087 - The Resurrection and the Life
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
For the last few days I have given a lot of thought about death.
A little over a year ago my Dad had died from battling dementia, a horrible disease that seems to be claiming the lives of more and more Americas every day.
Then, as many of you know, my mom passes away this past week.
And I know that I am not alone and I am not wanting to draw attention to my self. Many of you here in this room this morning have lost a loved one recently. And when we loose a loved one it causes us to think a little more about death.
As we read our Bibles this morning we discover the death of a loved one. The unexpected death on a man, Lazarus, who had two sister who were very close to him. And a dear friend of our Lord and Savior Jesus.
Now if you have ever studied John’s Gospel you know that it is unlike any of the other three Gospel accounts, Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
Matthew, Mark, and Luke contain parables taught by Jesus.
Short simple stories that uses everyday images or situations to convey a spiritual or moral lesson, many times with a surprising twist.
Parables are fictional stories drawn from everyday life that illustrate a deeper spiritual truth.
But John never uses a single parable in his gospel.
John has one purpose and that purpose is that after reading his gospel account of Jesus and seeing the signs that Jesus did and hearing the undeniable truths of His words, you would believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.
I tell you this because I want you to know that the story we are reading this morning is not a parable, it is not a fictional story, but it is an event that literally happened just as the Bible explains.
Lazarus died, was buried in a cave, lay there for four days, and Jesus brought him back to life, literally.
Jesus allowed Lazarus to die and raised him from the dead that we might learn something about resurrection life, because when you get saved, you experience resurrection life even before your body is resurrected.
Jesus said in John 5:24
“Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.
This is why Jesus could say, “I am the resurrection and the life, he that believeth in Me shall never die.”
Listen, when you receive the Lord Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you step out of death and into life.
The story of Lazarus is a true story about Jesus raising a dead and decaying body back to life.
But it occurred to teach us about resurrection life.
This morning I want us to come to an understanding of what Jesus means when He says, “I am the resurrection and the life.”
What is this life and how can it change our lives today?
The Life That Jesus Gives is a Resurrected Life
The Life That Jesus Gives is a Resurrected Life
The life that Jesus gives is a resurrected life.
But what does this mean?
Let’s read once again John 11:23-26
Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to Him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?”
Jesus said to her, to Martha who was weeping over the death of her beloved brother,
“Your brother will rise again.”
These are words of encouragement that we use many times when we are trying to comfort someone who has just lost a loved one. Martha was hearing Jesus say that Lazarus was a believer and he is now in the presence of the Lord in heaven and one day his body will be resurrected and reunited with his spirit. This is what she is saying to Jesus when she says,
“I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”
Martha believed in the Lord Jesus, and she knew her brother believed also and by their faith they would live again with the Lord. But what she did not understand was that Jesus was about to show the people the true meaning of resurrected life.
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?” (a question He is asking each one of us here this morning).
Do you believe this?
Do you believe that Jesus has the power to bring to life the dead?
Do you believe that if Jesus has given you life that you will never see death?
Jesus is about to perform a miracle.
And this miracle has a deeper meaning than just raising Lazarus from the dead.
Look at John 11:43-44
Now when He had said these things, He cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come forth!” And he who had died came out bound hand and foot with grave clothes, and his face was wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Loose him, and let him go.”
Lazarus was literally dead, he had been dead for several days now.
Jesus is not giving us a parable here, nor is He using any figurative language.
Jesus is taking a real life event and He is going to use it for an illustration.
It has been said once before that there was only one thing wrong with old Lazarus, and because of that one thing there was nothing right about him.
What was wrong with Lazarus was he was dead. And there was not one thing he could do that could correct his problem.
Do you know that the Bible says that if you do not have Jesus in your life you are dead?
Death, in the biblical context, is understood as separation from God and is brought about by sin.
In Genesis 2:17 God command Adam that he was not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil for in the day that you do eat of it you shall surely die.
And we all know that Adam disobeyed God and sin enter and Adam died that day. He no longer enjoyed the fellowship with God that he once had.
And because of Adam’s sin we have all been born in sin, separated from God, Dead in our trespasses and sins.
Just the other day I looked at my mother’s body lying in a casket. Dead. There was no physical life in her. She was the very definition of what the world teaches us about death.
But the Bible wants us to know that this is not death. Death, according to the scriptures is the separation of the spirit from God.
1 Timothy 5:6 says:
But she who lives in pleasure is dead while she lives.
But Jesus says that He has come that you may have life.
Without Jesus in your life you are dead.
And only through a miracle can you be raised to life.
And just as we see right here in our story this morning, that miracle can only come through Jesus Christ, who is the resurrection and the life.
Jesus is not just showing us here that He has the power to raise the physically dead, but that He is the resurrection and the life.
And when you put your trust in Him, though you are dead, you will be resurrected to life.
And whosoever believeth in Him shall never die.
Jesus is teaching here a lesson about how to become a Christian, how to pass from death unto life. And it takes a miracle. And that miracle can only come from Jesus.
The Life That Jesus Gives is a Released Life
The Life That Jesus Gives is a Released Life
But let me tell you something else, not only is the life that Jesus gives a resurrected life, but the life that Jesus gives is a released life.
Look again at John 11:43-44
Now when He had said these things, He cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come forth!” And he who had died came out bound hand and foot with grave clothes, and his face was wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Loose him, and let him go.”
Jesus raised Lazarus but He wanted to do much more, He also wanted to loose him.
Let’s take a moment and let our imagination paint the scene for us.
Jesus looks at the stone covering the cave in which Lazarus has been lying D-E-A-D for four days and He says, “Remove the stone.”
Now imagine Mary and Martha’s face as they process what Jesus is saying and their eyes become as big as silver dollars and they cry out, “Don’t do it, Jesus he is already beginning to decompose and stinks, don’t roll away the stone.”
But Jesus said, ”Roll away the stone.”
Now, I would image the only sound that anyone there heard was the creaking of the stone rolling across the dry dirt during the hot summer afternoon being rolled away from the mouth of the cave.
Every eye of every single person there was glued upon that dark hole at the opening of the tomb.
And in the quietness of the moment, Jesus yells out, “Lazarus, come forth.”
And every eye looking into that dark hole began to see a white mummy coming forward.
You see, when they buried Lazarus they wrapped him in clothe all over. And they tied his legs and wrapped his arms down to his side.
It was like he was in a straightjacket.
And Lazarus came forth, and he had life but he did not have freedom.
And Jesus told the believers there just as He has told the church to do today, “Loose him and set him free.”
Lazarus had received life but he was still bound by the chains of the grave clothes.
And so many Christians are just like that today. The have come to calvary and received pardon for their sins but have not found their way to Pentecost and received freedom, power over sin.
Listen church, when we bring someone to Jesus and they respond by accepting Jesus as their Lord and Savior, they receive life but they are still chained to old life they have been living.
And Jesus commands that we loose them.
This is what Jesus meant when He commanded the disciples to go and make disciples.
Take the ones whom He has given a resurrected life to and disciple them. Teaching them the ways of Jesus. Removing the grave clothes from them so they may be free to experience here on this earth the life that Jesus desires them to have.
These clothes that are still wrapped around them are relics tainted with corruption and they need to be removed so the prisoner can be released and set free.
Many of us here today still have parts of our grave clothes still sticky and sticking to our arms and legs and around our waist.
It doesn’t mean that we have not received that resurrected life.
But it does mean that we are not receiving the freedom that Jesus so desires that we have.
Jesus wants to give you a released life. He wants to break the power of sin and set you free today.
Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
The Life That Jesus Gives is a Refreshed Life
The Life That Jesus Gives is a Refreshed Life
But wait, we are not done yet, Jesus gives a resurrected life and He gives a released life, but there is more,
The life that Jesus gives is a refreshed life.
Look with me at John 12:2
There they made Him a supper; and Martha served, but Lazarus was one of those who sat at the table with Him.
Lazarus has just come out of the grave. He was dead and now alive. He was clothed in unrighteousness but now made free from all the sins that held him captive. He was bound and Jesus gave him freedom.
And notice now, Lazarus is sitting at the table feasting with Jesus.
You know the best time that I had this past week as I laid my mother to rest was the time afterward when Me and Kim and my brother and his wife and all the family got together and had a meal.
We ate, we talked, and we shared good memories.
The most intimate times of fellowship is when we sit down at the table a eat with one another and to feast with someone.
Studying the gospel accounts of Jesus we find that some of the sweetest times that Jesus ever had with His disciples were at the table where Jesus said, “come and dine.”
Have you ever read the passage in Revelation 3:20
Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me.
When Jesus made that journey from Bethabara, which is beyond the Jordan River and at least a days journey from where Bethany, He traveled right through the middle of the land where all His enemies where. Where all those who were seeking to kill him had placed scouts looking for Him so that if any saw Him they would immediately come and tell them and they would come and take Him to destroy HIm.
But He made the long hot dry hike through enemy territory, not only to bring resurrected life to Lazarus, not only to release him and give him freedom.
Do you know the real reason Jesus made that long hot and dry hike through enemy territory?
I will tell you why, Jesus desired to have a deep intimate fellowship with Lazarus.
Conclusion
Conclusion
Listen to me friends,
Without Jesus in your life you are dead. You are alienated from God and there is nothing you can do to bring life back into your soul.
Without Jesus in your life, you are bound up in grave clothes, tied up as if you were bound in a straightjacket, completely unable to free yourself.
Without Jesus in your life, you are empty, there is no time of refreshing. No happiness.
Oh you may say I live my own life, I do as I please, I live life to the fullest.
But deep down you know this is not true.
I know it is not true because I too have been there. Searching, searching for something that would make me happy, something that would just bring some sense of joy in my life. But I could not break out of the straightjacket that contained me.
But then Jesus came along. Somehow crossing that great divide.
The God man entered into the ungodly world that hates Him and desires to destroy Him.
He made that hike not only to give me resurrected life, not only to deliver me from the bondage of that straightjacket.
He made that hike because He loved me and He wanted to have a deep personal relationship with me.
And He resurrected me from death to life.
He broke the chains that held me captive and gave me freedom.
And He sat down with me and we feasted together. We talk, we laugh, we cry together.
He has become everything to me and He tells me I mean everything to Him.
And what I want you to know is that you too can have this intimate fellowship with Him also.
Right now He is calling out to you! “Come forth!”
You may be lying right now in that cave just like Lazarus, dead.
He is calling out to you to receive a resurrected life, calling you to step out of death and into life.
And you can do that right now by simple saying yes Jesus, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God and I am willing to repent of my sins, cast all of my cares away, to turn from trusting in the lies of this world and put all my faith and trust in You.
You may have already received the resurrected life that only Jesus can give, but maybe you are still wrapped in some of the grave clothes. Maybe you are not experiencing the released life that Jesus wants to give you.
Why don’t we remove that clothing today, break those chains that are holding you down keeping you in bondage, break free this morning and enjoy freedom in Jesus Christ.
And come to the table and begin to feast with Him.
Jesus said, “I have come that you may have life, and that you may have it more abundantly.”
Let this be the day that you say, Jesus you have brought me from death to live, you have given me that resurrected life.
You have loosed me and given me freedom from this world.
And from this day forward I want to receive that refreshed life and sit at the table and feast upon You.
Closing Prayer
Closing Prayer
Heavenly Father, we come to you this morning with arms lifted high in praise of You and in praise of Jesus. Thankful that we not only have been given resurrected life, thankful not only that we have been released and set free, but most of all, we come praising you because we can sit at your table and have fellowship with you. We can feast at your table and enjoy that intimate fellowship that we have with you all because of what Jesus has done and for the love that He shared by taking all of our sins upon himself and nailing them on that cross. Thank you Jesus, Amen
