Raising Lazarus – Part 1 | Joyce Meye

Jesus was Lazarus’ friend, so why didn’t He heal him before he died? On this episode of Enjoying Everyday Life, Joyce Meyer shares wisdom from life and the Bible to help us understand.

Taking a hit from an opponent in a game is a lot easier than taking a hit in the battlefield of real life.
When you feel like you’re surrounded, turn to the word of God, the battlefield of the mind, New Testament will help you win the war for your thoughts and overcome whatever the enemy throws your way.
This amplified Bible features notes and commentary from Joyce Meyer, including power points and Keys to a victorious life.
Get your copy and a leather bookmark for your gift of $30 or more.
Get your copy through the Joyce Meyer ministries app Joyce Meyer dot org or call us at 1 807 092895.
This program has been made possible by the friends and partners of Joyce Meyer ministries.
All we have to come to the point where we trust God more and when he’s making us wait longer than we think we should.
Then we say God, I know you’ve got a plan.
I want to talk to you this morning about the raising of Lazarus from the dead.
Amen John 11 1 through six.
Now a man named Lazarus was sick and he was from the village of Mary and her sister Martha and this Mary whose brother Lazarus now lay sick.
This was the same Mary who poured perfume on Jesus’s feet and wiped them with her hair.
Which that’s another whole story in itself. I mean, that, that was just shocking.
Do you know, back then women never let their hair down in public and when she walked into that room and let her hair down to wipe Jesus’s feet, you know, that’s what the religious people do when you get a little excited about Jesus.
My goodness, we dare not get excited. How about Jesus?
We can act crazy at a football game, but don’t get excited about Jesus.
So the sisters, the two sisters sent word to Jesus Lord, The one you love is sick.
Now on my notes here, I drew a circle around the one you love because that’s what I want you to get.
The one you love is sick.
You say Jesus was friends with Mary Martha and Lazarus and he went to their house on different occasions.
And when he heard this, Jesus said this sickness will not end in death.
No, it is for God’s glory. So that God’s son may be glorified through it.
You might say, well, wait a minute, Lazarus did die.
Well, to be honest with you, yes, our physical body can die, but we’re eternal beings.
We’ll never die. You know that if you’re born again, you’re never gonna be dead.
I said, if you’re born again, you’re never gonna be dead.
Your body is gonna lay down, but your spirit is just gonna go right out and go right to be with the Lord.
Isn’t that awesome? And you know, really, when somebody that we love dies and we grieve, we’re not really grieving for them.
We’re grieving for us. It’s our loss because Paul said to live as Christ and to die is gain.
We would not be afraid of death if we actually really believed that. Amen.
I can’t tell if you believe me or not, but I’ll pretend you do.
So, Jesus said, he’s not, it’s not going to end in death.
Now, verse five says, now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.
So twice here, verse three and verse five, he’s made the point that he loves them.
Everybody say Jesus loved Lazarus.
The next verse says so, so when he heard that he was sick, he stayed where he was at two more days.
Now, what’s wrong with this picture?
Jesus loves Lazarus made that point twice.
So when he was sick, he didn’t go help him.
Hm Wonder why sometimes God doesn’t come and help you when you think you need him to or when you’d like him to, you know why?
Because sometimes we don’t need to be helped when we think we should be helped.
Sometimes it’s better for us to wait because God had gotten something greater in mind.
Come on. Come on, you say you want to see miracles in your life, but you’ll never see miracles in your life.
If God doesn’t wait until a miracle is all that’s going to deliver you all, we have to come to the point where we trust God more that when he’s making us wait longer than we think we should, then we say God, I know you’ve got a plan.
I don’t know what it is, but I’ll tell you something that I, I believe, I don’t just quote this anymore.
I believe this with all my heart and it helps me so much when I’m having problems.
I really, really believe that all things work together for good.
And if you can believe that, let me tell you something.
It’ll keep you happy while you’re waiting.
I really believe that all things work together for good to those who just love God and want his will.
And so if I’m having to wait, it must be God’s will.
I may not want to do it that God’s got a better plan than mine.
He said my ways are above your ways and my thoughts are above your thoughts.
Now, some of you. Well, probably almost everybody.
How many of you are waiting on something right now in your life?
Well, this message is for everybody, isn’t it? Praise the Lord. Can I tell you something?
If you can’t learn how to be happy while you wait, you are gonna have one miserable life.
You know why we spend more time waiting than we do anything else. You know why?
As soon as you get, what you think, what you want right now, as soon as whatever you’re waiting for comes through, you’ll enjoy that for a little while and it won’t be very long at all.
And you’re gonna ask for something, you’re gonna be waiting for something else.
Am I, is that true? So, if you don’t learn how to wait?
Well, welcome to a miserable life because that’s what you’re gonna have.
You know, I got to park on this for a minute because this is so amazing.
Jesus loved Lazarus. So he waited and I have to, I want to get you to understand that when things hurt in your life, when you’re suffering or you’re going through something that you just don’t understand.
It’s because God loves you.
And I know that, you know, that doesn’t compute in our brains.
But can I tell you something?
And there’s, there’s some people here that need to hear this today sometimes you need to love somebody enough not to rescue them.
And some of you have got some grown Children.
Yeah, that you need to love enough not to go rescue them again.
And oh, it’s so hard when you’re a parent and I’m not suggesting we don’t help our kids.
Do you know if you got a grown kid living with you and you’ve rescued them over and over and over and they’re just sucking the life out of.
You, love them enough to let them hurt a little bit and find their own way.
Hm. And I’ll tell you the truth.
That is a word for some people here today. You, you need, you needed to hear that.
God sent you here to hear that.
I had a brother, he’s no longer with us, but I had a brother who had a drug problem and I mean he was, he was the sweetest guy.
You couldn’t help but loving him good looking.
He could have just had a great life but he always just lived off other people and just had his problem, drugs and alcohol, drugs and alcohol, not being responsible.
Got married, had a kid, got divorced, never took care of the kid.
And all he would tell me I love you sis, I love you and I think he did.
But you know, love is more than just, hey, man, love you.
And so he just got his life in such a mess that he made the decision.
He wanted to get himself straightened out.
So he, he called and he happened to get Dave on the phone, which was probably good because I might have said no, but he said I want to come home.
He was out in Arizona somewhere and can you send me a airline ticket so I can get home or a bus ticket or something.
I, I need help. So of course we want to help him and we brought him to live with us and oh, he was a mess.
His teeth were all bad from all the, the drugs and he just, he any kind of problem you want to have, he could have it.
And so we four years he lived with us and we counsel him and talk to him and he got born again.
He got baptized the Holy Spirit and we let him come to work for us.
He traveled with us on the road and bought him a new truck, gave him a life.
God gave him a life back and he was doing good.
But I didn’t want him to live with us forever. He was a grown man.
And so we felt like it was time for him to get out, take care of himself.
He had a job, we helped them get an apartment, we helped them get furniture, we couldn’t have done anything else for him other than what we did and he was wearing me out.
I, I got enough to do trying to live my life without trying to live somebody else’s too.
And so he got out on his own, had a girlfriend and I’ll tell you what it wasn’t.
But a few months and he was just right back in the same mess all over again.
Every time I turned around, I was getting a phone call David’s this David’s that.
And I finally said I’m doing it, I’m not doing it anymore.
I’m not doing it anymore. And it wasn’t that I didn’t love him.
But see, when, when loving somebody means that they’re stealing your life and you have no life left, then you got to make some kind of decision.
He either had to learn to stand on his own and be responsible, which is really what it amounted to.
I couldn’t, I couldn’t keep doing that forever.
Well, long story short, he called again several years later, I’m in trouble.
I want to get my life straightened out.
So I said I’m not bringing you back to ST Louis. I can’t do it again.
So we got him into the dream center in Los Angeles through Tommy Barnett.
They got him straightened out again. He had worked as a plumber.
So they were gonna put him to work, working as a plumber and he had, he had once again, he had every opportunity that he could have.
But you know what, when sooner or later people have to do something themselves.
Are you with me?
Come on, I don’t know who needs this today, but somebody does because I didn’t intend to go here.
So I’m gonna park here for just a minute. Who needs this today. Alright, thank you.
And uh so he, he told him out at the dream center in L A one day, he said, you know, love you guys, you’ve helped, you’ve really help me.
But this is just not for me.
I want you to take me and drop me off at the VA center.
And the reason why I wanted to go there was because he knew that he could get some kind of pain pills or something that would help him.
Well, long story short and I’m sad to have to say this, but I got a phone call two or three years later that he had hung himself in an abandoned building in Los Angeles.
Now, I was tempted to think, oh, man, I should have done something.
I should have done something. But you know what?
That’s not true because it wasn’t my job to raise him.
He was a grown man and that wasn’t my job and some of you need to stop feeling guilty because somebody else’s life is all messed up.
You know what?
When my dad got finished with me after sexually abusing me for years and all the other stuff that went on, you couldn’t have been a bigger mess than I was.
But I’ll tell you what, no matter how big of a mess your life is, you can get it straightened out if you will do your part.
Come on, if you will do your part, there is nothing that God won’t fix in your life.
First thing you need to do is stop feeling sorry for yourself.
Yes, I was abused poor meat.
Well, that was why my life was in a mess.
But God said I’m willing to heal you if you’ll let me anyway, I’m getting off Lazarus.
I need to go back. But I’m gonna believe that little trip was God. Anyway. Amen.
So he loved him so much.
He didn’t rescue him. We often wonder why God waits to help us, but it is not always the best to be delivered from.
Sometimes we need to go through, you know why?
Because it’s in the going through that you grow up. I’m all about spiritual maturity.
It’s wonderful. If you’re born again, I hope people receive Christ at the end of this service.
But that’s not all there is to it. That’s just the beginning.
Then you need to grow spiritually.
You know, somebody came to see me while Ellie the girl that’s here from England doing music.
She brought her, she brought her little son back to meet me a little baby and he’s just cute.
You know, he’s smiling, You know, when you got a little baby and their, their pacifier is cute and their bottle is cute.
But you know, when they’re 40, that’s not cute anymore man.
While Paul said in first Corinthians, three brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the spirit, but as people who are still worldly mere infants in Christ.
Now these are grown men and women, but he says you are a spiritual infant.
I gave you milk.
Not solid food for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed. You are still not ready.
Well, what did Paul mean? He wasn’t giving him a glass of milk.
He was saying I have to teach you little baby messages.
I can’t really give you the meat of the word, which is what you’re going to get from me today.
So get ready. He said I can’t give you the meat of the word because you can’t take it.
You know, there’s a lot of Christians that the only thing that could ever take is God loves you and he’s gonna bless you and you’re gonna prosper and you’re wonderful and we need that.
We all need that, but that’s not all we need. You can’t just live on dessert.
You gotta have meat and I hope somebody knows what I’m talking about.
Paul said you’re still worldly because there’s jealousy quarreling.
Are you not worldly and just acting like a mere human being?
And we are not just mere human beings. We are humans full of God. Amen.
And we don’t have to stay mad at people every time they hurt us or treat us bad.
We have the power to forgive people and I, you, you, yeah, you, there’s only about a third of you clapping for that.
You know how many people there are in here today that are mad at somebody.
Way too many, way too many, right? You might say, well, they don’t deserve forgiveness.
Well, even if they don’t, you deserve peace, you know that and Jesus has provided peace.
But he said, stop allowing yourselves to be upset and disturbed.
You can be peaceful if you want to, but you have to stop being mad at people and stop getting upset every time things don’t go your way.
Now, this is talking about Jesus Hebrews 57 through nine.
During the days of Jesus’s life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, but he didn’t.
And he was heard because of his reverent submission. Now please get this son though.
He was the very son of God.
He learned obedience from what he suffered and once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.
Now this even this, this is even better if I get into it deep.
It actually says that Jesus gained the experience and the equipment that he needed to become the author of our salvation through the things that he suffered.
And you know why I have the authority to have the privilege to do this today?
Because I have gone through things that have been so hard that I would not even know how to tell you how hard they were and how bad they hurt.
But it gave me equipment and I can say to you, I know how you feel but don’t give up because God’s gonna bring you through and he’s going to bring you out and you won’t be the same person you were.
When you went in, you’re gonna come out with some experience and you’re gonna come out with some equipment.
Everybody, when they’re hiring people to work, they always want people with experience.
Well, God’s got a lot of jobs open.
God’s got more jobs open than anybody on the earth.
And he’s looking for people with experience who I think I’m just gonna preach until I make myself happy today.
Are you understanding me?
He’s looking for people that’s got equipment with some experience that he can trust.
Hallelujah. I get to preach to so many people.
But you know what God told me one time and this was to me, this is awesome.
He said, I want you to always remember something however many people you can help.
That’s exactly how many you can hurt.
So, yes, I’m on television in about 2/3 of the world in 100 languages.
My God. How can a messed up woman who’s been abused?
What, how can that happen?
I mean, who am I to do that?
Nobody God chooses and uses the weak and the foolish things of the world.
So people just shake their head and say I just don’t get it.
I just don’t get it.
Taking a hit from an opponent in a game is a lot easier than taking a hit in the battlefield of real life.
When you feel like you’re surrounded, turn to the word of God, the battlefield of the mind.
New Testament will help you win the war for your thoughts and overcome whatever the enemy throws your way.
This amplified Bible features notes and commentary from Joyce Meyer, including Power points and Keys to a victorious life.
Get your copy and a leather bookmark for your gift of $30 or more.
Get your copy through the Joyce Meyer Ministries app Joyce Meyer dot org or call us at 1 807 092895.
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