God, this is all Your fault! - Live with Lon!

Well, hello everybody.

Welcome to Live with Lon. We are so glad that you're here today and we are continuing in our study of John chapter 11, that wonderful chapter where Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead. Praise the Lord.

So we're going to dig into that chapter, but let's pray first. Dear Lord Jesus, as we open the Bible today, use it to instruct us, use it to encourage us, use it to educate us as to who you are and how you want us to live. Use it, Lord, to fortify our soul, to go on for you day after day.

Use it to remind us that this world is not our home, we're just a passing through and use it to remind us to live like strangers, as the Bible says, and aliens here in this world because Philippians chapter 3, our citizenship is in heaven. So Lord Jesus, we commit our time in the scripture to you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Now, are you ready for John chapter 11? Praise the Lord.

Alright, here we go. John chapter 11, let's review a tiny bit. If you remember, Jesus had left Jerusalem.

He had gone down across the Jordan River into modern day Jordan, the country of Jordan, because the Jewish leaders were trying to kill him. And Thomas even refers to that here in this chapter. He said, Lord, the disciples said they were just trying to kill you, stone you. And while he's there, his good friend Lazarus, who lives in Bethany about a mile or two east of Jerusalem, just over the Mount of Olives, got sick. And Mary and Martha, his sisters, sent to Jesus and said, the one whom you love is sick.

Please come and heal him. And Jesus didn't go. Jesus stayed right where he was and Lazarus died. Now, we all know that the reason Jesus didn't go is because he wanted Lazarus to die.

You say, what? Yeah, he did, because he said this sickness is not for death. Lazarus' death is for the glory of God. See, if Jesus had come and healed Lazarus, that would have brought God some glory. If Jesus comes and raises Lazarus from the dead after four days in the tomb, that brings God maximum glory. Jesus knew what he was doing.

This is no accident when he finally shows up. So that's where we pick up the story. Let's go John chapter 11, verse 17. Then when Jesus came, that is, to Bethany, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles away, and many of the Jews came to Martha and Mary to comfort them concerning their brother.

I assume these Jewish people were from Jerusalem. Then Martha, now remember, Mary and Martha, these are the two that Jesus, one night when he was having dinner there, Mary sat at his feet and listened to his words. Martha was serving, trying to get everything for a big meal for 12 disciples and Jesus. And she said, Lord, make my sister help me.

Now get up off the floor, girl, and come help me. And remember what Jesus said? He said, Martha, Martha. I can just hear him with his sweet and tender voice. Martha, Martha, you are concerned about so many things and that's nice. But you know what?

Only one thing is needful and that's me and relationship with me and growing in me. And Mary has chosen the more excellent part that won't be taken from her. So this is Martha.

Martha is the eager beaver of these two. So it makes sense that she would be the first person out of the gate to come meet Jesus. So it says, then Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming when it met him, but Mary was sitting in the house. Then Martha, she greets Jesus, right?

He's coming, walking, of course. And she said to Jesus, I like this. She didn't say, Hello, Lord, how are you? How's everything? Hey, fellas, to the disciples, how are you guys doing?

No, no. She says, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now, whatever you ask of God, God will give you. She cuts right to the chase. Mary would have been a really good European.

Martha would have been a great American. No beating around the bush, no niceties, no easing into the conversation. Baby, she just goes right for it like we as Americans so often do. You know, I remember when I one time Brendan and I were in Paris. We were staying at this hotel and we checked in on the evening and I met the concierge. His name was Max in Paris. And so we, you know, went to our room.

We slept. And in the morning I had a couple of things that I wanted us to do. And so I went down into the lobby and I went up to Max, who was at the concierge desk. And I said, hey, Max, I said, can you tell me, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you just like a good American would do right.

Right to the cut right to the core. And he said to me in a very kind and gentle way. Good morning, Dr. Solomon. And I went, oh, oh, good morning, Max. And he said, how are you today? And I said, oh, I'm doing I'm doing well, Max. How are you? I'm doing well. Also, Dr. Solomon, thank you for asking.

Now, how may I help you? Boy, you talk about a rebuke. I mean, in a very sweet way. He basically said to me, no, this is not how we do it here. You don't just come up and go, hey, Max, you know, no, no, no, you come up and you we we treat each other like human beings here.

Dr. Solomon, we ask how you doing. We ease our way into it. That was a real rebuke for me. And I've tried to learn a lesson from that and be careful about not doing that since then. This is what Martha did.

As far as we know, she came up. Lord, not how are you doing it so. No, baby.

Right for it. If you'd have been here, my brother wouldn't have died. And she said, but I know that God will give you whatever you want.

So implied. Raise my brother from the dead. Do something, Lord.

Do something. Now, that's as far as we want to go in the passage. Jesus is going to talk to her about the fact he is the resurrection. But but we're going to get to that next next week, Lord willing. But that's as far as we want to go in the passage. We want to stop now. We want to ask our most important question. So we all know what it is.

Are you ready? So here we go. Come on now.

One, two, three. So what? Yes. And as my friend, the letter that I wrote you, as we already did. He introduced our friend Jackie, who. What do we say?

Come on. I just went to see my cardiologist this week. And he said, you're doing really good.

Got to get your LDLs down a little bit, Lon. But other than that, your heart sounds great. And in light of that, what do I say? How sweet it is, as Jackie would say. Say it with me.

Ready? How sweet it is. How sweet it is, baby.

Lord Jesus, thank you. Now, what does all this have to do with you and me? Well, I want to go back and focus very quickly on Martha's comment to Jesus. Lord, if you'd have been here, my brother would not have died. You know, the interesting thing is that when we skip down a little bit to Mary, when Mary comes out to greet the Lord and Mary finally shows up.

You know what? Mary comes out and says to him the very same thing. Look at verse 32. Then when Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying to him, Lord, if you'd have been here, my brother would not have died. You think the two of them had been talking, Mary and Martha? You think they'd been comparing notes? You think they had been together in how they saw this situation?

Yeah, I think so. And they both saw it in the same way. And may I substitute what they're really saying, I believe? Lord, if you'd have been here, my brother wouldn't have died. What are they really saying? What they're really saying is, Lord, this is all your fault. This is all your fault. If you'd have been here, this wouldn't have happened.

Where have you been? Why didn't you come when we sent you? This is all your fault. Now, they said it more nicely than that.

But that's what they really were saying. This is all your fault, God. Now, my friends, before we are quick to judge Mary and Martha, may I just remind us how many times you and I say the very same thing to God? Now, we may not have the courage to come right out and say to him, this is all your fault. But that's how we really feel, and we may couch it in nicer words out of respect for the living God. But that's what we're really saying. How could you let this happen to me?

What are you doing? This is all your fault. I mean, hey, I had a touch of that, more than a touch. I had a lot of that when my daughter Jill was first born and was so sick and with seizures and in and out of the hospital and just, oh, poor thing. She was so sick for years.

She's doing really great now, by God's mercy. Thank you, Lord Jesus. I thank you, Lord. But I would go to God and I would say, Lord, what's going on here? What are you doing? I'm in the ministry. I'm a pastor of a church. I'm preaching the true gospel. I'm trying to serve you. I'm trying to be true to you. What are you doing to me and Brenda and my family? What was going on here? What am I really saying? Say with me, God, come on. This is all your fault, is what I was really saying.

Well, you know, I'm not the only one that's ever done that. How about Job in the Bible? Remember the story after God allowed Satan to take all of Job's possessions and destroy them and take all of his children and take their lives as the Book of Job winds on. Job begins to criticize the Lord towards the end of the book and say, Lord, what are you doing? This is all your fault until God rebukes him. Beginning in Chapter 38 in Job's, in the Book of Job, God starts saying a chapter after chapter to him. Can you do this?

Can you do that? For example, do you know the time the mountain goats give birth? Do you observe the calving of the deer? Do you understand that by your understanding that the hawk soars in the air, stretching his wings and on and on and on? I mean, who do you think you are? And then in Chapter 42, Job realizes what he said. This is all your fault. And he says, Job Chapter 42, verse two, I know that you can do all things and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.

Therefore, I have declared that which I did not understand things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. And then he goes on to say, therefore, verse six, I retract what I said and I repent in dust and ashes. But Job was saying to God, this is all your fault. Now, you say, Lon, it was God's fault. What happened with Jill? It was God's fault.

What happened to Joe? The Lord is the one that turned Satan loose on him. It was Jesus's fault that Lazarus died, that he didn't come right away. It was Jesus.

It was there. It is God's fault. No, no. Listen carefully.

This one thing I'm going to tell you will change your whole life if you can just simply get your hands around it. Listen, it was God's doing. Yes, it was not God's fault.

You say, what's the difference? Oh, oh, much in every way, to quote the King James Bible. Listen, when we say, God, this is your fault, what we are saying is that there is fault in what just happened. There is wrong in what just happened.

What just happened is not good and it is not righteous and it is not holy and it is not correct what you just did, God. No, all these things were God's doing. Everything in the universe is God's doing. Yeah, but it's not his fault because there's no fault in it. He's a perfect God. He doesn't make mistakes.

God never goes, whoops. No, none of these things were God's fault. Not showing up to heal Lazarus was not God's fault. There was no fault in it. Sending Jill into our lives, there was no fault in it. Doing what he did with Job, there was no fault in it because God doesn't have fault.

Do you understand what I'm saying? And if we could rise above the human accusation that we lay on God, we impugn him. How dare we? Like Job said, I repent in dust and ashes for impugning you, Lord. We impugn him and what he does.

We say this is your fault. No, it is his doing that he has already planned how he's going to turn it into good and into blessing and into something for the glory of God. He turned Lazarus's death into the glory of God. He turned Job's situation into the glory of God as God restored everything to him. He turned Jill's situation into the glory of God by allowing things like Jill's house to be built because of her sickness and then bringing her back to great health today. She'll go a month without a seizure. She used to have six a day, a day grandmas.

And she's happy and she's learning new skills. He used it for his glory. And if we can just understand that, Lord, I don't like this. Martha and Mary didn't like it.

What happened to their brother? Lord, I don't want this. Mary and Martha didn't want it. Lord, I don't understand this. Mary and Martha didn't understand it. Lord, this makes no sense to me. It made no sense to Mary and Martha or Job or me. But that's not a mark that God's had a mistake, that there's fault in it.

No, no. God knows what he's doing. And this happened to Joseph, if you remember, when his brother sold him into slavery and he was down in the pit. The Bible says and he was he was crying out for them to save him out of the pit and they sold him into Egyptian slavery.

And for 13 years, he spent he spent it in jail in Egypt after he refused to have relations with Potiphar's wife. And yet I want you to see what he says at the end. He he didn't he didn't at the when it was all over. He didn't say, God, that was all your fault.

Here's what he said. Genesis Chapter 50. Look at verse 20. As for you, he says to his brothers, you meant evil against me. And there are a lot of people in our world who will do things to you who mean and intend evil against you, that God allows them to do it.

But watch you intended you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result to preserve many people alive. See, he came out, interpreted Pharaoh's dream about the seven fat years and the seven lean years. He became prime minister of Egypt, second in command, and he was able to store up grain. You remember the story so that the Egyptians, when the lean years came, they had food to eat. And he was able to share that with his father and his brothers as they came down and moved in in Egypt.

And he took care of them. God meant it for good to preserve the lives of not just you, my father and my brothers, but all these Egyptians that God loves as well. You intended harm. God meant it for good and God turned it into good. Friends, many things will happen in your life, either someone doing it to you or just happening. And you'll believe that it was meant for evil. And maybe it was on the human level if people do it to you. But God means it for good because the Bible promises all things work together. What?

For good. All things to those who love God. So if we could just get our hands around Genesis 50, 20, you and you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good and turned it into good. It's a great verse to memorize.

It would change how we reacted to life. And so I'll leave you with this. Everything is God's doing.

But none of it's his fault because there is no fault in it. And just give him enough time. And you might even be in heaven before you see. But give him enough time and he is going to turn it into his glory. And you're good.

Because that's his promise. Let's pray. And with our heads bowed and our eyes closed, I want you to take a minute. And all those things that you have been telling God, this is all your fault, Lord. Just like Mary and Martha.

Just like Job and me. Lord, I ask that you work in people's hearts and help them to be able today to trade in God. This is all your fault for God.

This is all you're doing. And I have your promise that there's no fault in it, that there's good in it, that you're going to bring as I trust you. So, Lord, just help me not to criticize you or impugn you or accuse you. How dare we?

But we do. But, Lord, to trust you. Let's take a moment and you talk to God if you need to. Lord Jesus, I ask you to forgive me for the many times, especially around the circumstances of my daughter Jill, that I have foolishly accused you of fault, of unkindness, of making a mistake. Lord, forgive me.

I'm so sorry. I'm just human. And I pray you forgive me, Lord. Help me more and more to react the way Joseph did in Genesis 50 verse 20. Yeah, people meant it for harm. And the enemy meant it for harm. But you were bigger than the enemy and you are bigger than people and you allowed it to happen.

So you could turn it into your glory and my good. Help me, Lord, to perfect that attitude in my Christian walk and help my brothers and sisters who are listening to this today to do the same. Change our life because we heard your word today and we pray this in Jesus name and everybody said what? Amen and what? Amen. You bet. OK. Hey, God bless you.

Have a great week. And may the Lord help us to remember. People may mean it for evil. Ha ha. But God means and it's going to turn it into good. God bless you.