How Love Looks Series

How Love Looks (Part 32)

Text: John 11:1-16

Well it’s good to see you all this morning. Last Sunday, we had originally intended to go out to Arkansas to celebrate my dad’s birthday. And we did get to spend time with him on his birthday, but not at his house… in the hospital. I think most of you know my dad. He’s been here three or four times… maybe five times – I can’t remember. He’s not doing so great. He went to the emergency room on Tuesday with pneumonia. And while he was in the hospital, the pneumonia went sceptic. The toxins from that have severely damaged his liver and kidneys, and brought him to the point of renal failure, messed his liver up, and now he’s got an irregular heartbeat. So the doctors are trying to deal with the pneumonia, they’re trying to deal with the toxins from the sepsis, they’re trying to deal with kidney failure, his blood pressure, and irregular heartbeat… it’s horrible… So if I seem a little out of it today, please forgive me.

But I will say this… it’s good to stand up here, and look out and see God’s people…

What we’re going to do this morning; is go back to the Gospel of John. We had gone through John’s Gospel up through chapter 10, and just to set up a little context, the last thing that took place in chapter 10 was that Jesus claimed to one with the Father, and the Jews picked up rocks and wanted to kill Him. There’s an old saying that goes, “In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.” In other words, when the world around you is in darkness, it can be dangerous to start shining a light. But that’s what Jesus does… and of course they tried to kill Him, but He managed to escape… But that’s the background to chapter 11, and it’s going to play a role in some of what we see in our text.

So let’s go ahead and open our Bible’s to John 11:1-16 (READ).

A few years back, MJ, the girls, and I got to go to Chicago; and the number one thing that I wanted to see in Chicago was The Field Museum. I mean, that is a place where… if you’re into history, you have to go and see it. But the problem was, we had never been to Chicago… and we’re small town folks driving in a big city. FIVE LANES of bumper to bumper traffic. And MJ was trying to read the map, and we were trying to see the street signs, and we couldn’t change lanes when we needed to, and it was a nightmare. So really we were just stuck in the flow of traffic, and you get this sinking feeling that you’re going to end up totally lost, and I was starting to get a little stressed… but then all of a sudden, we looked ahead and there it was. The Field Museum. I whipped over, and found a parking spot at Soldier Field, and we spent the day looking at T-Rex skeletons, ancient Egyptian artifacts, and all kinds of other cool things. And the reason I bring that up, is because sometimes life can be like that. We don’t always clearly see what’s ahead. We don’t always know exactly what the Lord is bringing our way. But somehow; by God’s grace, He gets us to where we need to be. Somehow, God was directing our steps, and we didn’t even know it. And it’s because often times, God is working in a way completely different than what we would think or even imagine.

Here in our text we’ve got Mary and Martha, and their brother is really sick… he’s dying. They send a message out to Jesus and ask Him to come. But Jesus delays His coming.

Lesson Number One: GOD IS NOT AT OUR BECK AND CALL!

He is the Sovereign Lord of ALL CREATION! He doesn’t jump when we say jump.

And we need to understand this… Jesus isn’t delaying because He thinks Lazarus might get better. Some people have said that… they say that verse 4 shows us that Jesus thinks Lazarus might get better. No. That’s not it at all. Jesus knows full well that Lazarus is going to die. But He also knows that death is not going to be the final result of this situation. Jesus already knows that He is going to raise him up from death. The whole purpose of this is for the glory of God. And if you look at verses 5 & 6 it says, “Jesus loved Martha and Mary and Lazarus… so He stayed two more days.” Now that will mess with you if you’re theology is wrong.