The Resurrection of Lazarus

WELCOME:

Welcome!

It is good to be back isn’t it??

SCRIPTURE READING:

Revelation 20:1–6 “Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold of the dragon, the serpent of old, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years; and he threw him into the abyss, and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he would not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were completed; after these things he must be released for a short time. Then I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was given to them. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony of Jesus and because of the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received the mark on their forehead and on their hand; and they came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were completed. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is the one who has a part in the first resurrection; over these the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with Him for a thousand years.”

LET US STAND AND WORSHIP!

“The Goodness of God”

Words and Music by Hillsong’

PRAYER OF PRAISE FOR WHO GOD IS

Lord, thank you for your constancy. For never turning Your back on us, for never getting frustrated with us, for forgiving our sins, for allowing us to be part of Your plan. We ask that You would look down upon this gathering of people and fill our hearts with great joy today as we focus on You. Amen!

“What a beautiful Name”

Words and Music by Hillsong

“What a beautiful Name”

Words and Music by Hillsong

PRAYER OF ILLUMINATION TO OPEN OUR HEARTS

Lord, give us ears to hear Your voice and eyes to see Your glory. Would you this morning illuminate Your Word and make it known to us? Help us no to make application to others peoples’ lives, but to apply every Word to our own lives. Amen

SERMON

INTRODUCTION:

This morning we will pick up in chapter 11 of John’s gospel and will be looking at the resurrection of Lazarus.

And in this story we will discover som profound truths about Jesus, about faith, and about our future.

And as always in John’s gospel, there is a call to believe. For this is the core of the Christian faith. It is faith in Christ that gives life, and gives it eternally.

1) Jesus delays because He loves

John 11:1–6 NASB95

Now a certain man was sick, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. It was the Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped His feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick. So the sisters sent word to Him, saying, “Lord, behold, he whom You love is sick.” But when Jesus heard this, He said, “This sickness is not to end in death, but for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified by it.” Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when He heard that he was sick, He then stayed two days longer in the place where He was.

Let me point some obvious things:

Lazarus is sick (to the point of death)

And when the family found out that Lazarus was sick, his sisters knew just what to do, they sent for Jesus. The miracle worker. The Healer. The only One who could heal their brother.

This is what we do when our loved ones face difficulties.

When we have someone who is sick, we go to Jesus! We get down on our hands and knees and pray, and plead, and beg the Lord to heal them and bring them through it

And sometimes Jesus brings healing and sometimes He doesn’t.

Jesus loves Lazarus and His family (mentioned three times in this text)

(v 3) “Lord, he whom You love is sick”

(v 5) “Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus”

(v 36) “See how He loved him!”

Jesus’ hesitation in responding to Lazarus had no correspondence to His love for Lazarus or Mary or Martha.

And we need to keep that in our hearts during our grief. An unanswered prayer does not mean Jesus does not love us. Someone not being healed does not mean Jesus does not love us. Losing a loved one, does not mean Jesus does not love us.

What it does mean is healing is not always in God’s plan.

Jesus delays coming to heal Lazarus, because He “loved, Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus”

Now I don’t know about you, but that sounds a little doesn’t it? Hey Jesus, Lazarus is really sick, they want you to come now because You can heal people….well I’d rather wait until he dies and then I’ll head that way.

And if we read this in the flesh that’s the way it sounds. But if we read this in the Spirit, understanding God’s ways, we see that Jesus’ love does not contradict His actions.

Does the text tell us why Jesus waited? YES

Well we are told in verse 15, “I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, so that you may believe”

In other words, Jesus waits to come because it will provide him an opportunity to reveal Himself to all those who are present at the burial of Lazarus.

And the priority of God is not extending someone’s earthly life, but bringing people to faith so that they could have eternal life.

Application:

1) God’s hesitation or delay in coming to your rescue is not because He does not love, but because He does love. And this is something that we often have an hard time understanding when we are going through difficult circumstances.

When hard times come, we do the same thing Martha and Mary did. We call for Jesus. We pray, Lord come to my rescue, come help us, deliver us from this. And more times than not, there is a delay, sometimes for years before the Lord ever comes to deliver us AND it seems to me more times than not He brings us through it, not out of it.

Why? Because He DOES loves us. And Jesus knows that the Spiritual gains we will receive from his delays far outweigh any earthly suffering we are experiencing.

You may be in a difficult situation right now, and praying for God’s deliverance. And your answer is silence. What is God doing? He is developing faith in your life. God is teaching you trust Him through times of difficulty.

2) God’s greater concern in your life is your faith. It’s like a father who makes his son go out and help in the yard or in the field. The son really doesn’t want to go, but the father knows that the son needs to learn how to be a man and work, so he forces him to go, teaching him the disciplines of a hard days work and those disciplines will pay off later in his life.

Faith is more important in our lives than comfort. And faith often develops apart from comfort. The classroom where we become more Christlike is often in places where we are pressed hard and find ourselves in difficult situations. Spiritual life, as hard as it is for us to get a grasp on sometimes, is superior to any kind of earthly suffering we may be enduring.

2) The life that Jesus gives never ends

John 11:20–28 NASB95

Martha therefore, when she heard that Jesus was coming, went to meet Him, but Mary stayed at the house. Martha then said to Jesus, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died. “Even now I know that whatever You ask of God, God will give You.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to Him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?” She said to Him, “Yes, Lord; I have believed that You are the Christ, the Son of God, even He who comes into the world.” When she had said this, she went away and called Mary her sister, saying secretly, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.”

We change scenes here from the place that Jesus was, to the place where Lazarus’ funeral is. And the first person to run out and greet Jesus is Martha (Lazarus’ sister)

And Martha says to Jesus is, “If you had been here, my brother would not have died!”

Martha is not being rude, but she is expressing what most people would have expressed to Jesus. It is coming from grief but also faith. And she is saying that if Jesus had been there while Lazarus was alive, Jesus could have healed him and he would have never died.

But Martha’s faith is limited, because she supposes that Jesus could have healed if He had been present, and that if Lazarus were still alive, Jesus could heal him now. But Jesus has missed the opportunity because He is too late.

What Jesus does it teach Martha (and us) that neither time nor distance matters to the One who gives life.

There is never a time when we should limit what God can do. That is the kind of faith God wants us to have. And that begins by seeing Jesus as the One who has no limitations.

LISTEN TO WHAT JESUS SAYS TO HER: (v 25) “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die.”

Jesus is not saying that He can give life (though that is certainly true). He is saying that He is life (in other words the very source of life).

And it doesn’t matter if Lazarus has been dead for three hundred years the very source of life is able to bring on back from the dead

That is a word for Lazarus who lies dead in the tomb. Even though he is dead, since he believes in Jesus, he will live

And that is a word for us. For those who have died in Christ, who had faith in Christ, they are alive even though they are no longer physically with us.

And for those of us who have been made spiritually alive by Jesus, death will never end that life. It will not interrupt the life we have in Jesus. When we die we will live on in the presence of Jesus.

I want us to think about what it means to believe in Jesus because this whole promise of life uninterrupted hinges upon BELIEF

Jesus said, “he who believes in Me will never die”.

It means much more than believing that there is a God who exists OR even much more than believing that Jesus walked upon this world 2,000 years ago, died and rose from the grave, and even raised Lazarus from the tomb

Much of the world believes that there is a God and much of the world believes that he sent His Son to die for the sins of the world!

BUT Scripture is clear that most the world does not follow Jesus.

Let’s think about what Jesus is saying here.

He is the One and ONLY who has authority over life and death. No one can raise the dead. No one can give life to a dead body. Jesus alone has that authority.

So to believe means to submit to that ultimate authority, to come under Jesus and see Him as the Creator of the universe.

It is to see Jesus as the One who gives life, who loves, who restores, who will raise the dead, and to whom we will give an account to.

It is to believer all the words and promises and warning of Jesus not just with our mouths, but with our actions and our lives.

And the truth and application is given to us in verse 26

(v 26) “everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?

Jesus declares this truth and then asks Martha this: “Do you believe this?”

And that question is the same question Jesus is asking us today.

Do you believe in Jesus? If you do, then you will live on after the grave.

And life in Jesus will begin now in this life.

3) Real faith determines our behavior

John 11:30–35 NASB95

Now Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still in the place where Martha met Him. Then the Jews who were with her in the house, and consoling her, when they saw that Mary got up quickly and went out, they followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb to weep there. Therefore, when Mary came where Jesus was, she saw Him, and fell at His feet, saying to Him, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.” When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, He was deeply moved in spirit and was troubled, and said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to Him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus wept.

Explanation:

Now here comes Mary, the sister of Martha. And Mary says the exact same thing that Martha said to Jesus: “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died”.

But Mary is a little bit more open with her emotions, she falls down at the feet of Jesus, weeping almost uncontrollably.

Now this is quite understandable when losing a loved one. Grief is a natural human response to tragedy, and there is certainly nothing wrong with weeping when something like this happens.

But notice what happens in the next verse: “When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, He was deeply moved in spirit and was troubled…”

Most of us have read this as Jesus being moved in spirit because of the grief that was present in Mary and the Jews and that He was saddened by the death of Lazarus.

But that makes very little sense, because he told the disciples earlier before he came that He was going to raise Lazarus from the dead.

Look at what it says about Jesus that He was, “deeply moved in spirit”. That translation does not do justice to the Greek. That verb ἐμβριμάομαι (embrimaomai) actually means to be angry or express indignation.

The NLT picks up on this and translates this verse: “When Jesus saw her weeping and saw the other people wailing with her, a deep anger welled up within him” (John 11:33, NLT)…(v 38) “Jesus was still angry as he arrived at the tomb, a cave with a stone rolled across its entrance. 39 “Roll the stone aside,” Jesus told them.

Now the question is why did this make Jesus angry? Is He angry at Mary for crying? Is He angry at the Jews? Is He angry at death itself?

I think its best to understand Jesus’ anger at the lack of faith displayed by Mary and the Jews standing there weeping and wailing over Lazarus’ death.

They had seen Jesus do miracle after miracle, healing the blind, healing the lame, turning water into wine…and yet still doubt that He has power over death

Let me try this illustration out:

Suppose a man and woman get married. And at that wedding the husband vows to take care of his wife and their family till death do they part.

Life was rough for this young married couple, but the husband worked countless hours of OT to make sure that her needs were met.

Then they had their first child, and the wife said, how in the world are you going to take care of all three of us now? And the husband promises to do so and refers back to his faithfulness as a husband and that he has provided just as he promised.

This continues after every child until they’ve had their seventh child, and do you know what that wife said to the husband right after giving birth to another healthy child? We’re doomed, you’ll never be able to provide for this family with all these kids.

And the husband was moved deeply in his spirit and troubled within him

See that’s what’s going on here. Jesus has shown Mary, Martha, the Jews that he can heal the lame, feed 5,000 with a few loaves of bread and fish, heal a man blind from birth…but to bring a man back from the dead is too much?

It was their lack of faith that angered Jesus…“When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, He was deeply moved in spirit and was troubled

Application:

1) In light of this, how should we respond to the death of a loved one in Christ?

I am in no way saying that we should not weep, or have grief. Those emotions are real, and no matter strong our faith is, to be separated from a loved one on this side of eternity is heart breaking.

But, we should not weep as though we will never see them again, for that would only reveal that we really do not believe that we will truly be with them forever in eternity.

Christians respond differently to loss than the people of this world. We know that there is life after death and when one dies in Christ, we know that we will see them again.

1 Thessalonians 4:13 “But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope.”

And what a testimony to this world that we do not fall apart, but stand firm on the promise of the Resurrection and the Life! That we proclaim with our actions and emotions that we do believe in the resurrection, that we do believe the promises of Jesus, that we do believe that Jesus is the way the truth and the life, and we stand on them with unshakable faith!

2) Our faith should control our behavior.

If our faith is genuine, what we do, what we say, how we act, how we respond should testify of that faith.

If we profess to be believers in Jesus, the life we live should preach a sermon all on its own to the world that we are believers in Jesus.

Scripture makes no break between the two. To profess but not to live, is to not have faith at all.

To profess and to live is what saving faith truly is.

James 2:17 “Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself.”

James 2:26 “For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.”

4) Lazarus is a preview of our resurrection

John 11:38–44 NASB95

So Jesus, again being deeply moved within, came to the tomb. Now it was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, “Remove the stone.” Martha, the sister of the deceased, said to Him, “Lord, by this time there will be a stench, for he has been dead four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not say to you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?” So they removed the stone. Then Jesus raised His eyes, and said, “Father, I thank You that You have heard Me. “I knew that You always hear Me; but because of the people standing around I said it, so that they may believe that You sent Me.” When He had said these things, He cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come forth.” The man who had died came forth, bound hand and foot with wrappings, and his face was wrapped around with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

Martha says he has been there four days.

Obviously she still does not believe that Jesus can bring him back to life.

And the four days is significant because most people in those days believed that the soul could return to the body within a the day period.

But after three days when the face became disfigured, so the soul would leave the body permanently and the person was considered dead.

That’s why Jesus waited two more days to come.

He wanted no superstitions to override what He was getting ready to do.

With just a command Jesus calls Lazarus’ name and he gets up and comes out of the tomb. Still bound in all his burial cloths, but now resurrected from the dead.

Here is the point: Jesus and Jesus alone holds the keys of death and hades.

And this is a preview of the resurrection that is to come for all those who believe.

Jesus and Jesus alone has the authority with one command to give life and raise the dead.

And in order to have that life we must come to it through Jesus

His way

his terms

Submit h

~PRAYER~