God’s Assistance: Lazurus

We are start­ing a new series called God’s Assistance at Flatland. Today’s ser­mon was on the res­ur­rec­tion of Lazurus as seen in John 11 [show]John 11 Now a cer­tain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the vil­lage of Mary and her sis­ter Martha. [2]It was Mary who anointed the Lord with oint­ment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was ill. [3]So the sis­ters sent to him, say­ing, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” [4]But when Jesus heard it he said, “This ill­ness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glo­ri­fied through it.“ [5]Now Jesus loved Martha and her sis­ter and Lazarus. [6]So, when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. [7]Then after this he said to the dis­ci­ples, “Let us go to Judea again.” [8]The dis­ci­ples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just now seek­ing to stone you, and are you going there again?” [9]Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any­one walks in the day, he does not stum­ble, because he sees the light of this world. [10]But if any­one walks in the night, he stum­bles, because the light is not in him.” [11]After say­ing these things, he said to them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awaken him.” [12]The dis­ci­ples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover.” [13]Now Jesus had spo­ken of his death, but they thought that he meant tak­ing rest in sleep. [14]Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus has died, [15]and for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” [16]So Thomas, called the Twin, said to his fel­low dis­ci­ples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.“ [17]Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. [18]Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles off, [19]and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to con­sole them con­cern­ing their brother. [20]So when Martha heard that Jesus was com­ing, she went and met him, but Mary remained seated in the house. [21]Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. [22]But even now I know that what­ever you ask from God, God will give you.” [23]Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” [24]Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the res­ur­rec­tion on the last day.” [25]Jesus said to her, “I am the res­ur­rec­tion and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, [26]and every­one who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” [27]She said to him, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is com­ing into the world.“ [28]When she had said this, she went and called her sis­ter Mary, say­ing in pri­vate, “The Teacher is here and is call­ing for you.” [29]And when she heard it, she rose quickly and went to him. [30]Now Jesus had not yet come into the vil­lage, but was still in the place where Martha had met him. [31]When the Jews who were with her in the house, con­sol­ing her, saw Mary rise quickly and go out, they fol­lowed her, sup­pos­ing that she was going to the tomb to weep there. [32]Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, say­ing to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” [33]When Jesus saw her weep­ing, and the Jews who had come with her also weep­ing, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly trou­bled. [34]And he said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” [35]Jesus wept. [36]So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” [37]But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying?“ [38]Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it. [39]Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sis­ter of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days.” [40]Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” [41]So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. [42]I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the peo­ple stand­ing around, that they may believe that you sent me.” [43]When he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.” [44]The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.“ [45]Many of the Jews there­fore, who had come with Mary and had seen what he did, believed in him, [46]but some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. [47]So the chief priests and the Pharisees gath­ered the Council and said, “What are we to do? For this man per­forms many signs. [48]If we let him go on like this, every­one will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.” [49]But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know noth­ing at all. [50]Nor do you under­stand that it is bet­ter for you that one man should die for the peo­ple, not that the whole nation should per­ish.” [51]He did not say this of his own accord, but being high priest that year he proph­e­sied that Jesus would die for the nation, [52]and not for the nation only, but also to gather into one the chil­dren of God who are scat­tered abroad. [53]So from that day on they made plans to put him to death. [54]Jesus there­fore no longer walked openly among the Jews, but went from there to the region near the wilder­ness, to a town called Ephraim, and there he stayed with the dis­ci­ples. [55]Now the Passover of the Jews was at hand, and many went up from the coun­try to Jerusalem before the Passover to purify them­selves. [56]They were look­ing for Jesus and say­ing to one another as they stood in the tem­ple, “What do you think? That he will not come to the feast at all?” [57]Now the chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that if any­one knew where he was, he should let them know, so that they might arrest him. (ESV)
. It is a story with a lot of twists in it, Jesus doing the unex­pected at every turn. When asked to come heal, he ignores the request. When shown the grave of his friend, he weeps dis­play­ing his love for a friend that he surely could have healed. He asks the grave­stone to be removed when it would cer­tainly stink to go in since Lazurus had been dead for 4 days. And then, he tops it all by call­ing Lazurus back from the dead. God wants to assist us, but His assis­tance may come in ways we totally do not expect!

And now, my ser­mon notes as taken on my iPhone.

God’s assis­tance starts with a friend­ship. God wants to be our friend. God us nice. Friendship is not endur­ing another. Friendship is grow­ing together.

We must come to God on His terms but we can come as we are. Expect to change. Surrender to God. Commit to the jour­ney. Put God first and only God. When we pray God listens.

God’s assis­tance comes at God’s tim­ing. We oft feel “Where in the world are you?”

God knows our needs bet­ter than we do. God will answer our prayers accord­ing to His will and not accord­ing to ours. We can not order a Whopper at McDonalds. Father knows best.

Pray for faith, patience, wis­dom. Pray with ques­tions more than telling God the answers and expect him to do it. And then listen.

Gods assis­tance is to accom­plish God’s pur­pose. We should seek out His purpose.

It is a tragic mis­take to think that God does not want to assist us. It is even more tragic to not ask God for assis­tance. And tragic most of all is ask­ing for God’s assis­tance and not accept­ing it as He answers us instead of the way we want Him to answer.

We all fall in to all three camps at times. We find our selves in a sit­u­a­tion that we don’t “bother” God with because it is too petty and God it too big to bother. As pas­tor Jeff pointed out in Sunday’s ser­mon, God is our friend and a nice friend at that. He cares about every thing in our lives. To not reach out to Him because it is of no impor­tance is to place lit­tle impor­tance on God’s love for us.

There are other times when we just fail to ask God for His assis­tance. This is just a bone headed move on our part, a “I should have had a V-8″ time. We jump in, try to solve an issue on our own with­out first seek­ing God. It isn’t because we think it is too small for God to care about, it is because we think too highly of our own abil­i­ties. And sure, there are times when we can do things on our own. But God’s assis­tance could have made it so much eas­ier, more enjoy­able, and with greater success.

Finally, we make a real bone headed mis­take by ask­ing God for His assis­tance and then not tak­ing it or accept­ing His answer as our own. We tell God what we want, expect Him to do it as if He was our ser­vant, and then get mad, bel­liger­ent or sulky when we don’t get it the way we want it. This is tragedy in its high­est form. God wants to assist us, He knows best how to assist us, and He offers us that assis­tance all the time. Yet we are a stub­born peo­ple, refus­ing that help, instead rely­ing on our own abil­i­ties even when we go through the motions of ask­ing God for help.

I feel like I often make stu­pid mis­takes in the way I ask God for His assis­tance (or not ask when I should). I desire greatly to fol­low God’s will, to do as pas­tor Jeff said, to ask God more ques­tions, demand a lot less, lis­ten for His answer and accept it. I believe that God does want us to per­sist in our prayers and at times will delay — or what seems to be a delay — pro­vid­ing us an answer that our faith may be built up, that our will may become that which God desires, that our pur­pose is God’s pur­pose. As I sub­mit to God, then He will bring forth life where there is now just a stinky black hole. May Your will be done in my life.