Key scripture – “Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. (This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair.) So the sisters sent word to Jesus, “Lord, the one you love is sick.” (John 11:1-3).

Martha and Mary’s brother Lazarus is sick and they do what every good Christian should do, they call on Jesus. They sent word to Jesus that they needed help and this was a situation that was so serious that medicine and doctors could not help them.

These three people had a very close relationship with Jesus. “Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.” (John 11:5). They were not carnal Christians, or Christians who were disassociated with Jesus nor were they just out there on the fringe so that they barely knew Him. These people had an everyday loving relationship with Jesus. They spent time with the Lord and they were very close to him.

So Mary and Martha called on Jesus in a time of great need and they got a great word back from Jesus. “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.” (John 11:4). After they had made a prayer request for a very difficult situation that they were facing, Mary and Martha got a great promise from God.

However, when Jesus heard about Lazarus, instead of leaving immediately to go help him, Jesus stayed two days longer. “So when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days.” (John 11:6). You would think that since Jesus loved them He would’ve packed up immediately and headed for their home so that He could rescue them and give them aid. He could have gotten there pretty quickly because He was less than 2 miles away from fixing their problems and solving their dilemma. “Now Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem.” (John 11:18). But Jesus does the opposite, His response in a crisis situation to the people that he loves dearly, is to delay.

When Jesus shows up to console Martha and Mary, they’re like, we don’t need comfort we needed you to be here two days earlier. “Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died… When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” (John 11:21, 32). Translation, “Jesus it’s your fault he’s dead.” They are both saying, “Jesus, if you had been here we wouldn’t be in this mess. Where were you?”

Have you ever felt that way? You read the promises of God, you believe the promises of God. You lean on and put all your weight on the promises of God and the only thing that seems to be happening is everything goes south. And your response is, “God where were you? How could you let this happen? How could you leave me like this in this mess? How could you let this painful thing go from bad to worse.”

Martha also tells Jesus, even now I know that whatever You ask of God He will give you. “But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.” (John 11:22). She’s basically saying, I’m disappointed with how You reacted when You heard about Lazarus and You delayed getting here, but we can fix this thing. I believe that God will respond to You because You are the Son of God, even though I don’t understand what is going on and why.” Jesus responded to her by saying, “Your brother will rise again.” (John 11:23).

Martha had laid out a general theological truth that; if You ask, the Father will give You what You ask for. In response to that, Jesus gave her a personal word, that her brother would rise again. Martha had stated a general statement of belief, and when she affirmed God’s objective truth, she got a personal word from Jesus about her situation. However, after Martha gets this personal word from Jesus, she launches into a theological discussion with Jesus. “Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” (John 11:24). She is saying, “Jesus I’m not here to talk about the resurrection. I am here to talk about my personal disappointment right now and the personal word that I need from you.”

Jesus responds to Martha by saying “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25-26). Martha is talking about the resurrection in the future tense and Jesus is talking about resurrection in the present tense. Jesus is basically saying, “It is true that there will be a resurrection of all believers in the future, however, when I say “I am the resurrection” I mean “I am a right now God. I am not just a tomorrow God but I am a right now God who is here for you in a bad situation.” So when things look dead in your life, they are not dead yet, because “I AM” is in the business right now of raising things that are dead that have no life in them.”

Jesus is telling Martha to have faith that He has the ability to resurrect something right now that has no life in it. He goes on to say that whoever believes in me will have life, “and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:26). He is basically saying, Martha, do you believe, not only in your theology regarding the future, but that “I AM” a God who is here right now.

It is easy for us to have a good theology for the future, but a bad theology for today. We can know a lot of theological truth but never experience its relevancy. God does not want a relationship with us where we can just spout theology. He wants a relationship with us where we see theology alive in our lives on a daily basis. He wants the truth about God to become an “I AM” reality in our lives.

When Jesus saw all of them weeping he was deeply troubled and “Jesus wept.” (John 11:35). What made Jesus weep was the people were weeping. Jesus identified with their pain just like He identifies with ours, without allowing our pain to change his purpose. Jesus feels sorry for us and He will weep with us, but He will never let His emotions trump God’s purpose, and we should never let our own feelings and emotions get in the way of God’s will or God’s purpose.

When Jesus came to the Tomb He told them to remove the stone. “Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. “Take away the stone,” he said.“But, Lord,” said Martha, the sister of the dead man, “by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.” (John 11:38-39). Martha responded to Jesus by going into a discussion of mortuary science. When Jesus said, “take away the stone,” Martha said, “We need to have a discussion Jesus because what You just asked me to do is not practical or logical and it makes no sense whatsoever to do that. Jesus remember how You delayed getting here, well Lazarus has been dead for days now and you don’t want to see what he looks like, and just in case You need some additional information, his body is deteriorating and it stinks. So Jesus what You are asking me to do doesn’t make sense.”

When God puts you between a rock and a hard place, just like He did with Martha, Mary and Lazarus, He will make a request of you that makes absolutely no sense. He will request that you do something that is not logical. That is why Jesus responds to Martha’s discussion about the condition of the body by saying, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?” (John 11:40).

Jesus is reminding Martha of what they had discussed earlier in verses 25-27 when “Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?” “Yes, Lord,” she replied, “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.” (John 11:25-27). In verse 27 Martha said she believed but then when Jesus asked her to act on that belief and move the stone, she starts questioning Him. Martha is like a lot of us she has learned a lot of biblical truth but she’s never had to apply it. What Martha had learned was good for writing down and learning, but she’s never had to apply it to her life, and Jesus is basically saying, didn’t I just tell you that “I AM”.

Everything Martha told Jesus was true: Lazarus had been dead for days; rigor mortis had set in; his body had started decomposing; and he was stinking. Jesus responded to all of that by saying, “I didn’t ask you for your logic. I didn’t ask you to tell me what you know to be true in Earth’s scenario. I didn’t ask you what you know to be a fact based on what the world sees as facts.”

A lot of us are like Martha, we believe in a Jesus that we’ve never experienced. We believe in a God that we can talk about but we don’t know that much about. We believe in a God that worked in the Bible but we do not think that He works today. We believe in a God who does things for others but we don’t think that he does much for us. We don’t really believe what God has told us in His Word regarding His promises, because when God puts us in a situation where we are between a rock and a hard place and He asks us to do something that doesn’t make sense, that doesn’t seem logical, we don’t do it because we don’t believe Him. Martha did what we do all the time, she went logical on God and once you add human logic to the Word of God you cancel the effect of the Word of God on your rock and a hard place situation.

When God says I want you to do this and you say, “but I think that…” you just canceled the effect of the Word of God on your situation. Then we wonder why we don’t see a resurrection in our lives when we are between a rock and a hard spot.

We need to pay attention to what Jesus said, all He said was “move the stone” He didn’t want to have a discussion with Martha, instead He was just telling her what He wanted her to do. He didn’t want to know how big the stone was, how long Lazarus had been dead, how hard it would be to move it, He just wanted her to do what He said to do.

A great statement on faith is in verse 40, “Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?” (Jon 11:40). Jesus is not saying if you see, you will believe, He says if you believe you will see. Belief must precede sight. “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” (Hebrews 11:1). If you see it then your belief is nothing. You have to walk by faith and not by sight. You do not have to see something to know that it’s real. All you have to do is act on what you believe and then you will see it. God is always expecting an action on your part before the miracle will take place.

When Martha finally steps out and does what she was told, and she moves the stone, then she activates the intercessory prayer of Jesus and He prays to the Father for her.”So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.” (John 11:41-42).

When Jesus asks the Father for something, God will never turn him down. That is why at the end of our prayers we say “In Jesus’ Name.” We are basically saying, “Jesus sign off on this prayer so that the Father will give me my request.” If Jesus asks God for what you are asking for, you will get what you ask for “In the Name of Jesus.”

Jesus then cried out for Lazarus in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.” (John 11:43-44).

I’m here to tell each and everyone of you that the Lord that you sing too, that you praise, that you worship, and that you love, is an “I Am” God. He is a present God. It does not matter how dead your situation looks, it does not mean that it is dead. God is waiting for you to do some active obedience. If you’re not sure what He wants you to do, if you are trapped in a situation like Lazarus that you cannot get out of, ask God to show you which stone He wants you to remove. He may speak to you and tell you through His Word, or through another Christian, or through a message at church. God wants to give you an experience of Himself. God wants to give you a taste of Himself because He is the “I Am” God. “Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.” (Psalm 34:8).

So when you see God call your situation fourth. When He says career come forth, finances come forth, health come forth, relationships come forth, broken marriage come forth, depression come forth, despair come forth, disappointment come forth, child come forth, hope come forth, future come forth, deliverance come forth. You won’t need anyone to tell you how good God is or how real God is because you will know for yourself, you will have experienced the “I AM the resurrection, I AM the truth, I Am the way, I AM the life, God.”

God may delay, but that is because he’s hooking up something special just for you. Just like He did for Lazarus, Martha and Mary, He is making it just for you and nobody else. He is doing something unique because He is doing it just for you.

Have you experienced Jesus’ delay? Have you called on Him and He is moving slow or not moving at all? Step out in faith, and believe, and you will see.

Pray this – Our Precious Heavenly Father, what a powerful message. I want to walk by faith and not by sight. Forgive me for all the times I have tried to add my logic and reasoning to what You have told me to do. I ask that You give me the wisdom I need to always believe before I see. To step out in faith. To commit my ways to You and to trust You. Show me how to walk in obedience. Father, You are the “I AM” God. You are here for me now and in eternity. I praise You for that. I want to know You. I want to know Your ways. I want to experience You on a deeper level. I want to walk in Righteousness. I want to walk Upright and Blameless. I want to walk faithfully with You like Enoch did.(Genesis 5:24). Just like Lazarus, Jesus has removed my grave clothes and freed me, show me how to always walk in victory. I know that no matter what my circumstances look like, nothing is not over until Jesus says it is over. In the Name of Jesus, the “I Am” God, I pray, Amen.