Martha loved Jesus, but you have to notice, they didn't appeal to Jesus based on their love.
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Did you notice that?
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It wasn't like, "Jesus, we love You so much.
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Would You do us a favor?" They appealed to Jesus based on His love for Lazarus.
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"Hey, you know, the one whom you love, Lazarus, he's ill." Interestingly, the word for love there is the word "phileo," which is the friendship love, like Philadelphia, city of brotherly love.
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The point is this.
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Lazarus wasn't some Joe random in the crowd that Jesus bumped into once upon a time, like, "Oh, I think I remember that guy." Lazarus was Jesus' buddy.
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They had a friendship.
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And that's why his sisters were like, essentially this message was, "Jesus, your good friend is so sick." He was ill, and likely, Lazarus was already dead by the time Jesus got this message.
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Remember, in Jesus' day, there were no cell phones.
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or, "Let me just text our Savior a message." Or, "Is Jesus on Facebook? Let's send him a Facebook message through Messenger." They didn't have that.
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How did you get a message to somebody?
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You had to send a guy to go there.
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It would have taken a day or two.
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And I'm not going to get into all the timeline stuff.
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I'm just saying there's a very high percentage chance that Lazarus was already dead by the time Jesus got this message.
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And if not, you're going to see, about to die very soon.
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But notice the message they gave Jesus.
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There were no instructions.
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There were no demands.
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But the fact that they sent the message means that they wanted Jesus to know.
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And based on verses 21 and 32 that we'll look at down the road, it's obvious they were expecting Jesus to show up.
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Okay? We can safely say that.
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Sometimes people want to believe that sickness is never the will of God.
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And when you look at this passage, we see that that's just not true.
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Because for Lazarus, his sickness wasn't the result of sin.
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Lazarus' sickness wasn't a result of a lack of faith.
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Look at verse 4 again. Why was he sick?
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Jesus said, "It is for the glory of God." Jesus very clearly said, "The purpose." Please hear this. So many people miss this.
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Jesus said the purpose of Lazarus being sick was the glory of God.
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And you're like, wait a second, Jeff, hold on a second.
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You're telling me the glory of God.
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You're telling me that's the goal of sickness, right?
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You're telling me here this morning, the goal of sickness is the glory of God.
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That's the goal of everything.
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The glory of God is the goal of everything.
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For example, the money that you spend, what's the purpose?
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The glory of God.
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Your marriage, what's the purpose of your marriage, married people?
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It's about the glory of God.
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What about how you parent?
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Why do you parent the way you parent?
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For the glory of God, right?
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What's the purpose of the church?
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The glory of God.
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Do you see a theme?
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That's the goal of everything.
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The greatest thing that we can do on this earth without exception is to glorify God.
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The greatest thing we will experience on this earth without exception is to see God's glory; to see His worthiness; to see His power; to see His beauty.
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It's the goal of God, It's the greatest blessing that we can experience.
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Like, "Okay, Jeff, I'm sold on the whole 'glory of God's important,' but in trials, in sickness and in death, you're telling me that these things are to be used for the glory of God?" And I would just ask you, what was the greatest way God glorified His name while He was on this earth.
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What was the greatest way?
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Shout it out if you think you know.
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His death and resurrection, right?
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It was through suffering that God manifested His glory in the greatest possible way.
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And I want you to think about the death of Jesus Christ and His resurrection.
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That event demonstrated to us everything about God.
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It showed us His power.
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It showed us His sovereignty.
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It showed us His grace.
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And it showed us His love.
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And I can go on and on and on.
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But that event told us everything we need to know about the character of our God.
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Like, well, what did it do for us?
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It's given us everything.
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in the life.
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Fellowship in the church.
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The promise of heaven.
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The power of the Holy Spirit.
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Adoption as children of God.
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Being co-heirs of all things.
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And I could go on.
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So when we say suffering is about seeing Jesus' glory, I would even expand on that a bit to say this, glory in suffering - to manifest His presence on the earth.
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So sickness and death - you can't look at sickness as some roadblock to seeing God's glory.
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According to Jesus, it's a gateway.
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And this little section alone, I could stop right here.
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I'm not going to. Don't get excited.
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I've got a whole extra hour I'm working with this week.
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But this right here should change how we pray for the sick.
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How do we typically pray for sick people?
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"Please heal. Please heal. Please heal.
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Please heal Grandma. Please heal Becky.
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Please heal Karen. Please heal Sam.
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Please heal. Please heal. Please heal. Please heal." And look, there's nothing wrong with that.
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We should pray that.
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Absolutely.
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But I've got to tell you, that's kind of the elementary school way of praying for the sick.
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Yes, pray that, but pray more.
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Here's how I pray for the sick.
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And I get the prayer requests every week.
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And I'm telling you, when you submit, "Hey, so-and-so is sick," I'm going to tell you exactly how I pray for that person.
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I say, "Lord, please heal this person in a way that brings maximum glory to You." That's how I pray.
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God, if You're using this person to draw people to You, whether it's some doctor or nurse in the hospital, or some visiting family from out of town coming, or some neighbor that's watching the Lord at work in this situation, God, use that to bring people to You.
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So yes, heal.
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But I've got to tell you, when we're just stuck on Please heal, please heal, please heal.
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We're so focused on us.
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And who should we be focused on?
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We should be focused on God!
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So instead of God, it's about us and our healing and making us comfortable and feel good, we need to look at this sickness as an opportunity to say, "God, look, right here, you have the opportunity to showcase your glory." And that's what we're praying for, God.
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Show up in a way that people have no other choice than to say, "That was God. That was God." There's no explanation other than God Almighty showed up here.
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I want to know that God.
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That is praying for God's glory and sickness.
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And that is so much greater than "please heal Becky." Yes, God, heal Becky.
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But do it in a way that glorifies Your name.
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Suffering is about seeing Jesus' glory.
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Number two, Just in case number one wasn't a hard enough pill to swallow.
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But you see in the text, don't you?
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Look at number two.
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Delaying is an act of love.
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Delaying is an act of love.
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Let's look at verses 5 and 6.
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It says, "Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus." So, when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.
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And I'm sure that was a relief for the disciples, right?
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You know, it's a nice change of pace being somewhere where you don't have mobs constantly trying to kill Jesus.
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And then after this, He, Jesus, said to the disciples, "Let us go to Judea again." "Excuse me? What?" Verse 8, "The disciples said to Him, 'Rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone you, and are you going there again?'" What? Hang on a second, Jesus.
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We just got out of there.
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Because you had people literally - we talked about this - stones in the hand, I'm going to pelt you with them until you're dead.
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We literally just left that scene.
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And now you want to go back to those people?
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They were baffled as they often were.
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as we often are, because God's timing never seems to match our expectations.
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But this shows us that Jesus didn't leave Judea out of fear.
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He wasn't afraid.
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Or He never would have gone back.
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Look at His response.
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Verses 9 and 10.
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"Jesus answered her, 'They're not twelve hours in the day.
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If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble because he sees the light of this world.
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But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles because the light is not in him.
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Jesus said, "Aren't there 12 hours in a day?" And you're like, "Hang on a second, there's a lot more than 12 hours in a day." That's not what He's talking about.
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He's talking about the 12 hours being the time allotted for activity.
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You roughly have, every day, about 12 hours of daylight to work.
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And the question is, that Jesus is driving home here, can you extend that?
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Can you extend daylight time?
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Like if you're out working in your yard, you'll be like, "Oh, you know, I need another hour.
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I'm just going to go turn the dial and keep the sun up for another hour." Can you do that?
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Or like me, you have days that you're like, "Bedtime can't come soon enough.
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We're going to knock a couple hours off of the sunlight.
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I'm going to turn the dial, and we're going to turn the lights off, and everybody's going to bed two hours early, because quite frankly, I'm done dealing with all y'all.
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Can you do that?
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As much as you'd like to, can you do that?
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No.
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That's what Jesus is saying here on God's agenda.
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Time can't be shortened by your enemies, and time can't be lengthened by taking precautions.
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Jesus was saying, "Look guys, I'm on a 12-hour shift, and nothing is going to change that.
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No one's going to make me leave early.
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No one's going to make me stay longer." Look at verse 11.
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It says, "After saying these things, He said to them, 'Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awaken him.' The disciples said to Him, 'Lord, if he has fallen asleep, He will recover.
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Now Jesus had spoken of His death, but they thought that He meant taking rest and sleep.
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Let's stop there for a second.
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Jesus said, "Lazarus is asleep.
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I'm going to wake him up." And it's just kind of funny to me.
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The disciples were like, "You understand, Lord, that being asleep is not really a very serious health condition, right?
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"How about we just mail him an alarm clock?" And Jesus told them plainly, verse 14, "Then Jesus told them plainly, 'Lazarus has died.
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And for your sake, I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe.
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Let us go to him.'" Okay, so Jesus spells it out.
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Lazarus has died.
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And right now you're asking the same question that I asked.
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Wait, wait, wait.
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Verse 4, Jesus said this illness wasn't going to lead to death, and now Jesus said, "Lazarus has died." Now, it's the same message.
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Jesus was saying this isn't going to lead to death ultimately.
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That's why He called it sleep.
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Jesus was saying, "I'm going to go wake him up from the dead." And he says, "Oh, and by the way, I'm glad I wasn't there for your sake, so that you may believe." So Jesus said this whole event that was taking place, the purpose was to strengthen Mary and Martha's faith, to strengthen the disciples' faith, and to strengthen our faith.
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But I want you to look back at verses 5 and 6 with me, because these verses, they just don't go together.
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Look at verses 5 and 6.
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It says, "Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus." Okay, you got that part?
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Interestingly, the word "love" here is agape.
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That's the self-sacrificing love, the "you before me" kind of love.
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"Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.
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So, when he heard that Lazarus was ill, I would expect the next statement to be, "Jesus tied on his running shoes, and he got there right quick." But that's not what it says.
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It says when he heard Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.
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By the way, verse 6 where it says "so," can also be translated "therefore." So try to wrap your brain around this with me if you can.
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Jesus, your good buddy's sick.
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And the Bible says Jesus was like, "Well, because I'm sick so much, I'm going to wait a couple of days." That's just not how it works, Jesus!
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I mean, when we hear somebody's sick, When we think emergency, what do we typically think of, right?
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Critical illnesses. There's lights. There's sirens.
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It's rushing around. It's everybody in emergency mode.
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Hurry up! We've got to get this person taken care of.
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And Jesus' response is, "We're just going to hang out here for a couple of days." That's not how we do it!
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That's how Jesus did it.
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You know, their message to Jesus?
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I was thinking about this a lot this week.
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They sent this message to Jesus, and you know, that message to Jesus was almost like praying.
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Right?
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Because they sent the message, and they're kind of waiting to hear back.
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So wasn't that message kind of like a prayer?
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Sure it was.
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And they didn't hear back right away.
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And I have to wonder, did they question Jesus' knowledge?
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I thought he knew all things.
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He had to know how sick our brother is.
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Did they question Jesus' power?
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I thought he could do something about this.
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Did they question Jesus' love?
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Well Mary and Martha, they didn't know that Jesus was delaying.
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They didn't know that.
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And I wonder if they ask the same questions that we often ask while we wait.
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Why isn't He here?
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Does Jesus have something more important to do?
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Doesn't He love us?
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I mean, the Bible's clear.
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Yes, He loved them.
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But why wasn't He there?
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Did you ever cry out to God to seemingly no response?
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Anybody?
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You may even cry out to God desperately, and it just seems to you like the answer was silence.
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Has that ever happened to anybody?
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That you're like, "God, I need Your help so bad!" And there's no answer.
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And we're left to feel like prayer isn't working.
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Prayer isn't working.
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I'm going to tell you, we've had some, for the last three years in our family, we've had some physiological issues with our son that has resulted in adrenaline surges, which has resulted in violence.
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It's horrific.
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And the one day, this was, I want to say, A couple months ago, this particular episode, I was here at work, and I get a call, "You've got to get home now." And I remember jumping in the car and racing home, praying as I went.
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But this wasn't a very warm and fuzzy prayer that I was offering to God.
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It just wasn't like, "Oh dear Lord, bestow us upon us Thy bountiful blessing." It wasn't that kind of prayer.
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You know what I prayed?
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I said, "God, You see what's happening! I know You see this!
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How can You see what's happening and not do something about it?
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How could you do that?
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And suddenly, I find myself right here with Mary and Martha.
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Our brother's on his deathbed!
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And where are you?
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Jesus is like, "I'm just going to hang out here for a couple days." Because I love them.
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Because I know that this is going to ultimately strengthen them.
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Because so often we think that God's delay means God's denial.
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But according to Jesus, delaying is a sign of love.
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Because it's to make us stronger in our faith.
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This is a hard sell, talking about delaying.
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It's a hard sell, I know that.
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Because we live in a day of instant.
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We live in a day where we stand in front of the microwave and say, "What's taking this stupid thing so long?" We live in a day, people send me YouTube videos, like, "Hey, you gotta watch this song, "you gotta watch this testimony, "you gotta check this thing out, "you gotta watch this guy falling down the stairs," or whatever, and I'll click on it, and it'll say, "Video will play after this ad, five seconds." I'm like, "Not me." Guess I'm never going to know what happened to that guy.
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Because we don't wait for nothing.
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But suffering doesn't negate God's love and delaying doesn't negate God's love because according to Jesus' perspective that the Lord has given us in His Word, suffering is for God's glory and the delay is an act of love to strengthen our faith while we wait on Him.
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How can that be?
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Because our greatest need - here it is - our greatest need is not healing.
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No matter how much you think that in the moment, your greatest need is not healing.
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Your greatest need always, every time, is to know Jesus Christ and all His glory.
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That's your need.
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That's why this whole series that we're in is called "Knowing Jesus." That is what we are going after because there is nothing more important.
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So if our greatest need is knowing Jesus and seeing Him in His glory, then the greatest act of love that anybody could ever bestow on another is helping people see the glory of Jesus Christ.
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And sometimes that means Jesus will delay in His work in order to make that happen.
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That's what your Bible says.
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Right now somebody's sitting here or somebody's watching the stream here going, "That's awfully hard to believe." It is. It is hard to believe, especially when you're in the middle of it.
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But right now, we're going to close here.
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Right now, if this is you, that you're like, "Jeff, okay, I see what the Bible says.
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I believe the Bible, but that's not really gelling with my experience at the moment, and I'm having a hard time subscribing to this." Well, if that's you, you're about to get the best advice from the most unlikely source.
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You ready? I love this.
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And this should be highlighted in your Bible.
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Look at the last verse for today.
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Verse 16, "So Thomas, called the twin, said to his fellow disciples, 'Let us also go, that we may die with him.'" So jot this down, last thing in your outline.
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If you're struggling right now with all of this stuff that the Bible so clearly teaches and that I'm trying my best to communicate to you, He wrote this down.
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"I follow Jesus even when my faith is weak." "I follow Jesus even when my faith is weak." You know, Thomas.
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Oh, Thomas.
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Thomas, you twin you.
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I did a lot of reading this week about Thomas.
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Some people called Thomas the courageous pessimist.
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And some people described Thomas as having loyal unbelief.
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Some people, frankly, would just call Thomas the Debbie Downer.
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Like Jesus is like, "We're going to Judea!" And Thomas is like, "Wah, wah. We're going to die with Jesus." You know what I call Thomas?
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Tremendous example.
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Let me tell you why.
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for Thomas, this is when hopelessness is admirable.
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Like, whoa, okay, you lost me here.
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How is Thomas such a great example?
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I'm gonna tell you why.
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Because so often we end up like Thomas.
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We are completely hopeless.
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And we hear the clear words of Jesus and we disregard them.
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And we say, "I don't believe them right now.
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"I don't see it." Jesus, quite frankly, I don't like what you're doing.
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But Thomas is the example of where we need to land when our faith is struggling.
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I'm not optimistic at the moment.
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But I'm going with Jesus even if it kills me.
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That's where Thomas was.
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I love the fact that he roped in the other disciples.
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It wasn't just like, "This is my thing." Do you notice he said to his disciples, "Let us go." He's like, "Hey guys, we might not be on board with Jesus right now, but that is not going to stop us from following Him." And you know what?
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For a lot of people, it does stop them.
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Because so many people at this point just bail.
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"I'm done going to church.
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I'm done going to small group.
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I'm done reading my Bible.
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I'm done praying. I'm done hoping. I'm done caring.
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I just want to close by asking you, can you still follow Jesus even if you aren't hopeful at the moment?
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Can you still follow Jesus even if you aren't fully on board with His plan?
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Are you still willing to follow Jesus You don't see how He's going to use this thing for His glory.
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You can't understand why in the world He is delaying.
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Can you still follow Jesus?
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I don't get it.
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I don't like it.
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But I'm going to follow Him.
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No matter how discouraged I feel right now.
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I think this would be a great time to pray that for us.
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Bow with me please as the worship team comes forward.
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Father in Heaven, Your Word, Father, has some things that are hard for our fallen, human, finite minds to wrap.
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We just can't fathom some of these things, God.
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And I'm not even talking about creation or the Trinity or anything like that.
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But sometimes we get to a passage like this, It's hard to think that sickness is for Your glory or You delay because You love us.
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That just doesn't feel right sometimes.
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God, I pray for my brothers and sisters here, and I pray for myself.
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Father, we would follow Thomas' example When things aren't looking great, we're still willing to follow Jesus Christ.
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Because I know right now, that if we could bring Thomas to the stage, tell him to give testimony, he would tell us that it was well worth following Jesus Christ, even when it didn't make sense.
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that He got to see a resurrected Savior.
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Father, I ask that You strengthen our faith.
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But I ask, Father, that You would give us a determination to follow You even when our faith is weak.
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We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.
Small Group Discussion
Read John 11:1-16
What was your big “take-away” from this passage / message?
Explain how illness can be for the glory of God (John 11:4). What does that mean? How does that look?
Read John 11:5-6 again. Why was “staying two days longer” actually an expression of Jesus' love?
Though Thomas seemed to display some unbelief (John 11:16), explain what was commendable about his statement / attitude. What does this teach you, when your faith isn't where it needs to be?
Breakout
Pray for one another.