I'm Glad I'm Not There

It's Labor Day in NSW tomorrow. That gives some people time to take their families on a long drive out of the city. It's perfect timing because it's also school holidays here in NSW until 07 Oct. We've done a few long drives during school holidays when our children were little. I remember driving them to Gold Coast, Queensland, to visit the beautiful theme parks. At that time, Sydney to Gold Coast could take a 13 to 14-hour drive with regular breaks every 2 hours. You must take a break every 2 hours because driver's fatigue is one of the highest causes of road accidents. During my time, they have not invented DVD players in cars or any portable gadgets that parents bring with them to keep their children entertained on a long trip. So, you can imagine how bored my 3 children. They constantly ask, "are we there yet" and I would say even without thinking and almost instantly, "No, we're not there yet." To me, it's a very easy question; you almost know the answer right away. These past few days, I thought to myself, I wish all questions were as easy as "are we there yet," but they are not.

We have questions that we don't quite have a comprehensive answer. Someone asked, 'why do bad things happen to good people?" Where was God when such bad things were committed against a good person? Isn't God's job to protect and stop any intruder in our happy, cozy life? Was God absent that He could not do anything to stop the 19 hijackers of 4 American Airlines flights on 9/11/01? People asked, "why did God allow the evil of terrorism to win and kill innocent lives?" DID GOD MISS THE MEMO? Did God not know that a tsunami was coming on Dec 26, 2004, when the tsunami hit the shores of several countries in Southeast Asia and killed at least 225,000 people across those countries? What was God doing? With the number of casualties that day, it seemed God was not there. If God is love, why would God not be there to help people He said He loved? Are these questions not as simple as "are we there yet"? Today our text will highlight two things:

1. We don’t have all the answers to life’s hard questions, but God has. His ways are higher. His thoughts are greater. He fights our battles even those ones that we don’t know about.

2. God has our best interest at heart in all He does and allows to happen in our lives. And sometimes, perhaps, Jesus could be saying what he said once to his disciples, "I'm glad, I'm not there that you may believe." HE WANTS US TO BELIEVE IN HIM.

Let’s open our Bibles in John 11:1-15; 21, 32, 38-44. We will focus on v14-15.

The Death of Lazarus

11 Now, a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2 (This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair.) 3 So the sisters sent word to Jesus, “Lord, the one you love is sick.”

4 When he heard this, Jesus said, “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.” 5 Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. 6 So when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days, 7 and then he said to his disciples, “Let us go back to Judea.”

8 “But Rabbi,” they said, “a short while ago the Jews there tried to stone you, and yet you are going back?”9 Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Anyone who walks in the daytime will not stumble, for they see by this world’s light. 10 It is when a person walks at night that they stumble, for they have no light.”

11 After he had said this, he went on to tell them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up.”

12 His disciples replied, “Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better.” 13 Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep.

14 So then he told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead, 15 and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.”

21 “Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22 But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.”

32 When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”