April 30, 2017
“When disaster strikes”
John chapter 11
I want to talk to you today about our lives and how we deal with it when disaster comes into our lives.
Whether it is a natural disaster like a tornado
Or health disasters like cancer,
Whether it is relationship disasters like a broken marriage
Whatever the disaster is...
How we respond and what do we do to make it through the disaster
Shows who we are
And where we place our faith and hope
2 Corinthians tells us that God is the God of all comfort.
2 Corinthians 1:3-7
3 All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort. 4 He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us. 5 For the more we suffer for Christ, the more God will shower us with his comfort through Christ. 6 Even when we are weighed down with troubles, it is for your comfort and salvation! For when we ourselves are comforted, we will certainly comfort you. Then you can patiently endure the same things we suffer. 7 We are confident that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in the comfort God gives us.
In common terms Paul says that God has the power and the willingness/desire to see us through all the disasters that life may bring us.
There is a old saying
And I believe it to be a good saying
When the going gets tough, the tough get God.
Listen
I don’t mean that we only need God just in the difficult times
In the hard times
In and after the storms of life
We need him all the time
And we should strive to walk with him all the time
Trust him all the time
Rely on him all the time.
What I am saying is that when a disaster comes we better have a shelter that is storm worthy to protect us.
That shelter is our Lord God almightily
When we have a relationship with God
Through the blood sacrifice of Jesus
That relationship will shield
Not necessarily from the storms
But will give us the strength to endure the storms
When the going gets tough, the tough get God.
This morning we will look at a story where two sisters who facing a horrible disaster in their lives Just as many of us
I want us to look at the story of Martha and Mary
And
Their brother Lazarus
And
In this story we can find
Five things that you and I need to remember in a time of crisis.
Five things that can help get us through the tough times
Please open your bibles to John 11
Then we will break it down a bit
John 11 tells the story of Jesus friend Lazarus I will paraphrase it today as the story is quite long
I do encourage each of you to read this accent for yourselves
Jesus was very close friends with Lazarus, Mary and Martha.
Lazarus gets sick.
His sisters send word to Jesus
But
Jesus does not immediately go to Lazarus.
He says put for a few days
And then
By the time Jesus does arrive in Bethany where Lazarus, Mary, and Martha are,
Lazarus has been dead and in the tomb four days.
Martha and Mary are distraught and grieving, asking Jesus “Why didn’t you come?
If you had just been here, our brother would be alive.
John 11:21
21 Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if only you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
Jesus assures them that this is not the end.
John 11:23-26
Jesus told her, “Your brother will rise again.”
24 “Yes,” Martha said, “he will rise when everyone else rises, at the last day.”
25 Jesus told her, “I am the resurrection and the life.[a] Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying. 26 Everyone who lives in me and believes in me will never ever die. Do you believe this, Martha?”
He goes to the tomb, prays to God, and Lazarus arises from the tomb.
John 11:39-44
39 “Roll the stone aside,” Jesus told them.
But Martha, the dead man’s sister, protested, “Lord, he has been dead for four days. The smell will be terrible.”
40 Jesus responded, “Didn’t I tell you that you would see God’s glory if you believe?” 41 So they rolled the stone aside. Then Jesus looked up to heaven and said, “Father, thank you for hearing me. 42 You always hear me, but I said it out loud for the sake of all these people standing here, so that they will believe you sent me.” 43 Then Jesus shouted, “Lazarus, come out!” 44 And the dead man came out, his hands and feet bound in graveclothes, his face wrapped in a headcloth. Jesus told them, “Unwrap him and let him go!”
1. Prayer must be a priority.
John 11:3
3 So the two sisters sent a message to Jesus telling him, “Lord, your dear friend is very sick.”
The first thing the sisters did was to send word to Jesus.
When the storms of life come
The one you love is sick.
When a crisis hits our lives,
Death
Accidents
A bad diagnosis
A relationship breakdown
Whatever it is...
The first thing we need to do is to send word to Jesus.
When a crisis brings us to our knees
And life has a way of knocking our legs out from under us
Right
When it does
We are in perfect position to pray.
Prayer changes things.
When we communicate with the creator of the universe
Things happen.
We have the ability to call on the greatest power in the world
He gives us this right
But
Too many times
We lack the faith that prayer will make a difference.
How do I know that?
Because often we do not pray until we have tried everything else.
Instead of prayer being a last resort
it should be our first option.
Now the sisters could send word to Jesus because they knew Jesus.
Had they not known Jesus
They would have been in an awful position with nowhere to turn.
If you are without Jesus as your Lord and Savior, if you have not been immersed into him and become a child of God, then it is plain and simple- you do not know Jesus.
When disaster hits you will be without his help.
You will literally be in a world of hurt.
You can change that by taking Jesus as your accepting him as your savior
2. Emotion is natural.
John 11:35-36
35 Then Jesus wept. 36 The people who were standing nearby said, “See how much he loved him!”
One of the worst temptations during a crisis is to try to appear strong.
I will be a rock during this storm, you might think.
But let me share a simple truth with you.
When we are weak, he is strong.
We live in a culture that says crying is weak and for women.
Nothing could be farther from the truth.
Jesus wept.
Why did Jesus weep?
Mourning over Lazarus?
No that doesn’t make sense.
He knew God was going to raise him from the dead.
One reason he wept was because he saw the pain in Mary and Martha
People he loved hurt
So his heart hurt with them.
God has made us emotional people and when a crisis hits we need to let it out.
It’s ok to be emotional.
It’s ok to cry.
It is not healthy to bottle it up and pretend it doesn’t exist.
John 11:21
21 Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if only you had been here, my brother would not have died.
John 11:32
32 When Mary arrived and saw Jesus, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if only you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
It is ok to question God.
It is ok to say “God I do not understand why this is happening to me.
I don’t understand what you are trying to do in my life.”
If you are going through a crisis realize that prayer must be a priority
And
That it is ok to allow your emotions to show
Third--Perseverance pays off.
Let me ask you a question
Do you think Jesus stayed where he was two more days because he didn’t care about Lazarus?
God’s word says he loved him
No way.
He stayed where he was because he knew that God was in control of the situation
And
He knew at the right time God would take care of the crisis with Lazarus.
When a crisis invades our lives we do not want to wait it out.
We want it to end as soon as possible.
As Christians, when a crisis comes, we often look for the quick way out
The easy way out
We want out of the trial or crisis just as soon as possible
And with the least amount of pain.
Paul tells us in Romans 5:3-5
“We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. 4 And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. 5 And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.”
Sometimes the only way out of a storm is to ride it out.
Hang on
Hold tight
Sometimes the only way out of a crisis is perseverance.
One day Lazarus was alive
The next day he was dead
Just four days later he was alive again.
A lot can happen in a week.
A lot can happen in three days, just ask Jesus.
We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials,
Because as believers we know that they help us develop endurance.
Fourth
God uses disaster for his glory
John 11:4
4 But when Jesus heard about it he said, “Lazarus’s sickness will not end in death. No, it happened for the glory of God so that the Son of God will receive glory from this.”
John 11:40
40 Jesus responded, “Didn’t I tell you that you would see God’s glory if you believe?”
In the days and weeks to come
I have no doubt that we will begin to hear many stories of faith
Coming from the disasters of last night
I imagine that God was able to do some things through that disaster that he could not have done otherwise.
Notice God didn’t cause the tornado; he simply used it for his glory.
He can take a negative and turn it into a positive.
He can turn disaster into deliverance.
God can use crisis in our lives to bring about his glory.
In verses 4 & 40,
God did not cause Lazarus to die, but he used the crisis for his glory
And it changed the lives of Mary and Martha and all who were there
So how does that help us?
It helps us with the temptation to blame God.
It helps us to realize that God doesn’t bring disaster into our lives.
It helps us realize that he loves us
And
Can take our defeats and turn them into his victories.
It also gives us hope that God is able to cure any disease
Fix any marriage
Mend any heart
Forgive any sin.
There is no crisis too big for God.
Fifth
God changes lives through crisis
John 11:45
45 Many of the people who were with Mary believed in Jesus when they saw this happen.”
The final lesson for us is that God changes lives through crisis.
Sometimes it is the life of the one going through the crisis.
Other times it is the lives of those around a suffering person.
Most of the time it is both.
Think about the lives that were changed in the Lazarus story:
Lazarus- he was never the same again.
He had some wild stories to tell.
Mary and Martha- new love and appreciation for life and a new stronger faith
The many- Many had changed hearts because of what had happened
a new faith.
It is sad that it takes a crisis
But
We still thank God that through a crisis
Because he can turn the lost into saved,
He can soften hardened hearts
He can make the bitter sweet
He
Though the blood of Jesus
Can turn orphans into children of the King.
If you are a Christian
And
You have gone through a disaster in your life,
Then you know exactly what I mean.
You could say today, “I am not the same person that I was before the crisis came into my life.”
God has shaped and molded you into who you are today, and has done it through crisis.
If you are a Christians and have not had any “great disasters”
I hate to tell you
It is not if but when
I can assure you that at some point you probably will have a time of crisis
And a time of testing in your life.
I pray that you will keep these things close to your heart so that you will be totally prepared in a time of crisis.
One final scripture today
John 11:25-26.
25 Jesus told her, “I am the resurrection and the life.[e] Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying. 26 Everyone who lives in me and believes in me will never ever die.
Do you believe?
Believers are you living your lives reflecting your hope in Jesus, our risen savior
If Jesus is not the Lord of your life,
He can be.
It really is simple
The Bible says we must:
Believe in Jesus as the Son of God.
Repent of our sins and confess Jesus as Lord.
Arise and live for him each and every day.
Close from the heart
Pray
