When God Allows Pain (John 11: 1-37) Myles Holmes | November 9, 2025

Hello and welcome to the Redemption Church Podcast.

We're a church in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada that exists to glorify God through the fulfillment of the Great Commission and the Spirit of the Great Commandment.

Thanks for joining us today.

If you have your Bibles, you can open them up to John chapter 11.

John 11 · chapter mention

You're gonna need a copy this morning, and so if you don't have one, the ushers are making their way down the aisle, and you can just raise your hand in the air, and they would love to get a copy into your hands, which you can keep as our gift to you.

Might sound strange, but makes more sense as you think about it.

One of the ways that you know someone truly loves you is whether or not that person allows pain in your life when they know it will lead to your progress.

Parents know that there are times in their children's lives where love means saying no, no matter how unfair that child finds that to be.

Where love means setting a boundary or letting a kid fail.

In fact, in our house, we've been experiencing that since Halloween, since our kids have been given candy, and limits have been set on that candy, and my kids are convinced I'm some candy-hating dictator in our house.

They think I'm ruining their childhood.

I'm convinced I'm saving them from diabetes.

But that's the way it goes.

We know that to be true in friendship, don't we?

That that true friends, real friends, aren't those who gaslight you, are not those who will say what you want to hear, but the the real friends are the ones who wound us best.

Scripture says this, it says faithful are the wounds of a friend.

And so a real friend, at times, their words are like the surgeon's scalpels, which must cut and pierce before healing can be administered?

Real love allows pain when it knows that progress lies behind it.

Now, if that's true of our parenting, and that's true of our friendship, if you're convinced of this, and I hope that you are this morning, then how much more true is it of our relationship with God?

How much more should we expect that a sovereign God who is fully good, fully powerful, and fully wise, how much more should we expect that if he loves us, he would allow pain to enter into our lives when he knows that progress lies behind it?

And yet, isn't it so often true that we struggle to believe that God loves us once pain enters into our life?

That God's love is so personal and relatable to us when everything's good, but as soon as an ounce of suffering hits our life, as soon as we meet trial, as soon as we feel pain, we begin to question that love.

Now, this is the tension that sits at the center of John chapter 11.

John 11 · chapter mention

It's the well-known story of Jesus dealing with Mary and Martha and the death of Lazarus.

And in this story, we see God's love and the wrestling of humans who are experiencing pain and suffering completely at odds.

These two sisters, Mary and Martha, are grieving the loss of their brother, and when Jesus arrives, it's too late, and they hit him with these piercing words.

If you were here, this would not have been allowed to happen.

But what we discover in this passage is that God is never late.

He is always filled with love towards his children.

And he's always in control.

In fact, the pain that we feel in our life is not the place where Jesus withdraws.

What this passage is going to show us is that it's the exact place where he draws near.

Like a Psalm 34, we read already this morning, God draws near to the broken-hearted.

Mary and Martha come to discover what we need to learn this morning.

This is what I want you to take away.

This is our main idea that in the hands of Jesus, our pain becomes the place where his rule and heart are revealed.

In the hands of Jesus, our pain becomes the place where his rule and his heart are revealed.

What he allows into our lives are the things that expose our the savior we need most.

Now I love that in this passage, we're gonna read it in a moment.

What we see is that on the one hand, Jesus in our suffering sits on his throne, and on the other hand, Jesus in our suffering sheds his tears.

It's a beautiful picture of a savior on a throne with tears.

And I want you to know we need a savior with both those things, don't we?

We don't want a savior who's willing to cry for us, but unable to do anything.

Likewise, we don't want a Savior who sits on his throne, indifferent to our suffering and pain.

Loved one, in Jesus, we have both.

I want to see that together as we open up the text.

Would you stand with me as we read from John chapter 11, verses 1 to 37?

John 11:1–37

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 sister 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.

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.

Then after this he said to the disciples, Let us go to Judea again.

The disciples said to him, Rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone you, and are you going there again?

Jesus answered, Are there not twelve hours in the day?

If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, but he sees the light of this world.

But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles because the light is not in him.

After these things he said to them, Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awaken him.

The disciples said to him, Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover.

Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that he meant taking rest and sleep.

Then Jesus told them plainly, Lazarus has died, and for your sake, I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe, but let us go to him.

So Thomas, called the twin, said to his fellow disciples, Let us also go that we may die with him.

Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days.

Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles off.

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 whatever you ask from God, God will give to you.

Jesus said to her, Your brother will rise again.

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 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 believe this?

She said to him, Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.

When she had said this, she went and called her sister Mary, saying in private, The teacher is here and is calling for you.

And when she heard it, she rose quickly and went to him.

Now Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still in the place where Martha had met him.

When the Jews who were with her in the house consoling her, saw Mary rise quickly and go out, they followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb to weep there.

Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.

When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled.

And he said, Where have you laid him?

They said to him, Lord, come and see.

Jesus wept.

So the Jews said, 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?

This is the word of the Lord.

You can grab your seat.

Loved one, the first thing I want you to see about the pain that God allows to enter into our life is this that all that he allows, he reigns over.

All that he allows, he reigns over.

Notice how this passage opens.

It's with a desperate message, Lord, he whom you love is ill.

We've all received this kind of news before.

You've received the phone call you'd never wanted, the diagnosis that came like a lightning bolt into your life that was otherwise completely calm and peaceful.

Now Jesus hears these words, not from a stranger from but from family.

And we know this because of verse 5.

Look at verse 5.

Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.

In verse 3, the sisters know of Jesus' love, calling Lazarus he whom you love.

This strikes Jesus' heart because it hits him in this place of deep love that he has for his people.

In the Greek, it is an affection of a close friend.

This is someone who Jesus has eaten with.

This is someone who Jesus has laughed with.

This is someone who Jesus has done life with.

And so the sisters coming and bringing word to Jesus isn't like other scenarios in Jesus' ministry where they just want to sort of, you know, use Jesus for his healing power, believing that maybe he could do something.

This is a close friend.

This is someone nearer to Jesus' heart.

The sisters come because they know that in their pain, Jesus' love, not only for Lazarus, but for them, will meet his power.

And that somehow he will act.

Now, this is what true faith does.

True faith sees Jesus both as loving and powerful, and it runs to him, not only because he can fix it, but because in the midst of the pain, he cares for you.

You know, we don't have time to fully draw this out.

I think this could be maybe a whole nother sermon, but I can't help but believe that for many of us, our hearts are still tangled up in legalism.

So that when you know suffering enters our life, when pain enters our life, yes, we go to the Lord, but we go believing that maybe he's not really that compassionate to us.

Maybe he's not really filled with love for us.

I mean, sure he's sure he rules, sure he reigns, sure he's sovereign over all things.

But we pray like employees asking a boss for help instead of children, approaching a father who delights in us, who is not only powerful, but filled with love.

Now, if you look at verse 4, John gives us really the interpretive key for everything that follows.

Look at what he says.

This illness, Jesus says, does not lead to death.

It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.

Now, notice what Jesus is doing for Mary and Martha, and in turn for us this morning.

He's reframing our suffering before it enfolds.

He not only gives heed to Lazarus' pain, but he's also expressing that behind the pain there will be a purpose.

He doesn't deny the illness.

It's not like he says, hey, listen, it's all gonna be okay.

Stop crying.

You know, your brother, he's gonna be fine.

Instead, what Jesus does is he takes our pain, he takes our suffering, and he brings it inside his divine intent.

He tells us exactly what he's going to do with it.

He says, This sickness will not end in death.

Now it's interesting because if you read ahead, it does end in death.

Lazarus does die.

I was told of someone this week who was once sick in their life, and someone came and told them, listen, this sickness does not lead in death.

And I want you to know that if you're interpreting that contextually, that's a really bad thing to tell a person who's sick.

Lazarus dies.

But Jesus wants us to know something about every pain and every trial that we walk through.

Death and loss are never the final destination.

They are not where we are headed as Christians.

They are a layover.

That is to say, every sorrow in Christ, every pain that we face, every suffering, everything that is not right in your life.

There's only temporary transit on the way to your eventual resurrection.

It's a layover.

Now we can be honest, we hate layovers, don't we?

One time I was in Brussels for 13 hours.

I couldn't leave the airport.

You got about five minutes of entertaining, of entertainment studying fancy mustard in Brussels.

Beyond that, you don't have anything.

It was horrible.

I could not wait to get home.

Jesus is saying if you belong to him, your itinerary, it ends in glory.

Yeah, you're gonna face death, you're gonna face hardship, things will not go right in your life.

Some things will never be made right in your life, but this does not lead to death, Jesus says.

In light of that, we can make sense of what Jesus says in verses five and six.

These are some of the most surprising verses in all the gospel.

Now, Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.

So, so, this is what Jesus does in light of his love.

Are you ready for this?

So, when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.

Now that, in our perspective, is not how love works.

Shouldn't love, we ask, act immediately?

That's how we think it should, shouldn't it?

I mean, our prayer life reveals it.

God, do something.

God, do it now.

But but John wants you to see that divine love doesn't always rush to an answer.

It doesn't always rush to rescue.

Divine love often will hold out because in the holding out, you need to see something glorious.

Is that not what Jesus is saying?

Listen, this is this does not lead to death.

Instead, Jesus is saying, this is a stage for my glory to be revealed.

This is a stage for Mary and Martha and us this morning as we read this story to see the glory of Jesus Christ.

And so we need to apply this to our hearts right now.

And be sure, loved one, that we have a biblical, gospel-centered view of the pain and suffering we experience in life.

The pain that you have in life, the things that are not going right in your life, are not proof of Jesus' inability.

It's not evidence that Jesus is weak or unaware of your suffering.

It's the opposite.

The waiting is proof of his reign.

That's this is exactly what John wants us to see.

He's making it so abundantly absurd, the way that Jesus acts here.

Instead of going, he stays two days.

In verses 7 to 10, the disciples are wrestling with him.

Why are you going to Judea again?

This is where they wanted to stone you.

Jesus answers them with this riddle.

Are there not 12 hours in a day?

What is Jesus saying in these verses?

He's saying, Listen, I I listen to one person alone.

I walk in my Father's will.

I'm not governed by threat of being stoned.

I'm not governed of fear that Lazarus might die and I might not be able to do things.

The things that you are scared of, Jesus says to us, they don't scare me.

I rule, I am sovereign over it.

And if holding out needs to happen so that I can show you how powerful I really am over life and death, then that is exactly what will happen.

So then in verse 14, Jesus speaks so plainly.

Lazarus has died.

And the shocking statement that you should not ever say at any funeral.

Don't say that, alright?

That's a little tip for you.

I'm always giving you little tips.

For your sake, I am glad, though, Jesus says, I was not there, so that you may what?

Believe, so that you may believe.

And so, loved one, listen, in your suffering, in your suffering, what is Jesus doing by holding out?

He's not weak, he's not unable.

He's holding out so that you may experience a faith, a tenderness, a strength, a faith that you would not otherwise experience.

Jesus is not rejoicing in death here.

He is rejoicing in the product that will come, in the faith and the glory that will rise from this scenario.

Jesus' reign and sovereignty over our pain means that he often will keep us in the furnace of suffering and pain longer than we would choose.

You know, Peter, in one of my favorite verses on suffering, draws this out in 1 Peter chapter 1.

1 Peter 1 · chapter mention

He says that trials happen with these two beautiful words, if necessary, so that, Peter says, the tested genuineness of our faith, more precious than gold, refined by fire, may result in praise and glory.

I love the picture that Peter paints.

You know, suffering in our life is when you're put into the furnace and you are a precious metal that God loves and he refines you so that all the impurity comes out and can be scraped away, and what is presented after you're taken out of the furnace is more beautiful than what was put in.

That is what suffering does for us.

And what Jesus is modeling here is that he only ever puts us in the furnace when it is necessary.

That when Jesus puts us in the furnace, his eyes are on the clock, his hands are on the thermostat, and you are in there until you are a product that is made beautiful in his sight and no longer.

Suffering is not accidental, it is necessary.

Jesus knows that.

That every tear you shed over that pain that you experienced was nothing more than a chisel strike of a God who loved you and was molding you into something that was going to be eternally beautiful.

You see this in this chapter?

You see God's sovereign eternity over all that he allows in your life.

Like we can blame Jesus here.

He is, we we can say with what Martha and Mary will say, you allowed this to happen.

And Jesus says, Yes, I did, so that something glorious and amazing can happen.

He wants you to see the throne.

It's all over this passage.

Before even, you know, Jesus is gonna display his sovereignty when he resurrects Lazarus to life.

We didn't read that part.

I'm sorry if that was a spoiler for you, but it's gonna happen.

Long before he resurrects Lazarus to life, he displays his sovereignty.

But but John is pinpointing something we so often miss.

The suffering and the pain we experience are not just the places where we see Jesus' rule.

John's showing us something else here.

It's also where we see his revelation.

So that in suffering and pain, you see Jesus in a way that you wouldn't otherwise.

Martha and Mary are both forced to run and cling to Jesus in a way that they wouldn't have if Lazarus had not died or was immediately resurrected.

That's what pain does in our life.

Pain or the glasses and suffering are the glasses we put on that help us to see Jesus more clearly.

So that there's so many people in this church have had this experience, and I trust you have as well, where they look at the hard things that have happened in their life and they say, I would go through it all again for the spiritual adrenaline that was fused into my soul that helped me cling to Christ so closely.

That's what suffering is.

So there's this deeply moving point in verse 21 where Martha hits Jesus with these words, Lord, if you had been here.

In the midst of this deeply moving moment, Jesus is teaching us a second thing.

He's teaching us that all he allows, he reveals truth in.

All that he allows, he reveals truth in.

Look at verse 17.

Now, when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days.

This detail is incredibly important.

You remember back in verse 4 that Jesus said this sickness would not lead in death, but that through it the glory of God would be revealed.

Now, what looks like the end is actually now a stage.

See, in Jewish thought, the soul was believed to hover near the body for three days.

And so the Jewish people would be sort of waiting around the body for three days, assuming that maybe there is still life there, maybe there's still spiritual life there.

For Jesus to come four days later is sort of like the coroner's report, he is certified dead.

There's no mistaking it.

Hope is gone.

You see this, that when Jesus arrives on the scene, the Jews are there with Mary and Martha consoling her.

John's making this quite simple.

Lazarus isn't mostly dead, he is fully dead, and everyone there knows it.

The case for Lazarus is beyond hopeless.

Have you ever been there, loved one?

You ever been in a place where every human solution has expired and all you can do is wait for God to do more?

You know, I think sometimes we look at this story and we maybe do too little with it.

We we only use it to talk about present-day suffering.

We only use it to talk about the sickness or the relational difficulty we're facing at work.

Whatever it is.

The moral of this story sometimes that we get is that if we bring it to Jesus, Jesus can bring that situation from the dead.

But I want you to understand, we're gonna see this so much more clearly even next week, that this story is about something so much more significant than the problems you face in life.

This story is really about the problem that you face in eternity, that when it comes to your relationship with God, the scriptures say that you are dead in your trespasses and sins.

That spiritually you and I were just like Lazarus, Paul says in Ephesians 2, dead, not sick, not struggling.

Spiritually, we were dead.

We reeked of death and decay.

That's who we were.

We were hopeless.

And what we needed was not just a little morality, a little moral boost.

What we needed, like Lazarus, was something that was beyond all human imagination.

We needed resurrection.

And that same Jesus who stood before Lazarus' tomb, stood before ours if we are in Christ, and spiritually spoke our name and said, Rise to life, come from your deadness and sins and trespasses.

I give you life, and one day, if you're in Christ, he will do that physically for you.

He will call you to eternal life, reuniting you with your resurrected body.

This picture of Lazarus is a picture of the gospel that what was hopeless to us is now glorious to Jesus.

He reigns over death and brings life out of graves that were apart from his miraculous intervention final.

Now, I hope that you faced that hopelessness before.

If you've never felt the hopelessness of your situation before God, I want you to understand you will never turn to Christ as a savior.

Before you hear the good news, you need to understand the weight of the bad news.

You were dead.

Now, Mary and Martha needed this hopelessness so that they would reach out for Jesus.

In verses 18 and 19, they had every human comfort, their friends around them, but they get more in verse 20.

Look what happens in verse 20.

Read the text with me.

So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him.

Mary remains seated in the house.

Can you picture this?

Martha's always the active one, isn't she?

She runs out to meet Jesus.

Her heart is pounding with emotions.

And she says in verse 21, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.

I mean, we might have read this story so much that it's sort of like dull to us, but but can you imagine the emotions of what is going on right now?

That this woman who is so caught up in grief truly believes that if this man had just not waited, if he had just come immediately, he could have done something for her brother.

And of course, she's disappointed, but still she's she's filled with this faith that she still calls Jesus Lord.

And you know, our lives are not so black and white all the time, are they?

There are a lot of times where we are filled with immense disappointment with the way that our lives have gone and the course that a sovereign God has allowed us to take in life.

And yet at that same time, we can be like Martha, who who we still have faith to run and meet God.

We still have faith to say, Lord, I know you are God, but I gotta tell you, I have no idea what's going on right now.

She has enough strength to get to God, but not enough faith to understand what's happening.

And in verse 22, she really shows a flicker of hope.

She says, But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give to you.

There is in that statement true orthodox faith, but but you notice it's it's distant.

She is missing the most important reality.

She believes that Jesus can ask God for things.

What she has not yet seen is that Jesus is God.

Her suffering needs to reveal something so much deeper to her, just like it does for all of us.

This is what God does through pain.

He presses truth deeper into our hearts.

So look at then verse 23.

Jesus says to Martha, your brother will rise again.

Again, Martha still doesn't understand here.

How does she respond?

I know that he'll rise again in the resurrection on the last day.

I mean, that is good theology.

She is just missing an incredibly important part of the picture.

Martha believes in doctrine.

She has not met the person.

She has not met Jesus.

So many of us live right there.

We can quote the verses, we can affirm the truth, and yet it hasn't gripped us where we live.

You know, so much of the biblical counseling I do, very rarely do I need to tell someone new truth.

In fact, so often what happens is I'm just asking questions, and eventually something slips out that when I repeat back to that person, they realize is actually maybe borderline, heretical even.

And what happens is that these truths that we know cannot travel the long distance between our head and our heart.

And what suffering does then is it presses this truth deeper into our lives.

We learned it in Sunday school.

Suffering re-enrolls us in the lesson.

Pain has a way of doing that, doesn't it?

Pain opens our eyes in a way that ease cannot.

That's why Martha is primed for these words in verse 25, bringing really the heart of this entire passage, the interpretive key where Jesus says, I am the resurrection and the life.

I am the resurrection and the life.

You know what's happening here is, I think, fascinating.

Remember, Martha has faith for the future.

Martha has enough faith to say, listen, I know that on the last day you're gonna resurrect Lazarus.

I know that.

But Jesus doesn't just work in future categories.

He doesn't say, I can resurrect Lazarus.

He doesn't say I will resurrect Lazarus.

He brings it into the present.

I am.

And then what Jesus does is he gives us two promises that stretch across time.

Look at the first promise in verse 25.

It says, Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live.

That is future hope.

Martha is right there.

She says, Amen, Jesus, amen.

I know that.

That's our future hope.

Death does not have the final word.

Martha's right there.

But look at the second promise in verse 26.

Everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.

And at that moment, in this scene, you know, when they put in post-production sound editing, there's like that DJ's, what do you call it, disc scratch, okay?

Because Jesus, the backdrop of Jesus saying this is Lazarus has just died.

This is a lot harder for Martha to believe.

Lazarus, as Jesus is speaking, the smell of Lazarus is in the air.

He is dead in the tomb, has been rotting there for four days.

What's Jesus doing?

He's revealing in a way that only pain makes possible that he's not just a future savior.

He is a present one.

Can I ask you, is Jesus your present savior?

You know, I we we know that Jesus is a future savior, and that's what met that's what brings many of us into the church is as we think about things like death, we think about life beyond death, and we ask this question, what's what is there for me?

And so what brings us into the church is sort of this Christianity can kind of be like this spiritual insurance, can't it?

We love insurance, don't we?

I mean, not really, but for the sake of the illustration, can we just pretend?

You know, you don't have to worry about that car anymore because it's covered.

If it if something happens, if it gets hit, it will be replaced.

You don't have to worry about your home anymore.

It's covered.

You know, if something's stolen or it burns down, it'll be replaced.

You don't have to worry about your life anymore, right?

Maybe not the last one, but still worry about your life.

But that's why we love insurance.

And some of us treat Christianity sort of like this insurance.

It's a faith that covers us for the future.

But but loved one, Jesus presses so much farther into your life, to the very present, and asks you this question: how is your faith in the present?

What evidence is there that Jesus is your savior right now?

Loved one, look back on this past week.

Have you relied on Jesus as your savior?

Does your life make evident that you don't think you can do it apart from him?

Or have you been carrying your own burdens, unwilling to lift them up in prayer?

Have you been fighting your own battles, unwilling to seek the energy that can only come from the Holy Spirit?

Have you been trying to figure out your own way?

Loved one, is Jesus a present savior to you now?

You know, when the when the New Testament searches for a definition of what it means to be a Christian, so often the answer is this that you're in Christ.

That you are in Christ presently, that your life is lived in submission to his lordship.

That's why the act of baptism, this the public initiation into faith, it's ripe with the symbolism of being united to Jesus.

You are buried with Jesus in death, you are raised with him to new life.

It is a picture of a present union that is happening spiritually.

You are united to Christ now, not just a future security.

And so listen, if Christianity to you is just a spiritual insurance policy that you have sort of filed away for later use, I want you to understand you've totally misunderstood Christianity.

You have not seen the person that is Jesus Christ.

And suffering, this moment for Martha and the moments in your life, there are the place where the person of Jesus Christ becomes very real to you.

And Jesus is saying to us here, I am your life today.

I am your strength in this loss, I am your peace in the storm, I am your refuge, your present-day refuge.

I am your resurrection even while you are still breathing.

I am your life.

You need this lesson.

This tomb for Martha becomes the classroom where Jesus reveals that the life that you long for in heaven is not postponed, that it is given to you now in Him.

And what suffering does so well is doesn't suffering tear away the crutches that you didn't maybe realize you were depending on so much?

You didn't realize that health was such an idol to you until health was taken away from you.

You didn't realize that your spouse was such a crutch to you until your spouse started behaving in that way.

You didn't realize that your success, that your reputation, that your control were your saviors until you lost them.

And now Jesus is here when you lose it, and he is saying, I am the resurrection and the life.

See, suffering, Jesus says, isn't just something he reigns over, it is also something that he reveals his identity in.

But John is pressing us even farther here to see this that all that he allows, he enters into.

All that he allows, he enters into.

Notice that in verses 28 to 31, when Martha goes to grab Mary, she has the exact same response as Martha.

You notice that?

Two times Jesus is kind of given this gut punch.

Hey, you could have done something about this.

And John is drawing us to this attention, our attention to this fact that Jesus truly could have done something.

So then in verse 32, Jesus runs, Mary runs to Jesus, not with the same faith as Martha.

I think Mary's even a bit more rugged in her face.

She doesn't even believe in the future resurrection, so far as we know.

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

At least Martha had some theology, right?

But Mary comes with nothing but tears.

And you know, at the feet of Jesus, she doesn't find rebuke.

She finds comfort.

Some of us need to hear that because you are like Mary.

And you're looking at these other Martha's, you're looking at that person and you're saying, Oh, he has his life together.

I'm sure that Jesus listens to him.

And man, Jesus will listen to me.

Once I get my life together, once I start living like this, once I start doing this, then I'll be close to Jesus.

But until then, he's got nothing from me.

Mary comes to Jesus with nothing but tears, nothing but brokenness, and gets the same response from Jesus in verse 33.

Look at look at this.

Can you read this with me?

Because this is so beautiful, and we need this for our lives in verse 33.

When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled.

This phrase deeply moved.

I don't think it's strong enough in the English.

It really carries the sense of indignant agitation.

Jesus is upset, righteously, lovingly upset.

He is staring at the devastation of what sin and death have done to the world that he made.

He was the one who spoke creation into existence.

And in like looking at the horror of a hundred-car pile up on the highway, he's seeing how sin and death are wreaking havoc on the world that he has created, and divine compassion and outrage at the same time overflow together in his soul.

That's incredible because Jesus is modeling for us something that is both human and holy.

That there is a place in your life for mourning.

You know, we live in a world that just wants to numb and distract and escape pain, but Jesus in this moment enters into pain.

Even among believers, there is this kind of false notion alive today that if you have strong enough faith, you won't mourn anything.

So that I've heard it said to so many people who are deep in mourning, oh, just have faith, brother, just have faith, sister, it's all gonna be okay.

This doesn't lead to death.

I cannot help but think that Jesus knows exactly what will happen with Lazarus in a few moments.

In fact, Jesus could have just skipped the weeping altogether and just resurrected him in verse 33.

He didn't have to feel that emotion, he didn't have to weep.

Yet Jesus chooses to draw himself into the emotion of mourning.

He is teaching us something.

We don't have to erase sorrow in our life.

We can feel it.

It is good to mourn loss.

True faith, it doesn't deny pain.

True faith that it will embrace pain, but it will bring it into the presence of the one who can redeem it.

Now, theologically, I think what's happening here is staggering.

When Jesus weeps, God is weeping.

In Christ, the eternal word has come into this world.

And he is not a distant observer.

In this moment, Jesus is a present participant in the suffering that is happening in the world.

His tears are evidence that his incarnation was not separate from us, but it was for us.

The one who reigns over suffering is also the one who joins us in it.

And loved one, I want you to know that Jesus does not stand bes outside of your grief, he stands beside you in his grief.

That's exactly what the writer of Hebrews says.

He says, For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.

Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in the time of need.

What comfort that brings to us.

It means the tears that Jesus shed, they were not a moment of weakness for him.

They were a revelation to you and I of Jesus' priestly heart.

He longs to be in your presence when you are feeling loss, when you are feeling the ache of living in this world, when you have nothing left in you but to cry.

He enters into it and he meets you in it.

At the same time that God is sovereign over all pain, Jesus Christ is sympathetic in it.

It's fascinating here.

The one who reigns from the throne.

He is here weeping at the tomb.

You know what that means?

It means that there is no pain in your life that is so deep that his mercy will not meet you and reach you there as you reach out to him.

He enters into your pain.

Now, if the story were to end here with Jesus weeping at his friend's tomb, we would have missed the entire point.

The death of Lazarus is not the tragedy of this story.

This story in its entirety is a preview of the one greater one still to come.

Because not long after this moment, Jesus will not stand outside of a tomb, Jesus will be In a tomb, his own.

The one who is about to call Lazarus out of death will soon walk into death himself.

The one who weeps now beside a grave, Jesus will soon be laid in there.

And there in the death of the Son of God, Jesus will not just feel the extent of human suffering.

He won't just weep over your pain.

On the cross, Jesus enters into it, not just to feel it, but to end it finally and forever.

You see, Lazarus' tomb shows us something we need.

We need to know that Jesus feels our pain, but Jesus' tomb shows us something even more significant, that he defeats it.

That there is a day coming where he is defeating, will defeat all suffering.

If the story ended here, the tears in John 11 would be sentimental, it'd be a nice story.

There's more than that.

These are the tears of a Savior who would rather die for you than leave you in the grave.

And because Jesus has entered death, death has been unmade.

The man who once said, I am the resurrection in the life, he now, right now, loved one, do you know, is ascended into heaven.

He has defeated death.

He has proven that he is the resurrection and the life.

And what he offers to us this morning is to experience the same in him.

He is the firstborn of the resurrection.

He is the one who, through all who believe in him, will be resurrected through.

And so my question to you this morning is this has he become your resurrection and your life?

Have you cast your faith on Jesus Christ, who is our only hope in life and death?

This is who Jesus is.

All that he allows, he reigns over.

All that he allows, he reveals himself in.

All that he allows, he enters him.

And when you and I see him rightly, when you see his tears and his throne side by side, simultaneously alive in the same Savior, changes your suffering.

Love one, your pain, your suffering is not pointless, is not wasted.

Your Savior is not absent.

Jesus weeps on our behalf, so that he might enter the tomb and bring us to a day where there will be no more tears, we're told, at the end of Revelation, where we will weep no more but enter into eternal life.

Could you pray with me?

Father, we thank you for what you have secured for us in Jesus Christ.

Lord, by faith, we are recipients of an inheritance that could never be ours, that we could never work for, we could never be good enough to receive.

God, we pray for greater faith.

Lord, having seen in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, which that which Martha and Mary lacked, Lord, I pray that you would embolden our faith to believe that the hardship we face, and ultimately the worst tragedy of the re of our reality outside of Christ in sin and death.

God, give us the faith to believe that this will not lead to death.

It will not end in death, but it will lead to eternal life.

We give you all the praise for all that Jesus has accomplished.

And we praise him now.

It's in his name that we pray.

Amen.

Could you stand and sing with me?