This weekend at Zion, we continued our series Keeping Score, where we’ve been looking at some of the scores we’re keeping that we ought to be canceling.
We tally our superiority over others. We fixate on the slight someone committed against us. We keep a meticulous account of everything we’ve done for someone—and how they haven’t bothered to return nearly all of our fabulous favors.
Then there’s the score we talked about this weekend: the score we keep against God.
We count the prayers we’ve prayed, the weekends we’ve dragged our family to church, and the dollars we’ve dropped into the offering plate. We tally every fragment of faithfulness we can find. Then we set that total against what God has—or hasn’t—done for us. And before long, we’ve convinced ourselves that God’s account with us is overdrawn.
But what if we wiped our scoreboard against God clean? What if we kept score no more?
In my message this weekend, we walked through the story of two sisters, Mary and Martha, who had every reason to believe God had let them down.
The story opens with the sisters sending an urgent plea to Jesus, who at the time is many miles away:
“Lord, the one You love is sick.” (John 11:3)
The one Jesus loves is Lazarus, Mary and Martha’s brother. Notice the sisters don’t tell Jesus there’s something He needs to do. They only update Him on Lazarus’ condition. But right beneath their update is an implicit summons: “Come quickly. Heal our brother, before it’s too late.”
And why wouldn’t Jesus hurry and scurry right to Lazarus’ side? After all, Mary, Martha, and Lazarus are three of Jesus’ dearest friends. They’ve opened their home to Him. They’ve fed and welcomed Him and His disciples. They’ve deposited hospitality into Jesus’ account for years. Now they need Him to deposit a healing into theirs.
When He heard that Lazarus was sick, He stayed where He was two more days. (John 11:6)
That doesn’t seem like the kind of compassionate response we’d expect from Jesus.
Jesus does eventually set out for Bethany. But by the time He arrives, He isn’t just fashionably late—He’s insultingly late.
On His arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. (John 11:17)
Lazarus’ last breath has long escaped into the ether. The funeral has been officiated. The tomb has been filled. The only things left are two grieving sisters—and a ledger that refuses to balance.
Martha, who we know from elsewhere in Scripture is never afraid to say exactly what she’s thinking, when she hears Jesus has finally arrived, greets Jesus sharply:
“Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.” (John 11:21)
It’s both a confession and an accusation: “I know exactly what You could have and should have done. And I cannot fathom why You didn’t.” After all, Martha had heard the stories about the lame man Jesus made walk and the blind man Jesus made see. All she needed was for Jesus to bring a little divine Tylenol in His touch, lay His hands on Lazarus, and heal him.
But He didn’t.
He didn’t even hightail it to Bethany in time for the funeral.
If Martha had handed Jesus her ledger, it would have shown a staggering deficit: We loved You. We welcomed You. We called for You. And You didn’t come.
Which is what makes what she says next so astounding:
“But I know that even now God will give You whatever You ask.” (John 11:22)
Centuries ago, the church father Augustine paraphrased Martha’s words to Jesus like this:
“Your doing it is dependent on Your own judgment, not on my presumption.”
Augustine knew that God doesn’t always do what we tell Him to. And Martha has learned this now, too. This is why Martha leaves what God will do in the hands of Jesus and His judgment instead of waving her own begrudging gavel at God.
If we’re willing to sit with Martha’s statement, it will unsettle us—and maybe even undo us. Because if we’re honest, this isn’t what we want. We don’t want God to give Jesus whatever Jesus asks. We want God to give us whatever we ask. We want the healing, the promotion, the reconciliation, and the relief—all delivered on exactly the timeline we specify.
But what if Jesus lets the financial hiccup linger so we learn to be content with less? What if He allows the trial to run its course so we learn to trust Him more deeply?
These possibilities sound pious when they’re philosophized about in a sermon, but nobody actually wants to endure them, no matter how spiritually beneficial they may eventually prove to be. We would much prefer the glide path to spiritual maturity.
But Martha, even after Jesus fractures her trust by staying away when she needed Him most, still stubbornly, defiantly trusts Him. By every visible measure, Jesus has wronged her. And yet Martha refuses to keep score. She is keeping score no more.
But why? How?
Martha is beginning to understand that Jesus isn’t just a messenger running our wish lists up His chain of command. Instead, He’s a mediator. He’s the mediator between her and God:
There is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus. (1 Timothy 2:5)
A mediator is one who bridges the divide between two parties, tirelessly aligning their interests for the ultimate good of both. Jesus carries out this role flawlessly. He honors the Father by securing what God desires—knowing what the Father always wills is always good—while securing for us precisely what we need, even when it collides with what we want. He works not to cater to our immediate comfort, but to orchestrate our eternal flourishing.
When Martha confesses, “I know that even now God will give You whatever You ask,” she surrenders her personal ledger of desires and demands and trusts the mediator who knows what she needs far better than she ever could.
If you know how the story ends, you know Martha gets far more than a healing. She gets a resurrection.
Standing at the mouth of the open tomb, right before He calls Lazarus back to life, Jesus prays:
“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)
This is why Jesus didn’t come hurrying to heal Lazarus while there was still time. This is why He waited until Lazarus was four days dead before performing the pinnacle of all His miracles—so that everyone watching would see He wasn’t merely a wonder-worker, but the Son of the Father Himself.
Jesus knew exactly what He was doing all along.
But Martha didn’t. She couldn’t see His timing. She couldn’t trace His plan. She couldn’t imagine how any good could possibly claw its way out of a tragedy this deep. And still, she refused to close her account with God. Because she still somehow believed Jesus had a wide-open account with His Father:
“I know that even now God will give You whatever You ask.”
Is there something you desperately need God to do that you really need to hand over to Jesus? Is it a sickness you need healed? A relationship you need restored? A depression you need lifted? A habitual sin whose grip you need broken?
Ask Him. Faith doesn’t require you to pretend you don’t want what you want. But then be brave enough to hand over the request—and your ledger—to Jesus, and say:
“I know that even now God will give You whatever You ask.”
He might just know what you need—better than you ever could.