I am the Resurrection and the Life - John 11:1-54 - August 2, 2026

Matthew Poole: Good morning, church. And guests, if you're visiting with us, praise God for you. We pray today you are encouraged, encouraged in Jesus Christ. If you would, let's all join together in prayer to ask God to do what only He can do this morning. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you that you are a speaking God and you have spoken to us through your Son Jesus. And we thank you that we have your written word. That testifies to us about him. We pray this morning, God, that through your word, through your son, through your spirit, you would reveal yourself to us, that we would see your glory, and we would be forever changed. God, we come in here from all with all kinds of distractions and pain points, struggles and trials, and we simply pray, God, would you override us today with your glory? Override us. Show us who you are, that our life may be found in you, that our joy would be full. It's in your name that we pray. Amen. The pursuit of happiness is something common to every single one of us in this room. As a human being, you can't not pursue joy. It's common. We sh we share that in common. Which means we also have another commonality this morning. Frustration. Are you frustrated this morning? Life is frustrating because happiness does not always come our direction, and yet we're pursuing it. Right? We work very hard to try to find and hold on to some sort of lasting happiness. And it always slips through our fingers the moment we get it. Right? We get a sliver of it, and then something goes wrong, and we get frustrated. All right, you finally get that date out after you've had a newborn. You're finally out at the restaurant with your spouse, sitting down, you just ordered, then the text message comes in. Baby's throwing up. Need to go home. You just land the job that you've always wanted, and then you find out that you're struggling to get along with your coworkers. Or at some point you're you're out having the party of your life, and then the lights flicker. It's time to go home. Our joy is always getting interrupted, is it not? And interrupted by all kinds of things. But is there a greater interrupter to lasting joy than death? Than death. Death is the great interrupter of our happiness. It's the great interrupter of our life and our lives. It's the shadow that hangs over everything, it taints everything. Death is constantly taunting us, saying, experience life, whatever pleasure that you have, it's coming to an end. It's got an end point. Our loved ones are gonna die, and we ourselves at some point are going to die. And so in some way we feel cursed, right? I believe there's a God-given desire in us for eternal life. We desire eternal life. We were made for eternal life. And yet death reigns. Death is our experience. And so we experience frustration there. Can anything be done? Can anything be done about this? Let's see what God has for us in John chapter 11, starting here in verse one. Or as we get going, our first heading this morning is this Jesus desires to reveal himself for our belief. Jesus desires to reveal himself for our belief. Beginning verse 1. Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. It was Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent to him, saying, Lord, he whom you love is ill. But when Jesus heard it, he said, This illness Does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it. Through it. So, what Jesus is saying is that this illness has an endpoint. Its endpoint is not death. What's his endpoint? The glory of God. This illness is going to terminate in the glory of God. And we're going to see that it's going to go through death, but death is not its ultimate fate. The glory of God is the ultimate faith. And for John, when John is writing about glory, he is not writing about the praise of God, the esteem of God, the treasuring of God. That is not the type of glory that John is talking about here. What John is talking about when he says and uses the term glory, he's talking about revelation. He's talking about something not seen being seen. Something not known being known. Something disclosed. Revelation of God. That's what John is talking about. So this illness is gonna pass through pass through death. It's not ending in the in death, it's ending in And the revealing of God. This illness is for the revealing of God. We continue in verse five. Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. Why is Jesus staying two days longer? It seems contradictory. You love them. John is very clear to let us know. Jesus loves them. So why are you staying two days longer? When you got the notice that Lazarus was sick, why didn't you go right away? Why didn't you perform a miracle right away? You could have just said the word, and Lazarus would have been healed. What are you doing? Jesus is after something else. than the immediate healing of Lazarus. He's after a greater glory. So after two days of hearing this news, Jesus knows supernaturally Lazarus has died now. Now that gives Jesus the cue. Okay, it's time to go. He tells his disciples, they caution him, hey, Jesus, you know if you're going over there, they're going to want to kill you. So don't go. He says, Guys, I gotta go. I've got work to do. What type of work? He tells the disciples, verse 11. Verse 11. After saying these things, he said to them, Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awaken. The disciples said to him, Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover. Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought he meant taking rest and sleep. Then Jesus told them plainly, Lazarus has died. For your sake. I am glad that I was not there. You see that? For your sake, I am glad that I was not there, so that what you may believe. But let us go to him. So Thomas called the twins, said to his fellow disciples, Let us also go that we may die with him. They really think Jesus is going to die. Jesus is rejoicing here, and let's be clear, he's not rejoicing in the death of Lazarus. He's rejoicing in what he's going to bring about in this situation. He's rejoicing in its endpoint. He's rejoicing in their belief that's about to come. You see, there is a joy that Jesus is taking and a good for the disciples that otherwise could not have come if Jesus had of just run away and healed him immediately. There's a revelation that could not come if Jesus had of healed immediately. Jesus is more concerned about our belief than our comfort. Or put it this way, Jesus is more concerned about our eternal life than our temporary life. And that hinges upon us believing in him, and us believing in him hinges on him revealing himself to us. If he does not reveal himself to us, we cannot believe in him. If we do not believe in him, we have no life. This is what Jesus is concerned about. This is why this whole situation is happening, that he may reveal who God is to these people so that they would believe in him and experience ultimate life. That's love. Jesus is loving them perfectly here, even though he allows some intense suffering and allows some death to take place. Perhaps the struggle and the difficulty in your life this morning is there as a kindness from God. As a kindness. And why do I say that? Because God is determined to show up in our lives in suffering, that He does not show up when everything is great. And what would be tragic is if we get our bellies filled and life goes as perfect and we're all super comfortable and we lose sight of God, that would be tragic. This is what happened to the Israelites. They were coming out of slavery through the wilderness into the promised land. God's about to establish them and blow their minds, and He tells them: listen, I'm about to give you everything you could possibly dream. But here's the thing I warn you about. Please don't forget about me. And what do they do? They forget about me. God doesn't take delight in suffering, but he delights to use suffering for the end that he might be glorified and that a good might come to his people because they see how he shows up. And this morning God has promised to show up in your suffering and to show up in your trial, that your heart might be near to him and that you might experience eternal life. Jesus desires belief in him, but belief in what exactly? And here's our second heading this morning. Jesus declares he is the resurrection and the life. Verse 17. Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. Bethany was near Jerusalem and about two miles off, and many of the Jews had come to Martha. And Mary to console them concerning their brother. So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him. But Mary remained seated in the house. Martha said to Jesus, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you. Jesus said to her, Your brother will rise. Again. Brother will rise again. And 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. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live. And everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Martha, do you believe this? So Martha runs out and Jesus, if she meets Jesus, Jesus is meeting her, and in this conversation, Jesus is driving at her belief. It's almost like forget Lazarus for a moment. Jesus is concerned with Martha's belief. Martha is a little off in three ways. She's off because she doubts the timing of Jesus. Jesus, if you were here, this wouldn't have happened. In some manner, it's an expression of faith, but in another manner, it's an expression of doubt. You should have been here. You messed up. She's also doubting his authority. Jesus, I get that you're a man of God, so you need to go pray to God. You got favor with God. You could call down a blessing right now. So go do that. She's missing that she's talking to God Himself. God has all authority. Jesus has all authority as God. And the third thing that she's off on is she misses the blessing that she's talking to. She's putting resurrection far off. Resurrection is coming way down the road here in the last day. Life is way off there in the last day. And Jesus says, No, you're looking at him. You're talking to him. I am the resurrection and life. Jesus saying, There is no resurrection and there is no life external to the Son. I am him. Resurrection and life are Jesus. These aren't properties that he has external to himself that he holds. He is life. He is resurrection. He has full authority here. If someone believes in me, Jesus says, you will never. You will never die if you believe in Jesus. We die in some way physically, unless the Lord comes back. But if we believe in Jesus, we will never die. Eternal life starts happening now as His Spirit comes into our spirits, makes us new children of God, and we never die because we have the life of Christ in us. Martha responds, she says to him, Yes, Lord. I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world. Martha gets it here. You're Him. You are Him. Everything that you were telling me about being the resurrection and the life is signifying to me that you are the Messiah, the Christ, the long awaited one, God in the flesh, to do for his people what they cannot do themselves. You are him. She makes a confession. Of faith. The one who is coming into the world, the Christ. So she gets it. She goes and gets Mary, then. And this leads to the second or the next, the third header here. So Jesus has declared he's the resurrection and the life. And now he demonstrates he is the resurrection and the life. Picking up from verse 32. Now when Mary came to where Jesus was, And saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, Lord, if you would have been here, my brother would not have died. A similar statement is marked. Listen to the difference in how Jesus responds. When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and greatly troubled. Deeply moved in spirit and greatly troubled. This word here, this language here literally means the snorting of a war horse. A horse that is snorting, ready for battle. Or you could better translate it, Jesus is fiery hot in his anger. He's outraged like a war horse. He sees the weeping. Why is he outraged? He sees this weeping. He sees the sadness. He sees the death. And he sees the unbelief. This whole scene. The whole scene, Jesus takes it in, and he's angry about it. Why? Because he knows this is not This is not the way it was intended to be his heart. He's a divine warrior. Righteous anger then leads to righteous action. Verse 34, and he said, Where have you laid? The warrior gets fired up and he says, Where have you laid him? He is ready for action. He's ready to do war. They said to him, Lord, come and see. Jesus. Now he enters into the pain not with anger, but with deep emotional grief. Jesus. Shortest verse in the Bible and one of the most beautiful. The word made flesh, God before time, now bursting in tears, shedding tears. Touching the suffering of man, allowing himself to be touched by the suffering of man. He's taking it on himself. That word compassion means to suffer with. Jesus is suffering with here. He's suffering as if it's his own pain. As if it's his own pain. Jesus is not distant to suffering. Not the suffering of all these people in this story, and not your suffering this morning. The pain that you feel this morning is pain that he feels. He feels it. Especially if you are a child of God. It's his spirit. You're groaning with the spirit of Christ in you. How does he not feel that? It's what he feels. He feels our pain this morning. Feels the pain if you're not a child of God this morning. He knows your pain. He knows what you're going through. He feels. But he doesn't just commiserate. And he's not distant. He doesn't just commiserate. He intends to do something about it. Righteous anger, deep emotional compassion, righteous action. There's a divided response that takes place. You see this in verse 36. So the Jews said, See how he loved him. See how this teacher loved Lazarus. But some of them said, Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying? I just want to grumble. Verse 38, then Jesus deeply moved again, probably because of the unbelief that is here. Came to the tomb. It was a cave. And a stone lay against it. Jesus said, Take away. Martha, the sister of the deadman, said, said, Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he's been dead four days. Jesus said to her, Did I not tell you, did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory? You would see it. So they took away the stone, and Jesus lifted up his eyes and he said, Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around this whole scene. Why that they may believe that you sent me as your divine representative, God on earth. See. There's the tie from earlier. This illness does not end in death. It ends in the revelation of God, the revealing of the Son of God as God, so that people might believe. That's the purpose here. Verse forty three. When he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, Lazarus, come out. The man who had died came out, his hands and his feet bound with linen strips and his face wrapped with a cloth, and Jesus said to them, Unbind him and let him go. Jesus reveals who he is here. Jesus does not ask Lazarus to come out. He commands dead people to rise. He commands them full authority over Lazarus' dead body, over Lazarus, over this situation, and Lazarus obeys. He comes out. Some people almost say there's a second miracle happening here because these linen strips would have been so tight that he would have had a hop like a bunny. out of the grave. And then they so he says say, okay, unbind him. He's like shuffling out. So he's he is more than okay coming out of this grave. He hopped out or he shuffled out. Jesus commands the whole scene again, unbind him, let him go. So there could have been this. Here's where there is the four days is strategic in what Jesus is doing. We don't know, we don't have all the intel of what's happening here in the scene, but it is related. The four days is related to the two days delay that Jesus had in the very beginning. It's related. Some people think that maybe there was a spirit, tradition would have that the spirit would hover around the body for three days until on the fourth day. Decomposition starts to set in, the face turns, and it's just gruesome. And then the spirit would leave. Perhaps that's some of what's going on. There was this opportunity for, well, maybe it's just resuscitation. Maybe he was just sleeping. He was in a coma. Maybe he wasn't really dead. That's why this there's this. Stink here. Don't go with don't open the tomb. There's there's odor there. But Jesus knows what he's doing. He's declaring the full authority here, maximizing his glory in this moment. So after four days, the decomposed flesh comes together, the heart starts beating. He is full and well walking out of this grave. Praise be to God. It is a grand display of the authority and the power and the love of Jesus. A grand display. The glory of God made visible. What's not seen, being seen. What's not known, being known, through the resurrection of Lazarus from the dead. Praise God. But there's a problem here. Lazarus is gonna die again. Death is not taken care of. So where is the hope here for Lazarus and where's the hope for us this morning? This is the last point here this morning where John takes us. Jesus dies to give us resurrection. Jesus dies to give us resurrection and life. So this is a powerful sign, right? It's a powerful sign. How do you not believe if you see this happen? Many believe. Many of the Jews that are here believe. And that was the purpose of this. It's a purpose. People are coming to faith in who Jesus is as the resurrection and life. But there's a divided response again, and others, they run and tattle on him. He performed another miracle. They go talk to the highest authorities, religious authorities that they can. All the Jews, all these Jewish authorities, they then gather together for this one purpose. What are we gonna do about it? And they're saying things like, we can't let him go. If we let him go, he's gonna get more support. And there's gonna be this commotion, and guess what also might happen? Well then the Romans are gonna be upset and they might come and take us all away. We're gonna lose our whole country, our nation, we're gonna lose everything. What are we gonna do? Caiaphas, verse 49, 49. Caiaphas. This is the highest of the highs. This is the high priest standing in absolute authority, representative of God to the people here. Highest authority, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, You know nothing at all, nor do you understand that it is better for you that one man should die. Not that the whole nation should perish. His strategy is very simple and straightforward. Save the people by killing. Save us by killing Jesus. If he lives, we're all gonna die. If he dies, we can live. Let's get rid of him. Listen to verse fifty one. He did not say this of his own accord. Being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus would die for the And not for the nation only, but also to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad. From that day on they made plans to put him to death. This is out of control. They have very real plans to kill Jesus. God has very real plans that Jesus God's at work here through their sin and through their rebellion. They have their own plans. God has plans of his own. Their plans for the murder of Jesus, or God's plans for this murder, is that it would not end. It would end in the There is a death that is coming that does not terminate in death. It terminates on the glory of God, the revealing of the Son of God. God's glory being made known and shown and seen. That's where this is going. You see church and maybe guests this morning. Death is not the great interrupter. Yeah. Yeah. If sin is not taken care of, death will always be. Death is the rightful result of what happens when you rebel against him who is life. It is the natural consequence. That's sin. Maybe in this text we could take that for ourselves to define sin as any way that we choose life apart from him who is life. This morning may we consider that in our early Wherever we may be this morning, we are seeking life, deep, rich, abiding, forever life somewhere. And it's other than Jesus. That's sin. And it deserves death. Praise God. This is why Jesus has come. He came that this death not end in death, but in the glory of God. Righteous anger, divine love leads to righteous action. Not that he would go stand at a tomb and shout to a dead man, but that he would go to a tomb and lay down in it himself. Via the cross. He goes to a cross to die the death that you and I deserve. This is the revealing of God to us. He so loved us that he did, laying down his life there. One death for all the people. Caiaphas got it right in some way. Wrong in some way, but the word of God in another way that cannot be broken. He will die for the people. Just not a type of death that you're thinking. Not a type of life that you're thinking about. He's gonna die as a sacrifice to pay for the sins of his people. And anybody that believes in him lives. They live. Because three days later, Jesus does walk out of the grave and he does this on his own accord. He does it on his own accord. Nobody has to yell into his tomb to tell them to come out. He simply picks it up. It's time. I have authority to lay my life down and I have authority to pick it back up. And he steps out of the grave. Stone still rolled in front of it. Jesus out of the grave walking around. You don't need to open up that stone to let me out. He's raised up. Raised up in and through out of death. Grave could not hold the Son of God conquering the grave and sin and suffering and Satan overcoming all of it. It's the the receipt. He's like, I got receipts for this. If you're if you're wondering, is the payment good? How do I know that he paid for every one of my sins? Maybe just some of them, not the really bad ones. How do I know that he paid for all of it? He came out of the grave. That's the receipt that lets you know the payment was good. There was a cross that did not end in death. The cross itself terminates on the glory of God. And for John, this is one of the themes he's been showing us through this book: that the glory of God, in some strange, profound way, is the manifestation of God on the cross. That this is a type of exaltation. Praising we do of this God raised up on a cross. There's glory. revelation of the grace of God for sinners is the glory of God. It's the apex of his glory. When he's really seen for all that he is, he's seen here, dying a substitutionary death for sinners. What a wonder. And if I could be so bold this morning, if I could, and I think I'm not saying it's not biblical, I think Paul goes here. I want you to imagine if you came to Jesus and you said, Jesus. I've sinned. I need help. Because in this sin and in this shame, I feel this weight of death. I feel it. I feel it. I need help. We need help. Jesus made just respond. That's why I say, if I can be so bold, He made just There is a sin that does not lead to death, but that leads to That's it. Where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more. I want you to get this switch be because until we do, we will live lives of shame. Jesus is not ashamed to call us brothers and sisters this morning. He's not ashamed to go to the cross and bear our sin. When we give him our sin, he is glad to take it, take it all for his glory. Do you get that? You withholding sin from Jesus is robbing him of glory he wants to give you. Are we gonna be the people that robbed Jesus of glory? Or are going to be the people that let Him forgive and die for every one of our sins as the revelation of God to us? Now listen, that's for the people of God. But this morning, if you're not in Christ, if you're not placed your faith in Christ, He's not, that's not for you. You have to bear your eternal death. You can come to Jesus right now this morning and say, Yes, Lord, I need you. I accept you. I recognize my sin separates me from God. And I deserve death, and I'm trusting in you to die the death for All of us having come to Christ, then Lazarus becomes our story. Our story is one where we remember Christ coming to us, calling us out of darkness and out of dead places, and raising us up from the dead. Resurrection life is not something that's just coming in the future. It's right now. It's right now if we've placed our faith in Jesus. Eternal life coming in. Jesus making us new. The old man is dead, and now we live to him. We will yet die in this life if Jesus does not come back. But even if we do, or even if we do die, we will be raised. We experience resurrection life now and we will experience it in the future. When we will be raised to new life with all the people of God in a new heavens and a new earth where death is no more. It is finally put away. It is it is finally only just a memory. No more interruption of life and joy because of death. Death may have been the great interrupter of our lives. But Jesus is the great interruptor of death. He interrupts it out of love for you. Do you believe this? He is the resurrection and the life, dying for your sin that you might live forever with him. Do you believe this? Father, thank you for your grace this morning. Thank you for a comforting word that the greatest obstacle we face in this life, sin and death, its consequence, have been taken care of by you. Thank you, Jesus, for dying the death that we deserve. Giving us new life in you. We thank you that right now you reign and you rule with all authority. We thank you and we praise you that we have a good hope. We have an inheritance that is coming that is so far beyond anything we can imagine. May we even, along with the Apostle Paul, say, the sufferings of this present life are not worth even comparing. We don't even need to spend time comparing to the glory that's coming, the revealing. The full revealing of who you are to us. I pray this morning we would be strengthened. Would be strengthened in this life. Because you know, Lord, we still operate here. This world is not yet redeemed. So we struggle. So we face loved ones who are dying. We face the grave ourselves. And you know, Lord, it's not easy. And we're not going to pretend it's easy. You wept here in this text, and you weep with us. As we face death in all of its manifestations. So strengthen us today, God. Strengthen us to deal with death. Strengthen us to be a fragrance of life to this dark world. May our very lives declare that there is life to come, that this is not it. There is more. Praise God. May we see you in all your glory. Strengthen us. All for your glory. And for our eternal joy. It's in your name we pray. Amen.

John 11 · chapter mention