to be together. Always good to
be together. And when we're not able to be
together, let's just face it. We start to flounder. The Church of America, how I
love to beat up on it, has done a number to teach us
that we have created our part of an institution. And that by
being part of an institution, we show up, we participate in
its activities, we glean from its teaching, we experience through
its elements, we're strengthened by the sacraments, and then we
go home, having to leave the institution where it sits on
property that we might come another day. You get this when you read the
apostles' letters to the churches and to the pastoral epistles
of Paul. You get a different sense of
what being the gathered saints is. Friends, we are instructed
by the apostles to be together as often as possible. We're instructed by the apostles
to, at the minimum, put aside one full day for the sake of
Christ to be with His people. It's not to put aside a day to
hear sermons. It's not to put aside a day that we might do
spiritual things like pray or dust off our Bibles. It's not
to put aside a day that we could sing hymns and songs, songs and
hymns and spiritual songs. And the South out might be something.
We better check that out. It's not to put aside a day for
that instead of the country music or the rap music or the whatever
type of music that we enjoy. We're to make sure, at a minimum,
we put aside one day, as a people, as a family, to gather together
for the sake of one another, and for the sake of our own joy,
and for our own hope, and for our own well-being, our own maturity. Friends, if we're not together,
under the Word, worshiping God and praying together, we are
setting ourselves up for floundering. Floundering. Imagine the suffering of the
first century saints where if they did not meet together daily
in each other's homes, how impossible it would be to be sustained in
the midst of death. We often, and you hear me say
it, this is Sermon 92 in John, and I promise you 92 introductions
have beaten over the head the reality of the necessity of reading
the Word of God. that we are unable to maintain
a sense of focus when we are not in the Word together. The hope that we have is that
when we are unable, when we are unable to pray, when we are unable
to read, when we are unable to be who we are, who we are, in
our hearts and our minds that God the Holy Spirit guides us
and leads us and carries us and has sealed us because of the
finished work of Christ. And there is no fear for us,
beloved, but our food comes when we gather together. Sadly, this is where I'm going
to beat up the Church of America, We have been sold a bill of goods
by the enemy to think that what makes that palatable and what
makes that purposeful is that we have some affinity or function
in which we can attach ourselves to or with to the point that
we find some meaning in our gathering apart from Christ. Apart from Christ. Beloved, there
are people in our lives as brothers and sisters who when they are
not with us often enough, not only are they floundering, they
are furiously failing in their faith. And sometimes that is each of
us. That's one of the reasons we
do a midweek teaching, a midweek gathering, so that you all have
other opportunities. If we did something on Tuesday,
it would be to sing praises to pray and to hear the teaching
of the Word of God. If we did something on Thursday, it would
be the exact same thing. And it's interesting that what
Jesus talks about is time in John 11 this morning. Are there
not 12 hours in the day? And all I could think about this
week is how I have no time. I have no time to finish what
I need to finish. Then I got ill. Now what do I
do? Now I've lost a day or two. Now
what do I do to fix everything that I need to fix, to learn
everything I need to learn, to talk about everything I need
to talk about, to pray about everything I need to pray about?
And I'm thinking, what must I do to head this off in the future?
How can I correct this in the present? And how can I catch
up from the past? It's not possible. And then I
sit down to read what I'm to teach this week. And it's almost
as if God just sort of hit me with a fly flap right in the
face. Do you know what a fly flap is? That's a southern way
of saying fly swatter. It just has a little bit better
connotation when we say flap, because it's a funny word, but
it ain't funny when they're hitting me. It's like the Spirit of God just
said, Jesus' disciples didn't understand, but you do. And the
body does. And I'm going to tell you, this
sermon is for me this morning. Hallelujah, I'm selfish. I am
excited what I am learning again about Christ and how even though
we could read this for decades, we learn again about Christ,
that which we already knew, not in a new way, but in a deeper
way, a deeper way of understanding this. And I thought, God, why
did you not show me this when I was 17? So those of you who
are 17-ish, pay close attention that you may not be 45 when you
get it. And those of you who are 45 or
older or anywhere around or in between of any age, let us learn
together. Let us learn together. Oftentimes
we have this idea that the shepherds of the flock are these uber elite
spiritual know-it-alls. We are ignorant, nothing, nobodies,
grasping and clawing at the grace of God by the skin of our teeth. And if it weren't for the Word
of God, none of us, none of us, especially you all who look at
us this way, going, feed me, teach me, tell me, help me, and
we're going, help me! Oh God! Not only do I have to
work it out in my own life and apply it in my own home, now
I have to apply it in my head for you. So the application of this text
this morning is going to be a little bit different than what most
people would preach. It's not out of context. It is
imperative that we understand that. The narrative of Scripture
is to be understood as it is written, and then we see what
took place, and then we ask the question, so what? This happened,
now what? What does this do for me? Well,
first and foremost, it will always teach us of the sovereignty of
our Christ. It will always teach us of the
purposes of God. It will always show us of His
all-surpassing omnipotence, that's His all-powerfulness. I can create
a new way of saying it. And in that we rest fully, for
it is the purpose that we have been born again to remain in
this world, that we would live for the glory of Christ by learning
Him, and then giving that which we have seen into the lives of
one another together as a family. That is why we are who we are. And in John 11, as I told you
many, many times over, this is the pivot. This is where things
go really bad for Jesus. And I've had conversations before
with very intellectual people. I was talking with a brother
yesterday who's very brilliant, and we were talking about how
confused people can be about simple things, knowing that it
is only by the mercy of God that we can understand them. But the
mark of true intelligence coupled with wisdom is clarity, not knowledge. The mark of true intelligence
coupled with wisdom is clarity. Anybody can know everything, and everybody can know anything.
But only those who God shows simply can clearly see the truth. Do you clearly see the truth? That's why we're here today,
to clearly see the truth. Now if I were to put a title to this, and I
said this to Trey earlier, he says, do you need to go home
or do I need to go home? What's going on? I said, the title of the
sermon is The Watch of Jesus, or The Clock of Jesus. So we're
going to talk about Jesus' wristwatch today. How did he take time? How did he tell time? How did
he manage his time? That's the point. I don't really
entitle my sermons. They're an afterthought. I used
to have a guy in California that entitled them every week. They
were always great. Wow, that's awesome. My title is John Week
92. Let's look at the word. Verse 1, Now a certain man was
ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister
Martha. And it was Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped
his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was ill. So the
sisters sent to him, saying, Lord, he whom you love is ill. But when Jesus heard it, he said,
This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of
God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it. Now
Jesus loved Martha, and her sister and Lazarus. So when he heard
that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place
where he was. Now we'll stop there and we're
gonna pick up in verse six and seven as we continue. Let's remember
what we saw last week. We saw last week that the love
of Jesus motivated this plan. motivated the plan. Keep that
in mind. And this is congruent with the whole of John's gospel.
What we're learning today is no different than what we learned
in the first five weeks from the prologue of John, the apostle
who who heard from God and wrote by the power of the Holy Spirit,
the clear teachings of Christ. And it always points to one thing.
the revealed glory of God. These things are written that
you may know that Jesus is the Christ and that you might believe
in his name and by believing in his name you may have eternal
life. The believing in Christ is believing
in who he has revealed himself to be and who the father has
revealed him to be and who God, the Holy Spirit has revealed
him to be and who the prophets and the apostles have revealed
him to be. Thus, he has self revealed the
fullness of God's glory. It is about the glory of God
revealed. We see in verse 4 there, this
illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God. Let's take that for a second.
Lazarus' illness is for the glory of God. Now, all throughout Scripture,
we've already seen in John's Gospel, Jesus saying over and
over, it is not my will, it is not my glory, it is not my name,
but it is the will and the glory in the name of the Father for
which I live, for which I speak, for which I act. that I desire. John chapter 4, it is my food,
it is the sustenance of my being to do the will of the one who
sent me. That is why I live. The glory of God the Father. But the glory of God, of course,
belongs to the Father, but the glory of God also belongs to
the Son. For John did already say that the fullness of the
glory of God is revealed and seen and imaged in Christ. Paul
does say in Hebrews and Colossians that Jesus is the exact imprint
of the nature and all of the divine essence of God was pleased
to dwell in Christ bodily. So the fullness of the glory
of God is revealed in Christ. The fullness of the glory of
God is revealed in the words of Christ. The fullness of the
glory of God is revealed in the desire and the affections of
Christ and the actions of Christ and the work of Christ. But Jesus says, I seek not my
own glory. He only seeks the glory of the Father. In verse
14 of John chapter 1, the namesake of this fellowship, And the Word
became flesh and dwelt among us, who was God who created the
world, who was with God. And we have seen His glory. We
have seen His glory. Glory, what glory is that? The
glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and
truth. The fullness of God revealed
is His glory. Jesus Christ is His glory. And
for those of you who weren't here midweek, we talked about
glorification, which I will pick up again this coming Wednesday
and finish. We share in that glory in the
age to come. But what is Jesus speaking now
where he says, it is for the glory of God? Look, so that it
glorifies God now so that the Son of God may be glorified through
it. Through what? the death of Jesus, the death
of Lazarus, the death of Jesus. Also, that's the point of this
chapter is to point to that the most glorious display of glory
is the cross of Christ. So how is now Jesus saying the
son of God may be glorified through but that God would be glorified?
Well, he's already said that he and the father are one in
will and work and word. He is going to be stoned when
he goes back there. That's one of their fears, see. But what we should take from
this passage is that all that the Son does reveals the glory
of God, the Father. Jesus is God, the Son, and Jesus
is sent by the Father So when Jesus does that which is the
will of the Father by the power of the Father, He is doing it
by His own power and thus is glorified by the Father. And as Jesus does that which
the Father sent Him to do, He glorifies the Father. And then
the Father, allowing and permitting and sending and revealing Himself
through the Son and the work of Christ, glorifies the Son. We have seen His glory. In verse
15 of chapter 1, it says that John the Baptist bore witness
about Christ and cried out, This was He of whom I said, He who
comes after me ranks before me because He was before me. For from His fullness we all
received grace upon grace upon grace upon grace upon grace.
You were saved by the mercy of God alone. Moses gave the law, grace and
truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. The one and only God who sits
at God's side has made God known. That's verse 18. So what do we need to remember
about that in light of what we just saw? The glory of God revealed
in glorification of the Son. through the raising of Lazarus
from the dead. Without Lazarus' illness and
death, Jesus would not have been glorified in this way. He would
not have proven to everyone, even the world today, by the
written word, that He was indeed God, that He is indeed God, that
He is indeed the resurrection and the life, that He is indeed from the Father, that He is the
way and the truth and the life. He would not have revealed that.
That glory would not be shown. So the Son, as we see in John
1, and as we continue to see throughout this narrative, reveals
eternally the glory of God. And in the incarnation, He reveals
the glory of God in all that He does and says and desires.
The one and only God, as we just saw in verse 18, or as we just
heard, who is at the Father's side, that Word became flesh. This Word makes God known. So
another way of understanding God being glorified is that God
is known. We have seen God's glory. That
means we know God. We see Him for who He is. Because
when we see God for who He is, we see His glory. So for Jesus
to glorify the Father, He reveals who the Father really is. And
for the Father to glorify the Son, He reveals who the Son really
is. I want you to make that connection because that's exactly what it
means. Jesus is about to make God known
even more than He has already. And by doing so, the Father is
going to make the Son known for exactly who He has been claiming
to be. This is where we need to pay
close attention to the understanding of what we will call, as a fellowship,
the exclusivity of Christ. that Jesus is exclusively God. There is no other way to God
except through Christ. Jesus is exclusively Messiah,
the Christ. He is the Creator exclusively. He is eternal. You cannot be
born of God and reject the truth of the exclusivity of Christ. I want you to hear that. Now
people will charge me of putting conditions on your faith. No,
I'm putting the very thing that Christ says about the Word, about
the Spirit who will teach His people. When the Word of God
reveals to us the truth of Christ, whether we're ignorant or just
a little bit hostile toward the understanding of it, we will
receive it as truth whether we can stomach it or not. Christ reveals and only Christ
reveals God because only Christ is God with us. Now I could take the next 30
minutes and just deal with that in many different aspects but
what I want to deal with in relation to that as we are in John 11
is to talk about the Scripture. How do we know that Jesus is
the glory of God, the revealed, the revelation of God? Because
Scripture tells us so. Those of you who follow our social
footprint sometimes see comments and things. There are people
who claim to be believers who hate the Bible. and who have recently even said
that everything that I say in every sermon is just a crock
of bull because I worship the pages from which I teach. No, I worship the Savior whose
words they are, who is the Word of God, and by the Scripture
we test everything we think and hear. By the Scripture, I can tell
if what you say you feel God's called you to is truly God calling
you. By the Scripture, I can know
if you have a knowledge of the truth. By the Scripture, I can
give you assurance of your salvation. No other way. By the Scripture
alone is Christ revealing the Father to us today. Some people would then say, well,
what about the Spirit? Of course, the Spirit is in the
words of Christ. The Spirit is active as the agent
of illumination. When I, with my country self,
talk to you from the Scripture, the Holy Spirit gives you understanding. Outside of the Word of God, listen
to this, there is no mercy, there is no grace, there is no love,
there is no kindness, there is no hope, there is no truth, there
is no life. No life comes outside of Scripture. James Tiffins cannot teach you
life, and you cannot teach me life. No other pastor in all
of history can teach you life. Only God can teach you life,
and only God the Spirit will teach you life through the hearing
of the words of Christ, who is life. And only when you are enabled
and gifted the sight to see will you believe like that. And then the journey just gets
started. Then you begin to see and see
the same thing over and over and over again to your joy and to your fullness. And then this world and all of
its stress and all of its problems and all of its worries begins
to make sense. Oh, I see now that the life who
is God Almighty Himself gave me this path for the sake of
His own glory, because as I suffer in these things, He is revealed
to me more and more and more. Thus, praise Him for His glorious
grace. If Scripture does not reveal
God, then Jesus does not reveal God. For Jesus, who is the Word,
is the revelation of God. Without this being true, beloved,
all we have is Moses. And as a dear brother in the
sovereign grace of Christ has shared with me recently, Moses
is in retirement and has died. and we need to quit trying to
resurrect him and shove him in the back door of the church.
Let him be retired. Matter of fact, he put it this
way, he's enjoying his unemployment benefits. Let him have them. From Moses
we received the law, but from Christ we received grace upon
grace. grace and truth. We have no life without Christ. We have no Christ without the
Word. Beloved, the Word has been given
to us, to each of you, that we might be God's people together. Church membership and church
attendance and all that. Those words are just words that
don't carry the meaning and the heaviness and the gravity of
what Scripture calls loving one another in community, in covenant,
in promise. by the power of Christ is what
it's all about. As believers this day, it is
the means through which God gives us the next morsel to keep us
on our feet. And I like good preaching, I
like good Bible teaching, but beloved, there is only one place
that you have committed yourself, one people that you have committed
your heart, one opportunity that you have committed yourself to
growing in the Lord, and that is through the teaching ministry
of this body. Whether it be me, or Trey, or
Jesse, or Dave, or whoever else might stand in this place for the generations to come,
it is for you. It is for you. It is for you,
beloved. And some of you have been able
to become very intimate with some of our orphaned brothers
and sisters across the country. And Lord knows that in His timing,
He will plant a people near them that they can also be shepherded.
But, beloved, we have it made. We have it made as a body. And that is by the
mercy of God and His love toward us and His kindness toward us
in this season. We have it made. You don't see
it like I see it. Nobody's not going to love you
here amongst these people. Nobody's going to judge you here.
Nobody's going to condemn you for there is no condemnation
for any of us in Christ. So why in the world could we
ever pass that type of judgment against you? Nobody's going to
laugh at you or roll their eyes at you when you come with a silly
question or no question or with understanding or with ignorance.
We're going to grow together. We're going to learn together.
We're going to be together. And the quicker we see this,
the more intimate we will become, the more natural our lives will
be as a people for the sake of revealing God to one another
through the Scripture. I don't want to be stuck with
Moses. Why? Because it kills us. Moses indicts
us. Moses' law kills us, and of course
it is God's law. It serves us the warrant of death. We see only through the lens
of Christ our Father. So in this glory of the Son,
this glorification of the Son, if you will, this displaying
of the realness and the trueness of who the Son is, the Father
is doing this as Jesus is doing the same for the Father. This
is honoring God the Father. And as God the Father is honored
by the Son, God the Father honors the Son. So to honor God the
Father is to honor God the Son and vice versa. In John 5, Jesus
said that very thing. that all may honor the Son just
as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son
does not honor the Father who sent Him." See, we've got to remember that
one cannot separate the work of God from the work of Christ, for
Christ is God. One cannot separate Trinitarian,
Trinitary, Lee. Can one of us separate the Trinitarian
persons of God into separate wills and works? They're all
gone. Just as one cannot separate the
worship of God. I remember being a child and
I would pray and I would pray to God and then one day it sort
of struck me as I was praying one night and I prayed to God
and I prayed to Jesus and I prayed to the Holy Spirit and for months
I had that practice because I felt like they were sad that I left
them out. Sometimes it was the same prayers.
Then I thought well I could address them all in the beginning and
talk to them all at the same time. When I'm talking to God When
I'm talking to the Father. When I cry out to Jesus Christ,
I'm talking to God. When I know and understand God,
the Holy Spirit, I'm knowing and understanding God. May 18th
is our conference, Saturday. I said 17th several times, but
18th, all day Saturday, the Holy Spirit. So just as the Son is devoted
to the glory of the Father, Jesus is devoted to the glory of the
Father, it is the Father's devotion also to glorify the Son. And in doing so, the other are
equally glorified. We need to grasp this as a clear
teaching of Scripture so that we do not compartmentalize the
work of the persons of God to such a degree that we begin to
view them in lesser status or greater status. And for those of you who want
to dig deeper into that, eternal functional subordination
would be the theological term that you'd want to go into a
rabbit hole and then your eyes will fall out. Just see it simply
the way it's shown. The work of God is the work of
the Son, is the work of the Father, is the work of the Spirit. They
are all doing the work of God and they are all God. So as the
Father is devoted to the glorification of the Son to reveal him for
who he is, the work that Jesus will do through the death of
Lazarus then is the reason that he is going to die so that it
will prove that Jesus glorifies the Father, and that the Father
glorifies the Son. That's why it's there. This means that the Father is
glorified when Jesus does this miracle, and because Jesus does
this miracle, He is glorified. So both are revealed. They are
shown to be who they claim to be equally. Jesus as God. So revealing the
glory of the Son is to reveal the reality of the essence as
the Son is God. And so is the same for the Father.
They are revealed for who they truly are, and they are revealed
to be one as God in their word, in their will, and in their work. But now we're back to the text.
We noticed last week the love that Jesus had for Lazarus and
his family was the motivation for Jesus' delay in leaving. Now, for those clinical folks
who love to map it all out, there have been many theologians who
have done what they call a reconstruction of this narrative. Okay, so it
was this day, and it took this many hours to get there, and
it was this far away, and if he stayed two more days, then
this would happen, and all this kind of stuff. So Lazarus died
around here, and Jesus knew he had to wait a few, this, Why
do we do that? That's just silly. I mean, I
guess if we were gonna do a made-for-TV movie of John 11, it might be
necessary to actually have some type of something going on for a certain
number of hours or something. I don't know. I don't think there's
any reason to do that. I don't think there's any reason
to reconstruct the timeline. I think what we have in the Word
of God is sufficient because it is what God has shown us.
We know that the love that Jesus had for Lazarus is why he did
not immediately leave. Why? Because his love for the
glorification of the Father is also sufficiently motivating
for him. The love of Lazarus, the love
for Lazarus, and the love for the Father. We should note that
while God is to be glorified in the death of Lazarus, Jesus
probably, not probably, that's so silly, Jesus in his omniscience,
his all-knowingness, he knew the moment when Lazarus would
die. He's God. He doesn't have to
plan his day around, oh, I can't go yet because I might get there
before he dies and then it won't work. Oh, well, I need to wait a little
bit further so when they read the narrative later, they'll understand.
Listen, God had determined to wait till four days. Because
if it had been any earlier than four days, they would have just
said, oh, he just revived him. He wasn't completely dead. That's
what they believed. He just revived him. But there's
no way around the four days for obvious reasons that we discussed
last week and we will discuss again in a couple of weeks. But love, love, the love of Christ
for the Father, for Lazarus, for the glory of God, for the
sheep, for the disciples, for all the elect who would witness
this miracle. This is what motivates Jesus
to do all that he does, and this is how Jesus tells time. Everything that he does, every
word that he says, every place that he goes, every step that
he takes, every breath in and breath out, every moment of everything
that he ever did on earth was perfectly and divinely orchestrated
down to the nanosecond by God the Father. Nothing could change the outcome
of the work of Christ No man, no woman, no child, no beast,
no weather. I've had several people say that
just that explanation and bringing in the fact that Jesus was sleeping
in the boat last week was a great reminder for them to recognize
there should be no fear for we who are in Christ. It doesn't matter what the reconstruction
looks like because Jesus, love of the glory of God, prohibited
him, listen to this, prohibited him from being distracted from
the Father's work, from the Father's timing, and from the Father's
will for this circumstance. And it's always been that way.
Jesus should have gotten back with his parents when he was
12 years old, but instead he sticks around and teaches in
the temple. And his mom, probably pretty
huffy, having to walk back. You know, it's like leaving the
exit. Here we go. I'm going to break
something. It's like leaving the exit on a trip from a bathroom
break and getting over the entrance ramp and somebody goes, I gotta
go to the bathroom. And you just want to throw them out the window. Jesus is not thwarted or changed
by any circumstance. He's not distracted from that. No amount of preparation, no
amount of anything could change Jesus' focus on the will of God
in this circumstance. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. We live in a day when science
fiction has just about come reality, become reality in many aspects
of life. The things that I read in Popular
Science Magazine as an eight, nine-year-old boy, in science
journals and all these things, I mean, half of that stuff is
plum laughable, it's so outdated. The kitchen of the future is
a thousand years beyond what they ever dreamed. mobile phones and radio technology
in the places. And this is all infantile for
what we could create, our very own babble, as we orchestrate
our wisdom and our intellect and build things that seem to
make life worthwhile and more pleasurable and more punctual
and everything in between. And we walk in a way of going,
wow, look how efficient we are, but we get nothing accomplished. Even ministry has befallen this
fodder, this foolishness, this silliness. If we don't do this,
we've got to do this, we've got to have this now, we've got to
make this now, we've got to do this now. Oh my gosh, ah! Here's our mega
master triple duper trooper plan. This is what God's called me
to. I can't put my hands down or I'll drop the plans. So y'all
excuse me while I hold these for ten years while we build
it. And God in a breath can bring
the fruit of everything we've ever tried. And God in a breath
can undo 50 million years of human ingenuity. And it all exists
by His mere pleasure. And it all exists for His glory
that He will be revealed as the Savior of His elect and the Judge
of the wicked. And Christ knew it all. He wasn't worried about getting
back on the road. This is what I was talking about earlier before
I lost my train of thought and karate chopped the microphone. He wasn't
worried about getting back up on the road. We just got off
the exit. Now we got to turn around and
go get Jesus again. I imagine his mother was upset. And he says, don't you know,
mother, I'm to be about my father's business. I'm to be about my
father's timing. He says the same thing to his
mother as an adult when at the wedding of Cana. She says, do
something. They've run out of wine. Do something. And Jesus says, dear woman, my
time has not yet come. I don't answer to the circumstances. I'm not here to keep the party
going. I'm not here to solve people's
problems. I'm not here to put a band-aid
on pain. I'm not here to deal with cleaning
up after a storm. I'm not here to show people magic
tricks and miracles. I'm here to glorify the Father
and He has sent me and He will glorify me and I will be revealing
myself as God who created it all for my purpose and in a breath
I will bring it all to nothing and only you My beloved sheep,
the Father and the Spirit and I will remain. Jesus isn't distracted by the
circumstances. Beloved, that is almost all of
our problems today. We are distracted by the watch,
by the phone, by the schedule, by the classes, by the stuff. And I'm not saying we put all
this away and just sit on our hands, lest we go read 1st and
2nd Thessalonians and get the rebuke. We must be busy, we must be productive,
but we have a reason for living and it is not us. The end of life is not retirement
and bequeathment. The end of life is glory. for
us, beloved. The end of life is being with
Christ and being like Christ. And if we don't want to teach
that to ourselves, please let these children hear it. That they don't get overcome
with covetousness, which is idolatry. Covetousness is idolatry. Which the only escape is Christ. Christ spiritually and judicially
died, having never been an idolater, and God crushed the sin of idolatry
for His people on the person of Christ, and we are forgiven. Period. And when we struggle
with it here, for some of us, it is an outright war. For others,
it is a fleeting annoyance. But together, as we continue
to point to the finished work of Christ, we will recognize
that even the circumstance of sin and failure should not take
us from the sight of the glory of God and His purposes. No matter the timing, Jesus intended and divinely orchestrated
for Lazarus to be dead for four days so that the glory of God
could be revealed without contest, without doubt. Verse seven. Then after this, he said to the
disciples, after what? After he said this? No. After
he waited for two days. After two days, he said to his
disciples, Let us go to Judea again. And the disciples said
to him, Teacher, the Jews are just now seeking to stone you,
and you're going to go there again? You know, we've escaped
this. Our ministry's going good. We've
come here to where John was baptizing. We've come to the region where
it all started three and a half years ago. And it's going good. We've got a fruitful ministry.
We've got disciples coming out of the woodworks. We've got people
being converted by the Spirit. God is doing great things, Master,
Teacher. You really want to go up there
to deal with the fighting and hiding? What if they get you?
What if they kill you? What if they, what if they, what
if they, what if they, what if they? Hypothetical, hypothetical,
hypothetical is ridiculous. Yeah, it's where we live though,
isn't it? If I say this, I'll do this,
I'll do this. When it comes to understanding
sovereignty, there is no hypothetical. There is no alternate option.
There is no extreme parallel universe. There is nothing else
but the full plan of God and we are in it right now. We're
in it. Christ was in it. And Christ
could have walked into Judea by Himself singing, Come get
me, come get me, I'm Jesus, come get me. And no one could touch
Him. They could have thrown rocks
at Him and hit Him and it's like bounced off like marshmallows. Nothing can touch you. Beloved, nothing can touch you
either. Except that which is in the will
of God. Nothing will touch our lives
except that which is the gift of God. Nothing will touch our
lives except that which is to give glory to God. Now, do we
expound on that when these things happen? No. Because in our frail state, though
our mind is made new, though we are released from the power
of sin, though we know all the truth, that's why I started out
with what? We need to be together more.
Beloved, I need to be with you more in the Word of God. You know,
when all of these things happen, friends, because of the state
that we can find ourselves in, we flounder. We become weak. And then we've been taught by
our ancestors that weakness is not good. Strength is good, so
be strong. But the Bible says not to be
strong. For when we are strong, God is absent. Everybody says, well, I want
to be strong like Paul. You know how Paul was made strong?
God destroyed his flesh and tormented him with a demon to keep him
from being conceited because God had revealed to him the abode
where he sat and dared him to speak a word to any man. So much so that when Paul boasts
of this man in 1 Corinthians 12, he speaks of him in the third
person so that he does not relate him to the flesh and the mortal
man that he is. If you want to be strong like Paul,
then you better get ready for a life of absolute crushing.
Because Paul says, when I am weak, then I am strong. Because
Christ is my strength. When we are able to pick up one
eyelash and look in our own power, Christ is not our strength. When
we're able to put one hand to the plow. See, people like to
use these verses out of context. When we're able to put one hand
to the plow and just keep chugging along for Jesus, He is not our
strength. Oh, but even when we give Him
credit, oh, glory be to You, Father, for making me strong
like Joshua. We're not fighting a real war
of flesh and blood here. And our Joshua, we don't need
to be Joshua. God doesn't need a Joshua. He
sent a Joshua. Which, by the way, is the same
name as Jesus. Yahweh saves. Jesus is our victor. He's already
won. Why are we lining up at the front
lines? They're going to stone you. Why
do we want to go there again?" And Jesus answers. See, they were
scared to death of losing Christ. They were scared to death their
ministry would be over. We have too much work to do, Jesus. We
can't engage in that dangerous activity. Now this is not an
apologetic for being unwise and ridiculously stupid and jumping
off a cliff to test the Lord. We see that these things have
been told not to do. Do not test God in that way.
But the clear call of God, how do we test the clear call of
God in our lives? By the Scriptures. What He tells us to do there
is clearly what He's called us to. Nothing different. Nothing more extravagant. Definitely
not anything more glorious. So they're scared. And Jesus answers in verse 9
this weird way. Listen to this. Are there not
12 hours in the day Now what he means is daylight. Is there
not 12 hours of daylight? They measured, and that wasn't
scientific. Give them a break. They didn't have the technology.
But they measured 12 hours and 12 hours. 12 hours daylight,
12 hours darkness. So if the daylight was 8 1�2
hours, then that was a quick 12 hours. That's exactly how
they measured it. But all in all, they were smart
enough to realize there's about 12 hours of daylight, about 12
hours of darkness. Is there not 12 hours in the
day? And if anyone walks in the day,
he does not stumble. He sees where he is going because
he sees the light of this world. He sees the sun shining down
on him. He doesn't fall into a hole.
He doesn't back into another person. He doesn't trip over
a tortoise. or run into a camel. He doesn't fall, because he can
see where he's going. There's 12 hours. But if anyone walks at night, he stumbles, because the light
is not in him. There's two ways in which we
should understand this. First, in the practical sense,
the secular sense, the fleshly sense, There's 12 hours of daylight,
12 hours of darkness. You do all your work in the daylight,
and when the sun goes down, you go to bed. You didn't have electricity. You didn't have anything to do. You could not afford to burn
oil all night long so you could entertain yourself by looking
at the shadow puppets on the wall. You know, you can do dogs
and birds and things like that. Bunny rabbits. Ninjas. That's what he means practically,
literally, but also Jesus had a phrase or two there that are
very indicative of his spiritual teaching. He sees the light of
the world, but those who walk in darkness stumble. They don't
know where they're going because the light is not in him. So Jesus
understands time this way. While he is alive, and doing
the work and the will of God, it is day. It is day, and He
has a job to do, He has a calling to do, He has a clear directive
from the Father, and He will finish that and nothing will
stop it. It will be daylight until He's
finished, and the night's not going to come early. That's what
He means. So in like manner, you weak and
scary little guys, you're scared of dying? That's what Thomas
says. Let's go die with Him! You'll
see that next week. Let's just go die. I'm done. I'm so tired of walking around
the world and fearing for my life. If Jesus is ready to go
die, I'm dying too. Let's do it. Time is measured by light. And
the light of the work of God is Christ. It is revealing the
work of God. There is nothing that will stop
it. Nothing that will change it. God does not manipulate His
plan around the actions and volition of humanity. God causes and purposes
and decrees the volition and the actions of humanity. to bring
about His purposes. That's why numerous times, over
and over again, when they sought to arrest Jesus, they just couldn't
find Him. And He was standing right there.
And the Scripture says He just walked through the crowd. When they sent the temple guards
to arrest Him, the temple guards heard what He said, and they're
like, we can't arrest Him, because listen to Him. They wanted to
obey. They wanted to arrest him. They
wanted him dead, but they couldn't do it. God would not permit it because
it was not time. It was still in the daylight
hours of the work of God. No one put Christ on the cross
until God the Father willed it. And Lazarus didn't die until
God the Father willed it. And Jesus didn't leave to go
to Bethany until God the Father willed it. And everybody hanging
out with the Lord was worried. Told you this sermon was for
me. Going to Bethany, even at the
fear of arrest and death, was part of the divine work that
Christ was sent to do. He would not be in danger. The
disciples would not be in danger. But when the night came, when
he died, his work was done. His work was done. And that's
what he's pointing to there. Nothing's going to put me on
the cross before the time. The spiritual reality then on
the second tier of this is that Jesus is the light unto fruitful
service to God. Jesus is the light to the full
revelation of God. Jesus is the glorifier of God. Jesus is glorified himself as
God. And this miracle shows it. So
in the spiritual sense, we are called the children of light.
Paul would say we've been snatched. He talks to the church colossi.
We've been snatched into the kingdom of the light of his Son.
We've been captured out of darkness. We've been drawn out of death
into life. In Him was light. In Him was life. So we can walk in the light of
Jesus Christ this very day just as the disciples walked in the
light of Christ that day without fear, though they did after His
resurrection when He came to them and empowered them greatly.
They never failed again in the ministry they were called to.
Why? Because everything that befell
them was in the plan of God. We can see the truth because
Christ reveals it to us. Grace and truth is in Christ.
We can see Him and we can see His work. We can see His promises. We can see His power. We can
walk with Him by the Spirit, by faith, and we are not in darkness
and we will not be blinded. But oh, beloved, when we are
blindsided, it is so easy to think we can't see, but we can
see, and it's easier to maintain that sight, beloved, when we're
together more in the Word. I'm gonna keep bringing that
home. We will not walk into death.
We will not walk into destruction. We will not walk into condemnation.
We will not stumble because we have been given the light. We
will not fall away from believing in the finished work of Christ,
our righteousness. Though we may think we are far
from God, He has never left us. Thus we are doing the work of
God and should have no fear of the night for Christ is with
us. What does that translate for us in a practical way? Beloved,
listen to me. In your faith, you cannot fail. Even when you're faithless, you
cannot fail. You will not be cast into darkness.
You will not be blinded. You will not fail. So many times
we think, well, because I did this because I thought this or
because I acted this way or because this sin is in my life or because
I haven't been to church in a while or because I don't want to be
in church or because I'm so grieved or because I'm so angry or because
whatever, it doesn't matter. The light is shining. Look at
it. As a matter of fact, we have
no choice but to look at it because it has overcome us and shining
all around us to the point that it is in us. The light is in us. So we cannot fail, no matter
the caution, no matter the planning or the lack thereof, because
we are in the hand of God the Father, the light of God is revealed
to us and we are the light. We are in the light as because
we are in Christ and He is in us. In the hand of the Father
of His purposes and decrees, they will not fail, so be of
good heart. Do not worry. Do not labor as
if you have no hope. Do not grieve. The calling and
sovereignty of God will forever lead His ministers. And beloved, I have seen some
deplorable preaching in the last 72 hours. When you're feeling
bad and just sitting there and all you've got is YouTube, Netflix,
or something else, you find something else. You do. Or you do the other and
then you're like, man, I need to go rinse my mouth out. So
I try to find something else. So I'm like, OK, we'll watch
this. Nope. We'll watch this. We'll listen
to this. Nope. We'll listen to this. Just give me the Bible. Just give me the Bible. It's
like a night of insomnia flipping through cable channels. The only
thing that's for sale is, the only thing that's on is kitchen
utensils for sale and jewelry and movies that I could do better
on my iPhone. but I've heard some deplorable
preaching. And in my spirit, in my soul, I'm thinking, oh
God, I've got to stop that. This has got to be my mission
the next day or two, or at least in the next few hours. I've got
to stop. I've got to rebuke this. I've got to get in there and
just charge it for Jesus, baby. Here we come. And I'm going to
show the world that these people are wicked preachers. Start typing. As if God is not sovereign. As
if he has called me and me alone in the midst of my insomnia,
stomachache, to correct the wrongs of the world. And I think, I
gotta get, I gotta get back up on my feet, I gotta preach more,
and go more, and do more, and be more for Jesus! Hallelujah!
No, I don't. I need to be exactly who God
has called me to be and to teach you exactly what the Scripture
shows you. You are in Christ. And the success and the failure
of this ministry is in the hands of Christ. And the success and failure of
your faith is in the hands of Christ. Your joy is in the hands
of Christ. And you know what, beloved? It
will not fail. God will lead us, He will lead
His pastors, He will lead His ministers, just as He led His
Son, and just as He led the apostles during their day. And nothing
will stop them, for He will command His angels concerning you to
guard you in all your ways, that your foot would not strike a
stone. When we heed the fullness of
Christ, who is the light, the living word, as the God of our
calling in life, we will not fail. Even with suffering and
sometimes death, we are not failing. We will not stumble as long as
Christ is our light, and He will never douse Himself or hide Himself. He will do all that He purposed
to do. And this is a precious and powerful
promise to us. This little thing about darkness
and light, time, how they measured the clock in His day is not something
to just skip over and go, yeah, we've got to get ready. Jesus
is going to die. It's going to be dark. Yada, yada, yada. Moving right along.
Chapter 12. See, that's what's wrong with
us now. We speak too quickly. We teach too quickly. We don't
do enough of meditating and thinking in the context of what is taught
to us, and we need to sit down and rest, realizing we're not
going to stumble. We're not going to stumble because
God has promised that we will not be put to the dark. We will
not stumble. And you might think, well, what's
this got to do with me? I'm not a pastor. Are you a parent? Your spouse? Your employer, maybe
an employee? What if you're an evangelist,
or a pastor, or a teacher? We're not losing! We're not losing, so let's stop
losing heart! You're keeping the Word of God
close, seeing the call of Christ, remembering the gospel of grace,
and beloved, here's the good news. There's plenty of time. There's plenty of time. We have set upon our own shoulders
a template of urgency that does not exist in the narrative of
scripture. As the Lord wills, we will go
here and do this and do that. As the Lord wills, we will speak
boldly in His name. As the Lord wills, we will write.
As the Lord wills, we will teach. As the Lord wills, we will pray.
And we are forever grateful for His purposes in us. There's plenty
of time to do that which God has ordained to be done, and
nothing will stop it or cut it short. Do we have dreams? Absolutely. But most of the time,
that's where they stay. At night, in our sleep. We don't
have time to dream during the day. We just need to be. And
we need to be about resting, resting in the day in the sufficiency
of Christ, not sleeping as we dream of a day that could be
better for Christ. There is no such thing. This
is the day the Lord has made. We will rejoice in it. God is the sovereign. We are
not. And as long as we are holding
in the reins going, I've got it, we have nothing. When we do this, and, oh God,
I've got to do this, I've got to get there, I've got to be,
I've got to, oh, the time, what's the time frame? What's the time
frame? There's no time frame! It is in the hand of God. Beloved,
I'm going to tell you right now, there are workers, there are
Marthas, and I'm not dogging Martha, but this illustration
that we see here, there's a reason this comes after this teaching. And it's put in this way, what
is there to be done in the midst of life? Much. But Mary stops and does what is better. That's
coming, chapter 12. She stops. And she worships and she trusts. Jesus trusts the sovereignty
of the Father. So we don't hold it, He holds
it. In verse 11, let me read through verse 16, and then we'll
pray. And after these things He said to them, Our friend Lazarus has fallen
asleep, but I go to wake him up. Jesus knew he was dead already. And the disciples said, Lord,
if he's fallen asleep, he'll get better. Now Jesus had spoken
of his death, but they thought he meant was taking a rest. So
Jesus said to them, plainly, Lazarus has died. Listen to this. And for your sake, I am glad
that I was not there. Remember I said earlier, Jesus'
love for the Father, Jesus' love for the sheep, Jesus' love for
the disciples, Jesus' love for Lazarus and Mary and Martha,
all these things. For your sake, I am glad I was
not there, so that you may believe. So when we feel as though things
aren't the way they need to be or should be, let's remember
that they are the way they are that we might believe. For if
all that God gives us, and this will be explained in future sermons,
is for His glory, and seeing His glory as for our joy and
good, then are we not waiting on bated breath to see how God
will reveal Himself in the midst of everything? Friends, we worry too much. Some
of us have gifts for each other that we do not exercise because
we worry. I kept my teaching out of pride
from going public for years. out of fear of rejection and
critique. Thank God we came and planted
Grace Tree Church. Thank God he worked that out. Let's go to him. So Thomas the
twin said to the others, let's go. Let's go die with him. Let's all die together. And that's the intent of the
disciples. Let's just go die, not let's
go see death overcome. Isn't that how we feel? Oh, woe
is me. Look at my life. It's a boiling
pot of manure with a pinch of salt. We're just all going to
die for Jesus. How about we're already alive
in Christ? And Christ has overcome the death
of us. The grave has lost its power
because the timing of God is never paused. We love you, Father. There's so many things that my
mind has going through it, Lord, in areas that I want to just
keep talking and talking and talking. But father, your your
word is enough. We are not dependent upon examples.
We're not dependent upon. Even our understanding, but father,
we're dependent upon you. And your son, Jesus Christ. And all that you've done through
him is enough for us. And we know this because your
word has revealed it, without which we would still be blind. Lord, help us to worship. Help
us to live together. Help us to be a true family,
giving to one another. more than just for our needs,
giving to one another prayer and giving to one another truth. May we all grow into the maturity
of Christ, who is our head, who is our husband, who is our savior,
who is our God, who is our king. And it's in his name we pray.
Amen.