Binge Jesus Part II: Week 5

Good morning, Welcome to the Church of the Crossing. My

name is James and this was a big week. We

launched Celebrate Recovery this week. We want to get the

Lord praise for that. It's a very successful launch and

let me tell you a lot of people think Celebrate

Recovery it's just for people who are addicts. A lot

of people who are going to be there are those

who may they're going through a season. So any of you,

if you're going through a season, a divorce, a time

where you know you lost your job in life, is

just really overwhelming for you right now. This is a

group that just goes through saying all right, let's look

at our life and let's look at how we can

work through this stuff. This just junk in our life.

A lot of people who's been abused go through this.

A lot of people have messed up childhoods go through this.

And so for any of us who just need people

to walk with us, maybe just for a season, this

is a phenomenal ministry. We encourage you to check that

out on Tuesdays. We would also encourage you to share

our Facebook post about it so that other people can

know about it. So other people in this region can

get the help that they need. And again we are

trying to see people come to Christ. So far, since

the beginning of this school year, we've seen close to

one hundred and forty people make a commitment to Jesus

Christ and our services. Amen. Now, this was quite a week.

We had geo political storms, we had financial storms, we

had storms. I don't know about how many of you were,

just that was quite a few days. I know that

one night did have got bad. But we had the tornadoes.

My daughter was house sitting and literally where the house was,

that's where the tornado was coming. And then all the

electricity went out. And so we're at our house praying

for her. And I don't know about you, but have

you ever had a headache just come in, you know,

just like that, and just worried about my daughter, like

the whole head just had a big headache, and she

was safe. And then you had the Sorry if you're

like me, who in here has a basement with a

sub pump. Yeah, I literally went into that room and said,

in the name of Jesus, do not get any higher. Jesus,

you could do anything. You can walk on water, surely,

And I'm not joking guy, this is my prayer. I

prayed over it, and then he sent a frog to

oversee our you know, but I considering all the storms

we had this week. We you know, I preached on

storms a couple of weeks ago. This would have been

a good weekend for me to preach on storms. But

instead we're looking at a passage today that I think

is one of the most remarkable moments in the ministry

of Jesus Christ. And so let's pray and prepare our

hearts for this message. Father, God, we come to you

today and we thank you for your word. We thank

you for your life. Pray Father, for all of those

who are our friends this week on spring break, Keep

them safe as they travel all over this country. God,

we pray for the people in our church today who

are not doing well physically. We pray for those who

are not doing well spiritually and emotionally. God, I just

asked that today will be a day of encouragement in

Jesus' name. Amen. Amen, have you ever experienced something where

you were not, even in the slightest way equipped to

handle it? Anyone you were, it was your job to

handle it, but you were just not equipped to handle it,

so you didn't handle it well. A few years after

I got into ministry, I was doing a funeral of

this family and who was the funeral of a man

who had had multiple marriages, maybe five or six marriages,

and from each one of those marriages he had children.

So the family was all over the place. None of

them were believers, none of them were part of the

Christian faith, and so it was a very just convoluted mess,

and the family was a mess. It was a really

weird situation. But in his older years, he had this daughter,

young girl, seven or eight years old, and after he

got past the mess of all of his years and

all those marriages, it was kind of just him and

this little girl, and he spoiled her like every child

should be spoiled, and she thought her dad was everything.

Her world revolved around her dad. Well, he died unexpectedly

from a heart attack, and this rocked the family because

you had to bring all these different siblings in and

all this stuff was going on. And I got to

overhear them trying to comfort this seven or eight year

old girl several times, and what they just kept saying

to her was this, he's gone, Daddy's gone. That's it.

No heaven, No you'll see him again someday, no hope,

Just Daddy's gone. And that was it. We got through

the funeral. And at the very end of the funeral,

I had just finished it, and I'm standing at the

head of the casket, and out of nowhere, the little

seven or eight year old girl wrestled her way out

of her mother's arms and she ran and she jumped

on top of the casket and started screaming, Daddy, don't go, Daddy,

don't go, Daddy, don't go. And you know, my role

is to be a person of comfort, but also a

person of stability. And when I witnessed this, for those

of you who know me for a long time, I'm

not an emotional person. And I lost it. I'm talking,

I lost it, lost it. I was crying louder than

she was and had the snot going and it was

just a mess, and anybody who was there, it was

a mess. It was a bad, bad moment. I still

to this day remember walking into that parking lot after

the service, and it was a sunny day and I'm

walking out and let me tell you something, I'm angry.

I'm mad, I'm mad at God, I'm mad that he's dead.

I'm even mad at the dad, which is no fault

of his own. I'm just mad. I'm walking through the

parking lot and I'm mad, and I want this guy

who's dead to not be dead. I know that sounds crazy,

but I'm just angry that he's dead and I'm mad.

I feel bad for this girl. And here's the thing. I,

as crazy as it sounded, I wanted a resurrection. I

wanted that service the end, with that dad getting up

and say this's gonna be okay, honey, I'm here. But

it was just death, and I was mad. Today, we're

gonna look at a passage where Jesus does one of

his most remarkable miracles ever. He resurrects somebody. And here's

what we're gonna find out today that Christ not only

has a power to resurrect the dead, but Christ also

has the power to resurrect what's dead in us. And

so we're gonna be looking at three different lives today

and talking about the death that they were experiencing. But

it's also the same type of death that we all

experience from time to time. Let's look at our passes today.

We start in uh Luke chapter eleven or excuse me, John,

Chapter eleven, verse one. It says, now a man named

Lazarus was sick. Okay, we're gonna find out that he

wasn't just sick. This guy's gonna die, okay. And it

says he was from Bethany, the village of Mary and

her sister Martha. You talked about them last week. They

were sisters. The whole family was friends with Jesus. It says,

so the sisters sent word to Jesus. Okay. So they're like,

all right, Jesus, our brother's sick. And so they're sending

word to him, and they say, the one that you

love is sick. Now, why would they put in their

message the one that you love is sick. Here's what

they're thinking. They're thinking, Surely, as soon as you find

out that Lazarus, your buddy, your friend, the one you love,

surely you're going to come and heal him. Because we've

seen you heal other people. We've seen you feed people,

we've seen you do all these miracles. You can make

the blind see, you can make the lame walk, You

could do anything. So surely somebody that you love you

could pray over him and make him better. But they

said he's sick. Now, this was bad news in the

middle of a good life. And unfortunately, if I can

pause right now and just simply say, I think there's

a lot of people in our congregation who are dealing

with bad news in the middle of a good life.

Maybe you've heard that the one that you love is sick,

but it's not going to end well. It's bad news

in the midst of a good life. That job you

love it's gone, or that dream marriage is turned into

a nightmare, or that close friendship is falling apart. Are

the principal calls to talk to you about your teenager,

and it's not to tell you that they're an honor student.

You know what I'm saying. You get bad news in

the midst of a good life, and it's the exact

opposite of what you wanted. I was on the golf

course and it was a beautiful, beautiful day. This is many,

many years ago. Matter of fact, I think I've only

played golf a couple times since then, because I think

I have PTSD from this moment. Matter of fact, I

think I maybe went out one more time or then

I put all of my clubs and all of my

hobby stuff to a storage unit where it stayed for

a year. And you'll understand why when I explained the

phone call that I got, I was out there golfing

and it was beautiful, and my irons were working, and

my putter was putter, and then I get a phone

call and the person on the line basically explained to

me that my daughter had told her friend, and thank god,

her friend had told her mother, and then her mother

reached out to us. But basically it was to tell

us that our daughter had a suicide plan and she

was ready to enact it, and if we didn't stop

right there and then and go home, it might have

been too late. So I left a golf course, went home,

and dug into this situation. Into the further we dug

into it, it just seemed like it was we were

digging a grave, and it altered the course of our

life for many years. I thank god, by the way,

she's doing so much, by the back, by the way,

Just this week we got news that she was accepted

to Anderson University to finish out her degree amen amen.

And she had done so well in her first two

years of college that she's pretty much almost got a

full ride to Anderson, so hallelujah. But I do know

that when Gene and I were walking around Anderson a

couple of weeks ago and up there for her college visit,

several times I thought about that day and I thought,

I didn't think I would ever see this day. But

sometimes you get bad news in the midst of a

good life. And that's what was going on here, is

that they love their brother. Life is going good, and

then Lazarus gets sick, and who knows what he was

sick from the back in those days. He didn't have

to be sick for much to die. And it says

that when he heard the news talking about Jesus the

sickness will he said that the sickness will not end

a death. No, it's for God's glory, so that God's

son may be glorified through it. And basically everybody believes

that Jesus is gonna go help because he said, don't worry,

God's son is gonna be glorified. But guess what Jesus did.

Jesus did absolutely nothing. Have you ever experienced Jesus doing

nothing when you called out for him? That's what they're experiencing,

and so he Jesus just hangs out. So they're freaking out,

and Jesus is hanging out, and then it goes on

and says and then he said to his disciples, after

a few days, let us go back to Judea. But

they said, Rabbi, a short while ago, the Jews there

try to stone you, and yet you're trying to go back.

And he went on to tell him, Hey, listen, our

friend Lazarus, he's fallen asleep, but I'm gonna go wake

him up. Now, this language here is a metaphor in

their culture back then. I mean that it doesn't mean

he's asleep and I'm gonna go wake him up. No,

it means he's dead and I'm gonna help him come

back to life again. Okay, now here's what I want

to do. I want to take a transition to thought

for the rest of our message. And what I want

to do is I want to look at three different

people in the midst of this drama. One is Thomas's disciple,

the other one's Mary, the other one's Martha. And we're

gonna look at three different ways that they were dying

in the midst of this death. And I believe that

at some point in our life, all of us experience

each of these deaths, because there's three ways we die inside.

And let's look at the first one. Thomas. He was

dead in his doubts. Okay, we've all heard of doubting Thomas.

But here's what he says. It says then Thomas, also

known as didnimis everybody say Didimus sounds like a horrible

rapper name. But so anyways, he said to the rest

of the disciples, now, while she's gonna he and I

have the exact same spiritual gift mix. Our main spiritual

gift is sarcasm. And he says, let us go so

we may die with him. So Jesus is like, hey,

let's go back to that place where people said they

were gonna kill us. And he did not go like

a martyr, and now let us all go and die

with Christ. It was more like, yeah, that sounds like

a great idea of Jesus. Well, let's all just go

back there and die together. He was being sarcastic, okay,

and he's doubting. He's doubting that Jesus can do what

he said that he was gonna do. He's thinking this

situation is not gonna turn out good at all. He

doubted Jesus at his word. And I'm curious this morning

if you would raise your hand along with me. How

many of you have been in a season where you've

had some issues and you've doubted the goodness of Jesus,

the goodness of God. Thank you for being honest. See,

almost every one of us at some point we've praised something,

we believe something, and we know that God could change it.

We know that he could switch out whatever needs to me,

switch out to make this situation better. We know that

with just one word everything could change, and he does nothing,

and so we start to say, is he good? Is

he real? Or perhaps your doubt came from growing up

in church and then all of a sudden you went

off to college and the professor that you really respect goes, well,

you know this Bible stuff, it's not real. It's just

folklore and fairy tale, and all of a sudden, for

the first time, you're like, you have this crisis of faith,

and you're thinking, oh, man, I just grew up in

church assuming that this was all true. Is this my

parents' favor? Is this my faith? We all have moments

where we can experience doubt. I was on a very

long flight to Seattle and I'm sitting next to this guy.

He's a professor at University of Washington, and he's like

this real cool surfer looking guy. He had really cool hair.

And by the way, when you start to lose hair,

you look at other good hair. Something you do. You know,

You're like, man, that looks like a good head of hair.

His life must be great. And so he asked me,

and what do I do for a living? And I

told I'm a pastor. And he's like, oh, that is

so cool. Not my normal response. And then he says,

do you mind if I tell you my theory of

the existence of life. I'm like, absolutely, that sounds amazing

to me. What a conversation. So he said to me,

and he got real excited. He goes, man, you know,

we're all made up from atoms. And here's what happens.

I believe that that Adams, they they just come together,

they formed together for a season, and there comes life,

and then we live this life and then after a

while we die, and then these atoms just deform and

they just go back out into the atmosphere. And then

this other set of atoms. They just come together for

a season, then they form life, and then we die

and then it just goes back out into the atmosphere.

It basically life is just nothing but coming together. First season,

there's a spark, there's life, and then they disappear. This

goes on forever and ever and ever, the atom's form

and deform, form and deform. And we had talked about

how we both had daughters, and I said to him,

by the way, his wife was asleep, could you blame her?

And I said to him, I said, uh, so you're

telling me if your young daughter died, that you would

just tell her that mom just deformed. You went and

tell her that there's a god, there's a heaven, that

there's a hope, that there's a god who could walk

with her. He goes, no, Then he got real excited.

I would tell her about the beauty.

And he got so excited, the beauty of how the

atoms come together in this mystery and we form with

life and then we deform, and then I'm like okay.

And then the coolest part was, all of a sudden,

his wife, who we thought was asleep, looks at.

Him and here's what. I'm pretty certain that after they

got off the flight, his theology changed pretty quickly. You're

gonna tell my daughter that I just informed and I'm

out there in space. See people doubt and that's a

part of our culture, that's a part of life. But

for those of us who follow Jesus, sometimes when we

think he should do something, he doesn't do it on

our schedule. It causes us a doubt, and that's legitimate.

Some of us are dead in our doubts. Others of

us are like Mary. Mary is dead in her discouragement.

You see her brother's dead. They called on Jesus. He

didn't come, It says when Martha, by the way, not Mary.

When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out

to meet Jesus. Where's Mary? Remember Mary from the week before.

She's the one who loves Jesus. She's the one that listens,

wants so listen to Jesus. She's at Jesus feet now.

Jesus didn't save her brother. Jesus didn't come in time.

Jesus didn't change the situation. She didn't run out to Jesus.

Why what's the point He could have done something? But

he didn't do it. Where's Jesus? And maybe some of

us are here today, We're like, you know, in this

discouragement you were thinking, you know, I can't change anything.

I'm always gonna feel alone, I'm always gonna feel depressed.

I'm always gonna be stuck in this dead in job,

and my family's never gonna change, and I'll never be

happy again. And you know what, my marriage is never

gonna get fixed. I'm just stuck. And we're stuck into discouragement.

And some of you hear right now, you're stuck into discouragement.

But you're at church, so you're not gonna show it,

because that's what we do, right, We learn how to

behave in church. We're like, you know, how are you doing? Oh?

I'm doing great, Bless God, hallelujah. Jesus has risen reason. Indeed, Amen,

It's like what I want to remind us again, that

is not the culture we're building here. This is not

a country club. This is a hospital. It's for those

of us who are struggling. It's for those of us

who need a savior, for those of us who need

a good physician. And let me tell you something right now,

I don't care about the car you drive. You don't

need to look good. Okay, this needs to be a

place of vulnerability, a place of honesty, a place where

we're honest about our hurts, we're honest about how we're

doing in life. So let me tell you something. You know,

I don't care what logo is on your shirt. I

don't care how much money you have in the bank.

I don't care how picture perfect your kids look. We

need to be a place where you can just be

honest that when someone asks you how are you doing that,

you could say, you know what, I'm not doing good.

Life's been pretty rough, you know. We could be honest

where we could say, you know what, some of my

kids are good, that one this one over here needs

like four more youth services a week. We need to

be a place where we could be vulnerable and real

because here's what happens when you fake, and if we're

fake at this church about how we're really doing or

what we're really struggling with. You know what, it's so funny.

The church happens to be one of the last places

that people want to talk about what they struggle with

when it comes to sin. Do you know how insane

that is. That the whole point of us being here

is because we're sinners and we need Jesus. And then

we come here and we act like we're perfect. That

is insanity. We need to be vulnerable and real around here,

and it needs to be okay because let me tell

you what happens when you hide sin, you hide discouragement.

It blossoms, and it blooms and it grows. It's only

when our sin and our discouragement is brought to light

that it is destroyed. It is by saying who we

are and how we're doing. That's where we receive healing.

That's where the journey begins, and it needs to begin

in the church. Again, Let's not walk around here act

like we got together because let me tell you something

right now, I've been around humans my whole life. I

have made a thing in my life to study humans.

And let me tell you something. I believe that everybody's

messed up. And if you don't believe you're messed up,

you're probably the most messed up person in here. She's

dead in her discouragement. And it's okay to be dead

in our discouragement. Sometimes it's okay because life's tough. Sometimes

maybe you can relate to her. Maybe you can relate

to Martha. Martha, she was dead into delay because God

took too long. Jesus should have came back, but he

didn't want to stay here. On his arrival, Jesus found

that Lazarus had already been in a tomb for four days. Now,

why does four days matter? Let me explain to you

culturally why that mattered. It comes from a folklore. It's

not what we believe. It's not Christianity, but they believed

back in the day because sometimes they had like somebody died,

but then they didn't really die, so they waited four

days to make sure somebody was really dead. And here's

what they believe. They believe that your spirit kind of

hung out around you for four days, well at least

for three days, but by day four your spirit was gone,

So you're dead. Your spirit hangs out just in case

you come back, but by day four it's gone. So

day four is dead dead day. Okay, You're not just

maybe dead, you're dead dead okay, So day four, so

it's important for Jesus to come back on day four

because he had to come back when Lazarus was dead dead,

not just maybe dead okay now, and then he's so dead,

he's dead dead, it's so dead that Martha tries to

describe how dead he is by saying he smells, or

the King James God bless it says he stinketh. So

he's so dead he's dead dead, that he stinketh, that's dead.

And then she said, Jesus, I think these are some

of the most honest, gut wrenching words. You know what, buddy,

if you had been here, my brother would not have died.

How many of us have said, Jesus, if you would

have just done something, we wouldn't be here today. She's

dead into delay. She waited too long, and Jesus didn't

do something. You know, I've been begging God daily for

close to eight years for one particular thing. I've faceted.

I've wept, I've pleaded, I've called another's to pray. I've

been anointed. Let me tell you something, if there was

a such thing as a checklist to get your prayer answered,

I'd done it maybe five or six times. Nothing. Sometimes

it even seems like it goes backwards. And I've experienced anger, discouragement,

and to be honest, I hate to say this as

a Christian in the pastor there's a lot of times

I just don't know if this prayer is going to

be answered. And here's what bothers me about that is

because I know that the Holy Spirit, if the Holy

Spirit will just just all of a sudden one day,

just come down on this situation, the whole situation will

change in a moment, in one moment, I know that

the power of the Holy Spirit can change this whole situation.

But yet, for eight years, every day I prayed no change.

I'm dead in the delay. I wish I had a

really cool part two of this story. I'm dead in

the delay, though, and I know some of you are,

and I know I'm not alone in this. We pray,

we believe God or something that nothing happens. But here's

the thing. I still know this. I know that I

serve a God where all things are possible. And I

want to talk to you for the rest of the

time about being in that delay, because number one, here's

what you need to understand. God's delays are not God's denials. Okay,

They're not denials because you got to understand something. He's

still in charge and when his plan unfolds, he's gonna

be glorified. He's gonna get all the glory. We're not

gonna get the glory. He's gonna get the glory. So

what I want to do is I want to turn

a page on the story here, because she says to Jesus,

she says, but I know, but I know, And then

she says these two famous words, even now, But I

know even now, God will give you whatever you ask.

And she says, Jesus, even now, even now, when we're

dead into delay, dead in our discouragement, dead in our deaths,

even now, God can give you what you ask. If

some of you need an even now moment with God,

you're stuck in your discouragement, down delay, but you gotta

let your faith come alive again and have an even

now moment. You know, for twenty I waited to be

a senior pastor. I got called in the ministry. I've

told this before, I've shared this before, but it seems

the longer ago, the more insight I get into why

God had me wait twenty years. Do you all know

how long twenty years are? Or is that's two decades?

That's seven three hundred days I was called to something

twenty years before I got to walk in something, and

I had great seasons of fruit in ministry. But let

me tell you something. I prepared, and I'm prepared. And

what was discouraging to me was there's a good, big

class of us who all went in the ministry together,

and all of them were pastors by their late twenties

or early thirties. And so I started to think, maybe

God doesn't think that I'm good enough, or that he

can't trust me with the church, or I just had

a lot of those days like I've prepared, I've worked hard.

Why are you out calling me or bringing me to

a place because I didn't go chase jobs. I was

waiting for God to show me. And let me tell

you something. It's in the delay that your character is shaped.

And let me tell you. If I would have became

the pastor here at age thirty or thirty one, I

would have came in here and be like, all right, people,

we're gonna change this, change this, change this changes change us.

Do you care? I don't care. If you care, I

know what needs to happen. Yeah, how would that have

went here? It would not have went well. No, but

through the years by watching all my other friends go first,

Here's what I learned and has Christ shaped me, and

I drew closer to Jesus. Here's what I learned. My

job wasn't to come in here and lead or rule

over you. My job was to come here and walk

beside you, to serve you, to love you, to listen

to God together. The biggest thing I learned was this

isn't my church. This is God's church. And I'm gonna

tell you something. This happens all the time in my

prayer time I pray because they're like, God, we really

need to see how this happen. And God, I want

to see this happen. And God, can you do this?

Can you do this? God? Can you do this? And

then all of a sudden, I'll remember that it's his prayer.

Then I'll be like, I don't care. You do whatever

you want at chur church, and I'll literally just walk

away from that prayer like it's your church. You do

whatever you want. I'll just I'm just there. I'll follow you.

You do it, I'll follow, I'll be faithful. That's the

change in twenty years. See, so you might be wondering,

like why has God taking so long? It might be

a couple of things. Well. And God might be doing

the work in you. But God also might be doing

a work in a place where you're going. Or God

maybe is preparing that future spouse for you. God might

be preparing that future job for you. God might be

preparing you. Don't know. God is at work, but we

could be stuck and discouraged in a delay. But here's

what I need to understand about the delay. The delay

is where God shapes you season of development. And that's

what He did for me. And and here's the thing.

Even if you're here today, here's what you need. You

need to have an even now moment. Here's what I'm

gonna ask you to do right now. Can you do

this with me? Can you whisper on the counter three

to yourself? Even now? One two three, Let's do that again,

one two three, Even now, in the midst of everything,

God can change And maybe you are discouraged, but the

presence of God can change your life. And let me

tell you, even now, God could heal your crazy family

even now, Okay, even now, God can do what looks impossible,

even now, even though your heart might be cold, he

can change you and refresh your heart. Even now, things

seem like they're dead in your life, but he can

resurrect those things even now. Okay. And see, here's what

Martha does. She goes, Jesus said, hey, listen up, your brother,

he's gonna rise again. And then she goes, hey, yeah, yeah,

she has good theology. She says, yeah, I know he's

gonna rise again. In the Resurrection of the Last Days,

Jesus is talking about something. She's talking about something else.

She's talking about eternity. Jesus is talking about this moment.

And so Jesus looks at her and he says, maybe

one of the most important scriptures in all the Bible.

He says, I am the resurrection in the life. In

other words, he didn't just say I'm able to resurrect.

That's not what the scripture says. He does not say

I am able to resurrect. He says, I am the resurrection. Okay,

he says, the one who believes in Me will live

even though they die. Whoever lives by believing to Me

will never die. Do you believe this, So Jesus says,

I am the resurrection of life. Now here's what you

need to write down. The resurrection is not an event,

it's a person. Okay, here's what you need to understand

that when Jesus comes around, dead things don't stay dead.

When Jesus enters into your life, those of you who

are dead in misery, Jesus comes in his presence, you

don't stay dead in that misery. You don't say dead

in that despair. You don't say stay dead in that hopelessness. No,

when Jesus comes around and you experience his presence, dead

things resurrect. Okay. Is he is not what he does

the two he is. He is the resurrection again. And

then Jesus looks at the tune and he says, take

the stone away. Then he called out in a loud voice,

and he said, Lazarus come out. And a dead man

came out. His hands and feet were wrapped with strips

of linen and a cloth around his face. And Jesus

said to him, take off the grave clothes and let

him go. We're gonna watch that scene now, and I

want you to place yourself. I don't want you just

to watch this. I don't this is not for entertainment.

I want you to sit and watch this scene and

you take the place of Thomas. Maybe you're dead in

your down so you meet me. You take the place

of Mary, or you take the place of Martha, or

maybe the other disciples. I want you to put yourself

in this scene and experience this moment. Check it out.