The Teacher is Calling

Dog accidentally swallowed a bag of scrabble tiles, we took her to the vet to have her checked out. No Word yet.

Do you know how to have a party in space? You planet.

ME

Growing up we were encouraged to stay outside all day and play with our friends. And we would play all day, there would be some lunch at some point we’d be called in to eat, and then sent back outside, and then some dinner and then back outside, and we played all day long, and then when it was time to go in for the night, mom would always flash the porch light to let me know it was time to quit and get inside.

There was a time in high school, it was my junior english class, the teacher was also the drama teacher, so he had a storage room off the side of his room for all the stage props. One day a girl in the class was talking non stop and he asked her many times to stop talking… she never quit talking… so he looked at her and he said her name… you need to shut up…. and she lost it… I mean I lost it she started screaming you don’t tell me to shut up… I mean, lost her mind… and he’s telling her she needs to quit… and she jumps up and grabs the phone and goes into the closet and he is banging on the door for her to come out and all of a sudden she steps out with the phone and says. “My momma wants to talk to you.”

WE

Now maybe you don’t have a story as interesting as that, or as crazy as that about getting a phone call, but sometimes when we get calls it changes everything… and when Jesus calls us in the middle of our trials he is calling us to

EXPOSITION

Jesus is the teacher and he calls you to come and learn from him in your trials.

John 11:28 ESV

28 When she had said this, she went and called her sister Mary, saying in private, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.”

In Martha’s wisdom, she goes to her sister and tells her in the midst of her trouble, the teacher is calling… and it’s interesting to hear these words, because it would have been just as easy for her to say, Jesus is calling, but in this moment she wanted her to know what was really going on, she wanted to appeal to the thing that she would need the most. She tells her, the teacher is calling for you… and what we will see is Martha knew what her sister needed, and what we needed the most, to go to the teacher in out times of need and allow him to work on us.

What we see is

We learn the most when we draw near to him in our trials

these sisters were in the direst of situations, and what we tend to do is try to do everything on our own power. When the walls are caving in we go toward our backup plans or the plans on the backup plans and try to get our things going in the way that we want. But what we see here is what Jesus will soon tell us in Jn 15:5

John 15:5 ESV

5 I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

And we realize we must go to him in our times of trouble because without him we wouldn’t be able to do anything. And we realize that no matter how hard we try our own plans aren’t always going to be the answer, we have o rely on him sometimes just like the sisters here did.

But the beauty of Jesus is

Jesus makes his lessons appropriate for each of our needs

He knows exactly what each one of us need and he helps us in the ways that each of us need. We should take comfort in this as we realize he doesn’t help all of us the same. Look at the way he handled these two sisters differently. Look at what happens with Martha, remember Martha is the one who gets things done, she hears Jesus is here and she immediately runs out to Jesus and Jesus deals with her on a doctrinal level, he tells her that he is the resurrection and the life and then he asks her if she believes this. He, in all of his wisdom knew that in these moments Martha would need this for what would be foundational to her faith later. And we are going to see that he is going to deal with Mary in the way that she is going to need him to deal with her.

John 11:29–33 ESV

29 And when she heard it, she rose quickly and went to him. 30 Now Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still in the place where Martha had met him. 31 When the Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary rise quickly and go out, they followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb to weep there. 32 Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” 33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled.

And we see here that he was deeply moved… he knew that in that moment she needed to see him moved with compassion as well, and he knew that him taking part in the compassion would be what would help her in the future to see him as who he was. He didn;t do the same thing he did with Martha and have a discussion and prove to her who he was through the cognitive thinking, instead, he entered into her sympathetic side and all of a sudden it was exactly what she needed.

Sometimes the problem with us as a church, or as christian believers is we don’t want to help people if we can’t help EVERYONE. Some churches are afraid to make someone feel left out, or are afraid of the reprecussions if they help one person, and then someone else needs help for the same issue and they can’t because of using their resources. So what we do, is not enter in, decide not to help. And this is the same in our personal life sometimes, we can see the man on the corner asking for help, and we may think to ourselves, well I can’t help this guy because then the guy down the street may see me and wonder why I won’t help him. And so we just don’t…. cincy story… and what we see is Jesus, knew what each person needed and he helped in the way they needed… he allowed people to have him in the way that would best suit their beliefs and needs.

And it shouldn’t surprise us to know that we can help some without helping others. Jesus did this all the time… he didn’t heal everyone he came into contact with, even though he had the power to do so. He helped those that the father called him to help, and it allowed them to get to the father in the exact way they needed to have him.

SO what does this teach us?

We should be the same with people around us and help in their unique situation.

Not all groups are the same, we have to minister according to their needs we have to understand the way in which we should.

We have to realize that not every group or even every person that we are talking to is the same, so we have to do ministry differently and talk to people differently when we are sharing the gospel. Different people groups need us to react to them differently and speak to them differently.

My old youth Pastor used to ask me why I learned so many different skills and took the time to try to learn so many different things, and I would always tell him that I wanted to be able to have a conversation with anyone so I wanted to learn different things so I could find things in common with different people.

As I have gotten older I have also tried to understand people in a different way, there are tons of people that we have different ideologies from, and there are times when we can look at those people and we can all them evil and think the way they are thinking is completely wrong. And as I have gotten older it has always been my goal to try to understand how they could feel that way. And its not that I am trying to think of a way to agree with them, its not even that I want to make sure I have the same feelings, but I want to know how they can feel that way try to understand even if I disagree. I honestly don’t think most people even when they have different opinion than are evil for evil’s sake, I had to be sure that I didn’t also stop here and say that I think all people are good, I think in their own mind they are doing something they feel is noble. There aren’t many people in the world that are evil for the sake of evil… there are those people, but its not often, so I always want to get to a place where I can understand and try to walk beside people.

I think if we can understand people and groups and where they come from it helps us to be able to minster to them more clearly.

The other side of this is because we are all different we can also only do ministry in different situations. We can’t all do bar ministries, or abortion clinic ministries, or gentleman club ministries… we arent all made the same…

Jesus is fully man and fully God so he can help us in our trials

Jesus in this chapter is really showing us both his humanity and his godliness in different places… and we can see his humanity in the fact that he

Jesus experienced Grief like us

John 11:34–35 ESV

34 And he said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” 35 Jesus wept.

He wept! He Wept… he was moved to tears.. this after in verse 33 it says

John 11:33 (ESV)

33… he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled.

So we can clearly see his emotions.. This word greatly troubled was only used three times in all of the New Testament… in some translations it is translated as GROANED…and some people think it indicates anger, but nowhere else that it is used does it even begin to indicate anger… and what we can see is it was greatly moved even to groaning in a sense of hurt and pain. He was so troubled with her that he cried out and was greatly moved.. and groaned… and we should be able to see the movement and see how He grieved just like us… which is exactly what was prophesied about him

Isaiah 53:3 ESV

3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

And we can see that he understands us… it is not that he is separated from us but Jesus unlike most men in our world today

Jesus unlike most men today was not afraid to show his emotions.

Here is the thing, Jesus could have easily in this moment restrained his emotions, he could have been a man and sucked it all up like we’re supposed to, in fact, he knew what was coming, he knew he would soon raise Lazarus from the dead so it would have been easy for him to just hold back the tears and be stoic. But he wasn’t afraid, he knew that his emotions were what was needed in the situation so he let them all out. It was all about

Love was what was his motivation. Not fear or self.

Look at what we see in the next Jn 11:36

John 11:36 ESV

36 So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!”

And I think this is so beautiful… the response to Jesus crying is… See how he loved him… these people were able to see Jesus’ feelings for Lazarus through his tears… and it was that love that we see has been carrying this whole episode with Lazarus and the sisters. Everything Jesus has done has been motivated by his love for them. His waiting… his hoping and even this now coming… it was all motivated by love.

And in our trials Jesus calls us to come to him

3. Come to him just as we are Just as we are

Much like Martha said to Mary… the teacher is here and he is calling for you… how are you going to respond? Even in the middle of your hard times and your struggle, even when you are not feeling him he is calling and waiting.

Come as you are and share your feelings

We have to come to him and share our feelings with him and realize we don’t have to hide anything… its silly… we must

Come Quickly

Fall at his feet

YOU

WE

The question is, what are you doing when you get the call… when the teacher is calling for you what is your answer going to be… not just for the first time… some of you are here and you are hearing his call for the first time… the question for some of us us what are you going to do when he calls you to speak to the person across the aisle… at work… what are we going to do?

Can you imagine what would happen if every time we call we answered the call for him?