Latest / Andy Stanley Sermons / Andy Stanley - Under the Circumstances Part 1 #When Life Happens

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Andy Stanley - Under the Circumstances Part 1 #When Life Happens · Andy Stanley Sermons

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If tragedy or a sudden change of circumstances, either yours or the circumstances of
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somebody you love, has caused you to doubt God, has caused you to
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be angry at God, has caused you to wonder if maybe God is angry
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at you, caused you to lose your faith, cause you to walk away
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from faith. As strange as it might be to hear this from me,
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I actually understand that, and I don't blame you, and if I were
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you, maybe it would be me too. And that's what we're talking about
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today, and that's what we're going to talk about for the next couple of
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weeks in this series that I've entitled Under the Circumstances Holding on to God When
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it appears that God is no longer holding on to you. We've all been
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there, and if you haven't been there yet, you're probably going to be
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there eventually, regardless of your what you believe about God, regardless of your
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faith system, regardless of your religion. It's so strange when bad things happen
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as circumstances go the wrong way. There's something intuitively, or I should say
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instinctively, I think in human beings for whatever reason, we look up like
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what's going on? We just it's like, if there's anybody out there to
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whom it may concern, what in the world is going on? That's what
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we're going to talk about, because that's in you, that's in me,
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that's in all of us. And to start at, you know, the
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lowest of the low rungs on the ladder, I want to begin by with
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a statement that maybe it might perhaps be the most insensitive statement ever uttered by
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anyone at any time. And the reason I would take it to that extreme
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is because this statement actually comes from the lips of Jesus. As we're going
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to discover it today. Jesus actually went out of his way. He went
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out of his way, risked his reputation to create to create a scenario,
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to create a scenario that included pain, sorrow, grief, sickness, anger,
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and ultimately death. And the reason he went out of his way to
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create this scenario, the reason he did this, as hard as it is
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to believe, it's quite the story, is to assure us that God the
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Father is aware, and that God, our heavenly Father, cares, and
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that he is with us in it, and he can see us through it.
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Now, the challenge with this story is if you grew up in oer
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a Round church, you know the story, and the temptation is going to
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be to run to the end of the story because you know how the story
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ends. But it's not simply a story. It's something that actually happened.
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It's a narrative, and it's so important for the next few minutes if you
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can instead of rushing to the end, mentally, if you can enter into
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the story as specifically, if you could pause and we could pause to enter
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into the emotion of this story, of this incident, because it is so
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layered with emotion, and that's where this narrative from the life of Jesus begins
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to intersect with all of our experiences. Whether you're a Christian, non Christian,
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used to be, don't care, don't have any faith in God.
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This is a narrative that I'm convinced and I think you will be too at
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the end that Jesus actually engineered because it intersects with all of us. He
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engineered it too, intersect with all of our lives. So here's how the
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story goes again. Most of you know this one of Jesus' closest friends,
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one of his supporters, somebody who had hosted Jesus in his home many many
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times, became sick. He had two sisters. He lived with his sisters,
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or they lived with him. Jesus is a couple of days away.
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They know basically the direction that Jesus left when he left their hometown, and
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they send a servant to find Jesus. The sisters send a servant to find
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Jesus, and when the sisters show up, excuse me. When the servant
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finds Jesus and Jesus apostles, the servant says to Jesus, Jesus, this
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is amazing because Jesus recognized from whose home this servant came. The servant says
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to Jesus, Jesus, the one that you love is sick, and his
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sisters are requesting that you would come back to Bethany and do what you've done
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for so many people. Heal their brother, and of course he would.
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I mean, Jesus had healed strangers. Jesus heal multiple people he didn't even
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know. In fact, there's one incident Jesus is on his way to heal
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girl he'd never met and a woman he'd never met, touched him and was
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healed just by touching him. So of course Jesus is gonna get up immediately
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and go heal a friend, you know. But because he's you know,
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he's been invited by the sisters who he also knows, to come heal a
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friend. But if you know the story, the disciples, the apostles get
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up to leave, and Jesus like, sit back down, we're not going,
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and he sends the servant back to Bethany, and Jesus stays there where
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he is with his apostles for two days and waits for his friend to die.
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Now again, this is so emotional, and this is so crazy that
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John who is writing this years after the event, John was there for this,
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the gospel writer John was there for this, and he's writing after the
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resurrection of Jesus. And because he knows his readers don't know who this family
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is and don't know much about them, John inserts himself into the story and
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he says, oh, by the way, before you you know, before
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you shut Jesus out, He writes into the story. Gospel writer John writes
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that Jesus loved Mary and Martha and Lazarus, and why does He state that,
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because if you only knew this part of the story, you would think
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Jesus must despise them. They might, I mean, he must be angry
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with them. No, I'm not going to go heal somebody, I know,
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because well something bad must have happened. And John's like, no,
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no, no, understand, Jesus actually loved these people. Then two days
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later, when he gets up to go to Bethany, the apostles his disciples,
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the twelve, they're totally confused. You know why now, why go
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at all? Because last time they were there things didn't go so well for
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them. In fact, they say that, they say, Rabbi, hey,
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a short while ago, the Judeans there and Bethany where Lazarus and Mary
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Martha lived, the Judeons there, they'd tried to stone you. And yet
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you're going back there. What if maybe you just do one of those work
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from home miracles that we've seen you do where you don't actually have to go
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do it. You can just kind of say something or think something. We
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don't know how that works, but you've done that before. Maybe just kind
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of proclaim him healed. We don't really want to go, And they're more
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concerned about their own well being than Jesus, because you know, when they
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tried to stone Jesus, of course they thought, well, if they're taking
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Jesus down, they're probably taking us down to So let's not go to Bethany.
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And Jesus responds with this, He says, our friend Lazarus there,
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it is our friend. Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am
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going there to wake him up. This is how casually Jesus talks about death.
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His disciples replied, because they really don't want to go. Lord,
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if he sleeps, he'll get better, I mean. And of course they're
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thinking, how do you know he's asleep? But hey, you know,
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you're Jesus. This is the kind of stuff you do. So Jesus,
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if you're confident that he's asleep, then maybe the fever broke, whatever it
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might be. We don't want to disturb things in Bethany. Let's just stay
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here. So then he told him plainly, Lazarus is dead and for your
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sake, And here's the statement. Here's the thing that I don't know.
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When John's writing this, he's like, do I really put these words in
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the lips of Jesus. I mean, we're trying to convince people that Jesus,
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who he claimed to be, This is terrible. I bet he debated
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whether or not to include this, but he did because it's true. In
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fact, the statements like this next one that caused me to believe in the
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authenticity of the Gospels. They can be trusted because in literature, one of
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the way that people who navigate and evaluate literature determine whether something's true or not,
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anything that makes the hero look bad is generally true, because nobody would
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add that later or make it up. For your sake, he says,
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I'm glad I was not there, and they're thinking because and you better have
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a good reason, because when we go to Bethany. If we go to
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Bethany, you are about to you are about to be confronted with sister anger
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and cist grief and sister disappointment. And it's going to be bad. If
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you think that Judeans who tried to stone you were angry you wait till you
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to deal with Mary and Martha when they found out that you waited around two
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days so their brother would die while they watched. So, by the way,
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Jesus, before we go, tell us, why are you glad you
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weren't there. I think you owe us an explanation. You're certainly going to
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owe them an explanation, he said, I'm glad I was not there,
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so that you may believe now at this point the story, this is kind
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of funny after the fact. You remember in Winnie the Pooh the character Eor,
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Remember, Eor was kind of the negative, the downer, and in
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a lot of narratives there's always like the downer person. So thom So Jesus
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has one of those with his apostles. It's Thomas the downer person. And
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so Thomas when he finds out they're actually going to go to Bethany anyway,
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he says, well, I love this. Let us also go that we
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may die with him. Lazarus is dead. If we go to Bethany,
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We're gonna be dead. We're just all gonna be dead. Come on,
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guys, let's all go to Bethany. Let's just die with Lazarus. This
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is not going to go well. The end is near for all of us.
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I think Thomas is saying that John, John, you don't have to
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put that in there, like johns going, come on, this is what
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happened, right, These are real people. Back to the Jesus statement,
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I am glad I was not there so that you may believe. But here's
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the question, don't leave early. This is so important. Believe what and
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this is so important? Or let me put it this way. What is
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so important for them to believe that he would let a friend die while the
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friend's sisters watched and waited for Jesus to show up to save the day,
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and Jesus doesn't show up and save the day. What could be so important
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for them to believe that Jesus would allow these circumstances to play out the way
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they did. And the answer to that question is related to the answer to
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this question. The related the question of why would Jesus allow this to happen
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is related to the answer to this question. Who is you? In other
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words, I'm glad I was not there so that you may believe. Well,
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obviously part of the you was the twelve apostles traveling around with Jesus.
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But again, John wrote this many years after the event. And John wrote
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this many years after the resurrection of Jesus. And the you here isn't just
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the yous and the story. The you is you, and you and those
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of you whose faith has been crushed by circumstances, and those of you whose
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faith is being crushed by circumstances. Jesus is saying, I've allowed this tragedy
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to play out the way it has so that you, anyone who hears this
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story and knows what happened, will believe, will believe, will believe.
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So Jesus engineered Think about it, Jesus engineered a heartbreaking set of circumstances to
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address our Where's God when we need God circumstances. That's what this is.
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That Jesus engineered this so that our in the moment of our Where's God when
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I need God? Where's God? When my sister in law needs God?
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Where's God when my brother needs God? Where's God when my child needs God?
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And our Where's God when I need God? Moments? Jesus engineered these
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circumstances, this narrative for you, and do you know who else he engineered
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it for, not just for those of us who consider ourselves church people and
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Christian people that are grappling with Where's God when I need God? And I
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thought God promised and God didn't come through on his promise. He also engineered
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this for those of you who don't believe, and for those of you who
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used to believe, and then life just crust your faith and destroyed it.
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And here's the amazing thing about this narrative. Jesus is so brilliant because of
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what happens next. Jesus is about to affirm. Don't miss this. Jesus
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is about to affirm what you felt when God didn't show up for you.
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Jesus is about to put an exclamation mark, not cross it out, an
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exclamation mark beside what you felt when God didn't come through for you or your
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son or your daughter, or your friend, or a husband or your wife.
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He's about to affirm what some of you are feeling right now. But
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here's the amazing thing. He's about to affirm your frustration and your anger,
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and your grief and your questions. And He's about to affirm all of that
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with no condemnation. Do you remember, if you know the story, do
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you remember what happens next? So they get up and they go to Bethany.
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Meanwhile, Jerusalem, the city of Jerusalem is about two miles away from
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Bethany. So all of these mourners and all these people have come from Jerusalem
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to support Lazarus sisters Mary and Martha and their grief, because he's a well
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known citizen in the area. So there's lots of people. So Mary and
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Martha in the home and they're grieving and they're crying, and they're these mourners,
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and a servant shows up at the door and says, Mary and Martha,
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the Rabbi is on his way. He's coming down the road. He'll
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be here just a few minutes. And you remember, maybe what happens next,
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right Martha. Martha decides she's gonna go see him. I mean,
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he's late, he's late to do the miracle, a miracle. He's late
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because he missed the funeral. But she goes out to meet him. And
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what she does, she expresses what many of us have expressed and what many
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of us are expressing right now, because God has not come through, or
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seemingly not come through for us. She is not happy. And here's what
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she's thinking. After all I have done for you, I have fed your
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twelve hungry mouths, plush yours anytime you guys show up, and all the
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people who f I have hosted you. I've been hospitable, I've done everything.
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We've believed in you. We followed you, we've supported you, we
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put up with the grief of the religious leaders who think we should separate ourselves
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from you. And when we needed you most, when your friend needed you
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most, you didn't show up in time. And she says exactly that,
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and John records it. Martha said to Jesus, if you had been here,
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my brother would not have died translated, this is your fault because you
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could have kept this from happening. Look up here, and in this moment,
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we are all in the story. In this moment, this story intersects
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with my story, It intersects with your story. If you have ever leveraged
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trad to make the point that God doesn't care and God isn't there, if
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you've ever leveraged disappointment with God or something that's happened to someone you love,
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and you step back and you say, you know what, if there is
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a loving God, that wouldn't have happened, God would have stepped in.
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If God could have, God would have And since God didn't, God must
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not even exist or not the God I was taught to believe in and trust
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as a child. If you've ever done that, what happens is we feel
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like we're stepping away from faith and we're standing outside of faith system and we're
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lobbing in criticism. How could you believe in that kind of God? How
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could you put trust in that kind of God? God didn't come through for
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me, God doesn't come through for other people. You feel like you're on
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the outside lobbying in, you know, your criticism. And Jesus, this
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is what's so brilliant. And this moment, Jesus goes out of his way,
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in this occasion to draw a circle large enough to include you and to
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include me, because we are all represented by Mary and Martha in the story
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with our dis appointment and our frustration and our anger with the God who could
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have and should have but didn't. You are included in this story. And
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here's why, because your story is included in the grand story of God's good
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news of great joy for all people. That Jesus arranged this for people like
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you and for people like me, that perhaps we might believe or believe again,
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But that's the question. Believe what you know. I'm glad I wasn't
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there so that you might believe. So Jesus goes on into Bethany, and
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when Martha's finds out that. When Mary finds out that he's coming with Martha,
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she goes out to see him as well, and she unloads on him
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in the same way, if you had been here, our brother wouldn't have
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died. She's weeping, weeping, of course she is. Now she's weeping
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because she's lost her brother. And now there's the anger and the frustration of
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being in the presence of the very person who could have kept this from happening.
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Can you feel that? Isn't that what we would have felt? Is
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it that sometimes what we do feel? Jesus is so brilliant. He created
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an engineered circumstances with a circle so large we can't escape the emotion and the
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pain and the frustration of the moment, because we have all at some level
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been there. Then John says, when Jesus saw her weeping and the Judeans
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who had come along with her weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit,
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and he was troubled, to which you know the reader is thinking, well,
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if you're deeply troubled and moved in spirit, then I mean, if
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this bothers you that much, why didn't you show up? And keep it
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from happening. And then they lead Jesus to the cave where Lazarus is buried,
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and then this incredible thing happens. This the shortest and many of you
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knew this, you grew up in church. This is one of your Bible
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facts. You remember, then, the shortest verse in the Bible. Now,
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the numbers in our bibles that you know split up the Bible between chapters
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and verses, all that was added many many, many many years later.
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I mean, you know, hundreds of years from the event, right,
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And it's so interesting to me that whoever determined those numbers, and we're not
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sure who it was. We know the time period it happened, we don't
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know who it was. For whatever reason, they get to these next two
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words in the Gospel of John, and they are so apparently moved by the
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story, and if so, entered into the emotion of the moment. Whoever
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put the numbers in the Bible decided these two words get their own number,
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And I think that's appropriate because this these two words are packed with meaning.
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The text sells us that he stands in front of Lazarus's tomb, and Jesus
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wept. Why because Mary and Martha. We're weeping. Mary and Martha,
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who blamed him, were weeping. And he enters into their pain and their
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frustration and their loss and their grief, and he weeps, and he doesn't
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just in. It's not that his eyes were moist or there was a tear.
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He was weeping in such a way that the entire crowd could see him
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being moved by emotion, which was not normally appropriate for a man to show
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in public. And there's the man, the rabbi, and he's weeping in
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such a way that it is public, and everybody's looking at Jesus. And
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they immediately kind of split into two parties. One party says, wow,
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look how much this rabbi loved Lazarus. Look at the display of emotion.
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How unusual for a man, especially a rabbi, to lose his composure.
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He loved this man so much. But the other group said, we're not
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buying it because two chapters ago. Portly two chapters ago, but in our
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Bibles, two chapters ago not too long ago. This very rabb i supposedly
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healed a blind young man who had been blind from birth, and many people
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witnessed this miracle. If he had the power to make a man who a
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young man who was blind from birth, be able to see. If he
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was able to restore the sight of a blind young man, surely he could
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have showed up in time to save Lazarus, his friend, from dying.
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All this emotion, all these conflicting emotions, all this drama, and it's
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real, and it's loud, and you could smell it and you can hear
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it, and it's everywhere. And Jesus is standing in front of Lazarus to
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him. And while it's true that Jesus could have kept this from happening,
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as we see throughout the story, Jesus had a different agenda in mind.
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He had you in mind, and he had me in mind, and he
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had your sister in law in mind, and your father in mind. And
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Jesus steps up. Then the unthinkable again. Now we're introduced to a whole
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new wave of emotion. And Jesus says, remove the stone. Now.
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I don't know how if you've heard this story before, I heard it before,
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I don't know what you picture. We picture a couple of teenage boys
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running up there and pushing the stone away. That's not how it happened.
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Moving the stone in place was not a casual endeavor. The stone is up
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above the hole, wedged with, is held by something that's been there for
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a long long time. They remove the wedge and the stone actually rolls into
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place, and gravity is holding it wedged in, covering the front of a
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tomb, and it's supposed to stay there for a long long time, maybe
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forever, or until they decide to remove the stone, to take out the
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body or the bones and put the bones in an ostuary. But this is
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this is a done deal. You don't remove the stone, and you certainly
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don't remove the stone on that day. I mean there was a gasp in
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the crowd when Jesus announced remove the stone. And now they have a decision
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to make. Do we trust the rabbi who showed up late, who missed
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the opportunity, who missed the funeral? And besides that, everybody in this
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audience knows, because of how much time has gone by, Lazarus is not
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going to look like Lazarus. After three days in that environment, the whole
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body begins to deteriorate beyond recognition. These funerals happened quickly, and Martha reminds
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Jesus of this, and she reminds him of something else as well, or
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remember what she said. By this time, Lord, there is a bad
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odor. I mean, this is a bad situation. And now you're about
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to I mean, are you kidding us? You are so late. There's
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a bad odor. For he has been in there four days. Lord,
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you weren't a day late, you weren't two days late. You didn't simply
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miss his final moments with us as we held him in our arms. You
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are four days late. And Jesus says, remove the stone anyway. It's
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about to become horrible insult to injury. Can you imagine this emotion? Do
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we do this or not? And then this is my favorite part of what
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happened. Jesus begins to pray, and he praised out loud, so loud
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everyone can hear his prayer because he wanted everyone to hear his prayer. And
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my friends, he wanted us to hear this prayer. So as they're beginning
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to remove the stone. This took maybe an hour, maybe longer. Here's
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what Jesus prays, so that everyone can hear, so that John could record
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it so that we could read it. Then Jesus looked up because isn't that
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what we do in times of grief? Father, I thank you that you
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have heard me. He'd already been praying. I knew, I knew that
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you always hear me, But I am saying this, or I said this
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for the benefit of the people standing here, and I think he said it
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for the benefit of the people sitting here, and the people sitting there,
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and the people watching there, and the people listening here all these years later.
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I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, the people
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navigating circumstances that is slowly crushing their faith, the people navigating circumstances in the
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past that totally crushed their faith, circumstances that are too hard, too heavy.
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Wondering if God cares, Wondering if God here's your prayers, Wondering if
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God is angry with you, Wondering if you did something wrong, Wondering if
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you could have done something right that would have kept these things from happening.
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Or maybe wondering if all of this is just fiction stories, children's stories to
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keep us in line. He says, I knew, I knew that you
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always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing
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here, that they may believe and once again believe what. I'm glad I
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was not there so that you might believe, believe what and here it is,
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and this is a big it that they may believe that you sent me.
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Okay, Jesus, you're telling me, you're telling us that you engineered
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this entire scenario, this entire event. You engineered this because this was all
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about who sent you. Jesus would say yes, Well, well, Jesus,
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is that such a big deal that it's worth all of this drama and
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all of this pain and all of this grief. Jesus would say yeah,
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And here's why, because this is so important. If the father sent the
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son to show us. We talk about this all the time. I don't
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know if this is gotten from your head to your heart yet. If the
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father sent the son to show us what the father is like, then you
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can rest assured that the Father weeps with you in your pain, regardless of
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your blame, that he weeps with you in your sorrow, just as Jesus
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wept with his friends in their sorrow, even though he could have done something
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about it. If the father is like the son, and this is Jesus's
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point, if the father sent the son to represent the Father, then you
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can know with certainty that Gods, that circumstances are not an indicator of God's
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absence or God's silence. But you can rest with you can live with a
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certainty that God and the assurance that God has entered into your pain with you,
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because this is what the Son did, And the Father sent the son
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to demonstrate his love and his compassion and his care for you and for me.
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And this is most maybe more important. If the Father sent the son,
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if this is what Jesus wants us to believe, if this whole thing
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was arranged so to prove the fact that the Father sent the son. If
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the Father sent the son, he sends the son to demonstrate what the Father
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can do. And if what Jesus does next, which we all know how
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the story ends, if what Jesus does next is an indication of what the
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Father can do, then there is hope. And there's hope for you,
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and there's hope for me, regardless of the circumstances. All those stories we
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heard growing up about you're going to see loved ones again, all the things
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Jesus said about eternal life and heaven, all those things that we hope are
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true. But how do we know they're true? If the Father sent the
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son and the Father has the power to do what the son is about to
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do, there's hope. There's the assurance of God's presence and the assurance of
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God's promise about your future and the future of those that you love. And
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so with a Jesus takes a deep breath and he calls out loud, not
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because somebody couldn't hear him that needs to hear him, but because he wanted
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the crowd to hear him. And Jesus called in a loud voice, Lazarus
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come out, and the dead man came out. And I'm absolutely confident there
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were people on the audience who passed out in that moment. Therefore, this
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isn't a surprise. Therefore, many of the Judeans who had come to visit
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Mary and who had seen what Jesus did, believed in him. Oh yes
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they did. And what did they believe? They believed exactly what Jesus wanted
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them to believe. Oh, my goodness, no mere mortal can call a
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man who's been dead for four days back to life. Clearly, this man
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has been sent to us by God. So what he says can be trusted,
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what he's promised can be trusted. Who he says, our heavenly Father
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is can be trusted. And if the Father is like the son, and
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the son is demonstrating the love and the compassion and the concern of the Father,
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then there's hope even in the darkest of our nights and the most dire
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circumstances. I'm glad I was not there so that you may believe. I'm
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glad he wasn't there either, because now I can believe He's here with me,
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and he's there with you, and he included us in the story so
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that we can face tomorrow with confidence and hope, knowing that we are part
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of the story of God's good news of great joy for all people. I'm
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glad he wasn't there either, because now we know. Now we know the
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circumstances. Circumstances are not an indicator of God's absence or a lack of concern
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or a lack of compassion. I mean, think about this, If the
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empathy, if the empathy and the compassion, If the empathy, the compassion
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and the concern of the son reflects the empathy and the compassion and the concern
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of the Father. Then what the apostle Peter would later write is true.
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And Peter was there to saw this as well. And then Peter after this,
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after the resurrection, suffered all kinds of things and lost his friend,
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He lost James, the brother of Jesus, he lost James, the other
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apostle. There was so much confusion. And yet at the end Peter's like,
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Hey, but you don't need to put your eyes on any of that.
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Don't confuse your life with the love of God. Don't confuse life with
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God. Don't confuse the circumstances of life with God's love and God's concern.
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Peter would say, I know better, I've seen better, and there is
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hope for you. And he writes to Christians in the first century. He
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says, here's the right response. Humble yourself. Humble yourselves. Therefore,
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under God's mighty hand, that is, surrender yourself to your loving and compassionate
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heavenly Father, that he may lift you up. There's hope in due time.
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And then this cast, that is, throw upon throw all of your
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marri him now. And I use the Greek term because there is so many
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English terms packed in this powerful word. He says, I want you to
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cast all of your worry, all of your cares, all of your anxiety,
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all of your anger, all of your frustration, all of your angst,
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all the stuff that you bring and are afraid to bring to God at
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times. He says, no, your heavenly Father can handle it. You
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bring all of that, and you cast your cares on him, because when
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you do, you honor him with your pain, and you honor him with
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your frustration, and you honor him by saying to him, I am in
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need, and I believe that you can do something about it. And the
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reason I believe isn't because of something I read in a book or something I
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was told as a child. I believe it because I believe the Son came
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from the Father, and like son, like father, and the compassion of
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Jesus that we see throughout the Gospels is the compassion of the Father that is
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poured out for me in my time of need. And Peter says, I've
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seen this, I've witnessed this. You just bring it on and you dump
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it on your heavenly Father because you can know for certain he cares for you.
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Because he cares for you. Now I know It's easy for me to
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stand up here to say right, and I haven't heard your story. But
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I don't just stand up here and say this because you know the Bible says,
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and I'm just supposed to tell you what the Bible says. I don't
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think i'd have enough confidence, or enough I don't know whatever to be able
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to stand up and promise you that. But I've experienced it to some degree.
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But more than that, I have walked with people who've experienced it to
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an extraordinary degree. In fact, when I was creating this message a couple
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of months ago, actually it dawned on me that in the past four or
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five months, I've sat with two moms, both of them don't even know
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each other, both of whom lost two children. My friend Shirley, who
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I didn't tell Shirley I was going to mention her name today. I did
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the funeral for both of her sons. They were both friends of mine,
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one in twenty twenty one this year her only kids. My friend mary Anne
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who's here, who lost buried two daughters over the course of time, from
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the one was a teenager, one was an adult. And they didn't get
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a miracle. They didn't get a resurrection, but they are confident there was
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one, and they are confident it's not the last one. And their hope,
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their hope, the source of their strength, they would tell you,
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is that Jesus came from the Father to demonstrate what God the Father is like,
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and they have held on to that, like many of you have through
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extraordinary circumstances, extraordinary pain, and extraordinary grief, and you have found your
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heavenly Father to be as faithful as Jesus was faithful to those he loved and
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those that chose to follow him when he was on planet Earth. So whatever
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you're going through, whatever you're going through, whatever you're facing, whatever you're
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navigating, whatever, whatever you're stuck with, whatever you're stuck in the situations
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where there's no solution and there are no great options, God has not abandoned
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you. God is actually with you, and he weeps with you as well.
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And Jesus went out of his way to demonstrate and punctuate that very thing.
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And now you are invited, or for some of you, you're invited
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back because it's just been too hard to maintain faith. You are invited or
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you're invited back to cast all of your care, and all of your grief
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and all of your sorrow, and all of your anger and all of your
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frustration on him, and you can know with certainty he cares for you,
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because God sends the sun to illustrate and demonstrate that for us. And that's
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the invitation, and that's where peace is found, that's where grace is experienced.
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That's where you learn to be able to sleep at night. That's when
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you learn that you can hold on to God when it appears that God is
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no longer holding on to you. And we'll pick it up right there next
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time and part two of Under the Circumstances