Praying Through a Crisis, Part 1

God will allow things that are not preferential to us but are glorifying to Him. Dr. Tony Evans says our hard times often serve a higher purpose. So one of the questions you must ask and answer in prayer, what glory do you want from my crisis?

This is the alternative broadcast featuring the timeless biblical teachings from the archives of Dr. Tony Evans. We all face hard times in life, but when we're stopped in our tracks by a real crisis, it's easy to feel helpless and lose hope. In today's message, Dr. Evans shares solid advice on how to cope.

Let's get started. A crisis is when you are overwhelmed by negative events or situations causing you to feel helpless or hopeless. It is where the events that are overwhelming you are beating at your well-being. Whether it's a health crisis, family crisis, monetary crisis, mental crisis, it's beating you down and there isn't a solution clearly in sight. Sometimes you can see a crisis coming and sometimes they just hit you out of nowhere. If you're in a medical crisis, then you're gonna go to the doctor to relieve your crisis.

If you're in a financial crisis, then you're gonna go to some financial counseling or a bank to see if they can relieve your crisis. If your car is falling apart, you're gonna go to a mechanic to rectify that issue. If your house is in a crisis, you're gonna call a handyman to come and make things work again. If your clothes are in a crisis, you're going to a tailor.

You want him to stitch it up or her to stitch it up to put it back together again. If your grades are in a crisis, you're gonna go to a tutor to help you work through the academics of the situation in which you find yourselves. But where do you go when your life is in a crisis?

In other words, none of the places you look to to resolve it can help you. That's our situation in John 11. Lazarus is sick, and we know from the story he's sick unto death because it would only be a few days later he would die.

So he's not just sick, he's seriously sick. And whatever medical help there was, was insufficient to resolve the problem of his medical crisis. So what Martha and Mary did, the sisters of Lazarus, is they went to Jesus. They sent word to Jesus. You and I would call that today, they prayed. They sent word to Jesus. Jesus, our family member, has a crisis. This is a life-and-death crisis, and we're crying to you to resolve the crisis.

Now I want you to observe something. We're told in verse 3, some of their prayer requests. The one whom you love is sick. We're told in verse 5, now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So evidently spiritual people get sick.

They had a love relationship. Jesus loved them and they loved Jesus, yet he still got sick. So don't ever let anybody tell you just because you have trouble means God is far away, or you're not in fellowship with God. They're in fellowship with God, but he got sick. So you can love the Lord, praise the Lord, follow the Lord, and still have trouble, still get sick. Now sin can bring sickness, but righteous people who are close to God, who are spiritual, who love the Lord, also get sick. Now I'm gonna walk with you theologically through this passage today because there are some TV programs you'll watch that will give the impression, if you love Jesus, you won't get sick. No, they love Jesus and he got sick. So they prayed. They sent word to Jesus.

The one whom you love is sick and it's serious. Jesus sends back a word. This sickness, verse 4, is not to end in death, but for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified. That's pregnant with theology.

He says, first of all, I've got good news for you. Bad as it is, this sickness is not unto death, but God wants to get something out of it. So let me give you and me and us theology and whatever the sickness is you're facing, the scenario of the crisis that you will face, God will allow things in our lives that are not preferential to us, but are glorifying to him. This sickness is not unto death, but it is for the glory of God.

So one of the questions you must ask and answer in prayer when you're in, when I'm in, when we're in a crisis, is you must answer the question, God, what glory do you want from my crisis? In John chapter 9, the first three verses, there's a blind man. He can't see. The disciples said, we want to know who sinned, because if he's blind, somebody did something wrong. Who sinned? Was it he who sinned, or was it his parents who sinned? Jesus answered and said, it was neither he nor his parents who sinned, but this blindness is for the glory of God. So you must not detach God's glory from your pain, our pain, our crisis struggle, even though we want him to deal with it, but we do want to attach to him and to it his name and his glory. So he's not going to die, but God is going to be glorified. So that was the answer to the prayer. But I got a problem.

My problem is verse 6. When he heard he was sick, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. Come on, Jesus. I just told you my brother is sick and you're not gonna hurry up. Has God ever delayed on you when you're in a crisis? You need him right now and he hanging back for two more days. He's not moving like you need him to move, want him to move, feel he should move, cry for him to move. He's not moving. He stays two days, but it gets worse where Jesus was and where Martha and Mary were two miles apart.

So not only does he delay, he delays any close. Now I can understand if you cross town and he sent you the Son of God, I probably won't even understand that, but at least in your humanity, if you're on the other side of town, you got to take a donkey. I got you. It's gonna take a minute to get, but you're down the street, Jesus. If you don't want to walk, get a ride, but you can get a horse, a donkey, a carriage, or get your twelve disciples to carry you.

You two miles away. You close and you don't come, and you delay two days after I prayed, because they've already talked to Jesus. They've already put up their prayer request.

Story gets more interesting. After two days, Jesus tells his disciples, let's go to Judea, let's let's go guys. Then he says something else, a new term for Christians. Verse 11, he said to them, our friend, because remember Lazarus is close to Jesus, our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go so that I may awake him out of his sleep. Verse 13, now Jesus had spoken of his death, but he doesn't say he died. He said he's sleeping. This is a different terminology.

This is new. This is a New Testament phrase. Now, when you are asleep, you're still alive. Last night, when you went to sleep, you were very much alive.

You were just in a different state of consciousness, but you were still alive. He says, while I'm talking about his death, I'm not gonna call it death, I'm gonna call it sleeping. When you hear about people who had died and come back to life, there was sleep. And he says, I will come to awaken him. The word sleep is only used of Christians in the Bible. It's not used in the general public, only used of Christians. So Christians sleep. Whether God brings you back in this life or takes you to the next life, you're only transferring consciousness. You're not losing existence, and you're transferring that consciousness in the will of God.

This is new terminology. But here's what messes me up. Can I tell you what messes me up? One thing messes me up would be two days. Come on, Jesus, hurry up. Second thing messes me up is two miles. You close. But the next thing that messes me up in verse 15 is, and I am glad for your sakes that I was not there.

Come on, now. How you gonna be happy about it? He says, I'm glad I wasn't there, even though you called on me, needed me, wanted me, I was close, I delayed, and now he's fallen asleep, or we would say died, and I'm glad I wasn't there. How can you be glad when I'm sad? How can you be glad when I'm mad? How can you be happy at a time like this when we're sorrowing, we're struggling, when we're in pain, we're in crisis?

He says, I'm glad I was not there. We'll hear about the next scene in our story in just a moment when we return with more of this classic lesson from Dr. Evans' powerful series, Igniting Kingdom Prayer. First though, through the on-air messages in this series, we've been learning how to pray with the power that can move mountains, how to solve problems, heal relationships, and even change God's mind. And if you've missed any of the lessons we've already presented, I want to let you know that you can get the complete two volume 12 message audio collection for yourself on CD or instantly downloadable mp3s, along with a copy of Kingdom Prayer, the powerful companion book that complements and expands on the teaching we've been hearing.

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That's 1-800-800-3222 or online at TonyEvans.org. We'll return with more of today's lesson right after this. The threat of global catastrophe looms over us. Earthquakes, fires, it seems like the world is falling into turmoil.

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Here's Dr. Evans. There are two sisters Martha and Mary. Lazarus is their brother. Martha and Mary live together but they're not alike. These are two totally different personalities.

Some of you have sisters and y'all are as different as night and day. Well that's the that was true of Martha and Mary. Martha is the rambunctious one.

She got a mouth. Martha will not keep her peace. She gonna tell you what she think, how long she thought it.

Remember Luke chapter 10? She's cooking chicken and potatoes and all of that and then she gets ticked off. She comes outside and she says to Jesus, cuz she's not talking to Mary, would you tell her to come in here and help me? When you tell her to come in here and help me, I'm out here slaving and burning up in the kitchen and she out here fraternizing with the company.

I need some help up in here, up in here. So, so she tells you what she thinks. Not Mary. Mary does not have the type A personality of Martha. She's more ingrown. She's quieter. In fact, whatever you see Mary in the New Testament, the sister of Martha, she's sitting at Jesus's feet quietly.

That's what she did. Every time you see her, she's at Jesus's feet. Martha's talking.

She's listening. So there is a question on the floor and both sisters have the same question, but they approach the question differently. Martha raises the question in verse 21. Martha said to Jesus, Lord if you had been here, my brother would not have died. Verse 32, therefore when Mary came where Jesus was, she saw him fell on his feet saying, Lord if you would have been here, my brother would not have died.

Those are the exact same words. Both sisters, which means they have discussed Jesus. When they were at the crib, they were discussing Jesus, and they said, you know, no, he should have been here.

Jesus should have been here, and he wasn't here. And I can hear Martha say, yeah, and I'm gonna tell him. Because that's what she does. She goes and tells him.

Martha storms out to talk to him, to give him a piece of her mind. Mary stays home, because I can't, I can't talk to Jesus right now, because if he would have been here, if he would have been, where were you? Wait a minute, let me make sure I'm being relevant. Anybody here ever been felt God has let you down? Don't you care?

How could you be this close, stay two days longer, and be glad? Doesn't make sense. Please note this. She expresses her pain and disappointment to Jesus. Point is okay to be honest in your prayers.

Neither sister is condemned because they express disappointment with God, God's Son. They literally say, doesn't look like you care. The disciples say, it doesn't look like you care, because sometimes that's how you feel. And since God already knows what you're thinking, do it respectfully. But it's okay to be honest with God, because sometimes you don't feel like saying, oh great God who lives in the third heaven, who created the sun, the moon, and the stars, who created the planets, who give up. Oh, that's nice when stuff is going right. But when stuff is not going wrong, when going wrong, and you in a crisis, you better get to the point.

Where were you? I'm hurting right now. So she lets her emotions appropriately, respectfully, but clearly be enunciated in her prayer, because she's talking to Jesus, just like you and I. She has him physically, we have him spiritually, but it's a conversation with Jesus in the midst of a crisis. But she does something else, and I don't want you to miss this. Remember, I'm trying to walk you through this passage theologically, because after she expresses her disappointment, she goes on to say in verse 22, even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give to you.

Whoa, I don't want you to miss this. Jesus, verse 21, I'm hurting, because I needed you and you didn't come. But, however, in spite of my pain, I know my beliefs.

And if you call on the Father now, as bad as this situation is, he will still honor your request. So she marries, watch this, she marries her emotions with her theology. See, a lot of folk come to church for emotions. They want to clap. They want to sing.

They want to shout. They want the emotion, and that's okay. The problem with emotion is that they are fluid.

They're up today, down tomorrow, in between after that, you see? See, so you want to always have a theological and doctrinal foundation when you are emoting over your circumstances. She is emoting about her pain, but retreating to her theology. That's why you need to learn doctrine. That's why you need to learn theology. Now, doctrine and theology won't always make you shout, but it's like the special diet.

It ain't the kind of stuff that you, that you, like, love to run and get. It's raw. It's raw, but they said this raw stuff that may not have all the frills to it, this raw stuff is necessary to ground you in your situation. The purpose of doctrine is to ground you, no sugar. But sugar is so sweet. Sugar, sugar makes you feel so good. It makes you feel so right.

So no matter how it makes you feel, you got to get some raw substance to deal with the crisis. A lot of folk come to church for sugar. They want a sugar high. They want to feel good.

There was nothing wrong with that. But if you're only getting sugar and you're not getting substance, when the sugar dies out, then you don't have anything to rest on. She says, look, right now I'm disappointed, but I know what I believe, and I'm going to appeal to what I believe in spite of how I feel right now.

So you need to learn some theology and doctrine, because that will ground you when the emotions are doing this. We'll hear from Dr. Evans again in just a moment as he poses a simple yet thought-provoking question for each of us. First though, don't forget about our current double resource offer. Tony's powerful book, Kingdom Prayer, Touching Heaven to Change Earth, and his timeless 12 lesson series, Igniting Kingdom Prayer. Both yours as our thank-you gift when you contact us by tomorrow and make a donation to help make this listener supported ministry possible. Make the arrangements today by calling 1-800-800-3222 or visit tonyevans.org. Before we hear a final word from Dr. Evans, we're thrilled to announce that the latest episode of the popular animated series, Stories from the Storyteller, is now available for streaming. Find out how your kids can watch the newest story when you visit tonyevanstv.com.

Again, that's tonyevans tv.com for Stories from the Storyteller. When we're facing a crisis, big or small, we have two choices—listen to our feelings or listen to our faith. Tomorrow we'll take a look at how our choice affects how we pray and how God answers.

Right now though, here's an important question for each of us from Dr. Evans. If you died right now, why would you tell God He should let you in heaven? There's only one answer that He'll accept, and that is because your sin that will keep you out of heaven has already been paid for by the blood of Jesus Christ, and you are trusting Jesus Christ for your entrance. Only faith in Christ guarantees you entrance into God's heaven. Put your trust in Him alone today for salvation. There's more to the story, and Dr. Evans would love to share it with you. Just visit tonyevans.org and follow the link that says Jesus. He has a short, powerful video that explains what real Christianity is all about, along with some free follow-up resources.

It could be the most important few minutes of your life. Again, that's at tonyevans.org.