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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.
The Climatic "Sign" of John's Gospel--Lazarus Raised from Death
Series Footsteps of Jesus
| Sermon ID | 82017124448 |
| Duration | 42:33 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | John 11:38-46 |
| Language | English |
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