Outside of the Box

This morning I ministered at the ECC 10.45 am service, and I want to share with you a little of what I preached on, since it was, I believe, a significant message. I'm going to break my message up, however, into a few bite-sized chunks, focusing a specific point of revelation each time.

The three elements of my message, which we'll be exploring over the next three days, are titled:

1. Outside of the Box


2. Translating Theology Into Life


3. Entering into a Daily Conversation with God

Let's take a look at the first section this morning.

In John 11, we find the famous story of Lazarus. The story starts in verse 1:

"Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha."

Jesus' response to this illness is recorded in verse 4:

"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.'"

Jesus then proceeds to delay his return to Bethany - a deliberate action that is not immediately understood by either his disciples or Lazarus' family. As verses 5-6 explains:

"Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. Yet when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days."

If Jesus loved this family so much, why cause them worry and grief? At first glance, this doesn't seem to be an action consistent with love. But in verse 15, Jesus finally explains to his disciples the reason for this delay:

"...for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him."

The first important lesson I picked up in this story is that God refuses to be boxed. There is something unpredictable about the Lord's actions, at least from a cursory, shallow, human perspective. Anyone would have quite rightly expected that Jesus, because of his love for Lazarus, would have immediately dropped everything he was doing to go and heal his friend. This expectation is actually stated clearly later by the Jewish mourners (see John 11:36-27).

When we look at healing in general, we also need to take this basic understanding of God's character into account. How easy it is to stereotype God's actions and presume that he will act in a particular way. In fact, we have a lazy tendency to search out formulaic patterns in how God acts, and then seek to mimic these formulas as a kind of shortcut to getting God to act on our behalf. But as I've studied the ministry of Jesus, I've been surprised at just how frequently Jesus defied people's expectations of him. And just how difficult it is to reduce his healing ministry to a set of easy-to-learn formulae. Just take a look at the different ways he healed - the actual methods he used - and see if you can discern any kind of rigid pattern:

• Jesus touches the hand of Peter's mother-in-law and the fever leaves immediately (Matthew 8:14-15).


• Jesus commands healing from a distance (Matthew 8:5-13).


• Jesus touches a leper, and he is cured immediately (Matthew 8:2-3).


• Jesus drives out evil spirits with a word, not allowing them to speak (Matthew 5:16; 17:18).


• Jesus converses with a legion of demons, before casting them out (Luke 8:27-33).


• Jesus encounters ten lepers who "stood at a distance" and, without coming near them, Jesus gives specific instructions to them, and the lepers are cured "as they went" (Luke 17:11-19).


• Jesus forgives the paralytic's sins before healing him (Matthew 9:2-8).


• Jesus touches the eyes of two blind men and they are instantly healed (Matthew 9:27-31; 20:29-34).


• Jesus merely commands healing to a blind man, without touching him, and he sees (Luke 18:35-42).


• Jesus spits in the eye of another blind man, tells him to wash in the Pool of Siloam, and after his obedience, the blind man sees (John 9:1-7).


• On another occasion, Jesus leads the blind man out of the town "by the hand", first spits on his eyes (which results in a partial healing), and then lays hands on him, at which time the man is fully healed (Mark 8:23-25).


• Jesus drives out a demon and then a mute man speaks (Matthew 9:32-33).


• Another time, Jesus drives out a demon and then a blind-mute sees and speaks (Matthew 12:22).


• On one occasion, Jesus was "laying his hands on each one" when he healed the sick (Luke 4:30).


• Jesus first commands a crippled woman to be healed, then lays his hands on her (Luke 13:10-13).


• Jesus heals a man with dropsy by "taking hold of the man" (Luke 14:4).


• Jesus heals a crippled man simply by commanding him, "Get up! Pick up your mat and walk!" (John 5:1-9).


• A woman with an issue of blood simply touches the hem of Jesus' garment and is healed (Matthew 9:20-22; see also Matthew 14:35-36).


• Jesus takes a dead girl by the hand and raises her back to life (Matthew 9:18-26).


• Jesus touches the coffin, then commands the young man back to life (Luke 7:14-15).


• And as we shall see, in Lazarus' case, Jesus simply stands at a distance and commands the dead man to come out of the grave (John 11:43-44).

No wonder when the disciples failed to cast out an evil spirit one time (see Mark 9:17-29), they had to ask Jesus privately, "Why couldn't we do it?" They had watched Jesus cast out the spirit successfully, probably watching carefully for which part of the formula they had missed, yet had drawn a blank. This was because they were focused on external formulae and had missed the underlying dynamic - which Jesus identified as being because of two interrelated reasons: 1) a lack of faith (Matthew 17:19-20) and 2) a lack of a consistent prayer life (Mark 9:29). You see, when it comes to healing in your life, Jesus goes beyond the formulae of "doing it right" (external action) to the dynamic of "getting it right" (internal condition). This is Jesus' way. And as you read John 11:15,25,42, you see that this is Jesus' primary target: "That you might believe."

Most people think of faith in terms of a specific expectation they have of God - and a specific request. In other words, I have faith that God will do one specific thing for me. But there is, I believe, another dimension of faith which is more properly translated as "trust." I trust God to be for me everything he has promised to be. I trust God will heal me, as he has promised, even though the exact form of that healing is not yet know. In that sense, this dimension of faith gives permission for God to be God - to act outside of the box of our expectations, or even demands.

By the time Jesus finally arrives in Bethany, Lazarus has been dead for four days (John 11:17,39). Martha struggled with this. By delaying his return, Jesus had defied her reasonable expectations of him. We see this internal struggle evident in her first words to Jesus. "If only," she said, "you had come earlier, my brother would not have died. If only you had done what I thought you would do..." (see John 11:21).

We automatically set boundaries for God, because we want to set boundaries for our own lives. We seek to box him in, because we want to make him safe and controllable and understandable and non-threatening. But God refuses those boundaries; he defies the box we build for him. In fact, life with God can be unsettling, because he is not the God of the Status Quo. His aim in your life is not just to bless you, but to transform you (this is such an important subject, and one that God is speaking so clearly to me about at the moment, that I will take this up in more detail in a future post - one I'll probably call "The Danger Zone").

In tomorrow's post, I'm going to explore in more detail on the actual transformative process that Martha and Mary experienced in John 11. But for now, let me underline again this crucial understanding of how God works in our lives. God's purpose in your life is not to make you happy; it is to make you like himself (happiness is a byproduct of this process). His goal is not to make you safe and secure in your comfort zone; his goal is to transform you into the likeness of his Son. This is the context in which he works, and in which he meets your specific needs. He doesn't see your healing as an end in itself, but as part of this overall process. As with Lazarus, he may defy your expectations, delay his action, act in ways contrary to what you think he should do, because in the end he is after something of value far greater than even your healing, or provision, or deliverance. As Peter puts it in 1 Peter 1:6-7 (slightly paraphrased by me):

"...for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials [because God is doing things you didn't expect]. These [unexpected situations] have come so that your faith - of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire - may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed."

Likewise, James writes in James 1:2-4 (equally paraphrased by me):

"Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face [unexpected situations], because you know that the testing of your faith [when God acts 'outside of the box'] develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything."

And, in finishing, Philippians 1:6, as translated by The Amplified Bible, provides the important context within which God is working in your life:

"And I am convinced and sure of this very thing, that He Who began a good work in you will continue until the day of Jesus Christ [right up to the time of His return], developing [that good work] and perfecting and bringing it to full completion in you."