John 11:1-46--The Aspects of Jesus' Nature

The Aspects of Jesus’ Nature Before we begin, don’t forget you can download the video first, or watch it on youtube. Again, just minimize distractions so you can just focus on the preaching of God’s word. Intro: (read 39-42) (pray) Now, we have a lot of text to cover. A lot. And ironically, it includes the shortest verse in the Bible. But, for now, just keep in mind what’s going on in the context right now. The Jews in Jerusalem wanted to kill Jesus for revealing himself as God and Christ (in chapter 10), and so he went to the same area where John was first baptizing… very, very far away from Jerusalem. I was watching a video this past week, and this zookeeper had apparently trusted her lion a little too much when she went to pet him through the cage, and the lion bit her arm off. She lived, but she had to have a good portion of her arm amputated. And you’ll sometimes see or hear the same things happening to snake charmers or guys who stick their heads in the croc’s mouth, or other stunt-devils… bragging about how they can get so close to death, and then ending up having an accident and nearly dying. Whereas if it was me! I’m not getting anywhere near a lion’s mouth, or a snakes, or a croc’s, or whatever. Nowhere near it. There are two kinds of people in this world: those that trust the lion a little too much, and those that don’t trust them at all. And there’s a similar reaction to Jesus. Two extremes. Those that think Jesus just wants to spoil us us, and lets us have everything we want, and then get burned when he lets our hearts get broken—when we lift our prayers but get the response, “no.”-- but at the same time there are those that think he’s way too great and busy to be concerned about us at all—so why bother praying at all? During COVID-19 pandemic, we really need to decide what we’re going to do with Jesus. Because we need to be prepared for our loved ones to get sick, and possibly die... What do we believe about Jesus? That he’s going to give us everything, or that he’s not concerned about us at all? In the book of John chapter 11, we get a little more insight about the nature of who Jesus is. Is he sympathetic to us, or not concerned about us at all? So today we’re going to look at the various aspects of Jesus nature. There are four. And to start, lets turn to John chapter 11, starting at verse 1. Aspect 1: Jesus is all-knowing (1-4) So there are two sisters—Mary and Martha—whose brother, Lazarus, has gotten sick. Mary is the lady who in the next chapter wipes Jesus feet with her hair and some expensive oil. we’ll get to that later. But Jesus is very far away from them right now, so they sent a message to Jesus about Lazarus’ condition, rather than going to see him themselves. But Jesus knew that Lazarus’ condition wasn’t going to end in death. Now there might be death involved, but it won’t end in death. And the reason is, God is going to be glorified, and Jesus will be glorified. Let’s continue (5-6) Now it says, “Jesus loved Martha and Mary and Lazarus.” But… he decided to stay where he was for two more days… Or, rather, the actual terminology Scriptures uses is “so.” Jesus loved Martha and Mary and Lazarus, “so” he stuck around where he was for two days. Or another way to translate that word is “therefore.” Jesus loved Mary and Martha and Lazarus, therefore he stayed where he was for two days. Why would he do that? To be fair, he had kind of a moral dilemma. But, he’s Jesus, so he could solve any problem he had no problem. So why did he stay? Well lets move on and see. (7-10) So Jesus told his disciples, “Let’s go to Judea again to see Lazarus.” And this is the moral dilemma here, which the disciples point out: Over in Judea, all the Jews want to kill Jesus. And Jesus tells some riddle or parable thing about how walking in the daylight will make it so you won’t stumble, but when its night you might…. That’s just Jesus saying, it’ll be fine, no one’s gonna kill them. I mean, in the book of John, if there’s a metaphor for “light,” the light represents Jesus. And so, as long as Jesus’ time on earth is incomplete, they’ll be fine; no one will be able to touch him. And that’s happened a couple times already. It’s not time for Jesus to go to the cross yet, so they don’t’ have to worry about the Jews getting Jesus in Judea. Let’s move on (11-16) Initially, Jesus tried to use a euphemism, a figure of speech where one uses gentle terms to describe more harsher terms… “Lazarus has fallen asleep,” to mean “Lazarus has died.” That totally went over the Disicples heads though, so he had to spell it out for them. Now remember, this is two days later. No one’s come around to tell Jesus of Lazarus’ condition. He just “knows.” Lazarus is dead. And if he knows when Lazarus is alive or dead, why didn’t he just go over to Judea and heal him? And then scoot out of there before the Jews caught up with him? But Jesus says that he was glad for their sake that he didn’t go heal him, so that they may believe. So he’s hinting here that He’s going to perform a great miracle. Namely, raise Lazarus from the dead. And that’s when Thomas Didymus piped in and said to the disciples, “Let us also go, so that we may die with him.” Now I’ll be honest, it took me a while to understand what he meant here. Literally, like, until I started writing. When you think of the disciples, you think they’re all just gung ho and ready to do what Jesus tells them—Let us go! So we may die with him! But it doesn’t make sense, why would he be gung-ho about that? What does he mean, “dying with Lazarus.” But then I remembered Thomas’ nickname—doubtin’ tom! He’s the guy who wouldn’t believe in Jesus had risen from the grave until he touched his wounds for himself. He’s always piping in and saying something just… pessimistic. So, what Doubtin Thom is saying here is sarcastic. He’s being a snooty-booty. Doubtin’ Thom and the rest of the disciples know that if they go to Judea, they Jews are gonna want to kill Jesus and possibly them too, so what he’s saying is sarcastic, like, “Oh sure, let’s go to the place where everyone wants to kill us, so we can be dead just like Lazarus.” But what’s important is, Jesus knows they’re going to be okay. God will not allow anyone to harm Jesus until it is time for him to go to the cross. That’s happened a number of times in the book of John already. People have been wanting to kill Jesus since chapter 7. But Jesus knows that Lazarus is going to live, and that he and the disciples won’t be touched by the Jews in Judea And that’s the first aspect of Jesus’ nature: he is God, as we learned last week, and thus he is all-knowing. He knew when Lazarus died, he knew he was going to revive him later, and he knew he and the disciples where going to be just fine when they go see him. And Jesus knows all about our situations too. He knows who’s sick, who is going to be sick, who’s going to get better, who’s not. And here’s the thing: verse four reminds us that its all for the glory of God in whatever outcome, whether the sick live, or die. Our job is to glorify God in whatever the outcome. That’s the first aspect of Jesus nature: he’s all-knowing. Now let’s move on to hear about the next aspect. Aspect 2: Jesus is Salvation (17-19) So Jesus and the disciples went to Judea, about two miles away from Jerusalem, to somewhere near Bethany (but not quite in it yet). Now there are some Jews there, some of whom want to kill Jesus, some of whom don’t, but they’re hired to mourn for the family of the deceased. It was just a culture thing from back in those days. “Professional mourners.” Look at verse 20 now (20-24) Now Martha wanted Jesus to come heal Lazarus, but obviously he didn’t make it in time. So now Jesus promises that Lazarus will rise again… but Martha, lacking faith, said, “Yeah, I know he’ll rise again on the last day.” You know, after you die, you “rise again” and go to heaven or hell. But verse 25 Jesus clarifies what he means, (25-27) Jesus says, “I AM the resurrection and the life.” He gets to decide who lives and who dies, because he has that kind of power. And if you want to live, even if you die—if you want to go to heaven when you die—you need to believe in Jesus. And he asks martha, “Do you believe this?” And she says, yes, and checks all the right boxes 1.He is the Christ, 2. Son of God come into the world… except he hadn’t died and rose again yet, so she couldn’t check of that box. but it counted. So the second aspect of Jesus nature is that he is has power over death. There is no other way to go to heaven except through believing in Jesus. And whether one lives or dies ultimately doesn’t matter if one believes in Jesus. Heaven is better than earth; believe in Jesus, and you will go to heaven when you die. So that aspect of Jesus is that he has power over death. Lets move on to the next one: verse 28 Aspect 3: Sympathetic (28-33) So Martha went to get her sister, Mary Who then ran to go see Jesus (along with those professional mourners, who thought she was going to the gravesite to mourn) And she went to him, fell at his feet, and said “If you were here, you could have healed Lazarus and he wouldn’t have died!” Which is of course, bad faith. But, here’s the odd thing. Verse 33 says that, upon seeing Mary (and the Jews surrounding her) weeping, jesus himself was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. Yeah, he’s all-knowing—yeah he’s the Salvation and boss of death—and yeah, sure—he knows he’s going to revive Lazarus. But still, seeing all the tears breaks his heart. It moves him. Verse 34 (-37) Jesus said to her, “Where have you put lazarus’ body” And she said, “come and see.” And then we read the shortest verse in the Bible. “Jesus wept.” And the Jews supposed, “Jesus loved Lazarus which is why he is mourning.” But we know it was upon seeing the tears coming out of Mary’s eyes that moved Jesus in spirit, and caused him to weep himself. And then for the third time, someone remarked about how Jesus could have prevented this tragedy. These Jews also remember Jesus healing the blind man. But still, yes, Jesus could have healed Lazarus while he was still sick. But that was not Jesus’ will. Now “will” is a complicated word. It’s one word, with two meanings… Or two in the same one word. I don’t really know how to describe it: just know its complicated. I was once sitting in a Bible class and we were talking about “what is God’s will for your life.” And while the class was thinking in terms of God’s commands and being salt and light and stuff, I was thinking, “God’s will for my life is whatever ends up happening, whether I do right or wrong, whether I mess up or not.” And they kinda shut me down and dismissed me, and so I just kept my mouth shut for the rest of the class. We were thinking of two different “wills.” They were thinking of “will” as in, “what is God’s desire for your life.” And I was thinking of “will” as in “what is God’s plan for your life.” There’s will as in plan, and will as in desire. So, in a way, it was Jesus’ will that Lazarus die, but it wasn’t Jesus’ will that Lazarus die. In other words, it was Jesus plan that Lazarus die, but it wasn’t Jesus desire that Lazarus die. He loved Lazarus—he loved Mary and Martha—and didn’t want them to experience the sadness they felt when Lazarus died. We know he didn’t want them to experience that because he sympathizes with them and weeps with them. And that’s the third aspect of Jesus’ nature: he is sympathetic to us. When we’re sad, he’s sad too When we weep, he weeps with us. Even though he is all knowing, even though we know God will ultimately be glorified in whatever the outcome, he still sympathizes with us. That’s the paradox of his will. Yes, he knows everything, yes he has power over life and death, yes he has control over this coronavirus—and it is his will that sometimes the sick die, sometimes the economy tanks and we lose our jobs, sometimes its hard to find toilet paper—to say otherwise, that these things are not in his will, is to say that some things are outside of his control, that we can trust him to take care of us. But, at the same time, it is not his will for there to be sadness, for there to be people dying from sickness, for people to lose their livelihoods, for people to lose their first world toiletry standards. To say otherwise is to say he doesn’t love us, doesn’t care about us, and doesn’t want the best for us. That’s the paradox of his will. But what we know is that, despite the fact that he is all knowing, despite the fact that he has power over death, he is still sympathetic to us; he weeps when we weep. And there’s one last aspect of Jesus’ nature we need to go over: look at verse 38 with me. Aspect 4: Jesus is all-powerful (38-46) So, Jesus went to the tomb of Lazarus; like the one Jesus would be buried in later, it was just a little cave with a stone to cover it. And Jesus gave the command to move the stone—there was an objection at first. Apparently Lazarus had been dead for four days, and his flesh had probably rot so much they were afraid they would be able to smell him. But Jesus just prayed, and called out for Lazarus, “LAZARUS! COME FORTH!” And Lazarus came out like a mummy, bound all in cloth from when they prepared his body for burial. And Jesus told them to unwrap him and let him go, so they did. Lazarus was back! And verse 45 that many of the Jews who had witnessed the event believed in Jesus; But 46 tells us that there were those that went to tell the Pharisees, who wanted to kill Jesus and would actually do it. The last aspect of Jesus’ nature that we learn from John 11 is that he is all powerful. The book of John was written so that readers may believe that Jesus is the Christ. “Therefore many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.” (John 20:30–31, NASB95) And this was the greatest of the miracles he performed, besides resurrecting himself. This was meant to be the ace-in-the-hole. Jesus is all-powerful. He is who he says he is: the Christ, the son of God. CONCLUSION So here in John 11, we got a little more insight into the aspects of who Jesus is. Jesus is all-knowing, has power over death, he is sympathetic to us, and is all-powerful. We must therefore never neglect to give all our concerns to him in prayer. He doesn’t give us everything we want—he doesn’t heal the sick every time, he doesn’t prevent economic and financial crises every time—but he has control over all those things. He is concerned about all those things. And thus, we must still give all our concerns over to him in prayer. And in whatever outcome, whether we like it or don’t, we must always give glory to God. Always. Let’s pray.