The Weeping of the Resurrection and the Life | Sermon 08/20/2023

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Please turn with me in your Bibles to John chapter 11, John chapter 11.

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We're going to be in verses 17 through 37 today. John 11, 17 through 37.

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And the title of this sermon today, church, is The Weeping of the Resurrection and the

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Life. The Weeping of the Resurrection and the Life. So starting in verse 17 of the

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Gospel according to John chapter 11. Hear now the inerrant and infallible words of the living and true

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God. Verse 17. So when Jesus came, he found that he had already been in the tomb for four days.

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Now 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.

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Martha, therefore, when she heard that Jesus was coming, went to meet him. But Mary stayed at the house.

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Martha then said to Jesus, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.

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Even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you. Jesus said to her,

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Your brother will rise again. Martha said to him, I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.

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Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live even if he dies.

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And everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this? She said to him,

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Yes, Lord. I have believed that you are the Christ, the Son of God, even he who comes into the world.

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When she had said this, she went away and called Mary, her sister, saying secretly,

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The teacher is here and is calling for you. And when she heard it, she got up quickly and was coming to him.

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Now Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still in the place where Martha met him.

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Then the Jews, who were with her in the house and consoling her, when they saw that Mary got up quickly and went out, they followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb to weep there.

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Therefore, when Mary came where Jesus was, she saw him, and she fell at his feet, saying to him,

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Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the

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Jews who came with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and was troubled and said,

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Where have you laid him? They said to him, Lord, come and see. Jesus wept.

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So the Jews were saying, See how he loved him. But some of them said, Could not this man who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man also from dying?

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Thus ends the reading of God's holy and glorious word. Let's pray as a church body quickly.

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God, we ask that you today would show us these truths in your holy word, dear

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God, that you would cause us to see them the way you want us to, Lord, that they would be part of our very being.

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God, that we would see these promises that you've made back in the first century, and we would understand that they are here for us even so 2 ,000 years later.

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God, that you keep your word. And God, that you can comfort us in every affliction because you too,

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Lord Jesus, have endured it all. So Lord, please edify, encourage, and challenge your people today.

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For the glory of Christ's name, amen. So we're going to see some pretty striking things today,

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I would say, things that seem so opposite to what one would expect.

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In fact, I don't know why, I was reminded of the famous Christmas truce of World War I in 1914.

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And if you've never heard this, essentially what happened in World War I on the Western Front in Belgium, the

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Germans and the British were fighting each other on the battlefield. But on Christmas Day, in three -foot -wide by three -foot -tall, miles -wide trenches, in these tight trenches, there started to alight celebration.

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Celebration of actually the Savior's birth. It was reported that some

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German and British soldiers, they met together in the middle of no man's land, and they even shook hands, shared smiles, and they ceased fire for Christmas Day.

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Men have written honestly remarkable accounts of this day. Some say they saw men cutting down small trees, lighting lanterns, and even playing games.

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And so the sound of grenades going off, machine guns and planes had stopped, just enough to make things quiet so that you could hear laughter and rejoicing, the singing of Christmas carols and friendly banter.

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This is honestly, what historians say, one of the strangest occurrences in the history of warfare.

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On the backdrop of the corpses of soldiers, dismembered men, weapons, spent ammunition everywhere, smoke and fire, on that backdrop there was laughter, handshakes, games, and some level of peace.

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And I guess what is incredible about our text today is that the resurrection and the life will encounter death, something so very opposite of Him.

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The giver of life will be among those who die. The one with perfect contentedness and joy will grieve.

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The infinitely pure Son of God has come down to a place of impurity, sin, and wickedness, and amazingly, the transcendent

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God of the universe will care for mere humans. These are opposite things, seemingly.

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In fact, He considers these humans friends. We do have a lot to cover, so let's go ahead and get right into it.

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We left off last week with Jesus making the decision to delay His coming to marry

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Martha and Lazarus for the good of those in attendance, and for His and the

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Father's own glory to be shown. And after that purposeful delay,

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Jesus and the disciples set out. They were beyond the Jordan. They went back west to Bethany.

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Verse 17 says, When Jesus arrived, He found that Lazarus had been dead already four days in the tomb.

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So we saw that Jesus had supernatural knowledge already of Lazarus' death.

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So this statement is not necessarily a statement about a new discovery for Jesus, encountering something

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He didn't know. No, He already knew it. And beyond this, there was rabbinical belief that the soul hovers above the body for three days.

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There was rabbinical belief that when someone dies, the deceased is laying there and their soul hovers above their body for three days after their death.

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And once decomposition sets in, which was typically the fourth day, is when their soul would take flight and depart.

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It was a belief that was held superstitiously. It's not in the

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Bible. It's not to be understood as truth. And so if that belief was present at all for these people in this moment, then no doubt

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Jesus waiting for four days would be combating that belief.

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That there is going to be nothing outside of Himself and outside the power of God that will aid

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Him in what He's about to do with Lazarus. There's nothing else. No one could ever say that Lazarus' soul was still hovering, right?

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That's what it is. And so at the fourth day of death, at least in the eyes of the superstitious, there's no way to naturally reverse this.

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John lets us know in verses 18 and 19 that with Bethany only being about two miles east of Jerusalem, many of the

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Jews of Jerusalem were there in Bethany seeking to console

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Martha and Mary about their brother. So Jews had traveled two miles east to Bethany because in fact in Jewish culture, in religious and social culture, there was a duty.

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There was almost like a duty to mourn with those who were suffering loss. But this also shows us that Jesus' miracle won't be reserved for simply a few family members and the apostles, but the

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Greek demonstrates here a great many of people from Jerusalem came out to Bethany.

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Later we're going to see in the chapter how all these witnesses are going to create a problem for the

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Lord. And yet the necessary steps that would lead Him to His final fate.

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Because remember, Jesus is not that far off from the place where people wanted to kill

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Him. Right? Verse 20, go to that verse 20 shows

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Martha became aware that Jesus was coming. She went out to meet

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Him on the way. And when Martha comes to Him, she says in verse 21,

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Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.

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I definitely think this statement shows that she is exceptionally grieved.

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But it also, I think, shows that she believes Jesus to be supernaturally capable.

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There's also a short -sightedness in this that we can all possess. Because how many times in your life, you guys, have you said,

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Lord, if only you had been there. Lord, if only you did this instead.

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Lord, if only you intervened here. Then this circumstance, this thing that hurts, this situation would not have happened.

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Lord, if you had only done this differently, I wouldn't be like this. This situation wouldn't be like this.

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God, if only you had acted, I wouldn't be here. But that sort of thing presumes upon God's will, does it not?

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How do we know? How does Martha know, even now, what

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Jesus will do? We don't know. She doesn't know. She has no idea of the situation of the previous verses.

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She has no idea of the hidden will of God. She never heard the purpose of this declared by Jesus, that this would not be a sickness to death.

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She doesn't know. And so, one of the lessons is, maybe we ought to ask ourselves,

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Lord, now that this has happened, what do you want me to learn from it?

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What should I take away from it? Maybe it's more desperate than that. Maybe something's happened to you and said,

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Lord, you didn't intervene and I asked. I asked a lot. I kept praying. I kept asking. You didn't do it.

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So what am I missing? What do you want me to see? Maybe that's it.

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What should I take away from this? But look at what she says in verse 22. She says, even now,

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Even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you. Here is a demonstration of faith.

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Even in the midst of her grief, her confidence in Jesus has not waned.

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She recognizes Jesus and the Father are one, and they're on a level together no one else has previously possessed.

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And so the prior statement of Martha made her look like she was exasperated, frustrated, full of sorrow, possibly confused, but she shows us what we must always come back to.

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Even now, even in this situation that seems irredeemable,

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I know you are fully able, God. You are fully able. God, even now, in this circumstance, you can do anything.

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You can do anything. You can change this. You can leave this or do something else.

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And I know you can. And you are good, God. And I believe you'll do what's right.

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Not according to what we think is right, but according to what He knows to be right.

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Verse 23, Jesus said to her, Your brother will rise again.

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Who else can say this with such power and authority and mean it? No one.

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Jesus knows these things with certainty as He is the one who has ordained them.

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And when He says this, it's an indicative statement in the Greek, which means it's a statement of fact, which means it's a sure thing.

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Lazarus will rise again. Death will not have the final word. And no doubt,

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I think the interesting thing is, people who have been consoling

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Mary and Martha for the past couple of days have probably come up, and they've meant well, and they've gone,

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Don't worry. Lazarus will rise again. It's okay. Lazarus will rise again.

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They've heard it. The vagueness,

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I think of this statement, is planned by Jesus. I think so.

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He's going to show her more. Martha, however, doesn't need to be convinced of the resurrection on the last day as she says,

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I know that He will rise again in the resurrection on the last day. That is to say, she knows this truth, and it's in her mind, but she's hurting right now.

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She's hurting right now. The last day seems too far away. That's a hard reality.

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But look at verses 25 and 26. Jesus said to her,

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I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live even if he dies.

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And everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?

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And so, Jesus is going to take her hope off of the last day and put it in Him.

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Do you see that? He's moving away from an abstract belief hanging in midair, a theological truth of the resurrection, and He's going to point it back to Himself.

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Something that's solid. Something not hanging in the clouds. Something that's down on earth. Something that's flesh and blood.

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You see, hoping in the resurrection for her alone is not comforting enough.

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It's when one knows and believes that Jesus is the resurrection and the life, that hope is solidified.

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And that hope is solidified, and the only one who can guarantee that anyone can rise again.

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You see, what I'm trying to say is there is no general belief. There is no impersonal belief.

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There is no impersonal God or some sort of type of heaven.

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I'm really hoping for heaven. There is only belief in the personal

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God and the living God, the Lord Jesus Christ.

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You know, this is a challenge to all who say they believe in a higher power.

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I believe in a God. Where do I go when I die? He's just going to let us all in.

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Who? Who's going to let you in? Well, you know, everyone calls Him God.

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God. Who is that to you? I don't know. I've never really thought about it.

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It's the guy who controls the place where we go after we die, and that's the only place we'll go.

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There's no hell. We all get to go to heaven. And that's honestly what you see a lot on the streets.

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But there is an object to the resurrection. There is an object to heaven, and it's the

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Lord Jesus Christ. We don't simply hope in heaven. We don't simply hope in a resurrection.

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We don't simply hope that our life was obedient enough to get there. We met a man on the street on Thursday who said,

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I think I've done enough. He was a Hindu. I've done enough. I'm going to get there.

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To who? All the gods that are probably just one, he says.

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We don't hope in all that. We hope in the personal Lord Jesus Christ.

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That's what he says. I am the resurrection and the life. And if you see that, he says in the

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Greek, Ego, Emi, He, Anastasios. That's where you get Anastasia, the girl name, that actually means resurrection.

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Kai, He, Zoe. Ego, Emi, I am the resurrection and the life.

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If you've been with us for any length of time, Ego, Emi is a specific way that Jesus demonstrates that He is

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Yahweh, which in the Hebrew is I am that I am. Jesus is

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God from all eternity. He says, I am the resurrection and the life.

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And those are the definite articles. He's not a resurrection. He's not a life.

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He's the resurrection and the life. Jesus alone is the solution for death.

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And those who hope for a new life in the afterlife can only find it in Christ. That's what

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I'm saying. And behind this statement of Jesus in John 5 .21,

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if you remember that, we went over that a couple months ago, John 5 .21, it says, For just as the

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Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom

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He wishes. This is Jesus' prerogative. This is

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His power. He can raise people from the dead. He can do it on earth.

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And He promises He'll do it later at the last day. What we can tell also is that the resurrection and the life are not the same exact things only said differently.

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I don't think so. I think resurrection is obviously pointing to the fact that people have gone in the tombs and they'll rise again.

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They'll come out of the grave. And then Jesus said in John 5, everyone is going to have that.

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Everyone, regardless if they're a believer or not, from all history, from the beginning of mankind until now, whether they've died at sea or they've died in a spaceship, whatever, everyone will be raised back to life once again,

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Jesus said. And then that's the resurrection part. And then it says in John 5 that some will be raised to life and some will be raised to judgment.

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That's the reality of it. But they will all be raised. Jesus giving life and being the life is not just someone being alive.

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Being given the life is having life in Christ as a saving life.

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It's a saved life. It's an eternal life. It's a life that spends eternity in the

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Kingdom of God. A forgiven and redeemed life. That is the life that Jesus gives.

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He doesn't simply make people alive again and they walk around. It's something more to it.

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And then here is one of the most profound promises of God Almighty. Look at this. He who believes in Me will live even if he dies.

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And everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. He will live even if he dies.

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Do you see that? He will live even if he dies. Everyone who lives and believes in Me, in fact, will never die.

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That is to say, once again, outside of Jesus, there is no hope of a resurrection leading to eternal life.

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He says everyone who lives and believes, and these aren't separate steps. These things,

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I believe, are coordinated together so that the one who lives has also believed, and the one who believes lives.

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That's how they go. And the outcome of those things is that they will never die.

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If you remember in the previous chapters, He said the word never perish, which in the

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Greek is never face destruction. And now, He uses a different way to say death.

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This is the customary way to say death. Not only will they never perish or face destruction, but they'll never die.

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Jesus, throughout the Gospel of John, has been demonstrating physical death to be so inconsequential that He has called it sleeping.

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He acts like it is no obstacle to His promises, and He speaks as if it is not even a reality for the believer.

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Do you see that? He speaks as if it is not even a reality for the believer.

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You will never die. And here, all of those things reach their pinnacle.

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Everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. If you are saved now, you are saved later.

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If you believe and are forgiven now, even though you haven't entered

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Heaven, it is so certain you have it now. You have it now.

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If you have the resurrection and the life now, if He has given it to you, then in that sense, you'll never die.

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The wonderful promise of the Gospel of Christ is that we immediately possess eternal life now before we even get there.

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Ordinarily, this short, vaporous, mortal life would be all that we have to look forward to.

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And the passing years would fall like browning leaves from a tree until at last the final leaf is gone and we are dead.

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But not for the Christian. We are trees not destined to die but are just starting to take new growth.

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New buds are present. Flowers are blooming by the power of the

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King. Our lives have only really just started.

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That's the reality of it. Our lives have only really just begun.

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Eternal, everlasting, forever by Jesus.

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And when Jesus asks Martha, do you believe this? He's not actually asking her if she believes

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He can raise Lazarus from the dead. His question is for her, pointing to her.

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Does she have personal faith and trust that He can do what

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He has promised? That He can raise people from the dead? Do you believe this?

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He tells her. Does she have faith that He is the I Am, the resurrection and the life, that Jesus alone can make that promise become a reality?

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If she answers yes, then the prospect of making

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Lazarus breathe again right now is nothing compared to what He can do. And if we answer yes to this, do we believe this?

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Then all the death that we face now, although very difficult, is nothing compared to what

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Jesus can do. And if we believe this, it's because we've believed

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Him. Right? And so what did John hope for those who read his

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Gospel? Do you remember? I've told you this many times. What is the purpose of the fourth

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Gospel? John says in John 20 verse 31, But these things have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the

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Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name. There's the life.

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And just like that, Martha answers in accordance with a right response of hearing the good news of Jesus Christ.

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Do you get this? Verse 27, Yes, Lord, I have believed that You are the

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Christ, the Son of God, even He who comes into the world. She doesn't simply say, Yes, I believe

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You can resurrect people. She says, Yes, You are the Christ. You are the Son of God.

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You are the One who has come into the world. She's addressing then and confirming and affirming

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His Messiahship, His Lordship, His Deity. She has believed.

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And so in this moment, very quickly, the woes of life have faded away from her.

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At this exact second, for Martha, it's no longer about Lazarus.

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It's about Jesus. In fact, all of John 11 is about Jesus rather than Lazarus.

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Do you understand that? This story, this account, was meant to show you who Jesus is.

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Not simply that a man named Lazarus was raised from the dead. But she can't see anything else right now.

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This is not a falsely pious statement hoping Jesus would wrap up so as to tend to her brother.

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She is blissfully distracted with the Son of God. Where she may have had solid confidence that even now

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Jesus could do anything He wanted to remedy the death of Lazarus. At this moment, she is certain that Jesus is even greater than that.

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Do you get it? She has realized all in this moment, Jesus is more than she could have ever thought.

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More than she could have ever expected. He can give life on earth and life for eternity.

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And He now is the sole object of her faith and adoration. Her hope is no longer in an abstract theory or promise about a resurrection.

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It's in the One standing in front of her. The Son of God.

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Go to verses 28 -31. When she had said this, she went away and called

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Mary, her sister, saying secretly, The Teacher is here and is calling you.

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And when she heard it, she got up quickly and was coming to Him. Now Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still in the place where Martha met

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Him. Then the Jews who were with her in the house and consoling her, when they saw that Mary got up quickly and went out, they followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb to weep there.

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So at this point, there's nothing left for Martha to say. She departs from Jesus to fetch her sister,

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Mary. And I'm supposing that Martha wanted what happened to her to happen to her sister.

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And she was wise. She was discreet. She secretly told her sister

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Mary that the Teacher, that is Jesus, is here and He's calling for her. And so Jesus wants a similar private meeting with Mary.

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And obviously a house that's full of the brim with mourners would be hard for Him to come to her, right? There's mourners everywhere.

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And so it's good for Him to call to her that she would come out. But as we read, the attempt at privacy did not pan out.

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As soon as the mourner saw Mary get up quickly, they followed her. They wanted to continue to mourn with her.

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So go to verse 32. Look at this. She walks out of the house.

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She's been weeping for the loss of her brother. And when she sees

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Jesus, when her eyes meet with the Lord Jesus, desperation and grief mingle together and she collapses at her knees.

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And she falls before Jesus. And what does she say? She says the same thing as her sister.

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Probably less restrained. Probably more emotional. Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.

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You know, some foolishly have said that Mary is grumbling here. That Mary's complaining before Jesus.

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I don't think that in the slightest. I just don't see it. I see a woman who has loved her brother and who knew actually more than knew but fiercely believed that the one whose feet she was at was the same one who could have prevented this death.

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That's what I see here. If Jesus was around, he could have stopped this.

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And so she likewise demonstrates some level of faith in Christ. And she did this.

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She fell before Jesus and said this to him in front of everyone. Everyone has now come out.

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Things have been made public. Jesus was a ways away from the home. And now everyone has come out to where he's at.

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So the rest of the account will be public as well. It's time for Jesus to show them why he's here.

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Now, what did Jesus make of this? What did Jesus make of what he saw? Verse 33.

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When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and was troubled.

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Now, what does that mean? How is Jesus reacting to this? This word embrimamai is honestly often translated more softly than what it really is.

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It's often translated deeply moved in spirit. It's translated he groaned in spirit.

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Or he sighed deeply. Or Jesus was deeply touched. But nowhere else in the

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New Testament is this word translated this way, I'm telling you. It is actually a word that is often used, even outside the

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Bible, for the snorting of horses. The snorting of horses.

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It's a conjugation of two words. Being engaged in rage related to snorting.

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Okay? It's applied to humans in such a way to show that they are angry.

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They're troubled. And it's in his spirit. Now some have said, does that mean the

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Holy Spirit? No, I don't think that's what it means here. I think what John is trying to show us is that in the deepest part of Jesus, in his innermost being, he is troubled.

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He is outraged in spirit. That would be the way I would say it. He is outraged in spirit and troubled.

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That word troubled is literally the word stirred up. So why is Jesus feeling this way?

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Why is he enraged or outraged in his spirit? Why is he stirred up like this?

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Some have said during a time of bereavement and mourning, there would not only be family grieving, but it's likely that Jewish mourners came, which we actually already saw.

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Jewish mourners have come from Jerusalem. But in that would come flute players to play flutes along with everything else.

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And then it was often that there was a professional wailing woman. Maybe two.

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A wailing woman who would be hired simply to wail and weep at someone's tomb or someone's bereavement or someone's ceremony.

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That would happen. They would show that the deceased person meant a lot to people.

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It's very strange but not uncommon at this time in history.

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So some have speculated that Jesus was enraged by the hypocrisy of a wailing woman and a hired staff to come and pray and cry and act like they care.

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But I think that's actually not the case. I don't think that's what it is. I think that has little significance here.

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I don't think that's how the text reads. Why would he be angry when he looked at Mary weeping then?

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Because it says when he looked at Mary and the people weeping he felt this way.

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This is Mary. This is one whom he loves very much. So inside of him is a stirring up of indignation.

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Deeply troubled. And I think it's because of this reason. This is why

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Jesus is outraged. It's because he's now face -to -face with the final enemy, death.

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He's face -to -face with death. The destroying effects of sin and the fall have now impacted him on a deeper level.

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Because what? He was there. He was there at the beginning. He created everything.

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He saw the beauty and majesty of his creation. The perfect world and the garden that God would walk in and be in communion with man who was made in his own image.

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Jesus has seen what it was like when it was perfect. He was there. The Bible says he created everything.

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But the corruption of all that he made was made manifest worst of all by death.

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The very reason why the adversary Satan tempted Adam and Eve was to bring about death to God's greatest creation.

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Satan wanted to bring death to God's greatest creation, man and woman.

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That's the devil's mission. Sin and death. Son of God's mission, redemption and life.

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And so Jesus' whole nature was stirred. And what's fascinating is, once again,

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I know I go in the Greek. I think it's important. In the Greek here, it says that he troubled himself.

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He stirred himself up. He was outraged in spirit, and then he stirred himself up.

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He was raged so deeply within himself that he was troubled. And that term stirred up is often used for water.

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When a whirlpool appears, and there's this tremendous force of a whirlpool, like a great big whirlpool, that's the way this word is often used.

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But what's interesting is in a whirlpool, a whirlpool sucks everything with it, mud and dirt and muck and everything, but inside of Jesus, there would be nothing but pure and clear stirring up.

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This is no sinful stirring up. This is righteous indignation. He has every right to look upon sin and death and suffering and calamity and be stirred up.

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It's his right. While Mary and Martha and the

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Jews mourned and wept and cried and felt great pain, the powers of darkness rejoiced in the background.

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The demons cheered that another one met the fate that their master had intended so long ago.

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Something is happening in Jesus in a powerful way here. He says in verse 34, where have you laid him?

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They said to him, Lord, come and see. And at this moment, you have one of the most incredible things happen in history.

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You see, there have been many times where I have thought that those who have segmented the

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Bible, in the 1200s, I forget his name, the Bible was separated into chapters and I think it was in the 1555,

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Stephanus was the one who added then verses. So there's been times where I've been reading the

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Bible in my own devotion and I thought, boy, they really could have gone a little longer here.

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They really chopped this one too soon. Or maybe they made this verse a little too long.

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Maybe this separation of verse to verse doesn't flow with the text because it was simply men who added verse, chapters, numbers, obviously.

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But what I think is so providential is that these men who separated these verses, in verse 35, we find two of the most amazing words put together in all the

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Bible. Who knew that the shortest verse in the entire

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Bible could say so much? Jesus wept. Jesus wept.

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All that He saw, all that He experienced, He wept. For the mourners,

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John used the word kleio, but here, for Jesus, He uses the word dakruo.

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This is the literal act of tears falling down His face. No one could say it otherwise.

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This is the word for tears coming out of the eye. This is no figurative or symbolic weeping.

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Jesus actually cried. And I don't think He simply cried only for Lazarus.

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He knew He was about to raise Him. Rather, the same sin and death, unbelief and darkness and idolatry that He was indignant over in verse 33, the things that stirred

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Him up are the very same things that caused Him to weep. Just like the moment in Matthew 23.

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Do you remember when He righteously in an indignant way gives out the woes to the

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Pharisees? Woe to you! Woe to you for doing this! Woe to you! You're going to endure hell,

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He says. But then at the same time, in that moment, it says that He's grieved for Jerusalem.

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He has sorrow for Jerusalem. Very much the same thing. And so there's a tension between those two things,

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I think. Indignation for sin and grief for sin or death.

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Those things are things that we ought to keep in balance.

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Anger and sadness over what has happened to this world. And our

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Lord kept it in balance perfectly. You know, actually, I don't know, you may really resonate with this.

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Some of you have maybe sit here and think, I don't think I've ever been righteously indignant and then started weeping.

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You know, I honestly, I was telling Andrew that I have really faced this only a few times in my life.

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But I remember I was following the story of the younger family in Texas. I don't know if you remember that story.

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There was a man and a woman, husband and wife, who then got a divorce. And they had twin boys, twin little boys.

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And from the time one of the little boys was two years old, the mother, who was a pediatrician, would start to try to change his sex or gender or whatever, something like that.

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And this story was happening, I think, during COVID, if you remember. And she would put him in dresses and bring him to parties.

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You know, he had his twin brother who looked like a boy and he would come out with lipstick and a dress and he would feel embarrassed.

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There's actually a communication that he's given to his father that he was embarrassed of those moments where his mother dressed him up like a girl.

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And so, even though he expressed that, the mother would not let up.

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And so she took him, the boy, and she moved him to California. Some sort of refuge for these type of situations,

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I guess. False refuge. And when I heard the father speak, and when

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I heard him talk about his twin boys and how his wife, his ex -wife, was going to chemically castrate his little boy and to see the tears come down his face and to realize that one day she may even help get the boy fully castrated and invert his genitalia and shorten his lifespan to less than half doing these things.

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When I saw the grief of this father over his boy, I had this righteous indignation.

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I couldn't believe that this is being done in our society. I couldn't believe it. And then at the same time, at that moment,

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I just couldn't help it. I just started weeping over this. I can't believe it. How could they do this to children?

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How could they mutilate children like this? It's unbelievable.

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And it wasn't just for this little boy and this father. It was for all of it.

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It's for all the evil that we've been seeing lately. All this death. All this calamity.

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I had not cried like that in so long. And so all in this moment, if you can think about it, all in this moment, it culminated for Jesus.

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Seeing the effects of sin. Seeing Lazarus dead in the tomb.

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Seeing Mary and Martha and everyone weeping. And He knew, though,

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He could do something about it. That's the difference. He could do something amazing about it. The prophet

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Habakkuk felt this as well. It says in Habakkuk chapter 1, verse 2 -4, he says,

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How long, O Lord, will I call for help? And you will not hear. Habakkuk says,

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I cry out to you. I tell you there's violence, yet you do not save God. Why do you make me see all the iniquity?

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Why do you cause me to look upon wickedness? Yes, destruction and violence are before me.

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Strife exists and contention arises. Therefore the law is ignored and justice is never upheld.

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For the wicked surround the righteous. Therefore justice comes out perverted. And so the prophet is saying things are not right.

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He felt the indignation and he felt the grief at the same time. Lord, why don't you see?

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Why don't you act? But what's amazing is, eventually Habakkuk, despite all this, says,

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I will take joy in the God of my salvation. There's a there's a recognition that we see a lot of evil right now, and you and I, we don't get it.

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You know, people ask me as a pastor, what do you make of all this evil right now? And in some capacity,

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I have to feel these things. You know, I think that's actually important, you know. In this sort of pietistic

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Christianity, we say, don't feel this. Just say you trust in God.

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But here we see Jesus not only trusting God. Here we see

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Habakkuk not only trusting God, but they felt it. They experienced it.

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So if you've been feeling that, if you've seen these sort of things, and you're feeling it, don't condemn yourself.

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Of course if it's sinful, repent from it. But if you have this righteous indignation for what you're feeling, and you're experiencing this, even

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Jesus shows that that's very much something you can experience.

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Okay? It's important. I think this verse, verse 35 is so important, it's worth spending some time on for a moment.

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I pray that God would help us to see the infinite wealth in these two words right now.

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I'm going to say a few things about verse 35, and we'll pretty much wrap up the sermon with verse 35 for the most part.

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You see, we've seen much weeping in the Bible. Abraham wept when he buried his wife

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Sarah. Joseph wept when he saw his brothers in Egypt.

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He was overcome with the fact that he could forgive such betrayal. The people of Israel wept for 30 days when the prophet

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Moses died. We see that David wept many times.

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We saw that in mostly recorded in the Psalms. Hezekiah wept.

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Isaiah wept over the destruction of his people. King Josiah shed many tears over the idolatry and sin of the people of Judah.

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Even Jeremiah was called the weeping prophet. Do you know he wrote the book Lamentations to lament?

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We could go on and on with that list. The fact is it is not unique for people to cry and weep.

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Okay? It would be extraordinary, I think, if one didn't weep in this life.

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Everyone weeps. Who hasn't felt the well filling in your eye?

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If we went around the room here, each one of us would likely confess to crying or weeping at some point in our life.

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You and I, I think, we both have wept. But the astounding thing, the remarkable thing, is verse 35,

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Jesus wept. Everyone weeps, but Jesus wept? Jesus wept?

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So here are a few reasons why I think it's important that Jesus wept.

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First, Jesus wept because not only is He totally God, but He is also totally man.

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You see, the Gnostics and Dossetists of John's day were trying to say that Jesus did not come in the flesh.

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Jesus was never a man. Jesus, they would say, is no more than a mere spirit or an apparition of a deity.

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They would say that things of the flesh, things that are flesh and bone, are inherently evil. And so they said that Jesus was not man.

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He was only God. But the fact is, He was actually born of a woman by the

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Holy Spirit. He was wrapped like a baby, nursed as any other baby, grew as a child.

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He was even obedient to His parents. The Scriptures say that He increased in wisdom and stature.

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He was about His heavenly Father's business. In John 4, you remember this?

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He got to the well at Sakaar. The woman at the well, do you remember? It said that He was weary from traveling.

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Jesus, in His humanity, gets weary. He was tired, so He slept in a boat during a storm.

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He was hungry. He was also thirsty sometimes. He asked for water at that well. He came to a fig tree, and when it bore no fruit,

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He cursed the tree for having no fruit. After the resurrection,

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He even ate a broiled fish. Do you remember that? His body needed sustenance like ours.

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He did one time, supernaturally, go 40 days and 40 nights without water and food.

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But He needed food. Isaiah 53 says that He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.

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You see that? He was a man appointed with sorrows and acquainted with grief.

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I honestly think right here, John 11, 35, Jesus wept.

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It is a complete fulfillment of part of the Isaiah 53 suffering servant passage.

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He was acquainted with grief. Surely He bore our infirmities and carried our sicknesses.

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His body could feel pain. He experienced great pain when the cat of nine tails, the metal sharded whip came across His back and ripped

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His flesh and ripped His chest and ripped His back. Jesus felt every single bit of that.

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He experienced great pain. Spurgeon says this amazing thing.

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Spurgeon says, to this day, in the glory of heaven, Jesus wears His scars to show that though He is

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God, He is not ashamed to be recognized as a man. Because as much as Jesus is the

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Son of God, He is also the Son of Man. He was made like His brethren in every respect.

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He was tempted in all ways and yet without sin. And so for all these reasons, because He is human,

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Jesus wept. God made humans relational beings. We've talked about that before.

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What man or woman has been without a companion? Without a friend? Almost very little.

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Jesus loved the Bethany family. Lazarus was one of the ones whom He loved. And that's the reality of this.

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Every time you and I love, we open ourselves up for what?

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Grief. When you love, you open a door to hurt.

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Does that mean that's bad? No. Loving can cost us. It's a sweet cost.

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Friends, family, they pass away. However, it doesn't mean we shouldn't love. Jesus shows us

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He's willing to feel both love and grief. Okay? We should do the same.

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Feel love and grief. The Lord has emotions. He was not a robot.

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He was not some sort of angelic creature incapable of sorrow. He weeps with those who weeps, and He does so without sin.

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He was indignant. He was stirred up without sin. And He felt for us in that moment.

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He turned to pity. In fact, in Isaiah 42 3, it was promised that the

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Messiah would come, and it said that a bruised reed He will not break, and a dimly burning wick

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He will not extinguish. Those who are downcast, those who are brokenhearted,

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Jesus comes for those. He won't snuff them out. And so at this moment, in the text,

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Jesus felt many things, and He felt many things even for us. And so God actually cried.

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I think what is significant is although Jesus showed Himself to be tempered, well balanced, never irrational, and always under control, this moment was no exception to that.

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Jesus was not out of control here. I think as I said before,

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Jesus shows us it is sometimes proper to weep. Jesus cried in front of others here.

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He chose not to hide this moment. The Lord Jesus always exhibited exactly who

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He was. He was God, and yet He had no true home here. He came from the halls of heaven, but kings and governors seemed to be higher than Him while He was on earth.

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He was despised and rejected of men, but highly beloved and worshipped in heaven.

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He never sought to be popular for the sake of popularity. They blasphemed

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Him. He was spat upon, punched in the face, and on the night of His trial, they beat

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Him fiercely, and then they mocked Him and said, Prophesy to us and tell us which one of us hit you in the face.

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And as much strength and power and authority were demonstrated by Jesus while upon the earth, so was this weakness, this humility that was very much on purpose, and so tears are considered by many not to be manly.

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And yet Jesus is the epitome of manliness. He shed them.

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Paul expressed that he often shed tears for the churches. I see some of you guys go ahead, let it out right now.

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I see some guys thinking about it. No, I'm just kidding. But really pride can keep one from participating in this sort of thing.

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Something that even the Savior experienced. Something that the apostles experienced.

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And so this isn't a license to cry for everything. Jesus weeps, you know, so I'm going to too.

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No, we don't cry for everything. Some things don't deserve the gift of tears.

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Okay? But Jesus demonstrates that at the right moment for the right situations, we ought to cry.

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Therefore another point is that Jesus wept to act as our example. He could not help but weep, looking upon one ordinary man who turned into a lifeless corpse buried in a cave.

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He could not help but weep, looking upon the weeping and sorrow of those who felt pain of this death.

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And so like Jesus, we should look what sin has done to our land.

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We should look what death has done to this world. Honestly, in many ways we stand in a field of blood and we don't even know it.

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And so what does Jesus do? Does he simply feel the anger? Does he simply feel the anguish?

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No, he prays to the Father and he acts. He does something about it.

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We'll see that next week. He prays and he acts. We ought to do the same.

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You know, you know how sincere prayers that are accompanied with anguish and weeping can be?

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Because, you know, sometimes we pray and we're absent and we're just saying words.

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But there's something about when you can pray to God in anguish, when you can weep and pray.

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Anguish is often the place where both we and God move. Apathy is a killer to the gospel.

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Only when you are in anguish over rampant pornography, only when you're in anguish over the perversion in our world, only when you're in anguish over baby murder, only when you're in anguish over child sex trafficking, only when you're in anguish over the sin and murders of Marxism and political corruption, only after we're in anguish over these things will we then seek

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God in prayerful sorrow and then do something about it. That's typically the case.

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And that's something, of course, would be telling more people that Jesus is the resurrection and the life.

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The gospel is a substantial part of that solution. It is the solution.

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And then we stand up for what is right. You see, there's many people who are waiting for the end to come, but I always saw

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Jesus in this gospel say, I'm going to work until it is no longer day.

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When night comes, then I'll stop working. So I don't think we just simply wait for the end.

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We continue to labor until Christ returns. It's also been said, unless a man's whole soul is moved, he will not move his fellow.

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Unless a man's whole soul is moved, he will not move his fellow. So every time you and I think about leaving the gospel out of the conversation, we ought to think about the anguish and pain and torments of judgment.

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Right? The thing that Jesus talked more about than heaven, hell.

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And so when I and you properly feel like Jesus did, we pray and we act.

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Lastly, Jesus wept to comfort us. He allows us to weep. He wept even though he knew he would raise

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Lazarus. That's amazing. We can weep when a believer dies, even though we know they're going to be in the presence of the

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Lord. We can. We should. Not only that, but just as Jesus was tempted with sin and yet sinless, he was also a man of sorrows.

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He never sinned in that sorrow. And so when we suffer, we ought to remember that Jesus suffered as well.

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He suffered as well. When we cry, think about how the Savior cried. When you think about your loss, think about how

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Jesus suffered loss. Because there's these moments where we relate to one another.

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There's a man in a hospital bed and he's anxious and he's worried and he's scared for what's going to happen to him.

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And then the guy in the next hospital bed hears his plight and he says,

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I just finished going through what you went through. Lord willing, it's going to be okay.

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I've been through the same thing. And somehow, in the simplest of statements, that man who is full of anxiety and worry feels a sense of relief.

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You know, we're relational and relatable people. And so Jesus went through something that we will go through.

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You know, Jesus doesn't say, I am the resurrection and the life. And he doesn't say that in such a way where he's never endured death and suffering.

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Right? How can Jesus relate to us if he's never died, but he did die?

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And so he can relate to us. And we can look upon Jesus when we're suffering and he says,

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I've been through it. I've gone through it. I know what you're feeling. I've faced it.

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So turn to Jesus in every moment of grief, brothers and sisters. He knows it.

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If your heart has been broken, so has his. He has sympathy for us.

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He has compassion on us. He is with us. In fact, once again,

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Charles Spurgeon, this is an amazing quote here. He says, A Jesus who never wept could never wipe away my tears.

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A Jesus who never wept could never wipe away my tears. You see, God didn't just take away wrath.

01:05:51

He became like us, and he did everything that we couldn't do, and faced everything we face, and it was all for us.

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So, in our final verses, we see that many saw this, and they admired

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Jesus. They said, look how much he loved Lazarus. Then, verse 37, not all of them shared that same admiration.

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In fact, they scoffed him. Some said, could not this man who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man also from dying?

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Honestly, that's pretty low. Would you say? Jesus is literally weeping, and other people are weeping, and all these mourners stop crying.

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Maybe they're the professionals, and they're like, couldn't this guy who opened the eyes of the blind kept this man from dying?

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Sheesh. You think he'd be more powerful than this? Pretty low.

01:06:52

So the belief and unbelief of people has continued to be a theme in this gospel, and will be until the end.

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So, I suppose the way I want to end this sermon is that I want to give you something to look forward to.

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Although we can weep right now, a day will come when we will weep no more, church.

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In fact, the same one who wept for us will be the one who one day,

01:07:23

Scripture says, wipe away every tear. Death no longer has dominion over him.

01:07:32

Death no longer, through Christ, has dominion over us. And that will be fully realized one day.

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Next week, we'll see the actual resurrection of Lazarus. It will be glorious.

01:07:46

But for now, let me leave you with these words from the Apostle Paul in 1

01:07:51

Thessalonians 4 verses 13 through 18. It says,

01:07:57

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve, as do the rest who have no hope.

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For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with him those who have already fallen asleep in Jesus.

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For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the

01:08:22

Lord will not perceive those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, and the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

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Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together and will be with them in the clouds to meet the

01:08:46

Lord in the air. And so thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.

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That is the truth. We don't grieve as those who have no hope.

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Amen? Let's pray. Heavenly Father, please bless the message that went out today for your glory, for your namesake, and for your people, dear

01:09:15

God. Lord, I pray that through the gospel of John we have seen more and more the promises that we will never die, that our physical deaths are so inconsequential to Jesus, it's as if we're never destroyed, it's as if we never perish, as if we never die, that we are instantly with the

01:09:40

Lord, and we are resurrected to new life. Lord, in many ways I think this gospel of John has prepared us not only to remember what

01:09:51

Jesus has done for us, but it's prepared us to go through that door one day.

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That one day, unless Jesus, you return, and we're the ones who are still upon the earth and caught up in the air with you, unless we're those people, we will go through that door of death, but it's so inconsequential, it's so insignificant, we'll be with you immediately.

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And so, Lord, thank you for preparing us to live. Thank you for preparing us to live forever.