Jesus and Lazarus
Notes
Transcript
My Friend Joy went on the Dolly Parton diet… it made Joe lean… joe lean… joe lean….
My Friend Joy went on the Dolly Parton diet… it made Joe lean… joe lean… joe lean….
Whats small, red, and whispers, a hoarse raddish…
ME
ME
There are different times in our lives when our faith no longer rests in Jesus… maybe you have prayed for years and years for someone to come to know Jesus, perhaps its your child, or your husband, and after years you gave up…
OR the other side of that is when we get into a situation and we try to figure it out on our own… we no longer trust Jesus
WE
WE
EXPOSITION
EXPOSITION
This becomes the last of what is known as the The Book of Signs section of John this is the 7th miracle we see Jesus performing in the book of John.
1.Turning Water into Wine 2:1-11
2.Healing the Noblemans son 4:46-54
3. Healing the paralysed man 5:1-15
4.Feeding the 5000 6:1-14
5. Walking on water 6:15-21
6.The healing of the blind man 9:1-41
And today we are going to pick it up in Jn 11:38-39
38 Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it.
And we can see again Jesus entering into the pain of his friends, he sees their pain, he knows their heart and he is entering into the human side of the equation and allowing them to see his humanness.And there is no doubt he is sensing the pain and entering into it with them this despair from having lost their brother and friend
39 Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days.”
And we are being sure here yet again there should never be any doubt. No one should ever say that this was just a moment when Lazarus was just a little sick and Jesus healed him (though I don’t know this really shows any less of Jesus power, but it does shoe us how amazing it is when we think about raising from the dead how it is a completely different level of miraculous.) Lazarus was dead, and his sister was sure opening the tomb would be an awful idea because she knew by this time, he would have begun to decompose, Jesus had waited after all.)
And more than anything this is a way to prove what we are seeing as resurrection, John is making sure of it, Jesus was making sure that we would see it that way, remember, we talked about he didn’t go to heal Lazarus because he loved them and he wanted them to see his glory.
And at the same time remember where we had just come with Martha just a few verses ago Jesus had said to her Jn 11:25-26
25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live,
26 and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”
And she had heard him say this, and we talked about how this interaction had led her to faith in Jesus as the Messiah and she responds
27 She said to him, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.”
And so she had faith in him, but here when it matters when things actually count she had gotten to a place where she was doubting him..
And some of you have made the same profession of faith, some of you have come to this realization just like Martha, and you have believed that Jesus is the Christ with the ability to save your soul.
And the interesting part of all of this is it was a believer who tried to stop the work of Jesus. She was again, not at a place of resting faith but questioning him… look at what she said…
John 11:39 (ESV)
…Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days.”
And she is unsure of what Jesus is about to do, even though she believes she is skeptical of what Jesus has planned for them. In a way she was satisfied with the situation, she had gotten to a place where she had come to accept Jesus had failed her by not showing up in time, and she didn’t want him to mess with the situation.
Now, I know none of us are like that, but there are some people who find themselves in terrible situations, and have come to accept life as it is instead of going to God and asking him to do anything, we just accept it, of course we aren’t happy, but we aren’t going to pray it would ever become anything different.
This comes all the time when we think about our health we may find ourselves with a sickness that we have dealt with for years and years, and we have accepted that is just the way it was going to be, maybe we have prayed about it for years but it never changed so we just decided we would accept it so we don’t go to the Lord anymore.
We have become comfortable with Jesus as the comforter in those situations but don’t necessarily want him to do anything else. And it reminds me of
58 And he did not do many mighty works there, because of their unbelief.
And Paul’s urging us to pray without ceasing.
and as we continue to follow the story
40 Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?”
And it’s easy to think that this is a rebuke, but I almost see it as if Jesus is looking at her and telling her to Hold on… don’t let her faith give up yet… remember what I told you, Just watch and continue believing and you will see my power and you will see God’s glory and everything you have waited for is about to come to fruition. Just Don’t give up. Its almost as if Jesus is telling her to rest, or to trust in him…
And this is it… This is the moment we need in our lives this is the moment when having people around us that love us and have the permission to speak into our lives are great. And understand how important it is to have people that have permission to speak into your lives. It is important in this moment to stop and hit this point, we will not listen to people we do not love and trust and know have our best interest in mind, if we don’t trust people we will not listen to their advice. Even if its good advise the disconnect in relationship is what keeps us from listening.
The other side of that is we have also realize we cannot give advice to people unless thy ask for it and they trust us. This is often some of the moments you hear about most, people cannot believe they gave good advise to people and they did not listen. But some of the reason is because they didn’t ask for the advice and didn’t want it and because they weren’t asking for the advice or trust you as a confidant they don’t want to hear you and all it does is cause a source of contention. I’m sure some of you have found yourself on one side of that situation or the other at different points in your life.
But what we see here is in our moments of struggle how important it is to have someone we love and trust who can look at us in our doubts and say, look, just hold on, we know God will never leave or forsake us, and I know it looks bleak and you may not understand right now but what you have to do is just hold on. Just keep going. Keep resting in Jesus.
So what does a resting faith look like?
It is resting in God’s word and knowing that we have an open access to God through prayer..
12 to whom he has said, “This is rest; give rest to the weary; and this is repose”; yet they would not hear.
15 For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.” But you were unwilling,
We rest in service and ministry.
It is easy to think that when we rest in God it means inactivity, as in our rest on the Sabbath, but resting in faith is committing our lives to what Jesus has for us and the life he has called us to without pushing back against it.
29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
So it is clear that resting in him is also work by taking up HIS yoke… so a resting faith is continuing in the work he has given us and the life he has called us to… resting in HIS PURPOSE
We rest in the confidence of the future…
27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.
3 You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.
And so we see clearly he gives us peace about our future so we must rest in the knowledge he will lead us down the right path and he has great plans for us.
A resting faith does not question or complain
It truly trusts and rests in God,
and trusts his word and does what it says to do.
And next we see Jesus giving us an example of our way to pray, what many people call a prayer of purpose.
41 So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me.
42 I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you sent me.”
And here it is clear this intimacy Jesus has with God, as he calls him, Father, and there was this closeness between the two, something we should learn from Jesus and our way we should relate with He and God, where when we call on him there is an intimacy in our relationship. And we too should call upon God as our Father when we call upon him, this is what Jesus teaches us in the Lord’s prayer as well.
And then we see Jesus in this prayer saying
John 11:41 (ESV)
“…I thank you that you have heard me.
He is offering thanksgiving to the father and praising him for listening to him, the interesting thing, is we aren’t exactly sure what it was the Father heard him pray, because it isn’t explicitly said here, but we can infer it has to do with his power to conquer death, the desire for those around to believe in him…
And then Jesus shows his confidence in the Father
John 11:42 (ESV)
42 I knew that you always hear me…
And there is this confidence, and do we go to God with this kind of confidence… or do we just go to God in prayer as a manner of begging and hoping that he would like to eventually help us…
43 When he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.”
44 The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”
And I think from these two verses there are three significant points
The power over death is from Jesus alone. Jesus alone has the power to raise the dead, it will be through him alone that happens. And he said only three words… but it says he cried out with a loud voice.. but why?
He wanted to show how amazing and large what he was doing in this moment was… a whisper in a raising from the dead moment isn’t nearly as fitting.
IT stressed the power within Jesus being the power of God…
Jesus can call on the power of God in that moment and cal on the greatest power imaginable. And the second significant point
The call of Jesus was personal,
And I think one of the greatest points you always hear about this verse is what would have happened had Jesus NOT said Lazarus name, ever single dead person that was in that area would have walked away from the tomb.
But it shows how personal it is, Jesus calls and knows every believer by name. and there is a day coming when Jesus when he calls us by name… I head a pastor one time… well done… say it again… say it again… I enjoyed it… I won’t replay it for you today… and it brings us to the third significant point.
The results of Jesus’ call were twofold
Lazarus, the one who was dead came out… there was no delay… the grave could no longer hold him, when Jesus called his only reaction was to come out of the grave to hear Jesus words.
Lazarus, after being brought to life, received personal attention from Jesus. He tells those around him, wanting them to participate in this miracle they are seeing, Unbind him and let him go…. Lazarus has walked out looking like a mummy… and Jesus is saying let him out so he can see and go about his life and not be cuaght up in this death anymore… don’t let him stay like he was… he didn’t just stop in the miracle of Lazarus walking out… he continued to minister and lead…
And look at the response to all of this
45 Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what he did, believed in him,
46 but some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done.
The reaction was divided some believed, and some went to tell on him… they immediately had unbelief in their hearts and went to tell the leaders of Jesus wrong doings… Its often hard to imagine how they could see this and think Jesus wasn’t real or that what he had done was wrong… but because of their unbelief they weren’t able to see God’s glory
YOU
YOU
WE
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