It Happened For His Glory!!!

Base Text

Introduction

I want to begin by asking a question, what do you do, when you’re crying out to God, for God to come in and fix your situation, for God to come in and turn your situation around, but it seems as if your situation is moving from bad to worse??? Can you hold on and trust God when things don’t happen the way that you want them to happen? Can you hold on when a little rain in your life turns into a full blown hurricane? Can you hang on and trust God when sitting with your child before a principle turns into sitting with your child before a Judge and jury? Can you hang on and trust God when a rent past due turns into an eviction notice? Can you hang on and trust God when living from paycheck to paycheck turns into living from no check to no check? All I’m really getting at here is that it is easy to believe and trust in God when everything is going your way! It’s easy to trust God when He answers your call swiftly and speedily, but what happens when He makes you wait a little while? And instead of your situation moving from bad to better, it moves from bad to worse? I want to encourage you this morning, that regardless of which way the needle moves on your situation, whether it goes to better or to worse, what I want you to remember, is that God is still God, and God is still in control!!!

I know circumstance and situation can sometimes cause us to ponder and wonder, and I’m not talking to you saved and super-saved folks who’ve been saved all your life and you just take things as they come and you’re too blessed to be stressed, no I’m talking to a few real folk in here who don’t mind testifying that sometimes I’m blessed and I’m stressed! I’m talking to some folks who sometimes can’t seem to understand why God allows some things to happen to you. How can God who is so good, allow bad things to take place? I’m a young preacher and I’m not ashamed to tell you that I don’t have every answer, I don’t know why God does the things that He does, I don’t know why God allows some of the things that He allows, His ways are not my ways, His thought are not my thoughts, but what I can tell you is that regardless of what’s going on in your life, God is still God, and God is still in control!!!

If we’re going to be honest with ourselves, many of us, would not know God and have the relationship with God that we have today, except God allowed us to go through some things! Your prayer life wouldn’t be what it is except God allowed you to go through some troubling moments! Can I talk to some real folk up in here? We would never understand the fullness of His power, except He allowed some obstacles, to come our way! How would we know that He has the power to heal the sick if there was never any sickness? How would we know that He has the power to break every chain if we were never bound by anything? No I don’t have every answer but what I can share with you is that maybe and just maybe God allows us to go through some things so that He can get the glory out of our lives! Sometimes God will allow you to go through some things, just so that He can bring you through some things!

Look over and tell your neighbor, say neighbor, it happened for His glory!

Background

We find in our text here an account of a miracle performed by our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ! A familiar passage of scripture of one of the more popular miracles Jesus performed, is that of raising Lazarus from the dead!

And what has happened in our text is that Lazarus, a friend of Jesus’, has taken on sickness, and that his sisters, Mary and Martha, had sent word to Jesus saying “Jesus, your friend whom you love, is sick”

And the strange thing about the text is that when Jesus receives word of His friend that He loves is sick, Jesus does not rush to the aid of His sick friend, but yet Jesus does something strange, Jesus after receiving word, remains where He is for two more days. And sometimes that can be strange because when we know that we are a child of God, and we know that we are walking in fellowship with Him and have a right relationship with Him, and we know that God loves us and we love God and yet sometimes it seems as if when we call on God and it seems like God doesn’t show up right away, we start to wonder and ponder, God where are you?

Jesus stays where He is for two days, and then when He finally decides to go to Bethany where Lazarus is, Lazarus has already been dead, for four days! And so when Jesus comes near and word has been sent out that Jesus is coming, Martha runs out to meet Him while Mary the other sister remains in the house. And Martha comes out and she sees’ Jesus, and she says, “Lord, if you had but been here, our brother, your friend, He would not have died.” IF YOU BUT HAD BEEN HERE! And sometimes, if we are keeping it 100, we find ourselves in that situation where we say Jesus if you had just showed up when I called you, this situation that I’m in, it would have never got to this point, it would have never gotten this bad! Because I know that you could have fixed it a long time ago, but yet I called on you and you didn’t come to me. And now my situation has moved from bad to worse!

But can I tell you something this morning to calm your nerve, God don’t always move when we want Him to move. God does things on His own time! But just know and understand that whenever God shows up, that He’s never late, that He’s never behind schedule, that He’s never tardy, that He’s never dillydallying, but that He’s always, and I mean always right on time!

And so when Martha comes out and she talks to Jesus, Jesus encourages her and tells her, “Your brother will rise again!” Martha she didn’t quite understand what Jesus meant so she replies, “Lord I know he going to get up again, He’s gone get up on that resurrection day on the last day” she didn’t really quite grasp what Jesus was saying to her, so Jesus then told her, He said, “I am the resurrection and the life! He who believes in Me, though he may die, yet shall he live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die!”

She thought Jesus was speaking of a moment in time in the distant future, but she didn’t realize that the time Jesus was speaking of was right there and right now! And Jesus asks her, “do you believe what I am saying? And she says yes Lord, I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, who is come into the world?”

And now Jesus has an encounter with the other sister, Mary, and Mary comes to Jesus and just like Martha, she begins to say the same thing, Lord if you had just been here, our brother would not have died. So Jesus seeing the grief on the face of Mary and on the face of all of those who came to comfort her, Jesus asks the question, “Where have you laid him?” And they said “Lord come see, and the Bible says that Jesus wept.”

And then some of the Jews after seeing Jesus moved with tears, said look, see that’s just how much Jesus loved Lazarus! But some of the other Jews that were standing around examining the situation, some of the other Jews, they weren’t impressed by the tears of Jesus. Some of them began to mumble and say is not this the man who opened the eyes of the blind, you mean to tell me He could not have kept this man from dying?

There are some people around you who will try to analyze your situation and rationalize your situation by what they think should have happened. But they don’t understand that God is trying to do something in your life, they don’t understand the power that God has and how God is trying to grow you and elevate your faith to a place He desires you to be. They don’t understand it because all they are looking for is something to discredit Jesus on. All they are looking for is something to knock your faith down just a little bit!

But Jesus begins to move in action as He says now, “Take away the stone!” And Martha the sister of him who was dead said to Him, “Lord, by this time there is a stench, for he has been dead four days.” And Jesus told her, “Did not I say to you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God?”

And Jesus has a quick conversation with the Father and say “Father I thank You that you hear me and I know that You always hear me, but because of all of these spectators, and these naysayers, Father I said this that they may believe you sent me!” And He calls Lazarus by his name and says, “Lazarus! Come Forth!”

The interesting thing about that is that scholars believe that if Jesus would have just went and said Come forth, anybody could have got up! But no He calls Lazarus by his name! And I want to suggest that

Point #1 There’s a Purpose for the Problem!

Scripture Reference to Point #1

John 11:4 “When Jesus heard that, He said, “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”

Bullets

And so we’ve already diagnosed what the problem is, the problem is that Lazarus was sick and has died! But when we notice verse number 4 of the text, we see that when Jesus got word that Lazarus was sick, Jesus said, “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be gloried through it.” And the thing about when Jesus said this sickness is not unto death, it literally meant that death is not it’s final resting place! Death is not the final destination, or death is not the final result of the sickness. It’s understanding that it does not mean that death won’t happen, it just means that death doesn’t have the final say so! It doesn’t mean that you won’t get sick, it just means that the sickness doesn’t have the final say so! It don’t mean that you won’t get laid off, it just means that the layoff won’t have the final say so!

And the thing about God getting the glory for our lives that will sometimes cause us to be uncomfortable sometimes with that situation is that sometimes what brings God glory, doesn’t always immediately bring us pleasure! Sometimes the things that bring God glory in our lives, sometimes if we’re going to be honest, they hurt a little bit! Some of the things that we have to go through, we really and truly don’t want to go through, even when we know the end result will be God getting the glory, still yet it does not excuse the fact that while we are in it, it just don’t feel good.

But sometimes we have to go through the fire, just so us and everybody around us, can know that Jesus is, who He says He is! A brand new car in the drive way won’t always testify, to let people know that Jesus is real! Closing on that brand new house is a blessing, but it won’t always testify to inform people that Jesus is real! For anybody with good credit can get a brand new car in the drive way! Anybody would good credit can close on that brand new house! No but sometimes God has to allow things to get to a certain point, to where it seems like it is a hopeless situation, to where you have exhausted all possibilities before He decides to show up and show out in your situation!

And when God shows up, He can add hope to what seems to be a hopeless situation!

There’s a purpose for the problem! This problem has not just come upon Lazarus just for the sake of Lazarus being sick. It’s not come upon Lazarus because Lazarus has done anything! No it has simply come so that God may get the glory! Somethings that happen in our lives is not a direct result of something we may have done, some things happen, just so God can work it out!

[Jesus heals the blind man, blind since birth]

And so we have to understand that sometimes when we get bent out of shape when trouble comes into our lives, and we get into our woe is me, and why is this happening to me, and Lord what did I do, no sometimes it’s not anything that you have done, but it’s just for the glory of God!

And I told you that often times what brings God glory doesn’t always immediately bring us pleasure, some times we find ourselves saying “God why did you allow my marriage to get to the point of breaking before you decided to show up put the pieces back together, I want to tell you, that it happened for His glory! God why did you let me go through the stress of this eviction notice before you finally decided to show up and pay my bill, I want to tell you, that it happened for His glory! God why did you allow my child to get locked up behind bars before you finally opened their eyes to the error of their ways, I want to tell you, it happened for His glory!

Because, when the situation seems all wrong for you, that’s when it’s just right for God! When you have exhausted all of your efforts, that’s when God steps in and does the supernatural! And so don’t get discouraged when things seem to be moving in the wrong direction, know that God has a purpose for all things, His word says all things are working together! God is in control of all things, what the enemy meant for evil, God can turn it around for your good! No not everything is happening to us is a result of something we have done, if we could call on somebody to testify, let’s let Job testify this morning, the Bible says that Job was an upright man! Job had done nothing to deserve all the hell that came his way. But yet at the end of it, you see we can always shout at the end of it, as we read through scripture, we see how the situation turns out, but yet when Job who at the beginning of this thing, found out that they had came and stole all of his possessions, I can imagine that Job wasn’t shouting! When Job heard that the house had caved in and all of his children had perished, I can imagine that Job wasn’t shouting! When the sickness had infected Job’s body, I can imagine that Job in that moment was not shouting! It’s easy for us to shout today from the outside looking in because we know how the situation with Job turned out!

But what happens when we are Job??? Oh yeah we love to hear that story when it’s somebody else, but what happens when trouble knocks on our door! What happens when pain comes with a suitcase to stay a little while? What happens when sorrow won’t seem to leave? Can we still trust God when things ain’t working the way we want them to work? You see everybody wants God to use them, everybody wants God to get the glory out of their lives, everybody want the testimony, but not everybody wants the test! The situation with Lazarus is that they have called on Jesus and their situation has moved from bad to worse! The sickness that Lazarus was dealing with, has now caused his death!

Point #2 The Perspective of the Problem!

Scripture Reference to Point #2

John 11:11 “These things He said, and after that He said to them, “Our friend Lazarus sleeps, but I go that I may wake him up.”

Bullets

How Jesus views the problem, is much different from how Mary and Martha view the problem! Because the are sending urgent news and the are expecting Jesus to show up right away and work the situation out but Jesus still yet remains where He is. And that, I couldn’t understand for the life of me, that if Jesus loved Lazarus like He say He loves Lazarus, in fact verse 5 tell us that Jesus loved Martha, Mary and Lazarus, but yet when He receives word that His friend is sick, He doesn’t come. He stays where He is, two more days.

And the reason why Jesus does not panic and get in a hurry like everybody else is panicking and getting in a hurry is because Jesus knows the end of thing from the beginning of a thing! You see you and I, we only know the end of a thing once the end of a thing comes, but Jesus knows how it’s going to turn out before it even starts! He knows how it’s going to conclude before it evens begins!

And Jesus is waiting two more days because He knows that when he shows up and shows out, that people are going to believe in Him! Jesus is after people’s faith! He’s not just concerned with performing another miracle! He’s after the faith of the people! We already know that Jesus has the power to call those who are dead back to life, because He’s already done it on two separate accounts before now. He already went to Jairus’ house and brought His daughter back to life, He already brought a widow’s son in the City of Nain, back to life prior to this Lazarus account. So we already know that He has the power to do it, but yet Jesus wants to make sure that they understand His power!

Because the Rabbi’s and the Jewish leaders believed, that when a person died, the spirit of the person just kind of hovered over the body for three days. And if a person came back to life within those three days, the believed it moreso a ressucitaion than a resurrection. They think a person just came back to life on their own, that they weren’t really dead, they were kind of like in a deep transe or a coma.

And so when Jesus healed Jairus’ daughter, a lot of people sought to discredit him and what He had done, because it had not been three days. And so now Jesus waits four days so that when He shows up and does what He does, nobody can say that it was just a coincidence! Sometimes God has got to allow things to get so bad, until the people who are watching your life, will say that your situation is hopeless, and can’t nothing be done! But I want you to tell those people who are watching your life, tell them to stay tuned in and don’t turn the dial, tell em to just keep watching and see what God is gone do next! Tell em, since they want to watch your life, tell them to watch how your God is going to blow their minds! For the God that I serve is able to do all things! He’s able to do exceeding abundantly, above all that we can ask or think!

And so they tried to discredit Jesus in the fact that He brought back Jairus’s daughter from death to life and so Jesus says, ok I’m gone show yall this time. Ya’ll believe in your 3 days, I’m gone wait until your three days is over with, and then I’m going to show up and I’m going to show you just what kind of power I have!

And so the perspective of the problem is that Jesus doesn’t see things, the way we see things! He tells his disciples right there in verse number 11, He says, “that our friend Lazarus is sleeping, but I go that I may wake him up”. And so His disciples had the mind set that Lazarus had just went to sleep. And they said well if he is asleep, he will get well.

But then Jesus had to break down what He meant, and speak plainly and say that Lazarus is dead. And it’s not anything that contradicts anything from when Jesus said that Lazarus is sleep to when He says that Lazarus is dead, because Jesus is not looking at from how we look at, you see we look at it from the perspective of the problem, but Jesus sees it from the perspective of His power! And so He doesn’t say that Lazarus is dead, because He knows that He has the power to go and wake him up, so He just says Lazarus is sleeping. But everybody else is all bent out of shape because all they can see is that Lazarus is dead. And that’s the same thing that sometimes happens with you and I, is that when God allows us to go through things, we only look at things from the perspective of the problem! Sometimes we can only see the sickness that has come over our bodies! Sometimes we can only see the layoffs! Sometimes we can only see the repossessions! Sometimes we can only see the hurt! Sometimes we can only see the pain! But God looks at it from a different perspective! God looks at it from the perspective of His power! Your sickness? He says I can heal that! Your layoff? He says I can give you a better job! Your repossession? He says I can give you a better vehicle! Your hurt? He says I can give you joy! Don’t look at your problem, just trust God’s power!

That’s where we have to tap in to our faith! Because our faith allows us to look at our circumstances from a different perspective! And so it’s not about what happens to you in life, it’s all about how you look at it! Some see the glass as half empty, and some see it as half full!

Point #3 The Product of the Problem!

Scripture Reference to Point #3

Bullets

Conclusion and Challenge

And I just came to tell somebody in Morning Star this morning, that God, is getting ready to call your name! Whatever, whatever, whatever, the situation may be, He’s getting ready, to call that dead thing, back to life! He getting ready to speak a word, that’ll call that which was in disarray, to fall back in line!