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 I'd ask you to turn there
to John 11, and let's look at the narrative again this morning. And what we're going to do here,
starting in verse 17, is we're going to take a Just to walk through this, this
is sort of going to give you some idea of how you can actually
read the scripture and deal with it when it's not necessarily
very clear in its teaching. What I mean by that is like you're
not learning this thing and then this thing and this thing. A
narrative is sometimes very difficult to follow. Some people ask me
often, where do you get all that? Where do you get this information
from? How are you coming up with these conclusions? Why can't
I see what you see? And the primary reason for that
is because most of you don't read this text as often as I
do. That's the only thing. the Holy Spirit as we read it
continues to teach us and teach us and teach us and teach us
and teach us and then we come to a place where it begins to
make sense and then we start to understand it in its immediate
context and then we understand it in its broader context and
its holistic context within the very text that it's in and then
also within the very New Testament and within the whole of the Word
of God and so we come to this stuff today and you know that
over the last few weeks we've looked at the first 17 verse,
the first 16 verses looking at the motivation, the message,
the mission of Jesus, what it is that He was doing, which was
really fueled by His love for the glory of the Father, and
His love for His people. And His love for His people does
not dictate His emotions to run amok and make decisions based
on what He feels, but Jesus did everything that He did decisively,
congruent with His divine nature, in obedience to the Father, for
the sake of the glory of the Father. And in doing so, then
God glorifies Him in equal manner that the Father is being glorified
because they are one God. And all glory is due both of
them. All glory is due all three of the persons of our one God. And then when we get to Bethany,
a lot of times it's very easy. It's easy just to go, okay, he
came, he talked to Mary, he talked to Martha, he says, I'm the resurrection,
the life. Let's beat a drum for a couple of minutes. Jesus is
our life. He'll bring us to life. Hallelujah.
Moving right along. Let's see the miracle now. Let's
do an Easter egg hunt. We're done. I mean, that's about as exciting
as this text gets for most people, but there's so much more there.
I mean, everything that God records in Scripture is not there coincidentally,
nor is it there through some arbitrary, oh, well, we had to
write this. The apostles wrote under the
utterance of the Holy Spirit, divinely. And if they wrote something
in the syntax, if they wrote something in the grammar, if
they wrote it in such a way that they wrote something in there
about where Jesus was and what he was doing there's a reason
for it and so we need to see then why these things are here
and you'll find this morning as I walk you through a little
exercise as I teach this of how we ask some questions Specifically
is what's happening? Who's speaking? Who's listening? Why is this recorded? And what
difference does it make? The big question for a lot of
us is, so what? Okay, we see that Jesus went
to raise Lazarus from the dead, so what? Get to the point, Jesus.
Why do you have to talk to Martha? Why do you have to talk to Mary?
Why do you have to have this little discourse here? And I
guarantee you, it was a longer conversation than the six seconds
it takes to read this two sentences. So I pray that as the word of
God is read to you this morning that you would hear it. And that
you would pause and you would sit there and you would think.
I mean just by a show of hands, how many of you have ever heard
of the term fan fiction? Okay, good. So I'm not speaking
to the wall over here. For those of you who haven't
heard of the word or the term fan fiction, have you ever had
a good movie or a good series on television or a good book
series that just quit? And they're like, they're not
going to renew it. They're not going to write the sequel. And so what
happens is all the fans in their enraged inability to move on,
they get online and they create these groups and these forums
where they can all take turns and take stabs as to writing
the ends of the stories. And not only that, even the stories
that do finish, some fans are displeased with the way that
the author intended for it to do. So then we write our own
versions of things. We think about backstories. So
imagine, if you can, for those of you who have ever dug down
the rabbit hole of fan fiction in any genre of any medium, imagine someone considering the
story of Oz and writing an entire anthology of Toto. of what this dog experience.
This is what I'm talking about. This is where people go, but
yet when we read the Bible, yeah, okay, he went, okay, next. I
would love to see the Bible, not in the sense of we create
what we want to create, but I would love for us to ask the questions
as if we were reading a story we really needed answers for.
I want us to contemplate prayerfully and seek the Word of God in such
a way that we cannot get away from the reality that there is
so much more here than we will ever see. It's not hidden. It's
not heady. It's just that we don't take
time out to deal with it. Sometimes it's because our lives
are so busy that we just don't know what to do. We've got so
much going on that we don't have time, some people would say.
But we do have time. We do have time in a lot of ways,
but the question is, do we have the desire? How do you get the
desire for something that you really love today? Well, you
give time to it. Very few children have the desire
to eat healthy foods until they begin to be forced to eat healthy
foods. And I don't want to force the
Scripture on you. I want to feed it to you, and I pray that your
palate would grow to the richness, to being able to see with all
the senses of your body, if you can, of your intellect, of your
spirit, the depths in which the Scripture can be alive to you.
I'm not smarter than you are. I'm not more creative than you.
I'm not more endowed with some spiritual touch with God. As
a matter of fact, many of you may be more spiritual than I,
but the point is that I want to know. I want to know, and
so I spend more time there. I wish I could spend more than
I do. So let's move to verse 17. I'll read through the end
of verse 27. Ten verses today. Now when Jesus came, he found
that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Bethany
was near Jerusalem, about two miles off, and many of the Jews
had come to Martha and to Mary to console them concerning their
brother. So when Martha heard that he was coming, she went
and met him. But Mary remained seated in the
house. Martha said to Jesus, Lord, if
you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even
now, I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.
And Jesus said to her, your brother will rise again. Martha said
to him, I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on
the last day. And Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection
and the life. Whoever believes in me, though
he die, yet shall he live. and everyone who lives and believes
in me shall never die. Do you believe this?" And she
said to him, yes, Lord. I believe that you are the Christ,
the Son of God, who is coming into the world. Let me pray. Father, the majesty of what just
took place in that text is beyond my comprehension. We cannot grab,
I mean, we see and understand, but we cannot grab the depth
of what you did there, of what you reveal there. So I pray that
as I unpack this small, short dialogue, that your name would
be glorified for the sake of our joy and our growth in Christ. And Lord, I thank you for your
word. I pray for those people who claim to be yours, who refuse
the authority of your word, for it is there and there alone that
we can know you and see you with this type of clarity. And Father, we know that if it
were not for you making us alive and revealing the truth to us,
we would not grasp it either. But Lord, I pray that you would
also give each of us a desire to be in the scripture more,
that you would put away those things that hinder us, that devour
us, that confuse us, that divide us, and that our spiritual health
would be of utmost importance, not our mental or even our physical. But father, that we would seek
after your face above all things through the scripture. Lord,
that we would not bog ourselves down with continual fighting
and arguing and debating, stating that we are doing Your work,
because Father, You will not let Your sheep stay blind. You will not let Your sheep stay
dead. You will not let Your children, for whom Christ has died, stay
ignorant to the truth. And God, it is not our warnings
that call people to life. It is Your Spirit that does the
work of regeneration, and it is the truth of Christ that teaches
them what to believe. And so, Lord, as we hear these
words, help us to believe, to believe, so that we might rejoice. To the praise of Your glorious
grace, we pray by the name and the authority of Christ. Amen.
in this particular passage. Passages. There's some things
that I want to deal with today and then over next week or the
week after possibly I will talk about a few other things that
are very important but not necessarily evident. Let's take verse 17. Now when Jesus came he found
that Lazarus already had been in the tomb four days. Now there's
something to understand here. Jesus didn't show up and learn
something. That phrase is just establishing the facts of the
circumstances of the situation. It's establishing the scene.
Jesus knew Lazarus was dead when he spoke to his disciples, remember?
Lazarus has died. He has died. He also sent word
back to Mary and Martha. What was the conversation that
he had with the messenger? They sent to Jesus and said,
come, the one whom you love is ill. And Jesus sends this message
back to them. This illness will not end in
death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be
revealed through it. So this is what the messenger
came back and told Martha and Mary. Now what's crazy about
it is that Lazarus had been in the ground four days, Jesus had
tarried two days, and a day journey. So what happened? The man was
dead, Lazarus was dead when the messenger came back. Now imagine
being Lazarus' family, and Lazarus is being prepared for burial,
because you died, and you were prepared for burial, and in just
a few hours, before sundown, you must be put in the tomb.
That's how that worked. So they wrapped your body, they
prepared it with oils and everything, and then they put you in the
tomb, and they sealed the tomb so that animals would not go in
there, so that people would not go in there. So Lazarus was dead before the
message from Jesus that this illness will not lead, will not
result in death was given to the family. Think of their thoughts. As here is Jesus, who is miraculously
revealing himself as the one come from God, as Messiah. And he comes and says to them,
this is not going to end in death. And they're thinking, we just
buried him. Now keep that in mind, because
that is the very thing that should be in your mind when you see
this dialogue. Why? Because it's the message
that Jesus sent back to them. Did you ever put that together?
Read it a little bit carefully, a little bit more slowly, and
read it in context. Don't start reading John 11,
17. Start reading John's Gospel. Start paying attention to what's
being said. So Jesus did not learn, because Jesus knew that
Lazarus had died. And he says, I go to wake him
up. Well, if he's asleep... No, he's
not asleep, guys. He's dead. And I'm going to wake
him up. So Jesus goes, and for the sake
of the reader, for the sake of us, we see that Lazarus had been
in the tomb for four days. Now I need to speak to that end
because this is something that you cannot get from the scripture. You cannot get the necessity
of why this was important. But if you look around third
century, you see some writings, some Jewish writings, one of
them known as the Mishnah and some other things. We see some
traditions and superstitions of Judaism that were sort of
chronicled. And one of them is they had this
idea that when a body died, the spirit sort of hang around for
three days, hoping to be reunited. It's a superstition, it's a myth.
And in that reuniting within three days, there's this idea
that, you know, the spirit could go back in the body. But after
the third day, decomposition began. And we know from our present
scientific discoveries and understanding of the microscopic that decomposition
begins within minutes. In minutes. And so we believe
that one of the main reasons, two reasons, that Jesus waited
is to dispel the apologetic, or the polemic rather, that,
oh, his spirit just went on back in there, Jesus just pretended. Lazarus was dead and everybody
knew it. And there was no even superstition
that could bring him from the grave. The other thing too is
that Jesus was going to be in the ground for three days. So
I believe that Lazarus needed to be in the ground a little
bit longer. It's just my thoughts. So that now, in this time of
the first, second, third, and so on centuries, somebody doesn't
say, well see, Lazarus did it, then Jesus did it. Jesus raised
himself to life, Jesus raises Lazarus to life. So that's something
to understand. Where do you get that stuff?
Historians. Is it important for you to know that? Not at all. It's not important for you to
know any of that. It's not important for you to
know anything about the superstitions of Judaism. Why? Because if it
were important, it would be in the Bible someplace. But what
we do know, what we can absolutely not assume but clearly recognize
is that, as you'll see in a moment, that Jews thought and understood
that there would be a day when all people were resurrected.
They understood that there would be a resurrection. Now there
were a group of people that were constantly aggravating Jesus
and persecuting Him and they did not believe in a resurrection.
Who were they? The Sadducees. And I remember
being in you know, middle school Bible study classes and people
saying that's why they were sad, you see, because they didn't
believe in the resurrection. So now you've all become theologians
because you have this little weird thing of remembering who
the Sadducees were. But that was just only one of
their problems. But they didn't believe in the resurrection. They were preterists,
I guess you would say, in that sense, just in that sense, not
any other sense, but just in that sense that they didn't believe
in a physical resurrection of the body. But most of all, Christians,
and we talked Wednesday night, we had a few questions related
to some doctrinal studies we're gonna do this coming week on
heresies. But we had the question about
what did the Jews believe? And so next week when I talk
about resurrection in itself, I'm gonna share with you some
of the context of the Old Testament and the New Testament that showed
that first century Jews believed in a resurrection from the dead.
So keep that in mind. So here's Jesus intentionally
waiting, going to Bethany. Now Lazarus has been in the grave
for four days. Now verse 18, you might think,
well, this is sort of an archaeological expression so that we can get
the map in our mind, which helps us. But Bethany was near Jerusalem,
about, what, two miles away. Now why is that important? Why
is it important to know that Jerusalem was two miles away?
Because what we want to see is not only did Jesus delay leaving
where He was, but Jesus, who was across the Jordan, Jesus
delayed entering into Bethany. So He went to Jerusalem, He stayed
on the outskirts, and He sent someone to Martha at her house.
And so she's got to walk two miles to where Jesus is. He didn't
knock on the door. I mean, Jesus could not have
walked to Bethany with people all over the place and had a
private conversation with Martha. It's like sometimes when you
go out in public and you're in town, and I remember when we
had some visitors a couple of months back, and they sat with
me and Jesse at the huddle house, and we were talking, and it's
like everybody who came in the door, hey, y'all, what you been
up to? And everybody who left, all the staff, everybody's talking
to you, 50 people talk to you. They know who you are, they know
your name, they know everything about you. And that just blew their mind.
That's because we live in a very small community and you know
everyone. But no matter what neighborhood
you live in, unless you live in Manhattan, you probably will
know most people in this part of the world. But who did not know Jesus? Everybody
knew Jesus. So Jesus would not be able to
go in to a place and enjoy a private conversation because people don't
respect that type of thing. Look at what happens when a star,
or an actor, or an entertainer, or an author, or somebody that's
well known. That's what famous means is that everybody knows
them. knows who they are. And there's something weird about
the fact that everybody knows somebody which makes them not
special. And everybody wants to talk to them. You can't even,
you see these people in the paparazzi taking their pictures and all
this kind of stuff. With Jesus it was exponentially worse. So for Jesus to do what He did,
and He intentionally did these things, it wasn't because, well,
He could have supernaturally walked through the crowd and
not been recognized, but He wanted to be recognized when He got
there. Why? Because it was the will of God.
This illness did not lead to death, but to the glory of God,
that the Son of God might be glorified through it. Do not
forget that, beloved. So that Jesus, outside of Bethany,
calls for Mary. I mean, for Martha. And it says in verse 19, many
of the Jews had come to Martha and to Mary to console them concerning
their brother. So many people from Jerusalem
had gone to them. Why? They were a very respected
family. They were a loved family. And
when someone dies, that's what we do when we see someone. And
in this part of the world, I mean, you didn't have a week to prepare
and a visitation. We have visitations now and things
like that. You just went because you had five hours before the
body was laid to rest. funeral was over the next day
you went back to work it was over I mean this is sort of difference
in the way we do things here so we can't put our 2018-19 mindset
into a first century Palestine so people rushed to their house
rushed to them to console them and imagine what they'd say what
do people say in our Christian culture Let me put quotes in
the air, quote Christian culture, when there's a death. They say
anything and everything that seems possible to give comfort,
right? Anything. It doesn't matter what
it is. And if you're the bereaving one,
you don't really get a lot of comfort from what anybody says
because you're hurting. But I can imagine that just as
we see in our day. We saw the same thing in Jesus'
day. So when Jesus says later, your brother will rise again,
I think that's probably the 50th time that Martha had heard that. I think every Jew that went to
console her says, okay baby, your brother will rise again.
He'll be resurrected one day. It's okay. Remember, God's got
this, you know. Remember, it's all right, and
that's not bad advice. It's all true, but it doesn't
really give you a whole lot of peace in the moment of pain,
does it? It carries later. Yes, okay,
this is true. And so, all these people were
consoling them, trying to help them work through this sudden
illness, this sudden death of their brother. So someone went
to Martha and told her Jesus was coming. So when she heard
that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, but Mary remained
seated in the house. Now isn't that different? We
see in Luke's gospel where he was visiting with them and what
happens? Martha is busy with no time for Jesus and then Mary's
sitting at the house. Maybe she just likes to sit at
the house. And we see the character of these two women and the difference
in their personalities. And we see that the intention
of Jesus was to teach us all as well as them. And here he
sins for Martha, I believe, divinely, purposed. So they say, Martha,
Jesus is here. Jesus says, He's outside Jerusalem,
He wants to talk to you. And what does she do? She gets
up and she goes. She doesn't announce because people are consoling
Mary so she doesn't want to interrupt all that and then have an entourage
or a mob walk to her to Jerusalem. Jesus' appearance had purpose
and Jesus' appearance was only going to be in His way and in
His timing. And that was at the graveside
of Lazarus. So here's Mary, I mean Martha,
running to Jesus, or going to Jesus, I bet she moved pretty
quickly, while Martha stayed. Martha gets to Jesus, verse 21,
and she says, Lord, if you've been here, my brother would not
have died. Let's take that part. What does this show you in Martha's
heart? It shows you a type of faith, knowing that Jesus could
have prevented death. It also shows you despair. And
she's not blaming Jesus. If you'd just been here, He wouldn't
have died. Why weren't you here? Before the messenger got back,
Lazarus was dead. You understand that? So Jesus waited. So there would
be no argument that Lazarus was dead. But Martha has this expression
of faith. Knowing that Christ could have
stopped death. But the message, remember I told
you to keep that in mind? The message that she had from Jesus
was this illness will not end in death. What is going on in
her mind? I want to know. I wish someone
could have found the writings of Martha and stuck them as an
appendix back here behind John. some after matter or something.
I want to hear what she's been thinking. I want to know what
she was really dealing with. I want to see the transformation.
But God has only given us this small picture of this transformative
work of God the Spirit. But they understood that Jesus
had the power to do all that he wanted to do. They knew that
Jesus could have stopped death. They knew that the message was
that Jesus said the boy would not die, but yet there he was
in the grave. And so there's a lot there. See
how that causes us to need, we need to pause a minute when we
read that, and we need to think. We need to just be poets for
just a little while when something like this pops up in Scripture
so that we can just sit and sink into the depths of what's really
taking place. If you'd been here, my brother
would not have died. If you'd been here, he would
not have died. But I know there was nothing
that you could do. You could not have gotten here, you see. But the latter part, verse 22,
but even now, even now, this very moment, I know that whatever
you ask from God, God will give you. Now, there's some language
here that I want to talk about that's different. What Martha
is saying to Jesus is if you ask God to do something for you,
He'll do it. But when Jesus talks about asking God the Father,
He makes a request that's guaranteed. There's a big difference in the
way Jesus asks of the Father. It will take place. Whatever
Jesus asks, the Father grants. What Martha is saying is, He'll
do it for you. If you just ask, if you just
plead. Because that's the way prayer
is seen in our human hearts and minds. Jesus elaborates sometimes about
prayer, anything that you ask in my name will be given to you.
Why? Because anything that Christ
desires in His will is done in the Father. That's why we use
our name. It is true when we close our prayers. It's
done. That's why when we don't pray
the will of God, we don't get the answer to the prayer because
God always answers prayers according to His will. So in that sense,
beloved, there's really never a prayer that has ever been no.
It's always been Amen. Yes. Why? Because it just sort of rolls
off the tongue as if we're just wiping our lips after a soda.
But when we say, Your will be done, that's what we're praying. So that His will is done. So Mary had this conundrum. If
you'd been here, you wouldn't have died, but I know that the
Father will do stuff for you. Still, in her mind, God would
do something for Jesus, but she didn't have in mind that Jesus
was God. And He could do for Himself as
God. And that's what this miracle
is going to teach her. That's what this miracle is going to
teach the disciples. That's what this miracle is going to teach
the Jews. That's what this miracle is going to teach the Sadducees.
There is no resurrection. What about this? Uh, runs off
stage. I mean, you know. That's what's
happening here. That's what's going to take place.
Jesus is going to, without a doubt, prove himself God, the creator
of life, the giver of life. He is going to reveal himself
in this way. And in doing so, by doing the
will of the Father, the Father is glorifying Christ with the
power, revealing the power of God in Him. Because He's God. exposing Him for who He truly
is. Whatever you ask from God, He will give you. And then verse
23, Jesus says, this might be a very short sermon today, Your
brother will rise again. Now this is what I was talking
about earlier. This is the sort of niceties
that were true. You will see your brother again
in the resurrection on the last day. Because that's what she
says. I know that he will rise in the
resurrection on the last day. On the day of judgment, on the
day of resurrection, on the day of jubilee, on the day of redemption.
Whatever they called it, depending on the season and the point of
history. Martha knew that and she established in her heart
that one day Lazarus would be raised to life, but Jesus was
not necessarily speaking to that point. So there are two things
in view that we know because we know the story, but imagine
being in Martha's mind when she is saying, you could have stopped
it, but God will do whatever you ask. There lends itself there
some idea that maybe she didn't want to tell Jesus what to do.
Remember the initial conversation or the initial message. Jesus,
the one whom you love, is ill. She doesn't command Jesus to
come heal him. She doesn't declare, if you love
Lazarus, you'll come. She appeals to the love of Christ
himself for Lazarus And the decision is up to God, up to the God-man. The decision is up to Christ
as to how and when and if He operates in a manner congruent
with the desire of humanity, of His human subjects. I want to say this and move past
it, but so many times the caricature of Jesus Christ in our culture
is a Jesus who is a God who is ready to grant wishes to whomever
asks with the right attitude or power. And there's nothing
further from the truth. We also need to understand that
by God's nature, And I don't want to get too philosophical
on this and bog down the sublime. But by the nature of God, we
know that God is not moved by emotion. And so the way we understand
emotions, if there's a loud boom that happens, we're all going
to be startled and our heart rate will go up, our eyes will
dilate, we might even get chills in our body. We who are tactically
minded will prepare ourselves in that way. We who are fearful
will roll under the seats while the children never look up and
never notice anything. What happened? Why is mommy on
the floor? Why is daddy standing with a
gun? I mean, what's going on? You know, we don't know. I'm
just being funny, ladies. I'm sorry. Almost every one of
you went, okay, daddy's on the floor, momma's got the gun. What was I talking about? Oh,
response. That's an emotional response of fear. If I tell a
sad story or show a sad video like Bambi's loss of his mother,
we're all going to cry. If I say something funny, we're
all going to laugh. I made myself laugh so bad the
other day, my side was hurting. I recaptioned a picture in my
head and I can't think about it. I seriously lost myself and
nearly died laughing. I've never been so funny to myself
in my entire life. I shared it with other people.
They're going, what's wrong with you? That's golden. But that's
what we do. We're not preparing. I'm not
sitting there thinking, you know what, I'm going to prepare to laugh.
I've got my laugh button over here. I'm going to prepare to
cry. I'm going to prepare to cry. I'm going to pull my earlobe
and I start to feel sad and I turn it off when I'm ready. It doesn't
work that way. We're not in control of what comes in regard to emotions. God does not subject Himself
to unruled feelings. So if God weeps, as we'll see
in a minute, it is a decisive act congruent with the divine
nature. Now, that's different when we're
talking about the human nature of Jesus. But even then, His
righteousness does not subject Himself to be ruled by feelings.
So when we see Jesus in fear, what does He do? He doubles down
and sits in the sovereignty of the Father, that He will be glorified. That He will escape, not the
consequence of sin in the immediate, though He had no sin, that He
will escape it eternally because He will be raised to life. That's
why I want to talk about the resurrection specifically. So God is not moved because He has such
love for us. He does what He does for His
own nature, for His own glory, for His own namesake, because
He has love for us. But that love does not rule Him. He has decided to love the unlovable. And in His decisive act of love,
it is visible only in one way. And that is the killing destruction
of Jesus Christ His Son to pay the penalty of the guilt of His
people whom He loves eternally. And everything that goes along
with it. Somebody will accuse me of not getting the whole gospel.
You know the whole thing. And proclaiming this reality
Proclaiming this finished work is what evangelism is. It's not
telling people anything except what God has done for His people.
That is evangelism. And it leaves no room for boasting,
no room for persuasion, no room for apologetics in the context
of bringing to life a dead man. I've had people try to teach
me to pray to appeal to God's emotions. And it sounded good
the first three, four minutes. I'm like, you know what? That
is the nature of God. Then all of a sudden I realize
what I'm doing is I'm testing God, making him prove himself.
And people say, well, you should make God prove himself. No, God
proves himself when he desires to prove himself. Because God
doesn't have to prove Himself. You see how mixed up our culture
has in the context of who God is? God does what He pleases. He causes everything that comes
to pass because He wills it. Thus He desires it. There is
no separation of what God wants and what God does. It's all one
and the same. So God wanted Lazarus to die.
God wanted Martha and Mary to mourn. God wanted all of this
to take place so that He would be glorified in it. Now people
get all upset and turned on their heads with stuff like this. But
beloved, do you want God to have His way toward you in mercy? Or do you want God to just let
you go the way you think is right? Because God's already said, there's
a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it is death. There
is no human being, even the righteous first couple, could not choose
rightly. Do you understand that? They could not choose rightly.
God purposed the fall of Lucifer. God purposed and desired the
fall of man. That he might be glorified in
the redemption of his people. And that he might be glorified
in the destruction of the guilty. And people will argue, well that's
not fair. Yes it is not fair. It is righteous and just. It's just. Because if we think
that humanity is this big ball of joyful good people that just
turn bad because of circumstances, choices, or environment, we've
not understood Scripture. We are conceived sinners. We are guilty before God. What
He decides and determines in the rest of our lives, To allow
us and to permit us and to decree us to what? To continue in the
ways that we go in our flesh? It's His business. Just like it's His business to
rescue us who are perishing by the blood of His Son. And here is Lazarus who in all
intents and purposes has perished in the minds of those around
him who loved Christ and He loved them. Don't ever... Why do things
have to be mutually exclusive? Why does an impassable and sovereign,
immutable God in all of His divine glory have to be mutually exclusive
to Him loving something? I know that my brother will rise
again on the last day. Jesus has used this phraseology
several times already, right? All that the Father give to me
will come to me and all that come to me I will raise up. So Jesus has already talked about
raising up. In John chapter 5 he's already
said the time is coming and is now here when all who are dead
will hear the voice of the Son of Man and be raised to life. That is spiritually speaking.
Then he says, and there will be a time when all who are in
the grave... You see, he makes a distinction
between those who are dead and those who are in the grave. Because
there are many who are living and walking around, but they're
still dead. And there are many who are in the grave who are
alive. Not in the grave, but you know what I mean. But Jesus
says there will come a time where all who are in the graves will
hear the Son of God and be raised to life, some unto judgment eternal,
and some unto life eternal. And here, Jesus is speaking of
these things, both of them, and yet Martha is continuing to seek
out this eschatological, in-time type resurrection that she knows
is good, but it could be a billion years in human time. She's thinking,
where's my hope today? What is my hope today? And the
crazy thing is, Jesus is telling her in just a few minutes that
He is her hope today. and that her hope today is not
in the resurrection of Lazarus in the last day or this day,
but the hope that you have today, Martha, is me. I am the only
life that is ever life. Not what I can do for Lazarus.
God bless his soul that he has to live on this God-forsaken
earth again. I don't think Jesus would have said it quite like
that. What God gives us is not the
prize. God is the prize. Christ is the
prize. Jesus is the prize. Jesus is
the life as we'll see in a minute. Verse 25. I'll go on in a minute,
in a second. I am the resurrection and the
life. Jesus used that egoe me many
times. I am. In John 8, he says it distinctly
this way, unless you believe that I am, you will perish in
your sins. Talking to the Pharisees. Unless you believe that I'm God,
you will perish in your sins. In many other times, six to be
exact, he uses that phrase with something tagged to the end of
it. I am the resurrection and the life. He doesn't say, I am the resurrecting
one. I am the one who brings resurrection. He didn't say, I'm the one who
is going to make people alive, though these things are all true
of Jesus. He declares and asserts that He Himself is the resurrection. Let's put it in spiritual terms.
All who are not born of God are dead. All who have not been made
alive through regeneration are dead. They cannot see God. They do not seek after God. They
cannot understand the things of God. Their mind is hostile
to the reality of the gospel. And some people argue with me.
Some unbelievers argue with me. Well, I'm not hostile toward
God. I said, then let me tell you the gospel. I'll tell you
the gospel. I'm not going to believe that. I don't believe that God died for his
people. I think God wants all of us to just live a good life.
I believe God wants all of us to accept Jesus into our hearts.
I believe God wants all these little phrases that don't make
any sense. I'm begging people this very
day to give me examples of where this is in the Bible in a context
and they can't even find a word that uses this type of language.
Not even a word. I mean, use the Chinese if you
can't find it in English. Change a word and rewrite it
to make it make sense. And maybe then I can see it,
but it doesn't make sense. Jesus is saying He is the resurrection
so that the only way we who are dead in our sins and depraved
and unable to see is that Christ is our resurrection. That Christ
establishes the covenant with God and fulfills the covenant
with God the Father to bring to life His people. And in Him
alone is life. He is the life. You see that? That's the point. I've made the statement many
times over that eternal life is not about heaven. Heaven is
a waiting place. Heaven is the DMV line. Heaven
is the... I hate to spoil it for you. I
mean, it'll be great. But heaven is the, you know,
the buzzer in hand waiting for the table to be served. You know,
you give those to your kids when we're at restaurants, right?
The first five minutes it occupies them. They're like, is it going
to buzz yet? Is it going to buzz yet? Go outside and play in the street. Don't dent a car. I don't have
insurance. I mean, you know, It's just a waiting place. In the
presence of God, with Him, with Christ our Savior. And we're
waiting. What are we waiting for? The
life. The resurrection. To say, it is mine now. It is
done. All evil is under my feet. All
my children are glorified with me. That's what we're waiting
on. We sell short. We sell short
the redemptive work of God when we think it's just this ethereal
afterlife of floating around, hanging out. And that's going to be the end
of it. That's just the beginning. This isn't the full and true
place that we comprehend what life is. With God is where the
full and true place of life is. Jesus Christ is that God. Therefore,
He is the resurrection. He is the life. He is the only
one through whom life comes. It's not the first time you've
heard it. John 1. 1 through 5. It gives us that outline. I am the resurrection and I am
the life. Now, next week I'm going to dig
into that a little further, but to close out this text today.
Let's keep going. Whoever believes in me, or if
you have an old English transliteration of whosoever believes in me,
that means whoever is so believing. Though he die, yet shall he live. Paul says to the Philippians, I'm at a crossroads. I'm at a
place that's sort of hard to determine what is better for
me. I don't know what to do, for to die is far better, but
to stay and to remain is also Christ. To live is Christ. To die is to gain Christ. So
it's all about Christ. It doesn't really matter about
me. For all that I have, the very life that I live, He'll
say, I live by faith in the One and the Son of God, the One who
loved me and gave Himself for me, the resurrection and the
life, who is my eternal hope. This is the point of why I breathe
and move and work and everything that I do. See, beloved, we live
in a world that tells us the lie. that everything that is
important is about what we can do to prepare for tomorrow. To
make life more glorious, more glamorous, more comfortable,
more ready, prepared. And it's just a... and God could change it all.
But nothing... one thing that never changes
is Christ. And if our joy, our self-worth,
our identity, anything, if it ebbs and flows on who we have
in our life, or what we have in our life, or who we are in
this life, then we are never going to see the fullness of
joy. We're never going to see it. And so that's why I continually
tell you to grow in your knowledge of Scripture, to read the Word
of God, that God the Holy Spirit through the reading of the Word.
It's more important than listening to me preach. Reading the Word,
God will give you an understanding to be able to rest by faith in
the truth of this ridiculous thing that I'm teaching right
now. Because it is ridiculous to all logical sense. Isn't it? Yes, that's what Paul said. People
thought we had lost our minds. And it isn't like we've lost
our minds to think we're aliens that have been shot out of a
spaceship and we're going back up there. I mean, that's just
imaginative. That's a pretty cool movie, really. It's ridiculous
that God has done this work and become a man and died for His
people and by the Spirit redeems us or regenerates us because
He has redeemed us in His flesh. Whoever believes in Me, though
he die, yet shall he live. Paul said, in Philippians, I
want to die, but I want to live. So I'll live because it's better
for you. Which is what? The reward of
Paul in Christ is to serve Christ's people. Because that's what Christ
came to do. Serve His people so that our
joy is fuller when we stay and suffer and settle to not receive
our crown, but to wait and help others in their joy in this life
until they receive theirs. That's the point. That's why
I spend so much time talking about the intimacy of the family
of faith, the assembled ones that we call Grace Truth. There's no perfection here, only
persistence. There's no perseverance, only
preservation. God preserves us. We don't preserve
ourselves. Jesus continues, and everyone
who lives, who's now living in the flesh,
everyone who dies in the flesh, he believes in me, he shall live.
And everyone who lives in the flesh and believes in me shall
never Never die. I'm not going to give you the
Greek there. Ninety-five times, I think, I can't remember, ninety-four,
ninety-five times in the New Testament, this phrase is given. And this is a literal translation.
Never, never, not even a possibility, into the eternal age. That's
a literal translation. of that phrase. So let's read
it rightly. And everyone who lives in me
shall never die. Alright? And everyone who lives
in me shall never, never, not even a possibility, perish into
the eternal age. Why can't translators do their
work? Because we don't speak like that in our language so
they just decide to admit it. And there's times when that construction
of the negative is also used where Jesus says you are not
able. You will never believe. You will
never, never, ever. Not even a possibility that you
will believe into the eternal age. When he talks to the Jews. Beloved, listen. Jesus is not
offering eternal life. Listen to me. Jesus has never
offered eternal life. Jesus has accomplished eternal
life. Jesus is eternal life. And when the Father gives one
of His people to the resurrection, they are resurrected. When God
the Father gives one of His own to Jesus Christ, who is the life,
they are alive. And there is no possible way,
never, never, with any, not even a possibility, until the end
of eternity, that you shall perish. Yet, Lazarus was dead, but there
is not a possibility, never, never, not even a possibility,
into the age that he has perished. And Jesus asks a question, do
you believe this? Let me make a comparison here, a contrast
comparison, a parallel between spurious faith as we see in John
2 and John 8, John 10, where Jesus turns to those who believed
in him and said, you sons of the devil. Jesus is saying here in a very
specific way, I'm God and I give life. And then he asked Martha if she
believes, not as, you think I'm telling the truth Martha? Oh
yeah, I think you're telling the truth. It's different. You can think I'm telling the
truth, but to trust in, hope in, rest in, be secure in, is
a big difference. is your hope in Christ as your
life. Right now, this very moment,
this day, is Christ the resurrection. Do you believe this? He says. And crazy thing, she does sort
of like the woman in Sychar in John 4. This is called regenerative
faith. That's what I call it, might
not be right. Faith is granted, that's conversion, and it comes
after the new birth. Regeneration precedes faith. Because there's no explanation
here about what Jesus is talking about specifically and it could
be very well construed, listen to this, as a cultural distinction
of the resurrection in the last day and that Jesus was the one
who would usher this in and bring this to fruition. That's what
most of the Jews thought. whether it be politically, nationally,
or spiritually, none of them looked at Him the way that He
was, because none of them could see His glory as it really is,
which is to reveal Him for who He is. But only by the Spirit
can this be done. Listen to me. Do you believe
this? And her response is, yes, Lord. I believe that you are Messiah.
That's what the word Christos is in Greek. It's Messiah. The Son of God who is coming
into the world. I believe in you wholly that
everything you have testified about yourself, not only is it
true, but you are my life. My trust is in you and what you
will do to secure never, never, ever, never, never, never, never,
not even a possibility until the end of the age of all eternity
will I perish because of you. Now what's different with that
type of conversion versus what we see in our culture? It all
starts with a story of Jesus and an offering of Jesus, what
He's wanting you to take, and then now it's all up to you as
to whether or not you can grab hold of the brass ring of life. And I'm going to say this very
strongly. That is demonic. Because it takes the glory of
Christ and it pushes it off a cliff. And it puts all the action on
us. And I don't care what you say.
Beloved, I have accomplished many worthless things in my life.
Many. I mean, I've accomplished certain
martial arts and skills and musical things and all sorts of things. And as I get older, the body
quits. I was real sincere about a lot of them. This is what I'm
going to do for the rest of my life. I'm going to really just stay this way. I'm
going to always strive for this. So sincere that people would
laugh. Ah, wait till you're 40. I'll tell you what, you won't
be doing that again. And I'm like, yes I will. No I won't. No I won't. It's not gonna work. No matter
how sincere you are, no matter how determined we are, none of
that's gonna hold us in life. Only Christ keeps us. Beloved,
only Christ keeps us. Friends, that's the difference
in the one true gospel and all the other false ones in the world. And when Jesus weeps, We ought to weep. But we do not weep in despair.
We do not mourn as those who have no hope. Because God the Holy Spirit revealed
to us that Christ is all that He is, and has accomplished all
that He has, just as He revealed it to Martha through the Spirit
this day. And her response had nothing
to do with, yeah, I believe you can raise my brother from the
dead. That was not even on her mind anymore. It was not even
on her mind anymore. But it was all of Christ. And then when she said this,
look at verse 28, and then we're closing. She went and called
her sister Mary, saying in private, the teacher wants you. See, that's
why I said he privately sent for her. Because I'm not psychic,
they just told on it. So Martha and Mary are about
to see something miraculous. But it's not this miracle that
gives them faith. It's the mercy of God. Because many will see and few
will believe. But when we believe and when
others trust fully in Christ, it is because God has been gracious
and merciful to us. Let's pray. We thank you, Lord,
for the truth of Christ, who is the way, who is the truth,
who is the life. These things that we say so often
that are not necessarily thought of or dealt with. Lord, I pray
that they would work into us by the Holy Spirit in such a
depth, with such a depth, that we would just be in awe. Father, I pray that as a body,
as a believers, a group of believers who are in fellowship and intimacy
together, God, that we would keep this truth in front of each
other. Though we may need counsel, though we may need material things,
though we may need a lot of other things in our life, Father, help
us to remember that the most important thing is to keep Christ
in front. to keep the gospel right there. Slow us down, Lord, in this world.
Give us the time and the margin to take in this great truth,
to think about it. Not just to swallow it like a
vitamin, but Lord, to sit down and feast over it like a meal,
slowly. with anticipation of what you
might reveal to him.