John 11:32-44 (Raised By Christ Alone)

Thank you for subscribing to the Shepherds Church podcast. This is our Lord's Day Sermon We pray that as we declare the

Word of God that you would be encouraged Strengthened in your faith and that you would catch a greater vision of who

Christ is May you be blessed in the hearing of God's Word and may the Lord be with you

Now as you'll notice both Derek and I have actually been preaching a lot lately on the results of faith

What happens after? Faith what does our faith look like post salvation?

What is what does it look like when you and I have been bought and paid for by Jesus Christ? How does that affect the way that we live?

And what you'll have noticed is that many of our most recent sermons have sort of had that after salvation happens

What's next kind of theme for instance May 1st. We talked about a call to manhood

This was a psalm 12 sermon where we challenged the men to repent to man up and to own that manly

Jesus like view of what masculinity is to love a family to love a woman to love their children to love

God by being Faithful men in society not the kind of pushover Feminine men that our society is trying to create and that's not macho ism.

That's not legalism That's all of the heaven -bound men who are here not accepting cultures view of you that Emasculate you and says that you can compete against women because you're not good enough to compete against men

No We are going to own the responsibilities of manhood to grow up in our manhood to work a job

Love a woman raise a family lead them in truth worship with them disciple the next generation All of those are behaviors that are not legalistic, but they're authentic and they flow out of a real sincere faith

Two weeks ago, for instance Derek preached a sermon on Christian Dominion where where he? Demonstrated conclusively that God expects us to join in the building of his kingdom if you're a faithful Christian That means that you're not

You're you're it's not okay for you to sit on the couch and to watch as the kingdom of God is built without you

It's not okay for you to for you to abdicate your responsibilities Not okay for you to spend your life sort of Jesus has saved me now.

I get to do whatever I want. No your life is Not wood. Hay and stubble that's going to be it's gonna be presented to Jesus at least

I hope not it's gonna be presented to Jesus and it's gonna be found wanting and all of everything that you do in life

It's gonna be burned up like wood. Hay and stubble I hope to God that that's not your life because Jesus says that it's a reality

Paul says it's a reality What I hope for you is that your life would be built from stone gold

Precious stones that your life would be built upon the cornerstone that is Christ that your life would be

Would be built upon the rock that you would do the kinds of things that Jesus does if you love him

You will obey his commandments. And if you love him, you will build his kingdom. That's not builder ism

That's not legalism. That's just faith if You are truly in Christ, then you will build his kingdom if You've been bought and paid for by Jesus Then you will work in his fields if you've been employed in the service of the king

Then you will go to war in the battles that he chooses This is not You know for pastors and for deacons and elders own this is for every single

Christian It's the responsibility of everyone who's been made elect. It's the natural consequence of saving faith

Which is what we talked about last week That faith equals allegiance to Jesus That's pretty much it.

If you go back to the original etymology of the term faith, it doesn't mean mental head knowledge

It doesn't mean I agree to a set of facts. It means that I my whole body whole soul whole mind whole heart whole will every part of me is

Giving my allegiance to something in the ancient world, especially in the world of the Greeks that allegiance would be given to a general

Who was leading you in the battle and you would know certain facts about that general You would know that they're trustworthy, but more than anything those facts wouldn't

I dormant in your head? They would cause your body To give everything that you had on the battlefield for the glory and for the renown of that great general

Well in the same way think about you and I as who are in Christ Who are being led by this great

King Jesus How much more so do we give every aspect of our life every part of us for the glory and for the renown of Jesus Christ?

Faith is not intellectual assent faith

It's whole life allegiance That's what we talked about last week and we've been talking about this for a while now because the

Shepherd's Church Preaches the Bible. I Don't care if evangelicalism

Honestly, I don't care a rip if evangelicalism says that you can't preach obedience because obedience equals legal legalism.

That's ridiculous Obedience is not how we get saved.

That's Jesus's work. But now that we are saved we obey anyone any preacher who preaches from the

Bible will preach that message and if they don't preach that message that now that we have been bought by Jesus so that we can do the works that he prepared before The foundations the earth for us to do

Ephesians 2 10 if we don't preach that we're not preaching the Bible Which is why the

Shepherd's Church When we when we started this a little less than three years ago

We decided that we wanted to be an exegetical hermeneutical homiletical Church By X of Jesus.

I just mean that we preach the meaning of the text We don't come to the text and bring our meaning into the text.

That's called ice of Jesus. We don't do that We bring our meaning from the text The Greek word there for X of Jesus comes out of two

Greek words X and gnosco, which means out of and knowledge We find the knowledge

That God determined to give us by drawing it out of the text not putting it into the text

It's kind of like drawing water out of a well We we draw we drop our bucket down into the well, we fill it full of the water

We pull it up and we share it with the congregation of God. That's what preaching is Preaching is digging deep down into the text drawing out the life -giving water that's in it and sharing it with the congregation of God We're also hermeneutical hermeneutical means that we

Understand what the science of interpretation is. We don't just look at the text and say what does this mean for me?

We employ rigorous study on the text to understand what it means and that's the pastor's responsibility to do that Even if the meaning that is coming from the text offends our flesh far too many weak need yellow -bellied evangelical

Evangelical pastors will come to a text where it says women are to submit to their husband or that once we're saved we're supposed to do good works or that we're to live a life of holiness and that we're to give up our addictions to porn and drugs and alcohol and You know, whatever other offensive text that you want to miss there when when they come to those texts they will water them down They will skip over them or they will try to preach them as some sort of spiritualized conclusion

That absolutely doesn't make sense of the original narrative. I have seen it leader after leader after leader avoiding the hard truths of Scripture because they don't have the stomach for it and That frustrates me personally because we can look at the text and we can say that that this is hard and I understand that and I think that's good.

The text is supposed to offend us. It's supposed to It's supposed to work its way into us like like grinding the bad parts out of us like a

Sculptor who's sanding the edge of a rock face and grinding down the parts that don't belong I get that the

Bible's supposed to do that But when we look at it like Thomas Jefferson and say, you know,

I don't like this part so I'm gonna cut it out Or like Marcion from the Old Testament. I don't like this part I'm just gonna rip it right out and I'm gonna make my own

Bible what those pastors have done is they have made themselves the authority over Scripture that they get to dictate what's important for you and for your life and I Don't think that that's my job.

I preach the text as It comes up expositionally verse by verse because I think

That God is the author of that text that the congregation is the recipient of that text and who am

I? to get in the way of Delivering God's Word to the people of God who am

I? To sit trembling in my in my in my pulpit in my pompous in pomposity and in self indulgence

Who am I to sit there and try to strategize the outcome? Well, if I say this then so -and -so will leave or if I say this then they'll stop giving that's ridiculous

That's not what Christian pastors do. That's what business owners do and we're not business owners brothers

We deliver the words of the of the gospel. We deliver the words of the Bible We are not an elevated position in the church we are humble slaves and what do you think the master will do to you when he comes to you and he looks at your life and he looks at the wood hay and stubble that you've got to to offer to him and he says he says

He doesn't say well done my good and faithful servant all of your ministry

Thrown down the toilet because of you were afraid and fearful and in that situation you're praying like the

Pastors that are referenced there in 1st Corinthians that that maybe you'll you'll be saved but nothing to show for it.

That's that's your legacy We don't preach that way we preach exegetical We preach we preach hermeneutical and we preach homiletical homiletical just means that we take these truths of Scripture And we try to communicate it in a biblically faithful way

But also in a way that that is encouraging to you who live in the 21st century I know you don't live in the first century and in I get that I can nerd out with the best of them on First century culture.

I love it I love to go back into the biblical world to understand what they were thinking and hearing and smelling or seeing and and I love

Trying to understand the history of the people because I feel like that that helps us as a church Understand what's going on in the passage?

But if all I do is leave it in the Old Testament passage And I never bring it into the modern world with one foot in the

Old Testament culture and one foot in our world that we live in today if I never Make that step that I'm not preached a sermon.

I've just given you a lecture on ancient Israelite culture What makes it a sermon?

Martin Lloyd Jones called it logic on fire is that you've done the study in the ancient languages

You've done the study in the ancient world You've you've you've figured out what the text meant to the original author to the original audience you know that and then you bring that to the modern man and you present it as God's truth to God's people universal throughout every time space era whatever

That's what it means to be exegetical hermeneutical homiletical and I've already mentioned Expositional I just believe that we preach verse by verse through the scriptures and let the let the scriptures

Dictate the sermons and let the scriptures dictate the length of the sermons You know, I don't start out every week saying that I'm gonna preach a 55 -minute sermon

Although it kind of seems like that's what my pattern is What my goal is I don't care about time if I preach a 30 -minute sermon.

That's faithful praise God If I preach an hour and 15 minute sermon and it's unfaithful.

Well, that's wrong My goal is to preach what the text says and I'm gonna take however long it takes for me to say that and I hope

That doesn't offend anyone. I hope that doesn't make anyone late for lunch But to me the

Word of God Feasting on what God has has given us is infinitely more important than where we go out to eat for lunch

Our stomachs can wait for the true food of Scripture And I want to do that as quickly as I possibly can in every text that I can

But I'm not going to live as a slave to the clock I've watched a man live to the slate live as a slave to the clock and I've watched him skip over passages and I've watched him you know basically be afraid that the parking lot team was was was not gonna have all the signs out in time and it's just Let the text dictate the sermon

So We preach this way for a reason that that's my only point is that we preach this way for a region reason we preach

Confrontationally because we know that our flesh needs to be confronted We know

Paul says in Romans 8 that if by the Spirit of God you are putting to death the misdeeds of the flesh Then you will live we know that life is on the other side of the chasm of mortifying the flesh

I what we know from Scripture is that we will live better more fully more more

Vibrantly if we pick up the sword and slay the misdeeds of the flesh. So why would the sermon not be confrontational

Why would the sermon not be mortification of preaching where we're identifying sin killing the misdeeds of the flesh?

exposing lies and calling all of us to turn our gaze away from our sin away from our flesh away from the world away from the devil and Turn it to the risen

Christ If we if we didn't do that, we would be being unfaithful.

That's why we preach this way That's why I wanted to share that with you Is that we preach that way for a reason the last several weeks?

We've been preaching that way in a specific way. We've been preaching post Resurrection or post salvation sermons meaning you're saved now.

What what are you supposed to do? What a day? The sermons gonna be just a little bit different. We're going to be talking about what happens before you're saved

We're gonna be talking about how does God? through his power alone

Through his work alone How does he bring you and I?

to conversion How does he do it? And today we're gonna look at three things in order to see how

God by his power and his power alone Brings you and I to conversion.

The first thing we're gonna look at is how human death troubles God the second thing that we're gonna look at is how human death accomplishes the glory of God and Then third we're gonna look at how human death is overcome by the power of God alone

So with that sort of basic framework for today's sermon, I want us to continue Reading in John 11.

We're gonna be in verses 32 through 44. If you want to turn in your Bibles with me It's 32 through 34 of John 11.

Let us open up our Bibles together. Let's examine this word together and let us see

How our salvation is dependent upon God and God alone John 11 32 through 44

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

Lord if you had been here My brother would not have died And when Jesus therefore saw her weeping and the

Jews who came with her also weeping He was deeply moved in the spirit and he was troubled

And he said where have you laid him and they said to him Lord come and see Jesus wept

So the Jews were saying see how he loved him But some of them said could not this man who opened up the eyes of the blind have kept him from dying

So Jesus again being deeply moved from within came to the tomb now it was a cave and it was stone lying against it and Jesus said to them remove the stone and Then Martha the sister of the deceased said

Lord by this time there's gonna be a stench for he's been in the grave for four days But Jesus said to her

Did I not say to you? that if you believe You will see the glory of God So they removed the stone and then

Jesus raised his eyes and said father. I Thank you that you have heard me.

I Knew that you always hear me, but because of the people standing here. I've said it

He cried out with a loud voice Lazarus come forth and The man who died came forth

Bound hand and foot with wrappings and his face was wrapped around With a cloth and Jesus said to them unbind him and let him go

This is the word of the Lord. Let us pray Lord Jesus.

I pray That as we examine this Exhilarating scene from the Gospel of John that we will remember who it is who raises who?

Lord, I pray that we would get a vision for the fact that death troubles you That this is not a a thing that that you desired to to have happen that you allowed death to come into the world

But this is not something that pleases you or brings you joy That your joy comes from giving glory to God and then giving glory to God You are the one who will crush death under your feet.

Lord. I pray that we would see that Lord, I pray that we would see our place in the story and Lord.

I pray that in seeing that That we would give all pleasure and honor and glory to you

Christ's name. Amen. Now the Bible paints a pretty detailed

Description and a picture of many different doctrines and and this one is abundantly clear

God takes no pleasure in death He originally allowed death to enter into the world through Adam and Eve, but he does not take pleasure in it he does not find joy even in the death of the wicked and Let me just say it to you provocatively

God doesn't take joy when a child molester dies He doesn't take joy when a murderer dies and he doesn't take joy when an evil dictator is hung in the streets

God is not pleased when this occurs The clearest answer from Scripture is

From Ezekiel 33 10 through 12, which says now as for you son of man Ezekiel go to the house of Israel Thus you have spoken saying surely our transgressions and our sins were upon us and we are rotting away in them

How can we survive? Which is what Israel was saying? Ezekiel say to them as I live declares the

Lord God I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked But rather the wicked would turn from his way and he would live

Turn back Turn back from your evil ways. Why then will you die?

Oh house of Israel Here we learn and even the most extreme cases that God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked

God is not rejoicing when the deplorable and the depraved are dying again.

He allows death He allows death because all of us deserve death Romans 3 23 The wages of sin is death

Romans 6 23 all of us deserve to die so that he allows it But he takes no pleasure in it

God's pleasure comes from human repentance We see this all over the

Bible, but especially in Luke 15 in parabolic form. This is what Jesus says

Now the tax collectors and the sinners were coming near to him But the

Pharisees both the Pharisees and the scribes began to grumble saying this man receives sinners and he eats with them

So he told them this parable saying what man among you if he was if he has a hundred sheep but he lost one of them does not leave the 99 in the open pasture and go after the one which is lost until he

Finds it and when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders rejoicing And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors saying to them rejoice with me for I have found my lost sheep

I tell you in the same way There will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents

Then over the 99 righteous persons who need no repentance What we've seen so far is that God Takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but he does take pleasure in repentance

This is how God feels about death now Second layer that we have to understand about this is that Christ himself also

Reveals to us how God feels about death We don't only get to look at God the

Father and see how God the Father views death We also get to look at the at Jesus and we get to see how

God feels about death through him Remember it's Jesus who told us that if you've seen me you've seen the father It's him who told us truly truly.

I say to you that the son can do nothing of himself Unless he sees the father doing it for whatever the father does these things the son also does in like manner

Paul tells us that he's the visible image of the invisible God So what this means is is that Jesus shows us the father?

He shows us how the father thinks feels and relates to the topic of death So that when we see

Jesus in John chapter 11 troubled by death When we see him weeping by death we get a front -row seat to behold the very heart of God Now listen, you can read all of the library's books in the world on this topic

But if you want to know how God feels about death then look no further than the troubled sorrow -filled downcasted face of Christ Because it's there that you will see most clearly most beautifully most poignantly

How God himself feels about death. This is what John says in this passage.

We're gonna get a glimpse of Jesus here Therefore when Mary came where Jesus was she saw him and she fell at his feet saying

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

Jews who came with her also weeping He was deeply moved in his spirit and he was troubled

And he said where have you made him and they said to him Lord come and see and then Jesus wept

Do you see the deep emotion that's emanating from the royal son of God's glory -filled face?

He was deeply moved greatly troubled sorely weeping in this passage

We get three specific terms that actually talk about how Christ and by extension how

God Feels about death. The first one is that he was deeply moved which comes from the Greek word embrace my my or embryo mouth my

Embryo mouth my in Greek doesn't just mean that he was deeply moved. I think that's a really really

Impotent translation actually, it means deep anger that's bordering on scolding When it says that Jesus was deeply moved.

It means that he was angry to the point of displeasure so much so that he was scolding Death if you'll know if you remember this is the same word used in Mark 14 of Judas Who when he saw

Mary Breaking up then open that bottle of beautiful Elaborate illustrious oil that he scolded her and scolded the disciples and said couldn't this be used to to give money to the poor that Anger that Judas felt that scolding that Jesus felt is embryo my deep emotion

So deep and in fact, it overwhelms your senses and starts flying off of your lips

One of the leading scholars of New Testament Greek has described this emotion like this his name is

Johannes low Embryo my embryo my means to have an intense strong feeling of concern often with the implication of Indignation so what we see here is when

Jesus is staring down death He's reacting to it like it's his enemy

It's this alien force that was never a part of God's original design. He was so angry and deeply moved

Indignant strongly opposed to it overcome by his emotions that he cries out in anger. Have you ever been so angry?

Now you cried Have you ever been so frustrated in your flesh that the only thing that you could do is let your emotions out on your face

Have you ever been that angry? That's how God feels about sin and death second word in This passage that describes

Jesus's emotion towards death is troubled tarasso That word tarasso is also

I think an unfortunate Generic translation because it doesn't capture the rich meaning

That's underneath that word in the same way that embryo my means so much more than deeply troubled

Tarasso means so much more than than troubled a Better way to translate it.

Maybe that he was stirred up This this is the word that comes out of John chapter 5 where the paralytic is lying in front of the pool

And he's waiting for the angel to come and stir up the waters. John tells us that that was a Mythology that they believed at that time that the angel would come in and would agitate the waters

This is the same kind of word that's used when the Galilean fishermen would be out on the sea and the waters would wouldn't start to be churned up with anger and with fury and with and with all sorts of power and they would they would be

Afraid because the oceans would be overcome with this sort of hurricane like force. That is

What this passage is actually saying Jesus felt like he not only felt deep anger Towards the idea of death

But he felt all of these different flooding emotions that were tossing his heart around faster than fruit in a blender deep

Conflicting crashing feelings that troubled Jesus to the very core of his being he hates

Death, he is angry at death and he is his emotions are stirred up like a hurricane over human sin and death our same scholar

Joanna's low says an acute emotional distress or Turbulence is what this word means

Isn't any wonder that the that our Lord was weeping That's the final word in this passage that he was weeping

It's in fact the shortest verse in all of the Bible death was so Infuriating to Jesus that the fewest words and all of Scripture needed to be used to describe it.

He hates Death angry at death stirred up by death weeping over now, of course

As Jesus is feeling these emotions. You can imagine that he's not feeling them in Isolation like when you are under this level of turmoil

It's obvious to everyone around you what is going on? You are you are visibly broken

So the crowds are actually watching this occur and they say kind of a divided testimony about who

Jesus is Some in the crowd say that he must have had genuine affection for Lazarus and they say look at how he loved him

But then others in the crowd Say sort of the opposite thing where they say that you know

This is the same guy that healed the eyes of the blind. Why couldn't he heal his friend? Maybe he must not have cared that much.

Maybe he must not have loved him that much. Do you see how Jesus is? Dividing people

Do you see how Jesus in? All of his life and everything that he does he is not trying to produce lukewarm half -hearted followers

He is trying to produce reactions of people who are divided over him he was having a very poignant personal powerful reaction to the thought of death and he wasn't hopeless

Where some in the crowd were hopeless where some in the crowd did not quite understand The the depth of love that he felt for Lazarus.

He was not hopeless. He knew that this particular event

Would redound to the glory of God That's our second point that we want to discover that Jesus has not only troubled over death

But death accomplishes God's glory You know you and I we tend to think about glory as overwhelming energy

We think about glory That's so obvious so blisteringly painfully obvious that men and women are begging

God for it to stop where the skies are Open on Christmas morning in the and the angels are singing

Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among those whom God has favored and the shepherds are blinded by the spectacle

We think about that we think about where he shows his transfigured body and the disciples hit the ground out of out of terror

We think about the mountain of Sinai that's shaking with covenantal fury We think about Isaiah who looks at the throne of God says woe is me

For I am a man of unclean lips And I live among a people of unclean lips

When we think of glory we think of these awesome Spectacles of energy earthquakes light all of it and yet and that's true glory means heaviness

So it's heavy upon us if it were not for God's grace. His glory would crush us and yet Here Jesus is saying

That glory is not gonna come from the sky exploding Glory is not gonna come from the mountain shaking

Glory is gonna come at a small town tomb With a small town insignificant man at the command of Christ Glory although it looks hidden under the canopy of a thousand tears and a thousand different reactions

Glory is gonna come in the mundane parts of this family's life in The same way that I would encourage you that glory in Jesus Christ has come into yours, but make no mistake

You're not gonna recognize it when it comes Mary didn't Martha didn't Martha was certainly confused

Martha Just had this wonderful profession of faith and yet now she's confused all over again

Look at what it says So Jesus again being deeply moved and as we translated that earlier means overcome with righteous indignation and deeply pressing emotions he came to the tomb and It was a cave and there was a stone lying against it

Which we've talked about in weeks before and Jesus said to them remove the stone but Martha The sister of the deceased said to him

Lord By this time there'll be a stench For he's been dead for four days.

Jesus said to her Did I not say to you That if you believe

Martha That you will see the very glory of God You'll see

God's glory Jesus here is teaching Martha two very powerful and important truths

Number one. He's teaching her that death cannot stop the Lord of glory and number two

He's saying that death will bring about the glory of the Lord death cannot stop the

Lord of glory But death will bring about the glory of the Lord Even while she and everyone else is sorely confused over this scenario and and trust me death confuses our theology

I remember I talked to someone who said that so and so that their loved one was gonna be an angel in heaven and they were gonna have wings and they were gonna have

A harp and they were gonna fly around on a on a cloud like a naked diaper clad Charmin boy, like that's not biblical

It's just not I've heard people say, you know that that they saw their loved one after they died.

You didn't you saw something else? If whoever you loved dies and believed in Jesus, they're not leaving heaven in the splendor and majesty of the risen

Christ They're not leaving heaven to come down and make a shadowy appearance for you and if they're in hell

There's no key for that shackle There's no power that will break them out of God's fury that he is holding them under what you saw

May have been a demon what you saw may have been a hallucination What you saw may have been a psychotic experience from from great pain that you're experiencing over the death of a loved one

I do not discount that but you did not see them again

That's sort of a side point here, but death confuses our theology it confused Mary it confused

Martha Martha had just made this bold Declaration of who Jesus is and she had she had just told him that she believed in him that she that she believed who he

Was she says in verse 27 Lord. I have believed that you are the Christ and that you are the

Son even of God The one who comes into the world and listen if profession was enough that she would have got it if Raising your hand and saying

I believe in Jesus or if filling out the car and in the back of your pew and saying checkmark

Yes, I like Jesus Jesus likes me, you know We're a happy family like if that's all it takes

Then this woman got it But that's not all that it takes because as soon as fear and trouble kicked her in the stomach

Her confusion was coming back minutes prior minutes prior to her declaration of faith

Life kicks her in the stomach and she says I don't know what I believe anymore. How many of you can resonate with that?

When when things are going well, then you understand you say I love God. I love Jesus. I love who he is

He's so good to me. He's so gracious and then something happens. Maybe it's the death of a loved one. Maybe it's an addiction

Maybe it's something else. I don't know Maybe you lost your job right when the largest bill of the year came in I don't know what it is for you, but something happened and Something caused you to forget your theology and something caused you to forget who

Jesus was That is the essence of what Martha is going through and that is the essence of what sin is sin is forgetting who

God is and forgetting who we are sin is Underestimating God and overestimating everything else

When our emotions get the best of us When pain enters our life and when tragedy strikes when bitterness creeps in when jealousy overtakes you when?

Frustrations unravel you when the death of a loved one confuses you when that happens you are like Martha in that moment forgetting who

Christ is and like Martha and like Martha Jesus opens up things in your life

To show you that you're still areas of your life. You need to trust him He's still opening up things in your life that make you uncomfortable here

He's opening up a tomb and it is and it is a stinking situation that Martha is fearful about He got it.

He exposed the root of it in peace and in quiet outside of the town of Bethany Martha could make this this amazing confession, but the

Lord knew that there was something in her heart There was some area that she was not trusting in him and she could give the profession of faith

When when the stone was still standing there, but when that stone started to move She could no longer give the profession of faith

She was exposed for her lack of belief exposed in her doubt And I'm telling you the truth that God will put you through situations to show you where you're still doubting him

And that's loving That's loving When Jesus does that it would be unloving if Jesus knew that there was a cancer in you and he refused to expose it

It would be unloving if Jesus knew that there was something inside of you that wasn't supposed to be in there and he refused to Go down and get it

Jesus sees What's inside of you and he's drawing it out to the surface.

I remember that there was this time when I was in the military Where a friend of mine came into my room and he sat down across from me and he pointed to his leg

He had on these army basic PT shorts and he sat down he pointed to his leg and there was this gray

Small circular dot on on the on sort of the middle of his thigh and he said do you know what that is?

And I said, I have absolutely no idea what that is He said that's a piece of metal from a mortar round When I got hit when we were over in Iraq Most of the big pieces came out instantly but the smaller pieces the tiny pieces

The pieces that work themselves down into the deepest part of my meat They're still coming out

Every now and then I'll see that gray spot and whenever I see it whenever I discern that it's there a couple more weeks

Maybe a month. It'll break the surface of the skin and I can pull it out What I'm here to tell you is that God can see the sins that have worked themselves down to the depths of your soul

You may have thought that all of the big stuff has already come out and it did probably when you were saved the big stuff Started getting dealt with God pulled it out and maybe you thought there's nothing else in here.

But over time God will reveal that spot on your leg that spot on your heart that spot on your mind that spot on your gut

Whatever it is. He'll reveal that spot and say no. No, no. No, there's still something in you that needs to be opened up There's still something in you that needs to be delivered

There's still something in you that like the tomb of Lazarus is gonna stink whenever I open it up, but it's good for you

Trust me. I'm gonna do this because I love you For instance if you're angry in your marriage if you're holding on to bitterness and resentment and frustration toward your spouse but you come here every week and you make these beautiful confessions like Martha then one day and I pray that that day is soon that Jesus is gonna press you

He's gonna open up that vault and he's gonna move away that protective stone that you've been coming and you've been pretending to have this picture -perfect marriage and he's gonna reveal your doubt and He's gonna show you the depths of your of your fears and He's gonna show you the patterns of unbelief that you have in your life

We still don't fully trust him and he's gonna cause you to repent and trust me when I say this like Martha You're gonna protest

But I want you to remember this analogy this example that we're giving here When Jesus opens up that stinking rotten place in your life, whatever it is marriage family sex addiction

Power job money. I don't care what it is Whenever Jesus opens up that tomb and he exposes that stench that still lives inside your heart

When you protest because you will I want you to remember who Christ is I Want you to remember your previous confession?

I want you to remember that this will Redound for the glory of God Jesus does nothing in your life that doesn't redound to the glory of God It says he who began the good work in you is gonna see that good work until the day of completion

He is not gonna let you sit in your pain and your hurt and your sorrows and continue to cover them up Like like planting grass on top of a mound of fecal matter

He is going to dig that up expose that because if he didn't you would never grow He's gonna challenge you out of your practical atheism and he's going to challenge you like Martha so that you don't continue to hold on to your

Unbelief Jesus is pushing Martha and he will push us over the edge

Because he cares about us and he wants us Not because he's capricious but because he's loving he wants us to find and to see all the areas that we don't trust

Him so that we can confess those things give those things over to him and move on free

Every new layer of depravity that God exposes in your heart is Reclaimed territory for the kingdom of God God exposes our sin to sanctify us

So that we will look more like him and less like us And he uses those scenarios to complete the good work that he has for us.

Amen Notice how Jesus does this in John 11 38 through 39.

He says John says now it was a cave and a stone was lying against it and Jesus Jesus said remove the stone

Martha the sister of the deceased said to him Lord by this time there will be a stench For he's been dead for four days.

I want you to imagine the scene with me for a moment Martha loves

Jesus. That's that's true. But she's also a product of her time. She she gets The depth of what's going on here in a way that you and I don't really understand

So I just want to paint a picture really quickly people back in those days did not behave this way

No one would have went to the tomb after four days and would have said open the tomb the body was decomposing the body would would have been doing what chemistry told us that it would be doing and it would be it would be decaying and The goal would have been to let that tomb stay closed for more than a year

So that when they came back, they would take the bones out. They would put them in the ossuary they would file it on the filing cabinet that was deeper inside the tomb and they would allow that man to live with his

Ancestors in those ossuaries until the resurrection when when God returned and gave

The people of God new bodies. That was what they were hoping for So Jesus sort of does the unthinkable and that he's either coming four days late to the open to open the tomb or he's coming 361 days early

To start the next step That would have been totally unthinkable and for a variety of reasons number one

If you're a self -respecting Jew Then you would have understood that the Old Testament says that dead bodies make you ceremonially unclean

That meant that you couldn't worship in this and the synagogues or in the temple So you would have not wanted

Jesus to do this at all this would have been like killing your religion for at least a week or two as you

Purified yourself and made yourself ceremonially clean again. The stench would have been undignified to say the least

Everyone all the neighborhood was there and Martha all kinds of thoughts would have went through Martha's head like oh my goodness

People are gonna think that our bodies stink worse than their bodies and they're gonna wonder why Lazarus's body stinks so bad

And no one's ever gonna want to come over to my house again. No one's ever gonna want to have tea again No Everybody's gonna be Judging me and judging us and she would have been thinking all of that because there was a sort of public

Embarrassment that would have been attached to it Not not even to mention that there would have been a disrespect that would have been communicated because you just did not unearth

The body we get this today If you go to a grave and you dig up a corpse and you unearth it you dis entomb it

That's disrespectful to the body. It was the same thing back Then you would have been undermining that man's dignity and value as a man made in the image of God So why does

Jesus do this? Why does he go past the public embarrassment, why does he overturn social norms?

Why does he do things that make people uncomfortable all the time? Why does Jesus say open the tomb up anyway and let the stink out?

It's because that Jesus is always doing these kinds of things He's always pushing past civility.

He's always pushing past the expectations of decency He's always doing things

That shock people that get to the heart of the matter to take them outside of their comfort zone because it's when they're in their

Comfort zone that they can't hear How many times in your life is somebody told you something that went right in one ear and out the other?

It's because you're in your comfort zone But how many times is it when you're out of your comfort zone that you're ready to listen that that word comes and you say dear

God, why didn't I hear this before you've been told before? But you need to be taken out of your comfort zone in order to be able to hear it so now

Jesus is Doing this intentionally So that they would hear and he's done this all over the place.

I'll give you a few examples the woman at the well Men did not speak to women in that time. That was shocking

Jews did not speak to Samaritans at that time. That was shocking He is he is overturning her

Social norms doing something so odd that she could not help but stop and pay attention in the end

Jesus doing that amounted to an entire town being saved You think about the cleansing of the temple in John 2 people were selling animals, which was not bad in of itself

You think you know, I'm gonna bring my animal 200 miles to Jerusalem and risk injury and risk

Sickness and starvation and in purification all just to get it there in the priest Tell me that the animal is not good enough and then

I have to buy one of theirs Anyway, so the the practice seems sort of reasonable and logical except when you understand that they were using it to exclude the

Gentiles from worship So what does Jesus do Jesus takes a whip and he starts overturning tables?

And this isn't your long -haired sissy Jesus that comes out of the European hair model commercials or Fabio on the back of a horse

This is Jesus with a whip with a bullwhip chasing out the people who are removing the

Gentiles from worship He is overturning tables. He is causing a scene. This was eccentric and odd behavior in his day, but he does that not because he wants to draw attention to himself but to the message and Everyone in that moment would have been looking right at him with with pointed fury saying what is this man gonna save for himself?

And he says you destroy this temple in that by that he means his body you destroy this temple And I will raise it up on the third day

He could have walked in Jerusalem and he could have just said hey guys I want to let you know this temples not the real temple

I'm the real temple and one day you're gonna kill me and I'm gonna be raised from the dead in three days He could have said it like that But they would have rolled their eyes.

They would have overlooked him They would have calling him a madman or whatever else he gets to the heart of the matter Shaking them up into a fury so that when he says the words, they'll never forget him

We know that they never forget these words out of all the words that Jesus said because in his trial They accused him of destroying the temple and rebuilding it in three days his

This moment had an impact on them and Jesus is doing things to have an impact on people whether it's good or bad

He doesn't Jesus is not here just to make fans. He is here to polarize the nations

He has come to turn father against son mother against daughter He has come not to make middlemen and not to make half -hearted people who have a lukewarm devotion for him

We see in the in the book of Revelation that Jesus spews that kind of person out of his mouth Jesus is coming to give people a reaction some he will give a a

Strongly odious negative reaction where they hate Christ and then others will have a strong passionate affection so that they love

Christ another example We talked about it earlier Jesus eating with sinners he did that to provoke a reaction the sinners that he ate with like when

Like when Zacchaeus says salvation today has come to my house. He made an impact on Zacchaeus He went and ate with a sinner, which was totally taboo

He also did that to produce Pharisaical hatred because they hated him for that. It says so in Luke 15 1

When he tells them to eat his flesh and drink his blood some hated him for that and they said This is a hard statement who in the world can bear it?

But Jesus some of them he looks at Peter and he says are you gonna leave me too? And they said who can we where can we go?

You have the words of life Jesus is creating impact and reaction upon people.

Some are gonna hate him Some are gonna love him, but no one is gonna walk away with an apathetic indifferent love for Jesus He doesn't do that.

He doesn't make wishy -washy tepid followers He makes his position clear and he pushes people to the point of decision when he says

Open the tomb He knows that he's gonna get a reaction in John 11 and he's doing it on purpose

So that no one who was standing there would be indifferent towards him Look at how the spectacle continues in John 11 41 through 42

So they removed the stone then Jesus raised his eyes and said father. I thank you that you have heard me

I know that you always hear me but because of the people standing around I said it look he's getting a reaction

So that they may believe that you sent me Now I want you to imagine why

Jesus would do this I want you to think about this through your senses for a moment think about what you would have been seeing and Hearing and even what you would have been smelling

Jesus just ordered a sealed tomb to be open and Martha warned him that it's going to stink the smell of death would have flooded

The area so that people would have been on the verge of gagging and Instead of Jesus moving quickly to his point instead of him opening up the tomb and then crying out for Lazarus He opens up the tomb and then he says now let us pray

But I mean just think about how shocking that would have been the only example that I can think of that that sort of gives me an idea of how silly that this would have seemed is

When I found something in my garage, that was pure evil Basically, I'll just give you an insight in how

I clean for a second and then I think the story will make abundant sense when I clean I can tend to forget things and Push them off to the side or I can place them in such a way to where I don't remember that I did that I'm kind of like a squirrel hide the nut and forget that it's there a hundred years later.

There's a big oak tree I mean, that's kind of like the way that I clean So I was cleaning out the freezer one day and I was pulling out these frozen

Peaches and you know different vegetables mangoes all kinds of stuff I was pulling them out because I wanted to clean the freezer and I used two different big coolers to do it and For some reason

I have no idea why I forgot to put the stuff in the smaller cooler back into the freezer.

I forgot and Then somehow in some way I came upon this cooler later and I said, huh?

I wonder what this is doing here So I put it back in the garage and I put it under some stuff and it was out of the way

Whatever so I come back to it a year later after the after the fruit had probably turned to utter goo the bubonic plague was

Broiling inside of this cooler and I found it in the month of June or July so imagine how bad that cooler would have stunk and Imagine if I called the entire family together and said look guys.

I Know that I'm the one who wants to open this thing up here but We're all gonna be a part of it and imagine after some

Protesting and and after some people, you know saying I don't want to do this like Martha Then I finally convinced them and we did it.

They believed in my credibility. They said, okay, we're gonna trust him and I open it up and that's awful stench floods the garage.

My wife's choking. My kids are vomiting like it is Pandemonium and then instead of me dealing with the situation right away.

I say now Now that we've got it open everyone. I would like for us to bow our heads and pray My wife

What my wife would be like why didn't you pray after you open Pandora's stink filled box

Kendall Why wouldn't you pray before you did so the people would have been asking

Jesus. Why didn't you do this beforehand? Why did you open up the tomb and then decide that you want to pray and again?

It's because Jesus is trying to get our reaction He is trying to show them how this event was going to redound the glory of God And he's doing it by taking them outside of their comfort zone outside of their their normal cultural mores and He's showing them that God That God is gonna get the glory even in the mess of life

So when Jesus Opens up that area of your life that stinks and Then Jesus is the one who's praying for you, and then he's got a group of people who are surrounding you

Who are right there with you? Don't be embarrassed like Martha I know you're gonna be outside of your comfort zone when he does that but trust in who

Christ is Believe what he said he's going to do and he will bring healing to whatever area of your life.

That is That's sort of the second part of the sermon is that Jesus that God will bring glory

Even out of death even out of the worst parts of our life the final aspect of the sermon is

That I want us to see that God is the only one who can raise us that death is overcome by God and God alone and That perfectly mirrors our story our salvation our

Raising from death to life in that Jesus is going to do the same thing

He did to us to Lazarus and he's gonna do the same thing He did to Lazarus to all of his elect

There is no one who is saved apart from the work of Christ. Look at John 11 41 through 44

So they removed the stone and Jesus raised his eyes and said father I thank you that you heard me and I knew that you always hear me but because of the people who were standing around us said it so that they may believe that you had sent me and when he

Said these things he cried out with a loud voice sort of this angry emotion that Jesus had and he said

Lazarus Come forth and the man who had died

Came for a pound hand and foot with wrappings and his face was wrapped about with a cloth and Jesus said to them

Unbind him. This is by far one of the most dramatic scenes in the entire

Bible and more than anything. It shows us that Resurrection power comes by the hand of God Lazarus was not deeply moved in the tomb over his condition

Lazarus was not indignant over his own death Lazarus doesn't roll away the stone or commanded to be unrolled.

Lazarus doesn't pray a prayer Lazarus doesn't make a decision Lazarus doesn't cry out for help in need.

He doesn't invite Jesus into his tomb And he doesn't even unbind himself after Jesus makes every provision

All of it was God Every single element of the story about Lazarus resident wreck shun was entirely in the hands of Almighty God every facet of it

Lazarus did absolutely nothing which means that he doesn't get in single ounce of the credit He just laid there a dying mass of corroding flesh

Incapable of any effort any action any movement towards Christ in any way and that is the point

If Lazarus is going to be raised from the dead then it would take all of Christ doing all the work and Lazarus done

None of it Jesus didn't partner with Lazarus in his resurrection. He didn't wait for Lazarus to welcome him to his tomb

He didn't hope that Lazarus would raise his hand or pray a sinner's prayer or start singing I have decided to follow

Jesus Lazarus did nothing and neither do we Jesus is the one that even though you and I have earned of the fury of God because Because of all of our sin

God wanted to save us by sheer unimaginable grace And he did so by doing everything in our life just like he did for Lazarus in our life.

Jesus is righteously Indignant and furious over the spiritual malaise that has paralyzed our soul when

Jesus looked at us from heaven He saw us in her spiritually dead condition. He was angry about that. He was stirred up about that He was emotional about that and he looked at the rotting corpse

It was lying in our spiritual tomb and he didn't ask us to invite him anywhere Contrary to what many revivalist preachers will say or even jellyfish pastors will say that that we need to accept

Jesus into our heart No Jesus doesn't and just wait for Lazarus to invite him in the tomb and he doesn't wait for us to invite him into his

Heart dead people don't send invites You were as useless in your resurrection as the dead man

Lazarus wasn't his he cried out for us Christ cried out for us when his deafening gospel cry came out to us

It was then that we woke up. It was then that we came out It was then that Christ looked at us and said that man is bound and he looks at the community gathered around him

He says unbind him in the same way that Lazarus doesn't make a good decision and Lazarus doesn't decide to follow

Jesus In the same way that Lazarus comes out of the tomb unbound you and I get called out by name

New life stirred up in us brought out of the grave and he brings us into the company of a church

Where the saints of God from every stripe are gathered around the tomb and when we come out of the tomb

Jesus looks at us and says unbind him unbind her and the people there are

Participating in taking the grave clothes off of you. How many of you feel like the grave clothes are still on you?

How many of you feel like that? There's death and sin that is still reigning in your life There's still head covering from the from the grave clothes.

There's still the wrappings on your legs There's still the the smell of death on you. Well, I would say come into the church

Come out of the tomb come out of the grave come into the church and Jesus will say to us

Unbind him and let the people of God help you The people on your right and your left let them help you

The people who love God are sitting beside of you. Let them help you your wife your spouse your family your friends

Let them help you they can see the areas of your life that are unpleasing to God The blind spots in your life that you still don't see

I want you today To settle in your mind that Jesus called you out of the grave for his glory

That he called you into a community So that you will learn how to live an unbound

Unshackled free life And I pray that now that you've been called out of the tomb that you will participate in that community and that you will

Experience the freedom and the power Lord this passage

Communicating real historical events that you really did to your servant

Lazarus Also Communicate what you have done for us

You've called us out of the grave. You've called us in a new resurrection life and You've called us to be unbound unshackled on uninhibited by the every weight and grave clothes wrapping of sin that remains

Lord help us to live unbound help us not to put back on the old grave clothes that we used to wear