When Diaster Strikes- Sermon Folowing The April 29 Van Zandt County Tornado

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!”