Resurrection of Lazarus 2

THE RESURRECTION OF LAZARUS

Part 2

“Move the Stone Away”

John 11: 33:44 NIV “When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. 34 “Where have you laid him?” he asked. “Come and see, Lord,” they replied. 35 Jesus wept. 36 Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” 37 But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”

38 Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. 39 “Take away the stone,” he said. “But, Lord,” said Martha, the sister of the dead man, “by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.” 40 Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?”

41 So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. 42 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.”

43 When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 44 The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”

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Last time we talked about the necessity of “Now faith”—the faith both Mary and Martha needed for what Jesus was about to do in raising Lazarus.

Martha had faith for YESTERDAY—“If you HAD BEEN here.”

And she had faith for SOMEDAY—“I know he WILL RISE at the last day.”

But Jesus was looking for TODAY faith, faith that believes He can and will do something now, today, in the now of your need!

He said to them, “I am the resurrection.”

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Now, when Jesus arrived at the tomb, He saw that a STONE had been rolled over the mouth of it—which was essentially a cave that descended downward where the body lay.

John’s account of what went down shows that the stone over the tomb illustrated some spiritual obstacles in the two sisters that were keeping Jesus from doing a miracle.

Their problem—a dead brother—had become too big now, too severe....they believed it was too late for Jesus to do anything.

Nothing could help them now.

So I want to take this account of Lazarus and draw out some spiritual truths for our own benefit today.

The first thing we see here is that when Jesus told them to roll away the stone, He was saying:

Let me into your problem

Move away the stone so that I can get at your problem—This stone is in my way!

How often we have problems that are eating our lunch, but we don’t invite Jesus to help us!

We worry about it, fret about it, tell others about it, lose sleep over it, but we don’t open up our hearts to Jesus and invite Him into it!

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There’s a verse we often quote for evangelistic purposes that is found in Revelation 3:20.

It is Jesus talking and He says:

“Look! I have been standing at the door, and I am constantly knocking. If anyone hears me calling him and opens the door, I will come in and fellowship with him and he with me” (Rev. 3:20 LB).

But the context of this verse is not evangelistic, it is Jesus standing at the door of a troubled, lukewarm church where Jesus was no longer welcome!

They were in deep spiritual peril and the Lord is saying, “I’m on the outside looking in. I want to help you. I want to restore you. I’m knocking, but you won’t let Me in!”

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And it’s sometimes the same with us—we’re troubled, in need of a supernatural touch from God like Martha and Mary, but He’s not invited in to help!

He’s knocking right now on the door of many listening to me right now.

And He’s saying, “Move away the stone. Let me in. Let me at your problem!”

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Now, what were the spiritual obstacles keeping Martha and Mary from rolling away the stone and letting Jesus into the problem?

The text reveals a few: When Jesus said, “Move away the stone,” Martha’s first response reveals...

II. A stone of pride

“By this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days” (11:39 LB).

I see a PRIDE issue here with Martha...

She didn’t want the funeral crowd to be exposed to how bad her problem—a dead brother—had become....It was EMBARRASSING to her.

Lazarus sure didn’t care! But she did!

Martha’s PRIDE played a part in keeping that stone over the tomb.

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I believe that a spirit of PRIDE is responsible for more hindrances to spiritual breakthrough than any single thing!

We fear we have a problem that is so bad it would be revolting to others if they knew about it....

Some people have a dying marriage and don’t want anyone to know, Or a habit is killing them, Or a temptation is about to take them down, but pride keeps them from exposing it.

They fear they may lose their social standing,

Or be rejected by people whose opinion they care too much about,

Or that they’ll be looked down upon as not being spiritual enough,

Or, they may be the “self help” type that insists on working it out themselves—asking for help, they believe, is a sign of weakness.

So instead of inviting Jesus into the problem, we keep it to ourselves and struggle in silent desperation.

We’d rather have a stinking problem than a shattered image!

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But now, let me tell you the truth about pride and problems...

FIRST: Most of the people you think are thinking about you, aren’t.

And if the truth were known, they have their own struggles and problems they don’t want YOU to know about.

SECOND: Problems don’t go away, they must be SOLVED.

And if you don’t face them today, you will be forced to face them someday, and they will be worse than they are today.

Lazarus’s dead body would only have gotten worse if they had refused to roll the stone away!

So first, there was the stone of PRIDE that needed to be rolled away.

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A SECOND stone they needed to roll away was:

III. The stone of UNBELIEF

No one believed Jesus could do anything for Lazarus now that he was dead.

When he’d been sick, Mary and Martha had faith that Jesus could heal him.

But now that he’s dead, their faith hit a wall—UNBELIEF replaced faith.

UNBELIEF is one of the prime reasons we don’t experience answers to prayer, or don’t pray at all!

Unbelief is a thief! Unbelief says, “It’s too late, or God can’t, or The problems too big, even for God.”

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When you follow Jesus thru the gospels, you see that He was ALWAYS focused on the FAITH of the people He encountered.

He marveled at the centurion’s great faith that Jesus could heal his daughter, but also marveled at the UNBELIEF of the people of His own hometown.

And look what UNBELIEF robbed from them!

Mark 6:5-6 NLT “And because of their unbelief, he couldn’t do any miracles among them except to place his hands on a few sick people and heal them. 6 And he was amazed at their unbelief.”

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Jesus’s main concern with those that followed Him was their FAITH.

He consistently remarked to His own disciples,

“O ye of little faith,”

Or, “Where is your faith?”

Or, “Be it unto you according to your faith,”

Or, “Your faith has made you whole!”

As we saw last time, Martha and Mary had YESTERDAY faith—“If only you HAD BEEN here my brother would not have died.”

And they had SOMEDAY faith—“I know that HE WILL rise again at the resurrection of the last day.”

But Jesus was standing there at the tomb of Lazarus saying:

“Where is your faith right now?”

“I want to do something right now.”

“I am the answer to your problem right now!”

John records that Martha finally swallowed her pride and ordered the stone rolled away from the tomb!

Jesus spoke down into that dark and awesome tomb and said, “Lazarus, come out!” And “The man who had been dead came out” (11:43-44 NLV).

Mary and Martha’s impossible problem was solved when they swallowed their pride and dared to stretch their faith!

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I wonder what obstacles might be standing between you and Jesus getting to your problem today?

Pride?

Fear?

Unbelief?

Embarrassment?

Whatever it is, let’s pray together and roll those hindrances away to let Jesus into your problem!