I AM...The Resurrection and the Life
Notes
Transcript
Good morning Church! It is so good to be with you in the house of God today. I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Many of you are probably still full from all of that good food, but I hope you do have some room left, for I am praying that God will feed us from His Word today!!
Doxology:
This is my Bible. It is God’s Holy Word. It is a lamp unto my feet, a light unto my path, and I wide its words within my heart, that I might not sin against God. Amen.
Biblical Reference: John 11:25
25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live.
Introduction
Introduction
We have been walking through the “I AM” statements of Christ. We started the series by simply talking about the phrase “I AM” in and of itself. We discussed the fullness of what Jesus is saying when He makes that comment.
I want us to remember those points this morning as we get into this next statement. We said that the statement I AM pointed to three main things:
His Signature (His name)
His Sovereignty
His Salvation
Today, we are going to look at this next “I AM” statement of Christ: “I AM…The Resurrection and the Life.”
Context
Context
As you come through Chapter 10 of John, Jesus is teaching on how He is the Door of the sheep, as well as the Shepherd of the sheep. Like many other times Jesus taught the people, The Jews did not like what Jesus had to say and tried to capture Him. He removes Himself from that situation and is shortly visited by some people that bear some troubling news.
Content
Content
The Problem
The Problem
Lazarus is Sick
1 Now a certain man was sick, Lazarus of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha.
2 It was that Mary who anointed the Lord with fragrant oil and wiped His feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick.
3 Therefore the sisters sent to Him, saying, “Lord, behold, he whom You love is sick.”
Jesus was good friends with these people. Whenever Jesus traveled through this part of the country, He always stayed with them. We see several examples of His staying with them throughout the Scriptures. Unfortunately, Lazarus has now become very sick, sick enough that they send someone to get Jesus.
Even though Jesus is the Son of God and knows everything before it even happens, we must also remember that Jesus is the Son of Man. He was 100% God, but He was also 100% man. Jesus loved these people. He knew more than anyone exactly what was to take place at the point of death. He knew exactly what that process looked like, but He also, being a man, did not enjoy seeing His loved ones suffer any more than the next person. Jesus had feelings too. We see later on in the text:
35 Jesus wept.
Jesus was NOT wanted there
7 Then after this He said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.”
8 The disciples said to Him, “Rabbi, lately the Jews sought to stone You, and are You going there again?”
At the end of Chapter 10, we see Jesus being threatened by the mob. This has happened a couple of times now, and in order for Jesus to go help Lazarus, He must go straight back through the place that He was hated the most. He would have to put Himself in danger so that He might help “he whom He loved” (v. 3).
The Purpose
The Purpose
That the Son of God may be Glorified
4 When Jesus heard that, He said, “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”
Jesus makes it clear that Lazarus is not sick for the purpose of death. In other words, this sickness came upon Lazarus, not because it was his time to die but because Jesus needed to be seen for who He was. Lazarus’ life was not over, and Jesus’ life giving power needed to be seen.
Jesus must be glorified. That is the sole purpose of every person in this room, to glorify The Son of God. Sometimes, this is done through amazing, miraculous feats of faith. Other times, this is done through sickness and even death. But if our sickness and death brings glory to God, is it not justified. Sure it is.
Let me ask you a question. Do you know exactly what your future holds? I would say, “No, we do not.” We would like to hope that we would not suffer some major spiritual setback of sin in our future, but we cannot guarantee this, for we do not know exactly what circumstances of life we are going to be hit with or how far we might fall because of them.
If God, knowing and seeing our spiritual decline, allows sickness and death to come upon us, so that He might be given more glory, does that mean He is evil? Of course not. Especially not to the child of God who understands their purpose. Our purpose is to glorify Him. If my death brings more glory to God than my life, then let death come so that He might be glorified. The last thing I want to do as a Christian, who has been saved by the grace of God, is to bring shame to His name.
After Lazarus was resurrected, we do not see him complaining to God because of His death, but rather enjoying fellowship with Him in his new life.
That Those Who Witness The Resurrection Might Believe
14 Then Jesus said to them plainly, “Lazarus is dead.
15 And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, that you may believe. Nevertheless let us go to him.”
25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live.
26 And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?”
40 Jesus said to her, “Did I not say to you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God?”
41 Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead man was lying. And Jesus lifted up His eyes and said, “Father, I thank You that You have heard Me.
42 And I know that You always hear Me, but because of the people who are standing by I said this, that they may believe that You sent Me.”
A man once quoted, “An individual can never truly live, until they are first unafraid to die.”
Jesus needed them to witness this miracle of the resurrection, so that they might truly be able to live for Him. After witnessing Jesus bring Lazarus back from the dead, what fear is there left in all that man could do unto them. The greatest threat, or punishment that any man could make is death. If through Jesus, that is alleviated, then there really is no place left for fear.
Also, this entire chain of events serves as a spiritual illustration of salvation. Jesus wants them to see this. Being able to take the teachings of Christ, which were given largely in parables, and then apply them to real life events made them come to life....literally.
God loves His creation. Unfortunately, His creation chose to be separated from Him because of sin. The punishment of this separation, is that we cannot partake of his eternal nature and live forever. We must die as a penalty of our sin. Instead of allowing that sentencing to stand, God sent His Son Jesus into the world to conquer that which conquered us. He lived a perfect life, free from sin, because we could not. He then died our death on Calvary, so that we didn’t have to. He then rose again the third from the grave, giving justification to all those who would believe in Him.
In order to save us, He had to put Himself in danger and even die for us. Jesus loves Lazarus, but in order to save him, He has to go into dangerous territory. Do you see how all of this points to the salvation of God?
He did all of this so that they would believe and He would be glorified.
The Promise
The Promise
Now we have seen the problem and the purpose. Let’s now look at the Promise!
25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live.
Believing in Jesus brings eternal life.
Martha hears that Jesus is on His way, so she runs out to meet Him (v. 20). The first thing she says when she gets to Him, is:
21 Now Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.
22 But even now I know that whatever You ask of God, God will give You.”
Martha says, “Lord, I know if you would have been here, You could have saved him. But even though You did not make it, I still believe that You are the Son of God!”
What amazing faith. Even though she did not get the outcome that she wanted, she still believed that Jesus was the Son of God! May we all learn from her faith and learn to live it out in our own lives.
She was not saying that she believed Jesus could raise Him from the dead. We know this because of the next two verses.
23 Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”
24 Martha said to Him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”
She knew that Lazarus was going to heaven, but she had not even considered the fact that Jesus could raise him again to life in the flesh. Knowing this, Jesus then says to her:
25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live.
26 And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?”
Jesus needs her to believe in His eternal nature. He needs her to believe that He is the “I AM”.
Jesus is further clarifying the illustration of salvation here. “He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live.”
That seems as if it is a contradiction, but we know that God does not do that. He is saying that before one can live spiritually, they must first die physically. We must put off the flesh so that we can put on the Spirit of God. We must crucify the flesh, and the sinful desires of it, so that we might truly live for God.
24 And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
5 For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection,
6 knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.
7 For he who has died has been freed from sin.
8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him,
9 knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him.
10 For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.
11 Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts.
13 And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.
Jesus promises to give eternal life to all of those who will believe. What a promise!
Believing in Jesus is not without complication.
Now let me say this, though we want to believe this promise, it is easier said than done. Martha says in v. 27 that she believes He is the prophesied Messiah, but look at how she responded when Jesus told her to remove the stone from the tomb.
39 Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of him who was dead, said to Him, “Lord, by this time there is a stench, for he has been dead four days.”
When Jesus gets ready to do His greatest work in your life, saving you, there will be excuses that pop up and try to get in the way. She tells Jesus, “He has already been dead four days. What is the point. His body is already stinking by now. There is nothing to be done.”
When God brings conviction upon you and tells you that you need to be saved, you will have certain thoughts come into your mind: “He can’t save me. I have too much sin in my life. God may be able to do a lot of things, but I am too far gone.”
That is exactly what this represents. Death is a direct response to the sin in our lives. This pictures a man in whom death has already swallowed up. His body was already given over to decay, but Jesus says, “Remove the stone.”
Don’t you be like Martha. You listen to the voice of God. Jesus responds with this:
John 11:43–44 (NKJV)
43 Now when He had said these things, He cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come forth!”
44 And he who had died came out....
Jesus calls him by name! If you have never given your life to God, I want you to listen closely this morning, because there is a very good chance that Jesus is calling your name! Simply replace Lazarus’ name with your own. Is He calling you?
Notice also that Jesus does not go to Lazarus, Lazarus has to come out to Jesus.
“I’m calling you out of that grave you now dwell in. I’m calling you out of darkness into the light. But you have to choose. You can choose to stay in that grave and dwell in the darkness that has overcome your life, or you can choose to get out of there and step into the light. Lazarus, come forth!
Believing In Christ Brings About A Complete Transformation
44 And he who had died came out bound hand and foot with graveclothes, and his face was wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Loose him, and let him go.”
Lazarus heard the voice of the Lord calling his name and he came out! He came out of the grave and approached Jesus. But notice that when he came, he was still wearing the clothes that marked him for death. Jesus said, “No, no, no. This will not do. You take those graveclothes off of him. He is not marked by death anymore, but rather has stepped into life. Loose him, and let him go.”
If you decide to come forth today and give your life to Jesus, you are going to be wearing your graveclothes, just as Lazarus was. You are going to approach the throne of grace bearing the marks of sin upon you. You are going to be wearing those things that marked you for death. Maybe it is the mark of sexual sin. Maybe it is the mark of pride and selfishness. Maybe it is the mark of anger and malice. Whatever it is, you will have to approach Jesus wearing those graveclothes, those marks of sin that have stained your life. You will have to acknowledge that sin before a Holy righteous God and admit that because of those sins, you are not worthy of His mercy and grace.
But praise be to God, if you are willing to step out of that grave you are now in, admit your sin before God, and then trust in His promise of eternal life, He will save your soul. He will remove those sin-stained rags from you. He will clean you up. He will transform you into something completely different.
The caterpillar reaches a moment in its life when it goes into the cocoon. It went in cursed to crawl on its belly, but when the transformation is complete, it comes out with wings so that it might sore the heavens! Would you let Christ do that for you today?
9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Commitment
Commitment
In closing, I want to show you just a couple more things.
First, I want to clarify that every single person needs Christ.
Throughout the Gospels, we are only told of three people that Jesus raised from the dead.
Jairus’s daughter: Only been dead for a few hours (Mark 5)
A widow’s son: had been dead for maybe a day (Luke 7)
Lazarus: Had been in the grave four days (John 11)
Out of those three, which one was more dead than the others? Doesn’t matter right? They were all dead. Whether you have been dead for an hour, a day, or a week....dead is dead.
It does not matter if you are a small child, a young adult, or a senior. Dead is dead. The good news is, Jesus has shown us that He can save any and all, regardless of the age or circumstance!!!
Secondly, if we look back to John 10:27-28, we read this:
27 My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.
28 And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand.
Jesus made this claim, but then He backed it up. When He arrived at the tomb of Lazarus, all He had to do was speak His name. Lazarus heard His voice and came forth.
Maybe this morning, you hear the voice of God calling out your name. Maybe you are being called out of death into life. If so, know that Jesus put Himself in harms way so that He could call out your name. Know that He loves you so much that He gave everything so that He could come to mouth of the tomb where your body lays and speak your name.
If He is calling you, please get up. Please come forth. Would you join the family God today? I hope you do!