Purpose of the Shepherd (John 11:38-55)

The Gospel of John chapter 11 verses 38 through 54.

John 11:38–54

And before we read this, I want to encourage you as we read to place yourself in this scene.

Like you're an eyewitness that's actually standing there.

So paint that picture in your head the best you can, and we'll talk about why here in just a little bit.

But let's stand for the reading of God's word.

John chapter 11, starting in verse 38.

John 11 · chapter mention

Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb.

It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it.

Remove the stone, Jesus said.

Martha, the dead man's sister, told him, Lord, there's already a stench because he has been dead four days.

Jesus said to her, Didn't I tell you that if you believed you would that if you believed you would see the glory of God?

So they removed the stone.

Then Jesus raised his eyes and said, Father, I thank you that you heard me.

I know that you always hear me.

But because of this crowd standing here, I said this, so that they may believe you sent me.

After he said this, he shouted with a loud voice, Lazarus, come out.

The dead man came out, bound hand in foot with linen strips, and with his face wrapped in a cloth.

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

Therefore, many of the Jews who came to Mary and saw what he did believed in him.

But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done.

So the chief priests and the Pharisees convened and the San the Sanhedrin and were saying, What are we going to do since this man is doing so many signs?

If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.

One of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, You know nothing at all.

You're not considering that it is to your advantage that one man should die for the people rather than the whole nation perish.

He did not say this on his own, but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but also to unite the scattered children of God.

So from that day on they plotted to kill him.

Jesus therefore no longer walked openly among the Jews, but departed from there to the countryside near the wilderness to a town called Ephraim, and he stayed there with the disciples.

Let's pray.

Lord, thank you so much for this account of what happened with Lazarus.

Thank you for all that we've gleaned from this already, but I pray today that you would teach us exactly what you want to teach us, that you would encourage us in the way you want to encourage us, that you would convict us in the way that you want to convict us here by your word.

So, Lord, I pray that you would speak to our hearts here this morning, that I would step out of the way and that you would be doing the teaching here.

And we just pray, God, that you would do that work inside of each one of us.

Lord, we want to become more and more like Jesus on a daily basis.

So will you help us do that today?

We pray.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

You may be seated.

So the reason that I asked you to paint this picture in your head is because most of us have heard, if you've been going to church for a while, you've heard this story and you've read this story many, many times.

And when that happens, we can consequently tend to gloss over it.

You know, oh yeah, Lazarus, Jesus wept, raised from the dead, okay, what's in chapter 12?

But I want us to picture we are there and that you don't know what's gonna happen next.

You know, picture it in modern day if that helps.

You know, imagine if it helps you that it's a family member and maybe you're one of the sisters.

You know, picture the tomb maybe being here in the Tascadero over at the cemetery if that helps.

But place yourself in this scene and pretend like you don't know what's gonna happen next.

Because what we're about to cover is an incredible narrative of what Jesus did.

Our minds should be blown by the power of God on full display here in this account of what happened.

This is the author of life on full display.

So that's the first thing I want you to do.

The second is I want to talk about the same thing we talked about last week.

When I asked you the question, and I want us to keep that at the forefront of our mind, but the question was: would you be willing to go through what this family went through if it meant many coming to faith in Jesus Christ?

You see, Jesus is the good shepherd, and he led this family through the valley of the shadow of death for his purposes, so that many, we'll see today, can come to faith in him.

Would you be willing to do the same thing?

So keep those two things at the forefront of your mind.

So we're gonna pick up here in verse 38, in the middle of this narrative, where Jesus was moved in his spirit, so he was troubled.

Uh we saw last week that he wept, and he asked them, the last thing we saw is, where is Lazarus buried?

And so we pick up in this narrative in verse 38, and it says, Then Jesus deeply moved again, came to the tomb, it was a cave, and a stone was lying against it.

You know, again, John mentions the emotion of Jesus right here.

Moved by what is happening, what is taking place.

You know, as I said last week, I think Jesus is seeing the result and the effect that sin has had on this world.

How it's brought upon death to this world, how it's brought upon death to this dear family that he loves so much.

And he's moved, he's troubled, he's angered, and even shed tears because he's witnessing the result of sin in the world leading to death.

You know, he's not weeping, he's not moved because Lazarus is dead, but the effect that sin has had on what he first created to be perfect.

Sin brought on death and destruction to his perfect creation, both in the world and in humans as well.

So Jesus sees what's going on, he sees what his friends are going through, and it says he's deeply moved.

And then it says verse 39, remove the stone, Jesus said.

Martha, the dead man's sister, told him, Lord, there is already a stitch, because he has been dead four days.

You know, every time I teach this passage, I'm gonna read the King James Version.

Lord, by this time he stinketh, is what it says in the King James.

You know, from the little that we've seen of Martha, you know, as we've talked about last week, she's the practical one.

She's a very literal person, she's very detail-oriented.

So she points out the obvious.

You know, we had a deer die across the street from our house a few years ago, and just within a few days, the whole neighborhood reeked of death.

I mean, like, close your windows and pray for the wind to change, kind of stench in our neighborhood.

It's been four days for Lazarus.

So her concern was legit.

She was not wrong.

And if you want to get into the science behind the state of the body at four days after death, look into Nisten's law.

Nice law.

It's a little gruesome for a family service, so we're not going to get into that this morning.

But if you're into that kind of stuff and want to know the science behind it, you know, life, it wasn't like life was at any moment could come back for Lazarus.

It had to be the power of God.

But there is a spiritual correlation here.

Our sin, which leads to death, reeks in the nostrils of God.

Our sin, which leads to death, the death of our flesh spiritually and eventually physically, is a stench before God.

And he wants us to hate that stench as much as he hates that stench.

He wants us to associate sin with death and then to hate it as much as he does.

Like the deer in our neighborhood that was just, he wants us to hate sin in that way.

You know, Martha knew the stench of physical death, obviously.

She was warning Jesus about it.

But Jesus wants her to know that he can conquer death and that he can conquer the stench of sin.

He wants her to know that he is the resurrection, that he is the life, regardless of our current state.

Because he's conquered that on the cross.

Now look at Jesus' response here in verse 40.

Jesus said to her, Didn't I tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?

Just look up a couple verses in verse 25, earlier in the chapter.

We saw Jesus tell Martha this in verse 25 of this chapter.

He said, I am the resurrection and the life.

No one who believes in me, even if he dies, will live.

Everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.

Do you believe this?

So, never dying spiritually is what we're talking about here.

This means eternity in God's glory.

And then if we look forward, we're gonna see Jesus say in John chapter 17, verse 24, Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, so that they will see my glory.

John 17:24

Which you have given me because you loved me before the world's foundation.

So believing in Jesus equals eternal life with Jesus, equals seeing Jesus in his glory.

So belief in Jesus equals life in Jesus, is what Jesus is getting at here with Martha.

And Jesus is about to give the most literal example to her that if you believe in him, he will give you life.

And has the power to give life, physically and spiritually, whenever he wants.

But notice Jesus does make Martha act on her faith, doesn't he?

He says, remove the stone.

I mean, this is Jesus.

He could have just been like, and that thing would have been, you know, fly a mile away if you wanted to.

But he asked her to act on that faith.

You know, and I don't think Martha's the one that went up and moved the stone personally.

And I doubt as soon as Jesus said this, that a bunch of guys ran up and moved the stone away.

You know, I think there's probably some looks and glances of like, really?

Like, you want us to move that?

Are we really going to do this right now?

You know, they probably, there's probably some men there that move the stone, and they probably looked at Mary and Martha, you know, the siblings of Lazarus, like, are you okay with this?

Like, is this okay?

And then I picture whoever does move the stone, they're walking to the stone, kind of like, you sure about this?

Like, really, you want us to do this?

You know, and I kind of just picture Martha giving a nod, just like, yeah, you know, if the master says that's what to do, if the good shepherd says that's what we should do, let's go ahead and move that stone.

Look at verse 41.

So they removed the stone.

Then Jesus raised his eyes, this is the posture of prayer in this time, and said, Father, I thank you that you heard me.

I know that you always hear me, but because of the crowd standing here, I said this, so that they may believe you sent me.

So we've been talking about since the beginning.

This was all so that many, as we're going to see in verse 45, that many would believe in him.

To prove, this was all to prove that he is God, that he is from God, and that he is the author of life.

Through this sign right here of him physically raising the dead on that day.

So, look at verse 43.

After he said this, he shouted with a loud voice, Lazarus, come out.

So, especially here, I want you to really put yourself in this scene.

Like you don't know what's gonna happen next.

You know, this miracle man that everybody's talking about, that everybody's divided over, that the religious leaders of this time want to kill, just shouted into a tomb of a dead man that had been there for four days, and he had shouted for that dead man to come out.

I bet you can hear a pin drop right now.

I bet every eye of that crowd was on the doorway of that tomb.

You know, I bet no one was even breathing except Jesus at this point.

And it doesn't say this, but I just kind of picture Jesus smiling, like, oh guys, wait for this.

And then, you know, hearing only your heart beating in your chest.

Look at verse 44.

The dead man came out, bound hand in foot, with linen strips, and with his face wrapped in a cloth.

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

Whoa.

I think my heart would have been like witnessing what just happened.

But imagine what it would have been like to be there.

You know, this miracle man causing all this division and all this uproar in this country just prayed and commanded, and the dead came to life.

He was bound hand and foot with his face covered.

You know what that looked like?

He's like, he had to be hopping.

He was bound hand and foot and he couldn't see.

So he's just like, maybe he could see a little lighter, he's just going towards the voice, you know, that he had heard, but he's bound hand and foot, his face is covered.

And this crowd just witnessed the author of life do his thing physically right before their eyes.

You know, and I think of Lazarus, you know, he not only came to life twice at conception and then right here again, but the poor guy had to die twice, too.

When you think about it, this was the first one, and then he's gonna have to die later again.

You know, there's all kinds of speculation too about where Lazarus' spirit or his soul was during these four days.

You know, was he in heaven?

Was he in Abraham's bosom?

Was it what just kind of lights out for him for four days while he was in that tomb?

And we don't know, we're not told, but there's a Christian comedian out there that has a whole bit on Lazarus, and it's it's hilarious.

So don't base your theology on this at all, okay?

But he says, like, I just picture Lazarus, you know, he's up in heaven, he's in his mansion, he's doing some decorating, and there's a knock on the door.

He goes and he opens the door, and there's an angel there.

And they're like, hey, uh Lazarus, um, he's like, I don't know quite how to tell you this.

And we usually don't do this, but you need to come with me.

You know, it's like all joking aside, though, Lazarus was not resurrected into a resurrected body like Jesus was.

He would have to die again.

And as his sister mentioned, he would be resurrected on the last day, you know, with Jesus again, but he's gonna have to physically die one more time.

You know, but as bad as that sounds, Jesus had a plan and a purpose for Lazarus and his sisters through the pain of this whole ordeal.

And what did he just pray?

So that they may believe you sent me.

And look at what happens next, verse 45.

We finally get here.

We've been talking about this for three weeks.

Therefore, many of the Jews who came to Mary and saw what he did believed in him.

So Jesus' prayer came to fruition here.

Jesus' purpose in all of this has finally come about and is finally seen by his disciples and seen by Mary and Martha as well.

Many of the Jews that were there now believed in him as well.

You know, but I think the sad thing is not all, it just says many.

Not all came to believe and follow Jesus on that day.

And if you remember, as we're going through chapter 9, we were talking about spiritual blindness and spiritual seeing.

We just defined it as the ones that were willing to recognize their need for a savior were the ones that could actually see spiritually.

And those that were not willing to recognize their need for a savior were the ones that were blind.

You know, people can witness the miracles of God and see God the Son face to face and still reject Him, we see right here.

So now we're gonna see what the blind do in verse 46.

Look at it with me.

But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done.

You know, think of the condition of the heart of these people that just witnessed Jesus not only raise a dead man, but take away the grief and the pain from this family and the friends of this family.

And their first thought and their first action after witnessing this is, I'm telling.

And they go and they tell the guys that want to kill Jesus, this we just saw him raise a man from the dead, and they went to tattle on him basically.

You know, I pray for myself and for everybody that's in this room here today that we would never know the hardness of heart of these guys that they are experiencing right here.

You know, the older I get, the more I understand and agree with C.S.

Lewis when he said the gates of hell are locked from the inside.

You know, when you read through Revelation and you see so many people in the tribulation that see that God is real and they see that he is all powerful, yet they continue to reject him all the way to hell.

You know, it's baffling to me that they choose blindness, just like these that are reporting back to the Pharisees right here.

Look at verse 47 with me.

So the chief priests and the Pharisees convened the Sanhedrin, and we're saying, so this is the highest council of the Jewish faith with the highest regarded religious leaders of the day coming together to say, look in the middle of verse 47, coming together to say, What are we going to do since this man is doing many signs?

If we let him, if we let God go on like this, everyone will believe in him.

And the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.

Place there, they think, probably has something to do with the temple, but take away our place and our nation.

So they are not only blind, they are also power hungry.

You know, they don't realize it, but think about what they are actually saying.

Here's my paraphrase.

What they're saying is if we let people start following after God, we will lose our authority, we will lose our temple, and we will lose our nation.

Who cares, right?

If God is moving and revival is taking place and many are coming to him, who cares about the things of this earth?

You know, we should care more for souls and the kingdom of God than anything these religious leaders were placing above God, shouldn't we?

Because that's what they're doing.

They're placing these things above God.

Their priorities, because of their selfishness, were so upside down, and they were no longer concerned with the kingdom of God, were they?

Their concern was so clearly for their kingdom and the kingdom that they lived in, you know, which happened to be the Roman Empire, who they despised and who despised them as well.

You know, I think it's a good time to bring it up, but with the election coming up, we do need to care about and have concern for our country that we live in.

We should be good citizens.

We need to vote and not allow the world to dictate our leaders and our laws.

We need to be involved in that process.

So please go out.

Please vote.

We've got a week and a half left.

But I want to encourage you vote your conscience, but vote through a biblical lens.

You know, we need to be voting for the sanctity of life and pro family.

Candidates and initiatives and upholding gender the way that God created it to be.

So get out, vote biblically.

I encourage you to do that.

But if this kingdom ever takes priority over God's kingdom, we're no different than the Sanhedrin is right here that we're looking at.

If we are ever caring or thinking more about this kingdom than God's kingdom, our priorities are backwards.

You know, our personal kingdom is temporary.

And the kingdom of this world, which is the kingdom of Satan, is temporary also.

You know, in Colossians 1.13, Jesus says this.

He says, I mean, Jesus doesn't say this, but it says that Jesus has rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son he loves.

You know, it makes no sense to place those temporary kingdoms of self and Satan above the eternal kingdom of God.

This physical life we have is a vapor, Scripture tells us.

It's here one second and it's gone the next in the scope of eternity.

There's a reason that Jesus talked about the kingdom of God more than any other subject in the Gospels.

It's because it was his priority.

And if it's his priority, if we're his disciples, that needs to be our priority as well.

But it was not the priority of the majority of the Sanhedrin here we see.

I mean, just look at what they say next in verse 49.

One of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, so that's the head of this council, said to them, You know nothing at all.

You're not considering that it is to your advantage that one man should die for the people rather than the whole nation perish.

He did not say this on his own, but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but also to unite the scattered children of God.

So Caiaphas was trying to say, you know, let's kill him to save our position, to save our temple and our country, you know, from the Romans, so they don't come in and take all away the little that we have left.

You know, one man dying to save the rest of us physically from the Romans.

Not knowing that he was actually prophesying, saying, let's kill him so he can be the sacrifice and the savior of our nation's souls.

You know, Proverbs 21:1 says, A king's heart is like channeled water in the Lord's hand.

Proverbs 21:1

He directs it wherever he chooses.

And Caiaphas is not a king, but he's about as close as you get in Israel at this time.

And I think that verse is more about how God can execute his plans regardless of who's in power, anyway.

You know, he can speak through whomever he wants, whenever he wants, and he's doing it right here with Caiaphas.

You know, we see that Caiaphas is corrupt.

Yet God just spoke prophecy through him.

So please hear me.

God is sovereign even when someone corrupt is in power.

God can use the plans of evil rulers like Caiaphas for good to those that love him.

You know, he just prophesied, Caiaphas did, about the foundations of our faith here today.

One dying for many.

And he thought he was talking about saving his own bacon, really, is what he thought he was talking about.

This doesn't excuse corruption.

God hates corruption, know that.

But God's sovereignty should be comforting even when there's corruption in power.

You know, regardless of who's elected on the fifth at any level, a king's heart is like channeled water in the Lord's hand.

He directs it wherever he chooses.

You know, think about this for a second.

God used the corruption of the Sanhedrin of this day, most of them were corrupt, to sacrifice the spotless lamb that would take away the sins of the world.

Again, not an excuse for corruption, but comfort, I think, in God's sovereignty.

Now go out and vote against corruption, but more importantly, trust God.

Let's look at verse 53.

So from that day on they plotted to kill him.

You know, speaking of corruption, the Jewish religious authority of this time plotted to kill an innocent man.

They haven't been able to accuse him of anything other than good works, have they?

They accuse him of blasphemy, but he's the Son of God.

So that doesn't stick either.

But nevertheless, they plot to kill him.

So look at verse 54.

Jesus therefore no longer walked openly among the Jews, but departed from there to the countryside near the wilderness to a town called Ephraim, and he stayed there with the disciples.

So why did Jesus no longer walk openly?

You know, was he scared?

Was he running?

No, he wasn't any of those things.

As we've been talking about through the book of John, he's on God's timeline.

And for Jesus to be the perfect, spotless Passover lamb that would save Israel and all of us here today, it needed to take place on the Passover.

So Jesus goes a little north to Ephraim, where things are a little calmer, and he's not going to return to Jerusalem until it's time for Passover, which we're going to get into next week.

But that brings us to the end of Lazarus' story.

Of the Good Shepherd leading this family not only through into the valley of the shadow of death, but through the valley of the shadow of death until the end.

And the end of a valley will not always end in a miracle like we're reading here today.

It's not going to always end with our sorrow being completely removed.

You know, this side of eternity, at least while we're on this earth.

But ultimately it will.

Which brought on death, which brought on destruction, that led to struggle, that led to all of the sorrow and the pain that we have to go through in this life now.

You know, the way Jesus intended it to be is ahead of us.

If we simply believe and follow him now.

Like the many that we just saw in this story that believed in him, that followed him.

You know, the author of life is offering new life to each one of us.

And I know a lot of us here have accepted that new life that he's offered.

But if you haven't, accept it today.

He is the good shepherd.

He is the one worth following.

He is the one that will guide us through the valley of the shadow of death.

Scripture tells us that God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes, just like we just saw, in him, will not perish, but have eternal life.

And that if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, that you will be saved, that you will have that eternal life through all of eternity in glory with Jesus.

You know, following Jesus isn't easy, is it?

But he has overcome the world, he told us.

And he has conquered sin and death.

And the author of life offers us new life in him that we get to experience now.

In the midst of this world of suffering.

But the perfect life is ahead of us.

It's waiting for us in eternity with Jesus in his glory.

And right now, he's calling your name, just like he called Lazarus to come out of that grave and to join him in perfect glory forever.

He's calling your name and saying, follow me.

I am the good shepherd.

Follow me.

And if that is you today, you can hear him calling your name.

Just say yes.

Just like these many that we saw here today.

Follow the Good Shepherd.

And if you need to know more about that or you have questions, come talk to me afterwards.

Anybody that you see up here, we would love to talk with you more about that.

Would you please pray with me?

Jesus, we thank you that you are the Good Shepherd.

That we can know your voice.

And that you know us, every part of us, and you still desire us.

Thank you so much for that.

Lord, would you show us how to stay near to you?

Even when we're walking through the deepest, darkest places of our life, that we would stay near, just knowing that you know what's best, that you have a plan, and you have a purpose in your timing to do things perfectly, just like we saw.

Lord, in the beginning of the story, everybody was doubting your timing.

But you had a purpose that they couldn't see.

And at the end here we see why, so that many can come to faith in you.

So in those times, help us not to doubt you, help us not to stray away from you.

Help us not to question if you're good or if you're God, but to know that you have a plan and you have a purpose and that you are good, and that all we need to do in those times is cling to you and listen to your voice and follow you, and that you will lead us to the other side of that valley.

So show us how to do that well, we pray.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.