Lazarus (2)
John Part 2 • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Sermon Style Sheet
Sermon Style Sheet
Write that down in your formation Journal
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Sermon Text
Sermon Text: Scripture
Sermon Text: Scripture
Call to Worship
Call to Worship
test
1 Hallelujah!
How good it is to sing to our God,
for praise is pleasant and lovely.
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Passage:
Passage:
Formation Journal Page Number: 9:51-10:45; 2:04-3:07 7:02-7:51
17 When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days.
41 So they removed the stone. Then Jesus raised his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you that you heard me. 42 I know that you always hear me, but because of the crowd standing here I said this, so that they may believe you sent me.” 43 After he said this, he shouted with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 44 The dead man came out bound hand and foot with linen strips and with his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unwrap him and let him go.”
Opening Illustration:
Opening Illustration:
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Getting into the Sermon
Getting into the Sermon
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John 1-5 sabbath - is the holy
John 6-8 Plot
John 9 - heals someone does more work
John 10 - Jesus it’s clear but not explicit he is claiming to be God
John 11
1 Now a man was sick—Lazarus from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2 Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair, and it was her brother Lazarus who was sick. 3 So the sisters sent a message to him: “Lord, the one you love is sick.”
Why should we pray if he already knows?
It’s about relationship!
4 When Jesus heard it, he said, “This sickness will not end in death but is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” 5 Now Jesus loved Martha, her sister, and Lazarus. 6 So when he heard that he was sick, he stayed two more days in the place where he was. 7 Then after that, he said to the disciples, “Let’s go to Judea again.”
11 He said this, and then he told them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I’m on my way to wake him up.”
12 Then the disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will get well.”
13 Jesus, however, was speaking about his death, but they thought he was speaking about natural sleep. 14 So Jesus then told them plainly, “Lazarus has died.
They weren’t getting it. They didn’t understand.
OK so here is the question. Why did Jesus delay?
Jesus has healed from a distance before
First,
[The delay was to reveal his GLORY.]
wanted to make sure that Lazarus was all dead
Miracle max
Mostly dead is still a little alive - when he is all dead there’s only on thing you can do - go through his clothes and look for loose change
So there was a big miracle flex here. Lazarus was not mostly dead - he was dead dead. He was go through his clothes and look for loose change dead.
In fact, when Jesus wanted them to roll the stone back, they said, we can’t do it because he smells! The body is decomposing.
Or as the King James version says - he stinketh.
I want you to say that with me - He stinketh.
He’s dead dead.
Part of the delay was to reveal His glory
And so, we can look at this and we can see the miracle in terms of the big cosmic show.
[Jesus delayed in LOVE.]
But that can almost make Mary and Martha seem like after thoughts.
But they weren’t after thoughts.
Look at verse 5 again
5 Now Jesus loved Martha, her sister, and Lazarus.
How did he feel about Martha and mary? He wants to reveal his glory to them personally.
What’s the word -Love. He loved them
They aren’t an after thought.
[God’s purposes are both GENERAL and PERSONAL. ] They are general in the sense that God has big plans that involve cosmic power, the movement of nations and history.
But they are personal too - he sees the little guy. So he knows our days, our fears and our relationship with God and he organizes events for that too.
Think about a hurricane - what is God doing in the big picture? It’s not arrogant to look at that big picture thing and ask “what is God doing in my life.”
His purposes are both general and personal.
So while jesus was doing the work in history with Lazarus he was also working in the life of Mary and martha.
[God uses hardship to refine our FAITH and move us towards HOLINESS and JOY]
2 Consider it a great joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you experience various trials, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. 4 And let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing.
God’s goal for your life, is that you would have joy, and lack nothing in your faith. This is the ultimate goal. Sin is the enemy. He wants you to have a mature steadfast faith, but suffering is a part of that.
Let’s see how that looks in a more systematic way:
So how do we see that? I want you to think about it this way. George Barna - GALLOP POLLS
did a study on discipleship. He did a major study with tens of thousands of people and he mapped out our discipleship. I’m going to read through them, they’ll be projected and I want you to think about where am I? Where am I in this process.
[STEP 1 - IGNORANCE OF SIN] - these are people who don’t even know they have sin.
[STEP 2 - INDIFFERENT TO SIN]
[STEP 3- CONCERNED ABOUT THE CONSEQUENCES OF SIN]
[STEP 4 - CONFESSION OF SIN]
[STEP 5 - FAITH ACTIVITIES]
[STEP 6 - SPIRITUAL DISCONTENT]
[STEP 7 - EXPERIENCING PERSONAL BROKENNESS]
[STEP 8 - SURRENDER AND SUBMISSION] - Moving from looking for an event and trusting the person
[STEP 9 - PROFOUND LOVE OF GOD]
[STEP 10 - PROFOUND LOVE OF PEOPLE]
He has everything neat and tidy, its not always that because our hearts are static. We change.
But in order for us to move towards a real joy - we have to move through the pain.
Jesus wanted to bring them to an end of themselves so that they could submit and surrender and move forward into joy
I mean, think about it. They probably thought - we are Jesus’ favorite. He’s going to come through. He’s going to do what I want.
Maybe they became a bit presumptuous.
They sent a message to let him know they wanted him.
But you can see from their response that they had become a bit presumptious.
Look at what they both said -
21 Then Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother wouldn’t have died.
32 As soon as Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and told him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother wouldn’t have died!”
How are you praying? Are you trying to fetch God to solve your problems? Aren’t we the same way?
[They trusted his power to stop suffering but not his WISDOM to allow it.]
Thats the core of our heart. Jesus - if you had been on time. he wouldn’t have died.
Jesus - if you had been a little faster - I wouldn’t be sick.
Jesus if you had been a little quicker to hear my prayer then I my kids wouldn’t be like this.
We love Jesus - but we still kind of think that it’s about us.
This presumption can lead to self centeredness
This is the heart of step 6 - spiritual discontent. The novelty has worn off and you are asking yourself, is this all? Is this all God has to offer me?
But we will never have lasting spiritual joy when stand over the Jesus and say, I ordered my steak medium rare and this is clearly medium.
I mean think about the heart of the gospel - Jesus did this - for me
[God’s delay is a loving reminder that we aren’t the CENTER OF THE WORLD.]
You see jesus loves you too much to allow you to live in the delusion of your own superiority.
Jesus is the center of it all.
Look at this part.
21 Then Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother wouldn’t have died. 22 Yet even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.”
23 “Your brother will rise again,” Jesus told her.
24 Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”
27 “Yes, Lord,” she told him, “I believe you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who comes into the world.”
It’s not like she wasn’t a christian - she beleived. You believe, you may be a christian, but that doesn’t erase all of our doubt.
She seems to be going back and forth.
23 Jesus said to him, “ ‘If you can’? Everything is possible for the one who believes.”
24 Immediately the father of the boy cried out, “I do believe; help my unbelief!”
When we enter into suffering we create a story- we develop a story of our lives. we are all story tellers. In your story, you know that there is going to be trouble. there will be a dragon. In your story, you come up with possible scenarios to defeat the dragon and have a victory.
we have no hope, no faith for other possibilities
We think we’re the judges of all this.
North Carolina Everything went bad for us.
I was fixated on my story and convinced of my own wisdom, so I was blind to what God could do.
28 We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.
We are not the source of wisdom, there are things God can do both in your heart, through your life, in your situations, that you can’t even imagine.
[We don’t have the wisdom to be PESSIMISTIC.]
You may be in what you consider your greatest defeat but God is working out your greatest victory
Think about Mary and Martha - he stinketh check his pockets for change
She is still placing her wisdom above God’s wisdom. She is convinced that she knows what’s what.
So look how Jesus answers her
25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me, even if he dies, will live. 26 Everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
27 “Yes, Lord,” she told him, “I believe you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who comes into the world.”
He is moving them from trusting in an event to trusting in the person. This is that submission and trust.
Lazarus will die again but he will never really die - his soul didn’t disappear on day 4, you will know him in the new earth.
Your story line is incomplete - you don’t know the options - you don’t have the wisdom to be pessimistic
He’s like - no you don’t understand. the resurrection isn’t just something that happens - its something that I do!
I have the power! I am the resurrection and the life!
NO resurrection is too big - because I am the resurrection!
I’m the life.
Not you. You don’t know anything.
We get faced with the brokeness and we are at the crossroads of submission and that’s really where faith can get exciting.
This is where surrender comes. This is submission.
[Faith means we don’t declare the ENDING, we anticipate the RESURRECTION.]
We think it’s dead dead but its just mostly dead.
We don’t know how god is going to move, we know he is. We don’t know how he’ll work it all for our good, we don’t when he will, but we do know that he will do that.
But Jesus brings resurrection.
Sometimes that resurrection is the a reversal of fortune. Sometimes he really does change the situation completley, provides complete healing provides everything physical you were hoping for.
Sometimes, the resurrection is how he works in your heart to bring joy
He cares - he loves - he weeps.
38 Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. 39 “Remove the stone,” Jesus said.
Martha, the dead man’s sister, told him, “Lord, there is already a stench because he has been dead four days.”
But then look at how Jesus responds:
40 Jesus said to her, “Didn’t I tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?”
I wonder how that sits with you. I’ll tell you how it sits with me. There have been many times where I was convinced. 100% convinced that the time for God’s intervention was over. God if you don’t it this way, it’s not going to work.
And every time, I was wrong. Ever time. Every time, i’ve doubted God’s goodness, wisdom, provision. I’ve been wrong. There were real pain in North Carolina. It took years for me to see God’s faithfulnes. To see his goodness. It took years for me to be proved a liar when i said, I will never see the goodness of this. I was wrong.
I’m at a point in my life, where I’m tired of doubting God and being proved wrong. I’m tired of looking foolish. I’m tired of being the guy who says, “It stinketh” only to realize God had it under control the whole time.
How about you? You see, here’s what I’m hoping God does in your life and in my life, is I want to stop doubting and being proved wrong and instead I want to anticipate that Jesus will bring resurrection. He is the resurrection and the life. I prefer to live in that joy now, rather then in my high strung anxiety, thinking I have the wisdom to be a pessimist.
I don’t want that.
How about you?
This is why really want Mercy Hill to be both multi cultural and multi generational.
Nicaragua - we are rich in faith.
But we also want to be multigenerational because this type of spiritual development takes years. Years, not months.
40 Jesus said to her, “Didn’t I tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?”
Step 3 - in your soul and in your salvation Gospel the death you need to be worried about isn’t Lazarus death, its your spiritual death.
{ABC’s of Repentance}
Do you believe you will see the glory of God if you believe?
I don’t know what that is going to look like specifically in your life.
So maybe you looked at the scale and you said, I am a number 3 - starting to be concerned. Maybe you are step 6 you are feeling spiritualy discontent.
Are you willing to believe and take that next step?
The story ends with a ressurection - it ends Lazarus, but it ends with an even bigger one - with the resurrection of Jesus of our good and our salvation.
If you beleive you’ll see the glory of God - do you believe?
If so, let’s pray together
Lord’s Supper:
Lord’s Supper:
On the night when he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”
25 In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, and said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”
Benediction:
Benediction:
The LORD bless you and keep you;
the LORD makes his face shine upon you and be gracious to you:
The LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.
