I AM // I AM the Resurrection and the Life [John 11] (Billy Hanna)

Father, again, we we thank you for the hope that only you can

bring. Louie, thank you for chance to

worship. We just pray for Belize.

He brings your message to us today.

Just pray that we would be affected, shaken up and changed

by it LOL. We pray for our Sunday school.

We pray for and the team classes, the kids in the

adolescents go out and we just pray that they would be able to

connect with you, connect through your word in a way

that's as it's presented to them in a way they can, they can

grasp it. We just pray for more people to

be all closer to you this morning.

We pray for the teachers as they as they deliver your truth to

the kids. Lord, we thank you again for the

chance to present our offering to you.

We know it all belongs to you anyway And and we give it to you

as a as a token of our understanding of that.

And thank you for that, Lord dumb.

Thank you for the hope of resurrection.

We pray these things in Jesus name, Amen.

Good morning. If you have a Bible, would you

open with me to the book of John?

We're gonna be in John Chapter 11, John Chapter 11.

John 11 · chapter mention John 11 · chapter mention

Well, we are continuing our series going through the

different I M statements that Jesus makes in the book of John.

And as followers of Christ, Christians, literally followers

of Christ, it's very worthwhile for us to take some time to step

back and ask the question, who is Jesus?

Who is this man Christ that we follow that we put so much of

our identity and as Christians and the beauty is Christ has

made himself known and the word of God.

And especially in the book of John, there's these seven

incredible statements where at different times Jesus makes this

claim about himself, about who he is, which sees I am this,

this, this. And we've come to one of these

incredible statements in John Chapter 11, where Jesus makes

John 11 · chapter mention

this claim about who he is. And before we start, I wanna

compare two different quotes with you just to get us thinking

as we come to it. Two different quotes, very

different. First one's from DL Moody.

He was an evangelist in the 1800s.

Very well known Christian. He says this.

Someday you will read in the papers that DL Moody of East

Northfield is dead. Don't you believe a word of it.

At that moment, I shall be more alive than I am now.

That's a cool perspective. Another quote, a very different

one, from scientist Stephen Hawking.

I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its

components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife

for broken down computers. Here we have two incredibly

different perspectives on death. And I think when you look at the

statistics, you could find that people in the world at go

anywhere between that spectrum on the way that they view death,

the way they view life after death.

And I bring this up because today we're going to focus on

this incredible statement from Jesus where he sees this I am

the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though

he die, yet shall he live. And everyone who lives and

believes in me will never die in a world that we are in,

surrounded by death, where so many of us experience the sting

of death, we don't know how to view death or life after death.

So many perspectives on it here. Jesus says, making an exclusive

claim. I claim that there's only true

for him where he sees I alone have power over death.

I am the resurrection and the life.

Jesus alone has power over death.

And the context in which Jesus makes this statement is the

story we're gonna look at this morning in John Chapter 11,

John 11 · chapter mention

where Jesus raises a friend, a dear friend named Lazarus, from

the dead. And really, what it shows us is

Jesus interacting with death. How does Jesus interact with

death? And I think we may be surprised

as we see him sit with this family that he loves and their

grief. But in the midst of this, he

brings in this message of hope that Jesus alone has power over

teeth. And I'm even aware in this room,

as we come to this passage, there are many different people

with many different experiences around death.

It's a huge topic. It's a weighty topic.

My heart this morning is to not give Billy's top 10 tips on how

to deal with death. I just want to come to this

passage and ask the question, how did Jesus deal with death?

How did Jesus interact with the family, a man who he loves, who

died? So let's come to this passage

together. Let's read verses one through 3.

It's gonna kind of set the scene for us in John Chapter 11.

John 11 · chapter mention

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.

So here we see we have Jesus with a family that he knows and

and he loves Mary and Martha. They're well known for other

accounts, especially in in Luke chapter 10 if you want to learn

Luke 10 · chapter mention

more about them. But this is a family who Jesus

knows well who he loves. And we can even learn when they

send word, they find out Lazarus's L.

This gives the idea it's not just a sniffly nose.

He is he is very ill leading to death.

And so they send word to Jesus, hoping maybe Jesus can do

something. And they identify Lazarus by

simply saying the one whom you love.

It's clear Jesus has got this intimate relationship with this

family. How many people are there that

you can say the one whom you love and you go, OK sweet, the

one whom you love as El Jesus love this family.

So this, this, the seeding of this Jesus is not with them.

They are in Bethany and Jesus sees this and verse 4 when Jesus

heard it, he said this illness does not lead to death.

Now this is a strange statement because we know it does lead to

death. I think Jesus is more saying

this does not end in death. It may go through death, but it

will not end in death. And then he makes this

statement, which is gonna really give us the purpose of this

miracle, the purpose, the purpose of this passage.

Four times throughout John 11, Jesus is gonna make clear what

the purpose of this miracle is. And this is the first time he

sees this. It is for the glory of God so

that the Son of God may be glorified through it.

That would glorify there. It it doesn't so much mean the

idea that we would glorify God. We would give glory to God.

And the way that that's used and the way that's used in the book

of John, it's more the idea of that the glory of the sun might

be revealed. So Jesus is saying this miracle

is happening so that people may see my glory.

It might reveal. It's almost taking back the

layers and show people who I really AM.

And so the purpose of this miracle, first and foremost, is

that we and those around Jesus might see who he is, might get

an idea of of who this man Jesus is.

So this happens so we can see Jesus.

And secondly, we're gonna see throughout this passage, it

happens not only that we can see Him, but that we can believe

Him. Verse 15 He says this to his

disciples after Lazarus has died.

He says I'm glad I am not there so that you may believe.

Verse 26 he sees to Martha, do you believe this in in verse 42

when he's praying to the Father before he raises Lazarus in

front of everyone around him. He says this has happened so

that they may believe. So even as we come to this, the

purpose of this miracle, the purpose of this passage is so

that we can firstly see Christ for who he really is, who is

Christ? Christ is the one who has power

over death, and it has happened so that we can actually truly

believe who He is. That's not just for unbelievers.

He says that to his disciples in verse 15, the ones who are very

close to him. He says this is happening so

that you can actually believe who I am.

So we may see Jesus and we may believe Him.

And that context is important as we come to verses 5 and 6 sees

this 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.

Now that's peculiar. You could imagine if there was

someone who you loved, who was ill, who was unwell, who was

near death and was something that you could do.

Anything you could do, you would hightail it to get there.

You picture, I picture this what I want to see, the slow motion

scene of Jesus pushing through crowds of people.

I've gotta get to Bethany. I've gotta save Lazarus.

But now when Jesus finds out and it it's, it's strange.

It says right after he loved them.

So because he loved them, he stayed.

Why? Why did he stay?

Well, I think first and foremost we need to understand that the

whole purpose of this miracle, as we just spoke about, was, was

Jesus Christ being glorified, being made known.

So everything is coming through the lens of Jesus being made

known and Jesus being glorified. We're gonna see where Jesus is

right now. We we see in John chapter 10, he

John 10 · chapter mention

is on the other side of the Jordan.

He's about a 3 1/2 day walk away from Bethany where Lazarus and

his family is and we find out after two days Jesus decides to

go and see Lazarus and verse 11 he says to his disciples Lazarus

has fallen asleep and he sees it clearer.

In verse 14 he says to them, Lazarus has died.

So two days after Jesus gets this message, he says, OK, let's

go. And and he he's supernaturally

known that Lazarus at that point had died.

The point I'm making is this, if Jesus had, as soon as Jesus

received the message, if he left then and then went to Bethany,

Lazarus would have already been died 2 days.

So why the delay? The delay is for the glory of

God. But you ask, what's the

difference between someone being dead 2 days and four days?

A very common Jewish tradition at the time.

It's not biblically true, but this is a Jewish tradition at

the time. Was that when someone died, this

spirit would hover over their body for the first for first

three days and then when the decomposition sit in and the

spirit no longer recognise the body, the spirit would leave and

the person was seen as completely ultimately did.

And so when Jesus shows up and we see from verse 17 when Jesus

shows up, Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days.

They buried on the first day. There was absolutely no doubt

that Lazarus was dead. There was no doubt no one could.

If Jesus went and raised him, there were no sceptics who could

come and say ohh no no, the Spirit was just hovering over

the body on no no no, he wasn't really did.

A Lazarus was in the tomb four days.

He was undoubtedly dead, and so Jesus and his love for Mary and

Martha and for the purpose of his glory, Jesus delayed.

That's why he says to his disciples in verse 15.

He says Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I'm glad I wasn't

there so that you may believe. Often the purposes of God in the

moment make very little sense. It's very easy to look at our

situation in the moment and go, What?

What is going on here? God, what are you doing?

It makes no real logical sense for Jesus to hear that his

friend is sick and to delay. If you came into our house last

night at dinner time, you would have found me having a standoff

with our 18 month old who was determined he was not gonna eat

his dinner and for him, he just wants to play.

I just wanna go play. But for me as a dad, I know you

need to eat. You need to get some food in

you. Often we just we just go gold.

What is going on here? I don't you know that I need

this. Don't you know I need this now?

We don't know the purposes of God.

Out of his love, Jesus delayed. And so let's keep moving through

the narrative. Verse 17 Jesus comes to Bethany.

Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in

the tomb for days. Bethany was near Jerusalem,

about two miles off, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and

Mary to console them concerning their brother.

This is quite a common custom, just to get an idea of what

Jesus is walking into here. Often in the Jewish culture,

when a family member would die, common custom would be that you

would actually hire mourners to come to your family, and it's

seen as a way of honouring the one who had died.

And they're not necessarily coming together, just having a

yarn, having some meals. They are whaling.

They are literally paid to come and and wail and mourn with the

family. And it's seen that the more you

are wailing, the more you are mourning, the more it's

honouring the one who has died. And so that's why it says people

have come from Jerusalem to come and and mourn and wail with the

family that be playing sad music with the flute.

But essentially what you're looking at is just a desperately

sad situation and put yourself in the shoes of Mary and Martha,

who have just lost their brother.

They are sad. They are confused and we're

gonna read this interaction that Jesus is going to have with

Martha when Jesus arrives in Bethany.

And I just want you to remember, this is not Jesus interacting

with strangers. This is Jesus interacting with a

family that he loves over the death of a friend that he loves.

1st 20 So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out

and met him, but Meri 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.

That's a heart breaking statement.

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

And it would be easier, I guess, to read that cynically, like

that was seed with some sense of anger.

Lord, if you'd been here, my brother would not have died.

I think more of this is said from from a a sister who is in

grief, and I think it's kind of confirmed in verse 22 because

she ceased to Jesus. I know whatever you ask from

God, God will give you. She's saying, I still believe

that you are who you say you are.

She may not quite understand why Jesus chose to delay, why Jesus

didn't heal Lazarus, but she still has this faith in who

Jesus is. She knows that Jesus could have

saved him, but he chose not to. I don't think she's saying

there, I know that you can raise them from the dead.

I think we'll see as we go through this passage that that

was not really in Martha's mind at all.

The thought of that was pretty shocking, but she sang.

I still trust in who you are. And so Jesus replies.

Jesus said to her, Your brother will rise again.

Martha said to him, I know he will rise again and the

resurrection on the last day, Jesus is your brother will rise

again. I mean, we read this knowing

what's gonna happen, and we assume that Jesus Masters meant

to understand that he's saying I'm about to raise your brother

from the dead. Most Jews had a pretty similar

understanding that we do. At least, it seems Martha did.

There's this hope of this future resurrection, she says.

I know. And this is the way we often

comfort people. When someone dies, we said, they

will rise again on the last day. And that's what Jesus is saying

to Martha. And Martha sees, I know that she

will, that he will rise on the last day.

This is good theology from Martha.

I think Jesus is purposely being ambiguous here because what he's

about to do in verse 25 is he's gonna take this, this Jewish

understanding of the resurrection, this theological

truth, which means the truth about God, and he's gonna apply

it to himself. He's gonna take it from being

this abstract thing that we we believe and we have and our

theological books and he's gonna say no, no, no, look at me,

Mother says, I know he will rise.

And the resurrection on the last day, Jesus said to her, I am the

resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though

he die, yet shall he live. And everyone who lives and

believes in me shall never die. You know, Mary, this this,

Martha that, that, this resurrection that you're hoping

for, this belief that you have, I am the source of that

resurrection. I am the source of that hope.

He's saying two things here. He's saying firstly I am the

resurrection and then I am the life.

And I think he explains them one after another.

I am the resurrection. Whoever believes in me, though

he die, yet shall he live. So whoever believes in Christ,

though, though our bodies will die, we will be raised and we

will live with Christ, we will be resurrected.

I am the resurrection. I am the life.

Everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.

That's Speaking of eternal life. So in Christ we are resurrected.

Though we die, we live in that life that we live as eternal.

We will never die. That's the hope that's found in

Christ and Christ is saying I am the the source of that and he's

saying this. This is an exclusive claim.

It's not found in in anyone else.

No one else is the resurrection and the life.

We, we compared those quotes at the start, those two vastly

different perspectives on death. Well, if we're taking Jesus at

his word here, what he's saying is the only way to have any sort

of hope and death is to believe in Jesus Christ.

It's not to try and get ourselves there by what we do.

It is exclusive. I am the resurrection and the

life and and what, what, what, what do we have to do?

Believe anyone who believes in me.

And I had to look at some statistics this week and it's

it's pretty scary to see the percentage of people who believe

in some form of afterlife, they believe in some sort of hope

after death. But then you compare that with

the percentage of people who call themselves Christian.

And I'm sure that those numbers are conflated as well.

And it is heart breaking because what Jesus says here is the only

way to have hope, power over death is through belief in Jesus

Christ. Jesus alone has power over

death. And then he asked the question

to Martha, which is really a question for all of us at the

end of verse 26. Do you believe more than just a

as a theological concept? Do we truly believe this?

Martha says she does. Verse 27.

She said to him, yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ,

the Son of God who was coming into the world.

And again, this is not to say that Martha said, yes, I believe

that you're about to raise my brother from the dead.

But she's saying, Lord, I believe that you are who you say

you are. Jesus is now going to have a a

similar interaction with Martha, sister Mary.

We jump down to verse 32. Remember Mary was sitting

inside. Now verse 32.

Now when Mary came to where Jesus was, she came outside and

saw him. She fell at his feet, saying to

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

Does that sound familiar? Word for word?

The same words as her sister and what we come to here looking at

versus 33 through 38. I just want to briefly highlight

Jesus response to this grief, Jesus response to this family

and grief as response to this death.

And what we're going to see here is 3 signs of deep emotion from

Christ. And I want you to remember that

as we read this. This is coming from a man who

knows that in about two minutes he is going to raise Lazarus

from the dead. He he knows it's gonna happen.

And yet let's read how Jesus responds.

When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her

also weeping, He was deeply moved in a spirit and greatly

troubled. And you see it.

Where have you laid him? They said to him, Lord, come and

see. Jesus wept so that you see it,

see how he loved him. But some of them said, Could not

he who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this

man from dying? Then Jesus, deeply moved again,

came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay

against it. Jesus sees this sweeping and

there are three things. Firstly, he was deeply moved and

greatly troubled. Then we see verse 35 Jesus

whipped and back again in verse 38.

He was deeply moved. Almost every commentator and

scholar agrees that the English translation we have here for

those words deeply moved is not good.

The literal Greek word there, the best way we could describe

it, is angry, is outraged, and it seems the translators thought

that that was too harsh. It must be meaning something

else. The Greek, literally Jesus was

outraged in the Spirit. It's the same word is used in

Greek literature for the snorting of horses.

So Jesus saw this weeping. Jesus saw this grief of of this

family who had lost Lazarus and he is outraged and his spirit

and and greatly troubled. You can picture his his chest

tightening, maybe his arms start to shake.

Why? I think it's very simply this.

As Jesus comes face to face with death, he is angered and

outraged at a world where death looms.

Death is not normal. Death is not good.

Death is not the way that it should be.

He is deeply angry. He's he's, he's outraged, he's

he's moved. And then he's moved to the point

where verse 35, Jesus whipped. These are not crocodile tears.

He's not pretending to cry over Lazarus.

He's about to raise Lazarus. He's crying and he's moved at

the impact of death. And we all know that.

We all feel that in our heart. Death is just.

It's not right. It's not how the world was

designed. We weren't designed to die.

But in a world where sin is in it, death happens.

Death is not normal. Death is not good.

I honestly think we need to view this and understand this and

remember that Jesus own death. The cross is looming in the

background. We're talking a matter of weeks

at this point. Now we know from the calendar

the Passover is coming and we know that this was on Jesus

mind. We know this was a weight he

sees in Luke chapter 12 verse 50.

Luke 12:50

I have a baptism to be baptised with, meaning I have a cross to

carry and how great is my distress until it is

accomplished. And this event actually the Rd.

is and John 11, this event starts the process of his death.

Tim Keller says he and this event, he's signing his death

warrant because from here the Jews conspire to plan his death.

But I do just want to step aside and make a point here.

From what we see from Christ here, perfect theology does not,

should not, eliminate grief in Christ.

We need to hold these two things in balance and actually see the

way Christ responded to death and recognise it in our hearts.

It's actually good to go. This is, it's not right.

It's it's not good. It's not how it's meant to be.

It, it hurts it, it angers us. And Jesus, he had perfect

theology, right? He, he knew Lazarus was about to

be raised. But death hurts.

Death is not right. Perfect theology does not

eliminate grief and Christ. Grief and hope can coexist and,

and, and what we're gonna see is although we can grieve and

although we must grieve and Christ hope as their hope is

present and hope is greater. And so Jesus has seed that he

has power over death. He's made this claim.

Now he's gonna show it. Let's just rate it all

altogether. Not altogether, but we'll read

the whole thing in one. Jesus said, Take away the stone.

Martha, the sister of the dead man said to him, Lord, by this

time there would have been an odour, for he has been dead 4

days. Jesus said to her, Did I not

tell you if you believed you would see the glory of God?

So they took away the stone, and Jesus lifted up his eyes and

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 that they may believe that you sent

me. 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 feet bound with

linen strips and his face wrapped with a cloth.

Jesus said to them, unbind him and let him go.

I want you to imagine that scene.

By this time, a crowd had gathered around the term.

And as Jesus, he looks up to the Father, and as he prays to to

God the Father. This isn't a prayer of God.

Would you please do this? This is a prayer of

Thanksgiving. Jesus already knows what's gonna

happen, but he actually sees. I'm praying this publicly so

that the crowd might see and believe that you sent me and and

as the stones being rolled away, Jesus cries out.

Lazarus come out and is this the silence?

And then people start to hear some movement inside the grave

from Peter. Peter of feet and outcomes this

man Lazarus fully wrapped up in in these grave clothes.

You imagine if you were there just that shock and you can't

help but think as as you see this you you look at Jesus and

say he must be who he says he is with one sentence.

Lazarus come out, many have said.

If if he hadn't specified Lazarus, every tomb in Jerusalem

would have spat out their dead. The thing is, this is just a

it's a picture of a far greater reality because the reality is

Lazarus died again. This wasn't an eternal

resurrection of Lazarus. It was almost like a

resuscitation where he was dead, Jesus raised him.

But further down the track, Lazarus died again.

This is a picture where Christ is saying, hey, I've seen it.

I have this power. Now let me show you with just a

word, but it's a picture of what was to happen in a matter of

weeks where Christ himself went to the cross.

And is He hung on that cross, the wall, that punishment from

God the Father against the sin? And he suffered, He bleed, and

He died to make a sacrifice for those who would believe in Him.

He went to a grave very similar to Lazarus's grave.

Three days later he rose from the dead, never to die.

He is the resurrection and the life.

Jesus himself has power over death, and Jesus himself

defeated death so that if we believe in him, we can share in

that resurrection life, that hope, that power over death.

In him we have hope and the face of death.

How are we gonna respond to this?

That's what we talked about at the start.

Just want to look at 2 responses we get versus 45 and 4046.

Many of the Jews, therefore, who had come with Mary had seen what

he did, believed in Him, But some of them went to the

Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done.

We've heard what Christ has said.

We've seen his display of power. We choose to.

We can choose to believe, believe in that hope, believe in

His power, or we can choose to reject it.

Those are our options. And I'd plead you, if you do not

know Christ, to see who He is, to see how He's revealed Himself

in this and believe in Him. Just want to close with two

questions for us to think about as we process this, what this

claim that Jesus has made about himself and the power that he's

shown. How did Jesus view death?

How did Jesus view death? And the answer that we've seen

is Jesus viewed death as horrific, as wrong, as painful,

but it will be made right. Jesus viewed death with this

balance of grief and pain, but it's punctuated with this hope.

And I think that models the way that that we need to think about

death as as believers. It is painful and it is good.

It is good to grieve and sit in that grief because it's not

right. But we have hope and that hope

is greater. That's why Paul says this in

First Thessalonians. He says we do not want you to be

uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, many of

those who have died, that you may not grieve as others do who

have no hope. So since we believe that Jesus

died and rose again, Even so through Jesus, God will bring

with him those who have fallen asleep.

He's not saying don't grieve. He's saying don't grieve like

the world grieves. We have grief and we have hope.

If you look at Revelation chapter 21, the second to last

Revelation 21 · chapter mention

chapter in the Bible, we get this picture of the new heavens

and the new earth and what life will be like reigning with

Christ forever and it makes it very clear death will be no

more. How did Jesus view death?

And secondly, if we truly believe this, do we share it?

And I just want to make this point on the back of the

evangelism series that we've come off.

I'm sure for many of us that has stirred something in your heart

of people in your life who do not know Christ.

And I just want to lean into what we mentioned before that

this is a, this is an exclusive claim from Christ, meaning this

cross is saying if we do not believe in him, we we don't have

that hope. There are people around us who

do not know Christ, but here Christ is.

I am the resurrection and the life.

If we truly believe this, we need to have an urgency in

sharing this with those around us who do not know Christ, who

do not know this. Hope I'll close with what Paul

says in First Corinthians 15. He says if Christ has not been

raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins, then

those who have also fallen asleep in Christ have perished.

If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all

people most to be pitied. But in fact, Christ has been

raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen

asleep. Meaning of Christ has been

raised to those who believe in him will be raised Christ as the

resurrection and the life flits turns him in prayer.

Almighty God, we come to you so thankful for the hope that your

word gives us on this topic that is so difficult.

We thank you for the hope that we have in Christ that Christ

has power over death. Christ is the resurrection and

the life. Help us to just go and ask that

question. Do we believe this?

Not not as a a theology, but in our heart do we believe this

God? And probably it would touch us

and urge us to go out and share this with those who do not.

No, you got pray for those who do not know this truth.

Lord there you may just use it to work in their heart and see

with clarity the goodness of Jesus and what He has done for

us. Jesus name I mean.