Have your Bibles open to the
Gospel of John, Chapter 11.
You know, it's interesting as we sang that poem.
I'm trying to focus on those words.
In the, quote unquote, evangelical church in America,
there are many different styles of worship.
And this is not the cast
of disparaging note on different styles.
There's different styles.
There's different ways, but I tell you what.
There's something about singing a psalm like that.
Do you realize the theological depth that was in that song?
He realized that the content of that psalm alone,
a very solid, sound doctrine message could be preached.
If you focused on the depth of those words while you were singing them.
That's just a little bit different than singing, I love you,
Lord, 72 times in a row.
Right?
A little bit different.
And I'm glad to be in a church that likes
to worship with theological content rather than
repetitious words over and over.
All right, so we come to a new chapter
here in our study of John for the second time.
And also a new narrative.
And this narrative account is
of a miracle, and it takes up
the entire 11th chapter.
So you know what that means.
We're going to have to break it down into four different sections.
So today will just be section one.
Theologian J.C.
Ryle said in this 11th chapter,
for grandeur and simplicity, for
pathos and solemnity, nothing was ever written, like it.
That's a pretty amazing statement coming from a theologian like J.C.
Ryle.
And that's because this is an amazing chapter.
It really is.
It's the account of the miracle of Jesus,
rising his friend Lazarus from the dead.
The story itself is short.
Of course, it's very familiar, I'm sure, to all of us here today, but in its detail.
If you get down in it,
It's very rich.
This is the climactic, I would say,
very bidding sign to
end John's list of signs in his gospel
that we've gone through so far that
point to the deity of Jesus.
We've been laboring that point throughout our study, right?
Here in this chapter, we come to the last, as
I said, most monumental miracle, public
miracle that Jesus ever did.
There is one later miracle, but it's in the dark, and it's very private.
It was in the garden of Gethsemane, when Jesus had
to give Malchus a new ear, after Peter chopped it off.
But nowhere in any other account of his miraculous
work, did we more magnificently
see the coming together of
the humanity and the deity,
the godhood of Jesus, than in this
particular scene?
We see his humanity, and
his affections, and his relationships that
he has with an earthly family, but
at the same exact time, in the same exact scene,
we see his sovereignty, in
his power and his display of glory, in
absolutely in this scene, overwhelming
the king of terrors for all of us, that
exist on the earth.
of course, death.
This miracle, important as it was, do you
realize it only occurs in John?
And the other gospel writers don't give in us.
an account of this tremendous scene.
But John writes this, under
the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, with careful
detail, and he gives it to us for a number of reasons.
First of all, I said, to declare this
final, supreme, undeniable
proof of the claims of Jesus, it
was affirmed by a whole lot of eyewitnesses,
that he is who he claimed to be, this
is the resurrection.
I want you to understand, and I'm the labor of this point.
I want you to think about it.
This is a resurrection of a man who had been dead for
four days.
Four 24 hour periods.
If he died right now, it would be Sunday,
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday before Jesus gets there.
Decay would have set in.
Because Jews don't embalm.
Very unlike Egyptians who did everything they could to preserve the
corpse, with the Jews, when
somebody died, they were put in the grave as fast as
possible, because decay,
as you know, it starts to set in immediately.
Now, the purpose of this miracle was not only to put on display
the power and the sovereign divine nature of Jesus,
but also for the sake of increasing
the faith of those who believe, strengthening it.
If you look down, look down in verse 15 real quick of this 11th chapter.
Jesus says about not being there when Lazarus died.
And I am glad, for your sakes,
that I was not there.
So that you may believe.
So this miracle is not only about giving this
overwhelming, undeniable evidence of the deity
of Christ, it was also for the purpose of producing
greater faith in the believers, particularly the disciples.
And then there's a third purpose.
It gave the final burst of energy to
those who wanted Jesus dead to
now really press for his murder,
because there was a lot of them there.
And they saw it.
with their own eyes.
And, of course, what I mean by this is this set
up, God's timing was now very near.
Stubbornly ordained before the foundation of the world.
It was going to be the passion week.
It was going to be the week of Passover.
But we're not there just yet.
Because of the providential restraint of God's
hand, though they had tried, as we've seen in our study,
multiple times, to kill Jesus, they
were never able to succeed, because
again, it was not yet his time.
There was a definite time.
that God had ordained.
But now, the time is getting very, very close.
And we have this, this undeniable miracle,
again, in front of so many witnesses, and the Jews reach
now when they see this, especially this
level of hostility, which is incredible to think about.
You're watching a man rise a man from the dead.
That's how dead they were in their trespasses and sin.
And that finally leads to the actual execution
of their murderous plot.
But at the same time, perfectly in line with God's
perfect timing, as we saw in Acts predestined.
He predestined all the players,
the Jews, punches, pilot, the Romans, everybody
to do what his hand and his purpose, predestined
to occur, it tells us, in the book of Acts.
And as a side, just as a little side note.
Have you ever noticed that we live in a culture that is absolutely
right now overwhelmed with pseudo supernaturalism?
Have you started to see the rise of that?
Let me give you an example.
How many have you ever watched one of those fake,
phony ghost programs, where the on TV?
You ever see one of those shows?
And they go in this haunted house and,
oh, did you hear that?
And then you just hear, like, you know, oh,
that's got to be the ghost, and they go in there, you know?
And every once in a while, you get some shadowy image.
Every time you turn it on TV, you see those.
Also the movies.
Have you noticed in the movies now?
There are so many films of outright,
direct demonic possession.
Have you noticed that?
There's like a genre now.
where we've seen that on the increase for the last number of
years, and there's some of the most popular movies that
they are, are these events.
Sometimes they claim to be based on true things, sometimes
they're not, but it's absolute demonic possession, is what comes in.
And then, of course, in the charismatic
wing of the church, not all, but some fake healings.
You see them on television, fake miracles.
You ever hear these stories of these supposed resurrection from the dead stories?
They always seem to take place in some
far away land that nobody's ever able
to actually document with proof, but
you just hear about it.
All of that nonsense tends to really diminish
the reality of this kind,
a very real miracle, that we're fixing
to witness here through the Word of God.
And then, if you add to all that, our culture really
is barrage with relentless
entertainment that elevates, think about it, and saturates
us with fantasy.
You notice that too?
Movies, books, that are of unreal things.
Unreal things are, like, almost even normalized,
to an extent we're so saturated.
movies and television are jam packed with
unreal stories and things.
And in a culture that's really, really,
in an entertainment world, especially just engulfed in a pseudo
supernatural realities, it's really, it's
kind of hard for us in this day.
And this culture, for people to see the
resurrection of a man who had been dead for four days,
who actually walked out of a grave, he's stinking
in a small village in Judea 2,000
years ago, as if it really matters.
There's no special effects with this event.
There's no AI, video, you can go watch.
I mean, how do you compare that with the Avengers?
You know?
Flying witches, transformers, aliens, defying
natural law, trying travelers, people that morph
into other entities, that's constantly barraged throughout
television screens, and our movie screens, and
they have supernatural powers.
I mean, with all of that, what's the big deal about a resurrection and a
village in Israel 2,000 years ago?
You get my point?
And make no mistake about it.
You could call me a wild eyed fundamentalist,
if you want to, some have, label me that, of course.
I wear that badge proudly, but what's
behind all of this pseudo supernatural stuff, saturating
our culture, of course, in the big picture is
our adversary, the devil.
Let's see who's behind it, ultimately.
I'm not saying you can't go watch the Avengers, but you understand my point.
He's very successful.
At confusing people, about the miraculous.
and confusing them about reality, is very good at this.
And add just another footnote along this line, Jesus
told stories called parables, right?
He invented them.
But not one parable.
I want you to notice that Jesus ever told ever
created is a fantasy in
the story, in any dimension, in any component.
All of his stories exist in the
real world with real people, real
things, real issues, real relationships.
He never used fantasy.
to articulate spiritual truth.
You never find things like that
came from great writers, great as they are, as J.R.
Tolkien or C.S. Lewis, in any of Jesus'
stories and teachings and parables.
The closest he came was in the story of the rich man, in
torment, in Lazarus, another Lazarus, in Abraham's bosom,
but even that was describing actual reality.
So in this culture, what my
point I'm trying to make is it's really an uphill struggle
to make this amazing event in chapter 11
here to be as meaningful as it really is.
So try and block all the stuff out that I'm talking about.
and grab hold of
how amazing, incredible,
astounding it is for Jesus to stand in front of
a tomb and say, Lazarus, come forth, and
a man that had been dead for days comes walking out of that tomb.
Just think about it.
Speaking of the story, the rich man in Lazarus, you'll remember that the rich man said
to Abraham, Send Lazarus
back from the dead to warn my brothers.
I'm tormented, right?
And this flame, and Jesus said, hey, they
don't believe Moses and the prophets, they won't believe though
one rose from the dead.
And guess what?
This is evidence of that.
Because one right there in front of their face, the Jewish leaders
rose from the dead.
And then the one who rose from the dead,
rose from the dead, and they still didn't believe.
They still rejected him.
This massive miracle in front of all these eyewitnesses,
who all knew, again, the man had been dead for four days, had no,
that was just no other possible explanation, okay?
It was exactly what it was.
This is not Benny the Hen,
curing some kind of thing you can't see.
And, oh, look, it's cured, flopping around on the stage.
This was undeniably a dead man
coming to life, is what this was.
And that fat just exposed
the unbelief that
they had for what it really was.
At this point, the light, think about it, has been shining
in the darkness every day for three
years, approximately, at this point.
The darkness hated it.
And up to this point, that darkness could not put it
out, no matter how much and how deeply and how bad they wanted to.
With all the evidence over the three year ministry of Jesus,
I also want you to think about the fact that the nation, as a whole, not
every single single Jew in existence
at that time, of course, I'm not saying that, but every the nation,
as a whole, had rejected Jesus, and
the leadership has rejected him as a whole,
and now as Jesus comes down the final stretch.
that's leading to the cross.
We're just weeks away.
He gives one last great,
overwhelming, monumental, very public
testimony to
the reality of who he is.
When Lazarus walked out of that tomb, there should have been
no one standing there who had any doubt about
the fact that Jesus is the Messiah.
I mean, the scene that we're going to look at just can't possibly be more dramatic.
And, of course, the overarching purpose of the miracle is
the overarching purpose for why we live our Christian lives.
Look at verse 4.
For the glory of God.
So the Son of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified
by it, not just a little deity alert right there.
Do you notice for the glory of God?
So that the Son of God title for Jesus, may
be glorified, what did God say?
My glory I will not share with who?
Another, but this says, for the glory of God, so that the Son
of God may be glorified.
Jesus is God.
Just want to throw that in there.
This is to put his glory on display.
So that people might believe.
And some did.
And some who already believe.
including the disciples, so that they might have their faith strengthened.
Now, this is the seventh miracle recorded in
the Gospel of John, but this is not the first time that Jesus raised somebody from the dead.
In Mark, he raised Jarius's daughter, if you remember.
that story.
Then in Luke's gospel, there is the account of
the funeral procession of the son of the widow of name where Jesus
raised her son from the dead, if you remember that story.
In both cases, though, the deaths had
actually happened very close in proximity
in time to Jesus raising them.
So there was very little time for decay to set in.
That's what was different about those two rising from
the dead, and Lazarus.
Lazarus, again, four days, dead four days.
After four days, a lifeless corpse,
not embalmed in a tomb
with absolutely no climate control,
would be pretty gruesome to look at.
And that is what sets apart Lazarus
miracle from all the other resurrection, the other two resurrections that I just mentioned.
And then there was this tradition among the Jews that the
spirit of a person hovered over the body
for a couple of days, and then vacated.
That was a longstanding tradition.
So even in their tradition,
there would have been the sense for everybody.
And, of course, I'm sure that's why God made sure of this, that
this was a real death, that whatever the
spirit that hovered, and the way they looked at it,
It was four days.
So that even that possibility was outside of
the realm of reality, long gone.
So let's dig into the account now with that, by way of introduction.
And I want to read the first 15 verses for you.
Now a certain man was sick.
Lazarus, Bethany, the village
of Mary and her sister, Marta, it
was the Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet
with her hair, whose brother, Lazarus, was sick.
So the sisters sent word to him, saying, Lord, behold,
he whom you love is sick.
But when Jesus heard this, he said, this sickness
is not to end in death.
But for the glory of God, so that the Son of
God may be glorified by it.
Now, Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.
Excuse me.
So when he heard that he was sick, excuse me, he
then 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 12 hours in the day?
If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble because he sees the light of the world.
But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles because the light is not in him.
This, he said, and after that, he said to them, Our friend Lazarus
has fallen asleep, but I go so that I may awaken
him out of sleep.
The disciples then said to him, Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he'll recover.
Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought he was speaking
of literal sleep.
So Jesus then said to them plainly, Lazarus is dead.
And I am glad, for your sakes, that I was not
there, so that you may believe, but
let us go to him.
Now, first, I want to look at the characters in this account.
You have Lazarus, the sisters, the
disciples, and, of course, the Dominic character, is Jesus himself.
Look at verse one.
Starts out with, Now, a certain man was thick, Lazarus.
Certain man in his name, all we really know about him.
It's safe to assume he was a believer by what we read in this account as
we go, you'll see that, and we'll learn about how his sisters
are later in this chapter, but verse one says, Now,
a certain man was sick, Lazarus, of Bethany,
the village of Mary and her sister, Martha.
So this is a family that had come to believe
in Christ, as Messiah, and Savior,
and Lord, and that's really all that we know about, including
the fact that they lived in the village of Bethany.
Now, at the time that Jesus gets this message
about Lazarus being sick,
it's in another village that he's in called Bethany.
At the end of chapter 10, we were told, it was beyond the Jordan,
where Jesus was baptizing.
So that means there were two Bethanies, two
towns named Bethany, that one, and then the one right
next to Jerusalem, which was just about two miles away from Jerusalem, where this family lived.
Now, back over in the other village where Jesus was ministering, look in chapter 10.
In verse 42, it tells us, many believed
in him there.
So, what was happening there is he was starting to reap the harvest that
had first been planted by John the Baptist.
That's out near where John the Baptist had been preaching.
Remember, they said, everything that John said about Jesus is true.
Lazarus, Martha, and Mary were very
common names at this time, especially Mary.
And guess what?
When we get to the cross, there's going to be Marys everywhere.
You're going to see, we're going to have to make sure we get our
Marys straight when we get there.
But this Mary is further identified for us in verse two.
Look, it was the Mary, who anointed
the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet
with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick.
And, of course, you remember that story.
But then you have to kind of say, wait a minute.
That story doesn't come about till chapter 12 here in the Gospel of John.
Well, how is he mentioning that here?
Well, it's because that story had already been told in detail in Matthew and Mark.
And both of those gospels had been circulating within
the church for a very long time, by the year 90,
when John writes this gospel.
And so even though it hasn't yet been given in the account here
in John, John knows that all the readers
know that this is the Mary that he's talking about.
interesting.
So we have Lazarus, two sisters, Mary and Martha.
All we really know about Lazarus.
He's sick.
We don't know what his illness was.
We don't know what he was stick with.
But we do know, the big pitcher reason
for why he was sick.
Look in verse four, it tells us.
This sickness is not to end in death, but for the
glory of God.
Think about that.
He's sick for the purpose of
the glory of God.
Who else had an infirmity for the glory of God?
Well, remember back in chapter 9?
We met the man born blind.
Would the leader say, Who sinned, this man or his parents?
And Jesus said, neither of them.
Be blind for the glory of God.
There is sickness that is just
natural sickness.
It comes because we are fallen people, living in a fallen world.
You get some pollen up in your nose, and
you get sinus.
Some of us get it really bad.
There is sickness that is a discipline from
God, for his own people.
We read it every time.
We'd read the Lord's Supper, right?
Paul says some of you are weak and sick, and
some of you sleep, because of how you handle the Lord's table.
You're in sin, and God brought sickness and even
death to some of them in that church in Corinth.
There's even sickness that is divine judgment.
Do you remember Acts 12, Herod?
He proclaimed how mighty he was and what happened.
He was eaten with worms.
That was quite a sight.
But there's also sickness that is far the glory of God.
We don't always know what God's purpose is in
anybody's sickness, but Jesus tells us what the
purpose was in this one.
And this man's sickness, to
put his glory on display.
So Lazarus is sick.
And look at verse three.
So the sisters sent word to him saying, Lord,
behold, he whom
you love is sick.
Now, you got to understand, it would took about a day to get
this message from Bethany 1 to Bethany 2.
about a day's journey.
And the message is very short.
They acknowledge Jesus as Lord, you
see that, and behold, which means, this is urgent.
This is sudden.
This demands immediate response, behold,
he whom you love is sick.
That's it.
That's the whole message.
And so obviously, this sickness
had reached a critical point, and they really don't need to say anything more.
They don't give Jesus any instructions.
They don't demand a healing from Jesus either, notice.
They don't say, they have the faith to believe, they just give him the information.
He whom you love.
is sick.
And notice their appeal.
It's not based on Lazarus' love for Jesus.
They don't use Lazarus' love for Jesus,
as if it's some kind of mechanism that's going to activate Jesus to act.
They only talk here about what?
Jesus' love for Lazarus.
They think that's what'll catch Jesus' heart.
And the word for love here is important.
In the Greek.
It's not agape.
It's phileo.
The love of a friend.
Human love.
Think about this.
Jesus loved this man as a friend.
He had personal affection for this man as
a friend, just like we have for our friends.
We know that he's God, right?
And we know as God, he loves the world, and
he loves his own common grace, love, and then his own,
who are in the world, with salvific
love, and absolute perfection,
but that's not the usage here.
That's not the word here.
The thought here is, this is a man,
in Jesus' incarnation, in his earthly ministry in life,
that he had deep affection for.
Now, can you imagine
being a man who
was a real, personal, actual friend of Jesus
during his time on the earth?
Can you imagine being that guy?
Even in heaven right now?
When we talk about the humanity of
Jesus, and that is important to talk about.
You usually hear about how he was hungry.
Jesus was thirsty and how he got tired
in his humanity, and for sure, all those things are human things.
But what makes human beings unique?
Far different from all the other creatures of the earth are
relationships, the relationships that
we have, with other human beings.
And this explains why, when
Jesus gets to the grave, what does he do?
He cries.
Shortest version of the Bible, right?
Jesus wept.
He cries at the thought of
this very personal close friend being dead.
It's really an amazing insight into
the true humanity of Jesus when he was here.
He's a man, and like all people, he
requires a friend, somebody who cares about him.
It's incredible.
God in human flesh, a perfect man,
would all the true realities of being a man.
This is part of what makes him such a faithful high priest, right?
Able to be touched with all the feelings and infirmities,
because some of our infirmities have nothing to
do with physical well being, they
have to do with relationships.
Isn't that where most of the pain comes from in your life?
The pain you experience in life?
I mean, you could probably take the cancer if all the
relationships were where they needed to be, right?
I can handle the cancer.
It's these relationship problems that really get to me.
And the sympathy of Jesus, it
extends to understanding relationships.
He's been there.
His friend, that he had great affection for,
was seriously stick.
So, the sisters, who he was also friends with.
Send a message.
And I know, that's all that has to be said.
That's all they have to say.
The messenger arrives after
a whole day's journey, and look at Jesus' response in verse 4.
But when Jesus heard this, He said,
this sickness is not to end in death,
but for the glory of God so that the Son of God may
be glorified by it.
It's not going to end in death.
There will be death.
In fact, there already is death by the time the messenger
gets to Jesus.
Lazarus is dead.
But it's not going to end that way.
That's not the end of the story.
Jesus says, This sickness is not to end in
death, but for the glory of God, and
that the Son of God may be glorified by it.
And then verse 5 adds another component.
It says, now, Jesus loved Martha
and her sister and Lazarus.
And this time, guess what?
The Greek word for love changes.
It's not Fileo here.
It's agape.
It's divine love.
Jesus loved Lazarus in a
human way as a friend, and it goes without saying,
he did for Mary and Martha, too, but the point is, for Lazarus,
but he also, this is why we changed to agape here.
He loved the whole family with divine love.
Why?
They belong to him, spiritually speaking.
He is their Lord.
They have trusted with saving faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ, so he loved them with agape love as well.
Now, when Jesus heard that Lazarus was sick, you could expect to read next.
Well, Jesus ran as fast as he could to go
see about his friend Lazarus, but look at what verse 6 says.
When he heard that he was sick, he then stayed two days longer
in the place where he was.
Two whole days, two 24 hour periods.
Lazarus, again, had been dead
for a day when the messenger got there, probably, and then Jesus
waits two more days.
And that had to have the disciples going.
What is Jesus doing?
But guess what?
They're not scratching their heads.
They're grateful.
They think, this is good.
He's not going back.
He just escaped a stoning in Judea.
Where Lazarus is, is right up next to Jerusalem.
And so for two days, Jesus keeps preaching
and ministering, and people are believing, and then verse 7.
Then after this, he said to the disciples, let us go to Judea again.
And they're like, no.
Verse 8, the disciples said to him, Rabbi, the
Jews were just now seeking to stone you.
And are you going there again?
Hey, what are you thinking?
You just escaped from being stoned to death.
How horrible is that?
And you want to go back?
And Jesus answers them, One of
the very interesting proverb.
Look at verses 9 and 10.
Jesus answered, Are there not 12 hours in the day?
If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble because he sees
the light of the world, but if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles.
Because the light is not in him.
Now, what in the world, what are you saying here, Jesus?
Now, at this point, for just a minute, we're moving away from
Lazarus and the sisters to the disciples here at this point in the text.
They were wondering, why?
Dude, why would you go back to Judea?
I mean, you just barely got out of there alive, and here's the answer.
In the form of a proverb.
He was saying, as long as it's day.
When I can work.
Remember, we work as long as it's day.
The nights come in when no man can work.
Remember when he said that?
It's the day right now.
I'm safe.
I'm safe right now today.
This isn't passion wheat.
But night is coming when his work would be done.
And that's where the temporary stumbling would happen, and
his death on the cross.
He's saying, Look, you can't lengthen the daylight.
12 hours in a day.
You can't even shorten the daylight, either.
Nothing any friend can do can lengthen the daylight.
Nothing any enemy can do can shorten the daylight.
It is what it is.
Guess what?
It's fixed, by God.
And Jesus is saying, So is my life.
So this is not yet the time.
No enemy can shorten my life right now.
No friend can link them.
And in this light of life, which is
my ministry here on the earth, which God has ordained
for me, I will not be stumbling until it's
time, in death.
That is to say, nothing is going to happen to me outside
the sovereign will and plan of Almighty God.
I'm not going in the dark at this moment, is what he's saying.
I'm going in the light of God's
sovereign ordained end.
Jesus is saying, The time allotted to me, accomplished
my earthly ministry is fixed.
It's fixed by God.
Can't be lengthened by any precautionary measures.
You don't have to go hide in a cave somewhere.
It's okay to go back to Judea.
For now.
Jesus knew his hour was coming.
But it hadn't come yet.
How many times have we seen it just in John?
My hour has not yet come.
And he escaped all those plots, of all those murderous
plots that they hatched.
Now, even though we can't apply, and
compare Jesus' situation to ours, right?
Of course.
This does have application for us.
We have our time on the Earth.
You realize that?
To serve God.
To grow spiritually.
And guess what?
Our time is fixed.
It's ordained.
There's a definite day already set in place for
you, and for me, and today, we're
one day closer than we were yesterday.
to that fixed day, and
all the serving, and all the living for God, comes
to an end on that day.
That's why I work my guts out to do what I do.
You know?
That's why I work vocationally, when I'm working and
sweating during the week, I'm doing it because I get
this great privilege of coming here to do this service for my king every Sunday.
That's what all that working is about.
It's vastly, vastly secondary to me, is my secular work.
This is my primary work, right here.
And I'm committed to working my guts
out to make sure the goal of every Sunday is to
have a well prepared message to you.
And that's not to say that God grew this church for
400 people, and I started making six figures doing this.
I'm not gonna say,
No, we don't want to do that.
I want to suffer out here in the heat.
I'm not saying that, if that's what he wants to do.
Hey, let's go.
I'm down for it.
But I'm down for this too.
You understand?
I'm down for this, too.
Whatever he wills, I
want to serve because I know my day is coming.
I know there's going to be a time, a day, a fixed day
by him that I'm not going to be able to serve him anymore.
And then I go to glory.
That's the best retirement in the world, huh?
So, exactly.
So nobody can shorten our time, either.
Nobody can lengthen our time, either.
So shouldn't that give us great confidence as we serve God with
our Christian lives?
I'm telling you, there's some comfort that you can find in a
right understanding of the sovereignty of God, a biblical understanding.
Now, let's go to verse 11.
This, he said, and after that, he said to them, Our
friend Lazarus has fallen asleep.
And they all knew Lazarus.
All the disciples knew him.
They probably, really, I mean, text doesn't say it, but you can
kind of get a pretty good idea when we get into this text.
They probably stayed in the house there
with Lazarus and Mary and Martha many times,
because it was right on the road from Jericho going
into Jerusalem only about two miles from Jerusalem.
He probably stayed there a bunch of times.
If Jesus was such a great friend to him, he had to be in proximity
to him and visited his home and all the rest.
And Jesus says, our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but
I go, that I may awaken
him out of sleep.
Now, we've seen sleep referred to as death
in scripture before, right?
And Jesus says, I go to that
I may awaken him out of sleep.
Verse 12.
The disciples said to him, Lord, if he's fallen asleep, he'll recover?
And they're thinking actual sleep.
I mean, if that's the case, he's going to be all right.
That's what you do when you get sick, right?
You sleep a lot.
Don't worry about it, Jesus.
He gonna be all right.
Verse 13, now Jesus had spoken of his death, but
they thought that he was speaking of literal sleep, verse 14.
So Jesus then said to them plainly, Lazarus is dead.
Read my lips, dead as a doornail, is Lazarus.
Okay?
So the messenger said he's sick, and,
of course, Jesus again said, this sickness is not going to end in death.
We saw that, but now he's just straight up.
He's dead.
Guys?
He's dead right now.
And what they needed to understand was when he said, I'm
going to awaken him out of his sleep, what
he's saying to them is, I'm fixing to go down there and raise him from the dead.
Jesus didn't know Jarius' family that he raised from
the dead, and he didn't know the widow of Nain's family when
he raised those two people from the dead.
This is somebody that he was very close with.
This was a friend that he really loved, and he's going to raise him
for the dead, from the dead, for God's glory,
and for his glory, too, verse 15.
He says, I am glad for your sake that I was not there.
So that you may believe.
But let us go to him.
The disciples, as we've seen, were always struggling with their faith, right?
Oh, ye of little faith, Jesus was saying that to him all the time.
Yes, they believed in him.
Yes, they had already affirmed that he was the Christ, the Son of
God, but they continually needed their faith to
be strengthened, just like who else?
Right here.
You, me, not only them.
Mary and Martha would have their faith
strengthened, as well as the other believers who
were at this scene.
This is a glory that will produce faith for some,
and strengthening faith in many people, and at the same time,
as I said, it's also going to produce a bubbling
over of hostility that will uniquely
drive Jesus to the cross right exactly on schedule.
so that he can die on Good Friday and rise on
the first day of the week, Sunday.
Then verse 16.
We meet good old Thomas.
Now, he doesn't say much, but we know that, what
is Thomas most known for, being a
doubter, and a pessimist, verse 16.
Therefore, Thomas, who is called Didymus,
said to his fellow disciples, Let us also go so that we may die with him.
Now, you can say, all you want about Thomas,
he gets a lot of bad press, and
for sure he may be a pessimist.
I mean, let us go too, so we can die too.
But let me tell you something.
That's not a cowardly pessimist right there, is it?
No, he didn't say, Oh, let's get out of here.
We gonna die.
He said, Let's go and die with him.
He has some faith.
He has some courage.
He obviously understands, if you
want to come after me, deny yourself, and take up your
cross.
It might cost us our lives, men, if we
go with him back to Judea, let's go.
That's what Thomas is saying.
Let's go die with Jesus right now.
And so they do.
They do go.
And remember, it's another day's travel back.
So you had a day traveling.
Jesus stays two days preaching.
Now it's another day back, four days.
Now, the story starts to get very
fascinating.
But you have to come back next time we were in John to hear the rest of it.
That's perfect.
Probably have we thank you for this day.
It's an incredible account.
I'm always amazed by the reality
of what it means to be dead in
our trespasses and sins, because
these Jewish leaders saw this man, that they knew was
dead come out of the grave.
Not only did it not produce faith, saving faith,
it produced much more rage and anger,
and a desire to murder Jesus.
Oh, what you have saved us from.
You've not only saved us from your wrath, but for all
who believe you have saved us from ourselves, in
the depth of our depravity, how we praise
you and thank you, Lord.
For who you are, and what you've done.
And I pray that today we know Jesus just a little bit more than
we did before we came in our doors.
Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.