I’m going to start
today in John 11. Mary and Martha are mourning the death of their beloved
brother. These two devoted women have accepted the divinity of the Savior,
Jesus Christ. They believe in Him with all their hearts. In fact, when he
arrives, four days after Lazarus’ death, they both express the exact same
sentiment. First Martha in verse 21 and then her sister, in verse 32, “Lord, if
thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.”
I can imagine the scene a week before, as
Lazarus’ illness progressed. I doubt very much there was any sleeping. These
two, faithful sisters likely sat up through the nights, anxiously attending to
their brother and always with one eye toward the distance, looking for the
light of the Savior’s approach, in constant, pleading prayer. “Oh, let Him
come, before it’s too late.”
This story, in the
aching hearts of two women whose faith is both beautiful and laudable,
illustrates the principle I want to share today. It’s a cautionary message,
more for me then for anyone. You see, Mary and Martha knew that Jesus could have saved their brother, that is extraordinary faith. But, even their
expression of faith, “Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died,”
is laced with limitation. Knowing exactly how this story ends, the message I
wish to share today is very simple, “Never put limits of the power of Jesus
Christ and His atonement.”
It’s almost funny how casually we talk about
the omnipotence of God without ever really considering what it means to us
personally. The scriptures tell us…”He hath made the earth by his power, with God all things
are possible, All power is given unto me
in heaven and in earth, there is no power but of God, The Lord
God omnipotent reigneth,
He is mightier than all the earth, and able to do all things.” But somehow, even
though we know that, we believe it, we profess it, we occasionally stumble when
it comes to its application. 2nd Nephi 27:20. “I am able to do mine own work.” His work.
“To bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of Man.”
And yet, so many of us suffer from crippling
cognitive dissonance on this point when it comes to our own salvation. We, like
Mary and Martha, might profess our faith in Jesus Christ’s power with a
statement beginning with a qualifier like “If.” “If thou hast been here, If I never make this
mistake again, If I had never missed a family night, If I read my scriptures
more, If I choose the right career, If I am always patient with my children, If
I had a better marriage, If I could get over my fear…then the Lord could save
me.” Brothers and Sisters, Never put limits of the power of Jesus Christ and
His atonement.
This talk is on repentance,
but I am not going to review the four “R’s” or talk about how faith is an
action word. You already know that. I think sometimes in our admirable culture
of self-sufficiency and pioneer style consecration; we need to be reminded that
“not everything is about us.” The work of Salvation belongs to Jesus Christ, He
who is “mighty to save.” This means that your faults, insecurities, personal
failings, family dynamics, neuro divergences, and even the magnitude of your
sins, don’t factor into it at all. The only thing you need to bring to the
table, the only thing you can bring
to the table is your willingness to accept the Savior and keep trying. Repentance
is not even about never sinning again. It’s about always coming back when you
do. It’s not about you. It’s about Him. Elder Uchtdorf taught: “Salvation
cannot be bought with the currency of obedience; it is purchased by the blood
of the Son of God.”
And from Doctrine and
Covenants 45:
Listen to him who is the advocate with
the Father, who is pleading your cause before him—
Saying: Father, behold the sufferings and death of
him who did no sin,
in whom thou wast well pleased; behold the blood of thy Son which was shed, the
blood of him whom thou gavest that thyself might be glorified;
Wherefore, Father, spare these my brethren that believe on
my name, that they may come unto me and have everlasting
life.
It’s not, “Behold how great Brother Jones is or behold all the
awesome things Sister Jones has done, or even behold how very sorry they are”
It’s “behold the Atonement of Christ.”
Sometimes we inadvertently
place our own human limitations on the power of Jesus Christ by looking for
exceptions, failing to see his miracles, or assigning time limits to when and
where the Lord will intervene in our lives. These human tendencies cut off
repentance and healing. They turn our focus back onto ourselves.
Years ago I was teaching a
fantastic group of ten-year-old girls in primary. One week we were having a
lesson on eternal families and one young lady, her name was Becky, declared, “I
will never have an eternal family because my dad will never get baptized.” We were
only in that ward for four years and, after his baptism, Becky’s dad served
faithfully as my home teacher for two of them.
In that case, despite
assuming she was an exception, there was a quick and powerful miracle in store
for Becky’s family. That’s not always the case. Another girl in that same primary,
Emily, always raised her hand the quickest when the music leader asked if
anyone had a favorite song. Without fail, she would ask to sing, “When I am
Baptized.” She chose that song because, despite the fact that she and her mom
attended all their meetings every week, neither of them had been baptized. Her
dad wouldn’t give permission for his family to join the church. And so she came,
week after week, wanting her life “to be as clean as earth right after rain,”
and knowing that the promises of the gospel were as much for her as any of
God’s children. I don’t whether or not she’s still waiting.
Joseph F. Smith taught, “Jesus had not finished his work when his body
was slain, neither did he finish it after his resurrection from the dead; … And
when will he? Not until he has redeemed and saved every son and daughter of our
father Adam that have been or ever will be born upon this earth to the end of
time...”
Neither Becky’s dad nor
Emily’s are exceptions. You and your family aren’t either.
Sometimes we place
limitations of the Savior’s power by failing to see and acknowledge the
miracles that are happening all around us, every single day.
I have to shake my head
whenever I hear someone express regret that there seems to be fewer miracles in
our day then there was in the scriptures, or even in the pioneer times. I think we need to ask ourselves what, exactly,
a miracle is. Gospel Topics defines it simply as “a divine manifestation of God’s power.”
When my grandpa was born, the
average global lifespan was 31 years. For most of human history, 1 out of 2
newborns wouldn’t reach 15. This held true for my grandmother’s family, four
out of eight children died. But I have eight living children. My oldest
daughter had pneumonia as a newborn. Rhianna was born premature. She was the
same gestation as an aunt of mine who only lived 20 hours.
I don’t suppose I’ve ever
seen a seagull clear a crop of locusts. But I have never in my life been one
bad harvest away from starvation, either. I think grandma would see that as a
miracle.
Nowhere are the miracles of
modern life more apparent than in the lives of women. We can read the
scriptures, study the words of modern prophets, share the gospel, research our
family history, and write boring sacrament talks all without getting out of
bed. If Mary and Martha had had a dishwashing machine, they both could have sat at the feet of Jesus
to listen. President Nelson begged his sisters to become gospel scholars, but
it is the power of God that makes that possible for us today.
In 2001, President Oaks described Family Search
as a miracle. Since that time, when the site boasted a total of 640 million
entries, it has grown a little. In 2024 you could search 20.5 billion entries. For any non-mathematicians,
that second number is more than 32 times the first. The salvation of the dead
cannot be described as anything but miraculous.
It took 40 years to build the
Salt Lake Temple. Dedicated in 2023, The Helena Montana temple was assembled on
site in around two weeks.
Despite the fact that studies
are showing a horrifying drop in religious faith globally (including 17 percent
in the last ten years in the United States-the largest ever recorded), the worldwide number of convert baptisms for The Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints reached an all-time high during the 12-month period
from June 2024 to May 2025, surpassing any previous 12-month period since the
church's founding in 1830. Just look at what the Lord has done just in our own
ward.
Last year, there were 10 percent more seminary
students than the year before. How can teenagers getting up at 5 in the morning
to attend a religious class be anything but a miracle? Having served in
seminary the past year, I can tell you every single one of those youth IS
miraculous.
And each Sunday, a worthy 11 or 12 year old
young man, passes you the emblems of the atonement and hands you the power to
allow Jesus Christ to burn your soul clean of sin. During his lifetime, Jesus
taught that the very reason he performed miracles was so that everyone could
know that he was capable of forgiving sin, of healing us from the darkness of
this world. If we limit the definition of a miracle to something that will be
acknowledged as the power of God by someone who does not have faith, we are
eliminating all miracles, because people without faith have never developed it
because of signs. They can explain away absolutely anything God does.
Miracles haven’t ceased.
Perhaps they’ve become too common. So common, we don’t even recognize them
anymore. God is enacting constant miracles in preparation for the second
coming. The scriptures teach that God cannot do miracles if we do not have
faith. I don’t think our faith effects God’s power to act. I think our faith is
required in order to recognize miracles when they happen. Only by faith can a
divine manifestation of God’s power strengthen, empower and sanctify us. Miracles
are intended to show us the power of
God. And once you start seeing them, you can’t stop.
“Whether is it easier to say to the sick of the palsy, Thy sins be forgiven
thee; or to say, Arise, and take up thy bed, and walk?
“But
that ye may know that the Son
of man hath power on earth to forgive sins,
“I
say unto thee, Arise,
and take up thy bed…”
“And in nothing doth man offend God, or
against none is his wrath kindled, save those who confess not his hand in all things...”
It’s hardest to see the small
miracles when we desperately need a big one that never seems to materialize. I
guess there are times when we call cry like Joseph Smith in Liberty Jail,
“Lord, How Long?” One of the greatest limitations we set on the power of Jesus
Christ and His Atonement is to assign times when we feel blessings should be
received, prayers should be answered, or change should be finished.
Going to church is hardest
when we’re struggling. It’s difficult to sit through sermons about all the
blessings of doing your best and wonder why it doesn’t feel like you can see
those blessings in your life despite really trying to do what God has asked of
you.
One thing I have never doubted is my ability to receive revelation. I would
always say that, “even though I don’t get specific answers very often, when I
do, I know.“ When those answers came, I would walk forward with complete faith,
being certain of the Lord’s direction.
This past year, there have
been a few times, when I received an answer that didn’t seem to make sense at
all with the circumstances of my life. I tried moving forward with faith, but discouragement
was swift and brutal. It left cracks in my testimony that allowed the adversary
to speak to my heart.
I was wrong about what the
spirit was telling me. And if I was wrong this time, was I wrong in the past?
Have I been acting as if I was being led by the spirit my whole life, while
actually I was just making everything up as I went along? How can I possibly
act in faith, now that I know that I do not know how to receive revelation.
Where do I go from here?
But guess what? It’s not
about me. By doubting my ability to receive revelation from the spirit, what I
was really doubting was God’s ability to speak to me. I asked myself whether it
was possible that If I was trying to receive revelation, and working to do so,
was it possible that He was unable to reach me? The Lord, God Almighty… what?
Had a broken phone line? The Holy Ghost called in sick? Ridiculous. He doesn’t
even have a body.
What I was really doing is setting time limits.
That revelation does not make sense today, so there must be something wrong
with it…with me. Never put limits of the power of Jesus Christ and His
atonement. Elder Holland taught, “Some blessings come soon, some come late, and
some don’t come until heaven; but for those who embrace the gospel of Jesus
Christ, they come.”
When we struggle with unanswered prayers or
unrealized blessings, we’re assuming that anything God has not already done for
us is something He is not going to do, or even not capable of doing. We’re like the Nephites saying that the “time for
the sign” of the Savior’s coming is passed, not realizing that he’s “even at
the doors.”
Healing from the horrors of life, and
repentance is just another form of healing, often takes time. He has promised
that “as often as my people repent I will forgive them.” He has not put
limitations on you. Return the favor.
Before anyone starts thinking
that Sister Hancock is preaching grace without works, let me say that it is
important to recognize that Agency will always be respected and even as we sit
down to feast at the Lord’s supper, it is completely on us to choose to pick up
the fork. But it is vital to understand that our choice to eat or not does not
in any way change the nutritional quality of the meal. Christ can speak to you. Christ can cleanse you. Christ can heal you.
Christ can save everyone you
love. In fact, that’s His work. And He has promised us that he is able to do
his own work. Without exceptions.
Then
said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead.
And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, to the intent
ye may believe;
… And
when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus,
come forth. And he that was dead came
forth.
Christ will also redeem you.
