Has My Faith Failed?

[00:00:01] Speaker A: Thanks for tuning in to the Met Church podcast. Here at the Met, we are all about connecting people to God and one another. If you have any questions or want more information about what's happening here at the church, then head to our [email protected] we would love to stay connected with you throughout the week through social media, so be sure to connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter now. Enjoy the message. [00:00:24] Speaker B: All right, Good morning, everybody. I'm glad you are here. We're so excited about this season, especially with Christmas coming right up on us. It's a great opportunity, as Amber mentioned earlier, to invite our friends and family members to be a part of one of those four services. When surveyed, people said, well, if I were going to church, probably I would go on a Christmas weekend or I'd go on an Easter. And so we've already got that in our favor to get people to respond. And then there was another statistic that was interesting where people said. Where they found that more than 8 out of 10 people said, if I were asked to attend a church, I probably would go. So you got an 8 and 10 chance of getting people to come on. Probably one of the best opportunities to get them in a church. And that would be for Christmas. And so one of those four services I encourage you to attend, come early. We're set up for overflow, but we hate for you to have to do that. So that's why we encourage. Every time we tell you come early, you're like, yeah, whatever. And then you're rolling in here and you're sitting in there with a bunch of people in overflow going, why am I in overflow? So I'm telling you, come early and get here. Get a great seat and get people that you know who might not go to church otherwise to attend church with you. It's gonna be a lot of fun. We have strings, horns. It's gonna be a great celebration. Of course, we'll have all the usual elements. We'll have the candlelight portion of the service. We'll also receive Christmas communion. That's always a very special time. So don't miss these services. They're gonna be great, memorable. Next weekend is Christmas Sunday, a very special separate service from what the Christmas Eve services will look like, but it'll be along that theme as well. So I just wanted to give you that little plug before I talk to you about what I want to talk to you about. We're closing the series that we've been in this morning called Blind Faith, and we've Been trying to answer some common questions that people have when it comes to matters of faith that they struggle with. Some people, these questions keep them away from God. And some people who know God, they've even walked away from God because they cannot reconcile some of the issues that we've been trying to address over the past few weeks. Subjects like this. For example, if God is good, then why is there suffering in the world? If God is a good God, why is there evil in the world? And so we started the series tackling that topic. And then we went to the next week where we talked about, is the Bible reliable? Can I really count on God's word as being the final authority to guide and guard my life? And of course, we absolutely believe the Bible is a final authority. Everything that I share is an opinion, unless it's based upon God's word. And so the Bible said, let God be true and everyone else a liar. So we believe in the reliability of Scripture. And so we tackled that one the next week. And then we went further and said, ask the question, is Jesus the only way to heaven? 4,200 religions in the world, are all of them wrong? Are we the only ones right? Surely God will take into account the sincerity of people and one day allow them into heaven. And so we ask that question, is Jesus, that very narrow way, the only way to heaven? And of course, Jesus answered the question himself in John 14:6, where he said, I am the way, the truth, the life. No one comes to the Father except by me. Jesus is either the only way to heaven or he's no way to heaven. And so the devil just floods his own with a lot of things. Listen, there's only the true and the false. But the problem is the false takes on many forms. And so we answered that question, or we tried to that next weekend. And then we move forward and we ask the question, is there life after death? Is there anything we can count on beyond this veil of tears? Is this all there is? Or is there something beyond this? And then we talked about, if the church is the answer, then why are there so many hypocrites? We dealt with that last weekend and this weekend I'm gonna close this series out by asking this question. Has my faith failed? Has my faith failed? There are a lot of people who have given up on going to church because they've had some experience in the life of the church that disillusioned them, that disappointed them, and they simply walked away from their church experience. And I've been raised in church. My dad was a Pastor so I fully understand how people can have a bad experience in church and that can sour them and they can walk away for a period of time from the church. And then there's a deeper level that I want to address, is not just the people that walk away from the church, but people that actually walk away from God. And that disappointment, as is in the case of a church experience, might be a disappointment in other people. But when you walk away from God and you're willing to kind of recant your faith, that goes much deeper. That's a disappointment in God. On one hand, you feel like people have let you down. On the other hand, you feel like God has let you down. And there are a lot of people, folks who aren't in anybody's church today because they've gone through one or two levels of that disappointment. They've either walked away from church or they've walked away from God, or they've done both. And I wanna simply say I understand how that can happen and I understand how people can misunderstand what God is doing in their life. I think at some point in time, if you live long enough, you're going to come upon a circumstance in your life where it makes no sense. You're going to encounter something in your life which is just not fair. And it's going to challenge how you view God. It's gonna challenge your faith. Because if you believe, as I do, that the Bible teaches that God is sovereign, that simply means God is in control of everything. That means God either causes everything that happens to happen or he allows everything that happens to happen. And some point in life, you've gotta try to square that circle and you try to gotta figure out where you are on that. Because where you land on that will determine how strong your faith is. It will determine your level of involvement in the life of a church. And so this topic that I'm dealing with this morning is really a big one. It's really one that I've struggled with at points in time in my faith, with the homegoing of my wife and one of my granddaughters. I mean, I know what that's like to have a crisis of faith where you feel like what has happened is not fair and you don't understand what God is doing. And you wonder at some level, did my faith fail? Was there something I could have done more than I did? And I believe sometimes when we land there, particularly when we're talking about people who pass away, I think sometimes we misunderstand the purpose of God in the lives of Our loved ones. While one hand. We understand what the Bible speaks of in Mark 11, when Jesus said, if you have faith, you can call out to a mountain and the mountain will move if you just have enough faith. And I believe that because Jesus turns and what Jesus was teaching is simply this. A mountain represents some insurmountable object in your path. A mountain represents something that you know that it would be impossible physically to move. But when you pray with faith, you recognize, I have a God that can do the impossible. I have the God who could do the insurmountable. I have a God who is able to do anything. There is nothing too hard for my God. And then you begin to square that verse with First John, chapter five, when Jesus said, whatever you ask in my name, you ask and it'll be granted according to my will. And so now you're getting a little more clarity of what praying in faith looks like. Praying in faith involves my belief in God, that he's able to do the impossible, that he can move mountains. But I also understand that when I pray in faith, I. I'm praying according to God's will. And sometimes it is not God's will, perhaps to move a mountain in my life that I want moved, my will comes up against his will. And that's when you have a problem. That's where the conflict comes in. That's where the misunderstanding comes in. Sometimes that's where the disillusionment comes in. For example, on one hand, I believe God is capable to heal anyone of anything. That's why I love that we prayed for Sal, and I believe God can absolutely heal, heal Sal of what he's facing with his cancer. We have others in our church. Some of them are watching online. We have a man in MD Anderson, one of my dear friends, who's facing some huge recovery time dealing with his cancer, and God's in the process of healing him. I've got two other folks that are in our church right now watching online that God is doing some incredible things of healing their bodies from cancer and heart disease. So. So I've seen God and you have as well. I've seen God at work, and I know what he's capable of doing. But let me contrast that with another illustration that we've got right here in our church. One of the folks that led us in worship this morning, Ashley, sweet Ashley, she's been praying for her mother, and we've been praying for her mother, that her mother would be healed. But just a few hours ago, God called her mother home, and she's here leading worship this morning with a broken heart. So over here, on one hand, we've seen God work and we know he's able to heal. But over here, on the other hand, we've seen where God has called a loved one home while we were praying that that loved one would be healed. So my question is, how do you reconcile that? Has faith failed? And I would answer quickly that our faith has not failed. What fails oftentimes is our understanding of God's will and how that works in our life. Here's what you guys have heard me say a lot, and I wanna say it again for the benefit of our visitors so you kinda understand the DNA of our church and kind of where I'm coming from as a pastor with some of the things I've gone through and the losses that I've experienced. Here it is, God only wants for you what you would want for you if you just knew what he knows. God loves us. He can be trusted. And guys, here's what I found. When I get to the limit of my faith, when I get to the limit of my faith, that's where my trust in God kicks in. Where my faith where I feel like sometimes my faith may be not failing, but my faith may not be as strong as it needs to be. I'm having trouble comprehending and I'm having trouble staying optimistic. That's when I flip into a different gear and I say, okay, I can't reconcile this. So what I choose to do is trust God. I mean, he said one of my life verses was Proverbs 3, 5 and 6. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not on your own understanding. He didn't say you don't have understanding. He said, be careful leaning too heavily on your own understanding because we don't know all the facts. So with that, we then lean not on your understanding, but in all your ways. Acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight. He'll keep you on the right track. And so I'm saying, when your faith falters, allow your trust in God to catch you. Let your trust in God be the net under the wire when the things that you've prayed for don't work out the way that you prayed for them, and God seems to do something differently than what you prayed for or expected him to do. On one hand, you pray for healing, but what if the healing doesn't come? See the big challenge of faith. And please hear me with this, is is not always, not always do I have enough faith to be healed? Here's the crisis of faith, it's on the other side. Do I have enough faith not to be healed? What if God tells me no? What if God answers as he did with Ashley's mother and says, I'm gonna call her home? What if God, as he's done in the lives of some and we're praying he'll do this also in the life of Sal where he raises them up and he totally heals them of the things that they have dealt with. I've had heart disease, I've had two bouts of cancer, and I'm standing here before you. I don't have those. I'm sure I've got it somewhere, but I don't know if I do. I'm just saying God has healed my body and yet he didn't heal my wife's. And so there is this conflict and there is this paradox that we have to navigate through in our faith. And sometimes it's too much for people. And sometimes people just cannot square that. And so they give up on church, as I said earlier, or they give up on God. And a great illustration of what I want to talk to you about is in John chapter 11. Honestly, it's been one of my go tos since Cindy's homegoing and it's helped me navigate through some of these difficult moments of life. And I hope I can share from my heart in the next few moments and from this passage that will help you get a little better handle on what our faith looks like, even in moments when our faith is severely tested. And In John chapter 11, you have Jesus who's going to a very familiar place. He's going to the home of three of his closest friends while he lived here on the earth. Now, what we know about Jesus is he did not have a house of his own. He didn't have a condo, he didn't have an apartment. He was an itinerant evangelist and he traveled and stayed in the homes of many of his followers. And one of the homes that the Bible identifies that he stayed in more than anyone else's home was the home that was occupied by by Mary and her sister Martha and their brother Lazarus. And Jesus would stay in their home in the little town of Bethany, which is about two miles from Jerusalem more than anywhere else. In fact, Jesus oftentimes would just pop in on him. In fact, there's a great verse in Mark, chapter 10 where Jesus pops in unannounced and you have Mary and Martha and Lazarus are so excited to see him. And it's funny as you Read the narrative to see their responses. Mary was kind of a worshiper at heart, and so she just goes and sits down in the living room and begins to listen to Jesus. And I'm sure he was telling them all about his travels. I healed a guy that was blind. I was able to raise someone from the dead. I encountered a funeral, and I was able to bring that little boy back to life and give him back to the arms of his mother. I came across a man who had never walked before, and I restored this. It gave him his ability to walk. And so he's just sharing these stories. And, you know, Mary's eyes are popping, and she's just blown away. Well, Martha's not in the room. Martha was the worrier of the two. Mary was the worshiper. Martha was the worrier. And Martha's in the kitchen stressing about what to fix Jesus to eat. Now, as we're coming up on the holidays, most of you can relate to that, especially you ladies who are hosting family and friends for a Christmas event. You understand that contrast of having that one sister who's more interested in the experience and hearing all about the stories that family members have and you who are trying to make it happen. You're trying to get the table set, you're trying to get the candles lit, you're trying to get the food on the table, and you're worried about those things. And finally, when you read. It was really funny in Mark 10, you read Martha had had it. She was done with her sister sitting in there, not helping her. And she finally goes in there and she just says, jesus, I'm loosely translating here. Jesus, would you tell my sister to get up and help me? Now, it's interesting because when you read the narrative, you don't get inflection when you read the Bible. But I kind of think Jesus may have responded like this. He says, martha, Martha, bless your heart. Basically what he said to her was, you're worried about a lot of things. You don't need to be able just say, what do you got in there? Hot dog sandwich? What do you got? Warm something up, right? I mean, he said, I'm not gonna be here that long. Come in here and spend time with me. Don't worry about these things that are not that important. But my point that I don't want you to miss as I set this text up is, this was a home where people worshiped Jesus. This was a home where they loved Jesus. This was a home where Jesus had often been, and he loved these people. But look in John 11 with me just for a few verses and then I wanna comment. We'll go home. Look what happens in that home. John 11. Look at verse one. This man named Lazarus Note now was sick. What? This man who was a man that Jesus loves, this man who was a man that followed Jesus. This was a man who worshiped Jesus and he's sick. Well, I thought there's certain branches of theology that said, man, if you love Jesus and you know Jesus, and Jesus knows you, and Jesus you loves, loves you, you're just healthy, wealthy and wise, that you never have problems and you're certainly never sick. And of course, there's some bad teaching going around too, about sickness and how that relates to people, particularly people who know Jesus. And the first thing I would tell you that I understand about Scripture, of sickness, according to Scripture, is all sickness. All sickness is a result of original sin. What I mean by that is, you go back to the garden. God created a perfect world. We're formed in the imago dei, the image of God. God created mankind in perfection. So everything was created in perfection until Genesis chapter three. And in Genesis chapter three, you had the fall of man. You had the entrance of sin. Whereas by one man sin entered the world and death was passed upon all men. Spiritual death, yes, but physical death. And so the point I'm making is the. The origin of all sickness can be traced back to the original sin. So all sickness is a result of original sin. Now stay with me on this thought. Some sickness is a result of particular sin. If you abuse your body, you abuse your body with substances, or you neglect your body. Medical science will tell you there's some things you can do to yourself that will bring on sickness. And so there are some sicknesses that we bring on ourselves simply because we don't take care of ourselves. We abuse our bodies in certain ways. And so the argument is, then, some sickness is a result of particular sin. Here's the third one, and this is the troubling one. Some sickness is simply in the will of God for a person to experience. Let me explain that to you. In John chapter nine, you have this incredible story, and the story is about a man. The Bible describes him this way. A man who was born blind. And when this man who was born blind, when the apostles came upon him, they asked Jesus this theological question, who has sinned? Because the thinking was, any sickness is a result of sin. They must have done something to bring this on themselves. So they had to have sinned. Who has sinned? This man who was born blind or his parents that he would be born blind. Now, first of all, how could a man sin when he was born blind? How did he sin before he was born? And Jesus responds, when you read John 9. This is very clear understanding of what I'm teaching. When Jesus explained it, he said, neither did this man or his parents sin. He said, it's not about sin. And then he went on to explain, but that the works of God might be made manifest through his life. In other words, God was saying, I'm going to be glorified through this man's challenge. I'm gonna be glorified through this man's malady. I'm gonna be challenged through this man's struggle. More I'll be glorified more through that than I would have been had he been born whole. Now, you can agree with it or disagree with you. We can like it or we can not like it. It goes back to what I said a minute ago. You have to trust God that he had a purpose in this man's life. And all I'm suggesting for the point of us understanding, is this man who loved Jesus. This man named Lazarus, who was close to Jesus. This man was sick. And people who love Jesus get sick. And people who worship Jesus get sick. People who know Jesus and have walked with him for a period of time get sick. Bad things happen to good people. And then back to our text. He's from Beth Bethany, as I said, the village of Mary. And the sister Martha, this Mary, she wants you to know who it is. This is her brother Lazarus, who lay sick. And this same Mary was the one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with his hair. That story's in Mark, chapter 14. She's a worshiper, as I said earlier. And so notice what the sisters do. The sisters sent word to Jesus. They sent word. Now, what is that? That's prayer. When you and I send word to Jesus. We're praying. Now, I would explain it this way. Prayer is not making God aware. Cause he already knows he's sovereign. So in a sense, they weren't making Jesus aware. They were just alarmed enough to where they needed his divine involvement in their problem. And God calls on us to pray. Pray about all things, pray about everything. And so they call on him. So notice it. Now. They sent word to Jesus and they said, lord, the one you love is sick. They knew Jesus loved Lazarus. They knew Lazarus loved him. So it wasn't about a relationship. It wasn't even about fellowship. None of that was broken. This is not a matter of Sin. This is a man that Jesus loves, and he's got this sickness going on in his life. And when Jesus heard this, he said, this sickness will not end in death. But note now, here's what I've said about John 9. It. It is for the glory. It is for God's glory, so that God's Son might be glorified through it. He was saying, this thing is going to happen. This sickness is gonna happen. As we're gonna read in a minute, he dies anyway, but this sickness is gonna happen. The death of this man is gonna happen. Because God had a bigger plan that they could even see. So it's back to, okay, my faith wasn't able to see a healing, so now my trust has to step in. And I'm gonna have to trust that God knows what he's doing. And that's what he's challenging them now to do, that this is going to happen. What they're going to go through is going to happen so that the glory of God might be made manifest through this experience. Just so we're on the same page here, what does that mean, the glory of God? I wanna make sure we're clear on terms. This sounds Christianese. The term glory of God means to understand all that God is. He's glorious. It's a great way of describing God. So when we talk about the glory of God being made manifest, that means everything that God is, is seen through this circumstance unto him be glory in the church. In Ephesians, that means may everything that God is be seen as a reflection within his church. When I bring God glory in my life, all that means is I'm being a reflection of a little bit of who God is. So we understand the term. He's saying, I want people to see who I am through Lazarus's illness and through this circumstance. And the Bible says, again, look down in verse 5, Jesus loved not just Lazarus, but he loved Martha and her sister. And then in verse six, he said, when he heard Lazarus was sick, notice what he did. This is crazy. He stayed where he was two more days. And then finally in verse seven, he says, it's time to go back to Judea. And the first thing, I want to hit that again. The first thing I saw when I read this passage is they prayed. They made Jesus aware. They didn't fail to pray. They brought this to God. They said, God, you've said we're to pray about everything. We're to pray about sickness, we're to pray about sorrow, we're to pray about the Relationship that's broken. We're to pray about the kids. So they did what you do when you're faced with something that is insurmountable, something that is immovable, you do what they did. They took it to God in prayer. So every box is checked. If you would have come to me, and they would have come to me and said, hey, Bill, what do you think I ought to do? I said, well, how's. Well, he's got the best doctors in the world that's caring for him. I said, well, let's pray that God will heal him. Absolutely. We're gonna pray, and we're gonna believe God. They did that. And these are people that are solid. These are people, again, who love God, who worship God. They. These are the best of the best. And so this problem is declared in the house. But notice, as you read through the story, the provision that God has secondly gets delayed. He stays where he is. He could have moved. And don't, you know, there was a moment when Martha and Mary told Lazarus, hey, don't worry. We made Jesus aware. We prayed about it. Jesus knows. And Jesus loves you, man. You're one of his best friends here on the earth. And if he's gonna help anybody, he's gonna help you. We're close. We've opened our home up to him. We're a Jesus family. We love Jesus. Why would he not help us? And so don't you know, they used that information to try to comfort Lazarus. And I'm sure there were moments when I. Okay, any day, Jesus is gonna get here. Any day I'm gonna wait. I'm gonna feel better than I did yesterday. Any day, I'm gonna. I'm gonna beat this thing. I'm gonna get up and I'm gonna walk out of here. I'm gonna go back to work. I'm gonna engage in my life again. And he obviously had to have had that hope day in and day out. And then all of a sudden, man, they realized, well, where's Jesus? Remember I told you Bethany is less than two miles from Jerusalem. It wasn't like he was across the country. Two miles. I mean, you can be at Chick Fil A before you can. Before you could, you know, I mean, he's right over there, and he doesn't move. Not only does he not move, he doesn't even send one of the boys. I mean, wouldn't you have thought he had sent one of the apostles? And, hey, just go down there and check on my buddy. Tell him it's all. And by the way. Here's another thing. He could have healed him from long distance. He didn't have to be there. All he had to do was will for it to happen. And it would have happened. There are people in the Bible, like the man who brought the information to Jesus about a child he had that was sick. And Jesus said, man, your faith has made him whole. By the time you get home, your child will be well. And the father said, lord, I believe. Help my unbelief. He's still struggling a little with his faith, but he went home and he found that his child about the same time the scripture says that Jesus had given him that word, that child was made whole. I'm sure it's a story Jesus told. He said, pretty cool, man. I wasn't even there, and I healed him. And so he can do anything. He's a God of. We call it miracles. But, you know, Jesus never did a miracle and called it a miracle because that's not his word. That's our word. Miracle is a word we use to describe something that we can't explain. So our word is, it's a miracle. I don't know how it happened. I have no reason. I didn't think this person would be healed. They were healed. It's a miracle. Jesus did miracles, but he didn't call. Jesus never did anything that was a miracle. You know why? Cause he couldn't surprise himself. He couldn't heal somebody and go, whoo. Did you see that? That kid was dead and he's alive. Are you kidding me right now? I'm going on the road with this thing. No, he didn't do any of that. No, the point is, he was able to do what other people could not do. And I just don't want you to miss this. They knew that. And then they find out that. That he's kicked back less than two miles away and he's not coming. And it doesn't even seem like he's panicked. I don't know about you guys, but when I'm a little panicked and I'm upset, don't you feel comforted when other people panic with you or at least get upset with you? Isn't that kind of assuring? And there's no indication in the text that Jesus ever got when they sent the apostles to the other side of Galilee and there was a storm, remember? And in the middle of the sea and Simon Peter wakes down and said, lord, don't you care that we perish? And Jesus goes, what? I was just enjoying a nap. Then he Walked up on the deck of the ship and said, peace, be still. And the waves and the wind were calm. I'm just saying, Jesus, don't panic. Corrie Ten Boom used to say, there's no panic in heaven. There are only plans. Only plans. And I'm just suggesting to your heart that that was probably upsetting to them to feel like he didn't panic. You know why? He wasn't. He knew what he was gonna do. He knew the plan that he was working out in their life. It was gonna be tough. It's gonna be hard for them to understand, but if they'll just stick with him and they'll trust him in the middle of this one day, it will make perfect, perfect sense. By the way, there's a great verse in John 16, verse 20, where Jesus said to his disciples, you're going to weep and lament, but your sorrow will be turned into joy. It's a great verse I've used to help us understand some of the practical things that happen in life. And a great application of that verse, the interpretation of that verse was the cross. Jesus said, on this side of the cross, you're gonna see me suffer and bleed and die on the cross. And you're going to weep and you're going to lament because you're going to feel like for a period of time, all hope is lost. But he said, when you get on the other side of the cross and after Easter, you're gonna look back and you're going to realize the same thing that brought you sorrow will be the same thing that'll bring you joy. Well, that's the circumstances of life. We're on one side of it, looking at what we're looking at. And Jesus has already seen the other side of it. And he knows, look, this is gonna work out. This is gonna work out for your good. It's gonna work out for my glory. You may struggle a little bit with your faith, but trust me on this one. Trust me, this is gonna work out. Here's the third thing, and we'll go home. You see the third thing that happens, and that is now the providence is beginning to be discerned. They're beginning to kind of see a little bit of what God is doing. Jesus shows up. He shows up four days after Lazarus has died. He doesn't send a flower that we know of. He doesn't send a card. He doesn't go to the funeral. He doesn't make the burial. He waits until four days and he shows up. And, man, he gets a Different reception. When you read Mark 10, remember Martha's in the kitchen trying to get him something to eat. Mary's sitting at his feet. That's not the reception he gets in. John 11. These girls are upset. They are twisted sisters. These girls are definitely upset. There's no running out and getting Jesus something to eat. And there's no sitting at his feet to try to hear what he's saying. In fact, one of the girls stay in the house and didn't even go out to see him. And the one that went out to see him, she gets in his face and says, if you would have been here, our brother would not have died. And Jesus doesn't deny that. She's right. She's right. I get that all the time. Bill, don't you believe in healing? I do. Then why didn't it happen? I don't know. I don't have the answer to that. We have to trust God. Remember, where the faith is weak, the trust has to take over. I don't know why my wife went to heaven when she did and even the way she did, but I've had to trust God. And so they were struggling. They were in the middle of that. They're trying to make sense of that. And I get that. That's why when you're in the middle of something and you're confused and you walk away from church for a while, or you may even say you're gonna walk away, I get that. I'm not hard on people for that. Here's what I know. If you belong to him, you can walk away. You can't stay away. At some point, he'll bring his kids home. And I mean, you see it in this narrative where they're upset with Jesus. I mean, they are so upset. And finally, even the other sister comes out of the house and says the same thing. Her other sister said, if you had been here, our brother would still be here. What were you thinking? We couldn't have loved you more. We couldn't have worshiped you more. We couldn't have served you more. We couldn't have had more faith. And yet you still called our brother home. Why did this happen? And Jesus says, I am the resurrection and the life. He that believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live. And he that lives and believes in me will never die. Then he looks at her and says, do you believe this? And then the beautiful response when you read the narrative, she says, lord, even now I believe that's important. It's one thing before you've gone through anything to say that you've got faith and you trust God. It's another thing to go through something and get on the other side of it and look back at it and still say that, right? I mean, you don't know how. I don't know how strong. We don't know how strong our faith is till it gets tested. And these girls on the front end of that hadn't had their faith tested, but now their faith has been tested. And with their disappointment, with their anger, with their confusion, they say, God, at the end of the day, even. Even now, even now, I choose to trust you. And Jesus said, where'd you bury him? Where is he? I wanna go to the grave. They take him to this tomb. And Jesus tells him, roll the stone away. They say, lord, you don't know. He's been gone four days. I don't think that's a good idea. He said, roll the stone away. And the Bible says, as Jesus stood there, he groaned within the spirit. And the shortest verse in the Bible you'll find there in John 11:36, it says, Jesus wept. I've often thought about, why did Jesus weep when he knew he was about to call Lazarus back. I heard somebody say one time, well, I think Jesus stood at the grave and wept so that we would know that he knows how it feels to lose someone you love. And I thought, well, that's pretty good. But then I struggled with it, and I thought, well, isn't he sovereign? Isn't Jesus God? Wouldn't he have already known? Yeah, he would already know, being God. He's a God, man. So why did he weep? Well, here's what I think explains that. At least it satisfies my curiosity. I think Jesus stood at the grave and allowed himself to be overcome with emotion and allowed himself to weep. Not so. Listen to this. Not so that he would know what it feels like to lose someone you love, but so that we would know that he knows what it feels like to lose someone you love. See the difference? I don't know about you, man, but I get comfort from people who've gone through something similar to what I've gone through. When you're talking to somebody that's kind of been down that same road, boy, there's a connection. You've just got a connection, man. You've gone through the heartache and you've gone through the heartbreak, and there's just a bond that you have with those kinds of people. And that's why the writer of Hebrews said, God, we don't Have a high priest who cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities because he was in all points tested as we are, yet he without sin. So I'm saying there's nothing you and I can go through but what our heavenly Father can't relate. That's why you can talk to him about your disappointment, your disillusionment. You can talk to him about your depression and your discouragement, and he'll look at you and say, my child, been there, done that. I get you and I get that, and we're gonna be okay. He can be trusted. And then you know how the story ends. Pretty incredible. But I've often thought kind of a ripoff for Lazarus, though, really. Think about it. Lazarus has been in heaven having a great time, getting to meet Abraham. And have you ever thought about the people you're gonna get to meet in heaven one day and how cool that would be to be able to talk to them about Noah, you know, the ark. Are you kidding me right now? Moses and the Red Sea. What was that like? You know, I mean, I've been to the area that they think that happened, and I tried to envision it. I'd like to talk to the guy that actually did that thing. Can you imagine? He's getting all hooked up, and all of a sudden there's an announcement over heaven's pa. Lazarus come to the throne. Lazarus said, uh, oh, no sin in heaven. So I know I didn't do anything wrong. There must be something else. And then Jesus looks at him and says, you've been recalled. You're going back. What? God wants an illustration, and he's gonna use you as the illustration. Well, how long? Well, you're gonna die again, but you're gonna go down there for a little while. And so he just makes a return trip, and he walks out of the grave bound in those grave clothes. And the Bible says that that became a teaching point for Jesus to prove his power and to show his providence to people who. Who would never have received him otherwise. What's the point? My point is, through the whole story of John 11, even though we don't understand, God has a plan. Even though when it doesn't make sense, God is still at work. Even though when it feels like. It feels like from time to time that our faith has failed, it has not. God can be trusted. He is too good to do wrong. He is too wise to make a mistake. And in the middle of everything he's promised, I will never leave you. I'll never forsake you. So let's keep praying for healing. Let's keep praying for those big things that God is capable of doing. But let's trust God for his will to be done, because he will not fail. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, I thank you for your faithfulness. Thank you, Lord, that through our sorrow and through our tears, you're faithful. Thank you for through our triumphs and our victories, when you've seen, we've seen the miraculous, you're faithful. Help us, whether we're on the mountain or we're in the valley, Help us to trust you. Whether it makes sense or it doesn't make sense. Help us to trust you. Help us to remember the job where Job said, though he slay me, yet will I trust him. You are worthy of our praise. You're worthy of our trust. And so, Father, I pray you'll encourage someone in this room or someone watching online to trust you more. Finally, Lord, I pray for those in the room or those watching who may never have received you as their Savior. May this be that moment where they humble their heart and say, lord Jesus, with everything I know about me, I now trust all that I know about you. Come into my heart and forgive my sin. I receive you as my Savior and I pray this in Jesus name. Amen. [00:38:55] Speaker A: Thank you so much for tuning in today. If you have any questions or prayer requests, please contact us by visiting metchurch.com so that we can follow up with you this week. We look forward to seeing you next week. [00:39:08] Speaker B: Sa.