Welcome to the daily disciple podcast where we seek daily to be with and to become like Jesus our teacher Good morning everyone and welcome to this season of the podcast where we're spending today with Jesus And of course we get to spend every day with Jesus So we might as well start today and I've got my Bible open in front of me John the gospel of John chapter 11 I've got my coffee got my journal and I'm excited to just talk for a bit with all of you And then we'll continue that conversation with Jesus throughout the day And just a quick note about the word amen amen means so be able to be and that's classically how Christians have kind of landed the Plain when it comes to prayer, but let's not say the amen at the end of our time this morning Let's just continue to talk with Jesus and then as we're falling off to sleep tonight Maybe the last thing we say is amen So be it let it be we've spent the day walking and talking with Jesus because today is the day that the Lord has made and so The title of the podcast is entering pain, but we're not talking about entering our pain We're talking about entering into the pain of other people Ironically when we choose to enter into the pain of other people we find that we tap our pain and it's something happens in the relationship That is transformative and deep and dynamic, but I don't want to get ahead of myself So the title of podcast this morning is entering pain and so the question the really the simple question is What are those around you grieving? Right now in this season not what are you grieving not what are you missing? But what are those around you missing or grieving? How are they hurting?
I mean think about a good friend or a spouse or a co-worker or a young child or maybe a teenage child or maybe an adult child or a neighbor Whoever but the reality is when we do Relationship with other people we become very aware of how they're grieving or how they're hurting and we we watch them like trying to be okay But they've lost this or they're missing that or you know This is heavy and they're trying to put one foot in front of the other and we see them grieving We see them hurting and so that's the question. How are those around you grieving or hurting right now? Let's think about that for a minute. Maybe we haven't thought about that quite enough But how are our loved ones grieving?
What are they grieving and we probably know it probably is is not very difficult to to call that to our mind Or our heart and of course here's the question and remember the podcast title entering pain not ours But there so are we willing to go there with them? Are we willing to to dwell there? With those that we love most and so we're gonna go to the gospel of John chapter 11 This is a famous story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead extraordinary iconic story an amazing miracle and There's a certain moment in this story that we don't often stop and think and feel quite long enough But we're gonna pick it up in verse 32 when Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him She fell at his feet and she had Lord if you had been here My brother would not have died When Jesus saw her weeping when he saw Mary weeping and the Jews would come along with her also weeping He was deeply moved in spirit and he was troubled Where have you laid him? Jesus asked come and see Lord.
They replied Jesus wept and the Jews said see how he loved him Now Jesus goes on to raise Lazarus from the dead an incredible miracle Just highlighting the glory of God in and through the work in the person of Jesus But on root when Jesus sees Mary weeping He begins to weep when he sees the Jews that love Lazarus weep he begins to weep when he encounters the pain the agony in his own Personal loss of Lazarus his friend being dead he weeps and then they're able to say see how Jesus loved him See how Jesus loved them see how Jesus loved Mary because he was willing to enter into her pain And it's interesting verse 32 when Jesus shows up because he had delayed a bit He was a little bit late for the wake Mary says probably in frustration and hurt and pain and maybe even a little bit of anger If you had been here my brother would not have died, but Jesus doesn't take that offensively Because it's not about his offense. It's about her pain. It's about their pain It's about him being willing to go there to grieve with those that grieve and mourn with those that mourn And so Jesus wept and then they were able that the crowd people were able to look in and say wow see how he loved them And the prayer that's just kind of rising up in my heart right now is God give me your heart to see other people's pain God give me your eyes to see other people's grief God give me your Sensitivity and emotion to see other people's hurt and as I'm kind of pouring over the story this morning What I'm realizing afresh is that Jesus was not stoic, you know, he goes there He doesn't minimize the pain and I think I we the church we've often dismissed or we've minimized people's pain We moved to like a quick spiritualization and of course we don't realize that we're minimizing people's pain You know, but sometimes we think that other people's pain is silly or we quickly Theologize other people's pain or situation and we just think well God will use this to form them Well, that's true God uses anything and everything but there's something off about that. There's something that's So centered about that You know sometimes we think that if we go there and enter into people's pain It won't help them grow like they have to get through it and we have to kind of pull them through but honestly the best way to Allow and to help and be there for someone as they're going through pain or loss or grief is to be right in that boat With and that's exactly what Jesus did in this passage what Jesus did in this passage is not what a lot of Christian parents or Christian leaders or Christian pastors or Christian theologians do Jesus went there and they were able to look in and say, oh, wow look how you know, he loved them incredible and Honestly, the reason why we minimize the reason why we dismiss is because it's it's a sacrifice to go there with people in pain It's self-giving love.
It's vulnerable. It's gentle. It's tender. It's relational.
Of course, it's super powerful, but It's a sacrifice to enter people's pain And one of the things we got to remember is that we when we see Jesus we see who God fully is this is God This is how God acts or responds when people are in pain there is this kind of ancient theological doctrine called the impassibility of God and it basically means that God is really not affected by actions or by others unless he chooses to be He's not He doesn't suffer unless he wants to and Either that is completely un-biblical Or it's a good doctrine because it says that God is not a victim to other people's actions, but regardless That the impassibility of God has been overplayed Probably by theologians and pastors that haven't wanted to enter into the vulnerability of other people's pain God is affected whether he chooses or whether he doesn't choose and I would prefer to say that he chooses But again, I don't want to overplay that point because God's a person and he enters into the boat of other people's pain Your pain my pain Lazarus is pain Mary's pain those that are weeping at the tomb of Lazarus You know sometimes people just need us to validate their pain to be there not to minimize to listen to hold them to stay Not to try to fix and honestly This is such an opportunity to deepen relationship with those that we love the most and here's the truth and I'm feeling this I'm just gonna say it we all want deep relationship But we don't want to go by the way that will achieve deep relationship This is a cross-resurrection pattern This is a go and enter into someone else's pain Of course, we're gonna discover our pain there But that's under resurrection the cross is always under resurrection often we must go where we don't want to go to actually go where we want to go So all right anyway, I gotta land this plane But I just want to say that one more time sometimes we have to go where we don't want to go in order to actually go Where we want to go in relationship and so let's spend a little bit of time praying and here's the prayer I want us to press into this morning God open my eyes to her pain open my heart to his pain God give me your compassion to see where they are grieving hurting losing and God as we walk together today Walk me into their pain walk me into their loss And I want to dwell there and be there with them because I want to be like you We'll talk to you. Thanks for listening to the daily disciple podcast We truly hope that you were encouraged by it today now if you would like to support or if you have any questions about the daily disciple podcast Feel free to contact us through our inland vineyard church app It will give you information on our ministries and our Sunday services and you can find us in the Apple and Google Play app Scores and we also have our social media pages Which you can find with the tag at inland vineyard to see what's going on with our community our church events and our other ministries As well as our revival youth loop and our children's ministry or you can just check us out on our website at inland vineyard.org