We need to walk in the light. In order to do that we need to both be unwrapped and let loose, and learn to walk in the light; through the Holy Spirit.
So roll up your sleeves, put your mind in gear, be totally ready to receive the gift that’s coming when Jesus arrives. Don’t lazily slip back into those old grooves of evil, doing just what you feel like doing. You didn’t know any better then; you do now. As obedient children, let yourselves be pulled into a way of life shaped by God’s life, a life energetic and blazing with holiness. God said, “I am holy; you be holy. [1 Peter 1:13-16]
We need to walk in the light. In order to do that we need to both be unwrapped and let loose, and learn to walk in the light; through the Holy Spirit.
So roll up your sleeves, put your mind in gear, be totally ready to receive the gift that’s coming when Jesus arrives. Don’t lazily slip back into those old grooves of evil, doing just what you feel like doing. You didn’t know any better then; you do now. As obedient children, let yourselves be pulled into a way of life shaped by God’s life, a life energetic and blazing with holiness. God said, “I am holy; you be holy. [1 Peter 1:13-16]
Good morning. Hey, I got a couple of questions for you, but they're mainly questions that we ask often. And so my first one is how many of you ever just wanted God to fix it? I mean, whatever it is you're going through, you just wanted him to fix it. Or did you spend a bunch of time saying, what should I do right now? God, what should I do? What should I do? We, as, as Christian spent a ton of time asking God, this sort of question, the problem is that he doesn't really do the genie in the bottle thing, or I'm going to turn you tell you when to turn and when to do this. And when did you X and Y and Z to the nth degree, he just, he just doesn't do that. And so we spend a lot of time asking God, this wrong type of question. I'm going to explain to you what I mean by wrong type of question. And then we get kind of confused or angry, or we feel like he's not listening to us when he doesn't answer. But lots of times it's because we asked the wrong sort of question today, very famous texts. This is the Lazarus text, the raising of Lazarus from John 11. Let's read this. I just listen in, not so much to Jesus in this text, but just listen to the people that are, these are Jesus's people just listen to them and see how they sound in relation to him. And then we'll talk this through, okay? This is from the new living. A man named Lazarus was sick. He lived in Bethany with his sisters, Mary and Martha. This is the Mary who later poured an expensive perfume on the Lord's feet and wiped them with her hair. Her brother Lazarus was sick. So the two sisters sent a message to Jesus telling him, Lord, your dear friend is very sick, but when Jesus heard about it, he said, Lazarus sickness will not end in death. No, it happened for the glory of God so that the son of God will receive glory from this. So, although Jesus loved Martha, Mary and Lazarus, he stayed where he was for the next two days. Finally, he said to his disciples, let's go back to Judea. But as the disciples objected rabbi, it was only a few days ago. The people in Judea were trying to stone. You are you going to go there again? Jesus replied, there are 12 hours of daylight every day. During the day, people can walk safely. They can see because they have the light of in of this world. But at night there is danger of stumbling because there is no light. Then he said, our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but now I will go and wake him up. The disciples said, Lord, if he is sleeping, he will soon get better. They thought Jesus meant Lazarus was simply sleeping, but Jesus meant Lazarus is dead. And so he told them, plainly Lazarus is dead. And for your sakes, I'm glad I wasn't there for now. You will re really believe, come, let's go see him. Thomas nicknamed the twin said to his fellow disciples, let's go to and die with Jesus. When Jesus arrived at Bethany, he was told the Lazarus was already been in the grave for four days. Bethany was only a few miles away and down the road from Jerusalem. And many of the people had come to console Mary and Martha and their loss. When Martha got word that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him. But Mary stayed in the house. Martha said to Jesus, Lord, if only you'd been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask. Jesus told her, your brother will rise again. Yes. At Martha, he will rise when everyone else rises at that last day, Jesus told her I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live even after dying. Everyone who lives in me and believes in me will never, ever die. Do you believe this, Martha? Yes, Lord. She told him, I have always believed that you are the Messiah. The son of God, the one who has come into the world from God. And then she returned to Mary. She called Mary aside from the mourners and told her, the teacher is here and wants to see you. So Marriott immediately went to him. Jesus had stayed outside the village at the place where Martha met him. When the people who were at the house, consoling merit, Mary saw her leave. So hastily, they assumed she was going to Lazarus's grave to weep. So they followed her there. When Mary arrived inside Jesus, she fell at his feet and said, Lord, if only you had been here, my brother would not have died. When Jesus saw her weeping and saw the other people wailing with her, a deep anger welled up within him, he was deeply troubled. Where have you put him? He asked, they told him, Lord, come and see. Then Jesus wept. The people who were standing nearby said, see how much he loved him. But some said, this man healed a blind man. Couldn't he have kept Lazarus from dying. Jesus was still angry. When he arrived at the tomb, a cave with a stone rolled across its entrance. Roll aside the stone. Jesus told them, but Martha, the dead man, sister protested, Lord, he's been dead for four days. The smell will be terrible. Or if you have an older translation, he stinketh. Okay. That's my favorite one. Anyway, Jesus replied. Didn't I tell you that you would see God's glory if you believe. So they rolled up the stone aside. Then Jesus took up, looked up to heaven and said, father, thank you for hearing me. You always hear me, but I said it out loud for the sake of those standing here so that they will believe that you sent me. Then Jesus shouted, Lazarus, come out. The dead man came out his hands and feet bound in grave clothes. His face wrapped in a head cloth. Jesus told him, unwrap him and let him go. First off. When you hear that, when you heard this text today, don't you hear sort of Jesus going one way and everybody else kind of go in the other way. It's like they're at odds. And Jesus seems really strange in this text. But if you would listen for a moment from his point of view, I think the, the Jesus, people around him would sound really strange. Yeah. Lauren, if you'd just been here, he wouldn't have died. And then Jesus replies, Oh, as it was for your good that I wasn't there. The text is really sort of strange, but it's like, it's this chance day here. People asking the wrong questions or, or looking to Jesus for what should it, we do questions as opposed to it. And so I just kind of want to go through and just talk this out a little bit. Cause it's a little strange Jesus's response seems very strange to us. But the key, the key verse in here is all that, that everything turns on is this in John 11, nine through 11, Jesus replied. There are 12 hours of daylight every day during the day, people can walk safely. They can see because they have the light of this world. But at night there's danger of stumbling because there is no light. And then he said, our friend Lazarus is asleep and I will go wake him up. But the reason this is the fulcrum of this thing is Jesus sees everything that's going on at this moment because he is the Lord of the universe and the Messiah and God's son and all that. But he's not actually alive in the hearts of those who believe in the spirit of God. Hasn't come down in this, he's walking in the day and everybody else is walking in the dark. And that's why you, you see this juxtaposition of Jesus sort of going one way and them going the other way. So I kinda don't want to talk to you a little bit about this, this series of questions that we get stuck in because we're used to a very human in the darkness sort of methodology. And we're so used to it that we haven't just even sorta questioned whether or not that's right or wrong. And so we ask him questions like,
Speaker 2:Okay,
Speaker 1:Why don't you just pop in and fix it as though he were a genie instead of why don't you, God, the question for the person living in light is help me be your person through this, whatever your will is and all of that, instead of what should we do now, questions we should be asking, what kind of person should I be now that I've heard this, that I know this, that I'm in this situation, what kind of person should I be in this situation? Instead of telling him, telling God what to do with fix this, ask him what he's doing. Do you see that nobody went to Jesus and said, why did you stay behind? They, they just, they just started doing this. And so this crux of the matter is this living in the daylight, changes the sort of questions or should change the sort of questions that we ask. Um, the Bible, isn't really a, how to book. In most cases, it's a Y
Speaker 2:Book,
Speaker 1:Lord, Jesus, just how, how are you going to heal me? I'm going to heal you, but it might not be physical healing that you'll receive and maybe you'll receive a more permanent healing and the aches and pains of your body right now. Aren't really the thing. That's, that's your number one. Troubler in life. This is kind of how we get there. And as to where I'm going to in this text is how do we then discern what is God's priority in the situation in the text today? God's priority, wasn't there and just making sure the Lazarus, Mary and Martha didn't go through anything. I know it sounds sort of strange, like he's going well, it's not that I don't want them to go through the, I actually need them to go through some stuff and it looks kind of callous that he waits and he does all this. But when he finally gets up and goes, because his disciples start going, why are you doing that? They were going to kill you there. And then when he says, well, Lazarus is dead. We're I'm going to go heal him. His disciples, then go, well, let's just all go and die.
Speaker 2:Look,
Speaker 1:Instead of asking God, what should I do right now in this world, in this problems? And the way things are, the sort of question we should ask is what kind of person do you want me to be in the middle of the trouble that we're in? And if we would do that C and we would say, instead of what do you want me to do? How would you like me to protest this? How do you want me to be in rebellion with no it's? How would you like me to be your person right now? Instead of will you just fix the situation? We need to be asking to see God working in the midst of the situation and join him in that situation and be part of the solution and be part of the blessing that is his work in our lives. The Bible is completely different about this. Then we think it is so, so when we're, when we're walking in the light, we know that the momentary troubles of this world are not the permanent situation that we're going through. Even me with, with a constant pain. I know for a fact that the pain, wasn't the number one priority in my life for God. Matter of fact, God wanted to, wants me to learn how to love him in every situation. And sometimes I have to experience those things. But the way that I think about I'm going through what I'm going through, changes everything for how we experience it. If I ask God, why don't you just fix it? And he doesn't just fix it. Then I sort of set myself up to where disappointment becomes the only real response, because he's not a genie in a bottle. He's not rubbed the lamp three times. He's not the TV show from the sixties. Genie blinks are ahead and, you know, bring in wiring. It has not how God works. Sometimes it seems like he's working like that. Even healing. I was praying for somebody's healing the other day. And I said, Lord, we'd love for it to be healed right now. We'd love for the medical procedure that he's going through to be the solution to the problem. But more than all of those things, Lord, we want to see your hand at work in the life of the person that we're doing there. Give him the strength and the wisdom and guide the doctors and wisdom and discernment and do all this. Do you see how different that sort of question is that if I open my eyes and say, God, show me where you're working rather than why don't you do it my way. Then it changes me up to see God at work wherever he is. When we walk in the dark, nothing, God does make sense. When we come into the light, it
Speaker 2:It's,
Speaker 1:It starts to change our lives and we need to change the way we ask him to be this thing. It's, it's, it's, it's the same as something I wrote years ago about whether God, you know, Christians like to say that God is on our side, but that predisposes, this thought that we've switched from our side to his side. That's what it means to walk from the dark, into the light, to become, to know him, to unmask him, to unwrap him and let him go. It's the language here of coming out of the tomb and changing how we see everything. And so when we come into the light and to new life, it's as though Jesus has literally spoken, unwrap him, unwrap her and let her go unwrap your Christian life from the surroundings that, and the learned habits of the wrong questions and the, and the eyesight. That's looking for the glass half empty and trying to control God instead, be his person, unwrap her and let her go unwrap him and let him go. It's as though we have to learn how to walk in the light. Now don't get me wrong. I am not saying that you can just switch and change your attitude and learn how to walk in the light. You learn how to walk the light because the Holy spirit God's presence is with you and gives you the light to see this stuff. The danger of saying that we can just walk in the light if we want to is the same thing that saying, well, you know, God's creating this new world and now it's on me to create his kingdom. So the, when he comes, it's all done. That is not the way it works is that when God comes, his kingdom is established and you unwrapped and let go are the beachhead of that kingdom. As you go today, as we come into prayer, my prayer for you today is that you would be unwrapped and set loose from the things that bind you to the darkness. The habits that, that cloyingly pull you back into the old patterns of life. Unwrap us Lord. And let us go. Will you pray with me, Lord Jesus. Today, I asked specifically that you would be a work in our hearts and our minds and our lives that you would unwrap us, that you would teach us how to let go of our old patterns of life that we would learn how to be your people, not just what should we do Lord, but Lord, help me be your person. Whatever I happen to me doing unwrap us, Lord, set us free. Cut us loose. Teach us your ways that we might walk in the light in your precious name. Amen.
Speaker 2:And now
Speaker 1:As you go, as you leave this place today, may you be at peace? May you be at peace with him guiding your every step?
Speaker 2:Amen.