John chapter 11, starting in
verse one, and I know you're familiar with the story. And
now a certain man named, a certain man was sick named Lazarus of
Bethany, the town of Mary and of her sister Martha. It was
that Mary which anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped
his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick, Mary,
Martha, Lazarus therefore his sisters sent unto Christ saying
Lord behold he whom thou lovest is sick he whom thou lovest is
sick when Jesus heard that he said this sickness is not unto
death but for the glory of God that the Son of God might be
glorified thereby now Jesus loved Martha and and her sister and
Lazarus. That's pointed, that's brought
up several times. When he had heard, therefore,
that he was sick, he abode two days still in the same place
where he was. That doesn't make sense. It's
in the word of God, which is inspired, which has no error.
Then after that, he said to his disciples, let us go into Judea
again. And the disciples say unto him,
Master, the Jews of late sought to stone thee, and goest thou
thither again. Jesus answered, Are there not
twelve hours in the day? If any man walk in the day, he
stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world. But
if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth, because there is no
light in him. These things said Christ, and
after that he said unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth,
but I go that I may awake him out of sleep. Then said his disciples,
Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well. Howbeit Jesus spake of
his death. But they thought that he had
spoken of taking rest of sleep. Then said Jesus unto them plainly,
Lazarus is dead. And I am glad for your sakes
that I was not there to the intent that you may believe. Nevertheless,
let us go unto him. Then said Thomas, which is called
Denimus, unto his fellow disciples, let us also go that we may die
with him. Then when Jesus came, he found
that he had lain in the grave four days already. Now, Bethany
was nigh unto Jerusalem, about 15 furlongs off. It's just two
miles. It's not a long walk. And many
of the Jews came in to Martha and Mary to comfort them concerning
their brother. Then Martha, as soon as she heard
that Jesus was coming, went and met him, but Mary sat still in
the house. Then said Martha unto Jesus,
Lord, if, if you had been here, my brother had not died. But
I know that even now whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will
give it thee. Jesus said unto her, thy brother
shall rise again. And then Martha said, I know
he shall rise again in the resurrection, the last day. And Jesus said
unto her, I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth
in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. Whosoever liveth
and believeth in me shall never die. Do you believe this? Do we all believe this? Do we?
She said unto him, Yea, Lord, I believe that thou art the Christ,
the Son of God, which should come into the world. And when
she had so said, she went her way and called Mary, her sister,
secretly saying, The master has come and calleth for thee. And
as soon as she heard that, Mary rose quickly and came to him.
Now Jesus was not yet come into town, but was in that place where
Martha met him. The Jews then, which were with
her in the house, comforted her when they saw Mary, that she
rose up hastily and went out, followed her, saying, she goeth
unto the grave to weep there. Then when Mary had come to where
Jesus was, she saw him, she fell down on his feet, saying unto
him, Lord, if thou had been here, my brother had not died. And
Jesus therefore saw her weeping, And the Jews also weeping, which
came with her, he groaned in the spirit and was troubled and
said, where have you laid him? And they said unto him, Lord,
come and see. And Jesus wept. It's not said anywhere else in
the scriptures, but this, Jesus wept. Then the Jews beheld how
he loved Lazarus. Some of them said, could not
this man, which opened the eyes of the blind, cause that even
this man should not have died? Jesus therefore again groaned
in himself, coming to the grave. It was a cave and a stone lay
upon it. Jesus said, take away the stone.
Martha, the one who had just been conversing before, believed
everything he said, so she said, The sister of him that was dead,
she said, Lord, by this time he stinks, for he hath been dead
four days. Jesus said unto her, said I not
unto thee that if thou would believe, thou shouldest see the
glory of God. Now she believed, but her faith
was weak. And that's, that's, we're going
to look at believing and faith, faith being weak. Then they took
away the stone from the place where Lazarus laid, and Jesus
lifted up his eyes and said, Father, I thank thee that thou
hast heard me. And I knew that thou always hearest
me, but because of the people which stand by said it, that
they may believe that thou hast sent me. And when he thus spoken,
he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he which dead
came forth, bound hand and foot with grave clothes, and his face
was bound about with a napkin, and Jesus said unto them, Loose
him, and let him go. Then many of the Jews which came
to Mary, and had seen the things which Jesus did, believed on
him. But some of them went their way
to the Pharisees, and told them what things Jesus had done. So
you got some who believed, and some who did not believe. Now,
several things about this passage that I see there's one thing
I really want to dwell on, but as with anything, the scriptures,
as with anything and any situation and any circumstances, And also
in these lessons, the Lord's life, death and resurrection
is for as he says, as for he says in verse four, but for the
glory of God, that the son of God might be glorified thereby.
Everything that we read, everything in our lives, whether we understand
it or not, sickness, death, resurrection, ailments, jobs, aggravations,
friends, family, anything. It's for God's glory. I mean,
it's all for God's glory. And in verse 15, and this is
what I want to look at, verse 15, Christ, this is Christ speaking,
I am glad for your sakes, for your sakes, for the elect's sakes,
that I was not there. to the intent that word intent
is purpose or result to the intent or for the purpose that you may
believe that you may believe or if you do believe already
this morning that this will increase your faith it will help your
faith so to the intent our faith may increase which is to say
may grow from weak to strong immature to mature little to
great. If we have faith in Christ, if
we believe on him, that this faith would grow. Because oftentimes
our faith is weak. Martha, she said some really
good things, but then later on, he said, didn't I tell you? And
Christ, this happens a lot. He said something, and the disciples,
oh, we'll follow you. And then the feeding of the 5,000,
it happened twice. And then you look at the second
illustration of that lesson, and it's like, what are we going
to do? He had just fed 5,000 men, at least. And then we were
looking at that this week or last week, and Melinda and I
were talking. It's like, they just saw that. But they're, oh,
what are we going to do? What are we going to do? That's us.
That's us. So, and to believe upon Christ
is to just have unwavering trust or faith in his name. And that's
why we gather together here. We gather here to worship him,
ask the Lord to increase our faith because it's up and down. Now look at verse 15, verse 15. I am glad for your sake that
I was not there. He loved me. Lazarus. I mean,
if we know three people other than Moses, but in our text we
know three people who are obviously definitely redeemed and that's
Lazarus, Mary, and Martha. Because it says numerous times,
and even the people said, look at how he loved him. And he wept.
This is the only time it is recorded that he did this. It's as though our Savior is
saying, our sovereign is saying the same thing he told Moses.
Stand back and see the salvation of the Lord. I will show you
that I own and have the keys of life and death, heaven and
hell, grace and judgment. This is what he's saying. Stand
back and see the salvation of the Lord. All they could think
about was their brother or their friend. He's not sick anymore,
he's gone. That's all they know. And they
all said, the main characters, if you had been here, Martha
said that, Mary said that, if you had been here. We must all realize that that
which our Redeemer does is always related to basically only a few
things. And you know me, I like to break
things down into the very simplest form, because that's how I think.
I don't think complicated. First, all everything he does
is for his glory. We may not understand it, it's
for his glory. Secondly, it's for the salvation
of his church, or that would be substitution. Thirdly, judgment
of the world. There's going to be a separation.
The tares and the wheat are going to be separated. And we must
agree with what is said in Mark 7, 37. It says he does all things
well. Christ does all things well.
He's never wrong. He's never in a quandary as to
what to do. He always has his people's best
interest at heart always. And here's the question that
I had when I was preparing this and looking at this and very,
as Bruce would say, hard to wrap my mind around it. It was very
hard for me to look at this given his love, his tremendous love.
And we know that love of God is not universal. We know it's
very specific. And it says in this text that
he loved these three people. My question is, why did he wait? Why did Christ wait? Now, the reason why we can apply
this, or the reason why I can apply it, and maybe I'm not the
only one, but this is very difficult. We know God is sovereign. We know that he can do no wrong.
We know that he does all things well. Another passage in the
scripture says, he went about doing good. He still does go
about doing good. All things work together for
good. So he's still going about doing good. Why did he wait? Well, there's
a fact that I've already said it numerous times. He loved the
sisters and their brothers. So I'll stop right there. Does
he love you? Should be honest. Does he love
you? Does he love me? Does he love you? If you can say yes, then why do bad things happen
to you? See, this is what the world puts in your mind. And
you're not gonna get any answers out in the world. You're gonna
find answers here. And hopefully this morning, you'll find why
did he wait? It was so obvious that his love,
that it moved him, he groaned in his spirit. What he does,
and hopefully what I preach, and what the Lord will use these
words to increase your faith, or cause you to believe. And
it's basically the same thing. We don't believe once, get baptized,
and then stop believing. We continue as we saw in James.
He looks in a mirror, and you're not a forgetful here. You just
keep continuing in the word, in the gospel, in fellowship
of believers. Why? Did he wait? He could have prevented the whole
mourning and stressful and hurtful situation. Could he not? He loved
the two women. He loved that. He could have
done it. He could have went there as soon
as he heard. When he heard that he was sick,
verse 6, he abode two more days still in the same place where
he was. Now there's, I got some side notes and you could ask
this question throughout the whole scriptures. We'll just
take three examples. Why did God allow those three men to
burn in the fiery furnace? Why would he allow that to happen? He loved those three men. They
served him. They would not bow the knee to
Nebuchadnezzar when he played the flute or did he? They weren't
gonna do it. Be it known unto you, Nebuchadnezzar, we won't
bow. That's honorable. The Lord ought to reward us for
that. That's how we think. That's how we think. Why would
God allow the horrible mistreatment of Joseph? He was a believer. Yes, the end result was he, but
while all that was going on, what about your life? All this
stuff going on, why? God's glory, your salvation,
your increase in faith, and the judgment of the world. Why would
he allow Lot to go down to Sodom and Gomorrah? You say, well,
he didn't go down first. No, he didn't. But he made some
wrong decisions, wrong choices. He put his tent, turned it towards
Sodom and Gomorrah. Read it. Read in Genesis. He
put his tent. First of all, he saw that the land was good, and
he took the land. Well, did not God take care of
them? They had so many sheep, that's what caused the problem.
Money, wealth, caused part of the problem. And His love for
that. So be careful. We all need to be careful. The
Lord's gonna take care of us. But He, now I wanna turn my tent,
not away, but I wanna turn my tent. And then the tent, I'm
tired of dwelling in this tent. Then it became a house. We need
a house. So where'd they get the house?
In Sodom. Why did the Lord allow that?
For His glory, salvation of His elect, damnation, or judgment
of unbelievers. I suppose it could be, as Isaiah
says, Isaiah 55, And verse 8 and 9, we have to remind, I have
to remind myself this all the time, Isaiah 55 verses 8 and
9. For my thoughts, says God, are
not your thoughts. Neither are your ways my ways,
saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher
than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my
thoughts than your thoughts. And this isn't said as a cocky,
you know, I don't care about you. No, this is God. We don't
have any control over him. But we're thankful he has control
over us. I've got six or seven reasons why he waited. Perhaps why he waited. Well,
the first one is the same reason, those three things. Somehow God's
going to get the glory. Somehow he's going to call his
people out. And when he calls his people
out, others are going to see it, despise it, and they're going
to be judged. Verse 15, I am glad for your
sakes. Everything Christ did was selfless. I wish we could be that way,
selfless. The decisions we make so often
have self involved in them. For your sakes, for the elect,
he does this for the children. He would not suffer them to be
removed from himself. It's as though he said, and always
does so, come unto me and be ye saved. See that I control
all things by the word of my power. I am he and there is no
other God beside me. I am glad for your sakes. I'm glad for your sakes. Our sakes. We're so cold in worship. We're so often slow to believe
what the word says. It can get rather depressing,
but nobody loves like him. You've got to go back. He loved these three, and he
still did what he did, even though he loved them. It's unquestioned.
It's in the scriptures. Perhaps thirdly, he might have
been prevailed upon by his love for his own brother. They petitioned,
if you'd been here, if you'd been here. Had he been there,
he may have healed them. However, had he done so, then
the miracle would not have been utterly fantastic. Thirdly, I'm sorry, fourthly,
I like this one. It's to teach all his brethren,
and I, oh boy, see, you know, you all, you're here, but this
has been for me, this message has been for me, which most of
the time it is, you get beat up, I don't pick, I'm not trying
to pick on anybody, and by grace of God, I don't. But if the word
of God picks on you, that's okay. You need to be picked on. But
perhaps why the Lord waited was in 1 Corinthians 4, verse 5,
therefore judge nothing before the time. until the Lord come,
who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness,
and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts, and then shall
every man have praise of God." We think our judgments, we get
a little wisdom, a little age, and we think, well, I know what
this is going on in this person's heart. No, we don't. No, we don't. No, we don't. Why did that person
make that decision? Why did that person who says
they're a believer, why did they do that? Why are they not here? What's going on? Don't judge before time. Commit
yourself as Christ and Peter. Commit ourselves to him that
judges righteously. he we think sometimes we know
best but we need to yield to him and his word secondly he
teaches us not only to do not judge uh things before nothing
before the time but secondly as we saw in our studies through
james james chapter one verse four through eight let patience
have its perfect work we are so We're so, I use the word McDonald's
because, you know, everybody knows, we're such a drive-in
society. Get it, call it, go. We, I think I got it figured
out. We got that McDonald's app. But
Kara and Scott, they don't even go through the drive-thru. They
just go and they park and then they hit a button and it tells
it what, and then they bring the food out to them. Oh my.
So I think Kara's got me, she's shown me how to do it. I don't
want to wait in line. I want my food now. That's our problem. That's our
problem. Let patience have her perfect
work, seasoned with grace, to the end that we may acquiesce
to His will for us. Fifthly, for the confirmation
and increase of our faith. How great the joy is when we
are made more like Christ daily, or simply to believe upon Him,
growing in grace in the knowledge of Christ. God places high cotton
on faith, grace through faith. Without faith, we cannot please
God. Without faith, we cannot walk
with God. We cannot please God, Hebrews 11, 6. Without faith,
we cannot walk with God. Amos 3, 3. Without faith, we
cannot understand this book. Without faith, we cannot have
fellowship one with another. Why are we gathered? Why are
we gathered together here? There's nothing going on here.
I'm speaking worldly. Go to the Lutheran church. Go
back to the Lutheran church. There's nothing going on here.
I can't do it. Why? Because they're not preaching
the truth. They're not preaching that Christ
is the resurrection and the life and anybody that believes on
him may have life. He shows them. Why did they go
to Christ in the first place? Come and heal him. Peter says
he has the words of eternal life. It's not the preacher. It's what
the preacher's preaching. No. No. And we can't have fellowship. Why don't we have fellowship
with one another? And oftentimes that's strained. My scripture verse this morning
was Colossians 3. Forgive one another. Bear one
another's burdens. All these different things. Praise God.
Be thankful. I'm like, oh man, that's a lot
to do. Can't do that. In Christ you can. In Christ
you should. In Christ you will. And ultimately, sixthly, why
did he wait? Why did he wait? Well, verse
45 of our text says, then many of the Jews which came to Mary
and had seen the things which Jesus did, believed on him. Believed on him. I close with a few thoughts.
And again, I'm talking to myself as much as anybody. Let us, therefore,
when our notions and his schemes disagree, let us distrust our
own judgment and know his way is best. And I just wrote this
down, but then this morning I circled that. You know how hard it is
to distrust yourself? Can't do it. We cannot do it. We think we know. I've been pastoring
here for over 35 years. So, I got the flesh just like
you do. I have the old man just like
you do. What did Job do? Job was a believer. And then he went through all
that. You could ask why? For God's glory, for his increase
in faith, and his judgment of his friends maybe. Same thing. And you could go through each
one of these things. What did Job say? When the Lord's
finally at the end of the book of Job and he's talking to him,
what was one of the things Job said? I abhor myself. I'd say that's just trusting
himself. Now, yes, he's given us the new
man, the new nature, which loves and walks after God and desires
to honor him and new principles, new nature, completely new man,
born again. It's that radical. Or is it just plain religion? I still cannot get over the fact
that he loved these people so much, but human Methods, human
terms, human thoughts dictate, well, if you love somebody, you
do something. This is the son of God. This is in the book.
And unless you want to rip out a couple of pages and say this
isn't inspired, this is what he did. He waited. He obviously
loved these folks. Because the end result, he obviously
loves his sheep. He's going to see his father
glorified. But some of them went their way.
told the Pharisees what Jesus had done. They didn't believe.
They didn't believe. And that's what's going to happen.
That's going to happen every time this word is preached, every
time you talk to somebody. But don't quit talking to them.
Let us not think of regulating the son by our dial, but our
dial by his son. You know, we think, you know,
that's pretty self-explanatory. How liable We are to misjudge,
to be quick to form our decisions based upon pride and self. And one of the passages of scripture
that I learned, I memorized very early on. I take that back, learn
it. Trust in the Lord with all thy heart and lean not, lean
not, lean not unto your own understanding. Proverbs three, verse five and
six. But every time we make a decision, How often are we saying, if the
Lord wills? And James, we're not there yet.
I'm going to go to town. If the Lord wills, how simple
of a task is that? I'm going to go to work. Maybe
not. Maybe not. The Lord may call you. You know
what? I'm going to tear down these
barns and build more. I'm going to survey all the land I own
and survey, and I'm going to do it. And then the Lord called
them. And apparently, we heard that this weekend when we were
up at Karen Scott's. This lady that was working with care, right? Oh, yeah, at the daycare. And
one of the teachers that he really liked, her husband retired, I
guess they had land, went out to cut wood, killed, cut a tree
down. He didn't get out of the way. So he thought he was going to
go there, come home, have lunch with his wife. Not now, no. We don't know. We lean onto our
own understanding. His word, his promises are always
true and of course are always yes and amen in Christ. We must
remember what Deuteronomy exhorts us in Deuteronomy 32, 4. His
work is perfect. I don't know. I can speculate
why he waited and the answer is in the text. God's glory,
salvation, substitution, judgment. It's still hard to take, but
His ways are not our ways. We back off and say, well, what
did Eli say? Even so, Father, or Christ said,
even so, Father, it seemed good in thy sight. And Eli said the
same thing when his sons, he said, it's the Lord. Let him
do what seemeth right. It's the Lord. The Lord just
took out his kids, just killed them. My point is, is not to make God
like so many today. Oh, you believe in sovereignty?
That's a harsh call. I was told years ago that these
doctrines I preach are the doctrines of hate. Specifically what he
said, the doctrines of hate. He was one of those, John 3,
16, God loves everybody. May we bow to him, trust him,
and adore him, because his love is like no other. His love and
grace and mercy is like no other. If you don't believe on him,
believe, you know, as Christ said, for the work's sakes, for
the things that are being said. He that believeth on me shall
never perish, shall never hunger, shall never thirst. He's got
to give you a hunger and a thirst first for you to want that to
be quenched. And if you believe that you're
like me, you struggle. And I was thinking that this
morning, I was thinking, good grief, how often am I gonna struggle
with some of these things until I'm gone? If you're like me,
if your faith needs to be increased, it's immature at points, at times
it needs to be more mature, it needs to grow. He may take you through the mill,
but he'll never leave you nor forsake you. That's what we heard
that Matt read. Cast your care on him. Why? Because he cares for you. Well,
humanly, well, that's a weird way of showing it. His ways are
not our ways. Shall the clay say to the potter,
why have you made me thus? Submit to Him. There is more
joy and more peace in trusting Christ than anything this world
has to offer. Look to Him and live. Bruce, would you close us?