This came in the email from my ex boss, Miss Koe. She has been a great friend and she prays for me. Together we have fought many a battle and she prays for our students. That was why no matter how tough she could be at times, it was just great working for her. I learned many things from her and she groomed me to take over some roles. Thanks Heong Yin. This message really encourages me and was in line with what God spoke to me throughout the day.

Missions Night Series

Rev. Wayne Francis

April 2010

Adult Service @ PL

There is line that comes from a movie that goes like this “life is not measured by the breaths that we breathe but by the moments that take our breath away”. Life is not measured in the spirit by the daily breathing, but there are moments of sovereign intervention when God breaks into our routine and He changes us for eternity…“there    came the sound of a mighty rushing wind and it swept into the room where they were, and it took their breath away!”…and the world was never the same form that moment on.

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Not all of life goes according to our own plans and dictates. We will read just a few verses about it. John 11 verse four tells of the story of Mary, Martha and Lazarus; “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…(vs 23) … Jesus said, your brother will rise again … (vs 28) … and after she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary inside, ‘the teacher is here’ she said, and He is asking for you’” - very interesting little scenario here.

Bethany was a wonderful place, it was a home away from home for Jesus. It was a place he loved to come back to after the busy ministry and the tasks that were before Him, and he would enjoy the hospitality. Mary and Martha had a warm and inviting place for Jesus. And of course, Martha was a great cook. She would cook, be about the house, do the domestic things, making sure everything was in order. Mary was a little more philosophical, and she liked to talk. I am sure that the deepest talks that Jesus had on planet earth were probably with Mary. And if anybody should have known Him, it should have been Mary. But now, something breaks in to the stereotypical life that they are having. Lazarus gets sick. Jesus is not around. But they knew Jesus did miracles, so they sent a messenger out to Him and said, “Jesus, Lazarus, who is your friend, is sick nigh unto death”. Lazarus just isn’t some ordinary person out there that you have not seen before, that you just walk by and heal their eye, or stretch out their withered hand or something. Lazarus, he is on the inside with you, he is your friend. And he is sick now and nigh unto death, and so Jesus here sends his message back to them, “This is not a sickness unto death, but for the Glory of God.” Now we all know Lazarus died. How could Jesus make statements like that? Jesus had interesting ways of making statements. Like the widow at Naim. There was a 14-year old boy who has died, the only hope that his mother had for her future, and Jesus walks up to her while she is weeping and says “woman, stop your weeping”. How could she stop her weeping? Her son just died. I will tell you why Jesus can make that statement - because he was about to do a profound miracle and bring life back into that boy. He can make the statement because He had the power to control the circumstance that was causing her weeping. He raises him up and gives him back to her. What that says to me is simply this, God has the power to give you back your tomorrows. When you think you have mortgaged your virtue, when you think you have made such bad decisions, and choices have not been good in your life. And your stereotypical life has been in turmoil God can make a statement to you. He can give you back your future and He can give you back your tomorrow. Just as he can with the country. Just as he can with the nation. He speaks to the nations in the world that are in chaos right now, and says this is not a sickness unto death but for the Glory of God. Your brothers, and your sisters around this globe, they shall rise again in the newness of the knowledge of a holy God who loves them and gave Himself for them. And wants to give them a heart transplant and show them His compassion and His love and His mercy.

“And your brother shall rise again” …

Mary and Martha had to make some decisions along the way. Jesus comes finally back to Bethany. Mary and Martha were very upset, they were just angry. “Jesus, you disappointed us. You let Lazarus die. We had invited a whole crowd of people to come and see the miracles. It would have been glorious. We could have planted a new church. But you threw the opportunity. Don’t you know what is going on, Jesus?” Jesus comes in and sits down with them, and starts ministering first of all to Martha, but Mary, she is keeping herself away - she is so mad at God. And he ministers to Martha and faith rises up in her heart. And then he uses her to go to her own sister in her own household, and the beautiful message, Martha comes in to Mary and says, “behold, the Master, the Lord, the covenant making God, is here with us. The Master has come and He calls for you”– not the neighbour, not anybody else.

And you understand that the Holy God is in this room tonight, and he goes through and fro throughout this audience. And His All Mighty Arms stretches down. And there is the Holy Spirit who is dealing with somebody’s heart tonight and says, “I want you.”  But you doubt. You doubt you can be used. You see, Mary and Martha now having responded to Jesus, he says, “let us go to the grave.” He says, “roll away the stone,” and they say, “but he’s dead, he’s rotten, he stinks, he smells. You wouldn’t want to do that, Jesus.” But he says, “roll away the stone.” Obedience is always a requirement before something great transpires. Obedience is far greater than sacrifice. So they roll away the stone. And Jesus said, “Lazarus get up.” And Lazarus pops up. I don’t believe he was alive yet – how could he be if he is wound up like a mummy. How can he be breathing in that? But then Jesus says this, “loose him, and set him free.” Why did He say that, because they were the ones who put him in bondage. And some of you have got dreams, and some of you have got hopes, and some of you have got things and plans in your life that seem to be dashed, and they seem to be ruined and they seem to be hurt, and they seem to be smashed, and your heart aches, and it breaks. And God comes to you and He says, “you have buried some of your dreams and your visions and your agendas, and whatever it may be. He says you have buried them, but I can come and I can call you out, and if you are obedient to me, we will loose you and set you free so that you can go and touch others and loose them. Let your dreams be resurrected and be renewed. And in that moment when they loosed him, divine breath came in and he became a living soul.

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“And your brother shall rise again”…

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You talk about a heart transplant? Even when life does not seem as though it is going right for you, even when you get a little upset with God, he breaks into the darkness of your life, and into the darkness of your room. And the Master comes and he says, “I want you because you are the one. You may doubt me the most, but it is through you I want to show my grandeur. And I want to show the power of my Resurrection to a dying and a lost world.

Six days after the Tsunami – the big Indonesian earthquake and the tsunami that ravished Thailand and Indonesia – I flew down from Calcutta with 14 tons of relief efforts to Colombo, Sri Lanka. You all have seen and heard the mess that was created by those tsunami waves, coming at hundreds of miles an hour, just crashing with rocks, devastating. Villagers, people tell you, could not get around, bridges, roads, everything is gone. It’s terrible. We couldn’t get our relief effort moved to the ones who had the greatest needs at the most remote areas. There was no way to do it. And we were praying about it, and we were sitting in the hotel having breakfast, and a US marine colonel – they are ugly, and they are mean – he looked at us and he overheard what we were saying. And he came over and he slapped our table and he said, “Do you guys have your relief efforts cleared through customs?” We said, “Yes. We can’t move it. ” He said, “Well, let me tell you something, we just got deployed from Okanawa to come over. We have a ship offshore; we’re going to give you 90,000 gallons of fresh drinking water everyday. We are going to process it off the ship. We also have a bunch of Humphreys (all terrain vehicles) that will move stuff around, and we have ten Blackhawk helicopters that you can have for the next ten days. We will move it for you. So for ten days we were flying back and forth in these helicopters. Back and forth. And I watched those big, old guys get out and start delivering the goods, the needy people receiving. I watched the little children who lost mom and dad, and grandpa and grandma. Their world was upside down. They didn’t know if there was a God who loved them or cared for them anymore. But there was a group of people who had compassion of heart who said, “We’ll deliver the goods. We’ll move it from the one area of resource storage to another so that you can have a meaningful life.” Those little kids coming in would hang on to those big soldiers’ legs, and they would hang on and they would look up at them. They would reach into their pockets and pull out candies and they would bond together.

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And this is the call tonight. It’s simply this; Mary doubted. Mary was bound by fear. Mary had buried her hopes and dreams of her brother. And Jesus came to her and said, “I’ve come and I want you, you’re the one that I’m going to use. Don’t doubt your gift, don’t doubt your ability, don’t doubt your future.”

I learn this that Life is not the cup but the coffee!