John 11- The Raising of Lazarus

Introduction:

Death…

something we all will experience at some point

if not through the loss of someone we know or love

but one day- through the loss of our own life

no matter who you are- you cannot escape death

…

Mary and Martha were confronted

7th miracle; closes book of signs

If you remember, going all the way back to our first week of John.

The book of John is most often divided into two books.

The book of Signs and the Book of Glory.

The Book of Signs covers chapters 1-11 and in it we see 7 signs, or miracles- that distinctly point to Jesus as the Messiah- the Son of God. John tells us He was the Word…that He was PRESENT at creation..and that God came and made his dwelling among us in the person of Jesus Christ and then he goes on for the next 11 chapters to prove it…

Today- we get to see the 7th sign-the final miracle Jesus performs pointing to Him as the Messiah.

and it’s no surprise that out of all the miracles, John gives the most detail specifically to this one…

As believers, we live in the promise of resurrection. We are no longer in chains to death and sin – those grave clothes can be put away. God empowers us to put away those grave cloths – those old sins. What remnants of sin’s grave clothes do you need to allow the Lord to remove so that you can experience the freedom of life you were designed to experience with Him?

climax of the book

2 DIVISIONS:

1.

2.

PROMISE OF RESURRECTION.

TRANSITION SENTENCE W/ BLOCKS OF THOUGHT

As we

vs 1 begins and right away we learn that a man named Lazarus is sick.

So his sisters, Mary and Martha send word to Jesus.

Now, in vs 2- our author John is going to insert himself into the narrative quickly and tell us that this Mary was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair.

Now, if you went- wait what? you aren’t crazy…and you didn’t miss it…it hasn’t happened yet.…but John is less concerned with the timing and more concerned with making sure you know WHO he is talking about. Since Mary is clearly a popular name choice in Jesus’ time- like Katie, Amanda, or Megan is today- He is helping us out and connecting the two stories. So, next week, when you open up and start reading John 12- you are going to be like- oh ok- I know who this is!

Ok..moving on..

So Mary and Martha send a messenger to tell Jesus that Lazarus, his friend is sick- now you don’t go out of your way to send a messenger over an illness to JESUS of all people unless you know this isn’t going well.

This sickness Lazarus was experiencing is the king that ends in death.

Think of this as someone coming and telling you that a close friend or loved one has moved into hospice care…death is coming…

vs 4- Jesus responds…”This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.” 5 Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. 6 So when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days

Now wait a minute. He heard his friend was sick…so he stayed where he was two more days…

Now I want us to place ourselves in the shoes of Mary and Martha for a second…you sent word to the one person who you believed could save your brother…..and…he no shows.

Have you ever felt like God no showed you?

like you prayed…you invited others to pray…you went to the anointing ceremony…you believed that God would show up and heal…and do the miracle…and yet..the miracle never came…the circumstance got worse..the sickness continue…and death reared it’s ugly head and arrived…and you are left asking the question…God where were you? maybe you are in the middle of a circumstance right now- and you are sitting here today asking yourself..God- where are you?

1 Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2 (This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair.) 3 So the sisters sent word to Jesus, “Lord, the one you love is sick.”

4 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.” 5 Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. 6 So when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days, 7 and then he said to his disciples, “Let us go back to Judea.”

8 “But Rabbi,” they said, “a short while ago the Jews there tried to stone you, and yet you are going back?”

9 Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Anyone who walks in the daytime will not stumble, for they see by this world’s light. 10 It is when a person walks at night that they stumble, for they have no light.”

11 After he had said this, he went on to tell them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up.”

12 His disciples replied, “Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better.” 13 Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep.

14 So then he told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead, 15 and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.”

16 Then Thomas (also known as Didymus[a]) said to the rest of the disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

Jesus Comforts the Sisters of Lazarus

17 On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. 18 Now Bethany was less than two miles[b] from Jerusalem, 19 and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother. 20 When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home.

21 “Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22 But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.”

23 Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”

24 Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”

25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; 26 and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

27 “Yes, Lord,” she replied, “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.”

28 After she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary aside. “The Teacher is here,” she said, “and is asking for you.” 29 When Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to him. 30 Now Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. 31 When the Jews who had been with Mary in the house, comforting her, noticed how quickly she got up and went out, they followed her, supposing she was going to the tomb to mourn there.

32 When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

33 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?”

Jesus Raises Lazarus From the Dead

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.”

The Plot to Kill Jesus

45 Therefore many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him. 46 But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. 47 Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin.

“What are we accomplishing?” they asked. “Here is this man performing many signs. 48 If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our temple and our nation.”

49 Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up, “You know nothing at all! 50 You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.”

51 He did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation, 52 and not only for that nation but also for the scattered children of God, to bring them together and make them one. 53 So from that day on they plotted to take his life.

54 Therefore Jesus no longer moved about publicly among the people of Judea. Instead he withdrew to a region near the wilderness, to a village called Ephraim, where he stayed with his disciples.

55 When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, many went up from the country to Jerusalem for their ceremonial cleansing before the Passover. 56 They kept looking for Jesus, and as they stood in the temple courts they asked one another, “What do you think? Isn’t he coming to the festival at all?” 57 But the chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that anyone who found out where Jesus was should report it so that they might arrest him.Jesus wept.

He was about to take away the pain Mary was feeling.

He was about to show his resurrection power.

He was about to stare death in the face and declare victory.

and yet…

He wept.

Why?

Was this just a moment of empathy- where he wept alongside Mary- deeply moved by her grief.

Possibly..he loved her deeply and seeing her in so much anguish would certainly move our God to compassion for his people.

But- he also wept, because he was staring into the deepest consequence of sin and it broke his heart.

The creator, looked at his creation and knew we were not created to die.

Death while expected, is never natural.

We were created for abdundant life everlasting- in perfect relationship and harmony with God.

but when sin entered the world- so did death- and death disrupted God’s design.

and there is not one person sitting in this room who has not felt the sting of death in their lives.

So- even though Jesus was going to raise Lazarus from the dead- he still wept.

He wept for you as you weep over the unnatural loss of a loved one.

He wept because this was never how it was meant to be.

and then…by the power of his words………THE word showed that he had power over death.

and his 7th and final sign in the book of John points to his defeating death on the cross- an indisputable display of his resurrection power.

and so- with this his divine declaration- Jesus proves that death does not have the final say in the believer’s life. Jesus’s resurrection won back what sin stole from humanity. Jesus’s resurrection ensures that those who believe in Him will be raised again to life eternal. The assurance of our resurrection allows believers to live confidently today. We are freed from sin’s penalty and power. Believers can flourish, living a new life in freedom from death and joyful obedience to the Lord. When I don’t believe in Jesus’s resurrection and our future resurrection-I see this life as all there is. My focus by is on the here and now, spending time on things with no eternal significance. And when I focus on things that don’t matter- I miss God’s purpose for my life of: knowing, glorifying, and enjoying HIM forever.

When I believe in the resurrection, I stand on the solid foundation of Christ and His finished work, given confident assurance that I will live with God forever. Knowing, believing, and trusting this glorious truth.

I can live with abundant joy and flourishing obedience to the Creator of new life.

For the believer, death does not represent a sad finish line but rather the beginning of a glorious eternity.

Jesus’ power over resurrection should drastically altar the way you live here ad now.

Lazarus’s return to life is a picture of the internal transformation salvation brings. Like Lazarus, we were dead in our sin – totally, completely without hope of life.

Like Lazarus, we were raised from death to life by Jesus.

Only Jesus has the power to bring the dead to life.

When a sin seems so huge in our lives, Jesus’ power to bring life reminds us that is working in us to pull us away from sin. As believers, we live in the promise of resurrection. We are no longer in chains to death and sin – those grave clothes can be put away. God empowers us to put away those grave cloths – those old sins. What remnants of sin’s grave clothes do you need to allow the Lord to remove so that you can experience the freedom of life you were designed to experience with Him? – Where is God sending you to shine the light of His resurrection power? How can you do that this very week?Megan Hutchinson:

When we see Lazarus rise it brings the Hope of future pulled into the present.

Martha was looking to the future resurrection and Jesus brings that into the present.

Martha asks the question- where were you? If you had only been here….

If your life feels hollow and thin it’s because they look back on past and wish

When you are stuck in the past or the future, you hollow out the now.

He is the resurrection NOW…

The offer on the table is to believe that Jesus is the resurrection and the life. And to believe that begins to untangle the past and bring the hope of the future to NOW.

The testimony of our lives is that although we haven’t seen Jesus- everything has changed because of him

When you pull future hope into the present you can live now and it will change everything…

Because he is not in the tomb we can put the hope on our now. It shapes the way we live. How we see circumstances…how we spend our money…how we function in marriage or our job..how hard we work

Take our religious platitudes like Martha- she just said what she knew she should say, not what she actually felt deep down

Sometimes we know in our heads that Jesus has it all under control…but then Jesus doesnt do what we want in the way that we want we go….WAIT A SECOND…God where were you

How do we reconcile the knowledge in our heads and the emotions in our hearts

Martha needed to redirect her theology to HIM….she was missing Him…so he gives her an I AM statement

I am the resurrection and the life