in your Bibles to John chapter 11. In the Pew Bibles, that would be page 990. John chapter 11. The message will come from verses 38 through 46. If you're familiar at all with the gospel accounts in the life of Christ, you know that Jesus worked numerous works of power that are regarded as miracles. Contrary to nature, and the only way they can be explained is that there is something outside of nature that is forcing the operations that take place. Jesus worked most of his miracles in the region of Galilee, which was the province of Jewish territories that was to the north. of the capital city of Jerusalem, which was in the province of Judea. But Jesus also worked some miracles in the very city, which was the capital of Jewish life, which was Jerusalem. And in spite of the fact that Jesus worked miracles in front of many of the Jews, there were many who did not believe. They saw the miracles and they were in some way able to just simply disregard them. And so we hear in the Gospel of John, his effort toward the end of the book, he says, here's the reason why I wrote this gospel account. I'm setting before my readers seven magnificent signs or miracles. I'm selecting out of Jesus' ministry seven miracles in order that those who read my book may see these signs and they may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God sent from God. Now what's fascinating is that while Jesus worked so many of his miracles in the North, He worked some that John selected right there, as I said, in Jerusalem. And as he began to work his miracles in Jerusalem, it seems as though if you categorized a miracle as being a simple miracle, and then an intermediate miracle, and then a great miracle, I could qualify that from the way John describes them. The first miracle Jesus worked in Jerusalem was the healing of a man who had been lame almost all of his life. And Jesus said to him, get up. And he got up, take up your mat, get out of here. And that's what he did. But they still didn't believe. And so Jesus comes back sometime later, toward the end of his ministry, and he's at the Feast of Tabernacles, and he encounters a man who was born blind. And he says, open your eyes. And he sees. There's all this trauma in chapter nine that we've gone through of people saying, is this the same guy? Yeah, his parents say, he's the same guy. This can't be. And other people are saying, nothing like this has ever happened since the beginning of creation. Fascinating. Amazing that you guys would see that because it's true. It's never happened before. But there's still this contradiction of Jesus. And so, John says, here's the climax. We're going to take the fight right back to Jerusalem, and we're going to give them one more try. We're going to show them a climactic miracle. And that's what we've been building up to all through John chapter 11, is laying all the groundwork for this tremendous event of the climactic sign that John is recording. after the first six that he has laid out all through his book. And so we've been building up to this point for the raising of Lazarus, Mary and Martha's brother from the dead. Now, let's begin this morning to look at the climax of this event by, again, getting the setting of what's going on. Jesus, you may remember, had returned to Bethany, Bethany is a suburb of Jerusalem. He had been informed by Mary and Martha that his good friend Lazarus was very sick. Essentially he was dying. And this news had come to Jesus and Jesus had responded to the messengers with his disciples hearing the same word that this sickness was not unto death. but that he was gonna go back to Lazarus so that God could be glorified and he could be glorified by what was gonna happen. So then Jesus delays two more days. And we've talked about what that produced. So two days later, after these messengers have given Jesus this information and he has sent them back with the promise that this is gonna be a glorifying event, Jesus leaves for Bethany with the disciples, and we enter into the second segment of the event. We are now at the outskirts of Bethany, and word is sent from Jesus to the sisters that he is arriving, he's come. And Martha immediately went out to meet Jesus where he was. And by that time, the text tells us that Lazarus had been dead and buried in his tomb for four days. Martha receives word, she goes immediately out to Jesus and Jesus, in that conversation with Martha, pronounces, I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me will never die. And then he asked Martha, do you believe this? And we've seen in her response that she really doesn't respond to that declaration. But she responds to the level of her ability, the level of her faith at that point, and she says what she knows about him. I know you are the Christ. I believe you are the Messiah. I believe you're the one sent from God. Well, that's good. That's foundational to know who Jesus is, even though you cannot quite contemplate what he has just said he is able to do. give resurrection and life. She just can't contemplate the possibility that what Jesus has just said has any connection with the condition of her brother and her own heart. So then Jesus sends for Mary. He seeks another private time with Mary like he has just had with Martha, certainly to encourage Mary. Mary has always been one who has been seeking after the Lord's teaching and wanting to understand, wanting to learn. And this begins the third segment of the whole event. And in this segment, John discloses to us readers what we saw last week as a glimpse, just a little door of opportunity to look inside the soul, the majestic soul of the God-man. We see his divine nature working in concert with his human soul. And Jesus, in this part of the event, he is surrounded, because the mourning friends, the mourning, not in the mourning, but the M-O-U-R-N, those who are consoling Mary, have followed her, and they've arrived, and everyone around Jesus is in this wailing state, because that's the way they mourned back then. Very outwardly, very loudly, very demonstratively, and this cacophony of sound and wailing and hopelessness is just all around the Lord Jesus. And so as the scene unfolds, John gives us this glimpse into the inner workings of the divine and human heart of Christ. And he tells us that Jesus, as he approaches this supreme miracle, begins to steady his soul and prepare his soul for the engagement in what this would be, what this would work out to be. Because as we see, in all of Jesus' miracles, there is a certain level of trauma that happens within his soul as he engages in working these mighty works of power. And as we saw in our last message, Jesus didn't just work these miracles antiseptically, sort of completely disconnected with what was going on, snap his fingers, tell the Holy Spirit, do something powerful here, and not be engaged in what was happening. That wasn't the way it worked. For Jesus, there was, to a degree that I think is a mystery, a certain level of trauma in the soul every time he engaged in working a work of power, like these signs or these miracles. And while the Holy Spirit was the one who is accomplishing the miracles, still there was an interaction, as there always is in the Trinity of God, between the Father directing, the Son conducting, and the Spirit operating in all of these works. It's a mysterious involvement of Jesus' divine and human nature in the transmission of this power. So for these encounters, Jesus needed to prepare himself. He needed to focus. And that picture comes out vividly in John's description of the inner attitude of Christ in this third segment that's revealed to us. And in our passage this morning, we come to see in this fourth segment, the miracle itself and how it works out. And John begins this stage of the miracle that runs from verse 38 to 41 by showing us the preparation of Jesus himself. Again, look with me at verse 38. Then Jesus, and the Holman text reads, angry in himself, again came to the tomb, it was a cave, and the stone was lying against it. Now, as I explained last Sunday, Rather than the translation, which is commonly in your hands, whether it's New International Version, New American Standard Version, English Standard Version, King James Version, there are common English translations that will essentially say Jesus was in a state where he was being deeply moved by the environment. But the grammar itself, as I told you last week, tells us that Jesus moved Himself. He was not passive. He was fully engaged. And as I explained last week, the verb more precisely means that Jesus became resolved. Jesus determined what He was going to do. Jesus began to be resolute within as He approached this miracle that he was going to act and conduct. And unlike the Holman and some of the other translations of that tradition, the verb does not indicate that Jesus became angry. Rather, it means that he began to marshal himself for this great approaching combat, which he was about to do with death. And as I told you, the original literal sense of the verb is like a horse that's snorting as it's getting ready for a race or getting ready to engage in combat or is being agitated by something that is giving it a threat. And Jesus was marshalling his will and his emotions for the coming combat. And as I argued last week, the miracles that Jesus worked They weren't these naked displays of power. He was always engaged in some degree by his human emotions in what he was doing in these works of power. And Jesus always sought to connect and embrace with the kind of human stress or the kind of human suffering that was eliciting from him these works of miracles. Jesus, whether he was healing someone or solving a wedding crisis or stilling the storm on the Sea of Galilee that was threatening the life of his disciples, or whether he was feeding hungry crowds, he always engaged with the moment and the condition that was causing the need in order that he might learn to be a faithful and sympathetic high priest for us on our behalf. So Jesus had begun his readiness to raise Lazarus, but then the text indicates to us that there was a pause. Though he was at the point where he was ready to move into combat with death, he restrains himself for a moment in order that he might engage his perfect human sympathy in the context with the people around him of what's going on. And that's where we find in verse 35, John's revelation that his perfect human sympathy came upon his emotions. And it says, Jesus wept. And it tells us of the full engagement of Jesus' heart with the suffering and the anguish of the people around him. In spite of the fact that their suffering and anguish was a result of infantile faith. He still sympathized with them. And it's very important for us to appreciate the Son of God in this condition. But then having engaged himself with this human experience, he then again re-martials himself for the miracle. And this is what we see as we move into verses 38, the end of verse 38 into verse 39. Look at with me at verse 39. Jesus says, Remove the stone. And then immediately we hear an objection. It says, Martha, the dead man's sister, told him, Lord, he's already been decaying. It's been four days. And I think John mentions again the relationship of Martha to dead Lazarus. She was, as John makes just this little comment, it's important not to miss it, she was the dead man's sister. We already know that. Well, John wants to emphasize it. What for? Well, John is now highlighting, he's elevating the natural emotional condition of Martha right here in this situation. He is telling us or giving us a look into the natural emotional difficulty that Martha is having with Jesus' command when he says, open the tomb. This was the grave of her brother. This was the grave of her brother who she had said goodbye to four days ago, and she, from her own human perspective, was absolutely certain her brother was dead, and he was rotting in that grave. And Christ says to her, open it up. Well, in Jesus' day, as I've told you, the way they would bury people was so that decomposition would happen rapidly. It wasn't like the Egyptians who would mummify people in order to prevent decomposition. And then there would be, after a year of decomposition, which was expected, a return to the graves, to the crypts, to the tombs, and a recovery of what was left, which was usually just the bones, and they would be put into a small bone box, and then that would be buried. But you see, in this situation, the natural stink, and it's interesting how I think the King James reads it, he stinketh. Only the Elizabethans could write it that way. But this natural stench of Lazarus' corpse, you have to understand, the Jews don't touch dead bodies. So how offensive would this be for Martha, her sister Mary, all the mourners around, to be assaulted with the stench of the rotting corpse of the dead man? Do you see? This is jarring. Open the tomb. Oh Lord, it's been four days. Don't, please. Do you feel it? And unless there's something supremely important for opening the tomb, this is not to be done. Ah, but Martha, there is something supremely important to be done here. Or Jesus would not have asked for it. Martha's convinced her brother is dead. Death has taken him, and that's the end until sometime in the future, which I've read about in Daniel and in Job and other places where there's going to be this resurrection. We don't know when. It's so far out of our realm of perception that we don't think about it. But we know it's going to happen, but for now, it's irrelevant. So here's Lazarus' own sister. bound by the limitations of her faith, in a sense, blocking Jesus from doing what he came to do. Is that a bit ironic? We could say that Martha's lack of faith led her into a direct contradiction to the command of the Lord Jesus Christ, right? Well, here's a solemn warning for us. We need to take care that our feelings and our perceptions. Do not lead us to directly contradict the commands of Christ. Because our old hearts, as you well know, our old hearts are very good. at creating all kinds of rationalizations for why, in any particular situation where there is a command of Christ that seems like it's going to be problematic, or it's going to be difficult, or it's going to be uncomfortable, our old hearts bring up all of these intricate and amazing arguments as to why we should disobey. And I might drill a little bit on this with some of you men. I'll bet you this is the way your heart works when you're confronted with pornography. I can handle this. No, you cannot. It's as powerful a drug for men as cocaine. And you can take that to the scientists who will affirm it. Ladies, It can be as difficult for you when it comes to speech. You have many words. You have a high word count. You're the verbal sex. And sometimes you get yourselves in trouble when it comes to expressing discontentment and gossip. But you see, in our minds, men or women, our old hearts are continually giving us all kinds of arguments for why we can contradict the commands of Christ. We can get away with it. We have to be careful on how much our old heart, and I keep mentioning old heart because you also have a new heart, but how much your old heart will sell you on contradicting Christ. We have to take care. And doesn't Martha's reluctance also illustrate how at times Christ's directives appear strange and harsh to us, right? Open up the grave. Oh, that is disgusting. Oh, that is harsh. Oh, that is offensive. And there are times in Christ commands where we may personally recoil and say, oh no, that's not appropriate. Oh no, I can't be, I can't be, I can't go there. We have to learn to look past what we are sure will be harmful or difficult for us and hold on to the Christ's word. Otherwise, you're gonna miss seeing the glory of Christ. you are going to miss opportunities which he sets before you for the building up of your faith. Because it's as you hold on to the word of Christ and you trust him more in those circumstances where you are like, like Martha, this cannot, no. It's when you say, okay, Lord, and you hold on to him that you find the next time you are more comfortable with Christ. Your faith is growing, and it is a step-by-step process. Now look at verse 40. Here, Jesus responds to Martha's contradiction. Jesus said to her, didn't I tell you, oh, I wish I could hear his tone. I don't think it was harsh. I don't think it was self-preserving. Didn't I tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God? And this reproof is a reminder of the same word that he sent three days earlier back with the messengers to say what was gonna happen with her brother. Your brother, This is not for your brother's death. This is for the glory of God. You know, from a human point of view, you can hear the sisters talking with each other. He said, this isn't for death. Well, I guess he blew that one. There's our brother. And if he'd been here, Lazarus wouldn't have died. Of course, you remember, both sisters make that speech to Jesus, right? But Jesus had told them, this isn't going to end in death because through it, I'm going to be glorified and God's going to be glorified. The question was, did Martha believe that? And that's what Jesus had asked her when he arrived and they had their private meeting. Then next we hear Jesus identifying the source of the miracle that he's going to work. Look at verse 41. Then Jesus raised his eyes and said, Father, I thank you that you heard me. I know that you always hear me. Notice what this prayer is. Is this prayer a petition? No. This is a prayer of thanksgiving. Do you see that? I thank you, Father. Jesus is thanking God because he knows his prayers, his petitions have already been answered. What prayer was Jesus thanking God for? I think most likely the prayers that he was offering up to God during the two days of his delay up north in Perea before coming down south to Bethany. While Jesus delayed, and we talked about this, I think he was seeking the will of God for what would happen in this particular time in this event. And as he got clarity about it, and the communion between the father and the son was crystal clear at all times, he discerned what God's plan was. He was to go south and raise Lazarus from the dead. So the very idea that Jesus offers thanks here marks that he was sure that the Holy Spirit had been directed by the Father to comply with his directive that Lazarus come forth when he called for him. And so again, you have a Trinitarian operation going on here. where you have the determination of the Father, and the Son to be the orchestrator of it, and the Holy Spirit to be the fulfiller, or the power for it to be fulfilled. And this thanksgiving is operating also as a proclamation, because Jesus is saying this audibly. John hears it because Jesus speaks out this prayer between himself and the Father, so that the people all around him can hear what he's praying. And so they hear the harmony of the work and thought between the father and the son, which is perfect and always uninterrupted. And now it's to be revealed in action. And notice that John says this word of thanksgiving was for the sake of the crowd standing around them. Look at verse 42, the last part. But because of the crowd standing here, I said this so that they may believe you sent me. So part of what is to take place in this event was a striking of faith in the hearts of people who had come to console Mary and Martha over the death of their brother. And we've seen that these are people who John marks out as being Jews, which is code for the people normally opposed to Christ. But because of the crowd standing around here, I said this so that they may believe you sent me." So this is a declaration that's spoken before the power of God comes down, the people are listening, and they're being cued in, something's gonna happen so that you can believe, through which God is going to give you faith. And John constantly depicts Jesus as dependent on the Father and wanting to always acknowledge the Father in everything that he did. Acknowledge that he doesn't do anything independently. It's always in concert with the Father. And of course, this is unlike the miracle workers back in that day. Actually, they were just magicians who would perform illusions to deceive the common people. They were always interested in developing their own popularity. Oh, it's sort of like the false teachers today who preach for their own financial gain, for their own popularity, for their own status. And now we read of the release of the divine power by the command of Jesus. Look with me at verses 43 and 44. After he said this, he shouted with a loud voice, Lazarus, come out! The dead man came out, bound hand and foot with linen strips and with his face wrapped in a cloth. Why did Jesus yell? He did yell. It's so that the crowd around him could know that what they were gonna see coming through the opening of this grave was directly connected with the word, the declaration, the command of Christ. Augustine made this interesting remark. He said, if Jesus had not called forth Lazarus by name, All the dead people in the vicinity would have come forth at his voice. Well, on that day, they will hear. When Jesus does make his final call, they will hear his name, and the righteous will be rewarded with eternal life and resurrection of their bodies. Unfortunately for many, There will also be a resurrection, but it will be to separation forever in that immortal body, away from the presence and the glory of God. And it's important to note that this miracle technically was not a resurrection. I think I probably misspoke several times in the past, but this is technically a resuscitation. Lazarus definitely comes alive from the dead, but he is not truly resurrected, because resurrection involves a complete material transformation of the composition of the body. No longer is it a mortal composition, it becomes an immortal composition. A resuscitation is just a reconstituting of what was previously alive in its natural human composition, which is destined to die. Lazarus was going to have to die again. The resurrection of the body is indicated by the resurrection that Christ came out of the tomb with. And as first Corinthians 1553 put it, for this corruptible must be clothed with incorruptibility, this mortal must be clothed with immortality. Young people sometimes feel immortal. You don't know what immortality is. Because if Christ does not come again first, you will die. But if you are resurrected from the dead, either at the rapture or at the last call, your body is going to go through a change in which it will be able to forever be in the presence of the glory of God, which would burn you to a crisp within a split second without being a changed composition. Well, Lazarus comes forth wrapped in his grave clothes. And we will see when we see the resurrection of Christ, this is an utter contrast. He's wrapped in his grave clothes. Jesus transported himself right through the grave clothes. And we know that in his resurrection body, he also transports himself right through solid doors in the upper room. So Jesus brought Lazarus to life again, but Lazarus is gonna die again. Lazarus is all wrapped up in grave wrappings. He has the face cloth on his face. And we know when Jesus rose from the dead, one of the things that startled Peter and John was that they saw the cocoon of the grave wrappings and they saw the face cloth laying to the side in the crypt. And they knew something extraordinary had happened because in order to get the grave wrappings off of Lazarus, they were gonna have to unwind them, cut them somehow, and it was gonna be a real sticky, difficult job to do that. But Jesus now would call them to do that. Look at verse 44. Jesus then said, loose him and let him go. And why would Jesus direct these Jews to do that? Because he was no longer a corpse. It was no longer a problem for them to touch the dead body. And he wanted them to be physically involved in the unwrapping of this body. this body that now felt warm, this body that if they touched his neck they'd feel a pulse, this body that had been in the tomb for four days wrapped in these grave clothes is now talking to them. And Jesus wanted them involved in this process so that it would be indelibly in their mind what he had just done, this fantastic miracle. And then finally John reports for us the immediate impact of the miracle. Verse 45 and 46 report, therefore many of the Jews who had come to Mary, 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. Doesn't Jesus always have a trail of believers and unbelievers following behind him? Wherever Jesus goes, he even said, I came to bring a sword. I came to divide people. between those who are going to believe in me and those who are going to resist me and refuse. And here it goes again, even in spite of the most stupendous miracle he's ever worked. How can this be? How can this be? It's because of the nature of unbelief. Unbelief, folks, is not intellectual. I've told you before, it's moral. Unbelief in Christ is not something that says, it's too fantastic for me to believe. It's something that says, I don't want to believe. I do not want to surrender my life to the authority of God. I do not want God to be the one who dictates how my life will be lived. And that's because you do not trust that your creator knows how your life can best be lived. That's what unbelief essentially is. In spite of all of the atheists and all the agnostics who always complain and can raise up all kinds of contradictions to what's been said, when you get into the minutia of the biblical word and you examine the criticisms, they can all be sliced and diced away. Because essentially they come down to unbelief, which is based on a moral refusal to acknowledge that God is God and I'm just a human being. And let me wrap this up. So. Jesus says to Lazarus, come out. And I'm asking those of you who are still in a struggle. With who will be God in your life, who will be Lord in your life? What response would you choose? Do you say, I'm going to continue to live in the sleep of spiritual death? I want to continue to live within the crypt, the tomb of my own spiritual perceptions. I want to breathe the dank air of the life I can create for myself. I want to listen to the mourning and the music that's coming from all the people surrounding me who are also spiritually dead, who are walking along life's tomb, trying to find their way in the darkness of spiritual death by touching on the walls, and they're stumbling all the time. That's where I want to live. Really? That's where you live if you remain in spiritual death. Or maybe some of you will hear the call and there will be maybe a brief stirring, and then you'll turn over and say, no, that looks too hard. I think I'll stay in my own track. Somebody has told you that coming to know Jesus is something that you have to perform in your own strength, and they have misrepresented the gospel message. It's impossible. only by grace, only by the strength of God in your soul, by his powerful working, will you ever be able to walk with Jesus Christ. You need to understand that. And one of these days, if you decide that you're gonna remain within the crypt of your own spiritual death walk, where you feel like you can escape from the light of the revelation of God's authority. One of these days when you die, that crypt is gonna be filled with the radiation of the presence of God, and it will be a radiation of judgment. And you need to know that. You need to contemplate that. And there aren't gonna be many people who will tell you that. You need to wake up. Or maybe there will be someone here who will hear the call of Christ, and you will sense what Paul writes about in Romans chapter 5, the love of Christ has been poured out within my heart. I sense Him. I feel it. I know he's God. I want him to be my God. I want him to be my Savior. I want to come into the light. I want to come into the color. I want to come into the real music of heaven and I want to live with Christ at the center of my life. With Christ my creator and my maker telling me how I can live for the glory of God and true happiness. Maybe that'll be your decision today. I hope that it is. Would you join me in prayer? Father, have mercy on us. Do what only you do, for salvation is of the Lord. Oh God, may you rain down with mercy and conviction on anyone here who is still seeking to find purpose and life on their own. Oh God, please work in their hearts to cause them to surrender to real life, to the one who claimed your own son who said, I am the resurrection and the life. May you impress upon them as you impressed a new life on Lazarus. May you impress on them that Jesus is life for them. In his name we pray.