The Now and Not Yet

Renovation meeting is Sunday, May 29 at 7PM. Please come and our project manager, Thomas Domanjko will be with us to walk us through the plan and have some materials for us to look at and catch a vision for our worship space.

Introduction

I had a busy week this week. There were lots of meetings with lots of people that I love hanging out with and doing creative life-giving things with.

There were people I hadn’t seen in a while that I was scheduled to see on Tuesday and another on Thursday. The topic of conversation was around what God is doing, how have we seen God move, can we collaborate on a conference coming up in the fall, so many good things. I had to say ‘no’ to going though. It was on the other side of the water in Seattle, and it was going to be the whole day in order to go.

I would have had an amazing time. I would have been able to be a small part in helping craft and create a conference where it was designed for people to draw closer to Jesus, have vision for life, be encouraged, and make an eternal difference in their communities.

This month, as a part of the church planting organization we are affiliated with, I was encouraged to participate in a vision trip to New York City, a 10-day all expenses paid trip. Meeting extremely gifted, talented, godly, faith-filled, faithful followers of Jesus who are church planters and those who send/support church planters. Seeing how church planting is working in the NYC and how God is mobilizing the church there, giving us insight as to what we can glean for our smaller cities here. I had to say, ‘no’ to that too. I had things here that needed more necessary attention.

It’s not a ‘never’, but it was for sure a ‘not yet’.

You may be very familiar with this type of decision process. There are a lot of good things that you can do, but there are more important priorities that cause you to say “no” to good things… even really, really, really, good things. Even things that you WANT TO DO. Those things that no one would blame you for going after them.

This is part of the maturation process, actually becoming more like Jesus (as we will see today). There are things we don’t want to do, that we must do… and there are things we want to do, but have to say ‘no’ or ‘not yet’ too.

We are formed by circumstance. We are formed by the good and the difficult. In all of it we are called as followers of Jesus to allegiance and therefore obedience to King Jesus.

If you have your Bibles, or on your devices, please turn to John 11:1-27

Would you stand with me if you are willing and able as I read the scriptures … THIS IS THE WORD OF THE LORD

You may be seated. Thank you.

Our life is for the glory of Jesus (vss. 1-5)

John the disciple, the author of the gospel, is giving us commentary on the relationship Jesus had with Lazarus and his sisters. He speaks to a future time when Mary will poor perfume on Jesus’ feet and use her hair to wipe his feet. That Lazarus is the one that Jesus loves (this phrase gives some reason to think that Lazarus is the one whom Jesus loved in the upper room). Some extend it to think that Lazarus then wrote the gospel… I think that’s a bit too far, but this phrase sparks those thoughts.

‘Beth-any’ means, “House of the poor”. It is quite possible that the town of Bethany held those who were impoverished. A place where the poor, needy, sick could be cared for. A place not far from Jerusalem, outside the city where people could be cared for.

Jesus is not ashamed of the poor. Jesus is not ashamed of our station in life. Jesus is for the poor, sick, the needy. It is worthwhile in our day in age to continue to mention that our need, or perceived lack, has no bearing on the reality of God’s favor for you and me. Our possessions, bank accounts, homes or lack their of do not endear us any more or less to God.

Jesus is up North where John was baptizing when He gets word of Lazarus.

We’re told of their relationship to Jesus. A good friend is sick! Not just a cold, or a fever, but so intense they thought to send for Jesus.

Jesus hears of Lazarus’ state and responds when hears it, John 11:4 “When Jesus heard it, he said, “This sickness will not end in death but is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.””

See too that this comment is sandwiched between Jesus’ love for them.

When we encounter sickness, lack, or confronted with need (or our own inability), we can fall into the pit of reasoning that God is not for me. That I have brought God’s anger, spite, or displeasure on myself. There are those that would espouse a theology that says if you are sick, suffering, in pain, not wealthy, not happy, that somehow you have sin in your life or you do not have enough faith. It is not true.

May I encourage you to remember, even star/circle/underline this passage… there is the love sandwich here… “the one you love is sick”… sickness is being permitted… “Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus”.

Our situations/circumstances are for God’s glorification.

I don’t know that I can convince anyone of this without them going through it and experiencing it themselves. I have lived through difficult experiences. Sick loved ones. Life threatening situations. Not sure if I was going to make ends meet. Betrayed and hurt by those close to me. Told I didn’t have what it takes to be good at what I love.

I know many of your stories. Loss, death, abandonment, sickness, insufficiency, hope deferred.

In my circumstances and experience, there are things that I share with others from the things I’ve witnessed and have seen God show up and do. God is glorified in those I encourage to sidestep potential pitfalls.

I give thanks and honor the Lord for those who speak into my life and help me navigate the weightier things of life.

We saw this in John 9 and we see it here.

This doesn’t mean that this is what God originally intended… far from it.

God set up life to be good, right, beautiful, and true. Sin marred God’s creation. God inserted Himself into the depths of humanity to rescue all those who are allegiant to Him out of the snare and pit of sin. So much so, He uses our circumstances to work His purpose and desire.

Here is the thing… His purpose and desire is good. He takes the broken, corrupt, dying, decaying, and brings life from it.

Do you believe this?

Our life is walked on the path of obedience (vss. 6-16)

Jesus waits two days and then heads South towards Jerusalem, for what would be the last time, to meet up with Lazarus and his family. (vs6)

Love restrained (love tells us that Jesus wants Lazarus whole)

Maturity knows not yet… immaturity says right now

Maturity: delayed gratification… Immaturity: gratification now

The prevailing thought is, do what feels right to you… don’t delay any gratification.

Here is what we need to remember. God doesn’t play with us (our emotions, wants desires), His timing is perfect.

There are things you want right now. There are things that you are trying to force happen… but God in His goodness and perfect timing will bring about His good, right, beautiful, and true will. Even better than what you might have hoped for.

We’re not told all that happens in the two days before they leave, but if we continue from chapter 10, there many who are believing and no doubt ministry is happening. But when it is time, Jesus sets out.

The disciples don’t get it… “um… Jesus… they are out to kill you.” Can you see the security meeting? He’s going where? What? What good is a dead messiah?

Jesus is continually obedient to the Father. He invites His disciples to learn of Him. Even at risk to their own health and safety He admonishes them, John 11:9-10 ““Aren’t there twelve hours in a day?” Jesus answered. “If anyone walks during the day, he doesn’t stumble, because he sees the light of this world. But if anyone walks during the night, he does stumble, because the light is not in him.””

There are a couple ways to read this… there is deep, metaphorical sense that we can pull from it… walk in the openness and being upright in doing so you can avoid adverse consequences that hurt your soul... as opposed to hide in the dark, keeping people from seeing what you are doing (because it’s wrong) where you will hurt your soul though you are doing your best to avoid it. That could be.

Or

Jesus is saying, “let’s walk in the day time… we’ll lose the path in the dark, we might trip on rocks… why in the world would we walk at night? Because we want to avoid the religious leaders?”

I think you can take whatever one you like.

There is definitely apprehension in going for the disciples. Jesus tells them that Lazarus is “sleeping”. Here, Jesus foreshadows what He is going to to do. The disciples think, “Oh… well if he’s sleeping, and we were told he was sick, let’s let him sleep. He needs it to get better. The loving thing to do Jesus is to let him sleep… we don’t need to risk our lives to go wake him up.” They are not wrong, if that is what Jesus meant. LOL

This makes me laugh.

Thomas’s comment is easily dismissed. John 11:16 “Then Thomas (called “Twin”) said to his fellow disciples, “Let’s go too so that we may die with him.””

This is faith though. This is the obedience that is characteristic of Jesus. Thomas is in! He’s committed… he’s not talking about Lazarus… Thomas is saying, “if Jesus is going to go, he’s going to die… so let’s go die with him.”

WHAT OBEDIENCE! Notice too, it’s not let’s go see him raise Lazarus from the dead… no, let’s go die with him!

The two paths of obedience are clear before us here:

Jesus in obedience to the will of the Father: delay in restoration for God’s glory

Thomas in obedience to Jesus: trying to avoid hardship for their comfort

Our life is for the glory of Jesus

Our life is walked on the path of obedience

A love that death can’t even stop (vss. 17-27)

As Jesus and the disciples are almost there, Martha runs out to meet them. Mary stayed home.

Martha engages Jesus, John 11:21 “Then Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother wouldn’t have died.”

“If only”… what a loaded phrase.

Jesus’ reply, instead of looking at the past, and dreaming about what might have been (but now can’t be), he invites her to look to the future. Then, having looked to the future, he asks her to imagine that the future is suddenly brought forwards into the present. This, in fact, is central to all early Christian beliefs about Jesus, and the present passage makes the point as clearly and vividly as anywhere in the whole New Testament.

First, he points her to the future. ‘Your brother will rise again.’ She knows, as well as Jesus does, that this is standard Jewish teaching.

(Some Jews, particularly the Sadducees, didn’t believe in a future resurrection, but at this period most Jews did, following Daniel 12:3 and other key Old Testament passages.) They shared the vision of Isaiah 65 and 66: a vision of new heavens and new earth, God’s whole new world, a world like ours only with its beauty and power enhanced and its pain, ugliness and grief abolished. Within that new world, they believed, all God’s people from ancient times to the present would be given new bodies, to share and relish the life of the new creation.

Martha believes this, but her rather flat response in verse 24 shows that it isn’t at the moment very comforting. But she isn’t prepared for Jesus’ response. The future has burst into the present. The new creation, and with it the resurrection, has come forward from the end of time into the middle of time. Jesus has not just come, as we sometimes say or sing, ‘from heaven to earth’; it is equally true to say that he has come from God’s future into the present, into the mess and muck of the world we know. ‘I am the resurrection and the life,’ he says. ‘Resurrection’ isn’t just a doctrine. It isn’t just a future fact. It’s a person, and here he is standing in front of Martha, inviting her to make the huge jump of trust and hope.

He is challenging her, urging her, to exchange her ‘if only …’ for an ‘if Jesus …’.

If Jesus is who she is coming to believe he is …

If Jesus is the Messiah, the one who was promised by the prophets, the one who was to come into the world …

If he is God’s own son, the one in whom the living God is strangely and newly present …

If he is resurrection-in-person, life-come-to-life …

The story breaks off at this point, keeping us in suspense

Wright, T. (2004). John for Everyone, Part 2: Chapters 11-21 (pp. 6–7). Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.

Do you believe this?

That Jesus is the resurrection. He is Life. In Jesus we are resurrected to new life. It is Him, it has always been Him.

Not in a boy/girl, not in position, not in wealth, not in possession, not in health/well-being, not in power/authority, not in title.

Jesus is the Resurrection that brings the depth, meaning, and purpose to our soul and existence.

Jesus is the Life that brings wholeness, clarity, peace, value, depth, breadth, and richness. Where death and pain can not permanently rob or takeaway.

There is one thing that no one since the beginning of time has been able to stop. We all at some point will die. That is a train that no one can get off of. Jesus is the resurrection and the life. God loves you and me so much that He puts on humanity, becomes flesh, so that not even death can separate us from Him.

(MAYBE TAKE OUT) “Jesus crucified is God crucified, so we believe. Jesus is the total and final embodiment in history of God’s loving mercy; and so this cross is a unique, terrible, extreme act of violence— a summary of all sin. It represents the human rejection of love. And not even that can destroy God: with the wounds of the cross still disfiguring his body, he returns out of hell to his disciples and wishes them peace… whatever the deficiency and the drying -up of human capacity to love, the killing of love by pain, there is still, at the heart of everything, a love that cannot be killed by pain.” -Rowan Williams

With all of your hopes, dreams, and desires, may you see that God loves you deeply. That God is for you. That in yielding your passions, love, desires, your life in allegiance to Jesus, there is beauty, goodness, fullness in Him.

Your life is a firework to demonstrate the beauty and magnitude of God. Not only is a firework in and of itself a beautiful demonstration, but together, working in unison, it is a sight to behold.

All of it, the good, bad, hard, in Jesus is can be utilized for His purpose. We don’t always get the privilege of knowing why or how, but it is. Lazarus was to show what Jesus was about to do.

As Eugene Peterson has coined this phrase, “God calls us into the long steady obedience in the same direction.” As we walk in obedience it is revealed what we believe.

What will be revealed. A desire to know that Jesus is… life? Will we have the “only if”’s , probably… but the opportunity to press into the collective moments and see Jesus for who He is. Knowing that He is enough.

Do you believe this?

In your life, in my life, Jesus is ushering in the not yet into our present. He will be faithful to complete the work He started in you. As you continue your journey in this life this week, lean into the reality that God wants to use you to demonstrate His power, His goodness, His love, mercy, grace, His shalom in your life and to others through your life.

Do you believe this? It’s true.

Would you stand with me. Let’s pray.