SPEAKER_01: I love Houston, but I'm not from Houston, so I had to learn to love Houston.
SPEAKER_01: How many of you are in the same category with me?
SPEAKER_01: Okay, maybe y'all are somewhere in the process of learning to love Houston.
SPEAKER_01: It's a it can be a hard sort of city to love right at the right at the uh at the outset.
SPEAKER_01: I didn't do myself any favors because I moved to Houston uh the last week in July.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, and so I I was immediately I was immediately embraced with certain phrases like like air you can wear.
SPEAKER_01: And um and I told people it's like living on the surface of the sun underwater.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: And I was I was embraced by a friend of mine said, no, here's the best possible way you can think about Houston in the summer.
SPEAKER_01: Um it is uh it's like living in the nostrils of God on a jog.
SPEAKER_01: And so just think about that.
SPEAKER_01: So but a a friend of mine uh helped me helped me come to terms with it uh when he said, Steve, uh just think of think of it this think of the summers.
SPEAKER_01: Let me give you a summer survival mantra, and it goes like this.
SPEAKER_01: You don't have to shovel sunshine.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, he he was from up north and he said, you know what people do in January in Michigan?
SPEAKER_01: They shovel snow.
SPEAKER_01: They get it's so cold they get stuck in their houses.
SPEAKER_01: Well, Houston is well air conditioned.
SPEAKER_01: You get you get you don't get snowed in here, you get sunned in.
SPEAKER_01: Um, but we got air conditioning and everything's fine, and you don't have to shovel sunshine.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, and uh not uh not only is Houston hot, it's also it's also flat and big.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, and I was never getting anywhere, and somebody pulled me aside and said, Steve, you're not driving the speed limit, are you?
SPEAKER_01: They said the right lane is for people driving the speed limit, the middle lane is for people who are going 20 miles over, and the left lane, that one's for crime, okay.
SPEAKER_01: So um, but uh but the thing, in fact, I didn't realize this, but the first car I bought in Houston, like as a Houstonian, I actually unintentionally got uh the Houston edition of the car, which was uh blinkers and brakes optional.
SPEAKER_01: So uh but uh anyway, but the the thing that broke the broke its back, the thing that helped me love fall in love with this city was I read in an international travel magazine, it was ranking America's top 10.
SPEAKER_01: And it said it ranked Houston as the number eight place in America to get barbecue, the number four place in America to get steak, but it was the number one place in America to get a hamburger.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: And so I started what I call my Houston Burger Tour, and I began going around the city.
SPEAKER_01: If you know where to look, you will uncover some amazing gems.
SPEAKER_01: There's some great burgers here.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, if you go in Katie somewhere, you will find, if you I'm not gonna advertise in form here, but you ask me later, I'll tell you.
SPEAKER_01: Um, there's a place that has been christened the Kingsland Baptist Church, Holy Grail of Hamburgers.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, it has an award in the place, and you can find it if you know where to look.
SPEAKER_01: So um, but so I I love to eat, and I love it when people take me because going to lunch with people and finding Houston hamburgers uh helps me do two of my great loves, which is not just eating, but eating and talking.
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: Um I love to talk and I love to answer people's questions.
SPEAKER_01: A lot of people, one of my favorite things to do at this church is people stop me in the halls and they answer, ask me the question that's on their heart.
SPEAKER_01: I love asking people's questions in the hall.
SPEAKER_01: When people tell me, here's this question I've been struggling with, and I and I've always wanted an answer to this question.
SPEAKER_01: And that's normally what happens over lunch.
SPEAKER_01: Someone will say, Hey, Steve, can I buy you a burger?
SPEAKER_01: Um, I got something I want to talk to you about.
SPEAKER_01: We'll get to know, do some pleasantries, and we'll talk about how each other's doing, how our family's doing, travel coming up.
SPEAKER_01: And then they'll always ask the thing that's on their heart.
SPEAKER_01: And I don't know how many times I've been asked this question.
SPEAKER_01: Or they'll tell me, say, Steve, I got a confession to make.
SPEAKER_01: I I think I'm losing my faith.
SPEAKER_01: Like, okay, tell me what why do you think you're losing your faith?
SPEAKER_01: And um, they they say, It's I'm having a hard time believing a good God exists when I look at all of the evil and suffering in the world.
SPEAKER_01: And that's a great question to ask.
SPEAKER_01: I almost always say the same exact thing in when someone voices a question like that.
SPEAKER_01: I got good news for you.
SPEAKER_01: Um, I don't think you're losing your faith, I think you're gaining it.
SPEAKER_01: Because you're finally willing to ask the question that's key holding you back.
SPEAKER_01: You're finally, you found the obstacle to a higher level of discipleship and dependence upon God, and you're willing to voice it, wondering if there's an answer, hoping there's an answer.
SPEAKER_01: Um, and specifically that question itself, the problem of evil, is how can looking at all the suffering in the world and say, how could a good God be in charge of all this garbage?
SPEAKER_01: Why would a good God let this happen?
SPEAKER_01: Is not just a good question, it might be the question.
SPEAKER_01: Go find any angry atheist on the internet and push them hard enough, and you will discover the reason why they choose to reject God is that God, that something bad happened that they don't think a good God would allow to happen.
SPEAKER_01: And people don't go that far.
SPEAKER_01: I guarantee you, there are people sitting in this room, and right now you have some hidden hurt in your heart that you've been nursing and you're wondering, how could God, a God who says he loves me, a God who promises uh to be a good God, how could a good God care about this?
SPEAKER_01: If you're there, I have good news for you.
SPEAKER_01: Um, that is a great question to ask.
SPEAKER_01: It might be the only question worth asking.
SPEAKER_01: I have some better news.
SPEAKER_01: The scriptures, uh, if you if you ask that question, you're not alone, and the scriptures voice it.
SPEAKER_01: The oldest book in the Bible, linguistically, is Job.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, and what is Job?
SPEAKER_01: A sustained 42-chapter wrestling with God over God, why is this happening?
SPEAKER_01: This does what I'm seeing around me doesn't conform to what I'm experiencing, what I know about you, and I don't know how to put the two and two in the two in the same category.
SPEAKER_01: And probably the best news is in Jesus, we have the clearest and best and most satisfying answer to the problem of evil.
SPEAKER_01: We're going through a series on John now, and we're gonna look at what I think is one of the most powerful presentations, most powerful answers that Jesus gives to the problem of evil in John chapter 11 with the raising of Lazarus.
SPEAKER_01: So if you if you're sitting here, oh, you know, wondering if God exists or plagued by by some evil that you're trying to make sense of, or stuck in the middle of some problem and you wonder what's going on, I want you to realize that John 11 is Jesus' profound declaration to you that he sees you, that he knows what you're going through, and that he's offering you victory.
SPEAKER_01: So let's look at John chapter 11.
SPEAKER_01: Um, and it starts the way most people, most situations like this start, it starts with the problem.
SPEAKER_01: It starts with the problem.
SPEAKER_01: Look at John 11.
SPEAKER_01: It says, Now a man was sick, Lazarus from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha.
SPEAKER_01: Now Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair.
SPEAKER_01: It was her brother Lazarus who was sick, so the sister sent a message to him, Lord, the one you love is sick.
SPEAKER_01: So here's the situation.
SPEAKER_01: There's a person that Jesus loves who's not doing well.
SPEAKER_01: And they tell Jesus, a good and loving Jesus would want to address this problem.
SPEAKER_01: And so they let him know.
SPEAKER_01: And that's when the difficulties start.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus begins to act in ways that nobody is expecting.
SPEAKER_01: He starts by delaying.
SPEAKER_01: It says, when Jesus heard this, he said, The sickness will not end in death, but is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.
SPEAKER_01: Now Jesus loved Martha, her sister, and Lazarus.
SPEAKER_01: And so when he heard that he was sick, he stayed two more days in the place where he was than after he said to the disciples, let's go to Judea.
SPEAKER_01: It's a weird connection.
SPEAKER_01: He says, He loved Mary and Martha, so when he heard, he stayed two days.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't seem how like how are those two fitting?
SPEAKER_01: If that were me and you, it's like, oh, I heard he was sick, we'd rush to his bedside.
SPEAKER_01: But Jesus intentionally delays.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, and the disciples probably think that he's delaying because there's some danger involved.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, the uh the uh at the time the um the disciples, uh the people down in Judea have been trying to stone him.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, when when he agrees to go, um, verse 8, it says, the re the disciples reply, Rabbi, just now the Jews tried to stone you and you're going there again.
SPEAKER_01: They're probably glad he's delaying.
SPEAKER_01: Better, let's just stay out of danger.
SPEAKER_01: It's not a bad sickness, let's just hang out here.
SPEAKER_01: Um, but and so they probably think that, oh, he's trying to weigh the situation.
SPEAKER_01: He wants to do good for Lazarus, but he knows it's not serious and there's a lot of danger involved.
SPEAKER_01: Um, and then he goes, No, let me tell you the real situation.
SPEAKER_01: And in John 11, 14, he says, So Jesus told them plainly, Lazarus has died, and I'm glad for you that I wasn't there so that you may believe, but let's go to him.
SPEAKER_01: He said, I've intentionally delayed because I want to show you something, let me go show it to you.
SPEAKER_01: Now, as a side note, there's something really cool that that happens here.
SPEAKER_01: Um, we I just told you, you know, the disciples may be worried about the danger that's going involved.
SPEAKER_01: And you know, Thomas, the disciple Thomas gets a lot of, gets a bad rap.
SPEAKER_01: If I say Thomas, if I say, give me an adjective to describe Thomas, you would say he is doubting Thomas.
SPEAKER_01: But look at verse, look at verse 16.
SPEAKER_01: Uh then Thomas called the twins, said to his fellow disciples, let's go too, so that we may die with him.
SPEAKER_01: He realizes the danger and he's willing to embrace it to be by Jesus' side.
SPEAKER_01: So I don't know, maybe we should we should stop cutting in some cutting him, stop being so hard on him and call him doubting Thomas.
SPEAKER_01: We should maybe call him like daring Thomas or something or danger Thomas.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know, but just realize he was he was willing to risk it all for Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: I think that plays into his doubting, which we can talk about later.
SPEAKER_01: Um and then when Jesus gets, when Jesus gets to Bethany, he discovers that Lazarus, he takes so long to get there that Lazarus has already been dead for four days.
SPEAKER_01: And both he both Mary and Martha in different ways express their disappointment to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: In verse 21 and verse 32, they both say, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.
SPEAKER_01: They were sitting in the midst of grief, standing next to a brother that they wondered why he would he had suffered and why the person that they thought that they loved, that they thought loved them hadn't showed up.
SPEAKER_01: Before we go look at the answer, I wonder how much of how many of us are sitting in that problem right now?
SPEAKER_01: How many people are sitting with that, they you're face to face in the middle, deep, deep in the middle of some some problem or question or difficulty or pain, and you're wondering where God is.
SPEAKER_01: God, I thought you would do something different here, and now it's too late.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus uh shows up when he does, exactly when he does, so that he can reveal himself to who who he who he really is.
SPEAKER_01: And he starts by making a promise.
SPEAKER_01: Look at the pro before he does anything, he says something.
SPEAKER_01: Uh verse 23, it says, Your brother, Jesus Jesus told her, Your brother will rise again.
SPEAKER_01: And Martha said to him, I know that he'll rise again in the resurrection at the last day.
SPEAKER_01: It looks like uh Jesus is offering her consolation, like everything happens for a reason.
SPEAKER_01: Things we typically say at a funeral.
SPEAKER_01: Everything happens for a reason, or he's in a better place, things we mean, but things that don't do any good in the moment.
SPEAKER_01: Um and and he goes, and so she responds with her Sunday school answer, yes I know, he'll rise again in the last day.
SPEAKER_01: That still doesn't explain why you weren't here and why you didn't fix this.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, when Jesus later goes to the tomb and the people see him, see him moved, they say, Um, wow, look how much he loved him.
SPEAKER_01: Couldn't this man who opened a blind man's eyes, if he had just been here, he could have done something different.
SPEAKER_01: How many of you right now are sitting on the edge of some of some problem that you don't see how God could possibly make sense of it?
SPEAKER_01: And to you in that situation, before he does anything, he makes a promise.
SPEAKER_01: And what does he say?
SPEAKER_01: He says, Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life.
SPEAKER_01: The one who believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.
SPEAKER_01: Do you believe this?
SPEAKER_01: Jesus has good news for Lazarus, good news for Mary and Martha.
SPEAKER_01: He's trying to teach them something about the nature of Lazarus and where Lazarus is.
SPEAKER_01: He says, I got good news for you.
SPEAKER_01: Um, Lazarus isn't dead.
SPEAKER_01: His body's dead, but he's not dead.
SPEAKER_01: Um, it's one of those weird things.
SPEAKER_01: Um, most of us think we have a soul, but the truth is you are a soul.
SPEAKER_01: You have a body.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, and one day that body is gonna wear out and fall apart.
SPEAKER_01: But the truth, and but the realest part of you, the part that's gonna live forever, is never gonna cease to exist, is gonna continue on when your body stops working.
SPEAKER_01: And one day God's gonna give you a new body.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: Um, but he says, the one who believes in me will live even if he dies, and he who lives and believes will never die.
SPEAKER_01: So I don't know how many times you've heard that passage uh read to you, but probably the hardest part in all of this is what Jesus says right after that.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Do you believe this?
SPEAKER_01: Now, if you were Mary and Martha, if you were in that situation and you gave an honest answer, the truth is most of us will go, No.
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: It says, You just said he who lives and he who believes in you will live even if he dies, and he who lives and believes will never die.
SPEAKER_01: He said, Jesus, we're 10 steps away, we're 10 steps away from a man who loved you, who believed in you, and who's dead.
SPEAKER_01: If anything, we're standing, we're standing steps away from the thing where if it was true, um something different would have gone down.
SPEAKER_01: But no, we are on the edge of where it's demonstrably false.
SPEAKER_01: That's where most of us would be.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe we're trying to say, God, I want to believe, but I don't see how right now.
SPEAKER_01: Do you know that that's how God works?
SPEAKER_01: Before God gives you the power, shows you his power, he wants to bring you to a moment where you have to make a decision.
SPEAKER_01: I think that's the definition of a biblical trial.
SPEAKER_01: Definition of a biblical trial is when you come to a fork in the road and you have to decide whether or not the promises of God will hold you this time, or you're gonna have to run to something else.
SPEAKER_01: And that's where he brings Mary and Martha.
SPEAKER_01: He brings them to the fork in the road and said, Let me tell you who I am.
SPEAKER_01: You are standing with your backs to your brother's tomb and you're wondering how a good God could let this happen.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm here to tell you that I have a plan.
SPEAKER_01: Are you willing to believe?
SPEAKER_01: And that plan isn't something I can do, the plan is something I am.
SPEAKER_01: Notice he doesn't say I have resurrection or I offer life.
SPEAKER_01: He says he is the resurrection.
SPEAKER_01: He is the life.
SPEAKER_01: It flows from his presence.
SPEAKER_01: He can't help but bring life wherever he goes.
SPEAKER_01: He makes this promise and he looks at them and says, Do you believe?
SPEAKER_01: How many of you right now are trying hard?
SPEAKER_01: You're at that fork in the road.
SPEAKER_01: This is how sin works.
SPEAKER_01: Uh sin, uh, sin whispers in your army goes, It's not gonna work this time.
SPEAKER_01: Uh I know you hear the promise, but how could God's promise work at a situation like this?
SPEAKER_01: We finally found something that it won't hold for.
SPEAKER_01: You better go find someplace else to stand.
SPEAKER_01: In response to that, Jesus offers proof.
SPEAKER_01: Offers proof that his word is reliable.
SPEAKER_01: He moves from the problem to his promise and from promise to the proof.
SPEAKER_01: His miracle that he is about to do, he doesn't just do to show he has power.
SPEAKER_01: He does it to prove that his message is true.
SPEAKER_01: This is frequently what Jesus does.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus doesn't just perform a miracle, he's not a spiritual concierge ready to do whatever, do whatever you want.
SPEAKER_01: He's not just some sort of butler who's gonna give you all the things you happen to give on his on your spiritual laundry list.
SPEAKER_01: He uses his miracles to confirm his identity and verify his word.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: Probably one of the best examples that happens, uh that that this happens at is in Mark chapter 2, uh, when uh Jesus, remember the paralytic that got let down through the roof?
SPEAKER_01: And we focus on the the, we tell the good Sunday school story about the the roof getting torn apart and him getting lowered down.
SPEAKER_01: But what does Jesus say to him when he gets lowered down?
SPEAKER_01: Your sins are forgiven.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, and the people up there go, no, no, he he's he's he can't walk.
SPEAKER_01: That's his problem.
SPEAKER_01: But the dis the Pharisees realized what's happening.
SPEAKER_01: They said, Who can forgive sins but God alone?
SPEAKER_01: They realized he was doing, uh he was saying, Let me show you I have the power to do what you can't see, by showing you I have the power to do what you can.
SPEAKER_01: And so Mark chapter, uh Mark chapter 2, verse 10 and 11, he says, Jesus says, But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins, he told the paralytic, I tell you, get up, take your mat, and go home.
SPEAKER_01: That he used, he used his miracle not just to show his power, but to confirm his promise.
SPEAKER_01: Let me show you that my word holds holds fast.
SPEAKER_01: And to the people in that in that room with the hole in the roof, uh he said, Let me show you I have the power to forgive sins.
SPEAKER_01: To people standing at the tomb of Lazarus, he says, Let me show you I am the resurrection and the life.
SPEAKER_01: This is what he does.
SPEAKER_01: Uh he says, uh, verse 39, so remove the stone, Jesus said.
SPEAKER_01: Martha, the dead man's sister, told him, Lord, there is already a stench because he has been dead for four days.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus said to her, Didn't I tell you that if you believe, you would you would see the glory of God?
SPEAKER_01: So they removed the stone.
SPEAKER_01: Then Jesus raised his eyes and said, Father, I thank you that you heard me.
SPEAKER_01: I know that you always hear me, and because of the crowd standing here, I said it, so that you may believe, so that they may believe you sent me.
SPEAKER_01: And after he said this, he shouted with a loud voice, Lazarus, come out.
SPEAKER_01: And the dead man came out, bound hand and foot with linen strips and with his face wrapped in cloth.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus said to them, Unwrap him and let him go.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus raised Lazarus, not just as proof he has the power to do so, but as confirmation, as confirmation that he is who he said he is.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, that his words are true, then his promise is secure.
SPEAKER_01: And so maybe the next step to ask for answer for us is what's the point?
SPEAKER_01: Okay, fine, Jesus made that promise, but how does that apply?
SPEAKER_01: What am I supposed to get from this?
SPEAKER_01: How does how does that miracle speak into where I am today in the baggage I brought with me and the questions I have?
SPEAKER_01: Well, it reminds us, one, that the Christian life is is is not without pain.
SPEAKER_01: Two, the Christian life is is not without death.
SPEAKER_01: But the Christian life is not without hope.
SPEAKER_01: And that hope is rooted in the fact that Jesus offers you.
SPEAKER_01: He's here to offer you something in the midst of your pain.
SPEAKER_01: By the way, I always feel bad for Lazarus.
SPEAKER_01: Um, the Bible says that it's appointed for man once to die and then the judgment.
SPEAKER_01: He had to do it twice.
SPEAKER_01: You ever think about that?
SPEAKER_01: Some bum rap.
SPEAKER_01: Um so what is uh in the midst of all of this, what does this miracle prove that Jesus offers us?
SPEAKER_01: One, he offers you awareness.
SPEAKER_01: Now, I hesitated to use the word because awareness is one of those words that we are just inundated with.
SPEAKER_01: You cannot turn on the TV or look at the internet or go to the grocery store without finding some cause that people are trying to create awareness for.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, there's not always another ribbon, there's always another month, there's always another fundraiser, there's always another walk-a-thong, there's always something we're creating awareness for.
SPEAKER_01: But I decided to use the word because that idea of awareness is rooted in this basic fear that you and I all have that plagues our society, that no one sees, no one knows, and no one cares.
SPEAKER_01: We're like, I most of us spend most of our time feeling forgotten, feeling overlooked.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, it's one of the temptations to sin.
SPEAKER_01: We think that no one can see us and no one cares, and therefore either no one will see us when we sin, or we have to sin in order to get what we want because uh no one's looking out for us.
SPEAKER_01: This this miracle shows us that Jesus is aware that what's going on.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, it's one of the messages throughout all of Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: Throughout all of Scripture, God is persistently and um relentlessly trying to convince you that you are not out of his gaze.
SPEAKER_01: He sees you clearly.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, in the one story at the very beginning of scripture in Genesis 16, uh, when Hagar, when Hagar is running from the wrath of Sarah and the bad decisions of Abraham, she's in the middle of the desert with her son, she's lost, she is starving, and she is waiting to die.
SPEAKER_01: And she's just given up all hope.
SPEAKER_01: The angel of the Lord meets her.
SPEAKER_01: And in response, she says this.
SPEAKER_01: Look at Genesis 16, 13.
SPEAKER_01: She named the Lord who spoke to her, U R L Roy.
SPEAKER_01: For she said, In this place I have actually seen the one who sees me.
SPEAKER_01: Do you realize that that the God we serve is is is some is high and mighty and highly exalted up, and that's the same God who sees you.
SPEAKER_01: The name that God gives, we maybe done the name of God study.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, this name is we serve a God who sees you.
SPEAKER_01: That you God, you have not escaped God's notice.
SPEAKER_01: Your suffering and your pain isn't happening to you because God was looking someplace else when it happened.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, that's what uh Psalm 139 maybe says at the best.
SPEAKER_01: Your homework for this week, if you need it.
SPEAKER_01: Uh go go read your personal devotional time.
SPEAKER_01: Go read Psalm 139 and listen to, let it soak in how deep and rich this whole psalm is on a meditation of that there is nothing about you that God is not aware of.
SPEAKER_01: It starts this way: Lord, you have searched me and you have known me.
SPEAKER_01: You know when I sit down and when I stand up, you understand my thoughts from afar away, you observe my travels and my rest, you are aware of all of my ways.
SPEAKER_01: It goes on to say, Where can I go from your presence?
SPEAKER_01: If I should rise to the wings of the dawn, if I should settle on the far side of the sea, even there you are.
SPEAKER_01: He said, If I should send into darkness, darkness isn't dark to you, you can see in the dark.
SPEAKER_01: There's not a single place I could go that's apart from your presence.
SPEAKER_01: He says, You formed me in when when I was hidden my mother.
SPEAKER_01: You knit me together, I'm fearfully and wonderfully made.
SPEAKER_01: Not a um before word is on my mouth, you know it completely.
SPEAKER_01: He said, if I could mound up all the thoughts that God has about me, they would outnumber the sand and all the seashore.
SPEAKER_01: That God is trying to say, tell you, He is aware of your situation and he has it under hand.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, Jesus keeps telling us this, right, all throughout the Gospels.
SPEAKER_01: In the Sermon on the Mount, he says that we serve a God who sees what is done in secret.
SPEAKER_01: So you don't have to worry about showing your righteousness to other people.
SPEAKER_01: When he invites us to the Sermon on the Mount, when he invites us to teach to learn the Lord's Prayer, he says, don't lose meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose they will be heard for their many words.
SPEAKER_01: But your heavenly Father knows what you need before you ask him.
SPEAKER_01: How amazing is it to realize that the God of the universe, the God that created all of this thing and on this many people, you don't have to get his attention, you don't have to tell him your needs, and you don't have to convince him to act on your behalf.
SPEAKER_01: That is what this miracle is trying to show you.
SPEAKER_01: He is aware of your situation.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus was aware.
SPEAKER_01: His delay was not rooted in obliviousness of what was going on to Lazarus.
SPEAKER_01: He had a bigger plan.
SPEAKER_01: Not just awareness, he offers us compassion.
SPEAKER_01: Doesn't just offer us awareness, he offers us compassion.
SPEAKER_01: So sometimes when you have a bigger plan or when you see the big picture, uh we tend to get frustrated with people who don't.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: I grew up in like a military family, so moving all over the place.
SPEAKER_01: You ever been in sort of an environment where maybe your leader was one of those suck it up types?
SPEAKER_01: Like, hey, suck it up, we're almost there, suck it up, it's pipe down, or like maybe your kid's freaking out about a storm, and you're like, just, just, it's fine.
SPEAKER_01: There's nothing, we're totally fine.
SPEAKER_01: It's okay, just pipe down.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna sometimes I think that if I was Jesus in that midst, that's what I would be doing.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, you're on the, you're you're on the tomb.
SPEAKER_01: You know what you're gonna do.
SPEAKER_01: You're not you're gonna raise this guy from the dead.
SPEAKER_01: You know that his spirit is currently with God, and he's about to, you're about to show the you have power over dead bodies too.
SPEAKER_01: And and if you were me, I'd be like, well, y'all just please be quiet.
SPEAKER_01: I'm about to raise him if y'all would just quit crying for two seconds.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Sound like something you said to your kids last weekend?
SPEAKER_01: Oh, it'll be fine.
SPEAKER_01: I will feed you.
SPEAKER_01: Just come, please, just stop crying.
SPEAKER_01: It's not what Jesus does.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus knows what he is about to do, and he knows it's gonna rock their world, but still he does something pretty amazing.
SPEAKER_01: And what is it?
SPEAKER_01: What is it pretty amazing?
SPEAKER_01: He weeps.
SPEAKER_01: John 11, 35, the shortest verse in the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: It's probably the first verse I memorized because when I was given the opportunity to memorize any verse, I could chose the shortest one, right?
SPEAKER_01: Um, Jesus wept.
SPEAKER_01: But where did Jesus weep?
SPEAKER_01: He wept at the tomb of a friend.
SPEAKER_01: He wept at the tomb of a friend he was about to raise from the dead.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because when we're mourning, Jesus mourns with us.
SPEAKER_01: When we're hearts are broken, his heart breaks too.
SPEAKER_01: He looks at all the pain and suffering we're going through.
SPEAKER_01: He knows what he's gonna do, but he's not a suck it up kind of God.
SPEAKER_01: He's a God who tells us to weep with those who weep and mourn with those who mourn, and he does it.
SPEAKER_01: He shows us the way by weeping with people who are brokenhearted by all the sin and death and brokenness of the world.
SPEAKER_01: By the way, that's one of the best answers to the problem.
SPEAKER_01: The first answer to the problem of evil is this God hates evil more than you do.
SPEAKER_01: God hates evil more.
SPEAKER_01: He pours his wrath out on it, and he weeps in the midst of its brokenness.
SPEAKER_01: Now, if that were enough, if that were all, then Jesus would just be a big brother, a shoulder to cry on.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, it's weird how most people are deprived of that, and really that's all people are hoping for in the midst of most suffering.
SPEAKER_01: They say, Oh man, if I could just know that someone saw me and know that someone cared.
SPEAKER_01: You'd be so, by the way, that's if you offer that to somebody, it'll change their lives.
SPEAKER_01: Go find somebody.
SPEAKER_01: So that's why church is so wonderful.
SPEAKER_01: If you just put your arm around somebody, call them by name, and tell them you see them and you know what they're going through, it'll it'll change their lives.
SPEAKER_01: That's what the church, that's how we can be the hands of Jesus, right?
SPEAKER_01: The hands and feet of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: But Jesus offers more.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't just offer awareness, he doesn't just offer compassion, he offers victory.
SPEAKER_01: He offers victory.
SPEAKER_01: In the midst of, in the midst of us feeling like we're not good enough and don't know what we can do, uh, he pours his victory into it.
SPEAKER_01: Life and resurrection flow from his from his being.
SPEAKER_01: Um, he came, part of the incarnation was for him to show us one, he is God, and he came to do what you can't do for yourself and to fix what we broke.
SPEAKER_01: The writer of Hebrew says it this way.
SPEAKER_01: The writer of Hebrews says, um says, For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness, but who has been tempted in every way we are, yet without sin.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, let us approach the throne of grace with boldness, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in time of need.
SPEAKER_01: He said, Let me tell you what you need.
SPEAKER_01: You are you're a sinner and you've broken this world by your actions, and you can't unbreak them.
SPEAKER_01: And you, other people have sinned against you, and you don't know what to do about that either.
SPEAKER_01: Well, guess what?
SPEAKER_01: Jesus came, committed no sin, experienced the worst that sin has to offer, and succeeded in conquering it.
SPEAKER_01: And because of that, he has two things that you desperately need.
SPEAKER_01: You need his mercy, which is not giving you the bad thing you do deserve for all the wrong that you did and you can't undo.
SPEAKER_01: And you need his grace to help in time of need.
SPEAKER_01: When you don't feel strong enough to encounter to deal with all the situations you're in, and when you don't feel like you have what it takes, Jesus knows.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus help wants to give you a good gift you don't deserve.
SPEAKER_01: But ultimately, God's plan is to completely destroy sin and death, to remake this whole world.
SPEAKER_01: The victory that he wants us to look forward to and hope in is rooted in one day when he returns and promises to undo everything.
SPEAKER_01: Look at what Revelation 21 says.
SPEAKER_01: At the end of time when Christ returns, this is how the picture is given.
SPEAKER_01: Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.
SPEAKER_01: I also saw the holy city, a new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared like a bride adorned for her husband.
SPEAKER_01: Then I heard a loud voice from the throne Look, God's dwelling is with humanity, and he will live with them, and they will be his people, and I, and God Himself will be with them, and will be their God.
SPEAKER_01: He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, death will be no more, grief, crying, and pain will be no more, because the previous things have passed away.
SPEAKER_01: Then the one seated on the throne said, Look, I am making everything new.
SPEAKER_01: I like how my other Bible translation says that, Behold, I am making all things new.
SPEAKER_01: I love that it doesn't say, Behold, I make all new things.
SPEAKER_01: It says, Behold, I am making all things new, which means the victory that Jesus demonstrated in small with Lazarus, the victory that was triumphant at his own resurrection, and he calls us to hope in is the promise that there's not a single place right now where sin and death currently claim a victory that will be allowed to stand.
SPEAKER_01: That in the midst of all of this, he promises to win over all of it, and he promises that it's his job to wipe away the tears.
SPEAKER_01: And one day grief and death will be no more.
SPEAKER_01: How's this hitting you today?
SPEAKER_01: What part of you, what part of this did need to get to what part of you today?
SPEAKER_01: Are you, uh, did you come here mad at God because of something you thought he should have done but he didn't do?
SPEAKER_01: Have you pushed God to your feet?
SPEAKER_01: God couldn't possibly uh exist and this bad thing happened.
SPEAKER_01: Here that in some reason, in some way we don't fully understand, uh that God, that the best of all possible world wasn't a world in which evil never existed, but a world in which evil existed but was conquered.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what Jesus came to do.
SPEAKER_01: He came to experience the worst that sin could sin could do and to be victorious over it.
SPEAKER_01: In the midst of all of this, he is offering you awareness.
SPEAKER_01: He knows what you're going through, he is offering you compassion, he feels, he feels the brokenness you feel, and he's calling you to believe in the victory.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_01: Father, thank you for the reminder that we see in the resurrection of Lazarus.
SPEAKER_01: You know our problems.
SPEAKER_01: You're the when you don't act the way we were expecting, when we're confused about your delays or when we feel disappointed.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you that you can take it all, that you know our situation, and that you are you are actually at work even now to meet our needs.
SPEAKER_01: Father, thank you that be that what Lazarus shows us, that you are aware of our problems, you care about what we're going through, and you promise us victory.
SPEAKER_01: Father, help us to lay down our disappointment, lay down our defeats, lay down our worries and concerns at your feet and believe that you are resurrection and you are life.
SPEAKER_01: Pray this in your son's name.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, Pastor Ryan Rush here, and I just want to thank you for being with us at Kingsland Online today.
SPEAKER_00: What an honor.
SPEAKER_00: But I'll tell you what would be even better.
SPEAKER_00: We'd love to see you get connected with the physical church in the days ahead if you haven't already.
SPEAKER_00: And that means maybe if you're local in the West Houston area, we'd love to see you at Kingsland.
SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, regardless, we'd love to help you facilitate uh jumping into a local church near you, and we can do that together.
SPEAKER_00: You can go to kingsland.org slash online connect.
SPEAKER_00: Kingsland.org slash online connect to find out next steps on your journey.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, thanks again for being with us today at Kingsland Online.