This message is from the teaching
ministry of James Tippins, pastor of Grace Truth Church. More information
can be found online at gracetruth.org and anchoringfaith.org. A people
for His glory, by His grace. looking today at the pinnacle
of this chapter, of this teaching, which is the resurrection of
Lazarus. I know we've been skirting around
it for the last few weeks, and now today we get to see the glory
of God. We get to see the glory of God.
So I've entitled this message. You don't typically hear the
titles because I come up with them on the fly as they're uploading
to the cloud. But today I've entitled this message, A Simple
Object Lesson About the Gospel. Because this is exactly what
Jesus is doing. And I don't mean to simplify
it so much, pun intended, but Jesus is revealing the glory
of God revealing himself as God, revealing himself as the resurrection,
as the life, and all of the things that entail the teaching of Jesus
throughout his ministry thus far are coming to a complete
culmination of perfect illustration in the raising of Lazarus from
the dead. I mean, we all know the story. I didn't give any
spoilers there. We know that Lazarus comes back
to life. But what we see up to that point,
especially in the information that he receives in the first
part of the chapter, Lazarus, the one whom you love, is ill.
Please come. He sends word back. What was
it? This illness will not end in death, but that the glory
of God might be revealed through it, that the Son of God would
be glorified through it, in it. And then he goes four days later,
after Lazarus has been in the grave for four days. And we see
Martha running out to him and saying, had you been here, he
would not have passed, but we know that the Father will give
you anything you ask of Him. Do you not know that I am the
resurrection of the life? Do you not believe this? She
says she does, then she calls for her sister Mary, and Mary
comes rapidly and the people in her home come with her and
that's what we looked at last week. And the whole reality of
this was for the sake of Jesus having an audience whereby he
would with a striking command as God say the words that you'll
hear this morning, Lazarus come out. Lazarus come out. And I'll be honest with you,
there is very, there is a lot of things that are very easy
to see, and there are a lot of implications here that aren't
as easy to see on the surface, that I believe if you just take
a few minutes, and when I say a few minutes, 15, 20 minutes,
and just let this text rest in your soul as you read it, and
you think about it, put yourself in that place, and read it again,
you begin to realize certain aspects of what Jesus is illustrating. and what the gospel writer is
teaching theologically here through the narrative. So let's look at verse... Matter
of fact, let me start. I'm in Ephesians now for some
reason. Let's go back to John. John 11. I'm going to teach all
sorts of Bible verses today. John 11, verse 32 to the end
of verse 44. 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 saw the Jews who were with her also weeping,
he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. Remember
that that comes with a sense of frustration and anger. and
then also an emotional response of sadness. He said, where have
you laid him? This is our text. And they said
to him, Lord, come and see. Then Jesus wept. So the Jews
saw the weeping of Jesus and said, look, look how much he
loved him. But some of them said, could
he not? The one who opened the eyes of the blind man also have
kept this man from dying." Kept this man from dying. Then Jesus
deeply moved again. Hearing these words, Jesus deeply
disturbed, frustrated, a little bit angry, also sad, 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, there
is an odor, and I'm just gonna correct what you see in your
Bible there, there is an odor. For he has been dead for four
days. Jesus said to her, did I not tell you that if you believed,
look at this condition, 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. What has Jesus even said thus
far to the Father? Nothing. I thank you that you
have heard me. I knew that you always hear me,
but I said this on account of my 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. Now let's pray. Oh Father, that
we would see, not with a bound or veiled face, but with an unveiled
face, straight to the face of your glory, Jesus Christ, the
righteous eternal Son. Lord, that we would see him for
who he is, that we would not look at this life, that we would
not look at this flesh, that we would not look at the flesh
of others to glean and to submit to some type of assurance or
hope, but God, that we would see the fullness of all of your
magnificence in the face of Jesus Christ. And the only way that
is absolutely ever possible is that you shine in our hearts
to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God. in the face
of Jesus Christ. So I pray that this teaching
today would unpack this truth in a way that we would just be
overcome and filled with awe in the person of Jesus. In His
name we pray. Amen. Remember, as alluded, or not
alluded, but reminded us there, Jesus was disturbed. He was troubled
in His spirit. He was angry and upset and what
have you. Remember, though, also a couple
of weeks ago when I spoke about these things, this is not something
that is moving Jesus along even in His humanity. His emotions
aren't causing Him to change path. Jesus isn't looking at
sadness and being overcome with grief to despair, for Christ
and His perfection, even in His humanity, is never controlled
by the way He feels. But everything that He feels
is a decisive desire. It's not something we can understand. It's just something that is.
So Jesus was disturbed and He was angry and He was broken in
spirit because of unbelief. He was broken in spirit that
Martha did not believe. He was broken in spirit that
Mary did not believe. He was broken in spirit that
the Jews did not believe. He was angry that Martha did not believe.
He was angry that Mary did not believe. He was angry that the
Jews did not believe. People say, oh, He was angry
at death. Why would He be angry at death? He controlled it. It was His command. He is the
life, so all that live, live by His command and all that die,
die justly by His providence, by His decree, by His command. Jesus isn't angry at death. Jesus
isn't angry that Lazarus died. It was the plan of God from all
of eternity that the Son of God may be glorified through this
illness. Let's not humanize God, even God the Son and His humanity
in the incarnation. Don't make Jesus a weak and frail,
sinful human being. Understand His impeccability,
that the fact that He is absolutely and eternally sinless in everything
that He does. Every attribute, every essence,
every behavior, every thought, every deed, every affection,
every movement of His hand, every movement of His lips were perfectly
in line with the will of the Father, thus holy and righteous
and pure. Jesus was burdened by unbelief
and this was because it was proven that they had unbelief because
of their overwhelming sadness. You ever thought about that?
Overwhelming sadness is an indicator that our flesh is weak. It's
an indicator that we don't have in our flesh the ability to have
a strong faith. It is an impossibility for us
to stand with mighty strength before the Lord. I don't know
if I said this here or in another place teaching somewhere some
time ago. I don't know exactly when I said
this. or if you've ever heard it. But
when we're trying to be strong in the faith, our flesh comes
to a place sometimes where we think we've got to do something,
we've got to work hard, we've got to be determined, we've got
to have resolve. And the Scripture says that in our weakness that
Christ is strong. So that anytime that we think
that we're becoming stronger by moving closer to God, we're
actually moving away. Because only, only, only when
we are completely powerless is Christ truly our strength. And
I hate to use pop culture and I hate to use movies to illustrate
something, but had a conversation with one of our young people
this week and it was amazing to see just how clear this example
is. Throughout my childhood, I've
always watched creature movies. King Kong, Godzilla, you know,
all those nice sci-fi wonders. The rubber suits and all. Our
kids look at them and go, these are stupid. They scared us to
death when we were kids. scared us to death. But there's
always been something, and Lord help for those of you who ever
watched Jaws and then never went swimming or took a bath, you
know, with your eyes closed. There's something scary about
being attacked by a creature, much less consumed by this giant
creature. And imagine, and I won't say
what movie it is, but I mean there have been movies throughout
the past where the way that you escaped The horror of the creature
is that you sat perfectly still because they couldn't hear very
well and they couldn't see very well. But if you move like that
motion sensor, the other day something was wrong with the
alarm and I couldn't get it to set. So I come up here late in the
evening and I just come in and while I'm here, I was tinkering
with some of this stuff and I'm standing here and all of a sudden
I hear the alarm go, system armed, away. And I'm going, uh-oh. And I could not move. And my
phone was down here on the floor, so I'm like going around. Because
as soon as I moved, it was a lot, I mean, it was just, I had to
be very still with this creature idea. Don't move. If you don't move, you're safe.
He won't see you, he won't devour you, he won't, and you know these
movies, you've seen them, the creature's right there in your
face, whether it's an alien or a gorilla or whatever it is,
and they're drooling all over you, but the expert's saying,
don't move. And it's counterintuitive, isn't
it? And there's always the wise guy with all the muscles, I got
this, you know, and he moves and he's done. He's through,
he's out of the movie, short-lived. He's one of many blips in the
credits in the end. He's always known as the dumb guy, and he'll
be the dumb guy in the next movie, because that's his typecast.
Let's don't be the dumb guy. See, the flesh is innately wired
to be self-sufficient. Our flesh, this very moment,
you beloved who have been born by the Spirit of God, your flesh
is innately wired to be self-sufficient. It is innately wired to be self-righteous. It is innately wired to try to
mold itself into some effort of establishing some place of
foundation in the hand of God, and what we see in this text
this morning is that only Jesus Christ, the God of glory, can
put you in His hand, and when you're there, you're never going
to be cast out. So just like to escape the creature,
we must sit still, and the minute we move, we lose. The minute
we move, the minute we move, the minute we move in some way
of trying to work with God, It's no longer God, but us. It's the
first and last object lesson you'll ever get from pop culture
from me. Jesus is burdened by the unbelief,
evidenced by sadness and faithlessness. And they just say, if you go
to John 16, you'll see that they say, oh, we know that you know
all things, and then what? Hours later, I don't know Jesus.
I don't know Jesus. You don't have to die, Jesus.
So we can believe something this moment and resolve by the Spirit's
work to know and be convicted and have confidence that we believe
in Christ and all that He is. But our flesh wants to run, and
our flesh wants to strive, and our flesh wants to thrive in
its own efforts. So much so that we would say,
thank you God that you did this in me. But it's not that way. It's all of Christ. And then
what does Jesus do with all this sadness, with all this unbelief,
with all this faithlessness, with all of this stuff? Does
He tell these people, get your life together, straighten it
out, what are you thinking? What's wrong with you? I mean,
He has said to the disciples before, woe ye of little faith. And I find it interesting that
when people don't understand what I say, the difference between
context and pretext. Context is the story within the
story. What the fullness of the scripture
is teaching, what John is trying to illustrate by the power and
the authority of the Spirit of God is the context of all the
chapters of this gospel. And what Jesus is talking about
here is contextually within this letter, within this gospel writing,
important with everything else that's been said. A pretext is,
I go to John 3 and I say, God loved the world. See, God loved
the world. But the word before that is for.
And then it says, so loved in this way. What did he do? That he gave the only son that
he had. That whoever is the one believing in him would not perish,
but whoever is the one not believing in him would perish. As a matter
of fact, he's condemned already, Jesus says. Same thing is true
here. Did I not tell you if you believed,
if you had faith, you would see the glory of God? Well, here's
the news flash for you, folks. These people do not have faith
in Jesus Christ fully. Does that mean they're unregenerate?
No, that's not what we're talking about. So you've got to understand the
conversion that comes from regeneration, being born again. We believe,
we can trust. This is a gift of God the Spirit.
But our flesh fights against this faith. That's where doubt
comes from. That's where fear comes from.
That's where worry comes from. That's where sadness comes from.
That's where faithlessness comes from. Friends, that's where anger
comes from. Our flesh fighting against the
God-given gift of faith and the new man, new woman. The new man does not transform
the old man into a better man. The new man is separated by the
work of God. The old man is decaying and decrepit
and working and striving and thriving and being eaten by the
creature called flesh, eaten by itself, and Christ is sufficiently
able and powerful to sustain us to the end, and all that we
need for life and godliness, as Peter would say, is the divine
power of God. But what does Jesus do with this
faithlessness? He does a whole lot of different
things than what we see in our fundamental mindsets of our culture.
What we see of those of you who've been in the last few weeks on
midweek in the Pelagian mindset of heresy. You better get your
act together, son, lest you go to hell. I mean, you see? I was
like, how do I say that? That's how they say it. You're
gonna go to hell if you don't stop sinning. I find that interesting
that that's nowhere found in Scripture. And the only person that ever
stopped sinning was the person who died. And the only person that never
sinned is Jesus Christ. What does Jesus do? Does He give
a lecture about unbelief? Does He sit here and start bringing
conviction upon these people for their lack of faith? Are
you dumb as a bag of hammers? What is wrong with you? I mean,
He doesn't go there, does He? See, that's where my mind goes
when my children don't obey. Have you lost your mind? No,
no, no, you haven't lost what you didn't have. You never had
a mind. I mean, you see, And because you don't have a mind,
I won't kill you because that would be really cruel. I'll have mercy
on you. But, Jesus doesn't do anything
like that. He walks to the cave. He walks to the cave. That's
what Jesus does. Why? Because that's what He came to
do. He came to raise Lazarus from
the dead. So Jesus walks to the cave. He
doesn't have time to deal with all this unbelief. He doesn't
have time to lecture these people. He doesn't have time to try to
cultivate faith. And you realize that faith and
faithfulness in the life of the believer is cultivated. Faith
is granted and thereby we believe because we've been born again.
Regeneration precedes faith. Faith is a gift of God. It's
a work of the Holy Spirit. But then that is cultivated.
How? Through pressure. Through trials. Through fire. Through persecution. Through death. It's cultivated. It's not. It's not just granted immediately. So there was a cave. Jesus was
there. He was in the cave and there was a stone over the cave.
Why was there a stone? The same reason we like to use
vaults today and different things to keep animals out and to keep
things from being disturbed. There was a stone there because
there was an odor. And the stone would not keep
the odor away, but the stone would help. I hate to be so McCard, but I
mean, you ever had a mouse in the house? That little old thing that big
can just, you're like, we gotta find that thing, throw it out.
You're lighting candles, I mean, live in an old farmhouse growing
up in the country, sometimes you get a mouse in the house
and you search high and low to try to find it. Keep this in
mind as we move to chapter 12. It's important. That's why there
was a stone over there, because there's an odor of a decaying
corpse. A constant reminder of that which
death brings, destruction. It's not my imagery, it's the
imagery of Jesus. It's what He wanted written down. So He goes
to the cave, and this stone was there. And it's funny to me,
you know, I mean if we were, if I were Jesus, I'd walk up there and go, BEGONE
STONE! And the stone would move. BEGONE CAVE! And it'd be like
a flower. I mean, you know, this would
sell tickets. But this wasn't the intention
of God. It wasn't the purpose of God to display all the powers
that Jesus... He was Creator. He made the stone.
He made the cave. He made everything in it. He
made Lazarus. So Jesus says, hey, y'all get
the stone out of the way. Jesus is there to operate in
His divine prerogative, not move a stone. Now this may be something
simple and it may not necessarily be subject to the text, but I'm
going to tell you, it hit me that way. Jesus didn't roll it
away. He didn't help them. He said,
move it away. Any man can move a stone, but
only this man can raise the dead. That's how I put it. So we can
do what we can do. And we can come and we can polish
and we can do all sorts of things. We can put ointment on the dead.
And that's what self-righteousness looks like. That's what spurious
faith looks like. Just dolling up the dead. And
we can move a stone and say, look, we're out of the grave,
we're free! But he still wasn't free. Any man can do those things.
But only the God-man can set us free. Jesus reveals their unbelief
in the prior word. There's a concern over decay.
Well, she's like, oh, there's an odor. It's going to be real
bad. I don't want people to smell
my brother. It's going to be terrible. Growing up in a law
enforcement family, there have been several times as a younger
man where I'd get a call, you know, and Dad said, hey, son,
go there and bring the fans. The first time I show up to that
is the last time I ever wanted to. What's the fans for? We have
a crime scene. You let your imagination, you
throw those clothes away. They were concerned with the
odor. They were concerned with the dishonor of opening up a tomb. Dishonoring
the family. Dishonoring the body. Dishonoring
the dead. I don't want people to remember
Lazarus as this odor. I don't want people to remember
Lazarus as this dead man. I don't want people to do this.
Let's go back to the house in Morn. This is where their mind
was. They were so worried about the
funeral image. They were so worried about the
honoring of that which was already dead. Jesus deals with this in
the synoptics in one way, where this man comes and says, I will
follow after you. I will be your disciple, Jesus,
but first let me go bury my father. And Jesus turns to him and says
something remarkable. He says, let the dead bury the
dead. See, for we who are in Christ,
though we die, we live. See, I already told Martha that.
But they're concerned over this. As a matter of fact, their concern
is for the dead and their concern is for the reputation of the
living more than it is for Christ who is the life and who is the
resurrection. So this four days is illustrated
so that we know that some time has passed and that this time
is not kind. Now people like to argue, and
this is where we impose our present day, there was very little at
all embalming. Matter of fact, in Israel, Jews
did not embalm. They just wrapped, they bathed,
they wrapped, and they anointed with oil, strong oils. The only place that embalmed
in first century was really Egypt and it was a long process. And we have mummies that are
thousands of years old that are still preserved today in Egypt.
Not the case for bodies in Israel. They did not embalm. So let's
not pretend like it's like we do things. We don't do things
the way they did things. But Jesus repeats Himself. When
they're so concerned over the dead and over the reputation
of the dead with the living, Jesus repeats Himself. Did I
not tell you? Did I not tell you? What did
Jesus say there? Did I not tell you? There's a
condition that if you believed, that you would see, and what
would they see? The glory of God. Now, who in
that circle is believing right now? None of them. So the way we like to twist the
conditions of the gospel through philosophy and what we
would call human logic. People say, well, the gospel
is very logical. No, it's not. Paul says that it's not logical
at all. As a matter of fact, Paul says that the gospel is
really stupid and foolish to the wise. That the whole nature of imputed
righteousness and substitutionary atonement The whole idea of God
becoming man, the whole idea of being born of a virgin, all
this stuff is just mythological hogwash in the mind of a logical
man. Because the flesh, remember,
always wants to seek out its own righteousness. Even for believers,
and we know better. So this conditional statement
of Jesus, did I not tell you that if you believe, you will
see the glory of God? They were not believing. So the
way some people would teach the gospel, well, you know, these
people, they're not seeing everything correctly, so God can't do anything.
They're not believing, so God won't do anything. They can't
believe until God does something, you see. That's the point of
it being good news. It's good news that even in your
deadness, And what's crazy is the most alive man there other
than Jesus was Lazarus. He was more alive than anybody
else standing there but Jesus. Because in some real way, in
some real way, Lazarus was with God and knew it. I like to joke
sometimes, but I don't know, this is all conjecture, just
poetic. Lazarus is weeping because he's
got to bring Lazarus back to earth. Jesus is weeping because
he's got to bring Lazarus back to earth. Don't listen to what
I say, you know what I'm talking about. Did I not tell you? If you believed,
but they did not believe. If you believed that you would
see, but they could not see. What would they see? The glory
of God, and yet they did see. They did see. God revealed His
glory as the Son from the Father, full of grace. So without faith, without faith,
they saw. Faith isn't what brings God's
favor. The work of Christ is what brings
God's favor. And faith is a conviction of
the truth of what you've now seen. You have to see before
you can believe. And the only way you can see
is that you actually are not blind. And the only way you can
be not blind is if you belong to the sheepfold of Christ. And
the only way you belong to the sheepfold of Christ and the proof
that you are in Christ is that Christ raises you from the dead.
That's regeneration. You see why it's in chapter 9,
chapter 10, chapter 11? That's the point! It's everything
Jesus said in John 6. Chapter 9, chapter 10, chapter
11. It's very simple. Without faith, they saw the glory
of God. Jesus does the work He was sent
to do whether people resolve to accept it or not. Jesus was going to bring Lazarus
back from the dead because it was the divine purpose of God
and it is a picture of redemption. Jesus will regenerate His sheep
that the Father has given Him whether they want it or not. Whether they're high and mighty
holy rollers or low and dirty do-batters. And where do we fit
in? A do-batter is the opposite of
a do-gooder. This is South Georgia, we can
say this. They did not have faith, but
Christ finished His work. They looked upon Him on the cross,
as we'll see. This is a picture, pointing. They mocked Him and they laughed.
And then He says, it is finished. Just as Lazarus was dead and
unable to respond to the commands given to him, Martha and others
were focused on His death instead of the life who is Jesus Christ.
And that's what we do. Friends, there are many times
that Christians get lost. In other words, they don't really
know where they are or where they're going. Not salvificly. That's why I said
Christians get lost. We get lost sometimes in this
world. We get lost sometimes in our thoughts. We get lost
sometimes in just the penalties of life, the pains of life, the
frustrations of circumstances. We get lost in our faith. We
get weak. We don't feel anymore the way
we thought we should feel. And the whole time it's because
we're not looking at Christ. But Christ is looking at us.
Though we may feel that we've fallen off a cliff of despair
and we're thousands of feet deep in a hole that God's light cannot
shine, but it is Christ who is there with us. You are not lost from Christ,
though you may feel deeply lost. And by the mercy of God the Spirit,
He brings us back to what we have been taught by the Spirit.
that Christ is the resurrection and the life, and that our whole
focus, in order for our joy to be complete, must continually
be upon Him. And Him as He has revealed Himself
specifically and particularly in the text of Scripture, even
in this section of text here. They were focused on death. They
were focused on grief. They were focused on what they
wish had happened and what they wanted to happen and they could
not see the life that stood in front of them. They were more
interested in getting through the suffering than suffering
in the midst of joy because that's what the flesh does. Similar,
in similar fashion, confessing believers like to look at our
dead body. We like to look at our own dead
body instead of Christ. Remember when I talked about
the creature and moving and doing? It is so popular today for us
to look at our flesh with hopes that there'll be some transformative
reality that is, what? Divine. I actually had this debate,
a small, short, quick debate last Tuesday. or someone arguing
with me that there was some divine nature inside of humanity. No,
there's not. There is God the Holy Spirit
inside of us as our seal and our guarantee and as our hope,
but we are not created in a divine way lest we be God. Even if we're
a little bit God, then we deserve some glory and some worship,
just like Lucifer. That's not possible. For I am
God and there is no other. That's what God says about Himself. He even takes the generic title
of the Most High One and applies it of Himself alone. There is
no God but Me. There are no gods before Me.
There are no other gods. And that's where we can employ
our logic. If there is the most high one, how can there be the
most high ones? Is it a four-way tie? Is it a
seven-ten split? What is it? No, there is only
one. And his name is Jesus Christ. So what does Jesus do? Verse
41. I've just been talking about these without giving you the
verse numbers. So they took away the stone, those men, and Jesus
lifted his eyes and he prayed. And here Jesus proves some things
about the Father. He prays, Father, I thank You
that You heard me. I find it interesting that He
prays that out loud. Do you have to pray out loud?
No. Jesus prayed out loud, as He says there, on account of
the people standing there. He says that out loud. I'm saying
this, look, I knew that You always hear me, but I said this on account
of these standing around that they may believe that You sent
me. So Jesus is declaring publicly in his prayer, one, thank you
that you've heard me, past tense. I know that you always hear me,
but I'm praying for a kind of these people can hear so that
they know I'm talking to you. And then when what happens happens,
they give you credit for it. And they'll realize too, that
the display of your pure essence is standing before them in me.
So I will glorify you, now this is coupling a lot of what Jesus
has already said through the last three years, and then you
will glorify me. That's what's gonna happen. But
Jesus prays to the Father. I thank you that you have heard
me, and he's not asked God for anything. And that you're always here.
And he prays, and he prays with a position of gratitude. I thank
you. He prays from a heart of certainty. You have heard me. You've heard me, God. Do you
know that God hears you in Christ? Do you know that when we are
unable to pray, Paul tells us very clearly, in a mysterious
way, that God the Spirit prays in our place, for us, according
to the will of God, so the answer is always yes. What was the prayer of Jesus?
Did Jesus pray that the Father would allow Him to raise Lazarus
from the dead? No. Jesus didn't need permission
to raise the dead. In John 5 He tells us He's been given all
authority over life. And by the words of the Son of
God, the Son of Man, He will command all people out of the
grave, some unto everlasting life and some unto everlasting
destruction. He prayed that the Father's will
be done. The Father's will is done. There's an assurance that
Jesus has that the Father's will is done. Friends, this is what
Martha and Mary and others could not completely have. And let
me tell you something, neither can we. Now let me give the explanation
of what I just said. We have complete assurance in
the finished work of Christ. We have complete hope. We have
complete conviction. We are not to worry, but we do. You see? These things are written
that we're reading right now that we may know that we have
eternal life. You know that you have eternal
life, but your flesh will frustrate that knowledge time and time
again. Jesus' flesh never frustrated His knowledge of who the Father
was. In the Garden of Gethsemane,
if it be your will that this cup pass, but not my will, but
yours be done, Father. Boom! How does Paul say he dealt
with that? Divinely instructed. Paul says
he looked beyond the cross to the glory. These people mourning. Here is
God standing before them. They knew it, but then when death
knocked on their door, they couldn't keep their eyes on it. Then they're
reminded, they confess it again. Yes, I believe that you are the
one that's come from God. You are the son of God. You are
the resurrection. You are the life. Oh no, don't
roll that stone away. That'll embarrass us all. You
see how that works? Does it sound like your life?
Let me get you off the hook, church. Embrace it. and stop running in such a way
to try to strengthen your own faith. Rest and resolve in the
truth of what Christ says about Himself. It is counterintuitive, but it is the reality of the
work of God. It sort of hit me this morning
because my spirit has complained a good bit. My spirit. You know what I mean by that?
Inside my mind. I feel the grumbles. And it's
not my stomach, it's my spirit. And I'm grumbling a little bit
at my spirit because I didn't get the right sleep I wanted.
I'm grumbling a little bit at my spirit because someone in
my household was whining. I won't say who. I grumble in
my spirit because there's a bunch of heretics out there aggravating
the tar out of me. I grumble in my spirit because
there's brothers out there who just can't stop fighting. I grumble
in my spirit because there's so many other things, even with
many of you, that I wish God would just fix. Fix it, God,
fix it! Oh my goodness, can we have six
weeks? of fix. Can we have six days? How about
six hours? Can we have six hours of fix where everybody's just
joyous? We come together, have a worship service, we just sing
songs for six hours. Can we have six minutes? I've been grumbling. I'm not even
supposed to grumble when I see heresy. Well, it's too cold. Well, it's
too hot. Gas price is too high. Well, I mean, we grumble about
everything in our spirit. We grumble all the time. We're
a walking poster children, all of us, we're walking poster children
of rebellion and unbelief in that sense. Christ never complained. I mean, it's not here, you see.
But the way Christ prayed, this assurance, this confidence that
He had, God hears the will, the prayers that are by His will. The will that we want is the
will of the Father. Where we are today is the will
of the Father. Martha's like, we know God will
give you anything that you ask. And all Jesus asks is that the
will of God be done. This is glory. That the will
of God is revealed is the revelation of God's glory. That the person
of God is revealed is God's glory. God's glory is this amazing expression
of His being that Moses longed to see but
couldn't. That no man has ever seen, but
as John would say, that no one has ever seen, but the God that
sits at the Father's side makes Him known. Jesus Christ. And Jesus is about to show them
the fullness of the glory of God, and many will see it in
their fleshly eyes, but until they are made alive, they cannot
see, and they will not have faith. Friends, when your faith wanes,
we just look back to Christ. But what do we do? We look to
ourselves, why do I have such a weak faith? Why am I a terrible
Christian? I've got that, not for tonight, because we're off
on the last Sundays, but next week in Theology on Call. How do we
become a better Christian? And I'm going to tear that question
into 12 pieces. How to become a better Christian?
You can't. That's the short answer. And if I'm verbose-mas, I'll
probably spend 20 minutes on it. We cannot become better because
we're already glorious in Christ. Well, I can't pray, right? What's
wrong with me? Oh, Lord, help me pray. It's not a bad prayer,
but what we're doing is we're grumbling in a spirit of doubt.
We want the outward effects of our life and the inward thoughts
of our life to be so easy that we don't want to rest. We want
to quit fighting. We'll quit fighting and rest
in Christ. Jesus proves the Father is the
One who sent Him by saying these things. Jesus proves the power
of the Father. Jesus proves the Father is the
Father. And then Jesus proves Himself
in the same way. When He had said these things,
He cried out with a loud voice. And I won't yell it, but He says,
Lazarus, come out. Now what would you think He would
say? It's amazing, remember earlier
in the gospel account where Jesus is at the pool of Bethsaida and
there's a thousand people who need healing, and he goes to
the one man who'd been crippled his entire life, and he says,
do you want to walk? That's why I'm laying here, Doug. And take up your mat and go see
the chief priests. You notice Jesus didn't command
the legs, command the nerve endings, didn't touch the man. He didn't
have to yell for Lazarus to come out. He did it so that people
could hear it. Jesus doesn't have to speak in
order for Him to do what He wants to do. Words don't contain the
force of God and do His bidding. Jesus is God, He does His bidding. Jesus cries out. Now what's happening? Loud laments. There's loud lamenting
going on. There's professional mourners. I would say a dozen or more.
Wailing loudly, crying to bring honor to the fact that this man
was loved. And Jesus weeps and those mourners
say, they say, he's going to be like us. He really does love
us. We're doing our job. I mean, you know, sort of like,
like Phineas. We got them now. The ambiance
is right. Draw the circle, man. Draw the circle. They're coming
to Jesus. I hate to mock demonic, but that's
really what it is. And they're all weeping and wailing.
Now Martha's going, no, no, no, turn the stone off. I mean, don't
roll the stone away. I mean, this is awful. No, no, no. And Jesus says, what? He starts to pray. He says, I
told you, if you believed, you would see. And He just shuts
Martha up. And I think over the loudness
that had taken place that entire day, all the lamenting, now Jesus
with the voice of command is louder than all of that. Not
just audibly, but spiritually. But He commands Lazarus to come
out of the tomb. Not to come back to life. Think about that for a second. He doesn't say, Lazarus, come
back to life. He says, Lazarus, come out of the grave. Come out.
Hither out. Come out. Come here. And then what happens? This man
somehow appears at the mouth of this grave, of this cave. Jesus' loud cry in comparison
to the laments of the mourners, is everything. The mourners'
lament mean nothing. They do nothing. It produces
nothing. The loud cries of the mourners
have no bearing on Lazarus. It gives no hope and peace to
the family. It establishes no foundation
of hope for anybody. but their hope is only in Christ. And the odor of Lazarus' body
produces nothing either, but adds to the severity of sin in
the eyes and the ears and the nose of these onlookers. For the wages of sin is death,
but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus. How
could Paul write such a thing? Because he knew about Lazarus. Jesus is the Word that created
the world. He is the Word that reveals the
Father. He is the Word that proclaims the purposes of God. He is the
Word that produces the will of God. And all these verbs may
not be actuality or actually correct in the way they need
to be. His Word displays the power of
God. Jesus is the life. He is the
resurrection. He gives life to all that have
life. He gives life to all living things. And He does as He desires by
the will of the Father. He does it as He desires. Just as the Spirit gives life
as He wishes in John 3, so the Son gives life. and has all authority
to judge. So what is it that Jesus has
done? Here's what I think Jesus has done. I think Jesus has destroyed
the flesh of Lazarus. See, we think death destroys
our flesh. Death is the corrupt nature of
the eternal state of sinners. And it's forevermore. It doesn't
finish. It doesn't stop. It doesn't wane. It permeates. Like the mourning,
like the decay, like the odor, sin that brings death spiritually
permeates and continues and lingers and the wrath that is waiting
for those who die in their sin is forever. So Jesus takes and destroys the
flesh of Lazarus. Just as in the Gospel, Jesus
destroys the flesh of His sheep by crucifying Himself, and as
He dies, we, in our flesh, are crucified with Him. Thus, our
flesh is destroyed. Jesus calls Lazarus' body out
of decay. It's not just a man that's been
dead a little bit, it's a man that's been rotting for a few
days. And Jesus calls him out of decay.
Lazarus could do nothing. Lazarus didn't hear the command
of Christ and say, you know what? I think I will come back. I'll
run to the light, Jesus, I'm coming, just a minute. My feet
are tied up, it's going to take me a second. And really this is the point
of this public demonstration. It's to prove that Jesus is the
only way, the only life, the only truth. He is the only resurrection. There is no man who can resurrect
himself in a physical sense. Just like there is no man that
can birth himself in a physical sense. You see the parallel between
John 3 and now John 11. Nicodemus was as dead as Lazarus. Without God the Spirit bringing
him to life, undoing and destroying that which is flesh, the Spirit
does not have life. Jesus commands. And the flesh is of no help at
all. Jesus commands. And until He brings us back to
life, we cannot even hear the command. Jesus commands. And we're so bound up by death
and sin that we can't even walk out of the tomb. And the focus on the dead grieved
Jesus. The focus on the dead overshadowed
Jesus. The focus on the dead reveals
the inability of man to see and the inability of man to believe,
the inability of man to live, the inability of man to come
or to respond to Jesus. This is what he's illustrating.
There is no human that breathes life, breath in their lungs. this very day who has the power
or is given the power by God to believe in the Son of God.
God must bring him back to life. Jesus destroys that which is
corrupted by His command and will. And He commands life. Lazarus, verse 43, come out. and the man who had died came
out. John, could you not have given
us a side note as to how this happened? Did he just appear
there? Did he float out? Did he tiptoe
out like a penguin? What did it look like? Was he
bouncing like a sock hop? What was it like? You know what
I think it was like? Ledger's come out and then he's
standing there. I mean, how did he, he's brought
back to life. What did he do? He was bound like a mummy. Did
he roll over and hit the ground? Poof. How did he stand up? Maybe he was a gymnast. Maybe
he sort of like did a little vault, landed in a V-sit and
stood up. That's why gymnasts these days
do like this. I mean, you know. His hands were
bound, His feet were bound, His body was bound, His face was
bound, His eyes were bound, His mouth was bound. He was wrapped
as a mummy. He didn't wake up. That's one
of the significant things about Jesus' grave clothes being folded
in the tomb. He didn't unwrap himself, you
know, like those games you used to play back in youth camps back
in the 90s. Wrap people up in toilet paper
so whoever gets out fast wins a pie in the face. They thought
they were getting a prize, but they just got a pie in the face. It's all about Jesus. Here's this man, he's out. Lazarus
came out. Lazarus. Lazarus came out. And he came out. because he'd
been brought back to life. His coming out of the tomb was
not his resurrection. Because he'd been resurrected,
he came out of the tomb. Now here's the kicker. The man who had died came out,
his hands and his feet bound with linen straps. Bound to what? His body. And his face wrapped with a cloth.
And Jesus said to them, unbind him and let him go. Jesus brought Lazarus back before
he could come out of the grave. Regeneration is before faith,
before conversion is before we can see, because it's what makes
us see. And the coming out of the grave
is like faith, and it's still granted by the power of God.
Lazarus wasn't this great acrobat. I don't know how it happened,
and the Bible doesn't give us that. And I don't want to make
it this deep theological position, because this isn't even a proof
text for it. I'm just reminding us of what we've already heard
a dozen times over from Jesus already. This coming out of the grave
was a gift, just like faith is a gift. Because Lazarus had no
ability to come out of the cave. It was a gift. God gave this
to him. God did this for him. He had to have somebody else
unbind him. And goodness gracious, see, I'm
getting creative now. This is dangerous. Just like
we have to cultivate our knowledge of grace and our knowledge of
truth and cultivate our Christian lives together as the church
through the teaching of the Word. In that same way, we need other
people to help us and to guide us and to teach us. And we help
them just like Lazarus needed someone else to take off those
physical clothes. But that's not the point of that.
Lazarus did what Jesus commanded because it was the divine purpose
of God based on the divine pleasure of God for him to do so. That's
why he came to life. And beloved, when people come
to see and believe in the finished work of Jesus Christ as their
righteousness, as their substitute, as their Lord and as their God,
it is because God has willed it so. And it is so easy to get
enamored with our own self-righteousness and not even know it. With our
own workings of our own lives. And exhortation and admonishment
is perfectly fine. Beloved, these things should
not even be named among you, Paul says in Ephesians 4. What?
Crude joking, coarse joking, stuff like that. Don't act like
people who are going to be judged, because you're not going to be
judged, so don't act like those who will. You are not dead in
your sins, so don't act like those who are. You see what I
mean? This is the exhortation of the apostles to the church.
But we grow in that. We grow in our understanding
of that. We have to be taught like the Thessalonians were taught.
Let the thief no longer steal. You think it'd be obvious, but
it's not always obvious. Let him work with his hands,
so that he may give to those who have need. Not steal from
somebody and give it to somebody else. But life in the gospel has nothing
to do with our fleshly lives. It is not bound to the gospel
at all. Our lives aren't in the sense
of our flesh. Our lives ebb and flow. We're
mature some days and weak some days. We have strong faith some
days and no faith some days. And we feel very powerful in
certain seasons of life in the Lord. Yes, He's my rock and my
redeemer, my fortress. And then that fortress turns
into a Lego castle. That Godzilla in the rubber suit
has crashed and we're running and we're eaten. You see? I told
you I'd bring all that back around. It's the purpose of God. And
I take these words of Jesus very prophetically. Unable to move about, Except
by the power of God, Jesus expressed the main point of the gospel
of grace and it is this, and the commands of those surrounding
him, unbind this man and let him go on his way. That's what
it means. Unbinding and then letting him
leave. This isn't a spectacle for you
to sit here and talk to Lazarus. Where did he go home? And they
didn't let anybody in the house. Jesus wasn't about becoming a
spectacle. Lazarus becoming a spectacle. Tell us your story, Lazarus.
What was it like? Oh, my gosh. What did it smell like? What
did it taste like? What did you eat? What did you do? You're
there four days. You had to do something. Are you going to write a book?
LifeWay will sell it. Put it on Amazon. You have a
million dollars. No, let him go. This is not about
Lazarus. That's the reality of it. Take
those grave clothes off. Let him go about his day. He's alive
now. This is over. Look at me. That's
the point of Jesus. And it's not selfish. It's glory. Look at who I am and what I've
done and what I've accomplished. This is the work of God to give
glory to Himself and glory to His Son, and this is what has
happened here. This is a picture of what I am
doing for all that the Father gave to me, and they will come
out of the grave, and I will unbind them, and I will let them
go. They will be free. We are cut loose by the gospel
of grace. We are free by the Son. And that is the only way
we are free, beloved. We are not free by our spiritual
maturity. We are not free by our spiritual
knowledge. We are not free by our personal
morality or our growing in righteousness. We are not free except by the
perfection of the righteousness of Christ who obeyed even on
the cross that we might be His children. This is the one and only gospel
of free and sovereign grace. To add anything else to the gospel
is to make it no gospel. And some of you may be thinking,
well, you know, I've just always been taught. Well, you were taught
wrong things. You were taught wrongly and you
were taught wrong things. Tradition and history and theological
history is not the authority whatsoever. The Word of God is
the authority. I am not the authority. The other
elder brothers of this church are not the authority. The Word
of God is the authority and the Word of God is not to be twisted
and played with. And beloved, when we see that
only freedom, that only Christ gives us freedom, it's because
we've been born of God. It's because we've been called
out of death into life. It's because we've been granted
the command and the power of God to stand at the face of our
death hole, our grave, our cave. And man can dig us up, and man
can move the stone, and man can take off grave clothes, but only
Christ, only Christ can bring us back to life, and only Christ
can set us before Him perfectly. All those other things? are a
whole different conversation. So my prayer for you today is
that you would see. And what's going to happen? Many
of the Jews, look at verse 45. 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 tattletaled. Oh, Jesus brought a man back
from the dead. That's what they did. Just like
you all tattle-tale on your brothers and sisters sometimes. And then they didn't know what
to do. And their only fear, I don't get to it, but verse 48, if he
goes on doing stuff like this, everybody's going to believe
and Rome's going to wipe us out. And what does Caiaphas say in
John 12? It is better for one man to die than for the whole
nation to perish. Prophetic. It's prophetic. Let's pray. Lord, You've given us life. You've
given us all that we need to understand and to believe and
to hold fast and to have hope. Jesus Christ has saved all of
Your people, all of Your elect, all of Your predestined, all
of Your chosen throughout the ages. From Adam to the end of
days, Jesus has satisfied Your wrath for all of Your people.
And Father, in time as You desire, when You desire, You will give
life to Your people, and You will cause them to see, and they
will believe, and they will struggle in this life, and they will come
to places where they will doubt, they will look at death and everything
in between, and they will not see the gospel of grace, but
Father, in Your in your kindness and mercy, in your sealing and
keeping, you will bring us back to the cross of Christ many times
throughout many seasons of life. Father, we as Christians cannot
backslide. We cannot come undone in a way that we would stop trusting
in Christ. But Lord, there's so many times
where it feels as though we have. Help us to resolve not to be
the hero of our own picture, of our own story, but Lord, to
sit and be calm and to resolve by Your Spirit in the finished
work of Jesus Christ. For it is only in Him that we
find hope, and it is only in Him that we are able to pray
to You, the God of heaven, who answered our prayer. In Jesus'
name, amen. Thank you for listening. We hope
that this message has encouraged you in the faith. Subscribe to
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