Have the courage to pursue Christ's mission for your life. John 11:8; John 9:4; 2Co 4:7-11John 11:1 Now a certain man was sick, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha.
John 11:2 And it was the Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped His feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick.
John 11:3 The sisters therefore sent to Him, saying, "Lord, behold, he whom You love is sick."
I called category one love “friendship” when it is love for God. I’ll take a mulligan on this because the friendship is with God. But to correct, category one love is for God, and Mary and Lazarus had that.
John 11:4 But when Jesus heard it, He said, "This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified by it."
John 11:5 Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus.
Verses 5 & 6, the perfect timing of the Son of God.
John 11:6 When therefore He heard that he was sick, He stayed then two days longer in the place where He was.
This allows time for death and burial, makes the situation totally hopeless, and brings to light the principle that there is no such thing as a hopeless situation for a child of God.
It is a matter of whose timing is important. Mary has a lot of doctrine but timing is her problem. The Lord’s timing is perfect; our timing is not.
John 11:7 Then after this He said to the disciples, "Let us go to Judea again."
After the proper amount of stalling it’s time to move.
The disciples were nice and comfortable on the other side of the Jordan. There was no danger there.
They have just escaped the wrath of religion in Jerusalem (10:39, 40). Jesus is actually testing His disciples when He says, “Let us go,” just the way He did in the storm.
In the boat in the storm – Matthew 8:23-27 – the disciples learned something about the Lord which was impossible to learn any other way.
John 11:8 The disciples said to Him, "Rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone You, and are You going there again?"
“His disciples say unto him, Master.” They always say Master when they didn’t like it. When they liked it, it was Lord; when they didn’t like it, it was Master [Rabbi], which means Doctor, Professor, or Teacher.
This is their attitude. In other words, what bothers the disciples is that there are many Jews in Jerusalem that carry stones in their pockets with the intent of throwing them at them.
Their mental attitude is different and they are looking for some kind of an ‘out.’
Principle: You never solve the pressures of your life as long as you are looking for an ‘out.’
Meeting the pressures of your life as a believer depends upon the utilization of Bible doctrine.
The very ‘out’ that you take it simply pressure added to pressure.
No one can go on his own as a believer and ever get out of the pressure. Every time you look for an out you are going on your own.
You are not designed as a believer to go on your own; you are a believer priest and are designed to follow your high priest – Jesus Christ. That means you go through the battle, not run away from it.
They strike up a conversation for one reason. They want a dialogue; they want to discuss this matter: ‘Lord. Let’s talk this over.’ Notice: Who is the leader? Jesus Christ. Who has the authority? Jesus, and He says, We are going. That’s it!
John 9:4 "We must work the works of Him who sent Me, as long as it is day; night is coming, when no man can work.
“Must” is a present active indicative of deo. It expresses obligation, necessity; “work” is a present active infinitive of ergazomai and means to produce and perform.
He is saying in effect, ‘It is absolutely necessary for me to accomplish the work of him [God the Father] that sent me’ – “sent” is the aorist active participle of the verb pempo.
The action of the aorist participle precedes the action of the main verb. Jesus Christ was sent before He was obligated to work or to execute the work of the decrees before Him.
In other words, pempo comes first in the action. Jesus Christ was actually sent to this world with a mission. Therefore His life has meaning and purpose and definition.
He is a man with a mission. He is the God-Man with an obligation. This all came from the divine decrees.
Now, through union with Him you and I have a mission. We cannot be too afraid to pursue it. There will be dangers and adversities and just all around unpleasant circumstances.
But nothing is more worth the momentary light affliction.
2 Cor 4:7-18 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the surpassing greatness of the power may be of God and not from ourselves; 8 we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; 10 always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. 11 For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus' sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. 12 So death works in us, but life in you. 13 But having the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, " I believed, therefore I spoke, "we also believe, therefore also we speak; 14 knowing that He who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and will present us with you. 15 For all things are for your sakes, that the grace which is spreading to more and more people may cause the giving of thanks to abound to the glory of God. 16 Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. 17 For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, 18 while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.
Jesus Christ recognises this and therefore His mission calls for Him to cross the Jordan river, to go back into the land, to go to Bethany and there to resuscitate Lazarus—regardless of the danger.
Jesus Christ is concentrating on His mission; His disciples are concentrating on the danger. No one ever succeeds in life when they concentrate on the danger, they must concentrate on the mission.
Jesus Christ is ever and always interested in your mission, and that is to be operating in this life as an adult son of God. It is for this reason that He continues to pray for you at the right hand of God.
1 John 2:1-2 My little children, I am writing these things to you that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; 2 and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.
Heb 7:25 Hence, also, He is able to save [deliver] forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.
Every believer has, since the day they believed in Jesus Christ, a mission in life. Doctrine causes the believer to concentrate on the mission, whatever it is.
We are all in full time Christian service though it doesn’t mean we all do the same thing. It means that our life now has a purpose.
It doesn’t matter where we go or what we do, our life has a purpose. Our job is to concentrate on the purpose.
Other believers may butt their noses into your purpose and think they know your purpose better than you do. However, you are a believer priest and that gives you the freedom to represent yourself before God.
This is so important to know as a believer. If we don’t operate in the privacy of our priesthood we will never fulfil our mission, our predestination, our horizon.
No one is given the authority by God to tell you to go to the left or to the right and then to stand in judgment over you when you make a decision before God.
Rom 14:4 Who are you to judge the servant of another? To his own master he stands or falls; and stand he will, for the Lord is able to make him stand.
As believers we are all servants of God. God has the authority to judge and therefore bless [stands] or discipline us [falls]. No other person has that authority so when they judge they are judging the servant of another.
If you are ultimately a people pleasure then you’ll be pulled around all over the place by the whims and judgments of people. Think about how much a human being can possibly know about you and then think about how much God can possibly know about you. Which one makes the most sense to follow?
Plus, God the Father has authority over you. No one else has been given authority over you unless the Father has given that authority to them. However, if the human authority over you commands you to do something that is against God’s commands for you then you reject that authority under the function of your priesthood.
Acts 5:28-29 saying, "We gave you strict orders not to continue teaching in this name, and behold, you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching, and intend to bring this man's blood upon us." 29 But Peter and the apostles answered and said, "We must obey God rather than men.
It doesn’t matter where we go or what we do, our life has a purpose. Our job is to concentrate on the purpose.
How do you do it? Bible doctrine every day! Consistent intake of Bible doctrine develops a concentration on the mission. Once you concentrate on your mission in life then you do not concentrate on your pressures.
Pressure always comes from outside of your soul. Doctrine works on the inside of your soul and specifically the heart, the right lobe of the soul where application is achieved.
When you let pressure into your soul it produces stress which clogs the flow of doctrine and begins to develop garbage.
The advancing believer will begin to become very sensitive to the flow of doctrine or lack of. He will know that it’s time to rebound and recover when the flow stops.
Ps 32:1-7 How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, Whose sin is covered! 2 How blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity, And in whose spirit there is no deceit! 3 When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away Through my groaning all day long. 4 For day and night Thy hand was heavy upon me; My vitality was drained away as with the fever heat of summer. Selah. 5 I acknowledged my sin to Thee, And my iniquity I did not hide; I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the Lord"; And Thou didst forgive the guilt of my sin. Selah. 6 Therefore, let everyone who is godly pray to Thee in a time when Thou mayest be found; Surely in a flood of great waters they shall not reach him. 7 Thou art my hiding place; Thou dost preserve me from trouble; Thou dost surround me with songs of deliverance.
Concentration on the pressure, the danger, is failure to utilise doctrine, failure to metabolize it. No believer has security apart from Jesus Christ.
How do you concentrate on doctrine? Well, first you have to learn it. You can’t concentrate on what you don’t know – that’s flying blind! Which way youconcentrate determines how much you get out of the plan of God for your life.
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