Jesus Gives Real Life

This is the sixth week of our Bible study in the series, Simply Jesus, and this week we're going to look at the text, I Am the Resurrection and the Life, from John chapter 11, and it is a fabulous text. I always get real excited about this particular text. Last week, when we looked at I Am the Good Shepherd, we looked at the fact that Jesus lays down his life for the sheep, and this week, with I Am the Resurrection and the Life, we see that Jesus gives life to the sheep. So I titled this passage, Jesus Gives Real Life. This passage is actually the midpoint of John. He has spent just as much time leading up to this to cover the first 33 years of Jesus' life, as he will spend after this, covering the final week of Jesus' life. This passage shows us the greatest miracle of all, the greatest work that Jesus did to prove his words. I also think that this passage exposes some expectations on our part, which we'll talk about as we go through. There are some expectations we should have of God, and those are called promises. There are some expectations we should not have of God, and those are called bad theology. There are some passages that really help us sort out what God has promised, compared to what we have dreamed up and just imposed upon him. We want to look at the setting in this narrative, and I want to review our timeline. When we looked at I Am the Light of the World and the Door, we were in October. It was the Feast of Booths, and that is when Jesus healed the man from blindness, and he was in the area of Jerusalem. Then, you might remember that our final text last week took us into December, the Feast of Dedication, and we talked about the fact that at that point, the Jews were saying, Would you tell us plainly if you are the Messiah? He said to them, I have told you plainly that I am the Messiah, and you haven't believed. I told you, and you haven't believed. You should be noticing the works that I'm doing that have proved it. There's a little lesser known I Am that I just couldn't help, I didn't want us to fly over, and that is in John 10, verse 38, where Jesus told them, The Father is in me, and I am in the Father. Their response to that was to stone him or to arrest him, depending on if you're looking at verse 31 or verse 39. Our current timing moves us to around April, just before the Passover, and the current location of where Jesus and the disciples are, they are no longer in Jerusalem, because the text told us at the end of the last chapter, it said that he went away across the Jordan to the place where John had been baptizing at first, so he distanced himself from those people that were wanting to stone him and arrest him, and that's where we find him. So now we are ready to start on John 11, verse 1, that says,

This is the first time that John mentions these people in his gospel. In your study, you went to Luke, chapter 10, and you learned about Mary and Martha and Lazarus, but this is new information from the gospel of John. We find out that they lived in Bethany, just two miles from Jerusalem. You know, my house is only about two miles from downtown here in the town that I live, and so that's pretty close proximity. We learned that Jesus knew them well. It says that Mary had previously demonstrated her loyalty and even her worship of Jesus by anointing him. So they knew each other very well, and we learned that the brother is ill. That's what we know. So in verse 3, the sisters sent to him saying, Lord, he whom you love is ill. Now remember, the good shepherd owns the sheep. He loves the sheep. He cares for the sheep. Lazarus was one of the sheep. So the people were appealing to Jesus based on kind of his love for one of his own. And what was Jesus's response? Verse 4,

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. That hardly makes any sense to us. He loved Lazarus. So he stayed away two more days. It doesn't make sense. If Jesus loved someone, you expect him to get right on it because that's what Jesus had been doing, healing people. They bring people to Jesus and Jesus healed them. It's what he did. And yet, in this case, he was actually delaying. And the reason he was delaying, it tells us, John tells us, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it. And just a real quick step into the application in our lives. We suffer some delays in our lives, expecting that God will work a certain way. And there is a delay. I'm sure you have felt this in your life. And I find an assurance here that God has things planned out and delays are part of the process, part of what God does for good in our lives. So after a couple of days, then he said to the disciples, let's go to Judea again. And his disciples said, Rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone you. It had been a few months, but they remembered it and they don't want any part of that. He says, you want to go back there again? You know, in life, some people are risk takers and some people are super cautious. I don't know which one you are, but I think in this moment, the disciples were in the mood to be cautious. They considered Jerusalem area a hard place and they were not in the mood to do hard things at this point. So Jesus told them in verse nine,

Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awaken him. Jesus is about to go and do the biggest work ever that God the Father had given him to do. And it was a work that he'd been given to do. So he takes this as a teachable moment to explain to them about the typical work day that they experienced there in that geography. This is about 12 hours of work and about 12 hours of rest. And Jesus said, as long as it's daytime, I got work to do and I have work from my father to do. And there's nothing to fear because it's still day. Jesus was saying, I'm bulletproof while it's still day. But when my day is done, then it is done. So I have to do the work God has given me to do. Now, for us, there's an application. There is nothing wrong of staying out of harm's way. But there's everything wrong for us of not doing hard things. God has given each one of us things to do, work to do in his kingdom, right? Good works prepared in advance that we would walk in. We have been prepared work to do. And some of that work is hard. Some of it is delightful. Some of it is dangerous. Some of it is exhausting. Some of it is monotonous. But we also have a day to do it in and that is our lifespan. And if God has called us to do it, we have nothing to fear. We need to work while it is still day. So we should ask ourselves some questions. What is the work God's given you to do for his kingdom? What is the work you've been given to do? Do we need to accept some kind of risk in order to do that or overcome some kind of fear? Do we need to give up some comforts or some leisure or even some money? Do we need to tell ourselves, you know what? Some days will be hard. Some days will be boring. Some days will be monotonous. I should anticipate this. I should accept this to be able to do the work that God's given me to do because it's still my day. So we'll get back to the text. The disciples were still thinking of reasons that they shouldn't go. And so they said to Jesus, Lord, if he's fallen asleep, that is great. He will recover. People just need to stay in bed when they're asleep. Lazarus can stay in bed. We can stay at a distance. It's all going to be good. He's going to recover. And so then Jesus told them plainly.

When I was processing this passage this week, I saw in that these triplets that I'm going to put up on the slide for you. Look at these three three-word statements. Lazarus has died. I am glad you may believe. God had a plan in this tragedy, which he often does, and it started with the tragedy, his response, and the desired outcome. The desired outcome is what I want to focus on first, that you may believe. God is always pressing outward to people for them to believe. We've said this so many times. God chooses you so that you can choose him back. That is the goal. The goal here was that they may believe, but that is God's universal goal, to draw people unto himself. So that is the goal we're getting to, but look at the progression. Lazarus has died. Something bad has happened. I'm glad about it because it has a potential to lead for you to believe. We get stuck on the first one and we cannot see past it. We cannot see past the tragedy in our life, the bad thing that has happened. We're stuck right there, but the reason I wanted to put these triplets on the screen is to show us the potential of where they can lead all the way to that you may believe. So verse 17, now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. That means he was really dead. Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles off, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother. Jesus delayed so that Lazarus was good and dead. He had raised some other people from the dead, but they were sort of on their deathbed where someone, I guess, could say they were just in a coma, but Lazarus was in the tomb, and so this was different. Now, what I wanna do right now is I wanna look at Jesus's interaction with Martha and his interaction with Mary, and he interacts with them separately, and I love this, and what I wanna do is I wanna see it through a door. In our home, when we built our house, we have a solid door, front door, just like probably all of you, but we realized that our house was just a little dark, a little darker than what I anticipated, and so I was gone on a trip one time, and Paul put in a glass, a solid glass door, kind of a storm door screen. It doesn't have a screen, but a storm door sort of thing, and so usually when I'm at home, I have the solid door open, and then there's all this light that comes in because I have this full glass door. You know that saying, there's two sides to a coin, so I wanna kinda get us in the mind of that glass door, being on the outside, being on the inside, and looking through it, two sides of the door, so I'll just prep you for that, and it'll make sense here in a little bit, but let's start in verse 20. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, but Mary remained seated in the house, so they're separated. Martha said to Jesus, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. Now, we could put all kinds of inflection in all kinds of places of that statement to try to hear what she was saying. Was she accusing him? Was she angry? Was she disappointed? What were her emotions? This woman is in the midst of grief, and if you've gone through grief, or read books about grief, or done any kind of counseling with that, you know, currently, we have something that we call the stages of grief. I kinda like to call them the symptoms of grief, because I don't think we're nearly as organized as psychologists think to systematically go through stages, but we do definitely experience these different symptoms of grief, and they are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. And I'm not sure where Martha's statement fits in, but here's kind of what it sounded like. Like, Jesus, I sent you word. I sent word to you, and you didn't respond. You didn't meet my expectations. I'm not sure you care, because I think if you would have cared, you would have responded. You didn't come, Lazarus died, now it's too late. I think that was kind of summed up in what Martha said. And you know what, we also experience tragedies and deaths of things, or deaths of people, or situations, or whatever. And maybe her response is something that you have felt in your heart, regardless of if it came out of your lips or not, but you have felt that, like, Lord, I prayed about this. And you didn't respond. It's like you didn't care. I never heard from you. Now this thing has died, it's too late. And some of those emotions, I think, are familiar to us. It can be a common expectation in a Christian's life that God will spare his kids from these sorts of trials. But we learned last week with the Good Shepherd that God does not spare us from difficulties in life. God carries us through the difficulties in life. That is what the promise is. There is no promise in sparing. In fact, scripture is full of the opposite. But there is a promise in carrying. He will carry us through the difficulties. In the Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis uses a term for the world that the people live in. He calls it Shadowlands. And the world where Aslan lives, the world beyond, the world that goes forever, is a different place. That's Narnia. But the people are living in the Shadowlands. And I really, really like that term and I want to use it a little bit. This world is the Shadowlands. And God has allowed this world to feel the effects of Genesis chapter three when sin entered into the world. Sin has produced sickness and sadness and separation. But the life to come, the real world, will have none of that. He will wipe away every tear. But in the Shadowlands, this is the reality and this is where we live. Now look at Jesus' response to Martha, verse 23.

And Martha said, I know he'll rise again in the resurrection on the last day.

Because this is just the Shadowlands and death doesn't mean anything here. It's only relevant for the physical body. Verse 26 says,

And she said, yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the son of God who is coming into the world. And so let's look at the focus on their interaction. First of all, we see that the both of them use the word believe four times. They volley it back and forth four times. It is a focus of their interaction, the importance of belief. And then next thing, we see the importance of this word that we've talked about almost every week, whoever. Jesus, once again, connects his I am statement with the word whoever. Let's review how we've seen that. I am the bread of life, whoever comes to me. I am the light of the world, whoever follows me. I am the door, if anyone enters by me. And now, I am the resurrection and the life, whoever believes in me. Everyone who lives and believes in me will have eternal life. So to Martha, he is preaching the gospel of hope. And the gospel of hope says, whoever believes. Those are the most important things, he said to Martha at that point. So set that right over here and let's look at Mary because Martha went to her and said, the teacher's here and calling for you. In verse 28, when she heard it, she rose quickly and she went to him. Now, Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still in the place where Martha had met him. And when the Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary rise quickly and go out, they followed her, supposing she was going to the tomb to weep there. Now, when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet saying to him, and here comes the familiar phrase, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. It's like they're sisters or something. Same DNA, they think to say the exact same thing. Mary says the same thing as Martha does. To Martha, and Jesus, excuse me, verse 33, when Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. And he said, where have you laid him? And they said to him, Lord, come and see. And then we have that short, short verse.

Now remember, to Martha, he was offering the gospel of hope, encouragement, enlightenment, whoever believes. But look at Mary, it's very different. It's a very different response. Seeing the heartache and the weeping going on, Jesus himself wept. He entered into their sorrow. Hardly any words. He just wept. It reminds me of in the gospels we see Jesus, we see this often. Jesus, seeing the crowds, had compassion on them. And we get a glimpse of that here. But his emotion was slightly different. than Mary. Right here when it says deeply moved, that means the word, the sense of it is a groan or a snort with anger. And when it says he was greatly troubled, that means he was agitated. Okay, so it was a different emotion than Mary. Jesus was disturbed, he was agitated at what he saw in front of his eyes. His friends, people made in the image of God, designed to enjoy the world of God, the world he had created for them and enjoy God forever, were now made to endure the heartache that he saw in front of them all because of sin and death. And it made him mad. It wasn't supposed to be this way. None of this was supposed to be this way, but it is because of sin. Death is not a friend, it is a foe, it's an enemy of God. And in this moment, Jesus shared their grief and he shared it with agitation at the invasion of death. And that's why this final miracle packs such a huge punch, because this is what Jesus came to do. Winning over death was his desire and his accomplishment. So back to our glass door here. And what I want us to see with this, I want you to picture my home or your home or some home with a glass door and Jesus on the outside and Mary and Martha on the inside. And first to Martha, what Jesus is saying to her is, Martha, I want you to look outside that door. I want you to extend your vision beyond the shadow lands and I want you to look at the world that is to come. I want you to have an eternal perspective. I want you to look through the door to me and to Mary. So we'll push Martha out of the way and we'll bring Mary right in front of the door. And to Mary, Jesus says to her, Mary, I want you to know I'm looking into your world. I'm looking into the shadow lands. I see what you endure here. I'm joining you in the pain and in the grief. And you know those are two beautiful sides to that door that we see clearly in Scripture. We see that God is often telling us, lift up your eyes, fix your eyes on things above, look past what's going on, look with an eternal perspective. And at the same time he's reminding us, I see your pain. I am there with you. I can understand what you're going through. I'm looking through that door into your world to offer comfort. So I think that that's a beautiful picture. Verse 37, the Jews asked, could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying? And then Jesus deeply moved. He came to the tomb. It was a cave and a stone lay against it. And to show the grand difference between a healing and a resurrection, Jesus said, take away the stone. And Martha said, I love in the King James, Martha said, Lord he stinketh. Right here it doesn't pack that quite a bit of a punch. There's an odor, but I love the Lord he stinketh. And Jesus said to her, did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God? So they took away the stone. Jesus lifted up his eyes and he said, Father, I thank you that you've heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you sent me. And when he had said these things, he cried out in a loud voice,

And the man who had died came out, his hands and his feet bound with linen strips, his face wrapped in a cloth.

And that is the end of the text that we're going to read right there. That is how Jesus proved that he was the resurrection and the life. Anybody can say they are the resurrection and the life, but you have to be able to back it up and prove it. And he did. But proof still requires belief. Proof isn't the end of the story. And we see that we won't read the verses, but we see the responses in the next verses. It says some of the Jews believed and the religious leaders sought to kill him. They both had the same proof in front of their eyes. Some applied the belief and some did not. John's point in this narrative was to tell us about Jesus's grand finale here. And so if it was a chapter book with a summary sentence, it might sound something like this. And so that is how Jesus completed the work that God had prepared for him. At least the work in the shadow lands, because we know that the same thing is going to happen here in just a little while when Jesus himself lays down his life and becomes the propitiation for our sins and takes it back up again. He will resurrect himself and that will be the grand grand finale in the heavenlies. But this was the grand finale of the work that he did in front of people to prove his words so that they would believe. Now, real quickly, there's always a what does it mean to me aspect from the scriptures. And I want to just cast light on two different levels, expectations for this life and expectations for eternity. What does this text teach us about expectations for life? Does God always intervene? Should we expect God to intervene in every sickness, in every situation? That is not what we saw in the text, is it? But unfortunately, we have a tendency to interpret how much God loves us through our circumstances. And what we need to remind each other all the time is to interpret our circumstances through the knowledge of how much God loves us. Knowing that he is our good shepherd, knowing that he carries us, that should interpret how we view our circumstances. But I'm sure like me, all of you have from time to time looked at a certain thing in your life and thought, I just don't feel like God loves me because look what's happening. And I'm sure that's how the women felt at this time as well. So we cannot have an expectation for God to remove evil and suffering from this world. We are, if we do that, we're holding on to something that's not taught in the Bible. But I want to ask another question. Should we expect God to resurrect dead things in our lives? Should we expect God to resurrect dead marriages, dead relationships, dead opportunities, those kinds of things? Not everything will be resurrected in the shadow lands, but you know what? Some things will be. And like the scripture says, my ways are not your ways. We cannot hold on to an expectation that God will operate in a certain way because God will not violate our free will nor the free will of those around us. But yet I'll bet you many of you have testimonies of how God has resurrected something in your life, a dead marriage or a second opportunity after addiction or, you know, multiple things. And so the truth is that not every marriage will be made whole, not everybody will be healed, not every trashed opportunity will be offered again, but some will. And God still resurrects things even in the shadow lands. But the most important aspect is what is our expectation for eternity? We know that Jesus is the resurrection and the life, and so we can expect Jesus to give us real life. That's our title. Jesus gives real life. The resurrection of Lazarus is an example, a physical example of a spiritual reality. Just as Lazarus's body was dead, really dead, so are our spirits dead, really dead. Ephesians tells us that we are dead in our sins and transgressions. And in the same way that Jesus raised Lazarus, so too Jesus brings life into our spirit. So the story is a reminder of the spiritual work that he does. Our spirits are dead. He raises them to life. Jesus gives real life. Father, God, I thank you for this chapter and all the implications that it has for us. And Lord God, I thank you most of all that you tenderly take our focus and you invite us to look through that glass door and to set our perspective on things of eternity while at the same time reminding us that you are peering in and you are seeing the grief in our life, the disappointments, the tragedies, and the sorrow, and you weep with us, Lord. You engage with the difficulties that we have. Lord, help us understand that. Help us remember that you are there in difficult circumstances, not necessarily have caused them, Lord. So Lord, help us to just process this passage and hold on to the proper expectations, the good theology. I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.