Sermon Series:
When Jesus Doesn’t Make It Right
Sermon Title: When
Jesus Doesn’t Make It
Sermon Passage:
John 11:1-37 (NIV)
INTRO:
Zach was quickly becoming a good friend. He was the bass player in a band my best
friend Jason played in and one of the nicest guys you could have ever met. Zach and I liked staying up and playing
Nintendo all night. Being college
students, we could handle such a strenuous task. We talked about having the all night game
nights once a month when Zach went home for the winter break. We scheduled another evening of goofing off
for the weekend he returned…only Zach did not return.
I received a call one day from Jason who simply
said, “I don’t know how else to say it but Zach is dead. I am sorry I didn’t get in touch sooner but
we are on our way to VA for the funeral today.”
Talk about a blow to the head. I could not wrap my head around this loss for
a long time. How could such a great guy
die in such a senseless and tragic manner?
Zach was the passenger in a car that lost control on the ice and hit an
embankment. The sudden blow caused Zach
to break his neck. The lead singer of
the band was waiting just a couple of miles away to pick up Zach to get ready
to head to Athens, and he was trained in CPR but he could not revive Zach. Zach died.
We probably can all relate to a tragic event that
happened in our life. Death, divorce,
sickness, you name it. Tragedy is no
stranger to us. This was one of many
tragedies that I have faced in my brief lifetime. And I can tell you I do not have the answer
for many of them.
There are times my faith has been challenged and
times when I have questioned my faith, but for me my faith always comes back to
rest on what I would like to discuss with you today. If you are not a Christian, please do not
tune me out, there may just be something in what I say that might help you
through tragedies that you will face in your life. If you are a Christian, then lean in this
morning, because you may be facing a tragedy or know someone who is.
The question of whether we will or will not face
tragedy is not if but when. Everyone
take your these two fingers and reach across to your other arm and take your
pulse. If you have a pulse you will face
tragedy in life and some of you will face it more often than others. Tragedy does not play favorites.
Why we face tragedy is not a mystery. We live in an imperfect world that is filled
with sin. Sin is a black hole of death
and destruction. Sin authors tragedy’s
sonnets.
So if we are going to face, or are currently facing,
tragedy, what do we do about it?
As Christians, when we face tragedy we can turn to Jesus
who wants us to have His strength. In
fact Paul tells the Philippians in his letter to them that he can do all things
through Jesus Christ who is his strength.
If there ever was someone who faced countless tragedies, it was Paul –
shipwrecked, stoned, beaten, mugged, jailed…yet Paul wants us all to know that
Jesus is the key to having strength in the midst of the storms we face in life.
As we face tragic situations, Jesus renews our
strength.
- - when we wait
- - when we choose life
- - when we turn to Him
Let’s look at a tragedy in the Bible to help us
understand this better.
I. As we face tragic situations, Jesus
renews our strength when we wait.
John
11:1-6
-
Here we have Jesus being informed of
the sickness that has overtaken Lazarus.
His sisters, whose family seemed to know Jesus well, send word to Him in
hopes of a healing. They knew Jesus had
the power to heal.
-
Jesus gives insight to what would
happen. He says that the sickness would
not end in death. For most who read
this, we read the sickness will not end in death but hear the sickness will not
cause death because for Christians we believe in the power of God to heal or as
nonbelievers they refuse to accept anything but a full recovery.
-
There are some acts of life we do
not understand: cancer, heart attacks, car accidents, murder, sickness,
etc. When these tragic events occur, our
faith is challenged. Jesus sees this
event as a way God’s glory becomes more evident, and in this particular case,
an opportunity for the God’s Son to be glorified.
-
But Jesus stayed two more days. I think this is where faith is most
challenging to us - when Jesus does not react to our reaction or respond to our
cry or move when we ask Him to move.
Jesus stayed and this causes many to question the love of Jesus and even
the existence of Christ because Jesus was not there when they wanted Him to show
up the most.
-
Jesus stayed two more days so we may
ask, how much did He really love Martha, Mary, and Lazarus?
-
How much does He really love us when
we are suffering? This sounds like a
terrible question to ask but when you are going through a tough situation in
life, it is the only question that seems to matter. Where is Jesus when I need Him? What happens when Jesus doesn’t make it?
-
Is He going to wait two days in my
situation and let the worst happen?
-
Then we read a simple verse that
says this:
29 He gives power to the weak, And to those who have no
might He increases strength. 30 Even the
youths shall faint and be weary, And the young men shall utterly fall, 31 But
those who wait on the Lord Shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with
wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not
faint. Isaiah 40:29-31 (NKJV)
-
The key is not
whether Jesus loves us. Jesus already
showed how much He loves us by dying for us in our place to pay for our sins.
-
The key is not
in Jesus waiting two days. The key is, are we going to be patient
enough to wait for Him? Are we going to
turn and seek Him out when things get bad so He can become our strength in the
midst of the storm? Are we going to wait
upon the Lord long enough for us to realize that all the time we waited He was
becoming our strength, our willpower, our ability to keep fighting through that
situation that is creating our darkest hour.
-
The Bible says that through Christ
we can do all things. I am here to say
without Christ the fight leaves us, the willpower leaves us, the ability to
keep holding on leaves us and we crash.
-
Don’t crash, wait on the Lord and He
will increase your strength.
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