Jesus is Life Week 1

What are your plans?

What are some goals you have this year?

Plans?

What grades do you want to have?

What teams do you want to make?

What position do you want in the band or choir?

What extracurricular are you going to involve yourself in?

Now step back from all of that, and ask this, what is your plan to accomplish your goals?

Have you experienced a time when you had plans, but God changed them?

- How did that turn out for you?

In the 1800s, there was a man named Hudson Taylor who was a missionary in China.

When he was in his mid-30s like me, He and his wife realized that there were no schools for children who speak English in China.

So thanks to a dear friend, they were able to send their 4 boys and one girl to England.

However, before they made the journey their youngest son at 5 years old got sick and he died in China.

After this time, the children were on their journey to England for school and Mrs. Taylor had been pregnant for some time.

6 weeks after their kids left, The Taylor’s had another baby boy.

However, Mrs. Taylor became sick with Cholera which is a bacteria infection you get from bad water or bad food.

In an unbelievably sad turn in this story, Mrs. Taylor and her newborn son passed away.

Hudson Taylor went from having a wife, a child on the way, and 4 other children, to losing 2 children and his wife in the span of a year.

This Fall, I’m working on a study right now where we can look at the lives of some men and women from the past who lived their lives for Jesus.

I think what we will learn most is not that they were doing something you and I can’t do.

I think the lesson is actually pretty simple.

These people loved Jesus and gave their lives completely to Jesus.

God was quick to meet their needs, fill them with joy, and satisfy the desires of their hearts.

So ask yourself this today…

Is Jesus meeting your needs?

Filling you with joy?

Satisfying the desires of your heart?

We will learn one thing more from Hudson Taylor this morning, but I’ll save that for the end.

For now open your Bibles to John 11.

I need some volunteers to read verses 1-16?

KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM VERSES:

When Jesus gets the news about Lazarus, He and his disciples are about 20 miles from Bethany.

If they traveled quickly, they could have made it in a day.

However, Jesus sends word that this sickness won’t end in death and then waits 2 days before leaving where he was (John 11:6).

Why did Jesus do this? Why does he wait?

Why doesn’t he rush to his friend? Is there no sense of urgency or hurry-up in Jesus?

This is what Jesus says.

John 11:4 “4 When he heard this, Jesus said, “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.””

I know Jesus disciples didn’t understand why Jesus didn’t go sooner.

I know Mary and Martha didn’t understand.

We will discuss this next week,

But for today hear this.

Following Jesus will take you places you don’t always understand.

Jesus sees the big picture. We only see a little bit.

In John 11:5 we clearly see that Jesus loves Lazarus and his sisters Mary and Martha.

So we can at least assume Jesus’ delay wasn’t because He didn’t love them.

He does!

But He also has a plan.

Many times we don’t see His plan in the moment.

It’s only when we step back and look at the big picture after the fact that we see God’s plan.

When we look at our current situation, it can seem like God doesn’t care.

Maybe you feel like God is even absent.

Maybe you feel like He’s not responding.

But remember, Jesus loves us.

And He has plans.

Are we trusting Him even if His plans are not our plans?

No, are we trusting Him especially when His plans are not our plans?

If there is one truth I hope we all know. it is this.

Jesus is life.

Let’s read a few verses this morning.

John 1:4 “4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.”

John 1:12 “12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—”

2 Corinthians 5:17 “17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!”

2 Corinthians 5:21 “21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

Romans 8:2 “2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.”

Romans 8:28 “28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

When Hudson Taylor sadly lost so many members of his family in a year,

His wife, and 2 of his children… He knew that Jesus was his life.

After all this transpired he wrote in one letter,

“We did not come to China because missionary work was either safe or easy, but because He had called us. We did not enter upon our present positions under a guarantee of human protection, but relying on the promise of His presence.”

The presence of Jesus every moment in His life sustained Hudson Taylor.

Because Jesus is life, we can be sure of His love for us, even when we can’t understand His plan.

This is a valuable lesson I believe Jesus is teaching His disciples, Lazarus’ family, and all of us in John 11 as well.

But let’s have a little discussion this morning:

Why did the disciples question Jesus?

2. Sometimes we question God’s love for us during difficult times, because we focus more on our feelings than facts. What are some truths about God that can be helpful to remember?

What are some practical things we can do to focus on the truth during those times?

3. How can we still trust that Jesus is life when we feel as if God didn’t come through for us in the way we thought or hoped He would?

4. What would you say to a Christian friend if they told you they didn’t believe God loved them because of a painful circumstance He didn’t seem to care about or change?

5. What would you say to a non-Christian friend if they told you they didn’t believe in God because, if God were real and loving, He wouldn’t allow such pain and suffering in their lives?

Life can be hard and it will be hard.

But no matter what we go through, God has forever proven His love for us.

2 Corinthians 5:21 “21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

That is a message of grace that none of us can fully understand.

Jesus became something He was not to give us something only He could give.

We can never not know what sin is, but Jesus did.

Yet He took that on anyway.

John 10:10 “10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”

Are we living in that life?

Are we sharing Jesus’ life?

We will discuss this more next week.