"God's Love"

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"God's Love"

Wednesday, 13 April 2011 09:42

April 10, 2011

“GOD’S LOVE”

John 11:5,6

By Pastor Ole Lillestolen

The Jewish leadership did not like Jesus, perhaps because He was more popular than they! But, the tipping point in their response to Jesus came with the resurrection of Lazarus from the dead. This event pushed them to plan to actually kill Jesus.

They thought that Jesus’ popularity would now put their whole nation at risk as people would try to push Jesus to lead a popular revolt against Rome as their messiah. As happened later, Rome would brutally quash any revolt. In 70 A.D. Rome totally destroyed Jerusalem and expelled the Jews from Jerusalem, making it illegal for Jews to return. This kept the Jews out of Palestine until the 1940's, so the fears of the Jewish leadership weren’t unfounded.

But, God had more in mind in this incident than inciting the Jewish leadership to murder. When He allowed His friend Lazarus to become terminally ill Jesus said: "This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified by it."

Lazarus and his sisters Mary and Martha had developed a close relationship with Jesus and when Lazarus became deathly sick, “The sisters sent to (Jesus), saying, "Lord, behold, he whom You love is sick." But, Jesus wanted to raise Lazarus from the dead, so He did not go until Lazarus had died.

What is interesting, though, is the way John records this incident. In verse five John writes: “Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus.” What did John remember about this scene? He remembered Jesus’ love for this family.

Compare that with the reason people are revolting in the Middle East these days. People are revolting because their leaders don’t care about them! They are just numbers and sources of income for them, and they can be brutal, cold, and calculating as they ‘use and abuse’ their subjects. But, when Jesus planned the death of Lazarus, what John saw in Jesus was love, not cold, calculating designs to boost His image. So, before we try to figure out why God may be allowing something we are not enjoying, we should remind ourselves that whatever God is allowing in our lives, it’s because He loves us!
We can think of wonderful passages of Scripture like John 3:16, “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. . .”; Ephesians 5:2, “Christ also loved you, and gave Himself up for us”; and Jeremiah 31:3, “I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have drawn you with lovingkindness.” But, that love does not necessarily translate into a ‘peaches and cream’ life for us!

We read that, “When therefore Jesus heard that he was sick, He stayed then two days longer in the place where He was.” Of course, Jesus knew this meant that Lazarus would suffer as he died, and also Mary and Martha standing by helpless aching for Jesus to come and heal their brother. They did not know what Jesus had planned!

This is where ‘trust’ comes in. It is easy to ‘trust’ God when everything is going ‘our way’. It is not so easy to ‘trust’ God when things are going the opposite direction. But, what does it actually mean to ‘trust’ God?

Jesus serves as our example in the Garden of Gethsemene as He prayed to His father. In Matthew 26:39 He prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will.” Trusting God means trusting His plan and purpose, not trusting our plan and purpose. Trusting God means that when we read Romans 8:28, “we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose,” we don’t interpret that to mean, “we know that God will cause all things to work together the way we want them to!” He may! But, trusting God means that we are willing to accept that His plan may be very different than ours!

So, how did Mary and Martha do in this area of trusting Jesus? It might sound like they didn’t do too well. When Jesus came they said to Him, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.” Sounds like they were totally disappointed in God’s plan for Lazarus! But then, that isn’t the point. Why should we expect that they would not be disappointed?

Notice instead what Martha says next. She said, “Even now I know that whatever You ask of God, God will give You.” Did she think that Jesus might raise Lazarus? I don’t know. But when Jesus told her, “Your brother shall rise again.” Martha answered Jesus by saying, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” What a wonderful expression of trust in God!

Martha believed that it wasn’t truly over for Lazarus! She believed that God had a plan to resurrect him in the end. And, even though she felt the pain of losing Lazarus at that moment, she was filled with hope for Lazarus in the long run. She trusted God!

Jesus affirmed her trust by saying, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me shall live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?” And, Martha did! She even said, “I have believed that You are the Christ, the Son of God, even He who comes into the world.” Martha said, “I hurt, but I trust!” Hurting and trusting are not the same thing and we can do both at the same time.

I remember talking to a person who was dying of cancer and telling her that it’s O.K. to beat on God’s breast, as it were, and let Him know how frustrated you feel and how much it hurts to go through this time. Look at King David and his psalms of agony. In Psalm 6:1 David says: “O LORD, I am pining away; Heal me, O LORD, for my bones are dismayed. And my soul is greatly dismayed; but You, O LORD-- how long?” David wasn’t a happy camper and he let God know! Yet, the reason he wrote the psalm was to express his trust in God. After venting, He switched his tone to say, “the LORD has heard the voice of my weeping. The LORD has heard my supplication, the LORD receives my prayer.” We can hurt and trust at the same time.

Again, when Jesus came to the tomb and saw the agony that everyone felt at Lazarus’ death we read that, “Jesus wept.” Those that saw Jesus respond to this tragedy had to end up saying, as we read in verse 36, “Behold how He loved him!” Nothing cold and calculating here! Pure love!

But, then Jesus cried out, "Lazarus, come forth," and Lazarus did come forth! He rose from the dead. Verse 45 tells us, “Many therefore of the Jews, who had come to Mary and beheld what He had done, believed in Him.” This was Jesus’ purpose, to draw people to Himself. Luke 19:10, says that Jesus came to, “Seek and to save that which is lost.” Jesus raised Lazarus to draw people to salvation in Him!

I wonder if that is part of the reason God chose to allow His Son Jesus to die on the cross the way He did. I’m sure that there were any number of ways God could have worked atonement for our sins, but He chose the cross. I wonder if part of the reason was that His cruel death would touch our hearts and draw us to believe in Jesus.

But, here’s the underlying question for us today. What might it take on our part to help our children or friends know and believe in Jesus? Will it take a sacrifice on our part? Are we willing to trust Jesus and willingly make that sacrifice, whatever it may be? Even Lazarus’ resurrection reminds us that the most important things we will ever be able to do may involve real sacrifice.