Lazarus

Good morning, good news. I'm glad you're here.

I didn't think there would be very many people at the service because of the

change in time. I thought people would be up earlier and you realize it's like

your body thinks it's 1230.

Your body wants chicken right now. Can you feel it?

So I'm just really proud of you all for being here.

So we are continuing our series conversations Jesus had. We are now in part 12.

And for those of you who haven't been here from the beginning,

the goal of the series has been to do a survey of the life of Jesus.

I did not plan out the applications ahead of time. There was no specific doctrinal

or theological agenda for this series other than to simply learn about the life

of Jesus and teach whatever it teaches to us.

We tried to go in chronological order from the beginning of his life to the

end of his life. We're getting closer to the end of his life now.

We did a pretty good job of going in chronological order. I think we messed

up twice where we told a story a little bit, but it happened a little after

the story that came after it.

But for the most part, we've done a pretty good job. Last week we covered

the story of Zacchaeus which I knew was toward the end of Jesus's ministry

He's on his way to Jerusalem and then today we move on

to Lazarus Which I definitely knew all the way at the beginning of the series

I knew that this one like the reason we put this story in here is at least I

thought it would help set up for Jesus death I knew that it was the thing that

happens like just a little bit before Jesus dies The resurrection of Lazarus

was in some ways the straw that broke the camel's back when it came to the Pharisees

and the chief priests and Their desires and plans to kill Jesus.

When I say the resurrection of Lazarus, I mean, that's a little bit of a spoiler, so sorry.

If you've never heard this story before, I accidentally gave away the ending.

Not accidentally, I did it on purpose. I mean, you could have known by now if

you really wanted to. This story is 2,000 years old.

Okay, so, but the spoiler is Jesus brings Lazarus back to life.

I think it's okay for me to reveal the ending now, though.

Now, what had happened back then, even before Jesus brought Lazarus back to

life, there were people who already wanted to kill Jesus.

And you'll see it in the story that I'm going to read to you.

There were people that wanted to stone him to death.

They were concerned about him as they considered he was a blasphemer because

he made himself equal with God the Father. And so they wanted to kill him.

But this story, I think, is a little bit of a turning point or tipping point,

whatever the right word is.

After the resurrection of Lazarus, the elites in Jerusalem began to worry that Jesus' popularity,

particularly the popularity he was gaining for doing things like bringing Lazarus

back to life, They were worried that Jesus' popularity would motivate the Roman

Empire to destroy Israel.

As this king rises up and has all these followers, they were worried that Jesus'

popularity would motivate the Roman Empire to destroy Israel,

and so they thought better to execute him than for all of the rest of them to die.

And that comes up with this particular story and this miracle.

This story is one of the causes of the crucifixion. And so that's why I included

it, because I thought it would set us up for the next sermons as we start moving

toward Jesus dying on the cross.

However, along the way, as I studied this passage, I came across several other

things that we can learn from it that were not originally part of my plans,

so I will include all of that in this sermon as well.

If you have your Bible with you, turn to the book of John, chapter 11.

John 11 · chapter mention

I'm going to start by reading the account of the resurrection of Lazarus.

So this is found in John, chapter 11, and I'm going to start reading in verse

John 11 · chapter mention

1, and I will read a little bit, and then I'll explain as we go to make sense

of the story, and then we'll apply it to our lives at the end.

So let's start with verse 1 of John 11. Now a man was sick.

Lazarus from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha.

Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with fragrant oil and wiped his feet with her hair.

And it was her brother Lazarus who was sick. So the sisters sent a message to

him, Lord, the one you love is sick.

So you can see there are two ladies in the story, Martha and Mary.

Do they sound familiar, those names?

Yes, Martha and Mary are the same ladies that were taught in an earlier sermon

in the series. Our associate pastor, Doug Davison, did a sermon on Martha and

Mary. This is the same Martha and Mary.

Martha was the one that was, you know, serving and all upset,

and Mary was the one sitting at Jesus' feet. Do you remember her?

Right, so this is them. So they were sisters in that story. They're sisters

in this story. They were sisters their whole life. It was crazy.

And then Lazarus is their brother, and so all of them are related.

And at this point, Lazarus is sick, so the message is, the Lord,

the one you love, is sick. I guess he was supposed to know that's Lazarus.

Jesus loved all of these people.

The one you love is sick. It doesn't say this, but I'm assuming the implication,

especially if you keep reading the story, the implication is like,

this is a serious sick. We wouldn't send messengers if it was just regular sick.

He's very sick. We're worried he's going to die. We would like for you to hurry

and heal him soon. I think that that was implied in the message,

the one you love is sick. Would you come and heal him?

Mary is described as the one who anointed the Lord with fragrant oil and wiped her feet with her hair.

That's an interesting way to describe Mary, considering that had not happened

yet at this point in the story.

So John even told the story out of chronological order a little bit.

This story actually happens, like John tells that story of Mary doing that in the next chapter.

So apparently the readers of the book of John must have been so familiar with

the story that he could mention Mary as this person even before he actually

tells the story, because it comes a little later.

So that's Mary, Martha, Lazarus, and I think the implication is get here as

quick as you can. We need you to heal him. So verse 4.

When Jesus heard it, he said, this sickness will not end in death,

but it's for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.

So he says the sickness will not end in death. There is a death,

and yet it doesn't end in death.

And it's interesting, he says, this sickness is for the glory of God.

It's an interesting view on sickness, isn't it?

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

Now Jesus loved Martha, her sister, and Lazarus.

So when he heard that he was sick,

he stayed two more days.

So when he heard that he was sick, he stayed two more days in the place where

he was. And then after that, he said to the disciples, let's go to Judea again.

Rabbi, the disciples told him, just now the Jews tried to stone you and you're gonna go there again.

Now this is what I was referring to earlier. There were already people that

wanted to kill him. There were already people that attempted to do it.

So the disciples are going, hey, aren't there people trying to kill you?

And if we're deciding where to go, like, should we pick the places where they're

not trying to kill us? Wouldn't that be good? I think we should pick those places.

Why would we go to the place where they're trying to kill you?

Jesus responds with something that I think is sort of hard to understand,

sort of mysterious. I don't know fully what he meant. But he said,

aren't there 12 hours in a day?

Jesus answered. If anyone walks during the day, he doesn't stumble because he

sees the light of this world.

If anyone walks during the night, he does stumble because the light is not in him.

So it's sort of a, I think it's a somewhat cryptic response.

Obviously, when Jesus says, are there not 12 hours in a day,

he is not referring to days the way we do, like when we think of days as 24-hour

periods. He's referring to the daylight hours when he says,

12 hours. You can tell that because the next sentence talks about the daytime

and then the nighttime, right?

The second part, I don't know if it's a metaphor or if he's speaking literally,

right? He says, when you walk to the day, you're fine. You don't stumble.

When you walk at night, you do stumble.

So I don't know if this is a literal, like, hey, we don't want to go there and

get stoned to death. And he may be saying, like, we'll be fine.

We're going to be in broad daylight, right? We're going to be in the middle of the day, not at night.

Or if he's meaning it more metaphorically, like, this is a time period of day.

I'm going to be okay. I'm going to be safe. but the dark is coming.

There is a time coming where they're going to get me.

But this is not that time. So I don't know. I don't know which one.

But he continues speaking. Verse 11.

He said this, and then he told them, our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep,

but I'm on my way to wake him up.

So Jesus already knows what he's going to do, right? I'm going there to raise

him back up. I'm going there to wake him up.

Then the disciples said to him, Lord, if he's fallen asleep, he will get well.

Jesus, however, was speaking about his death, but they thought he was speaking

about natural sleep. So this one definitely is a metaphor.

He is speaking a metaphor it goes over their head right he says let's go wake

him up because he's asleep right and they're all going well if he's sleeping

isn't he going to be fine and so jesus has to say like oh by by sleeping i mean

dead and he says that in verse 14 so jesus told them plainly lazarus has died

like you didn't get what i was hinting at when i say i wake him up i didn't

mean wake him up lazarus has died.

I'm glad for you that I wasn't there, so that you may believe, but let's go to him.

And then Thomas, called twin, said to his fellow disciples, let's go so that we may die with him.

I thought that verse was interesting because Thomas is, I mean,

he's in the Bible multiple times, but he's really famous for just the one thing, right?

Everyone calls him Doubting Thomas, and he's famous for that he didn't believe

the resurrection like the other guys did because he didn't see it.

This is an interesting little sentence here because it seems like it kind of

matches with what we know about him, but not exactly. I think this is a better version of him.

The part that matches is, it seems to me they were saying like,

hey, if we go there, we're going to get stoned to death. And Jesus seems to

be saying, no, no, we're going to be all right.

And Thomas goes, no, we're going to get stoned to death. All right.

And so he seems to not trust that everything's going to be okay.

And yet, the reason I like this Thomas more is that he definitely believes in

Jesus, right? Let's go so that we may die with him.

He's thinking we're going to get stoned to death, and let's do it.

Let's die for him. So they go.

Verse 17. Verse 18, when Jesus arrived, and I think arrived there is meaning

probably the outskirts of the town because he has not got to the house yet.

When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days.

I'm not clear on the timeline here. I don't know how long it took Jesus to travel there.

So I don't know if he was already dead when the message had gotten to him or

not. But anyway, I don't know how long many days it took to get there.

But by the time he gets there, Lazarus has been dead for a while.

Verse 18, Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles away.

Many of the Jews had come to Martha and

Mary to comfort them about their brothers I assume that's talking about

the Jews from Jerusalem since they were two miles away they came and

visited Mary and Martha like this was kind of like a funeral the the deceased

person had already been buried but this was a time to come together and to mourn

and to grieve and so they're there mourning with their friends Mary and Martha

as soon as Martha had heard that Jesus was coming she went to meet him I think

she runs to the outskirts of town.

But Mary remained seated in the house. And then Martha said to Jesus,

Lord, if you had been here, my brother wouldn't have died.

Yet even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.

Verse 23, your brother will rise again, Jesus told her. And Martha said,

I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.

This is an interesting exchange here because Jesus is speaking about something

that it seems that it is much more immediate than the way that Martha takes it.

Jesus had just said he's sleeping and I'm

going to go wake him up so Jesus I think knows he's going

to raise Lazarus from the dead so when he says your brother will rise again he's

meaning like soon right around the corner Martha does not take it

that way she says I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last

day what is she referring to I think she's referring to a belief that they held

which was that there is this day coming called the resurrection that when history

is done when eternity begins when like life as we know it is done There's going

to be a time where God comes back and he unites people's spirits to their bodies.

There is this thing called the resurrection where God's people are alive again

and they live with him for all of eternity.

And so this is something that Martha obviously believed in. I think this is

something that the majority of Jewish people believed in in the first century.

I think Jesus believed in it. The Apostle Paul believed in it.

I think it's the teaching of the New Testament.

Like there is a resurrection coming one day. And Martha's saying,

I know, I know God's people are going to be brought back to life to live with him forever.

But Jesus is not referring to that. He's referring to something more immediate

right now. And then he says, verse 25, Jesus said to her.

I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me,

even if he dies, will live.

Everyone who lives and believes in me will never die, ever. Do you believe this?

Yes, Lord, she told him. I believe you are the Messiah, the Son of God,

who comes into the world.

Now, I quote this at funerals quite a lot, almost every funeral.

And the reason why is because in this passage, Jesus predicted that there would be life after death.

He predicted eternal life for the people who believe in him, not just Lazarus.

Yes, they started to talk about Lazarus, but you can see when he says,

everyone who believes in me, the one who believes in me, even if he dies, will live.

This is not only for Lazarus, but for everybody that believes in him.

There is life after death, there is eternal life. And that is good news,

isn't it? And so that's why I say it at funerals a lot.

All right, next verse, the 28. Having said this, she went back and called her

sister Mary, saying in private, the teacher is here and is calling for you.

So as soon as she heard this, she got up quickly and went to him.

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

had met him. I guess, like I said, on the outskirts of the village.

The Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw that Mary got up quickly and went out.

So they followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb to cry there.

So, right, you can picture Martha

comes in the room, whispers something to Mary. Mary gets up and leaves.

All the other people that are there, like, well, what are we here for?

We're here to like cry with her about this stuff.

So she's gonna go cry somewhere. So we go with her to mourn wherever it is she's

gonna go. Well, she goes out to find Jesus.

Verse 32, when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet

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

Mary said the same thing that Martha said. The difference is this conversation is less private.

When Jesus was talking to Martha, it seems like it was just the two of them.

Maybe the disciples were standing around. I don't know.

But in this case, Mary shows up with like a crowd of people that are all with there witnessing this.

Hey, if you had been here, my brother wouldn't have died.

Verse 33. When Jesus saw her crying and the Jews who had come with her crying,

he was angry in his spirit and deeply moved.

Where have you put him? He asked. Lord, they told him, come and see.

Jesus wept.

So the Jews said, see how he loved him.

But some of them said, couldn't he who opened the blind man's eyes also have

kept this man from dying?

And then Jesus, angry in himself again, came to the tomb. It was a cave and

a stone was lying against it.

There's a lot of emotion in these verses that I just read. Jesus is angry at something at one point.

And then it says he was deeply moved, which is another term for strong emotions.

And then he weeps. That's the shortest verse in the Bible. Jesus wept over something,

and then they said something else, and then Jesus was angry again.

So a lot of different emotions in this passage.

I'm going to address all of that later in the sermon. Let's keep reading. Verse 39.

Remove the stone, Jesus said. Martha, the dead man's sister,

told him, Lord, he's already decaying. It's been four days.

So this is interesting. Jesus comes to this tomb.

Obviously, it's a cave burial, and it's a stone door that needs to be removed

if they're going to open it up.

And when he says, let's open it up, Martha objects, right?

Why? Lord, he's already decaying. It's been four days. Why would you open that

door? This is just going to be gross.

In fact, I'm going to quote to you from a version of the Bible that I almost

never quote from. I'm going to quote to you from the King James Version.

The King James Version is a translation from the 1600s.

And I usually don't quote from it because it's older English and it's harder to understand.

But this verse is fantastic in the King James Version. So if you ever read the

King James Version, you will see that Martha does not say, Lord, he's already decaying.

In the King James Version, she says, Lord, by this time he stinketh.

But you get what's going on, right? Like she doesn't think a resurrection is going to happen.

Like she just goes, this is going to be gross. This is not, he's been in there

for four days. We know what happens to dead bodies after four days.

Don't, you know, don't do it. And Jesus does it.

Verse 40, Jesus said to her, Didn't I tell you that if you believed,

you would see the glory of God?

Which should remind you, remember at the beginning of the story he said,

this sickness is for the glory of God?

Verse 41, so they removed the stone.

And 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 the crowd standing here,

I said this. So they may believe you sent me.

It's an interesting prayer. It seems like Jesus, at least in part,

is praying this prayer sort of in a performative way, right?

He's saying, Jesus, he's saying, God, the Father, I pray to you now.

I thank you for answering my prayer.

But, like, I know you answered my prayer, and you know I know you answered my

prayer. I don't even need to pray this. I'm saying this out loud to you for

the sake of everybody listening.

I want them to know that what's about to happen next is you answering my prayer.

So verse 43, after he said this, he shouted with a loud voice,

Lazarus, come out. And then look at verse 44.

The dead man came out. He's not even dead, but the verse calls him the dead

man, but he's not dead in this verse, right?

The dead man came out, bound hand and foot with linen strips and with his face

wrapped in a cloth, which is what they buried him in.

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

So the father answered Jesus's prayer. And by the way, this is the conversation

between Jesus and Lazarus. The name of the series is Conversations with Jesus.

If you're wondering what's the conversation, here it is. It's a very short one.

Jesus just said, Lazarus, come out. Three words.

And what did Lazarus say back to Jesus? We have no clue. John didn't record it.

Right? It's so weird. We do not know Lazarus' reaction to his resurrection because John does not say.

The way that the story reads, if you keep reading even into the next chapter,

you can tell Lazarus obviously lives and keeps living.

And he obviously has conversations. I think he lived longer than Jesus.

He has conversations with Mary, conversations with Martha, I'm sure,

has a conversation with Jesus, I'm sure. But none of that's recorded, so we don't know.

But how amazing would this have been to see.

Like, imagine you're one of the people there, okay? You have shown up because

your friend's brother died.

And so you're sad for her, right? So you're there mourning with her.

And wherever she goes and cries, you go and cry with her. And you end up at the tomb.

And here comes Jesus. And here comes Martha. And somebody says, open it up.

And I don't know how many people objected. Only Martha is recorded.

But I don't know how many people went like, I don't think that's a good idea.

And then they open it up. And he comes out? Like, the guy comes walking out?

And you know they would not have put him in there if he wasn't dead.

Nobody does that to their brother, right? You're not gonna do that if you don't.

And honestly, even if it was a mistake and they thought he was dead,

he'd been in there four days, no food, no water, like for sure dead.

Everybody knew he was dead and he walked out.

Like how amazing would it have been to see? The people who were there would

have seen that and said like, I believe in him.

Like of course there was an explosion of belief in Jesus in the first century.

This stuff was happening and people saw it.

You'd think that would be the reaction, right? That people would believe.

It was. That is what happened. Let's keep reading. Look at the reaction that

people had in the aftermath of all this. Verse 45.

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

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

So the chief priests and the Pharisees convened the Sanhedrin.

This is an interesting part of the story.

They convened the Sanhedrin and said, what are we going to do since this man does many signs?

If we let him continue in this way, everyone will believe in him.

And then the Romans will come and remove both our place and our nation.

That's the thing I told you. They were concerned if he gets too popular,

they're going to say, look at this rival king, and then they're going to kill us all.

Verse 49, 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.

Now, there's what Caiaphas says, and then there's what he means.

Caiaphas seems to be saying here, we're going to have to kill him.

Better to kill him than for the rest of us to get killed.

But he said more than that. In fact, God was behind what he said,

because look at the next verse.

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. And we'll stop there.

So that's our story. What I'd like to do as we close, I'd like to give you five

things that we can learn from this story.

These are five things that I noticed this week, and I'm going to give them to

you all at once. So if you want to have all the points, here they all are.

They're just going to come up this one time, though, so I'll write them down

real quick. But I am going to go through them one at a time,

and that's how we'll end the sermon. So here are the five things to learn from this story.

Sometimes Jesus does things we don't prefer because it's what's best.

Number two, Jesus ended up giving his life for Lazarus and for all his people.

Number three, Jesus brings people back to life. Number four,

Jesus's emotions balance the often held belief that the more robotic you are, the godlier you are.

And then number five, our faith isn't in a system, it's in a person.

You want to learn these things?

Good, because that's all I got. All right, here we go. So let's start with number one.

Sometimes Jesus does things we don't prefer because it's what's best.

You might know this from other stories. You can see it in this story.

Jesus does things that the people in the story wouldn't have wanted.

One example of this would be the disciples saying, I don't think we should go

to a place where we're going to get stoned to death. And Jesus said, let's go.

Like, sometimes Jesus does things we don't prefer, but the part I really wanted

to focus on is verses 5 and 6.

If you go back to the beginning of chapter 11, verses 5 and 6,

it says, Now Jesus loved Martha, her sister, and Lazarus, so when he heard that

he was sick, he stayed two more days in the place where he was.

John Piper pointed this out in a sermon of his that I read, and I thought it was interesting.

This is what it says. It says, Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.

So, okay, he loved them, therefore, when he heard he was sick, he stayed.

He loved them, so he stalled. Doesn't that seem weird?

And maybe it's because the so is supposed to be in reaction to the verse before

it, where it says this sickness is for the glory of God. I don't know.

But either way, what's interesting is Jesus definitely loved them,

definitely cared about them. The story makes that very clear.

And he still stayed two more days. Jesus does not rush to go help out Lazarus

and Mary and Martha when Mary and Martha would have preferred that.

It seems he purposely stalled so that lazarus would die or maybe so that he

would be dead for several days by the time jesus got there i'm not clear on

the timeline so i don't know which one it is but when the messengers came to

jesus they didn't say he died they said he's sick,

so perhaps jesus waited extra days to make sure he'd be dead by the time he

got there or if it's four days in the grave maybe it was when i get there i'm

going to make sure he has been in there for a while but jesus purposely stalled

i think so that would happen he either allowed Lazarus to die, or at the very least,

he allowed Mary and Martha to grieve for two extra days,

longer than necessary if he had just gone there.

Why? Why would he do that? He loves them.

He loves them, and he knows he's going to fix this situation.

Why in the world would he allow them to cry and grieve and mourn extra?

Why would he put them through that?

Well, let's look at what he says in the story. Look at verse four.

When Jesus heard it, he said, this sickness will not end in death,

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

Like, what's going to happen needs to happen for that reason.

This is for the glory of God. And there's another hint as to why Jesus did it,

and that one's found in verses 14 and 15.

So then Jesus told them plainly, Lazarus has died. Oh, this is so strange. Look at this.

Lazarus has died. Can I have it up here? This is verse 14.

So Jesus told them plainly, Lazarus has died.

I'm glad for you that I wasn't there.

Lazarus is sick, and he died, and I wasn't there to do anything about it,

and I'm glad. I'm glad I wasn't there.

Why is he saying this? He said, I'm glad for you that I wasn't there so that you may believe.

Okay? You're reasonable people. You can see if I'm interpreting this right or

wrongly, but I think what he's saying there is the reason it was good that I

wasn't there when he got sick is if I had been there, like, I'd have healed him.

And that's not what needed to happen here.

I'm glad I wasn't there so that you may believe. Jesus didn't rush because he

knew that resurrecting Lazarus in front of many witnesses would glorify God.

It would glorify the Son of God.

It would cause people to believe, even if it caused some more suffering on Mary and Martha's part.

All right, number two. Point two, Jesus ended up giving his life for Lazarus and for all his people.

When I say Jesus gave his life for Lazarus, I'm saying what I said earlier.

This particular miracle, as you know, because I read the end of the story,

This particular miracle hastened the plot to kill Jesus.

So in a sense, like Jesus, like bringing Lazarus to life is one of the causes of Jesus' death, right?

So Jesus died for Lazarus in that sense.

But Jesus also died for Lazarus in a different sense than that, didn't he?

Jesus died as a substitute for Lazarus' sins.

Just like in the same way that he died as a substitute for our sins.

Caiaphas unwittingly prophesied about that at the end of the story.

Let me show it to you. This is also something I read in a John Piper sermon.

Caiaphas prophesied about Jesus as our substitute, but I think even in a way

he didn't intend. So look at verse 50.

This is Caiaphas talking. You're not considering that it is to your advantage

that one man should die for the people rather than the whole nation perish.

When he says these words, I think this is a murder plot.

Or at least, like, let's make this official, like an execution.

We're going to execute him.

Right? Why? Well, because he needs to die instead of the people dying.

Right? He needs to die as a substitute for the people. We don't want all the

people to die. He should die. Verse 51. 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.

Caiaphas made a true prophecy, but I don't think he meant it the way that it turned out to be true.

When Caiaphas said it, I think he was saying, Jesus' death will save the people from the wrath of Rome.

In truth, Jesus' death will save his people from the wrath of God that we deserve because of our sins.

Yes, Jesus does die instead of the nation. Jesus dies instead of the people,

but not the way Caiaphas meant it.

All right, point number three. Jesus brings his people back to life.

This is the climax of the story. This is why, like a lot of you that walked

in here today knowing Lazarus. In fact, it was really encouraging.

I said, today we're doing Lazarus. And a lot of people were like, really?

And so I didn't even know his popularity.

Okay, so the climax of the story is Jesus brought Lazarus back to life.

If you look at verses 43 and 44.

Jesus said Lazarus come out and the next words are the dead man came out,

so Jesus brings his people back to life this is fantastic now I realize if you're

picky you might go wait a minute no no no Mario you said Jesus brings his people

back to life and this verse is not about Jesus bringing his people back to life

this verse describes Jesus bringing,

one guy back to life I don't know why you Christians gotta exaggerate everything,

he brought one back to life it doesn't say he's bringing everybody back to life

it says he brought one back to life and you're right You're right.

This verse says he brought one guy back to life.

But he had said something broader than that earlier in the conversation.

Do you remember? Let's go to it. Back at verse 23.

Your brother will rise again, Jesus told her. Martha said, I know he will rise

again in the resurrection at the last day.

And I don't think Jesus thought she was wrong about that. She was only wrong in the timing.

Verse 25, Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life.

The one who believes in me, even if he dies, will live. There are people that

die that don't really stay dead. They're gonna live.

Everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. There will be an eternal

life for the people who believe in me.

And notice he says, everyone who lives and believes in me.

So this is this is not just for Lazarus the way

that Jesus is talking here this is not this is for everyone in some

ways Lazarus's resurrection is a preview

of the resurrection to come when God unites our bodies and our spirits like

together and we live with him in joy forever and that is good news all right

point number four Jesus's emotions balance the often held belief that the more

robotic you are, the godlier you are.

I don't know if you've run into this, but I think it's good to address it.

So these are the verses I said I'd give back to you. Look at verses 33 through 38.

When Jesus saw her crying and the Jews who had come with her crying, he was angry.

This word here could be translated upset or distressed, okay?

But he was upset about something in his spirit and deeply moved,

right? So that's like, we got a lot of emotion there.

Then what happens? They said, let's come and see, and Jesus starts crying.

And then some of the people go, oh, he must have loved Lazarus a whole lot.

That's how they interpreted the weeping.

It was love for Lazarus. But then some of them said, couldn't he have opened

the blind man's eyes also have kept him from dying?

And then Jesus was angry in himself again there.

So he got angry and angry and deeply moved and wept. What's going on here?

Why did Jesus weep? And who was he angry at?

I mean, my official answer is it doesn't say. Because if you read it,

you can read it over and over again.

And you'll still notice it doesn't actually say. It doesn't say what he was

crying about. It doesn't say what he was angry with. It doesn't say what he was deeply moved by.

The only thing you can do is sort of speculate based on the order of the words.

Like what had happened just before which thing.

There are some people that think he was angry at the people who were doubting him.

That he was offended at the way that they were handling this.

That as people kept coming up to him and saying, if you had been here,

everything would be fine.

Or the people who said, couldn't he who opened the blind man's eyes also have

kept this man from dying and that the people's doubt sort of frustrated him?

There are some people who think that Jesus was angry at death itself,

that he was aware that death was a thing, but now he's seeing it in real time.

He's seeing the faces of his loved ones and their grieving and the people,

and he's just, as he's looking at this, he's just upset that death is a thing.

He's angry at the tyranny of death and that it's gone on and he is sorrowful,

he is weeping, not because he didn't know people die, but he's like seeing these

people cry and he's grieving at the sight of the grief of his loved ones.

I don't know for sure, I don't know for sure.

But I will say this, whatever the reason, I don't even think we need to get

to the bottom of it to know that this teaches us something really important about Jesus and us.

And that is, Jesus was not emotionless, right? But Jesus was sinless, isn't that true? Amen.

You seem unsure. This is a Christian church, so this should not be a hard guess.

Jesus was sinless, right? Yes, Jesus was sinless. The Bible is very clear.

Jesus had no sin in him, and yet his emotions were moved deeply.

So sinless doesn't mean emotionless, right? Jesus' emotions were moved deeply.

Sinless Jesus' emotions were moved deeply. He was offended or angry or upset about something.

He was weeping about something. That's important for us to get because there

is a stream within Christianity. I'm sure some of you have seen it,

where people seem to believe that the more emotionless you are and the more

robot-like you are, the godlier you are. Have you seen this?

Yeah, so I mean, I know not everybody puts this. We got a no?

Oh, well, you got a thing that's coming. Get ready.

Because this is what's going to happen. You're going to be upset about something.

I mean, if you hang around Christians long enough, you're going to come across

the ones that you're upset about something and then go, well,

if you were a good Christian, you wouldn't be upset about that.

You wouldn't be real Christians. They don't get mad about anything.

They don't get offended, right?

And you should have the joy of the Lord. Why are you sad about that?

You should have the joy of the Lord in you, right?

Have you seen that kind of thinking other than the one that hasn't seen it?

Have the rest of you seen this? Yes, this is a real thing.

I mean, nobody puts it on their doctrine page. Like I've never seen a church

that says we believe in robot Christianity, you know, no emotions here.

Like nobody says they believe it, but that happens. You get rebuy,

well, you shouldn't be feeling that.

Nobody should be, if you're a good Christian, you shouldn't be mad at anything.

You shouldn't be upset at anything. You shouldn't cry about anything.

That's clearly not true.

Jesus didn't go by that, and he was sinless.

Well, then where does that come from?

Well, I'll tell you where it comes from. It's because there's some truth to it.

The Bible holds out self-control as something that is highly valued,

including the controlling of our emotions.

The Apostle Paul, when he talks about the fruit of the Spirit,

like that which comes from us when we have the Spirit of God,

the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace.

It's a list of qualities. And the last one is self-control, right?

When the Spirit is in you, you have self-control. So we're not supposed to have

these emotions that are wildly out of control. We're supposed to be people of self-control.

And I can remember, I think it was about three years ago here,

we did a series on the book of Proverbs.

And the book of Proverbs, over and over and over again, talks about like the wisdom of restraint.

Do you remember that? Like there are times in the book of Proverbs where it

talks about like, there are gonna be times where you wanna say something so

bad and you just need to say no things, right?

You just need, you wanna wanna say it and you should not say it.

And there are times where the Proverbs talks about like the foolish person,

they just vent their anger and the wise person does not do that, right?

So when we look at, when we see the wisdom of restraint in Proverbs and we see

how the Bible highly values self-control we understand, okay,

yes, clearly God does not want us having these wild emotional reactions that

are out of control. So that's good to know.

But that doesn't mean the extreme opposite is true, where you get to the point

where you're going, yeah, emotions are like sinful.

Other than happiness, you're allowed that one. But other than that one,

you're not supposed to have them.

No, this account of Jesus' life right here gives us some balance so that we

know, we know we need to have self-control.

We know the Spirit produces it. We know about the wisdom of restraint,

and yet we also know this emotionless, robotic, I don't feel anything.

That is not Christianity. It wasn't Christ. It's not what he did.

I think that's good to know. Amen? All right, point five. This is the last one.

And this is good. This is really important. Our faith isn't in a system, it's in a person.

I knew that, I knew that before this passage. I think it's in other places of the Bible as well.

But I was reminded of it because of the way Jesus phrased something in this

story. It was when he was talking to Martha.

And he says this, look at verses 24 and 25. Martha said, I know he will rise

again in the resurrection of the last day. Jesus said to her.

I am the resurrection and the life.

Jesus doesn't say, well, I do resurrections or like I can show you how to have eternal life.

He says, I am the resurrection and the life.

I mean, it is true that he's able to do resurrections and he is able to give

life, but he says, I am the resurrection.

And it to me is a reminder of how personal Christianity is.

And when I say how personal, I mean like how revolving around one person Christianity is.

It reminds me of another one of the I am statements that Jesus made.

It's a few pages later. So if

you have your Bible open, just you can flip two pages and go to John 14.

I want to read to you a very famous verse. I'm going to read you just a couple

to come before it so that you have the context. Because I think it's the same idea.

John 14, starting in verse 3. This is Jesus speaking. He says,

if I go away and prepare a place for you, I will come back and receive you to

myself so that where I am, you may be also.

You know the way to where I'm going. Lord, Thomas said, we don't know where

you're going. How could we know the way?

Jesus told him, I am the way. This is one of the most famous verses in the Bible. I am the way.

You know the way because you know me. I am the way.

I can remember there was a children's devotional that my mom bought when I was

a little boy and she read it to me when I was a little kid and then I still

have it and I read it to my kids when they were little kids.

And there's a section in the bit about this right here and it said,

I'm just paraphrasing, I haven't looked at it in a long time,

but it said something along the lines of, Jesus didn't say to Thomas, I will show you the way.

He said, I am the way. Like he will take us there himself.

And so how do we experience resurrection we go

i want i want to be able to live forever one day how do we experience that well

it's not step one and then after you've completed step one you put a bunch of

more effort in you get step two done and you get step three and then the spending

depending on how step three goes you got 4a and 4b and then after 4b you're

going to go up to step five no there's just one step jesus how are you to be

brought back like jesus he does the whole thing.

How can we know the way to God the Father?

It's not step one, step two, step three, and four. There's just one step.

Jesus, he will take us there.

And so another way of saying is

this, the thing that we place our faith in isn't a system, it's a person.

And so that's the story, and those are the points. And so as we now move on

in this series, we're going to come up to the next conversations Jesus had that

are coming up in the series, Caiaphas, and then Pilate and then the thief on the cross.

If you know about those people, you realize we are now moving to the part of

the story where Jesus dies for us and we're ready for it.

Jesus' story ends in death and resurrection and in this story with Lazarus,

we see God has power over all of that.

All right, let's pray.

God, we thank you so much for this.

We thank you for your truth. I pray that you would use it. To change us.

Thinking about the fact that we just trust in you, that we don't have to trust

in this big system, we just trust that you will take us there. It's so comforting.

I was thinking this morning about this documentary I saw about Scientology and

how complicated the system is.

There's a whole big chart, and you've got to do this, and then after that you

do this, and after that you have to do this, and you're working your way up this chart.

And I just thank you so much that you are the resurrection, and you are the

life, and you are the way, and you are the truth, and you are the life and you

take us there. And so we thank you for that.

I do thank you for Jesus' display of emotions here. I pray that you would help

us to be people of balance on this.

I pray that we would not be people who lack self-control and are foolish because

of our lack of restraint.

But I pray we also wouldn't have this sort of belief that well,

I guess I should feel no things ever.

You didn't set that example for us, Jesus.

And so we thank you for that, and I pray that you would guide us in your way.

I thank you for the gospel. Jesus, I thank you for dying for the nation.

I thank you for bringing us back to life. We thank you for that in advance.

And we acknowledge that you do things in our lives that we do not prefer.

And that we need to trust you and your glory.

And we should care about your glory more than the individual,

like just the temporary things that we're going through.

And so I pray that you would build our trust in you,

I thank you for this congregation I thank you for saving us we love you,

in Jesus name we pray amen let me end with these good words from God's word,

Jesus said to her I am the resurrection and the life the one who believes in

me even if he dies will live That is good news.