Why God Delays (12/2/18 John #46)

ATTN: In human relationships, knowing someone’s way is important. When Janet and I first married, we clashed because of the way we handled or did things were different. For example, the way we cut fruits is different. When I cut an apple, I cut around the world, making the peels as thin as possible. Janet cuts like a bulk cutter – top to bottom – cutting so much of the flesh off with it to my taste.  The way we deal with conflict is also different. Me – I have to talk about it and resolve it on the day of. Her – she would sleep on it and not talk about it. But we adjust to each other’s ways. There is no real right or wrong way in a lot of these. It’s how we grew up with. So we learn to adjust to each other’s way. But when it comes to our relationship with God, it’s a one way street. His way is absolute. So we adjust to His way. So it will be good for us to learn what His way is like. If we don’t understand His way, it can lead to disappointment, doubt, fall away….

We learn God’s way by looking at how Jesus dealt with people that He loved. Today, we read about how Jesus dealt with people He particularly loved and we can learn much about God’s way through this.

BACKGROUND: Jesus had friends named Lazarus, Mary and Martha. They were siblings and lived in a town called Bethany which was near Jerusalem. Jesus was very close to them and would stay at their house when He was traveling by there. One day Lazarus, the brother, was sick and the sisters sent word to Jesus saying that their brother was sick, expecting Jesus to come and heal him. But Jesus stays put for two more days and by the time he finally gets to Bethany, Lazarus has been dead for four days! The sisters come and lament, “Lord, if you had been here, he would not have died!” implying “why weren’t you here for our brother and us? Don’t you love us?” Jesus asks where the tomb is. He goes to the tomb, everyone else follows Him, and then he orders that the door to the tomb be removed and then shouts out, “Lazarus, come out.” Lazarus comes out with linen strips still on his hands and feet. And many people who saw it believed in Him.

What do we learn about God’s way through this story?

 

1. His way is not our way.

Isaiah 55:8 8For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. 9For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

We see this in this episode with Jesus and His dealings with the ones He particularly loved. Jesus throws everybody off – the sisters and the disciples – by treating the ones He loved this way. When He got the word that His beloved friend was sick, He delayed in coming for two days. That’s not a normal human reaction. When someone urgently calls for you, and you have the power to make a difference, you go there right away. But Jesus didn’t. His way is not our way.

 

2. His way deals with the fundamental problem and not just the surface problem. (Death vs. illness)

What the sisters and all the town’s folks expected Jesus to do was to heal his sickness. Come while he was still living and heal him just like he has healed so many others. But that would be dealing with only the surface problem – sickness. Why do we worry about getting sick? Why do we have insurance, go in for an annual check-up or try to live a healthy lifestyle? So that we won’t die. Death is the fundamental problem. Sickness is only a problem because it might lead to death. So the sisters really worried about their brother’s sickness because they worried that it might lead to death. So, sickness was a surface problem. Death was the real problem. Jesus waited until the surface problem became a fundamental problem. Jesus didn’t want to simply put a bandaid on it. He wanted to do a surgery. But even death is not the fundamental problem. Everyone dies. Even Lazarus died again the second time. The fundamental problem is eternal death. Being separated from God forever. That is what Jesus came to cure. And by resurrecting Lazarus, He’s shown us that He has the power to resurrect anyone in the end even if their bones are ground to powder….  

 

3. His way will incite doubt and suspicion by us at times.

Because his way is different than ours, we will raise our eyebrows at his way wondering whether his way is really better than ours? That’s the way the sisters thought. They both said, “If you had been here, our brother would not have died.” They were possibly questioning His love for them. “He was there for others. Why wasn’t He there for us? We had a special relationship with Him. He stayed over at our house frequently. He healed many perfect strangers before, why wouldn’t he come?” You could detect hurt, if not resentment, at the reaction of the sisters.

Well, at least Jesus could’ve communicated His plan with them. He could’ve sent a messenger explaining to the sisters of His plan to raise him from the dead and that’s why He’s delaying, and so that they won’t worry so much. But Jesus didn’t and that was His way.

APP: Most of the time, God does not explain to us why He allows certain things in ours and others’ lives. My guess is that it has to do with our faith and building character. If God has to explain everything to us and we follow Him only if it makes sense to us, then we are not really trusting God, are we? No. I’m not advocating for blind faith. Faith is not blind. Faith is seeing the invisible. Faith is based upon what God has already shown and now trusting Him for the unseen future.

When we are following God’s will and His way, there will be moments when we scratch our heads and question, “God, was that really the best way? Why didn’t you listen to my prayer on that request? Why did you allow this to happen as I don’t see anything good coming from it?” The ones who were closest to Jesus went through that. And they learned in due time that God doesn’t always explain things to us, but we can trust that He knows what He’s doing and His way is best.

 

4. His way makes sense in retrospect only and usually not while it’s going on.

So far, we have been seeing this event from the eyes of sisters, but think about the disciples who were with Jesus at the time He heard the news that Lazarus was sick. It must have been very confusing to the disciples as to what was going on.  

Jesus told the disciples that Lazarus is asleep and he’s going to wake him up. Now the disciples thought literally that lazarus was sleeping and he would get better after a good night’s sleep. But when they got there, they realized that he was dead! So, imagine how confused they must’ve been. “Wait, Jesus said that Lazarus was asleep but he’s actually dead. And He said he’s going to wake him up. But he’s dead. How is going to wake him up when he is dead?” It didn’t make any sense to them. It didn’t make sense to the sisters either why He would delayed. But after Jesus demonstrated His power to raise the dead by raising Lazarus from the grave, everything made perfect sense as to why Jesus delayed. It was to let them know that Jesus is even greater than their worst fears. It was to let them know that Jesus had power over life and death. They would’ve never known it if He had not delayed. They could not have known it while it was going on, but in the aftermath, everything became crystal clear why Jesus acted that way.

APP: Often, what God does and how He does it does not make sense to us at the time. Certain things will not make sense until we go to heaven. We will not know why God allowed certain things to happen. But one day it will become crystal clear to us and we will know exactly why God did it. Tim keller: our prayers are answered precisely in the way we would want them to be answered if we knew everything God knows.

 

5. His way is often to delay granting our request. Our way is usually right now.

One commentator said, “Humans generally interpret any delay in rendering help as cruel because of our perspectives on the avoidance of all pain and because of our general commitment to the immediacy of action as it pertains to time. But cruelty is hardly what this story is about.”

If it were anyone but Jesus, we would think He was cruel. He had the power to heal, but for Him to delay two whole days in coming when time was critical, that’s unexcusable. Imagine if you took your child to the emergency room and they didn’t do anything and as a result, she died. They have a lawsuit coming. But Jesus is different. God is different. Only because He holds the universe in His hands and all that goes on in there. His timing is perfect. Our timing is the one that is off.

ILL: We are like little children who want things right away. When we were little, didn’t we think adults always took too long? When they said, “I’m coming now,” they meant one or two hours later. Now, my children complain that we take way too long. They know by now that when we say, “It will be short,” it’s not that short to them. And we are only older than them by about 30 years. The concept of time gets stretched out as we get older. A year was forever when we were children, but a year is nothing to us adults. So imagine God, who is infinite years old. How does He see time? Peter says, “2 Peter 3:8-9, “with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 9The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”

His timing is perfect. Our timing is the one that’s off.

 

6. His way is sure to bring about good; our way is precarious (may or may not bring about the good)

God knows the future. Not only knows it but controls it. But we don’t. What we go for today because we thought would be good for us isn’t so good for us. How many of us married thinking that he will make us happy forever. Only to find out in a few years that we have made the biggest mistake of our lives. We do not know the future. We do not know how we are going to change, how the world is going to change, how our lives will change. But God does.

ILL: There is a story of a Chinese farmer whose wild stallion ran off one day.  All the neighbors gathered around saying “Very bad luck.” The Chinese farmer said, “bad luck, good luck, who knows?” A few days later the stallion returned with a herd of wild horses.  The neighbors gathered around saying “Very good luck.” “Bad luck, good luck, who knows,” said the farmer. A week later the farmer’s son was trying to break in one of the horses and was thrown from the horse and broke his leg.  The neighbors gathered and said “Very bad luck.” “Bad luck, good luck, who knows,” said the farmer. Several weeks later the Chinese army came to the town looking for able-bodied youth to join the army and fight. When the soldiers came to the farmer’s house and saw the boy’s broken leg, they left him alone and moved on.  The neighbors gathered saying “Very good luck.” “Bad luck, good luck, who knows?”

That’s human perspective – what we thought was good could be bad or vice versa. However, in God, everything is good because He promised: “God works all things for the good of those who love Him.” Romans 8:28.

 

7. Our way of life is to avoid suffering; God’s way of life is through suffering

This one is hard. We want to avoid suffering at all cost. Most of our prayers are: “Lord, keep us safe, give us traveling mercies, heal my mother, guide the doctor’s hands as he does surgery….” Why? We don’t want to suffer. But it seems that God’s way is often that He achieves His purpose through suffering more than through avoiding suffering. We’ve seen it through His beloved friends Lazarus, Mary and Martha. We’ve seen it through Paul’s life. We’ve seen it in Job. And most of all, we’ve seen it in Jesus.

Peter nails it in 1 Peter 4:12 12 Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. 13 But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.

APP 2: I have a rule of thumb to measure one’s greatness: Whoever suffered the most for Christ’s sake is great in my eyes. This is totally opposite to how the prosperity gospel preachers see. In their eyes, whoever succeeded most and suffered the least is the greatest. They say, “If you are faithful to God, He is going to protect you from all suffering.” I say, what Bible are they reading??

 

CONC: Can I summarize all of this into one sentence? There is a common thread that weaves through all these ways of God. God’s purpose is clear. God’s way is to give us more of Himself.  (Piper said) Don’t measure the love of God for you by how much health and wealth and comfort he brings into your life. If that were the measure of God’s love, then he hated the apostle Paul, and Jesus. Measure God’s love for you by how much of himself he shows you. How much of himself he gives you to know and enjoy.

If you are suffering even though you have been faithful, He’s treating you as His child. He’s trying to show you more of Himself apart from all the worldly things that will soon dissipate. Rejoice in it. Ask Him to reveal Himself more clearly through it. Let’s be the church that strives to know God through all possible means even through suffering.