When the unthinkable Happens
Trusting God
in Difficult Times – part 4
01-27-13 Sermon
P__________________________C_______________________________
God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our
conscience, but he shouts in our pains.
It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.--C.S. Lewis in The
Problem of Pain
James 1:2-4
Consider it pure joy, my brothers,
whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of
your faith develops perseverance.
Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and
complete, not lacking anything.
Romans 8:28. And we
know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have
been called according to his purpose.
V 37 in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who
loved us.
John 11:1-44 New International
Version (NIV)
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.” 16 Then Thomas (also known as Didymus[a]) said to the rest of the disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”
17 On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. 18 Now Bethany was less than two miles[b] from Jerusalem, 19 and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother. 20 When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home.
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.” 23 Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” 24 Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” 25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; 26 and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?” 27 “Yes, Lord,” she replied, “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.”
28 After she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary aside. “The Teacher is here,” she said, “and is asking for you.” 29 When Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to him. 30 Now Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. 31 When the Jews who had been with Mary in the house, comforting her, noticed how quickly she got up and went out, they followed her, supposing she was going to the tomb to mourn there.
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.” 33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. 34 “Where have you laid him?” he asked. “Come and see, Lord,” they replied.
35 Jesus wept. 36 Then 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 have kept this man from dying?”
38 Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. 39 “Take away the stone,” he said. “But, Lord,” said Martha, the sister of the dead man, “by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.” 40 Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?”
41 So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. 42 I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.”
43 When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 44 The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”
45 Therefore many of the Jews who had
come to visit Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.
The only thing worse than disappointment
with God is disappointment without God. -- Phil Yancey
Job 13:15 Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him.
Mark
14:36 Please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will, not mine.’”
God
never promised ____________ …
but he did promise ___________ .
When the unthinkable Happens
Trusting God
in Difficult Times – part 4
02-27-13 Sermon
Something big happens. A Cancer diagnosis. Divorce.
Infertility. The death of a
child. The birth of a special needs
child. A heart attack. The loss of a job. Suffering a crime against you. An abortion. Going to jail. Being sued.
You and a friend go to a movie in Colorado and a crazy person comes in
and shoots a bunch of people. You send
your child to the elementary school in Newton, CT and your child is shot and
killed at school. These are times when
the unthinkable has happened. These are Pivotal Circumstances.
Pivotal circumstances can
also be positive, like the birth of your first child or grandchild, getting
married, going on a mission trip, narrowly escaping a disaster, winning the lottery,
or something like that. But oftentimes it is the negative ones that bring us to
a point where we know we can’t handle this and God is introduced or
reintroduced into the conversation.
And afterwards a testimony
like this is heard--In the midst of those
negative circumstances that none of us would want to sign up for God did a work
in my life and grew my faith. It was a
defining moment. God seemed far away but he drew close. Suddenly the Bible stories and hymns we sing
about God’s faithfulness became personal.
I didn’t talk much about God; now I can’t stop talking about God. My praying had been routine, read, or
memorized, but I was on my knees crying out to God to intervene, and God showed
up to intervene, and I invited him in at a completely different level.
C.S. Lewis in his book The Problem of Pain says God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks
in our conscience, but he shouts in our pains.
It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.
There is a relationship
between the big bad things that happen to us in this world and our faith. It is not an accidental relationship. It is an intentional relationship that God
leverages to grow our faith.
James 1:2-4 says—Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever
you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith
develops perseverance. Perseverance must
finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking
anything.
Trials, troubles, challenges,
painful situations test your faith, strengthen your faith, grow your faith,
producing perseverance. Let perseverance
finish its work—bringing you to spiritual maturity. James says that it is not accidental that in
the midst of overwhelming circumstances something begins to happen to our faith
in God. It is one of the ways that God
grows our faith, though none of us would sign up for this.
Romans 8:28. You are probably all familiar with that
passage. Paul says And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love
him, who have been called according to his purpose. Not that all things are good. Not that everything that happens to us is
from God. But in the midst of all the
things that do happen to us, God is at work to bring good to our lives. So that, v 37 in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who
loved us.
The supreme example of this
is the death of Jesus on the cross. It
is not a good thing to torture and kill the Son of God. But from that God brought about a
resurrection and beat our sins and beat death and sickness and the devil and
all the big bad things in the world by that death on that cross.
There are times when God doesn’t seem to act the way
we think he should act or do the stuff that we think he should do. It’s often when we pray and ask God to deal
with a specific problem. When he doesn’t
deal with that problem here’s what happens: we assume that he’s changing the
script and it makes it more difficult to trust him.
So that five year old singing, Jesus loves me this I know…fast forward ten years and now he’s fifteen…
If Jesus loves me so darn much why did my dad lose his job? If Jesus loves me so much why did my parents
get divorced? If Jesus loves me so much
why does my complexion look like this?
That fifteen year old stands at the mirror every morning saying, Jesus
loves me this I think because this zit is the size of a sink!
Fast forward a few more years. If God loves me this much why didn’t I get
into the college that I’ve been dreaming about?
If God loves me this much why did my fiancé break it off? If God loves me this much why can’t we have
children? If God loves me this much why
did I have to file bankruptcy? If God
loves me this much why did my child or my spouse or my parent die at such a
young age? If God loves me this
much…. Fill in your own pain.
But there is a story in the
scriptures where Jesus doesn’t just leverage negative circumstances to grow
someone’s faith, he actually creates that negative circumstance. It is the story of Lazarus in John 11. Jesus had spent a lot of time with Mary and
Martha and Lazarus. John reminds us that
it was Mary who poured perfume on Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair. Lazarus falls ill and Mary and Martha send a
messenger with this message—Lord, the one
you love is sick. The one you love.
When he gets the message,
Jesus says –“This sickness will not end
in death. No, it is for God’s glory so
that God’s Son may be glorified through it.” In other words, I am going to leverage this evil for my glory. And they hung out where they were for another
2 days. Jesus did not act on this
emergency for another 2 days.
You have been there, I
guarantee it. You have found yourself
in a negative situation and you pray God
help me, God help me, God help me.
And you bargain—I’ll go to
church. I’ll tithe. I’ll let my kids become missionaries. But
nothing happens. Jesus doesn’t always
show up right away in the midst of the emergency.
So Jesus says to the
disciples v14,15: Lazarus is dead, and
for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe [that your
faith would grow]. Growing our faith is that big a deal that you would allow
your friend to die, for Mary and Martha to suffer watching him die, all to grow
our faith? Yes, it’s that big a deal. It is that important for you to have big
faith.
Martha meets Jesus on his way
to her house and says v21 Lord, if you
had been here, my brother would not have died. Later, when Mary sees Jesus,
she says the very same thing v 32. And
WE have all said the same thing! **Jesus
this is your fault. You healed people
you didn’t even know. You healed
Gentiles. You even healed a Roman
Centurion’s servant. And you wouldn’t
even come here and heal your friend?
Jesus, if you had been here, Lazarus would not have died.
And Martha continues
v22: But
I know, I trust, I believe, I have faith, that even now God will give you
whatever you ask. That’s
amazing! As broken as I am, as hurting as I am, as angry as I am, here’s what I
know—I believe God will give you whatever you ask God for. That’s why I called for you when Lazarus
became sick.
V 23 Jesus says, Your brother
will rise again. Martha answers v 24 I
know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day. And Jesus answers back v 25 I am the
resurrection and the life. Martha you
are looking at resurrection. You are
looking at life.
V 26 Anyone who believes in
me, anyone who trusts in me, anyone who puts big faith in me will live…do you
believe this? This is about your faith
Martha! This is about your confidence in me and the length I am willing to go
to grow that confidence in you. I am
willing to go even to this length to grow that faith, for you to have big
faith, even the death of my friend who I loved, even to hurting my friends who
I love.
V 27. Yes, Lord, I believe---even though you let my
brother die. I believe even though you
didn’t come in time. I believe even when
you didn’t answer my prayer.
You know how the story
ends. And v 45 says that many put their
faith in him. Many trusted in him. Many got big faith. Jesus didn’t just leverage this painful
situation, he created it in order to show the connection between painful
pivotal circumstances and the growth and development of our faith.
Of course, not everyone who
suffers a difficult circumstance turns to God.
Some turn bitter and run from God.
The difference between people who lean into God and those who lean away
from God in pivotal circumstances, when the unthinkable happens, is usually to be found in the people who
surround them. In times when God seems
like a big disappointment we need people to come around us who will interpret
the circumstances in the context of faith.
The same pain that can grow your faith can also destroy your faith.
Tragedy and pain are part of
our story here on earth. This is earth,
not heaven. Phil Yancey has said The only thing worse than disappointment
with God is disappointment without God.
All of us will at some time be disappointed with God. But you can be disappointed with God in a
context where you still trust him. You can
lean into him or you can lean away from him.
There was a young couple,
members of my first church. She was 9
months pregnant with a baby boy. The
pregnancy was uneventful. She felt labor
pains and went to the hospital. I got
the call to come at once. The doctor
could no longer find a heartbeat. She
went through labor and delivered a perfectly formed still born baby boy. We each held that little boy that never took
a breath in this world. It was a painful
tragic time. You know what that father
said to me? He said, this is why we joined the church. We knew that there would be a time in our
lives when we needed a church.
They were disappointed with
God, but they were not disappointed without God because they were surrounded by
a group of people who would say We are
not going to try to explain this, we are not going to try to attach meaning or
purpose to this, but you can still believe and you can still trust, and maybe
in days, or weeks, or months or even years, God will use this tragedy in your
life to do something good in you and through you.
When you feel like God is
doing something TO you, you are liable to lose faith. When you come to understand that God is doing
something IN you so he can do something THROUGH you, then you can be one of
those who emerges from pivotal circumstances and says, I still believe. I believe he is
the resurrection and the life. And
you will have big faith.
Remember Job in the OT. No one wants a Job anointing do they? Talk about pivotal circumstances! With all the negative stuff that happened to
him, Job could declare [13:15] Though he
slay me, yet will I hope in him.
That’s big faith! But look how
Job got there—through negative pivotal circumstances.
Faith and trust in God will not be defined when
everything goes according to the script.
Faith and trust in God will be defined when the unthinkable happens.
It’s easy to trust God when his script aligns with
yours. But what about when pain happens? When the ad libs occur? When you experience hurt? That’s when faith and trust grows. That’s when depth increases. That’s when your faith grows stronger.
I know that concept is very difficult to hear. When you hear me say that you will be stronger,
you will trust more, you will have deeper faith, you will be a more vibrant follower
of Jesus Christ when there’s pain in your life.
You say, Frank, that’s not cool! For
most of us when we wrote our life script we didn’t include pain in it.
Think about that.
Go back to junior high creative writing class when you had to write out
what you want your life to look like. Chances
are it didn’t involve pain. I’m going to
graduate high school and play every sport.
I’m going to go to an incredible college like Oxford or Harvard or DeVry
Institute of Nashville. I’m going to get
married. We’re going to honeymoon in Vegas. We’re going to get airbrushed T-Shirts. My kids are going to grow up and be perfect
and get straight As and get full scholarships.
I’m going to win American Idol
and appear on Oprah and make lots of money and live in Brentwood.
I don’t know what your script was but my guess is it
didn’t include a lot of pain. What I do
know is you really won’t know about life, about relationships, about true faith
and trusting in God until the unthinkable happens.
But here’s what I want you to understand so badly. Because for so many, many people when the
unthinkable happens here’s what they do.
They turn their back to God. They
stop following the ways and teachings of Jesus.
They leave the church and they abandon this community of believers.
In my second church we had a family with two teen aged
boys who went out West on vacation. As
part of that vacation the family went on a tour to the floor of the Grand
Canyon. While there the oldest son
wandered off and disappeared. They
found one of his sneakers but he was never found. Authorities believed that he got wandered
into the river, was swept away and drowned.
The family even hired native American trackers in the area to try to
find his body but they were not successful.
I reached out to them and people in the church reached
out to them, but that family left the church and turned their backs on
God. They set up something of a shrine
to their son in their home but they held the church and God at arm’s length.
Some people walk away from God and the church and it
wasn’t because there wasn’t good Bible teaching available. They turn their back on God not because they
struggled with the historical documents of Jesus. They leave the church not because of some
scientific arguments crumbled their faith to their knees.
They walk away because the script changed and they
didn’t know what to do. They thought
their life was like that high school musical where everybody sings and dances
all the time and conflict is resolved in an hour.
But you know what?
That script was never promised to us.
As a matter of fact Jesus warned us that we would have difficult times. I John 16:33 Jesus says “I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will [circle “you
will”] have many trials and sorrows. But take heart [underline “but take
heart”] because I have overcome the world.”
The “take heart” means to trust, to hold on, to have
faith. Because in the end Jesus wins. At the very end Jesus wins. You and I can’t see the entire script that
he’s writing. But Jesus says, “I can.
So take heart. Take heart in
what’s happening. Take heart when the
unthinkable arrives because I can see the end.”
What do you put your trust in? Don’t put your trust in the script that you’re
living. That will lead to pain. You put your trust in the writer of the script. Let me be real, real honest with you. I’m not standing up here pretending that trusting
in God is easy. I know it’s a very, very
difficult thing. Guess what. For those of us who struggle with this, we’re
not alone. Many of the Bible heroes
struggled with doubt and trust.
I’ll point you
towards one and I encourage you to further investigate this later. His name is John. He goes by John the Baptist. Not to be confused with John the Methodist or
John the Presbyterian. This was John the
Baptist. In Matthew 11 it says this “John the Baptist, who was now in prison, heard
about all the things the Messiah [Jesus] was doing. So he sent his disciples to ask Jesus, ‘Are
you really the Messiah we’ve been waiting for, or should we keep looking for
someone else?’”
Pause right there and let me give you a little
context. John is in prison. He’s about to not only die but he’s going to
be killed. He’s not only going to be
killed, he’s going to have his head cut off.
That’s what’s going to happen. No
where in his life script did he write that.
Here he is in prison and all of a sudden he’s saying to his friends, go
back to Jesus and find out are you really the Messiah? Are you really who you said you were?” Because outside the bowels of the prison, before
John went into prison, John knew exactly who Jesus was. John was the big shot before Jesus came on
the scene. John was the one who paved the
way for Jesus to come. John was the one
who said of Jesus, I can’t even baptize
him because he’s too big. I’m not even
worthy enough to untie his sandals.
But now all of a sudden John’s in jail. He says, would you go find out if he really
is the Messiah? Back to verse 4. This is the point you think I’ll bet Jesus
tells his friends, “Go back and tell John ‘If you’re happy and you know it clap
your hands….’” No. Here’s what happens. “Jesus told them, ‘Go back to John and
tell him about what you have seen and heard —the blind see, the lame walk, the
lepers are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, and the Good News
is being preached to the poor. And tell
him: “Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me.”’”
You know what Jesus doesn’t say? He doesn’t say Go back and tell him, the
prisoners are being set free. Go back
and tell him I’ll pull a few strings and get him out of jail. No.
He says go back and tell him the God who’s writing the script continues
to write the script.
I just imagine that when John didn’t hear
that he was getting out, in the quietness of his prison cell he had to go, “God! What is going on? I’ve served you my entire life. Oh yeah, great… I’m glad the lame are healed and
the crippled are cured and the blind see.
I’m thrilled about that. But what
about me?” You can almost imagine him
going through his script. It’s like
there’s a page missing out of this somewhere.
We find out a couple chapters later that his
head was cut off and put on a platter and paraded around King Herod’s birthday
party.
Here’s one of the
great heroes of the faith that struggled with doubt just like you and I do two
thousand years later. You might be
thinking, “It’s great to know I’m not alone
but help me in my trust. What do I do?”
The best advice I
can give you to learn to trust during difficult times, when the unthinkable
happens, is not my advice. It’s much
better than that. It comes from God. It comes from the life of Jesus, the prayer
of Jesus. Jesus is on earth. He’s a hundred percent human, a hundred
percent God. The unthinkable is going to
happen to Jesus tomorrow. He’s going to
die on the cross. So the night before he
dies, he goes to a garden and he prays. In
that prayer we see what you and I can embody.
Let me just warn you. You may be discouraged by the simplicity of
this. But if you think about it, you will
be challenged for the rest of your life for the difficulty of praying this way,
really living it out. The response is
anything but simple.
So the night before
Jesus is crucified it says, “And they came to an
olive grove called Gethsemane, and Jesus said, ‘Sit here while I go and pray.’ He took Peter, James, and John with him, and
he began to be filled with horror and deep distress. He told them, ‘My soul is crushed with grief
to the point of death. Stay here and
watch with me.’ He went on a little
farther and fell face down on the ground.
He prayed that, if it were possible, the awful hour awaiting him might
pass him by. ‘Abba, [which is Aramaic for Daddy] Father,’ he said, ‘everything is
possible for you. Please take this cup
of suffering away from me. Yet I want
your will, not mine.’”
If you take your notes home and look that up in
your Bible and you reread that, maybe it’ll hit you like it hit me. The God who can do anything with the script
refuses to do the one thing that his Son requests. It’s almost as if Jesus is begging him, “God! Would you take this unthinkable away from me?” And he doesn’t. An innocent man dies a brutal death.
But here’s the key.
The death of Jesus wasn’t the end of the story that God was writing. In some ways the unthinkable – the crucifixion
– was just the beginning. And because
Jesus trusted in God and faithfully played out his part and didn’t fall away
when everything seemed to be falling apart, you and I – two thousand years later
– we get to pay a role in God’s supporting cast because of what Jesus did on
the cross. Because of the unthinkable on
the cross.
You can imagine in the crowd, his mother and his
closest friends, those who had been following him, seeing him on the cross, going,
“This is it. It’s over. I can’t believe it. I can’t make sense of it. I don’t get it.” But that was just the beginning of the script
that God was writing. Because of what
Jesus did on the cross, salvation is available to you and to me.
And Jesus prayed six words. Six words that are life changing if you can
genuinely pray them and live them out every day. Verse 36 “I want your will not mine.” That’s it.
That’s what trust is. I want your
will not mine. It’s ok to say, “God! I want my script, written the way I want it
written. I’m telling you in my heart I don’t
want this unthinkable to happen. But at
the end of the day I know that you’re a better script writer than me. And you have my good in mind. So I want your will not mine and I’m going to
walk in the direction of obedience to you.”
This is what it looks like today, tomorrow, this
week, this year. “God, I’m so ticked off
at that relationship that went sour. I
was so hurt by that. You know what I
want to happen to them? I want pain to
happen in their life. Actually God, would
you please just strike them dead? That’s
what I want in my heart. But I don’t want to live by my script. I’m going to trust that you’re a better
script writer, and I’m going to walk in the direction of obedience and not seek
revenge on them. Because at the end of
every day I want your will not mine.”
“God,
I can’t believe that he has cancer! I
can’t believe it. I’m crushed. My soul’s in anguish. You are the God who can do everything. I know that you can heal him. But I don’t see the big script. I don’t get it right now. And as difficult as it is I’m just going to walk
in obedience and pray this prayer: I want your will not mine.”
Friends, as you do that, let me just leave you with
one last thought to think about. Every
day that’s what trust is: I want your will not mine. As you pray that prayer, as you step in the
direction of obedience I want you to remember this: God never promised us glee, but he did promise glory. He never promised glee which is this life of
superficial happiness where everything is going to go our way and we’re just going
to kind of skip through the garden of life.
But he did promise glory. And
glory is when we get his presence, when we get his power, we get salvation, we spend
all eternity with him. That’s glory.
It really comes down to two prayers. You pray a prayer of control – “God, I
want my will done. I want my script written.”
Or you pray a prayer of surrender – “God,
I want your script written. I want your
will done.”
Which of those two prayers is going to characterize
you?
Prayer:
God, may
we be different people because we were here today. It is so difficult to trust. It even feels odd saying that to you, God. That sometimes it’s just so difficult to
trust. We don’t get it all. We don’t see the whole script. God, we pray that we can learn from the
example you set. That we would be men
and women who walk out of here every day saying I want your will not mine. And that then we would walk in the direction of
obedience. God, would you give us the courage
to do that. Bring other people into our
life to help us and to guide us. Thank you
that you love us even when we doubt and we struggle. That your love for us is not based on where
we live or what we look like or how we dress.
But you love us because you created us and you’re calling us into a
deeper and more intimate relationship with you.
We ask for that in the holy name of Jesus. Amen.
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