This message is from the teaching
ministry of James Tippins, pastor of Grace Truth Church. More information
can be found online at www.gracetruth.org and www.anchoringfaith.org. A
people for His glory, by His grace. And some would say, well, what
are we doing in regard to our resurrection day service? And
this is it. We just keep preaching the one
who is the resurrection and life. That's what we do. And our festivities
can take place around that as we go about our day, as we do
whatever we want to do in our culture. It's funny, I was just
looking for the sustain pedal for the pulpit. I don't know
what's going on in my head. In this text today, we're going
to be in verse 28, and we're going to finish the little section
there through verse 37. But as we move into this, I want
you to remember what's happened here. Jesus has gotten news from
Martha and Mary that Lazarus is ill. Jesus sends word back
to them. Illness will not lead to death,
but it is for the glory of God that the Son of God may be glorified
through it. Then he, because he has love
for them, waits two more days before he leaves. And then he
heads back to Bethany. And as he is there on the outskirts
of the city, he sends for Martha privately. Martha comes and meets
with him and begrowns that had you been here, Master, he would
not have died. Then there is this discourse
between Jesus and Martha, and Martha begins to all of a sudden
see for the first time the fullness of who Christ is, that He is
God come to earth. She lays aside her traditions
of her theology, the doctrinal positions that she has, of the
history of her faith. She lays aside the eschatology,
the end times, and the thoughts of what might be in the future,
and she doesn't put hope in those. But all of a sudden, she proclaims,
I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is coming
into the world. Now see, John didn't do it right.
He should have kept on going and elaborated a little more
on that conversation. But what God has established
is exactly what John has written for us to know. So we do not
have to concern ourselves with what's left, what's more, what
else could there be. We just learn exactly what it
is that the scripture shows us. And so there is much more that
is said here. Just like now, when Martha proclaims
these things, the narrative goes and said, when she said this,
she went and called her sister Mary in private. Look at verse
28. the teacher is here and he is calling for you." And when
she, Mary, heard this, she quickly rose and went to
him. Now see, what's happened there
is there's, I mean, there's probably more to be said. Just like what
we hear Mary say in just a moment, there's more that she said. It's
not a historical record of what Jesus said to these people. It's
a theological record of what was important based on what was
said with these people. Sometimes, and you may not understand
really why that's an important thing to understand, but sometimes
we hear often people who inundate us with this mindset that, well,
the Bible doesn't tell us a lot or it's contradictory. For example,
when we get to chapter 12 and we start seeing what Martha did
with Jesus. And people say, well, she's the
fallen woman in Luke. No, she's not. She's not the
fallen woman in Luke at a Pharisee's house. This is a different person.
Well, then Jesus said something about it already. Well, John
said something about it already because it had already taken
place some 30 years before this was written. So they can remind
the readers, this is the woman who we're speaking of. So the narrative of scripture
is not just to give us a play-by-play and a blow-by-blow of what took
place that we can have a good picture. It's to show us doctrinally,
teach us who Christ is. It's to teach us who God is.
It's to teach us the theology behind the words. When she said this, verse 28,
let's read to the end of verse 37. She went and called her sister
Mary, saying in private, the teacher is here and calling for
you. And when she heard it, she rose quickly and went to him.
Now, Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still in
the place where Martha had met him. When the Jews who were with
her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary rise quickly and go
out, they followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb
to weep. Now, when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him,
she fell at his feet, saying to him, Lord, if you had been
here, my brother would not have died. When Jesus saw her weeping
and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply
moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. And he said, Where
have you laid him? They said to him, Lord, come
and see. Jesus wept. So the Jews said, see how he
loved him. But some of them said, could he not who opened the eyes
of the blind also kept this man from death? Let's pray. Father, may you open our eyes
to see. May we see ourselves in the person of Martha and in
the person of Mary. May we see how our faith can
be tossed to and fro as we look to Christ one moment and then
to a corpse the next. as we seek to find the eternal
joy in the one who is the life and is the resurrection. And
then we mourn and frustrate ourselves looking to see when we will have
the joy of resurrection and those that we love. Father, if it were
not for your divine power, your glory, your gracious killing
of your son and the victory over death that is won through his
life. Father, for you, if it weren't for your grace and your
mercy, we would never believe truth truly. Would never believe
accurately. And so I thank you, Father, that
we do believe now open our eyes to see in a deeper way the mercy
that you've given us through Jesus Christ and just how desperate
we are for not just the message of the cross, but its power.
And we pray these things in Jesus name, amen. If there ever was a place in
the New Testament where people would want to make Jesus into
this humanistic model of empathy and sympathy and weakness, this
is one of those areas. We know Jesus wept in other places
in scripture and Jesus wept when he looked over Jerusalem and
he saw their unbelief. I said something last week that's
important for us to keep in mind as we move through this text
today, is that God is not moved based on His emotional feelings. Any expression of emotion by
God is such by His divine prerogative. Jesus wept in His choosing. Jesus did not sin in His weeping. Mary and Martha sinned in their
weeping. And I'll give you an example
of what that or I'll give you an explanation of that in a minute. So when
we come to understand the Lord, we don't look at this and say,
OK, Jesus is so upset he doesn't he doesn't know what to do. We
need to recognize. That scripture is not voided,
is not canceled out in itself. Just because we see something
that's very human like in the person of Jesus Christ. So let's
open this up. Jesus meeting with Martha in
private. Why? Because it was not his time
to display himself to these people. He wasn't fearful of arrest or
death. They weren't considering that. But just as with death
in this world, sometimes those closest to us, it's better to
have private meetings than to have thousands of people stand
and talk with us at one time. Jesus, a dear friend of this
family, wanted to talk with them. His intention was to not have
a crowd when he spoke with Martha. but that he would have a crowd
when Mary came. Even though he requested a private
meeting, the haste in which Mary got up, the people that were
there with her decided to follow her. Why? Because they were there
professionally. A very poor family would be required
to hire a flutist, flautist, somebody that does this, chipmunk
stick, and a professional mourner. One mourner, one flute player. And the flute player would play
a dirge, I guess, or whatever they played during the first
century Palestine or in that particular period. And then that
one mourner, whether they knew the family or not, would be paid
a wage to come and wail. publicly, to wail outside the
grave, to wail and moan and grunt and yell and make much of the
dead so that the family could feel honored. Why? Because the worst thing
that you could think about in death is that no one cared that
you died. No one's at your funeral. I've
officiated burials that there were only one person there. And all I could think about is
this person was either hated or nobody told anybody that they
passed. I mean, even enemies come to make sure. So in this practice, it was honoring
to have people wailing. It was also a display, like much
the wedding feast, of the wealth and the ability for that family
to have sustenance through and in their society. Martha and
Mary and Lazarus were by no means a poor family. As a matter of
fact, they had enough money to have bottles of nard, bottles
of expensive oils that would cost the average person a year's
wage to buy, and they poured it out. I'll just use this. They weren't poor at all. They
actually owned a grave. They owned a cave where they
would bury their brother. They had a multitude of mourners. And the mourners would stay in
the home and they would mourn with the family. And it was really
a show more than anything. Now I'm sure there was some sympathy
there, and the people who knew Lazarus probably were, in all
sense, sad. But that sadness played itself
out in this public display of mourning, so when Mary comes
out, the mourners come out with her. Why? For Jesus said that God had ordained
the sickness of Lazarus to not end in death, but to His glory,
that the Son of God may be glorified in it and through it. So Jesus'
intention, His divine purpose, get this church. These people
went to this home as they were obligated to do and paid to do.
And it doesn't mean that all of them were paid. There might
have been family and close relatives there and friends who were also
there, but there were definitely large numbers of people outside. But these people were there and they were lamenting over
the loss that God had prescribed before the foundations of the
world. They were weeping over that which God purposed. They
were saying in their hearts, Martha and Mary alike, this is
not what we want. And what God has ordained is
not good for me. You see how that sounds on this
side? As Paul commands the church of
Thessalonica, do not mourn as those who have no hope. Is it
wrong to mourn? No, it's good to mourn. It's
good to wail. It's good to cry. You almost
have to be a robot not to sometimes. But we don't cry and mourn in
a way that we don't trust the sovereignty of God. And when
we're unable to, God's people come around us and lift us up
and pray for us. And the Spirit of God prays on
our behalf, as Paul talks about in Romans 8. And we are encouraged
and we go to the Word. And it's not in our own strength. And it's not alone. But that wasn't what was happening
here. I mean, imagine the grieves, the grievous parts of our life
where we have grieved in such a way that if Jesus had just
walked into the room, what difference that would have made. That's what he did. Jesus walked
into the room. Jesus walked up on the scene.
But Jesus, as God, ordained the scene exactly as it was. And Martha's weeping was torn
between, I love and miss my brother, and I know who you are. I know what you can do. And I
don't want you to do that which I need, but I know that you need
to do that that the Father has called you to do. I mean, isn't
this the fiery juggling that we all have up in the air? And
I think that that's the problem. We're trying to keep the pattern
moving, for those of you who juggle. You have to keep the
count. You have to keep the pattern.
You have to keep running the race, to use Paul's vernacular. You have to stay on the course.
You have to stay in the game. Stay on the field. And some people
misunderstand that as that, you know, everybody that's striving
and doing and doing well, type A personality, let's just get
up and go for God. But that's not the description
that we see often in the New Testament with God's people.
As a matter of fact, the more we do and the more we're able,
the less powerful God is. Not in reality, but in our lives
and for us. Paul would then say, therefore
I boast all the more in my weaknesses that when I am weak, He is strong. Because if God needs me to stand
up and plant my feet in order for His will to be done, how
pathetic of a God is He? God is not pathetic. Sovereignly,
God has moved through the corridors of time that he created to establish
this very day when Lazarus grave would be overturned and overcome
with professional mourners. Some who probably heard of Jesus
arrival within the. Hour. And then some of the other
Jews who would come into that area just to witness what this
weird man of miracles would possibly do. We're going to see who he
really is now. What's he going to do now? As
we'll see when we close the sermon out today. That's what they thought. But Mary's approach to Jesus
was much different than Martha's, wasn't it? Martha said, Oh, teacher,
had you been here, my brother would have survived. Well, your
brother will rise again. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know.
At the last day, everybody's going to come back. No, no, no,
no, no. I am the resurrection. I'm the
life. It's all about Jesus. It's not
about Lazarus at all. It's not about Mary at all, it's
not about Martha at all, but it doesn't take away Christ's
love for them. Why do we have to pit these two
things against each other? Why do we have to take a mutually
exclusive position of saying that if God is sovereign, then
he can't be loving? The whole point is that God is sovereignly
loving toward his people. And he's sovereignly just toward
his enemies. And that's loving. Martha sort of talks with Jesus.
Jesus describes to her what he is and who he is. And then in
a moment, she's flipping and flopping around and she says,
I do believe. And she did. I really believe this is a sincere
confession of regeneration. From regeneration, this is conversion. Martha believed the truth of
Christ. She trusted that he is and was
who he says he is and was. And she believed fully that everything
that he intended to do and anything he intended to do, he could do.
And in that moment, she was at peace, you know. And that's how
it is in our lives. This moment, we're at peace because
we see the crown majesty of Jesus and his power and his purpose,
and we're like, yes, oh, Lord, you're just so good. And then
we stub our toe and like the world's coming to an end. Someone touches our shoulder,
says, OK, Christ has it. He don't know how bad my toe
hurts. I mean, you know, look at it. I mean, it's just it's
the way it's the way we are. It's our flesh. Our flesh is
of no use to us in our spiritual path and life. Make no provision,
do not set a table for the flesh, do not tuck the sheets in for
the flesh, do not put shoes to the bottom of the bed for the
flesh, do not do anything in the flesh for that which is of
the flesh is dead. But Christ is the life. He is
our life. All I have is Christ. Martha, Mary, completely different
people in their personalities. The Jews, verse 31, they run
out with her. Why? Because the scripture says
that they think she's going out into the tomb because Martha
says something to her privately in her ear, and then she runs
out of the house. So what are they to do? When
you're mourning with people and they run out of the house, you
go, well, I guess they needed milk. They'll be back sometime. No, you run out. What's going
on? We'll run with her. Let's go, guys. She's very upset.
Let's go down there and do our jobs and mourn with her. Give
her comfort. That's what they were doing.
But God wanted them to meet with Jesus. Because the purpose of
the death was that they would meet with Jesus so that they
would walk with Jesus to the tomb so that there would be a
witness from start to finish of the glory of God. Do you understand
that? a witness from start to finish of the glory of God, who
God is revealed. That is what it means for His
glory. God's glory is that He has revealed Himself in His fullness. From His fullness, from His fullness,
from the revelation of who Christ is, we all receive grace, grace,
grace, grace. That is it. So we have seen His
glory. the fullness thereof, and we
have not died, for He has died in our place." So they run out, consoling her,
followed her. Verse 32, when Mary came to where
Jesus was and saw Him, He was not the object of her
affection. He was not an instrument of peace,
was He? Mary didn't have peace in her
heart when she saw Jesus. As a matter of fact, she had
frustration. I would say a little bit of animosity. She verbally expresses the same
thing that Martha said, but not from a position of confidence.
We know that, you know, if you'd have been here, it would have
been differently, but it's okay. The Father will do anything you ask
Him to do. That was Martha. Mary's like, you should have
been here. Where were you? He wouldn't have died had you
been here. You know, that kind of thing.
Falling at his feet, not worshipping him, worshipping the possibility
of what could have happened had Jesus been there for her selfish
desires. And it's really what it is. We
have to be realistic about our flesh, but we do not condemn
ourselves when we see the truth of it. We're selfish folks. And if there's ever been, you
know, I'm sure you've read books and movies, you know, like like
Sherlock Holmes and things of that nature. And these real smart
people who have, you know, observational awareness to such a degree, they
can sort of read people and put things together. But see, all
of us are so much more. That's really ridiculous. So
smarter than that. We're smarter than that. We are
more cunning than we'll ever give ourselves credit to the
point that we don't even know we're like that. We'll take every
ounce of selfishness in our body, in our minds, in our circumstances,
and we will spiritualize it as if it is something that God has
orchestrated for us to whine over. And we will take everything that's
wrong in our life and we will moan and groan before God in
such a way as if we are being spiritual. I had a mentor years
ago who wanted me to ghost write a book for him. No, you don't. And it was David Got It Wrong.
That was the title of the book he wanted me to write. And he
wanted to write about the sinfulness of the flesh of David crying
out the way he did. I don't want to write that book.
I don't really want to write that book. What do you think
about? David was a whiner. He was a
crybaby. Oh, these people are after me.
Oh, they're trying to kill me. Oh, they beat me up. What are
we going to do if we get beat up, run after by a mean king
and all of his army? We're going to whine too. In
that same way, Mary and Martha were sort of whining. Is it wrong? It's natural. Job whined. And when he got through
whining and asking God, Oh, where were you? What's going on? God
said, OK, where were you? I'm going to equivocate here.
I want to ask you some questions. Where were you when I spit the universe
out? Where were you when I filled
the oceans? Where were you when just the whole the whole of the
stars just there they are. Where were you when boom? Where
were you? Job, there are things in this
world that you have never put eyes on because the mere sight
of them would cause you to die. That's what God tells him. There
are things in this world that if you saw the size of them,
you would die in fear. You going to question me? And
it's sort of like God granted a change of disposition in Job.
What's that word called? Repentance. And then Job's like,
OK, I got it. To you be all glory. Honor. The Lord gives and the Lord takes. Blessed be the name of the And that's where Martha and Mary
and the disciples are going. And that's where all of us have
been and all of us will be, but we will have, listen to me church,
we will have seasons of good and bad spiritual maturity. We
will have seasons when we think we're walking as Jesus walked
and we'll be deceived. And we'll have seasons when we
think we're the scum of the earth and we might be right about it,
but because we are in Christ, we are sinless. And we need to recognize that
all these circumstances. People say, well, what in the
world was Lazarus in his house or why were they so special that
they would be picked for the glory of God? So were you. Your lives are just as precious
to our savior, and every ounce of good and bad is for the glory
of his name. So just as this great miracle
with Jesus in the presence of these people were for His glory
and their good, Romans 8, so is every ounce of your life. Every bit of it. Never is there
a time when God has turned His back on His people. Quit thinking
about Israel in the temporal shadows of the perfect Christ. Understand who God is. And let's let our morning be
shorter. You might say is all morning
is all moaning and complaining or anger, sin. Paul says to sin, but do not. I mean, Paul says to be angry,
but do not sin in your anger. You should have caught that.
You're like, yes, then. OK, that's fine. I'm truly antinomian
now. Here Martha, Mary, Mary cries
out, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. And Jesus sees her weeping and
wailing. And He sees those who had come
with her also weeping. In my role as pastor, People
have this mindset that I'm this rock. Y'all really do. I don't
know why. Some of you brothers who know
me better than others know that I'm not. If the other pastor
can handle this, know the Lord can handle it. And if He can
use me through it, great. If He can use you, great. He
will. But I will tell you, when I see
people broken, it destroys my spirit. destroys my spirit. Does it destroy
yours? Yes. That's the point. If my
hand just falls off right now, because I flap it a lot, or I
hit the microphone that I don't have to reach anymore. If my
hand falls off, I'm going to recognize the pain. and I'm going
to hurt, and all of you are going to go, oh, that didn't feel good.
Just in the sense of watching this horror take place, how much
more do we sympathize with one another when we know our hearts
are grieved, or our minds are fearful, and we don't have the
answers? Because if I'm broken over death,
if I'm broken over disease, if I'm broken over something awful
in my life and you see my brokenness, you are now broken, you're not
clearly going, oh, it's okay, look here, there's Jesus. We
just get together and we're all a big mess. But Christ is never
a mess. That doesn't mean his feet aren't
dirty, but he is never out of control with his emotions because
part of our sin nature prohibits us from mastering our thoughts
and feelings. Christ mastered his thoughts
and feelings. In the garden, as we'll see some
months and years later, he will, our Easter message will be a
long time from now, but he will say with fear that's not sinful
doubt. And he will say with trepidation
in his voice, Oh Father, take this cup from me if it be your
will to have another way, but your will be done. What is Jesus'
ultimate desire? The will of the Father done. How did Jesus endure the cross?
Paul says it. He looked past it to the glory. What was Jesus doing here? He,
he is God. He, he knows what's happening
on the other side of this grave side experience. In some sense,
when it says Jesus wept, I remember being young. I thought, I know
why he's crying. Cause he had to bring Lazarus back from glory
for Lazarus. I love this man. I want to bring
you back into this awful place, life, this world, back into that
body. He's going to have to live another
30 years. Gosh, this is so sad. Now, that's just a 16-year-old
thinking. There's no proof in the text
as to that being the case, but it's probable. Here, Jesus saw those weeping. Now, I don't know what your Bible
says here. He was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. But I want you to understand
that what we're thinking here is we're projecting sometimes
on Jesus what the scripture is not teaching. Does Jesus have
this sense of sympathy and mourning in his spirit? Yes, it says that. But Jesus is not mourning over
their pain as if He doesn't know where it's going. And Jesus is
not mourning over the death of Lazarus. I mean, my goodness,
He told them before the man even died he was not going to die. Jesus in this was deeply moved
in His spirit. I believe that at this time,
Jesus was probably groaning out loud. Much like these mourners who
were moaning. I've been at a funeral before
that lasted like four hours, no lie, and then at the end of
it, the wife of this deceased man decided to open his casket
again as it was being put into the hearse, one last look, and
she leaned in and the gurney slipped and she fell in and it
was just this big mess. She laid there, she just wailed
and wailed and wailed and everybody got upset and wailed and everybody
else got upset and wailed and everybody was just, it was a
mess. It was chaos. Jesus being in the middle of
that, the only way to be heard was to be groaning. You ever
cried or moaned in such a way that you couldn't control the
sounds coming out of your soul? Out of your mouth? Yeah. You don't even sound like yourself
if you try to verbalize words. You don't know what's... Nobody
would know it was your voice. When Jesus says here, the gospel
writer says that Jesus was deeply moved in the spirit and greatly
troubled. And if you understood a little bit more of how this
is played out in the grammar and also some of the word usage
there with other places in scripture, Jesus is a little bit perturbed. He's troubled with some anger
too. It's like if we get news that
the phone rings and it's one, it's our one of our adult children
who has done something really silly, stupid, gotten a citation
or I don't know, forgot to pay a
bill at huddle house and got arrested. I've had friends call
me there. Come bail me out. Why? Because
I didn't pay my bill. Left the wallet on the table
and left. But you know, they arrested him anyway. And you just get angry, but at
the same time, you're sympathetic. You're going, oh my gosh, what
is going on? And I don't want to project that
on Jesus either, but the Scripture says right there that Jesus was
greatly moved in His Spirit. That means inside of Himself.
It has nothing to do with God the Spirit, it's just inside
of Himself. So inwardly, Jesus was troubled, and Jesus had some
anger, and Jesus had some frustration, and Jesus never sinned in any
of that. And then the very next thing
he asks is, where have you laid him? And they say, come and see,
Lord. Come on. And then Jesus wept. Jesus wept. So see how easy it is for us
to look at his being moved in his spirit, groaning, he's troubled,
and then he's weeping. We try to make that be the same
thing, but it's two separate things. but they are congruent
with the divine nature of Christ, and that He's not sinful in either
one of these things. He's not sinful in the expression
of frustration or anger, and He's not sinful in His expression
of grief. Because neither of them move
Him to think or do anything differently than He's been called to do by
the Father. And neither of them, nor does His love for these people
who are in great pain, cause Him to do what's best for them
in their eyes. He does that which the Father
has sent Him to do. Beloved, if we can learn nothing
more about Jesus Christ as our God, we need to learn that He
is immovable. And glory be to Him for that. Hollywood may make fun of it
and it may be something really interesting to consider about
answering every prayer in the affirmative like the movie, whatever
his name was in years and years ago. It's absurd. But God always answers the prayers
of his people in the affirmative. It is always thy will be done.
God does all that he intends to do at every single moment
and everything that he accomplishes is for our good. And yes, we
can say to Him, I'm grieved, I'm broken, I can't take this,
I don't know what to do. We can be like David and whine.
We can be like Mary and moan and be frustrated. But only Jesus
and His humanity can have these feelings and they not be sinful.
Or not be connected to sin. You see what I mean? The feelings
themselves, we can't help them. It's not like we're sinning with
our feelings. But they're connected to the fallenness of our nature.
Let me make that clear. It's not a sin to mourn. It's
not a sin to moan. And there are times when it's
not a sin to whine. Tell your Father what you want
and need. But more than that, know that
it is the will of God that we want more than what we think
we want. I'm trying to illustrate this
with young people way back in the day. sort of like a guidance
counselor. They said, well, this is what
I want in my life. This is what I want to do. And I just got the idea one day.
I said, OK, give me every dream and goal that you have. And we
wrote it down in a sticky note, sometimes several sticky notes,
just one word. And I stuck them all together
in a long ribbon and I stuck them on this hand. And then I
wrote God's will on this hand. I said, which one do you want?
You want all this or do you want this? Because this may not match
with this. which is going to give you the
most joy, which is going to give you the greatest success, which
is going to focus you on that which is glorious and eternal.
What do you want? Do you really want all this magic
in a box, genie in a bottle? Do you really want a life like
this or do you want this? You see. You can't have both. Some of these things may overlap. They may be in the will of God
for you, but if they're not, let me rest. Let me help you
rest assured. You don't want them. What do we want? For the glory
of God to be revealed. So Jesus. He was moved and His
spirit greatly disturbed. He was disturbed because here
He was, Martha, if you've just been here, wasn't focused on
Jesus. She was focused on someone who
no longer existed in the world. And only that, she had been promised
by Jesus that it would not end in death, and she could not see
that. Mary then, wailing at His feet,
I think that's why she does what she does in the house. At his feet. Completely different heart. Completely
different focus. I mean, her brother was alive.
She's like, get out of my way. I got Jesus. You're back now, but now you're
in my way. I want Jesus. I love John 12. It's a, it's
a wonderful text to preach. The imagery in John 12 is just
beautiful. So Jesus has moved. He sees Mary
weeping. He sees these people weeping
and moaning and wailing. And he's thinking of this this
way. These people cannot see what
I'm about to do. These people cannot see why this
has happened. And you know what? Neither can
we at times. We can't look at these guys and
go, they should just grow up. No, it's not about growing up.
Because we are all going to experience this stuff. No matter what, I
mean, it might even be death. It may just be divorce. It may
just be disease. And maybe some kind of disaster,
tree falls on your house. Now what? No insurance. And maybe
something so benign that everybody else looks on, why is that bothering
them? But it bothers you. Christ, if He were with us, He
would be like, no faith. It would hurt Him. It would frustrate
Him. Why? Because He's already said
who He was and what He would do. He'd already proclaimed He
was the resurrection and the life. He'd already told these
Jews for years, I come down from heaven to bring life. I'm the
bread of life. I'm the living water. And they
go, hey, hey, woohoo! Experience this in worship. Let's
go home and doubt. That's why it is robbery of God's
glory to usurp the authority of exposition on Sundays when
you are compelled to be here by your love for one another
and for the Lord. It's wrong. And we will not do it. We will
hear the word of God. That's why it's wrong to hide
the gospel from a cultural perspective, because we don't want to give
too much away, because the Jesus of the New Testament is hard
to swallow. And if we want to reach people through some type
of evangelism, we've got to share a semi-semi gospel, which is
a false gospel. You don't tell the world that
their sins are forgiven. You say Jesus paid for the sins
of his people. Do you believe that, Martha,
that I've come down from heaven to do the will of my Father?
Do you believe that, Martha, that I'm going to be the resurrection,
that I am the resurrection, that I am the life? There's a big
difference in giving life and providing resurrection and being
life and being resurrection. So Jesus is troubled. He's troubled. He doesn't. In his spirit, he
loves this family and they cannot see. That is why he's mourning. In his human nature. That is
why he's mourning. Because they cannot see what
is right before them. But He knows that the Father
will give them sight. Beloved, the Father will give
you sight. Where have you laid Him? They
said, come and see. And then Jesus wept. But what
did people think about why He cried? Let's look at it. He hears them say, oh, look,
he's sweeping because he loved him so. Now, is that true that
Jesus loved him? Yes. John writes that there for
that purpose. But what does Jesus love also? With greater emphasis. The glory
of God. The will of the father. With greater emphasis. What does
he love in the relationship that he has
with Lazarus and his family? What does he love? How does he
love them greater than just an affection for them? He loves
them and that he will reveal the glory of God to them. He wants them not to mourn. He
wants them to see. He wants them not to be grief
stricken. He wants them to have joy. He
wants them to understand who he is, not what he can do. There's a big difference. Because if all we're looking
at what Jesus can do, Jesus can save us from hell, Jesus can
give us life, Jesus can do this, Jesus can give us joy, then all
we're looking for Jesus to do is be our sugar daddy, just to
give us all the good gifts. When we stand before Christ naked
and glorified, nothing to bring, and the crown of righteousness, who is Jesus Christ shall sit
upon our heads. He's not going to give us anything
He hasn't already given us. because all spiritual blessings
are ours in Christ already. And Paul makes that clear to
the church of Ephesus. He said, we have every spiritual
blessing in the heavenly realm now. And that is in and seen
through God's predestinating love, which is foreknowledge,
electing us before the foundation of the world, that we should
be found in Christ, holy and sanctified through his finished
work on the cross. By the blood of Christ, we have
been made righteous, and Christ is our crown. I have that question tonight.
What are the different crowns of rewards? It's simple. I'll
probably spend 10, 15 minutes on it tonight, but it's simple.
Jesus is all the crowns, all the rewards, and our affection
for Him is the full completion and the fruition of all that
we desire in the day of glory. We're not receiving medals or
badges or crowns to take and lay at his feet. Our laying at
the feet of Jesus, just like Martha will do with this Nard
in a chapter, is our affectionate worship of him for who he is.
He has revealed himself to us in this way, not what he did
for us. What did Jesus do for us? It's
immeasurable. But ultimately. He gave himself. So Jesus' greatest gift is Jesus. The Christ gave the Christ. I lay my life down for the sheep. Chapter 11. I mean, chapter 10.
And I will take it up again. So not only did He lay it down,
He took it up. And men of old, professing Christians
across this world, this very calendar day, which is the first
Sunday after the first full moon of the vernal equinox, which
is how you get what Easter is. Are worshiping what Christ did. Think about it. Many Christ shall come and declare
themselves to be raised from the dead. Many Christ, John said,
have come and beloved, we serve a risen savior who gave himself as our treasure. So the Jews said, see, he loved
him so much, that's why he's so sad and tearful and weeping. He's shedding tears over the
loss of Lazarus. No, he's shedding tears over
the condition of those he loves, knowing that their only hope
is that he will have to die to justify them before the Father.
Because even when the glory of God stands and plants His feet
before them in their presence and is about to awaken the dead
by His divine creative command, they're still not going to see
it fully. So He must finish the work of
redemption. And then some marvel, this isn't snide remarks by the
way, could He who Could not He who opened the eyes of the blind
man also have kept this man from dying? We've seen what He can
do. Could He not have done this?
You see what I'm talking about now? Jesus could have done this. He could have done this. See,
this is the atheistic argument. This is the traditionalist argument.
This is the evangelical argument. God could do all these things,
and if He's good, He'll do all these things for us. Because
He loves us so much, He won't allow someone to perish. He won't
allow disease. He won't allow war. He won't
allow famine. He won't. But the Bible says
that God prepares all evil for the day of... all the wicked
for the day of evil. I do that which I want to do. I do it. It is my prerogative. I cause a bird to fly from this
side of the state to this side of the state. I cause a man to
walk from this country to another country and he does what I make
him do. This is God. Our world, especially America,
beloved, listen, especially America, when the individual is more important
than the whole. We have an idol amongst the ranks
of Christendom in this country. And that idol is freedom of will. That idol is freedom of expression. That idol is freedom of opinion
that we don't have the freedom of will expression. We don't have it. And only when God births us anew
are we aware of it. Most people, and I could give
you statistics but I don't have to, Jesus said wide is the path. So Jesus' statistics are better
than Barna's or anybody else's. Most people who profess to be
in Christ are utterly lost. Most Jews were lost on the day
of Jesus, while pagans came in in great number. And today, nothing has changed.
A large sect of communities profess to be religious Christians when
all they do is do Christian activities. All they do is they have in their
mind this finger puppet mentality, a caricature of Jesus Christ
who did something to give them something that they can be excited
about. When the Bible says that Jesus
laid his life down for his sheep. One is infinitely glorious, the
other is infinitely worthless. When you look around the world
today, I can promise you, if you ask the average Christian
coming out of the average building on a Sunday morning, where is
your hope of eternal life? They'll give you a rough answer
of, it's just Jesus. It's just Jesus. He who gave
sight to the blind and raised Lazarus from the dead. He's given
me everything I ever wanted. He gave me a good job and He
gave me a good wife and He's given me good kids. I'm blessed beyond comprehension. What is that? Too blessed to
be stressed? when the true gospel is that
Jesus saved us with himself, for himself, by himself, and
he will never lose any of us. Christ has found us. We don't
find him. There is no such thing as a gospel
presentation. There is no such thing as an
offer of eternal life. There's nobody offering eternal
life in the Bible. Jesus says, Come to me, all who
are thirsty, for I am the living water. You will never thirst
or hunger again. And they look at him just like
they did in John 6 where he says, I am the bread of life and I
come down from heaven. If you eat of my flesh and drink
of my blood, if you partake in my death for my people, you will
live. And the Pharisees say, you're
nuts. And he tells them, the reason you cannot see what I'm
saying and believe in me, It's because you were not given to
me by the Father. You are not of my sheep. You
do not belong to me. And in John 12, Jesus will say
in Isaiah 6, it's fulfilled in their hearing that day. When
God told the prophet Isaiah to go and preach, and this is what
Isaiah was told to preach. Hey everybody, listen. I'm going
to preach, but you're not going to hear it. You're going to see,
but you're not going to understand it. And you're going to acknowledge
it, but you're not going to comprehend it. Because if you could, God
would save you, but you can't. So you're going to die in your
sins. You're going to perish. And I'm telling you that you
are going to perish. But I'm telling you that the God that
sent me told you, to tell you that you're going to perish and
that you cannot believe. And if there's anything that
remains after He mows you over, He's going to burn it again. Have a good day. That's the evangelism of Isaiah. I don't see any, I don't see
an evangelistic association preaching that message, but it's the very
message that Jesus preached throughout the gospels, and it's the very
message that Jesus will preach here. He says that the Jews know he's
Messiah, but knowing he's Messiah makes no difference. You must
be born again that you may be granted repentance to see and
believe that Jesus satisfied God's wrath for you and His obedience
is your righteousness. But a whole lot of people in
this great nation are on their way to hell because they've never
heard the truth. And they're working themselves
into a moral ring not of awards, but of execution, of judgment. Jesus took the judgment of God
on his flesh and his body was crushed and his blood was poured
so that God the Father would be just in forgiving me and you. That's the gospel. and your faith and your hope
and everything that you wish for and all, it's got to be in
Christ. And that's a work of God that
He does as He pleases. Beloved, this is the truth of
God. Verse 38, let me read it. It'll
be next week. As he heard these things said,
Oh, Jesus could have done this. Jesus could have done that. Oh,
Jesus loves this. Oh, look at why he's weeping.
He's weeping for different reasons. It says, deeply moved again,
he came to the tomb. It didn't stop Him. It didn't
stop Him. It's not going to stop Him. Beloved,
nothing you experience in grief or failure or sin in this life
will take you from the hand of Christ. There is no amount of
evil in your flesh that can keep you from God the Father because
He crushed His Son in your place. And if that doesn't motivate
you to strive, to want to glorify Him and to honor Him and to learn
and to grow, we need to talk. Because you need to grow in the
understanding of the grace of God. And you need to understand what
the gospel is so that you can share it with people. So we can get
away from this cultural identity of what man must do. Nothing
God has done at all. That's what we put our faith
in. Sovereignty of God and salvation. Teach it to yourself, teach it
to your neighbor, to your friend, to your enemies, teach it to your
children, your grandchildren. Make this the crux of all things
that are most important because there is no other station in
life. Thank you for listening. We hope
that this message has encouraged you in the faith. Subscribe to
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can be found at gracetruth.org.