Missing out on God’s Answers

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If you’ve ever wanted to take a peek at my sermon notes, no, those are not my notes. As I was getting ready to walk up here as y’all were finishing the song, Benjamin says, I drew you something. Can I walk down there and bring it to you?

I’m getting ready to go up front, but he handed it to me and I didn’t have the heart to just lay him down back there and break his little heart. So here’s what he did for me during the song service. We’re going to be in John chapter 11, John chapter 11 this evening.

I can find which marker leads to it. John chapter 11. You know, if you’ve not talked with a small child recently, you’re kind of missing out.

You can ask them sometimes, why did you just do that? Because I did. Okay, well, you can’t really get any clearer than that.

That is the reason, because I did. There was no thought behind it. I just did it.

But the other day we were leaving school and I asked Benjamin, as I usually do when we’re getting in the car, Did you have a good day today? Daddy, I had a rough day today. Okay, well, I’ve talked to the.

. . Sometimes that can mean I was rough today.

I talked to the teacher already, and she said he had a good day. He behaved. I said, well, why did you have a rough day?

It was rough. Well, I know, but why? Daddy, there were selfish grapes.

Folks, I still don’t know what that means. I tried to ask questions, tried to understand, tried to get a little more information. he just kept telling me, Daddy, there were selfish grapes in class.

You mean grapes like the purple things? Yeah, grapes. And they were selfish.

How did you know? Because they were. So really, all the information, no matter how many questions I asked, all the answer I could get was that there were selfish grapes, and apparently that caused a bad day.

And hopefully someday in heaven I will get the opportunity to ask God, what did he mean by that? But as of now, I still have no clue. There is a reason for me telling you that story tonight, and it’s because we’re going to talk about the questions we miss the answers to.

Sometimes we miss answers to our questions, sometimes we miss God’s answers to our questions, and it’s not because God said something totally off the wall like there were selfish grapes. That was kind of his deal. I would like to think that I could understand what he was talking about if he was talking about something that made sense. But God makes perfect sense.

God gives answers. God tells us what the truth is. And sometimes we miss it for a variety of reasons.

You know, we talked a little bit last week when we were, I keep saying we talked. Usually it’s mostly me talking, unless you all share thoughts with me at the back door. But last week I talked about the authority of scripture and talked about how God’s word has answers for us to just about every situation.

And there are some things that because of the day and age it was written in, that the scripture does not address in black and white. Should I text hateful things to people on my cell phone? You know, they really didn’t get into texting very much in the Bible.

They didn’t have cell phones. But you know what? There are principles that we can take from the Bible and apply that would tell us, no, it’s not right to text mean things to other people with your cell phone because of what God has said other places about, for example, let no corrupt communication proceed from your mouth.

I think God would extend that and say that should apply to your fingertips as well because it’s still corrupt communication. There are principles that we can take and the Bible applies to everything that we need to know. And I gave you the example, if you’re trying to figure out how to fill out your tax return, and should I do this answer or should I do this answer?

I’m not talking about lying. The Bible’s against that too. But okay, is it this box I put that number in or is it the next box?

Okay, the Bible might not have an answer for you there. If your question is, where should I go to lunch today? Incidentally, I can recommend the coffee shop just up the street.

But if your question is, where should I have lunch today? The Bible’s probably not going to give you an answer to that. You can pray about it.

God, can he give you an answer? Absolutely. God can tell you, I think you ought to go have lunch at such and such place.

Is he going to? Not necessarily. But the deep questions in life that any religion, any philosophy seeks to answer, the Bible has answers for.

Folks, it’s not just an outdated book written by men thousands of years ago. It’s the word of God, and it’s as applicable and as current today as it was the day that it was written. And if I recall correctly, we talked about in 2 Timothy, where Paul was writing to Timothy and says, you know, remain with the scriptures.

Stand fast with the scriptures and the things that you’ve known and how from a child you’ve read the scriptures and they’ve made you wise unto salvation. Everything that we need to know as far as spiritual truth, everything that we need to know as far as how to be saved, how to have peace with God, how to live the kind of life that God expects from us, everything that we need to know, God has revealed and is contained within the pages of this book. See, God has given us answers and God continues to give us answers.

We can read God’s word with a mind toward a question we have, and I can almost guarantee you there’s a principle in there that applies somewhere that will tell you what God’s mind is on a subject. And I think I’ve mentioned this here before. I heard a pastor on the radio, I can’t even remember now who it was, but one of guys who’s on nationally on the radio, referred back to, he’s referring back to the influence that the Bible used to have on our society.

He talked about a written sermon that he’d read from back in the 1880s that was just prior to some kind of big vote on railroad subsidies and what the Bible had to say about railroad subsidies. I would never have thought to preach a sermon on what does the Bible say on railroad subsidies, but evidently there’s something in there that applies to what they needed do in that instance. I can go to the Bible and say, this is what it says on immigration.

This is what it says on the debt. This is what it says on the gold standard. This is what any number of things, folks, the Bible applies.

Whether we’re talking about our national life, whether we’re talking about how do I need to live for God today, it’s between the pages, it’s between the covers of this book, it’s between the covers of God’s word. He has answers for us today. If we’re looking to know, if the world is looking to know, as I alluded to earlier, the questions that every religion and every philosophy tries to answer, the deep questions of life.

Is there an afterlife? What happens when I die? How do I get to the desirable place after I die?

Whatever that particular religion happens to call it. Every religion seeks to answer all of these deep questions that human beings have wrestled with for millennia. And some religions do a better job in answering those than others.

Folks, the deepest questions of the human heart, the Bible has answers for. God has answers for. And if we can look at his word, if we can seek his face in prayer, if we can listen to his Holy Spirit and say, I don’t think God has answers for me in this situation.

It may just be that we need to look a little harder. But folks, the reason is never that God has not answered our questions. Often it’s because we’ve missed the answer somewhere.

And that’s not something that’s new and unique to our society today. That’s something that’s been going on since the very beginning, Jesus dealt with this with people. They were asking questions and he was giving answers and they were completely missing it.

It would go over their heads. Kind of like Benjamin was trying to tell me, trying really hard to tell me something about those selfish grapes. And daddy’s just too stupid to understand.

It went right over my head. Jesus all the time was teaching the truth and the people just didn’t understand the truth right in front of their faces. We’re going to look at the story of Mary and Martha today and their brother Lazarus and see how all throughout this account, It’s probably going to be a familiar story to most of you, and I’ll try to move through the story fairly quickly.

Oh my goodness, it’s already almost 6. 30. So I’ll try to move through this even more quickly than I had planned on.

But we’re going to see how all through this, they were asking questions of Jesus. And Jesus is right in front of their face answering the questions that they’re asking, and they’re still missing out on the answers that God is giving, that Jesus Christ, God in human flesh is giving. And the reason I tell you this before we get to the story, before we get to the points of application, is to remind us of these are some of the reasons, the very same things that Mary and Martha were doing are some of the same reasons that we miss out on God’s answers today.

Some of the very same reasons why you and I miss out on God’s answers and why the world around us misses out on God’s answers. And maybe if we know what these pitfalls are, maybe if we realize what we’re doing, we can avoid that and we can hear and understand God’s answers when he gives them to us. So we start in John chapter 11 verse 1.

It says, Now a certain man was sick, named Lazarus of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha. And it was that Mary which anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick. Therefore his sister sent unto him, saying, Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick.

So Jesus is in Jerusalem, and they’re in Bethany. And Bethany and Jerusalem are not that far apart. It was about a day’s journey, if I remember correctly.

And Lazarus is sick and evidently it wasn’t just a little sniffle. He was in bad shape. And they had the faith of knowing that Jesus of all people would be able to do something about it.

And so they sent word to Jesus over in Jerusalem and said, Our brother is sick. Would you come and do something for him? Because you love him and he’s sick.

Verse 4 says, When Jesus heard that, he said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby. Now it’s going to look eventually, if you’re familiar with the story at all, it’s going to look eventually as though Jesus was wrong. He really wasn’t, but it’s going to look that way for a little bit.

Because Jesus turned to his disciples and to the other people who were around him as he’s teaching in Jerusalem and says, this sickness is not going to result in his death. But it’s merely a vehicle for God to be glorified. Now Jesus loved Martha, verse 5, and her sister and Lazarus.

And when he had heard, therefore, that he was sick, he abode two days still in the same place where he was. Okay, so after they’ve sent him, there’s been a three-day gap, because it would have been about one day for him to get the message, and then he’s waited two more days. So they’ve been waiting three days now, and he abode in the same place two days where he was, and then after that he saith unto his disciples, let us go unto Judea again.

So the third day he gets up and says, let’s go. Now it’s going to take him another day’s journey of walking. Nowadays, with the highways in Israel, you could just zip across there and be there probably in an hour or less, I’m guessing.

I’ve not looked at the highway map, but they’re not very far apart. But for walking, it was going to take him a day to get there. So by the time he gets there, it will have been the fourth day since they sent for him.

His disciples saying to him, Master, the Jews of late sought to stone thee, and goest thou thither again? So in their area, there had been Jewish leaders who had wanted to stone Jesus. And they’re saying, really, we’re going back to Bethany.

We’re going back there. And Jesus answered, are there not 12 hours in the day? If any man walk in the day, he stumbleth not because he seeth the light of this world.

But if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth because there is no light in him. And this to me sounds like another instance of we need to forgive them because they don’t know what they’re doing. They don’t fully understand the gravity of what they’re doing.

He’s basically saying it’s no wonder they stumble around because they’re walking in darkness. And so the answer to that then is to withhold the light. Of course, Jesus is going to go back to Bethany.

These things said he, and after that he saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth, but I go that I may wake him out of sleep. Now that’s a euphemism there because Jesus knew. Jesus knew that Lazarus had died.

Well, wait a minute. Jesus said at the beginning, Lazarus’ sickness was not going to result in death. well it ends up not even though he’s dead now he’s not going to stay that way sorry to spoil the story for you if you’re not familiar with the ending but even though Lazarus is dead when Jesus is involved death is not an eternal is not death doesn’t always keep and so Jesus is going to show up and he’s going to take care of it it’s going to be like he was just sleeping our friend Lazarus sleepeth but I go that I may wake him out of sleep then said his disciples verse 12 Lord if he sleep he shall do well.

Again, I wasn’t even thinking about the disciples when I said, here’s an unanswered question, but Jesus is telling them he’s dead because he talked in other places about death and sleep and using that as a euphemism. And they said, oh, good, sleep’s the best thing for him. And I would be amazed if Jesus did not walk around with a headache all the time from, are you kidding me?

How is it you’re not getting this? How be it Jesus spake of his death? but they thought he had spoken of taking rest and sleep.

Then Jesus said unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead. Okay, you’re not getting this. I’m telling you, Lazarus has died.

And I’m glad for your sakes that I was not there to the intent that you may believe. Nevertheless, let us go unto him. So he answers here the question before they even ask it.

Okay, if he’s dead, why are we going on to Bethany to deal with him? And Jesus says, he’s dead. And I’m glad for your sakes that I was not there to heal him before he died because what you’re going to see is going to help you to believe what you need to believe.

And so we’re going there anyway. So he answers the question, well, if he’s dead, why are we going before they even ask it? Then said Thomas, which is called Didymus, unto his fellow disciples, let us also go that we may die with him.

Die with Lazarus, die with Jesus. Thomas, you’re really not getting what’s about to happen here. And you know what?

We give the disciples a bad time. We would probably be just like them. I would probably be just, I would probably specifically be either like Thomas, doubting what’s going on, or like Peter, getting myself in trouble with my big mouth.

If I was there in Jesus’ day, we would be just like them, because we have the benefit of seeing how the story ended. So even though I’m having a little fun with it, let’s not pretend like we’re super spiritual compared to these rubes who just don’t get it. But he says, let us go that we may die with him.

Okay, die with Lazarus. Jesus is about to raise him from the dead. And I don’t think Jesus is ready to die at this point because they’re going to stone him in Bethany.

Then when Jesus came, verse 17, he found that he had lain in the grave four days already. So Lazarus must have died just after they sent word to Jesus. Now Bethany was nigh unto Jerusalem about 15 furlongs off.

And many of the Jews came to Martha and Mary to comfort them concerning their brother. Then Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming, went and met him. But Mary was still in the house.

And we know from other stories about Mary and Martha that Martha is sort of the take-charge person in the family. She is, you know, some of us are Mary and some of us are Martha. Mary, you know, in the other instance when Jesus was at their house, Mary was at his feet learning from Jesus, and Martha was in the other room getting lunch ready and getting mad that Mary wasn’t helping.

Some of us are Martha, and we’re going to make sure everything is taken care of, and we’re going to be the martyr. And then some are merry. They’re going to enjoy life.

Martha takes charge of the situation or thinks she does again and runs out when she hears word that Jesus is coming, runs out to meet him because she’s got some things to say to him. She says in verse 21, then said Martha unto Jesus, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. She runs out to tell him, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.

I don’t know that I don’t know for sure the tone of voice. She says this in it doesn’t. The Bible doesn’t explicitly say her state of mind, but we can sort of guess.

You know, she loves her brother. She’s lost her brother. She knows that Jesus had the potential, the power to heal him.

And yet he didn’t come right when they called. And I’m sure there’s some sadness. There’s probably a little anger mixed in there.

And she’s telling him, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. That’s a pretty sassy statement to use with God. If you’d been here.

But even in her anger, she’s revealing faith here that Jesus, I know you could have healed him. So there’s faith mixed with what are you doing? I don’t understand your thought process here.

And she comes along now even reaffirming that faith and saying, but I know that even now whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee. So I know even though I don’t understand, Jesus, why you’ve let us go through all of this, I know that even now whatever you ask to happen is what’s going to happen. And Jesus said to her, My brother shall rise again.

Martha proceeds to get theological. Martha saith unto him in verse 24, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day. Here we go, another situation where if I’m Jesus, I’m slapping myself in the forehead. You don’t know what I’m talking about.

I didn’t say your brother will eventually rise again. I said your brother shall rise again. And here she’s talking about, yes, I know at the end of times and all of that, he’s going to rise again with all of us.

And Jesus is saying, I’m specifically speaking of your brother. He is not just everybody and he among them, but he is going to rise again. And so when she says that, in verse 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. And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?

So he tells her, I’m the resurrection and the life. If you believe in me, even if you’re dead, you’re going to live again. Whosoever lives and believes in me will never die.

And he says, do you believe this? She saith unto him, yea, Lord, I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world. And when she had so said, she went her way and called Mary, her sister, secretly, saying, the master has come and calleth for thee.

As soon as she heard that, she arose quickly and came unto him. And so Martha, even though throughout this story, she just doesn’t understand what Jesus is doing. There’s still the benefit there of being able to say Martha, even though she didn’t know what Jesus had in mind, didn’t understand what he was doing, didn’t even really understand the answers to her question when she’s asking them.

It’s just going over her head. She still believed that he could do anything he said he could do. She still had this incredible faith in the Lord.

Now, Jesus was not yet coming to town, but was in that place where Martha met him. The Jews then which were with her in the house and comforted her when they saw Mary, that she rose up hastily and went out, followed her, saying, she goeth to the grave to weep there. Then 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. She says the same thing that Martha says. Lord, if you’d been here, my brother had not died, would not have died.

And even though, again, it doesn’t explicitly say what her state of mind is, we know something about the character of these two women from other places in the Gospels. And it has always seemed to me that while Martha comes out in kind of a scolding tone, Mary comes out and falls at his feet and is looking for someone to comfort her. She just wants to be with Jesus.

I mean, that’s why Martha got mad at her in the other instance we know of, because she wasn’t in there helping make lunch. She just, who cares if lunch gets made? I just want to be with Jesus.

You know, there’s some benefit to both of their personalities. Sometimes we need to get up and go to work and do what we’re supposed to do, and other times we just need to let the work worry about itself for a little bit, and we need to go be with Jesus. So, you know, it’s not that either one of them is right or wrong, but there needs to be a balance there.

And so she goes out to Jesus, and all of these people follow her because they think she’s going out to the grave to weep. And she falls down at Jesus’ feet and said, if only you’d been here, my brother would not have died. Jesus doesn’t answer anything because she hasn’t asked anything.

When Jesus therefore saw her weeping and the Jews also weeping which which came with her he groaned in the spirit and was troubled. Jesus was you know I don’t think Jesus mind was changed. Jesus was already on his way to Bethany to do what he ended up doing.

But what we see here is that even though Jesus Christ is God in human flesh even though he is God he still having come to earth in the incarnation and living in human flesh and being among us and one of us, he knows what we go through and he experienced all the heartbreak and all the troubles and he knows what it’s like to be us. Because when he saw her and the grief, he was moved with compassion on her. And he says, where have you laid him?

And they said unto him, Lord, come and see. And Jesus wept. Then said the Jews, behold how he loved him.

And 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? So they’re blaming Jesus too, saying, well, he could heal the blind could he have not kept this man from dying. Well, never mind the fact that some of these Jewish people were among the ones who wanted to stone him and weren’t, you know, when he healed the blind or did things, they accused him of doing it under the power of the devil, but now, you know, there’s blame to be passed around and they’re going to make sure he gets some of it.

Jesus, therefore, again groaning in himself, cometh to the grave. It was a cave and a stone lay upon it. And Jesus said, take ye away the stone.

Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh, for he hath been dead four days. I wouldn’t want to go in there either. But Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that if thou wouldst believe, thou shouldst see the glory of God?

And then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid, and Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me, and I knew that thou hearest me always. But because of the people which stand by, I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me. And so Jesus begins to pray here.

and we talked a little bit a few weeks ago when we talked about the deity and humanity of Christ that when he came to earth how that worked that he had the human nature and the and the God nature was that for a time he voluntarily limited I’m trying to remember the phrase that that I used he voluntarily limited the independent exercise of his divine attributes which meant he didn’t stop being God but for a while he stopped using his divine attributes independently in his human nature and instead let the father direct things. And so he says here, Jesus could have just said, Lazarus come out, but instead he prays to God and he says, I know, I know, you know that we, we both understand each other and you always hear. And I could have said from Jerusalem, God, father, would you raise him up?

And you would have done that, but I’m standing here now and I’m praying to you out loud now so that the people who are around me who will know that when Lazarus comes out of this grave that it was because you sent me to do this so that they will completely understand what’s going on here. And when he had thus spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. I would imagine Lazarus probably had to be mad.

As much as I enjoy my life, when I get to heaven, don’t call me mad. Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with grave clothes, and his face was bound about with a napkin.

And Jesus saith unto them, loose him and let him go. So basically this mummy, not that he was mummified, but he’s wrapped up like we would see a mummy, who’d been dead for four days and already was in the process of decay, was out hopping around because Jesus said, come for him. I know I got into this this morning talking a little bit about the creation, but that’s some power right there with the words of his, he didn’t go in there and do surgery, he didn’t hook him up with the little paddles and say clear, I can’t even make the noise right.

And suddenly he lived again. He opened his mouth and the dead lived again. Spoke the universe into existence.

Jesus was there with God the Father. Spoke the universe into existence. With the words of his mouth, everything left into existence.

With the words of his mouth, the blind were healed. With the words of his mouth, the dead lived again. With the words of his mouth, all the armies of darkness will fall, the book of Revelation said.

That’s some power right there. He doesn’t even have to go out and get his hands dirty. He just opens his mouth and the world bends to his will.

Oh, my goodness. And yet we go through life and forget the power that he has and forget he can do anything. And I’m probably the worst one in the room about that, about panicking about things going on in my life and forgetting that he’s, oh, my goodness, he’s so much in charge, we just can’t even imagine how sovereign our God is.

Jesus can handle it, ladies and gentlemen. And we could talk about the incredible nature of what happened with Lazarus, and we may at some point. But all throughout this story, all throughout this account, people are coming to Jesus looking for answers.

They’re appealing to Jesus, would you do this, or could you do this, or what’s going to happen now? And all throughout the thing, they’re missing the answers that he’s given. And I see by the clock that we’re running short on time, And so I’m just going to go through and very quickly give you four things that, four causes, four reasons that we miss out on God’s answers that I see in this passage.

And there may be more, but when we’re looking for God to answer a situation in our life, or God, why did this happen? Or how can you let me go through this? Or God, what should I do here?

And we ask him and we ask him and it seems like he’s not answering and there’s no clear word. Why is it that we’re not hearing the answer that we need to hear from God? because as I said earlier, most of the time it’s not because he’s not speaking to us.

There’s a great song, I can’t remember all of it, but just, so I can’t say it’s a great song, I don’t remember most of it, but there’s a great point that I heard made in the song once, that God is not silent, we’re not listening. And that’s probably part of it. Why isn’t God speaking anymore?

God is speaking. God speaks through his word and his Holy Spirit all the time, we’re just not listening. But when we are listening for the answers, what are some of the reasons we miss out on the answers he has?

First of all, sometimes we don’t like the answer. Sometimes we don’t like the answer. Martha, where do I get that from?

Martha asked Jesus, can you come and heal my brother? What did he do? His answer was, yeah, but I’m going to wait for two more days.

You think that’s what she wanted to hear? That’s why she ran out there probably wagging the finger and saying, if you’d been here, my brother wouldn’t have died. Why didn’t he answer my prayer?

Why didn’t he answer my question? Why didn’t he answer my request? Well, maybe he did, and it just wasn’t the answer that we wanted to hear.

and sometimes we’ll have a question, what am I supposed to do? Or God, why is this happening? And we’ll go to God’s word and say, God, what is the answer here?

And we’ll get a clear answer from God’s word or we’ll get a clear unction from the Holy Spirit and he’ll tell us what the reason is and we go, that can’t possibly be it. And we keep looking and keep looking for months and get frustrated when all the time he gave us an answer and we just dismissed it because it wasn’t the answer we liked and wanted to hear. So sometimes we miss out on God’s answers because we don’t like the answer he gives.

Second of all, sometimes we don’t see the answer. We don’t pay attention. We ask him, oh, this drives me crazy.

This drives me crazy at school. Kids will ask me, how do you do this math problem? And I start explaining it all over again, and then they lean over and start talking.

I’ll walk over on the desk. This class ring really comes in handy. It’s like having a gavel with me wherever I go.

I can get on the desk and go, excuse me, you asked me a question, and now you’re going to listen to the answer. Is that not frustrating to anybody else when that happens? Well, we do the same thing with God.

We ask him a question and then forget about the answer. We don’t search his word. We don’t pray about it anymore.

And God maybe has the answer right there for us. And yet months later we can say, well, he never did answer. God never did speak to me about this.

You know what? Maybe he did and we just didn’t see the answer. Because when the disciples asked about Lazarus, Jesus very clearly told them he’s going to die and I’m going to raise him aga