I have several texts to draw
from today, which the first part of them I will just read and
ask that we keep these verses in our mind as kind of a guide
to us. And then the final text will
be from the Gospel of John chapter 11, the story of Lazarus being
raised from the dead. The first text I have for you
today is from Romans chapter 15, verse 4. And again, I read
this to you and bring it to you just as a remembrance that we
would think on these things and keep it in the background. For
everything that was written in the past was written to teach
us, so that through the endurance taught in the scriptures and
the encouragement they provide, we might have hope. A second
passage for us, again, keep this in the background, is from the
book of Jeremiah, chapter 29, verses 11 through 14. And there
we're told, for I know the plans I have for you, declares the
Lord. Plans for welfare and not for
evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon
me and come and pray to me and I will hear you. You will seek
me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will
be found by you, declares the Lord. Another passage that I'd
like to read, and this is gonna be a very cut-up passage. It
comes from Corinthians, 1 Corinthians chapter 13, what we call the
love chapter. But I have a few selected passages,
and these may seem odd to you, but I think it'll all become
clearer to us as we go through the message this morning. If
you will, 1 Corinthians chapter 13, drawing from verse nine,
Paul says, And again, this is in part, and I'm not setting
the context, so please take it for what it is. But Paul tells
us there, for what we know is now incomplete. Then picking
up on that thought in verse 12, he continues to say, now we see
only a blurred reflection in a mirror. Then he goes on to
say, now what I know is incomplete. Another passage I'd like for
us to keep in mind is from Mark chapter 9, and it's verse 24. There, a man has brought his
son to Jesus for a healing. And the man proclaims to Jesus
in this verse, verse 24 of chapter 9 in the book of Mark, I believe,
help me in my unbelief. The passage that we will address
this morning is from John chapter 11, and it is the story of Lazarus
being raised from the dead. Now, last time I preached, I
drew from this text as well. This morning I come at it from
a little bit different direction. What I would like to do today
is look at this more from the standpoint of the people that
were around Jesus at the time. Lazarus will be raised. This
is a miracle, a supreme miracle of Jesus Christ, and by approaching
it this way, I don't mean to discount that, but I think there
are great lessons for us to learn in this. The scripture is that
way, isn't it? That we can come at a passage
one time and read it in our understanding of the moment, and we draw so
much from it, and then we can come to the same passage again
a little later, And there's a whole nother layer of meaning there
for us. And God blesses us in that. The
passage is long. It's 45 verses. I don't want
to read it all to you right now. I trust that you will have your
scripture open. And you'll remember the story. I will summarize it as we go
on so that we can keep a context. But what brought all this to
mind is that it seems we're in trouble at times. Discouraging time. You put on
the news, listen to the radio, read your papers, magazines,
however you get your information, and you find out that things
are in a jumble. Then you look into your own personal
life. I know I look into mine. And
things at work are not as they should be. There's turmoil there,
problems, things that don't need to be but are, that we have to
cope with. You look within the family and
things come up here and there, here and there, and it all serves
to discourage and distract us. We need encouragement. And for
us as God's people, the place to go is to Christ and to the
Word of God. And that's what I've been doing.
I have gone back to the story of Lazarus. It's one of my favorite
in the entire scripture. It's a powerful story, a powerful
story. And we need encouragement. I do. I'll be honest with you
and tell you, I need the encouragement. And God, who is gracious, grants
that. Thank God for that. gives us
perspective, and I hope today we gain perspective. Again, remember
the verse from 1 Corinthians, where Paul says, what we know
now is incomplete. You can see through a dark glass,
a blurred reflection. We'll see that in the story.
We'll see that in the story. All right, let me look to the
story. We remember it. Jesus is off
with the disciples, preaching and teaching. There is a message
sent from dear friends that Lazarus is sick. Now, we know that this just isn't
a cold. This is serious. The family has
sent a runner with the message, Lazarus is sick, very sick. Jesus hears the word, but he delays his trip. He does
not go to Bethany to the family of Lazarus immediately. He stalls. Lazarus, in the meantime,
dies. He's gone from bad to worse.
He's gone from worse to dead. He's dead. At that point, Jesus goes to
Bethany, to the family. There's mourning, there's broken
hearts, and there's confusion. We sent word to Jesus. He loves
us. He cares for us. And when we
needed him the most, he wasn't here. There is this very real
confusion within the family. Jesus goes to the tomb. He prays. He raises Lazarus from
the dead. That's the story. We know it. I hope we don't know it too well. And I say that because I find
myself knowing it too well. It's just a part of literature
to me. I know the story. I'm familiar
with the story. I can read it, and I'm apart
from the story. But we learn the lessons from
the story by being a part of it so that it's not just literature
anymore. It's not a familiar story, but
we can read into it the emotion that we know as people that these
people have. And this story, if you read it
with a lively sense to it, is full of emotion. This is a powerful
story. And the human emotions involved
in it are powerful as well. Let's look at some lessons that
we can learn from this story, because there are many. And they're
good lessons. The first lesson, life can and
does take some very ugly turns. That's a painful lesson to learn.
But we all know it. We all know it. That's the first
lesson. Life can and does take some ugly turns. Lazarus, a friend
of Jesus, a close friend of Jesus, was well. He was up. He was living. He took sick and
he died. Life can and does take some ugly
turns. Lesson two is that the family
of Lazarus sought out Jesus in the midst of this terrible situation. That's a good lesson to learn. They were friends of Christ.
They knew him. They spent time with Him. They
were intimate with Him. And when the moment came, they
knew that there would be help with Jesus. They turned to Christ. Now, I will ask, maybe you will,
did they go to doctors when Lazarus was sick? I don't know. Scripture
doesn't tell us. What else was done on their part
to help Lazarus get past the sickness? I don't know. Scripture
doesn't tell us. What it does tell us is they
sent word to Jesus. They sought Jesus. So they had faith. Their situation
was spinning out of control. It was getting uglier and uglier
and uglier. And they knew in their heart
that Jesus could help them. That's a good lesson to learn.
Another lesson we learn from this story is that Jesus hears and receives the news of Lazarus. Our prayers are not just cast
out into the air. Take that to heart, brothers
and sisters. Our prayers are not thrown out into a void. Jesus hears and receives the
news. That's an encouraging word for
us. I think of the moments in my life when things were a mess
the most. And nothing seemed to be as it
should be. And yes, I pray. And I hoped that my words meant
something to somebody. The lesson here is that Jesus
hears and receives the news. Take it to heart, brothers and
sisters, that as we pray, as we bring forth the issues of
our life to Jesus Christ, He does indeed hear. That's a hope
for us. That's a very real hope. The next lesson let's look at
and understand, take to heart, is that Jesus decides to act
on behalf of Lazarus. It's not just that he heard the
news. We hear news all the time. Some of it we take as important
and we do something about it, and some of it just in one ear
and out the other. We don't do anything. It's not
significant to us. It's not important to us. It
doesn't warrant action. The good news here, the lesson
to learn is that Jesus heard the news. He received the news
and He has decided to act on behalf of Lazarus. That is indeed a good lesson
for us to learn. As God's children, as his friends,
as those close to Christ, he has decided to act on our
behalf. Now, here's where it gets a little
difficult, and I have to be honest, because Jesus has decided to
act on behalf of Lazarus. but not in a way that the family
expected. The expectation of the family
was that Jesus would drop everything, come to their side, and Lazarus
would be healed. That was the expectation of the
family. And that would be our expectation. When someone in the family is
sick, and I think we can all relate to this, when someone
in the family is sick, when there's been that diagnosis, we don't
want to hear. When the picture is dark and
there seems to be no hope and we pray, what do we pray for? We don't pray that Jesus would
delay. We pray that Jesus would act
immediately, that our dear loved one would be healed right now.
That's what we pray for. And that is what the family expected. They had been with Jesus. They
had seen him perform miracles up to this point. Their expectation
was that he would come. He would
come right now and Lazarus would get up and that would be it. What the family saw was that
Lazarus got worse, and then he died. That's what they saw. Then, then Jesus showed up. Now, again, bear in mind that
Jesus has decided to act. And the decision to delay was
an action on his part. Jesus was indeed acting on behalf
of Lazarus, even by delaying. But the family did not see that. They did not know that. They
could not know that. What they saw was the terrible
experience of a man sick and dying. The story here at this point
presents two different viewpoints. One is the viewpoint of Jesus
in that doing what he did, he would display the glory of God. The other is the human viewpoint. The disciples were bewildered
by the choice to delay. Then the family was bewildered
by what happened. Jesus did not show up when they
sent for him and Lazarus died. Again, this is where those words
from the Apostle Paul sound out the loudest in my ears, maybe
in yours too. What we know now is incomplete. We see through a dark glass. We don't have perfect knowledge
in this life. It is not given to us to know
everything. We have the promises of God that
we hold to. We have the expectation that
He will do what is best for us and will bring glory to His name.
But we don't always, at the moment, understand that. We don't always understand that.
And the truth is, years later, we may not understand it either. This is kind of the hard part
of the Christian walk. We are so finite, and God is
so infinite, we cannot know. We have the desire to know, we
want to know, we want to understand, but at times we cannot. Mary and Martha, were very hurt
by this. They voiced their disappointment
when Jesus does come. They were grief stricken. Their
brother lay out dead in the tomb. They saw those horrible, painful
moments at the end. And they buried him. They love Jesus. I don't doubt
that. I don't doubt that they loved
Jesus any less when He showed up late. But they were hurt. They were disappointed. They
did not understand. And oftentimes, that's where
we find ourselves. I find myself there. I find myself
there, things happen. And I do understand that God
is sovereign and that God has brought things to pass. And I
do understand that it is for His glory and ultimately for
my good. But I don't understand. And that
is where the words of that man with the sun echo again. I believe. I believe. Help me in my unbelief. Contradictory? Yes. On one level, I know the truth.
I believe the truth. I hold to the truth. On another
level, I can't make sense of any of it. And that is where Mary and Martha
find themselves. They know Jesus. There's no doubt
in my mind that they love Jesus. And they trust Jesus. But at
this moment, they can't understand. The very worst that they could
have expected happened. And they can't make sense of
it. Next lesson to learn is that
Jesus reveals God's glory. God's people. That's important
to qualify that. Jesus goes to the grave. He prays. He calls Lazarus out of the grave. The man dead now, four days. He stinks, Caitlin. He stinks. The man comes out of the grave. He's alive. He's breathing. He's
as alive as you and I are. all of that done to prove the
glory of God to God's people. And I must say, let us understand
that God's glory will only be proven to God's people. Because
the other group of people that were aware that this had happened
were so hardened by this that they said, we must kill Jesus. You would think that something
as miraculous as a man dead, coming out of the grave to live
again, to walk the streets of Bethany again, would have gained
worldwide attention and jubilation everywhere that people would
have been flocking and saying, this man, Jesus, is wonderful
beyond all wonder. You would think that. And yet
the response of so many was, we have got to kill this man. God reveals his glory to his
people. Thank God that we can see it,
that we can experience it, that we can know it. The miracle that Lazarus was
raised from the dead is very significant. It's proof that
Jesus has power over life and death. That's a hope for us,
and it is an encouragement to us. It is an encouragement to
us, and as we remember that, as we look at the lessons in
this story, We can be encouraged. We won't
understand everything. I won't make that statement to
you that we'll understand it, because we won't. But we can
be encouraged even in the midst of it, even in the midst of the
trials, the tribulations, the things that happen that knock
us to our feet. And we can say that God does
hear our prayers. that God does receive our needs,
and that He is, whether we understand it or not, acting on our behalf. He may not be acting in a way
that we would have Him act, but God is not hindered by our ideas. He does what he will do, and
we have the assurance that it is for his glory and for our
good. In turbulent times, things are
all sideways, I do well to go back and read the story of Lazarus
again. It's a powerful story. Next time
you read it, sit down and really look at it from two sides. Look
at it from the side of God's glory and the majesty of Jesus Christ
as the one who has power over life and death. But then lower
your views a little and look at the people who stood around
Jesus. See what they do. Understand
what they thought. And you'll find yourself in that
story as well. I wasn't there 2,000 years before I was born. But
brothers and sisters, I'm in that story. The attitudes that
those there held, the ideas, the expectations, the disappointments,
the hurts, those are all very real to me. And I think they
are to you as well. The story is loaded, loaded with
encouragement for us. Jesus Christ raised Lazarus. And as he did that, he raises
us up.