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. begin this text with a segue
from chapter 10 into 11 so that we can get a full understanding
and appreciation for the way the evangelist has laid out this
text. In John chapter 10, if you'll look with me there, they
desire to kill Jesus because he has made himself equal with
God by claiming that he and the Father are one. Now remember,
there's a lot of cults that come about and have decided to interpret
this as in a sense of not understanding the context or not even dealing
with the syntax, how the words go together to make sense. And
a lot of them have said, well, see, Jesus is the Father. That's
not true. I want to reiterate that. You
will hear that a lot in our culture. You will hear that a lot in our
community, people who think that Jesus is the Father, the Father
is the Son, the Spirit, in a modalism point of view, where God just
transforms into one or the other, depending on how He wants to
interact. And some people would say that there is Jesus only,
God, the Father became the Son, and there are a plethora of errors
that come with it. But we believe that God is one.
There is one God, there is no other. And God has revealed Himself
in three distinct persons who are all eternally God and eternally
ontological, in the sense that they exist eternally. So God
the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are equal
persons, all God, and yet they are not each other. So in this
text where Jesus says, I and the Father are one, He's talking
about the work that He came to do in redeeming His people. He's
talking about the words that He has been teaching as we see
in John chapter 5. He's discussing the fact that
His will is not His own will, but the will of the one who sent
Him and so forth. And so in that we must, and this
is a reminder, I spent some time on it last week and the week
before, But we must recognize that Jesus is saying that I and
the Father are one in the work that I do, so that what I am
doing is the Father's work. He's not claiming to be the Father.
He even says, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. So,
in that John, in his prologue, verses 1 through 18, we see that
Jesus is the God who is at the side of the Father who makes
God known. So, in all of this, Keep this in mind as we continue
to transition here. Because what Jesus has said is
more important to these Jews than what Jesus has done. Jesus
has proven that he is from the Father and that he's doing the
work of God because only God can give sight to the blind.
Only God can forgive sins. And we're not in the synoptics,
but if you look in the synoptics, you'd see many times where Jesus,
when He would heal someone, He would then say to them, what?
Your sins are forgiven. And that would enrage the Pharisees.
It's what enraged the Pharisees when He told them that they would
die in their sin if they did not believe in Jesus Christ.
And we know that saving faith or faith that is from salvation
and of salvation is not believing that Jesus existed, not believing
that God is real. Many people believe these things.
Matter of fact, it's the root from which all cults and false
world religions come from, that people know there is a divine
being. Some people would even argue that all religions lead
to the same place because there is this somewhat, quote, God-sized
hole in everybody's heart, and that they find a way to God,
then they've found God, they believe. But Jesus claims exclusivity. Jesus claims to be the only God
who is at the Father's side that makes Him known. Jesus says He
is the only way, and the only truth, and the only life, and
the only way any person who is dead in their sins can ever see
this truth and trust in Him as He says He is, and in what He
says He has accomplished, is that by the Holy Spirit of God,
at the will of God, at the pleasure of God, He has made them alive,
and the only ones He will make alive are those for whom Christ
died. So, and this is the argument that we've seen many times over
already in John's gospel. Jesus speaking these things.
The apostles will expound upon these things by the utterance
of the Holy Spirit and teach this type of truth. And this
is the good news of Jesus. This is the good news of God.
This is the good news of redemption. This is the gospel of Christ. And if we come to realize all
of the truth of scripture, And we say we believe in Scripture,
but we push away, we push away the reality of what Christ is
saying about Himself, about what God the Father through the prophets
has said concerning His Son, about what the Holy Spirit has
revealed by the power of God through the works of Christ,
then it doesn't matter that we use a Bible. It doesn't matter
that we believe in some being. Because all faith that is not
in completely alone in Jesus Christ is condemning faith. And you need to exercise the
understanding, too, that it's not your faith that saves you,
it's the grace of God. Paul says that very clearly.
By grace you have been saved. Then he says, through faith,
Ephesians 2, 8. By grace. How are you saved? By the mercy and the kindness
of God. You are saved through God's everlasting love, through
God's foreknowledge, through God's predestined love, through
God's eternal and immutable and unchanging love. But we live
in a culture, beloved, I'm going to tell you this, we live in
a culture where the so-called gospel is wrong at every turn. It is wrong. And there are some
who would argue, well, everybody can believe in part. When God saves, He reveals. When God, through the Word of
God, gives the Scripture to us, He reveals to us these truths.
I mean, if I were to ask for a show of hands, how many of
you just through the reading of Scripture came to understand
the Gospel? Most all of us would say, yeah.
You know, what I thought I knew was wrong, and then I heard the
Bible and I saw it. Why? Because that's the divine
work of God. That's how He brings faith to
His people. So that what? No one can boast. No man, woman, or child can stand
in the arena of the world and say, I studied and came to the
conclusion that X, Y, Z is the gospel. No man, woman, or child
can stand before God and say, I came to my senses and chose
to believe that which the Bible taught. Every person who is born
of God will confess that God has saved them divinely through
the work of Christ and has revealed that to them through the promises
and the teaching of His Word. That's it. And there's a testimony
I've seen just this weekend that's amazing testimony of God's grace,
and I want permission, I haven't asked yet, but I'm going to get
permission, if she'll give it to me, to publish that testimony. Because it is very clear, it
is the clearest testimony of gospel transformation, of divine
regeneration, and it's so in line with the Word of God, it
should cause us all to pause. and celebrate and give glory
to Him. Jesus has done a lot of things.
He tells in verse 35 of chapter 10, He tells these people who
hold fast to the Word of God, who have their own understanding
of God's Word, who for a millennia or longer, actually it's been
longer, but for at least 535 years or so, have been teaching
the Word of God in that generation Because between Malachi and Zechariah
is 500 years of prophetic silence. And it is the time where God
let man run with his own philosophy concerning his word. And what
we came out of the other side was Judaism, Roman Catholicism,
Protestantism, and all the other isms we could shake a stick at. I'm not saying there's some truth
in all of that. I'm not saying that all of that
is an error completely. You know what is an error. You
know what is not. But here are these spiritual
leaders. Jesus goes to the law with them
in verse 34 of chapter 10 and says, is it not written in your
law that God says, I said you are gods, and we all know where
that comes from. We all know what we learned last
week, and that even though they are gods, the Jews who had received
the law, they died. They were destroyed. And the latter part of verse
35, The Word of God came to them that He called gods and Scripture
cannot be broken. You cannot undo the Word of God
no matter how you interpret it. You cannot thwart the Word of
God. You cannot destroy the oracles of God. You cannot break that
which Scripture has taught. You will not put under foot the
power of God through His Word. Now think about that for a second. That'd be like me going to a
devout seminary and standing before the faculty and saying
to all the PhDs in the room, you cannot break the Word of
God with your teaching. You cannot destroy it. No matter how you interpret it,
no matter what you teach, no matter how many thousands and
tens of thousands of people follow after what you say, it doesn't
change the truth of truth. And beloved, God is in the business
of taking the nothings of the world and giving them full revelation
and enlightenment. Any of you who have studied Eastern
religion, you know that enlightenment is a very big idea. So much so
that when one is fully enlightened, he or she experiences what is
known as nirvana, which is to be blown out like a candlewick.
No longer burning, no longer existing, being one with their
enlightenment. And of course, I'm not an expert
in those things, but you get the point. Friends, so many sects
of so-called Christianity has gone into that same idea not
that they would be snuffed out, but they would fall into a place
of having all knowledge and all understanding through study,
through whatever type of nuanced meditation. The scripture says
to meditate on the Word of God. How is that done? It is done
by the reading of the Word in a general way and then by the
Spirit of God who continues to illuminate it to us. And illumination
is not uncovering that which is so difficult that a smart
man can't find it. It's to change the mind of the
person who's spiritually blind and judicially severed from Christ
so that they can plainly see what's easy. Sometimes we can't see the forest
for the trees, and in the context of Scripture, without a divine
work of regeneration only given to the elect of God, there is
no way of understanding the gospel. And some of us would sit under
the teaching of the Word of God day after day and year after
year, and we would find ourselves with sort of a conundrum. Well,
I know what I'm supposed to know, but I can't trust in this. And by the mercy of God, I pray
He would give you faith so that you may rest. But even then,
the essence of your faith does not establish your righteousness
before God. Wednesday night we talked about
justification. We are justified because Christ
is righteous. And His righteousness has been
accredited to us. His righteousness has been imputed
to us. The obedience of Jesus Christ is how we are righteous
before God. And our forgiveness is established
in the death of Jesus that gives us atonement. propitiation, the wrath of God
is satisfied. The Word of God, even though
these Jews knew it in a scholarly way and with zeal and passionately,
was not alive in them, and no matter, they would not destroy
the truth of it. Jesus, the living Word that came
and walked and tabernacled among us to reveal God to us, to save
us and bring us to the Father, He is the Word. And he even puts
them to the test when he says, if I'm not doing the works of
my Father, then don't believe me, but if I am doing the works
of my Father, believe them even if you don't believe me. See,
it doesn't take brilliance to see what is the work of God and
what is not the work of God. That is why we want to have this
conference on May 17th. the person, the work of the Holy
Spirit. The Holy Spirit, God, the Holy Spirit, He, is so misunderstood
and so, I don't know, mystified in so many ways. It's good, it's good. That's
an integrated fellowship, brothers and sisters. Praise God for it. But this is This Holy Spirit,
we have to teach the truth of God's Word so that we know who
He is and we don't fall prey to the weird garbage that the
world says He is. And you'll learn more about that
on the 17th of May. But after he said these things,
they sought to arrest him. So in verse 40, Jesus went away
across the Jordan to the place where John had been baptizing
at first. John the Baptist. It's where
he went to baptize, and he remained there. Now, I find this interesting.
I don't have my geography on my head, and I'm tired. I don't
have any notes up here today, so I don't have maps. But when
we look at where this is in the timeline, John the Baptist emerged
after 30 years of being hidden. We see that in the first part
of Luke's Gospel. Preaching that Christ, Messiah,
the Kingdom of God, all synonymous. Christ and Messiah are the same
word. One's Jewish, one's Greek, one's Hebrew, one's Greek. All
of this is synonymous. The Kingdom of God is Messiah.
He has come. And then he's preaching something
specifically to Jews, to the nation, the people of Israel.
He says to them, change the way you think about how you're right
with God, for how you're right with God,
His kingdom has come. And he further teaches that the
Lamb of God, who is the one who has come, who is the kingdom
of God, has come to take away the sins of not just Jews, but
His people of all the world. That's the context of when He
says take away the sins of the world. So Jesus goes back there. Why?
Because in the first part of John the Baptist's ministry,
they received it very well. And they listened intently. God
granted repentance to these people so that many of them could hear
and believe truly, spiritually, physically,
believe in the coming Messiah, believe in the One whom God has
sent to save His people. And this place is where Jesus
went after He was finally and continually rejected. So He goes and He stays there.
And I imagine that at this early day of the Baptist's ministry,
these people were longing to see the revealing of the One
who had come. And Jesus, it doesn't tell us
what He did there, but imagine the reception that He received.
How different it would have been than the one He just had. In verse 41 it says, Many came
to Him, and they saw what the very teachers of the Word could
not see. John did no sign. John did no
sign when he preached to us, but everything that John has
said about this man was true. Everything that John has said
about this man was true, and many believed in Jesus there.
Many came to know who He was, to believe that He was the One
come from God, to believe that His death would pay for their
sins, to believe that His obedience would satisfy God on their account. And so when we go to verse 11,
I believe that that's where Jesus is. I mean, chapter 11, I believe
that's where Jesus is. He's about a two day's journey
from Bethany. And all I'm going to have time
to do today is to get to verse 3 to explain some things about
the relationship with Jesus and Mary and Martha and Lazarus.
Because this is a text that's going to blow our minds when
it comes to understanding the love of Jesus. When someone talks about the
love of God, the love of Christ, this is where I go more than
ever to John 3. Of course, John 3 is in sight here. Why? Because he's about to raise
a man from the dead. But the love of God displayed
in the person of Jesus Christ before the cross. So let's read
the word of God together. I'd like to read through verse
8. Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus
of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 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, the word there being more teacher, he
whom you love is ill. 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. But after this, he said to the
disciples, let us go to Judea again. The disciples said to
him, Rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone you. And
you're going to go there again? I'm going to stop. And you see
the correlation between what we learn in chapter 10, what
happened there. Now we see this coming to pass in the region
where John was baptizing. Now from Bethany, Mary and Martha
send word to Jesus that Lazarus is on his deathbed. There's some
things I want to point out that's very obvious, but because we
read like McDonald's drive-thru, fast and furious, we scarf it
down before we hit the pavement, and we're moved on to something
else. It's the fast food nation of spiritual growth. Everybody
wants to be fully knowledgeable. Everybody wants to have the research
material. Everybody wants to have the quick index or the Rolodex. You know what a Rolodex is. I
still wish I had one. It's so much easier than the
other tools. of theology. Yeah, there's that. Okay, there's that. Nobody wants
to know anything, but everybody wants to have all data. And so
we read the Bible in that way. Friends, my daydreaminess has helped me learn to read.
And it's helped me learn to read in a way that I don't care if
I get finished. Now, a certain man was ill. What
man? Lazarus of Bethany. Who's that? Which Lazarus? The one from the
village of Mary and her sister Martha. That. The Bethany. That Lazarus. Who
is, as a matter of fact, their brother. So that's obvious. It gives us some timeline. It
gives us some geographical things to look at. And then it reminds
us that it was Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped
his feet with her hair. whose brother was Lazarus, and
he was ill. Now there's a lot to be said
there, but I don't want to go to that point either one until
we get over to John 12. Because when we get to John 12,
we're going to spend a lot of time talking about what Mary
does to Jesus. But the point we need to hit
today is to read what the sisters say in their messenger. Verse
3. Lord. A lot of people say, well,
see, they knew he was Lord. They called him Rabbi. It's probably
what they said. Or sir. Or senor. Or mister. It's a term of respect. They probably said Rabbi. Like
people call you professor when you're in academics. Or people
call you pastor. or some iterations of denominations,
they'll say, reverend. It's just an address. Lord, He whom you love is ill. Now what's significant about
that? I've prayed to the Lord to heal
people. I've prayed over and over and over again for God to
spare lives. But not once have I ever approached
God in such a way, in practice, discipline, or habit, without
ever mentioning anything about the person or the desire to be
healed. They never ask for healing. They never put themselves in
the forefront of this. They never look at what is happening
in their own hearts and minds with the message. Now, Martha
does say, had you been here, he would not have died. We know
what they want. But what did they say? They have
knowledge of the love that Jesus has for him. And that is the
motivator through which they reach out to Jesus. He whom you love is ill. And Jesus responds. It doesn't
lead to death. Don't worry about it. I'm not
concerned. I'm not coming. This is important because if
you look at verse 6, The first word in your Bible best be the
word so in English. If it's not, black it out and
write so. Why? Because Jesus loved Lazarus. So he stayed two days longer
than he should have. That's why. Because that's what
the original languages say holistically. Translators can imagine sometimes,
what's wrong with Jesus? Oh, something must have come
up. Camel had a flat tire. Sandal had to be resold. Judas
was nowhere to be found. He had all the money, couldn't
buy food. He was out picking his property. What he was going
to buy when he sold Jesus out. Something must be wrong. Surely
Jesus would have teleported to Bethany and healed Lazarus right
then. Let me ask you this. How many
days dead does a person have to be before Jesus can raise
them? How deeply dead do you have to
be before God can bring you alive? As much as possible. It doesn't
matter. You could be burned to ash at
the bottom of the sea. Jesus says in John 5 that the
time has come where all who are in the grave will hear the voice
of the Son of God. Or the time has come where those
who are dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and live spiritually.
And the time is coming where all who are in the grave will
hear the voice of the Son of God and be raised to life. in their
bodies, some under the resurrection of judgment and some under the
resurrection of righteousness. The ones who have not done well? Judgment. The ones who have done
well? Righteousness. What does Jesus
tell the Pharisees about doing well? To listen to what Moses
said about Him. The Word of God that they held,
that they sought, Jesus' own words. You search the Scriptures
because you think in them you have eternal life. But they speak
of me. So you go on and study the Bible
how you think you want to study it, and you keep looking over
my head. And Moses will indict you when
I judge you. That's what he says. It didn't matter. All of Lazarus' family could
have been dead. His great-great-grandchildren could have been dead. And in
the moment that God desires, He can raise all of us to life. Jesus keeping him from death
is not any more miraculous than Jesus healing him. But oh, how amazing it is in
a world where death has a final sting, when Jesus, God the Son, steps
into the smelly tomb of a man and says, come out. Why is this the way it is? Because Jesus loved Lazarus. So these women appealed to the
love that Jesus had. See, this request was about what
Jesus wanted. It's about what Jesus desired. It's about His will and His passion
and His compassion to do that which He could do as He wanted
to do. His mother would come to Him
in John 2. Son, do something about this wine problem. Dear
woman, my time has not yet come. She turns around and says, whatever
He tells you to do, do. There was this undercurrent of
faith that Jesus could do what He wanted to do, that Jesus would
do what the Father had sent Him to do. Beloved, this is a picture
of why Jesus came. Because Jesus loves His people. And the argument has always been
made in the circles, especially at the universities, where they're
always like, well, how can God be so loving to permit people
to be born? when they're not going to be
saved to the glory of God. How is it that God loves people
that He would condemn? Well, let's remember that condemnation
is justice! What murdering psychopath gets
to go free in the name of justice? Barabbas. Barabbas. Barabbas got to go
free in the name of justice. And he's guilty. Jesus was not.
He was a murderer. Jesus was not. He got set free. Jesus was condemned as a murderer.
You realize that's the sentence that he took. Christ was crucified as a murderer. Why would he do that? Because
He loves His people. So that in every way, everything
that happens in Bethany is this final act of God through His
Son that will give absolute certainty that He is from God. And it's to show the condition
of the depraved mind. Listen to this. These people did not hate Jesus
because they wanted to eat, drink, be merry, and be sexually immoral,
and kill each other, and be greedy, and ruin things, and be warlords,
and drug dealers. They wanted Jesus to die so that
they could be the God of their own religion. So that they could
sit on the throne of their own lives and say, I am God's. And those who were given us to
see could see who Jesus really was and could see that He was
from God. And these people continually
had a hardening on them because we cannot trust in ourselves
and our faith and our religion and our morals and trust in the
perfection of the righteousness of Christ who died and who obeyed
in our place. I think sometimes we spend too
much time laboring over maturity as if it were redemption. I want you to grow, church. I
want you to grow up in every way into Christ, who is our head,
as Paul would tell the Ephesians. I want each of us to grow individually
and in our homes and then collectively as a church. I want us to grow
in the discipline of Christ. I have that question for tonight
at 730 Theology on Call. What does it mean to keep yourself
in the love of God? In a nutshell, and that's in
Jude by the way, in a nutshell it means that we hold fast to
who Christ is. When we look at ourselves, we
stop reflecting on how well or not well we have become and are
maturing. And we recognize that no matter
where we are in that timeline, it is only by the mercy of God
through Christ, because of His love for us, that we are saved. Romanism and Judaism, they're
one and the same. And friends, as I said before
service this morning, we have got to get the gospel right. It is this explicit teaching
of the love of Christ that is the motivator of God to do what
He does. And people say, well, that makes
the creature more important. No! What is the ultimate end
of God's motivation for loving us? His own glory! God isn't moved and agonizing
over His affection for His people. God is distinctively and decisively,
after the counsel of His divine character, saving His people for the sake
of His own glory. I said that in 2011. We used
to meet at 2 o'clock in the afternoon in our living room when we first
got here. And so I'd get a lot of pulpit
supplies in the Sunday morning area. And that went good for
about seven months. But one particular Sunday morning,
I preached whatever text it was, I can't remember off the top
of my head now, and I said, we must remember this, beloved,
God loves Himself more than He loves us. And you could feel the stir in
the room with these 400 people. Pocketbook zipping, Bible cover
zipping. People checked out. And I was
halfway through the sermon. Lips all, you know, And if it had been someplace
else, somebody might have snapped. I mean, you never know. I have
had people snap, stand up, and go, oh, no, you didn't, and walk
out of a building before I was preaching. And at that particular
moment, which was about 17, 18, 20 years ago, one of the other
pastors in the room stood up and said, oh, yes, he did, and
did like this. So at least I had some backup. But this teaching does not settle
well with our Americanized caricature of who Christ is. We come to
the text of scripture. And because we don't read it
slowly and contextually, we don't look at it as it's intended to
be seen as this letter or this story to unfold before us that
God would reveal and teach us by the Spirit. Everything that
we need to know about who Christ is, we come with glasses on that
are tainted. We're looking at a different
way and through a different lens and we see things and we interpret
them based on our own ideas. By the way, the technical term
of that is eisegesis. That means we read into the text
versus exegesis, to read out of the text what the text says,
to pull out of the text. We pour into the text. We've always made the joke, eisegesis
is how I see Jesus versus exegesis is how he sees himself. We must see the love of God.
Jesus loved Lazarus, so they said to him, Jesus, Rabbi, Lazarus,
who you love is ill. Now let me ask you a question.
From a human point of view, somebody calls you, says, there's been
an accident, somebody you love is hurt, what do we do? We pile
up at the hospital, or we fall on our face and we pray, we lament,
we call, we put prayer requests up, we go into frenzy mode, don't
we? We're texting our barber and our, I mean, just blanket
texts. CPA from 20 years ago, who's
this? I mean, you know, anybody in the Rolodex gets a message. Atheists, Satanists, anybody
you've ever had in a conversation that you've got on your phone,
they all get the text message. Because we want to see a resolve.
We want to see action. We want to see something happen.
We want people to just go crazy. Because that's what love looks
like, right? No. That's what love looks like
for us. That's not love, that's chaos.
And beloved, that's what we're going to do. It takes a special resolve to
take a deep breath in the middle of panic and to go, God's got
this. I was talking with one of our sisters
in the church yesterday on Facebook. She shared something about the
Hebrew word from out of the Psalm, be still, the word para. It means
to stop fighting. Faint. Know that I'm God. Jesus in the boat when things
were stressful. What's he doing? Is he sitting
there going, whew, like a wizard trying to keep the winds together?
Does he have his little magic sandal? He doesn't have a wand. He's not speaking an incantation.
He's sleeping. He's sleeping. He's sleeping. And they're upset
about it. The disciples are mad. Jesus,
what's wrong with you? We're going to die. That's their
problem. We are about to perish and you're
napping. Wake up, dude. I know you've
been somewhere with God praying, but you've got to take note.
We're all going to die. And Jesus is like, shhh. And
the whole sea calms down. Now how dumb do you think they
felt? Pretty dumb. Pretty weak. Jesus says, woe
you of little faith. What's wrong with you? You don't
know that I'm in the boat? Do you not know this is my sea?
Do you not know this is my wind? That everything is after the
command of my word. I was reminded of that this week
as I meditated on this. And I have an uncanny fear of
storms now. Since 2017. I mean, we had wind Friday, remember
that wind? We had some wind. The sun is
out, it's 65 degrees, and the wind came out, and I feel like
I'm about to die. Because some things on the porch
are blowing over. I'm like, no, hurricane, I mean.
But God reminded me, why am I fretting? This is just a little, this is
how we think, right? Remember, it's chaos, panic,
ah! Why am I fretting over stupid things like a house in a storm? when God has raised me from death
to life. I get everything. If I lose everything
in the world, I have everything already. I have everything. These women were worried about
losing their brother. They knew Jesus loved him. They appealed
to the love of God. They appealed to the love of
Jesus for Lazarus. And they just said, the man that
you love is ill. And we know because we see the
narrative that they wanted Jesus to come, but they did not say,
please come. But from that point looking forward, imagine the
disciples. Imagine John who is described
as the disciple whom Jesus loved. He spent more time with John
than any of the disciples. Imagine what he's thinking. I
wonder if he'd come if I was sick. And the reality is that Jesus
doesn't even have to come to heal. God doesn't have to be
where we are. We don't have to call Him in.
We don't have to usher in the Spirit to do anything. God is
with us. God is in us. Christ is with
us. And one day we will see Him face
to face. And all of our worries and anxieties
will be over. No more temptation to doubt.
No more frustration. No more worrying about tomorrow
or remembering about yesterday, for one day will be forever and
it will never end and it will be the day of the Lord. The love of Jesus illustrates
some things here that I may or may not have time to get through,
but in these next few months as we go through chapter 11,
it's going to unfold for you And it's going to reveal the
truth of God's love and His divine work through the person of Christ
in such a way, beloved, that will give you peace. And that's the point. We're to
grow in our knowledge of grace that we may have peace in our
mind. The peace that comes from Christ that surpasses, what does
that mean? It runs faster and outruns. It
goes beyond where we are. If I've surpassed my goals, I've
met them and I've achieved more. The peace of God that surpasses
all cognitive understanding. So when we try to take the love
of God, which gives us peace, and we try to paste it out like
toast with neat, borders and segments and divisions and definitions,
and we try to get to a place where we can actually palatably
hold and conceal in our own thoughts the love of Christ, we are doing
that which is impossible, which is foolish. We're supposed to
go, It's not really supposed to give
us much pause in detailed thought except to just be in awe of what
an amazing thing we just learned. Now wouldn't that be great if
we're in school and we're doing trigonometry or algebra or organic
chemistry or whatever it might be and the teacher hands out
the syllabus and it said, I just want you all to go, oh, you're
going to be graded on whether or not you're in awe of my teaching. I mean, everything the teacher
said, the whole class goes, oh, wow, oh, they all get A's. And they're lying. Not in all,
they're like, in all, this is all I gotta do to get an A, wow.
That's, there's no finals, there's no research, there's no practicums,
there's nothing, it's just, woo, I'm amazed. But that is the A, that is the
pass when it comes to understanding the love of God for his people.
Yes, there are details that we can apprehend. There are details
that we can comprehend. There are things that we can
understand in such a way that we go, man, that's, wow. But when we begin to put our
own understanding and experiences of love and redemption and divinity,
and we start to push them over onto Christ, we create a false
Christ. Jesus, you love Lazarus and he's
dying. You love him and he's dying. But those who Jesus loves will
never die. They will never die. No matter what happens in our
flesh, When we think about Moses, what does the Bible say about
the death of Moses? The Bible says that Moses was strong in
his body, healthy, and with all mind. Why? Because what do we think about
when we think about Moses? This old man with a stick. He
only had a stick because God gave it to him to use. The Bible tells us that Moses
was in the prime of health and God killed him. Why? Because Moses didn't have to
die. So God gave him exactly what he promised him, the promised
land. While Joshua and all the rest
of them meandered on until the day of Jesus. You see the difference? But Jesus says this illness does
not lead to death. Did He say He will not die from
this illness? Did He say Lazarus will not die?
No, He says it doesn't lead to death. But this illness is for the glory
of God. It is for the glory of God that
the Son of God may be glorified through it. That's what he's trying to help
his disciples see. That's what we're supposed to
see here, that God purposed just, and this is not the first time
he's said this. Jesus has said many times, we see the blind
man, why is this man born blind, the disciples ask him. Was it
he who sinned before he was born, or was it his mother while she
was pregnant? Neither. This man was born blind that
the glory of God may be revealed through it. For all men are born blind, and
they cannot see the kingdom of God until the Spirit of God makes
them alive. And the reason that the Spirit
of God does not make you alive, Pharisees, is because you don't
belong to me. The reason the Spirit of God
hasn't caused you to see is because you're not my sheep. So you will die in your sins,
because you will not believe. And you cannot believe. This illness does not lead to
death, but for the glory of the Son of God. For the glory of
God. For the glory of the Son of God.
Now, verse 5, Jesus loved Martha, and he loved her sister Mary,
and he loved Lazarus. This is a reiteration of what
we already see in the request. Would you know, the one you love
is dying. When he heard this, he said these
things, the evangelist writes these things, and then he says
so. So, because Jesus loved Martha and
Mary and Lazarus, He stayed. He stayed two days longer in
the place where He was. Now what in the world does that
teach us? It teaches us a lot. A lot can
be inferred from that. A lot can be thought of. A lot
can trip us up. It teaches us that the love of
Jesus motivated him to wait until Lazarus was good and dead. And the love of Jesus, not just
for the Father, but for Lazarus. the dead man and for his sisters
who he loved that would grieve the loss of their brother. He loved them. Knowing all this
would take place, he loved them and so he stayed two days longer. Why? Well, we know this just
historically that when a person dies scientifically, they're
But there is a window in which people can be resuscitated. But it's not three days. And it's certainly not four.
And the ancient people of this day, they knew that. They actually
had this little false notion that after four days or after
the third day, the spirit left the body. And they gauge that
based on decay. Surely when the body is completely
gone, we can tell. So Jesus' love for Mary, Martha,
and Lazarus caused him to stay two days longer in the region
where he was so that Lazarus would be good and dead and smelly
before he got there. Does that sound like love to
you? It doesn't sound loving? at all, but the Bible says it
is the epitome of love. Why? Because the greatest love
is the love that God shows in His Son who
gave His own life to save His people from death. And the picture of that in the
raising of Lazarus is clearly illustrated. that there is not
a person with any normal mental function who would not say, this
man is from God, for he has raised the dead to life. But it will reveal The perfection
of all things in sovereignty. I want you to see this. I know
I'm just sort of going on a little spiel here. There's numbers to
these, but I haven't been numbering them. These things that we see
also shows us that God is sovereign and purposeful in everything. And sometimes we bog down in
the details. What is it, God, that you're
trying to show me? What is it that you're trying
to teach me? How many times a day do you think of that? You know the primary answer to
that? I'm teaching you how I am glorified. and most of all in the redemption
of your soul. That's what He's teaching us.
The love of Christ was the primary purpose of His decision to stay
so that Lazarus would be dead. Would Jesus have been glorified
through His healing? Absolutely! The people of Bethany
Mary and Martha, they would have thrown him a parade. It would
have been great. Everybody would have talked about it. But when we see the funeral, when we see the funeral and when we see who's there,
we all of a sudden realized why God created Lazarus in the first
place. We see exactly why Jesus wept. Jesus wept. You want to see where
that text is, the shortest text of scripture? Verse 35. Did Jesus weep because Lazarus
was dead? No, not at all. As a matter of
fact, Lazarus wept, I think, when he was brought back to life. Jesus wept because those he loved
wept. And the pain and the anguish
of life is easily dismissed as a curse, because the fall brings
the pain. But beloved, the Lord, the Lord
gives life. And there is no fear in death.
Now I know that's not practical application. That's not therapeutic
from a logical point of view because it's highly illogical
in the way we think. What sorts of hell do we endure
in this life and wonder, where is God? As His children, we need
to recognize He is waiting. and He will reveal His glory
in due time. Why? Because He loves us, and
there will be no condemnation for us. That's what we need to
see here. That's what I wanted to get out
that could have taken three minutes, but I'm not smart enough to do
it that simply. And we know the disciples didn't
understand it, because they're thinking, well, Jesus loves him,
But he's scared. Because they know the minute
he steps back into town, they're going to arrest him. They're
going to kill him. They're going to try him. So,
just to close it, they say, look there, when Jesus says to the
disciples, after this two days, let's go to Judea. Whoa, whoa,
whoa, whoa, whoa. The Jews are just trying to kill
you. And you're going to go there again? Jesus says, if they're
not 12 hours in the day, if anyone walks in the day, he does not
stumble because he sees the light of this world. But if anyone walks in
the night, he stumbles because the light is not in him. After
saying these things, he said to them, our friend Lazarus has
died. He's fallen asleep. It's a term
used for death. But I go to awaken him. They said to him, Lord, if he's
fallen asleep, he'll recover. And Jesus had spoken of his death,
but they thought that he meant he was taking a rest. So Jesus
said to them plainly, Lazarus has died. And for your sake,
I'm glad that I was not there so that you may believe. But let us go to him. And even
in that Thomas, with all of his zeal, says, let's go and we'll
all die with him. That's the extent of their faith.
They no more believed that Jesus would raise Lazarus. They figured
they'd all be killed with Jesus. So there they went. So we'll
stop there. Hold fast to the promises of
Christ. You can trust in them because He loves you. And He
proved that love for you that He gave Himself for you. And
He proved His authority to do so and to save you because He
is raised from the dead. And church, this chapter is going
to be a true pivot in our worship. I believe it. Let's pray and
then sing about the love of Christ. We love You, Father, for all
that You are, for Your everlasting love, For Your sovereignty in
the midst of great pain and suffering and loss, Lord, for Your just
care as we contemplate how we're going to make it from one day
to another, Lord, You just care for us in ways that we cannot
comprehend. little moments where we see soberly
the reality of your affection toward us and your power in us,
knowing that it is only by your Spirit that we stand and continue
to put one foot before the other. Lord, in this promise of life,
even in the face of death, is so difficult. But it is so delightful
in the same way that we are just in awe of it, not necessarily
grasping the fullness of it. But we have received the fullness
of it. We've received the fullness of it, Lord, because Christ has
died for us and He is alive for us. His righteousness is ours. Your wrath is satisfied in His
death. The promise of life is sealed
in His resurrection. So we await that day when we
will see Him face to face, and until then God, keep us in Your
love. Keep us in Your love. Thank you
for listening. We hope that this message has encouraged you in
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