[0:00] This message was recorded at Vision Baptist Church in Alpharetta, Georgia. This is the next message in our series on the book of John, entitled, Jesus is God.
[0:15] Alright, take your Bibles if you would and open them to John chapter 11. I am so glad to see each of you tonight. If I'm not mistaken, we have, is Micah in here tonight? Nope, Micah's upstairs. He escaped his happy birthday.
[0:28] You be sure to tell Micah, happy birthday. Today, Micah turned 39, I think. And so you tell him happy birthday. How many of you enjoyed the time with, how many of you enjoyed the time with the Basham Say Amen?
[0:42] I don't know how you feel, but I listened to that. And I wish that I could be 25, I wish I'd be 33. That's how old I was when I got there the first time.
[0:53] If I was 33 again, I think I could go to Thailand. I hope you get your heart broken for all the people that need to hear the gospel. I want you to imagine a city where you could do anything, and it would be more than it's ever been done.
[1:06] And maybe God would lead you to go and do something like that. What a wonderful opportunity to use your life for his kingdom. The second thing, I would like to ask you to pray for Apollinadio.
[1:18] Apollinadio, if you will make it easy. Apollinadio, we have known him. We knew him when we first got there. The second church that I worked in, or third church that I worked in, is actually a church that I swapped.
[1:29] I swapped churches with him. We knew his children when they were little bitty babies. Betty babysat them when they were, I don't know, three and four. And we knew them. We didn't know the third child as well.
[1:41] And it's a horrible time. If you can imagine a dad whose son has gone that wild and that crazy and how that must be hurting him. So I wish you'd pray for him. I wish you could pray for him and pray that God would use him.
[1:52] His other, one of his other sons graduated from the Bible College. They're not bad people. I'm sure Dante is, has become. But his dad is a great guy, and I wish you'd pray for him.
[2:04] And I wish that you would, I wish that you would ask God to work in their lives and help Apolinario and Isabel to get through this time. Let's have a word of prayer, if you would.
[2:15] Father, I thank you so very much for the opportunity to share a little bit from your word tonight. I pray that you would work in the lives of our people. I pray, God, that your name would be honored and glorified in our lives.
[2:29] I pray, God, that you'd be with Apolinario and Isabel and in a special way that you would work in their lives. And strengthen them and the other two boys. Dear God, I pray you'd do a work there. I pray, God, that you would work with Thailand.
[2:42] I pray you'd raise up people. God, I know that if they could just hear the name of Jesus. If they could just have somebody to care. If they could just have somebody who would go and start working among them.
[2:54] Many of them would accept you. I know your word is real. I know it's powerful. I know it can be done. And I thank you that our church has a part through the Bashams at getting to that country. I thank you, God, for Philip.
[3:05] The blessing he's been to me personally and to this church. And I thank you for Lori and how you sent her. And how she's just exactly the right lady. I pray, God, you'd bless him. Take care of him and use him.
[3:15] And magnify yourself in the country of Thailand. And I'll give you praise for it all. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, I'm aware of the hour as well as you are. So I'll just give you a few things. First thing I wish you'd take down.
[3:27] You know, Lazarus has died. Lazarus has died. And he's been dead for four days. And Jesus is about to do a work in his life. And I'd just like to share some truths with you from those verses.
[3:38] We won't read a lot of the text. But you can go read it later. You can start in verse 17 and read down to verse 40. You'd love reading it. It's an exciting story to see what God's doing.
[3:49] But if you just write some things down that I think might help you. Number one, bad things happen to people that Jesus loves and that love Jesus. Now that's the first thing you ought to know.
[4:01] Bad things happen to people that Jesus loves and that love Jesus. It is a pretty, there's this almost a misconception thanks to the prosperity gospel.
[4:12] That if you love Jesus and if everything's right in your life and you're doing all right. All your prayers will get answered. All your life will go good. And you'll never have any problem. That's simply not the truth.
[4:22] It's not the truth in Apollinatio Bithagal's life. And it's not the truth in Lazarus' life. He is dead. It's not the truth in Mary and Martha's life. Their brother is dead.
[4:33] If you would look with me in John chapter 11 and verse 3. And I'll keep you all in there. I won't take you out of the book at one time. John chapter 11 and verse 3. Therefore his sister sent unto him saying, Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick.
[4:47] Lord, the guy you love is sick. And then verse 5. Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. There is no doubt God loves these people.
[4:59] God loves these people. And God loves you. And you may have junk going on in your life. And you may wonder, where is God? And what is God doing? My mother, my sister's about to have surgery.
[5:12] My mother is literally losing her mind. God has gone from one pole to the other just today. I mean, all of us are going to go through junk.
[5:23] And you need to know that. It has nothing to do with does he love you or not. It has nothing to do with do you love him or not. We go through things. And by the way, Jesus doesn't always come through immediately.
[5:36] Look at chapter 11 and verse 6. Chapter 11 and verse 6. And when he had heard, therefore, that he was sick, he abode, he stayed, he waited two days still in the same place where he was.
[5:48] Bad things happen to people that Jesus loves. Bad things happen to people that love Jesus. And then it doesn't seem that the Lord gets all that bent out of shape to try to rush through and come to us.
[5:59] You know, as the older brother, I'm dealing with things. I deal with my sister and I deal with my brother and I try to help them understand, man, the Lord's going to get us through this. And they know it as well as I know it. You know, everybody knows that.
[6:09] But it's hard sometimes to understand why does God let things happen. You know that Jesus could answer their prayers long distance. He didn't have to go see Lazarus. He has already by now has healed people from a distance.
[6:22] All he had to do when they said Lazarus is sick, all he had to do was go, okay, he's not anymore. That's all he had to do. But he doesn't do that. And he hangs around for two more days. He could have stopped the problem.
[6:34] But God had other plans. I hope you wrote down somewhere this. People that love Jesus and people Jesus love do have problems. Things go wrong. Bad things happen to people that love Jesus.
[6:47] Number two, people deal with their doubts and fears in different ways. People deal with their doubts and fears in different ways. I read through the story. I just thought it was interesting to notice how they deal with their fears.
[6:59] Because some of you aren't handling your fears and aren't handling your problems the same way others do. And some of you are getting frustrated. And you're almost shaking a fist in God's face. And some of you are crying.
[7:11] And some of you are waiting and praying. And some of you are believing any day now God's going to come through. And we're all handling it just a little bit different. That's what happens in this story. Look if you would in John chapter 11 and verse 20.
[7:21] Martha, as soon as she finds out Jesus is coming, buddy, she goes running to Jesus. It's like she held on to her faith. Look if you would in John chapter 11 and verse 20. Then Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming, went out and met him.
[7:34] Boy, Martha's like, oh boy, I know what to do. I sit to get Jesus in the first place. I ask him to come. He's here. And when somebody came and whispered, hey, Jesus is getting close. Martha jumped up out of the house and took off running to Jesus.
[7:47] Some of you haven't run to Jesus. You've been kind of running away from Jesus. You haven't trusted Jesus. You haven't gotten close to Jesus. Martha ran to Jesus. But Mary sat still in the house.
[8:00] I don't get that. You know, this is the lady who before sat at his feet and worshiped. And now she's sitting in the house. I don't know. Is she pouting? I'm not really sure what she's doing. But Martha runs out and says, I'll go see Jesus and see what he'll do.
[8:12] Mary said, I ain't moving. And so Mary's dealing with it a lot different than Martha did. I don't know what it means. Was she praying? Was she meditating? Was she upset? Was she scared? I'm not sure.
[8:22] I just know this. They were both good ladies. Both ladies loved Jesus. Jesus loved both ladies. And they didn't handle it the same way. By the way, they both do basically accuse Jesus of failing them.
[8:36] You ever done that? You ever gotten angry because God didn't seem to be hearing your prayers and answering your prayers and working your life? Look if you would at verse 21. Then said Martha unto Jesus, Lord, if you'd have been here, my brother wouldn't have died.
[8:52] If you'd have been here, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. Verse 32. Then when Mary was coming where Jesus was and saw him, she fell down at his feet and saying to him, Lord, if you'd have been here, my brother wouldn't have died.
[9:10] My brother would not have died. They accused him. Basically, they accused him of not helping. You ever felt that? You ever had that thing like, Lord, I don't know what's going on.
[9:20] I don't know why you don't come through. I can remember the first time we found out that our son Chris had diabetes. There were very difficult days in Peru still. There weren't any of the modern conveniences. They didn't have any kind of diet drinks in the country.
[9:33] You couldn't buy purified water. You could only boil water. And Chris got weaker and weaker and sicker and sicker and thinner and thinner. He got where he couldn't see just a few feet in front of his face.
[9:44] We couldn't figure out what was wrong with him. And then one pastor friend who's in heaven now was visiting us. And he said, he said, he said in the bathroom where your son goes to the bathroom, there are a lot of ants.
[9:55] I think maybe your son has sugar. And so immediately I knew he had diabetes. And we went to the doctor. We asked the doctor. And the doctor looked at him and said, I'm not an expert in this.
[10:10] And I'll just say, I think there's a good chance your son has diabetes. You're going to have to go see a specialist. And he sent us to a son. And I can remember sitting outside that doctor's office. And I was angry.
[10:21] I said, God, we gave up everything. We left America. We didn't come down here when this place was nice. There were no American restaurants. There was terrorism and bombs. And we came down here to preach and teach these people.
[10:34] And you let my son get diabetes. It's easy to do that, isn't it? I'm probably the only one in the room that's ever been that guilty, that wicked, that vile. But I did. That's what Mary and Martha seem to be doing.
[10:46] The Jews, even talking about Jesus, questioned his love and his loyalty to his friends. Look at John chapter 11 and verse 37. In John 11, 37, it says, And some of them said, these are the Jews, if we're in context.
[10:59] Could not this man, which opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that even this man should not have died? I mean, we've seen what he's done. We know how powerful he is.
[11:11] And he claims to love this guy. In fact, he's already been crying. He just wept two verses before this. I mean, he's crying. What in the world? Why didn't he do something?
[11:21] Is he not who he claims he is? Couldn't he have done it? Does he really love Lazarus? Does he really care about their family? Martha and Mary do not distrust, but neither do they believe with full confidence.
[11:36] They are still worried and not trusting his provision. They're asking the questions, how, why, what if? These questions cause them to miss the full blessing of what is happening.
[11:49] The truth is that Martha and Mary were on the verge of seeing something that would go down in history written in the Bible. John would write it down and we'd still be talking about it nearly 2,000 years later.
[12:02] God was about to do something fantastic. God was about to do something great that would all look back and say, that has to be the most wonderful miracle that could have possibly happened to our family. And our family is right in the middle of it.
[12:13] But instead of trusting God, they got angry with God. They said, if you'd have been here, it wouldn't have happened. I remember when Chris and Andrea couldn't have a baby and they cried and cried and cried and begged God for children and God wouldn't give them.
[12:29] And they were angry with God and bitter with God because God didn't seem to answer their prayer. They just wanted to have children. And then one day they finally decided they could adopt and they finally decided to adopt.
[12:39] And they prayed and asked God and God gave them Jacob and Hannah. And it was like one of the most wonderful things. It took Jacob and Hannah out of filth and trash and disease and drugs and alcohol and abuse and all that stuff.
[12:52] And put Jacob and Hannah in a godly family. And all of a sudden it was like, I know now if they'd have ever had one child, they'd have never adopted Jacob and Hannah.
[13:03] But God had a plan for Jacob and Hannah. And God has a plan with you. Whatever is going on in your life, God has a plan. Third thing, we often accuse Jesus instead of trusting him.
[13:16] If you had been here, he would not have died. You could have done something about it. You could even do it right now if you really wanted to. Look at John chapter 11 and verse 22 if you would.
[13:26] But I know that even now, whatsoever thou would ask of God, God will give it thee. I don't want help in the future. I want help right now. I'm not sure you fully understand this situation.
[13:38] I'm not sure you can really help Jesus. But you could if you would. If you'd listen, you could. You could help right now. Now, this story, and I won't do it justice tonight.
[13:52] We'll get around to it another night. But this story is really about Jesus groaning in his spirit and crying. In John 11, 35, Jesus wept.
[14:05] And in the story, Jesus, just to finish up here in just a few minutes. In the story, Jesus looks at Martha and Mary and he says, Girls, he will rise again.
[14:16] And they go, Yeah, well, we know he'll rise later. I mean, we know after the end and the big day and the final day, Yeah, one day he's getting alive. But he's dead right now. We didn't want him to die right now. And he says, Those that believe in me, look at what it says in John 11, verse 23.
[14:32] Jesus said unto her, Thy brother shall rise again. 25, Jesus said, I am the resurrection and the life. And he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.
[14:42] And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. There is a resurrection. Martha's response in verse 24 was, I know you'll get him back up in the last day. I know you'll do it in the last day.
[14:55] I know there's a resurrection, but you're not helping me much right now. Last thing, and I'll close. Notice how Jesus reacts to all that's happening.
[15:07] I really wish you'd mark this in your Bible. Now, I don't know if you'll see this like I see it. And if you want to question me, I'll be more than happy. I'm going to sit right up here and just hang around, let you men come talk to me and straighten me out on this.
[15:19] But listen to this. I think Jesus hurt that day because they should have known who he was. But they didn't know who he was. Look, if you would, at John 11, 35.
[15:30] Jesus wept. God in flesh. The God man cried. Verse 36, the Jews said, behold how he loved him.
[15:43] And I think that's a beautiful picture. You can cry at a funeral. Jesus cried at a funeral. And you can see that he was, he loved people. But I don't think that's really what it was about. Look, if you would, at verse 32.
[15:56] It seems that Jesus was broken to me by their lack of faith. And they should have known him better, but they don't. In verse 32, they said, Then when Mary was come where Jesus was and saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying to him, Lord, if you would have been here, my brother wouldn't have died.
[16:14] Verse 33. When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping, which came with her, he groaned in his spirit and was troubled. Look at that.
[16:25] He groaned in his spirit and was troubled. And he said, well, where'd they lay him? And they said, come, Jesus, come and see. And Jesus wept.
[16:36] Notice he groans and his spirit is troubled. They know Jesus. They love him. They believe him. But then they basically attack him.
[16:47] Isn't that the attitude we tend to take when things aren't going our way? Why, Lord? What are you doing? Why don't you love me? After all that he has shown, then they still do not believe.
[16:59] And when they do, they want to accuse him of not caring, not having good motives, and not saving his friend. Verse 37. Look at it. Some of them said, could not this man which opened the eyes of the blind have caused that even this man should not have died?
[17:16] And Jesus therefore again, groaning him in himself, comes to the grave. It was a cave and a stone was laying there. I'll stop.
[17:28] I just want you to imagine as a parent. How many of you have got children? Raise your hand. How many of you love your children? Raise your hand. My children are all grown. They're still my children.
[17:38] They'll never quit being my children. I love them very much. I hurt when they hurt. When things don't go right, it tears my heart out. But I want you to imagine some of you people that got small children. And I want you to imagine one day Betty was in our living room in our first home that we bought.
[17:55] And we didn't have air conditioning yet. There was a window. She could hear out in the carport. And Chris and Stephanie were talking. And Chris and Stephanie had a conversation. And they said, who do you like to spank you the most?
[18:06] Do you like mama to spank you? Or do you like daddy to spank you? And the kids said, we like it when mama does because she don't hurt us bad. So Betty heard that, went upstairs outside and showed them that she could still whip.
[18:22] Do you ever overheard your kids talking? Have you ever overheard your kids talking? Can you imagine what it would be like for you to have a great plan of what you're going to do in your child's life?
[18:35] If you're going to be doing something very wonderful for your child and to hear your child talking to somebody else and saying, I don't think mama loves us. I don't think daddy loves us.
[18:46] Why don't they take better care of us? Why didn't they come? Why didn't they take care? Why is it four days? Why is he four days dead? Why doesn't God do something? Why doesn't mama do something?
[18:57] Why would they let this happen to me? Why don't my parents care? I think you've grown in your heart. I think your spirit would be troubled.
[19:08] And I think your heart would be broken. For you to hear your children say, I don't think mama loves me. And yet I will say to you that our God hears us talk about our father that way all the time.
[19:25] God, why in the world won't you let us have children? Why has it been eight years of us begging you and eight years you haven't answered? And the God of heaven is looking down and said, I'm going to give you four youngins for this thing's over.
[19:38] If you only knew what I know, you'd probably hush. Because I tell you, when she got four, she says if she had five, she'd jump off a building. And she waited all those years and God gave her two overnight.
[19:49] And then immediately she got pregnant with the number three. And then number four. And, you know, God in heaven knew what he was going to do. Did he know or not? Amen or no? And do you understand?
[20:00] God's at work. God's at work. I told my sister today, I said, I love you and I know you love mom, but let me just tell you, this is all going to work out. God's going to do something.
[20:12] He's going to take her home. You're hurting now, but the day will come when it won't be all these bitter things you're saying. We're all saying, not just my sister. You get your feelings hurt.
[20:24] I want to say to you, Jesus wept. I want to say to you that God was awful patient. These were cinders. You know, these are people that he stayed in their house.
[20:36] These are people that took care of him. These are people that did good things for the preacher. And they were bad attitude people in this story. If you'd have been here.
[20:47] If you'd have been here. I can almost hear it. Sorry to add this to it. But I can almost hear it. Hey, nobody's taking as good a care of you as we have. We always have a place for you.
[20:59] You always get a bowl of beans in our house. You know you and the 12 can show up anytime you want. We take care of you. And then when we need you. Isn't that how we talk to God?
[21:11] And we get this bitter attitude at him. I wonder. If he would express himself like he did in John 11. If he might say. I'm about to cry.
[21:23] I am groaning in my spirit. I am troubled in my spirit. I'm groaning inside. I know this. That as a dad.
[21:35] As a husband. As pastor of Vision Baptist Church. If I thought you thought. Those things about me. It would rip me out of the frame.
[21:47] And he is God. And no one ever loved us. Like Jesus. Could it be. That you ought to cut him some slack.
[21:58] And say. I know God's at work in my life. And I'm going to trust him. Could it be. That you ought to say. I don't understand what he's doing. I don't know why he's doing it. But I know what he does.
[22:10] Is always right. And it's always good. And he is at work in my life. Could it be. Father in heaven. I love you.
[22:20] I pray that you work in our lives. I pray you'd help us to trust you. I love these people. That you let me. Serve and minister to. And I just beg you God. To comfort them tonight. With these words.
[22:31] And to. Strengthen them. And to draw them closer. And I will give you great honor. And great glory. For what you do. God help your people tonight. I pray. You have been listening to Austin Gardner.
[22:44] Pastor of Vision Baptist Church. For contact information. Location. Service times. Or more audio and video recordings. Log on to. www.visionbaptist.com