HE’LL BE THERE JUST IN TIME
Text: John 11:1-44
Introduction
1. Read John 11:1-7
2. Several years ago I heard a song called He’s An On Time God. The song said "He may not come when you call him, but he’ll be there just in time."
3. Perhaps we don’t get our prayers answered because we give up to soon. Often times we lose faith because God’s time table doesn’t match ours.
Propostion: If we continue to persevere, God will answer our prayers.
Transition: You see, God always has a purpose in what he does.
I. Sometimes He Doesn’t Come When You Call Him (1-16)
A. He Abode Two Days
1. You heard me correctly, sometimes he doesn’t come when you call him.
2. In verse one John says "Now a certain man was sick, named Lazarus, of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha."
a. Though John only introduces us to the family of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus at the end of Jesus’ ministry, Jesus and the disciples often visited their home.
b. Jesus enjoyed their close friendship and hospitality on his visits to Jerusalem, for Bethany was a village just outside of the city.
c. Lazarus was sick, so the sisters contacted Jesus, their friend who had healed so many.
2. So they sent him a message saying "Lord, behold, he whom You love is sick."
a. This wasn’t just some "Tom, Dick, or Harry" off of the street.
b. This wasn’t some leaper.
c. This wasn’t some crippled beggar looking for a handout.
d. This was Lazarus, the one Jesus loved.
3. Now notice what Jesus does - NOTHING! It says "When he had heard therefore that he was sick, he abode two days still in the same place where he was."
a. This statement of Jesus’ love for the family explains that it was not lack of love that kept Jesus from going to them.
b. Humanly speaking, Jesus would have wanted to go to them immediately. But he was constrained by the Father’s timing.
c. God’s timing is always perfect, whether in guiding his Son through his ministry on earth, or in guiding us today and answering our prayers.
B. He Has His Reasons
1. If God doesn’t answer your prayers right away it is not because he doesn’t love you, or he’s not concerned about your situation.
2. He always acts in our life with purpose. We shall see latter in this message that there were things that he needed to accomplish in the lives of those involved that would not have been accomplished had he gone right away.
3. Isaiah 55:8-9 "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways," says the LORD. 9 "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts."
4. Just because God doesn’t always act exactly when we want him to doesn’t mean that he has abandoned us. Whatever the reason is we can count that it is in our best interest.
5. Illustration: When our children are little and we want them to eat broccoli but they want candy, do we give them the candy? No because the candy maybe what they want, but the broccoli is what they need.
Transition: It’s the same way with God, he wants us to have what we need.
II. Sometimes He Does It to Teach Us (17-27)
A. Lord, If You Had Been Here
1. Lazarus had already been in his grave for four days by the time Jesus arrived.
a. In the warm climate of Palestine, a dead body would decompose quickly, so a person’s body was often buried the same day of death.
b. When Jesus and the disciples arrived in Bethany, many Jews from Jerusalem had gathered to console Lazarus’s family, and some of those who had arrived were religious leaders.
c. In Jewish society, prolonged mourning for the dead was considered an essential part of every funeral.
2. When Martha found out that Jesus had finally arrived she went to greet him.
a. Now guys, we all know what happens when we get home latter than we were supposed to.
b. Where have you been? Why are you late? Why didn’t you call? You couldn’t get to a phone?
c. Jesus was not Martha’s husband, but it didn’t matter he was a man and she was upset.
3. When she came to Jesus she said "Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died."
a. She was confident that Jesus’ presence would have prevented Lazarus’s death.
b. The implication for us is that we should not quickly assume that God has let us down when we are in the midst of difficulties.
4. However, Martha had not lost faith becasue she says "But even now I know that whatever You ask of God, God will give You."
a. Perhaps Martha thought Jesus would bring her brother back to life. But her reply in verse 24 and subsequent protests at the tomb (11:39) suggest otherwise.
b. She did not realize, understand, or dare to hope that Jesus would ask God to give Lazarus back his physical life and be returned to his family.
c. Instead, she reaffirmed her trust in his power even though she thought Jesus had missed an opportunity to display it by healing her brother.
5. There was still one thing that she needed to to learn. In verse 23 it says "Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again. 24 Martha saith unto him, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day. 25 Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: 26 And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?"
a. She needed to understand that Jesus was capable of anything.
b. She needed to understand that Jesus was not only the one who brings the resurrection, but that he is the resurrection.
B. By Waiting God Teaches Us
1. We need to understand that there is nothing that our God cannot do.
2. Lk. 1:37 For with God nothing shall be impossible.
3. By waiting God teaches us to:
a. Persevere
b. Not Doubt
c. Trust
4. "He may not come when we call him, but he’ll be there just in time."
5. It will be worth the wait.
Transition: Another reason God sometimes waits to answer our prayers is...
III. Sometimes He Does It to Teach Others (28-37)
A. Could Not This Man
1. Up until this time the story has centered around Martha, but now Mary her sister comes into the scene.
2. In verse 32 it says, "Then when Mary was come where Jesus was, and saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying unto him, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died."
a. Mary met Jesus and repeated Martha’s statement (11:21).
b. She felt the tragedy would have been averted if He had been present. Her faith was sincere but limited.—Bible Knowledge Commentary
c. They were both convinced that Jesus would have been able to do something had Lazarus still been living. But they had no idea that death might be reversible.
3. It is very interesting to see what happens in the next verse. It says "When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled."
a. The Greek word for troubled can mean "intensely agitated."
b. Jesus may have been troubled by the excessive sorrow of the mourners, by Martha and Mary’s limited faith, or by the general unbelief.
c. A better explanation is that Jesus was angry at the tyranny of Satan who had brought sorrow and death to people through sin —Bible Knowledge Commentary
4. When Jesus saw all of this it says he wept. The Jews took this at a sign of his love for Lazarus.
5. However, look at their unbelief "And some of them said, "Could not this Man, who opened the eyes of the blind, also have kept this man from dying?"
a. Through the maliciousness of their hearts, these Jews considered the tears of Jesus as a proof of his weakness. —Adam Clarke’s Commentary
b. Jesus waited to come and heal Lazarus so that he could open the eyes of these blind people.
c. They would see that he not only had the power to keep people from dying but also to raise them from the dead.
B. Opening Blind Eyes
1. Sometimes God waits in answering our prayers to take away the excuses of unbelievers.
2. Illustration: Lawyer and statesman Daniel Webster was a powerful orator who gave early evidence of his quick mind and way with words. One day Webster’s father, who was to be absent from home, left Daniel and his brother Ezekiel specific work instructions. But on his return he found the task still undone, and questioned his sons about their idleness. "What have you been doing, Ezekiel?" he asked. "Nothing, sir." "Well, Daniel, what have you been doing?" "Helping Zeke, sir." Today in the Word, September 19, 1992.
3. Sometimes God waits to answer our prayers for an opportune time so that people with no faith will begin to see the glory of God.
4. He uses it to put them in a place where they have no more excuse. They still may refuse to believe, but not because they do not have proof.
Transition: Another reason God waits to answer our prayers is...
IV. Sometimes He Does It to Set Us Free (38-44)
A. Loose Him and Let Him Go
1. Jesus comes to the grave and tells them to take away the stone that was in front of the entrance to the tomb.
a. People were often buried in caves; stones, usually disk-shaped, would be rolled along a groove into place in front of the tomb, protecting its contents from animals, the elements and occasionally robbers.—Bible Background Commentary
b. When Jesus asked that the stone be removed, Martha protested.
c. Martha reminds Jesus that Lazarus had been dead for four days, and the stench would have been horrendous.
d. Illustration: I used to clean carpets for a living, and once we had to go in and clean the carpets where a man had been dead for a week.
2. Jesus reminds her of what he had said "Did I not say to you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God?"
a. The purpose of the whole event was for Jesus to exhibit God’s glory.
b. Jesus had proclaimed this from the moment he heard about Lazarus’s sickness (11:4).
c. In order for the miracle to occur and for God to be glorified through it, the sisters would have to believe enough to order the stone to be removed from the tomb’s entrance.
3. Jesus prays to the Father and asks for his help.
a. His prayer was not a petition, but a prayer of thanks to the Father.
b. Jesus knew that his request would be answered.
4. Then Jesus shouted, "Lazarus, come forth!"
a. The voice of Jesus is potent and life-giving.
b. At Jesus’ words, Lazarus came out.
5. He was completely bound in graveclothes. Then Jesus says, "Loose him, and let him go."
a. The deceased would be wrapped in long cloth strips.
b. This wrapping was thorough, binding the limbs to keep them straight and even the cheeks to keep the mouth shut; the facecloth may have been a yard square.
c. This tight wrapping would have made it hard enough for a living person to walk, not to mention a formerly dead person coming forth from the entrance to the tomb; this difficulty further underlines the miraculous nature of this event. —Bible Background Commentary
B. God Waits to Release Us From Bondage
1. Sometimes Jesus waits to answer our prayers to set us free from bondage.
a. Bondage of unbelief
b. Bondage of doubt
c. Bondage of the ways of the world
2. By waiting to answer our prayers, Jesus teaches us to believe in spite of what the world and the devil tells us.
3. By waiting to answer our prayers, Jesus teaches us that he will never leave us or forsake us.
4. By waiting to answer our prayers, Jesus teaches us to never give in, but to persevere in prayer.
Transition: Know that even though he may not come when you call him, he’ll be there just in time.
Conclusion
1. Understand that God always hears your prayers, and just because he does not answer right away does not mean he doesn’t hear you.
2. If you have been praying for something and waiting for an answer that seems like it is never going to come, be encouraged.
3. It maybe that God is waiting for you to learn a lesson that he needs to teach you.
