And if you would turn in your Bibles to John chapter 11, John chapter 11, if you have one of the church's Bibles there in the back and you can raise your hand, if you need one, it will be on page 897. And as you looked in the bulletin this morning, perhaps you noticed that we have a fairly long reading this morning. But as you come to this, it's always helpful to remember that the Bible is the greatest story that's ever been told. If there's any story that reminds us of that, It's perhaps this one here this morning, John chapter 11. And so if this is the first time you've heard it, or the hundredth time you've heard it, rejoice to hear what God is doing. But before we do this, before we read, let us pray. Lord, the unfolding of your Word gives light. It imparts understanding to the simple. So Lord, we open our mouths and pants that you would show us your way and your truth. Turn to us, be gracious to us as it is with those who love your name, even as we consider your word this morning. And we pray this in the name of Christ. Amen. John chapter 11, verses 1 through 46. Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany. the village of Mary and her sister Martha. It was Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent to him, saying, Lord, he whom you love is ill. But when Jesus heard it, he said, this illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it. Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. Then after this, he said to the disciples, let us go to Judea again. The disciples said to him, Rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone you. And are you going there again? Jesus answered, Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him. After saying these things, he said to them, Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awaken him. The disciples said to him, Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover. Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that he meant taking rest and sleep. Then Jesus told them plainly, Lazarus has died. And for your sake, I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him. So Thomas called the twin, said to his fellow disciples, let us also go, that we may die with him. Now, when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles off. And many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother. So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him. But Mary remained seated in the house. Martha said to Jesus, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you. Jesus said to her, your brother will rise again. Martha said to him, I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day. Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live. And everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this? She said to him, Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world. When she had said this, she went and called her sister Mary, saying in private, The teacher is here and is calling for you. And when she heard it, she rose quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still in the place where Martha had met him. When the Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary rise quickly and go out, they followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb to weep there. Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. When Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. And he said, where have you laid him? They said to him, Lord, come and see. Jesus wept. So the Jews said, see how he loved him. But some of them said, could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying? Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it. Jesus said, take away the stone. Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days. Jesus said to her, did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God? So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I know that you always hear me. But I said this on account of the people standing around that they may believe that you sent me. When he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, Lazarus, come out. The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, unbind him and let him go. Many of the Jews, therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what He did, believed in Him. But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done." Thus far, the reading of God's holy and inspired Word. Well, in 1988, an injured Kirk Gibson hit an improbable home run in game one of the World Series to give the Los Angeles Dodgers an improbable, surprising victory against the Oakland Athletics. And as Gibson hobbled around the bases, the announcer on the radio broadcast shouted these words that are now forever attached to the home run. He declared, I don't believe what I just saw. I don't believe what I just saw. He had seen the unbelievable. And our society loves to speak of the unbelievable. Perhaps you experienced it this morning as you looked for something in your refrigerator to put on your toast. You came across a little tub that said, I can't believe it's not butter. Society loves to speak of that which you can hardly believe. And I think when we speak that way, We speak of that which we would not believe or could barely believe unless we had just seen it with our own eyes. And in some ways, that's the purpose of the book of John. To make the unbelievable believable. To speak of the great works of the person of Jesus Christ. so that people, His listeners, His audience, would come to faith in Him. Not so much just to recount stories of what happened with others, but to call people to faith. And if there's any passage that does this in the book of John, it's this one right here. For here, Jesus is on the move. He's zeroing in. The whole passage is moving towards the tomb of Lazarus. But as Jesus is on the move, he's also on the move towards faith. Eight times in this passage, a form of the word believe appears. So as he moves towards faith, as he moves towards the tube, excuse me, he's also moving in faith towards all who would hear, even you this morning, that you would learn. to trust in Jesus Christ, your resurrection and life. And we'll really see this in four stages of Christ moving towards the tomb. And the first stage comes in the first 16 verses. And it's the stage of the tragic situation. The tragic situation. If you think of movies, perhaps movies that you particularly enjoy or see as well made. One of the great things the directors could do is that the first few minutes lay out for you the characters, the setting, and the problem. And that's really what John does for us in these opening verses. What we see at the very start is we have a sick friend. Look at verse 1, now a certain man was ill. Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister, Martha. Lazarus is sick. And who is Lazarus? He's a friend of Christ. He's the brother of Mary and Martha, two who had been very close to Christ throughout His ministry. And you could just imagine the hope that Mary and Martha would have had in sending for Christ to help. After all, Jesus is known for healing. Over and over and over again in the ministry of Christ, He heals unknown, unnamed people. The unknown blind man. The unknown, unnamed leper. And here we have this dear friend of Christ. Surely here, in a moment of greatest need, Christ will lean forward and help. But how does Christ respond? In verse 4, he says that the illness does not lead to death. He says it's for the glory of God. There's a purpose there. So that the Son of God may be glorified through it. But that's where he leaves it. Perhaps most striking in verse 6, he delays. He stayed two days longer in the place where he was. A two-day pause. This wasn't just any two-day pause. This wasn't a business meeting that you would push out two days just because you can. We discover in verses 12 through 14 that this two-day pause led to the death of Lazarus. Lazarus dies. The sisters send for help from Jesus Christ, the Lord of Power. Christ in time of crisis is silent, and the outcome is death. And this two-day pause is really the sorrow of the Christian, really the sorrow of all of us. here this morning. There are tragedies, I trust. There are tragedies, heartbreaks, this morning. Perhaps if some of you have one of the church's calendars, and you looked at the calendar this morning, you may have noticed that today is the birthday of Mark Lemick. Mark Lemick, he lived a life seeking the Lord, and he lived a life and a body that could barely function, he could barely speak at times near the end of his life. Just a few months ago, the Lord decided to take his life. So whether it's this tragedy, the tragedy in your life, the tragedy in your family, you're forced to say that the two-day pause of Christ, as it were, has driven you into this suffering. You're forced to record with, why is it that Jesus delays? And as we ponder this, we see that Jesus wants to move towards the tomb. Jesus is on the move. And we see two perspectives on this. We see first the perspective of Thomas. Thomas speaks representatively here of the disciples and perhaps representatively of you. Verse 16, let us also go that we may die with him. The disciples feared that going to Bethany, going to where Lazarus was, may lead to the death of Christ. There were plots afoot for his life. So they had Christ's death in their mind. They had Lazarus's death in front of them. And Thomas, and perhaps you, began to think of his own death. The tragedy of his own mortality, the tragedy of our own mortality, begins to sink in. begin to think that life, amidst all this sorrow, is just a hopeless march towards death. And as we reckon with this tragedy of our own mortality, when the two-day pauses of Christ begin to build in our life, it only begins to sink in more. But as Thomas, as the disciples, head towards death, where is Jesus headed? Verse 15. For Your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that You may believe. So that You may believe. In verse 4 we saw that the so that of Christ, the purpose of all this was the glory of God. Now we see the faith. The faith of those around Him. And it's important to know when we think about the disciples, that the disciples in many respects believed already. when Jesus turned the water into wine earlier in the book of John. John writes, and the disciples believed in him. So Jesus is moving for faith even in those who already believe. So even this morning, if you have vowed up here on this stage that you believe in the one living and true God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as revealed in the scriptures, God will use the confusing sorrow to drive you to faith, to drive you away from unbelief and towards faith. J.C. Ryle says, to make us believe more is the end of all Christ's dealings with us. To make us believe more is the end of all Christ's dealings with us. So how does Jesus move towards this faith? Well, we come to the second stage, the stage of the divine declaration, the divine declaration. Jesus comes to where Lazarus has lived. And we see in particular here the interaction with Martha. You can just imagine Martha here. Imagine her in these days of waiting. Every rustle of the leaves outside the house, every turning of the door, every noise that she hears. She would look and wonder, has Christ come? Has Jesus finally arrived? And now Lazarus is at the tomb, and here comes Christ. And she still runs. She still runs to meet Christ, and her heart is weighed down as with an anchor. What would she say to Christ? What will Christ say to her? What would you say to Christ in this circumstance? And verse 21 here really draws out her heart. Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. And in verse 22, she expresses some measure of hope and faith. But we see in verse 21, really, the statement of a Christian that's experiencing the hard providences of God. We hear this statement of faith and trust, Lord, You could save my brother. But sitting behind it is the echo of unbelief, perhaps, at the very least, confusion. And many times when the hard providences of life begin to sink in on the Christian, we find ourselves praying this way. Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But you are not here. Lord, if you would come and shine your face on my life, I would have joy and peace. I haven't had joy and peace in my life in Christ for weeks, for months. Lord, if you come and visit my family, you would restore all broken relationships. Lord, my family is falling apart. Lord, You promised to build Your church. You promised to advance Your kingdom. Lord, where is the advancement that You promised? Do you ever feel like this? Do you ever pray like this? When the power of Christ and the love of Christ don't seem to match. When the promises of Christ and the providences of Christ seem to misalign. And you're forced to wonder, Lord Jesus, how can this possibly be? Well, if you find yourself there this morning, find yourself with Martha, right at the feet of Jesus, at the best place to be. And we see in verse 23, Jesus begins to draw her out. Your brother will rise again. True statement, but not telling her everything. Verse 24, Martha responds with a faithful, orthodox statement, I know he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day. But then in verse 25, Jesus turns the conversation. Sometimes as a parent, as a father, a mother, you have a child that's in some measure of crisis, they're crying out, they've scraped their knee, they have some injury, perhaps they're crying out as a mix of truth and hysteria, whatever it would be. Sometimes as a parent, you just say, son, daughter, look at me. Just look at me, look at me, hear what I have to say. I hear as Christ saying, Martha, Martha, look at me. Look at me, I am. I am the resurrection of the life. Whoever believes in me though he die, yet shall he live. Everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Jesus Christ, the resurrection, in himself holds the power to restore from the grave. Jesus Christ, the life, he brings and sustains life to all around. And imagine the contrast here. Here's Martha, surely wearing the clothes of mourning. Shirley has wept for days, her face is ragged and tired, standing near the tombs, and Jesus says, I am life. I proclaim life, and if you believe in Christ, even if you die, you may still live. And even if you're alive, as you are this morning, as you believe in Christ, truly you never ultimately die as your life is in Him. And why is this? How does belief in Christ bring this about? Because belief is that which repents, which gives up all sin, all your former ways of living against Christ, your sinful unbelief even, and gives the whole self, the whole person to Jesus Christ and trusts to Him for life. When I was a child, perhaps some of you children have played this game. When I was a child, I would go to my grandparents and play the game Thin Ice, an old classic game. And you get a little tripod out, and you set a Kleenex up on the top, and you get wet marbles. You pick the marbles up, and you drop them on the Kleenex that's suspended in the air. And the first one drops, and the Kleenex holds. But you keep dropping and dropping and dropping the marbles. And then the Kleenex finally breaks and the goal is not to be the one that causes it to break. Some of you this morning may feel like your faith is like that Kleenex. Your faith is such that if one more tragedy strikes, if one more thing comes into your life that causes you to wonder as to whether Christ is present, your whole faith is going to break apart and you'll be shattered. Well, Jesus Christ declares to Martha and declares to you a different way. He says, I am the resurrection. I am the life. I sustain your faith. Your faith is not built on the quality of your ability to sustain. Your faith is not based on the number of tragedies that strike in your life. Your faith is anchored on Jesus Christ, the resurrection and the life, and that is a sturdy place to be found. And the question that comes to Martha still rings in the air 2,000 years later. Do you believe this? Do you believe this? Do you believe that Jesus Christ offers life from death? Do you believe that outside of Christ you have death? Your sins will condemn you, that your sins bring you apart from Christ, but that Jesus Christ offers spiritual resurrection. Do you believe that you do not need to fear death? Do you believe that you do not need to fear death? Because Jesus Christ offers life. Do you believe this? And if you do believe this, you need to hear this word. You do believe in this. A curiosity of the Greek is that a simple change of the stroke of a pen would change this question, do you believe this, to a statement, you do believe this. And as Christians, as you walk through life from time to time, you begin to forget that your life is anchored on Jesus Christ, the resurrection and the life. Remind yourself of what you believe. Jesus, though, keeps moving. The story is not over. We come to the third stage here, the stage here as Christ keeps moving towards Martha, towards Mary, towards you, the stage of the heartfelt commiseration of Christ. The question may be asked, it's a great thing that Jesus is all this. But does he really know what's going on in my life? Does he really know? Well, here comes Mary. And Mary comes and she runs out to Christ and she falls at his feet. And she says, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. Does that sound familiar? Any idea what Mary and Martha were talking about among themselves as they waited for Jesus? Only Jesus would be here. And then after Lazarus died, if only Jesus would have been here. So here comes Mary, and she says this, but what stands out is not so much the sameness of what they have to say to Christ, but the uniqueness here of Jesus' reply. Jesus looks, and she sees Mary's tears, and he looks, and he sees the Jews' tears, and his own soul starts to quake. He starts to feel the pain of this in his own heart. And it leads Jesus to want to move even closer. He's always on the move in this passage, and He's wanting to move closer. And He asks this question, where have you laid Him? And note the response here. They say, Lord, come and see. Lord, come and see. Perhaps, if you've read the book of John, you know that come and see is a refrain at the start of the book calling people to come and see Christ. And we still have the privilege of coming to see Jesus Christ by faith. But you see, the great wonder of the Christian hope is this. It is not simply that we may come and see Christ through faith, but that in the place of our suffering, in the place of our trial, Jesus Christ comes and sees us. Christ came in the Incarnation. He came to see us. And He still stands in heaven high and sees His saints and their suffering. And as He sees, He weeps. One of the greatest heartbreaks in all of suffering is a sense of loneliness. The sense that no one around, no one knows exactly what you're going through, no one is there to really minister to your heart. Perhaps you find yourself singing with Tom Petty, you don't know how it feels. No, you don't know how it feels to be me. You may even look to Christ and say, Lord, I never saw you in my hospital room. Well, Jesus comes into that, and says, I know. I weep. I sorrow. I know the distresses of my children, and I weep with you. Calvin says, he is as much affected by our distresses as if he had endured them in his own person. Jesus is still in heaven high, that great high priest, who knows how to sympathize with the weaknesses, the sorrows, even the sins of his people. He reached from heaven high and came down to bear the griefs, bear the sorrows, even take the punishment for these griefs on the cross. And the question, though not formally stated by Jesus here to Mary, the question still rings out. Do you believe this? Do you believe that Jesus Christ is the one to know and weep over your pain? Do you believe that Jesus has borne your griefs and your sorrows even on the cross? He's taken the punishment for that. Do you believe that it is time for your sinful unbelief in the presence of God to be replaced by faithful confidence and His comfort? Do you believe, like Mary, The time is here for you to fall at the feet of Christ. Weep before Him, even admit your sins wherever you've been from. And say, Lord, do you know my pain? Will you hear me? And will you weep with me? There you will find a Savior who weeps. But the story is not over. There's a question here in verse 37. Some of the Jews around say, could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying? And yes, this is a question that rings of unbelief and distaste for Christ. But in some respects, it's a very good question. If Jesus is good enough to heal the blind, if Jesus could heal the leopard, if Jesus could deal with a few problems here and there, but if Jesus cannot deal with death, if Jesus cannot deal with hope beyond the grave, what good is Jesus? What good is Christ if he cannot deal with the problem of death? We come to this fourth stage, the stage of the glorious resurrection. Jesus Christ, He's moving. He's moving towards the tomb, and you almost sense the time is slowing down here. John slows down his writing. Every step, every movement is chronicled here. And as Jesus walks towards the tomb, He tells them, take away the stone. And here comes Helpful Martha. Here comes Helpful Martha, crying out to the Lord, Lord, an odor! Lord, an odor! Here's Jesus about to do his great work. There's a groundswell. Jesus is summoning all around to faith. He's moving towards his action. And Martha is lecturing Christ on the development of odor in human corpses. How helpful. And it's here where the movie director, if we kept with the scene, would say, cut, cut, this is not what we meant to bring about. But Martha's unbelief here is a good reminder to us of our own temptation, when Jesus is working, when Jesus is about to move, how often do we raise up the flag? We do not allow Christ to minister to our hearts. We do not allow Christ and His Word to speak to us. Because we're too concentrated on ourselves or our own concerns. And Jesus responds here, did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God? Remember at the start, Jesus said the purpose of this all was the glory of God? And then He said the purpose was faith? Here brought together in this one great act, Jesus is going to bring together His glory and faith. And in some ways, He's just rephrasing that same old question. Martha, do you believe this? And then He starts to move again towards the tomb in verse 41. and his eyes lift up to heaven. What a great image here. Jesus, the Son of God, is moving towards death and his eyes are in heaven. The deathly conversation here is meeting the heavenly conversation. The humanity of Christ coming into our weakness is met with the deity of Christ in perfect communion with the Father. And he prays, Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I know that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around that they may believe. So as Jesus speaks with Martha, what's on his heart? Her faith. And as Jesus speaks with the Father, what's on his heart? Faith. Faith of the people around. He's moving such that people would come to faith in Christ. And then he comes to the crest of the tomb. And he cries out with that loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. Lazarus, Jesus Christ knows by name the sinner he seeks to summon. Come forth. By a single word, Jesus Christ makes the dead come alive. As a parent, I've learned that the simple words, come forth or come here, do not in themselves possess inherent power. It doesn't always work. But when Jesus says, come forth, death itself is forced to unbind its chains. And it's not just those chains, it's not just those grave claws that have to be unbound as Lazarus comes out of the tomb, but your own reasons for unbelief must be unbound as well. Your own reasons for refusing to entrust yourself to Christ, to believe in Him, must come off. For Jesus Christ is not simply the resurrection and the life, but He brings resurrection and life to His children. Jesus Christ does not simply weep with His children, but for those He weeps, He conquers. And this great story of a resurrection leans all the way forward to you this morning. There are a lot of tombs that Christ passed on the way to Lazarus's tomb. It was already spoken this morning. Perhaps you drove by the cemetery this morning. I drive by Crown Hill Cemetery to and from work every day. I see a lot of graves that have been dug, but I don't see any being undug. But Lazarus' resurrection points forward to Jesus' resurrection, when Jesus rose. And that resurrection in Christ points forward to you. And this great story of a time, something in time gone by, becomes your story, your hope. J.C. Ryle declares, comfortable is the thought that he that stood by the grave of Lazarus could say to the vilest of men, come forth, loose him, and let him go. Comfortable not least is the thought that when we ourselves lie down in the grave, we may lie down in the full assurance that we shall rise again. The voice that called Lazarus forth will one day pierce our tombs, and bid soul and body come together. The trumpet shall sound, the dead shall be raised uncorruptible, and we shall be changed. We shall be changed. Praise the Lord. But John doesn't leave Lazarus just standing there outside of the tomb. He turns to the crowd around. Verse 45, the Jews, some of the Jews believe, and others walk away in unbelief. Not unbelief that Lazarus had just walked out of the tomb, but an unbelief that said, I will not submit to Jesus Christ. And they go to the Pharisees to begin to plot Jesus' death all over again. There's a great danger. Do not walk away in unbelief this morning. Do not walk away and say, I hear what Jesus has done, I know what Jesus has done, but I will not submit to Christ. Oh, there's a great danger. Do not walk away in unbelief. But verse 45 is the call. The Jews who were around believed. To walk away in faith is to see what Jesus did then, and say, I believe in Christ now. And no matter how long you believe, no matter where the remnants of unbelief are in your own heart, you say, I do believe. I will trust in Christ till the day I die, and I will go on trusting in Christ. Jesus Christ truly, truly is the resurrection and the life. Let us pray. Lord, we thank You that You are the resurrection and the life. We thank You for Christ as Savior born into this world to come and weep with sinners like us. And we thank You that not only did Lazarus rise, but Jesus rose. We thank You that in Christ we will rise too. And we will rise in hope as we trust in Him. So Lord, give us this hope and confidence in You. And make us sing and praise to Your glory. In Jesus' name, Amen.