Are Our Prayers Big Enough (John 11:1-37)
Gary McManus, 09/13/2020Part of the God's Love; Beyond Belief series, preached at a Sunday Morning service
September 13, 2020 John 11:1-37
For today’s Bible reading, you know the
end of the story—Lazarus is raised from the dead.
Verse 35 is used at almost every funeral:
“Jesus wept.”
We Mid-westerners do not want to make any
show of any emotion—even acceptable and appropriate emotions.
How many times do we hear “don’t cry.”
--even when it is appropriate to cry?!
Notice that Jesus wept even while knowing that
Jesus was going to raise Lazarus from the dead.
SO, grief has nothing to do with faith, weak or strong. Jesus did a human thing. Jesus wept tears of sorrow. All animals make tears, only humans cry from emotional reasons.
But there is more going on here. . .
3 So the sisters sent word to Jesus,
“Lord, the one you love is sick.”
(It can be assumed that the sisters believe/want
Jesus to make Lazarus well.
vs. 21 AND AGAIN in verse 32.)
Verse 4 tells us that Lazarus’ sickness and death
is not about Lazarus, this is ALL ABOUT GOD.
Notice verse 11 is ANOTHER “I AM” statement.
Now comes the discussion on faith.
Martha and Mary both believe (with other friends
there) that Jesus would have healed Lazarus
if Jesus had been there BEFORE Lazarus died.
(vs. 37, referring to an event in John Chapter 9)
Martha and Jesus have a discussion about life after death. Martha goes one more additional step to say
“I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God,
who is to come into the world.”
Jesus responds (verse 24)
I AM the RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE.
Do you believe THIS?
Jesus is saying, it isn’t enough to know what I can do
—you need to know who I AM.
What about us? What about OUR prayers.
At one level of faith, we look for the answer
of healing with our prayers for healing.
Ask Jesus, Jesus can do it.
Jesus can heal ANYTHING. That’s faith.
John shows us that level of faith is really too
narrow and too focused on what we want.
John is telling us in this report that sometimes
our prayers, our expectations and our faith,
and our timeframe is WAY TOO SMALL.
Can WE believe that God says it ain’t over just
when we think it’s over?
Can you and I have THAT level of faith?
Can we believe that God can do more and God
will do more than we think or imagine.
Or to put it in the negative. . .can we confess that
we simply don’t know what God can do and we
don’t know what God will do—why?
Because we always limit God.
Pastor confesses it. There are plenty of examples.
Our prayers are often too small.
Jesus asks us to another level of faith in Jesus and
in God. (John 14:1) Amen.
Earlier: | Same day: | Later: |
---|---|---|
« The Word "Peace" is in the BIble | None | Do What Jesus Instructs » |