God's glory out of death [Feb 3 Fri night]

Friday night was a packed house! The night started with a beautiful set of songs to the Lord, responding to His presence with worship to the King! This really set the tone for the evening as Pastor Dennis came up to share a word from the Lord.


Our passage was from John 11 after having covered John 10 last week and being reminded to follow the Good Shepherd and that as His sheep, we "listen to His voice" (v. 3).  We studied the story of Mary, Martha and Lazarus found in Chapter 11 verses 1-16.

The sisters (Mary and Martha) put in a request to Jesus on behalf of "the one whom You love" (v.3), their brother Lazarus as he was deathly sick.  We learned that Lazarus died and that Jesus came to interrupt the lives of the sisters to bring Himself and His Father glory through the circumstances, and to get a hold of each of their hearts.  The main idea of the message was that through death God wants to bring His glory. 

The death we learned about is not confined to a physical death of our bodies but can include the death of something that can rule your life or take your attention away from Christ. A challenge was put forth to apply this scripture and ask, is the Lord causing or requiring something to die in your life? Do you have to kill off your pride, a relationship, a job etc in order to be stripped of everything within yourself and look fully to Him?

In this process of "death" we must know that Jesus sees all. His timing is perfect and is not on our timetable or by our standards (2 Peter 3:9) In the story, Jesus waits two days until He arrives to where Mary, Martha and Lazarus are.  Two days! This brings up the question in Martha's heart, "If you had been here, my brother would not have died" (v. 21). Isn't this often how we feel towards God? And yet we are encouraged to be honest with God in our pleas and be open to see how He is working everything out. Pastor D said this quote, "Man's impossibility is God's opportunity"! 

With this truth in place, we are even more challenged to watch our reactions, and not trust ourselves (Prov. 3:5) but to persevere (Gal 6:9) and be confident that God's agenda goes forth regardless of our own agenda.  Sometimes God's delays give Him the opportunity to show us a miracle, to display His hand in our lives and to require us to trust fully on Him.  

In the continual process of becoming pure, called sanctification, which we are all in, we are reminded that God is all powerful, and that He is doing a beautiful work in our lives and hearts as we learn patience and trust. God wants us to put everything we have in HIM and not be able to credit any other person or thing, or even ourselves when the end result comes. 

Jesus is talking about the here and now, saying I AM the "resurrection and the LIFE" (v.25) assuring us that death does not have a hold on us as in 1 Cor 15:55 "Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?" God's power is above and beyond how we grasp death and yet we hold fast to the LIFE we've been given in Christ.

Lastly, a cool example is found in Isaiah 6, when King Uzziah died. At that time, the King was highly regarded as the main figure to worship, and yet the year He died, Isaiah reports, "I saw the Lord" (v.1).  The thought here is that even amidst death or the things that we must put to death, if we seek Christ, we can see HIM amidst our pain, confusion or suffering and HE will receive the glory in the end. 


Come out as we meet every Friday night at 7:30pm and are truly blessed digging deeper into God's Word!